Sparked by: Hesam's resentment at being discriminated against because he's Iranian; and a tiny detail in Acceptance: A mug on the table in the EMT room of Mercy Heights Hospital, with the Star of Life on it alongside the Twin Towers, and the words: Never forget – always remember.

Characters: Peter, Hesam.

Warnings: 9/11 is a sensitive topic, I'm aware of this. I researched extensively (and if you know my usual level of research, you know what that means), and tried to stay true to everything I read, and to write a story as it was very likely to happen. This being about 9/11, there are disturbing themes. Proceed with caution.

Author's Note: If you want to know what I was doing on September 11, 2001, watch out for Hesam's sister Amina…

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Where were you?

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September 11, 2007

9 a. m.

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"Sandra Patricia Campbell. Juan Ortega Campos. Sean Canavan. John A. Candela. Vincent Cangelosi…"

It was a cool but clear September morning, and Peter and Hesam stood leaning against the side door of their ambulance near Ground Zero, overlooking the large congregation of people that had gathered to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Theirs was one of two ambulances deployed to Zucotti Park, and like most others on that day, they stood in silence as the names of the people who had died in the attacks were being read by students of a hundred different nationalities. The only ones who were not standing and listening were a couple of kids running around near them, some of them too young to even remember 9/11, eyeing the ambulance with curiosity but too shy to come closer. Every now and than, one of them would kick a squashed beer can across the street, and earn a stern look or a word or two of rebuke from the adults around them.

They hadn't had much to do in the hour and a half they had been here. One elderly woman had felt light-headed but hadn't required transport; mostly, Peter suspected, she had required someone to talk to.

At three minutes past nine, there was a minute of silence to observe the time at which the second plane had crashed into the South Tower, and Hesam quickly made a step forwards to catch one of the kids by the collar, just before he could kick his can again. The boy looked at Hesam, thunderstruck, but Hesam just put a finger on his lips, jerking his head in the direction where the podium stood.

After this, the kids were quick to scuttle off to another part of the scene, presumably in search of another tin can. On the podium, bagpipes began to play as the minute of silence was over.

"Mommy, Mommy, I saw a real terrorist at Ground Zero today, pretending to be an ambulance driver," Hesam murmured under his breath, in a mock high voice, as he watched them disappearing.

Peter raised an eyebrow at him. "I think he was just surprised you caught him like that."

"Did you know there are people in this country who think 'terrorist' is a nationality?" Hesam asked bitterly.

Peter shrugged. "There are people in this country who think you can do your online shopping by inserting your credit card into a floppy drive."

Hesam burst out laughing before he could stop himself, causing a woman standing a few yards away from them to turn around and give him a cold stare. When she turned away from them again, Peter could clearly hear her say, in a stage whisper, "Insensitive to have that kind here."

Hesam didn't say a word, but his mouth turned into a very thin line as he sobered immediately, staring fixedly at the podium.

"I'm sorry," Peter said quietly. "That was my fault."

Hesam shook his head. "Doesn't matter. It was probably a bad idea to dispatch us here."

"No, it's not," Peter protested, albeit quietly. "That's what this is all about."

They were silent for a moment, until Hesam turned to look at Peter again. "So, where were you?" he asked.

Peter's jaw worked as he watched the bagpipers leave the stage again, to be replaced by more students, more names.

"I was on a subway train. I'd just finished college. My father had gotten me an internship at St Luke's hospital, thinking if he couldn't get me to go to law school, I'd be a doctor, which he could just have lived with. What he didn't know was that I was getting into social work there." Peter stared ahead. "I was on my way to a patient in downtown Manhattan with one of the hospital's social workers when someone shouted that the WTC was on fire. He was on the phone or something, but then his connection was gone. The train then stopped, the conductor said there was some delay because of the fire. We had no idea what was really going on. We then got out, but by then, no taxis were going further downtown anymore, and our patient was somewhere down Park Row. While we were trying to figure out what had happened, we saw the South Tower collapse."

"Did you get to the patient?" Hesam asked.

"No. We got stuck in a diner with a TV."

Hesam just nodded.

Peter looked across at him. "And you? Where were you?" he asked.

Hesam turned to look at the space that, to most New Yorkers, still looked like a gaping wound in the cityscape. "Right here."

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September 11, 2001

7.30 a. m.

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"Oh my God, I can't believe this is happening – and I can't reach anyone at college; what am I gonna do?"

"Mina," Hesam said, putting down his butter knife, "Calm down."

"I was supposed to hand it in yesterday," Amina said, her voice near-hysterical, waving a piece of paper around. "I haven't even printed it out yet, not bound or anything – I thought I had until the fifteenth –"

"The fifteenth? And you never wondered that was a Saturday?"

"I never checked!"

"I thought you'd had your paper finished for weeks? Why didn't you hand it in before now?"

"Because I thought I had so much time left," Amina said, close to tears, pacing back and forth in the kitchen. "No idea why I thought it was the fifteenth – it says September 10 here—"

"It's one day late," Hesam tried to calm his sister. "Just have it bound today and hand it in right away."

"It can't be that easy," she said desperately, tapping on the paper, which bore an official-looking letterhead of Audrey Cohen College. "It says September 10, 12 p. m. here. You can't just drop off your thesis the next day if they even give you an exact time you're supposed to do it by!"

