If we knew each other's secrets, what comforts we should find.
John Churton Collins

By the time I woke up, later that afternoon, I was feeling a lot better. Not 100%, but the antibiotics had kicked in and at least I could both move and swallow again. The fact that Finn was snuggled up against me didn't hurt matters, either.

He was very quiet, so I rolled over to see if he was awake or not. He was, and he gave me a saucy little grin. "Good morning."

There was no point in telling him that it was way beyond morning and almost evening. Instead I gave him a quick, closed-mouth kiss, mindful of what was probably horrendous morning breath. "How long have you been awake?"

"Dunno. I was going to go and watch TV, but then I thought I would come over and watch you instead."

That was both creepy and somehow charming. "How very Edward Cullen of you."

I didn't think that he would get the reference, but he chuckled. "Yeah, but at least I don't whine like he does."

"That you don't." I kissed him again. "But why would you want to spend your time staring at me?"

"Because you're hot." He gave me a look that suggested we had been over this enough times that he shouldn't have to repeat himself again.

As far as I was concerned, he should be repeating it as often as possible, because I never got tired of hearing it. "Hold that thought, ok? I'm disgusting, and I need to at least brush my teeth."

Yeah, the fact that his breath smells like toothpaste didn't escape my notice, either. I just wasn't going to say anything.

"Ok." Finn must have been feeling better as well, because he was playing happily with a corner of the comforter. My boyfriend was a little bit weird, but at least he loved me.

My good mood held until I made it into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. My fever had broken sometime while I was sleeping, and my hair was somehow both matted with sweat and sticking straight up. I had dark circles under my eyes, which were a defeated grey color, and my skin was ever paler then usual. There were red creases running down the side of my face from where my head had been resting on the pillow. I looked like the Bride of Frankenstein.

But, by some miracle, Finn still thought I was hot. I've long since given up on trying to make myself see what he does, but this was a stretch, even for him. I ran a comb through my hair, and brushed my teeth as quickly as I could. Now that I felt halfway human again, I returned to my bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Better." He shrugged a little, rolling his shoulders. "I'm not very hungry or anything, but I'm better."

Something was wrong. When you know him as well as I do, Finn is very easy to read. He can mask his face, press his lips into a perfectly straight line, and lie with a surpising amount of expertise, but his eyes give him away every time. When he's happy, they have the most beautiful gold and green flecks that appear, making them shine and sparkle. When he had a problem, they were flat and muddy brown. "You don't sound better. Tell me what's worrying you."

He looked through me, exactly like he had when I came home and found him sitting on the porch. Like I was there, but not there at the same time. I waited patiently, giving him the time to sort out his feelings. "I don't want you to go to school and leave me here alone."

Nice try. I didn't doubt that Finn felt that way, and that he wished I could stay with him all the time, but the start of school was still over a week away. Finn's a very 'in the moment' sort of guy. He wouldn't start worrying about me going back to school until a day or two before the beginning of the year. No, this was something much more imminant.

I took a minute to lightly scratch his back. "Cowboy, I wish it could just be you and me all the time, too, but I have to. Plus, you're looking forward to Glee again, aren't you?"

"Yeah." His face lit up, and now I was seeing the colors. "I have all these awesome ideas, and Mr. Shue and I are working on a special thing just for you. But it's kind of a secret, so I can't tell you any more."

"See? Between working on Glee stuff and the tutor they'll be sending, you'll have plenty of things to do." Even though this wasn't his big worry, I still felt compelled to assuage it.

"I know. Your Dad said that I could come down to the garage and help him sometimes, too. You know, if I don't blow anything up the first time he lets me try. I need a job and no one else is going to hire me now." His voice got higher pitched near the end, and I knew that we were getting closer to the real problem.

"You'll do fine at the garage. Dad's a good teacher, and you pick things like this up very quickly."

