Thanks for all of the reviews. There is still a lot of drama to come in this story so stay tuned.

Nightmares

Joanne's POV

After Maureen went home, I tried to sleep but I couldn't. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see those two burning buildings in front of me and I could hear all of the people shouting for help. I thought about Sarah, the woman who I had helped down the stairs, was she dead, Alive? That was a hard question to answer since she had been right near me when the towers fell and I had been in so much pain afterward that I didn't think to ask about her. I shuddered to think that I was near a dead woman the whole time in the rubble but I knew that it was a possibility. I made a mental note to ask about her when I got out of the hospital. After a while of tossing and turning, I finally fell asleep. This peace wouldn't last for long because I started seeing those buildings again and hearing the screams for help and seeing all of the doomed people jumping out of the windows. That is when I completely lost it, screaming and crying. The nurses must have heard me because they came rushing into my room and one of them mentioned Maureen's name. Suddenly, the doctor walked in with a syringe and gave me an injection of some sort. The next thing I knew, I was waking up with a weird headache and I saw that Maureen was asleep next to me. I wondered what had happened and how she had gotten there. I was completely out of it, not remembering a thing that had happened the night before. Suddenly, I heard Maureen stirring and saw her eyes open.

"Baby, what are you doing here?" I asked her

"Don't you remember what happened last night? You must have scared the hell out of everyone here including me. You were screaming and crying in your sleep and they couldn't calm you so the doctor had to give you a sedative injection."

"When did you get here?" I wanted to know

"The hospital called me at about 3 this morning asking me to come down here" Maureen said.

I asked her about where the girls were and she said they were sleeping over at Ellie's house. Ellie was Katie's friend who lived in our building. I thanked Maureen for coming to the hospital at that ungodly hour and then we fell back to sleep in each other's arms.

Maureen's POV

I had been terrified when I got the phone call at three in the morning saying that there was a problem with Joanne and could I please come to the hospital. The last time I had a phone call that late at night was when Mimi had died.

"Roger what is it" why are you calling this late. What happened?" a very sleepy Joanne asked Roger. "She's gone, Mimi's gone" Roger said tearfully. There was silence for a whole minute before Joanne could say that she and I would be there as soon as possible.

That was what those late night phone calls meant to me and what I was expecting to find when I got to the hospital. I tried to suppress those thoughts while I woke up the girls and brought them to Ellie's apartment. Luckily her mother was a friend of ours and didn't mind the late night interruption. When I got to the hospital I was relived to know that Joanne was very much alive but I had never seen her in the state that she was in. After I had tried and failed to calm her down, the doctor suggested giving her a sedative injection. After the injection, she had calmed down enough to go back to sleep.

Now, it was morning and she had finally woken up and had woken me in the process. She wanted to know what had happened, so I explained everything to her but she didn't seem to recall any of it happening. The doctor had warned me that temporary memory loss would be a side effect of the injection and now I was beginning to see it. I decided to call Ellie's apartment to check on my girls and was not surprised to find out that the school was closed today and that Megan's asthma was worse. I decided to leave Joanne's side for a while to go and pick up the girls and bring them here. I figured Joanne would want to see the girls and it would also help to keep her mind away from what happened yesterday. The girls seemed happy to see me yet worried for Joanne at the same time. We stopped at our apartment before heading to the hospital and the girls changed and ate breakfast. While they ate, I went down the hall to Joanne's and my bedroom and got a few things for Joanne. I got her pillow and a pair of her pajamas and a couple of photos. One was a picture of Joanne and I with our girls and the other was a picture of our little family on New Year's Eve 1990. Then I headed down to the medicine cabinet and grabbed a surgical mask for Megan to wear on her way to the hospital so she could breathe better. Finally after I had given Megan her medicine and checked that everyone else was ready we left for the hospital. Joanne could not have looked happier to see us and the girls seemed happy to see her as well. She also seemed happy to have the few things from home that I brought her and she immediately wanted to change out of her hospital gown into her own pajamas. After she had changed and was settled back in the bed, she told me that she would watch the girls and that I should go home and relax.

"Go on home and relax, Maureen. We will be fine. Won't we ladies?" she said

The girls agreed, so I went home leaving the girls sitting on Joanne's bed watching a cartoon. I decided that I needed to pay a few people a visit before I went home. I had the cab driver wait for me on the roadway in the cemetery while I went to visit my friend's graves. They were all buried side by side on a hill overlooking the city. I started crying then and wished they were there to help me and support me. I wondered what Angel would have said about what had happened yesterday since she always seemed to think that New York was going downhill. I wished I could have talked to them now because I needed them more then ever. I realized I was keeping the cab waiting so I dried my eyes and made my way back to the cab to go home. Just as the cab pulled up to my apartment building, my cell phone rang. I could hear a panicky Joanne on the other end of the line.

"Maureen, it's Megan, she's gone into an asthma attack and it's a bad one. The worst yet. We need you here as soon as possible"

Not again I thought as I told the driver to take me back to the hospital. Angel HELP!