Blaine's stomach was twisting into painful knots by the time he got home. He quickly climbed the stairs up to his room and dropped face first onto the bed.

What was he going to do? How was it possible that he had ended up getting even more involved with Katherine? He couldn't lie to Kurt. He would start suspecting something was wrong soon. And Blaine didn't want to imagine what Kurt would say if he found out that Blaine already knew about his mom and hadn't told him.

Oh, God, what if Kurt broke up with him when he found out Blaine had been hiding the truth from him?

His bedroom's door opened slightly and his mother peeked inside, frowning. "Oh, Blaine, dear, I thought I'd heard you… What's wrong?" She stopped as soon as she noticed the expression on Blaine's face.

Blaine shook his head, but he was incapable of producing any sound, because all that wanted to escape from his mouth were sobs.

"Blaine!" Amelia Anderson crossed the few steps that separated them and sat on the bed next to her son, quickly pulling him into her arms. Blaine had to resist the impulse to crawl onto her lap and cling to her like a child. "Please, talk to me."

Blaine was shaking so violently that he had no other choice but to cry. He fisted his mother's dress in his hands and dropped his forehead on her shoulder. "I-I can't lose Kurt, mom," he sobbed. "I c-can't lose him."

"Darling," she sighed sadly, rubbing his back soothingly. "Why would you say that? Kurt loves you very much. Are you two having trouble?"

Blaine sniffed. "Not yet."

Amelia smiled softly. "Worry much, do we?" She said in a sweet voice. "I know this long-distance thing is hard, but…"

"You don't understand," Blaine wiped his tears away furiously as he backed off from his mother's hold. "It's much more complicated than that…"

Amelia studied him in silence for a few seconds, taking in the sight of her son, his red-rimmed eyes and the desperation tainting his features. "Should I be worried about anything here, Blaine?"

"No, unless he decides he can't be with me," Blaine reached for the pillow on the left side of the bed, the one where Kurt used to sleep before he left. "What if he doesn't forgive me?"

"I don't understand, dear…" Amelia kept rubbing his back, confused. "What did you do?"

But Blaine couldn't say more. The words got choked in his throat and he just cried bitterly, holding onto his mother, until he ended up exhausted and falling asleep.

When Blaine woke up, it was already dark outside and he felt confused for a moment, not even remembering how he had gotten to his bed. But when his brain caught up with his memories, he felt his stomach twitching in anxiety.

He wished he could fall asleep again.

A little glow coming from his bedside table got his attention and he reached to grab his phone. He had four missed calls and six texts. They were all from Kurt.

From: Kurt.

Hey, sweetie. Everything alright? Are you busy?

From: Kurt.

You're starting to worry me. You never take this long to pick up your phone. Is something wrong?

From: Kurt.

Blaine. Please.

From: Kurt.

I'm worried.

From: Kurt.

Blaine, we need to talk.

That last one shot a pain straight to Blaine's chest. He didn't like the sound of that and he felt tempted to keep ignoring the messages and missed phone calls, but he knew it would only make things worse.

Kurt picked up after the first tone. "Blaine?"

"Hi, Kurt," he said softly.

"Oh my god, I was so worried. Are you okay?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just fell asleep," Blaine answered.

There was a silence and Blaine didn't want it to be filled. He didn't want to know what Kurt might say next…

"Blaine…"

"Maybe we should talk more tomorrow," Blaine cut him off, nervously. "I'm tired and I want to go back to sleep and…"

"Just say it," Kurt burst out suddenly and Blaine could hear he was on the verge of tears. "If you want to break up with me, just go ahead and say it, Blaine."

Hearing Kurt saying those words was like being slapped in the face. He was left breathless just by the thought of it, so imagining a reality in which that would come true was completely out of the question.

"No. Never," Blaine replied, almost whining. "Kurt, I'll never break up with you."

