Decembers

It had been the Warblers that told him. They'd taken David to the hospital after the older boy had attempted to do a backflip off one of the tables in the senior commons. He'd missed the landing and smacked his head against the top of another table. It had been hilarious until David couldn't put his words together in the right order and had some trouble walking straight. That's when they decided that maybe David needed to see a doctor.

They'd called Blaine after they had gotten there. Wes had seen Kurt's parents there and they figured that maybe, as often told by Kurt, Finn had gotten another football injury. When he saw Finn sitting there with the rest of the New Directions but no Kurt, Wes and the others sadly figured out who they were there for and quickly made the call to tell Blaine. He'd speed to get to the hospital in time, worried about what could have possibly happened to his boyfriend.

And now, sitting outside that hospital room, he couldn't help but wonder why. Why Kurt? Why not someone else's boyfriend?

After he thought it though, he felt terrible and sick. He shouldn't wish something like this on anyone and yet he still wished for it to be anyone but Kurt. His boyfriend had never been anything but sweet and truthful (if not brutally so at times), he didn't deserve to be lying there on a hospital bed, in a coma that he could possibly not wake up from.

He just sat on the floor to leave the bench open for the others. It's not that he didn't want to sit there but he knew that they had no clue who he was. He didn't want to have to go through explanations and everything about how he and Kurt had been secretly dating since the month that Kurt had come to spy on the Warblers. They were supposed to break that news together.

His obvious choice of seating and lack of speech to anyone continued to make people ask him questions, as if he would answer for them. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone and he wondered if his voice would go away from lack of use. Blaine was the school chatterbox and now he didn't even have to heart to speak, sing, or laugh. His boyfriend was in a coma and people were expecting him to act like everything was normal. The only person who understood now how felt was Nick, and that was because Blaine had given him a hint.

"How would you feel if that was Jeff in there?" That little phrase was all it took to have Nick back off and take the other Warblers with him. He knew that Nick had feelings for Jeff and lacked the courage to tell him. If that was Jeff inside that hospital room, Nick would feel like his heart had been ripped out and stomped upon, like the world was spitting in his face by threatening to take away something precious. He'd never leave his side until the hospital dragged him out. That was how Blaine felt ten times over, because it was actually happening to Kurt.

Blaine wondered how much longer he had until the school called his father to tell about his frequent absence. He wasn't skipping the entire school day, just useless classes like Gym and Environmental Systems (which was truly useless as it was filled with freshmen).

Still, the absences would be on his record and there was no doubt that when his father found out about it, there would be hell to pay. His father already didn't approve of his relationship with Kurt and when he heard about Blaine cutting class to go see him, he was sure that his father's skull would split down the middle and fire would shoot from his eyes…or some equivalent of that.

"Blaine?"

He looked up and had to take a closer look to make sure he was really seeing the person in front of him. She was definitely a sight for sore eyes.

"Hey Cat."

She smiled down at him and laughed a little, "Jesus Christ, you sound terrible. Here, I brought you your glasses and the homework you've missed from skipping class, which I know about." Blaine looked at her in shock. If his sister knew about him cutting class, then there was no doubt that their father knew and the minute he stepped foot into the house he'd be getting yelled at. He groaned and smacked the back of his head against the white wall.

"Don't worry. I got to the phone before Daddy dearest did. You're secret is safe with me… until the day I somehow manage to fuck that up and Dad gets it. Then we're going to have a problem." She smiled at him, "You know he's going to get better right? Kurt's not the kind of person to just give up trying, especially now that he has you waiting for him."

And that was why Blaine loved his sister. She always had the right thing to say, most of the time. Cat did have her moments where she didn't completely think out exactly what she was saying and it normally ended in something of a train wreck. This was one of her brighter moments. She nudged him over with her foot and took a seat next to him. It was then that Blaine realized that she still wore her school uniform.

"I thought Crawford County didn't let students out early? Shouldn't you be at school?"

"Shouldn't you?"

Blaine opened his mouth to deliver a comeback, but decided against it, knowing Cat was right. She dug a contact case out of her bag and handed it to him, "There is more than one way out of the school if you know where to look. You didn't think I was just going to let you sit here every day in silence and pain, did you?"

He took the case from her gratefully and removed his contacts, slipping on his glasses, "You are the evil twin, I swear. Mom doesn't want to believe me, but one day..." Blaine looked back to his sister, who stared at him quietly. He didn't like it when she did that. It was actually strange for her to be quiet. Blaine had been the silent child and Cat had been the one that got into trouble and couldn't keep her mouth shut. Blaine gave her a look that basically said 'Why are you staring?' and she shrugged.

