Warnings:
For the whole story: This story is labeled M for a reason, this is a story about a school shooting and it's not the kind that Glee had (as far as I know, since I haven't seen that episode, only heard about it) There will be deaths in this story and the survivors will suffer from physical and psychological damages - You have been warned!
For chapter 1: Bullying, School shooting, Cursing and Violence.
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee. I have no medical training, so I'm not guaranteeing that anything of what I'm writing is correct.
This story is unbeta'd and my first language isn't English.
A/N: I probably don't have to point it out, but this clearly isn't a fluffy story. This story is posted for the Pezberry Week 2014 Day 7: Free day on Tumblr. Feel free to tell me what you think about the story.
NB! For the most parts everything that has happened up until season three have also happened in this story (There are some exceptions, but that will be cleared up along the way) but everything after the last episode in season two is most likely AU. This story starts not long after the new school year in season three started.
Chapter 1
Santana was just going to touch up her makeup before class started, what she didn't expect was to stumble upon a newly slushied Rachel Berry, dripping blueberry flavored ice all over the bathroom floor.
"Aww that color suits you perfectly Midget. Maybe now your long-lost relatives can finally recognize you, so they can come and drag you back to the Smurf village were you belong." Santana smirked in triumph. She was about to check her makeup and leave when Rachel, to Santana's big surprise, talked back.
"Why do you always have to be so mean Santana? Can't you just for once in your life behave like a descent human being and stop being such a bitch to everyone!" Rachel was trembling in anger, but the moment she ended her speech, she suddenly realized what and to whom she had spoken. She quickly slapped a hand over her mouth, but the damage was already done.
Santana had at first been stunned by the fact that Berry had been brave enough to talk back to her, but then she got really irritated that someone had dared to break the golden rule of William McKinley high school, which clearly stated that no student was allowed to talk back to one of their superiors without permission.
"How dare you talk to me like that Dwarf! Don't you know who I am and what I can do to you? I'm like royalty in this school, what I say is law around here! If you think that I'm a bitch to you now, then you really don't know me at all. I could make the rest of your pathetic school life here a living hell, if I wanted to. You think being slushied once a day is bad? How about I get you slushied before every class?! On top of that I might just for the fun of it steal that overgrown orc, that you so pathetically choose to call your boyfriend, away from you. Everyone knows that he wouldn't say no to this." Santana motioned up and down her own body. She was about to continue, but abruptly stopped when Rachel suddenly started crying. Surprisingly enough Santana had never seen Berry cry before, so it really threw her off her game.
Santana started cursing under her breath as she silently continued watching tear after tear spill down Berry's cheeks. She hated when people cried, especially if it was a girl. If it was a boy she could usually just laugh at him for being such a pussy, but this was somehow different. She had no idea what to do with this situation, which was starting to feel really unconformable. She had almost decided that the best thing was just to ignore it and leave the crying hobbit in the bathroom by herself, but then Rachel suddenly sobbed out "Fi – Finn left meeee! He – He thought it was best for his reputation to get back together with Quinnnnn!"
Oh fuck me! It was that stupid asshole again. Why couldn't he just make up his mind and choose once and for all which girl he really wanted. Fabray – Berry, Berry – Fabray. How hard could it be to stick to one?! Santana really didn't look forward to the moment when that jerk once again decided to break up with Quinn to go back to Berry. The last time he had done that, Santana had ended up being forced to comfort Tubbers for a whole week and she truly despised all that mushy crap! Which was the reason why she suddenly wanted to march straight out of that bathroom to kill that Pillsbury Dough Turd for being a complete idiot. He clearly had to be brain-dead for dumping Berry in favor of The Ice Queen! However when Rachel started crying even harder, Santana unexpected felt a pang of sympathy for the other girl. She could still clearly remembered how hard it had been for her when Brittany had rejected her for that Four-Eyed Loser. So before Santana could think about what she was doing, she quickly stepped forward and hugged Rachel to comfort her.
