Home Part 3-B
Spoilers: Up to 2.22
Warnings: Kidnapping, violence, ableism, homophobia, physical abuse by a caretaker, a smidgen of Stockholm's, serious injury, tertiary character death.
Rating: R
Word Count: Whole fic: 52, 000; Part 3: 23, 340
Disclaimer: RIB and FOX own everything ever.
Beta: rdm-ation
1A | 1B | 2A | 2B | 3A | 3B | 3C
This prompt. If Will wants a family, Terri will give him a family. And if he wants his precious glee kids - two birds, one stone.
Rachel had always wanted a mother.
Or rather, she had always wanted her mother. It wasn’t that there was anything missing with her dads, exactly, aside from the ability to hand-make her costumes for glee club. They loved her. She knew that. And she loved them. She wouldn’t have traded them for anyone. It was just that, sometimes, she used to wonder what her mother was like and whether she would have loved Rachel, too, if she had the chance.
Now she had the answers, and they hurt.
Terri Schuester was a monster, and Rachel knew that, she did. She knew it better than anyone, maybe, even Kurt, because he hadn’t seen the body.
But Terri smelled nice, she was soft against Rachel’s side and she was teaching her to sew, and - they had to humor her anyway - and she kissed Rachel’s cheek when she did well and her lipstick felt sticky on Rachel’s face, and… it wasn’t terrible. It didn’t hurt like Shelby did.
She had dragged a sewing machine out, the kind that folded out of a little table, and she was showing Rachel how to feed the material through it at the right speed, guiding it along the chalky outlines she’d drawn.
“This is so many pieces for one skirt,” Rachel said, looking at the weird abstract shapes spread on her lap. “Couldn’t we just cut a hole in a piece of cloth and sort of step into it?”
“Well, if you want it to look like you’re a homeschooled girl with severe mental problems,” Terri said. “I know it’s confusing at first. See, these ones are for the lining, to make it more comfortable. They go inside, that’s why they’re smaller. Now, which piece do you think is next?”
Rachel took a deep breath and tried to see these pieces as something complete - and three-dimensional, which was really tripping her up. There were at least four possibilities, but that one was smaller than the nearly-identical one over there, and this one had the same length along the side, which would make sense if they were going to get folded over…
“This one?”
“My smart girl!” Terri kissed her again and plucked it up. “Let me see how you’d do it…”
Maybe it hurt too much to deal with, and that was why, but Terri’s praise seemed painless.
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“I promise,” Will said, folding one last pair of clean underwear. He had seven for a two-day trip. Emma was helping him pack and she was very concerned about potential emergencies that could end with him in the hospital without a clean pair of underwear, leaving him open for humiliation at the hands of the doctors and nurses. He was fairly certain that if his life were in danger, most doctors and nurses wouldn’t waste time giggling at his underwear, but Emma did have her own unique priorities. “I’ll call you as soon as I get to the hotel. From the hotel phone.” He reached into his pocket and produced his cell phone. “But I do have this too, and it is fully charged.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Emma said, relief writ large on her face. “I trust you completely, there’s no… need for something like that…”
“I want to,” Will said firmly. “Of course you trust me, but I want to prove I’m worthy of that trust.” And given his history with Terri, he couldn’t blame Emma for being concerned.
“Well, I mean, if you insist, certainly I don’t want to talk you out of anything you feel is the right thing to do.”
Will smiled, taking her face in his hands and kissing her nose. “Are you joking? I wouldn’t blame you for vetoing this trip entirely. A call isn’t much to ask.” He hugged her and she settled against him.
Playing with his collar, she added, “But you’ll remember to turn your cell phone off on the plane? Because I’m thinking of making a pamphlet about that - about how people think it’s just a joke and that no plane ever went down because of someone’s laptop, but my thinking is, you’re going to be thousands of feet in the air so why take that kind of risk, right?”
“I will definitely turn my cell phone off. And then on again once we’re on the ground. I think they remind you about that kind of thing on the plane, even.”
“You’re right. I’m being silly. About that, not the other things, certainly not the underwear.” She stepped and back planted her feet, arms very straight at her sides and chin tilted up, and Will braced himself. “I know you feel like you have to do this. I just wish I understood why.”
Will hugged her again, resting his chin on her head. “I don’t think I understand it any better than you do.”
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Kurt twisted, trying to find a way to lie on his bed without being in pain, but it appeared that the problem was less his position and more the gruesome burns on his hand and leg. He tossed his volume of Proust to the floor and instantly regretted it; it wasn’t working to distract him, but it was probably working better than staring at the ceiling would. Now he’d have to wait until Rachel got back from the bathroom -
“Hey, sweetie. How are you feeling?” Terri poked her head around the door, hair swinging and catching the light. Well, she had access to shampoo, Kurt thought bitterly.
“I’m fine,” he lied, and then, “I could use another painkiller.”
“I thought so.” She smiled and came in, a plastic bag swinging in her hand, and sat on the side of the bed. “And I finally remembered a present I got for you last week! It’s been so hectic around here, I never gave it to you, can you believe it?”
“Incredible as it seems,” Kurt said with a tight smile.
“I’ll forget my own head next,” she sighed. “Here, now, take your Advil.”
Kurt swallowed it dry, in too big a hurry to worry about choking - and really, would it be so bad? Maybe it would accomplish what the burns had been intended for in the first place, and get him to a hospital.
Terri stroked his cheek and hair. “You’re a little warm,” she said.
“It’s a warm day,” he said, which was true - or looked like it was, out his window - but the climate control was set constantly to 60. “What are my presents?”
She brightened. “Well, I told you I’d get you all of those things - the moisturizers and facial creams, the good ones? - and I did!” She set the plastic bag in her lap and began taking out a wealth of French creams and Italian soaps, everything necessary to maintaining a complexion as flawless as his.
“Oh my God,” he said, seizing a handful of them. “Thank you so much! Maybe it’s not too late to save my forties. I think the formula is something like, add ten years for every night you don’t wash you face? I’ve never had to keep track of it because I always took care of my skin.”
“I know you did.” Terri leaned closer, combing her fingers through his hair, gently teasing it into place. “And I know how much it must bother you, what happened to your leg and your hand.”
Kurt subsided, and tried to make moving away look like an accident of his search for a comfortable position. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. Compared to getting out of here alive, anyway.
“You’re in denial,” Terri insisted. “It’s one of the stages of grief.”
“I think those are supposed to be for the death of a loved one, not a minor injury.”
“It’s not a minor injury, sweetie. One of these days you’re going to realize that. And I know you have your silly little heart set on showbiz, just like everyone else I love - I swear, sometimes I think God is punishing me for something - so disfiguring scars would be a big deal even if they weren’t dangerous to your health.”
“Why are you saying this?” Kurt turned his face away, unwilling to let her see how hard it was for him to block this out. And - hurt. He was hurt. Terri was awful, and psychotic, and an abusive kidnapping murderer, but she hadn’t said anything cruel to him in so long, it took him by surprise.
“Oh, no, sweetie.” Terri chased his hair down, ignoring his attempt to escape. “I’m just telling you I understand how hard it is for you. You’re already fighting twice as hard as anyone else because you don’t fit in the way all your little friends do. It must seem like a terrible joke to have this added on top of everything else.”
“Great.” Kurt stared at the slightly blurry wall and relished the slight numb obliviousness setting in from the Advil. “My disgusting scars are on the same level as my voice and sense of fashion.”
“You’re being deliberately difficult,” Terri said, tugging on a lock of hair. “I’m just proving that I can relate to your teenage problems, even if our family isn’t the most traditional. No, the real reason I brought it up is to give you these.” She bent over the side of the bed and fished in her purse, pulling out a handful of papers. “I’m so sorry this happened to you while I was supposed to be taking care of you, and money’s going to be tight for a little while, but as soon as we’re settled in….” She handed them over.
Kurt held them above his eyes and tried to focus - he could make out at least that they were printed from a few different websites - but he didn’t need to.
“It’s called tissue expansion,” Terri said. “It takes a while - four months - and we would have to wait anyway so that your scars can get suppler. But it makes your skin regrow right where it was, baby. There won’t be a scar. The skin will match exactly. You’ll be able to strut around in booty shorts if you want and no one will be able to tell the difference, not that I would advocate any child of mine wearing booty shorts. I’m not sure about your hand yet, but they do it on legs all the time.” She smoothed a hand over his cheek. “I want to promise you, Kurt. I’m going to fix this. It’s not silly to want to be as handsome as you have every right to be, or to be upset that you’re not even when bigger things are happening. And I swear I will fix it.”
“Can you…” Kurt choked. “Can you go? I need to be alone.”
“Okay.” She bent and kissed him. “I love you, sweetie.”
He heard the door click shut behind her, but the padlock didn’t clank into place. He almost wished it had.
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Terri’s new house was not easy to locate. In fact, it was nearly impossible.
After four hours on an airplane, Will had touched down in Tallahassee, Florida at eight in the evening, which was the time he’d thought he’d be getting to Terri’s. Instead he had to wait another half an hour to retrieve his baggage before he even left, and then he had to find a taxi to take him to the car rental place. He had spent the entire time mentally thanking Emma for having rented the car beforehand with a fervor he usually reserved for prayer when he was afraid the New Directions were going to lose something they’d set their hearts on.
When he had filled out the paperwork, he found that the car awaiting him was a red Chrysler convertible, and burst out laughing, which did him no favors with the attendant.
“Sorry,” he said, “I have kind of a history with this car. I didn’t realize…. My girlfriend chose it.”
“Uh-huh,” said the attendant, who seemed to have other things on his mind. “Well, it’s full on gas, and we ask that you return it that way. Let us know if you have any problems.”
“Thank you,” Will said, and tossed his carry-on in the passenger’s seat so that he could start going over the directions again. It really was a great car, he thought as he started it up and turned on the air conditioning. He would have liked to put the top down, but the heat was absolutely brutal and it was starting to rain. But then, he and cars had never worked out all that well when women were involved - just look at the Blue Bomber Terri had bought him when they were married. And when he’d bought this thing…
“Oh, hey, homewrecker!”
He shook his head. He needed to get this over with so he could go home, and not just because he loved Emma, or because Terri was unpredictable and dangerous. He needed to be there for Burt and Carole. It had been too long. He didn’t think they’d accepted it yet, but he’d heard the policemen discussing it. After forty-eight hours, the chances of finding a missing child were almost nonexistent. He wanted to be there when they realized.
He tried, sometimes, to accept that Kurt was gone. Rachel - he couldn’t even imagine. To think of never seeing Kurt again pained him, and he flinched away from it every time, but Rachel… it wasn’t even pain. It was complete incomprehension. Her sweetness, her talent, her determination, her obliviousness and arrogance and generosity, even her accusations that he was ruining her life and career by letting anyone else sing - he had to see her again. Maybe he was too quick to judge Burt and Carole as the ones incapable of accepting things.
