Kurt woke with the sound of his phone, head groggy and eyes like weights. He reached for the device, but was cut off by a cough deep in his chest. After a minute of coughing, he gasped a breath and fell back onto his pillows again. He hadn’t felt like this in years and his body seemed to be in shock.

He groped for his phone again, squinting his eyes against the harsh backlight.

From: Blaine (10:27 am)
I think I’m dying

Kurt tapped out a reply, not sure whether it was English, and dropped the phone onto his chest. He coughed pitifully a couple of times.

To: Blaine (10:30 am)
You too? Head brain hurt and chest has disease

His phone buzzed a couple of times, but it took him a while to force his eyes open and pick it up. He propped it on his chest, blinking at it as his vision swam a little.

From: Blaine (10:31 am)
You sound worse than me

From: Blaine (10:32 am)
Want me to come and ~take care of you~?

From: Blaine (10:36 am)
Kurt? Are you alive?

Kurt huffed a tiny laugh, which sparked more coughing, and his back hit the pillows again, chest aching. There was a knock at his door and then Carole was poking her head in and casting a worried eye over him.

“Kurt? You don’t sound too good.”

Kurt shook his head, trying to wet his mouth enough to speak. He held out his phone to her. “Tell Blaine I’m…” He took a deep breath, chest clamped down upon by some horrible force. “I’m alive but can’t… text.”

Carole stroked his forehead when she took the phone from him, tapping out a quick reply to Blaine explaining the situation, and then setting it on the bedside table. “What’s wrong, Kurt?”

Kurt gestured at his chest, then vaguely at his head, then made a sweeping motion with his hand across his whole torso. Carole laughed, taking his hand and squeezing it. “Okay. Do you think you need me to take you into the doctor?”

“Only…” Kurt squeezed his eyes shut. Why was everything such an effort? “Only mine. My doctor.”

“Want your dad to do it?”

Kurt nodded, keeping his eyes closed. Carole stroked his forehead again, murmuring something Kurt didn’t catch, and then she was gone again. He breathed deeply, trying to count the seconds each breath took to ignore that odd compression around his lungs. He had been sick only three times in his life. Each one had been violent, a hazy, dark memory from his early childhood.

Half an hour later he was being bundled into Burt’s car, wrapped in clothes and a blanket, and he couldn’t remember the trip down the stairs. He whimpered and leaned his head against the window. A hand reached over to slide something soft between his temple and the glass and he gave whoever it was a tiny smile, not opening his eyes. Soon after, the car started up around him, the sound whirring through his skull. He let the steady engine beat lull him and settled back into the warm huddle of clothes, falling into a sickly sleep.

The next time he woke, he was being carried in his father’s arms. He opened his eyes to the vaguely familiar sight of his doctor’s surgery. He’d been nine the last time he’d come here – the first visit Burt had had to make without his wife. It hadn’t changed much, just a new paint job. Burt looked down at him when he felt him stir.

“How you doing, kid?”

Kurt sighed and pressed his face into his dad’s jacket.

Burt smiled at him. “Yeah, I know. Always hits you hard. Come on, we’re here now.” Burt shifted Kurt to rap his knuckles low against the door, arm still supporting his son’s back. The door opened to reveal a doctor on the other side, smiling at Burt.

“Come in, Mr Hummel. How’s he doing?”

“Worse.”

The doctor looked Kurt over, taking in his sweaty skin and flushed cheeks. “It’s the blood.”

“What?” Burt asked distractedly, gently placing Kurt in a chair, making sure he was upright and comfortable. Kurt kept a grip on Burt’s arm, leaning on him.

“Kurt, can you let me hear your heart?”

Kurt nodded and the doctor’s hand slid under his shirt. He gasped at the cold press of the stethoscope against his skin and Burt stroked a hand into his hair while the doctor instructed Kurt to take deep breaths.

“I’ve been doing research for while,” the doctor said, drawing back. “Kurt, can you follow this with your eyes? With my other faerie patients,” he continued while Kurt struggled to follow the moving object. “It’s nothing concrete, obviously, because I can’t send anything to the boards, but from my experience, faeries are more violently affected by illness than other humans would be. Nothing we can’t work around, though.”

“It was always really bad, back when he was younger. Elizabeth – she used to worry that he was going to die.”

“But you didn’t,” the doctor said to Kurt. “Kurt?”

Kurt blinked up at him, a tiny cough working out of his throat.

