The call came late on Thursday as Blaine was in the midst of studying for his Fundamentals of Education final. Without shifting the textbook off his lap, he reached over to turn down the volume on the record player and slip the receiver off the cradle in two smooth motions. He assumed it was a Mendicant who wanted advice for a final of his own - as the only one who had completed his undergraduate degree, he had helped a few study for their midterms with apparently a pretty high success rate, and with exams beginning in a matter of days it wouldn't be a surprise if one of the guys wanted to run something by him in a moment of panic. It was all just part of being a leader-

"Blaine- good. You're home." Peter's voice held a distinct false cheer on the other end of the line.

"I am," Blaine began cautiously, though the statement was self-evident, but the last thing he had time for was an evening of philosophical discussions about the nature of homosexuality - or an excursion up to the city. As fun as it had been, both that night and when they had gone back over Thanksgiving, he had slacked off a little bit in the subject all term and didn't really have time to burn. "But I'm in the middle of studying. Can it wait? I'm done with this one on Tuesday then have a couple days we can-"

"Ah, sadly it won't keep that long," Peter replied. He sounded distracted, uneasy, and Blaine was getting a bad feeling about the call the longer it went on. "I need you to pick up Janie's car and come get me. I tried her first, but she's out - probably at the library, like most of campus right now, and I would wait but her roommate hates me and isn't very good about giving her messages even from the people she doesn't despise. You have a key for my place, don't you? Her key is hanging beside my door, she'll know to ask me first when her car is gone and with any luck we'll be home before too late so she'll barely have time to be concerned-"

"Where are you?" Blaine asked.

"Well- ah. You see, that's a bit of a long story, but suffice it to say that clearly I'm okay or I wouldn't be calling-"

The evasiveness made Blaine more nervous, particularly coming from someone as direct as Peter, and he set down the textbook on his desk as he prompted, "Peter."

"Jail, I'm afraid," he replied, trying to keep a lightness about his voice as though there were nothing more than mild bad news. As Blaine's stomach turned, his friend added, "Up at Berkeley. They've said they'll let us go soon, but the friend-of-a-friend I rode up with left as soon as the police arrived, which means I need a ride back down if I want to get home sometime before the twelfth of never." A pause then, "My time's up. Thank you so much, Blaine, you're fantas-"

And then the line went dead.

* * * * *

Considering he had no idea where he was going, Blaine was surprised how quickly he managed to get up to Berkeley, especially since he had to make two different stops before he could ever leave Palo Alto. He wasn't sure that using a key Peter had given him for emergencies to get a different key to essentially steal the car of a girl he had only formally met twice and seen around the department a handful of times was really the best plan for any rescue mission, but he certainly wasn't about to say no. What kind of person would leave someone to rot in jail like that, especially for-

Blaine swallowed hard as he gripped the wheel. Peter had sworn this wouldn't happen out here. He talked about how safe California was as though homosexuality out here was no more than a dismissable offense, as though technically police could try to stop them but the entire cadre of men just thumbed their nose at the rules without consequence. And where had that attitude gotten him?

He could image Peter just sitting in a cell, back straight and proud, fedora and suspenders confiscated- or worse, clad in an oversized striped uniform. Maybe he would be safer that way than in his own clothes, Blaine thought ruefully; he couldn't imagine someone as eccentric as Peter being very popular in jail. Not the way he dressed and talked - sure, there were a group of girls on campus who thought he was fun, but no one in prison was going to follow around a guy who seemed to think he was someone's grandfather. Blaine didn't claim to be an expert, but he was pretty sure dandies weren't well-regarded in prison.

Maybe there were others in there with him, Blaine hoped as he swallowed hard. There had certainly been people in the background while Peter was on the phone, maybe-...if it had been a raid, there had to be others in there like them, right? If he was lucky-

Hard to think of a group of men being arrested for that type of crime as being lucky, but Blaine supposed it was better than the alternative. At least he wouldn't be alone, and if he was with others he would be harder to target...wouldn't he?

