A new day dawned and found the boys tangled together as they had been every day since Kurt got there. It was Tuesday. August and Cooper were due back in camp tomorrow for Kurt to start working on one of the big machines. Kurt was a little nervous, but also excited. He hadn't really wanted to be a mechanic, but he did it well because he had wanted to please his dad. He was awake before Blaine for once, and wanted to get out of bed and get a start on the morning. There were goats and chickens to take care of, breakfast to cook, and they had planned to tie a few flies this morning. They didn't really need more, but Kurt was anxious to improve his skill and a few extra wouldn't go amiss. He began to daydream for a few minutes about going fishing with his dad, how it would be to go home and show his dad the flies he had tied, to show him that he'd learned to cast a line and set a bobber. He thought his dad might be proud of him.

The daydream only lasted a moment or two as Blaine stretched his arms up and yawned. Kurt turned to see a strip of beautiful tawny skin, Blaine's belly, and for no reason at all, he leaned forward and licked it. Blaine jumped a mile. Kurt laughed.

“Oh, so that's how it's going today?” Blaine laughed and pulled up Kurt's shirts, rolling on top of him and holding him in a tight grip. Blaine's hands were around Kurt's wrists, holding them in place on the bed and he was sitting on Kurt's tummy. Kurt struggled, but Blaine was a boxer and had been in training for a few years, so his arms were iron rods next to Kurt's.

“Let me up!' Kurt squealed, “I have to go milk the goats! Bossy and Betsy are crying, I bet. Hugo is hungry. I have to go...”

Kurt continued to plead, but Blaine was having none of it. He giggled, and with Kurt's wiggling and struggling, Blaine was slipping back. He tried to get a purchase on the bed before he slid off so he dug his toes into the featherbed. With all the shifting and Kurt trying to roll and Blaine trying to remain in control, he slid back even further and found himself directly above Kurt's morning erection, and Kurt could feel him through the layers of flannel and all movement stopped for a split second. They took a collective breath, and their eyes locked together: stormy blue with smoky hazel.

“Kurt...” Blaine managed to breathe out. He closed his eyes and moved just a little, Kurt letting out a yearning whine as he felt the friction. He bucked back, and they were rubbing and moving together in that dance that teenage boys have been doing since time began.

“Blaine...are you...?” Kurt asked, not sure if this was okay or what it meant, though he was getting an idea of what the immediate outcome was about to be.

“Kurt...” Blaine had gone completely monosyllabic by now, his eyes closed and his mouth open, close to panting.

“Blaine...is this how we want the first time to be?” Kurt asked, then thought maybe it was as the heat began to pool in his belly in that familiar way. He wasn't close, but he would be soon.

Blaine opened his eyes, searching Kurt's and slowing to a stop.

“No, Kurt, it isn't. It just felt so good....it was hard to think. I'm sorry,” he said, pulling back a little, but keeping his hand on Kurt's side.

“It felt good to me, too, Blaine. Maybe soon, though,” Kurt assured him, wondering why he stopped. What would it have hurt, after all? After what his father had said...that it does something to you, he wanted to wait for it to be the right time, and he thought he'd know when the time presented itself. He sighed. But the time had passed and he lay there for just a few more minutes before they both got up to get the morning chores done. He and Blaine got dressed, made the bed, touching every once in a while, stopping to give each other kisses from time to time.

“Kurt, it was...I had no idea. How pitiful are we, we don't know how to act even though we want the same thing, right? But we'll learn together, won't we?” Blaine looked so young, so vulnerable, not like a world-weary boxer he liked to think he portrayed.

“It's a new concept for both of us, and I'm pretty sure we'll figure out the proper way to do things when it comes time. Okay? Worrying about it won't help.” They hugged closer, kissing gently, softly, slowly, and Kurt was humming his pleasure, Blaine loving each note when they heard a knock at the cabin door.

“Wait a minute, I'm coming,” Blaine called out. Blaine got to the door, looked back at Kurt to make sure he was decent, he was buttoning the last of the buttons on his shirt, and asked through the wooden door: “Who is it?”

