The scene was complete and utter carnage, thick and acrid smoke continued to fill the platform as it belched violently from what was left of the subway train, its metal frame ripped open like a can of tuna. Red liquid stained the portions of the carriage that were immediately visible to his eyes, the smell of burnt flesh hit him forcefully as his eyes fell upon the headless body of a woman who was still desperately clinging to what was left of the child in her arms.

He turned away and vomited the contents of his stomach at the macabre sight in front of him, screwing his eyes shut and then opening them again, hoping that this was nothing more than a horrible nightmare. His eyes shot open as he heard the faint noise of a woman calling from the remnants of the train, his brain immediately convinced that it was Lori's voice that he heard.

Without a second thought to his own safety, he clambered into the broken and twisted metal and made his way to where he thought the sound was coming from. Burnt, broken and dismembered bodies were lying everywhere but he paid them no heed as he focused his efforts on finding the owner of the voice that was growing quieter by the second.

He thought he'd been too late when the small voice eventually stopped calling out, he ran a hand over his head and growled, stopping when he heard a faint whisper.

"Help me, please," the voice croaked.

The noise had sounded as if it were coming from somewhere beneath him, he moved back a few paces and realised that he had been standing in a pool of someone's blood. It was then that he saw an exposed portion of a hand underneath the debris at his feet; the hand looked like that of a young woman.

He tore at the mound of metal and debris that was covering the body, twice his hands slipped on the sharp corners of the chairs and ceiling panels that covered the injured woman but he paid them no attention as blood from the deep cuts on his hands began to mingle with that of the victim that lay beneath him.

"I'm coming, hold on," he told the woman buried underneath, praying that it his hunch was wrong, that his beloved wife was not the badly injured person lying before him.

It seemed to take hours, but finally he managed to lift the last of the metal lying on top of the woman. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed that he wasn't looking into the face of Lori when he finally revealed the identity of the injured stranger.

"Thank you," she croaked as she reached out blindly to him, blood covering her face and streaming into her eyes, one of which looked badly damaged by the blast.

He gripped her hand firmly and stroked it with his thumb, "You hold on, you hear me. Rescue are on their way, you're going to be fine."

He desperately wanted to leave her and continue on his pursuit of finding Lori but each time he tried to raise himself from his knees she would grip on to him tighter and beg him not to leave. Her injuries were severe and he was doubtful as to whether she would hold on long enough for the rescue teams to arrive, there was no way that he could leave her to die alone amongst all of the chaos that had erupted when the subway train exploded. He knew that if it were him that was injured that he would not have wanted to die alone like that.

With each minute that passed his fear for his wife's safety grew, he had not heard so much as a groan from any of the subway cars further down the track. Had the people on those carriages got to safety and made it above ground without being injured?

The people on this section were either gravely injured or dead, many of them unrecognisable due to their horrific injuries, there would be little Rescue could do to save anyone here. He felt the hand gripping his own loosen slightly and he increased his efforts to keep the woman conscious.

"Hey, what's your name?" he asked her as he looked down at her injured face.

"Ca…Cathy," she coughed a few moments later.

He couldn't fail to notice the blood that had appeared at the corner of her mouth, she was beginning to have trouble breathing, his basic medical training telling him that she likely had a punctured lung or something worse. She was fading fast; all he could do was stay with her and try to keep her calm.

"That was my mother's name," he told her sadly as he moved a lock of blood-soaked hair from her forehead with his free hand.

"Wha…What's…..your name?" she gasped as her struggle to breath in enough air to stay alert began to seep the little strength she had left.

"John."

"Like…..the Baptist?"

He smiled at her, "That's right."

He watched helplessly as her chest heaved and more blood escaped from her mouth, the few drops now turning into a steady trickle.

"I'm scared, John," she told him honestly.

Gripping her hand tighter he tried to keep her conscious by sheer force of will alone, the acrid smoke in the carriage was getting thicker and making it harder for him to breathe properly himself. He wiped the sweat and grime away from his forehead with his free hand. "I'll stay with you."

