Okay, you guys, the last chapter and the last part of the episode I made up. Also, I know that in the now debunked spoilers, it says the Taylor Swift song sung is "Haunted," but I already used that as the title in another story, so I'm using "Cold as You" instead.

Ugh, I'm aware that Glee would NEVER do anything this serious. But when I read the fake spoilers, I knew that I really wanted to see this, and since I wasn't likely to, I simply had to do it myself.

Disclaimer: I don't own the song "Cold as You" by Taylor Swift. And I don't own Criminal Minds episode 3.16, "Elephant's Memory," from which the quote at the end is taken.


Chapter III: Cold As You

You have a way of coming easily to me.
And when you take, you take the very best of me.
So I start a fight 'cause I need to feel something.
And you do what you want 'cause I'm not what you wanted.

"Let's sing 'Cold As You,'" Kurt whispered desperately. "Come on, Blaine, you know the words!"

Pearl stared at Jacob's body for a few seconds, trying to remind herself that she was in a school full of children and the sight of all that blood pooling in Jacob's body was not hers to drink without being discovered. She carefully stepped over the body and walked to the door of the boys' bathroom, under which a smear of blood disappeared. Carefully opening the door, she called out, "Is anyone there?"

"Pearl!" Kurt's cry made her fling the door open. She let out a scream when she saw her son.

Oh what a shame, what a rainy ending given to a perfect day.
Just walk away, no use defending words that you will never say.
And now that I'm sitting here, thinking it through, I've never been anywhere cold as you.

"Blaine, sweetie, can you look at me?" she said, shaking him as gently as she could.

Blaine's eyes opened just a crack and he relaxed. "Mother," he said.

"Pearl," Prentiss' voice drifted in from outside, "the girl's still alive."

"Gabrielle Giffords was," Pearl replied offhandedly. "Call an ambulance!" she yelled. She turned back to Blaine. "You have to stay awake, honey, you have to stay awake."


You put up walls and paint them all a shade of grey.
And I stood there loving you and wished them all away.
And you come away with a great little story
Of a mess of a dreamer with the nerve to adore you.

Rachel spent three hours in surgery. The doctors cut off the top of her skull so her injured brain would have space to swell.

"The bullet went through," said Dr. Fawhinki. "I have full confidence that she will survive. The brain is a very resilient thing."


Oh what a shame, what a rainy ending given to a perfect day.
Just walk away, no use defending words that you will never say.
And now that I'm sitting here, thinking it through, I've never been anywhere cold as you.

Blaine spent two hours in surgery. The doctors sewed up the hole and repaired the torn intestinal tract. But removing the bullet would likely nick an artery.

"The bullet will not cause any long-term damage," said Ellen. "I'm more afraid of the sepsis that's likely to occur within the next day or so. We've put him in a coma so he can heal faster but, well, I'm afraid the prognosis is not very good."


You never did give a damn thing, honey, but I cried, cried for you.

Prentiss and Lauren were waiting in the hallway with a basket of care items.

"Thanks, girls," Pearl's face, wrinkled with worry, relaxed slightly. "You really shouldn't have," she added. "I know you have your own problems to work through."

Prentiss didn't respond to that, instead saying, "I've asked Hotch to send a couple people down and try to comfort the kids."

"It won't help," Pearl said cynically. "They can't make the kids un-see what they saw."

"Why don't people see this stuff coming?" Lauren cried, upset.

Pearl shrugged, putting the basket under her arm. "People don't want to think that their own children could ever do something like this. They spend every waking moment trying to make sure their children never end up like Blaine or Rachel or Rick, and but they never try to make sure their children never end up like Jacob."

And I know you wouldn't have told nobody if I died, died for you. Died for you.

Lauren snorted. "It's stupid," she declared as the three walked to a hospital balcony.

"Yes, I suppose," Pearl picked idly at the plastic covering of her basket. "I felt sorry for Owen, you know," she said almost casually. "I supported Reid, I went to visit him, I made sure he was transferred to a federal prison, I took Jordan to see him." She put the basket on the ledge. "I wonder how sympathetic I would've been if Blaine had been one of the footballers by the river."

"You would've killed Owen yourself," Prentiss concluded correctly.

Pearl nodded thoughtfully before pulling herself away from the ledge. "And the stupid thing is, I still feel kind of sorry for Owen, and I'm not mad at you two for feeling sorry for Jacob."

Lauren shrugged. "He was bullied," she said. "I know what that's like. I just never let it get to me."

Pearl turned to the girl and smiled. "I'm so glad you're letting people in."

Lauren turned and smiled at her mother before turning back to Pearl. "Don't get used to it," she said. "My therapist says that once an egg's been hit, it cracks and all the soft stuff leaks out, but once I heal, I'll be as hard as ever."

