Chapter 8: The Greatest Thing

Kurt pats his pockets, a gesture of comfort now more than anything. He's got his wallet, filled almost too full with the contents of his savings account. It's not enough, not nearly enough, but it should get the point across.

He should make his move now. If his calculations are correct, and he's positive they are, intermission should be ending in approximately two minutes. It will be a lot harder to slip in unnoticed once the actors are in their places and the corridors are cleared.

He takes a deep breath, reminds himself of his goal, and pushes open the door.

Backstage is just as busy and bustling as he expected, with dancers rushing to get to the stage for the act-opening number and technicians with headsets ambling back to their stations. Kurt does his best to blend in with the stream of people and get to the dressing rooms.

If this goes as planned, Kurt will be out of here in less than ten minutes and Blaine will be in the wings in time for his entrance. Kurt will know, and he'll have closure, and he can move on with his life a wiser person.

It doesn't go as planned.

Almost immediately, Kurt is forced to duck into the costume storage room to avoid Sue, who's stomping down the hallway, looking every bit the evil maharani, and then it's Santana, and Sam, and – oh God – Blaine himself.

He's missed his window. It will be another 45 minutes at least before he even has a chance at catching Blaine alone.

He sighs. He might as well find a dark hiding spot in the wings to watch the show and wait for his next opportunity. He grabs the first costume jacket he can find and changes into it, waiting for the music to start before chancing the halls again. Finally, he deems it safe enough to make his cautious way to the stage door.

He's plunged into darkness once he makes it through. The house lights are down, and the curtain has yet to rise. He makes his way from memory to a spot where he knows he'll be hidden by shadow and curtain when the stage lights come up.

He tries to enjoy the show, and he should, because it's going wonderfully, but he can't think past Blaine, not fifteen feet away. Beautiful Blaine, who nobody in the room can take their eyes off of for a second, who makes people fall in love with him and uses them like they're nothing more than tools to help him get his way.

Sebastian is in the front row, watching with a smile that's besotted and smug in turns. There's an obscene bouquet of deep red roses resting prettily on the seat next to him.

They deserve each other.

Soon, Kurt realizes his time has come. It's almost the end – there's just one scene left, the finale that Sebastian stole from him and perverted with his jealousy. Blaine and Rachel have one final costume change.

Kurt follows them when they exit – follows Blaine, really, all the way to his dressing room at the end of the hall.

He pauses outside the door to gather himself, and, in the silence, he hears what he would swear are rubber-soled footsteps behind him. He looks over his shoulder, startled, but nobody is there.

He opens the door.

Blaine whips around. His eyes widen, scared, before he can control himself.

"I've come to pay my bill," says Kurt. His voice is calm, much calmer than he feels, and steadier than his trembling hands.

Blaine stares at him for a moment, speechless, then looks away and starts working the ties of his costume vest. Kurt notes that his hands are trembling, too.

"You shouldn't be here, Kurt. I told you to – you should just leave."

He works quickly, and he won't look Kurt in the eye. It's not good enough.

"No. You made me believe that you loved me. Why shouldn't I pay you?"

He spits it, hopefully with enough venom that Blaine will feel it, too. He should feel it, feel something, at least, behind this cool, blank façade.

Blaine flinches. It's slight, but Kurt sees it.

"Please just go."

He's finished now, and pushing past Kurt to get to the door. Kurt follows – he's far from done, and he doesn't much care who sees him now. It won't matter if he gets kicked out or roughed up or whatever, because he needs this more than he needs his dignity. He catches up to Blaine, catches him by the elbow.

"But you did your job so very, very well. Why can't I pay you like everyone else does?"

"Kurt, there's no point. Please just go."

His breath has gone shallow and quick, and Kurt can feel his pulse racing at the crook of his elbow. He hardens his heart against this evidence of Blaine's distress.

"No, you have to – why can't I just pay?"

Blaine's eyes widen at something behind them, that fear again, and Kurt almost turns to look, but then Blaine is dragging them, almost running, down the hall. He maneuvers Kurt in front of him and pushes with a hand planted between Kurt's shoulder blades.

"Please, please, please just go," he gasps, once they've reached the crossroads – exit to the left, stage to the right.

"No. Not until you tell me."

Blaine is staring at him, speechless, pleading with his eyes and pushing at his chest, but Kurt came here for one reason and one reason only.

"Kurt!"

They both turn – it's Rachel, hurrying down the hall, confused and wary.

"Kurt, what are you doing? We've got to get on stage! You can talk to Blaine after curtain call."

She grabs Blaine by the arm and pulls him through the stage door, shooting a warning glare over her shoulder. Kurt ignores her, and follows.

