Chapter Three

Kurt eyed his reflection for a while after he finished his nightly skincare ritual. He looked like himself, but there was such a sharp foreign emptiness in his eyes that he might have been staring at a stranger. It was disconcerting and he found himself getting up and reaching for the duvet at the end of his bed. He unfolded it and shook it out over the mirror in front of his vanity to cover it up.

"Hey."

He turned and sighed at the sight of Finn leaning in his doorway in his plaid pajama pants and plain white t-shirt. He might not be able to stand looking at himself, but Finn was always a welcome sight. The problem was that every time he saw him he remembered being pinned with him between the jaws of a Great White, went back to being released and watching Finn get killed. It made him sick and then abruptly needy.

He crossed over to Finn and grabbed his hands, pulling his arms around him and digging his face into his chest. He breathed in his freshly showered boy smell and waited for his heart to slow and his mind to believe, once again, that Finn really was alive and okay. Finn only rubbed his back lightly and waited for him to regain his composure.

Kurt pulled back and tugged him inside, closing the bedroom door after him. "Will you sleep in here tonight? I want you close."

Finn yawned, large and sloppy, as he nodded. Kurt watched him cross over to his bed in silence, tug back the comforter and collapse down over the soft mattress as he had countless times before. Kurt stepped out of his slippers and climbed into the opposite side, waiting and feeling content as Finn automatically flopped his weight over and wrapped him up in his arms. His father was never the happiest man when he caught them sleeping in the same bed, but for tonight at least he was willing to bet they would get a pass. And if not, well his dad would get over it.

"Kurt?" Finn whispered close to his ear.

Kurt snuggled closer against him instinctively and murmured incoherently in response.

Finn hesitated but tightened his grip around him. "You can talk to me, you know… About what happened. I don't really understand, and I know you're scared. But you can talk to me. When you're ready."

Tears welled up in Kurt's eyes and he closed them tightly to keep them from slipping out. Mercedes had visited him a couple of times, but the only thing they ended up talking about was Tina which resulted in hours of crying and hugging. He and Finn had been out of school all week, so he hadn't been around the others. If the looks he received at the memorial were any indication, they weren't sure what to make of him and were content to keep their distance. Carole's only point of focus was trying to keep both boys under her care from completely unraveling; a loud cheerleader set on fighting their survivor's guilt. His father wasn't pushing him. When Kurt was out of his room the older Hummel made it a point to pat his shoulder or wrap his arm around him on the couch, but he hadn't outright asked what had happened. He was being cautious not to make things harder on him, and while Kurt appreciated it there was always a giant confusing, scary elephant in the room.

The truth was, Kurt didn't know what happened. He didn't understand how he saw what was going to happen before it did or why he was the one who saw it. But Finn apparently didn't think he was a freak, and he had to swallow hard against the lump in his throat.

"Okay, Finn." He whispered back, curling his fingers over the arm around his chest.

He tried to relax and settle his mind after flipping the lamp on his nightstand off, but there was an ugly tug at his mind, an implacable ball of stress resting in his gut and keeping him wakeful. His mind hadn't slipped into any distressing visions since that horrible afternoon at the zoo, but there was a heavy unnamable presence that had settled under his skin since that day. A wrongness.

Then again, he hadn't lost someone he loved since his mother died, and in one day he lost five friends. Grief expressed itself in awful ways, so he concentrated on leveling his breathing with Finn's slow, easy breaths and tried to slip off into the restless slumber that was becoming routine.

"This is ridiculous," Santana's voice wafted out into the hallway outside the choir room and Kurt slowed.

All day on his first day back people stared at him. Not in the 'hey, there's the gay kid' way. This was different. In more than a few people, not just nervous freshmen, he detected a trace of fearfulness in their gaze. He was worse than 'that gay kid' now. He was 'that freak who can see the future' or, to non-believers, 'that freak who somehow knew about or caused the accident'. So he was a sideshow or a murderer. He wondered what he did in his past life to be so lucky in this one.

"No one cares about Glee anymore. No one cares about any of this. It's a total waste of time." Santana's voice lost the heat it initially had and just sounded defeated.

