Kurt sat by the side of Blaine’s bed, leaning inwards from an uncomfortable chair, so that his chin was tucked inside of Blaine’s arm amongst the blankets. He was almost asleep. The lullaby stream of beeps which came constantly from the cluster of machines surrounding him seemed to slow his racing brain and soothe his aching body. He let his breathing fall into time with the gentle hiss of the ventilator, which snaked its way across Blaine’s high cheek bone to his nose. Quickly the other noises of the intensive care ward faded away. The warmth of Blaine’s arm soaked into Kurt’s skin through the soft bedclothes. He drifted off into a mercifully dreamless sleep.
-
Twenty minutes later Burt Hummel stood beside the duty nurse, watching his son’s gentle breathing, taking in the way his hair splayed untidily across his face. For Burt it brought back memories of those first fraught years after his wife’s death, when he would wake to find that Kurt had climbed into bed beside him, and the early hours he would spend just watching him sleep, slumped on top of the quilt. Once again he saw in his son so much of his wife.

But the sight also ignited horror within him. The horror of what Kurt had gone through in these last few months. It didn’t take much, even for Burt’s limited imagination, to place himself in that bed, and to leave Kurt in the same position. He had no idea where Kurt got his strength from; to keep going against all adversity, to care for his father in so many ways, to love Blaine so much.

He looked down at his watch. It was ten past six. He knew his pick-up was clocking up a hell of a charge on the parking meter outside; but Burt didn’t care. There was no way he could bring himself to wake Kurt when he looked so peaceful. He threw a sideways glance at the motherly matron, who was standing at his shoulder. She looked back steadily and evenly, but then gave in.

“Alright…but if the doctor, or his mother, or anyone else comes then I know nothing about this…and it’s the last time, Mr Hummel. The last time.”

Burt took his hat off to her, literally, stowing the folded, greasy cap in his pocket as she turned and bustled away, returning with a carton of antiseptic hand gel. Burt dutifully rinsed his blackened hands and crept forwards to sit beside his son.
-
Dave was packing his bag, slowly and clumsily. Lucky, he thought to himself, that there was only one pair of pyjamas and a wash bag to sort out. If he’d been forced to stay any longer then this whole process would have just dissolved into catastrophe. He gave up trying to fold the unnecessary dressing gown his mother had insisted on bringing, and instead just tossed it one handed into the open holdall.

Finn stood just inside the door, watching. He knew better than to offer to help. The last few days had truly taught him the meaning of personal space and privacy.

“What time did you say your mom was coming?”

He glanced up at the bright clock on the dark TV. It showed ten past six.

“Just after she’s finished at work.”

Karofsky too looked up at the clock.

“So any time now really.”

He threw in a last pair of socks and set to trying to fasten the zip. But after two tries he sighed and looked towards Finn.

“Lend a hand?”

Finn walked forwards and silently held the bag closed as Dave drew the zip towards himself with his good hand. The other, indeed most of his right arm, was invisible below dressing after white dressing, all strapped against his body in a navy Velcro sling.

“What about you? What are you still doing here?”

Dave knew that despite his civility and gratitude, Finn had not stayed in the hospital just to see him off home.

Finn saw that his motive had been found and glanced down at the floor with slight shame.

“Um…well Burt’s come to get Kurt, but they’ll probably be a little while, so I thought I’d just come to see that you were ok.”

“Thanks, man. You didn’t have to.”

“No, no. I wanted to.”

There was an awkward moment. Finn sought for a way to move the subject on.

“Uh…Did all the others come by earlier? They said they were going to.”

“Yeah, yeah. That was really nice of them; especially as they came round yesterday as well. Oh, and Brittany, Santana and Artie turned up at lunch too. Brittany’s mom finally brought them over.”

“Oh, that’s cool. I didn’t see them.”

In truth, Finn had hardly seen anyone since waking up in that room the previous morning. Most of the time he’d been about two feet behind Kurt, following him on his mom’s instructions; literally watching his back.

“Did they tell you everything? About Blaine, and Puck, and all that?”

