25. Aftermath

Kurt Hummel had his arms around Blaine Anderson's neck as he hopped off the floor. The shortest boy was still kind of in shock. He looked confusedly at Carmen Tibideaux' back for the second time that morning, but that time it was for the best.

"Did she…?" he asked his ex boyfriend completely dazzled.

Kurt's high-pitched voice didn't lower half a tone when he stopped his leaping around Blaine. "Just tell you you're in?! Yes!"

Blaine's eyes filled with tears. He had made it. He was the winner and he had taken it all. "I'm in," he kept repeating, trying to accommodate his mind to his new status of NYADA freshman. "I'm in."

Cassandra July had the deference to approach her soon-to-be student and congratulate him with a firm handshake. "I guess there's a welcome in order, Mr. Anderson."

"Th-Thank you much," he replied, honored by the unique fallen Broadway star. "I really apprecia…"

"Don't." Cassie raised her palm in front of Blaine's face to shut him up. "Don't do the whole arse licking thing. It didn't work for your boyfriend, won't make things easier for you either."

Blaine shook his head and chuckled. "Oh, no, he is not my…"

"And do the interrupting thing either," she snapped.

"Never interrupt her," Kurt whispered in his ear, as if Cassandra couldn't hear the too-late advice.

Before she returned to her duties or her Listerine drinking or whatever kept Cassandra's morning busy when she preferred not to teach her students, she dedicated a couple words to the auditioner. "You know I don't like teachers' pets or being interrupted, but there's another thing that gets me on my nerves: privileged kids. Carmen loves her last-minute talents. But I don't," she grinned mischievously. "I will make you beg her she hadn't ever granted you that special treatment." She patted Blaine's face lightly. "And congratulations."

"Is she going to make my life a hell on Earth?" Blaine asked, once they were all alone in the Round Room.

Kurt smiled at the one who was his man a long time ago. "You can bet your bowties she is."

Blaine took a deep breath and moved to sit down on one of the chairs. "Why did she call me 'your boyfriend'?" he asked, absolutely out of curiosity.

"I may have stood up for you a couple times." Kurt shrugged as he sat on the chair next to Blaine. "She might have noticed our animal chemistry…"

They laughed together. Side by side. As in the old days. "Must have been that," Blaine replied as he tried to stop his chuckling. "Thank you."

Kurt threw his head back and sighed. His gaze got lost in the dome of the auditorium. He took a second to reflect on that scene. He was all alone with the boy he loved with his all heart since the day he met him. Only a couple inches separating them and no eyes to make them feel awkward. In fact, that was the moment they had felt more comfortable since… Since it all went to waste.

He turned his head to look at Blaine. And Blaine looked back into his eyes. "So handsome," Kurt thought as he stared at Blaine's perfect skin. "So…"

His mind shut down. His boy took the lead. His hands cupped Blaine's face. His spine twisted and he leaned down. His lips touched Blaine's and for ten heavenly seconds, it was Lima that September 2011 and the love of his life had just transferred schools for him.

Kurt gave it, so he was to break the kiss as well. He opened his eyes and looked at Blaine, who was biting his lower lip, absolutely speechless. "I… I'm sorry. I… I ruined it." Kurt was afraid that he had screwed their relation after all the time they had needed to heal their friendship. He blushed, so he stood up and headed out, but Blaine held his hand in his before he could ran away.

"You haven't."

The dressing room the New Directions were assigned had a little annex bathroom. Just one toilet, one sink and a hand dryer. Not even paper. But Santana Lopez didn't need that for their purpose.

She was leaning against the sink while Brittany sat on the closed toilet. They locked the door and remained silent for a couple minutes, until Brittany broke the ice. "You were awesome," she said with her usual innocent smile.

Santana turned her head from Brittany and rolled her eyes at herself, staring at the tiled wall. "This is not the way it's supposed to be," she muttered, trying her best to hold the tears inside.

"That line… wasn't Blaine's." The blonde stood firmly on the competition topic, not desiring an open confrontation about the feelings issue.

"I just needed to sing with you once again." And the dikes of her eyes gave in. Santana leaned her head against the wall as she sobbed lightly. "I am here to fight for you, Brittany. You are my best friend, I love you, you love me… and I can't just accept that we cannot be."

