Kurt ended "Don't cry for me, Argentina," by beginning the last note very softly, letting it swell to full volume, and then dropping the volume again to almost a whisper. It was a trick that he'd learned from his previous voice teacher and he knew it showed off his breath control and the steadiness of his voice through the changing volume. He didn't need any encouragement to take advantage of the free private voice lessons offered at Dalton and Wes had strongly recommended that he take lessons from Ms. Cordwain. She'd never had major roles in the major shows in London but Wes had said that she was excellent and the other Warblers agreed, saying that she was tough but good. It had taken two days for her to have an opening and he'd gotten impatient during the wait.

He waited for her to express admiration at his delivery and his technique, but instead of the expected praise, he received a thoughtful nod and pursed lips, followed by a "Kurt, that's not the right piece for you at all, not at this point."

His jaw dropped. That song was his showpiece, his baby, and she had turned it down entirely. Maybe Wes had been wrong in encouraging him to work with her. "You sang it beautifully, but that's all you did with it. Evita is a mix of cunning and sentimentality, reaching her triumph but aware that she's going to have to manage her image more perfectly than ever before to stay on top. You sing it as it is on the surface, a very pretty song that shows off a very pretty, sincere thing. Let's try something else for you."

Kurt was ready to protest but forced it back down as she turned to the bookcase in the studio. He had the strong impression that she wouldn't listen. "You like the classic musical songs, right?" she asked as she flipped through several books. "Let's see what you can do with this." She put the music for "Ev'ry time we say goodbye" on the piano in front of him and began the piano introduction, adding, "This time is just for the notes and words."

Kurt was familiar enough with the song that he sang it through with only a few small flubs when the key changed. "Now, perform it for me, unaccompanied." She stood a few feet back, and just as he began the second phrase, took two backwards steps towards the door. "No, no, keep singing, Kurt. The song is about being left and saying goodbye—sing to keep me from leaving."

"Can I start again?" She had really thrown him off with first rejecting his "Don't cry for me, Argentina," and now literally starting to walk out the door when he sang. I'll show you what I'm all about, he thought to himself, almost vindictively. I'll show you.

"Of course." She went back to the piano, gave him the beginning chord, and he started again. This time, he focused entirely on her, meeting her eyes with his, making the "I die a little" half-boast, half-confession, and instead of walking backwards, she paused and then slowly, as if against her will, walked towards him again. By the time he sang, "Think so little of me," she was almost standing against him, but his victory made him lose focus. As she backed away, every single unwilling goodbye he had had to say came into his mind. I've said goodbye too many damn times. Each time he repeated the word "goodbye" or the phrase "I die a little," he forced the emotions to shape themselves to the song, anger exploding into one repetition, fear into the next, tenderness into another, and finally resignation into the last. During that one, she had silently placed the chair in front of him, all but literally sitting at his feet.

When he'd finished, she grinned all over her face, bounced up, and slapped him on the shoulder. "That's what I wanted to hear!" He didn't realize that he was actually grinning right back at her until he felt a twinge in his jaw. "Do something like that on stage and you will have them eating right out of your hand."

"It's a lot more challenging this way," he admitted.

"You'd better be up to it, three times a week, 90 minutes each time. Schedule it with the department." she swung her purse over her shoulder. "Now I do have to go for real," she laughed.

He gathered his jacket and bag and followed her out, surprised to see Wes, Blaine, and a few other Warblers outside, clearly waiting for him. "Shhhhhhhh," Blaine mock-whispered as he took Kurt's hand. "We want you to conspire with us."

"To conspire?"

"David's 18th birthday is the 18th. His girlfriend is coming in and everything. We need something suitably epic." Blaine dropped the whisper.

"Two weeks? I could make a planned event epic in two days."

Wes laughed. "We knew you'd think along the right lines. By the way, what did you think of Ms. Cordwain?"

"I really thought I was going to hate her and want to switch, but then, I kind of liked her. She's a lot more challenging than my old teachers."

"Did she do the walking out thing?"

"Oh, I suddenly don't feel so special any more." Kurt pouted.

"If it makes you feel any better, she actually left the room, headed down the stairs, and got outside. I had to follow her, singing, until she came back in," Andreas, a bass, admitted. "It was pretty embarrassing. But I did get over singing too softly."

During the brief pause, Kurt tried to imagine Andreas singing too softly, since he'd never heard anything but robust sounds from him. "But back to the party," Blaine said, eagerly. "Can you start thinking about decorations?"

"I'm already on it. Something like David, something dignified," he started to think out loud, "dignified and handsome, but still with a sense of fun." He caught himself before saying more when he felt Blaine's hand contract momentarily around his own.

Wes emitted his own exaggerated, "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" as they reached the dining hall, and Blaine was laughing along with the others. "He's not even coming here until 5:30."

"Yes, but sound carries."

During dinner that night, Blaine's thoughts returned several times to his moment of jealousy. He wasn't sure if Kurt had noticed anything other than a squeeze to his hand and in many ways, regretted opening up to Kurt. Maybe he shouldn't have opened up like that, but on the other hand, it was done now, and he didn't want Kurt thinking that he didn't have any self-control. Maybe even opening up about his major flaw was helpful, his admitting a vulnerability could have made Kurt more comfortable.