“Yeah, yeah. Fuck. I can't believe any of this has happened. Can you?” Finn shook his head. “What happened to Sam? I didn’t like to ask.”

“The guy…Puck’s dad…his arm got rammed by the gun; it’s fractured, but not broken.”

“Oh right.”

There was another pause. The conversation felt slightly forced and fake between them; both were remembering more of their usual shouting and fist fights.

“To be honest,” Dave sat down against the made bed as he spoke, “I didn’t think any of you guys would come. I mean, I never been anything but a complete dick to you.”

The reality and frankness of his words threw Finn; what could he say? But then he remembered something.

“No; no. That’s not true. Kurt said something…”

Dave blushed slightly in spite of himself, his mind flying over what Kurt could have told Finn. He turned his face away from the other boy.

“Or, no, no. You said something. When we were in the locker room. When the police came in. You told them to leave Kurt alone…”

Finn thought over the scene properly for the first time.

“And Kurt…he was mumbling something about you ‘bringing Blaine back’?”

Dave’s face reddened even more. But relief flowed inside him that his secret was still safe. He spoke, trying to keep his voice low and husky.

“Yeah…but it was just the situation, y’know? You do what you can.”

“Well, whatever you did, it wasn’t being a dick. Dick’s don’t take a bullet in the shoulder and go on to save someone else’s life.”

Finn was proud of the words as they came to him, and Karofsky latched on to them, feeling a mysterious happiness at the praise.

“Well…you didn’t do a bad job yourself.”

Both boys smiled bashfully into the floor, laced with their individual regrets, as Dave’s mom gave a light tap on the door and entered.

“Oh…right,” said Finn, backing towards the door with a nod to Mrs Karofsky, “well…I better go and chase up Burt and Kurt…”

“Yeah,” said David, glancing up with a quick wave of his left hand. “Well, I guess I’ll see you at school in a few days or something? But keep me updated on what’s going on here, ok? And…and…”

He paused. His mom had picked up the holdall and another bag of prescriptions and pills and disappeared silently through the door again, past Finn.

“Listen…just tell Kurt that if he wants to talk, then I’m here for him, ok? I know it sounds stupid and weird; but we got through this together and…I wanna help him…”

Finn watched the other boy; he’d changed so much in the space of a few days that the bully who’d made so many enemies was hardly recognisable in him.

“Yeah, of course I’ll tell him.”
-
“…so the judging committee allowed the competition to be put back by four weeks. They said it was special consideration, or something, and that all the other choirs had agreed to it. I think Mr Schue’s managed to convince the airline to extend our tickets as well. So that means you have absolutely no excuse not to be there…”

It was Saturday. Kurt sat once more in his chair by Blaine’s bedside. Today they were in a new room; a smart, single space off the quiet corridor of the coma ward. Blaine had been moved yesterday, during the day, and it had taken Kurt a frantic hour to find him this morning. But now he was back in his usual position; one hand resting on Blaine’s arm.

A small pile of assignments and catch up work sat in front of him on a low moveable table. His other hand held his pen, and his mind was blankly moving through the simple exercises whilst he chatted. Most of the teachers had been kind and understanding. All of them had eyed him warily as he’d reappeared in their classrooms on Friday morning, along with Finn, as if he was somehow in danger of some sudden fit of grief. But Kurt had been comfortably numb; half from the sleeping pills he’d been prescribed and half from simply not caring. His mind and his heart were still in this hospital, and would stay there for however long.
It was almost exactly how he’d felt when his father was in there.

Finn had walked everywhere with him yesterday, usually with one or two other members of the Glee Club. Mr Schue seemed to appear at the end of every corridor at the end of every period, to walk past Kurt with a look of forced surprise and a confident smile. A few times he even glimpsed Karofsky in the distance, watching him, betrayed by the white flash of his bandages under the dark sling. Kurt didn’t have the heart or question or fight their concern. But in truth he was ok. Even on walking past the duck-taped door of the locker room, as Finn stiffened beside him and sped up, Kurt paused to look the scene over. He wanted to go inside, to see that everything was back to how it should be. Because that was all he wanted; for everything to go back to exactly how it should be.

