Kurt blinked his eyes. The room he was lying in was bright. Way too bright. It was supposed to be night, right? He looked around him, still trying to get his eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room, at the same time as he tried to get them to focus. His head felt a little heavy and there was an ache in his head that felt kind of distant in a weird way. There was a pain in his left arm when he made a move to rub his eyes. They widened when he saw why.

  Aside from the very carefully wrapped and clean-looking bandage, there was a cannula there, inserted in his arm, which was connected to a thin plastic tube, pumping blood back into his body. He sat up in a very sudden movement that did not only cause his head to spin even worse, but did also alert someone sitting by his bedside, someone he hadn’t noticed until now.

  “Blaine?” His throat was painfully dry and his voice sounded funny.

  “Hi, yes, finally,” Blaine said, almost too quickly for Kurt to catch a single word.

  “What – am I doing here?”

  “Well…” he started, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. It appeared he’d been sleeping. “You kind of pulled something that wasn’t fainting or passing out, but not falling asleep either. You were pale and, well…”

  “You took me to the hospital?” Maybe his voice was a bit too sharp, too blaming, but he couldn’t help it. But he was in a hospital bed, and he hated hospitals, especially this one, so no one could blame him for being a bit upset. 

  “Yeah,” Blaine nodded. At least he seemed to be aware of Kurt’s feelings towards the situation already. “Yeah, I did. I didn’t want to risk it.”

  “Risk what?”

  Blaine didn’t answer at first. “You lost a lot of blood, Kurt. I couldn’t just say ‘whatever’ and cuddle close, knowing that something might happen.”

  Kurt nodded. “You can be a real prince charming sometimes,” he said, then silence returned to the room.

  “Did you really mean it?” Kurt said then, looking at the wall across the room. When Blane didn’t answer, he turned to see if he’d heard. Something inside him reacted in a funny way when he saw that Blaine’s ears were red, and that he was staring at his hands, which were twisting and turning around each other in his lap. “I mean, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t because, well,” He gestured at himself. “yeah…”

  “No, I…” Despite himself, Kurt’s hear sunk in his chest. “I did – I did mean it.” Okay, never mind, now his heart wasn’t even in his body anymore. It was somewhere up in space, seemingly having troubles decided whether it wanted to beat really fast or not at all. He drew a sharp breath. There was more going on in his body at the same time in that moment, and he was pretty sure that if he didn’t do something, anything at all, he would explode. He settled with reaching for the little plastic cup of water standing on the little bedside table; he was painfully thirsty too so it was convenient in many ways. 

  “I just, um,” Blaine said then, the red of his ears spreading to his cheeks. “I hope I didn’t freak you out? I mean – it did kinda come out of nowhere and I just… You don’t feel super weirded out by it or anything – right?”

  Kurt smiled a weak little smile that Blaine didn’t see, as he was still staring at his hands. “I’m here, aren’t I?” he said.

  “Yeah, you are,” It was definitely bittersweet, both of them felt that. Kurt was alive, but he was also in the hospital because he’d lost too much blood, because he’d… None of them could think it. Not even Kurt, even though he’d thought of it so often in his life before.

  “So, you’re awake,” said a female voice from the door and both of them looked up at the nurse standing there.

  “Seems like it. So why don’t you just go a head and unplug me from this machine and I’ll be on my happy way.”

  “Non can do,” she smiled politely and walked forward to stand by the end of the hospital bed.

  “Why not?”

  “Well,” she looked down at her nurses’ clipboard, that seemingly everyone working at a hospital ever always carried with them. “when we get our hands on a patient who’s survived an attempted suicide, we keep them under our protection for 72 hours, as I’m sure you’re aware.” she added with another glance at her clipboard. Kurt’s stomach turned. He was aware of that, but there was no harm in pretending otherwise. 

  There was a second of awkward silence in which the nurse wrote something down quickly, looking serious and busy, and Kurt and Blaine shared a look.

  “Now, a Kathryn Hummel is here to see you,”

  Kurt’ s eyes widened more than he knew was physically possible. He had no reaction prepared for this. “W-what?” he stammered, voice barely over a whisper. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to scream, laugh or cry, if he wanted to be happy, angry, sad or scared. He ended up staring numbly in front of him, his mind racing, a knot of confused fear and nervousness in his stomach. 

  “Yes, we called her when you arrived, and she told us that she was coming –”

  “She’s not here yet?” Kurt interrupted.

  “Not that I know of, no.”

  “Okay,” Kurt managed. “Okay, yeah, that’s – good…”

  Blaine wrinkled his brow and watched Kurt’s reaction, his own mind racing. “Would – would you excuse us for just a minute?” he asked the nurse, who he wasn’t quite sure where to place. “Thanks,” he said, forcing a polite little smile he wasn’t sure she picked up.

  “Kurt?” Blaine said carefully once they were left alone again. “Kathryn Hummel, is that – isn’t that your…”

  “My aunt,” Kurt breathed. “Yeah, yeah, she’s my aunt.”

  Blaine was having almost the same amount of troubles deciding how to react as Kurt. “When did you last…?”

