Finn let go of Kurt, and then reached into his car for his backpack. "Come on."

"What are you doing, Finn?"

"I'm spending the night with my brother. Man, that sounded wrong."

"You don't have to do that. I'm fine."

"Yeah, I do. And no, you're not."

They walked to the apartment, and Kurt yelled in to Blaine as he opened the door. "We have company."

"Missed me that much did you?" Blaine winked at Finn, who threw his backpack on the floor. "I don't see any flowers."

"I'm quite sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"You. Me. The back seat. Is it coming back to you now?"

"Kurt, make it stop. Please."

"So to what do we owe the pleasure?"

"Well, I wanted to give the elders a break. So I thought I would crash here for the night, if that's ok."

"Of course it is. Our home is your home. Right, Kurt?"

"Right." Kurt knew that the reason Finn had decided to camp in their living room was because he was afraid that he was not thinking clearly, and would do something he would regret.

"So what do you guys want to do?"

I am never playing Scrabble with Finn again, Kurt thought to himself. This was torture.

"Finn, that is not even a word. Look in the dictionary."

"Do you have a dictionary handy?" Finn put out his hand.

"No, I don't."

"Then the word stays until you can prove me wrong."

"Blaine, grab my laptop, I want to…"

"Oh, alright. Man, Kurt. It's just a game."

"Which you have been cheating at since we started. And stop taking Blaine's letters."

"I didn't."

"Really? Then how come you have ten letters, and he has…one, two…he has four. We're starting over, you letter stealer."

"You're just mad because I'm winning." Finn tossed his letter tiles back into the box.

"Winning with nonsensical words." Kurt folded up the board.

Blaine looked at the two of them, and said "Well, we're not playing anymore, so that is a victory for everyone." After about another hour of talk about everything from the football team to the wedding, they decided to call it a night.

"No funny stuff in there, you two. You have very thin walls."

"Goodnight, Finn" they said at the same time.

"Kurt…why is Finn really here?"

He didn't answer him right away. Kurt stared up at the ceiling, and remembered their promise to never lie to each other.

"Kurt?"

"He was afraid I would leave you." They tasted bitter, the words, as they came out.

Blaine didn't say anything. He reached over for Kurt's hand. It was shaking.

"Will you?"

"No."

"It would break my heart if you did."

"Mine too."

"You know, there isn't a day that goes by, Kurt, that I don't thank God for you."

"God doesn't care about us." Blaine heard the heavy sigh coming from him, and he turned onto his side to face Kurt.

"You know that's not true."

"I know that God makes people gay, then condemns them to be alone. I can't think of anything less loving to do to someone."

"Kurt…we're not alone. We have each other, we have an amazing family and friends that love us."

Blaine kissed him, trying to remember that Finn was in the next room. "There are so many things I want to do to you right now, Kurt. None of them, I'm sure, would meet with your brother's approval."

Kurt slid down on the bed, and Blaine climbed on top of him, kissing him harder. Kurt moaned loudly, then threw his own hand over his mouth. Before they could go any further, they heard a tap on their door.

"Hey, what's a seven letter word for "don't have sex with my brother while I'm here?"

They both started to laugh, and Blaine rolled back onto the bed.

"Well, there's always the closet."

"I heard that."

Kurt walked out of the bedroom, and saw Finn asleep on the couch. He didn't want to wake him up, and couldn't bear laying next to the man he was sure was going to grow tired of all of the complications in their life. Kurt leaned against the wall and slid down, wrapping his arms around his legs.

Kurt wept in the dark as he thought about a life without Blaine. He didn't think he could survive it. Why would Blaine want to go through all of the headaches that their plans to wed were causing? He would surely get tired of it, and then of Kurt. He could still slip out without either of them knowing, he thought. That way, he wouldn't have to hear Blaine say the words that he was dreading. But where would he go? He could figure that out later. He wiped the tears from his face and looked around the apartment, thinking about how he would miss all of this. He rested his head on his knees, and was startled when he heard Finn's voice.

"Hey…what's wrong?"

"Nothing, Finn. Go back to sleep."

"How can I sleep with you sitting there looking at me? It's creepy. Now come up off of the floor, Kurt." Finn sat upright, making room for him on the couch. He patted the seat next to him. "Come on."

Kurt stood up, and walked over to the couch, sitting down towards the arm, away from Finn.

