Rent.
"Oh, I..." he reflexively protests, but didn't he just tell Blaine anything? So Kurt lets himself be pulled. "It's been a while."
"What would you like to sing?" Blaine asks, letting go of Kurt's hand and sliding onto the piano bench. He runs a few scales and smiles up at Kurt encouragingly.
"I don't know," Kurt says, curling his fingers over the edge of the baby grand's closed top and letting it take some of his weight as he pushes up to his toes and ignores his protesting calves. When was the last time he sang like this? Easy, for the simple joy of it, and with no imperative for perfection. At Tuning College recreational singing was discouraged among first and second year students, for it hampered the training of their newly developing voices into precision instruments—and there was always the danger of overuse or misuse that would cause the gene therapies to fail.
"You must have some old favorites in your repertoire," Blaine says, and he begins to transition into happy little melodies, snippets and suggestions of different options. Kurt recognizes some of them, others not so much. They span genre and time, but Blaine keeps cycling back to the old jazz standards and showtunes they both love.
"There!" Kurt says, to a familiar flourish that makes him grin so wide his cheeks hurt.
"This one?" Blaine repeats the opening.
Kurt bites his lip and nods. "You start, let me warm up a little?"
"Join me whenever you're ready," Blaine says and he begins, bright, with his voice swinging playfully over the tune.
"Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars "
Kurt breathes and hums a simple harmony in counterpoint as Blaine sings the first two verses. The song is within the easy reach of Kurt's voice, won't require that he push into his upper register.
He nods to Blaine, who nods back, and goes silent as Kurt steps in on on the next verse:
"Fill my heart with song
and let me sing forever more,"
Blaine grins and raises his eyebrows in approval, and to Kurt's own ears, his voice sounds good, steady and smooth, if lacking in volume, but that's most likely because he's still shy of putting that much pressure on his vocal folds. It's like favoring a broken ankle that's just healed. He doesn't trust it with his full weight.
Together, they sing, "In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you."
And even spoken in song, even in performance, it makes Kurt a little hot, a little light-headed, shift a little bit out of himself to say it. He lets himself go. He lets himself fall in love with Blaine, for he knows the landing is safe.
.
The high is still with him as they make their way down a level together. Kurt's leaning some of his weight on Blaine's offered arm, and they don't take the stairs quickly. He's still out of breath from singing and the elation of it and Blaine and the ridiculous hope that's filling his chest like helium.
But, in the finish, he didn't want to push his voice too much—he still needs to be able prime Betty's array reliably— and after two drinks and no sleep, he can't tolerate well the hunger that's roused in his belly. So he and Blaine agreed it's time for an early breakfast, and there's a pancake bar—Furious George's—open all hours, a few decks down in the low-rent district. Kurt's relied on it in the past for calories in the odd, small hours. Many pilots do.
Blaine's never been, and on the way, Kurt tells him they have all-you-can-eat pancakes. The blueberry ones—his standard order—are made from reconstituted berries, but they're still the closest to the ones his mother used to make. Light, fluffy, tender. And the coffee is bottomless, their soy bacon strips never overcooked, and they bring in frozen banana pulp for their trademark smoothie.
It's less than impressive in its ambiance and décor. In the center of the station, there's no view, and the enameled metal surfaces are an eye-ball jarring combination of royal purple, canary yellow, and chartreuse green.
"Pretty sure that's to help keep us awake when we need it," Kurt says, and they find a booth by the far wall beneath a macrame monkey.
Once their food is served, Blaine asks Kurt, "Why'd you stop singing anyway? Your voice is amazing." Blaine's tone is conversational, his eyes curious.
It's not a story Kurt tells lightly. But tonight everything feels light, so he thinks he can bear the weight of it, here with Blaine. "There was... an accident," Kurt says. He touches his throat. "Vocal hemorrhage, a pretty bad one. It took a long time to heal, and I lost my qualifications while waiting. Then my Dad got sick, and I, well, the last two years you know well enough."
"Accident?"
"Yeah," Kurt cuts into his pancake stack with the edge of his fork, makes a neat wedge. "It was on Rachel's first big job after we graduated. She's my best friend from the College days. You'll probably get to meet her. She's coming to help out with Betty when I get back."
Blaine nods and hums his interest around a mouthful of soy bacon.
"The ship was the new military frigate? It had a bleeding tech kind of crystal array, one that was designed to not only power the ship, but also the weapons' system—the details aren't that important. But the drive array needed two singers, and Rachel asked me to help her, because we've always worked well together.
"And that went fine, no problems. We tuned the amber array perfectly, all thirty-two spears. It was exhilarating. We'd never done one that big. The sound of it—" Kurt breaks off, feels the pressure of the memory rising in his throat. "It was beautiful."
"But something went wrong?"
Kurt swallows. "Yeah, the array for the weapons' system was blue. Just twelve spears, but they're so touchy, and they don't tune in sequence, there're rules, but you have to figure it out as you work, like a puzzle? It can take hours, and this one, even small, required a full four octaves of its tuner. Which Rachel has—and which I had."
"Had?"
"Actually, I don't know what my range is now. I haven't tried."
"But you healed?"
"Yes," Kurt says. "The thing about the blues? They're fussy about the quality of the voice that sings to them. It's really easy to botch a tuning and damage the crystals. And you never really know what any given array will prefer, but in general, they prefer lighter timbres."
"Like yours."
"Like mine. I had an unusually high success rate with blues." Kurt shrugs. "They like my voice, and I have a good feel for their quirks.
"So after Rachel'd been working with that array for half the night, she was tired and frustrated and worried about her voice. They just weren't taking it from her. She hadn't damaged them—she's too good for that—but they'd been refusing to sing back to her. The job was important to her, and she didn't want to be humiliated. She asked me if I would give it a shot. I did.
"The last crystal in that array needed a sustained G6 with unusually high power behind it. Challenging for me. My upper range has more precision and purity than power. I had to force it, and I knew what I was doing was... not smart. But I had an excess of pride, so I did it anyway, believed I'd be fine, just this once. The array sang for me so gloriously, but once was enough."
"I'm sorry, Kurt," Blaine says. "I can't imagine how hard it would be, to lose that much."
"It's not the end of it for me. Or I hope it's not. I should be able to get my voice back to tuning. I miss it. But the time off was a setback, and then life intervened, and I had to find a fast way to make a large amount of money. Tuning wasn't going to cut it, so here I am."
Blaine looks at him with sympathy and gratitude. "I wish it were under better circumstances, and I know it's not much consolation for what you've been through, but I'm glad you're here with me." He reaches across the table for Kurt's hand, and Kurt reaches back.
"You might be surprised," Kurt says. "Just how much that is."
A softness lights both Blaine's eyes and his smile. He glances at the wall clock, and back at Kurt with an unspoken query.
The answer curls anticipation tight and hot in Kurt's belly. "Bedtime?" Kurt suggests.
.
It's on the way back up to Blaine's apartment that Kurt realizes this is not going to be a whirlwind fantasy romance. His body is too much an enemy to sustain days of spent frolicking in the haze of new love. He's smothering jaw cracking yawns with his palm by the time they're at Blaine's door, and his legs and spine feel as if they're about to lose their battle with the station's artificial gravity.
