Rachel took a deep breath, then another. She slowly raised her hand to knock at the door. Before her knuckles made contact, the door opened. Rachel’s hand dropped limply away as she met the eyes of her brother for the first time in five years.

“Rachel,” Kurt said coldly.

“Kurt,” Rachel stuttered, heart fluttering. “I--”

“Might as well come inside,” Kurt said, turning away from the door. Rachel was left staring at the empty doorway, completely flustered.

She made her way inside the apartment carefully. It was very neatly maintained, but it was obvious how run-down it was. Rachel wondered if Kurt had asked their father for help, or if they still weren’t speaking.�

“Sit down,” Kurt said, a cigarette in his hand. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Rachel bit her lip and, very carefully, took a seat on one of the kitchen chairs. She watched as Kurt paced the room, cigarette dangling from the edge of his mouth.

“You shouldn’t smoke,” she said cautiously, before she could stop herself.

Kurt laughed without humor. “What, I might ruin my voice?” He met Rachel’s eyes and she winced back from the fury she saw there. “Why do you even care, Rachel?!”

“You’re my brother,” Rachel whispered.

“That didn’t matter much five years ago,” Kurt snapped. He visibly reigned himself in. “What do you want, Rachel?”

Rachel straightened. “I want to go in front of a judge and change my evidence,” she said.�

Kurt froze. “You’re an unreliable witness,” he pointed out. “They’d never re-open the case.”

Rachel slumped down a little. She hadn’t thought of that. “I can at least go home and tell Father and Mother and everyone,” she insisted stubbornly.

“Why even come here first, then?” Kurt asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I wanted to see you,” Rachel said quietly, truthfully.�

Kurt shook his head, finally sitting down at the chair opposite of Rachel’s. “They won’t want to hear it,” he said, anger deflating. “That mess has all been neatly tidied away now.”

“Kurt--” Rachel started, only to jump as one of the doors in the apartment banged open.�

She half-turned and froze when her eyes met Blaine’s. He was barely dressed - an open shirt hung on his shoulders, revealing a huge bandage on his side, and more, older wounds beside. He stared at her, expression icy, then turned away to go into the kitchen. Rachel turned to Kurt, who stared at her, his eyes hard. Rachel had to swallow around a sudden thickness in her throat. They were never going to forgive her.

“What is she doing here?” Blaine asked, coming out of the kitchen, a beer clapsed tightly in a white-knuckled grip.�

“She came to speak to me,” Kurt said, standing and going over to him.

“Oh?” Blaine asked. “About what?” He still didn’t look at Rachel, his gaze focused on Kurt.

“About the terrible thing I did,” Rachel interrupted.�

Blaine’s head snapped around, his eyes meeting hers, and Rachel shrank from the pure, unbridled fury there. In two steps, Blaine was in front of her, his arm half-raised, as if he wanted to smack her.�

“Do you have any idea what it’s like in jail?” he half-whispered. “No, of course you don’t. Did it give you pleasure to think of me in there?”

“No,” Rachel whispered.

Blaine’s arm lowered a bit, but the anger didn’t leave his face. “Do you think I assaulted your cousin? That I assaulted Kurt?”

“No.”

“Did you think it then?”

“Yes! Well, no!” Rachel shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. “It was just so confusing.”

“And what’s made you so sure now?” Blaine snapped.

“Growing up,” Rachel muttered.�

“Growing up?” Blaine asked incredulously.

“I was thirteen,” Rachel said, more loudly, almost defensively.

Blaine laughed, so sharp-edged and angry that Rachel wanted to cover her ears. “How old do you have to be before you know the difference between right and wrong, Rachel? Do you have to be eighteen before you can own up to a lie? There are soldiers out there who are eighteen, left to die on islands no one’s ever heard of. Did you know that?”

“Yes!” Rachel cried, tears flowing freely.

“Five years ago, you weren’t so interested in telling the truth,” Blaine yelled, almost incoherent with fury. “You and your family just--assumed, for all my education, that I was still no better than a servant, not to be trusted, little more than a dog! And you were able to close ranks and throw me to the fucking wolves!”

