A/N: I know, I know. It's slow going but good stories need good set up. And I promise – there is a method to my madness. :) And please review. I will resort to begging if I have to...

D/C: Yeah, we all know the drill. It's fanfiction – by definition I use other peoples' characters. That's sort of the point.

Carole Hudson loved her job. This was something she reminded herself of on a regular basis, especially on days like this where it was almost 10 am and she was just arriving home from a 12-hour shift. As she pulled into her driveway and put her car in park, she released a heavy breath and let herself close her eyes – just for a second. She could feel her own exhaustion, but it was worth it. She and Burt had a date tonight. He was taking her to a movie but refused to tell her which one. Behind her eyelids she could see his face, him smiling at her with that mischievous twinkle in his eye, telling her, "Well that's too bad, Carole, 'cause it's a surprise." She smiled to herself at the memory, and strengthened by a small burst of energy her happiness provided, Carole grabbed her keys from the ignition and moved to get out of the car.

Not ten seconds passed before her brow was furrowing again, her smile fading. She let out another sigh. The grass was still growing and Finn, who'd promised her time and time again this week that he'd "do it Saturday morning, Mom – yeah, yeah, first thing," was clearly still asleep or had forgotten. She shook her head, and after letting her keys drop with a clatter on the kitchen table, Carole shrugged off her coat and headed for the stairs. "Finn?" she called. "Finn!" Her annoyance was creeping steadily into her voice as she trudged tiredly up to his room. "Finn," she called out again as she reached his room, rapped her knuckles on the door and opened it. "Finn, I – Oh my God!" Carole started, her eyes wide as saucers as her hands flailed and flew to her mouth.

From the bed came a shriek, and then another. "Mom! Mom, I – God – crap," Finn stumbled over his words as he frantically fumbled with the covers, as if he could somehow undo the damage, as if by covering her up, he could make it so that his mother hadn't seen. Instead, he only succeeded in getting his arms tangled with Rachel's, who was blushing a deep red and trying just as hard as Finn to cover herself. It was a testament to the level of shock Carole felt at finding Rachel in Finn's bed that she didn't actually notice for quite a while that both her son and his long-term girlfriend were fully clothed. Finn, who'd given up trying to pull up the covers had buried his face in his hands and Rachel, who was still as red as a beet, was looking down at her own. God, she looks so embarrassed I think she's going to cry.

Carole felt a little better at that, if only because she clearly had the power here. She lowered her hand. "Finn, you are grounded. One week," she said, silently thanking God that her voice had come out steady. Finn dropped his hands immediately, looked at his mom with a look of wide-eyed shock. "But mom, that's not fair!" Carole ignored him. "And Rachel," she said sternly though a bit more gently. "I think you'd better go."

Rachel nodded furiously and stood up from the bed, ignoring her sputtering boyfriend as she quickly grabbed her coat and purse and scooted past her boyfriend's mother. She practically flew down the stairs and out the door, clearly anxious to escape the mortifying situation, but once her walk home was underway, and her fathers' house was growing closer with every step, Rachel began to rethink her haste. As much as she'd wanted to leave the Hudson household the moment that Carole had walked in the door, she wasn't in any real rush to get herself home. She'd lied to her dads, lied to her friends, had gone the one person she'd wanted to go to grounded, and going home – facing her dads having realized, Oh God, what if she calls them? – no, she simply couldn't do that now. She needed time – time to think, time alone.

There was a stranger in her house right now, and knowing her dads, they'd want her and this Blake guy to "bond". Well maybe I don't want to bond, she thought petulantly. A streetlight changed and Rachel sighed, coming to a stop at the corner while she waited for the light to change to green again. She hiked her purse on her shoulder. Her lips pursed as she considered the practicability of simply taking the extra-extra long way home – the way that might take her all the way to McKinley on the far east side of town before actually taking her home. Hell, her people had walked for 40 days in a desert, right? Surely she could handle walking around for a few hours to avoid her dads.

Except, as Rachel realized looking down at her ballet flats, her ancestors probably wore shoes meant for walking. Rachel sighed, and lazily let her gaze fall on the "open" sign in the door of the 24-hour iHop. Her eyes brightened slightly. Suddenly, a cup of coffee and plate of day-old pancakes sounded practically appealing if it meant avoiding home for a few hours more.

Blaine hadn't realized he'd been close to falling asleep until he woke up in an unfamiliar bed with a small start. He sat up blearily, propped himself on his elbow and rubbed at his eyes with the knuckle of his thumb. Scowling at the tight in the skin of his cheeks he wiped at the streaks of long-dried saline as if his fingertips could erase away the fact that he had cried.

