Chapter 17:

 Everything had erupted into chaos and noise and Blaine stumbled from the room as Kurt's family and doctors flooded in. Burt was shouting at the nursing staff demanding explanations as to what had happened while the brunette woman was sobbing a mantra over and over of "We didn't say goodbye. We didn't say goodbye." Screeching over the top of it all, the monitor continued to beep its shrill discordant scream.

 Blaine held his hands over his ears trying to block out all of it.

 Standing outside, staring through the window, he watched the confused panic unfold around Kurt's bed. Stillness and silence had been replaced with movement and noise and none of it made sense.

 Kurt was gone. Kurt was gone. Kurt was gone.

 The words echoed resoundingly in his head, gasping out their hideous chant as he desperately tried to piece together reality. The other voices didn't penetrate; he wouldn't allow them access. None of it mattered anymore. The doctor's harried explanations, the pained expression on Burt's face, and the screaming mechanical leviathan in the corner. All of that could be removed if he just closed his eyes and covered his ears. If he just blocked out the real world.

 And then it stopped.

   For the tiniest of moment's Blaine actually thought he had succeeded in removing himself, thought he had managed to block the tragedy playing out before him. Silence descended like a gray cloud so suddenly that everyone simply paused; stood frozen in their tableau.

 Then the monitor beeped again.

 A single solitary beep rocked them all back on their axis, throwing the world off kilter for a moment before settling it all back in place with another beep. The regular, achingly beautiful sound sang out like Morse code. Blaine's hands fell from his ears and he stood dumb, swaying slightly on his unsteady legs as he fixed his eyes on the inert body on the bed.

 No one spoke. No one moved. ‘The unreality of reality'; each member of the room tried to hold on to reason and sense but succumbed instead to the surge of hope. The light danced across Kurt's body from the slash in the shuttered blinds and Blaine followed its path along the slender arms, caressing the skin, running patterns along his abdomen to his chest.

 His chest that was slowly rising under the white starched linen. Filling with air, unaided. Expanding shakily before sinking back into the sheets only to repeat the process. Again and again and again.

 It was like Blaine was hypnotised, transfixed by the rhythmic motion of breath while all around him people moved and reacted. He could hear Burt's stuttered questions to the doctor although they sat somewhere distant in his mind, as if he were under water and could only make out fragments of reality. He was vaguely aware of the young girl's garbled pleas for answers and the taller man grabbing hold of Kurt's arm and looking from Doctor to Burt to the body repeatedly.

 But he stood separate. Marooned but reaching out for the raft he could see floating just out of his reach.

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Consciousness finally kicked in fifteen minutes later when the harsh reality of the plastic chair beneath him surged back into focus and the powerful smell of coffee invaded his senses. He stared down at the polystyrene cup filled with watery liquid that Burt had thrust into his hand and then looked up foggily into the wide eyes.

 "Drink this. It will help."

 Blaine couldn't actually form words, just returned the gesture with a small nod of appreciation. Burt sat beside him in the ICU waiting area and lent back against the wall in complete exhaustion. Blaine couldn't see the rest of the Hummel clan but figured they must still be somewhere nearby. Right now he couldn't seem to gather enough energy to care.

 "They're still running tests." Burt said gruffly. "They can't seem to give me a damn explanation for any of this." He sounded irritated, frustrated and Blaine could only stare absently down into his coffee. He took a sip, trying to still his pounding head and throbbing veins.

 "What the hell happened in there kid?" Burt's voice was solid and firm. Blaine didn't know if he had any answers, certainly not ones he could explain to the confused man in front of him, but he looked up carefully and tried to focus.

 "I was talking to him. I was asking him why he'd given up." Blaine shrugged uncomfortably under Burt's silent scrutiny. "I was mad at him for not fighting and for leaving me alone." He knew that Burt was trying to work him out, watching him intently for clues as to his and Kurt's relationship but failing to reach any solid conclusions.

 "How long did you say you'd known my son Blaine?"

 The question was so much more loaded than the older man realised and Blaine let the words hang in the air. Eventually he sighed, eyes trained on the white floor tile beneath his trainers realising that the answer was actually very simple.

 "Long enough"

 Burt removed his cap again and ran his palm over his bald head in a gesture that Blaine now recognised as indicative of the man's discomfort. "They say he's breathing on his own again. They've...They've taken out that damn tube and he's actually breathing....on his own. His heart's beating and his lungs are breathing. He died...again...but, but..."

 Blaine's eyes shot up to look at the other man, needing to see his face in order to believe the words he was hearing. Needing to see the lips move. "W..What does that mean?" he asked, nervous of the answer but his voice hitching with the uncontrollable hope that surged into his heart.

 "He came back Blaine." He said simply, turning his head to look at the small man beside him. "Whatever you said...It brought him back."

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"I don't know if I believe it. They....they say you're back Kurt but, you seem less real to me now than you ever were."

 Kurt's blood throbbed beneath Blaine's hand as he maintained his solid grip around the warm flesh of the motionless arm. He could feel the pulse pounding along with each beat of the heart monitor like a strange sort of drum and bass track and it soothed him. His eyes wondered over the figure before him for the hundredth time, as if trying to assure himself that he was still here, still corporal, still living. The flesh had become warmer in colour over the last three days, although still maintained its delicate marble veneer. His hair had been recently washed, Blaine supposed by Carol, as it lay soft and silky against the pillow that supported his slightly propped up head, feathery strands curling slightly beside his ears indicating the prolonged time spent in the hospital.

