Yikes, where this came from I have no idea. But I killed Anna, and broke Glee, and will probably commit assisted-suicide on at least one character later in this story. Review still, though please.
Disclaimer: Don't own.
She dies on a Tuesday, and it's nothing like he expected. Maybe it's because she always shone so bright that he just sort of figured that the world, the whole fucking planet, would dim the minute she left it.
But it doesn't, the earth still spins, and people still breathe, and they walk around the hospital like a person, an entire life, hasn't been extinguished right before their eyes.
His knees hit the ground so hard, he immediately knows there will be bruises, and Finn's on him the second his fist hits the ground. He still manages to draw blood, though, and maybe it should worry him that he doesn't feel the pain, but he's mostly thankful.
He read somewhere (i.e. Rachel force fed him information that said) that the brain can only comprehend so much pain at one time. It's the reason why you hit a wall when you stub a toe, bite your tongue when you cut your finger, split your knuckles when you lose a child.
It takes Finn, Mike, Matt, and an orderly to pull him up off the floor and into a wheelchair.
Later, Glee will have versions of this story. Different perspectives yield different observations, but they're all sure of one thing: grief-filled didn't even begin to describe the guttural sob that tore at his throat before he was sedated.
---
He wakes up groggy, half hoping it was a dream, and half knowing it wasn't. They're there, all lined up in chairs that he suspects they stole from the lobby, and by the time he has his IV out and his pants on, they're still not conscious.
He glances at her. Blonde hair stained slightly red from blood that she didn't bleed, mascara long washed away by tears that weren't hers to shed, lip split from grief she wasn't supposed to have.
He feels like vomiting.
He could have made it, would have made it out, if it wasn't for the fucking door. His knees are bruised, his hand bandaged, but he makes it all the way to the door when it hits him. He walked in with a family, and is now getting prepared to walk out without one.
The thought brings him to his knees again, and Glee wakes up to the sound of him sobbing, half blind and reaching for the door handle with the accuracy of his three year old daughter.
Quinn's the first one up, already grief-stricken enough to have to stumble her way to him.
It happens in an instant. In the time it takes for a stoplight to turn red, for a district attorney to drop his phone, a trucker to sneeze. In that miniscule fragment of time Puck's standing, hand clenched around her throat, snarl disfiguring his face.
"It's called a fucking seat belt Quinn! You should be the one in the morgue, not her, never her."
By the time the guys have risen from their seats to pry his fingers away from Quinn's windpipe, he's gone. They stumble after him, while the girls stand and watch as Quinn slides down the wall, leaving a trail of blood from the half-moons she carved into each palm.
---
Life bends relationships, tragedy breaks them.
Apparently devastated Puck is the same as sophomore year Puck because he blows three red lights, and is half smashed by the time Finn finally trips his way into the already too quiet Puckerman house.
"Puck… Puck… Noah!" It's the first time his best friend has called him Noah since his dad played dead-beat and left.
The scotch bottle is pried from his grasp, and when he swivels on the stool in the kitchen to grab it back, his eyes settle on fridge. Its covered with the numerous finger-painted artwork, that his daughter would hand him as he walked in the door. At the bottom signed Anna in a half attempt to write like mommy and daddy do.
He's in college, barely allowed to buy alcohol legally, and yet Noah Puckerman feels like he's lived a lifetime.
This time he does throw up, and then proceeds to dry-heave into the kitchen sink. Finn keeps trying to force water down his throat, and Mike's doing that quiet but intense thing that he does when he's silently disapproving of anything and everything that is going on. Matt is cooking because that's what his mom always did and it's comforting and does anyone want three cheese penne?
He can hear Kurt in the laundry room, and Puck kind of wants to stop him. Because those clothes in the hamper, they smell like his daughter. But he doesn't have the energy to move let alone yell, so he just kind of sinks to the floor, bringing Finn with him. Artie…well he has no idea where the gimp is, but he can't hear much past the pounding of his heart.
---
The girls walk in single file an hour later. They're somber and he just wants some freaking noise. Something more than the whispers of Finn, or the humming of Kurt, he wants yelling and screaming and crying. He wants to feel, dammit.
Rachel's on the phone whispering about oxymorons like child-sized caskets, while Tina's behind her trying to shut her up. Brittany runs for Mike and his stupid pasta, while Santana climbs into Matt's lap because she's just as emotionally stunted as any of them, and she's not quite sure how to react. Mercedes comes in slowly, peering around corners like someone's about to pounce, and when he catches sight of who's behind her he understands why.
The bruises on Quinn's neck are finger-tip shaped, and already dark-blue. He thinks he might feel bad, if he wasn't so focused on breathing and all he can do is raise a hand slightly.
He's halfway to standing when the front door opens again.
It's Mr. Shue and Mrs. Pilsbury, because it's Saturday and they should all be having gay brunch or whatever.
They're laughing as they walk in, and when they turn to find twelve people in various stages of disarray, Mr. Schue pulls his eyebrows together.
"Jeez, who died?"
Puck thinks he's just going to stay on the floor.