(Author's note: I don't generally publish stories this way, without knowing how they're going to end, but I wanted to get this out there while Glee was still on the air. Wow, the appearance of Roderick in season 6 inspired... a lot of ideas. I spent most of my recent flight to Europe watching The King's Speech and crying and making notes about this story. This story begins during the second half of season 5 and will likely extend into season 6. It's titled after a lyric in Alanis Morissette's song "Wake Up" from Jagged Little Pill. I'm not a counselor and I don't advocate any of the treatments described here for selective mutism. Because this is Donutverse-related, it'll have D/s overtones and feature polyamory, and lots of characters and relationships might come as a surprise if you haven't been reading, but you can still read this as a stand-alone story. I'll clarify that in the Donutverse, Holly Holliday is a former therapist and hosts an online discussion group for teenagers who've seen her in therapy, including Roderick, Unique, Marley, Ryder and Jake. Also, if you think you've figured out who Sean Fitzgerald is, you're probably right. All will be revealed. Enjoy - amy)

My dad always said I could speak, but that I chose not to. It doesn't feel like that. Sometimes I have nothing to say, but other times I do. I want to. When I'm around people, I just can't figure out how to convert thoughts into words. I try, but nothing comes past my brain. I can't even make the words with my lips. I end up nodding and shaking my head a lot.

My mom points out that the bigger effort I make, the harder it feels. That's definitely true. When it's just me at home with my mom, I almost always have words. It was harder with my dad. When I'd see the irritation and disappointment in his face, it would be all over. Like I might as well go to bed and try again in the morning.

- from transcripts of Roderick's counseling sessions with Sean Fitzgerald, West River High School, Chicago, fall 2013

The first Thursday of junior year, I got slammed into three lockers, called variants of "fatty" six times and sent to the counseling office after being tripped in line at lunch, but I still couldn't count it as a bad day. That's not because I hate myself or anything. No matter how much my therapists talk to me about self-confidence and attitude, inside I think I'm pretty okay. It was because of what happened in the counseling office.

I blazed through my after-school chores even more quickly than usual, bagging up the garbage and taking it out to the dumpster on autopilot. Dexter was happy to make our afternoon walk more like a jog, joyfully pulling on the leash to go faster until we made the long loop around the block and ended up back at our building in record time. Then I grabbed a Coke from the fridge and settled in front of the computer, logging into Holly's discussion board. In the What's Up? box at the top of the screen, I switched my mood from the usual Anxious to Thoughtful.

That got Katie's attention right away. She still had another hour of school, since she was on Eastern instead of Central time, but she usually got away with using her cell phone between classes.

K: What's got you thinking, hon?

R: There's a new student intern in the counseling office.

K: Oh yeah? Is he cute?

R: I wouldn't care if he was, Katie.

K: Come on. Throw a poor girl a bone.

R: He's tall and kind of athletic, sure. Whatever.

K: Share a pic?

R: Oh, yeah, I took a selfie with him when he wasn't looking. You'll have to use your imagination.

K: *pouting*

R: He knew right away what was going on with me. Said he had a teacher in high school who didn't talk to anybody for over a year, and if I needed a place where nobody would try to make me talk, I could come hang out in the counseling office.

K: Sounds like a winner.

I wasn't sure how to convey how I felt about Katie's comment. School was definitely not a safe place, especially not this school. I do almost all of my communication in writing. The thought of having a teacher on my side was tempting — and dangerous.

R: Yeah, if he's telling the truth. I'm thinking he's just trying to lure me in so he can work on my broken parts.

K: He ain't a mechanic, Ricky, and you ain't a machine. No broken parts here.

I knew Affirmation Number One by heart, but even if I hadn't, it was right there on the screen, posted at the top of Holly's discussion group's home page: I'm not here to fix myself or anyone else.

R: Sorry, you're right. I'm sure he's a nice guy. I'll try to give him the benefit of the doubt.

K: That's the spirit, Ricky. I'm heading into class. Keep us posted?

R: I will.

I knew she wasn't just saying that. She actually wanted to know what was happening in my life. They all did. It didn't matter that they were kids I only saw online; Katie and Jake and Mar were as close to real friends as I'd ever had. Even if I wasn't sure if I could trust Mr. Fitzgerald yet, I knew I could trust them.

My mom's always reading about the latest research on selective mutism and talking to new therapists. She never makes me feel bad when the approaches don't work, but she doesn't stop making appointments either. I have to appreciate both her kindness and her tenacity. It's a valuable combination. Yeah, she's pretty great.