 Three days since his heart stopped and started again. Three days since he began to breathe unaided. Three days since the doctors had declared there was some brain activity registering.

 Three days and Kurt still hadn't opened his eyes.

 It was enough time for Blaine to have become well acquainted with the other members of Kurt's family though. He'd spent several bedside vigils in hushed conversations with Rachel, Kurt's soon to be sister-in-law, talking about schoolboy Kurt and Glee heydays while Finn, the step-brother, stood by smiling proudly at his fiancé and the memories of the three of them, before looking with obvious concern at the man in the bed. 

 Whilst the younger woman had been unwilling to mention anything health related, Carol, his step-mother had assiduously been checking Kurt's charts and daily recordings with her nurses head very firmly screwed on and taking it upon herself to ensure that Kurt's beauty routine was upheld so that he didn't "die of shock at his reflection the minute he wakes up!"

 They'd spent so many hours sat in the uncomfortable little chairs in the cage of a hospital room that Blaine supposed they were all going a little mad. Every so often he would need air and escape to the enclosed garden in the central courtyard again; the space now genuinely offering him comfort, as a place where Kurt was last truly real to him. His Kurt. But now he was back in the chair, recently vacated by Burt who had said he was going home for something to eat with Carol before returning in an hour. They'd maintained this little routine, the bedside chair rota well over the last few days. Each member of the cast getting time on and off stage to rest before entering once again with a flourish to ‘entertain' Kurt while he slept on, the unreceptive audience.

 Blaine gripped again at the wrist in his hand, sliding his thumb pad underneath to stroke along the waving line of the other man's artery, liking the flutter he could feel against his skin and pressing a little harder.

 "I don't really know what to say to you when you're like this Kurt. I don't recognise this version of you. You were always so....I don't know...loud I guess? Maybe not loud as such but...so.. present. You were always present Kurt"

 They'd been told to keep talking to him, that it would help bring him back, but Blaine felt so distant from this body that looked like Kurt and had echoes of him but none of the heart Blaine really knew. None of the man Blaine really loved. He rubbed his free hand over his face, exhausted with all of this suddenly.

 "I know it was only a short time but, Kurt, I feel it. I feel you. Everywhere. When I go back to the flat now, you're there. I see the mist on the mirror after the shower and I feel you there. Our bed Kurt. All of it. You're there because it was yours first. I don't know. Maybe that's why I felt so at home there instantly. Maybe it wasn't the furniture or the space. Maybe it was you. I think maybe you make me feel like I'm home."

 His eyes flicked up to Kurt's face before he inched closer, resting his head against the other man's stomach, allowing it to breath it's rise and fall into his skin.

 "You have to open your eyes. Why don't you open your eyes? Are you scared Kurt? I asked you that before, I know I did and you said no. You told me you weren't scared of death and I think I believe you. I don't think you're scared of death at all. I think you're scared of this. Of me and this and what I said and what we could be and God.... maybe you're right to be. I'm scared....But....It's a good scared Kurt! It's a really good feeling."

 He pulled at the hand still clutched in his and placed it against his own chest, pressed between their bodies.

 "This! This is a really good feeling Kurt! And you're missing it! You're missing it!"

 Sounds and throbs of monitors and pulses and heartbeats jumped together with Blaine's desperate pleas as he clutched the unresponsive hand to his chest. He hadn't noticed the frustrated tears that once again streaked across his cheeks, soaking through the thin hospital gown.

 The strangled mix of beeps and thumps and bodies pressed together almost meant the tiny flutter of movement from the pale, stiff fingers went unnoticed by Blaine.

 Almost.

 Muscles suddenly shifted underneath his own warm hand and something twitched against his heart again.

 Blaine shot backwards into the chair, head alert and searching the face of the man before him.

 "Kurt? Kurt? Can you hear me? Kurt is that you?" he frantically looked around him for the pull cord to alert the nurse but couldn't drag his eyes away from the tiny imperceptible movements of Kurt's cheeks and eyelashes.

 "Nurse! Nurse!" he screamed out, eyes never leaving the figure who was now slowly starting to twitch and stretch his fingers more noticeably. A dry, wispy, cough struggled out of the cracked lips and Blaine watched transfixed as Kurt's eyelids began to gently open. He grabbed the hand again, clung to the fingers of the man he loved, desperate, silently pleading him to look his way. The achingly beautiful blue eyes made Blaine's heart clench against his ribs, when they finally turned towards him, fixing him with their slightly glazed expression before coming into clearer focus.

 "Kurt? Can you hear me? Kurt my god, You're awake. Nurse! Nurse! Kurt are you ok? Can you speak Kurt? Do you remember what happened?"

 Kurt, closed his eyes slowly again before reopening them in an attempt to refocus and fixed them on the anxious face in front of him. He looked at him slightly puzzled, head fogged and cloudy, before coughing again as he tried to speak. The voice that finally came out was a tiny whisper of breath, wheezy but still audible in the waiting air.

 "Who are you?"