Pairing(s): Dave/Kurt is endgame… if I can ever get this fucker of a fic to behave.

Rating: PG, might change later

Word Count: (this chapter) 3,925

Warnings: Lol, my research for this thing sucks. We're flying by the seat of our red knickers people!

Spoilers: Let's go with up to Sexy.

CROSSOVER: STARGATE, BABY. Spoilers up to the conclusion of Atlantis, totally ignoring the crap out of Universe, because I couldn't get into it and have not since bothered.

But I won't go
I can't do it on my own
If this ain't love, then what is?
I'm willing to take the risk
Adele – He Won't Go

Cassie arrives on Sunday, barrelling through Washington National's arrivals hall with Nyla on her hip and a smile a mile wide. Carl follows in her wake, dragging a suitcase and with a backpack over one shoulder and a diaper bag on the other. He's smiling too, albeit a little more tiredly.

Nyla, for her part, very nearly bounces our of her mother's arms, determined to get to Dave at all costs. Dave takes her, slipping into sitter mode without thinking; tickling her ribs and blowing raspberries on her fat cheeks. Nyla is delighted and fastens onto Dave with a death-grip.

Carl starts laughing. "Oh, yeah, we're definitely taking you home with us."

"As if we wouldn't," Cass says, hugging Dave while he holds Nyla and kissing both his and her daughter's cheeks.

Dave blushes the colour of beetroot and buries his face in Nyla's sandy curls. When he catches Cassie's gaze she smiles and touches his burning face.

Dave feels silly all of sudden, because of course they wouldn't say no.

They're his family.

Dave's spent all of three days in DC and already the apartment is beginning to feel... not like home, but pleasantly familiar. Safe. It's how he thinks of Uncle Jack's cabin in Minnesota as well, but with less mosquitoes and more air conditioning.

With the Fraiser-Groban contingent staying, Dave moves into the smaller of the two guest bedrooms to give them room for Nyla's cot.

"She sleeps with the side down now," Cassie says proudly, "don't you, sweetheart?"

"Chicken," Nyla offers, holding up one of the little plastic birds from her Duplo set.

Cassie grins. "Yeah, that's a chicken. Hey, who's this?" She holds up a little Duplo boy with brown hair and a red shirt.

(In the kitchen, the phone is going.)

"Dave!" shrieks Nyla.

(They hear Jack pick up and start talking.)

Dave rolls his eyes, trying not to be pleased. "Really, Cass?"

"What?" Cassie says, still grinning. "Look, it's the spitting image –"

"That's not an excuse, Kathy!" Jack snarls from the kitchen.

Nyla sinks into Dave's chest, tucking herself under his arm while Cassie sits up, her face solemn. Carl has stuck his head around the bedroom door, frowning.

"What's going on?" he asks softly.

"Jack's on the phone with Aunt Kathy," Cassie murmurs. "Carl, could you...?"

"Yeah." Carl takes Nyla from Dave, and he immediately misses the toddler's warm weight in his arms. She watches them over her father's shoulder as she is carried down the hallway to Dave's bedroom, which is furthest from the kitchen.

In the aforementioned kitchen, Jack is giving Dave's mother a piece of his mind.

"He's your son, Katherine, what the hell would possess you to –? Oh, 'the Bible says'? Really? That's the cop-out you're using? ...I don't give a damn about the freaking book, Kathy, your family is more important than a bunch of words written by a pack of shepherds thousands of year ago – I'm doing this for my family! This is what families should do for each other not turf out their kids just because of – GOD DAMN IT, KATHERINE O'NEILL, THIS IS NOT HOW MOM RAISED US!"

Dave gets up and follows Carl and Nyla to his bedroom.

It's a good twenty minutes before they hear Jack ring off with a snapped, "shove it where the sun don't shine, Katherine" loud enough for them to hear in Dave's room.

Carl quietly thanks God-or-whoever that Nyla conked out ten minutes ago and shows no sign of waking. "Kid could sleep through a nuclear war," he says fondly, rubbing the toddler's shoulders. She's sprawled over her dad's chest, and Carl is sprawled on the floor, his back to wall below the window. Dave sits opposite him, leaning against the side of his bed.