From the sudden increase in police cars, Blaine assumed he was getting close, and after circling only twice he found the parking lot. The building loomed larger than life in the darkness, a handful of bright spotlights illuminating the front walk in a harsh glow - probably to deter people from thinking they could escape, Blaine thought bleakly as he tried to figure out what to do now. Was he supposed to go inside? Did he need to bail Peter out- he didn't have any bail money on him, just a few bucks left over from lunch, and Peter hadn't told him to bring any cash. Was that the sort of thing he was supposed to know?

And was walking into a police establishment going to leave him open to arrest? What if they asked him if he was homosexual? Could they arrest him for that? He tried to remember what Peter had said about the laws - though that didn't really seem like the most reliable source right now, all things considered. Alcohol was okay here but not on the East Coast? Was that any help? If he was just walking into a building, not actually engaging in anything deviant or lewd, surely they couldn't arrest him for that - could they?

He saw several people about his age - men and women - milling around out front, as though waiting for rides, while several uniformed officers watched them with thinly veiled - or in some cases not at all veiled - disgust and disdain. Had they raided a bar full of homosexual women, too? Were there such things? He knew the women existed, but did they have bars- he supposed they might, it made sense they would want companionship just as much as he did. He stopped suddenly as he saw Peter leaning against a lamp-post, idly chatting with one of the men beside him. Even in the unflattering light, he didn't look any worse for the wear, and Blaine could feel his heart clench as he studied the young man - fedora intact, hands dug into the pockets of his unbuttoned double-breated overcoat, one wingtip resting back against the plinth casually as though this night were hardly out of the ordinary...

Blaine leaned over to hurriedly roll down the passenger side window, calling out, "Peter!" The man turned quickly at the sound of his own name, face breaking into a broad grin as he saw Blaine in the requisitioned vehicle. "Are you okay?" Peter held up one finger to indicate he would be along in just a moment, then exchanged a few last words with the other gentleman, nodding to indicate he understood or agreed with whatever the reply was, then he strode over to the waiting car.

"Ah, Blaine - I knew I could count on you," Peter smiled as he tugged open the door and slipped inside, rolling up the window as he sank into the seat. "I'm sorry to drag you away from studying."

"Are you okay?" Blaine asked again, the words coming out a bit hurried with concern, and Peter turned to look at him with confusion.

"Of course," he replied, as though it should have been obvious. "They didn't hold us long - at least not those of us who had the foresight to stop at the bank for bail money before coming. I feel bad for the students who got caught up in the whole thing, they may be waiting there for days though I hear the faculty is already working on raising bail for them."

"Faculty?" Blaine asked, confused as he pulled out of the parking lot and tried to find his way back to the highway.

"They don't like this policy any more than the rest of us do. There are rumours from a rather reliable student aide that the faculty plan on meeting tomorrow to officially condemn all of this - I hope they can stand up publicly for what they believe in department lounges, but I do understand university politics get in the way of everything."

"What does any of that have to do with anything?" Blaine asked, growing more confused by the moment as Peter prattled on about something to do with school that he couldn't begin to follow.

Peter stopped, staring over at him, surprised by his suddenly aggravated tone. "It has to do with everything," he replied, clearly not sure what Blaine didn't understand, which only fueled the boy's frustration. It wasn't bad enough he had lost the time studying, and stolen someone's car, and driven almost two hours with no idea where he was going, worrying for his friend the entire time, but now Peter didn't even see the need to explain to him what had happened so they could avoid whatever place in the future - or avoid all the places, Blaine reminded himself, because if one was unsafe they likely all were, to varying degrees, just as he'd believed in the first place.

"What does the faculty have to do with your arrest for homosexuality at one of the bars?" Blaine asked, and Peter's eyes widened for a moment, then he began to chuckle.

"Oh- oh my dear boy, nothing," he laughed, which only made Blaine more frustrated, hands clenching on the wheel. "That wasn't why- It was a protest. At Berkeley, that's why I was over here instead of in the city. It wasn't a raid, it was a protest. No less obnoxious of the police, of course, but that's not why I was arrested."

