A/N: The first thing that I'd like - no, I need - to do is to give a special thanks to lily moonlight, who gave me the inspiration to continue with this story. Without you, I doubt that I would have been able to complete even this chapter. Again, thank you, Lily. I don't know what I'd do without you!
The second thing I want to do is apologize for the long wait between chapters. I can promise you that it will be shorter. I don't know how much, but the wait will be cut significantly.
Third, I'd like to ask you to leave a comment if you can, whether it be a correction or a praise. I always enjoy receiving input, and it really inspires me to write. So if you can do that, I'd be forever grateful!
Thank you and I hope you enjoy!
"For those of us who lived through these events, the only marker we'll ever need is the tick of a clock at the 46th minute of the eighth hour of the 11th day." – President George W. Bush
The first time she awakes, it's impossible to tell where - or even when - she is. The smoke obscures everything; it's in her lungs, crusted on her skin, hovering in the air. She coughs violently, trying desperately to draw in a fresh breath. Pain radiates through her, down her back, up her arms and legs. Her head pounds, her mouth gapes, and if she had had the breath, she would have screamed in agony. Since she has none, she instead struggles with the heat and pain, trying to keep herself alert. But as the smoke seems to close in and the pain reaches a crescendo, finally, silently, she gives into the darkness hovering at the edges of her vision.
The second (or third) time she opens her eyes, the smoke has mostly drifted along its way. Light filters in among dust and smoke, and she blinks, trying to clear out long-dried eyes. Pain threatens to overwhelm her, and she begins to give in before her training, drilled into her long ago, flares in the back of her mind. Suddenly alert, she begins to take stock of herself.
She can't quite remember what has happened. She swallows, though her throat is parched, and shifts slightly, as if to assure herself that she is indeed alive. She twitches each finger of her left hand, dislodging small pieces of rubble in the process. Then, she rotates her wrist, moves the elbow, and finally shrugs the shoulder. That taken care of, she carefully extracts the arm from its case of rock, lifts the arm into her vision, and inspects the limb. It had been encrusted with dirt, scraped liberally, and covered in blood, now half-dried. Her fingers seem almost stripped of skin, as if she had tried to hang onto something and had failed. She places the limb carefully back onto the rubble and begins the same process with her right. The fingers don't move on this hand. Eerily calm, she gives up her attempt and relaxes into the rocks, looking up into the dim light. Wires spark above, water drips from pipes, and layers of twisted metal lays still among it all. It gives her a sense of aloneness, of no possible escape. She wants to scream again, now, but the most she can do is hiss through clenched teeth in something more than agony.
She remains quiet and motionless, not unlike a corpse, until finally she lifts her beaten, throbbing head and looks down the right arm. It might not have been the smartest thing to do, but she has all the excuses in the world. The arm is bent at an odd angle near the elbow; on the lower arm a thick, jagged piece of metal lays cold, digging into once-soft skin. Blood seeps sluggishly out of the deep wound, and she blinks at it, reaches to tug it out, before thinking better of herself. She inspects the fingers, noting that two of them are bent and broken. Her eyes sweep down along her torso, which is covered liberally with fist-size (and larger) pieces of foundation, to her legs, her throat constricting when she notices the thin pipe stabbing its way through the muscle of her left. She swallows forcefully, holding the leg deliberately still, yet trembling with abandon. The extraordinary pain suddenly explained, she watches as with each tremble, a new wave of blood seeps from around the metal. Her chest heaves, and she tries desperately not to give into the panic and the pain. But ultimately, it's too much. She slips into the darkness once again.
She drifts in and out over the next while, sometimes being awake long enough to wonder what the sharp pain in her abdomen is, but she's soon unconscious again, stumbling through the day she's going to die in phases. Because she will die. There's no way out...
