“Mr. Hummel? Excuse me, Mr. Hummel?”

Blaine attempts to peek over the shoulder of the blonde nurse currently “just doing her job”, which includes keeping Blaine out of Kurt’s room. Unfortunately, she happens to be doing it exceptionally. Blaine can’t see much past her squared shoulders, her long neck, and her tidy bun, but he’s determined to get a look inside for himself.

“Yes?” a gravelly voice responds.

“I’m sorry to bother you. I know it’s been a long day for you …” She throws that remark over her shoulder, not turning to glare at the man she knows is standing behind her, even though she had intended for him to stay in the waiting room until she returned with an update. But Blaine has to see Kurt with his own two eyes. Even if Blaine gets turned away, he needs a glimpse of Kurt to know that he’s in one piece.

Still alive and breathing.

Blaine hates that he couldn’t get to the hospital faster when Kurt’s downstairs neighbor called him to tell him that Kurt had been shot. Blaine couldn’t make sense of it at the time. Even now, at the hospital, standing a few feet from Kurt’s door, he’s having trouble resolving it. No, no, you’re mistaken, he’d told her, his chest tightening with every one of her sniffles, his ribcage filling with a cold tidal wave of shock. Kurt couldn’t be shot because, at that moment, Blaine was receiving about a dozen text messages that could only be from Kurt. Kurt calling from the ambulance, the rational part of Blaine’s brain deduced, offering him that as a compromise, even though Mrs. Hildabreg assured Blaine that Kurt had been unconscious when the paramedics took him away.

And as devastating as that information had been when Blaine received it, as much as it broke him to hear, it was the text messages when he finally read them that propelled him out of his class and onto a train.

Dozens and dozens of messages, texts, and voicemails, asking him Why Blaine? Why did you make me do it? Why couldn’t you just text me back? Why were you ignoring me? Don’t you love me? Don’t I mean anything to you? I’ve been arrested. It’s all just a big misunderstanding, but I need you to help me. I need you to call me. I need you to tell the police that I’m your boyfriend, that you love me, and to let me go. Then this will all blow over.

I love you, and I forgive you.

The second Blaine read them, he knew. He knew what it meant. He knew who it was … Eli. A man from Blaine’s past that he’d written off as a mistake he’d made when he was lonely, when he didn’t know better, when he didn’t know what he wanted.

Ironically, the one thing Blaine did know at the time was he didn’t want Eli.

Blaine didn’t answer a single one of those texts. He was heartbroken, furious beyond belief, ready to spit nails and tear into Eli with his teeth, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge Eli’s existence, give him the attention he so desperately sought. Not after what he’d done.

Good or bad, that would be giving Eli what he wanted. And then he would win.

“… but this young man says he knows your son, and he’s being very insistent. (Which was the polite way of saying that Blaine had already been in the waiting room for over two hours and he still wouldn’t go the fuck away.) What would you like me to do about him?”

Feeling his time in that hallway growing short, Blaine gets as close to the doorway as he can without physically climbing over the woman in front of him. In his search for Kurt, he locks eyes with a man that Blaine can just tell has seen more than his fair share of grief.

And he doesn’t want to see any more.

The man stares at Blaine, expressionless, done with dealing with people for today, but a spark of something like recognition smooths his face.

“Let him in,” the man says, taking off his cap to run a hand over his head, then using it to cover a yawn. “He’s good.”

The nurse moves aside to let Blaine pass. She watches him enter the room, bitterly sympathetic for the man sitting vigil over his son’s hospital bed. She’s not angry at Blaine, per se. She just wants the poor man left in peace.

Blaine can’t blame her. He looks tired enough to fall right out of his chair.

“If you need anything, Mr. Hummel, just give me a buzz,” she says, closing the door behind Blaine when she leaves. The man puts his cap on, then sinks back into his chair.

Blaine looks at the man, then over at the bed where Kurt lays unconscious, motionless, peaceful except for a single wrinkle in his brow. Blaine knows a thing or two about hospitals, having been put in one in high school after being beaten up by jocks, and about pain killers. He knows that they’re not as one hundred percent effective as they’re portrayed in the movies. Kurt might be unconscious, but he’s still in pain.

The man sitting bent over in the chair, elbows on knees, absorbed by the scuffs on his work boots, seems to have already forgotten that Blaine is there.

Because he’s also in pain, and that’s all he’s thinking about.

Blaine is in pain, too - his heart twisting, his stomach flipping, his legs rubbery – and for the same reason as this man, but suddenly Blaine feels like he doesn’t belong there.

Blaine wants to stand by Kurt’s side and hold his hand, sit quietly by him until he wakes, but it seems like that will get unnecessarily awkward – two grown strangers trapped in the same close quarters, guarding over the same man but ignoring one another.