Tears pricked at his eyes as he watched her struggle to keep drawing breath, her grip on his hand loosening as she stared at him with unseeing eyes, a faint smile crossing her lips as she regarded him as an angel guiding her through to the afterlife. "Tha…thank…..you," she exhaled with her last breath as her body went limp.

He was covered in her blood, kneeling in the still-warm liquid as it soaked up through his pants and made contact with his skin. He wanted to get up and leave her but couldn't, he would not leave the woman's side until he had passed her on to another who would take care of her earthly body until her spirit could rise up to the Heavens and be united with God.

He made the sign of the cross as he prayed for her safe passage to the other side. "Peace be with you," he whispered. He coughed heavily as the smoke filled his lungs and bent him over, his vision swimming momentarily before he felt the darkness creeping upon him.

His face would have met with what was left of the floor of the carriage were it not for a strong pair of gloved hands grabbing him by the shoulders and keeping him upright. He looked dazedly in the direction of the voice calling to him.

"Sir? Sir, are you injured?"

His eyes narrowed as he tried to get a clearer image of the person talking to him. All he could see was the outline of someone dressed in what looked like heavy-duty gear, a helmet and some kind of gas mask. "I'm…fine," he croaked between hacking coughs as he felt his strength leave him again.

"Let's get you out of here," the deep male voice told him as he felt himself being pulled to his feet.

He began following until he remembered the reason he'd clambered onto the wreckage in the first place. "No…my wife. I have to find her."

The stranger pulling him along ignored his pleas as he continued to be moved away further away from the other carriages that he had intended to search.

"We'll find her, sir."

The lack of clean air was beginning to make him feel dizzy, he stumbled a number of times on pieces of the wreckage and body parts of some of the unfortunate victims. "No, you don't understand," he exclaimed as he tried to free himself from the strong grip.

Soon another pair of gloved hands took hold of him and pulled him back onto the platform and into the waiting hands of a paramedic who pushed him firmly down to sit on the cold concrete floor.

"Let us check you over sir," the young female medic smiled at him as she attempted to fit him with an oxygen mask.

He began resisting immediately as the pure oxygen hit his bloodstream and cleared some of the fog that had descended over him. "No…..I have to find my wife!" His words were barely perceptible over the sounds of bolt cutters and blow torches as Rescue workers began cutting parts of the mutilated carriage away in order to reach anyone who might still be alive.

He made a move to stand up and found the tall and imposing figure of the local Fire Chief keeping him down with a large gloved hand. "Get off me, I'm a cop!" he yelled as he tried to swat the hands away that were trying to tend to him.

"I don't care if you're Batman. You're not going back in there, if your wife is in there we'll find her."

He wanted so much to push the people trying to help him away, to get past the men trying to hold him back until he had searched every last carriage of the subway train, not resting until he had found Lori one way or the other. His energy was gone though as he looked up at the medic tending to him, it was then that he felt the stinging sensation in his hands.

"Looks like you might need stitches, sir." He watched on as gauze and bandages were wrapped around each of his hands with tape to hold them in place. "You need to leave and let them do their job; they'll find your wife."

The paramedic's words sounded hollow, but he was powerless to stop himself being lead from the platform and back up the stairs that he had hurtled down sometime earlier as he raced to find any trace of Lori.

It caused him physical pain as he reached the surface; the strong rays of the mid-morning sun assaulted him after what seemed like hours in the dusty darkness of the underground. People were running around everywhere, sirens screeched and hollered as triage centres and command bases were set up on the roadside.

He found himself being pushed towards an ambulance by a group of concerned first responders who instructed him to sit on the tailgate whilst they tended to him. A blanket had been thrown around his shoulders as another oxygen mask was placed on his face. He could've sworn that he heard someone calling to him from afar; he raised his head and caught the outline of a familiar stocky figure.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" Andy berated him as he got closer, wincing when he saw his soot-covered and bloodied partner sitting feebly on the floor of the ambulance.

