Kurt sat at one end of Blaine’s bed as Blaine lay at the other, facing him. The light and sounds of a summer’s day were drifting in through the open window. Blaine was sitting up, free of tubes and wires. And he was wearing his own clothes. Kurt smiled quietly as he thought how strange this looked; some na�ve part of his mind had believed that when Blaine was allowed out of the staunched, dry hospital pyjamas, he would immediately put on his Dalton blazer. It wasn’t often Kurt got a taste of Blaine’s fashion sense and, whilst it wasn’t quite as extrovert as his own, he appreciated the dashing effect he managed to pull off. Although, as he had reminded Blaine when he came into the room, he still looked pretty silly, tucked up in bed in chinos and a shirt.

“Hmm?”

Blaine’s concentration was focused on attempting to do up his watch. His fingers seemed to have half forgotten a lot of their uses in such a short space of time. Kurt waited until he’d just about managed it.

“What do you remember?”

“You mean, how much do I remember?”

Blaine finished and looked up at him, slightly triumphantly, folding his hands in his lap. A square of plaster jutted up from the back of one of them, from where the drip had been removed.

“No; what do you remember?”

Blaine crinkled his eyebrows.

“Is this some sort of test?”

He didn’t get what Kurt was getting at.

“Because I’m gonna be getting enough of that tomorrow.”

“No, no. No test. I was just wondering, that’s all…”

Kurt’s voice and eyes drifted away. Blaine watched him cautiously. He’d been distant and overly thoughtful all day, and Blaine was beginning to think there was something behind it that he wasn’t being told.

But maybe it was the simple fact that he was nervous about tomorrow. God; tomorrow. Blaine shuddered slightly. He’d been trying not to think about it; trying to focus instead on the happiness of being able to go home, of being able to see his friends and get back on with his life. But tomorrow stood like a towering brick wall between him and all that. Tomorrow.

Tomorrow was trial day; the first day, as his mom had explained, for witnesses against Mr Puckerman, the man who’d tried to kill him. Who’d tried to kill all of them. And Blaine was supposed to be there. And Kurt. And all the others. They’d have to sit there, on show, paraded in front of a jury and a judge, in the same room as that…that man. There’d be questions, hundreds of questions, which Blaine knew he would have no answer for. They’d only take him back to blank memories of pain and vague voices, and weird dreams that he would never reveal to a courtroom of strangers. Tomorrow was the last thing in the world he wanted.

Of course, he didn’t have to go. For perhaps the first time in his life his mother was encouraging him to throw a sick day; oddly it was also probably the first time he’d had a genuine excuse. But the idea of running made Blaine feel even worse. If he did, then all he’d be doing would be delaying the pain for a few more days; and he’d just stay the wrong side of that brick wall. No. He had to get it over and done with.

“Blaine?”

Kurt’s voice broke through his thoughts. He sighed and looked up. Kurt’s eyes were anxious.

“Sorry. I…I didn’t mean to say anything that…I didn’t mean to upse…”

He ran out of words, his eyes startled and adorable. Blaine tried to smile. Even in the midst of everything, Kurt still had the ability to make him smile.

“No, Kurt, don’t apologise. You didn’t do anything.”

There was a moment of silence as they looked at each other intensely. Blaine wished he could shift the anger and tension from his chest and just bask in this time alone with Kurt. He wanted so much for everything to be perfect between them.

“Wha…what did you ask again?”

Kurt gave a small look of panic.

“If…if you don’t want to talk about it, then that’s fine…”

“No. I want to. If you want to know, then I want to tell you.”

Kurt considered the words for a moment.

“It…it was just something my dad said; about what he…went through…”

“About what he saw?”

“No…”

Kurt looked up at Blaine. Seeing wasn’t the obvious sense he would have pinpointed.

“Not exactly. He said he could hear little things; like the sound of people in the corridor outside his room, or a radio show from when he was a kid. Dumb things like that, you know? And…I was just wondering…whether…”

Blaine gazed at Kurt’s face. It was so honest and innocent, despite everything he’d been through this year. Nothing was hidden.

“Whether the same thing had happened to me?”

Kurt’s cheeks reddened.

“Well, yeah.”

Blaine sighed and shifted on his pillows, throwing the blanket back so that only the ends of his legs were covered. It bunched against Kurt as he sat curled into the footboard. It was really too hot and too bizarre to be wearing his home clothes in a bed. He wanted to get up, to go for a walk, to go outside. So far all he’d been allowed were tentative trips to the bathroom, each time with a hovering nurse constantly reminding him that he might collapse at any moment from some ungodly relapse or something. He wanted to take back control of his own body. An idea struck in his mind and he looked up at Kurt.

“Want to break a few rules? Something naughty?”

