Lights Will Guide You Home, Ch. 20/?
Media: Fic
Title: Lights Will Guide You Home
Rating: R
Spoilers (if any): nada
Warnings (if any): infant mortality (I'll just come out and say it, it's NOT Lily), neonatal code, angst that goes along with all that
Word Count: 3517
Summary: 13 years from now, Blaine and Kurt have made a fabulous life for themselves, but there's something missing...
A/N: So, I'm not entirely sure where this chapter came from. I was planning to write happy, not angst-filled chapters for the remainder of the story, but this just sort of ... happened. Maybe my subconscious needed more NICU catharsis than I initially thought. I was going to strike it completely, start over, and then I listened to the song in the context of the story, and I just couldn't. I had to leave it. So ... I'm sorry for the sadness. Please take note: if you've ever had a baby in the NICU, this chapter might be hard for you to read. (Or possibly even if you haven't.) The song toward the end is Fix You by Coldplay, it works best pace-wise with the story if you start it right before the lyrics start in the chapter. I hope nobody hates me for being this angsty! I promise Klainebows and sexytimes in the next chapter to make up for it!
Lights Will Guide You Home
Chapter 20
“Blaine, this is really happening.”
Kurt was sitting on the fluffy white rug in the middle of what was now the nursery again. It looked completely different from Violet's, more elegant in a way, decorated in a palate of a light, warm gray, white, and touches of pale yellow, slightly unusual for a baby girl's nursery, but it was gorgeous. They used Violet's former crib and furniture, and the same rug, but that was where the similarities in their rooms ended. The walls were painted gray, one adorned with white birch tree wall decals, and Kurt had painstakingly painted little yellow birds in the branches and around the room. The crib sheets were all white, the only pop of color in the bumper, which was yellow with gray tree branches and birds on it. They'd gotten a new white glider, and Kurt made pillows that coordinated with the crib bumper out of a yellow linen material with white leaves stitched in it. Rather than pom-poms hanging over the bed, a lovely arrangement of white and yellow paper lanterns hung in the corner over the glider, and little yellow papier mache birds that the couple had constructed together were suspended over Lily's crib.
“This is really happening,” Blaine repeated back to him.
They'd gotten a call that morning from the hospital, letting them know that discharge plans were being made, and they needed to get everything in order for her to come home the following week. After a moment of near panic - this was really happening - Blaine and Kurt set to work putting the finishing touches on the nursery, and made a long list of all the things they still needed to purchase for her. They'd called Burt and Carole to see if they wanted to come for another visit once Lily was at home, and then called the rest of their close friends to tell them the good news.
And now the nursery was done, beautifully put together, and all they had left to do was the shopping. But first, they wanted to see their little girl.
* * * * * * * *
It was the day after a medication wean, and after they arrived on the unit, Sarah Grace informed them that Lily had a very fussy morning. They tried to play with her, their normal mid-morning routine on Saturdays - they loved to read her stories and help her find her feet and play with the mobile attached to her crib and make her smile - but she was having none of it, whimpering and crying and pouting. So they settled in, holding and rocking her and humming softly to her.
“So you got the good news, I take it?” Sarah Grace asked them. She was sitting across from them, feeding a baby who was taking a really long time to eat.
“We did, just this morning! Dr. Pruitt called us himself,” Kurt chirped.
“I'm so glad.” She was smiling at them, but her eyes were shining with what looked like the beginnings of tears. “I just … you just have no idea what it means for her that you are getting to take her home. You have no idea how amazing it is for us to see happy endings, to not worry about the babies after they leave here... You have to bring her back to visit. I want to see her, all big and chunky and happy and off her meds...”
“Sarah Grace, are you kidding me? You're already on the list of people invited to her adoption celebration. And also her first birthday party. You've done so much for us … we can't thank you enough. Letting you see her is the least that we can do for you...”
Suddenly they heard a commotion in the next pod over, interrupting what Blaine was saying. Multiple alarms were sounding, all at the same time, and they could just make out what was being said.
“I need some help in here!!”
“Get the crash cart!!!”
Not a second later, shrill alarms rang out and blue lights started flashing and the unit erupted into chaos.
“Oh no...” Sarah Grace muttered to herself, quickly wrapping the baby she was holding up and setting it back in its crib.
“In Pod 4!”
“Pod 4!”
“It's Andrew!!!”
That last voice had a note of panic, one that Sarah Grace could not ignore. She froze for a moment, then turned to Blaine and Kurt.
