Chapter 2

Kurt shifted around uncomfortably in his bed. He was trying to find a position that wouldn't leave him with permanent back damage, but so far he had been unsuccessful. Whoever built this bed must have been having a bad day, Kurt thought to himself as he turned over yet again.

"Is it the bed?" Kurt looked up to find the boy in the bed next to his, Blaine Anderson, watching him with a sympathetic smile. He had been awake for only a few hours and the sky had turned dark, making it hard for him to see Blaine's face properly. He tried to focus his gaze on Blaine's eyes, which were shining like molten gold in the light glowing from the candles in the room, and nodded.

"You'd think that a hole in the stomach would be pain enough," he muttered dryly. Blaine chuckled lightly and then seemed to rethink his action as his face turned into one of pity.

"Does it hurt badly?" he asked and Kurt considered telling him the truth - that yes, it felt like someone was constantly trying to dig through his stomach with their bare hands, but even for him that seemed slightly too over dramatic.

"I'm just happy to be alive," he said with a shrug and Blaine nodded. "Speaking of being alive," Kurt continued with a glance around the room. "The other men from my division, did any of them get placed here. Do you know?" Blaine's face fell and he looked away from Kurt's. Well, that doesn't bode well.

"Kurt... I can't be sure but when they brought you in they... they said that you were the only survivor," Blaine said in almost a whisper. "I'm sorry." Kurt looked down at his hands and took a shaky breath. None of them survived? Not Mike? Not Sam? Not anyone? During the short time he had spent together with his division, even under the horrible circumstances they had been in, they had become friends. General Schuester had always been a bit too enthusiastic about things but he had made them a team and he had loved them. He never said it, but Kurt knew it to be true, you could just tell. And now he was dead. They were all dead.

"Kurt?"

Kurt pulled his gaze away from his hands and looked back at Blaine.

"I suppose I just never thought something like this would ever..."

"I know," Blaine said sadly, like any of this was his fault.

"It's stupid really," he said, rolling his eyes at himself. "It's not like I didn't come into all of this knowing that people would... It's stupid." Blaine shook his head sharply and it looked like he was going to reach for Kurt's hand, but he didn't.

"It's not stupid. Out there, they were the only ones you had and now they are gone. There is nothing stupid about missing them or being sad that they are gone." Blaine said all of it with such force and passion that Kurt felt his eyes become misty with tears. He had known this boy for mere hours and he already seemed to know just what to say to make Kurt feel better.

"Thank you," he said softly and Blaine smiled at him as a comfortable silence fell over the two of them. Blaine closed his eyes and Kurt assumed that he was going to sleep so he decided to do the same. He took a last look at the other boy's resting form before he closed his own eyes. I wonder why he's in here.

"Anderson!" Kurt jumped high as a voice yelled out across the room but Blaine didn't even flinch. "Why didn't you let any of us know that Private Hummel was awake?" A nurse with dark skin and a smile on her face was moving between the hospital beds with a clipboard under her arm.

"My apologies, nurse Jones," Blaine said without opening his eyes. "It must have slipped my mind." He smiled a crooked smile as the nurse tutted at him in joking disapproval. The girl, 'nurse Jones' Blaine had called her, came to stand in between their beds and placed her clipboard on Blaine's legs with what looked like unnecessary force.

"Don't you use that tone with me, Anderson. Remember that I handle your medication," she said and then turned to Kurt. "Hello, darling. My name is nurse Jones but you can call me Mercedes. I'm glad to see you awake. We were worried about you." Kurt smiled at the bubbly girl. He liked her right away.

"Hello Mercedes. My name is Kurt Hummel but you can call me Kurt. And I'm sorry to have caused you to worry, it was very rude of me," said Kurt and Mercedes giggled.

"Are you as much of a gentleman as my friend Blaine here, Mr Hummel?" she asked with a smirk and Kurt glanced at Blaine. He thought back on how nice Blaine had been when Kurt woke up and how gentle and apologetic he had been when he had told Kurt about his division.

"Hardly."

...

When Kurt woke up the next morning he first couldn't remember where he was. He could hear birds chirping outside like normal but he wasn't lying in a bunker next to other men and for some reason his head was throbbing like someone had hit him with a baseball bat. Then he remembered. He sat up quickly and there was a stabbing pain in his stomach. He winced audibly and fell back against his pillow, which wasn't a very good idea either as it only made his head hurt more.

"Are you alright?" Kurt turned toward the voice to find Blaine sitting and watching him with an empty tray in his lap. He looked worried, but all Kurt could focus on was how his eyes now were a deep hazel instead of the gold they had been last night. It was breathtaking. "Kurt? Are you in pain? Should I call for a nurse?" Oh. Blaine was speaking to him. Right.