"It's just weird. You were never like this. I know for a fact that you hate hospitals, and yet it's the only place you've been for the last three days. We rarely see you at home anymore, of course it's not like Mom and Dad are even there to notice that you aren't. I'm getting tired of not knowing what time you're going to come home. I don't like you rolling in at midnight because the hospital's kicked you out Blainey." Cat said.

She knew that Blaine had never been one for hospitals, even as a child. Their roles were reversed when it came time for shots at school. He'd scream and cry about having a needle in his arm for half a second and she was normally silent when it came to it. Cat never really understood what had caused Blaine to be so scared of hospitals at such a young age, but she knew that his fear had only gotten worse after the Sadie Hawkins incident.

"You must really like him, putting yourself through this."

Blaine looked to his sister, "I do. I really, really do. He's the most important thing I have in my life right now, besides you of course. I don't know what I would do if I lost him."

"You can't keep coming here every day. They'll hold you back again due to attendance. You're already not graduating with me, I'd like not to be a college sophomore when your time comes around." Her brother's old school refused to let him make up the days he'd missed in the hospital. She'd had half a mind to cut the principal's tires, but she knew that would only get them both into more trouble.

When her parents had told her that they were taking Blaine out of public school and moving him to another in the next town over (a boarding school none the less), it was safe to say that there was mayhem in the Anderson household that day. Cat had never been away from her brother for more than a day at a time and here her parents were telling her that she would have to go at least a week without seeing him. It was insanity in her mind and she demanded to be put in school somewhere near Blaine.

"I have to be here. What if something happens to him and I'm not there? What if he wakes up and I'm not there for him. He'll think I don't care. What if he... What if he doesn't...?" Blaine didn't even want to say the words.

"Blaine, you can't just cut half of your classes to sit on a dirty hospital floor. Kurt wouldn't want it and I know you're friends are worried about you. Jeff almost got his hair shaved off if he hadn't managed to make it downstairs to his car before I did." She laughed a bit at that scene replaying in her head. She'd never seen a teenage boy terrified of something as simple as a haircut.

Blaine just stared back at the wall, like he'd been doing for the last few days. He needed to be here, not at school. He didn't need to take that science class or Gym. He'd be good enough without them and surely the headmaster would understand why it was so important for Blaine to be here. This wasn't just some friend in the hospital after a broken arm, this was his boyfriend in a coma.

"Please Blaine. Come home tonight, have a nice dinner with me, take a shower, sleep a full eight hours. I'll drive you to Dalton in the morning and I will even get an evening pass to drive you back here tomorrow. Do you hear me? I'm willing to do something the correct way if it will get you to come home."

"You don't have a driver's license. You don't even have a permit." Blaine pointed out.

"Okay...mostly correct. Plus it's not like not having a license has ever kept me from driving before." Cat said, and it was true. She'd been driving around for at least a year and she'd never even read a driver's ed handbook.

Cat was sure that this whole conversation was in vain. Blaine wasn't budging from the spot, he didn't even seem interested in the offer to go home. She knew that Kurt meant a lot to him, and the boy had even managed to squish himself into her heart the few times she had met him. That didn't mean it was okay for Blaine to spend his days inside a hospital and hope that Kurt got better. There was always the chance that he wouldn't wake back up, the chance that he wouldn't make it, and Cat didn't want it to be that hard on Blaine.

Sitting here, watching Kurt get possibly worse every day, it wasn't going to make anything easier on Blaine. It wouldn't make it easier on him to even come visit twice a week. The more time Blaine spent here, the harder the real world was going to be for him.

"Fine."

She looked to her brother, who was picking up his backpack and starting to stand, "I'll go home tonight. I'll drive you to school tomorrow and then I'll come back here in the afternoon. I can't even believe I'm agreeing to this. I should stay here with him, but I know that if I do that you will just come back tomorrow and harass me here again. If you get caught sneaking off grounds without an evening pass, I'm sure the Crawford County is going to kick you out of there, good grades or not."

Cat smiled as she grabbed her bag from the floor. She knew that Blaine wasn't happy about this, and if anything happened tonight then he would never forgive her. Tonight though, she had her brother to herself, at least physically. She knew his thoughts would be here, but it didn't matter.

When they got home, she would order Blaine's favorite food and they would watch whatever he wanted. She'd make sure he took a shower and went to bed. Tomorrow he would go to Dalton and then back to the hospital like she had planned. After that, if Kurt wasn't better soon, she'd have to come up with something else to get her brother home, and to keep their parents away.

Before she followed Blaine out (he was walking with a pace that screamed 'If I don't get out of here now, I probably won't leave.'), she looked to the closed door of Kurt's room.

"Don't give up. Please. He needs you and I don't know what he'd do without you. I know he's lying about liking you, but I'm going to let him come to that realization at his own speed. Hummel, I swear to God that if you even think about dying, I will bring you back just to slap you across that pretty face of yours. You better make it through this, I'm rooting for you."