Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of its characters; Ryan Murphy and Co. hold that honor. I'm simply writing this for fun, not profit.

Normalcy settles over Lima, Ohio once more as a new week begins.

Football players resume their after school practices. The rigorous twice-a-day workouts that Coach Sylvester forces her Cheerios to endure recommence, and other sports slowly follow their leads. Teams reunite for the first time in almost a week to squeeze in final preparation for upcoming competitions. They still have to compete in order to secure their scholarships, and the leniency period has expired with the re-opening of McKinley's doors.

The only notable absences are Richard Miller from the football team, and Blaine.

Other student activities resume mid-week. Student council spearheads the movement, its members turning up by mutual, unspoken consent on a Tuesday morning in the same empty classroom that they've always met and settling into their seats. Tina reads off the minutes and Sugar reviews their budget while the others listen attentively, offering neither comment nor criticism once the ordinary and unchallenged are complete. They sit in silence, looking to one another for guidance, until at last Sam clasps his hands and opens the conversation with a question about the prom date. They seem surprised and relieved at his audacity, not only by being the first to speak but by sitting at the head of the table, back straight and hands held solidly in front of himself as he listens.

No one tells him to move, but they all know that it's Blaine's chair.

Classes are different. The teachers adopt an air of cooperation, working with formerly unruly students one-on-one to ensure their graduation (be it from one year to the next or from the school entirely). They teach in broader terms, assigning little or no homework and focusing on the classroom itself as the primary learning environment. For the first time that any of them can truly recall, they are engaged, receptive, and - alert. None can deny that, either, the way glances stray inevitably to open doors, closed windows, even down hallways too congested to navigate easily. They're rattled, and it shows, even though no one dares speak it aloud.

And no one mentions the empty seat at the front of the room, nor inquires after its owner once the bell rings and the pattern prevails. Sam knows, though, and he doesn't need to read the attendance list to know which name is absent.

The cafeteria remains largely untouched by the violence, bringing together hundreds of students in an environment that doesn't encourage such negativity to prevail. There is laughter and chatter and idle things here, a break from solemnity that feels like a breath of fresh air. Marley has the table saved for them, already engaged in a light conversation with Tina and Sugar about their plans after graduation.

It seems a world away to Sam, thoughts of graduating and leaving McKinley forever. Even a week ago on Thursday morning, he would have gladly contributed his woes about the interminably long weeks ahead and doubtless intensive coursework to come. Blaine acted as a sound board for him at times, letting him ramble off his plans for the future as well as just ideas for how to spend their last summer together.

It was a happy time, but Blaine isn't here anymore, and Sam doesn't want to think about summer plans.

Figgins gathers them for a late-afternoon assembly that day. No one voices much protest, and the auditorium is silent long before Figgins stands behind the podium. To their surprise, he doesn't begin by hushing them, instead addressing them directly with a letter that he unfolds.

"We regret the horror that you have endured," he finishes, "and we will fight to ensure that it does not happen again."

No one applauds. It seems wrong to, somehow, and Sam knows that empty words from empty places - be it the homeless man down the street offering his condolences or the president himself - don't change the fact that they're missing one.

They aren't whole.

Richard Miller's absence is a relief, the removal of a potent body in a helpless pool of students. No one grieves for his disappearance, his trial pending and his sentence unclear. Even the football players that once regarded him as close as a blood brother express no remorse at his departure, offering only silent looks around them, trying to pinpoint the other, the victim of the crime.

Sam hates that. He hates that Blaine's name appears in local papers alongside Richard Miller's, a casualty of school shootings. He hates that people don't want to talk about Blaine, that they try not to even think about it if they can (even though it is completely, utterly impossible to do so). He hates that no matter what happens from here on out, to the rest of their small town world, Blaine is a victim, that poor kid that was shot when Miller flew off the handle and brought a gun to school.

He doesn't say anything about it, and no one asks.

Glee club practice rolls around for the first time that week on a sunny Friday afternoon. They meet in the auditorium just after the final bell, gathering on the stage itself.

It helps to stay away from the choir room. There are two chairs there that Sam knows are unfilled now, side-by-side in a sea of familiar faces. It's still theirs, and it always has been, whether they perform individually or as a whole or in pairs or however fancy strikes. It doesn't feel right to be in it, though, knowing that they've lost one of their own.

"Hey," Tina says, standing next to him near the shadows and nudging his shoulder with her own. "What are you doing?"

