(Author's note: This is where Sarah makes her second of three stupid decisions in the course of the Donutverse. The first one was taking off at the end of Waking Dreams. You'll know the third one when it happens. This decision sets off a whole series of equally stupid decisions, one of which won't come to fruition for several chapters. At least they've got people like Irene and the Coach to look out for them. Just chant the Donutverse mantra and hang in there. Some heavy quoting from the end of 2x05 Rocky Horror Glee Show, because the scene with Emma and Will is completely perfect the way it is. -amy)
Kurt ignored the vibrating ring on his phone the first and second time, but by the third he decided to sit up and look at his phone's screen. It made him frown. "Finn…"
"What is it?" Finn moved in close beside him to look with him.
"It's Lauren. She left two messages." Kurt played each voice mail, pressing the Speaker button so Finn could hear them too.
"Kurt," she said. "I got a call from Sarah. She says she's hitchhiking along I-80 toward Oregon. She has a plan to get Puck out of that Adventure Camp place. Would you let me know if you hear anything from her? I'm her friend, not her Domme, and she's a brilliant badass kid, but I still don't like the idea of leaving her out there to deal with the world alone. Catch you later."
"Oh, my god." Finn was on his feet, heading for the door.
"Hang on," said Kurt, his voice tense. "There's another one."
"Me again. I just talked to Sarah, she's west of Fort Wayne and she's fine, but when she asked me to promise not to tell you where she was, I told her I already had, so I don't think I'll be getting any more updates. I'm pretty sure she's heading to that place in Iowa where she stayed this summer, the one with the horses, I won't say the name of it here but I think you know where I mean. For what it's worth, I told her she she could just call you directly and that would be more convenient. Who knows, maybe you'll get a call. I'll be in touch."
"Tessera?" Finn said.
"No doubt," Kurt murmured. His eyes were a million miles away.
"I'm going to tell Mom and Burt."
Kurt nodded. His phone was already to his ear, his expression stormy. Finn could hear him leaving a message as he made his way down the hall to the stairs. "Sarah, this is your brother Kurt. As in someone you are supposed to confide in before you leave town. I really thought you knew this by now. If you call me and tell me where you are, I'll feel a lot better, but you're still in deep shit with me and Finn. The best chance you have of getting out of this alive is if you call my dad right now and tell him you were wrong. He absolutely loves that. We all love you, Sarah, and we're going to get Noah back in one piece, but you can't just…"
At first, when he told her where Sarah was, Finn thought his mother hadn't heard him. She just stared at him while Burt grabbed the phone and started dialing.
"Hitchhiking?" Burt muttered. "That's a good way to get yourself killed. What was she thinking?"
Finn knew the answer to that. It was the same thing he'd been thinking for days: I have to do something. But the wild look in his mom's eyes made him keep his thoughts to himself.
"Kurt's leaving her a message," he said.
"Good. Okay." Burt rubbed a hand over his forehead as he reached for his mom's hand. She took it, still looking shellshocked, while Finn remained in the doorway, feeling uncertain.
"I'll — go check in with Kurt," he said. Neither of them responded.
Kurt got up when Finn returned to his room. "She hasn't called back yet." He looked just as worried as Finn felt. Finn immediately moved to stand beside him, wrapping his arms around him.
"I'm not sure if this is going to help much," he said.
"No, no, it's good. I know she's smart, and she's always taken care of herself? But I just can't stop thinking about her out there, alone on the interstate, and — she's not even twelve." Tears overwhelmed his words. Finn squeezed him harder.
Everybody's leaving, Finn wanted to whine, but he knew that really wouldn't help anything.
"Okay," he said at last, and took a deep breath. "I think we need to call — everybody. Everybody who knows something about Sarah and Puck and what's going on, so we can figure something out, together. Can you call Lauren and ask her to come over? I'm going to call Holly. She's been talking to Sarah. And Frances, we need to talk to her."
"And Jake," said Kurt, nodding. "And Jake's mother. That's where she was supposed to be going tonight, right? Visiting them in Mansfield."
It turned out his mom had already called Jake's mother. They were on the phone when Kurt and Finn came downstairs to tell them about Finn's idea.
"Circle the wagons," said his mom. She was standing now, pacing back and forth across the kitchen. "Yes. That's what we did last time when Sarah took off, right?" She cast an appeal at Burt. "Except now she's in another state."
"Tanisha's at the police station already, and she says she can put out an alert for her," Burt said, holding the phone away from his mouth. "And they can track Sarah's phone as long as it's on."
Lauren arrived quickly enough that Finn was surprised when he answered the doorbell and found her standing on the porch.
"Thanks for inviting me over," she said.
"Well, yeah, of course. You're her friend. She doesn't have too many people like that."
Frances seemed to be even more anxious about Sarah's disappearance than Kurt. "She didn't tell me anything other than that she was on her way to find her brother," she told Finn, "but if she calls I'll call you right back. Do you think she's okay?"
"Yeah, of course," he said, trying to sound reassuring for her sake. He stood there, listening to her crying on the phone, and wondering what he should do. "Do you want to come over?"
"Um… no. No thank you," she amended immediately. "I don't want to be in the way. Can you please call me if you learn anything?"
Lauren's presence in the living room with Kurt and his mom and Burt was strangely calming. He didn't really think about why that might be until he realized Burt and his mom were arguing about plane tickets.
"We can't just take off," Burt argued. "Not before we have any answers."
"But we know where she's going," said his mom. She was still pacing. "We have that money saved for… that money. If we get tickets right now, we can be in Oregon by tomorrow, before she gets there."
"Carole, be reasonable. She could be going anywhere." Burt looked kind of helpless and uncertain himself, and when his mom glared at him, he shrank back a little.
"I don't want to wait and find out too late that Sarah was in some kind of trouble and we could have stopped it!"
"Mom!" Finn tightened his grip on the couch cushions. She gave him a swift, distracted frown. He could feel the way she was watching him, as if she was daring him to overstep. It felt incredibly familiar.
"She said Tessera was on the way," Lauren said. "She and Lydia drove there this summer, so she should know how to get there."
"Yes." Carole nodded, looking hopeful for the first time. "We should go there first. It's only a seven hour drive."
"And maybe it would make sense to have somebody stay here while you're gone," Lauren went on, speaking calmly. "Not like Finn and Kurt aren't old enough to stay alone, but… to make sure they have an adult on hand, just in case. Someone you trust."
There was a long enough silence that Lauren's penciled brows went up.
"Somebody like Irene, maybe?" she said, obviously giving up on subtlety.