He made sure his voice implied nothing of innuendo the words sparked in his own imagination; God, he did need some control.

Kurt bit his lip, but then smiled when he saw a sparkle in Blaine’s eye.

“How? What?”

Blaine kicked at the blanket once more, freeing his legs, and swung them out of the bed. In that one movement he felt blood rush back into slumbering muscles, and pins and needles broke up through his shins. He grimaced. Kurt’s eyes had widened, and as Blaine made to stand up he scrambled over the bed and caught him by the arm.

“Don’t.”

Blaine’s voice was firm but kind. He shrugged out of Kurt’s hands.

“I’m fine.”

“Blaine, I really don’t think this is a good idea…”

Kurt tried, walking behind him as Blaine slipped on his waiting shoes and headed for the door. Kurt watched his slow legs, jerking his hands out at every twitch, ready to catch him.

“Would you stop that? I’m not gonna die on you.”

Kurt didn’t know how Blaine could joke like that. But then they reached the door, and Kurt’s eyes fell on an offered hand. He looked up into Blaine’s calm but eager face.

“Come on, we’re in the hospital anyway. What’s the worst that could happen?”

‘Famous last words’ thought Kurt, but looking at the expression in those hazel eyes he forced his common sense aside and took up the hand offered to him.

“Alright. But just for half an hour.”

“Alright, mom.”

Blaine winked, with the mischievous grin that had been missing from him for these last few weeks.

“An hour it is…”

Before Kurt could do anything but gulp in reply, he had opened the door, glanced left and right, and pulled them through it.
-
Twenty minutes of unnecessarily childish Charlie’s Angles impressions later, and Kurt found himself in an unknown haven. The two of them sat, face to face, on a weathered bench amongst low trees, bowed and groaning with blossom. Their legs and knees were between them, tangled in each other. Kurt held a cold paper bowl in both his hands; from somewhere Blaine had been able to produce enough change for two scoops of ice cream. One bowl, two spoons.

“I didn’t even know this place existed...”

Whispered Kurt as an elderly couple shuffled past, arm in arm. The woman leant on a wheeled saline stand, which bounced and rattled over the rough path of the garden.

“I saw it on the plan outside my room when I last went to the bathroom.”

Blaine whispered back, watching the couple as they disappeared around a bend in the path between bushes and trees.

“I never thought that they’d have something like this; it’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”

He reached up to one of the violently pink branches and plucked a garland of blossom, rolling the stem between his fingers so that the flowers spun fiercely. A single petal broke free and drifted towards Kurt. He stuck out a finger to catch it before it could land in the bowl.

“What time is your mom coming to get you?”

Kurt said, still slightly unnerved by what they were doing.

Blaine bent forwards and looked up at him, almost disappointed.

“Does it really matter?”

Kurt was silent, abashed. Blaine softened his voice and shook the moment off.

“Anyway, don’t worry, we’ll be back well before then.”

He reached and took one of Kurt’s hands from around the bowl; the one with the bright pink silky blossom stuck to it. Then, with another roguish smile, he picked out one of the spoons, a lurid plastic neon orange, and curled it into the ice cream.

“Role reversal time.”

He joked, lifting it into the space between them.

“What?”

Kurt watched closely. But Blaine laughed again and bent even further forwards. And Kurt got the idea. Slowly, deliciously, he let Blaine feed him the cool, melting sweetness. And he couldn’t help smiling; especially when a drip broke free from his lips and coursed down his chin, causing Blaine to chase it with his ugly spoon, his eyes laughing, gorgeous and happy. Kurt spluttered unattractively at the ridiculous face Blaine pulled as the drip ran down onto his neck, sending tiny specks of white vanilla showering from his mouth. And Blaine sniggered. And Kurt snorted. And suddenly they were doubled up; crying with laughter, covered in ice cream. It was bliss.

“Oh…oh…oh my gosh, stop it, Kurt.”

Giggled Blaine, breathing loudly and pressing the hand with the spoon to his streaming eyes.

“Oh, that’s too funny.”

“You stop!”

Squealed Kurt, as Blaine went after him with the spoon again.

And suddenly, in an instant, they both stopped. They were face to face, inches apart. Kurt stopped breathing. He heard the spoon tinkle away as it fell from Blaine’s hand, onto the wooden bench and down through the slats to the floor. Then that same hand unfurled against the side of his face; cold and soft. Blaine blinked. Kurt almost believed he could feel the breath of air fanned by those gorgeous lashes blow onto his cheek.

They kissed. And kissed again. Kurt felt all of his inexpressible emotions flood to his lips in those tender touches. The tip of his tongue caught the cold ridges of Blaine’s teeth. As one they leaned closer, deeper. Blaine led a shuddering breath pass between their lips as his hand inched backwards into Kurt’s oh so soft hair. Kurt drifted blissfully in the moment, lost behind his closed eyes, sinking into the velvety darkness.