But at the moment, his most pressing concern was finding Terri’s house.
Part of Will’s confusion was no doubt due to Terri’s scattered directions, the increasing darkness, and the rain, but even aside from those factors it was bad. He was miles outside the nearest town, the roads were winding and increasingly poorly-paved, and there were no street signs. The scenery was a uniform mess of silver-gray trees and murky black water, with nothing to stand out as a landmark.
It took five very time-consuming wrong turns, even while on the phone with Terri, before he saw her car to his right and jerked the wheel before it could vanish like a mirage. He slid up her driveway in the soft mud and checked the clock on his dash. It was nearly eleven at night.
The house, small and yellow, managed nonetheless to loom. There were bars on the windows.
Will stopped and looked over his shoulder at the road. He thought for a second of turning around right now, before anyone saw him. This was an enormous expense to have made for nothing, but Emma would forgive him. There was something wrong with this house.
When he turned back the front door was open and Terri was coming down the steps. “Will,” she called, her face lit up. “You’re just in time for dinner!”
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“So… what’s up with the bars?” Will asked as Terri led him through to the dining room. She seemed pretty fixated on this dinner idea, and he had to admit, the airline’s food had left something to be desired. He could stand to eat. But house was weirdly bare and the windows…
“Bars?” Terri turned a chair, gesturing for him to sit. “You didn’t stop to have a drink on the way here, did you? I expected you to fall apart without me, but this is a bit much even for you, Will.”
“No, I… the bars on the windows… Terri, you do remember that we talked about how we’re over as a couple, right? I’m not falling apart without you. We’re both doing better on our own. You have a beautiful new house, a better job -”
“Don’t be silly. It was just a little joke. Sit down, I’ll get dinner out of the oven. You must be starving.”
“Aren’t you? You haven’t been waiting for me all this time, have you?”
“Oh, no. I had a very busy day.” She smiled and disappeared into the next room.
Will peered around, trying to find any window aside from the barred one out front. Maybe this was common in Florida, in order to trap the cool air or something. He hadn’t noticed a lot of houses with few and barred windows on his drive, but he hadn’t exactly been looking for them, either.
Still. Bars kind of stood out.
Terri came out with a smile and a heaping platter of venison casserole, which for some reason made him even more uneasy. If he could just think of why -
“I know it’s a little late for a real dinner,” she said, setting it on the table, “but why not treat ourselves and do things unconventionally? Would you like some wine?”
“Oh, no, no, thank you. I still have to drive back to the hotel tonight.”
“Of course you do. Cranberry juice, then?” She left before he could answer.
Will finally took his seat, perching carefully on the edge. The house was dead silent, but he had the unmistakable sense that someone else was here. He really hoped it wasn’t Sue. He actually wouldn’t put it past her to have his ex-wife lure him to Florida so that she could sabotage the New Directions - except, of course, that Terri was supposed to be past all that. Maybe not joyfully, but really moving on.
And Sue liked Kurt. Not even she would pull this kind of thing right now.
Terri reappeared with glasses of cranberry juice and paper plates. “Here we go!” she said, setting them down.
“You’re still unpacking?” Will asked, relieved. Of course - that would explain why the house was so odd and sparse. And why shouldn’t she be? She’d only been down here a few weeks, and she had a new job to keep her busy.
“Oh, no, we’re all settled in,” she said, serving him his plate and handing his juice over. “But I have had to make some adjustments, under the circumstances. I’m sure we’ll be back up to china plates in no time, though.” She smiled until her nose scrunched. He used to love it when she did that.
“Good,” he said, uncertain. “That’s great.”
“It really will be.” She turned to her own plate.
“So, Terri. Why exactly am I here?”
“Oh, Will.” She shook her head with a familiar look of fond exasperation. “That wouldn’t be polite at all. You may ask me how my new job is going, however, and eventually we’ll get to the less pleasant topics.”
“Okay,” he said, taking a drink as if it might give him patience. “How is your new job?”
“It’s going very well, thank you. I’m discovering skills in organization that I never knew I had. My assistants here are so much more professional, too. Nothing like Howard. I think this is going to be one of my greatest triumphs. But how have you been?”
“Good. Good. I mean… everyone’s very upset about… it hasn’t been a good time in Lima. But Emma and I are doing well apart from - missing Rachel and Kurt. It’s just so hard on their parents. I wish I could have met Hiram and Leroy under different circumstances, and Burt is just… gone. I don’t know how he makes it from one day to the next.”
“Hm,” Terri said. “Maybe they should have watched their kids more carefully.”
“Excuse me?” Will missed the piece of venison he’d been aiming for with his fork, but didn’t notice. “They should have - you’re blaming them?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Terri took a delicate sip from her glass. “If there’s one thing this move has made clear to me, it’s that if you want something, you have to make it happen. Whatever it takes. If you want kids, you have to get them, and you have to hold onto them.”
He picked his glass up for something to do with his hands. “I can’t talk about this with you. In fact, I should think about getting on my way. Emma’s waiting for me to call. Just tell me what the emergency is.”
Terri smiled hugely, almost vibrating in place with excitement. Her nose crinkled. “Our children.”
Will set his glass down and it shattered, splattering across the floor. He’d missed the table.
“I know you feel at home in Lima,” Terri said, her face swimming, voice distant. “But we’ll make it work here. For the kids.”
Terri had made Will feel many things in his life - happy, proud, excited; increasingly, as the years went by, worried or ashamed or miserable. His last thought before he went under was that this was the first time she had made him feel afraid.
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Terri puffed her cheeks out. Hadn’t that been an adventure! Especially since he had been so disagreeable on the subject of those people her kids used to live with.
But now there was even more work to do.
She got the wheelchair out first, then patted Will’s cheek where he sat dangerously slumped in his chair, inches from collapsing to the floor. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said. This was going to be the hardest part. She wanted Will beside her, with her, so desperately. She was lonely and scared and tired, so tired of taking care of everything. And instead, at first, he was only going to make it all worse. “I just can’t risk three against one - not until you adjust.” She set the bag of restraints beside him.
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Rachel woke up that morning groggy, with her head feeling stuffed and heavy. Again. She hadn’t felt this bad since last time Terri had drugged them, but there was no mark on her arm…
Terri had made them both tea last night. It had been chamomile and as sweet as Rachel liked it, but - she’d drugged them. Secretly. Rachel would almost have preferred the gun and to have to sit sweating while Terri stuck a needle in her arm - almost. It was just, God, what else had she been putting in their food when they weren’t watching? Rachel was constantly nauseous, and was it because of the animal products her body wasn’t used to or had she been ingesting something - something to keep her complacent -
She’d go crazy if she kept thinking like this. She got up and changed into her new pink skirt and a clean blue oversize shirt. The skirt was a little lopsided, but she felt proud of it anyway. It fit, and she had sewn it herself, even if she still didn’t really understand the mechanics of a pattern.
Her door was unlocked. Walking to the living room, where she could hear Terri chirping away, was a serious undertaking. The floor seemed to sink beneath her at every step, and she kept a hand on the wall to stay balanced and in a straight line. Rachel had learned the alphabet backwards by rote in case she should ever be pulled over by mistake and the officer tried to pin her with a DUI just because she was famous and successful, and she tried to recite it in her head now as if it would shake the fog off, but got stuck at S.
She reached the living room. The sign that said WELCOME HOME WILL was strung along the wall. It was meticulously bedazzled, the tiny plastic stones set in diagonal lines through the bubble letters. It sparkled, throwing off green and pink.
“Hey, sweetie,” Terri said, beaming at her over a camera on a tripod. “Good morning, and don’t you look lovely! Doesn’t she look just adorable, Will?”
Rachel was crying even before she saw him, because - if he wasn’t there they were alone and Terri was getting worse, and if he was there… if he was…
“Rachel?” Mr. Schuester looked up at her blearily. “Rachel?”
“Mr. Schue,” she sobbed, trying to run to him; she tripped and fell to her knees at his feet, but pulled herself up almost into his lap.
“There you are,” he said, frowning like he’d forgotten something important. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.” He sounded like she’d wandered to the store without telling anyone and been missing for a few mildly concerning hours, but reached for her and crushed her to him in a tight hug. Rachel climbed completely into his lap and fastened her arms around his shoulders, crying into his neck.
“Mr. Schuester?” Rachel turned, and Kurt was standing in the doorway. He looked more alert than either of them, eyes shining, face tight. He was clinging to the doorframe like it could keep him from throwing himself after Mr. Schue too, and Rachel wanted to hit him in that moment - his stupid pride, that was why he had those burns and why she had to take care of everything and who cared if Mr. Schuester was out-of-touch and a traditionalist, he was an adult who loved them and he was here to make things better, he could worry about things and she could finally rest.
Then she just wanted Kurt near her, and held out an arm to beckon him over. She bumped her hand against the arm of Mr. Schue’s chair, which made her realize - “Why are you in a wheelchair?”
“I’m not…” He looked down. “Oh. I don’t… I should get up.” He made an attempt to do so, which was doubly futile with Rachel on his lap and the cuffs around his ankles, linking him to the footrest. “Terri, what did you do?”
“I’m sorry,” Terri said. She did not sound apologetic, though she did wince theatrically. “I had to do something to make things easier on myself. I’m already coping with a lot of extra responsibilities.” She waved Kurt over. “Now come here and let me get our family portrait!” When he didn’t immediately come over, she sighed and went to help him. “I want you to stand behind your dad and sister with me, okay, sweetie? And… oh my goodness, your hair is a disgrace.” She licked her hand and set about arranging it.
“What is going on?” Kurt said finally, reaching over Mr. Schue’s shoulder to grab Rachel’s. “Why are you here? Can we - can we -?”
“Don’t say anything you’ll regret, either of you,” Terri said pleasantly, swanning back over to the camera. “And say cheese!” She darted back over to stand beside Kurt and the flash went off, blinding, burning Rachel’s eyes.
“Oh my God,” said Mr. Schue, one hand tight on the arm of the chair, the other arm locked around Rachel’s waist so tight it hurt. “Oh my God, Terri, what have you done to them? They were here? Have you gone insane?” When Terri walked over to him and bent with her hand out, he pushed it away. “Don’t touch me!”
Terri didn’t touch him. She remained bent close, breath slightly stale on Rachel’s cheek, the circles under her eyes showing beneath her makeup. “All I did was put our family together, the way it was supposed to be from the start. I don’t see why you’re making a big deal out of this after everything I’ve gone through, Will.”
“No. No, these kids have families - Terri, Burt and Carole are out of their minds with worry, and Hiram and Leroy… you can’t do this to their parents, to Finn -”
Terri turned sharply away. “I’m not going to listen to this.”
“You have to listen to this. You’re hurting them, Ter. You’re scaring them. You have to let them go home.”
“And you’ve ruined our first family portrait!” She collected the tripod with short, shaky gestures. “Rachel’s crying and you - I need to go out.”
