March 2025

“There you are! I’ve been worried sick about you, Blaine! Where the hell have you been?!”

With a slight shrug of his shoulders and an incoherent mumble, Blaine sank onto the couch. He looked up at Kurt with a pained expression, and any anger Kurt was feeling instantly drained away. He carefully sat down next to Blaine and wrapped his arms around his husband’s waist.

“What’s wrong, B?”

Kurt heard him sniff and grabbed hold of Blaine’s chin, turning his face towards him.

“I’m sorry. I-I should’ve told you sooner. I’m so sorry.”

Now Kurt was confused. Told him what sooner? Did Blaine max out their joint credit card? Did he cheat on him? What the hell was going on?

“What happened?” Kurt said as he narrowed his eyes, “What’d you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. It’s not something I can help. My grandpa had it. So did my mom. She got it before you and I met. We had to send her to a home because we just couldn’t take care of her.”

The tears began to fall freely as he met Kurt’s gaze.

“She had forgotten us all, and Kurt, it was just so difficult to handle all of that at 12 years old. I mean, how the hell was I supposed to understand that one day my mom would be the loving woman she was, and the next she was looking at me like I was a stranger? I didn’t understand what it was then, but once I got older I did some research and found that it was genetic. That one day, Cooper or me, or both of us, would end up developing the disease. And it scared the shit out of me.”

He laughed bitterly at the memory of how he had planned to tell Kurt as they sat at the Lima Bean.

“It’s not exactly something you bring up over coffee, ya know? I didn’t want to scare you when we had just started dating. I knew even back then that I’d marry you, so I planned on telling you a few months after we got married. Then it actually happened and everything just happened so quickly. I got my tenure, you got a regular spot on Broadway albeit a revival but still, and then we had Emma. Time when by too quickly. I was so afraid to tell you, afraid it wouldn’t be the right time. Early-onset Alzheimer’s isn’t exactly an easy thing to lay on someone but –“

Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's.

He repeated the words over and over in his mind, a slow, torturous mantra. Like a bad song stuck in your head that no amount of effort can get rid of. Thousands of memories flashed through his mind and they all began to blur together. The day they had met on the staircase. The first time they went to Breadstix together. The night they danced at Kurt’s prom after he was crowned queen. The first exchange of “I love you”. The first time they made love. The birth of their daughter. Finally, he looked up into Blaine's golden eyes and allowed himself to blink. He let out a shaky breath, and his controlled facade broke.

"Wha-what do you mean Alzheimer's? You're too young! H-how can – I don't understand. Blaine. You can't – just – "

Kurt fell to his knees as violent sobs escaped his chest. This couldn't be happening. They were both so young. And they had Emma.  Emma. Oh god. She was too young to go through something like this, having her papa forget her. She wouldn't understand.

Kurt's thoughts were interrupted as a pair of strong arms encircled his shoulders, a soothing voice in his ear whispering, "It'll be okay."

July 2026

He knew that forgetting was all part of the disease. It's not like Blaine intentionally forgot that tonight was Kurt's opening night on Broadway for a role he originating. That's not something you can easily forget. In the end though, it wasn't something Kurt shouldn’t have gotten upset over.

The doctors had told him to pick his battles. With how rapidly Blaine's memory was essentially being erased, newer information was harder to hold onto than old memories. It should've come as no surprise that Blaine forgot about this monumental night without constant reminder.

"I am so sorry, Kurt."

"Sorry? You're sorry? Do you even know how important this was for me? This is everything I've been working towards. Sorry doesn't cut it, Blaine."

Blaine flinched at the harshness of Kurt’s words. They were so thick with emotion, they cut to the bone. There wasn’t anything else Blaine could say though. He would never be able to get across how truly sorry he was.

“It’s not like I can help it.”

“Oh please. Don’t pull the disease card on me right now. You just don’t care enough about my career to remember.”

He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. If the look on Blaine’s face didn’t hurt enough, the sound of the door slamming as he stormed out of the apartment did. Kurt began to cry as he clutched his arms around his waist, an attempt at holding himself together. He rushed to the door, ready to chase after Blaine, but tripped over a pair of Emma’s shoes and collapsed against the door. As he propped himself up against the hard surface, the only sounds he could hear were his sobs reverberating off the walls, and Blaine’s footsteps retreating down the stairwell.

To say he was lost was an understatement. In all honesty, Blaine didn’t know where he was headed. He took a left here, a right there, and another right, another left. He had been roaming the streets of New York for about an hour when he finally came across a dingy bar and sulked his way in.

He replayed the night’s events over and over in his mind. He couldn’t get Kurt’s words out of his head, “You just don’t care enough…”

He scoffed at the idea. All he did was care. He’d written it down on the calendar in the kitchen that hung on the wall just above where they kept the mail, on the calendar that hung above his side of the bed, on the chalk board in Emma’s room. He wrote it down on every surface he could the minute Kurt had called him crying with the news.

He was so upset with himself for forgetting something that was so important to Kurt. Blaine was even more upset with Kurt for not understanding just how hard this was for him, too. He couldn’t control the things he forgot, or when he forgot them. Tonight though, Blaine chose to forget everything relating to the disease and Kurt as a handsome man in a suit bought him a drink.