3. This Darkness

"Does this darkness have a name? This cruelty, this hatred, how did it find us? Did it steal into our lives, or did we seek it out and embrace it? What happened to us? That we now send our children into the world like we send young men to war... Hoping for their safe return... But knowing that some will be lost along the way. When did we lose our way? Consumed by the shadows, swallowed whole by the darkness. Does this darkness have a name? Is it your name?"

- One Tree Hill

The rain came down hard as the paramedics ripped Rachel Berry from the unmoving body of Quinn Fabray. They pushed her back, into the safety of the storm. Through the curtain of dusk and drifting mist, she watched in silence. In their blue uniforms, the medical technicians whizzed past her, checking vital signs, carrying Quinn into the pristine white box of an ambulance. In the distance, Rachel held her sides protectively under the downpour. Scarlet light beamed off her shoulders, staining the road ahead in an unnatural redness, mixing in with the remaining blood.

The diva took a step back, feeling her legs wobble as the paramedics tended to Quinn's limp body. This is all my fault. She thought, as a sudden darkness came over her. The kind of darkness that penetrates the light of a full and empty moon. The kind of darkness that has built inside of someone, a product of shame and resentment and trepidation, released in a sudden, irreversible thought. Quinn did this for me.

"Why?" Her voiced dripped through the icy air. She was speaking to no one but herself. And she knew she would never be given an answer this way but she couldn't help herself. Her demons were quickly being translated through the eerie sound of her voice. "Why did you do this? Why didn't you just let it be me?"

A gunfire of footsteps came from behind her, through the waves of murky, undulating water and forced her back into reality. She felt Santana's presence beside her, her hands on her knees and gasping for breath.

"That's not her." The latina stated dimly, shaking her head in a muddle disbelief and fury. Beside her, the diva withered, unsure what to say to the impending explosion that was Santana Lopez. She raised a hand to her mouth to cover the violent gasps for air.

"Tell me that's not her-" Santana demanded once more between shallow breaths, her hand still covering her mouth. "Please, just tell me it's not."

Cold and shallow, the wind rushed between them, cutting the silence between them like sharpened knives and though there was no answer on Rachel's part, Santana knew. Oh, how she knew.

"She was just fine an hour ago." Santana's voice was growing louder and angrier, rivaling the sound of thunder over the banks of darkening clouds. Her anger was aimless though, and she made her hands into fists which she felt into the damping air, defying the inexplicable heaviness that gravity seemed to have at that moment. "I was there. She was fine - just then... She was..."

…

People don't tell you about their grief.

You look at them, and you feel it – on every fiber of their body. It is not found in anything particular that they say or do, but rather an emptiness that settles upon them in their darkest hour. And in this darkest hour, they find a darkness inside of them they might've never known. Till now.

There was darkness settling on Rachel Berry as she sat in the waiting room of Lima Memorial Hospital, holding her drenched face in drenched hands. Shivering under the watchful eye of clinical lights, she released breaths of her darkness – her shame, her pain, her disbelief. All arising from the situation at hand. Her body shivered, sodden in a quick slick of cold rain. In the hectic rush of chaos, someone had sheltered her in a soot-colored blanket, and she held the fabric tightly in her hands. She held the darkness in her hands.

Santana Lopez was standing beside her, a still figure in the unintelligible light with her arms crossed persistently. Like a statue, the latina kept her eyes to the clock high on the wall, as if she was waiting. Waiting for something – for Quinn to be alright. She did not move. She did not cry. She did not break down. And for that, Rachel assumed that she was much stronger than herself, or perhaps simply more stubborn.

Because no matter how tightly she held her eyelids shut, she could not erase the image of the blonde on the road, shaking and shivering and fading fast. Dying right in front her. Nor could she erase the sensation of Quinn's blood on her palms before the salty rain washed away crimson rivers. She could not erase the moment those hazel eyes flicked to her, in the vast confusion of things, and beg her to stay. But she had to let go. Eventually.

Her mind went back to Quinn, who was lying in that emergency room, alone and inescapably afraid, if not, still unconscious. By letting go, had she let her down?

Dark strands of hair flew into the air as her head shot up from her hands. When the clinical lights struck her, she felt her raw pupils dilate to the artificial day. Then through the bluish blurs of the medical staff, she made out the people around her – wives and husbands and children and lovers. All of them praying for the same thing she was, all crying for the same thing she was, all tormented by whatever this world had in store for them.

Nurses filtered by every hour, with their fully gloved hands pulling aside the visitors who surrounded her, one by one, and delivering new news. And then, regardless of whether it was good or bad, there was crying and embracing, hot and heavy weeping into the arms of the nearest person…

Yes, nurses filtered by every hour with news for each of those who loved them.

Never was there any news about Quinn.

Before she knew it, she felt the hot tears fall on her open palms, scorching her hands and leaving behind a small reddish mark on burning flesh. She felt Santana stiffening uncomfortably next to her.

They remained silent in the chaos of it all.

…

In a matter of hours, the waiting room was almost entirely emptied out, the people who had come after them long since gone. From the front desk, the curly-haired receptionist glanced at the two girls, one who hadn't taken her eyes off the menacing clock since they arrived and the other who was too broken for words. And so, the receptionist stole for them a quiet moment of mourning. An act of quiet sympathy that was perhaps, the kindest thing she could have done and the only thing. Because what would happen next was only inevitable.

