Chapter 6

"She f-f-fell down and she won't w-wake up."

"Can you see if she's breathing, honey?"

"Yeah… yeah she's breathing. Her chest g-goes up and down."

"Good; that's good. Did she hit her head?"

"I don't know. She was m-m-making cookies for us."

"It's okay, Kurt; don't worry, someone is coming to help your mom… has she fainted before?"

"Um, I think another time, but my dad was home. I want my dad."

"I know, don't hang up, though. Stay on the phone with me, okay?"

"'kay."

"Where is your dad?"

"H-he went to w-work cuz Mommy said she was f-feeling good enough to watch me by herself. H-he told me t-t-to take good care of h-her."

"I'm sure you did a great job; you're still doing a great job. Just stay by her and keep talking to me until the ambulance comes. Try and take deep breaths."

"I'm s-scared. I want her to j-just wake up."

"You're doing fine; is he still breathing normally?"

"He's breathing, but it's, um, it's loud and shaky—is that bad?"

"No, it's okay; it's normal. He's unconscious?"

"Y-yeah, I mean I think, I—I mean he moves sometimes—his hand moves, but he doesn't answer when I say his name—"

"Kurt—is it okay if I call you Kurt?"

"Y-Yeah, it's okay."

"Kurt, you are doing everything right, you don't need to cry; help is on the way, all right?"

"Yeah, o-okay,"

"I'll stay on the phone with you until the ambulance comes or your friends get outside; just try to stay calm, can you do that?"

"I'll try… He's bleeding; I didn't even—he's—what do I do?"

"From his head? Where?"

"Yeah, yeah the side of his head."

"He probably hit his head when he fell; the EMT will look at it; don't worry."

"He's bleeding a lot though, what if he—"

"Head wounds bleed a lot; it'll be okay, he might just need stitches at the hospital. Just hang in there, you're doing great."

"What if they can't see us in the rain?"

"They'll find you."

"I—I can see the lights—they're pulling into the parking lot."

"All right, are you ready to hang up?"

"No…please, just… just stay on the line with me until they're out of the ambulance with us? I don't want—"

"I won't hang up."

Kurt hated waiting rooms. The blue-gray glow of fluorescent lights that stung his eyes; the plastic chairs formed to fit a body type nobody actually has; three month-old, rippled gossip magazines displaying scandals on their covers the world has already long forgotten, and the hanging print of—what appeared to be—a barn in a field, begging the question 'who the hell thought it was a good idea to purchase this, and what fucked up whack job thought it was a good idea to paint it in the first place?'. He hated all those things. But mostly, he hated the smell.

It didn't matter where the waiting room was—doctor's office, DMV, dentist, office building—they all smelled the same: disinfectant, talcum powder, and anxiety. And it wasn't just the smell of people sweating or the occasional stench of a child wetting itself; oh no, it was something much worse than that. Fear has a smell, and it put Kurt on edge.

He was sitting in one of the ill-made chairs, doubled over with his elbows on his knees watching the water drip from his hair and form a puddle on the scuffed linoleum when a Styrofoam cup was thrust into his view; the aroma of coffee momentarily overrode the other scents in the room. He stared at the hand offering it.

"Go on and take it," The owner of the hand kept his voice gentle, "It'll be good for you."

Kurt forced himself to engage and take the cup. He wanted to say thank you, too, but apparently that was too much for his frazzled brain. He stared down into the brown liquid silently.

The coffee provider sat down in the seat beside him; a move no one else had dared make—preferring to gather on the other side of the room and give Kurt his space while he came undone.

Kurt chanced a glance at his brazen new companion. He recognized him from his time at Dalton, but his name escaped him.

The boy beside him seemed to recognize the confusion on Kurt's features, "Aaron."

Kurt nodded dumbly and managed to find his voice, but it sounded too tight; too shrill, "I'm sorry, I remember you, but—"

"Don't sweat it; you're stressed," Aaron shrugged, "I just… I thought you might like a little company over here."

Kurt sat back in his chair, still cradling the cup between his hands.

"Did they get a hold of his parents?" Aaron ventured, taking a sip from his own little white cup.

"His mom is on her way," Kurt wished Aaron had remained with the others; he wasn't in the mood to talk, and he preferred to do his emotional spiraling on his own.

Aaron fell quiet for a long minute before suddenly blurting out, "I was the one who teased him about forgetting the lyrics this morning."

Kurt stared at him vacantly, "And?"

