“Please, sir,” the decrepit woman hisses, but not unkindly. She comes about her speech impediment by a mixture of symptoms. Her thick accent coupled with her indeterminable old age causes her to talk that way. “Please, reconsider this decision.”

Kurt looks at the woman, his eyes bloodshot; his hair a mass of tangled, wayward strands; his lips quivering from constant, unrelenting crying.

“You said you had it!” Kurt cries, bypassing her arguments. “You said you would sell it to me! Wh---why else would I come here!?”

“You need to understand,” the woman implores, opening her hands in a pleading gesture. She fixes Kurt with one clear blue eye. The other eye is clouded – a useless, milky white lump of tissue bulging inside its socket, “what you ask for, it’s … unnatural.”

“But, your granddaughter said it was a done deal!” Kurt persists. He shoots a steely glare at the simpering young woman who ducks behind her grandmother to hide from his volatile stare.

“My granddaughter is a foolish girl” - The woman directs the comment over her shoulder to the girl cowering there - “but she means well. We need the money. She was thinking with her head and not her heart.”

“I can pay you twice what you’re asking for!” Kurt reaches into his back pocket for his wallet. “Three times! I’ll give you whatever you want! I came here in a Mercedes. I’ll give that to you!”

The girl peeks over her grandmother’s shoulder, but the woman turns and barks sharply at her in a language Kurt could not begin to understand.

“Mr. Hummel …” The old woman reaches out to comfort Kurt, taking his shaking hand in hers “… your husband is dead, and I am more sorry than I can ever express at your loss. You carry your love for him like a beacon. I can see it in your eyes …”

Kurt’s face crumbles at her words, new tears falling hot down his cheeks.

“It shines from every part of you. And with him gone, it is up to you to carry it now. It will never fade, as long as you remember him.”

“I don’t want to remember him,” Kurt whimpers, his voice fracturing. “I want him here with me. I want you to help me bring him back.”

The woman sighs in pity, but shakes her head.

“The effects of life are varied, Mr. Hummel. Our fate, it changes every day, with every choice that we make. But the effects of death should remain permanent.”

Kurt flinches.

Permanent.

Blaine dead … his husband gone … and nothing for Kurt to look forward to in life but emptiness. Every moment of their life they had planned together. One asshole drunk driver later, and Kurt is alone.

Just like when he was younger.

Just like when he lost his mom.

It’s not fair. Most people only lose a handful of people in their lifetime – when they’re older, when they have lived their lives.

Losing his mother at eight, his stepbrother at twenty, his father at twenty-three, and his husband at twenty-eight? No. That goes beyond cruel.

And Kurt’s not going to take it anymore.

Kurt lets the sorrow within him curdle, souring to anger, and he yanks his hand out of the old woman’s grasp.

“Your granddaughter said there are other methods of getting what I want,” Kurt snarls. “Dangerous methods. Methods that might require payment in sacrifice … even blood. And not necessarily my blood. Innocent blood, if you catch my meaning.”

Kurt had never considered violence, or murder, to be the answer to anything. But he had come to the crossroads where an exception has made itself clear. He’s spent an entire life not believing in God, or Christ, or religion. The only thing he’s ever believed in was his family.

But now that the last member of his family is gone, he’s prepared to annihilate his humanity to get it back.

The old woman snaps her head over her shoulder, scolding her granddaughter in a harsh, guttural voice. The girl, who had slowly started to brave coming out of hiding, shrinks down once again.

“Be reasonable,” the woman begs, “please, and think about what you are saying. What you are willing to do.”

“No.” Kurt’s calm is more potent than his anger. “The time for me being reasonable is over. I will get what I want, no matter what the cost. The question is whether or not you will be the one to give it to me.”

The woman looks down at her gnarled hands and sighs a long, exhausted sigh. “Alright, Mr. Hummel. I will sell the potion to you at the promised price.”

Kurt stares at her for a moment in relief and shock. He opens his wallet with the onset of happier tears and thumbs through the bills, pulling out a little extra out of joy for getting what he wants. He hands the money over, but the woman refuses to touch it. She waves it away, her granddaughter popping up long enough to grab the money and then scurry off again. The woman reaches into the folds of her skirts, to a leather pouch that hangs from a thin belt around her waist. From it, she fishes out a tiny blue bottle with a cork stopper sealing the mouth. She extends her arm to hand Kurt the bottle, and for the first time, her hand trembles.

