The interview is about to start, he’s already been introduced and wired up, ready to step out and he’s thrumming with energy and nervousness he’s pretty surprised he hasn’t broken any bones in Kurt’s hand though he has made a few high sounds and eased Blaine’s fingers off him at times. When they arrived Ellen came and shook their hands and talked them through the process, explaining it down to the finest detail. She pats his back and smiles warmly, telling him he’s a special young man and she’s honoured to have him on the show. It was then it started.

He’s waved n as Ellen says his name and the crowd bursts into applause and not just a few whistles. He waves shyly and sits down in the seat opposite here, a table with two glasses of water separating them.

“So, Blaine, rising star of Columbia Records, your covers of songs and the two original ones of your own you’ve put on YouTube are being viewed in their millions. How does that feel?” Ellen asks and Blaine grins, tamping down the sudden wave of worry in his gut. Something’s not right but he has no idea what.

“It’s kind of amazing, uhm, I have no idea who they all are watching them but I’m so, so grateful. I can’t believe it.”

Ellen laughs and awws to the audience. “Aww a humble star. So how did you get into singing?”

Blaine shrugs and chuckles. “I was in my high school glee clubs, I love singing. It’s a part of me, like an extra arm or something. If I didn’t have it I wouldn’t know what to do. My story’s much like others these days. I wanted to sing and make others feel happy through my singing and so I posted my videos to YouTube, auditioned for record companies and got lucky, Columbia liked me and understood me and here we are.”

Ellen nods. “I feel like there’s a little more to your story though Blaine, you say glee clubs, there was more than one?”

Blaine takes a sip of his water before he continues, knowing what she’s unconsciously asking. “Yeah, in my first school I was in the glee club there but I got bullied a lot and transferred to Dalton which is in Westerville in Ohio and I was in the glee club there. Then I met this amazing guy and he was being bullied at his school so came to Dalton, then things changed at his school so he went back then I transferred to his school for my junior and senior year and was in glee there in Lima.”

The audience awed with Ellen and she grinned. “That’s a lot of moving around. He must be a special guy.”

“Yeah,” Blaine nodded and turned as Kurt sat in the green room came up on camera and he waved charmingly. “That’s my Kurt. We met on a staircase, I sang Teenage Dream and he stuck around ‘til I realised we loved each other and we’ve been together ever since. He’s gorgeous isn’t he?” He said to the audience and they cheered back.

Ellen’s smile dropped into a serious look and Blaine’s gut churned, this was it. “You’re obviously a very inspiring young man Blaine and to have a serious, committed relationship at your age is rare along with all of the things happening now for you but we know there’s another reason you’re here. The other day, and I’m not an advocate of people using other people’s information, I think it’s vile and disrespectful but it’s out there. This,” She gestured to the picture of the blog post that came up on the screen. “Is a post made by someone who went to your school and knew you or things about you and said that you were a victim of child abuse and that last Thanksgiving you were almost killed. Do you want to talk about that?”

Blaine nods, tears in his eyes and gestures to the back where Kurt is “Can-can Kurt come out?”

Ellen nods and pats his knee reassuringly. “Of course sweetie.” She motions to the show runners to go and get Kurt. After a few seconds Kurt walks out as the audience claps, he gives an awkward wave then sits down next to Blaine, taking his hand.

Blaine takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before speaking. “Um, the blog is true; I was a victim of abuse. Some of the details are wrong. He didn’t know me personally, most of the school body was told about the attack and certain things to make sure I was safe when I went back to school. I hid the fact that my dad used to hit me from everyone. Cooper, my brother, Kurt, my friends. After my mom left when I was eight, he started and it got worse when I came out, then last Thanksgiving when I was going out with Kurt and Cooper for a meal he snapped. He was drunk and he tried to strange me. If Kurt and Coop hadn’t been there…” He trails off and looks at Kurt who squeezes his hand and smiles proudly at him.

“Since you were eight years old? Blaine I’m so sorry, that’s a long time to have that happening to you.” Ellen says, her mouth wide in shock.

Blaine shrugs. “I was a kid; I didn’t know how to talk about it. He’d tell me I deserved it, that I was worthless, things I believed until Kurt came along and showed me how wrong he was. I think that’s why he flipped. He was losing his hold on me. Kurt was proving him wrong and I was getting too big, I could hit back.”

“Did you ever?” She asks.

“No. I thought about it but I figured I’d be as bad as him, or he’d threaten Kurt or my friends, saying he’d get to them.” Blaine says, his eyes scanning the crowd and seeing nothing but shock, awe and understanding.

Ellen looks at Kurt. “So what happened that night?”

