Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, places, and events are property of Anthony Zuiker, Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS, and Alliance-Atlantis. No infringement is intended, and no profit is being made. For entertainment only.

A/N: This chapter contains references to and discussions of 9/11.

Flack lay on his side in bed and listened to the furtive rustling coming from the closet. Rebecca had gotten up as quietly as she could, but he'd slept lightly even before the bombing, and he'd felt the loss of her even before he'd come to full wakefulness. It was an absence of her against his skin, a lightness in his bones that spoke unequivocally of parting.

A clandestine, clittering twang of shifting hanger, and then silence. Even with his back to her, he knew that she was waiting to see if the noise had given her away. He saw her in his mind's eye, crouched in front of the closet like Gollum before the river, skin pale and too bright and her blonde hair turned to silver in the moonlight. Small and shrunken and vaguely inhuman in the darkness of the room. He lay absolutely still, eyes open the merest fraction, and wondered what she was doing, what she was looking for.

After a moment, the rustling resumed, and he stretched an arm beneath the covers until his fingers grazed her side of the bed. Still warm, which meant she hadn't been up long. Ten minutes, maybe. The warmth left by her body faded even as he touched it. From behind him came the conspiratorial, slithering hiss of fabric. She was pulling down clothes.

His back stiffened, but he resisted the urge to roll over. He curled his fingers in the bedsheets and counted breaths and heartbeats. The latter he counted not from the pulsepoint at his throat, but in the one God had furrowed into his gut with a careless, vengeful finger. One, two, three. They fluttered gently against his skin, and though he knew it was a trick of his hypersensitive mind, he imagined he felt the rush of blood as it surged through his surgically-repaired artery with every heartbeat.

Each one was a miracle, the work of a surgeon's nimble hands and a Divine robber baron who had stolen time for him in an act of mercy. Dr. Singh had told him so the day after he'd emerged from his deathless, lightless dreams to see Rebecca holding vigil over him with the tear-stained fragility of a fallen angel. Ten seconds, he'd said as he'd stood at the foot of his bed with a clipboard and a white coat. Ten seconds had made the difference between the starched whiteness of hospital bed linens and the black plastic of a body bag. If Mac had hesitated, or if the Ipod idiot hadn't had a shoelace. Sometimes after a nightmare had pulled him from sleep, he could hear Rebecca's sharp intake of breath and feel the convulsive grip of her fingers around his at the news.

Every one had been earned by months of grueling rehab, months in which he'd sometimes forgotten to be grateful. The pain had been enormous and ravening, and more than once, he'd huddled in the corner of the rehab shower and vomited while water rilled down his shivering, spasming back and washed the evidence of his weakness and misery away. He'd been glad Rebecca hadn't been there to see him like that, naked and broken by the simple act of bending over.

Not that she hadn't wanted to be. If he'd let her, he had no doubt she would have posted herself at his bedside for the duration. But after a week in which she'd done nothing but flip through ancient magazines and watch him sleep, he'd told her to go back to work, that she could help him best by holding down the home front and giving him the time and space to work as hard as his doctors demanded of him.

It had seemed so rational, so damn sensible, and there was a part of him that still insisted it was, but in retrospect, he wondered whether it hadn't been the hairline fracture that had widened into a weeping, bleeding break a few weeks later when her hand had come down in the wrong place.

She was stunned when you brought it up that night. She was sittin' at your bedside, pickin' at the tinfoil on her peach cup, and your wound throbbed in time to the scrape of her fingernails. Her peas and tuna sandwich sat on the plastic tray, untouched.

You licked your lips. Hey, doll? you rasped.

She blinked and dropped the cup onto the plate, scattering peas. Hey, sweetheart. Tender. You okay? You need some water?

You shook your head. Naw. I was just thinkin'. Maybe you should go back to work.

Work, she said as though you'd suggested she drop trou and take a steamin' dump in the middle'a your room. What makes you think I could concentrate on work? She pushed her tray away.

