The haze returned to Kurt's sight, though he did not feel he had opened his eyes. He tried to walk, but could not discern the ground beneath his bare feet. He could see ahead, but not much, his way obscured by the thick fog.

‘But not fog,' he realized. ‘Clouds.' Immense white clouds that parted where he touched, and beyond them, the soft glow of a living light – a light with presence, with sentience, a light that breathed. Kurt tried to make his way to it, for it called to him with the promise of safety, happiness…and love. He inched closer at a snail's pace, and when he was almost upon it, he began to hear humming - a familiar tune he could not entirely grasp. It struck him at the heart and reminded him of home – a home long gone, though he still had the ability to recall it.

He squinted into the light, his heart lifting as the music surrounded him and took hold. His speculation on its origin was almost too fantastic for him to truly believe, but so was walking through the clouds; he decided to throw caution to the wind and trust in it.

Then the humming turned into song, and the voice that sang filled him with joy. He felt like a child again, just a young boy, full of hope and promise, not skewered in the back and lying cold in the grass. He longed to call out to it by name, though it made him feel foolish, but he feared his time here in this sparkling utopia was growing short, and before he crossed over to wherever he was meant to go, he needed to know.

“Mama?” Kurt spoke as he peered deeper into the light, in the direction from where the sweet music emanated. “Mama, is that you?”

In the distance, a shadow formed, moving toward him. The closer it came, the more human it looked. When the shadow was upon him, it became a woman, who stepped from beyond the veil. Her face was impossible to see, but Kurt didn't need to see it. He would know this woman anywhere. Her eyes, her mouth, her nose, her smile, were all imprinted upon his heart.

“Yes, my darling,” the woman spoke as she slipped through the clouds, a long flowing robe of pure golden light surrounding her.

“Mama!” Kurt cried, falling to his mother's feet, his eyes welling with tears of sorrow and joy. “Mama! I thought I would never see you again.”

“I have never left you, my love,” his mother, Elizabeth, said. She took Kurt by the arms and helped him to his feet. Kurt put his arms around his mother, not wanting to release her for fear that this she was only a vision, naught but a feverish dream.

“Am I…am I dead?” Kurt uttered.

“No, my love,” Elizabeth replied, drawing Kurt out of her arms to look into his pale face. “Not yet.”

Kurt swallowed hard, his heart broken at the certainty in his mother's voice.

“W-will I die?” he stuttered.

“That's up to you.” Kurt's mother smiled sympathetically. “Your body is not yet ready to die. But your mind and your heart have all but given up.”

Kurt sighed, looking down at the clouds surrounding his bare feet. Kurt's mother crooked a slender finger beneath his chin, lifting her son's face to meet her gaze.

“What's wrong, my love? Why are you so hesitant to return to your wonderful life?”

“I'm in love, mama,” Kurt confessed, weeping as though the revelation of his feelings was a sudden and unexpected surprise. “Thoroughly and completely in love.”

Elizabeth laughed at her son's exuberance.

“And why does that pain you? Do you believe that your husband does not reciprocate?”

Kurt raised a hand to wipe the moisture from his eyes.

“Marriage to me was not his first choice,” Kurt confessed shamefully. “He married me out of duty.”

“Has he ever told you he loved you, my darling?” his mother pressed.

“He did,” Kurt said, a small smile parting his lips. “As I lay dying, he did tell me. So many times I thought he might say it, but he didn't, and now…” Kurt shook his head. This was something he shouldn't question. His heart knew the truth, better than his head. But here in the presence of his mother, at the crossroads of deciding between staying and going, he felt so unsure.

Kurt's mother put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close.

“Kurt, my dear, men don't often know what they want until they finally get it...or lose it. Do not lose all that you have.”

“My husband,” Kurt said with a sigh – a blissful, dream-filled sigh.

“And?” his mother urged.

Kurt smiled.

“My daughter,” Kurt finished.