“Pour the contents of this bottle into your husband’s mouth, Mr. Hummel,” she instructs, “and your husband will return.”

Kurt holds the bottle up to the dim candlelight of the musty SoHo shop. The blue glass glimmers, and a thick liquid inside sways back and forth, shimmering as it moves like the setting sun tossing sparkles across a dark, foreboding sea.

“There are some rules that go along with that potion,” the woman says, her voice weeding into Kurt’s head, summoning him back from his momentary trance, “and a few warnings you must heed as well.”

Kurt had hoped it would be a simple matter of giving his husband the liquid and living happily ever after, but he knows realistically that nothing’s that simple.

“Okay,” he says, slipping the bottle carefully into his pocket and patting over it twice to ensure it’s safe.

“First of all, you will give that to your husband, but what will come back …” she pauses, swallows hard “… will not entirely be your husband.”

Kurt nods. He had expected her to say something along those lines. It was like a scene straight from Practical Magic (with him as Sandra Bullock, of course).

The woman fixes both eyes, clear and clouded, on Kurt’s face as he waits for her to finish her speech, eager to go back home and get on with his life. She realizes, with regret, that he has every intention of going through with this, and takes on the heavy burden of allowing this to continue.

“Be there to look into his eyes when he awakes,” she says.

Kurt hadn’t dreamed of leaving his side, but since the woman makes such a point of it, he’s intrigued.

“Why?”

“He is being reborn, in a sense. And like other simple-minded creatures, he will imprint on the first person he sees.” She takes his hands and squeezes them.  “That person needs to be you.”

Kurt’s gulp is audible, the weight of her words and of his plan suddenly settling within him. They press in on him, like that moment when the police came to his door. Their words – “Mr. Hummel? I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but … it’s about your husband …” had turned him inside out, left his heart out in the cold.

He feels that cold now.

“Once the potion absorbs into his tissues, it will restart his heart,” she continues. “Then the potion will replicate. It will begin to take the place of his blood. It will make him calm, easier for you to control.”

Kurt nods again. He wants to say something, assure the woman that he understands, but she doesn’t pause long enough for him to speak. It wouldn’t matter. He can see the trepidation in her one, clear eye. He isn’t sure exactly what to say to make this better.

“It will be a slow process, and you must learn to be a patient man!” She raises her voice, letting go of one hand to waggle an emphatic finger in front of his face. “You will be teaching him, raising him as you would a child. Remember, even if only a small portion of his soul returns, that soul belongs to your husband, and you must love him or this will not work!”

The woman steps back, out of breath from her outburst, and the granddaughter (whom Kurt had forgotten about) returns, pushing forward an ornate but dusty antique chair to catch her in. Kurt holds the woman’s arms gently and helps her into it. The woman sits and waves them both off, not wanting them to make a fuss when she still has more to say.

“But most importantly,” the woman labors on, barely missing a beat in her speech, “do not let him taste blood.” Kurt kneels down so that the woman doesn’t feel the need to yell for her words to reach him. “He cannot eat meat, but most of all, don’t let him bite you or lick your wounds. Or anyone else’s – human or animal.”

Kurt gasps, remembering the last Walking Dead marathon he and Blaine had watched. Blaine thought the show was hilarious, but Kurt could barely make it to the middle of the first season. He had started with his hands over his eyes, then with his arm locked around Blaine’s, anxiously smacking his shoulder, and finally with most of his body lying over his husband’s lap and his face buried in his shirt.

“Would it make you feel better if we turned off the show and made love?” Blaine had asked, and Kurt happily agreed. But Kurt didn’t wait for Blaine to take him to bed. He straddled his husband’s hips right there and rode him into the leather upholstery.

“Will I turn into a zombie, too?” he asks, returning quickly, but reluctantly, from his daydream. “If he does bite me?”

“No,” the woman says with a chuckle. “Not in this case. That’s not the nature of this spell. No. Blood will give him back his memories.”

Kurt looks at the woman, bug-eyed, and shakes his head. “I … I don’t …”

“It will ignite his brain. He will begin to feel. In many ways, he will become more the man you married than in any other way.”

“Wha---?“ Kurt stutters, baffled as to how that could be a bad thing. If drinking blood could make him more Blaine, Kurt would set up an IV drip the minute he gets home. He would serve him cups of blood with every meal. “And why wouldn’t I want that again?” Kurt asks, trying not to sound like turning his revived husband into a blood-sipping fiend isn’t the greatest idea in known history.

