Hi, again! Thank you to everyone who has left a review or decided to follow this story. Hope you are satisfied by this update, more is coming soon. And Blaine will be conscious in the next chapter, which will be a nice change :)


It was rapidly approaching 5am when Santana Lopez backed her car into the only remaining parking spot on 56th St (right across from a fire hydrant). The air buzzed with the low bass of her radio until she cut the engine and popped the driver's side door.

An involuntary shiver rushed down her left side as the crisp chill of the November night crawled up her leg. What the hell was she doing here? It was the middle of the night, no, fuck that – it was the middle of the morning, and she had a car full of stolen medical supplies. And it wasn't even the good stuff!

Dumping IV bags of fluid and glucose solution into her emergency overnight bag, Santana swung a scarf tight around her neck and pulled her coat across her chest. Her annoyed huff instantaneously condensed into frozen mist, deepening both her annoyance and her self-pity. Fucking friends. If it weren't for her being such a damn good friend, she'd be in bed right now. A warm, soft bed with beautiful, sleepy Brittney bound to the headboard and wrapped around her side.

Instead, she was in the middle of an empty street, a deep scowl on her face and a bag full of reasons to start looking for a new job. Whatever Jordan needed this for better be good.

Crossing the street, Santana glanced up at Number 127. Every window burst with light. She hurried up the steps, her heels clicking on the baseboards.


It had taken some effort to carry the boy into the upstairs bathroom; James kept tripping on the trails of blankets wrapping his body. But it was the only bath in the house and they needed to warm him up. Mark and Laura were downstairs, research hypothermia and frostbite while Jordan took to making rounds of coffee.

"You ready for this?" James asked while Lea tested the temperature of the water.

"What?" glancing behind her, Lea fiddled with the faucet. "Can't hear you. Mark! MARK!"

Ducking out of the bathroom, she rounded the railing and yelled down the stairs, "What temperature is it supposed to be?"

"What?" Mark shot back.

"The water. What temperature?"

He glanced down at his laptop and changed tabs to find the right reference. "Ok, the water can't be too hot. Max temp is….105 degrees. And keep his legs and arms out of the tub."

"Why? What are we trying to do?" Lea turned toward the bathroom to readjust the temperature settings.

"Prevent cardiac arrest." Mark climbed the stairs and continued reading. "Apparently, warming extremities can cause shock, and extreme heat can cause arrhythmia. But we can't warm him up with a heating blanket or a heater, cause direct heat will burn his skin."

"Wait," James interrupted, "so we gotta warm him up, but we can't use heaters, and we gotta use the water, but it could cause a heart attack? And what about his legs and arms? What, are we amputating those later?"

"They will warm up on their own as we warm the blood pumping to them." Lea left the "hopefully" out of her answer.

"Actually, that could be a problem." Laura squeezed into the bathroom, her laptop in tow. "He could get after-drop. It's when the cold blood from his extremities returns to his torso. To his heart. And since his heart is already weak, the cold blood could disrupt its electrical impulses, cause a short-circuit."

"How to we stop that from happening?" Mark voiced the question on all of their minds.

"We don't." Her voice soft and helpless, Laura glanced back to the boy propped on James's lap. "According to this paper, you can't tell when an after-drop will occur. They recommend to begin rewarming as quickly as possible and to avoid reheating the extremities until the core is stable. But since we don't have the tools to know when his core temperature stabilizes…"

They were in way over their heads.

"Water's ready." Lea announced moving towards the bundle of blankets.

James stopped her. "Didn't you hear her? We could send him into cardiac arrest."

"Yes, I know." She sat back on her heels and looked up at her friends. "Nothing's changed. We have to move forward. This kid is sick. He's dying. He needs fluids, and glucose, and god knows what else. But we know for a fact that he needs to get warm blood circulating again. That's all we can do right now."

"But we risk…" James starts, but Lea doesn't let him finish.

"That's a probability. His death, should we do nothing, is a certainty. Now help me get him out of these blankets."

Without layers of wool and fleece wrapping his body, his skin looked shredded. Mark led Laura out at the first sight of his bruises. Lea worked quickly and gently, trying to avoid the most aggravated wounds, but when it came time to remove the final piece of cloth, the one he'd been found with, she had to slow down. The fabric was bonded to his skin, glued into a deep cut on his thigh by drying blood. Peeling it off, Lea prayed she would never meet the man who did this, because if she would, she'd kill him.

Once the boy was in the tub, the water quickly turned brown. It lapped at his collarbone as they maneuvered his legs and arms over the edge.

"What do we do about the frostbite?"

Now that most of his body was concealed by the murky water, the blisters on his feet and fingers were more prominent than before. James turned towards the partially closed door to the hallway and repeated, "What about the frostbite?"

The door squealed as Mark cautiously widened the gap. "All clear?"

"Yup, open the door." Perching against the skin, James gestured for Mark to come in. "We still haven't discussed the frostbite."

