On Wednesday, Kurt woke up to an empty bed and the absence of delicious smells. He didn't think much about it until he was showered and downstairs in the kitchen, and realized Sarah was only now pulling milk and eggs out of the fridge and onto the counter.

"Noah owes me one," she grumbled. "This was not how I'd planned to spend this morning."

"I can help," Kurt offered. He got the big ceramic bowl out from the cupboard and a whisk from the container by the stove. "Did he leave early?"

"I have no idea, but he's obviously not here."

Kurt sighed and took a moment to text Puck a Where are you? There was no response, but he didn't really expect one.

"I'll talk to him at school. You know he's been under a lot of stress."

She gave him a sour look. "Since when do you make excuses for him?"

"Hey, did Noah say something about leaving early today?" he asked Finn when he came downstairs. Finn shook his head.

Ten minutes later, Carole joined them at the dinner table, holding an envelope with a worried expression. "Kids… you'd better take a look at this before I talk to Burt. I found this taped to the front door."

Finn unfolded the note inside and began to read:

Dear everyone,

I had this opportunity to go on vacation in Oregon with my dad. I think it's going to be good for me. It'll take a couple weeks in addition to travel, so I'll be gone a while. Shelby's going to take care of Beth. You don't have to worry about me, but I'll be out of touch, no cell phones or Internet. I'll miss you.

Love,

Puck (Noah)

"A couple weeks?" he said, raising his eyebrows. "What the hell? Did you know anything about this?"

"His father spoke to us about him going on a retreat with his synagogue, but we didn't have any solid plans. So no messages from him, no texts? I didn't call him yet, or Aaron."

Kurt clutched the note in his hands, shaking his head as he read it over again. "Carole, Noah didn't write that."

"It does look like his handwriting, Kurt…" she began, but he shook his head again, more vehemently.

"No. I mean — yes, that's his handwriting, but — he doesn't know how to spell half of those words. Somebody else must have told him what to write."

Finn gave him an incredulous look. "Really? You think Puck would let anybody make him write anything?"

"What's going on?" Sarah grabbed the letter and read it, but she just shrugged and handed it back to Carole. "Sounds like my dad. He's the king of spontaneous. Don't worry about it."

"Sarah, I don't know where your brother is or what he's doing!" Carole protested. "Of course I'm going to worry."

"He's freaking out and taking off, just like before," Finn said. He pushed his plate of eggs away in disgust. "I should have expected this, with the way he's been avoiding all of us."

"No," said Kurt. "He promised me, just a few days ago. He promised me he wouldn't run away. That's not what's happening."

Carole put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "All right, everybody, there's no sense in getting worked up over something when we don't have all the facts. I'll make some phone calls today and figure it out. Don't bother your father with this, Kurt, do you understand? He doesn't need more stress. I'll talk to him."

Finn drove to school with Kurt. He looked as unsettled by the situation as Kurt felt.

"I didn't notice," said Finn. "If he was getting ready to run. I haven't been paying very close attention to him. Did he tell you about this retreat thing?"

"No, but I bet he wouldn't, not if it was organized by his dad's synagogue. He knew I didn't like how much time he was spending there."

Finn shifted in his seat. "I don't know, Kurt. I kind of think they've been getting him to be more responsible, not less."

Kurt looked at him in horror. "You're taking their side?"

"Whose side are you talking about? Kurt, we have no idea what's going on. I'm with Sarah. We should be doing something."

"I don't know if there's anything we can do other than wait."

"More waiting." Finn's brow was set in a hard line. "This sucks."

Kurt tightened his hands on the steering wheel, hunching forward in frustration. "I hate being out of control. No phone, no Internet with Noah, for a few weeks? It's just as bad as it is with Blaine."

"At least with Blaine we know where he is."

"I talked to Dave about going to see him. Last week, in the hospital." Finn looked up quickly, but Kurt shook his head. "He said no. I didn't really expect anything else. But he did suggest we try Santana. She's his oldest friend. She'd be able to tell if anything was really off."

"Yeah, I guess she is? Like you and Britt were friends growing up. That's so weird." Finn shrugged halfheartedly. "I can talk to her."