She approaches the door to the stairwell cautiously, bags of food in hand. The door squeaks as it opens, a long, keening sound that etches itself into her mind. It's ominously empty inside. Not a soul climbs or descends the staircase. As such, her steps echo, each bouncing back to her magnified. The stairs seem to go on forever. She rounds several corners, continues up several flights, but no doors can be seen, nor any indication of where she is. The light seems to sputter, leaving her in darkness for a moment. When the light returns, her hands are covered in blood. She shrieks, dropping the bags, which burst in a flood of the red liquid. She slips on it as she runs, but the blood seems only to be growing, climbing. Up the stairs she goes, stumbling, feeling weaker by the second. She rounds another corner, looking up the flight to see none other than Claire, waving at her cheerily. "Stella!" she calls, her voice wavering in and out, almost as if she had shouted underwater.
She blinks and calls back, relief flooding through her. She climbs toward her, but Claire seems only further away. She increases her pace, begins to panic. Suddenly, there comes a screech of metal on metal, of bending pipes and the throes of death. But nothing changes. The stairwell is still lit, is still intact. Her mind flashes through images of death, but in the end, Claire is still beckoning her. But there's something wrong. Blood drips down her brow, increasing in flow. The skin rips away, and Claire's body lurches, her mouth opening wide in a strangled scream. Deep lacerations open in her arms, and her hands fill with blood. Claire looks at them in horror, and then back up to Stella. "Stella!"
She tries to move to help her, but she's stuck. Blood covers her shoes, sticking her steadfastly to the floor. Claire's blood drips down each step, tendrils of death waiting to grab her, to drag her away. Claire gazes at her with glazed-over, dead eyes, and then, without warning, the stairwell collapses, and she falls...
She lurches awake, instinctively grabbing for a hold. The right arm refuses, sending only waves of pain, while the left grabs hold of empty air. Her head shoots up, sending waves of cruel light across her vision, bringing her flight to a dizzying halt. Her mouth tastes of blood and is as dry as cotton. Any light that had remained is now gone: the world had slipped into darkness without her even noticing. The remains of the Tower shift and creak with the night's wind, but inside, there is no refreshing breath of air. The only smell is of fire and of fuel, of blood and her own fear. And then, as if spitting in the face of the notion that nothing else could possibly go wrong, she begins to cough. Her bruises and breaks send pain through her nerves as she jerks and sucks in noisy breaths, fighting to keep still and not further aggravate her condition. The taste of copper fills her mouth, and her vision begins to glaze over, leaving only blurry shapes. The world starts to spin, and like that, she falls limp and cold upon the debris.
She's above the rubble now. For a second, she feels only relief. She's saved! But then reality sets in: there's no pain, no feeling at all. And how did she escape? It shouldn't have been possible!
She doesn't recognize them at first, as they walk past, hunch-backed and bleary-eyed. Dark circles surround their bloodshot gazes, and grime coats them from head to heavy work boots. The leader she recognizes first: a battle-weary Mac, looking at least ten years older than when she last saw him. His hands are cut and torn, but it doesn't seem to bother him. Next to the worn man slumps an equally worn woman. Her dark waves, once beautiful, are now tangled and matted. Her eyes are dull as she speaks: "It's been weeks, Mac. You're going to kill yourself."
Weeks? It had only been hours! Her mind whirls as she looks down at her seemingly solid limbs. Then, with a deft movement, she pinches the skin near her wrist, expecting to feel pain. Instead, nothing happens. Not even a mark from her fingernails appears. She doesn't bother to scream. No one can hear her. No one can see.
And so she follows. What else can she do?
Mac chuckles without humor. "You're one to talk."
Aiden, who Stella can only recall working with a few times, has been looking for her? Surprise runs through her veins, sticking her in place as the two leaders continue on. Behind them walks a small redhead, who limps slightly and has an air of pain surrounding her. She lights up slightly when she spots Wheatley, but it fades when she takes stock of his expression. Stella feels herself grow cold with Wheatley's piercing, sad gaze. He sidesteps as the group approaches, covering something from sight.
"Mac," he murmurs, brows furrowing in obvious sympathy.
Mac catches on right away. "No. No!" He breaks out into a run, stumbling over the debris, to where several rescue workers were dragging a body from the abyss.
Her body.
No!
As she shoots awake for the second time that day, she begins to wonder why she couldn't have just been killed quickly and have it done with. The agonizing feeling of her own body shutting down wasn't the most pleasant thing in the world, especially as blood begins to dribble down her chin as she coughs. Night has long since fallen in the city that never sleeps... the city of dreams. Or, perhaps, the city of unrealized dreams, now. So many dreams had been crushed in the span of a few hours. So many dreams have yet to be smashed into pieces by this. How many would go back to their families? How many wouldn't?
