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I picked up the shift log and started checking entries I'd already checked. Hazel had a game on Saturday. I'd told her I'd be there, and I'd meant it. Janine hadn't asked when I was coming back. She'd stopped asking two days ago, and the silence was worse.

Amos leaned through the kitchen doorway. "Cap, you've got visitors."

Hazel came through the kitchen door carrying a tin of cookies with both hands, her winter coat still zipped to her chin. She saw me and her face broke open.

"Alex!"

She ran. I crouched and caught her, cookies and all. The tin pressed between us and she didn't care. Her arms went around my neck and she held on.

"We made cookies for your crew," she said into my shoulder. "Mama said they probably only eat meat so we made snickerdoodles."

"Did you? Thank you, Hazel."

Janine was right behind her. I stood up with Hazel still on my hip and kissed Janine.

"She's been asking about you since Tuesday," Janine said. "I figured if you couldn't come home, we'd come here."

No one had ever come to the station for me. When I disappeared into the job, people waited at home and hoped I'd find my way back. I didn't know what to do with a woman who refused to let me disappear.

"I'm glad you did."

Sawyer was already pulling chairs around the kitchen table. "You're staying, right? Julio made enough brisket to feed the whole department, and we've got nowhere to be."

Hazel looked at Janine. "Mama, can we?"

"Yes, of course we can."

"We're probably getting called after midnight," I said.

She looked at me. "Don't I know that already?"

I laughed and kissed her.

Julio's feast took over the kitchen. The brisket came off the smoker at eight, and by nine the counter was covered in foil trays and paper plates and the kind of mess that only happens when a crew of firefighters decides to feed people. Bert's girlfriend showed up with a cake. Amos's daughter found Hazel, and the two of them disappeared under the table with the cookie tin.

By eleven, Hazel was asleep on Sawyer's shoulder. I carried her to the bunk room and laid her down in my bed. She curled onto her side and tucked her hands under her cheek.

Ten seconds to midnight. The countdown started in the kitchen.

Ten. Nine. Eight.

Janine took my hand.

Seven. Six. Five.

I held her face in my hands.

Four. Three. Two.

I pulled her in and kissed her.

The crew erupted around us. Janine pulled back just far enough to look at me.

"I love you. Happy New Year, Captain Holloway."

I looked at her. Every New Year's for the past ten years had been the same. A shift at the station, a countdown on someone else's television, midnight passing like any other hour. I'd never had someone here for midnight. The station was always where I spent it, and I'd always spent it alone. For the first time, the new year felt like an actual new beginning.

"I love you too. I⁠—"