Blaine tolerated the doctor fussing over him, but he refused the intolerable man's inane order of bed rest. Bed rest was the absolute last thing that Blaine needed. His place was here, by Kurt's side.

Blaine paced the interior of his bedchamber as the elderly doctor leaned over Kurt's lifeless-looking body, the shoe on the foot of his false limb thump thump thumping in a constant heavy cadence on the wood floor, causing the doctor to look up at the obdurate earl and frown. The doctor's wrinkled hands moved with a speed and care that impressed Blaine. It should have given him confidence. Still, the doctor's diagnosis was not coming quick enough for him, and Blaine took that to be a bad sign.         

Beth, her few scratches washed and bandaged but otherwise unchanged, curled her thin body onto a chair by the window and fell asleep. Blaine gazed down at the child. He envied her ability to sleep. He wished for himself the same peace that allowed her to rest during such a dire time. He knew her exhaustion was but a means of escape from the horrors she had witnessed that day. He would never forgive himself for this. Never. He had promised her protection, and here she nearly got killed. Once again, it was Kurt who saved the day. Kurt who came to her rescue. Blaine needed to find a way to make things right for her – make her feel safe once again.

Blaine might long for sleep, but he could not allow it...could not allow himself to give in to the self-pity that threatened to consume him.

After too many long minutes, the doctor turned to face him. Behind him, Kurt laid on the large four-poster bed...the same bed that he and Blaine had made love in together, sweat pearling on their skin as they took from each other again and again. Kurt was fierce and powerful like a summer storm; Blaine felt so secure in his arms. Now, he looked small, weak, his usually flushed and warm skin ashen and cold. His shallow breaths barely had strength enough to lift the blankets that covered his body. But worst of all were the scars - deep and heavy scarlet tracks that marred his usually unblemished porcelain skin.

The doctor looked into Blaine's hopeful face and shook his head.

“How is he?” Blaine persisted, needing to hear the words before he could believe.

“To tell you the truth, I don't know, Lord Anderson,” the doctor replied solemnly. “Luckily the dagger lodged into his shoulder and did not hit anything vital. He will lose some use of his arm because of it. I set the broken bones and stitched up the wounds.”

Blaine peered past the doctor to gaze upon the still countenance of his husband, trying to discern for himself if he drew breath. The doctor stepped in front of him, catching his gaze.

“He has lost a great deal of blood, my lord. Even the transfusion will not be enough to fully recover him.”

“Then what will?” Blaine asked through firmly set teeth to keep his body from shaking.

“We can set him up with another transfusion when we are certain the first one took, but it's up to him now,” the doctor replied, taking one last glance back at his patient. “If he has it in him to live, then he will. If he makes it through the night, then he should survive, but there is nothing more here that I can do.” 

Blaine's face twisted in anger, but not at the elderly doctor, or his husband. He was mad at himself for failing at this marriage, for not appreciating the time he had with Kurt, for not seeing Matthew for who he truly was, for being too absorbed in himself to see all the love that surrounded him.

“Then direct me to someone who can do more.” Blaine spoke plainly so as not to reveal his growing anxiety.

The doctor sighed. He looked around, then pointed past Blaine to the far side of the room.

“Maybe he can be of some assistance, my lord,” the doctor said.

Blaine turned quickly, hoping to stare into the face of some savior - some other doctor of greater faculty - but he saw only an oval looking glass...and his own reflection. His face flushed red.

“What the...”

The doctor's hand on Blaine's shoulder stayed his anger. 

“Talk to him, my lord,” the doctor said. “If you want him back, tell him so.”

With a gentle pat, the stooped old physician picked up his medical bag, walked past Blaine and out of the bedchamber, leaving Blaine alone with his sleeping daughter and his unconscious husband.

For several minutes after the doctor left the room, Blaine stood in the same spot, seething at his own reflection in the mirror. It was such a joke that he might be able to help. What could he do? His father was right – he was useless. He couldn't handle life – not when things went bad, not when it really mattered. He wasn't meant to be earl. That was meant to be his brother's mantle – always had been.

