Kurt now dreaded waking up every morning.
Every night, after he'd fretted and worried and cried himself to sleep, he'd dream of Blaine. Blaine, leaning in to kiss him. Blaine, laughing with that funny nose wrinkle of his. Blaine, running down the beach toward him. Blaine, in their tiny kitchen, practicing his omelette flipping. Blaine, happy, alive and whole.
Of course, there were the nightmares. Blaine, lost at sea, swimming swimming swimming towards a shore that never appeared, sinking exhausted beneath the waves. Blaine, still strapped in his seat, screaming in agony as the flames consumed the plane around him. Blaine, captured and tortured. Blaine, dead.
The nightmares were easier to deal with, actually. He woke from them quickly, screaming, and would hear Rachel's feet sprinting down the hall from “Blaine's room” toward him. She would help him, bring him a drink – most often water, but sometimes whiskey – and would sit with him, talking uncharacterisitically quietly about silly little nonsense things until he fell asleep again.
No, it was harder to wake from the good dreams.
Waking from a happy dream, certain that he'd reach out and feel Blaine next to him in their bed, tousled and sleepy-eyed and smiling.
Feeling a cold pillow, Kurt would remember – Blaine's shipped out. But it's okay. He's safe ---
Then to come fully awake and be struck in the face with the chilling realization. No, he wasn't safe. No one knew where Blaine was, if he was alive or d ------ or injured.
*******
Kurt closed the shop. Rachel phoned his clients to inform them there would be a delay in getting their garmets. He didn't know what she'd told them, but not a single one complained. Mrs. Horowitz had even sent him a bouquet of flowers.
“Those are lovely,” he said automatically. “
*********
Cooper phoned three times a day with updates from his parents – always the same. “No news.”
Kurt would numbly place the phone's receiver back in the cradle and dully turn to walk slowly back to sit primly on the couch. Primly crossing his legs, leaning his elbow on the arm, he'd press the backs of his fingertips under his chin – holding it steady – and return to blindly staring out the window.
Brittle, thinks Rachel. He looks brittle. And she doesn't know when and she doesn't know what, but she prays that someone is there for him when he shatters.

A letter arrives for Kurt – addressed to K. Hummel, in strange handwriting.
Rachel brings it to him at the lunch table. She sees the first spark of interest flash through his eyes as he reads the return address.
“It's from – ,” Kurt has to clear his throat. “It's from Charlie. That's Blaine's bombardier. Oh my god, Rachel, someone survived.”
His hands are shaking so badly he can't open the envelope. Rachel takes it from him, slicing the thin paper with a knife.
Dear K,
I'm writing you this letter because Blainey made me promise one night that I'd send a letter to this address if anything ever happened to him.
Blaine's a swell captain – a swell guy. He always had a smile on his face. He always made us feel like we could come to him with anything – he was always there for his crew. He always put us first, and made sure that we got what we'd earned and that we were taken care of. Not just his flight crew, either – the ground crew for our plane adore him – and the other crews, too. And pretty much the entire base – he just has this way of finding the best in people and showing it to them.
I can't tell you exactly what went on during that flight – it'll never get past the censors, but I just want to say please don't give up hope that Blaine will be found. We sure as hell haven't.
We'd been in a pretty bad fight – lots of flak, lots of enemy planes. Our fighters were doing their best to keep them off us, but we took several hits. One engine got shot out on the way there and on the way back –

“Engine 2 is out,” Jim reported calmly.
“Roger. Well, this is about to get a lot more interesting.” Blaine grimaced at the controls in front of him, straining to keep the stick steady. “Keep me updated on fuel status.”
“Roger that. Will do.”
The sound around them was deafening. He could hear the rattle of their tailgun, the cracking reports of the side guns, Bill's voice over the radio calmly reporting what was going on. He knew Charlie was sitting quietly below him in the nose cone, his job as bombardier over, trying just to stay out of the way.
“Engine three is out.” Jim's voice was tight.
“Roger.”
Blaine flipped the switch on his microphone to talk to everyone on his crew.
“Okay, boys. We're down to one engine. I'm not sure how long we can fly on one engine, so I want everyone to check their 'chutes now, make sure everything's secure in case we need to ditch.”
The tense minutes wore on. Finally, the coast was in sight. Blaine could hear Charlie's sigh of relief.
“Engine one is overheating and on fire.”
“Okay, boys, this is it. We're going to ride it out a little farther into the drink, then we're all going to jump.” Blaine could hear Bill calmly relaying their need to abandon the plane, calling for rescue crews to standby.
One by one, but faster than he thought possible, Blaine saw the men of his crew jump, their parachutes popping open and buffeting in the strong wind.
Jim unhooked himself from his seat, and stood to go towards the open doors. He laid a hand on Blaine's shoulder.
“You're coming too, right, Blaine?”
Blaine nodded. “I'm going to steer this thing out away from us, then I'll be right behind you.”
Jim walked to the open bay door, the wind screeching by. He took a second to look back. Blaine was speaking urgently into the radio, repeating the precise coordinates for the rescuers to find his crew. Then Jim turned and jumped.

When Jim finally found the rest of the crew in the inky darkness, Charlie was frantically sawing the lines of Bill's parachute, filling with water and threatening to drag him down. Jim could barely catch his breath. It was cold in the water, bitterly cold, and raining.
They heard the remaining engine groan loudly as Blaine sharply veered the huge plane away from them. Then it cut out. There was a deafening silence.
A loud crack, then a huge fireball lit the night sky as the plane – their plane exploded.

But I swear, K, whoever you are, I swear on the lives of my girl and our future children and anything else you want me to swear on ---
I swear I saw a parachute open before the crash.