Rory smirked a little and then reached forward to grab her arm. “You’re not getting away from me now,” he told her, “and I’m sorry if I forgot to find you or something when I first got here, but you shouldn’t be mad at me about that. Come on, we have to talk.”

Sugar stared at him for a long moment and then she was throwing herself at him and Rory almost toppled over backwards, but he caught her against him and felt her squeezing him in a tight hug. Rory couldn’t remember the last time he’d hugged Sugar.

“Oh, Rory, it’s not my fault, it’s not, but Mami told me not to talk to you and I’ve been…I miss them so much, Rory, and it’s no use now because you started it and that’s what we’ll tell them and…”

Rory shushed her and shook his head in amusement. “Worry about that later,” he said.

She pulled back slowly, but stayed close to him and Rory began to laugh because Sugar was there with him and that strange loneliness that he had been feeling was diminished to an extent with her near. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her to his side.

“I’m surprised to be saying it, Sug, but I’ve missed you.”

She let out a small giggle. “Missed you too, Rors.”

Rory led her into an empty classroom and closed the door behind them just in case. He didn’t know what to say, not now that he knew their parents had asked Sugar to stay away from him. He still felt bad about having forgotten her.

“So,” he said, “we’re stuck in the past.”

“And it’s all your fault,” Sugar said. She jumped on one of the desks and swung her legs, “you were so stupid, Rory. You don’t know what you did to your dad.”

Rory sighed. “I didn’t mean to go so far back, I never meant for any of this to happen. I just – I wanted to save my Papa.” His voice sort of broke and he tried to hide the tears that wanted to burst out.

Sugar jumped off of the desk and she was hugging him again. “I know,” she whispered, “but, Rory, I don’t think it works that way.”

Rory didn’t respond. He needed this comfort of having someone that actually knew him hugging him even if it was Sugar. He put his head on her shoulder and he felt her hand on his neck, gently moving up and down. It was calming.

“I miss them so much, Sugar. Hell, I miss everyone.”

“Me too.”

They clung to each other for a while and then Rory was the one to pull back. “So, what have you been up to exactly? Here, I mean.”

“Hanging out with my moms, or trying to…they’re kinda different. I don’t know what I expected. I just – I want them back, you know.”

“Yeah,” Rory said.

“Your dads though,” Sugar said, “they’re practically the same.”

Rory rolled his eyes, “they’re not really.”

“I know you don’t see it that way, but the other day during the dodgeball game – and I am so sorry about that, by the way – your dad just jumped to help you and that was just how your dad would have reacted.”

Rory fiddled with a belt loop. He still couldn’t really believe what had happened earlier. But he smiled a little bit.

“He’s already becoming who my dad will be,” Rory said.

They heard footsteps out in the hall and Rory was reminded that he should probably go back to Brittany’s.

“Where are you staying, anyway?”

“I don’t think they’d want me telling you that,” Sugar said and shrugged, “sorry. I mean, we’re not supposed to interact really, I don’t know why.”

Rory nodded. “But, we’ll talk now, won’t we?”

Sugar nodded. “Of course.”

They hugged again and then Sugar left first, walking quickly and with an air that told everyone she thought she was better than them. Rory thought it was funny. He waited until he couldn’t hear her footsteps anymore before he left.

Rory found Finn with his dads and Rachel outside. They all looked visibly upset. When he approached, glad that he wouldn’t have to walk to Brittany’s house if they were still here, Blaine tried to smile at him but it was a strained smile.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Finn said, “and seriously, who doesn’t know?”

Kurt rolled his eyes, “you did it to hurt her because of some silly feud between clubs and now the whole school thinks that she’s a lesbian and maybe you didn’t notice but we go to a highly homophobic school. You’re going to have to apologize, Finn Hudson.”

Rory said nothing, he watched Finn instead and his distress. He and Rachel walked off towards Finn’s car and Rory knew that he’d figure something out. As stupid as his uncle had been doing that to Santana, Rory knew his heart was in the right place and that he’d figure something out.