"And I feel shitty about it;" Aaron couldn't seem to hold Kurt's gaze so he stared at his sopping sleeve instead, "If I had known he was going to end up—"

"He's not dead; you can apologize yourself soon enough." Wes had approached seeing Kurt's sudden discomfort; he gave Aaron a pointed look.

"I didn't mean he was, I just meant—Kurt, you know I wasn't trying to say I thought, I mean it was just a seizure, not like a—" Aaron babbled; his cheeks red.

Kurt shook his head, "It's fine; your intentions weren't bad, I knew what you were trying to say… but, honestly, I'd prefer it if we didn't talk right now."

Aaron glanced up at Wes before looking back to Kurt and nodding his head slowly, "Oh, okay; sorry, I just… sorry."

"Thanks for the coffee," Kurt said quietly, though he had no plans to drink a single drop of it.

"Sure," Aaron got to his feet and shuffled toward the other side of the room.

Wes touched a gentle hand to Kurt's shoulder before moving back to sit with the other Warblers.

Kurt closed his eyes and tried to empty his head, but all he could see was a wet blue polo and a flower of blood blooming into dark hair. He opened his eyes again and lowered his nose closer to his cup. Coffee was a good smell. Coffee was the smell of dates with Blaine and early morning drives to Dalton.

He let himself be soothed and tried, for what felt like the hundreth time, to pick his brain for anything he could have added to Blaine's chart. The nurse had handed it to him calmly when he first arrived in the waiting room and told him to fill out what he could, and they would get the rest when Blaine's parents arrived. He'd stared down at the forms and written Blaine's name in a shaky scrawl. After the basics—name, age, gender, height—he'd stopped, pen poised above the pages; water dripped off his hand and made ugly swollen marks in the blue ink as he racked his brain. He knew Blaine wore Lacoste Essential cologne; he knew Blaine would pick out every red M&M to eat before consuming any of the others in a pack; he knew Blaine liked to lie out in the yard in the fall just to smell the earthy, sweet scent of fallen leaves. He didn't know what blood type he was; he wasn't aware of any allergies to medication; he didn't know who the Anderson's health insurance carrier was. He had handed the chart back to the nurse at the front desk with a miserable look on his face; he wanted to be of some use, any use, so he added quietly, "He's scared of needles."

His eyes followed Nick as he strode up to the front desk purposefully. He was the fourth Warbler to approach the irritable looking woman—the others had tried their hands at gleaning some sort of information about Blaine or demanding entrance to see him with no result while Kurt watched silently. He was turned away quickly; his shoulders drooped, and a grim look crossed his face as he looked back at the other Dalton boys and sank back down in his seat.

Kurt wasn't surprised; when he'd begged to be taken to Blaine when he'd first arrived in the ER, his shoes leaving wet trails all the way from the doors to the desk, the nurse had shaken her head sympathetically, "Family only; I'm sorry, you'll just have to wait."

So he did. He waited and tried to keep his mind at bay. He waited and ignored the texts piling up in his inbox and the calls from his father wondering where he was. He waited and wished he were religious so he could pray.

The sliding doors leading in from the parking lot opened and closed constantly; a soft puff of air breezing in with each opening. When Kurt was little, he thought it sounded like the hospital was breathing; sucking in life with each individual who stepped in from the outside world only to slide closed again to hold its breath until the next person searching for an injured or ailing loved one stumbled in through its mouth. He heard the great breath in and saw a pair of black heels tapping past him toward the nurses' station. He recognized those shoes. His head snapped up to watch Elizabeth Anderson approach the woman behind the desk. When his ears proved useless to aiding him in gleaning any information, he scrutinized her every move to try and discern from her body language what she was learning about her son. Her shoulders were stiff; her head bobbed up and down as the nurse spoke.

The Warblers were doing the same—Wes was on his feet; the others hunched forward in their seats to listen. The nurse pushed a clipboard across the counter that Elizabeth lifted to scrutinize until a second nurse came around the counter to lead her through a second set of doors. She glanced over her shoulder and met Kurt's eyes briefly before disappearing deeper into the ER.

Kurt stared at the space she had just occupied with a knot in his throat. He'd invested himself in her arrival. Once she was there, he had been sure, he would get answers; he would see Blaine. He jumped when a hand touched his shoulder.

David retracted his hand quickly, but didn't move from the seat beside Kurt, "We could hear a little bit of what they were saying; Blaine's stable and he's awake. She's going back to see him now."

Kurt nodded; if he spoke, he was sure the lump in his throat would dissolve into pathetic tears.