The fact that Santana was suddenly hugging her, took Rachel by surprise, but most of all it almost scared her to death. I mean come on! It was after all the most popular girl in William McKinley High School - Santana Lopez, hugging the school's biggest loser – Rachel Berry. So it was no wonder that Rachel, at first, was stiff as a statue, but when she finally registered that Santana wasn't actually trying to kill her, she even surprised herself by melting into Santana's warm embrace. Without either of the girls knowing it, they were both silently thinking how good and right the hug felt and surprisingly neither of them wanted to let go of the other one.
The first thing Santana noticed when she embraced Rachel was how wonderful the other girls hair smelled and to Santana's horror she felt that the smell was slowly starting to turn her on. Of course she immediately tried to brush it off, blaming it on something else than her being so close to the freak. The fact was that she had been turned on by nearly everything lately, even something so mundane as a bush could do that to her now, so it wouldn't be such a big surprise if it turned out that even trolls could do that too. Santana also knew that the only reason as to why her buttons could be so easily turned on by everything, unfortunately now including dwarfs, was sadly because she hadn't had sex with anyone in a very long time. The last time she had been intimate with someone had been with Brittany, before her best friend had unexpectedly decided to dumped her for McCripple Pants. Sure she had been "dating" Sam and Karofsky, but Sam had been a proper gentleman and never pushed her for sex, which was probably only because he was still in love with Quinn. David had obviously been gay, so he really didn't want what she had to offer under her Cheerios uniform, which Santana had obviously been grateful for. Surprisingly she hadn't even ended up having sex with Brittany again, after she had finally broke up with that stupid boy. Santana had obviously thought that Brittany would have given her a second chance after the break up, but instead her supposedly best friend hadn't even looked her way. Instead of giving her a second thought Brittany had immediately started dating some dumb jock, who turned out to be so stupid that he couldn't even spell his own name correctly. Which had been the main reason why Santana had ended up spending the whole summer with Quinn, while the love of her life was all over her new boyfriend. So Santana honestly felt for what Rachel was going through, because she knew for a fact how devastating it felt to have someone rip your heart out, before they decided to jump up and down on it just for fun. At least that was how she had felt when Brittany first rejected her for Artie and then on top of that had chosen to start dating that other jerk, instead of coming back to her best friend who had laid her heart on the line and bravely confessed that she loved her more than anyone else in the world.
So as Santana was holding Rachel in her arms, she silently decided that maybe she could try to help the other girl deal with her heartache, but of course only as long as no one else knew about it. If anyone saw her being friendly with Berry, chaos would be ensured. The whole school would probably think that she had gone soft and then her position as head bitch would be up for grabs. Which obviously wasn't an option in Santana's book. It was that frightening thought that finally got Santana to realize the possibility that at any moment someone could walk into the bathroom to witness her hugging Berry. Which was obviously a really good reason why it was important for Santana to end the hug as quickly as possible, even if she didn't want to. However Santana couldn't forget that she had a reputation to uphold.
In an attempt to get Rachel's attention, Santana decided to clear her throat. Luckily it seemed to pull Rachel out of her own dream state and they both reluctantly let go of each other. After the hug was finally disentangled, they were both shyly trying to avoid eye contact. So they ended up looking down at the floor instead, both a little embarrassed at how long they had ended up hugging each other. Santana was the first one to look up and break the silence.
"He really didn't deserve you Rachel. You are going to be so much better off without him. Finn never appreciated you for the wonderful girl that you are. You deserve so much better." Santana really didn't know where that came from and she almost freaked out when Rachel started to cry again. She desperately tried to stop her, before it got out of hand again, because the school bell was soon going to ring, which meant that the two of them had to leave for class.
"Please don't cry!"
Rachel smiled, despite the tears, at Santana and quickly dried them away. She was about to say something back to her, when she suddenly got interrupted by a blood freezing scream from the hallway outside the bathroom. Just a second later an ear splintering shooting started up, which was quickly followed by even more people screaming and the sound of students running for their lives past the bathroom door. The sound made both girls freeze, before they quickly looked at each other with fear in their eyes, but before they could do anything the bathroom door was kicked in and a boy came barging in with a handgun. Santana didn't recognize him, but out of her natural protective instinct she immediately steered Rachel safely behind herself. When the guy noticed that Santana was in the room, he started laughing maliciously.
