A/N: The title of this fic, the song in this fic, and the video in this fic, that the characters watch, are "Untitled (How Could This Happen to Me?)" By Simple Plan. Last night I created a fanvid to Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night" and used a lot of BIOTA clips. This morning, I thought about what would have happened if Kurt and Artie had experienced the consequences of drunk driving...So this occurred.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, I don't own it.
Mr. Schuester was angry. None of them had ever seen him that angry, before. But it was to be expected. Drinking an entire solo cup full of…whatever was in Rachel's mixture probably wasn't the brightest idea, because it really messed with their performing abilities. But it wasn't the anger that was making everyone guilty. It was the disappointment. "Alright guys, while I'm happy things worked out with the assembly, I never want to see you pull anything like that ever again. Drinking while performing, is unprofessional. Drinking while at school, is just stupid. And most importantly, any of you drinking at all is illegal."
"There's a fair amount of the pot calling the kettle black, right now." Quinn pointed out. Which wasn't really true, considering Mr. Schue was over the age of 21, didn't come to work drunk, and never performed drunk…except for his brief stint at Rosalita's Roadhouse, but it was karaoke night, it was expected.
"I couldn't agree more. Which is why I'm going to stop drinking. Not even a beer at the end of the night to take the edge off." After he gave 19 A+'s to students when only 3 deserved them, while grading drunk, he knew there was the beginning of a problem.
"But if you don't drink, what will you have to live for?" Santana asked, in her sarcastic dry wit, everyone knows her for. But no one else was going to deny that it was on their minds as well.
"I have plenty in my life without beer." Mr. Schue tried to shake off.
"Like what, exactly?"
"The point is, I'm gonna stop. And I hope you guys do too." Mr. Schuester didn't know what he had to live for, he had to shake off that line of questioning, because if he didn't know what he had to live for, how was he going to tell them?
"Isn't that kind of unrealistic?" Tina asked, which in all reality, it was.
"Yea, honestly I think it is, Which is why I'm only gonna ask you to do it, until after Nationals. Think of yourselves as prized fighters, getting ready for your next heavy way battle. Now, these are pledge forms. And I want you guys to sign them."
"And what if we fall off the wagon again." Puck asked, as if he was planning his weekend kegger in his mind.
"Look in the top, corner of your form. That's my cell phone number."
"Yes!"
"Part of your pledge, is that if you do slip up, no matter where you are, or what time of night it is, I want you to call me to drive you home. We got luck this time, that the only consequences of your drinking was some ill-timed vomiting. None of us, wants to see any of you get hurt." That fact resonated in everyone's mind. But it resonated in one person's mind more than any other. They all signed the pledge. But one person realized something, he had been desperate to keep hidden, submerged. Something he hadn't wanted to relive, because the last time he had to, it put him in a very uncomfortable place.
Later that day, at the Hudmel house, Kurt was sitting in his room, working on his mountains of Dalton homework, when the doorbell rang. A few minutes later, he heard Carole yell up "Kurt, come on down! It's Artie!" Furrowing his eyebrows, Kurt wondered what Artie was doing here. They were friends, but they weren't at the stage where they'd stop at each other's house unannounced. But curiosity got the better of him, and Kurt got up out of his desk chair and walked downstairs. He saw Carole pushing Artie into the living room. Luckily their house didn't have porch stairs, so it was easy for Artie to enter.
"Hey Artie."
"Hi Kurt…" Artie looked a little lost. Not the physical lost, but emotionally, and mentally.
"What's up, you alright?" Kurt asked, wondering why Artie looked like he was about to cry. Carole noticed this, and quietly left the living room.
"Kurt, do you ever think about that day?" This surprised Kurt. He hadn't expected this to be the way the conversation went.
"All the time." Kurt nodded. "Every time I think about her, I think of that day. I think about her, I think about him, I think about you. It's the day that both of our lives changed forever." Nodding, Artie didn't say anything. "What brought this up?"
"Just something, Mr. Schue said during Glee club today. He made us all sign pledge forms, promising that we wouldn't drink. There was a provision that if we did end up drinking, that we'd call him to give us a ride home. He didn't want any of us drinking, and driving."
"That's good of him."
Artie shrugged. "In a way, yea. But just that one, little 5 minute speech brought back so many memories, that now I can't shake the feeling that everything we did this week… I say we, but I meant everyone currently in New Directions…" Kurt nodded, understanding the implication. "…made everything else just…unimportant."
