Kurt rounded the corner of the street where he shared a cramped apartment with his stepbrother and saw a fire truck parked outside their building, flanked by several firefighters who were chatting among themselves. This was not good. He knew he should not have left Finn alone while he got the rest of the ingredients from the grocery store.

He sprinted the half a block, not quite caring that the can of whipped cream was smacking against the buttons of his new coat. As he raced up the stairs to their fifth-floor walk up, he did notice that none of their neighbors had evacuated their apartments. That was a good sign, right?

There was no need to fling open the door to Apt 5D because the door was wide open. Smoke and the smell of burnt peaches crept up Kurt's nose, causing him to scrunch it up in an attempt to block out the offending odors. It didn't help.

Kurt waved his hands in front of his face to try and clear the air as he made his way toward the kitchen. He saw his stepbrother towering over a firefighter who still had his or her helmet on. Although he couldn't see the firefighter's face, Kurt gathered he or she must have been lecturing Finn on preventative fire measures one should take in the kitchen because there was a lot of hand gestures to which Finn could only respond by squinting his eyes and scratching his head.

Not wanting to interrupt just yet, Kurt quickly scanned the room to appraise the damage. The top of the stove was covered in whatever dry chemical was used to put out the fire. He shook his head, silently cursing Finn for getting started on the peaches flambé without his supervision. The rest of the kitchen was a mess, but he knew that was Finn's fault too. There was water on the floor – probably Finn trying to put out the fire himself. Kurt was glad at least his brother had the sense to eventually call the fire department.

The firefighter must have stopped talking because Finn heaved a heavy sigh and then nodded his head as if he understood what he was told. Finn surveyed the room and finally realized his stepbrother was back and gave him a half smile. "Hey, bro."

The firefighter turned slightly where he or she stood to try and get a peak at whom Finn was addressing. The firefighter's eyes grew wide, but Kurt's attention remained solely on Finn.

"Jesus, Finn. You couldn't have waited 10 minutes for me to get back? How many times do I have to tell you that you aren't allowed to do the flambé part? Ever. You caught my kitchen on FIRE!"

"Kurt?"

Kurt did a double take because he was looking at Finn, but Finn didn't say his name and there was only one other person in the room. His head snapped toward the voice to see it came from the firefighter, whose face was now blurred by arms removing that bulky helmet.

When the helmet was off and firefighter's arms were finally lowered, Kurt was left staring into hazel eyes that he was long convinced he would never see again. Finn's eyebrows furrowed in epic confusion as his stepbrother's jaw dropped. Kurt's eyes widened and his chest heaved in surprise.

"Blaine? Blaine Anderson?"

Blaine's heart melted at the sound of his name coming from Kurt's mouth. He released a breath he didn't know he was holding in and his shoulders dropped a bit, as if some of the weight he had been carrying for the past ten years was finally gone. He remained still as he watched his childhood best friend shake his head in utter disbelief.

"You moved away. You moved away and… Blaine, what are you doing here?"

Finn chose this moment to speak up. "Um, he put out the fire, dude," he stated with such certainty that there wasn't even room for a hint of sarcasm. "Wait, how do you two know each other?"

Kurt was still shaking his head in disbelief. Blaine carefully shifted his uniformed body so he could answer Finn directly. "We, uh, used to be best friends. When we were kids."

Finn smiled a bit, almost entirely in understanding. "Oh, cool. Back in Ohio? Wow, small world, man. So you were Kurt's, like, first boyfriend?"

This caught Kurt's attention and his eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "FINN!" He then quickly glanced at Blaine and begged a silent apology. Hazel eyes locked into blue like opposing magnets and Blaine offered a small, crooked smile of understanding at Kurt. He then turned back to Finn.

"Look, I have to head back down to the truck." Because he was addressing Finn, Blaine couldn't see the sudden pained look on Kurt's face. Kurt didn't want Blaine to leave. Not now. Not again. "Promise me you will never, EVER, try and flambé anything without Kurt's supervision. Okay?" Finn nodded his head in fierce understanding. Blaine gave the taller boy a firm nod and then turned to Kurt where his expression softened instantly. "I have to go. I'm sorry. But I'm, um, off in a couple hours. Can I call you when I'm done and we can meet up for coffee or something? Please?" His voice was soft and on the verge of pleading. He didn't think his heart could feel so full of hope and pain at the same time.

Kurt gave a small nod. He was still holding the plastic bag with whipped cream in it, so he took his free hand and dug around in his coat pocket until he found his phone. He held it up in front of him and swallowed hard as he stepped toward Blaine. The fireman still had his gloves on and his helmet in hand, so Kurt flipped through a few screens on his phone and typed furiously with his right thumb as Blaine gave Kurt his phone number. When he was done, he looked up and the boys locked eyes once again. Both wished Blaine didn't have to go, but Blaine had already overstayed his welcome. He was surprised none of the other guys came up to tell him to get back to the truck.

