Chapter 5:

His feet are cold as he treks barefoot through the grass. Twigs and dirt and mud and petals and dead grass cling to his skin. He walks until his legs fail him, until his lungs ache and his body is weak and incapable of moving on. So he stops.

He looks around.

Observes.

He falls to the ground and lets himself cry. It doesn't matter now that the tears stain his cheeks, doesn't matter that he'll regret crying later when his head throbs as he pushes on. It just...

Doesn't matter.

He closes his eyes and casts his mind back to a boy who at that very moment is calling his name relentlessly into a dark and cold woodland. A boy whose cheeks are tear stained and tender, whose head aches already. A boy who wishes he could take the pictures from his mind and get them down on something, anything, just so that he can find him again.

They need each other, Kurt knows it's true, but he knows from experience that to need something, to want something, is not the same as what is good for you.

He isn't good for Blaine and Blaine isn't good for him, because Blaine makes him feel like he's worth something, like there is hope for the future and Kurt knows, when he stops and looks at everything through a realistic lens, he knows that there is nothing there for him, nothing more than what he's already been handed.

Eventually, when the rain slows and dies, he gets to his feet and continues on.

Blaine has too many questions, questions which, in all likelihood, will never be answered, but he continues to hope. Days and nights and hours and minutes and seconds and what feels like years, too many years, pass and his hope dwindles, but never disappears.

It's grey, dark, but there's a light, one twinkle, a single glimmer of hope.

He watches the trees and he visits The Lima Bean in hopes of finding him there, but there's never any trace.

Blaine starts to wonder if he was ever there at all.

His mother and father are back at the house again. His father doesn't notice, but his mom does and she asks.

"Why are you always so down? And what is so interesting out there that you can sit for hours on end just...staring?"

Blaine turns from his place at the window and he blinks the glaze from his eyes.

"I'm sick," he says quietly.

She reaches out and presses a hand to his forehead. It takes a lot of strength not to shy away from her touch.

"You don't feel warm."

"I'm sick," he says again and he lifts a hand to the space where his heart should be. "In here."

Blaine's mom stares at him for a while and then she sits down beside him. He watches the way her face falls into smooth plains, watches her eyes soften and the way she twists so that her body language shows she is getting comfortable, that it's okay.

"He's gone, isn't he?" she asks.

It shocks him.

"Yes," he says anyway, because it's true.

She nods. "I knew he was there, you know."

That's the confirmation Blaine needs, to know that he is real, that he exists.

"Did you love him?"

He doesn't bother to hide it, doesn't bother to fight.

"Yes," he says glumly.

"Did he love you?"

"Not enough to stay." He pauses. "Does Dad know?"

His mother considers his question and then nods. "Your father is a lot of things," she says. "Deaf isn't one of them."

Blaine blushes all the way up and down his body. "Why didn't either of you ever say anything?"

"You're always so lonely." She sighs, defeated. "You seemed happier."

"I was."

"What's his name?"

"Kurt."

"Kurt," she repeats. She reaches up and traps a stray hair behind her ear. "A lot of Kurts in the world."

Blaine nods. He knows.

"None like him," he tells her.

"He was broken," she says, like she knew him and Blaine doesn't know how she can dare to say such a thing.

"You didn't know him."

"He was broken," she says again, like it justifies everything and anything.

"Cracked," Blaine corrects. "Cracked, but not unmendable."

"You're too young to be worrying about fixing cracks, Blaine."

"I've been trying to fix my own for years," he says and it cuts the air, like his tongue is a knife. "I have experience."

She nods again. "Do you know why he left?"

Blaine shakes his head. This is one of his many questions. "He's a drifter," he says, but he knows it isn't true, knows Kurt craves homeliness and warmth.

"Do you think he wants to be found?"

Blaine considers it. He's unsure. Maybe, though, maybe that's why he left. He wants Blaine to follow. Wants him to find him, to bring him back. He stops, because he remembers Kurt's words.

Don't let me run away.

You promise you'll always find me?

He smiles, for the first time in six days.

"I think so," he tells his mom, because who wants to be lost?

I've been lost for years, Blaine. It's why I can't go home.

