This is the first chapter I've written that made me cry. I'm sorry.

Chapter 18 – 9/11 Part Two

I watched in horror as the plane flew into the side of the building. A huge mass of flames, debris and smoke exploded out of the impact zone. I could hear Skye screaming on the other end of the phone, along with her co-workers. I heard glass shattering, debris falling and people crying out. I had never heard something so horrendous.

Then things went quiet. Things stop falling, people stopped screaming. All I could hear was heavy breathing, and people sobbing quietly in the background.

"Skye?" Tears pricked at my eyes and strained my voice. "Skye? Are you still there? Baby talk to me…"

"I'm here," she whispered, almost as if she was hiding from something.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"Not really. Just a couple of cuts."

"Are you below or above the floors that the plane hit?" I prayed she was below. Please. Let her get out of there.

"A few floors below." I let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank God. Okay, Skye I need you to get out of there now. As fast as you can. Then come to the harbour. Stay on the phone, I need to know you're okay." I heard her crawl out from under her desk and begin to run. "Take it easy though, sweetheart. I don't want you falling down the stairs or something." I knew the elevators would be out of service. A bloody great plane had just taken out a chunk of the tower. No doubt the elevator shaft was fucked.

"Son, is are you okay?" a middle aged woman on the boat asked me, placing her hand lightly on my back. I looked at her in shock. She shouldn't be caring about me. I wasn't in the towers.

"I'm a little on edge, sorry Ma'am. My girlfriend is in the tower that was just hit. She's getting out though." She looked at me sympathetically.

"Gerard?" Skye caught my attention back on the phone. She sounded concerned.

"What's wrong sweetie?" If she's stuck I swear to God…

"There's a woman here. She's in a really bad way. People are just running past her. I can't leave her alone, Gerard…" Fuck.

"What's wrong with her?"

"She's badly burnt. Her face and arm are black from the fire. She must have been closer to the impact zone."

"Okay help her up, take her with you." I heard her walking, then faintly talking to her. She sounded distraught. She was crying - that much was obvious - and moaning in pain.

"It's okay; I'm going to help you. I'll do whatever I can to get you out." She reassured the woman. I heard Skye attempt to pick her up, but the woman cried out in pain. "I'm sorry, oh God I'm so sorry…" she apologised as she put her down again. "I'll find you something for the burn."

I heard Skye rushing off into another room, and taking off her jacket. There was running water. She was soaking the jacket… She's so fucking clever. She rushed off again, back to the woman.

"Okay, this is going to sting a little but it'll sooth the burning." There was a horrifying sizzle as she placed the jacket over the woman. She screamed out a little, and then went quiet again, breathing heavily. "We have to keep moving. Everyone is being evacuated." I heard them fumbling around again, and then they started to move.

"Is she okay, dear?" The middle aged woman asked me.

"Yeah, she's helping out an injured woman. They're on the move now."

"She sounds like quite the hero!"

"Yeah, she's saved my life plenty of times too…" The lady smiled at me and rubbed my back.

"FUCK!" I heard Skye shout.

"What? What is it?" I turned back to the phone.

"The emergency stairwell is out. There's so much rubble and some small fires…Gerard we're trapped…" No. No, she wasn't trapped. She was fine. She was going to get out.

Skye started crying as I heard her sit down in defeat.

"Skye, listen to me; there has to be a fire extinguisher somewhere. If you can find one, then you can put the fires out and moves the rubble. Please baby, you've got to try." I heard her get up, telling the injured woman to stay where she was. She picked something up, and went back. I heard a spraying of an extinguisher, and a little hope was restored.

Skye then shouted out a string of profanities and threw the extinguisher to one side.

"What is it?" I asked, panicked again.

"It ran out before I could get the last two fires… Face it Gerard; I'm not getting out of here." She sounded so defeated. She'd given up. "I love you, Gerard."

"Don't you dare. You WILL get out."

"If I don't though, it's important you know that. I love you so much. I was so ready to spend the rest of my life with you…God, I was such an idiot to you growing up. I am so fucking sorry I just…I don't even know why I was like that."

"You don't need to apol-"

"I think I do," she cut me off, "because I put you through hell. I guess this is karma, huh?" She laughed nervously and sniffed, holding back the tears that were straining her voice. Tears started to spill over my cheeks as it finally hit me that I may not see the woman I loved again. I looked up at the two burning building. More people were jumping. I saw a couple jumping together, holding hands as they fell.

"Fuck, I love you so much, Skye."

"I know you do, Gee."

"No but…Oh God, why today? Why'd you go in early today? Why didn't I do it sooner? Jesus fucking Christ!" I cried out. The middle aged woman who had my hand on my back was looking at me, concerned. Other people around the boat were starting to stare.