"Come on, Blaine, just tell me," he hisses. "Tell me it wasn't real."

"Please, Kurt. Please just go." He's practically sobbing it now, even though his face stays remarkably dry. He's blinking furiously and gasping for air, and still, it isn't enough. Kurt has to hear the truth from his lips.

"Tell me it wasn't real, Blaine, come on." They're at Blaine's mark, center stage, behind the door. "Let me pay!" And there's his cue to enter, in Sue's booming voice. Blaine tries to push Kurt away, and Rachel tries to pull, but he won't be moved. He throws them off, more roughly than he intended, and they lose their balance. Rachel stumbles back, and Blaine catches himself on his knees. He looks up, and the tears have started to fall, but Kurt can't see it as anything but a lie. He grips Blaine's chin, to make sure his eyes stay on him. "Tell me you don't love me. You have to tell me, Blaine, tell me you don't love me!"

There's a gasp. A huge gasp, a collective gasp. The stage lights are bright to the point of blinding him as he looks out and realizes he's on stage, in front of an audience, for the first time in years. The door must have been opened when Blaine missed his cue. He knows he should be mortified, but, honestly, the performance is the last thing on his mind. At least now, Blaine will listen to him.

His silence has been answer enough.

Sue is downstage, improvising something about a sex change and a disguise, but Kurt is already pulling out his wallet. He finds Sebastian in the audience, halfway to standing, completely incensed.

"This man is yours now," he says. He pulls out the wad of hundreds he withdrew from the bank this afternoon and throws it at Blaine's feet. "I've paid my whore." Sebastian settles back into his seat, mollified, and Blaine takes a deep, shuddering breath. Kurt turns to him, for what he hopes will be the last time. "I owe you nothing. And you are nothing to me. Thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love." His voice cracks, on this last, but he holds his head high and stalks downstage and toward the center aisle with all of the dignity he can muster. He stops when he reaches Sebastian, and opens his mouth, but there's nothing more for him to say.

Sebastian smirks. Kurt keeps walking.

There's commotion, of course, both on stage and in the audience, but Kurt just focuses on getting from one breath to the next. He can't worry about what he just did to his friends on their opening night. What he did to Rachel.

Suddenly, something rises loud and clear above all the noise. A voice.

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."

Kurt stops.

It's the first time Santana's managed to say it without an ounce of cynicism. He takes a breath, steels himself, keeps moving – he's gotten what he came for, after all. He shrugs out of his costume jacket and leaves it there in the aisle. The audience murmurs, and then...silence. He picks up his pace, eager to just get out.

He hasn't walked three steps when he hears it.

A sniff, an intake of breath, and another voice, soft and tremulous and building in strength.

"Never knew...I could feel...like this,

Like I've never seen the sky before..."

Kurt's heart stops. He stops.

"...Want to vanish inside your kiss.

Every day, I'm loving you more and more."

He can scarcely breathe.

"Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing?"

And there it is – hope. He turns around and sees Blaine, his Blaine, with tears in his eyes and on his cheeks, and his heart exposed for the world to see.

"Come back to me and forgive everything!"

Kurt wants to cry at the way his voice chokes off at the end and laugh at the impromptu lyric change, but he's too caught up thinking, Ah, there you are. I've been looking for you forever.

A gasp of breath, "Seasons may change, winter to spring," and then, more spoken than sung, "I love you...'til the end of time."

The way Blaine is looking at him, there's no possible way Kurt could doubt the truth of it, and he won't, not ever again. Blaine has paused, now, waiting, and Kurt knows it's his turn.

"Come what may..."

He starts up the aisle, rushing to get to him, and Blaine laughs with the relief of it.

"Come what may..."

He's almost there.

"Come what may..."

He tries to leap up onto the stage, sure that his heart will give him wings, but he trips, and stumbles, and scrambles to his feet. He doesn't care.

"I will love you – "

And then Blaine is there with him, smiling through his wet lashes, and he's singing, too.

"I will love you – "

Their fingers find each other, clasp between them in a complicated knot. Blaine's heart is still beating rabbit-quick, but his voice has grown steady, and his face is shining with it, this happiness he didn't know could be his to have. Kurt has barely enough control over his own face to hold the note without collapsing it into his grin.

And, together – in call and response, in harmony, their voices together the way they're supposed to be, somehow more intimate than anything –

" – until my dying day.

Come what may, come what may,

I will love you until my dying – "

Bang.

They cut off.

The room erupts into gasps, murmurs, a few nervous titters. The audience thinks this is part of the show, Kurt realizes. This whole thing, this whole time, they've thought it was an act.

And, oh my God, that was a gunshot.

