His grip on John’s shirt sleeve is wavering, the hand he’s cupped against John’s heart trembling. Holding himself up takes more effort than he expected, but Blaine doesn’t really want to break the moment. He eventually has to, the strain of gripping John so tightly is wearing on him, so he lets John’s shirt slip from his grip, slumps back onto his pillows.

Blaine runs a shaky hand over his eyes, trying to clear the tears that’ve gathered, but he can’t quite seem to blink them away. John’s got his face in his hands in a similar gesture, elbows resting on the edge of the mattress. Neither of them speaks, makes a move; the exchange they’ve just shared hangs heavily in the air between them.

It’s Carrie who breaks the silence, clears her throat gently to get John’s attention. She mouths a thank you at him, her own eyes shining with unshed tears as she glances from her husband to her son. Blaine’s still got his eyes closed, hand covering his face, and misses the exchange between his parents entirely. Carrie drops a hand to his shoulder, gently squeezes to redirect Blaine’s attention.

“Are you alright, Blaine?”

He swallows, a grimace crossing his face as the gesture pulls at the muscles in his neck, but nods.

“Yeah,” he gets out, letting his hand slide off his face and rest at his side. He’s breathing a little heavier after the exertion of holding himself up, the pain in his ribs giving him something else to focus on that isn’t his father or his own confusing emotions. Carrie presses a thumb into Blaine’s shoulder, trying to ease away some of the tension in his bunched muscles.

“Relax, Blaine,” she murmurs, stroking along his shoulder and upper arm. It’s a move she used when he was younger, when he’d be stressed about school or the bullying or, later, when he was dealing with the aftermath of the beating or a particularly bad fight with John. Blaine’s always been high-strung, active and unable to sit still, and as such has always been prone to tense shoulders and knotted muscles. Carrie's always been the only person he'll let do this to him, work out the knots.

Blaine calms beneath her hand, his breathing evening out and his face relaxing from its grimace. Carrie lets her fingertips trail along the edges of the gauze on his neck, biting her bottom lip when his eyes flutter open, seek hers. She’s still not sure what to make of this-how to process everything that’s happened, so she doesn’t, and instead focuses on Blaine-solid, real, relatively whole beneath her hands. Each breath he takes is a reassurance that he's still here, and things aren't as bad as they seem, so she focuses on that-the steady rise and fall of Blaine's chest, barring the occasional hitch at his ribs.

The moment's broken when John interrupts, his voice rough from forcing down tears.

“I need to-coffee,” John speaks up, his emotions finally in check and his face dry. He’s gripping the edge of Blaine’s bed tightly, dutifully looking anywhere except Blaine’s face. Blaine turns his eyes to his father, questioning, but John can’t meet his gaze. Blaine frowns, reaches out to brush his fingers against John’s hand.

“I just-I need a minute, okay? Carrie, I’ll be-I’ll be downstairs.”

Blaine and Carrie watch John leave the room, Blaine’s face falling as soon as his father’s back is turned to him. Carrie notices, rubs her hand along his arm again and makes a quiet shushing noise.

“It’s just been a lot to take in, Blaine. We’ve gone through a lot in the past couple days, and he just-he’s trying.”

Blaine makes a quiet noise in his throat, nods. His fingers close around his phone again, and he brings it up in front of his face, frowning when he can't secure a comfortable angle to text.

“Do you want to sit up?” Carrie asks, noticing how much trouble he’s having keeping the phone steady while he tries to work it.

Blaine nods, and Carrie hits the call button behind the bed, afraid to push any of the buttons on the bed for fear of doing the wrong thing. Ally appears within minutes, knocking on the door frame before entering.

“What’s going on, Mrs. Anderson?”

“Blaine was wondering if he could possibly sit up? The angle on his back is bothering him and-”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Here, let me show you how this thing works.”

Ally takes the remote for the bed, demonstrates for both Blaine and Carrie how to operate the buttons, which move the head of the bed up and down. In a few minutes Blaine is sitting up comfortably, Ally sliding a pillow behind his back to support him.

“If your ribs start to bother you, you can move back down, or try to figure out which position puts the least strain on them for you personally. You could try hugging a pillow, too, that might cushion them. Dr. Waltman wants to try and get you walking around sometime tonight or tomorrow, because the sooner we can get you up and about the sooner we can get you home.”

“Home?”

Carrie hasn’t considered that yet, somehow hasn’t thought about what will happen after. Everything has been so focused on Blaine, on oxygen levels and secondary reactions and healing processes, but somehow, bringing him home hasn’t crossed her mind. She hasn't considered that, at some point, Blaine's care becomes her responsibility, and her charge.

“Well, I’d assume you don’t want to be stuck in the hospital forever?” Ally addresses Blaine, winking at him knowingly. He returns her smile, nods. “Medically, there’s no real reason to keep Blaine much longer, barring any sudden complications or an infection. Keeping him longer would actually be opening him up for greater risk of infection. I think we’re hoping to get him out of here by Tuesday morning, for sure.”

“And then what?”

“And then you guys try to get back to your normal life.”

Ally’s tone makes it clear that she knows it’s not that easy, that there’s a lot left to deal with and process. But her attempt at humor lightens the situation, makes Blaine crack a smile and Carrie’s shoulders loosen the slightest bit.

“You’ll be okay. We’ll make sure you know how to care for his ribs, change his dressings, and we’ll give you plenty of aftercare instructions. You’ll all worry for the first few weeks, keep a closer eye on Blaine than you’re used to. But you’ll work through everything eventually.”

She tosses another reassuring grin at Carrie, who finds herself at ease in Ally's presence.

“Thank you.”

“Just my job,” Ally responds, stepping to the side of the bed to check the level of the drip. “This’ll need to be changed soon, but I’ll come back to do that later. How’s the pain?”

“Alright,” Blaine says quietly, shrugging. “Not so bad.”

“The meds should be wearing off soon, so just give a shout-not literally-if you need anything more. Dr. Waltman should be in to see you soon, hopefully, but other than that just get some rest, and I’ll be in to check on you in an hour or so.”

Ally leaves the room with a quick squeeze of Blaine’s shoulder and a reassuring smile to Carrie. Blaine watches her go, shifts until he’s as comfortable as he can manage. He picks his phone back up, unlocks it and pulls up his text messages.

“Kurt?”

“Mmhmm,” Blaine replies, already typing a text to Kurt. Blaine’s excited about the idea that he could be home by Tuesday night, enough so that his pain and lingering confusion are already fading to the back of his mind. His brain still feels fuzzy, and he’s having trouble holding onto thoughts for very long, so he lets his mind wander, and texts Kurt instead.

Carrie smiles knowingly, brushes a stray curl from Blaine’s forehead before settling back into her chair. She watches him for a moment more, before resting her head against the back of the chair and letting her thoughts drift for the first time in hours.

- - - -
Kurt’s pulling on the top Carole packed him when his phone buzzes on the locker room bench. He snatches it up, sliding across the screen to pull up the text message as quickly as possible.

From: Blaine