Kurt’s show wasn’t scheduled until the New Year, so once the initial preparations were underway, life returned to some semblance of normal for a while. Maybe once a week he’d be asked to approve a press shot, or would have to run out of a lecture on Sondheim to clarify to the seamstress that yes, he really did want her to sew a perfect seam and then unpick it, but it was all just part of the final look. For the most part though, the flurry of activity lulled, and Kurt found himself feeling like it was all a bit of an anti-climax.

It was one of these slow days when Rachel intercepted him at the door when he returned to his apartment (and he really hoped Sebastian had let her in, because the alternative was frankly a bit scary even by Rachel standards), sliding his jacket off his shoulders and guiding him towards a dining room chair before he even had a chance to register what was happening.

“I have news,” she was saying, and when Kurt replied, “I guessed that”, she didn’t seem to detect the sarcastic undertone in his voice.

“So. We barely see each other anymore…” she began, and Kurt’s suspicions were piqued. When Rachel said she had news and then began like that, it almost exclusively meant she wanted something.

“Go on…”

“So we barely see each other, and I’ve been kind of hoping that an opportunity would arise for us to spend some time together before your show, and the winter musical, and I think I may have found the perfect situation!”

Rachel was almost shouting by the time she reached the end of the sentence, and Kurt choked back a laugh as he realized he’d kind of missed this. She was right. Between her academic responsibilities, and Kurt’s life being hijacked by fashion shows and design obligations, they hadn’t spent any quality time together in a while. It might be nice to catch up, Kurt thought. He’d hear her out.

“Please, don’t keep me in suspense” he said, and his voice was dry but his bright smile gave him away.

“Chicago!” she semi-squealed, and while the accompanying jazz hands were way too much, it was pure Rachel.

“I’ve been invited to audition for a theater group there. It sounds amazing, Kurt, they sing everything and they’re really beginning to make a name for themselves. Their soloist is pregnant, so she’ll be leaving just as we graduate! They want to fly me out there to sing for them next week!”

Rachel finished by launching herself at Kurt, wrapping her arms hard around his neck, his chair swaying with the impact.

“That sounds great!” he said, pushing her back just enough so he could stand.

“But what does that have to do with us spending time together?”

Rachel’s face grew serious.

“Come with me” she said, and Kurt screwed his eyes in confusion.

“Seriously, come with me. Just for the weekend. We can go dancing, and have dinners, and just catch up before you’re thrown even deeper into fashion show chaos. Please?” Rachel clapped her hands together.

When she put it like that, Kurt couldn’t think of a single reason to say no.

So he said yes.

*

The bachelor party was planned for a Saturday night. They were keeping it small; could hardly expect everyone to fly in when they were all going to New York for the wedding in just a few days. Blaine didn’t want a fuss.

Obviously, he thought as he met Cooper off the plane with an entire suitcase reserved for stupid costumes and tequila, that memo hadn’t reached his brother.

“Planning a big weekend?” Blaine asked pointedly, and Cooper laughed as he pulled his younger sibling into a hug.

“You only get married once Blaine…hopefully. Gotta make it count”.

Blaine groaned.

“Good flight?” he asked as they walked towards the car. Cooper shrugged.

“It was ok. There was an obnoxious girl behind me who would not stop talking about how she was coming for an audition. It was cute at first, but I don’t have much time for that…”

Blaine laughed.

“She probably just reminded you of yourself four years ago!” he said, and noticed that Cooper didn’t protest as they loaded his bags in to the car.

It took a while to get out of the car park, and as they waited in traffic Cooper praised himself profusely for things that were entirely out of his control (his bag being first on the carousel, his security line moving the fastest) because it all meant that they’d be back in the city quicker, and therefore could start the party earlier.

“That’s her, the obnoxious singer” Cooper pointed as the traffic finally began to move, and Blaine shot a quick look in her direction as he drove, but wasn’t entirely sure which of the numerous girls Cooper was actually pointing at.

Blaine rounded the corner, left the car park.

Kurt stepped out of the airport, joined Rachel on the sidewalk.

“Shall we go?” he asked, and they headed towards the taxi rank to find a ride to the city.

*

Rachel’s audition was, by all accounts, sublime. Granted, all of these accounts were being relayed to Kurt by Rachel herself, and he knew better than anyone her penchant for exaggeration, but she was incredibly talented. It wasn’t exactly hard to believe she’d blown them away.

“I have a recall tomorrow” she told him, eyes sparkling.

“But I still want to celebrate – in moderation – tonight. I’m in Chicago with my best friend. This calls for cocktails”.