  “Years ago,” Kurt said, staring at the wall on the other side of the room. “Like, before the fire, I think,”

  Blaine nodded, not knowing what to say. Then Kurt turned to look at him. There was no way reading his eyes or his face. “Kat, she’s… I thought…”

  How could he have forgotten about her? Or, not completely of course, but she was still… hadn’t she moved? Or died? Something? Whatever it was there was no way she was close enough to be able to just come by the hospital. And if that was the case, where the hell had she been these last years?

  “Kurt?” Blaine said, extending an arm and getting up from the chair for the first time since he’d sat down an hour or two ago. “What’s–?”

  “Dizzy…” Kurt mumbled, his forehead slightly furrowed.

  This wasn’t making sense? What had – ? But – it – how? When? Then why – ? The last time he’d seen Kathryn was the night he got a baby brother. No, no, it was after that… She’d come to visit after that. She’d helped him take care of Blaine. She’d taken care of his father when he wasn’t his father any more. Then, after that… no… Then he’d seen her at the funeral… no, there hadn’t been a funeral… he hadn’t been to a funeral… or – no… – yes. Yes he’d seen her then. There’d been a… crowd… there’d been lots of people looking stern and sad. It’d been a funeral. No. No… No, he hadn’t been to his father’s funeral. Not Blaine’s either. Or had he? There hadn’t been any funerals… But, no, yes… After that? Had he…? Hadn’t she…? It…?

  Kurt threw up on the floor beside the bed. It wasn’t much, since there wasn’t much in his stomach, but it tasted just as horrible anyway. It didn’t help the dizziness much either.

  “Should I – call a nurse or something?” Blaine asked, seeming a bit alarmed. 

  “No, no,” Kurt croaked. “Don’t worry. Just a bit dizzy… blood loss – does strange things to a person.” he waved off. Blaine didn’t seem convinced. “I’m fine,”

  “You’re not –”

  “Okay, no, I’m not fine, I’m in a hospital bed for god’s sake, but never mind that. Would you just re-fill my cup for me, please?”

  “Sure,” Blaine grabbed the empty plastic cup and walked across the room and refilled it, avoiding his reflection in the mirror.  

  “I thought you said all your relatives were dead?” Blaine knew it was probably next to evil to ask Kurt this in that moment, but he just couldn’t help himself.

  “Yeah,” Kurt said, taking a big swallow of water. “Guess I forgot about Kat…”

  Blaine nodded. He’d leave it at that for the moment being. Kurt had enough to deal with right now. 

  The next ten minutes that past felt never-ending to both of them, but when the same nurse appeared again telling them that Ms. Hummel was waiting outside, Kurt wished those ten minutes would come back and never end. 

  Blaine stood up. “Guess I should give you two some privacy?”

  “No,” Kurt said quickly, reaching out and grabbing hold of Blaine’s hand, stopping him from leaving. “No. Stay.”

  “Okay,” He sat back down again, pulling the chair closer to the bed when Kurt wouldn’t let go of his hand. When the door swung open again and a woman Blaine hadn’t seen before stepped through, Kurt drew a sharp breath and the hold around Blaine’s hand hardened. Blaine just squeezed it back, knowing that right now wasn’t the time for words. Just sitting there, holding his hand, was enough to show Kurt that he was there, and that he was doing his best to be of help.

   The seconds of silence when they saw each other again after all these years felt like an eternity to Kurt. He was still 100 percent unsure of what to feel. His mind stopped racing, at least, but the deserting stillness and silence of it all made it almost worse. He didn’t even try to find his voice. What was he supposed to say, and why was he the one who was going to say something first?

  There came no ‘you’ve grown up so handsome’ or ‘look how big you’ve grown’, no ‘it’s good to see you’ or ‘I’ve missed you’. There was no apology. Kathryn just stood there, seeming just as lost as Kurt was feeling. That gave him… comfort, in a weird way, to know that he wasn’t the only one who was freaking out.

  Suddenly Blaine brushed his thumb across the back of Kurt’s hand, and at the same time Kathryn decided to take the final steps. Suddenly she was sitting on a plastic chair only a meter away from him. Suddenly he could see the gray strands in her brown hair, that was not as full and wavy as Kurt remembered it. There were new marks on her face, new wrinkles. Something warm settled inside him when he saw the laugh lines around her eyes; it felt good to know that she hadn’t sopped smiling, somehow.

  “Look at you…” Kathryn finally said, and it was almost worse than any of the things he’d prepared himself for. He didn’t want pity.Anger would be better, distance or awkwardness. He’d even welcome guilt and apologies over pity. “All faded away…”

  Suddenly something hard settled where the nervous knot had been before. “I’m not faded,” he said, voice a bit thinner than he hoped for.

  “You’re so thin,” his aunt carried on, her small eyes, that were always full of laughter in his memories, sad.

  “Yeah, that’s what happens when you don’t eat.” Kurt said bitterly, only a hint of anger in his voice that he was sure she wouldn’t pick up. She didn’t know him anymore anyway.

  Kathryn stopped speaking then. Still no mention of the last three years. Suddenly the hard knot came to life, but it wasn’t as angry as it should be. “Where’ve you been?” he asked.

  “Wapakoneta,”

  “You live inWapakoneta?” Kathryn only nodded.

  “Then where the hell have you been?” he repeated.

