Page 76 of Lifeline

He caught my hand as I pulled it away, squeezing it. “He’s going to wake up. Both of them are.”

“I know,” I said, but it felt wonderful to have someone else say it. Carter was sticking to Jake’s side downstairs in ICU, and I popped down there when I was sure neither Reno nor Aidan would wake up when I was gone. No one else had put in an appearance yet, but Colin had called and put me on speakerphone so I could give them updates, and I was sure Carter was getting the same calls. Except he was probably hearing from Xander; they clearly thought I shouldn’t hear Xander’s voice, which…well, I didn’t know if they were right or not. There were more important things to worry about.

“Jake’s too stubborn to do anything but wake up, which is funny since he doesn’t like to wake up. That’s probably why he’s taking his sweet time right now,” Reno said, giving my hand a squeeze. “And no way in hell is Aidan going to leave us behind…especially you.”

“Us, huh?” I chuckled.

“Yeah, us, he’s one of us,” Reno said softly. “And…we should probably tell him he is, and that we want him to be.”

I eyed my brother in surprise. “What do you mean?”

Reno smiled awkwardly. “It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? I mean, he doesn’t talk about his family much.”

“They’re not close,” I admitted quietly.

“And when he talks about friends, he talks about them in the past tense,” Reno said, and I was reminded how much my brother noticed things even when he kept them to himself. “I think he’s been looking for something like us. Maybe he knew that and found it here, or he figured it out while he’s been with us and now he’s got a taste of it; he doesn’t want to let go. We’ll have to make sure he knows.”

“I don’t…think it’ll be that easy,” I said softly, turning to look at Aidan, hurting because he had hurt me, because he had hurt himself to save my brother, and because of what was waiting for him once he was awake and able to leave the hospital.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, it’s…nothing.”

“Mikhail.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Then tell me.”

I almost didn’t, but I didn’t have the energy to be stubborn. I was too exhausted, too worn down, and in desperate need of someone to understand. The story spilled out of me with far more energy than I thought I had left, and Reno said nothing as he let me speak. Everything from the emails I had discovered and what I could remember from them, to my confrontation with Aidan, and the last things Xander had said before we were sent out into the storm after he’d learned what Aidan had been doing.

“And I’ll never forgive Xander if Aidan is hurt for life or doesn’t wake up,” I spat out. “He should have known better than to put that kind of weight on Aidan’s shoulders just because he was pissed at him. I’m pissed at him too, but I would never do that.”

“Mika,” Reno said softly, and I turned, surprised to see a soft look of reproach on his face. “Aidan didn’t do what he did because Xander put the weight of the world on his shoulders. You’re the one who tries to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Aidan? He did what he thought was necessary. He was…kinda stupid, okay, really stupid; I won’t lie about that. He shouldn’t have done all that to save me. But he did what he could because he cares about us, about me, and let’s be honest, was he really going to let your brother die and not do anything? He did it out of love, Mika, not obligation, not guilt.”

“Some guilt,” I muttered. “He should be guilty, but not that guilty.”

“Guilt can be another sign of love,” Reno said softly. “Sometimes guilt is because we didn’t do what we thought we should. And sometimes, and I think that’s what’s happened here, we feel guilty because we did someone else wrong and hurt them. And that’s love in some form or another.”

“Are you not even a little mad?” I wondered faintly.

“Oh, fuck yes,” he said with a laugh. “And I’m going to give him a fuck ton of hell for it because someone I don’t know doesn’t need to know my business. But you know what? In a way, he was still protecting us.”

“How the fuck do you come to that conclusion?”

“Like you said, he left out a lot of things. He could have really fucked over Xander because of him and Colin, but he didn’t. He left out the drinking we probably shouldn’t be doing when we’re on call or even on shift. He didn’t mention the fight between Carter, Jake, and Colin. Shit, from the sounds of it, he was painting the struggles we’ve had as a product of a lack of funding and support,” he said with a snort. “And he was giving less and less as time went on. Don’t get me wrong, he was wrong for what he did and he’s gonna know it. But imagine if it were someone who didn’t care about us like he did. We’d probably all be looking for different work, or watching half of us disappear within a year.”

“Still,” I said, knowing he was making sense, “a bit of wrong doesn’t make it better.”

“Do you love him?”

“I…what?”

“Ah, ah, get rid of the bullshit and the overthinking; there’s no one to hear but me, do you?”

“I—”

“Mikhail, yes or no, now.”