"Actually, you would be a carrot," Pearl chuckled softly at Lauren's expression. "There's an old wives' tale," she explained, "that says everyone on Earth is a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean, but you never know what anyone is until they're in hot water."

"What's the difference?" Lauren asked.

"Jacob is an egg; when an egg is boiled, it becomes harder, and Jacob became hard enough to go on a shooting spree. Lauren, you're a carrot; when a carrot is boiled, it grows softer."

There was a pause while Lauren digested this information until it was broken by Prentiss. "So, what's a coffee bean?"

Oh what a shame, what a rainy ending given to a perfect day
Every smile you fake is so condescending, counting all the scars you made
And now that I'm sitting here thinking it through, I've never been anywhere cold as you

Pearl's smile fell. "Coffee beans are the worst," she said. "When coffee beans are in hot water, they make a delicious drink. They don't change themselves, they change the world around them. But it takes a lot of coffee beans together in order to do that."

Lauren looked down. "I want to be a coffee bean," she said, "like Mom."

Prentiss blushed, and Pearl's smile grew wider. "Well, then," she clapped her hands together, "we should go down to the press conference," she said. "Can't have Scott and John hogging all the camera time," she said, leading them down.

Immediately, when the three women went down, the cameras pointed toward them.

Lauren cleared her throat. "Earlier today, I saw one of my classmates shoot one of my friends, and then shoot himself. It was one of the most terrifying things I'd ever seen, and not just because it reminded me of my father's death. It was because at one point, I was taught to have as little regard for human life as the shooter did, and it's scary for me to think that I could've been him if my mother hadn't come in and saved me from that life and taught me right," she turned to smile at her mom.

The cameras turned to Prentiss, who blushed. "I've always tried to foster a sense of non-judgmental belonging in my house. I would just like to say that this is a difficult time for everyone, and I for one am going to spend it with family. What this community needs right now is not to point fingers, but to extend helping hands. What's done is done, and we can't move forward if we keep glaring at the past."

"Easy for you to say!" yelled a woman in the audience. "You didn't lose a son today!"

"Mrs. Nelson," Pearl walked to the front of the cameras. "I understand where you're coming from. My son is currently in a medically-induced coma on life support. He has about a 30% chance of ever waking up, and even then the rest of his life will be plagued with health problems. But there's nothing that Jacob could do, even if he were alive, that would make Blaine's health better."

"Sue the Ben Israel family for your medical bills!" John yelled.

Pearl sighed. "This isn't any one person's fault!" she snapped. "We are all to blame."

"Oh, sure, blame the victims!" Scott hollered.

"Jacob was a victim too," Pearl replied directly into a microphone. "He was a victim of athletes who looked down on him for not being able to participate and bullied him daily."

"How dare you!" Mr. Nelson was incensed.

"He was a victim of teachers who did nothing to stop the harassment they saw."

"You're blaming the teachers?" Beiste was pissed.

"He was a victim of loneliness around people who should have accepted him, could've taken time out of their not-so-busy days to talk to him, but never did, because parents like me try too hard to instill a sense of self-worth into our kids, and inadvertently instill a sense of superiority," this statement made everyone shut up. "The Glee Club that my son joined was all about embracing those who were not popular, who were considered 'losers,' and I encouraged him to ignore people, including Jacob, thinking that the rest of them were all arrogant bullies. Well, that was my fault, encouraging my son to not reach out. It's my son's fault that he didn't reach out. And likewise, every parent here and every child still here and those who will never be here again are at fault. But we are also victims, victims of the loss of our community. However, while we are victims, we don't have to be victimized again. We can rebuild a faulty community into one where everyone is treated with respect, athlete, popular, or singer. Thank you."

"Excuse me," Ellen tapped Pearl on the shoulder, "your son's awake."

"One more thing," Pearl said, buying coffee off a vendor. "Here," she handed it to Mrs. Ben Israel.


Morgan: You know, we forget half of what they teach us in school, but when it comes to the torment and the people who inflicted it we've all got an elephant's memory.


The carrot, egg, coffee bean analogy was one of the most awesome metaphors I'd ever heard, so I put it in here.

When I was in middle school, this guy asked me to switch backpacks because the security guard always searched his (this was about a month after he killed a hamster during school) and I agreed. I thought it felt heavy and, as soon as we got inside, we switched back inside the library. He said, "I'll remember you." He was caught with a gun and a list of people, luckily before he could hurt anyone. But still, it was so scary.

Sorry if the ending is abrupt. I know this is a very incomplete description of what a town usually goes through after a shooting, but while I came close, I never experienced a shooting before, and it didn't seem right to guess blindly about a subject as sensitive as this. I did zero research, so I can't even try.

Thanks for reading!