Blaine opened the bathroom door quietly. His eyes, he knew, were ringed with red, and his face was puffy in that tear-ravaged way that had become so familiar in his private moments, late at night when nobody could see.

Dan was closer than Blaine expected, standing right on the other side of the door, hands steadfast on hips. Blaine attempted a smile but his efforts were pitiful.

“What’s going on?” Dan asked, and Blaine said, “I can’t do this”.

Dan dropped his hands, moved closer, reaching out for Blaine’s waist. Blaine braced himself for the confusion, the anger, the fallout, but instead Dan said, “I know”, and in the space of two words the confusion shifted, and was all Blaine’s.

“What?” Blaine asked, dumbstruck, and Dan laughed, a single chuckle, and pulled Blaine closer to him.

“If I’m honest? I couldn’t believe you made it to the airport”.

Blaine slumped forward, resting his head on Dan’s shoulder as he continued talking.

“Every day I thought it would finally be the one where you broke it off. You’re not yourself, Blaine, and I’ve loved you long enough to be able to say that. I was preparing myself every single day, thinking I would say I love you and you’d respond with we’re done”.

“I do love you” Blaine protested, and then “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I didn’t want to believe it was true” Dan’s voice cracked and for a second Blaine wasn’t sure if he could finish the conversation. He considered just letting go and…leaving. He couldn’t bear to see somebody so sad because of him, but he owed Dan an explanation. He could leave, and break a heart, and barely even wonder if his choices had been right, but not without explaining. He had to do that.

“Is there somebody else?” Dan asked, and Blaine floundered before answering “No”.

And then “Maybe”.

“What’s his name?” Dan asked, and Blaine was too tired to lie, so he flipped the scarf, his stomach somersaulting as he saw the etching again and said “Kurt…Hummel”.

*

The apartment was so quiet. Kurt could hear taxis hurtling past the building, many floors below, taking people home to their lovers, and their families, and he lay there and yearned until his heart ached for the day that somebody would be rushing home to him.

His phone buzzed harshly on the hard wood floor, and he leant over from his nest on the couch to read the name on the caller display.

Dad.

Kurt wriggled forward and grabbed the phone, pressing the answer button just as it was about to stop ringing.

“Hey Dad”, he said, and he didn’t know until he heard his father’s voice just how much he was craving comfort, and familiarity, and home.

*

They didn’t fight.

It ended quietly, with dignity, and maturity, and a whole lot of love, because that was the one thing that wasn’t being disputed. They loved each other madly, and in a parallel world…of course. It just wasn’t right anymore.

In the room next door, a couple they’d never met fell apart wrapped around each other. One floor below, Blaine's parents went wordlessly to bed. In the bar downstairs, Trent flirted shamelessly with the waiter.

Life went on.

Puck was waiting at the door when Blaine returned to his room, and the sight of the self-labeled tough guy sitting wearily on the ground threatened to break Blaine again, so he quickly unlocked the door, ushered Puck inside.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Puck asked, and Blaine shook his head, reaching for the mini-bar, another miniature spirit to numb the ache.

“Have you called yet?”

Again, Blaine shook his head, twisting the cap off his whiskey, swallowing the contents of the bottle in three gulps.

“I wanted you to be here”, Blaine said, and Puck puffed out his chest, nodded, just once, and said, “I’m here. Dial.”

*

They were talking about cars when the call waiting tone sounded, a shrill beeping in Kurt’s right ear.

“Hang on dad…” Kurt interrupted, pulling the phone away to see who was demanding his attention this time. It was a number he didn’t recognize, calling from a landline somewhere in Manhattan. Despite the late hour, Kurt guessed it was work. Probably Alana, checking in to see how the Vogue interview had gone. She could leave a message, he decided. Right now, he was talking to his dad.

“Sorry, I’m here” he announced, silencing the waiting call with one jolt of his finger.

In a hotel room at Columbus Circle, a man put down the phone, defeated, and said “No answer”.

*

They almost drank the fridge dry.

First they were silent, Puck letting Blaine seek his solace at the bottom of a bottle, then another, until the alcohol loosened his tongue and he began to mumble words like snow and destiny and kiss, punctuated with Kurt, always Kurt.

Once Blaine started talking, it was like a dam had broken. He lamented his relationship with Dan, and his voice was tinged with regret, and sadness, and longing for something that could have been so good, and had been, for such a long time. In that relationship, Blaine had become himself, fully inhabiting his skin for the first time, as he learned what felt like everything about kissing, and trusting, and loving with his whole heart.

