The first morning that Kurt had not awoken already exhausted had been a revelation. A flower coming into bloom; a single slow and gradual casting off of a hibernation period; a suspended moment in which the morning sunlight greeted him through the gap between the drapes. Kurt had known, after stretching and sitting up without his head swimming or even wavering, that he had arrived at the end of the tunnel. The feeling of settling, of running his hands over the cool metal of a turnstile, of looking into a mirror and seeing something no longer diaphanous and ridden with anxiety, both familiar and unfamiliar by turns, had been shattering. It had been the flip of a switch, everything bathed in light after the long and lonely dark. It had been a comeback; a return and a rebirth both at once.

Overcome at the weight of his own reflection in the bathroom mirror, Kurt had slipped to the floor, arms wrapped around his knees. Blaine had found Kurt twenty minutes later, time slipping by him as his fingertips ghosted every inch of his own skin, reveling and wallowing in it as he laughed and cried in equal measure. As they both did.

There had been times, over the previous nine months, where Blaine had wished that life could be more like a movie. That he could settle back on the couch with a bowl of popcorn or a tube of Pringles, press play and be transported to another universe for two hours, where the obstacles still came out of nowhere but were overcome quickly, where he could pause if he needed a moment, or simply walk away if it all got to be too much. Those times, where he had happened to glance at the clock at exactly 11:11, or on the more rare occasion that he had been standing on the balcony considering the stars and caught one shooting across the sky in his peripheral vision, he had wished with all his heart that he could simply erase everything that had happened and every “why?” he had been forced to ask, before falling each night into the tremulous clutches of uneasy sleep, still without answers.

It had been so small a thing, really. But in truth, Kurt had been unable to remember that singularly unique feeling of sleep-sated limbs and clear-headedness that came from only the most deep and peaceful nights, one’s body warm in repose—in short, the feeling of a person who could sleep on without a care in the world. Of someone who had finally, without so much as sensing that it had happened, found themselves with a quarter for the turnstile.

That morning had broken a mere two days before what was to be Kurt’s last blood transfusion and his final consultation with Daniel. Really, it would only serve to confirm the news that the whole family had known was coming for over a month, ever since his blood type had at last settled into its new status as O-positive, but nonetheless, it was necessary in order for this chapter of their lives, after so many months of aching and upheaval and ruin, to at last be concluded and laid to rest.

Then there were the times that he was grateful for the pauses simply for the breathing space they permitted, bringing with them the opportunity to brace himself, no matter how certain the outcome. Those were the moments where he had become accustomed to counting his blessings, just in case he lost one. To reaching out and re-familiarizing himself with the lines on the palm of Kurt’s hand, the soft strands of his newly-grown hair, the shape of the dip in his collarbone. To memorizing a particular smile of Audrey’s that wasn’t reminiscent of Kurt or Kristy or even himself, but entirely her own. To committing to heart the sound of Oliver’s surprised bark of laughter whenever Kurt’s wit had, even on his worst days, still been lightning-quick.

In some ways, Blaine felt an unexpected sense of gratitude. Not for Kurt’s illness, never for that; instead, simply being given the knowledge that life as he knew it could end and yet somehow still continue. He could grow new legs and learn to walk again, and so could his loved ones. They had been forced into traversing a new world requiring bravery and strength none of them could have ever known how to capture or possess, or even if it was really there all along, just waiting to be put to work.

Considering the past nine months, Kurt found himself with swimming eyes that had nothing to do with the final stitch that was being put into place, the inevitably ensuing scar to be the only lasting physical reminder of the broviac that had, quite literally, been his lifeline. Blaine’s hand clutched in his own, always his constant, kept him from disappearing too readily into the ever-present heaviness of his most recent past, that ghost of Burt that still hung in his periphery, smiling with pride and affection and love. Kurt knew that Blaine saw him too, from time to time—not a ghost, merely a sense memory borne of habit when they had needed his comforting presence, even as adults, from six hundred miles away.