“It's me, Punkin', it's Shannon,” her voice came through.

“Let me get the door open,” Blaine said, lifting the bar so he could open the door. Shannon was standing there, her face looking so tired with dark circles under her eyes and a sleepy look on her face. She held a little ball of fluff in her arms.

“Oh, Lenore's wolf,” Blaine said with a tiny bit of disgust. Not for the pup, but for Lenore. Shannon gave him a look, but she knew what Blaine felt for the owner's daughter.

“Oh, so you've met. Yeah, I was trying to feed her, but all I had was cow's milk. My dairy goats haven't been freshened yet and I was thinking - Betsy and Bossy still have milk, right?”

“Yes, they do. How about I take the little guy off your hands for a while and Kurt can go get him some fresh milk?” Blaine suggested. Shannon smiled.

“Would you? I'd be so grateful, punkin'. That little scrap kept me up half the night. He isn't getting enough richness in the cow milk I'm thinking.”

“No problem, I'll feed the little guy myself,” Kurt offered, enchanted by the pup.

“Thank you, fellas, I need to get back and help Cookie with breakfast. I'll catch up with you later.”

Blaine brought the ball of fluff over to sit on the bed next to Kurt, who smiled. The little guy got a mouthful of Kurt's flannel shirt and tugged, getting a grin from the boy.

Kurt got up and was out to the shed to milk the goats in just a few minutes. He brought in the bucket of milk along with a basket of eggs and Blaine mixed a raw egg in a cup of milk. He dipped the corner of a handkerchief into the mix and touched it to the pup's nose. Pup licked it off, finding he liked the taste and did it again. Pretty soon he was nosing into the cup and lapping it up by himself.

“He's older than I thought he was,” Blaine said. “He is pretty close to being able to drink by himself, so we might add a bit of cereal to it. I think Cookie has some farina, we could try that to get the stuff to stick to his ribs a little.”

The boys fed the pup and ate breakfast, cleaning up together while the pup waddled around the cabin. They sat down on the settee together and the pup fell asleep between them, completely exhausted.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Meanwhile, back in Ohio....

“Finn, I'm so restless, I just cannot sit still. I have to do something,” Burt grumped. Finn gave him an encouraging smile, but he'd heard this all before. Burt hadn't even slept well ever since the panicked night Kurt didn't come home and they found the blood in the parking lot.

The police had been called in, an Amber Alert went out that next morning, and they had been searching for Kurt ever since. Since Kurt was a minor, his disappearance had been under the Amber Alert ruling and the bulletin had gone out. Bloodhounds had been brought in and the blood was found at the edge of the parking lot at McKinley High School. The dogs had tracked it to a car belonging to one of the football players father's.

The investigation had continued for weeks, resulting in confessions by more than a few students that a group had beat Kurt up because he was gay and the truth had finally been revealed that he was dumped in the railyard. But there was no way to tell which train held him, which way it went, and investigators were still combing through records and interviewing witnesses.

There had been a large amount of blood, maybe enough to declare Kurt dead. The dogs had taken them to the places Kurt's body had been, but it was inconclusive. Most of the witnesses said Kurt was unconscious when they saw him loaded into the car. Nobody had any explanation as to why it was not reported or the boys that beat him were not stopped.

Burt, Carole, Finn and Kurt's friends prayed for a miracle.

It was a matter of days before wires, emails, and phone calls began streaming in. The case had gotten a lot of media attention, and it seemed every nut job from one end of the country to the other jumped on the bandwagon. The police were handling it as well as could be expected, but there were so many, it would take some time. Burt kept faith that a god that brought him back from that heart attack didn't do so just for Burt to lose his son. But he was discouraged. The police had even dared to tell him that, based on the evidence of so much blood and the type of crime it was, not to get his hopes up. Burt tried to ignore that for the lies it must be, but every day made him think about it a minute or so longer before he pushed it out of his brain to concentrate on ways to find Kurt.

