Blaine startled awake when his cell phone buzzed loudly on the bedside table. He glanced around to see that he was alone and reached for his phone.

"Hello?" He winced at how rough his voice sounded.

"Sorry bro! Did I just interrupt you in the middle of gargling sand?" He smiled at Sam's teasing. "How are you?"

"I feel like I'm gargling sand," He leaned back. "But a billion times worse."

"Sorry I haven't called or visited. It's been crazy over here with midterms and stuff," Sam had gone to OSU for a degree in business. "Math is like super hard in college. I wish you were here to tutor me."

"Believe me I would rather be in math class than sitting in this hospital for three and a half weeks," Blaine groaned.

"Dude that sucks," Sam sighed. "And Puck said that you're losing your hair?"

"Yes," Blaine sighed, feeling his heart sink. "It kind of sucks."

"I bet well..." He jumped as Sam leapt into the hospital room. "SURPRISE!"

"No way!" Blaine grinned widely and sat up to hug his friend.

"Sorry, I just wanted to make you feel a little better," Sam shrugged off his coat but kept his beanie on. "I heard you were feeling down."

"Cancer isn't exactly a thrill ride," Blaine scoffed. "But I'm almost done. A week and a half and I can go home."

"Sweet!"

"You have no idea. I'm pretty sure my ass has molded to this bed," Blaine rolled his eyes. "How is school?"

"Cold."

"Cold?" He raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah," Sam smiled up to pull off his beanie. "I mean...I love supporting my best friend and all but my head is cold."

Blaine stared at him in open mouthed shock as Sam ran his hand over his shaven head. He felt his chest tighten slightly and tears gather in his eyes.

"What...why?"

"You're my best friend. I know you really liked it and didn't want you to go through that on your own," He gave Blaine a grin. "So, I wanted to support and supporting is cold."

"Sam..."

"But we look like Professor X so it's really cool."

"Sorry," Blaine took in a shaky breath and looked down at his lap, tears dotting the blanket. "Shit...sorry."

"It's cool," Sam reached over and squeezed his thin shoulder. "You're doing better right?"

"I'm so tired all the time," Blaine sighed, wiping his tears. "The chemo just wipes me out and thankfully we found a medication to help with the nausea so I'm not puking constantly."

"Good," Sam looked so compassionate that Blaine felt himself smile. "What happens after next week?"

"I get tested again to see if the cancer is still there."

Sam fell silent, eyes widening slightly.

"I'm sure you'll be fine," He sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. "You're awesome man, you'll be fine."

Blaine gave him a small smile before leaning forward to rub his head a little, grin widening. Sam batted his hands away, pretending to be angry but his eyes sparkled.

"So I have comic books that I know you'll love," Sam pulled a huge stack out of his backpack and Blaine smiled, loving that someone was finally treating him like the person he was before he got sick.

The next week crawled by in excruciating slowness. Blaine spent the time he was awake staring at the dripping of the chemotherapy into the IV. Most days Sam came with him to read comic books and Kurt spent the days sitting next to him in bed watching TV as they talked excitedly about the edition they were reading.

"And done!" Tammy cheered as she pulled out the IV.

The Anderson and Hummel families surrounded him, cheering as Blaine shot the IV drip a dirty look.

"Thank God!" He groaned.

"I'm just going to take some blood for the test and then I'll hand it to Pauline," Blaine watched as the blood filled up the vials. "Think happy thoughts."

With a wink, Tammy walked into the hall and the waiting game began.

With every second that passed by Blaine felt his nerves get worse and squirmed.

"It's going to be fine," Andrew gave his son a warm smile, tapping the bill of the hat resting on his head. "Pauline is going to come back in with that negative test."

"Absolutely," Kurt smiled but Blaine could see the strain at the corners.

His mom sat down at his side and took his hand, squeezing. Cooper bounced on the balls of his feet and Carole kept smoothing down her skirt.

"I might believe that if everyone stopped looking so nervous," Blaine tried to hide his smile as everyone looked over at him, wide eyed. Cooper was the first to crack a grin and laugh and the tension dissolved almost instantly.

"I'm just excited to go home," He sighed, smiling at his mother. "And eat some chocolate cake. And be able to keep down the chocolate cake. And to gel my hair."

"That's not happening," Kurt mumbled.

"We'll see," Blaine gave him a smile and squeezed his hand. The group chatted happily, joking and laughing as they waited.

"Hey doc!" Burt called out when Pauline stepped back into the room with a file in hand. "Tell us the good news."

She didn't smile.

"Blaine," She started softly and he felt his heart skip a beat. "We went over the tests and found that the white blood cells and blast cells have not gone down."

"What does that mean?" Lisa asked softly, Blaine finding that his voice was gone.

"It means that the cancer was resilient and the chemotherapy was not effective," She looked down at the papers and everyone was absolutely silent.

"So...the treatment didn't work?" Kurt asked shakily.

"I'm afraid not."

"You told me I had three months," Blaine's voice cracked. "You said only three months and that was a month ago. Am I going to die? Are you telling us there isn't any hope?"

"We can try a stronger kind of chemotherapy but it usually doesn't work very well. Our best chance is a bone marrow transplant," Pauline leaned towards him. "I've put you on the transplant list but the chances of a match are about one in five hundred and forty with anonymous donors."

"But we don't have a lot of time," Blaine could hardly feel how his mother's and Kurt's hands tightened on his.

"Yes," Her bluntness was a little grounding.

"What about us?" Lisa said shakily, tears running down her cheeks. "Can his father or I donate?"

"We test for a type of antigen called the HLA. We get half of our HLA genes from each parent so there is only a fifty percent chance," She suddenly looked incredibly serious. "If there is not a good match there is a risk of graft versus host disease and that is almost always fatal."

"If half of these genes come from each parent I could have the same match right?" Cooper asked softly. "I mean...could I match Blaine?"

"It's a much better chance. I can test everyone just to see if there is a match," She tried to give them a reassuring smile. "It's very simple, all we have to do is a cheek swab."

"Okay! Okay! Can we do it now?" Cooper asked quickly, eyes wide and glassy with tears.

"We'll get some kits set up."

Blaine felt like his head was filled with cotton as he looked around the room.

Burt's jaw was tense and he was squeezing a teary eyed Carole's hand in a tight grip.

His mother was openly sobbing and his father was holding her shoulders, tears shining in his eyes as well.

Cooper was talking quickly to Pauline, following her to get the test done.

And Kurt.

Kurt was sitting in the chair next to him, stone faced and pale. He was squeezing his hands together but Blaine could still see them shaking. His wide blue eyes were locked on the engagement ring on Blaine's left hand.

They had been laughing just a few minutes ago.

Just a few minutes ago they were happy.

Just a few minutes ago he was going to be fine.