Chapter 2 – One Year Later

"Kurt, calm down, we're almost there," Blaine said with a laugh as he turned onto the street that held William McKinley High School.

"I just, I'm finally back, you know? No more Dalton, just me and my friends and boyfriend!" Kurt yelled excitedly as Blaine pulled into his own, personalized parking spot, curticy of his mother.

Santana, Brittany, Finn, Rachel, and the rest of the gang were all standing there with balloons and large goofy grins. Before Blaine even had a chance to put the car in park, Kurt had already jumped out of the car, into the waiting arms of Santana and Brittany. Blaine smiled at the crowd as he got out to join them, swinging his bright purple back pack over his shoulder.

"Blaine!" Finn greeted as he pulled the smaller boy into a half hug before ruffling his hair as if Blaine were a toddler.

"Hello Finn."

As the glee family crowded around Kurt and took turns pulling the pale boy into their arms, Blaine couldn't help but feel like an outsider. This was where Kurt belonged, not Blaine, but he was to in love to even consider returning to Dalton.

"Let's go find our lockers Blaine, decorating awaits us," Kurt said with a grin as he grabbed Blaine's hand and pulled him towards the school building.

"Kurt, we have a suprise for you," Santana smirked. She and Brittany grabbed the hyper boy's arm and dragged him into the school. They had just entered the building when they all stopped dead in their tracks.

A beautiful girl was walking down the hall in a long black skirt, a black tank top, a brown messanger bag, and short pink hair. She smirked at them as she got closer, recognition in her eyes. Kurt blinked as he stared at her.

"Quinn," Kurt whispered. Blaine turned to look at his boyfriend before returning his gaze to the siren that had just dissappeared into a classroom. That was not the girl Kurt had fauned over and gushed about.

As the day went on, things only seemed to get worse. Any time any of the glee kids got within ten feet of the cheerleader turned punk, they were met with the firey eyes of Quinn Fabray.

Blaine was the only one of them who shared a class with her, eighth period English Lit. She sat next to him at the lab tables (their english teacher was also a science teacher) and had even offered him a stick of gum, but of course, she didn't know who he was.

"Quinn... Fabray," she said after a few minutes of silence. Blaine looked up from the poem they had been asked to intupert in astonishment.

"Blaine... Anderson," he supplied, unsure what he was supposed to say. Should he tell her he was Kurt's boyfriend?

"Son of David Anderson, Defense Lawyer?" she asked him, her tone neither excited or upset, she seemed bored with the question.

"Yes," he told her simply, uncomfortable with the was about to let the conversation die out till he remembered Kurt, how excited he got when he used to talk about Quinn and he knew he had to try and fix it. He observed her for a moment, taking in the dark circles under her eyes and the age lines that lined her face and hands. She had her head bent and she was biting her lip as she reread the poem.

"You're staring," she informed him, once again, neither happy or angry, just stating.

"Sorry, I just... I hear you were gone for a year," he told her, mentally hitting himself for bringing it up. He tried to keep his face neutral, hoping she wouldn't see how nervous he was.

"I was," she responded. He was happy to see that she didn't look offended. He was just about to ask her another question when she finally turned to face him, giving him the oppertunity to observe her. He noticed that she looked nothing like her pictures, aside from the obvious differences. In the pictures Kurt had showed him she was laughing and happy and glowed with beauty, but she was different now. He could tell that she had put on a lot of concelar and still the dark circles under her eyes were evident. Those eyes that Kurt used to gush about were anything but the perfect orbs of blue that he'd seen in all her pictures, instead they were dark, sunken, and worst of all... broken. "Do you understand this poem?"

He blinked, suddenly remembering that he wasn't looking at a picture but the real thing. He turned to look at his own copy of the poem, hoping that he would understand what it was about by the title.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

He smiled, remembering this poem well from his favorite book.

"What's your take on it?" he finally asked her. She rolled her eyes, but he saw a ghost of a smile on her lips.

"It's talking about innocence, right?" she asked.

"I think so," he responded, "I think it's talking about the fact that when we're young we're innocent but it doesn't last very long, to quickly it's taken from us and this same world we thought was perfect is really a horrible place, but still, we have those moments of good that go on through out our lives. The sun sets every day, and it will never end, and the poem is tellling us that even though the darkness never ends, neither does the moments of happiness and childhood innocence."

"Intresting," Quinn said, once again neutral. Just as Blaine was about to open his mouth the bell ran, signalling that it was time to go. He watched as Quinn gathered her things. As he started gathering his own items, he saw a picture sticking out of a dark brown leather bound journal. When she turned her back to the desk to arrange her messanger bag, he leaned forward and pulled it out just a little. He was shocked to see that it was a picture of the Warblers and New Directions after sectionals last year, with their first place torphey.