A/N: So, this is what happens when I combine my Public Policy homework with Klaine fanfiction. I swear, this was originally supposed to be really angsty... I guess I am incapable of writing anything other than fluff. So, enjoy your fluff ;)
A Hero Lies in You
If you had tried talking about the September eleventh attacks with Kurt Hummel a year ago, he wouldn't have really listened to you. Of course he sympathized with the families who lost their loved ones, but in his opinion, the whole thing was really beefed up by the ultra-Republican Bush administration to give the country a reason to invade Iraq—the same administration that supported "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and opposed gay marriage, so Kurt wasn't so into the idea. Besides, the whole thing had been used to fuel the argument against building a mosque near the site of the attacks, and while Kurt wasn't religious, he supported other people having freedom of religion. Finn's obsession with "Grilled Cheesus" in their junior year, and Kurt's own subsequent visit to Mercedes' church, had taught him that much.
But now, as the reality of losing the person he loved more than anyone else in the world loomed over him, everything was different.
Kurt pulled out his phone and shakily opened the phonebook application, calling the first person on the list. A familiar, musical tone sounded through his phone's speakers. It suddenly occurred to him that this would be the last time he ever heard Blaine's voice. "Hey, babe. Was your flight delayed?"
"Blaine?" he whimpered, clutching the phone closer to his left ear.
Suddenly, the tone of his boyfriend's voice changed. "Kurt? What's wrong?"
"Blaine, I'm so scared."
"Where are you? Tell me what's going on. Please baby, you're scaring me." If Kurt thought about it, the whole situation was quite similar to the November of his junior year, when he had called Blaine after Karofsky had decided to kiss him. But, this time, Blaine couldn't come save him.
"My plane was hijacked," Kurt said quietly, the reality of the situation making his heart sink in his chest. "They say they have a bomb. They're letting us make calls…probably to stir up some media hype. They say they'll land the plane and demand hostage money, but I don't know, Blaine. They could be lying. It's too late, and I don't think there's much time left."
He could hear Blaine sobbing on the other end, and imagined his dark, gorgeous eyes. He would never see them again. "I'm so sorry, Blaine. I wanted…I wanted so much for us. I wanted to marry you. Did you know that?" Kurt whispered softly. He smiled wistfully.
Suddenly, a fierce note of determination entered Blaine's voice through his tears. "You listen to me, Kurt Hummel, and you listen good. You've always been so strong—so much stronger than I've ever been—and you can't give up on me here. Not now. Not after we've come so far. Remember what I told you? The day we met?"
"You told me to stand up to my bullies. To have courage," Kurt whispered, remembering Blaine singing to him. The other boy was his teenage dream, but he'd never expected him to invade all the rest of his dreams, becoming the most important thing in the world to him. Kurt had always expected the other shoe to drop…dreams need to end some day, right?
"And that's even more true today than it was in high school," Blaine stated, "because you have so much more to live for. I have you. We have each other. And, even though you're a mile up in the air, you're not alone." Kurt imagined he could feel Blaine's hand enclose around his own, loving him and protecting him like he had done since the day they met.
Kurt inhaled—a deep breath that cleared his senses. "What do I do?"
"You stand up, you get everyone on the plane to stand up with you, you take those guys down, and then you come home safe. To be with me."
"I don't know if I'm strong enough."
"You're the strongest person I know," Blaine said, his voice cracking with emotion. "You know when I first knew I loved you? The moment you stepped in between me and Karofsky to push him away. God, I wanted to kiss you so badly that day. But, I didn't. I wanted you to make the first move and, eventually, you did. Never say that you're not strong or brave, Kurt, or that you don't have courage. Those are my favorite things about you."
"I love you, Blaine. I love you more than anything in the world. But, if I don't come back, I need you to promise me that you'll move on and be happy and live life to its fullest. You have too much life in you to let it go to waste."
"Marry me."
"What?"
"Come back. And then marry me. Be my husband. Stay with me until death do us part, but not like this. We'll be old and gray, and warm in our bed. It'll be time. But it's not time, Kurt. Not yet."
Warm tears ran in rivulets down Kurt's cheeks. "Yes. Yes, I'll marry you."
A voice came from the airplane's speakers. Just a few minutes left until they would land the plane, one of the men warned. Say your goodbyes.
Like hell.
"I love you, Blaine," he said one last time, before setting the phone down.
So Kurt Hummel, dressed head-to-toe in Armani, the least threatening person on the entire airplane including the five-year-old girl seated two rows in front of him, stood up. And, for the first time since he ran away from McKinley and Karofsky to Dalton and Blaine, he truly felt brave. He truly felt like he had courage. He couldn't stand up to his bullies in high school, but he could do it now. Now, he had Blaine on the ground, waiting for him so he could pull him into his arms and never let go.
And, hours later, when they were finally reunited, he did just that.
"I told you that you could do it," Blaine whispered into his neck, kissing his pale, soft skin and then moving up toward his ear. "Kurt, I've never been so proud of you. What you did…you saved so many people. Do you realize that? You're a hero, Kurt."