The old woman smiles, but it isn’t fond. It’s shrewd, as if she can read every one of his thoughts, and she doesn’t approve.

“Once he has his memories back, he will start to crave it. Soon, drinking blood won’t be enough for him. It won’t work as well. It won’t keep the memories as fresh. He will have to go further, do more. He will become … a killer.”

Kurt’s face blanches and the woman laughs again, this time with a touch of wicked humor. A killer? His Blaine? His sweet, kind, compassionate, adorable Blaine? Kurt can’t picture it, not in a hundred years. Blaine was the man who constantly insisted to carrying spiders out of the house instead of squashing them with a shoe. Kurt can’t see him becoming a killer.

Then again, Kurt was willing to become one himself a second ago, so maybe he’s not in the best position to judge.

“You are playing with the laws of nature, Mr. Hummel,” she says, patting him on the cheek. “You are responsible not only for your own life, but for the life of those around you.”

The woman leans in close, those eyes – one alive, one dead - more menacing now than when he had walked into the shop. Her face is no longer that of a frail old woman, but of a powerful witch.

“So, don’t fuck it up.”

***

Kurt drives from the city back to the burbs completely on autopilot. He keeps the windows down, breathing in deep the brisk, coastal air, and trying not to think too hard about what he’s about to do. He puts his iPod on shuffle and cranks the volume. Showtune after showtune plays, and he sings along emphatically, his voice splintering on notes that are usually no problem for him to hit. He tries to focus on everything and anything besides his dead husband waiting for him, lying naked on their bed, packed in ice with the air conditioner blasting on high to keep decomposition at bay.

Kurt is a massive ball of contradictions flying down the highway at felony speeds, both exhilarated and terrified at the venture he’s about to embark on. The old woman wasn’t wrong – Kurt is tampering with the laws of nature. He knows that. He loves Blaine more than anything, maybe even more than his own life, but Blaine is dead, and in the eyes of the universe, there should be nothing Kurt can do to change that.

But there is.

He found it.

And he was.

Even if it scares the shit out of him.

He hasn’t told another living soul about this. He has a pretty good idea of what might happen if he does.

Like the cynic he is, Kurt also entertained the possibility that this might be a scam - a way to extort $5,000 out of a grieving widower, willing to pay anything to have his husband back. Except he had to admit that the old woman – possibly a hundred or so years older than God – put on a convincing act of being afraid for the paltry sum of $5,000 (paltry considering what the granddaughter had said about their financial straits).

They probably could have gotten ten thousand out of him easily.

Kurt kills the radio when he turns off the highway. He’d rather not alert the whole neighborhood to his arrival.

He loves his house, fell in love with it the first moment he laid eyes on it, but that was back when it was about to become a home.

Now, it’s a tomb. A mausoleum.

What would the home owner’s association think if they knew he was harboring a corpse in his bedroom without their permission?

When he had left earlier in the day, he had neglected to leave on any of the lights. It seemed fitting to keep the place dark while his husband’s body lay within. But now he wishes he had left one light on at least, or put a flashlight by the door. As he opens the door and peers into the pitch black living room, he holds his breath, half-expecting his husband’s naked corpse to meet him at the entryway.

He chides himself for being a ridiculous idiot, though, how ridiculous is it really?

A day ago, when he went searching SoHo shops for that horrid incense that Blaine used to love in the hopes of keeping his husband’s favorite scent alive in the house, he would have agreed that the concept of life after death was ludicrous.

That is until he stumbled upon a teenage girl who promised him the secret to bringing Blaine back.

“Bl---Blaine? Blaine, honey? I’m home, love,” Kurt calls out weakly, hoping that his dead husband won’t actually answer. Kurt is thirty steps away from walking out of his comfort zone and into a world he would have rather not known existed, so Blaine coming back to life on his own would tip Kurt over the edge into insanity.

Kurt reaches out a trembling hand and turns on the light. His living room, warm and comforting, decorated in muted browns and shabby chic inspired elements, welcomes him. There’s nothing different or out-of-place here.

Nothing dead.

Kurt continues to the bedroom, switching on lights as he goes. With every step, he has to convince himself to keep going. He originally pictured himself racing into the house, eager to get this started. But now, alone, with reality staring him in the face, he isn’t sure.

But he doesn’t have the luxury of waiting to see if he will eventually change his mind. Blaine’s internal organs, especially his brain, are decaying fast, regardless of how much ice or air conditioning he pipes into the place.

Twenty steps brings him to the threshold of his bedroom, where he stops, staring at the closed door.

