13:57
Totally not a new update (Sorry! It really is over!). However, I got a number of questions on reviews, so I thought I would answer them (finally!)
So, first up: Sam's power. Sam was able to see flashes of the future. I just thought it was a nice little juxtaposition to his inability to regularly remember the past. I anticipated doing more with it, and then just realized that I was getting distracted from the themes and forward momentum of the story. Sorry for dropping it!
Blaines' power: Basically, Blaine's body rejected death. Age didn't affect him the same way that it does normal humans: he aged at a slower rate (but did still age, as some of you noted!). He had an extraordinary ability to heal. That being said, he was not immortal. He did eventually kill himself. (And how about that – spending his whole life fighting against depressive and suicidal tendencies, and then having no choice but to succumb!)
Drizzle: Drizzle isn't specifically anybody's child. He's just another person like Beth, someone incredibly young, who probably shouldn't have survived the nuclear apocalypse, but did. I probably shouldn't have named him Drizzle – I have no doubt that just contributed to the confusion. My bad. I just wanted some reminder that there was an outside world: everything wasn't just the Community put together in Washington D.C.
Kurt: I didn't mention Kurt's death. Kurt did die. Basically, Beth only recounts the deaths that had the greatest impact one her: the earliest deaths, when she first came to understand that people die, and then the people closest to her. Since she was raised by Puck and Santana, neither of whom were particularly close to Kurt in this 'verse, I assume that Kurt's death would have been a blip compared to the others.
Who died? Who didn't: Everyone exposed to radiation died young – with the exception of Blaine and Beth. Anyone in the bunker with Sue lived normal lives: Burt, Carole, Karofsky, Jesse, etc. The Warblers, though they were underground, also presumably died young, since several of the blasts were actually located IN the city.
Thanks once again to everyone for reading and reviewing! You just made me reread it myself. . .I forgot how much I loved this story! I loved writing it, loved the responses I got. . .just fantastic! Also, if you enjoyed this, I highly recommend "Concrete Jungles". It's a future story, rather than a crazy destructive AU, but it features the same characters, and will eventually feature the same relationships, and don't worry – plenty of angst!