"It's not?" Blaine asked, feeling his anxiety ebb away as he glanced over at Peter before turning to the on-ramp.

"No, not at all," he replied, as jovial as ever, which was a little less infuriating now that Blaine could understand why Peter hadn't been quite as traumatized as Blaine expected. "They were trying to limit student speech on-campus - can you imagine? Telling us what we can and can't say and whom we can and can't support on our own campus? A student was arrested last October for it, and after rounds of negotiations the administration stood firm, so the students occupied Sproul Hall." He grinned as he retold the story, clearly no worse for the wear, and added proudly, "The atmosphere was brilliant, Blaine, you should have been there. The protests were so strong, and everyone believed so completely. It was incredible."

"Weren't you arrested?" Blaine pointed out, and Peter waved his hand absently as though that was the last thing on his mind.

"There are worse things, my boy. Living a life full of things you know are wrong, following laws you don't believe in - or worse still, following rules that should have no authority that you know violate the laws. We have a First Amendment right to protest, and for that the police decided to arrest us all. Even the students - they said they were trespassing. It's their campus, if anyone has a right to be there and say what they believe in, surely it's the students. I mean, can you imagine being on-campus and the administration telling us what we were or weren't allowed to believe in, politically?"

"Aren't they just saying you can't picket on-campus?" Blaine asked, because from what he'd seen on the news that seemed like about the extent of it. "People can think whatever they want, but they can't-"

"There's not meant to be a difference," Peter stated. "That's like saying-" He paused, trying to come up with a fitting analogy, and after a moment said, "Aha. Yes. It's like saying the Mendicants can exist, but cannot sing on-campus. What good is having a musical group if they aren't allowed to perform?"

The idea was deeply unsettling, though Blaine doubted for the same reasons Peter wanted him to feel angered at the prospect. If he didn't have the Mendicants, Blaine had no idea what he would do. Even now, even with Peter as a friend to talk to, there were still so many days he felt like he could just combust if he wasn't able to get all his feelings out, and music was the only way he really knew how to do that. There was something utterly terrifying about the idea of not being permitted to sing-

"We would just have to find somewhere off-campus," Blaine stated resolutely. He would go to every street corner in town, no matter what the weather was, before he would give up his group.

Peter rolled his eyes, clearly not impressed with the response, and replied, "But you shouldn't have to. You're a group of music students, Stanford has brought you to their campus because of your voices and talent. Why should your right to be talented end when your class is over? Aren't you allowed to be incredible singers in your off-time but still in the vicinity of the campus?"

Blaine still wasn't so sure he believed they were equivalent, but he could tell that Peter did - that to Peter, whatever speech they had been exercising was as essential and as fundamental a right as breathing - and he offered a reluctant, "I suppose."

"You suppose," Peter replied, shaking his head. "It's not the sort of thing one supposes, Blaine, it's too vital - an absolute right. It's- well, it's like saying that you can feel like you might be homosexual but you can't ever mention it. You can't acknowledge it to any other person, or go find others like yourself, or be seen drinking together in public, or find a lover. What good does that do, to say everyone is entitled to his existence just as everyone is entitled to his opinion, but they can never be shared with anyone else?"

Blaine was even less sure what to make of that statement, and he shifted in his seat. Was the right to talk to people, to confide in Peter, to go up to a bar like that and feel the energy of the crowd around him... Was any of that a right? Was any of that something a person could be entitled to? He could understand firsthand why it was so important, but did that make any of it something he had the right to?

And in light of the struggles for rights across the country, was it something he had any right to ask for? He could go to school, he could get a job, he could ride the same bus as any other Mendicant and in any seat he wanted. Was anything beyond that too much to ask for?

But if Peter was right about how inalienable their right to exist was, if he was correct that they should absolutely be able to talk to one another, to congregate, to enjoy each other, to...find a- well, a lover...did that mean being arrested in a raid was like being arrested at a protest? Was Peter really saying it was something to be proud of? Because Blaine was pretty sure that would never, ever be the case, and even the suggestion made him nervous.