"I'm sorry," he says, sagging against Blaine's shoulder. "I was planning to kiss you."
Blaine's chuckle is warm. "Do you think you could manage to fall asleep?" Blaine asks him.
"Yes," Kurt says.
"Okay," Blaine says. "Then sleep. You can kiss me when you wake up."
He helps Kurt undress to nothing, and by the time he's pulling the sheets up to Kurt's chest, Kurt's eyes are closed.
.
Scarf.
When Kurt wakes, he's alone in Blaine's bed. For a panicked instant he fears he's just come in off a run and fallen asleep, hasn't actually woken up at all, but is in some kind of coma dream. Blaine's never left him alone before.
But then as the sleep fog clears Kurt remembers. This isn't one of those nights, and he's here by Blaine's invitation and his own choice. If he weren't safe, Blaine would be with him. All that happened was he finally slept. He's still tired, weariness is heavy and intractable, but he slept for what feels like a good stretch of time. He sits and stretches and peers at Blaine's console.
"Crap!" he says, and turns to put his feet on the floor. He's been unconscious for the whole day. It's dinner time. "Blaine?" he calls out. He doesn't see his clothes.
With a grunt, Kurt forces his reluctant body up. He stretches gingerly and takes a dressing gown from the hook on the back of the door.
His mouth feels like he's been sucking on a mouthful of sand, so he shuffles to the bathroom while he ties the robe.
Once refreshed, he makes his way out of Blaine's bedroom. "Blaine?" he calls again.
He's not spent that much time in Blaine's living area, but at the end of each run, that first entry into its rich colors and plush textures, the tasteful sensory luxury of the space Blaine inhabits and maintains, has come to feel like home and haven.
Curiously, Kurt looks at the collection of mementos on a wall shelf. Photographs of Blaine with friends and family, and diverse little objects representing locations all over the sector. Gifts from clients?
In the small kitchen a rice cooker steams contentedly on the counter, so Blaine can't be too far away. Kurt goes to the chiller to find the fortified juice Blaine keeps on hand.
He's making his way back to the living room when the door opens and Blaine comes in with two cloth sacks. Dark green leaves peek from the top of one.
"You're awake!" Blaine says, and his lovely face is so full of joy, it makes Kurt's heart skip a beat to be the cause of it.
"I'm sorry I slept the whole day away," Kurt says.
"Don't be," Blaine says over his shoulder as he goes to the kitchen. "I know how badly you needed it."
Kurt follows as far as the open bar counter that separates the kitchen from the rest of the room. He pulls out a stool and sits. "I know, but my three days with you is now only two and a half," Kurt says.
"You need the sleep to heal, Kurt. I want you in as a good a shape as possible before you go."
"That's not your job, Blaine, not anymore," Kurt says. But then smooths the defensive impulse, "But I'm grateful for your care, always, thank you."
"I'm always happy to give it," Blaine says. "And, look, we'll have a wonderful night together, which will be all the more memorable for your having got some rest."
Kurt can't argue with that. "Sounds good to me," Kurt says, and he watches Blaine unpack several bunches of greens and other vegetables to the counter, and a few other fresh food items Kurt can't name. A haul like that from hydroponics is pricey for a single customer. Most of the grown foods go to the restaurants on the station. Kurt hates to think what it would have cost Blaine, but he doesn't say anything more than, "All that food looks amazing."
Blaine smiles, and sets to prepping the vegetables. Kurt gets lost in the rhythm of his knife, and the capable work of his hands. The silence between them is comfortable, and the homey sounds of the kitchen and food preparation are a surprising balm.
"Oh,"Kurt says as he shifts on the stool and the robe slips from his leg. "Where are my clothes?"
"My wardrobe," Blaine says. "You can dress if you like, but you won't be needing them."
.
The food is incredible, aromatic, fresh, and nourishing; and it's blessedly light in Kurt's stomach when Blaine leads him back to the bedroom after dessert.
Kurt reclines on the bed and watches Blaine undress. He loves not knowing what to expect, loves being here simply because he's wanted and chooses to be. It's a relief to be here without the danger and anxiety and misery of the cryoshock tainting every sensation.
"What would you like?" Blaine asks him.
"You choose," Kurt says, and he thrills when Blaine turns to the cabinet near the bed. The soft wrist cuffs are familiar, as is the ruby satin scarf Blaine uses to blindfold him. But that's all Blaine gets out. The other implements and toys Kurt's become familiar with remain in their drawers.
Blaine gets on the bed with him, and Kurt holds his hands out for the cuffs. Blaine fastens them, and then pulls Kurt's arms over his head and affixes the cuffs to the bedhead. Just the stretch of it and the immediate shock of vulnerability, makes Kurt's heart speed and his skin flush hot. Blaine touches his face. "I want to give you nothing but pleasure tonight, all right?"
"Yes," Kurt says, and Blaine covers his eyes."I still haven't kissed you," Kurt says.
"Something to look forward to," Blaine says, and then he starts.
Tonight, Blaine's touch is patient, gentle, and precise. Kurt wonders if this is what it would feel like to be a crystal, tuned by a skilled singer, for Blaine's hands and mouth play the organic lattice of his nerve endings so perfectly. It's as if he's got a map for the density and distribution of them all, and he knows precisely how to amplify, modulate, and attenuate the harmonic progression of pleasure in Kurt's body. Blaine uses nothing but his own, and takes Kurt into as deep and resonant a bliss as he's ever known with a lover.
He wishes they had more time.
.
Twist.
But it's time they don't have. The days pass in a bright blur, and too soon Kurt's in the cockpit running through Betty's pre-flight check while the smart-lifts scurry back and forth, in and out of her cargo bay, loading her hold with cartons of dark matter condensate.
Kurt swipes his hand across the projected HUD, verifying the cryopod is primed, all pressure tanks are charged, and primary astronav is online, spinning through its dynamic route calculations. Communications are good, life support, emergency systems… All locking mechanisms are free, and the hold sensors report optimal mass distribution.
.
He left Blaine in bed this morning, wrapped warm in the sheets, beautiful and sad. Asked him not to come down to the hangar to see him off. When Blaine asked him why, Kurt replied, "Because this isn't good bye." He kissed the tears on Blaine's cheeks and refused to shed his own even as they stuck thick in his throat. "I'll see you in three months."
.
Back in Betty's drive chamber, Kurt syncs the array. It's a simple three note harmonic to sing, and Betty takes each note he gives her, returns the trichord flawlessly. Marley tuned her well; Betty sounds better than she has all year. Kurt seals the drive casing and sets the amplifier to stand-by. Below his feet, he feels the rumble of the cargo doors grinding closed.
It's time. Kurt flicks the volume on his earpiece and speaks to the control tower.
.
On his way out of Blaine's apartment, Kurt left his mother's fleur de lis pin on Blaine's shelf of mementos, below a blown glass swallow. A hope for safe return.
.
Kurt straps himself in the pilot's seat as the hangar claxon whoops. The lights ringing the pressure doors pulse a warning in red. Then they roll slowly apart, opening to the space beyond.
When the door lights go green and Kurt receives confirmation from the tower, he places a gentle hand on Betty's throttle and fires up her thrusters. Then he guides her out, keeping a careful watch on the Ball.
.
