Tina is worried. There is something off about Blaine and it started about a week ago. It isn't as bad as when he was depressed about losing Kurt, in fact it was the opposite. Blaine is very much in control. Unfortunately that's what's worrying her. Blaine may be dapper and polite and courteous but that doesn't mean that he hides his emotions. Far from it. It's actually a little off-putting how open Blaine is about his feelings. If Blaine is upset, he would never pull a tantrum, but no one would ever be in doubt that he's upset.

When he and Kurt hit their rough spot and when Kurt finally broke it off, Blaine was a mess but at least Tina could understand the reason behind it. But now, Blaine is hiding his emotions and being all fake and plastic. He's turning into Quinn right before her eyes, and a wall is building up and a distance is stretching between him and everyone else—including her!—and she can't understand why. It certainly doesn't help that he is now wearing a Cheerios uniform and is co-captain of the squad; it only makes the similarities to Quinn more obvious. Even when she asked him point-blank what the matter was he said nothing was wrong. But that spark is missing from his eyes, which gives the lie to what he said.

"Tina?"

Tina suppresses an eye roll. The last thing she wants to do right now is deal with Marley "Too Many Issues to Fit in Her Skinny Body" Rose. She lets out a huff and turns to face the sophomore. She raises her eyebrow when she sees Marley's hunched shoulders, clasping her books in front of her like a shield, her blue eyes—and Tina convinces herself that she doesn't resent her for that either—wide but determined. Hmm, if Blaine is turning into Quinn, is she becoming Santana? Perish the thought.

"I don't know where Unique is, okay?" Tina says to her, hoping to end this as quickly as possible. Tina isn't blind. She knows she's being a little hard on Marley—okay, a lot hard—but she had to put up with a lot of crap herself. She was a wallflower herself when she joined glee and she had to deal with Rachel, Quinn, Mercedes, Kurt and Santana and those five can give Unique lessons on being a diva no matter what Unique thinks and at the time she wasn't best friends with any of them. She paid her dues and she was finally the senior girl in glee and she still has to fight for solos. It certainly doesn't help to watch Marley blithely walk in and take most of them. Worse, unlike Rachel she doesn't even have to fight for them! She just gets them! Well, if she wants the spotlight, she better be tough enough to hold that spot.

"I'm not looking for Unique," Marley replies and Tina felt a little twinge of guilt when Marley winces at Tina's tone. "I was wondering if I could talk to you. It's important."

Tina gives Marley a searching look. It's no secret that she isn't Marley's biggest fan so for Marley to want to spend time with Tina means that it must be important. And fine, maybe she's feeling a little guilty for being such a bitch to her.

"Fine," Tina says and starts walking towards an empty classroom letting Marley catch up. "You have five minutes."

Tina finds herself in the Astronomy room and can't fight down a grin, remembering Sam saying how he wanted to sit "under Uranus." She wipes the smile off though before turning to face Marley. When Marley doesn't say anything at first, just standing there shuffling her feet, Tina doesn't suppress the eye roll this time and forcefully lets out another huff.

"Clock's ticking, Marley," she bites out, feeling a little guilty again when Marley jumps. Okay maybe she was channeling too much Santana and can tone it down a bit. She can be challenging without being a bitch. "You wanted to talk," she says more calmly, "so talk."

"I'm worried about Blaine," Marley lets out in a rush.

Tina blinks. For Marley to notice something off about Blaine means that she isn't imagining things and only increases her concern. But first, why is Marley worried? What's Blaine to her?

"I know you must have noticed," Marley says before Tina can say anything. "I don't think anyone else has—"

"But you have?" Tina asks, interrupting her. It's one thing for Marley to take over her spot as female lead in New Directions; she isn't taking over her spot as Blaine's best friend, not without a fight.

"I spent a little time with him when we were rehearsing for our duet," Marley says, shrugging. She rushes on, Tina guessing that she probably doesn't want to bring up Sectionals in front of her. "He's not acting like he was. It's like the...the...spark has gone out."

"The 'spark'?" Tina asks although she knows exactly what Marley is talking about. She is definitely worried now that Marley and she are thinking the exact same thing.

"Yeah," Marley says, "the spark. What makes Blaine, Blaine, you know?" She shrugs again and Tina manages to refrain from telling her to stop shrugging and grow a spine but Marley isn't Tina's problem and as long as the girl pulls her weight in glee she'd leave her alone—for the most part anyway. "It's only there now when he sings but otherwise, it's gone."

"Okay, let's say I agree with you," and I do, Tina thinks, one hundred per cent, "what do you want to do about it?" Tina is genuinely curious as to what Marley is going to say.

