AN: Another little one shot for you all. Thank you to everyone that reads these and hopefully reviews!
The Twin Towers
They say that every person can remember what they were doing when they heard that the twin towers had fallen. Some bore witness to the actual horrific event. Other watched their TV screens stunned by the footage that was being shown to them.
It could be said that 9/11 looked like something out of a disaster movie. Yet this disaster movie had millions of New York citizens scrambling to find their loved ones.
A gaping scar in the landscape, an empty gash between buildings. The railings stand tall now, metal fences surrounding the blast area. People from all over the world, tourists, come to observe the remainder of such a brutal attack. Just because they weren't there doesn't mean that the mark of devastation doesn't touch them. Others come to grieve.
Hands linked in the bars pf the fences staring at the monstrous hole in the ground in front of them. A lot of people died that day, there are still many unknowns. People whose bodies were never found.
At the beginning, he couldn't fathom which would have been worse knowing that she was dead, or the not knowing.
Hours dragged as he waited for news, any news on her. He handled his phone all the time, setting it down and picking it up. He had a job to do he knew that, but the absence of Claire in his life was weighing on him.
Each hour that went past was another sign, another set of phone calls to every single hospital in New York asking for her. He wasn't the only one, he knew, that had had family in the World Trade Centre. There were hundreds, possibly thousands looking for the ones they love dead or alive, they had to know.
Years later, that sense of lose was still as predominant as the day itself. A memorial had been built for Claire, her body was never found amongst the twisted steel, glass and concrete that had crumbled that day. That cut him up inside. It hurt him more deeply than he ever thought it could. He visited Claire or at least her empty grave, every Sunday of every week, and he'd talk.
He'd tell her about the team, about his cases. But now something was happening, he'd found a new confident. Someone who was living and breathing. Someone who understood.
He started telling Claire about Stella Bonsara. About her beauty, her rise and falls, and of course, about her immense personal strength. He told Claire how he found himself confiding in Stella, telling her things that no one knew.
It was another Sunday when Mac realized that things had changed. His life was shifting. Things were becoming busier; it was hard to make time for visiting these days.
In the early days of sitting by the grave, Mac used to wonder why he was alone, how'd he's come to the point in his life where he'd cut everyone else off. When Claire had "died" he'd stopped returning their friend's calls. The memories they brought back were too real, too fresh in his mind. Sometimes he could barely stand to listen to their voices as they gave their condolences, or asked how he was doing.
But now he was standing by the grave and he felt a spark of something within him, understanding was creeping through his veins. For the first time in years he felt a flicker of life in his body that has become so mechanical, he had thought that he was becoming a robot.
It occurred to Mac Taylor that he had a family. Stella had managed to burrow into his life and somehow his heart and soul, opening them up to things he had never seen or thought he'd feel again.
Somewhere along the line the Crime Lab had become his home. He knew that, accepted it, but in the Crime Lab, a family had been born. Stella embraced the role as his partner, slipping into it so discreetly he hadn't known that she'd indeed taken the place inside his heart.
Some times he looked around the lab and watched as his team worked diligently, laughing together, making the unit whole. He viewed them has children, a thought that hadn't come easily. He and Claire had never had children, so being adopted as a father figure frightened him at first. It had felt alien and strange but now it felt natural.
For the first time in years Mac Taylor realized that he was anything but alone.