Snow had fallen overnight, making the landscape it covered look clean and unblemished. A blank slate. Beneath that layer of crystal beauty, the ground could be scarred or scorched by fire. It could be cracked and dry, or barren. Either way, coated in a new blanket of pristine snow, it glittered.

It looks flawless.

Kurt wishes it would work that way for him, that he could lay out in the gathering drift overnight and wake up reborn. He would rise from the snow replenished – his body and his heart changed, healed.

New.

Only once does Kurt consider changing his mind, but that doesn't last too long, trounced underfoot by his ridiculous romantic notions. He has come on this trip to experience everything he had put off for the future, everything that he'd promised himself he would do tomorrow, next week, a year from now. He's going to let himself take this chance at having his heart stolen … and broken, if that's the way this is meant to end.

Though he can't imagine his heart breaking more than it already is. That's his problem.

Kurt wanders down to Blaine's room in basically his pajamas, only he's exchanged his flannel sleep pants for a slightly warmer pair of knit lounge pants, and thrown a cream-colored cable knit sweater over the black Henley he wore to bed. It might not be his designer label suit from a few hours ago, but he doesn't think Blaine will mind, seeing as it's barely going on seven in the morning and it's about 21 degrees outside. Kurt's not sure how they're going to eat on Blaine's private patio in this weather, provided Blaine hasn't forgotten. What if Blaine doesn't remember that he invited him? He gave Kurt his room number, but they didn't exchange phone numbers, and the phones in the rooms only call the front desk. No phones, no television, no Wifi. The hotel's shtick includes the total disconnect from civilization that the wealthy dish out thousands a night for.

What if Blaine extended the invitation never expecting Kurt to show up? He seemed so sincere, but could that have been an act? What if this is a trick and Blaine was never a guest of this hotel in the first place? After all, they did sort of meet under false pretenses. What if he sent Kurt to the room of that man and his wife and daughter from the dining room, and is now miles away laughing over his sick joke?

Kurt's doubts slow his steps as he approaches the door to 23, but a foot away from stopping and going back to his own room, the door opens. A much different looking Blaine Anderson peeks out, sees Kurt stopped in the hallway, and smiles. He beckons Kurt over with a wave of his hand, running the other through carefully tamed bedhead. Kurt is happy to see Blaine wearing a similar outfit to his own. In fact, with his own loose black knit pants and navy blue hoodie, the two of them could have ordered from the same catalogue.

"Oh, good. You're here!" Blaine jogs out into the hallway barefoot and shivering, continuing to grin despite his teeth chattering. He takes Kurt's hand and pulls him inside. "For a second, I was afraid you weren't going to show."

"My bad. I neglected to get your cell number." Kurt follows Blaine into his room – his huge room - decorated the same as Kurt's, using the same pomegranate and pale gold color palette, the same antique dark oak furniture, and the same mandatory provincial design elements, but nearly five times the size.

"I know." Blaine chuckles, running his hand through his hair again, and Kurt bites the inside of his cheek, realizing he's nervous. This flirty, gorgeous, obviously wealthy man is nervous over a breakfast date with him. "I don't know what I was thinking." The chuckles and giddy comments coalesce into an expectant silence, and Blaine and Kurt are left staring at one another, waiting for the easy conversation from dinner to continue. But the playing field has changed. They're in Blaine's suite, not the dining room, and they're alone, with a tension building between them that could shatter glass.

Kurt thinks that if this were some kind of B-rate rom-com, they'd be rushing in for a kiss right about now.

"Oh! I ordered breakfast!" Blaine throws his arms wide in the direction of food. True to his word, Blaine ordered every item on the breakfast menu. He had it covered to keep it warm, waiting for Kurt to arrive. When Kurt takes his eyes off Blaine, he sees it immediately. He's surprised that he missed it. Blaine had to have an extra table brought up from the dining room to hold all the plates. He must have placed the order the minute he returned to his room last night. Kurt can't see any other way Blaine could have had this ready this early in the morning otherwise.

