Blaine treats Kurt to a cup of truly horrendous, but rather strong, coffee, and by the time they’ve made their way back from the hospital cafeteria, Grandma seems to be completely fine, chatting happily with two nurses. She’s showing them something, and whatever it is, it has them cooing and sighing in a way that suggests that it’s either tiny little puppies, or baby pictures. Going by the way the nurses keep glancing over at Cooper from time to time, Kurt thinks it’s probably the second. Not that he can blame them; Cooper as a baby must have been ridiculously cute, so when Grandma waves him over, he doesn’t hesitate.
It is indeed baby pictures and, as expected, Cooper looks downright angelic in them. The photo that really catches Kurt’s eye, though, is the last one. Cooper’s a little older, probably around ten or eleven, and he’s holding a bright red beach ball out, too high for the other boy in the picture – a toddler, maybe two years old – to reach. Cooper’s grinning, teasing and already stupidly handsome, but Kurt can’t stop looking at the toddler. It’s clearly Blaine, instantly recognisable with his messy curls, and he’s beaming, reaching for the ball, but staring at Cooper with such undisguised adoration that it makes Kurt’s throat burn.
Everything suddenly feels like too much; the sound of the nurses cooing, Grandma’s warmth, Blaine’s easy kindness, and Kurt has to get out before he does something monumentally stupid. He excuses himself and all but flees the room. It takes a couple of minutes of pacing the corridor for him to stop panicking, but he still has no idea what to do with the family next door. He’s tempted to leave, to run away and just hope he’ll never see them again, but something holds him back. Maybe it’s the fear of what that might do to Grandma’s heart, but more than that it’s probably the way he felt when she hugged him. He doesn’t want to lose that so soon.
He’s just turned about for another round of pacing, when he almost collides with Blaine.
“Ah!” he squeaks and flails, and it’s not the most elegant he’s ever been, but it’s better than falling over, at least.
“Sorry, sorry,” Blaine says quickly. It looks like he’s fighting a smile, but Kurt doesn’t feel like he’s being laughed at. Blaine continues.
“It’s just that you looked a little overwhelmed back there. You know, nobody will blame you if you need to go home and get some rest. You were probably pretty exhausted even before our whole family descended upon you, I would imagine.”
Kurt could kiss him.
He wants so badly to go home, cocoon himself in his blankets and just breathe until he falls asleep. He thinks it must show, because Blaine smiles and nods, and then holds his hand out like he wants Kurt to hold it. He waggles his fingers.
“Your phone? So I can give you my number? I’m pretty sure the whole family will want to invite you over for dinner, and this way I can give you an advance warning.”
His smile turns a little teasing at that, and Kurt chuckles and hands over his phone. Blaine’s pocket buzzes once, and he hands the phone back with a gentle squeeze of Kurt’s shoulder.
“There. Now we have each others’ numbers. Feel free to call or text me any time, alright?”
Kurt nods, wordlessly.
“No, seriously,” Blaine continues. “I want to get to know the man my brother’s marrying. So far, he seems one hell of a guy. I heard he even saved somebody from being run over by a train.”
This draws a weak smile from Kurt and Blaine, apparently satisfied, gives his shoulder another squeeze and goes back to Cooper’s room. Kurt goes to the front desk, gets an appointment for a check-up on his lungs and strict instructions to take it easy for a couple of days.
He spends the whole train ride home ignoring the faint tingle in his shoulder, like the ghost of a touch.

The first thing Kurt does when he’s finally home is stumble into the bathroom for a nice, long shower. He feels like he has layers of dried sweat, dirt and blood caked on his skin, so it’s absolute bliss to step under the warm spray of water and just let it all rinse away. He determinedly avoids looking in the mirror, because he knows he must look ghastly; quite a few people had given him horrified stares on the train. Instead, he just scrubs away at his skin until it’s tender and pink, washes his hair and, finally, steps out of the shower and wraps his aching body in the softest, fluffiest towel he owns. It trails after him when he walks, it’s so big, but he doesn’t care. He just needs his pyjamas, his fluffy woollen socks and his bed.
He falls asleep almost the second his head hits the pillow, and when he wakes up, it’s almost evening and he has several messages flashing on his phone. One is a text from Blaine asking if he got home alright, but the rest are all from Mercedes. The first couple of texts are pretty standard about work and how he’s supposed to be there with her, but then they get progressively more worried, with a couple of missed calls mixed in. The three voicemails are more or less variations over the theme “where the hell are you and why are you not answering your phone and you had better be in the hospital because that is the only excuse, but please don’t be in the hospital, just CALL ME BACK”.
He braces him self and hits call. It only rings once before Mercedes answers.
“Kurt?”
“Hi, Mercedes.”
“Oh praise the lord, he lives! Hallelujah!” There’s an undertone of anger in her voice, but it’s mostly relief.
“Yeah, sorry for not showing up today, or calling, or texting. I didn’t mean to freak you out like that.”
Even Kurt can hear how tired and thin his voice still sounds, and Mercedes probably can, too, because her next words are much softer.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she asks.
“Yeah. So, um, I was waiting for the train…”