"Just the bitch I was looking for!" Rachel, who hadn't gotten the time to look at the boy before Santana shielded her, recognized his voice when he spoke. She peeked out from behind Santana.
"Steve?"
"Rachel!" The boy obviously knew her and smiled, but his smile quickly dropped when he saw Rachel's tear-stained face. He pointed his gun at Santana.
"Was she bothering you?" His voice was suddenly soft, as he was directing his whole focus onto Rachel.
"No! No she wasn't!" Rachel urgently shook her head and looked at Santana, who was suddenly looking extremely pale.
"Okay, that's good." Steve fondly smiled at her, but then he got a more serious expression on his face.
"Now Rachel if you could be so kind as to step away from the devil herself, so I can do what I came here to do, I would really appreciate that." Rachel didn't move.
"Wh - what are you going to do?" Her voice was trembling with fear, because she was almost a hundred percent certain that she already knew the answer. She could still hear screaming and shooting coming from outside the bathroom door, so it didn't take a genius to figure out why Steve was asking her to move away from Santana. Not to mention that the gun in his hand and the attack rifle strapped to his back, left little to the imagination.
"Well that's really none of your business-" Steve looked a little bit angry because of the delay, but then he smiled at her."-but since I like you, I'll let you in on a secret." He pointed his gun in the direction of the hallway.
"Me and my two buddies have finally had enough of how the jocks and the Cheerios are treating us, so we decided that it was high time that someone paid them back for what they have done to us. You of all people in this school should know how evil they are. I mean you're the only one in this hell hole, who's been bullied more than my friends and I. You know that they're all a bunch of soulless monsters, who's only goal is to humiliate you so they can feel better about themselves." He looked at Santana with so much hatred, that Santana quickly took a step back in fear and bumped into Rachel. Steve turned his attention back to Rachel and his whole facial expression immediately softened. He gave her another smile, but this time it looked to be more impatient than genuine.
"So Rachel I'll ask you one more time, but only because I really like you, since you were the only one in this stinking school that even bothered to say hello to me. Could you please step away from Satan, so I can send her back to Hell?" Rachel could feel how Santana had started shaking beside her. When she discreetly tried to look at her, Rachel saw that tears were silently running down Santana's cheeks. It didn't take long for Rachel to make up her mind, instead of stepping to the side to expose Santana, she quickly moved her own body even more in front of the other girl. Then she looked straight at Steve, who could see that she had a determent look in her eyes.
"No. I'm sorry Steve, but I can't do what you're asking me to do. I can't let you kill Santana!" Steve looked surprised by the firmness in Rachel's voice, but his facial expression morphed into one of pure rage the second he finally understood that Rachel was refusing to budge.
"No, NO! Rachel! If you don't move right now, I'll have to shoot you! MOVE!" Rachel didn't flinch, with her action she gave Steve no indication that she was ever going to comply to his request.
Steve lowered his gun and laughed hollowly. "Suit yourself. If you're willing to die for that bitch, who has done nothing more than tormented you for most of your life, then so be it." He raised his gun back up and pointed it directly at Rachel. The moment the safety clicked back, it seemed to wake up something in Santana. She quickly threw herself in front of Rachel, at the same time as Steve pulled the trigger. A split second later she felt the bullet rip into her flesh. Santana immediately fell down to the bathroom floor, because of the overwhelming pain and screamed in agony.
Steve was completely taken by surprise by Santana's unexpected action, but he quickly started laughing in delight when he saw that he had ended up shooting her instead of Rachel. "Well looks like this is your luck day Rachel. You're obviously not going to die today, so you really should thank your lucky star." He looked down at Santana laying on the floor in pain and gave her an evil smirk.