"Is there a particular reason that you're sitting way over there?"

"I don't want to look at you, Finn."

"You know, I was just thinking to myself that there wasn't really anything that my brother could ever say to me to hurt my feelings."

"I don't want to look at you because you were right. I wanted to leave. I think I still do."

"But you haven't. I'd say that's progress."

"Finn, why does he want to be with me?"

"I'm not really sure, Kurt. You are kind of weird looking."

Kurt laughed, even though he tried not to. "Thanks"

"And you dress funny, but so does he, so I'd say you were a match made in heaven."

"Yeah."

"Kurt, I don't know what makes people fall for other people. It just happens. I think you two were destined to be together. I mean, think about it. We send you over to Dalton to spy. All of the guys there—which, I might say, was probably a gay dudes paradise—and who do you connect with? Blaine. Things happen for a reason."

The two brothers spent over an hour just talking. At one point, there was a silence between them, and Kurt put his head on Finn's shoulder, trying to pull strength from him.

"Do you think he'll leave me because of all of this?"

"No, I don't."

"Finn…I don't want a "civil contract". I want a marriage."

"You already have that. Open your eyes, Kurt. You already have a marriage, paperwork or not."

Blaine reached over for Kurt during the night, and he wasn't there. An immediate sense of panic came over him, and he jumped out of bed and called out for him. Had he changed his mind and left?

As he came out of the bedroom, he saw Finn sitting up on the couch, watching TV with the volume really low. Kurt was asleep next to him, his head on Finn's knee. He looked small, like a child. Blaine walked over to them, and reached down to brush Kurt's hair from his forehead.

"Is he ok?"

"I think so. This whole thing is really doing him in." Finn studied Blaine's face for a moment.

"What is it?"

"He thinks your going to decide it's too much work to be with him."

"He said that?"

"Well, his actual words were "How can I be worth all of this?"

"He's worth anything I have to go through. We should never have set a date. We should have just run off and done this, because now it's like this huge clock is ticking over our heads, and no end in sight to the obstacles." Blaine sat on the floor between the couch and their table.

"Doesn't anyone sit on furniture here?"

Finn put his hand over Kurt's ear, not wanting him to hear them talking about him.

"Kurt said something about not being able to give you a family? We are your family, you know that, right?"

"A child. Not being able to give me a child."

"Well, he knows that is a medical impossibility. I don't understand."

"We were at this party Friday night, and there was this little girl that I was talking to…Kurt felt bad because he thinks I'll never be a father."

"But you guys could adopt."

"I told him that. To be honest, Finn, I want Kurt and I to just be a couple for a while. I'm not ready for a child. I'm barely an adult myself. Everything is so complicated."

"For now. We need to solve one problem at a time."

"You know what I don't understand? How he thinks that if he left, I wouldn't go looking for him. That I would let him end what we have without a fight. I wish he had more faith in me."

"Don't take this the wrong way…but what Kurt is feeling right now really has nothing to do with you. He loves you more than I've ever seen anyone love another person. I think the one he doesn't have faith in is himself."

"Finn, do you think you can carry him?"

"No problem. Hang on." Finn slid himself from the couch, holding Kurt's head so that it didn't drop onto the cushions and wake him up. He reached under him, and picked him up, carrying him back to the bedroom. He stirred a bit, but didn't wake up. Finn pulled the blanket up on him, and patted his head. Blaine was still in the living room, on the couch now.

"Do you want some coffee?"

"I would love some coffee. But I can make it, Finn."

"Stay put. I'll put it on. But don't be surprised if the smell wakes him up. He's like a bloodhound with this stuff."

"What are we going to do? He needs to know that this is going to work out for us. I mean, this whole business about it being a "civil" union, to me, its just words, you know. But to him, it changes everything."

"He's a romantic. Which sadly, at times, translates into being unrealistic."

"If we were not a gay couple, people would be throwing themselves at us wanting to help us with things. We love each other just like any other couple. It just isn't fair. If we weren't gay…"

"If you weren't gay, you wouldn't be who you are, right this second. Which, and don't get all full of yourself, is a pretty amazing person. You don't want to change who you are because of the small mindedness of people that don't matter to you anyway. Right?" Finn walked into the kitchen to get coffee for them both.

"But they're the ones making the decisions about our life."

