Chapter 15

As the car rolled to a stop at the red light, Kurt took stock of the situation. They were two blocks from the intersection where they'd been hit in the previous universe. Blaine was sitting beside him, looking exactly the same as he had before the accident. All indications were that he jumped really close. Probably the only difference was that they'd left the mall a little sooner or later so they'd hit enough red lights to avoid the accident. A reminder of what Kurt knew all too well - the tiniest differences could mean life or death sometimes. Seconds could make the entire universe different from that point on. He looked at the intersection just two blocks away and saw that even in this universe the accident had happened with someone else being hit instead of them. That was proof that Kurt hadn't jumped far at all.

Kurt was calm. All the adrenaline was gone due to the jump; his heartbeat was steady and normal. It would be disconcerting except that Kurt was used to it. He smiled at his boyfriend, safe next to him, and said in the most cheerful voice he could muster, "We should make a detour here; it looks like there is some kind of accident up ahead."

Blaine's face quickly drained of color and he said in a hoarse whisper, "We were in that accident."

"Sweetie, what are you talking about?" Kurt asked with more calm than he felt.

Blaine didn't answer at first. He was glassy eyed and confused until he seemed to suddenly snap out of it and began to speak a rapid machine gun fire babble, "Oh my god, Kurt, I think I have a brain tumor, or a virus, what if it's mad cow disease? What If I have a flesh eating bacteria in my BRAIN!"

"Blaine!" Kurt nearly shouted, "What are you talking about?"

"I just had the most vivid hallucination, Kurt. Normal people don't have hallucinations! Oh my god, what if it's a BRAIN CLOUD?" he cried hysterically. "I thought we were in an accident. I thought we were hit and going to die but here we are perfectly safe and sound and I'm crazy. Aren't I? I've finally snapped and gone completely bonkers, oh my god, Kurt, what's going to become of me? Are you going to dump me in a mental intuition…" Kurt slapped him. He didn't think about it but it seemed like the thing to do given how panicky Blaine was. It was what they did in all the movies.

"Ow! What'd you do that for?"

"Because you're hysterical. Blaine, just calm down. Switch places with me and let me drive. I'm sorry, I slapped you. That's what they do in all the movies and it worked didn't it?

"If by it worked you mean, I'm hysterical, dying of a brain tumor, AND my jaw hurts, yes, it did. But you're right; you should drive. You have to get me to a hospital right away before I have a seizure and get into a wreck for real."

They managed to switch places before the light turned green and Kurt turned right looking for a place to pull over and talk to Blaine. He must have brought Blaine with him on the jump. It had never occurred to him that it was even possible to bring along another person. How could it be? It couldn't be just because they'd been touching – half the times that Kurt had jumped had been because someone had been 'touching' him. It had to be intention. He hadn't wanted to leave Blaine behind. He'd been terrified for their lives and desperately wanted Blaine to be with him in the next universe. Could it be that easy? Could he do it again? Kurt pulled into a parking lot not far from the light and turned to Blaine who had been babbling on about brain tumors, flesh eating bacteria, and mad cow disease the entire time.

"Blaine, do you trust me?" Kurt asked.

"Of course I do," Blaine replied simply.

"You don't have a brain tumor."

"You can't know that! You aren't a doctor. Oh my god, what if it's the same thing that made you faint and it's contagious! We're both going to die! We're so young. It's so tragic and I never even got to marry you and move into our suburban house with two kids and a cat."

"You want to marry me?" beamed Kurt.

"Of course, I do. I mean…not at eighteen but eventually. Unless we both die tragically of mad cow disease."

"It isn't a virus or a bacteria or a tumor, Blaine. And especially not a brain cloud because that isn't even a thing. You didn't hallucinate the accident. It really happened. I remember it too."

"Now you're just humoring me," Blaine mumbled miserably.

"No, I know exactly what happened and I'll explain everything to you. I promise, Blaine. You're not crazy and I'm not just humoring you. I'll prove it when we get back to my place. Just trust me, OK? Please?"

"OK," Blaine said simply. Kurt had expected more argument than that but Blaine seemed to believe him at least for the moment.

The trip home was quieter than Kurt expected. Blaine seemed content to wait for Kurt to explain what was going on. Or maybe he was just afraid his boyfriend was going to slap him again if he got too animated. For whatever reason, he sat on the bed facing Kurt looking at him expectantly as Kurt tried to formulate the words that would make the crazy situation clear to Blaine.

