Kurt's there.

Just as he told his dad he would be, just like he promised Blaine: he's there. In the waiting room of the hospital, biting his nails as he tries to stay calm.

He can't have been there long -an hour, two at most- but it feels like an eternity. He's already lost count of how many cups of coffee he's downed, of how many circles he's paced around the room - four steps from where he's sitting to the coffee machine, three steps to the table in the corner with last year's worst magazines. But it's not the time he's spent there already that he's bothered about; all he wants to know is how much longer he has to stay there, how much time it will be until they'll let him see Blaine.

.

A nurse helps Blaine in the wheelchair as Kurt gathers their things - the small overnight bag he'd packed hurriedly just in case, the book he'd taken to have something to do during the long waiting hours but which he hadn't even opened yet. He hurries to the door to help keep it open while they wheel Blaine through, but when he wants to follow them one of the other nurses stops him.

"I'm sorry, sir, we only allow family behind this point."

"Oh, but I am- I mean, I'm his boyfriend," Kurt says quickly, keeping his eyes on Blaine who's being wheeled further and further away from him as he tries to get past the nurse, but she pushes him back, her hand closing firmly around his upper arm to turn him around.

"Immediate family only, sir, I'm sorry," she insists. "I have to ask you to return to the waiting room."

Her tone is strict and determined, and Kurt's stomach drops as he realizes she means it.

"No! No - please, please, you have to let me go," he pleads, trying in vain to pull himself free from the nurse's grip, the panic rising in his chest as he sees Blaine disappear around the corner. "He needs me, I have to be there with him, please... please, let me-"

"I'm sorry, sir," the nurse cuts him off, not sounding like she's sorry at all. "Hospital policy, I cannot let you proceed from this point. Please return to the waiting room."

"But-"

"I do not want to have to call security, sir. Please, return to the waiting room."

.

Kurt rubs his hands over his face, trying to focus on something else, but as soon as he manages to push away the panic and desperation he'd felt when he'd been forced to give in to the nurse and return to the waiting room, other memories take their place - Blaine, laughing when Kurt had picked him, Gary and Ben up; on his cheeks a little more color than usual maybe, sure, but otherwise perfectly fine. He'd become quieter as they got closer to New York - an upset stomach, he'd said, and Kurt hadn't really given it much attention.

For all he knows now Blaine might have had a fever already then.

Their first night home had been fine - they'd both been exhausted and if something happened Kurt slept right through it. But the second night...

Kurt groans, fisting his hands in his hair.

.

"Blaine?"

For a second Kurt is not sure exactly what is waking him up but then he hears it again - a rattling, heavy cough next to him, and when he turns around he sees Blaine's body convulse painfully with the effort.

"Blaine," he repeats a little louder, reaching out, "Blaine, sweetie, you need to wake up. Blaine. BLAINE!"

He didn't mean to scream, but when he touches Blaine's shoulder the skin is unnaturally hot and wet under his touch, little droplets of sweat glistening in the New York street lights.

"Blaine, here... come on, sit up." He starts dragging Blaine in an upright position, but Blaine's dead weight in his arms - still half asleep, coughing and wheezing and not the least bit willing to cooperate. "Come on, Blaine, it's going to be easier to breathe this way, ok? I'm going to get you some water, just stay here."

But by the time Kurt returns from the bathroom with a glass of water, some Advil, and a thermometer, Blaine's already lying back down, and very unwilling to change that.

"Lea'me 'lone," he mumbles, swatting at Kurt when he makes to pull him up again, "not thirsty, wan'sleep."

"I know, sweetie, I know, but I just need you to take these, all right? Here... just... exactly. Now drink... come on, Blaine, just drink. Just a little, for me. Please?"

It takes way longer than it should have, but one long minute and two coughing fits later Blaine's taken the Advil and managed half a glass of water, and he's back under the blankets with the thermometer stuck safely under his arm, slowly dozing off again.

Kurt listens to the soft wheezing of Blaine's breath as he waits for the thermometer to beep. He's fairly sure Blaine has a fever; what he's not so sure about is what he'll do if he's right. Blaine has always made it very clear he wants to take care of himself, wants to take his own decisions about his health, and Kurt knows that if he drags Blaine to the hospital for something silly he'll never hear the end of it. But he also knows that Blaine tends to pretend to be stronger than he is, and most of all he remembers the conversation with Blaine's doctor when Blaine had switched meds.

.

