Kurt was laid out on the ground to rest as the rest of the group surveyed the damage done by the tornado.  The town they had walked into was now better described as a landfill.  There was no longer an obvious road through the center of the buildings.  Instead there was a collection of beams and garbage and even some poor dead animals that had been victims of the natural disaster.

“Well… shit.”

Santana's words fit how Blaine felt about the situation perfectly.  He knelt by Kurt and gently felt for his heartbeat and then made sure he was still breathing while the rest of the group went to uncover the truck from shingles, planks, and debris that had it had buried under.  Then they all worked on pushing it up, off the side it had fallen on, and back onto its wheels.

Hopefully after all their exertion the damned thing would still run.

Blaine pulled Kurt into his lap, just watching as everyone went to collect the alcohol they had been working to find before the storm and used it to fill the tank as much as they could.  He ignored though when Santana took a little swig of something that looked like vodka from where he was sitting.  She was entitled something to ease her stress.  

“...Okay?”

Glancing down at Kurt, Blaine smiled to see him waking up, lashes fluttering as his lover took stock of where he was and what was going on.

“Yeah Kurt.  We're all okay.  You saved us… again.”

Kurt pushed himself up to sitting with a grunt.  No amount of Blaine telling Kurt to take it easy would get him to rest like Blaine knew he should, so he just kept a hand at Kurt's back to steady him.  “Well maybe if you all weren't such constant babies I wouldn't have to.”

It was a joke, one that put a grin on Blaine's face.  Kurt was fine if he could pull out the snark like he just had.  

“Fuck… the truck looks even shittier than when I first saw it.”  Kurt noted as he looked over to where everyone was working, trying to clear a path for the vehicle to pull out along assuming it was still functional.  They probably should have made sure of that before they did all the work.

“Small towns like this one was… a truck like that might have well been a cadillac.” Blaine muttered, hopping to his feet and holding a hand out for Kurt the instant he saw Kurt move to stand on his own.

“If it gets us back to the community it could be a limo for all I care.  Let's see if it works.”

Blaine strode aside Kurt, just in case he showed any signs of weakness and needed to be caught or just needed Blaine to lean on.  As always though, Kurt pushed through whatever pain and exhaustion he was experiencing, climbing into the cab of the truck and fiddling with some wires he had pulled out earlier.

“Tell everyone to cross their fingers and pray to whatever gods they care about.”

Blaine relayed the message to the group, most of whom just smirked in response, and then they waited as Kurt worked to hotwire the old vehicle.  Blaine's heart beat quickened, hoping, wishing….

BRRRRrrrrrrummmmmmmMMMmmm

The cheer that went up among the small group might have been heard clear across the prairies.  Blaine walked around the vehicle and into the passenger seat while everyone else climbed up into the box of the truck - smiles everywhere.

The window between the cab and box was opened, and Jeff directed Kurt as Blaine watched in amazement as Kurt backed the truck up like he had been driving for years and then shot out down the road.  The truck was anything but smooth as it drove - in fact the whole rig seemed to hiccup periodically and there was a whine coming out of the engine that Kurt was muttering to himself about.  Like the Other language though, mechanics was completely foreign to Blaine, so the words Kurt was using to describe the problem might have well have been Russian.

“Your dad taught you to drive?”

Kurt nodded, keeping his eyes on the road, “Taught me with a standard first.  Good thing too…. this thing has a sticky clutch.”

“My dad told me to wait until I was sixteen and then he'd pay for driver training…”  Blaine mused, glancing out the window and marvelling at how fast the landscape was moving beside him.

“Joys of being the son of a mechanic I guess.” Kurt said, accented by a grunt as he wiggled the stick between them.  “You did well enough on the quad though.”

“I guess.”  Blaine shrugged.  “Something different about being in an enclosed vehicle though… quad was just kind of like being on a horse that was less temperamental.”

A rare Kurt grin formed, and for a moment the pair exchanged smiles before Kurt put his attention back on the road.  “I could teach you… how to drive a vehicle like this.”

“Would there be a point?  I mean… how much longer until there's none of them left that work or there's nothing else that can be found to use for fuel?”

Kurt shrugged then, “Never know when it'll come in handy.  I figured, years ago, that I'd never end up driving a stick shift again… but here I am.”

“You were really something down there you know… magic… it's… I don't see how anyone can fault you for it.  Whatever it is you can do, you protected us all.”

Kurt stiffened beside him, his lips clamming up as he took in a hard breath and kept his eyes glued forward.  

“I know you probably don't want to talk about it… but I want you to know that I still think you're as amazing as you always have been to me.”

More silence.

Blaine sighed and went back to looking out his window, trees moving past him in rapid succession.  Kurt would have to talk about it sometime.  Blaine just didn't want it to happen because some ignorant assholes back at the community forced him into it.

“Remember when you vomited out the rainbow?”

