First of all, I can't thank you all enough for all the reads and reviews. You guys are amazing!

Secondly, I want to apologize for how long it took me to get this up here. I wanted to have this chapter posted two days ago, but I didn't want to leave everyone with another major cliff hanger, which is why this chapter has almost 1,000 more words than the first two had.

Please continue to read, review and share!

Thanks! Enjoy!


Navigating the Unknown

Chapter 3: White Walls


Blaine took a deep but shaky breath, trying to calm himself as he picked up the envelope. His hands shook as he opened it, revealing the back of his photograph partially. He pulled the photo out and read the words that had been scribbled on the reverse:

I believe that this is yours.

Get rid of him yourself,

or I will do it for you.

Blaine's heart almost stopped at these words. He closed his eyes and drew in another shaky breath before opening them again as he turned the photo over to the front. The destruction to the front of the photograph shocked Blaine even more than the words did. He stumbled back and fell onto his bed, tears already streaming down his face.

The picture had been of Blaine and Kurt at the fair that they had gone to over the summer. They were walking, and Kurt had his right arm wrapped around Blaine's shoulders so that he could hold Blaine's right hand. Kurt's head was tilted back mid-laugh, and Blaine was smiling as he stared lovingly up at him.

But whoever had taken the photo had scratched out Kurt's face entirely, and had scratched a big "X" over his body. The photo was ruined, and the memory of it was now stained. Even if he was able to get another copy of the photo (which he could probably do fairly easily, since Kurt had a copy), he would never be able to look at it the same way again.

Blaine had been sitting there for a good 20 minutes when it dawned on him. He felt as if the entire world had just caved in and came crashing down onto his shoulders.

They had been in my room.

The person that had taken MY photo had been IN MY ROOM.

Blaine felt as if the room was spinning around him, his heart thumping in his chest. He immediately ran over to the nearest window in his room, checking to make sure that it was locked. It was. The only other window in the room was above his bed, so he doubted that was how the intruder got in, but he checked it anyways. It, too, was locked.

Blaine collapsed onto his bed, the photo still in his hand. He looked at it once more before laying his arm back down on the bed, trying to think of how they could have gotten a hold of it. He sighed before sitting up in bed. Well, Blaine thought to himself as he rubbed his face, now is as good of a time as any to check the rest of the doors and windows. He got up and put the picture in the same spot that he had hid the letter.

He opened his door and practically ran into his mom. "Oh! I was just coming to get you. Dinner's ready."


Blaine felt extremely paranoid as he checked all the windows and doors for the third time that night. He sighed as he bent down to check the last one, his body still not at ease. They had all been locked, which meant that someone had either left a door unlocked during the day or someone had let the intruder in.

If last night was any indication, Blaine knew that he would not sleep well again tonight. In normal circumstances, he would never do this, but Blaine figured that if he wanted to actually be awake enough to go to school tomorrow, then he probably should. Standing up, he walked into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. After searching for a moment, he pulled out the bottle of Benadryl and took two.


5 days later:


It was Monday, which meant that it had been almost a week since Blaine had found the first of the two envelopes in his locker. He hadn't received anything else since the picture, and slowly the thought of and worry that the items brought drifted to the back of his mind.

It was an unseasonably warm day for January, and all the snow had melted the day before. Both boys were laughing and chatting happily on their way home from school, glad for the weather change. As Kurt pulled up to Blaine's house, he looked over at his boyfriend and smiled, glad to see him back to his old self. He had never found out what was bothering Blaine the week before, but he figured that it was in the past now, and if Blaine could move past it, then so could he.

"What?" Blaine said, smiling back at his boyfriend.

"Nothing. I'm just glad that glad that whatever was bothering you last week isn't anymore and that you're back to your old self," Kurt said lovingly as he starred at Blaine.

"Oh…" Blaine's voice fell as he was reminded of why he was so upset last week. He broke eye contact with Kurt as he said this, choosing now to instead look down at his lap. "Yeah, I…kinda had a lot on my mind last week..." he said, trailing off. Blaine looked up again at Kurt, whose loving gaze remained unwavering. "But let's not talk about that now, OK? I'm here with you, and I'm happy and…"

Kurt interrupted Blaine with a fiery kiss that Blaine was only too happy to accept. "You talk…too much," Kurt said in between their heated kisses as he wrapped his arms around the back of Blaine's head.

Blaine chuckled at this, knowing very well that, out of the two of them, he was not the one who 'talked too much,' but he let it slide as Kurt's kisses pulled him in deeper.

