Cooper
Cooper was on the clock at the Central City Police Department when the explosion occurred.
For a moment, he thought it was all part of the elaborate dream he experienced the other day when him and Blaine went out to a bar and left Lily with a sitter. They got completely wasted.
But the pounding in his head told him differently.
No, he was sober now. This was really happening.
He didn't know how long he stood there, staring at lights emitted from the Particle Accelerator just blocks away.
It crossed his mind that it was almost pretty. The orange and yellow reflection of fire against the blue and gray steel buildings were a bright contrast, accented by the clouds of black smoke, almost unseen in the night sky. It covered up stars and was occasionally lit up by lightning from the storm.
It was only the screams of people in the streets that brought him back to reality.
Blaine and Lily.
They had been watching the Particle Accelerator turn on from Blaine's new apartment, just a street away from S.T.A.R. Labs in the expensive business district. Their parents' inheritance had really paid off…
He ran.
He sprinted the few blocks, racing as fast his lungs would allow him.
People were swarming everywhere, and he pushed and squirmed to get to the spot where Blaine's apartment building was, using his police badge as an excuse.
The air was thick with smoke and the police were already closing off the area around the building.
"Blaine! Blaine!" He found himself screaming his name, his voice hoarse and high pitched.
"Blaine! Lily!" He pushed forward even further, despite the force of the crowd pushing him backwards.
Everywhere, other police and firefighters were trying to get people away from the building and under control.
His screams were lost in the ruckus of people all around him, calling out names, crying, screaming.
"Blaine!" He called out desperately again as another police officer pushed him backwards, one that he recognized as his partner, Eddie Thawne, who had followed him out the door. When he refused to be budged, Eddie, so hopelessly confused and concerned, had to forcibly put his hands on his shoulders and shift his back.
Just as he was about to push back against his partner, he saw it and all the fight was knocked out of him.
There were people lying on the ground, fallen from the observatory deck.
He stopped screaming. He stopped panicking. He stopped trying.
He vomited on the sidewalk.
An otherworldly calm settled over him and he just knew.
It felt like the earth was still shaking, to Cooper, but on a lower level than before. It was like he was trying to block all things out, but the only thing he could not was the acceptance. His kid brother and sister were lost.
Blaine
Consciousness was a curse. It was strange how he swam toward it, struggling, pushing against the black mass of unknown; but as soon as he broke the surface of quiet calm into consciousness, he regretted it. Consciousness was pain. Nothing else.
Blaine struggled against the darkness, trying to grasp anything other than pain. Everything beyond the edges of the pain was murky, like vision underwater, or slurred, like speech and alcohol.
Pain was the only constant, and he found himself sadistically clinging to it. It was at least some semblance of sanity in his murky existence between consciousness and the unknown. So, he clung to it. When his mind stopped reeling, he tried to connect the pain to his body- if indeed he still had a body. But it seemed to be more engulfing than anything, too vast to connect with any one part of himself.
Without much hope of success, Blaine tried again to place the pain in something real, something corporeal, but body parts (their names and locations) seemed to be beyond his minds reach. He tried another track. How had he come to be here? What was here? When was here? But time, space, location- all eluded him.
The first thing he was able to grasp was a smell. It was acrid, tangy and burning. Every breath he took in was painful, thick and smoky.
Blaine could feel unconsciousness dragging him down again, and he struggled against it. He couldn't shake the feeling that if he closed his eyes, he wouldn't be able to open them again. He pushed against the crushing pain that was threatening to engulf him.
His body was giving out and the blackness started to creep up on the edges of his vision. Just as he finally lost consciousness, he realized the source of his pain with a flash of panic.
He had landed.
Cooper
"And as we continue to cover the damage caused by the famed-Particle Accelerator explosion in Central City, Ohio, more bulletins are coming in. Fatalities are now reported to be at least 17 confirmed dead and countless injured. Central City is accepting police assistance from Starling City, as well as Keystone. S.T.A.R. Labs seems to be currently unavailable to tell us what went wrong just five days ago."
The sound of the news reporter on the television barely made Cooper flinch. Five days had passed, and both of his siblings were alive, at least. At least Captain Singh at the C.C.P.D. had let him be relieved of his duties, even though Cooper knew that they needed all hands on deck.
Some were calling it the new 9/11, but Cooper disagreed. It was a science experiment gone wrong on a major scale, and his city and family had to pay the price. He was barely making it through this, his heart pumping blood either sluggishly in defeat, or erratically in fear of losing Lily or Blaine.
Cooper was alone, and he felt it.
He stood up, and strode over to the window of his apartment purposefully. He stared at the distant horizon. He surveyed the city, realizing that of all the moments he had felt utterly and spectacularly alone in the metropolis, he had never experienced anything like this before.
He felt alone in raising Lily, who was but six years old when their father killed himself and their mother. Such a task for a man at thirty, with a semi-stable job as a police officer for the C.C.P.D. to pay the bills. Of course it had to be him to take her, for Blaine was twenty-one and still in the musical theatre program at N.Y.U., and wouldn't ever dream of raising a child there, of all places. Especially while he was still in college and in a heavy relationship with Kurt Hummel, who, four years later, apparently broke off their engagement just weeks before the Particle Accelerator exploded. Kurt was here, though, in Central City, with Blaine at the hospital. Cooper was only meant to be at the apartment to change and shower, before he had to get back to Lily, who was still in critical condition.
"I promise." He whispered as he stared at the sky through the window.
When the thick silence hung in the air and carried no reply, he repeated himself.
"I promise."
Silence.
What he was promising, he wasn't sure, but Lily and Blaine needed him. And with that, Cooper grabbed his car keys and left.