A/N: Still don't own Glee. Since my last chapter, the show's back; so now my story is a bit more AU, though I'll keep canon in mind.

From last chapter...

"It was horrible, Kurt. We eventually got him calmed down, and I put him in Jeffy's bed so I could keep an eye on him. I don't think I'm going to be going to sleep soon."

Kurt swallowed. He remembered that Blaine had horrific nightmares in the past; he'd learned of it by accident when Wes had quietly asked him if he was still having them. When he asked Blaine (since as far as he knew he hadn't) Blaine had confessed that since they'd come together as boyfriends he hadn't had them at all. It was only when he talked to Wes later on that he discovered just how bad they'd been, and that Wes had revealed that they were most prevalent at the damnedest times, when he was stressed (and since everyone at Dalton seemed to stress at finals, dealing with him those nights had been a pain, but one he'd taken on after he'd witnessed the first one).

"Can I talk to him?"

Nick sighed, and looked at the passed-out boy six feet away. He looked to Jeff, who nodded 'no'.

"Kurt, he told us about … New York. He's heartbroken. He's also exhausted, and dead asleep right now. He just wants you back so badly. Unless you're calling to tell him that ..."

Kurt didn't know what to say. What Nick was implying was clear enough. But questions swirled around his brain. He couldn't forget what Nick had said, how 'Sebastian dragged him to the Warblers' movie night'. What did that mean? He couldn't bring himself to ask what he wanted to know, wasn't sure if Nick would know anyway, or would tell him if the did. "I'm glad you're taking care of him, Nick. You're right, let him sleep. I'm coming to Ohio next Friday. He doesn't know that yet, though."

Rachel looked at him with big eyes, a small smile starting.

"Good, I guess. Do you want to tell him anything?"

Kurt gulped, and looked to Rachel, mouthed, 'a little help here?'. She nodded vigorously, 'yes'.

"You can tell him I called, that I'm glad he's with you, and to check his messages when he wakes up."

Blaine didn't hear the soft noise his phone made, telling him the text was there. He really didn't hear anything. Nick nodded tiredly over to Jeff, who smiled and joined him, turning out the light as he crossed the room.

Nick wasn't really surprised the next morning that Blaine was still asleep after he and Jeff had awakened and gotten ready for the day. He figured his friend was just thoroughly sleep-deprived, and was happy to let him sleep as long as he could.

He looked up, hearing a soft knock at the door, and padded over to the door to answer it, hoping whoever it was was going to be quiet.

"Sebastian," he whispered. Looking at the heavily laden tray from the Dalton caf, he beamed at the tall Warbler. "You are definitely maybe on track to get off Santa's naughty list this year."

"Definitely maybe," he quietly drawled back, "my chances are that good?" He glanced over, confirming why they were whispering. "Nothing else, last night?"

"Not a peep. Jeffy here's a light sleeper, believe me, he'd know." Jeff smiled, and nodded as he acknowledged this. "Thanks, man, this is great. How'd you know we wouldn't want to leave him?"

Sebastian just smirked and raised an eyebrow for a moment. "No wonder he looked like shit. This probably wasn't the first time."

Jeff walked over to talk to them, and accepted a coffee and an egg and cheese sandwich on an English muffin. "Thanks for this, by the way." He munched thoughtfully, and shared a look with Nick. "Are you sure we can't look?"

"Look at what?" Sebastian managed to sound sharp, even in a whisper.

Nick frowned at both of them. "One, his phone is locked, so we can't. Two, just no. Three, then the message would show as 'read'. You really wanna have to explain that?"

"Spill. Now."

Nick looked worriedly over at this still sleeping friend, and hustled Sebastian over to the furthest corner of the large room. "Kurt called last night. He didn't know Blaine was here, but he wanted to know if I knew how Blaine was doing." He shared a sour look with the taller boy. "I know, right? Well, I did tell him Blaine was here and all … I didn't even think, it was right after we'd gotten him up here and he'd fallen back asleep so fast. Anyway, he said to tell him he'd called, and to check his messages. And he's coming to Ohio next Friday. I don't remember if he wanted me to tell him that or not," he shared a look with his boyfriend, who shrugged cutely; apparently he was unsure of that too. "And that's all I know."

