Blaine sits on the edge of his baby sister’s bed, staring blankly at the wall and holding her favorite teddy bear in his lap. If he listens really hard, he can hear her laughter. He can hear her sleepy little yawns. He can hear her begging him to dance and he can hear himself saying, “Next time, Beth.” He can hear her scolding him for wanting to wear something ridiculous on his first date with Kurt. He can hear her saying, “I love you, Blainey.”

And then he hears the shrill screech of tires and the sound of her small body colliding with the front of someone’s car and the smack of her skull against the pavement.

He wants to throw up. He wants to cry. He wants to run away and become someone else, someone who never had a precious little sister, someone who doesn’t have to sit here and pick up the pieces of his own broken soul.

But he can do none of those things. After his hysterics in the street last night, it felt like his body shut down and his mind began to run on autopilot. Police cars, ambulances, crying neighbors, his mother’s pale, sickly face at the sight of her daughter’s blood on the ground. They’d answered questions posed by the police, watched them whisk Bethany away to a hospital even though it was already too late to save her. The man driving the car that struck her owned up to running the stop sign and Blaine thinks he heard the words vehicular manslaughter being tossed around at some point.

All he knows now is that his sister is dead and Blaine feels like he’ll never take a full breath again, not with the hole in his heart or the guilt weighing heavily upon his chest. If he and his mother hadn’t been fighting, Bethany would’ve stayed in her room and none of this would have happened. If they hadn’t scared her so much with the thought of being left alone, she wouldn’t have climbed out her window to get away from it all. He assumes she was either heading for the park, her favorite place to play, or to Kurt’s. Either way, she’s gone. And some of her blood is on his hands.

His mother stands in the doorway.

“Hey.”

Blaine doesn’t respond.

“I called everyone,” Kathy says. “You aunt and your grandparents will be in town tonight. Everyone else will come in tomorrow.”

Great. Because he really wants to deal with all of them right now. He hasn’t seen most of his relatives in years.

“I have to – I have to go make funeral arrangements.”

Unbelievable, Blaine thinks. The moment Bethany dies, his mother decides to be the adult she should’ve been for the last half of his sister’s life.

“Blaine, I-”

“Don’t,” Blaine interrupts, his voice scratchy and weak from disuse. “Don’t – don’t try and make this better. Because you can’t.”

Kathy sighs.

“I know I can’t. I was going to say that you should go stay with Kurt, if it’s okay with his parents. The house is going to be cluttered with so many people and I know you won’t want to deal with that. I’ll be out most of the day and I don’t – I don’t want you to be alone right now. And sitting in here will just make it worse.”

“Right,” Blaine replies flatly.

“I have to go,” Kathy says. “But if you decide to stay with them, send me a text or something to let me know that you’re there.”

She lingers briefly in the doorway, but Blaine ignores her in favor of staring at the dress Kurt had drawn Bethany so long ago, the one that’s still pinned to her bedroom wall. When his mother leaves and he hears the front door close in her wake, the silence of the house is so disconcerting and heavy that it makes his ears ring.

It’s too quiet, too empty, and too lifeless. And Blaine can’t be here right now.

He calls Kurt.

Less than twenty minutes later, he’s standing on Kurt’s doorstep with a bag slung over his shoulder. When he knocks, Burt is the one to answer the door.

“Hey, kiddo,” Burt greets in a gentle tone, stepping aside to allow Blaine inside. “Come on in. Kurt’s in the kitchen. Gimme your bag. I’ll take it down to his room.”

Blaine can only nod in reply as he enters their house and hands over his bag. His throat feels thick with not enough thank you’s and sobs he’s yet to cry. Upon entering the kitchen, he sees Kurt bending over to pull a fresh batch of cookies out of the oven. He looks beautiful like this – dressed down in a pair of sweatpants, feet bare on the tile, one of Finn’s t-shirts too big for his frame – and Blaine can’t help but notice how he glows in the gloom of the day.

When Kurt catches sight of Blaine leaning against the doorway, shoulders hunched and face pallid, his eyes soften and he removes the oven mitts from his hands.

“Come here,” Kurt says softly, opening his arms wide.

Blaine goes, barely feeling the shuffle of his feet and he steps into Kurt’s warm embrace. He hides his face in Kurt’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of the boy he loves so dearly, and clings to him with what little strength he has left in his limbs. Kurt says nothing; he simply holds Blaine against his body and presses a kiss into his hair. He doesn’t say, “I’m sorry”, he doesn’t ask if Blaine is okay, he doesn’t speak a word. Maybe it’s because Kurt knows how it feels to lose someone so close and so significant. Maybe it’s because Kurt knows that no amount of “I’m sorry” will bring the person back and that it can’t ever do Blaine’s grief any justice.

Instead, Kurt simply holds him until Blaine feels a little more loved and a little less alone.

“Have you eaten?” Kurt finally asks.

“No.”

“I’ll make sandwiches. You go sit at the table.”

“I’ll help,” Blaine insists. “I need – I need something to do.”

“Okay,” Kurt says without argument. “Okay.”

After lunch, Blaine’s stomach feels sickly full. He can’t focus on Kurt’s voice. He hasn’t slept since yesterday and his physical exhaustion is catching up to his mental distress.

“Bed,” he hears faintly, barely registering the fact that Kurt has taken hold of his arm.

