For a moment, they stood frozen in time, breathing the same breath as one. In the past few hours, Blaine and Kurt had developed an immediacy, a connection that went beyond words or physical connection, and Kurt continued to cling tightly to this connection to Blaine which felt as if it was the only thing tethering him to consciousness at the moment. Kurt could feel the creeping blackness at the edges of his vision, simply biding its time until the pain and fever overtook him completely. And while Kurt welcomed any respite from the pain which seemed to be increasing tenfold with every passing minute, he was terrified of sinking into the blackness, lest his connection with Blaine be broken, allowing Kurt to sink like an anchor into the deep black depths of his unconscious mind and body.

The NP finished her phone call and turned her attentions back to her ailing patient. "Okay Kurt, the ambulance is on the way. They should be here in about five minutes. I need to start an IV while we are waiting, okay?" Nurse Whitestone pulled out a rubber tourniquet, several alcohol prep pads, and an IV starter kit. She took Kurt's left arm and wrapped the tourniquet around it, carefully palpitating his hand and arm as she attempted to feel for a visible vein. She suspected that he would be a hard stick and indeed she found that to be the case as Kurt's veins were mostly collapsed due to dehydration. At last, she found a small vein that ran between his second and third knuckles. She quickly swabbed the area and uncapped the syringe, warning her patient as she did so while saying, "Okay, you're going to feel a big stick."

Blaine knew that Kurt was typically frightened of needles and expected Kurt to show some reaction to the insertion of the intravenous line. Blaine squeezed Kurt's hand reassuringly and watched his face for some glimmer of recognition or fear. Instead, Kurt barely winced as the line was inserted, seeming as if he was a million miles away despite his close physical proximity with Blaine. While Blaine felt a knot in his throat at the mere thought of Kurt being in pain or fear, somehow this lack of responsiveness was more frightening to Blaine than anything else. Blaine watched in morbid fascination as the IV line was secured with gauze and tape and connected to a bag of saline solution which the nurse suspended from one of the four posters of Kurt's headboard.

Nurse Whitestone spoke up again as she finished connecting the intravenous line. "Okay, I'm going to inject some Tylenol into your IV line to help get your fever down, Kurt. Are you still experiencing a lot of nausea?" she asked as well.

Kurt nodded and the NP removed another syringe from her bag. "This medication is called Zofran and it should help with the nausea and vomiting. It might make you a little drowsy, but I want you to try to stay awake until we can get you to the hospital, okay?"

Blaine watched Kurt carefully, noting that his eyes were halfway closed already. He could literally feel his boyfriend slipping away from him, and it was pure hell to have to sit and watch while being unable to do anything to stop it. Blaine mentally chided himself for the millionth time in the last hour for not doing more to help Kurt. He should have known that Kurt wouldn't be late for their date. He should gone to Kurt's room sooner. And once he was there, he certainly should have insisted that Kurt get medical attention right away. And if that didn't make him a bad enough boyfriend, he'd fallen asleepwhile his boyfriend was sick and running a high fever when he should have been keeping a closer eye on Kurt and checking his temperature every half hour. If Kurt wasn't okay... If something ended up being seriously wrong with Kurt... Well, Blaine didn't know if he would be able to forgive himself for that.

Blaine looked back up at Kurt's face and felt a sharp stab of pain and guilt when he realized that tears were silently streaming from Kurt's eyes and his whole body was shaking slightly with the effort of his sobs. Blaine dropped his face to Kurt's again, his face hovering concernedly above Kurt.

"Kurt? Sweetheart, why are you crying? What is it?"

Kurt choked back a sob and drew shaky breath before responding. "Just...hurts...so much. I feel awful, Blaine. I...I...wanna...go home. Blaine...please...make it stop.

