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Maggie shrugged her duffle bag off of her shoulder, dropping it to the floor of the entry hall with a dull thud as she kicked off her shoes. It had been a late night, later than usual. The return to 26 Fed had been a nightmare, their attempt at stopping the hack into the plane’s controls by cutting the power had left the streets a mess, crashes at almost every corner. By the time she’d got back, Isobel’s office had already gone dark, her coat missing from its hook and the door locked. It was a rare occurrence when she stayed later than Isobel, and she could count on one hand how many times it had happened.
Kicking off her boots she ran a hand through her hair, yanking her hairband in the process. The motion seemed to alleviate some of the tension that hung in her shoulders, not much, but even the small change was felt. She could feel the stress in her face and shoulders, making her stiff and she leaned back, cracking her knuckles and stretching, her back popping in the process. Maggie paused as she set her boots on the shoe tray by the door.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
Poking her head out she looked down the main hall, there weren’t any lights on in the lounge. Usually, Isobel would have some sort of crappy crime show on in the background while she worked, either typing up a memo or reviewing case files. It wasn’t much but it was an easy way to get stress out and unwind. But the brownstone was silent, the only noise breaking the silence was the dull droning hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. A small ray of light came through the kitchen doorway and Maggie slowly went over, stopping against the frame.
Isobel stood alone, still in her suit and blazer, a full glass of wine in her hand, idly swirling around in the rim of the glass. It wasn’t like Isobel; staying in her blazer for longer than she had to, usually once she came home, she’d toss it over the banister of the stairs while taking off her heels before taking it and heading upstairs to change into something a little more relaxed. Her back was toward the entrance, and she was leaning heavily against the granite countertop. Maggie rapped her knuckles along the wood, trying to let Isobel know she was there.
Nothing.
She strode closer, stopping next to her. Isobel didn’t acknowledge her presence, still staring directly in front of her, looking at everything and nothing all at once. She looked numb, the lines of her face accentuated by the low light, more pronounced than Maggie’d ever seen them, even when Isobel was under stress, she never looked like this. Weariness clung to her like a shroud, making her look far older than she was, a haunted look in her eyes, dazed and blank.
She’d never forget how her heart had fallen in her chest after Jubal had come running up to her and OA. The statement “Isobel, we got a big problem” ringing in her ears, a feeling all too familiar.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she followed after him, going as fast as she was physically able to.
“It just started. Flight 6730, nonstop from Virginia to New York, deviated from his flight plan.” Jubal explained as the two of them half-walked-half-jogged to the JOC, his speech as rapid as his pace.
“Is there any way to get eyes inside?” She questioned, focusing on his voice over the droning hum of her blood pounding.
“Ever since the Malaysian crash in ‘fourteen, FAA started testing in-cockpit dash cams, and Canto Airlines is using them.” Jubal answered, going over to Ian’s desk and patting him on the arm. “How we doing?”
“Looping us in now.” Ian muttered, the clack of his fingers against the keys of his keyboard, a steady sound against the chaos Isobel felt.
The cockpit camera footage was pushed up onto the main screen of the JOC, two men were inside of it, one much older than the other. Above the video footage was the altitude, speed, and bearing readings; beneath was the identification of the flight and the location of where the flight was supposed to land.
“OK, great.” Jubal said, stepping away and back towards his desk. “Here we go.”
“Captain, Isobel Castille, Special Agent in Charge with the FBI.” Isobel stated, ignoring the nervous twisting that had started in her stomach. “What is your status?”
“This is Captain Tim Marks. We have a bit of a situation up here,” The older pilot stated, his brows furrowed as he double checked the cockpit controls. “Ninety seconds ago, Canto flight 6730 began to descend without my command. We ran the protocols and discovered we are no longer in control of this aircraft.”
“Can you anticipate your trajectory?” She took a step back, shifting on her feet, a sinking feeling growing in her gut. A plane out of the pilot’s control was a feeling she knew all too well, intimately well and it wasn’t a feeling she enjoyed.
“Negative.” Captain Marks answered, “We were headed towards Teterboro when we got locked out of our system. Your guess is as good as ours, ma'am.”