David breached the space between them again with a hand on his knee, "You'll get your chance; just hang in there."

"Thank you, David." Kurt swallowed hard to keep the tears under his control.

He didn't make David move away; he took a small comfort from the warm hand on his soaked jeans. He tipped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes; tried to focus on his breathing.

He was in the Senior Commons at Dalton; his blazer warm against his skin, and the whole space smelled like new books and varnish… but it was oddly quiet. He was alone—a rarity for the space; it was constantly buzzing with the hum of boys passing the door, turning pages; whispered voices. He walked around the bookcases, scanning the spines for a title he wasn't entirely sure of. He pulled one free at random. Its binding was weak and its cover may have once been navy, but it had faded to cobalt-tinted grey. He opened it and was disappointed; all the pages were blank. He replaced it with the rest and turned back to study the empty space. He felt on edge; paranoid like something was going to jump out at him.

"Blaine?" He called out the name uncertainly; his voice too loud in the silence.

The quiet fell upon the space once more; there was not so much as a whisper of breath save his own.

"Blaine?" He called out again, his voice was loud and frightened.

"Stop shouting, I'm right here."

Kurt jumped at the sudden voice but then relaxed seeing the familiar figure seated at the table. How had he not seen him come in? "I didn't realize you were here."

Blaine smiled and motioned at the empty chair across from him, "Come help me with this."

Kurt took the offered seat and turned his attention to what Blaine was pointing at. He had a scattering of materials on the table—beads, feathers, music note cut-outs, plastic stars; game pieces. The mahogany surface was littered with things, but Kurt couldn't discern any sort of rhyme or reason for it, "What is all this?"

Blaine looked down at the space too, a frown line formed between his eyebrows as he appraised the items, "I'm not really sure; I thought you would know."

"Well, I don't," Kurt looked around the room again; where were the windows?

"Think hard," Blaine insisted. He looked down at the table again and plucked a set of keys from the fray of materials. He jangled them in front of Kurt, "What do you suppose these open?"

Kurt let out an exasperated sigh, "Blaine, you put all this stuff here; why would I know better than you what any of it's for?"

Blaine laughed, "But I didn't! It was here when I got here."

"Then why do you care what any of it's for anyway?" Kurt felt oddly claustrophobic in such a big space.

"You don't feel it?" Blaine drew his feet up onto the chair and wrapped his arms around his shins.

Kurt shook his head.

"This stuff is for us, I can tell," Blaine rested his chin on his knees, "We just have to figure out what it is."

Kurt turned his gaze back to the table and suddenly he felt it too; there was a puzzle to all those things and it was meant for them. He felt unsettled; dizzy.

"Do you see it yet?" Blaine dropped his feet back down to the floor to lean over the tabletop again, "Kurt?"

"Kurt? Kurt?"

Kurt blinked against the harsh fluorescents; disoriented by the hum of the air conditioner and constant shuffle of feet. He reached up a hand to rub his eyes and realized he'd been covered with an ugly pale orange hospital blanket. The hospital. Blaine. He snapped awake immediately and stared intently at David, "How long was I asleep?"

"Only like twenty minutes or so," David assured him, "There's someone here who wants to talk to us, though, and I thought you might want to be awake for it."

Kurt followed David's gaze to the woman in front of them; he sat up straighter immediately and tried to rake a hand through his damp hair, "Hello, Mrs. Anderson; how is he?"

Despite her neatly pressed dress and carefully styled hair, she looked exhausted; her features were worn and her eyes red, "He's doing fine; they moved him to a regular room. It's going to be a while before we get any test results—"

"What tests?" Kurt mentally kicked himself for the interjection, but he couldn't help himself.

"Tests to see what caused the seizure," She replied vaguely, "It's going to be a while before we get results though, so I think it would be best if you all went home; I'll call you as soon as we find something out."

"No," Kurt said flatly, getting to his feet.

She blinked at him, and a flush of confusion turned her cheeks pinker beneath her blush.

"I want to see him," Kurt pressed. He did not wait for hours in his own personal purgatory to be turned so easily away.

"He's sleeping, Kurt; the nurses said he'll probably sleep all day," Her voice was not unkind but it remained firm.

"I don't care," He insisted.

"Kurt there really is no point to—"

"Please, Mrs. Anderson, I need to see him. I need to see for myself he's all right; I've had people I loved in the hospital before, and it's just—" He had not meant to get teary eyed in front of his boyfriend's mother, but he could feel the hot, familiar sting in the corners of his eyes, "They wouldn't even let me ride in the ambulance so I could stay with him. I just need to see him for myself. Please."

