Warnings: None

A/N: This from a request by Lalice of Roses, who wanted people to be beat on because it's just fun to watch everyone try to put them back together.

Summary: The bus overturns on the way to Sectionals. It's just bad luck at the quarterback hurt his hand, that the dancer gets pinned by the legs, that the Freshman thousands of miles from home is the one bleeding out all over Mr. Schuester...

.***.

"Always the innocent are the first victims. So it has been for ages past, so it is now." J.K. Rowling

Schue forced his eyes open when he heard the kids screaming.

What had happened? In that second before he could fully force his lids up (and why was it so hard? Had he fallen asleep? But those weren't happy screams, the we-just-spotted-where-we're-having-Sectionals-and-are-pumped screams. These had pain. And sadness) he tried to remember what he'd been doing.

They were on their way to Sectionals, and he'd been sitting up front near the bus driver when he spotted Rory staring morosely out the window. The kid was young, but his voice was amazing and he was always smiling, always happy. So Will went to sit next to him. "What's up?"

"It's nothing, Mr. Schuester." The kid said, his lilting Irish accent making him sound impossibly mature, even though Will knew that he was just fourteen, their Freshman. "Just a little homesick."

"You're not used to America yet?"

"It comes in waves. Mostly I miss home most at night, when I'm not doing anything much, you know? But then there's times like this…I just know my parents would like to hear me sing. And my brothers." Rory sighed and ran a hand through his hair, then smiled. "But they're coming to visit me for Christmas! Only ten more days."

Will didn't have any words of wisdom to share with this kid. He'd never been outside the country – Hell, he'd never been on the other side of the Mississippi – and had stayed In State for school. When he'd wanted to go home – rare as that impulse had been – he'd had the option to just jump in a car and go. Not so for Rory, and high school wasn't college. He knew of a couple of cases when the kid had been harassed for his accent, like he could help a thing like that. "It'll get better." Will said, squeezing the boy's arm and thinking about doing something to help him out next week. Maybe make it heritage week in Glee club? Songs of people's ancestors and their homes?

Rory had just flashed him a smile, eyes wide and grateful, when there was a scream, a crash, and the world went dark.

Now he opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was Rory. Young, kind, innocent Rory slumped forward with his hair matted with blood. He reached out shaking hands to him, uncomprehending, unable to even begin to understand. There was too much blood, his hands were too slippery, to even feel for a pulse. "Hey!" He yelled, his voice a croak, a whisper. He tried again, "Hey! Who's hurt? Talk to me!"

More yells, people's names, and Schue could pick out a few voices, a very few. And there were some that were noticeably absent. "Come on, Rory." Will said, putting a hand on the youngest Glee member's neck again. A pulse, thread and erratic, and suddenly Rory gasped in a huge breath, eyes flying open.

And then Rory began to scream, too.

.***.

Kurt happened to be looking out the window. Blaine and Rachel had been talking about some musical they'd both seen three or four years ago at the local theater. Oklahoma? Hello, Dolly? Kurt didn't really know. It had gotten to the point where Finn sighed and switched seats with Blaine, tired of the conversation being shouted over him.

"Nervous, Kurt?"

"Not really." Kurt said, shrugging. "A little sad. It's our last Sectionals."

"Yeah." Finn said, looking out the window as the Ohio landscape sped by under the highway. "Look, Kurt…"

He was about to confide in his step-brother the thing he hadn't told his mother, or Burt, or Rachel. Anyone. How he'd been thinking about joining the army ever since the recruiters had taken over the cafeteria three weeks ago. How he'd been looking at pictures of his father in uniform and wondering if that wasn't his path after all. Like father like son, right? And somehow the thought of serving his country felt right to him. Like when you put down that puzzle piece and can suddenly see that the picture is a mountain, or a straight path through dark woods.

But then Kurt screamed Blaine's name, and something jolted, and Finn didn't even think. He was facing the aisle, away from Kurt, but within easy grabbing distance of the dark-haired Junior who everyone inexplicably loved. Who Kurt loved.

So just as the bus became another part of that fourteen car pile-up on the interstate, Finn Hudson locked his arms around Blaine Anderson and held on tight.

Which is why, when the smoke cleared, Blaine blinked to find himself mostly unharmed. But Finn had knocked his head against the back door and he was bleeding, bleeding from so many places Blaine didn't even know where to start. "Kurt?" He called, voice shaking. Kurt was there, almost hidden. The bus had flipped on its side and Kurt was pinned under a seat.

