Marked as "Kurt and Blaine" because there is a little bit of Klaine in here near the end of the story, but really, the story is about Carole, Finn, Kurt, Sam, and Blaine :)

Brave Young Men

Carole Hudson placed the last of the empty glasses into the dishwasher before loading in the soap, adjusting the settings, and running the load for the night.

She yawned, stretched, rolled her neck a few times to relieve the tension that had built up from her earlier shift at the hospital, the unexpected incident that had brought Blaine to their house in tears when she got home, cooking dinner for not just three, but now four growing boys…

It had been quite a day for Carole Hudson.

Thank God it's Friday, she thought with a sigh as she glanced at the clock on the microwave, which read 11:43 pm.

Burt had just flown back in from D.C. earlier that day, and was already under the covers, snoring softly when she climbed the stairs and slipped into their bedroom. A little tiredly, she prepared for bed, brushing her teeth, following the step-by-step instructions of the skin-sloughing regimen Kurt had written out in his neat half-cursive printing and taped to her mirror, and finally pulling on her pajamas.

Her side of the bed looked as inviting as ever, but there were just a few things Carole had to do before she could sleep soundly for the night.

Feet bare on the carpet of the upstairs hallway, Carole took a few steps down the hall, and slipped quietly through the first door.

Finn's light was still on, as per usual. He had passed out in bed, one cheek pressed to the page of one of his many sports magazines. He had at least had the energy to put on his pajamas and prepare for bed, Carole was pleased to see. Carefully, she extracted the magazine, closing it up and placing it on her son's perpetually disastrous desk. She moved back to the bed, smiling amusedly to herself as she picked up on Finn's quiet snoring, a habit sounding almost identical to the one his father had never been able to break.

Carole gently took Finn's arm (which had been dangling over one side of the mattress) and placed it back on the bed, then just slightly nudged him until he had moved from lying flat on his stomach to lying on his back. As she tucked his blankets around him, the sight of him sleeping – mouth slightly open, snoring as he did – reminded Carole, almost painfully, of Finn's father. And sometimes, Carole worried about Finn.

She worried about his impulsiveness. Very much like his father's impulsiveness, it was. He jumped into things without thinking first, and almost always regretted his decision later. The names he called Kurt out of mere frustration years ago, the way he had set his heart on a football scholarship, then out of the blue and without a shred of knowledge or experience wanted to be an actor, then decided to head to the military. The way he proposed to a high school love because he had nothing better to do with his life…

Rightfully so, Carole worried about her son. She knew, deep down, he had a good heart. She was proud of him for that, loved him unconditionally for it, and would not change a hair on her son's head if she had the chance. But, he was a human. And just like his father, he was a human who jumped too quickly into too-rash situations.

After she had tucked him in, Carole had begun to stroke Finn's cheek, ever so softly, as she thought about how all she wanted was for her son to be happy. She wanted him to find a purpose in life. She wanted him to do something that he could be proud of. She wanted him to cherish his family forever, never leave them behind. She wanted him to find a girl – no, a woman – who was as kind, loving, and humble as he was. One with a level head who would be a counterbalance to his sometimes dangerous impulsivity, the perfect yin to his yang.

That was what Carole Hudson truly wanted for her son. She had always vowed to do so, but right there, as she stroked her son's cheek, then lovingly patted his steadily rising and falling chest, she promised herself that until he found that tranquility, she would be there for him. She would help him decide what path to follow, she would help him get over this breakup so that he could focus on himself and finding his own bliss, and she would do whatever it took to make sure that her son did not fall prey to the same dangers his father did.

Carole firmly believed that everything happened for a reason, and she refused to mourn her first husband forever. Naturally, she had to be cautious of the similarities – such as the impulsivity – that her son, Finn, shared with her former husband. She also, however, chose to remember all the good there was in that man, and how, with the right amount of guidance, Finn could balance out his human imperfections, and all that good could be magnified.

The potential she felt, the future she saw when she looked at her son – her impossibly tall, bed-headed, open-mouthed, goofy even in sleep, beautiful son – were some of the most powerful things Carole had ever felt in her life.

Tears in her eyes, Carole leaned down and kissed Finn on the forehead before ruffling his hair, whispering a soft, "Goodnight, love," and switching off his bedside light.

Carole took a moment to compose herself before walking a few steps to the next door in the quiet upstairs hallway. She carefully nudged it open, and the hallway light streamed in to reveal the sleeping figure of Sam Evans, the Hudson-Hummel "plus one" for the majority of the past year.

She couldn't help grinning when she saw him. He was sleeping on his side, as usual, clutching a pillow tight as ever and hugging it to his chest, every once in a while smacking his lips in his sleep. Carole stepped into the dark bedroom and sat on the edge of his mattress so that she could pull the blankets around his shoulders, tucking him in properly.

