You can't take back all those years

'We're not together. Me and him. In the future. Kurt-- he's going to leave me.'

Kurt goes still at the words and he watches as, in front of him, Blaine – beautiful, perfect Blaine – falls apart into Rachel's arms. Kurt's entire being has gone numb, aware of only one thing.

I'm the one who does that to him.

And then Rachel spots him and Blaine turns around, his bloodshot eyes going wide with shock at the sight of Kurt. Blood is rushing in Kurt's ears and he stares at Blaine, barely hearing when he says Kurt's name.

'I-- I don't understand.' Kurt's voice is hardly more than a whisper.

'I should-- I'll just-- go,' Rachel mumbles, her eyes shining with tears and for once words fail her. Kurt only vaguely registers when she leaves the room and he hears the slam of the front door as if from a mile away.

'I don't understand,' Kurt repeats, as Blaine stands to face Kurt properly.

'What is there to understand? You wanted to know why I've been different. Well, you got your answer: We're not together in the future, which makes it sort of hard for me to be here.' Kurt hears Blaine fighting to keep his voice indifferent, and Blaine shrugs as he finishes, 'Mystery solved.'

Kurt takes a few steps closer to Blaine. 'Hey, don't talk to me like it's nothing. I think we've gone a bit beyond that now, don't you?'

Blaine gives Kurt a tired 'whatever' look, before moving past him and leaving the room.

'Where are you going?' Kurt asks, following Blaine into the hall, where he is already ascending the stairs, two steps at a time. 'Blaine!'

They reach Blaine's bedroom, and Blaine fumbles with the light switch for a moment before the room is bathed in light.

'It has to be a mistake; a misunderstanding,' Kurt protests, watching Blaine, his back turned and looking around the room as though searching for something. 'I wouldn't-- I could never leave you.'

'You don't know that,' Blaine retorts, and the harsh edge in his voice feels like a slap to Kurt's face. A second later Blaine spots what he is looking for; his laptop partly buried under a stack of books and papers. He locates the power cord and takes both things into his arms, before leaving the room as quickly as he came.

'Blaine!' Kurt rushes after him, pausing only to turn off the lights. 'Talk to me. You can't just dump something like that on me, and then expect me to--'

'You weren't meant to hear,' Blaine says offhandedly, like it's no big deal that Kurt did hear, as he places the laptop on the coffee table and looks around for a power plug.

'But I did hear,' Kurt counters, watching Blaine plug in the power for his laptop. 'You can't just--' Kurt grabs Blaine by the arm before he can sit down, imploring him, 'Blaine, talk to me.'

Blaine freezes and the hard look he sends Kurt only lasts a couple of seconds. Then he seems to give up as all the tension leaves him, and he deflates a little, appearing somehow even smaller than normal.

'I can't. Kurt, I can't,' he breathes, his voice shaky. 'Now more than ever, you have to understand why I can't.'

Kurt pulls him into a hug then, and Blaine lets him. This is the closest Blaine – this brokenhearted Blaine – has let him, and as Kurt closes his eyes for a moment, he almost loses himself in the warmth and the scent of the other man, different after all these years, but still unmistakably Blaine. Too soon, though, Blaine pulls away again, and Kurt watches sadly as Blaine sits carefully down on the couch, pulling the laptop onto his lap. Kurt sits next to Blaine, regarding him quietly.

'I just wanna go home, you know?'

'I know.' Kurt's heart aches with how difficult it must have been for Blaine these past few days – hell, the past few years, however long it has been since they split (Kurt's stomach lurches uncomfortably as he says the words in his mind). Kurt chances a soft touch to Blaine's upper arm, caressing with his thumb in what he hopes is a soothing manner. 'I'm sorry.'

'It's not your fault,' Blaine murmurs and Kurt blinks, because does he really mean that?

'If I...leave you,' Kurt almost chokes on the words. 'Doesn't that by definition make it my fault?'

'I can't blame you for how you feel.' Blaine doesn't look up from the computer screen where Kurt sees him type the words “time travel” into a search engine. 'It's not like you were really cruel about it.'

'Can I-- What happened?' Kurt asks softly.

Blaine sighs before finally looking up and meeting Kurt's eyes.

'We just-- You had just graduated from college and it was my final year. You had to move to another city and you didn't want to do the long-distance thing again, so you suggested that we take a break.' Blaine is speaking calmly, but Kurt can hear how difficult it is for him to talk about it. Something about his tone reminds Kurt of the would-be casual way Blaine first spoke of the assault he and his friend suffered at his old school's Sadie Hawkins dance. Even down to the way he speaks the final few words, so clearly trying to make them mean less than they do. 'And it just – never ended.'

'A break?' Kurt repeats disbelievingly. 'Isn't the point of those that you get back together?'

'I guess...' Blaine sighs, looking away again. 'That's what you said at first, but you...' Blaine trails off, seemingly unable to finish the sentence. He stares at his hands, resting idly on the keyboard, and Kurt watches him mutely, deciding not to press. 'You moved on.'

'I... move on?' Kurt is struggling to make sense of any of this in his head. Even the arrival of future Blaine three days ago hadn't caused him this much of a headache.

'It took months, but eventually, yes,' Blaine nods. 'And then finally, for the sake of my sanity, I did, too.'

It sounds so uncharacteristically peaceful to Kurt. When he sometimes has nightmares about Blaine and himself breaking up, it's always horribly dramatic, full of tears and betrayal. Kurt doesn't know what to make of any of what Blaine is telling him now.

None of this makes any damn sense. Kurt knows that technically – statistically – he shouldn't be surprised that he and Blaine don't work out. In this day and age it has to be pretty rare for a high school couple to stay together forever and ever. Perhaps it was naive of Kurt to imagine that he and Blaine would be one of the few who did, but he also feels sure – though he would never say it to their faces – that what he and Blaine share goes beyond what most of his classmates have experienced. Which is why it makes so little sense to him that simply taking a break for practical reasons would ever lead to either of them moving on.

'Did you-- Did we even fight for it?' Kurt can't keep the disappointment out his voice. It's not disappointment in Blaine, or even himself. Kurt is disappointed in them.

'Well, after I found out that you'd been sleeping with someone else, there wasn't really a lot left to fight for,' Blaine spits out, his tone surprisingly harsh suddenly, and Kurt's eyes widen, a wave of nausea washing over him. Blaine looks up, regret in his eyes and biting his lip. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that.'

True, Kurt could have done without that knowledge, but he pushes the nausea and his own feelings aside in favor of the man beside him.

'No, don't apologize. I want you to be angry. I'm the one who should be sorry.'

'For what? You have done anything yet. And, like I said, I don't blame you. You only came to the realization that I'm not what you need – that--that I'm not enough for you – and you acted accordingly. How can that be your fault?' Blaine gives a self-deprecating laugh. 'If anything it's mine...'

'What? No! Blaine, no. Just-- d-don't even think that.'

Blaine just shrugs and Kurt's stomach clenches painfully. Kurt wishes he could find better words to express his discomfort, but before he can come up with a better argument than 'no', Blaine speaks again, his voice tired and small this time.

'Can we not talk about this anymore? Can we just concentrate on getting me home now?' Blaine nods at the screen.

'I- Okay.' Kurt doesn't know what else to say. He scoots a bit closer to Blaine to better be able to see the computer screen. Kurt doesn't miss the way Blaine tenses slightly as their legs touch, but neither does he know what to do about it, his head swirling with thoughts and emotions and it's all too much, so he doesn't comment. Instead he keeps his voice light as he asks, 'What are we looking for?'