Author's Note:

Hey, remember me;)? Dearest 1gleefan, this is for you. Thanks for your endless patience and sweet words of encouragement. This truly is for you.

She said she'd love a fic with this song.

Never thought I'd write that kind of fic.

Because it was a challenge to think up a scenario with Klaine broken up. Different from all I've done. The song requires it, we thought. But it wouldn't be me, if there wasn't a dash of hope. Somewhere?;) I actually wrestled a lot with different versions and how to build this. Not sure if I'm any good at it;) Well, here goes what I think I settled on.

I imagine this set in the future, some semesters into college.

Warnings: Implicit mentions of depression. That just somehow happened while writing.

Kurt's POV.

Tears

I.

Press play.

The camera is switched on and at first all Kurt can see is a blurred view of blue.

Blaine's sweater, he realizes, as Blaine moves away and the lens focuses.

Kurt's lips press together in a tight line. So dark a shade of navy the garment's fabric is, that when Blaine steps further back, it could as well be black. Like the rest of the clothes he is clad in.

Silently Kurt watches as Blaine does not turn his face into the camera, instead walks wordlessly across the small room, to sit down at his keyboard.

He looks so young with the dimly lit, pixelated contrast of bunching colours, pale under his dark hair, loosely curled.

And for a moment Blaine sits still, frozen. Bracing himself until a reluctant jolt seems to run through him, and he fumbles, arranges the music sheets on the stand with unsure hands.

Kurt's glance falls onto a third page next to the sheet music.

Something inside him clenches, almost tears.

He can't read it for the video's quality, but he recognizes the paper, unfolded now, recognizes the density and the flow of text.

It is his letter.

Kurt's frame turns even more rigid in his chair.

That letter that was to put an end to it.

An end to his own slow numbing process of crumbling, of colours bleeding out of the picture. Of the light leaving his body as well as the room every night he switched it off, until he didn't even bother switching it on, when he returned to his dark apartment in the evenings. His apartment empty without Blaine, states away for the internship.

That letter that put an end to them, to what they thought they knew, were, and all those concepts of himself, slipping through Kurt's fingers.

The camera refocuses again, the lighting too low to give a really good picture.

But this video isn't posted for the visual aspect. Kurt knows.

Is confirmed still, when Blaine starts with a few random slow notes on his electric piano, and the audio is clear, piercingly so, to Kurt's ears.

On screen, Blaine isn't really looking at the sheets, slumped in his seat and chin dropped, studying the keys and his fingers on them instead. Hesitant, reluctant, as if trying to find the strength, the will to start the melody, trying to find the feel.

And then he does, whether ready or not. Starts. Sings. The first lines carried by a soft voice, barely audible from the speakers.

"Now, while we're here alone, and all is said and done, now I can let you know..."

Kurt sits, stares as he immediately recognizes the song. Does so because it was one of the songs he was listening to when writing his letter. Actually it was that song that gave him the strength, made up his words.

He didn't quote it literally, but those were his thoughts. That's how he wanted to make it sound. Thankful, but goodbye.

He'd cried hours to that song. To the bitter sweet feeling of sacrifice.

Blaine coughs lightly, then brings his chin forward, eyes staring at the lyrics, not moving, not seeing, Kurt assumes.

"Because of all you've shown, I've grown enough to tell you..."

Kurt can't avert his eyes. He's never mentioned the song to Blaine, and yet Blaine found it.

Connected Kurt's lines back to it, knowing, getting it.

Found it, found Kurt in it. Chose it, sings it. Is singing it back to him now, showing him he understands.

Kurt's throat goes tight with that realisation, in itself not unthought, but coming to him now strangely as if new. Just how much Blaine really knows him, gets him.

And there Blaine sits, that brokenness about him, just sits there, using one hand only for a simple accompaniment of chords, the other limp at his side. Makes the melody sound strewn wide, lost and lonely, resounding off the walls of the still room. Wonderfully so. Blaine's voice is beautiful, is raw, wary but warm.

