A/N: Thank you. That is all I am going to say about the reviews/alerts this time. Thank you.

A/N: I had planned to finish this chapter yesterday, but I wanted to add another scene. I feel like this chapter is perhaps not quite as...well, sad...and I wanted it to be. Expect *major* angst in chapter 5. As always, I hope you enjoy and review! Please let me know of anything you enjoy/don't enjoy and want to see more of/want to see less of!

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of the characters in Glee. Sadly.

Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow
from this nightmare?

"How am I back here already..." Blaine thought to himself as he walked up the steps to his school, the words 'Oak Ridge High School' still looming above him as menacing as ever.

To Blaine, each school day dragged on like a long movie that does not know when to end. Likewise, once he left, the rest of his day flashed by with the effortless speed of a blink of the eye. The boy swore it was some kind of cosmic joke aimed at him. Sometimes Blaine felt this way about his entire life, like he was the least favourite play thing of a giant child in the sky.

"Maybe I can just turn around. It's Friday anyways, only today and then I have the weekend. Monday will be better. I am sure of it. All I need to do is just...not go today" Blaine tried to ration to himself.

He looked backwards towards the friendly street and a chance at escaping. It looked very inviting, almost as if the cement was warm and glowing. Then he looked back at the school, not so inviting and definitely not warm. Something pushed him though. He could not quite put his finger on what it was, but he just had this small feeling deep inside that one day it would all be worth it; one day he would not have to count anymore.

"Ahh, dear Blaine! Thinking about leaving, are we? You're not planning to miss the first rehearsal of the school musical I hope!" said a familiar voice from behind him.

Blaine turned around to face Mrs. Tebbit. She was smiling at him and shaking her head in a playful manner. It was very strange how she managed to just appear behind him like, but Blaine had stopped trying to figure her out a long time go.

"No, no. I am staying" he sighed, glancing one last time at the now fading street.

He looked at the tall, old woman smiling in front of him and could not help but admire her. Blaine had to face the endless torment of being verbally harassed day in and out, but so did she. He heard the things they said about her. Sometimes Blaine thought they were even worse to her than they were to him. Yet she never stopped smiling or laughing. Blaine only dreamed of being that strong.

"Um, Mrs. Tebbit...can I ask you something?"

"Of course, dear! How else do you expect to find the answers?" she chucked.

"Does it ever...get better?"

"Depends on what 'it' is, I suppose. Romeo and Juliet for example definitely never gets better" she mused, now staring into the sky and looking quite puzzled.

"I...I mean..."

"Yes."

"What?"

"Yes. I do believe it will get better."

She was still looking up at the sky, but now she was smiling again. Blaine wanted to ask her what the 'it' she was referring to was, but he didn't really have to. He wanted to know if he would ever be able to stop counting the days; if there would ever be a reason to look forward.

"But, how do you know?"

"Well, I suppose I don't" she said sadly. "But most people, Blaine, they don't live. They wake up, they eat, they breathe, they sleep, and they wake up again. No reason for it, either. They do it because it's better than the alternative: not living. For the rest of us though, that is not enough. We need a reason to wake up. We need a reason to breathe. And once we find that reason – that thing that makes our lives worth living – everything becomes a little...well, better. Maybe not a lot better, but without it nothing seems quite complete, does it?"

Blaine just stood there nodding, understanding her completely. He had always felt that little something that pushed him forwards. It was a feeling that one day things could perhaps get better...if he found that something. Some days this feeling was strong and some days it was hardly a flicker in the dark, but it was enough for him to stumble through the day.

He suddenly realised something: Mrs. Tebbit had said we. Blaine had not missed that tiny, two letter word. It caught him by surprise. Had she been where he was now? Yearning for some reason to keep pushing forwards? She seemed so happy though, more than any person he had ever met. Blaine just had to know why.

"You found your reason, didn't you Mrs. Tebbit?"

"Yes, Blaine. I did" she said, letting out a small chuckle.

"What was it?"

"Susan."

She reached around the back of her head and pulled off her silver locket she always wore around her neck. It looked very old and hardly sparkled, although Blaine had a feeling that at one point it must have been the most radiant and beautiful thing. She opened the locket and inside was a small photo of a young woman. Blaine thought she was one of the most gorgeous women he had ever seen. She had long blonde hair and a very gentle smile, almost the opposite of Mrs. Tebbit's smile but still maintaining that soothing feeling.