With years of experience, Rachel ignored the rest of the world for a moment, and instead focused on the woman, a fascinating creature, on the opposite side of wall. Her mouth had gone dry the moment this woman had stepped into the room, her head held high in that distinguished way, though the speck of lingering tenderness in her eyes gave her away. The honey-colored hair, the fair skin, even the manner in which she walked into a room were all too familiar.

If she squinted, Rachel did not see the woman in the violet raincoat, cinched around her body. No, she saw Quinn.

"Is that -?" She breathed in disbelief, uncrossing her legs, about to pounce.

"No." Santana answered decidedly without letting the diva finish, which was probably for the best since she was unsure if she could even finish the thought, what with the dryness in her mouth. The latina unfolded her hands gracefully and rested them on her hips. "No, Quinn's mom is shorter." In profound thought, she bit her lip. "I haven't met her but I think that might be her sister…"

Charlotte Fabray. Rachel thought and in that moment realizing just how much attention she had been paying to Quinn inadvertently during hour after hour of glee rehearsal. Why was it that she had a sudden interest to learn everything about her?

Brimming with curiosity, her darkened, probing eyes flicked to the rigid woman situated on the other side of the otherwise empty room. The woman who, with her flowing blonde hair, was a perfect picture of a sort of upper-class, dignitary. In a few years, she imagined Quinn to bear the same exquisiteness, but perhaps only more so.

Nervously, Rachel drummed her fingers against her wet, limp knee, wondering if she should approach her. A breath, she hadn't realized she was holding was suddenly released into the thick air.

On impulse, she moved, feebly trying to stand upright and address the woman, who needed to know about her sister's state and how she had ended up here. Gravity defied her, her legs wobbled and she stumbled forward into the waiting arms of Santana Lopez, who stared at her with eyes like saucers. The world came crashing down on her, the full force of it shattering her.

In frenzy, she released her darkness, burying her face in Santana's neck. "It's my fault. It's all my fault. She jumped in front of that -" She swallowed the heavy mass in her throat. "For me."

Caught off guard, the latina shifted her weight to better support the girl in her arms. It was an unusual sensation, she thought, scarcely remembering the last time she had held someone like this. Even less, remembering what it was like to be held like this. The embrace was kind yet uncomfortable, as she felt Berry's hands begin to reciprocate the hug. This was in fact, possibly the first time she had ever actually touched Rachel Berry.

"It's not your fault. Even if she did do that for you. It was her choice to." Santana reassured her, though she quickly realized that this too was perhaps the most pleasant thing she had ever said to Berry. Well-aware and reluctantly, she readjusted her tone, to fit the austerity she was known for.

"We don't know anything yet, Berry." Santana managed to say sternly enough, though in truth she was just as equally edgy. Cautiously, she brushed the dark hair from Rachel's face and kept her arms around the fragile form of a girl, who quickly buried her face in the crook of her neck. Santana capitulated, ignoring her almost immediate instinct to push Berry off her, right then and there.

Berry needed this - this comfort.

Though for years, she had tormented Rachel Berry, she took one moment between sharp and stingy insults to comfort her, to let her lie in her arms until cried herself to sleep. And after it all, after the wave of anguish had washed over her, she returned her attention to the clock on the wall, waiting for the moment a nurse would confront them and tell them that Quinn would be just fine. And when that happened, she would know. She could point to that clock and tell her the exact moment when Quinn Fabray was brought back to life, brought back into a world that needed her, more desperately then it ever knew.

She was certain that it was only a matter of time because if it wasn't…

Santana released a sterile breath from breathing in the sterile, hospital air and glanced at the girl who had fallen asleep in her arms. Carefully, she slid Rachel off her, and propped the diva up like a rag doll in one of the bare chairs, where she sat down next to her, crossing her legs. And when Rachel's head fell to her shoulder, she hesitated, tempted to brush her aside only to deny herself the action. She let the girl lean on her for once.

Because only in our own civilization, can we find comfort. Santana thought, allowing Berry's head to lean against her shoulder stilly. And we need that now more than ever.

…

On the other side of the double doors of the ER, there was girl being rushed through the emergency room, still holding onto the faintest grasp of reality as an assortment of disoriented, discolored blobs whirled past her weary eyes.

Quinn didn't remember the crimson lights from the ambulance that beamed overhead. Or the paramedics rushing to her sides, laying her on the stretcher with fully gloved, fully concealed, manicured hands. Or Rachel scooting in beside her, crying and holding her limp arm tightly in the ambulance ride to the hospital. Or the shock that tainted Santana's face as she willed life into her. She did not remember lying on the hospital bed, stiff fingers suddenly grasping at the sheets, as the nurses wheeled through the double doors in haste.

But she could hear the voices and the mechanical beeping on a lifeless machine, she assumed was a measurement of her heart rate. And she could remember the last thing she ever heard or saw that night to be the sterile mask above her face saying, "She's losing a lot of blood. Too much."

And her last thought? Well, that was a given.

Rachel Berry.

A/N: So, good news & bad news.

Good News: Curious as to what you guys want to see in the next few chapters!

Bad New: Will be going to a place where I will not have access to internet and will therefore not be able to update for quite a while...