A/N: I hope that if I tell you all that work has been the easiest part of these past two weeks (and said work involves raising two tiny humans, one of whom is still pretty non-verbal), it will soothe the fact that this chapter took two weeks to get up. I still have grand plans to finish this story this weekend. Two chapters left, lovelies. Stick with me.

"It went okay, then," Blaine said, dropping his backpack to the floor and sliding Kurt's mocha across the table to him before settling into his own chair.

"Mmmm," Kurt licked a strip of whipped cream off his straw. "It was good. Better than I'd expected."

"I can see that," Blaine replied with a smile at the tiny Baldwin Wallace Theater pin on the strap of Kurt's bag. "You're not a t-shirt kind of guy. So you had fun?"

"Ethan might be the only straight guy in the whole department," Kurt sighed. "I went to his play rehearsal. It wasn't a musical, it was a straight play, and it was good. He was good in it."

"What was the show?"

Kurt shrugged. "Isn't it Romantic. I'd never heard of it, but I guess the playwright won a Tony and a Pulitzer, for a different play. It was kind of quirky, but Ethan was good in it. He played this crazy Russian cab driver, accent and everything."

Blaine watched Kurt chew at his lip. "What's got you worked up?" he asked, sliding his hand over to rest against Kurt's; they still didn't really hold hands in public, even though Blaine caught Kelly, the Lima Bean's afternoon barista, rolling her eyes at him.

"It just feels real, now," Kurt sighed. "I mean, we're leaving in four months. We're reallyleaving Lima, and the world is about to get really big."

Blaine winked at Kelly and took Kurt's hand in both of his. "You'd rather the world stayed small."

"No," Kurt said with a slight shake of his head. "Sometimes I just wish we had more time for reading out loud and Chinese food. I'm going to have to memorize you, before I let you go."

"Four months," Blaine said with a sigh. "We have four months," holding Kurt's hand tight and pulling him up out of his chair, slinging both their bags over his shoulder and dragging Kurt out to the Nav, their coffees forgotten on the table, just so that Blaine could spend a few minutes before school doing a little memorizing of his own.

Only, four months was never going to be enough, not with Nationals and finals and graduation, and the Hudson-Hummel family vacation, and Blaine and his mother taking a long-delayed post-divorce trip to Maine with his grandparents.

Then there was the paperwork: medical forms and disclosure notices about student loans and parent loans and Kurt's work study in the library. Kurt's housing assignment came in mid-July, both of them still sunburned from their trips and both of them really just wanting to sit in the air conditioning and drink gallons of lemonade instead of thinking about miniscule refrigerators and who was going to bring the tv.

After witnessing the negotiations, Blaine was awfully glad he was going to have a single.

The first week in August Blaine took an afternoon when Kurt was working to go to Sheets n' Things and pick out his bedding and towels and everything, because he knew that if he went with Kurt he'd give in and end up with obscene thread counts and colors he wouldn't like, because he can't say no to Kurt, not ever, and what he really wanted for his room was warmth and darkness and a bed that he can curl up and write in when the missing gets to be too much.

He was pushing a massive cart carefully through the towels, trying not to send sherbert-colored terry cloth tumbling onto the floor, when he accidentally locked wheels with another cart parked willy-nilly in the aisle.

"Sorry," he muttered, tugging his backwards and trying to disengage the wheel.

"Nah, my fault," a soft voice said, and Blaine lifted his eyes to see Dave Karofsky staring at him, slightly shocked.

"Dave," Blaine sighed. "I didn't- sorry," he stammered, because he didn't know what to say. He'd only seen Dave once, right after the hospital, and he hated that he was too scared of his ownhead to have made any kind of an effort to be a friend, even though he knew Kurt still went and spent time with Dave a couple of times a week.

"Blaine." Dave ran his eyes over the flannel sheets, down comforter, and flannel duvet cover in Blaine's cart. "You know Kurt's never going to approve," he said with a chuckle.