“Hi,” the doctor said with a reassuring smile.

Kurt gave him one in return. He’d always liked him, ever since he was tiny. There was something warm in his hazel eyes. “Hi, Dr Anderson.”

“Here, darling.” A paper landed on Blaine’s bed.

“Thanks,” Blaine rasped, rolling his head on the pillow to look at his mother.

“I brought you some soup, sweetheart. Sit up.” His mother pushed his hair back, smiling down at him. Blaine worked himself into an upright position and she plumped up the pillows behind his back for him to lean on. She placed a tray table across his lap. “Your father would be here, but he’s seeing an emergency patient.”

Blaine nodded, then wished he hadn’t. He swallowed a spoonful of soup, head too cloudy to think very much on how normal his mother was being. She was looking at him, actually looking, and not just passing her eyes over him. He guessed maternal instinct overruled in the case of sickness.

She sat on the side of his bed, stroking his knee through the covers and watching him eat. “How did you get this?”

“Not sure. School, I guess. My – a good friend of mine has it, too. He’s worse, though.”

“Wes?”

“No, you don’t know him.” Blaine looked down at his bowl, eating another spoonful.

“You should introduce us.”

“Mom, please, I have a headache.”

She nodded, rubbing his knee again. There was silence for a minute, only broken by the clink of Blaine’s soup spoon against the bowl. “Is he your boyfriend?”

He inhaled his soup, making a loud slurping sound. When he’d had a chance to swallow, he blinked up at her. She was watching him with another one of those indecipherable expressions, the kind he had grown used to over the years. She gave nothing away. “What do you want me to say to that, Mom?”

“The truth would be nice.”

He nodded, wincing when his head pounded. “Yes. He’s my boyfriend.” He set his spoon down in the bowl. “I love him.”

“And he’s the one you’ve been seeing after school.” She didn’t question, simply stated. “You could have told me that the first time I asked.”

“I didn’t…” He swirled his soup around with his spoon, finding it hard to look her in the eye. “I didn’t think you’d want to hear it.”

“Your father and I had a talk last week, Blaine.” He made a questioning noise, still watching the movement of metal through liquid. “He thinks we haven’t been much of a family lately. Not since… Not in a long time.”

“Not since I told you I’m gay.” He dropped the spoon to look at her.

“Yes.”

“And did he change your opinion? Or do you still think I have some sort of disease?”

“Blaine, I never thought that.”

“Oh, yeah, so it was just a phase.”

“Blaine, stop it.” She gripped his knee, silencing him. “Just… stop.”

He slumped back into the pillows, watching her.

“I will admit that I had a hard time coming to terms with – with you. We raised you a good Catholic boy, Blaine. I never even thought about having to do this. I know that I should have supported you from the beginning, but you have to understand that it wasn’t easy for me.”

“But why didn’t you tell me that? We could have worked through it. Why did you have to just… treat me like I’m not your son?”

“You were always my son to me. That never changed.”

“But you wouldn’t even look at me, Mom.” His voice was choking up and he couldn’t blame it on just the infection. He pulled the covers higher up his body. “It’s like you couldn’t even look me in the eye.”

She shifted up the bed, stroking his hair back again. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. It was just so hard to understand. I thought we’d done something wrong, raised you badly.”

“It’s nothing to do with you, Mom, you’ve got to know that. It’s not something that can be changed.”

“No, no, I know that now.” She cupped his cheek. “I know. Please try to understand that it wasn’t something I could just accept.”

Blaine nodded, slipping a hand over hers. “What about now?”

She smiled, tilted her head in the way Blaine knew he’d inherited, and stroked her thumb lightly across his cheekbone. “So you love him?”

“More than I really understand.”

“Then I’m happy for you.” She leaned forwards and brushed a kiss against his forehead. “Now eat your soup. I’ll come and check on you later.” She stood up, balancing his tray for him when the bed rocked with the movement. He took her hand before she could leave him.

“I love you, Mom.” The words hadn’t left his lips in well over a year. They were foreign, but it felt so good to be saying them again.

She grinned, leaning over to kiss his forehead again. “Love you, too.”

Blaine watched her go with a lingering smile before turning back to his food. He picked up the paper to read as he ate, scanning the front page, and his spoon clattered back into his bowl, spraying little flecks of soup onto the blankets. He didn’t notice.

