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It's quiet in the firehouse tonight.
Burning Rescue's shift has been over for an hour, and the night crew – Smoke Salvation, tonight – is mostly conked out in the bunks, waiting on the siren. Galo thinks Apollo, Lucia's counterpart and ongoing rival, is tinkering with something out in the garage. He's only here because the firehouse is also kind of Burnish HQ right now, and Lio is therefore holed up in a former broom closet, eviscerating somebody over video chat. (Galo thinks there's a time difference involved, or something? Actually Lio might just be keeping some administrator out till midnight. He doesn't like being blown off.) Anyway, Galo's his ride home, which means Galo's still here, wandering the quiet halls.
So it's kind of a relief, actually, that someone's clinking around in the kitchen, because Galo is really bored.
“Hi!” he says, sticking his head around the door and – oh, shit, that's Aina, bent over with her head in the fridge. Fantastic, Aina's even better than somebody from Smoke Salvation. “Aina!”
There's a faint thump, as of Aina smacking her head into a refrigerator shelf. “Urgh,” she says, echoey, and pulls her head out. She's holding one of the emergency fuck-the-shift-that-just-ended beers, which is weird because Aina doesn't usually drink and also their shift was pretty quiet, and – it's at this point that Galo notices that there are three empty cans lined up on the counter, and that Aina's face is set and gray.
“Uh,” Galo says. “Hey, Aina.”
“I didn't think you were still here,” she says, the words shaped so precisely that she's clearly trying not to slur. Every time Galo's seen Aina drunk before now, she's been giggly and bright, hanging off him or Lucia or Varys and rambling with joy. He doesn't like this version of drunk Aina, not at all.
“I was up on the roof,” he says, which he was, but then it started raining. “Aina, what's wrong?”
“Nothing's wrong,” she says, quickly, and follows his gaze to the beers. “I mean – I'm fine! Just having a couple drinks, that's all.”
“Okay,” Galo says, as gently as he knows how, and crosses the kitchen to lean on the counter next to her. He's still trying to figure out what to say when Aina slams the fridge door shut – she's holding a fourth bottle, which, Galo doesn't like that at all either – and says, “Heris called me.”
“Oh.” Galo... doesn't know how he feels about Heris Ardebit. She saved them, in the end, and that counts for something; but – well, but the helpless screaming, and the metal reek of the secret cells, and the featherlight, crumbling shape of Lio in his arms.
“She's probably not going to jail,” Aina says. “If she shares everything about what Kray did, and about how his inventions worked – she's going to get community service, probably, but it'll just be... what she was doing before. But for the city instead of Kray.”
“That's good, right?” She's not going to hurt any more people, probably, and it's not like she'd be any help in jail.
“No, it's not! ” Aina grabs one of the empty bottles and hurls it full-force across the kitchen, where it hits the trash can with a shattering crash. Under any other circumstances Galo would be applauding her aim. “She tortured people, Galo. Kray took her down there and they tortured people until they died and instead of trying to stop it she sat there and took notes, and then she came home and she took me out for pizza and she thought I would be okay with it!” There are tears in the corners of her eyes. “She did all that for me, Galo, she said she did it for me, like I would ever want that, like I wouldn't rather die than let that happen. How could she think I'd be okay with that? How could she think I'd ever –” Her voice cracks. “What kind of monster does she think I am? What kind of – what kind of –”
“Aina –”
“She was supposed to be better!” Aina wails, and the last word comes out a sob.
Galo knows, though he usually ignores, that sometimes there really isn't anything that you can do; sometimes the fire is already out and there's nothing but the teeth you find blackened in the soot. It's so much rarer than most people think, and you can't accept it in advance because you'll lose people you should have saved, but: sometimes no soul, not even his, can burn bright enough to chase the dark away completely. All you can do is be a light on the horizon, so no one is alone in the dark and the smoke.