"Why do you think I'm doing this when he's working?" Blaine eyeballed Dave's cart, the plastic bed risers and shower caddy and a pile of maroon and blue striped towels. "Where are you- Kurt never said-"

"Colorado. Um, CU? In Boulder?" Dave bit at his lip, but he only looked nervous, not anxious.

"You playing football?" It was the worst kind of small talk, but Blaine didn't know how to do anything else around this boy who once wanted to hurt Kurt.

"Nah," Dave shook his head. "I might try to walk on for hockey, but I'm going for engineering. Kurt said you're going to Iowa? Iowa?"

"What's wrong with Iowa?" Blaine shrugged, and smiled sheepishly. "I know, Kurt swears that no self respecting gay man would go to college there after growing up in Ohio, but I like it there."

"That's important," Dave said. "So you want to be a writer?"

"Yeah."

Dave blinked, and patted at his pockets before pulling out his phone and frowning at it. "My father wants to know if I need pillow shams. What the hellis a pillow sham? I gotta-" he waved, tugging on his cart and jerking it sideways to free the wheel.

"Yeah," Blaine said with a wave of his own. "I'm glad you're doing better, Dave."

"Thanks," Dave said, moving past Blaine toward the sheets and then pausing before he continued. "Blaine?"

"Yeah?"

"When you're published, make sure you tell our stories. For all of us."

"I will. I promise."

Blaine sighed happily at the weight of Kurt's leg tossed over his own, Kurt's heart still racing hard against Blaine's cheek. "I saw Dave today," he said, lifting his head to kiss at a stubborn smear of engine grease just below Kurt's cheek. "He seems happy."

"He's getting there," Kurt sighed, and swatted at Blaine. "That tickles. And you know as well as I do that it's a process. I think college will be good for him."

"He asked me to make sure I tell our stories, when I start getting published."

Kurt shifted, propped himself up on his elbows. Blaine enjoyed the feeling of Kurt's body curling under his head, so he didn't move. "What did you tell him?"

"I promised I would," Blaine replied, dipping his tongue into the hollow of Kurt's bellybutton. "They're the only stories I know how to tell."

The drifting started slowly, with Finn off to Georgia right after Fourth of July, and Kurt spent most of the rest of the month tiptoeing past his empty bedroom like he was only just inside sleeping instead of in a barracks.

Kurt also spent a lot of late nights talking with Carole over decaf iced tea, his dad in and out of the house as the strange Congressional summer schedule allowed. As it got closer to the middle of August, though, his dad was home more and Kurt's late night talking skills were put to use by Mercedes and Rachel both needing advice on clothes and dorm furnshings, and by Tina who just needed someone to hold her hand and make her laugh after Mike left to go down to the Joffrey in Chicago.

"I think I'm going to apply to Northwestern, and University of Chicago," Tina said, standing her spoon in the middle of the carton of Chocolate Peanut Butter and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"That's good," Kurt said with a nod. "How are you still breathing?"

Tina shook her head. "I'm not. I'm just floating, and I hate being that girl, the one who can't make it six hours without her boyfriend. How am I going to make it until I can see him again?"

"I don't know," Kurt replied, his own tears making the chocolate bitter. "When you figure it out, will you teach me? Because I'm scared that I'm going to float, too."

The night that Santana left, Brittany climbed in his bedroom window just shy of 3 am, and he just took her by the hand and led her across the hall to Finn's room, where Tina was curled up tight into a ball on Finn's bed. Then he sat in the dark of his own room and called Blaine.

"I can't take care of them, Blaine," he said, blinking around the tears that he couldn't seem to control now that his room was half-packed and there were only five days left to cross off on his calendar. "I can barely take care of myself right now, and I have no idea how to make it better for them, because I can't even make it better for myself."

"I know," Blaine said, whisper-soft and sniffly, and Kurt knew that Blaine was crying, and he wondered why they could never get their acts together to cry with each other.

"This would be easier if we could just cry in front of each other," Kurt finally said with a laugh and a gentle dab of a tissue.

"If I cry in front of you, I'll never be able to stop," Blaine admitted.
"I'd started worrying that you weren't going to miss me at all," Kurt said, slipping back under his sheets.