Kurt agreed without much hesitation. Life had gotten a little crazy, and he wasn’t going to turn down a chance to let his hair down.

“Do you need to prepare anything for tomorrow before we start drinking?” he asked, and Rachel as usual was already a step ahead.

“Yes, two more songs, but I don’t think anything in my repertoire is quite right. They’re a lot poppier than I expected, much more commercial. Never fear though, I’ve found a music library just around the corner that I’m assured will cater to my needs”.

Kurt’s heart lurched in that familiar way it always did when music libraries were mentioned. He didn’t know why it still got to him; he’d been to so many in the past almost-year (every one he passed, in fact), but the reality was that he didn’t even know what he was looking for. There weren’t enough hours in a lifetime to scan every single sheet. If he was supposed to find Blaine, he would. One more music library was hardly likely to make the difference.

But still, he braced himself. He let himself hope, just for a second, and then he banished it, desperate already to avoid the inevitable disappointment.

He smiled at Rachel.

“I’m proud of you,” he said.

And then “Let’s go”.

*

Cooper cracked open his first beer almost as soon as they reached Blaine’s apartment. He laid back on the bed, sipped lazily, passed judgment on everything Blaine owned as he watched his little brother get ready, and somehow Blaine didn’t even mind. It was familiar, and warm. Blaine knew this routine, and that was important, because bachelor parties, and weddings, and husbands? He didn’t know that at all.

Blaine wasn’t scared, exactly, he realized as he discarded yet another tie. It was more that this territory was so uncharted. He had nothing to compare it to, no way to prepare himself. He tried to reason that nothing would change: he was already devoted to Dan, they already lived in each other’s pockets, they were already in love. Why would a ring and a piece of paper make any difference? But there was a burden there, undoubtedly. There was pressure, and weight, and Blaine felt a responsibility to get it right.

Starting, he thought, with the right bow tie for his bachelor party.

“You ok over there?” Cooper asked, and Blaine had this split-second urge to tell him everything. Nothing good could come of that, he knew, so he bit back the desire, straightened his shirt, nodded.

“Good” he said, simply, and Cooper’s raised eyebrows were overlooked when Puck burst in to the bedroom, three shot glasses balanced in one hand, shouting something about Blaine’s last night of freedom commencing now.

*

They decided to hit the library on their way out. It looked impressive, Kurt thought as they walked up the stone steps, a large white building with a grand entrance and a stern looking woman on the reception desk.

The music library, it turned out, was just a room on the second floor, but it still held, Kurt thought, a larger collection than he had ever seen. He browsed near the door as Rachel disappeared in to the stacks to find, as she put it, the song that would change her life.

There was a small stand near the door of books that were old, faded, damaged, being sold for a dollar each to whoever stumbled upon them and decided to expand their collection. Kurt began to flick through the sheets, noticing missing pages, coffee stains on essential notes, handwritten directions that would never make sense to anybody else.

“What are you looking at?” Rachel peeked around his shoulder, her face lighting up at the affordable sheets.

“Ooooh we have to buy some!” she exclaimed, sweeping a pile into her arms without really even looking.

Kurt shrugged his shoulders. She was probably right, it was so cheap, and even if he never sang any of it, sheet music was pretty. He found a piece from Sunset Boulevard he’d sung a lot in high school, and the key was wrong, but he was pretty sure he could change that.  He grabbed a few 1930s showtunes, a couple of more popular songs, a battered Disney book that he thought he might salvage a song or two from.

He snuck a look as Rachel paid, flicking through every page, just in case. With every new sheet his heart lurched, falling fast and rising slowly when all he saw was the printed notes. He huffed when he reached the last page, despite the fact that he’d hardly been expecting that finally, after all this time, Blaine’s name would just fall in to his hands in a room in a white building somewhere in Chicago. Rachel turned at the sound, raised an eyebrow at Kurt’s sheepish expression.

“Looking for something?” she asked, slipping her purchases into her oversized bag, and Kurt blushed, shook his head.

“No” he said as he paid for his own music, and when he slipped his arm through hers and said, “Lets go”, he honestly thought that was that.

*

The bar was underground, literally rather than figuratively, and after two beers and a tequila shot, Blaine had to grip the railing as he descended the stairs, flashed his id, and was ushered in to the 1920s themed speakeasy. Puck was at the bar before Blaine had even checked his coat, and he thought he heard something about flaming sambucca. Blaine loved his friends, loved his brother, but they did have a tendency to go too far. He braced himself as Puck walked back towards him with a shot glass and something that looked like pure Vodka. It was going to be a long night.