The whole thing takes about an hour to explain, because Mercedes keeps asking for details and interrupting. She’s a good audience, though, because she oohs and ahs, and gasps in the right places, and her concern practically oozes through the phone. She’s not too happy about his reluctance to simply tell the Andersons the truth and be on his way, but she accepts it. After all, she was there with him during the last few weeks of his father’s life, and knows what a toll it took on him. Kurt sees his dad’s ghost in Grandma, and he’s not going to be the one last push that sends her over the edge, too. So Mercedes hmms and nods, and doesn’t offer up some magical solution to the whole situation, but it’s not for lack of trying to think of one. Together, they rule out all the different possibilities they come up with, because it all boils down to the fact that if Kurt tells the truth, it might kill Grandma. After all, Cooper is still unconscious, and they both feel that if Grandma can’t have Kurt for a grandson-in-law, he should at least wait until they’re sure Cooper’s alright before telling her. That way, she won’t lose two people at the same time.
“You’ll have to tell them when he wakes up, because he’ll know, and it would probably be better coming from you. After all, they kind of strong-armed you into this whole thing, didn’t they?” Mercedes says.
“Not really, they just welcomed me into the family. They didn’t know that they were doing it against my will. That part was Nurse Sugar’s fault. And anyway, you make it sound like they pounced on me with their kindness and warmth. They didn’t actually gang up on me with their friendliness.”
“I don’t know. It sounds a little like they did. I mean, they were very quick to accept that you were engaged to Cooper even though he’s never even mentioned you before.”
Kurt wants to argue, but he’s been wondering about that himself.
“Maybe it was the shock of the moment, and they didn’t really think about it much.”
“Hmm.” Mercedes sounds unconvinced.
“Also, I had just saved their son from being run over by a train. I think most people would focus on that first.”
“Yeah. Well, in any case, they’re probably going to have a lot of questions for you soon. Just, you know... if you’re not going to tell them, and if Cooper still hasn’t woken up the next time you see them. You should think about it.”

They keep talking in circles, unable to agree on any sort of solution, and only stop when Kurt’s stomach rumbles so loudly that Mercedes hears it through the phone. She laughs, tells Kurt to go eat something and not to come into work tomorrow.
“I’ll cover for you, don’t worry. You can make it up to me some other time.” she says, and Kurt would protest, but he’s still so tired and sore, so he just thanks her, says goodbye, and slinks into the tiny kitchen to find some food. It’s slim pickings, but he manages to find a container of frozen soup that he heats up and brings into the living room. Struck by a bolt of inspiration, he opens his laptop and googles the name Cooper Anderson.
He almost chokes on his soup.
Cooper Anderson is very much the next up and coming thing, it seems. His wikipedia page tells him that Cooper’s 31 years old, was born in San Francisco and graduated from NYADA, a prestigious drama school. It also gives a rough estimation of his wealth that makes the hairs stand up at the back of Kurt’s neck. The Anderson family is apparently insanely wealthy, and with Cooper having just finished filming on Spielberg’s new film, he’s also on his way to being well-known, if not exactly famous. He’s mostly done theatre and little independent films, which explains why Kurt hasn’t seen him in anything, but it’s expected that Spielberg is going to give him his big break.
Kurt is maybe fantasising a little bit about walking arm-in-arm with Cooper down the red carpet at some prestigious event, perhaps the Oscars. They would look so good together, and Kurt would get to meet all the stars he spent his childhood and teenage years idolising, and they would turn out to really like him and become his friends.
Then the panic sets in.
Because when the Andersons find out the truth, they’ll think he was after Cooper’s money, or his fame. Blaine had even mentioned something like that happening before, and it’s a thought that Kurt can’t bear. He doesn’t want the Andersons thinking that about him; doesn’t want to hurt them like that. He has to tell them as soon as possible.
Just as he reaches that conclusion, his phone pings with a text from Blaine.
“If you’re going to see Cooper tomorrow, could you check on Grandma too?” the text says. “She’s worse than they thought, so they’re keeping her a couple of days, and she would love some visitors. No pressure, but she seems to really like you.”
Kurt swallows and sends back “Sure. I’ll drop by. I like her too.”
He can’t tell them, then. Not yet.
He’s only eaten about half of his bowl of soup, but he’s not hungry anymore, so he throws the rest away and goes back to bed. His last comforting thought is that he’ll at least be free when Cooper wakes up. Grandma will probably be so happy to have Cooper back that she will be able to handle the disappointment, then. And hopefully the rest of the family will forgive him. He falls asleep clutching his phone and dreams of trains and blood and hospitals.