So. It's Christmas - or it was when I started writing this chapter, anyway. I'm screwing with my own timeline here and making this officially AU - like it wasn't already - at the same time. *shrugs* If you can't mess with your own fanfiction, what can you mess with, right? I can't guarantee when the next chapter is going up, given that I'm about to go under the knife very soon; and anything written under the influence of narcotic pain medication is bound to be so screwy as to be unusable. Or hilarious. I don't know, we'll see, won't we? That said, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and enjoy this next chapter!

~~~~~glee~~~~~

Kurt's heart was heavy in his chest as he dialed the number. "Blaine?"

"Merry Christmas!" His boyfriend greeted him enthusiastically. "Well, a day late, anyway. Sorry I couldn't talk yesterday; there's dead zones all over the mountain." Blaine's family had taken advantage of Dalton's extended Christmas vacation and gone on a ski trip to the Rocky Mountains. And not just to one ski area, no. Four. Blaine had promised Kurt he'd bring back t-shirts. Kurt would have preferred to go along, if only to see his sweet singer more, like he'd originally been planning.

"It's okay," Kurt reassured him, thinking guiltily of the dozen text messages, half-dozen missed calls and, fairly, a restrained two voice messages he'd left on Blaine's cell phone. "Merry Christmas to you, too."

"Wish you were here - sorry, that sounds so post-card-ish - but it's true. The skiing is amazing. Can you imagine a ski slope so long you run out of breath before you run out of mountain? And the chairlifts get you to the top in ten minutes. At these altitudes, that's amazing. Feels like you're flying, up and down. I can't wait to show you my pictures - it'll take your breath away. And you know how much I like to see you breathless..." He trailed off and Kurt knew he was smiling. Kurt himself was blushing furiously, glad he'd taken this call in his bedroom with the door shut firmly behind him.

"Truth to tell, though," Blaine went on, "I'm looking forward to getting back. I want at least a couple of days with you before Dalton gears back up and all our time is straight school again."

Kurt could have listened to him talk all day, but he couldn't stand to sit there so miserable and let Blaine go on without telling him the bad news. Besides, he wasn't going to get a better straight line than that. "Speaking of Straight School," he began, clearing his throat. Man, this was going to be harder than he'd thought. "I... there's something I need to tell you."

Blaine was instantly alerted by Kurt's unhappy tone. "Kurt? Baby, what's up?"

Kurt's face crumpled at the caring in his boyfriend's voice and he gripped his phone like a drowning man. "Oh, Blaine! I can't go back to Dalton next semester!"

~~~~glee~~~~

It had been pure accident that he'd found out. Burt and Carol had done a spectacular job of hiding their worries from him and Finn - not that Finn had even noticed that anything was amiss. Kurt at least had been aware of the tension, though not it's source.

Christmas day. The gifts were all unwrapped and the dinner eaten. Finn was busy avoiding Rachel, who was just as busy trying to win him back. Very determinedly. Very. Kurt had been just as glad to leave them to one another, preoccupied as he had been with trying to make his phone ring through sheer force of will.

Taking the theory that a watched phone never rang, but a silent phone might buzz if he distracted himself, he'd started cleaning up. To fool the phone, he stuck his earbuds in to make it look like he was ignoring it, but failed to hook it up to his ipod. I'm not listening for my ringtone, really, he thought at the phone in his back pocket. You can go ahead and ring now, because I'll never hear it. Guarantee you.

Oh, man, I am so desperate...

He'd gotten the living room cleaned and was starting on the dining room when low, intense voices from his parents' bedroom caught his ear. Curious but cautious, he edged closer until he could hear words. "...have enough for next year. Not with the income we have now. Our savings are almost gone."

"Maybe we could mortgage the house...?"

The sense of a shaking head. "Bank won't agree to a third one. I could take out another loan against the garage..."

"On top of everything else? Burt, you know we've exhausted that route. Your medical bills alone -"

"...I know. Did that scholarship stuff you were looking into pan out at all?"

