Remembering
It took them a full day before they could pass the choir room again, and it was another day before they could step inside. Afterward, Santana could not remember whose idea it was to face up to it; she thought it was Quinn's, but Quinn seemed to think it was hers. Whatever the case, they found themselves stepping inside, hands squeezed tightly together, shoulders pressed together as they almost held their breath, tensing up against an inevitable assault of memory and emotion.
It crossed Santana's mind that if they were really going to get cheesy Lifetime movie about it, there should be lit candles in a circle, or pictures of every person that had ever joined the Glee club, placed in their individual seats. But they had nothing but the empty chairs before them, and so Quinn and Santana sat on the floor, still tightly holding hands, and faced the row of chairs, silently remembering until Quinn finally spoke.
"Kurt would have been horrified by the limited clothing and accessory options we have available to us now," she said, her voice hoarser than usual, but there was something of a laugh to its tone.
Santana smiled faintly, nodding agreement as she added her own response. "And Blaine…if he only had the school soap to work with, none of his hair gel, I think it would traumatize him more than everything else put together."
Quinn gave a faint chuckle, her thumb absently running over the back of Santana's hand. "Sam would have already had some crazy theory in place about exactly how this happened and how we have to aim ten thousand batteries towards the sun to stop it, or something like that. And Joe would tell us that we just need to all ban together and pray, and Kitty would tell us it was the apocalypse and we're all being punished for our sins." She paused, then turned her eyes to Santana, asking seriously, "You don't think she's right, do you?"
Santana shook her head immediately, even as faint doubts twisted through her thoughts. "No. We both know she's insane. Don't even worry about it." She paused, wrinkling up her nose as she forced herself to return to more mocking, light thoughts. "Tina would drive me crazy bawling and hyperventilating this whole time. Probably start stuttering again, this time for real. And Rory would stand around blinking and asking if it's an American practice to dig up our dead ancestors and kill them all over again and then I would have to punch him in the throat."
Quinn snorted, her face breaking into a slightly bigger smile at this, and she squeezed Santana's hand again, seemingly grateful for the laugh. Clearing her throat, she directed her eyes back to the row of seats. "You know Sue would already have a combat plan in action. For all I know, she's actually the cause of this entire zombie thing in the first place, and it's her grand plan to take over the world. I can completely see her having her own zombie fight crew."
"Shit, you think so?" Santana asked, genuinely startled and half willing to believe it. "That would actually make a lot of sense, the clever bitch."
"Well we can probably be fairly sure of one thing," Quinn shrugged, sighing. "Out of everyone, it's pretty much a guarantee that Sue survived, somewhere out there. It would take something nastier than a zombie to bring her down."
They turned their eyes back in silence to the empty seats, thinking of all the others who probably hadn't. Finally Santana spoke again, trying to inject optimism she didn't really feel into her voice.
"Puck would fight. You know how he is, bragging about his guns. He's probably stolen someone's car and is mowing them all down in the streets somewhere."
"Coach Beiste is tough," Quinn agreed with a nod. "She's probably slinging them all down without even needing a weapon."
"And Mike is stronger than he looks, and he's fast on his feet," Santana added. "Matt, too. Some of them are out there, Quinn. They have to be."
But they knew, without having to say it, how many others that left that probably weren't. Finn, who was so uncoordinated, who almost certainly would have tripped over his feet while running away or knocked his head into something while trying to fight back. Rachel, who was so tiny and whose most deadly quality was her ability to, in Santana's opinion, bore someone to death with her motormouth or pierce their eardrums with her soprano voice, and since zombies were already not alive, it wasn't exactly a weapon at her disposal. Mercedes, who was not in great physical shape and had gotten winded rehearsing, let alone running or fighting for her life from zombies. Sugar, who seemed not quite mentally in tune with even an average day in the world, let alone a surreal one, and who was probably worse than Rachel when it came to a physical fight. Emma Pillsbury, who couldn't even handle a sneeze, let alone zombie blood and guts. Mr. Shue, who teared up at a sappy song…could he really go around stabbing and beheading zombies, even of people who he used to know?
Kurt, Blaine, Rory, Joe…none of them, could they picture surviving. None of them could either girl see as anything but another victim, another body….or another zombie.
And Brittany. Neither spoke her name, but both could feel the word on the tip of their tongues, and both could not help but drift their eyes in the direction of her accustomed seat, directly beside Santana's. Santana could almost feel her hands twirling her ponytail, guiding her hand into her pocket, linking her pinkie with hers or pulling Santana's head to rest against her shoulder, and she inhaled sharply, feeling her loss with new intensity as tears came to her eyes.
Quinn didn't speak to her; she too was silent, biting the inside of her cheeks as she remembered Brittany dancing with such open joy in every gesture, seeming to be lit from within with happiness and life. Other faces flitted through her mind, of each of the Glee club's members, all of them so different, few of them ones she would ever choose on her own to know, and yet, they had become, for such a brief period, her family, people who cared for her long before she could admit she cared for them. She remembered them, she felt their loss, and slowly, she began the process of accepting. Wrapping her arms around Santana, she pulled her head to her shoulder, finding her forehead with her lips, and they sat in silent memory, until the day began to darken through the slits of the window blinds, and night began to close in.
