A/N: and here we go, last chapter. Probably should have put it all in one chapter but oh well. Thanks for sticking it out!
-Katie

#1. Fire

It was quiet again, both relatively and to any average outside observer. The almost black night sky was still successful here in Ohio at enticing people into their beds. It had taken him months to get used to the constant noise of New York but no time at all to sink back into his small town bed. That may have been because sleep was his only escape from loneliness but Blaine ignored that now that that loneliness was gone.

Tucked warm to his side, Kurt was his again, naked and limp, the moon light catching on the small droplets of sweat dappled across his skin. His breath was soft over Blaine's collar bone, its lazy, steady, rhythm radiating through his entire body and mind, blanketing him in a calm sort of quiet he hadn't found for far too long.

Blaine let his own breathing lull to sync with Kurt's. He allowed his eyes to slip close. Sometimes he never wanted to waste these moments with sleep now that he had them back. As the dark of the night approached its peak though, his will power always faltered and it was there, where the line between sleep and awake was blurred that his life could have easily been a dream.

Blaine's dreams never seemed to last long though until they morphed into a twisted nightmare. Never before though had it been so sudden. The ringing in his ear, the blinding light from his phone, for some reason that Blaine couldn't place in his drowsy mind seemed louder, brighter. His fingers fumbled for the right button, jabbing the screen more than should've been necessary. Kurt groaned beside him, burring further into his side but for some reason Blaine knew, even then that neither of them would be slipping back into the dream land again that night.

"Okay, okay," Kurt said about one of his hands in what Blaine supposed was supposed to be a calming measure. He turned around to his left, then his right, and back to his left again. The bedroom, complete with simply a double bed and a dresser had somehow become a maze. Where was his sweater? Where were his jeans? He'd only taken them off a couple hours ago. Kurt reached out to steady him, taking hold of his shoulder with one hand and his hoodie draw string with the other. "You need to breathe, B." Hoodie draw string? Right, he was already found the sweater and tugged it over his head. "We'll go, okay. We'll go. I'll drive and you're going to work on not having a panic attack," he said sweetly, bumping his fist against chest gently.

Blaine closed his eyes and ducked his head. He nodded and felt Kurt slip away from in front of him. The sound of his pounding heart was loud. He tries to drown that and the faint sound of his phone still ringing in his ears and the even fainter, and yet so ominously present, sound of crackling wood it out with some deep breaths.

The clinking sound of Kurt grabbing the keys off the dresser prompted him to finish getting dressed. When he opened his eyes again though, it was then that we realized which hoodie he had grabbed in his panic. The Dalton logo starred up at him upside down from where it was etched on the front on his chest. It was then that Blaine started to cry.

Blaine's knee bounced and his fingers crawled on his seat belt. Usually Blaine loved driving late at night when he knew that by most of the world's standards he should be in bed. He loved the isolation of it, like this was an adventure for him and him alone. He wished someone could take his place on this one though. Some other kid who went to some other dilapidated public school. No one would miss some poorly funded, mould infested, health hazard. But Dalton was more than desks and chalkboards. Hell it was even more than its oak paneled halls and domed glass ceiling. Dalton was energy, a life force in and of itself. It taught more than simply differential calculus and postmodern European history, it taught its students how to work and live and create something bigger than themselves together. Because sometimes it's easier to step out on your own if you can step out within a group first.

The smell hit them first. Hauntingly inviting like a campfire at first but as they got closer, it got stronger and made every cell in his body scream to turn around. At first Blaine couldn't see the smoke but then he ducked forward and looked upwards. The stars were only twinkling on the left. To the right, the sky was thick and black. About a block away came the light, the orange glow, so eerily associated with the warm Sun and wintery nights in, tucked up in front of the fire place. There was flashing red from all the fire trucks, their sirens cut like slow motion shots of season finale worth disaster episodes on TV. Everywhere there wasn't a truck, there were people. The boys, all in their pyjamas, some with laptops tucked under their arms, and they all stood still and fixated to flush out the shot even further. Then came the heat, like stepping out of air conditioned building in the hot Ohio summer but worse. And the crackling that had been playing in Blaine's ear all through the drive but there were louder, bigger crashes now too. Not just burning, but crumbling amongst the whoosh of the flames.

And finally, Kurt they had made it down the block and were pulling up adjacent to the all the chaos and there was nothing. There was no burning building. There was nothing to stand in front of and watch fall while playing all the happy memories it had given him over in his head.

Some of the boys in the Warblers began to crowd around him. Blaine could see in their lost faces that they were looking for answers, directions, something that would magically salvage what once was. But Blaine could only stand alongside them. In ashes, Dalton didn't have any magic left to offer.

He felt Kurt's hand slip into his own and he all of a sudden felt the need to run with him, away from the smoke and the loss and the desperate look in all those eyes pointed at him.

Kurt's other hand came to rest on his shoulder. "It'll be okay. We'll figure something out." he whispered.

For the first time since the smoke came into view, Blaine turned away from the chaos and towards Kurt, his blue eyes so contrasted against the orange flames and the glowing red embers.