A.N. Okay, so let's be honest. Season 5 is still pretty amazing, but I just can't let it be that way. They wrote him off the best way they could, and it was absolutely beautiful. Cory Monteith will be missed sorely, by all of us gleeks, but he did take the very best character this show had to offer with him. So here is my tribute to Finn, several months late. :')
Pilot
They say life flashes before your eyes, but that's not true. One moment he was driving down the street and the next the world was spinning so wildly that it was nothing but a blur of color. And then… Nothing. Lots of nothing.
His heart would be racing, if he could feel it, but he couldn't feel anything. It was dark and empty, completely devoid of any sensations at all. Time was moving, jumping from hyper drive to slow motion and back again.
He tried to focus. To find something concrete to hold on to, but it was hard. Everything was slipping away. Even thinking was getting harder by the second. And then, like a whisper, a faint promise circled through his torn memories.
Endgame.
He owed it to Rachel. She was his shining star, his whole world. He had to find her. Get to her. And with that everything slowed down. It was still a battle for every new thought, but he wasn't losing anything for the moment.
o.O.o
"My baby, Burt. My baby!" Carole cried, clutching his hand so tight he thought his fingers might snap.
They had gotten the call just over an hour ago. At first he hadn't known what to think, Carole had been the one to answer the phone, and he had been caught up in the latest game. He heard the phone ring, and listened as she had answered the call and then went silent.
After a few moments he climbed out of his favorite chair, and made his way towards the kitchen to see what the matter was. Carole stood by the counter, phone dangling from the wall. Her eyes were red, and far off, and she just kept shaking.
"Carole?" he asked softly as he reached for her hand. "What happened?"
She tried to speak, mumbling gibberish. The only word he caught was 'Finn', over and over again.
Burt pulled her to him them, folding her in his arms as she broke down into unintelligible sobs. Over the span of the next few minutes he got the rest out of her, although he had to put it all together himself. Finn had wrecked, not fifteen minutes from the house, on his way to glee practice.
"Carole.. We need to go. To the hospital," he told her.
His wife nodded against his chest, and then after a deep breath pulled back. "Let's go. He needs us there," he reminded her, wiping the tears from her eyes with the pad of his thumb.
He wanted to tell her everything would be okay, but he couldn't. He'd been there, long ago, holding out hope that the one person that meant the most to him would wake up, come home, and keep smiling at him every morning when he woke up. But things didn't always work out like that. He had lost his first wife, and his little boy had lost his mother, and it had nearly killed them both. There was no kidding around here.
Carole followed him out the door, just staring out the window as the tears trickled down her cheeks. She didn't even bother to wipe them away anymore.
The drive to the hospital wasn't long, but it was painfully quiet. And they reached the lobby only to be turned away the moment they walked in. Finn was still alive, for the moment, but he was also being life-flighted to the main hospital in Cleveland.
So here they were, alternating between sitting and pacing the cramped waiting area. A hundred other people must have been in the room, most of them in a state of distress, and the whole room seemed to jump with every ding of the elevator, or creaking of a door.
Burt had been the one in charge, he'd called everyone under the sun, held Carole's hand, and tried to be the rock, but he was losing it, ever so slowly.
o.O.o
Life in New York was just as loud and thriving as it ever was, and the three of them were about to drop dead. Between classes and working, it was a wonder they ever had a spare moment, let alone one together.
When the call came in it was like the whole world came to an end. Time stopped, and Rachel was so stunned she could barely form a complete sentence.
"No," she commanded, like she could change everything with one simple word.
"We have to go! Oh my god. There's so much to do. Oh my god."
"Okay," Santana interrupted, stopping Kurt's panicked ramble. "Breathe, Lady Man. Pack something for the next couple of days. And," she paused, studying Rachel's still form, "help her too. I'll call the airport."
Kurt snapped his jaw shut, his best offended look plastered on his face. After a moment though, he seemed to register what Santana had actually said. He wiped the last of his tears from his cheeks with the tips of his fingers, and then snatched up Rachel's hand.
Santana just couldn't believe it. This wasn't something that she could have predicted with her psychic Mexican third eye. Finn might have been a marshmallow, but, dammit, he was her marshmallow, and he wasn't allowed to die on her. She would make sure of it.