Pulling the oxygen mask to one side, he coughed before answering. "Lori…she was on that train."

Despite the grime and blood that covered John's face, Andy could clearly see the look of pure fear. "You don't know that for sure, kid."

The younger man gave up trying to resist the paramedic who placed the mask back over his face and tutted at him to keep it on. "God, Andy…there were so many bodies…She's dead…..I know she is."

Even with the mask on his face, it was clear to see that John's bottom lip was wobbling as the adrenaline began to wear off. Andy watched as his partner's eyes filled with tears, leaving clear tracks down his dirt-covered face. He sat down heavily next to him, "She's not dead until we find a body. You got it?"

He'd been told repeatedly that he'd need to go to the nearest hospital for stitches in his hands but he refused to budge until he had definitive proof that Lori had been killed in the explosion. Minutes ticked by at an achingly slow pace as one by one the bodies of the victims were brought to the surface on stretchers covered by sheets to spare onlookers from the gruesome sight of their mutilated remains.

At least Andy had the presence of mind to fish his partner's wallet from his pants pocket, rifling through until he found a picture of Laura. He passed it on to the nearest Rescue worker and ordered him to alert them to anyone matching her description. He wasn't sure what was worse, the waiting for confirmation that they'd found her or the interminable wait they had for any kind of news at all.

"Detective Sipowicz?"

Andy turned quickly in the direction of the voice. "Who's asking?"

"Officer Patrick, sir," the young uniformed officer replied.

"Whaddya want?" he asked from over his shoulder as he returned his attention to his partner who'd begun shaking as the shock set in.

"I have a message from Dispatch, I was told to get it to you ASAP, sir."

He looked at the gangly-looking officer expectantly.

"Someone by the name of Laura Kelly rang in a few minutes ago, she's asking to speak to a…" the young man paused as he looked down at his notepad, "John Kelly?"

He couldn't contain the huge smile that crossed his wearied features as he grabbed John by the shoulders and shook him lightly. "You hear that, kid? She wasn't on the train…..she's ok!"

John looked at him in confusion, unsure as to whether he'd heard his partner correctly or not. He had little time to get his head round it as Andy pulled him to his feet and back in the direction of the Precinct, slapping his back as he stumbled along with him.

The rest of the day passed him by without a second thought as Andy drove him to the ER where his hands were stitched and bandaged properly. They had stuck him with numerous needles, tetanus shots, numbing agents, the lot. He paid them little notice as he stared straight ahead, even ignoring his grumbling partner who was trying to get him to respond to whatever he'd been saying.

The sights and sounds around him had been drowned out by the images of the torn and twisted subway carriage and the mutilated bodies that were strewn across it, all the while thinking that one of the dead could so easily have been Lori.

He'd spoken to her briefly back at the Precinct as she assured him that she'd been running late and had caught a cab to the office instead. Her primary concern had been for him as her ears picked up on the distracted nature of his single word responses.

Andy had driven him back to the apartment; he followed his partner blindly as he continued to walk around as if in a daze. A mug of coffee had been shoved into one of his injured hands as Andy lowered his bulky frame onto an armchair opposite the couch.

"You ok, John?" he asked with concern evident in his voice.

For the longest time, he didn't answer as he closed his eyes and was once more confronted with the image of Cathy, the woman he'd found beneath the wreckage and how she had begged him not to leave her as she lay dying in a pool of her own blood.

"John?"

He looked up at his partner, his dazed eyes not really focusing on the man before him. "It could have been Lori," he whispered.

"It wasn't. She's fine, what about you?"

He didn't understand why Andy was asking him if he was ok; he was still in one piece. Unlike poor Cathy.

Fear struck at the heart of Andy as he regarded his shell-shocked partner, John had been distant and distracted since he'd found him bloodied and covered in grime by the ambulance earlier that morning. He'd seen with his own eyes the horrific injuries of some of the survivors; just how much worse were the victims John had seen below ground?