Kurt took a deep breath and stepped inside. He ate lunch with Finn and Mercedes outside and sat with them in the classes they shared. Other than that, he kept to himself and managed to avoid speaking with the rest of the Glee Club. Now he would have to go into the lion's den though, and he braced himself for the less than enthusiastic way he might be received.

So he was completely unprepared for what he got. He was hardly two steps into the classroom when Rachel flew out of her pink plastic chair and ran at him. Her brunette hair flew behind her, and he had time for his eyebrows to fly up before her arms were around his neck and she was hugging him tightly. He stiffened in her embrace but slowly relaxed and wrapped his arms around her back. She pulled back to stare up at him.

"I've been looking for you all day!" She exclaimed. "I saw Finn, and he said you were back too. I've been wanting to visit for days, but my dads said you probably needed space. Maybe you still do, but I've been wanting to talk to you so badly and I have to just say it. I love you, Kurt. Thank you so much for what you did." The ardent sincerity in her words caught him off guard and if her hands weren't still on his shoulders he might have backpedaled. "You saved my life that day. You saved a lot of our lives. I don't know how or why, but I do know that I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Kurt. Also, my dads are taking me to see Guys and Dolls in June, and they bought an extra ticket in case you wanted to join us. I really hope you will."

"I…" He sighed, closing his eyes to discretely roll them. "Jeez, Rachel." He couldn't muster enough energy to be properly frustrated with her mile-a-minute thought process. He wasn't sure how he felt about her thanking him either. If he saved her life, it only brought a brighter spotlight on the lives he was unable to save.

Someone placed a hand over each of his ears from behind, holding him still as they leaned down to kiss the top of his head. Normally he would have fussed about messing up his hair, but it was good to feel Finn so close to him. Even better when he grabbed his hand as he stepped forward and tugged him away from Rachel and her crazy eyes.

"Almost home." Finn said quietly enough to keep it between them. Kurt nodded.

After Glee practice they were free again, to go home and mope or eat or both. He thanked Gaga that there was only a couple of weeks left in school at all. Soon they would be done here forever, and he could take the summer to regroup and get his head on straight before he needed to rejoin the living full time.

Quinn's eyes were red rimmed and she was releasing a deep unsteady breath in the back row where Brittany was holding her hand and rubbing her back soothingly. Thoughts of her ex-boyfriend, Sam, crossing her mind or thinking about Lauren who became an unlikely friend to her in the last few weeks. Kurt was overwhelmed by a powerful wave of guilt. He shouldn't feel responsible, he tried to remind himself. It wasn't like he caused the accident. But his mind was having a lot of trouble accepting that, especially with all the looks he received throughout the day.

"Look, guys," Mr. Schuester stepped away from the piano and reasserted command of their attention as Kurt settled in a chair between Finn and Mercedes in the bottom row, and Rachel hopped into the seat beside Puck in the middle of the risers. "I know how hard this has been on everyone. I'm feeling it too. But there are still a couple weeks of school left. We may have had to pull out of Nationals, but that doesn't mean that we can just quit altogether."

"Why not?" Santana snapped again. "Everything about Glee is just a reminder of Sam and Mike and everyone else who will never sing or dance or do anything again."

"Yeah, Mr. Schue, you understand better than any of the faculty." Quinn spoke up softly from the back. "It's the end of the year. We're hurting. What's the point?"

Kurt didn't say anything. He agreed.

Schuester hesitated and sighed heavily. "The point is we had some really good times here. I don't want any of you to look back one day and only remember this week and the aquarium and how badly our hearts hurt. I want you to remember the laughs too and the long practice sessions." He waved at his most uncoordinated pupil. "Finn stepping on your foot during rehearsals, Rachel storming out every other day, the diva offs, and group hugs, and how every time you got slushied someone from this group helped you clean off in the bathroom."

Kurt thought he was beginning to understand. Mr. Schuester was the driving force behind Glee. If they didn't remember the good stuff, not only would Glee be a bad memory for them but he would feel responsible for all the heartache Glee caused.

"What did you have in mind?" Kurt asked, because he wasn't there when they started discussing this week's assignment.