Outwardly Kurt was calm and in control but inside he was terrified. What if Blaine thought he was freak? Worse, what if his boyfriend hated him for essentially stealing this life. What if he realized that the boy in front of him wasn't the boy he'd fallen in love with?

"I don't know where to begin," he finally admitted.

"How about at the beginning," Blaine suggested.

"That would be when I was born and I think it might be a bit too far back. I guess, I should start with quantum theory."

"Seriously? Is the plan to put me out of my misery by putting me in a coma?"

Kurt sighed. This was going to be difficult.

"I'll keep it simple. Or I'll try to. Every decision you make – not just you but every person on the planet, all seven billion of them, and the animals too – well it affects everything after that. The tiniest of things can have dramatic effects. For example, what if you leave the mall at the just the right time to hit all the green lights…"

"Which we did. We hit every single green light until we…"

"Until we were in an intersection at just the right time to be in the way of some drunk – or whoever - running that red light. Now imagine that we left just a little later. I'm talking just seconds later, Blaine. Then what? We hit at least one red light. Maybe all of the lights are red instead of green and when that guy runs the red light, we aren't there."

Blaine's face was animated with awe as he realized what that would mean.

"Then we're two blocks away instead. Oh my god, are you saying you can go back in time and change the past? How? How is that possible? If you did then why do I remember the lights being green and being in the accident? Kurt, are you some kind of super hero? No, that's just crazy. That can't be what happened."

"No…No, not exactly. That isn't how it works but I can change what universe I'm in. You see, every time a decision is made…I don't think it has to even be a decision, anything, even butterfly wings can cause it…then another universe is created. It happens constantly. There are an infinite number of them and an infinite number are being created…"

Blaine shook his head in confusion.

"No, that doesn't make any sense at all. How can there already be an infinite number of something and still be an infinite number created? Kurt, you're making my head hurt. Or is it the brain tumor kicking it? Maybe, I'm dreaming!" he said suddenly excited at the prospect. As quickly as the excitement flashed across his face it was replaced with disappointment. "No, I read somewhere that if you ask yourself if you are in a dream then you wake up. No, I'm pretty sure there is a simpler explanation, Kurt. What made you think of this crazy time travel scenario? There are way simpler ways to explain what happened. Maybe I saw the accident and just imagined that it happened to us. Then when I told you about it…well it's like a shared delusion. Like mass hysteria but just for two. I'm pretty sure I saw it on an episode of Saved."

"No, I'm not saying it is some theory I came up with. Blaine, it's my life. I've always been able to do it. I've spent my whole life jumping from one universe to another. Or at least as long as I can remember. And that was a perfect example of what I'm trying to explain."

"What?" asked a confused Blaine. This wasn't going well at all. Kurt had thought Blaine would grasp his secret and reject him but he was quickly finding that he didn't have the proper words to even explain it to his boyfriend.

"Saved. I'm good at guessing stuff from context so I'm guessing that's a television show and one that I should know about. I don't, though. I've never heard of it and that's not all. I don't remember most things the same way you do, Blaine." There. That was the worst part. The part that would surely send Blaine running.

"How can you not remember it? We watched it every Thursday together until it was canceled. There was a big finale party that we…" Blaine trailed off seeming to finally begin to believe that some was seriously amiss. "What are you trying to tell me? How can you remember things differently than I do? How is that possible? Kurt, I don't understand."

"It's easier if I just show you. Do you have a coin?"

"Sure." Blaine dug a quarter out of his pocket and tried to hand it to his boyfriend.

"No, you flip it. That way you will believe me. But not yet. This is what I was trying to explain, Blaine. Every time you flip a coin, for example, it doesn't just come up heads or tails. It's both. What I'm trying to tell you is that I can choose which universe I live in. I've been doing it my whole life but I never brought anyone with me before today so I don't know how that works. I'm going to try to do it again." Kurt hooked his right arm onto Blaine's left and continued, "OK, just flip the coin and keep flipping it. Heads." Blaine did as he was instructed and Kurt concentrated on picking heads and holding on to Blaine at the same time. "Heads," he called again. "Heads." It took ten times before Blaine stopped.

"How are you doing this? I'm flipping it and I know it isn't a trick coin."

"I told you, there are two universes created every time you flip it and every time, I just choose heads. Now for the hard part. Flip it one more time." Kurt chose heads just like he'd done all the other times but he held on to the tails universe while maintaining a tight mental grip on Blaine in the heads universe.

It was more difficult than anything he'd ever tried but he managed to say, "It's heads, right?"

"Yeah," agreed Blaine.

