A/N: This chapter and the next are dedicated to DustyDreams, who gave me the polite and amazingly romantic poke that I needed in order to remember that I have a lot left to do with this story. xoxo

Finn was listening to himself breath.

He still couldn't get quite enough air to stop the burning in his lungs. When he stopped focusing for a moment and thought about Kurt, about what was going on in the room just down the hall from the waiting room, his breathing became short and quick, and his vision became spotted. So he'd start listening again, focusing closely on taking deeper breaths. It cleared his head, but still wasn't quite satisfying enough to make the burning go away.

His mom was in the chair next to him, one hand on his arm, the other on his back. He didn't think she noticed what he was doing, because her eyes stayed on the hallway, waiting for Burt to reappear. But her presence, her hands on him, felt like warmth and comfort seeping just into his skin. Just not quite making its way past the surface.

When Carole stood, pulling Finn up with her, he'd almost forgotten where he was. Burt was in front of them though, and Finn forgot all about his breathing.

"They didn't find any evidence of rape," Burt announced. Finn felt himself nodding, because it made sense; something like that just couldn't have happened to Kurt. Carole pulled away and embraced Burt tightly before they both sat down, Burt right across from Finn.

"What happened?" he asked. Burt's cheeks and eyes were red, his hands shaking even as he clasped them in front of them and leaned toward Finn.

Finn nodded. "I was just playing video games," he recalled, forcing the words out quickly, "and I heard footsteps upstairs, so I went up to look and there were these guys and they had a gun."

Burt pursed his lips and looked like he would start crying again. This was completely different from telling the police.

"They made me sit down in the kitchen, and they asked me if there was anyone else in the house," Finn continued, wringing his hands. "I said no." He couldn't look Burt in the eyes. "I swear to God, Burt, I told them that there was no one else in the house, but they didn't believe me, and one of them went down into the basement, and I didn't know what he was doing, and there was no noise!" The spots were coming back into his vision, white and fuzzy and crowding into the peripherals of his sight. He grasped the edges of his chair.

"I killed someone," he heard himself blurt out, just as two men in blue uniforms came into his line of sight. Police officers, he realized, flanked by a nurse in pink, and then he couldn't breathe at all, just gasped, trying to relieve the burning.

Someone was pulling him up again, his mom, and leading him away from the chairs and talking to him.

"Finn, you have to calm down, you have to breathe," he heard someone say, not his mom. Then he was in another hospital room like Kurt's, sitting on an exam table with a man's face inches from his, telling him to breathe slowly and deeply. He tried, and it was so hard, so painful at first, but he was finally able to take deep breaths like the man was doing in front of him, and the spots started going away again.

"Is he okay?" That was definitely his mom from somewhere in the room. The breaths were a bit easier now that he knew she was still near, and didn't that make him feel like a baby?

"Finn," the man said, staring him directly in the eyes, hands heavy on his shoulders. "You're okay, your lungs are fine, you're just having a panic attack, okay? You've got to breathe slowly and deeply and try to relax and clear your mind or else you're going to pass out. You got that?"

He nodded.

"Keep breathing for me while I talk to your mom, okay? I'm going to get you some anti-anxiety meds to help out."

Finn closed his eyes and just breathed in and out slowly, listening to the murmur of the doctor talking to his mother. For a while there, he'd really thought maybe his ribs were broken, or his lungs had popped or something. He didn't feel like he was panicking…just overwhelmed. How could that make his chest hurt so badly?

When he opened his eyes the doctor was gone. His mother was rubbing his back again; he hadn't even noticed. His breathing was steady and slow.

"Baby," his mom suddenly let out quietly. He realized she was crying when she wrapped her arms around him gently and his shoulder became wet. "You're okay. Let's go now, alright?"

"Home?" he asked, because he didn't even want to picture the house right now, not with the blood in the living room and the mess in the basement.

Carole pulled back to look at him. "We're going to stay in a motel tonight. Burt's staying here with Kurt; he just has to stay overnight because of the concussion. Then tomorrow, we can go back to the house and clean up before Kurt comes home, okay?"

Finn slowly thickly, taking even deeper breaths.

"But, Finn," she continued, "If you want to go over to Rachel's tomorrow, or Puck's, you can. I can take care of the house if you don't want to see it."

He felt relief at first, then realized that if he went to Rachel or Puck, he'd have to tell them what happened. And they'd flip.

"No," he finally said. "I want to stay with you. I'll help you clean."

Carole held his face in her hands and kissed his forehead. And then Finn felt like, after all this, when he finally washed the blood from the kitchen floor with his own hands, it really would be over. He'd really feel safe again.