  Kathryn seemed honestly confused for a moment, but Kurt didn’t see it. “Why haven’t I seen you in three whole fucking years? Weren’t we supposed to be family?”

  She stayed quiet, and Kurt thought that now he’d made her feel guilty about abandoning him. Good. “Where did you go? I was in the hospital and I’d lost my brother. Why didn’t you come and see me? I was released from the hospital and I had nowhere to go. Where where you then?” Kurt had had no idea why he cared about this anymore, yet here he was, getting all worked up about things that were in his past, things that were supposed to not matter to him. “When was the last time I saw you?” he said harshly. His aunt remained silent, and it was not until then that he realized that he actually had no clear memory of their last meeting. “My so called father’s funeral?”

  Kathryn’s eyes widened and she looked at him, a mixture of alarm, pity and sadness in her eyes that Kurt didn’t quite understand. “Oh, Kurt…” she said quietly. She was wise enough not to reach for his free hand. “There was no funeral.”

  “I know that.” Kurt snapped. Of course there hadn’t. He had no memory of a funeral, and that wasn’t something he’d forget. But… “Why?” he asked, eyes slightly narrowed. “Why wasn’t there a funeral?”

  Kathryn looked beyond herself. Kurt was getting more and more confused, and the nervous knot in his stomach seemed to be coming back. Why wouldn’t she tell him why there hadn’t been a funeral? He wasn’t a child anymore. He’d stopped being a child the day his mother died. Surely she knew that? So why wouldn’t she just speak – 

  “Burt’s not dead, sweetie,” Kathryn said weakly. Kurt couldn’t even react to the fact that she’d called him sweetie, he couldn’t react to the fact that that was the first time he’d heard that name out loud in ages. There was not a trace of any of that in his head right now. 

  His whole world was falling to pieces around him. None of this made sense. There was a distant ringing noise in his head as his mind desperately tried to catch up. He felt like he was going to throw up again. 

  “He survived the fire,” Kat carried on, clearly oblivious to the state she’d put Kurt in with her previous words. Blaine could see it, could feel it, even, would notice it even with his eyes closed, so why wasn’t she getting it? He wanted to tell her to just shut up, to beg her to leave and try to calm Kurt down the best he could on his own.

  “Could you please be quiet, I think that’s enough information for now.” Blaine finally managed, not even knowing why he was being so polite. The woman looked up and it seemed like she hadn’t noticed him until now.

  “Who’re you?” she asked.

  “I’m, um, I’m Blaine,” he answered, sounding almost hesitant as he saw her eyes travel to his and Kurt’s hands, where their fingers were still intertwined. 

  “Oh,” she said. Then she looked back at Kurt, who’d started to breathe heavily, eyes closed. It seemed like she was finally catching on. “Why don’t you introduce me to your friend, Kurt?” she said in a voice that made Blaine want to slap her. It sounded as is she was talking to a little child. She seemed rusty to this whole thing, it was painfully obvious. Kurt didn’t seem to hear it though as panted out:

  “He’s… boyfriend,” Kurt’s breathing was in no way seeming to calm down even with this… distraction, or whatever Kathryn wanted to call it. And the two words didn’t really help Blaine’s either. If the situation was different, he’d asked ‘what’ and maybe even thought he was joking, but in the state Kurt was in right now, in this situation…  He knew he hadn’t just pulled that off as a sarcastic comment. “He’s… my – boyfriend…” Kurt continued, and Blaine could nothing but stare at him, not paying Kathryn’s reaction to this information even the slightest mind. She was so not important right now.

  First his nightmare had come true when he walked in on Kurt harming himself, with intentions of ending his life, then he’d realized he loved him, and in a desperate attempt of getting Kurt to just stop, he’d told him without thinking. Then everything had seemed so perfect and calm. Then Kurt fell unconscious and Blaine’d driven him to the hospital, leaving his motorcycle completely unwatched at Kurt’s, meaning it was almost zero change it was still there (though this was so not important with everything else going on). Then Kurt woke up and got the information that his long lost aunt was there to see him, him having started to assume she was dead with the sudden disappearance she made from his life. And now he’d been told that his father, whom he hated more than anything in the world and was the reason to why his life was so screwed, had in fact survived the fire that he’d started to not only kill himself but his two sons as well. This would have to mean that he was now in prison, but still alive. 

  And now, suddenly, on top of everything else, they were boyfriends in Kurt’s mind? Blaine decided that that was completely irrelevant in the moment, that right now keeping Kurt from collapsing was all that mattered to him (and this collapse was very well-earned and completely reasonable), but it still stayed in his mind, someplace far away where it didn’t distract him.

   Both Blaine and Kathryn ended up being ordered out of the room when yet another nurse came to check on something she never got to check and found what was happening. She explained to them that this was completely normal for patients who survive suicide attempts, and when Kathryn told her a short version of what she’d told him, she got pretty scolded about how utterly unacceptable and irresponsible that was. Kathryn only nodded and agreed, apologizing to the completely wrong person. Two more nurses arrived, and came out of the room minutes later. Neither Blaine not Kathryn asked any questions. Blaine assumed they’d given him something so that he’d fall asleep, or at least calm him down, probably without Kurt being completely aware of this; he knew they liked to do that with people.