"Then what is it?" Kurt was actually crying now and Blaine cursed the distance between them, wishing he could wrap his arms around his boyfriend. "You've been so different lately. So distant and remote and I just… I can't deal with this, Blaine. I'm not there with you and it's killing me…"

"I'm sorry," Blaine started crying, too, because what else could he do? He couldn't even recognize his life anymore. Everything had changed, everything was wrong. "I miss you so much…"

"Should I come back?" Kurt muttered, sniffling. "Say the word and I'll leave everything behind to go back to Ohio, Blaine. We can come back here together next year…"

"What? No! Kurt, I would never ask you to do something like that," Blaine wiped his tears away. "I know maybe this is a little harder than we expected it to be, but I'm confident we can do it. If you dropped out of college for me, I'd never forgive myself. I can't be the one to keep you from your dreams…"

"Blaine, you're my dream," Kurt whispered and Blaine's heart melted inside his chest. "Only you."

If Blaine didn't feel guilty before, he sure did now. How would he tell Kurt about Katherine and Kara? And how would he do that without betraying Burt?

"I love you so much," he said, because it was the only thing he was certain of.

"I love you, too, Blaine."

They both stayed silent for a moment, simply breathing together and letting the desperation and fear wash away, although Blaine was still fighting a different kind of fear, the kind that kept telling him that as soon as Kurt discovered that he had been hiding the truth from him, he would leave him. Inevitably, Kurt would feel betrayed and wan to break up with him.

And still, he couldn't just tell him. Knowing he had absolutely no choice in how the whole thing with Kurt's mom was handled, only made it all worse. They hung up after once again saying they loved each other, but they both knew nothing had been solved.

That constant pressure in his chest was going to end up killing him, he knew.

Blaine couldn't be honest with Kurt, not yet.

But he could be honest with Burt.

Burt placed a mug in front of Blaine at the kitchen table before taking his seat. Blaine looked down at the dark liquid swirling in his cup and felt his stomach tighten. It was a mix of everything: missing Kurt, the huge secret hanging over their heads, knowing that all that bonding he had done with Burt was hanging by a very thin thread. Blaine felt as if he was standing in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no idea which direction to go, how to go back to where he felt safest, deserving Kurt's love and trust.

"You haven't been coming in to the garage lately," Burt commented after a few minutes of silence while Blaine kept staring at his coffee without drinking it. "Too much school work?"

Blaine finally glanced up, his hazel eyes meeting Burt's. "You know that's not the reason."

Burt sighed. "Look, Blaine, you already gave me your opinion and I appreciate how much you want to protect Kurt, but you need to let me take care of this problem on…"

"I saw her," Blaine interrupted before he was able to stop himself. Burt blinked at him. There wasn't any confusion on his face. Burt knew exactly what he was talking about. "She came here that Friday I arrived earlier than you and Carole."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Burt frowned, but other than that, his emotions were completely impossible to read.

"I didn't want you to stress about it," Blaine explained. He pushed his mug away. There was no use in pretending he could actually swallow anything right now. "Kurt counts on me to keep an eye on you…"

"I'm not a kid, Blaine," Burt shook his head, half tiredly, half affectionately. "You and Kurt need to relax." There was a pause and then Burt spoke again. "What did she say?"

"She gave me her information so I could contact her," Blaine fidgeted a bit in his seat. He wasn't anxious to see the disappointment on Burt's face when he told him he had actually gone see her. "She said she really needed to talk to Kurt."

"Well, you should stay well away from her," Burt said firmly. "Forget about her and try to focus on school. I'll talk to Kurt when I think it's necessary."

"I actually went to see her," Blaine replied nervously. He saw Burt stilling across the table, felt his gaze on him, but he wasn't able to met his eyes. Not yet. "She's staying at a little motel on the outskirts of Lima."

The silence in the kitchen weighed heavily. Blaine suddenly remembered how many beautiful moments he had spent here in the Hummel's kitchen. Mornings cooking breakfast with Kurt; Friday night dinners with the entire family gathered around the table; afternoons of watching Finn annoying Kurt until he would finally agree to make him something to eat; evenings where he stood at the counter between Carole and Kurt and helped them with dinner. He always felt so welcome, always felt at home here, the same way he did when he was around his boyfriend, surrounded by his wonderful scent that Blaine was sometimes worried about forgetting while Kurt was away.