Blaine allows Kurt go guide him away from the table, past his parents in the living room, and up the stairs to his bedroom. He’s glad that their new house means not having to share a room with Finn anymore. Blaine thinks Kurt’s brother is really cool, but he just can’t handle sitting in the same vicinity as someone who will inevitably stare at him with pity in their eyes. Kurt leads him to the bed. Blaine crawls onto the mattress, sinking into Kurt’s comforter and his pillow and the calming familiarity that floods his senses. He feels Kurt unlacing and tugging off his shoes before climbing up alongside him, arm outstretching without a word.

Blaine curls into Kurt’s side, only allowing his heavy lids to close when Kurt begins combing his fingers through Blaine’s hair. Peace is here, along with safety and warmth and the kind of love that cradles him without judgment, without question. Kurt begins to sing to him; a far off melody that lulls him into a false sense of happiness. But it’s that melody that allows him to sleep.

He dreams of a little girl, dressed in pink with a yellow flower in her hair, racing through a meadow and telling him that he’d been a good daddy.

When he wakes, the pillow is stained with Blaine’s tears and the sun is setting. Kurt is still at his side, eyes shut tight in sleep, his breathing still measured and soft. Blaine sits up, staring at the dying sun through the sheer curtains covering Kurt’s window. His eyes scan Kurt’s bookshelves, taking in the certificates, photos, and collectibles. He catches sight of one picture in particular; Bethany sits on Blaine’s hip, her thin arms wrapped tight around his neck, with Kurt on the other side, resting his head against her back and they’re all smiling broadly at the camera. Bethany is dressed in her Halloween costume - she wanted to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Kurt had braided and curled her hair and Blaine had found the sparkly red shoes.

They look…like a family.

They look happy.

Blaine chokes on a sob, unable to tear his eyes away from the picture, and Kurt wakes at once. He places a hand on Blaine’s back, thumb stroking slowly until Blaine can breathe again.

“I don’t – I don’t know how to live like this,” Blaine admits, crying openly for the first time since he found her body. “I don’t know how to live without her.”

“I know,” Kurt whispers.

“She – she was my – she was-”

“She was your world,” Kurt says.

“How – I’ll never see her – I’ll never see her get her first boyfriend. I’ll never see her graduate high school. She’ll never go to college, she’ll never get married, she – she won’t ever have kids. I’ll never hear her talk or laugh or cry. I’ll – I’ll never get to dance with her,” Blaine weeps into his hands. “God, why didn’t I – she always asked me and I never danced with her. Why didn’t I dance with her?”

“You couldn’t have known, Blaine.”

“I don’t care!” Blaine shouts, his voice hoarse. “It’s not fair! It’s not fair!”

“I know,” Kurt says. “I know it’s not.”

“Why her?” Blaine asks, turning to look at Kurt over his shoulder, knowing he looks a complete mess. “Why her? She was only eight years old, she was – she was just a little girl! She never did anything wrong. She was perfect and now she’s gone. She’s just – she’s gone! And it should’ve been me, damnit! It should’ve been me!”

“No,” Kurt states, crawling on the bed until he’s sitting in front of Blaine rather than behind him. “Don’t ever say that. It shouldn’t have happened at all, not to her, but not to you either.”

“But she – she was perfect,” Blaine says again.

“She was,” Kurt agrees, tears in his eyes now, too. “She was.”

“Then why-”

“There is no why,” Kurt says, framing Blaine’s face with trembling hands. “There is no rhyme or reason. There is only what is and what will be.”

“But what’s left?” Blaine asks helplessly. “What’s left for me without her?”

“Everything,” Kurt says gently as he attempts a smile. “You have you. You have college and your dreams and your future. She – she gave you a chance at happiness, Blaine. You can live your life now.”

“I could’ve lived my life with her,” Blaine argues. “We could’ve figured out a way to get her away from my mom. We could’ve – we could’ve done something.”

“I think we both know that your mother would’ve fought tooth and nail to keep custody of Bethany. She never would’ve let you take her. If you decided to stay at home when she wouldn’t, your mother would’ve resented you for the rest of forever and made your life a living hell.”

“But I-”

“You could’ve left without Bethany and you would’ve spent every day worrying about her, or you could’ve stayed and looked after her, always wondering what you gave up to do that. You wouldn’t have been happy.”

“I’ll never be happy now that she’s dead.”

“It takes time,” Kurt says. “I know you don’t want platitudes or clichés, but time is the only thing that’s going to make it better.”

“I miss her,” Blaine whimpers. “I miss her every single second she’s not here.”

“You’ll always miss her,” Kurt says, voiced laced with empathy. “She’ll always be with you, though. She’s here,” Kurt pauses to place a hand against the side of Blaine’s head, “and she’s here.”

He places his other hand on Blaine’s chest, just above his broken, barely beating heart.

“She was your sister. She’s in your blood. She lives in you. And no one can ever take that away from you.”

Tears continue to pour from Blaine’s eyes. Kurt’s words are beautiful and moving and true and even though they’re just as lovely as he is, Blaine thinks they’ll never be enough.

“I want her back,” Blaine chokes out, reaching for Kurt because he needs the physical contact.

He clambers into Kurt’s lap, pressing his head under Kurt’s chin and curling into a ball like a frightened child.

“I know,” Kurt whispers, kissing the top of Blaine’s head before pressing his cheek against his hair. “I know.”