Carole stared at her like she didn't quite understand how the word Irene could be coming out of Lauren's mouth. Then she made a little "oh" noise, and looked quickly at Burt. He was nodding thoughtfully.
"That could work," he said. "You really think she could get away from work?"
Finn watched with dawning understanding as his mom's face flooded with relief. What he'd seen just then, that had been his mom, losing her shit. It was such an unusual occurrence that Finn hadn't even realized what was going on. But Lauren had.
He took a moment later, after his mom had called Irene, to take Lauren aside.
"That was interesting. The way you handled my mom."
"I didn't do anything," she said. "She figured it out herself once she had a second to breathe."
"Whatever. It was your idea." He tilted his head. "Does Irene talk about my mom?"
Lauren's lip twisted. "Don't think that's any of your business, hot stuff."
Finn was pretty sure that meant yes, but he wasn't going to push it, because she was right; it wasn't his business. But he was relieved just the same when his mom reported back that Irene had said yes, and that she would come to the house first thing in the morning.
While Carole called Tess, Kurt spent most of the rest of the evening fussing over Burt's diet, which Finn recognized as Kurt needing to be in charge of something. Burt didn't object, and on some level Finn guessed Burt realized this was what Kurt needed to maintain his own equilibrium in the face of crisis.
When Holly called to conference-call with his mom and Burt, Lauren headed for the door.
"I'll let you know if I hear anything," she told Kurt, and accepted his hug with a grave expression. "You know I'm on Sarah's side about most stuff, but this was a stupid move, and I think she probably knows it was. I'm guessing cry for help more than begging for a spanking, but… it's a close call."
"She's just a kid," Finn protested. "Nobody's going to spank her."
Lauren looked amused. "You really think Sarah's just a kid? Come on, you were around for most of the stuff she went through when she was younger. The things she's seen, she never really had a childhood."
"All the more reason she gets to have one now," said Kurt stubbornly. "Even if that means she's regressing. My dad didn't spank me when I was a kid, and I'm not about to do that to my sister."
"Did I ask you to?" Lauren was already on her way down the porch steps to her truck. "I'll be in touch."
Kurt shivered, rubbing his arms unhappily as he watched her go. "I hope Sarah find a place to stay tonight."
"Like Lauren said, she's resourceful. You can call her again before bed."
Finn folded Kurt into his arms, but he was pretty clear the contact wasn't helping. That didn't feel good at all. If Sarah felt like she had to be the one to lead the charge to recover her brother, Finn knew that meant he wasn't doing nearly enough.
"I want to do more," he said. Kurt shifted in his arms and sighed.
"You're doing everything you can."
"That's not true," Finn insisted. "I've just been holding back because I didn't know what to do. I should know by now that that's never a good decision for me."
Kurt looked up at him with one eye. "What do you think you should be doing instead?"
His solution was too nebulous for him to share it with Kurt yet, but watching his mom hurry to pack her suitcase made his goal more clear. Sarah's not going to be able to get to him — but I could. He's my responsibility. I have to go after Puck myself.
When Irene pulled up in the driveway at eight-thirty, Carole made a concerted effort to remain where she was and focus on digging out every last root of straggling weeds out of the side bed. Irene could take her time. It wasn't Irene's fault that Carole had so much trouble keeping her attention on — well, anything — when she was around.
"Isn't it a little late in the season to be doing that?"
Carole nodded and squinted up at Irene, standing in silhouette in the path of the morning sun. "It's been warm this week. I think I can get another few weeks out of these mums before they're done blooming for the year."
She crouched down beside Carole, and reached out with careful fingers to caress one of the orange blossoms. "You've always had a knack for making flowers do what you wanted them to do."
Carole could have brought up Irene's meticulously sculpted bonsai collection, but she just nodded. "Well, maybe I'm a little sentimental, but Blaine planted most of these. Finn and Sarah did the landscaping, but almost all of the rest was Blaine. We couldn't keep him out of the dirt this summer. He put in all those marigolds along the west side." She paused, smiling to herself. "I miss that kid."
"I miss him, too. I see him most weekends, still, but… it's not entirely him. We only get pieces of what's left."
The words made Carole shiver, even though the October morning was warm. "I wish there was something we could do for him."
Irene sat back onto the grass. "You're taking care of a whole hell of a lot of people already."
"Finn tends to collect them," she said, and Irene let out a quiet laugh. "Puck… he's been part of our family for a long time. And of course we're not going to let Sarah run off like this."
"You're going after her without knowing where she's headed?" The lines in her forehead deepened. "Sounds like a wild goose chase."
"Tessera is close enough that it won't be a wasted drive, even if she's not there when we arrive. Tess sounded more than a little upset on the phone. I don't think either of the boys had told her about what was happening with Puck." She couldn't quite make eye contact with Irene, so she looked up at the house instead. "Tess has been especially protective of the two of them. Although she said in no uncertain terms, if Sarah showed up at Tessera after running away from home, that she would be disciplined for her thoughtless actions."
"Mmm." Irene's voice was calm. "That bothers you?"
"I think it will bother Burt more." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, thank you for coming. I told both boys they had to go to school. Kurt has been wanting to meet you for so long, but they're working on this play… you might not see him at all. And Finn really can't miss any more days, not after he had summer school. But I'm glad you're here, in case of an emergency. I changed the sheets on our bed for you, and there are clean towels on the counter."
"Mmm," she said again. "That wouldn't bother you?"
"What?"
"Me, sleeping in your bed?"
Carole twisted her gardening gloves in both hands. "No, of course not. Why — why would it?"
Irene's lips curved up at the corners. "Because you want to be — what did you call it? An authority on your surroundings. You like things to be orderly. Predictable."
Carole wrinkled her nose. "No, I don't."
"Oh, really? I'm guessing you still sleep on the right side of the bed every night."
"That's—" she protested, then she stopped, feeling the heat creep up her neck. She picked up a discarded marigold and rolled it gently between her fingers. "Not important," she finished.
Irene nodded calmly. "All right. I suppose the more important question is, does Burt mind me staying here?"
"No, no, he's… he wanted you to come. He just had to go into the garage for a little bit before we took off." She stood up, brushing the dirt off her knees, and waited while Irene got to her feet. "Let me show you where everything is."
Irene listened politely while Carole spoke too quickly and said too many words about things she'd already written down. The more time passed, the more it escalated. She knew she was babbling, but knowing didn't help. The ordinary tricks she'd learned to calm herself down — from Irene, she reminded herself in frustration — didn't seem to be working.
