A/N: And then she said, "Let there be drama!" And there was drama. And it was good. Please review! :D

Warning: Mentions of domestic violence.

It was only after a long hug that Bethany reluctantly left the backseat of the Berrys' Prius. "Thanks for the ride," she said quietly, addressing the car's occupants in general. Then, with her hand still clutching the edge of the door, she focused on Blaine. "You'll call me," she said, a command rather than a request. She was worried, and Blaine knew it. He swallowed back his nerves and nodded, forcing a smile for Bethany's sake, though they both knew she wasn't convinced. With a thoughtful frown she nodded, and closed the door.

Blaine watched her walk away from him and into the school he used to attend. She looked back no less than three times before finally entering the building. He hated watching her go, and something irrational clenched his gut as he tried to fight off the fear that he might not see her again. He didn't have time to follow that train of thought to the end of the line before his attention was ripped away by the sound of the engine cutting off. He looked up, startled, his eyes wide for the moment that he saw the Berrys looking at one another. But then they looked at him, and Blaine raised his walls quickly – almost too quickly for either man to catch the flash of fear in his eyes before it was gone. Every cell was on high alert, and his hand clenched the armrest on the door as his eyes narrowed in question and challenge.

"Blaine," LeRoy began. His features started twisting with what looked to Blaine like concern. "I know this probably isn't the most ideal place to talk about this…" He glanced at Hiram, who caught his eye and continued the thought.

"But your father and I – we need to know what happened back at the funeral home." Neither man missed the way Blaine tensed at the word.

"We understand you might not want to tell us everything," LeRoy added, "but you're our responsibility now."

"We need to know if you're in some kind of trouble."

"We can't help you unless you tell us the truth."

The men were trying to keep their own panic at bay, but Blaine was closing off more and more by the second. He crossed his arms protectively over his chest and his eyes flicked warily between the faces of the two men that looked at him from the space between the front seats.

Hiram looked at LeRoy, stifling a sigh, before tacking on what he meant as a reassurance. "We just want to know who that man today was and why you were yelling at him." They waited, then. Both men waited. Blaine meanwhile, said nothing, and for a long minute just kept his eyes locked on them as if he was trying to size them both up, trying to figure out how to escape before they pounced.

"Are you gonna ground me or something? I'm not apologizing," he finally said. His jaw was set in determination. They could ground him, scream at him – hell, they could even beat him – but Blaine didn't back down easily. Judging from the instant shock in both men's faces, though, it wasn't what they were expecting to hear. That just confused Blaine more.

"Blaine, you're not in trouble here," Hiram told him gently. The man shifted and twisted in his seat so he could see the teen better.

LeRoy reassured him quickly, "No one's going to ground you."

"We just want the truth, ok?"

Blaine's eyes shifted between the two. His heartbeat quickened in his chest. He could almost hear the blood pound. Blaine sucked his lip into his mouth, frowning at the confusing turn of events. He tightened his hold on himself, and though his adrenaline was screaming, Blaine's eyes flicked away from the men and he forced the words from his throat. "His name is Darrell," the teen finally told them flatly. The words sounded rough and harsh, even to Blaine's own ears. "He and my mom – we lived with him," he explained, unable to find it in himself to say any more beyond that.

He didn't have to tell the older men what he meant, though. It was clear, if from nothing other than the way the teenager flinched when he paused, searching for how to explain the situation, that the man in the lot and Blaine's late mother had been involved in some romantic way. They waited, trying to give Blaine the space to say whatever he needed to say, but when nothing else came, LeRoy attempted a gentle prompt.

"Blaine," he started gently, cautiously. The boy visibly tensed, his eyes consciously dropping farther away from either Berry. "What did you mean when you said that that Darrell – 'did this'. Blaine, what did Darrell do?" Hiram waited on bated breath, not trusting himself to intervene. His husband was all business now, having taken on the firm but gentle tone that Hiram had only ever heard him use in therapy sessions with his patients. LeRoy was totally focused on Blaine, though. Undeterred by Blaine's hesitation, he prodded carefully, "What was Darrell's fault?"

Blaine's jaw clenched. If he'd been on the outside looking in, he might have realized what they were doing. He might have called LeRoy out for trying to manipulate him into answering. As it was, he didn't know. He didn't realize there was anything different about the man's tone, but only that he could feel a small part of him wanting to tell – wanting to spill his secrets. He turned his angry glare on LeRoy and heat flushed his face as he felt the full impact of the Berrys' focus on him. Through clenched teeth, he bit out the words he'd been dying to say since the moment he learned of his mother's passing – the words that had churned away inside of him as the helplessness he felt in face of it ate at his heart. "He killed my mother."

Finn groaned miserably into the palms of his hands as Rachel, seated beside him on the stage steps rubbed all the way up and down the tall teen's back. "It's ok, Finn. No one blames you."

The boy let his hands drop to his lap and he let out a whining sigh. "I don't think they'll blame me, Rahel, but no one is ever going to let me live it down. I can't believe I thought walking down the hallway in my underwear was going to make it better. It didn't. It doesn't matter how hot you think I am, Rachel. To the rest of the world, I'm just – not." Finn wrapped his arms around his middle, his shoulders sagging.

"Hey. Hey!" The girl gripped his biceps tightly, encouraging him to look at her. With her expression arranged to show him a perfect reflection of serious determination, Rachel locked her eyes on Finn's. "It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, Finn. I think you're hot. I think – I told you already, you're the hottest guy in the whole school. I don't ever want to be with anyone else because no one could ever be as hot as you."