"As for you bitch! I could probably shoot you in the head and end your suffering, but that would be too good for you. You deserve to suffer! So I'm going to let you lay here and bleed out, till you die of blood loss instead. That'll be a long and painful death, just like you deserve!" He threw his head back and laughed dramatically "Mwahahaha!" Before he started kicking Santana.
"Do you like my evil laugh, bitch?" He laughed again, when Santana screamed in pain because of the kick.
"I have been practicing for months. I hope my laughter is the last thing you'll remember before you die!" He kicked Santana one last time, before he finally walked towards the door. He was about to exit the bathroom, but suddenly hesitated. He quickly turned around to look at Rachel again.
"You really disappointed me today Rachel. Standing up for that bitch!" He pointed at Santana and shook his head in disbelief.
"You're only alive because I like you. You obviously don't deserve to live when you chose to help monsters like her, but thankfully I'm such a good guy, so I'm going to save you." He smiled at a still frozen Rachel.
"But just for the record if you really want to live, you better stay in this room. I might like you, but my friend Eric won't be as nice as me. You see, he has a little problem with people that's not from America." He motioned in her direction.
"You know like you're a Jew, so you're from Israel and that's not America. So if Eric sees you, he will kill you." He smiled.
"I just thought that I should warn you." He suddenly grinned at her.
"But always remember that you're only alive because of me! I let you live! So I think that when you win all those awards you been talking about winning, you should thank me for helping you achieve them." He winked at Rachel. Then he turned around and laughed his evil laughter one last time, before shouted over his shoulder on the way out "Bye bitch! I hope you choke on your own blood!" When he opened the bathroom door, they could suddenly hear all the screaming and shooting outside much clearer, but then the door slammed shut behind him and most of the noises outside faded away.
Santana was still laying on the floor with her head down and by the look of it she was in immense pain. Rachel, who had been frozen since the moment Santana had thrown herself in front of her, finally woke up when Santana cried out in anguish. She immediately crouched down beside the wounded girl and tried to carefully turn her around, but she quickly stopped when Santana started struggling against her grip and screamed out because of the blinding pain coursing through her whole body because of the sudden movement.
"Santana please! I need to turn you around, so I can stop the bleeding." Rachel could already see that the floor under Santana was slowly turning red.
Rachel could barely hear what Santana was trying to pant out, between her whimpers of pain. "Maybe.. Maybe.. You.. should.. let me.. die. I obviously.. don't deserve.. to live." Rachel was truly shocked by what she heard, but when Santana cried out again, she got a determent look in her eyes.
"We haven't got the time right now to discuss everything that is wrong with that statement Santana, but rest assured we're going to have that discussion later on, when we're both safe and still alive. Now I'm going to turn you around and you're going to let me, because you're Santana Lopez and you're one of the strongest girls I know. You can do this Santana! So please stop fighting me and let me help you. Please!" Apparently that helped, because Santana stopped struggling and Rachel carefully turned her around.
Santana's Cheerios uniform was already soaked in her own blood and Rachel knew that she had to take it off, to get to the bullet's entry wound, so she was going to be able to stop the bleeding. However getting Santana's cheer top off, turned out to be nearly impossible, since the top was so tight. Even if Rachel tried as carefully as she could to get it off, it still ended up causing Santana even more pain. Rachel was internally freaking out, because of the amount of blood that was steadily gushing out of the wound. So she quickly decided to give up on it and instead she desperately tried to press her hands against the wound on the outside of Santana's clothes to stop the blood from pouring out, but it didn't help. Rachel was almost on the brink of panicking, when she suddenly remembered that her roller bag was still standing beside the sink and she hurried to get it.