Kurt smiles sadly and replies. “We heard Blaine screaming and ran into the house; we were outside at the time. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My family is a loving ad kind one, my dad wouldn’t harm anyone or anything and to see Blaine’s dad doing that to him, it was horrifying. Cooper tried to fight him and eventually when the sirens and I distracted him Cooper broke his jaw.”

“How did you distract him?” Ellen asks curiously.

“I screamed.” Kurt says which draws a few giggles from the audience.

“So where is your father now?”

“He’s dead,” Blaine answered. “He killed himself in custody. He had no control anymore.”

“Wow,” Ellen mutters, sitting back in her chair slightly. “So how do you heal and go from that, which must have been terrifying, into this young man that wants to take over the world?”

Blaine smiles and looks from her to Kurt then the audience. “I had Kurt and his family. They became my family too. Burt, his dad, has treated me more like a son in the last few years than my dad ever did; I count him among my best friends. Kurt was amazing, he’d organise everything around me and make sure I was ok. He went back to New York where he was, he works for Vogue and some things happened. For a long time I couldn’t have my neck touched and my friend Sam hugged me, I, uh, I threw a chair across the room. I was traumatised and I turned into someone else when someone touched my neck. I was thrown out of school and Kurt’s boss was offered to take over the Vogue offices here so we came here. We got therapy and healed and here we are.” Blaine breathed out happily.

“You were kicked out of school?” Ellen asks incredulously.

“Violence and vandalism.” Blaine shrugged as if that was an answer.

Ellen nodded and looked at her questions. “So Kurt, you had therapy too?”

Kurt nods. “Yeah, I was traumatised too. I was having nightmares and I was worrying so much about Blaine and everything else, for a while I wasn’t being very healthy but we’re ok. It’s not a cure, things will always be there but we’re ok and happy.”

“You’ve been there through everything for Blaine, was there ever a moment where you thought you couldn’t handle it? Or didn’t want to?” She asks.

“No,” Kurt said honestly, shrugging. “He’s my soul mate. I love him with everything I have, he needed me. He’s my world.”

“And you’re mine.” Blaine said back, grinning and they kissed briefly as the audience burst into applause.

“Wow,” Ellen breathed. “Well you’re both amazing young men; there aren’t enough words, honestly. I hope you go far and carry on inspiring people everywhere. Blaine and Kurt Hummel everyone!” She shouted and shook their hands, the audience giving them a standing ovation as they walked off stage.

“You did it baby.” Kurt says, cupping Blaine’s face in his hands and kissing him soundly.

“Yeah.” Blaine whispered; dread still curling in his gut.

That night he dreams of fluorescent white lights, beeping, and smashes of glass, cries and a voice, a clear, high voice pleading with him not to die. He doesn’t tell Kurt.

The next day their friends are still there with them, taking a long weekend from their various jobs and schools to spend time with them so they arrange to go out for a ‘family’ lunch, to catch up now that the interview is over. Since the blog came out and then the interview people have come up to both Blaine and Kurt, wishing them well, telling them how inspiring they are, as a show of strength and perseverance and as a couple. Kurt organises the lunch and they’re talking fast, him, Blaine, Finn, Puck, Mercedes and Rachel as they walk out of the apartment building. Kurt’s in front, leading the way as ever, smiling into the California sun. Happy.

The car comes too fast for him to see and as he turns to grin back at his friends, brother and boyfriend, he never hears the screech of brakes; how the car mounts the curb and the screams of those he loves before the car hits him. All he sees are the wide, shocked blue of the driver’s eyes before the world goes black.

It all happens in slow motion. Blaine looks up and sees Kurt glance back grinning but the smile on his own face slips away as he sees the car driving towards the other man. “Kurt! No!” He screams but it’s too late, the car’s brakes squeal as the bumper slams into him, propelling his body over the hood, smashing into the windscreen as Kurt raises his arm, trying to protect his head; the sickening crack just heard over Mercedes’s scream. They’re all rooted to the steps as the car stops and Kurt’s broken body crumples to the ground.

The car door opens and snaps them out of their daze, flooding down the steps to their friend, blood everywhere. The driver steps out; and they stop in horror to see Brody and Blaine distantly hears him saying. “Oh my God, I didn’t see him. Kurt? Blaine, oh my God.” Blaine’s already running to his boyfriend, kneeling next to him, his heart stuttering in his chest. Brody kneels down next to him and reaches out, tears flooding down his face.

