I wrote this a long time ago, but never got around to publishing it. What better time than now? Here is the next addition to the 'Memory Box' collection of one-shots.

All Together, Forever

8:46:30

Nikolaas was jerked out of his sleep by a sharp pain in his chest. It felt as if a butcher knife that had just been dipped in a bucket full of ice pierced him. The pain grew greater the more seconds ticked by, growing from intermittent, short stabs of ice to constant jabs of searing hot pain. He instinctively put his right hand to his chest, turning on the lamp on the nightstand next to his bed at the same time. Drawing his hand away from his chest once there was light enough to see, he expected there to be blood on it, but there was none.

"What the hell?" He yelled aggressively to no one. The pain was still there, as constant and intense as it had been just moments before, yet there was no blood. Aching with every movement of his muscles, he pulled his gray sleeveless shirt upwards, throwing it to the floor once he'd managed to get it over his head. He looked down to his chest, feeling with his hands concurrently for a wound or re-opened wound (he had a few of those). There was no new wound to be found and his old wounds were all scarred over, as usual. But the pain was still there and it was getting worse. It was spreading to his abdomen and head, sharp stabs of pain radiating throughout his forehead and intestinal area.

This was not a new pain. He'd felt this kind of pain before. But it hurt more each time.

8:47:23

Hands clutching against his throat, Johannes was struggling to reach the TV remote sitting on the coffee table in front of him. He'd been enjoying the calm morning, drinking a mug of strong black coffee and chewing on a plain bagel when the pain in his throat started. It had felt dry at first and he'd set down his coffee mug, thinking that it might have been too hot and burned his throat. Then the burning started. It felt like a fire was blazing in his throat, choking him. The air seemed to get thinner and he couldn't breathe in enough of it, desperately taking in large gulps of air.

He was suffocating. It was agonizing. Suffocation was something he had never experienced.

8:48:03

The news channel Eleanor and her on-again off-again boyfriend Nathaniel for more than the last two centuries were watching – WNYW, a local New York channel they got in Maryland and Nathaniel's state of Massachusetts because Nikolaas insisted on it – suddenly switched from the trailer of an upcoming movie, Zoolander,to images of black smoke swirling around the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York. The footage was shaky and unprofessional, but both Nathaniel and Eleanor were immediately captivated, having previously been nonchalant towards the movie trailer.

A man's voice was talking as a voice-over on the images, "Jim, just a few moments ago, something believed to be a plane crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. I just saw flames inside, you can see the smoke coming out of the tower; we have no idea what it was. It was a tremendous boom just a few moments ago. You can hear around me emergency vehicles heading towards the scene. Now this could have been an aircraft or it could have been something internal. It appears to be something coming from the outside, due to the nature of the opening on about the 100th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center."

They could see that flames now, around the 100th floor of the North Tower (the reporter had obviously not known which was which), as the footage became clearer. Eleanor shifted her eyes from the television to Nathaniel. He did not turn away from the television, but murmured silently like one would in an attempt to not wake a sleeping baby, "We need to call the others."

8:48:41

Michiel massaged his closed eyelids. They were stinging. It felt like someone had just poured bleach into them or a gallon of salt, he couldn't decide which sounded better. It was an itchy sort of stinging, but you couldn't exactly scratch your eyeball. A dry feeling also existed, getting worse as the time ticked by.

"What's happened now?" He grumbled to herself, thinking that the burning in his eyes was a result of a large fire or mini nuclear meltdown. Hopefully it was not the latter, as that would only earn him several complaints from all the other states. He hated arguing with them, though they all argued with each other all the time. "Go away, go away," he chanted, continuing to massage his eyelids.

8:49:34

The toast Joseph had just stuck into his mouth and yet bit into fell from his loose lips to the breakfast counter. A Ditech commercial had been playing and halfway through, a subtitle reading 'WORLD TRADE CENTER DISASTER' popped up followed quickly by live footage of the trade center in New York City. A pretty news anchor named Carol Lin popped up beside the image, holding a note card and wearing a grim expression.

She composed herself, taking a deep breath, before the live footage once again dominated the screen of Joseph's fifty-four inch television. "This just in. You are looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there. That is the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center." Joseph fell backwards into the wooden chair behind him. It creaked at the sudden weight, the front two legs lifting a few centimeters off the kitchen floor before falling back down. The footage disappeared, leaving him with just the pretty news anchor to watch. "CNN Center right now is just beginning to work on this story, obviously calling our sources and trying to figure out exactly what happened, but clearly something relatively devastating happening this morning there on the south end of the island of Manhattan. That is once again, a picture of one of the towers of the World Trade Center."