Kurt opened bleary eyes to his bedroom once more, unaware of how and when he had gotten there. Someone was pressing something to his lips and he opened them, sucking down the foul tasting liquid and wrinkling his nose.

“I know, kiddo, but it’ll make you feel better,” Burt’s voice said from somewhere above him. Kurt smiled and closed his eyes again, falling back into half-sleep. He could hear movement around him, the capping of a bottle and footsteps and soft voices.

He sank into darkness not soon after, and then the world exploded into psychedelic colour and twisted images. He was chained to the wall again and the air in front of him was twisting. He was naked, wrists chafed from his bonds, and a cool finger was running down his chest, nail catching on his skin. He looked up into a smirking face, teeth bright white in the underground darkness. He tipped forwards, spinning and spinning and landing feet-first in a field. At first glance it was empty, but when he looked again there was a figure curled up in the grass. He stepped closer and he would recognise those curls anywhere. Blaine was on his knees, body curled in on itself, and he was screaming. He didn’t know how he hadn’t heard it before. Aching, piercing sound ripping through the air and through Kurt’s body and he closed his eyes, gasping and back arching and he was yelling, and then there were soft hands on his shoulders, pressing against his cheeks.

He blinked and Carole was there, shushing him and murmuring words of comfort. It didn’t make sense, nothing made sense.

“Blaine,” he said, trying to roll over. He needed to see him with his own eyes. “Blaine, he’s hurting.”

“Yes, honey, he’s got what you have.”

“No.” Kurt shook his head and just kept shaking it. “No, he’s – I need to see him.”

“Just lie back, Kurt.”

“Where is he?” he yelled, weak voice cracking on the words. “What have you done to him?”

“Nothing,” she said, voice clear and smooth. “Lie back, Kurt. I’ll call him for you.”

“Please,” he whispered, body giving in a falling back onto the pillows. “Please.”

Carole kept a hand on his arm while she picked up the phone, searching through for Blaine’s number. Kurt’s head swam as he watched her press it to her ear.

“Blaine? Hi, it’s Carole. No, he’s – he’s quite bad. He’s had a nightmare, he just needs to speak to you.” She held the phone out to him. Kurt tilted his chin up, one side of his face pressed into the pillow, and she laid it on his cheek.

“Kurt? Are you okay?”

“Oh, Blaine.” He closed his eyes. “You’re okay.”

“I’ve been better. What’s wrong?”

“It hurt,” Kurt mumbled. “It hurt so much.”

“Okay.” Blaine’s voice was soft down the phone and Kurt let it wash over him. “I’m here. It’s okay.”

“I want to see you.”

“I’m sick, Kurt, or I’d be there.”

“I’m sick, too.” Kurt had gathered that much by now. There was a medicine bottle by the bed and everything in his body ached. “Please.”

“I… I’ll be there soon, okay?”

Kurt smiled, forgetting that Blaine couldn’t see him. “Okay. Soon.”

“Soon.”

He thought Carole took the phone back then, but he wasn’t sure. There was more talking, words he couldn’t figure out, and then he was asleep again, dreamless this time.

He was roused by movement behind him, the bed jostling as someone climbed into it. A body curled around his, an arm sliding around his waist and a face pressing into the back of his neck. He took a deep breath, the smell of home washing over him.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Blaine whispered before he turned his head away to cough loudly. Kurt could feel the fluctuations of Blaine’s chest against his back as he coughed, his whole body shaking with it. When he turned back, he nuzzled his face into Kurt’s neck. “Sorry.”

“You’re sick.”

Blaine smiled against his skin. “So are you.”

“Do you want some medicine?”

“Took some before I left.”

It was Kurt’s turn to cough then, leaning over the side of the bed and gasping for air between each round. Blaine rubbed at his back, speaking to him throughout, comforting him. Kurt fell back onto the pillows, taking a few fortifying breaths before rolling over to face Blaine, their noses bumping against each other.

“We’re gross,” Kurt giggled. Blaine grinned, closing his eyes.

“Just a bit.”

“I still love you, even when you’re disgusting.”

“Same here.” Blaine snuggled forwards, nudging his head under Kurt’s chin and winding their hands together between them. “So, did you give it to me, or did I give it to you?”

“I’m blaming you. I don’t have anyone to catch it from.”

“We don’t know, Mercedes could be in bed right now with a fever higher than yours.”

“It’s so your fault.” Kurt kissed Blaine’s hair. The medicine must have worked to some extent: he was aware of himself now and the world wasn’t spinning every time he opened his eyes. “You came.”