But it's not the allergy, Kurt tells himself for the hundredth time. It's not - it can't be. Blaine hadn't show any sign of the rash the doctor had said was so common, he hadn't had to throw up. Plus he'd been tested, and the doctor had said so herself: there was no reason to assume anything would go wrong with his medication.

But Blaine did have trouble breathing.

He did have a fever.

And no matter how hard Kurt tries to convince himself of the opposite, he can't shake the feeling that it's just too much of a coincidence.

.

103, Kurt finally decides. If Blaine has a fever over 103, he's going to take him to the hospital, overreactions be damned. If it's lower... they'll talk about it in the morning.

The sudden beep of the thermometer pulls him out of his thoughts and startles Blaine, who immediately gets caught up in a coughing fit. It makes Kurt cringe, to see Blaine suffer like that, but he pulls himself together and reaches for the thermometer.

102.6ºF

It's not a 103. But even as Blaine's cough dies down, he doesn't seem to be able to find a good position, tossing and turning, a pained expression on his face. And when he lets out another cough -though admittedly it's the smallest, tiniest cough Kurt's heard all night- Kurt's had it.

"Blaine, get up. We're going to E.R."

.

Unsurprisingly, Blaine had protested. Equally unsurprisingly, he had lost the argument.

"You've been out of your element for days," Kurt had told him, "you have a temperature of 103, you're coughing your lungs out, and I don't care what you say - I'm taking you to the freaking hospital. If I'm wrong you can tell me 'I told you so' all you want for the rest of my life, but either you're coming with me voluntarily or I'm calling Gary to help me drag you there and we both know how he feels about his beauty sleep. It's your choice."

They'd been helped surprisingly quickly once they got to the hospital - Blaine's cough and fever in combination with the mention of HIV and the allergy alert card had placed him on top of the priorities list. But now Blaine is gone and Kurt has been banned to the waiting room with only outdated magazines and his own thoughts for company, and especially the last part is slowly taking its toll.

And Kurt's phone burns in his pocket.

He's taken it out a million times already. The first time had been right after Blaine had been taken away, to call Gary - usually Kurt would be the first to recognize the importance of beauty sleep, but the truth is Gary is the only family Blaine has in the city and therefore Kurt's only hope of getting even a little closer to Blaine. His second call had been to Nick. But Nick's phone was either turned off or his battery was dead, because Kurt's call had gone straight to voice mail. It had only made Kurt feel even worse, even if Nick hadn't been the one he'd really wanted to call in the first place.

It's not that he doesn't know the number. He does. He even has it on speed dial. But even though he's selected it time and time again his thumb hesitates every time he wants to press 'call', hovering over the button indecisively until the screen turns black and he puts the phone away again.

The relationship with his dad had certainly improved after their talk the night of the Christmas Spectacular. The tension hadn't completely dissolved, but at least Burt had stopped hinting -less subtly than he probably thought he was- at how Kurt should find a new apartment, or a new boyfriend. But whether their fragile truce allows Kurt to call his dad in the middle of the night is another question altogether, especially since the reason is what they've been arguing about in the first place.

And Kurt's really not ready to hear "I told you so."

"Kurt!"

The sound of his name makes Kurt look up, and when he sees Gary running up to him -only one of his shoe laces tied and his t-shirt on backwards- all thoughts of his dad instantly disappear.

"Oh Gary, thank god you're here!"

For a few long minutes they simply hold each other, in that desperate, complete way only two people who share the worry over a loved one can.

"I'm so sorry," Kurt starts as they finally let go, but Gary immediately cuts him off.

"Sorry what for?"

"For waking you up in the middle of the night. For making you come here."

But Gary grabs him by the shoulders, forcing Kurt to look at him.

"Kurt, this is my brother we're talking about! You didn't seriously consider not calling me, right?"

Kurt nods hesitantly, hoping the guilt Gary's words have evoked doesn't show too clearly on his face. Because he hadn't thought of calling Gary -not until the morning, anyway- until Blaine had been taking away from him and he'd been left without a choice.

"Besides, you didn't make me come here, I decided I wanted to come, okay?"

That part at least, Kurt can confirm without feeling worse - his contribution to the conversation had been limited to a teary "I'm in the hospital" after which Gary had interrupted him to ask which hospital, and assure Kurt he'd be there within the hour.

"So what happened?" Gary continues. "Where is he now? Are they still doing tests?"