Well, I mean, there's nothin' you can really do here, and I'm sure it's dull as shi-really dull. Work would give you somethin' to do.

She shook her head. If you think I'm leaving you at the tender mercies of these vultures, you're higher than I thought. I'm right where I need to be. She patted your hand.

I really think you should go home, you persisted. She flinched. Your senses were blunted by morphine, but you noticed that much, and you picked up her hand and kissed it. You're beautiful, and don't think for a minute that I don't love seein' you here when I open my eyes, you assured her.

But? she said dully, and if you hadn't been so fuckin' stoned and in so much pain, you'd've recognized it for what it was-the protective indifference of a child who's just been slapped.

But you're tired, doll, and I know you're not sleepin' good on that cheap-ass cot. It makes you stiff, and I'm worried about you fallin'. 'Sides, somebody's gotta keep the house runnin' while I'm on my back.

You really think I'm going to sleep any better alone in our bed? she countered.

You had no answer for that, and in truth, you doubted it, but you had to get her away so she wouldn't see you cryin' and pukin' on yourself and realize that you weren't half as strong as you'd advertised durin' your courtship. You wanted some breathin' room, space to hurt without an audience, no matter how lovin' and sympathetic.

I just think it'd be better if you weren't here all the time, you said at last.

At the time, it seemed the kindest thing you could've said, but knowin' what you know now about what went on during the eight days you were runnin' on autopilot, it was a savage cut to an already raw heart. To her, it was an affirmation of every nasty word your ma uttered in the waitin' room and hallways.

You didn't know that then. You were blissfully ignorant of everything but your own need for privacy in which to recover your ass-raped dignity. So, you thought the sudden brightness in her eyes was relief.

You know, you're right, sweetheart. I should go home and get things ready for you. I could do laundry, change the sheets, and maybe move the TV so you can watch your Rangers from bed. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I just wanted-, She straightened abruptly in her chair. In fact, I think I'll go right now.

You could only blink owlishly at her. You hadn't meant for her to go then. You'd wanted to spend one last night holdin' her hand and fallin' asleep to the sound of her pencil scratching mathematical equations onto a yellow legal pad. But then she was haulin' herself upright by the bedrails and leanin' over to kiss you goodnight.

Goodnight, babe, she whispered. Her lips lingered against your mouth, warm and tremblin'.

You hooked your arm around her neck to keep her from pullin' away. The movement and subsequent tension it required hurt like a son of a whore, but you knew that if you showed it, she'd distance herself, so you put on your game face and swallowed the pain.

Rebecca, I love you, you said softly, and gathered her hair in your hands.

Another flinch, and an exhalation that might'a been a laugh. I know, love. I love you, too. She kissed you again. But you're right. All business now, brisk and tight, like she was talkin' around a gut wound. I've got no business being here all the time and sapping your energy. You need rest.

She slipped out of your embrace and carefully lowered herself into her chair again. She offered you a wan, fragile smile as she gathered the books, pens, notepads, and math journals she'd brought to entertain herself while you drifted, stoned outta your damned gourd.

Sweet dreams, darling, she murmured. Then she slipped the straps of her canvas tote bag over the push handles of her chair and was gone.

You felt the loss of her then, too. It was so acute that your chest ached, and you thought for a minute that your stitchin's had popped. You had your peace and quiet, but it was hollow, and suddenly, you didn't want it anymore. You wanted the reassurin' prickle of her presence against your skin and settled in the center of your chest like the weight of her palm. You wanted to hear her swearin' like a fuckin' sailor while she struggled to get comfortable on the concrete slab that posed as a cot, wanted the room to fill with the sound of her breathin'. But it was too late to take it back, so you turned up the TV too loud to cover the unnatural silence and the achin' emptiness of your room without her in it.

It scared the shit outta you when she didn't turn up the next day or the day after that. You worried that she might'a fallen or gone on a bender. When she didn't show that second afternoon, you cranked up the adjustable bed and called her. She picked up at her office on the third ring, and you wondered what the hell she was doin' there at eight o'clock at night.