"You should come to the next one - you'd understand all this so much more once you could see it. Once you could feel the energy of thousands of people coming together to demand that the people in charge do what's right instead of what keeps the most power for themselves. It's incredible, Blaine, seeing so many people who understand the same things you do." Peter was positively glowing in the passenger seat, and Blaine couldn't help but wonder how precisely someone could be so excited after spending half the night in jail. He could appreciate why someone - especially someone as passionate about things as Peter was - would revel in the idea of seeing others who were just as engaged as he was. He understood that much on a small scale, because each time he had found just one other person who was homosexual it had felt like the entire world opened up. But anything that led to arrest didn't really seem like a good idea - or like anyone's idea of a good time. And yet the young man beamed, even as he leaned against the window and started to drift off, fedora slipping down over his brow as he dozed, exhausted from the events of the day.

Blaine was just glad he was okay.

* * * * *

The drop-off area at San Francisco Airport was busy with cabs as Peter made his way through, attempting to navigate the loops with their pedestrians striding easily along, dressed in suits and carrying suitcases that were no doubt stuffed with presents for family members back home. Blaine swallowed and shifted uneasily in his seat, staring out the window. His tie felt uncharacteristically tight, even though he had tied it the same as every other morning; he doubted it actually had anything to do with the band of silk around his neck and far more to do with the ticket clutched between his fingers.

"Does here look good?" Peter asked, and Blaine tried to force a faint smile even as he shrugged. Peter pulled Janie's car over to the curb and put it in park, but neither of them moved to retrieve Blaine's suitcase from the trunk. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, he offered, "You'll be okay, my boy. You're strong, and it's barely a week."

Blaine wasn't so sure that he could ever be fine when he was about to board an airliner to go back to his parents' house. And he certainly wasn't sure that a week there could ever be classified as an insignificant amount of time. An evening there sounded like an eternity, especially an evening of their friends, a dinner with too many courses and too many words with absolutely no meaning. He wanted to tell Peter to turn the car around and drive back to campus as fast as he could go, to barricade himself inside his apartment with a stack of new records.

But he couldn't. His parents were expecting him, and after the several notes that had been sent his way over the course of the semester, each one holding a larger guilt trip than the last, he supposed he really did have to use the ticket.

Maybe the week would go quickly. The previous week had flown by, as he had tried to ignore the impending trip...maybe he would be lucky.

Maybe he could fall into old patterns of not needing to talk about things so badly. He had managed holidays with his parents plenty of times before and lived to tell about it. He would be fine...right?

He forced a faint smile for Peter, appreciative of the words of encouragement, and started to reach for the door handle when he felt the boy's broad, strong hand encircle his left hand. It felt warm, reassuring, but also- something. He wasn't sure he could say what, but it made him suddenly feel more nervous. "Just-" Peter hesitated, then finally managed, "Don't go back."

Blaine's eyes narrowed a little as he asked, "Didn't you just tell me it would be fine?"

"Not like that. I meant...don't go backwards. Don't run away from who you are just because you know it's what they want. Remember how miserable you were when I met you?" Blaine felt sheepish as he remembered Peter literally having to carry him home, and it must have shown on his face because Peter laughed softly. "Clearly you do, then. Don't go back to being that person, Blaine. You've come too far to fall back now." He felt a squeeze and glanced down at the hand clasping his over the gearshift; when he looked up, Peter's mask was gone - his green eyes deeply worried, wide lips pressed tightly together, eyebrows knitted-

God. He was scared for him. Peter was genuinely afraid he would go back to the old ways of thinking in the course of the week.

Blaine swallowed and squeezed his hand back, trying to reassure him even though he didn't feel at all confident in his ability to stay strong as his father described his most recent cases and reminded Blaine of all the reasons his life could easily go wrong because of how- how different he was. "It's only a week," he repeated, and Peter's lips flicked into a momentary smile. "I'll see you right back here in seven days."

