Miracle
Rifiuto: Non Miriena
Summary: Elphaba and Fiyero had settled comfortably in New York. On the 11th anniversary, after being asked a number of questions by her eleven-year-old daughter, Elphaba decides to tell her about the horrors- and miracles- witnessed on that tragic day. In memory on the 11th Anniversary of those that perished on 9/11.
"What were the Twin Towers?" Elphaba looked up from her book. Her little girl sat curled up next to her on the sofa, her eyes glued to the TV screen, watching one of the millions of documentaries that was playing about the September 11th Attacks. She bit her lip, closing her book.
"They were... a couple of very, very tall towers." Elphaba stuttered, trying not to answer and give an answer at the same time. The girl turned to look at her.
"What kind of towers? Were they like the towers Daddy worked in?" Elphaba licked her lips, her eyes beginning to mist with tears. She nodded.
"Yes. They were exactly the towers Daddy worked in. He worked in the North Tower, as a top manager for one of the companies."
"Oh." The girl turned back to the TV; she covered her ears every time a body slammed into the ground, shutting her eyes at the sight of the mushroom cloud racing down Midtown. The images- of the planes slamming into the buildings, of the towers beginning to crumble, of the bodies flying towards the ground- they were enough to give a child like her nightmares. Even now, they gave her mother nightmares that kept her up at all hours of the night, all during the week of th anniversary. "But they aren't there anymore, are they?" She asked, turning to her mother. Elphaba shook her head. "Because they collapsed, right?"
"Right."
The girl thought a moment, before turning back to the documentary. "What was it like? The day the towers fell?"
Elphaba thought back to that tragedy eleven years prior. She set her book on the table, watching the video for several minutes, seeing the images of the people pressed against the windows, attempting to get air. She knew several of those people personally- they'd been coworkers of her husband's, friends, neighbors. The majority of them had worked in Cantor Fitzgerald, an accounting firm like Marsh & McLennan.
"The day the towers fell," She swallowed. "I was pregnant, with you. I went into labor around... six that morning, and Daddy took me to the hospital. He told me, that he loved me, and that he'd be thinking of me, and that he had a bad feeling about that day. He stayed with me for another hour, and left around... seven, I think. I was in so much pain, I didn't register when he left."
She sniffled, reaching up to brush her hair away from her face. "I remember watching on the TV, the footage of the towers being hit. One hundred and two minutes. That's how long the North Tower stood, before it fell. Little over an hour. Everyone below the point of impact in the North Tower got out, and those that didn't..." She choked, covering her mouth briefly. "They either suffocated or jumped. There were more suvivors in the South Tower because they saw people from the North Tower jumping, and so they got out before the plane struck."
The girl watched her mother struggle to regain her composure, before she got up. "I'm sorry, sweetie, I'll be right back." As her mother slipped into the bathroom, she turned back to the TV, before someone joined her.
"What're you watching?"
"Documentary of the Towers." He nodded, watching the footage.
"You know, I was there." The girl turned to him.
"Really?" He nodded.
"Yeah. I was there the day the Towers fell."
"Mommy says that lots of people died." He nodded, lost in thought.
"They did."
"What happened?" He turned his gaze back to the child, taking in her blue eyes, her dark hair.
"The towers collapsed. I'd made it up to the fifteenth floor of the North Tower when the plane struck." He looked up, his wife had come back into the room. He watched her; she refused to look at him, her eyes closed, head turned away. But she was listening, he knew she was. He'd never told her any of what he'd witnessed in the tower that fated morning.
"What's that?"
He looked down at her precious little girl. A little girl that, had he gone to work at six instead of running late and getting there at eight that day at Marsh & McLennan Company, he would never see again. And for hundreds of his coworkers- both from Cantor Fitzgerald and the other companies in both towers- they would never see their families again.
He had been lucky.
He, would get to watch his daughter grow, would kiss his wife in the early mornings, would get to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding, would get to celebrate his fiftieth wedding anniversary with his wife, would get to meet his grandchildren. He had to remind himself that this little girl was what had saved him.
"In all that tragedy, a miracle occured."
"What miracle?" The confusion in the little girl's eyes didn't surprise him, he smiled gently at the child that had surprised and changed his life for the better.
"You."
"Me?" He nodded, as she turned to look at her mother. "Mama, what's-"
"You were born on September 11, 2001. The day the towers fell." Her mother replied softly, reaching up and brushing several black curls away from her daughter's eyes.
"I want... my husband..."
"Mrs. Tiggular, we're doing everything we can, but we have victims from the towers coming in, we can't ask every man that comes in if he's your husband." The nurse told her. Elphaba shook her head. "You have to push!"
"He's supposed to be here!"
"I know you want him here, Mrs. Tiggular, but-"
"He's supposed to be here! He's supposed to be here for the birth of our baby!" Elphaba cried, breaking into sobs. "I can't raise our child without her father!"
"She'll know he died a hero-" The nurse started.
"No! He's not supposed to die! He promised me! He said he'd never leave me! He promised!"
