Author's Note: Hi guys, I really hope you like this chapter! I hope this chapter captures the new, more hopeful direction that this story is heading in... I'd like to say it's pretty safe to say that this is the last chapter with multiple fits of tears! I'd also like to make a note of where this story takes place: to fit the storyline, in the alternate universe of this story Carole and Burt's marriage takes place earlier in Season 2. Everything else is still in place, including when Kurt goes to Dalton Academy. This story takes place just before that happens.

Thanks for all the great reviews, they really are so encouraging. Keep them coming!

Enjoy!

It's only ever happened to me once before, and I think that's what scares me the most. You'd think that this emotion, or this state that I'm in, or whatever you want to call it, would be reserved for car accidents and mothers dying and that sort of thing, but no: when Mr. Schuester walked out of that building and saw me there, with my bloody fucking arm hanging in the air and Finn Hudson standing with me, the person I had made the human capsule of all my secrets, I felt like I did when our car ran into the side of a fucking Dodge Ram and everything went blurry and muffled and slow and loud.

The voices of Mr. Schuester and Finn talking at me and footsteps on the pavement sounded just the same as sirens and paramedics and cars and concerned pedestrians and honking car horns. I swear to fucking god whoever took my hand and led me into the school felt exactly like the firefighter who helped me out of that crumpled car. And, worst of all, I couldn't respond to any of it. When the car crashed and the sirens blared and my life was indefinitely changed, I didn't even shed a tear. I went numb. I went numb and felt overwhelming nothingness and, worst of all, I'm doing the same thing right now.

I'm not fucking stupid, I know that this event hardly compares to my mother's death. I know that. But I don't know what the hell is going to happen to me after this, and I didn't after the accident, and maybe that's why I feel the way I do now.

I'm lying on a cot that smells of sweat and metal and cheap lilac-scented soap in the nurse's room. It is far too bright, and it reminds me of when I was lying in the hospital. It was only then that I started to come back to the world and get the feeling in my fingers and my toes and my mind back.

Rolling onto my side, I look toward the windows and see Mr. Schuester in the adjacent office talking on the phone. We make eye contact through the glass, and then he looks to behind me and—

"Shawn?"

I jump as I turn around, panicked.

Finn is sitting on in a chair at the other side of the bed, looking like that freaking innocent puppy, and I collapse against the bed as my heart rate slows. And then I remember why I'm here and why he's here and what we said and what Mr. Schuester saw and the fact that he's on a phone and then my heart speeds up again. With every single heartbeat I feel like my heart is trying desperately to escape from my chest.

"Look, Shawn…" Finn starts.

"What the hell happened, Finn?" I snap, sounding far more harsh than I meant to. I take a deep breath as I stare up at the ceiling, because I know it'd only make things worse if I tried to run. "I can't… I can't remember anything."

"I told you that I was going to tell Mr. Schuester about your cuts, and then you told me about your fa—"

I stop him before he even says that word. "I remember all that, Finn."

"Mr. Schue came out," Finn says.

"What did you tell him?"

"Everything," he says. I look towards Finn, and I can't read the expression on his face. It's something mixture between sympathy and pity and pride. Whatever the expression, I can't stop looking at it. Not in a romantic way; Finn Hudson is the holder of all my secrets, in a sense, and he shares a large part of the heavy burdens, or whatever the fuck it is, that I carry around with me. I've spent such a large part of my existence, for far too long, keeping those secrets to myself, and now that he knows, it's like he's the physical representation of it all.

(And I can't stop staring at it.)

"I told him everything," Finn says again. "I mean… the way it looked, I had no choice really."

I nod my head. Tears start coming.

"It's almost a good thing, right?" he says, smiling faintly. "Mr. Schue's going to help you out now."

"Who is he on the phone with?" I ask, my voice cracking.

"Social Services," Finn says. I shut my eyes and my lips tight as the words ring in my ears. Social Services… God, I've heard those words before. "Or whatever they're called… like the people who take kids away from places like yours."

I feel so powerless, lying on a smelly yellow cot in the nurses' room at William McKinley High School, with my teacher on the phone with fucking Social Services. It's almost the same as when that police officer told me my mother was dead. I felt pretty fucking powerless then, too.

(I hate myself for continuously comparing this to my mother's death.)

