Author's Notes: Hello! Wow, so much for less of a wait for the next chapter. Sorry about that!

Thanks yet again to Tanya - who is wonderful!

Here is chapter six! Chapter seven should be up tomorrow since it's already been written :) so enjoy!

"So you said he comes this way every Monday at 10:30?"

"Like clockwork. He always heads to the coffee cart outside the south building for his post-rehearsal medium drip."

Kurt nodded at this information.

He was standing outside one of the many dance studios at NYADA; waiting for Blaine to finish up with his individual West Side Story rehearsal, and holding the boy's usual coffee order - a medium drip.

Kurt only decided this morning that he would meet Blaine after his rehearsal. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing. Once he had decided that he would talk to Blaine honestly about how he felt, the rest of the weekend seemed to go by excruciatingly slowly. He couldn't even wait for his usual coffee date with Blaine to speak to him, he needed to ask him before he lost the courage. He had pestered Rachel for Blaine's rehearsal schedule and according to her, she always passed Blaine at the doorway on Mondays at 10:30 - when his individual rehearsal was due to finish and hers was due to start.

But now the minutes were whizzing by and it was already 10:28. Kurt cursed his past self for being so eager and wished he'd just waited to speak to Blaine at their usual coffee meet up.

He went to move his hand to fix his hair for what must have been the tenth time since he'd been waiting, but Rachel swatted it away.

"Quit it," she ordered, "you look fine."

He gave her an annoyed glance, but obeyed.

"And stop being so fidgety. You'd think you were about to go and perform a whole one man show to an audience of a thousand."

"I think I'd rather take that right now," Kurt gulped, after checking his watch again.

"Oh please," she sighed impatiently, "the pair of you are practically dating already."

Kurt opened his mouth to disagree, but before he could get a word out, the door opened and Blaine appeared, looking as dreamy as ever.

Blaine noticed them straight away - he seemed happily surprised by Kurt's presence (what Kurt hoped was happy surprise anyway) - and made his way over.

"Hey," he smiled at Kurt before turning to Rachel, "they're ready for you. But watch out, Tibideaux's not in the best of moods this morning. Apparently the guy playing Officer Krupke broke his leg and there's some drama in the costume department."

Rachel simply nodded her thanks at this information and proceeded to stroll through the door with even more confidence than usual - clearly determined to be the one to fix her vocal coach's awful mood.

"Rather her than me," Blaine sighed as he watched her disappear behind the door. He then turned back to Kurt, "so what's going on?"

This is it, Kurt thought, truth time.

"Here," he said, handing Blaine the medium drip.

"Uh thanks," Blaine answered, a curious look on his face, "how d'you know that this is my usual coffee break?"

"Just a guess," Kurt smiled, "you have stage combat next, right? In the south building?"

Blaine nodded and took a sip of his drink.

"Walk with me?"

"Sure," Blaine smiled. He didn't seem at all taken a back by Kurt's sudden need to walk him to his class. "So, what's up?"

The pair began to walk down the corridor, which was empty except for a few clusters of students, who were either gossiping with friends or making their way to class.

"OK, so I've pretty much been over what I'm about to say a million times in my head already," Kurt began, "so I'm not even sure if it even makes any sense anymore. But I need to just be honest with you for a minute."

Blaine looked intrigued, but didn't say anything. He simply nodded in a way that indicated he was listening and that Kurt should carry on.

Kurt took a deep breath before launching into his speech, his words coming out in a rush.

"So we hang out a lot. We get coffee. I thought we were kind of heading somewhere, but then there was the whole Sebastian thing. And God knows what was going on there. I still have a few questions regarding that boy actually. But then it turned out, there was less of a thing going on there than I originally thought - which was good… well, for me it was good, Sebastian - not so much. Anyway, then you spent practically the entire day at my apartment, and if I'm being honest, I was sensing some non-platonic vibes, if you catch my well…" Kurt trailed off and ventured a look at Blaine's expression.

They'd stopped walking now, and were stood next to the double doors that lead to one of NYADA's many exterior bench areas.

"Am I making any sense?" Kurt laughed nervously.

Blaine smiled fondly, "Kurt, I-"

For a few seconds, Kurt wondered what had made him stop mid sentence. But then he felt someone tap him on the shoulder and turned to find himself face to face with a young faced boy, who was smiling brightly at him.