“Terri, please -”
“No!” She turned a warning finger on him. “That’s enough, Will. I have done enough.” She nodded to Kurt and Rachel. “Take care of your father. I need to run into town.” She left the room with her purse in one hand and the camera in the other, locking the door behind her. Out the window, Rachel could see her throw the tripod and camera into the trunk of her car and take off, mud spraying behind her.
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“I’m so sorry.” Will’s head pounded mercilessly and the fear burning through the drugs in his system only made him sloppier, clumsy and confused. He held Rachel close anyway and told himself it was to comfort her rather than himself. “Kurt…” He reached for Kurt’s hand and missed - he thought at first because he was still shaky from whatever she’d put in his drink, but then he realized Kurt had dodged him, and that the hand in question was swathed in thick white bandages. “She hurt you,” he said blankly, uncertain why it came as a shock to him.
Kurt blanched, staring down at him uncomprehending. “She didn’t actually do this,” he said finally, as if only just realizing it himself.
“Did she let someone else do it? Guys, are you - are you okay? Has she been feeding you, drugging you -?”
“We’re okay,” Rachel said, wiping her face. “We’re okay, I mean, Kurt’s burned and I’m sick to my stomach all the time but she didn’t hurt us, exactly - Mr. Schue, how are my dads?”
“And mine,” Kurt said, voice stretched thin, “my dad’s heart, is he sick again?”
“No, they’re all fine - they’re worried about you, but they’re okay. They’ve been spending a lot of time together. Your family’s all there, Kurt, and Carole - your dad’s in good hands. Quinn is taking care of Finn, she’s been great. Blaine and Mercedes are always together. They’re waiting for you. Burt’s been spending a lot of time with Hiram, too, Rachel. They’ve got your names everywhere. If anyone’s seen you, they’ll find out about it.”
“Mr. Hummel is spending time with my dad?” Rachel looked up at Kurt. “On purpose?”
“Alone?” Kurt agreed. “That doesn’t make me feel better about my chances of seeing my dad alive,” and he stopped, lips pressed tight.
“I’m sorry,” Will said again. “This is - if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be here.” He held his arm out, and Kurt bent onto his good knee, slow and deliberate, as if it could cancel out the need behind the action, and leaned into him, burying his face. Will held him tight and Kurt’s shoulders quaked. “It’s going to be okay,” he promised, because he had to, because that was what you told kids in a dangerous situation when you were the only adult. “Emma knows where I am and she expected me to call last night. She knows this exact address. They’re going to find you.”
“Are you serious?” Rachel stood up, hands twisted together. “You can’t tell her that, Mr. Schue! Kurt, I was right, we just had to wait - we’re going to get through this and we are going to co-author the most amazing memoir - but you can’t tell Terri.”
“She’s not stupid, Rachel. She’ll realize I must have told someone where I was going. Maybe if I explain things to her -”
“She killed someone,” Kurt said thickly, looking up.
“She - she what?”
Rachel shook her head, but said, “She did. There’s - there are parts - there’s a body upstairs.”
“No,” Will said, almost laughing. Even with the overwhelming evidence he hadn’t been able to believe she’d hurt Kurt, and that had been right - Terri was many things, but a murderer?
“I found it,” Rachel said. “I was trying to get out and I found it.”
“She has a gun,” Kurt added. “We haven’t seen it since we got here, but she threatened us with it when we were… I think we were still in Lima, I don’t know. And Rachel’s right. You can’t tell her that Miss Pillsbury knows where we are.” He looked at Rachel, and even with him pressed against Will’s side, it was like Will wasn’t even there.
They held each other’s gaze and then, finally, Rachel turned back, face drawn and pale. “You’re going to have to follow our lead,” she said hollowly. “We just have to keep holding out. Like we have been.” She smiled, a horrible stretched thing. “We’re going to get out of this,” she promised.
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Emma resigned herself to the fact that she was trapped, utterly and completely. She could either quit, yet again, and try to live with herself, or she could face the humiliation of defeat like a real woman.
With a shamefaced sigh, she closed her game of solitaire without saving anything to her record. She would always know it was there, this game, a stain on her conscience and abilities. The memory might, she thought, last longer than her relationship with Will. After two years of all this foolishness they were finally together, and everything had been going so perfectly. They were living together, and he fit like nothing in her life ever had. They got up at the same time, they ate the same breakfast together, they liked the same movies and traded books without a thought; they’d had to get rid of dozens of double copies when they combined their libraries. She wasn’t ashamed of her problem around him, at least not the way she was around most people, and if she started brushing her teeth at seven they were both done by eight and could cuddle in bed for an hour before lights out.
But then Kurt and Rachel disappeared, and all they had time to do was try to make Burt and Carole and the Berrys feel better; and then Terri called. So now, here she was, staring at a phone with no incoming calls. She’d held off calling Will last night, but filled his inbox this morning by leaving him thirty messages, and now she couldn’t leave any more and his phone wasn’t ringing, just going directly to voicemail, which would be what she’d expect if he were sleeping in with Terri somewhere or lying dead in a ditch, or maybe in a hospital, unconscious - they weren’t married, so how would anyone know to call her?
She’d come to the school in case someone thought to call her office phone, but so far all that had accomplished was a few abysmal games of solitaire, and it had made the churning in her gut worse. Now she was worried that someone would call the apartment and she’d miss that. She kept checking the voice mail, but if Will needed help - she got up, shutting her computer off. This had been a mistake. She needed to go home.
She locked her office and started down the hallway, which was dark and echoing - the school wasn’t closed down completely, but this wing didn’t get much use in the summer. A few janitors and a weekend class for kids who wanted a leg up on their shop class next year were the only other people around, and that wasn’t until later in the afternoon.
Except that it wasn’t echoing. There was someone -
“I thought I smelled blood,” said someone right behind her ear, and Emma jumped and screamed at the top of her lungs.
Sue Sylvester settled back on her heels, watching her with a satisfied smirk. “But once again, my usually-infallible sense of smell has been fooled by the crime against nature that is your hair. It’s so red it confuses sensory organs other than the eyes: congratulations, Alma, that is some kind of achievement, and since it’s one of the only one of those you’ll ever have, I’m sure it seems very exciting to you.”
“Sue,” Emma said, a hand still at her throat, waiting for her heart to slow back down. “Why would you do that - right now, with the kids missing, and Will - what are you doing here, anyway?”
Sue hoisted a handful of red and black flyers. “Had to print out some press for my campaign. The people of Ohio need me, Ellen, and I intend to answer their call.”
“Why are you printing those here? That’s not school business, and you had your Cheerio copier moved to your house after Finn Hudson used it that one time.”
“After Finn Hudson defiled it,” Sue spat, “I did sequester my precious machine in the safety of my own home, yes. However, and I don’t expect someone so closely related to a chimpanzee that being a tree-hugger is literally in her blood to understand the complexities of American politics, but bear with me - I have recently discovered that as teachers, our salaries are in fact provided by the taxpayer. And do you know who’s going to elect me?”
She apparently required audience participation. Emma sighed, but obliged. “The taxpayer?”
“That’s right!” Sue winked. “Look at this as an advance. They owe it to me for all of the incredible services I am about to provide for them. Now, I hate to threaten and dash, but I heard you mention Will’s name with an unseemly amount of emotion in your voice, and I just ate lunch. So if you’ll excuse me…”
“You know, Sue, it wouldn’t kill you to show a little human decency, especially if you expect anyone in their right mind to vote for you. Everyone is… just trying so hard to find Kurt and Rachel right now, and all you care about is your campaign. And Will - Terri called him and said it was an emergency and now I haven’t heard from him when he promised-”
“That’s shocking,” Sue said without inflection. “It truly is. And by ‘that’ I of course mean that he lasted two weeks before he ran back to one of the exes he’s accumulated while romancing you.”
“But Terri?” Emma protested. “I know Will and I don’t have the best record, but we were doing so well - and Terri was awful to him!”
Sue stared at her - or through her, like she wasn’t even there. “Huh,” she said. “Honey Badger moved to Florida, didn’t she? Good for her. Wash that curly right out of her hair.” And she continued down the hallway, leaving Emma alone again.
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Kurt looked around from the window the second he saw the flash of headlights; no one else ever drove by their house, not that he’d been able to tell. “She’s home,” he said. “Rachel’s right, Mr. Schue. You have to humor her. We can last until someone finds us now that you’re here.”
Mr. Schue shook his head and wiped a hand over his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you must have thought… I know I’m the adult here. I wish I could do more.” He looked at Rachel. “But you’re both right. For now, I guess that’s the safest bet. I just can’t believe that this is Terri,” he burst out. “She’s my wife - she was my wife, for years. I know her better than this. She wouldn’t…”
“She did, though,” Kurt said. “And here she comes. I suggest someone smile. I’m all out.”
Rachel obliged, straightening from her slumped position on the couch and painting on a show face to put Jesse St. James to shame, just as the door opened and Terri came in. She dropped her bags, fastened the padlock and, fortunately, turned directly to Rachel. “Guess which lucky birthday girl has got herself a party in the making?” she cooed.
Rachel looked at Kurt as if he might know the date better than she did. “Is it my birthday?”
“Tomorrow is,” Terri said. “And I am going to give you the best eighteenth birthday party! It’ll be a dream come true.” She laughed when Rachel looked to Will for confirmation. “Baby, I know men are better at math - there are several illuminating schoolyard chants on the subject - but I can read a calendar.”
Will nodded, brow furrowed. “Yes. I mean, it’s your birthday, Terri’s - Terri’s right about that.”
“Thank you for your support,” Terri said. “You always were so supportive, Will.” She put a hand on his cheek. “You know what, kids, why don’t you go your rooms? I have to put these things away for tomorrow and talk to your father about some grown-up stuff.”
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“I’m sorry, our room is just too much of a mess right now,” Terri said as she set blankets and pillows on the couch. “But I’ll make sure you’re comfortable out here tonight, don’t worry.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to be comfortable while chained to a wheelchair,” Will said. “Especially after twenty-four hours.” His legs were already sore from the restricted movement, and it couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen hours so far.
“Just until you’ve settled in.” Terri smiled placidly. “Everything will work out, you’ll see. I’ll take care of you. I meant what I said, Will. You were always so supportive, even if I didn’t appreciate it at the time.”
“Terri, this has got to be some kind of joke. I wasn’t supportive enough, or I would have insisted that you get help years ago, to start with. And you really want to talk about being supportive when your last attempt to deliberately sabotage my career was all of three months ago?”
“Oh, Will. Don’t be so dramatic. Running show choir is not a career.” She paused, then sat down beside the pile of blankets and pillows. “I’m sorry, there I go again. This is going to be a lot of work for both of us, saving our marriage. I won’t deny that. You couldn’t have chosen a dream that was less easy to make fun of?”
Will glanced down the hallway. The kids were safe in one of the rooms down there, nowhere near Terri, and he had agreed to humor her but this… “We’re not married,” he said.