And so to some extent, school was already that way, filled with students and happy noise. Kurt thought he might have felt different if returned to that silent, dark corridor. But he was never, ever going to let that happen to himself.

In fact, apart from the visible scars on Sam and Dave, and Puck’s still conspicuous absence, which Burt had awkwardly explained on that first tearful morning, well, there was only one thing missing. Kurt looked up at Blaine’s expressionless face and smiled sadly. Reaching into his pocket, he drew out his iPod and placed it on the bed beside Blaine’s chest. Tomorrow he would have to remember his speakers. Turning it on, he began to hum along to a new playlist; ‘Blaine’s Favourites’. Then, with a thought, he bent forward, seriously.

“Blaine Warbler; you have two hours to gather yourself together, stop messing around and come back to me. Or I will resort to force. It’ll be Cliff Richard, ‘Who Let The Dogs Out?’ and ‘Mambo No. 5’ continuously…I’m serious…and I brought headphones, so it’ll just be you suffering. So your choice. Wake up, and I won’t have to do this.”

Kurt pulled back. The serene face didn’t change. Something told him Blaine knew he could never be that cruel. Kurt sighed, turning the volume down so that all the sounds of Blaine’s equipment could be heard, thankful that the hiss of the ventilator was no longer part of that background noise as Blaine had been breathing independently, with only one small oxygen tube, since yesterday morning.

“Alright. But I’ve got all weekend, mister. I’m not going anywhere and I’m gonna come up with something.”

His tone changed as the words brought his head round to the thoughts that had really been occupying his mind. His throat tightened and Kurt forced his eyes shut. He was not going to cry.

“I’m never going anywhere Blaine. Even if I’m here in forty years time, singing you show tunes and telling you stories of the few weeks we had together. I’m not going to New York if you’re still here. I wouldn’t want to. Nothing’s worth doing if I can't do it with you…”

Kurt lapsed into silence as the music continued. Running out of expressible thoughts he turned back to his calculus.

“Oh.”

He said, suddenly remembering something, trying to lift his voice cheerfully.

“Blaine; exciting news. The Dalton guys are coming to see you tomorrow. Your mom said that would be ok, what with your dad getting back to the airport in the afternoon and her having to go pick him up, and they all really want to see you; Wes, David, all of them. The whole school have sent you this huge card,” He looked to where it sat, taking up almost half of the sideboard, “and so many people have signed it, with all these amazing messages. They really love you, you know?”

The song that was playing finished, and after a moment of silence it started up again with ‘Part of Your World’. Blaine’s Disney obsession was still something of an enigma to Kurt. He sniffed, his head filling with the gorgeous scent of the bouquets which were arranged around the room, so bright and happy, with tiny little teddy bears and glittering ribbons. That morning he’d seen a nurse struggling down the corridor with three in her arms, muttering something about too much kindness.

“Everyone loves you, Blaine.”
-
That afternoon Kurt paused on returning from the restroom. The door to Blaine’s room was half open, when he’d purposefully closed it on leaving. He had his reasons; more embarrassing but adorable Disney was playing. His first thought was that it was a nurse, come to do the daily stats and response check, but something itched at the back of his mind. He edged closer, and began to hear a voice, decidedly male and trembling with grief. The music was no longer playing.

“…you have to believe how sorry I am…I know we don’t really know each other that well, but I dunno what I’d do if you didn’t make it, Blaine…You have to. Don’t worry, I’m gonna look after Kurt, and your mom, and do anything I possibly can do to help you. Cause I owe you, man, big time…”

The voice dissolved into a silence, interspersed with deep sobs. Kurt thought he recognised the voice, but didn’t dare step forwards to look around the door. Instead he stayed leaning against the wall. He heard the sound of his chair scraping across the floor as it was drawn away from the bed.

There was a whisper; as low and sincere as a prayer.