Eventually, Irene reached out and grasped Carole's hand, the one that still held the marigold. Carole took a breath, blinking.
"Carole," she said. "Do you want help?"
It was like her body was set on too high a speed, but Carole didn't want to open her mouth again to explain this to Irene. She nodded.
"Would you look at me, please?"
The moment she focused on Irene's soft brown eyes, she started to cry. Irene let her do that, but she didn't let go of her hand.
"You're doing everything you can," she said. Her voice was very kind and even. "The more calm you are, the better you can help Sarah and the rest of your family."
"I know."
Irene nodded, still watching her. "You're doing the right thing."
"I know," she said again. "I've been telling myself that for seventeen years."
"That doesn't mean you don't need to hear it from someone else sometimes."
Carole nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I won't let my fears win. I promise."
Irene smiled at her. The kind of nervous feeling that smile provoked was completely unlike the one she'd had since last night. That feeling had kept her awake, questioning herself, by turns certain she'd failed Sarah, failed everyone, and angry they hadn't done something sooner. This feeling made her eyes close and her stomach muscles loosen, so that she could take a complete breath. She did that now, as Irene inhaled with her. When they let it out together, Carole felt almost like herself again.
She let go of her hand and inspected the marigold, which was still mostly intact.
"A little sentimental," murmured Irene. Carole blushed, looking at the ground.
"It's still good advice, no matter how many times you told me that."
"I'm guessing you haven't had anything to eat today."
She sighed. "You know me so well."
"Lucky guess." She took Carole's arm and walked her into the kitchen. "How about you make yourself some breakfast before you and Burt get on the road."
Finn looked up quickly when he heard a rap on the glass window of the principal's office. He gave Coach Beiste a weak little wave. She lowered her eyebrows, then opened the door and came inside.
"What's going on, Finn?" she asked.
He sent a pained look at Mr. Schue and Principal Figgins arguing in his office. "Uh, I think I just got a month's suspension."
Her eyebrows went way up. "Oh really. Explain this to me."
"I, um, might have walked down the hall in my Rocky Horror costume? Which is to say my underwear." He hoped his sigh of frustration sounded realistic. "I can't believe this."
"And why the heck would you do a dumb thing like that?"
He shrugged. "I was trying to get up the confidence to show up in front of the school, practically naked."
She crossed her arms across her broad chest. "Is that right? Why do I have a hard time believing that?"
"What do you mean?"
She lowered her voice a little, but it still sounded far too loud to Finn. "I mean you sat with me in the back room of Tib's coffeehouse and told me all kinds of things you done—"
"Shhh," he hissed.
"—Trust me, I ain't going to get you in more trouble than you already are. I'm just saying, whatever your motivation is, it ain't because you're self-conscious."
The way she stared at him felt very familiar. He found himself withering a little. "Don't tell Mr. Schue," he pleaded. "I—I need to get out of school."
"Why. And no more lies."
"It's Puck." There was no one else in the waiting room, but he whispered it anyway, feeling his gut contract as he had to say the words. "He's not in juvie. His dad sent him to a gay conversion camp in Oregon."
He watched the Coach's lip curl. For a moment, Finn thought she might punch him. Then she let out an exasperated sigh.
"I swear, they should make people take a test before they let them be parents." She shook her head. "And you and Kurt, you've been dealing with this for—what? Weeks? Who knows about this?"
"Our parents. The police. Puck's eleven-year-old sister took off last night, hitchhiking, to get out there and break him out, I guess, but she's not going to make it very far. My mom and Kurt's dad went after her this morning. Which leaves me to fix this. I can't skip any more class." He tried to straighten up and look at her like an equal, but it wasn't easy. "But if I got suspended, I could—"
"You could what?" she said. Her voice was gentle now. "Leave Kurt by himself to deal with it alone?"
"I'm not exactly helping by waiting around here!"
Mr. Schue came out of the office, his face grim. He focused on Finn. "Okay. I talked Principal Figgins out of a suspension. He's letting you off with a warning."
"But—" Finn said. Mr. Schue shook his head, cutting him off.
"I know, it's ridiculous, but I think this is as good as it's going to get. Back to class, okay? And no more walking through the hall in your costume."
Finn watched him leave with a sense of futility.
"Jeez, it's a good thing you've got so many people looking out for you," said the Coach. "Your life is more complicated than a six-story chicken hatchery." She rested a heavy hand on his back. "Well, Schuester might be a permissive bleeding-heart liberal, but I sure as hell ain't. You can look forward to a call from the dentist."
He felt a jarring impact to his gut, not unlike being hit with a slushie, and rose immediately to his feet. "What?" he blurted. "Coach, you can't tell—"
"Whine all you want, Hudson. Maybe I can't give you what you need, but I'd bet a peck of prize-winning apples that he can." She gave him a decisive nod. "Now get to class. And you'd better not pull anything like this again, or I'll toss you off the football team so fast, you'll get whiplash. Understood?"
He closed his eyes. The unfortunate consequences of his actions were already playing themselves out in his mind, like a movie he was powerless to stop. "Yeah."
"Come again?" she said sharply.
His eyes flew open. "Yes ma'am."
She glared at him, her mouth tight with anger. He was sure it wasn't for him — not most of it, anyway — but it was hard not to flinch. "Yeah, that was definitely inadequate. You'd better straighten yourself out pretty quick if you're hoping to be at all ready to help anybody. I have the feeling this business with Puck ain't gonna be pretty."
Finn could barely focus on where he was walking as he stumbled out of the office and into the students passing through the hallway. As he rounded the corner, he almost ran into Dave and Azimio speaking in hushed tones.
"Well, what do you know," Azimio jeered, looking Finn up and down. "He learned how to dress himself after all. I swear, there's some things you can't unsee."
"What the hell, Hudson," said Dave. He gave him an incredulous look. "In your fucking underwear? What, were you trying to get kicked out of school?"
"It was my Rocky Horror costume. And no, I didn't get suspended." He glared right back at Dave. "Can I go to class now?"
Wonder of wonders, they parted to let him pass between them. Two minutes later, he received a text from Dave.
Anything from Sarah?
Nothing, he replied, but they think they know where she's heading. Our folks headed out to intercept her this morning.
So that stunt with the underwear, that was on purpose.
Finn glanced around, like somebody might be spying on him admitting to that. I don't know what you're talking about.
If you need to go to Oregon, I can keep an eye on Kurt.
The words caught him off guard. He had to stop in the bathroom and blow his nose before continuing on his way to class. By now, the hallway was empty. He wasn't about to say the Coach told me I couldn't go to Dave. But when he looked at his phone, there was another message.