Blaine clears his throat, gets ready to introduce himself. It doesn’t pull the man’s attention away from his shoes, but he sighs.

“I’m Blaine,” Blaine says. He doesn’t hold out his hand. He doesn’t want to put pressure on the man to take it.

“Blaine Anderson.” The man pinches the bridge of his nose. “I figured as much. Kurt’s talked about you a few times. Says you’re incredible. Talks about you like you were the first man to walk on the moon or something. I’m Burt, by the way.”

“Are you Kurt’s dad?”

“Yup. That would be me.” Burt glances up. Blaine tries to see the resemblance – the brow, the nose, the cheekbones. Other than that, Kurt must take after his mom.

“H-how’s Kurt doing?” Blaine asks. “I called ahead, asked at the front, but they wouldn’t tell me anything. Family members only.”

“He got through surgery fine. No complications, thank God. According to the doctors, it was an easy extraction. The bullet …” Burt trips over the word, kneads his tensing forehead with his fingertips “… didn’t hit anything major. He might need a few more surgeries to repair some other damage. He opened his eyes a little while ago. He was asking for you … wanted to make sure you were okay. I guess he thought the shooter might have gone after you, too.”

“He didn’t. The police caught up with him. Arrested him,” Blaine assures him.

“Yeah?” Burt huffs, sounding even more tired, more done than he did a moment ago. “How do you know?”

“Because h-he told me,” Blaine admits, his stomach going from flips to full-on triple axels. “He called me from the police station, left me a voicemail. He wanted my help.” Blaine sighs, feeling his chances with Kurt’s dad, and with Kurt, slipping away. “I’m so sorry about all of this.”

“Why? Did you shoot him?”

“No. No, I didn’t. But my kind of ex did.”

Burt raises his eyes. “What do you mean kind of ex?”

“We weren’t actually dating. We only met up … you know … once.”

“So a one-night stand? You can use the actual words. I’m not twelve.”

“I’m … I’m sorry.”

Burt blows out a breath. “It’s alright, kid. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. Here.” He taps the chair next to him. “Sit.”

“Thanks,” Blaine says, taking the seat.

“So, what happened between you and this guy? Why did he go after my son to get to you?”

It strikes Blaine that Kurt’s father really doesn’t want to know the details about Blaine’s failed relationship with Eli, but that he’s making conversation. Then again, he could be curious. After all, the man did shoot his son.

“Nothing really, to be honest. He friended me on Facebook after I moved to New York. We talked a lot online. We were both living in a new place, both didn’t have much in the way of friends. After a few weeks, we decided to meet, see if we could hit it off. One thing led to another and …” Blaine cuts himself short. Burt Hummel isn’t twelve, but Blaine would rather not remember that night. “He was a nice guy over the phone, but in person … I don’t know. Something felt kind of off about him, if that makes sense. We’d only met the one time, but he started talking about moving in together, switching schools to be closer to me, changing his major to match mine – not asking what I think, but talking like it was a done deal. It seemed a little … premature.”

“It seems a little psycho.”

“Yeah. I guess you could say that.” Blaine chuckles at Burt’s assessment - accurate, but less than PC. “Mostly, I just didn’t feel like we were on the same page about things so I broke it off that night. He got upset, bombarded me with messages, then he just kinda went away. I knew he was angry, but I thought he would have gotten over it by now. I never thought he was capable of something like this. If I had known …”

“What would you have done?”

Burt comes across as slightly sarcastic, but Blaine can tell it’s an honest question.

“I … I would have found a way to keep Kurt safe. I would have sat outside his front door at night. I would have made the police do something … I would have kept Eli away from him somehow. I would have …” Blaine wants to add more, but he doesn’t know what he could. If he had known the man behind the messages was Eli, he would have caved and gotten a new phone number, regardless of the headache. He would have upped the security on his Facebook account, on all his accounts, maybe even removed himself from social media altogether.

If he thought for one second that Eli was the kind of man who would come after him, or the people in his life, with a gun, he would have gotten a restraining order, maybe bought a Taser.

If he had thought for one second that dating Kurt was putting Kurt’s life in danger, he might have even considered breaking things off just to keep Kurt safe. Because in the short time they’ve known one another, that’s how much Kurt means to him. He’d rather keep Kurt at a distance and know he’s safe than to have him and risk losing him this way.

Burt contemplates Blaine’s response while Blaine struggles with the rest, what more he can say to make Burt trust him. But something Blaine said, or in his voice when he said it, makes up Burt’s mind.

“Let me tell you what,” Burt says, “I’ll put you down on the list at the front desk as Kurt’s brother. They shouldn’t give you any problems visiting after that. Just don’t blow it by making out or anything. Okay?”