The others are already moving to form a circle, and while Sam doesn't know what they're up to, he finds that he doesn't particularly care, either. Their regionals' competition is just around the corner, but he didn't win it back alone, and now Blaine isn't even there to reap the rewards of their efforts. It seems wrong to accept the opportunity without him, to stand here and pretend that everything is normal when it's not.

"Come on," Tina urges, tugging on his arm. He obliges, moving away from the curtains and shuffling over to the empty space between Ryder and Brittany, mimicking their postures by sitting cross-legged. He waits for someone to speak, to start singing, to do something. No one does, looking at each other, at no one, at nothing in silence until Mr. Schuester returns with a cardboard box.

"When David Karofsky tried to commit suicide last year," Mr. Schuester explains, already reaching into the box and holding up a small white candle before handing it down to Jake, "we met to talk about it." He starts walking around the circle, passing out white candles as he goes. "Most of you probably don't even know him now. He graduated last year. I've heard that he's doing well." Sam takes the candle that Mr. Schuester hands to him, turning it over idly in his hands. When he passes the last one on to Brittany, Mr. Schuester plucks one out for himself and sets the box aside, the others now watching him attentively, curious and somewhat disarmed by the inherent morbidity of the speech.

"I know that . . . this wasn't what any of us were expecting this year," Mr. Schuester continues, pulling out a lighter and wordlessly lighting his own candle. At a simple gesture, Kitty hands hers over and he lights it as well. Mr. Schuester does the same for Joe's before reaching out when Jake slides his candle over to him. Their huddle is small enough that it doesn't take long before all the candles are lit, their tiny flames offering a sort of calming light in the dark. "We were hoping to round up with a regionals' win and a nationals' victory." Looking around at them, he adds quietly, "We can still do that, but that isn't why we're here today.

"Today we're here because we almost lost one of our own."

He pauses to let the words sink in, and Sam looks at the closed spaces between each of them, imagining Blaine sitting between them instead. Looking down at his candle, he pushes the thoughts aside, listening to Mr. Schuester talk.

"We are . . . incredibly fortunate that it wasn't a fatal shooting," Mr. Schuester says. It seems hard to admit it as anything remotely fortunate, but Sam doesn't protest, doesn't say what he knows they're all thinking. "But that doesn't mean that we don't feel its effects. In a way, we really have lost one of our own."

Sam stares down at the flickering flame of his candle, his eyes roving around the circle to the other candles, and he knows that it's true. Blaine will recover, but it will take time, time that they don't have. Regionals' competition is less than two weeks away. If they make it to nationals, then they'll have an additional month to prepare. Blaine can't perform with a shoulder sling, and Kurt's already informed him that it'll take at least six weeks before they'll consider removing it, three months for minimum shoulder restoration.

"Blaine is still a part of this family," Mr. Schuester asserts. "He's still one of us, and hopefully we'll be able to welcome him back soon." After a long, contemplative pause, he adds, "He won't be able to perform, so it's up to us to pick up the slack. I know we only have ten members, but the band has agreed to help us out, so we'll qualify for the competition." Looking around at them, he says seriously, "This is your year. You built it together again, and we're not going to let that fall apart. We're going to do this."

They nod, tentatively meeting each other's gazes, seeking guidance, understanding, something. It isn't until Marley speaks that Sam knows what they were looking for.

"To Blaine," she says, lifting her candle a few inches off the ground in a solitary toast. "Because he kept us together when we were falling apart."

"He helped get us back in the competition," Jake chimes in beside her, lifting his own candle and setting it back down.

"He's my best friend," Tina adds, mirroring the gesture.

"He was the first tolerable co-captain of the Cheerios," Kitty quips, almost dryly, as she lifts hers and sets it down again.

It's quiet for a time, the revelations sinking as Sugar adds that he appointed her treasurer of the student council and Joe points out that he introduced him to the interfaith paintball league.

"He saved my life," Brittany admits, once Unique, Ryder, and Artie have had their say.

Sam can't help but stare at her for a moment, the others doing the same. He tries to picture it in his mind, coming up with blurry images in half-formed hallways, one moment normal, the next chaotic. He remembers Brittany's levelheadedness, her surprising calmness in the face of unreality, able to operate in a world that was turned suddenly, inexplicably upside-down.

It occurs to him, then, that she knew where the bullet came from, and where it would have gone if Blaine had not been there.

