A/N: Right, so the first chapter was written ages ago, after Finn's death on the show. It was originally a one-shot, but I decided to follow it up, and it isn't quite going in the direction that I intended, but I like where it's going, nonetheless. Hopefully you will, too.

True to his promise, Kurt had called back after work. Dave had been throwing his mini-basketball into the hoop on the back of the door, trying to distract himself from distracting himself. His studying was far from being done, and he was pretty sure that he wasn't going to do so well on an upcoming test, but he couldn't really keep his mind off of Kurt. He had conquered that before – the all-consuming thoughts of Kurt. He had gotten past those and learned to train his mind to think of other things. Kurt was still there, like a background noise he had grown accustomed to, but he knew that it would always be that way. Kurt was so thoroughly mixed up in his head – mixed feelings of guilt, gratitude, worry, and affinity as he pondered what Kurt must be going through at this time. For once, he wasn't causing the grief but that thought really didn't make him feel any better.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when his phone began playing Radiohead's Karma Police. On the one hand, he'd kind of been expecting – more hoping, really – a call, but on the other, he had been so wrapped up in his own mind that he'd actually kind of forgotten what had led to him being so distracted in the first place. He picked it up on the second ring.

"Hello?" He knew who it was, of course.

"Hi... David. It's Kurt." Kurt answered, slightly uncertain as he began.

"Yeah. What's up?" Dave asked, shooting the ball across the room and into the net again. It bounced off of the rim and onto his bed. Deciding to leave it, Dave turned again towards his desk. It was a mess of books that he hadn't really gotten around to reading tonight.

"I just got off work." Kurt sighed. There was the sound of a car door slamming shut, and Dave wondered if he hadn't just waited to get home before calling. Was he going to talk to him on the phone while driving? "Hang on. I'm putting you on speaker and into my phone mount."

"Alrighty." Dave answered, chuckling. It was always strange the way other people would talk as though you were there phone and say things like, I'm taking you to the kitchen with me while I cook. Though, admittedly, his brother did that more when they were on Skype together, rather than the phone.

"Okay. Gotcha. What have you been up to?" Kurt asked, and Dave could hear him starting up the car.

"Not much, actually. I'd say studying, but I didn't really get that done. I did play video games for a bit, though, and I got a few achievements." Dave confessed. No point in lying, really.

"Got a test coming up soon?" Kurt asked.

"Yep. Gonna fail it, I'm pretty sure." Dave answered nonchalantly. He wasn't entirely worried about this particular class, but he also didn't really want to bring his current GPA down. He liked it when it was sitting above a 3.5.

"What is it?"

"History."

"Any particular time period?"

"Nah. Covers from like... the fifteenth century until the present. It's not hard, just reading intensive. We have a test every two weeks over what we read. Usually a couple of chapters, but that's like... fifty pages." Dave explained.

"That sucks."

"Tell me about it."

"What are you majoring in, anyway? Did you end up going into sports management after all?" Kurt asked, curious. Dave laughed out loud, realizing that they really hadn't talked for a while now.

"Not even close." Dave chuckled.

"Really? Now I'm really curious. I mean, I remember you were pretty good at math."

"You do?" Dave asked, surprise coloring his voice. He hadn't expected Kurt to really remember anything personal that didn't have to do with their own problems.

"Mhm. You used to walk me to class, and you were always off to calculus. Way more than most of us could do."

"Ah, right. Yeah, I have a... gift for it. But my mom's super genius at it, so I had to be with it, or she'd have been disappointed."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"So what are you majoring in? You didn't say."

"Oh! Oh, um. Well. Um. Public and social services." Dave finally admitted, not really sure how Kurt was going to take that. Most people had no idea where that desire came from – unless, of course, it was his dad or brother – but it was something he had been intent on since after his last talk about the future with Kurt. Of course, Kurt's silence didn't really make him feel all that great about the choice. When it stretched on for a few seconds too long, he asked, "Kurt?"

"I'm here," Kurt said, absently. "Just thinking... why did you decide to go that route?"

"Well, my first choice was school administration, which I originally started attending school for. It was... mostly because... well, our situation... I feel like schools need stronger anti-bullying policies, you know? How else could I make that happen?"

"So, basically, you wanted to protect people from kids like you." Kurt said, and Dave audibly winced. "Kids, I said. You're not the person you were. I know that."

"I know. Still."

"Sorry."

"It's fine."

"So how'd you stem from that to social services?" Kurt asked.

"Well. I realized the problem starts with the one person, and if you can nip that problem before the bullying begins... not that I really see myself as some kind of savior, but I kinda get the signs, you know? I mean, I did it for long enough that I know what I'd be looking for. But then I realized that I just really want to help people as a whole so they don't hate themselves as much as I hated myself. You know?" Dave explained hastily, rambling along. He wasn't sure what he was looking for – if he was looking for anything at all. He just wanted to explain why he felt he should go that way.

"So you want to help people."

"Essentially, yes."

"Huh."

"What?"

"I guess I never really saw that."

"No, I guess not. It's kinda... you were a big part of it." Dave confessed.

"Really?" Kurt asked, amazed. "In what way?"

"The way that you were there for me, even after everything I did to you. I didn't deserve that, but you saw someone who was damaged and you may not have understood me fully, but you could understand what I was dealing with. You didn't let our history get in the way of you trying help me. You just wanted to help. I thought about that a lot when I finished out my senior year. I realized that I wanted to be that kind of person. The kind of person who helps others, regardless. I've never been that guy, but you made me want to be."

