Chapter One: The Towers
Never before, even in the years since he'd become a firefighter and rushing headfirst into burning buildings had become commonplace, had Raphael breathed such dark, thick air. Ash swirled through the air as though a volcano had blown its top nearby. The oppressive heat of the grey air made his eyes sting and his throat ache, but Raph trudged towards the sound of screaming and crumbling buildings anyway. The refugees, for that was what the people of Manhattan had become that day, ran past him, tears streaking their dirty faces as they covered their noses and mouths with torn sleeves, trying in vain to block out the stench of burning bodies and jet fuel. Raphael kept walking, wordlessly directing the people around him away from the wreckage and towards the ambulances lining adjacent streets, the gurneys he'd seen rolled out of the hospital when his crew had driven past on their way into the City.
When the first plane had slammed into the North Tower, Raph had been gearing up for the day at a narrow brick station in Brooklyn. Elsewhere, the nation turned to the news, but the men and women of Rescue 2 did not have time to watch the news broadcasts blasting over every station; they were heading into Manhattan even before the second plane struck the South Tower.
From the moment they were on the ground, however, it was chaos. Raph had quickly lost the rest of his team and struggled to establish communication with any commanding officers. That was alright; he'd never been the best at respecting authority anyway and there was too much horror in front of him to stop and worry about orders. He knew what he needed to do; search and rescue.
Limbs, bloody and limp, stuck out from piles of rubble. Huge, gaping holes stood stark against the sky, fireballs blazing within. The South Tower was swaying, as skyscrapers tended to, but something about the motion made Raph feel sick and uneasy. Overhead, the fires blazed and people gripped the edges of the Tower's broken glass windows, faced with the impossible decision of jumping or facing the inferno. For as long as he lived, Raphael would never forget the sight of people making that impossible choice and jumping, falling to certain death rather than being burned alive. In the years to come, he'd see it behind his eyelids every time he tried to sleep, bodies sailing through the air with nothing to hope for other than a quick, painless death.
"Get back," Raph yelled, directing the people streaming out of the nearby North Tower exits down the cracking sidewalks, "as far away from here as you can!"
"Hey! Firefighter!"
Raph's head swiveled. Jogging towards him was a police officer, a captain judging by his white shirt. It had probably been clean and crisply pressed at some point but now hung on the man's muscular frame in filthy tears. He was older than Raph, maybe in his mid-thirties with just a touch of gray beginning to impose on his temples and a few thin lines around his almond eyes.
"Yea-?"
"This way," the man said, his voice clear and authoritative. Raph frowned but followed. His own pride could take a backseat for once. There were more pressing matters.
"A civilian was caught when..." he gestured noncommittally to the scene around them, "I can't get in touch with anyone on the radio and you were the first person I saw; help me."
"Got it," Raph answered, easily falling into step with the police captain, his own long strides matching the man's short, quick steps. Surveying the area, Raph realized they wouldn't be able to get equipment in to move the rubble; there was too much destruction, sidewalks peeling away from the ground, streets crackling like broken eggshells. They'd only be able to move what their muscles would allow.
"Help me!" A woman screamed hysterically, tears rolling down her pinched face, when Raph and the policeman got closer; her body was squashed into concrete slabs like paper-mâché and it seemed to take forever to get her loose. Another trend of the time, the time distortion. Raph would never quite be able to remember what had happened first, last, or in-between. In reality, it took only a couple of seconds for Raph to help the officer grip the piece of debris pinning the woman down and lift it away. Her leg came free, mangled and dangling sickly from her hip socket and she cried like she'd never be able to stop, rolling helplessly away from the rocks.
"She ain't gonna wa-" Raph began but, before he finished, the officer looped his arm around the woman's torso and lifted her, carrying her over his shoulders.
"I'll take her," he said and Raph nodded, watching the man take off towards the hospital gurneys, whispering soft words of comfort to the injured, but alive, woman.
One down, thousands to go.
"Jones!" Raph's radio crackled to life and he ripped it off his jacket, pressing down the talk button.
"Present, ma'am," he replied, stalking up Broadway back towards the towers. "Heading to North Tower now-"
A deep rumbling in the ground stole his voice and, for a moment, Raph thought it was an earthquake. Of all the days for a natural disaster, this was not it. But it wasn't an earthquake and with a plume of smoke and ash, the South Tower came down straight down into the earth like Jericho's walls. The ground rippled and rocked like a ship and Raph couldn't keep his balance against the pitching.
