Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
When the doctor at the hospital told them that Kurt was fine and would fully recover, Blaine had a feeling that he was able to breathe properly again. It had felt like an eternity when they all drove to the hospital in Harmony's car and when the doctors checked on Kurt.
"He only has a mild concussion and a broken arm, but that's all", the doctor just explained to them.
Finn sighed a breath of relief.
"Thank god", Harmony said quietly.
"Can we see him?", Blaine asked immediately at Finn's place.
The doctor nodded. "Yes, but not for long; he needs to rest."
Harmony checked her watch, throwing Finn an apologetic glance. "It's getting late, I got to go", she told him, grimacing.
"Yeah, of course." Finn rubbed his neck, throwing her a grateful glance and smiling at her softly. "Thank you for what you have done for us even though you don't even know me."
She waved it off. "Hey, that was the very least I could do for you after I acted like a total bitch yesterday. I had an important meeting and I was nervous, but it was no excuse for letting that cute barista suffer."
"It's all snow under the bridge now", Finn reassured her. "Ermm…I mean water, of course. It's all water under the bridge now", he quickly corrected himself after Blaine had whispered the right saying into his ear. "Wait…did you just call me cute?"
Harmony winked at him when she put a card into the pocket of his sweatjacket, making the 'call me' sign with her right hand. "Good night, Finn", she whispered kind of flirtatiously before she left the hospital.
"You like her, don't you?", Blaine asked him with a knowing glance once she went out of their sight.
Finn flinched. "We just met, how can I already like her?", he answered, nervous for some reason.
Before Blaine could answer him back, Finn quickly rushed over to the room where Kurt was and opened the door.
Another time, Blaine thought amusedly. I will find out one way or another anyway.
Kurt was not awake. His head was bandaged, his left arm had been put in a cast. Blaine couldn't help but think that he looked pale, paler than usually.
"That's not true, that's only because of the light", someone behind him complained, and Blaine jumped a few inches in the air, slowly turning around.
None other than Kurt was standing behind him – kind of.
"Dude, you scared the crap out of us!", Finn complained, rubbing his forehead and irritatedly looking back between the real Kurt and the one who was standing next to them. "We thought you were sleeping."
"No, I am not", Kurt negated, shaking his head. "I'm just too weak to interact with you the normal way. Those painkillers are stronger than I thought."
His eyelids and limbs felt as heavy as lead and talking would take him a lot of force as well. But as long as he wasn't asleep, he could communicate with Finn and Blaine in their heads.
He turned to Blaine. "I don't know how to thank you", he said "You were the one who found me, right?"
Blaine rubbed his neck sheepishly. "Not exactly. Actually, it was Finn who tracked you with his tracking app…"
"But you told me about the accident in the first place", Finn reminded him. "You should take all the credit for having saved him."
"Oh, that was nothing", Blaine waved it off, smiling faintly. "You all would have done the same at my place."
Kurt started yawning loudly. "I guess I will try to get some sleep now", he told Finn and Blaine. Keeping up that mental link was more exhausting than he thought. He needed to rest, not only physically, but also mentally. His brain needed to recover as well.
"Okay, dude", Finn nodded, retrieving his phone. "I will text mom and Burt first. They are probably…"
Before he could even unlock his display, Kurt had rushed over to him and snatched the phone out of his hands.
"Dude!", Finn exclaimed. "What the hell?"
"You can't tell them about it!", Kurt protested, laying down the device on the nightstand. "Dad would flip out. I don't want them to worry because of nothing. I am fine."
"Says the one who can't talk to us the normal way because he is too weakened", Blaine muttered.
"Because I am tired", Kurt retorted stubbornly. "I just need to rest, easy as that." He threw Finn one last pleading glance. "Please, Finn, keep that little incident-"
"Accident!", Finn corrected him with a frown.
"Accident to yourself. At least until I checked out of hospital", Kurt ended his sentence. "Please?"
Finn groaned loudly. "Fine!", he sighed. "But next time, I will tell them immediately, okay?"
"Deal", Kurt agreed, yawning again. "If you would excuse me, I need to get some sleep."
After he had said that sentence, he walked over to his bed and lied down, stretching his arms and legs and curling up next to his real self and closing his eyes. "Good night."
Finn and Blaine exchanged weird glances. "Is it just me or is it weird to see him twice?", Blaine finally spoke up.
When Finn blinked, the second Kurt was gone. "Nope, just you", he joked with a grin.
"It was perfect, Arts", Tina gushed when the two of them were sitting on her couch (okay, she was) and talking about her date with her new acquaintance Mike. "He was a true gentleman, he even pulled back the chair for me when I wanted to sit down."
"Great", Artie grumbled, not as ecstatic about it as Tina.