It touches Kurt more than he's willing to acknowledge out loud that Blaine would have this amount of faith that he would actually show.

"Well, let's not wait around!" Blaine says with an emphatic clap. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving!" His eyes drift to the patio outside, shuddering at the sight of snow piled against the door. "We can … uh … still sit out on the patio. There are some heaters out there. But unless we straddle them, it might be a wee bit cold."

"Only a wee bit," Kurt jokes, winding his arms around his torso, chilly even though the heat in Blaine's room is going at full blast.

"I can pull a table and some chairs up against the glass doors if you prefer. You'll still get the great view."

"I think that sounds perfect," Kurt says. "To be honest, I'm not sure I have the thigh muscles to straddle a heater for a prolonged period of time."

Blaine's smile widens, but Kurt can tell by the way his eyelids twitch that he's fighting the urge to look down at Kurt's legs and check for himself.

Blaine turns his head before he loses the fight. "I'll set up the table and we can get started on breakfast. The smell of turkey sausage has been driving me out of my mind!"

"You could have started without me," Kurt says, feeling guilty for taking so long, for almost giving in to his insecurities and backing out.

"Never." Blaine grunts with the strain of pulling a heavy wood table from the dining area to the glass double doors of the patio. "The point was to have breakfast with you. I was willing to wait." Blaine winks at Kurt as he passes, struggling comically to drag the table across the floor since the thing seems dead-set on staying where it is.

Kurt watches Blaine and his heart swells, racing in his chest alarmingly fast, but Kurt likes it. He hasn't been this excited over the prospect of doing anything since he checked in to this hotel, and this is only breakfast. Blaine takes Kurt by the elbow and leads him to the table, pulling up a chair for him to sit, and Kurt's heart pounds faster.

"There you are." Blaine gestures to the vista outside the glass. "Probably the best seat in the house."

The view off the patio is glorious, everything Blaine promised it would be – a glimpse of the snow-capped mountains unparalleled by any Kurt has seen so far. But Kurt looks at it for only a second before he turns his attention back to the man getting ready to serve him breakfast.

Kurt really should object to being waited on by this man. He should get up out of his chair and help. But when Blaine turns his back to Kurt and bends over the table to reach the plates, Kurt can't see a single reason why he would want to move.

He does, however, see one incredible reason why he should consider this chair his new home and stay here for the remainder of his vacation.

Does this hotel have a gym? Kurt wonders as he stares gratuitously at Blaine's lower back where his sweater has lifted revealing smooth, tan skin, and defined muscles. He'd never bothered to check.

Blaine seems remarkably excited about eating breakfast with Kurt, which Kurt doesn't entirely understand, but now that Kurt is here, now that the moment has arrived – a moment that he laid in bed all morning thinking about, barely closing his eyes for longer than twenty minutes at a stretch – he doesn't think he can eat a bite. Which would suck since Blaine went to all this trouble. Kurt doesn't want to offend him. Blaine starts uncovering platters, setting delicious smells free to circulate around the room, and Kurt's stomach growls loudly.

Well, that answers that, Kurt thinks, subconsciously wrapping an arm around his waist in the hopes of muffling the sound.

Without even asking what he would like, Blaine piles two plates high with food and sets them in front of Kurt. He also takes a wild guess as to how Kurt takes his coffee, not quite getting it right, but Kurt doesn't mind. This is the definition of a picture perfect morning – the serene mountain outside their window, flakes of snow lightly falling, whispers of a spiraling wind brushing against the patio doors, a handsome man serving him breakfast, and a feeling of complete freedom, no worries or expectations … and Kurt can't keep his eyes open.

"Easy there, sweetheart." Blaine stands from his chair and grabs Kurt's shoulders as his head nods for the tenth time. "Or you're going to have your face in the crepes again."