"I don't know," Marley says, a tinge of frustration and desperation coloring her voice. "That's why I'm talking to you. You guys are best friends, you know him better than anyone. I just wanted to make sure that you know just in case you were too close not to notice it."

Tina quietly lets out a sigh of relief. Okay, so Marley isn't trying to take Blaine away from her. Tina reminds herself that she gets a little crazy when Blaine is involved and that she should really tone down the bitchiness. She should revisit this conversation later and take a closer look at her behavior. As it is she already knows she isn't being very nice and even though she may not totally respect Marley, Marley is one of the genuinely nice people in glee. She is someone who should be protected by the bitchier, meaner members, which she has apparently become. In fact, Marley acknowledged that Blaine is Tina's best friend. She wants to make sure that Tina is aware that there might be a problem and trusts her to take care of it.

This is a wake-up call, Tina. One can be strong without being hard.

"Yes, I know what you mean," Tina says and Marley sighs in relief. "Don't worry, I'll find out what's what and straighten it out."

"Okay, great, thanks," Marley says and turns around to leave. Tina can't let it go like that because in the end, she is not Santana. And she doesn't want to be.

"Marley," she calls out. Marley turns around gingerly to face her. "Thank you," Tina says sincerely, "for looking out for Blaine and letting me know. I appreciate it."

Marley smiles at her and Tina can't help but notice that the skinny wretch really was too pretty for her own good. What? She's not going to be Queen Bitch of McKinley but she's no saint, but for once Tina didn't begrudge her that. "You're welcome, Tina," Marley says, unaware of Tina's inner musings. "I'll see you in glee?"

"Yes," Tina answers and with a slight wave Marley shuffles back to the corridor.

Tina frowns. Something is going on and she's going to find out what. Since Blaine isn't talking then it's time to start digging. Tina doesn't think this is about Kurt. Despite not wanting to be Santana, doesn't mean they aren't friends. Santana keeps her up-to-date with all the latest NY gossip (as she keeps her up-to-date with the Lima drama). If Kurt and Blaine had another recent dramatic…episode, Santana would have let her know. And as of two hours ago, when she and Santana last checked in with each other, Kurt and Adam are going strong. And according to the latest in Cooper's Facebook wall and tweets—yes, she's subscribed, Cooper is hot—he and Blaine are cool. Cooper has no filter; his life is literally an open book.

The thing about Blaine is despite how strongly he feels about people; Blaine is only really close to very few of them. That's probably the reason why, because Blaine does feel so strongly, he only lets very few people close enough who can hurt him that way. Tina feels very privileged to be one of the exclusive few.

At least that helps narrow down the list of "suspects". Not many people are close enough to hurt him hard enough to shut-off like this. Case in point is the Warblers. Blaine's friendships with the various members aren't as tight as it used to be—with the probable exception of Wes and Trent. With the rest, Blaine has distanced himself from them. He's still polite and civil but she doubts he considers them his friends anymore, at least subconsciously. She's observed it, it's how Blaine protects himself from people who has betrayed and hurt him. The Warblers let Sebastian blind him and didn't do anything about it, then tried to take him away from McKinley—the fact that they were underhanded about it is what she suspects bothers him so much, not that they wanted him back—and when they cheated in Sectionals, well that was final straw. They weren't the people he knew. Their loss, her gain. She can safely remove them from the equation.

So since it isn't Kurt or Cooper, she can also safely count them out. She would know if there is anything new going on with his parents. She knows for a fact that things are better between them. They weren't happy when he transferred to McKinley, thinking that he was hurting his chances to get into a good college. But he's not only a member of a glee club who are the current National Champions, but student council president and now co-captain of the Cheerios, another group of National Champions. The previous captain, Quinn, went to Yale. They couldn't be more proud. In fact, Blaine was just telling her yesterday about how his parents have agreed to let him backpack around South East Asia on his own this summer.

It won't take her long to find out what is up with her friend. After you count out the Warblers, Kurt, Cooper, and his parents, then it's down to a handful of people, all of whom Tina knows. In a way she's grateful to Marley for talking to her, it made her realize how important this is. She may not be friends with Marley Rose, but she's a teammate. And New Directions looks out for each other.

She needs to talk to Sam.


A/N - The response was a little overwhelming until I remembered this is Blam. Blam is awesome. This fic will have four chapters, each chapter will be in a different character's POV. It's also a songfic so, apologies to those who aren't fans of songfics but yep, you're going to get treated to my fave characters singing some of my fave songs. The good news is this fic is finished so you don't have to worry about it not being finished. I will post one chapter a day so expect the last two chapters in the next two days. Thanks again for all of you who are reading the fic, and a special thanks for those who reviewed!