Kurt had always hated hospitals. There was something eerily unsettling about them that just put him on edge. And well, all the time he spent as a child in the hospital following his mother's accident was part of it, definitely. But despite that, there was the fact that no one ever went to the hospital for good reasons, not really.

People always had to be either hurt badly, terribly ill or dying to need a hospital. Even when it was a woman giving birth, being in the hospital always ended up being stressful.

And then, there was the worse part, which was the waiting.

Waiting rooms were cold and impersonal. The plain walls and rows of uncomfortable seats with people scattered around offered no real comfort during the dreaded time he had to spend there.

There were all kinds of people and families waiting there, all for different and yet similar reasons. It was the oncology ward, after all. Kurt knew every person waiting in that place had someone they loved going through cancer, and it was depressing to think about.

There was something painful that jabbed inside Kurt's heart whenever he saw some of the patients coming out and meeting their families back in the waiting room, especially the younger ones, who were 10 or 12 years old at the most, heads bald and faces pale as they came out from chemo and were ready to go home.

Lately, Kurt visited the hospital so often that he felt like he knew most of the people at the waiting room. There were some people he'd made small talk with every now and then, sharing names and why they were there. Sometimes it was good to spend the time, and sometimes he couldn't help but realize, even if selfishly, that perhaps his dad had better odds than most of the others.

Odds, that's what it all came to. They couldn't know how things were going to turn out; all they had to do was wait.

Burt had tried to make things seem so simple when he first broke the news to him, but Kurt knew nothing was ever simple where cancer was concerned.

"We caught it early. Local stage, no spreading, cure rate is nearly 100%"

Kurt smiled bitterly to himself as he remembered his father's words that day. He sounded so optimistic and relaxed about it all and Kurt wanted to believe him, he wished he could. But the truth remained; his dad had cancer and needed treatment and surgery.

Kurt knew he was supposed to be the strong one, and he tried his best to put a tough front. Demanding his dad look for another oncologist to get a second opinion on his condition, which Burt eventually did. The prognosis was pretty much the same, and Kurt knew he needed to get more involved and be there for his dad and support him. He had to be strong and optimistic even though inside sometimes he felt like he couldn't be.

Not when his dad was pretty much all he had left and his life was in danger. Because when it came down to it, cancer was in fact a life threatening illness.

Adenocarcinoma. Just pronouncing it made Kurt's skin prickle with unease.

They had to wait six weeks after the diagnosis to be able to start him on radiotherapy. The purpose of it was to try and reduce the size of the tumor before the surgery. It was standard procedure but Kurt wished they didn't have to wait at all, just the thought of the tumor growing inside his dad made him sick with worry.

Kurt made all necessary arrangements to move out of New York, taking a leave of absence from work and grateful he was able to arrange things so he could start in NYADA until the next winter semester. He didn't care about losing 1 year, not anymore.

So he moved back to Lima to be with his dad, and every two days, week after week, Kurt had been driving him one and a half hours down to the Cleveland Clinic, one of the top ranked hospitals for cancer treatment in the country.

Every session took nearly an hour, and Kurt would always seat in the waiting room patiently for his dad to come out. The first few times he came out of it as if nothing happened, and so Burt would tell him that he was worrying for nothing, that he was fine and could handle this by himself, that Kurt should return to New York, but Kurt was stubborn and wasn't going anywhere. He wanted to be there for his dad, he knew he would need him, and after the 3rd radiotherapy session, Kurt knew he made the right choice.

The radiation started to hurt him, and made his skin irritable, making it painful to sit down. Driving all the way back to Lima was out of the question, and Carole couldn't drive him every day when she had to work. So no matter how awful the waiting was, Kurt knew there was no other place he'd rather be.

Even though he was so young back when it happened, Kurt still remembered how helpless he felt right after his mother's accident. They'd been waiting outside for days, hoping for his mother to wake up from the coma, but she never did, and Kurt never had the chance to say goodbye.

Even though he knew his father's situation was different, Kurt couldn't help but have that small fear in the back of his mind, of something bad happening to his dad while he was far away and unable to be there for him.

He looked at his phone to check the time; realizing only forty minutes had passed. His phone was almost dead because he'd spent too long fooling around with it to distract himself. The old magazines lying in piles in the small corner table were completely unappealing and there was no one he recognized around him to make small talk with.

He looked across the room and noticed a man sitting by himself on the last row of chairs. Kurt realized he had never seen him before. The man seemed to be in his early fifties, he was tall and well dressed in a business suit, reading something in his iPad. Thick-framed glasses covered his eyes but Kurt could clearly see the stern look on his face. Kurt didn't mean to stare, but there was something about him that he just couldn't quite put his finger on. His face looked familiar, but Kurt was certain he had never seen him before, at least not at the hospital.

After a while of just looking at him Kurt figured that maybe he'd waited on him while he was working at the Lima Bean. It was far fetched, since they were so far from Lima, but still, Kurt couldn't help his curiosity. Either way, the man was sitting far from him and Kurt wasn't about to approach him like a creep, so he decided to get up and head towards the cafeteria instead. He still had at least twenty or thirty minutes left to be there, and he could use some coffee.