Sam's head had popped into the small window between Blaine and Kurt.  The question was so odd that Blaine had to look back and give Sam a look of confusion.  He had never…

“Don't remind me Sam.  That was years ago.”

Oh.  Sam had been asking Kurt.

“Wait… rainbow vomit?”

Sam chuckled and before he knew what was happening, the blonde haired man was crawling through the small window and sitting himself between Blaine and Kurt, forcing Blaine's side to press into the door with the lack of space.  “So.  When we were on the road… all of us from Ohio anyhow… we found this stock truck full of candy.  Everyone was given a box of some kind of treat to carry.  I had Jolly Ranchers, Mercedes had Caramilk Bars… you get the ideas.  So Kurt was given Skittles.”

Blaine could already see where this was heading, but just grinned and looked past Sam at his husband who was shaking his head in shame.  Kurt wasn't stopping the story from being told, but clearly did not like that he was about to be embarrassed for something that had happened years ago.

“Anyhow… of course none of us kids were saving our candy, much less sharing it like we should've been.  I can't eat Jolly Rancher's anymore because of it.  But Kurt… Kurt was being perfectly, well, Kurt-like and rationing his Skittles.  He still had most of his box when everyone else had stomachaches from eating all their candy.”

Blaine just nodded and kept listening in, making a mental note to ask their friends for more stories about younger Kurt when they got back because even though Kurt wasn't enjoying this, Blaine was.

“So Kurt has the whole box of candy and everyone is begging him for some and he's turning his nose up at them -”

“I DID NOT turn my nose up at people.  I was trying to be responsible!”

Sam shook off Kurt's interruption and kept going.  “So he has all this candy, won't share, and won't eat it himself.  Then there's this dry spell where we weren't able to find any fresh water to drink and no pop or nothing… but there was a liquor store….”

“Oh no…”  Blaine said with a chuckle.  This was getting better quickly.

“And so Papa Hummel finds Kurt the least alcoholic beverage he can find in the store and Kurt drinks it, telling everyone else it tastes nice and light.  The rest of us were totally taking advantage of the situation and drinking whatever the adults would let us have thinking we were total badasses for it.  Well… the next morning Kurt is totally hung over…. we all were though.  No big deal right?  Except that after he had drunk the night before his rational brain went somewhere else and he totally scarfed down all his skittles.  We get no more than five minutes into our hiking then Kurt is spewing rainbow chunks EVERYWHERE!”

Blaine couldnt hold back.  Between the content itself, the absolutely animated way Sam is storytelling, and the look on Kurt's face - it was hilarious.  He laughed so hard he had to hold in his stomach while Sam kept going on with the description, making it impossible to stop his guffaws.

“Literally!  If people didn't know already that Kurt was gay before that, they definitely knew at that point!  His poor dad was trying to help him and Kurt just kept spraying the rainbows everywhere until his stomach must have been completely empty.  Bleh!  Bleh!  Bleh!  Everywhere!”

“I fucking hate you Sam.”  Kurt grumbled from his squashed position in the driver's seat.

“You love me. Anyhow, we find a convenience store still stocked not three days later and Kurt won't go anywhere close to the skittles.   Said he was going to be chaste when it came to coloured candy from then on in.”

“And I've maintained that vow of chastity.”  Kurt noted plainly, getting giggles in response from both Blaine and Sam.

“I've half a mind to ask Jeff for embarrassing stories about you now Blaine.”  

Blaine let his eyes roll, “First of all, you wouldn't have to ask.  Any and all of the Warblers are keen on sharing stories about the idiotic things we've done.  Secondly, I'm pretty sure you've heard them all at this point.”

Memories of their home hit Blaine then, and he looked out over the road, hoping to see that home in the distance despite it being far too early to see much of anything.  It seemed like so long ago that they were together there, though it had only been a few weeks at most.  He remembered how Kurt would smile warmly as their friends would pass in and out of the house.  Some to just visit and share such stories, some to drop off children for Kurt to watch, and others still to ask Blaine questions about their pets.  With everything in him he missed that place and that time.  Hopefully they would soon be back to it.  He would have his bed back and Kurt back in it with him.  Things could be normal again.

The truck lasted them a few hours before it went dead again after burning up all the fuel.  The good news was that in that short time they had covered the same distance as they had all week and would be able to hike back to the community within a couple of days instead of a couple weeks.  Jeff made a note of the truck's location, as Kurt was set on being able to get back to it for parts to use on his mechanics projects, and then they walked for an hour before finding a suitable place to sleep under the stars.

“Do you think there's been any rain since we've been gone?” Kurt asked quietly as he nestled in alongside Blaine.

Blaine shrugged, “I don't know.  If the land around here is any indication then I doubt it.  Everything is brown and crunchy and the dirt is all cracks.”

“I told Mercedes and Kitty where the water bottles and food rations I've been hoarding were in case they needed them.”