"So what do we do today?"

"I think we just pretend everything is normal until we know more."

It was clearly a wholly unsatisfying decision, but Kurt couldn't see any other way around it. He parked the car, then took Finn's hand and squeezed it.

"At the beginning of the year, I sent Blaine texts saying courage in the middle of the day, to help him feel better about going back to school."

That made Finn smile. "Yeah, he probably loved that. It's not exactly what I need in the middle of the day, though."

"What do you —" Kurt choked off the question at Finn's smoldering look. "Oh. Uh."

Finn leaned over to claim a kiss from him, one that was longer and hotter than was probably appropriate for the school parking lot, but Kurt wasn't objecting. He heard himself make several squeaky noises into Finn's mouth.

"Yeah."

They pulled apart, looking at each other with expressions that were now more evenly matched.

"Maybe we could meet upstairs for a date before fifth period, like we used to? Would that be too hard, without Noah?"

"That would be awesome," Finn said quietly. "And, yeah, hard, but worth it, I think."

Pretending turned out to be harder than Finn had anticipated when he got a text from his mother in the middle of the morning.

1 text - Carole Hudson
9:16 AM: All I've uncovered are more questions, Finn. I'm making calls this morning and I'll let you know as soon as I know anything. Hang in there.

Finn decided it wouldn't hurt to ask a few questions himself. He started in the office, but Figgins' new secretary wouldn't tell him more than Noah Puckerman is absent today.

He used Puck's locker combination to ransack Puck's things between classes. Under a completely disgusting pair of old sneakers and his untouched American government textbook, he found a brochure for Adventure Camp in Terrebonne, Oregon. He tucked it into his backpack to show to Kurt later.

Coach Beiste was as irritated as he was by Puck's unexplained departure. "Now I'm going to have to reorganize all our plays," she said, glaring at nothing in particular. "Clearly we need to work on his commitment to the team."

Finally, Finn sucked up his discomfort and went to talk to Ms. Pillsbury. She made a strange face when she saw him at her door, and beckoned for him to come in.

"Finn, what's happening with Noah?" she asked.

"I was coming to ask you the same thing." He explained the letter they'd found that morning and his mom's text. Ms. Pillsbury listened with a mounting expression of worry.

"Well, I only know that Principal Figgins has been on the phone with somebody for the last twenty minutes. Earlier, he left me a note saying he wanted to talk to me about Noah, but not what it was about."

"I guess I could call Shelby? He said she was going to take care of Beth. He wouldn't leave town without telling her where he was going to be." Even as he said it, he wondered if that were true.

"You should go to class, Finn. There's nothing you can do right now. I'll come find you and Kurt if we learn anything."

The longer the day went on without answers, the more convinced Finn became that he had done something seriously wrong to provoke Puck into leaving. He was so distracted that he walked right by Karofsky and Azimio catcalling Rachel in the hallway without responding.

"I can't believe you!" she exclaimed, running after him in annoyance. "I thought we'd agreed to stand up for one another?"

"I'm sorry, Rach," he sighed. He paused in the hall and hugged her with one arm. "I'm having a hard day. I wasn't paying attention."

She was immediately smiling again. "You know, I'm sorry, too. It's easy to forget I don't need to be so sensitive. After all, you believe in me. And you apologize when you're wrong. That's really important."

For once, Finn was glad Rachel hadn't asked what was bothering him. He took out his phone every chance he got to check his messages, but there were no texts or calls. More than once, he had the urge to text Carl, but he didn't really want to bother him in the middle of the day.

On his way up to the attic, he heard Dave call in a belligerent voice, "Hey, Hudson."

He steeled himself and turned to face him. "What."

Dave drew up close to him, glaring at him. Then, in an undertone, he asked, "What's going on?"

Finn maintained his annoyed expression, but he didn't hesitate to respond. Whatever had happened to make him trust Dave Karofsky, he wasn't exactly sure, but apparently he did. "Puck's gone. We're trying to figure out what's up, but nobody has any answers."

Dave flickered his eyes at the staircase behind Finn, the one that nobody used other than them. "Kurt up there?"

Now he did hesitate. This was supposed to be our date, he whined to himself. But he nodded.