"Kurt Hummel?" the boy asked.

"Who wants to know?"

"Madam Tibideaux wishes to see you in dance studio 23b right away."

Kurt was slightly confused by this request and curious as to why Tibideaux was asking for him, but he was mainly just annoyed that she had chosen this specific moment in time to do so.

"Oh, um, okay. Could you tell her I'll be there in a couple minutes?"

The boy shook his head, and appeared apologetic that he couldn't carry out this instruction, "She said that I have to bring you with me straight away. It's urgent."

Kurt sighed, and realised that putting up anymore of a fight would be pointless. He knew better than to disobey Ms. Tibideaux.

He turned around to face Blaine, "Sorry, could we continue this conversation later?"

"Oh, yeah, for sure," he replied.

Kurt smiled gratefully before following the young faced boy back into the building and towards the dance studio he'd just left.

Upon entering the room, he immediately spotted Rachel in the far corner. She appeared to be having an extremely animated discussion with a girl who was sat behind a grand piano. Rachel was moving her hands around erratically and occasionally gesturing to what Kurt assumed were various pieces of sheet music.

"Mr. Hummel."

Kurt's attention was brought away from Rachel and the pianist as he spun around to see Carmen Tibideaux strolling towards him.

"Madam Tibideaux," he greeted her politely.

"Take a seat," she said, gesturing to a cluster of chairs that had been placed at the side of the room, presumably for people to observe the rehearsal.

Kurt obeyed and his professor pulled up a chair to sit opposite him.

"I'll cut straight to the point, Mr. Hummel; I am not having the best of mornings. Firstly, I have a cast member down, who I don't think will be ready come opening night," she began.

Kurt nodded, Blaine had mentioned to Rachel that the guy playing Officer Kupke had broken his leg.

"Luckily, this problem can be fixed with an understudy," she continued, "But, I have a more pressing matter at hand that cannot be solved quite so easily. Our costume designer for the musical, Jennette Marino, has dropped out of NYADA. Thus leaving us with zero costume designs for the textiles department."

Kurt nodded again, unsure what his teacher was getting at.

"Now, there are a few students that I am considering who have experience in the field of clothing design. And I was reminded this morning, by your good friend Miss Berry, that you also have experience in that field."

Kurt's stared at her. Was she asking what he thought she was asking?

"All of the work that you have put into this school since you've started has not gone a miss, and I have heard some good things from your current employer - a Miss Isabelle Wright?"

Kurt nodded again quickly, "Madam Tibideaux, thank you so much for even considering me. I would put one hundred and fifty percent into the job and I know -"

"Slow down, Hummel," she raised a hand to quiet him, "like I said, there are a number of other pupils who I believe could also do this job - four to be exact. I am proposing that each of you come up with a sample of ideas for costumes for West Side Story, and pitch these ideas to me and the textiles department this time next week. We take the fall musical here at NYADA very seriously and the costumes must be up to scratch. We will choose the person who we believe has the best vision and design ideas for the show. Are you up for the challenge?"

Kurt nodded eagerly yet again, "You can count on me, Ma'am."

She stood up, smiling slightly, "Good."

Kurt watched her walk over to a group of freshman who were studying their scripts intently and give them some direction.

His mind was buzzing. He had a chance of designing the costumes for NYADA's fall musical? That would look very impressive on a resumé, let alone give him heaps of experience at designing clothes for a professional event. There was no question, he had to win this role.

He spotted Rachel again as he made his way to leave. He desperately wanted to run over to her and hug her in thank you, but she was already running through I Feel Pretty with the girl sat at the piano. It probably wouldn't deem very professional for him to tackle her at this very moment.

Just when he was about to give up trying to get her attention, she turned her head to face him. She smiled knowingly and continued singing.

"Thank you," Kurt mouthed at her silently, an excited smile on his face.

She nodded happily before turning back to face Tibideaux and the other professors.

Kurt left the dance studio and started in the direction of his next class, his head already racing with possible costume ideas.

Just as he was leaving his drama class and heading towards the coffee shop, Kurt felt his phone buzz in his pocket. It was a text from Blaine:

hey, really sorry - can't make coffee today, something's come up.

see you tomorrow?

