Kurt Hummel, never the world's most patient person, was now at wit's end. Earlier in the day he'd gotten a call from, of all people, Santana Lopez. The call had been short and to the point; she needed to talk to him, could they meet for coffee? Kurt's initial instinct was to turn her down as he was heavy into planning mode for the forthcoming trip to Nationals in New York, but something in her voice told him that she genuinely needed to talk, something he'd never heard in Santana's voice: she was afraid. Santana Lopez didn't do fear.

So Kurt had told her to give him an hour and to meet him at The Lima Bean. They'd arrived more or less at the same time, ordered, picked up, and sat down all in utter silence. When Santana sat, she pressed her knees together, slouched her shoulders, and didn't look up. Santana didn't do silence and closed posture.

Kurt was now actually starting to freak out. He'd quickly gone from curious to concerned to genuinely scared. He couldn't help being struck by the notion that he apparently cared about Queen Bitch, Santana Lopez. After a full five minutes of sitting in silence Kurt finally spoke, "Okay, Santana, you're freaking me out. What's going on?"

For the first time since they arrived, Santana lifted her eyes to meet his. The fear in her voice on the phone earlier was nothing compared to the fear in her eyes now; it wasn't a good look for her. "I…" she started and stopped. Her voice was very soft and very quiet. Santana also doesn't do soft or quiet. Sure, she makes snarky comments under her breath but she always says them loud enough to be heard. Being bitchy is kind of her thing.

She dropped her eyes back down, tried to start again, and again the words seemed to get hung up on their way out. She raised her right hand up to her forehead, took a deep breath, and when she looked back up at Kurt, the old Santana was back. "I don't have any dirt on you," she said, smoothly. Kurt gave a puzzled look. "I know a lot of embarrassing things about a lot of people. Blackmail is one of my primary weapons. The only embarrassing think I know about you is the time you tried to butch it up and sang John Mellencamp in glee, and everybody already knows about that."

"Oooookay…" Kurt started to reply.

"I tell you all that, because when I tell you what I came to say, you will be first person I've said this to that I can't manipulate or blackmail into not repeating it, so appreciate the situation." The word she wasn't saying was "trust." Santana Lopez doesn't do trust.

Her soft, quiet voice returned as she continued, "I'm gay."

Kurt busted out laughing. It was an absolutely inappropriate response and he knew it right away. He tried to stop himself but couldn't. From the fear in her voice and her eyes and her posture, Kurt had expected that someone was dead or dying or something much worse. Santana looked like she was ready to tear his head off and wear it as a hat (a look that only she could pull off, he noted), any sign of the fear she had earlier was gone and replaced with abject fury. "I'm sorry," he said, between fits of laughter, "I'm so, so sorry. I shouldn't be laughing." He took a breath and managed to calm himself down. He started, "I'm sorry, that was very rude me," he reached a hand across the table to one of her clenched fists, "I've know you're gay for a while…"

"WHAT? Who told you?" Santana interjected, panicked, drawing back from his touch.

"…but thank you for telling me," Kurt said, finishing his previous statement before responding, "No one told me. No one had to tell me."

Still in a panic she asked, "So it's just obvious to everyone that I'm a lesbian?" As she finished the question she was suddenly aware how loudly she'd said it. Her eyes went wide, "Holy shit," she continued much more quietly, "I've never said that out loud before. I'm a lesbian. Kurt, I'm a lesbian."

Kurt smiled at her, sweetly, "Again, things I already know. And, no, it's not obvious to everyone, just to people with fantastic observational skills and access to information about certain events that aren't all public knowledge."

"Events?"

"Last year before Sectionals, Brittany told more or less everyone in glee that you two were having sex. Then there's that thing you guys do when you lock pinkies, which is pretty adorable, I must admit. I was pretty sure about it when you sang "Landslide" together…"

"You were at Dalton, then."

"Ah, but you forget, the biggest gossip at McKinley High also happens to be my best friend in the whole world," Kurt replied.

"Mercedes," Santana rolled her eyes.

It was a bit of a lie by omission on Kurt's part. While Mercedes was there, it had actually been Rachel that brought up their performance and the subsequent emotional moment immediately thereafter in front of the glee club, but Kurt figured bringing her name into the conversation wouldn't be helpful at this point. He was reasonably certain that Mercedes would have said something about it had Rachel not beaten her to it.

"So the whole glee club knows?" Santana asked.

Kurt noticed a decided lack of fear in the question, "I think many of them suspect, but the thing that clinched it for me was your sham of a relationship with Karofsky. That thing that you know about Karofsky that you were presumably blackmailing him with, I know about it, too."

"You catch him checking out Sam's ass, too?" Santana asked with a smile, the first one in a long time.

"You caught him checking out Sam? That is outstanding." Kurt smiled hoping to encourage her to continue doing the same, "No, I found out rather matter-of-factly when he kissed me."