"I'm going to miss you more than I can tell you," Blaine replied.

Kurt closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Why don't you act like it? You act like it's this big adventure, like you're excited. Like I don't matter to you."

"Oh, god. Baby." Kurt could hear Blaine, then, breaking in the worst way, and Kurt wished that Blaine weren't all the way across town and that it was closer to dawn than the dark of night. "I- Kurt. You're the mostimportant thing to me. But I can't- if I think about it at all, I'd never be able to go. I don't know how to do this any better than you do, I'm just better at pretending."

"I wish you weren't so good at wearing masks," Kurt sighed. "I love you, but you're really frustrating sometimes."

"I wish I weren't so good at the masks, either," Blaine whispered. "How about a new deal? No masks for the next five days, from either of us."

"Deal," Kurt said, his mind going fuzzy with emotion and fatigue.

"Go back to sleep, Kurt. I love you, and I'll see you in the morning."

Kurt hummed, and let his phone fall from his ear. Morning had a good sound to it.

Blaine wished that he could just wrap himself up in Kurt, keep them both safe and isolated on a little island for the time they had left, but there were obligations and family, and Blaine hated having to restrain himself from touching Kurt in public. Instead, he saved it all up for the private moments, the nights when Burt, startlingly, didn't make Blaine go home, as if he knew that they needed each other more desperately with every dwindling hour.

He could feel the hunger crawling through his body even though they'd already spent hours touching and fucking, even though his limbs were jittery and Kurt was completely gone, boneless and dead asleep around him.

He brushed a limp lock of hair from Kurt's forehead, but Kurt didn't even stir. I love you like breathing, he whispered into the dark. I don't know how I'm going to be able to even open my eyes without you.

"Mmmm," Kurt sighed in his sleep, and tucked his body closer against Blaine.

Blaine tightened his arms around the boy who had stolen his heart on a curving staircase, around the manhe wanted to build the rest of his life with, and even though his heart was more whole than it had ever been in his life, he couldn't help feeling like the edges of it were crumbling to dust.

"You're not even going three hours away. You couldcome home on a weekend, if you forget something." Burt tipped his head sideways and stared at the back of the Nav, full of boxes and bags.

"I don't know what I might need," Kurt said, closing the back. Blaine could hear what Kurt hadn't said, though, and smiled as he tugged Kurt close for a sweaty hugh.

"You don't know what you're going to need to make you feel human," he whispered into Kurt's ear, low enough for only the two of them.

"Yeah," Kurt said, his voice breaking.

"Hey," Blaine kissed Kurt's forehead. "Why don't you go shower, huh? You'll feel better, and then we can go eat."

"Okay," Kurt nodded, and Blaine stood in the driveway watching him walk back up to the house. Once Kurt was inside with the door closed, Burt's hand was heavy on Blaine's shoulder.

"Your mom missing you yet?" Burt's voice was gruff, tinged with concern. "She doesn't mind you staying here?"

Blaine shook his head. "She, um. She understands? And she knows that we'll have almost a week, her and I, before I go too." She'd held him, tight, when he'd gone home for a change of clothes that morning. Come home to me tomorrow, baby, she'd said. I'll take care of you. "She knows it's hard for us both."

"Yeah," Burt sighed, pulling his ball cap off and rubbing his forehead. "Yeah," he said again. "I see it, too. He's not going to break, though, and neither are you. You guys've been through too much to let college do this. You gotta promise me, kid. Kurt lovesyou, more than he loves himself I think, and if you guys aren't gonna make it, maybe it's better to let each other go."

"No!" Blaine felt almost frantic to reassure Burt. "Oh, god, it's not like that at all!"

"Why don't we have something to drink and you can tell me what it islike, because I've got eyes, and you two look like you're holding onto ghosts."

Blaine leaned back against the hot exterior of the Nav, felt the metal almost burning him under his t-shirt, but the heat felt good, real, in a way that nothing else did right then. "I'm so in love with him, and neither of us know how to do this. How do I do this?"

