The hallway is a blur of smoke and noise—alarms screaming through the walls as heat licks up the lockers.

I’ve got one arm around my student, pressing her face into my shoulder, whispering that it’s okay even though my own lungs are burning.

The air tastes like metal and panic.

The exit door is glowing hot, impossible.

Suddenly, glass shatters—sharp, bright—and through the haze a figure appears, heavy gear, mask, shoulders broad enough to block the flames.

He moves with terrifying calm, sweeping the room once before crossing straight to us.

Strong hands wrap around me, then her, and the next breath I’m in the air—lifted, weightless—as he carries us through the window and out into the sunlight.

The sudden cold air hits like a slap, sunlight too bright after the darkness, sirens wailing somewhere close enough to rattle my bones.

He doesn’t stop moving until we’re clear of the building.

Until his boots hit pavement and he’s lowering us both to the ground beside the fire truck.

He sets me down gently, his hand firm on my arm to steady me, but the little girl stays clinging to him, tiny fists knotted in the back of his soot-black jacket.

“I wasn’t scared,” she whispers against his chest, her voice trembling and sure all at once. “’Cause I knew you’d save me, Daddy.”

The sound of it breaks something open in me—raw, unexpected, deeper than breath.

He folds her closer, pressing his chin to the top of her head, whispering something I can’t hear, the kind of words that sound like promises and apologies all at once.

A medic rushes over, asking if I can breathe, if I’m hurt, but I can’t seem to answer.

My hands are shaking, my heart still hammering as I stare at him through the haze of smoke and disbelief.

The way he holds her, the way his shoulders tense when she sobs—something inside me already knows before he even turns.

He glances up, just once, scanning the crowd, and for a heartbeat the world seems to still.

Then he pulls off his mask.

The sight of him steals every ounce of air I thought I had left.

Ten years collapse into nothing—the hallway after graduation, the silence that followed, the ache I never learned how to quiet.

It’s him.

The boy who swore he’d marry me, now a man with soot on his face and his daughter in his arms.

For a moment neither of us speaks. Just the hum of the engines, the echo of everything we never said hanging between us.

He looks at me like he’s been searching for this exact moment since the day he left, eyes fierce and disbelieving, jaw tight beneath the soot.

When he finally steps closer, his voice is rough enough to shake through me, low and uneven but certain.

“There’s so much I need to tell you.”