Kurt reaches down and pats the bottle in his pocket, feeling the lump through the denim of his jeans. Then Kurt moves his hand to the doorknob, but stops with it hovering when he hears a small creak – like a foot stepping lightly on the hardwood floor. It’s the house settling, Kurt reassures himself. That’s what Blaine always said when Kurt woke in the middle of the night to the sound of odd creaking and whining.

“It’s a mid-century house,” he’d said. “The floors contract in the cold and expand in the heat.”

“What does that mean?” Kurt asked.

“It means the house talks in our sleep,” Blaine replied without opening his eyes. “Now go back to sleep.”

“Just the house settling,” Kurt mutters, plucking the explanation from his mind and saying it out loud to make it real. “Nothing else alive in the house except for me.”

Still, Kurt can’t bring himself to open the door.

He hears the creak again.

“Blaine? Are you there? Are you … are you waiting for me, baby?”

Of course he’s waiting for you, Kurt thinks. He’s waiting for you to grow a pair and get this over with.

Kurt sighs, allowing the rush of breath in his deflating body to give his hand momentum, touch the doorknob and open it like he has hundreds of times before.

This time is no different.

He turns the knob and switches on the light without thinking about the sight that awaits him on the bed. His eyes flick up, and Kurt’s stomach falls to the floor.

There’s Blaine, right where Kurt left him, lying in bed, eyes closed. He looks asleep and, from this distance, normal except for a few cuts and bruises on his face. The accident hadn’t banged his body up that badly, not from what Kurt had noticed, though he didn’t make it a point to look at Blaine for too long.

His neck is why not.

His severed neck from the whiplash - that had killed him instantly.

He’d been leaning forward in his car seat, looking at street signs, stuck on a small, offshoot road that the GPS in his car had apparently never heard of before. He had cautiously entered the intersection of the suburban street when the other car flew through out of nowhere and hit him from behind. Blaine hit the steering wheel, ironically, half a second before the air bag deployed.

Kurt blinks back the tears that automatically leap to his eyes at the thought of the accident that took his husband from him.

“H—hey, baby,” Kurt says, trying to get comfortable with the idea of talking to his husband again. “I went out shopping today, and you’ll never believe what I brought home.”

Kurt can see his own breath as it meets the air in the room, like he’s walking into a gigantic meat locker, making what he’s doing that much more morbid. His knees knock, but he clamps them together to keep his weak legs mobile. He reaches the bed, and his casual, conversational tone disappears, the words wavering as he speaks.

“I think … this might … help …” he hiccups, side-eying his husband’s body. Blaine’s skin appears waxy, coated in moisture from the frigid air, and the color isn’t right. Kurt knows that soon the blood will pool and Blaine’s unnaturally pale skin will turn black, so he has to hurry, but every muscle in his body screams for him to turn around and run.

Kurt touches the bed, and he whimpers.

I can do this, I can do this … he chants inside his head. He reaches out and lets his hand brush Blaine’s fingers. He tries to recall their warmth, the way Blaine’s touch made him feel loved, desired.

Kurt wants that back, and he isn’t going to let anything stand in his way.

Kurt kneels on the bed, crawls over to Blaine’s body, and leans over his serene face.

“I’m going to get you back,” Kurt whispers, cursing the fear in his voice. “If I have to claw my way into heaven and drag you back with my own two hands, I’m going to get you back.”

Kurt pulls the blue bottle out of his pocket. He holds it to the light and gives it a swirl, watching the liquid spin around the stomach of the glass and then settle into a shimmering mass. There’s Blaine’s life, Kurt thinks, sitting in the bottom of this glass.

Kurt yanks out the stopper and brings the bottle to Blaine’s lips.

“Bottoms up, love.” Kurt pecks a kiss to cold skin and then tips the contents into his mouth. He expects to see Blaine’s throat move as he swallows, but it doesn’t. For now, he’s still dead … but not for long.

Kurt remains kneeling at Blaine’s side. He stares into his husband’s face, heeding the ancient woman’s words to be the first person Blaine sees when he opens his eyes. He kneels and kneels for over an hour. His thighs cramp in the freezing cold. The prickle that comes with poor blood circulation assaults his skin, and the thought that this is an elaborately planned and executed hoax becoming more a likelihood as time passes by.

