Author's Note: Wow, I'm feeling all the love this story is getting and it's great! Definitely keeps me motivated. This chapter checks in on Kurt and Blaine and how they are processing the last few days, so it's a bit angsty, be warned.

I don't own Glee or United States of Tara.

Chapter 10

Blaine was mentally drained by the time he dragged into his dorm room and collapsed on the bed. Looking over at the bedside clock, he groaned when he realized it was only six thirty in the evening. Why did it seem so much later? The whole incident with Kurt/Conrad had put him on almost an excited edge while everything was unfolding, but now he felt empty and numb with no clear direction on what to do with the rest of his night. He figured he should probably buckle down and do the homework he'd been neglecting for the last couple nights, but part of his brain was encouraging him to just push it off for another day. After all, it was still the first week of school, it's not like he could get that behind.

He really cared about Kurt. Loved him, even. In fact, he'd told him as much at the beginning of the summer. But that was before he knew the extent of Kurt's disorder. Truth be told, Blaine was scared. Not necessarily of Kurt or his alters, but of what they represented for he and Kurt's life together, should things move in that direction. Of course Blaine thought about the future, he thought about it often. He thought about where Kurt fit into his future and usually it was with warmth and a steady, excited hum of anticipation. He blushed as he thought back to the cocky self-assuredness he'd worn, even up until this afternoon, about how he could help Kurt overcome his problems. As long as they loved each other, there was nothing the two couldn't accomplish, right?

"Oh my God, I'm so in over my head."

"Anything you'd like to talk about, Blaine?" Blaine bolted upright at the sound of his roommates voice. He didn't even notice when he came in the room that Justin was sitting crosslegged on his bed with a book in his lap. Justin was overall a very quiet, considerate person, but Blaine really must have been out of it to not even notice him sitting there three feet from his own bed until he opened his mouth. Plus, Blaine had no idea he'd spoken that last part aloud.

"Oh, hey Justin," Blaine clumsily tried to recover. "No, it's fine, just first week of school jitters."

"Right," Justin replied skeptically. "Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me."

Blaine offered him a smile before opening the drawer of his bedside table. He fished around for a few seconds before pulling out his I-Pod and headphones. "Thanks, but I think I'm just gonna go for a walk. You know, clear my head a bit."

Justin nodded at him and returned his attention to his book. Blaine breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Justin wasn't going to push it. Not that he expected him to. That's part of what made Justin a great roommate. He was a good listener and offered sound advice, but never unsolicited. And right now, the last thing Blaine needed was for his friends to start nosing around in what was going on with Kurt.

No one at Dalton, with the exception of himself and the faculty, knew about Kurt's DID. Kurt was adamant that he didn't want them knowing. Blaine suspected that some of the more discerning members of the Warblers sensed that there was something different about Kurt (aside from the obvious flares for fashion and the dramatic), but no one had outright questioned Kurt or Blaine about anything. As far as he knew, the kids at McKinley were in the dark as well, with the exception of Finn, which the more Blaine got to know Kurt's stepbrother, the more impressed he was at his ability to keep his mouth shut on this particular issue. It definitely gave Blaine a new level of respect for Finn.

Until this evening, Blaine had never felt the need to talk about Kurt's disorder to anyone other than Kurt. So far, he realized with a large measure of guilt, it had been easy and sort of exciting to think about. It wasn't that he wanted Kurt to suffer, the whole thing was just so bizarre. And really, when he'd been on the medication, his alters rarely surfaced and when they did, it was usually for only a few minutes at a time and never in Blaine's presence. It wasn't until now that Blaine started to think about the dark side of it all. The fact that Kurt no longer appeared to have any measure of control over his own life. The fact that when his alters took over, he had no recollection of what they might have said or did unless someone told him afterwards. The fact that Burt Hummel had told him an hour ago in the coffee shop that he was terrified of his own son's condition and the possibility of some gruesome or traumatic experience in Kurt's childhood that may have caused Kurt's life to spiral out of control.

In short, Blaine felt like a terrible human being. To think that he'd once romanticized Kurt's DID, and his own role in "curing" his boyfriend, as if love truly could conquer all. He laughed bitterly to himself as he shoved his earbuds in, cranking up the volume on the playlist he turned to on those rare moments in his life when he felt like indulging in his negative emotions. He walked out of his dorm and headed to the courtyard that was surrounded on all sides by the other dormitories. He circled around one of the large reflecting pools and exited the bordering sidewalk onto an offshoot path toward the woods on the westside of campus.

It was still early enough in the summer evening that the sun sat still rosy and soft in the sky. He figured he had a good hour left before complete dark. Enough time to calm down and center his focus back on how to best help and love Kurt, but not nearly enough time to figure out the best way of going about it. Blaine had no idea what he was doing and that part terrified him. But he did know that he loved Kurt and he had no desire to be apart from him. He was scared, sure, but he wasn't going to be scared away.

Love may not be enough to conquer Kurt's disorder, but it was enough to conquer Blaine's fear.

OOO

Kurt woke up after a two hour nap, feeling slightly disoriented. It didn't take long, however, for the incident at the Lima Bean to come crashing into his brain again. He remembered meeting Blaine there, talking to him for a while. He remembered meeting Sebastian Smythe and he remembered getting a bad vibe from the tall Warbler. And then he remembered his dad sitting where Blaine was supposed to be. He remembered his dad's hand over his on the table, his soothing words. He remembered looking around for Blaine before his dad told him Blaine had already left, but not to worry, he wasn't upset or weirded out.

