Chapter 22: Silence

School the past few days had been terrible. Kurt hadn't tried to call or text Blaine anymore, but he had tried to talk to him at school. Unfortunately, Blaine seemed to have developed a sixth sense about Kurt's intentions because he made sure they were never alone.

They shared most of their classes, but Blaine had shown up right after the bell had rung and practically sprinted out of the classroom once the lessons were over.

His boyfriend – was he still his boyfriend? – hadn't shown up to Glee either, even though Regionals was just a little over two weeks away. At least Rachel was confident they would still be able to pull off their duet, but Ms. Corcoran had announced she would give Blaine's part to someone else if he wasn't back by next week.

Kurt had asked Carole to relay the information to Blaine, but he had texted back that Glee was the last thing on his mind right now, and that deeply worried Kurt, because music was Blaine's life just as it was for him.

Fortunately, Santana had slipped up on Tuesday and Kurt had discovered that Blaine was staying with Santana for the time being.

In Glee, Kurt had been criticized a lot by Ms. Corcoran over the past couple of days, but he just couldn't focus properly. It was ironic. After all, he and the girls were doing a mash up of Adele's "Rumor has it" and "Someone like you" that expressed his feelings perfectly.

After Ms. Corcoran had told him to take a break and come back once he was able to concentrate, Rachel and Mercedes had cornered him, but he just couldn't tell them what had happened. He just felt so guilty, and didn't need to hear it from them as well what an idiot he was.

He left Glee rehearsal early that Wednesday and ordered a huge greasy pizza that he ate while crying his eyes out over some cheesy romantic comedy. Had Blaine been with him, they would probably have made fun of the storyline and acting, but instead Kurt was sitting by himself, eating junk food and ruining his figure, so that even if Blaine decided to talk to him again, he probably wouldn't want him back. He'd get a dozen of cats and die alone, he was sure of it.

He knew throwing himself a pity party didn't change anything but he couldn't help it. After his mom had passed, he had been so afraid to lose Blaine as well, and now that it happened he didn't know what to do with himself anymore.

Finn had told Sarah on their second date about all the things he had done to Kurt and Santana and she had told him she could accepted it if he were truly sorry and apologized to Kurt for his past behavior.

He knew his brother was feeling like shit right now because of the fight he had with Blaine, and so he wasn't sure if now was the time to apologize to Kurt but he made his way to the choir room on Wednesday nevertheless.

When he rounded the corner he saw Brittany talk to some Hockey jock and raised his hand in greeting, when he noticed the distressed look on her face. He quickly walked over to her, just to catch the tail end of what the guy was saying.

"… you just need a real man to cure you. And I have just the dick for the job," the dude said as he tried to grind up on Brittany, would looked incredibly scared pressed against her locker.

Before Finn knew it he had grabbed the guys letterman jacket and had pulled him of the shaking girl. "Fuck off! You're disgusting. There's nothing wrong with Brittany," he yelled at the guy who looked at him like Finn was crazy.

Finn meant it when he said that. Brittany was a sweet girl and no one should take advantage of her. He hated the old Finn who had wanted to convince Brittany to have a threesome with him and Santana.

Speaking of Santana, the scary girl and Kurt were running over, just as the jock took off. Finn immediately raised his hands in surrender. "I didn't do anything to her, I swear."

"We know Finnocence," Santana shot back a she pulled her crying girlfriend into her arms and kissed her hair. Finn had never seen Santana do something so sweet and it cemented it for him that they really loved each other just as Kurt and Blaine said they loved each other.

Kurt was watching the scene with a longing in his eyes before he quickly looked away and tried to discreetly wipe some tears away that he couldn't hide from Finn though.

"Finn," Santana interrupted his staring, "thank you. If you want to come back to Glee you can." Finn was surprised to hear that. He had missed hanging out with the Gleeks and had even sung with Sarah in the car once, who hadn't the strongest voice either, but he thought they sounded good together.

"Is it okay, if I bring Sarah along too?" he asked looking in Kurt's direction. "I couldn't care less a the moment Finn, sorry. I have my own problems." Kurt gave him a watery glare. Yes, it was definitely I good idea to postpone that apology.

Later that afternoon Finn and Sarah had spoken to Ms. Corcoran who had told them they had to sing backup till after Regionals, but Finn for once didn't care. He was allowed to get back to doing something he had secretly come to love.