“Don’t remind me,” she huffed. “The things I wanted from life were very simple, you know. A traditional marriage, to have my own children, and to raise them in a huge house with all the crafting supplies I could ever desire. The American dream. And instead I fell in love with you of all people, and now look at me! A divorcée with two teenagers I didn’t get to raise, living in a hovel in a swamp with a man who can’t even work.” She reached for his hand, and when he avoided her, settled back, face set. “But we’re together again. That’s all I really need. Just you, Will. And now that I realize that I’m going to make this work. No matter what.”
“Let’s be honest, Terri. You didn’t choose me because you love me. It was never about that. You chose me because you knew I wouldn’t leave you.” He knew it was true as soon as he said it out loud. On principle he felt the truth was good and necessary, but this, he would rather not have figured out. It settled behind his ribs, small and cold and humiliating.
“And I was wrong.” Terri did not seem impressed by his epiphany; in fact, she seemed to take it for granted. “Nothing about us worked out the way I wanted it to. That’s my point. Neither of us is the person we wanted to be, neither of us have the life we dreamed of… Neither of us married the person we thought we did.” She reached out again and took his hand, ignoring his attempt to avoid her this time. “But we know that. We’ve had sixteen years to figure it out. We know one another and we know we work together because we’ve been doing it. That horrible ginger hussy isn’t your true love or anything silly like that. She’s just new.” She blinked rapidly and wiped her eyes, though Will didn’t see any tears.
“Terri. We didn’t work -”
“Now, I hope you’re as excited about this party tomorrow as I am!” she interrupted. “This is Rachel’s first birthday with us and it has to be extra special.”
“She wants to spend her birthday with her parents,” Will said. “Don’t do this to her.”
Terri slapped him. She was still holding his hand, and didn’t let go when his head snapped to the side, only waited for him to turn back to her. “I am fixing,” she said, “everything. It would be a lot easier if you wouldn’t provoke me. I’m in a very delicate emotional state.”
He lifted his free hand to his cheek. It didn’t even hurt that much, or not yet. It stung and he thought he might get a headache soon from the force of it, but at the moment, it didn’t feel awful, physically. “What if I stayed,” he said. “Let Kurt and Rachel go, Ter. Just open the door and let them walk out, and I’ll stay here with you.”
“Kurt and Rachel are our children,” she said, releasing his hand and standing up, brushing her palms on her jeans. “They’re not going anywhere.”
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Three in the morning was an ungodly hour to get a phone call, and Terri fully intended not to put up with it. However, when the person called back three times without leaving a message, she was forced to surrender despite her exhaustion and drag her overworked body to her dresser. She answered it when the fourth call came through and COMMANDER ZOD popped up as the ID.
“Sue?” she said.
“Honey Badger. Good to know you’re still on the alert. Just checking.”
Terri laughed, shrill and twanging. “I wouldn’t say entirely on the alert,” she said. “It’s three in the morning.”
“That’s how I know you’re on the alert.”
“Well, it’s been lovely hearing from you, but…”
“Of course. Go back to bed. Eight to ten hours.”
“You too.”
“Oh, no. Not since the eighties.”
“Goodnight, Sue.”
“Goodnight.”
Terri stared at her phone, then shrugged and turned it off so she could get some sleep. Sue Sylvester was a personal hero of hers, but no one could say the woman was entirely sane. The call had probably been some kind of fluke caused by the ingestion of a substance meant for farm animals. Definitely nothing to lose any more sleep over.
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Rachel slept in Kurt’s room again. He was running a slight temperature and his eyes were glassy, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the constant medication mixed with alcohol or whether he might be getting an infection. She recalled hearing that infections were supposed to smell bad, but burns didn’t smell very nice to begin with and she just wasn’t sure. So she was worried about that, and about hurting Kurt in the night by kicking him or rolling onto him or something, and it had turned out that given enough painkillers, Kurt snored. Her night was not particularly restful.
Terri unlocked the door that morning bright-eyed and wearing a yellow dress and a brighter shade of lipstick than usual. “Good morning, sweetheart!” she cooed, kissing Rachel’s forehead. “How are you feeling? I hope you had a good sleep, because this is going to be a big day - for all of us, but especially you.” She clasped Rachel close for a moment, then twirled her around. “Go on, get dressed, get your brother up! I have breakfast in the works. Your dad and I are so happy to finally have the family together, and your birthday is the perfect excuse to celebrate.”
Rachel was halfway through her mechanical way to her room when she stopped, stomach rebelling, and turned on her heel. She tripped, tangling her right foot in the chain, but righted herself and scrambled into the hallway and on to the dining room. “Mr. Schue,” she gasped as soon as she saw him.
“What’s wrong?” He set aside the blanket over his knees, dropping it over the pillow on the couch and holding out a hand to her. “Rachel, what is it?”
“Oh,” she said, taking the pillow and blanket in and gulping for air. “Nothing! Nothing’s wrong. I’m sorry, I was afraid… I thought… nothing, everything’s perfectly all right. I’m going to go get dressed.” She darted back to Kurt. She shook his shoulder until he opened his eyes, sleep-crusted and bleary.
“Whaaaat?” he said, voice creaking. She really had to convince Terri to stop giving him wine.
“I need you,” she hissed. “We have to get dressed and get out there with Mr. Schue.”
“Why?” he whimpered, trying to pull a pillow over his face.
Rachel snatched it. “One of us has to be with him at all times, and I don’t think it should be me. Terri remembers when I thought I had a crush on him, and I really don’t want to remind her.”
“He’s useless,” Kurt said, curling up as much as he could. “He’s always useless. Why are we supposed to be with him anyway? Isn’t he the ‘adult’?” He managed sloppy scare quotes with his good hand. “Let him deal with her.”
Rachel pinched his arm.
“Ow! Are you out of your mind?”
“Come on, Kurt, get up. I know you and Mr. Schue have had your differences, but you don’t want him to get hurt any more than I do.”
“She did all this for him, and she hasn’t hurt us yet,” Kurt objected. “Why would she hurt her beloved husband?”
“Do I really have to spell this out for you? She kidnapped him because she wanted her husband back, Kurt. Husbands and wives… do things together.”
Kurt blanched. “You can’t be serious.”
“I don’t know, that’s my point! The possibility seems like it merits a little preventative action!” Rachel whispered frantically. “He slept in the dining room last night, I’m pretty sure, but - what if she even… kisses him or something today, it’s wrong and maybe if we’re there she won’t.”
Kurt stared up at her for a moment with a strange, resentful expression. “You’re right,” he said finally. “Help me up.”
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The order of the day was decorating the house for the birthday party. This seemed to Kurt to preclude any change in Terri’s status to include ‘sexual offender,’ since she was the only one who could actually do any decorating. Mr. Schuester was stilled locked into his wheelchair and Kurt himself had an agonizing time just getting to the dining room couch. Rachel was forbidden from any heavy lifting and Kurt had been tasked with giving her a mani-pedi, so she was stuck at the couch as well, soaking her hands and feet in warm water while Kurt bedazzled a HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL banner.
So Terri was the one on her feet. She dragged a chair around the room in order to reach the corners of the ceiling and hang long twists of crepe paper in three different shades of pink, and toted a purse filled with tape, scissors, and paper.
Kurt couldn’t help watching her when he was sure she was occupied, thinking that if she’d just drop the scissors… but the gun could be in the bag too, and the only one of them who could move fast enough to get the scissors in the first place was Rachel. She… wasn’t holding up well. Anyway, he reminded himself, they didn’t need the scissors. Miss Pillsbury would send someone to look for Mr. Schuester. Any minute now they would be saved. None of the fears he couldn’t dismiss (what if she’s mad at him and doesn’t tell the police, what if the police think she’s being silly, wht if they can’t find the house) was going to prevent anyone forever. Sooner or later someone would miss Mr. Schuester, and they knew where he was. They just had to look for him hard enough.
“Here,” Mr. Schuester said, startling him from his reverie and putting a hand on the banner. “Let me hold it still?” He had been folding the pink party napkins into the shape of rabbits, but since there were only four napkins it hadn’t taken him very long. Kurt supposed that sixteen years of marriage to Terri would result in an intimate knowledge of some such party-related activity, but was still taken aback. They really were pretty cute.
“Sure.” It was very difficult to bedazzle mostly one-handed. Although the glacial pace at which he was forced to go was also making him really think about his choice in gem placement, with interesting results. He’d started doing spirals inside the bubble letters of “HAPPY”, linked together by threads of graduated colors, and he was a little bit proud of the technique.
“That’s very pretty,” Mr. Schue said, probably mostly out of boredom.
“Thank you. I think so.” He was moving much faster with the banner held still, but didn’t feel remotely charitable enough to mention this. Still - “And I like your napkin rabbits. I’ve always wanted those at parties, but I never get around to learning how to make them, and they’re supposed to have pins for the eyes, aren’t they? So lately I’ve been afraid Finn would impale himself.”
“Oh,” Mr. Schue said, reaching for his pocket and then flushing. “I… don’t have my cell phone.”
“I’m sure Terri will take plenty of pictures.” Kurt tapped the banner. “Hands back on, please.”
“Right.” He secured it again, but shook his head. “No, not for a picture - I wanted to tell Finn that you like napkin animals. He’s been driving himself crazy trying to plan the perfect party for when you and Rachel get back. We were the party planning committee, actually, he and I.”
Kurt laughed, or started to before turning it into a cough. The last thing he wanted was to call Terri’s attention. “Really? What kind of party may we expect on our triumphant return?”
“Probably something centered around The Wizard of Oz and ‘Wicked’ - I think I talked him out of the nautical idea. He wanted your uncle Andy’s boat involved for a while there. And for a week or so, he was thinking of ‘Into the Woods’ as a theme, complete with papier-mâché trees and a toy wolf. He wanted you and Rachel to sing Bernadette Peters’ songs.” He stared down at the banner. “He’s lost without you two. He misses you so much, Kurt.”
Kurt finished the Y in HAPPY and stopped, unable to see through the film over his eyes. He swiped at them awkwardly, trying not to hit himself with the bedazzler. “We miss him,” he said. He hadn’t even thought about Finn recently, really - not Finn or Blaine or Mercedes or Carole. He hadn’t thought about any one person, except sometimes his dad. Mostly he just thought about being home, being safe and not afraid and not in pain.
Mr. Schuester patted his knee. “Blaine misses you, too,” he said. “I don’t see as much of him - he stays with Mercedes - but he’s so sad without you. They’re all waiting for you. You’ll see them soon.” He put his other hand on Rachel’s shoulder. She didn’t seem to notice, staring blankly at her hands. “I promise.”
Kurt thought he would scream if he heard or made one more promise that couldn’t be kept. And still, there was a part of him wanted to hear it again.
“I hope you three are working,” Terri sang out from the other side of the room. “This party isn’t going to decorate itself.”
Kurt ducked his head over the banner. Voice low, he said, “What else has Finn been up to?”