"No. Fucking. Way! He kissed you? Where were you at the time on the dark side of the freaking moon? We were here when I told him I knew, and I seriously thought he was gonna piss himself. I can't believe he actually had the balls to kiss you within ten thousand miles of anyone who might see." They both laughed at this, heartily, followed by an oddly comfortable quiet moment.

"So," Santana broke the silence, "have you talked to anyone about what you know? Mercedes?"

"No."

"Berry?" she asked, with noticeable contempt in the name.

"No."

"Finn?"

"No."

"Blaine?"

"I… may have said something about it to Blaine. I'm sorry," Kurt was suddenly struck by the fact that he seemed concerned about Santana's feelings. Were they actually becoming friends? "He won't out you, I promise."

"Good. I'd hate to have to hang him by his vast collection of striped ties."

"I'm not into outing people, Santana, but you can't live in the closet forever. Have you thought about coming out? Or at the very least coming out to the glee club? It's not like it would be a huge shock to most of them anyway?"

"It's not that simple. First, the glee club may all suspect that me and Brit have sex, but it not just that. I'm…" Santana paused long enough to sigh, "I'm in love with Brittany."

Kurt smiled and reached out for Santana's hand again. "Of course you're in love with her. I think everyone that knows her is, at least a little bit. Hell, I'm as gay as they come and I'm a tiny bit in love with her." Kurt almost immediately regretted saying that thinking that Santana might take it as him undermining her feelings for Brittany.

Just a second later he realized he had nothing to be concerned about. A smile, bright as the sun, quickly spread across Santana's face. "She does have that effect on people. I love her so much."

"Does she know that?"

"I told her I loved her… that I do love her. I don't think I expressed how much. She has been so good to me through all of this and I've treated her like crap. I really need to fix things with her," Santana said looking down at her lap.

"Do you know why everyone loves Brittany?"

"Because she's bubbly and cheerful and she says silly things that are so endearing?" she responded, not looking up.

"No. That's why you love Brittany. Everyone loves Brittany because she's the most honest and genuine person in the world. Everything she says, she means, even the silly things about her cat reading her diary and dolphins being gay sharks. She has no pretext to her. You always know where you stand with Brittany. I go on this Rachel Berry-esque diatribe because I can tell you that Brittany will never be happy living in the closet. She's not going to leave Artie, who she can love freely and openly, for you whom she'll have to keep a secret. You want to fix things with Brittany? You want to be with Brittany? Then you're going to have to fix things with yourself, first. Which brings us back around to have you thought about coming out? The glee club will accept you. The two people I expected to have the most issues from, the good Christian girls, Mercedes and Quinn, have been the most accepting and supportive people in the school. I know you hate her, but Rachel has been amazing to me this year. As you've no doubt often heard, she has two gay dads. She may still hate you, personally, but she'll be accepting of you are….and you've never let anyone go on this long without interruption before. Are you okay?"

Santana looked up at Kurt with tears in her eyes, actual, honest to God tears. Kurt had seen Santana choked up, on the verge of tears on very rare occasions in the past but he'd never seen her actually cry before. Santana Lopez doesn't cry.

"I can't. I can't open up to people. It's just not who I am. It's not who I was raised to be."

"You're being open with me."

"And it took everything I've got to tell you. Oh and it was a waste of effort because you already knew," she said, sounding more angry at herself than at him.

"It wasn't a waste. Believe it or not you've done exactly the right thing. You've come out to people who will support you through this. And I will. I haven't said that yet, so I should. I'm here for you. I'm not going to out you or force you out of the closet but I will keep nudging you towards the door."

"Thanks. For the support, I mean. The nudging, I don't know," she smiled slightly.

"You're welcome. I have an idea. There's a PFLAG meeting tomorrow night. You should come. You don't have to come out, yet; you could just be there as the head of The Bully Whips. Listen to people, talk to people if you feel up to it. Just come see that there are people that support you, us."

"You know I only started The Bully Whips to get voted Prom Queen, right? It wasn't some huge altruistic thing."

Kurt nodded, "You know the funny thing about doing the right thing for the wrong reason, Santana? At the end of the day you've still done the right thing. I haven't been pushed into a locker or threatened or slushied once since I came back to McKinley, in fact, there have been no reported cases of any bullying since you and Karofsky started laying down the law, and, yes, part of that is because you and Karofsky were doing more than your fair share of the bullying yourselves," Santana winced at this, for all her bravado, she seemed genuinely remorseful about her bullying ways, "But you've stopped, and you've caused everyone else to stop, too. Whatever selfish reason you may have had for doing it, you've still made McKinley a safer place. That's why I came here today." Kurt then said something he never thought he'd hear himself say to her, "I owe you."

Santana sat dumbfounded at this. Yet another thing Kurt had never seen in her. Santana Lopez doesn't do speechless.

"Will you come to PFLAG?" he asked. She didn't answer, just nodded her head slightly. "Fantastic. It starts at 6 in the auditorium tomorrow night."