The sun starts to light up the neighborhood outside. Kurt can barely see early morning God rays seep in beneath the blackout curtains, but there they are - evidence of a brand new day. Still, there’s no change, no sign, nothing on Blaine’s face that might give Kurt a reason to hold on. He struggles against exhaustion, grasping at paper thin straws of hope, but with each passing minute, he’s failing.

It had been a dream – just a wonderful dream.

But Kurt has to wake up and face facts - his husband isn’t coming back to him in any form.

Kurt stretches his limbs - one leg, than the other. Then he lifts up his torso, bending his arms and flexing his hands. He crawls backward off the bed, raising his arms above his head, listening to his spine snap and pop. He looks at Blaine again, peacefully expired – one last look before he makes plans for his husband’s burial.

He’s beginning to feel it’s about time.

Kurt walks to his dresser and opens the top drawer, looking for his pajamas. Before he does anything, he needs a nap or he’ll drop dead on his feet.

He winces at the ill-placed pun.

He rummages through the drawer, looking past perfectly suitable pairs of shirts and lounge pants, but for what, he doesn’t know … until he finds it.

A journal.

In its pages, Kurt has documented everything that has ever tried to knock him down a peg; anything that ever tried to bring him to his knees - his mother’s death, Karofsky’s bullying, Blaine’s betrayal. It was a way for him to cope with the horrible things that had happened in his life. But he hasn’t written in it since his father was diagnosed with cancer.

After that, it felt useless. It wasn’t helping him. It sure as hell wasn’t making him feel any better to drudge up that stuff and keep it in a book. But not till that moment had he considered it ironic that he only wrote down the bad stuff and didn’t keep track of the good. He should have kept albums full of the positive milestones – winning Nationals, moving to New York, getting into NYADA, marrying Blaine.

He swears that someday he’ll buy a new journal and fill it with the happy events from his life, but he has this one with him now, so he might as well jot down another entry – one more moment of pain to add to the list.

Kurt feels numb to everything around him, and not just because of the intense cold. Nothing seems to matter now. He leaves his pajamas in the drawer and hops back onto the bed. There’s nothing here for him to fear. What lies in bed beside him is a body, nothing more - flesh and blood rotting from the inside with no unique soul to keep it all together, make it worth something.

He opens the journal to an empty page, where a blue ballpoint pen had been shoved into the spine, waiting for him. He picks the pen out and uncaps it. He puts the pen to the paper, but he doesn’t start writing right away. Where should he start? A few minutes ago, when Kurt finally decided to give up on the possibility of his husband coming back? A couple of hours ago, when the old woman almost refused to sell him the potion? Or that horrible night, when the police showed up at his door with apologetic looks and bad news?

While Kurt juggles those thoughts, trying to decide, he hears the melting ice-cubes collapse in their piles, some having turned to water, making way for others to fall. He feels the bed dip as he shifts his legs beneath him, his crossed limbs having fallen asleep in their bent up positions. He clears his throat, the sound rumbling in his chest, though the voice doesn’t exactly sound like his own.

Suddenly, his mind goes blank.

Even with the chill in the room, he feels his blood turn to ice. He doesn’t think he can get any colder, but he does. That inside out feeling returns as another one starts to register.

He no longer feels quite so alone.

Kurt lowers his journal, glancing up from the blank page to find Blaine, rolled onto his side, staring at him with emotionless eyes.

***

January 15 –

He opened his eyes and looked at me, but the eyes I remember are no more. Gone are the golden hazel eyes I loved so much. These new eyes are white on white, the pupils infinitely dark and the irises torn. They stare without blinking. They look at me, but they don’t seem to recognize me. I don’t want to reject him, but those eyes unnerve me.

There’s so much about them that’s innocent and frightened.

There’s so much about them that’s desolate and dead.

We literally spent the morning just looking at one another.

I would give anything to know what’s going on in his mind. I want to reach out and touch him, but I’m afraid. I know it won’t be the same. He won’t be warm. What could be worse than the feel of his skin after he died? I don’t know. But whatever this is, it might be. And he won’t smell like Blaine. He won’t have his suave air or his beautiful singing voice. It’s almost as if I adopted some wild animal and made it my husband.

What have I done?

***

January 16 –

All day long, he tried to move, grunting with the effort of struggling to stand up and get out of bed. He didn’t speak words; he just groaned. I want to help him. I want to pretend that he’s simply convalescing after a horrible illness. I want to bathe him and dress him. I want to sit him down in front of the television, prop up his feet, and feed him soup and ice-cream. I want to put this chapter behind us and get on with our lives.

I want to make-believe him dying never happened, but I’m not that good an actor.