"Didn't do what sooner?" She asked.

"I was going to surprise you on my lunch break. I was going to come to your office with flowers, and a bottle of wine, and I was going to propose. I was going to ask you to marry me…" The sobs that escaped my lips took over as I couldn't say anymore.

"That's so sweet," she said, "I would have said yes. I want to marry you. I want to have kids with you. I want to get old with you. I want a life with you." She was sobbing heavily too now. "If I survive this, we will get married, and we'll have whatever kind of life you want. I promise."

"You will survive. Of course you'll survive. And we'll do everything that you just said. We'll get married. We'll have kids. We'll get old together and we will share a life together." I heard voices on the other end of the phone. Male voices. Very faintly, but they were there…

Hello? Is someone up there? We're from the New York Fire Department. Shout to us if you can, or make some kind of noise if you can hear us.

"Shout, baby! Shout to them!" I said to Skye. She did.

"YEAH! YEAH WE'RE UP HERE! ONE OF US IS BADLY BURNT! PLEASE, HELP US!" I heard rubble moving. Stone and glass, scraping across the floor and falling down the stairs. Skye sighed in relief as the male voices grew closer, until they were loud and clear.

"It's okay, we've got you now," one of them said. I smiled to myself. She was going to get out.

"Gerard, I'm on my way out now. Do you want me to stay on the phone?"

"Yeah, please. I just want to know that you're okay."

"Yeah, I'm fine. So did you really mean all of that stuff you said back there?"

"Of course! The second I see you I'm giving you that engagement ring." I looked down as I shuffled my feet, smiling. I could hear a distant rumbling. "What's that rumbling?" I asked, as I looked up towards the towers again. The tower Skye was in was collapsing… No. NO!

Then I heard the worst thing I had heard all day.

Skye was screaming.

The injured woman was screaming.

The fire fighters were screaming.

And then the line went dead.

People around me gasped. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. What I could only assume was smoke and debris filled the gaps in between buildings. If you've ever poured milk into water, you'll know what it looked like, because that's exactly how it looked. I stared in horror for god knows how long.

As the smoke cleared, you could clearly see that it wasn't just a portion of the building that had fallen off like people around me had first thought. The whole building was just gone, and Skye along with it.

And just like the tower, I collapsed. Still conscious, I fell to the floor, staring out in front of me. The middle aged lady knelt down beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. She had guessed what was wrong. I sat there and cried as people crowded around me, looks of worry on people's faces. Someone put a coat around my shoulders. Someone else put a glass of water by my side, but I just couldn't stop staring. I couldn't say a word. Tears ran freely down my face.

I didn't look up when I heard the familiar rumbling sound. I already knew that the second tower was crumbling. I didn't need to see it to know. People's reactions were the same as they were before. For me, I was reliving the first tower's collapse. Skye's scream was echoing around my head.

The boat I was on was headed towards New York, still. When we docked, it was clear that we were now a rescue boat, as were many others that had turned up. Anything that floated was being used to get people out of the city, away from the deadly debris clouds that were engulfing the streets of Manhattan. I sat on the end of one of the benches, staring and crying.

I had lost her. Skye was most certainly dead, with that much rubble falling on her. And then of course the impact when she hit the ground. The woman I loved was dead. I would never get to give her the ring. I would never get to see her walk down the aisle. I would never get to see the look on her face when she saw our first child for the first time. I would never see her again…

People around me were on the phone. Everyone seemed to be on their cell phones. Some were quitting work. Some were calling their families. Some were asking their girlfriends and boyfriends to marry them. Some were confessing things to others. Some were telling their long term crushes how they felt. Some were asking people out on dates.

As I looked back at the New York skyline, covered in smoke and now without its two tallest buildings, I realised something that I hadn't believed to be true in years.

This world was extremely fucking dark.

When I got home, I ignored all the calls I was getting. I switched off my phone, and went into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey from the fridge. I then walked into the bedroom, opened up the wardrobe and picked out one of Skye's shirts. I sat up against the headboard of the bed we had shared, clutching the shirt that still smelt of her perfume, as all of her clothes did, and began to drink. I cried for hours. I sobbed. I screeched. I shouted. I screamed. I grieved until I couldn't stay conscious. I fell asleep, clutching an empty bottle of whiskey and her shirt, and dreamt of all the special times we'd shared.

I dreamt about our first kiss. I dreamt about our first time. I dreamt about the day we moved in together. I dreamt about the days out we'd had.

And I was happy in each of the memories. Oh God, I was so fucking happy.