This week has been seriously crazy. My parents have been gone so I've been holding down the fort here at home (and we have bunnies and birds and puppies and kitties and multiple gardens and a pool and... well, it's been busy) as well as working and broken computers, this has been a really crazy week, but chapter 10 is here nonetheless! :)

Chapter 10

It was December 27, and Blaine Anderson was sitting on his living room couch, moping, eating ice cream, and watching It's a Wonderful Life. Carrie had stopped by earlier to bring Rose her Christmas presents, and ended up taking her out to a park. She knew something was off when Blaine was still wearing his pajamas at one in the afternoon, but when Blaine hadn't even reminded them to take Rose an extra jacket (like he always did in the winter), Carrie knew something was wrong.

A few hours later, Rose and Carrie returned to the house. Blaine continued sitting on the couch, grading tests, watching TV, and looking generally depressed. Carrie made herself, Blaine, and Rose dinner, watched a movie with Rose, put Rose to bed, and came out into the living room to sit by Blaine.

"Okay. First of all, I'm Rose's babysitter, not parent. You are. Would she have even eaten tonight if I hadn't been here?" Carrie demanded.

"Of course!" Blaine exclaimed. "I'm not going to let my daughter go hungry."

Carrie raised her eyebrows. "What would she have eaten? Cereal? Ice cream?" Blaine didn't answer. "Look, Blaine. Rose told me that you and Kurt got into a fight. You've told me enough about him, about your past, for me to figure out a bit of what's going on. I don't know what Kurt did to you, or why you haven't gotten over him in almost a decade, but you're acting like a teenager. And news flash, you're not a teenager, Blaine. When you and a friend get into a fight, you can't just expect the world to take care of everything for you. You are twenty-five years old; you can take care of yourself.

"But whatever, screw yourself if you want, but you aren't seventeen anymore. You have responsibilities that go past your test next week or your paper due tomorrow. First and foremost, you have a daughter, Blaine. A daughter who loves you very much and just spend a half hour crying to me because she's worried about you. She's four years old, and she's in tears because she's worried for her father, who's supposed to be the one taking care of her. And besides your daughter, you have a boss and a job that you can't just put on hold when you have problems.

"And what about me? I've called you more than twenty times since Christmas, and you haven't answered one call. I didn't even know if you and Rose were okay, or if something had happened, or if you just upped and ran away again." Blaine cringed. Why did she have to bring that up? "I thought we were friends, Blaine. But friends don't treat each other the way you treated me the past few days. And I understand that this is hard for you, that you're going through a rough patch, but snap out of it, because you're acting like a child."

She stood up, grabbed her purse, and headed towards the door. Turning back to him, she sighed with tears in her eyes. "I love you Blaine. And I want to help you, but I can't if you won't let me."

Blaine knew Carrie was right, and that she had every right to say what she said to him, but that didn't stop it from upsetting him. He knew how to take care of his own daughter, damnit. But… He had been complaining in his head that Kurt made him feel (and apparently act) like a teenager.

Blaine sighed took a notebook from his closet—one of the few things he'd kept from that summer after high school. In the notebook were all the phone numbers, cell numbers, work numbers, addresses, and email addresses from everyone in his extended family. He'd made it first for places to send graduation announcements, and then used it for the funeral.

He flipped through the pages, and one by one put marks by the people he knew he couldn't contact. People who had since died, people who had blamed him for his family members' deaths, people who didn't accept the fact that he was gay, and people who he just didn't like. On the third page, in his high-school handwriting, he read seven phone numbers, two email addresses, and one address all to one family.

Blaine had no idea if his aunt and uncle still worked in the same places, lived in the same house, had the same cell phones, or even if they still lived in Chicago, but he knew he had to try. Glancing at the clock, Blaine saw that it was 8:30 pm. That wasn't too late to call, right?

He tried the home phone number first. Apparently the line had been disconnected. Next, he tried calling his aunt's cell phone—also disconnected. When calling his uncle's number, he ended up with a generic answering machine. He hung up without leaving a message. It was too late to call their work numbers, and he wanted to try and call them before he tried emailing them.

Blaine guessed 'growing up' would have to wait until tomorrow.

Blaine woke up the next morning around 7:30, and immediately started making Rose her favorite breakfast—French toast. When she came into the kitchen about twenty minutes later, Blaine set the food in front of her.

She grinned up at him. "Does this mean you're not sad about Mr. Kurt anymore, daddy?" she asked.

"I'm still sad," Blaine started, "But I feel a lot better."