"My motives were entirely selfish," Kurt murmured, cupping Blaine's face in his hands and kissing him fiercely, Kurt's smooth lips moving passionately over Blaine's slightly rougher ones. As their tongues tangled together in an age-old dance, his familiar taste invaded Kurt's senses, mixed with the salty tears running down both of their faces. "Blaine," he started when they broke apart, "did you really mean what you said on the phone? That you wanted to marry me?"
Blaine looked up at him, his eyes quizzical. "Did you mean it when you said yes?"
"Of course I did," Kurt said, biting his lip. "I was actually planning on going to a jeweler this weekend to get you a ring. I wanted to propose to you on Christmas. But, I guess that surprise is shot."
Blaine laughed, taking Kurt's hand in his. "That would have been rather embarrassing for both of us," he purred, kissing Kurt's knuckles, "because I was planning on proposing to you on Christmas, too."
Kurt's eyes widened, the blue-green color blending like a work of art. "You were?"
"Don't sound so shocked. Haven't I proven to you yet that I'm not out to sabotage New Directions?" Blaine grinned, squeezing Kurt's hand reassuringly. "I mean, Rachel's never going to be convinced, but I thought you believed me."
"I guess, after all this time, I've just been expecting something to go wrong," Kurt admitted. "You're perfect, Blaine. And don't try denying it, because I'm not going to change my mind. You're everything I've ever wanted, and sometimes it's hard to believe that my life is real—that you're real and here and that you actually love me and legitimately want to spend the rest of your life with me. Sometimes, I wonder why you're with me; you could be doing anything. You could probably have any guy you wanted. Why me, Blaine? Are you sure this is what you want, forever? Because, if you don't tell me now, I'm going to spend the rest of my life wondering if you would have been happier with someone else. I want you to be happy, Blaine. That's all I really want."
He realized that Blaine was teary-eyed again, but he didn't pull away: he just clutched to Kurt's hand even more tightly. "Kurt, everything you said just now? I think those exact same things. You're everything that I've ever wanted too. This is real, and I love you to pieces. I adore absolutely everything about you, even the things that you don't like about yourself. You don't even realize how absolutely beautiful you are, in every single way. Don't you remember the first time I made love to you, under the stars the summer before senior year, and you looked in my eyes the whole time? Couldn't you see how much I loved you? And every time since then has been…absolutely, mind-blowingly fantastic. And it's not just because it feels amazing and because I'm incredibly attracted to you, though that's part of it. It's because I love you with everything I have in me. I want to marry you, Kurt. I want to wake up next to you every single morning for the rest of our lives. I don't care what else happens, as long as we're together. If there's anything I've learned from this, it's that life is unpredictable; you never know when it will be yanked away from you. So, we need to live life to its fullest starting right now. For me, that means whisking you off to City Hall to marry you. But, I'm willing to wait. I know about your secret stash of wedding magazines, and you deserve to have the chance to plan our wedding. And you're so going to remember this forever as my biggest rambling speech of all time, but I just need to know…Kurt, will you marry me?"
Blaine dropped to one knee in front of Kurt, pulling a black velvet box out of his pocket. He opened it, and saw the most beautiful ring that he had ever seen. He gasped, moving one of his hands to cover his mouth. "Is that…"
"Yeah, it is. Your dad gave me his old wedding band and your mom's engagement ring and I had the jewelers work their magic. Do you like it?" he asked, biting his lip in nervousness.
The small diamonds and emeralds shone from the gold band, but they were dim in comparison to Blaine's sparkling eyes. "I love it," he said softly. "And I love you. I love you Blaine, and I don't deserve you, but I'll let you realize that mistake on your own. Yes, I'll marry you. Of course I will." Kurt threw his arms around Blaine's neck, laughing through his happy tears as Blaine tried (unsuccessfully) to spin him around in a circle.
"I keep forgetting that I'm shorter than you," Blaine confessed, as he slipped the ring on the fourth finger of Kurt's left hand—a perfect fit. "I guess I always wished I were big and tall so I could protect you from anything. That little fantasy ended pretty quickly when you put yourself between me and Karofsky."
Kurt sighed, trying not to think of his high school bully at a time like this. "Blaine, you do protect me—just not in the way you're thinking. When I first met you, I saw you as a sort of gay guardian angel. But now, you're the guy who protects me from getting ripped off by the pizza delivery guy, saves me from going to see a really bad movie, and reminds me to grab some toothpaste before we hit the check-out line. Being there for someone's not always about doing a heroic deed. It's just what you do every day, without thinking about it."
"If it's making you happy, I'll keep doing what I'm doing," Blaine said with a wink, ruffling his fiancée's hair.
Kurt looked directly into Blaine's eyes, heat smoldering behind their glassiness. "It is, and I love you, and this is incredibly sweet and all, but I need you to take me home now. And don't touch my hair."
Blaine grinned, tugging on Kurt's hand. "Is that where your priorities are?" he laughed, looking back cheekily. "Because all I can really think about is messing it up even more."
"Yeah, that'll happen. The day you stop using so much hair gel."
"Never!" Blaine gasped, pretending to be seriously affronted.
Kurt pulled him in for another sweet, romantic kiss. "We have the rest of our lives to find out," he said, smiling.
Kurt Hummel had never thought that he would be involved in a terrorist attack. But, he had never thought that someone as sweet, funny, and wonderful as Blaine would want to marry him either. Life was unpredictable, and Kurt couldn't wait to find out what was next.