“They're over the Hudson.” Elise called out from her desk and Isobel’s heart sank even more, her mind instantly flashing back to the near miss of flight 1549 in Two thousand nine. That had been a close call, a fresh wound on a city already scarred by planes once before, she couldn’t deal with another. She glanced at the screen next to the cockpit footage, showing the plane’s current course in real time.
“Flight 6730, this is air traffic control. You are not approved for descent. Maintain your altitude at two thousand twenty feet.” The Air Traffic Controller’s voice rang out over the audio system, and Isobel’s heart clenched.
“It's not us, HQ.” Captain Marks stated, readjusting his mic. “6730 is being controlled remotely, over.”
The shrill wail of the warning system rang out and Isobel curled her hand into a fist, squeezing it tightly, the pain clearing her head. She had to focus on the present, not the past. The co-pilot spoke up, eyes wide with fear, a fear she’d imagined in her mind a million times before across the decades. “Tim, we just lost thrust on both engines. We're losing altitude.”
“Engaging emergency generator.” Captain Mark stated, flipping a series of switches on the upper control panel.
“Two hundred five knots and dropping.” The co-pilot relayed, Isobel bit her tongue keeping back the curse that was at the tip of her lips. The generator hadn’t worked.
“At their rate of descent, they won't make the runway.” Elise called out; her voice laced with a hint of warning.
“Ian, any way we can intervene?” Jubal questioned, his usually booming and grating voice quiet.
Ian shook his head. “Not without that mobile command unit.”
“They're going to crash into the Hudson.” Isobel stated, turning to face the rest of them, pacing nervously, anxiety clawing its way up from her stomach and she blinked back flashes from years gone past. “How many people are on that plane?”
“One hundred and seventy-five passengers plus crew.” Kelly answered from where he stood, hunched over his computer, voice weak.
She couldn’t breathe, her chest rising and falling rapidly, the phantom sensation of dust choking her, suffocatingly thick, making sure she’d never breathe again. She swallowed it down, trying to keep her composure together as she faced the cockpit footage again.
“One hundred ninety knots. One hundred seventy-five knots.” The co-pilot called out, eyes darting at the speedometer.
Captain Marks tried the switches again, the frown on his face deepening. “Emergency generator not responding.”
Silence fell over the JOC, everyone stilling and once more time seemed to stand still. Her heart pounded harder, its frantic, unsteady rhythm making her feel unsteady, lightheaded. “One hundred fifty-five knots. Seven hundred fifty feet and dropping.”
“This is your captain speaking. We are going down.” Captain Marks stated, his words aimed for the passengers and Isobel watched as the co-pilot let go of the controls, stiffening his arms as he braced himself against the seat. “Brace for impact. I repeat, brace for impact.”
“Brace, brace, brace. Brace, brace!”
The feed cut out, nothing but patchy, black and white static replacing the live footage. A startled scream rang out, but Isobel could barely hear it over the ringing in her ears, groaning metal and the constant thud of floors collapsing in on themselves echoing all over again. A plume of smoke and debris that flew out, choking everything in its path, suffocatingly thick and heavy, sticking to everything and everyone, enveloping like a sick and twisted toxic hug. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. One hundred and seventy-five people.
“Did they-” She started, stopping when the footage didn’t return. “Oh, God.”
One hundred and seventy-five people.
Gone in an instant.
She turned to Jubal, eyes wide, images flashing across her mind faster than she could keep up, reeling.
“Talk to me.” Jubal boomed, his voice ringing out in the silence, it was strained. “What's happening?”
“They're still pinging.” Ian stammered, his gaze darting between the static footage on the JOC’s screen and his own laptop. “I don't know what happened.”
The static cut out, replaced with the footage of the cockpit once more, miraculously still intact. The altitude on the screen was rising and from the shocked look on both Captain marks and his co-pilot’s faces they were just as stunned as they were. Distantly she could hear the roar of the jet’s engines and the spinning of the blades of the turbine. “This is flight 6730. I don't know what changed, but our engines have re-engaged. We still don't have control, but we are climbing again.”
Isobel allowed herself a small sigh of relief. One hundred and seventy-five people were still alive, not snuffed out like a candle, crushed under hundreds of thousands of tonnes of steel and concrete.
“Oh.” Jubal sighed, leaning closer, his voice hushed. “Damn, that was close.”
Isobel shook her head, her heart heavy like a ladened weight in her chest. “That was a warning.”
