K.U.R.T. and Me – chapter two

Artie was working on his newest project when Santana's voice came over the intercom. "Somebody here to see you, Artie."

Artie hit the emergency switch he'd installed on the main worktable after he'd started this new project. Security reasons, of course. In seconds, everything on the table had vanished into a vault he'd hidden between the lab floor and the ceiling in the building's entrance. Virtually impossible to access unless you happened to have a rocket launcher on you. "Who is it?"

"I'll give you a hint," Santana quipped. "'Get off my feet, you big clumsy ape!'"

"Finn! Bring him in!"

Despite the fact that Santana still pretended to despise Finn, they both came in with full smiles. And Santana didn't leave the second she'd escorted Finn inside. Finn hurried over to Artie and gave him a huge hug. "It's so great to see you, man."

"You too, Finn. So what've you been up to, dawg?" It had been ages since Artie had broken out his gangsta slang, and it felt a little unfamiliar on his tongue. For a moment, he regretted how busy he'd been and couldn't figure out how it could hurt to have a little more fun.

Then he noticed again just how far above him Finn was looming, and he remembered. Right.

Finn seemed a little unsettled by the question, for some reason. "Oh, everything's great. Got everything I could ever want."

Except that that was a lie, Artie could see it in Finn's eyes. And given the timing, Artie was pretty sure what it was that Finn wasn't saying. "You heard, didn't you?" Artie asked soberly.

Finn offered a little smile. "My mom did inherit all that stock from Mr. Knight. And a board seat. Is it-? Is Kurt really back?"

Artie shivered at the bald hope on Finn's face. He couldn't handle looking at it straight on, and wanted more than anything for it to go away. "Kurt's dead, Finn. You more than anybody should remember that."


October 20, 2010

Artie was just about to begin dinner with his family when his cell phone rang. His mother looked a little put out with him, but when he saw who it was he knew he had to take it. "It's Mr. Schuester, mom. I can't just not answer it."

"Oh," she exclaimed, her irritation banished. "Of course."

"Mr. Schue," he began, dispensing with his usual greeting as he knew full well 'who dis be'. "What can I do for you?"

Mr. Schue didn't answer at first, which seemed a little odd. Though not as odd as when he did speak, and was so quiet and withdrawn that he didn't sound like himself. "Artie, I'm sorry to have to call you. But you need to get down to Lima Memorial as soon as you can."

"The hospital?" Artie asked, confused. "Is Quinn pregnant again?"

"No, there-" Mr. Schue paused, choking back what Artie was almost convinced was a sob. "Kurt and his dad have been in an accident."

Artie almost dropped his phone in shock. "Oh my god, are they okay?"

"No. No, Finn told me Mr. Hummel died before they could get him to the hospital."

Artie bowed his head, unable to imagine what Kurt must have been going through. "Fuck."

"Artie..." his father warned, not knowing what was going on.

Artie glared at his father. He got that his dad didn't know; but now was really not the time. "Dad, one of my friends was in an accident. His dad's dead." His mom too. Fuck. That was a nightmare Artie didn't even want to think about. "Tell Kurt I'm on my way. I can't imagine how hard this must be on him, right after his dad's heart attack-"

"Artie!" Schue interrupted firmly, before Artie could hang up. "He doesn't know. Kurt's... Kurt's hurt really bad, Artie."

Artie's family had gone silent when he explained what had happened. The silence grew to intolerable levels as Artie felt his entire body going cold. Even the parts that shouldn't technically be feeling anything anymore. Mr Schue couldn't possibly be saying... "How- How bad?"

"Artie-" And this time Mr. Schue was sobbing. "Finn- The doctors don't think Kurt is going to make it."

"No. Oh my god, no." It was the first time Artie could remember crying since he found out he'd never walk again. This could NOT be happening. "I'll be right there. Do you need me to call anybody?"