“I'm sorry, I have to go help.” And she literally ran out the door.
They looked at each other with wide eyes, somewhere between knowing and being completely clueless about what was going on. The loud alarms that were still blaring in the hallways were doing nothing good for Lily, who was now wailing right along with them. Kurt hoisted her up against his shoulder and stood up, trying to bounce a little bit in order to calm her.
They caught a glimpse of a group of parents being herded past the door, then a few seconds later, a man practically having to drag a screaming woman down the hall of the unit.
“NOOOO!” she was yelling, kicking her feet. “David, we can't just LEAVE him...” It was all he could do to keep his wife from running back to the pod next door, and another nurse ran over to help him.
“Oh my God,” Kurt half-whispered to Blaine, holding Lily a bit tighter.
They could hear snippets of the scary sounds and words from next door, and sat in stunned silence, trying not to listen, but unable to avoid it.
“...got a line...”
“...tube him...”
“...more light … can't see the cords ...”
“...point-four of epi, NOW...”
“...draw up 40 ccs of normal saline?...”
They felt like they were in the strange kind of nightmare where you could hear everything that was being said, but couldn't make out any of what it meant. It was terribly unsettling.
Lily was still wailing. “I don't think Sarah Grace is coming back for a while...” Blaine said softly.
Kurt nodded, understanding, and went to fetch the thermometer off the wall. He looked up at the lone nurse remaining in the pod, holding the thermometer up. “Is it alright if we...”
She looked up from the bedside she was standing at, looking rather busy herself - that baby's monitor was beeping as well. “Sure, go ahead, you know where everything is?”
“We do.” His voice was soft, scared, and he could hear everything that was going on next door even better now that he was at the front of the pod. He stood there, frozen to the spot, unable to stop listening to the horrible scene unfolding next door.
“...coordinate … one-and-two-and-three-and-breathe...”
“...somebody writing this down?...”
“...try to tube him again...”
“...heartrate's dropping...”
“Kurt.” Blaine's voice brought him flying back to reality, and he hurried over to Lily's crib with the thermometer.
“Sorry. It just … it sounds really bad in there.”
“I know.”
They were silent as they took her temperature, writing it down on a scrap piece of paper for Sarah Grace to chart later, and changed her diaper. Apparently they didn't move quite fast enough, because in the middle of that, they looked down and found her bed soaking wet.
“Oh, Lily...” Kurt sighed as he picked her up, and Blaine stripped her bed of the wet blankets, putting them in her designated “dirty laundry” patient belonging bag, and redressed it with clean, dry ones. His hands were shaking as he listened to the doctor's voice get tighter and tighter with worry. That was probably a bad sign.
“...another point-four of epi now...”
“...bicarb...”
“...no, PUSH IT...”
“...and-three-and-breathe...”
“...sats are in the 30's...”
He finally got all her sheets tucked into the sides of the little mattress and washed his hands while Kurt changed her into clean clothes. He fixed her bottle when he came back, and Kurt sat down and popped it in her mouth. She finally stopped crying.
But the chaos next door did not.
“...one more round of epi...”
“...heartrate's in the 20's now...”
“...DAMN it...”
“...can't fucking see...”
They knew it was bad when medical professionals started cursing. They looked up in horror at the nurse who was trying to take care of her own patient, a tiny baby in a box, by herself with no help, and she just sadly shrugged her shoulders as if to say Welcome to NI. This is how it is, sometimes.
“...no, no, shit...”
“...Andrew...”
“...losing him...”
“...more epi right NOW...”
“...another bolus...”
Blaine had never wanted to hold Kurt's hand so badly in his life, but Kurt's hands were rather full of Lily at the moment. So he scooted closer in his chair and sort of hung onto his shoulders.
“I'm so glad it's not her that they're working on right now,” he whispered.
“Don't even say that, Blaine.”
“I'm sorry.”
“...keep bagging...”
“...switch out with me?...”
“...and-two-and-three-and...”
They were paralyzed where they sat, both silently begging whoever was in the heavens, if anybody, to please, please please not let that baby die, and silently thanking them for letting their baby still be pink and alive and breathing.
“...Andrew...”
“...just BREATHE, Goddammit!...”
“...more bicarb...”
“...another round of epi...”
A pause.
“Dr. Pruitt.”
