Part Three

Snapshots. That's all everything was. No more movie reels, no more moving pictures, just one still frame after another.

Three blinks and take another. Remember it, process it, and then let it fall from your fingers.

A splash of light, overexposed against the silhouettes of vehicles.

The face of a friend, as blank as your own.

Film gives scope for sound, for a backing track to your life juxtaposed against the screech of tyres and the thumping of blades as they cut rhythmically through the air.

And sometimes, sound is just too much.

So count the pictures. Count the people. Wait, watch, process, move on.

See Puck's whole body just slump in a relief that could not be described, as help finally, finally arrived.

Admire Quinn's golden hair, illuminated blue and red in the lights, the picture beautiful in its simplicity, in its strength. It couldn't capture her shaking hands.

Count Tina, her arm held precious against her chest, count Mike, his hands bloody shreds but still supporting his girlfriend.

Recognise Sugar, recognise Rory.

Count each picture, process, watch.

Just keep watching.

"Okay honey, time to go."

Sure hands grasped Kurt's blanketed shoulders, helping him to stand up from where he sat.

Pictures came faster now, some discarded immediately, some awash with sound as they blurred together.

Kurt blinked.

"Come on, sweetheart, that's it…"

"No… wait…" His words felt weak, lost, as if they had been stuck on his tongue for three beats too long.

Blaine. Why hadn't he seen Blaine? Where was Blaine? Blaine should be here, Kurt… Kurt had promised. He had promised to go back, once he found help.

He had promised.

Blaine. Where was Blaine?

"No… No. I don't want to go, you don't understand…"

"It's fine, sweetheart, we'll get you and your friends to the hospital, that's where we're going now. Just to this ambulance here, okay? Come on, that's it."

"No!" Kurt's limbs snapped with a sudden electricity, a burst of something he had lost in the pictures and the still frames. He moved against the guidance, desperate with a single driving force, "No, Blaine, I need Blaine. I promised, you don't get it, I promised! Blaine…"

The guiding hands moved to his shoulders, tried to still his struggles, "Those people will find your friend, but right now I need to get you and some of the others away from this site, okay honey? I know this is a lot, but you're in shock. You've been through a lot, sweetheart, and-"

The world rushed through Kurt's senses in vibrant technicolor and surround-sound, the pictures finally all joining, glued together by one single-minded promise and the thought of the most important person in the universe right now. "My name isn't honey, or sweetheart, or darling, or whatever! My name is Kurt and I am not moving one step until you tell me where my boyfriend is!"

The woman loosened her grip on him, her eyes placating, "Okay Kurt, I'm sorry. Why don't you give me a description of your boyfriend, and I'll find out? We really need to get you to a hospital to get properly checked out. I'll stay here and find… Blaine, was it? I promise."

"You don't understand…" Kurt begged, pleaded, because she really didn't. How could she? He promised, he promised Blaine, he needed Blaine. He needed to see Blaine was okay, and needed him to tell Kurt that everything would be fine. He needed to hold Blaine's hand and hear that he loved him, just so he could reply in kind. He needed to breathe-

"No, no please! Let me go with her! You have to let me go with her!" The desperate screams somehow made themselves heard over the rhythm of the blades from the air ambulance, as a man tried to pull a violently struggling Brittany away from an unconscious Santana. "No! Let go of me! Santana!"

They had freed Santana, but had left part of the pole in. Kurt could see it, sticking out, wrong.

He swayed.

"Someone give me a hand here!" The man holding Brittany back was yelling, pulling her out of the way as a second stretcher was loaded.

Mr Schue. They had found Mr Schue.

The doors were slid shut, and Brittany fell limp with the knowledge that she couldn't get to Santana. The man pulled her back, and still Kurt just watched.

Still no Blaine.

More shouts, more fading, and as the hypnotising rhythm of the helicopter's blades began to fade, another off beat rhythm took its place.

The woman with Kurt looked up and frowned, yelling at two of her colleagues as they ran past, "Chris! What's going on?"

"They found another kid when they went back in to cut the other girl out, hidden between some seats! Chicago Pres. sent their chopper for us! Just do your job and get that lot of kids out of here, Sanderson!"

Between seats. Another kid. Another, as if they hadn't known.

Noise, chaos, and Kurt knew. Kurt ran.

"Hey! Stop!"

Black, red, green.

Black hair, red blood, green scarf.

"Blaine!"

Four men carried him on a stretcher carefully but swiftly up the bank, lying flat, lying pale, lying still, wrong wrong wrong.

Someone caught Kurt around the middle, halting his momentum mid-stride and rattling his brain in his skull as he jerked.

"Wait! Please, wait! Blaine!"

Everything was moving too fast, too much, too soon.

"Please! I have to go with him! I promised! Please!" Kurt didn't even know who he was pleading with at this point. He was just terrified that if they loaded Blaine into that thing, he would never see him again. They would take him away, to the same place as Santana, to the same place as Mr Schue, to the place where they take people who are silent and pale, who are too, too still…

"Move that kid back, we need to take off!" One man yelled brusquely, jumping up first to help the others load Blaine.

"No, please! Don't take him away from me! Blaine!"

"We don't have time for this!"

"Wait – Kurt?" One of the men cut over the other forcefully.

Kurt was so stunned he stopped struggling, and the person holding him managed to drag him away a little more, "Yes?"

"Get in."

"Phil, what are you doing? We don't need a hysterical kid on board!"

"Exactly! And trust me, that kid will be hysterical if he wakes up in the air and he doesn't see this one. So unless you want to sedate him midair without knowing the full extent of his injuries..?" The man let the question hang.