Dave pushed past him, giving him a good visible shoulder-check in the process, and headed up the stairs. Finn leaned against the wall, closing his eyes and letting out a very real sigh.

"This is so stupid."

"Of all the things in the world that are stupid, I'm sure I couldn't guess which one you're talking about."

He opened his eyes to see Lauren beside him on the wall. She held what looked like a book wrapped in a sweater with a button on the end.

"Did your book get cold?" he said, nodding at the package.

She looked puzzled, then smirked, unbuttoning the sweater to slide a laptop out the end. "Felted laptop sleeve," she said. "Sarah made it for me. It's the next big thing, you should ask her for one."

"I don't have a laptop."

"No idea how you keep up with all your people without one?"

He swallowed, willing himself to keep it together. Of all the occasions to begin crying in the hallway at school, in the middle of a conversation with Lauren Zizes was one of the least convenient.

"I seem to be down to three," he said, as steadily as he could. Maybe two.

He felt a gentle warm pressure on his shoulder. Lauren was leaning against him.

"That sucks," she said, way more kindly than he'd expected.

He attempted a smile. "Hey, that's more than most people have."

"Does not diminish the suck. Although your existing people might be able to distract you sufficiently to make it a little better. Speaking of, I haven't seen your hot subby friend around today?"

"Yeah, he's… we don't really know where he is," Finn admitted. "That's supposed to be a secret, by the way. I'm doing a crappy job of keeping it."

She gave him a chiding look that reminded him distinctly of Irene — which made sense, in a way, considering Irene was Lauren's mentor. "I hope you know me well enough to know I don't tell people shit."

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Supposedly he's out west on a retreat. I guess at this place in Oregon called Adventure Camp, run by his dad's church. Synagogue, whatever. He's with his dad."

Lauren frowned. "This is the asshole who drank a lot and beat up on them when they were kids? Yeah, Sarah tells me stuff. You think he's worth trusting?"

"Puck seems to think so. He's been spending a lot of time with him."

"You get to disagree. In fact, from what I understand about your relationship, I would say you specifically should lay down the law if you disagree."

Finn shook his head. "We've had trouble with that in the past. I try not to control his actions anymore."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself. But yeah, if he's not calling back, you don't really have much else you can do. He's not going anywhere, though. I mean, not for good. He has a daughter."

Finn thought about that, nodding. It actually did calm him to remember that Puck had a reason to come back, other than himself and Kurt. "Yeah, good point."

He decided Dave and Kurt had had enough time to talk. Lauren didn't appear to be offended when he walked away with little more than a distracted nod. He wasn't thinking much about others at the moment. It didn't occur to him, for example, that he might consider knocking before entering the attic room.

Kurt was crying quietly by the window, and Dave was standing beside him. He wasn't even touching Kurt, but as soon as the door opened, he leapt back with a look of startled panic.

"Oh — hey, sorry," said Finn, pausing in the doorway. Red-faced Dave wasn't making eye contact with him, so he looked to Kurt. "I can go?"

"No," said Kurt, sniffing, and wiped his eyes. "I'm okay. I should know better than to try to talk about Noah when things are so uncertain."

"I'm just saying —"

"It's fine," Dave cut in roughly. He looked like he was going to take off any moment.

Given the choice to keep Dave there or give him an out, Finn would normally have chosen the latter. But his conversation with Lauren was on his mind. He wasn't at all sure he'd made the right decision with Puck, and the last thing he wanted was another person running out on Kurt. So he came into the room and closed the door behind him.

Dave stood where he was and stared past him at the handle of the door, his breathing a little uneven.

"It's fine," Finn echoed, keeping his voice very quiet. He waited until Dave shifted his balance, and said it again. "It's fine."

Dave paused, then looked up at him and nodded. They both relaxed a fraction.

"I was thinking," Finn went on, still speaking calmly and quietly, "doesn't Puck's phone have a tracker thingie in it?"

"A GPS chip," said Kurt, looking up with hope. "Right? Does that work if the phone is turned off?"

"The police should be able to triangulate the location unless he took the battery out," said Dave.

