Taylor bent over; exhausted from the hours she had spent combing through the rubble. Her hands were starting to bleed from all of the jagged edges of steel that she had sorted through while trying to find someone, anyone at all in the pile. She took a deep breath in and let it back out. She took her shirtsleeve and wiped off her face and then went back to work digging through all that was left of the Twin Towers.
"Come on Daddy." She said to herself as she worked
There were hundreds of other firefighters and police officers combing through the rubble as well. They had found 20 survivors, but there were more people that they still hadn't found. They held out the hope that more would emerge.
Walsh walked over to Taylor and put his hand on her shoulder.
"We gotta go." He sighed, "We need to get some rest before our shift."
Taylor nodded as she reluctantly gave up her search.
"I'll be back Daddy, I'm going to find you." She said
Her father Angus was a Battalion Chief. He had been in the lobby of the South Tower when it had collapsed. Taylor had jumped onto the back of the Squad when the alarm went out. They were off duty, but they jumped on the truck anyway. No one knew what they were heading into. No one in that firehouse thought that they would return to quarters without their truck or one of their own. They didn't realize the horror that they would witness when they responded to the alarm. They were firefighters who answered the call and became The Heroes of September.
The bus pulled up to the corner of King and Arthur. The members of the Squad silently stepped off and walked towards the firehouse. It wasn't the same. Their rig wasn't parked in their bay, there were flowers and candles and signs stacked against the house. The table in the bay was filled with food that the neighborhood had brought for them. Some people watched them as they walked by, covered in dirt and blood and sweat.
They slowly changed out of their bunker gear and put their work shoes on. They walked slowly up the stairs. Walsh, Lombardo, and DK sat down at the kitchen table. Lieutenant Johnson went into his office. Jimmy stood next to the sink. Taylor walked up to the bunkroom.
It was starting to wear them all down, but Taylor took it the hardest. The rest of the Squad knew that her father was still on the list of the missing. Their coworker Tommy Doyle was too. The list of those missing was hundreds of names long. Hope was fading away that they would find any more survivors, but they had to hold out hope. That was the only thing that they had to hold onto these days. They would spend some time with their families, but not enough. There were memorial services to attend and then time to search. They were determined to return to the rubble and find those trapped below.
Taylor leaned over the sink and washed her face off. The cool water was a welcome comfort. She looked at her hands, washing them carefully with soap. They were scrapped up, but she could live with it. She changed her shirt and lay down on her bunk. Maybe she could get a little sleep, something that she had barely gotten any of.
She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.