  Blaine sat down on a mint green bench close to the door to Kurt’s room. Kathryn followed his lead, but placed herself on the other end of it, as far away from Blaine as possible. She put her purse and jacket between them as well, crossed her legs and put her hands in her lap. Her posture was straight but Blaine saw how tired she looked; the bags under her eyes, that were heavily bloodshot, her hair falling dead and shine-free over her shoulders, her mouth a thin line. He had no hurry to make conversation, in fact, he was glad it was quiet between the two – he was pretty angry with her, now that he knew that she was not only alive but lived quite close by as well. How could she live with herself knowing she’d abandoned a boy in need like that?

  "So,” said Kathryn after a while. And while Blaine wished she hadn’t, he decided to give her a chance. Maybe she was nice.  “you two together, huh?"

  He pushed back the urge to groan, roll his eyes and not answer her. "Really? Thats whats on your mind right now?” he settled with instead, but making no effort hiding his heavy disagreeing with… everything about her, really. Everything he knew at least.  “Look, I know it can be hard to accept that someone in your family is anything but 100 percent straight, but oh my God, could you please just save your homophobia for later?" 

  "No, I," She seemed a bit surprised by his...reaction. "I'm fine with the whole,” – she made some gestures with her hands – “gay thing, or whatever. It’s the idea of my little Kurt with anyone that weirds me out. He's still a little boy in my eyes, you know?"

  "Right, well, if you hadn’t skipped out like he says you did, you’d know that Kurt’s about as far from a little boy as you can get.” Blaine said bitterly. Kathryn nodded, looking down at her knees, a sad half-smile on her lips.

  “Yeah…” she said. “Well, I had my reasons.”

  “And what exactly are those reasons?” Blaine asked, knowing it was probably ill-mannered of him to ask her when they didn’t know each other, not really expecting an answer either way. He mostly just said it to end the conversation. He needed to be alone with his thoughts.

  “Well, let’s just say that I’m not proud of if.” said the woman, and Blaine understood. When someone said that it often meant that they’d been dealing with addictions of some kind. Or violence or crimes, but Blaine guessed it had been addiction. Maybe it still was, judging from how tired and run down she looked.

  There weren’t more conversation after that, and soon Blaine’s back ached so bad it almost felt as if it was going to snap in half from sitting on that hard bench for so long, after sitting on the plastic chair in Kurt’s room for hours. It was about six in the morning when Kathryn told Blaine that she had to go home, went into Kurt’s room for a quick word, and told Blaine that Kurt wanted to see him before leaving the hospital.

  “Why’re you still here?” Kurt asked, sleep in his voice. Blaine made for the chair again but Kurt told him no and pulled him down to sit beside him on the bed. Blaine took Kurt’s hands in his. They were a little cold still, and Kurt smiled weakly at the warmth Blaine’s hands brought.

  “I was aware of what I was saying, you know,” Kurt said quietly after a minute. Blaine’s heart stopped. He looked up to meet his eye and Kurt smiled shyly. It was so unlike him, but yet it suited him perfectly. 

  “You were –?”

  “My revenge for the bombshell you dropped on me.” Kurt said, then fell quiet, suddenly appearing to be unable to look at Blaine. “I can’t decide that for myself though, can I?” he asked. Blaine just looked at him, having no idea what to say.

  “Do you accept it?” Kurt asked.

  “Accept what?” Blaine asked in return, only half-pretending not to know. Kurt rolled his eyes.

  “Do you want to be my boyfriend? Because I think I kinda want to be yours.” he said, only the faintest hint of a blush on his neck and ears.

  “I…” Blaine honestly didn’t know. Hadn’t they agreed not to put a label on things? Hadn’t they agreed to just be causal?

  “I know what we said about just being and all that,” said Kurt, almost as I he’d read his mind. “But I think that kinda went down the drain when you told me you…” He couldn’t say it. It still seemed too unreal to him, like if he accepted it, Blaine would laugh in his face.

  “What about the responsibilities and the pressure?” Blaine asked.

  “I don’t think there’ll be any unless we make it so,” Kurt said, sounding almost thoughtful.

  Blaine looked into Kurt’s eyes again, and it almost made him breathless when he realized that he was being serious. “Okay,” he breathed. “Okay, let’s try being boyfriends.” he said and leaned down to place a quick kiss to his lips.

 “I’m…” Kurt said after a moment, suddenly even more serious. “I’ve decided to start going to speech therapy again.”

  Blaine blinked in surprise. He wanted to tell him how good that was, but couldn’t get the words out. Instead he just nodded, trying to smile, squeezing his hand, trying to tell him without words. Kurt looked down at their hands and took a deep breath.

  “Because,” he continued. “even though I didn’t go through with it this time, even though you convinced me to keep trying for just a little while longer… Even though I have you now… I’m still not okay.” There was a small, almost unnoticeable, quiver to his voice, that took a firm grip around Blaine’s heart. “But for once I want to be. I want to do this for… for you. I want to get better so I’ll deserve you by my side.”

  The air in Blaine’s lungs left him in a shaky breath. “That’s… Kurt, you don’t have to do anything to – deserve me. That’s not how things work,”

  “Yes it is. And I want to be a person that better knows how to handle this – here, between us.”