"Did you know that he works as a professional dancer?", Tina asked him excitedly. "He was one of the background dancers at Justin's tour."
"Which Justin?", her friend asked her with a frown.
Tina, completely oblivious to his lack of interest, answered with a beam: "Bieber AND Timberlake. He knows both of them personally. And a lot of other celebs as well."
"Wow, who would have thought?", Artie answered monotonously, crossing his arms with a scowl. "You were never that enthusiastic about my job", he pointed out sullenly. "IT is not so interesting to you, I guess."
"Mike and I, we will meet for a second date next week." Tina's eyes were literally sparkling. "He wants to take me out to an exquisite restaurant." Excited, she bounced up and down on her seat.
Artie just let out an annoyed groan.
Perplexed, Tina cocked her head to the side. "Why do I get the feeling that you are not as thrilled about this news as I am?" For as long as she could remember, she and Artie had been best friends, and it didn't change when they grew up. That's why she couldn't understand why he didn't share her excitement right now.
"Don't you see?", Rachel who sat next to her on the couch all of a sudden, asked her with amusement. "He likes you. He's jealous."
"That's nonsense", Tina answered her back with a frown.
"What's nonsense?", Artie asked her confusedly.
"That you are jealous of Mike", she explained with cocked eyebrows. "You are my best friend since we were toddlers, Artie, and no one could ever replace you."
Rachel burst into laughter. "He likes you more than that, silly", she chuckled "That's why he doesn't approve of the dates with that Mike guy."
"Shut up, Rachel", Tina hissed with red cheeks.
Artie cocked his head to the side. "Tina… is it possible that you took illegal substances that make you see things?"
This can't be happening, Tina annoyedly thought to herself. Her best friend who probably crushed on her was convinced that she was high!
"I don't hallucinate, for crying out loud!", she snapped. Taking a deep breath, she took Artie's hands and looked him deep in the eyes. "Listen, Arts, do you trust me? And can I trust you?"
"Ermmm…yes?" He blinked at her in confusion. "What's wrong? Are you sick or something? Will you die?"
"We are all going to die sooner or later", Rachel pointed out, crossing her arms.
"Just be quiet, Rachel!", Tina snarled, and Artie tentatively looked over to the spot she glared at. The empty spot.
"What the hell? Do you have imaginary friends?"
Tina shook her head. "No, I don't. I can…talk to certain people that are all over the states. With my head."
Artie's eyes widened. "No way! You have telepathic powers?" His face lit up. "That's awesome!"
"Wait…he believes you?", Rachel asked, surprised about how things turned out. "He doesn't declare you legally insane or wants you to go see a doctor?"
"He is my best friend since we were toddlers, Rachel", Tina explained to her slowly. "He knows me better than any other person. He knows that I would never lie to him."
Artie who had heard these words, blushed slightly and looked down. "Thanks, T. Happy to hear that." He turned to the spot where Rachel sat and smiled at her even though he couldn't see her. "Rachel, right? I'm Artie, Tina's best friend. Nice to meet you", he introduced himself with a goofy grin.
Rachel just cocked her eyebrows.
"She said it was nice to meet you too", Tina quickly answered for her, and Rachel threw her a weird glance.
Her friend smiled from ear to ear. "So…how does that whole thing work? This is scientific gold for a scientist like me."
"Computer scientist", Tina corrected him "And we don't know it ourselves. Suddenly, we were just able to communicate with each other without even having met once."
"If that's the case, you are going to need a genius like me", he answered giddily. "I will help you with all that, do some research and help you figure it out. This is going to be amazing!"
Tina's eyes lit up. "You would do that for us?"
"Nice of your nerdy friend", Rachel agreed.
He nodded with anticipation. "Of course. After all, it doesn't happen every day that your best friend gets powers, right?"
Overwhelmed by gratefulness, Tina leaned over to give him a tight hug. "Thanks, Artie. You are the best, are you aware of that?"
"I sure am", Artie answered in a smug way "You don't need to say it all the…Tina?" He snapped his fingers in front of her face, surprised she didn't react. Instead, she just stared at the spot in front of her without blinking, her eyes had turned glassy.
"Tina!" Even when he shook her shoulder, she didn't react. Artie's eyes widened in shock.
Quinn rubbed her head when she came to. One moment, she had been jogging at the park near her home, the next, she just passed out for no apparent reason. She sat up and rubbed her eyes.
When she looked around, she noticed that she was in a hall of sorts, but she was not alone.
"What the hell?", Mercedes who also just came to, asked. "How is that possible?"
They were not the only ones. Rachel, Tina, Finn, Puck, Sam, Kurt (his left arm was in a cast) and Blaine also were sitting on the floor and perplexedly looking around.
"Where are we?", Blaine asked in the round.
"Or more importantly: Is it an illusion our heads made up?", Tina wondered.
