Sirens, shrill and piercing, and loud voices, authoritative and commanding as they echo down the hallways. Sam is barely aware of them as he sits cross-legged on the floor beside Blaine, whose eyes have long since closed and who hasn't said anything as time stretches on. He focuses on the rise and fall of Blaine's shoulders, the serenity brought by his closed eyes. He wonders, again, what Blaine is thinking. He wonders, again, if he really wants to know.

He doesn't.

When he closes his eyes, he can only see Blaine—brave, all the way up until the very end. When he lets himself think, he goes through every possible scenario where he could have helped instead of doing nothing. When he lets himself hear, it's pleas and whimpers, nos and disgustingly animalistic grunts.

He wants to say he's sorry, but his tongue is a thick, jumbled thing in his mouth. His words tie themselves uselessly into knots that fall back down his throat. He swallows them with bitterness. He feels like a failure as a friend, and though he knows that it is irrational he can't help it, can' help but hate himself for being okay when Blaine is not.

"Mr. Schue," Marley says, her voice shocking in the room, "aren't they coming for us?"

They could all leave, go to help instead of waiting for it, but no one wants to leave Blaine. Not now. Not yet.

"They'll be here," Mr. Schue tells her, but his voice is flat, monotonous, like all his hope is gone. He sits on a chair, his head in his hands. He is the picture of hopelessness, a leader suddenly stricken and unable to go on, and Sam can't blame him. There is staticky numbness in his body, in his head.

Everyone else remains hushed even though the danger has since passed. It's oddly silent now without the metronome, that reminder that all of their hearts are still beating. The empty arms of Sam's hoodie splay cross the floor like dead snakes. Blaine's legs are curled slightly so his knees and part of his calves disappear under the green fabric, and his pants are riding up to show the white of his socks above the tops of his sneakers. He looks so small, so...young.

It's only early afternoon. Sam recalls Blaine's bright smile as they'd walked into the choir room, the video game marathon they'd been planning for the weekend. He isn't sure if he'll ever see that smile, so untainted and carefree, again. There is chance that he won't, and it makes Sam's stomach twist up, makes his heart and his very bones ache. It had been a good day, and everyone had been happy and excited to rehearse, to be together in a room where even the Cheerios had a reason to smile and laugh and let go and be equals with the rest of them.

Voice, then, louder now as they echo in the empty hallway outside the room, and Sam's head snaps up as the handles on the doors jiggle (no, please, no, irrational thoughts, ingrained-instinctive fear that Sam knows everyone is going to feel for months, years, not him again) and Mr. Schue jumps up to open them. Two SWAT officers come in, then two policemen.

None of the kids speak. Mr. Schue looks at the men blankly. An officer, the one that looks older, looks around the room with an eagle-eyed gaze, a rushed sense of desperation. Sam wonders if they've found anyone else hurt, trapped, scared and shivering like a lost puppy. The officer speaks and asks, all formalities, "Has anyone here been hurt?"

It's the question no one wants to answer. The question no one knows how to answer.

Glances cast at Blaine and Sam on the floor, and Sam immediately wants to cover Blaine, to protect him from the scrutinous eyes of these men. Blaine doesn't need this. Blaine doesn't deserve this. He didn't deserve any of this, and now Sam is left fumbling with a broken china figure and Elmer's glue, a child with useless, clumsy hands and pieces that are too small or that just don't fit right.

"Has he—?" the officer, younger with short black hair, begins to ask. He's looking down at Blaine, then back up at Mr. Schue. There is skepticism rife in his eyes, bright like the sharp hone of a laser point. He's asking for physically injured people, and from the outside, from anyone who hadn't been in this room, Blaine doesn't look hurt. Scared, but not hurt. Everyone is scared; the officers don't have time for that.

Sam lifts his head, raises his chin and silently challenges the officer to say something, to go away. His hand on Blaine's shoulder, warm skin through the polyester, and Blaine barely flinches. His breath stutters, quick bursts, but he doesn't move.

Mr. Schue hesitates, looks at Sam, and then nods, leaning in close and whispering it to the officer. He knows no one else in the room, though they had bore witness to it, wants to hear it. Hearing it is a reminder that it's real, a reminder that what happened to Blaine can't be taken back and won't ever be forgotten.

The officer sends away for a medical technician and an ambulance attendant. He is studiously impassive and professional about it. In a way, Sam is glad for that. In another way, he is furious. Why isn't anyone else acting like this is as serious as it is? Why doesn't anyone else care like he does?

The lines around the officer's mouth have become tighter, and there's now a furrow between his brows, deep and serious. There's a slight set to his jaw now the longer he stares at Blaine that Sam recognizes easily as anger.

The technician and attendant, both men, don't take long to arrive, and Sam has to step back, hands guiding him, when they do. He doesn't go easily, insisting that Blaine will want him there, that Blaine will need him. He doesn't speak of his role during the ordeal, the tether he'd tried so hard to be and had ultimately failed at. The thought gives him a greasy, grimy feeling in the back of his throat. His eyes sting sharply again with tears, and briefly the world wobbles and melds together like a fresh painting exposed to water. He blinks, and everything steadies, clears.