"Why did you do that?" Burt asked quietly, and it felt as painful as if he had yelled. The disappointment had settled in his voice already.

Blaine took a deep breath. "She seemed keen on trying to contact you again and I didn't want her to. Even if you don't like us to, we worry about your health and you don't need to go through something like that argument you had with her at the shop again." He stopped for a moment and forced himself to look at Burt. "And, if I have to be honest, I needed to understand, too. I know you think it doesn't have anything to do with me, but this is about Kurt. I need to make sure I do everything I can to prevent him from being hurt."

Something shifted in Burt's expression, something very simmilar to fond exasperation. "Sometimes you make it really hard for people to get mad at you, kid. You know exactly what to say."

"Well, the thing is… I'm at a point where I don't think I care about people being mad at me or not," Blaine shrugged. "I just want to do what's right to protect Kurt."

"Don't let her get to you, though," Burt stood up and took Blaine's still full cup and his own to the sink. "She'll get bored trying to ruin our lives and leave, eventually."

Blaine stared sadly at the fridge, at some pictures being held by magnets. There was one of Kurt and him with their cheeks pressed together that he had always loved. "I don't think she's trying to ruin anyone's life, actually."

He could almost hear Burt rolling his eyes at him. "Blaine, you don't know her. She is…"

"She's dying," Blaine interrupted and his voice was barely audible over the noise of the water running in the sink, but the clash of a mug hitting the bottom of it when it slipped out of Burt's hold told him he had been heard.

Burt turned to look at him with his eyes wide and incredulous. Blaine forced himself to try and repeat what Katherine had told him.

"Why would you believe her?" Burt asked and it was obvious he was looking for a flaw in what Blaine had said, for anything that could prove that Katherine was lying.

"Because I saw the absolute pain and desperation in her eyes when she said she wanted to talk to her son one last time. Because she's obviously devastated that she's going to die when Kara is still so little," Blaine whispered, the image of the beautiful baby girl causing pain to shot through his heart.

"Kara?" Burt repeated without understanding.

Blaine held his eyes for a moment, as he nodded. "Kurt has a baby sister."

He expected lots of different reactions from Burt. He didn't expect him to storm out the door without another word.

A few days passed. Blaine tried to live his life as he normally would if everything wasn't so messed up. He had a sleep over with Tina, Artie, Sugar and Rory and tried to laugh as much as he could. He had spectacularly good Skype sex with Kurt one morning before school. He did his homework and his chores and even started helping Mr. Schuester after class for extra credit.

But somehow, he always ended up thinking about the same thing and the absolute panic that the idea of Kurt hating him forever nearly ate him up inside.

It was still early in the morning when his phone went off. Blaine groaned and blindly reached for it, hoping that it was Kurt, because if it was anyone else bothering him on a Sunday, he wasn't going to be polite about it.

"'ello," he mumbled with his face pressed against the pillow. No one answered for a couple seconds and Blaine cleared his throat to speak louder. "Hello?"

"Blaine," a voice said, cracking a bit. He recognized it immediately.

"Mrs. Hummel?" It felt weird calling Katherine that. It was like replacing Carole, somehow, and he didn't like it. "Is that you?"

"Yes," she coughed and it sounded so painful that Blaine grimaced. "I'm so sorry to call you... I just didn't know who else to call."

"What's going on?" He asked, sitting up on his bed, now aware of the distant sound of a baby crying in the background.

"I'm having a really bad day," she said with difficulty. "I can't even take care of Kara. Blaine, please… I know you don't want to get more involved, but I need your help."

Blaine ran a hand through his messy hair, still a bit confused after being woken up so suddenly. "What do you need?"

Blaine was at the motel in an hour, showered and dressed and a bit anxious. When he knocked on the door, Katherine took a while to open it, but when she did, Blaine had to hold back a gasp.

She was pale, paler than she usually was, paler than he had ever seen Kurt. There were big, dark marks under her eyes and in the few days that had passed since Blaine had seen her, she seemed to have lost some weight.

"Thanks for coming," she said with a raspy voice, letting him in.