"I know about your mom," Finn says, quickly, as if he read my mind. "Mr. Schue does, too."

I just take a deep breath. I forgot he didn't know absolutely everything. "Oh."

"He was going to call her, but then we looked at your file to get her number and… yeah."

I just nod, still looking up at the tiny dark specs on the grey ceiling, following them with my eyes and trying to make sense of why they're even up there in the first place.

(It's a lot to take in.)

"Do you have anywhere else to go?" Finn asks. "Like, family members or someone you can stay with?"

"No," I say. I open my mouth so sigh and end up sobbing; I turn over onto my other side, away from Finn, and then I make see Mr. Schuester again, who is still on the phone and still talking and still looks concerned, so I look away and turn back onto my back. I look up towards the ceiling, back at the dark specs on the tiles up there.

"Well," Finn says, sounding shy and innocent and slightly confident like only Finn can. "If you want to, and if the Social Services people will let you, you can stay at my house. With me, and my mom, and Kurt and his dad."

I look over to him.

"I mean, I still have to ask my mom and Burt," Finn says, shrugging his shoulders and looking to his feet. He's nervous. "But I'm sure they'd be cool with it."

I sigh, looking back up at the specs. It's all terribly, terribly overwhelming. "Finn…"

"Like, I know we don't really know each other, but if you don't have anywhere else to go, I just thought—"

"I just can't get my hopes up, Finn," I tell him, tears falling down the sides of my face. "Don't make me promises that you can't keep."

Finn presses his lips together and nods.

We stay there, sitting in silence, until Mr. Schuester comes in.

"Hey," he says to me quietly. He stands at the door, clasping his hands together.

"I've got to make a call," Finn jumps up. Mr. Schuester gives him a smile and a pat on the back as he walks out of the room. I watch him walk down the hall and take out his phone through the windowed walls.

Mr. Schuester, meanwhile, goes to the cabinet and took out a first aid kit.

"What are you doing?" I ask, sitting up and wiping my eyes. My voice still cracks, though, but I'm most certainly used to it.

He places the first aid kit down on the desk at my left, opposite to where Finn was sitting, and opens it up. "We need to clean up…" he pauses for a moment, looking down at my arm. "Your cuts."

I nod as I swing my legs over to the side of the bed. I say, "You were talking to Social Services."

Opening the little red box with the white cross on it, he sighs. "I was."

"What's going to happen to me?" I ask. All I want to do is say those words and get them out and hear the answer. All I want is for Mr. Schue to tell me my fate and then I just need it to happen and I need to get it over with and I need it to become the past so I can know what the fuck is going to come of me.

"A social worker is going to your house now to talk with your father and check things out," he tells me with a cloth in his hand. "Give me your arm."

I hesitate for a moment, and then I roll up my sleeve and give it to him.

Mr. Schuester sighs slightly as he looks at my cuts, the red cuts and stained blood on my skin. I do the same. In this light, they look brighter and deeper. He looks at them, then up to me, and then down at my arm again. I dodge his gaze. "I wish I could've helped you sooner, Shawn…"

"You tried," I tell him quickly. I cringe as he cleans my cuts. It stings, but it's nothing compared to this whole situation. "I didn't let you help me. I didn't want help."

He wets another cloth with rubbing alcohol. "You want help now?"

"I guess don't have much of a choice now, do I?" I try to chuckle, but it comes out as a sniffly, choked sob.

(Isn't it hilarious how that happens?)

"I'm glad you told Finn," he tells me. "I'm proud of you for telling him."

I just smile. I know that I should've told him; now more than ever I know that. This was bound happen eventually. I don't want to admit it, but I'm a tad relieved that I'm getting this over with. I'm facing Mr. Schuester, my big secret literally lying between us and, somehow, I can feel the weight I've been so used to carrying leaving my shoulders.

(A part of me that is almost too big to ignore hates me for being relieved.)

"Finn said that I could stay with him," I say. "With him and Kurt and their parents. I think he's calling his mom right now to ask… Do you think I would be able to stay with them?"

"Burt and Carole are really nice people," He says. He's finished wrapping my arm now; he puts his hands on his knees, looking me straight in the eye. I hold my bandaged arm close to me. "But it's a big commitment to take on another child. And I'm not sure what the social workers will say—there's a lot of paperwork to go through for you to stay with anyone for a long period of time."