“Yes,” his mother cooed. “A beautiful little girl with her mother's strength, your determination, and who shares your husband's fierce love for you.”

Kurt's mother turned her son to look at her one last time.

“Dearest, I haven't long left with you. You must now decide. Return to your husband and your life, or come with me.”

Kurt's eyes filled with tears, both at the thought of leaving his husband and his mother.

“How do I decide?” Kurt asked. “It should be easy, yet I do not know what choice to make.”

“Try listening to the words his heart tells you,” Kurt's mother said, pointing past Kurt into the distance. With gentle hands on her son‘s shoulders, she turned him to face the light. A barrier in his vision parted and immediately Kurt stood in his room, beside his own bed, looking down into his own scarred face. Blaine sat in a chair by his side, gripping tightly to his hand as though he could hold Kurt's life in his grasp. With his other hand, Blaine stroked Kurt's hair. He let a finger trail down the length of one jagged scar. As he reached the winding wound's end, his hand began to tremble, and a tear broke free from his troubled, hazel eyes.

“I love you, Kurt,” Blaine admitted softly. “I should have told you sooner, I should have told you the second I knew. And I don't mean in the last few months…” Blaine kissed Kurt's hand again, needing to kiss him, needing Kurt to feel his lips on his skin. “Remember the time you first learned to ride a horse?” Blaine began, hoping that the story would spark something within Kurt's sleeping brain. “You must have been about eleven then. Do you remember, my love?”

Blaine looked hopefully into his husband's calm face. He did not move, did not turn to face him, did not open his eyes.

“You were utterly fearless, I remember,” Blaine continued. “My father's stable master put you on that Godforsaken beast of his, and the horrible creature bucked you off. You fell to the stones, skinning both knees. I thought you were going to cry, but you didn't. You reached for the stallion. You got back on the horse, and it threw you again. Eight times that foul beast tossed you that day.”

Another kiss to the fingers. Another silent non-response.

“I wanted to teach you, but it turned out that you didn't need anyone's help. You got on another horse the next day, and you taught yourself. You were so wonderfully independent. I wanted to put you atop my own stallion. His name was Talon. Do you remember him?” Blaine sighed at the memory. “But I remember thinking how wonderful you were, even then. I told Cooper I thought I could fall in love with you, but he laughed at me. He said I'd never be able to tame you. I never mentioned it to anyone ever again, not even you.” 

Kurt made no move, not even a sniff of recognition.

“But I loved you, Kurt,” Blaine said, straightening the wrinkles in the blanket covering Kurt's body, needing an occupation for his body or he would surely go mad. “I loved you then, and I never stopped. I never stopped.” Blaine his body long to cry again, and he cursed himself in his head. “So many times I wished I could stop loving you, because I thought I would never have you. But then I found a way, didn't I? And how did I treat you?”

Blaine bit his lip to stop his tongue, deciding not to drudge up that old shame.

“Please, wake up,” Blaine pleaded. “We'll start over, Kurt. A big beautiful wedding with everything you dreamed of. Flowers of every color, a suit imported from Paris, every person we know for miles around will attend. Anything you want, my love, I will give to you. Just…just wake up…”

Kurt was so still, and in this low light, it was hard to tell if he was breathing.

Blaine's head dropped, his hope ebbing away, his soul overcome with sorrow.

“You cannot leave me, Kurt,” he said defiantly, commanding though his voice shook. “You can't. I don't know what to do without you - with Beth, with everything. You make me feel alive, Kurt. You make this life I'm living sufferable. Being with you, Kurt…it's like a dream, and if you leave me, I'll have to wake up, and I can't. I can't…”

Kurt felt his throat choked with tears. There should never have been any question which decision he should make. There was only one place for Kurt now.

“Go to him,” Kurt's mother whispered behind him. “Go home to your husband.”

Tears streaked down Kurt's face.

And Blaine saw them.