"Who's Liam?"

Kurt froze, the stack of sketches he was holding almost falling out his slack grasp onto the floor. Reflexively snatching at the papers before they fell, he stared at Blaine's curious expression, shock and a sudden gush of all the old feelings crashing around inside him. Aside from the brief mention a couple of days ago, he hadn't heard the name of his ex-boyfriend spoken in almost a year. It was the name of someone he didn't like to think about and whom he and Rachel had a strict rule of never mentioning. Since the day he had determinedly shoved everything to do with Liam into a locked box inside of him, he rarely remembered he even existed. Only when certain songs came on the radio or when he heard someone say Liam's well-used phrase of 'let's roll' did the box crack open and all the suppressed memories and feelings threaten to spill out. And now he had been mentioned twice within a few days; Kurt found it all very unsettling.

Setting the pile of sketches down neatly on top of the rest where they lay on the coffee table, Kurt nervously licked his dry lips. He wanted to tell Blaine about Liam, to share his past with him, to help him understand why he was the person he was. But at the same time he didn't want to tell him, didn't want him to know how something that had happened almost a year ago was still affecting him today; he didn't want him to see the weaker side of him, the chinks in his armour.

Resting his elbows on his knees he rubbed at his closed eyes. "Liam is my ex-boyfriend; we broke up almost a year ago."

There was a long pause. Kurt didn't dare lift his head to look at Blaine; for some reason, he didn't want to see his expression.

"Oh," Blaine said eventually, his voice small. "I- I'm sorry for bringing this up. I heard the name mentioned the other day and- I'm sorry, we don't have to talk about this."

Kurt raised his head. Blaine looked sincerely apologetic, like he really regretted mentioning Liam. Kurt gave his head a small shake, waving away his apology. "No, it's fine. I- I think I want to tell you about it, it's just been a while since I've spoken about him with anyone."

Blaine's brow furrowed with concern. "Kurt, you don't have to-"

"But I want to," Kurt insisted. He sat up straight, inhaling deeply and nodding his head. He could do this, he could talk about it, it had been months now, he had moved on from it all.

Twisting his fingers in his lap, he tried to decide where to begin.

"I grew up in a town in Ohio where being gay was- well... Most people there had similar attitudes towards homosexuals as what you're used to." He gave Blaine a weak smile. "I was tormented throughout high school for being open about who I was and it was made all the more difficult by being the only person out at my school." At Blaine's look of confusion, he added, "I was the only person who was open about being gay." He began rubbing the palms of his hands over the rough fabric of his jeans, releasing some of his nervous energy through the repetitive motion. "When I moved out here for college I had zero experience in dating and was extremely naïve, all too eager and quick to jump into a relationship with the first guy who showed an interest in me."

Kurt swallowed hard and stopped the compulsive movements of his hands, digging his fingernails into the knees of his jeans. He was finally lifting the lid on the tightly sealed box containing memories of Liam. His pulse pounded in his ears and Blaine's attentive, concerned face blurred out of focus as he sifted through the contents of the box. There was no backing out now.

"Liam was on my course and after we worked together during a design workshop we stuck together during our classes. Within a fortnight of semester starting, he asked me out."

An image filled Kurt's head: Liam smiling across a café table at him as they ate lunch. His face was ever so slightly out of focus and the background was nondescript smudges of soft colours, the whole scene faded around the edges like an old photograph that had been viewed too often. It was a memory that Kurt had once held fondly but was now tainted and spoiled by more recent events and a change in the way his heart beat.

He traced a line up his thigh with his finger. "I fell for him hard and fast. During my last few years of high school I'd felt lonely and extremely jealous of my friends going on dates and having all these experiences that I never got the chance to have. Looking back, I think I was more in love with being in a relationship than I was with Liam himself." He lifted his shoulders in a small shrug, the nonchalant movement failing to mask his true discomfort, the tension in his shoulders and the stiffness in his voice betraying him. "I threw myself into my relationship with Liam. After we broke up I blamed it on me being too clingy, but it wasn't that.

