The Hummel house was small. Mr. Hummel had called Blaine back that Saturday evening and said that he was free the coming Tuesday in the early afternoon. Clouds blanketed the sky, it looked like it was going to snow. Blaine got out of his car, gabbing his light brown shoulder bag from the passengers seat. Ringing the doorbell, he waited on the step for a couple of minutes before the door opened and he was beckoned inside.

"Sorry about keeping you outside there. It's only gotten colder today." Blaine followed Mr. Hummel into the kitchen that was off of the living room, passing pictures of Kurt on the way. One of them looked similar to the one he had on file, as if they were from the same shoot. Must have been senior pictures, Blaine thought. The house was very different from Blaine's own childhood home. His parents house was pristine, there was furniture that he was sure had never been sat on. The Hummels' home was just that, a home. It looked used, not worn with sadness but rather with love and life.

The older man offered him a glass of water. Blaine politely accepted it and a tall glass clinked against the wood of the table a moment later. They both took a seat at the small round table. A few seconds passed in silence, Blaine couldn't figure out how to start. He knew that Mr. Hummel would probably have a hard time telling him what he knew. He cleared his throat and decided he was just going to have to jump right in.

"Thank you for having me over, Mr. Hummel. I'm sure things haven't been easy for you and especially after the way James treated you, I'm grateful you're giving me a chance." Blaine looked across the table nervously.

"When someone calls you about your missing son you don't exactly turn them away." Burt said. Tucking his head down briefly, Blaine laughed softly to himself.

"I suppose," he started, "your right, Mr. Hummel."

"Before we continue, please, call me Burt."

"Alright, Burt then. Shall we get started?" Blaine pulled the file, a large notepad, and a pen from his bag. "Now, you've stated that Kurt has gone missing and that you have reason to believe that this is connected to the way your son was treated at school. That is correct?" Burt's hands were folded together on the table in front of him, one hand massaging the other.

"Yes," he replied. The word seemed to get caught in his throat, the sound barely making it to Blaine's side of the table. Water was already beginning to pool in Burt's eyes.

Blaine waited a few seconds before continuing, "I'm going to need you to tell me everything you know about Kurt's experiences at school." The curtain on the small window above the sink fluttered and both men caught the sight out of the corner of their eyes, neither giving it a second thought. Burt lifted one of his hands to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I wish I could tell you more," he began.

"Anything you know, it will be a big help," Blaine encouraged him to continue.

"I suppose the worst of it started two years ago, when Kurt was a sophomore. For a while Kurt didn't talk about what was happening. I knew, he had be going through some difficult days, just because this town is, well, it's not very accepting. I was getting phone calls at random from people telling me how terrible it was to raise a- a fag." It turned out that when Kurt got wind of people harassing his father, he told him that he would tone it down but Burt insisted that he just keep being himself. They could get through anything together.

"A while after that incident, I knew things were getting worse for Kurt but he still wasn't telling me much. I could see it wearing him down. There were a couple days in a row when I would see him come home rubbing his arm or hip. After a few times, I followed him to his room when he got home. He was in his bathroom nursing a bad bruise on his shoulder. That's when I got him to tell me about getting thrown against lockers several times a day." Burt had gone into the school on several occasions for the remainder of that year to report the abuse his son was going through but the school always claimed that their was nothing they could do.

Blaine cringed at the policy he was hearing. This school actually believed, no, refused to do anything because it was high school and everyone goes through shit and that's just how it's always been, that will never change. The bullying remained at the same level well into Kurt's junior year when things suddenly took a turn. The boy who bullied Kurt the most upped the frequency of attacks. Kurt had started going into school early and leaving late to avoid being confronted in the hallways as much as he could control.

"Is that why you waited to report him missing?" Blaine interjected.

"Yes, it was a Friday morning, he's usually left for school by the time I get up. Occasionally we see each other before he leaves, but not often enough for me to be concerned. I had tried calling him later in the day with no answers. I had worked late that day and he still wasn't home. I checked for any messages, sometimes he goes out with the girls from his glee club. There weren't any so I checked his room. His phone was on the table next to the bed. I was more concerned about how messy his room looked though, he isn't the type to leave the bed unmade, or clothes lying around." Burt looked over toward the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room.

Bringing his attention back to the young man sitting across from him, Burt continued his recount of Kurt's experiences. "I was surprised he made it through junior year. I looked into Dalton Academy several times, even contacted them and had met with the Dean a few times. Kurt didn't know much about it. He's the one who brought up the school but I didn't want to get his hopes up if we couldn't afford it. Blaine nodded in understanding. He had gone to Dalton Academy and knew how expensive it was especially if boarding was necessary.

Kurt began his senior year at Mckinley high school. Things were, compared to the previous year, seemingly better for the first few weeks. Then Kurt completely shut down, he went to school, came home. Burt wasn't even sure if he was still in glee club. More than once he'd overheard a conversation Kurt was having with one of his friends when he was curled up on the couch. He talked his way out of any type of hanging out even if the other person suggested that they stay in and watch movies.

"I tried to talk to him. He's one stubborn kid. So we got into this routine where he would come home, do his homework, he made dinner and then we hung out in the living room. He even sat through sports if that was what I wanted to watch. Last Thursday, when he got home, there wasn't a single word. Kurt went straight to his room. When I went up a couple of hours later to check on him, he was curled up in his blankets, asleep. I thought I heard him get up around midnight and come down here, probably to get something to eat."

"And that's the last you heard from him?" Blaine asked and Burt nodded to him. His hand was busy writing quickly to record the information he'd just been given. Burt's story had taken up numerous pages on his pad of paper. Now he had to sort through it all and see if he could get any other information.

The men exchanged contact information once more before Blaine got up to leave with promises of a call to set up another meeting. They needed to discuss exactly what was going to happen from here and how a case, depending on what it was, would proceed. Climbing into his car, having thanked Burt for his time and once again for giving him a chance, Blaine looked up at the house before pulling completely out of the driveway. It must have been the sadness that Burt was feeing, the heaviness of what had happened that made the house itself look sad, like the missing boy gave it so much life and now that he was gone...Blaine rubbed his eyes and pulled out of the driveway.