The footage came back and he was transfixed. Not very long later, he listened to the vice-president of CNN say that a large passenger commercial jet had been the 'plane' that hit the south tower. He cringed at the thought of all the people that would have no doubt been on the plane and wondered if it wasn't just an accident by an overworked pilot. The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach told him it this was not so.

The door to his condo slammed open, a dark brown-haired male running in. "Joseph, have you seen the news?" The man stared from the television to Joseph, his answer coming to him without Joseph having to answer. He shook his head at the footage that was showing the burning north tower, "Its terrorists, isn't it?" Joseph didn't respond, staring numbly at the screen. "Damn it! How the hell could this happen?"

8:51:45

"The middle east is growing more unstable," Aleksander commented, running one of his large hands over a document to further flatten it. He liked all things to be perfect and neat. It was one of his best traits, in his opinion, though most of the other states would say it was the worst. They were annoyed by his tendency for perfectionism, or so they often grieved.

"That place has been unstable for decades," Elizabeth agreed, straightening up in her seat and patting her brown bun to check that not a strand of hair was out of place. She also had a penchant for neatness like Aleksander, but was more likely to let it go at times than him. Punctuality, however, was one trait that she was very particular about. And currently, it seemed, the other states were showing their lack of it. It irritated her, their blatant disregard for the meeting times. Most of them only arrived whenever it suited them.

The double oak doors to the states' meeting room slung open, a stern-faced Frederick entering. He was carrying his briefcase underneath his arm, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I apologize for my late arrival," he said, though he did not sound apologetic. "I suspect the others will be later than me, however."

Elizabeth raised a brow, "Why?"

Frederick looked up from his black briefcase he was currently plundering through – it was very disorganized, which Aleksander thought to mention to the man later – blinking at the brown-haired women in confusion. "You don't know?"

"Know what?" Aleksander questioned, wondering what it was this time he was out of the loop with. Before, there had been the time when all the southern male states gathered at Sasha's for a hunting trip and used it as an excuse not to show up, or that time when the rest of the states had celebrated Michiel's birthday, which he'd forgotten about (unintentionally, of course). He was always the last to know when it came to such events.

"A plane crashed into one of the twin towers. Jasper called to tell me."

"What?" Elizabeth screeched, pushing up from the table with her hands, staring incredulously at Frederick. An outside observer would have thought he'd just declared he was secretly a spy or was having a child, though he was male, making such a declaration impossible. "How?"

Frederick shrugged, letting out a little 'Aha!' as he pulled a white piece of paper from the cluttered briefcase. It had a small coffee stain on the top left corner.

8:53:02

Simon paced across the entryway into his home, tapping his thumbs against one another. The pieces of his slightly too long blonde hair kept falling into his eyes, but he did move them as he normally would have. He bit his lip, looking to his watch and the door repeatedly until it opened. A taller, dirty blonde-haired male walked in, his own face wrought with worry.

"Have you talked to Nikolaas?" He asked, staring back at his still running BMW only ten feet from the door. That was probably the fastest he'd driven a car in his life, so far. Simon had called, his voice frantic, relating to him the current happenings in New York. He had told Simon to wait for him, jumped into his car, and headed for Rhode Island.

Simon shook his head, his eyes widening at the name. "God, Jasper, do you think he's okay?"

"Of course," Jasper responded quickly, wanting to reassure the shorter man before he broke down into tears (he was always overemotional, Simon), "he's been through worse. Remember the revolution?"

Hesitantly, Simon nodded. He did not like to think of the revolution. It was a bad memory. The others didn't show it like him, but he knew that it was just as painful to remember to them. They'd been through a lot during the revolution, all of them. And the Civil War. That was hell. The worst of his memories came from those years. Nikolaas had survived those wars and more, just like the rest of them. He was perfectly fine right now and Simon was only worrying more than he should have, as usual. Still, he didn't like it when one of the others was hurt.

"We should probably still go check on him though, right?"

"Yes, let's go," Simon nodded vigorously, following Jasper out of his home. The two sped off quickly in Jasper vehicle, headed to New York.