  Blaine didn’t argue, so again he just nodded, the grip around his heart starting to feel painful.

  “Do you think it’d be possible for me to stop hating myself?” Kurt asked, completely seriously Blaine realized, and the grip of his heart became so tight it almost felt is if it was going to kill him.

  He didn’t respond with a ‘of course it will’, because that would be too weak of a reply, and he honestly didn’t know if it would be possible; so instead he voiced his thoughts. “I really, really hope so.” he said, and Kurt seemed to appreciate his honesty.

  “Me, too, because I think I might want to stay alive for a while longer.”

  Blaine, feeling his throat getting dangerously tight, didn’t trust himself with a reply, so instead he leaned in to kiss Kurt’s forehead, but Kurt had other plans. He made a disapproving noise and grabbed his head, moving it down so he could kiss his lips.

  “You owed me that one after all you’ve put me through,” Kurt said once they broke apart again. Blaine nodded, and leaned in for another kiss.

  “And you owed me that one after all you put me trough,” he said.

  Kurt was contempt spending the rest of his hours alone in his room when he finally got Blaine to go home. Kurt had a lot on his mind that needed sorted through. He got, as far as he was aware, three panic attacks when he tried to remember the subject of his father, who was apparently not dead, during the day. This made Kurt angry beyond words, as well as confused to no end, and also so unbelievably… sad? He wasn’t completely sure. He was mostly confused; how could he’ve managed to remember that Burt was dead when he wasn’t? Was it Blaine’s funeral he remembered? He thought there had been a combined funeral of sorts held for the two of them, his father and brother that was. But… It…? It made his head hurt, and his heart even worse. He got urges close to murderous when he thought of his father still being alive, while his brother wasn’t. Why had Blaine been the one to pay with his life for his father’s insanity? Couldn’t he at least have died along side him?

  Around midday, there was a knock on the door and a nurse telling him that his aunt was back for a visit. At first Kurt was tempted to just telling her to fuck off, then he wanted to say that he was too tired for a visit, but then decided to let her in.

  Kathryn looked worse this time, with her hair all messy and tangled, her eyes and face red and puffy. Had she been crying? Kurt hoped she had, the same way he hopes she wouldn’t start again.

  “I guess I owe you an apology and an explanation.” she said, sitting down on the chair that Blaine had used. For a short second, Kurt wanted to tell her not to sit there, that it was Blaine’s chair and that he didn’t want to see her in it, but then he remembered how weird that would be and kept his mouth shut. Kathryn took this as anger, and it was pretty close to the whole truth, so Kurt didn’t mind.

  “Well,” she said, taking a deep breath, searching her mind. “Where do I start…?”

  “How about the part where you made me think my father was dead?” he said, hating to say the word father out loud when talking about the man who killed his brother. 

  “I never did.” Kathryn said. “I never could,”

  Kurt got angrier at her. How could she just sit there and lie to his face like that? Then he remembered his confusion when it came to those memories. “Why do I remember a hall full of people in suits then?” Was that not the church?

  “You were in court when your father’s sentence of punishment was decided.”

  There was a pang of pain in Kurt’s head, and suddenly the memory got unclouded. Suddenly he remembered sitting there, hearing the lawyers speak, seeing the judge sitting in his chair, so much higher above the others. He remembered how he hated the man that had been his father, how he had to sit on his hands and bite his teeth together not to spring forward and kill him himself. He’d been so angry. He’d been so angry that there was even a need for all this in order to decide what was going to happen to his supposed father, the man who’d tried to kill himself and his two sons, only succeeding in killing one, and it hadn’t been himself. It had been the person who deserved it least of all.

  Kurt couldn’t remember what the final sentence had been, nor could he remember who paid the lawyer who didn’t try to make the man’s crime as minimal as possible. He only cared about knowing one of them. “Who –” he began, but he didn’t have to finish the question.

  “Me,” said Kathryn, and suddenly Kurt didn’t hate her as much anymore. But why she’d cut off the contact between the two of them, was still unexplained.

  “I couldn’t live with myself. First the news that my brother had finally snapped and lost his mind completely. My beautiful brother who I looked up to so much, who had everything I never had. That was hard enough in itself, but then I realized that what he’d done was not something to be forgiven, that he needed to be protected from the world, and also from himself.” Kathryn said, voice slow. Kurt listened to every word, trying to keep his mind from caving in. 

  “You didn’t want anything to do with me, and I didn’t force you. Don’t you remember? It wasn’t at all long ago,”

  Kurt shook his aching head, eyebrows knot together. There really was no memory of that. “But then – ?”

  “Yes,” his aunt nodded. “I know where you live.” Suddenly Kurt felt strangely embarrassed. Why was he feeling embarrassed? There was no reason to, not like there was a reason that he felt embarrassed that Blaine knew how he lived; that was different. “And I’ve been paying rent for that place for almost three years now.”

  “You…?” This came as a complete surprise to him, verging on shock. Sure, he’d thought of how it was a little strange that no one had tried to get them out of there, but he’d thought it was just because it was such a shithole. Never, in a million years, did he think there was someone who paid for them to be able to stay. 

