AN/ I saw a post on Tumblr talking about why Blaine was late to the Teenage Dream performance and I wondered how Kurt would react to finding out that Blaine had had "issues" in the past.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR PAST SUICIDAL MENTAL STATE. NO ACTUAL DESCRIPTIONS OF THE ACT ARE GIVEN.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the idea for the plot, this is just my take on the aftermath. Title taken from "Light" from Next to Normal.

Today is the day the clock runs out on Blaine's time at Dalton. He has spent the last two years here; it has been his safe haven, protecting him from the ugly, hurtful world beyond its gates. He leaves behind his friends – friends who built him up when he was at his worst, to move on to a new test. He is returning to public school to be with his boyfriend. He smiles even as he thinks the words.

His boyfriend.

Blaine looks up from where he is currently cleaning out the drawers in his desk to watch his boyfriend, Kurt, who is emptying out his dresser, neatly folding all of his clothes and packing them into his large suitcases. Kurt looks up as he folds Blaine's red skinny jeans and they share a smile before turning back to the challenge of packing up Blaine's school life into boxes.

He should feel sad, or at least mildly guilty for abandoning his friends, but instead he feels ready; like it's time to finally move on. He's been through a lot in the last few years but he finally feels like he's moving past it, making real progress towards the future (a future he plans to share with Kurt). He looks up from his desk at the clock on the wall. It's nearly 2pm. His stomach gives a loud rumble and he decides it's time for lunch.

"Hungry?" Kurt asks him, grinning when he hears Blaine's stomach growling.

"I was just going to go make some lunch, do you want anything?" He asks, pulling on his Dalton hoodie.

"Uh, no thanks. Just some water, please." Kurt says, leaning over the suitcases on the bed to press a brief kiss to Blaine's lips. Kurt turns back to Blaine's perfectly organised closet as Blaine pulls the door closed behind him. Blaine's organisational skills are making this job infinitely easier, Kurt thinks as he closes another empty drawer and opens up the one next to it. Kurt chuckles to himself when he sees it's full of socks.

Blaine is walking swiftly back up to his room from the student kitchen, performing an impressive balancing act with two plates, two packets of chips, two drinks and a box of mini muffins. He is glad he didn't shut the door properly because it means he can nudge it open with his shoulder without having to set any of their food down.

"Now I know you said you weren't hungry but just in case-" The rest of his sentence dies in his throat and he stops moving completely as he takes in the sight of Kurt sat on his bed between two suitcases, an old, faded Nike shoebox open on his lap. One hand is covering his mouth and Blaine feels like a deer caught in the headlights as he shoves the door closed with his hip and sets their lunch down on the desk. He's suddenly not at all hungry. Instead he feels a sick, swirling sense of panic that makes him feel like his whole world just tipped on its axis without warning. Kurt looks up at him as he sinks into the chair behind his desk. He can't quite seem to catch his breath.

"Blaine…" Kurt wants to ask him so many different questions that he really isn't sure he wants the answers to. Blaine does not respond. He meets Kurt's worried gaze and continues to watch him as Kurt looks back down at the box that Blaine hasn't had cause to think about for nearly an entire year.

He lifts up a smooth white envelope with trembling hands. It has "Mom & Dad" written on it in Blaine's smooth cursive hand writing. The envelope underneath it is for "Cooper" and the one beneath that is for "The Warblers". Laying in the bottom of the box there is an elegant, black notebook with the words MY JOURNAL embossed in the cover. Next to it lays an expensive looking pen, a small bottle of Vodka and a little, orange bottle of pills. Kurt is almost afraid to touch them, like they might burn him if he does, but he picks up the bottle anyway. The slightly faded label tells him that he is holding a two year old bottle of Vicodin.

"How on Earth did you get your hands on these?" Kurt asks, shocked. It's not the question he wants to ask, but it's a start.

"The doctor gave them to me when I got out of the hospital after what happened at the Sadie Hawkins dance because nothing else was strong enough to make the pain stop." Blaine says. His voice is hollow, expressionless. He wants to run. He wants to hide, but he can't.

When Blaine finally meets Kurt's eyes he sees that they are filled with tears.

"Blaine please tell me that you aren't… that this isn't…" Kurt doesn't know how to ask, doesn't know what to say because how did he miss this? He feels a huge surge of guilt as he realises that this whole time he's been so preoccupied with where he was going to go to college, and Blaine, his boyfriend, the fucking love of his life, has been fucking suicidal.

Blaine jumps out of his chair and crosses the room in two short strides, dropping to his knees in front of Kurt. He can practically see the guilt rolling off of his boyfriend in waves. He shoves the letters and the bottle of pills back into the box and sets it down next to him on the floor. He takes Kurt's hands and looks up at Kurt, whose eyes are squeezed shut.