We've already tried all the common treatments. Back in elementary school, the speech pathologists were all about stimulus fading? They'd start with my mom in the room, get the two of us talking, and then bring someone else in. That worked to some degree, but it wasn't going to cut it for situations in which my mom wasn't already there. It wasn't like she was going to follow me to school.

Eventually they had me try shaping. That was where they gave me rewards for anything I did that involved interactive communication, even if it wasn't verbal. That was nice, but I guess I didn't progress enough for it to count. I did get comfortable texting with my mom in public: she speaks aloud and I text her back. Most of the time people don't even realize we're talking to each other.

Then there was the self-modeling. Apparently watching yourself on video doing the thing you're trying to do is supposed to help? I'd like to say it helped me, but mostly it made me even more self-conscious than I already was, because I could see just how lost and uncomfortable I looked. Eventually they let me stop looking at the videos.

Oh, yeah, I guess you know about all of these therapies, huh? Sorry. We haven't found another new one since we moved to Chicago last spring.

- from transcripts of Roderick's counseling sessions with Sean Fitzgerald, West River High School, Chicago, fall 2013

I got a chance to see Mr. Fitzgerald again a week and a half later, when Greg Holmes and Trip Gonzalez cornered me in the boys' room and spilled water on me in an inconvenient location of my pants. Ms. Lauer, the receptionist, was dealing with a crying freshman when I came into the counseling office, so I just stood against the wall and waited.

"Hey."

I turned to see Mr. Fitzgerald poking his head out the door of the conference room.

"Roderick, right?"

I nodded, and Mr. Fitzgerald smiled, nodding back. It wasn't a surprise that he remembered my name. Maybe it should have been.

He glanced across the room at the freshman and Ms. Lauer. "You can come in here if you want. It's quieter."

I spent a lot of time in that conference room when I transferred to West River at the end of sophomore year. Sometimes the counselors would be on my side and sometimes they'd be just as annoyed and frustrated with me as my teachers were. I couldn't blame them. I was pretty much constantly annoyed and frustrated with me, too.

But Mr. Fitzgerald didn't say, "You want to talk about it?" He didn't even hardly talk to me at all, except to offer me a graham cracker. He just went back to his reading. After a few minutes of sitting there, I got my headphones out of my bag and plugged in. Shuffle served up Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain." I closed my eyes.

When I felt a touch on my hand, I flinched, banging my knee on the table, hard enough to make Mr. Fitzgerald's papers shift three inches. He jumped back in surprise, laughing.

"Hey, sorry to interrupt your music. I was just checking on you."

I pulled my headphones down around my neck, feeling the hot flush on my cheeks, and kept my eyes on the table.

"You don't have to stop listening. It's okay."

I nodded. I knew better than to disagree. I had lots of experience looking okay, even when I wasn't. Mr. Fitzgerald went back to his reading, but I could see him not-watching me. I not-watched him back.

"So I bet you came in here for a reason."

Here it was: the interrogation. I nodded, getting out my notebook and my favorite pen. Mr. Fitzgerald watched me do that with a bemused look on his face.

"Anybody I should talk to?" He leaned back in his chair. "I'm just asking because I know sometimes it's worse when adults get involved."

I shook my head. Nothing good would come of it. Greg and Trip were good at talking themselves out of just about anything. It was a mistake, Mr. Fitz. Me and Roderick, we're buds, right? Yeah, sometimes, at your whim, you arrogant prick.

Mr. Fitzgerald nodded. "Okay." He tilted his neck to look at the screen of my iPod. "Can I be nosy?"

I grinned, nodding, and passed the iPod to him.

"Adele. Should I know who that is?"

I raised an offended eyebrow at him. He snickered.

"I can't even claim to be too old to know, considering I was in high school myself two years ago. You want to enlighten me?"

My hands came up automatically to clutch the headphones around my neck. I guess I must have looked pretty terrified to warrant the concerned expression on his face.

"Hey," he said. His voice was incredibly gentle. "I'm not going to take anything away from you. I have my own earbuds. How's that?"

He rummaged in his pocket and brought out a tangled mass of cord. I did some of the breathing things Holly had taught me while he picked out the knots. It took him a while. When he held out his own little plug, I nodded. He unplugged my phones and plugged his own in, settling them in his ears.

There was a knock on the door, and Ms. Lauer peeked into the room. "Sean, you got a minute?"

He gave her a little wave. "Give us five, okay?"

