Epilogue
SLOANE
One Year Later
The test was still on the bathroom counter.
I'd taken it three days ago. Hands shaking so badly I'd almost dropped it. Then I'd sat on the edge of the tub and stared at those two pink lines until my vision blurred and my legs went numb.
Two lines.
Positive.
I'd made a doctor's appointment for the next morning. Sat in the waiting room with my heart in my throat, convinced it was a false positive, a mistake, something that would be taken away the moment I let myself believe it.
The doctor had smiled. Confirmed it. Sent me home with prenatal vitamins and a due date.
That was yesterday. I still hadn't told Garrett.
Not because I was scared. Because I wanted to find the right moment. The right words. After everything we'd been through, after the baby we'd lost, this felt too fragile to rush.
But standing in our kitchen on a Saturday morning, watching him flip pancakes with the easy competence he brought to everything, I realized there was no perfect moment.
There was just this one.
Him in his old FDNY t-shirt. Barefoot. Humming something off-key. Morning light streaming through the windows of the apartment we'd made into a home.
"Garrett."
He looked up. Smiled. "Pancakes are almost ready. You want blueberries or—"
"I'm pregnant."
The spatula clattered against the pan.
He went completely still. The kind of still I'd only seen once before, the day I'd walked into Engine 295 after eight years, and he'd frozen with a coffee cup halfway to his mouth.
"You're..."
"Pregnant." My voice cracked. I was crying already, tears sliding down my cheeks even as I smiled. "The doctor confirmed it yesterday. I wanted to tell you last night, but you were on shift, and I didn't want to do it over the phone—"
He crossed the kitchen in three steps.
His hands found my face. Tilting it up. Thumbs brushing away tears. His eyes were wet, too, gray-blue and bright and filled with something that made my chest ache.
"We're having a baby," he said.
"We're having a baby."
He lifted me off my feet. Spun me around right there in the kitchen, pancakes forgotten on the stove. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on, laughing and crying at the same time.
"Garrett, the pancakes—"
"I don't care about the pancakes." He set me down but didn't let go. Forehead pressed to mine. Breath warm on my face. "Sloane. We're having a baby."
"I'm scared." My voice was small. "After last time—"
"I know." He pulled me close, tucking my head under his chin. "I'm scared too. But we're doing this together. Whatever happens. I'm not going anywhere."
I breathed him in. Smoke and soap and home.
"Together," I said.
"Together."
The smoke alarm went off.
Garrett swore, lunging for the stove. The pancakes had turned into charcoal. I started laughing, the helpless, hysterical laughter of someone whose entire world had just shifted on its axis.
"I love you," I said.
"I love you too." He was already reaching for the batter, grinning. "Now sit down. You’re eating for two."
"That's not how it works."
"I don't care."
We told the crew at the barbecue.
Garrett manned the grill. Shane and Maya on the lawn chairs, James on Shane's lap pulling at his sunglasses.
Zoe and Lily sharing earbuds on the back steps.
Brian and Ava in the corner, Sofia asleep against Brian's chest. Rodriguez leaning against the fence with Maria, Lucia and Marco chasing each other across the grass.
Everyone we loved, in one place.
Garrett caught my eye across the yard. I nodded.
He set down the tongs. "Hey! Food's ready. Grab a plate."
When everyone had settled, lawn chairs, back steps, the patch of grass Lucia and Marco had claimed, Garrett reached for my hand.
“Before we eat,” he said. “Sloane and I have something to tell you.”
The yard went quiet. Everyone looked at us.
"I'm pregnant," I said.
Silence.
Then the yard erupted.
Maya grabbed me. Brian let out a whoop that made Sofia burst into tears. Shane pounded Garrett on the back.
Rodriguez crossed the yard and pulled Garrett into a hug that said everything words couldn't.
"You're going to be a good father." Rodriguez's voice was gruff. "Better than you think."
"I'm going to try," Garrett said quietly.
"That's all any of us can do."
Shane raised his glass. "To the newest member of the Engine 295 family."
"Hear, hear," Brian said.
They drank. The kids resumed their chaos. Garrett's arm came around me, and I leaned into his side.
Our family filling the space with noise and light and life.
The next morning, Garrett drove us to Queens.
He didn't say where we were going. He didn't have to.
I knew the moment he turned onto the familiar street, past the bodega on the corner, the laundromat with the broken sign, and pulled up beside the community garden.
The tree was still small. A young dogwood, barely taller than me, planted in the memorial section between a rosebush and a wrought-iron bench.
We'd put it in the ground six months ago. Garrett digging the hole himself. My hands over his on the base of the trunk as we settled it into the earth.
No plaque. No name. Just the tree, and what it meant to us.
Garrett spread a blanket on the grass beside it. I sat down, and he settled behind me, his back against the bench, my back against his chest. His arms came around me.
Sunday morning. Early enough that we had it to ourselves. Just birdsong and the distant hum of the city and the rustle of leaves above us.
I thought about the three couples who'd started as strangers and become family.
Shane and Maya, who'd taught each other that love wasn't about being perfect, it was about showing up imperfect and choosing each other anyway.
Shane, who'd come to me desperate, not to fix his reputation but to prove to Maya that the man she'd fallen for was real.
Write the truth, he'd said. That's all I'm asking.
So I had. And Shane had spent every day since earning the life he'd never believed he deserved.
Brian and Ava, who'd proven that strength wasn't carrying everything alone, it was letting someone carry you when you couldn't stand.
Four years of loving each other across a balcony before either of them was brave enough to close the distance.
Now they had Sofia. And a love so quiet and steady it felt like bedrock.
And us. Garrett and me. The ones who'd had it all and lost it.
Who'd spent eight years apart, building lives that looked right from the outside and ached from within.
Who'd been handed a second chance and almost wasted it on pride and fear and the stubborn belief that we'd hurt each other too badly to try again.
But we did try. Through fire and grief and the silence we'd finally learned to break.
Three love stories. Three fires survived. Not just the ones that burned buildings, but the ones that burned through every wall we'd built to protect ourselves.
"What are you thinking about?" Garrett asked.
"Everything." I leaned into him. "Eight years ago, I was in DC, trying to convince myself I'd made the right choice. That leaving you was the only way to survive."
"And now?"
"Now I'm in a garden in Queens with my husband, and I can still hear Shane arguing about smoke alarms in my head."
He laughed. Low and warm and real.
His hand found my stomach. Warm and solid.
Above us, the dogwood's leaves shifted in the breeze.
"We should tell her," I said quietly.
Garrett's arms tightened around me. He pressed his lips to my temple.
"Hey, little one." His voice was soft. Rough at the edges. "You're going to have a sibling. We never got to meet you. But you changed us. Both of us." A pause. "And we're never going to forget that."
I couldn't speak. The tears came fast and silent..
We sat there for a long time. The city hummed beyond the garden walls. Somewhere out there, Engine 295 was standing watch, holding the line the way they always had.
Our family. Our home. Our forever.
I leaned into Garrett's chest and let myself believe it.
Not because it would be easy. Not because we'd never face fire again.
But because we'd face it together.
Shane and Maya. Brian and Ava. Garrett and me.
The morning sun filtered through the branches above us. The tree stood watch. Small and steady and growing.
Forever.
Finally.
Ours.