"No, thank you," Mr. Schue told him, trying to get himself under control again. "I'm calling all the guys, and I've asked Ms. Pillsbury to call the girls. You just- You all need to hurry, okay? I'll see you there."

Artie set a new record for himself, getting underway to the hospital. But long before he got there, he found himself sitting in a line of cars that were being let through VERY slowly. Artie couldn't really shift in his seat, but it was evident that he was agitated about it. Artie's dad mused about asking the police what was going on, but when he reached the front of the line, Artie saw clearly WHY they had been delayed.

A car Artie immediately recognized as Kurt's was sitting mostly underneath the front of a semi. He remembered then, how Kurt was going with a friend of his dad's to the airport, and then to New York to have dinner and see a show. Kurt had been so excited.

Kurt's car was shattered, and there was glass and dark coloured stains spread all over the pavement. The passenger side crushed decisively, it was obvious just by looking that Mr. Hummel and Mr. Knight had had no chance of surviving. But the driver's side almost looked intact. Didn't that mean it was possible Kurt would be okay?

"Doctors always make things sound worst-case, don't they?" he asked, almost to himself.

His mom turned towards him. She was crying, but nodded encouragingly. "Sometimes." It was slim hope, but it was the only thing he had to hang on to right now.

Because of the traffic jam, Artie was the last member of New Directions to arrive. Despite the overwhelming scent of disinfectant, the air in the ER was with the smell of blood, and bitter odours he couldn't name. Artie wheeled over to Mr. Schue, who was sitting with Ms. Pillsbury and Quinn. "How's Kurt?" Artie asked anxiously. He couldn't be too late, could he?

"We don't know yet, Artie," Ms. Pillsbury told him softly. She didn't say anything else, but he saw the kind, pained look in her eyes. The look that said that this was actually happening, and he needed to prepare himself.

"We don't know anything," Quinn elaborated, anxious and angry. "No one has any time for us, and no one is willing to say anything. Someone needs to find Finn. I haven't seen him since Mercedes and I got here, and he's the only one who can let us in now."

"I'll do it. I'll find him," Artie volunteered immediately. Rachel seemed to be the most logical person to start with. He wheeled himself up to her and called out. "Rachel, have you seen Finn anywhere?"

Rachel didn't answer; didn't seem to hear him at all. Artie looked over in the direction she was looking and understood why.

Finn. Looking wrecked as he came out of a nearby room.

No. It couldn't be too late. Not when they all still had so much to say to Kurt.

Finn stumbled over to Rachel, like he didn't know how to do anything anymore. The look on his face, and the sound of his voice, would stick with Artie the rest of his life. "He's- He's gone, Rach," Finn told her, as quiet as though there wasn't any power left there anymore. "Kurt's gone."

Finn buckled in her arms, and didn't stop crying for a month. Neither did Artie. None of them did.

That was the day Kurt Hummel died. Nothing that Knight Industries, or later Artie, had done would ever take that back.


Blaine tore down the street to the tune of Katy Perry's Last Friday Night. Oh, she'd had more hits since then (some far bigger), but Blaine was a far bigger fan of her earlier work and that was what he usually stuck with. At the moment though he wasn't listening to her work either, as Kurt had done something to the CD so that they could cut out the lyrics and sing it themselves if they so chose. Which they had.

Blaine hadn't seen the inside of his office in about two weeks; the third time that had happened. While Blaine often had things take him away from the Knight Industries building before Kurt, since their happy partnership had started Blaine found he couldn't concentrate if he knew that Kurt was sitting bored in the parking garage. So since Blaine didn't actually need to be in his office now that he could access the KI system from Kurt's vehicle mode (as Blaine had decided to name it), he was finding he preferred to just park at some picturesque spot or another in the city whenever he needed to do computer work. No problem.

Except for Kurt playfully commenting that he never expected his life would consist of one make-out point after another.