"He'll be named a hero, along with everyone else-"
"He's not a hero! He's a father! He's a daddy! He has to be here to catch our daughter, to hold her! He's my husband and I love him! I can't have our baby without him here to meet her-"
"You have no choice, Mrs. Tiggular! All this stress isn't good for either you or the baby! You have to push!" She shook her head. "Yes! I want you to start pushing now!"
Against her will, her small, exhausted body took control. A scream of pain escaped her throat, and she dug her nails into the nurse's hand. Several minutes passed, minutes of pushing and screaming and tense fear every time the ground shook. An hour passed; two.
"I can't! Please, don't make me push anymore!"
"You have too, Mrs. Tiggular. She's almost here-"
"No! Not without my husband! He... he needs to be here! He promised me he'd be here when she was born! Fiyero promised me! He promised me he'd be here as she was being born! Fiyero promised!"
No one heard the door to the delivery room swing open.
"Mrs. Ti-"
Everyone- the midwife, nurses, Elphaba- turned when the door banged against the far wall. Silence filled the room; the chaos in the hall seemed to fade away, and the tension in the room stilled. Three sets of eyes moved from the door swinging gently away from the wall, to the figure in the doorway.
For several tense moments, no one recognized him.
He was coated in fine, granulated white dust, from his auburn hair to the tops of his black shoes. His jacket hung open on his body, and his white business shirt was covered in dust, with spatters of blood. The tie he'd worn that day was in shreds around his neck, and his grey pants were so coated in white, the dust seemed part of the material. Every inch of available skin- from his face to his hands- were covered in dust from the towers, so thick in places that it looked like stage makeup. His eyes- a startling blue- shifted quickly back and forth between the midwife, nurses and the young laboring woman. His breathing came in steady, internal gasps, as though he were trying to catch his breath and not open his mouth, for fear of breathing in the dust that so thickly coated him.
After a moment, Elphaba doubled over, a scream escaping her throat. Neither the nurses nor the midwife noticed; their eyes were trained on the man in the doorway. The ravenhead grabbed the nurse's hand and squeezed, screaming.
"She can't come! Not now! Ah... not until Yero gets here!"
Her scream seemed to jolt him and everyone else back into reality. The man jumped, for a moment, he was back in the North tower, hearing the screams of his coworkers as they rushed through the lobby and out of the building into the street, the North tower falling, a mushroom cloud of dust chasing after them. He inhaled sharply, being jolted back into the present moment. The nickname seemed to bring everything into persepective-
"Fabala?"
His voice was raspy from moments, perhaps hours of unuse. Or perhaps it was raspy because of the screams that had escaped his throat as they ran, as he told others to run, to duck into the nearest building, as he asked passerby after passerby which hospital his wife was at. Either way, the name that escaped his sore throat caused everyone to turn.
Everyone except Elphaba.
Unable to react like the nurses and midwife had, Elphaba was only focused on the birth of her child. Moments passed, moments of silence, broken only by her screams of pain as she gave birth. Eventually, she reached down between her legs; her slender fingers felt the curls on her baby's head, the slickness of her water and the blood and birth that coated the baby as it left her uterus. Gently, she guided the child from her body, not bothering to swallow the screams that left her throat. Finally, after four hours of intense labor, the baby came sliding into her mother's hands; a healthy scream seemed to bring everyone back to the present, and the midwife and nurses turned, suddenly remembering what they had to do. As the midwife cleaned the baby off and reached for the scissors to cut the cord, the man said,
"A daughter. I have a daughter... and she's healthy... she's... she's so beautiful..."
The young mother's head rose, and she finally focused her gaze on the man in doorway. As her eyes took him in, she saw the dust that coated him, the pained expression on his face, his striking blue eyes... his blue eyes... those... blue eyes...
"Ah... Yero?"
Her whisper was so soft; her heart pounded out his name, telling her it was true, that the man coated in dust from the Twin Towers that stood in the doorway was her husband; her head, her feverish mind screamed that she was seeing things, that her husband was dead, and that this man was just a ghost- her husband's spirit, telling her that he was okay and was no longer suffering.
The midwife cut the cord, then weighed the baby and laid her in her mother's arms. After a moment, the man took a shaky, hesitant step into the room, towards the bed. When he was beside her, she looked up, seeing his face... blue... eyes...
"Yero?"
Her whisper struggled to escape her throat as tears took its place. He nodded, afraid that if he spoke, he would break down and tell her of the horrors he'd witnessed in the North Tower. He couldn't do that, not now, not with his newborn daughter in his wife's arms. All he did, was watch as the baby settled in her mother's arms, nursed at her mother's breast, and stared up at him with his striking blue eyes...
"You saved your father's life, Nessa. If you hadn't been here, I don't know what would have happened." Elphaba said, wiping tears off her cheeks. She smiled at her daughter, before kissing her forehead.
"Do you know what your name means, Nessa?" The girl shook her head.
"It's Hebrew. For miracle." The girl's eyes widened in disbelief. "You were our little miracle, Nessa. And we needed a miracle on that day, we all did."