Life in the Anderson-Hummel household was rarely a simple, communal affair. No one's schedules matched up and people were constantly in and out like ghosts. As Elizabeth, the youngest and only female, would look at it, there was an origin to this chaos:

One world-famous fashion designer + the lead singer of a band about as successful as the Beatles + a budding writer with one published novel, his Broadway-acting wife, and their adorable seven-month-old daughter + the world's laziest college student + Elizabeth + one apartment (4 bedrooms, 5 full bathrooms) in Manhattan's Upper East Side = her family

Alex and Jonathan were adopted; Alex when Elizabeth was three and Jonathan when she was seven. She was technically the oldest in years spent with Kurt and Blaine, a product of the adoption process slowing down and the two men accepting Brittany's surrogacy offer because nine months wasn't as long as two to four years. Brittany and Santana were living in Los Angeles because it was where the band was based at the time, and finding Alex in a San Diego orphanage was a lucky coincidence.

The first post-college problems surfaced then. Elizabeth only knew bits and pieces of the story – Blaine splitting his time between New York, California, and London, where the band was recording a lot, opened a rift between him and Kurt, who felt as though Blaine was never around. Alex had just moved in with Kurt and despite English being his second language, he was ten years old enough to figure out that Kurt blamed Blaine's long absences as the cause of his adoption taking forever and a day.

Things settled down for two years. Blaine convinced the band to move to New York so he could support Kurt branching off into his own design house. On Elizabeth's sixth birthday, she was told that her dads were in the middle of getting her and Alex a new sibling. A year and half later, amidst arguments of Kurt now being the absent one, Jonathan, a nine-year-old copy of Blaine, showed up in their house.

Arguments escalated into fights as Kurt's lines took off and required him to start travelling the globe, leaving them in a weird place – three kids with lives rooted in New York City couldn't start moving around the way Kurt and Blaine needed. Between memories of epic sleepovers with Brittany and Santana and being spoiled endlessly by her Aunt Rachel, Elizabeth can still see herself in Milan, Paris, Tokyo, the world's fashion cities, travelling with Kurt on her school breaks. The boys always opted to tour with Blaine.

And then something happened around Elizabeth starting middle school. Neither she nor her brothers could say what it was, but suddenly the fights stopped. Kurt wasn't annoyed with Blaine's obliviousness; Blaine didn't gripe daily over Kurt's need to control every aspect of their lives. They were happy and in love and if it hadn't been for that year-long respite, Elizabeth was sure she might never know the meaning of true love.

By the time she was starting high school, Kurt was living less and less in their apartment. He would disappear for seemingly weeks at a time, choosing to spend the night in the office or at Rachel's. If he came home and Blaine happened to be there, little things sparked fights. They didn't even try to keep their dirty laundry behind closed doors anymore. Alex was in college, though still living at home to get out of paying so much to Columbia University, and the other two in high school. They were supposedly old enough to handle their fathers blatantly not listening to each other.

They each sort of gave up in their own way. Alex stopped coming home like Kurt, crashing on friends' floors until he graduated and moved in with his girlfriend at the time, Beth Corcoran, a funny coincidence that Rachel and Kurt still laugh over. Jonathan's grades dropped as he opted to not pay attention in class and do his homework; every night was a party. And Elizabeth? Someone had very obviously inherited her father's love of dramatics if her rap sheet, community service hours log, and friendly disposition with the NYPD were any indication.

A story never begins at the beginning. That's boring. A good story – an entertaining story – starts at the end, when things are so at their most desperate, hanging on the edge is the only option. And Elizabeth would be the first to agree that the end started when she discovered filled-out divorce papers stuffed in the back of Blaine's desk drawer.

It was an accident, finding the papers. Her phone was warm with the end of Blaine's phone call in her back pocket as she rooted around the papers on the top of his desk, trying to find the plane tickets that would take their family to the busy streets of London, a city Elizabeth hadn't yet visited in her life as much as she wanted. Her thin, blonde hair fell in her face, and she hurriedly pushed it behind her ears.

Damn. She straightened up. They weren't on top of his desk like they were supposed to be.

She surveyed Blaine's study. With the instruments and scattered sheets of music, it was less of a study and more of a studio, but she attributed the name to his upbringing, when a man had his study and the woman dare not enter it unless she had food or drink in hand. Her thoughts when he told her about his childhood typically consisted of dear God and well praise the Lord I was born in this century.

She didn't say those things aloud because Kurt would get on her case about taking the Lord's name in vain if she did even though he was probably the least religious person she knew. It really wasn't worth poking the sleeping dragon just to express her thoughts despite the attention it would get her. Usually she would scrunch up her nose and say something about how gross the sexism sounded. It at least made Blaine give a knowing laugh.