Kurt frowned at his phone, his good mood deflating slightly.

It wasn't so much the fact that Blaine had cancelled their plans that worried him, but the briefness of the text message. You'd think he would give a reason for the short notice cancellation. What did "something's come up" mean exactly?

Kurt mentally kicked himself for what he'd said earlier. Was Blaine bailing because he didn't want to continue their previous conversation? Had Kurt scared him off with all the "non-platonic" talk?

He replayed their conversation and tried to remember anything that could suggest that Blaine didn't feel the same way. He hadn't seemed repulsed by the idea. Kurt remembered him smiling after he'd finished his little speech. But maybe that was pity. Maybe he felt sorry for Kurt, sorry that he'd given him the wrong idea and never in a million years would he feel the same way.

The scenarios flying around in Kurt's head seemed to go from bad to worse.

Stop it, Hummel. He mentally ordered himself. There are dozens of perfectly good reasons as to why Blaine had to miss coffee. Don't over think it.

As he tried desperately hard to think of anything else, he decided to go to the library and spend his free hour researching different interpretations of some previous costumes for West Side Story, in the hopes of gaining some inspiration.

Kurt got back to the apartment that night only to be greeted by an expectant Rachel.

"How'd it go?" she called from her bedroom as soon as he walked through the door.

She poked her head round the curtain and beamed at him.

"Tell me everything."

Kurt assumed she was talking about Blaine and not his opportunity to design the costumes for the musical.

"Nothing to tell," he sighed after tossing his shoulder bag on the couch and making his way over to the kitchen.

The girl frowned as she came out from behind the curtain and joined him in the kitchen, "What do you mean?"

Kurt inspected the contents of the fridge, desperately wanting to talk about anything else.

"Kurt?"

"I never got to talk to him much after his rehearsal because Tibideaux needed to see me and then he cancelled our coffee date at lunch," he said into the fridge.

"Oh," Rachel said, before continuing quickly, "Well that doesn't necessarily mean anything. There are hundreds of reasons why he had to cancel. He could have got held back in class, or he could have had a last minute assignment to do or-"

"Rachel, you don't have to humour me. I'm fine," Kurt turned around to face her and was met with an unconvinced expression, "Honestly, I am. But I don't really feel like analysing this one in excruciating detail, so would it be OK if we changed the subject?"

She nodded quickly in understanding.

Kurt sighed gratefully and turned back to fridge and selected a can of soda.

"So, what ideas have you got for the costumes so far?"

"Ah," Kurt smiled, opening the soda, "that, we can talk about."

The pair spent the majority of the evening looking over the research Kurt had done in his free period. Kurt informed Rachel of some of his initial ideas and she listened carefully before contributing some ideas of her own based on her expert knowledge of both West Side Story and the taste's and opinions of their vocal coach.

"OK, so then it goes into I Feel Pretty, but I guess I don't need to sing that right now. Um… what else?" Rachel wondered, flicking through her West Side Story script.

"Am I done yet?" Santana sighed, "Because I need to go get ready."

"Er… yes, I think so..."

"Praise the Lord," Santana placed the script that she had been holding on the kitchen table and ran swiftly in the direction of her bedroom.

Rachel was still searching through the script intently, "Hang on, you could actually help me with-"

"No!" Santana called from behind the curtain, "sorry, but an hour is about as much of my time you're gonna get, Berry."

Kurt was watching the pair from the sofa, where he was sketching out some possible costume designs. Santana had indeed spent the last hour helping Rachel go through some of her scenes for the musical by reading in for Anita. And honestly, he was surprised that the two of them were still on speaking terms.

Rachel now turned to Kurt, "Kurt, would you-"

"Nope, not reading in for Tony again," he said, without looking up from his sketchpad.

"Well, what about-"

"Or Anita."

Rachel sighed in defeat and joined him on the sofa.

"Rachel, you knew the script inside out before you even started rehearsals. Why are you suddenly stressing out about it?"

She flicked through the script in her hands idly before answering him, "Well, it's just that… everyone else is really good."

Kurt squinted at her, unsure of what she meant.

Rachel sighed, "I mean, like really good. This is the first time in my life that I feel like I have to sprint in order to keep up with everyone else, you know? I mean, it's great - that I'm getting challenged, don't get me wrong. I just… I don't want to be the one who let's the performance down."