Rachel shook her head, staring up at him. Blaine lunched forward, as if he would attack her. Rachel steeled herself for it, almost welcoming it, but Kurt stepped forward, taking Blaine’s elbow.

“Blaine,” he said, drawing him in. He gave Rachel a look before placing a light, lingering kiss on Blaine’s lips. Rachel glanced away, flushed with shame and--something else. “Blaine, please.”

Rachel glanced back at them. Blaine was shaking with rage, his eyes focused on Kurt. Kurt had his arms around Blaine’s shoulders, their foreheads touching.�

“Come back to me,” Kurt whispered. “Blaine, come back to me.”

For a moment, Rachel didn’t think it would help. But then Blaine sighed, long and low and heavy, and the tension seeped from his body. He relaxed bonelessly in Kurt’s hold.�

“Rachel,” Kurt said, calm and quiet, even as his eyes stayed fixed on Blaine. “There isn’t much time. Blaine has to leave for duty tomorrow morning at six.” He finally turned to look at her. Some of the hardness had left his eyes. “There’s a few things you’re going to do for us.”

Blaine pulled away from Kurt’s hold and, without looking at Rachel, leaned up to kiss him on the lips, harder and deeper than Kurt’s peck had been. Rachel flushed again, but didn’t look away. Blaine turned towards her after the kiss, expression hard but no longer terrifyingly angry.

“You’ll go to your parents and tell them whatever you have to to make them believe your evidence was false. Then you’ll go to a soliciter and make a statement. Get it signed, get copies sent to us. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” Rachel said.

“Then you’ll write a detailed letter to me, explaining all of the events that led to you saying you saw me attack Santana that night.” He paused, brow furrowing. “Do you know who actually did it?”

Rachel paused. “David Karofsky,” he said quietly. “Sam’s friend. He’s married Santana. I went to their wedding.”

Blaine and Kurt exchanged a look. “She won’t be able to testify against him now,” Kurt said quietly. Rachel’s heart dropped. “He’s immune.”

Rachel stood up. She hadn’t thought of that. Her throat felt too tight. She’d hoped that his meeting would bring her on better terms with Blaine and Kurt, but instead she felt like she had brought nothing but more trouble.

“I’ve very sorry to have caused you this distress,” she said hurriedly. “I’ll go now.” She hurried to the door, paused. “I am so, very, very sorry,” she said again.

“Just do what I told you to,” Blaine said, quiet and weary. “Write it all down.”

“I will,” Rachel promised, then left.

-

Outside, she glanced back up at their building. She managed to make out Blaine and Kurt in the window. They were kissing passionately, clutching each other as if afraid to let go. Rachel watched them for a long moment, then turned, hurrying down the street, her chest tight and throat full.�

-

Present Day
America

“ . . . Ms. Berry?”

Rachel blinked, looking back at the smiling face of Holly Holiday. “I’m sorry, could we take a break?” she asked.

Holly’s eyebrow furrowed. “Oh, but--”

“I just need to collect my thoughts,” Rachel said, forcing a smile.

Holly eyed her. “Alright. Let’s take a five!”

Rachel hurried away, into one of the bathrooms in the studio. She splashed some water on her face, sighing as it hit her overheated skin. She leaned back up, pausing when she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Hair gone gray, crow’s feet at the corner of her eyes and mouth, soft, sagging skin at her throat . . . she really was getting old. It caught her off-guard sometimes, how aged she was. It seemed like just yesterday she was a fresh-faced young girl, nursing patients� at St. Mary’s.�

She turned back, ready to face the studio again. When she came outside, all eyes turned to her. Rachel didn’t let it faze her - she was used to the attention.

“Shall we start again?” Holly asked, already in position. Her blonde ponytail had been readjusted, but otherwise it looked like she hadn’t moved.

“Yes,” Rachel said, sitting back down, her bones creaking.

“We were just about to start talking about your new book - released in a few weeks, I believe? It’s your debut novel, isn’t it, Ms. Berry?”

“Yes,” Rachel said. “Though you could say it’s been in my life longer than my musical career. I started it when I was a teenager, working as a nurse at a small hospital in New York City.”

Holly’s eyebrows went up. “Oh? Why did it take you so long to publish?”

