A/N: I'm so amazed at the amount of hits this story has gotten (Over 500 visitors!). I'm leaving today for a week in florida, so if I can get free wifi, I'll try to update, or else you're stuck with just this chapter to hold you over. It's a little longer than the last two though, so savor it!
Don't be mad at me, it gets better for Blaine, and after this chapter and some of the next it gets much funnier.

The next day I had to go pick the boys up at the airport. Kurt ran out to the car before I could even see Finn. He gave be a quick hug and whispered to me. "We didn't win and it's all sort of Finn's fault, so don't ask how we did. Also, I think he's back with Rachel, and Santana has been trying to kill him. She had to be escorted off the plane by security because she threatened him with a knife. She didn't actually have one on her, but just saying that in a plane gets you in trouble." He finished whispering as Finn walked up to the car. Kurt gave me a bigger hug then and said how much he missed me. Finn said hello quietly and climbed into the back of the car. It really must have been bad if he didn't even try fighting Kurt for the front seat. The ride home was filled with Kurt chattering on about how amazing the city is and what a wonderful trip he had. He didn't even mention the competition. Finally, he quieted down and added something that I was expected since he got in the car.

"I haven't heard from Blaine though. He said he'd call me last night and he never did, and he hasn't answered my calls or texts all day. I hope he's ok."

"Actually, I have to talk to you boys about something. Blaine's at our house."

Kurt was about to start talking, but I put up a hand to stop him. "Let me finish Kurt, then you can say whatever you want. He called last night and I had to go pick him up. He was beaten up pretty badly. He's ok now. I brought him to the hospital and Carol helped him. He'll be staying with us for a little while."

Kurt had tears in his eyes. I'm pretty sure he knew what happened. Finn, on the other hand, was clueless as usual.

"Why wouldn't he just stay home to get better? If some bullies beat him up he could have called home. Not that I'm complaining. He's great and can stay as long as he wants."

"It's a little more complicated than that."

Finally, Kurt spoke for the first time since I told him, but much more quietly than before.

"It was his dad. Wasn't it?"

"Wait, why would his dad do that to him? Why wouldn't his mom stop him? Or take him to the hospital?" Luckily I had this time to explain this to Finn before he could talk to Blaine and make him feel worse. But before I could explain, Kurt beat me to it.

"His mom left last year. His dad was beating her too, so she went home to another country, and Blaine had to stay here. Mr. Anderson isn't accepting of the fact that Blaine's gay. That's why he hits him. And why Blaine spends so much time at our house. Would you want to live in a house where your mom abandoned you and your dad hates you because of something you can't change?" By the end of his little speech, Kurt was practically yelling. I guess Blaine really did tell him everything. It took Finn a few minutes to process everything.

"Wait... Does that mean Blaine's from another country?" Leave it to Finn to ease the tension.

Kurt was out of the car before it came to a full stop. I probably should have warned him about how bad Blaine's face looked. I have a strong stomach, and I found I was having a problem. At least we already knew the routine for dealing with a concussion. Kurt didn't leave Blaine's side except to go to the bathroom, and even then he kept it short. I knew we had a tough conversation coming up, and I knew I had to have it soon.

"Blaine can I talk to you for a minute?" I looked towards Kurt and added "alone."

Kurt looked upset about it, but started to stand up from where he was sitting. But Blaine grabbed his hand and pulled him back.

"If it's possible, I'd rather Kurt stayed with me. I'll just tell him everything later anyway."

At least he was being honest.

"Alright, you can stay Kurt. But I don't want any comments from you unless I ask for your opinion. Deal?"

Kurt looked right at me and zipped his mouth shut and made an exaggerated motion of handing Blaine the imaginary key, which he promptly put in his pocket. They were so dorky sometimes. They were both smiling, although Blaine's was more of a pained grimace.

"Blaine, you know you are welcome here as long as you want. Carol and I talked it over, and if you want to stay and be a part of this family, you are more than welcome. But first you need to figure out what's going to happen with your dad. We need to let the police know what happened. He can't get away with doing this to you."

"I appreciate your concern, but calling the police really won't do anything but make him mad. He's a high profile criminal lawyer. He knows every judge and police chief in the state. He'd just get away with this just like he did when my mom tried to call the cops. That's why she had to leave."

Wow... I wasn't expecting that. I guess I knew he had to have some important job to afford Dalton tuition, but this really threw a wrench in the plan.