And suddenly the EEeeeeeaaaaa blare of a siren rocked through the garden, driving birds flapping up into the air. Blaine and Kurt both jumped backwards, both reddening, as if they’d been caught red handed. But then, as if sinking down from a dream, they remembered where they were. Blaine smiled, then laughed, at Kurt’s wild eyes and clasped his hand to his heart dramatically.

“Jeez, not a moment’s peace?”

Kurt didn’t know what to say. He was just gazing at Blaine’s face, realising what he had almost lost. His mind had been drifting around the thought all day, but the shock of the siren had sent it juddering straight to his heart. Without thinking his eyes began to fill with tears. Blaine stopped smiling.

“Hey, hey, what is it?”

He lifted his hand from his chest and placed it on Kurt’s face once more, running his finger under his shadowed eyes. Kurt sniffed, turning away, embarrassed with himself.

“No…nothing.”

Blaine waited a second, but the bright, happy Kurt he’d kissed did not return.

“Well…there’s obviously something. Hey, hey,” he soothed, as real tears began to roll silently down Kurt’s cheeks. “Tell me?”

“No, no…It’s just me being stupid.”

“Kurt, nothing you could ever say would be just you being stupid. And neither is anything that might make you cry. Come on, please? Is it about tomorrow?”

Kurt’s heart pounded with the true distress in Blaine’s voice. Now he’d gone and worried him. Great. Way to spoil the moment, Kurt.

He breathed deeply in one shuddering sob.

“No…no, it’s not about tomorrow. As much as I wish that was never going to happen.”

He looked up into Blaine’s face, still only inches away from his. Was there anything he could do to make sure that face never moved further away?

“It’s just…it’s ju…”

He couldn’t express it; couldn’t force out the words against his choking emotions. He hid his face in his hands, throwing the half empty bowl onto the ground.

Blaine lifted his legs so that they slid to one side of Kurt on the bench and putting his arms out, even though Kurt tried to shy away, he enveloped him, letting his head rest on his shoulder.

“Hey,” Blaine soothed, stroking his hair as his mother had always done when he was little. “There’s nothing to be upset about, yeah? I’m right here.”

Kurt looped his hands over Blaine’s arms and drew himself into the embrace.

“Okay…just…just promise you’ll never go? Never again?”

He choked, feeling so childish and ridiculous at the words, even thought they were the only ones he could find to express himself.

“Never.”

Blaine thought for a moment. Three words were on the tip of his tongue, but they were triggering some memory. He watched as tiny fragments unfurled in his mind.

“I told you, before.” He said firmly.

“What?”

Blaine kissed Kurt’s soft, warm neck.

“It was in the locker room. Honestly;” he feigned exasperation. “You ask me to remember. Don’t you remember?”

The words and the memories they brought back stung Kurt’s mind. He didn’t want to remember.

“No. What was it?”

Blaine smiled into Kurt’s hair. At least he got to say it again. He lowered his voice to a whisper, pulling back to gaze into Kurt’s face with the most serene smile upon his lips.

“I love you.”

Kurt sat for the longest moment. The words floated in the air, and bit by bit his mind absorbed them. With each sound, with each motion of Blaine’s lips, he felt his skin tingle, felt drops of pure ecstasy run through his veins. He did remember now; how Blaine had whispered those words in the darkness and fear of the boys’ locker room. How his voice had sounded so faint, so tired, filled with so much pain. He remembered how the words had haunted him the entire way to the hospital, lingering like an echo in his mind. When had he forgotten them? He knew why he had. Even now, in the bliss of the garden, the ghostly memory in his mind scared him. That time, the words hadn’t been about love, or devotion; they’d been a goodbye.

He looked into the living, sparkling eyes before him. They were so much brighter, so different from those that had looked up at him from his own arms, ringed with blood and stained with tears. But suddenly Kurt’s throat moved, and his mouth opened of its own accord, fulfilling the wishes of his mind.

“I…I love you too.”

Blaine smiled. But he saw the memories his words had awoken reflected in the shadows of Kurt’s face.

“You remembered?”

Kurt could only nod. They were silent for a moment, still only inches apart under the trees. Blaine turned something over in his mind. Was the moment right for it? He traced a line with his finger down Kurt’s face, running the back of his fingers along the prefect jaw line.

“You still want to hear what I remember?”

Kurt looked slightly panicked. He now saw how hard tomorrow was going to be; going back to those darkest corners of his mind, to the worst experiences of his life. How could he have asked Blaine to do that as well? He shook his head hastily.

Blaine chewed his lip.

“What if I said that I want to tell you?”

Kurt didn’t understand. Blaine took his hand from Kurt’s face and picked up one of his hands, turning it over in his own.