Mr. Schuester glanced at him and there was hesitation in his eyes. Kurt would have forgiven him if he chose to ignore him altogether and never spoke to him again. He didn't understand his part in what happened himself and couldn't expect someone who lost as much as Schuester to overlook his own confusion. But the teacher tucked his hands in the pockets of his slacks and answered.

"I think we should do a final group number. Something to express what we're feeling and unite us one last time before you all graduate and go your separate ways." He looked at them all meaningfully, and Kurt realized they would be focusing a lot more on that fact if they weren't currently dealing with a tragedy. Realistically, he probably wouldn't see most of them very much anymore. They would be friends on Facebook maybe, if they hadn't already deleted him from their friends list, but after high school they would go to separate colleges and all end up in different places.

He would still have Finn. He would always have Finn whether or not they stayed together forever or not. He reached over and grabbed his hand, because the thought of not being with Finn scared him. He was his first love and his big, dopey grinned rock. But if they did break up down the line, their parents would still be married. They would always be tethered together by the familial bond if nothing else. Mercedes was his lady love. She hadn't batted a lash at him since the accident, was the first one to rush over and hug him and knew exactly how to tease, push, and calm him. He wouldn't give her up for anything. He was confident Rachel would be a permanent tiny-Barbra in his life. Their dreams were huge and similar, they were both headed to New York, and they loved each other even when they hated each other.

Everyone else, though… He might send Mr. Schuester a card at Christmas or see Puck on occasion because he was Finn's best friend, but the others would probably drift from his life entirely within a few months. It was kind of sad and final, but life stood still for no one, a lesson he learned better than he thought anyone his age should.

"I think that's a good idea." He told Mr. Schuester, because this was their last hoorah. No matter what they were going through, they went through the best and worst of high school together. They should say goodbye, and like every pivotal moment they shared, it was only appropriate they do it through music.

Schuester nodded. "Let's meet in the auditorium tomorrow after school and anyone who wants to sing, express what they're going through, can perform. We'll talk about what song for all of us to do afterward."

Kurt tried to keep his face neutral as Mercedes leaned her head on his shoulder. Perform a song to express what he was feeling? That could be a challenge. He didn't think 'Tortures of the Damned' was in his range.

Being home was a relief. There were only nine school days left not counting the weekend, but he honestly didn't know if he had it in him to get up and go another nine rounds against those looks. It was one thing to get the 'queer eye' from homophobes at school. It was quite another to be looked at like he was responsible for killing his friends.

Finn sensed his uneasiness, because he followed him upstairs silently and tugged him into his room instead of letting him drop his stuff off in his own. Kurt began to protest, but he cut him off with a kiss and set his bag down on the floor next to the door as he closed it after them. When Kurt's breath was successfully taken away enough to keep him from griping, Finn stepped back and went over to his desk, pushing his laptop open and starting it up. Kurt wasn't sure if now was the time to update his Facebook status but remembered that Finn managed to run over his ipod last week and depended on his computer for music now.

As it booted up, Finn came back to him and kissed him again, tugging his sweater off his shoulders and carefully folding it over once vertically and laying it across the back of his desk chair. Taking care with Kurt's clothes was one of his first lessons in dating him. Wrinkling his expensive items was a major turnoff. What Kurt didn't tell Finn was that he was so stricken with grief and stress that he could have ripped his clothes off like the Incredible Hulk and he wouldn't have minded. He just wanted Finn's hands on him so he could forget everything else for a little while. Just him and Finn. There was something supremely safe and comforting in being alone with someone who loved him completely, who cared enough to hold his hand between every class even though it meant he would be late to his own, someone who never looked at him like he was a freak even though he felt like the biggest one on the planet.

"I honestly love you." Kurt whispered against his cheek as Finn's lips moved to his neck. He chuckled and his breath felt good against his throat, no doubt remembering the time Kurt sang the Olivia Newton-John song of the same title to him during their ballad assignment in Glee. It was when things first started to change between them, so the song would always be important to their relationship.

"Good." Was Finn's only reply as he pushed Kurt back and fell on top of him over the bed.