"Now we're going to tails," Kurt promised hoping it would work. He shifted holding on to Blaine with all of his will. He didn't know if he'd succeed until Blaine looked at the coin.

"Oh, my god. It's tails. But it didn't move. It was heads and then it was tails. Kurt, that's seriously fucked up!"

Kurt didn't reply. He just wrapped his arms around Blaine and held him tight. "I'm never going to lose you again. I swear, I'm never letting you go." He held on physically but mentally he was preparing for the other shoe to drop. He dreaded Blaine understanding what this all meant. As frustrating as it was for him not to, Kurt feared Blaine's inevitable comprehension more. What if he realized that the boy holding him was simply not the same Kurt that he'd fallen for? What if he asked the question the Kurt didn't have the answer to – what happened to my Kurt?

"I'm still confused, Kurt, but I believe you. You got us out of that accident somehow. The same way you picked heads ten times in a row and changed it to tails. I don't understand but I believe it." Blaine held Kurt tight and buried his nose into his boyfriend's neck. "You saved me," he murmured softly. They held each other for a while before Blaine pulled back and looked at Kurt with a gleam in his eye. "Can you do that with roulette?"

"Yes, I mean theoretically. I've never played but it would be easy," he admitted.

"So we could totally clean up in Vegas; I can't believe that never occurred to you!"

Kurt gave his boyfriend his best I can't believe you just said that look. Apparently it worked because realization dawned on Blaine as he thought about various events of the past weeks.

"Oh my god, you did cheat at Scrabble and Canasta! And the lotto! That's how you got five numbers on the lotto."

"I don't think of it as cheating," insisted Kurt.

"Why didn't you get six numbers on the lotto? What happened…when you fainted… is it dangerous for you to do that time manipulation thingy? If it's going to hurt you, I don't want you to do it, Kurt."

"No, I'm fine. It takes practice and I'm really good with dice, coin tosses, or cards. There were fifty nine numbers with each draw and it was just more universes than I was used to handling. And it isn't time travel or manipulation…I keep telling you that."

"I have so many questions but I don't even understand enough to ask, Kurt."

"Just ask anything. I'll answer truthfully though I can't promise it will make sense to you." He meant it. No matter how painful this might end up, it was a relief to actually admit who he was to someone.

"You said that you don't remember things the same way I do. Like what? Don't you remember meeting me and falling in love?" Blaine asked softly touching Kurt's cheek.

"I do," Kurt swore fervently. "Of course, I do. I just …don't remember it happening the same way you do. For me…this is hard Blaine but I promised to tell the truth. I met you on the 8th of November, 2010. I went to McKinley my sophomore year and most of my junior year. But when I met you…I fell head over heels in love with you. I have loved you in every universe."

"Wait, if you didn't meet me until November, 2010 then...you don't remember our first anniversary? The first time we...you know..."

Kurt bit his lip and tried to think of another way to explain it but all he could do was shake his head.

"Our first kiss? The first time I...Kurt how can you not remember any of it?"

"I remember the first time you kissed me. It was just different than you remember. You kissed me on March 16 and it was so perfect and special. You left me breathless and I'll never forget it.

"Wait, I didn't kiss you until five months after we met? Why? Didn't you like me? Why did I wait so long? Kurt that just doesn't even make sense."

Kurt chuckled and said, "I was totally head over heels in love with you and as to why you waited so long - I have no idea. I used to ask myself that question every day. But you made up for it after that. It was so special. Every moment after you kissed me... you were a perfect boyfriend. And when we went to prom together, we danced a slow dance together. Right there in front of everyone. You were my hero.

"Prom? Dalton doesn't have a prom."

"I went back to McKinley and you went to my prom with me."

"Why would you go back to McKinley? You love Dalton and the Warblers. Nick is your best friend and McKinley is a terrible place."

"I didn't go to Dalton that long, Blaine. I missed my friends. I was in New Directions, the McKinley glee club. I really liked the Warblers but they weren't as close to me as they are here.

"Wait, wait...isn't prom like in May or something? I'm really confused now. What do you remember about us and what happened to make you change things if we were in love? What happened to make you want to change how we met? Was it something bad like another car wreak or worse?"

"I screwed up. Sometimes I jump out of instinct and sometimes I jump for stupid petty reasons. And once…once I jumped in my sleep which was really scary because that wasn't a good universe at all. Except for you," he said placing his hand on Blaine's heart. "I loved you there too but…you'd been through so much and you didn't want me."

"That's not possible," denied Blaine. "There isn't any way that I wouldn't be in love with you."

