LINDY DID NOT sleep after Kurt left her that night. Rather than doze, she rapidly paced around her apartment, trying to settle on one emotion out of the millions that she was feeling.

If Kurt was a ghost of her past come back to haunt her, than she decided so be it. She would happily accept his haunting. 

For two years, Lindy had adamantly refused to pursue the idea of Kurt any longer than she already had during her time with him. She had spent so much time, a dreadful amount in fact, trying to climb over the mountain of his memory and emerge unscathed on the other side. She thought that she'd been doing somewhat of an okay job, but then he'd come back.

She didn't resent him for returning. She could try to put on a face and gripe that his untimely arrival back into her life was detrimental, but the real Lindy, the Lindy who had fallen for Kurt on the very day that she had met him, was deeply thrilled to have him back.

Since she could not lull her body into sleep, Lindy stopped her pacing and ended up sitting in her room, digging through the things that she had collected throughout her relationship with Kurt. Most of it was his artwork and things that he had left behind when he'd walked out of her apartment that day. Other things were more personal, like love letters that he had left her and gifts he'd bestowed. She'd even gone as far to put his K bracelet back on her wrist.

One particularly intriguing item that she found was a Polaroid image of Kurt that she had taken while he'd laid in bed. He was looking at the camera with disdain, having not wanted to be photographed, but he looked utterly exquisite. Lying there shirtless with his long hair, Lindy thought she'd never seen a more beautiful human being.

The next morning Jack called, asking politely how Lindy's Thanksgiving had gone. Even though she really had done nothing wrong, Lindy felt a dark cloud of guilt hanging over her head as she told Jack 'I love you' before hanging up the phone.

She supposed that she could have done the proper thing and alerted him that her ex-boyfriend had stopped by; but then again, it wasn't the kind of thing that someone in a couple would want to hear. Jack might become angry.

Lindy decided that she would tell no one about Kurt's visit. If and when he came back to her apartment, and if these visits became more frequent, she would consider letting the people she was closest to know. But for now, it would be a secret that she would harbor all to herself.

She wasn't ready for anyone's judgement. She wanted to be able to enjoy Kurt without that nasty guilt piling up on her, preventing her from savoring the incalculable amount of time that she'd have with him.

While at work, Lindy went about her day normally and did her best to act like her usual self, especially in front of Beth. She must have done a good job, for Beth did not pelt her with an assault of questions about her behavior.

She saw Jack too, and was internally thanking the heavens above that they were both in their workplace. If he had reached out to touch her, to stroke her face or lean in to kiss her mouth, she worried that she would flinch away. She agonized over the thought that the next time Jack may have attempted to make physical contact with her, she'd imagine Kurt's face.

When Lindy left work and finally arrived home, she was welcomed by a less than expected guest.

Kurt was sitting at her doorstep, his back pressed into the front door and his elbows on his knees. He was smoking a cigarette and wearing fingerless gloves. He looked so deep in thought, staring out at the main road that Lindy almost didn't want to disturb him. But her tiny squeak of surprise caught his attention.

"Hey," he said remorsefully. He stubbed his cigarette out on the ground and rose to his feet. "I didn't know when you'd be home. I just wanted to see you."

"How long have you been sitting out here?" Lindy asked incredulously.

"Two hours," Kurt replied, as if two hours was only two minutes in his version of time.

"Two hours?" Lindy repeated in disbelief.

Kurt shrugged. "I wasn't going to leave. What if you showed up and I wasn't here?"

A little flush of happiness lit up Lindy's face as he said this, but she tried not to react, only shuffling closer towards her door and fumbling with her keys. Her face felt hot as Kurt helped her by taking one of her bags.

"How'd you find the time to come back, anyways?" Lindy said, making her way inside as she nudged the door open with her knee. Kurt followed as if he had been to her place a million times before.

"We started recording early this morning and we have most of our stuff done already anyways. All that's left really is an album name. Courtney was busy writing some of her own songs, and I still get barely any time with Frances because of that stupid fucking custody battle bullshit, so I thought why not come see you?"

Lindy carefully elected not to further discuss Frances or Courtney. Instead, she pinpointed his mention of Nirvana's upcoming album.

"Do you have any ideas for the name?"

"Yeah. I Hate Myself And I Want To Die."

Lindy dropped her things and then slowly turned to give Kurt a hard, calculating stare. She resisted the urge to immediately chew the inner corner of her lip with anxiety.

"It's not literal," Kurt said, rolling his eyes as if it were plainly obvious. Something in his face told Lindy otherwise.

"How am I supposed to know with you?" Lindy sighed. Kurt's eyes, once alight with leisurely calm, narrowed into a glare.

"Don't believe everything that you read, Lindy."