"Do you think he'd sign that paper to transfer custody?"

I said the first thing that popped into my head. I don't know if it was the right thing to say or not, because Blaine started to tear up.

"I'm sorry. I just can't seem to stop crying these past few hours. Are you sure you'd really want to do that for me?"

He looked like he knew it was too good to be true. Like any minute I would pull the offer away and kick him out.

"Of course Blaine. You're sort of part of this family already. Why not make it easier for you to stay here and safe. You can transfer to McKinley, Kurt's been fine there since Karofsky got straightened out, and Finn's there to keep an eye on you too."

"I... I think he would... Sign the papers. He said he didn't want me to come back, so I don't see why he wouldn't make that official." He replied shakily.

"OK. I'm going to take a ride over there."

"I don't know if that's such a good idea. I don't want you to get hurt too."

At that I chuckled. "I know how to hold my own. In fact, if it makes you feel better I'll bring Finn and Puck for back up."

How bad could this guy be? Blaine's shorter than Carol; his father probably wouldn't be much bigger.

An hour later I was in the pick up with Finn and Puck. Finn had called Puck to tell him what was going on, and Puck was more than happy to come along as hired muscle. When we pulled up to the house, Finn let out a whistle.

"I never knew he was loaded!"

I wouldn't have put it as bluntly as Finn did, but it was a gigantic house.

I walked up the path to the door to ring the door bell. Finn and Puck stayed a few feet behind me. When I saw the man that opened the door, I was immediately glad I brought the two boys with me. Blaine clearly did not get his size from his father. The man that answered the door could have easily taken me in a fight. It made me even more mad to realize he would beat up a kid Blaine's size.

"Mr. Anderson? My name's Burt Hummel. I'm here to talk to you about your son Blaine."

The man's eyes went wider and his frown turned into a snarl.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I have no son!" He then went to slam the door, but I wasn't going to let that happen. Not yet anyway.

"Then just make it legal and sign his custody over to me and you'll never have to worry about him bothering you again."

He seemed to think about it for a minute. Then he did something I didn't expect. He smiled. It was nothing like Blaine's smile. It was like a crocodile who was about to eat you. He stepped back and opened the door a little wider inviting us in.

"I see you brought some extra muscle with you in case things got out of hand. So which one of you boys is the fag? The one my son would give up his family for?"

Neither boy knew how to respond to that. Finally I spoke up.

"I'd prefer of you didn't use language like that. This is my son Finn and his friend Puck. My son Kurt is the one dating your son. He's home with my wife taking care of Blaine, who isn't in good shape after what you did to him last night."

"He deserved it."

Before I could make the situation any worse I decided to just get to the point instead of arguing with this ass.

"Are you willing to sign over Blaine's custody to me? Or are we going to have to get the cops involved?"

The man seemed to think about it and finally responded.

"I'll have my secretary send them over in the morning." He got up and walked into the other room. He came back with a folder of paperwork.

"I legally can't keep this from him, and I'd rather the media not get involved. This is Blaine's inheritance. I can't write him out of the estate now. He can collect it when he turns 18."

Finn spoke next, which surprised me.

"Can we get some of his stuff for him?"

Mr. Anderson gave us a cold glare then pointed us to Blaine's room saying we had 15 minutes before we had to be out of his house. We didn't think we'd get this, but we were hoping, so we came prepared. Puck ran out to the truck to grab the few bags and boxes we brought with us. We went up to Blaine's room and began grabbing stuff to put in the boxes. Finn pulled out a list of things Blaine had asked for if we got the chance. Mostly just photos and his guitar. I opened drawers and the closet and randomly threw in clothing, Puck grabbed all the pictures. After 14 minutes we were back in the car. I must say, we made short work of his room and had it mostly emptied. Finn got out of the car and ran back to the house. I thought he forgot something, but then I saw what he was thinking a second before he did it. He pulled back his fist and punched Mr. Anderson right in the face. His nose started spouting blood as Finn ran to the car and dove into the back seat as we drove away.

"You really shouldn't have done that Finn. I really wanted to, but I didn't want to risk him not signing the paperwork."

"I didn't think of that..."

We laughed all the way back to Lima.

