Author's notes: This is almost done. Only one more part (and possibly an epilogue if I can't get what I want into the next part) to go. The next chapter should be up sometime later this week, so there shouldn't be a long wait. I'd like to send out a huge thank you to everyone who's followed this, especially those who've taken the time to stop by and drop a review; you guys have been incredibly awesome.

Everything seemed to slow down for him as Finn's words sunk in. Kurt was missing. And he'd been acting weird again when Blaine had fled. But that meant—Blaine swallowed hard and tried to think of something else, anything else. He didn't need another reminder of his cowardice and the consequences thereof. He closed his eyes, trying to ground himself, regain his composure, but wasn't really working.

"What do you mean, you can't find him?" he breathed into the receiver.

"Just what I said. I—Burt came home and woke me up; I hadn't even realized that I'd fallen asleep. He came up to the couch all confused and asked me why the door was unlocked."

"And Kurt wasn't in the house," Blaine finished softly, the whole thing finally starting to sink in over the shock. The rain hadn't let up, and fat drops of water pelted the car like stones. Oh god, Kurt was out there in this weather. Alone. And possibly suffering another psychotic break.

This was all his fault.

He shouldn't have left the house. He shouldn't have gone and left Kurt alone with an over-tired, sick Finn. He shouldn't have run away. He should have stayed and tried to calm Kurt down, or maybe woken Finn up and tried to get him to do the job. Kurt could be lost or hurt or god knows what, and he was just sitting there in his car like the coward he was, letting the boy he loved slip through his fingers.

Blaine couldn't tell if he was breathing or not, but he managed to get enough air into his lungs to speak again. "Is Burt still home?"

"No. He just left to go look for Kurt, like, right before I called you." Finn paused for a moment, as though contemplating if he wanted to say anything more. His next words were so quiet, Blaine almost missed them. "I didn't tell him you came by."

Blaine didn't quite know what to say to that. It was his fault Kurt was missing, and yet Finn was covering for him. Burt would have freaked and gone on a rampage if he'd known that Blaine's visit had probably set this off. He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. "Why—why would you do that?"

"Is Kurt with you?" Finn was avoiding the question.

"What?"

"Is Kurt with you?" Finn repeated, his voice breathy and exasperated.

"No," Blaine answered quickly. But I wish he was. A sudden thought occurred to him. "Wait, you don't think I took him, do you?"

"No, but I had to be sure. I trust you and all, but…I mean, Kurt's not here, and it's my fault he's gone. I should have been watching him or something, but I fell asleep and left you guys alone. God, I'm so sorry for that."

No, Blaine thought, you shouldn't have been left alone with him in the first place, even if Burt needed to get that medication. This whole thing wasn't fair, and you shouldn't have been left to watch him. Not while you're sick. And I shouldn't have run out. No matter how freaked I'd been. "Don't—don't put this all on yourself. No one knew Kurt would run off, right? And he couldn't have gone very far. Not in this weather." He was rambling. He only rambled when he was nervous. Oh god, what if Finn could tell he was nervous? And where in the hell was Kurt?

Blaine restarted his car, and tried to look out the windows through the cascades of water running past. He sucked in a deep breath, the image of Kurt, wet and alone and god knows where flashing through his head. "I'll find him, Finn," he promised. "Just, just give me a little time."

"All right. I'll call you if I hear anything from Burt." And the line went dead.

Blaine sat there in the cold, dark cab of his car, slumped over in his seat, his phone clasped loosely in his fist as it rested on the steering wheel. The white noise of the rain hammering the doors and roof filled his head. Kurt was missing. This was his fault. He didn't even know the first place to look.

Blaine leaned back and was about to drop his phone into the cupholder and start the car up when something stopped him. The phone fell from his slack fingers to clatter against the hard plastic of the dashboard. He drew his hand over to the cupholder and drew out the crumpled pink nametag from when Kurt had first been hospitalized. The messy folds of the paper were rough against his fingers, but the color was still as bright as ever. That stupid color that Kurt had liked so much when this whole mess had first started.

He felt his breath loosen itself from his chest, and a light chuckle escaped his lips. Soon, he was laughing hysterically, tears filling his stinging eyes as he doubled over in his seat, the bottom of the steering wheel jarring painfully against his knees as he tried to curl up in the small space. He didn't know what to do. This was all so ridiculous; this couldn't be real.

The pink caught his eye once more, and he tried to calm himself down. His breaths came in large gasping gulps and he brought the ruined nametag close to his face. His shaking fingers scrabbled at the edges of the tag and he carefully peeled the sticky bits away from each other. He could hear paper tearing, but the tag still looked to be whole. He unfolded the little slip of paper and pink filled his vision.

Blarn Anderson.

What he wouldn't give to be Blarn Anderson again. He could be that same dopey boy who fell in love with Kurt Hummel, the same boy who serenaded him and spent long afternoons with him doing nothing or studying in the common rooms of Dalton Academy. He screwed his eyes shut and let the tears fall. Kurt. He needed to get himself together, calm down.

Kurt was missing. He needed to find Kurt.

Blaine scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm, and he started up his car. He needed to do this. Kurt needed him. He was out there, alone, and Blaine was just sitting here. He drew in a deep breath and tried to think. Where would Kurt go?

He watched as the windshield wipers danced back and forth across the windshield, shifting the water across the glass. Back and forth. And he knew where to go.

The road shouldn't have felt so familiar—he'd only driven it once or twice before—but his hands moved almost of their own accord. The GPS was still sitting in the glove box, and even with his terrible sense of direction, he somehow knew exactly where he was going.

McKinley. There were so many places around town that Kurt could go, but he'd told Blaine once that McKinley, as terrible as it was, sometimes felt the most like home. And it was the farthest of the few places he knew Burt would check. If Blaine went there first, and Kurt was there, maybe then he wouldn't have to admit his mistakes.

The school building came into view, and he pulled over into the student parking lot. Everything was dark and still under the rain; there didn't seem to be another living soul around. He stepped out of the car, and the rain hit him with full force, washing away the gel in his hair and plastering his clothes to his body. The water ran into his eyes and ears and he couldn't see Kurt anywhere.

"Kurt!" He called the boy's name over and over as he stumbled through the parking lot toward the fields surrounding the school. "Kurt, where are you?"

What time was it? How long had he spent moping around in his car? He hadn't even bothered to check his damn phone or the clock on the dash before he left, and both of those were back in the car. He was almost to the damn football field. This was stupid. McKinley wasn't all that far from Kurt's house, but he couldn't possibly have walked here in that short of time.

"Kurt!" The rain was still going strong, and his shoes were nearly soaked through. The bleachers drew ever closer and his steps slowed. He should get back to his car. Look for Kurt in a place where he could logically be, not at the stupid school. What the hell had he been thinking?

But as he neared the field, he saw a figure out on the grass. Kurt. His feet moved of their own accord and he was racing across the slick grass, stumbling and picking himself back up again, but the figure wasn't getting any closer. "Kurt," he whispered to no one at all, and the shadow disappeared. He was being stupid. He was seeing things.

He'd messed up again, and Kurt wasn't here.