They finish the night on Blaine's doorstep again, the blush of the morning sun is trickling through the cracks in the gates and swallowing up the front yard in shadows. Blaine's legs are damp from sitting in the dewy grass.

“Sleep for the morning, okay?” Artie tells him, “I'll pick you up at three.”

He is too tired to disagree. The unturned covers of his bed are so inviting, even the bright light through his curtains cannot wake him. He falls asleep immediately, fully dressed with grass stains on the ass of his pants.

***

The rest of them continue walking, watching the pavements come alive: the early wakers on their runs. Dog walks. Paper runs. The yawning dressing gowned folk letting their dogs out.

Eventually they split up going their separate paths home. Soon it is only Kurt, Finn, Rachel and Quinn left. After a guilty glance from Finn, Rachel and Finn split off from them, walking instead towards Rachel's house. Kurt doesn't mind. He had had plans to do the same tonight, had Blaine not been so goddamn confusing.

“I thought you lived around Blaine's,” Kurt comments when it is only Quinn and him left. Quinn has been subdued all evening. She doesn't have that same need to make herself present like she used to, but she is there none the less.

“Yeah, my mum can't exactly afford that part of town after the divorce and all,” she tells him. There is very little bitterness left in her voice and he wonders quite how she got to this point of such acceptance.

“I'm sorry,” he says instead.

“Yeah, you're sorry, I'm sorry, everybody's sorry,” she says, and there's that sarcastic bite that always gave Kurt and her that connection. They always fought so hard to be brave, “funny how it's never until you've been told that that you realise it's never what you want to hear.”

“I didn't mean to…”

“I'm not blaming you, Kurt,” she explains as they turn down the next road, “God knows you've been through enough shit to last a lifetime. I think you, more than anyone else, know that it just isn't fair. It isn't fair at all.”

“So what are you saying?”

They're turning another corner, coming into the more winding streets near their homes. Kurt doesn't know when they'll reach Quinn's house, there isn't one he can quite imagine her in. There is nothing of her bluntness in the redbrick monotony.

“I'm not going to say sorry,” she says, and there's that knife edge that leant against the throat of all her peers for so long, “I am going to say the world is a cruel cruel place and what happened to you and Blaine is just cruelty. I don't know why people like you get chosen like this. I don't know if that means that God is cruel or just not as powerful as we all think. Listen, I know you don't believe.”

“I don't, no,” Kurt agrees, slowly.

“All I'm saying is I get it and you're allowed to be angry. That's what I needed last year. I needed someone to tell me I could be angry and not just feel guilty all the time,” She stops and under the lamplight she looks almost ethereal, “Be unapologetically angry.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?” he asks, there is a quaking in his bones again.

“Do you want to come throw stones into my pond? It sometimes helps,” she offers. And this must be her house the unassuming redbrick of people lost in compromises.

“I haven't slept,” he reminds her.

“Are you going to?” she asks, turning towards the house and opening the gate.

Kurt follows without answering. She sneaks around the side gate and unlocks it with the key hidden under a potted plant. The garden is small but there is a vegetable patch and a small patio with a bench and in the far corner, as promised, a pond. Perhaps it is the show of Quinn's vulnerability, how she has overpowered it; the simple throwing of stones magical enough to make a given-up-skank into a soon-to-be-Yale-Student; but he wonders if maybe it will be enough for him.

“I guess not,” he tells Quinn who is now waiting, her palms open, holding small pebbles; better than any empathy so far.

“I guess not,” she agrees and hands him one.

The harsh plopping followed by the gentle ripple, settles the waves in his heart, if only for a moment.

****

Blaine wakes at 2:30. Desperate for some coffee, he makes his way to the kitchen. Surprisingly his Mother is bent over the sink, viciously scrubbing at an old plate.

“Hi, honey,” she greets him without turning around, “How was graduation?”

She doesn't apologise for not turning up anymore, it is to be expected.