Rose smiled even wider. "Good!" she glanced down at her hands before shyly looking up at her father through her eyelashes. "I just want you to be happy, daddy. Because when you're happy, you smile. And when you smile at me, I have to smile back. And that makes me happy."

Blaine knelt down and hugged his daughter. "When you smile it makes me happy too, sweetheart."

Rose grinned and hugged Blaine even harder. Then they ate breakfast and made plans for the day. First, they would take her out shopping to buy some new clothes (she'd nearly grown out of hers again). Then they decided they wanted to buy something special for Carrie, since she'd spent the whole day with Rose yesterday (and since Blaine had been such a complete asshole to her).

The duo got home around lunch time, and Blaine made them sandwiches. Rose grabbed her babysitter's present and ran to her room to 'wrap' it (aka roll it up in Christmas wrapping paper and stick tape all over it). Blaine was surprised when his phone rang, and he hurried top pick it up.

"Hello?" he asked.

"Hello, my name is Jason Anderson; I received a call from this number last night." The voice on the line said.

Blaine almost dropped the phone. "Oh! Yeah, um, hi." His heart was pounding. How was he going to explain this? "Uncle Jason, it's… It's Blaine. Blaine Anderson."

Blaine heard a crash, and apparently his uncle did drop the phone. "Hello? Uncle Jason? Are you there?"

He heart the phone being hastily picked up, and footsteps thundering up stairs. "Miranda! Miranda! It's Blaine! Blaine's on the phone!"

"What?" he heard his aunt's shrill reply. "Are you sure?"

"You think I don't know my own nephew's voice?" he heard his uncle say, "Of course I'm sure!"

"Give me the phone!" the voice demanded, "Blaine? Blaine, dear, are you there?"

"Yeah, Aunt Miranda. I'm here. It's me." Blaine smiled.

"Oh thank the good lord. Blaine, sweetie how are you? What are you doing? Where are you? Where did you disappear to? Are you okay? Do you need help? Are you—" her husband cut her off.

"Let the poor boy speak, Miranda!"

Blaine grinned. "I'm good, great actually."

"What's been going on with you, Blaine? How have you been the last few years?" his aunt asked.

Blaine smiled to himself. "It's kind of a long story, but I'll try to give you the crash-course. I went to college in LA before coming back to Lima pursuing a teaching job at a private school here. I adopted a daughter, one of my friend's children before she was in an accident, and we're doing great the two of us." Blaine took a deep breath, "How have you too been?"

"We've been amazing! Ryan, well, you wouldn't know him. Remember how we couldn't come to your graduation or the funeral because I was pregnant? Well that's Ryan. And our daughter Samantha. We're all doing well. Still in the same house that you came and visited when you were so young; eight, maybe? Well, anyway, we're doing good." She finished.

It took Blaine a moment before he realized he should reply. "That's great! I'm glad you're all doing so well." After a short pause, he spoke up again. "Auntie Miranda, I'm really sorry I left without saying anything to you guys."

She sighed. "It's alright, Blaine dear. I'm just glad you're okay. We, that is, Jason and I, thought you had… Well, the idea seems silly now."

"Killed myself?" Blaine asked hesitantly, yet bluntly, "yes, well, that was one of my plans. One that luckily didn't come through."

"Well, yes. That's what we thought. But we never blamed you dear." Miranda admitted bluntly. "But then again, who could blame us for thinking it?" she asked, "you disappeared with no words or anything after the funeral."

"I know." Blaine said, "And I'm really sorry about that." The two (three; it seemed Blaine was on speaker phone with his aunt and uncle) were silent for a minute. "So tell me about Ryan and Samantha."

Miranda (with some interjections from Jason) absolutely gushed about their two kids. It seemed they had been doing extremely well lately. "Oh no, Blaine, I have a brilliant beyond brilliant idea!" Miranda exclaimed, sounding like the aunt she always had been, "How would you and little Rose say about the four of us coming down for a visit this summer?"

Blaine grinned, even though he knew they couldn't see it. "That would be amazing, Aunt Miranda. I would love to see you and Uncle Jason again, and I'd love to meet Ryan and Samantha."

The three talked for a few more minutes while Rose waited patiently in the kitchen for her father's attention. When he hung up the phone, he turned to her. "What's up, little missy?"

"I finished wrapping Miss Carrie's present!" she held it up.

Blaine smiled, "It looks beautiful, love. She'll love it." And honestly, it didn't look half bad. Carrie would easily be able to tell it was Rose's handiwork, but it looked nice nonetheless. "Why don't you set it under the tree until she gets here tomorrow evening?"