He’s behaving exactly the way the old woman warned me he would. He’s like a child – a grown, mentally-disabled child.

This is the ‘in sickness and in health’ part of the marriage package, which I agreed to without hesitation.

Never mind the ‘till death do us part’ portion.

This is a part of my vows, and I’ll honor them.

My love will help him, I know it will.

…

Can I really do this, or am I fooling myself?

***

January 17 –

I’m trying my best to take the bad with the good.

I managed to get him to the living room sofa. He moved his legs stiffly. He couldn’t seem to bend his knees.

He had been declared dead on arrival because of the injury to his neck, but now I’m wondering if anything else is broken. I wasn’t really paying attention to the doctor when he went over the extent of Blaine’s injuries. After I heard the word ‘dead’, I tuned out.

I should get a copy of Blaine’s hospital records.

But if his legs are broken, how will I deal with that? Will the potion magically fix everything? I mean, it brought him back to life. Could fixing broken legs be more difficult than that? What is the extent of its effects? Do I need a secondary potion of some kind to repair internal injuries?

Maybe I should call the old shopkeeper back and ask.

We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

He stumbled numerous times and fell on me. I did my best not to cringe at his touch or accidentally drop him, but those eyes, so close to mine, were like looking into a nightmare. I could see through them to the stagnant veins and arteries behind.

The fourth time he stumbled, though, I got the feeling that maybe he was falling on purpose so that I would have to catch him.

I even thought I saw the shadow of a smile cross his lips.

I watched him as he sat in front of the TV and renewed his passion for Logo. RuPaul’s Drag Race was on. That show had been one of his favorites – a dirty pleasure, he called it.

He sat so still. He didn’t swallow. He didn’t appear to breathe.

The only time he moved was when he looked over to where I sat, I think to make sure I was still there.

He sat for hours and watched TV. There was nothing else for him to do.

I fed him salad for dinner. I let him stay in front of the television instead of making him go to the dining room table. I didn’t see any reason to move him. He leaned down and sniffed the cold lettuce leaves, but he didn’t eat.

Neither did I.

***

January 19 –

After a full day of limping him around the house, Blaine is surprisingly steady on his feet. He hasn’t attempted any dance moves yet, but he can make it from the bedroom to the living room sofa by himself. It takes him a while, but he can do it.

His body is still stiff, but he seems to be getting more comfortable with it.

I should be jumping for joy at his progress, but I don’t know that I’m all that comfortable with it.

***

January 21 -

He doesn’t sleep, and now that he doesn’t rely on me to get around the house, neither do I. I know he sees me like a parent-figure, and he won’t hurt me, but he’s such an alien creature. Not like the old Blaine at all.

It’s strange having him around the house.

When Blaine was

Before the accident, Blaine was so independent. He was a professor at NYADA, and a song writer. During his days off, he had tons of projects that kept him busy, and on weekends, he sat in with a local band on vocals and guitar. He didn’t need me, didn’t need my help with anything.

But now, he needs to be near me all the time.

I understood there would be a change in our dynamic, but it’s such a striking change that it’s difficult to get used to.

I took a shower for the first time in days. I left him in the living room watching TV, but when I finished and opened the curtain, there he was, standing there … staring.

I fell asleep for about an hour afterward, and when I woke up, he was kneeling beside me, again staring at me.

He’s always staring.

What does he see when he looks at me?

***

January 22 –

I finally broke down and gave Blaine a shower. He didn’t stink necessarily, but there was something about him, something that smelled … well, I can’t describe it here. I just wanted it gone.

I’ve seen the injuries to his chest numerous times, but I haven’t really paid much attention to his back.

When I saw it, I almost threw up.

And he noticed. He heard me gag. He turned to face me, and for the first time, he had an expression on his face that was different from his normal blank one … or from that imperceptible smile I thought I saw when I was helping him walk around the house.

I gasped, holding in my urge to be sick.

And he looked hurt.

***

January 27 -

Each day that he improves, I debate telling his family. I know his mom misses him terribly, and his brother, too. But, in the end, it would be too cruel. He’s not entirely himself anymore. He never will be. Most days, I curse myself for doing this to him. My motives were selfish. I wasn’t thinking of anyone but myself when I made the decision to bring him back. I wasn’t thinking of his family.

I wasn’t even thinking of him.

Our lives are unrecognizable. We’ll never travel the world like we planned. We’ll never have children. Blaine will never perform on stage again, and I’ll have to retire from Vogue. The rest of our days will be spent here in this house, and I have to be okay with that.