Both of them go quiet when they hear Cassie and Jack talking in the lounge. Jack sounds frustrated and his answers to Cassie's quiet questions are gruff and short. He's clearly upset, and Dave wants to sink into the floor for doing this to his family.

Displaying the same bizarre mind-reading capabilities that Jack appears to possess (which explains why he's the only one of Cassie's boyfriends not get the shotgun threat), Carl lays a hand on his shoulder and says, "Hey, you know this isn't your fault, right?"

Dave shakes his head miserably. "It is. I mean if I hadn't... if I wasn't..."

"I can't believe you're making me say it, dude," Carl sighs, sounding kinda put-upon but mostly just resigned. "Okay, Dave, look; when I enlisted, I was pretty representative of the majority of guys who enlist. I was okay with chicks joining up, but I secretly hoped I wouldn't get stuck working with one of them. I was okay with dudes being gay, but not in front of me and not in the Air Force, because that crap made me awkward." He shook his head. "I thought I was an okay guy."

Dave's eye brows go up. Even he knows that kinda crap does not an okay guy make. "Uh, yeah-nah. What happened?"

Carl grinned. "I met Jennifer Hailey. And man, that chick doesn't quit. If you ever have any doubts about girls getting their badass on, just give her the side-eye and see what happens."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. I lost count of the number of times Jen gave me the smackdown in hand-to-hand. She stuck up for the other girls there, too. Nearly got expelled for cracking some idiot in the face when he insulted a girl for being stocky. And when we graduated it was awesome to serve with her. She took everything I'd thought about women in being weaker and blasted it to smithereens."

Dave thinks of Santana Lopez, but he remembers that she's never really stuck up for anyone but herself and Brittany Pierce...

Then he thinks of Mercedes Jones – even when he had been terrorizing Kurt, he'd never done it when Mercedes was around on the off chance that his gut reaction to her was right and she did break his nose in three places. Looking back, he wishes he'd been a little stupider back then and had let her catch him being a dick to Kurt. Maybe after she'd put the fear of God in him he would've seen sense sooner.

"So you were okay with chicks in the military or whatever," Dave says. "What about the whole being okay with gays?"

Carl looks down at Nyla, smoothing the little girl's hair back from her face as she grumbles in her sleep.

"I wasn't for a long time. It wasn't something that came up a lot at the Cheyenne Mountain base when I worked there, and I avoided it when it did at the Academy. Only I kind of couldn't avoid it with Cass. She was president of the GLBTSA club at UCCS while she was doing her bachelors. When she saw me getting cagey when she was talking about stuff to do with the club, she dragged me to one of the meetings and..." Carl shrugs. "I mean, they were just a bunch of people. No one was trying to shove their ideals down my throat, or get on my case for being in the military, or hit on me. But, you wanna know the real reason I got over myself?"

Dave nods. He really does; part of it is because he only really knows Carl as an adjunct to Cassie and Nyla. His knowledge of the guy is superficial and it'd be nice to know him better seeing as he's going to be living with him for however long. But another part of him... another part of him that he's not ready to admit to thinks that Carl's answer might give him some clue to getting his parents to let him come home – getting them to understand that he's still Dave. He's still their kid.

Carl offers him a lop-sided smile. "In the end it was all Cass. I mean, she's a force of nature, y'know? And I care about her more than I ever cared about my dumb-ass latent homophobia. She basically laid down the law; either I took a good look at myself and figured out how to be a better person or I could go on being a crappy one without her."

Dave deflates a little. Carl made the decision his parents don't seem capable of; choosing to change themselves and their point of view for love of someone. He sighs. "Yeah, so, what's your point?"

Carl gives him a knowing smile. "My point, Dave, is that there's one fact that really flipped the light switch on for me. Cass told me that being gay isn't a choice, the choice is whether to acknowledge it or not. You didn't actually have a choice in this, kiddo. You would've told your parents or they would have found out, but it would've happened eventually. You didn't choose to be gay, but they chose to be dicks about it. They're choosing to react like it's something you've done to them, instead of realizing this is just part of who you are."

