Disclaimer: still not mine.

A/N: This is the last chapter (barring a possible epilogue xD)

Kurt steps out of the elevator on the sixth floor, adjusting his grip on his coffee cup, and heads down the path to Blaine's room, his feet moving unconsciously after the last four days of visits. He knocks on the open door, peeking his head around before entering the room proper.

"Hey!" Blaine's sitting up in bed, his leg propped on a small stack of pillows, his smile reaching his eyes. He holds his arms out to Kurt, folds him in a hug, kissing his cheek. Kurt drops his shoulder bag next to his customary chair, drops down until he's sitting cross-legged next to Blaine's bed.

"Where's Cooper?" Kurt takes a sip of his nonfat mocha while Blaine answers, smiles when he realizes Blaine's practically salivating at the coffee.

"He had to go back to work, they wouldn't give him another day. He'll be back in a few hours, though. You know, it's horribly unfair to be drinking that in front of me," Blaine whines, frowning when Kurt takes an exaggerated sip, holding the mocha on his tongue longer than he normally would. Blaine makes a grab for the cup, hisses when he jostles his injured leg.

"You're not supposed to be drinking caffeine," Kurt chastises, moving the cup out of Blaine's grip and shaking his head. "You should also be taking it easy." He rubs a comforting hand along Blaine's knee, working out the muscle twitch that remains after Blaine settles back.

Blaine's dressed in gym shorts and a threadbare sweatshirt, the bandages on his thigh peeking out under the edge of his shorts. They're bright white, and Kurt knows that means they've been changed recently. He runs his thumb along the edge of the bandage, notices the way Blaine tenses as he does.

"Does it still hurt much?"

Blaine shrugs, pushing Kurt's hand away from his leg. Kurt settles back in his chair, watching Blaine carefully.

"It's still pretty bad most of the day. They had me walking again today, which made it flare up. But it's not as bad as it was."

And Kurt remembers, the way Blaine cried the first night they lowered his pain medication from a steady dose to regulated , the way Blaine twisted his hands in the bedsheets, shaking and sweating when the medication wore off. He reaches for Blaine's hand, tangles their fingers together and squeezes.

"What's it-what does it feel like?" he asks, and he's not sure why. He and Blaine haven't talked about this yet, have talked about everything but Sebastian and the knife. Kurt's morbidly curious-if not for Blaine, this would be him.

Blaine lets out a heavy sigh, his head thudding back against the pillow. Kurt keeps their fingers entwined, brushes a gentle thumb along the back of Blaine's.

"You don't have to talk about it."

"Did Cooper tell you they were considering bringing in a counselor?"

Kurt makes a quiet noise of surprise, shakes his head. He and Cooper have spent most of their time together at Blaine's bed, their conversations limited to greetings when they pass in the hallway.

"The resident on call last night decided I haven't been 'dealing with what happened in a healthy way'," Blaine scoffs, adjusting his grip on Kurt's hand. He pulls on the IV line still in his arm when he moves, frowns when it tugs on his skin. He's lost most of the equipment he'd had in the ICU-his heart monitor is gone, as is the oxygen tubing, and Blaine's in his own clothes, a huge improvement from his stint in the ICU.

Kurt doesn't speak, waits for Blaine to continues. He's not sure if he entirely disagrees with the resident's assessment, because Blaine clearly hasn't been dealing with what happened, has been thinking about anything and everything except for what happened. He squeezes Blaine's hand when the silence remains, trying to encourage him.

"I mean it's just-I just haven't really thought about it," Blaine shrugs, playing his fingers along the bones of Kurt's wrist, not meeting Kurt's eyes. "What's there to really think about?"

Kurt gapes, confused. He sits forward, tips Blaine's chin up until they can look at each other.

"What's there to think about? Blaine, you were stabbed. By someone you considered a friend. You had surgery to removed a knife from your leg. You don't think that's something you should process? Deal with?"

Blaine shrugs again, but doesn't stop looking at Kurt. His voice is clear when he speaks again, confident.

"I did it for you, though. Like, I'm sure it's going to hit me sometime. Maybe when I see Sebastian again, maybe later. But right now-I'm not upset. I'm not really anything. It happened."

"I don't understand how you can be so calm about this, Blaine. You were stabbed. It's not like Sebastian threw a slushy in your face. He wanted to kill you. He almost did."

"He wanted to hurt you," Blaine whispers, his voice barely audible. His words hang in the room, make Kurt suck in a sharp breath, pause.

Blaine's not upset because he's glad it's not Kurt. The reason Blaine's able to process the surgery and the pain and the recovery is because he'd rather be hurt than have Kurt be hurt.

"That doesn't mean you have to be so stoic about this, Blaine. You're allowed to be scared. You're allowed to be upset."

"That's what they told me after Sadie Hawkins," Blaine whispers, and everything falls into place for Kurt. He lets Blaine continue, but he thinks he understands. "They told me that it was okay to feel and okay to be angry and okay to hurt. I punched a wall through in the school bathroom instead."

"This doesn't have to be like that," Kurt says quietly. "I have to deal with this, too. We all do. Tina says Mike's been zoning out all over the place, I can't focus in class-we're all trying to process this."

"I'm sorry."

"Blaine, this isn't your fault. God, none of this is your fault."

"He's my friend."

"He's not your friend, Blaine. He's never been your friend. He brought a knife to a dance battle. That's not "friend" behavior."

