By Wednesday Sam was fairly certain that he had never been so tired in his life. It would be so much easier if he knew what exactly had upset his foster parents, but since they hadn't said anything to him he couldn't bring it up. He couldn't tell them that he had been eavesdropping, even if it had been accidently, he knew that they would send him away for sure if he told them that. His only option was to try and improve on everything. He was getting less sleep then he had gotten when he was playing football - a lot less. Life would be so much easier if he could figure out how to add more hours to the day.

He was fairly certain he hadn't missed any questions on the two tests he had in the past few days, even if the extra studying to make that possible had meant even less sleep. The house was just about cleaner then he had ever seen it, which was saying something as it had never been very messy. Ellie, Anna and Aiden had been happy to spend more time with him and Quinn had seemed pleased with the longer phone conversations. He thought he was looking a little better too and that was good, he needed to be stronger. Everything seemed to be working, but he was just so tired.

"Kurt and Rachel have gone crazy!" Finn announced as he walked into the weight room.

"What did they do?" Sam asked as he continued his work out.

"They want to start practicing for the concert now - it's a month away! And it's not even a competition, it's just a concert!"

"It can't hurt to practice, I mean, we do want to impress the people who come so they'll donate more, right?"

"But it's a month away!"

"I know, but maybe you should just humor them. Making your girlfriend and your brother mad at the same time can't end well."

"You're right." Finn said with a sigh after a moment of silence.

Sam nodded and continued with what he had been doing, not noticing the slightly worried look on his best friend's face as he watched him.

"Dude, you look crazy tired. Maybe you should stop," Finn commented.

"I'm fine," Sam insisted.

"You're always working out though and it's not even football season anymore. Maybe you should just take a break?" the other boy suggested carefully.

"I said I'm fine, Finn," Sam snapped.

"Woah, sorry, dude. I wasn't trying to upset you." the taller teenager said with slightly widened eyes.

"I'm sorry. I've just been ... stressed. But I'm fine. You can stop worrying." Sam said firmly.

"Hey there." Quinn said with a grin as Sam came to sit next to her.

"Hey. How's your day been so far?" Sam asked.

"Pretty good, how about you?" she responded.

"Ok." he said with a shrug as he pushed his food around his plate.

"Are you sure?" his girlfriend asked softly.

"I'm sure."

"You're not eating. I haven't seen you eat all week. I know you're upset, but you have to eat, Sam."

"I'm fine. I'm just not hungry." he said defensively. He was fine. As fine as he could be at the moment. He was just doing what he had to do and there was nothing she could do to help, so there was no point in worrying her.

"You don't seem fine, you seem like there's something wrong. You aren't eating, you look exhausted and you seem even more stressed out then you usually do. I'm not trying to pry, Sam. I'm just worried about you. You know you can talk to me, right?" she replied with worry clear in her eyes.

"I know. There isn't anything you can do though, it's just typical foster kid stuff. I'll be ok." he told her as he gave a shaky smile.

"Ok." she said, deciding to drop the subject for the moment.

They spent the rest of the lunch period discussing the latest antics of Coach Sylvester and the most recent and craziest rumors on Jacob's blog. Quinn tried to pretend that she didn't notice the fact that her boyfriend still wasn't eating.

Sam spent most of the last class before Glee trying his hardest to focus on his work and ignore the fact that he was cold, tired and starting to get a bit lightheaded. He couldn't afford distractions right now. He mentally snorted at the irony of the fact that he was causing the distractions himself by trying to fix everything else. He was beginning to realize that it was kind of a vicious cycle, but he didn't see any other way. He couldn't leave, not now. Things had finally been going well, better then he ever remembered. He couldn't lose Ellie, Anna, Aiden and his friends. He couldn't lose Quinn.

On top of that, he didn't have a clue where he would end up if they did move him. Logically, he knew that he would probably still be safe, but logic wasn't out weighing his panic. He didn't even want to think about ending up in another home like his last one, so naturally, he was thinking about it constantly. He didn't know if he could handle that again. He had everything to lose this time and he wasn't sure that he could lose it all and still come out intact.

He had been the first person to enter the choir room that afternoon, but Kurt had quickly come in behind him. Sam hadn't expected Kurt to come and start a conversation, but he did.

"You've done a lot for me, Sam. I don't just mean what you did with Karofsky, you and Puck saved Finn and what we did at the assembly was your idea. I don't know if I can thank you enough for that. I just want you to know that if there's ever anything you need, even if you just need someone to talk to, you can come to me. I'm fairly certain that I owe you a lot more then that at this point." the smaller boy said.

"You don't owe me anything, Kurt. I didn't do anything more then what most people should." Sam replied, embarrassed.

"Most people didn't - you did. That's what matters." the other boy responded

"I really don't think it was that big deal." the blond boy softly.

"It was to me and to Finn and to all the others." Kurt said firmly. "Look, Sam ... I've done my fair share of falling apart and I hope you don't take offense, but you seem to be falling apart. I just want you to know that if there's anything I can do to help, I want to do it. Friends are there for each other, you don't have to be the hero all the time." he finished before walking off as the others began to trickle into the room.

"Sammy! Come here!" Aiden said as soon as they got home.

Aiden had thoroughly enjoyed the extra time Sam had been spending with him the past few days and obviously already had something planned that he wanted to do. Sam found himself being dragged over towards a puzzle that Aiden had clearly attempted to put together on his own without much luck.

"Can you help me, Sammy? Please?" the little boy had asked and Sam had instantly sat down to help.

The puzzle that Aiden had chosen was very large and even with Anna and Ellie coming to help it had taken nearly half an hour to finish. Sam likely could have finished faster on his own, but he wanted the younger children to be able to figure out parts of it by themselves. He headed to his room to do his homework once the puzzle was finished and managed to get all of his homework done before it was time to practice for Glee. He once again allowed the children to follow him out and sing along as he practiced. When his foster mother called them in for dinner he was surprised to find that he had managed to forget about everything he was trying to deal with and simply have fun for a little while.

He did a good bit of his usual lunch pass time of pushing his food around his plate during dinner and had insisted that he just wasn't very hungry when he didn't finish. He didn't notice the looks that his foster parents sent each other as he left the room to help the children with their homework. He went through his usual routine of going back and forth between the children depending on who needed help with what along with Phil. Once his foster siblings had finished and put their things away he began to try and help them straighten up their rooms.

"No, it's ok, Sam, just help Aiden. Anna and I can do this ourselves. You look tired," Ellie had said.

Sam had once again insisted he was fine before went to help Aiden. He had never known the girls to turn down help cleaning and he didn't understand why they had now. He pushed it out of his mind as he went through the rest of his routine. He had winced a bit when he looked in the mirror after his shower and realized how exhausted he really did look, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, knowing he would have to be up again in a little over four hours.

Author's Note: I hope you guys like this chapter! Beta'd or not, I'm going to be updating about twice a week for a bit and simply replacing the chapters once I get the beta'd version in. I know that this a bit of a tense time in the story, so I don't want to keep you guys waiting very long!

BlackKeys96: Thank you for the review! Sam seems to have a bit of a talent for running himself into the ground, doesn't he?

Tessie: Thanks for reviewing! I'm so glad that you liked it!

Emma: I respond to every review unless the person has an account with private messaging turned off! It makes me to happy to get reviews that it would seem rude to me if I didn't reply! Thank you so much for your review, I can't tell you how happy it makes me that you like this!