He touches Dave's arm, making sure to meet his eyes. What Dave sees there makes his stomach swoop and his throat close.

"Dave, we've made the choice to help you, because we all care about you. No part of this is on you, kiddo. This is on your parents, and on us." He gives Dave's shoulder a little shake. "Stop hittin' yourself, dude."

Its startles a laugh from Dave and Carl smiles again.

"Dave?"

They look up to see Cassie and Jack standing in the doorway.

"What're you guys doing on the floor?" Cassie asks, puzzled.

"I don't have any chairs," Dave says.

Cassie shrugs and curls up next to him, leaning back against the bed and looking expectantly up at Jack.

"Not gonna happen," Jack says. "Not with these knees."

"Oh, c'mon," Cassie wheels. "Me and Dave can help you up later if you're feeling decrepit."

Jack gives her the stink eye – "Not helping, Cass" – but goes and sits next to Carl under the window, groaning when his knees crack.

Cassie snickers. Carl and Dave know better.

There's a pause as they all look at each other, trying to figure out where to start, before Dave's blurting reflex kicks in – goddamn it, he's got to do something about that – and he asks quietly, "so, what did Mom say?"

Jack sighs and does that thing where he scrubs a hand over his hair. "Nothing nice. Christ, nothing good."

"Well, don't go sugar-coating it or anything," Cassie remarks dryly. Dave feels her slip her hand into his, grip strong and unyielding.

Jack rolls his eyes. "Not planning to. And fer cryin' out loud, the only useful thing that came out of her mouth was that she's sending some of your stuff to me, Dave."

"Stuff?"

"Papers, you know?" Jack says, flapping a hand. "Birth certificate, some school stuff, medical stuff, passport, blah blah blah. That kinda...stuff."

Dave looks down at his feet, swallowing. "So, this is all...permanent." It's not a question, but it feels like one, and Jack answers with a soft 'yeah.'

"I know it feels crappy," Cassie says, squeezing his hand. "But it'll make the move to the 'Springs easier in the long run."

Dave nods, and he's happy, kinda, that they (he) aren't going to have to call up and ask for all that crap. He's happy that it'll make getting settled at his new school smoother. He is, really.

But yeah, it feels...permanent.

It feels like forever. And forever is...forever is a long time.

Things happen quite quickly after that.

That afternoon, Cassie calls McKinley to let them know that Dave won't be coming back and requesting a copy of his school transcripts. It brings a few things into perspective for Dave. Things like, by now, Azimio will have had time to lament Dave's betrayal to the rest of the team. Finn and the rest of the Glee kids will know...and Dave realizes now that however he derided them for everything he and Zee could think of, he doesn't know them. He doesn't know how they'll react, who they'll tell, what they'll think... He's not even sure why it matters to him anymore; it's not like he's going back there.

But...somehow it does. It still matters.

In an effort to tune out Cassie berating Figgins and various McKinley staff members, Dave does something almost as monumentally stupid as driving through the night from Westerville to DC.

He checks his Facebook page.

It's kind of like this whole blurting thing he's got going on – he keeps doing stuff representative of the phrase 'shoot yourself in the foot'. He braces himself, expecting the worst and trying not to hope that it won't be.

His Wall is littered with dude, where the crap are you's from Friday that quickly become hey asshat, text back and WTF man why is your phone off?

He scours his page, looking for signs of angry capslocked messages outside of DUDE. TEXT. THE HELL. BACK. or any mention of fag, fairy, traitor, etcetera.

Fifteen minutes later he's puzzled to find nothing of the kind.

Its...weird.

Then he clicks his friend list, and all the air goes out of the room.

He can't find Zee.

He should be at the top of his list, but he's not. Dave even uses the search bar, but he's not there.

Feeling sick and shaky, he goes to the site-wide search bar at the top of the page and types Azimio Adams.

Azimio only shares some profile information with everyone. If you know Azimio, add him as a friend.

Zee...Zee de-friended him.

Intellectually, he knows this shouldn't be a big deal. It's just freaking Facebook, right? But, there's something horrifically deliberate about the action. Zee actually took the time to log on, find him and go remove Dave from your friends list OK.