"I'm not worried about that. Well, maybe a little. I don't want a car to fall on me or anything. But I think I can do the work." He was sounding a little more confident now, which was exactly what I didn't want. If I didn't get to the root of his worries now, I would lose my chance.

So I tried to gently nudge him back to the orginal problem. "So we're ok with school?" At his nod, I kept going. "Is there something else?"

"Yeah. Can we go upstairs?" He was already getting up, so I guessed that he was going whether I followed or not.

Since I was still curious, I followed him. My muscles protested a little, but the stretch and burn felt good. The living room was empty, but I could see Dad's garage clothes in front of the washer and hear the shower upstairs. Carole must have gone to work already.

Finn threw himself on the living room couch and turned on the television. His channel surfing seemed aimless, and I realized that I probably wasn't going to get my answers after all.

It was still nice to fold myself against Finn's side and snuggle close, though. He wrapped an arm around me while he flipped through the channels and I closed my eyes contentedly. Suddnely Finn tensed. "There!"

But I was already hearing the words. "-formally charged with Kidnapping, Capital Murder, Rape, Sodomy, Child Molestation, and Unlawful Imprisonment, related to the murder and kidnapping of two local teenagers, Noah Puckerman and Finn Hudson, both studens of William McKinley High and both 16.. Noah was shot on March 13 of this year. Finn was kidnapped, though he recovered unharmed four months later. Further detail at 10."

"It's been on for the past 5 hours. That's it, everybody knows." Finn's voice was very quiet. "All the kids at school, everyone at your Dad's garage, the people at he college I want to go to. Everyone."

He had known this was coming, of course. We had discussed it in therapy one day, a rather unproductive day in which Finn had insisted that he understood what was going to happen, and why it was necessary, but he hadn't wanted to discuss it further or think about it at all out of the therapists office.

Looking at his pale, stricken face, I wondered how anyone could claim that Finn had been recovered unharmed. I rubbed my thumb right under his ear, something that always calmed him. "It will be alright."

"I know." His eyes fluttered shut as I kept rubbing. "It's bad, but it'll be ok."

Maybe he had been doing more mental processing and thinking about it then I had given him credit for. "Of course it will. What happened wasn't your fault, and people will understand that. And if they try and start shit with you, I'll kill them."

Finn tickled my side. "Thanks, Kurt."

I suspected that I was being thanked more for the spirit behind my offer then I was for any ability to follow through with it. These revelations were going to make life at McKinley a living hell for Finn, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

But now wasn't the time to worry about it. There would be so much time to worry in the future that it seemed foolish to do it now. "Want to watch a movie? I'll even let you pick."

Finn's choices tended to be a little too boyish for my tastes, but they often came with the advantage of lots of shirtless men, so I usually considered them a small price to pay to keep Finn happy.

Only Finn wasn't moving. He opened his eyes and stared at me, looking deeply. "They wanted us both to go to the police station today."

"You and me?" Even though that was exactly what he had just said, I was having trouble understanding the words. Finn and I weren't the criminals, why would they want us to go down there?

He nodded. "They want to take our statements again. They already got the official ones, I think, but thye need to talk to us again.

I wasn't sure if I could do it again. I couldn't take the looks they gave me when I told them about the night Finn disappeared. I know that they're supposed to be neuatral about it, but they never are. Some of them looked at me like they knew that I had been flirting with Finn, like I had pushed him to run straight into his kidnappers arms. Others were judging the fact that I hadn't called the police, or at least Dad and Carole, the minute Finn didn't come home. Some of them were nice, but I just never felt comfortable with them.

You can do it. Finn is taking his cues off of you, and you have to be do it for him. If you stay strong, he will to.

I cleared my throat. "When did they call?"

"A few hours ago. You were still sleeping, and I was upstairs getting a pickle. They called and wanted us both to come in, but Mom told them no because we we're sick."

For some reason my brain was choosing to focus on the pickle part of that statement, instead of the more important part about the police. "You were getting a pickle?"

"Yeah. Pickles make your throat feel better." He sounded far away and confused, so I decided not to push it.

