Prompt: Cate Cassidy - "I really wanted that baby" - 'Life UneXpected'

Burt repeatedly ran his fingers through the hair of the nine-year-old boy who finally lay sleeping half huddled in his lap. Though Kurt now slept, Burt didn't have the heart, or the want, to move him. His skin was still warm to the touch, and an IV fed fluid into his little body to replace what he had loss but at least his son was sleeping now.

He was weary from the long hours of watching his son suffer so. It had all started with a phone call from the nurse that Kurt was running a slight fever and he needed to pick him up. Within an hour of getting him home, Kurt had been throwing up. His son hadn't been able to keep anything down and the fever had gotten worse. In a half panic, he had bundled him up and taken him to the ER.

Now, sitting alone in the dark hospital room on the pediatrics ward, all Burt could do was try to be a comfort to his little boy. As he watched Kurt sleep he was reminded of another late night vigil, eight years ago when he and Kathleen had watched the same little boy fight for his life inside an oxygen tent.

Not being able to touch their son had been heartbreak for the new parents. Only a few days shy of Kurt's first birthday, birthday celebration plans had been put aside. It was quite possible they wouldn't ever be needed.

It had been his wife he had held that time, Kathleen's head on his shoulder as she watched Kurt through her tears.

"I so wanted that little boy and now I might lose him," she had whispered at one point.

"Shhh, we haven't loss him yet. The doctor's are doing all they can and he's a Hummel which means he's a fighter," he had told her, though in his mind he thought again about how little his son was.

~He's still small for his age,~ Burt thought, looking down at the sleeping child. But he was a fighter despite his size. His son had proven that time and again. No matter what life had thrown at him, Kurt had always seemed to bounce back. Burt had to believe that this time would be no different.

"I know you miss your little boy, Kathleen, but I just can't let him go. Not so soon after losing you," Burt whispered into the night.