It's stupid, and it's petty, and it feels like being punched in the stomach.

Ignoring the messages and notifications sitting in his inbox, he logs off and goes to play with Nyla. She's on the living room floor with her Duplo set again, and when he sits down with her she holds out the little Duplo boy and says, "Dave!"

The plastic figurine has a permanent smile on his tiny plastic face.

Dave is kind of jealous.

"You're kidding."

There's a pause, which is probably Finn shaking his head before he realizes Kurt can't see the action.

A second later he says, "Uh, no. Not kidding. For real, bro, this is super serious. I mean, no one de-friended me even after I joined Glee."

"So, for Azimio to do this...?"

"Its huge, dude. Whatever happened with them must've really pissed him off."

Kurt chews his lip, aware that Blaine is sending him concerned looks from the other end of the couch. He tries giving him a reassuring smile, but this only appears to alarm Blaine more.

"Hey, Kurt?" asks Finn.

"Yeah?"

"What makes you think it was Azimio that de-friended Karofsky?"

Most of the time, Finn is just as dim as he appears to be, but there are rare and precious occasions where he is shocking perceptive. Kurt kind of hates that now is one of those times.

"I – I don't really know," Kurt tries.

There's another pause, and this time he's pretty sure Finn is glowering and wishing Kurt could see it. Kurt feels himself flush and squirm. Finn takes the whole brothers thing very seriously, which makes lying to him awkward and upsetting. And in cases like this, difficult.

"Dude," Finn says solemnly, "what's up?"

Kurt whines a little. "What makes you think there's something up?"

"I'm not the brightest guy, but I'm not stupid," Finn says, sounding worryingly like Burt. "I mean I get you wondering why the hell Karofsky just up and left – everyone is – and it's weird that he and Azimio aren't friends on F-book anymore, but it doesn't explain how you seem to know that it was Azimio ditching Karofsky and not the other way 'round."

"I don't know that's how it was," Kurt hedges. "I just...have a strong sense that that's how it happened."

"Why?"

"...It's not really for me to say. I mean, it's not my secret."

"Is this about Karofsky being gay?"

Kurt just about has an aneurysm.

"What?" he squeaks, jumping like he's been stung.

Blaine turns and stares at him, dark eyes wide with surprise. He mouths 'what's happened?' and closes a warm hand over Kurt's ankle where it rests on his lap. Kurt gulps and shakes his head, mouthing back, 'tell you later.'

"You didn't know?" Finn quizzes him.

"No – no, I – I mean, yes, I knew, I just didn't know... I thought it was just me that knew. Wait," he adds, suspicious, "how do you know?"

He pictures Finn shrugging. "Well, I mean the guy never dates and he nearly punched out a few of the guys when they called him gay. And me, that one time. And he was mean to you and Rachel's tall dad once told me that extreme homophobia is, like, the most common cover for someone who's afraid of their own sexuality or whatever. It all just kinda fits, y'know?"

"I – well, yeah." Kurt boggles a little. Finn is really on the ball today. "When you put it like that... God, how can no one else have put this together?"

"I dunno. I guess...no one really cared enough to wonder about it?"

"Finn. That's really sad."

"Right? I can't imagine my life sucking that much. Even with the whole baby thing with Quinn I still hand a bunch of people who cared about me enough to ask what was going on in my head. And it sucked being on the outs with Puck all that time. Hey, Kurt?"

"Yeah?"

Finn's voice has gone soft and kinda sad. "You remember the half-time show?"

Kurt lets out a soft laugh and let's himself slip down, lounging more fully on the couch. He pillows his head on the armrest he has been leaning against and drifts his gaze across the senior commons elegant vaulted ceiling.

"How could I forget?" he murmurs, smiling as Blaine resettles his Calc homework over Kurt's shins.

"You remember what he did?"

"...yeah."

Of course he does. Even now, he can see it playing over in his mind's eye; Karofsky bolting onto the field and filling a previous cavity in the rear line of dancers, beaming and still pulling on his football shirt. He'd never seen the guy so honestly happy. He'd let himself hope for a second...