There was silence on the line again, and Dave knew that this time, Kurt needed the moment to think this over and come up with a response. He was dredging up old feelings, at least for himself, and he realized that their situation had never truly been water under the bridge. You couldn't just brush this sort of thing under the rug and pretend that everything was okay. They'd dealt with it properly, for the most part, but neither had really acknowledged – to one another, anyway – the impact it had made in their lives.

"I never realized that I made that much of a difference." Kurt said, finally, a soft sigh coming through the receiver. Dave wished that he could hear what Kurt was thinking. "It's kind of... empowering in a way, I guess, to know that I helped you find this really awesome ambition, but you were every bit a part of it, too, you know. You had to want the help for me to even be able to make a difference, and I really think that's the first part of it. You have to want to be helped in order to be helped, or else it's a futile attempt."

Dave thought on this for a moment, his mind drifting back to the incident in the locker room. He didn't like to let himself stray there; he'd always felt awful for doing that to Kurt – for taking something that wasn't really his. When he thought back on it, it had never been about any specific feelings for Kurt. He could never really pinpoint a reason for his action there, except that perhaps he was seeking some sort of validation from Kurt. Some sort of proof that.. yeah, he was gay, and just maybe Kurt could understand why he had been acting so horrifically. He had remembered reading about defense mechanisms like reaction formation, displacement, and sublimation and thinking that he had done those exact things, just for the sake of conformity and keeping the impression that he batted for the right team. Of course, at that point in time, he didn't realize that there was no right or wrong team – just that it was socially wrong for him to be who he actually was.

"Yeah, I guess so. It's a two-way street."

"Yeah."

A comfortable silence settled between them, and Dave could hear the normal sounds of driving in the background – horns honking, the sound of Kurt's turn signal, the soft pitter patter of rain on the outside of the car. The simple sounds were almost a lullaby to Dave, who had always found comfort in the sound of rain.

"Hey... David?" Kurt asked, hesitantly, breaking the silence.

"Hmmm?" Dave asked, somewhat drowsy.

"I don't think that I ever apologized for sharing your secret with Blaine."

Dave tried to recall if that particular event had ever happened – he remembered feeling betrayed by Kurt when both Kurt and Blaine approached him on the stairwell. He realized later – much, much later – that Kurt had probably just done so because he was overwhelmed, but he had still been hurt by it, in the beginning. He'd trusted Kurt with something so completely personal – though he didn't know why – and he had been completely beside himself with rage when he realized that Blaine also knew.

"I don't think so but that was really minor compared to everything I did to you."

"Not really, actually," Kurt sighed, and Dave could almost see him shaking his head. He heard the car door slam again and footsteps on pavement. The sound of jingling keys chimed through the receiver. "If someone had outed me without my permission, I'd have been upset, too. I can't even imagine how you must have felt knowing that I'd told someone."

"I've gotten over it, though. I mean, it took a while, but I finally got that it was a little heavy for you to handle on your own, plus you were probably pretty terrified of me. So... it made sense, when I thought about it later."

"I'm still sorry. It was a shitty thing to do."

Dave listened as a door opened and then... was that a lift? He couldn't be sure. He really had absolutely no idea what kind of area Kurt lived in or anything... That was probably going to be food for thought later. What was Kurt's life like in New York? Was it anything like his in Chicago? "I'm over it," Dave said with a shrug. "Anyway, how are you feeling?"

"Better, actually." Kurt admitted, and Dave could hear a hint of a smile in his voice. Dave felt completely and utterly lifted. Somehow, someway, he'd managed to do some good for Kurt. Perhaps, slowly, he could chip away at that massive debt he owed to him.

"Good." Dave said, grinning. He stood up from the desk, groaning a little, before moving over and collapsing on the bed. He was far too tired to do any reading anymore, and his current conversation probably wouldn't allow him the opportunity anyway. He would – no doubt – be dissecting and analyzing this conversation again and again. He listened to hushed voices as Kurt conversed with someone else in the apartment, choosing to ignore the obvious curiosity of another girl (who he assumed was probably Rachel).

"Sorry about that. She's so damn nosy."

"Rachel?" Dave asked.

"Rachel." Kurt confirmed, his voice expressing everything that he could say about her in that one word.

"By all means, don't let me cramp your style." Dave said, with a hint of laughter.

"Oh, no worries. I told her it was you. You should have seen her face," Kurt laughed into the receiver. "I'm sure it's enough to keep the rumor mills going for months."

"Oh god, your friends are going to start bugging me, aren't they?" Dave groaned, rubbing a hand over his face.

"Hey, you're the one that initiated this." Kurt reminded him.

"Yeah, well, I didn't realize you'd tell the whole world." Dave teased.

"I only told Rachel!" Kurt feigned offense.

"Which is practically telling the whole world."

"Fair enough. She does have a tendency to share."

"Mhhhmmm." Dave murmured, rolling his eyes at Kurt. He wondered if their conversations would have been like this in high school, if they had kept in touch after everything, or if it would have still be so strained between them. He had never really expected Kurt's friendship – after all, he'd never deserved it to begin with, but he often wondered what it would be like.

"Hey Dave?" Kurt asked, and it took Dave a few moments to realize that he had somehow moved from David to Dave.

"Yeah?" Dave asked, trying to conceal the confusion in his voice.

"Thanks for this. I really needed a friend."

"Any time, Kurt."