Rachel considered it. “I suppose until now I never had the proper motivation to scare me into publishing it.”

“Scare you?” Holly asked, nonplussed. “Why--”

“You see, I’m dying, Ms. Holiday.” Holly’s mouth dropped. Rachel smiled a little. She’d never been able to flabbergast Holly before. “I have vascular dementia, or so my doctors tell me. It’s a series of continuous strokes. Eventually you lose your memory, your words . . . So, you see, I could no longer put it off.”

“Why did you want to?” Holly asked. “Was it because it was autobiographical? It is autobiographical, isn’t it?”

Rachel nodded. “I haven’t changed any of the names, including mine.”

“Yet you go by just Rachel Hummel in the books,” Holly said, raising an eyebrow.

Rachel smiled. “You know the story, Ms. Holiday.” Holly just gave her a look. Rachel sighed. “I found out when I was an adult that I had been adopted into the Hummel family. My real parents were forced to give me up because of their - at the time illegal - relationship. And, as you know, I was reunited with them in my mid-20’s and took on their name.” Rachel shook her head. “It was such a scandal then, especially when it came out that my parents were two men.”

“And your mother?” Holly asked eagerly, ignoring the whispers in the studio. Rachel had never hid it, but it wasn’t common knowledge that she had two fathers.

“An actress friend of theirs,” Rachel said. “We kept in touch until she died. But the point is, Ms. Holiday, that I kept my name that way because that was what I thought it was at the time.”

“Was that why it was hard for you to publish it?” Holly asked, leaning forward.

Rachel considered her. “No, that wasn’t it. I have, for a very long time, decided to tell nothing less than the absolute truth. No, it was . . . .” She sighed. “You’ve read the book, Ms. Holiday, perhaps you can understand why. I got first hand accounts of all the events that I wasn’t personally involved in - the scenes at Guadalcanal, which several of Blaine Anderson’s team were able to piece together for me, that sort of thing. But the effect of all that honesty was rather pitiless. I could no longer imagine what purpose could be served by it.”

“By what? By honesty?” Holly asked, genuinely puzzled.

Rachel shook her head. “By reality,” she explained. She took a deep breath, stomach twisting. “For, you see, I was actually too much of a coward to go and see my brother in 1942. The scene in which I go to him and Blaine to confess is entirely fake. And, in fact could never have happened.” Rachel’s throat closed up a little.�

“Why?” Holly asked, more gently.

Rachel swallowed heavily. “Because Blaine Anderson died of his infection in early November of 1942,” she said stiffly. “And I was never able to put things right with my brother, Kurt, because he died a few months later, also in Guadalcanal, in early 1943.”

Holly’s eyes were wide, shocked. Rachel leaned over and patted her very gently on the hand.

“So you see, Kurt and Blaine never got to have their happiness. It’s something that I’ve always felt that I . . . .” Rachel frowned, biting her lip, “had a very large part in preventing.” She met Holly’s horrified eyes calmly. “But what sense of satisfaction or hope does a reader get from an ending like that? So, in the end, I gave them what they lost out in life.”�

Rachel looked down at her hands, considering the soft wrinkled skin. She didn’t look up as she finished, quietly, “I’d like to think that this isn’t . . . weakness, or evasion, but a final act of kindness. I gave them their happiness.” Rachel looked up again. “And, in giving them their happiness, I managed to achieve some sense of atonement.”

-

The weather was warm, crisp--it was summer yet again. On the beach, waves rolled in, heavy with foam. The air was quiet except for the distant cry of the sea gulls.

Then, laughter. Kurt and Blaine came running down the sand, tied in a race, both grinning widely. At the last moment, Blaine jumped to his left and tackled Kurt into the sand. They laid there for a moment, laughing breathlessly. Then, slowly, Blaine leaned down and kissed Kurt in the open, the sunshine on their heads. When he pulled away they quietly, almost reverently, got back up, brushed off their clothes, and walked down the rest of the beach, their fingers intertwined. In front of them was a house - there was a garden growing in front of it, and its windowpanes were painted the bright blue of a robin’s wing.�

And they lived there for the rest of their days, happy and free and, most of all, loved.�

The End