“Isobel?”
She thought she’d had enough heart attack’s for once day when she’d seen the Canto flight nearly fall into the Hudson. When Jubal informed her that Zamora had started taking the planes down, sending them towards different location in the city. Elise telling her that there’d be civilian casualties hadn’t helped either. The city already had about three thousand dead due to planes, hundreds more would be crushing, not just on her. But on the people too. She couldn’t go through the months of silence again, how New York city had just ceased to be New York city for months after the attacks. The whole nation hadn’t been the same and still wasn’t.
“And one of them is flight 6730.” Jubal stated, his voice bringing her back to the present as he pointed at the locational map.
Her eyes widened. “Where is that heading?”
“That's Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station.”
Isobel’s heart stopped. Not only would it be a human disaster, but it would also be an environmental disaster. If anything happened to Nine Mile New York would be the next Chernobyl. Radioactive materials leeching into the ground, poisoning everything for hundreds of miles. And the US wouldn’t be the only area affected, Canada too. It would become another international issue. The state didn’t have the supplies to hand the mass exodus it would cause, the healthcare disaster that would strain an already collapsing system. Hundreds of thousands of people would be affected, effects that could last generations under the wrong set of circumstances.
“How much time do we have?” Jubal demanded.
“Twenty-three minutes.”
It wasn’t enough time. It couldn’t be enough time. Not when they still didn’t have Zamora, didn’t have the command unit. There wasn’t a backup entrance that they could use to save the day, just one small hope, a needle in a haystack they might never find. It was all too familiar, searching hopelessly for something everyone knew was impossible. She could feel the burn in her hands like she was back there, debris and grime getting into her flesh, painting her skin crimson with blood, the way they’d shaken for days, wrapped with enough bandages to make a boxer jealous.
“Pentagon just called it.” Ian called out, looking up between his computer and the screens. “One-seventy-seventh Fighter Wing has scrambled jets to intercept the planes Zamora's controlling.”
The tightness was back, a phantom roar in her head and she couldn’t help but glance up, half expecting to see F-16s flying over the blue sky of Manhattan, riddled with floating bits of debris and ash-like dust. “They're going to shoot them down.”
“They'd have no choice.” She stated, silently thanking the fact that she was still standing when her knees felt like they were about to give out and how her chest felt like an anvil had been placed on it, slowly crushing her. “The only way to save those people is to find that mobile command unit and take back control of the plane.”
The next twenty minutes were a flurry of action, she let Jubal take the lead for once, a decision she hadn’t made lightly. It wasn’t often that Jubal had a stroke of genius, but with panic clouding her judgement, she’d had no other choice. The last thing she needed was the past ruining the present and while Jubal was by no point the most reliable in these sorts of situations, his idea was the only one they had. She’d been on the phone with the Pentagon and Secretary of Defence, bargaining and pleading for them to give her more time, just even five minutes.
A few sets of minutes that could be the difference between life and death, she knew that all too well. The few minutes they’d taken to do a headcount decades ago had been the only reason she was still standing. The only reason she hadn’t been in the North Tower when it collapsed, thousands of pounds of concrete and shattered rebar a crushing weight beyond any scale imaginable. Isobel looked up as flight 6730’s tracker drew closer to the outline of the Nuclear Station’s restricted airspace. They were running out of time and behind it all she could see the roar of black smoke filling the air, flames bursting out in a plume high enough it seemed to burn the stars.
Hearing that the plan of cutting the power hadn’t stopped Zamora made her knees feel weak and she desperately wanted to sink into the ground and just disappear. Every time they thought they had the answer it just got worse, each attempt to help the people, reassure them that everything would be okay, that one hundred and seventy-five lives wouldn’t perish in an instant and cause the imminent doom of thousands of others crumbling like a broken dream.
“Isobel?”
Four minutes.
Four minutes was all they had left, there was barely anything they could do in that short of a time crunch.
“Can we ask the Pentagon to give us more time?” Jubal begged, his eyes reflecting a fear she knew her own mirrored.
“Jubal, you know I can't do that.” Isobel breathed, shaking her head, the Pentagon had been less than cooperative, stonewalling her every attempt to extend their countdown by mere seconds. “We have to regain control of that plane.”
