AN: Sorry for the delay. We started filming again and after 12 hours on set (most of it during the night) my brain was just too tired to write a lot. So this is only the first part because I didn't want to make you wait any longer. 

Chapter 11: The Ugly Truth

Blaine

Blaine ran after his dad, hoping to catch up with Kurt and his dad before they could leave the building, but he needn't have worried about that because Kurt was still in the building, but they were too late nevertheless.

"You lying piece of shit!" Mr. Anderson's voice rang out in the empty hallway and Blaine froze again when he saw Kurt go down in the distance. "Get up and behave like a man for once." A kick to Kurt's ribs and stomach finally propelled Blaine to move forward again.

"Stop it!" he yelled and Mr. Anderson looked up for a moment. It was all the distraction Blaine needed as he tried to tackle Mr. Anderson. The man wasn't much taller than Blaine, but he apparently was quite strong because next thing he knew he was stumbling back clutching his eye. His dad pushed Kurt's dad away from Kurt, who was still curled up on the floor and made no move to get up and Blaine feared that his injuries were worse than they looked at the moment.

Suddenly, Blaine heard footsteps running down the hallway and he was soon faced with the rest of the Glee club, worry evident on their faces as they watched his dad struggle to contain Mr. Anderson. Puck ran forward and grabbed the arm with which Kurt's dad was trying to hit his dad and Blaine sank to the floor and gently pulled Kurt's head in his lap.

Kurt's left side was bloody; blood still trickling out of a deep cup on his temple and Blaine pressed his shirtsleeve to the wound to stop the bleeding. "Are you okay?" he whispered. "So sorry," Kurt slurred, his face paler than Blaine had ever seen it before. "Sh, don't be. We can talk later. I just want to make sure you're doing okay right now," Blaine stroked Kurt's other cheek while his right arm was still pressed against the wound on Kurt's temple.

"Are you planning to just stand there and stare the whole day or could you do something useful and call 911," his dad suddenly yelled at Mr. Schuester who was staring at the scene in shock but had made no move to do anything.

Puck, Sam and his dad had subdued Mr. Anderson by now, but he was still screaming hateful slurs about his son that made Blaine want to get up and punch his face to shut him up.

"Right," Mr. Schuster stuttered before pulling out his cellphone and dialing 911. "Let's get this guy away from his son," Blaine's dad instructed next and he and the boys pulled the struggling man into an empty classroom.

Rachel dropped down by his side as soon as Kurt's dad was gone and grabbed Kurt's hand as tears were streaming down her face. "Please be okay," she whispered and Blaine was grateful she cared so much as well.

"Kurt," a familiar voice suddenly cried out and Blaine turned to glare at Kurt's mom who was standing next to a woman he didn't know. He felt Kurt tense in his lap and shook his head in Mr. Schuster's direction, hoping the teacher would catch his drift. Mr. Schuester apparently really wasn't the brightest tool in the shed because he just looked confused, but Mercedes stepped in.

"You must be Mrs. Anderson. We have everything under control, the police should be here any minute. I'm sure they'll want to talk to you, so it's good you managed to find us." Kurt's mom paled and mumbled something about needing water before making a hasty retreat. The woman who had been with her suddenly started crying however.

"Oh my god. Had I known he would do something like that I would have never told Jarred and Cathy about the competition," she sobbed and Blaine turned his glare on her though the woman hadn't hurt Kurt in person.

"It's not your fault, Mrs. Puckerman," Mr. Schuester tried to comfort the woman. "I mean when Kurt quit the club he said it was because his dad didn't want him to be in Glee and he didn't want me to talk to his father, but I never would have expected things to be this bad at home. If students don't talk to us how are we supposed to help them?"

Blaine couldn't believe Mr. Schuester, who like all the other teachers at school had turned a blind eye to the bullying, and had said there was nothing he could do, when Blaine had told him about the slushies his Glee club had to deal with.

"Can't breath," Kurt suddenly forced out in his lap and Blaine snapped back to the present, trying not to let his panic show. He pulled Kurt further into his arms, hoping a change of position would help Kurt, but it only caused Kurt to cry out in pain. Blaine was at a loss as to what to do, and he was beyond grateful for the EMTs timing.

"Please, help. He can't breath," he cried out before being pushed aside by the professionals. An oxygen mask was put over Kurt's face and Blaine watched as a bit of color returned to his face. "Suspected pneumothorax. We need to get him to the hospital immediately for a chest x-ray," the female EMT added when she was met with puzzled expressions.

