The mild breeze swishing across campus did little to lessen the blazing heat of the midday sun. It helped a bit as Blaine approached the ceremony, but by the time he was seated the array of warm bodies blocked all cross-wind relief. He wished whoever had organized this particular ceremony would have been able to secure one of the auditoriums...though, he realized, that might be worse - so many people packed into a room with not enough fans? He shifted on his folding chair, wondering if another department was lucky enough to have a shady spot to sit for the next several hours, but a quick glance upward answered that question: At 11:30, he couldn't think of a single courtyard, amphitheater, or grove on or near campus that would offer a respite.

Blaine fiddled with the buttons of his shirt cuff, wishing he could have worn a short-sleeved shirt instead. At least the women in his row seemed to be comfortable, arms exposed to what little cooling breeze passed through the crowd instead of trapped beneath more conventional shirtsleeves. Sandwiched between a proud, plump woman in a floral-printed, cap-sleeved dress who was surely one of the graduates' mothers, and a bored-looking teenager who was most likely someone's little sister, he felt awkward and apart as he glanced at the rows of families on either side of him. Even so, there was no way he was leaving.

Peter had been cryptic about why his family wasn't coming in for graduation weekend, waving it off as "other obligations, my boy" and "nothing especially serious but still that which cannot be postponed." Despite his blase attitude, it was hard to imagine that his boyfriend wasn't at least a little hurt by it - no matter how much he didn't like his own parents sometimes, it would still sting if they chose not to come to his graduation next summer. They probably would show up, even if his mother's proud smile looked exactly the same as her bored smile, her pleased smile, her drunken smile, and every other muted, forced display of pseudo-happiness he had seen from her, and even if his father spent the entire weekend clearly disapproving of his career path. That Peter's parents couldn't even be bothered to muster up that level of support made him uneasy and sad. Wistful. He had seen how hard Peter had worked - even if he had done his best to put aside work most evenings so they could spend time together - and he knew how excited the young man was for this. He had witnessed firsthand the final push for his dissertation defense...it had been the one and only time his boyfriend had seemed nervous. It would be unthinkable to not go show his support.

Besides, he wanted to go cheer Peter on. Heat or no heat, sandwiched between families, it didn't matter.

He sat up a little taller on his folding chair, trying to peer over the heads of the well-wishers in front of him as he attempted to find Peter. Blaine instinctively scanned the line of students waiting to process for a fedora or driving cap, then shook his head to himself with a faint grin. No, even the most eccentric boy on campus couldn't get out of wearing the standard graduation regalia. Blaine didn't envy anyone stuck wearing black robes on a day like today; what little he remembered from his college graduation the year before involved being way too hot.

And a bunch of guys sneaking in a flask, which they passed among themselves through most of the ceremony - to celebrate. And to entertain themselves through what seemed like hours of speakers and far too many graduates making their way across the makeshift stage.

Had that only been a year ago? Goofing off with guys he knew from house parties and trying miserably to pick up girls, forcing his way through a miserable family dinner filled with subtle barbs from his father and empty pride from his mother, then going out after and...he honestly didn't remember what that night had held. He was sure he'd had fun and probably spent the entire next day sleeping it off between bouts of nausea, but anything beyond that was nothing but a blur.

He would remember his ceremony next year, he thought with a proud smile as he crossed his legs, sitting up taller still. Next year, they would be back here - but that time, he would be standing over behind the makeshift stage sweltering in a robe and Peter would be sitting out among the cheerful throng to praise him. He didn't know what the next year might bring, but he was absolutely certain that in exactly 12 months they would be right back in this spot...well, okay, over a little bit because he was pretty sure the education graduates had their ceremony somewhere else, maybe the oak groves? Anyway. Right back here, as proud and accomplished as ever.

With all the changes the year had brought, he couldn't wait to find out what would come next. What could be better than this? Better than having a handsome, passionate, kind, terrifically smart boyfriend? Better than having a great school with courses he loved? Better than knowing that there was a whole year of singing with the Mendicants to look forward to, come fall?

The soon-to-be-graduates processed in, led by the doctoral candidates. In their sweeping black robes with velvet trim down the front and on the sleeves, they managed to retain some amount of dignity even with a velvet tam on their heads - unlike the Masters' candidates, who looked like serious gentlemen in ridiculous costumes, robe sleeves dangling behind them, or the Bachelors' candidates in all their youthful enthusiasm and alcohol with mortarboard hats already askew. When the line moved, it became easy to find his boyfriend in the line: Peter's gait was strong, proud, his jaw jutted up and out just slightly while an impish smile played at the corners of his lips. Even the hat that looked like it belonged on Galileo or someone managed to look right instead of silly on him.

