The return to Blaine's apartment was silent. Kurt felt as if a veil had fallen upon them since they had left the beach. Blaine's eyes were as dull as they had been that day at the diner when Kurt hadn't been able to make him sign the papers. Something inside him was crumbling, and Kurt felt helpless to hold him together.

The sun was slowly descending in the horizon as they walked from the bus stop to Blaine's building. Kurt hadn't even thought about going straight to his hotel – he wanted to make sure Blaine made it home okay. Even if Blaine had known the city for years, Kurt couldn't leave him navigating its streets on his own.

“I guess I'll be seeing you soon,” Blaine said darkly as they stood by the entrance. His eyes were fixed on something down the street, avoiding Kurt again.

“Yeah,” Kurt replied. He felt a bit guilty, even though it wasn't his fault that he needed Blaine to sign the divorce papers. He smiled as brightly as he could. “Thank you for showing me around. I loved all the places you showed me.”

Blaine blinked, swallowed and nodded sharply, as if even this conversation was too much for him right now.

“I'm sorry if I… ruined it, a little,” Kurt added, biting his lower lip. “I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I'm sorry.”

Blaine finally looked at him. His jaw was tense and there was a sudden fire in his eyes that Kurt had no idea where it had come from. “You don't ever have to apologize to me. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Kurt was taken aback by the intensity in Blaine's words, and had no idea what to say. “I… Blaine…”

Unable to stop himself, Kurt put their bags down, took a step closer and hugged him. Like every time they touched, Blaine seemed shocked by the contact. Kurt held him tightly and buried his face in Blaine's neck. His skin still smelled the way he remembered it, clean, spicy and familiar. Blaine hugged him back, with his arms so tight around him that Kurt could feel the heat of him deep down into his bones.

Blaine's face found its old favorite spot in the crook of Kurt's shoulder and stayed there. Without even thinking about it, Kurt threaded his fingers through Blaine's hair, surprised for a moment at the lack of gel, but remembering how much he had loved running his fingers through the thick curls on the few occasions he had convinced Blaine to forgo the product.

“I've missed you.”

The words were out of Kurt's mouth without him noticing, and he became aware of them after Blaine's little gasp. He thought about taking them back, just so they wouldn't make things even more complicated, but decided against it when Blaine whispered in a low, broken voice: “I've missed you, too…”

They held each other for a moment, losing the track of time completely. There was something soothing about holding Blaine like this, as if he could stop him from vanishing into this new, sad, incomplete person he had become. Kurt scrunched his eyes shut, suddenly overwhelmed with the memories, the broken promises, the unfilled dreams…

They broke apart when Kurt's cell phone rang in his bag. He cleared his throat and pulled away to rummage through it for his phone, finding it just as it went to voicemail. “It's Rachel,” he said, not knowing why he told Blaine, who simply nodded awkwardly. “I should probably call her back.”

“Yeah, I have to go to the bar soon anyway,” Blaine shrugged, completely closed off once again.

“Okay, well…” Kurt took a deep breath and picked his shopping bags back up. “I'll see you soon.”

Blaine nodded silently, but his eyes were fastened intently on Kurt, and Kurt could feel his burning gaze as he walked down the street.

When he turned in the corner, he leaned against a wall and closed his eyes.

He had no idea what he was doing anymore.

*

That night, Kurt's dreams were filled with memories of that summer day spent in an Ohio Farmers Market, of whiskey-colored eyes and a thousand watt smile. He dreamed of holding a boy's hand in the car, of kissing his lips at the end of the day and discovering they still tasted of the chocolate chip ice-cream they had had before driving back home.

He dreamed of Blaine exactly like he remembered him.

In the morning, Kurt woke up crying.

*

That night, Blaine tended the bar as if he was on auto-pilot. There was a constant buzzing in his head that had nothing to do with the loud music, the flowing of the alcohol around him or the voices of the customers coming and going.

When he was getting ready to leave, slipping his denim jacket over his black v-neck to ward off the midnight chill, a man he vaguely remembered having in his bed at least once or twice before leaned over the counter and smiled at him.

“Hey, would you like some company tonight?”

Blaine stared at him as if he had never seen him before. His dark hair and eyes were too foreign, the tanned tone of his skin didn't invite him to run his hands all over him; the hoarse quality of his voice didn't make the hairs in the back of his neck raise in anticipation. The ghost of Kurt's touch haunted him, and this time he couldn't try to erase it with a stranger's warm willing body.

He shook his head – he wasn't big on words anymore, not like he had been back in high school, when he would jump at the chance to express himself, whether it was through song or not.