I nod, and he gets up to put the first aid kit back in the cabinet.

"God, what will happen to me?" I say, more to myself than to him. "Tonight, and for the rest of my life, at least until I'm an adult but that's, like, five years away…"

I start to tear up again, my voice cracking and my head starting to feel like heavy mush. I put my face in my hands, one of which is bandaged. I sob.

Mr. Schue sits down beside me and puts a hand on my shoulder. "Someone from Social Services is going to call after they've talked with your father."

"And then what?"

"If they decide it's not safe for you to go home—"

"I can't go home!" I say, holding my arm close to my body. "He's going to be so angry at me, Mr. Schue, I can't go there please…"

I begin to sob, choking on my breaths and I can't control it and the tears are coming down from my eyes in buckets.

(You'd think I'd be out of tears by now?)

I lean into Mr. Schuester's chest, and he holds me as I try to compose myself, just like this morning.

"Shhh," he says gently, trying to be a comfort. I'm a bit preoccupied, but I do appreciate it, whether I want to admit it or not. "It'll be alright."

"What if they decide it's not safe for me to go home? What do we do until the call comes?"

"Do you have any family you could stay with?" He asks. "Aunts, uncles, grandparents, maybe?"

I sniffle. "Nobody."

"I know about your mother, Shawn," he says, still holding me. "I know about the accident."

"So," I ask carefully. "You know...?"

He just nods. I can't see him, but I can feel him nod against the side of my head.

I continue to sob. "That's why I freaked out this morning, Mr. Schue. My father played that song at her funeral and it was their song and I just couldn't..."

I can't even finish the sentence.

"I know," he says. "I know."

(I know that he fucking knows.)

"I can probably get temporary custody of you, until arrangements can be made," Mr. Schue says. I look up to him when I hear his voice, and I can see tears in his eyes. "Or I can try to sign it over to Carole and Burt, if that's what you want."

"Probably?" I exclaim, but in the quiet way.

"I had a long talk with a social worker on the phone," Mr. Schue hugs me again. "She seemed really nice; I'm sure she'll do her best to arrange what you'd like."

I just lay against his shoulder. The uncertainty is overwhelming.

He sighs. "Until then, we'll wait here. She said it wouldn't be more than an hour or so."


Mr. Schue and I moved from the nurses' room into the office once I'd composed myself; after we'd exhausted all the small talk we could muster, he took this opportunity to grade some tests. I played a game on my phone until the battery went dead.

I kept checking my back, waiting for Finn to return. According to Mr. Schue, Finn said he wouldn't leave until I was sorted out, so I doubt he left, but I couldn't see him down the hall.

I couldn't really believe my behaviour; I was shuffling in my seat, anxious for Finn to return, like some nervous little schoolgirl. I don't think you can really blame me, though; like, this boy does hold my potential future in his hands. I mean, I hardly even know Burt or Carole, or Finn or Kurt or Mr. Schue, for that matter. In one day, I managed to turn my entire life around, and the life of all these people for at least the time being. The whole situation is so absurd that I can't even wrap my head around it; how was I supposed to expect the parents of a kid I hardly know even understand it, or be willing to take me in? If I were Finn's mother, would I have let some mysterious kid live in my home, for God only knows how long?

I'm still trying to wrap my head around someone actually wanting to take me in the first place, not to mention this entire situation. I'm a mentally-screwed up foster kid who cuts.

(Foster kid; I have that title now.)

Honestly, who the fuck would want me anyway?

It'd been nearly a half an hour since Finn had gone to make the call but, like the rest of this day, it felt like an eternity. Seconds turned to minutes like molasses but then, sure enough, the ridiculously tall quarterback turned Glee club lead came through the door.

"They said yes," Finn announced with a smile, like he'd just saved the day.

"What?"

"They said yes," he repeated. "You can stay with us. I mean, it took a lot of convincing, and, you know, they've never really met you and they want to talk with you, Mr. Schue, but…"

Mr. Schue put down the paper he was grading. "That's great, but we shouldn't get our hopes up. We don't know what the social worker will say."

"But they said yes," I tell him.

I look back to Finn, and there's hope in his eyes.

(I don't care if it's up, down or sideways; it's still hope.)