Yet as he sings the lines, a look is on his face as if he was trying, struggling, had yet to find them inside him, tentative, when Kurt thinks he is getting them just right, thinks they are flowing right out of Blaine, in their essence.

But still Blaine seems dissatisfied, like he doesn't want them, the words, the notes, like he hopes to find them differently, hopes to understand them differently.

"I needed to be by your side, if only to hold you..."

And for a short moment, the tension that furrows Blaine's brow leaps over to his voice, rising, hardening with angry disappointment that he can't seem to be able to direct at anyone, broken, breaking further. Still ever so soft, so tender again by the end of the line.

"Forever in my heart..."

Blaine closes his eyes with a slow shake of his head, swallowing silently. Missing the next cue, dragging his entry. Perfect in its own way, Kurt thinks.

"...'ever we will be. And even when I'm gone, you'll be here in me..."

A distorted smile flashes across Blaine's face, vanishes.

He hits the keys harder in a harsh chord, then his hand slumps again, like its strength is flowing from it.

Still, once again and even more now Blaine looks as if in disagreement with his performance, self-conscious and disdainful. He sings the first words of the second verse, falters, but starts anew, chords flowing ceaselessly nonetheless.

And Kurt hears that something has shifted. Cannot put his finger on it, not sure what Blaine changed, but even in his state of numbness, Kurt hears lines he knows he's known, heard sung, has thought, but now they waver out of place, sound different. Different lyrics take a hold of him now, stand out, paling the others that he saw when writing the letter. He's heard them all, knew they were there, but mostly clung to the chorus for the things he wanted to convey.

Blaine's voice is soft, plain and hollow, still trembling with it as he takes in breath after breath. He sounds so tired now. Like Kurt feels.

"Once, I dreamed that you were gone... " Blaine swallows again, frowning. He skips a line, just sets his jaw, silent, the keyboard the only thing heard. Kurt wishes and does not that he could see his face better, turned away in half profile.

"Please awaken me."

And Kurt doesn't know how, but those lines seem to reach out to him now, grip for him, and even if Blaine does not noticably emphazise them, he just nails it, having Kurt's crouched form lean closer to the speakers.

"But night took a hold of my heart,

And left me with no one to follow..."

A strange pull tightens the muscles of Kurt's chest. He always had a fighter's heart. How could he lose it? How could it get so numb?

The laptop's light is the only one in the room, making Kurt's eyes water against the darkness from outside, inside. It's early Saturday. One morning more that Kurt couldn't sleep anymore.

Along trailing chords, Blaine now hums instead of singing the next lines. As if not willing to form the words. Draws out notes, lost, high, hoarse and perfect, lost in his thoughts, breaking the song's melody down to solitary sounds raw at the edges.

He has his voice tip to a breathy, dragging tone, gaining substance only for the last two lines:

"You always thought I'd be,

I'd be yours..."

Blaine's shoulders lift, work with the effort of singing, breathing, wording it.

"Forever..."

He chokes on the end note. Voice breaking with finality, a jolt jerks through him and he doesn't sing it out. Stops playing, abruptly, and stands up, the chair with a loud screech scratching across the floor, almost toppling over. Making Kurt jump with the coarseness of the sound.

And then Kurt can see nothing but an erratic hand reaching out. The camera's view a blur, then black, as it is turned off.

Kurt stares at the screen, mind blank like the window of the player. A hollow thumping is in his ears, his head, his throat that he hasn't heard for the longest time, that he registers, but doesn't yet entirely recognize.

Tears are falling, he senses it. But won't feel them. Doesn't know what he's feeling. If he is feeling anything at all anymore.

It's too far gone, he thinks. I am.

His teeth grind together.

Then just why are these tears running down his cheeks?

Why is his body shaking?

.

AN: Song is Forever in your Heart by Kenny Loggins, as requested. I will not leave you and them here though. This will be posted in four parts (one a day or faster) that will complete this scene.

Oh, my. Visualising Blaine singing, imagining how he would sound in a stripped down version like this, it's so vivid in my mind, it actually breaks my heart.

Let me know your thoughts and if you like it...