He got the wire from the logging camp on a Friday, along with three dozen other similar papers and emails and letters from all over the country that day. He had first found out if there was a rail line to the place on each communication, but that did not weed out very many. He had decided that he would just have to start somewhere at random. He emailed back many of them, asking for details not included in the Amber Alert, and was able to narrow down a few. He and Finn or Carole or...surprisingly, Puck, drove to closer places, always finding it to be a dead end. He was so discouraged.

There was a stack of papers sitting on his desk. The police had let him look at the communications, but he had to return them for evidence. He saw a yellow paper written in a printed communication. He'd seen a few before, but mostly a long time ago. It as a wire...a telegram. Did people even use those anymore, considering how everyone in the civilized world used some type of electronic device: email, cell phones, telephones? Nobody sent telegrams, right? He pulled it out of the pile to study. He had returned a letter to this one, like he had to a couple hundred others, asking for more information. But this one didn't send a second communication:

“Dear Mr Humall:

Your son Kurt is alive and will be fine, though his cashmere-silk blend jacket is ruined. I found him in an empty on the rail when the train stopped to offload supplies in camp. We can't risk coming down the mountain until after spring thaw, but will keep him safe until than. He misses you. Keep faith I will get him home. Blaine Anderson”

Burt looked a this one again, and something about it made him curious, but he wasn't sure what. His name was misspelled, but what did that mean? No, it was something else.

“Finn, come look at this. I just can't put my finger on what's wrong with it,” he said. Both Finn and Carole stepped over to look at the paper.

“Your name is spelled wrong,” Carole mentioned, but was sure that wasn't it.

“How much was detailed in the Amber Alert about his clothes?” Finn asked.

Burt got the information out and looked it over, Finn leaning over his shoulder.

“Burt, it says he was wearing a light-weight jacket faded from light to dark blue. It never mentions what the jacket is made of, and I know that jacket was cashmere-silk. Kurt paid an awful price for it, because I loaned him the last fifty when he found it on sale,” Finn's eyes caught Burt's and there was a sparkle in them. It was the first really important clue they had found.

“Let's call Detective Lopez and get this started,” Burt said, letting himself feel a breath of hope for the first time in a month. Maybe those boys that hurt Kurt might not be standing trial for murder after all.

“Finn, thank you. I just don't know how to tell you how much your observation had helped...we might get your brother home by Christmas,” Burt said, blinking back tears, Finn's strong arms around his shoulders.

~*~*~*~*~*~

A few days later at the Logging Camp:

Blaine got out the flour to make biscuits and Kurt cut up the rabbit for fricassee.

“I remember seeing a cartoon that Elmer Fudd was going to make Bugs Bunny into Rabbit Fricassee. I thought it was a made-up word for the cartoon because it sounded funny to me. I had no idea it was a real dish. How do you make it?” Kurt asked.

“Easy. Cook the rabbit like you'd do chicken...dust it with flour and salt and pepper, fry in oil. Then take it out and fry the carrots, celery, mushrooms, garlic, anything like that. Put the chicken back in and add herbs...like bay leaf or tarragon. Simmer it all with some broth until it is cooked through. Make a roux of flour and butter. Add the broth a ladle at a time until you have white sauce. Add cream...oh, I'll have to go get some from Shannon, goat's milk doesn't have cream, and pour back over the rabbit and veggies. Easy-peasy,” Blaine explained as he cooked. He seemed to love to cook, and he was good at it. Kurt wondered if his father had been a cook, or maybe Cooper? Or perhaps he had just learned from Cookie and Shannon. In any case, Blaine was good.

“I'll go get the cream. I have those two trout from this morning I wanted to give her. Anything else?” Kurt asked.

“No, just be careful. I heard Chase and Porter were back in the vicinity. I know you're working for August, but it pays to be careful, okay?” Blaine warned.

“Of course, I'll stay on the main path and if they come near, I'll sic the wolf on them,” Kurt assured his friend, scooping up the tiny pup to take along for company. It licked his nose and Kurt giggled. Blaine sighed...what could possibly be cuter than Kurt giggling with a puppy?

The fricassee was a resounding success. Kurt ate all that was on his plate, mopping up the last of the gravy with his biscuit.