“Flight 6730 will cross into the nuclear plant's airspace in nineteen seconds.” Elise called out and for once Isobel silently wished she’d have said nothing at all, her heart thrumming harder in her chest. “Air Force jets have taken at firing position.”
“We are locked on Canto 6730. Do I have firing authorization?” Isobel didn’t answer, holding her breath, fingers crossed. She could barely hear the pilot over the roaring pound of blood rushing in her ears. It was an all-consuming roar, louder than anything she’d ever heard, drowning out everything out so she was sure she’d go deaf.
“Tell the Pentagon to stop those jets.” Jubal’s voice barely broke through the din of it, and she quickly brought her phone back to her ear, demanding that the jets be stopped. After a moment she nodded and met his gaze, “It's done.”
“Captain Marks, you should have full access to your systems.” Jubal stated and Isobel could barely see, her vision tunnelling out as her heart somehow managed to beat faster, she felt like she was floating, light-headedness clouding her thoughts. Her ears strained as she leaned closer, listening for Captain Marks’s answer, it was now or never and she’d deal with the fallout of another tragedy, both literally and metaphorically.
“Affirmative.” His shocked voice crackled over the speakers, and she used all of her will to stay standing, her legs nearly giving out with relief. “Flight 6730 is under our command. Request nearest runway for emergency landing.”
They’d done it. They’d avoided another disaster, another tragedy where thousands would be killed senselessly.
“They've cleared a runway for you in Rochester.” Jubal answered, breathing heavily with relief and Isobel smothered a sob of relief with her hand.
She winced as the JOC burst out into victorious cheers, trading hugs and high-fives with so many people it made her head spin. They’d done it. But her heart still pounded, thrumming with a nervous energy that made her jittery, every inch of her trembling like she’d been electrocuted or struck by lightning.
“Isobel,” Maggie called out, firmer, waving her hand in front of Isobel’s face. “Can you hear me?”
Isobel looked up, blinking back to the present with a small, tired hum, “Did you say something?”
“Yeah.” Maggie stated, her voice gentle as she placed a hand on Isobel’s arm. “What’s wrong? It’s not like you to just zone out like that.”
“I was just thinking,” Isobel answered, her voice devoid of emotion. “Today’s case just brought up a lot of memories.”
“Are you okay?” Maggie asked, concern evident in her hesitant tone. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be okay,” Isobel whispered, slowly moving to face Maggie. “I was barely twenty-five when it happened. Still a rookie, I wasn’t even out of Quantico for six months. I’d gone in early, hoping that if I pulled in extra hours, I’d show that I was capable of taking the stress, pulling my weight.”
Isobel looked up as a thunderous roar boomed, picking up her coffee mug as she moved over to the window where some of the other agents had already congregated. She nearly dropped the mug to the ground as she looked out; thick black smoke billowed from the upper floors of the North Tower, a gaping hole in the building’s side. The towers had been a staple of the city skyline for as long as she’d remembered. In the hole she could see the flames licking at the edges of the damaged building.
“What the hell happened?”
“CNN said a plane hit the tower,” An agent answered.
Another agent sent him a sceptical look, “Where’d the plane go?”
“The plane could be lodged inside,” the first agent remarked, Hodgins if she recalled his name correctly.
“That had to be suicide,” Another stated, Patterson she thought, “How could you? Unless the plane was out of control. It’s a clear day outside, no way they didn’t see the tower.”
“Yeah,” Hodgins agreed, “It’s not like ’forty-five when the bomber got disoriented in the fog and hit the Empire State.”
The roaring wail of FDNY and NYPD sirens caught her attention, pulling her away from the chatter of the agents around her. All she could focus on was the massive whole in the side of the North Tower, it had to be at least two stories tall, even from miles away she could see the debris hanging off the edges of the tower. There were still floors above the hole and her heart clenched at the thought. It was still early in the morning, almost nine, but she knew people were still there, still all the way up at the top of the building, trapped above the roaring flames.
Her breath caught in her chest as a fiery fireball burst out of the South Tower, illuminating the blue sky against the putrid black smoke. The smoke seemed to pour out of the buildings faster, spreading out with the wind. It didn’t feel real. One plane could be a freak accident, a hydraulics failure of sorts that caused it to slam into the building: but two planes? It had to be direct. The roar of her fellow agent’s shock and horror rang in her ears, a horrific soundtrack to the scene unfurling before her. It felt obscene, like something from a horror film.