"Do you think that's a good idea?"

Nick frowned. "Maybe? I mean, we don't know what the text says, so we don't know why he's coming."

"I think maybe we should wait until we know what the text says," Jeff added.

Then they all heard it; a sleepy-sounding snort, followed by a raspy-voiced, "hey guys. What text?"


Blaine accepted Sebastian's offer of a drive back home that afternoon. He looked again at the text, still hardly believing it was there. I'm coming to Lima Friday, and I want to talk to you then, face to face. I wish I could make time go faster till then, Kurt.

What did it mean? He'd been elated to read the text, but then it felt unreal, when his eager responses went unanswered. This was better than nothing, but why send that message and then still not talk to him for almost a week? He wanted to feel happy, like his friends seemed to be for him, but he wasn't able to do it. What if he was just coming to break up with him for good? Up until now, he'd had hope, even if it wasn't very strong.

But Nick admitted that Kurt sounded worried about him when he'd called, and was relieved that he was passed out, sleeping in Nick's room. That sounded like he cared, right? But was that the same as still loving him, or was it just pity. He frowned, as he looked to the scenery racing by. Sebastian drove fast but seemed adept at not getting tickets. Kurt had forgiven Dave Karofsky, had pity on him, despite the hell he'd been responsible for inflicting on him. He wanted to take solace from what little he had to go on here, just like his friends wanted him to, but found that comfort was just too hard to grab hold of. In the end, despite having eaten more in the past day than he had in a long time (his friends had smartly forced him to eat a good breakfast before letting him get into a funk about not getting an immediate text back) and finally getting some sleep (that, he found, did feel good on a purely physical level: he hadn't realized how much his body routinely ached from lack of sleep and tense muscles) he felt the unease creep back into his bones.

"Talk to me." Blaine was interrupted from his thoughts, which had now started to loop endlessly, like the menu screen on a DVD after you've seen the movie. He faced Sebastian.

"Thank you. For trying to help. No, that sounds stupid. You did help – I needed to see the guys, and hanging out, eating too much pizza and snacks, and just zoning out to Harry Potter; that was really cool. I feel like such a self-absorbed … I don't know what … I mean, I was holding it together before that and -"

"I'm going to stop you right there. You fooled no one." He narrowed his eyes at Blaine's look of incomprehension. "You were never 'holding it together' very well. Remember, I've seen evidence first hand to the contrary. Look, we've been over this. Save the social niceties for the people who want them, which I guess is maybe everyone else," he smirked, "but not me. Not ever."

Blaine grimaced. He had to admit, Sebastian's no-bullshit policy was in its own way a relief. No pretending all was well (to an audience willing to believe the lie). No false assurances that life was just great, so much to look forward to. It was refreshing. "Fine. Thank you for what you did, though."

Sebastian's smirking smile was back. "Killer, can't have you pining away like that. Fine piece of ass going all to waste -"

"Sebastian!"

"What? You think he'd disagree with me? Seriously, you're better than that. I can't force you to forget him," he looked sideways at his passenger, "but you might give me credit for trying to send you to him when I thought it would do you some good, but either way …" and his voice lost all its playful sarcasm, "I couldn't let you go through that alone."

"Good call."

"Just don't go assuming the worst, all right? If he really didn't give a shit, he wouldn't have called Nick to spy on you. Why would he bother to come out here just to make you feel worse?"

Sebastian noticed a faint smile at this. "Would he believe you're giving me relationship advice?"

He snorted at this. "No! I can barely believe it myself. If you tell anyone, I will end you," he punctuated this with an evil laugh.

"Did you know you sounded just like Santana then?" Blaine giggled back.


"Kurt, can you come into my office for a minute, please?"

Kurt looked up from the layout he was trying to finalize, nodded, and followed Isabelle into her office, where she shut the door behind them. "These are for you … I didn't want anyone out there to get jealous," she added quickly, darting her eyes to the outer office.