Marley and Blaine organized a last minute Bon Voyage party for him at The Blue Bar last night. But though the mood was to be uplifting and blithe, it felt to Kurt more like a wake.
.
At the transit point, Kurt checks Betty's harmonic modulation; she's singing and steady, ready to go. The astronav confirms they have a clear path.
Kurt signals his readiness and settles back to wait for the tower's reply. He refocuses his eyes and looks out at the streaming plumes of the nebula instead of at the mass of information overlaying his visual field.
.
Breathless and hot and vibrant, Blaine on his belly. Kurt inside him, too deep and dizzying to be real.
"If you're tired, we can turn over," Blaine said when Kurt paused to rest and catch his breath. Open mouthed kisses on Blaine's neck and side-turned face tasted of salt.
"No," Kurt replied. He dug his fingers into Blaine's waist and shoulder, pulling as he pushed, as if he could fit them closer together. "I want to see this through."
.
"IMV Elizabeth, you are clear to deploy your warp field," the tower says. "Fair Winds, Captain."
It makes him smile. Kurt never has got used to being called Captain. He taps in the command for Betty to ramp it up, unbuckles from his seat, and heads back.
.
Sprawled sweaty, spent, and aching in bed with Blaine last night, Blaine sang to him:
"You told me it was so, a million dreams ago,
You held me in your arms, a million dreams ago."
Kurt kissed him so he couldn't finish the song.
.
Even through the insulation of the drive casing, Kurt can hear Betty's song, building, building, building, and it feels already like it's setting his bones and his brain buzzing into jelly. He strips down to his underwear and pops open the cryopod.
He's got it down to an efficient routine, knows he has more time than it feels like before the array's volume becomes unbearable. He dons his earmuffs, turns, and steps carefully back into the close, customized space. He's shivering already as the door clamps closed, but he's grateful for the silence, though it's never not felt like a coffin in here.
Kurt keeps his breathing deep and even and fits his arms into the monitoring cuffs. He flinches at the prick of the needle in his wrist.
.
After hours, propped sleepily on top of the piano and watching while Blaine played songs without words. Vibrations in his body, longing in his heart, and 'I love you' waiting to be kissed from his lips.
.
Viscous gel fills the cryopod from the bottom. Thankfully, it's a few degrees warmer than body temperature to start. He'll be unconscious by the time it chills. Kurt closes his eyes and speaks to the 'pod's controls. "Music," he says. "Playlist. For Kurt."
Blaine sent some of his performances to Betty's data store after Kurt told him he liked to listen to music as he went down into cryo. It keeps him calm.
As Betty's warp field forms, Kurt may not be able to hear it, but he feels the sickening twist of its distortion deep in his chest. The gel is up to his chin, and Blaine sings him to sleep:
"As long as I've got arms that cling at all
It's you that I'll be clinging to
And all the dreams I dream, beg or borrow
On some bright tomorrow will all come true
And all my bright tomorrows belong to you."
.
Uniform.
Coming back up is gentle enough. The gel warms, a cocktail of drugs to rouse his physiology trickles into his bloodstream, and then the 'pod drains. Kurt wakes, and permits himself a moment to reorient his mind on the tasks ahead. He has three hours to turn Betty around before the cryosickness starts. He should be back in his 'pod and on his way home within that time.
"Open," he tells the 'pod.
The last six weeks of his life are blank, as if he stopped existing. Except the gap of time and distance sits within him, some abstract sense of disjunction buried in his primordial psyche. But he won't think about what's behind him, only what he needs to do here now.
Kurt takes a single step out, gingerly shifting his weight to his leg. The muscles in his leg tremble violently and he can't firm his joints. It's like they don't even belong to him. His ankle, knee, and hip buckle without resistance. Kurt grapples for a hold on the sides of the pod, but his arms have so little strength, all he can manage is controlling his slip down to the deck. Even so, hitting the floor, the jolt is hard enough, he bites his tongue.
"Damn it."
They say a day in cryo costs your body as much as a week of bedrest. Kurt doesn't bother with the arithmetic, he just slumps on the floor and wills some strength to return to his limbs.
Out of warp, Betty's singing more softly now, sweetly holding her tune. Thank goodness.
They'll be tacking into the Marae orbital outpost on Betty's auto-pilot, but he needs to get himself to the cockpit for docking procedures. And he has to be able to get off the ship to complete the transaction.
"Come on, Betty," he says. "If you've made it this far, so can I." Kurt visualizes his intended sequence of actions. How he'll unfold his limbs, how he'll distribute his weight. He notes where the handholds are, where he'll place his feet, maps out the familiar, short route to the pilot's chair.
He gives himself five more minutes to wallow in uselessness, and then he hauls himself up with painstaking determination. He clings to the handhold with white knuckles and opens one of the supply compartments. His gaze rests on the packet of stim shots for a few beats. Instead he grabs a tube of lemon-flavored fortified glucose syrup, tears the tab off the end, and sucks it down in cloying sweet mouthfuls. It helps.
He makes it to the cockpit, each heavy breath a rough scour in his throat. The chill from cryo lingers, and his whole body spasms in fits of shivering. Kurt clenches his teeth until they pass, and then he signals the outpost.
The reply he gets is non-verbal, just a sequence of coordinates to his assigned docking port.
Below the ovoid outpost, the ocean planet of Pan Mares is serene and blue beneath pale smears of cloud. It's in the deepest reaches of the planet's oceans that the precious array crystals grow. The Marae uses for them are limited to amplifying long distance communications and data transfers on their space probes. They can't tune them to generate warp fields or power weapons systems, for they don't have voices.
It was a robotic exploration probe that made it across the expanse between galaxies that brought them into contact with humanity. The Marae themselves don't travel physically between the stars.
.
Once Betty is fitted snug into her dock, Kurt attempts movement again. It's easier this time, but his body aches and feet still drag along the floor, causing him to trip more than once on his way to the water lock. He moves sluggishly but methodically to get his wetsuit on. He checks that its gills and LED's are functional and activates the low light enhancement overlay as well as his translation interface.
In the lock, the illumination is dim. He holds the railing as it fills with water. The buoyancy the water provides eases the ache in his joints and the heaviness of his limbs. Once the lock is full, he adjusts the density of his suit's shell so he neither floats nor sinks, and he pushes himself toward the entry hatch.
On the other side, it's far darker. A string of faint gold lights along the wall shows him the way to take. There's traction and hand holds to be found, and the path takes Kurt up a steep sloping tunnel. At the top, he's met by one of the Marae. Zie hangs in the water before Kurt, with zir long tapered cerata fanned out like great wide wings behind zim. In the murky darkness of the water, zie glows a pale silvery white and zir soft body flexes and ripples with a symmetrical pattern of violet light along zir ruffled flanks.
"Greetings, person-visitor," his translation computer says in his ear.
Kurt's never been sure if zie is the same one who always meets him, or whether zie is a different individual each time. He can't discern any differences in the Marae he meets, and Kurt's never been given a name—nor has he been asked for his own.
But he speaks softly in greeting, "Hello, fellow person," and the LEDs on his suit ripple violet to match the Marae's display.
Zir facial tentacles elongate and then curl in response, and around zir eyespots there's a warm gold flush, a sign of friendliness, recognition, and welcome.