“Do you need a ride home, Rory?”

Rory nodded and he followed his dad towards Kurt’s car.

“I wish we could do something for her,” Blaine said, “coming out is hard enough, but to have it happen like that – poor Santana.”

- - -

All he had was this to get into NYADA, winning the election. It wasn’t going to happen though, and Kurt knew it. He’d known it the moment the pixie stix came out and everyone he walked past on his way to class had one – he knew it the moment that he saw people cheering for Brittany.

The part of him that dreaded not getting into NYADA and having his future be as undetermined as his brother’s wanted to just forget about doing the right thing and find a way to win anyway. He knew it was wrong, and he knew that he wouldn’t do it when he didn’t even tell Blaine what he’d been considering doing. But he did mention it to Rachel, already knowing that he wasn’t going to do it.

It’d been a strange week so far. He’d been dealing with the stress of trying to fill out the application to NYADA and failing at every attempt to start it. He wasn’t going to get in.

There were other schools of course, and he had applied elsewhere just in case, but NYADA was his dream. New York City was where he was meant to be and that school and everything it offered was his step into what he’d always wanted for himself.

“Hey,” Blaine said and sank into the seat next to him at the library.

“Hey, yourself,” Kurt said.

“Why are you always in the library these days?” Blaine asked.

Kurt shrugged. “Quiet.”

“Well, I come to steal you away so you can actually eat something today and stop worrying about this election. It won’t be the end of the world if you don’t win, and if you don’t then we can figure out what to do then, but you don’t have to keep worrying about it.”

Kurt stood up. “I’m not going to get into NYADA,” he said as calmly as anything, “without this, with the small part I got in West Side Story, all I have is glee and what applicant to this school doesn’t? I’d be lucky if I’m even compared to Rachel.”

Blaine didn’t hesitate in wrapping his arms around him and even though Kurt wanted to protest because they were in school and they’d talked about how they’d restrain themselves from showing any affection because they didn’t know what could happen if they didn’t. But he didn’t pull away. He let Blaine hold him for a while before he finally did pull away.

“You are amazing, Kurt, and NYADA should be lucky to have you. Whatever happens, I’m here and together we’ll figure something out.”

“Okay.”

“So,” Blaine said as they began to walk towards the exit, “you have got to stop worrying about this.”

They separated for their classes and as Kurt sat in his History class he couldn’t help but feel a bit better about the whole thing, because even if he did lose he would still have Blaine and that mattered more than anything else.

He met up with Blaine at his locker before glee. Blaine smiled at him. “I don’t think the commercial’s aired yet,” he said, “but it should be any day now and I think some people know anyway.”

The whole thing Finn was trying to do for Santana had rubbed Kurt the wrong way from the moment he heard about it, mostly because he realized at once that it was Finn’s way of letting himself off of the guilt hook. And although Kurt could appreciate that they were all being supportive of Santana and trying to help, he couldn’t get over how they had over looked his problems and made such light of his coming out. It was different of course, and Kurt didn’t exactly hold any resentment towards any of them but he couldn’t help but think about how differently they were all handling it.

He and Blaine had agreed to sing first and Kurt hoped that Santana would get something out of their song and show of support. Still, it was Santana, and Kurt knew her well enough to know that she was unpredictable and that she might still be just as angry at Finn as she had been a few days ago when she slapped him. Although he had heard that Finn managed to stop Figgins from suspending her over the entire thing. Again, it had to do with his guilt.

“Perfect” was the song that he and Blaine had first sung together in the car back when they were still friends. Since then, every time it came on the radio or on their ipods the two of them turned to each other and just sung.

But Santana didn’t seem to find it helpful. Instead she sat, her face stoic and afterwards made her usual comments. But that was Santana, and Santana hid behind her sarcasm and wit.

Afterwards, when they were leaving the choir room, Rory touched his elbow.

“Your song was beautiful,” he said and beamed at him and there was a strange emotion in Rory’s eyes.