Kurt chuckled because he knew that wasn't true at all.

"Well, I think you were but you thought you weren't good enough for me. Which is just silly because you are awesome. Even when you are inappropriately forward," he smiled thinking of Blaine-6 and his overly sexual first date.

"sooo…" Blaine paused collecting his thoughts, "random stuff can change how we met and when we got together and you don't remember…" he stopped confusing himself again as he tried to grasp the concept that was just out of reach. "You only remember one version of things…the version that you lived through…but everyone else; they're view keeps changing? Is that it? I'm the one that keeps changing but you're the same?"

"Well, from my point of view, yes. But now, I can take you with me. I don't have to lose you, ever."

Blaine was silent for a while longer as he digested the strange new world view.

"When did you screw up? If we were together in May in a different...version of reality?"

"Alternate universe. That's the term your looking for."

"OK, so in May we were together in this alternate universe, then what?"

Kurt did his best to explain the jump at Nationals and what occurred after that. He didn't sugar coat his own motives and freely admitted that it was one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

"I was dating Jeff? No way, now you're just yanking my chain to see how gullible I am. That would never happen. What did Nick have to say about that?"

"You did and Nick had an opinion about it as a matter fact. He and Jeff were in love but they just took longer to find each other in that universe."

"Truly? I was with Jeff? What about you? How could I cheat on you like that? I'm so sorry, Kurt."

Kurt laughed because he just couldn't help it. Blaine's reaction was a mixture of disbelief, misunderstanding, and confusion but through it all he didn't seem inclined to run away at least.

"You were together when we met. You didn't do anything wrong, Blaine. The timing was just different. Like I keep trying to explain, small things can lead to big changes. You dated Jeff a few times before we met in at least one other universe but I guess Jeff figured out sooner that it wasn't going to work between the two of you. I think that was the difference between those two universes. Some small moment that led to Jeff becoming your boyfriend and everything cascaded from that."

"Kurt, why would you choose that? How could you want to win at Nationals more than being with me?" Blaine asked. Believing it came with the pain of believing Kurt had somehow left him.

"I didn't. Blaine, believe me, I didn't know that we weren't together."

"I don't understand, you said you chose to jump. And if you were sorry that you did it, why didn't you just go back?"

"I did choose to jump but I didn't know what it would be like. It doesn't work like that. And as for going back, I couldn't. It was too late by the time I figured it out."

Blaine looked the most confused he'd been the entire conversation.

"But you took us to the tails universe after choosing heads. Isn't it like that?"

"Sort of. Maybe this will work better if I show you."

"More coin tosses?"

"No, no jumping. Just a visual representation that might help you understand things better."

Kurt went to his desk and rummaged around until he found paper, a pen, a highlighter, and a ruler. Making the process completely clear to Blaine was a risk but he was willing to take it. Kurt had decided after the latest jump that he didn't want to live the way he always had before. He didn't want to have a secret life that he couldn't share. If he lost Blaine by being himself then so be it. He was resolved to being completely honest with his boyfriend from this point on.

"OK, this is a universe," Kurt said as he drew a line on the paper. He drew a split and continued two lines in parallel. "Now, something happens and you have a split and these two are parallel now."

"Like what?"

"It doesn't matter. Something small. Say you went to get coffee and in this one there is a woman ahead of you. She takes forever, asks a million questions, and can't make up her mind. So you're late for the rest of the day. And in this one," he said pointing to the second line, "you are in front of her." He continued drawing splitting lines until the page was covered with lines, looking like a tree with many branches. "OK, now this is me," he continued as he started highlighting the first line. He highlighted lines, choosing branches until he ended at the far right of the sheet of the paper at the bottom. "Imagine that I want to jump for some reason. Maybe someone is about to throw me into a dumpster so I look around for a line where I can avoid that. I choose this one," he said pointing to a line at the top of the page. He laid the ruler across the page and continued, hoping Blaine was following. "I can jump to this line but I can't see what led to it. I can't see any of these branch points," he said pointing to the various splits on the page. "I don't know what's different between this universe and that one except what I see right now."

"But why can't you jump back?"

"I can, in theory, but there are so many lines that how would I find it? They keep branching and there are infinite number. It would be like finding..."

"A needle in a haystack?"

"No, that would be possible. It would be like finding a single piece of hay in an infinitely large stack of hay...when it doesn't even look like it looked last time you saw it."

"Oh," Blaine said simply beginning to grasp the enormity of what Kurt was saying.