"Yeah, well, it's gonna be a problem. Cause all the sites we've found say to submerge the affected area in warm water."

"And we can't do that"-"cause it could cause heart damage." Mark and James finished together.

"Alright," trying to get back on task, Lea broke through their frustration. "What can we do?"

"Elevate. Put soft cotton between his toes and bandage 'em. Then, 'rapid transport to a hospital is very important.'" Mark read from his screen. "It's how all of these treatment articles end – get the victim to a hospital ASAP."

"Since we can't do that, let's do everything else." Already on the move, Lea bumped James from his perch in search of cotton balls. "You wanna go get me some bandage tape? That soft, cotton stuff from the first aid kit?"

Lea kept moving, kept them all moving. As long as you're moving, you can't think, so you don't fall apart.


They took over bath duties in shifts. The water needed to be changed every fifteen minutes to keep it a steady 100-105 degrees; with every fifteen minutes, the water grew clearer and more scars were revealed. Since hot packs and heating pads were out of the question, Lea filled a gallon-sized zip-lock with warm water to keep the boy's neck warm and propped against the side of the bath. She stayed by his side through the night, leaving only to dig up her ski equipment from the basement. Her long-johns and fleece ski pants would come in handy once it was safe to dress him.

The rest of the house kept busy gathering warm clothing, researching possible side-effects of hypothermia, and beginning to read-up on treatments for starvation. They were all over-caffeinated, exhausted, and overwhelmed by the time their door-bell rang at 5:03am.

"Someone better be dying."

"Morning, Santana." Mark opened the door.

Dropping the bag of supplies in the entryway, Santana marched into the kitchen. "I hope you realize I own you now. If I ever need anything, passcodes to the CIA, winning lottery numbers, new passport to Narnia, I'm calling you. Now, where's your coffee?"

Jordan was there to intercept her, a cup of strong, dark roast steaming in her hands. "Yes, I know. Did you get it all?"

Santana gestured to the bag in the hallway, "It's all in there. But what do you need it for? You know you can't get a sugar-high off a glucose IV, right?"

Instead of answering, Jordan grabbed onto Santana with one hand, gripped the bag with the other, and dragged them both upstairs.


"You're insane! This is in-sane!" gripping her hair, Santana spun on her heel away from the sight of the tub.

"He –" she waved her arm in the general direction of the boy, "is a runaway. A sub. Claimed and marked." Her eyes landed on the small, healed scar on his right arm, left behind from the marking pin that had been sown into his skin at registration. "It is stupid and reckless, keeping him here. And, if it's escaped your notice, he's sick! Those blisters aren't from dancing in drag! Shit! This kid needs help. Real, professional help. A bubble bath and a rubber duck ain't gonna do shit for his hypothermia."

"You're it." Infuriatingly calm, Lea placated the ranting Latina. "We know he needs professional help, but you know why we can't take him to the hospital. So, what does he need? What do we have to do?"

"You," Santana rounded on her, "need to take him to the hos-pi-tal. Do you understand me? Hospital. It's sweet that you think you could play on my vanity, but I'm not stupid. Just cause I'm studying to be a nurse doesn't mean I can resurrect frozen subs. Unless they're a sandwich."

Taking a deep breath of warm, humid air, Santana continued "It'll be tricky. But we can drop him off by the ER. We'll have to time the guards so they don't see the license plate. It's the only way to get him help without raising red flags. If we bring him in, you're all getting records for suspicion of abuse and possible theft."

"No." Mark was the first to respond, but he was quickly followed by James and Laura.

"We ain't dropping him off."

"But we can't do that!"

"You see," Lea jumped in before Santana was drowned under a barrage of no's, "we're keeping him. Here. Indefinitely. We are not taking him to the hospital. And it's not cause we're worried for our records. It's cause he will be returned."

Breaking eye contact with Lea, Santana took in the boy for the first time since entering the bathroom. Upon first impression, he was a threat – his mere presence could send them all to jail. Even now, she couldn't help but wish she'd never seen him. But she had. The boy's head lolled against the improvised zip-lock warming pack, his dark curls a stark contrast to the white porcelain of the tub. Long, thick lashes rested against his swollen cheeks, thin lips bright red with newly replenished blood. His nostrils flared with every breath; the movement caught her attention and held her gaze. Something about it, something about his breathing – it was odd. Tilting her head in consideration, Santana wondered what it was. Focusing on the sight, she concentrated.

It was regular. That's what was odd!

The kid's breathing should be slow, uneven. Dropping by his side, she checked his pulse.

"It's been getting better. He was near 50 beats per minute last time I checked." Lea nudged the blood pressure cuff towards Santana's feet.

With one last look at the boy's face, Santana grabbed the cuff and glanced behind her. "Get me the bag. We're bringing this kid back from the dead."


As always, it would be fantastic to hear your thoughts.