"I don't know," Kurt answers truthfully, and it's only now that the full weight of those words falls on him. "I have no idea. They're not telling me anything, they just took him and they wouldn't let me come with him because I'm not his emergency contact and I'm not family-"

"Whát?"

"-and I asked, Gary, I asked- so many times... but they wouldn't- And I don't know. I just... I don't know."

He can feel himself block, and he shakes his head, closing his eyes and biting his lip, not even trying to protest when Gary pulls him in once more. They don't say anything, but they don't need to - right now what they need is someone to be there, not empty words and reassurances. But when they pull apart Gary squeezes Kurt's shoulders and tells him "I'll get you to him. Promise.", and it sounds sincere enough that Kurt nods and even manages a smile.

Just a little longer, he tells himself, just a little longer and he'll be able to hold Blaine again.

.

If anything, though, Gary's presence makes the whole waiting process even more frustrating, because if Kurt thought Gary could simply ask for Blaine's room number and take him there, he's severely mistaken. It takes Gary no less than ten minutes to even figure out where Blaine is -in Radiology, have chest X-rays taken- and another thirty before he gets a doctor to stand still long enough to talk to him. But all he gets is a generic "We're still running tests, we'll let you know as soon as we know more", and it reassures neither of them.

And so almost an hour has passed since Gary's arrival when finally -finally- one of the nurses walks up to them and tells them Blaine has been assigned a room, and if Gary would please follow her.

And that's when Gary becomes Kurt's hero.

The discussion starts out fairly friendly, with Gary calmly stating he won't go anywhere without Kurt, but when the nurse stubbornly refuses to let Kurt come along with them it quickly escalates, and it's all Kurt can do to just stay in the background and watch as Gary juggles with terms and phrases as "presidential mandate" and "visitation rights" and "equality", completely overpowering the woman in front of him. But when the words "law suit" and "court" start popping up the nurse visibly blanches and quickly decides she's had enough, hurrying off with a barely audible "I'll go talk to the doctor".

Kurt has no idea whether Gary would be able to uphold his threat -whichever it was-, but when less than five minutes later another nurse comes to take both of them to see Blaine he makes a solemn promise to himself: he'll never make fun of Gary's chosen profession of lawyer again.

-o0o-

Blaine looks pale.

It's the first thing Kurt notices when he enters the room and sees Blaine - a small, fragile-looking human being in a much-too-big hospital bed, and all he wants to do is to run up to Blaine and take him in his arms, comfort him and soothe him and tell him everything's going to be all right, even if he doesn't even know if it will be. But if he believes it - if they both believe it - then maybe...

He's already halfway across the room when the soft touch of Gary's hand on his shoulder stops him. Easy, the gesture says, and Kurt bridges the rest of the gap between him and Blaine just a bit slower. The urge to kiss, to touch, is almost overwhelming, but he manages to restrain himself and instead just reaches out, stroking the back of his hand over Blaine's cheek.

"Blaine..."

"Cupcake..."

It's probably supposed to sound teasing, but Blaine's voice is so quiet and rough it comes out more like a bark, and the tired, barely-there smile that accompanies it only breaks Kurt's heart in even smaller pieces.

"Ssh..." he says soothingly. "Shhh... you shouldn't talk right now, you should rest, okay?"

His fingers accidentally brush against the nasal cannula that supplies Blaine with extra oxygen, and even though he bites his lip hard enough that he starts tasting blood he can't help his eyes filling up. He's been here before, at the bedside of someone he loves, powerless to do anything but hope and trust in the competence of the doctors, but it doesn't make any difference - seeing someone he loves suffer is something he will never get used to, something nobody ever gets used to, and Kurt slowly starts to understand what his dad had meant when he'd said Kurt didn't know what he was getting himself into.

"I'll be there" was so much easier said than done.

His thoughts are interrupted by a doctor entering the room. A short nod is all Kurt gets before the man goes straight to the foot of Blaine's bed, checking something on the chart there and copying the information on the clipboard he's holding.

"So, Mr. Anderson, you gave us quite a scare there, didn't you?"

Blaine doesn't reply, although his lips curl in a smile that would probably be mischievous if the circumstances were different.

"We'll have the results from the cultures in a couple of days," the doctor continues undisturbedly as he checks Blaine's IV, "but we put you on broad-spectrum antibiotics which should get you back on your feet soon enough."

"Antibiotics?"