Blaine was sure that his heart was literally breaking as he listened to Kurt choke out his plea. He couldn't do this...how could he be strong for Kurt when fear had so strongly gripped his throat that he could barely breathe? Blaine might seem like the confident one to the outside world, the one that had it together on the surface, but deep down, Blaine was a coward. Kurt had been and always would be the strong one. When the bullying had gotten bad at his old school, Blaine had simply run away while Kurt had been brave enough to face down Karofsky. And when Kurt had asked Blaine to accompany him to talk with Karofsky about the violent and unsolicited kiss, Blaine had been the one shoved into the fence, leaving Kurt to come to his rescue when it should have been the other way around. Kurt was fearless.

What had Blaine told Kurt when the bullying began to escalate? Courage. Blaine would have to borrow Kurt's courage for awhile. He owed him that much. He had leaned on Kurt for support so many times. Now, Blaine knew it was his turn to step up. Not for himself, but for his beautiful boyfriend who was terrified and in severe pain and needed him to be the strong one for once.

Blaine took a deep, steadying breath before cupping Kurt's cheek, wanting to make sure that he truly heard every word. "Kurt? Honey, look at me. Open your eyes." He gave a sad smile as Kurt's lids fluttered open and his eyes locked on Blaine's. "I know how hard it is to stay calm right now, but sweetheart, I promise that I won't let anything happen to you, okay? The paramedics are going to be here any second and they'll give you medicine to help with the pain. I know you want to go home, Kurt, but you need to go to the hospital so that they can help you feel better. But I'll be there and your dad will come and meet us too and I promise that I'll stay with you the whole time. You've just got to hang on for a few more minutes okay? Can you do that for me, Kurt? Please honey..." Blaine finished, his voice breaking slightly with barely suppressed emotion.

Blaine continued to stroke Kurt's cheek gently as he stared into Kurt's eyes, trying to communicate his love and support with every fiber of his being. As he finished speaking and waited breathlessly for Kurt's response, a wayward tear tracked down Blaine's nose and he roughly brushed it away, taking another shuddering breath as he tried to keep the crumbling facade of his emotions in check a little longer.

Blaine watched as Kurt gazed up at him for several seconds, seeming to weigh every word. Kurt bit the inside of his lip and took a deep breath and set his jaw, seeming to physically gather himself for the battle ahead. Blaine shook his head slightly in utter amazement at the strength his boyfriend continued to demonstrate, even in the worst of circumstances.

"Okay, Blaine. I'll try," Kurt said, the shakiness of his voice providing the only hint of how difficult Blaine's request truly was for him at the moment. "But can you...do something for me, Blaine?" Kurt continued.

"Sure, Kurt. Anything. What can I do?" Blaine asked, dizzy with relief at not only the fact that Kurt agreed to try to hang on a bit longer, but also at the possibility of being doing something, no matter how small, to make Kurt feel better.

"Can you hold my hand? I...I just...I need something to hold on to," Kurt finished, his eyes watery again as he tried to explain just how much he needed Blaine at the moment.

Blaine felt a punch to the gut at Kurt's request. It was such a simple thing to ask for, yet it meant so much to Blaine to know that Kurt needed him as an anchor.

"Of course, baby," Blaine replied, bending down to plant a gentle kiss on Kurt's forehead again feeling a jolt of shock at the surprising amount of heat radiating from his skin, before lacing his fingers through Kurt's and squeezing his hand reassuringly. His eyes widened as Kurt squeezed his hand back with a surprising amount of force. "I know it hurts, Kurt. Just squeeze my hand as hard as you need to, okay?"

Kurt could only nod. The pain in his side continued to swell and showed no signs of abating anytime soon and it was taking everything Kurt had just to keep his eyes open. He felt even more woozy than he had only minutes earlier and could feel the heaviness of his body pulling him down, begging him to give into the darkness that was waiting at the corners of his field of vision. But Kurt could see through Blaine's shaky pretense of calm and knew how scared Blaine truly was. As hard as it was for Kurt to hold it together, he couldn't imagine how he'd feel if their roles were reversed and Blaine was the one running a high fever and in pain.

