A/N: I wrote this for the Glee Write What You Know Fest. Warnings: It's short and it's sad, so be warned. If you have triggers about losing a child, then you might not want to read it. Nothing graphic, just Kurt and Sebastian trying to cope with loss. Warnings for anxiety and PTSD.
Sebastian feels Kurt shift beside him, his feet kicking out at the blankets, and sighs.
'It must be three o'clock,' Sebastian thinks through the heavy fog settling in his brain in place of sleep. Not that he blames his husband. Sebastian's been up since two.
He hears Kurt whimper, sniffling, struggling, and he knows it won't be long before Kurt wakes up.
Sebastian curses behind his eyelids, feeling completely impotent because he knows he cannot help him.
It's been three months, and they still haven't recovered. Three months and there isn't a day they've been able to sleep through the night without devolving into this ritual of Sebastian lying in bed, pretending to be asleep, while he waits for the nightmares to shake Kurt awake.
So many times Sebastian tried to hold him, tried to soothe him, but there is no soothing this. Nothing Sebastian can do will make it go away, and they've pretty much tried everything.
Movie marathons.
Lots of alcohol.
Unhealthy and painful amounts of sex.
Nothing helps.
Sebastian recommended therapy, but Kurt isn't ready to let a stranger in on the details of their pain, so for lack of a better way to deal with things he chooses to ride out his torment this way.
They hide themselves away.
They've pushed away all their friends. They barely talk to anyone.
They stay awake as long as they can with eyes open wide so they don't have to think about it.
But eventually sleep comes, and with it the torture of reliving every agonizing moment.
Sebastian wakes up from the screaming in his head and waits for Kurt.
Kurt sits straight up in bed, panting, breathing fast as if he has just run around the world and back. His eyes stare into the darkness as he waits for the last barbed tendrils to loosen their grip on his heart and fade away.
Sebastian rolls over on his side and opens his eyes. If he can't help, at least he can be there so Kurt doesn't have to suffer alone.
Kurt's body starts to relax. He breathes in deep, giving in to reality.
It's just the two of them.
Kurt and Sebastian.
Together, but alone.
The baby they had pinned all their hopes and dreams on…the one that was going to turn them from a couple into a family…is gone.
She was their dream, but apparently she was never meant to be.
Kurt doesn't even look at Sebastian when he reaches over the side of the bed for a ball of yarn and a size F needle, and as if he has been doing this every night of his entire life, he starts to crochet. Sebastian watches him, amazed that Kurt has done this so often he can do it in the dark. Somewhere beside Kurt's side of the bed, Sebastian knows, is a bag piled high with tiny crocheted hats.
Before they left the hospital, the day their daughter died, they passed by the nursery and saw an auxiliary volunteer putting miniature hats on preemie babies in their incubators. Kurt had stared and watched, even when Sebastian tried to pull him away. A kind nurse explained to Kurt how different organizations gather up these homemade hats and donate them to the hospital to help keep the babies warm.
This spoke to Kurt, so this was how Kurt chose to cope.
Three hundred and fifty some-odd hats later, and Kurt still hasn't stopped.
Sebastian asked him one night when enough would be enough, and a stoic Kurt simply replied, "When I can remember how to sleep through the night."