And then Blaine turned to look for Rachel, but she was gone. All he could see was a broken window.

.***.

Puck was sitting next to Artie, because he didn't need drama in his life and sitting next to Quinn would have meant drama. Plus, Artie was easy to talk to. The cripple knew a surprising amount about football, and they whiled away the bus ride talking about their fantasy teams.

Artie had just finished telling him about the Lions tickets his family got every year. "My uncle backed out, so we have an extra ticket." Artie eyes Puck, then said, shrugging, "You can have it. If you want. The game's not until the beginning of January, but…you know, it might be nice to have someone there who won't fall asleep at half time."

"Your parents won't have a problem with me?" Puck asked, spreading open his hands and examining his fingernails as if they were the most interesting things in the world. He usually glorified in being what other people's parents called a bad influence, but with Artie it was different. Maybe because he'd been Puck's charity case last year and had stuck by him when he'd hit a rough patch? Maybe it was just the tickets.

"Don't tell any amusing anecdotes from your time in juvie and I think we'll be okay." Artie said dryly. He tapped his fingers on the chair and glanced out the window. "What the…?"

But that's all he had time for. All that he could say before the bus flipped, and Artie flew out of his chair, and the world flipped on its axis, sending them reeling into a path none of them thought they'd be on.

.***.

Here's what the bus was like right after the thirteen-car pile-up stopped traffic on the highway to Sectionals that day in December:

The bus driver died. Hit his head against the steering wheel and his forehead crushed in. He died peacefully, and he deserved to. He was a young man named Carlos, who had a young pregnant wife. Carlos was driving the bus for free, a favor to Will Schuester who had been driving through a bad neighborhood when he saw Carlos's very pregnant wife waiting for a bus in the rain. He'd done a Good Samaritan and picked her up, even stopping at a coffee shop to pick up some tea to warm her. Carlos didn't forget things like that, and now he dead for trying to pay a debt. No good deed goes unpunished.

Will was trying to calm Rory down, but the Freshman was having none of it. He was looking at his arm and screaming, and Will didn't know what was scarier: the blood gushing like Ol' Faithful or the fact that, even ten seconds, twenty seconds after the crash, Rory's screams were getting quieter. So much blood was on the seats, on Rory, and now on Will as he pressed his hands against the artery that had been split open when Rory was flung sideways, almost through the window.

"Rory! Rory, look at me. Yeah, that's right. You're okay. You got that? You're going to be okay!" Rory nodded, head bobbing like a man having a seizure. He let out another little scared sob, then bucked when Will pressed harder.

"Hurts…" And that moan made Will's heart break.

"I know, kid. I know it hurts. You just gotta hold on another couple of minutes. You're going to be okay."

But now Will's hands were slipping, too slick with blood to stay on the right part of the arm. And so much blood! Scarlet drops, more precious than rubies, running down the poor kid's arm.

"It's cold, Mr. Schuester." Rory murmured, and his head drooped forward.

"No! Rory, no, it's okay. You'll be okay. Stay with me!" And Will was still saying that when the paramedics burst in and stole the Freshman from his arms, hustling him out of the bus and leaving Will to stand there, staring after him, his hands and arms accusingly red.

But he had other kids to worry about. Now that Rory was gone he could hear them again, and Puck was right next to him shouting for somebody, anybody, to help him. "Puck, are you okay?" Will dropped to his knees, reaching shaking hands for a cut on Puck's arm…but no, this was no geyser but merely the sort of scratch you would get playing a rough game of football.

"Artie!" And it was only then that Schue saw Artie cradled in Puck's lap, face terribly pale. "He fell and…I don't know, he hit his back. What if he broke it again? He hasn't woken up. And he's not breathing right…"

"Okay, Puck, you gotta let him go. Let these guys take him." Because some paramedics were trying to drag Artie from Puck and the JD actually growled at them, cradling Artie to his chest. "Go with him. Can you do that for me, Puck? Take care of Artie and Rory. Please, I have to stay here. Go on. Good job. It'll be okay."

And, slowly, Puck got to his feet. "This is a crap Senior Sectionals, Mr. Schue."