He looked down at the two tickets for Nice Work if You Can Get It for tomorrow night. "Wow. But why -"

"Kurt, I'm so sorry, but I'm gonna beg you to take tomorrow off, see if maybe your friend Rachel would like to go with you to the show, and … I need you on Saturday. The regular magazine's cover shoot has been rescheduled, and they had to re-do our schedule too, so Saturday is what we've got the crew for, not Thursday after all. I hope that's all right."

Kurt stood in shock. God! She could talk as fast as Rachel. This was the weekend they were going to go to Lima; she'd known he was going, but not all the details. He'd encased his personal life in a tight shell at his internship since that awful night, and even Isabelle didn't know much beyond the barest details. Which was good, as he didn't trust himself to be able to hold himself together for that kind of a talk, and losing control at work was the last thing he wanted to do. They'd happily let him slave away, everyone marveling at what a workaholic he was, grateful for how eager he seemed to be to do anything and everything. His heart sunk; Isabelle was the nicest boss ever, but she clearly expected him to accept her peace offering (which most editors wouldn't have bothered with, he knew that) and make other plans.

"Um, wow, I love Matthew Broderick. I heard this was great. Rach hasn't seen it yet either, and she doesn't have Tuesday night classes. Thanks."

"Great!" she swooped in for a quick hug. "I knew I could count on you. I'm just glad I had these tickets to say thanks with. You're the best!" And she shepherded him out of her office.


"And you said you had other plans, right?" Rachel's look chided him.

"No." He looked at his feet. Damn. He had a feeling he knew what was coming next, as he put the boxes of Chinese food for dinner on the table.

"Kurt." She frowned at him, her mouth drawn into an uncharacteristically flat line. "Look at me."

"Rachel -"

"This isn't good, you know."

"You think I don't know that!"

"Don't, Kurt. You have to make this right. After weeks of … nothing, you spy on him, calling Nick, and then you text him that you'll see him Friday, but refuse to do anything more than that one text, and now this? Call him."

"I can't. I have to see him face to face, Rach. There's been too much -"

"Exactly! Too much silence, too much sadness, and quite frankly, too damn much punishing!" She regretted it the instant she said it, looking at Kurt's crushed expression as he withdrew to the couch and curled into a ball. "Baby, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that -"

"No, don't apologize. You just said what you thought. What I've even thought, lately. Hell, I don't even know what I'm punishing him for; he wanted to tell me, that's what kills me. That's just so Blaine, he wanted to blurt out everything, even if half of it came out wrong. And maybe you're right, maybe that picture with Sebastian isn't what I thought either; I mean, Nick would have told me, right? And he did tell me that he wants me back, Rachel. I'm such an idiot."

Rachel frowned at her friend, joining him on the couch, yet again in tears. But it was different this time, she felt. The anger wasn't there, except for that directed at himself. He was finally admitting out loud things that she'd thought, but didn't want to say. She kissed his shoulder as she continued to hold him as he cried. "We're all idiots sometimes, dummy. We've got to make another plan."


Blaine sat next to Brittany at lunch, like usual.

"My dolphin!" She gave him a friendly peck on the cheek.

"Someone looks happy today," he smiled back at her as he settled into the seat opposite her.

"Santana sent me this adorable text with a video of a kitten scaring a German Shepherd. Wanna see?"

"Sure, Britt. So, you hear much from her lately?"

She frowned a bit before answering. "Sometimes. I mean, I still miss our dates, and we're still sort of broken up, but we still text and talk sometimes. I still don't want anyone else, but it feels like we're really not all the way broken up, you know?" She smiled at him. "So, Friday, right?"

He smiled a small smile. "Friday. Why is this week so long?"

"Lord Tubbington doesn't know either; I already asked him that," she teased back.

Blaine's brows furrowed as he noted a text message, then he dropped his head into the table seconds later.

"What? Blaine, are you okay?"

He passed the phone over to her. Blaine, I'm so sorry, I can't come on Friday. So sorry. I'll let you know when I've rescheduled. Please forgive me. Kurt.

A/N: Sorry about the cliffhanger, really I am. Thoughts, folks? We've gotten a little of Kurt's perspective here, and some Dalton action. I'd love to hear from you. Sorry about my change of nom de plume, but everything's fine.

I'd love your feedback. For instance, did the recap at the beginning help? Thoughts on characters, etc.? Thanks for reading :-)