Nesrin, their mother, entered the kitchen, with a mug of coffee in her hand, ready to leave for school where she taught. "There should be someone in at eight o' clock, shouldn't there? Phone them, and explain to them. They'll accept the paper. Mina, they know you."

"Not at the office they don't," Amina wailed.

Nesrin looked at Hesam for help. "I have to go. Can you stay with Mina until eight o' clock?"

"Maman, I have to be at the ambulance service at eight," Hesam protested, around a mouthful of bread roll.

Amina burst into tears.

Hesam sighed. "I'll take my phone, OK? Call me when you know anything. Or need a shoulder to cry on."

Amina, nodded, sobbing.

Hesam gave her a hug, then stood up to get his uniform jacket. It was still cool outside, although the bright blue sky suggested that he wouldn't be needing a jacket later.

"Hey," he said to Amina. "Good luck, OK? It'll work out. They won't have you redo the thesis."

She suddenly looked embarrassed at making such a scene, in the light of what her brother had been through recently. "Thank you," she said quietly.

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7.55 a. m.

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Hesam arrived at work, mechanically reporting in at the supervisor's office and hearing Brian Kellerman had already got the keys and radios.

He hated this place, and wished he could just have got up the courage to quit. But since the small EMS company he was working for was short on personnel at the moment, he had decided to stay until the situation had cleared somewhat.

Five days previously, his preceptor, Jiao Wang, had tactfully suggested to him that maybe he should remain an EMT rather than becoming a paramedic.

His training had gone pretty well. He'd been with Jiao on Thursdays, and mostly, she had been content with his decisions and skills, although there had always been a certain amount of performance anxiety on his part on tough calls. Then, two weeks ago, it had been decided he was ready to be cut loose, dispatch had been informed to give them the best (read: most demanding) calls, and still things had gone well until last Tuesday, when he had finally been dispatched to the much-anticipated and much-dreaded cardiac arrest.

There, everything had gone wrong from the start. Hesam had made the decision to work the patient on the spot, which might even have worked, if he had been able to get the tube. He missed on his first attempt, put it in the oesophagus on the second, and, panicked, was about to try for a third time when Jiao gently nudged him into loading their patient and getting him to the hospital. He had gone for the tube again in the ambulance, and had failed again, upon which Jiao had put the tube in. The man had been pronounced dead in the hospital.

He'd been devastated, half fearing, half hoping for a second chance the following Thursday. He got it when they were dispatched for a difficulty breathing that turned out to be a twenty-two year old woman with asthma, whose vocal cords were clenched so tightly that even Jiao had had difficulty passing the tube, which she did after Hesam had failed twice. Following the disaster of two days previously, he had decided they'd load and go immediately, which had been right on principle, but the patient hadn't got any oxygen for about twenty minutes. She'd coded in the car; they'd got a rhythm back twice, only to lose her again each time. In the cardiac room, they had worked her for half an hour, while her sobbing parents and stunned boyfriend watched, before she had been called dead.

Jiao had offered Hesam to call in for the rest of the shift, but Hesam had refused, to miss two more IVs on their next two calls.

Now Hesam was back to being an EMT, after both Jiao and the supervisor had suggested that he didn't cope well enough under pressure.

"Hiya!" Brian Kellerman greeted him brightly. He was a blond, beefy young man with a perpetual good humour and a large frame that enabled him to carry anyone just under pot whale proportions down from the fourth floor, priding himself on never having called for lift assist. He was a great guy to have around, even if Hesam hadn't been able to tolerate his great mood very well recently.

"Hey, Brian," Hesam answered a lot more noncommittally, but Brian didn't mind. There were very few things that Brian minded. "All set?"

"Yep," Brian replied. "We're good to go."

"Did you gas up?"

"Yep."

"Spare oxygen?"

"Yep."

"Blood pressure cuffs?"

Brian scratched his head. "Damn."

Hesam rolled his eyes and went to get them.

They cleared at a few minutes to eight, and were dispatched almost immediately for a maternity call. On the way, Hesam's phone rang.

Brian, who was driving, raised an eyebrow at Hesam. "Should you have that on?"

"It's an emergency." Hesam pulled out the phone. "Mina?"

"I just called the registrar's office, they were being terrible – I asked them if I could come in and explain—"

"All right, calm down, OK? Did they say yes?"

"Yeah, but..."

"See. They just want you to feel as horrible as possible. But they'll give you a chance. Got the thing printed?"

"Printer's running."

"Great. It'll work out fine, OK? I'll call you back when I'm on a break."

"When is that?"

"Aw, Mina, you know it could be anything."

"A quarter past nine tonight!" Brian called over.

"I'll give you a call. Before lunchtime. I promise." Glaring at Brian, Hesam hung up, and put the phone into the pocket of his uniform jacket.

"Does your sister know lunch could be after nine p. m. too?" Brian asked.

"Her lunchtime."

"Ah. OK."

The maternity call was for a twenty-two-weeks pregnant woman who had a stomach ache. Hesam did have the impression that this might have had to do with the numerous junk food wrappers he saw in the woman's untidy kitchen, but she insisted she needed to see a doctor, could not walk, and so they ended up carrying her downstairs in the stairchair and driving her to the New York Downtown Hospital – after a short trip to the NYU Downtown Hospital, which turned out to be the wrong one. Hesam was glad to finally unload her and put her in the waiting room at the NY Downtown. He was sweating, and pulled off his jacket and hung it over his seat.

It was a quarter to nine.