Will nodded and moved back a couple more seats. Here was Tina, kneeling on too-tilted ground, Mike's head in her lap. For the first time, Will felt like he was going to be sick. It was just unfair that their best dancer, the boy who'd defied his father for the art, would be the one pinned with a seat collapsed on top of his legs.

The teacher didn't even stop. Quinn was sitting with Tina, and she could care for the crying girl better than Schue could. And Quinn looked up at him, "He's alive. Finn…I saw Finn back there."

Will nodded, moved further back. There was someone standing, almost falling over, unsteady on his feet and not used to the tilted world yet. "Blaine?" Schue reached out to steady the dark-haired Junior. "What happened?"

"Why would he…? Finn protected me. Took most of the hit. I don't get it. He doesn't like me." Blaine lifted his eyes to meet Will's and then turned so quickly he fell, scraping his hands on the jagged metal that was now the enclosed world they were in.

"Careful!"

"Kurt!" Blaine tried to scramble over the fallen chairs to get to his boyfriend. Will, taller, more upright, could see Kurt. And he pushed Blaine back.

"Get out. I'll get Kurt."

"No! I have to see if he's alright!"

"Now, Blaine! See if you can get Finn. He'll be okay." Will started going for Kurt, then suddenly turned. "Where's Rachel?"

And then he saw the broken window, big enough for a smallish girl to get through. That's when he began to think that maybe it wouldn't be okay.

.***.

Everyone had been on their way to the competition, so they detoured and made it to the hospital pretty quickly.

"Being thrown out of a bus sounds so cool!" Sam's brother said, legs swinging so they'd thump against his chair every few seconds. He was kind of stoked about the turn of events. It was way cooler than seeing Sammy sing, again. "And it didn't hurt too bad?"

"No. But the girl I was with is hurt. Shut up now, okay?"

Stacy, his sister, had been gazing around the room, and now hopped up and went over to Blaine, sitting with Burt and Carol. Blaine's father hadn't been on his way to Sectionals. He'd never seen his son sing (called it unbearably gay, but that was beside the point now, wasn't it?) "You look sad. You're not hurt, are you?"

"No." Blaine said, twitching his lips into a smile when Stacy climbed onto his lap.

"You look like Sammy did when his girlfriend got hurt over the summer. She went to my little league game and got hit by the ball in the mouth. She needed three stitches. Did your girlfriend get hurt?"

"Kind of." Blaine said, looking over Stacy's head to Sam, who shrugged. Stacy would learn about homosexuality sooner or later. Might as well learn it from Blaine. "He's my boyfriend. His name is Kurt."

"I know Kurt!" Stacy said, excited. "He came over last year and watched The Sound of Music. He sings prettier than Maria, and he's not even a girl." Stacy touched Blaine's face, where a huge bruise stretched from his forehead to chin. "That looks like it hurts a lot."

"Not so bad."

"Because your heart hurts? Sammy said his did when Kate got hit by the ball."

"Yeah," Blaine said, swallowing hard. "My heart hurts."

Carol leaned forward and put a hand on Stacy's shoulder, "Sweetheart, why don't you leave Blaine alone? He's not feeling well."

"No, it's okay Mrs. H." Blaine said, shrugging.

"I just got one more question." Stacy said loudly, "Do you know Finn? He came over last year too. He's Kurt's brother. Or something. I forget. He was nice, anyway."

Well, that was just too much. Now Blaine pushed Stacy away, who looked affronted for a moment before skipping over to the group of girls in the corner. "Hi, Quinn!" She loved Quinn. She used to come over after church and let Stacy play with her makeup, plus she was about the prettiest girl Stacy had ever seen, ever. "You cut your hair!"

"Yeah, I did. Can you use your inside voice, honey?" Sam's mother was coming over to scoop Stacy up, but Quinn shook her head. The distraction was good for them.

"I forgot." Stacy said, her voice a decibel quieter. Then, in a stage whisper, "Why is she crying?" Pointing at Tina who, indeed, hadn't stopped crying since the accident. Mike's mother was sitting with her, stroking her hair.

"Her boyfriend likes to dance and his legs got hurt."

"Everyone's boyfriend is getting hurt!" Stacy said, exasperated. "She should talk to that boy," pointing at Blaine. Blaine, who had just been pulled into a hug by Burt and was now sobbing, unable to control himself. He hurt all over, and, like Stacy had said so easily, the worst was his heart.