Blaine's quiet for a long moment, still playing his fingers along Kurt's wrist. He sighs, shrugging.

"I just don't really want to think about it. It's bad enough right now, trying to do this and do the physical therapy and get out of here. It's not that I'm doing this on purpose, it's just-it's easier not to think about it right now."

"That's fair," Kurt relents, extricating his arm from Blaine's grip. He picks his coffee back up, settling back in his chair. "Just promise me-you won't do this forever? You have to process this at some point, and just-don't punch any walls in, okay?"

Blaine laughs, and agrees, settling back into his bed as the conversation slips over to Rachel's antics planning a get-well serenade for Blaine.

"Is Kurt still planning to come by today?" Cooper asks, helping Blaine into a pair of loose sweatpants, tossing the gym shorts in the duffel on the floor. Blaine nods, working a clean shirt over his head and shrugging his arms into the sleeves, a task made significantly easier with the lack of an IV in his arm.

Cooper hands him his crutches and Blaine swings himself off the bed, hobbling to the chair by the window, sinking down. He props his foot up with Cooper's help, resting it on another chair. Cooper perches on the bed, cross-legged, watching his brother.

"He wanted to come by to help you sign me out, I guess," Blaine says, absently playing with the bandages underneath his sweats. It's been a week since the stabbing, and he's significantly better-his blood pressure is normal, his blood volume and cell counts within the normal range.

"Is Dr. Michelson coming by again?"

"He wants to check everything over, yeah. He came by last night when you were down at the cafeteria."

"And?" Cooper's watching Blaine expectantly, clearly waiting for some kind of bad news. There haven't been many setbacks in the last week-excepting a minor infection cleared up with IV antibiotics and general soreness, Blaine's exceeded everyone's standards for his recovery.

"And everything's still fine. The incision is healing, the internal stitches are dissolving like they should be. He was impressed by the way I used the crutches, so yeah."

"That's good," Cooper sighs, relief visible on his face. He's gone back to work during the days, missed most of Blaine's physical therapy and work on mobility, but Blaine's assured him that he can get around easily.

There's a knock at the door, and Cooper turns, smiling when Dr. Michelson walks into the room, flipping through Blaine's chart. The older man shuts the door behind him, walks over to Blaine in the chair.

"Everything still looks great, Blaine," he says with a smile, putting the chart down and holding out a hand to Blaine to shake. "Your last blood work came back this morning clear, and the vitals Lisa recorded are awesome. I just want to take a quick last look at your leg, and then we'll see about getting you out of here."

Blaine nods, hands already working at the drawstring of his pants. Cooper folds himself off the bed, helps Blaine work the pants down his hips carefully. Dr. Michelson unwinds the bandage from Blaine's leg, reveals the still-ugly gash across the thigh, held together by a row of stitches, still somewhat red. He nods, tossing the old bandage and pulling out a new one from the supply cart, demonstrating for Blaine how to re-wrap the wound.

"Everything's coming along nicely," he says, showing Blaine how to tie off the bandage. "Keep this dry until the sutures come out, and when you need to change the bandage, we'll send you home with some extras. Don't put any unnecessary weight on your leg-it's still tender, as you could tell, and we just want to ensure that you heal up completely before we make any risky movements. Lisa will set you up with all the discharge paperwork, but if anything changes-if you're in severe pain, there's extra bleeding, anything-give my office a call, okay?"

He slips a business card each into Blaine's and Cooper's hands.

"I hope your recovery continues to be this great," he says as he shakes Blaine's hand one last time, leaving the room.

Blaine and Cooper settle back into quiet conversation once Blaine does his sweats back up, waiting patiently for Blaine's nurse to come let them go. Kurt shows up about fifteen minutes before Blaine's discharge, a single flower in his hands.

Blaine smiles when Kurt walks in the room, takes the flower with a kiss. Cooper claps Kurt on the shoulder, pulls him into a one-armed hug.

"Thank you for being with him the past couple days," Cooper whispers, even though he knows Blaine can hear. "I would've been here, but I couldn't get them to give me another day off."

"It's not a problem," Kurt says, cheeks coloring with a faint blush. He rests a hand on Blaine's shoulder, squeezing lightly. "Besides, it's more interesting here than at school or at home."

Blaine punches him lightly on the arm, Cooper laughing. They continue to tease each other until Lisa walks into the room with a wheelchair and a stack of papers, walks Blaine and Cooper through the specifics of Blaine's aftercare and injury care. Blaine almost fights the wheelchair, but Kurt points out how tiring it would be to crutch down to Cooper's car, so Blaine relents.

Kurt helps him out of the chair into the back seat once Cooper pulls around to the front of the hospital, arranges Blaine's leg on the seat with a pillow. He presses a kiss to Blaine's temple when he slides out of the car, promises he'll meet them at the house.

Blaine's asleep when Cooper pulls up at home, and Kurt helps get Blaine from the car, carrying his crutches while Cooper pulls Blaine into his arms, carries him upstairs to bed. They settle him under the covers, propping up his leg and tucking him in, Kurt easing onto the bed next to Blaine.

Cooper shuts the light on his way out of the room with a smile.

Kurt slides down next to Blaine, tangles their fingers together.

It's not that everything's perfect. Blaine's still in pain, will need crutches for awhile, is due to miss a few more days of school. Kurt's furious with Sebastian, and knows the upcoming trial will be messy and frustrating.

But here, in Blaine's room, snuggled under the covers-everything else seems to pale in comparison.