But what about Blaine?

If you asked me, rationally, if I think he wants to live this half-life with no potential to be anything other than a walking human puppet who only barely resembles the man that was Blaine Anderson, I would have to say no. Absolutely not.

But I can’t turn back now.

I can only hope that my love for him is enough to keep him from hating me when he’s able to comprehend completely what I’ve done to him.

***

February 1 –

I’ve finally gotten him to eat – bits and pieces mostly, bites of vegetables and corners of bread. It doesn’t look like he likes it, but he eats it, and that’s good. He eats because I tell him to. It shows that he trusts me.

He’s more self-sufficient now. He showers and brushes his teeth on his own. He picks out his pajamas and dresses himself. Sometimes he tries his hand at making the bed. He’s trying to be more vocal, but he has yet to say a single thing that isn’t a grunt or a moan.

I often wonder if I’ll ever hear him sing again.

I’ve been looking up the subject of speech delay on the internet, trying to find ways to help him learn. I came across one website in particular with fun and creative ideas. I started making him flashcards of simple consonant blends and one syllable words. I was so excited to show them to him, but then I realized - I don’t know if he can read.

***

February 3 –

I tried calling the shop in SoHo to ask about the effects of the potion, but the phone has been disconnected.

I guess they went out of business after all.

It doesn’t matter. Nothing appears to be broken, or maybe it’s that he doesn’t feel pain.

I was teaching him how to cook, hoping it would bring a bit of the old Blaine back. We used to cook together all the time, even back in high school. I started him small. I had him grating cheese. He ran the grater over the backs of his fingers, scraping off skin. He didn’t even flinch. I think it bothered me more than it bothered him. I bandaged it up and, without thinking, I kissed the wound. I looked at him in utter shock …

… and he smiled.

It’s so nice to see his smile back. I never thought I would.

***

February 4 –

I took off Blaine’s bandage, and his wound from the cheese grater is completely gone. There’s not a single trace of it left.

I guess that answers that question.

I should be relieved, but it bothers me, and I don’t know why.

***

February 14 –

Today was the most unexpectedly intense, depressing, and wonderful day all at once.

It started when Blaine woke up this morning. He got up before me and tried to make me breakfast. I had no idea why. He hadn’t tried before. He burned it, himself, and the stove along with it. The fire alarm woke me up, blaring in my ears. I managed to get to the extinguisher in time, but poor Blaine looked heartbroken over his blackened pancakes and undercooked eggs.

Then, before lunch, he wanted to go outside. I think he was trying to sneak out in secret, but I caught him jiggling the front doorknob (he has yet to master the lock - thank you to whomever I should thank). When I caught him, he slammed his hand on the door in frustration and sprinted for the back one. I followed him, knowing it was locked and that he wouldn’t be able to open it. When I reached the back door, he was trying to wedge his way out of the old doggie door (I don’t know why we have it. We’ve never owned a dog, but there’s one in the kitchen, too). I patted him gently on the shoulder and asked him what he needed. He stood up and groaned, moving his mouth and wiggling his tongue, making nonsensical sounds. When he couldn’t say what he needed to say, he pointed out the window to the garden. I shrugged. I told him I didn’t understand. He pointed again more forcefully, jabbing at the window with his index finger.

“I don’t … I don’t understand,” I said. “Do you want to go outside for a walk?”

I had taken him outside a few times, when the neighborhood kids were at school and I didn’t think anyone would notice us. I wrapped him up in a full length coat and scarf with just his eyes peeking out. I guess he enjoyed it, but he’d never specifically asked to go outside before. He shook his head and pointed again, this time at the dying rose bushes that I hadn’t had time to deadhead yet. I didn’t get it. I shrugged again and he stormed off to the bedroom.

I followed him there, but he locked the door.

I could hear him inside, moaning. It was horrible. It sounded like pain and embarrassment and frustration all rolled together, and I couldn’t help him.

He wouldn’t let me.

I tried to lure him out several times, but he didn’t come out till dinner time.

He was dressed in his black Armani suit.

It was the suit I had planned to bury him in.

It threw me for a loop, dragging me kicking and screaming back to that day when I found out he was dead, before I decided to try bringing him back, before I knew that I could. I took out the suit to air it. I guess I hadn’t put it back into storage because there it was, standing before me with the living corpse of my husband inside.

It took all the air out of my lungs.