"Text me, okay? And then I'll have your number. I'll call you as soon as I'm done, Kurt. I promise." Kurt just nodded, still not quite believing Blaine was standing there in front of him. Still not quite believing that he would see Blaine again. They were supposed to keep in touch when Blaine moved, but that didn't happen. That couldn't happen again.

Blaine somehow knew exactly what was racing through Kurt's mind. "I promise, Kurt. I'll call. Just text me, please?" Kurt nodded again and Blaine smiled as he headed toward the door.

...

Kurt sat at a corner table in a surprisingly quiet coffee shop a few blocks away from Blaine's station. Two cups of coffee, both untouched, sat on the table in front of him. He twirled his phone in his hands, stopping every few seconds to check the time. 6:03.

Blaine said he'd be there at 6:00.

Just as Kurt was going to check his phone's clock again, he heard a door open and a bell jingle. He whipped his head up and saw Blaine rushing through the door.

"Sorry. I'm sorry, Kurt. I'm late, I know." He dropped down into the chair across from Kurt, an earnest look of apology written all over his face. "I'm sorry."

Kurt couldn't help but give him a half smile. Although a small part of him worried that Blaine wouldn't show up, the rest of him was relived to have his childhood best friend sitting mere feet in front of him. He was still nervous though. It's been a long time. He's worried it's been too long.

"Well, it's been, what, ten years? Waiting another three minutes shouldn't kill me, right?"

Neither boy smiled at Kurt's attempt at a joke.

Kurt's cheeks flushed as he cleared his throat, wanting desperately to move past his previous quip. "Um, I got you a coffee. It's just a medium drip because I wasn't sure of your order, so –"

"-Thank you," Blaine cut him off. "Um, thanks." His cheeks flushed and he was equally flustered, so he gave himself a moment by taking a sip from the cup closest to him. He normally would have put some cinnamon in his coffee, but Kurt wouldn't know that. He focused his eyes on the table, not quite knowing what to say next.

Kurt gave Blaine a quick once over while he sipped his coffee. He looked so different, and yet he still looked the same. The first thing Kurt noticed was his hair. It was still curly, but cropped closer to his head and much more under control than he ever saw when they were kids. Blaine was still small – or at least shorter than Kurt. But Kurt was plenty aware of how nicely Blaine filled out the NYFD t-shirt he was wearing and the arms muscles that flexed as Blaine held onto his mug.

Blaine could feel Kurt's eyes on him as he drank. If he wasn't in such a hurry on his way in, he would have stopped to marvel at Kurt's legs in those black skinny jeans he had on, or the way his purple button-up shirt was unbuttoned just enough to reveal a patterned scarf tucked into it. As he put his cup down, his thoughts flickered back to something Finn asked in the kitchen. He asked if Blaine was Kurt's first boyfriend. This would imply that Kurt had boyfriends – or rather, that Kurt was gay.

Blaine was too.

He put his coffee cup down and somehow mustered up enough courage to look Kurt in the eye. As nervous as he was, once he was staring into those blue eyes that he never forgot, his body relaxed.

Kurt noticed Blaine's change in posture. Somewhere in the last few seconds the tension left his shoulders and that allowed Kurt to feel more at ease too. He smiled.

"It's so good to see you, Blaine. Really."

Blaine smiled back.

Kurt's eyebrows rose as he launched into his first of many questions. "So, what are you doing in New York? Besides putting out kitchen fires started by my brother?"

Blaine lifted his eyebrows in return and answered as best he could. He came to New York to pursue a degree in music education and started volunteering as a firefighter. When firefighting became a bigger passion, he decided to make that a full time job, still playing gigs at local coffee shops when he could. He learned that Kurt was studying fashion at Parsons. That made sense – Kurt always took pride in his clothes, even when they were really little.

They drank coffee and swapped stories. Blaine asked about Finn. "Since when do you have a brother?!" Kurt almost spat out his coffee when Blaine told him about his own brother's acting career. "Oh my God, I love those commercials! How did I not realize that was Cooper?" Blaine finally noticed Kurt's outfit. "Um, that scarf… I really like it." But it was Kurt who finally asked the big question they were both dancing around for hours now, "Why didn't we keep in touch?"

Each boy felt horrible for not contacting the other, though neither knew what they could have done differently. It turned out Blaine didn't move once, but four times before he graduated from high school. Even though he really never liked to talk about it, Blaine didn't hesitate to tell Kurt about how he was bullied after he came out in middle school. He told Kurt how that lead to him being hospitalized after going to a Sade Hawkins dance with a boy and being forced to repeating his freshman year of high school. Kurt was horrified.

Blaine explained that his parents decided it was best for him to just start over at Dalton with no ties to his past. Kurt admitted that he tried a few times to find Blaine on various social media sites, but never had any luck. Blaine wasn't surprised. He wasn't allowed on Facebook and the Andersons kept their phone number private. They told Blaine that him missing out on a social life was a small price to pay for his own safety.