To Rachel's delight she quickly found the pair of scissors she always had in there, in case of a paper emergency and started to cut the Cheerios top off Santana's body. When she was finally able to lift up the ruined top, she could see that Santana had been shot in her abdomen. She silently wondered how it was possible that so much blood could come out of such a tiny little hole. Rachel carefully checked Santana's backside to see if there was an exit wound, which there wasn't. That meant that the bullet was still inside Santana and Rachel knew that she needed surgery as fast as possible. However that wasn't an option right now, since Rachel could still hear some faint shooting coming from somewhere inside the school. She obviously needed to get some help, but she knew that she couldn't leave Santana behind, at least not as long as she was still bleeding. So instead she tried to do the best she could, desperately trying to remember that one first aid class she had attended, when her daddy had mistakenly picked the wrong room at one of their weekly family outings. The only rule her fathers had, at these famous Berry outings, was to always try new things. That day they were going to try pottery painting, but instead they had ended up learning first aid. However that had been a long time ago, so Rachel really hoped she was doing something right.
The first thing she clearly remembered was that it was important to put pressure on the wound. She knew that the instructor had used something to stop the bleeding, most likely it had been a cloth compression. So Rachel quickly looked around for something to stop the bleeding with, but there wasn't anything inside the bathroom she could use. Her own clothes were covered in slushy, so they weren't clean enough to cover Santana's wound. She desperately wished that she had managed to grab her slushy kit before she ran into the bathroom, but unfortunately it hadn't been time for that since she had been so unlucky to get some of that awful liquid in her eyes. Everyone that had ever been slushied knew that if you got some of it in your eyes, you needed to rinse them out as fast as possible or else it would only get worse. Which had been the reason why she hadn't had the time to get her kit, a fact that was really irritating her now, but luckily Rachel suddenly remembered that she had a white shirt underneath her animal sweater. She was praying that the slushy hadn't managed to seep through, so hopefully it was still clean. She quickly peeled off her top and to her relief she found that the backside of the shirt was still untouched. So she hurriedly took the good side and placed it over Santana's entry wound and applied pressure with the heel of her hand to get the wound to stop bleeding.
"Santana I think that you have to raise your knees up. I believe that's the right thing to do when someone have been shot in their abdomen." A clearly sluggish Santana listen to her and slowly lifted her knees up. She was trembling a little and Rachel looked at her with concern. "How do you feel?" Santana had her eyes closed.
"Like I have been shot!" Rachel didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry in relief that she was still lucid. Santana opened her eyes and looked up at her, then she looked down to Rachel almost naked upper body.
"Whoo-hoo Berry! You didn't have to take your clothes off for me. If you hadn't noticed it when I saved your life, I kinda like you already, so you don't have to seduce me." Santana smirked at Rachel, who quietly laughed back, but abruptly stopped when Santana started coughing up blood. That freaked Rachel out, but she tried not to alarm Santana. She still kept the pressure directly on the wound, but she was at the same time searching for something. Santana had closed her eyes again, which Rachel was grateful for since it meant that she could take a closer look at her.
Santana looked pale, her skin was clammy and her breathing was rapid. When Rachel finally looked down to where she was applying pressure, she saw that a large bruise was starting to form around Santana's abdomen. The sight frightened her. This was not good, not good at all. If she remembered correctly those were some of the signs that Santana might have internal bleeding, which was extremely bad. It meant that Santana needed medical attention as fast as possible. Rachel was starting to panic. Santana desperately needed help or else she would soon be dead, but there was still no way that she could leave Santana alone to get help. She was frantically trying to find a solution.
After two more minutes, Rachel knew that she must have been applying pressure to the wound for at least ten minuets. When she carefully checked the wound, she could see that it had stopped bleeding. That meant that she could try to get help, but what if it started to bleed again and she wasn't there to stop it? Santana would probably die because of the blood loss, long before Rachel could get back to her, but Santana obviously needed surgical help before it was too late.