"But there are things I can do. I can have anchors and as long as I stay with in the universes where my anchor is then I haven't lost anything before that."

"I don't understand."

Kurt pointing to a random branch point on the page and circled all the lines the ultimately resulted from it.

"Let's say I do something random here to cause this split but it's something that I can hold onto. Something tangible like what I'm wearing then as long as I jump only among these lines, then everything before that split is the same."

It took awhile but eventually Blaine began asking for specifics about the Kurt's experiences - what did Kurt remember from the timeline they were in now. The conversation went in fits and starts as Blaine got confused over timelines and differing versions of events but he continued to accept Kurt at his word.

"...wait, if we've only been together since March...Kurt that's only seven months! You wouldn't even let me put my hand down your pants for the first six months we dated..." Blaine trailed off as his eyes grew wide at the thought of starting all over with his boyfriend. "Have we even had sex? I'm mean...I know we have...I mean I remember that we have but do you?"

"Yes, Blaine. I've been in this timeline since the beginning of the school year," Kurt reassured his boyfriend.

"But..."

"It's OK, Blaine," Kurt interrupted him. "Everything's OK. I promise. I was shy about stuff like that when we first got together but I got over it. I assure that I'm completely comfortable with having a horndog boyfriend," Kurt teased to defuse some of the tension.

"I'm not!" objected Blaine. "I'm just an average teenage boy.

After getting details about Kurt, Blaine turned to questions about other versions of himself.

"What sorts of things happened to me in these alternate universes?"

"I promised to answer your questions but I'm not just going to randomly describe different timelines. What do you want to know?"

"There was one version where you said that I'd been through so much. Too much to think I could be with you. Tell me about that."

"Blaine," Kurt started reluctantly, "You don't really want to know about things that might have happened do you? It didn't happen to you so why even think about it?"

"Because I want to understand, Kurt. I want to understand you and that means understanding how things could have been different for me as well."

"Well, like I said…sometimes really small decisions can lead to a totally different outcome. Like going to a Sadie Hawkins dance. That was a fateful event in more than one universe."

"Oh, that. Kurt I told you all about that. Don't you remember?"

Kurt smiled.

"I remember a version of it but you tell me what you remember."

"I went with a girl. Her name was Madison."

"Well, that's different."

"What? I went alone? Why would I do that?"

"No, you went with a boy named Shawn."

"Shawn? Wow, it has been so long since I thought about him. We were best friends in grade school but we lost touch after his parents moved away. He's gay? I didn't know that. We hadn't spoken in ages when I came out so I didn't know."

"Tell me more about you're date with Madison."

"Well, I'd already started having thoughts about boys but I didn't want to believe I was gay. I really liked Madison and I thought if things would just get physical…I'd forget all those thoughts about boys and be with her. It was silly, I know but I did like her and I thought if I was just a little inclined toward girls it would be enough. So I kissed her. It felt good but…it felt good but more like hugging my sister good not…well, you know, not that kind of good. And I knew that I was one hundred percent gay so I told her."

"What happened after that?"

"I told her and she was so pissed that she never spoke to me again."

"For being gay?"

"No, for not telling her sooner. For pretending that we could be together romantically. Except I tried to explain that I wasn't pretending. I really thought it might be possible."

"Well, I'm glad you figured that out before you met me. In one universe, you got drunk and made out with my best friend – a girl – thinking you might be bi-sexual."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be, I don't remember it any more than you do. I arrived in that universe after it happened."

"That's just so weird. And you're deflecting."

"What?"

"I asked about what happened to me and you've deflected onto other topics."

"I didn't mean to. Really, Blaine, I'm not trying to hide anything. Not anymore. I just don't know why you want to know."

"I just do."

"You went to the Sadie Hawkins dance with your friend Shawn and you both got beaten up for being gay. Sometimes it was really bad. I think it was always bad but I know in some universes it was much worse than others. I don't even know if it happened or not in all the universes that I've known you."

"How many universes have you known me in?"

"It depends on how you count," Kurt allowed.

They spend the entire night talking about such details. Kurt told Blaine of the different universes he'd experienced. How he'd lost first his mother, then his father. He talked of friends that came an went with jumps but most of all how Blaine had changed everything for him. By the time they drifted toward sleep in each others arms, Kurt finally felt that he'd found home. Blaine accepted him. Blaine was his home and he never had to say goodbye again. And he drifted to sleep he thought anything was possible. No, everything is possible, Kurt thought as he held on tight to his lover and anchor, everything.

The End?

or just the beginning...