Part 20

Rachel Berry was literally bouncing nervously on the very edge of her seat for months. She waited and waited for something to happen, telling herself to be patient when she was anything but to an observer. That was, if there had been observers.

But nothing ever transpired, despite all of her patience. She'd left Kurt and Blaine alone together as much as she possibly could without her curiosity killing her. She'd seen the way Kurt looked at Blaine, and the way Blaine looked at Kurt had been changed as well for quite some time now. She couldn't pinpoint exactly what had changed and when or even why, but it had. Blaine had always looked at Kurt with admiring fondness but now it ran deeper than that. There had been some kind of realization, she was sure of it, and she had read enough trashy romance novels and seen enough rom-coms to hope and pray that that realization had been that Kurt and him were perfect for each other and should get together already, as much as a ghost and a medium could get together. It had a certain dramatic touch, the impossibility of anything resulting from their love, that had Rachel appreciate the tension much more than was probably healthy or normal.

The only problem was that either Blaine didn't realize the amount of tension between him and Kurt or that they'd both gotten so good at pretending there was none that neither of them acted on their feelings. Every time Rachel left the two of them alone for a few hours she hoped to find them locked in an embrace, kissing desperately, upon her return, and every time without fail she was disappointed. When would they finally see what was right in front of them and reveal their feelings to each other? When would they finally set an end to the dreadful tension that filled the room whenever they accidentally brushed or sat too close? Those moments had to be the most awkward things Rachel had ever had to live through. And that was saying a lot, considering that she deemed situations normal that would probably have lesser people die of mortification.

Not one for patience and originally inclined to meddle as much as she thought necessary in that particular budding relationship, Rachel was surprised when she made it until a mere month before the end of the school year before she could take no more and finally went to make Blaine talk about his feelings, whether he wanted to or actually even realized them yet or not. She was mentally patting herself on the back for such an unexpected accomplishment when she unceremoniously and, she might add, very dramatically burst through the doors of the choir room, knowing she would find Blaine there. She even went to the effort of actually moving the heavy doors after she'd made sure that no one was there to watch them.

"I knew I'd find you here," she announced, dropping onto the bench next to Blaine, not even flinching when he showed no reaction to her presence for a solid minute.

"Guess I should find more creative hiding places then, huh?" Blaine murmured, aiming for nonchalance but ruining his own effort by letting his lips twitch up into a smile.

"Oh hush," Rachel huffed, playfully hitting him in the arm. "Then I'd just keep looking for you until I'd find those too, we both know it. There's no keeping Rachel Berry from a secret." The proud glint in her eyes was slightly maniac but Blaine wisely refrained from mentioning anything.

"And what makes you think that there is a secret in the first place?" he asked, trying to sound disinterested as he studied the swirls in the dust of the poor unused piano.

"Let me think... Maybe the fact that you've been avoiding me for weeks? Or that you refused to talk to me about anything even remotely related to Kurt ever after I slipped up about Cooper's visit? You know, I never took you for the unforgiving kind."

"Says the mistress of holding grudges," Blaine chuckled, turning to face Rachel again. "Since I know you won't leave me alone about this now that you've cornered me, ask away." A worrying smile spread on her face.

"Okay, let's come right to the point: Am I correct or merely completely right when I assume that you're head over heels in love with one Kurt Hummel?"

Blaine looked like he was about to choke despite not needing air. Rachel had no idea how he even managed to look, much less be, surprised, she was pretty sure they'd both known exactly what she would say. "I- I guess correct might describe it sufficiently."

"I knew it!" she cheered, pulling Blaine into an awkward one-armed hug, already planning the wedding in her head. It'd have to be a rather private affair of course, since otherwise, the majority of the guests wouldn't even be able to see Blaine, much less consider him a living being worthy of being a candidate for marriage. "So on to the second point on my list: What are you going to do about it?"

"Rachel," Blaine sighed, shaking his head, looking an awful lot like he knew something she didn't, something she could feel her elated heart plummet back low into her ghostly ribcage at the mere thought of. "I'm not going to do anything about it. And I'd like for you to stay quiet about it, too."

"What?! Why?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Blaine smiled at her, the gesture so tinted with bone-deep sadness she wasn't sure it even deserved such a positive name. "I'm a ghost. Kurt's my medium. What could ever come out of such a liaison, Rachel? Think about it. I know you love your fairytales and happy endings, but there just isn't one for us. On the off chance that he'd actually return my feelings, we'd still bring each other nothing but heartbreak if we took the chance."

