Kurt inhaled a shaky breath, trying to keep his emotions in check. He was sitting in his dressing room, putting the final touches on his makeup and making sure every piece of lint and each speck of dust was off his costume. Typically, he denied having OCD, but on certain occasions, it was hard to hide. And for crying out loud, shouldn't he be a little obsessive? It was his first opening night as a lead in a show, after all.  

He pulled out his phone to double check again, but no luck. He was going on in thirty-five minutes, and Blaine hadn't texted him telling him if he was here or not. Mercedes, Tina, Mike, Brittany, and Santana were all there, and they hadn't seen him either. He starts panicking a little.

There's a light knock on the door.

“Come in,” Kurt calls.

“It's me,” Rachel says. “Can I come in?”

He briefly makes eye contact with her, than looks down.

“I thought I told you not to see me,” he says, but it comes out more sad than menacing.

“I could never have missed your opening night, Kurt. You're still my best friend.” She pauses and swallows hard. “We have these defining moments in our life, and I know that this will be one of yours. I would hate myself if I missed it.”

Rachel dared to take a few steps in. She had been standing at the door before, waiting for him to give her some kind of signal saying it was okay to approach. He didn't, but she took the risk anyways.

“So, I uh… I apologized to Blaine,” she says.

Kurt quirks up an eyebrow in surprise.

“You did?”

“Yeah. I'm kind of surprised he didn't mention it.”

“Oh,” Kurt says in embarrassment. “I haven't really seen him all that much lately. We've both been super busy. When did you see him?”

“Just last week. We were in Macy's. He was looking through glasses or something. It was Friday, actually.”

Friday? The night of our date? Why would he be at Macy's?

“Kurt,” Rachel says carefully. “Are you okay?”

He swallows hard. He's never been good at lying, especially not to Rachel. She could always see right through him.

“No, I'm not. Blaine… he's not here.”

“What do you mean he's not here?” She furrows her brow in confusion.

“I don't know, he won't respond to my texts, no one else has seen him, he just skipped out on my opening night, apparently. And he's been missing dates for the past couple weeks. He's been claiming that he's busy putting together the album, and writing songs, but… he just never makes time for us anymore. I don't know what to do. And I feel like this is the biggest night of my life, and he's not even here to share it. What if…” he trails off, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes.

“What if he's cheating on me?”

Rachel closes her eyes. She wants to say the right things. She knows she can't afford having him get mad at her again. And she doesn't want to ruin his opening night.

“Kurt, let's not jump to conclusions…”

“No, Rachel. What if you were right? What if he hasn't changed since high school? And we've only been married a couple months, how do I know if he's telling the truth or not?”

“Kurt,” she says. “Maybe he's just been distant because he doesn't know how much you care,” she replies, saying the first thing that comes to mind.

“You really think so?”

She nods fiercely, desperately wishing that to be true, and the other option to be false.

“Yep, I definitely think so. And you know what, I'm sure that whatever reason he has for being late, he has a good excuse for. Just give him the benefit of the doubt, Kurt.”

He swallows back tears.

“Okay, I will,” he says.

“I believe in you, Kurt. I know you're going to kill it tonight. I'm gonna go sit down now, but stop worrying, okay? Everything's gonna be fine.” She turns around and starts to walk out the door.

“Rachel,” Kurt calls quietly. She barely catches it.

“Yeah?” she asks.

“Thank you,” he replies, with a sad smile on his face. She returns the smile with a slight nod and exits the room. He inhales another shaky breath and tries coaxing himself into bravery. He is repeating relaxing words to himself, over and over again, in a type of meditation, when a small buzz from his phone breaks the silence. He looks down. It's from Blaine.

Should I even open it?

He foolishly taps the notification twice to open it.

Sorry sweetie, it looks like I'm gonna be a little late to the show. I'm so sorry! Promise it won't happen again. Last time, I swear.

Kurt breathes in and turns off his phone. Tears blur his vision as he thinks to himself. If he does manage to make it, I don't want to know. It doesn't matter anyways.

“So, do you boys wanna tell me what you were doing at this abandoned warehouse in the middle of the day?” The police officer looked at Blaine and Sam with a tired expression on his face. He already knew why they were there, but he was just following this as part of protocol.

“Look, officer,” Blaine began in a respectful tone. “We were just fooling around, looking for junk and stuff. We're dumpster divers. It's just something we do for fun.”

The policeman rolled his eyes, not believing a word.

“Look, I know what you two were doing. You were obviously there to hold an anti-Match meeting. But since I have no proof, I'm gonna let you guys go.”

“Wait, are you serious?” Sam asked incredulously. “You're just gonna let us go that easily?”

“Well, there's nothing that I can really do. You should be happy,” the officer grumbles. “Besides,” he whispers, “off the record, I never really approved of this whole required marriage thing either.”