“Yeah, it went,” he replies, non-committedly, “What are you doing?”
“I put out a plate for the hedgehogs a couple of weeks ago and completely forgot about it,” she explains, scrubbing one more time before giving up and throwing it in the sink along with her gloves, “Silly me, huh? I never can finish what I started.”

“I guess not,” he agrees, finally grabbing a coffee filter and getting to work, if he wants a shower he needs to be really quick and his Mum will definitely chat all day if she can get away with it, “Look Artie's picking me up in twenty minutes so I really need to shower and dress.”

“Ooh, what's this for?” she asks, not getting the hint, “Whatever it is I can drive you it's no problem.”

“It's okay; Artie's Mum's used to it,” he says, offhandedly, puffing cold air to cool the coffee, and inching towards the door.

“What's that supposed to mean?” She has her patent ‘hurt face' on, the one she uses to manipulate her surroundings; but it doesn't work on Blaine anymore, he's just tired of her; “That I'm not used to looking after my own son? I took years off of work to look after Cooper and you when you were young; and you practically ruined my career, but do I ever complain? I drove you to school every day until you got embarrassed of me. You were the one who always wanted Cooper and not me. You're the one who always goes to that Hummel family instead of us. Not us. This is all you Blaine.”

“That Hummel family were there when I nearly died,” he hisses out, slamming down his mug of coffee on the counter, and glaring at her.

“Only because they have enough time on their hands to follow along on a school trip with their kids,” she hisses back, just as violently.

“That ‘school trip' was one of the most important moments of my life,” he chokes out angrily, “Which you would know, if you ever listened to anything I had to say.”

He turns and leaves, stumbling up the stairs. Ignoring the steadily rising sounds of his Mother's quaking voice, trembling the house to pieces with its wailing sound. He dresses quickly and silently, grabbing his phone and keys and, as an after-though, spare socks, boxers and a t-shirt. He doesn't know if he can come back to this and hopefully Artie will be appreciative enough of his effort to interact with others, that he'll do him a favour.

Artie and his mom are already outside when he gets there. He apologises profusely and slides into the back seat, Artie winks at him and they're on their way.

****

Quinn and Kurt fall asleep lying in the shaded grass at the bottom of her garden, their heads against each other legs. At lunch time, Quinn's mom sees them and shakes them gently, offering sweet lemonade and tuna sandwiches. They accept gratefully and shake in laughter when she leaves.

“I guess we slept all morning huh?” Quinn says, sleepily, wiping the grit from her eyes and sipping her lemonade.

“My Dad probably thinks I'm at Blaine's,” Kurt says, thoughtfully and then he is reminded that he isn't because Blaine doesn't want him anymore. God, his heart just hurts.

“Want to talk about it?” Quinn offers, laying back in the grass.

“Is it possible to fall out of love with someone as quickly as that?” he asks, his voice is weak but they don't need it to be strong; it is quiet in Quinn's backyard.

“Yes, but Blaine hasn't,” Quinn tells him matter-of-factly, she has been nothing but unblinkingly honest all day but this might be a step to far in Kurt's capacity for belief.

“Then why does he….”

“Because he thinks he doesn't deserve you,” She interrupts and there is a sharp darkness in her look now, one that reminds Kurt that she has been broken over and over by boys and men who thought that because she was pretty they could own her, “In fact he doesn't really know what he deserves; because he sure as hell didn't deserve that shark-bite right?”

Kurt blanches at the memory but Quinn is unflinching in her thoughts.

“Blaine believes in balance,” She expresses next, and somehow Kurt knows this. Blaine believed, more than anything that in the end good people got what they deserved.

“He's been hurt before but got to Dalton because of it. He had that eye injury but that doesn't count because he chose it,” Quinn continues. Her words hurt like finally finding the splinter that's been hurting you and teasing it out. His skin feels vulnerable with the truth of her exposition. Quinn seems to have seen and known more of Blaine in a few glances than all the time they had together. Were they friends and he didn't even know?

But she's wrong on one thing.