You're not as dumb as you pretend to be.
It wasn't like he could say the same to Dave, because everybody on the football team knew Dave was ridiculous-smart. You're not as much of an asshole as you pretend to be, he replied.
I'm working on it. It's fucking exhausting.
Yeah, well, go ahead and use the attic if you need a place to hide out.
Thanks.
He considered skipping the rest of American government, but he was pretty sure that was the exact opposite of what Carl had told him to do. Focus, he told himself sternly, trying for Carl's voice in his head. Make it count, for everybody.
Sarah was seven before she discovered not every kid had an emergency running-away bag. She kept hers hidden under her bed, ready to grab whenever she might need it. When she moved in with Burt and Carole, she considered putting it in her closet, but that felt weird, so she moved it back to its spot under her bed. There was no question in her mind that she would need it someday.
When it became apparent that someday was right now, she exchanged her regular school backpack for the bigger, fuller running-away bag. The only person who noticed was Marley Rose, which made sense, seeing as how most of the eighth grade class was wrapped up in their own problems and ignored her, a smaller shadow in the front of the room. She liked it that way.
"New backpack?" Marley asked at lunch.
"Old backpack," she said, scraping the last of the hummus out of its plastic container.
"You didn't lose yours?" The look Marley gave her wasn't judgmental. She simply knew Sarah well enough by now to know she didn't miss much.
Sarah considered her response for an extra half-second before choosing the lie. "I'm staying over at my half-brother's house tonight."
Lying was an ordinary tool in her survival kit, but there was something particularly disturbing about lying to Marley. Two months ago she would have said it was because Marley was an ordinary gullible girl, and probably deserved to be lied to by smarter girls. Now she knew better. Marley had her own secrets to keep, her own survival tools. She was good at hiding in plain sight, too, even if she did it differently than Sarah did.
She resolved this issue by stopping in the computer lab after lunch and logging into Holly's discussion board.
Online: Katie.
Login 2010-10-27 13:13:02: Sarah. Mood: determined.
K: Hey, girl. You're here early.
S: Yeah, I'm going to be on the road after school and wanted to check in now. And I guess I want to apologize here to Mar for telling them a lie.
K: Way to go, following rule #2.
S: Yeah, I guess honest is outweighing positive today. Also apologizing to Jake in advance for making him and his mom wait for me at the bus stop after school today, because I'm not going to be there.
K: This sounds like a road trip. You heading where I think you're heading?
S: Probably. Oregon's kind of a long way, but I think I can make it in three days if I hit the truckers on the right schedule. They don't report underage hitchhikers if we have good stories to tell.
K: You be safe, girl. I don't like this.
S: I'm going to tell everybody what's going on, I promise. Just don't spill the beans before I get there. I'm breaking Noah out of that fucking place.
K: You do realize this is going to waste all the trust capital you've built up with your foster parents, right?
Sarah hesitated before typing, My phone number's (419) 229-0199. Don't freak out. I know what I'm doing.
After school, she took the ACRTA to the Greyhound station, but instead of getting a ticket to Mansfield where Tanisha and Jake would be waiting, she bought one to Gary, Indiana. It blew half of her savings, but it would speed up the initial leg of her trip, and she was sure she could find a trucker to take her from there. In this kind of situation, she'd discovered being small and cute was more of an advantage than a liability. If she got into trouble, she had Noah's small switchblade in her left sock and mace in her pocket, along with the Emergency Alert app Carole had made her download to her phone.
Thinking about Carole made her feel a little guilty, but on the scale of importance in her life, Noah would always be #1, with everybody else a distant second. It provided enough impetus, however, to make her call the person in her life least likely to turn her in and leave a message.
"Hey, Lauren, it's Sarah again," she said. "I came up with my own plan for getting Noah out of fucking Adventure Camp, but I kind of have to be there to make it work? So I'm hitching west from Chicago tonight, hoping to make it a third of the way to Oregon before daylight, though I might end up in Iowa tonight if I can't. I promise, I won't do anything stupid. Don't tell anybody I called. I'm keeping my phone off to conserve battery."
Lauren would know it might also prevent some of the less resourceful agencies from tracking her, so she didn't need to bring it up. She dug a handful of bills out from the bottom of her backpack and walked into the truck stop. It didn't take her long to find a weathered-looking woman sitting alone at the counter with her coffee. Sarah took the stool beside her.
"Can I get some scrambled eggs and a piece of toast, please?" Sarah asked the waitress.
The woman beside her eyed her with mild curiosity, but said nothing until Sarah gave her a conspiratorial smirk and added under her breath, "Let's see how badly they mess up eggs and toast."
She grinned back. "Safer than the mac and cheese. They always overcook it."
"My brother spoiled me for anybody else's mac and cheese since before I was old enough to cook it myself," Sarah said.
"Yeah? How long ago was that?"
"Maybe five, six years?" She shrugged, accepting the plate of eggs the waitress brought her and counting out bills to cover it, plus a reasonable tip. "Long enough."
Now she had the woman's attention. "I take it you're not here with your brother today."
"My brother's in trouble. I'm heading to Oregon to help get him out of it."
"Oregon, huh? That's a good two thousand miles from here."
"I know." She regarded the woman steadily, without blinking. "I don't suppose you're driving that way. Unless your company prohibits you from taking passengers."
"I'm an independent, missy. Ain't nobody prohibiting me from doing nothing, except my own conscience."
Sarah had guessed that from the lack of logos on the rig outside or on the woman's well-worn jacket. She simply waited until the woman reached into her own pocket and took out a wallet, dropping a five and three ones on the counter.
"I'm heading to Moline, but I can take you that far. You don't look like you take up too much space." She held out a thick hand for Sarah to shake. "Vaughn."
"I'm Sarah," she said, shaking it firmly. "Thank you."
Vaughn didn't ask any more questions until they'd made it through the worst of the construction traffic and were well outside the city limits. "So where do your folks think you are?"
"My dad's the one who got my brother in trouble," she said. "I've got kind-of foster parents who think I'm visiting my half brother in Mansfield. There are some other people who know where I'm going." She added the last part just so Vaughn wouldn't think she was completely insane.
"He out with the law or some such?"
"Not this time." She closed her mouth and looked out the window, hoping Vaughn would take the hint. In the universe of people Sarah expected to be sympathetic to her brother over her dad, truck drivers probably wouldn't be high on the list.
She turned on her phone once to check the messages. There was one from Lauren, and a frantic one from Kurt and a similar one from Carole, and a very matter-of-fact one from Holly supplying names and contact info for youth hostels along I-80.
