Notes: All my French comes from mostly-forgotten language classes, Google Translate and online tense tables. If I have something wrong, please let me know! I haven't provided translations for the French used but I'll add them at the end if you want, though it's not hard to get the gist of it at least. :)

chapter x

Kurt's alarm clock went off at six and his new roommates made vague, sleepily outraged noises of protest. He rolled his eyes as he turned it off and then grabbed his uniform, shower caddy and towel so he could get dressed in the bathroom – he'd seen St Trinian's, and he knew there was a difference between hazing and bullying. He'd rather not risk having to run back to his room in a towel or worst, stark naked.

It was quiet surreal, being at Dalton. He wasn't as lonely as he thought he would be: even being out of practise relating to straight boys, he could easily pick up on the camaraderie the boarding students had with each other, and everyone had been very welcoming so far. He wished Blaine were here to help him settle in, but with Jeff and Lukas, Kurt didn't feel Blaine's absence very keenly. Here at Dalton, he was just another guy.

As unappealing as it was, the uniform probably helped. Even if Kurt has accessorised it with a broach.

Kurt had AP French first period with the seniors so Jeff got a late pass from the office to take Kurt to the right classroom. There were only a handful of other students in the room so Kurt went to introduce himself to the teacher and got himself his first packet of catch-up work. Unfortunately, Mme. Favreau was so impressed that Kurt was already fairly fluent that she asked Kurt to stay up front to introduce himself to the class, too, and while they waited for the rest of the class to fill, Mme. Favraeu drew Kurt into a discussion about French artists.

Kurt had a feeling he could come to really love Dalton.

Almost all the seats were taken by the time the warning bell rang, and when Kurt looked, he recognised the Warbler who had spoken to him at Sectionals. His stomach squirmed unpleasantly but he forced a smile and a wave when the boy caught his eye. Oh god, Kurt had forgotten about him.

"S'installer, classe," Mme. Favreau said. The noise quieted immediately. Kurt barely hid his surprise. "Nous avons un nouvel élève, qui dirons quelques mots sur lui-même."

Mme. Favreau stepped to the side and gestured for Kurt to speak. He took the floor with all the confidence of standing a fool standing in front of a line of footballers. "Bonjour. Je m'appelle Kurt Hummel. J'ai juste transféré à partir de McKinley à Lima."

The Warbler raised his hand and waited for Mme. Favreau to indicate he could speak. "Je m'appelle Nick. Vous n'étiez pas dans les New Directions?"

"Oui. Je suis countre-ténor."

"Recrutes après la classe, si'l vous plaît, M. Duvall."

Nick grinned and nodded in acquiescence, and then pounced moments after the bell rang for the next lesson.

"Hey, congratulations for winning Sectionals, by the way!"

"I told you the Warblers didn't stand a chance."

"Man, no need to rub it in." He slung an arm around Kurt's shoulder, and Kurt startled, making Nick's arm drop, but the older boy brushed away an apology. "No sweat. Besides," he added in a lower voice, "it's not like you're the first person to transfer for the anti-bullying policy."

Kurt swallowed and nodded.

"Anyway, whatever, you're here now, right? And you'll be joining the Warblers?"

"I hadn't thought about it," Kurt lied. He would actually quite like to join the Warblers but he felt hesitant about it. He couldn't figure out why – it wasn't like he would be rivalling his old friends.

"You should. Seriously, Wes is gonna freak out so much when he finds out you're a countertenor! He's gonna be so upset he won't be able to use you in any competitions."

Blaine had said the same thing.

"I'm actually a junior so maybe I can help the Warblers win next year."

"No way. But you're in a senior French class!"

Kurt shrugged as a teacher came along and said, "Next classes, gentlemen."

"Sorry, Mrs Lumberg. Kurt, do you know where you're going next?" Kurt nodded. "Awesome. Hey, man, if you're on second lunch, come sit by me and I'll introduce you to Wes, alright?"

"Sure."

"I'll track you down if you don't, Kurt Hummel!" Nick laughed, and Kurt couldn't help but join in.

"See you at lunch," Kurt promised.