“You needed me.” Blaine splayed his hand over Kurt’s heart, where his breathing was more laboured than it should have been, burdened with sickness. “So I’m guessing you haven’t seen the paper today.”

“No,” Kurt said, and his voice sounded thick, like he was close to sleep again. “Anything interesting?”

Blaine’s fingers clutched around Kurt’s pyjama shirt. He kissed Kurt’s clavicle, listening to his breathing evening out, slowing down. “No. Nothing.”

Kurt didn’t reply, mind already back in the clutches of sleep. Blaine sighed, curling closer to his body, slipping a knee between Kurt’s. He tried to fall asleep, but Kurt was twitching with his dreams, moaning softly. They were sounds of distress and Blaine kissed at his neck again, stroking his chest and trying to soothe him. He murmured to him, kissing up his skin to his ear and speaking soft words to him until he settled back down.

“You don’t deserve this,” Blaine whispered against Kurt’s ear, knowing he was held in sleep. “You don’t deserve any of it. No one does.” He kissed Kurt’s cheek, his chin, the side of his neck, finally returning his head to beneath Kurt’s chin. He let their breathing match up and felt at last the call of darkness, letting it drag him under to rest beside Kurt.

Blaine woke sweating and breathing fast, skin too tight and head too heavy. He was pressed against Kurt’s chest, Kurt’s skin beating heat into him. Kurt was moaning faintly, another dream plaguing him, Blaine could tell. He kissed him, soft presses of his lips against Kurt’s over and over until he was breathing easy into Blaine’s mouth and fluttering his eyes open.

“You were dreaming again.”

“I don’t understand them,” Kurt said after a minute, having blinked away the vestiges of sleep. He slid a hand between their bodies, pushing them a few centimetres apart to allow cool air into the gap. “They’re so vivid, but they can’t be real.”

“Tell me about them.”

Kurt rolled over and up, grabbing one of the glasses of water on the bedside table and passing it to Blaine before taking his own and sucking at the straw he assumed had been placed there by Carole. The frigid water was bracing; his head was brighter now, unencumbered by the thick sickness of that morning. He returned the glass to the table, but Blaine kept his, pressing it against his cheek, his forehead. Kurt curled up to him again, watching him with wide eyes, accentuated by dark circles.

“Remember when I was dreaming about Rachel?”

Blaine nodded, slotting the glass in between their bodies to hold it up and sucking on the straw. Kurt’s eyes watched the movement in a daze before he dragged them from Blaine’s lips to his eyes. “They’re similar, some of them. I’m restrained. Everything feels sordid and like – like knives in my eyes.” Blaine flinched, the straw slipping from his mouth, and Kurt kissed him. Blaine’s lips were cool from the water, blissful against his own overheated skin. He drew back before he wanted to, but his jaw felt heavy and lethargic and he had to.

“What about when you called me? Was that what you were seeing?”

“No.” Kurt closed his eyes against the thoughts, but the image of Blaine curled up in the grass was drawn up behind his eyelids and he snapped them open. “No.”

“It’s okay,” Blaine soothed at Kurt’s panicked tone. “I’m right here.”

“You just… you were screaming, Blaine, and it’s like I could feel it in my teeth. I couldn’t get to you and you were in so much pain and I was just helpless.” He blinked rapidly and a tear slipped from his eye, sliding sideways across the bridge of his nose and across his other cheek, into the pillow. Blaine tilted his head forwards and nudged their noses together.

“I’m okay. It was just a dream.”

“I know, but I couldn’t tell. I needed to see you before I could believe that you were okay.”

“I know, I know.” Blaine kissed him, and for the first time registered how many germs they must be sharing with each other. He couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Did my dad really let you share my bed?”

“I may have pulled the sick eyes on him.”

“You have those?” Kurt rasped as a giggle caught in his chest and he tried not to cough in Blaine’s face. He turned his head to hack at the air and then pressed their foreheads together again.

“They’re very effective.” Blaine tried to reach for his straw with his mouth, only succeeding in pushing it away. He tried again, letting out a soft whine of frustration when the straw eluded him. Kurt smiled at him and pushed the straw between his open lips. Blaine blinked up at him in thanks as he drank and Kurt groaned and leaned his head back. “What?” Blaine asked.

“Don’t do that.”

“Drink?”

“Just – never mind.”

“No, what’s wrong?”