"Well, kid," Vaughn said eventually, "there's a stop coming up in ten miles. They have a pretty good menu, but they aren't going to let you stay the night. Where do you want me to drop you?"
Sarah considered the frosty darkness outside the cab. "How close can you get me to Burlington?"
"Can drop you right there, if you tell me an address."
She shook her head. "It's still a ways on from there, so I'll have to hike, no matter what. But I have good shoes and a compass."
Vaughn gave her a sour look. "I ain't telling anybody where you're headed. You might as well save yourself the walk."
Sarah was able to give her a set of GPS coordinates reasonably close to Tessera without being obvious about it, and if Vaughn guessed where she was actually planning to spend the night, she didn't let on. She did scribble down her phone number on a piece of notebook paper and pass it to Sarah.
"Just let me know you got home okay," she said as Sarah climbed down from the cab. "Whenever you make it back there."
"I will," said Sarah.
"Hey, kid." Sarah looked up at Vaughn's lined face. "Having a place to land, it's easy to take that for granted. You shouldn't squander it."
Just as Katie had pointed out, it was likely that had already happened, but Sarah nodded and shook her hand, promising again she'd call. Then she watched as Vaughn's rig backed up, turned right, and disappeared into the darkness, leaving her alone on the side of the road.
It wasn't quite cold enough to make the wet ground slippery, but Sarah could feel the chill through her jeans. She sighed, thrusting her stocking cap onto her head, and nested her hands in the pockets of her jacket.
"You're such a fucking pain the ass, Noah," she grumbled, although she didn't mean it, even a little bit.
There was no way she'd make it up to the main building of the Tessera complex without alerting Philip and every security guard in the place to her presence. Instead, she headed for the perimeter by the barn. It was generally secure, but there were spots she had discovered were small enough for a kid-sized silent fox to squeeze through. Everyone would be inside and asleep by now, even the stablehands. She wouldn't be noticed, not if she woke up and was on her way before dawn.
It was a lot warmer in the barn. She felt a pang when she realized barely anything had changed since she and Noah had been there that summer. The horses remained quiet until she got close enough for them to recognize her, at which point they started to stamp and whicker, but she knew the tricks now to calm them down. To be honest, they weren't all that different from the tricks Kurt and Finn used on her brother.
"Hey, Cinnamon-lady," she murmured, holding out a hand for the horse to smell, then resting it on her neck. "Hey, girl. You miss me? I sure missed you."
She lifted a spare tack blanket down from the wall and spread it over the straw beside the horse's stall, then took a second one and wrapped herself up in it. Within minutes, she was asleep, soothed by the smells and sounds of the animals.
A tug on her shoe brought her all the way awake before she was aware of what was happening. Sarah found herself blinking through tangled hair at Lydia's grim face.
"I was going to be out of here before dawn," she whispered, but Lydia shook her head, thumbing out a furious text. She tossed the phone onto the mound of straw beside them.
"Dawn's come and gone. Your folks are on their way. Just sit tight and — no, you are not going anywhere. Anywhere." Sarah shrank back at the anger in her voice. "Ask me what comes from permissive parenting? This. This is what happens. You think you're in charge? That you can make decisions without asking your dad?"
"Noah—" she began, but Lydia cut her off again.
"Noah nothing. You're not the only person in this family who matters, Sarah." She made a stabbing motion with her finger out the door toward the main building. "You can't take advantage of people who love you like this."
"Nobody was doing anything!" To her horror, she was starting to cry, but Lydia seemed to be ignoring that.
"If we'd known about Noah's situation Tess could have put things in motion a week ago. Local police have been mobilized to investigate the camp. If Noah's still there, they'll have him out in twenty-four hours." She squatted down close, almost nose to nose. "In the meantime, you've managed to cause more trouble and heartache than he has."
When Sarah tried to scramble away, Lydia held her in one place, keeping her voice quiet and calm until Sarah gave up the effort to run and just sat there, crying silently in Lydia's arms.
"There are consequences to not being alone in the world," she said in Sarah's ear. "One of them is having to answer to others. You're not a superhero. No, no more words. The only thing I want to hear from you is I promise I will never do that again. In fact…" With one wrench of her arms, she lifted Sarah up and over her lap. "Let me do this properly."
Dave wasn't sure if he expected Santana to actually show up to his SAT study group or not, but when he arrived that week, she was the first one there, her fluffy red Magenta wig sticking out of her play rehearsal bag. She even had a pencil and a notebook and was wearing a sardonic smile.
"Okay, Karofsky," she said, tapping the notebook. "Let's do this."
"After," he hissed. "I have a job to do first."
"This is our job." She held up the notebook and showed him what was written on the cover: Project Jailbreak. "This is the only job that matters. You're going to ace your SATs, everybody knows it. And screw the rest of these losers."
"Nice sense of civic responsibility, Lopez." He began to write the agenda on the white board. "Some people actually care about their grades."
"You mean like Blaine?" She sneered at him when his marker skittered across the surface of the board at the mention of his name. "He only cares because his father told him to care. He doesn't know how to think for himself."
"That's not true," Dave protested. Then he closed his mouth as Jordan Stern came in, carrying her backpack. She turned her body carefully to look between Dave and Santana in confusion.
"Uh, are you in this study group?" she asked Santana.
"I am now." Santana patted the seat beside her. Jordan settled into it, snickering when she saw Santana's notebook.
"Jailbreak, huh? I guess school's kind of like jail, and good scores on your SATs are kind of like the key?"
"Possibly. Although some people might argue that friends are more important than grades." She gave Dave a pointed look. He quickly turned away and erased the erratic marks on the white board.
He managed to stay focused enough to lead the study session. After everyone but Santana had left, he sat down in the spot Jordan had vacated, looking warily at her notebook. "Did you even take any notes?"
"Did you even hear what I was saying earlier?" she taunted. Then she opened her notebook to the second page. "Okay. First point of business is—"
"Finn," Dave said. Santana paused, raising an eyebrow at him. "Um. Did you see what Finn did, the stunt he pulled with his underwear?"
"Yeah." The eyebrow descended. "What do you think that was about?"
"He was trying to get thrown out of school so he'd have a legitimate way to skip class. So he could go after, you know. After Puck." He sighed. "Because they're, you know. A thing."
"A thing," she said distastefully. "Yeah. Okay, maybe that was a valid strategy."
"So Kurt's freaking out about, um. About Blaine." Saying his name out loud felt like the hardest thing he'd done all day, but Santana nodded. She was looking less certain now. "Blaine's not allowed to see Finn or Puck, but his dad doesn't know about Kurt. Kurt's the only one who can fix this."