8:55:00

Louis stood next to the president, listening intently as the man discussed the current events in New York with the national security advisor. He watched secret service agents scurry about, securing the elementary school. How scary, he thought, it would be for the children to know what was happening outside or in New York. The thought chilled him. One of the tallest buildings in the world was hit by a plane. Several people would have died already, those on the plane and in the building. It would be difficult, if not entirely impossible, to rescue those trapped above the floor the plane has crashed into. More dead people, then.

After he got off the phone, the president composed himself. Louis walked into the elementary school behind him, wondering how the man managed to put on such a cheery front after having just heard that several American citizens had died. Humans were stronger beings than he, because he could not muster a smile while the thought of the towers rested in his mind.

9:03:02

A piercing scream greeted Rosslyn as she entered the gray-colored, modern styled house. It was a frightening scream. She had heard it before. It was the scream of dying men. Her heart beating too quickly, she ran up the steel stairs. They rattled with each step she took, one step dipping forward, causing her to lose her balance and fall onto the stairs. She was lucky enough to be able to grab on and not slid down, climbing the last five steps before standing once she was on hardwood floor again.

It was in the bathroom that she found him, hunched over the sink, blood dribbling onto the floor from his chest. He was coughing, spitting up a black tar-like substance into the sink, the water running full blast to quickly flush it down the drain. His black hair was disheveled and he did not wear a shirt, allowing her to see the two gashes side by side on his upper left chest. Both were bleeding, the one on the right more releasing less blood and more slowly than the left gash.

"Nik," she called him by his nickname, taking a few cautious steps towards the hunched figure. It had taken her only a few interactions with injured individuals to know that most reacted badly to being approached. They wanted to be left alone. She had wanted the same herself. It was that natural reaction, she supposed, that instinctive thought that you had to care for yourself and others only wanted to harm you. "Let me help you." He didn't say anything, though he had stopped coughing into the sink. She could hear his heavy breathing, watching his chest rise and fall rapidly. His heart rate was too fast. "Please, Nik."

The male turned slowly, clutching with his right hand at his bleeding chest. Every movement caused him pain. His entire body ached. He looked into the green eyes he'd adored for centuries. There was a strawberry blonde curl hanging in Rosslyn's face. Nikolaas wanted to brush it behind her ear for her, but couldn't will himself to lift his arm for something so simple. "What happened?" He questioned her, wondering why she looked so surprised when he asked. It hadn't exactly been his number one thought, turning on the TV to see what was happening in his state to cause him so much pain.

"A commercial airplane crashed into one of the twin towers."

"Shit," he muttered, earning a slight frown from the curly-haired girl. She often stated she did not like the use of profanity, which he was so fond of, though he'd caught her using it numerous times herself. "What else happened?" Something else had to just happen. That second stab to his chest had made him scream in agony.

Rosslyn shook her head, "I don't know. We'll have to look." She moved to stand beside him, placed an arm around him and under his left shoulder. He winced at the touch. "Sorry," she quickly said, staring at him anxiously. He didn't respond, letting her help him back to his bed. She sat him down on it and tried to force him to lie down, though he refused to do so. Finding the remote to the TV hanging on the wall in front of his bed squashed between two pillows that had been thrown on the floor, she turned the TV on and flipped to a local news channel.

The TV was quickly turned off once she caught sight of a human body falling from one of the towers. She had hurriedly glanced to Nikolaas to see if he noticed, but it did not appear he had.

"So two planes randomly flew into the twin towers." Rosslyn did not speak for a several long minutes. "Terrorists."

Rosslyn bandaged him, calling Johannes, who said he was already on his way, to tell him to pick up some extra gauze and alcohol. She berated Nikolaas for not having more medical supplies in his home, and he asked her if she thought homes were meant to be hospitals. The two then sat side by side, Rosslyn allowing Nikolaas to squeeze her hand tightly in an attempt to combat the pain until others began to arrive one by one.

In case it was hard to keep up with who is who, I've listed the states along with the names I gave them down here. Connecticut – Michiel, Maryland – Eleanor, North Carolina – Gabriel, South Carolina – Joseph, Virginia – Elizabeth, Delaware – Aleksander, New Jersey – Johannes, New York – Nikolaas, Massachusetts – Nathaniel, Pennsylvania – Frederick, New Hampshire – Jasper, Rhode Island – Simon, Georgia – Rosslyn, Florida – Louis.

I hope you enjoyed this short read.