..
In The Shadow Of The Watertowers
..
It took the girls another two hours to make it all the way back to the loft, and by the time their apartment building stood looming and dark in front of them, Rachel had nearly passed out.
"You doing okay, Rachel?" Dani asked, tugging on Rachel's arm as she and Santana half-carried her to the building's front door.
"I… I f-feel dizzy…" Rachel stuttered, sounding almost like she was falling asleep.
Santana hefted Rachel's weight up. "Come on, Berry, quit being such a drama queen and keep your foot up. We're home. Two more minutes and we can put a Band-Aid on it."
Dani wrenched the door open, holding it back with her shoulder as they struggled to maneuver the three of them inside all at once. The door swung shut behind them, plunging them into absolute and total darkness, without even the stars to light their way. Santana led the way up the stairs, familiar with the curve of the wall and the height of each individual step. With some difficult navigation and a lot of muscle power, Dani and Santana were able to pull Rachel up the stairwell to the loft door.
Fumbling for her key in the dark, Santana finally unlocked the apartment and rolled the door back. "Let's get her onto the couch," she said, Rachel's arm tightening around her as they crossed the threshold. Santana heard Rachel's foot drag on the floor for a moment and felt her flinch, but Rachel didn't make a sound.
They eased Rachel onto the sofa, Santana immediately leaving Dani to help Rachel prop her injured foot up on the coffee table. Setting the bags of water and energy bars they'd carried for the second half of their journey onto the kitchen table, Santana rummaged through the kitchen drawers in search of matches.
"I think I'm bleeding on the carpet," Rachel commented quietly.
"Bleed all you want," Santana flapped a hand over her shoulder. "I've been begging Hummel to get rid of that ugly rug for ages." Her fingers closed around the box of matches they kept in the drawer by the stove. "Rachel, where does Kurt keep that kerosene lamp he got at the flea market?"
"Um… in his room somewhere, I think," Rachel replied.
Santana ducked behind Kurt's curtain, striking a match and holding it up to light the space as much as possible. She spotted the old-fashioned lamp sitting atop Kurt's bureau as decoration and quickly walked over to light it. Gently placing the glass chimney back over the small flame, Santana turned up the wick and smiled to herself in relief as, for the first time since the power vanished, light washed over her.
She carried the lamp and the matchbox back to the living room, setting them on the table beside Rachel's foot so that they could see the damage.
"Holy…" Dani exhaled, her eyes widening at the wound in Rachel's heel.
Santana felt her stomach twist at the sight of it, and she swallowed the urge to throw up.
"Is it bad?" Rachel asked, pushing herself up on her elbows.
"Well," Santana paused. "The good news is you weren't overreacting."
Letting out a heavy breath and steeling her nerves, Santana knelt by the coffee table so that she could examine the injury more closely. Rachel's heel was slowly dripping blood onto the tabletop, and a jagged piece of glass as long and wide as Santana's thumb was protruding from the torn skin.
"Okay, Dani, can you run to the bathroom and grab a couple of towels, and get a bottle of water," Santana requested, pulling the lamp closer. "And the vodka from the fridge." Dani nodded once and did as she was asked.
"Kurt's not here," Rachel said faintly, her voice wavering almost imperceptibly.
Santana sighed. She'd been so preoccupied with getting Rachel's foot treated that she hadn't even noticed their third roommate wasn't there. "I'm sure he's fine."
Dani returned with the supplies before Rachel could say anything further. Santana carefully placed a folded hand towel under Rachel's heel and poured a small amount of water over the wound, making Rachel hiss through her teeth in pain.
"Relax, I'm just rinsing it off before I do anything."
"What are you going to do?"
"The piece of glass has to come out, then we'll wrap it up as best we can."
"Do you have a First Aid kit?" Dani asked.
"Yes," Rachel answered.
Santana shook her head. "No, we have a box of Band-Aids. You need stitches. We'll go to the hospital as soon as we can. Rachel, hold your foot back," she directed, pushing on Rachel's toes. She twisted the cap off the bottle of vodka and splashed a bit over the blood-flecked glass, making Rachel's leg jerk up. Rachel yelped.
"Okay," Santana said, brushing her hands off on the skirt of her uniform. "Okay, Rachel, I'm going to take the glass out now. On the count of three."
Dani quickly went to sit beside Rachel on the couch, wrapping her hand around Rachel's fingers.
"Deep breath," Santana said, taking the shard of glass between her fingertips.
Rachel clenched her jaw, humming a shaky, tuneless note under her breath.
"One." In a single fast movement, Santana gave the glass a sharp, forceful tug, and it came loose with an awful, gut-wrenching squelch.
A scream ripped from Rachel's throat.
Will kept a firm hand on Blaine's shoulder as they trekked through the dark outskirts of Lima, only speaking up occasionally to make sure they were going in the right direction to Blaine's house. Blaine had stopped fighting a while after they'd lost sight of the plane wreckage, and had resigned to quietly walking beside Will with his arms hugging his abdomen.
The entire time, Will didn't speak. If there was something he could say to make the situation better, he didn't know what it was. His mind reeled, nose still clogged with the smell of burning fuel and blood and smoke. He knew Emma was at home and likely wouldn't leave, and all he wanted was to run back to their apartment as quickly as he could. But first, he had to return Blaine home.
They reached the bottom of Blaine's driveway and saw a few candles burning in the front window, though the rest of the house was dark. "I'll walk you up," Will said, steering Blaine onto the path leading up to the house.
"Blaine?!" called a voice from the door. "Oh, God, Blaine!" A woman rushed down the steps to meet them, throwing her arms around Blaine the moment he was within reach. "Are you all right? Your father went out to look for you!" She squinted at Will in the shadows just long enough to see that he wasn't Cooper. "Blaine, where's your brother?"