But I’ll never know it all, he thought, recalling Jeremiah’s words of…six years ago, now.

There was still so much to learn, Blaine knew, and in his mind he had Dan so close behind him, and Kurt somewhere in front, but for this moment, on the floor of his hotel room with a tiny bottle in his hand, it was just Blaine. He was unattached for the first time in a very long time, and it felt…freeing.

He might never find Kurt. He might dial the number over and over, listen to the tone ring out repeatedly, and never again hear Kurt’s voice. He could be miles away by now, cities, states and countries between them, and Blaine might never know. But he’d done what he had to.

He felt released.

“What do you think I should do?” he asked, and Puck, eyes closed, mouth smiling, said, “Just be present”.

Blaine liked that. Something would happen next, that much was certain. Maybe he’d dial the number again, and find Kurt five minutes from now. Maybe their paths would cross in a month, if it was meant to be, maybe in a year, maybe when they were both old and barely remembered. Maybe they’d never meet. Blaine didn’t know, but it would be something. And all he had to do was be ready. Be present.

Puck was drifting quietly in to sleep, so Blaine pulled a blanket from the bed and draped it softly over his friend. He placed his empty bottle gently on top of the fridge, pulled himself to his feet, grabbed his bag. He needed some air.

As an afterthought, Blaine pulled the scarf from where it rested on a chair, folded it carefully, placed it tenderly in his bag. He’d found it now. He wouldn’t let it go again.

*

He hadn’t meant to walk so far. He probably hadn’t meant to walk at all, but the December air had filled his lungs, and suddenly Blaine needed to be moving, to be away from the Empire, where his parents, his friends, his ex-fiancée slept, their unintended pressures weighing him down. His legs were unsteady at first, heavy from the alcohol and the length of the day, but as he walked, his energy began to return, so he kept on going. He walked until he could stand no more, for what felt like hours but in reality was only twenty minutes, and then he stumbled wearily down the steps to the first bar he noticed, paid the cover, tripped over his feet as he walked to the bar in what he hoped was a straight line, and ordered a beer.

In the brightest of the room’s dark corners, a petite brunette crooned her way through an Ella Fitzgerald standard, not quite piquing Blaine’s interest enough to make him watch for more than a few seconds. He was tired, he realized as he climbed on to a barstool. He guessed rehearsing, then cancelling, your own wedding would do that to a person.

“Bad day?” The barman asked as Blaine rested his head gently on his arms.

“Bad year” Blaine mused, scrunching his eyes closed, hoping in vain that if he tried not to think about it, it would all just go away.

“Tell me about it” the barman sympathized, and Blaine thought it was probably rhetorical, but he started to speak anyway.

“I met this guy” he began, lifting his head to see the barman take his own seat on the other side of the bar.

“I met this guy and we had the most amazing night and then…nothing. But it wasn’t a one-night stand, or anything like that at all, really. We just met, and talked, and then he left. He had a boyfriend. So did I.” Blaine snorted. “Actually, I was supposed to marry him – my boyfriend that is – tomorrow, but I called it off because I felt like it just wasn’t over with Kurt – that’s the guy.”

Blaine was in full flow now, staring down at his hands as he spoke, not knowing if the barman was still listening, and realizing that somehow it didn’t matter at all.

“So now I’ve walked out on my own wedding on the strength of one night, with no idea how to even find this guy; no idea if he’d even want to be found. And I feel so guilty for loving (and oh Blaine thought to himself, that was the first time I’ve referred to it as love) a guy who for all I know could be happy with someone else. I could have walked out on my wedding, on the greatest guy I’ve ever known, for nothing. I just felt like I had to be sure, you know?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before carrying on.

“Which brings me back to Kurt. He loved his boyfriend, he said as much, but he wasn’t sure. There was something there that he was questioning, and every time I remember that I get a little bit of hope, false hope probably, that it didn’t work out, and that somewhere he’s waiting for me. And then I feel guilty all over again because a breakup is an awful thing to wish on somebody. I always wonder if they ended up together. He just…he wasn’t sure”.

“I know”.

The voice startled Blaine. He’d almost forgotten, so caught up in the passion of his monologue, that he was talking to anybody at all. And why was this man, this stranger in a bar, pretending to know anything? His voice was soft, and thick with something Blaine couldn’t quite place. He knew the words, I know, but he couldn’t find a context for them yet. Blaine looked up, confused.