The next morning, we got a call asking us to come down to the county courthouse, with Blaine, to sign all the paperwork. We all piled in the navigator (My truck was still filled with all of Blaine's stuff). We got to the court house and started to walk in when Blaine stopped dead. He must have seen his dad's car and didn't realize he would have to be here too. We walked into the building and were directed to a judge's office. Once we entered the room I saw Mr. Anderson chatting with the judge. I guess Blaine was right about that part. The judge looked at us and immediately looked concerned when he saw Blaine's cast and bruised face. He probably didn't know the whole story.

"Ok, let's get this show on the road! Mr. Anderson, you need to sign this form. Mrs. Hummel, you need to sign this form." Carol and I decided that she should be legal guardian of Blaine, rather than both of us. We already knew that Kurt and Blaine would end up getting married and they would have enough difficulty doing that without adding the fact that they were legally brothers. He handed each of them a form and a pen, and when they were done took them back, looked them over and smiled. "Well, that's all in order. Bill, you're free to go." It took me a second to realize Blaine's dad's name is Bill. He never actually introduced himself. 'Bill' walked out of the room without so much as glancing at Blaine. The judge turned to us and smiled. "Congratulations! It's a boy!"

We didn't seem to see the humor in the situation, but we were happy anyway. Carol brought Blaine into a hug as we started to leave. But the judge wasn't quite done.

"Blaine. Did your father give your inheritance paperwork? Because legally that's yours no matter what."

"Yes. He gave it to Mr. Hummel yesterday."

"Have you looked at it yet?"

"No, I've been kind of distracted, what with having the crap beaten out of me and being kicked out of my home." Blaine snapped back at the judge. I couldn't believe he would say that to a judge, but I guess he had a right to after all he's been through. He stormed out of the office, quickly followed by Kurt. We thanked the judge and walked outside to find the boys leaning against the car. No one really knew what to say. Finally Carol decided to break the tension.

"Who wants pancakes?"

"I could definitely go for some!"

Finn practically shouted. Kurt was the first to respond to him.

"We just had breakfast. How are we supposed to eat pancakes?"

The way Carol responded made it seem like the most obvious answer in the world.

"Because pancakes make everything better!"

I was slowly starting to see where Finn got his eating habits from. They closely match Carol's cooking habits.

"I could eat some pancakes too..." Blaine replied tentatively.

"You're just as bad as Finn!" Kurt said to him as we all climbed into the car.

The ride home was much better than the car ride there. About halfway back, Blaine finally asked a question that was clearly bothering him for a while.

"Mr. Hummel?"

"You can call me Burt. You're officially part of the family now. Like it or not, you're one of my kids."

Blaine smiled and it lit up his face even though it wasn't a pretty sight with all the bruising.

"OK, Burt. Does anyone care to tell me why my father had a black eye?"

Oh crap. Probably should have mentioned that earlier. After a minute of awkward silence, Finn finally fessed up.

"Um... That would be my fault. After we grabbed your stuff, I ran back in the house. I was just so mad that he could do that to you, and it clearly wasn't a fair fight. He's like three times your size. How could you defend yourself against that? And then that stuff he said about you deserving it. I just couldn't stand it anymore, so I punched him in the face. I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

Blaine just looked at him for a minute than lean across the backseat to give him an awkward, one armed hug.

"Thank you"

Later on that day, we began to set up Blaine's new room. It was practically his already, since it's the guest room he's been staying in most weekends for the last few months. Finn, Kurt and I carried everything upstairs, since Blaine couldn't lift anything because of the broken ribs and the cast. Then Kurt helped Blaine "decorate". Luckily we had the bed and dresser, so we didn't need to buy anything. Kurt wanted to repaint the room to a new color scheme that matched Blaine's eyes, but Blaine beat me to talking him out of that one. I think he felt guilty about imposing; he certainly wouldn't want us to go through the trouble of painting the room.

After an hour or two, I went up to see how things were going. Kurt was folding clothes and putting them in a dresser while Blaine was passed out on the bed. The room looked completely transformed and the walls were covered mostly in pictures. Some were pictures of Blaine and Kurt, others of a group of boys in Dalton uniforms. There was one picture in a frame with Blaine and a beautiful (but short) woman. It must have been his mother. He was much younger, but still looked the same. Only he had his hair curly.

"He talks about her once in a while." Kurt must have noticed me looking at the photo. "He really misses her. It was so tough losing mom, but I can't imagine how much worse it would have been if she chose to leave us."

I didn't really know how to respond to that. I still had some trouble talking about Elizabeth.

"It's getting late Kurt. Maybe you should head to bed. We've had a long day."