Working, was her reply. It's what you said you needed me to do. There was a long silence. Then, The bed's too big.

The simple admission broke your heart, but you kept it light and casual when you asked her where she'd been. She was incredulous, like you'd asked her why she'd relocated to Mars.

You said you didn't want me there. Thin, words formed around the blade of a carvin' knife.

You had an inklin' of what was goin' on then. You told her that you did want her there, that you missed her like hell. You thought she'd come that night, but it wasn't 'til the next afternoon that she rolled into the room. No tote bag that time, just her handbag and a cup of applesauce tucked discreetly into the folds of her skirt.

She arrived just in time to see the nurse injectin' the protein paste that was your dinner into the port of your nasogastric tube. It looked like packaged turd, and you were thankful that you couldn't taste it. She sat quietly just inside the doorway until the nurse trudged out, and then she shut the door and locked it.

She tasted like salt the first time you kissed her that day. Now you know why, of course, but back then, you were perplexed. Not bothered enough to ask her, though. You were so glad to see her that you gabbled about the Rangers and the excessive icing calls in the game the night before and coaxed her into soft, open-mouthed kisses. Maybe if you'd've taken the time to pry that sliver of glass from her heart then, it wouldn't've fragmented into microscopic shrapnel that shredded her when you opened your idiot mouth and confirmed her worst suspicions. You've spent the last three months pickin' it out and cleanin' the wounds, but you know you'll never get it all. Every time you think you've gotten the last of it, more rises to the surface, pushed up by a careless word or a moment of déjà vu. You suspect that there'll always be a piece of that shrapnel lodged behind her beatin' heart, and it'll cut her every chance it gets.

The months of rehab at the hands of talc-handed therapists had remolded him, strengthened and reshaped muscles weakened and torn by a copier and shards of a cellphone. It had returned him to himself and his job in fighting trim, but he wasn't quite the same, and never would be. His body was different, marred by the scar left by the pound of flesh the bomb had required in exchange for his survival. The skin was toughened and wattled, no longer supple, and when Rebecca ran her fingers over it, the sensation was distant and niggling, more recollection than stimulus.

Rebecca had been remolded, too, shaped by his well-intended but clumsy hands. He had done the best he could, had worked from memory and feverish hope, but the restoration had been imperfect. She no longer rested easily inside her skin, and he could still feel sharp edges and awkward angles where his hands had faltered. She was better now than she had been in the beginning, when she had been little more than shifting sand and broken bone beneath his soothing fingers, but she was still not whole, still not the Rebecca she had been before that Sunday morning in May, and he wondered if he would ever be able to unearth her from the ashes.

Sometimes, he felt the aching emptiness of her absence even when she was in the room. He'd be chattering to her about the Yankees or the latest audio book he was listening to in the squad car or the rare funny case that passed through the precinct, and she'd nod and quirk her lips in all the right places, but he'd know that she wasn't really there. It was in her eyes and the flatness in her voice. She was somewhere else that had nothing to do with a cramped living room in New York City.

For a while, he'd thought she was having an affair, but she still smelled the same and tasted the same and came to him with the same fervor. He'd run their credit cards and phone records, looking for any evidence of the man who had turned her thoughts from him, but there had been nothing. Not one phone call or suspicious charge. Her routine never varied. At work by eight and home by four-thirty. Most days, there was even an I love you on his voicemail.

He listened for the slinking creep of her wheels on the carpet or the furtive scrape of an opening door, but there was nothing, not even the whisper of moving clothes. He rolled over as quietly as he could.

Rebecca was sitting in front of the open closet. She was naked, and his stomach lurched in alarm because she had been wearing her flannel nightgown to insulate her from the biting December cold. He couldn't see her face for the fall of her hair, but she was clutching something in her hand, and as he watched, she raised it to her face and sniffed it. She was shuddering convulsively, and he realized that she was crying.