Some of the pilots on the Andromeda run call the Marae slugs for their resemblance to the nudibranch sea slugs of Earth's oceans, but Kurt's always found the slang term rude. He doesn't know what they call themselves, but he always does his best to be respectful.
The Marae turns with a graceful corkscrew twist of zir body, and a pattern of green and blue flashes along zir dorsal surface.
"Please, person-visitor, follow kindly."
The reason for the brief ritual tour Kurt's certain is little more than a show of correct manners for the Marae, but it's an essential component to successful trade. He enjoys it every time. The movement in the water is so easy and comfortable after coming out of cryo, and the quiet soothes too. The Marae zimself is beautiful to watch in motion, even if Kurt doesn't require confirmation that the sequence of five chambers through which he's led are empty.
In each one, they pause in the center and the Marae flickers blue and gold.
"The room is round and large." his translation computer says in his ear.
Each time, he gives the response required, "Zie is generous and true," and his suit glows pink.
Once that's done, the Marae leads him down to the cargo transfer area. The cartons of dark matter condensate have been unloaded by the smart lifts into a wide airlock that also contains sixteen flat crates holding cut and polished array crystals. The viewing window into the wide airlock shows Betty's cargo hold stands open and clear, ready for the crates of crystals to be loaded.
"The hold is empty," Kurt says, and waits for the flicker of blue and gold on his arms to communicate it to the Marae.
"He is generous and true," the computer says as the Marae replies with a pink flush of zir body. "Please accept this exchange."
So Kurt signals the smart-lifts to begin loading the crystals. They scan each crate as they go, and his weaarble bings softly with each item ticked off the loading manifest.
Now that he's not moving, Kurt toggles the density of his suit and lets his feet sink to the floor beneath him. He winces at the dull flare of pain that lances up his legs even at that gentle impact. Beside him the Marae faces the window too, undulating gently in place. The gold glow remains around zir face and zir tentacles lazily stretch and curl.
Kurt wishes communication were easier, and he knows there are diplomats who devote their professional careers to working with the Marae, but that doesn't mean he's not curious here. At least there's no requirement to make small talk, and waiting quietly with the Marae while the smart-lifts do their work isn't uncomfortable.
But an ache grows in his head as they wait, like a great clawed hand is slowly closing around the back of his neck, and Kurt can feel the too rapid thump of his blood surging in his ears, like an incoming tide.
The cocktail of drugs that roused him from cryo is wearing off already? A swoop of disorienting fatigue causes him to lose his hold on the rail, and he stumbles against the window before righting himself and blinking furiously. Kurt forces his eyes wide. His breath puffs loudly in the confined space of his helmet. An irrational urge to pull it off rises within Kurt, to bare himself to the cool water around him, but he quashes the impulse.
He's always with Blaine by the time it gets like this. The sickness isn't meant to assail him here. He's meant to have three clear hours to do his business before—
His stomach cramps, and Kurt gasps at the pain of it and doubles over. He's too hot in his wetsuit. Needs to get out of it, get back to Betty, get back in the 'pod and turn the fuck around. Except in the right order.
Then comes mild pressure around his waist. Kurt looks down to see one of the Marae's lateral tentacles has extended to wrap around him in support. He looks up at zim. Zir face has darkened to a bruised purple shade, and zir facial tentacles droop down toward Kurt's face. One touches the transparent face plate near Kurt's cheek. A mottled greenish-gray blooms across the Marae's body.
"Concern," his translation says. "Person-visitor is unwell."
Kurt tries to swallow the nausea creeping up his throat. "Travel sickness," he says, and his suit flashes a display that sends a skitter of red down his arms.
"Wait and rest for a time here?" the Marae asks, gently pulsing brighter and indigo blue. "Facilities for person-visitor requirements exist."
"No, I cannot stay," Kurt says, and he closes his eyes. "Please, help me return to my ship. I have to return home." He doesn't know how much of that his algorithms can successfully translate into colored pulses of light, but the reply he receives is clear enough:
"I will help."
The Marae flattens zir cerata along zir dorsal surface and extends zir other three lateral tentacles, carefully wrapping them around Kurt as gently as one would bundle a newborn in a blanket.
Zie flutters magenta and violet. "With great care and speed. Hold, please."
Which Kurt takes as a warning. He holds on to what he can, feels the strange yielding strength of the Marae as zie twists and darts back the way they came in. The muffled resistance of the water presses his suit to his skin, and he nestles against unexpected warmth of the body holding him. For some reason he thought they'd be cold.
A hollowness expands in his chest along with the deepening drag of sleepiness. He's so far from home. So far from his family, his friends, and Blaine. And it's such a long way back. The Marae won't notice his tears, but he blinks them back anyway. He hasn't the resources to expend his energy on self-pity.
He just tries to stay awake.
.
Vacation.
Through the dark web of passageways the Marae carries him.
Kurt fights to remain conscious, so he talks, for himself. He doesn't know if the Marae will answer. But he's been curious, so he asks, "Are you alone?"
Gold and green bursts and the Marae's body vibrates. An answer comes in his ear: "No. I am with you."
It makes Kurt laugh. He clarifies, "I mean, are you alone in this place or are there others?"
The translation takes longer this time. The Marae runs through a complex dance of running pink dots, rippling purple, and golden glow.
"Many others. My family lives here with me. We are explorers."
.
At the hatch inside the waterlock, the Marae carefully unwraps zir tentacles and guides Kurt to rest against the curved wall. Zie hovers over him, zir cerata fanning out once more while zir face blushes dark purple and gold. Concern and affection, Kurt thinks.
And then a rush of color too fast to catalog, green and gold and a hundred different brighter blues over zir body. "You burn your life very quickly, person-visitor," the Marae says. "What is so precious to you, for you to choose to burn it so fast?"
It takes a moment for Kurt to rally his heart and tongue into cooperation for a reply. "My father," Kurt says, and his own suit glows bright gold and orange.
The Marae tips forward horizontally until zir face is close to Kurt's. Pale and featureless, zir wide dark eyespots and small closed mouth give the Marae a childlike demeanor. Zir cerata flutter in a broad sweep, and zir facial tentacles extend and touch his visor lightly. The Marae glows more brightly than Kurt's yet seen, steady white and rippling luminous gold. Kurt has to close his eyes.
"Are you not precious to him too?" zie asks. "And to yourself?"
Kurt's next breath chokes him, and the ache in his chest squeezes in on itself, unbearably hard. He sobs at the pain of it, cries out and opens his eyes. His suit has gone dull red, and the Marae is reaching for him again.
But then the pain reverses, expands into such a strange relief, as if all the agony has turned to dust and is streaming away, leaving his heart oddly diminished but newly whole.
He cries, and he remembers, "I am."
"Rest a moment, person. You are safe." The Marae sinks to the ground, pillowing Kurt's body with zir own.
.
Kurt cries himself out, and the Marae holds him, glowing in soft shifting pastels. His computer offers no translation.
Eventually, as the pull of sleep threatens to overtake him again, Kurt speaks, wondering, "Is it you who meets me every trip?"
"Yes."
Kurt moves, seeking enough strength to coordinate and operate his limbs. The Marae releases him and helps him stand. Kurt straightens his back and firms his joints. The fatigue remains a constant drag, but he's refreshed in intention.