By 9pm Blaine was swaying on his feet. He was so hot – was anyone else really hot? – and he’d stopped even pretending to drink the various concoctions his friends were buying through fear of them reappearing on his shoes.

“I wish Dan was here,” he said aloud to nobody in particular, and the girl beside him looked at him like poison before shifting slightly away.

“Am I really drunk?” he called across the bar to Cooper, knowing somehow that the fact he was even asking meant that yes, he was. And then Puck was there, thrusting a glass of cold water in to Blaine’s hands, telling him to drink it, which seemed like the greatest idea anyone had ever had. He reached the bottom of the glass all too quickly, and suddenly not-being-drunk seemed like an even better idea than the pink martini, and the pure vodka, and the shot that came with actual fire ever had.

“I’m going for some air,” he told Puck (or at least that’s what he thought, he didn’t know if the words had made it as far as his mouth), and he pulled himself up tall as he walked slowly towards the exit.

*

“What about here?” Rachel asked as they approached yet another bar, cold and thirsty after walking for twenty minutes. Kurt had rejected every place they passed (too noisy, too quiet, too expensive) and Rachel was losing interest fast.

Kurt scanned the bar as they walked towards it. There were steps leading down to a heavy looking black door. They’d be dangerous after a few too many drinks, he guessed. The place looked classy enough without being overly pretentious, and Kurt conceded, thinking it was worth a try. He smiled as he caught the doorman’s attention.

“Hi” Kurt began.

The doorman looked apologetic.

“Sorry folks, we’re full.” He said, his voice rough in the way that only a heavy smoker’s was.

“You don’t have space for two more?” Rachel asked sweetly, and to his credit, the doorman seemed to consider it for a second before shaking his head.

“Bachelor party” he said, as if that was a sufficient explanation.

“They’re already watching us closely to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand. If I let you in, I’m putting my neck on the line”.

Rachel, to Kurt’s pleasure, gathered quickly that flirting wasn’t going to work. He didn’t think he could stand by and watch her desperate little girl routine, not tonight.

“Fine, we didn’t want to come in anyway” she snapped, and oh good, she was going with indignant instead.

“Come on Kurt” she said, thrusting her arms through his, unable to walk quite as dramatically as she would have hoped in her heels. Kurt let himself be dragged, turned to mouth an apology to the doorman, who tipped his head in something like sympathy and waved them on.

Behind him, the heavy black door swung slowly open. Blaine began to climb the stairs.

*

It was late by the time he stumbled in to bed. He was sober now, mostly, but the beginnings of a headache were beginning to creep in around his temples, and Blaine prayed to numerous deities he didn’t believe in that he’d manage to sleep through the hangover. He tried to tuck himself in slowly, not wanting to wake Dan who was sound asleep beneath the duvet. He slid quietly down the bed, curled himself as close as he could to Dan without actually touching. He was almost asleep when he felt fingers entwining with his, almost asleep when he was pulled flush to Dan’s body, almost asleep when a shiver-inducing kiss was placed on the base of his neck.

“Did you have fun?” Dan asked, and Blaine nodded, twisted in Dan’s arms so that their eyes could meet.

“I tried to call you” Dan whispered into the skin where Blaine’s neck met his shoulder, and it wasn’t until a few minutes after that Blaine realized why he’d never received the call.

His phone lay discarded on the bar. It had rung, once, but nobody was there to answer.

*

Kurt’s flight was booked for lunchtime, and it was already way past 9am when he woke in a panic. His alarm hadn’t gone off, or he’d forgotten to set it, or he’d slept through it, but whatever the case, he was late. Rachel was staying, booked on a later flight so she could make her recall, and Kurt tried to get ready quietly so as not to wake her and incur the wrath. That lasted all of about five minutes, then his keys clattered loudly to the floor and he gave up any attempt at silence, throwing his belongings in to his bag, sweeping the pile of sheet music he bought from the table to the suitcase with no regard for keeping it in order, flicking on the coffee machine as he wondered who Rachel knew in Chicago that she could just ‘borrow’ an apartment from anyway? (A childhood friend from her Grandma’s synagogue, apparently, staying with a friend for his bachelor party).

The smell of the coffee stirred Rachel, and she sat up on the makeshift bed she’d created on the couch just as Kurt placed a piping mug on the coffee table beside her. She took a sip and groaned appreciatively, swung her legs around to make space for Kurt to sit.