"I'll be waiting," Peter replied. He gave another quick squeeze, then pulled his hand away. "Do you- ah. Do you need help with your bag?"

"No, thank you. It's not too heavy," Blaine replied. The suitcase was full, but it contained only stacks of neatly-folded jackets, shirts, and trousers, with a brown pair of wingtips to go with his navy jacket, and a cache of long ties - no bowties would meet with his father's approval for a formal dinner, even just with his parents. He flashed a faint smile, then emerged from the car, overcoat slung over his arm with a paperback copy of something by Proust he'd never heard of but that Peter had insisted he read tucked into the pocket. It seemed safer than taking home anything by Wilde, anyway. He drew in a deep breath as he opened the trunk and pulled out his luggage, but he flashed a faint smile and managed a small wave for Peter as the boy drove away and headed back to Palo Alto to spend the break holed up in his cozy apartment with its overstuffed library and excess of tea.

It sounded much better than his own plans, and it was only because Blaine knew he could never catch up that he didn't try to chase down the car.

He sighed softly to himself, allowing himself one more moment of fearful self-pity before drawing in a deep breath to attempt to steel his nerves. He would need it, he knew that much. He was sure there would be at least two soirees filled with eligible young women from appropriate backgrounds, on top of at least four dinners during which his parents alternated between polite smalltalk, awkward silence, and smalltalk laced with innuendo and disapproval about his choice of school and career.

But he could do this. It would be agonizing, but he had survived the agony plenty of times before...even if it always made him feel like he couldn't breathe.

After checking in at the ticket counter and leaving his bag, he pocketed his claim ticket and wandered toward his gate. His flight wasn't scheduled to board for nearly twenty minutes, and he was too anxious to sit around doing nothing for that long. He doubted he could focus much on any book, let alone by an author with so much winding, tangled prose as Proust-

A poster caught his attention as he passed, and he doubled back. Vibrant rectangles overlapped and tilted away from where he stood, aiming toward a tower at the back of the poster. Tiny starbursts gave the impression of glistening lights all over, and beneath the rectangular billboards were small zips of dots, narrow lines curving and weaving in and out like the traffict they were meant to represent. At the top of the poster, the name of the city emblazoned in bold, slanted capitals: NEW YORK.

It was an ad, he knew that, there were similar posters on walls throughout the airport, advertising exotic destinations like India and mundane ones like Chicago, but none of them had captured his attention like this. Where other cities looked historic, full of culture, New York seemed bright, tall, bustling, anonymous...

Exactly the sort of place Kurt would make his home.

Blaine smiled wryly despite the sudden pain. He had seen plenty of movies depicting New York, and of course his favourite musical was set there, but he had never thought about the city that much. Not the way Kurt had - the boy had been planning a life there practically his entire life. Blaine had let himself imagine for a moment here or there, but that had been it.

But the poster made it seem so-...inviting was the wrong word. It looked like the sort of place where people zipped from errand to errand, never stopping for smalltalk with painfully practiced smiles. The sort of place where a person could sing on streetcorners and barely be noticed as he let his entire soul out. The sort of place that felt dangerous but romantic all at the same time-

He could go there.

The thought came to him so suddenly he felt as though it were out of nowhere, despite the poster in front of him. He could fly there tonight - the ad was for TWA, but every airline had a route to New York these days. He could cash in his ticket and buy one for New York instead. It might be too late to retrieve his luggage, but so what? It wasn't full of clothes he particularly wanted back, it was full of clothes his parents found 'right,' and that was reason enough to let his suitcase sit at the airport in Columbus unclaimed. He could buy new clothes in New York - better ones, ones from all those flagship stores...he would call Peter once he got there, but he was sure the young man would understand. And from there he could find Kurt; "Hummel" wasn't a common name in the midwest where most people had German heritage, let alone in New York with its Irish and Jewish and Italian surnames...he would be easy to find, even among so many people. He had been easy to spot in a room full of boys in uniforms, he doubted Kurt could blend in even in the biggest city in America.