"How are you feeling?" He asked, frowning.

"Let's just say I've had better days," she tried to laugh but failed horribly and started coughing instead.

Blaine stood in the middle of the room. It looked as if a hurricane had gone through it. there were clothes everywhere, dirty mugs, untouched food. Finally, he turned to Katherine with the one question that he'd had in his mind since he woke up. "Why call me?"

She smiled sadly. "As pathetic as it may sound, Blaine… at this point, you're all I have."

Blaine's heart clenched painfully in his chest and he swallowed past the lump in his throat. "Where's Kara?"

"In her crib," Katherine answered with a sigh. "I fed ger and changed her diaper and she fell asleep again."

"Where's her car seat?" He said, glancing around the room again.

Katherine tried to help him, but even the smallest effort seemed to drain her strength, so Blaine ended up securing the baby seat in the backseat of his car and then carrying out Kara's bag full of diapers and bottles before finally coming back for the baby. His arms shook a little when Katherine put the sleeping girl in them and then leaned down to kiss her forehead.

"Be a good girl for mommy, okay?" She said and, for a moment, Blaine thought that the way her voice wavered had very little to do with her feeling sick.

As he drove back home with a baby in the backseat and hoping his parents had left for one of their usual Sunday gathering with friends, he tried to understand how his life had become what it currently was.

Kara didn't wake up until Blaine parked the car in his driveway. The girl looked around and started crying almost immediately.

"Shit," Blaine mumbled, climbing out of the car and running around to the backseat. He opened the door quickly and undid the straps on Kara's seat to pick her up. "Ssh, don't cry, Kara, please…"

She seemed to realize her mom wasn't there because then she started crying even harder. Blaine held her carefully and grabbed the bag with her things, before rushing into the house, feeling a bit desperate already.

No one seemed to be home, judging by the silence that enveloped the house. Blaine called for his mom, anyway, just to make sure, before going into the living room, where he supposed Kara would be more comfortable.

What was he supposed to do with a crying eight month old? Katherine should've included a manual or something, some sort of guidelines. He felt so lost as he paced the girl around the living room, trying to whisper reassuring things that she most likely didn't understand. He wondered if he should call Katherine, but he knew she would stress even more if she realized he was having trouble taking care of the baby.

He took a deep breath and sat on the couch, balancing the girl on his knees and trying not to think about how terrible he was with kids and how Kurt would never want to have kids with him if he saw him now and oh, god, why was he worrying about that when Kurt was going to break up with him as soon as he knew about Kara's existence?

"Please, Kara, I don't know what to do!" He exclaimed, as if that would make the little girl stop crying. "I know you want your mom, but I can't take you back to her, yet!" He wanted to cry too, wishing Kurt was there with him, completely sure that his boyfriend would know exactly what to do. He always did. "I just…" he sniffed, thinking so hard that it was giving him a headache.

The song came to him, out of nowhere, but he let the words out anyway, hoping they would help.

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do

Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing

Kara blinked and stopped crying to look at him, curiously. Encouraged, Blaine kept singing and though his voice wasn't perfect because he was nervous, it didn't seem to matter to the little girl, who stared at him, tilting her head to the side.

Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true

Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing

Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true.

Kara just kept looking at him with curious eyes and then simply raised her hand and booped his nose. A smile appeared on Blaine's face, a very relieved one.

He wasn't sure exactly when it had happened, but it was probably between the moment in which he had started singing to her and the moment he cuddled her against his chest to try and get her to take a nap after she had her bottle of milk, but Kara seemed to have completely fallen in love with Blaine.

And as he stared down at the adorable sleeping girl in his arms, Blaine realized that he had unmistakably fallen in love with her, too.

It wasn't too long after that when Blaine heard the front door opening and he froze. His parents voices and laughs came from the hallway and all he could do was rock Kara softly to keep her asleep and brace himself for what was about to come.

"Oh, Blaine! I didn't think you'd be home, darling!" Amelia said as she entered the living room. Both she and her husband, Harry, were wearing the outfits they wore when they went out to play tennis. "Would you like to…?" She stopped in her tracks when she noticed her son was craddling a baby carefully. "Blaine? Whose baby is that?"