“He didn't chose to get injured like that…”


“In his head he chose it.” She interrupts, sitting up so she's looking straight at him, “like the baby, for the longest time, in my head, I chose it. But this, this doesn't feel safe to him because why is he alive? Why is he armless? Why can't he do anything the same way anymore?”

The words hurt like they are coming from Blaine's lips. Stark and so so obvious. He felt those things too. The anger and fear that Blaine would never be able to do all the things he wanted, that he would always be scared and hurting; they were part of Kurt too.

“It hurts to do the things he used to because he can't do them properly,” Quinn is unrelenting, she pushes, talking and talking and talking, “So guess what? He decides not to do them. Including you. He doesn't think he can be with you properly.”

“I don't care about his arm,” Kurt says because Quinn is looking at him and he doesn't have any answers other than this.

“It's not about his arm, Kurt,” Quinn reminds him, kindly, and deep down he knows it, he knows it's more than that, “it's about a shift in the relationship.”

Quinn shifts so she is a little closer to him, blocking out the sunlight so her face is in shadow. She is sat crosslegged, cradling half a glass of lemonade. Her dress shifts against the grass. She is so honest and beautiful and Kurt wants to cry because she is doing this for him. He can't remember the last time someone asked if he was okay first. The first is always Blaine. But Quinn knew, like his father had, that he was cracking apart.

“Look,” she starts again softly, “We all know I was the queen bee in mine and Finn's relationship; but when I got pregnant suddenly he had the power because I was trying to keep my secret safe and he had my secret,” The green of her eyes are the most expressive he's ever seen them, and for a moment Kurt feels that she is truly kind. Truly selfless.

“Blaine had the power when you first met,” she starts and he blinks, opening his mouth to interrupt. She holds a finger up to stop him and continue, “I'm not saying you guys were anywhere close to me and Finn but he saved you, you called him your hero,” Kurt blushes on remembering how he had been on first returning to McKinley. He had felt the flush of love so keenly then, so vibrantly; he couldn't see past how precious it was to be with someone. To love and be loved.

“He had the power because he was the first boy who wanted you right?” And there it is, Quinn's truth, knocking at his heart, so he must open it and accept the truth of it.

“It's not power, it's love,” he tries to fight back.

“Love is power, Kurt,” She says, and there is that darkness again, that she is in the shadows, fighting, like him, in this world, where to love you must be brave and be broken.
“But, it's not like that anymore,” she reminds him, “You have to help him, you have to save him. It changes things, it's scary.”

And so it is.

“I'm scared too,” His heart is knocking at his throat, his eyes, bursting like the tear that are threatening. She has shown him a piece of her heart so he will show his in return.

“Well maybe the best way forward then,” Quinn finishes, clasping her drink and finally taking a sip, “is to let him help you, while making him realise that you have to help each other, for love to be powerful enough to survive.”

The moment is softer now and the splinter is removed, leaving only the reminder of its presence and soft vulnerable skin.

“You're really good at this Quinn,” he tells her; which doesn't seem enough for what she has given him. He reaches for her bare knee and squeezes, she holds her hand over his. Their cool fingers tangling in the summer heat.

“I'm hoping to do a psychology major,” She smiles, looking at the grass, “You have to be messed up yourself to be able to understand messed up people right?”

“Quinn,” he says her name so she will look up, she does and her eyes are twinkling with tears he hopes are at least a little happy, “You will be just fine, okay? We're meant to be loved and when we are kind and patient and open, we find it. Blaine may not believe anymore. But I do.”

“So you'll talk to him?” she asks, smiling through her tears.

“I'd be stupid to let that go wouldn't I?” he smiles back and they wait together, watching the shadows creep back into the trees and rest in the roots of the garden.

Above them the branches tangle together, holding hands as they do and waiting for each new moment like there is nothing but patience and nature and truth. For in this moment there is no horror, no pain; only soft shadows and bright light and the comfort that is the soft breathing of life.