Mercedes’ voice rung in Blaine’s head as he accepted the plastic cup and miniature bottle of water from the flight attendant standing in the aisle beside him.

He went into his office to answer the phone and didn’t come out for half an hour. When I went in to check on him, he looked like he’d just seen a ghost.

Blaine unscrewed the cap on the water and poured half of it into the cup, then reached over to his left, holding it out.

He just stood there, Blaine. Stood there looking like everything inside him…had just shut off. He didn’t even acknowledge my presence.

*

Kurt hadn’t slept a wink the night before.

He’d come home, numb. Looked at Blaine, numb. Let Blaine hold him, numb. And stayed awake all night as Blaine held him some more, curled around his body in their bed, keeping him close even in slumber. At seven a.m. sharp, they were out the door of their upper west side apartment, and two hours later, they boarded a plane headed towards Lima, Ohio.

Blaine handed Kurt the cup of water, which he didn’t drink from. Between them, Elizabeth looked up between her two fathers with wide eyes, then slipped her left hand into Kurt’s right, gripping his fingers tightly. He grasped back unintentionally hard and held steadfastly until she complained softly of pain. Kurt immediately released her hand, kissing it and offering her the cup of water. She took it and sipped, then handed it back to Blaine, who kissed the top of her head and placed it on the tray that was folded down in front of him.

It was a long flight back to Ohio.

*

Kurt was now more than energetic, racing through the parking lot on foot, whipping through the automatic doors of the hospital, and pouncing on the first woman behind the welcome desk with precise questions.

The woman directed them upstairs, to a private waiting room at the end of the hall. She assured them she would make a phone call to announce their arrival, so the doctor could speak with them right away. Kurt took off from the desk towards the elevators without so much as a thank you, with Blaine holding Elizabeth and following quickly behind.

Finn was already in the waiting room, looking solemn. “Thank God you guys are here,” he breathed out when he saw them. He stood from his chair.

“Is there any news?” Kurt burst out, coming to a halt in front of him, no thought of any sort of greeting. “What have they told you?”

“Nothing yet,” Finn replied, unfazed. “We don’t know anything.”

“Dammit!” Kurt swore, turning on his heel. “Where’s Carole?” he asked then, glancing back at Finn.

Finn settled back down in his chair, crossing his right ankle over his left knee. “She’s a little further in,” he said, pointing down the hall, at a pair of closed doors. “They have another waiting room through there, but they couldn’t let us all in. I was going nuts waiting here by myself.”

Blaine sat in the chair next to Finn, Elizabeth in his lap. He patted Finn’s shoulder, knowing that in his current state, Kurt wasn’t about to make any of them feel better. It wasn’t his job to. But Blaine could try to help, at least.

Just then, an extremely young-looking doctor came through the doorway, clad in blue scrubs, her long hair tied back from her face. She had everyone’s attention immediately, and Blaine slipped Elizabeth backward into his chair as he stood up and walked over next to Kurt.

“Hello,” she addressed them meekly. “I’m Dr. O’Reilly. You’re waiting to hear about your father, yes?”

“Yes!” Kurt cried impatiently. “Is he out of surgery?”

“I’m very sorry,” the doctor began, and Blaine felt his heart sink at her tone. “There – there was a complication, and his heart stopped during the procedure. We did everything we could, but—“

“What?!” Kurt screeched, cutting her off. Blaine grabbed hold of his arm to steady him as he began to flail. “What?! No! No!”

Dr. O’Reilly watched Kurt with wary eyes, unable to say anything more at the look of unmistakable terror on his face. Suddenly, another doctor appeared, took Dr. O’Reilly’s arm, and hissed, “Marilyn! What are you doing?”

She looked at him in confusion. “I’m updating the family!” she hissed back. “What are you doing?”

The doctor ignored her question and focused on Kurt, who was staring at the two of them with owl eyes now, having caught hold of their conversation. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said politely. “May I have your father’s name, please?”

Kurt looked at him like he was speaking Latin, but he managed to fumble out, “Burt Hummel.” He was close to exploding now, his voice shaking with fear. “He had an emergency bypass this morning.”

The doctor looked back at him, stricken, then jerked Dr. O’Reilly’s arm, forcing her to step back from them. “Your father’s in recovery,” he said smoothly, in a confident, reassuring tone. “His operation ended about an hour ago. Everything went as expected.”

