"COME GET ME."

These were the words Kurt pleaded into the phone, once more begging Lindy to come pick him up from his house as if he were in jail rather than inside a warm, welcoming mansion. 

It was the evening time and Lindy had just arrived back home from work. She was still in her scrubs and had her hair in a sloppy bun, pieces falling about her face in a brown halo. Kurt's call had caught her off guard, as she was still under the impression that he was hiding from her.

"Why?" she asked, the word tasting unfamiliar as it reverberated around her mouth. Never before had she questioned Kurt's need to be with her. She had always given him the answer that he wanted, straightaway without hesitation. That answer was always yes with him.

"I don't want to be here. They ganged up on me. I want to get away. Please come, Lindy. Please."

Lindy recalled what Krist had told her only days earlier. There had been a plan formulated to intervene with Kurt and discuss the problem and by the sound of it, it had not gone accordingly.

"You want me to come now?" Lindy clarified, looking down at her spotless white nursing shoes.

"Now, yes. Please," Kurt begged. There was a buzz of background voices, but none sounded geared for a vicious verbal attack on Kurt. In fact, no one at all seemed to be acknowledging that Kurt was on the phone, devising an escape plan right in front of them. 

"Okay," Lindy said dully. She hung up and grabbed her keys. No longer did she feel weakened by fear, stopping her from going near the Lake Washington house. She was still scared, scared shitless even, of what awful black hole Kurt had been sucked into, but she refused to let it beat her down.

Her strength would be used in two ways, she had decided; one, to ensure the health of her baby. And two, to keep Kurt upright as the rest of his world fell apart.

She didn't panic over the possibility of Courtney spotting her as she rolled up to their home, turning down the radio to a quiet lull. If Courtney was prepared to have words with her, Lindy would have gladly welcomed the chance to burn off steam. Screaming at a stranger might have felt good, therapeutic even.

As expected, Kurt exited the front of the house with a defiant slam of the front door. He walked fast down the driveway, not looking back, breaking into a slight jog away from whoever was inside. There was a line of cars parked out front. All of them must have belonged to those invited to the intervention.

Lindy didn't feel any remorse over having not been a primary player in this intervening. She already understood Kurt in a way that no one else ever would. Her intervention with him would come, and it would be unlike theirs in many ways. It wouldn't consist of ultimatums and words used as weapons. All she could offer was a pledge to love him forever, as long as he stayed.

Kurt opened the passenger side door and when he did, his flannel sleeve yanked itself up over his arm. Lindy was horrified to see a line of harsh scabs flourishing across his skin, a side effect of his heroin usage. She covered her mouth and looked away, biting hard on the skin behind her lips. 

"Let's go," Kurt said automatically, buckling his seat belt into place. Her eyes flickered to him. How funny it was, watching him safely click the buckle into place, a necessary tool in preventing his death in an automobile accident. He wouldn't take the risk of death inside of her car, but he had no problem jeopardizing his life with a needle. It was classic, contradictory Kurt, his motives confusing to everyone except himself. 

"Where are we going? Back to my apartment?" Lindy asked simply, keeping her voice level and her gaze on the road as she pulled away from the house.

"Let's just drive for a little," Kurt suggested. He sounded small and so far away. It was like someone else was in his body, running all the gears and making his decisions. He was lost in the confines of his own head.

"Okay," Lindy agreed.

She turned the radio back up and picked different station. Then on second thought, she dimmed down the dial so the sound drifted around them softly. The sun was beginning to disappear and night was blackening the sky. She wondered how far he'd let her drive. Maybe they would end up in Canada.

"You're mad at me."

It was a statement, not a question. Lindy could feel Kurt's eyes burning like laser beams into the side of her face. He was desperate to know if his one ally in the world had turned against him. 

She inhaled deeply through her nostrils and loosened her grip on the steering wheel. Mad was not the word for how she felt. No word on earth could describe Lindy's feelings.

"I'm not. I promise," she said, turning to catch Kurt's anxious stare.

His bothered mood didn't subside, even as Lindy drove and drove throughout Seattle. She made turns without thinking, only satisfied with the fact that Kurt was with her rather than anyone else. As far as she was concerned, he was safe when he was in her hands.

Every second that passed was a sharp squeeze around Lindy's heart. She could feel herself getting closer and closer to confessing the truth to Kurt, that she was pregnant with his child. She had hope, even the tiniest amount of it, that maybe it would change things. But yet her fear for the worst outweighed it all and always resulted in her biting her tongue.