Kurt remembered a few weeks ago when Blaine had cut his finger with a scalpel during Anatomy class while they were dissecting a frog. Kurt could have sworn that his heart stopped beating when he saw the scary amount of blood on Blaine's uniform shirt. Kurt had practically dragged Blaine to the infirmary while visions of hundreds of stitches, partial amputations, and blood transfusions danced irrationally through his head. He'd felt giddy with relief when the nurse had cleaned out the wound and declared that while it was fairly deep and a prodigious bleeder, it was small enough that she felt confident in closing it with some special medical super glue and a butterfly bandage, meaning that Blaine was spared the torture of getting stitches. Blaine had barely flinched throughout the ordeal, but the experience had only highlighted to Kurt how much he cared for his new boyfriend and how it would kill him to see anything bad happen to Blaine.

Blaine and Kurt were both interrupted from their private thoughts by Nurse Whitestone speaking up. To be honest, Blaine had been so focused on Kurt for the past few minutes that he'd forgotten that they were not alone. While a part of him realized that he should probably be a bit embarrassed at sharing such an intimate moment with his boyfriend in front of a Dalton Academy staff member, Blaine couldn't really find it in him to care at the moment.

"Kurt? I just received a text from the security guard out front that the paramedics have just arrived on scene. They are parking and will be escorted to your room in just a minute. I need to go ahead and take your vital signs again before they get there so I can let them know how you are doing. Can you open up so I can take your temperature?"

Kurt wordlessly opened his mouth, allowing Nurse Whitestone to slide it into place. Blaine gripped the end of it before Kurt could even raise a hand, holding it in place while they waited for it to beep. Blaine watched the digital display as the numbers quickly raced upwards. 102. 103. 104. "Oh god, why isn't it stopping?" thought Blaine in panic. "Kurt's fever is already so high. Please don't let it have gone up. Dear god, what did the nurse said about seizures and fevers?" Blaine felt his pulse thrumming wildly in time to the rapidly increasing numbers. Blaine was just about to start hyperventilating when blessedly, the thermometer gave a beep. Blaine snatched it from Kurt's mouth and confirmed the digital readout within seconds. 104.9. "Oh holy shit," was Blaine's only thought.

He quickly handed the thermometer to the nurse, careful not to read the numbers out loud for fear of alarming Kurt. He watched her reaction carefully, expecting her response to be as panicked as he felt inside. But she merely nodded grimly and jotted something down in a small moleskin notebook before clipping a small pulse oximeter to Kurt's index finger. Next, she wrapped the blood pressure cuff around his bared upper arm and began to inflate the cuff manually. The pulse oximeter started to beep only seconds later, but Nurse Whitestone's hands were consumed with measuring Kurt's blood pressure. She turned to Blaine. "Blaine, could you read me the two numbers off the pulse oximeter. The top one should say bpm. What is the number next to it?"

Blaine looked down, grateful for something that he could do to help. "Umm, it says 136 bpm. Is that bad?" he asked, his anxiety over Kurt's condition growing with each passing minute.

Nurse Whitestone frowned slightly before replying. "It's a bit higher than I'd like, but that can happen when a patient is in a lot of pain. What does the bottom number say? The one that has O2% next to it."

"It says 89%," Blaine answered.

"What?" asked the nurse sharply. "No, no, that can't be right. Let me see." She released her hold on the blood pressure cuff, unwrapping it quickly from Kurt's arm before leaning over to read the small screen on the monitor. She frowned more deeply this time before removing the small oximeter from Kurt's finger. "Let's try the other hand," she directed. "I don't think that was an accurate reading."

Blaine reluctantly released his hold on Kurt's right hand, allowing Nurse Whitestone access to Kurt's other hand. Kurt reacted immediately, moaning and trying to withdraw his hand from the nurse's grasp.

"Shh, it's okay, Kurt. I'm still right here. She just needs to check your vital signs real quick and then I can hold your hand again, okay?" Blaine reassured Kurt while bringing his hand to Kurt's hair and stroking his sweat-dampened bangs from his forehead.