"Sure." She seemed confused, but she closed the door and went away.

Mr. Fitzgerald listened with half-lidded eyes for a good minute, a smile spreading across his face. He didn't seem to be in a hurry at all. I kind of wanted to ask him if maybe I should be getting to fourth period, and I kind of wanted to stick around and play him something else. If he didn't know Adele, there were probably a bazillion other artists he didn't know. And that look on his face told me he got music. It made me feel hungry to find out what he thought about my other favorites.

"Man. She's got a hell of a voice." His face looked satisfied, but maybe a little sad, too. That, more than anything, made me reach for the iPod and find the concert recording of the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

When I handed it to him, though, he looked at the screen and blanched, his smile disappearing.

"Sorry," I muttered immediately, grabbing the iPod back and stuffing it in my bag along with my notebook and pen. I hurried toward the door with my head down, but when I glanced back at Mr. Fitzgerald, he was inexplicably smiling again, a funny little smile with only half of his mouth.

"No. No, that was… awesome." He shrugged. "I haven't been listening to much music lately. Too many memories. That one in particular. But you just made me want to." He laughed, not loud, but genuine.

"What?" I asked.

He broke into a lick of song. It sounded so unexpected and sweet that I laughed, too. "You made me want to listen to music again."

I wanted to say, you don't know Adele but you know Adam Lambert, that's pretty messed up, but there was no way I was going to find that many words to say at school. I was already surprised to find myself saying as many as I had.

"Hey." He came around the conference table and stood right in front of me, maybe a little closer than I was usually comfortable with from anyone, and put his hand on my shoulder. "You come here any time. Don't worry about when, or how long you need. I'll let Ms. Lauer know. You're always welcome."

The way he looked right in my eyes, it was a little like a challenge, but more like he was giving me a soft place to land. It made me feel like crying. I took a shaky breath, unable to look away from his eyes, and nodded. Then I got out of there quickly, not even stopping at the clipboard hanging by the door to sign out.

Jake and Mar were online when I got home. I sat there staring at the screen for a while before I knew what kind of mood to put in my What's Up? I finally settled on Contemplative.

J: hey, man

M: *contemplates this bagel*

R: Mmm, bagel. Maybe I should change to "hungry."

M: You wouldn't if you could see this bagel. My mom has no power over the school caf's bread products.

J: we have class in five, what's up?

R: I taught somebody about Adele today.

J: awesome, and what cave have they been in

M: *hugging you a lot*

R: Virtual hugs welcome. Also, no tally marks, but two words spoken at school today.

J: KUDOS MAN first ones this year right?

M: *a million more hugs* And I was going to ask, you taught this person at school? Who?

R: Just my counselor. He's

I paused. Usually words came pretty easily when I was writing, but trying to describe Mr. Fitzgerald in words that didn't sound either scary or sappy was going to be a challenge. Even as I thought, I could feel my face burning.

R: Just my counselor. He's somebody I can trust, I think. And he likes music, like you guys like music.

M: You need one of those, Ricky.

J: does he sing?

R: It didn't come up. Somehow I doubt it.

But then I thought about him singing that one line of Adam Lambert. It was tuneful, at least.

J: you gonna tell him?

I started to type hell, no, which would be my general response to any question involving me being honest or vulnerable or myself at school. But then I found myself typing Maybe? and I had to stop and force my body to relax.

R: Maybe? He reacted kind of badly to the Stones. I don't exactly want to force him to dig up old memories.

M: Moving forward, right? Whatever you decide, I'm really proud of you.

J: find you l8r

R: Sounds good.

I turned off the computer monitor and slid my headphones back up to cover my ears, filling them with the sound of the boy choir at the beginning of the studio track of "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Well, I saw her today at the reception
A glass of wine in her hand
I knew she would go meet her connection
At her feet was her footloose man

I was alone in the house, and that meant I sang along. Even when my mom's around, I do sometimes, mostly because she likes it so much. She says it's a good reminder of when she was younger. I guess she used to sing for real, at clubs and everything, but I've never actually heard her do it.

By the time I'd reached the end of the seven-minute track, I'd decided I was going to tell Mr. Fitzgerald about singing. Exactly how I was going to do that, I had no idea. But Holly always said, move forward, even when you're looking back.

You like pain but only if it doesn't hurt too much
And you sit and you wait to receive
There's an obvious attraction
To the path of least resistance in your life
There's an obvious aversion no amount of my insistence
Could make you try tonight

- Alanis Morissette, "Wake Up"