"Well, I didn't tell you then 'cause I didn't want you to freak out, but the next day I asked him to join Glee. I said he'd have to come say sorry to you first, but... Kurt, dude, when he was performing with us he was happy," Finn says, earnest and sad and unconsciously mirroring Kurt's thoughts, "and I totally thought he would want to join or whatever...but he just freaked out. Said one good thing didn't change all the crap that came with being in Glee. And, I dunno, but...they way he got all pissed about it, it was like he wasn't just talking about Glee. S'when I started putting it together, anyway."

Kurt sighs. "Now I feel kind of bad."

"Uh, why?"

"Well, you put figured him out all on your own and it took me getting...um..."

"Kurt." Finn's doing that unconscious impression of his father again. Damn him. "Bro," he says, with the air of someone poking a bear with a stick, "how do you know about Karofsky being gay?"

"Uh...I have awesome gaydar?"

"Not gonna lie, that sounded like a question, dude."

"I'm not going to get out of this, am I?"

"You kinda walked right into it, so no. Fess up. Uh...unless it's, like, really traumatic or something..."

"Not...really traumatic."

"Oh, God, what happened?"

Kurt really appreciates the concern in his step-brothers voice. "It – okay, it wasn't the worst thing that happened, okay? It was kind of the tip of the iceberg, really."

"Kurt, seriously, what happened?"

"He – ugh – he kissed me."

Blaine's hand convulses around Kurt's ankle, and the look the other boy shoots him is...it just makes Kurt want to crawl into Blaine's lap and be cuddled forever, okay, and God, could this crush be any more tragic?

He offers Blaine a weary, 'don't worry about me' smile and listens to Finn having a full on freak out.

"...that crap is NOT COOL, man!" Finn finishes, wrath replacing sympathy for the displaced Karofsky. "I can't believe he – God, that is so messed up!"

"I've had time to think about it," Kurt says, liking how level he can keep his head about The Incident these days, "and I've come to the conclusion that it wasn't actually about me. I mean, I was just there at the time and pushing all the wrong buttons for him. I think...I think he didn't really have the words so he –"

"What, found another way to use his mouth to tell you?" Finn says hotly.

Kurt has the irrational urge to laugh and a giggle escapes before he can muffle it. Blaine raises one prodigious eyebrow at him while Finn squawks, "It's not funny!"

"No, no I know," Kurt says, still snorting a little, "but... you know how you asked him to apologise to me? Well, he did. The night he left, he came and said sorry for everything, including that kiss. He really meant it, too. I...I wouldn't know for sure unless I saw him again, but I don't know that I'm afraid of him anymore. When he left that night I was actually more afraid for him."

"Huh...do you think he's okay?"

Kurt swallows. His throat hurts again and his eyes are stinging a little. "I don't know," he murmurs.

There's another pause, Kurt can practically hear the cogs turning in Finn's brain and then his brother announces, "I sent him a message on Facebook."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You know, just saying let me know if you're alive and okay and whatever. I mean there's stuff all over his Wall asking what the hell is going on, but no one's asked if he's okay, so..."

Kurt's eyes sting a little more. "Finn, that's –" he wants to say 'sweet' but changes tack at the last minute "– really awesome of you." See, he's getting better at this whole talking-to-straight-boys thing.

"Thanks," Finn says, obviously pleased.

They chatter for a little while longer before Finn begs off with "Holy crap, dude, how long have we been on the phone? Mom's going to kill me when the bill comes in..." and Kurt laughs at him. They say their goodbyes, and Kurt spends the next half hour filling Blaine in on the whole thing while they go over their homework together. Blaine tells him he's handling this all really well, that he's gotten so much stronger than the boy who first set foot in Dalton and that Blaine's proud of him.

Kurt thinks, shut up and kiss me you fool, then feels kind of silly about it.

Later, just before lights out in the dorms, he's not thinking about Finn or Blaine at all, though.

He's looking at a Facebook page and the cursor hovering over Add As Friend.

Then he shakes his head, logs out and closes the laptop's lid.

Not now. Not now but maybe...

Maybe later.