Blaine smiles, his cheeks a little pinker, his stomach a bit more steady. “Okay. That would be great. Thank you.”

“Don’t sweat it.”

From his bed, Kurt groans softly, blinking his eyes open a sliver at a time. Blaine turns to watch him wake. The wince of pain that twitches his cheek strikes straight at Blaine’s twisting heart, but he breathes easier hearing Kurt speak.

“B-Blaine?”

“Kurt?”

“You know, I already got the chance to talk to him earlier,” Burt says, “so I’m going to go grab a cup of coffee, give you kids a minute alone. You want anything, Anderson?”

“No, thank you. I’m good.”

“Okay. Just … keep an eye on him. I’ll be right back.”

Blaine watches Kurt’s dad stand up from his chair. He walks by the foot of his son’s bed, taking a moment to tuck the blankets in beneath Kurt’s feet, then leaves the room. He stops by the reception desk, Blaine figures, to add Blaine’s name to the approved list of visitors. It seems funny that the other day Blaine was thinking about what it would be like to meet Kurt’s dad, how terrified he would feel, how much he wanted to make a good impression.

Well, this is about as lousy a first impression as someone can get, meeting the man whose crazy one-night stand shot your son, and yet, Blaine gets the feeling that the man liked him.

Blaine hopes he’s right. He wants to be in good with Kurt’s dad.

“B-Blaine?” Kurt whispers, on the verge of tears. “Blaine, are you really here?”

“Yes, it’s me.” Blaine gets up out of his seat and pulls his chair over. “You’re awake.”

“I’m awake,” Kurt repeats. He tries to smile. It comes out lopsided, only half his mouth able to lift, the other half too numb to move.

“How do you feel?” Blaine asks.

“My legs hurt,” Kurt mumbles miserably. He makes to sit up. He doesn’t even lift off the mattress before he decides that’s a bad idea. “My shoulder hurts. My brain hurts.” Kurt’s eyelids flutter as his eyes try to open wider, see Blaine clearer. “Are you … are you hurt? D-did he find you? Did he get to you, too?”

“No. No, he didn’t get to me.” Blaine swallows hard. He realizes that that’s a technicality. By attacking Kurt, Eli got to him. It may have been an indirect attack, but it was effective. “The police got him. I’m not in any danger, and neither are you. Not anymore.”

“I was … I was so scared, Blaine. I didn’t know …” Kurt’s nose scrunches, his eyes fighting to focus when he notices Blaine’s face crumble. “What’s wrong? Was it something I said?”

“No, it’s not. I just … I want to explain about what happened … what I did …” Blaine wants to tell Kurt everything, but he can’t go into it all now. With the amount of medication that must be flowing through Kurt’s body, Blaine doesn’t know how much Kurt will understand, how much he’ll remember, or what his brain might do with the information while he’s recovering. But Blaine also doesn’t want to wait. From the texts he received from Eli, Blaine got the impression that he told Kurt they were a couple. He needed to put any of Kurt’s doubts to rest. “I need to tell you …”

Kurt stops Blaine with a weak shake of his head. “Just tell me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Is it true what he said?” Kurt’s lower lip trembles. He’s not expecting the worse, but he didn’t expect to get shot today, either. What if the worst is waiting for him, whether he expects it or not? “Were you guys together?” And one more thing that his drug addled brain conjured up that he has to know. “Did you know he was behind the messages? Were you his boyfriend while you and I …?”

“No.” Blaine longs to take Kurt’s hand and hold it, but with the tubes and IVs, he’s afraid to touch him. “No, none of that’s true. I … yes, I slept with him, but only once, and it was a long time ago. Afterwards, I broke it off, I swear. I haven’t spoken to him since. I had no idea …”

Kurt shushes Blaine through heavy lips, nodding his even heavier head. “Ok. Ok, that’s … that’s all I need to know for now.”

“Kurt?” Blaine’s eyes begin to tear. It’s too much. Meeting this fantastic man, spending so many wonderful weeks together, now seeing him lying in a hospital bed, injured because of him? Blaine doesn’t know how he could ever make that up to Kurt. “What would you like me to do for you? Anything you want, just ask me.”

“Can you … can you lie here with me?” Kurt asks. “Just lie down with me and forget the world? Unless you think … I don’t want to waste your time, make you stay here with me when you could be off doing something else.”

Blaine pulls his chair closer. He can’t see a safe way to get himself up on Kurt’s bed, but he finds a way to maneuver his head onto Kurt’s pillow, so they can be forehead to forehead. It doesn’t matter that his right arm’s cramping, or that some metal lever from the bed is digging into his side.

“Kurt, there’s nowhere else in the world I wanna be right now than here with you.”