Blaine walked back to his apartment with his hands buried in his jacket's pockets and his mind swirling with images of Kurt earlier that day – Kurt's playful smile while he tried all those damn hats on; Kurt's eyes bluer than the ocean as they sat close together on the sand; Kurt's arms around him and his face pressed against his neck, while his sweet words washed all over him like a careful caress: I missed you.

That night, Blaine's dreams were full of Kurt. He dreamed of memories – I love you too. I was so proud to be with you. I'll never say goodbye to you.

He dreamed of the things they had never done – Kurt Hummel, my amazing friend, my one true love, will you marry me?

He dreamed of the things he wished had never happened – I was with someone.

It was almost dawn when Blaine woke up, barely holding back the scream threatening to tear his lungs, with tear-tracks down his face and his heart beating furiously and painfully in his chest.

With shaky hands, he pulled open the top drawer in his bedside table, poured a pill on his palm and swallowed it, not even aware of the bitter taste it left in his mouth.

*

There was a lovely café down the street from Kurt's hotel and his need for caffeine gave him a reason to leave his room for the first time that day. It was mid-afternoon and he hadn't found the strength to emerge from his room until then – his dreams had haunted him even while he was awake.

In search of a distraction from focusing on Blaine and the divorce, he fired up his laptop, and checked his emails, a mocha in one hand and a bagel waiting on a napkin nearby.

There was a lot to do back in his office – his staff awaited for him to approve some of the content that would go up on the page, and they needed to have a meeting as soon as possible to decide on the theme of a photo shoot planned for a couple of weeks from now. Kurt felt guilty for putting his work aside when his co-workers depended so much on him. He sent an email back with new instructions and scheduled a Skype meeting for the next morning, New York time. He knew he could have asked for a temporary office at the Vogue headquarter in Los Angeles, but it would've been too much trouble, when he had intended to be back in his own city so quickly.

He hadn't expected to find so many setbacks here.

Kurt shook his head – the purpose of this exercise was supposed to be unsnarling his office, not thinking about Blaine.

He replied to every email in his inbox and then opened a new document to make a list of the things he wanted to discuss at their online meeting the next day. There wasn't only the photoshoot to take care of – there was an interview with a fashion designer that he really wanted to get, and he was looking forward to starting a new column, so they would need to hire a new writer to take care of that section. He knew his secretary would be more than efficient and could hire the perfect person without him even needing to interview them to be sure, but he still liked to have control over it. He needed someone fresh, someone with good humor and who wasn't afraid to be honest when…

His train of thought was interrupted abruptly with the sound of his phone. He looked down at the screen and found Alexandre's smiling face staring back at him. He gulped as his finger hovered over the green button.

What was he going to say to his fiancé when he inevitably asked about the divorce papers? There was no way he could tell him he'd spent the whole day sightseeing with Blaine, and hadn't even brought up the subject of divorce once. He knew Alex wouldn't be happy about it, and Kurt was aware that he had no excuse – he hadn't talked to Blaine about it again because a part of him felt like he needed to give Blaine time; time that he and his fiancé didn't have, with the wedding looming closer every day.

His finger slid over the red button instead, accompanied by a surge of guilt. Kurt had lost control of the situation completely, but he didn't know what to do to push it back onto the right track anymore.

He didn't know how to help Blaine without upsetting Alexandre. It was as if those two men couldn't exist in his life simultaneously. And they never were meant to – Blaine was his past, and Alex was his present and future. There would've been no Alexandre if Blaine hadn't made the mistakes he had made back when they were still kids…

Kurt sipped his coffee and closed his eyes, letting the taste of coffee and chocolate wash over his tongue. He couldn't afford to think like that – Alex was in his life because that was his destiny. He was with the man he was supposed to be with. Blaine and him had only kid themselves thinking they could make it…

But then, why had it always felt so real if it was nothing but a childish game?

Because it had never been a childish game. Their love had been bigger than anything else they had known, than anything they could really understand. When they hadn't been sure of anything else, they had been sure that they loved each other, and that nothing would ever change that…

But things had changed. Love can die. Hopes and dreams can be shut down. New beginnings can shine brighter than past fantasies.

Right?

*

The next afternoon, Kurt was sitting at the desk in his hotel room, with his computer in front of him and checking his list of discussion topics next to him, as his secretary filled him in on the possible locations they could get for the photoshoot. There was only one more thing to discuss, once they settled for a theme for the shoot, and that was the new column he wanted to add to the site. It was the least urgent one, so he had left it for the end, knowing all the others would take longer. It wasn't a Vogue meeting if there weren't at least a hundred disagreements in the span of twenty minutes.