  “It’s not much, so you don’t have to worry. I don’t have any rent I have to pay for my house and I don’t have a family to support. It’s fine.”

  How could she be so kind to him? And, even more so, if she could be so kind to him, then why had she abandoned him? 

  “I didn’t abandon you.” Kathryn said and Kurt looked at her. Had she read his mind or had he said that out loud? “Like I said, you didn’t want anything to do with me. So I kept my distance, paying for your apartment, keeping up with your life through phone calls with Figgins and Quinn, thinking that you’d come to me once you were ready. I didn’t know you’d forgotten I was still alive, or that you thought Burt was dead. I would’ve told you if I knew.”

  Kurt stared at her. “You’ve… You’ve been in contact with Quinn?” Had she been going behind his back all these years? Knowing he thought his entire family was dead? 

  Kathryn nodded, looking only the slightest bit guilty. “I wanted to know how my Kurt was doing.” she said with a sad little smile.

  “You –” was again all he managed. There had been so much happening to him these last hours, so much new information, so many decisions made. It felt like he was going to explode. He’d been ready and hell-bent on ending his life not even 24 hours earlier, and now… Now he was still alive, still depressed and still hating himself, a small part of him still wishing he hadn’t listened to Blaine. Now he knew Blaine loved him. Now he had a boyfriend. Now he knew his aunt was alive and that she hadn’t abandoned him. Now he knew his father had survived. Kurt was pretty sure it was unhealthy for a mind like his to get this much new information put inside it during such a short period of time.

  “And… To be completely honest, I’ve been dealing with stuff of my own. Splitting up with Cole, depression… and… well, long story short, I’m not proud of these last years.” she admitted, knowing it was probably a lot to put on her nephew’s shoulder on top of everything else, but also knew she needed to explain herself to him.

  “Drugs or alcohol?” Kurt asked immediately. Kat stared at him.

  “It – “ she started, eyes wide.

  “Cut the bullshit, I’m not a child,” he said in a bored kind of tone. “Which one was it?”

  “A… A little bit of both,” Kathryn admitted unwillingly. “Mostly alcohol, after… after the rehab.”

  Kurt nodded, feeling strangely unaffected by the news. Maybe it was partly because he’d been dealing with the same thing, only he never went to rehab. He hadn’t needed that to get out of the minor drug-using period he’d been through about a year ago. It had never gotten that serious. He didn’t say anything about this however, as he wasn’t completely sure just how much she knew, and feeling like he didn’t care to let her know if she was unaware. ‘Ignorance is bliss’, as they say.

  Kathryn didn’t stay for longer than forty-five minutes or so, as they both got pretty… affected, by talking so much of the past. Kathryn gave Kurt her cellphone number, and made Kurt promise to call if and when he got ready to see her again. He resisted the urge to throw it away the second she disappeared out of his field of view. He hated that there was still a feeling of betrayal somewhere in his recovering body, and he felt like the best thing to do was to yet again cut her out of his life and pretend she no longer existed. Because that must’ve been what had happened last time. He still had no clear memory of it, but he was pretty sure he’d decided to stop seeing her as… there, well and alive, and eventually he’d somehow managed to brainwash himself. He kind of hoped that this was the case, because it was wasn’t, there was something wrong with him, he was sure. 

  The person I should really feel betrayed by right now is Quinn. It was true. She’d broken his trust, had done something that he just couldn’t overlook. During the nights where he’d had such terrible nightmares, when he’d had his occasional episode, or whatever you wanted to call it, because he was sure he was alone with no family still alive and went through life doing his best not to remember that, why hadn’t she told him? When he was out drinking, fucking strangers, getting into fights, doing anything to escape, because he hated his life and didn’t care what happened, because he couldn’t stand the pain and his mind hating him, why hadn’t she told him? When he tried to commit suicide, only to be, yet again, barely saved by the cruel universe apparently  hellbent on keeping him alive, roasting him over the open flames for just a little while longer, why hadn’t she told him he still had his aunt? His aunt he’d spent so much time with as a child, whenever he felt sad or whenever there were matters needing taking care of that he needed to not be around for, when his parents needed time alone. Why hadn’t she told him that he wasn’t alone? Because she was scared he’d leave her then, when he knew they weren’t that alike after all? Because she was jealous? Scared? What? Kurt honestly couldn’t figure it out, no matter how hard he tried.

  I can’t believe you did this to me, Quinn. 

After Kurt finally got him to go back home, Blaine slept. He slept through the entire day and the majority of the night that followed. His sleep was severely haunted by nightmares, and the times he actually woke up, he found himself unable to neither get up or stay awake at all. His body and mind were both exhausted to a level he hadn’t experienced in a long while. He couldn’t even think of looking so his mother was well and satisfied. He couldn’t think of anything besides how badly he needed rest, and it was short from a miracle that he got it.

