Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or any of these characters… if I did, Karofsky wouldn't exist anymore, Jesse wouldn't have been such an asshole (albeit one I believe legitimately fell for Rachel), and there would be a LOT more Blaine.

A/n: So, I know people are starting to wonder exactly what happened to Blaine – and this chapter will give you your first glimpse into exactly what went on between the time Blaine left his family to head back to Dalton and the prologue of this story. But it's not the whole story, so don't start jumping to conclusions just yet…

The nightmares weren't getting any better; Blaine did his best to make sure everything got written down, but it wasn't easy given the fact that he was still having some trouble using his hand. It was as if his fingers didn't want to do what he told them to. A cup was easy enough, but things like pens and utensils were still too small to control.

"Do you remember anything else?" Blaine sighed, closing his eyes and turning towards the window and away from his mother.

"No… it's still all in pieces. I can't make sense of most of it… I don't even remember what I did to make them so mad at me."

"Blaine… you probably didn't do anything to those boys." Blaine turned back to look at his mother as she took his hand. He could see that this conversation was upsetting her, but he needed to understand why this had all happened. "You've seen it before, honey. They're just like all of the boys at your old school – they hate what they don't understand."

"They hate me because I'm gay… because I'm in love with Kurt." He closed his eyes as his mother leaned over and pressed a kiss against his forehead, before she put a hand on either side of his face.

"Look at me, Blaine." Blaine did what he was told. "No matter what, you will always have people who love you no matter who you love. Period."

"It's still scaring me…"

"I know, sweetie. It's okay for you to be scared." Blaine smiled slightly as she squeezed his hand. "Just relax for now… you're safe." Blaine closed his eyes, gently giving her hand a squeeze in return. "So you really think that you love him?"

"I don't know how else to explain what I feel… but I'm not sure he feels the same way."

"Blaine, after what I've seen the past week I would be willing to bet you money that Kurt feels the same way… even if he says that you're just friends. That boy is madly in love with you."

"May I come in?" Blaine sighed as the soft voice registered. It was one of the doctors that had been in and out of his hospital room over the few days he had been awake. "How are you doing today?"

"Tired. Neither of us are getting much sleep at the moment," Blaine's mother replied, putting the notepad she'd been writing on down onto the table.

"Nightmares still?"

"It's getting worse. I'm starting to remember more of what happened…" Blaine commented.

"Unfortunately there's nothing I can do about the nightmares. For now you just need to try and tough it out and get as much rest as you can despite the nightmares." Blaine sighed, closing his eyes. "I do have some good news, though… how would you like to go home tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow?"

"I still need to discuss a few things with your parents about doctors visits and things like that, but as long as you're still doing alright I don't see any reason why you should be stuck here any longer."

"If it's that easy, why can't I go home now?" Blaine asked.

"There are still a few things that need to be taken care of first. One of which is that I want you to stay off that foot as much as possible; I want you either in bed or camped out on the couch with your foot up."

"What about the ride home? It's two and a half hours… what about the medication?" Blaine closed his eyes as his mother and the doctor started discussing the details of his release for the next day. He tuned out the conversation, not really caring about the details. He was going home, and that meant that he would be far, far away from what had happened. He couldn't get away from the pain or the memories, but physical distance had to be worth something.

"Blaine? Are you listening?" Blaine turned back to the doctor, confused.

"Sorry… what was that?"

"I guess that answers my question… it's not important, we can go over everything tomorrow to make sure everyone understands. You need to get some rest. Tomorrow's probably going to be pretty rough." Blaine nodded and started fumbling with the dial to turn off the hearing aids as he closed his eyes and started to fall asleep.

It was too cold to be pumping gas, but he was desperate. Blaine was so close to being back at school, but he didn't have enough gas to make it the last few miles back to the parking lot. Blaine reached up and ran a hand through his hair as he waited for the car to fill up with gas, breaking the hold of his hair gel so that it curled in random chunks.

"Hey… homo!" Blaine didn't turn around, doing his best to ignore the group of rowdy teenagers that had pulled up while he was paying for his own gas. "What, you too good to say hello?" Blaine sighed, pulling the nozzle out of his car and putting it back. He glanced up as he waited for his receipt, his eyes widening as he realized that Dave Karofsky was one of the guys in the truck. Karofsky didn't look too pleased to see him, either.

Blaine looked away quickly, grabbing his receipt and getting back into his car as the group of boys continued to make comments about him and tried to get him to respond. He flinched as he saw one of the boys start walking towards his car, but he managed to turn it on and drive off before the boy got close enough to do anything.

Blaine's heart was racing as he opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling as he tried to catch his breath. It hurt to breathe; the broken ribs in his chest ached from the stress they were being forced to handle. He could feel someone grabbing his free hand as a hand gently brushed at the curls on his forehead.

"Mom?" Blaine turned his head to the right so that he could see her, smiling slightly and relaxing as he realized that he was still in the hospital. He closed his eyes again, drifting back to sleep. When Blaine woke up again, he didn't remember anything about the dream.

A/n: I know it's short – don't kill me! But I felt like that was the appropriate place to end things here. Plus I wanted to get this chapter up before we see the insanity that is drunk Gleeks tonight, lol!