"I won't see you again," Kurt says, because he knows it's true. This is his last run. He extends his hand. "Thank you. Be well."
The Marae wraps two tentacles around his wrist and hand, and zie flickers and blooms in a dazzling rainbow of colors: "Good fortune and love be with you, fellow person."
Then zie retreats from the waterlock and closes the hatch, sealing him in. Kurt punches the control to drain the lock, and while he waits, he queries Betty's status. She signals back her readiness.
"Good bye," Kurt says, to so many things.
.
His tired body is just another vehicle to drive. Kurt syncs Betty and then makes it to the cockpit. The docking clamps release, and Betty pushes back from her bay.
As he pilots her out a safe distance, peace settles in his heart with the decision made. He won't be coming back. Astronav says it's calculated his course back. "One more time, Betty," he says, and tells her to go.
.
Kurt steps back into the cryopod one last time while Betty's drive array soars toward its space bending crescendo.
He fits his earmuffs snug on his head, and he asks for music as the 'pod fills.
Blaine sings for him, and his heart is already home.
"Who knows where the road will lead us
Only a fool would say
But if you'll let me love you
It's for sure I'm gonna love you all the way"
He's been gone for such a long time—far longer even than the time he's spent in cryo between galaxies, he understands. But now, he knows, he's coming home for good. He just needs to make it the rest of the way.
"All the way
"Come what may"
.
Wedding.
Noise shocks Kurt awake. Blaring in his ear, Betty's alarm over his ear muffs. Kurt's eyes jolt open. Everything is drenched red. The cryopod gel is frigid around his chest and draining fast.
The door is closed. Betty shrieks in his ear. Something bad has happened. Is happening. The door of the cryopod stands inches in front of his face.
Blind terror claws inside Kurt's skin, up his throat, and he tries to wrench his arms free, but the wrist cuffs haven't released. They bite into his skin, and the needle shifts, hits a nerve. A white sheet of pain blanks out the panic for an instant. Kurt presses his head back against the hard foam behind him, groans and sweats, and the gel is down his knees.
Then he starts shivering, violently. "Come on. Open open open open," he chants.
The last of the gel goes with a gurgle of suction, and no heater comes on to warm and dry Kurt. The wrist cuffs retract and the door pops open. He falls out to the deck.
Kurt catches himself by reflex only, sharply on his knees and his bent elbows. With one wobbly hand, attached to an arm like soft lead, he swipes the earmuffs off.. But it doesn't help much. The piercing scream is everywhere.
"Cancel alarm," he yells at the deck plates, and he hopes the croak that comes out of his throat will be intelligible to Betty.
Blessedly the wailing stops and the red light fades back to normal illumination. The silence is complete. Which is very very wrong.
Kurt drops to his stomach, and then weakly maneuvers to his back.
"Status?" he asks. He rolls his head to catch a blurry glimpse of the drive casing. It appears intact at least, but they've dropped their warp field.
"Complete warp drive failure," Betty reports the obvious. Then she reads him their current position, distance from both their point of departure and their waypoint, their general heading and sublight velocity—which fails to communicate the full uselessness of being adrift in the empty wastes of intergalactic space. Betty lists the closest beacons and says she's sent automated distress calls on all standard frequencies.
Kurt squirms and clumsily scoots closer the the wall panels. His body feels like an unwieldy and cold animal carcass. Every impact of himself with the surface below him hurts. He reaches for the lowest panel that holds the warmed blankets. His arm shakes and aches and wants to remain stuck to the floor, but he catches the edge of the panel with his fingertips eventually. Succeeds in painfully tearing one of his nails down to the quick.
"Fuck," he says.
It takes him another five minutes to press the panel hard enough to trigger its clasp release, but the sharp throb of pain in his finger keeps him focused well enough, keeps his eyes open, keeps his brain rolling.
He gets a blanket, which is such a relief to pull around himself. And it's necessary to keep him from succumbing to hypothermia, but it is in no way sufficient to get him on his feet and through the rest of the cryoshock and sickness without further help. The drugs that ease the first few hours aren't in his system due to the emergency wake.
And since he has no Blaine, no Guild clinician, nor the kindness of the Marae to aid him, it'll have to be a stim. But the stims are in a compartment four and half feet over his head with the quick energy nutrient packs. The designer of the cabin clearly had no experience with coming out of cryo.
Kurt lies under the blanket and moves as much as he can, trying to to get his cold muscles warmed up and his frozen joints limbered. It also helps keep him awake.
.
Once he can stand, Kurt takes the stim shot without worrying about the long term cost. He'll worry about that if he— When he gets whatever is broken fixed. When he gets back to Oasis. If he has to detox, so be it.
But the way the stim blooms in his mind, with such bright clarity, quickness, and vitality, makes him understand how pilots get so hooked. He hasn't felt this weightless within his own head since— Maybe never. His body likes him more too. He's still weak, still has to conserve his energy and think about where he's putting his feet and where to reach for support, but he's no longer dragging and clumsy. His muscles don't burn in protest of their use.
He needs to open the drive casing and see how bad the damage is, but he also needs to get himself warmer and better stabilized. He doesn't know how long the stim will hold off the sickness.
In Betty's tiny hygiene facility, he stands in the steam while high pressure mist fires at his body from every angle. It's hot and prickly, and it feels pretty amazing. Then it blows him dry. After he brushes his teeth, and finds a warm, clean jumpsuit and fresh undergarments and thick socks with rubber grips on their soles. He almost feels alive.
And then he goes to check the drive.
He doesn't dare to hope to find the array undamaged, but he has crates of gray below—maybe even the replacement Marley ordered for Betty. If he needs to replace the array himself, he knows how to do an installation in his sleep. Tuning it… well. Gray's are the easiest. His voice might not be in its best form, but he's been singing again, he might be able to tune it well enough. He'll try at least.
But when the casing opens, there's nothing but shattered, jagged shards. Not a single spear is intact. This is what Marley meant by catastrophic. Kurt is glad he was out cold when it blew. The noise of it would have caused tissue damage if he'd been unprotected by the 'pod.
He gets a pair of work gloves and Betty's toolkit and starts clearing away the pieces. The roots of each spear are still in their sockets. One by one he pries them out. The first four come clean, but the next one has sheared below the edge of the socket, and he can't get a grip on it no matter how he tries. He skips over it. Finds four more fused sockets, and throws down his tools. He can't clear them. He doesn't have the right equipment on board.
"Betty?" he asks. "Have we got a reply from any of the beacons?"
"No."
"We're going to need a long range tug," he says, which will need to come from Oasis. Which means he'll be drifting out here for months. "And a miracle. Though a lattice disruptor would do in a pinch."
He leans back against the edge of the drive housing and scans the tiny cabin. It's not designed to be lived in.
.
When Kurt feels the creep of fatigue, the chill, the anxiety, the frailty coming back on him, he takes another stim. Then he eats, heats up a foil covered ration pack, and finds it more palatable than expected.
There's still no reply from the beacon. He sits in the cockpit and uses Betty's thrusters to at least reorient his heading. He sits in the quiet and the dark and stares at the distant sparkling spiral of the Milky Way, hanging in space so bright and big. And so fucking far away.
He should record a message for Blaine, for his Dad and Carole and Finn. Maybe Rachel too. Send back amendments to his will, too. And be sure to tell Marley she was right.