Blaine is still on the floor, hands clenched into fists on the linoleum. His face is still red, still slick. He is still broken, still hurt. Something has been stolen from him, ripped away like a playground bully stealing another's toy, though Sam wishes that it were as simple as that. This is something carved out of Blaine with a jagged-edged knife, hot and cruel and merciless, sloppy and uncaring, with its work. This cannot be replaced with a trip to the toy store. This cannot be replaced at all.

The technician crouches down, gently touches Blaine's shoulder. Blaine stirs, blinking open his eyes and lifting his head up slightly from the floor. There's a moment of bright clarity, honey gold warm in the light, before his eyes deaden again, going flat and staring at nothing. They speak to him in gentle tones, soothing him, but the moment the attendant touches the hoodie draped across Blaine's waist the flatness to his eyes disappears to be replaced with hysteria, panic, fear in all their wide-eyed, unfocused glory.

"Get off me!" he screams, sitting up. His voice echoes, rings out and beats harshly at Sam's eardrums. Blaine lashes out with a well-curved right hook that is seems to be directed at nothing, but the two men jump back in surprise anyway at the unexpected reaction. The jacket falls, exposing the bare skin of Blaine's hip, the curve of his pelvis, and Sam doesn't look. Blaine's voice edges higher, shriller, and he starts to cry again as he looks around wildly. "Get away from me, get away." It's like he doesn't even know that he's in the choir room.

"We're just trying to help you," the attendant says. He's young, probably in his twenties, and has a soft voice that reminds Sam of Kurt—and god, Kurt, what will he think? Someone is going to have to tell him, because Sam knows how much Blaine still cares about him, how much Blaine will need him.

The attendant's eyes are kind, and he doesn't try to reach out as he steps in closer. "Blaine, you're safe now, I promise. The man isn't here anymore."

"I can still feel him in me," Blaine gasps, shudders. His face pales, and for a moment a strained look crosses it like he's going to be sick. It passes and he squeezes his eyes shut, like he's reliving, and shakes his head like a pesky fly is bothering him, back-forth back-forth quickly. He grabs the jacket so it doesn't fall any further and curls back in on himself, a hunched comma half on the floor, half lifted up. His shoulders shake, his breath hitches, and his words slur, rise and fall like the swell of a tide as he begins to edge further and further into incoherency. "He's still—oh god, no, nononono. Get him out get him out, please!"

"Blaine," the man says again, still unfailingly patient and soothing, "you're okay. He's gone. He's not going to hurt you again."

Blaine shakes his head, rakes his fingers through the hold of his gel and grips. The jacket falls again, and Sam knows that Blaine must be exposed from the back, and he's glad that the only ones who could see are the men trying to calm him down. "No, no, please, no. Don't touch me again. I don't want it. Please." Another sob, deep and wrenching, another shake of the head. "Please."

The room feels drained of air as everyone collectively holds their breath. Bieste looks away, but now there are tears in her eyes. Mr. Schue still doesn't look up. No one knows what to do. Sam can't reach out, can't say anything. He knows it'd be useless, anyway.

"We just want to get you into the ambulance," the technician finally says. His voice is deeper but just as soothing and caring as the attendant's. His eyes are brown, kind. "We'll get you to a hospital, son, and get you checked out. You're gonna be okay."

Blaine lifts his head up, stares blankly at them, then looks around the room like he's just realizing where he is. He trembles, little shivers that wrack his body, and this time when the technician and attendant move in he doesn't fight them off. He lets them stand him up, and he grips onto their shoulders for support as they gently tug up his pants. Blaine looks out at everything and nothing all at once, the humiliation long gone now. No one meets his eyes. Sam looks away until he's covered back up and his hoodie is tossed to the floor.

"Is this okay?" the technician asks, keeping a steady arm around Blaine's torso to slide under his arm and support him.

Blaine nods, then says, small and tremulous and so very unlike the boy of eighteen that he really is, "I just want my mommy. Please."

Sam squeezes his eyes shut, bites hard onto the inside of his cheek until the coppery tang of blood spills warm onto his tongue.

"We'll call your parents," the technician promises. "As soon as we get you to the hospital. Can you walk for me?"

Blaine takes a shaky step, wobbles and cries out in pain as his knees buckle and he nearly falls. He shakes his head as another tear slides down his face, and his voice is endlessly apologetic as he whimpers, says, "I can't. I can't, sir, I'm sorry—"

"It's okay, son. It's okay. Don't worry. We'll get you a stretcher, all right? Don't apologize. I'm very proud of you for trying."

They call for a stretcher, and when it comes they gently lift Blaine onto it. He whimpers in pain when he lies down, stretching his neck back and letting out a short groan of pain, but he doesn't say anything else as the officers talk to Bieste and Mr. Schue. He closes his eyes, keeps them that way, and Sam is barely aware of a hand on his shoulder. He turns, sees that it's Jake's, sees that Jake is crying, a single tear rolling down his face to disappear under the curve of his chin.

The technician and the attendant roll Blaine out of the room, the officers and SWAT men following, but Sam doesn't watch him go, just listens to the squeaky wheels of the stretcher fade down the hallway. He looks down at the floor, feels the coppery twang swill around his mouth.

There is blood where Blaine had been lying.