“He wasn’t sure, but I was. So I let him go. And I guess that answers your question, doesn’t it? They didn’t end up together.”

Blaine’s head was beginning to spin. Had he really drunk so much that he was losing all grip on reality? Something Was Happening, Blaine could feel it, but he had no concept of what. He closed his eyes, braced himself. Opened them. Looked at the barman, who was extending a hand.

“Blaine, right?”

Blaine nodded, and took the hand with his own. The barman held on tighter than necessary; smiled like he’d won a prize.

“I’m Sebastian”.

*

Blaine felt his jaw go slack, his eyes widen, his face arrange itself into an expression akin to a cartoon. Everything was happening so quickly now; Sebastian was clambering over the bar, throwing his arms around Blaine, dancing a little jig as he cried out “I knew it, I knew we’d find you!”

The brunette had finished her set and was making her way to the end of the bar, shrouded in shadows, just dark enough to enjoy her drink without the leering eyes of the mostly intoxicated clientele.

“Hey Rachel, this is Blaine” Sebastian called in her direction, and Blaine had thought she was familiar, but it was only now he realized why; he’d watched her perform, spent an evening in her apartment.

“Nice to meet you Blaine” she said, uninterested, not even looking up.

“No, Rachel” Sebastian said, and there was something in his voice that made her look up, made her meet his eyes with hers.

“This is Blaine” he repeated, and there was a look of recognition, a squeak of surprise, and the girl, Rachel, was crossing the bar in strides, throwing her arms hard around Blaine, crying real tears in to his neck.

“Of all the bars in Manhattan, Blaine…” she said, holding him at arms length, taking in his eyes, his smile, his face, pulling him roughly back to her chest.

“All those thousands of bars, and you chose this one…”

And then “We have to call Kurt”, and in the space of five words, Blaine was suddenly terrified.

*

Kurt was mid-way through a face mask when the phone rang. He thought about ignoring it, but seeing Sebastian’s name on the caller display told him that wasn’t wise. His ex-boyfriend had a certain tendency to over-react. Ignoring a phone call could result in the cops kicking the door down, the fire department being sent out, any number of other crazy things. Kurt grabbed the phone.

“I’m fine, Seb. I told you…”

“I-think-you-should-come-for-a-drink” Sebastian blurted, cutting Kurt off.

“What?” Kurt asked.

“To the bar. I think you should come for a drink. At the bar.”

“Yes, I got the ‘at the bar’ part Seb, but I’m honestly fine…” Kurt’s voice was confused. Sebastian was just trying to help, he knew, but he was pretty sure he’d been convincing when he said he needed some time alone.

“Kurt…” he said, and something in Sebastian’s voice made Kurt still. He sounded full somehow. Full, and on the verge of cracking, all at once.

“What’s happened?” Kurt asked, and he had no idea why but his eyes began to prickle with tears.

“We found him”.

Kurt knew immediately that it was true. The burn became a release, and the first tear cascaded quickly down his cheek, caught on his top lip, and was gone before he realized he was crying.

“I’m on my way” he choked out, and his voice was thick with tears.

“You ok?” Sebastian asked, and Kurt inhaled, and smiled although Sebastian couldn’t see him, and said “Yes”.

*

“He’s on his way” Sebastian announced, and Rachel took Blaine’s hand, squeezed, asked “Are you ready?”

“No” Blaine admitted, and then “Yes…I’ve been ready for a long time, but I only realized tonight”.

“He should be here within the hour,” Sebastian said, and suddenly Blaine needed some air. It was…a lot.

“I just need to walk for a second. Just in to the park, just for a second.” he said, pushing himself off of the bar stool.

“I’ll come back, I promise”.

Sebastian looked wary, but he nodded.

“He’s on his way,” he repeated, and Blaine’s heart swelled.

“Finally”.

*

There is a moment.

Everything seems slower, and shrouded somehow in clouds, and mist, and magic. Your jaw might drop, or your head might feel foggy, and you have to force yourself to stop, and breathe; centre yourself, root your feet a little more firmly to the ground.

And then the haze dissipates and everything is clear, like it wasn’t before, but you didn’t even realize. Everything is clear, now.

You can forget the heaviness of five minutes before; forget the tension you didn’t even notice until it was gone. Something is lifting, and something is shifting, and the stars are bright and shocking, because stars in the city are rare.

This is so rare.

Because now there are stars. And there is a moment.

