KURT STOPPED MOVING immediately. His limbs grew still, even his hand freezing in midair and staying there as Lindy rushed to get her words out. She was crying so hard that he almost had not understood what she had said at first. But after the second time that she cried out her proclamation — 'I'm pregnant' — Kurt was finally made aware of his second child.

"What?" he demanded. It came out as tight whisper of disbelief, full of incredulity. His eyes finally locked with Lindy's. He had been hesitant to look into her warm brown irises, knowing that they alone might have swayed him out of his determination to die.

"I'm pregnant," Lindy repeated, these two words cracking as she placed a hand on her stomach. Her shoulders were rocking with even more sobs.

Kurt's hardened gaze fell to where Lindy's hand touched. He parted his lips like he was about to say something, but no sound came out. His surroundings were beginning to melt into the background, making him woozy.

"I'm three months along," Lindy said, tripping over her explanation. "I was going to tell you sooner but I got scared. But I had to do it now. I couldn't let you do this without knowing."

Kurt still did not speak, choosing instead to stare at Lindy's stomach as if expecting the baby inside of it to come out at that precise moment. Lindy cried harder, fearing the worst. She watched him lift both hands to his face again, this time shielding his eyes from her. But she saw his expression before they were covered.

His face was crumpling, another round of tears getting ready to pour from his eyes. His body began to quaver and he lowered his head, pulling his knees to his chest as he bowed forward. And then Kurt started to cry hysterically, rocking on the ground back and forth. It was hell as Lindy listened to his whimpers. Their sound overpowered her own.

"Kurt, I'm so sorry," she said. Her heart was officially dead. Even feeling its beat was unreal, a facade that could not be true. Kurt's reaction was enough to kill any last trace of joy that she had ever harbored for their future together. 

"M-my f-fault," Kurt stuttered through a choking sob. He made a fist with his hand and slammed it down on the ground, nearly knocking his can of root beer on its side.

"DAMN IT!" he shouted. He wrung handfuls of his blonde hair between his fingers, his head still hanging dejectedly as he hid the flow of anguish across his features.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wouldn't have said anything if I'd known how much this would hurt you."

"Hurt me?" Kurt demanded, looking at Lindy with bewilderment. "It only hurts me because I've brought another kid into the world who has a shit excuse for a father to look up to. Now it's not only you I've disappointed, but our kid. The kid we made together. It's got me for a father."

"But that's what makes this special!" Lindy cried, the veins in her neck tensing as she skated closer to delirium. "You're the father of our child! That's the greatest gift you could ever give me or our baby, Kurt."

"You don't get it," Kurt said, gulping back the shiver in his voice. "I won't be anything but a burden to any baby of ours. I've cursed you. I've cursed our child." 

Lindy's patience had finally worn thin enough. Her desperation was already strained and on the verge of snapping and driving her straight off of a cliff of insanity. Of all the times in her life that she thought would be most monumental, she would have never guessed that talking Kurt out of suicide would be one of them. But yet it was. It always would be. She was at a crossroads, and only she could take control and choose the direction of where the situation could go.

Lindy had always known it. She had thought it just before entering the greenhouse — she would be the one to pick Kurt up off the floor, no matter if he were dead or alive.

Kurt may have had the gun, but Lindy's confession to being pregnant had given her a hidden advantage. In truth, Kurt did want a baby with her and she was starting to understand that. But now, she had to convince him that the baby would want him as a father. It wouldn't be hard. Lindy knew in the deepest part of her soul that Kurt had and always would be her only choice in a man to spend the rest of her life with and raise a baby with.

She slammed the cigar box down to the ground, unbothered by the sound of shattering from within as the syringe inside broke apart. On her hands and knees, she slid to Kurt, finally closing the distance that had separated them. It may have been a small relief to be close to him, but it was still relief, sweet and refreshing in the middle of such fervor.

She grabbed his face, electricity tickling her fingertips when she felt his warmth against the palms of her hands. Softly, she forced his gaze upwards so that his bloodshot eyes could focus on her and only her. They were close enough to kiss, to feel the air of each other's breathing. Lindy would have held him that way forever if it meant knowing that she would never lose him.

"Listen to me," she whispered. "You are everything. You are wonderful. You have talent beyond measure and I give you all the credit in the world for that. But you were put on this earth for more than just to make music. You are here to be a father. To Frances and now to our baby. I want my baby to grow up being able to have you as a dad, as an inspiration. I want that so badly that it hurts. I want to wake up for the rest of my life, every day until I die, knowing that you were there to raise this child. I want to see another human in the world inherit all the beautiful things about you that only you have."

Kurt was relaxed in Lindy's gentle hands, listening intently as she spoke low enough so that only he would have been able to hear if someone else had been in the room. She felt his fingers curl around her wrist. The feeling was euphoric. It was more proof that he was still there, still alive. Proof that time had not run out yet.

"But I've tried . . ." Kurt mumbled. The air that rushed from his lips sounded finite, like he was still somewhat rooted in giving up.

"And we'll keep trying, every damn day. Together. You and me. Don't you remember what you told me? Soulmates are capable of going to hell and back for each other. But I wouldn't do it only once for you. I'd do it over and over again if it meant getting to live every day with you in my life."