And out of everything they'd heard, that was what scared them the most. The finality of someone saying the doctor's name, in a tone that said they'd done everything they could. Blaine looked at the clock. It had been 30 minutes since Sarah Grace had left the pod.
“Shit. Dammit, we're done here.”
For a split second, they heard the monitor alarm wildly, then go into the distinctive, morose tone of a flatline, then there was silence. Someone had turned the monitor off.
A few seconds later, they saw the doctor, the nurse practitioner, and a nurse walking past their pod, arms around each other, all crying.
Oh God, Blaine realized, they're going to tell his parents.
Not a minute later, they heard a noise that sounded more animal than human. It was indescribable - almost a howl, not quite a wail, not exactly a cry. It was visceral and loud and frightening and it sent a chill deep into their bones. It was the baby's mother.
* * * * * * * *
Forty-five minutes later, they were still sitting in stunned silence, still clutching Lily, when Sarah Grace came back. She had obviously been crying.
“We wrote her temperature down, and she took 100 ccs for us,” Kurt told her softly.
“Sarah Grace, what-”
She cut him off, a desolate look in her eyes. “Blaine … please. You know I can't talk about it.”
“But we...”
“Blaine, I have to chart.” It was the first time she'd ever snapped at either of them. “If you need me for something serious, I will be right over here. But I have charting to do.” She turned on her heel and walked over to the desk at another baby's bedside, staring blankly at the clipboard in front of her. She sat there for a long time before Blaine decided that he was going to burst open if he didn't do something.
“I'm sorry,” he said, lifting his head to face her. But she was either ignoring him, or so deep in her own grief that she couldn't hear him at all. So he did the only other thing he knew to do - he took Lily from Kurt and cradled her in his lap and started to sing softly to her.
When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse
He'd been saving this song as a lullaby to sing her when she came home - what song could be more appropriate for a drug baby than Fix You? - but when he thought about the lyrics again, he reconsidered. He could still sing it to her at home, but the lyrics of the first stanza alone couldn't have been more fitting for what Sarah Grace had just been through. He hoped that this would bring her comfort somehow, though he didn't know if it was possible attain any form of comfort after what she'd just been through.
And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
Kurt joined him on the chorus with a lovely, high harmony, his upper register still clear as a bell, and rested his hand on the back of Blaine's neck, fingers running up into the base of his hairline, singing to him. And Blaine realized at that moment that they needed the song just as much as Sarah Grace did, to sing it to each other as a remembrance of what they'd been through, lived through, and as a promise of what was to come.
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
As the song progressed, they watched as their baby's nurse - their friend - put her head in her hands and cried from a pain that Blaine and Kurt couldn't quite understand and hoped they'd never feel: the futility of doing everything you could to save a child, trying every means necessary, only to watch it slip out of your grasp. The complete and utter death of hope that happens when a baby takes its final breath.
And high up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth
But as they continued, they realized that they weren't just singing for Lily and Sarah Grace and themselves anymore. They were singing for all the nurses and doctors and kindhearted people who worked on that unit, giving their hearts time and time again to those beautiful, miraculous babies, at the risk of having those hearts ripped out of their chests and carried to heaven as they fought tooth and nail to get them back. They were singing for Jeff and Nick, for love lost and love found and new beginnings. They were singing for the poor parents of the baby next door whose light had gone out far too early. They were singing for Lily's mother, wherever she was and whatever she was doing. They were singing for Blaine's parents, close-minded and heartless as they'd been to him, in hopes that their eyes might one day be opened to the ignorance and hate they'd shown to their own son. They were singing for the world, because the world was broken and needed so badly to be fixed.
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
And so they tried to fix it with music. Because that's what music did, why Blaine and Kurt couldn't let the music out of their lives years after they'd stopped competing. Because music, above everything else in the world, had a way of healing hearts and mending souls. Music was honest and truthful and free, and music moved them. Moved them to be more than they were. Gave them courage to press on and stick things out and fight and fight and never give up. Inspired them to be good people, and good friends, and good lovers. Provided them with hope, when there was no hope to be found.
Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And I
They were both crying by the time they got to the bridge. Blaine was holding Lily in his left arm, using his right hand to do some sort of percussion on the arm of the chair he was sitting in. It was automatic, instinctual - he and Kurt were both deep into the song, unaware that they'd drawn a crowd of parents and nurses and a few practitioners and doctors mixed in with them. They had their eyes closed, moving to the music that was playing in their heads, drumming on their chairs and making lovely sounds come from their throats. And they were shocked to hear several voices join in as if they couldn't help but sing as well, a parent and two nurses and a practitioner, all brave enough to let their apparently-trained voices be heard. The harmony was incredible, brought even more tears to their eyes. It was surreal, like a horribly sad version of a Disney movie without the fairy-tale ending, all these people knowing harmonies to the same song and coming together to blend their voices if but for just a few seconds in a common bond of sadness.
Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I
And as the last chorus came, the harmony dropped off, Kurt simply intoning ethereal-sounding vowels in the background, and Blaine was suddenly still, letting his voice fill the room, trying to crowd out the sadness, or maybe just trying to provide something to cushion their fall when everyone collapsed from the grief of it all.
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
And then really all Blaine and Kurt could hear were tears and sniffles and choked back sobs. After a few moments, everyone started to shuffle out of the pod, moving in slow-motion as if the silence had turned into thick, invisible pudding in the air that they had to make their way through. Because that's what happened when a baby died. The whole world slowed down.
The whole world should have stopped.
Taking a shaky breath inward, Sarah Grace walked over to them and sank down in a chair near Lily's bed.
“Thank you for that,” she said softly. “We all needed to hear it.”
“I think we'll stay longer than usual today,” Blaine said, not quite a reply. He was still holding Lily.
“I think that will be fine.”
“I'm not sure if we're going to be able to put her down,” Kurt whispered.
“I think that will be fine too.” She looked up at the clock and sighed.
“Shoot. It's 3 o'clock already … No wonder she's crying,” she murmured, looking over at a baby in one of the isolettes who was screaming its head off. “Listen, if you guys need me, I'll be over here. But I think you'll be okay.”
They understood her unspoken message. “Please don't ask me to do anything else today. I'm exhausted. I just want to go home.”
“We'll be fine, Sarah Grace.”
She wasn't sure that she would be. But, that was the nature of her job. Just because one life ended, especially one whom she wasn't directly responsible for that day, didn't mean that there weren't dozens of other hungry bellies in the unit waiting to eat. She took a deep breath and opened the portholes, because even in the face of death, life still went on.
“Hey sweet girl,” she cooed. “Let's see if we can get some milk in your tummy and make it feel better.”
[Chapter 21]
Title: Lights Will Guide You Home
Rating: R
Spoilers (if any): nada
Warnings (if any): infant mortality (I'll just come out and say it, it's NOT Lily), neonatal code, angst that goes along with all that
Word Count: 3517
Summary: 13 years from now, Blaine and Kurt have made a fabulous life for themselves, but there's something missing...
A/N: So, I'm not entirely sure where this chapter came from. I was planning to write happy, not angst-filled chapters for the remainder of the story, but this just sort of ... happened. Maybe my subconscious needed more NICU catharsis than I initially thought. I was going to strike it completely, start over, and then I listened to the song in the context of the story, and I just couldn't. I had to leave it. So ... I'm sorry for the sadness. Please take note: if you've ever had a baby in the NICU, this chapter might be hard for you to read. (Or possibly even if you haven't.) The song toward the end is Fix You by Coldplay, it works best pace-wise with the story if you start it right before the lyrics start in the chapter. I hope nobody hates me for being this angsty! I promise Klainebows and sexytimes in the next chapter to make up for it!
Lights Will Guide You Home
Chapter 20
“Blaine, this is really happening.”
Kurt was sitting on the fluffy white rug in the middle of what was now the nursery again. It looked completely different from Violet's, more elegant in a way, decorated in a palate of a light, warm gray, white, and touches of pale yellow, slightly unusual for a baby girl's nursery, but it was gorgeous. They used Violet's former crib and furniture, and the same rug, but that was where the similarities in their rooms ended. The walls were painted gray, one adorned with white birch tree wall decals, and Kurt had painstakingly painted little yellow birds in the branches and around the room. The crib sheets were all white, the only pop of color in the bumper, which was yellow with gray tree branches and birds on it. They'd gotten a new white glider, and Kurt made pillows that coordinated with the crib bumper out of a yellow linen material with white leaves stitched in it. Rather than pom-poms hanging over the bed, a lovely arrangement of white and yellow paper lanterns hung in the corner over the glider, and little yellow papier mache birds that the couple had constructed together were suspended over Lily's crib.
“This is really happening,” Blaine repeated back to him.
