Note: I AM SO INDESCRIBABLY SORRY. To sum up why I haven't posted in months: university is hella busy, depression is hella annoying, and I had a shiiiiiiiit load of anxiety about the plot twist next chapter and also the entire ending, what with all this built up tension and all (which has probably dissipated entirely due to the really long haitus am I right?). Anyway, full details are on my Tumblr (thuslynope) (end self-promotion). However, since this fic is now actually complete, it will be posted in full over the next eight days according to a schedule that makes sense to me but requires a diagram to explain to other people. Eight days. How weird. (There'll be a full proper post about that at the very very end.)
Once again, I am so, so sorry, and I hope you enjoy the conclusion to this story. Last time: Kurt finally found Blaine again and Blaine was beginning to come back around. In this interlude, ALL THE HUMMEL-HUDSON FEELS.
fifth interlude
At a knock on the door, Burt lifted his eyes from his unconscious son; Finn stood in the doorway, face drawn and ashen. He stared at Kurt as if the world had come crashing down around his ears.
The two men sat in silence for hours, just looking at Kurt's body and listening to the steady beeping of the machines. Finn cried quietly, not for the first time; Burt, now that his anger had been burnt away, just felt empty.
Tomorrow, a group of Kurt's closest friends from Dalton were coming to Lima to visit. It would be the first day of the winter break, and the mark of a whole week since Kurt had collapsed in the hospital in Kenton, the fifth day since doctors in both hospitals had said there was no reason for Kurt to have slipped into a coma. There were no tumours, no anomalies in Kurt's brain or heart, nothing unusual about his blood work; it was as if he had simply fallen asleep, and now couldn't wake up.
Carole came to the hospital after she finished work and forced Burt and Finn down to the cafeteria to eat something. She lightly kissed Burt's cheek and he hugged her far too tightly, but she didn't complain. Burt was so, so glad he'd met Carole.
"He has to wake up," Finn said, voice trembling. He'd only eaten half his pasta, and now he was picking at the rest of it. "I'm been such a jerk since he transferred. I – I need to make things right." Fat tears rolled down his cheeks and his shoulders shook, and Carole left Burt's side to hold her son. "I promised him we'd be brothers but I left him down and now—"
"You'll get your chance, honey," Carole soothed. She was so strong, for Burt, for Finn, for all the sad, angry, desperate children who had come to visit Kurt already. Looking at her damp cheeks and steady hands, Burt's heart swelled with love for this magnificent woman.
"Nobody and nothing pushes the Hummels around," Burt said, his voice gruff from tears and disuse. He moved around the table on shaky legs to sit on Finn's other side and laid a hand on his stepson's back. "And Kurt's been through tougher stuff than this. He's a champ. He'll wake up. And then you can let him drag you round a mall and carry his bags for him even though he's forgiven you already, yeah?"
Finn choked out a laugh. It wasn't entirely genuine, but it was enough, and his eyes were so much less anguished. Burt hadn't realised it was weighing on him so much. It was a little awkward, but he joined his wife and stepson in their hug. And then the three of them took their trays of uneaten food to the bin and made their way heavily back up to Kurt's room.