  When he woke up around half past three Friday morning, Blaine realized something. School. What was he supposed to tell the others? Did he have to say anything at all with Kurt’s beyond poor school attendance pattern? Could he act like nothing was different, that he had no idea why Kurt wasn’t as school? Would anyone even notice? Would he be able to go to school at all? Yes. Yes, he had to go to school. There’d been way too much skipping school lately. He was still above average, quite a far way above, in all subjects except maybe PE, which he close to never attended. But Blaine still didn’t want to risk anything. There was only one semester and a couple of days left now, until High School was over. He wanted his grades to be good, so that he could get into the collage he wanted to go to. That is, if that would ever happen, of course. At this point in his life, collage seemed almost ridiculously unimportant. He had other stuff in his life to think about; his mother, finally getting a job that could support both of them without the Smythes helping and so on. Yet, of course, the thoughts around careers and collages, his adult life and such, still added to the weight on his shoulders a little more than he’d like it to. 

  So, Blaine went to school, and acted like it was any other day, as normal and boring as ever. When the subject somehow turned to how Kurt was yet again no where to be seen, and Ronnie asked Blaine if he knew where Kurt was, he tried to shrug it off with a simple no and a shake of his head. There had been nothing out of the ordinary happening. Kurt wasn’t in the hospital right now. Everything was fine. 

  Quinn somehow caught on, however. Maybe because her bond with Kurt was deeper than the bond he shared with the others, maybe because she was the smartest there. When she pulled him aside to ask what was up a while later, Blaine found his brain empty of words to say yet again. Somehow Quinn knew what this meant. Maybe it was weird that she did, maybe it was sad, but Blaine just felt grateful he wouldn’t have to explain. Not much at least. 

  “When?”

  Blaine was about the say ‘yesterday’, when he remembered he’s slept through all of yesterday. “The day before yesterday, early evening.” he said instead. He felt a little pang of… something in his chest when he saw the girl’s heart break in her eyes. 

  He almost told her that he’d told Kurt he loved him, almost told her that they were boyfriends now, but kept it unsaid as it was still so new, and it felt too intimate, somehow, to tell Quinn, at least at the moment. But the thing he wanted to tell her most was how Kathryn had showed up, how Kurt wasn’t alone, that he wasn’t completely without blood-related family, after all, but yet again there was something that stopping him. This time he was less sure of what that something was. Maybe it just felt wrong to tell Quinn everything about what’d happened with Kurt still in hospital, and all this really being about Kurt, not him. 

  “We don’t tell the others.” Quinn said sternly, her face serious. “Kurt wouldn’t want them to know. And I don’t either.”

  Blaine nodded, agreeing with her. “Are you going to go see him?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think he’d appreciate it. He’ll be out soon, anyway. My company can wait.” 

The second night of three back in the hospital he hated he spent wide awake, his stomach and head both ill with all that’d happened the last hours. There was no chance he’d go to sleep; he was pretty sure that even if they were to give him something to calm him down again, it still wouldn’t help. The next day brought yet another, and maybe even more, unpleasant thing; his first speech therapy session… that he’d brought on himself by choice, completely voluntarily. Maybe he really was losing his mind. 

  At 1 pm, a woman walked through the door. She was pretty short and plump, her hair a darkish brown with a couple of gray strands streaked into it. She wore a pare of half-moon spectacles and no make up. For any other person, she’d probably look kind and inviting. To Kurt she looked like an utter nightmare. He was supposed to talk to her? She looked like her life had been a walk on stardust sprinkled with rainbows. But then again, she’d chosen to become a speech therapist, and he was convinced that no one would even consider that as a career if your mind was healthy and your childhood perfect. And it was impossible to keep his mind open at the moment. 

  “Hello, Mr. Hummel,” greeted the woman. She introduced herself as Mrs. Jacobs, Helena Jacobs, and when she extended a hand for him to shake, and he ignored it out of old habit, Kurt reminded himself that he was the one who’d asked for this. This was his decision, for once, and now he was going to stand for that.

  “Hi,” he said stiffly, straightening up in his bed. He wasn’t connected to the machine giving him blood anymore, but he preferred to stay in bed anyway, as he didn’t know what moving would bring with it.

  “I didn’t go through with it that time,” Kurt blurted out when he saw the almost completely hidden glint of that look in her eyes. 

  “Didn’t go through with what?”

  He pushed back the want to snort and roll his eyes. He had to give this a chance. “The whole… killing thing,” He didn’t like saying it out loud. This time around, he’d found, he wasn’t as bitter as he’d been the other times, when he had… failed. Instead he found it was difficult to talk about, thinking about it was even hard, somehow.

  “What made you change your mind?”

  “My… friend.” He wasn’t at all sure why he thought it’d be best not to call Blaine his boyfriend, even now when he actually was. Why did he care what she thought anyway?

  Mrs. Jacobs nodded. “Good friend?”

  “Yeah,” Kurt said shortly, nodding himself. 

  Mrs. Jacobs only stayed for about half an hour. Kurt wasn’t too enthusiastic about the whole thing. He didn’t like her. She seemed bored and she talked to him as if he were a child. He hated it, but kept his irritation and mlid anger from showing. He had to at least finish this first turn. It was only 30 minutes. 

  The door didn’t even have the time to close after Mrs. Jacobs when she left before a nurse, the same one that came in to check on him every few hours, seeing if there was something that he wanted, came in to hand him a note. Kurt looked at her questioningly. She hadn’t done this before. 