“Are you okay, Rory?”

The Irish boy nodded. “Course.”

Kurt looked after him, after he’d walked away and he wondered yet again why he was always so worried about the younger boy. Rory was just another glee member and friend and of course Kurt cared, but he really did go out of his way to make sure he was okay and despite how he’d smiled and been enthusiastic while Kurt and Blaine were singing earlier, there had been something like longing in his eyes.

“Rory alright?”

Kurt shrugged, “don’t know. He said he was fine, but did he look a bit…I don’t know, odd.”

“Maybe it’s a bad association with the song. Who knows.”

Kurt nodded. “I have other things to worry about, you’re right. I – I told Rachel I was thinking about cheating.”

“What?”

“It just…it shouldn’t come down to some votes made by the senior class of this place if I get into NYADA. It shouldn’t, but it’s going to and I’m just so frustrated and I can’t even be mad at Brittany because it’s Brittany and Jacob Ben Israel pretty much confirmed I’m going to lose and…and I’m not going to do it.”

They were still in the choir room, so when Blaine hugged him, Kurt hugged him just as hard back and they stayed like that for a while.

- - -

Sugar thought it was stupid that Finn’s song was the one to get through to her mami, but she didn’t let it bother her for long, because seeing her mami actually smile again was better than anything and that mattered more.

The commercial finally aired about halfway through the week and Sugar watched it with tears in her eyes because she had never known it was like this and she hadn’t expected for it to hurt so much to see something that was going to cause her mami pain.

“Just remember that she’ll become the woman you know in the future,” Rory told her, “it’s how I’m dealing with all the pressure and worry my dad’s putting on himself over this stupid election.”

Sugar nodded and then grinned at him, “my mom wins,” she said.

Rory rolled his eyes.

Sugar was present when the first person came up to her mami about the commercial, some guy that thought he could somehow change who she was by flashing his smile and getting to agree to go to bed with him. Sugar herself had almost stepped forward to defend her, but she stopped herself in time.

Santana wasn’t particularly fond of her and with her knowing that she and Rory were from the future, she wouldn’t be happy with Sugar interfering in any way. Instead Rachel was there with the other girls from glee and Sugar saw the relief that washed over her mami when they came to her rescue as if somehow she hadn’t expected that her friends would help her or stand by her despite what the week was about. Sugar didn’t want to think about how many of those people her mami and mom – for that matter – would have to deal with after this.

“I wish they would let me be close to them,” Sugar told Rory after the incident, “like your dad’s do.”

“It’s hard though,” Rory admitted, “to see them and know it’s them and yet know that it actually isn’t them. It doesn’t make missing them any easier and most of the time I just want to tell them everything and have them fix it because they’re my dad’s.”

Sugar was glad Rory and she were talking now. It was good to have someone that knew just what she was feeling and who could talk to her about it. Still though she couldn’t help but wonder why she’d been asked to stay away from Rory.

“We’ll get back,” she assured him, “somehow we’ll make it back and everything will be the same.”

Rory didn’t want everything to be the same. He wanted his papa to be alive, he wanted Blaine to be there when he returned alive and well. Sugar was almost positive that they wouldn’t be able to change anything to make that happen for him. Still, she really did want to have uncle Blaine in the future. After all this trouble she and Rory had gone to, it was only right that the universe gave them that if nothing else.

- - -

Blaine was with Mike in the auditorium. Tina was sitting on the floor not too far from them, watching as they practiced a few dance moves.

“You’re getting almost as good as Mike,” Tina said.

Blaine shook his head. He’d never be as good, and he was definitely not doing well now, too worried about Kurt and what he’d been called to Figgins’ office for.

“He’ll be fine,” Mike assured him, “not only is Kurt tough, but it might not be all bad news.”

When Kurt was called down to the principal’s office Blaine hadn’t known how to react because all he could think about was the election and Kurt telling him that he had been thinking of cheating. There was no other reason for him to be called down there unless it had something to do with his dad and Blaine was sure that Finn would have been called down too, then.

