Chapter 17:

The sound of gurney wheels clacking across polished linoleum floors and the overpowering smell of antiseptic invaded Kurt's every waking moment. He was lost in a sea of white tiles and starched uniforms and florescent strip lighting and he felt like he was drowning.

It had been thirteen hours since he'd left the Anderson mansion. He'd been hurried out under the cover of darkness in an unassuming taxi and taken immediately to his father's bedside at the Bryce Howard medical centre at Lord Anderson's request and now he sat, staring absently at the wavering heart monitor.

He hugged his thin grey jumper more tightly around him, yanking it over his fists and huddling down further into the material in an attempt to warm his frozen bones. It felt odd being back in his own clothes. He'd found a small holdall waiting for him in the back of the taxi when he'd scrambled inside, his eagerness to get to his father almost making him miss the unassuming black bag at his feet. Someone had been to his house and collected an assortment of things from his wardrobe. With shaking fingers he'd dragged the first jumper he found over his head, covering his black tank top before yanking off the lace up boots of his uniform and sinking his feet into the comfort of his own soft leather shoes. He'd been so desperate to rid himself of the uniform and transform back into the safety and familiarity of home that he didn't think to question the fact that a stranger had been in his house and riffling through his possessions.

It was only later, in the quiet of the private room, after a string of doctors had patiently explained Burt Hummel's condition and after he'd tearfully thrown himself in the arms of his sleeping father, Kurt finally thought about what had just happened to him.

He was free.

Blaine was everywhere in this hospital. He was there in the pristine corridors and the high tech. machinery. He was there in the constant visits from the specialists and their unwavering patience with Kurt's questions. He was there in the private room on the quiet ward and the achingly beautiful view of the mountains that rose in imposing peaks outside the polished glass window. He was so obviously present in all of the money that the hospital exuded, Kurt still expected to find him standing behind him every time he turned around.

He was free.

He let his eyes flick again to his father's still sleeping form. The doctors had tirelessly explained what had happened to him; how he'd been brought in a few weeks ago with shortness of breath and chest pains and then suffered a major heart attack two days later but the words were jumbled and fragmented as Kurt listened and he'd heard little except the words ‘extremely weakened' and ‘making him comfortable' and ‘not much we can do medically.'

He'd cried uncontrollably against the so solid and familiar form of his father; the bulk of him still there and yet the safety he'd always felt in his father's arms, somehow utterly absent. He'd not woken up yet; the morphine keeping him sedated and at rest and Kurt couldn't bring himself to drag his eyes away from the pale and bloodless lips and the withered looking skin of his father's usually so ruddy and strong face. Gripping the hand he'd not let go of since he'd arrived at the bedside, Kurt prayed for forgiveness from a god he didn't believe in. 

He was free.

The words felt strange in his head; they rolled around clumsily, devoid of meaning, and at times he found himself whispering them aloud into the empty walls of the room, just to see if they tasted any more real when spoken. They didn't. He should have felt elated; he'd been released, had been freed from the degrading position of sub and returned to a world he belonged to; a world where Kurt Hummel was, if not a good person, at least a better one.

But he didn't. He felt empty. He felt marooned and displaced in a world where he didn't recognise anything and where he didn't know where he fit and where a part of him, a part that was stronger than he'd ever wanted to admit, longed for silken sheets and soft sighs and ivory piano keys.

He was free.

The hand beneath his twitched slightly and he jumped a little, alarmed at the sudden intrusion of his wandering thoughts. A raspy groan was whispered from the body on the bed and Kurt's head whipped up at the sound, his eyes trained on his father's now fluttering eyelids.  He was stirring. His head rolled to the side and his fingers gripped a little tighter around Kurt's pale and cold ones.

"Dad...?"

Burt Hummel's eyes drifted open and he coughed a little, wincing at the obvious pain the motion caused to his chest. A strangled wheeze erupted from his throat and he coughed again.

"Dad...It's me....Kurt." His voice was broken and hesitant, his stomach somersaulting in a sudden wave of nausea. Burt shifted a little to focus his watery blue eyes on Kurt's and a dawning clarity began to light in them. He blinked. "Kurt?"

"Don't talk dad. I...I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. Just..just hold my hand ok."

