A/N: Saw clips Darren Criss on some American morning show. His infinite awesomeness makes me want to dance the tango. I don't know how to tango, though, so I'll just merengue instead. As for this chapter: I know fudge-all about hospitals and injuries, so I made it up, with some help from Wikipedia. I hope it's convincing. The regularly scheduled joke awaits you at the end.
The sun had set a couple hours ago and the fluorescent lights were humming louder and louder by the minute. The three adults had ingested copious amounts of coffee and the child was so full of Sprite that she suffered from a Sprite headache and had to lie down. She was currently sleeping, curled up on a chair with her head in the lap of her mother. Burt and Kurt sat across from Bonnie and Betty on the other side of a low, pine table topped with a box of tissues, outdated magazines and a vase of dusty fake gerberas. A family of origami cranes also sat on the table, sitting next to the tissue box. About an hour earlier, Kurt had taught Bonnie how to fold them using pamphlets about blood pressure. Now, Betty and Kurt were hushedly talking about deep sea creatures ("Why is a giant squid's eye always compared to a dinner plate? Squid eyes should never be associated with dinner,"), and Burt was trying to figure out how to play air hockey on Kurt's iPhone.
A stately man in a white coat approached them, looking at the clipboard clutched in his hand. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a receding hairline and half-rimmed glasses. "Mrs. ...Anderson?" He called.
Betty stood up and the doctor walked up to her, towering over her petite stature.
"You are Blaine Anderson's mother, yes?" He asked her.
She nodded.
"He's out of surgery now and his condition is stable, but he is unconscious and will be for a while yet. We think it best to leave him asleep until the pain is at a manageable level."
"How long will that take?" Betty asked.
"It could take hours or days, but odds are he'll wake up by tomorrow morning anyways. We just don't suggest inducing wakefulness and instead letting him wake up on his own. Now, he has suffered extensive injuries. He has three broken ribs, a fractured skull and several lacerations that required stitching. His right lung was punctured and he suffered some internal bleeding, which should have been fully taken care of by the operations. His wrist is fractured and his left tibia - that's his shin bone - is shattered. The ribs and the wrist are basically clean breaks, but the tibia, that's probably going to be the one to worry about. Those are the major problems, apart from that he has minor scrapes and bruises pretty much all over his body."
Betty stood there in shock. "H-how many stitches?"
"One hundred and two," The doctor said tactlessly.
Betty sank back into her chair, staring blankly ahead of her.
"Oh, uh," The doctor said, realizing his bluntness, "um, yeah." He turned around and walked down the hall to a young woman in a matching white coat and said a few words to her. The woman turned to look at Betty, then walked up to her briskly and crouched in front of her on the ground, similar to how Kurt had done earlier.
"Mrs. Anderson? Hi, I'm Dr. North. I've seen your son personally and I just want you to know that I believe he will fully recover. He'll be awake by tomorrow and, with enough morphine, the worst he'll feel here is bored." Dr. North smiled at Betty. "And I will personally make sure that Dr. Lawrence checks with me before talking to you again. He can be a bit... harsh." Dr. North stroked Betty's arm comfortingly and Betty smiled back at her, sniffling.
Dr. Lawrence reappeared behind Dr. North and said, "Um, Alice?"
Dr. North stood up and faced him. "What's wrong?"
Dr. Lawrence glanced at Betty and Bonnie, then dragged Dr. North by her upper arm out of earshot. He said a few words, then Alice gasped and ran down the hallway and around the corner, out of sight. Dr. Lawrence looked at Betty once more, then followed Alice.
Kurt and Betty exchanged looks of fear. Then Kurt stood up and ran after the doctors.
"Kurt!" Burt called after him, but didn't bother chasing after him. He knew it would be useless.
As soon as Kurt was out of sight, the automatic doors slid open and Finn and Carole ran into the room, looking around frantically. They spotted Burt and ran up to him. They took turns giving Burt a hug (Carole did it warmly, Finn did it awkwardly), and began to bombard him with questions that ran into each other indistinguishably. Burt filled them in on the situation, then introduced them each to Betty. The Hudsons procured their own chairs and joined the little waiting party.
"Hang on," Carole said, "where's Kurt?"
"Oh, yeah," Finn added, just now noticing Kurt's absence.
"Oh, he went chasing after a couple doctors." Burt told them.
Finn and Carole nodded as if this was completely normal behaviour.
Meanwhile, Kurt was pacing back and forth in front of a closed door. He tried to run in after the doctors, but a couple of nurses pushed him out and slammed the door in his face. Before the door closed, however, he caught a glimpse of Blaine's limp body, hooked up to numerous machines and covered in plaster and bandages. The image wouldn't leave Kurt's mind and it scared him so much that his teeth were chattering. With every step he took, a million thoughts popped into his head, some good, some horrible.
When he wakes up, I'm buying him one of those giant new Starbucks coffees. With whipped cream. And chocolate sauce.
But what if he doesn't wake up?
What if he's crippled? Maybe he and Artie could start a wheelchair-basketball league.
I wonder how Blaine would look in a basketball uniform. I've never seen him in shorts. He'd look good in shorts.
Does Blaine even like basketball? I'll ask him when he wakes up.