"Get some rest, kid. Go and get your head down for a few hours."

He'd taken Andy's advice and made his way slowly to the bedroom but each time he'd closed his eyes he'd been confronted with the gruesome images of the remnants of the train carriage and the last dying words of the woman he'd tried to save.

He must have dozed off at some point as he heard the front door open and close, he opened his eyes to find the room bathed in darkness and assumed that it was now early evening. He made to rub at his face with his hands but regretted it when a stinging pain shot through them at the movement, his fingers were stiff and sore as he tried to move them and inject a little feeling back into them. He looked up as a gentle female voice called to him.

"Hey, how you doing?" she asked him tenderly as she sat beside him on the bed.

He told himself that he would never take her for granted again, he pulled her close and pinned her with a searing kiss, only breaking away when he needed to get more air into his lungs. "I thought I'd lost you," he gasped as he lent his forehead against hers and closed his eyes.

Cupping his face with her hands, she placed a soothing kiss on his lips. "I'm right here."

He'd looked so lost that she couldn't help but want to take care of him that night, her deeply-buried maternal instinct coming to the fore as she tended to him, letting him have his way with her in an almost desperate fashion as he fought to convince himself that she was still here with him. She'd held him as he eventually fell asleep at some point in the early hours of the morning.

His thrashing arms were the first thing to alert her to his distress as he reached out blindly in his sleep, calling to someone repeatedly, his voice becoming more distraught by the second.

"Shhh, it's ok," she crooned in his ear.

It had little effect as he sat bolt upright in bed and let out a loud cry, his chest heaving and eyes bulging as he came back to awareness with frightening force. He looked at her as sweat poured from his brow, his arms and chest also soaked with perspiration.

"Are you ok?"

He said nothing, he just continued to look at her as he breathed heavily, shaking his head.

"Come on…..come here." She pulled him back down towards the pillows and kissed his damp face as she used her hands to rub soothing circles over his bare skin. "Close your eyes. I won't leave you….I promise."

Her words seemed to permeate through the fog in his brain as he gradually relaxed and fell back into a dreamless sleep, only waking again when the alarm clocked beeped itself into life at a little after six in the morning.

"Stay in bed," she told him as she kissed him good morning. "No one expects you to go in today after what happened."

He groaned as he sat up in bed. "No, I'm going to drive you in today."

"No you're not."

"Lori, I'm not letting you go in by yourself. I almost lost you yesterday."

"I wasn't on the subway, I told you that," she said in an exasperated tone, trying to reason with him.

"But you could have been…..that could have been you that I watched die yesterday. I'm not letting you go anywhere by yourself." His tone was insistent and firm as he pulled himself to the edge of the bed and stood up, swaying slightly before righting himself.

"I don't need a babysitter, John." She could feel her hackles rising at the condescending manner in which he was speaking to her.

Placing his hands on his hips, he shot her a fierce look as he raised his voice. "You're my wife and I'm driving you to work, that's the end of it!"

The shock of his tone caused her to stop what she was doing and look at him incredulously. Shaking herself out of her stupor, she stomped over to the dresser and began pulling out clothes violently before throwing them on the bed.

"I'm your wife, not your Goddamn property!" she shouted back at him. "You don't get to tell me where I go or what I get to do."

He ran a hand through his already-tousled hair. "Lori…I want to keep you safe," he pleaded, trying to make her understand how close he'd come to losing her yesterday.

"I can look after myself thank you very much. I've lived in New York all my life and I've done just fine so far."

"Lori, it's dangerous out there. You could get hurt."

She threw her arms up in annoyance. "So could anyone," she retorted as she began getting dressed for work.

"Lori…you don't understand….."

"No, you don't understand. I'm an adult and I'll make my own decisions and take myself to work. I don't need your permission."

She left him standing there, giving him a clear signal that the topic was not up for further discussion.