Kurt smiled, squeezed Blaine’s hand, watched Oliver’s rapt attention on the nurse’s careful handiwork while Audrey hid her face in Blaine’s shoulder, her meticulous curls a shock of brown against the duck-egg blue of Blaine’s thin, long-sleeved shirt. He took a moment to watch each of them in turn, to catalog the myriad changes in their faces, postures, mannerisms.

All things considered, they had managed. And wasn’t that the best they ever could have hoped for?

In any case, they had decided to take a trip to Montauk: the place where, seventeen years almost to the day previously, the path had been set. Where ‘The End’ had actually proved a beginning. By the time they were situated in their spot on Gin Beach, their dinner picnic spread around them, each of the four members of the Hummel-Anderson family were a little tired, a little grouchy, but altogether grateful to have finally gotten out of the car to stretch their legs and bask in the warmth of the fading evening sun.

Both Audrey and Oliver were standing straighter these days, as if pushing back against all the weight that had attempted to bear down upon them. Gone was some of the youth from Audrey’s eyes, where she seemed to have taken that weight and turned it to fuel, driving her every spare moment toward anything that could bring her closer to her newly-established dream of retreading her grandpa’s footsteps and pursuing a career in politics.

Oliver walked with actual steps as opposed to trudges, having fallen back out of the teenage stereotype just as quickly as he had fallen into it. He spoke up, made himself heard, asked all the questions he could until his newfound sense of curiosity had been fed a satisfying meal that took him hours to quietly digest as he put facts and figures together in his mind, forging and memorizing the connections between them.

And Blaine… There were new lines on his face, at the corners of his mouth and eyes. The smattering of light in his hair had spread, his father’s premature gray overtaking the exotic heritage of his mother’s side. Yes, he looked older, but to Kurt, never more handsome. His family had had to radically and repeatedly redefine their baseline for what constituted everyday normality, and while not one solitary second of it had been easy—most of it had hurt like all hell, in fact—they were finally on the other side, scarred yet healing as they still, somehow, stood strong. Kurt knew beyond all doubt that the reason was Blaine.

Things were as quiet, peaceful, and unchanged as Blaine remembered them, and he couldn’t help but smile. Kurt and the twins were comfortably quiet as they tucked into sandwiches and chips, and the last line of the folksy, upbeat song that had played over the credits of the movie Audrey had been watching on the Zephyr during the drive was playing on repeat in his mind: ‘How am I getting home?’

“You okay, honey?” Kurt asked, craning his head to glance back at Blaine.

“Sweetheart? Are you ready?” Blaine asked, and Kurt pulled himself from his woolgathering to see his husband and children gazing at him expectantly, excitedly. They were just as ready as Kurt to have it all become a memory, an experience that someday they would look back upon with a grimace that time would have faded into the slightest downturn of lips, and recognize it as something horrific, yet something that had shaped them.

“So ready,” Kurt replied.

“Never better,” Blaine answered as he took in the renewed strength in Kurt’s body, the way his shoulders and waist had filled out once more, how he could perform simple tasks like leaning over and dragging the cooler closer to where he was sitting between Blaine’s legs and retrieving a bottle of lemonade without his breathing becoming labored. “Look at you. You’re my big, strong man again.”

“Ew, Dad,” Oliver tossed over his shoulder as he finished rolling up the cuffs of his jeans, grabbed a sandwich and strode off down the sand, weaving through the tightly-crowded beach. Blaine rolled his eyes at Kurt, who was busying himself attempting to stifle a smile that belied how pleased he was to hear Blaine’s words.

The journey up to Daniel’s office was short—not that long walks were something that Kurt had trouble with anymore—and he welcomed them all inside with his usual genial smile, the one that Kurt had received for years. Some things never changed (and even when some changes were for the better, the few constants still remained comforting).

“How are you feeling today?” Daniel asked when they were all seated on the expansive couch at the back of his office, Oliver on Kurt’s left and Audrey on Blaine’s right.