"Not long after we graduated from college I asked him to move in with me, he agreed, we were happy. It was like a dream, and I was imagining spending the rest of my life with him, though I never mentioned that to him; we were still young and I was a bit of a hopeless romantic. We were happy, our relationship was solid, I had no warning for what happened less than a week after he moved in with me: I came home to find his stuff was all gone and he'd moved out. I thought he'd just decided he wasn't ready for us to live together and we'd hit a bump in the road, but I never heard from him again. My texts and calls got no response, and then his number was changed a few days later. I went to his old apartment but it was still empty and the landlord said someone else would be moving into it soon, I spoke to his friends but they hadn't heard from him. I was in despair. I was confused and hurt and betrayed, but a part of me still clung to the hope he'd come back and we could fix whatever had gone wrong."

Blaine had gone very still as he listened to Kurt speak, his eyes fixed almost unblinkingly on Kurt's face. There was so much concern and pity on his face that Kurt couldn't look at him for very long, instead fixing his gaze on a small dent in the wooden floor where Rachel had dropped her end of the coffee table when they'd been moving in.

"I got the story out of one of Liam's friends a week later. Liam had moved back to his hometown of Indianapolis and cut himself off from nearly everyone in New York. He'd been feeling overwhelmed by everything from our relationship to trying to find the right job in the fashion industry and had needed out." Kurt's voice became bitter. "Apparently he thought the best way to do that was to leave suddenly without offering anyone an explanation and to never contact anyone from his New York life again."

A moment of stunned silence followed his words. Without looking up, Kurt knew Blaine's eyes were widened in disbelief.

"He- You never saw him again?" Blaine stammered. He sounded almost angry. "He left while you were out, snuck out behind your back, and never spoke to you again? Never explained himself?"

Knowing Blaine's eyes were still fixed on him, Kurt nodded. Blaine made a small, appalled noise, and Kurt added, "Apparently our four year relationship meant nothing to him. He didn't care enough about me to be worried about how I might have been affected by what he'd done."

"He was a coward," Blaine said sharply, his voice thick with detest.

Kurt nodded his agreement, slumped back in his seat, and finally looked at Blaine. The other man sat stiffly on the couch, his eyes bright with his disgust. "It took me months to realise that; to stop blaming myself."

Blaine made a small movement, a slight twitching of his hands and upper body as though he made to get up but changed his mind. His expression shifted. "Is this why Rachel doesn't really like me?"

"It's not that she doesn't like you," Kurt disagreed, "she's just become overly cautious and suspicious of any guy she doesn't know whom I've become friends with since Liam. Not that there's been many guys," he added as an afterthought.

Blaine nodded and Kurt fidgeted in the silence that followed.

"Rachel worries about me a lot," Kurt blurted out, needing to break the silence and make sure Blaine understood she wasn't targeting him and he shouldn't feel uncomfortable living with her. "I haven't really been the same since Liam left and that concerns her. Over the last couple of months she's tried to set me up with guys she knows, tried to break me out of the cycle I've gotten into of working and sleeping, but I haven't been interested in any of those guys, and-" He met Blaine's eyes. "You're the first guy who I haven't met through Rachel who I've become friends with since Liam and it worries her that she doesn't know you. She's just trying to protect me."

Blaine stared at him for a moment, his expression unreadable. "So you're saying she doesn't trust me?"

"I-" Kurt stopped the automatic reassurance that this wasn't the case which immediately rose to his lips. He didn't want to feebly deny what he knew to be the truth, not to Blaine, not when it was obvious that, at this point in time, Rachel did not fully trust Blaine. There was nothing to be gained from denying the obvious.

"What matters is that I trust you," he said softly.

Blaine's mouth opened and then closed again. Kurt felt himself becoming hot around his neck and he leaned forward to straighten the already neat pile of sketches, needing to do something other than blush under Blaine's heavy gaze. He was acutely aware of the set of his mouth and the position of his hands as he sat back in his chair, no longer having a valid reason to tidy his sketches. He couldn't remember ever feeling so awkward or self-conscious.