"Brittany, let's go home." Santana grabbed the metal railing and looked down from the rafters in the auditorium where she was sitting and swinging her legs over the side. She decided to sing Annie Lennox's 'Dark Road' tomorrow, and Brittany had asked Mr. Schuester if she could dance to it instead of picking her own song. They spent the last two hours singing it on repeat while Brittany came up with choreography for it.

Santana was blown away once again by Brittany's physical ability. She had a grace to her that made her heart clench. When she thought about what happened at the zoo it felt like she was shutting off, going robotic and turning off all the parts of her that could hurt her. She came close not only to losing her own life but to losing Brittany if the blonde had decided to go down without her. The whole Glee Club was on its way down to the aquariums when Kurt freaked out. If it wasn't for him they would all be dead.

She heard Rachel smothering him with gratitude at Glee practice earlier but pretended not to. She didn't know what to make of Kurt's outburst. Yeah, it was amazingly timed and scarily accurate, but what the fuck was it? People didn't see the future. That's not how the world worked, and she doubted a bunch of high schoolers in mediocre Lima were worth some higher power stepping in to protect them.

"I don't want to leave." Brittany's voice was flat and airy from the stage nearly thirty feet below Santana, but she stopped dancing.

"Why not?" Santana dropped her forehead against the cold rail.

Brittany shrugged. "Because this is where all of us were together the most. Mike and I practiced all the time, and Artie used to give me rides in his chair while we waited for Finn to learn the steps after I totally nailed it already."

Santana frowned sadly. She would rather be at home with either alcohol or cookie dough, whichever she could get her hands on, but she didn't protest. She waved at the blonde.

"Get up here."

Brittany's cheeks were flushed from dancing, but she smiled up at her.

Finn's shirt was somewhere on the floor, and Kurt's fingers were tracing the muscles in his back. His eyes were closed, but he knew Finn by heart. Every curve made his spine tingle, and every dip was foreseen by his fingertips as they ran over the familiar terrain. He knew his body better than he knew his own now, and the way Finn pressed against him suggested his body was pretty well known in return. He moaned against his mouth and turned his head to break the kiss and keep from losing it already. It felt too good to be lost in Finn's caresses. Their parents weren't home, and he wanted to draw it out as long as he could.

The headache that started hours earlier was fading as the tension in his body dissipated. If he could stay there indefinitely, touching and being touched, he thought he could make it through the coming months unbroken. If only he could freeze that moment and let Finn keep him forever.

His eyelashes fluttered as he tried to keep his eyes open and not give himself over completely yet. He rolled his head to the side as Finn nudged at him for better access and began kissing his throat and dragging his bottom lip over his pulse. The curtains at the open window batted forward in the wind, the breeze winding through loose sheets of paper on Finn's desk. The black tie Finn wore to the memorial was still knotted loosely and hooked over one corner of his desk chair. It swayed in the wind.

Finn bucked against Kurt, and his eyes closed momentarily as his body required his full attention. Finn tugged on the bottom of his shirt, untucking it from his waistband as his mouth refocused to his jaw and dropped behind his ear. A stronger gust blew in through the window and knocked over the G.I. Joe standing on the edge of Finn's desk with both its arms raised in a stupid pose Finn set it in. The action figure toppled over the edge and slipped into the loose loop of Finn's black tie, plastic torso catching on the material and forcing it to hang suspended. Kurt's eyes narrowed at the oddity, and the wind blew in again, this time blowing the whole stack of papers over the keyboard of Finn's laptop. Kurt's eyes flicked up to the screen following the paper. It was on the screensaver, a slideshow of pictures from his digital camera. The screen was panning in on a picture of Santana and Brittany at Sectionals, their arms around each other's necks as they grinned at the camera on stage.

An anxious, knowing feeling crept through his bones and made him stiffen like he always felt when he was fixing to get the results back for a test he knew he didn't study well enough for. He shivered.

"Santana…"

Finn's lips stalled against his neck and he lifted himself on his forearms, looking down at Kurt quizzically. "Uh…what?" Kurt didn't look back at him, still staring over at the picture stuck on the screen. "Oh are we…? Kinda weird with people we know, but…okay." Finn turned Kurt's face and kissed his lips again, murmuring against his mouth. "Maybe you should put your Cheerios uniform on, Brittany."

