Chapter Ten: Viva la Vida

Blaine was nervous.

There were a scarce few days until the big speech, and Kurt had yet to say anything more about his decision to carry a weapon into the fray… or not.  Blaine felt terrible to think it, but if there was a way that he could force the matter, he would.  Kurt had been attending the trainings here and there, so that was something.

The novelty of finally passing time with more than the same three people had quickly worn off, and Blaine was far from the only resistance member on edge.  Kurt was snapping at people so easily these days that Blaine was beginning to understand why he was such good friends with Santana.  So far, Blaine himself had been spared his tongue, but yesterday Kurt had lashed out at Finn for trying to steal a French fry from his plate at lunch and, contrary to what he had been inclined to believe, it wasn’t so much amusing to see the much larger man cowering like a kicked puppy as it was pathetic.

The bitch herself appeared much the same to those who didn’t know her well, but Blaine could tell that Santana’s insults fell a little flatter, her quips a little less calculated.  Brittany had approached him and Kurt one day to worriedly report that Santana had begun randomly ranting in a strange language she had never heard before, but Kurt assured the frightened girl that he had seen Santana do this back in high school—the language was one of her ancestors, centuries old and rarely used now, but it boded no harm beyond a sure sign of stress.

Brittany, Blaine was starting to realize, was quite an asset at a time like this.  Not only was she sometimes able to channel her powers to send waves of calm over the group, but perhaps even more importantly, she was one of the few of them who seemed fully herself.  Bright and bubbly, happy and hopeful—it was a joy to witness, even if Blaine couldn’t quite bring himself to feel the same.

Mike also remained largely unchanged, though Blaine knew from their shared history that it was likely a front.  His friend was an expert at pushing his feelings aside to focus on whatever task was at hand—in this case, organizing and assigning duties to everyone for the big day, a job that had traditionally fallen to Mike when Wes wasn’t present.  Blaine would seek him out every now and then to sit with and reminisce, making easy small talk, and it helped when he could smile and be distracted from his troubles for a time.

When he wasn’t with Blaine, Kurt spent more and more of his time with Mercedes, the two linking arms and taking walks around the grounds while whispering with their heads leaning close together.  Blaine didn’t know what they spoke about, and he didn’t ask.  As he slowly got to know Mercedes, he found he liked the girl—she was headstrong, like Kurt, but also shared his natural warmth and compassion.  Kurt could use someone to confide in at a time like this, especially since he had such an important decision to make.  Blaine only hoped that Mercedes was encouraging him to make the right one—the one that would keep him safe.

To Blaine’s dismay, an unexpected and unwelcome visitor arrived a few days after the rest: one Sebastian Smythe.  He had received a cold reception all around, but it seemed not to faze him; the man merely smirked in his customary manner and claimed that those remaining at the safehouse were beginning to bore him, so he’d decided to throw his lot in with Santana’s crowd.  If he had been hoping for drama, he didn’t get it—the others unanimously ignored him except where courtesy and necessity demanded.  Mike quietly divulged to Blaine one evening that in spite of his innate propensity to offend, they were fortunate to have a man possessing his particular skills in stealth among their ranks.  Blaine wasn’t so sure it was worth it.

Their final hours clicked by in a misleading haze of calm, a simple pattern of sleeping, waking, eating, training, being.  Blaine clung to Kurt a little tighter each night, and Kurt clung back; they shared gentle touches and long, tender kisses and few needless words.

And then it was the day of reckoning.

*******

Waking felt like a betrayal of everything the day was destined to hold—a warm press of naked skin against his, hair tickling under his nose, a half-dry pool of drool on his shoulder and sunlight from the open window pouring over their bodies like a balm from the Source itself.

Blaine closed his eyes again the moment they opened and tried his best to pretend.

“Morning,” the soft voice startled him just before Kurt began to wriggle in his arms.  Soft kisses rained down on Blaine’s face, and when he found the strength to open his eyes once more, they immediately met with a pair of familiar sky-blue, still sleep-happy.  He watched them sadly as reality slowly began to dawn, saw them harden into a colder steel-grey.

“The big day,” Kurt whispered, and Blaine nodded.

Kurt’s eyes shut for a moment and then they were back again, determined, and Blaine wished he wouldn’t speak even as his mouth began to move.

“I need to be honest with you, Blaine.  I thought about what you asked of me… and I can’t.”

Blaine felt his insides freeze, his body tense, but to Kurt it must have appeared a lot like indifference.

“I’m so sorry,” Kurt continued in a rush.  “I decided a few days ago, actually, but I didn’t want to worry you prematurely…”

“Did Mercedes put you up to this?” Blaine cut him off.

“What?  No, why would you think???” Kurt’s face darkened, and Blaine wished he could take it back.  “She was on your side, Blaine.  But you would think the worst.”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” he snapped.