Burt had had to listen to Kurt's crying for days now and he had enough. He liked Blaine a lot, but right now he was making his son miserable. That thought also made him feel incredibly guilty, because only a few months ago, he would have been happy if Kurt and Blaine broke up and he had even tried to speed it up by keeping them apart.

He had to do something to make up for past mistakes, but according to Carole there was nothing they could do but wait. Well, Burt Hummel wasn't a man who sat around on his ass and waited.

When he still hadn't heard anything from Blaine by Wednesday he decided it was time to call the boy. He suspected Blaine wouldn't pick up if he saw Burt's number on the caller ID, so he "borrowed" Carole's phone while she was in the shower.

Blaine sounded tired when he picked up. "I told you Carole I'm okay and I'm definitely not sleeping on the streets. And before you ask, I agreed to talk to my mom tomorrow, so you can stop trying to convince me." Carole must have called more often than he had known.

"It's Burt, please don't hang up." For a moment the line went quiet and Burt thought Blaine had hung up but when he spoke there was a steely determination in his tone. "What do you want?"

"First, I'd like to apologize. I shouldn't have kept meeting your parents from you." Blaine chuckled dryly. "I guess you tried to tell me but I ran away." "Doesn't matter, I should have mad you listen instead of telling Kurt before I told you."

Blaine didn't say anything so Burt assumed he agreed. "And secondly?" Blaine asked after a few moments of silence.

"And secondly, you have to talk to Kurt." "Why is that?" Blaine sounded angry now. "Because he's miserable and I don't like seeing him like that."

"Well. I'm glad you see it that way now and finally care about Kurt's feeling, but I'm not ready to talk to him. I'm sorry he's miserable but he caused this himself. I have to go. Please don't call again, because the same goes for you. We'll talk when I'm ready."

Burt hung up the phone and sighed. This hadn't gone like he had wanted, but at least he now was certain that Blaine still cared about his son. He really hoped they would find a way to talk it out before they completely destroyed what they had.

Blaine nervously fiddled with the collar of his shirt as he was waiting for his mom in the Lima Bean, a steaming cup of coffee in front of him. They had agreed to meet on neutral ground because Blaine hadn't felt comfortable meeting her back at the house.

He gave her a quick once-over when she came into the shop. She looked different that she had a year ago. Less put together and more accessible. There were bags under her eyes that she apparently hadn't bothered to cover up but her eyes lit up when she saw him sitting at one of the tables in the back. She quickly picked up her own cup of coffee before she made her way over to Blaine.

"Blaine, I'm glad you agreed to meet me," his mom said as she sat down opposite him. "Yeah well, you wouldn't stop calling and Carole wouldn't let it go either, so here I am," Blaine explained as he played with his napkin.

"Oh, who's Carole?" So they were doing small talk first. Fine, he could handle that. "Kurt's stepmother. She's really great." The unlike you was implied and he saw his mom flinch.

"Kurt's a really nice boy," she said awkwardly not realizing that this was another sore subject. "Is he? You didn't seem to think so when you met him last year," he tried to keep the accusatory tone out of his voice but he knew he wasn't succeeding.

"I was shocked. I hadn't expected to see you kissing another boy and you know your father. If I had said something against him, he might have sent me packing with you."

"So you let him walk all over me and insult me and my boyfriend." His voice was getting louder and he took a few calming breaths. He didn't want to cause a scene in the middle of the coffee shop. After all, that's why he had chosen it as a meeting place. "You really never suspected?"

His mom shook her head. "You know I grew up in a small village outside of Manila. If there were homosexuals in our village it wasn't talked about. When your dad brought me back to Michigan when I was eighteen, he expected me to stay home and I didn't protest it because I was in love with him and life with him was better that it had been before. Once my English was good enough, he allowed me to get my GED, but my life here was pretty sheltered and I didn't really have friends until you started preschool."

Blaine hadn't known these things about his mother. Sure he knew she was originally from the Philippines but he had never been there and they never really talked about her life before she had him.

"Your father hated it that we didn't mange to have more children after you, and his relationship with your half-brother was never really good either," his mom continued. He knew that his father and Cooper hadn't spoken in years and he himself had only met his twelve year older brother a handful of times. When his dad had kicked him out, it hadn't even occurred to him to call Cooper.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Blaine asked once his mom had stopped talking.