"Kurt…" Blaine said after about another minute. He pulled his lips off of Kurt's for a few seconds so he could talk, their foreheads still pressed together. "Someone is going to see us…"

Kurt moaned in opposition as he went in for another kiss. Blaine gave in for a moment, but pulled away soon after. If someone saw them making out like this, they could get in serious trouble. Kurt sighed as he leaned back onto his door, still trying to catch his breath.

"I should get going…" Blaine said as he reached for the door handle.

"Wait!" Kurt said as he leaned forward to put his hand on Blaine's wrist. Blaine turned to Kurt in answer, waiting for him to continue. "We should go out tonight. We haven't gone out in a while."

Blaine smiled at this. "I would like that."

"Breadsticks? Pick you up at six?"

Blaine continued to stare lovingly into Kurt's perfect eyes, smiling as he did so. "Yeah." He leaned in for one last kiss before reluctantly stepping out of the car.


Blaine received the phone call at 6:17 that evening.

He had answered without looking at the caller ID, expecting it to be Kurt. Kurt was the most punctual person Blaine knew, and as of now, he was 17 minutes late. "Kurt! Where are you?"

"Blaine! Oh my God! Kurt's been in an accident. You have to get to the hospital now!" said the rushed voice in an extremely anxious tone on the other line.

"Wait, WHAT? Who is this?" Blaine's eyes got wide, and his heart started beating faster. His mind had yet to register what the man on the other line was saying, and he pressed the phone harder to his ear as if that would somehow change what the man had just said.

This is Burt! I just got to the hospital. They took Kurt away in an ambulance and… and… everything was just happening so quickly and I'm freaking out and…"

Blaine cut him off. "Burt, calm down before you give yourself another heart attack. I'm on my way. You can explain everything to me once I get there." He hung up his phone as he grabbed his jacket off of his bed and raced out of his bedroom. He stopped at his parent's open door and stuck his head in. "Hey mom, I need to borrow your car. Kurt got into some kind of accident and he's at the hospital and I have to go so I will call you later after I find something out."

"OK," she said as he tossed him her keys, not even questioning his story because of the look of pure terror on his face. Blaine was pulling out of their garage less than a minute later, pushing the speed limit as he raced to the hospital.


Blaine ran towards the automatic doors that were the entrance to the Emergency Room, hating the fact that he had to pause and wait a moment for them to open. He made his way inside and frantically searched for Burt in the waiting room. He spotted him almost immediately, pacing back and forth in front of a sitting Carol with a look of pure angst on his face. Blaine could tell that he had been crying. Carol was holding a tissue in her hand that she was using to blot her eyes with.

Blaine ran towards them, and when Burt saw him, he immediately opened his arms and engulfed Blaine in a tight hug. The hug comforted Blaine, and as Burt released him, he asked in an anxious voice, "What happened? Is he OK? Tell me everything."

Burt put a hand on Blaine's back and guided him to the chair next to Carol's before sitting down himself on Blaine's other side. Burt's elbows rested on his knees, and he brought his face down to his hands for a moment before sitting back up and turning to Blaine. He took a deep, shaky breath before beginning. "Kurt was leaving the house to go get you. It was about 5:50, 5:55-ish. I was in the garage looking for something at the time, so I saw the whole thing. I had walked out of the garage for a moment to wave goodbye to him as he left. He had just pulled out of the driveway when…"

Burt paused for a moment here as if he still couldn't believe what had happened to his son. He wasn't looking at Blaine anymore, but rather staring at the ground. Blaine could see in his eyes that he was about to start crying again. Blaine's own face was as white as a ghost, afraid of what he was going to say next.

"…when…this car… just… came out of nowhere. It had to have been going at least 35 miles an hour…and…it just…" Burt turned to look at Blaine now as he said the next part, the sadness in his eyes unmistakable. "It hit him head-on."

Burt's eyes were watering now as he looked away, trying to hold back his tears. Blaine's own tears had started to fall even before Burt reached the end. He put his head in his hands as his elbows rested on his knees. His crying soon turned into sobbing, his back retching while the continuous flow of tears fell off of his face. Carol placed her arm on Blaine's back, rubbing it to comfort him like a small child.

When Blaine was finally able to get his sobs under control, he looked up at Burt and Carol with tears still trickling down his face. "And now? Is he going to be OK?"

Burt sighed before replying. "I don't know," he said shakily. "I called 911 immediately and they were at the scene within minutes. I had run up to Kurt's door as soon as it happened, and at the time he was just barely conscious. By the time I was able to pry open his door the medics were arriving, and so I wasn't able to see what kind of injuries he had. I would have ridden in the ambulance but I wanted to pick up Carol from work first because her car is in the shop. No one has given us an update yet." Burt's eyes were starting to water again, and Carol was crying. Burt stood up and moved to the chair on the other side of Carol's so that he could comfort his wife.