Gary. Kurt had almost forgotten he was even there, focused as he was on Blaine and the doctor, but he'd had the exact same question burning on the tip of his tongue. He may not be a doctor, but even he knows that antibiotics are not the standard way of treating allergies.

"For now," the doctor confirms, as if that clarifies everything. "As I said, we'll know more in a couple of days when we have the results of the cultures. The X-rays didn't give any conclusive evidences as to whether the causing agent of the infection is bacterial or viral, but there was a clear inflammation of the alveoli, which indicates-"

"Pneumonia," Gary interrupts. Four years of dating Ben, a medical student, has given him a far larger knowledge of medical jargon than he'd ever wanted, but in instances like this it comes in handy. The doctor, however, doesn't look all too pleased about Gary stealing his thunder.

"Pneumonia, yes," he says sourly. "Of course, seeing Mr. Anderson's medical background we should still be careful. It is still too early to completely exclude the change of his treatment regimen had anything to do with his current condition, but I expect the results from those tests later today. Regardless, I definitely want to keep Mr. Anderson here for a few days for observation."

"But he's going to be fine, right?"

Kurt asks it meekly. Under any other circumstances he probably would have bombarded the doctor with questions, but after barely an hour of sleep and many more hours of worrying he doesn't care how long Blaine will have to stay in hospital, he doesn't care about antibiotics or cultures or X-rays.

"He'll need to-"

That's as far as the doctor gets before he cuts himself off - the lack of sleep had maybe taken away Kurt's eagerness for asking questions, but his ability to produce bitch glares had been left intact; as the doctor had just discovered.

"He'll be fine," the man amends as dignified as he can manage, "Given that he rests sufficiently and takes his medication, he will be fine."

It might be that the doctor says even more, it might be that he turns to Gary to discuss Blaine's condition a bit further, it might be that he leaves the room - Kurt doesn't know and he doesn't care.

"You're going to be fine!" He's grabbed Blaine's hand, and for the first time since they've arrived at the hospital he doesn't try to hold back his tears. "Did you hear? You're going to be fine, they're gonna figure it out and you're gonna be just fine."

"I told you so, didn't I?" Blaine croaks with a smile, making Kurt take a step back and raise an eyebrow.

"Ehm, you're in hospital with freaking pneumonia, Blaine: I'm pretty sure you don't get to say 'I told you so' here."

"But I'm going to be fine," Blaine counters weakly, although his eyes twinkle. "You just said so. And you heard the doctor: I'm going to be fine."

Kurt's mouth opens and then closes again without a sound in bafflement - if he didn't know any better he'd be sure Blaine was pulling his leg, and he's not sure whether to burst out laughing or hit Blaine over the head.

"You're never going to let me out of the house again without a scarf, are you?"

"Two scarves," Kurt immediately amends, but with Blaine looking at him the way he does -he's probably going for contrite but he just reminds Kurt of Annie plotting her next escape attempt- he can't hold back a smile any longer. "And a hat. Except for July and August."

"And June."

"Only if it's over 77 degrees."

"Deal."

I'm still having you wear scarves all year round, though, the 77 degrees thing applies only to the hat.

Kurt thinks it, but he doesn't say it out loud. In fact, he doesn't say much at all anymore, one hand grasping Blaine's and the other wiping the tears off his cheeks, just looking at Blaine -pale and tired and struggling to breathe- and willing himself to believe that it is nothing, that in just a few days it will be over and the past few hours will be nothing but a bad memory. But it's a memory that will haunt him forever, he knows, one that will put him on edge every time Blaine will cough or sneeze. He still has nightmares about his dad having another heart attack, even if he has embraced his new, healthy lifestyle and is now in better shape than ever.

It doesn't matter.

None of it matters - not how good Blaine's medication is, not how brilliant his doctors are, not what the statistics say. Rational arguments don't diminish Kurt's worry, they no longer make him feel as safe as they did when he talked to his dad.

What does make him feel safe, though, is the way Blaine looks at him now - his face pale but his eyes shining. Because Blaine believes that he will make it, and therefore Kurt believes it too - he believes that they will make it.

For as long as I can and as long as he'll let me, that's what he'd told his dad. And well, maybe that had been a little overconfident, but even if after what had happened that night he's not quite sure he'll never lose his courage, it has also made him even more determined to never leave Blaine to have to go through this alone. And if that means that he'll worry every day for the rest of his life, then that's the price that he'll pay.

For as long as he can, and as long as Blaine will let him.