Brittany stood up and wrapped her arms around the broken girl, hooking her chin over Santana's shoulder. "Then why are you crying?" She pouted as well. Too much sharing throughout her whole life not to empathize with her soul sister. "It's not like you're going to drown me into getting back together, is it?"

Santana held Brittany's hands and put a smile on her face. "You are the best," she said with her reediest voice. She missed Brittany's sense of humor. She missed Brittany's naivety. She missed Brittany's joy. She missed her caresses. The sweet lady kisses and the constant support. She missed Brittany S. Pierce, but she had no other way to say it to her.

"You… you too," Brittany responded, rubbing Santana's hands with her thumbs. "Or at least you were," she thought. "Now you tell me why you've dragged me into a bathroom to cry for no reason before I start crying too."

"Do we really need reasons to cry?"

"According to Lord Tubbington, you are a soulless bitch who sold her feelings for a discount on her boob job."

Santana laughed and finally turned to look at Brittany with red eyes. "Aren't I?"

"He likes your boobies too," Brittany whispered, pressing a finger against her lips before laughing along. "You say you are fighting for me here, but I'm actually comforting you, so…"

"I know the mistakes I've made. I know why we broke up and I know why you don't love me anymore."

"That's not…"

"Let me finish, please." Santana squeezed Brittany's hands lightly to silence her. "I love you. Always have. Always will. That's not a secret. I've not treated you well. I have not been a good girlfriend. Or not as good as you deserve."

By then, Brittany had already joined the pity party and a bright tear was running down her blushed cheeks.

"I really want to make amends with you. Prove you that I can do it right. For you." Santana dried Brittany's tears with her index finger. "For us."

"We broke up because you didn't trust me." The memory of the break-up still felt like a fist being clenched around her liver. "But you still haven't told me why you are here. Crying."

Santana took a deep breath. "Because there's a secret I should keep…"

"The kind of secret you think I can't handle?"

"The kind of secret you think I think I have to keep from the rest of the world," Santana corrected cutely. "But… you are not the rest of the world. You are the world, Brittany Pierce. You are my world and…" She got nervous. Her hands started shaking and she sort of blabbered. "And I have to stop caring about the rest of the world and just focus on you. I don't give a fuck if Rachel fucks Blaine at a prom or if the damn Legolas shoves an arrow up his tight ass. I love you and only you."

"Oh my what?!" Sugar and Tina's voices broke the silence of the dressing room. The New Directions plus Cooper, Mercedes and Puck were waiting for the other choirs to perform and, in the meantime, the gossip team of the William McKinley High School decided to kill time by eavesdropping on the Brittana in the bathroom. Their attempt to do a revival of Gossip Girl's blog Lima Edition was a total failure after the only three bombshells they featured: Lauren Zizes finally breaking the line of the 200 pounds, Blaine and Marley's relationship and a series of documentaries on the so-called Sebastian Smythe's McKinley Sex Tour, which included a report of the best places to have intercourse upon in that high-school, though most of the articles revolved around the Dalton Academy. Did you know Trent the Warbler wasn't gay? Boom. Did I leave you breathless? Neither did Gossip Tina and Gossip Sugar (a.k.a. Gossugar, a.k.a. Worst Nickname Ever).

A couple months after their ridicule project, Sugar and Tina found the breaking news that might have made their career as journalists through the door of a bathroom.

The whole group turned at them, including Brittany and Santana, who walked out of the toilet, the latter trying to fix her make-up, and her girlfriend assimilating the consummation of the prom.

The four girls looked at one another first. Santana felt that she had totally lost control of the situation for the first time after all that time trying to prevent another chaos from happening. Then her eyes turned to Rachel, who was on the other side of the dressing room discussing with Joe how Barbra would make a better goddess than any gods his dreads were devoted to.

In a matter of ten seconds, all the eyes were on the diva. "What's going on?" Rachel asked, confused; but the mixture of disappointment, guilt and rejection she found in Santana's Mexican third eye was enough for her to know what Sugar and Tina had overheard. "Okay, before you say it out loud, I'd like to say that intrusion of honor is either a sin or a very bad and punishable thing. And you have no proof of it, by the way," she told the whole group as she noticed Sugar literally biting her tongue until it bled.