“I don’t know, guys,” he admitted, “I just have a bad feeling about this.”

Mike began showing him another step and Blaine tried to copy what he was doing until he had almost got it right.

“You’re far better at this than the rest of the New Directions,” Mike told him.

Tina stood up to join them and went to stand on Mike’s other side.

“Better than Finn anyway,” Mike added.

Blaine rolled his eyes and smiled. Mike was one of the few members of New Directions that had really welcomed him wholeheartedly. He and Tina accepted his and Kurt’s relationship like no one else, and more than that they accepted him and his transfer and were genuinely happy that he was there. Mike was also one of the few people that Blaine had talked to about Finn in detail and who was on his side.

They were just about to connect two different steps together into a sequence when Kurt rushed in and Blaine knew at once that something was wrong from the frantic look on his face and his slightly reddened eyes.

“Blaine,” he gasped out and Blaine was at his side at once, arms wrapping around him glad to have the quiet of the auditorium, “they think I did it, they think I stuffed the ballot. I didn’t do it. You have to know I didn’t and they…if they find proof…”

Blaine saw Mike and Tina leave, but he didn’t concern himself with them because Kurt was practically in tears.

“’I’ll really not get into NYADA,” he added, “I won’t if this is on my permanent record and…and …who would do this?”

“I don’t know,” Blaine said, “I don’t know, Kurt, but they don’t have proof and you didn’t do it. Someone else did and they’ll get caught.”

“And if they don’t?”

Blaine pulled back from the hug only so he could see Kurt’s face, their bodies staying in the same proximity.

“Then, we will prove that you didn’t do that, that you wouldn’t do that.”

“Okay.”

Kurt kissed him, then, a kiss full of his sorrow and his anxiety about the entire matter. This was a Kurt who was reaching for straws trying to figure out how his entire life could be altered by this. Blaine wanted to just reassure him and tell him that someday Kurt would make it to New York and that it didn’t matter if it was through NYADA or another school but that his life and his dreams weren’t going to be over just like that.

Instead, he let Kurt kiss him and kissed back gently putting all his love into it, and then he promised himself that would do everything in his power to help Kurt even if it meant trying to figure out which of the seniors had thought it was a bright idea to do this to Kurt.

He couldn’t imagine who would do it. Had it been a friend trying to help – Finn maybe in his attempts at being a good brother, Or had it been someone else, someone hoping that Kurt would get in trouble, some jock doing it for kicks, not caring that he could be ruining someone’s life.

Blaine had never imagined that it was Rachel. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that Rachel might do it in some misconceived way to make amends, or that she was the only other person that might have taken Kurt’s idea and run with it. He should have expected it.

“I’m banned from competing at Sectionals.”

And then suddenly Rachel wasn’t just to blame for Kurt’s breakdown the day before, but also the possibility that they might actually lose at Sectionals.

“I don’t know if I should hate her for doing that or not,” Kurt admitted to him as Blaine sat him down at the library with the application he still hadn’t finished.

“Her reasons could be justified,” Blaine said, “I don’t know about acting on them.”

“She just doesn’t think sometimes and I love her for trying to give me this and finally realizing how much I need this to get into NYADA, but we’re screwed for Sectionals.”

Blaine couldn’t help but agree. Without Rachel he didn’t know what they’d do and it wasn’t just about not having Rachel perform, but about leaving Finn to just take over as the captain of the club or something and how easily that would mean that Blaine’s ideas would be just shoved to the aside as if they didn’t matter.

“You are going to get in,” Blaine said, “because you’re amazing and you have good SAT scores and because you have some really good recommendation letters. You have glee and you were in the play even if it was a minor role, and you were in the cheerios and all of that says something about you – it says you’re committed to few things but you do them with passion and that you aren’t just in every club in an effort to get into college.”

Kurt leaned his head against Blaine’s arm and nodded even though Blaine knew it was probably just to humor him.