Chapter Summary: Some of his classmates are acting a little oddly, and Kurt feels like something is missing.

A/N: I am so sorry for the wait with this one; I under-estimated the amount of work I'd be able to get done after rehearsal every night and had to wait for a night I was free to finish editing! The last scene of this chapter I've had in my head since September, so I hope it's come out well! It will be two or so weeks until the first chapter of the sequel is posted-I want to make sure I have a few chapters written before I start posting so that I can post on a regular schedule with that one. But I hope you all enjoy the final chapter of this part. Thank you all so much for sticking with me; your reviews and support really means so much. Keep an eye out for the sequel! Check out my tumblr later for a clue as to what will be in store for the boys in the future.

Here's a link to the song that features most prominently in this chapter: www. youtube. com /watch?v=KAmmtqLmLsw. I highly recommend listening to it when you get to that part. :)

And now, without further ado: the last chapter of Left Over.

Something felt off.

It was that stale taste at the back of his throat; the bitter-slick saliva warning him his body had lost a sheild and he was about to come down with something; the spiderwebs at the corners of his eyes telling him he had slept too much that morning.

Something was missing.

He didn't know what it was. He just knew he felt off.

Mercedes poked his arm.

"Are you listening to me?" she repeated. "I said, what do you think about Schue running out of ideas for glee club? I swear we've sung songs about nostalgia before."

"When?" Kurt asked, honestly curious. He had been thinking the same thing when Schue announced the assignment yesterday. He had thought it was déjà-vu at the time. "I can't remember any specific time we sang them."

Mercedes frowned, shrugging. "I don't know," she said slowly. "I guess it just felt like we'd done it before."

Tina was bringing her lunch tray over, sitting down heavily across from them. "Finally, someone else who agrees with me!" she exclaimed. "I was telling Mike yesterday that I could have sworn we'd done this assignment before and he looked at me like I was crazy. It took me two seconds to pick out my song, tops."

"We probably did an assignment close to nostalgia and we're thinking about that," Kurt said dubiously.

"No, I know it was nostalgia," Mercedes protested. "Because I had to look up what the word meant last time before I could look up songs to sing."

"It was definitely nostalgia," Tina agreed. Kurt toyed thoughtfully with his salad. The right side of his body felt too cold, he noticed.

"Do you feel like something's off today?" he asked.

The girls looked at him strangely.

"Not really," Tina said.

Mercedes shook her head.

"Hmm." He put down his fork and glanced around the cafeteria, wondering vaguely where Artie went.

Karofsky caught his gaze at the other end of the room.

Kurt froze, tensing.

The other boy looked almost… disappointed? It was a brief look; he glanced away as easily as he had met Kurt's eyes, and Kurt was left hovering over an empty step.

Kurt blinked.

That was new. No leering? No stares of any kind? …What had that been about?

He frowned and set to eating his salad, trying to shake off the weirdness that seemed to be permeating his day. If Karofsky didn't want to harass him today, he wasn't about to complain. No sense looking a gift horse in the mouth.

"This is going to bug me all day," Mercedes grumbled over her food. "I just know it."

He didn't sit next to Mercedes or Tina in glee club. He didn't know why—his body had simply walked on autopilot toward a seat he didn't remember ever sitting in. Mercedes shot him a confused look as he had done so, and Kurt sent her an apologetic shrug, but hadn't moved. It was a seat no one was sitting near, strangely, and Kurt was suddenly brought up short as he wondered what, exactly, was so strange about the seat next to him being empty. Something tickled at the back of his mind.

Rachel abruptly burst into the room, looking unusually solemn, and Kurt raised an eyebrow as she sat down next to him. He eyed her suspiciously as Noah Puckerman eagerly came up to the front to fill the assignment, throwing his guitar strap over his shoulder and strumming with a knowing smile on his face.

"This is the ultimate song about nostalgia," Puck announced with a grin. "I think you all know it."

It was a good performance, Kurt supposed, but his attention was taken up by the surprisingly warm presence of Rachel Berry next to him. But she did nothing unusual, smiling and singing along when everyone else joined in with Puck as he reached the final chorus: "And them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey in Rye—singing 'this'll be the day that I die'."

Kurt shrugged it off and sang along with them.

"This'll be the day that I die."

Puck strummed out the final chords, his voice lingering over the strings as if trying to outlast their sound. A chill ran up Kurt's back suddenly, inexplicably, and the room filled with applause.

You're dying, something whispered in his ear.

He shook his head slightly to clear it, spooked.

"Kurt?" Rachel asked. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," he answered airily, wondering why she cared. She didn't have time to question him further, as Tina happily skipped up to the front of the room after Puck sat down.

"This song is kind of like Puck's," she began, and Kurt watched curiously as Santana and Brittany came up to set up chairs behind her. "It's about having lost someone. I thought this assignment was a great opportunity to introduce some other, less mainstream artists to the room, so prepare yourselves for greatness."