"But why would the police agree to trace his phone at all?" Finn shook his head. "He's with his dad. His legal, actual dad. I doubt anybody's going to care that he took Puck out of school for a couple weeks."

"I guess you could try."

Finn unzipped his backpack and got out the flyer for Adventure Camp. He handed it to Kurt. "I found this in Puck's locker."

"Yes, he said Oregon." Kurt skimmed it quickly, then a second time more thoroughly.

Dave gestured at the door, eyeing Finn, who was still standing in his way. "I've got to get to calculus."

"Yeah, we'd better go, too." Kurt went over and opened the door, letting Dave go first. Once he disappeared around the corner of the stairwell, Finn put a hand on Kurt's arm.

"Sorry to screw that up."

Kurt shrugged. "It's not up to you to change who we are to suit him. I'm not going to coddle him, no matter how skittish he is about having me as a friend. He can deal with us as we are, Finn, and part of that means we get our own space to do things the way we want to do them."

He let the door fall shut. Then he moved his body in close against Finn's, edging him up against the wall and kissing him full on the mouth. Finn made a surprised noise, but he kissed Kurt right back. They paused after a few moments, but neither one moved away.

"We really do have to get going if we don't want to be tardy," said Finn.

"I know," said Kurt.

This time when he kissed Finn, Kurt slid his hands under Finn's shirt, finding his nipples with his thumbs. Finn chuckled.

"So we're not going to Glee?"

"We can be a minute late." His hands had made it to Finn's back and were heading lower.

"After school."

"You have football." It wasn't a whiny voice, just matter-of-fact. He gripped Finn's ass and pulled their hips together. "We have seven minutes before the bell. We can do a lot in seven minutes."

Finn gathered up Kurt's hands and drew them out of his clothes, kissing them one at a time. "Not if we're going to do the things I want to do. That's going to take a lot more than seven minutes. After football. After dinner."

Kurt sighed. "Promise?"

"You're going to have to trust me. I'm not going anywhere."

Apparently, Finn and Kurt shouldn't have worried, because when they got to the choir room, Mr. Schue still hadn't arrived. They'd also apparently managed to keep Puck's situation an actual secret for the entire day, because nobody said anything to them other than, "So where's Puckerman?"

"I don't know," Finn said, which was the truth. He left Kurt to sit in the back with Mercedes and settled next to Rachel in the front row.

They didn't have to wait long. Mr. Schue arrived, looking worried.

"Sorry I'm late," he said. "I was with Principal Figgins. Bad news, guys. Puckerman's in juvie."

There was a stunned silence.

"What did he do?" Quinn demanded.

Mr. Schue sighed. "He drove his dad's truck through the front of a convenience store and drove off with the ATM."

Finn sat there with his mouth open amid a chorus of derisive commentary. He turned to look at Kurt, who shook his head in confusion, because this scenario was even less likely than Puck taking off for a couple of weeks with his dad.

"Guys!" called Mr. Schue. "Let's have some sympathy. He just lost his mom, and he's trying to raise a kid on his own."

"His choice," Quinn muttered. "Obviously he can't even manage that without screwing up."

Rachel turned around and faced Kurt. "And when is he getting out?"

"Unknown," Kurt managed.

She huffed her annoyance. "And you guys were furious at me for putting my needs before the team's. We need his voice, and his… his bad-boy stage presence."

Finn could barely focus on the rest of class, smiling in a vague sort of way as Mr. Schue introduced Sam Evans as their newest member and lectured them about duets. All he could think about was Puck. Why would he have taken off alone if it wasn't to get away from something?

Before he knew it, Rachel was facing him, talking a mile a minute.

"Okay, I have some ideas, but I want to make sure you're part of this decision. After all, great duets are like a great marriage. The singers complement each other, push each other to be better. Don't you think so?"

"I — yeah, of course. What?" He turned his head to see Kurt talking quietly to Mercedes. Rachel patted his cheek to get him to refocus on her.

"The duet competition. What do you think we should sing?"

He got to his feet. "I'm sorry, Rach, I can't think about this right now. I have to — there's football practice."