“It’s a terrorist attack,” she breathed, “It has to be, there- it just has to be.”
The screech of car tired against the pavement stories below felt like nails on a chalkboard to her ears. Pulling her out of the frozen state she’d been stuck in. This was what she signed up for: helping people. And right now, there were hundreds of people that needed help, her help. The people stuck in the towers were going to need help getting out, getting medical attention.
“Hey guys, how about getting out of here?” One of the agents proposed, Frank, “Everybody to the ground.”
“This building could be the one that’s next,” she didn’t know who said it, but the thought chilled her very core.
In an instant the office was abuzz once more, and she hastily made her way towards her desk in the corner. Isobel snatched her jacket off of its rack, clipping her gun to the band of her pants. She wasn’t sure if she was going to need it, but it would be better to be prepared and not need it than not have it and need it. Leaning over, she pulled her radio off of its charging station at her desk before making a run for the doors. Her thin stature made it easier to weave her way through the crowds, ducking in and out around people and under arms. The second she got to the stairs, she sped down them as quickly as she could, cursing the fact she’d worn heels as they dug into her feet.
The PA system rang out, “Attention please, this is the Fire Safety Director of 26 Federal Plaza. I repeat, I repeat. All employees please leave the building.”
The voice drove her to move faster, ignoring the screaming of her calves as she went down one flight of stairs after another, her cheeks going pink with the effort. It felt like it was going on for an eternity, but she wasn’t going to stop and find an elevator. Not when the risk of something was imminent, she wasn’t going to risk getting stuck in a small metal box if somehow a fire broke out, be it accidental or intentional. By the time she got to the ground floor, she felt like she was about to collapse, but now wasn’t the time. Breathing deeply through her nose, she made her way through the swaths of agents, all aimed at the small chokepoint of the lobby’s revolving doors.
“C’mon,” One of the agents called out, beckoning her forward, taking her by the arm once she got outside. The smell of burning jet fuel hung heavy in the air, overpowering over everything else and she could taste it on her tongue, acrid and metallic. “The higher ups want us to meet up at the playground in Chinatown.”
The fast-paced exodus towards Chinatown was accompanied by the creaking and groaning of metal waring away, melting and twisting under heat. She didn’t want to know how quick and fast the fires were burning, let alone how hot they were, anything in its path had to be incinerated. Looking up ahead of her she saw the South Tower sway, right then left. She crossed her fingers, hoping that things would stay for a little while longer. It wasn’t much longer until they’d arrived at the playground, some of the higher ups standing at the top of the structures. It was an odd sight to see but she wasn’t going to comment on it. Not now.
“Castille?” One of the higher-ups shouted and Isobel barely had the energy to cough out name in answer, the exhaustion from her mad dash down the stairs finally having the time to catch up to her.
The building rumbled, the ground shaking with it, and the agent next to her grabbed her arm to keep her steady. Aside from the Towers she could hear the panicked and frightened shouts of the people around her, scared and trying to figure out what was happening. The groaning heaving of the building grew louder, a deafening roar in her head before the sound exploded into a roar. The dust and debris flew outwards as the upper floods collapsed down, each floor crunching with a low hiss as they collapsed in on themselves.
In a massive plume of grey and black the tower collapsed, debris flying out across the area, the smoke cloud fanning out much further than the debris. Isobel doubled over, covering her mouth with the hem of her jacket, not that it did much. Everything was covered in brownish-grey ash and dust, suffocatingly thick. She couldn’t breathe, the dust coated everything: her hands, her face, her eyes, her throat. Her lungs screamed for air, and she let out one hacking cough after another, clumps of dust and ash coming out. She wheezed, bracing herself on her knees. It was impossible to see but once she was able to look up, it was nothing but grey. The once clear blue sky was gone, completely obscured by the clouds of debris.
“It’s gone,” Isobel breathed, her voice nothing more than a reedy croak. “The World Trade Centre’s gone.”
The wail of sirens echoed in the sudden silence; everything had come to a standstill. It felt like the world was frozen, stopped for a moment. Maybe forever. Isobel pulled the radio from her hip, her hands shaking as she pushed down on the buttons. Only the crackle of static rang out, and she swore under her breath. The dust, still finding its way into every crook and cranny of her being, was clogging the signals. Isobel coughed again, lifting the jacket back over her mouth, trying to block out the dust from her airways. Her chest felt tight, like a rock or a heavy weight had been placed on it.