"I'll take your word for it. Did they say anything else?" You had to handle Finn very delicately. If you got overexcited and pushed him too hard, he shut down and you couldn't get anything out of him, period. A calm tone of voice and no eye contact worked wonders.

"Mom didn't say anything. But she was on the phone for a while, so probably." He started channel surfing again, only to stop on another network that was discussing the upcoming trial. For someone who spent most of his time in denial about what had happened, Finn was certainly focused on it now.

"Finn?" My voice was cautious, and he looked over curiously. "Are…are you going to be ok?"

"Do you mean am I going to freak out and stop talking again?" His arm tightened around me and he kissed the top of my head.

"Well I was trying to put it in much more gentle terms, but that is the general idea of what I was asking." Trust Finn to cut straight to the heart of the matter.

"Don't worry, Dude, I'm not. That won't ever happen again."

I wanted to believe him so badly, but I just couldn't. The memory of his blank eyes and perfect silence was still too fresh. "If you ever feel that bad and overwhelmed again, I need you to tell me."

"I won't. I have you now, and Mom, and your Dad. This time I know that I'm not going to die. Besides, I realized something while I was in therapy."

He was playing with me now, but it was a game that I was more then willing to go along with. I leaned over and tickled his side. "And what was it that you realized?"

"I can't freak out again, period. It's my word against theirs, and if I lose it, they're going to get off." His voice was calm and stronger then I had ever heard it before. "I have to. I owe Puck one, and if I freak out and they make me look crazy, no one is going to believe that they killed him like they did. They might even think I did it."

They had already tried to blame Finn, albeit indirectly. Neither one of them had actually come out and said that Finn had murdered his best friend and then hooked up with them as he was skipping town

If I were the defense lawyer, it was the tack I would have taken. No, Finn didn't have access to a gun, but the murder weapon hadn't been found at the Wrights house either. There was was evidence that Finn had been in their home, but no one was disputing that fact. The closet that Finn claimed they had kept him had been filled with cleaning supplies and various household debris. No sign of the isolation chamber he claimed it had been.

Then there was the question of motive. Why would the Wright's drive cross country to murder and kidnap a pair of teenagers? There were millions of boys exactly like Finn and Puck in between here and New Mexico. It seemed silly for them to come so far with no gaurentee of a pay off. What if Puck had been able to convince Finn not to stop the car? What if that Lily had stood on that road for hours, but with no one who fit their criteria stopping? What if Joseph had missed his shot with Puck, or Lily hadn't been able to taser Finn out? The possibilities for something to go wrong seemed endless.

What makes you think that that didn't happen? That they didn't miss a shot in Illinois, or in Kansas, or twice in Texas? The reason no one could find Finn was that that crime was totally random. Fixating on one area or one teenager opened them up to someone remembering them or their car. The way it happened, they could try in every state, even every few towns. If the circumstances weren't perfect, they could just let the boy go and wait for the next one. Like you said, there are millions of teenagers between here and New Mexico.

That was true, but would anyone else see it like that? After all, when it came to motive, didn't Finn have the best one of all? Puck had slept with Finn's girlfriend, gotten her pregnant, and then tried to pass the baby off as Finn's. It was one of the oldest motives in the book. Not to mention he had assaulted Puck once before, when the truth came out.

Of course, I knew that Finn was nothing but a big teddy bear lug. Anyone who spent any time with him knew that, while he could be tempermental, he was incapable of murder. Him hitting Puck that first time was still talked about around school, just because it was so out of character for him.

Again, though, knowing that required knowing Finn. Finn was only 17, but he looked older. At 6'3 and 240lbs, Finn looked intimidating. If you didn't know him, it would be shockingly easy to picture him with a gun in his hand. Still I felt compelled to offer false comfort. "No one will believe that you would do that."

"They might. I know that they're already saying that I did it."