Blaine was wearing a small smile when he finally looked up, the lines of his face soft.

"That's what matters to me," Blaine agreed softly.

The flush covering Kurt's cheeks deepened, and he internally cursed his burning face - why did he still blush like a teenager around this man?

Kurt had no idea how to respond to this and so another period of silence followed. It felt like the air in the room was humming with some kind of electricity and one word or movement from either of them could be enough to set off a spark. Kurt found himself holding his breath, waiting for the flicker of that spark. He was hyperaware of each tiny movement Blaine made, of every shift of his expression. He studied Blaine's face over and over again, as if he were a page in a book he'd been told to memorise. He could see Blaine was waiting, too, hesitating on the verge of taking the plunge, of seeing if the spark would ignite.

Keys jingled in the hallway and one slid into the lock. Blaine dragged his eyes away from Kurt to look round at the front door just as it swung open, snapping the thickly hanging tension and fizzling out the electricity.

With his heart sinking in disappointment, Kurt watched Rachel stride into the apartment swinging her purse, clearly in a good mood.

"Afternoon!" she sang, beaming at them and making a beeline for her room. As she passed the kitchen she began singing one of the songs from her current production at the top of her lungs. Kurt winced a little as her voice pierced the air; she could not have picked a worse moment to waltz in and start singing.

Blaine stared after her as her voice, mercifully, faded. "Does she ever pipe down?"

His question was most likely rhetorical, but Kurt answered anyway. "Rarely," he said grimly. When Blaine's gaze returned to his face, he shifted nervously in his chair. "Do you want to do a bit more research?" he asked, valiantly trying to prevent the awkwardness he could sense from settling in. "I was thinking about looking into experimental time travel and seeing if-"

"I want to go to my house."

Cutting himself off mid-speech, Kurt stared at Blaine, his brain slowly trying and failing to make sense of what he'd just heard.

"You- What?"

Blaine swallowed, uncertainty creeping into his expression. "I want to visit my old house," he repeated hesitantly. "Where I lived back in my own time."

Kurt's mouth fell open, his mouth shaping several responses, though no sound escaped his throat. He hadn't expected this. Sure, he had briefly thought Blaine may be curious about the futures of himself or his family, but learning or fiddling around with your own future was something that had been drilled into him as fundamentally wrong from all the time travel fiction he'd come across. Whenever he'd wondered if this was something Blaine would wish to do he'd debated whether it was something he'd want if their positions were reversed - if he could learn what his future would be like, what he'd achieve in his life, would he want to know? The idea scared him - what if he didn't achieve any of his dreams or died young? He wouldn't want to spend the rest of his life haunted by what was to come. But on the other hand, he would possibly have the knowledge to change things, if he wanted. He always ended up pushing the idea from his mind at this point, telling himself Blaine would never want to learn of his future.

And now here they were.

"You- You want to go to your house?" Kurt said, needing the confirmation to make sure Blaine was actually being serious.

He was. There wasn't a twitch of mouth or mischievous sparkle in his eyes to betray him as joking. He wanted to do this, wanted to enter the territory Kurt had desperately been turning a blind eye to in the hopes that Blaine felt the same way and didn't want to know what had become of his life in the ninety-one years he'd skipped forward.

Blaine seemed to know what Kurt was thinking. "I know I probably shouldn't and I know I'm entering dangerous waters here, but I almost feel like I have to go. For the past few days I've been filled with this burning curiosity to know what my house is like today, to see some part of my old life." He shook his head, his eyes apologetic. "I've tried to ignore it, but I just can't." His voice lifted hopefully. "Maybe there's something there that will explain why I'm here or how I can get back."

He was fishing, they both knew it.

Blaine's shoulders slumped. "I doubt that," he admitted in a low, dispirited voice. "But I still wish to go."

Kurt was torn. He hated seeing Blaine so down and didn't want to refuse him something he wanted so badly, but he was worried, scared of entering this side of time travel. And what if, after seeing his house, Blaine was tempted to learn more? What if this didn't quench his curiosity of the ninety-one years he'd missed, but fuelled it?