"Now, yes. And I want you to think about something. Let's say you weren't gay…but Kurt still was…you might be one of those people that judged him…that made his life hell…that bullied him…"

"I'd like to think I would be more open minded than that."

"But you don't know that. What I'm trying to say, Blaine, is that things are what they are. We can work together to make things right, or we can bend to fit what others want. If we do that, we just become the same people that we dislike."

"I just want us to get married, and live our life. You would think that wouldn't be so hard to do. And I'm kicking myself right now, because the other night, I dragged him out to go look at tuxes." Blaine shook his head, angry with himself for putting Kurt through that.

"So? Did you find one?"

"We both did. And left a deposit."

"What color? Please tell me he didn't go with yellow, or something like that?"

Blaine laughed. "No. Actually he went with black, and he looked amazing."

"Really? Huh…I thought for sure he would go with something more dramatic."

"Wait until you see him in it. It's dramatic enough."

"Ok. So you'll be wearing the tuxes."

"Not if it's a civil ceremony. It would be a bit of overkill, don't you think?"

"According to who? If you want to wear a clown suit, that's your choice."

"We were going to go look for rings next. Maybe we should wait."

"No, you shouldn't wait. Just do what you're doing, ok? Don't change things, Blaine. He's already scared. Give him something to look forward to. You know what? You guys should go to the lake house again. Just get him away from all of this."

"Not a bad idea. We did have the best time there." Blaine felt a flush hit his face as he thought about their nights there. 'I'll talk to Kurt in the morning about it."

Finn looked up at the wall clock. "Wow, is that the right time?"

"It almost is morning. I'm sorry for talking so much."

"It's not problem. But I am a bit worried. You can't afford to miss any of your beauty sleep.

"Did you just say I was beautiful?"

"Shut up."

"Goodnight, Finn. And thanks."

"Thank you, Blaine…for loving Kurt."

"That's easy."

"Yeah…it kind of is."

It was close to 10am when Blaine woke up, and Kurt was still lying next to him. They had gotten through the night. He got up to look in the living room, and Finn was gone. He did, however, leave a note for them-

Had to run. I fed your bird. Was hungry and almost ate said bird. Don't you guys ever shop for food? Finn

PS-Blaine, you snore, which makes you completely unattractive to me now.

Finn said a lot of the right things last night, especially about taking Kurt away for the weekend. He would try to work it out for next weekend, and he still needed to talk to Burt about his car situation.

As he walked back into the bedroom, he looked at Kurt, who was starting to wake up. He must have been exhausted-usually he was up way before Blaine. He crawled back into bed, and pressed himself into Kurt.

"Hey…we're all alone." Blaine kissed the back of Kurt's neck, which made him shiver.

"Where's Finn?"

"He left. Which is a good thing because I think he said something about eating Bocelli." He wrapped his arms around Kurt's waist, and pulled him in against his body. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"So...what would you think about going out to the lake house next weekend?"

"Are you taking me there to give me bad news?"

"I'm taking you there to have my way with you in front of the fireplace. And what are you talking about? What bad news?" Blaine held him tighter, knowing what was coming.

"If you can't do this…if it's too much for you to be with me, I'll understand."

"Well that's really generous of you, Kurt. But, you're stuck with me. Forever. Now…what do you want to do today? It's a beautiful Sunday out there."

"I want to do this all day."

"Cuddle?"

"Well, and other stuff." Kurt turned around to face Blaine. He looked exhausted. "Didn't you sleep? You look tired."

"I did. So what do you think about next weekend? You. Me. Nature."

"In case you've forgotten, nature is no friend of mine."

"Maybe you can put on that saucy little outfit you wore. You know the one. I believe you made reference to Auntie Mame." Blaine began to play with Kurt's hair.

"You can laugh all you want. It was functional."

"It was something. Plus, we can visit with Mr. Collins, tell him about our big plans."

Kurt nodded.

Blaine smiled at him, running his thumb across Kurt's bottom lip.

"What are you smiling at?"

Blaine sang, very softly, "My heart stops when you look at me".

"I love that song"

"I love you, Kurt. And that should be our wedding song."

"It would make for some difficult slow dancing, don't you think."

"Then we have two songs. One fast. One slow. It's our day. We can do what we want. Two people, two rings, two hearts…two songs."