He thinks about the fused sockets, the crates of new crystals in his hold, and chants to himself,
"Water water everywhere
and all the boards did shrink,
Water water everywhere
nor any drop to drink."
.
He can't sleep, and it's more than the usual fallout. The stim has him wired like his eyes can't even shut.
Kurt paces the short length of Betty's cabin. If it feels small now, how will he spend months in here? There's not months of food and water, anyway, even with the waste recycling, even with the small hydroponics system available.
He could get back into cryo, but the thought of drifting while he sleeps just seems… too much like giving up. If he's going to meet his end, he wants to be awake for it.
He goes into the hygiene facility and unfolds the mirror, bracing himself for what he'll find, trying not to despair too much at his hollow cheeks and the dark circles under his eyes, nor his dull skin, and the scraggly two days growth of hair on his chin and jaw that'll never amount to anything one could even charitably call a beard.
He does the best he can with the sparse selection of toiletries Betty has stocked—even finds some make up to mask the shadows. And he does his hair. It'll have to do. He sits down at the vidcomm and pushes record.
.
Later, he turns down the cabin lights and lies on the hard fold down bunk in the quiet. The sound of his own voice still hangs in his ears, telling his father he won't be home when he said he would be. It's going to take longer, but he wants to make it back for the winter holidays anyway. He told his Dad he's met someone, too. He's fallen in love. His Dad's going to adore Blaine. He also told his Dad he's excited for his future again, that he's going to get back to tuning. The cargo run is too long and lonely. He wants to spend some time home soon—a proper decent length visit. Maybe he can bring Blaine. He's missed them all so much and two years is too long, no matter how well paid the job.
Then Kurt had recorded a message for Blaine, to tell Blaine, more honestly, that his making it back isn't looking good, and Kurt will be transferring Betty's title to Blaine so he can make sure that, when the tug brings her in, he can sell her and get the money for his family.
And then, once that business was done, he told Blaine—or he tried to—all the ways Blaine makes the universe a better place. All the ways he showed Kurt joy and beauty and love, all the ways he helped revive his hope. And even though, maybe, they won't see each other again, Kurt's grateful, so grateful, for every hour they knew each other. He won't give up, but he'll be okay. And then he sang the end to the song he couldn't bear to let Blaine finish.
"I'll smile and just pretend
There was no end, a million dreams ago"
He told Rachel he's sorry for the years he spent turned away from her and their friendship. He wasn't angry at her, like she thought, he just could bear to be around her success after what he'd lost. It was petty. He made his own choices, some of them were mistakes, but none of them were her fault. He loves her, always. He tells her about Marley.
And he told Marley she was right, and she's an incredible talent, and if she wanted to, she could go a lot further than Oasis Station. He tells her she should have a drink with his friend Rachel when Rachel gets there. He thinks they could be friends. He tells her he loved "Desperado".
Kurt's very calm now, lying in the dark. He still can't sleep.
So he gets up and pulls up the deck plate that reveals the ladder down into the cargo hold.
.
When you're weakened from cryo, even on stims, ladders are really fucking hard he discovers, even going down. Getting back up? He doesn't think about it too much once he's on the deck below.
"Lights," he says, and the hold comes up into low pale light.
It's a foolish hope, but he has to know. The messages back to his friends and family aren't suicide notes. He's going to do all he can. He promised Blaine he would.
One by one, Kurt checks the crates' labels. Most are already commissioned and marked with their ultimate assignments. There are amber arrays for heavy ships, gray for everything that has a drive, amethyst for comms, and—
A single crate of blue. Twelve perfect untuned spears. Just the thought of them lying beneath his hands, so close, it's a call to his soul. If he believed in souls.
Its label says they're headed for a commercial research lab on New Sierra.
If he opens the crate, he'll be—at the very least—fined punitively for breaking the seal, but it's just possible that these twelve will be a selection that will fit into twelve of the twenty empty sockets Betty has. If he can install them, tune them so they wed to Betty properly, he's confident they'll be able to generate the warp field required. More than, probably. Blues aren't standard drive crystals for a lot of reasons, but that doesn't mean they can't do the job.
What remains to be seen is, can he?
Kurt sends a hope and a wish out to the universe. Then he breaks the seal.
.
Year.
It takes him another stim shot and four hours to get the twelve crystals up the ladder, one at a time, each carefully swaddled in a blanket and strapped across his back with a makeshift harness rigged from some spare cargo webbing.
Though his stomach votes to the contrary, he makes himself eat again and suck down another energy pack—this one an appetite curdling artificial banana flavor. Then he drinks some hot water with a metallic tasting sachet of electrolyte stabilizer. He lies on the hard bunk for a while, in the dark, singing softly to himself, songs from childhood, practice runs from his first years of training, deep breathing exercises, nothing to add stress, just to strengthen refresh the memory of his body so it understands what he's about to ask of it.
.
The blue crystals lie on the floor near the drive chamber, sandwiched in a thick wad of insulation blankets for the next two days. Kurt scarcely touches them. He skips the stim shots in the afternoons and sleeps for ten hours straight each evening. He uses the hygiene facility every morning and night—though the concepts of morning, afternoon, and night are an abstraction this far out, he wants to keep what order he can for his own sanity. Live like his living. He grooms himself, and dresses in a clean jumpsuit, puts yesterday's in the chem cleaner. He takes a steroid booster and works through simple floor exercises to help maintain and rebuild some muscle mass.
Kurt even takes the time to set up the small hydroponics system. Finds the preserved beans and seeds and reads the instructions for how to sprout them. He records more messages, a diary for what he's doing, what he plans. His hopes and intentions. He sends them out to the void, addressed to his account back on Oasis. Blaine has access to it.
He cleans and primes the cryopod again. Tries to plan for every possible eventuality, both here and back at Oasis.
And on the third day after bringing the crystals up from the hold, he sits down on the floor and unwraps them.
He has all the time in the world, so he's patient. He picks each up, feels its heft in his hands, the glossy surface of it, studies the way the light catches in it, marvels at the iridescent shimmer within the lattice of it. He used to wonder if there was some visual clue there, in that shimmer, to tell him what each crystal needs most. He hums to them, soft queries, as if he were doing a diagnostic. Most blues will resonate at multiple frequencies, the trick is to find the one—or ones—they like best (and how they like it), and the ones that will prompt them to resonate most constructively with their mates.
He takes notes on his wearable for each crystal, and asks Betty to run through all possible permutations, given certain restricting parameters, has her weed out destructive combinations and ones that simply won't work due to the selection of sockets he has available to match. There are more than 475 million possible permutations of twelve crystals, fortunately, the vast majority of them are not viable.
Betty gives him a list of just less than three hundred. It's still a lot—too many—could take him a whole year to work through them all if he's not smart about it. He doesn't have a year, but it gives him a place to start. Plus, he's got his own instincts and experience to aid him. Knows, for example, which crystals feel most like potential modulators when they vibrate back beneath his fingertips.
He sits in the cockpit and uses the HUD display to help him determine the order in which he'll approach the possible arrangements. He swipes different configurations into sets of 'more promising', 'less promising', and 'too unusual to classify'. Then he goes over the 'more promising' set again, separates out the ones that seem to him to be most likely.