Blaine was in love with Kurt, and he was getting to the point where he didn't even care anymore. At least not about anything besides the fact that they couldn't ever really be together. That way. Blaine told himself that he was being stupid, that sex was just a silly heterosexual trap to induce mating. And that what he and Kurt had was better than that. But Blaine couldn't help falling asleep every night wishing he could wrap his arms around Kurt.

Of course, Blaine didn't tell Kurt (or anyone else for that matter) that he thought of them as a couple. That was the surest way to end up in a mental hospital.

Blaine had wandered off in thought, something he never used to do but did frequently now that he wasn't really driving anymore. He wasn't brought out of his daze until he realized that Kurt was hitting the signal lights where Blaine didn't think it was necessary. "Where are we going?" Blaine asked.

"You were wanting to look in on the Columbus acquisition," Kurt prompted. "So I'm heading back to your office."

"Oh. I thought we could do that at the park," Blaine sighed.

"We could. But the reason you picked today was that you were waiting for all the data to come in. And I just checked your messages and found out the file is on your desk now."

"What would I do without you?"

"A lot of guess work, I'd suspect." Kurt paused for a moment, and when he proceeded he was unusually tentative. "There's a message from someone named Sebastian Smythe. Do you know who that is?"

Blaine looked up with surprise. "Yeah, he's an old friend from Dalton."

"He's dropping by," Kurt told him. "Sounds very excited. Ex-boyfriend?"

Blaine missed the note of Kurt's discomfort in his responding excitement that Sebastian was coming. "Definitely not," Blaine chuckled. "Just a friend. Sebastian doesn't do 'boyfriends', and I don't do random hook-ups." Not that Sebastian wouldn't have been quite happy to bed Blaine, but their friendship would probably have been over right afterwards and Blaine wasn't about to risk that.

And he certainly didn't want to risk upsetting Kurt by dwelling on it.

"His loss I suppose," Kurt muttered.

Now Blaine definitely heard the relief in Kurt's voice. "Are you jealous?"

Kurt's face appeared on the display screen they'd reserved for it. His normally pleasant face was frozen with disdain. "Please. Show me his zero to sixty, and then maybe I'll have something to be concerned about."

Blaine was about to pursue the issue further, but they were pulling into the parking garage. There was a man there about Blaine's age and he was blocking their entry. For a moment Blaine wondered if it was about one of their cases, but the man didn't seem all that aggressive. Blaine hit the brakes and put the vehicle unit into park.

"Oh dear," Kurt sighed.

"You know this guy?" Blaine asked.

"In another life he might have been my brother." Apparently, they were both getting visitors from the past today.

Blaine got out of the vehicle (he refused to think about it as getting out of Kurt, as it made him think about pulling out of Kurt and things went downhill really fast at that point), and approached the man. He had light hair, and was significantly taller than Blaine was. But Blaine had been a corporate face of Knight Industries for some time now and wasn't about to be cowed. He reached into his long held manners and extended a hand. "Blaine Anderson."

Kurt's mystery man nodded as he shook Blaine's hand. "Finn Hudson." Now that he was up close, Blaine could see that this Finn guy was incredibly nervous. Finn shot several glances at Kurt parked behind Blaine. "Artie told me a little about you. So if you're Blaine, does that mean that's..."

"Yeah." Blaine led the way over to Kurt. He belatedly realized that he was probably in the way. "Of course. You probably want to catch up."

Kurt didn't seem like he wanted to have this conversation though. "I don't really have a lot to talk about," he pointed out.

"Don't worry about it," Blaine insisted. "As you already pointed out, I've got to get that file out of my office. I'll just take my time."


Kurt sighed as Blaine scurried away. It wasn't like he wasn't happy to see Finn. But he knew where this conversation was going, and he wasn't looking forward to having it.

Before he could continue on with this line of thought, Finn sat down in the passenger seat of the vehicle unit. He looked nervous, but hopeful. "Kurt? Is that you?"

Kurt wasn't sure how to answer that question. Damn it, he didn't realize that he'd need to be answering philosophical questions with only seventeen years worth of experience. "The parts of me that weren't made in Detroit, yes."

