Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: There are no words to be said about September 11 that have not already been said. But perhaps they can be worded differently through the eyes of NYPD's finest.

It's been two days since September 11. People are still walking around with an odd look upon their faces, the determined ones worn just hours ago, it seems, are gone, replaced by shock, anger, sadness, loss. This can't be happening to them. Not to their city. Not to their country. Nothing like this has happened in nearly sixty years. And even then, it was Pearly Harbor, far from New York. Far from the Big Apple.

I was walking down the street this morning and this woman who was walking towards me just stopped and started crying. Sobbing in the middle of the street. There was another woman, walking behind her, and without question, wrapped her arms around this woman and held her until she stopped crying. All I could do was watch this act of kindness, the likes of which I had never seen in this city. Or any other for that matter.

The little boy who lives next door to me with his mother is making sandwiches with the rest of his third grade class tomorrow. Their goal is one thousand and they're going to deliver them to the workers, along with notes thanking them for what they're doing. He told me all this when I helped his mother carry in some bags yesterday evening.

The young man who lives on the other side of me still doesn't know where his sister is, though they expect the worst. I ran into him this morning when I was leaving for work. He couldn't look me in the eye and all I could do was wish him the best, clap him on the back and keep going down the stairs. What else could I have done?

The elderly couple who live in the apartment above mine left a box of homemade cookies with the super, with a note simply saying "Thank you." I brought them in and shared them with the squad. And they, in turn, have brought in cookies and candy and notes of thanks of their own. The city has stopped hating us for a few days, realizing just how much we lay down everyday so they might be a little safer. The city is thanking us for our sacrifices, both on Tuesday and every day before then, and since. For years of service we never needed thanking for, and now that we are receiving, don't know how to return, other than giving even more of ourselves.

We all did a shift, together, at the Pit yesterday. We came back to the house, tired, coughing and just as gray as the next guy. I hadn't even been working among the debris, merely helping those coming out of it, directing them, talking to them, whatever they needed, but still, the dust reached everywhere, making the world gray.

We came back to the house changed. What we see day in and day out, it's bad, it's horrible at times and sickens even the best of us, and the worst, but what we saw yesterday... that's something none of us are going to forget and something that can never be changed. It's horrible on it's own level. After we all cleaned up and put on fresh clothes, we climbed to the roof, looking out to where smoke still wafted south of us. We faced the hole in the sky and talked. About why. About everything encompassing this disaster. And before we left, I turned once more and saluted. Back straight, hand stiff, face set. The whole deal.

And they saluted with me.