"If I were plane tickets," she murmured, circling in place. "I would be hiding here." She sat in his desk chair and slid the top drawer open. In it sat a thick, folded document and a black ballpoint pen. Her hand hovered. What was the worst that could happen? If she got caught, the resulting lecture would be at least four minutes of attention she wouldn't have otherwise received.

It was definitely worth opening.

Almost instantly, she regretted the move. All she saw on the first page were words like court and divorce and her dad's damn signature at the bottom. The date was from March, three months ago. Her fingers were shaking when she dropped it on the desk and crossed the room that once belonged to Alex, calling out for her other brother.

"Well, he hasn't served Kurt, so that's a start," Jonathan said after looking the papers over, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand.

"I know, but what if he's, I dunno, waiting or something?" she asked, worry creasing her features.

"Waiting for what?"

"To serve him."

He laughed, the sound harsh in the back of his throat. "I don't think there's ever a good time to tell your husband you want a divorce."

Silence fell as brother and sister stared at the document.

"I don't want them to break up," she whispered after a few minutes. "I know they fight a lot, but they still love each other . . . right?"

He shrugged. "You would know better than me," he said.

Pursing her lips, she glanced at Jonathan. "You should get dressed. You know Kurt's gonna have a fit if he finds you in sleep clothes as we're supposed to be leaving."

"I'm a bad flier, kiddo. I need the comfort." He ruffled her hair and started to leave. She didn't even bother attempting to swat his hands off her head. "Chin up, Liz. If he really wanted it, those papers would be filed, not hiding in his desk."

The small words of comfort were lost on the girl. Her eyes were stuck on his name, reading it over and over again, hoping they would soon disappear: Blaine Anderson.

That was sort of the worst part, she mused in the taxi ride to the airport an hour later. His last name. It was all wrong and too short. The family name was supposed to be Anderson-Hummel. It was on her birth certificate. It was on Alex and Jonathan's adoption papers. It was on their taxes, bills, magazine interviews, any piece of print that wrote their last name.

She clung close to Jonathan that day. She could feel Blaine's inquiring looks on her back through security and customs and buying trashy magazines before reaching their gate. A long time ago, alliances formed – Elizabeth believed in Blaine's side of the story and Alex, Kurt's. Jonathan acted as mediator when opposing child and parent went at it, except when it was clear who was right, which was often.

If Blaine thought her silence was odd, let him, she decided. She was never a good actress anyway. She was good with the silent treatment, though, and you couldn't spill your secrets if you kept your mouth shut.

"Kurt?"

Her head snapped up from some article about Aunt Rachel's latest boyfriend. Blaine was sitting across from Kurt, who was frantically typing something out in his phone.

"Yes, Blaine?" He didn't even look up.

"Why were the tickets in the bedroom?" Blaine's gaze was focused on Kurt.

"Moved them. Did some cleaning last week. Why?"

"That means you went into my study."

Elizabeth hoped only Jonathan noticed her stiffening against him where their arms pressed together from sharing a too small armrest.

"It's a mess. Merely sorted things."

Elizabeth noticed that Alex and Beth suddenly slowed down in their approach, baby and food in their hands. Even a stranger could pick up on the tension brewing.

"That's my space. I've asked you in the past to not go in there and to respect that wish."

"Lizzie was in there today."

Elizabeth didn't bother correcting Kurt on the nickname she dropped several years ago.

"That's because I asked her to find the tickets for me so I could save some time when I got home. I still had to turn the house upside down to find them."

"Could've asked me where they were. And we live in an apartment, Blaine, not a house." His eyes flicked upward at his husband momentarily.

Blaine's fingers started spinning the ring on his left hand and he suddenly stood and left. Kurt didn't notice he was gone for a few minutes until he looked up and asked Alex where he went. Alex shrugged, his frown turning into a smile when he caught sight of little Siobhan reaching for him from Beth's arms.

When Kurt's phone buzzed with a text right before boarding started, she couldn't help but let her eyes slide over and read the text from Blaine: In the future, I would appreciate not being treated like a child.

She pretended not to notice Kurt's frown and haste to delete the text.

"Little brother!" Cooper Anderson called, rushing forward to hug Blaine tight around the shoulders, their respective families following.

"Coop," Blaine returned, an easy smile gracing his face. He nodded to his brother's family and murmured Sarabeth's name like his parents had taught him to do long ago. "How've you been?"

"Fantastic!" Cooper's enthusiasm was contagious; Blaine found his smile growing wider than before. "You are looking at the new face of Britain's most successful orange juice company."

Sarabeth rolled her eyes. "His ego is still bigger than the King's name," she deadpanned, her London accent coming out thicker than Blaine remembered. She stepped forward and hugged Blaine as well and then tapped her two kids on their shoulders, who sheepishly put their phones away.