A sigh. "Next year. Maybe. They said there was nothing they could do for us this semester - all of their available scholarship funds are pledged until June. And they won't even give us hardship consideration."

"What? I swear I saw that on the website -"

"It's for single parents. With us being married, Kurt no longer qualifies for that particular break. I talked with the financial advisor for an hour - he's done everything he can."

"We'll think of something. We have to."

Again, that sense of a head shaking in defeat. "What are we going to tell Kurt?"

Burt looked up sharply, and Kurt knew he'd been caught. How does he do that? he wondered, even as his father had said, quietly, "I think we just did."

~~~~~glee~~~~~

It was with great trepidation that Kurt reentered McKinley High on the first day back after Christmas vacation. He'd been assigned a new locker, and his schedule was all messed up. He felt like the new kid all over again, with all the old fears boiling through his belly on top of the new butterflies. The only good part of the day was the enthusiastic reception he got from glee club, with the single exception of the new girl they'd pulled in to replace him. She merely grunted and asked if he'd brought any jujubes.

He didn't see Dave all day.

Or the next day, either, though he'd had to avoid Azimio by ducking into the bathroom.

By the third day, he was keeping his eye out for the big lug with more than an eye for ducking out of sight as soon as he was in view - he was starting to get worried. "Hey, Finn." He collared his step-brother at lunch. "Have you seen Karofsky at all?"

Finn glared down the hallway. "I'd better not," he muttered. "As soon as we knew you were coming back, Puck, Sam and I told him he'd better make himself scarce."

"Yeah," said Puck, coming up behind them. "Anyone else even breathes wrong around you, they've got the New Directions to answer to."

Kurt's eyebrows drew down. "You threatened him?"

"Damn straight. No one messes with our boy."

Oh, boy. I am so dead...

Kurt gave a wan smile. "Thanks, guys."

~~~~glee~~~~

Dave simmered.

Who did Kurt think he was? He'd hoped it would be different when the other boy came back. That he could just ignore him and be ignored in return.

Ha.

It wasn't enough that he'd been suspended. It wasn't enough that he'd been kicked off the football team. It wasn't enough that he'd become the laughing-stock of the school with his despair-driven suicide attempt. Now Kurt had to make him cringe and crawl and pretend to be afraid of those loser punks in the singing club.

He wasn't really afraid. Not Dave Karofsky. Not of a bunch of losers who shamed all real men by prancing around on stage worrying about their clothes and carrying perfect pitch.

But.

He'd learned a few things in therapy. Anger management worked. It really did. He'd been resentful and resistant - still was, a lot of the time - but he was learning to think things through, to look at consequences, to not let his emotions, his anger, rule him.

So rather than thumb his nose at the glee-club losers, he stayed away. "I'm not going to let my stupid emotions be the boss of me," he muttered under his breath as he checked his schedule sheet and stalked into his next class. Still. It didn't seem fair that his schedule had been screwed with, just so that he was nowhere near the Hummel kid. He'd thought that he'd been reinstated in the school without prejudice, after that little suspension stint. And Figgins had emphasized that the schedule change wasn't a penalty, that many students had had their classes adjusted.

Again, ha.

But he hadn't complained to his dad. Paul Karofsky would just raise another big fuss, making Dave feel like an ugly damsel in distress, and he'd wind up wishing he'd never said a word. So he didn't. His counselor had been proud of him for thinking the situation through and making a "very adult decision."

The phrase nettled.

Dave had let it go, with only a slight glower.

And now, sitting down to listen to some substitute droning on in German, he sighed and let it go again. If Kurt didn't want to see him, he didn't want to see him.

He could have at least have told Dave to his face though, instead of sending around his goon squad. Kurt had called him his friend. I guess maybe he didn't mean it after all.

Dave shrugged to himself. He couldn't care in the least what that little pipsqueak thought.

Really.

"Herr Dave?"

Oh. Damn. Dave realized he'd been staring off into space and hadn't heard the question. He hazarded a guess. "Um... Glühbirne?"