As Nick and Wes had predicted, Wes completely flipped when he found out Kurt was a countertenor. His reaction was almost as enthusiastic as Blaine's had been – which made sense considering how often the two had practiced arranging songs over their junior year to prepare for being on the council. Wes grilled Kurt about his range, started listing all the songs they could now add to their repertoire, and then sat silent and despondent when he realised that the Warblers' competition season was over.

"He's probably gonna be all over next year's council," Jeff sniggered. He'd been thrilled to find out Kurt was in the New Directions ("Do you even know what that sounds like?" "No." "Seriously? Oh, my god." "What?") and that he'd been invited to audition for the Warblers.

Kurt met Wes, David and Thad in the choir room after school. They gave him fifteen minutes to warm up and then he wowed them with his rendition of Bring Him Home. He was, of course, accepted immediately and given the rehearsal schedule, but it wasn't until the weekend when he actually had time to update his Facebook status – between bonding with his roommates, catching up on everything he'd missed, doing his homework and extracurriculars, he barely even had enough time to call his dad, let alone keep mess around on social media.

He was pleasantly surprised, if a little freaked out, to find a message from Lauren saying to 'ignore the haters and get your kink on at gay Hogwarts – blazers are hawt. Tell Puckerman that for me'. They'd barely interacted since she proclaimed him a badass. He sent a message back and, somehow, Lauren quickly became one of his closest friends.

Kurt easily and gladly fell into the routine of boarding school. His voice was praised in the Warblers as it had never been in the New Directions, and even though he rarely got a proper solo, he could always hear his voice distinct over the others. Even when the other boys used their falsettos, they couldn't go as high as Kurt without straining their voices, so he usually ended up carrying the countertenor part by himself. It became the best part of his day, and he would lie in bed after lights out pretending to tell Blaine all about it, how he was being featured in their set lists for the old folk homes and hospitals, and showing off his developing skills.

Most of his old friends were still upset with him – for transferring, for not giving them more warning, for not picking up their offer of protection, Kurt wasn't even sure anymore – but Lauren and Brittany and Sam (well, Lauren, mostly) kept him up to date with club gossip. The few weekends Kurt had a light enough homework load to go back home, Finn still point blank refused to talk to him.

There were few breaks in the routine – even the pranks and roughhousing and fights over the TV in his dorm quickly became normal. Being home for Thanksgiving was strange; it was the longest time he'd been home in weeks. Being surrounded by family, even if traditions had been modified, helped his insides settle in a way he hadn't been expecting. When he got back on Wednesday,

he immediately took over the kitchen and loudly regaled his family with more stories than he thought he'd have. He noticed Finn watching him a lot – and would have made a joke about Finn having a crush on him if he didn't know the taller boy would react badly, and Kurt was surprised to realise that he had guy friends now who actually wouldn't get all weird – but otherwise they didn't interact. It hurt Kurt a lot more than he thought it would.

On Black Friday, Kurt went with Mercedes and Tina to the mall the same as last year. But the atmosphere was stifled, the two girls obviously still having trouble accepting his transfer. After bitching out a poor old lady who was going for the scarf Kurt had his eye on, he sent an SOS text to Lauren and the heavyweight champion proved to be an extremely useful asset in cutthroat shopping. He apparently owed Lauren a box of Creme Eggs but that was a small price to pay for how well she kept the focus off Kurt's transfer. (Her original fee had been two boxes but Kurt had had to talk her down to one when everyone had gone home because she kept turning the conversation back to cute Dalton boys and her fetish for men in a uniform.)

He went back to Dalton feeling somewhat better about his old friendships, but within the week, everything but studying for finals fell by the wayside. He was still struggling to simultaneously catch up and keep up with his subjects so he asked around his classes for anyone who wouldn't mind tutoring him. Of course, he was already more than proficient in French, but Math and the sciences were not his strong suits.

A few weeks after Thanksgiving, Craig, the classmate who was helping him with Algebra asked him out.

"I have a boyfriend," Kurt said without thinking. Craig looked surprised.