Slipping a little between muzzy consciousness and sleep, Burt tried to smile, warmth covering his face as he attempted to acknowledge his son's presence. He frowned in confusion, like Alice slipping between reality and fantasy down the rabbit hole and Kurt squeezed again, trying to bring his father back into the present with sense alone. "Dad. I'm right here." He whispered again but firmer this time, more eager to get a proper response. It had been so long since he'd seen his father. Kurt ached for him.

"You're here." Was all his father said before closing his eyes again and slipping back into the morphine.

****

He was more lucid later, after the effects of the drugs had worn off slightly and the sun had started to climb over the mountains casting shafts of bleached light across the bedcovers. His eyes opened gradually and his gaze swept more clearly over his son's features. Kurt shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny. Burt's voice was clearer this time too, coming more solidly from the depths of his chest from his propped up position supported by the additional pillows Kurt had fussed around him. He held Kurt's gaze steadily until his son's pale and slightly watery eyes turned away.

"Kurt, where have you been?" He was used to his father's forthright and blunt mannerisms and actually allowed himself a small smile at the familiarity before his stomach dropped at the reality of having to explain to his father what had happened. He looked away and swallowed heavily. Burt said nothing, just watched his son with a slight frown drawn across his pale features.

"I came to find you. That night." His words were met with an even more tightly knotted brow and Kurt struggled to clarify. "You went to look at the new shop. You were heading home in the blizzard and....well I guess you broke down or something." He looked up for some hint of recognition and saw that Burt's eyes had softened with some level of understanding.

"There was a house."

"Yeah. I...I came looking for you and you were missing and, you know, I was just so worried about you Dad. Your heart.... " Burt stroked his fingers across his son's knuckles as his voice quivered slightly. Kurt closed his eyes slightly unsure how to continue.

"I remember it. The house. I wanted to use their phone. Wanted to call you but.....he...they...wouldn't.." His breath was coming in stuttered gasps again as Burt tried to recall the events after stumbling upon the Anderson Mansion. Kurt reached for a glass of water and handed it to his father, not wanting to push him but needing to know the story. Needing to know what had led them to here. To this point.

"What happened?" he pressed gently.

"It was that stupid damn rose. I..I..it just reminded me of you and I kept thinking that if I could take back one thing good and pure that this whole stupid trip wouldn't have been a complete disappointment. Just one stupid rose. I thought...I just wanted to show you that there are still things that are beautiful." His head had turned to stare out of the window, the shadowy mountains brooding over them. "They locked me up." Steeliness came into his voice and his eyes remained averted. "Just wanted to use the goddamn phone and they......" His body was suddenly wracked with coughs and he doubled over, clutching at his chest as Kurt leapt to his feet looking panicked.

"Dad. Stop!" his hands clutched at his father's shoulder through the thin material of the hospital gown and he stroke rhythmic circles against his back attempting to sooth the sudden attack. Burt settled eventually but his eyes remained closed as he struggled with laboured breaths. "Dad, please, you're sick, you need to rest. Stop now...stop." Tears stung Kurt's eyes as he eased his father back against the pillows and then sat back himself in the chair.

"Where were you?" Burt whispered again, the words all he could manage before he sank into the cushions.

Kurt steadied himself, taking another long breath and once again swallowing down the rising bile in his throat. "I came looking for you and....I guess.....Blaine found me."

"Blaine?"

"Lord Anderson. He's the Lord of the house. You didn't meet him?"

"Guards. All I met were guards and an older man. Maybe that was the Lord? Asshole. Carted me off and locked me up without a word." Burt's fist clenched again.

"Sounds like Seth. Blaine's advisor" Kurt clarified at Burt's puzzled expression.

"He an asshole?"

"Yeah fits the description."

They fell silent again, both not sure how to continue. Burt suddenly cleared his throat again. "Kurt. They told me you signed some kind of contract..."

The boy's eyes closed again and the tears that had threatened spilled over his cheeks. Burt studied his son. "Kurt?"