“Don’t do this,” Kurt pleaded.  “Not today, not with…”

“You’re right,” Blaine admitted, trying to force himself to relax.  “But I can’t be happy about this Kurt; you can’t expect me to… damn it!”  He slammed his fist down hard on the nightstand as his anger got the better of him, and the bed rattled with his movement.

“That was smart,” Kurt said sarcastically as Blaine wrung out his hand.

“What the fuck do you expect me to do, Kurt?  I can’t do anything now, there’s no time to change your mind.  I can’t do anything!” 

Abruptly he stood, began throwing on his clothes without even thinking about it, then whirled back around to the bed, half-dressed.

“Please, Kurt… if you’re not going to defend yourself, don’t go!  It’s too risky, you can’t… you can switch with Mike, stay in the vans!  Or stay back here with Maria—she’s sick, we really shouldn’t leave her alone…”

“Blaine, I’m going up there with you, with Santana.  Me, you, Brittany, Santana, and Henry, just like we planned,” Kurt told him firmly.

“Not if she doesn’t want you to!”Blaine shot back.  “I’ll talk to Santana, change her mind… she won’t like this either, Kurt; it’s stupid!”

Kurt stood then, crawling out of bed slowly and coming so close Blaine could feel Kurt’s breath against his face.  “I’m going, Blaine.  You can’t change my mind, and you can’t stop me.”

“I can lock you in here!” Blaine cried, desperate.  “If you can’t leave, and you’ll…”

“Blaine,” Kurt said more gently, reaching out to cup his face.

“What if I can’t protect you?” Blaine said brokenly.

“You won’t have to,” Kurt assured him.  “Blaine, we don’t even know that it will be dangerous!  You probably won’t even need the weapons, you’ll see.  The laws here are stupid, but people aren’t violent…”

“You’re so naïve,” Blaine whispered, clutching at him.  “I hope you’re right.”

“Yeah,” Kurt said.  “I hope so too.”

*******

Most everyone was silent during the three hour drive—they sat coupled together but purposefully avoiding each others’ eyes, Santana and Brittany gripping hands too-tight, Kurt’s head on Blaine’s shoulder, their bodies pressed together from arm to thigh.  Henry was the only exception.  To what extent Santana’s most trusted guard was informed of their situation, whether he was oblivious to the tension in the vehicle or cheerfully attempting to ignore it, if he questioned at all why the three of them joined Santana in the place of legitimate guards—Blaine didn’t know, and right now he didn’t care.  He did cling, though, to the steady, jovial rhythm of the man’s words, unable to focus on their meaning but unwilling to focus on anything else.

The trip passed in a haze, as did their short wait in the stuffy government’s hall while another candidate went first.

It was like something out of a dream.  The four of them flanked Santana on a balcony overlooking the vast crowd that had gathered.  Blaine knew there were several resistance members scattered among the masses, but try as he might his eyes couldn’t find them.  Despite his knowledge of their presence, Blaine felt eerily alone.  Front and center, Santana herself looked every bit the leader—strong and fierce and sure.  He tried to take comfort in that, but the wind blew chilly even through the layers of his guard’s uniform, and there was no comfort to be had.

Brittany seemed lost in her thoughts, and Kurt appeared to be in awe, an almost whimsical expression on his face as he clutched the railing and peered out at the crowd.  Every once in a while, he would glance back at Santana, and she would break character so that they could share a small smile.  Blaine wished he could share in their anticipation—though false and deceitful, it would be a welcome companion to his fear.

If he hadn’t met me, Blaine thought, Kurt wouldn’t be here right now, standing vulnerable and gullible to so many eyes and so much hate.  Kurt would be at home with his father, watching the proceedings on TV.  He would be safe.

Distracted by his own futile musings, Blaine almost missed the moment Santana stepped forward and initiated her carefully scripted speech.

“How is everyone today?” she began amiably, face carefully arranged into a smile Blaine had never seen before and knew was fake.  There were murmurs among the crowd and she paused, pretending to listen.

“It brings me great joy to stand here among you in acknowledgement of the past three years of service you have so graciously allowed me—first as a humble guard and then, for the past year, as your elected Head of Security.  Now I come to you seeking to answer an even greater calling: to serve you, my people, as your president.

“I know what you’re thinking—that the position is a great responsibility to be sought by one so young.  Five years younger, in fact, than any who have held it before.  I would ask only that you allow my record to stand for itself.  While we are blessed to live in a country that has largely enjoyed peace, prosperity, and dare I say happiness for a number of years now, crime rates have dropped even further under my watch.  I believe it fair, and not a statement of hubris, to say that I have earned a reputation for being just and by-the-book, for lending an open ear to the counsel of others—from those who serve you with me down to even the children among you—and for prioritizing my responsibilities to my people for the good of all.