“Take it off,” I said quietly, trying not to alarm him, but how was I supposed to explain to my somewhat dead husband that I didn’t want to see him dressed in the suit I planned on putting him in the ground in?

He looked confused and shook his head, opening his mouth and groaning.

“Please, Blaine,” I begged, hoping he would hear my anguish, “take it off.”

He stomped his foot and shook his head, the way a petulant child would. It should have been cute, but I couldn’t handle it. I have had so many problems with his disturbing looks before, but for the first time since he came back to me, he truly looked dead.

“Take it off!” I screamed. I ran at him swinging, grabbing the lapels, trying to tear it off his body. He held me, pinned my arms, and I could feel his renewed strength. I hadn’t really let him touch me before, but now I knew that if he wanted to, he could probably hurt me.

I stared up at him, realizing that he was hovering above me, and that I was lying on my back on the floor. My heart stopped. He had never looked truly menacing before. Even in death, he seemed so innocent. But now, he looked like a monster. He had a piece of paper balled in his grasp, and he tried to make me look at it, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from his face – pale and cold and lifeless, regardless of the fact that he was my Blaine.

He stared at me, trying to speak.

And that’s exactly what he was doing. Speaking.

His lips were moving in exaggerated, grotesque ways that shouldn’t be able to turn sound into words, but they were.

“K … Kr … Ku …”

Blaine blinked and shook his head.

“Kur …”

“Kurt?” I asked, awed and breathless that he was trying to say my name.

Blaine laughed. It was a glorious, hollow, frankly frightening sound, but I couldn’t help smiling when I heard it. He put his fingers to my lips. I guess he didn’t want me to steal his thunder.

“Kurrrt,” he said, smacking his lips. “I … lo … I lov …” Blaine swallowed again, closing his eyes, trying to make the words in his head match the movement of his lips. “I … love … you … Kurrrrt.”

Blaine tapped again at the paper on the floor. This time I did what he wanted and looked. He had torn off the current page from the calendar, and was poking at a box circled shakily in red. I peered down at it.

I could have cried.

“Valentine’s Day?” I asked, looking into his pale, broken eyes. He sighed, nodding.

It was Valentine’s Day.

He’d wanted to make me breakfast in bed … for Valentine’s Day.

He’d wanted to get me roses … for Valentine’s Day.

My husband had wanted to do something nice for me … for Valentine’s Day.

I hate Valentine’s Day with every last fiber of my being, but my husband had spent all day teaching himself how to say, “I love you, Kurt,” because there was nothing else he could do for me.

So, now Valentine’s Day is my new favorite holiday.

***

June 4 -

Five months-ish later…

I can’t believe it! It’s been five months and we’ve made it! Despite the odds. Despite the difficulties and the heartaches. Despite every time I thought about giving up, here we are.

Happy.

Together.

We spend our days wrapped in each other’s arms. We watch TV. I read books out loud; he sits and listens. Blaine is re-learning how to play the piano and the guitar. We’ve even started singing duets again. It might not be what it was before, but it’s perfect for us.

Since we’ve made headway using foundation on Blaine’s skin and contact lenses in his eyes (in a slightly darker shade of brown than his original alluring hazel, but it does the trick), we’ve managed to go outside more. His vocabulary has expanded immensely, and a hint of his old dapper confidence has come back.

I am finally at a point where I am optimistic about the future.

Because I’m beginning to think that there might actually be one for us.

***

August 13 –

I woke up this morning to a strange screaming/squealing noise. It didn’t sound human, so I didn’t worry too much about it. As long as none of the neighborhood kids got hit by a car, there’s really no reason to jump out of bed and investigate. After a few minutes of listening to the goings on outside, I determined that wasn’t the case, so I considered going back to sleep.

But then I noticed that Blaine wasn’t lying beside me in bed.

That isn’t too unusual. He’s normally the first one up on any given day. I just curl back into a ball, holding his pillow to my chest until he returns.

He always returns.

The squealing wasn’t really that weird. I’ve thought for the last few months that we might have rats. Or squirrels. Or possums. I think I’ve heard that same squealing a few times before. But seeing as I can’t find any evidence of rodent-based destruction anywhere in the house, I have to admit, I haven’t been too aggressive about hunting it down.

Instead of returning to bed, I decided to make some waffles for breakfast, so I got out of bed and went out into the kitchen.

That’s where I found Blaine.

He was crouching on the floor …

He was covered in blood …

Biting into the spine of what used to be a raccoon …

…

I may have a problem.