Burt leaned next to him. "It's not even close to the same thing, and I shouldn't compare it at all, but when Kurt's mom died I didn't know how to do it, either, but I started every day by just getting up and putting my feet on the floor. Sometimes, that's all you cando, and after enough days of that, you realize that you've passed months. You boys are lucky. When you say goodbye tomorrow, it'll be three months before you see each other again."

"Put my feet on the floor?" Blaine shook his head, because it seemed too easy.

Burt nodded. "Every morning."

"I can- I can do that," Blaine muttered, thinking that it sounded like an awfully simple way of getting by, but he wouldn't complain if it actually worked.

They didn't sleep, not really. Not fully. They drifted, gently in and out of sleep to kiss and taste and touch, hands and mouths and bodies pressing and moving. They didn't speak, except to utter words of need and want, please and there and oh, god, more, Blaine laying himself bare and letting Kurt take him.

It felt like the only remaining thing he had left to give to Kurt, and he sure as hell wasn't going to sleepuntil Kurt had taken every last cell of Blaine's heart and made it his own.

Blaine thought that maybe it was close to 4 am by the time they were both aching and shaky and, finally, spent, and even though he desperately wanted Kurt to hold him, he turned on his side and held Kurt, just so he could memorize the weight of Kurt's body, heavy with sleep and satisfaction, in his arms.

When he woke, the clock on Kurt's nightstand read 7:23 am and he was alone.

"He said he needed to do it alone," Burt said, blinking through red-rimmed eyes and pushing an empty mug across the table to Blaine. "There's coffee in the pot."

"He didn't say-" Blaine's throat tightened around the words, and he suddenly understood. Kurt hadn't said goodbye because he'd promised, over a year ago, that he'd never say goodbye to Blaine.

The realization hit him like an electric shock, and he sort of went limp and fell into the chair across from Burt. "Shit," he sighed, and rubbed his eyes. Sorry."

Burt waved his apology off. "No worries. You sure you're okay?"

"No," Blaine said, rubbing at his eyes and willing himself not to cry. "But I kind of don't have a choice, do I? Putting my feet on the floor, and all."

"He should have at least told you he was leaving," Burt said, running a finger over the rim of his mug. "That's not- that's not like Kurt."

"He promised me he wouldn't," Blaine said. "A lifetime ago, he promised me."

"Hmmm," Burt nodded. "Yeah. That's Kurt, he always keeps his promises."

Blaine fiddled with his bracelet. Kurt'sbracelet. Even though Kurt's absence hurt, he smiled faintly. "Good, because he made me a hell of a promise."

They talked every night, and Kurt kept texting random one-line commentary from his different orientation events. It made Blaine feel, almost, like he was a part of things, and it gave him something to laugh over while he taped the last of his boxes and loaded them into the car, as he tried not to think too hard about leaving his childhood home. It hadn't always been happy, but in the last six months it had been so much better.

You have a week's advantage, he sent to Kurt just shy of 1 am Friday morning. Any advice?

Kurt's reply pinged back in seconds. Just be yourself. And remember that I love you.

Blaine wandered down to the kitchen for a glass of milk, only to find his mother curled up at the table with the crossword puzzle from the previous Sunday.

"I'll make you warm milk, if you want," she offered, but Blaine shrugged her off.

"No," he said. "I just couldn't sleep. Too nervous."

"I remember," she said with a fond smile. "Would you feel better if we left now instead of waiting till the morning?"

"It's the middle of the night!" Blaine gestured at his sweatpants and t-shirt, his mother's pajama pants and cotton bathrobe.

"Think of it as an adventure," she laughed, setting her paper and pen on the table. "I'll race you! Last one ready has to drive through Chicago!"

Blaine was sure nobody would believe him when he told them of leaving Lima before 3 am, two enormous coffees in the cupholders and a box of donuts from Pat's balanced on his knees, singing old '80's songs with his mother.

Drive safe, Kurt texted on hearing the news. Let me know when you get there.

I will, Blaine sent back. Go to sleep. I love you.

I love you, too.

Blaine closed his phone, and his eyes, and let the motion of the tires and his mother singing Belinda Carlisle lull him to sleep.