Kurt steps carefully into the mass of charred debris, picking his way through shattered glass and blackened drywall. It crunches beneath his feet, and Kurt jumps to the side to avoid it, as if his walking on it could make it any worse. The house has burned straight down to the foundation, to the dirt of the original lot. Nothing he can see looks salvageable. Some areas still smoke despite the blanket of red fire retardant covering every last inch of what used to be his home.

Neither he nor Blaine were hurt, thank Go---…well, just thanks. They were both at work when the firestorm hit. No one knows what started it, but the fire lasted days. The houses in their neighborhood, and the next, and the next, burned throughout most of it – close to seventy-two full hours of devastation wrought while Kurt was trapped in his office in the city, pacing, unable to sit or breathe; or lying in bed in their hotel room, staring up at the ceiling, barely able to get more than three straight hours' sleep.

Kurt was one of the first people to return to their neighborhood when the evacuation was lifted. He promised Blaine he would wait for him to get off work before he went to survey the damage, but it ended up being a promise he couldn't keep. He tried, though. He stayed at Vogue, keeping busy, doing anything to take his mind off it – organizing his designs, alphabetizing the head shots of the models currently working on his spring/summer campaign, sifting through old magazines, balancing his checkbook, scrolling through Tumblr - until he finally couldn't take it anymore. He sent Blaine the simple two word text, ‘I'm sorry', knowing that his husband would understand, and set out for home.

Kurt expected damage, but what he saw through his car window when he entered their gated community wasn't that simple. It was total ruin. His dream home, the one he and Blaine had skimped and saved for, burned completely to rubble, not to mention their belongings. Kurt recognizes, of course, that most of the stuff they had is replaceable, and, due to good planning, a lot of things that would have been irreplaceable still remain. Kurt's designs are backed up on an external hard drive that he keeps at work, Blaine's songs are saved on several devices, along with their wedding album, and other pictures and videos, spanning back to their childhood.

Thank you, digital age.

No, the heartbreaking losses are the ones that no one in the world can replace.

Kurt's mother's vanity.

Blaine's first guitar.

Kurt's father's ashes.

Their scrapbook from high school.

And, Kurt suspects, his cat, Brian, who was home alone when the fire hit. Kurt called everyone under the sun, but no one was allowed to go back for him. He can only hope that his cunning companion escaped. But Brian was going on sixteen, a little slower and fatter than the fluffy orange puff ball he and Blaine picked out at the shelter. Looking at the piles of ash underneath his shoes, he's not that optimistic. He can only hope that his loyal friend didn't suffer too much.

That thought stops him in his steps, and he freezes in the center of what used to be his living room.

Kurt feels his phone vibrate in his pocket, but he doesn't answer it. He doesn't have a single word left to say to anybody after this, not a single emotion other than sadness, not a single thought other than despair. The fire took them, too.

Kurt doesn't try to take another step, unable to go any further. He stares, wide open eyes looking at nothing while his mind spins in circles, unable to decide what he should do now – go back to his car and wait? Get on the phone to the insurance company? Or sit down in this pile of jagged, burnt, and wrecked, and cry.

Smelling the smoke, seeing the scorched bricks of the house next door, Kurt has a flashback of Dalton Academy, after Blaine's beloved school had burnt to the ground. Kurt wishes on his life that his husband didn't have to see this. He starts to think of what he can do to avoid that, but a few seconds thinking turns into a few hours reminiscing. Without even blinking, the sun starts to set. Footsteps crackle through the mess, making their way towards him.

“Kurt? Love? I got your text, but I thought you were going to wait for me.”

“I know. I just…” Kurt says, but he doesn't turn around. He can't move. He feels like crying when he hears his husband's voice, but he doesn't. He takes a breath in to cut off the chance. His torso trembles, but nothing comes out.

Blaine rushes over the last few feet, forgoing safety to take his husband in his arms.

“Oh, Kurt,” Blaine says. “It's…”

“Don't say it's okay, Blaine,” Kurt says, suddenly snapping, angry at the world, but for now, taking it out on his husband. “It's not okay. This is not okay.”

“I know it's not.” Blaine holds Kurt in his arms as tight as he can. “And I wasn't going to say that it's okay.”

“Then what were you going to say?” Kurt asks, knowing in his heart that he should have started with some form of apology. This isn't Blaine's fault. None of it is. It's just one of those fucked up things that happens, that neither Kurt nor Blaine had any control over. There have been so many of those lately, though, that Kurt didn't want another one so soon. He didn't think he could handle it.

“I was going to say I'm sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry about?” Kurt asks. “You didn't do this.”

“I'm sorry,” Blaine says, “because of all the things in the world to happen to you, this shouldn't have been one of them.”

“But, it happened to you, too,” Kurt points out. “Again.”

Blaine leans back to look into his husband's eyes. “I didn't lose the things you lost, Kurt.”

“But…” Kurt closes his mouth and stops arguing. He's not sure that he agrees, but he doesn't have the energy to fight over this. It used to be that he and Blaine would start many arguments by pulling out their individual scars and putting them on display, measuring one against the other to see who had the longest, therefore the sturdier argument. But Kurt just nods. He sniffles. And then his blank, enraged expression disintegrates.

“It…it wasn't…just…a house,” Kurt says, the words stuttering between hiccupped chokes.

“You're right,” Blaine says, running his hand up his husband's back as Kurt begins to shiver. “It wasn't just a house.”

Kurt and Blaine's house was more than a home. It was a symbol of new beginnings. It was a vow to start their lives together over again, for about the fifth time, as partners, the way they had originally intended, before stress, and resentment, and hurt feelings tore them apart. It was a choice to walk side-by-side, to never be competitors, to always be in one another's corner. But from Blaine to Kurt, it was a promise, that there would be no more secrets, no more lies, no more Elis and no more Daves. It was the security of knowing that there wasn't anything that could go wrong between them that wouldn't be solved within those four walls.

And now those walls are gone.

“But you know what?” Blaine says. “When the clouds clear and the sun comes out, you're going to see that the most important thing we have is still here?”

“Really?' Kurt laughs, sort of dry, mostly tired. “What is that?”

Blaine watches Kurt's watery eyes gaze off at the wreckage around them. He puts a hand to Kurt's cheek, brings his gaze back. So many times, Blaine felt that Kurt was his anchor. It was time that Blaine did the same.

“Each other,” Blaine says. “I know this is hard, and there are some things we lost that we'll never be able to replace, but, Kurt, but as long as I have you, I have everything.”