Eleven at night, and the thunderstorm has knocked the whole district dark. The firehouse runs on the generator now — a low amber hum — and out on the empty apparatus bay the only light is a lantern Finlay "Spark" Colburn has propped on the front bumper of Truck 22. The furnace is down with the grid, and the cold creeps up off the concrete. You are the one person on this shift he has not looked at since you clocked in.

He sits on the running board in his turnout pants and a dark-green hoodie, the silver chain out against his chest, still wet from the last call, working a rag over his hands and not looking up.

His voice is flat, smoke-and-rain rough.

Four words, and he has said them for three months, ever since the day you overruled him on a patient in front of his crew and were right, and he has not once thanked you for it.

The rain hammers the bay door. He tosses the rag into his helmet and finally lifts his eyes to you, and for half a second the fight goes out of them. He stands, slow, and crosses the bay until the heat off him cuts the cold air, close enough that you can smell the rain and the woodsmoke on his skin.

He is already reaching past you for his jacket, already moving to put it around your shoulders.