"What do you mean?"
"There I was, getting drunk out of my mind. Then I brought bloody marys to school to help with the hangover. Why would I do that? Why would I bring alcohol to school, where each of us would have to drive home? After what happened to us, why would I do that?"
"You said yourself that you try and suppress those memories, Artie."
"I still feel like, I did something wrong…even worse than the rest of them."
"Well what happened? I haven't gotten to talk to Finn about what happened this week yet, and Mercedes and I haven't had our bi-weekly hour long phone chats yet. What happened?"
Artie proceeded to tell Kurt everything. From showing up hungover, to performing "Blame It (On the Alcohol)" while getting over the hangover using Bloody Marys. Then getting drunk off whatever was left in Rachel's dads' liquor cabinet right before performing "Tik Tok," and the finale of Santitny's epic vomit disaster. "Well at least I'm not the only one to puke on someone else while drunk at that school…" Kurt answer wryly.
"I guess I'm just crazy. After what happened to me, why would I bother going out and getting drunk?"
Kurt shook his head. "You're not crazy. You're a teenager. Teenagers do crazy things, but that doesn't make them crazy. So you had a lapse in judgment. Doesn't make you any less knowledgeable of what can happen if you don't drink responsibly."
"I still feel like everything I went through, everything you went through, it all was for nothing."
"Then fix it. Show the students at McKinley what can happen if they don't drink responsibly. I mean, how many students there, know what happened?" Artie thought about it for a minute….
"Since you left? None." Artie swallowed the bile rising up in his throat.
"Show them what can happen. Tell them what to expect. If you don't show them what can happen, how will they ever know?" Artie thought about it for a minute, unsure of how to go about it. "I have an idea…"
It was the following Wednesday. It took a full week to get Figgins' approval (Kurt had to pull some strings with Sue Sylvester) for a new assembly, and getting everything Artie and Kurt needed to do it. Kurt was extremely happy to be back in McKinley for a few hours that day. He had gotten Sylvester to call up the headmaster at Dalton and excuse him from classes for the day. It was for a good cause, and his headmaster had already asked him, if he could do the same thing at Dalton. He probably would, after finding out how well it worked here. Artie and Kurt were standing backstage in the middle of the gymnasium. Coach Sylvester walked out into the center of the room, and began to talk to the student body at large.
"So all of you like to drink. I understand it, it's not a modern concept, but it is a problem. So all of you sit down, and shut up, and listen to what Wheels and Porcelain have to say. And I swear, if I see any of you acting out, you'll be in detention until your children graduate college." Artie and Kurt moved out into the center of the gymnasium and addressed the student body. Artie began.
"I know that the glee club and I performed last week, on the dangers of drinking. Many of you think that the special effects, when Brittany and Santana began vomiting, were just that, special effects. I'm here to tell you right now, that its not true." There were gasps and hushed whispers throughout the audience. "Before the performance, we were all a little nervous. One of our members, brought in a jug of alcohol, and we all took a little bit to calm our nerves. This was after a week of drinking pretty much anything we could get our hands on."
"Later on, in the privacy of the choir room, Mr. Schuester had them all sign pledge forms, that they all signed without hesitation." Kurt supplied.
"We have pledge forms at the tables at every exit to this room. We hope that by the end of this assembly, every one of you will volunteer to sign that pledge." Artie announced.
"I know what you're wonder. 'Why should I bother to sign a pledge, that would prevent me from having the fun that drinking gives me?' Well that's because knowing that you signed the pledge, means that you know that you'll never cause the pain and suffering that Artie and I have lived with, for most of our lives." Kurt looked down for a moment, as if in remembrance.
"November 27, 2003. I was in the car with my mom on the way home from my grandmothers house for Thanksgiving." Artie told the assembled bodies.
"November 27, 2003. I was sitting at home, with my father, and my grandparents while my mom ran out to the store, to pick up a pumpkin pie, because the one she baked had burnt in the oven, when my dad accidentally raised the temperature 75 degrees."
"It was 8:57pm, on November 27, 2003, that our lives changed forever." Both said together.
"At that moment, a drunk driver, by the name of Ted Wyatt was speeding along the highway. He swerved into oncoming traffic, and hit my mom's car head on." Kurt began the story.
"It was raining, so the road was slippery. My mom tried to slam on the brakes when she saw what was happening, but it didn't help."