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Next part...
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Master List
Warnings: Kidnapping, violence, ableism, homophobia, physical abuse by a caretaker, a smidgen of Stockholm's, serious injury, tertiary character death.
Rating: R
Word Count: Whole fic: 52, 000; Part 3: 23, 340
Disclaimer: RIB and FOX own everything ever.
Beta: rdm-ation
1A | 1B | 2A | 2B | 3A | 3B | 3C
This prompt. If Will wants a family, Terri will give him a family. And if he wants his precious glee kids - two birds, one stone.
Rachel had always wanted a mother.
Or rather, she had always wanted her mother. It wasn’t that there was anything missing with her dads, exactly, aside from the ability to hand-make her costumes for glee club. They loved her. She knew that. And she loved them. She wouldn’t have traded them for anyone. It was just that, sometimes, she used to wonder what her mother was like and whether she would have loved Rachel, too, if she had the chance.
Now she had the answers, and they hurt.
Terri Schuester was a monster, and Rachel knew that, she did. She knew it better than anyone, maybe, even Kurt, because he hadn’t seen the body.
But Terri smelled nice, she was soft against Rachel’s side and she was teaching her to sew, and - they had to humor her anyway - and she kissed Rachel’s cheek when she did well and her lipstick felt sticky on Rachel’s face, and… it wasn’t terrible. It didn’t hurt like Shelby did.
She had dragged a sewing machine out, the kind that folded out of a little table, and she was showing Rachel how to feed the material through it at the right speed, guiding it along the chalky outlines she’d drawn.
“This is so many pieces for one skirt,” Rachel said, looking at the weird abstract shapes spread on her lap. “Couldn’t we just cut a hole in a piece of cloth and sort of step into it?”
“Well, if you want it to look like you’re a homeschooled girl with severe mental problems,” Terri said. “I know it’s confusing at first. See, these ones are for the lining, to make it more comfortable. They go inside, that’s why they’re smaller. Now, which piece do you think is next?”
Rachel took a deep breath and tried to see these pieces as something complete - and three-dimensional, which was really tripping her up. There were at least four possibilities, but that one was smaller than the nearly-identical one over there, and this one had the same length along the side, which would make sense if they were going to get folded over…
“This one?”
“My smart girl!” Terri kissed her again and plucked it up. “Let me see how you’d do it…”
Maybe it hurt too much to deal with, and that was why, but Terri’s praise seemed painless.
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“I promise,” Will said, folding one last pair of clean underwear. He had seven for a two-day trip. Emma was helping him pack and she was very concerned about potential emergencies that could end with him in the hospital without a clean pair of underwear, leaving him open for humiliation at the hands of the doctors and nurses. He was fairly certain that if his life were in danger, most doctors and nurses wouldn’t waste time giggling at his underwear, but Emma did have her own unique priorities. “I’ll call you as soon as I get to the hotel. From the hotel phone.” He reached into his pocket and produced his cell phone. “But I do have this too, and it is fully charged.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Emma said, relief writ large on her face. “I trust you completely, there’s no… need for something like that…”
“I want to,” Will said firmly. “Of course you trust me, but I want to prove I’m worthy of that trust.” And given his history with Terri, he couldn’t blame Emma for being concerned.
“Well, I mean, if you insist, certainly I don’t want to talk you out of anything you feel is the right thing to do.”
Will smiled, taking her face in his hands and kissing her nose. “Are you joking? I wouldn’t blame you for vetoing this trip entirely. A call isn’t much to ask.” He hugged her and she settled against him.
Playing with his collar, she added, “But you’ll remember to turn your cell phone off on the plane? Because I’m thinking of making a pamphlet about that - about how people think it’s just a joke and that no plane ever went down because of someone’s laptop, but my thinking is, you’re going to be thousands of feet in the air so why take that kind of risk, right?”
“I will definitely turn my cell phone off. And then on again once we’re on the ground. I think they remind you about that kind of thing on the plane, even.”
“You’re right. I’m being silly. About that, not the other things, certainly not the underwear.” She stepped and back planted her feet, arms very straight at her sides and chin tilted up, and Will braced himself. “I know you feel like you have to do this. I just wish I understood why.”
Will hugged her again, resting his chin on her head. “I don’t think I understand it any better than you do.”
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Kurt twisted, trying to find a way to lie on his bed without being in pain, but it appeared that the problem was less his position and more the gruesome burns on his hand and leg. He tossed his volume of Proust to the floor and instantly regretted it; it wasn’t working to distract him, but it was probably working better than staring at the ceiling would. Now he’d have to wait until Rachel got back from the bathroom -
“Hey, sweetie. How are you feeling?” Terri poked her head around the door, hair swinging and catching the light. Well, she had access to shampoo, Kurt thought bitterly.
“I’m fine,” he lied, and then, “I could use another painkiller.”
“I thought so.” She smiled and came in, a plastic bag swinging in her hand, and sat on the side of the bed. “And I finally remembered a present I got for you last week! It’s been so hectic around here, I never gave it to you, can you believe it?”
“Incredible as it seems,” Kurt said with a tight smile.
“I’ll forget my own head next,” she sighed. “Here, now, take your Advil.”
Kurt swallowed it dry, in too big a hurry to worry about choking - and really, would it be so bad? Maybe it would accomplish what the burns had been intended for in the first place, and get him to a hospital.
Terri stroked his cheek and hair. “You’re a little warm,” she said.
“It’s a warm day,” he said, which was true - or looked like it was, out his window - but the climate control was set constantly to 60. “What are my presents?”
She brightened. “Well, I told you I’d get you all of those things - the moisturizers and facial creams, the good ones? - and I did!” She set the plastic bag in her lap and began taking out a wealth of French creams and Italian soaps, everything necessary to maintaining a complexion as flawless as his.
“Oh my God,” he said, seizing a handful of them. “Thank you so much! Maybe it’s not too late to save my forties. I think the formula is something like, add ten years for every night you don’t wash you face? I’ve never had to keep track of it because I always took care of my skin.”
“I know you did.” Terri leaned closer, combing her fingers through his hair, gently teasing it into place. “And I know how much it must bother you, what happened to your leg and your hand.”
Kurt subsided, and tried to make moving away look like an accident of his search for a comfortable position. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. Compared to getting out of here alive, anyway.
“You’re in denial,” Terri insisted. “It’s one of the stages of grief.”
“I think those are supposed to be for the death of a loved one, not a minor injury.”
“It’s not a minor injury, sweetie. One of these days you’re going to realize that. And I know you have your silly little heart set on showbiz, just like everyone else I love - I swear, sometimes I think God is punishing me for something - so disfiguring scars would be a big deal even if they weren’t dangerous to your health.”
“Why are you saying this?” Kurt turned his face away, unwilling to let her see how hard it was for him to block this out. And - hurt. He was hurt. Terri was awful, and psychotic, and an abusive kidnapping murderer, but she hadn’t said anything cruel to him in so long, it took him by surprise.
“Oh, no, sweetie.” Terri chased his hair down, ignoring his attempt to escape. “I’m just telling you I understand how hard it is for you. You’re already fighting twice as hard as anyone else because you don’t fit in the way all your little friends do. It must seem like a terrible joke to have this added on top of everything else.”
“Great.” Kurt stared at the slightly blurry wall and relished the slight numb obliviousness setting in from the Advil. “My disgusting scars are on the same level as my voice and sense of fashion.”
“You’re being deliberately difficult,” Terri said, tugging on a lock of hair. “I’m just proving that I can relate to your teenage problems, even if our family isn’t the most traditional. No, the real reason I brought it up is to give you these.” She bent over the side of the bed and fished in her purse, pulling out a handful of papers. “I’m so sorry this happened to you while I was supposed to be taking care of you, and money’s going to be tight for a little while, but as soon as we’re settled in….” She handed them over.
Kurt held them above his eyes and tried to focus - he could make out at least that they were printed from a few different websites - but he didn’t need to.
“It’s called tissue expansion,” Terri said. “It takes a while - four months - and we would have to wait anyway so that your scars can get suppler. But it makes your skin regrow right where it was, baby. There won’t be a scar. The skin will match exactly. You’ll be able to strut around in booty shorts if you want and no one will be able to tell the difference, not that I would advocate any child of mine wearing booty shorts. I’m not sure about your hand yet, but they do it on legs all the time.” She smoothed a hand over his cheek. “I want to promise you, Kurt. I’m going to fix this. It’s not silly to want to be as handsome as you have every right to be, or to be upset that you’re not even when bigger things are happening. And I swear I will fix it.”
“Can you…” Kurt choked. “Can you go? I need to be alone.”
“Okay.” She bent and kissed him. “I love you, sweetie.”
He heard the door click shut behind her, but the padlock didn’t clank into place. He almost wished it had.
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Terri’s new house was not easy to locate. In fact, it was nearly impossible.
After four hours on an airplane, Will had touched down in Tallahassee, Florida at eight in the evening, which was the time he’d thought he’d be getting to Terri’s. Instead he had to wait another half an hour to retrieve his baggage before he even left, and then he had to find a taxi to take him to the car rental place. He had spent the entire time mentally thanking Emma for having rented the car beforehand with a fervor he usually reserved for prayer when he was afraid the New Directions were going to lose something they’d set their hearts on.
When he had filled out the paperwork, he found that the car awaiting him was a red Chrysler convertible, and burst out laughing, which did him no favors with the attendant.
“Sorry,” he said, “I have kind of a history with this car. I didn’t realize…. My girlfriend chose it.”
“Uh-huh,” said the attendant, who seemed to have other things on his mind. “Well, it’s full on gas, and we ask that you return it that way. Let us know if you have any problems.”
“Thank you,” Will said, and tossed his carry-on in the passenger’s seat so that he could start going over the directions again. It really was a great car, he thought as he started it up and turned on the air conditioning. He would have liked to put the top down, but the heat was absolutely brutal and it was starting to rain. But then, he and cars had never worked out all that well when women were involved - just look at the Blue Bomber Terri had bought him when they were married. And when he’d bought this thing…
“Oh, hey, homewrecker!”
He shook his head. He needed to get this over with so he could go home, and not just because he loved Emma, or because Terri was unpredictable and dangerous. He needed to be there for Burt and Carole. It had been too long. He didn’t think they’d accepted it yet, but he’d heard the policemen discussing it. After forty-eight hours, the chances of finding a missing child were almost nonexistent. He wanted to be there when they realized.
He tried, sometimes, to accept that Kurt was gone. Rachel - he couldn’t even imagine. To think of never seeing Kurt again pained him, and he flinched away from it every time, but Rachel… it wasn’t even pain. It was complete incomprehension. Her sweetness, her talent, her determination, her obliviousness and arrogance and generosity, even her accusations that he was ruining her life and career by letting anyone else sing - he had to see her again. Maybe he was too quick to judge Burt and Carole as the ones incapable of accepting things.
But at the moment, his most pressing concern was finding Terri’s house.