"I had no choice!" Kurt blurted out, voice cracked and broken. "They had you locked up and you were sick. What was I supposed to do? He wouldn't let me see you and he...he....told me that if I just signed to work for him..then...then they'd let you go and I...I..." he was sobbing openly now, fear of his father's reaction to what he'd done and fear for the unstable condition of his heart and his own self-disgust tumbled from his mouth in a stream of explanations that made sense but at the same time sounded so shallow in the pristine hospital room. "I had no choice Dad." He whispered eventually, his head hung low.

"What did he make you sign Kurt?" the words were bitter and hard edged.

"I worked for him. I...I just worked for the.....Lor.... Blaine."

"What work?

"I...um....I had to go to functions and things with him. You know, just play piano and stuff. That's all......." his eyes didn't meet his fathers. Burt's expression was pained as he took his son's hand again. His voice quivered as he spoke but not through pain this time.

"Kurt...please...It's my fault. I'm..I'm so sorry Kurt." He had tears in his eyes and Kurt looked up startled at seeing his father so vulnerable. Burt Hummel hadn't cried in front of his son since the funeral and Kurt had never seen him look so utterly small and frail.

"No Dad. I ..It wasn't your fault. They locked you up and I ...I just...they promised you'd be safe and Blaine said he'd look after you and get you medical help and I ....It wasn't your fault." Kurt's eyes were harried and frightened. "It wasn't your fault dad."

Burt turned away again, unable to meet his son's desperate eyes. "Kurt...I know. I know what they do to boys like you. I know....".

"It's ok Dad. It's ok. I ...I ." he stopped, searching for the words that would make this better, that would reassure but he knew they wouldn't make sense to his father. Burt's eyes were already starting to close again and his chest wheezed with the strain of their conversation. He squeezed the cold hand beneath his fingers and took a steadying breath. "It doesn't matter now." He whispered to Burt's half-lidded gaze. "I don't work there anymore Dad."

His father's voice was almost inaudible in its breathy question, the beep of the monitors drowning out the laboured cough that followed. "did...did you escape?"

Kurt watched his father's eyes properly close then, flickering still with the effort to cling on to consciousness but surrendering to the ease of the darkness and quiet of the room. He didn't know if he could even still hear him, but Kurt leant forward and brushed his lips along his father's clammy forehead, lingering there for a moment to savour the familiar smell of home. When he spoke the next words he wasn't sure if they were for himself or the man beneath him.

"He let me go."

Wheels clacked past once again in the corridor outside. A clock ticked blank and busy. Moonlight slid across snowy peaks like sinewy arms engulfing the landscape.

Yes, he was free.

But he wasn't sure he wanted to be.

****

Seth Schoen was an observer; it was what he did. It was what he was good at. Seth was well practised in all methods of quiet voyeurism.

He'd been watching Blaine Anderson for years; since birth, the young master had been catalogued, charted, filed and organised in the Advisor's head, each new discovery about the emerging young personality, directed and forged down well constructed and carefully established paths until, aged fourteen, Blaine Anderson was exactly the right fit for Seth's purpose. He'd eased up on the watching over the last few years; the early socialisation and psychological damage was well cemented by young adulthood. Life had been taken up by more pressing matters in the latter years; when there were companies to ruin and people to be erased, the small minutiae of a teenage boy's development was low on the list of things to observe. Blaine had been an amusing subject for study, a passing interest, an experiment of sorts. Blaine had never been anything Seth Schoen spent much time worrying about.

The Advisor spent hours observing him now.

In the three days since the sub had left, Seth had watched Blaine Anderson and felt like he was observing a stranger. There was so little of his former protégée left in the pale skin and haunted eyes that locked themselves away in amongst the stacks in the library, or sat gazing listlessly into the amber liquid cradled in the crystal cut glass in his hands. Dark circles etched nigh time stories beneath his eyes like bruises and he suddenly seemed small and transitory; blurred around the edges and indistinct. This Blaine had deviated so dramatically from the path Seth had set him on and for a short while the change had unsettled him. The Sub had unsettled him. But the sub was gone now. As had the former Lord. And suddenly change wasn't such an unnerving prospect. Seth was nothing if not adaptable and resourceful.