"Kurt. Baby, look at me." He says. Kurt does, hesitantly. "Kurt… this was me. This box was like… my emergency exit strategy in case things got bad again. My parents didn't—don't really give a shit about me, my brother was gone, off being the golden boy at Harvard, and my friends… they had no idea because I hid it so well." He says. He can see that Kurt doesn't quite believe him. He lets go of Kurt's hands and instead cradles his face.

"Baby, I'm not suicidal anymore. I have way too much to live for now." Blaine says as Kurt slides gently off the bed, pulling Blaine as close to him as possible and wrapping both arms around his back. They cling to each other, trying not to think too deeply about what might have been. The shoebox stares mockingly at them from its place on the floor.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Kurt asks, the words coming out muffled because Kurt's face is pressed into Blaine's neck. He tries to keep the fear and hurt out of his voice. He fails, but neither of them comment on it.

"At first I was too scared to tell you, I thought you might stop wanting to be my friend. Then, after a while… it became irrelevant." Blaine said, shrugging in an attempt to look casual.

Kurt leans back, his eyes wide.

"Blaine this isn't irrelevant!" He says. He thought about this once; ending it all. It was a fleeting thought that he banished the instant it came, because he couldn't do that to his father. He'd never gone as far as to… prepare.

"It is irrelevant, Kurt. Because of you." Blaine insists earnestly.

Blaine leans forward so that their foreheads are pressed together.

"The letters, the journal, the pills; I used to keep them in my bedside cabinet, just in case," He says, fighting for a way to make Kurt understand, "Then I met you and I didn't think about it so much, then you sang Blackbird and I fell in love with you and it wasn't even an option anymore."

Then he remembers why the journal is in that box too. He leans back from Kurt and fishes it out of the box. He hands it to Kurt, who stares at it like he's just been handed a live rattlesnake.

He doesn't look disgusted or horrified like Blaine had feared he might, instead he just looks scared – and guilty.

"Open it to the last page." He instructs, nodding reassuringly when Kurt seems hesitant.

Kurt opens the journal to the very back. The last page is dated 'November 9, 2010'. Underneath the date is written; '

I almost ended it all today. I decided to do one last performance with the Warblers and I was late. I met a boy on my way to the senior commons. His name is Kurt. I'd never seen him around Dalton before and he is the most beautiful boy I've ever seen – so beautiful in fact that for a minute I really wondered if he was some kind of hallucination. He isn't. I feel like a need to stick around for at least a little while longer. I want to get to know him.'

Kurt blinks and a tear splashes onto the page. The inside back cover is dated as well.

'March 15th 2011. I'm putting the box away for good today. I was right. Today I kissed him and asked him to be my boyfriend. He said yes. Call me crazy, but I have a feeling I'm going to marry him someday."

Kurt drops the journal to the floor and throws both arms around Blaine's neck. He kisses him feverishly, desperately, clutching him closer and closer as if he might disappear from beneath his hands at any moment. Blaine feels Kurt whisper 'I love you' against his lips and he pulls away to bury his face in Kurt's neck.

"I love you too." He says, before kissing Kurt again because he is feeling so much that he doesn't know what to do. It's almost too much, the intensity of the love that he feels for Kurt and he doesn't know how to contain it.

Four years later they stand in front of their friends and family and swap rings and 'I do's, just like they always said they would, because that's the thing about the two of them - they'll always end up together because they were built for each other, and they've been saving each other every day in ways they didn't even know they needed saving since that first day on the staircase. They hear the officiator say, "You may now kiss your husband!", and then they hear their wedding guests laugh because Blaine doesn't even wait for him to get even halfway through his sentence before he pulls Kurt as close as possible and kisses him. His Kurt. His husband.

"I told you I'd marry you one day." Blaine grins when he pulls back. They can hear their guests applauding them but the noise sounds distant. They are surrounded by people but the moment feels private; they are alone.

"I love it when you're right." Kurt laughs, leaning down to kiss Blaine again.

They turn slowly to face their guests; their friends, families and loved ones.

The officiator says, "I present to you, Mr. and Mr. Hummel!"

Blaine was the one who decided he wanted to take Kurt's name. Kurt had initially suggested 'Hummel-Anderson' but Blaine had been insistent. He didn't want their future children having anything to do with the pain that came with being forced to shoulder his father's obsession with 'the Anderson name and legacy'. Besides, the Hummel's were more of a family to him than his own parents ever had been.

They look over to where Burt is hugging Cooper and Carole is embracing Cooper's wife, Megan. Their old Glee clubs are embracing, laughing, clapping too; Finn, Rachel, Nick, Jeff, Santana, Brittany, Wes, David, Mike, Tina, Trent, Quinn, Artie; everyone they love is here and Blaine puts his arm around Kurt's waist under his jacket and pulls him close because they did it. They beat the odds and got the fairytale ending they wanted (even though he knows that really this is just the beginning). Happy ever after, he thinks, you married your prince in New York City.