"Sebastian told me," Santana said in the same plain voice tone she had spoken to Rachel before while performing.

"And Blaine told me last night," Santana's source corroborated. "Out of guilt," he pointed out.

Nobody understood anything but the six who knew the truth about prom night. They just stared at Rachel. "What are you talking about?" Will finally asked.

"You don't look like feeling any remorse, Berry," Sebastian said, perking an eyebrow and chuckling weakly. In fact, the image of the boy he loved having a night of school love with Rachel Berry stung his heart enough to make some tears rise in his eyes. Between him and Rachel was only Joe, who stepped back to avoid any possible damage of the crossfire. "He looked like he was about to puke when he told me."

"Maybe it's because you are disgusting," Rachel spitted at Sebastian. That look in Rachel's eyes confirmed Santana in any doubt she could have had about the reliability of that intel.

Rachel had made a mistake by attacking Sebastian back instead of defending her own innocence. It was all the proof they needed to quit believing her.

Santana laughed and nodded on her way out of the dressing room. "You do disgust me," she said to Rachel before she stood on the threshold and turned to the whole group. "In case you were wondering, Rachel finally fucked Blaine. Last Wednesday, during prom night. A round of applause for them, because they have finally made it." She gave Rachel her best and most hurtful eyeroll. "In every way, I see."

Brittany followed suit, looking at Rachel harshly. "After all she has done for you…"

And then Rachel saw her own image in the mirror. She was blushing, but when she blinked, her face was absolutely pale. An anvil of embarrassment was hovering over her head and it had just fallen onto her back.

"Well played." Sebastian couldn't stay in that room either. He hadn't slept at all the night before after his conversation with Blaine. Twelve hours ago he had sat on Cooper's bed as Blaine unpacked, ready to make another full disclosure about his feelings. He had spent weeks, even months gathering the strength to open his heart to the little Warbler. But instead of the "You are not the only one feeling that way" he was hoping to hear, he just got his chest shredded and shitted upon.

No, picturing Rachel Berry crawling up and down Blaine's body was not something he would like to do on his sleepless night, but it seemed to him that it was going to be his personal daily routine from now on.

"Is it true?" Puck asked. When he got no response, he placed himself right in front of Rachel and repeated the question. "Is it true, Rachel? Did you cheat on Finn?"

She looked into Puck's eyes. It all came back to her once more. The fact that Noah Puckerman, the boy she had made out with three years ago to piss Finn off, was judging her for that was too much. Noah was her friend. The same way Santana was her friend. The same way Brittany was her friend. The same way half that room was friends with her. But they were all judging every single detail they were imagining in their heads about that dreadful night. "Noah…" Rachel started, but she broke down.

Puck took his arm away when she tried to get a hold of something. He left too, leaving her unprotected from the remaining disappointed eyes within that room. She stepped back clumsily, taking a grip on one of the boudoirs and sitting on it as she could. She looked around to find nothing but people far from willing to help her. Her biggest supports were either on the other side of the country or despising her somewhere in that theatre.

Mercedes was the next one to make an exit. "This is something I never expected from you, Rachel, seriously." Her words weren't as hard or hateful as the other ones before, but they hurt the same and helped her eyes to dry in even less.

Rachel looked at Will. William Schuester was usually a good person to turn to when everything went wrong. But how could she find any mercy in the one who asked Finn to be his best man. Will and Finn were like father and son. And Rachel could perfectly figure out she wouldn't be more than the condemned little whore who had just broken his firstborn's heart. "Tina…" she finally called, out of total desperation, with tears streaming down her pale cheeks. "Tina, please…" She felt like begging for forgiveness, one whimper away from falling down to her knees.

"I think you should go, Rachel." Tina was definitely the most considerate of them all. The Asian diva was looked as if she was touching a leper when she helped Rachel out of the dressing room. "Go, Rachel."

"I didn't… We had had a fight. Finn and I had had a fight. I never meant to…" Rachel ended up mumbling to a door they had closed in her face. "I…"

[Shelter - The XX]

Rachel:
I find shelter in this way.
Under cover, hide away.

Rachel Barbra Berry had had it all. She had lived the dream in the city she felt at home, with the man she loved, with all the friends she needed.

