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Amos and Julio were right behind him. Amos put his hand on the back of my neck and held it there. Julio just stood close, his shoulder against mine. Bert came last and hugged me without a word. I held on to all of them because standing on my own was not something my body was willing to do yet.

"I need some room, guys." A paramedic pushed through with a bag over her shoulder. "Let me get to him."

They stepped back. None of them went far.

She draped a shock blanket over my shoulders. Blood pressure cuff on my arm. Light in my eyes.

"Can you tell me your name?"

"Alex Holloway. Captain, Engine 19."

"Follow my finger, Captain."

I followed her finger. I answered everyone's questions. I did what they needed me to do. Everything was happening too fast and none of it felt real. My brain was still in the hallway and the rest of the world wouldn't slow down.

"Alex." Westbrook appeared beside the paramedic. "You scared the hell out of us."

He crouched beside the engine so we were at eye level. "I need to hear what happened in there. I know the timing is bad, but I need it while it's fresh."

The words were somewhere inside me but getting them out was like pushing through water.

"He was waiting for us." I stopped. The words were there but they kept catching. "Second floor. Empty building. He had a chair and a gun."

Westbrook waited.

"He locked the door after we came in. Told my crew to leave." I took a breath. "He wanted Janine on the radio. He wanted her to hear."

Westbrook stopped writing. He looked at me for a long moment, then closed his notepad.

"That's enough for now. We'll do the full debrief in a few days when you've had some rest." He stood up. "And when this is over, we're getting that beer."

"Alex!"

Her voice cut through everything. The radios, the shouting, the noise I couldn't sort. The same voice that had been in my ear on every call for months, the one that always made me believe the situation was going to be okay.

I searched the crowd for her, scanning past uniforms and equipment until I found her dark hair, her green eyes.

"Janine!"

Janine was coming down the block on foot, weaving between vehicles and equipment. Her jacket was zipped to her chin and her badge was still clipped to her belt.

She hit me at full speed. I caught her and held on and everything I'd been keeping together since the stairwell came apart at once. I stopped trying to stand straight. I stopped trying to be the captain. I just held the woman I loved and shook.

"I thought I lost you." Her voice cracked. "I heard everything. I heard all of it and I couldn't do anything."

"I'm here."

She pressed her face into my chest. I closed my eyes and let the relief wash through me. She was here. I was here. We were both still here.

We stood there beside the engine with my crew around us, the lights flashing, the radios going. I held her and let the rest of it wait.

"My supervisor let me go," she said against my chest. "After the shot. He told me to go."

She pulled back and looked at my face. Her eyes were red and her hands were still shaking when she put them on my jaw.

"Captain Holloway."

The voice came from the crowd behind the tape. I turned. A man was standing at the perimeter in a winter coat, holding a coffee. I recognized him. The oldest son of the woman who had collapsed at the Christmas market.