Kurt wasn't so sure about that. Really, who wouldn't be weirded out by all this? Kurt himself was weirded out by the whole thing and he didn't have a choice about it like Blaine did. Blaine didn't have to stick around for all this if he didn't want to, and Kurt wasn't so sure he should try to convince him to. Was it fair to ask that of his boyfriend of six-ish months? Was it fair to ask his seventeen year old boyfriend to take on the responsibilities that came along with being in love with a crazy person?

"Kurt you are not crazy. I don't ever want to hear you say that about yourself." How many times had his father said those words to him over the past few years? Over the past few days? He knew it must be exhausting for his father to not only have to put up with the antics of his alters, but to have to constantly reassure his son that he was okay, that things would get better, when there was really no guarantee that they would. Kurt didn't often feel hopeless, but the last few days left him feeling lower than low. He no longer felt like he had control over any part of his life and he was desperately trying to keep the panic that was starting to edge into his brain at bay.

Sitting up in bed, Kurt noticed it was about 8:30 at night. Aside from really having to pee, he knew that he should probably get a decent meal in him and it wouldn't be a bad idea to make another entry into his video journal. The last one he'd made had also been his first, on Monday morning, and as far as he knew, neither Conrad or Gina had taken it upon themselves to make an entry, despite the note he left by his laptop per Dr. Simmons' instructions. He had no idea if either of them even knew how to work a computer.

Standing up, he stretched his muscles and stifled a yawn. He made a mental note to ask Dr. Simmons about all the sleeping at his next appointment. He usually slept a lot after a transition, but this was getting ridiculous. He was starting to feel like over the past few days if he wasn't transitioning, he was asleep, meaning he was never conscious and himself at the same time. How depressing was that?

Kurt took a passing glance in his bathroom mirror after emptying his bladder and trudged downstairs. Walking into the kitchen, he saw Carole sitting at the table with an open book and a mug of tea. She smiled warmly at him.

"Hey Kurt, how are feeling?" She asked him gently. If Kurt had the energy, he would have reminded her that he wasn't so fragile, that he didn't need the baby talk, but who would he be kidding? He was more fragile than ever and turning his back on those who knew, loved and supported him wasn't exactly a smart move.

"I'm okay I guess," he answered, moving toward the fridge. "Where's dad?" And where was Finn for that matter? The house seemed entirely too quiet for this time of night.

"He and Finn went to Westerville to pick up your car," she replied, answering both his voiced and unspoken questions at once. "They should be home any minute though, really. Can I fix you anything to eat?"

"No, but thank you," he answered graciously. After all these years, Kurt had to admit it was nice to have a mother in the home again. "I think I'll just heat this up." He held up a plastic container full of spaghetti and moved around to the microwave. Carole smiled and lowered her gaze to her book again.

After a few minutes, the microwave beeped and with careful hands, Kurt pulled the dish out.

"Do you mind if I take this up to my room?" Kurt asked, somewhat guiltily. It's not that he didn't want to be around Carole, he just had a lot on his mind that he wanted to process before he got sleepy again for the night.

"Not at all, Sweetheart," she smiled. "Just let me know if you need anything, okay?"

"I will," Kurt smiled back. "And thank you, Carole. I mean it. For everything." He backed out of the kitchen and turned around to head upstairs.

Five minutes later, Burt and Finn were walking through the door. Finn carried a Burger King sack and immediately sat down at the table next to his mom and began to eat. Burt shuffled around the kitchen, fixing a glass of water and scanning the fridge for a Kurt-approved dinner while Finn and Carole made small talk about Finn's school day.

"I think I'm going to go upstairs and call Rachel," Finn announced after polishing off his burger and fries. Carole and Burt said goodnight to their son and waited until they heard his bedroom door clothes before speaking.

"Has he come down yet?" Burt asked tentatively as he sat down at the table with a sandwich. Carole smiled at him and placed her book to the side.

"Yeah, he was just down," she answered softly. "He took a bowl of spaghetti up to his room to eat. I wish he'd stayed down here, but I was just happy to see him eating. He's been looking too thin lately."

"I know," Burt agreed with a mouthful of bread. "I just…" he remembered his manners and halted his thought until he could swallow the bite of food and chase it with a sip of water. "I wish that I knew how to help him. I feel so out of control, Carole. He's my son and I…I have no idea what to do. I feel like I'm losing him." Burt couldn't remember ever feeling this vulnerable and scared in his life.

"I know you do, Honey," Carole replied. "But Kurt is strong. Probably the strongest person I know. He'll get through it, we just have to make sure we do what we can to help him."

At that moment, Burt felt the weight of his secret investigation into Kurt's past crash down on his shoulders again. Why in the world would he be keeping this from Carole? He was started to wonder if he himself had some kind of repressed memory. Something in his subconscious that was keeping him from being honest with her. Subconscious be damned, he thought to himself, inhaling deeply and trying to calm his nerves. He pushed his plate back and turned his body to face his wife.

"There's something I need to tell you about."

Comments and suggestions are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.