This is my September 11 fic. I just feel that it is important to remember those who are gone especially if they died in something like 9-11.
Spoilers: None
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine and neither is the song.
This is dedicated to all those who died in the 9-11 attacks and to anyone who lost someone.

September 11 is a day that will live on in the hearts of this nation forever. Every year that day comes around and every time is brings to the surface the pain of remembrance. Every year on this day the country slows in remembrance of those who died both in the planes and on the ground.

September 11 2001

Sometime I feel

I can't keep it together

Then you hold me close

And you make it better

Mac was in his office doing paperwork when he heard Stella scream. Worried Mac ran to where she stood. She was looking out the window looking out over the city they had sworn to protect. Mac suddenly realized that smoke was filling the skyline. They stood in silence watching in horror as the towers, the guardians of the city, fell to the ground taking so many lives with them.

Mac had been frozen with horror, but as the second tower fell to the ground he snapped out of the daze. Turning away from the window, he started running out of the office. He ran all the way to his car and jumped in. He drove until he reached the site of disaster. He looked over the smoke, the bodies, the ruble, and knew without knowing that his Claire had not been able to escape. He was alone.

He felt the lump rise in his throat, but it did not matter if he cried. Nothing mattered any more. As the tears ran down his cheeks he felt someone come up to him. A glimpse of curly brown hair told him it was Stella She wrapped her arms around him, rubbing his back gently. She did not try to tell him it was going to be all right because they both knew that would have been a lie..

She wanted to cry for Claire, for Mac, for her city, but Mac needed her to stand strong. So, she just held him, and let him cry. She watched over his shoulder as the rubble was shifted and more bodies were found, and more family's swarmed the area, hoping that their and praying that their family members had survive, but knowing deep down that the chances were slim.

September 11 2002

Sometimes I feel like the world is against me

The sound of you voice

That's what saves me

Stella lifted her head from her desk, and realized she had slept there. That was not that unusual, but what Mac not being at his desk if they did not have a case was slightly unusual. Suddenly it was as if her brain snapped in to full gear. Today was the first anniversary of 9-11. Standing up Stella walked up the stairs to the roof of their building. There she saw Mac standing on the very edge looking out over the city. Involuntarily, she drew in a sharp breath and he turned to face her.

"Don't jump," she begged him in a whisper.

He gave her a long searching look, "Why?"

"The city needs you, Danny and Aiden need you, I need you," she told him holding her breath. "You lost Claire, but you still have us."

He nodded and stepped down from the ledge, "I wasn't going to jump. I just need you to tell me that I still had something to live for."

"Mac, you always have something to live for," she told him gently. He hugged her, but he was not sure whether he wanted to give comfort or to receive it.

September 11 2003

There'll be days

We'll be on different sides but

That doesn't last too long

Yet another had come and gone with Claire gone and Mac was still a shadow of his former self. He almost never left work now, and when he did it was mostly only because Stella had bullied him in to going somewhere with her. Today was the first day that he hadn't come to work since Claire died.

Stella had waited an hour before letting herself become worried about Mac. Once that hour had past she had tried his cell several times, and his home phone more than that. Finally she told Danny that he was in charge of the lab, and left for Mac's house.

She knocked on the door several times, before he answered. "Go away," he called through the door.

"No," she told him firmly, "I'm not going anywhere."

"Go away," he told her again.

"Mac you are not alone today," she told him gently. "9 –11 didn't just affect you. It affected this entire city."

She stood staring at the door for several seconds before turning around, before leaving the building. Mac didn't go after her, but he was glad that she had come.

September 11 2004

I don't ever see the day that

I won't catch you when you fall

Mac looked around his house. He was not at work. It always seemed to him that he should not be at working on the day that Claire had died. On the other hand he didn't want to be alone. He picked up his phone. "Stella," he asked hesitantly, "can you come over?"

"All you ever had to do was ask," Stella told him smiling even though he could not see her.

September 11 2005

If you listen to these words

Know that we are standing tall

Mac walked into his apartment barely aware of what he was doing. For years ago today he had lost Claire. She was one of the two most important women in his life and if there had been anything he could have done to save her, he would have done it in a heartbeat.

Mac shrugged off his jacket and hung it on the hook next to the door. He had just wrapped a very difficult case. He wanted to talk to Stella, or more accurately he wanted to be in the same room with someone who could understand him without him speaking. Unfortunately for him, Stella was out of town at a conference. He walked over to answering machine and hit play.

To his surprise Stella voice played, "Mac, I don't know when you will get this because you are working a case, but when you do just call me if you need anything. One other thing, there is some spaghetti in the fridge if you want it just please eat something."

Mac smiled slightly at the last part, she knew him so well. Stella and Claire, the two women who could keep him on the straight and narrow.

September 11 2006

We're not gonna break

Cause we both still believe

Stella and Mac were standing in the exact same place they had been exactly five years ago when they had seen smoke filling the New York skyline. There was an expression that New York never sleeps. The two of them stood together and realized that in the past five years that was more true than it ever was before.

The city had been bent to the breaking point when the towers fell. All most everyone in the city had lost someone that they knew and/or cared about. Yet instead of falling apart, the city had come together and moved to pick up the fractured piece of life and put them back in place. People had come from all over to help. It was strange how tragedy brought people together.

"It has been five year," Mac said absently, "some day it has felt like there was nothing left."

"There are always going to be days like that," Stella told him, "and when those days come we can only hope that tomorrow will remind us that we are wrong."

September 11 2007

You and I, we've been at it so long

I still got the strongest fire

"Stella," Mac said standing at her office door. She looked up at him and put down the pen she had been pretending to use.

"Yes," she replied.

"How long have we been doing this job?" he asked her.

"Ten years together, longer than that on our own," she told him curiously, "why/"

"I was just wondering if you ever regretted it," he told her.

"Not once," she told him without hesitation.

He looked at her for a long moment. "I have once," he confessed, "I give everything to protect this city and it took away one of the two people I care about most. Is that wrong of me?"

"Tomorrow holds all the answers," she told him, "unfortunately for us, tomorrow will never come."

Mac looked at her for a second, "Is that just a fancy way of saying you have no clue what to tell me."

"Yep," she replied with a small smile.

September 11 2008

You and I, we still know how to talk

Know how to walk that wire

Mac and Stella stood looking out at the city once again. It was almost as if they were drawn to the spot they had been standing in the moments that their worlds had changed. "If you were asked to go in there on 9-11 would you have done it?" It was a strange question to ask someone who put their life on the line everyday, but Stella also knew that this was not the question Mac was really asking.

"Yes," Stella told him, "even if I knew I would never come out again I would have been in there trying to make sure that as many people survived as possible." She pause for a minute before adding, "but you really want to know why someone did something like that in the first place."

Mac nodded and she smiled a little sadly. "There is no easy answer to that. Our government did something that someone else didn't like, and three thousand citizens paid the price. There is no fairness in this, and there never will be."

September 11 2009

We know what we've got

And we've go what we need alright

We're doing something right

It was a dreary day. The day had been blue that morning but by eight o'clock AM it had started to rain very lightly. By ten it was no longer raining but the sky was grey with clouds letting little light through. The trees and plants swayed ever so slightly in the breeze. It was as if the city was mourning for all those who had died on that fateful day eight years ago.

On that day worlds had been ripped apart, but slowly over the years they had been built back up. Those who died on that day were never forgotten, but those who were left behind slowly moved on.

The city moved on,
But they never forgot.
Moving on is expectable
Forgetting is not.

Those last four lines are pulled from an NCIS poem I wrote for Memorial Day. The song lyrics are from the song 'Us Against The World' by Westlife. Please Review.