"I'm sorry." Kurt laughs, taking a sip of the exceptionally strong Italian roast in his mug. "You must think I'm horrible company."

"Not at all." Blaine rearranges his chair and his plate to sit closer to Kurt, preparing to rescue him from face-planting in his waffles if the need arises. "But are you sure you're okay? You look seriously exhausted." Blaine tilts his head and gazes at Kurt with a hundred questions in his golden eyes.

"No worse than you," Kurt comments, stifling a yawn. He tucks into a waffle smothered in crème fraiche and fruit, praying the jolt of sugar will help keep him awake.

"Yeah, but I didn't almost pass out in my entrée." Blaine frowns as he watches Kurt fumble his knife and fork. "Do you … would you rather do this another time?"

"No!" Kurt shoots a hand over his mouth to minimize the gross-factor of talking with his mouth full. He swallows his bite prematurely with an audible gulp, and Blaine snickers. "No," he repeats. "Actually, there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

"Good," Blaine says, satisfied. "Glad to hear it. But … I have this feeling that there's more than exhaustion going on with you."

"Wh-why do you say that?" Kurt concentrates hard on cutting another piece off his food, hoping that whatever feeling Blaine has goes away.

"It kind of started last night." Blaine's jaw tightens, like he'd rather not be admitting to this. "Call it paranoia." Kurt's smile dims, his eyes dropping from his plate to the napkin in his lap. He puts down his knife and fork, his appetite gone. How come he's always so frickin' see-through? Like cellophane? Why can't the things he wants to hide disappear because he says so? Blaine reaches out and puts a hand on Kurt's knee tentatively, then rests his palm against it when Kurt doesn't withdraw from his touch. Blaine's hand on Kurt's knee is warm – so warm. It penetrates the cold that's come over him since he first heard his prognosis. "I know we only met about twelve hours ago, but I hope that you might feel comfortable confiding in me. You know, some things are easier to tell a stranger."

Kurt sighs, already beat down by the conversation that's about to follow. He had hoped to put this off for a day – one stinking day. He'd been living with his condition for a while before it became serious, beyond anything that his doctors could have predicted, but for most of his life he was labeled the sick kid – never offered the chance to try, never given the opportunity to turn something down before he was completely counted out. He always planned on overcoming that, to exact his revenge by becoming a proficient at practically everything. Since there's obviously no hope of that happening, for once he just wanted to forget about it and be normal, but that wasn't going to happen, because he isn't normal. And denying it, hiding it away as a way to negate it, wouldn't be fair to Blaine.

"I don't want to lie to you," Kurt says. "You've been so nice and sweet, and I don't know if you intended this to be a fly-by-night sort of thing for you or … but that doesn't matter. I need to be honest." Kurt stops. He takes a breath. He hangs on to his last moment of false normalcy for as long as he can. "I'm …"

"Pregnant?" Blaine leaps in to finish.

Kurt rolls his eyes, laughing even though the joke isn't that funny. But it waylaid his momentum, and he's too tired to stop giggling. "No."

"Married?"

"No."

"Secretly engaged?"

"No."

"Running from the law?"

"No."

Blaine looks at Kurt, eyelids narrowing.

"Canadian?"

"No!"

Blaine shrugs, smiling that self-assured, cocky smile that's a part of his mischievous charm. It makes Kurt weak. Too weak to keep quiet any longer.

"Then I can't think of anything …"

"I'm dying."

Blaine laughs once, a carryover from before, but when Kurt doesn't join in, he stops.

"Wait … you're … you're serious?" Blaine scoots forward in his chair, folding his hands in his lap like he's praying it isn't true. "You're dying?"

Kurt looks at Blaine's folded hands. It's such a simple thing, a small gesture, but coupled with everything else Blaine has done this morning, it means so much.

"Yes," Kurt says seriously. "I am."

Blaine stares at Kurt, repeating, "Uh … um … uh …" caught with a question stuck in his mouth.