Blaine nodded, turning his head away from the stars and towards Kurt.  Though he didn't need to feel guilty about giving away the goods he had been so careful about saving away, Blaine knew that Kurt did anyhow.  “That's fine.  I'd rather the kids have it.”

“Yeah… I thought the same.”

Kurt turned in against Blaine then.  The first time that he had initiated a cuddle since… well… Blaine couldn't think of the last time.  Blaine would take it though, wrapping his arms snugly around Kurt and holding him close for whatever comfort he needed.  Soon they'd be home and in the comfort of their own beds without having to listen to everyone snore around them at night.  

He would never, ever, EVER complain about Kurt hogging the blankets ever again.

Not that he ever really had before.

Morning came too quickly, and with it the aches that had settled into their bones overnight.  They pushed through, as they had since the start of this journey, and forced their bodies to move until well past nightfall when their bones were numb and the aches a memory.

“I don't want to stop.”  Santana said, her beleaguered expression casting doubt on her words.

“Neither do I… so close to home…”  Sam echoed.

They were close.  Only a few more hours and they'd be there.  So, without voting on it, they carried forward, each step bringing them closer to their beds and the ones they loved.  

They were two hours out when Santana spoke up.

“What are we going to tell everyone?”

“Tell them about what?”

“About Kurt.”

Blaine blinked and looked towards his lover, his husband, his best friend.  The man was silent, brooding as he always did, and letting a conversation about him carry on without his words contributing.

“I think we tell them everything, except for how we got away from them.  Say it was a lucky break.  Don't tell them about what he can do.”  Karofsky said, looking Blaine's way as if for permission.

“Why… why can't we tell them?”  Jeff asked, also paused to look their way.  “I mean… it's really awesome what he can do.”

“Because they'll put me in a cage, like man had done for thousands of years with things they don't understand….”  Kurt said finally, eyes cast towards the ground.  Blaine held him closer to his side as he said it.  He'd never let them do that to his Kurt.

“But… that's stupid.  You protect us… and you keep protecting us.  No matter what you're one of us.”  Jeff said, his naive perspective belying his intellect.

“They'll want to kill him for being part Other…”  Karofsky explained to the solemn crowd. “...except once they realize that he's what's been keeping us safe, they'll happily lock him up to take advantage of that power.”

“They won't trust him because of his blood, but they'll want to hold onto him because of what it can do.”  Santana offered in addition.

“But… but….” Jeff shook his head, having an obviously difficult time taking that in.  It was why he was one of Blaine's better friends though.  He always saw the best in others, and always hoped they would do their best in turn.  It was as if he had never experienced darkness in his life.

“We can't tell them Jeff.  Promise you won't tell them.”  Sam urged, stepping in front of the other blonde man and looking at him desperately.  

Jeff sighed, looking past Sam and towards Kurt again.  “You know I won't.  I wouldn't do anything to hurt my friends…”

“Thank you.”

It was spoken by everyone else aside from Kurt, who gave Jeff a thankful nod instead.  They all resumed walking, Kurt and Blaine taking up the rear as usual since they already had one another.

“Ive heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you dont really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah…”

Blaine smiled over at Kurt, singing under his breath as he walked on.  Hearing Kurt sing, even so far into their relationship, was a rare, beautiful thing.  Whatever brought it on, be it being close to home or the gift their friends had given them by agreeing to keep what Kurt to do secret, wasn't evident.  What was evident though was that Kurt was showing Blaine in the only way he knew how that he was grateful.

“Baby I have been here before
I know this room, Ive walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
Ive seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
Its a cold and its a broken Hallelujah”

In front of them, their friends sang the chorus absently.  Kurt ended up not being quite as quiet as he must have hoped for given how they were chiming in.  He did look surprised, not only because they heard, but because of how they chose to acknowledge it.  Before long they were all singing the old song.

“I did my best, it wasnt much
I couldnt feel, so I tried to touch
Ive told the truth, I didnt come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
Ill stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah”

“I loved the k.d. lang version of that song…”  Santana spoke softly when silence graced them yet again.

“I liked the version they used in Shrek….”  Karofsky murmured.

“I always loved the original….”  Kurt added in.  

“I'm not sure if it was any different from any of those,” Jeff muttered, “But I remember hearing it first in the Watchmen movie.”

“That was a great movie.” Sam contributed.

Blaine just smiled, for once being the quieter between him and his husband as the group segwayed between songs they liked, movies they enjoyed, celebrities they had obsessed over.  Had any of them survived?  If so, was the transition to the life they must have now difficult?  Were they able to survive without dieticians, fitness experts, make-up, and hair coloring?  And, god, what would any of them do when they started going gray and there was no pharmacist from which to buy hair colour for themselves.

“Home.” Was the one word that broke up the conversation, all of them looking forward to see the town in the distance.  It was nearly dawn and the horizon was just showing the cracks of light coming up from the east which bathed their little town in a dim golden light.

It may has well have been heaven.