"Finn, Glee isn't over for another twenty minutes!" she called, but he was already out the door, digging for his phone. Kurt came through the door to join him a few moments later, but Finn held out a hand, waiting for his mom to pick up.

"Just — don't say anything yet. Either my mom will know something, or we can tell her about what Mr. Schue said."

Kurt clutched his arms to his own sides, pacing along the empty hallway. "I can't believe this. There's no way he stole an ATM, Finn!"

He sighed in exasperation as his mom's phone went to voice mail. "She must still be on the phone. I'll text her."

"Guys?" Mr. Schue appeared in the choir room doorway. His own concerned expression wasn't at all reassuring. "Can I… do you need anything?"

"A little clarity," Kurt muttered. Then, louder, he said, "No, thanks. Is it okay if we deal with this?"

"Are you telling me this was a surprise to you, too?"

"Mr. Schue, please," Kurt snapped. "I don't know what to tell you yet."

Mr. Schue looked a little taken aback, but he just nodded and withdrew, closing the door behind him. Finn beckoned for Kurt to follow him.

"Ms. Pillsbury. She's on our side and she knows the most, and she'll have connections. She can talk to the police."

She was already on the phone when they arrived at her office, but she let them in immediately, finishing her call in an undertone. Kurt leapt in as soon as she hung up.

"Tell me Noah isn't really in juvenile detention, Ms. Pillsbury."

"From what we can tell, no," she said. "That report came from another source, but so far, we have not been able to find any evidence he's being held in any facility in Allen County."

"Another source? You mean —"

"I mean I can't tell you," she said gently. "You're not legally entitled to know."

Kurt looked like he might be about to cry, or possibly scream at her. Finn glanced behind them through the big glass window that led to the hallway to confirm they were alone before grasping Kurt's knee and holding it firmly. That seemed to calm him down.

He took a deep breath. "What can you tell us?"

"Probably no more than you already know, Finn. I'm sorry." She really did look sorry. "We don't know anything about an ATM theft in the area. I'm in contact with Noah and Sarah's case worker, Julia, and the local police. I just spoke with Shelby Corcoran. She said Noah mentioned an adventure camp last week, but he didn't tell her dates or anything more than that. She'll keep Beth with her until Noah returns."

Finn took the brochure out of his bag and handed it over to Ms. P. "This was in his locker."

She looked it over, her face brightening. "This will help. Thank you, Finn."

Even in the midst of the confusion over Puck, Finn couldn't help but think how weird it was to be sitting across the desk from Carl's girlfriend. He felt a wave of envy. She gets to go home to him.

Football practice was equally weird, with everyone complaining about Puck's absence. Nobody had much of a filter in football, but for once, Finn didn't feel like he had the right to tell them not to talk like that.

When they took a break, Coach Beiste paused beside him at the water cooler and said, "You want to go home early?"

"I don't know," Finn said.

She raised an eyebrow. "Hmm. Sounds like you need a visit to the dentist."

He spluttered on his cup of water, coughing. "Coach!" he protested.

"Hey, I know what it looks like when a kid needs somebody to make decisions for him." She gave him a meaningful nod. "You know he would handle it."

"I can't." Finn looked around the field nervously, lowering his voice. "He's not doing that for me right now."

"That's pretty obvious," she said sourly. "You want to be a good leader, Finn, you need to take good care of yourself first."

"I know, but it's not as simple as that. I can't have what I want, and —" He paused as Sam came over to the cooler, filling up his water bottle.

"What, just because you can't have what you want, you don't take what you can have?" She crossed her arms with a disapproving frown. "Sounds pretty selfish to me. Especially when it's not all about you. You give everything you can to take care of the people you're responsible for. Sometimes that means doing hard things." She put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Sam knows all about that."

Sam looked a little startled to be named. He glanced over at Finn. "Uh, Coach, he doesn't —"

"Yeah, he does. Finn gets it." She looked at both of them and grinned. "I'm not going to out either of you. Just know you've got some things in common. Maybe you should sit down and talk."

Finn and Sam stared at each other, then looked back at Beiste, who was still grinning.

"Okay?" said Sam. He shrugged. "Good to know."