He stood there, hesitating a little. I already knew what he was going to ask, but I was waiting for him to ask anyway.

"Um... Dad... Can I stay in here tonight with Blaine? I promise no funny business. He has a few broken ribs and can't breathe anyway. That way I can be on concussion duty tonight too! You and Carol have had a long few days too." He looked really hopeful. I looked over to realize Blaine had woken up. He looked at me and spoke.

"If it's ok, I'd feel a lot better with Kurt in the room. We don't even have to sleep in the same bed! I can sleep on the floor. Kurt can have the bed."

"Absolutely not!"

Both boys looked shocked, but I continued quickly.

"You cannot sleep on the floor. Between all your injuries I'm pretty sure DYFS would take you away before we had you for a whole day! I guess you can stay in here for a couple nights, until Blaine starts to get better. But don't get too used to it. Once Blaine is all better, I'll probably lock your doors from the outside and set mouse traps in the hallway."

I was met with two excited faces.

"Thanks Dad!"

"Thanks Burt!"

"Now go to bed. It's been a long day."

Breakfast on Tuesday started out nice until Carol told Finn to get ready for school. Finn immediately started to complain since Kurt and Blaine were both staying home.

"How come they get to stay home and I don't?"

"We let you stay home yesterday because a lot was going on and you had just been away for almost a week. Blaine is on bed rest for at least two weeks. We decided to let Kurt stay home this week because Blaine can't be alone with his concussion and Burt and I both have to go to work." Carol finished explaining to Finn.

He was quick to point out the injustice.

"I know why Blaine gets to stay home, but why can't I stay home and make sure Blaine doesn't die. No offense dude."

"None taken Finn." Blaine added.

"I could keep an eye on him and Kurt can go to school. We can alternate!"

"We're letting Kurt stay home because he has all A's and is responsible enough to keep up with his work. We're working on getting Blaine's make up work from Dalton. There's no point in starting Blaine's transfer to McKinley until after school ends since he can't go for the last two weeks anyway."

"Fine." Finn mumbled as he walked away. He couldn't argue that Kurt got good grades and he was just barely passing. Mostly because of Kurt's help. Once Finn left the kitchen table, Blaine turned to talk to Kurt. He had to turn his whole body since he couldn't just twist the top half because of his broken ribs.

"Kurt... I was wondering if you'd be able to go to Dalton one day this week. I know it's kind of far, but I can't go. Since you had most of the same teachers, maybe you could explain and get my work for the end of the year. I'd like to end with good grades so I can get into upper level classes at McKinley. I also haven't said anything to any of the warblers yet. They'll be wondering where I am. I hate to ask this of you, after all you've done for me, but I can't really leave the house."

Kurt agreed after getting permission from me and decided to go that morning, since he could be home before Carol had to leave for work at noon. Even with traffic, Blaine wouldn't be alone for more than an hour. Before he left, I called the school to speak to the headmaster and give him a heads up. I don't think I'd believe this story if a 16 year old told me.

After a long day at the shop, I got home to find Kurt in the kitchen wearing an apron making dinner. This was another reason I agreed to letting Kurt stay home this week. I loved Carol very much and since we got married, she has done all the cooking. But for the 8 years before that, Kurt did all the cooking, and I kind of missed it. I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and sat at the counter to watch him cook.

"So how'd the trip to Dalton go?"

He continued to stare at the pan of sauce he was stirring, but started to talk.

"Better than I was expecting. I was able to talk to the headmaster and get all of Blaine's work from his teachers. They were all pretty upset when they heard what happened to him, a few gave some assignments that need to be returned by the last day of school, but most said they could give him a final grade based on his previous work. I cleared out his locker, which was mostly books and back up hair gel. The hardest part was telling the Warblers. Some of them even cried... The straight ones! Wes and David took it the hardest since they're his closest friends. Wes didn't cry till he heard Blaine would be transferring to McKinley and would be the competition now. They were mad they weren't told earlier, but then I explained about Blaine not having a phone anymore."

I interrupted as a remembered something.

"That reminds me, we'll call the phone company and add Blaine on and get him a new phone. There really isn't a rush since he can't leave the house for a while anyway."

"Thanks Dad. For everything. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have Blaine anymore. I still can't believe his own dad would do that to him."

"I don't either kid." I stood up and clapped my hands together. "What can I do to help with dinner?"

"You can set the table. There's nothing for you to burn that way."