A/n: I own a life size Emmett, but sadly not twilight. This is based on true events, and some details have been changed to protect the innocent. I've tried to keep this chapter as close to historically accurate as possible.
A big thank you to JadedandBoring for her mad beta skills!
Now, on with the show!
"Now hush little baby don't you cry. Everything's gonna be alright. Stiffen that upper lip up little lady I told you daddy's here to hold you through the night. I know mommy's not here right now and we don't know why we feel how we feel inside. It may seem a little crazy pretty baby but I promise momma's gonna be alright" Mockingbird ~ Eminem
(Nine years earlier)
I can remember September 11th, 2001 like it was yesterday.
I was sitting in Mr. Banner's history class. He always had CNN on in the background to keep up on the breaking news. Several loud gasps were heard through out the room when the first plane collided with the North Tower at 8:46am. CNN had the footage on loop until the second plane collided with the South Tower a mere 17 minutes later. Smoke was billowing out of both buildings, and every eye in the classroom was locked on the television. Aside from the commentator, there wasn't a sound in the room.
It wasn't long before we saw people jumping from the holes the planes had created in each building, some as high as the 99th floor, and I couldn't help but feel sick. The commentator was saying that this had been a pilot error. Pilot error? Really? How do you miss a huge fucking building in the middle of Manhattan? And then to have a second plane with the same exact error hit a building of identical size right next to it? Something shady was certainly afoot, and something was telling me this was no mistake.
I couldn't control the tears that began to roll down my cheeks. The firemen, police officers, and other inhabitants of New York were fleeing the streets. It seemed as though it took hours for everything to happen, when in fact it'd only been 45 minutes. A news flash of a third plane crashing into the Pentagon came across the screen and my rage began to boil up. Our beautiful land was under attack, and resembling a third world country.
Just before 10 am, the South Tower began to collapse. No more than four minutes later, we learned of Flight 93 crashing in the middle of Pennsylvania. My rage was under control but panic was starting to set in. What was going to happen next? How did this even happen in the first place?
The bell had rung several times but not a single person had moved from their seat to go to the next class. Twenty four minutes later, the North Tower began its collapse. To say we were shocked at the day's events would be an understatement. We all sat in awe as we saw the bodies of people jumping to their demise. I couldn't imagine having to make the choice of sitting there waiting for the building to collapse or to launch myself off of the upper floors, ninety something stories above the ground.
Principal Cope called a mandatory assembly in the gym. The feeling in the room was morose. No one was speaking, not even to their neighbor on the bleachers. Normally Principal Cope would have had to struggle to get us to be quiet, but not today. A pin could have dropped and it would have sounded like a bull in a china shop. The Principal began to address the students, the faculty and staff of today's events. I don't think there was a person in the room who wasn't crying. Even Willy, the school janitor who never had a decent thing to say to or about anyone, had tears streaming down his cheeks.
We were dismissed for the afternoon, and school was be closed the next day. Sure, we lived in suburbia, but we were only an hour and a half drive from Manhattan. The school district could be at risk for attack, and since the planes were targeting highly populated buildings, the board didn't want everyone together at one time.
The buses were already waiting to roll as we somberly filed out of the gym. Cell phone lines were jammed due to an influx of calls from people checking on their loved ones. I knew my family was safe, but I also knew that there were classmates who weren't going to be so lucky. My father was a doctor at St. Vincent's emergency room and fortunately he wasn't scheduled until the evening shift. My mom was a nurse, but for a practice in town.
The four of us weren't a lot to handle, but no adult in their right mind would leave three boys and one teenage girl unsupervised for extended periods of time. I headed into the parking lot to wait for my brothers. Grandma Cullen pulled up in her ancient Volvo. She was our emergency contact when our parents couldn't be reached. We didn't even know she'd been called until she pulled up. We piled into the car, with not so much as a whisper spoken amongst everyone.
As we passed mom's office, we saw a sign for a blood drive with a Red Cross van out front. We wanted to donate but since we were only 13, even with mom's permission we couldn't.
I knew then that I would join the military once I was old enough. Sure, I was only in eighth grade at that point, but I felt it was destiny. I was meant to serve.. I just needed to keep myself on track until I was old enough to make it.