Blaine jumped up, intent on staying with Kurt for as long as possible, but was momentarily distracted by shouts coming from behind him. A profanities yelling Mr. Anderson was led down the hallway by two police officers, hands cuffed behind his back, while his own dad was walking with the police officers, apparently filling them in on what was going on.

When he saw that the EMTs had started moving Kurt down the hall, he quickly ran to catch up with them and was glad his black eye secured him a spot in the ambulance with Kurt. As soon as Kurt was placed in the ambulance, a needle was placed in the back of his hand and connected to a bag of something Blaine didn't know what it was.

Kurt's eyes were unfocused when Blaine tried to comfort him, telling him everything would be okay now that he was safe, and he briefly panicked when the other boy's eyes suddenly closed and he looked to the female EMT riding in the back with them, who assured him the pain meds flowing through the drip had knocked him out and that Kurt was in good hands.

They reached the hospital fairly quickly, but Blaine was stopped once they rushed into the emergency room, a nurse pulling him aside to ask him all kinds of questions about Kurt, Blaine didn't know the answers to.

At least his fear for Kurt distracted him from the fact that he hated hospitals, but he still protested when a nurse tried to lead him away to look at his eye. He flung himself into his dad's arms the moment he ran into the ER, followed more slowly by two police officers.

"What's going on?" he asked Blaine and Blaine shrugged helplessly. "I don't know, they wouldn't let me come with him. Something about his lungs."

His dad told him to sit back down while he went looking for a doctor or nurse to tell them more, but they still had to sit for nearly an hour before someone finally came to talk to them, and only after being told, that Kurt's mom was currently being questioned by the police and that the Hummels were the closest to a family Kurt had at the moment.

Blaine had been questioned by one of the officers as well while they waited and he told them everything he knew about Kurt and his parents, hating himself for not figuring out what was going on sooner. He was also sad that Kurt hadn't felt like he could trust Blaine enough to tell him, so Blaine could help him, but they could talk about that later, when Kurt was feeling better.

Finally, a young doctor approached them. "Family of Kurt Anderson?" he asked and Blaine and his dad nodded.

"We were afraid a broken rib might have punctured his lung and caused him to have trouble breathing. Fortunately the chest x-ray showed that all though one of his ribs is broken it only put pressure on his lungs when he tried to sit up and it didn't collapse after all. We have set and wrapped his injuries and he should wake up soon. We have him on pain medication and we are keeping him over night for observation, but if there are no complications we'll be able to release him tomorrow afternoon."

Blaine sank back down in his chair relieved that Kurt's injuries weren't worse than they had thought.

"Can I see him?" he asked and the doctor nodded. "You go, kiddo. Your friends are on their way as well and someone should be here to fill them in when they get here."

Blaine nodded before following the doctor down the hallway to Kurt's room. There were three beds in the room, two empty right now though, and Blaine's eyes travelled over to the bed next to the window.

The wound on Kurt's temple had been stitched and he was wearing one of those awful hospital gowns that made him look even smaller than he was. Blaine pulled a chair over to Kurt's bedside and gently took his hand into his own, hoping Kurt would wake up soon.

After what felt like hours, Kurt's eyes finally opened slowly, and he blinked a few times before his eyes settled on Blaine. "Did we win?" he whispered.

A weight was lifted of Blaine's shoulders when Kurt finally spoke again. "That's not important right now." He had no idea who had won the competition, not even sure the club had stayed long enough to hear the result.

Kurt just blinked before he repeated the question and somehow Blaine knew Kurt wasn't just talking about the competition. "Yes, we did," he whispered, his thumb stroking over the back of Kurt's hand.

There was a lot they had to talk about, so many questions Blaine needed answered, but before he could ask any of them, the doctor, followed by the police officer that had question him, entered the room and told him the police needed to talk to Kurt in private.

Resolved not to give up this time, he told Kurt he would be back as soon as the police was done, before leaving the room and sinking down on the floor outside of Kurt's room. He didn't stay seated long though, soon pacing the hallway his mind coming up with even more questions he didn't have the answers to.