The 'most promising' set contains just over three dozen potentials, which may still be days of work unless he's lucky. If he's unlucky, it'll take weeks. But he's not going anywhere soon; the time will pass anyway.
He has Betty give him a randomized list. He'll start in the morning.
.
He's singing quietly to himself after his steam shower, pushing farther into his upper range while his voice is warm and moist. He's making hot water with a dash of lemon concentrate, when he feels it prickle up his spine, a pleasant frisson of unmistakeable energy. Disbelief widens his eyes as he turns to face the back of the cabin, the open drive chamber and the crystals resting bare on the blanket in front of their casing.
He dares to sing with more volume and the shiver intensifies to raise the hairs on the back of his neck. A cascade of tones from the crystals on the floor. Disorganized but harmonic.
"Oh," Kurt says to them, and goes back. He kneels and lays his palms upon them, starts the song over, with more intensity now:
"I don't know why I'm frightened
I know my way around here"
The crystals respond, and again, it's not their full voices—they're muffled lying on the blanket after all— and they're not synced, but they're responding.
"You like this, do you?" he asks them. He's never heard of such an approach to an array. Songs don't have much effect on the grays and ambers. They might buzz a little when you hit their resonant frequencies, but it's nothing like this, never a harmonic response. It's a fascinating discovery, he's just not sure what it means.
But he stops singing, tells his wearable to start recording, and starts over.
.
By the evening, Kurt is stiff from sitting too long and his head swims with too much stimulation and information. His voice needs a rest, though he's been cautious all day, careful. But he's succeeded in placing six crystals in the array and he's confident in their positions, though so far he's only got one each to be his modulator and his attenuator. Better to have more than one of each in the drive, to have more ability to maintain the stability of the warp field.
Nothing is locked in yet, but once he spent the time observing how they responded to different songs, he could narrow in on better combinations. But he's not going to push himself any further tonight.
He hauls himself up, swearing at the crack of pain in his joints, and hauls himself off to freshen up before bed. He checks his seeds in the hydroponic on the way, and he finds several of them have tiny bright green shoots curling from their cracked open hulls. It seems a small thing, but that sign of vitality and life feels like a miracle in itself: far out here beyond any hospitable planet or nurturing light of a star, life still strives to become itself.
.
The next morning, he wakes with a shiver of excitement beating beneath his skin. Today is going to be the day.
After breakfast, Betty announces he's got a response from a beacon. He pauses his recording, unfolds himself from the floor, eyeballs the nine crystals fitted snug and shining in their sockets, and goes to the cockpit to listen to the message.
The beacons have triangulated his position to within point-two light years, and a tug is on stand-by. Does he still require aid?
He sends back a reply to please remain on stand-by. He's attempting repairs, and he'll let them know as soon as possible if he's successful.
.
His hands are steady and sure as he fits the last gleaming blue crystal into its socket. He knows this array now as intimately as he's known anything in his life. When he opens his mouth for the first note in the tuning sequence he's drafted, the crystal takes the full note and returns it beautifully.
The next needs more time and play to take, he shifts the note between his upper and lower register (finds it prefers higher, though the note is relatively low) and adds more pressure gradually until it takes. That's two.
The rest go similarly, Kurt probing each individual spear with care until they respond. He worries as he climbs up the scales though, that he won't be able to get the final crystal tuned, that's it's going to be the frigate all over again. The note it wants is the top of his old range.
He works his way up lightly, and waits for the discomfort and strain to stop him. But they don't. His voice opens, even as he goes higher. Higher and higher and there's no flutter or distortion. The notes stay pure.
And finally, with tears in his eyes and the single sustained highest note ringing in his throat, the array unites.
The crystals sing back. It's transcendent.
.
Betty only gives him a yellow light on the wedding of the array with her drive apparatus. Which means he can fly, but there's some risk of the warp field destabilizing if their course takes them too close to another object of significant gravity, since his complete array still has only a single modulator and a single attenuator; the rest is chorus. Chances of destabilization are small enough, Kurt will take the risk. He'll trust the astronav's course.
Anyway, by the time he's close enough to objects with enough gravity, he's almost home. He sends a message out to the beacon, and then he dials the drive amp control to full.
"Betty," he says. "Let's fly."
The blues sing, louder and louder, and the sound of them seems to fill every empty space between the atoms of his body. Their building power sets his whole body alight, and he nearly, nearly hesitates to get in the 'pod. But he knows, as good as it would feel to let them sing him into oblivion, he wouldn't survive it.
He fits his earmuffs and steps back into the pod with a barely suppressed shudder of revulsion as its cold confines close around him. But he's going home.
"Music," he says. He made a new playlist for this last sink into sleep. "Playlist. For me."
His own voice sings him down this time, and it's with the full faith that he's done what he's needed to do to make sure he'll wake again. It's time.
"Let him live
Bring him home…"
.
Kurt wakes on a stretcher.
The ambient noise and rough vibrations around him are strange. The light hitting the white ceiling above him is yellowish. He sees a red cross on the wall, and a medic with a guild badge on her chest and her red hair pulled into a tight pony tail sits nearby looking at him with concern in her wide brown eyes. He must be on an emergency tug.
"Thank goodness, you're awake," she says, and leans forward to put her hand on his arm. "We're almost there."
And then he slips back into unconsciousness.
.
The second time he wakes, he's perfectly warm, everything is still, and his weight rests on the softest surface imaginable. The small sounds of distant voices are muffled, and the scent that surrounds him is so familiar. Bliss and comfort and safety and, oh.
Kurt opens his eyes.
Some pilots say they dream in cryo. Kurt's never believed them. He's never had a cryo dream, and he knows physiologically it's impossible. The scientists say it's just a perceptual blip when they're coming up, just an instant of the right brain state that dilates into a sense of long, lucid dreaming. No one dreams in cryo.
So Kurt is either caught in one of these lucid blips, or he's in Blaine's bed.
.
Zigzag.
Quickly Kurt discovers he doesn't have the strength to push himself up much further than he already is propped in the pillows behind him. An odd ache at his groin prompts Kurt to lift the blankets. Finds he's in loose cotton pajama pants. His belly is hollow and soft still. He's pretty sure if this were a dream, he'd have given himself abs. Gently, he lifts the waistband and touches the padded square of bandage stuck below the juncture of his thigh and torso.
He sees a similar site at the elbow of his left arm. A flexible square of bandage and nothing he can feel beneath it. He's not brave enough to peel either back and check the damage. The placement suggests intravenous catheters. The one at his groin means his blood has been cleaned. Maybe he did overdo it on the stims after all.
Kurt touches his face then, finds he's freshly shaven, and his skin feels clean.
"Blaine?" he calls out, because he did hear a voice—or voices—when he first woke.
The door opens and Blaine comes in, and he's so beautiful and real, in his trim clothes and neat hair, with his shining smile and shining eyes—Kurt can't stop the tears from blurring his gaze, nor can he swallow the sob in his throat.
"Sweetheart, you're awake," Blaine says, and his voice is low and lovely, modulated so gently. Kurt missed the music of it. Carefully Blaine sits on the bed beside Kurt. He rubs up Kurt's arm and over his shoulder soothingly. Kurt reaches back with shaking arms, and Blaine pulls him into a long hug.