But what if he doesn't wake up?
I can't think like that. He will wake up. And when he does, I will hit him for crashing his car and kiss him for being alive.
I wonder if kissing would hurt him. It would probably hurt less than hitting him.
Which I will do. Because he's stupid. He's a stupid-head.
Those giant coffees are called Tetras, aren't they? No, they're Trentas. Tetras are fish. Why on earth would anyone need so much coffee? Never mind, that's a stupid question. Coffee is awesome.
I should have kissed him earlier. Like, a few days ago. It wouldn't have hurt then.
Kurt's brain was running a thousand miles a minute. It was like a runaway train going off a cliff - uncontrollable and unstoppable. Kurt had never felt such a wild cocktail of emotions swirling inside him before. He stopped walking, tensed every muscle in his body, including his face, then let go. Then let go some more until he was sitting on the floor. He shuffled his position until he was leaning against the wall across from the door, staring at it.
Open sesame.
I wonder if it would be too inappropriate to sing right now. Probably.
I wonder if Blaine was singing when he crashed. I always picture him as singing all the time. Singing while eating, reading, showering.
Not that I picture Blaine in the shower.
Who in their right mind doesn't sing in the shower?
I wonder what song I'll sing at his funeral.
EIGHTY YEARS FROM NOW. He's not dying today. He's going to become an old, wrinkly man.
He'll probably be an adorable old man.
I better not outlive him. I don't think my heart could take it.
I wonder if he'll carry around butterscotch candies when he's old. Lots of old people do that. They'll probably be Werther's. I wonder if he's tried those new chocolate Werther's. I'll buy him some when he wakes up. They'll go well with his coffee.
Kurt continued staring at the door as if it were the most fascinating door in the world. It wasn't fascinating at all; in fact, it could very well be the most boring door in the world. Grey. Silver doorknob. Plain. Unnervingly immaculate. He studied that door with such intensity that his eyes hurt, but he couldn't find a single flaw - no dents, nicks, smudges.
I never realized how boring perfect is before.
I wonder if that's why I like Blaine so much. He's far from perfect, always tripping over everything.
He sure smells good, though.
The door opened and Dr. Lawrence walked out. He spotted Kurt on the floor in front of him and stopped.
Kurt immediately stood up and scurried over to Dr. Lawrence, shouting "What's wrong? How's Blaine?"
"Oh, um," Dr. Lawrence muttered, "he, uh, suffered a slight cardiac arrest brought on by his pneumothor - um, his collapsed lung. We resuscitated him immediately, Dr. North just overreacted a bit."
"Wait," Kurt started, "she 'overreacted'? One of her patients had a heart attack and she 'overreacted'?" His voice rose several decibels and an entire octave.
"Now, a cardiac arrest and a heart attack are not the same thing, a heart attack can cause a cardiac arrest, but so can many other - "
Kurt didn't want to listen to Dr. Lawrence anymore. He pushed past the startled doctor and forced himself into the room.
It was the same image that had been floating in Kurt's head since he first got shoved out of the room: Blaine, lying almost lifeless on a small hospital bed. His eyes were closed but his eyebrows were furrowed, as if he were having a nightmare. His left leg was in a cast and was suspended several feet above the bed; his right arm was also in a cast and his head was wrapped in bandages. Kurt suspected that miles of bandages were also wrapped around his chest under his hospital gown. His face was littered with tiny scratches and cuts, and a disfiguring, dark purple bruise covered his right eye and cheek. His lips were raw and blistered and were parted slightly, drawing in raspy, labored breaths.
Dr. North was in a chair beside the bed, leaning towards Blaine and stroking his arm, as she had done with Betty. She noticed Kurt, then beckoned him without saying a word. Kurt tentatively stepped over to her. She reached back and pulled up a chair that was pushed against the wall. Kurt sat down.
"Are you two close?" She whispered.
"Very," Kurt replied, equally hushed.
"It's times like these when I hate my job and love it at the same time," She smiled sadly at Kurt, "I hate it because I have to see the pain in your eyes, and in his mother's eyes. But I love it because I get to tell you that he'll be okay. You don't know it yet, but the look you'll get in your eyes when he wakes up is the motivation I need to keep saving lives." She put her hand over Kurt's. It was warm and small.
Dr. North reminded Kurt of his third grade teacher, Ms. Graham. Ms. Graham taught Kurt all about guardian angels when his mom was dying. She told him that he was his mom's angel, and he told Ms. Graham that she was his. Kurt didn't believe in angels anymore, but if he did, he would say Dr. North definitely was one.
A/N: Two goldfish are in a tank. One turns to the other and says, "You man the guns, I'll drive."
Bit of a downer chapter, so I threw in Kurt's silly internal narrative. I hope it made you chuckle a wee bit. Longest chapter yet by a solid 400-or-so words! Too many commas in it, though? I think so. I kinda hate to say it, but my favourite part of writing this chapter was coming up with all of Blaine's injuries. My least favourite part was trying to name the doctors and Kurt's teacher. It wasn't nearly as much fun as coming up with Betty and Bonnie. Reviews make me really really happy :) Virtual Red Vines to all reviewers.