Carole had met Sam a few times when Finn was a junior, but had never really gotten to know him that well. When Finn had told her what Sam had been going through, though, her sympathy was immediate. The first thing she had thought of, of course, was Finn, and how hard it would be for him, or any boy his age, to have to worry about money and eviction and feeding a family…

Sam had had to become a grown-up when he was all but sixteen years old, and Carole cursed the universe for putting him through that every time she saw the boy, the boy with nothing but love in his heart. Carole smoothed the comforter over Sam's back, rubbing gently back and forth for a while as she thought back a few months, when Sam first came back from Kentucky.

Moving into their house in the middle of the school year, Sam had been completely honest with Carole and Burt about what he had had to do to keep a steady income flowing into his family's savings. He had absolutely no reservations about it. He spoke openly about the fact that he had resorted to working in a club, but kept it from his parents, and hoped that the Hudsons and Hummels would as well (which, naturally, they promised to respect).

The really incredible thing about Sam that Carole grew to realize, though, was that he was an adult and a kid at the same time. He was an adult who was polite and grateful for everything Carole, Burt, Finn, and Kurt were doing for him. He could take responsibility, he offered to help (and did help) around the house almost every day, and humbly accepted thanks and compliments from the family, always diverting the attention back to the fact they it was they who were helping him.

But, he was also a kid. A friendly, goofy, wild kid who would have Call of Duty marathons with Finn at any given time of day, who would spend hours at the kitchen table, listening and watching as Kurt explained again and again how to properly write out a chemical formula or what the difference was between atomic number and atomic mass, who would sulk because he missed his family, or cheer when the Buckeyes scored a touchdown.

Carole had never properly met Sam's parents. She had only spoken to them on the phone. All she knew, though, was that Mr. and Mrs. Evans had done something right.

Through losing his home, making mistakes then working to rectify them, battling his dyslexia, going back and forth, back and forth with confusion about Mercedes and whether or not they could ever be happy again, Sam had gone through a special kind of growth that year that Carole did not know boys his age were capable of. And as she sat there at his bedside, rubbing a hand comfortingly up and down his back as he continued the soft lip-smacking in his sleep, Carole was proud to have Sam in her house, proud to have him be another brother to Finn and Kurt, proud to be a pseudo-mother to him while he battled his way through life.

Sam was a fighter if Carole ever saw one. And she admired him more than she could ever express in words.

Carole smiled fondly down at him, brushed his bangs out of his eyes, then left him for the night. She pressed on and left the guest room, leaving the door just slightly open behind her.

Passing the bathroom and then the small linen closet at the top of the stairs, Carole made her way to the other side of the hall, where another door was open just a crack. She slowly nudged it open as she had the last one, then made her way into the dark bedroom of her step-son.

Kurt's curtains were pushed to their sides and his window was propped open, allowing both the misty moonlight and the cool breeze to stream softly across his bed. Carole made her way over to his sleeping figure, smiling at the bundle of blankets he always became at night.

She sat down on his mattress and looked him over. He was curled up on his side, nestled deep into his pillows and wrapped snugly in his blankets, but Carole noticed that he was continuously stirring, some lines of stress on his forehead. When he made a soft noise, just the quietest whine, Carole leaned in and began running her fingers through his hair, soothing away any bad dreams that had gripped him in his sleep.

Kurt was one of the strongest young men that Carole had ever met. His life would have been much easier had he kept to himself, pretended to be just like everyone else, not proudly displayed to the world who he was. But he wouldn't have that. Couldn't have that. And Carole loved that about him. Sure, sometimes he went a little overboard with that superior air he put on in order to show everyone just how proud he was to be himself, but Carole was lucky enough to know and love the boy beneath all that.

While that boy was truly an amazing person, Carole had to admit that she worried about Kurt as well. He was quite ambitious, Kurt was. So ambitious, that he tended to completely set his heart on his goals, his dreams, only to have nature swoop in and steal them away, pulling them out from underneath him like a rug, then letting him fall, defeated, onto the cold, hard ground.

First, it was "Defying Gravity." Then it was a role in the musical, then class president, then that very selective musical theatre program in New York. All had been snatched away from him cruelly, unjustly, and as far as Carole was concerned, unforgivably.

Interestingly, though, the reason Carole worried about Kurt so much was that he always reacted so mildly to these things. With the exception of the class presidency (which Burt had been too quick to judge him on), Kurt hadn't really, seriously cried after a single one. He simply pulled himself together, held his head high, and pushed onward. Smoothing her fingers across his forehead, rubbing his back as his stirring died down, Carole had to wonder how much more this poor boy could take before it all caught up with him.