“I am going to do everything; everything I can to make sure that…that man never gets near anyone ever again…I promise.”

Curiosity got the better of Kurt as the silence began again. Slowly, with the palm of his hand, he pushed the door open. There, kneeling at Blaine’s side, holding his hand just as Kurt had been, was Puck. Tears streaked his face and his eyes were exhausted, rimmed with sore redness. As the door glided open and he caught sight of Kurt, framed in the doorway, he leapt to his feet. His eyes were startled and frightened, like a child caught at something truly wicked.

“Oh, Kurt…I…I was just going…”

He put his head down and rushed around the bed, but paused when Kurt didn’t move from his path.

“Puck?”

Kurt couldn’t believe the boy who stood in front of him was the same as that who had thrown him time and again into dumpsters.

Puck wove nervously on the spot, not knowing where to look.

“I’m sorry, Kurt…I didn’t mean to get in your way…I just, just wanted to apologise to Blaine…and I’ve done that, so…”

“Puck…”

Kurt stood still as the hunched figure moved forwards again.

“Puck, what are you talking about?”

Noah met the other boy’s eyes for a second, but then quickly looked away once more. He felt keenly the presence of Blaine behind him, lying on that bed.

“You…you must hate me…all this,” he flung an arm out, almost violently, “it’s all my fault.”

Kurt could not believe his ears. Reaching out to the side, he swung the door closed behind himself.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Kurt walked forward to the side of the bed. Puck backed away from him, coming to stand by the vacant chair, looking once more at Blaine and the pure white bandage wrapped around his head.

“My dad…me…”

Kurt picked up Blaine’s hand, but kept his eyes on Noah. The rambling, terrified figure scared him slightly. He tried to fill his voice with the true feelings of his head.

“Puck…absolutely none of this is your fault.”

The bigger boy sniffed, then snorted.

“Yeah…yeah, it is. I got him angry, I made him want to come after me, and then…”

Kurt interrupted.

“Do you consider him your father? Does he mean anything to you?”

“No…not for years now…”

“Did you hold his hand?”

Noah looked back, confused.

“What?”

“Did you help him do anything? Did you hand him something to hit Blaine or shoot Dave with?”

“No…no, of course not…”

“Then how is any of this your fault?”

Puck was silent, but Kurt saw he hadn’t convinced him of anything.

“Look, Puck, come on. I don’t blame you; I blame that man. The one whose mind was too weak to deal with loosing the best thing he ever had. And Blaine, or Karofsky, or Sam; none of them blame you…”

There was silence again. Puck’s eyes flicked as he considered the words.

“But…but the cops. They…I could see it in their eyes…they knew he’d done it because of me; because of what I said and what I did…”

Kurt sighed. He was nowhere near ready for a conversation like this.

“Noah…Noah, look at me, and look at Blaine.” He paused as Puck obeyed. “Do you know that I went back to school yesterday? Finn and I. Our first day back; and everyone was still talking about that night. Everyone had found out what happened, from every angle. They knew what Karofsky had done, what Mike and Sam had done, what had happened in the choir room. And everyone knew that he was your dad. And they were all shocked.”

Puck didn’t move. His hands were wrung together, his eyes almost closed.

“But you know what they were all really talking about? How you jumped on your own father’s back and punched the hell out of him. How you stood up to him, even with a gun in your face.”

Puck unconsciously rubbed the circular bruise on his forehead.

“How you saved Finn’s life.”

“They…they were saying that?”

He opened his eyes.

Kurt nodded.

“You were the hero. Nothing less than that.”

Kurt watched as the light in Puck’s eyes changed, growing less wild, brightening. He leaned over and took the silenced iPod from the bed, gesturing to the empty chair.

“Sit down; talk to Blaine properly. He doesn’t know you very well, but he’d like to.”

Puck sat cautiously. Kurt edged onto the bed and perched there. He watched as Noah began to explain himself, falteringly at first, but then growing in self-belief. Somehow, Kurt felt as if a weight had lifted off his own shoulders at the same time.