SEVEN

I blinked my eyes open. Everything around me was orange. I slowly pulled myself into a sitting position and stared at the burning building in front of me. My entire body was aching but it was nothing compared the pain I felt when I realised that the building that had just exploded with my husband and daughter inside.

My scream could barely be heard above the roaring of the inferno. I slumped back down, curling in on myself, I didn’t really care what happened to me now.

Time passed, I wasn’t sure how long I lay there before hands were on me, rolling me onto my back. I didn’t recognise the person but they knew who I was. I watched their mouth move for a while before I heard what they were saying.

“…rt, Kurt, are you all right. Can you move? Speak to me.” Eventually they turned away from me, yelling at someone I couldn’t see. “Get Wes.”

Suddenly Wes was on my field of vision.

“Kurt, are you ok?” he asked worriedly. I didn’t answer but just stared at him numbly before saying the two words that were at the front of my mind.

“Blaine, Annie.”

“It’s ok, it’s ok,” Wes replied pulling me into his arms. I stared over his shoulder and imagined I could see them. It wasn’t ok, it never would be.

In my mind Blaine was standing a few feet away staring at me dumbly. Annie was racing towards me calling out too me. Wes let go and shifted just in time to allow a small body to collide with mine, sending the pair of is sprawling across the ground. I sobbed out a gasp as I held onto the little girl lying on my chest very much alive and relatively unharmed. Our little pile was added too as Blaine dropped down beside me, scooping the tow of us into his arms, pulling me upright again, like a rag doll.

“I thought you were gone,” I managed to say with a whimper, my voice scratchy from the smoke.

“I thought you were gone,” Blaine replied, holding on so tight it was becoming painful, I wasn’t about to complain. “I got out and found Wes and everyone at the front but they hadn’t seen you and they said the front door was locked. They’d been about to send people in when the whole place went up. I’ve never felt so lost in my life.

“You can’t ever leave me Kurt, you just can’t.”

“As long as you never leave me,” I replied.

“Never.”

The promise we made to each other sitting there in the firelight of the flaming building was not one we could hope to keep, one day one of us would lose the other, but it wasn’t today and for that I was thankful.

I began to cough and once I had I couldn’t stop. Blaine’s hand rubbed my back as he panicked and shouted for help. Through the tears that began to stream from my eyes I could see Annie staring up at me terrified, like I was about to disappear.

The next thing I knew was an oxygen mask was shoved over my mouth a nose, making it instantly easier to breath. I was bundled into an ambulance, Blaine and Annie climbing in after me and the three of us were taking to hospital.

*

I sat up in the hospital bed, Blaine sitting beside me with Annie curled up, asleep, in his lap. Wes was sitting the other side of me.

“There wasn’t much left when we found him but I can promise you Finch won’t be bothering you again.”

“And what about the rest of that organisation?” Blaine asked.

“Everyone who knew about the sinister side of the organisation is either dead, in jail or you,” Wes replied. Blaine nodded.

“So it’s really over?” I asked.

“Yes,” Wes answered.

“Thankfully,” Blaine commented with a sigh, one hand stroking Annie’s hair the other holding mine. “I can’t wait to get back to school.”