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 apologize if this chapter is either A) boring or B) not detailed enough. As I am neither deaf nor hard of hearing, I've never actually been to an audiologist – I got the details from a lot of research and watching a lot of YouTube videos of people having their implants turned on, plus a little from conversations with one of my cousins whose daughter was implanted at two. I'm actually kind of fascinated by this stuff…

Once again, Blaine was nervous. He'd spent a little more than a month waiting for this day, and het he was still a little terrified that the implant wasn't going to work. It didn't help that Alex had brought him to the audiologist to have the device turned on and to have his first mapping appointment to program the processor.

Having the device attached to the side of his head was awkward; Blaine really wasn't sure what the magnet would feel like before the doctor held it up to the device. The part that rested on his ear just felt like a larger version of his old hearing aid. Blaine played with the wire as it was hooked up to the computer.

The worst part for Blaine was how much of a struggle it was for him to hear everything that was going on before the implant was turned on. He really wasn't sure what to expect, and the first time he heard a beep on the left side he couldn't help but jump.

"You heard the beep?" Blaine nodded, reaching up towards the device. "It's strange?"

"I wasn't expecting that…" The rest of the beeps weren't as much of a shock; by the time they were done with the mapping part of the appointment, Blaine was really sick of the beeping.

"Are you ready?" Blaine nodded, turning to look at Alex as his brother turned on the video camera that the older boy had insisted on bringing.

"I can't believe you're filming this…" Blaine raised an eyebrow as the microphone turned on. The first thing he heard was a high-pitched whistle, which slowly died down. "I don't hear anything…" Blaine began; even with the hearing aid in his right ear, it still wasn't enough for Blaine to understand what the audiologist was saying without trying to read her lips. He waited, rather impatiently, as she slowly turned it up until Blaine started to recognize that there was actually sound coming through his left ear for the first time in over a month. It was faint, but it was definitely there.

"How's the volume?" Blaine recognized that the audiologist was speaking to him, even if he was still struggling to understand what she was saying.

"It's too quiet… I can't really understand what you're saying…" Blaine glanced over at his brother, watching the look of concern on the older boy's face. Slowly sounds started to fade in as the device was turned up, until he could hear the audiologist's voice. It didn't make complete sense, but he could hear something. "I hear your voice… it's too quiet to understand, but I hear it."

It took a few moments, but eventually Blaine could clearly make out that she was counting every time she turned the volume up slightly. It sounded… strange. "Is it supposed to be that high-pitched? It sounds like I'm in a cartoon…"

"That's normal. It'll adjust as you get used to having the device turned on."

"Can you hear me?" Blaine turned a little too quickly at the sound of his brother's voice, making the older boy laugh. "You looked like Dug just then…"

"Squirrel!" Blaine couldn't help making a joke out of his own reactions; everyone in the room laughed, surprising Blaine with just how loud it could be.

"It's loud?" the audiologist asked once they had all stopped laughing at the Disney reference. Blaine nodded.

"The laughter was… but I think I just wasn't expecting it. When you talk, it isn't that loud."

"Let me know when it gets to a comfortable level. I'll set that as level one on your processor, and then we'll have the other levels set successively higher so you can adjust the levels as you get used to them." Blaine nodded, listening as she began slowly turning up the volume and talking to him until it was kind of loud, but not to the point that it was uncomfortable.

"Yeah… I think I like this setting…" Blaine began.

"Okay… I'm going to unhook you and set the programming on your processor, and then once we get that set up I'll show you how to change the settings and we'll go over everything."

"I don't really want you to turn it off." Blaine watched as the woman smiled at him.

"That's good… the more you keep the device on and the more you work on speech and comprehension, the faster you'll start to get used to the device and the more you'll understand without having to read lips." Blaine nodded as the woman reached up and took the magnet off the side of his head, removing the microphone from behind his ear and setting up the device that he would actually be taking home with him.

It was only a minute or two later that the doctor handed over the device, indicating that Blaine should put the device on himself. It was awkward at first; Blaine had a hard time getting the magnet to attach to the side of his head, and the processor didn't want to stay behind his ear. But finally he got it all settled with the doctor's help and they turned it on. The high-pitched whistle was back for a moment, until it settled down and Blaine could hear noises again.

"How does that sound?"

"Still weird."

"It's going to be strange for a little while… just keep the device turned on as much as possible, try to have people talk to you as much as possible. And keep on top of the speech therapy and homework."

The rest of the appointment was spent going over the various pieces of equipment that came along with the processor, learning how to change the programs, how to fix some of the common problems with the device, and talking about his speech therapy and future mapping appointments.

It wasn't until they were on their way out of the doctor's appointment, long after the video camera was turned off, that the full magnitude of what had just happened hit Blaine. It was the sound of the birds chirping, of the cars driving past the office, of the wind – everything Blaine had taken for granted before he'd been attacked and everything he hadn't even realized that he had missed when his hearing was gone. Blaine stopped, just listening to all of the sounds of the world that he could suddenly recognize again.

"What?" Blaine couldn't help but smile at Alex's voice; it kind of reminded him of Kurt, when the boy got really excited and even more high-pitched than normal. Not at all what Alex normally sounded like. "What, do I sound funny?"

"Everything sounds funny. It's just… it's weird, hearing all of these things." Blaine winced as a car honked its horn out on the street. "That was kind of loud. It's like I hear all of these weird things, but I don't really hear words yet… I know when you're talking to me, even if you aren't looking at me, but I don't think I would understand what you're saying without the hearing aid and reading your lips."

"That's what all of the work you still need to do is for." Blaine nodded.

"Think I'll be able to talk to Kurt on the phone by my birthday?" Blaine asked.

"I think you're determined enough to make that happen."