There are many causes I represent, but I won’t bore you with redundancy today because most of you know them well.  Earlier, I referred to the general state of harmony that has blessed our country since the last days of the great plague.  What I failed to mention, and indeed, what many of you may fail to realize, is that for several among you, this peace is a façade.”

Gasps were heard from the crowd, and even from a great distance Blaine could see a shift in posture and expression—the entire lot tense, on edge, anxious for her next words.

Santana, steadfast as ever, pressed on.

“How many of you have family that have been rehabilitated and now dedicate their lives to governmental service?”

Several hands went up—about a third of the group, from Blaine’s estimations.

“The tradition of homosexuals—“ Santana paused, waiting for some reaction to the controversial term but moving ahead when there was none—“the tradition of homosexuals holding governmental positions predates even rehabilitation.  It began when the Source first arrived and saved our world—our people—from themselves.  In fact, couples united by the Source would often serve together, their leadership strengthened and bettered by the bonds of love and family between them.  These were some of the happiest times our country ever saw.  But then the great plague came, and with it the development of rehabilitation—a fine system created out of the necessity to restore this country’s population.  It has been around ever since.

“Many children are happy, even proud, to be rehabilitated.  It will make you stronger, my parents told me.  It will get rid of the sickness inside of you.  It will give you the opportunity to be somebody better than the rest, free from the weakness of love.  It will give you the opportunity for power.  I will never forget the excitement I felt the day they came to take me away.

“Rehabilitation itself was such a powerful process.  They burned the name from my hand.  They forced me to watch videos—terrible, violent footage.  They subjected me to hours of mind games under the guise of therapy.  I endured weeks of physical, sexual and emotional abuse.”

Venom seemed to drip from her voice; Blaine chanced a glance at his companions, noting that their brows, too, were furrowed in worry.  Santana was going off-script.

“It worked.  I was no longer a lesbian.  I felt happier, believed that I was better.  I fucked many men, and I felt love for no one.  I became the bitter, heartless person that stands before you now, petitioning you today in a bid for more power.

“But I don’t want to be that person anymore.

“Rehabilitation is a powerful process.  It will take away your gender, your sexuality, your sense of self.  It will remove your soulmate’s name from your hand, but it cannot remove them from your heart.

“I have found my soulmate in spite of the odds, in spite of the coldness and hatred that our government put into my heart.  I know now that while rehabilitation is a powerful process, it will never be more powerful that the Source, because the Source is powered by love.  Love is the most powerful thing in existence.   It is all that is happy, all that is good, all that is hopeful.  And our society has tried, for years, to kill it.

“I stand before you today no longer bitter, no longer heartless.  I seek only the power that will benefit us all—the power to let love back into our world and to do away with rehabilitation once and for all.  I hope that I still have your support.  Thank you.”

It seemed now that the people were frozen.  There was a smattering of applause, but it soon tapered off—whether halted by fear or embarrassment was impossible to know.  The five on the balcony waited, tense, watching for cues from their leader.   Finally, Santana’s body seemed to relax, and she began to turn to leave, to meet the others waiting in the vans for a hasty exit.  Kurt’s eyes locked on Blaine’s, both relief and weariness shining clearly in their familiar depths.

Then a shot rang out…

And the world around Blaine went to hell.

The movies had it all wrong, he thought distantly.  There was nothing slow-motion about Santana’s body when it dropped, nothing leisurely about the bloom of red on her grey dress, directly over her heart.  He didn’t have to wait for the glossy stare to set about her eyes before he knew that she was dead.

Instinct kicked in, and Blaine was back at the rail, gun poised and eyes frantically scanning the panicked crowd for any clue as to the shooter’s location.  Distantly, he heard Brittany wailing, the unsettling crack of her knees hitting the hard floor too-fast.  Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Henry standing a few feet away, mirroring his own motions.

A second bullet whizzed by, grazing Blaine’s shoulder the instant after he had unknowingly flinched out of the way.

A persistent voice in the back of his mind was screaming for Kurt, but he stoically pushed it aside to focus on the task at hand.

Another bullet, a startled grunt, and Henry went down.

Where where where where where Blaine’s mind played the litany, his frustration mounting alongside his fear.

And then, another gunshot, this one close enough to ring in his ears.  Blaine’s head spun around unbidden to find the source of the sound and followed the angle of a pistol—the one Santana herself had been hiding away—to a now-empty open window in a tall building across the way.

Of course, his mind supplied.  Stupid.

It took only a few moments for Blaine’s senses to settle enough to think clearly, to lower his own rifle and do a double-take of the pistol, now rattling in the air.  His eyes followed the clean lines of the gun to the shaky, pale hand that was clutching it, slowly across a slender arm and finally up.

Up to take in Kurt’s colorless, horrified face.