Cooper should be at the manor, with Quinn as his wife, enjoying his beautiful daughter.

Blaine should have died in that fire – not Cooper.

Blaine had accepted years ago that his leg was done, gone, and that he would bear the pain of the loss of it for the rest of his life.

But for all of his physical weakness, for the agony that he felt and the things he could not do, he had never once before felt infirm until that day.

Until he looked into the terrified eyes of his husband and child and knew he could do nothing to save them.

Kurt had told him that losing a leg did not make him any less of a man, but he was wrong.

A man protects his family, and when the time came for him to do that, Blaine was helpless.

His husband could have died on that hillside, and Blaine couldn't lift a finger to save him.

Blaine found a chair and pulled it up to Kurt's bedside. He sat bowed, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, fidgeting in his seat, letting the mixture of pain, helplessness, and foolishness all settle uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach. He took Kurt's hand in his, and he stilled. The anguish and the shame slipped away at the touch of Kurt's fingers, as if his husband's unconscious body had given him absolution for all of his sins. Blaine lightly traced his finger over the splint that bound the last two of Kurt's fingers. He felt the slips of wood holding Kurt's fingers together and something within him broke. Bringing a hand to his forehead, he felt his entire body tremble...and he began to weep.

Tears fell from his eyes – unwanted and unbidden – rolling down his cheeks and wetting Kurt's hand. He couldn't stop them, couldn't control them. Sorrow wrung the tears from his body until he could hardly breathe. Blaine didn't have the luxury of a breakdown. Beth could wake any minute, and she would need him to be strong.

Besides, crying like this felt like giving up, and he couldn't do that. He had to believe, for himself as well as his daughter, that there was some way for Kurt to pull through.

Talk to him, the doctor had said. If you want him back, tell him so.

Blaine tried, but he couldn't find his voice for a long time.

The sun moved across the sky, filtering in through the bedchamber window, changing Blaine's view. Shadows lengthened, the light turned gold, then pink, and soon began to fade – and it angered Blaine. How dare the world continue on? How dare the sun set and rise when his reason for living was so close to death?

Marley came in around dinner time to collect Beth, who could barely keep her eyes open. The girl whimpered and moaned to be left with her papa, but Marley convinced her that a bath and a bowl of broth in her tummy would make Kurt feel better.

It was a brilliant lie, Blaine thought, and well played, since Beth didn't seem to notice the tears in Marley's voice that expressed the truth – Kurt might not have much time left. But if he were awake, he would command Marley to get Beth bathed, fed, and into bed, so that's what Marley did.

For her master.

Marley shut the door behind her and Blaine was finally alone with his husband.

“Kurt?” Blaine said. The name wouldn't come out all at once. It stuttered and wavered, and was swallowed by grief. “Kurt?” Blaine said louder. He had so many things to say and not much time to say them. He had to make sure Kurt would hear him.

“Oh, my love,” he said, raising Kurt's hand to his mouth and kissing his knuckles, making sure to avoid the swollen ones. “I am sorry. I am so sorry about all of this. I should have done more to protect you. I should have…I should have found a way.” Blaine stopped…and he waited. He hoped that Kurt would open his eyes and tell him it was okay, that he was forgiven, but it wasn't enough. Blaine sniffed and brought Kurt's hand to his face, caressing it against his cheek. Blaine winced. Kurt's skin felt impossibly cold. Blaine had never felt such a cold. It pierced the skin. A human hand should not feel so cold.

“Sebastian knew something was wrong when my stallion returned to the stable without me,” Blaine explained, deciding to start with idle conversation while he gathered his thoughts. “I had summoned Jonas the night before, and he had just arrived when the horse came back. Then they heard a gunshot and came looking for us.” Blaine cleared his throat. “It's a…it's a good thing they did or else…”

Kurt did not stir and Blaine sighed.