"Damn!" Raph exclaimed, falling to his knees in time to get a face of heavy dust cloud. Lifting his arms, he shielded his face and squeezed his eyes shut tight. Each shard of glass sliced through his muscles and each scrap of fluttering paper was weaponized by the force of the collapse; never had he felt such a literal interpretation of death by a thousand paper cuts.
When the air cleared enough for Raph to see, the South Tower was gone, leaving behind only piles of twisted foundation.
His radio was silent once more as Raph climbed to his feet. Overhead, the tower shuddered and shifted, threatening to join its fallen twin, no matter how many lives inside and below would be lost. What did the building care, when its insides were ablaze and its bricks melted into the street? Raph could hear people pounding at exits blocked by rocks and broken concrete. Swallowing, he took off at a run, trying not to look at what had been the South Tower just a few seconds ago.
Vaulting himself at one of the doors, he began to throw away pieces of rubble. Without a ladder or any heavier equipment, there wasn't much else he could do. Other first responders joined him, a haggard policewoman with blood leaking from her left ear and a dead-eyed EMT, and together they opened a hole big enough for those trapped within to claw their way out. For what seemed like hours but was likely only minutes, Raph circled the tower like an animal, finding any weak spot he could exploit and tearing it open. People spilled out from the holes, flooding the streets with their screams as they ran away. Those who couldn't walk had to be carried by others, because Raph couldn't allow himself to leave the tower. Not yet, not when there were still people inside that he might be able to get out.
But after a while, there were no more emergency doors to open. The tower groaned miserably on its foundation and Raph took a few steps back, letting himself look skyward. Just like the South Tower before it, the North Tower rocked and pitched, shaking loose screaming people from the upper levels like leaves from an autumn tree. They fell like leaves but landed like bombs, exploding into the concrete, churning Raph's soul in helpless grief. How could he save them?
"JONES!" Captain Bridge screeched at Raph from his radio once again, breaking the hold of the train wreck above had on his psyche. "What's your 20!?"
"The base of 1 World Tra-"
"1 Worl – Jones, the whole damn thing is gonna come down! Pull your head out of your ass and get out of there!"
He could feel the familiar rumbling again, the same way it had felt half an hour ago – could it possibly be only half an hour? - when the South Tower had collapsed. Captain Bridge was right; if he didn't haul ass out of there, he was going to be flat as a pancake. If he was lucky. If not, they'd be scraping disembodied pieces of him up with a spatula.
"Clear the area!" He yelled as he ran, motioning for people to move away, but it was near impossible to hear his hoarse voice over the drone of fire and creaking metal. Most people got the idea anyway, even without Raph's direction. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that the swaying tower was unstable or to feel the roll of the ground. The few who didn't move got Raph's hands on their arms, their backs, pulling them to their feet and shoving them on their way. A hunched, crying woman, too scared to continue. A child frozen in fear. He felt for them, sure, but they could feel all that mess later. Right now, they needed to get to safety, because that second tower was coming down. As close as he was, Raph didn't know if there was even enough time to put a safe distance between himself and the dying structure. All he could do was try, though. Raph ducked his head and ran.
When the North Tower fell, the air behind him swelled with pressure then burst, sending out shock waves of debris and displaced wind that howled like a shrill devil in Raph's popping ears. For a moment, Raph was weightless, as though he was caught on an ocean wave. Then the wave broke, slamming Raph face first against the fractured concrete. He laid still, blood haloing out from where his skull had smashed sickeningly into a curb, sounding like a bowl cracking, thick and heavy even through the cacophony of the falling tower. His lids closed and his mouth fell slack, unconscious to the papers and pebbles flying over his body, half burying his mass in a shallow, imperfect grave.
"Jones! JONES!" Captain Bridge shrieked, her voice undulating in voltaic distress, but Raph did not respond.
Bright light fought its way through Raphael's closed lids and he groaned, lolling his head away from the offending sun. Drums pounded in his head, far more cheerful and lively than he felt the situation warranted. Even without opening his eyes, Raph knew that he was in a hospital. The acrid scent of harsh sanitation assaulted his nostrils, masking the undertones of unpleasant bodily fluids. Through the percussion in his ears, Raph could hear nurses and doctors bustling, speaking in urgent, rushed tones. Everywhere, there was crying, but it was a dull din in the background, something far away and detached, muffled by a closed door.