Was it wrong to find him so attractive in something so strange? He guessed not - confidence was something he liked, now that it didn't scare him so much...and Peter had that in spades, especially today.

Blaine let his mind wander as the graduates sat and the ceremony began. He never understood why there had to be so many speakers at events like this; he could appreciate pomp and circumstance as much as anyone, and he certainly had enough experience with formality that he understood when it meant something to the people participating - the Warblers had had plenty of rituals, only some of which was he ashamed of now. But unlike those, where he could take pride in being part of a long line of brothers in song who had participated, ceremonies like this always seemed to be more about imparting wisdom to a crowd of people who didn't want to hear it. Everyone there fell into two groups: those waiting eagerly to be hooded and experience the moment that all of their hard work became official, and those waiting eagerly to take pictures of it all. No one in either category cared what life lessons the associate dean wanted to impart...certainly not while the sun beamed down on them.

He shifted in his seat, finding just the right angle to get a perfect sightline past a half-dozen heads to the young man he was there to see. Peter's eyebrows were slightly raised in feigned interest, which almost made Blaine laugh because it was such a quintessentially Peter expression. Regalia or not, there was no denying exactly who his boyfriend was. He loved that about him so much... there was no one else in that throng who was remotely like Peter, and his boyfriend wore that like a badge of honour. That took so much more strength than Blaine could ever even hope to have. A lack of shame was one thing, and that had been hard enough in coming; pride in standing out so completely and being so true to one's self was another matter entirely.

Even so, Blaine couldn't help but feel in a way like he was graduating, too. Not just because someone he was so close to was receiving his degree - by that logic, every parent on a folding chair across campus was graduating. No, it was more that...he had learned more in the past year than he could have ever imagined. If - as the droning speaker suggested - graduation was about evaluating and appreciating the old and embracing a new chapter...then that had been what his entire year had been working toward. He had come into the year so afraid, so willfully blind and- and ignorant. But now...thanks to a great teacher...he knew so much better.

He didn't think there could be a person on campus who had learned more in the past 9 months than he had.

He remembered his first year at Dalton feeling as though a person could never learn half as much as the school demanded. His public school had been perfectly good, but the rigors of the elite academy had felt so overwhelming at first that he had sworn he would bring his parents nothing but disappointment there. The panic had lasted only the first couple weeks, until he got into the swing of things, and by the time the year was out he felt as though he had learned more at 14 than in the previous 13 years combined. Now again, the pride in having moved so far forward in such a short time returned with one key difference: At 14, everything had been tempered by the terrible secret that left his stomach queasy all the time.

Today he felt light, easy, nothing but excited. And the future was bright - full of possibilities instead of the ever-narrowing tunnel he had seen before. No, his parents wouldn't approve; not of him, not of what he wanted to do with his life, not of his school or his friends and certainly not of Peter, but he didn't approve of them either. He wanted to; if there were a world in which his parents could approve, he would embrace it. But absent his father performing a lobotomy on himself, Blaine was pretty sure that he was better off making do with the knowledge that, though his parents weren't proud of him, other people were. People whose opinion and knowledge he valued a lot more than the robots who ruled his childhood home, anyway.

People much smarter than his father.

The graduates rose and stood in place, filing row by row toward the stage. The woman beside him reached into her purse and pulled out her Kodak. Why hadn't he thought to borrow someone's camera to capture this moment? He wasn't sure who even had one - no one he knew of off-hand in the Mendicants, anyway. He sat up a little taller, trying to catch his boyfriend's gaze between the oversized head of the man in front of him and the tuft of bobbed hair puffing out from beneath the cap of the female graduate in front of Peter.

Though the crowd had been asked to hold their applause until all graduates had received their awards, each name was followed by smatterings of applause - polite and appreciative from most of the audience, enthusiastic and pointed from the graduate's family and friends. Stuck in the middle of a sea of cheering, beaming parents with cameras popping up above the head-line to get a better picture, Blaine shifted back and forth as he tried to be sure he had the perfect place to see. In reality, he needn't have worried; Peter ascended the stairs onto the temporary stairs, standing even taller than usual with puffed-up pride, and Blaine couldn't take his eyes off the young man who had changed his life so drastically. Peter took his position in front of the older gentleman who had previously been announced as the head of the department and. He was only a bit taller than the department head, but after a moment of unintended silence Peter ducked with an impish grin, knees and back bending forward. The gentleman offered a shake of his head, as if to gripe that these kids got taller every year, then carefully lowered the white satin hood over Peter's head.

