“I set out on a narrow way
Many years ago…”

“Oh god, change the station, quick!” Kurt yelled, reaching out to start poking at various buttons in the radio of their rental car.

Blaine was at the wheel, but took his eyes off the road for a moment to glance over at his fianc� flailing wildly in the passenger seat. “Hey, I kind of like that song!”

Kurt glared, but opted for turning the volume down so it was barely a whisper rather than changing the station altogether.

“I can clearly see that we’re back in Ohio, Blaine. I don’t need the radio reminding me, too.” He sat back, resting his elbow against the car door and dropping his head into his hand.

They definitely weren’t in New York anymore. The August heat was stifling and they had the air conditioner cranked up as high as it would go as they zipped down the interstate past endless farms on their way to Lima. As much as Kurt loved visiting with his dad and Carole, he much preferred when they came to see him in New York. But he hadn’t been home since Christmas, and both Blaine and Burt had guilted him into agreeing to the quick summer trip before classes resumed at the end of the month.

“So what exactly do you have against Rascall Flatts, Kurt?”

“Seriously?” he asked, along with his signature eyebrow-raise. “That song is country, horrendously sappy, and it’s about God finding some guy a girlfriend. I don’t see what there is to like.”

Blaine grinned. “First of all, don’t say ‘it’s country’ like you don’t have the entire collections of both Ms. Underwood and Ms. Swift currently residing on your iPod…”

“That’s different,” Kurt mumbled. “They’re pop-country.”

Blaine ignored him and continued, “…and second, I think it’s sweet. It’s about the moments that lead you to the right person. All those little things you wouldn’t even think twice about if it hadn’t led you to someone amazing.”

“Yeah, I get that. I guess I just object to the idea of some dude in the sky pointing people at each other. If there’s a god, shouldn’t he have better things to do?”

“Well, that’s a whole other topic. But seriously, Kurt, think about how different our lives would be if one tiny thing had happened differently. What if Puck hadn’t suggested that you go spy on the Warblers? You know I love the Glee guys, but what if just one of them had taken the time to listen to you, to make you feel welcomed. You wouldn’t have had any reason to sneak around Dalton, and we never would have met.”

Kurt looked over at Blaine, who seemed to be gripping the steering wheel a little tighter than necessary. “True, but you’re forgetting the fact that McKinley and Dalton competed against each other a month later. We would have both been at sectionals that year, and believe me, I would’ve noticed the hot lead singer of the Warblers,” Kurt said with a sly grin. “And Schuester was ready to give me a solo before I left for Dalton, so maybe you would have noticed me, too.”

“I think I would have noticed you even if you were all the way in the back, babe,” Blaine said, looking over a Kurt for a long as he dared while driving 70 miles per hour. “It’s just a little crazy to think about how fragile the whole thing can be. Did I ever tell you that I was actually running late to that Warbler’s performance the day you came to Dalton?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“I was usually the first one there, but I’d been sick one day the week before, so I stayed in class a little longer to make up a quiz I’d missed. If I hadn’t been sick, I would have walked down those stairs ten minutes earlier, and we never would have crossed paths. Who knows, maybe you would have stopped Chris or someone instead.” Blaine grinned and waggled his eyebrows at Kurt. “Maybe you’d be in the car with him right now, on the way to see your dad for the first time since you got engaged.”

Kurt snorted and shook his head. “You’re ridiculous. Chris is nowhere near as cute as you.” He paused for a moment. “But you do seem to have given this an awful lot of thought. Any particular reason you’ve thought of all the possible ways we could have missed meeting each other?”

Blaine sighed. “I thought about it all the time during the first year or so that I knew you. Even before we started dating, I’d think, ‘Wow, what if Kurt had never been bullied and I’d missed out on finding such a great friend’ or later, ‘Crap, what if Jeremiah had actually wanted to date me and I’d started a relationship with him before realizing I was in love with you?’” He glanced over at Kurt again, eyebrows knit with concern. “I guess it just scared me that it would have been so easy to miss out on the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Kurt reached out to gently rub the back of Blaine’s neck. “But we did meet,” he said softly, “And everything worked out.”

Blaine nodded, leaning back into Kurt’s caress as his long fingers stroked through the curls at the base of Blaine’s neck.

“I sort of lied earlier, about the song,” Blaine admitted. “I said I kind of like it, but I actually really love it. It reminds me that even the worst moments of my life can lead to something better. If the Sadie Hawkins incident hadn’t happened, I never would have ended up at Dalton.” He smiled sweetly at Kurt, but his eyes were still sad. “One of my lowest moments led directly to one of the best.”

“I understand, sweetie, but you’re still kind of bumming me out. I fully believe that we would have found each other in the end. Even if it didn’t happen until years down the road. After all, we both ended up in New York for college. It sounds like a long shot, but I think we would have eventually met. And of course, with you being your ridiculous self, I would have fallen for you.” Kurt paused, gently pulling Blaine’s hand away from the steering wheel to kiss the back of it and hold it in both of his own.

Blaine blinked hard, trying to hide the fact that his eyes were starting to get a little misty. “You really think so?”

“Of course I do.”

“So you think we’re soulmates?”

Kurt bit his lip, considering the question. “Not in the way most people talk about soulmates. You know, with the whole ‘there’s only one true person out there for you and you’ll never find love with anyone else’ kind of thing. But I do think we are, in a slightly different way.” He sighed heavily. “I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but I guess I just believe that no matter how differently my life could have gone, I think every possible version of me would still be madly, hopelessly in love with every version of you.” He made a face and squeezed Blaine’s hand. “Does that make any sense at all?”

Blaine looked over at Kurt and simply said, “I love you. So much.”

“I love you too.”

After a few moments of comfortable silence, Blaine gave Kurt a quizzical glance. “So you do kind of agree with the song,” he said as the corner of his mouth ticked up in a little grin, “And us being together is part of some greater plan.”

Kurt gave him a look. “I don’t know if I’d go quite that far, but I’ll tell you the same thing I once told my dad: I don’t believe in God, but I believe in us. I don’t know if it’s part of some greater cosmic force or not, but I think the power of our love is what’s brought, and kept, us together.” He strained against his seatbelt to lean over and give Blaine a quick kiss on the cheek. “And you can make of that what you will!”

He settled back, turning the radio up again and switching around until he heard the sound of Pink blaring out of the speakers.

“Ah, that’s more like it!” he grinned.

“…if you ever, ever feel like you’re nothing
You are perfect to me”

“Oh, the memories,” Blaine sighed dramatically, smiling as Kurt let out a giggle. They fell silent as they neared the exit for Lima, Kurt watching the sunset out the window as it started to grow dark. Blaine kept his eyes on the road, grinning to himself as he thought about Kurt’s definition of soulmates and how grateful he was for his own broken road that had led him to the love of his life, the love he would soon be marrying.

As he pulled off on their exit and slowed to a stop at the traffic light, he watched the orange light coming in through the passenger window, silhouetting Kurt in a fiery glow. He reached to take his hand, and when Kurt turned to smile at him, he pulled him in gently for a slow kiss.

“What was that for?” Kurt asked breathily as they pulled away.

“Because two hours is far too long to go without kissing you, my dear.”

Kurt started to lean back in, but the traffic light turned green before their lips could meet. Instead he took Blaine’s hand again, lacing their fingers together as they set off down the road, once again in the town that had brought them together.