It's a loop of my intestine, he thought stupidly. She's found my missing pieces and is going to help me put them back.

He shook his head and threw back the covers. "Rebecca?" he called quietly, and swung his feet to the floor, where the winter chill burned the soles of his feet. "What're you doin', doll?"

He padded across the floor to where she sat. His feet struck something soft, and he looked down to see several of his jackets and shirts strewn over the floor of the closet and around her wheels, as if she'd tried to build a nest from his clothes. There were ties, too, curled atop the piles of rumpled fabric like strips of drying meat. She was holding one of the ties to her nose and drawing deep, desperate breaths.

"Rebecca," he said again, and grazed her shoulder with cautious fingers. She was cold as marble to the touch. "Shit."

He abandoned his plan to roll her back to bed and scooped her from the chair instead. She shivered at the sudden warmth of his body, and her teeth clacked like rattling dice. He carried her to bed and crawled into it with her, tucking her against him as snugly as he could as he pulled the goosedown comforter over them. Her nipples were hard points against his chest, but he was too worried to be aroused. She was too cold, too quiet, and stiff in his arms.

"Rebecca, what's goin' on? Why're you freezin' to death?" He chafed her arms to increase circulation in her limbs.

A rattling exhalation, and then she turned her head and looked at him. Her wet eyes were silver in the moonlight. Her hand cupped his face, and his skin prickled and stung at the bloodless touch. He covered her hand with his and kneaded it until warmth crept into her fingers.

"I'm sorry, love. I didn't mean to wake you," she murmured.

"That doesn't answer my question," he persisted, but he tightened his grip on her.

She turned and burrowed into his body, head tucked just beneath his chin. He felt her shrug. "Bad dreams."

He relaxed and drew his fingers over her bare arm, light and reassuring. He knew all about bad dreams and the strange compulsions they engendered in the middle of the night. He'd had them almost nightly in the first three months after the bombing, and he still had them every few weeks. They tore him from sleep and drove him to the cold tile of the bathroom or the barren desolation of the roof. Sometimes, he sat on the edge of the latter in nothing but his undershirt and boxers and watched the city sleep below him.

The dreams were all the department shrink had wanted to talk about for the first few sessions. She'd needled and prodded and tried to dissect the pictures in his head with the point of her ballpoint pen, and he'd lied and told her he couldn't remember them even as they replayed in his head. He wasn't going to tell her about the nights he died in Rebecca's arms while the rain came down in blinding sheets and blood poured from her nose and mouth. Nor was he going to tell her about the wedding dance that turned into re-enactment of Carrie, or of making love to her, only to realize that his intestines were slipping and slopping between her open legs. They were his crosses to bear, not carnival exhibits to be hauled up for public inspection and used as an excuse to bounce him from the job as mentally unfit for duty.

Besides, it wasn't like he'd never had bad dreams before. After his sister died, he'd had plenty of nightmares that had sent him scrabbling for the john, and his rookie year hadn't been a cakewalk, either. And there was 9/11, of course, when the nightmares had come hard and fast and he'd awoken every night with the feel of grit on his hands. The worst one during that period had been the one in which he'd discovered a body with his face in the acres of rubble. Nightmares were part of the job.

9/11 was a rough patch for the both of you, too. She had nightmares then, too, but you didn't know that until the first week of October. September was spent in a blur of lookin' for bodies and makin' death notifications and goin' to funerals in your dress blues. September was a boom month for the dry cleanin' business. You didn't see your apartment for days, and it might make you a bastard to admit it, but Rebecca was the furthest thing from your mind for the first couple'a days after the attacks. You were still in shock, still tryin' desperately to save your wounded city that was bleedin' blue from the gapin' hole in the skyline.