"It's not that big," Cooper tried to argue.

"We've got enough bloody orange juice in our house to kill us." Sarabeth pulled her sweater around her body, crossing her arms to keep it in place.

As thought suddenly remembering his manners, Cooper's smile turned slightly frosty when he acknowledged Kurt and then softened again when he got to Blaine's kids. Blaine felt affection run through him as Elizabeth quickly pushed forward to hug her aunt and uncle tight. They didn't have much in the way of extended family – there was Finn on Kurt's side, with his two kids from the marriage with Rachel, but he never remarried after their divorce. Still, it was a bigger family than Blaine had growing up, which was his main concern when he first started a family with Kurt over fifteen years ago.

"Let's grab your stuff and get out of here, yeah?" Sarabeth said, cutting into the awkward moment when Elizabeth pulled back into her shell beside Jonathan. Blaine caught his younger son whispering something in Elizabeth's ear and squeezing her shoulders with one arm. He made a mental note to talk to her at some point.

Cooper and Sarabeth made dinner, knowing the travelers would want to crash soon. Alex and Beth didn't even stick around for the meal; they took two plates of food with them into their ground floor guest room so they could deal with a very cranky baby. They ate in silence.

Blaine wanted to automatically place the blame on Kurt. After all, he was the one being quiet and moody and stand-offish and did he really have to be glued to his phone all the time? The clothes would get sown. Emailing your assistant constantly is not going to help that.

Sleeping arrangements worked out to Elizabeth on an air mattress on Delilah's floor (she swallowed back her grimace at the amount of pink and horses in the twelve-year-old's room and Blaine contained his pride over Elizabeth withholding her judgment; no way would Kurt have taken a similar situation with as much grace as his daughter) and Jonathan on the pull-out sofa in the upstairs room Kurt and Blaine were given.

At one in the morning, his last straw was pulled. Kurt was on his side, facing away from Blaine, the glow from his cell phone screen telling Blaine everything he needed to know. He let himself envy Jonathan for a moment because he wished he could go back to college and that age where no matter what was bothering him, he could fall asleep anywhere, any time.

"Kurt?" he asked softly, not wanting to wake their son.

Nothing.

"Kurt?" This time he tried being a little louder.

Silence.

"Kurt."

The other man grunted. It was a start.

"Are you ever going to sleep?" he asked slowly, trying to pick his words carefully. He didn't know what set Kurt off these days.

"You don't need to speak as though I'm retarded, Blaine. Yes, I am, soon. I need to finish a few things up. It's only eight at night back home."

"Yeah, but it's one am here and I'm tired."

"Then go to sleep."

"You know I need total darkness."

"Then what I'm supposed to do?"

He debated over answering or not. They were headed in the direction of an argument already, so why not continue? Wasn't his therapist saying he needed to get his thoughts off his chest?

"Turn your phone off?" Blaine suggested, wincing when he heard the venom in his tone.

"And let everything fall apart? I don't think so."

"What could possibly be going on right now?" Blaine asked, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "The work day is over."

"Rachel's wearing one of my designs at the Tony's right now, which I'm missing because of this trip, and it has a very likely chance of tearing because it's delicate fabric," Kurt explained dully.

Blaine didn't even know where to start with that, so he picked his easiest argument. "We're on this trip because it's the only time we've got free time this calendar year to go somewhere as a family. If it makes you feel better, I'm upset about not going as well."

Slowly, Kurt locked his phone screen and sat up. "No, Blaine, it doesn't make me feel better. These are the first Tony's I'm missing since Rachel's inaugural nomination twenty years ago. You only started going a couple of years ago, when she started asking you to be her date so she could continue to throw herself at nameless guys in private."

"Since when have you become so bitchy?" Blaine snapped, not caring how loud he was anymore. Jonathan could sleep through this. "All I ever hear out of your mouth anymore is negativity."

Kurt's face hardened into rigid impassivity. "Like you haven't been that way before."

"Not all the damn time!"

"I regret to inform you that your opinion isn't substantiated. I talk about plenty of pleasant things all the time. You just don't listen."

Blaine snorted. "Right, because discussing floral pattern trends on the phone with Tina is pleasant."

Kurt's glare asked enough questions for him.

"I'm so sick of only ever hearing about fashion coming out of your mouth. It's like that's all you focus on when you're not occupied with Alex's baby."

"I'm not having this discussion right now," Kurt said, shutting down as far as he could go, throwing himself back on his side, away from Blaine. "You can take this up with me in the morning, when I can think straight."

Frustrated, Blaine pounded his fist against the mattress and flung himself down as well, back facing Kurt's. Sleep seemed unattainable.

The room's three occupants were unaware of tears not their own.

.