"She passed away ten years, eight months and seven days ago. We met thirty two years, seven months and fifteen days ago. She was the most wonderful person. I was truly blessed to have known her. Truly blessed."

Blaine looked up at Mrs. Tebbit, half expecting to see her crying, but was shocked to see her face lit up with a bubbly glow. She looked almost as if she was growing younger by the second as she ran her finger across the outside of the small locket. Blaine could tell that they had loved each other deeply. The fact she had counted the days since their meeting was very soothing to Blaine. He hoped that one day he would have something to count the days from instead of towards.

"Now! We must be off. The day has begun and we must play out the parts we have been given! I trust I will see you after school for rehearsal?"

Before Blaine could answer, she had turned around and started to walk off. Blaine didn't notice until she had left that he had been smiling. His face stung a little as the smile vanished and the reality of the day set in. He had hope for some kind of a future now, but he seriously doubted his strength to keep on going until that future arrived.

As he walked inside towards his first class of the day, all the hope started to escape and was replaced with fear. With each step he took towards his classroom another worry entered his mind. "What if I never find my reason? What if I am just counting towards my death?"

Blaine stopped and took a deep breath, trying to expel these thoughts out of his mind. At best, he managed to push them a little ways towards the back of his brain. They would eat away at him during the day, but it was better than consuming him whole.

He walked first to the front desk of the school and handed in his two slips of paper from the classes he had missed the day before. Normally he felt guilty handing the papers over to the school secretary, like he was handing over a signed confession of a crime he had committed, but today he just didn't care.

"Just six classes today. Six classes and I will be free for the weekend."

He repeated this statement under his breath as he slowly walked towards the English classroom. It seemed to help, but something snapped him out of the self-incused trance. In big, bright yellow letters upon a rusted blue locker was the word "FAG". It took Blaine a second, but he quickly realised that it was in fact his locker.

He quickly tried to rub part of it off with his finger. It was completely dry. He started to sweat and turn bright red as he looked around the hallway. A small group of people were gathering nearby, all pointing and snickering at Blaine and his newly decorated locker. The group started to grow as more and more people stopped to see what the commotion was about.

"Wow. I almost feel bad for the guy" someone in the crowd muttered.

"You feel bad for the kid who broke his leg, not the queer who gets what he deserves" some else said.

It was all too much for Blaine. He was now gasping for air as he raced down the hallway. His first instinct told him to run home, but he didn't want his mother to find out about the locker. His next instinct told him to run to the handicap bathroom. Blaine didn't know if he would ever be able to leave the bathroom once he entered it, and something had to be done about the locker, so he decided to go to the principal.

The principal of the school was an old, very large man named Mr. Sawka. He was rarely seen outside of his office apart from the odd disciplinary measure or pep rally. Blaine had never liked the man. He felt patronized every time they would talk, like Mr. Sawka saw the school as one big daycare of un-intelligent children. None the less, something had to be done. All Blaine wanted was for that awful word to be gone. He didn't care about punishing those who did it as long as it was gone.

"Mr. Sawka will see you now" said the small lady at the front desk, not looking up from her computer as she did.

Blaine slowly opened the door with the words 'Mr. Sawka' in gold lettering and walked inside. The room was very dark and old books lined the walls. It felt very medieval to Blaine. As he sat down on the tiny wooden chair in the middle of the room, it gave off a loud creaking noise.

"Aah. Blaine. So what brings you to my office today? All Lucy told me was that you required..." he looked down at the paper on his desk, slipping his glasses on to read it "...an 'Urgent Meeting'?"

Mr. Sawka chuckled as he said the words. Blaine made a fist in lap and squeezed as hard as he could to stop from shouting at the man about how urgent this really was.

"Yes. Erm, Mr. Sawka...sir...someone wrote a word on my locker. With spray paint."

"Ah. I see. I imagined something a little more urgent when you so elegantly called this an 'Urgent Meeting' but I suppose this is a problem. What word would this be?"

Blaine didn't want to answer the question, but he knew there was no way around it.

"The word was 'fag' sir" said Blaine, getting very quiet as he let the seldom spoken word escape his lips.