"Blaine, we both know that he does love you. And I know it looks like a chance not worth taking, like something that will bring more trouble than good. But how can you know for sure if you don't even try? Is suffering from all the what-ifs and could-have-beens really that much better than saying goodbye after having made most of your love while you could, for as long as possible? I've seen enough people throw away their lives in these halls and I can honestly say that I'd rather die the same violent death again than never even try to get out of this town, out of the ordinary life that was never meant for me."

"But is reaching for an unachievable dream really worth being stuck in this limbo for sixty years?" He looked at her, an intensity in his gaze Rachel had not once witnessed before, in all the years they had spent together. "I will never be enough for Kurt and even if I miraculously were, it's his duty to send me away, somewhere where he may never be able to follow me, not even after his own death. And if he doesn't succeed... Well, I'll be stuck here for who knows how long and then we'll have to eventually face the same problem, only that I would be the one unable to follow him. I know myself, Rachel, and if I've ever known Kurt than none of us would like to be in this only for however long will be granted to us and just be able to move on like nothing ever happened when the time comes. The odds are against us and it's better we leave it this way."

"Sometimes you're too rational for your own good, Blaine," Rachel sighed, shaking her head in resignation.

"Maybe," he chuckled, no real humor behind it. "Just promise me that you won't tell him. I appreciate your concern, Rach, but this is none of your business. This is between me and Kurt."

"Sure," Rachel agreed tonelessly. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Blaine's hands clench into fists just once, the only sign of fury at the unfairness of the world breaking through his calm facade he had shown throughout the whole conversation. Before she knew it, he was out of his seat and gone through the heavy doors, leaving her alone with her reeling thoughts and the eery quiet of the empty choir room.

Neither Rachel nor Blaine had noticed, but their words hadn't been strictly between the two of them. Just on the other side of the door, quick to hide himself when Blaine more or less stormed out, stood Sebastian, his own hopes shattered just as much as those of the two interlocutors. He'd always known that that Kurt brat would be the death of his last spark of hope for Blaine to eventually reciprocate his feelings one day, ever since Blaine had come to him after first meeting their new medium, a sparkle in his eyes and a flush high on his see-through cheeks. Not that there weren't more than enough other things to dislike about the idiot. All Sebastian knew was that he wanted to see someone suffer just as much as he did. And for that he needed the truth. Know your enemy, they said. So Sebastian set out to do just that.

Getting the truth out of Kurt was even easier than he'd dared to hope. All he'd had to do was wait outside the front doors after school was over and gluing himself to Kurt's side the instant he stepped over the threshold.

"Sebastian," Kurt sighed irritably, reaching up to massage his temple and pulling a face. "To what do I owe this misfortune?"

"Oh, nothing in particular. Just wanted to verify a rumor."

"And what kind of rumor are we talking about?"

"The one that you're in love with one of your ghosts. And since I'm rather sure it's not me and your hard case of the gayface makes it rather unlikely it's Rachel, I guess that leaves only one curly-haired, bowtie-loving individual." Sebastian did his best to not let any trace of bitterness infiltrate his nonchalant tone. Making himself vulnerable to Kurt was hardly a good idea.

Just as he'd expected, Kurt stopped midstep, gaping at him. "What? Who... Who told you? It wasn't Rachel, right? O-or Blaine?"

"As if I needed anyone to tell me. It's about as subtle as your gay face, your flamboyant clothing or your utter incompetence when it comes to helping any of us move on."

"I can't remember ever having offered to help you," Kurt spat, quickly regaining his footing and usual snark. "And even if I did, what would be the difference?"

"What do you mean?" Sebastian asked before he could stop himself, irritated that the brat had taken him by surprise. He'd thought he'd had the whole conversation planned out.

"As I'm sure you have noticed, Blaine is a ghost and I'm his medium. My duty is to help him move on, to send him out of this world. I'm not going to keep him here and unhappy out of my own selfish needs. That is, if he even reciprocates. There is no future for us, so there is no need for me to complicate things by letting him know." The expression on Kurt's face was one that certainly didn't belong on a fifteen-year-old, but rather on a world-weary old man who had seen way too much for his own good.

"And that's all you have to say to that?"

"Yes, Sebastian, that is all I have to say to that. Now, if you'd be so kind to drop the subject, I have a bus to catch." And without another word, he left Sebastian standing in the middle of McKinley's parking lot, thoughts a jumbled mess. That was certainly not what he had expected from this conversation.

At the same time, in a lonely choir room, Rachel Berry gathered the shards of her own shattered expectations, ready to build a new glorious plan for the two people she cared about the most out of the ruins of her former fantasies.