"What?" Kurt blinked against Finn's kiss, realizing that Finn thought he wanted to role-play. He wrinkled his nose. "Ew. No." He pulled away from Finn's kiss and attempted to push him off so he could get up. The feeling of unease was growing in him. "Something's wrong."

Finn rolled onto his back, grumbling as Kurt got to his feet. "You don't really have to put on a skirt…"

Kurt went to his bag against the door and knelt down to fish his phone out of it. "Sorry, sweetie." He tossed over his shoulder and clutched his phone, scrolling immediately through the contacts list. "Get your shirt on."

Brittany did a single pirouette across from Santana on the beam above the rafters. "It's so high up here. Like a bird."

Santana smiled softly and reached her hand out for Brittany to take. She came closer and slipped her fingers around hers, allowing Santana to tug her down to sit beside her. They peered through the many rows of rope hanging up different prop pieces for the drama club's last show and down at the stage where their Glee Club put on multiple group performances.

Brittany's eyes filled with tears, and Santana's chest tightened. Artie was the first boyfriend Brittany ever had who truly cared for her and wasn't just fixated on her body. Now he was gone, and Santana knew that no matter how many times they were lucky enough to remember the good times with their friends, it would always be there at the back of their mind. Losing them. How they lost them. Grief grew bearable, but it never went away.

Brittany sniffled, and Santana wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

Down in her backpack in one of the front row seats of the auditorium, her cell phone vibrated.

"She's not answering." Kurt listened to her cell ring itself out and held up a finger to silence Finn's question as it beeped for him to leave a message. "Santana, it's Kurt. It's really important that you call me back. Are you with Brittany?" He hesitated before adding. "…I have a really bad feeling."

As he hung up he realized how ambiguous and weird that sounded, but he couldn't help it. His arms and legs felt like they were pumped full of ten gallons of caffeine. He turned to Finn sharply.

"Santana lives in Lima Heights right?"

Finn sat on the side of the bed and stared back at him confused.

"You ready to go?" Santana squeezed Brittany closer to herself and rubbed her arm.

Brittany nodded with a small smile and they got to their feet slowly, stretching out of their slouch. Brittany turned with another pirouette but tripped on a loose piece of wood in the rafters and banged backward into the railing. Santana gasped and was fixing to laugh after the scare, but the railing made a reverberating creak and gave under Brittany's weight. It broke and clattered down toward the stage, and Brittany slipped backward reaching up wildly and grabbing one of the hanging ropes. Her hands wrapped around it and it groaned and slid down a little as it unwound ever so slightly from its metal spool.

"Santana!" She shrieked fearfully.

"Hang on!" Santana screamed at her as she rushed to the part of the railing still standing and gripped it. She leaned over as far as she could, extending her arm out for Brittany but the blonde was too far out and a couple feet too far down. Santana dropped to her stomach over the rafters and locked her shoulder against the railing, reaching down for Brittany desperately. She was too far out of reach. "You have to climb up!"

"I can't!" Brittany protested and hissed through her teeth as she lost some of her grip and her palms burned across the rope as she slid farther down. There was only a couple of feet of the shorter rope left and she would have a twenty-six foot drop to the hard stage below if she let go.

Santana scrambled to her feet, looking out over the auditorium from the dark rafters. "Help!" She screamed. The Glee Club and probably all of the rest of the after school clubs would be long gone, but there might have been a janitor close by or Principal Figgins. "Somebody help!"

"Santana!" Brittany's voice rose with heightened fear as she slipped down a few more inches.

Santana's head spun a million miles an hour as she tried to figure out what to do. Brittany could break something, including her neck if she fell from this height. Her mind went blank at the thought. She was not going to lose Brittany. After all the heartache of the last week she would not lose Brittany.

Not pausing to think, she leaned over the side of the rafters, shoes scraping over the edge of the wood, and reached for the nearest rope. She had to climb down to reach her. This rope went almost all the way down to the stage. If she could pull her over to it, they could just climb down, a much easier task than getting up one of the ropes.

"I'm coming, Brittany, hold on."