  “Your friend left this to me when I said he couldn’t see you.” she explained. Kurt grabbed it and mumbled a short ‘thanks’. He waited until she’d closed the door behind her, but even when he was alone he didn’t unfold the note. There was something that made him nervous, of some reason. After almost five minutes of just looking at the paper in his hand, he unfolded it and read what it said. It’d been written on the backside of some kind of flyer that Blaine’d probably found in the waiting room or reception or something. It was short, and Kurt re-read it again and again.

   ‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow when you’re let out of this place. Can’t stay, have to go to work. Hope the doctors haven’t killed you yet.’

  Kurt let himself smile a little at the words. It was weird how much he liked Blaine’s handwriting – it was just handwriting. A totally normal thing. Then, with a weird little jump of his heart, Kurt saw that there were more words written, further down on the paper. It looked like the words’d been added after a second thought, like he hadn’t been sure if he should write it down or not, then regretting he hadn’t once he’d handed it over.

  ‘I’M PROUD OF YOU’  It said, all in capital letters. The smile found its way back to his lips. Then, rolling his eyes because Blaine, we’ve been apart for less than 24 hours, chill out, he saw that there was yet another thing written on the paper, even further down. Wrinkling his eyebrows slightly, he tried to figure out what it meant. 

  Drawn by the bottom right corner of the paper was a pretty big semicolon. It was put there by Blaine, Kurt was totally sure of that. He just didn’t get why it had been.

  It was time for lunch, so Kurt had no choice but to let it go for the moment being. So he folded and put the note in the little chest-pocket of the ridiculous hospital gown he was wearing. He made a mental note to himself not to forget it there once he got his own clothes back, and to ask Blaine what the message behind the semicolon was, if Blaine wouldn’t bring it up first, of course. 

Saturday evening came and Kurt was finally released, and, just like the note had said, there Blaine was waiting for him in the reception. He gave him a weird look when Kurt stretched for his hand. Kurt only wiggled his fingers, giving him the tiniest of innocent smiles. 

  “How’re you feeling?” Blaine asked, being the first of them to talk, once they were out in the chilly December air. Putting on his jacket, Kurt shrugged.

  “Obviously I’m still not perfectly fine, but I…” He wasn’t sure if he dared to say it out loud yet. Maybe it would all go to hell if he did. Instead he reached out for Blaine’s hand again, finding how much he liked holding it. Maybe he really was suited for relationships. At least a relationship with Blaine. “I want to start trying – for real this time, to get better.” 

  Blaine gave him a look, his eyes smiling so much his lips didn’t have to. It made Kurt feel warm, and decided that it was worth it, even though he more than disliked his therapist, who he’d already managed to forget the name to.

  “How was the therapy?” Blaine asked, half as a joke, like he’d once again read his mind. Kurt just uttered a loud, long groan and Blaine chuckled. “That bad, huh?” 

  Kurt rolled his eyes. “‘Why do you think you got to the conclusion that suicide was the best answer?’” He mimicked her tone and voice the best he could. “And while that might’ve been fine in it self, it was her fucking tone I couldn’t stand.”

  Blaine nodded. “I’ve been there.” he said. “And let me guess, checked the time every three seconds like she couldn’t wait to be out of there?” Kurt made another groaning sound, agreeing. “I feel your pain.” Blaine said solemnly. They made such a fabulous pair. 

  “Hey,” Kurt said once they reached Blaine’s motorcycle. (It hadn’t been stolen, against all odds) “That semicolon…?” He didn’t actually want to say ‘what did it mean, exactly’, and he was pretty sure Blaine understood anyways. 

  Blaine nodded, like he’d expected the question. “A semicolon is used by the author when they could’ve ended the sentence but decides not to.” he said.

  “Yeah,” Kurt said, rolling his eyes goodheartedly. “I know that part. But why write it there?”

  Blaine let go of Kurt’s hand and sat down on his Baby, not straddling it, but just kinda leaning himself against the seat. He ducked his head and smiled quickly, almost seeming a bit shy. “Don’t laugh,” he said.

  “Why would I?” Kurt said, getting curious.

  “’Cause it’s kinda cheesy. I just couldn’t help myself,”

  “Tell me?” 

  “Okay, well, I didn’t think of it all by myself,” he admitted. “But I sort of meant that you were the author, and your life was the sentence.”

  Kurt gave him a look, like he still didn’t understand completely, but wanted to.

  “You could’ve ended your life, but didn’t. You decided to go on, like an author when he or she decided to continue the sentence. And I’m very happy about that.

“And I’m proud of you because you admitted that you need help, and even more than that, I’m proud of you because you want to try and get better, and that you told me about it. But most of all, I meant, or mean, that I’m proud of you for… not going through with it.” Blaine looked away from Kurt’s eye for a second.  “Sorry about all the cheesiness, I –“ The end of the sentence got swallowed by Kurt as he crushed his lips to Blaine’s. 

  “O…kay.” Blaine breathed. “Not complaining or anything but –what was that for?”

  “For you.” Kurt just said simply. “For being you, and for being cheesy.”

  “You don’t feel like throwing up on me then?”

  “No.” he shook his head. “Not right now anyway. Maybe later.”

  And I’m only still alive because of you, Blaine Anderson, you and your stupid words.