"Day of wrath, day of anger will dissolve the world in ashes." Mozart's Requiem Lacrimosa
.***.
3:35 PM at the Hospital
Sam leaned against the wall in the emergency room, his arm held gingerly away from him. He hadn't been shot in the chaos at the school – thank God – but he had been trampled in everyone's attempt to get out. Knocked to the ground near the back bathrooms, three different people had stepped on his wrist, breaking it in four different places.
Of course, it could have been so much worse.
The ER was packed. Students were lying on beds, sitting on chairs, many with dried blood or casts or bandages covering their bodies, many who hadn't been seen by doctors yet, because there just weren't enough to go around. They were all loud, scared, asking one another to verify facts.
Sam tried not to listen to the gossip swirling around him. He'd already heard that Mr. Schuester was dead, but that couldn't be right. And Finn and Mike and Kurt and Puck and…and the Glee club? They couldn't all have been hurt. Right?
He hadn't cried yet, not during those horrible minutes in the school when shots would ring out, hitting this kid, that kid, blood spattering on the walls. He hadn't cried out on the lawn, looking down at his swollen right hand and knowing, numbly, that it would probably never work right again.
But he was crying now, tears of fear and exhaustion that just ran down his face, unstoppable.
It was so crowded that Sam was sure that no one would notice the QB sobbing like a baby, but a second later he heard his name over the calls of the room. "Sam? Sam!"
His head shot up but he couldn't see anything through the tears that clung to his lashes. He was suddenly wrapped into a hug and he breathed in the smells of leather and grease that always, always reminded him of his brother.
Dean didn't let him go until Sam started making small noises of pain. When they finally broke apart, Sam's brother kept one hand on his arm, as if to make sure he didn't go anywhere. "I was at work and the television started blaring…you have no idea how scared I was…"
"I'm sorry." Sam said, just to have something to say. Now that his brother was there, Sam felt the tears rushing back again. Dean usually made everything all right – when their parents died, he managed to get custody of Sam, even though Dean was only twenty-four and was supposed to be in med school, not taking care of a sixteen-year-old kid who'd been in boarding school all his life. He seemed to know instinctively how to keep a roof over their heads, even without the trust fund that had been stolen from their inheritance, the money that had been dispersed among relatives without finding its way to the grieving sons.
To stop himself from crying in front of the person he'd always idolized, Sam said, "How did you get in here?" They weren't letting family in, because the ER was so crowded with just kids that anxious parents would do more harm than good.
Dean still wouldn't rip his eyes from Sam, though he did let the ghost of a smile flit across his face for an instant. "Told them I was a med student called in to help with the carnage. If that didn't work I would have hit somebody…what happened to you hand?"
Sam had forgotten about his swollen, hurt hand. He should find someone to look at it, but just couldn't muster the strength. "It was broken…on the way out." Now he couldn't stop the lump from forming in his throat, and his next words were cracked, strained. "Why did they do this? I don't..."
But he couldn't finish, because Dean had put his arms around him and he'd broken down again, hiccupping sobs, tears making his brother's shirt wet. And Dean, who, a half-hour ago, had been terrified that his brother had died, could do nothing more than whisper meaningless words and hold on tight.
.***.
Finn held Quinn tight as she got her side stitched up. She buried her face in his blood-stained sweater for a second before steeling herself, pulling away. "Santana…"
"She's with Sam. Her parents are stuck in traffic." Finn's stomach flipped at the thought of Santana, usually so confident and sure, looking lost and vulnerable and…heartbroken. Brittney had been her best friend, like Puck was to Finn. And now with Brittney gone, Santana seemed to have become unanchored, set adrift.
Quinn winced as the stitches pulled tight. "I can't believe Brit…and Mike…"
"Mike's not dead yet." Finn said harshly, though he knew in his heart that the Asian would not survive the night. He's been shot in the chest close-range. Artie's quick thinking had gotten Mike to the ambulance within minutes, Brittney and Santana piled on top of him like puppies or pizzas, not at all like people. Mike was going, though, and Finn couldn't even work up the energy to say goodbye. It had been a long day.
Eric and Puck were both in surgery. Neither had died under Finn's care, though his hands had been stained red with blood. Finn didn't think he could take something like that, watching the light go out of the eyes of someone he'd known, someone he'd grown up with. Puck…
Already Finn knew that the hours and days and weeks coming up were going to be the worst in his life. It was an accepted fact that Mr. Schue was dead (Schue! Finn'd cried when he heard that), that Brittney was dead and Mike was going. Puck was hovering on the brink, and Finn still hadn't seen Rachel anywhere.
Quinn's stitches were done but she still rested against his arm, his chest, breathing hard. They'd been here three months ago, after the birth of the baby. That was the last time Finn held Quinn, just like this, with her leaning into his chest. She was crying then, hormones and stress contributing to the sudden loss of a being that used to live inside her and now was no longer even hers. She was crying now, mostly for Brittney but also for Santana, for herself. The Cheerios would have to put themselves back together.
They weren't in a privet room. Finn was pretty sure they didn't exist anymore, at least not for today, but they were behind a curtain, giving them a brief respite from the horrors that lay just outside of their small oasis. Finn looked up when this curtain was pulled aside, smiled tightly as Kurt came in.
Kurt had been shot, his shoulder shattered by the bullet, his collar bone broken by his fall to the hard tile floor of the Glee room, but he was up and walking, his face pained. "I don't get surgery until tomorrow."
"Understandable."
"Yeah. I was hoping to go home tonight, though." Kurt glanced at Quinn, who had fallen into a half-sleep in Finn's arms. "Dad's going to freak."
"Did you call him?" Finn had left his phone in his bag, which was back in the school, which meant he wasn't going to see it for a while, if ever.
Kurt nodded. "He was crazy. A customer had seen it on the news and told him the school got shot up. He's with your mom." Finn looked hard at Kurt and knew that they needed to sit down and talk, because Kurt needed someone to talk to, because they were brothers, or something like that.
Kurt leaned against the bed, rubbing his shoulder absently and wincing every time he put too much pressure on the bandages. "Thank you, Finn."
This surprised Finn. Thank him for what? For taking down Leads and Levin? Days later, the media would label Finn and Puck as heroes, would slap their faces on the covers of magazines. Finn hadn't done it to be a hero, though. He'd done it because he'd thought of Rachel, of Kurt's high scream, of Eric's frightened yell.
"I'm sorry it didn't happen sooner." Finn said, and he was sorry. Sorry that Kurt would be in pain for months, that his shoulder would always ache in damp weather, that his hand would never really work. He was sorry for not being there in time to save Eric from jumping in front of bullets to save a boy he'd gone out with once. He was just so damn sorry…
Kurt shrugged helplessly. Everything about this situation made him feel helpless. "You can't save everyone."
Well ain't that the truth.
Wrote the whole chapter before I realized why I named Sam's brother 'Dean.' Oops.
Anyways, please, please review.
