Beeping monitors.

Cords and IVs.

The sharp smell of alcohol and industrial disinfectant.

The draft from an overhead vent where a steady stream of cold, conditioned air bleeds in nonstop.

Rough sheets beneath his fingertips that he can’t help straightening, can’t stop adjusting.

The urgency hidden beneath the tension-steeped calm, that even as they wait in this one, quiet room, in other areas of the hospital, nurses and doctors are scrambling. Prepping.

Fighting against the clock.

It reminds Kurt too much of the days when he stood by his father’s bedside, waiting for news about his condition.

How bad was his heart attack?

Would the damage be permanent?

Would he ever wake up?

That was a long time ago. Kurt’s father ended up being fine. Better than fine. After his heart attack, he became more health conscious. He ate better (mainly because Kurt harped on him, but as far as Kurt was concerned, it counted), exercised, and saw his doctor regularly. Kurt considered his father (and himself) lucky that they came out of that experience more or less unscathed.

So it seemed like a sick, existential joke on the part of the universe that lightning would strike his way twice.

The memories of that near-tragedy with his father crowd Kurt’s chest, make his heart ache, but his isn’t the heart he’s worried about.

Nor is it his dad’s.

“How do you feel?” Kurt asks, trying to hide the tremble in his voice by forcing a smile onto his face – a smile that, he’s afraid, is fooling no one at this point.

Blaine looks up from his bed, drugged-droopy eyelids struggling to stay open, and shakes his head.

“What?” Kurt asks, frowning at Blaine’s setup – the position of the IVs in his arm, the cuff around his bicep, his nasal cannula. They had rushed to the hospital within a minute of getting the call that a heart had become available. There was a flurry of activity when Blaine walked through the doors – undressing, re-dressing, cleaning, sticking, pricking, and poking – a lot of hurry up, hurry up, hurry up just so that they could sit in here and wait. It made Kurt want to scream. He can’t even imagine how Blaine feels. “Does something hurt? Do you feel uncomfortable? Do you want me to call the nurse?”

Blaine continues to shake his head – a gentle roll left and right on his pillow, very little strength but plenty of conviction. “I can’t, Kurt. I can’t do this.”

Kurt chuckles, too sad and anxious to be humorous. “Well, it’s a little too late to do anything about it now.”

“Kur---rt” – Blaine’s voice, a slush of vowels and consonants mushed together in an attempt to form words, gets caught in the lump of despair building at the base of his throat – “I don’t want to do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because, it might change everything.”

“Of course, it’s going to change everything.” Kurt keeps his tone light, dismissing this argument that they’ve had over and over, and has gone far beyond ridiculous. “With this new heart, you’ll live longer.”

“B-but … but what will happen to us? What if …?”

“What if nothing, alright!” Kurt snaps unintentionally. Numb from the preliminary round of anesthetics working their way through his body, Blaine barely flinches, but Kurt sees it in the flutter of his eyelids, and sighs. They’ve exhausted this conversation, and Kurt can’t take it anymore. He can’t lose Blaine. No matter what the risk, Blaine has to live. That’s not even a question. “You’re not making sense right now,” he says, putting a hand gently over his husband’s, hovering so as not to dislodge anything important. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. But I would rather lose you as a husband than go on the rest of my life without you existing on this planet. And if it comes to that, then I will stalk you till the day you die, Blaine Anderson-Hummel.”

Blaine smiles, but he doesn’t have the strength to do that and keep his eyes open, so his eyelids throw in the towel and drift shut. “Then you’re a better man than I am.”

“Was there ever any doubt?” Kurt brushes a tear off his cheekbone, thankful that Blaine can’t see. So much for being strong for his husband.

“Hmm,” Blaine murmurs, finally succumbing to a drug induced sleep. “I guess not.”

***

Waiting to find out if Blaine would be okay, if he would make it through, and what that would mean for them if he did, is harder for Kurt than it was waiting for his father to wake up from a coma. As Kurt retreats to the private CTICU waiting room where he’ll stay until Blaine gets out of surgery, the façade that is his courage dissolves.

As awful as it sounds, Kurt has more to lose if Blaine doesn’t make it than he had if his father didn’t. His father means the world to him, but at the time of his heart attack, he and Kurt had had fifteen years together. Kurt has only known Blaine for half that time, and they only knew for certain that they were soulmates within the last three years.

They’d always had feelings for one another. Since the day they met, they felt it – that spark that everyone talks about. And it was mutual. They knew that somehow, even though neither one of them had their marks yet (they met when they were sixteen – marks don’t materialize on the body till eighteen), they had a closeness. A special connection.

If they weren’t soulmates, what could that connection possibly mean?