Finn wasn't at all sure that exchange hadn't counted as "outing," but he tried to put it out of his mind as they finished practice. As though he needed more things on his mind.

He did mention it to Kurt when he got home as they helped Sarah put dinner together.

"I think that Sam might be playing for our team," he said. "Not football."

"I do know what that means, Finn," Sarah called, ladling sauce over the lasagna noodles. "You can just say he's gay."

"Well, I don't know if that's exactly right. I just know that Coach Beiste said we have some things in common."

Kurt nodded to himself. "I knew that hair had to be a sign. Straight boys don't bleach their hair. I'll talk to him tomorrow."

Burt had been banished to the couch with strict instructions not to come in the kitchen. They brought the food out to him on tray tables, setting up in front of the couch, and told Burt what little they'd discovered about Puck's whereabouts while they ate.

"Seems like there's not much to do," said Burt with a sigh. "I mean, once we're sure where he is, we just wait for him to come home. Beth's taken care of. He's gonna miss some school, but I think at this point, it's not a crisis anymore."

"Yeah," Kurt said slowly. He looked up at Burt. "Except… he promised me, dad. He said he wouldn't run away, for any reason."

"This doesn't seem much like running, Kurt. Don't get me wrong, I wish he'd told us where he was gonna be and when, but it'll be okay." He shook his head. "The only thing that got to me was the juvie story. Why'd his dad bother with that? He could have just said, I'm taking my son out of school for a few weeks. I don't think they would have been able to tell him no."

"You're trying to think with logic," said Sarah. They all turned to look at her, calmly perched on the edge of the new tan couch, her leg swinging beneath her. "That's not how my dad works. It's not how Noah works, either. They've both got their own reasons for doing stuff. You can try to think like them, but I usually think it's better not to try. Just trust they'll be okay."

"Parents aren't all that logical, either," Burt told her with a little tired smile. "It's not that parents don't trust their kids. We just worry about the least likely things, the stuff the kids won't think about."

"I think about everything," Sarah said stoutly. Burt grinned, tugging on her arm until she slipped down off the edge and onto the couch beside him. He put an arm around her.

"You miss him?" he asked.

She shrugged, leaning her head on his shoulder. "Not yet. He's gone all the time, anyway."

"I miss him," Kurt said. "Already."

Finn could hear what he wasn't saying. I miss everyone.

They ate in gloomy silence. When his mom got home from work and joined them, she had little to offer that they didn't already know.

"The school seemed to think he'd been arrested," she said. "But the police didn't know anything about that. I think his dad made it up as an excuse for not being at school." She made a face. "Which sounds crazy. I called the Adventure Camp phone number and left a message on their machine. So that's all we can do."

Burt nodded. "I hope he has a good time."

"At religious camp?" Kurt rolled his eyes. "I can't imagine."

"It doesn't have to be your idea of a good time, Kurt. This is for Puck."

While his mom ate, Finn and Kurt did the dishes and cleaned up. Finn waited for Kurt to get to the point of being finished in the kitchen, the way Puck always did, but Kurt just moved from counter to counter, adjusting things, looking more and more agitated. Finally Finn went over and took his arm.

"We're done here," he said. "Come on."

He led Kurt upstairs to his own room — Kurt always felt more comfortable surrounded by his things, sleeping on his own high thread-count sheets, under his own duvet — and gave him a little nudge into the bathroom.

"You're not getting up once I've got you down. Do your skin stuff. Then you're going to call Adam."

Kurt obeyed immediately. That made Finn feel even worse for not following through on what Coach Beiste had told him to do, but just because he felt bad didn't mean it wasn't going to change anything. No matter how much he knew it would help, or how much he wanted to, he wasn't going to call Carl.

Instead, he sat on the bed and looked at the brochure for Puck's Adventure Camp. The photos did look pretty great, even better than the hiking trip he'd taken with Puck that summer. He wondered if they had arrived yet. It was a long drive to Oregon.

Kurt came out, towel-drying his hair, and sat at his vanity table, systematically opening each tub and tube of cream and laying them out in order. The shower hadn't calmed him down much. He looked longingly at the copy of The Golden Mean on his nightstand.