"No, I'm fine! Thank you," he hastened to say and Blaine seemed to relax.

"How was your first night in the bed of grave misfortune?" Blaine asked jokingly and Kurt snorted.

"It was alright. Although technically it was my second night, was it not?" Kurt said and Blaine shrugged.

"Well, I didn't feel like the night you were unconscious counted," he said with a lopsided smile that was all too attractive. Wait. What was he even thinking? Blaine was a boy who had shown a fellow soldier some sympathy, nothing more. So therefor it was very stupid of Kurt to be thinking about his smile. He should stop. Really.

"Fair point," he smiled. Their eyes locked for a moment and Kurt's smile fell, feeling like the twinkle of amusement in Blaine's hazel eyes was almost hypnotizing. Then Blaine cleared his throat and dropped his gaze, making Kurt blush for no apparent reason.

"You should eat you breakfast," he said and motioned at the breakfast tray by Kurt's bed. Kurt looked at it and all though the content didn't look too appealing his stomach was growling angrily so he picked it up anyway.

"Yes, I suppo-"

"Anderson!" Blaine groaned and gave Kurt a tired look.

"Do people always yell at you like this?" Kurt asked and Blaine nodded with a pained look on his face. He gave Blaine what he hoped looked like a sympathetic smile and glanced behind Blaine at the two men who had been the ones screaming. One of them looked oriental and had his head wrapped in a bandage like Kurt and the other one had dark skin like his nurse (had her name been Mercedes?) and had one of his arms in a sling. They both had mischievous grins plastered on their faces and Blaine, although he had put on a face of annoyance, seemed happy to see them. When they arrived at Blaine's bedside they both threw themselves on it in unison, making Blaine splutter as his tray clattered to the floor.

"Good morning, Blaine!" said the boy with the bandaged head with an overly enthusiastic voice.

"Good morning," answered Blaine with a disapproving voice and then the boy with the sling turned toward Kurt.

"Blaine, you haven't introduced us to your new friend!" he said accusingly. The bandaged boy turned toward Kurt as well and with both of them staring at him Kurt felt himself slide a little deeper under the covers of his bed.

"He is new, isn't he Blaine?" the bandaged boy ventured and Blaine proceeded to shove the two boys off him with a scoff.

"Yes, he is. Wes, David, this is Kurt. Kurt, this is Wes and David. We are all in the same division up north, although Wes and David are somewhat above me in rank," Blaine explained and Wes, the oriental looking one, shook his head.

"Not for long with the way the General fawns over you," he said and David, the dark skinned one, nodded in agreement. Kurt, who hadn't said a thing since the arrival of the two whirlwinds that apparently were Blaine's friends, took a deep breath and straightened up.

"It's very nice to meet both of you," he said with a polite smile and the two boys grinned back at him.

"And you, Kurt," David said. "We hope Blaine here has been pleasant to you thus far."

"And if he hasn't, just say the word and we'll talk to our General and get him bumped down to gun polisher," Wes added and Blaine kicked him deliberately so he went tumbling off the bed.

"Don't worry, he has," Kurt said while trying to suppress the laughter bubbling in his chest. He figured that laughing at a newly made acquaintance probably didn't give the best first impression. Instead he chose to swallow his laugh and watch on quietly as David helped Wes up from the floor with his working arm.

...

Wes and David spent the good part of an hour lounging on Blaine's bed and animatedly discussing their division and life at the VAD facility. Kurt mostly sat quiet and listened and laughed occasionally at something particularly funny. He found that he liked the slightly older boys and the high energy they brought with them. Then, suddenly, Wes and David raised their heads in unison and their eyes widened.

"Oho," they said in one voice.

"It's Berry," Wes hissed as he and David scrambled off the bed.

"We better get going," David said quickly and they ran off without another word. Kurt looked after them in confusion but Blaine didn't seem to find anything odd in their sudden departure.

"What is 'berry'?" Kurt asked but Blaine didn't have to answer him.

"That would be me," a girl who had appeared by Kurt's side said with a little curtsy. She had long brown hair, was wearing the same nurse uniform as Mercedes and was resting her hands on her hips in a very reprimanding manor. "Those two," she pointed after Wes and David who had escaped back to their own beds, "know that I don't like it when they run around in the ward. Frankly they are a safety hazard to everyone." She shook her head disapprovingly, and then she seemed to remember that she was there for a reason. She extended one of her arms to shake Kurt's with the same smile as before back on her lips. "You must be Kurt Hummel. My name is Rachel Berry and I - oh shoot!" She exclaimed the last part loudly before she clasped her hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry, I'm supposed to introduce myself as nurse Berry but I always seem to forget," she said through her fingers with a solemn sigh. Kurt however, who had been met by Mercedes, who had completely disregarded that particular rule, didn't mind.