"Or you," she said. "Don't you think Blaine would listen to you?"
"I—I can't. Really, he wouldn't." I'm not important to him, he thought, but saying those words in front of Santana would just make him start crying. "Anyway. Kurt's going to go to see him, like you did."
"Yeah. His roommate's aware of what's going on, anyway. That's something." She rested her chin on her hand. "But Blaine barely acknowledged Kurt was even in RENT with him this summer. I think he's making up this whole story in his head about what's true. Believe me, I've seen him do it before."
"Yeah. I guess I have, too." Dave thought about all the stories they'd read at the public library when they were kids, all the fantasy realms they'd escaped into together. The idea that Blaine might actually be lost in one of them made his insides knot. "Well… if Kurt goes to see him, and Blaine really doesn't acknowledge him, I think we're going to have to work on another angle. Put pressure on his dad somehow."
"I'm already on that," Santana said smugly. "I'm doing some digging on Mr. Anderson. Believe me, if anybody can uncover dirt, it's me. I'm very resourceful."
"No doubt." Dave shook his head, grinning. "I'm glad I'm not on your bad side at the moment."
She stuck her pencil at Dave. "Don't think you're getting away that easy. You're still in the doghouse for all that shit you did to Kurt."
Dave bowed his head. "Kurt deserves to be happy. He misses Blaine, and Puck, and—and everybody. I'm going to do everything I can to fix it."
"Fucking right you are," she muttered, but when he looked up again, her face was soft. "Okay. So what's this have to do with Finn getting thrown out of school? You want to get Kurt suspended so he can go to see Blaine? I don't think he'd go for that."
"No. Not Kurt. Somebody needs to do something that would make it obvious Kurt shouldn't be at McKinley. They need to give him a reason to switch schools and go to Dalton, where he can help from the inside." He took a deep breath. "Somebody needs to get in trouble. Real trouble. It might as well be me."
"You—?" She stared at him. "Look, you've already done a hell of a lot to him. What could you do that would be worse?"
"I'm not going to hurt him again," he said quickly. "But I could threaten him. Really, make it bad enough that they can't ignore it anymore."
"Dave, you'd get expelled." Her tone was flat.
"Maybe. But I think that's what it's going to take."
She shook her head in confusion. "You'd do that for Kurt?"
"And Blaine," he said softly. "And Puck and Finn. I saw them together this summer, okay? He was happy."
"Okay, okay." She put her hands out. "We don't even know if this is going to be necessary. Maybe Kurt sees Blaine and he's all, who are you, I don't even care about you anymore."
"Maybe. Then we'll figure out something else."
He stood up when Santana did, but when she hugged him, he wasn't sure what to do other than hug her back.
"You're totally fucking weird, Karofsky," she whispered into his ear.
"I know," he said unhappily. "Sorry."
"No, I kind of like weirdos. Why else would I be hanging out with Britt?" She grinned, but he couldn't make himself grin back. "Okay. First meeting of Project Jailbreak is officially concluded."
Will was the only one left in the auditorium when Emma arrived after rehearsal. She edged her way into the row where he sat, regarding the set with a sober expression, and rested her hand on his wrist.
"What's going on?" she asked. "You sounded worried in your message."
"I have to cancel Rocky Horror."
"What? Why? Because of what Carl said today about stealing his girl?" She shook her head. "We both know that's not what this is about."
"Well, that's the thing. It kind of is." Will's mouth twisted into something like a smile. "I made a lot of mistakes in the last couple weeks, Emma. The biggest one was trying to pretend I knew what to do to help you."
"Me?"
"Yeah. This play… I never should have tried to put it on in the first place. The reality is I only did all this to get close to you." He let his head hang down in defeat. "Rocky Horror was the big breakthrough for me and Toby back in college. I thought, if it helped me figure out my own sexuality, way back then, maybe it would help you figure out yours. Pretty presumptuous of me, huh?"
"Well." She hesitated, then kissed his cheek. "Of all the people in the world who might be able to help me figure that out, Will, I think you might be it."
"But you don't want to have sex with me," he said, sounding mournful. She smiled.
"I don't want to have sex with anybody. You'd think a counselor would already know something about this, but I hadn't even heard the word asexual before Carl gave me an article about it."
He nodded, looking confused. "So you think that's what you are? Asexual?"
"I don't know for sure, but the definition I read seems to fit how I feel about having sex. And I've spoken with some other people who identify that way, and many of them have had a lot of the same experiences I've had."
Will sighed, resting his chin on his hand. "I think I've been trying to pressure you into doing something you're not ready for, because I was sure I could fix what I was perceiving as a problem. But you're telling me… you don't think it's a problem?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. Not wanting sex doesn't mean I don't want intimacy, or that something else isn't going on that's making it hard for me to connect with people. All I know is that it's not as simple for me as it seems to be for everyone else."
"No, I get it. It wasn't simple for me either. It never was." He made a face. "I told Toby no a whole bunch of times before I told him yes. Not to mention telling him a lot of other things that were pretty cruel and thoughtless."
"I guess love can make you do some crazy things," Emma said softly.
"I'm sorry, Emma," he said. He took both her hands, facing her earnestly. "I promise to never abuse our feelings for each other ever again. Let's face it: Carl is actually making you better. And if I really love you, I need to back off and accept the fact that what you need isn't necessarily going to look like the way I think a relationship should look."
"Thank you." She nodded at the set. "So… what are you going to tell the kids?"
"Well, first of all, I'm going to apologize for putting them through this, particularly Finn and Kurt. Even if nobody else recognizes it, they're dealing with some really hard stuff right now." His face shifted into the determined one she admired so much. "I need them to understand that Rocky Horror isn't about pushing boundaries or making an audience accept a certain rebellious point of view. When I was younger and they started midnight shows of Rocky Horror, it wasn't for envelope-pushers. It was for outcasts: people on the fringes who had no place left to go, but were searching for someplace, any place where they felt like they belonged." He smiled ruefully. "Sound familiar?"
"I could have used something like that then," she agreed. "Even if I was trying desperately to conform, that wasn't really who I was. It's taken me a long time to figure that out."
Will nodded. "The truth is, with that perspective, Rocky Horror is the perfect show for this club. So we're still going to perform Rocky Horror; we're just not doing it for an audience. We'll do it for ourselves, with Carl and all the kids. I'll ask Mike if he wants to be the criminologist." He shook his head. "They all have so much talent. I've been afraid to risk putting on a show, a real show, but doing this with them has shown me just how ready they are. I mean, even in the middle of a family crisis, Kurt's been right there for every rehearsal."