Lindy folded her arms, sensing a challenge from him brimming on the horizon. She knew Kurt far too well -- his defensive reaction to what she had said gave him away entirely. The words of various magazine articles, all of them naming Kurt as a junkie behind closed doors, floated back into her head. She had done her best to doubt them, but Kurt was predictable in many ways.

"What part should I not believe, exactly?"

Before Kurt could open his mouth to answer, Lindy did exactly the kind of thing that earned her the reputation of being gutsy and fearless, never taking no for a final answer. She strode forward and grabbed Kurt's arm, pushing back his sleeves. She tried not to gasp aloud when she saw purplish blue bruises blooming near his inner elbow.

"Damn it, Lindy," Kurt cursed, yanking his arm back and rushing to pull his sleeve into place. Lindy swallowed, standing quite still as she processed the truth that she had been dying to know. Now, she regretted having discovered it. 

"I thought you hated needles," she said hollowly.

"I just tried it a few times, okay?" Kurt argued. "I'm not fucking addicted or anything. People take one little thing and blow it out of proportion. Yeah, I did it. But I'm done. I've got a fucking daughter for Christ's sake."

Kurt was a good actor. Krist had said it himself. Lindy tended to think so too. She had always known him to put up an easy front when he wished to slip past accusations with lies. Lindy really did want to take his word for what he said, but her instincts were assuring her that Kurt was only trying to move away from the subject. He would have been totally mortified to be labeled as an addict. Lindy knew in her heart he didn't want to be one; she just feared that he no longer had a say in the matter.

"Let me make us something to eat," she said, attempting to return the mood back to one of peacefulness. She would just have to talk to Kurt about it at a later date, if they ever got that far.

"Don't bother. How about we just go get something?"

Lindy cringed. "Um . . . do you really think it's a good idea for us to be seen in public together?"

Kurt looked down as if he'd been shamefully scolded. "Oh. Right. I forgot."

"I wish we could, though," Lindy said quickly. "We could have gotten Taco Bell. I haven't forgotten that that's your favorite."

"Yeah," Kurt said, laughing easily. "I could probably live off of their burritos if they didn't fuck my stomach up so badly."

Lindy smiled, enjoying the sight of him laughing. When he stopped, his eyes locked on her wrist, and in one fluid motion her hand was in his and he was far closer to her than he had initially been.

"You're wearing it," he said softly. His finger held the K charm precariously, as if one wrong move would cause it to snap.

"I had taken it off for awhile," Lindy confessed much to Kurt's dismay, as he eyed her disappointedly. She hurried on with her explanation. "But I put it back on last night. After you left. It just felt right to be wearing it again."

Kurt dropped her hand, but he made no movement to maximize the distance between them both. Rather, he took another half-step forward, now closer to Lindy than she assumed his wife would have been comfortable with.

"Now you've got to make another promise not to take it off again."

He was so close that Lindy could feel the heat of his breath. Her heart nearly stopped when he raised his hands to touch a piece of her hair, gliding his finger down the tendril in a manner that Lindy would have called loving. She wondered if he sensed that she wasn't breathing.

"Okay," she said. It was all she could manage to get out. She felt faint having him that close to her face. He was close enough to kiss her . . .

Kurt treaded backwards, making a face that clearly indicated that he was aware of the inappropriate fault that he'd nearly committed. He looked away, seeming to grimace at whatever private that thought he was thinking.

"You know," Lindy began lightly, feeling her heart slow back down. "If I'm going to wear this all the time, then I think you need to take back one of your presents too."

"I have everything that you ever gave me, trust me," Kurt asserted.

"Not Trae's guitar," Lindy said pointedly. The day that Kurt had left, the guitar had been abandoned in her room, its rightful owner having left it stranded.

"I could never take that away from you," Kurt mumbled.

"Well, take it now. Play it for a show, sometime. Trae would get a kick out of his junky guitar getting some time in the spotlight."

"I'd love to, but uh . . . Courtney would probably wonder about it . . ."

Lindy nodded, shutting the discussion down as she remembered Kurt's wife who was awaiting his arrival back at whatever hotel they were shut up in. She had to remind herself that things were far different than they used to be.

"Maybe I can meet Courtney sometime," Lindy said indifferently, wondering if this suggestion would appease Kurt into thinking that she was not trying to wreck his relationship -- his relationship that had produced his first-born child.

But Kurt seemed to dislike the idea. His pursed his lips and made a small noise of disagreement.

"I think we should keep this between you and me, if that's okay," he discerned.

Lindy felt short of breath as soon as he said it, but at the same time, she felt strangely excited. There was something hopeful about his words, like these visits were not only made of the friendly gestures she'd originally assumed of. There was something else there. Whatever had disbanded itself back in nineteen-ninety still had just a touch of life left in it.

"Okay," she said simply.

There was no other answer she could have given that would have summarized the joy that she felt right then.