By the time Sam and Blaine manage to get out of the police station, Kurt's show is long over.

“Damn it Sam! We missed it! Kurt's gonna kill me!” Blaine sits down on a random bench and puts his head in his hands.

Sam sits down next to him, slowly. “I'm gonna tell Mercedes.”

Blaine snaps his head up and looks at Sam as if he were crazy.

“What?! Why?!”
“Blaine, we just missed your husband's opening night on Broadway. There's no good excuse for that. Everyone is going to wonder what happened, and we're gonna have to tell them something. It should be the truth.”

“The truth, Sam? That we got arrested for scoping out a warehouse for an anti-Match meeting? You really want to tell them that we're involved in that?”

“Yes! I do, I really do. This lie just keeps getting bigger and bigger! There's no way we're going to be able to keep it for much longer, anyways. I have to tell her.”

“Sam!”

“If you want, I'll just tell her about me, not about you. But I really think you should come clean to Kurt, dude.”

Blaine sighs and closes his eyes. He breathes in deeply.

“Okay, I'll tell him.”

When Blaine opens the door around midnight, he is surprised to see that Kurt still isn't home. He looks at his phone. There are no missed calls or messages from him. Kurt was probably mad at him, but he should definitely be home by now. He tried calling his husband, but there was no answer. He leaves a few voice mails. Around one in the morning, he starts panicking. He's pacing back and forth madly, praying for any sign of Kurt. He even called Rachel, who said she hadn't seen him since the show. When he finally heard the door squeak open, he made a mad dash for his husband, throwing his arms around him.

“Kurt! It's so late, I was worried!  Where on earth have you been?”

Kurt pulls back from Blaine's grip and gives him a tired look.

“That's a rich question coming from you,” he says sadly.

Blaine sighs, angry at himself.

“Look, I know that I missed your opening night, and nothing I say can really justify...”

But Blaine stops himself. He simply cannot let himself continue with Kurt standing there, looking heartbroken.

“What's wrong,” Blaine asks in a quiet voice. “You must be tired, come sit and let me make you some tea.”

But Kurt simply stands in the doorway. Blaine pulls him in and shuts the door after them, but Kurt only walks in a few steps.

“You asked why I was so late,” Kurt says, his voice dry and rough.

Blaine shakes his head. “No, Kurt you don't have to answer…”

“No, I do. I was looking everywhere to get you these,” Kurt says, pulling a beautiful bouquet from behind his back. Blaine melts, but is confused all the same.

“It was quite difficult, finding a florist that was open at this time of the night. But hey, it's New York, so I managed.” Kurt hadn't been looking at Blaine; he had just been staring at the floor. But then he tilted his head up and looked at Blaine with such an intensity, it made him shiver.

“Then I got a phone call. Apparently, you left your jacket at the police station.”

Blaine feels all of his blood rush out of him. He doesn't say anything, he's sure his eyes are saying it all at this point.

“I asked why you were there, and they said you were arrested. So then I called Sam.” Kurt closes his eyes. Blaine doesn't take his eyes off of Kurt's face.

“How long?” Kurt whispers shakily.

“What?” Blaine asks, in an equally unsteady tone.

“How long have you been lying to me?”

Blaine casts his eyes down to the ground and sighs.

“I'm not sure, maybe a couple weeks?”

Kurt chokes back a sob and closes his eyes again. Then, when he opens his them, he directs his gaze at Blaine. But it's not an angry look, just a sad one. He hands Blaine the flowers and turns around, heading towards the door.

“I'm going to go now,” Kurt says. “Please don't look for me for at least a day or two,” and then he slams the door shut. Blaine can hear his running footsteps down the hallway, and oh, how he wants to chase after him. But he knows he can't.

It's nearly 2am when Kurt shows up at Rachel's door. He didn't want to pick her, but she was right, they were best friends, in the end. He would've gone to Mercedes, but he figured that Sam would be there, and he didn't want to see him either.

He starts pounding the door of 23B. Jesse opens it, looking tired, but not at all surprised. Kurt's sure that he looks like a mess, or a complete lunatic, or both. He's been running through the streets of Manhattan for the past half hour. Half of his costume makeup is still on. His hair is greasy and sticking up in all different directions, as a result of him running his hands through it at least fifty times that night, a gesture he'd done in worry, in panic, and in pain. His shirt is untucked and half unbuttoned, tie discarded long ago. His jacket is barely on, and somehow his shoelaces had become untied, and he hadn't bothered to tie them again. He had almost tripped over them half a dozen times. A police officer had stopped him halfway between 22nd and Main, asking how much he had had to drink that night. But when Kurt started explaining the situation with his husband, the officer simply gave him a wrinkled napkin from his pocket to blow his nose on and let him go.