They'd gotten a call that morning from the hospital, letting them know that discharge plans were being made, and they needed to get everything in order for her to come home the following week. After a moment of near panic - this was really happening - Blaine and Kurt set to work putting the finishing touches on the nursery, and made a long list of all the things they still needed to purchase for her. They'd called Burt and Carole to see if they wanted to come for another visit once Lily was at home, and then called the rest of their close friends to tell them the good news.
And now the nursery was done, beautifully put together, and all they had left to do was the shopping. But first, they wanted to see their little girl.
* * * * * * * *
It was the day after a medication wean, and after they arrived on the unit, Sarah Grace informed them that Lily had a very fussy morning. They tried to play with her, their normal mid-morning routine on Saturdays - they loved to read her stories and help her find her feet and play with the mobile attached to her crib and make her smile - but she was having none of it, whimpering and crying and pouting. So they settled in, holding and rocking her and humming softly to her.
“So you got the good news, I take it?” Sarah Grace asked them. She was sitting across from them, feeding a baby who was taking a really long time to eat.
“We did, just this morning! Dr. Pruitt called us himself,” Kurt chirped.
“I'm so glad.” She was smiling at them, but her eyes were shining with what looked like the beginnings of tears. “I just … you just have no idea what it means for her that you are getting to take her home. You have no idea how amazing it is for us to see happy endings, to not worry about the babies after they leave here... You have to bring her back to visit. I want to see her, all big and chunky and happy and off her meds...”
“Sarah Grace, are you kidding me? You're already on the list of people invited to her adoption celebration. And also her first birthday party. You've done so much for us … we can't thank you enough. Letting you see her is the least that we can do for you...”
Suddenly they heard a commotion in the next pod over, interrupting what Blaine was saying. Multiple alarms were sounding, all at the same time, and they could just make out what was being said.
“I need some help in here!!”
“Get the crash cart!!!”
Not a second later, shrill alarms rang out and blue lights started flashing and the unit erupted into chaos.
“Oh no...” Sarah Grace muttered to herself, quickly wrapping the baby she was holding up and setting it back in its crib.
“In Pod 4!”
“Pod 4!”
“It's Andrew!!!”
That last voice had a note of panic, one that Sarah Grace could not ignore. She froze for a moment, then turned to Blaine and Kurt.
“I'm sorry, I have to go help.” And she literally ran out the door.
They looked at each other with wide eyes, somewhere between knowing and being completely clueless about what was going on. The loud alarms that were still blaring in the hallways were doing nothing good for Lily, who was now wailing right along with them. Kurt hoisted her up against his shoulder and stood up, trying to bounce a little bit in order to calm her.
They caught a glimpse of a group of parents being herded past the door, then a few seconds later, a man practically having to drag a screaming woman down the hall of the unit.
“NOOOO!” she was yelling, kicking her feet. “David, we can't just LEAVE him...” It was all he could do to keep his wife from running back to the pod next door, and another nurse ran over to help him.
“Oh my God,” Kurt half-whispered to Blaine, holding Lily a bit tighter.
They could hear snippets of the scary sounds and words from next door, and sat in stunned silence, trying not to listen, but unable to avoid it.
“...got a line...”
“...tube him...”
“...more light … can't see the cords ...”
“...point-four of epi, NOW...”
“...draw up 40 ccs of normal saline?...”
They felt like they were in the strange kind of nightmare where you could hear everything that was being said, but couldn't make out any of what it meant. It was terribly unsettling.
Lily was still wailing. “I don't think Sarah Grace is coming back for a while...” Blaine said softly.
Kurt nodded, understanding, and went to fetch the thermometer off the wall. He looked up at the lone nurse remaining in the pod, holding the thermometer up. “Is it alright if we...”
She looked up from the bedside she was standing at, looking rather busy herself - that baby's monitor was beeping as well. “Sure, go ahead, you know where everything is?”
“We do.” His voice was soft, scared, and he could hear everything that was going on next door even better now that he was at the front of the pod. He stood there, frozen to the spot, unable to stop listening to the horrible scene unfolding next door.
“...coordinate … one-and-two-and-three-and-breathe...”
“...somebody writing this down?...”
“...try to tube him again...”
“...heartrate's dropping...”
“Kurt.” Blaine's voice brought him flying back to reality, and he hurried over to Lily's crib with the thermometer.
“Sorry. It just … it sounds really bad in there.”
“I know.”