The ringing in her ears made it hard to hear anything, but through it all she could hear the wailing of sirens, FDNY and NYPD rushing about like a group of cockroaches exposed to light suddenly. Communications were down; the uselessness of the radio made that a simple fact. There was no way of knowing what everyone else was doing. Another sound broke through the wailing, a metallic chirping, almost like a cicada. Her heart fell as what it was slowly dawned on her. It was the trackers of the firefighters, signifying that they’d stopped moving. Tears streamed down her cheeks, cleaning small paths through the dust and grime that clung to her like a second skin. How many had been killed? Crushed in an instant?
“Hey, you good?” Another agent called out, his voice roughened with dust, and she mustered the energy to nod. “Good, ASAC Maxwell wants all of us to go to the twenty-sixth street garage.”
She followed after him numbly, everything ached, either from pain or from the dust. The walk was long, stumbling over bits of debris, tripping on nothing that felt like something. Isobel looked up, squinting at the sky, she could hear the low roar of the engine of a fighter jet. There were military aircraft going over the city. It felt like a horror movie, something that wasn’t, couldn’t be real. A crushing feeling pounded in her chest, her heart skipping a beat. They were at war, there was no other reason for the jets to be flying over the city. It was nothing short of a miracle that she’d made it there after what felt like hours. From where she stood, she could faintly see the edge of the Hudson through the haze of the streets, streaks of white going across the dark waters.
Boats.
The white streaks were boats, and she couldn’t help but recall an old picture her history professor had shown her.
Dunkirk.
It looked like Dunkirk.
She made her way closer to the garage building, the scent of car oil and fluids mixing in with the acrid scent of burnt jet fuel and the indescribable scent of the debris in an assault on her senses. Looking up she observed the razor wire that had been set up around the building, the SWAT agents with shotguns and M10s in their hands. Isobel flashed her credentials at the garage entrance to the agent standing guard before heading it. The garage was dimly lit, folding tables and chairs being rapidly set up, computers and landlines strewn about like a tornado had ripped through there. Wires were crossed haphazardly across the walls and ceiling, and she instantly went over to help.
The hours ticked by caffeine thrumming through her veins, keeping her awake when the only thing her body wanted to do was collapse and never get up again for at least a good week. The leads had been pouring in for what felt like a century, and she’s been running up and down the city, the streets clogged with debris and abandoned cars made travel around the city difficult, let alone the NYPD officers keeping the streets shut. For the city that never slept, things were shockingly silent. It was unnerving in more ways than one. She’d already gone up to Ground Zero, assisting some of the NYPD and FDNY in the search for survivors, her hopes had been low. Tonnes upon tonnes of steel and concert had come falling down, if anyone survived that it was nothing short of a miracle. The new cuts and tatters in her clothes and the cuts and gashes strewn across her arms and hands made that evident; the rubble was nothing more than an amalgamation of crushed metal and concrete, sticking up at odd ends.
“The debris and smoke hung over the city for months, some of the fires didn’t go out until December. Every day after my shift I’d come home, reeking of the smoke, it was everywhere, so thick you could taste it. My mother let me stay here during that time, make the commute between the epicentre and Ground zero just a little bit easier.” Isobel whispered, shakily wiping away tears as they fell. “We were working twelve, eighteen-hour shifts, trying to figure out how the hell this had happened and get all the pieces as to who and why. Putting pieces together bit by bit for the PENTTBOM file. I don’t think anyone got over a week of sleep during those first few months. Sometimes- Sometimes I think that’s what killed her. The smoke, the toxins, she’d been cancer free for nine months when it came back, and then she was. . . Gone.”
Isobel tipped back the wine glass, downing the rest of it in one go, giving Maggie a sorrowed smile, although it looked more like a grimace. Maggie placed a hand on top of Isobel’s her thumb caressing the back of her hand.
“Where were you?” Isobel asked, her voice hoarse and cracked as she set down the now empty wine glass. “When it happened?”
