Blaine had known Sectionals were coming up. How could he not? It was practically the only thing Rachel and Kurt even talked about – Rachel, because she was that self-centered, and Kurt, because he was trying not to think of other less pleasant things. Kurt's dad's wedding had been a nice distraction for Kurt, he knew, but when Principal Sue (Blaine still wasn't sure how that had happened) couldn't expel the kid that had threatened to kill Kurt (it still made his blood boil), Blaine suddenly found himself completely alone at McKinley.

It wasn't that he'd had any interest in joining a club, but the shake-up to his fragile support system caused when Kurt – his only real friend at McKinley – decided to leave for Dalton Academy left him vulnerable to even the most half-hearted invitation from a guy who smelled, quite literally, like a porta-potty.

He was on his way back to class from his broken picnic table when he noticed the overturned outhouse. Thinking it stranger still, that it sounded like someone was inside the overturned outhouse, he'd steeled his nerves, pinched his nose, and opened the barricaded door to find none other than Noah Puckerman inside.

"Shit."

The unintended irony of his instinctive curse wasn't entirely lost on Blaine, but he was immediately distracted by the strangest question from Puckerman: "Are you an angel?" Blaine raised an incredulous brow.

In a way, he felt a sense of satisfaction at seeing the bully become the bullied, but another part of him was disgusted by what his tormenters had chosen to do – regardless of who the target was.

"Dude," Blaine said with a shake of his head. The smell was horrendous. With a sigh, he reached out a hand for the taller teen. "Come on. Let's get you out of there."

Puck felt defeated. He'd thought his cool factor had a wider reach than this. He'd never been the target of bullying at McKinley before. His own team – people he'd considered friends – had shoved him in a porta-potty and turned it over. After what felt like hours, he'd broken down and begun to pray. At first, he'd promised God he'd be nicer to people, if only He would get Puck out of this mess. But then, after realizing he wouldn't be able to really fulfill that promise, he'd changed it to "just Jews." In a way, the Anderson kid was kind of like, Jewish by association. His dads were Jewish, and though it wouldn't have stopped Puck from taking Finn up on his suggestion to slushy the kid when he'd first come to school, the fact that he was Rachel's brother – sort of – meant he'd have to be nicer to him now.

Besides, he still had a job to do. "Look, I'll owe you one. Personally. Mr. Schue trusted me to find a twelfth member and I can't let him down."

"How do you know I can even sing?" Blaine asked, electing not to point out that he was pretty sure "Puck" owed him one just for saving his sorry ass.

"That's the beauty of it, though, dude. You don't have to sing. We just need one more person on stage to qualify."

He hesitated at first – not prepared to say yes, but not prepared to turn Puck down, either. "Rachel isn't going to like it," Blaine said.

Puck didn't disagree. He just shrugged. "She'll get over it." She'd have to.

The New Directions were out of options.

Blaine hesitated. Though he'd told himself long ago that he wanted nothing to do with Rachel's club, part of him felt guilty about what happened to Kurt. If he'd been there, if he'd been a better friend, if maybe he'd gone to Principal Sue and lied about having seen Karofsky threaten Kurt, his friend wouldn't have had to leave. He would still be a member of the New Directions. He would be singing a solo. And when the New Directions won, he would be going on with his team to Regionals.

All that guilt, which had no proper place on Blaine's shoulders, fell there anyway, and the boy couldn't help but think if someway, somehow, Kurt decided to come back, how horrible it would be if there was no Glee Club to come back to just because the New Directions were one member short and forced to forfeit

Blaine sighed. "Fine. I'll do it."

Puck's face split into a grin. "Awesome."

Puck held up a fist and, after only a moment of consideration, Blaine bumped it with his own.

"Let's get this over with," said Blaine, bracing for what was sure to be one hell of a reaction from Rachel.

"Dude, where have you been?"

The question was directed at Puck, but Blaine answered grimly, "I found him in a porta-potty."

Rachel listened, dumbfounded, as Noah recounted his attempt to sell the Glee Club to football players, of all people. The fact that the glowering figure who'd walked into the classroom with Puck had actually rescued him was a surprise in itself, but the fact that he'd actually agreed to join Glee as their twelfth member would have probably forced Rachel to lose her legs if she hadn't already been sitting.

Mr. Schue, though, was ecstatic. "That's fantastic. Let's welcome the newest member of the Glee Club, Mr. Blaine Anderson!" He clapped, grinning like an idiot, and the rest of the club followed suit.

Blaine's expression grew grimmer as he crossed the room and chose a seat as far from Rachel as he could manage, but he did notice Mike Chang from Spanish class sitting next to an Asian girl in goth clothing. He raised an eyebrow at Mike as he crossed the room and Mike just smiled at him as he clapped along with the rest of the kids. Blaine sat in the empty chair. Behind him, he could feel the eyes of two Cheerios burrowing holes into the back of his curly head, and he slumped a bit in his seat as he waited for the lesson to begin.

To his utter shock, one of the Cheerios – the dark-haired Latina – said, "Damn, Rachel. Why didn't you tell us your new brother was hot."

Blaine's eyes widened, though he resisted turning around (even though the girl had clearly spoken with the intention that he would overhear. Rachel sputtered, unable to think of a retort before Mr. Schue called for their attention on him. They would be starting, it seemed, with learning the choreography to Valerie.

He felt his gut twist. You're doing this for Kurt, he reminded himself. And when Mike and a blonde Cheerio by the name of Brittany came down to demonstrate the moves they would all be expected to perform, Blaine only barely managed to keep his jaw from dropping to the floor.