Rachel desperately wished she had her cellphone with her, but she always left it in her locker after her fathers had refused to buy her a new one, when her previous two had mysteriously went missing. They had both ended up been ruined by slushies at school, but since Rachel hadn't wanted to tell them about the constant bullying, that she went through everyday, they had blamed her for losing them. It had taken a good chunk of her own savings to buy herself a new one, so she was extra careful with this one in hopes that she wouldn't lose it in yet another slushy attack. Rachel obviously didn't want to go out in the hallway to get her phone, but when Santana started mumbling something about her wanting to see the duckies again with Brittany, Rachel quickly decided that she had to risk her own life to save Santana's. That was the least she could do after Santana had saved hers. She was about to tell Santana that she had to try to lay as still as possible till she came back, when there suddenly was a loud bang from outside in the hallway. It almost sounded like an explosion. It was rapidly followed by a lot of running and shouting outside. It felt like utter chaos had broken loose when shooting suddenly started everywhere.
Rachel was petrified that Steve or one of his friends would come into the bathroom again, but then the shooting abruptly stopped and everything went dead silent. Rachel didn't know what to do, but when she heard someone talking quietly into a walkie-talkie, just outside the bathroom door, she didn't think about what she was doing. She just ran to the door and opened it to get help for Santana. When the door swung open, Rachel was suddenly faced with several men dressed in black from top to bottom, who immediately pointed all their attack rifles straight at her. Rachel automatically raised her hands over her head, because of the sight in front of her. In the back of her mind she thought that she probably looked pretty strange standing there in her blood covered bra, but that clearly wasn't important right now, Santana was.
"I - I need help, my friend needs help. She's been shot and I think that she might have internal bleeding!" She rushed out. The man who looked to be the SWAT leader, silently signaled for two of his guys to go inside the bathroom to check out the wounded. When they had secured the room, one of them knelt down to take a look at Santana.
"Hey Cap, she need immediate medical attention, she's not looking good." The guy with the walkie-talkie immediately signaled out, but the message he got back was that they still weren't willing to send in the emergency medical team, at least not before they knew for sure that the school was secure. That made Rachel panic, Santana needed help now. She quickly turned to the man she believed was in charge.
"We need to get her out now! She needs an operation. Please, I don't want her to die!" She was pleading with him to understand and she started to cry when he silently shook his head.
"I'm sorry, but they won't do anything until the school has been secured. Right now we don't know how many perpetrators there still are left inside this school, we can't endanger any medical personal before we have immobilized them all." That gave Rachel some hope back.
"How many have you taken down?" He furrowed his brows in confusion, because of the strange question.
"I can't tell you that." His refusal made Rachel angry, she didn't have the time to play games, so she shouted out "How many?!" The guy looked around frightened by her outburst and signaled for her to be quiet and hissed out "Three! Our teams have managed to take down three. Don't you dare raise your voice again, there could be more of them around." Rachel couldn't care less that he was threatening her, this was good news to her.
"If you have taken down three boys, then there aren't more left." She looked him straight in the eyes. He looked a little puzzled by her statement.
"And how do you know that for sure?"
Rachel then hurried to tell him a shorter version of what had happened to her and Santana. He then signaled for the guy with the walkie-talkie to pass on the story to their supervisor. To Rachel's dismay they still hesitated about sending someone in, claiming that the information wasn't from a reliable source. Rachel was about to protest, but then suddenly one of the guys tending to Santana shouted out "Cap she's going into shock!" That finally made the leader take action and he quickly demand that a medical team was sent in, he even guaranteed to his supervisor that he would take the full responsibility for their safety. Luckily it didn't take long for the team to arrive, but to Rachel it felt like it had been hours. Tears were silently streaming down her cheeks as she witnessed the medical team finally arriving. They quickly proceeded to intubate Santana, so she could breathe easier with their help, before they put her on a gurney and brought her out to a waiting ambulance, which immediately took her to the nearest hospital.
Rachel desperately wanted to stay by Santana's side, but she got held back by the SWAT leader. He signaled for one of his guys to take her to their supervisors, so they could debrief her about her knowledge about the perpetrators. So instead of following Santana, Rachel ended up being quickly escorted out off the school, where she was thankfully given a blanket to wrap around her half-naked upper body, before she was interrogate by several people regarding her knowledge about the perpetrators. After they were finally satisfied with her answers, she was released into the care of her worried fathers.