“C'mere,” he says, and pulls Aina into his arms. "C'mere." She comes without fighting him and buries her face in his shoulder, her cheeks already wet. (It's fine. He already has rain on him anyway.) She's crying like a building collapsing, every sob shaking through her like a convulsion; it makes Galo's chest ache in sympathy, not just because she's sad but because of the way the muscles heave. He runs his hands in small circles on her back, high along her shoulders, and makes soft murmuring nonsense sounds: somewhere between shhh and hey and simple humming. Nothing he says will make it better, but that doesn't mean that he'll say nothing.
“She's my sister,” Aina chokes out, between sobs. “I don't know how to stop loving her.”
“I know,” Galo says, because... well, because he does. He really does. And Kray was – Galo looked up to him, admired him, wanted to be like him, lived for every smile and measured praise. Kray sent him a card when Galo graduated high school, a simple grocery-store thing, the only card that Galo got, and Galo kept it pressed in a little frame until he threw it out after Parnassus. But it's not like Galo actually saw him much. (He knows why he didn't, now.)
Heris took Aina to concerts for her birthday and swung by the station with Aina's purse and a mug of coffee when Aina forgot the purse at home. Aina texted her selfies during slow shifts and called her after the shifts when people died, the conversation quiet in the corner while the others all pretended not to hear. They had movie night on Tuesdays, which Galo knows because he helped Aina pick out things to watch when it was her turn to choose. There's an acorn preserved in a ball of glass hanging from the rear-view mirror of Aina's truck, because Heris gave it to her the same day she got her license, so it could bring her luck and keep her safe on the road.
“I know,” he says again, and kisses her hair. “I don't think you have to stop loving her.”
“You saw what she did,” Aina whispers. Another shuddering sob rolls through her.
“I did. But isn't that what family's for?” Galo's thought a lot about this: what family is like, what it means to have one. “You get to love her, even though she did something terrible. So even if you still love her, that doesn't mean you don't think she did something terrible.”
“I don't know if I can ever forgive her. I don't know if I should forgive her.”
“So maybe you don't have to do that either.”
Aina sniffles, lifting her head a little. She wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand; maybe Galo should start carrying tissues or something. “It's awful,” she says. “I was so proud of her, and now – I say Ardebit and people make these faces. And I can't even wish they wouldn't, because if they did it would mean they thought it was okay.”
“So we just have to make you more famous than her,” Galo says, and taps her nose with his finger. Her nose wrinkles.
“Yeah, like that'll happen,” she says, and sniffs again. “I can't even look Lio in the face.”
There's a faint, startled noise from the doorway.
The room is very, very quiet for a long slow second as Aina and Galo both turn to look. Lio himself is in the door, eyes wide and glinting in the light.
“How much of that did you hear,” Aina says. Galo can feel her tensing up again under his hands.
“Some of it,” Lio says, which, even Galo can tell that's an evasion. He crosses the distance between them slowly, as if the floor is going to give way under his feet, and sets his hand on Aina's back, just beneath Galo's palm. “Aina. You're not your sister.”
“I know,” she mumbles, looking away.
“I mean it. I don't blame you for what she did.” He clears his throat, looking down. “You fought for us, and you didn't have to. It... counts for a lot.”
“I did,” she says, and despite her earlier words, she lifts her chin to meet his eyes. “I did have to.”
“You two are a lot alike,” Lio says, gesturing to her and Galo. He gives her back another hesitant pat and steps away. “I'll... give the two of you a minute.”
“Hang on,” Galo says. “Aina, come back with us. We have movies and hot cocoa and frozen pizza and stuff.” He makes eye contact with Lio over her head: she can, right? Lio's nod is tiny, but instant and clear. “You need to drink a lot of water, and not drive.”
“I was gonna get a taxi,” she mumbles. “Or sleep here.”
“Definitely come back with us,” Galo says. “You're not alone.”
“Also, if we take your car, you won't need to get a taxi back in the morning,” Lio adds. Lio still can't legally drive and he's meticulously aware of the inconveniences of it.
“Good point,” Galo says. “So it's done, right? You're coming?”
Aina's laugh is damp and shaky, but it's there. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, okay.” She leans into Galo's side, and Lio leads the two of them out into the night.