So much for the city of dreams. She begins to chuckle to herself, madly, and wonders vaguely... is she going insane? She certainly feels as if she is. Even the pain she's in from the laughter can't deter her: after all, she's slowly waiting for death under a pile of twisted metal and crumbled rock. It's a wonder she's not dead already.
Finally, the laughter ceases and she starts to struggle to gather her thoughts. She begins by assessing her location. A large beam of metal, larger than she thought possible, lays twisted just above her head. Overtop of it rests a slab of concrete and part of the staircase she had climbed... before... before everything had died. The three together had made a small cavern by what she assumed was the edge of the South Tower - or, at least, what had been the South Tower. Other pieces lay around her, some below, pressing uncomfortably against her spine, and some on her body itself, keeping her from breathing deeply. Surveying the destruction, she wonders how she was alive, and how much longer that would be the case.
The glint of polished metal catches her eye, behind a rock the size of a small dog. She squints at it, not comprehending, until finally she makes out the shape, made blurry by smoke and the blood running down her face. Oh. Her gun. She lays back for a moment, ready to slip back into a world without pain, when suddenly it hits her. Oh. Oh!
The gun could be her ticket out. But... then again, the weapon may not still be in working order, after the fall it took. She tries desperately to keep the feeling of skin ripping at bay, the feeling of dangling over a precipice... the air around her as she fell, and the erupting pain of landing.
But it's too late. Pain flares in her leg and in her arm, and she twitches violently. Blood seeps again out of the wounds, but her mind is starting to deteriorate, her thought process beginning to fail, and she can only think about how her shirt is a goner, and the pants too - ruined by blood and dirt. A chuckle dies in her throat as she considers this. As she looks into the face of death. But was it really necessary to contemplate? What would it matter in a day or so? She's never going to need to wear anything again. Hell, she's never going to see the sky again. She leans back into the rubble, looking up into a further darkened concrete sky. It was time to give up. There's no way out. She'll die here, trapped. She'll never see her friends again. She'll never see Mac again.
Without warning, she's accosted... not by the present, but by the past. She watches her life, all of her struggles and failures, but especially her triumphs. She remembers graduating, going to college, to the police academy. She recalls Vice, and then the overwhelming pride of being chosen for the CSI team. She grins to herself at her partnership with Mac - rocky at first, but the initial strife had quickly made its way into a lasting friendship. Her heart warms as she thinks of him - the man she considers her best friend, her closest confidant. She wonders if he will miss her, and knows the answer.
Case after case floods her mind, as well as the aftermaths they would spend together, keeping their sanity and trying not to become disillusioned with the world, trying not to succumb to the almost inevitable burnout. And she realizes - for as much as Claire understood Mac, as much as she loved him and he loved her, she would never understand the pain of his career, and the grim hopes that came with it - because although they worked with death, they were also protecting the living and bringing justice to the families, those who wouldn't have it otherwise. And so she remembers and thinks on the times of the past, of the long evenings spent over a case file, over lunches and dinners with both Mac and Claire, laughing and carrying on well into the night.
Sadness, overwhelming sadness, fills her. It chokes her, keeps her from breathing.
It's too late to save Claire. Stella knows that. She saw the floors above her collapse, and Claire was so high up... so precariously placed. A bolt of pain and sadness shoots through her, the times she and Claire spent together racing through her heart. Cooking disasters, shopping, kicking Mac out to have a girl's night. She will miss Claire... probably forever, but she has to remember - she is left. Alive. The odds pointed to her demise, to her not making it through this, but somehow, she was here. And death coats the air, to be sure... but she could live. She will live. She has to... if not for her sake, then for Mac's... because she is now the only person left in New York that can possibly stem his despair.