Finn's eyes widened with amazement. "Oh my god, Kurt. I'm so glad to see you." And what was it with people hugging his steering wheel? "It's so good to see you!"

Finn couldn't really see Kurt, but Kurt decided not to pursue that for the time being. "You're looking well. How's Carole doing?"

"Great. Great." Finn's face fell a little bit. "I mean, she misses you and your dad every day. I've started hinting about her maybe dating someone- I hope that's all right."

"I don't mind, really." Not that it really made much of a difference. "Finn, I wouldn't be surprised if she's never ready again. She's lost two husbands under awful circumstances."

"I know," Finn sighed. "I just- Never mind." Finn's face lit up again, and Kurt sighed. Finn ignored it. "I can't wait to tell everyone you're back."

"Finn, look at me." Kurt turned his display screen off, and waited as Finn looked around the inside of the vehicle cab.

"Where am I supposed to look?" Finn finally asked.

"That's my point, Finn." He considered remaining invisible for the rest of this talk, but decided that the holographic display might get the point across even better. Finn jumped as the ghost-like image of Kurt appeared on the dash. "I'm not back. Not that I'm not grateful that I, at least, get this much of an afterlife. But I need you to not come around anymore. And not tell anyone else from McKinley that I'm here."

"Not even Rachel?" Finn asked. "Did you know that we got married?"

If Kurt could have cried at that point, he would have. "No. I didn't know that. Congratulations. But can you imagine what it'd be like to have Rachel here? That's just going to hurt her."

"No, she'll be fine," Finn insisted. "She doesn't care what you look like. I'm gonna call all the old New Directions. Mr and Mrs Schue, too- That's Ms Pillsbury, they got married our senior year-"

"That's very nice for them," Kurt replied bitingly. "But what exactly are you planning on doing when you call all these people? Have a tailgate party?"

"I... maybe...?" Finn clearly hadn't thought this through.

"Finn, you have to let this go," Kurt told him sadly. "I've got a whole new life now. And from the sounds of it, so do you. Don't waste it on ghosts."

Finn looked crushed; it was the first sign that Kurt might be getting through to him. "Are you sure? Isn't this... Isn't this kind of lonely?"

Kurt thought of Blaine, and how happy they were together. Then he thought about this Sebastian guy, and how he could probably give Blaine far more than Kurt ever could. "Maybe. And maybe in six months I'll be calling begging for you to get everyone together. But for now, just try to put it out of your mind. Please?"

Finn was quiet for a long time. Kurt refrained from making a joke about Finn thinking; it wouldn't help. Finally Finn looked at the holographic Kurt again, looking far older than Kurt remembered. "I won't keep this from Rachel. She's my wife, and I'm not going to lie to her."

Kurt nodded. He didn't like it, but he couldn't blame Finn for it. "I understand."

"I'll keep everyone out of your hair... or whatever, on one condition."

"What's that?"

"I want Blaine's e-mail address," Finn told him. "And when I send you a message, I want you to reply."

"I-" Kurt was stunned, honestly. The last he remembered, he and Finn had kind of an awkward relationship. Maybe if Kurt had lived they could have been closer, but he wasn't anticipating this kind of insistence from Finn. Especially after all this time. "Okay. But I have one more condition, then."

"Yeah?" Finn was looking wary, and now that Kurt had gotten what he'd asked for, he grinned to make sure Finn knew Kurt was kidding around.

"I don't sleep, so I spend my nights on-line," Kurt explained. "So if you see some dancing kitty, or chain mail you feel the need to send me, don't. Trust me, I've already seen it."

Finn laughed. It was a good sound, and for the moment Kurt was glad that he'd agreed to keep in touch.

He wouldn't know the full extent of his good fortune until weeks later.

(to be continued)

So yes, Sebastian has a part to play in this story. But it's not what you think, there will be no Seblaine in this fic.