“Summer is just around the corner; we could do a beach-themed shoot,” Sarah suggested.

“That's like suggesting flowers because it's spring. It's been done ten million times,” Kurt mumbled dismissively, not even lifting his eyes to the screen, as he scribbled a few notes.

“What about fishing?” Karl muttered hesitantly.

Kurt looked up and stared at him through the computer screen with an arched eyebrow. “Did you just say fishing?”

“My aunt has a cabin and we always go fishing in the summer,” Karl explained, not without nerves. It wasn't easy to be in the receiving end of Kurt's Arched Eyebrow. “It would be fresh and water-themed, but it could be cute. You know, rolled up jeans, high-waters, beautiful hats…”

Kurt leaned back in his chair thoughtfully. Fishing was disgusting – his father had taken him and Finn out on a fishing trip the summer before their junior year of high school, and he had stayed under the shade of a tree and as far away from the fish as he could – but the scenery that came with it was kind of charming. Thinking of one of their tall, porcelain-looking models with water up to her knees and trying to hold a fishing rod was sort of cute.

He opened his mouth to answer – he was sure Karl was holding his breath as he waited – when his phone rang. He glanced at it and discovered it was Alex again. Kurt knew he couldn't ignore the call again – he would have to face his fiancé sooner or later. And the longer he ignored him, the worse it would be.

“I need to take this call, but I want you to brainstorm locations, outfits and model choices for Karl's idea. Put something together and we'll talk about it then,” he said quickly. “Good job, guys.”

He disconnected the Skype call and accepted Alexandre's. He took a deep breath to brace himself before putting the phone to his ear.

“Hi honey.”

“Hey,” Alex said, and god, Kurt could hear the frown in his voice. “Where have you been? I called a couple of times…”

“I know, I'm sorry,” Kurt stood and started pacing the room, feeling too stressed to stay still. “I've been busy trying to catch up with work, and it's harder from here, with the time zones and everything… How are you?”

“Well, I would be doing a lot better if my fiancé was home already,” Alex answered sharply. “Why is this taking so long, Kurt? It's just a signature on a paper and, voilà, you're divorced. You should've been home days ago, already…”

“I know, I'm sorry,” Kurt repeated. He closed his eyes. “He… he hasn't signed them yet, but…”

“What do you mean he hasn't signed yet? Kurt, this is ridiculous!” Alex exclaimed. “Is he too much of a brute and he doesn't know how to spell his own name?”

“Alex, don't be mean,” Kurt retorted firmly. “I told you, Blaine is having a rough time, and it feels wrong to force him to…”

“I don't care if he's having a rough time or not! You shouldn't have to force him, Kurt! Why won't he divorce you? Is he still in love with you? He'd better not put a single finger on you or I will…”

“Stop being such a cave-man,” Kurt interrupted, impatiently. “I can't force someone to deal with a divorce when their life is already a mess! Don't you have a heart? I just need a few more days so we can…”

“A few more days? This was supposed to take two, three days at most if you had trouble finding him!” Alex was raising his voice and Kurt's head started pounding like drum. “Give him the papers, tell him to sign them, and come back here. He can mail them to us when he's done with them, and if he doesn't send them back in a couple of weeks, we'll hire a lawyer and make him…”

“Why are you being so unreasonable?” Kurt asked, groaning in frustration. “Why can't you accept that I want to help one of my oldest friends?”

“Because he hasn't been your friend in a decade! Because until a couple of weeks ago, his name was practically forbidden in front of you! On one hand, you pretend he doesn't even exist, but on the other, you've kept a box of pictures of you and him, in the back of your closet for all these years.”

Kurt gaped like a fish out of the water. “Did you go through my stuff?”

“Let's stop acting like this isn't a big deal,” Alex said, ignoring Kurt's question. “When it comes to him, it's always been a big deal. You say you want to help him, but at the end of the day, Kurt, he's the guy who broke your heart in a million pieces. So why is he more important than me? Why does he matter more than our own wedding?”

“I… Alex… what… he doesn't! You're my fiancé! Why can't you see that?” Kurt sputtered. He felt as if he was choking. There were two hands pressing firmly on his throat and he couldn't fight them off.

“Yeah, but he's your husband. And as long as you let him remain your husband… he'll always be more important,” Alex replied in a quiet voice. He paused for a second, but Kurt couldn't speak. “The guy from that jazz band you wanted for the wedding called earlier. He wanted to confirm the date with us. Let me know if I should tell him that there won't be a wedding at all.”