"I know what you want to ask" - Kurt folds the napkin in his lap - "and don't worry. It's not contagious. It's my heart. It's a really long, unpleasant story, and please forgive me if I don't want to depress you with the details right now, but it ends with there's really nothing that anyone can do."

Blaine shakes his head. "That's not what I was …" Blaine can't seem to finish the sentence, something more important pressing on his mind. "H-how long?"

"Not long enough."

Blaine's head shake turns into a nod until he looks confused as to whether he's agreeing with Kurt or not, and what about, Kurt doesn't know. "Y-you know what?" Blaine stands abruptly from his seat. "I think … I think that maybe I'm a bit exhausted." He chuckles. It sounds hollow and sad. Kurt understands. "I think … I think I really need to take a nap, so …"

"I … I get it." Kurt stands along with him, crumpling up his napkin and dropping it on the table. Thank goodness Blaine's curiosity forced him to be upfront about this. How awkward would it have been a week from now, or a few months from now, if this had gone that far? If Kurt had made it that far? "I'm sorry. I … I'll just go …"

"What?" Blaine heads Kurt off before he starts for the door. "Wait? Where are you going?"

Kurt frowns at Blaine's confusion. "I'm going back to my room. You don't have to explain."

"Apparently, I do." Blaine reaches for Kurt's hand. "I'm exhausted, you're exhausted, and I think we could both use a nap, so …"

"I know. That's why I'm leaving."

"But I don't want you to go."

Kurt's face takes over Blaine's look of confusion. "But … but I just told you …"

"That you're dying, I know, I heard," Blaine says with a heavy sigh.

"Right," Kurt agrees, his confusion growing as Blaine pulls him toward the next room – the bedroom.

"And that's a little bit much for me to process with my head spinning like a top," Blaine continues, climbing onto the bed and tugging Kurt down toward him, "so I thought we should take a nap and talk about it more when we wake up."

Kurt surprises himself by following, by not doing the intelligent thing and stopping before it's too late. Though, if he was smart, he would have told Blaine to leave at dinner, so apparently he's not as bright as he gives himself credit for.

"Are you … but I … I don't understand." For all his arguing, Kurt doesn't stop following Blaine as he pulls the comforter down and climbs underneath. "Does this mean … do you still want to see me?"

Blaine chuckles again, the same tired, hollow sound as before, as he wraps the comforter around Kurt's body and pulls him close.

"Why wouldn't I want to see you?" Blaine yawns as his head hits the pillow.

"Did you miss the part where there's no treatment for what I have? No cure?" Kurt asks, a little worn and a lot bitter. But what was he doing? He usually tries to let people know that he's not a threat, that they can be his friend, that he won't up and die on them mid-sentence (not that that's a promise he can keep). He's always trying to reassure people who keep their distance from him. Now here comes a man who wants to be with him, and he's turning him away?

"Yeah. It was subtle, but I caught that." Blaine curls toward Kurt's body. "Did you miss the part where I have you wrapped up in my arms and I'm trying to take a nap?"

Kurt sighs, not sure if he's frustrated or flattered by Blaine's apparent temporary lack of concern. "Blaine …"

"Kurt, I promise we'll talk about this first thing when we wake up. But for right now, please …"

Kurt turns in Blaine's arms to face him, intent on arguing the matter further, but Blaine's eyes are closed, and he's already breathing softly. Kurt stares in disbelief. But what can he do? He's exactly in the position he had hoped to someday be in – lying in bed beside a handsome man who seems willing to stay with him despite the time he doesn't have left.

And he did say he wanted to experience everything, including having his heart stolen and/or broken.

It was already broken. Now it's definitely stolen.

"Alright," he whispers, awestruck by the crazy direction this took and how quickly it got there. "When we wake up, Blaine. First thing."

Kurt turns back around and settles in against him, closes his eyes, and the world instantly goes dark.