And then – chaos. People are running, ducking, screaming all around them, so loud that Kurt can't even think, and then Blaine is grabbing his hand and making to run, too.

"Up there!" they hear, and it's Rachel, rushing out from backstage and pointing up at the ceiling. "He's got a gun! Kurt, he's trying to kill you!"

They stop and turn to look, almost as one. Blaine gasps, clutching tighter at Kurt's fingers, and Kurt can see why just a second later.

It's that guy, the bodyguard who slammed Kurt into an alley wall just two nights ago. He's up in the catwalk, hidden by the bright lights unless you know what to look for, at just the perfect angle to take a shot at someone standing downstage center. His hands shoot up in surrender, once he realizes he's been discovered, and, in his surprise, he fumbles. The gun falls through the air, all eyes glued to its path, and then it clatters to the stage, and...

Nothing.

The audience is dead silent, and so are the actors.

Click, click, click, the sound of stilettos echoing through the stillness.

Santana marches downstage, pushing through the crowd of actors as she goes, probably harder than absolutely necessary. She plucks a scarf off of somebody's costume as she passes and uses it to pick up the gun. She does something that involves a lot of clicking and some pulling apart, and then she wraps it neatly up in the scarf.

"There," she says. "Evidence. I think you'll find that the police are already on their way." She directs this last at Sebastian, with a smirk. "I wouldn't bother trying to run."

He's pale, and livid, and glued to his seat. He turns to check the exits, an almost reflexive evaluation of his escape routes. They're blocked, every one – Sue herself is at the center aisle door with a baseball bat clutched in her hand and wrath in her eyes.

"Now. What do you say we close this thing out?"

The audience cheers, still oblivious, but Santana wasn't talking to them. She nods stage right, to the conductor.

"Hit it," she says, and, right on cue, the opening strains of the finale, the real finale, start to play. The actors are dazed and still maybe a little in panic mode, but Santana's confidence is infectious, and, soon enough, they've all joined in.

The song is victorious, and romantic, and they sing it tonight with little regard for parts or harmonies. It's a wall of joyous sound, with choreography out the window and music for the thrill of it. It's everything, actually, that Kurt imagined when he wrote it.

It's easy to forget the more disturbing events of the past 48 hours when Blaine is in front of him, happy and real and singing to him. There will be a lot to talk about later, Kurt knows, a lot to figure out and quite a few difficult conversations – not to mention a police interview or two – but right now he can let all of that melt away in favor of reveling in the thumps of his healed-up heart as he looks into Blaine's gorgeous eyes.

The last notes sound, the audience starts cheering, and the curtain closes. The actors around them erupt in a bizarre mixture of elation and shock, hugging each other, and laughing, and sobbing by turns. The faint sound of approaching sirens breaks through the cacophony of it all.

But it's all white noise to Kurt. Because his hands are clasped with Blaine's, trapped between their chests, and he can feel Blaine's heart, and...that's not normal. The speed of it, like hummingbird wings, or the weird, woozy way Blaine is blinking, or the shallow gasp of his breath – none of it is normal.

...it turned into a panic attack.

"Blaine?" he says urgently. "Blaine, are you okay?"

"I don't – weird, it feels weird."

His voice is faint, and distant. Kurt's about to open his mouth and tell him in no uncertain terms that they're going to the hospital, but Blaine doesn't give him a chance. Because right then, at that moment, Kurt can feel Blaine's heart stop. His eyes roll back and his body goes limp, and they're so tangled up that Kurt falls with him to the ground.

"Blaine?" he calls, shrill in his panic, as he rights himself. There's no answer, of course. OhGodohGodohGod. There's no pulse, either, or any sign of breath. "Somebody get some help!"

Several people scurry into motion, but Kurt's attention has already been pulled back to Blaine's too-still body. CPR. That's a thing, and it's a thing Kurt knows. He's been trained since high school, when his dad had his – oh, God, don't think about that. Just do. Don't think, just do.

His hands are shaking, but he pulls himself together, because Blaine's heart isn't beating right now, and that's something that can kill you in a matter of minutes.

His world narrows in to compressions and breathing, the crack of cartilage snapping beneath the heel of his hand and the slack warmth of Blaine's mouth. Come on, come on, come on, come on.

Then the paramedics are there, and things happen quickly. Kurt isn't allowed to ride in the ambulance, and it's maybe the hardest thing Kurt's ever had to do, watching Blaine's dear, dear, lifeless body be carted off by strangers, to somewhere he can't follow. Rachel guides him outside and hails them a cab. She leans into him and rubs his shoulder the entire ride to the hospital, tears slipping down her cheeks and onto his skin.

"He'll be okay," he murmurs, to himself more than to her.

He has to be.