Kurt raced through the street in his Navigator and was halfway to Lima Heights when Finn started messing with the radio nervously. It was currently playing Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way'. Free spirited and empowered was definitely not the mood he was in anyway, so he didn't complain. Besides, Finn was growing obviously uncomfortable by Kurt's strange insistence that something was wrong without explaining what or how he knew. He changed it to an older station and Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin' was on the chorus. Finn shifted in his seat and changed it again. 'One Of Us' came through the Christian station.

Finn flipped the radio off and sat back against his seat staring out the window. A heavy sensation pushed against Kurt, the disconcerting feeling that he was missing something. Then it hit him. In the middle of the road with two cars behind him, he gave the steering wheel a hard left jerk and forced the Navigator into a sharp, squealing U-turn. Finn jumped and grabbed at his seatbelt instinctively.

The cars behind them honked angrily, and Finn looked around, gripping the door and gaping.

"Kurt, what the hell?"

Kurt's heart was hammering in his chest. "They're not at home."

"What?"

"'Born This Way', 'Don't Stop Believin', Joan Osbourne-we performed all of them at the school auditorium." He spoke rapidly as though it should all make sense to Finn. "It's a sign. They never left the school."

Finn's jaw dropped. "Dude, you need to pull over. You are freaking me out right now."

Kurt ignored him and pressed harder on the gas. "It's happening again, Finn."

"It…" Finn repeated and slow realization dawned on him. "Oh shit."

"Yeah." Kurt agreed and sped past the school zone sign telling him to slow down.

Santana took a deep steadying breath and forced herself to rock. She climbed down to Brittany's level but was too far off. She would have to swing closer to her for Brittany to be able to reach the rope she was on.

"Okay, Brit," she coached, forcing her voice to stay level so she wouldn't excite Brittany even more. "When I get close enough you reach out and grab the rope, okay? Then we'll climb down. It'll be easy. Coach Sylvester didn't make us work out for nothing when we were on the Cheerios, right?"

Brittany's face was pale and she was clinging to her rope so hard her knuckles were bright white, but she answered quietly. "Okay."

"Okay." Santana said, encouraged. "I'm coming. Get ready."

She rocked herself a little harder and she began to swing over the stage in a wide arc. Just a little more and she would be…right…there. Brittany let go of her rope and reached for Santana's the second she was within reach. Her fist wrapped around it above Santana's own hands, and she swung back out with Santana as the rope pulled back. The spool above their heads gave a loud groan and instantly bucked under their weight, unwinding the rope and shooting it down.

They screamed, and Santana reached up with both hands for another rope, Brittany doing the same. She gripped onto a side rope hanging from another spool and Brittany grabbed the other end hanging down from the same one. For a split second everything stopped, and then as Brittany's weight forced the rope to slide down some on her side, Santana was lifted up. Her hand slipped, and she twisted in midair trying to grab at it, getting her head caught in the loose knot of another rope. As she released her rope entirely, the loop tightened around her throat and the knot closed. She reached up manically for the rope cutting off her air and kicked out in desperation.

"Santana!" Brittany shouted in a panic from the other rope she managed to grab onto on her way down.

Santana kicked and clawed at the rope around her throat, but as the heavy prop attached to the other end of the rope on the spool fell from the rafters above, its weight dragged its side down and yanked Santana's side up in a rush. The rope tightened with crushing pressure around her windpipe, and she swung from the top of the metal rig loosely.

Brittany released a broken sob of shock before the rope she clung to began rapidly slipping through the spool. She let go and fell through the air screaming, slamming her head hard against the stage and going instantly silent.

Kurt rushed through the side door to the auditorium with Finn behind him and ran partway down the stairs toward the stage before he spotted Brittany. At first he was flooded with relief, because it looked like she was laying on the stage. But his steps quickly slowed as his mind caught up to what he was seeing.

"Oh my God…"

Finn moved past him, still hurried and oblivious. "I see her! Brittany, you o-," Finn choked on his question as he hopped onto the stage and crossed over to her still figure. "Oh Jesus… Jesus… Kurt… Kurt, call 911!"

But Kurt's eyes had already caught on a strange looming figure over the stage, and as he stared up at Santana's hanged, limp body he was overwhelmed with nauseating dread. It was over. They were too late.