Part of Will’s confusion was no doubt due to Terri’s scattered directions, the increasing darkness, and the rain, but even aside from those factors it was bad. He was miles outside the nearest town, the roads were winding and increasingly poorly-paved, and there were no street signs. The scenery was a uniform mess of silver-gray trees and murky black water, with nothing to stand out as a landmark.
It took five very time-consuming wrong turns, even while on the phone with Terri, before he saw her car to his right and jerked the wheel before it could vanish like a mirage. He slid up her driveway in the soft mud and checked the clock on his dash. It was nearly eleven at night.
The house, small and yellow, managed nonetheless to loom. There were bars on the windows.
Will stopped and looked over his shoulder at the road. He thought for a second of turning around right now, before anyone saw him. This was an enormous expense to have made for nothing, but Emma would forgive him. There was something wrong with this house.
When he turned back the front door was open and Terri was coming down the steps. “Will,” she called, her face lit up. “You’re just in time for dinner!”
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“So… what’s up with the bars?” Will asked as Terri led him through to the dining room. She seemed pretty fixated on this dinner idea, and he had to admit, the airline’s food had left something to be desired. He could stand to eat. But house was weirdly bare and the windows…
“Bars?” Terri turned a chair, gesturing for him to sit. “You didn’t stop to have a drink on the way here, did you? I expected you to fall apart without me, but this is a bit much even for you, Will.”
“No, I… the bars on the windows… Terri, you do remember that we talked about how we’re over as a couple, right? I’m not falling apart without you. We’re both doing better on our own. You have a beautiful new house, a better job -”
“Don’t be silly. It was just a little joke. Sit down, I’ll get dinner out of the oven. You must be starving.”
“Aren’t you? You haven’t been waiting for me all this time, have you?”
“Oh, no. I had a very busy day.” She smiled and disappeared into the next room.
Will peered around, trying to find any window aside from the barred one out front. Maybe this was common in Florida, in order to trap the cool air or something. He hadn’t noticed a lot of houses with few and barred windows on his drive, but he hadn’t exactly been looking for them, either.
Still. Bars kind of stood out.
Terri came out with a smile and a heaping platter of venison casserole, which for some reason made him even more uneasy. If he could just think of why -
“I know it’s a little late for a real dinner,” she said, setting it on the table, “but why not treat ourselves and do things unconventionally? Would you like some wine?”
“Oh, no, no, thank you. I still have to drive back to the hotel tonight.”
“Of course you do. Cranberry juice, then?” She left before he could answer.
Will finally took his seat, perching carefully on the edge. The house was dead silent, but he had the unmistakable sense that someone else was here. He really hoped it wasn’t Sue. He actually wouldn’t put it past her to have his ex-wife lure him to Florida so that she could sabotage the New Directions - except, of course, that Terri was supposed to be past all that. Maybe not joyfully, but really moving on.
And Sue liked Kurt. Not even she would pull this kind of thing right now.
Terri reappeared with glasses of cranberry juice and paper plates. “Here we go!” she said, setting them down.
“You’re still unpacking?” Will asked, relieved. Of course - that would explain why the house was so odd and sparse. And why shouldn’t she be? She’d only been down here a few weeks, and she had a new job to keep her busy.
“Oh, no, we’re all settled in,” she said, serving him his plate and handing his juice over. “But I have had to make some adjustments, under the circumstances. I’m sure we’ll be back up to china plates in no time, though.” She smiled until her nose scrunched. He used to love it when she did that.
“Good,” he said, uncertain. “That’s great.”
“It really will be.” She turned to her own plate.
“So, Terri. Why exactly am I here?”
“Oh, Will.” She shook her head with a familiar look of fond exasperation. “That wouldn’t be polite at all. You may ask me how my new job is going, however, and eventually we’ll get to the less pleasant topics.”
“Okay,” he said, taking a drink as if it might give him patience. “How is your new job?”
“It’s going very well, thank you. I’m discovering skills in organization that I never knew I had. My assistants here are so much more professional, too. Nothing like Howard. I think this is going to be one of my greatest triumphs. But how have you been?”
“Good. Good. I mean… everyone’s very upset about… it hasn’t been a good time in Lima. But Emma and I are doing well apart from - missing Rachel and Kurt. It’s just so hard on their parents. I wish I could have met Hiram and Leroy under different circumstances, and Burt is just… gone. I don’t know how he makes it from one day to the next.”
“Hm,” Terri said. “Maybe they should have watched their kids more carefully.”
“Excuse me?” Will missed the piece of venison he’d been aiming for with his fork, but didn’t notice. “They should have - you’re blaming them?”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Terri took a delicate sip from her glass. “If there’s one thing this move has made clear to me, it’s that if you want something, you have to make it happen. Whatever it takes. If you want kids, you have to get them, and you have to hold onto them.”
He picked his glass up for something to do with his hands. “I can’t talk about this with you. In fact, I should think about getting on my way. Emma’s waiting for me to call. Just tell me what the emergency is.”
Terri smiled hugely, almost vibrating in place with excitement. Her nose crinkled. “Our children.”
Will set his glass down and it shattered, splattering across the floor. He’d missed the table.
“I know you feel at home in Lima,” Terri said, her face swimming, voice distant. “But we’ll make it work here. For the kids.”
Terri had made Will feel many things in his life - happy, proud, excited; increasingly, as the years went by, worried or ashamed or miserable. His last thought before he went under was that this was the first time she had made him feel afraid.
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Terri puffed her cheeks out. Hadn’t that been an adventure! Especially since he had been so disagreeable on the subject of those people her kids used to live with.
But now there was even more work to do.
She got the wheelchair out first, then patted Will’s cheek where he sat dangerously slumped in his chair, inches from collapsing to the floor. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said. This was going to be the hardest part. She wanted Will beside her, with her, so desperately. She was lonely and scared and tired, so tired of taking care of everything. And instead, at first, he was only going to make it all worse. “I just can’t risk three against one - not until you adjust.” She set the bag of restraints beside him.
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Rachel woke up that morning groggy, with her head feeling stuffed and heavy. Again. She hadn’t felt this bad since last time Terri had drugged them, but there was no mark on her arm…
Terri had made them both tea last night. It had been chamomile and as sweet as Rachel liked it, but - she’d drugged them. Secretly. Rachel would almost have preferred the gun and to have to sit sweating while Terri stuck a needle in her arm - almost. It was just, God, what else had she been putting in their food when they weren’t watching? Rachel was constantly nauseous, and was it because of the animal products her body wasn’t used to or had she been ingesting something - something to keep her complacent -
She’d go crazy if she kept thinking like this. She got up and changed into her new pink skirt and a clean blue oversize shirt. The skirt was a little lopsided, but she felt proud of it anyway. It fit, and she had sewn it herself, even if she still didn’t really understand the mechanics of a pattern.
Her door was unlocked. Walking to the living room, where she could hear Terri chirping away, was a serious undertaking. The floor seemed to sink beneath her at every step, and she kept a hand on the wall to stay balanced and in a straight line. Rachel had learned the alphabet backwards by rote in case she should ever be pulled over by mistake and the officer tried to pin her with a DUI just because she was famous and successful, and she tried to recite it in her head now as if it would shake the fog off, but got stuck at S.
She reached the living room. The sign that said WELCOME HOME WILL was strung along the wall. It was meticulously bedazzled, the tiny plastic stones set in diagonal lines through the bubble letters. It sparkled, throwing off green and pink.
“Hey, sweetie,” Terri said, beaming at her over a camera on a tripod. “Good morning, and don’t you look lovely! Doesn’t she look just adorable, Will?”
Rachel was crying even before she saw him, because - if he wasn’t there they were alone and Terri was getting worse, and if he was there… if he was…
“Rachel?” Mr. Schuester looked up at her blearily. “Rachel?”
“Mr. Schue,” she sobbed, trying to run to him; she tripped and fell to her knees at his feet, but pulled herself up almost into his lap.
“There you are,” he said, frowning like he’d forgotten something important. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.” He sounded like she’d wandered to the store without telling anyone and been missing for a few mildly concerning hours, but reached for her and crushed her to him in a tight hug. Rachel climbed completely into his lap and fastened her arms around his shoulders, crying into his neck.
“Mr. Schuester?” Rachel turned, and Kurt was standing in the doorway. He looked more alert than either of them, eyes shining, face tight. He was clinging to the doorframe like it could keep him from throwing himself after Mr. Schue too, and Rachel wanted to hit him in that moment - his stupid pride, that was why he had those burns and why she had to take care of everything and who cared if Mr. Schuester was out-of-touch and a traditionalist, he was an adult who loved them and he was here to make things better, he could worry about things and she could finally rest.
Then she just wanted Kurt near her, and held out an arm to beckon him over. She bumped her hand against the arm of Mr. Schue’s chair, which made her realize - “Why are you in a wheelchair?”
“I’m not…” He looked down. “Oh. I don’t… I should get up.” He made an attempt to do so, which was doubly futile with Rachel on his lap and the cuffs around his ankles, linking him to the footrest. “Terri, what did you do?”
“I’m sorry,” Terri said. She did not sound apologetic, though she did wince theatrically. “I had to do something to make things easier on myself. I’m already coping with a lot of extra responsibilities.” She waved Kurt over. “Now come here and let me get our family portrait!” When he didn’t immediately come over, she sighed and went to help him. “I want you to stand behind your dad and sister with me, okay, sweetie? And… oh my goodness, your hair is a disgrace.” She licked her hand and set about arranging it.
“What is going on?” Kurt said finally, reaching over Mr. Schue’s shoulder to grab Rachel’s. “Why are you here? Can we - can we -?”
“Don’t say anything you’ll regret, either of you,” Terri said pleasantly, swanning back over to the camera. “And say cheese!” She darted back over to stand beside Kurt and the flash went off, blinding, burning Rachel’s eyes.
“Oh my God,” said Mr. Schue, one hand tight on the arm of the chair, the other arm locked around Rachel’s waist so tight it hurt. “Oh my God, Terri, what have you done to them? They were here? Have you gone insane?” When Terri walked over to him and bent with her hand out, he pushed it away. “Don’t touch me!”
Terri didn’t touch him. She remained bent close, breath slightly stale on Rachel’s cheek, the circles under her eyes showing beneath her makeup. “All I did was put our family together, the way it was supposed to be from the start. I don’t see why you’re making a big deal out of this after everything I’ve gone through, Will.”
“No. No, these kids have families - Terri, Burt and Carole are out of their minds with worry, and Hiram and Leroy… you can’t do this to their parents, to Finn -”
Terri turned sharply away. “I’m not going to listen to this.”
“You have to listen to this. You’re hurting them, Ter. You’re scaring them. You have to let them go home.”
“And you’ve ruined our first family portrait!” She collected the tripod with short, shaky gestures. “Rachel’s crying and you - I need to go out.”