"He hit my mom's car, which spun out, and eventually hit…"
"My car. We were all wearing our seatbelts, but his mom's car slammed right into me. I broke three vertebrae."
"My mom was pronounced dead the moment the paramedics got to the scene."
"I was paralyzed from the waist down."
"November 27, 2003, will be a day that we remember for the rest of our lives. It's the day that I lost a mom, and Artie lost the ability to walk."
"We want you all to understand the dangers of drinking, and especially the dangers of drinking and driving. Because the combination of the two, have a deeper impact than just those immediately affected." From behind his back, Kurt pressed a button on the remote Artie had given him. It started playing a video on the big screen that was behind them. Soon enough, a song began to play from the speakers in every corner of the room.
I open my eyes
I try to see but I'm blinded by the white light
I can't remember how
I can't remember why
I'm lying here tonight
The video begins as a man is sitting, looking frightened. Police start to lay out police tape, while a girl is laying motionless at the steering wheel of her car. Rescuers use the Jaws of Life in order to pry the car open to get her out, after an obvious car crash.
And I can't stand the pain
And I can't make it go away
No I can't stand the pain
Bystanders are standing on the side of the road, looking at the accident. Worried looks and confusion painting their faces. Rescuers works to immobilize the girl's head, so they can remove her from the car safely.
How could this happen to me
I made my mistakes
I've got no where to run
The night goes on
As I'm fading away
I'm sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me
The video cuts to a shot of a man in an office, working. A woman in the kitchen drying dishes from dinner that night. A boy playing video games on his television. A girl reading a magazine on her bed. You can tell that these four people are a family.
Everybody's screaming
I try to make a sound but no one hears me
I'm slipping off the edge
I'm hanging by a thread
I wanna start this over again
The video cuts back to the accident, where a man is sitting on the side of the road, grief stricken. Rescuers are hauling the girl's body into an ambulance.
So I try to hold onto a time when nothing mattered
And I can't explain what happened
And I can't erase the things that I've done
No I can't
It flashes back to earlier in the evening. When the girl was alive. Before the crash. She was happy, nodding her head along to the music, bright eyed with both hands on the wheel, eyes peeled to the road. However the guy who was looking grief stricken earlier, is also driving. But his hand reaches for a bottle of liquor. He takes a swig as he is driving. It's back to the present. An oxygen mask is being placed over the girl's face, and the guy takes another drink.
How could this happen to me
I made my mistakes
I've got no where to run
The night goes on
As I'm fading away
I'm sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me
Time begins to slow down, as the crash becomes imminent. As if trying to will it from not happening, will keep it not happening. The girl in her black car swerves to try and avoid the man, but it doesn't help.
After the car crashes, everything else seems to crash along with it. The boy playing video games, is pulled back and goes flying through the air. The woman drying dishes goes crashing into her kitchen table after being pulled from her kitchen sink. The girl on her bed, goes flying towards her wall, and her window, and the man in the office looks as if he's been pulled up out of his seat by a string and hit's the ceiling.
There is a picture of all four people not involved in the crash, but there's one extra person in the picture. The girl from the crash. The truth has come out. Those four people, are her family. The crash didn't just end her life, but altered their impermeably and forever.
I made my mistakes
I've got no where to run
The night goes on
As I'm fading away
I'm sick of this life
I just wanna scream
How could this happen to me
The drunken man is given a breathalyzer test and is hauled into a police car, while the girl is taken to the hospital. They try to bring her back with a defibrillator, but it doesn't work. She's gone. The drunk driver is arrested, but it doesn't matter. The damage has been done, as a shot of the kitchen, a complete mess, is shown.
The video is over, and Kurt and Artie walk back into the gymnasium's center. They can see many girls crying, and some of the guys looking a little shaken up. "Simple Plan created this song, after a string of people they went to high school with, were killed in drunk driving accidents. We used this song, to show what can happen when you drink and drive. Don't take away someone's little sister." Artie told them.
"Life is not fair. There are hundreds of things that we cannot control. But we can control drunken driving. Please don't let what happened to Artie and I, happen to any other little kids. Don't be the cause of the pain and suffering we had to experience at such a young age. Don't be the cause of so much damage and hurt, because as you can see from this video. Drunken driving doesn't just affect you, or the person you hit. It affects everyone in your life, and everyone in that person's life."
"Thank you." With that Artie and Kurt walked towards the other end of the gym, having a hard time holding it together.