"So do one," she said. "Do a real musical with Glee club."
"I was thinking maybe South Pacific," he said. His enthusiasm grew with her smile. "Just with Glee and recorded accompaniment, but it'd be a start? Maybe next year we can do a real musical, with auditions and an orchestra and everything."
"I'd still help with costumes," she said. "I'm sure we could ask Lauren and the A/V club to handle sound."
He hugged her suddenly, and she hugged him back, feeling a rush of gratitude for his warmth and strength.
"Thank you," he whispered. "For being my friend, and for not judging me when I make mistakes."
"I don't always agree with your decisions, Will, but I'm always going to listen to the reasons behind them." She patted his back. "I trust you."
He laughed quietly. "Yeah, that's always going to feel amazing. I'm not sure I deserve it."
"It's not because you don't ever make mistakes," she said. "It's because everything you do comes from your heart. That's so much more important. Now, tell me more about South Pacific."
For the rest of the morning, everything at Tessera seemed to happen very slowly. Lydia brought Sarah her in from the barn and left her in the library where she and Adam had immersed themselves in poetry. She wasn't even permitted to go to the bathroom alone. With no phone, no computer and no one to talk to besides Shelley and Keats and a hundred other dead people, the only thing left to do was pace.
She caught a glimpse of just about everybody other than Tess, but none of them would stay and talk to her except for Stephen, who brought her breakfast.
"The local police are on their way up to the camp now," he said. "Burt and Carole should be here in less than a half hour. You might as well have a seat."
"Not sitting," she muttered, staring at the floor. Probably not for a week.
A look of sympathy flitted over his face and was gone. "We've contacted Timothy, and Kurt and Finn, and Irene let Lauren know you're okay. Anyone else we should be talking to?"
Gingerly, she dug in her pocket for the notebook paper bearing Vaughn's phone number. "She gave me a ride from Gary."
"I won't bother to lecture you on the follies of hitchhiking; I suspect you'll get plenty of that from your family."
"I could have stolen a car instead of hitchhiking," said Sarah. "I've known how to drive since I was eight. Ma was too drunk to drive to work most mornings."
He sighed. "Yes, well, there's no doubt you've seen more in your brief life than most of us would care to know. Somehow along the way, you're going to have to figure out how to be a kid again."
She finished all the food Stephen brought her and distracted herself with a volume of Elizabeth Barrett Browning until the door opened again and Carole rushed in, followed more slowly behind by a white-faced Burt.
"Sarah, oh, thank god you're okay," she said. She stopped short of hugging her, which was good, considering Sarah could barely look her in the eye.
"What were you thinking?" Burt said. He didn't bother to disguise the anger in his voice any more than Lydia had, but he didn't shout. She wondered if that was because he knew men shouting was a kind of trigger thing, or because he was too exhausted to shout at her. She wasn't sure which one was worse.
"I was doing what I had to do." She set the book down on the table and made herself return his gaze. "Nobody else was handling Noah. I wasn't going to let my dad do it."
"Yeah? And what do you think would have happened if you hadn't come back?"
Carole put a hand up, but Sarah nodded. She deserved his wrath.
"If it helped Noah, it would have been worth it."
"Not to me," he whispered. "It wouldn't have been worth it to me."
When Burt reached out and pulled her to him, she almost didn't let him, but her own exhaustion seemed to be winning out over stubbornness. Carole came over and joined them, a circle of arms around her that felt almost good. She yelped when Carole nudged her backside.
"Are you hurt?" she said anxiously.
"Just my butt," Sarah told her. "Lydia spanked me, for real."
"She—!?" Burt jerked back in outrage, but Carole touched his shoulder.
"Don't. Not right now."
"But she can't do that to a kid," he protested. "Sarah's not even her own kid."
"I kind of am, though," Sarah said. "You don't need to be mad about that. I'm not. Plus there's so much other stuff happening to be mad about. What's going on with Noah?"
Burt didn't look like he was going to let it go, but Carole said, "Tess made some phone calls, and the Terrebonne police department was alerted to a potential health concern at the campground. They're apparently investigating it today. That's about all we can do."
Sarah glared at her. "People keep saying that. There's nothing we can do. What a crock of shit. We can do tons more."
"Not without risking your future, and Noah's," said Burt. He took her hand and held it very tightly. At least his color looked better now. A vision of him in the hospital bed came to her, and she felt suddenly horrified.
"I'm sorry," she blurted. "Please don't have another heart attack."
He sighed. "You have about as much control over that as I do over your brother. But I think I'm going to be okay. Now, I think Stephen said something about food, before we turn around and drive back to Lima?"
She looked at Carole. "That's all?"
"That is not all," Carole said, sounding as severe as Sarah had ever heard her. It was almost a relief. "You are in seventeen kinds of trouble, and I don't think you're going to be allowed to be alone again until you're an adult. But we'll deal with it at home."
Home. Sarah closed her eyes and leaned against Carole, thinking about her room, the house, all the things she'd imagined and brought into reality with Burt and Carole's help. She was grateful, more grateful than she'd ever be able to tell them—and, still, she couldn't stand down from this.
"I'm sorry I made you worry," she said. "But I'm not sorry for trying to fix it."
"I know," said Burt. He touched her hair. "I've been trying to treat you like a younger, female version of Kurt, but that's not who you are. You never learned how not to be responsible for everything. I guess we can't expect you to know how to do that without a lot of practice, and help."
She watched him for signs of anger, but they seemed to be gone for now. She'd still be watching for them, for weeks. They might come back.
"What if I never learn it?" she asked.
"Then I guess you'll get into trouble a lot," he said firmly. "And we'll love you just as much."
This was such a weird answer that she didn't say anything else, turning it over and over inside her head, while Stephen brought food for Carole and Burt. No one else came back in, not even Lydia. It didn't take long for Carole to get her buckled into the back seat of the station wagon, and Sarah was asleep before they reached the highway.
"Sarah," she heard Kurt call softly, and she stirred in the darkness of her bedroom. The light of the hallway flooded in as he opened the door a little more. "You ready for another visitor?"
Lauren had been there when they'd gotten home, and she'd already spoken with Jake and Tanisha. "Who?" she said.
"It's Frances."
Sarah sat up in bed, switching on the light next to her bed. "Yeah, absolutely. She can come up." She gathered her wayward hair into a ponytail and shoved it into a scrunchie.
Frances' face was worried, and it didn't go away when she appeared in the doorway. "Hi."
