Santana always imagined that when Blaine finally opened his eyes after three long weeks, the room would be filled with laughter and tears of joy. Blaine would wake up and smile weakly; he would give Santana’s hand a soft squeeze and make some joke about how she needed to brush her hair. They'd laugh and talk with him while they waited for the doctors to release him and Santana would make up her angry behavior from Before by going with him to his physical therapy sessions.

Santana had all this figured out; she had a perfectly structured plan. So when Blaine finally does open his eyes for his family, she smiles, ready for life to go back to normal; ready to have her brother back.

Of course, nothing ever goes the way she plans it to.

The doctor asks Blaine many questions – Santana wants to snap at him, tell him to calm his ass down and let her talk to her brother, goddammit - shines a light in his eyes, whispers with the nurses and waves the little flashlight into Blaine’s eyes again.

Her parents exchange sad smiles, hold tight to each other’s hands and wait patiently with resigned expressions while Cooper shifts nervously.

Santana watches intently, her eyes narrowed, as Blaine’s eyes dart around, not focusing; his face is scared – eyes scrunched, brows furrowed, jaw clenched and lips pressed tightly together - and his breathing has picked up. The doctor is speaking to him in low, soothing tones, trying to get him to calm down and answer all his questions. A nurse starts to lead Santana, Cooper and their parents outside but Santana wants to stay, she doesn't understand what's going on.

When she looks back, Blaine has tears running down his cheeks; he keeps blinking his eyes open and shut hard, shaking his head as sobs rip from within while the doctor sympathetically pats his shoulder and speaks slowly in short sentences.

The nurse, a kind woman named Carole, explains to her and Cooper that loss of vision is common in head injuries, while their parents hold each other by the door to the room. Santana sits quietly and listens, really listens. Carole tells them that they had anticipated this, that even with the surgery the results didn’t look good, but they couldn't be for sure until Blaine really regained consciousness.

Maribel has tears running down her face, but her eyes are determined, her mouth drawn as she clings subtly to her husband. She is strong, Santana thinks, stronger than she looks, small like Blaine, but with a heart like steel – no, not steel, not really, because it is too gentle and soft. Charles is gripping Maribel’s hand tightly, his jaw clenched; he keeps glancing between Blaine’s room and his other children. Cooper looks devastated; he keeps biting his lip and wringing his hands together, so lost and uncomprehending.

And Santana…

Santana just wants everything to be normal again.

Carol leads them back into the room. Blaine is staring up at the ceiling, his eyes open. He is shaking slightly, but he is no longer crying, so Santana hopes he is feeling a little bit better. The doctor turns and sees them, gestures toward Blaine and then gives the family some room and they shuffle forward slowly.

Charles sits next to Blaine in a chair he pulls forward and rests his hand next to his son’s, fingers twitching to reach out. Maribel follows him and stands behind Charles while Santana moves to sit on the bed next to Blaine’s leg as lightly as she can. Cooper sits on the opposite side in the other chair, rests his hand on Blaine’s gently, his thumb tracing patterns into his brother’s skin. Blaine seems to figure out that they are there; his hand slowly covers Charles', he twists his fingers around Cooper’s and he bumps his leg a bit against Santana’s thigh.

"Mami? Where are you?" His voice is quiet and raspy when he speaks.

Maribel wipes her tears before she leans toward Blaine’s face, rests her hand next to his shoulder and speaks in a quiet, hushed whisper.

"I'm right here my baby boy, mami is right here."

Blaine stays in the hospital for another week.

Santana skips Cheerios practice to visit him straight after school everyday. She brings with her jokes and books to read, complaints about people she calls ‘Wheezy’ and ‘Lady’. Santana always keep her tone light and laughs loudly, and Maribel feels horrible when she is thankful that Blaine can’t see the sadness in her daughter’s eyes.

Maribel almost scolds her daughter for missing school one day to spend it with Blaine, but she just can’t bring herself to. She herself has taken a leave from work at the restaurant to care for her son – she’s not actually planning on returning, and everyone knows it, but refusing to say anything - spending every moment she can by his side.

It has been hard on her, to watch her son, who used to be so bright and full of energy, lie in bed at the hospital, staring – unseeing - listlessly out the window, his face turned at the heat of the sun coming in through the glass.

Charles sends highly qualified nurses, specialists, therapists to the room and she greets them all with a tired smile and an offer of coffee and sweet bread. They all give her a sympathetic and polite smile, accept her treats and make no comment about the counter in the corner, filled with Blaine’s favorite dishes and drinks, all made from scratch.

Her husband seems lost in all of it, stumbling over his words and trying to fix what cannot be fixed with money and pleading words to all these people who know they can’t really help the way Charles wants them to.

When faced with the task of dealing with his son personally, a sorrowful expression overcomes his face and he claims he has a desk full of work and leaves with a squeeze of Blaine’s hand.

Maribel wants to shake him, yell at him and tell to him that all he needs to do is just sit with Blaine, tell him everything will be alright.