Kurt

Kurt was relieved when the police officer came to talk to him, because as much as it had made him happy that Blaine had apparently never left his side in all this, he also didn't know what to tell him, now that he was semi lucid again. He couldn't believe the whole Glee club had seen him so defenseless, lying on the floor without being able to protect himself. He had never wanted anyone to see him like this, helpless, weak and now not only Blaine had seen him, a whole group of people he was slowly staring to consider friends had as well.

What if Blaine was angry with him for lying to him the whole time? Or what if he hated him for the black eye he had gotten trying to defend Kurt. No, having to tell a stranger his sob story was not a pleasant thought, but it at least gave him time to think about what he wanted to say to Blaine.

"Kurt, I'm officer Handson. Is it okay if I ask you a few question?" Kurt nodded, because he knew there was no getting out of this. Too many people had witnessed his father's reaction to finding out about the Glee competition. God, had he known his parents knew Puck's mom, he would have never dared to lie to his dad and go behind his back, but what was done was done, and maybe, just maybe it wasn't so bad that his dirty little secret was finally revealed.

"Can you tell me about what happened at your music competition?" Kurt nodded again.

"My dad, he told me to quit the club last week when he found out about it, but when I friend of mine saw some bruises on my back, I told him they were from bullies at my school who didn't like that I was doing show choir – and some of them were – and he promised to protect me from them, so I could come back to the club. I knew he wouldn't give up as long as he thought that was the reason, so I faked my dad's signature and made up a reason why I couldn't be home today. Apparently my parents ran into the mother of someone from the club who told them about the competition. We had just finished our set list, and Blaine, he's my friend, went over to say hello to his dad. Suddenly my dad was there and he grabbed me and pulled me into the hallway, where he…" he finished with a awkward gesture not wanting to have to spell it out.

The cop handed him a class of water and a tissue and only then did he realize that he was crying.

"And was that the first time your father reacted violently to you doing something he didn't approve of. Your x-rays showed an array of old injuries and I need to know if you got them at home?" Kurt knew this was it. He could say it was the first time his dad had acted like this and that all his other injuries came from school or he could finally tell the truth.

He took a deep breath, as deep as his aching ribs allowed before he whispered. "They're from my dad. At least most of them."

He had expected to feel lighter the moment he finally told the truth, but fear was still cursing through his veins, because what would happen to him now?

"And your mother, has she ever hit you as well?" Kurt shook his head. His mother was better with words and had always left the handy work to his father. "But she knew what was going on?"

"I think she was afraid of him too," Kurt whispered though he had no idea what made him say that. Maybe it was just the hope that things at home would be better if his father were removed from the equation. If it were just the two of them. And then there was also the fact that he was still afraid to end up in the system. He rather dealt with his mother's harsh words than with more physical abuse or even worse.

The police officer nodded and kept writing the things down Kurt was saying. "How long has this been going on?" she asked then and Kurt froze, because surely the cop would think he was a weak idiot for hiding something like this for so long. The officer must have sensed his hesitation because she moved her chair closer to his bed then.

"It's okay that you were afraid to talk about this. Many victims of abuse stay silent for a long time, because they are afraid of what others may think, or because they think telling the truth might make things worse."

Kurt swallowed hard. "Since I was about six," he finally whispered. "My dad didn't like that I wanted to play dress up with some girls from pre-school."

The officer nodded. "And no one has ever suspected anything? With your injuries you must have seen a doctor at least once?" Kurt nodded again.

"We moved to Ohio because a teacher at my old school saw some of my bruises. My parents told me to tell the social worker I fell out off a tree. It was always the same later as well. I was just clumsy and fell a lot. When I got older I learner how to deal with injuries myself so I didn't have to go to the hospital anymore," he confessed, and he realized that the more he talked about it, the lighter he felt.

"When can I go home?" he asked then because he needed to know what would happen to him now.

"I think your doctors said they wanted to keep you over night. I know social services are still talking to your mother to determine if you can go home with her. Is there anyone you can stay with until they reach a decision? I'm sure you'd rather be with friends right now instead of strangers."

Kurt nodded again. He was sure Burt would allow him to stay for a night or two, if he couldn't go home.

"Alright, someone from social service will come by to talk to you as well and we will keep you updated in regards to your father. Unless he can post bail, I assume he will have to stay in jail until his court date. Would you like me to send your friend back in now?"

Kurt thought for a moment before he nodded. He knew he and Blaine had to talk, and maybe Blaine would go easy on him, if he was still in a hospital bed.

AN: I hope to have the second part up some time tomorrow night.