“I'm going to weigh three hundred pounds by the time my dad sees me again if I keep eating your cooking, Blaine,” Kurt smirked.

“Not likely. With all the work you're doing from lugging firewood, fishing, walking the trap line, and everything else, you'll keep it off. Now, let's get these dishes done so we can get to bed. August said he was bringing the grapple skidder in tomorrow for you to work on, so you better rest up,” Blaine said. But the real reason Blaine wanted to get to bed, other than that the sun set so early in the winter, was to spend time cuddling Kurt. He found he craved it more and more as time went on, and they had taken to doing a little exploring, too. Not as much as the first night....no naked sessions in bed, but just touching through all the layers of pajamas. It was enough for Blaine for now, but he knew he was falling more in love with Kurt all the time.

They walked to the outhouse together through the trees and walked back, looking through the clear sky at the constellations. Kurt had reached out to take Blaine's hand and held it tightly as they strolled back through the woods. The moon lit their way and it was just beautiful because it had snowed a few days before. Not a lot, but enough to coat the paths through the woods in the white carpet. Blaine stopped at a bend in the path, wanting to point out a pretty scene between the trees where they could see down the mountain to the river filled with cut timber.

Kurt stopped and looked where Blaine indicated, smiling. He turned back and Blaine moved close to Kurt's mouth, kissing him softly. Kurt kissed back, his eyes closed and hands going automatically to hold Blaine's head as he pushed harder to bury himself in Blaine's embrace.

“Oh, Kurt, I love you so...” Blaine whispered, not wanting to break the spell of the winter scene.

“I love you, too, Blaine. Let's hurry back...” he said in his best flirty way and jumped away, running up the path to the cabin.

They raced and got to the cabin at the same time, opening the door in such a hurry that a breeze got in to stir the fire and flutter the curtains on the windows. A small piece of paper blew off the top of the cupboard and flew around the room – and Blaine stiffened, trying to reach Kurt before he could pick it up. But Blaine could see he was too late and his wild dance to grab it was useless as Kurt picked it up and saw the handwriting on the page.

Blaine cursed himself for not burning that tiny piece of self-destruction. He had a long time to do it, too, because that little paper was the catalyst for everything that happened in the next eon of the lives of the two boys, the destruction of the Eden they had built together.

Kurt stood as if he'd been shot. He could feel the cold, icy fingers of shock run up his spine and branch out across the nerves of his limbs as he tried to comprehend why he was looking at his father's handwriting, here on this mountain top in Oregon. Three thousand long miles from Ohio, where he knew his father was sitting, working himself into an early grave with worry while Kurt was skipping through a paradise of love and adventure. The guilt was enough to kill him if the shock of finding the paper wasn't. But the kicker of it all, the knife twisted in the wound, was the look on Blaine's face when Kurt turned to ask him where he might have found the paper.

Until he saw the guilt and panic on Blaine's face, Kurt was thinking it was something that had been in a pocket of his ruined jacket, or his tight skinny jeans. He had turned to explain to Blaine why this paper was so strange, that this handwriting on it looked so much like his father's hand...but Blaine's face told the whole story. The lies. The tricks. The betrayal. Kurt closed his eyes for just a moment, not wanting to believe the person he had come to depend on, the person he believed had his best interest at heart, his life in his hands, the boy he was beginning to love with all his heart....was the one who had betrayed him now.

Kurt looked at the paper and read it. It was a form letter, but the names were written by his father in the spaces provided:

November 9, 2012

Dear Mr Anderson: Thank you for your wire. We have received hundreds of replies to the Amber Alert sent out on October 31st. I hope you understand that we will be getting back to each and every one of these until I find my son. Please send me more information, I need my son to come home. We are heartbroken without him. I can guarantee any expenses will be paid by me. If he is indeed with you, please tell him I love him and will be reunited with him as soon as I can.

Bless you, Burt Hummel

Kurt looked at Blaine, his eyebrows raised, but he said nothing.