“Terri, please -”
“No!” She turned a warning finger on him. “That’s enough, Will. I have done enough.” She nodded to Kurt and Rachel. “Take care of your father. I need to run into town.” She left the room with her purse in one hand and the camera in the other, locking the door behind her. Out the window, Rachel could see her throw the tripod and camera into the trunk of her car and take off, mud spraying behind her.
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“I’m so sorry.” Will’s head pounded mercilessly and the fear burning through the drugs in his system only made him sloppier, clumsy and confused. He held Rachel close anyway and told himself it was to comfort her rather than himself. “Kurt…” He reached for Kurt’s hand and missed - he thought at first because he was still shaky from whatever she’d put in his drink, but then he realized Kurt had dodged him, and that the hand in question was swathed in thick white bandages. “She hurt you,” he said blankly, uncertain why it came as a shock to him.
Kurt blanched, staring down at him uncomprehending. “She didn’t actually do this,” he said finally, as if only just realizing it himself.
“Did she let someone else do it? Guys, are you - are you okay? Has she been feeding you, drugging you -?”
“We’re okay,” Rachel said, wiping her face. “We’re okay, I mean, Kurt’s burned and I’m sick to my stomach all the time but she didn’t hurt us, exactly - Mr. Schue, how are my dads?”
“And mine,” Kurt said, voice stretched thin, “my dad’s heart, is he sick again?”
“No, they’re all fine - they’re worried about you, but they’re okay. They’ve been spending a lot of time together. Your family’s all there, Kurt, and Carole - your dad’s in good hands. Quinn is taking care of Finn, she’s been great. Blaine and Mercedes are always together. They’re waiting for you. Burt’s been spending a lot of time with Hiram, too, Rachel. They’ve got your names everywhere. If anyone’s seen you, they’ll find out about it.”
“Mr. Hummel is spending time with my dad?” Rachel looked up at Kurt. “On purpose?”
“Alone?” Kurt agreed. “That doesn’t make me feel better about my chances of seeing my dad alive,” and he stopped, lips pressed tight.
“I’m sorry,” Will said again. “This is - if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be here.” He held his arm out, and Kurt bent onto his good knee, slow and deliberate, as if it could cancel out the need behind the action, and leaned into him, burying his face. Will held him tight and Kurt’s shoulders quaked. “It’s going to be okay,” he promised, because he had to, because that was what you told kids in a dangerous situation when you were the only adult. “Emma knows where I am and she expected me to call last night. She knows this exact address. They’re going to find you.”
“Are you serious?” Rachel stood up, hands twisted together. “You can’t tell her that, Mr. Schue! Kurt, I was right, we just had to wait - we’re going to get through this and we are going to co-author the most amazing memoir - but you can’t tell Terri.”
“She’s not stupid, Rachel. She’ll realize I must have told someone where I was going. Maybe if I explain things to her -”
“She killed someone,” Kurt said thickly, looking up.
“She - she what?”
Rachel shook her head, but said, “She did. There’s - there are parts - there’s a body upstairs.”
“No,” Will said, almost laughing. Even with the overwhelming evidence he hadn’t been able to believe she’d hurt Kurt, and that had been right - Terri was many things, but a murderer?
“I found it,” Rachel said. “I was trying to get out and I found it.”
“She has a gun,” Kurt added. “We haven’t seen it since we got here, but she threatened us with it when we were… I think we were still in Lima, I don’t know. And Rachel’s right. You can’t tell her that Miss Pillsbury knows where we are.” He looked at Rachel, and even with him pressed against Will’s side, it was like Will wasn’t even there.
They held each other’s gaze and then, finally, Rachel turned back, face drawn and pale. “You’re going to have to follow our lead,” she said hollowly. “We just have to keep holding out. Like we have been.” She smiled, a horrible stretched thing. “We’re going to get out of this,” she promised.
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Emma resigned herself to the fact that she was trapped, utterly and completely. She could either quit, yet again, and try to live with herself, or she could face the humiliation of defeat like a real woman.
With a shamefaced sigh, she closed her game of solitaire without saving anything to her record. She would always know it was there, this game, a stain on her conscience and abilities. The memory might, she thought, last longer than her relationship with Will. After two years of all this foolishness they were finally together, and everything had been going so perfectly. They were living together, and he fit like nothing in her life ever had. They got up at the same time, they ate the same breakfast together, they liked the same movies and traded books without a thought; they’d had to get rid of dozens of double copies when they combined their libraries. She wasn’t ashamed of her problem around him, at least not the way she was around most people, and if she started brushing her teeth at seven they were both done by eight and could cuddle in bed for an hour before lights out.
But then Kurt and Rachel disappeared, and all they had time to do was try to make Burt and Carole and the Berrys feel better; and then Terri called. So now, here she was, staring at a phone with no incoming calls. She’d held off calling Will last night, but filled his inbox this morning by leaving him thirty messages, and now she couldn’t leave any more and his phone wasn’t ringing, just going directly to voicemail, which would be what she’d expect if he were sleeping in with Terri somewhere or lying dead in a ditch, or maybe in a hospital, unconscious - they weren’t married, so how would anyone know to call her?
She’d come to the school in case someone thought to call her office phone, but so far all that had accomplished was a few abysmal games of solitaire, and it had made the churning in her gut worse. Now she was worried that someone would call the apartment and she’d miss that. She kept checking the voice mail, but if Will needed help - she got up, shutting her computer off. This had been a mistake. She needed to go home.
She locked her office and started down the hallway, which was dark and echoing - the school wasn’t closed down completely, but this wing didn’t get much use in the summer. A few janitors and a weekend class for kids who wanted a leg up on their shop class next year were the only other people around, and that wasn’t until later in the afternoon.
Except that it wasn’t echoing. There was someone -
“I thought I smelled blood,” said someone right behind her ear, and Emma jumped and screamed at the top of her lungs.
Sue Sylvester settled back on her heels, watching her with a satisfied smirk. “But once again, my usually-infallible sense of smell has been fooled by the crime against nature that is your hair. It’s so red it confuses sensory organs other than the eyes: congratulations, Alma, that is some kind of achievement, and since it’s one of the only one of those you’ll ever have, I’m sure it seems very exciting to you.”
“Sue,” Emma said, a hand still at her throat, waiting for her heart to slow back down. “Why would you do that - right now, with the kids missing, and Will - what are you doing here, anyway?”
Sue hoisted a handful of red and black flyers. “Had to print out some press for my campaign. The people of Ohio need me, Ellen, and I intend to answer their call.”
“Why are you printing those here? That’s not school business, and you had your Cheerio copier moved to your house after Finn Hudson used it that one time.”
“After Finn Hudson defiled it,” Sue spat, “I did sequester my precious machine in the safety of my own home, yes. However, and I don’t expect someone so closely related to a chimpanzee that being a tree-hugger is literally in her blood to understand the complexities of American politics, but bear with me - I have recently discovered that as teachers, our salaries are in fact provided by the taxpayer. And do you know who’s going to elect me?”
She apparently required audience participation. Emma sighed, but obliged. “The taxpayer?”
“That’s right!” Sue winked. “Look at this as an advance. They owe it to me for all of the incredible services I am about to provide for them. Now, I hate to threaten and dash, but I heard you mention Will’s name with an unseemly amount of emotion in your voice, and I just ate lunch. So if you’ll excuse me…”
“You know, Sue, it wouldn’t kill you to show a little human decency, especially if you expect anyone in their right mind to vote for you. Everyone is… just trying so hard to find Kurt and Rachel right now, and all you care about is your campaign. And Will - Terri called him and said it was an emergency and now I haven’t heard from him when he promised-”
“That’s shocking,” Sue said without inflection. “It truly is. And by ‘that’ I of course mean that he lasted two weeks before he ran back to one of the exes he’s accumulated while romancing you.”
“But Terri?” Emma protested. “I know Will and I don’t have the best record, but we were doing so well - and Terri was awful to him!”
Sue stared at her - or through her, like she wasn’t even there. “Huh,” she said. “Honey Badger moved to Florida, didn’t she? Good for her. Wash that curly right out of her hair.” And she continued down the hallway, leaving Emma alone again.
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Kurt looked around from the window the second he saw the flash of headlights; no one else ever drove by their house, not that he’d been able to tell. “She’s home,” he said. “Rachel’s right, Mr. Schue. You have to humor her. We can last until someone finds us now that you’re here.”
Mr. Schue shook his head and wiped a hand over his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you must have thought… I know I’m the adult here. I wish I could do more.” He looked at Rachel. “But you’re both right. For now, I guess that’s the safest bet. I just can’t believe that this is Terri,” he burst out. “She’s my wife - she was my wife, for years. I know her better than this. She wouldn’t…”
“She did, though,” Kurt said. “And here she comes. I suggest someone smile. I’m all out.”
Rachel obliged, straightening from her slumped position on the couch and painting on a show face to put Jesse St. James to shame, just as the door opened and Terri came in. She dropped her bags, fastened the padlock and, fortunately, turned directly to Rachel. “Guess which lucky birthday girl has got herself a party in the making?” she cooed.
Rachel looked at Kurt as if he might know the date better than she did. “Is it my birthday?”
“Tomorrow is,” Terri said. “And I am going to give you the best eighteenth birthday party! It’ll be a dream come true.” She laughed when Rachel looked to Will for confirmation. “Baby, I know men are better at math - there are several illuminating schoolyard chants on the subject - but I can read a calendar.”
Will nodded, brow furrowed. “Yes. I mean, it’s your birthday, Terri’s - Terri’s right about that.”
“Thank you for your support,” Terri said. “You always were so supportive, Will.” She put a hand on his cheek. “You know what, kids, why don’t you go your rooms? I have to put these things away for tomorrow and talk to your father about some grown-up stuff.”
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“I’m sorry, our room is just too much of a mess right now,” Terri said as she set blankets and pillows on the couch. “But I’ll make sure you’re comfortable out here tonight, don’t worry.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to be comfortable while chained to a wheelchair,” Will said. “Especially after twenty-four hours.” His legs were already sore from the restricted movement, and it couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen hours so far.
“Just until you’ve settled in.” Terri smiled placidly. “Everything will work out, you’ll see. I’ll take care of you. I meant what I said, Will. You were always so supportive, even if I didn’t appreciate it at the time.”
“Terri, this has got to be some kind of joke. I wasn’t supportive enough, or I would have insisted that you get help years ago, to start with. And you really want to talk about being supportive when your last attempt to deliberately sabotage my career was all of three months ago?”
“Oh, Will. Don’t be so dramatic. Running show choir is not a career.” She paused, then sat down beside the pile of blankets and pillows. “I’m sorry, there I go again. This is going to be a lot of work for both of us, saving our marriage. I won’t deny that. You couldn’t have chosen a dream that was less easy to make fun of?”
Will glanced down the hallway. The kids were safe in one of the rooms down there, nowhere near Terri, and he had agreed to humor her but this… “We’re not married,” he said.