You finally got a free phone line on the 15th, and when she heard your voice on the line, she cried. Then the guilt came as it occurred to you what she musta been goin' through, not knowin' for four days whether you were alive or dead. You called her every night after that to reassure her that you were all right, but you didn't see her again until October 7th

It's not that you didn't want to see her. But the fact is, you were so fucked up that you had no comfort to give. You weren't eatin' or sleepin', and your mouth and lungs were constantly full of your dead friends and fellow officers. You thought it best if you kept your craziness away from her and got your shit into at least a parody of together before you went to her.

You turned up on her doorstep at six o'clock on October 7th. You'd thought about bringin' her flowers or a bottle of wine, but colors and tastes hadn't returned to the world yet, so you came with just your haggard face and gritty hands and waited in her hallway. If she was disappointed that you were all there was when she opened the door, then you'd know she wasn't The One no matter how much you fuckin' loved her.

But when she opened the door, she never looked at your hands. She just pulled you inside, pulled herself to her feet with your shoulders, and clung to you. You swept her off her feet with the intention of carryin' her to the couch, but before you could take a step, your legs gave out, and you sat down hard on the floor with her in your arms. You tried to apologize, but you could only stutter and stammer and shake uncontrollably.

When you could get up, you headed for the bathroom and took a shower with your clothes on, pullin' hers off under the hot spray and tossin' 'em over the shower rod. You took her in the shower, and let the dirt, guilt, and ashes of other people swirl down the drain at your feet. You kept comin' back to her all night, fuckin' her blindly in the dark. It felt so good to have somethin' alive and warm beneath your hands after weeks of touchin' and smellin' nothin' but death. You told her you loved her over and over again while her cunt milked your twitchin' prick and her eyes rolled helplessly in their sockets.

Her whimperin' and thrashin' woke you up after that last time, and when you pulled her to you, her heart was racing inside her chest. She finally calmed down enough to tell you about the nightmare of you findin' your face in the rubble and reachin' up to find a raw, bloody hole where it should'a been. It made you sick to think about it, but it also reassured you that you weren't goin' fuckin' crazy. You rocked her to sleep, and then you got your first night of deep, uninterrupted sleep since September 10th. You spent most of October at her place, and by Thanksgiving, you knew you were gonna marry her. You bought the ring that January, and on February 2nd, 2002, you put your heart and soul on the line and asked for her hand.

"Dreams, huh? You wanna talk about it?"

She shook her head, but then she spoke. "You didn't make it. They played the bagpipes for you, and all the officers were made of tin, and the rain pattered on their bodies…"

He made a wordless sound of comfort and placed her hand over his heart. "I'm right here, Rebecca."

She drew her fingers over his skin, traced wandering patterns from sternum to the shelf of his groin. She lingered reverently over the scar, mouth parted in breathless concentration. The light, fluttering touches made him ache.

"You're so warm now," she murmured, and craned to kiss his throat. Her hand drifted to his belly and rested there, stroked it in lazy circles. "You were so cold before."

"In the hospital, you mean?"

"So cold, and I couldn't make you warm. They wouldn't-wouldn't let me."

"The nurses?"

She grunted, and he took it as assent.

"Is that where you go when you're a million miles away? Back there?"

She twisted and looked at him in surprise. "No. Not there. But I don't go where you think, either. If you die, love dies with you."

It was a blunt, brutal admission of the depth of her love, and though he'd always known it and felt it in kind, had always felt it beneath her skin and seen it in the way she looked at him, to hear it so plainly stated unmanned him, and he drew a deep breath to steady himself before he asked his next question.

"Then where do you go, doll?"

That answer was equally simple. "Somewhere to make myself warm again."

Her caresses gradually slowed and then stopped, and her breathing deepened with the stealth of oncoming sleep. He held her against his chest even after she had gone limp and heavy in the hope that his heartbeat would remind her that he hadn't left her in the bright sunshine of a May morning. Remind her that her dreams were only dreams, and nothing more. She cried out once more in the night, lost and despairing, but quieted when he whispered her name and kneaded the hard knobs of her spine.

There were no dreams for him because he did not sleep, and by morning he had resolved to find out what had happened to her in that hospital during his long, undreaming sleep.