“…you can expect notification by post before the 27th of next month that…”

Blaine's fingers pinched the bridge of his nose of their own volition. He squeezed his eyes shut as the words on the page bled together and combined to form new words, words not written on the page in front of him, though it did not matter. The original missive stopped making sense two paragraphs prior.

Blaine looked from the correspondences in his hands to his husband sitting beside him, thumbing through a daunting-sized book, with a frown on his face appropriate for the number of pages. He watched as Kurt scrunched his nose, the wrinkles it made in his forehead deepening as he read further. Kurt gasped a few times, then eagerly rushed to turn the page, where his eyes would widen, his forehead go smooth again, repeating the process as he continued to read.

Blaine chuckled quietly at Kurt's fervor, so engrossed in his book he may have actually forgotten that he had a husband sitting beside him, waiting patiently for his turn to become engrossing. It amused Blaine that they ended up like this – comfortable in the silence, so singularly besotted that sitting side by side this way, separate but together, could be as intimate as making love.

But they hadn't started out this way.

No, Blaine was wrong. They did. Long ago, when they were children, Kurt fascinated Blaine. Kurt's obsessions over reading and designing and singing had never changed, and Blaine loved to watch him then, as he loved to watch him still. A few months of bumps couldn't erase any of that. And yet, sometimes Blaine wondered if it was enough?

Kurt's eye left his page and darted to his side, catching Blaine's thoughtful gaze as he stared with a great intensity at Kurt's book.

“Is there something I can help you with, my love?” Kurt asked. “Would you like me to read a passage aloud to you?”

“Is it interesting?” Blaine asked, though that wasn't the question he had intended.

“I suppose,” Kurt said, turning to the cover to read over the title, “but, I'm guessing, not half as much as whatever it is on my love's mind. So why don't you tell me what you're thinking so loudly over there, hmm?”

Blaine nodded in agreement. “May I ask you a question, husband?”

“Of course,” Kurt said, closing his book in his lap. “Anything.”

Blaine shifted in his seat, setting his paperwork aside, choosing between different ways to begin. But since being plain always suited Kurt best, Blaine decided to be blunt.

“Do you have…many regrets, my love?”

Kurt waited for more, quirking a brow quizzically at Blaine's lack of elaboration.

“Are we discussing anything in particular, or just in general?” Kurt asked. “Because those could be vastly different answers.”

“I think I would have to say in general,” Blaine specified. “Your life up till now.”

Your life with me, he would have added, but he found, at the last minute, he couldn't risk it.

“Yes,” Kurt answered solemnly. “Too many, I daresay.” Blaine's face fell, and Kurt quickly took his hand so his husband would hear him when he continued. “My father once read to me from a book of sermons a long time ago. In it, it said that we should endeavor to live a life with no regrets, but I don't think that's humanly possible, to tell you the truth. Perfection isn't granted to us. We're human. We make mistakes.” Kurt's eyes drifted down to his hand holding Blaine's. “To be honest, most of the regrets I harbor have little to do with me.”

“Really?” Blaine asked curiously. “Like what, my love?”

“I regret that Quinn will never get to see the beautiful young woman her daughter is growing up to be,” Kurt started with a heavy sigh. “I regret that my mother did not get to see her children happily married and in love. I regret that your brother will never know his daughter and…” Kurt looked briefly into Blaine's troubled eyes, then off to the full silvery moon outside their window.

“You regret the loss of my leg,” Blaine deduced.

“I regret the pain it gives you,” Kurt managed without any tears. “I regret the time you spent lingering between life and death, even after it healed. I regret that the same men who took your leg also robbed you of the brother you loved so dearly. I regret that you do not have the benefit of a beautiful and clever sister-in-law.”

“Yes, my love,” Blaine said, cutting Kurt off before he could continue. “That is a great many regrets you carry.”

“If I could change just a handful,” Kurt added quietly, “how much happier would we all be?”

“But does it not follow, husband,” Blaine started, apprehensive of his own thoughts, “that had those things not happened, you and I would have never married?”

Kurt breathed in sharply, much more than a gasp.

More like a judgment, one that wrapped around Blaine's heart like a thorny vine.

“Would you weigh the importance of our marriage against all that we have lost?” Kurt asked.

“Would I be a horrible person if I admitted that sometimes I do?” Blaine asked, the fear of his husband's disappointment already pulling that vine taut. “That if my brother and Quinn had not gone, we would not have our own brilliant daughter? If my brother had not died, you and I might not have married?” Blaine opened his mouth to give another example, but Kurt put a hand over it lest his husband blaspheme any further. Kurt didn't fault him, but he couldn't bear to hear more.

“No,” Kurt said, “that does not make you a horrible person. A selfish one, perhaps. A bit short sighted definitely. Faithless to be sure.”

“Faithless?” Blaine felt struck. “How do you see me as faithless?”

“Because all of those things could be changed, my love, and you and I would still end up together. You told me yourself that you loved me as a child…”

“I did,” Blaine confirmed.

“And I loved you, too. I believe, if fate had been kinder, that we could have had everything – our families, our health, all those departed - and still have ended up together.”

Blaine felt ashamed. He had not thought of that before, so single-minded in not making a choice, even a fictitious one, that would lose him the love of his life

“You are right, my love,” Blaine said sorrowfully. “I am faithless. A heathen.”

“Yes,” Kurt teased lightly, sensing his husband's despair, “but not so far beyond repair.”

Blaine peeked up at Kurt's smiling eyes, and flashed him his own roguish grin, growing full of sensual promise.

“Could you possibly help me restore my faith?” Blaine asked, taking Kurt's book from his lap and depositing it carefully off the edge of the bed.

“I would be willing to do all that I can,” Kurt said, giving his husband room to join him on his side of the bed, lifting obligingly for Blaine to wrap his arms around his torso. “Though I'm not certain that I can completely restore your faith.”

Blaine settled over his husband, Kurt's body beneath his adjusting to accommodate him, and sighed against his husband's sweet, upturned mouth. He remembered the first time he held his husband like this, the first time they shared a bed, the first time they truly made love, and the first time Kurt saw him for who he was, his faults in all, and everything he tried so hard to hide. If Blaine had any faith left, it existed only in the reach of Kurt's arms, the corners of his mouth, the flutter of his eyelashes when he looked upon Blaine.

The sound of Kurt's voice whispering I love you.

These were a religion to Blaine. They were all the faith he needed.

“Kurt, my love,” Blaine whispered, “I think you already have.”