They were silent as they took her temperature, writing it down on a scrap piece of paper for Sarah Grace to chart later, and changed her diaper. Apparently they didn't move quite fast enough, because in the middle of that, they looked down and found her bed soaking wet.
“Oh, Lily...” Kurt sighed as he picked her up, and Blaine stripped her bed of the wet blankets, putting them in her designated “dirty laundry” patient belonging bag, and redressed it with clean, dry ones. His hands were shaking as he listened to the doctor's voice get tighter and tighter with worry. That was probably a bad sign.
“...another point-four of epi now...”
“...bicarb...”
“...no, PUSH IT...”
“...and-three-and-breathe...”
“...sats are in the 30's...”
He finally got all her sheets tucked into the sides of the little mattress and washed his hands while Kurt changed her into clean clothes. He fixed her bottle when he came back, and Kurt sat down and popped it in her mouth. She finally stopped crying.
But the chaos next door did not.
“...one more round of epi...”
“...heartrate's in the 20's now...”
“...DAMN it...”
“...can't fucking see...”
They knew it was bad when medical professionals started cursing. They looked up in horror at the nurse who was trying to take care of her own patient, a tiny baby in a box, by herself with no help, and she just sadly shrugged her shoulders as if to say Welcome to NI. This is how it is, sometimes.
“...no, no, shit...”
“...Andrew...”
“...losing him...”
“...more epi right NOW...”
“...another bolus...”
Blaine had never wanted to hold Kurt's hand so badly in his life, but Kurt's hands were rather full of Lily at the moment. So he scooted closer in his chair and sort of hung onto his shoulders.
“I'm so glad it's not her that they're working on right now,” he whispered.
“Don't even say that, Blaine.”
“I'm sorry.”
“...keep bagging...”
“...switch out with me?...”
“...and-two-and-three-and...”
They were paralyzed where they sat, both silently begging whoever was in the heavens, if anybody, to please, please please not let that baby die, and silently thanking them for letting their baby still be pink and alive and breathing.
“...Andrew...”
“...just BREATHE, Goddammit!...”
“...more bicarb...”
“...another round of epi...”
A pause.
“Dr. Pruitt.”
And out of everything they'd heard, that was what scared them the most. The finality of someone saying the doctor's name, in a tone that said they'd done everything they could. Blaine looked at the clock. It had been 30 minutes since Sarah Grace had left the pod.
“Shit. Dammit, we're done here.”
For a split second, they heard the monitor alarm wildly, then go into the distinctive, morose tone of a flatline, then there was silence. Someone had turned the monitor off.
A few seconds later, they saw the doctor, the nurse practitioner, and a nurse walking past their pod, arms around each other, all crying.
Oh God, Blaine realized, they're going to tell his parents.
Not a minute later, they heard a noise that sounded more animal than human. It was indescribable - almost a howl, not quite a wail, not exactly a cry. It was visceral and loud and frightening and it sent a chill deep into their bones. It was the baby's mother.
* * * * * * * *
Forty-five minutes later, they were still sitting in stunned silence, still clutching Lily, when Sarah Grace came back. She had obviously been crying.
“We wrote her temperature down, and she took 100 ccs for us,” Kurt told her softly.
“Sarah Grace, what-”
She cut him off, a desolate look in her eyes. “Blaine … please. You know I can't talk about it.”
“But we...”
“Blaine, I have to chart.” It was the first time she'd ever snapped at either of them. “If you need me for something serious, I will be right over here. But I have charting to do.” She turned on her heel and walked over to the desk at another baby's bedside, staring blankly at the clipboard in front of her. She sat there for a long time before Blaine decided that he was going to burst open if he didn't do something.
“I'm sorry,” he said, lifting his head to face her. But she was either ignoring him, or so deep in her own grief that she couldn't hear him at all. So he did the only other thing he knew to do - he took Lily from Kurt and cradled her in his lap and started to sing softly to her.
When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse
He'd been saving this song as a lullaby to sing her when she came home - what song could be more appropriate for a drug baby than Fix You? - but when he thought about the lyrics again, he reconsidered. He could still sing it to her at home, but the lyrics of the first stanza alone couldn't have been more fitting for what Sarah Grace had just been through. He hoped that this would bring her comfort somehow, though he didn't know if it was possible attain any form of comfort after what she'd just been through.