Her resolve faltered; she fidgeted with her wedding ring, "… okay."

"Thank you," He choked out. He resisted the urge to throw his arms around her in relieved gratitude.

"Call as soon as you know something, and give him our love," David squeezed Kurt's shoulder as he, too, got to his feet.

"I will; thank you, David—all of you—for everything," Kurt wondered absently what had happened to his coffee cup as he watched the others file out the door into the slow drizzle outside.

"Come along then," Elizabeth turned on her heel and began walking, a nervous energy that Kurt could almost feel preventing her from standing still in the waiting room any longer.

As he followed Elizabeth through the bright yellow doors of the ER, he felt a pressing tightness in his chest. The only thing Kurt hated more than waiting rooms was hospital rooms. He wasn't sure if his heart was thrumming in his ears with anticipation for seeing Blaine or the anxiety of being surrounded by curtains and gurneys and IV stands. He inhaled through his mouth (the aroma that came with the air through his nose would have had him retching), and listened to the click of Elizabeth's heels as she led him to an elevator.

"He's really very tired," She said again, still fidgeting with her ring, "The doctor said it's because of the seizure."

Kurt nodded but said nothing.

"John just left this morning for a business trip; he was in the air when I tried to call and tell him Blaine was here; I haven't gotten a hold of him yet, so it's just me for now," She was babbling and still twisting her ring left and then right over and over again.

Kurt wasn't sure what to say; he hadn't had much experience interacting with Blaine's mother outside of the typical social pleasantries, "I'm sure as soon as you get a hold of him to tell him what happened he'll get a flight back here."

She didn't seem to hear him; she stared at the display above their heads flashing the floor level in red numbers. When they hit three, the elevator lurched to a halt and the doors slid open, but Elizabeth remained where she was, "Kurt?"

He paused, half-in and half-out of the elevator, "Yes?"

"Have you…" She finally stopped twisting the ring, "Have you noticed anything off about Blaine lately?"

He didn't tell her he'd been wondering over the same thing. He didn't tell her that he couldn't remember who drove him to the hospital or how he ended up in his particular chair in the waiting room because he was too busy trying to pick up the pieces he must have missed leading up to Blaine's sudden collapse. He met her eyes for a brief second, "I can't think of anything off the top of my head… can you?"

"I don't know," She stepped slowly out of the elevator; she looked at him like there was something more she wanted to say, but then she was moving again and the moment passed, "… his room is this way."

Kurt followed her closely; still wary of the space around him despite being free of the emergency room.

She paused outside the door, "Try not to wake him, he's—"

"Tired. I know," Kurt wanted to shove past her and run into the room, but he remained still until she turned the knob quietly and beckoned him to follow.

Despite his best attempts to not disturb Blaine's sleep, the second Kurt slipped into a chair at the bedside, Blaine stirred, "Kurt?"

Kurt suppressed a fresh wave of tears; he'd never been so happy to see amber irises gazing back at his,  "Hey, you; how are you feeling?"

"Tired," Blaine's voice was hoarse and his eyes were red and bleary.

"Try and rest, Honey," His mother stepped up to the other side of the bed; she reached out to smooth his hair, "You've had a long day."

Blaine gave Kurt a groggy smile, "I had three shots and five stitches."

"Four needles in one day?" Kurt smiled and reached out to squeeze Blaine's hand, "Impressive."

"More like traumatizing," Blaine mumbled.

Kurt noted the little line of stitches near Blaine's temple. The 911 operator had been right of course—all that blood from a line no more than an inch across. The memory of clutching Blaine close and crying for help in the parking lot sent a shudder down his spine, but kept his tone cheery, "Go to sleep and try to forget about it. Dream about puppies or butterflies or something else pleasant."

"You?" Blaine murmured. His eyes were closed and he was already half-asleep.

Kurt glanced nervously at Elizabeth, but squeezed Blaine's hand a little tighter, "Sure, but only nice things, please."

A ghost of a smile crossed Blaine's face, "Always."

Silence blanketed the room, but it didn't bother Kurt; he didn't even mind Elizabeth's presence so near by. He folded his free arm on the bed and rested his cheek on it; the other hand still firmly gripped in Blaine's. He was not good with waiting rooms or emergency rooms, but holding someone's hand… Kurt Hummel was good at that.

To Be Continued...