Blaine was still drunk, that was doubtless, but the cold air and the wind hitting the ice of the Woolman rink were sobering as he wandered without thinking towards the bench where he and Kurt had talked. It seemed as if an entire lifetime had passed since that night. Since they’d shared favorite songs, and secrets, and each other, without revealing any details at all. Since the first minute among thousands that followed where they had loved each other, just a bit, maybe without even knowing.

 “I just need a minute” Blaine spoke aloud, although nobody was around to hear him. Just a minute, he thought, and then he’d go back to the bar, and Kurt would be waiting, and after that there would be no more moments alone. That was something Blaine knew. If he went back to the bar, and if Kurt was there, and if they felt the same way, Blaine as a single entity would cease to exist. They would become Blaine-and-Kurt, or Kurt-and-Blaine, and that was all he wanted, but it was huge. He needed one last pocket of time where he was just him. Then he’d be ready.

He was cold, he realized, as he sat down on the bench, and he’d left his coat when he walked out of the hotel. He pulled his messenger bag open, hoping for a pair of gloves, or a hat. He smiled when he saw Kurt’s scarf curled at the bottom. In everything that had happened since, and the haze of the whisky, he had almost forgotten how he had come to be shivering in a park rather than preparing for a wedding. His own wedding, which had been imminent two hours ago, and then nonexistent, and wow, it was true that a day made all the difference. Blaine wrapped the scarf around his shoulders, smiled at the cool silk against his neck. Breathed.

He was almost there. It was almost time.

*

“Do you think it’s changed you?” Rachel had asked him a while back, and Kurt had screwed up his face in confusion.

“Love” She clarified.

“Blaine. You just seem so much lighter since all of this. It suits you Kurt”.

He had smiled, and let out one of those breathy laughs that meant he was happy. He didn’t even know if he could love Blaine after one night together and so many more apart. Had he been changed by a middle-of-the-night kiss, by he of the sheet music and hip bumps and excellent taste in gloves? Kurt didn’t know. But he had changed.

He was contemplative as he walked towards the park. He’d altered so drastically in the past year. What if Blaine had no interest in the version of Kurt he was presented with now? What if he’d fallen for the sullen boy who had once been a singer but didn’t know what he was anymore? What if he missed the unsure man who had analyzed his taste in music, and kissed him in the snow, but who couldn’t define his own dreams? Tough, thought Kurt. That boy didn’t exist anymore, and that, in part, was Blaine’s own doing.

Kurt had heard the horror stories; knew that the park at midnight was almost inviting trouble, and that no New Yorker in their right mind would go in alone, but he wasn't really in his right mind. His thoughts were darting around, from excited, to terrified, from doing-this-right-now to going back to his apartment and barricading the door. This was huge.

Everything was pulling him towards the bar, towards Sebastian and Rachel. Towards Blaine, who he’d said would come back to him if he was supposed to.

Who had come back to him.

Kurt had to grip the arm of a bench at that thought. He wasn’t convinced he’d even believed in fate, back then, spouting words about destiny to a stranger with shining eyes. He’d just said it. It had just come out.

Now though? In Kurt’s eyes, there was no denying that the stars, be they skylights or souls in human bodies, were aligning.

He slowed as he got closer to the ice rink, smiling. Just one second, one look at where it all began, and then he’d be ready to go and seize this thing, whatever it was.

Everything had changed, Kurt realized. The only common factors in the scenario, same location, one year apart, were Kurt and Blaine.

“We’re the pieces,” Blaine had said.

Kurt was so close to finally completing the puzzle.

*

It felt to Blaine like he had been sitting there for hours, but in reality it was only a few short minutes before he stood. He didn't notice the scarf slipping quickly from his shoulders on to the now empty bench, didn't notice the wind rocking the branches, or how he stumbled slightly as he walked. He stepped softly on to the edge of the ice, prodding with his toe before placing the weight of his foot down, walking slowly, each step a new risk, a bit like love, actually. He walked until he reached the middle of the rink. He looked up at the stars, and wondered if it could be true that these huge purveyors of light, a world away from here, could align and change a person. Was it fate, really, that had lead him back to this place, and this feeling, and this man?

Or was it serendipity?

Blaine sunk slowly to the ground, sat cross-legged on the ice, and let his mind clear itself of everything. No more guilt about Dan, no more worries about Kurt not feeling the same. No more what-could-have-been. No more what-still-might-be.