When Kurt got his mark first, on his chest above his heart, which very clearly read Blaine Anderson, Kurt knew that it had to be his Blaine. And he was relieved. Fate hadn’t been kind to him for most of his life. He had lost his mother, almost lost his father, had his own life threatened by a school bully. It would be cruel if he lost Blaine. But since Blaine didn’t have a mark (which should have been over his heart, too, since soulmate marks traditionally matched in placement), Blaine wasn’t as certain. There was always the possibility that there was another Blaine Anderson somewhere in the world, and that Kurt was meant for him. Kurt was adamant that that wasn’t the case, but Blaine was stubborn.

But Blaine turned out to be wrong.

And Kurt had underestimated the kindness of fate.

Not long after Kurt and Blaine graduated from high school and moved to New York, Blaine started suffering symptoms of a heart defect he’d inherited from his father – a defect that doctors had assured him his entire young life would more than likely turn out to be just a nuisance, fixable by a minor, relatively low-risk procedure when he got older, if need be. But Blaine’s heart had started to malfunction, two chambers shutting down almost simultaneously, and that’s when they found his soulmate mark – the name Kurt Hummel written directly across the front.

Kurt has loved Blaine forever. Being soulmates, he loved Blaine before they even met. He’d dreamt his entire life of him without ever knowing it, and not just his striking features, which he’d only glimpsed in part - his golden eyes, and his dark, curly hair - but his love of music, his passion, his grace, his elegance, his sincerity.

His drive and ambition.

His beautiful soul, and how much their souls belonged together. Because that’s what soulmates means – finding your other half. That one person on the planet whose existence makes you whole.

Preparing for the possibility of Blaine’s new heart had brought them together over the past few months in a way nothing else in their relationship had before. Exercising together, preparing meals together, going to classes at the hospital together, planning a new future together, took them to a higher level of intimacy and devotion, outlined in their wedding vows that they had chosen to recite traditionally because they applied in the simplest but most poignant terms – for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and health; until death do us part.

Except in their vows, they had said till death do we wait, till we’re reunited.

Kurt doesn’t believe in God. He doesn’t really believe in an afterlife. But he believes in Blaine, and he believes in those vows. He’s held on to them from the day he said them, made them into his own religion.

Their love is his faith.

If Blaine doesn’t make it, or if removing his heart means what Blaine fears it means – that his soulmate mark will go with it, severing the connection between him and Kurt irreparably - then they might as well just remove Kurt’s heart as well.

Because he won’t need it any longer.

***

Kurt doesn’t know how he fell asleep. Aside from the fact that he swore to himself he wouldn’t, he wasn’t even remotely tired after they wheeled Blaine to the OR. But to ensure there was no chance that he would nod off, he found the narrowest, most uncomfortable chair in the private waiting room, right beneath the brightest, most obnoxious white light, and set up camp. He immersed himself in mindless busy work, checking his text messages and his emails, then his Facebook feed, then his Twitter, and finally his Tumblr, keeping close friends and random followers alike updated regularly on Blaine’s progress.

He finished writing responses to the comments he received on his posts - mostly thank yous along with various emojis depending on the commenter. He closed out his apps, rubbed his brow, and shut his eyes for a second to block out the harsh light overhead.

A second later, a hand on his shoulder shook him awake.

He jerks up from his hunched over position, elbows resting on his knees, his head hanging from his neck like an overripe fruit on a too thin branch, and his phone on the floor, presumably where it landed when it fell from his hands.

“Hmm? Wha---Blaine?” Kurt mutters, assuming it must be Blaine waking him, wrapped up and ready to go home. He was just talking to Blaine five minutes ago. Who else would it be? He kicks his phone as he sits up, waking it from its slumber. The time on the screen reads 7:26.

But it was just past noon a minute ago.

“Mr. Hummel?” a voice says. It’s not Blaine, but it’s familiar.

Kurt blinks at the man standing over him, wearing teal blue operating scrubs and a weary expression.

“Mr. Hummel,” the man continues, even though Kurt has yet to acknowledge him. “We’ve just brought your husband out of surgery. He’s been taken to observation. You’ll be able to see him once he starts coming out of anesthesia.”

Kurt nods, taking the words in even though half his brain seems to believe that they should be heading home. Blaine gets a new heart, and then they go home. It’s as simple as that, right? Because if Kurt has to spend another minute in a hospital worrying about someone he loves, he might go insane.

But if Blaine’s body rejects this heart, there may not be a second time.

“So, he made it through all right?” Kurt needs clarity, wondering why, if everything’s okay, his doctor looks like there’s a problem. Shouldn’t he be smiling, relief pooling in his eyes with a thin stream of tears, like the doctors on Grey’s Anatomy when surgery is a success? Why does Blaine’s doctor seem so … dour?

“Yes, he did. We’re going to keep him under careful observation, but from the outset, things look promising.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Kurt asks, because the unreadable look in the doctor’s eyes makes Kurt think otherwise.

“Mr. Hummel, before I take you to see your husband, I need to have a word with you.”