Kurt almost keeled over from shock. His dad had gone from dead to alive in two seconds flat. “Are you sure?” he asked, light-headed. He felt like he wasn’t even speaking correctly, like his brain could hear the words but his mouth wasn’t forming them right.

“Yes,” the doctor said firmly. “I was in the OR myself during the procedure. Your father is still in the PACU, but he’ll be moved to the ICU soon.”

“When can I see him?”

“As soon as he’s stable enough for visitors,” the doctor replied kindly with a friendly nod in everyone’s direction. “We’ll let you know.”

Kurt nodded back, overwhelmed, and the two doctors left the waiting room, squabbling over which father belonged to which family in what waiting room, and how could you possibly screw that up, Marilyn? Damn interns.

Kurt looked at Blaine then, who was looking back at him, his hand still wrapped supportively around Kurt’s upper arm. They stared at each other for a few seconds, unreadable expressions on both their faces, and then without so much as a warning, Kurt absolutely burst into tears.

Blaine instantly wrapped him up in his arms, holding Kurt flush against his body as the sobs tore viciously through him. Kurt gripped him harshly, his body wracked as he wept, salt water flowing freely from his eyes, dripping down Blaine’s neck into the collar of his shirt. Blaine tucked his nose into Kurt’s cheek.

“Oh baby, shh,” he soothed quietly, his mouth against Kurt’s ear, smoothing his hands up Kurt’s back. “He’s okay. Your dad’s going to be okay.”

Kurt nodded into Blaine’s shoulder to acknowledge that he understood, that what Blaine was telling him was the truth and he knew it. But he continued to cry hard. “I – I thought – “ he gasped out, clenching Blaine’s shirt between his fingers. “I thought I – was going to lose him. I thought…this was it, this time.” His sentence ended in a heart-breaking whimper, and Blaine hugged him impossibly closer.

“He’s okay,” Blaine repeated in a hushed, calming tone. “And you’re going to see him in just a little bit.”

Kurt nodded again, his face stuffed into Blaine’s shoulder. He squeezed Blaine tighter as a fresh round of tears welled and soaked through Blaine’s shirt.

Blaine held Kurt till he cried himself out, waiting until Kurt stepped back from him and swiped a trembling hand across his face, looking sheepish. Blaine smiled lovingly back at him, trying to set him at ease.

“Come on,” he said, taking Kurt’s hand. “Let’s go wash your face.”

Kurt nodded silently in agreement, and they turned to the door to find the nearest men’s room.

“Daddy?”

Elizabeth’s voice was laced with concern, and Blaine turned to her, still holding Kurt’s hand. “We’ll be right back, sweetie,” he assured her. “Stay with Uncle Finn, okay?”

“Okay,” she replied uncertainly, then looked up at Finn next to her, who gave her a big grin and slipped his phone out of his pocket to hold towards her.

In the bathroom, Kurt leaned against the lip of the sink while Blaine patted his face with a wet paper towel. He pressed the cool sheet gently over Kurt’s forehead, his eyes, and both cheeks until Kurt grabbed his hand, stopping his movements.

Their hands drifted apart, and Kurt just looked at Blaine blankly. Then he reached to run a hand through Blaine’s hair, and Blaine leaned forward to kiss him softly.

Then he wet another paper towel and returned to soothing Kurt’s puffy face.

*

“Mr. Hummel, you can see your father now.”

The doctor was back, and this time Kurt took a moment to find out his name and thank him properly.

Dr. Webber shook his hand congenially, offering Kurt a genuine smile. “Unfortunately, we can only do two visitors at a time,” he said then, and Kurt nodded in understanding.

“You two go,” Blaine spoke up, from where he was attempting to help Finn beat Elizabeth at the game they were playing on Finn’s cell phone. “Lizzie and I will stay here.”

Kurt looked at Finn, who nodded and stood, leaving his phone with Elizabeth. The two of them followed Dr. Webber out of the room, down the hall towards the closed double doors.

“All right, babycakes,” Blaine said then, fixing his attention on his daughter. “It’s just you and me now. Wanna keep playing this?” He indicated the game on the phone.

“Nah,” Elizabeth said then. “Let’s play…Thumb Wars!”

“Okay!” Blaine said, smiling at her. He pulled her into his lap so she was facing him, and they gripped each other’s hands, thumbs free. As they began to count – one, two, three, four…I declare a thumb war – Elizabeth suddenly stopped chanting and looked up at Blaine, her blue eyes round. Her hand loosened in his.