Seth Schoen watched him stamp documents and make phone calls and process numbers and graphs of profits, watched him file and make decisions and direct orders. He watched Blaine Anderson do all that was required of him diligently and methodically and professionally. But he watched a shell. He'd thought Blaine had always been a shell but one that was cold and calculating and without feeling; characteristics he admired and encouraged. This Blaine was still a shell but he was fragile and hunted....

......and breakable.

So Seth watched and waited and noted everything. He was an observer after all.

*****

At 4.27am Burt Hummel went into cardiac arrest.

Kurt's world exploded into a cacophony of defibrillators and shouting doctors, the hiss and suck of air in too tight lungs and clattering resuscitation carts. For four minutes the narrow hospital room was suffocating with noise, chaos bouncing around the reflective white walls.....but all Kurt could hear was the deafening silence of the heart monitor and the constant levelled line on the screen.

 When reality finally poured back in, Kurt found himself huddled in the corner of an empty room. He stared listlessly at the space in front of him; the void where a bed had previously stood gapped openly.  On the wall the ticking of a clock counted out time.

A numbness crept over his heart and insinuated itself in his brain.

He was free.

***

At 4.28am, Blaine Anderson watched the whiskey tumbler drop from his fingers, the glass shattering into a sea of diamonds trailing across the marble of the office floor. His hand shook as he knelt amongst the ruins and ineffectually tried to draw them back together. Soundlessly he watched a shard bite his finger and a well of blood pooled against the calloused flesh. Transfixed, he brought the digit to his lips and sucked hard, relishing the metallic taste on his tongue and feeling something for the first time in days.

His eyes refocused at the taste and in doing so, caught a glimpse of something attached to the underside of the desk. He ran his fingers along the runnels in the dark mahogany before feeling around a slight catch in the veneer, barely visible but slightly discoloured and rougher than the rest of the wood. Feeling around the raised circular disk, Blaine pushed against it experimentally. There was an almost imperceptible click before a panel, previously concealed in the underside of the desk, slid out smoothly.

It was a draw; thick enough only for the slender yellow document it held. It was a simple cardboard file, thin and unmarked. Blaine's slightly woozy head reeled. His fingers reached out to cautiously lift the flap of card, the document seemingly unassuming and yet clearly important enough to conceal in a hidden draw.

Sliding down against the wall behind the desk, the young Lord took the file into his lap. Marooned in a sea of glass, Blaine began to read.

*****

At 5.12 am Kurt finally hauled himself from the ashes of his father's hospital room. The light had risen slightly over the mountains and dawn had drenched the room with an icy whiteness that clawed its way into his skin, resting there, prickling beneath the surface. Behind him, he dragged a small holdall; a pair of navy coveralls were slung over his shoulder, the material brushing against the bone-pale flesh of his cheek with the movement. A nurse stopped him on the way out, her fingers gripping his limp wrist. His eyes fell to her hand and she dropped his immediately, stepping away slightly.

"Mr Hummel, Where can we reach you after the autopsy?" Her voice was tender, slight and quiet in the early morning calm of the hospital lobby. She filled the gaps with muttered apologise, as empty and meaningless as her sympathetic touch. Kurt's eyes raked over her pleasant face, her prettily made up mouth twisted into a sensitive smile. He stared impassively and watched her squirm slightly in discomfort. He didn't answer.

"Mr Hummel?"

Ignoring the questioning, tiny voice that became distant the minute he moved away, Kurt walked soundlessly out of the hospital. He stood on the front steps, ambulances and cars jostling before him in the steady rhythm of the morning routine. The sun had slipped higher, blinding him momentarily and forcing him to shield his eyes. Snow glistened in the trees and he could make out the vaguely muted sounds of life existing; carrying on.

For a moment he seemed to stop, paused without purpose. His eyes swivelled slowly from right to left; from peak to identical peak. No direction. No past. No hope, he thought listlessly. A blonde ponytail and startling blue eyes saturated his vision quickly before he blinked and she was gone again.

They take all of you. You'll never be free of that.

The sudden urge to laugh bubbled inside him at the truth of her words. Dark curls brushed against his memory.

Holding his bag a little higher and lifting his arm to hail a taxi, Kurt allowed the sun to sooth his face. Sliding against the plush black leather, Kurt instructed the driver to his destination, voice smooth and level. There was really no place else to go.