“Like I’m about to get the news I’ve been waiting nine months for,” Kurt quipped, before Daniel raised his eyebrows good-naturedly and Kurt relented. “Truthfully, I’ve never felt better. And it’s not just feeling healthy again; it’s knowing what ‘healthy’ actually feels like.”

“When you take the weird out of it, like, that you’re our dads, you’re actually totally cute,” Audrey said as she took a handful of chips from the bag closest to her, and Blaine grinned as he wrapped his arms around Kurt’s waist, loosening his hold when he caught himself and realised that the only weight he needed to hold up nowadays was his own.

“Just ‘cute’?” Kurt asked, eyes sparkling with humor. “I think we’re hot. Maybe even sexy.”

“Too far, Papa,” Audrey told him matter-of-factly, and lowered her sunglasses over her eyes, turning back to her PalmBook and replacing both her earbuds.

Daniel nodded his understanding, a smile forming on his lips. “Until you’ve faced the opposite…”

“Exactly,” Kurt agreed, taking Blaine’s hand and squeezing a gentle thank you. “So. Not to put too fine a point on it, but… Well, I never want to see that manila folder again.”

“You won’t have to,” Daniel confirmed, his smile morphing into a rare and brilliant grin. Kurt could have kissed him. “We’re done here, Kurt. No more transfusions, and only regular blood tests from now on. You did it.”

“We all did it,” Kurt corrected, his own grin just as fiercely happy and relieved. He stood, and Daniel rose to meet the offered handshake that soon became a grateful embrace, Kurt whispering, “thank you, thank you so much.”

“Definitely hot,” Kurt whispered, turning his head and pressing a kiss to Blaine’s temple. “And very sexy.”

“Still? Even though I’m middle-aged, now?” Blaine asked wryly.

“Mmhmm.”

“Good. Because lately I’ve been thinking that I’d look fantastic behind the wheel of a sports car,” he continued mock-thoughtfully.

“Blaine...” Kurt trailed off; a warning wrapped in knowing humor.

“Just a little one. Red, maybe,” Blaine mused, glancing sidelong at Kurt.

It was over. It was finally, gloriously over. Later, there would be parties. Kurt knew his husband, knew that he would want to celebrate this moment, and the clear future. People would crowd into their home, and Kurt would let himself get swept up in the good cheer and the joy, sing and dance and make conversation and then, at some point in the evening he would catch Blaine’s gaze across the room and smile their secret smile, the one they reserved only for one another. They had it all to look forward to again, and the feeling was heady.

For now, though, all Kurt wanted was the space to adjust, and simply be. When they arrived home, with the closing of their front door blocking out all other noise, each of the four Hummel-Andersons stood for a moment in the entryway, quiet and jubilant and all, in their own ways, victorious. They smiled, and hugged, and separated to their own areas of the house: Audrey to the den (no doubt in search of her discarded copy of the latest New Republic); Oliver upstairs; Kurt and Blaine down the hall to the kitchen.

“Wow. You really are middle-aged,” Kurt agreed, his tone grave. “Maybe we didn’t need to stay out at the house, after all. Maybe after the fireworks, we should just go home and get you straight to bed. After all, most days you want your pipe and slippers at eight sharp, and you’re ready for bed by nine.”

“Sweetheart, trust me, we definitely need to be at the house tonight.”

“Hmm, if you say so, old man.”

“You do remember that you’re older than me, right?”

“I do,” Kurt confirmed. “But don’t tell me you don’t remember being the one that Santana once referred to as ‘sexy grandpa’. Because I know you do.”

“This is where it all began,” Blaine said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“And also where it ends,” Kurt said firmly, leading Blaine by the hand to the very spot where Blaine had found him, that awful and terrifying September day. He stood in the afternoon sunlight that flooded in through the window, stretching out his arms and slowly turning on the spot. “I’m still here, good as new. Better, in fact. So you can let go now, honey.”