"We didn't finish the third book," Kurt said. "We could have. It was here, all along, and… we didn't. I don't know why we didn't."

"It didn't feel important?" Finn moved to sit beside him on the edge of the bed. "We can do it when he gets back. It won't be forever."

"I know. It's not a crisis. It just feels like one." He set the tub of cream down on the table and sighed. "Why did he leave without calling? Just one call."

"He didn't call when he went to Santa Fe, either."

"But that letter? That wasn't Noah, Finn. He doesn't say those things. I had this opportunity…?"

"So his dad helped him. That's good, right, that he's letting his dad help?"

Kurt's head bowed, and his arms slid around himself to hold his elbows. Finn quickly shifted to kneel behind him, holding him tight in his arms as he started crying.

"It's not good," he said between sobs. "I can't tell you why it's not, but it's not. He feels as gone as — as — "

"As Blaine," Finn whispered. Kurt hunched in further on himself, nodding, and Finn nodded too. "Yeah. I know what you mean. Can you leave the face stuff until tomorrow?"

"No, I have to finish it." Gradually Kurt unfolded himself, sniffing, and blew his nose before resuming his routine. Finn knew better than to insist, but he did stay close, putting strong pressure on his shoulders.

"Blaine's not gone forever, either."

Kurt sounded bitter. "We don't know that. Being apart, it can make people forget."

"You know Blaine didn't forget Puck, not for nine whole months. He's not going to forget Puck now, or you." Or me. He's part of me. Like other people. "Come on. Let me help you with this."

Kurt gave him the most offended look, but Finn just laughed and took the cream out of his hand, spreading a little on his nose. Kurt spluttered, waving him away.

"It doesn't go on my nose, Finn!"

"You'd think I'd know this stuff by now," he said. Kurt frowned like he was trying not to smile.

"You do know. You're just trying to make me laugh. It won't work."

"Baby," said Finn, as gently as he could, looking into his eyes. "Are you going to let me help?"

Kurt reclaimed the cream from Finn's hand and took a deep breath. "I'll do this part. When I'm done, you can help me in… other ways."

"I'm glad I'm good at something."

"You are," Kurt said fervently. "You're the best at a lot of things."

"Puck does the foot rubs, and the cooking. I get to read with you, and… what else?"

"Make me think. And be my bed."

Finn laughed out loud. "Be your what?"

"My — you know. You're like a couch. Warm and comfortable beneath me." Now Kurt was smiling. "You hold me up."

"Huh." He felt a warm bloom of pleasure inside at that thought. "I like that. You do that for me, too, you know. I love how we are together, you and me."

Kurt nodded. "I have to say, it's become clear to me that duets aren't really my thing? But apparently you're my exception."

Finn felt the pleasure erupt onto his face in an astonished smile. "Baby… do you want to sing your duet with me?"

"I —" Kurt stared back at him. His face under the cream was flushed. "Finn, we can't. I mean, yes, please, but… you know what my dad said about Sarah's adoption. I already messed things up enough by outing Noah."

"We could just do it for the people who know already, right? It doesn't have to be for anybody else." He squeezed Kurt's shoulder. "All this hiding and pretending… it's kind of getting to me. It would be nice to have something we could do that was about us."

Kurt hesitated, but then he nodded carefully. "That would be even better than date night," he said.

"We can have one of those, too." Now that my calendar is suddenly a lot less full.

They discussed possible duet numbers while Kurt finished his face care regimen. By the time Kurt dialed Adam's number, he was already looking more settled.

"I think cuffs tonight," said Finn, "and the suede flogger."

Kurt's grateful smile flashed up at him from under his damp bangs. "Yes, sir."

He went back through the bathroom to his own room to give Kurt some privacy. Puck didn't need it when he talked to Adam, but Kurt preferred it.

Even without having had sex or doing anything physical, Finn felt better. Kurt needed him. He could do things for Kurt that no one else could do. It occurred to him that maybe that was what Rachel needed from him, too — to know there were things about their relationship that were special.

But planning a duet with Kurt makes me feel better, he thought, brushing his teeth, and planning one with Rachel makes me feel worse. He wondered, if what he and Rachel had was musical chemistry, why that would be true.