His Kurt seemed to be adapting. It wasn't yet a week but Kurt seemed to enjoy the Warblers and he had looked so satisfied coming out of the practice room. It just had to be a matter of time before Kurt would adapt entirely and enjoy everything that he had to offer. His breath caught in a hitch as he remembered that first night together, Kurt's luminous, apprehensive eyes and his pale skin against the sheets, and he clamped down on his imagination before he could get too carried away.

His plan for the weekend involved some serious shopping for Kurt on Sunday. His socks and underwear were all high quality, and he had a few designer items from a season ago, but the newer things were all dollar-store quality. Kurt had looked natural in the couture pieces Blaine had lent him that first day, natural in a way that he didn't look in the cheap shirts and pants. Something had happened there, but Blaine wasn't going to ask. He sensed pride in Kurt, pride that could only endure so much, and he assumed that it was the usual story of a family falling from the middle class, maybe even upper-middle, at some unexpected event. His father's death was the likely cause and Kurt hadn't talked about that at all, not even when Blaine carefully left an opening. In any case, he was going to take Kurt shopping for the decorations and then take him shopping period. The idea of Kurt wearing the clothing that he'd purchased was strangely heady and he wasn't going to deny himself that.

"Oh, sorry, completely zoned out," he apologized as David flicked a corner of a bread crust at him and repeated, loudly, "About our set list, Blaine. We'll have that ready by Wednesday, right?"

"Definitely." He plunged back happily into the conversations, thoroughly enjoying the present and anticipating the near future, resting his hand on the inside of Kurt's thigh absorbing its warmth.

Saturday, Blaine woke as Kurt got out of the bed. At the sound of coughing and sniffling from the bathroom he called, "Kurt? Are you okay in there?"

Kurt looked around the bathroom door, his face and nose red and a fistful of tissues in his hand. "I think I've got a cold." His voice was raspy and clogged. Blaine immediately got up and touched his forehead. "You feel feverish. Here, get back into bed, I'll see if anybody's got anything you can take." He retrieved the box of tissues from the bathroom and put it next to the bed.

He scavenged down the hallway and came back with some cough syrup and decongestants. A cold had gone around the campus last week, so at least there were supplies on hand. "Do you want anything hot to drink, some tea?" Kurt nodded, blowing his nose, and Blaine went to the kitchen to find the kettle and tea bags. There was half a jar of partially crystallized honey in the back of the cupboard and Blaine warmed some of that in a shallow bowl, not sure if he would want it separately or in his tea. He shook his head in faint amusement at how little he still knew about Kurt. So much intimacy already but so much more to discover.

The kettle whistled and he turned the gas off immediately. His quest for something for Kurt's cold had already awakened a few unwilling sleepers and though his previous plans for the weekend looked like they were shot, he didn't want to substitute being massacred for waking still more. He brought the tea and honey in and Kurt thanked him with a scratchy voice as he spooned the honey into the tea and wrapped his hands around the warm mug.

"Are you cold? I can turn the heat up." Blaine was a little worried at how drained he looked. He's your responsibility. Kurt shook his head and Blaine said, "I'll go shower. The humidity should help." When he came out again, Kurt was asleep and Blaine wasn't able to resist tucking the blanket more closely around him. He went to grab some breakfast and bring something back for Kurt, maybe some scrambled eggs or something else that would be easy to swallow.

When he got back, Kurt was still sound asleep, the blanket pulled up to his chin. Blaine couldn't believe how besotted the sight of Kurt's tousled hair and sleeping vulnerability made him. You've got it really bad. He probably needed sleep more than something to eat so Blaine put the food aside. Well, why shouldn't you be besotted? He's yours and when he leaves, it will be because the time is up. He's never going to use you, caring about him won't break you, and he'll never pretend that he loves you.

Will looked up from his lunch in the break room to see Sue swaggering over. "How're you doing on that homework? Both sets of assignments?" she asked as she sat and smirked. Funny how many words about Sue begin with S. Stalk, swagger, smirk, scourge, scary, saunter, scar, scold, scorch. There's also sex and stimulate, another part of his brain added, with a Sue-worthy smirk of its own.

"Can we talk about it in your office?" He didn't want to believe that she would talk about grading him in the break room, but on the other hand, this was Sue. He was also fairly certain that she'd talk about the relative advantages of buying ready-made nuclear weapons versus buying the materials and he didn't want those conversations in public, either.

"I did call a friend of my dad's and got him to check police records. Blaine and his family are unfortunately squeaky-clean, pillars of the community, and so on. Two parking violations among them over the last five years. Nothing's even been hushed up, there aren't any files that go suspiciously blank. His parents divorced when he was ten, he stayed with his mother, his father took his younger brother. He's still looking for anything on any of the rest of that Dalton team. But he's got to be careful that nobody finds out that he's looking, that school pretty much is the place where the rich and powerful of Ohio send their kids."

"Damn. I was sure that anybody who also uses that much hair gel has an unsavory past just waiting to be exploited," she muttered, looking down at her desk.

Is this Sue Sylvester being subdued? And why is my head still stuck on the letter S, anyway? She looked at him directly. "William, what if we can't get him out of there? If all we can do is wait?"

He gripped her hand. "Then we'll wait together. And be there together for him. All of us."

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