Kurt instinctively reached across the table, placed his right hand over Blaine's left and brushed his thumb over his friend's knuckles. "I'm sorry. You shouldn't have had to go through that alone."

Blaine ducked his head and gave a small smile. As much as those memories haunted him to this day, part of him thought that all of that was supposed to happen so that he ended up right here right now.

He swallowed hard and found the strength to look Kurt in the eye again. His small smile grew into a slightly larger crooked one. "God, I've missed you, Kurt."

Kurt immediately felt tears welling up in his eyes. "I missed you too, Blaine. So much. And I wish there was some way to get these last ten years back. Ten years… you know that's half of our lives?"

Both boys scoffed and drifted away from the conversation for a few moments. Kurt was still absentmindedly rubbing his thumb over Blaine's knuckles when a thought suddenly came to him.

"Wait. You went to Dalton?"

Blaine's eyebrows rose as he turned his attention toward Kurt. "Yeah. Private school. Terrible uniforms. I, uh, even sang in their glee club. We were called the –"

"-Warblers." Kurt finished the sentence for him. His hand stopped, now dead weight resting atop Blaine's hand.

Blaine frowned, cocked his head, eyebrows now furrowed. "Warblers. Yeah."

"I saw them sing. Sophomore year. At Regionals."

Silence.

Blaine stared at his empty coffee mug as he did the math in his head. If Kurt were a sophomore, then Blaine would have been a sophomore. No wait, he repeated freshman year, which meant…

His eyes widened as Kurt looked on and put the pieces together.

"Oh my god. That was you." Kurt's eyes welled up again. "During their second song, there was a short boy with shiny hair and he sang…" he pulled his hand away from Blaine's and used it to wipe a stray tear from his eye. "He sang with such raw emotion that I cried. That was you, wasn't it?"

Blaine's own eyes began to burn as he gave a small nod. That solo was for Kurt. Part of him was overwhelmed that Kurt heard it, but more of him felt defeated for not knowing he and Kurt were in the same place at the same time all those years ago. A flurry of "What ifs" raced through his mind, causing his heart to hurt.

He looked up at Kurt and knew Kurt must have been thinking the same thing. Both boys looked destroyed, but what was done was done. They didn't know. How could they have known?

Blaine was the first one to snap back to their present situation. He sniffled, causing Kurt to blink and refocus on his friend. He swallowed hard and slowly put his hand back on the table, palm facing up.

"Well, we're both here now, right?" Blaine's question provoked a small smile from Kurt. He nodded.

Just as Kurt was reaching across the table to put his hand in Blaine's, his phone began to ring, pulling them both out of the moment. Kurt's hand flew into his pants pocket. After a brief struggle, he pulled the phone out, rolled his eyes and brought it up to his ear.

"What is it now, Finn?"

Blaine retracted his hand from the table and watched as Kurt listened. Although he was a little disappointed in the interruption, he couldn't help but smile as Kurt nodded his head and shook his head at various intervals in the conversation. He could tell Kurt was doing everything in his power not to cut off his brother. After a minute or so, Kurt heaved a heavy sigh. "Fine. I'll be there in, like, fifteen minutes. Just don't touch anything else, okay? Goodbye." Kurt pressed the End Call button on his phone and looked at Blaine with an extremely apologetic look.

"I really hate to say this, but I need to go." Kurt frowned, not wanting to leave Blaine just yet. Part of him worried that if he left now, Blaine would just disappear again.

Somehow Blaine picked up on this. "No, it's fine, Kurt, go. We'll see each other again soon, I promise." Kurt raised his eyebrows, eyes wide and full of hope. "I promise."

They both got up from the table and brought their bevy of empty coffee mugs to the area near the trashcans where they got were stacked in order to be washed.

"Look, Kurt. I have your number and you have my number, and we live in the same city. We'll see each other. We can even see each other tomorrow, if you want."

The cups make a spectacular clanking sound as they set them down.

Kurt sighed. He did want that. "I do want that." He wanted that more than he thought he could want that. "I really want that… is that okay? I mean, are you really free tomorrow, or should I have Finn set something else on fire?"

Blaine closed his eyes as he chuckled, "No!" Kurt smiled, pleased that he made his friend laugh. Blaine opened his eyes back up and looked at Kurt. "I'm free tomorrow night after 7:00. Why don't you text me later and tell me when and where you want to meet up and I promise, I promise, I will be there. Okay? I can't not see you for another ten years."

Kurt's cheeks flushed at Blaine's admission. Blaine's did too.

The boys walked through the double doors of the coffee shop together, and then turned toward each other. After a moment of awkward silence, Blaine opened his arms toward Kurt and the taller boy flung himself at his friend. They wrapped their arms tightly around the other person and squeezed. A wave of familiarity washed over them. It felt right. It felt like home. They might have lost ten years, but they had to put that behind them now. Tomorrow was a new day.

They weren't starting over, though. That spark between them had never left.