Que Sera, Sera, whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see. Que Sera, Sera.
.***.
7:55 PM
Eric woke up to pain, but at least he woke up.
He was in a room, and next to him was another boy, this one asleep, but with an identical heart monitor, an identical IV drip. Eric vaguely recognized Puck from his gym class, from the football games the band was required to attend, from that pain-crazed minute after Eric jumped in front of the bullets and before that other football player pressed down so hard on his wounds he passed into the world of sweet oblivion. This guy – whose cronies had, no doubt, been among those who threw him in the dumpster on Friday when his date with Kurt had become "news" – was someone Eric now owed his life to.
Something must have changed in his monitor, the way it was beeping, because a nurse was in within seconds, drawing the curtain around them and saying the doctor was coming in to explain his injuries. She also told him that his mother was here. "Do you want to see her?"
"Sure."
She walked in, large and imposing, her Bible in hand. His mother's religious fervor had reached towards fanaticism when his dad split three years ago, leaving her with two teenage sons. Now she quoted passages from it almost constantly.
The look she gave Eric was not one of a mother to her injured son (one who, if stories were to be believed, saved the life of someone else's son), but the glare of accusation a person would shoot at a known terrorist. "You did this."
"What?" he was still high on happy juice. Must have been, for giving the okay to his mother to come in.
"This is punishment from the Lord. Leviticus 20:13 says -"
"I know what it says, mom." Eric said, suddenly tired, so tired, and his wounds throbbed and sent stabs of pain up his body. He wanted to sleep for eternity, wanted to know exactly which organs he was now missing, wanted to know who else had been hurt, died…Kurt… He wanted his mom out of here.
But she talked over him, loudly, not listening, "'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death, their blood on their own heads.'"
This was the same verse she'd whipped out a week ago, but it stung now, in this context. "Mom, I'm still your son. I love Kurt -"
The slap, hard across his face, brought tears to his eyes. He was emotionally and physically drained after the wreak of the day, and now his mother was hitting him, accusing him of starting the shooting for being no more or less than who he was.
"Hey!"
Eric barely looked up at the voice, used his right hand, the one not attached to the IV, to wipe his eyes before the Quarter Back entered the room. He barely heard Finn's voice, not threatening but low and serious, suggesting that his mother to leave the room. The only thing that mattered was the other voice, high and scared, suddenly by his side.
"Eric! You're alright!" Kurt seemed to be trying to restrain himself from hugging – he didn't look well himself, with bandages on his shoulder and a slightly greenish tint to his face. He did use his good arm to smooth Eric's hair, which made him wince, knowing what was coming.
"Vile boy!" His mother spat, pointing at Kurt, "You and him—" him being Eric, no longer deserving of a name, "Caused this mess! Children dead because of you! Christian lives lost!"
Finn steered the woman from the room, closed the door behind her, and then turned to stare at Eric, who found that the tears were back. Still, he managed a wobbly sort of smile. "I see you've met my mother."
"I'm so sorry, Eric." Kurt said quietly, collapsing into a chair. "I'm sorry that your mother is…like that…I'm sorry you got hurt because of me."
"I wanted to take the bullets, Kurt, they would have killed you."
"Could have killed you, too." Kurt said logically. "Why?"
Finn groaned, rolling his eyes at his sometimes-brother, "Do you need to ask, man?"
Eric grinned through the tears and found that the smile was real. "I'm so glad you're okay, Kurt." Which, if you read between the lines (and Kurt always did) was like the biggest I love you imaginable.
.***.
A lot of kids took off before they were really checked out, whisked away by parents or running from their own grief. Everyone seemed to have lost someone they loved.
But the Glee club stuck around, even Finn and Rachel, who hadn't been hurt in the shooting, not physically. They stayed because they needed to make sure, make quite sure, that the ten of them that remained lived through the night.
Rachel sat with Santana and Sam. She'd never had a best friend, so she didn't know what to say to someone who'd just lost theirs.
Santana looked horror-struck, as if her entire world had collapsed around her. Her parents had come to pick her up an hour ago, after the wound in her side – a graze, really, but one that bled – had been stitched up. As one of the less important cases, Santana didn't merit a bed or a trip to the neighboring trauma center.
Sam, the newest to their group, was lost. He'd just met these people a scant few months ago, had just deemed Mike as pretty cool and having some awesome dance skills, had just started looking at Brittney as a kind of cute sister, one he wouldn't mind making out with, before they were gone. He wanted to find Quinn but she was holed up in the depths of the hospital somewhere, and he refused to take up his brother's offer to head home before he found her.
Now, though, now that he was sitting down with her, Sam felt he had to say something to ease this girl's pain. He cleared his throat, a strangely loud sound. "My parents died last May, Santana." He hadn't told anyone at this school that, didn't want to be That Guy Who's Parents Died, like he had been for the last month at the Prep. "And you know what helped?"
"What?' Rachel asked, interested even if Santana wasn't.
"Chocolate."
They met up with Kurt and Finn as they raided the vending machine for Hershey bars. Kurt looked as if he'd been hit by a bus, his usual immaculate clothing rumpled, bunched up to stay away from the fresh bandages and broken arm.
Finn looked worse, if possible. He had just sent Quinn home with her mother, the girl frantic to get to Santana but even more willing to just sit in her room and cry. He had just made sure that Eric's mother left him alone, had started the long process of looking for his own mother in the crowd of parents waiting outside. He was tired, had started the day early and was now playing knight in shining armor.
The Glee kids looked at each other, lost in a hospital. Kurt had yet to be admitted, Santana and Sam both needed to be released, and Finn and Rachel were in that in between place – not hurt, not physically, but it was never the physical hurts that mattered most.
Finn cleared his throat. "Anyone see Tina?"
"She didn't come to school today." Kurt murmured, "Sick. And Mercedes was in the cafeteria. None of those guys got hurt. She texted me a few hours ago – she's home. She says the news is devastating."
It was a strange thing. Over the next week, Finn and Puck would be glorified as ultimate heroes. Artie and Mr. Schuester and Eric and countless others were heroes. On the covers of magazines and newspapers they looked strong and smart and brave. But right now they were scared, so scared, because everything they knew was crumbling around them.
And there was nothing they could do about that.
So...yeah. Healing, kind of, and violence, and meanness, and guilt...
Anyway, after all that, we hope ya'll have a Happy Thanksgiving, like the wedding episode of Glee, and have time to see the new Harry Potter movie (and, of course, to review)