"Ah, good! I was worried it might have been a different 'F' word. Would have received some awful parent complaints if that 'F' word started appearing on lockers. Anyways, the locker is school property that you are required to look after while you are attending Oak Ridge High. It will be your responsibility to clean off the word."

"But sir!"

"You can talk to one of the janitors and I am sure they will be more than happy to lend you some very fine quality cleaning products."

"But I didn't write it! That is not fair."

"Is that all then?"

"But..."

"Is that all then?"

Blaine opened his mouth to protest again, but decided that it was hopeless. He knew Mr. Sawka was not going to change his mind.

"I hope I haven't taken up too much of your time" said Blaine emotionlessly as he got out of the small chair and walked out of the room.

Blaine had missed most of his first class at this point, but he didn't care. Actually attending a class seemed like a distant memory to him. He felt this should be a troubling prospect, but what was the importance of grades if you didn't think you would ever make it out of high school alive? He had about ten minutes until class started and all he wanted to do at this point was break down and cry.

Once he had locked himself inside the familiar walls of the handicap bathroom, he let himself do just that. Blaine sat on the toilet and let the tears flow freely and he sobbed and wept and rubbed his eyes and nose till they were bright red. It was strange, but to Blaine it felt good to let out all that bottled up emotion. It took every last bit of strength he had left to sit through the meeting with Mr. Sawka and he was tired of remaining composed. He didn't want to be strong any longer.

Looking in the mirror, he saw just how red his face was. This caused him to cry even harder as he knew that it would be noticeable in his next class. The last thing he wanted was to draw even more attention to himself. Blaine was sure the bright yellow plastered on his locker did a fine job of that.

"Oh god, my locker!"

Blaine had almost forgotten about what Mr. Sawka had told him. On top of everything he would now have to scrub away the words. Himself.

"Why can't soap and water wash it away from inside me, too?" Blaine grumbled to himself.

He knew the words would come off the locker, eventually, but no amount of water would change him. The endless nights he had spent trying to wash away the feelings he was having had shown him that. As Blaine touched his face, he could still remember the familiar feelings of cold water running down at five minute intervals.

He could barely remember a time when those feelings didn't exist in him. There were a few fleeting moments of his childhood where everything was good, but that had all changed in grade 6. Blaine remembered going to church one completely normal Sunday morning with his parents. The day had started out so bright and sunny, like the entire world was on Blaine's side. It was with the echoing words of "If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death" that things had darkened considerably.

Blaine had wondered what the pastor had meant, so he asked his mother. Without skipping a beat, his mothering told him that it was when a boy wanted to kiss another boy like he would a girl. This confused Blaine a great deal, as only recently he had wanted to kiss his best friend, a brunette boy named Jim from his class. Blaine wanted to talk to his mother about this, but something in his gut told him he was not supposed to talk about wanting to kiss Jim. Ever.

Since that day, Blaine had not once talked about those feelings to anyone. Somehow when he got to high school, it didn't matter that he didn't talk about them because people just seemed to know anyways. It was another cruel joke, Blaine thought. He had spent all this time trying to hide his true self behind an elaborate mask he had created only for it to be rendered useless against high school bullies.

"Blaine, dear. I believe class starts in about two minutes!" shouted a voice from outside the bathroom.

It was Mrs. Tebbit, and Blaine could hear her heels clicking away as she walked down the hallway. He looked down at his watch and, surly enough, he had about two minutes left before class.

"Ok, Blaine. You can do this. Five more classes till the weekend. Five more classes till the weekend. Then you have two days without school. You can do this."

He kept repeating this to himself as he wiped off his face with toilet paper and tried to make himself look as if he had not just been crying for a solid ten minutes. Un-satisfied but starved for time, he un-locked the door and wandered off to class.

As Blaine had predicted, the next five classes went by slowly and painfully. By third period it seemed like the entire school knew about the painted locker and no one seemed keen on letting him forget. The kindest of these reminders came in the form of silent glances or soft whispers paired with the odd pointing finger. Blaine could deal with these. It was the not so soft whispers that really hurt.

"I heard that one of the yearbook staff got a picture of it. This is going to be hilarious!" exclaimed one girl a few rows in front of Blaine during math class.

Blaine felt more alone than he ever had before. On top of this he felt angry; angry that no one else at the school seemed to be going through the same thing. Not everyone joined in on the teasing, granted, but he felt like they might as well be if all they were going to do was stand around and watch.