Kurt bit his lip. "I don't know, Blaine..."

Blaine's slightly desperate eyes searched Kurt's face for a moment, and then he nodded slowly, looking disheartened. "I know why you're worried about this, but I just want to see what became of the house, that's all." He paused. "But if it's something you really think I shouldn't do, then I won't. We can just forget about this."

Rubbing at the skin beneath his left eye Kurt bit back a sigh of frustration. A battle raged inside him, his fear at looking too much into Blaine's future fighting with his desire to please Blaine and the voice in his head assuring him they were only looking at a house, it wouldn't affect anything.

"Ok," he heard himself say as if from a distance.

Blaine's body lifted from its slumped position. "Are you sure?" he asked hesitantly.

Kurt wasn't, not completely. He was still scared and not totally convinced this wouldn't result in Blaine knowing too much. "I'm sure," he said.

After a quick search on the internet they discovered that Blaine's house was no longer the residence of a single family. Some forty years ago it had been converted into a guest house, a small hotel of sorts. In spite of this, Blaine still wanted to visit the house, even though it probably wouldn't look much like the place he called home.

They travelled there the following day, Kurt printing out a map from the internet and using it to navigate their way out of the city and into the suburbs where the traffic lessened and the greenery increased. Like the city itself, the area was a disorientating mix of familiar and foreign to Blaine. New buildings had popped up over the years and others had replaced the ones he remembered, but when they turned down the road he lived on he found it surprisingly similar to how he knew it from his time.

The large, manor houses were all still there, their expansive yards still neatly manicured and bursting with autumn colours. From what he could see, not many of them were used as single family homes anymore, but had instead been turned into apartment complexes or exclusive guest houses. They came to a stop outside one of these guest houses and Blaine's heart pounded as he looked up the long drive of his home.

From the outside it hadn't changed all that much: the driveway had been altered to accommodate parking for more cars, signs had been put up to advertise it as a luxurious guest house, more flowerbeds and hedges had been added, and it looked like the windows and door had been changed. But other than that it was still the same.

The air seemed to dry up in Blaine's lungs, he could only stare speechlessly at the house.

"Has it changed much?" Kurt asked tentatively some time later.

Blaine forced his thoughts away from imagining what his bedroom looked like now, what stood in place of his beloved piano, whether books still rested on shelves in the library. It wouldn't do him any good to think about such things and all these thoughts were irrelevant anyway - it wasn't his home anymore.

He looked away from an upstairs window, focusing his gaze upon the garages instead, somewhere that didn't make him feel as though he was looking into the soul of the house.

"From the outside: not much," he replied. They'd changed the garage doors, as well, he noticed. "I doubt the same can be said for the inside."

Feeling Kurt's eyes on him, he looked round and met the other man's thoughtful gaze.

"We could spend a night here, if you want?" Kurt offered. "Then you could see inside, as well."

"No!" Blaine blurted immediately. When Kurt blinked in surprise, he added, "Sorry, I just don't think I could- I don't think I'd want to see-" He couldn't put into words how he didn't think he could handle actually being inside the house, walking the corridors like a ghost and remembering what had once been.

Kurt seemed to understand. "Ok," he said. "It's ok. It was just a suggestion."

They stared at the house in silence for another long moment. Blaine wasn't sure what he was feeling as he watched the shrubbery by the front door ruffle in the breeze. It all felt oddly more real now that he was seeing the place that was once his home, like the past couple of weeks had been something from the pages of one of the novels he liked to read, so detailed it was like he'd been sucked through the paper into the fictitious world. Seeing something from his time, something so personal to him, was the final driving nail in the coffin and he knew exactly where he was and what he had left behind.

For the first time since he'd arrived in the future he felt a pang of longing for his parents. Disappointed and pressuring though they were, he missed them, and now that it no longer felt like he was on some sort of trip, he wished he were back home with them.

The thrill of the adventure he was experiencing was starting to wear off, and Blaine wanted to go home.

He turned sharply away from the house. "Let's go," he mumbled.