Blaine just stared at the white walls of the waiting room, his hands up over his nose and mouth as he leaned on his knees. He was thinking about everything that Burt had just told him, wondering how this could have happened.


Blaine had been there for almost an hour and a half before the nurse finally came out. By that time, the entire New Directions crew, along with a few of Blaine and Kurt's friends from Dalton, had also shown up, making the waiting room extremely crowded.

She came out of the double white doors and walked straight up to Kurt's parents. When they saw her walking towards them, they immediately stood up. She was young, and had long, black hair that was pulled back neatly into a pony tail. She smiled when she reached Kurt's parents. "Hi, are you Mr. and Mrs. Hummel?"

"Yeah. Are you here to give us a report on our son?" As Burt was saying this, everyone else who had shown up for Kurt stopped talking, waiting to hear what the woman would say next. Blaine stood up from the chair that he had been sitting in and walked over to stand behind Carol.

Everyone held their breath as the woman continued. "Yes. Kurt has a lot of bruising and suffered a concussion. He fractured his ulna bone in two places in his left arm, and has several major cuts on his body from the glass. He went into surgery for about half an hour to control some internal bleeding that he had and to close a major gash in his abdomen, but he should be waking up soon. We want to keep him overnight to monitor him because of his concussion, but he should be able to go home after that. He was very lucky. Most head-on collisions cause a lot more injuries than what we are seeing with him. Would you like to see him?"

"Yes, oh God yes." Burt replied. Blaine could hear the change in his voice; it was now filled with relief, and he smiled at Carol before turning back to the nurse, who nodded before she began to speak again.

"OK. As of right now, though, I can only allow immediate family back there, which includes parents and siblings," she said as she eyed the large group of teens that had slowly gotten closer.

Burt nodded at this as Carol turned around to look for her son. "Finn?"

Finn stepped out of the group, letting go of Rachel as he did so. As he passed Blaine, he reached out and patted his back, saying, "Sorry, man. I know you want to see him. Only a little bit longer." Blaine just nodded at this, and Finn turned to follow his parents and the nurse through the set of swinging white doors. Blaine put his hands in his pockets as he stood there watching where the four of them had just disappeared.


"He's right in there," the nurse said, pointing to a room with an open door. The family walked in to greet Kurt, who was lying down in the hospital bed next to the window. The other bed in the room was empty, however the dividing curtain between the two remained drawn.

He was awake, and he smiled at them when he saw them come in. "Hey…" he said in a haggard voice. He had a bandage wrapped around his forehead, and his left arm was in a hard, black cast.

Carol was the one who responded. "Hi sweetie. How are you feeling?" She sat down in one of the chairs, allowing Burt to take the one that was closer Kurt's bed.

"OK… I guess. I'm really sore." He said this as he watched Finn getting another chair from the other side of the curtain. "Where's Blaine?" he asked, looking at his dad.

It was Burt who answered this time. "He's out in the waiting room with the others. They wouldn't let him back yet, but he can come back after we leave."

"Oh OK…WAIT." A look of horror crossed his face. "Who else is out there?" he asked in a cautious voice as if he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

"Everyone from New Directions, along with some of your friends from Dalton," Burt replied. Kurt groaned at this, which only made Burt freak out. "What? Are you OK? !" he asked as his eyes widened.

"No, it's not that. I just can't believe that they all showed up here." Finn chuckled at this, and Kurt picked up his head to glare at his step brother. "It's not funny. I don't want anyone else to see me like this. I look hideous." Finn immediately stopped laughing when he noticed Kurt's death stare. Getting the reaction he wanted, Kurt sighed and brought his head back down onto the pillow. He turned to his dad again, a pleading look in his eyes. "Can you go get Blaine? I need to see him."

Burt took Kurt's hand and squeezed it. "OK." He let go of his son's hand and stood up, Carol and Finn doing the same. Finn moved his chair back to its original spot, and followed his mom and step-dad out of the room, saying "Bye Kurt" as he did so.


OK, so chapter 4 is already half done, and I'm really excited about. It should be up sometime tomorrow or the next day, depending on how much time I can find to write over the next two days.

Also, please check out klaine-supermegafoxyawesomehot's ongoing story Relationships Aren't Easy. I'm his BETA (for that story anyway, most of his others were posted before he met me), and it's really good so far so please check it out!