Nurse Whitestone looked down at the monitor as it beeped again, scowling at the reading. 88% oxygen saturation. She looked to her young patient's face and was surprised to see that while his face was bright red with the obvious flushing of a high fever, his lips did have a slight purplish tint that had been partially obscured by the redness of the surrounding skin.

Blaine watched the nurse carefully, clearly noticing that something was wrong. "What did it say?" he asked worriedly.

Nurse Whitestone sighed. "I got the same reading as you did. It is measuring how well he is oxygenating. It should be above 95% but it is currently at 88% which means he's not getting enough oxygen. I'm glad that the paramedics are on the way up because we need to give him supplemental oxygen and I don't have any with me."

Blaine swallowed hard, a million questions forming in his mind at once. He was about to ask the nurse to explain why exactly Kurt wasn't getting enough oxygen when it was his stomach and not his lungs that seemed to be causing him trouble, but blessedly he was interrupted by the sound of the paramedics knocking at the door to Kurt's room.

"Oh thank god," Blaine said in obvious relief as Nurse Whitestone rose to let the paramedics in and give them her report. Blaine turned back to Kurt, removing the pulse oximeter so that he could wrap Kurt's right hand in his once again. "Kurt, you did it. The paramedics are here now and we're going to get you to the hospital, okay?"

The paramedics descended on Kurt at once. Blaine slid from his perch on the bed to give them more room to examine Kurt but continued to kneel near the head of Kurt's bed, all the while keeping a tight grip on Kurt's hand.

"Hi, Kurt? My name is Adam and I'm one of the paramedics who's going to be taking care of you tonight, okay? Nurse Whitestone told me that you're running a high fever and in a lot of pain. Can you show me where your stomach is hurting the worst?"

Kurt drew in a sharp breath and steeled himself mentally for the next onslaught of pain that he was certain would accompany the paramedic's examination. He was reluctant to part with Blaine's hand for even a few seconds, so instead he chose to carefully point with his left hand, being careful not to disturb the IV tubing that was fed into a vein between the knuckles of his left hand.

The medic nodded as Kurt carefully pointed out the spot and gingerly lifted the hem of his ribbed tank top to palpitate his abdomen. The paramedic noticed the involuntary guarding of the abdomen almost immediately and decided to spare the poor patient additional pain by doing a thorough abdominal exam, instead only applying slight pressure to the area in question in order to judge whether the abdomen was rigid and check the severity of the patient's tenderness. However, even the slightest pressure provoked an immediate and intense response from the young boy.

Blaine felt tears prick his eyes once again as Kurt cried out in obvious pain while his hand crushed into Blaine's own. His eyes drew shut as his entire face tensed and he watched with concern as Kurt gasped and moaned, seeming to be locked in his own private hell of agony. Blaine winced in sympathy, wishing there was something, anything, he could do to ease his boyfriend's pain.

"Shh, I know, Kurt. I know, honey. Squeeze my hand. That's it. Breathe. Come on, Kurt. You've got to breathe, sweetheart." Blaine soothed, growing more concerned by Kurt's lack of oxygen with each gasping breath.

The other medic looked up in concern as the small handheld monitor she had been fiddling with suddenly started to sound an alarm. "Adam? His O2 sats are down to 87% and pulse is tachy at 140."

Adam nodded and began to do a flurry of things at once with the practiced ease of a career paramedic. "Right Jill, we need to give him O2, 3 liters per minute through a non-rebreather mask. He's almost finished the liter of saline that the NP hung, but let's go ahead and bolus another liter. I'm hoping that if we can get his pain a little better managed, his O2 sats may come up a bit because I think he's hyperventilating due to guarding in his abdomen. We're going to need the cooling blanket because temp was 104.9 about two minutes ago, but let's just wait until we get him to the rig to do that."

The young female paramedic seemed to find Adam's authority reassuring and began to follow the steps he'd prescribed, starting by removing a small tank of oxygen from her bag and connecting it to the tubing before placing the mask over her patient's nose and mouth and directing him to breathe deeply. Meanwhile, Adam had removed a small vial of medication from his bag and was carefully drawing the contents into a syringe.