“Be present”, Puck had told him, and now he was. There was just this night, and this ice rink.

There was just this moment.

*

Kurt rounded the corner slowly, the chill of the ice creeping towards him and flushing his cheeks. He hadn’t been here in a while; hadn’t been able to face looking at the trees lining the ice, and the bench where he had opened his soul to a stranger. He wandered closer, thinking maybe he’d just sit for a second. The bench was cold on the back of his legs as he sunk down, and he shivered. He felt something cold against his hand and reached out. Kurt’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of the scarf.

He had bought it in Ohio, second hand, when he was only seventeen. It was the scarf he’d worn on his first day at NYADA, on his first date with Sebastian, the night he’d met Blaine. And now here it was, on a park bench in New York City, a million miles from the place Kurt first saw it; a million miles from the teenage boy who had saved and saved to be able to wear it.

He let the cool silk run through his fingers; wrapped it around his neck; sighing as he remembered how wonderful it felt.

Kurt looked up, and really, it could not have happened any other way.

It was cold in the park. The wind was loud, the air sharp. Above Kurt was a single star.

And there in the middle of the rink, was a boy, who had searched and waited and hoped, just as Kurt had.

He stood. He walked slowly to the edge of the rink. It was as if Blaine sensed him there; he looked up; grinned.

Oh thought Kurt, and his heart was filled with clarity and light, there you are. I’ve been looking for you forever.

*

Everything seemed slow as Kurt stepped on to the ice, and half-glided towards Blaine in a way that was far too elegant for a human being. He came to a stop within reaching distance, and Blaine had to restrain himself from touching, holding, anything to prove that Kurt was real. Instead he just stood, hands at his side, breathed out “Hi”.

Kurt laughed, one of his breathy laughs that meant he was happy, and Blaine realized he couldn’t wait to discover what each of Kurt’s sounds and expressions meant.

“Blaine Anderson…” Kurt said, his voice full of something that sounded like wonder, and Blaine dipped his head, bashful, warmed by the way his name sounded on Kurt’s tongue.

“Kurt Hummel” he replied, and then “Oh my god, hey, why are you crying?”

Blaine reached out now, pulling Kurt towards him with hands on his waist, letting them rest there as he stroked gently over the fabric of Kurt’s coat.

“Because you’re here” Kurt choked out, and Blaine let his hands squeeze gently at Kurt’s hips.

“You’re here, and I’ve been looking for so long, and so much has happened that I wished you were there to see, and now you are and I don’t know what to say”.

“Then don’t say anything,” Blaine said, smiling, dipping his head.

“Kiss me”.

He did.

*

One kiss became two, and then another, and by the time Kurt’s tongue dipped in, Blaine had lost count entirely. If it was still cold, they didn’t notice. The trees swayed, the wind hissed, and Kurt and Blaine stood wrapped in each other in the middle of an ice rink and didn’t notice anything but the way their breath mingled, and the way their hands fit, Blaine’s on Kurt’s hip, Kurt’s curled in to Blaine’s hair.

Kurt’s kisses were like a story, Blaine thought. With each one, a part of Kurt became a part of Blaine, and when they pulled back and Kurt said, “I want to tell you everything”, Blaine whispered, “You just did”, and guided their hips, chests, mouths back together.

“Were you looking?” Kurt asked when they finally pulled apart, lips kiss-swollen, hearts beating too fast.

“Not at first” Blaine admitted, “But then…yes”.

“Were you?”

Kurt lifted Blaine’s hand to his lips, softly kissed his knuckles.

“I was looking from the second I got in to that cab and drove away”, Kurt said.

“I didn’t know it at first, but I was looking the whole time”.

*

They were quiet as they walked towards the bar, both aware that there were so many stories to tell, and to start right now would be overwhelming. Instead they held hands tightly, and when their wrists bumped together and their pulse points touched, Kurt thought that maybe he’d never felt so alive.

They came to a stop at the top of the stairs. Somewhere beyond the door, Rachel was singing a song from Wicked, and the words about being changed for better made Kurt want to cry. Behind the bar, Sebastian poured drinks for the last late-night dwellers, looked at his watch, wondered where Kurt and Blaine had got to. Outside, Blaine took the scarf from where it was draped over Kurt’s arm, placed it softly around his neck. Kurt sighed, content.

“Do you believe in fate yet?” he asked, placing a tiny kiss on the underside of Blaine’s jaw, and Blaine took his hand, and lead him down the stairs, and said, “I believe in you”.