"Hey…" Charlene whispered when Walsh approached her bunk.

"Hey," he returned just as quiet and sat down next to her.

"Can't sleep?"

Walsh wasn't sure if he really wanted to talk about it. He sighed.

"Nightmare," he simply said, not facing Charlene's worried look.

She took his hand and squeezed it slightly. It was ice cold.

"You okay?" she wanted to know. "Wanna talk about it?"

Walsh closed his eyes, and for a moment, Charlene could see the anguish in his face, the tiredness and the grief.

"The Pile?" she whispered. He nodded.

"When we were down there," Billy started in a quiet voice, "I heard a PASS alarm, one of our PASS alarms." He made a motion to where usually his breathing mask would be.

"I told the others to be quiet and listen, but I couldn't hear it anymore…"

He tried to get rid of that memory, but he couldn't.

"That sound…it hunts me…I can hear it at night, when it's quiet…I could've found a brother…"

Charlene couldn't think of anything to say, so she just stroke his back in a lame attempt to comfort him.

"You should try to sleep some," she finally said. Walsh looked at her and managed a weak smile.

"You're still caring too much about others…," Billy returned.

"Yeah, it's my fatal flaw…"

"Thank you for that," he added.

Charlene gave him a peck on the cheek and let him lay down on her bunk. The thunderstorm was still going on, so there was no way she would need it anyway.


The door of Lieutenant Johnson's office was open as always, when Sidney Edwards knocked at the frame.

"Come in," Johnson said without looking up from the report he was reading.

The young medic approached, holding a plate with some sandwiches in her hand.

"We missed you at dinner, boss," she said, but he ignored her statement.

Sidney stepped beside her superior and put the plate down next to him.

"I thought maybe you're hungry…"

Johnson still didn't look up, but he stopped reading.

The woman turned to go, but the Lieutenant held her back.

"Thank you," he simply said.

She stopped on her way out and turned around again.

"You need to eat, Sir," she returned. Sidney Edwards was only on a temporary assignment here, but she had been welcomed like a member of the family, and that meant a lot to her.

"Sometimes, at night…I can still hear it…that roar when the towers came down…," Johnson whispered all of a sudden.

Edwards' stomach tightened. She hadn't expected something like that from her superior.

"I lost some of my closest friends that day…"

Sydney swallowed hard. Everybody had lost friends that day. Tuesday, September 11th.

"Half of the squad I was with before died that day," she whispered and tried to hold back the tears of the painful memories that were forcing themselves back into her brain.

"We lost good men that day," Johnson said in the same quiet voice. He took a deep breath as if that would help him to get rid of all the emotions and memories.

Johnson looked at Sidney Edwards and started to tell her about Captain Jonathan Martin, his friend. Who got injured during an assignment that was actually meant for this Squad.

"We've known each other from even before we went to the academy. I was his best man."

Johnson drew a deep breath to keep his voice steady.

"He survived 9-11 and now this…"

He looked at the young paramedic, his eyes tired, his face stricken with grief and worry.

"I…I can't afford to loose anymore friends…"


"Squad 55, Ladder 100, Adam 55-3, Boy 55-3, fire in an occupied building at 1773 Lexington Avenue…" the alarm sounded through the quiet firehouse.

Everybody was awake immediately and jumped out of bed and into their pants upstairs while downstairs Lieutenant Johnson acknowledged the call and got into his turnouts.

Charlene Converse pulled herself away from the window and wanted to join the others when she noticed that Walsh was still asleep. She prodded his legs.

"Billy, we have a call!"

He jerked awake.

"What?" He seemed flustered.

"Let's go, we have a call!" Converse repeated and went after her colleagues.

Walsh got up and fought down the nausea again. He ignored his headache and followed the others downstairs.


Lieutenant Swersky was coming down the stairs when a man approached him. He was about his age, had thinning grey hair and wore a dark suit and a beige coat.

"Can I help you?" Swersky asked him.

"Yes, I'm looking for the two officers that handle the Bellard rape case…," the man said matter-of-factly.

"That would be Yokas and Boscorelli. Can you tell me what this is about?"

"I have some information for them."

Swersky signed the man to follow him upstairs and led him to the officers of 55-David.

Yokas was sitting at a desk that was propped against the wall next to the door while Boscorelli was standing close to the holding cell with his back to the entrance door, talking to the alleged rapist.

Suddenly, everything seemed to be happening at once. The man Swersky had taken upstairs reached for Bosco's gun and managed to fire several shots into the holding cell. The he spun around and held the gun towards Swersky and the others. Another pop indicated another shot fired. All Swersky could do was to pull Yokas away from the desk and cover her. Another shot was fired and another.

Then silence…