"That's alright, really, you don't have to apologize. You have a very nice name, it would be a shame to let it go to waste," he said in an attempt to cheer Rachel up and it seemed to have worked because she removed her hands from her mouth and her smile was back in place again.

"That's very nice of you to say. But enough about that! I'm actually here to check your stitches and change your bandages," she said and started pulling off his paper garment. Kurt cast a quick look at Blaine to find that he had, to Kurt's great relief, respectfully averted his gaze in another direction. For some reason he didn't want Blaine to see him bare-chested when he had a big wound on his stomach. Rachel asked him to lean back against the pillows and then she started carefully removing his bandages. When they came off Kurt could see for the first time what shape his body was actually in. It wasn't pretty. The stitches created a two or three inches long line in a big, red swelling right bellow his diaphragm and when Rachel lightly touched it with her fingertip he winced at the sharp stab of pain.

"It doesn't seem to be infected," she said and that was good, right? "but I still need to clean it with some alcohol and that is going to be slightly painful." Rachel took out a ball of cotton and poured something on it that made Kurt's nose sting and burn. He took a bracing breath and the she started gently dabbing the wound with the cotton ball. She had been right - it was painful - very painful actually. It kind of felt like he was being poked in the stomach by sharp needles, or possibly knives, but he took deep breaths and it was over fairly quickly. When it was, Rachel wrapped his stomach up in new bandages and helped him put his gown back on again.

"How does your head feel?" she asked.

"It hurt a lot this morning but it has gotten better," Kurt said truthfully. Rachel nodded knowingly and patted him lightly on the shoulder.

"That's good. Someone will be back later to check on you," she said and with that she got up and left. Kurt readjusted himself in his bed as he watched her go and thought that, just as he had with Mercedes, he really liked Rachel.

"No problems I hope," Blaine said, interrupting his thoughts and Kurt rolled his eyes.

"Are you really going to pretend like you didn't hear that entire conversation?" Kurt asked and Blaine shrugged with an innocent smile.

"How big are my chances of getting away with it?" he shot back.

"Low."

"Shame." They both smiled at each other, and again they held each other's gaze until Blaine looked away with a light cough.

"So," Kurt started after a tense silence, "we all know what brought me here. How come you landed here? If you don't mind me asking."

"Not at all," Blaine answered lightly. "I fell down a crater left after a land mine and broke two of my ribs. It's not that serious, it's just going to take a while for them to heal. I suppose I should be grateful, really."

"How do you mean?" Kurt questioned. "That you are grateful that you're in here?"

"No, not like that," Blaine said. "I mean that I should be grateful that nothing worse happened to me. Like you said before, I'm happy to be alive, really. My father went into the war before me, but he lost one of his legs in battle and got sent home with an honorary medal. Compared to that I should say I was very lucky." Kurt hadn't expected for Blaine to start telling him about his family, if only briefly, and for a moment he didn't know what to say to such a horrible story.

"Yes, I suppose compared to that most of us are lucky. I'm very sorry about your father. But at least he didn't have to fight in the war anymore," Kurt added to try and make Blaine feel better. He didn't look very convinced though.

"No, he didn't," Blaine said simply. Kurt felt like there was more to the story that Blaine wasn't saying but he decided to ignore it. It wasn't his place to pry anyway.

…

They both sat quietly after that, watching nurses walk back and forth with various medicines, bandages and trays of food. At one point nurse Rachel and a blonde nurse with swaying hips and a fierce look stormed by in the midst of a heated argument, but Kurt didn't pick up more than "it would just be much easier!" from Rachel and a shrill "Oh, really?" from the blonde nurse before they had stomped into the nurses' station and slammed the door shut behind them. Kurt looked after them in wonderment, but no one else seemed to have noticed the exchange. He glanced at Blaine who was looking at the same closed door as Kurt with a raised eyebrow.

"Are all the nurses here… I mean…" Kurt started and Blaine gave him a meaningful look.

"Mad?" he offered and Kurt nodded. "As far as I have noticed, yes."

"Good to know."

There you have it, chapter 2! The next chapter probably won't be up until, like, August, because I'm going away soon and won't be back until then. But it will be up, I swear!

Reviews are always appreciated ;)