Kurt scurried after him as he strode along the street, determinedly keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead of him, not trusting himself to look at the houses either side of him. He could sense Kurt's desire to say something, probably to question the abruptness of their departure from the house or the tightness of Blaine's expression, but Blaine wasn't ready to talk, not yet. Kurt apparently sensed this and remained silent, for which Blaine was grateful.

The sun was setting as they made the slow journey back to Kurt's apartment. The salt-sprinkle of stars was beginning to appear in the pink and red streaked sky. Soon they would only just be discernible through the glow of the city which washed out the night sky. Despite being less visible than they were in 1923, they were still the same stars.

Blaine sighed as they stepped onto the subway, busy with people heading into the city for the evening. As the train lurched into motion, he turned to Kurt.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, leaning close to Kurt, consciously aware of the people around them who could be listening. "I'm only just now realising I may not be able to go home or it may be a long time until I do." He braced his legs as the train slowed down to stop at a station. "Seeing the house brought up a longing for home, the first I've really had since arriving here and it was just-" He shook his head. "I don't know what I was expecting when we went there today, but I've just had a big reality check."

Placing a hand on his arm, Kurt gave him a small smile. "It's ok."

They remained quiet for the rest of the journey and it was only when the door of Kurt's apartment was closed behind them that Kurt met Blaine's eyes and said gravely: "You know I'll do everything I can to get you home, don't you?"

Blaine nodded numbly, caught in the intensity of Kurt's gaze. "I know," he whispered.

Kurt surveyed him for a moment. "I don't know how you're handling this so well. If I was in your situation I would have broken down by now. You have a lot of courage, Blaine."

Blaine swallowed around his dry throat. Kurt's eyes were somehow both soft yet intense, like they were seeing right into the very core of Blaine's being, and were doing so fondly. The memory of Kurt's lips skimming his own in the lightest of touches flashed through his mind, and he sucked in a shaky breath, before dredging up all his will power and looking away. He shouldn't get too close to Kurt, not when he didn't belong in this world.

He vehemently ignored the voice in his head that told him he already was too close.

Kurt cleared his throat. "How much do you want to know of the future?" he asked. His voice sounded a little odd. When Blaine looked up with a questioning look, he added, "Do you want to know about yours or your family's future?"

"Oh." Blaine took in the hesitant worry in Kurt's expression, the slight tightness around his mouth. He thought about what he had the power to learn - he could know every monumental event that happens in his life - and he thought about how that would affect him. His life would become predictable, the joy and excitement muted from already knowing what was going to happen and when. And who wanted to know their own death date? Who wanted to have that ticking clock hanging over their head for the rest of their life? As for his family: if he knew how their lives would turn out he would feel guilty not telling them and he didn't want to torment them with the choice of learning their future. He didn't want to become some horrifyingly accurate fortune teller.

He shook his head at Kurt. "No, I don't want to know anything about the lives of myself or anyone I know." Kurt nodded, the relief evident on his face. "It's not like I could change anything by knowing - what's true now is set in stone, isn't it?"

Kurt's forehead crinkled in thought for a second. "Yeah, I guess it would be."

Blaine looked at him thoughtfully. "Would I even remember anything I learnt or will I forget it all when I return?"

Kurt met his gaze, something shifting behind his eyes, and Blaine froze, a sudden realisation hitting him. He may forget about all of this when he returned to his own time; he may forget all about Kurt. The thought was like an iron clamp twisting at his heart.

"If you do remember you may influence the future with your knowledge of it," Kurt joked in a strained voice.

Blaine forced a laugh. "I couldn't cheat like that."

They moved onto lighter conversation topics as they prepared dinner together. Blaine tried to ignore the lingering thoughts from their conversation now planted in the back of his mind, nagging him constantly like a persistent itch under his skin. It had all seemed simple before: he would find out how he travelled here and how he could return home again, but now it was anything but. Now he had the worry he would lose everything from his time in this year when he returned, the fear he would lose one of the best people to enter his life. Now he had the fear returning home would mean losing Kurt and all his memories of him.