And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
Kurt joined him on the chorus with a lovely, high harmony, his upper register still clear as a bell, and rested his hand on the back of Blaine's neck, fingers running up into the base of his hairline, singing to him. And Blaine realized at that moment that they needed the song just as much as Sarah Grace did, to sing it to each other as a remembrance of what they'd been through, lived through, and as a promise of what was to come.
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
As the song progressed, they watched as their baby's nurse - their friend - put her head in her hands and cried from a pain that Blaine and Kurt couldn't quite understand and hoped they'd never feel: the futility of doing everything you could to save a child, trying every means necessary, only to watch it slip out of your grasp. The complete and utter death of hope that happens when a baby takes its final breath.
And high up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth
But as they continued, they realized that they weren't just singing for Lily and Sarah Grace and themselves anymore. They were singing for all the nurses and doctors and kindhearted people who worked on that unit, giving their hearts time and time again to those beautiful, miraculous babies, at the risk of having those hearts ripped out of their chests and carried to heaven as they fought tooth and nail to get them back. They were singing for Jeff and Nick, for love lost and love found and new beginnings. They were singing for the poor parents of the baby next door whose light had gone out far too early. They were singing for Lily's mother, wherever she was and whatever she was doing. They were singing for Blaine's parents, close-minded and heartless as they'd been to him, in hopes that their eyes might one day be opened to the ignorance and hate they'd shown to their own son. They were singing for the world, because the world was broken and needed so badly to be fixed.
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
And so they tried to fix it with music. Because that's what music did, why Blaine and Kurt couldn't let the music out of their lives years after they'd stopped competing. Because music, above everything else in the world, had a way of healing hearts and mending souls. Music was honest and truthful and free, and music moved them. Moved them to be more than they were. Gave them courage to press on and stick things out and fight and fight and never give up. Inspired them to be good people, and good friends, and good lovers. Provided them with hope, when there was no hope to be found.
Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And I
They were both crying by the time they got to the bridge. Blaine was holding Lily in his left arm, using his right hand to do some sort of percussion on the arm of the chair he was sitting in. It was automatic, instinctual - he and Kurt were both deep into the song, unaware that they'd drawn a crowd of parents and nurses and a few practitioners and doctors mixed in with them. They had their eyes closed, moving to the music that was playing in their heads, drumming on their chairs and making lovely sounds come from their throats. And they were shocked to hear several voices join in as if they couldn't help but sing as well, a parent and two nurses and a practitioner, all brave enough to let their apparently-trained voices be heard. The harmony was incredible, brought even more tears to their eyes. It was surreal, like a horribly sad version of a Disney movie without the fairy-tale ending, all these people knowing harmonies to the same song and coming together to blend their voices if but for just a few seconds in a common bond of sadness.
Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream down your face
And I
And as the last chorus came, the harmony dropped off, Kurt simply intoning ethereal-sounding vowels in the background, and Blaine was suddenly still, letting his voice fill the room, trying to crowd out the sadness, or maybe just trying to provide something to cushion their fall when everyone collapsed from the grief of it all.
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
And then really all Blaine and Kurt could hear were tears and sniffles and choked back sobs. After a few moments, everyone started to shuffle out of the pod, moving in slow-motion as if the silence had turned into thick, invisible pudding in the air that they had to make their way through. Because that's what happened when a baby died. The whole world slowed down.
The whole world should have stopped.
Taking a shaky breath inward, Sarah Grace walked over to them and sank down in a chair near Lily's bed.
“Thank you for that,” she said softly. “We all needed to hear it.”
“I think we'll stay longer than usual today,” Blaine said, not quite a reply. He was still holding Lily.
“I think that will be fine.”
“I'm not sure if we're going to be able to put her down,” Kurt whispered.
“I think that will be fine too.” She looked up at the clock and sighed.
“Shoot. It's 3 o'clock already … No wonder she's crying,” she murmured, looking over at a baby in one of the isolettes who was screaming its head off. “Listen, if you guys need me, I'll be over here. But I think you'll be okay.”
They understood her unspoken message. “Please don't ask me to do anything else today. I'm exhausted. I just want to go home.”
“We'll be fine, Sarah Grace.”
She wasn't sure that she would be. But, that was the nature of her job. Just because one life ended, especially one whom she wasn't directly responsible for that day, didn't mean that there weren't dozens of other hungry bellies in the unit waiting to eat. She took a deep breath and opened the portholes, because even in the face of death, life still went on.
“Hey sweet girl,” she cooed. “Let's see if we can get some milk in your tummy and make it feel better.”
[Chapter 21]