"I see we're going to go with a Noah's Ark theme. Impressive."

"Why don't we go look at rings today? It was next on our list, right?"

Kurt was hesitant. "I don't know if it's a good idea. Not now."

"Why? Because of what's going on with the whole civil thing? I don't care Kurt. Whether it's in a church, or a government building, or in your parent's living room, we're getting married in two months. Now let's get dressed, and go looking for rings."

Blaine was trying hard to take Finn's advice and keep Kurt motivated about their wedding. It was difficult. At times Kurt would just go quiet, and Blaine would try to bring up another thing they needed to work on for the big day. The largest jewelry store in the area was Jared, so they decided to try there first.

"What do we tell them?" Kurt was still sitting with his seatbelt on, stalling.

"About what?"

"Who the rings are for."

"We tell them the rings are for us, Kurt. What's going on?"

"Nothing. Let's go in." Blaine took Kurt's hand as they walked towards the door, and he kept looking at his face to figure out what was going on in that head of his.

It was crowded when they entered the store, and they were told that someone would be with them shortly. As they looked around, they found the section with wedding rings, and began to look in the showcases.

"What do you think about those, Kurt?" Blaine was pointing to tri-color gold bands that were different than most of the others in the case. "Unique, like us, right?"

"Right". Kurt leaned in for a closer look. "They're beautiful."

"Or do you like something like these?" Blaine was looking down at white gold bands of various sizes. "Simple, and classy."

"Can I help you gentlemen?" An older salesman approached them, and asked them each to take one of the seats in front of the cases of rings.

"We're looking for wedding bands. Something simple, but not too simple, if that makes sense. These tri-color bands are really nice. May we see them?" Blaine waited as the case was opened, and the rings were placed on a velvet pad in front of them.

"What do you think, Kurt?" Blaine picked up one of the rings and held it up in front of him. "Nice, no?"

"It's not often that I get the groom in here with his best man. Usually the bride has a lot to say about the rings."

"Oh, no…the rings are for us. He and I. We're getting married in a few months, and we wanted to get our rings now. But, I would say, yes, he is in fact the best man."

"I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to offend you at all." The man had a kind manner about him, and noticed the blush on Kurt's face.

"Now don't you worry, young man. We'll find you both the perfect rings."

"Thank you. If you could just give us a moment?"

"Of course. Take your time." The man walked away, and Blaine turned to Kurt.

"Do you want to marry me, Kurt?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course I want to marry you."

"I'm just checking, because this is a huge decision, and you're acting like I'm asking you what kind of coffee you'd like. We will be wearing these rings until death do us part, remember?

"I like the tri-color ones." Kurt mustered up a smile for Blaine, who grabbed his hand and held the ring next to Kurt's finger.

"You do? So do I. Do you want to go with those, or do you want to look at a few other places? I want you to be happy with them."

"I like these. Let's get these."

Blaine got the attention of the salesman, and he sized their ring fingers and wrote up the order. "What about engraving?"

"Oh, right. Hmmm. Can we get back to you on that?"

"As long as we have 2 weeks lead time, we'll be fine. Just give me a call and let me know what you want on there. Here's my card." He handed his business card to Blaine, and shook their hands. As they were walking away, he called out to them.

"Congratulations, you two."

Kurt finally spoke up. "Thank you…for that."

On the way back from Jared, they stopped at the house to let Carol and Burt know that they had taken care of their rings. No one was home, but Kurt had his key, so they went inside to wait. While Blaine tried to find something for them to watch, Kurt went into the kitchen to get drinks. On the kitchen table was a folder with his name on it, so he picked it up to see what was inside. It was his birth certificate, immunization record, and assorted school papers. He carried it back with him to the living room, and tossed it down on the table in front Blaine.

"What's that?" Blaine leaned over to pick up the folder.

"It's a ride down Kurt Hummel memory lane. Feel free to jump on."

Blaine looked at the old report cards first. "I'm impressed. Brains and beauty."

He looked at the immunization record and thought about how cute Kurt must have been as a baby. He's only seen a few pictures of him from that time. He turned the birth certificate sideways so that he could read it.

"Kurt?"

"Blaine?"

"Have you ever really looked at your birth certificate?"

"Of course I have. Why?"

Blaine smiled at him, and turned it so that it was facing Kurt.

"Look again".