Kurt looked around the room, pausing to glance at the scenery that he had laid out for himself. There was the shotgun. The cigar box. His note. His discarded cigarettes and root beer cans. It was his version of a miniature funeral for himself, his private goodbye to the life that he was ready to leave behind.

All of it had been so easy to put together and plan. And then Lindy had appeared, complicating the blueprint that Kurt had crafted that early April morning. And suddenly, he could only think about her rather than a long, permanent sleep. That always happened when she entered any room that he was in. But now it was happening in a way that made him never want to die, because life was too precious when it meant feeling her skin on his and staring into her devastatingly beautiful face.

He could still feel it. He could still feel all of it. For Kurt's entire life, he had held on to the subtle feeling that he was worthless. That feeling had gone from subtle to all-consuming as he had aged. No matter how hard he had tried to find direction, he had always gone back to that feeling in the end. People around him had even proven it to him, even in the most discreet ways.

Everyone disappointed him in their lack of compassion for his honest to god misery. His family, his wife, his apparent friends that he had garnered over the years. It all made him go back to that same horrible worthless feeling and the thought that dying would have been simpler than letting his troublesome life drag itself through another day.

From the time he had been born, he had been a bother, a hopeless being who always felt like he was walking in shoes that he didn't deserve to be in. Kurt had never belonged. He'd always been on the outside of the world's looking glass, peering in at all the normal, happy people who managed to get by without a burning, nauseous pain in their stomachs and rejection from the  people who were supposed to accept you no matter what.

But then he had met Lindy at the age of twenty. And she made him feel something, something that was far from feeling worthless. She made him feel important and loved and gave him the impression that the future was brighter than he had ever imagined it being. 

And then Kurt realized that maybe the only difference in his willingness to live or die was whether or not he had someone beside him who was worth living for.

Lindy. Frances.

His new baby.

His body weakened against Lindy's and he collapsed against her, the two of them holding each other as Lindy cradled Kurt in her arms. He was no longer crying but he looked weak, his eyelids a pallid blue color when they closed shut. With the back of her hand, Lindy stroked his face, thankful that she was there holding him as he breathed. She felt better knowing he was in her arms, in a place where she could feel the rise and fall of his chest.

"I've been so ready to go," Kurt muttered. It was true. If suicide was a metaphor for packing your things and never returning, then Kurt had been prepared with his baggage of sorrow for a long time.

"Don't go. Stay right here. With everyone who loves you."

Kurt didn't reply. He rested in his safe niche inside Lindy's embrace, feeling at peace while so close to her. Something had settled around him, just like the way dust settled after a wind storm. He could still see the mountain ahead of him that he had to climb, but everything else had been captured in a strange, placid calm.

Even the shotgun on the floor seemed suddenly very far away.

"Don't you want to see Frances meet her new baby brother or sister?" Lindy asked quietly. She herself had pictured this future moment many times. She could only hope that it would bring Kurt even just a wisp of comfort, similar to the way that it had for her.

Kurt stayed still for a little while longer, not speaking but instead losing himself in the conscious state of his thoughts. Lindy was careful not to interrupt him. She had her own thoughts to tend to, most of which were racing back and forth so fast that she felt a monstrous headache coming on. The morning had started with such despair, but sitting in the greenhouse with Kurt, watching him remain peaceful in her arms, felt like a blessing. All the evidence of his impending demise felt invisible as they held on to one another.

"Kurt," Lindy murmured. He opened his blue eyes. They were empty and tired but he sat up anyways, aware that they both were still in the place where he had intended to die.

"Kurt, can we go now?" Lindy said. She proceeded with caution, not wanting to evoke a hell spun devastation that would lead him back to those suicidal feelings. But more than anything, she wanted to get him off the ground and away from the gun and out into the air. Then they would be away from the greenhouse once and for all.

Again, Kurt was silent. His eyes met Lindy's and he tilted his forehead until it touched against hers. Their contact, skin on skin, was the only thing keeping him composed. He had not completely forgotten the shotgun nor the ample amount of heroin that would await him if he walked away alive that day. But one thing alone distracted him from both of those things substantially.

He lowered his hand until it was over Lindy's abdomen, feeling over her t-shirt around the spot where their baby, the life that they had created together, was growing. It was naturally impossible, but Kurt convinced himself that he could feel the baby's life energy pulsating out of Lindy and right into his hand, straight up through his arm and into the confines of his cold heart. He felt a glow in his chest, a tiny inkling of light that had not flourished since Frances had been born.

"If we go," Kurt began, his voice hoarse, "I need you to stay with me. Don't let go of me."

Physically, he did not think he would be able to walk down the stairs and return back into the world that had betrayed him. He could have forgotten it all and erased himself, but in that instant, he chose not to. His reasons for living outweighed his reasons for dying. One reason was back in the city of Los Angeles and the other two were right in front of him.

But when he asked Lindy to hold fast to him, he alluded to something else that was far from simple bodily contact. He would need her to be there for the long journey that was now ahead. He didn't think he would get through it unless he knew that she was next to him, holding on with the assurance that together, they would make it through.

"I won't. I'll be right here," Lindy promised.

It was the easiest promise that she had ever made. It outweighed all the others that she had made in the past. And it only became easier as she helped Kurt up, and while holding his hand, led him out through the French doors and into the faint morning sun.