"Come in," Sarah said, patting her bed. Frances made her way around the clothes on her floor and the discarded remnants of her running-away pack and climbed onto the foot of the bed, but she didn't get any closer than that. "I guess you're pretty pissed at me."
"Not so much that," Frances said slowly, "as hurt."
"Because I didn't tell you where I was going?"
"Because you told so many other people. But I had to hear it from Finn." Frances leaned back against the wall, letting her ankles dangle off the edge, and hugged her arms unhappily. "I guess you didn't trust me not to tell."
"I didn't want to put you in that position. You would have gotten more in trouble than anybody else, and you would have worried more than everyone else. This way you had less time to worry because you didn't know."
"I wanted to know," Frances protested. "You're supposed to let your best friend be the one to worry. It's a privilege."
"Well, I think you can be damn sure I'll give you reasons to worry again."
She knew it was a weak joke, and Frances just made a face at her. Sarah sighed.
"Look, I'm not so good at this best friend business. I've never done it before you, and I'm probably going to mess up a lot. Tatenui said I have to learn how not to be responsible for everything."
Frances rolled her eyes. "Good luck with that."
"Yeah, I know." She reached out her arms. "Would you come over here?" Frances' gaze went immediately to the door, and she added, "We can close that, if you want."
"I wasn't sure if that was allowed."
"Because of the kissing?"
"Because you're in trouble," she said, flushing. But she did get up from the bed and silently shut the door. This time she sat down closer to Sarah, close enough to allow her to wrap her arms around her. They sat like that for a long moment, holding on to one another. It didn't feel like hugging Noah, but it made her miss him enough to get her crying again.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I had it all planned out, but as soon as Tess found out what was going on, that was kind of the end, and now I'm home and I'm grounded forever and I don't even have Noah back."
Sarah sighed loudly. "You're sorry for all that, but you're not sorry for hurting my feelings?"
"For that too," she added. "Really for that too."
"You're kind of a crappy girlfriend, Sarah."
"I know." She took a peek at Frances' stormy face. "I didn't actually know I was your girlfriend."
"Don't change the subject. I'm mad at you, and I don't want you to be cute and funny and try to kiss me."
"I'm not cute," Sarah objected, and Frances let out an exasperated groan.
"You are so annoying. Why do you think you can get away with everything? You can't just break all the rules and expect people to forgive you and go on like everything was the same. That's not how the world works."
"I never had anybody who wanted to forgive me before," she retorted, "except Noah, and we forgave each other every time. So maybe that's not how your world works, but it was how mine worked until last year."
That made Frances pause. She shook her head in irritation. "So, what? How long do you expect me to wait until you figure out the actual rules?"
"Is there a book or a web site or something you could show me? Because if not, you're going to have to teach me." Sarah nodded at Frances' doubtful expression. "I promise, I'll try. I'm a sucky rule-follower, but I can at least learn them, and I'll try not to hurt your feelings again."
When she sat back against her pillows, Frances moved with her, resting next to her. She let Sarah put her arm around her.
"Can I kiss you now?" Sarah asked.
"Not yet."
"Is this because you're punishing me or because you don't trust me?"
"The first one."
"That's fair," Sarah said, nodding. "Maybe you can let me know when my punishment is over, so I don't accidentally overstep and kiss you without permission."
"Do you really think this is just a big joke?"
"No." She hugged Frances closer. "I'm really scared about Noah, and I'm using humor to deflect my feelings."
"Do you do that in your therapy sessions too?"
"Pretty much."
There was another pause. Sarah stared up at the ceiling instead of at Frances' angry face.
"Did you get to see the baby horse?" Frances asked. "The one who's a year?"
"It was in the stable, but I didn't get much time to do anything other than sleep and get a spanking before Lydia brought me in the house."
"She spanked you?"
"Yeah, that's how they do things at Tessera. Not like a sexy kind of spanking. A punishment kind."
"I really don't get the idea behind a sexy kind of spanking."
"Well, it's not your thing. You know, like some people like lacy lingerie and big boobs and dirty talk and whatever."
"Yeah, I… don't think I like any of those things." She shifted closer to Sarah.
"That's okay. You can like whatever you like."
"I'm sorry you're worried about Noah."
Sarah nodded. "He's going to come back screwed up, or he's not going to come back at all. Either one is going to be really bad."
"I'm sorry," Frances said again. "I don't think I want to punish you anymore."
She took Frances' face in both hands and kissed her a lot before before either of them said anything else. It made Frances cry, or maybe she'd been crying before and Sarah hadn't realized she'd been doing it.
"Can I ask you for something?" she said.
Frances nodded, her face so close to Sarah's. "What is it?"
"Can you talk to Blaine?" She watched Frances sit back and regard her. "I know it's hard, when he's so, you know, confused, but… I think he needs that connection to somebody who knows who he really is."
Frances shook her head and sighed. "You really are a terrible girlfriend." Then she kissed her again. "But you are a very thoughtful best friend."
"I'll take it," said Sarah.
Kurt let his father handle the trick-or-treaters at the door that Sunday, while he and Finn spent the entire evening with Sarah on the green couch on the second floor. The sounds of children coming and going, intermingled with South Pacific playing on the TV, were calming.
"I'm bummed she didn't even let me go see you guys in Rocky Horror," Sarah said from under Kurt's duvet.
"Nobody saw us in Rocky Horror," said Kurt. "Even if you had been allowed to go, it wasn't a performance for anybody but us."
That wasn't quite true, but Kurt was pretty sure no one else had noticed Dave watching them from the back of the auditorium. Kurt hadn't asked him about it, but he wasn't in the mood for another confrontation at the moment.
"I called Noah's voice mail again before dinner, but it was still full. My dad's not answering his phone either." She stared glumly at the wall. "I hate this doing-nothing shit."
"Get used to it," Finn advised. Kurt knew she wasn't the only one who'd gotten in trouble for attempting to rescue Noah, even if Finn's punishment had been more private than Sarah's. "I think if any of us even mention one more creative idea to either of our parents, it's going to get slapped down."
"My dad always had too much imagination, too," said Sarah. "I guess we inherited that from him. Ma had zero imagination."
Kurt sighed. "So even after all that effort, we're still back where we started. We don't know where Noah is, or even if they recovered him."
Finn gathered Kurt closer into his arms. "Kind of the worst anniversary ever, huh?"
"At least you're home." He poked Sarah with his toe through the duvet. "Home and safe."
"Safe is boring," she moaned. Finn grinned at Kurt.
"Welcome to being a kid," he said.