Jesse doesn't give the judgmental, questioning look that Kurt expects from him. He simply puts an arm around Kurt's shoulders and pulls him inside the apartment.

“Mercedes is already here.”

Kurt looks to the middle of the living room, where he sees Mercedes and Rachel sitting on the couch, digging into a carton of Rocky Road. Mercedes had obviously been crying, and she looks at Kurt in a mutual grief when he walks in.

“You didn't know either?”

He shakes his head slowly. It's all he can do.

Jesse speaks from where he's standing.

“Alright, I'm going to get some more ice cream, seeing as Rachel and Mercedes have eaten through the two cartons we had. I'll be back soon.”

He grabs his jacket and leaves. Kurt collapses on the ground in front of them and starts bawling. This is the first time tonight that he's actually let himself cry. He didn't want to in front of Blaine, didn't want to give him that satisfaction. Mercedes and Rachel instantly go to pull him up and hug him. He inhales their perfumed, girly scents and relaxes a smidge. The subdued scents of lavender and peony that they're wearing remind him of his mother.

“I'm so sorry, Kurt,” Rachel says.

“I would've never thought this could happen.” Mercedes sobs. “You think you know somebody…”

Kurt emerges from their all consuming hug. His face is red, from having trouble breathing, and his eyes are full of tears.

“No, I'm sorry Rachel. You were right. You were so right. I should've listened to you. I thought I knew Blaine, but I didn't. I tricked myself into believing that everything would work, after all of our messed up history. I was naive, and stupid, and…”

“Kurt, this isn't your fault. You can't believe that. This is no one's fault but theirs,” Mercedes says.

“God, what were they even thinking? Why did they do it?” Rachel asks.

“Well for Blaine,” Kurt says, sniffling, “it all started when the band played at Smythe's stupid meeting. He met some girl, Marley, who told him her sob story about her awful husband, and I mean, even I felt sorry for her. But Blaine got all involved and he started going to these meetings. Then, he said he was gonna go to a riot, but I told him not to, because it was dangerous, but I guess he went anyways.” He was speaking in a low voice, trying to stop himself from crying but not being fully able to.

“It didn't even bother me that much that he went, just that he lied about it. And he's been lying for weeks! I don't know how I can ever believe anything he says.”

“Well at least you know why,” Mercedes says. “For Sam, I don't even know why he's involved in all of this, or how it happened. We never talked about it, he never told me anything. I just got a stupid call from this girl named Kitty. She was trying to reach Sam. At first, I thought it was his mistress or something, but then she explained everything. God, I wanted to hurt him when he finally got home.”

“I found out when I got that stupid call from the police station,” Kurt says.

“Police station?! Why the hell were they there?!”

“Gosh, you don't even know? Apparently they were arrested.”

“Arrested?!” Mercedes shrieks. She stands up. “He didn't tell me that! I swear, I am gonna-” she starts heading for the door. Rachel jumps up and stops her.

“No! You know what? I am gonna go talk to them. Both of them! You two, stay here. I specifically told Blaine that if he hurt you, he would have hell to pay from me. Well he did it, and now he's gonna see how far my wrath can reach.”

“Rachel, don't,” Kurt says. She looks at him in surprise. “Just leave it alone for now. Honestly, they're not even worth the trouble,” he says sadly.

“Kurt…” she trails off.

“No. I don't want to think about him right now. I'm married to someone, and I don't even know who they are. Right now, I want to sleep. I have a show tomorrow, and if I cry to much or don't sleep, my performance is going to be wrecked.” Kurt takes a deep breath.

“You know, he didn't even show up. Blaine didn't even bother to come to his husband's opening night. I've been to every one of his damn shows, and I even…” Kurt's talking is interrupted by his own sobs. “I even…” he manages between his sharp inhales.

Mercedes puts a hand on his back to soothe him.

“Kurt, you what?”

“I changed my name,” he chokes out, and puts his head in his hands.

“You what?!” Rachel yells.

“Rachel!” Mercedes snaps at her.

“I th-thought it would be a cute surprise. So I f-filled out all the forms and stuff. I even got a new driver's license and social security card. I'm officially Kurt Anderson-Hummel. Nice to meet you,” he says, and manages something between a sad laugh and another sob.

Rachel is staring at him in horror, mouth gaping. Mercedes simply puts her arms around him in a supportive hug.

“Okay, how about this, Kurt,” Rachel says. “Tonight, we relax and watch a movie. Let's watch something that won't make you guys think about Sam or Blaine at all.  Then you can sleep so you'll be rested for your show tomorrow and I'll go kick their asses.”

“Okay, that sounds alright,” Kurt and Mercedes agree.