“That was…scary,” she said in a small voice.

“What was?” Blaine asked with a furrowed brow. He let go of her hand and put his arms around her, cradling her back, their thumb war forgotten.

She took a moment to respond. When she did, her voice was even smaller. “I’ve never seen Daddy cry like that.”

Blaine’s stomach flopped at the memory, and he kissed her forehead. “Me neither,” he replied honestly. “But you know how close Daddy and Pop-Pop are, right?”

She nodded, her blue eyes still shining in apprehension. “Daddy was worried about him.”

Blaine nodded. “Yes, he was.”

“And Daddy loves him a whole lot.”

Blaine nodded again. “Yes. Just like he loves you a whole lot.”

Elizabeth finally smiled up at him. “And you too! He loves you too, Daddy.”

Blaine chuckled and nodded a third time. “And me too,” he agreed.

*

There were four words that ran constantly through Kurt’s head the minute he’d dropped the phone.

Dad. Chest pains. Hospital.

He’d stood frozen behind his desk at work, the receiver lolling on the desktop, cord tangling through his fingers. His vision was clouded, his brain foggy. When the door to his left opened, all he could hear was Dad. Chest pains. Hospital.

He flashed back to a previous phone conversation, in which his father had been complaining about a diet his general practitioner had recently put him on, something with more fiber and less fat and apparently no flavor at all.

“Dad,” Kurt remembered saying. “Didn’t I tell you that you needed to take better care of yourself like fifteen some-odd years ago?”

His father had grumbled good-naturedly in response, and then Mercedes - who had needed his sketches for the latest spread they were designing - had interrupted Kurt, effectively ending their conversation.

“Talk to you soon, kid,” his dad had said. “Come out and see us sometime, eh? I need to hang with my little girl.”

Kurt had smiled to himself. They didn’t see each other much, but his dad and Elizabeth had been fast friends. “Soon, I promise,” he’d said, and then they’d hung up.

But this was not the visit he’d had in mind.

*

Kurt sat next to him now, holding his hand like he’d done when he was sixteen. Burt looked a little rougher this time, hands a little rougher from too much work in the shop, but the doctors assured Kurt that he wasn’t in any pain at the moment. Finn stood on the other side of the bed, his hand on Burt’s arm.

They didn’t speak, and Burt didn’t open his eyes. He rested while his sons kept vigil, and they only left when the nurse regretfully informed them that visiting hours were over.

Finn and Kurt kissed Carole good-bye in the hallway and promised they’d be back in the morning. Carole had somehow strong-armed the staff into letting her stay overnight, so the boys were going back to the house to sleep. They collected Blaine and Elizabeth from the waiting room and set off for home, Finn trailing them on the highway in his own car.

Kurt slumped in the passenger seat, watching Blaine drive. Elizabeth had conked out in her car seat in the back, as she was likely to do. She was six already, but she was a skinny little thing, still not weighing enough to ride in the car without her seat. But she never complained, only smiled when one of them belted her into it, usually asking for a hug or a kiss reward, which they happily granted. She always just went with the flow, and Kurt had never been more grateful for that than right now.

Blaine had one hand on the steering wheel, one hand resting on the gearshift. Kurt watched him, letting his eyes wander over Blaine’s features, his unruly dark hair. Even though Kurt had been restless to the point of insanity last night into this morning, he knew he never would have made it through the day without Blaine. There were many days he could remember in the past sixteen years – days of seminars headed by demanding professors, days of aching fingers and pin cushions and disagreements on the correct stitch for a project with his peers, days of working through lunch breaks at his apprenticeship with his brilliant but overbearing boss, so many days he’d had to bid Blaine goodnight via a miserable text message or stolen phone call out in the hall, days of Kurt still presently working his tail off to actually contribute in his own meaningful way to the fashion industry - that Kurt wouldn’t have made it through without Blaine on the other side, to greet him when he finally made it home, to urge him to do his best no matter the circumstance, to understand without complaint when he’d had to sleep alone in their bed at night. Blaine was his constant, his ever-steadying force, his rock that unendingly supported him.

“I love you,” Kurt said then, his voice barely above a whisper. He reached out and covered Blaine’s hand on the gearshift.

Blaine glanced at him, his mouth curling into an adoring smile. He intertwined their fingers, rubbing his thumb affectionately over Kurt’s.

“I love you, too,” he whispered back.