School had been cancelled for the rest of the week, mostly because of safety concerns as we were so close to Manhattan. They were still pulling people out of the rubble. Dad was gone the entire week at work. The injury count they had expected to be much higher, sadly it wasn't. Uncle Alec had checked in to let us know he was ok, but he was working rescue at Ground Zero. The blood drives had been put to a halt since there wasn't as much a need as they had anticipated initially, and they didn't want to be throwing it out either. There wasn't much my brothers and I could do to help; we were too young.
Every Christmas and Thanksgiving we worked at a soup kitchen in the next town over. Mom and Dad wanted us to be thankful for what we had, and give back to others. We had a long line of relatives in public service, always doing something for the greater good. Alec was a firefighter in Brooklyn. Both grandfathers were police officers and had served in World War II and the Korean War.
Jasper was a history buff; his focus was the Civil War. He was likely going to end up teaching history somewhere. The kid could spout off random facts at the age of eight. Edward was our resident scientist. I couldn't tell you how many things he blew up in the kitchen with his bizarre experiments .We hoped God would help us once Edward was old to enough to play with real chemicals. Oddly enough he had crazy, out of control, bronze hair to complete his mad scientist look.
My thing was sports. Sure, I could pass my courses but don't ask me to retain what I had learned last week in Geometry. I could tell you the stats for the entire defensive end of the NY Giants as well as the Yankees starting line up's college stats. Edward and Jasper learned early on not to take bets against me when it came to sports trivia. I always won.
Alice was following our lead, and wanted to be a social worker or counselor of some kind. Alice's parents weren't around. No one knew why they left or where they went. In a way, Alice was better off. She practically lived at our house before they left as it was so this just made it more permanent. Her parents were crazy religious fanatics and I'm fairly certain they belonged to some cult, like Heaven's Gate. When we first met her, she'd had super long hair, wore only long skirts and had to pray for no less than three hours a day.
One day out of the blue she had mom cut her hair. Short. Like pixie cut short. Oh yea, she also dyed it black. Mom agreed to do it on the condition it was washable hair dye. She didn't want to make it permanent. I was nervous that she was going to be banned from hanging out with us.
We'd walked her home and could still hear her parents yelling half way down the road. Being the nice boys we were, we waited in front of the Johnson's tree for her, knowing she'd be at our house within the hour. She always was when they started fights with her. Mom's sewing room became Alice's room.
Her parents just packed up and left one day while we were at school. We'd walked her home from our house afterwards to find it empty, save for her bedroom. We were kids, we didn't know what had happened, and we certainly didn't know what to do with a crying girl, sitting in the middle of her bedroom floor bawling her eyes out.
I plopped down next to her and hugged her. It's all I could think of. Jasper ran home to get Mom & Dad while I tried to console her. Edward was looking for something to indicate where they had gone, but found nothing. No note, no forwarding address, nothing.
Mom didn't hesitate to tell Alice that she would live with us, no questions asked. We helped her pack her stuff up, and brought it all to the house in a few trips. A week later, a letter arrived in the mail from some attorney in Texas signing custody of Alice over to Mom and Dad. We never heard from them again. As upset as Alice was to be abandoned like that, she told us that my parents always felt more like family to her than her own did anyway. She already called our grandparents Grandpa and Grandma.
The living arraignments were going fine with the exception of Edward. He was a little put off since he wasn't used to having to share a bathroom with anyone, let alone a girl. Jasper and I shared, Edward had his own. Now he had to share with Alice, which was fine until she got her period.
Edward didn't speak for two days after that incident. His watch had fallen off the counter one morning while he was brushing his teeth and he had to rummage the can to find it. I'll never forget the screams that came out of the poor boy.
I sprinted down the hall after hearing his banshee like cry to find the contents of the bin turned out, Edward in the middle of the mess and his eyes wider than a deer in headlights. He was worried she would bleed to death. All his science knowledge didn't help him that day. I burst into hysterics once I realized he was fine.
The kid swore he paid attention in health and to the basics mom and dad taught us. Even though he knew that this would happen, knowing about it and seeing the aftermath apparently were two different things. Dad had to sit him down and give him yet another lesson, with Mom. Jasper and I wanted no participation in that one. We got it the first time around.