“Don’t touch him!” Rachel screams and Blaine, who is also reaching out to Kurt, takes his hand back quickly and looks up at his best friend as she takes her cell out, snapping it open and dials 911, shouting orders into the phone and snapping it shut again. Her face crumbles into a look of pure pain and she slumps down next to them, Finn, Puck and Mercedes joining them. Finn wraps an arm around Rachel and she buries her head in his chest, crying bitterly. Brody starts to reach out to her but Rachel, feeling the motion, snaps her head around and glares at him, eyes filled with hate. “Don’t touch me.” She hisses at the same time as her friends do.

Brody backs up, his hands up in surrender as the wail of sirens starts in the background and he gasps, watching in horror as Blaine turns and gets up, eyes filled with venom and lips twisted in a snarl. “What the fuck were you doing?” He grates out.

“I…I…I was texting Rachel. I didn’t see him! I’m sorry Blaine, I’m so sorry.” Brody stutters, his eyes unable to look away from Blaine’s, he feels like he’s pinned to the wall.

“You were texting? Are you that stupid?” Finn’s voice breaks through and Brody looks at him, the man’s face filled with pain and helplessness.

“Evidently.” Blaine hisses and turns as the paramedics flood around Kurt, pushing the others back. “If he dies, I will hold you down and rip you apart myself.” The black haired man hisses and walks away, over to the paramedics to tell them that, yes, he’s Kurt’s partner and get into the ambulance.

Dr Max Needham is just finishing with his latest patient, a shy, timid boy whose parent’s marriage breakdown and their inability to talk properly to their son about it has damaged him severely. The boy’s making progress though and it reminds him of the two teens from Ohio, one who didn’t want to talk and the other who didn’t know how.

“Burt Hummel for you.” His receptionist says through the intercom and his brow furrows for a moment. Why would Kurt’s father be at his office? The door opens a second later and a big, burly man walks through the door but he’s not scared. Over the course  of being their therapist and friend  he’s become used to Kurt and Blaine’s stories of the man and is almost in awe of him and the kind eyes he’s seen in pictures. He smiles and starts to ask how he is but as he looks properly he stops in his tracks. The man’s eyes – Burt’s eyes - aren’t the normal, placid green he’s seen; they’re red-rimmed, puffy and bloodshot. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week and he’s slumping in his gait as he walks further into the room. He doesn’t look the juggernaut of a man the two teens have painted in his mind; he just looks old and exhausted.

It has him up and out of his seat, rounding the desk to him. “What’s happened?” Dr Needham asks, his stomach swooping low.

The two men regard each other and in his eyes Max sees a man broken open, his pain raw and bleeding as he tries to find the words to explain whatever mess has him this way.

“Kurt,” He rasps, his voice tear-etched, like he’s been crying for hours and has no idea how to stop. “He’s…he’s in hospital.” It’s the last Burt says to the stunned therapist before he turns and lumbers back out of the office, gesturing for him to come.

Max just says to his receptionist to cancel his appointments and tells her to go home before he’s running after Burt, sliding into the passenger seat in turmoil. He wants to ask questions, he wants to beg for Kurt to be okay but he can’t, he can’t ask anything of this man because he knows, right now he has nothing to give.

They get to the hospital and through the doors to where the others are waiting seconds before another man is bursting through the doors.

“Where is he?” Cooper shouts and they all turn to look at him but his eyes fix on the huddled mess in the corner. In two strides he’s over and pulling his brother into his arms, wrapping his arms around him tight and rubbing his back as Blaine cries hysterically.

“I knew something was wrong.” Blaine cries against Cooper’s chest and Cooper holds him tighter because there’s no use in what if’s now.

The others stand around, confused, in pain and silent. Burt looks around for his son and finds Finn in a similar state to Blaine, head down, crying into his hands. As he gets over Finn looks up at him and cries. “Why? Why him, dad? He was the best one of all of us.”

Burt slumps into the chair and wraps his arms around the boy- man, he corrects himself but looking up at the mess of life before him, he can’t believe any of them are mature enough to cope with this. No-one should have to cope with this. He’d come over with Finn to help out as needed and watched the interview from the side-lines quietly, pride blooming in his chest for his boys. Now it was like a rerun of last year without the insane father, but the results were the same. Tonight he could lose a son. Rachel sits down next to him and he wraps an arm around her too. Mercedes walks over to Cooper who wraps her up with him and Blaine. Puck sits on the floor by Burt’s legs and leans back against them, sobbing into his knees and suddenly Burt feels like the father of a very big family, but he isn’t the glue. He may be the one these broken children look to, right now especially but he’s not the one that brought them, and holds them, together and as he looks over at the doors between himself and his child, he hopes that glue never comes unstuck because if it does, the world will fall apart at the seams and none of them will survive.