Until it happened, though, she refused to let him out of her sight. He had already decided on leaving for New York in the fall, no matter what, but Carole would never let him lose contact. If and when Kurt finally broke, Carole would be there to remind him that if he could hold his head high all those times in high school, he could do it again. And one day, she'd tell him, it's finally going to pay off.

She brushed a thumb across his cheek, smiling down at him. In his sleep, he suddenly murmured, barely audible, "… Mom?"

Carole closed her eyes, just for a moment. She let that pang of sadness in her heart settle, then leaned down, placed a kiss against his temple, and finally whispered, "Goodnight, Kurt."

Leaving a small crack in Kurt's bedroom doorway, Carole left the room, and was on her way back to her own bed, when she realized she had forgotten the most recent addition to the Hudson-Hummel household.

She made her way down the stairs and into the living room, where the pull-out sofa had been made up into a bed for the last of her four brave young men.

It was just before Carole had started dinner that the doorbell rang earlier that night. Finn had gone to answer it, and had returned to the kitchen with one arm around the shoulders of a disheveled, teary-eyed Blaine Anderson.

In a second, Kurt had run to his side, and he and Finn sat Blaine down at the kitchen table while Carole brought him a glass of water. They let him catch his breath, and then sat quietly and listened as he recounted a particularly unpleasant afternoon he'd had with his parents.

Carole replayed the conversation in her head as she navigated her way through the dark living room, sitting down on the pull-out mattress, and laying a hand comfortingly on Blaine's forearm. Unlike the other three, Blaine had fallen asleep flat on his back, one hand on his midriff and the other lying on his stomach, holding onto the handmade quilt that Carole had lent him for the night. She thought back, remembering how Blaine had told them that he and his parents had been talking about college choices when it escalated into a heated debate about how Blaine never feels as though his parents really listen to him, really care about anything he has to say, about anything he wants to do with his life.

Carole ran her fingers through Blaine's loose curls, which had been freed of the confines of hair gel when he had gone upstairs to shower, calming himself down a little before dinner, which he barely picked at, but thanked Carole for more times than she could count. He stirred a little beneath her touch, but remained asleep, his face finally free of the emotional turmoil he had faced that night.

They fought all the time, Blaine had explained, but usually, there were reservations. There were borders they didn't cross. That afternoon, though, all walls went down, and all hell broke loose, and Blaine simply couldn't take it. So, he came to the one place he knew he wouldn't be turned away.

Carole hated seeing Blaine weakened, she hated seeing him in distress. But, there was an aspect of goodness, of a kind of penance, to seeing Blaine this way. And that was seeing Kurt take care of him.

All of the boys took care of him, as a matter of fact, but Blaine had been there for Kurt through every trial he had faced since the two of them had met each other. Blaine was one of the most selfless people Carole had ever seen, willing to drop whatever he might have been doing and face any consequences in order to be by Kurt's side in a time of need. Blaine loved Kurt, unconditionally, and was always there for him, always taking care of him…

It was nice to see things the other way around.

Kurt had never been ungrateful for all of the sacrifices Blaine made for him, but a relationship is a two way street. You have to give as much as you get. Tonight, Kurt did just that, and Carole got to see a side of Blaine that she hadn't seen much of before.

Tonight, Blaine had been the boyfriend in need, the one who was lost, unconfident, didn't know which way to turn. Again, Carole hated seeing him go though it, but seeing that vulnerability in him gave her, Burt, Sam, Finn, and Kurt a much needed reminder that everyone needs a shoulder sometimes, even the people whose shoulders are the most reliable when things get rough.

Carole was convinced that Blaine did not have a selfish bone in his body. And it saddened her, so much, to know that the one time Blaine asked his parents for something, asked them to let him make a choice that he wanted to make on his own, they had refused, denied him, told him to submit to their will, regardless of how it conflicted with his own.

Carole and Burt had taken him aside earlier, and assured him that even though they couldn't change the relationship he had with his parents and that it was up to Blaine and Blaine alone to do what he could to work things out, he would always have them for advice, for support, for a place to sleep or a shoulder to cry on. And Blaine, without another word, hugged them, holding them both as tight as he could.

Carole gave Blaine's hand a squeeze before taking another deep breath to suppress any lingering tears. She smiled at him as he lay sleeping, finally at peace.

She got up from the bed and made her way back up the stairs, past each bedroom door and finally through her own. She climbed into bed, settled into her pillows, switched off the light, said one final prayer…

God, come what may, always protect my brave young men.

... before drifting off to sleep.

Thank you so much for reading! As always, feel free to let me know what you think :)