Kurt sent her a smile as she settled into the chair that had been set in between Santana and Brittany. Solemn piano chords began to play, floating over the room like clouds.

"The sky looks pissed," Tina started. "The wind talks back. My bones are shifting in my skin—"

"And you, my love, are gone," Santana and Brittany sang with her.

Their voices intertwined throughout the song as Tina sang another verse and they went into the chorus, weaving together and then apart in ghostly harmony. Kurt felt himself shiver as the music drifted over him, resting strong and thin over the room. His skin prickled from the dew of it.

"I'll never say that I'll never love." Kurt straightened at the abrupt plunge of his heart, letting out a startled breath. "But I don't say a lot of things—and you, my love, are gone."

There was a weird aching in his bones, random sentences crawling across his mind. Words that sounded like they should have been sharp, but were blunted and indistinct and formless: Please remember this. Find me. A voice Kurt had heard in his dreams the night before, one he didn't remember ever hearing before and yet one that sounded so familiar…

Rachel grabbed his hand gently. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked quietly as the girls kept singing. Kurt sniffed, surprised to find silent tears gliding softly down his cheeks. He pulled his hand away from Rachel's, wiping away at his cheeks and trying to blink away the rest filling in his eyes. He didn't know why he was crying—he didn't feel sad. What was there to be sad about?

Why was he crying?

"So glide away on soapy heels, and promise not to promise anymore. And if you come around again, then I will take… then I will take… then I will take the chain from off—

"The door," Tina finished, her voice the only sound in the room. It settled like silk as the final note ended.

The room burst into applause.

"That was lovely," Quinn said from the back, and Mike agreed loudly. Tina's grin was wide.

"Beautiful, Tina, Santana, Brittany, just beautiful," Schue said, getting up to the front of the room. "I'm really impressed with how quickly you guys have put these songs together. That's the kind of work ethic that will win us Nationals!" He clapped his hands together firmly. "Anyone else?"

Rachel spoke up. "Mr. Schue, I don't think Kurt is feeling well," she said. "I think he should go home."

Schue looked at him, concerned. "Kurt?" he asked.

Kurt looked at Mercedes, whose expression was furrowed with worry, and then Rachel, who… there was a strange, unknowing sadness in her eyes. He noticed suddenly the nearly invisible traces of tears on her cheeks—she seemed utterly unaware of them.

He wondered if she had been affected by the song, too.

"Yeah," he said softly. "I think I'd like to go home."

Schue nodded.

Kurt was sent on his way followed by get-well wishes, and Finn awkwardly telling him that he'd get a ride home from Puck.

My room feels wrong, Tina's song echoed eerily in his mind as he caught sight of the door to his room. It was closed—he always kept his door closed—and for a brief, insane moment as he opened it he expected it to be locked.

It wasn't. Because there was no reason for it to be.

…All right, then.

His room was too large and too empty, and Kurt pressed his palms against his eyes to try to clear the strangeness from his mind because this was getting a little ridiculous. Maybe he was coming down with something.

A hot shower might clear his head.

He took off his sweater as he paced the room, looking to see if anything was misplaced or simply missing. Nothing was, of course, because nothing was wrong, but he couldn't stop himself from checking. His eyes swept over his vanity, and—

His interest was caught in the mirror. There, curling around the pulse of his wrist, was—

Kurt jerked his wrist back toward his chest, a spike of alarm ricocheting up his body.

Oh my god.

Breathing hard and staring intently, he turned his arm toward the mirror. And, slowly… lifted up his sleeve.

Kurt froze, wide eyes staring at the stitching running up his arm. He pulled his sleeve up higher. There, again, following his vein. And there. And—

He took off his shirt as fast as he could, fingers stumbling over the buttons before he tore it away and threw it to the ground. His heart hammered against his ribs as he took in the letters crawling in perfect cursive up both of his arms. All over every inch of his arms, creeping under his shortsleeves and he whipped off his undershirt, blood rushing hot in his ears and his cheeks as they continued down his chest, on his back, everywhere and Kurt read it all, pulse pounding and breath quickening, the same phrase, over and over, under his skin, stitched in the blues and purples of his veins and then the white of his skin and then the red of his blood, glinting in the light of his room—

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

Something punched him in the chest and the strings that had been holding him up were cut.

He sank boneless to the floor, staring at the message written all over his body in numb fascination. That voice repeated in his ear: Please remember this. You need to find me.

Please

Remember this.

He had been right—something was missing. Something had been taken away from him—from all of them—from him, someone had loved him and he had been taken away and all Kurt could remember were a few words in his voice and the empty feeling that someone should be holding his hand. He touched the image of himself in the mirror, tracing the words with his eyes, gently following the curving loops of the cursive.

Something was missing and whoever had taken it had abandoned Kurt to phantom memories; with no clues of how to claim it back. With no real recollection of what it was he had lost.

With only the understanding that it was gone—taken away—

Only the words stitched into his skin left over.