He walked down the hall and out of the building, the sun was shining brightly and he stood there for a while, just reveling in the feeling of the warm sunrays. It was a cold January day, and a little bit windy. Kurt shuddered as he clung to his jacket and started walking towards the cafeteria.

He sat in there for a while, hot coffee and a scone on his table while he fumbled mindlessly through his phone again, even when the battery threatened to die repeatedly. He was going over his text messages and couldn't help but feel conflicted.

Blaine had been texting him even more now that he knew Kurt was back in Lima and sure, Kurt had managed to forgive him for the cheating, but that didn't mean it was easy for him to suddenly just jump back into being best friends again. Blaine was a little over enthusiastic about the whole thing every time they talked or texted, and Kurt just was at a loss of what to do.

Lately Blaine had been texting him, asking about his dad, and well, it was nice that he worried about him, so Kurt politely texted him back with the tiny little details about how the treatment was going. They couldn't really know until they finished with the radiotherapy though, so again, all they could really do was wait.

"Remember, I'm here for you if you need anything :)"

Kurt stared at the words in the screen on his phone and sighed. If only things were that simple.

He decided to head back to the waiting room, so he got up, cup of coffee in hand, and started walking towards the oncology ward. There were a few benches right beside gates at the entrance, and something caught his attention.

There was a guy, sitting there, hunched over with his elbows propped over his knees, and he was wearing a Dalton cap. Slowly, Kurt decided to get closer and see if he could take a look at whom it was.

Slender figure, long legs, dirty blond hair sticking out from the back of the cap, it didn't take long for him to realize who it was. Kurt wondered for a moment if he could turn the other way before being noticed but right then the guy turned to the side and saw him, green eyes wide and clearly surprised to see Kurt just as much as Kurt was surprised to see him.

"Kurt?"

"Sebastian, hi." He said smiling awkwardly, taking a few steps forward. "What are you doing here?"

Sebastian frowned and seemed to be at a loss for words for half a second before responding.

"Um... I could ask the same to you." Sebastian quickly replied, his smile tight and maybe even a little nervous.

The situation was awkward enough, but Kurt couldn't really sense ill will from Sebastian. He didn't look annoyed, as the other times they'd seen each other before. If anything, Sebastian actually looked tired. And so Kurt decided to just tell him -he was already there, after all- and a little conversation couldn't hurt.

"I'm here with my dad..." Kurt started, sitting down in the other side of the bench. "He was just diagnosed with prostate cancer... and he's getting treated here."

Sebastian just nodded, lips in a tight line and a sympathetic look on his face. "I'm sorry to hear," was all he said, glancing around the parking lot before turning back to Kurt.

"What about you?" Kurt quickly asked, hoping to start a conversation of some sort, he really was curious about why Sebastian was there, right outside the oncology ward. He saw a little hint of panic in Sebastian's eyes at his question, but he quickly composed himself.

"Oh, I'm just here with my dad too but... just check ups and stuff." he said, shrugging.

Right then, they were interrupted as Kurt's phone started ringing.

"Dad?"

"Hey buddy, where are you?"

"I'm right outside the building, is everything okay?"

"Yeah, I just got out."

"Already? That's great dad... are you in the waiting room?"

"Yes."

"Okay, um... I can go get the car if you want, and I'll pick you up here by the benches."

"Alright."

Kurt hung up and put his cellphone away. Sebastian was staring at him expectantly.

"That was my dad. He's done for the day, so... I'm just-"

"Go ahead, don't worry." Sebastian said.

"Right." Kurt said, smiling awkwardly as he got up from the bench.

"It was nice seeing you, Kurt." Sebastian said, much to Kurt's surprise. "Good luck with your dad."

"Um, thanks. Same to you, bye."

As Kurt walked away and towards the parking lot, he couldn't help but feel a little weird at their exchange. Granted this was the first time he and Sebastian had seen each other in months, but it was also the first time they'd been actually civil to each other.

It was a nice surprise to a point, Kurt guessed. He'd been skeptical about Sebastian's apology to them all those months ago, but apparently he meant it. This Sebastian was different from the arrogant and scheming boy he'd grown to dislike so much. He seemed shy and even nervous around Kurt. Kurt just hoped it wasn't because he was doing anything with Blaine. Not that it mattered anyway, but still.

Kurt laughed at his own thoughts as he got into his car and started the engine. He slowly drove back to the entrance of the building, and as he got closer he noticed there was another car parking there. What Kurt witnessed right then shocked him.

The man Kurt had seen in the waiting room was there, getting out of the car and helping Sebastian get up on his feet. He carefully opened the passenger door for him as Sebastian got in, limping a little bit and holding his right hand to his chest. The expression on the man's face was no longer stern like it was back in the waiting room; it was soft and full of concern.

Kurt felt something twist in his stomach with the realization of what that meant.

Sebastian was not here because of his dad. It was actually the other way around. He'd seen that man in the waiting room. No wonder his face looked familiar; Sebastian looked just like him. He was definitely Sebastian's father.

What the hell was going on?

Author's note: Thank you so much for reading this first part! I already have a few chapters written on this story so I hope to be able update consistently once a week. Any feedback and reviews are always appreciated.

And thanks to the lovely Larinia713 for her help with this.