Alex hung up. Kurt's knees felt like jelly and he let himself down on the bed when he realized they wouldn't hold him up any more. He dropped the phone on the mattress next to him and forced himself to breathe, but the air wouldn't travel to his lungs.

He was choking and he was running out of options.

*

Kurt's hands didn't stop shaking on the cab ride. By the time he pounded on Blaine's apartment door, his entire body was shaking as well. He felt sick, and the words Alex had said before hanging the phone didn't help him feel better.

Two weeks ago, his life had been perfect, with the perfect job in the perfect city and the wonderful man who had asked him to be his husband. How had everything gone to hell so quickly?

The door opened revealing Blaine's angry face, who clearly didn't appreciate the abuse dispensed on it. However, when he saw who was standing there, his expression changed completely. His eyebrows rose in surprise.

“Hey,” he said. Kurt almost lost his balance, since most of his weight had been put on the door, but managed to catch himself before he stumbled to his knees. Blaine raised his hands, ready to grab him if needed. “Whoa. What's going on? Are you okay?”

“No, I'm not okay,” Kurt replied, pushing past him and into the apartment. He turned to face him as Blaine closed the door in absolute confusion.

“What happened?” Blaine asked, and the concern in his voice weakened his knees again, but he ignored it.

Kurt opened his bag, grabbed the divorce papers and threw them towards Blaine. “Sign them. Sign them right now.”

Blaine looked down at the papers scattered all over his apartment floor and then back up at Kurt with a frown. “What…?”

“Sign them,” Kurt interrupted, and oh god, he was choking again. “No more distractions, no more excuses. You sign those damn papers right now.”

Blaine's eyes hardened and darkened; any traces of golden whiskey were gone. “No.”

Kurt blinked at him. He closed his hands in fists and when that didn't make them stop shaking, he tried relaxing them. “What did you just say?”

“I'm not signing anything,” Blaine answered in a sharp voice. “You come into my apartment, looking like you just got side-swiped by a car, and start yelling at me, demanding things? No fucking way. If you want something from me, I expect an explanation…”

“What kind of fucking explanation do you want?” Kurt exclaimed, exasperated. “We are married, Blaine! We should not be married! We haven't seen each other in nearly eight years! I think that's enough reason to ask you to sign that damn thing!”

“Why are you so suddenly in such a fucking rush? You didn't even mention the fucking divorce the other day! You were perfectly happy skipping around town with me! And now you're so fucking desperate for it?” Blaine yelled back. “What the hell do you…?”

Kurt ran a hand through his hair and cut him off again. “Sign them. Just sign them. I want to go back to New York. I have to go back to New York. I can't keep wasting time here with…”

“With me?” Blaine finished for him, abruptly. “You can't keep wasting time with me?”

“Blaine…”

“No, no, it's okay. I've always known you were just wasting time with me. Like what we had ever mattered… it didn't mean a fucking thing to you…” Blaine began pacing the room, angrily. “You didn't want to waste time with me then, why would you want to do that now?”

“Blaine, it's not like that and you know it,” Kurt said, as soothingly as he could, but he was too far gone, too. He was scared, desperate and tired and he needed this to be over… “But we can't keep doing this forever! I can't put my life on hold indefinitely! We have to put an end to this!”

Blaine didn't say anything. He kept pacing, breathing heavily, like a caged beast that needed to break free.

Kurt closed his eyes and tried to hold back the tears. God, he was so tired… “Please. Please, Blaine. My fiancé practically threatened to call off the wedding if I don't get this over with once and for all. I can't buy us any more time. I can't risk what I have back in New York…”

Now Blaine's hands were shaking. Kurt could see him trying to control himself, but quietly losing it. Why couldn't he just sign those papers? They were making each other miserable like this…

Blaine turned towards his bed and crossed the room in a few long strides. He pulled the top drawer in his nightstand open and rummaged through it until he found one of the pill bottles. He tried to uncap it, but his shaking hands wouldn't let him.

Kurt gasped, and immediately lunged to snatch the pill bottle away from him. “What the hell are you doing?”

Blaine didn't look at him. He kept his eyes down and tried to grab the pills back, unsuccessfully. Kurt could see how tense his jaw was. “Give them back.”

“These aren't even yours. How did you get them?” Kurt asked, backing away and holding the bottle out of Blaine's reach.

“Give. Them. Back,” Blaine said with clenched teeth. He was like a bomb about to explode and Kurt knew he was standing too close to come out of it unharmed.

“No, stop it, Blaine! Why are you doing this to yourself?” Kurt exclaimed, angrily.