And that was all it took for Kurt to hold Blaine's hand again.

And when he couldn't hold Blaine's hand anymore, when they took him away and sat Kurt down to wait for someone who never came, he held onto the scarf. The green scarf, covered in darkened blood. He stared at it, letting time fall away as he faded into the background of the busy hospital, surrounded by people but completely alone.

Somewhere, somewhere he knew Blaine was here. And Santana. And Mr Schue.

The others weren't. They others had been taken somewhere else. Where he should have been taken, because he was okay. He hadn't been hurt. Somehow, for a reason Kurt just couldn't understand, he was fine. Not a cut, not a scratch, not a hole in his stomach-

Why was that?

He twisted the scarf between his fingers, watching dawn bleed to morning bleed to bright afternoon.

Too much bleeding.

"Hey. Hey, how long have you been sitting here?" A kind voice, crouching to his level.

A hand to his face, soft, too soft, not like Blaine's.

Kurt just stared up at the woman, clad in fresh scrubs that spoke of the start of a shift. He blinked, twisting the scarf, "I… Blaine…" His voice sounded alien to his own ears, disjointed and wrong.

The woman frowned, "Is that blood? Where did you come from?"

And then there were people, a lot of people, and they tried to take the scarf, but Kurt wouldn't let them. He didn't understand. He was fine, no cut, no holes. Blaine wasn't. Why didn't they help him?

After that…

Even the pictures were blurred.

Blaine was pretty sure that if his hair could feel pain, it would hurt. Everything cell in his body ached with the horrible dulled throb of painkillers that weren't quite strong enough.

"Blaine? Hey, can you hear me kid?"

"K'rt…"

"Oh no you don't. Don't try to move. I've buzzed the nurse's station."

Blaine floated for a moment, allowing the concept of being awake to settle, before summoning the strength to open his eyes.

The lights were low, and it might have been night, but Blaine was too busy being confused to work it out. "Mr H'mml?"

"Hey kid. How're you feeling?"

Blaine just blinked dumbly up at the man, before he cast his gaze around the room a bit more.

He blinked again.

Mr Hummel wasn't just sitting next to Blaine's bed – he was sitting in between two beds.

Kurt.

Kurt was there.

Why was Kurt in a hospital bed?

His panic must have shown, because Burt was rubbing a soothing hand on his shoulder, "Kurt's fine, just sleeping at the moment, and due to be released tomorrow." Blaine tried to sit up, his brain focussed on Kurt, but his muscles wouldn't co-operate. Burt was quick to calm him, "Blaine. Kurt is fine. He… well, it was just a lot for all of you to deal with, and he was alone for quite a while after they took you to surgery. It's just been… a lot. I had them move you two in together when you got out of ICU, and your doctors agreed it would be good for the both of you. I got Cooper to okay it over the phone. He should be here soon, actually – his flight was due in a half hour ago."

Blaine blinked, his energy already far too spent to try and ask more questions. He needed Kurt, not just for Kurt to be here, but for Kurt to be awake. For Kurt to tell him himself that he was fine.

Blaine let the warmth of Burt's presence and words wash through him, accepting the motions of the doctor's questions and examinations.

At some point the drugs must have pulled him back under, because when Blaine opened his eyes again, sunlight was filtering into the room and Kurt…

Kurt was awake, his clear, beautiful eyes gazing at Blaine.

A light snore joined the ambience of the hospital, and Kurt smiled softly, his eyes skipping to a man slumped awkwardly in the chair on the other side of Blaine's bed. "I think Cooper's a bit jetlagged. Dad said he was on the first fight out, as soon as they found out where we were."

Blaine blinked slowly, confusion shining in his eyes. Kurt swung out of his bed, padding the few short steps to Blaine's bed before perching gingerly on the side, mindful of Blaine's injuries. Kurt reached up, gently stroking Blaine's cheek with his thumb, "I love you so much…" His voice was wet, choked.

Blaine wished he had the energy to take Kurt's hand, but he still managed to croak, "I love you too."

"We're all okay." Kurt said it with a solid confidence, as if by saying it out loud finally made it real. "We're all going to be fine…"

"We are." Blaine agreed, stumbling over those two simple words as his mind was filled with images of metal and blood, laced with a remembered terror.

"Dad's outside calling Carole. She's with Finn and the others, the ones who weren't as bad and could be ambulanced to a closer hospital. But they had to airlift us, and Santana and Mr Schue, so we're back in Chicago. It was the closest hospital with a helipad, Dad said. It's why it took them so long to find out everything. No one knew who we were. Until someone finally contacted the other hospital."

Blaine frowned, "You said you weren't hurt…"

Kurt's slender frame shook with a shuddered breath, tears collecting in his eyes but not falling, hand cupping Blaine's face, "I wouldn't let you go without me." His voice shook, what little composure he was trying to maintain for Blaine's sake rapidly disappearing.

Blaine's throat felt tight, and it was hard to swallow. Sluggishly, he persuaded his arm to move in a way that wouldn't pull on his ribs, and laced his fingers in Kurt's where they lay against his face, "We're all okay. I'm okay, you're okay. We're all okay."

Kurt nodded, leaning to press a tender kiss to Blaine's chapped lips, keeping their hands entwined.

Just breathe…

Breathe…

"I didn't… I d-didn't want to l-leave you alone. I promised… When I saw you, I thought-" Kurt's words started tumbling, tears, tears that had been beyond him because everything had just been too much, finally flowed.

And Blaine was crying too. Crying because they were together, because they were going to be okay, "I'm here, Kurt." His words were soft, nearly lost in the choked air that surrounded them.

Just breathe.

END

Thank you for reading! :) xxx