Kurt clings to him. "I was so afraid, I'd…" He chokes on all the fears, doesn't want to name them here. "Oh, god, Blaine. I was so afraid."
"Shh. You made it back," Blaine says, he pushes his fingers into Kurt's hair, a grounding pressure on his scalp, cradling the back of his head close. "And you're safe now. You're okay. You never have to go again. No more runs, no more cold sleep, no more cryosickness."
"Blaine."
"Right here," he says.
Kurt holds on as tightly as he can, and just breathes. Blaine waits for Kurt to let go first, and then eases him back into the pillows.
"Let me get you some food, and then I can tell you all the news," Blaine says, and there's excitement in his eyes and his smile is wide.
"News?" Kurt asks.
"Good news," Blaine says with a quick grin, and then he goes.
Kurt squirms up against the pillows and smooths the garnet red satin quilt over his legs. The texture and color are so familiar beneath his hands. It seems impossible that he's here. He made it?
He made it.
He made it!
He covers his face and laughs as the joyful realization swells in his chest. He made it. Whatever mess there is to clean up after himself, he'll deal with. And his Dad. He'll give him all that he can and go home for a visit. Then they can re-evaluate options. Beyond that Kurt can't even imagine. He wants the same things as always, but he doesn't want to guess at what's possible until he knows more.
Blaine returns with a tray, and shares Kurt's happy grin without comment. On the tray is a savory broth with soft white cubes of tofu and tendrils of green sea vegetable, a glass of fortified juice, and a dish containing a generous swirl of frozen yoghurt with fresh strawberries and blueberries. All gentle, nourishing food. Kurt's stomach growls its keen interest.
"Is there coffee?" Kurt asks.
"Your doctor said absolutely no stimulants for a while. Your whole stress system is exhausted. But I can get you some herbal tea if you like?"
Kurt nods his acceptance and picks up the spoon. His wrist wobbles, but his grip is strong enough. Blaine watches him carefully, but doesn't offer help.
"So what's this news then?" Kurt asks.
"First, I've been in touch with your father," Blaine says, "and his new heart is growing fine, it'll be ready for transplant two weeks from tomorrow, which is when his surgery is scheduled. He can't wait to see you, once you're ready to travel again."
Kurt drops his spoon with a clatter and a splash. He doesn't know what to do with his hands. Or his own heart. "Are you—? Blaine, are you serious?"
"Yes."
"How?" Kurt asks. Maybe he's stuck in a blip after all. "I didn't have nearly enough in my account, even if—? The Guild will have seized my assets. I'll have massive fines for—"
"Kurt. You don't have any fines."
Kurt blinks at him. "But what I did to Betty, those blue crystals…"
Blaine cocks his head and his smile satisfied. "There's actually a bidding war going on over Betty."
"What?!"
Blaine laughs affectionately. "The Guild wants her for their research division, and the Tuning Federation wants her at the College, for similar reasons. It was good that you transferred her title to me, otherwise, the Guild would have just taken her. They also want copies of the logs you made while installing the drive. But I haven't shared them. They say what you did was unprecedented."
"It's always been theoretically possible," Kurt says. "To use blues in a drive. They're just so hard to tune, no one's bothered. I only did what I had to do."
"The Tuning College also wants you to do a lecture series, once you're recovered, on your experience and method with them."
"I feel like I'm missing something."
"It's a lot to take in right now, I know, and you've been unconscious for the past ten days. But Kurt, you came in three weeks early. Betty made that last warp jump in less than half the standard time."
"Oh."
"So you can understand why they're excited."
"I just— I don't remember anything, except waking up on a tug."
"You and Betty came in hot, set off all the station alarms, because her warp field hadn't dropped properly and she was generating a huge distortion wave in the local gravity field. She was here, but her array wasn't shutting down properly."
Kurt's eyebrows rise. "She needs a much stronger attenuator," he says. "I didn't expect her field would be that powerful though."
"They sounded the station evacuation alarm. It got pretty rough in here. No damage, we just got shaken up. Fortunately, the station's EMP cannons were enough to break her out of it."
"And she's… intact?"
"Yes. They had to pull her in with a tug, but she's fine. They found you unconscious on the deck in front of the 'pod. You hadn't woken up from cryo, so they were worried."
"Coma?"
"You woke on the tug, but couldn't maintain consciousness, though you kept trying to wake. In the end, they actually induced a coma, so you could rest better while your body and brain healed."
"But I'm here now?"
"Yes, once you were in good shape, they transferred you here on my request this morning. They said you'd wake naturally today. I didn't want you to wake somewhere unfamiliar."
"Thank you," Kurt says, and he reaches for Blaine's hand. Blaine reaches back. "I still don't understand how my Dad's paying for his heart."
"I told you I'd been in touch with him. And Rachel's here, too. She wants to see you when you're feeling up to it."
"Okay."
"Anyway, I got all your messages, and the diary you kept. You'd asked me and Rachel if we could try to help your Dad if you…" Blaine swallows and his eyes are bright. "If you died."
"But I'm not dead," Kurt says.
"I know. The thing is, Kurt? Why should we wait to help you until you're dead? Why not help you while you're alive? So we did."
"What did you do?"
"We—Rachel and Marley and myself—with June's help, because she was visiting—arranged a benefit concert at The Blue Bar. I told your story, and people were amazingly generous, but it wasn't enough. Afterward, June made me an additional offer, and um?" Blaine's smile diminishes then. Nervously, he glances down and squeezes Kurt's hand. "She offered to buy my contract, for a very generous amount, that would more than make up the difference to cover your Dad's surgery."
Kurt goes dizzy and cold. "Did you sell her your contract?" He asks with numb lips. "Why would you do that? Does that mean—? What does it mean, Blaine? Please, tell me I'm not losing you."
"No. no. You're not. Let me explain? It's all fine, I promise."
"Okay, please, Blaine, I don't want to lose you."
"You're not," Blaine says again. "It's five years she bought, which sounds like a long time, I know."
"You like being a free agent, don't you?"
"I do, but she doesn't own me, Kurt, just some of my time. What we negotiated is, actually, really good for me; it's something I absolutely want, and I believe it's potentially good for us, too. My free time is still my own, I just can't work for anyone but her."
"So…" Kurt frowns. "What does that mean for… us?"
"It means," Blaine says, and his smile strengthens. "That I'll be moving back to New Sierra soon. June's got a selection of downtown apartments for me to chose among, and my hope is that you might like to help me choose one, and then, once you're ready, you can come live there with me."
Kurt stares at Blaine.
"What do you think?" Blaine asks, sweetly beseeching, as if he doesn't honestly know how Kurt will answer. "You heal up, then go visit your family, and after that we move in together, maybe pick somewhere close to the Tuning College? You'd be close to your family too—just a train ride away. You could take up the College's request for a lecture series if you wanted to. We could make it our home together."
None of this is what Kurt expected would be the result when he stepped into the cryopod for the last time. He would never have dared even the most idle daydream of such an outcome. There's no version of reality in which Kurt would say no.
"Yes," he says. And finally his heart catches up with his head—or his head with his heart, he doesn't know which way it works. Kurt smiles and laughs and nearly tips over his tray to be taken into Blaine's embrace. "Yes, yes, a million times: yes."