"Kurt? Are you on any medications regularly? Do you have a known drug allergies? Any health problems I should be aware of like diabetes or heart problems?"

Kurt nodded his head. "I take...Claritin-D...allergic to...Amoxcil...pink stuff...No health..problems," he managed to get out between gasps of pain, his voice sounding weak and shaky to Blaine.

"Okay, great. I'm going to give you some Morphine in your IV. It should help with the pain and start working within a minute or two. It may burn a little bit when it is going in and make you feel nauseous or sleepy, but I want you to try as hard as you can to stay awake and talking to us. Right now, you are breathing too fast because of the pain, so I want you to try to focus on taking slow, deep breaths. Can you do that for me?"

Kurt nodded, weak with relief at the thought of getting even a temporary respite from the overwhelming pain. He watched as the paramedic slipped the syringe into a port in the IV tubing and slowly depressed the lever, causing a slight tingle and burn to spread up Kurt's hand and arm.

Blaine watched quietly as the two paramedics continued to work to prepare Kurt for transport. Despite the flurry of activity happening all around them, Kurt and Blaine continued to only have eyes for one another. Blaine waited breathlessly, hoping that the medication would start to kick in soon to relieve Kurt's pain.

The first sign that Kurt was feeling better came when Blaine noticed Kurt slightly relaxing the death grip he had on Blaine's hand. Next, he watched as the tension slowly left Kurt's face, being replaced with a weariness that only partially captured the ordeal that Kurt had endured in the past few hours. Blaine brought a hand to Kurt's temple, stroking his hair. "Hey honey, is the medicine starting to help a little bit?" he asked gently.

Kurt nodded. He brought his free hand to his face, tugging down the oxygen mask until it was resting on his chin, wanting to speak without the plastic barrier. "Better...but still...hurts," he began. "Blaine...can...huh...ca..." Kurt sputtered, his breathing starting to become more uneven and his gasps sounding more desperate.

Blaine shook his head firmly and reached up to replace the oxygen mask over Kurt's face. "Shh, Kurt. Just breathe right now. Don't try to talk, honey. You need to keep the mask on, okay?"

Kurt looked at Blaine in frustration, several hot tears streaming from his eyes onto his cheeks.

"Kurt...shh, it's okay. Just breathe for a second and then you can tell me, okay? I just don't want you to wear yourself out, sweetheart," Blaine soothed, correctly reading the frustration that was rolling off of Kurt in waves as even a simple sentence required more physical effort than he could currently muster.

Kurt and Blaine were interrupted by Adam. "Okay Kurt, we're ready to move you over to the stretcher. Can you slide to the edge of the bed for us? Don't try to get up, just let us lift you, alright? You're going to be pretty unsteady after the Morphine I gave you and we don't want you passing out."

Blaine was forced to step back as the paramedics maneuvered into position and prepared to transfer Kurt to the waiting stretcher than had been pulled to the edge of the bed. Kurt gave resistance as Blaine gently pried his fingers from Kurt's grasp.

"Kurt? Hey, I just have to move for one minute. Once they get you on the stretcher I can can hold your hand again, okay? I'm going to ride with you to the hospital." Blaine was careful to reassure Kurt, not wanting a repeat of Kurt's earlier reaction when in his fever-induced delirium, Kurt was convinced that Blaine was leaving him when he'd simply stood up to turn on the overhead light.

The paramedics moved Kurt with gentle efficiency, but it still wasn't careful enough to prevent Kurt's tender side from being jostled. As the pain flared while he was being lowered to the stretcher, Kurt felt the darkness descend. Kurt let out one final gasp and cry of pain before his world went back. His last thought was of Blaine.

"Blaine, I tried. Please don't leave. I need your hand so I don't get lost in the dark. Please find me. Oh god, Blaine. I'm sorry," Kurt thought as his the world slowly faded from view until his body was blissfully weightless and free from pain, floating on a sea of endless blackness.