"Oh, sorry, man, I didn't know. Never mind about that date, then. Is he hot?"

Kurt stared down at his book and saw Blaine beaming at him over the water, eyelashes clinging into points and hair lightly waved where it was pushed back from his forehead. "The most."

Somehow, he managed to wait until he was in the shower to start crying. How had he forgotten about Blaine? How had he let himself get so lax in his research that he'd let himself abandon his best friend and the guy he was in love with?

But he couldn't find the time to do it, especially since he had exhausted the idea of astral planes and had no idea what to look for next.

The last few weeks before finals simultaneously lasted a lifetime and went by in a flash, and Kurt found himself compartmentalising like he hadn't since his mom died. When he was studying, when he was singing, when he was talking to his dad or Lauren or Sam or Mercedes, when he was hanging out with any of the boys at Dalton, he steadfastly paid attention to that one thing – even when he was in bed and waiting for sleep, he focused only on thinking up new terms and combinations to search and not how he had let and was still letting his real life get in the way of saving Blaine.

That weekend, Kurt went home. It felt cowardly, as if he were running away from his problems – or maybe his failure – but he sorely needed a hug from his dad. He brushed off all his family's concerns and retreated to his room immediately after dinner.

An hour later, Rachel showed up on the Hummel-Hudson doorstep.

"Rachel. I thought you and Finn had broken up."

"We did," Rachel said, not looking ashamed at all. "But I'm actually here to see you!"

Kurt just raised an eyebrow. He and Rachel had never been friends, even after she'd duetted with him after he dissolved his partnership with Sam. They were frenemies at best, rivals at worst.

"It's true," Rachel insisted. "Various members of the New Directions have mentioned how much happier you are now that you're away from the terror of Karofsky – although I should mention that he hasn't thrown a single slushy since he's returned so maybe his period of expulsion has given him a new frame of mind – and I realised that now would be an excellent time to make amends. Our rivalry has been, if not challenging, then at least stimulating. I never would have told you this if you hadn't transferred," she added in a lower, more sincere tone, "but you are definitely the second best singer in the club. If you had any real vocal training, I'm sure you could easily become as good as I am."

That was probably the nicest thing Rachel had ever said to him. And it was definitely the closest he would get to an offer of friendship from her.

"Fine," he sighed. "I was just about to watch The Sound of Music."

"Wonderful!" Rachel beamed. "Should I get changed into my pyjamas now or are we going to do that later? I've never had a real sleepover before."

Kurt had been about to kick her out – he was not going to have a sleepover with Rachel Berry – but her last statement stopped him. It wasn't surprising that she'd never been to a sleepover before, because he remembered her being just as obnoxious at eight as she was at sixteen, but she had displayed none of her usual tells of manipulation and, honestly, Kurt felt sorry for her.

"Next time give me some more warning and we can have a proper sleepover with more of the girls," he acquiesced, "but for now you can just dump your stuff in my room and then we can make some snacks."

To Kurt's surprise, he found hanging out with Rachel was almost fun, once he managed to get her to talk about herself less. He could almost see why Finn liked her enough to date her. They had great fun singing along to all the songs and dancing to So Long, Farewell, and Rachel was surprisingly enthusiastic to hear about Dalton.

"There's sheet music in the school library?" she asked excitedly. "Kurt, I'm so jealous! The only time I get new sheet music is if I buy it from Between the Sheets because there is not a single library in Lima which stocks it."

"It is a really impressive library," Kurt admits. "It's got two floors and private study rooms. One of my friends is a bibliophile and he spends literally all his spare time in the library."

"I bet you could find anything in there," Rachel said, and she carried on talking but Kurt didn't hear a word of it.

How could he have been so dumb? He'd searched the internet for as much free information as possible – but he hadn't even thought of physical books. Google Books, yes, of course, but for all the times he'd sat in the library it hadn't even crossed his mind to look there, or even to talk to the librarian.

"Kurt? Are you alright?"

Kurt snapped out of his thoughts and smiled at Rachel, a bit too widely if her returning confused smile was anything to go by.

"I'm fine," he understated.

He couldn't wait to get back to school.