Blaine caught Kurt halfway through his second rotation, arms wrapping tightly around his waist from behind, and whispered, “I know. I have. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Kurt replied, and then, “thank you for keeping me here, keeping me yours, and theirs. Thank you for saving my life.”

Blaine’s exhale and the kiss that followed it were warm against the skin of Kurt’s neck, and he smiled when Blaine said simply, “any time”.

The battle was lost; Kurt knew it as well as Blaine did, and it was one that he was happy to concede. In lieu of pursuing it any further, he simply held onto his husband a little tighter, feeling Kurt go lax in his arms and succumb to the embrace. Blaine glanced around at the other beachgoers, couples sharing blankets and families with boisterous children chasing each other in the surf, some of them glancing over every now and then with recognition clear in their eyes but still mostly retaining that Montauk sense of disinterest—they were just another family hanging out, waiting for the fourth of July fireworks. It was refreshing and somewhat relieving, particularly on a day that Blaine was unconcerned with who they were to the rest of the world, only with who they were to one another.

When the darkness had descended, when they had all eaten as much as they could and were stretched out on the sand, lying back on their blankets, Kurt curled himself into Blaine’s side. His fingers drifted back and forth across Blaine’s stomach in indiscernible patterns and tiny figures of eight, and as Blaine listened to a group further down the beach singing an a cappella version of Swing Low, he smiled. He let himself breathe, think about infinity, and waited for the fireworks to begin.

“You were always so strong for me,” Kurt said heavily, hand resting splayed out over the page, the words of the official letter containing his final diagnosis of full health peeking out between his fingers. “You were always so good with the kids, and making sure I had everything I needed, and figuring things out for us. How did you keep going like that, for so long?”

Blaine pursed his lips, and shook his head, winding his fingers between Kurt's and squeezing. “You were always the strong one, Kurt. And when you couldn't be... It made me see that I needed to step up for you,” he said, scratching his other hand through his hair before resting his temple on the heel of his hand. “When... When I was at my most scared, it... You know, when you're with someone for so long, and you've been in love with them almost since before you can remember, you develop these habits. They know you love them, and so you don't need to say it as often. You show it in other ways. Little things, like when you'll make sure to get the pizza with the thin crust because you know I don't like it any other way, or when I’ll pick up an extra bottle of the Clinique so you never run out.

“But being faced with the—the possibility that you wouldn't...” Blaine trailed off and swallowed thickly. “Time suddenly just had this... immediacy. There was a chance that one day soon, you weren't going to be there first thing in the morning, or last thing at night. So I had to be strong for you, because if you saw me being strong, maybe it would make you want to keep fighting.”

“Blaine,” Kurt whispered, hands coming up to frame Blaine's face with a grounding, affirming touch. “I will always want to keep fighting for you. Just the thought of you and the kids... Even on the worst days, when I was so tired that I could only stay awake for an hour a day, and then I spent that entire hour wanting to give up and have it be over, all it took was... Blaine, you told me everything that you needed to tell me. You didn't waste a single moment with me, and you haven't since. That was what kept me going.”

Blaine covered Kurt’s hands with his own, offering him a watery smile. “Do you ever wonder about what might have happened if you’d been out sick that day?”

“What day?”

“You know which day.”

“Blaine. How many years have we been together? There have been a lot of days.”

Blaine sighed, grinning, and dropped his head briefly before looking back up at Kurt, eyes sparkling. “The day Puck told you to come spy on us, of course. The day our lives changed. What if you’d been out sick, or I’d been on time, or my parents had forced me to go to boarding school in Connecticut or something?”

Kurt smiled, the quirk of his lips full of nostalgia for two wayward boys who hadn’t known, who couldn’t have known. “We would have found each other, one way or another. Maybe I’d have run into you at Sectionals, or at NYU, or anywhere. We’d have found each other.”

“You really think so?”

After a firm kiss, Kurt answered, “I know so.”