Blaine breathed furiously, like a bull getting ready to face the Matador. “I need them. I'm in pain. Give them back.”

“That's bullshit! You're just being an idiot because…!”

“I am in fucking pain!” Blaine roared, effectively silencing Kurt and making him take a step back with the force of his voice and the fury in it. "Ive been in pain since I was eighteen! Do you even know what it feels like to kill the one thing that matters the most to you? I hurt every fucking single day and nothing makes it stop! So give me those damn pills back!"

Kurt held the pills against his chest and spoke in a shivery voice. “No. Blaine… it's over. It's been ten years. You need to move on. Do something to…”

Blaine finally looked up at him. His hazel eyes were on fire, but Kurt had never felt colder. “You don't think I've tried? Of course I did! I spent years trying. But at the end of the day, I knew I was just faking it. I wasnt healing. Ill never heal. I hurt you, I broke us up, I ruined the perfect future we had together, and this is the price I have to pay for that."

The pill bottle was digging into Kurt's palm as he held it with all the strength in his body. It seemed to be the only thing grounding him. “If… if what you need to move on is my forgiveness, Blaine, then you have it. I… I forgive you,” Kurt muttered, and those were words he had never thought he would tell Blaine. But seeing him so broken and affected after all these years shattered Kurt beyond repair. He had been so hurt after Blaine had cheated on him, but he had found the way to go on with his life and start over. He couldn't imagine what it had to be like for Blaine, with that same pain and the guilt fermenting for all those years…

“But I don't forgive myself,” Blaine whispered, wrapping his arms around himself when he realized Kurt wouldn't give him the pills back, as if he had no energy left to keep himself together. “Look around. Look at my life! I was supposed to get into NYADA, move in with you, get married, get lead parts on Broadway and then put my career aside so I could stay home with our kids and watch them grow..." Kurt felt another stab of pain when he realized Blaine was crying now, tears coming down his face in quick succession, leaving wet tracks down his face. "Dont you think I dont wake up every day and I remember those plans? I can see them in my head like photographs, like home movies of a life Ill never have. You, our kids, our fucking golden retriever, all of us just playing in the backyard, and for once you dont care about grass stains in your clothes because youre with us, with your family."

Blaine's knees gave out and he dropped on the bed, resting his elbows on his thighs and burying his face in his hands. He broke down completely and Kurt couldn't look away, even as he started crying himself. God, he had wanted those things, too. He had wanted them more than air.

"Blaine..."

"I knew we were married," Blaine mumbled quietly, shocking Kurt into silence. "I remember that night in Vegas. I didnt have as much to drink as you did. I know I shouldve stopped us or at least told you about it the next day..." He shook his head, and the smile on his lips was the saddest thing Kurt had ever seen. "But I just really, really wanted to be Kurt Hummels husband."

Kurt's sob threatened to rip him apart. He covered his mouth with his hand as his vision blurred with the tears. Blaine looked up at him, and he seemed smaller, so defeated and empty after his confession. But Kurt finally recognized him in those hazel eyes – the honest, expressive pools of liquid caramel that Kurt had loved staring into when they were young, in love and so damn innocent. Those eyes were now full of sadness and loneliness, and Kurt couldn't even begin to imagine what the past decade must have been like for Blaine.

“I'm so sorry, Kurt,” Blaine murmured, and Kurt realized that was the first time Blaine called him by his name since they had met again. That alone was enough to push him over the edge and completely break him.

Kurt dropped to his knees in front of him, letting the pills fall to the floor and roll under the bed. He cupped Blaine's hands and looked him right in the eyes, but couldn't find the words he needed to say. His heart was pounding wildly in his chest and some of the puzzle pieces that had been missing suddenly fit into place and the picture became clearer, even if it wasn't complete yet.

Blaine's bottom lip quivered as he tried to hold his sobs back. Once upon a time, Kurt had known how to soothe all of Blaine's sorrows. Now, everything came back instinctively, and all he could think about what how much he wanted to make him feel better.

He leaned in and pressed his lips against his softly. Blaine gasped into his mouth before they fitted back together in that perfect way they always had. Kurt slid one of his hands to the back of Blaine's neck and pressed him closer, as his heart went out of control and threatened to rip his chest open with how hard it was beating.

Blaine tentatively put his arms around his shoulders, and then they just gave in into the kiss – their mouths still remembered how to move together and their tongues were anxious to know if they still tasted the same. Kurt whimpered into the kiss and closed his eyes tightly, as two lonely tears trailed down his cheeks.

It had been ten years, and he realized he finally felt as if he was coming home.