Kurt rolled his eyes and pushed the straw into his own mouth. He sucked on it, looking up at Blaine from under his lashes. Blaine’s mouth dropped open.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Kurt said, lifting the glass from between them and rolling to place it definitively on the table. “So don’t.” He slid his body back against Blaine’s and Blaine’s hips canted against his involuntarily. “Blaine.”

“Sorry.” He shifted back, putting space between their bodies. “I know we’re all gross and sick and probably shouldn’t get too active, but you can’t just do that and not expect anything.”

“You did it to me, don’t forget.”

Blaine’s hand slipped under Kurt’s shirt and he gasped. Blaine’s hand was rough against his sweaty skin, warm but not hot, and he arched into it. “Unfair,” he whined.

Blaine kissed under his chin and slid his hand up to brush his fingertips over Kurt’s nipple. Kurt rubbed his foot up the back of Blaine’s calf, pressing his toes into the soft flesh of his knee back. Blaine bent his leg, letting it slide between Kurt’s so his thigh was pressed up against Kurt’s balls.

“Blaine.” Kurt tried to pull back, but only succeeding in sliding himself across Blaine’s thigh, making his eyes roll back. “God, I hate you.”

“I bet I can make you feel better.”

“Why can’t you just use the soup method?”

Blaine paused, fingers stopping in their circles around Kurt’s nipple. Kurt let out a hot breath across his face, trying to stop his body from pressing forwards for more and failing somewhat. Blaine remained still, prompting Kurt to open his eyes to see what was wrong. Blaine was smiling gently.

“Can I kill the mood a little?”

“Please.”

“My mom brought me soup today.” Kurt hummed in response, waiting for more. “I think both my parents finally accept me,” Blaine let out, a wide grin stretching across his face. Kurt matched it at once, pressing a smiling kiss to Blaine’s mouth.

“That’s amazing.”

Blaine’s fingers pressed into the skin over Kurt’s heart and he leaned into him, kissing him again. “It feels good.”

“I’m so proud of you,” Kurt murmured against his lips.

“What for?”

“For being strong, even when you didn’t have people behind you.”

“I’m not strong, Kurt.”

“Don’t lie.” Kurt kissed him hard, pressing him back into the bed a little. “You know, I’m feeling surprisingly revived.”

“I’m not feeling too shabby myself,” Blaine quipped with a grin, darting up to kiss Kurt’s mouth once, twice, five times.

“My family’s here.”

“We’re sick.”

“But they’re still here.”

“We’ll be quiet.”

“I seem to remember you having a serious problem with that.”

“You’re no better,” Blaine said, pouting at him. Kurt’s hand slid without warning into his pyjama pants, under his briefs to wrap around his half-hard cock and he moaned. Kurt quickly kissed him, swallowing the sound with a giggle.

“You’re hopeless.”

Blaine scowled at him, pinching his nipple in retaliation and earning a gasp. He dragged his hand down Kurt’s chest, biting his lip at the rub of Kurt’s thumb over his head. “You’re so hot.”

“That’s the fever.”

Blaine pressed his head into Kurt’s neck and snorted. “What are we doing?”

Kurt pumped him faster and he pushed his hips up into Kurt’s hand with a whimper. “Getting each other off in the most unsexy way possible.”

Blaine hummed, kissed Kurt’s neck, and reached under his clothes to grip him in his hand. They settled into a rhythm quickly, Blaine sliding his hand up as Kurt slipped his down, pressing their mouths together to keep from groaning aloud. Blaine didn’t know whether it was the sickness messing with his head, but he was on the edge of orgasm far more quickly than normal.

“Kurt—”

“I know.”

They kissed again, tongues sliding hot against each other as their hands fell out of rhythm, jerking roughly. Kurt flicked his wrist and slid his thumb in tantalising circles around the head of Blaine’s cock until he was writhing against him and panting moans into Kurt’s mouth. Blaine caught his thumb on Kurt’s frenulum when he bucked against Kurt’s hand and Kurt pressed his tongue under Blaine’s to hide the moan burning up from his chest. It was a tumbling climb from then on, arms bumping as they stroked each other faster, drawing each other right up until Blaine was shaking against Kurt and spilling over his fist, Kurt following just seconds after.

A knock at the door made them break apart, breathing heavily with their hands still wrapped around each other’s dicks. Kurt was about to move away when the door swung open and Finn came in, a tray rattling in his hands.