“Kurt, I can explain. I wired your father the day you asked me to find him. The secretary in the main camp sent it for me. I didn't want you to worry, so I didn't tell you. Your father wrote back, see? We can get you home,” Blaine said, so hurried Kurt could hardly understand him.

“Then why are you so nervous? And why didn't you tell me he knew I was alive? You have sat and watched me cry my eyes out night after night with worry for two months, Blaine. Why didn't you tell me you'd been able to contact him? I don't understand,” Kurt said, wondering why he was so confused. Obviously, Blaine had contacted his father. What the hell was going on? He studied the page, then he realized the date was at the beginning of November. It was now December 15th.

“Blaine? Why is this dated the 9th of November...more than a month ago? Did you write back? Tell him it was me and how to find me? He would hire a helicopter or something to come get me, he'd never leave me here if he knew I was here....BLAINE??? What The FUCK is going on?”

Blaine jerked back as if he'd been physically punched, he stood there, his knees shaking, knowing the best thing he ever had in his life was about to be taken from him. Like his dad, this beautiful boy would be stolen away, forever. He didn't want to loose him, but he didn't know what to do. He had to answer him, but his tongue forgot how to move, there was no breath for a voice....

Kurt stared at him for a minute.

“You told him I was here, but you never wrote back, did you?”

Blaine shook his head 'no'.

“But why?” Kurt was very quiet. Blaine could tell he was on the edge of hysteria. He had to be careful now, not startle this exotic treasure or he would lose him forever.....

“Kurt....” he breathed and took a step forward, his arms out to hold Kurt one more time. He would take him down the mountain himself, call in favors from Mr Warner and Lenore. They had a helicopter. He'd walk to Ohio and get Kurt's dad if he had to, just give him one more minute to explain.

“NO!” Kurt turned away and kept himself just out of reach. “Tell me.”

“Kurt, I was writing to him, so he could come. But it's winter, so it isn't safe to try to go down the mountain. There are no roads here. We're next to the Siskiyou National Forest, in a ROADLESS wild area. You can't just go walking down the damn mountain, Kurt. You'd get killed. We can get word out, though. I'll help you,” Blaine started.

“Like you helped me already? Honestly, Blaine? How can I trust a goddam thing you say? Why did you keep this from me? Why?” Kurt was yelling now, hysterical.

“I wanted to tell you, but I knew it would take a long time...he would come get you in the spring, Kurt. When we could get you down safely. But maybe I can ask Mr Warner to help. He owes me. I'll get you home, Kurt.....if that's what you want,” Blaine ended in a desperate cry. Tears were running down his face, he hated the look on Kurt's face, was so scared of loosing him, knowing it was all his fault.

“If that's what I WANT??? How can you ask that? That is all I ever wanted from the first minute. I was stolen from my father, Blaine. You knew that. What do you mean 'If that is what I WANT'???” Kurt shouted.

Blaine slid down and was on his knees now. He head was bowed and he couldn't see for all the tears. He could hardly breathe.

“I thought you might want me.....” he whispered.

Kurt stared at him. He stepped over the crying boy and walked to the door, opening it. Without another word, he walked out. His intention was to walk for a while and clear off some of the anxiety and stress, then to work out what to do next. He was stunned and upset, but no longer hysterical. Blaine had, after all, let his father know he was alive, and he didn't have to do that. His dad had hope and it was only a matter of time for him to find Kurt now. But Kurt was angry and feeling betrayed and although his thought process was that he would come back to figure it out with Blaine, things didn't work out that way.

Kurt was walking, almost running down the path to the outhouse now. He wasn't thinking about staying safe, he just wanted a few minutes by himself and so when he was tripped, he just thought he'd stumbled over a tree branch or something. But he was pushed down very roughly and his hands were pulled to the back of him, several twists of rope thrown around him to hold them. A gag was stuffed into his mouth and the last thing he heard as the funny smelling rag was held under his nose was, “You thought you were funny tricking me a few weeks back, didn't you? You don't look like Cooper Anderson...not even a little.” And as the swirling darkness came over him, he closed his tear-filled eyes and surrendered to it.