Finally, sixth period ended. People flooded out of the classrooms and started towards the doors at the front of the school. Blaine wanted nothing more than to join them and leave, the semi-bright prospect of two days without school looming just outside the doors. Rehearsal for the musical was starting in five minutes however, so the weekend would have to wait.

Blaine knew he would have to walk past his locker to get to the gymnasium for rehearsal and he was dreading this. The vivid image of the word plastered on the door entered his mind whenever he closed his eyes, even for just a second. It would feel good to scrub it off at least, he thought. After practice.

"What the..." Blaine stammered as he approached his locker.

A new word had been spray painted above the old one. Together the words read 'DIE FAG'. Blaine instantly fell to the floor in a lifeless slump. He felt as if an arrow had been shot right into his heart. He had been called gay, fairy, queer, fudge packer, homo, fag and endless amounts of other words, but never had it been put so strongly in two simple three letter words. 'DIE FAG'. In that moment, that is exactly what Blaine wanted to do.

"I can't do this anymore..." Blaine said emotionlessly.

He laid his head against the cold floor and tried to cry. All he wanted to do was cry; to feel something, anything. But he couldn't. He had shed so many tears already that day. Blaine had nothing left to give. All he wanted to do was just lay there and never get up – ever.

Blaine tried not to let these types of thoughts in, but he found that once he opened the door, even just a crack, it burst open and there was no way to shut it again. All at once Blaine started to feel helpless, hopeless and utterly defeated. Just as he started to muse about some truly dark ideas, he heard a noise.

Without looking up from the floor, he raised an ear slightly and tried to figure out what the noise was. It was a strange scratching sound that was very unfamiliar to Blaine. He forgot all about the hopelessness and just concentrated on the noise. He was afraid to look up, not knowing what he would see.

When he finally did look up, he saw Mrs. Tebbit scrubbing the door of his locker. She had a bucket of soapy water and various sponges, brushes and other cleaning products. Blaine starred at her but did not re-act. He did not know how to, truthfully. He opened his mouth to say something, thank you perhaps, but no words come out.

"I wish I could stop all this from ever happening to you in the first place. But I can't. All I can do is stand with you after the fact and...well, try and clean up the mess" Mrs. Tebbit said, sounding very sad as she did.

Blaine scooted across the floor and to his locker. He picked up a sponge, dipped it in the warm, soothing water, and began to scrub away at the 'F'. He did not speak, but he knew he didn't have to. For the time being, he was not alone. This was one battle he would not have to face alone.

Mrs. Tebbit looked over at Blaine just as he glanced up at her. As their eyes met, Blaine could sense that she was trying to think of something to say to him. The cogs of her mind were very evidently spinning. Blaine just kept eye contact with her and waited. A part of him wished she never figured out what to say and they could just be in each other's company forever.

"I know you can't live on hope alone but without hope life is not worth living" she said finally, then quickly looking back at the locker and continuing to scrub.

Blaine looked back at the locker as well and kept scrubbing. For the next hour they both just sat in the middle of the hallway in silence until the job was done. It was a good silence, Blaine thought. Even though nothing was being said, he felt like they were still constantly communicating.

After the locker had been returned to its regular state, Mrs. Tebbit had cheerfully said goodbye and left, taking all the cleaning supplies with her. Blaine was glad to have been rid of the awful words on his locker, but he knew it would be a long time before they would be erased from his mind.

"Two full days until school...Two weeks till the next holiday... Six more months till the next summer break...Four more years till I am free..." Blaine repeated to himself as he walked home.

He let out a deep sigh of relief as he walked up the front steps of his house. Before he opened the door to go inside he stood up a bit taller, held his head up a bit higher, and forced a huge smile upon his face. Satisfied at his disguise, he opened the door.

"The principal called. I know about the locker. We need to talk" his mother said, a troubled frown on her face.

Blaine instantly let go of his forced smile. The day he had feared since grade 6 had finally come.

A/N: And ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER! Don't hate me, please? Anyways. I hope you enjoyed it. If you can't tell, I love Mrs. Tebbit. Also for those wondering, she is loosely based off the English teacher in Were The Word Mine (including the name) but is not the same character. Next chapter will be up in 1-3 days (I hope!) and be Kurt POV and full of extra fluff