"Shh!" whispered Blaine. "How are you so loud?" For every quiet step Blaine took, Kurt seemed to take one that invariably involved snapping twigs. The twigs got harder to avoid, the closer they came to what was once the Dalton grounds.

"I am not loud," replied Kurt. "These tree limbs just won't bend," he added. "Talk about poor design. I mean—"

"Kurt."

"Sorry," he whispered dramatically.

They entered the fence through the gate his mother had fashioned. From a distance, the place looked like ancient ruins—no one would ever suspect that just a few months ago, students walked the courtyard or played lacrosse in the fields, or that a group of them harmonized and danced along the mural-lined corridors.

The boys walked hand-in-hand along the carpet of thick grass, which had come to life suddenly in the last few weeks. Part of the main building still stood, and as the boys stepped closer, they took in what remained of the atrium. The wrought iron dome dangled from what was left of the building's facade. It was a warped mess. And yet, Blaine spied a small mound of twigs and feather tucked in between some of the metal. Blaine smiled at the sight. At least something could take up residence here, after all that had happened.

"There really isn't much left, is there?" Kurt offered, as he stepped carefully around the debris. "Whatever happened to the, um, the other students? You know, the non-Warbler ones. Are they just . . ." he trailed off, looking back at Blaine.

"Shut down?" Blaine supplied.

Kurt shrugged. "Well. Yeah."

"I saw a couple of the students when I went in with my dad for the debriefing. It was actually kind of sad—there was a room we walked past, but before we could really see anything some researchers in white lab coats shut the blinds. I still caught a glimpse of what was in there—several Dalton students," Blaine swallowed, and continued, "They were in these individual chambers, and it was creepy because their eyes were open, but they weren't on. They weren't alive," he said, feeling a knot clench in his stomach. He felt guilty for what had happened to them. Even though he was never friends with them the way he was with Kurt, he'd still spent time with those boys. He'd felt affection, and seeing them there that day, motionless and unaware, he'd felt like he'd betrayed them somehow.

"Stop that," Kurt said, looking down at Blaine's foot, which was toeing the smaller chunks of brick. "I can hear you guilt-tripping from here. And you think I'm loud."

Blaine glanced up at Kurt and smiled, then looked back down at the scattered debris. Kurt knew him so well sometimes.

Something glistened under the rubble just then, catching Blaine's eye. He stepped carefully over to whatever it was, then crouched down to remove some of the bricks pinning it to the ground.

"What's that?" asked Kurt.

"I dunno. There really shouldn't be anything here—not any evidence of what the students were, anyway. I remember how the agents had scoured the wreckage after the fires stopped burning." He tossed chunks of brick off to the side, and soon Kurt was crouched next to him doing the same. There was definitely something left.

It was nothing but the cassette player from the now-destroyed music room. Blaine pulled it out from the rubble. "Well that was anti-climactic," he said. "I thought maybe we'd unearth an important clue, you know, like the medallion in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and—"

"Nerd Alert," Kurt said, rolling his eyes. "And then you'd find yourself in a drinking contest with a burly Nepalese? I think I know who the winner of that contest would be. You're no Marion." But then something flashed in Kurt's eyes, and he swiped the radio from Blaine's hands. "Give me that," he said.

"What?" Blaine asked.

He watched as Kurt opened the cassette player door. "Aha!" Kurt said triumphantly, holding the tape with "Blackbird" written in black marker on it. "No trip to a bar in Nepal required, and it's a treasure just the same," he said, smiling.

Blaine stood up in wonder at his boyfriend, such a silly romantic. "At least we got each other out of all this," he offered, reaching out his hand for Kurt to take.

Kurt did, and the warmth of his touch jogged Blaine's memory, back to the day he'd met a boy in bermudas on the Dalton staircase. He marveled at how his life, which had been so carefully constructed, had simply disassembled itself, each piece of it unlocking the next, until there was nothing at all left. He marveled at how that very thought, which in the past would've terrified him, now made him feel bright inside. Ecstatic, really.

He let go of Kurt's hand and started to make his way back the way they'd come, stopping near the perimeter of the ruins, where a low retaining wall was mostly intact. He climbed up, feeling the warmth of the late-spring sun. Balancing himself, Blaine jumped onto the grass below, then gestured for Kurt to follow. Kurt hopped down too, raising both arms in a proper gymnastics dismount. Blaine smiled and shook his head.

Then Kurt leaned back against the wall and gazed at Blaine longingly.

"Shh," whispered Blaine, as he crept closer and closer to Kurt.

Kurt rolled his eyes, but he smiled as he did and said, quietly, "I told you, I am not loud."

They were close now. Blaine reached out and grasped Kurt's waist. Softly, he said, "You are sometimes."

Kurt cackled.

"Shh—mmpf!" murmured Blaine, as Kurt quieted him with his lips.

Eventually, they stepped back from the wall, then left it altogether behind.

Then a flock of geese honked its way past Dalton overhead, the warmer weather inviting them back to the area by instinct. If they'd cared enough to look down as they flew with coordinated effort into the wind, they would've spotted a dark-haired boy running along beneath them, arms outstretched, free as a bird, like them.