She can’t make herself stay in the room when Cooper visits Blaine. His eyes look tired, always red-rimmed and filling with tears. She sits outside the room and reads literature on blindness instead, the rhythmic sounds of Cooper speaking, the falters in his voice when he really starts to cry filling her ears and making it hard to concentrate on the small text in front of her.

She closes her eyes then, her finger a bookmark in her closed book, and whispers to herself, “Give me strength, give him strength, please, please.”

When they bring him home, finally, Charles and Cooper on either side of him, holding him up and guiding him, he is quiet. No longer is there laughter or song or loud exclamations.

Instead there is eerie silence, disturbed by Santana’s nervous tapping of her foot, Cooper’s attempts at making conversation, Charles clearing his throat, poised to say something, but never following through, and Maribel’s announcements of making dinner, or sweets, coffee, tea, anything and everything.

Blaine just wants them all to stop.

He tells them he’s tired and wants to sleep, refuses their help and carefully and slowly makes his way to his room on crutches, feeling his way with a hand on the wall.

If they think he can’t hear them trailing behind him, watching him, making sure he doesn’t trip or lose his balance, then they are sorely mistaken.

Two weeks after Blaine returns home, Quinn arrives at their home at two in the morning. Charles lets her in with a sigh. He offers her coffee, but she declines, her answer a swift, “I just need to see Blaine, please.”

When Quinn enters his room, she isn’t surprised to find he’s awake. Santana had told her Blaine’s been having trouble sleeping, that sometimes she hears him shuffling around in his room; she tells Quinn she’s smelt the smoke of cigarettes on more than one occasion, that she’s worried but doesn’t know what to do.

Blaine is perched on the window seat, the breeze from outside lifting his curls. His injured leg is bent off the seat, one hand curled on his thigh, the other holding a lit cigarette, the smoke curling from the amber end to wrap around his face and disappear just as it emerged.

Quinn walks in quietly, but she knows he’s heard her; his face tilts in her direction and he sniffs discreetly in her directions to try and figure out who has come to him.

He smiles - just a small twitch of one side of his mouth, but Quinn counts it as a victory anyways – when he recognizes her light scent of lavender.

“Quinny,” he says, a quiet whisper, just for her, in a tone of amusement.

Mockingly, she responds, “Blainey.”

He shakes his head and hums, concealing a laugh. He taps against the window frame and ash falls like raindrops when he says, “You’re up late, Q. What do mommy and daddy have to say about that?”

Quinn rolls her eyes and settles herself delicately on the seat across him, plucking the burning stick from his loose fingers.

“Mommy and daddy don’t know their precious, perfect little girl is out.”

He nods, leaning his head back against the wall, relaxing his good leg so it overlaps with hers. Quinn studies him while she raises the cigarette to her lips; he looks almost content, with his eyes closed, a lazy smile on his lips and the wind from the open window drifting across his face and through his hair.

Quinn knows his isn’t really though, and he voice sounds thick and hoarse, unrelated to the drag she just took, when she tells him, “I miss you.”

He sighs heavily then, like it’s a predecessor to his last breath, his words leaving his mouth in wisps, like a secret, a sad goodbye.

“I miss me too.”

Quinn visits everyday after that, sometimes with Santana and Brittany after Cheerios practice if her mother doesn’t pick her up, but most of the time is early in the morning. Charles gives her a key and a request that she let him know if Blaine tells her something he should know about.

She knows what that really means, of course she does. Everyone has been walking on eggshells around Blaine, and Quinn knows they should be, combined with the way Blaine’s life has been drastically changed, and with Seth…

She knows Blaine has already guessed at why they all refuse to bring him up, but she feels the need to tell him anyway.

So she does, a month in, while they lay outside on the grass at four in the morning. Her words are safe here, where they can drift like smoke up into the dark sky.

“Seth didn’t get it as bad as you did, but he had to watch while they-“ She stops, has to stop, her chest tight, but Blaine feels for her hand and laces their fingers together and so she continues, “He had some problems while he was in the hospital and he…he tried to kill himself.”

Her eyes shut tightly, like if she closes them hard and for long enough, her words won’t be true; but a pressure building on her hand brings her back. Blaine is squeezing, holding onto her small hand with a force of a boy who just can’t let go.

“A nurse found him pretty quickly though and he was okay after a while, but his parents…they decided he needed to get out of Ohio. So they moved to California as soon as Seth was healed. His parents wrote me a letter; they told me he’s in therapy and he’s getting better. He’s not…he’s not okay, not yet, but he’s getting there.”

Blaine doesn’t speak for a while, just rolls into her arms and rests his head on her chest, breathing deeply.

“I’m not okay, either, Q, I’m not.” He finally reveals, trembling in her arms and she holds tight to him when she feels his warm tears land on her skin.

“I know, but…you will be, I promise, I promise you, we’ll fix it; it won’t hurt anymore, I’ll fix it, I promise.”

The rain comes soon after that, washing away their tears and cleansing them, readying them for a new day and a promise of Someday.