***

“How do you feel?”

“I feel like an elephant sat on my chest and cracked my ribcage.”

Kurt chuckles. It’s been a day. One whole day of sitting by Blaine’s side and watching him sleep, watching him breathe. A day of holding his hand to make sure that his body is still warm. A day of waiting to hear his voice again, and, when they finally removed his breathing tube, reveling in every harsh, raw attempt at a whisper. A day of not sleeping comfortably so he could make sure Blaine kept breathing while he did. A day of not eating because he didn’t want to leave Blaine’s side. A day of hoping and praying and bartering with the universe. A day of trying to lend Blaine strength because Kurt knew he’d need it to get better.

A day that’s felt like a lifetime.

But Kurt will take it, and every day after. He loves Blaine. He loves Blaine’s sense of humor. He loves his over-the-top displays of affection. He loves his outlandish apologies. He loves his smiles, even the tired, slightly pained one he’s wearing right now.

And he loves that he has a beautiful reminder of Blaine pulsing on the skin of his chest with every beat of Blaine’s brand new heart in the form of his soulmate mark - Blaine Anderson.

“Well, aside from that,” Kurt says. “What I mean is … do you still love me?”

Blaine’s smile goes from pained to flawless in a blink. “Yes,” he says, squeezing Kurt’s hand as best he can. “Yes, I love you.”

“And what do you think that means?” Kurt asks with a knowing smile, as if whatever lesson Blaine is supposed to learn from all of this, Kurt knew all along.

In reality, he only learned recently, but he’s not about to tell his husband that.

“It means that me being desperately and hopelessly in love with you had nothing to do with any silly mark on my heart. Or anywhere else on my body. It has to do with you and me. Who we are together. I loved you long before that mark ever showed up, and nothing is going to change that.”

“Good.” Kurt sniffs to banish the tears threatening his eyes. “It’s nice to see that you’ve finally come to your senses.”

“And it only took about six hours in surgery for me to get there.”

“Better late than never.” Kurt leans over to kiss his husband on the forehead, wishing he could kiss him on the lips instead. But Kurt’s on the verge of tears as it is, and he hasn’t even gotten to the best part of the lesson. “Oh, and here. The doctor gave me this for you to keep.” Kurt turns to his chair and picks up an envelope sitting there, about the size of a small poster, that Blaine had somehow managed to overlook. Though, to be fair, with his gorgeous husband standing by his bedside, there wasn’t anywhere else that he wanted to look than in Kurt’s eyes.

“What is it?” Blaine takes the film Kurt hands him, trying to hold it steady. Kurt keeps hold of the upper edge, lending him a hand. “Ah.” Blaine nods once when he sees the image clearly. He’s seen it so many times, he should have known what it was when he saw the damned envelope. He looks at this x-ray of his heart, like the countless he’d taken before it, with his soulmate mark, his husband’s name, written across it in Kurt’s impeccable handwriting.

“We’ll have to frame it,” Blaine says with a sigh. “This way we can always remember what was, hmm?”

“Well, you’re partially right. We should frame it, right next to this one.” From the envelope, Kurt pulls out a second x-ray of Blaine’s heart. This one bears the mark as well, except the last few letters of Kurt’s name are obscured, the organ in this x-ray darker on one side. Damaged. Blaine compares it with the first, the heart in that one completely healthy, Kurt’s name clear as day. Kurt doesn’t explain it right away. He watches Blaine’s eyes bounce back and forth between the two images, his fuzzy brain struggling to make sense of both x-rays in relation to one another.

“Wait a minute,” he says, his head throbbing behind his eyes as he forces himself to think. “I don’t … I don’t understand.”

“It’s your heart, darling,” Kurt says with a self-satisfied little smile that would come off as superior if it weren’t keeping him from crying. “What is there to understand?”

“But the mark …”

“That’s your soulmate mark,” Kurt points out, starting with the damaged heart first, “on your old heart, and here, on your new heart.”

Blaine shakes his head. He’s trapped in a daze, wondering if he’s actually awake or if he’s still under anesthesia, dreaming that this is real. Because if it is real, it’s the most amazing, fantastical thing he’s ever heard in his life, second to finding out that the donor registry had found him a new heart.

And third to the day Kurt said, “I do.”

“The surgeon told me it appeared after they had the heart implanted,” Kurt explains when the blank look on Blaine’s face becomes blanker. “The second they began to suture and the heart became yours, it appeared.”

“But … how?”

“Because it was never about the heart, Blaine.” Kurt moves the x-rays to the chair and leans in, forehead to forehead, carding careful fingers through his husband’s hair as Blaine’s face begins to crumble, quiet sobs shaking his sore chest. “You said so yourself. You never loved me because my name was written on your heart. Your soulmate mark is a part of you because you love me. It was never going anywhere … and neither was I.”