"Welcome", another voice suddenly spoke up and the group of ten turned around, startled.
Five people, two men and three women, in cloaks and masks on their faces were standing in front of them, smiling warmly.
"Who the hell are you?", Puck asked, wanting to reach out for his gun in his holster. "I'm a cop, so you better beware."
"We are not your enemies", the first woman explained kindly.
"We were the one who brought you to this place to talk to you", one of the men added.
"You didn't answer Puck's question", Kurt said, still looking skeptical. "Who are you?"
"Call us the Council of Elders", the second woman answered.
Rachel crossed her arms. "Council of what?"
"The council of people like us", the second man explained. "People with telepathic bonds. There is even a name for that: Sensates."
"Sensates?", Finn repeated. "There are more people like us?"
The third woman nodded. "Oh, yes, there are. Humans like us whose brains are more sophisticated than an average person's brain. Humans who have a psychic connection."
"Why are you called the Council of Elders?", Mercedes asked them with a cocked eyebrow. "You don't look as old to me."
They were surprised when all the five members laughed.
"We are about one hundred years old", the second woman explained patiently "Sensates do age deceleratedly."
"So I'm going to stay twenty-six forever? Like a vampire?", Kurt asked, aghast.
"Well, at least we won't age in the next twenty years, that's great", Sam chimed, but Kurt wasn't listening.
"How am I going to explain that to Vince? Or my children? They are going to look older than me!"
Puck threw him a weird glance. "You are already thinking about founding a family with annoying and thankless rugrats? Life is too short for that."
"Not for us, it seems", Blaine muttered under his breath.
Quinn crossed her arms and turned to the cop. "Do you want to tell me you don't want to be a father one day?"
"I never said that", Puck said quickly "But it doesn't have to be now."
"Did you ever think about your future wife?", Quinn retorted, her eyes narrowed. "Her biological clock is ticking. Even if it wouldn't, who wants to be a fifty-year-old mom?"
"Says the one who got pregnant when she was sixteen…", Rachel murmured.
The blonde threw her a killing glance. "It was an accident, for god's sake!"
"Yes, of course", the brunette answered sarcastically.
The first woman cleared her throat loudly. "I think we're slowly getting off talk. The reason why we wanted to talk to you was to ask you how you were."
"Apart from the fact that nine other people I don't even know that much permanently invade my privacy by reading my mind-"
"Reading your what now?", the second man cut off Mercedes.
"We can read each other's minds", Tina explained. "At the beginning, we could only hear snippets of what the others thought and only every now and then, but now, we can do it whenever we want to."
The five elder Sensates exchanged worried glances.
"Is there a problem?", Finn who didn't miss that reaction, asked them.
"Usually, Sensates are not able to read minds of each other", the second woman explained.
"The probability Sensates are able to do so is one in one thousand", woman number three added.
Kurt groaned frustratedly. "Great, so even among freaks, we are freaks?"
"And is there a reason why we are the ones who are…different?", Rachel asked tentatively.
The five council members shrugged. "We honestly have no idea as well."
"But we will find out, we promise", the first man spoke up.
The third woman rolled up her sleeve and checked her watch. "Our time together is up, I'm afraid.", she said apologetically.
"But we still have questions!", Tina protested, feeling how her spirit slowly returned to her body.
"Yeah, Tina is right", Finn agreed. "Why are we the ones who are linked to each other? Is there a reason?"
"This is a story for another time, son", the second man said patiently. "But not for now."
"You can't just-" Before Quinn could end her sentence, she reopened her eyes – and realized that she was standing in the park again. Perplexed, she shook her head before she started jogging towards her apartment complex.
What the hell was that?
As soon as the spirits of the ten young Sensates had been sent back to their bodies, the five council members put down their masks.
"Millenials", Holly Holliday said, shaking her head. "They are so impulsive and loud. I'm getting a headache."
"Yeah, tell me about it", the second woman, April Rhodes, groaned, putting down her cloak. A tight black dress came into view. Sighing relievedly, she bent down to retrieve a bottle of Scotch from her purse.
"Is that necessary, April?", Dr. Schuester, leader of the council, asked her annoyedly.
April just shrugged and took another sip of her bottle.
"Why did we want to keep our identities a secret again?", Isabelle Wright asked Dr. Schuester. "I know Kurt. He's a good boy and I could mentor him."
"Yes", Sheldon Beiste agreed. "I'm the captain of the Police Department where Puck works. He is something like a son to me."
Dr. Schuester shook his head fervently. "We already had that topic. The time isn't ripe yet. We still need to wait, please just trust me. Of course, it's okay to help them out every now and then without them noticing, but that's all."
The other four members nodded, albeit reluctantly.
Thanks for the nice reviews btw, they made my day =D