"Imagine what it must sound like out there."
"Huh?" Raph's eyes popped open. He was in a simple room with four occupied beds, one his own. Two of the inhabitants slept or were unconscious, Raph couldn't tell, but the third was staring at him with calm, brown eyes.
"You," Raph said, blinking at the police captain from earlier, the one who had carried that woman off towards the hospital … before? An hour, a day. Raph had no idea how long he'd been here.
"I'm Leonardo," the man said, nodding a simple greeting. "Nice to meet you, Raphael."
"How do you know my name?"
Leonardo shrugged his shoulders easily and for the first time Raph noticed the wads of gauze and bandages around the man's left arm, just above the elbow. Below the dressings was empty space. Raph swallowed harshly, averting his eyes from the wound; Leonardo had lost an arm sometime after Raph had helped him free that lady.
His black hair was disheveled and dirty, hanging in his eyes and obscuring them. Leonardo tossed his head every now and then, but it didn't matter. It hung in his eyes anyway. Thin cuts crisscrossed his body, making him look like a ronin from the old black and white samurai movies Raph sometimes watched late at night. Even injured, even with his skin translucent as paper, showing the purple and blue veins spider webbed under the surface, Leonardo had an air of strength and calm.
"I heard your doctor say it," Leonardo explained. If he noticed Raph look away, he didn't comment on it.
"Raph," he said, struggling to sit up. "No one calls me Raphael but my ma."
"Okay," Leonardo replied. "Raph. My friends call me Leo. You might want to lay back down; you've been out for a day and a half."
Raph ignored Leo's suggestion and wrenched himself up in the cot, using the metal rails to brace himself. At least now he knew how long he'd been here. Other than the persistent beating in his head, Raph didn't feel too terrible. Not bad enough to stay in the hospital, anyway. Hell, he'd had hangovers worse than this. He could just imagine Angel if he tried to call in – Oh, shit, Angel! Though Angel was his captain, she was also his friend and had been for a couple of years. She was a firecracker of a woman, coiled like a furious jack-in-the-box, always ready to pop. Normally, she'd cuss him up one way and down the other for not checking in but, somehow, Raph doubted that would be the case this time.
Leo was watching him from across the narrow space between their beds, silently waiting for Raph to process whatever it was he was thinking through.
"My captain," he said, reaching towards the phone on their shared nightstand. "And my family. I gotta let 'em know I'm okay."
"The phones are down," Leo said.
Raph pretended not to hear and jabbed in the numbers anyway. A jarring, repetitive tone angrily scolded Raph for his efforts. Scowling, he slammed the receiver down. It skidded across the nightstand and clattered to the floor, that noise still blaring out from the speaker as the receiver swayed back and forth on its spiral cord.
Leaning, Leo grabbed the cord in his hand and yanked it upwards, catching the phone with his single hand when it flew into the air. He hung it up, understanding Raph's frustration. Leo would have felt the same, if his own supervisor, deputy inspector Oroku, hadn't already found him and checked in. With her hard, amber eyes flashing, Karai had assured Leo that she would file all the necessary paperwork for his medical leave and then ordered him to rest and recover as quickly as possible. He'd agreed and asked her to please inform his aging father of his condition. Though Leo's father, Yoshi, lived several hours away in a rural part of Massachusetts, Karai had promised that she would.
Leo knew the loss of his arm meant that his days in the field were over. He tried not to be sad about it; since he'd been promoted to captain, he spent less and less time in the field anyway, but it was difficult not to feel at least somewhat disappointed. Though Leonardo excelled at the political landmine of upper management, he didn't hold the same passion for it as he did being in the field. Delivering press conferences just didn't get the blood pumping the same way chasing down a perp did.
"You don't value your talents," Karai would say and Leo didn't argue with her, though he knew that she did not understand. It wasn't that Leo didn't see value in the work he did; he just didn't care about the political game.
Leo stared at the stump where his arm used to be. He supposed it was the game from here on out.
"Didja overhear the doc say how long I'm gonna be here?"
"Huh?" Leo lifted his head; he hadn't been paying attention to Raph. "Oh, no. Sorry."
Sighing, Raph flopped down into his bed petulantly. Probably for a while, Leo thought, if he had any stitches and kept throwing himself around like a rag doll.