It was exactly the sort of thing that a man would do in a movie - go find the girl he loved in a strange city. Kurt would appreciate the romantic gesture, and then-...

...And then what? Blaine wondered. Would he drop out of school and move there? See if he could transfer to a different college? Go back to California and bring Kurt with him? That would be best, he bet; Peter had talked about how unsafe New York was, and San Francisco didn't have raids. He could spend a magical Christmas with Kurt in New York, then take him home and start a life-

An announcement crackled over the public address system, calling all passengers departing for Columbus to begin boarding. He blinked and glanced down at the ticket in his hand. When he looked back at the poster, the fantasy had been broken and he saw only a jumble of brightly-coloured squares that would make it impossible to find anyone. It wasn't even a place, really - nowhere was composed of tilted rectangles like that, it was just an idea. A fantasy. An advertisement for something that would never really be like that.

Dejected, Blaine hitched his coat further up the crook of his arm and walked over to the gate. The line looked like it could be made up entirely of his father's business associates - rich, well-mannered white collar types on their ways back to families that looked happy but underneath felt miserable. Or felt nothing because of the artificial fog of pills and alcohol that turned them into mechanized specters of what they might have been once. He filed wordlessly behind them upon instruction from the air hostess whose cheery voice was distorted by the address system, feeling as though he was beginning to sink inside himself already.

By the time the flight touched down in Columbus some four hours later, he was beginning to wish he had stopped by the cabin's bar while he'd had the chance. He had been proud of himself for passing up the offers of alcohol given so freely and eagerly by the stewardesses in their short blue skirts, even if he had felt sick inside when one of the girls made eyes at him and he could barely bring himself to smile. But the prospect of time in his father's house - days, almost a week - only increased his anxiety as the distance between Blaine and Ohio went from a couple thousand miles, to a few hundred, to a few feet.

The landscape looked foreign to him after so many years away. Dreary grey clouds hung thickly just above the top of the airport, spitting heavy flakes of snow. There wasn't a palm tree in sight - only the empty, lifeless branches of deciduous trees. Where seagulls had dipped and dived in search of trash to pick through for remnants of food only a few hours before, Blaine saw no birds; they had flown south, he reminded himself. It had been so long since he had been able to track the seasons that way. It all looked so barren, so dead - not even dead, devoid. In fact, the only colour he could see as he peered out his window were logos on the other airplanes - blue circles, red letters, a half-dozen depictions of birds.

He couldn't do this. This was ridiculous - there was no good reason for him to be here. His parents asking him to would never be a good enough reason; if it were, then it would be a good enough reason for him to do other things, to stop doing things, to be someone he couldn't bear the thought of being. He should spend the holidays somewhere else. Anywhere else. He could catch a flight from here to anywhere, couldn't he? Back home sounded like a winner, but he would take the first plane out of here.

But he couldn't move. He couldn't venture into the artificial, empty landscape because as soon as he did... Blaine knew that as soon as he walked through the doors into the terminal, he would follow the crowd down to baggage claim, find his suitcase, present his claim ticket, and leave with his parents' driver. He wouldn't have a choice-

"Sir?" The stewardess touched his shoulder gently, and Blaine flinched but tried to cover it with a shaky smile at the wide-eyed brunette who had winked at him earlier. Looking around, he saw that everyone else had left already, and only he and the employees remained on the aircraft.

"Sorry," he offered awkwardly as he stood, grabbing his jacket and slinging it over his arm, reaching back to snag his still-unread Proust from the seatback pocket. "Thank you," he added, though for what he wasn't sure. With leaden feet, he made his way down the aisle toward the door. The first blast of cold air hit him suddenly as he stepped onto the stairs, and it took his breath away as he fumbled to pull on his overcoat; even with the garment in place, it did little to cut the feeling of icy air whipping around him. He shoved his book back into the coat pocket awkwardly and used the pockets to help tug it closed more tightly around himself.

Even after trying to prepare himself, he had forgotten how cold Ohio could be.