Maggie looked away, fiddling with her hands in front of her. “I was in my first class of the day when the first plane hit. My professor got a call from the department head and turned on the TV in the lecture hall. The room was dead silent when the second plane hit. The class had been whispering about how it could have happened, what was going on, that it must have been some sort of tragic accident. Those murmurs died when the South Tower went up, we knew it wasn’t an accident. I was just two weeks into my sophomore year since classes started on the twenty-seventh.”
Maggie cleared her throat, hesitantly meeting Isobel sorrowful gaze, “All classes got cancelled after that and we were told to leave campus. The fear was that Indianapolis International could be a target, we were less than twenty miles away from it, and I drove home as quickly as I could through the traffic. I’ll never forget watching the F-16s escort the jets to the airport, grounding them. It didn’t feel real. Sometimes it still doesn’t.”
Isobel just nodded wordlessly, looking numb all over again. She slowly pushed herself off of the counter, wincing at the pain that burst across her side in the process from where the sharp granite had dug into her skin. Maggie followed behind her, her worried glances burning daggers at the back of her head. The walk up the stairs took much more effort than it should have, the tightness in her chest back again, constricting her lungs like a python around its prey. She entered their bedroom, not even bothering to turn on the light, Maggie right on her heels.
“We were seconds away from it,” Isobel breathed, leaning against her nightstand, “All over again.”
“It didn’t end like last time,” Maggie reassured, watching as Isobel slowly sat down at the edge of her bed, her body almost trembling from the effort. “We did it in time. Hundreds of people are alive and safe because of you. Because you decided to investigate what the NYPD wanted to call a suicide. That matters. You matter.”
Isobel let out a small laugh, humourless and dry. “Not forever. Someday, probably sooner than we’d hope, I’ll be with the rest of them I suppose. Just another statistic. It’s a miracle I’m still breathing with all the shit we breathed in that day. And don’t my lungs know it.”
Maggie leaned closer, wiping away the tear that had started to fall down Isobel’s cheek. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard Isobel say something like that, and she was sure it wasn’t going to be the last. She’d heard the dry, hacking coughs that Isobel tried to hide every so often; seen the way Isobel sometimes struggled to breathe, quietly gasping when the air quality was poor, her lungs constricting as her chest tightened. It wasn’t an unknown fact that the debris and dust from the World Trade Centre held toxins, nor was it that the first responders got the brunt of the exposure, staying in the debris day in and day out. The attack had left scars, not just mental, but physical too.
“God, Maggie, I wish-” Isobel whispered, blinking back tears. “I wish it would all go away. I wish I could just forget. It’s been over twenty years, you’d think I’d have left this behind me already.”
“You don’t have to forget,” Maggie said, her voice quiet and soft, “Just know you’re not alone. I’m here and always will be. We’ll do it all together. I understand you. I understand that you carry this with you every day. You’re stronger than anyone I know. But sometimes even you need someone to lean on. And I’ll be there for you, to lean on and to cry on if needed.
Isobel nodded, tears brimming her eyes and a few fell as Maggie walked closer, her words hitting home.
“What can I do?” Maggie asked as she sat down next to Isobel on the bed, her fingers weaving together with Isobel’s.
“Just hold me,” Isobel murmured, and Maggie wrapped her arms around her tightly, holding her close to her chest.
She pulled the two of them down, laying against the pillows. Maggie moved one of her arms away, using her now free hand to comb through Isobel’s hair, gently scratching a soothing pattern against her scalp. Isobel seemed to relax, even it was just slightly, leaning again Maggie a bit more. Her breathing steadied, slowing from the strained gasps it had been earlier. It took time but eventually Isobel fell asleep, her breathing low and steady against Maggie’s side. She still looked weary and tired, but there was a small hint of relief etched into the lines of her face.
Maggie looked down at the rings Isobel had on her hand, her mother’s old wedding ring against the base of her thumb and a band of gold and diamonds on her ring finger. The diamonds were set right next to each other, deep into the metal and leaving no gaps between them for the gold to peak through, the only bit of the precious metal that was shown was the parts keeping the diamonds in place. An eternity band. It had been a gift, celebrating their fifth anniversary of being together, a reminder that she’d always be there for her. Both were happy as they were, content to stay together, nothing more and nothing less.
“You’re safe,” Maggie promised, pressing a kiss to Isobel’s temple as she held her close. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Ever.”