Summary: McKinley High goes on lockdown with Marley and Kitty stuck in the choir room together. Karley.

Characters: Marley R. and Kitty

Rating: T

FIVE DAYS AFTER, 10:00 A.M.

The still beeping of a heart monitor and white was the only thing that Marley could remember about that day. After they had been, well, rescued, for lack of a better word, everything had gone black. She woke up in a hospital bed, her wounds neatly stitched up and probably high on pain medication. Marley didn't care. Numbness was welcome. It was a beautiful, numb alternative of oblivion compared to the searing pain, both internal and external.

They hadn't let her see Kitty at all, hell, for the last three days, she hadn't been allowed to leave the hospital bed. They hadn't even told her exactly what happened to her mom, only that she was in intensive care and they didn't know if she'd make it.

Sometimes, Marley hated society, and that sometimes was becoming more often than not.

The day after that had been miserable. Questioning and questioning and no answers. Turning on the TV in her hospital room in the morning and seeing William McKinley High on the news, with 'mass shooting' scrolling around on the bottom. She had smashed her fist down on the remote so hard it had cracked in two. She didn't mind.

The newspaper was even worse. One of the nurses had been reading it and she left it on the chair. Marley reached over to it and opened it, seeing her school plastered on the front page.

Mass Shooting at William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. From what Marley had gathered from the article, it had been a group of graduates that thought the school had ruined their lives, obviously a bunch of psychopaths. It made Marley sick. They were terrible people, and if anyone deserved to burn in hell, it was them.

Someone knocked at the door and Marley straightened herself abruptly, wincing as the stitches tightened. She had already been administered her morning dose of pain medication, and she didn't know why anyone would want to visit. There was no one left who could visit—wait, that wasn't entirely true. Her mind began to mentally run through a list of people that might visit her.

Kitty. No, that certainly wasn't it. They wouldn't tell Marley exactly what was wrong with her, but from what she could gather, it was serious. She swallowed, her mouth beginning to go dry. She needed to see her soon or she would lose whatever tiny bit of sanity she had left.

Her mother. No. No. They had told her she was in intensive care. They didn't know if she would make it. Marley hadn't told them what she had heard from the shooters. She didn't want to. She didn't want to think about the few terrifying hours in which she had legitimately thought her mother had been dead.

Jake. The past few times she had thought of him, tears had begun to flow over Marley's face, but the grief etched into her soul had slowly started to numb. She had spent her supply of tears. She wouldn't cry anymore. But it couldn't be him.

Ryder. That was a possibility. She hadn't seen him, she hadn't heard anything from or about him~ but of course, that was most of the people in Glee or at school, so it wasn't like he was special. She wondered vaguely where they would go to school, if they would go to school, and if they did, what would happen to Glee club.

Sighing, she raised her head. "Come in," she called lifelessly, and wasn't surprised when it was the man who had questioned her a day or so ago. Or was it a day? She didn't remember.

"More questions?" She asked, sitting up quietly and groaning to herself. She wasn't in the mood to be poked and prodded like some puzzle piece that they were desperately trying to put into the right place.

"No, actually," the man said and sighed, sitting down on the chair that stood by the bed, for reasons unknown to Marley. She wasn't going to get any visitors except for him, what was the point? "I've come to talk to you about your mother."

Marley's stomach flipped and she stared at the man with a feared expression. This could go either way, it could be the reassurance that she was alright or a death sentence. "W-What about her?" She asked, cursing her voice for sounding so frightened, so much like she felt.

"She's going to live," the man said and a small smile played at the corner of his lips. Marley felt an enormous weight slip off of her shoulders, and apparently her supply of tears wasn't spent, because she felt a small one slip out of the corner of her eye. Her mother was going to live. She wasn't going to have to go through that horrific process of going through her parents' will. She wouldn't have to scramble to find somewhere to live, she wouldn't have to try and track her father done.

She would be alright, at least for a little while.

"Can I see her?" The words slipped out of her mouth before she even realized she wanted to say them. The man shook his head, and Marley bit her lip. "Why?" She asked, crossing her arms and staring straight ahead.

"She's in intensive care, no visitors now," he explained and sat back crossing his legs. Marley stayed silent. There had to be more. A nurse could have told her this much. "We also have news about your…." He paused and licked his lips, "Your friend."

"What about her?" Marley nearly choked out, she couldn't speak fast enough.

"She's going to be fine," he started, but Marley didn't want to relax. She had known this much from day two. There had to be some kind of a catch. And of course, Marley was right. "There might be some… damage, though. She hasn't woken up yet."

"She's in a coma?" Marley asked, panic rising in her voice.

"Medically induced," the man clarified, and stared at the floor with a grim expression. "She lost so much blood, her body had to compensate." Marley let the weight of what he had just said sink in before she realized what else he had said.

"What kind of damage?" Marley asked and swallowed, her throat going dry.

"Memory loss." The man said and looked pointedly at Marley, whose stomach erupted into something akin to butterflies. "Brain damage. She had a pretty severe concussion."

You don't have to tell me this, Marley thought venomously. I was there, you idiot, I watched her fall. It was my fault.

"Are you sure?" She asked. Maybe it would be for the best, something in her brain whispered, a quiet, vile little voice that made Marley want to scream. You wouldn't have to deal with… you know. Feelings. Marley loathed them.

"We're not sure yet at this point, but she's still unconscious and there's no telling of how much she'll remember when she wakes up," he said gravely and Marley stared down at her hands, saying nothing.

"I want to see her, then," Marley said when she found her voice again, and she looked up at the man. "Please."

"Do you really need to?" The man asked, adjusting his wire-framed glasses and sighing, pulling a pen out of his blazer pocket and clicking it a few times. The sound made Marley shudder. It was too much like the ticking of a clock.

"Yes," she said without hesitation, flicking her eyes over to meet the man's, her eyes determined and blazing with energy, or at least enough energy that she could summon up right now.

The man sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I can arrange that," he said quietly, and Marley's heart leapt with joy. She would see Kitty, and memory loss or not, everything would be alright. It had to be alright.

She didn't know what she would do when she saw her. She didn't know how bad the injuries were, or how she looked like. And at that moment, she didn't even care, but she needed that confirmation that she was alive. She breathed for it, she lived for it.

Marley Rose had things to lose. She had her mother. She had Kitty Wilde.