"Can you take me to the store?" Kurt asked suddenly. He sat up straighter in his seat. 

Lindy frowned. "The store? Why?"

The question was so out of the ordinary that Lindy had a hard time believing Kurt's intentions almost immediately. The store may have been a commonplace that couldn't possibly have held any danger, but Lindy's instincts told her otherwise.

"Just 'cause. I'm hungry. I need cigarettes. Maybe we can get ingredients to cook something back at your place," Kurt said hopefully.

Lindy nodded her head like she understood, but her doubt was seeping in her chest like an oil spill. Nothing was natural those days, especially the act of she and Kurt whipping up dinner cheerfully in her kitchen. Not when they had been to hell and back over the course of a month. Normalcy was far from reach.

But she'd do what he'd asked. If it kept him happy and at her side, away from drugs, she was content to give him anything that he wanted. 

Lindy turned her car on the highway that would take them back towards her apartment where a nearby Safeway was. Kurt was quick to redirect her.

"Take the next right."

"Why?" Lindy said, annoyed . "There's a grocery store right by my place."

"I don't want anyone to recognize me tonight. I know a place where no one will know who I am."

Kurt's insistence sounded unlike him, solely due to the fact that he had insinuated that he would be recognized by suspicious fans. Lindy had never heard him assume that his stardom would get him noticed. It wasn't like Kurt to verbally admit that kind of thing — it would be humiliation on his end to utter it out loud, that he was now so famous that he could attract crowds just by showing his face in public. 

"What's going on Kurt?" Lindy asked through her teeth. She still did as instructed, turning right. All she could do was give him the benefit of the doubt. She was scared to judge him. To show distrust in him would be to snip a delicate cord between them both.

"Nothing!" Kurt pressed. He didn't fuel the argument further, choosing instead to look out the car window. Watching him turn away from her made Lindy twitch with pain.

He gave several more directions until they finally arrived at a dilapidated drug store, a far cry from the corporate marketplace that Lindy had envisioned when taking them to their destination. Daylight had finally gone and left them in the dark.

"What is this?" Lindy asked shakily. She glanced back and forth rapidly, nervously keeping her foot hovered over the gas pedal. A speedy getaway was something that she may have needed to act on.

"I'll go inside. You wait here," Kurt told her. He went to open the door, one leg ready to swing out onto the pavement, but something clicked within Lindy's mind.

From a distance, she saw a man. He was leaned against the store's outside wall, smoking a cigarette between cracked lips with his hands stuffed into his pockets. Nothing the man did made it obvious what his purpose was there that night, but Lindy already knew. It was easy to realize when her intuition had already been pricked with warning from the start.

"Stop," Lindy said urgently. She wrenched a fistful of Kurt's flannel into her hand and pulled, jerking him back into the seat.

"What?" Kurt shot back defensively, looking abashed as Lindy held him hostage in the car. But even she saw his eyes dart anxiously towards the man outside the store.

"You think I don't know what he's got waiting for you?" Lindy demanded, her voice overwhelmed with trembling pain. She nodded at the man, who appeared to have taken notice of them. He moved his hands in his pocket, no doubt where he held the contraband meant to be passed into Kurt's hands.

"I don't know what you mean," Kurt retorted. He made a horrible attempt to sound innocent.

"Stay in the car," Lindy deadpanned, facing forward in her seat and tapping the gas with her foot. The car lurched forward, but Kurt pushed the door open anyways.

"Stop it!" Lindy shouted. She hit the brakes and unbuckled her seatbelt, managing to grab Kurt once again and tug him back inside. He put up a fight, but he'd grown weak from his frequent injections. His body was betraying him, allowing him to be wrestled into his seat without much difficulty.

The tussle continued until finally, Kurt flopped back into his seat and Lindy let out a frustrated scream, slamming her hands into the wheel and lowering her head.

She was giving up on her promise not to cry anymore. The tears were already there, falling from her eyes furiously as she sobbed against her steering wheel.

"I thought the whole point of you avoiding me was to stay sober," she cried, unable not to lash at Kurt, who watched with a look of distorted pain.

He reached a hand out to touch her and she let him, but even he could feel how rigid she was beneath his touch. 

So he cried too, pressing both hands against his face and weeping into them. His mind was a mess, scattered and pulling him every which way. Part of him, maybe even more than only part of him, was with Lindy in her car. It was cradling her with apology, flawed with the pain in seeing her cry.

But that other part, no matter how small, was lingering closer and closer to the dealer who still awaited him only a few feet away.