Rachel could see the sadness in his eyes begin to soften, and she raised her other hand to his cheek. She lifted her chin a bit and let her eyes flutter closed, the invitation clear, and Finn, never one to turn down an opportunity offered, placed a soft, sweet kiss on Rachel's lips. The girl kissed back, her thumb stroking his cheek before pulling away. She smiled softly, then bit her lower lip. "Does that help you believe me?"

Finn nodded dumbly, his eyes flicking between her eyes and her lips as he wondered if she might not let him do that again. She did, in fact. Rachel pulled herself up to meet his lips again and pressed a feverish string of kisses to them. Finn responded by snaking his arms around her lower back to pull closer to him, or as close as sitting side-by-side would allow. His head was starting to swim, and he barely registered that Rachel had pulled away when she did. He opened his eyes and squinted at her questioningly.

"My dads are out of town today," she whispered breathily. "Maybe you could come over and I could show you just how hot I think you are." She bit her lip again, her flushed cheeks growing pinker. She wanted this – wanted time doing something that made her happy, made her feel good, and didn't remind her at all of her dads or her stupid brother. Finn's eyes widened a bit and he nodded eagerly, pointedly ignoring the niggling voice that reminded him, you're still grounded. After all, what his mother didn't know wouldn't hurt her. And if she found out, it would totally be worth it. That was his last thought before his eyes fluttered closed again and he dipped his head to capture his girlfriend in another steamy kiss, all thoughts of mothers and grounding completely forgotten.

To say that the Berrys were shocked would have been the understatement of the century. Even the careful façade of neutrality the pair of therapists usually maintained without issue had cracked, the shock plain in the widening of their eyes before the men exchanged a look and LeRoy sunk back in his seat.

After a good few minutes of silence during which Hiram attempted to gather himself, he finally turned his eyes on the teen. Blaine, he saw, had brought his knees up to his chest, his heels resting on the edge of the bench. He hugged his knees, hunching down over them, a position that made him look so suddenly young and vulnerable. He looked smaller that Hiram had ever realized, and he felt a painful pang in his heart. "Blaine, a-are you sure?"

But Hiram should have known. The blazing fury in Blaine's honey-colored eyes told both men there wasn't a question at all in the young boy's mind. Whether he was right was a totally separate issue. The bespeckled man attempted a quick recovery, "I mean – ok," he took a breath and looked to his husband for help. LeRoy looked between the two before letting his eyes settle still on Blaine.

"Blaine, what we mean to say is – can you tell us why, or, how you know that?" The men watched him expectantly and Blaine grimaced before turning his angry eyes away. He said nothing. The men in the front exchanged a glance, Hiram asking silently, what do we do? LeRoy just looked at him sadly and shrugged a single shoulder. He didn't have a clue how they should proceed.

Just as Hiram had opened his mouth to speak again, though, Blaine turned his eyes on them again, his features contorted, like he was battling with himself. "He beat the crap out of her," he finally told them icily. "He beat the crap out of her all the fucking time. And I couldn't do a damn thing about it. Because I was never enough for her." His eyes were growing red and it was only when he reached a hand to rub angrily at his cheek that either man realized their son was starting to cry, but they were frozen.

Blaine turned pointedly away from them and glared resolutely out the window. Meanwhile, Hiram's hand found LeRoy's, seemingly of its own volition, and he squeezed tightly. LeRoy clung back just as tightly. They hadn't expected this. No one had told them how the woman had passed away – simply that she had. The idea that someone had done it to her had not occurred to them. Perhaps it should have. Perhaps they simply hadn't wanted to know. Hiram sniffed and clasped a hand over his mouth to muffle a stuttered breath as regret and guilt flooded the heart that was breaking for Blaine, for what his son must have seen in all those years they weren't around.

LeRoy turned watery eyes on his husband, who'd begun fanning away the tears. They locked glances. Hiram's eyes betrayed every thought in his head. It wasn't fair. If only they'd known. If only they'd known to protect him from this. LeRoy squeezed Hiram's hand. No, don't think that way. It isn't your fault. And that was the straw that broke the dam. Hiram let out a loud choked sob and LeRoy caught him up instinctively in his arms. "Shhhh," he shushed him quietly, rubbing gentle circles into his husband's back. The armrest between them was digging into his stomach, but he didn't dare move, not even to wipe away the silent tears streaking down his own cheeks.

With a sigh at the muffled whines his Hiram was emitting, LeRoy rested his head on Hiram's shoulder, his sad eyes landing lightly on the boy in the back. He expected the boy to be upset, to perhaps be pointedly ignoring their embarrassing display, but instead, to his mild surprise, he saw Blaine actually looking at them intently. Something nervous fluttered in LeRoy's chest as he straightened his head, his own expression reflecting the curious question he saw in Blaine's. It was as if the boy was not just looking in their direction, but really seeing. He was certainly seeing something – something that made him stop, something that stripped the anger from his expression. He was looking at something and if the inquisitiveness in his eyes was something to go by, he was trying to figure out what or how or why.

LeRoy just wished he knew what the boy was seeing and what the question was that lay hidden behind his eyes, but something told him now was not the time for him to ask, because something told him that even if he did it wasn't likely that Blaine could even tell him.