I don't know why I think that Finn is stupid. He's certainly dense, but, when he's properly motivated, he's capable of a focus that can outshine even mine. Case in point? I don't know anyone else who can blow through a brand new video game in a weekend, without using any of the cheat codes. He's not incompetent at schoolwork, he's just uninterested.

But this was the most important thing he had ever done, and would probably ever do in his life. Even though he hadn't given any outward signs that he was conflicted, Finn must have been thinking about this for a long time. He looked at me, puzzled by my silence. "Kurt? Didn't you know that? That they were going to blame me?"

"I did. I just didn't know that you did." I was floundering, unsure of what to say. Sometimes Finn was fragile and sometimes he was strong, and I honestly couldn't tell which mood he might be in at any given moment.

He looked hurt. "Well, yeah. I'm not stupid. I know how a trial works. The defendant tells his side of the story, and the prosecuter tells their side of the story. Usually, both people are kind of telling the truth, but not the whole truth, so the judge has to decide who's telling more truth, right?"

It took me nearly a full minute to detangle the confused tenses and wording. He was right, though. There's an old saying, that there are three sides to every story. My side, your side, and the truth. I believed that Finn's version of what happened was mostly true. As far as the major points were concerned, I was 100% sure that he was telling the truth. The murder, the kidnapping, the rapes, I didn't doubt any of those for even a second.

But I do sometimes suspect that there are things that Finn isn't exactly lying about, but that he is holding back. I could still remember the first time he told me the entire story, that night that he decided to speak to me after 2 months of silence. There had been a point where he had refused to tell me what happened. The point hadn't been the murder. It hadn't been when he was tasered. It hadn't even been the rape. I couldn't imagine what it had been, but it had to be worse then any of those things.

"Only, this time, I know that I'm the one telling the truth. So they have to make something up, because if they tell the truth it's over for them. They have to blame the murder on someone else, and there's no one to blame but me. It's process of elimination. Or something."

There wasn't much I could say to that. I couldn't tell him that no one would believe them, because I knew that there was a huge chance that someone would. It only took one person out of twelve to send back a not guilty verdict. Finn was right, this was all riding on how believable he was on the stand.

I squeezed him tighter. "I believe you. Even if no one else does, I always will."

"They'll believe me. They have to, I'm the one telling the truth." He was trying to sound confident and failing miserably. Then he gave himself a visible shake. "Anyway, that's why I know I can't freak out again. The defense is going to be watching everything I do, so I have to do it right. It's the last thing I can do for Puck."

"Do you miss him?" This was dangerous territory. We weren't really supposed to bring Puck up. Finn needed to process what had happened himself first, and pushing him too hard could backfire on us. But since he had brought it up first, I felt like it might be safe.

"Yes." He stroked my hair with one hand. Normally, this would have been grounds for the immeadiate amputation of the offending limb, but I let him do it. "I know that he was an asshole. Sometimes he was even an asshole to me. He didn't really do 'nice'. But he was nice to me, most of the time. And when he was an asshole, I don't think he really wanted to be. He just had to."

"Why? Why couldn't he be nice all the time?" I kept my voice questioning and not at all bitchy. Finn sees the world differently then everyone else and, while it was sometimes odd, I usually did end up learning a few new things.

His hand stilled. "I can't tell you that. It's a secret"

Trust Finn to think that keeping someones's secrets meant even after they were dead. "You can tell me anything."

"Not this. I wouldn't share your secrets and I won't share his either." He was agitated now, so I hurried to soothe him. "Ok, you don't have to."

"I miss doing stuff with him. Some of it was just stupid shit, but it was stupid shit that we did together. Like when we went bowling. Puck sucked at bowling. I mean sucked. But we would do it anyway, because it was fun. It was just us, and we didn't have to pretend to be anyone else."

I understood what he was saying. There was you you, your real personality, and then there was the you that everyone else saw. The one that learned to keep quiet when you wanted to speak up, or that joined a team full of people you disliked to play a sport you despise. It was a person you didn't necessarily like, but one who you had to put up with in order to survive a public high school.