“What time is your audition?” he asked, and the shift in her eyes from sleep crumpled to focused was pure Rachel.

“2pm, then the flight is at 6, so I’ll be back in New York before dinner if you wanted to grab something?”

Kurt nodded.

“Yeah, I said I’d swing by the bar to catch up with Sebastian, so maybe meet me there?”

“It’s a date,” she said, and then “It’s late. Shouldn’t you be going?”

Kurt drained his coffee in three swift gulps, zipped his suitcase closed, kissed Rachel on the forehead as he stood.

“Good luck today” he said, and she threw back her shoulders, stuck out her chest.

“I don’t need luck,” she said, mockingly, and Kurt grinned, because she really didn’t. She’d kill it.

“I love you,” he said, balancing his carry-on on the top of his suitcase, maneuvering his way out of the door.

“I love you too” she called, and then the door closed and he was gone.

*

Blaine did not sleep through the hangover. He was woken at 9am by Dan untangling their limbs, and he tried vaguely to stop his boyfriend from moving, but admitted defeat when he found himself being tucked back in, felt a soft kiss on his forehead, drifted back to sleep.

The next time he woke it was almost 11, and his whole body ached. He moved his toes, felt it in his head, groaned loudly into his pillow, and suddenly Puck and Cooper were in the doorway, their faces amused.

“It hurts” he moaned, and Cooper, to his credit, handed Blaine a tall glass of water and said “drink”.

The water helped. Blaine tried to move again, and this time the pain and nausea passed quickly. He sat up, surveyed the room.

“Where did Dan go?” he asked and Puck chuckled.

“Back to the bar to look for your phone!” he answered, and oh yeah, Blaine had forgotten about that.

“Ughh” he groaned, throwing the duvet off him and wriggling over to the corner of the bed.

“I need a shower,” he announced, shuffling to the bathroom, leaving his brother and his best friend staring at an empty room.

Dan returned just as Blaine re-surfaced, clean and feeling fresher. He hadn’t found the phone. Blaine’s head was still too fuzzy to think anything of it. He’d just have to get a new one.

*

Kurt made it through security with plenty of time to spare for more coffee, maybe a pastry, maybe a magazine. He set up camp in the corner of the departure lounge, taking three seats for himself, and made some calls to Alana, to Kyla, to Grant, in response to voicemails he’d managed to miss. Everything was going well, it seemed. There were interviews set over the next week that would mark the beginning of his press campaign, the first prototypes were waiting at the office for his approval, and everyone seemed happy with the progress being made. Relaxed, Kurt sunk lower in his chair and unzipped his small carry-on suitcase looking for a magazine. He rifled through clothes and toiletries with no luck. Damn. He must have left it in the cab.

Sighing, he picked up the pile of sheet music instead. It was hardly thrilling reading material, but he was far too comfortable to lug all of his bags to the shop and risk losing his prime spot.

Except…this wasn’t his. This was Barbra Streisand, and Christina Perri, and Rachel Berry through and through.

He began to flick through the pages, and wow, it looked as if she really had just bought the first things her hand touched. Katy Perry, various showtunes, Avril Lavigne…he doubted Rachel would ever sing half of this stuff.

And then his hand stilled, his eyes, his heart.

The corner peeked out from behind another page. The ink was just as dark as he remembered, on a street corner almost a year from here, his lips kiss swollen, his mind dancing, and snow, like a movie or a dream, falling on his shoulders.

He tugged at the edge, pulled the page to the front, and there it was, there he was.

He breathed.

He picked up the phone.

“Hello?” Rachel’s voice was distracted on the end of the line, and there was a moment where Kurt didn’t know if he could bring himself to say it; didn’t know if he could speak at all.

“Are you ok?” she asked, and Kurt said, “I took your music.”

She must have heard that he was shaken, must have known something was wrong. His voice wobbled and cracked, and she was reassuring and calm when she said, “Oh don’t worry! I took the pieces I need for the audition, and you can just give me the rest tonight!”

And then, in Kurt’s silence, she knew, and in her sharp intake of breath, he knew she did.

“I took your music” Kurt repeated, and then “His name is Blaine Anderson”.

*

It wasn’t until they hung up that Kurt looked again at the music. He typed the number carefully in to his contacts, checking once and then again that it was right, but not ready to call, not yet.

His eyes fell on the dots that made a melody, rising and falling. And then the lyrics, right beneath Blaine’s handwritten note.

“All along I believed I would find you…” it read, and it was that, above anything else that the past almost-year had thrown at him, that broke Kurt Hummel.