Stacy turned to the last couple of girls. "And why are you crying? Did your boyfriend get hurt, too?"

"Her leprechaun." Santana said, and she tried for snarky but just came out sad. Rory still wasn't out of surgery, and it had been hours. Sectionals had been postponed – two groups just wasn't enough for a competition, and once Britney had gotten the text from her father about Rory she, Santana, and Mercedes were no way going to perform.

"You have a leprechaun?" Stacy shouted, forgetting again about her inside voice in her excitement. Santana rolled her eyes and Sam came over to pick Stacy up.

"Don't worry about your dancing boyfriend!" Stacy called over Sam's shoulder. "Sammy hurt his arm and still got to play football. Everything will be okay!"

That old lie again.

.***.

"Are you sure you're okay? That bruise looks awful."

"I'm not the one who got a cyborg arm grafted on their body." Blaine shuddered, remembering how Kurt had looked when he finally got out of the bus, supported between Mr. Schuester and an EMT. How the bones in his arm had been poking through too-pale skin. How he'd been in so much pain he'd been keening. A sound like a dog that had just had its tail stepped on.

Kurt lifted his face to Blaine and got a kiss. Blaine, who had spent the last four hours thinking of the worst case scenarios, pushed for a deeper kiss, longer, and he leaned over the bed. "Blaine! Dad and Carol are right outside." They'd stepped out to talk to the doctor and fill out paperwork. Kurt pushed away, yawned – they'd given him the good drugs – and glanced at the bed next to him.

"Do you know why he did it?" Blaine asked quietly, "He doesn't like me."

"Kurt likes you," Finn mumbled, and relief so strong flowed through Kurt and Blaine that they smiled at each other, happy. The doctors had been saying stuff like if he wakes up. Always if. "Makes you family, Blaine."

"Thank you, Finn." Blaine said, and those words were inadequate, couldn't really express how grateful he was. "You didn't have to do that."

"Totally did." Finn said, drifting back to sleep already, "Kurt's whiny when he doesn't have a boyfriend."

"You just didn't want me crushing on you again." Kurt said warmly, glad that Finn let out a short laugh before he fell back into the painless darkness.

Blaine squeezed Finn's hand, then went back to Kurt and kissed him until Burt cleared his throat at the door.

.***.

"Puck? Were you in here all night?"

"Yeah. The nurses are all over me, man. One even gave me this blanket. Want me to get your parents? They just went to get some breakfast."

"No. Stay. Please."

"Sure thing. Man, you scared me. I thought you were dead. You fell out and hit your back…"

"Ah. I thought something hurt."

"Yeah. Docs said it was mostly shock, but you had a concussion, too."

"How's everyone else?"

"Rachel's up and complaining about missing Sectionals, but she was hurt pretty bad. Broken collar bone and ankle. Kurt's arm looks nasty but other than that he's fine. Finn protected Anderson, stupid jock. He's down for a week or so."

"Protected Blaine? He's taking this leader thing too seriously."

"Tell me about it. Sam didn't let on for a couple hours that his wrist hurt. Kid broke his throwing him. He'll never QB again at this rate. Mike bruised his...pelvis? I know, weird, and he has hairline fractures and up and down his legs. Should walk again, though. Should even dance. But what are the odds, you know? The quarter back hurts his hand. The dancer hurts his legs."

"Murphy's Law."

"Huh?"

"You know. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."

"Right. Anyway, the only one who's still critical is that kid Rory. Poor guy. Nearly bled out, and he has this weird rare blood. A? B? Whatever, they didn't have very much of it. It still can go either way. He has Schue in with him."

"That sucks. He can't even see his parents."

"I know. Another thing to put down to that Muppet Law."

"Murphy's – oh, what's the point?" Artie was tired, too tired to keep his eyes open, and Puck noticed.

"You can sleep, man. I don't got anywhere to be. You're okay now."

Okay. Yeah, he was okay.

.***.

1) sam's showing up next episode, right? we love that kid. 2) thanks to everyone for their story ideas. we're going through them, slowly. 3) more story ideas! just keep sending 'em, guys. anything goes. anything that can go wrong will. h/c to the max. 4) merry christmas. it's december, so we can officially say that. hope everyone had a great thanksgiving.

drop us a line if you want to talk about the story/talk to two interesting guys/talk about books, music, movies, tv, ect. just drop us a line.