Rachel:
Can you hear when I say
I have never felt this way?

Rachel Barbra Berry had had it all. And had lost it all. She had come back to Lima to get all her business in order, and she found herself absolutely broken in the hallway of a theater in Los Angeles.

Rachel:
Maybe I had said something that was wrong.
Can I make it better with the lights turned on?
Maybe I had said something that was wrong.
Can I make it better with the lights turned on?

She saw all her friends on the stage along with two other choirs. From the back of the auditorium. From afar, where they all wanted her to stay. She tried to listen to their whispering, as if she could hear what they didn't want her to hear even if she was up there with them. But the applauses for the group that placed third made that task even more impossible.

Rachel:
Could I be? Was I there?
It felt so crystal in the air.

She thought of Blaine. She thought of Finn. Then she thought of how Blaine was the first one to come to her mind and that made her think of how badly she had deserved everything.

Rachel:
I still want to drown whenever you leave.
Please teach me gently how to breathe.

Rachel Barbra Berry was another spectator of a show she was banned from. All she could do was watch from the distance how the president of the jury opened the envelope that determined whether the New Directions she had helped won for the second year in a row or Vocal Adrenaline claimed their throne back.

Rachel:
And I'll cross oceans like never before
so you can feel the way I feel it too.

But the truth was that her whole concern was in New York City, over the boy who had probably already found out about her not-so-secret affair and the smaller one whose career next to her was at stake as her relationship with the alleged love of her life.

Rachel:
And I'll mirror images back at you
so you can see the way I feel it too.

As she hurt, Blaine Anderson was hugging Kurt after they climbed down from the cab that had taken them back to the airport, with big, wide smiles on their faces. Holding hands, still trying to decide the most appropriate way to say goodbye.

Rachel:
Maybe I had said something that was wrong.
Can I make it better with the lights turned on?
Maybe I had said something that was wrong.
Can I make it better with the lights turned on?

In the meantime, Finn Hudson was opening the door of his apartment. The door of the house he shared with Rachel. When he heard the knocking, he expected Santana or Kurt. Even Blaine. Though all his hopes and wishes were that Rachel would be on the other side of the door.

"We need to talk," Quinn Fabray said.

Rachel:
Maybe I had said something that was wrong.
Can I make it better with the lights turned on?
Maybe I had said something that was wrong.
Can I make it better with the lights turned on?

Rachel Barbra Berry had had it all and traded it all for every inch of guilt existing in the world. She breathed guilt. Guilt was the only thing running through her veins. Guilt fed her brains and heart. Guilt was actually her middle name. And the only thing she could think of when she saw Dustin Goolsby lifting the biggest trophy of the two remaining on stage.

"There's something you should know," the blonde queen of bitches told Finn as she sat down on the couch. "And this is not because I want to sabotage your relationship with Rachel. The other way around, I just…"

"Cut the crap, Quinn. Please." Finn was not in the mood at all for Quinn's scheming after having to put up with all the politeness and false friendship between him and Blaine earlier that morning. "Sorry, that was rude." He bit his lip and refused to sit next to his ex. Wandering up and down the living room was a better medicine for him during the strict no-news-about-Rachel regime he was imposed.

"And this is the reason why I should tell you this." Quinn was smiling warmly. "Finn, I loved you once. Twice, in fact." She chuckled. "Well, I loved you more times than any sane person would have wished, but that's not my point. Look at you."

Finn was actually kind of in a bad place. An old grey tee with cocoa stains on it. A pair of boxers as old as the shirt on age and only one ragged sock on. He looked down at himself and lost any possible argument. "Quinn, seriously, I'm not having a good day. Or a good week for a fact." He chuckled at himself, feeling as pathetic as a man who was the last one to know that he had lost his girl could feel.

"You don't need to pretend that you broke up with Rachel to make me stop doing… whatever you think I'm trying to do. I want to make amends. Especially with you. You were caught in the middle of everything and… I don't want you to lose time with Rachel because I can't have it with you. Or with anyone, actually." Quinn laughed, joining the self-pity party Finn had put up.

"Did…" he tried to find the name of a person who could have betrayed him and Rachel, but he trusted too much in too many people. "Who…?"

"Blaine."