Now that all Raph's gear had been removed, Leo had a much clearer view of the fireman. He was tall and broad, taller and broader than Leo. His own muscles were respectable, but Raphael looked like someone who pumped iron like other people breathed oxygen. It wasn't an unattractive look; it suited him and defined his frame well. Raph was younger than Leo by at least five years, he was sure, maybe more. His eyes were almost identical in color to Karai's, but Leo could ignore the similarity. Raph's hair was like a fluffy storm cloud; one of the nurses had undone the tight bun at the base of Raph's neck when they'd finally laid him down and now all that hair hung loose around him.
"I'm sure the doctor will be in when she can," Leo said, trying to comfort his roommate.
Raph just nodded, clearly distracted. "Yeah."
Leo kept watching Raph, wanting to do something to ease his mind but nothing came to him. Asking about Raph's family would likely only cause more stress. Today was not the day to ask if Raph liked being a fireman. Anything more personal than that seemed unnecessarily invasive.
Frowning, Leo turned his eyes away and began to fidget awkwardly. This was why he didn't have any friends.
Besides the nightstand between their beds, the room was sparsely decorated. Two roll-away beds had been wheeled in and sleeping policemen laid on them; neither were from Leo's precinct and he hadn't met either before, at least not that he could recall. The nightstand had been shoved to one corner of the room to make space for the extra beds. An old, boxy television was bolted to the wall next to the bathroom door. The door was closed.
Without anywhere else to look, Leo idly rifled through the nightstand drawers. An old deck of cards laid at the bottom of the last drawer, a little old and bent, but perfectly usable, even if the deck stuck a bit when Leo tried to pick it up. Cards seemed like the perfect casual activity to help distract Raph until the doctor came.
"So, uh," Leo said, leaning back into his pillows. "You wanna play some cards?"
Raph gave Leo a side eye, watching as the policeman attempted to open the deck and shuffle the worn cards with a single hand. Even though he knew he probably shouldn't and Ma would slap him in the head for being so rude, Raph chuckled.
"A'ight, sure, but ya better let me shuffle, officer."
Many hands of cards later, nothing much had changed in the little room. Nurses bustled in and out every so often, changing Leo and Raph's IVs and muttering snippets of information too low and fast for them to be able to make out. Outside the doors that kept them shuttered in, people sped by, tears streaming down their faces, some practically running, hands over their mouths to hold back the screams.
They've seen their loved ones, Leo thought as he watched them over the top of Raph's dark, puffy head, glad that the passersby didn't notice him; how he must have looked with his singed hair and burned skin, not to mention the stump of his arm.
"Three hours?!" Raph exclaimed, throwing his cards down after what must have been their hundredth game, causing Leo to break out of his thoughts and blink. A large, digital clock on the wall across the hall displayed the relatively early time and Leo yawned, nodding in recognition of Raphael's frustration.
Two days and three hours was a long time to not know anything or see anyone, even if you had been unconscious for the great majority of it. He was curious to know if Karai had alerted any of his family as to his whereabouts. How much of the city lost power when the towers fell?
"It's only been three hours—for real?" Raph continued, staring at the clock with disgust. "Man, that clock must be busted."
"I have a watch," Leo said, smirking, laying his head back on his pillow, burnt hair crunching into the stark white of the pillow case.
Blinking, Raph sat up and instinctively peered over. When he didn't see a watch on the one intact wrist Leo had, he rolled his eyes and flopped back into place. "You don't need to say it, man, I got-."
"But it's on my other arm," Leo finished, ignoring Raph's groan at the tasteless joke.
"Are you high?" Raph asked, squinting at Leo from across the room.
Leo chuckled, finding himself quite funny for the joke though he wasn't offended that Raph didn't seem to think so. Turning his eyes to the IV in his arm, pumping him full of morphine and saline and who knew what else, he shrugged.
"Well, maybe a little," Leo admitted finally and Raph laughed.
The two sat there with companionable laughter, trying to tone it down when their other roommates shifted under the thin sheets, rolling over and mumbling in pained annoyance. Not that the hospital was exactly quiet. In fact, a dull roar was screeching up the hall towards their room. Spine straightening, Raph sat up as the sharp clack of heels and a high-pitched voice came closer. Leo watched him curiously, noting the way Raph turned his ear towards the door, listening.
Leo was just opening his mouth to ask what was the matter when the door burst open. A woman on the down slide of middle age spilled in, tears and mascara rolling down the pasty folds of her pleasantly fat face.
"Ma," Raph said, faintly shocked, and the woman flung herself across the room with open arms.
"Baby! My baby!"