“I want to tell someone, Kurt.”

His voice betrayed him slightly, letting out a burst of anxiety. Kurt shuffled closer, his chest rising and falling. As he spoke Blaine looked down at the bench, closing and opening his eyes at intervals, as if to place himself back in the moment. At one point he put his hand to his face, rubbing it in frustration, until the tips of his fingers brushed his scar, and his hand froze. After a pause he lowered his hands back into his lap.

“I...I had these dreams, Kurt. Really, really vivid dreams, where I could hear and see and feel. The first few times it felt like everything was real. You were there and you would talk to me. But…”

He struggled to find the words to express the fear of those lonely hours of darkness.

“But I just couldn’t wake up. You would always ask me to, mom would ask me to, dad as well. Hell, even Puck turned up in one of them. And I would try so hard; so, so, so hard. I didn’t want anything except to come back to you. You’d pull me along, begging me, helping me, making all these promises. But I’d always fall or slip or run too slowly. Then the dream would end; you’d be gone. And I wouldn’t be awake.”

He sighed and blinked back tears.

“It was just never ending darkness, Kurt. But darkness with pain…and I didn’t understand…couldn’t remember why I was there…or what had happened…”

He trailed to silence, and it was Kurt’s turn to lean forwards and gather his boyfriend into him. Blaine snuffled against his ear, but gritted his teeth. He’d started this, and he needed to finish it.

“I thought through all these possibilities, Kurt. But it would hurt, and then the dream would come back, and all the emotions would be just as raw. It was like a never ending cycle, with no change, no day or night, just dreams and darkness and voices. I guess those were the same as what your dad had.”

Blaine sniffed, wiped his eyes and straightened up, giving a weak watery smile.

“But then you came again. With Karofsky. And suddenly I could almost escape the dark. Something broke; I actually felt it, physically, like an elastic band stretched too far, and suddenly I could hear properly. It was only him talking, though, and I had to know where you were.”

Kurt smiled.

“When I heard Dave shout…I’ve never run so fast in my life.”

Blaine smiled too.

“It seemed to take forever.”

He winked.

“I think I remember Dave freaking out ever so slightly. And then you jumped on top of me and the nurses had to pull you off?”

Kurt began to redden.

“Maybe…”

Blaine’s smile grew.

“Can’t keep your hands off me.”

Kurt laughed.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“It’s true though, isn’t it?”

Said Blaine, the glint returning to his eye. He dove forwards and began to tickle Kurt. Kurt squealed and squirmed, rocking backwards until Blaine was almost on top of him.

“Is it because I’m just as adorable and gorgeous as you are?” He teased. “No, no, it can't be. That’s not possible. Um…”

Kurt kicked out playfully; both his arms were pinned against his chest by Blaine’s body. He was helpless and choking with laughter.

“No, noo, Blaine! Stop please!”

Blaine paused for a second, seemingly considering his victim, but then redoubled his efforts. The smile on his face grew larger with every charming squeak. He began to mock sing.

“Is it because you want my bod-ay, and you think I’m sex-ay? Or…or is it because of my phenomenal dancing skills? Come on Kurt; why do I deserve you?”

Kurt gasped through hysterical tears.

“Mercy! Please!”

With a single look of love, Blaine stilled his hands and sat up, breathing heavily himself. He slid his legs round and sat properly, as Kurt struggled upright and brushed himself down. He saw the forgotten ice cream; it had dribbled over onto the ground and was slowly trickling along the edge of the path. Kurt glanced at his watch, trying to fan away the bright, hot, giveaway complexion of his face.

“Oh, crap, we better get you back upstairs.”

Blaine looked at his own watch, willing the hands to have stopped. But they hadn’t. He stood up, hair brushing the laden branches as he did so. Kurt got up beside him, and Blaine took him arm. For a moment the blood rushed back to his head, his eyes clouded and all he had was Kurt’s arm to hold onto. All of a sudden, he realised he actually felt quite tired.

“Lead the way.”

Kurt placed his hand on Blaine’s arm. It was hot to the touch. He looked at that tired face in worry. But Blaine smiled back. He was fine; better than fine actually. Every day had to be a step along the road, and he’d taken today’s step, that was all.

“Come on then,” He urged, walking forwards and dragging Kurt after him. “Unless you want the blame when we see my mother.”

“Oh, my fault is it?”

Joked Kurt, trying to surreptitiously slip his hand under Blaine’s arm and tickle him. Blaine swatted him away playfully.

“Uh, yes I believe it is.”

“What? For being too damn adorable?”

Blaine swatted again, but couldn’t contain a giggle of joy. Slowly they passed around the corner of the path and back towards the hospital for the last time. Kurt let the sound of I love you ring in his ears once more.