"I need you to understand why I couldn't just leave your father when he told you to leave. It took me time to come to term with the fact that my son was gay and when I did I knew your father wouldn't let me see you. I had no money, no education and no place to go. I knew you were being taken care of, at least financially, but I couldn't ask you to take care of me as well."

Blaine had always thought the reason his mom was distant and always on his father's side was because she didn't love him enough and cared more about the material things his father provided. A lot of his classmates had stay at home moms too but he had never thought that this meant that his mom had to rely on his father. He thought about the black eye his mom had been sporting when he had discovered her in Kurt's house. He couldn't see it anymore, so it must either have healed already or his mom had covered it up.

"Did he hit you?" His mom shook her had. "I never gave him a reason to before. This was the first time I dared to stand up to him and he didn't like it."

Blaine felt bad for his mom, but he wasn't ready to forgive her just yet and he told her as much. Santana's parents had said he could stay as long as he needed to and that was what he planned to do.

His mom nodded and gave him a small smile that didn't look fake for once. "Well let's change the subject than. How's Kurt? We haven't had the chance to talk since last Saturday." Blaine looked down and studied the torn napkin in his hand.

"You haven't talked to him yet, haven't you?" Blaine shook his head. Why couldn't she just drop it? If he wasn't ready to forgive her for abandoning him and he sure as hell wasn't ready to talk to her about boys.

"Blaine, I know you are angry, but Kurt only tried to help me reconnect with you. Without him I would have never gone against your father and left him." Blaine understood, intellectually, that Kurt had helped his mom and had thought what he was doing would be good for Blaine, but in his heart he knew he wasn't ready to forgive his boyfriend for betraying him just yet either.

Apparently Blaine's silence finally clued his mom in to the fact that he didn't want to talk about Kurt either and they filled the rest of their talk with small talk about school and Glee. They said goodbye after an hour because Blaine still had to work in the shop, luckily without either of the Hudmels present. He left the Lima Bean with mix feelings, but they were definitely more positive than they had been an hour ago.

Carole was sitting at the kitchen table working on homework, feeling incredibly young while doing so, when the phone rang. She closed her book when it became clear that no one else was picking up and went into the living room to answer it.

"Hello?" "Mrs. Hummel? This is Tala Anderson, Blaine's mother," an unfamiliar voice said. "Mrs. Anderson, how nice to hear from you, but I'm afraid Blaine isn't here," Carole told the woman on the phone.

"Please call me Tala and I know, I had coffee with him this afternoon. I just called to let you know that Blaine is staying at his friend Santana's house in case he didn't tell you." Carole was glad that Blaine had been telling the truth about meeting his mother when he had talked to Burt.

"Call me Carole and yes, my son Kurt told me that Blaine is staying with the Lopez." Carole didn't know what she should talk with Blaine's mom about without making Blaine angry at her too.

"Well maybe we could meet for coffee once the boys have made up. I'd really like to thank you in person for all you have done for Blaine," Tala offered. Carole considered it for a few seconds. It would be nice to meet Blaine's mother and help him get part of his own family back.

"I'd love that and really, I just did what every decent person would have done, especially because Blaine was hit hard by Kurt's mother's death as well." She couldn't take all the credit here. After all, it had been Burt's ex-wife who had taken Blaine in in the first place and she had always felt bad that she had allowed Burt to leave Blaine behind on his own during those four months Kurt spent in Texas.

"I'm going to talk to Blaine and if he is okay with us meeting, I'll give you a call. I have your number now and if you need anything please don't hesitate to call," Carole said sincerely.

"Thank you. I'm starting my very first job next week. It's just stocking the shelves in a supermarket right now, but it's a start," Tala did sound exited, but Carole couldn't image what it must be like to have a first job at Tala's age who was probably not that much older than her.

"That's great to hear. And if you ever get bored, you can join me at community college next fall," Carole joked. "Who knows, right now I'm just trying to get back on my feet so I can take care of my son if he'll let me. Thanks for talking to me Carole."

They said their goodbyes and Carole got back to her homework. She really hoped everything would turn out alright, because Kurt and Blaine both deserved to have a supportive family they could rely on.

Up Next: Things are heating up. The next chapter will be in four parts.