Rose smiled at her father and did as she was told. Blaine set his phone down on the table and wandered into the living room and turned on the TV, flipping through the channels until he found a children's Christmas movie that he thought Rose would like.

But twenty minutes later, when she didn't emerge from the kitchen, Blaine knew something was up. "Rosie?" he asked. "Whatcha doing in there, love?"

He didn't hear a reply so he headed to look for her. She wasn't in the kitchen, but he walked down the hall and heard talking from her room. Assuming she was having a tea party with her stuffed animals or something, he stayed for a bit to listen.

"No, he doesn't." she said. Then there was a pause. "But I don't want to give daddy his phone back!" Another pause. "I don't want him to be mad at me for calling you… Because I think my daddy's still sad." There was another pause. "He misses you an awful lot. But I miss you too, Mr. Kurt. You made my daddy happy and I liked that. I know you two got in a fight, but it's be really nice if you two made up. I know my daddy would love that a lot."

Blaine chose that moment to enter the room. "Hey sweetie." He said. "Can I have the phone back?"

She shook her head violently. "No!"

"And why not?" Blaine asked softly.

Rose started crying. "Because I want you and Mr. Kurt to be friends again." She whispered.

Blaine collected her into his arms in a tight embrace. "Oh sweetie, it's okay. Don't cry. Mr. Kurt and I can try to work things out, would that make you feel better?" she nodded. "Okay, then we'll try. I can't promise anything, but we'll try."

Rose nodded and let Blaine lead her to the living room to watch the end of Frosty the Snowman. "Are you still there?" Blaine asked into the phone.

Kurt's musical laugh made his heart break for the millionth time. "Yeah, I'm still here."

Blaine sighed a sigh of relief. "Good. I'm glad."

"And why's that?" He imagined Kurt cocking his head sideways, as if confused by Blaine's words.

Blaine sighed again. "Because Rose is right. I miss you. A lot."

"Good." Kurt said. "Because I miss you too. And not for the reasons that I said that first time, at your school. I don't miss you just because I want someone to hang out with. I miss you because of you. And I miss Rose."

Blaine smiled. "Well she misses you quite a bit as well." He heard Kurt sniffle. "Don't cry. This isn't your fault. I was an asshole."

Kurt laughed. "It is my fault. I shouldn't never said those things that I said to you. No one should blame you for running away. Besides, it became none of my business when I made that stupid mistake with—"

Blaine cut him off "No, Kurt. No. Stop. You were eighteen and made a mistake. That has nothing to do with anything." He could hear Kurt crying on the line. "Kurt, I don't blame you for anything. I've been acting like a child."

"But I still feel bad for that. And for ignoring you for the rest of the year." Blaine heard him take a deep breath. "I'm sorry that when you ran, I didn't follow you. I'm sorry that when you fell, I wasn't there to catch you, or at least help you back up. I'm sorry that I disregarded anything that might have happened to you because I thought running away wasn't the answer."

"Running away wasn't the answer." Blaine muttered.

"But that's irrelevant because nothing overlooks the way I treated you from the time we were eighteen to now. No one, especially someone who went through what you did, deserves to be treated that way." Kurt said passionately.

Blaine shrugged. "But you didn't know that was going to happen to me. No one knew."

He heard Kurt sigh. "No, but that doesn't mean anything. That was the biggest mistake of my life. And that includes wasting two years of my life at a college, training for a job I wasn't even going to pursue."

Blaine smiled. "Well, you got back on track and so did I. And for some reason, we can't seem to stay away from each other."

"That seems to me the case, doesn't it?" Kurt laughed.

Blaine smiled. "Yeah, it does. So why do we keep trying?"

Kurt giggled and Blaine's heart melted. "I don't know."

Blaine took a deep, calming breath. Kurt wanted their friendship just as much as he did. "Maybe we shoudn't."

As soon as Kurt took a breath to speak, Blaine let out his, hoping for the best. "Maybe we shoudn't."

I gotta say, guys posting a story gets a bit difficult when your computer refuses to turn on... I don't know what's wrong with it, but I got into this weird set-up program and backed up my files (except now I can't figure out how to access them on the drive they're on) and now I'm doing a complete system factory restore... So let's hope that will at least get it turned on so I can figure out how to get my files back on it. I'm currently on my mom's laptop and luckily I sent so much of this story to Itzel and Carrie that have this chapter! It's a little less edited that the others, but I'll do my best :) Thanks for all of your support on this story, guys. I really appreciate it.