"Mrs. Anderson, I'm so sorry…" Will started. "Cooper, he—"
"Tell me he's okay."
Will pressed his mouth shut, at a complete loss.
"Mom," Blaine said softly.
Mrs. Anderson's body began to shake, the movement barely visible in the darkness, and she pulled her son closer to her side. "Thank you," she said, "for bringing Blaine home."
The night dragged on for ages as Santana and Dani sat at the kitchen table, the kerosene lamp set between them and Santana's aching legs resting in Dani's lap. They'd wrapped Rachel's foot tightly in strips of cloth torn from an old but clean exercise shirt, then let Rachel drink a couple shots of vodka and fall asleep on the couch, her foot still propped on the coffee table.
It was disturbingly quiet, apart from Rachel's light snoring. There were no sirens, no sounds of traffic, none of the typical noise of nighttime in Brooklyn, and neither Dani nor Santana felt much like sleeping. Santana had changed out of her uniform and lent Dani a set of clothes as well, the both of them huddling under oversized sweatshirts Santana usually had reserved only for days when she didn't leave the apartment.
Dani looked over at Rachel's sleeping form hidden under several blankets. "You think she'll be okay?"
Santana glanced over her shoulder for a moment. "Yeah, sure. I mean, we stopped the bleeding and cleaned it out as well as we could. We'll take her to the hospital once the power comes back." She rested her chin in her hand, gazing out the blackened windowpane. "I wonder what time it is."
Dani peeked at her wrist. "Almost five in the morning."
"How is your watch still working?"
"It's a wind-up," Dani replied, tapping the watch's face with a fingernail. "No battery." She stretched her legs out beneath the table. "Man, my legs are sore."
Santana made a noise of agreement in her throat, reaching for a bottle of water from the bags they'd carried back.
"Santana, aren't you worried about Kurt?"
"Why?" Santana frowned. "You think something happened to him?"
Dani shrugged with one shoulder, leaning back in her chair and intertwining her fingers. "I don't know. A lot of stuff happened to a lot of people; it's hard not to think about, at least."
Santana shook her head. "I'm sure he's fine," she said, wondering in the back of her mind how many times she'd said that exact phrase in the hours since the blackout.
"Look," Dani changed the subject, nodding towards the kitchen window. "The sun's coming up."
Sure enough, the stars had faded and the sky was gradually growing lighter. Santana lifted her sore legs out of Dani's lap and crossed the kitchen, pulling the window up and swinging herself over the ledge onto the fire escape outside. She reached back to give Dani a hand through the window as the sky above them slowly turned pink.
Leaning their elbows against the rail, the two of them watched the sunlight silently and steadily flood the city. Neither of them said a word, both grateful and reassured that the sun was still there.
The sun had swung high in the sky by the time Rachel came back around, and Santana brought a bottle of water to where she sat on the couch. "How's your foot?" she asked, sitting in the adjacent armchair as Rachel took a long drink.
Rachel swallowed half the bottle before she replaced the cap and set it to the side. "Hurts," she answered. "But better than last night."
"Good."
"Thank you," Rachel said, "for taking care of it."
Santana shrugged dismissively. "I have a lot of siblings; I'm used to people getting injured."
"Well, thanks just the same." Rachel glanced around the apartment, her eyes scanning every lamp in sight. "Did the power come back on?"
"Nope, not yet. Probably will at some point today."
"Is Kurt back?"
Santana shook her head.
"Where's Dani?"
"Crashed in my bed."
"Didn't you sleep?"
Santana shrugged. "Wasn't tired."
Rachel quirked an eyebrow. "We walked like ten miles last night, if you count all the times we got lost. How are you not tired?"
Santana only gave another shrug in response.
Rachel let out a long breath. "I hate to ask this," she started. "But… I have to pee."
Santana rolled her eyes. "Fine." She stood up and leaned over to wrap an arm around Rachel's upper back, letting Rachel hang onto her neck as Santana pulled her upright. "We've got to get you some crutches or something, because I will not help you with this every time you need to tinkle. You are not allowed to be a diva right now."
Rachel only chuckled, clinging to Santana and limping alongside.
They were halfway to the bathroom when the front door suddenly gave a loud rattle, and the girls froze in their tracks. It was quiet for all of two seconds before the door rattled again, rocking back and forth slightly on its rollers.
"Someone's trying to get in," Rachel whispered, her limbs rigid.
There was a massive reverberating bang! as whoever was on the other side gave the door a frustrated kick. Santana swallowed and helped Rachel to sit in one of the chairs at the kitchen table, then made a beeline for the drawer where they kept the knives.
"You're going to stab them?!" Rachel hissed, her eyes wide.
"It might be looters," Santana insisted under her breath as the door banged again. She walked to the door, leaning her ear close to try to hear anything distinctive from outside.
Dani came into the living room from behind Santana's curtain, her hair and clothes disheveled from sleep. "What's going on?"
Santana pressed a finger to her lips, one palm on the door handle and the other clutching the knife, holding it poised at chest-level.
"Rachel?" called a muffled voice from the other side. "Santana? Hello?"
The three girls in unison let out a heave of breath in relief, Santana dropped the knife to her side and hurried to unlock the door, quickly yanking it open.
"Jesus, Hummel, don't—" Santana stopped short, her jaw going slack.
Kurt stood just outside the door, out of breath and his clothes dirty, the entire side of his head, neck, and shoulder caked with dried blood. His eyes flickered down to see the blade gripped in Santana's fist.
"...Were you just about to stab me?"