A/N: I'm in love with this story, and I have a few ways I could go with it. Inspiration is everywhere!

Kurt sighed in relief as he opened the door to his apartment; finally he could rest. His boss had made him work overtime because Gina the secretary had messed up a few numbers and Kurt had to redo his entire sales report. Kurt set his bag on the kitchen table and walked over to the couch, intending to sit and watch HGTV, but his phone rang from the kitchen and stopped him.

To answer or not to answer, Kurt debated. He decided to answer but if the call made him miss Design Star, he was hanging up.

"Hello?" Kurt answered on the fourth ring.

"Kuuuuuuuuuurt this is your faaaaaaaatherrrrr," someone slurred from the other end, "just kidding it is I, Rachel Berry!" Kurt shook his head. Rachel was drunk dialing him.

"Rachel, where on Earth are you?" Kurt heard muffled voices and loud bass coming from the phone.

"I'm at, hic, Sherry's! And this guy was just saying some really nice things to me, I'm thinking of getting a, hic,caband going home with him." Rachel said through giggles.

"Rachel, I'm coming to pick you up. Don't do anything stupid and don't get into any cars with strange men." The last time Rachel had gotten drunk was their junior year of high school, so Kurt knew something was up.

"I don't know anyone named Stupid, stupid!" Rachel laughed and hung up.

Kurt rolled his eyes. Rachel could be really dumb when she was intoxicated. Kurt eyed the couch longingly while he put his shoes back on. So much for a relaxing Tuesday night, he thought. He took the elevator down to the parking garage and pulled out his car keys from his jacket pocket. Kurt had been to Sherry's Bar before, but only once so it was difficult figuring out where to go. Eventually Kurt pulled into the small parking lot and walked through the wooden doors of the bar.

"Kurtsie-Koo!" Rachel yelled when she saw him.

Kurt just rolled his eyes again; he couldn't believe Rachel had the nerve to get this drunk.

"Toodles, boys! My knight in shining armor is, hic, here!" Rachel smiled at the three men who waved goodbye from the counter.

Kurt put his arm around Rachel just in time to catch her before she stumbled over her own feet.

"C'mon, Rach, let's get you home to Finn." Kurt suggested.

"No," Rachel said rather sternly, "I don't want him right now. I want food. Fooooooood, Kurt I'm hungry! Kurt, I'm, hic, HUNGRY."

"Whoa, okay, okay, let's find a McDonalds open this late at night." Kurt could still here the word hungry ringing in his ears; Rachel had screamed directly into his eardrum.

Kurt directed her into the passenger side of the car and tried to do her seatbelt for her, but she was shaking her hands all over and he finally gave up. He walked around to his side of the car and opened the door. In the millisecond that Kurt had left Rachel in the car alone, she had reclined her seat all the way so that she was giggling while laying down. Kurt shook his head and turned the car on. Rachel immediately put on the radio and blasted some random rap station. Surprisingly, she new all of the words to the song they were playing and she belted it out through her open window. Even while intoxicated she can sing, Kurt noted.

"THERETHERETHERETHERE," Rachel yelled when she saw yellow arches in the distance. She jumped out of the car even before Kurt had cut the engine and she was inside the fast food restaurant before he had taken off his seatbelt. Kurt rolled his eyes for what felt like the fiftieth time that night. I'm going to get wrinkles if she keeps this up, he thought.

When he walked in, Rachel was shoving a twenty dollar bill in a random teenagers face and yelling "TWO COFFEES PLEASE".

"Rachel, he doesn't work here," Kurt said as he pulled her away from the scared kid and up to the cash register. They ordered coffees and sat in a booth, one that was as far away from people as possible. The coffee seemed to have an immediate effect on Rachel because she quieted down enough to let Kurt ask her some questions.

"So, how on Earth did you get to that bar anyway?"

"I got on some, hic, bus and told the driver where I wanted to go. He didn't have any other, hic, customers so he drove me right up to the door!"

"Okay, and why did you want to go to this bar?" Kurt knew he was prying too much but he needed to know.

"Finn and I had a fight." Rachel whispered into the plastic cup.

"Oh, that's a sha-"

"YOU KNOW, MAYBE FINN SHOULD JUST LISTEN TO ME. MORE PEOPLE WOULD APPRECIATE A CLASSIC RATHER THAN A CRAP EIGHTIES POP SONG AT OUR WEDDING!" Rachel burst, her face turning a dangerous shade of purple.

