Author's Note: I'm so sorry I wasn't able to update this sooner and I feel even worse about it being so short. Also, I apologize for my recent update frenzy, I keep trying to reformat my chapters and I'm not so familiar with this site's formatting and such. This is sort of just a transition chapter. I'm really busy the rest of the week, but I promise the next chapter will be much longer when I do get it up. Just a reminder, parts written in italics are past events. Please don't forget to review! I'd love any suggestions or critiques :)
The alarm on Cooper's watch started beeping; it read 7 am. If this had been a normal day, Cooper would be getting ready for work; showering, shaving, and gathering all the case files he left on the coffee table from the previous night. But this wasn't a normal day. Cooper was sitting in a hospital, almost 200 miles away from Cleveland. He had only gotten 3 hours of sleep and didn't plan on getting more any time soon. Blaine hadn't woken up since Cooper got there and Cooper wanted to make sure Blaine wasn't alone when he did.
But the terrifying thing was that Cooper didn't know when Blaine was going to wake up. The doctors told him that Blaine's head had been beaten in so much that it resulted in some minor brain damage.
"Eventually, he'll be fine. Someone beat his head in pretty hard, looks like it was with a bat or something, but physically, he'll recover," the middle aged doctor explained to Cooper, trying to sound as sympathetic as possible.
"Was he unconscious when he got here?" Cooper asked, worrying about just how severe the doctor considered "minor brain damage" to be.
"Well, he was in and out on the ambulance ride over here," Dr. Morton began. "When they got him into the ER he was shouting for someone and then slipped into the state he's in now. He will wake up, it's just a matter of when."
A pang of guilt engulfed Cooper. Blaine had been calling for him. And he hadn't been there; he hadn't been there to save his baby brother. Cooper knew he wouldn't have been able to help Blaine the way the doctors did, but he could have supported him; he could have at least held his hand.
"He'll need to go to therapy," Dr. Morton called Cooper out of his thoughts and back to reality, "for his injuries and the psychological effects from everything."
Cooper shook his head in agreement, looking at his baby brother as he lie on that big, hospital bed.
Dr. Morton clapped Cooper on the shoulder before walking out of Blaine's room, leaving Cooper alone with his brother.
So Cooper waited by Blaine's bed, holding his hand and waiting for him to wake up. Occasionally he ran his hand through Blaine's curls, trying carefully not to hit any of the numerous bruises on his baby brother's face.
Just looking at Blaine's face was painful for Cooper. It was hard to believe that his brother, his sweet and innocent baby brother, had been torn to pieces by some homophobic, heartless teenagers. It infuriated Cooper that Blaine was beaten to a pulp for bringing a boy to the dance instead of a girl. He wondered if the group of kids who had done this was the same group of kids that Blaine had helped with math, or the same kids that he used to play soccer with.
Cooper sighed and continued to sing, not knowing whether his motives were to calm or wake Blaine.
"If I'm laden at all, I am laden with sadness
That everyone's heart isn't filled with the gladness
Of love for one another."