The drive back to the rental house takes forever as soon as the worst of the storm hits. They didn’t see it coming. The sky had been blue and clear all morning. The clouds crept in on them unexpectedly while they napped, tanning on their towels under the early summer sun. There hadn’t been much more than a strong breeze to warn them before thunder punched the air, the skies opened up, and the rain washed down.

All it takes is a clap of thunder and the touch of rain to paralyze Kurt. He doesn’t move, he just falls apart all at once. Once Kurt starts crying - choking around panicked, open-mouthed screams, tears running down his face in droves - he can’t make himself calm down. He shakes all over, uncontrollably, every muscle in his body trying to tear out from under his skin. Blaine has to carry Kurt, fireman style, at a run to the car. He can’t leave Kurt alone even for a second when he’s like this, so they end up abandoning their towels on the beach and drive at full tilt back to their summer rental.

This was not supposed to happen, and not just this disaster at the beach.

This was not supposed to be their life. This was not the man Blaine married.

The tragic accident that took Kurt’s mother from him didn’t only end her life. In many ways, it ended Kurt’s life as well.

Kurt stopped taking care of himself. He doesn’t feed himself; he barely sleeps. He’s given up on nearly everything he loves – sewing, music, theater. He hasn’t touched his piano or his sewing machine since the funeral. He doesn’t often leave the house, and when he does, he puts no effort into what he wears or how he looks. Little things trigger small crying fits – the smell of his mom’s favorite perfume, cheesecake (the dessert they always made together), her favorite song, the one that she would sing to him when he was little, before she put him to bed.

But the most devastating trigger by far for Kurt has been the rain.

Elizabeth Hummel died in a four car pile-up during a sudden spring deluge three months ago, and Kurt hasn’t been the same since. Blaine knew that Kurt and his mother were close, but he could never have predicted this. Maybe it wasn’t the fact that she died, but the fact that she was taken from her son so early. Whatever the reason, he’s stuck in this time and place, with no impetus to move forward from here.

What is the purpose of starring on Broadway if his mother isn’t there to see him? Why work so hard on starting his own clothing line if she can’t sit by the runway during Fashion Week when he debuted? Why even think about adopting children if she isn’t there to spoil them?

Blaine loved Kurt’s mother, too, but he knows that giving up on life isn’t going to bring her back. He wants to continue on.

Kurt is standing still.

Blaine couldn’t stand the thought that he might lose Kurt, so he planned a second honeymoon and whisked his husband away to the coast – a place they’ve been to many times before, a place where they could always be themselves together, where they could be alone and forget that the world existed for a while.

Blaine wanted to escape to a place where he might be able to put his grieving husband back together.

Blaine had planned their trip so meticulously. That’s the painful part about Kurt’s meltdown. Blaine had pinpointed a block of time when the National Weather Service guaranteed that the chances of a storm would be less than 10%, promising sunny skies for the whole week.

Blaine thought they’d be safe.

Well, here Blaine is, driving his hysterical husband back to their rental in the 9.9% chance of a storm.

When this is all over, he’s going to be writing the director of the National Weather Service a strongly worded email.

Blaine pulls their car into the garage; Kurt races out before it even stops rolling.

“Kurt!” Blaine calls after him, throwing the car into park and following Kurt into the house. Kurt doesn’t stop. He doesn’t seem to hear. He runs into their bedroom, straight into the bathroom (the only room without a window), and shuts the door, locking it behind him.

More thunder booms, resonating like the flat end of a large, ball-peen hammer pounding against the roof, shaking the whole house. When the noise subsides, Blaine hears what remains of Kurt’s tortured cry.

“Kurt,” Blaine yells. He doesn’t want to yell at his husband, but he needs to be heard through the door and over the rain. “What do you need me to do?”

“I … I don’t know,” comes Kurt’s shuddering reply. “I just … I just want to get away from the—-“

More thunder roars, cutting Kurt off. The din outside bleeds away into whimpers from behind the door, and Blaine sinks down onto the floor, feeling helpless.

“Do you … do you want to go somewhere else?” Blaine offers. “Somewhere further inland? Maybe the storm’s not as bad away from the water.”

“I don’t want to go back out in that!” Kurt cries, a frightened edge barreling through his voice full-force, and Blaine feels his husband’s terror like a pickaxe through his skull.

“I know, Kurt! I know! I’m sorry!” he says, on the verge of breaking down himself, knowing he can’t, not in any way. “I’m trying to help, baby. I want to help you.”

He hears a small, trembling sniffle. “I know, I know,” Kurt answers softly, bracing himself for more thunder to come.

“Do you have any ideas?” Blaine remembers the steps their counselor taught him, to take a step back and let Kurt come up with solutions for himself, not force ideas on him. Sometimes, these steps are hard for Blaine to follow. He doesn’t like standing back and doing nothing where it involves his husband.

He doesn’t like seeing Kurt in pain.

“I think …” Kurt starts, and Blaine holds his breath to listen. “I think, maybe … I’m just going to take a shower.”

Blaine could have laughed. He might have let one slip in his relief.

“How is taking a shower different than being out in the rain?” Blaine asks, going for humor, trying to make his husband laugh again.

But Kurt’s not there yet, and his joke misses its mark.

“I don’t know! It just is, alright?” Kurt yells, the tears in his voice still present, ever-present.

They don’t ever seem to go away.

“I’m sorry, Kurt.” Blaine switches back to a low, soothing voice. “That was stupid and uncalled for. But, honestly, I don’t know what to do.”

“I---I don’t know, either. I’m not sure why this is happening. I feel … lost. A-and alone.”

Blaine used to get so offended when Kurt said that. How could he feel alone when the man who loves him more than anyone in the world is standing right in front of him? But it’s the truth. What Kurt is going through is like some bizarre mind-control. It’s a slippery slope for both of them. Nothing about what Kurt is suffering makes sense to Blaine. All he knows is that no matter what, he can’t leave Kurt to fight this alone.

Through sickness and in health.

He’ll keep learning, keep doing, keep adapting, keep trying.

Each roar of thunder hits Kurt at the core of his psyche and sets alarm bells blaring in his brain, ringing throughout his body, klaxons and sirens going off at once, all screaming their own separate warnings. They ring so loudly that they fill Kurt’s head to bursting. He turns on the water and throws his hands over his ears, humming in an effort to drown them out, but he can’t hear himself think.

Which means Kurt also doesn’t hear the door open, the lock picked from the outside. With his hands plastered over his ears, he can’t hear Blaine step inside and remove his shoes. With his eyes squeezed shut, he doesn’t see Blaine pull aside the shower curtain and climb inside the tub, crouching to sit across from him. Kurt startles at the first unexpected press of lips against his forehead and his eyes snap open, but the moment his husband’s arms wrap around him, he melts into them.

“It’s alright,” Blaine says as Kurt cries against his shoulder, planting kiss after kiss across Kurt’s wet forehead and whispering words of encouragement into his skin. “It’s okay. You’re not alone. You can do this. We’ll do it together … one day at a time.”