He reaches over and silently squeezes her knee.

"Mine, too," is all he says. He waits, leaning back and glancing at the others as they look back expectantly, before holding up his own candle and adding simply, "He's a good guy."

"He is," Marley agrees, and as the two of them lower their candles, the first and last to do so. Sam knows that Blaine's status as leader won't change, even if the power has shifted onto their shoulders. He is an inherent part of them, but he's no longer their strength, their solidarity, and Sam knows it.

We're holding down the fort, he reflects, looking around their circle.

"Thank you, guys," Mr. Schuester says.

It takes a long time for the candles to burn out.

. o .

"Hey," Santana says, knocking back on the doorjamb to the loft as she steps inside. She's happy to be back in the big city after a week away. As nice as it was to see Brittany again, there is something homey about New York that she can't find in Lima anymore, and she can't say that she misses the small town much. She misses Brittany, but she misses Brittany all the time, and she's learned to deal with it by doing other things. Living. Living is the key to overcoming the agony of constant separation.

Dropping her solitary bag on one of the chairs, she adds lightly, "Did you miss me?"

Berry doesn't respond, curled up in a blanket on the couch, re-watching Mamma Mia. Santana doesn't need to ask to know that she's been crying; the tears are gone, but her eyes are still somewhat glassy and red.

"Why the long face?" Santana asks, shrugging out of her coat and setting it on the back of a chair. "I wasn't gone that long."

"Brody and I broke up," Berry admits, her voice slightly strangled. Santana opens her mouth to remind her that moping about the hairless wonder doesn't solve any of their problems when she continues, "And I know it's terrible to be upset about it because I know what happened in McKinley, but - "

"Stop," Santana orders, sitting on the chair across from her and looking at her seriously. "What happened at McKinley was terrible," she agrees. "Everything is allowed to be upset about it. But - " she holds up one finger importantly, " - that doesn't meant that all of our other problems are magically solved and don't matter anymore.

"Yes, Brody was a creep and you're much better off without him, and I would rather be baking a cake honoring the fact that you two are finally, irreversibly separated, but that doesn't mean that you're not allowed to be upset about it." Softening her tone a little, she adds, "The shooting happened, and it was terrible, but the only way we're going to be able to move on from it is if we accept that we're allowed to be upset about other things. You can't just make this the end-all punishment."

Berry stares at her as if she can't believe the words that she's hearing, trying to comprehend how the two can be possible. It's been hard for Santana to accept, too, the idea that they can still complain about traffic and noisy room mates and cold coffee after what happened at McKinley. But it's true, and they can't deny their own daily grievances because something bad happened to one of their own, or else they'll go insane.

Coming to the same conclusion, Berry lets out a heavy breath and admits, "You're right."

"Of course I am," Santana says without missing a beat, smiling almost lightly as she gets up and retrieves the girlfriend pillow Kurt bought her. He won't be coming back until Monday at the earliest, so they have at least one weekend to themselves; Santana isn't sure if she's looking forward to the extra time alone in the loft or dreading the hours spent with solely Berry for company. "I'm always right."

"I am glad you're back," Berry adds. "It's a lot lonelier without you and Kurt."

"Hummel will be back next week," Santana assures, fluffing up her girlfriend pillow a little.

"How is he?" Berry asks, tentative and uncertain.

"His boyfriend was shot," Santana says bluntly. "How would you feel?"

Berry says nothing for a time, the upbeat dance numbers doing nothing to lighten the mood. At last, she asks slowly, "They're together again?"

"For now," Santana agrees.

She doesn't mention that she doesn't know how things will go once Kurt returns. It's easy to fall in love with the idea of being back with someone at close range, but separated by hundreds of miles and limited to only a few minutes of interaction a day at times. . . .

She doesn't know how he'll respond.

But she knows that he can't return to Adam and pretend nothing happened this time. She won't let him, if nothing else, and if things work out and they still end up being a couple, then . . . she won't interfere.

Somehow, she doubts it, recalling Kurt's expression after she hugged him before leaving for New York. Agonized came closest to describing it, uncertain what the future held and which path he should take.

"They're definitely together for now," Santana finishes.

Berry nods and says nothing.


Author's Notes: Hello again, everyone!

As promised, I will respond to all of your reviews at some point.

There are only two more installments left. I hope you enjoyed this one and that you'll continue to enjoy upcoming chapters.

Thank you so much for all of your tremendous support. You are incredible.

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