“Hey,” he said, setting it on the bedside table. “Mom gave me some peppermint tea for you guys.”

Blaine blinked up at Finn, wondering whether he was having a fever-induced hallucination.

“Are you wearing a crown?”

Apparently not, if Kurt was seeing it too.

“Oh, yeah.” Finn took it off his head, giving it a strange smile. “Yeah, Quinn and I won Prom King and Queen.”

Kurt shifted against him as he gave congratulations and Blaine hissed at the stroke of Kurt’s hand up his sensitive cock. They both stilled, trying to look as innocent as possible.

“You guys look really sick.”

“Thanks, Finn,” Kurt said, rolling his eyes and hoping Finn didn’t think anything more of the blush in their cheeks.

“You have fevers, right?”

“Among other things.”

“That sucks, man.” Finn pulled up a chair by the bedside, flopping into it, and Blaine tried not to whine out loud. They couldn’t move their hands – it would be far too obvious from the sound and the shifting under the covers what they had been doing. The pressure against them when they were so sensitive was almost unbearable, though. “I don’t know what’s up with Quinn lately,” Finn said.

Blaine had to work hard not to snap at him that he was really the problem. Kurt gave him a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat which Finn took as intended for him.

“Yeah, she’s just gone kind of crazy. I don’t think she likes Rachel very much.”

Blaine laughed and had to quickly pass it off as a cough, pressing his face into Kurt’s chest. The shift made Kurt gasp, but the sound moved into a yawn. Blaine lifted his head and wanted to sigh in relief – Kurt’s post-orgasm exhaustion, delayed by the shock of Finn’s entry, was catching up with him and his eyes were drooping. Blaine glanced back at Finn.

“Sorry, Finn, but Kurt’s really not doing well. Can we talk more tomorrow?”

Finn looked over at his step-brother as though he’d forgotten he was there at all. “Oh, sure. You guys… drink the tea or whatever. Get better.”

“Thanks, Finn,” Blaine said, watching him leave. As soon as the door clicked shut he nudged Kurt’s chest. He got a sleepy snuffle in response. Sighing, he very gently released Kurt’s cock, drawing his hand out of Kurt’s pyjamas.

“Kurt,” he whispered, but he received no response. He closed his eyes, wishing this didn’t have to happen, then reached into his own underwear to remove Kurt’s hand. When Blaine pulled on Kurt’s fingers, Kurt’s hand tightened on instinct and Blaine let out a yelp of pain. Kurt’s eyes blinked open and he gave Blaine a bleary look before his eyes widened and his hand slipped away.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, the word getting drawn out as he immediately dropped back into sleep. Blaine let out a small laugh, taking a moment to lean his head into Kurt’s chest and just accept the hilarity of what had just happened. Then he leaned over Kurt’s prone body, reaching for the tissues on the table by the bed and wiping off his own hand and then Kurt’s. The tissues landed on the floor as a violent round of coughs hit him and he couldn’t make himself move to pick them up. Hopefully they would pass for the product of sickness.

He settled into Kurt’s chest, pulling Kurt’s arm around him to curl over his side. The bed was still too hot, fever and combined body heat making them both sweat in against each other. Blaine felt too sick to care, not even about the discomfort in his pyjama pants (and he and Kurt really should have thought that through – fever did bad things for the brain). He closed his eyes and pressed his face into Kurt’s neck, listened to his soft, slightly sickness-laboured breathing. His body was ready to sink back into oblivion, but as he closed off the world beyond his eyelids, his brain was whirring back into action, mind focused on one thing. He tried to push it away, counting sheep, counting Kurt’s breaths, counting the beats of Kurt’s heart. It kept coming back, as he knew it would: the worry, the anger, the headline beating black on white in his mind’s eye.

A floor below, Burt and Carole stared down at the paper for the tenth time that day, reading the words and willing them not to be true. But it had all been leading to this, really. They had just been waiting for it.

“September,” Carole said, reading the word from the paper. “When Congress is back in session.”

“It’s what I expected.”

“I know.” She sighed, closing the paper and folding it. “I kept hoping it would never come to this.”

“Let’s hope I’ll be there to vote against it,” Burt said, watching as the words were folded away, the words that could seal off his son’s future.

“You will,” Carole said, gripping his arm. “And even if you’re not, one bill isn’t going to break us. People will see sense.”

“You have too much good faith,” he replied, laying a hand over hers.

“Better to have too much than none at all, don’t you think?”