She stands up and brushes down her thighs. "Then find him."

Three days later, he's back at school and he's going through the motions like he's mourning. His friends notice, even his teachers, but he brushes it off says the words "I'm fine" more times than he can count and he thinks.

Blaine has no idea what to do, doesn't know how to find him. His mom doesn't ask again, but he feels her eyes on him sometimes, like she's waiting for an update that Blaine can never provide. He's glad, in a way, that she says no more because Kurt had told him that when secrets stopped being secrets, bad things happened. He lives and he follows his routine, but still, wishes he could do more.

After school, he goes home and he does his homework, showers and climbs under the covers and he cries, because the scent he loves so much is gone, like it's followed Kurt out the window and away, far, far away, never to return. Sometimes, Blaine feels as if the world is much larger than it is. He doesn't understand how a person can just disappear, doesn't get it, doesn't want to accept it, but life leaves him with few choices. It leaves him with none, in fact.

It is a lot like grief.

1. Denial.

He's gone, he's never coming back, he's lost, lost and Blaine had promised to never let him run away, to always find him and he doesn't know how.

If he wants to come back, he'll come back, if he wants to be found he'll come back.

He's not coming back.

He was never here in the first place.

Blaine tries something new. He rearranges his furniture and there, in the corner behind his bed, he finds the remains of a daisy. It's crumpled, faded and dead, but it's there and he knows what he already knew: Kurt is real.

2. Anger.

Why would he leave him? How could he do it? Why would he promise to be his guardian angel when all he did was float and fly far away, like he hadn't even been there in the first place?

And in that moment, he hates Kurt. Hates everything. He hates life for giving him something so precious and ripping it away. He hates Kurt because he's not here and he said he would be, promised.

Blaine finds himself humming the tune he first heard Kurt sing and he feels the ache in his heart as it contracts and yearns and he knows that there is a very fine line between hate and love and the only reason he hates him is because he has been deprived of loving him.

He loves him, he loves him, he loves him and he would do anything to have him back.

3. Bargaining.

He would give anything to have him back, anything in the world.

"If I have him back before the week ends, I'll go to church on Sunday."

"I won't jerk off for a month if you just bring him back to me."

"Please, God, if you're there, bring him back to me. I'll give up anything in the world for him. Anything."

He doesn't believe in God, per se, but he believes there is a higher force out there, somewhere, so he bargains and begs and pleads and still, nothing.

4. Depression.

It's hot and sweaty and clammy beneath the sheets of his bed, but he stays. He can feel the emptiness in his stomach and he's starting smell and the room is a mess, but he doesn't care. What's the point without Kurt?

He's not good enough to fix it, doesn't know what to do, so the only option is to...not. He lays and he waits for something, anything, and it's all too far away.

He cries so much that the tears are of the norm and his parents are concerned (even his dad). They try to make him eat, they let him stay off school and his mother suggests a counsellor, but he won't go, can't find the energy or motivation to get up and go.

He's lost, unsure, scared, helpless and most of all, so sad.

5. Acceptance.

The sun will come out tomorrow,
bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow,
there will be sun!

Just thinking about tomorrow,
clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow,
'til there's none!

When I'm stuck with a day that's grey and lonely,
I just stick out my chin and grin and say,
oh, the sun will come out tomorrow,
so, you gotta hang on 'til tomorrow,

Come what may,
tomorrow, tomorrow!
I love ya, tomorrow!
You're always a day away!

The Warblers stop by every Tuesday to sing to him. Today, it's "Tomorrow", from Annie. Something clicks in him towards the end of it and he's not sure what, but he feels like getting up again. He knows that the pain isn't going to disappear, knows it won't be easy, but it's a slow and uncomfortable process when you're locking yourself away, alone in a dark, hot room, crying. He may as well get up, face the day, prepare himself and above all, try, because Kurt deserves that. They both do.

When he opens his eyes on Wednesday morning, he's greeted by the sun and he smiles, just a little bit.

Blaine gets up, showers, dresses, cleans and eats and then he sits down at his desk, takes a pen and a sheet of paper and he starts to make a list.