“Don’t remind me,” she huffed. “The things I wanted from life were very simple, you know. A traditional marriage, to have my own children, and to raise them in a huge house with all the crafting supplies I could ever desire. The American dream. And instead I fell in love with you of all people, and now look at me! A divorcée with two teenagers I didn’t get to raise, living in a hovel in a swamp with a man who can’t even work.” She reached for his hand, and when he avoided her, settled back, face set. “But we’re together again. That’s all I really need. Just you, Will. And now that I realize that I’m going to make this work. No matter what.”
“Let’s be honest, Terri. You didn’t choose me because you love me. It was never about that. You chose me because you knew I wouldn’t leave you.” He knew it was true as soon as he said it out loud. On principle he felt the truth was good and necessary, but this, he would rather not have figured out. It settled behind his ribs, small and cold and humiliating.
“And I was wrong.” Terri did not seem impressed by his epiphany; in fact, she seemed to take it for granted. “Nothing about us worked out the way I wanted it to. That’s my point. Neither of us is the person we wanted to be, neither of us have the life we dreamed of… Neither of us married the person we thought we did.” She reached out again and took his hand, ignoring his attempt to avoid her this time. “But we know that. We’ve had sixteen years to figure it out. We know one another and we know we work together because we’ve been doing it. That horrible ginger hussy isn’t your true love or anything silly like that. She’s just new.” She blinked rapidly and wiped her eyes, though Will didn’t see any tears.
“Terri. We didn’t work -”
“Now, I hope you’re as excited about this party tomorrow as I am!” she interrupted. “This is Rachel’s first birthday with us and it has to be extra special.”
“She wants to spend her birthday with her parents,” Will said. “Don’t do this to her.”
Terri slapped him. She was still holding his hand, and didn’t let go when his head snapped to the side, only waited for him to turn back to her. “I am fixing,” she said, “everything. It would be a lot easier if you wouldn’t provoke me. I’m in a very delicate emotional state.”
He lifted his free hand to his cheek. It didn’t even hurt that much, or not yet. It stung and he thought he might get a headache soon from the force of it, but at the moment, it didn’t feel awful, physically. “What if I stayed,” he said. “Let Kurt and Rachel go, Ter. Just open the door and let them walk out, and I’ll stay here with you.”
“Kurt and Rachel are our children,” she said, releasing his hand and standing up, brushing her palms on her jeans. “They’re not going anywhere.”
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Three in the morning was an ungodly hour to get a phone call, and Terri fully intended not to put up with it. However, when the person called back three times without leaving a message, she was forced to surrender despite her exhaustion and drag her overworked body to her dresser. She answered it when the fourth call came through and COMMANDER ZOD popped up as the ID.
“Sue?” she said.
“Honey Badger. Good to know you’re still on the alert. Just checking.”
Terri laughed, shrill and twanging. “I wouldn’t say entirely on the alert,” she said. “It’s three in the morning.”
“That’s how I know you’re on the alert.”
“Well, it’s been lovely hearing from you, but…”
“Of course. Go back to bed. Eight to ten hours.”
“You too.”
“Oh, no. Not since the eighties.”
“Goodnight, Sue.”
“Goodnight.”
Terri stared at her phone, then shrugged and turned it off so she could get some sleep. Sue Sylvester was a personal hero of hers, but no one could say the woman was entirely sane. The call had probably been some kind of fluke caused by the ingestion of a substance meant for farm animals. Definitely nothing to lose any more sleep over.
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Rachel slept in Kurt’s room again. He was running a slight temperature and his eyes were glassy, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the constant medication mixed with alcohol or whether he might be getting an infection. She recalled hearing that infections were supposed to smell bad, but burns didn’t smell very nice to begin with and she just wasn’t sure. So she was worried about that, and about hurting Kurt in the night by kicking him or rolling onto him or something, and it had turned out that given enough painkillers, Kurt snored. Her night was not particularly restful.
Terri unlocked the door that morning bright-eyed and wearing a yellow dress and a brighter shade of lipstick than usual. “Good morning, sweetheart!” she cooed, kissing Rachel’s forehead. “How are you feeling? I hope you had a good sleep, because this is going to be a big day - for all of us, but especially you.” She clasped Rachel close for a moment, then twirled her around. “Go on, get dressed, get your brother up! I have breakfast in the works. Your dad and I are so happy to finally have the family together, and your birthday is the perfect excuse to celebrate.”
Rachel was halfway through her mechanical way to her room when she stopped, stomach rebelling, and turned on her heel. She tripped, tangling her right foot in the chain, but righted herself and scrambled into the hallway and on to the dining room. “Mr. Schue,” she gasped as soon as she saw him.
“What’s wrong?” He set aside the blanket over his knees, dropping it over the pillow on the couch and holding out a hand to her. “Rachel, what is it?”
“Oh,” she said, taking the pillow and blanket in and gulping for air. “Nothing! Nothing’s wrong. I’m sorry, I was afraid… I thought… nothing, everything’s perfectly all right. I’m going to go get dressed.” She darted back to Kurt. She shook his shoulder until he opened his eyes, sleep-crusted and bleary.
“Whaaaat?” he said, voice creaking. She really had to convince Terri to stop giving him wine.
“I need you,” she hissed. “We have to get dressed and get out there with Mr. Schue.”
“Why?” he whimpered, trying to pull a pillow over his face.
Rachel snatched it. “One of us has to be with him at all times, and I don’t think it should be me. Terri remembers when I thought I had a crush on him, and I really don’t want to remind her.”
“He’s useless,” Kurt said, curling up as much as he could. “He’s always useless. Why are we supposed to be with him anyway? Isn’t he the ‘adult’?” He managed sloppy scare quotes with his good hand. “Let him deal with her.”
Rachel pinched his arm.
“Ow! Are you out of your mind?”
“Come on, Kurt, get up. I know you and Mr. Schue have had your differences, but you don’t want him to get hurt any more than I do.”
“She did all this for him, and she hasn’t hurt us yet,” Kurt objected. “Why would she hurt her beloved husband?”
“Do I really have to spell this out for you? She kidnapped him because she wanted her husband back, Kurt. Husbands and wives… do things together.”
Kurt blanched. “You can’t be serious.”
“I don’t know, that’s my point! The possibility seems like it merits a little preventative action!” Rachel whispered frantically. “He slept in the dining room last night, I’m pretty sure, but - what if she even… kisses him or something today, it’s wrong and maybe if we’re there she won’t.”
Kurt stared up at her for a moment with a strange, resentful expression. “You’re right,” he said finally. “Help me up.”
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The order of the day was decorating the house for the birthday party. This seemed to Kurt to preclude any change in Terri’s status to include ‘sexual offender,’ since she was the only one who could actually do any decorating. Mr. Schuester was stilled locked into his wheelchair and Kurt himself had an agonizing time just getting to the dining room couch. Rachel was forbidden from any heavy lifting and Kurt had been tasked with giving her a mani-pedi, so she was stuck at the couch as well, soaking her hands and feet in warm water while Kurt bedazzled a HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL banner.
So Terri was the one on her feet. She dragged a chair around the room in order to reach the corners of the ceiling and hang long twists of crepe paper in three different shades of pink, and toted a purse filled with tape, scissors, and paper.
Kurt couldn’t help watching her when he was sure she was occupied, thinking that if she’d just drop the scissors… but the gun could be in the bag too, and the only one of them who could move fast enough to get the scissors in the first place was Rachel. She… wasn’t holding up well. Anyway, he reminded himself, they didn’t need the scissors. Miss Pillsbury would send someone to look for Mr. Schuester. Any minute now they would be saved. None of the fears he couldn’t dismiss (what if she’s mad at him and doesn’t tell the police, what if the police think she’s being silly, wht if they can’t find the house) was going to prevent anyone forever. Sooner or later someone would miss Mr. Schuester, and they knew where he was. They just had to look for him hard enough.
“Here,” Mr. Schuester said, startling him from his reverie and putting a hand on the banner. “Let me hold it still?” He had been folding the pink party napkins into the shape of rabbits, but since there were only four napkins it hadn’t taken him very long. Kurt supposed that sixteen years of marriage to Terri would result in an intimate knowledge of some such party-related activity, but was still taken aback. They really were pretty cute.
“Sure.” It was very difficult to bedazzle mostly one-handed. Although the glacial pace at which he was forced to go was also making him really think about his choice in gem placement, with interesting results. He’d started doing spirals inside the bubble letters of “HAPPY”, linked together by threads of graduated colors, and he was a little bit proud of the technique.
“That’s very pretty,” Mr. Schue said, probably mostly out of boredom.
“Thank you. I think so.” He was moving much faster with the banner held still, but didn’t feel remotely charitable enough to mention this. Still - “And I like your napkin rabbits. I’ve always wanted those at parties, but I never get around to learning how to make them, and they’re supposed to have pins for the eyes, aren’t they? So lately I’ve been afraid Finn would impale himself.”
“Oh,” Mr. Schue said, reaching for his pocket and then flushing. “I… don’t have my cell phone.”
“I’m sure Terri will take plenty of pictures.” Kurt tapped the banner. “Hands back on, please.”
“Right.” He secured it again, but shook his head. “No, not for a picture - I wanted to tell Finn that you like napkin animals. He’s been driving himself crazy trying to plan the perfect party for when you and Rachel get back. We were the party planning committee, actually, he and I.”
Kurt laughed, or started to before turning it into a cough. The last thing he wanted was to call Terri’s attention. “Really? What kind of party may we expect on our triumphant return?”
“Probably something centered around The Wizard of Oz and ‘Wicked’ - I think I talked him out of the nautical idea. He wanted your uncle Andy’s boat involved for a while there. And for a week or so, he was thinking of ‘Into the Woods’ as a theme, complete with papier-mâché trees and a toy wolf. He wanted you and Rachel to sing Bernadette Peters’ songs.” He stared down at the banner. “He’s lost without you two. He misses you so much, Kurt.”
Kurt finished the Y in HAPPY and stopped, unable to see through the film over his eyes. He swiped at them awkwardly, trying not to hit himself with the bedazzler. “We miss him,” he said. He hadn’t even thought about Finn recently, really - not Finn or Blaine or Mercedes or Carole. He hadn’t thought about any one person, except sometimes his dad. Mostly he just thought about being home, being safe and not afraid and not in pain.
Mr. Schuester patted his knee. “Blaine misses you, too,” he said. “I don’t see as much of him - he stays with Mercedes - but he’s so sad without you. They’re all waiting for you. You’ll see them soon.” He put his other hand on Rachel’s shoulder. She didn’t seem to notice, staring blankly at her hands. “I promise.”
Kurt thought he would scream if he heard or made one more promise that couldn’t be kept. And still, there was a part of him wanted to hear it again.
“I hope you three are working,” Terri sang out from the other side of the room. “This party isn’t going to decorate itself.”
Kurt ducked his head over the banner. Voice low, he said, “What else has Finn been up to?”
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