Suddenly Finn grinned. "Plus, when he was cleaning pools, I always had somewhere to swim during the summer. I usually had to do it alone, since he was busy screwing the owner, but we would go back when the people were at work."

He trailed off, the remote dangling forgotten from his fingers. "So, yeah. I miss him."

I couldn't exactly claim that I missed Puck myself. Yeah, he'd been nicer to me in the six months before he died, but I could still remember every shove, every dumpster dive, every insult, and every other little way that he had made my life miserable for my entire freshman year and part of my sophomore one.

That didn't mean I wanted him to die, though. There was also the small fact that I would have rather have put up with even worse abuse then have to see that sad look in Finn's eyes every morning. And Puck could be quite charming when the mood struck him. Too bad the mood didn't strike him unless he was trying to get into some girls pants. There was even a brief period when I thought he might try to get in my pants, just to prove that he could, and still walk away without a hint of homosexuality clinging to him.

Admit it, that was kind of thrilling.

Maybe a little. It was nice to think that I was desirable to someone, even if it was for no other purpose then to prove a point. I wouldn't have touched him, even if he had asked, since he wasn't Finn, but still.

"I wish I knew how to make it better for you." It was the stupid thing that people said when they didn't know what to say. Like wishing had ever done anything for anyone.

"I know you do. Everyone does. But unless one of us learns how to turn a Delorian into a time machine, we're kind of stuck with what happened." His eyes brightened. "Do you think your Dad could show us how to do that at the garage?"

"How to do what?" Dad was out of the shower and leaning against the doorframe.

Finn jumped, just like he always did when Dad spoke directly to him. But his eyes were still hopeful when he looked up. "How to make a Delorian into a time machine?"

Dad chuckled. "Sorry. I don't think I've ever even seen a Delorian in real life, and I certainly don't know how to create a flux capacitor. I could show you how to do a fan belt replacement, though?"

"That would be kind of cool, too." Finn's voice was more then a little fake, but that had less to do with what he was saying to Dad and more to do with the fact that he was speaking to Dad at all. He was doing better in a lot of ways, and he was clearly trying very hard to be friendly, but still fell a bit short of the mark.

"Thursday, Kiddo, ok? Oh, your doctor called, and you need to reschedule today's appointment with her. Number's on the pad by the phone."

We always referred to Samantha as Finn's doctor, never his therapist. I'm not really sure why, since we've been very careful to make sure he knows that there's nothing shameful about seeking psychiatric help, and he seems to accept that pretty well. He's never indicated that it bothers him, or even that he really notices, but, so I sometimes think that it's for our comfort instead of his. This way we can all pretend that Finn spends a few hours a week getting physical therapy for a sports injury. Samantha won't let him deny what happened any more, but there's no one to tell us the same thing.

I waited for that voice to pipe up with something bitchy and rude, but it was silent. Finn bounced to his feet and ambled into the kitchen. Dad took his place on the couch and rested a hand on my forehead. "You're not as warm."

"I feel better." As always with my father, I had to fight the warring impulses to both cuddle closer and pull away. "The doctor said that Finn and I will both be ok in a day or two with the antibiotics."

"Good, good." He was obviously groping for something to say as well. Why were things always so awkward between us. "Did you get the doctor that hits on Carole?"

So she had been telling the truth when she said that Dad knew. "Yeah."

"He wasn't too pushy with her, was he? She said that he's harmless, but any man who pushes it with a woman who isn't interested is a creep and I don't trust him."

His protectiveness was kind of cute. "No, he wasn't too pushy. It was pretty harmless."

"It was disgusting." Finn sat down in his Dad's old armchair. "She's my mother, not some whore. Besides, she already has you, and he knows it."

"He might not." Dad made an attempt to defuse the situation. "Your mother might not tell everyone at her work about her personal relationships."