When Jesse comes home half an hour later with a three more tubs of Ben and Jerry's, he finds Kurt, Mercedes, and Rachel cuddled up on the couch, dead asleep, with Bullets Over Broadway playing in the background.

The next day, Blaine hears a pounding on the door. He groggily gets up from where he fell asleep- the kitchen floor- and goes to answer the door. He feels like crap. He looks at the microwave for the time. 5:45 am. He walks to the door to stop the banging noise that's making his headache worse.

“So you were right, it was a terrible idea,” Sam says, barging in. He looks worse than Blaine does. His hair is sticky and reddish, like he spilled juice on it or something. His clothes are beyond wrinkled, and he smells like beer.

“I'm guessing she didn't take it well when you told her,” Blaine says miserably.

“No, how could she have? She dumped a pitcher of strawberry lemonade on my head and started throwing kitchen supplies at me. I got hit in the face with tupperware, Blaine.”

“Well, you deserved it, didn't you! We both did. Why were we so damn stupid?”

“I don't know! How could we think lying was a good idea? What are we gonna do, Blaine. I hate myself right now.”

Blaine shakes his head pathetically.
“I have no clue.”

“We just gotta win them back! Maybe we should come up with a song, that says how sorry we are!”

“You mean like the lie I told Kurt about what we were actually doing?”

“Oh yeah. Okay, so not the best idea. But we'll come up with something. We have to! This can't be it, man.”

“Well, I don't know if you've met my husband, Kurt, but he can hold grudges for a pretty long time. He was mad at me for what happened in high school for seven years, Sam.”

“That's true, and Rachel and Mercedes finally stopped being frenemies and started being real friends recently. They secretly hated each other forever.”

“Maybe we should just give them space, for now,” Blaine says sadly.

“NO! Okay, we can't do that. You know what, I heard somewhere, that for every negative thing you do in a relationship, you just have to do seven positive things, and then the bad that you did will be erased. So, we just have to figure out the number of times we lied, multiply it by seven,” Sam clapped as if he was having an epiphany, “and that's how many cupcakes we have to make them.”

Blaine shakes his head sadly.

“I don't think it works that way, Sam.”

They hear a light knock on the door. Sam and Blaine look at each other in confusion and hope, and get up to answer.

“Who is it?” Blaine calls out.

“Who do you think it is bitches?!”

“Oh God,” Blaine says, opening the door. Sam and Blaine are not surprised to find Rachel behind the door.

She stomps in without being welcomed, arms crossed around her petite frame. No words are spoken, but that doesn't matter. Both boys know what this meeting is about. She takes no less than five steps in and stops. Turning around, she faces them and simply raises an eyebrow as if to say “Alright, explain yourselves.”

Sam begins.

“Okay, Rach, I know that you're probably pretty pissed. We hurt your friends, and now you've come for blood. But I feel absolutely awful about what happened. We feel awful,” Sam says, motioning between the two of them, “right Blaine?”

“Yes, absolutely horrible,” Blaine says, imploring forgiveness. “I know that there's no excuse for what we did, but-”

“I'm going to stop you two right there. You guys don't even know what you did, do you?” Rachel's tone is harsh at the very least. She takes off her coat, as if she's preparing to brawl.

“I was up with Kurt and Mercedes all night. You lied to them. You,” she said, pointing at Sam, “made Mercedes think that you were with another woman, the way you kept missing meetings and leaving her.”

“I would never-” Sam begins, but Rachel silences him with a finger.

“And you,” she points at Blaine, “missed your husband's opening night, for the biggest role he's ever had, probably the first he'll win a Tony for.”

Blaine hung his head in shame.

“I detest you two right now. You're deplorable, awful people. You both somehow were dumb enough to manage to ruin the best thing that's ever happened to you. But,” Rachel closed her eyes and took a deep breath, “I didn't come to yell at you guys this today.”

“But you just did,” Sam said, shaking his head in confusion.

“Shut up! Okay, listen. I'm gonna help you guys.”

“W-why?” Blaine asked. He wasn't sure if he should be happy, or skeptical.

“Because, I was with them last night, alright? You didn't see them. They were a damn mess. They must've eaten through like, five cartons of ice cream. And before you two assholes screwed it up, they were actually happy. Way happier than I'd seen them in a long time.” Rachel sighs. “So that's why I'm going to help you two get them back.”

“You are?!” Sam asked incredulously.

Rachel looked as if she didn't even believe herself.

“All I know is that my friends are sad. And the only way to make them feel better is to get them back together with you two idiots. I mean, thanks to this law, they can't divorce you, so this is the next best thing, right?”

“You know,” Sam began, “it's funny, because a lot of people would say that this is the first best option-”
“Yeah, I don't care,” Rachel interrupted. “Now, are we just going to sit here, or are we going to brainstorm?”