Blaine didn't answer. He simply held Kara and bit his lip to stop the tears from coming. He was so overwhelmed. He couldn't understand how he hadn't exploded yet.

"Blaine?" Harry said, standing next to his mother and looking down at him with the same concern in his eyes. "Talk to us, son. Where did you get that baby?"

Blaine had to take a few steadying breaths that didn't really help too much. "She's Kurt's sister…"

Amelia seemed genuinely shocked. "I didn't know Kurt had a sister!"

"Neither does he," Blaine answered and just like that, the dam broke and tears ran freely down his cheeks.

It took a while for Amelia and Harry to calm their son down enough so he could explain what was going on, but once they did, Blaine couldn't help but tell them everything.

His parents had always been supportive of him. His dad may have had trouble accepting his sexuality at first, but once he finally understood that it was part of who Blaine was, he had told him he loved him anyway. They had both welcomed Kurt into the family easily and it wasn't unusual to find Kurt and Amelia gossiping in the kitchen as they exchanged recipes.

Amelia finally understood why her son had been so upset a few days ago, but had no idea how to help him and that scared her. Harry simply sat in front of him and let his son pour out all his fears and insecurities, and once he was done, he put a hand on his knee and said, gently: "Don't worry, Blaine. We'll figure something out."

Kara woke up before anyone could say anything else and started crying. Amelia tried to take her, but the little girl clung to Blaine with her tiny arms and only cried harder when they tried to force her to let go. Finally Blaine simply cuddled her to his chest and started humming until she quieted down.

He tried to imagine what Burt would say if he knew what he was doing and he was sure he wouldn't be too happy, but what was Blaine supposed to do?

For that question, he didn't have an answer.

Taking care of Kara became almost a regular thing for Blaine as Katherine's health very quickly started to decline. She would call him every now and then to ask him for help and though at first he had been reluctant, he now agreed wholeheartedly. He loved Kara, just as simple as that.

One evening, when he dropped Kara back at the motel so she could spend the night with her mother, Blaine asked the question that had been nagging at the back of his head for a coupleof weeks now.

"What's going to happen to Kara once…?" He cleared his throat, awkwardly. "You know…"

Katherine had never looked happy to him, but right now, she was the image of sheer misery. "I still don't know."

Blaine drove back home with a lump in his throat.

The coffee had gone cold already. Blaine leaned against the car he was supposed to be helping Burt with, lost in thought. He always seemed to be lost in thought lately.

With a deep sigh, Burt put the pincers he had been using down, making a lot of noise and causing Blaine to startle. "Alright," he said.

"Alright?" Blaine repeated, confused.

"I'm going to tell Kurt."

Blaine's eyes widened and he gripped the edge of the car tightly, so tightly that his knuckles went white. "Really?"

"Yeah," Burt nodded slowly. "If not for him, for you. I can see keeping a secret from him is killing you, Blaine."

"Can you blame me?" Blaine snapped, before closing his eyes and trying to calm down. "I just… I'm scared. I don't want this to get between us and I know it will."

"Kurt's stubborn but he's not unreasonable," Burt assured him. "He'll know it wasn't your secret to tell." Burt took his cap off and rubbed at the back of his head, evidently tired and tense. "I'll fly to New York next week to talk to him."

Walking around the car to stand next to Burt, Blaine looked at him with determined eyes. "I'm going with you."

"Blaine…" Burt muttered.

"No. I'm going with you," Blaine insisted. "He's going to need me. I want to be there for him even if he wants to break up with me." Blaine's voice cracked when he said that. "If he's going to break up with me, at least I want the chance to see him one last time."

Burt couldn't help but pull Blaine into a hug. "He's not going to break up with you, kid."

"How do you know that?" Blaine practically whined, with his face pressed against the grease-stained coverall.

"Because when I think of Kurt's future, there are a lot of things I'm not entirely sure of, but there's one that's always there," he squeezed Blaine's shoulder gently and pulled away. "And that's you, kiddo."

Blaine could only nod and hope Burt was right.