“It was true…” Blaine said, deciding to indulge a moment to remove his own burdens, “what Matthew said about my father cheating on my mother, about taking up with his mother and locking them up in that estate – the one that was vandalized, the one I wished to sell. I talked to my steward, and…it was true. My father had been unfaithful – to all of us - for years. Living with two families…having two sons he did not approve of, apparently…”

Another pause, another moment to see if Kurt would return met with silence.

“I talked to John…my steward…about the whole sordid affair, and asked him how come he did not tell us. He said he was sworn to secrecy by my father and signed a contract promising his confidence, even after my father's death. He did not think things would go this far.”

Blaine swallowed, his eyes moving from Kurt's fingers, up his arms, to his eyes – peaceful and calm and unmoving behind his eyelids…because Kurt wasn't dreaming. Blaine's arms shook. He could feel the time slipping around him.

“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…”

Blaine's words dissolved into sobs. He buried his face against Kurt's stomach.

The sun outside set and night took over, but without a sliver of moon. The room was dark. Everyone who passed the bedchamber walked silently, and the servants, immersed in their own wells of despair, prepared to take out the black curtains for the mirrors and windows.

Marley, instead of Kurt or Blaine, read to Beth for the first time.

Everyone prepared for bed, and the whole house held its breath.

Blaine, resting his head on Kurt's body, listened to the thready heartbeat in his husband's chest until the faint whisper of noise put him to sleep.

If any night had ever felt like it lasted for an eternity, it was this one, while Anderson Manor and everyone in her waited for what the morning would bring.

Blaine awoke several times during the night. He woke to the sound of a dog howling outside. He woke when he felt a hand on his shoulder, but when he opened his eyes, no one was there. He woke to nightmares about fire and knives and blood – so much blood, and not a drop of it his own. He woke to a nightmare of standing in the rain, holding his daughter's hand, watching the servants lower his husband's body into the ground.

He woke when he heard little Beth scream for her papa, and Marley's voice singing to her that lullaby of Kurt's – the one in French that his mother sang to him.

Coming on to colder seasons, the sun rose late the following morning, and it was still dark when the world outside Blaine's window began to wake.

It was quiet in the dark, but Blaine was not alone.

Kurt's breath stuttered, and tears streaked down his face. 

Blaine awoke when his head bounced up with the movement of Kurt's chest.

“Kurt?” Blaine whispered, standing and hovering over his husband's face. “Kurt? Are you…”

Kurt's eyelids fluttered open. Unfocused blue eyes fell on Blaine's face, tracing over the deep lines of worry, the bruises and the scars. Kurt tried to smile for his husband, but something, maybe laudanum, made his face feel heavy.

“Kurt?” Blaine asked again.

Kurt moved his lips. He tried to speak, but his whole body felt pressed upon by a great weight.

“It's okay,” Blaine said, taking Kurt's hand and kissing it tenderly. “How do you feel?”

Kurt frowned and Blaine laughed.

“Everything is alright now, my love,” Blaine said. “You're going to be alright.”

Kurt nodded. He tugged on Blaine's hand, summoning him closer. Blaine leaned over Kurt's face, pecking barely there kisses on Kurt's swollen jaw. Kurt's lips moved, with nothing but a breathy sound coming out.

“What is it, my love?” Blaine asked, leaning in closer, putting his ear almost directly on to Kurt's lips to capture the sound.

Kurt's words were few, but they were the only words that Blaine needed to hear.

“I…love…you…”

“I love you, too,” Blaine said, resting his cheek against Kurt's as a hundred emotions fought within him – relief, fear, shame, joy, so many needing to be felt and expressed that it nearly broke Blaine apart. “Stay with me, Kurt,” Blaine whispered. “Do not leave me here alone.”

Kurt shook his head, managing a weak smile. His uninjured hand he brought up and rested on Blaine's shoulder in the same way the phantom hand had touched him in the middle of the night, and whispered to Blaine a single word.

“Never.”