And if that isn't what a friend was for, as a shoulder to cry on, as a confidant, as a listener... she doesn't know what is. With herculean effort, she reaches with her left arm and pries the metal from her right. The limb throbs, still resting crooked on the rubble. Blood rushes from the wound, telling her that she doesn't have much time. She swallows before she pulls the pipe from her leg. As much as training has told her not to pull a projectile from its resting place... she can't afford to wait now. And so the pipe goes with a horrible sucking sound that makes her flinch. The wound starts to seep, and she lurches into a crouch, swaying dizzily in what was now probably dawn.
She tries move swiftly and with a purpose - she has to get to the gun, and quickly. She can feel the blood running down her limbs, and blinks away the blood dripping into her eyes, newly wet from the sweat beading on her brow. She falls, and falls again... it's slow going. Her vision begins to cloud over, black edging in at her vision. Her head pounds, and a new round of coughing begins, sending blood dribbling from her mouth. At last, she falls, hand outstretched, by the rock. Her fingers come nearly into contact with the weapon, and she groans as she misses it. No! No! This can't possibly be it. This can't possibly be where she dies, inches from the instrument that could orchestrate her freedom. She can't give up, not now!
With one last push from her feet, she slides the remaining inches. Her vision is almost completely darkened now, and the pain is reaching a crescendo. Finally, her hand comes in contact with the gun. Clumsily, she flicks the safety off and aims for a broken slab of concrete along the far edge of the cavern. Her finger closes around the trigger, but before she can hear if it fires, she slips away, into the welcoming blackness.
"You haven't forgotten me yet, have you?"
Stella looks up from her position within the rubble... only to find that there is rubble no longer. Instead, she lies on her stomach in thick, cool grass. Her breathing is clear, her pain gone. In its place is an odd sense of peace. Claire Taylor leans over her, holding out a hand invitingly. Stella grasps it, feeling its warmth. "Claire?" she asks, confused.
Claire gives her a rueful grin as she pulls her to her feet. "Hey, Stella."
Stella blinks as she regains her footing. "Am I dead?"
A purse of the lips, a shrug. "Somewhere in between, I'd say."
Choosing to ignore the answer to her second question, Stella goes for a third - as much as Stella thinks that Claire is dead, she has to ask. She has to know. "How are you here? Are you alive?"
"No," Claire murmurs, ignoring the first question. "No, I'm not." Stella feels her face fall. Claire shrugs. "C'est la vie," she whispers, so softly that Stella has to strain to hear. "Such is life."
She can't bring herself to let go of the hand, or to entertain any notion that Claire isn't alive - and so she clutches the hand as if it were a lifeline. A gentle breeze wafts through the field, brushing the leaves of the trees and the water on a still lake. She can see forever here. A large mountain range looms in the distance, larger than anything she's ever seen. Claire smiles gently, tugging on the hand. "I'm going to see what's over that range," she announces. "There's nothing left for me to do."
"Nothing left for you to do?" Stella yelps. "What about Mac?"
"You'll take care of him now," Claire says, her voice strong and unwavering, though Stella can see a hint of deep, unyielding sadness behind her eyes. "I know you will."
"But you would do it so much better than I could!"
"No, I wouldn't," she sighs. "As much as I loved him, Stella, you understand him. You're the one who can help him now." The hands slip away from their holds at last, and the two watch a cloud slip across the sky. "Don't let my death let you stop loving," she continues at last.
"What do you mean by that?"
Another smile. "I suspect you'll know, in time."
Stella nearly chuckles through tears forming in her eyes. "You're being deliberately vague, aren't you? And I don't even know if you're real."
"I'm as real as you make me."
Stella groans. Claire tilts her head. "The mountains are calling me - or at least what's beyond them. I can find out now. My time here has come to an end." She moves in the direction of the mountains, but stops when she sees Stella move towards her. "You can't come, Stella. You're alive. Rejoice in it for as long as you can."
Stella holds out a hand, trying to stop her from leaving. "Wait! Will I see you again?"
But Claire is already gone. All that's left is a warm breeze and a word:
"Goodbye," the wind whispers.
Stella chokes on a sob. "Until we meet again."
The world begins to fade around her. The grass dies, the trees grow bare, twisted. The water dries up, the sky fades to black. The pain returns, stronger, and she gasps, falling to her knees, clutching at the dead grass. And then it fades, and she too slips away...