"Rachel, you got completely wasted over a silly thing like song choice at your non-existent wedding? You're not even engaged yet!" Kurt couldn't believe his ears.

"Well, Finn brought it up." Rachel reasoned, swirling a stir stick in her coffee.

"You are so stubborn it hurts, Rachel Berry." Kurt said through a smile that she returned. They finished their coffee and returned to Kurt's car. He drove her back to the building that she and Finn lived in and decided that Rachel wasn't sober enough to find her own way back to her twelfth floor apartment. When Kurt rang the doorbell to the apartment, Finn almost immediately yanked the door open.

"Oh Rachel I'm so sorry, we can dance to whatever you want to at our wedding. I'm so sorry, I didn't know where you were and nobody was answering their phones and I was so worried and- oh, hey Kurt!"

Kurt smiled while Rachel jumped Finn and wrapped her legs around his waist and planted slobbery kisses all over his face.

"Thanks, bro, I know I can always count on you." Finn told Kurt and Kurt only nodded.

As he left the building the only thing on Kurt's mind was, Gosh, I wish I had someone to do that to, but he caught himself and didn't let the tears fall that were gathering behind his eyes.

As a boy, Blaine had rolled around in the grass many times. It was fun and the dizzy feeling you got caused Blaine and his friends to have giggle fits. But now, rolling through bushes wearing heavy clothing and a twenty pound gun on his back, Blaine couldn't see the appeal.

The other men at the camp always spoke of the thrill of being in a war zone, of the high you got off of being in danger. Blaine didn't agree with them at all. Being in that forest, trying not to get shot and die was not at all exhilarating for him. He just wanted to go home, to eat some decent food and curl up on the safety of his couch, but he hadn't been able to do that for three years.

"Anderson, Donavon, get down!" Blaine's captain shouted from somewhere behind the trees. Blaine and his bunk-mate Louie ducked and thank god they did, for several bullet shot through the air that had just been occupied by their heads.

They both rolled about two feet to their left, where they could see a way through the brush. The two men scrambled to their feet and ran as fast as they could to the other group of men in front of them. One man was on the ground, bleeding profusely from his left side and two others were hovering around him, trying to figure out what to do.

"Move!" The captain had come from behind the group with a small and tired looking first aid kit that he kept tied around his waist whenever he went into battle. He began wrapping gauze around the wound and instructed the men to get back to the base as soon as possible and not to let the soldier's spine turn.

They did as they were told and got the wounded man into the nurse's hut as fast as they could. A nurse led them to the nearest empty bed and the soldier was laid there. She quickly started cleaning him and shooed the others out of the way as other nurses came to help.

"I sure hope Hank gets through this," Blaine said softly.

"Yeah, I can't believe the action is just beyond the bases walls. It's scary knowing the enemy is right in our backyard," Louie replied.

Blaine nodded his head in agreement. This was the part he hated the most; the actual going out and shooting things part. He could stand all of the practice drills and climbing up rope and over wooden walls, but Blaine hated violence. Ever since he had been bullied and beat up in high school, Blaine flinched every time he even thought someone was going to hit him. Being at Dalton had been better, because of their anti-bullying policies and then going with Kurt to McKinley was awesome because he had Finn and Puck and the other guys who could stand up for the both of them. But still, Blaine couldn't help the gnawing feeling that he got in the back of his head every time he thought he saw the shadow of an old schoolmate of his.

Being in the army was definitely not for Blaine. Seeing friends of his get injured or even die had tortured Blaine. And now Hank, one of the first friends he made at the base was in critical condition and his wound could get infected rather quickly in these parts of the world. The nurses at the base were constantly troubled with bullet wounds, infections, and basic-we-get-this-all-the-time kinds of sicknesses.

One time, about two years into his tour, Blaine came down with influenza and he had to lie in the nurse's tent for two days. The young woman who was assigned to Blaine was very nice and had even tried to hit on him. Sorry, you're not my type, Blaine had thought, but that put his thoughts back on Kurt and it made Blaine sad.

The four men walked back to the bunks and changed into clothes for dinner in silence. They all knew what could happen to Hank, they had seen it happen to other guys who got shot. They could survive the bullet but infections that would go undetected would eat away at their immune systems until they died. Nobody wanted that to happen to Hank.

Blaine shuddered at the thought that it could happen to himself.