Kurt couldn't help laughing. For a second, he thought that she was upset about something much more serious.

She gave him an incredulous look, "What? What's so funny? Don't you laugh at me, Kurt Hummel."

"Sorry," Kurt attempted to stifle his laughter, "it's just, now you know how the rest of us feel pretty much all the time."

Rachel just blinked at him, shock evident on her face.

"Also," he continued, "this is NYADA we're talking about. I'd be worried if you didn't feel a little out of your comfort zone once in a while."

"I guess you're right," Rachel looked back down at her script, "but just to make sure, why don't you-"

"Nice try," Kurt laughed before going back to his sketches.

"How do I look?" came Santana's voice as she stepped out from her bedroom, "Actually, you don't even have to answer that question. I look awesome," she took some lipgloss out of the clutch bag she was holding and began applying some.

"You know," Rachel began, "you've been very mysterious about this date of yours, Santana. I mean, who is this girl? Do we know her? Where did she go to school? Where does she work?"

"Oh, put a sock in it, Berry. You're not my Mom," Santana quipped. Her answer was breezy, but there was a sense of something else in her voice.

Kurt and Rachel shared a suspicious glance.

"There's something you're not telling us," Kurt said in a sing-song voice.

"Pffffft," Santana waved off his comment before checking her reflection in the toaster.

"There is! There is!" Rachel exclaimed, pointing a finger at her roommate enthusiastically.

"Come on, who is it?" Kurt asked, closing his sketchpad.

"Nu-uh," Santana replied, shaking her head at them, "I don't need you two jumping in with your opinions and comments on my love-life thank you very much."

"Why not?' Kurt wondered, "we're your friends, you need to talk to us about this stuff."

"Oh, you know what? You're totally right," she gave an exaggerated sigh, "so tell me, how is your Warbler these days, Hummel?"

Kurt glared at her. She was right, of course. But that didn't mean he needed to be mocked.

It was Thursday, and Kurt still hadn't managed to finish Monday's conversation with Blaine. It seemed like the universe was working against them. Kurt's schedule had been hectic all week, what with him having to come up with the designs for the musical. Tibideaux was constantly calling him into meetings with herself and the other students who were running for Costume Designer, where everyone appeared to talk for hours on the correct colour for Maria's dress. Blaine's schedule also appeared to be a lot busier as rehearsals for the musical were a lot heavier and he was always being whisked off somewhere to rehearse something with someone. These factors made it difficult for the pair to find any simultaneous free time.

"Point taken," Kurt sniffed at his roommate now.

Santana smiled slyly and went to pick up her shoes, which were lying near the front door.

She was almost done fixing the strap on her second high heel when there was a knock at the door. Santana looked up from her shoe in alarm and turned quickly to her friends, "Embarrass me in front of her and I will end you," she hissed.

Rachel and Kurt turned to each other in mock surprise.

"Who? Us?" Kurt asked, a hand to his heart.

"We're not even here," Rachel added, before pretending to zip her mouth shut and throw away the key.

Santana gave them a threatening look before turning to slide open the apartment door.

Behind the door was a girl who looked about their age. She had dark hair and bright happy face - not like Santana at all. She was also holding a single red rose.

"Hey," the girl smiled and held out the rose to Santana, who looked a little taken aback by the gesture.

"Um, thank you," she took the rose, a look of worry crossing her face before she quickly replaced it with a smile.

The girl looked over Santana's shoulder and smiled again upon noticing Rachel and Kurt. She sure smiled a lot, Kurt noticed.

"Oh, um… Natalie, these are my roommates, Rachel and Kurt," Santana said reluctantly, turning towards the living room, "Rachel, Kurt, this is Natalie."

"Hey," the girl, Natalie, waved at the pair on the couch.

"Hello," Rachel said pleasantly.

"Hi," Kurt greeted.

"Anyway," Santana said quickly, ushering her date out the door, "we should go."

"It was lovely to meet you," Rachel called just before the door slid shut.

Rachel immediately turned to Kurt, "Did you see the-"

"Rose. Uh-huh, I know. You don't think..?"

"I'm not sure. A little coincidental, don't you think?"

The two wondered in silence for a few moments. Surely Santana wasn't on a date with her stalker?