Sitting up properly now, Blaine took his first look around the room in the light of day filtering through the blinds. He grimaced. God, it was even worse in the daylight. The room, which was small by any standard (though larger than the room he'd had back home – his old home, he reminded himself), was made to feel practically claustrophobic with all the crap these people had covering all four walls. Photos – headshots mostly – of a dark haired girl with a giant grin, certificates of achievement, medals, trophies, plaques for goodness sake. It seemed like everything this girl had ever done was displayed in this room. Blaine had no idea what all these things were, and though he could easily have walked up to any medal, trophy or plaque to read exactly what it was this wonder-girl supposedly achieved, he had no interest. In fact, he actively avoided accidentally finding out. He didn't want to know, and as he kicked off the covers of the day-bed, and swung his legs over the side of the bed, Blaine made sure to keep his eyes from wandering over any part of this shrine. No way he was ever going to fit in in this family – not if it meant he had to worship this girl that was pretty and probably perfect and probably popular and probably everything that Blaine was most definitely not.

In silence, the boy pulled a pair of jeans and a clean shirt from his duffel bag and changed his pants. At the small night-table near the wall he pulled his beat up cell phone off the charger, flipped it open, and turned it on. He waited for the jingle to sound, signaling that the phone was starting up, then tossed the phone back on his bed. He took to scrounging through his duffel for his deodorant and rolled it on before pulling his t-shirt on over his head. A quick glance in the mirror told him he needed to fix his hair, but first, he took a second to check his messages. There were none. No new ones anyway. He rolled his eyes and shoved the phone in his jean pocket before walking to the door and opening it.

It was only when he was out in the unfamiliar hallway that the fear and apprehension he'd felt on first arriving started to rise to the surface again. In that little room it was just Blaine, alone with himself. He had an illusion of being insulated from the strangers in the house. But now, in the hallway, he was one step closer to meeting them. In fact, though, he did not, making it all the way to the bathroom at the end of the hall and closing the door without encountering a soul.

Well sure, ok, they had said their bedroom was at the other side of the house, right? Their bedroom. The thought of Hiram and LeRoy sharing a bedroom, like they were just like any straight couple, made something clench in his chest, but he pushed that feeling away. He'd done his best not to react when LeRoy had told him that the night before. He didn't trust these people. Being gay didn't make them good, and if he let them know about him, let them know any of his secrets, that would be one more thing that they could use against him down the road. No, it was better not to get close to them at all. Blaine sighed. He met his own eyes in the mirror and ran his fingers along his jaw. He'd shaved last night in the shower and already he had a shadow, and God that hair. He scowled at himself. He was honestly tempted to buy a gallon of gel and plaster his hair to his head if it meant he could go one single day with it under control. Instead, Blaine just wet his hands in the sink and ran them through his hair to try and flatten it out where necessary.

When he no longer resembled someone that may have stuck his finger in a light socket, Blaine took a bracing breath and figured he couldn't put it off for any longer. He needed to go downstairs. With any luck LeRoy and Hiram would still be sleeping and he'd be granted a little time to snoop around without interruption. He quickly realized as he made his way down the stairs that this was very far from the case. He could hear the men talking in the kitchen and the sounds of pans and plates clanking before he even reached the ground floor. Unsure of whether he should even be interrupting, Blaine approached the kitchen, but hesitated entering. LeRoy was reading something from the paper out loud and Hiram was at the stove listening with a grin and a laugh on his lips. Blaine didn't even hear the words LeRoy was saying – he was far too busy taking in the scene which for some reason suddenly terrified him. He looked between the man at the table and the man who was stirring the contents of a simmering pot, and it was only when he heard his name that he snapped back to the present, his senses hyper-aware.

"…join us?" LeRoy was finishing saying. The newspaper was lowered and he smiled uncertainly at the boy. "Oh hey Blaine," greeted Hiram, his tone calm and kind. "Did you sleep well?" Blaine looked back at him. "Yeah, sure," he muttered, then with hands buried deep in his pockets he made his way over to the kitchen table, chose the seat farthest from LeRoy and sat, his gaze set warily on the man. No, he definitely didn't trust these people at all.

Rachel could only avoid going home for so long before her dads would start to worry. They thought, of course, that she was at Mercedes' place. Rachel figured when she didn't get a call right away from them that Carole must have chosen to spare her the embarrassment of telling her dads what she'd done. Or maybe they're just letting me think she didn't tell them and lulling me into a false sense of security in my lie. Rachel closed her eyes and groaned. It wasn't working. She didn't feel any better about the situation after sitting alone in a diner, nursing a cold cup of terrible coffee for over an hour. In fact, she felt worse. This was going to suck no matter what.

As the gum-chewing waitress with the heavy bags beneath her eyes came over to set her bill on the table, Rachel took the opportunity and spoke suddenly, "Can I ask you something?" The woman stopped, taken aback, but looked at Rachel expectantly. "If you found out after, say, 16 years, that you had a brother you never knew about and all of a sudden that brother was coming to live with you and your parents expected you to get along, what would you do?"

The waitress blinked at her. "Uh…"

"Nevermind," Rachel sighed, and with a tight smile she pulled a bill from her purse. "Keep the change," she said to the woman before sliding from the bench and leaving the diner.