He snorted. "Please. Mom used to take me to work with her sometimes when I was little and she couldn't find anyone to watch me. I had to sit in the break room for her whole shift and listen to what was going on. The doctors and nurses gossip worse then Kurt and Mercedes do. He knows, he just doesn't care."

"Fair enough. But what should I do about it? Should I confront him? Because I can go down to the hospital with a tire iron if that's what you think. Or should I tell your mother not to work with him any more? Ignore it?" Dad's voice wasn't sarcastic at all. He was genuinely curious about what Finn might want. As if he and Finn were buddies who were trying to solve a problem together, instead of two people who were on opposite sides most of the time.

Finn thought about it. One of his eyebrows rose and fell as he considered his options. "None of those. You shouldn't confront him, because then you look like an insecure asshole. You shouldn't tell Mom what to do, because then you are being an insecure asshole. And you definitely shouldn't wait, because then he'll think that he can keep being creepy." He glanced over at me. "He's kind of like Mr. Ryerson's type of creepy. You know he is, but he's not quite creepy enough for you to say something about it."

I strongly suspected that Finn was rather enjoying being able to call Dad an asshole, however indirectly.

"What should I do then?" Dad had stood up and approached Finn, his movments slow and careful.

"Her break is at 4. Go over there with some flowers or balloons and a stuffed animal or some shit. Let him know that you're onto him. Kind of like marking your territory, only not because she's still my Mom and that's gross. Make a big….you know…" He moved his hand aimlessly, stuck for the word.

"Gesture?" I could have told Dad that that was the right thing to say, but I kept my mouth shut. This was perfect, with Finn and Dad working together for a larger goal, and I didn't want to mess them up.

"Yeah, gesture. Be all theatrical, right, Kurt?" He wavd his hand, calling Dad in even cloer so he could whisper to him. "Get her chocolate. Not the cheap stuff, but the really good dark stuff that she gets all pissed of when I sneak it. And purple roses if you can find them. That's her favorite color. If you can't find purple, do red. Not pink, she hates pink roses."

"I'll get on that, then. Good job, Finn, and thanks for the tips." Dad pulled away, and I noticed Finn release a very small breath of relief. "I'm going to call in the flowers now."

As son as he was gone, Finn looked over at me. "I have to go to the therapist tomrorrow instead of today. My appointments right before yours now, is that ok?"

It would have been much better if he had asked if it was alright before making the appointment, but, again, timing is not Finn's forte. "That's fine. I'll go to the coffee shop or something while I'm waiting for you."

"Good, good." He climbed out of his Dad's chair and sat next to me on the couch. "Can I ask you another favor?"

Why didn't I like the way he asked that? "You can ask, but I rerseve the right of refusal." If this was another one of his 'Kurt, I think I put another virus on the computer looking at porn but I don't want to tell our parents. Can you fix it for me?' problems, he was on his own this time.

"I need you to take me to the cemetery tomorrow. You know, the one where Puck's buried. I haven't seen his grave yet, and I want to." His hand reached out to rest on top of mine. "Please, Kurt? It's really, really important."

It wasn't the sort of request you could refuse, even though it made bile rise in the back of my throat. "Of course I can. But are you sure you wouldn't rather have your mother do it?"

"No." He didn't elaborate, and I didn't want to push things by forcing him. "If you can't do it, it's cool, though." He was trying hard to sound disinterested, but I knew that it would crush him if I refused.

"How about tomorrow before our appointments? I'm still not really feeling up to driving anywhere today." If he pushed it, I would go, because I would do anything for Finn, but he was already shaking his head. "That would be awesome, Dude. Thanks."

He wrapped one arm around me and pulled me against his body. He was making that little noise again, a half hum-half purr that I felt vibrating though my body more then I heard it. It wasn't something that he was aware of doing, and it was something I had only heard him do a handful of times since he had been back. If I had to name the noise, I would have called it 'contentment'. For this one second, Finn was just fine.

It was a lesson I should probably take the time to learn myself.