As it turned out, boxing had given him an unexpected edge. He was light on his feet and had balance – two extremely important things that allowed him to practice the steps without falling flat on his face.

He even managed to crack a smile when Mr. Schue praised him. "Good job, Blaine! I think you just might be a natural." His smile faded, though, when he saw the glare directed at him by his sister. He narrowed his own eyes and resolved to ignore her for the rest of the practice.

When they were done, Blaine grabbed his bag as Mr. Schue reminded them all about the "same time tomorrow." That's when he remembered. "Uh, Mr. Schue?"

"Yes, Blaine."

He stepped off the platform and jogged over to the teacher. "I, uh, I can't come to practice tomorrow right after school."

"Why not?"

Blaine glanced sideways to see Santana clearly listening in. "Just – I have an appointment."

"Oh, all right," said Mr. Schuester. "Can you come after, or do we need to try and work in a practice during the day?"

Blaine shook his head. "No, I'll – I can come after."

"Well, OK then," his teacher agreed with a bright grin.

With a nod, Blaine headed for the less crowded exit.

Blaine was heading across the parking lot when behind him he heard a voice call, "Hey! Ambercrombie & Fitch." Blaine slowed and turned to see Santana sashaying his way.

"Hello?" The voice coming through the receiver sounded ambivalent about picking up the phone.

Blaine felt his heart flutter. "Kurt! Hey. How are things?"

"Oh, Blaine, hi! Fine, um, things are…really good actually. For the most part," Kurt said with a light laugh.

"What do you mean, the most part?" he asked, but he was smiling. If Kurt was laughing, that was a good thing in Blaine's book.

"Eh, I don't know. I joined the Warblers – I don't know if you remember me telling you, but, they're the Glee Club here at Dalton."

"Yeah – yeah, I remember."

"Anyway, I tried to make some suggestions for Sectionals, but they've got this – counsel they call it. Basically, three upper classman choose all the songs and decide who get solos and stuff. It's not bad just – different. Something I'll have to get used to. But they invited me to audition for a solo, so that's really exciting."

"Wow, yeah, that's – that's really exciting. I'm sure you'll kill it."

"Anyway, sorry, I've been talking all about me. What about you? Still surviving McKinley?"

"Yeah. Yes. Still surviving. I, uh…I kinda joined the Glee Club today."

"What?" Blaine had to hold the phone away from his ear.

"Tell me you're joking. Did Rachel freak? I bet she freaked. How did this happen? Tell me everything."

Blaine laughed, but he obliged, relating the story of finding Puck in the porta-potty and what ensued after.

"I guess I just figured, it would suck if you ever decide to come back to McKinley and Glee Club is over just because they didn't have enough members to compete." Blaine fell silent, hoping he hadn't revealed too much. He understood why Kurt left – he really did – and he didn't want to make it any harder than it already was.

"Wow, Blaine, that's – the nicest thing anybody's ever done for me."

Embarrassed now, Blaine covered up his self-consciousness with snark. "Yeah, well, don't get used to it. As soon as sectionals is over, I'm quitting. So if you're not back before Regionals, New Directions is SOL."

It was a joke. Mostly. But Kurt didn't laugh. "I want to come back. You know I do."

"Well, with any luck, Karofsky will find a hole to crawl into and never come out. Or better yet, maybe he will 'come out' and the only closet case you'll have to put up with at McKinley is me."

This time, Kurt chuckled. "You're not a closet case, Blaine."

"I know. Though it's not for lack of trying," he said, deadpanning.

Kurt laughed again. "I'd better go, Blaine. Thanks for calling."

"Yeah, sure, Kurt."

"Good night."

The phone clicked in Blaine's ear before he could respond. He realized too late that he'd completely forgotten to tell Kurt about Santana and the fact that she'd tried to coerce Blaine into what he was pretty sure was supposed to be a date.

"So, how are you feeling today, Blaine?"

Cheryl had her brown hair pulled into a ponytail, which only made her look even more like Harry Potter than she had these last two weeks.

"Fine," he said, and found, for the first time, he actually meant it. "I feel pretty fine."

"Has anything changed this week? How's Kurt?" Blaine was pretty sure she already knew, but he told her anyway.

"Kurt's – moved to a different school."

"Is that hard for you? Having your good friend go to another school?"

He shrugged. She waited.

"I, uh, I joined the Glee Club."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, it's – Rachel's in it. Kurt used to be. Now he's joined the Glee Club at his new school."

"What do you do in Glee Club?"

Blaine shrugged again. "I don't know. We sing. Dance. Stuff like that. There's a competition coming up. They were down one member because of Kurt."

"Do you enjoy it? The singing and dancing?"

He shrugged a third time, but even as he did, he found himself nodding his head. "Yeah, it's – it's fine."

Cheryl smiled. "Well, that's just fantastic, Blaine. Why don't we talk a little more about the songs you used to sing when you were a little boy?" she prompted.

Blaine had been trying, subconsciously, not to link Glee Club with his mother, but Cheryl had no trouble putting two and two together. Singing was clearly something that made him happy, something that reminded him of the good times with his mom, and something, she believed, that would help him through his grief. Still, it was a realization he would have to come to on his own when he was ready.

By the time the session was over, Cheryl had already decided what Blaine's next assignment would be.

"I have an assignment for you, Blaine. Before our next session, I want you to pick a song – any song that reminds you of the happy times with your mother, and I want you to sing it all the way through. You can do it in front of an audience, or not – it's totally your call. But I would like you to really put some thought into this and really do it right, OK?

Blaine frowned. He didn't know if he liked what she was asking him to do. "Yeah. OK," he agreed, though, reluctantly.