Blaine wasn't sure how his chest didn't explode from the immense wave of pride that washed over him.

Peter's eyes scanned the crowd, seeming to look for Blaine, and just when he was debating whether it would draw too much attention to him - to them - if he gave a bit of a wave, their eyes locked. Peter's smile turned beaming, eyes softening in a moment of appreciation. If he could have spoken then, Blaine swore he would have asked, "Can you believe I did it, my boy?" - as though there were any doubt he would. Blaine beamed back at him and placed his hand over his chest - half to be sure his heart didn't burst through, and half to show him...something. He didn't know what exactly, but he needed to be sure the young man he loved knew- and understood just how much- and just how proud he was.

Peter swallowed hard, lips tightening and curling for a moment, and he gave a tiny nod. He knew. He understood exactly what this year had been to both of them, and he was completely aware that he wasn't the only one who had achieved something in the past 9 months.

He straightened, then walked to the other side of the stage to shake a half-dozen hands; Blaine's eyes didn't leave him until he was off-stage and filing back into his row to allow other students to have their moment.

They would be back in a year, Blaine thought to himself in awe as he finally sat back in his seat, legs and wrists crossed in a way he would have fought to correct months ago. Next year, it would be his turn, and Peter would sit in the audience among parents and siblings and cheer for him so loudly and be so proud of him that both their faces ached from smiling. And they would be proud when Blaine got his first teaching job, and when Peter was published for the first time, and when they got tenure in what would feel like a thousand years...

He didn't regret forgetting a camera. There was no way a photograph could ever capture the moment half as well as his memory.

* * * * *

Peter hadn't believed him.

"My dear boy - how on earth would it be possible for you to be 24, nearly 25, and have never seen the ocean?"

Blaine had tried to point out that there wasn't much ocean to be found in Westerville, Ohio, and that his parents were too midwestern to have a house on the Cape or the Vineyard.

"But you've been out here for five years!" had come his reply, which Blaine had to admit did sound kind of reasonable. Of course, without access to a car before he'd met Peter - well, before he'd met Janie - and considering he had rarely gone very far from campus until the previous year, he wasn't sure what part of the admission could possibly be all that shocking.

In any event, Peter had set to planning a remedy immediately.

"Well, Baker has a nice view - the bridge and all - but I'm afraid I would either scare you off or make it too easy for you to choose another man," he had mused, winking at Blaine on the last bit, though he wasn't sure what about Baker Beach would be scary. "Besides, it has rip tides and I want you to be able to actually feel the water, at least a little. Could do Carmel-by-the-Sea, which I've heard is gorgeous, or spend the day in Monterey...of course, there's not much to do besides lay in the sun, and my skin would thank me if we avoid that..." Blaine couldn't picture Peter lying around in a bathing suit - modern or otherwise - but found himself captivated by the thought of that much skin exposed anywhere outside the bedroom. The slope of his neck into his shoulder, the lean muscles of his torso, the dusting of light brown hair across his chest, the pale skin of his thighs peeking out from beneath a pair of boxer-style swim shorts? Or, in the more likely event that he had an uncomfortable knitted outfit that seemed 10 pounds too heavy and 50 years too old, the stretch of low armholes across his boyfriend's broad chest, the close fit over his hips-

"Aha! Yes. That's what we'll do," Peter had declared, interrupting Blaine's immodest thoughts. "You'll love it."

"I'm. Do what?" he stammered, wishing he hadn't been caught so off-guard.

"You'll see," Peter had replied cryptically with a grin.

Repeated attempts to figure out where they were going had yielded nothing. He knew it was a beach somewhere within a day's drive, because Peter told him he would need his swimsuit and a towel but no extra changes of clothes. Even then, as Blaine watched out the passenger's side window, he had no idea where they might end up. He guessed it didn't matter since he was still going to get to spend a day at the beach with the boy he loved more than anything. Still, the narrow highway, with its thick lining of trees and sharp switchbacks, didn't look like what he expected a beach road to look like at all.

"Are you sure we're not heading further into the mountains?"

"Through the mountains," Peter corrected with a sly smile, proud of himself. "Small ones, just the edge of them. We'll be there soon - at least, I think we will." He reached down to retrieve a small slip of paper on which he had written the directions. "From what I can tell, anyway. Patience, my dear boy. We'll have you at the ocean in no time." He flashed a winning smile in Blaine's direction, and any urge to ask more questions was quelled. After a few more minutes Peter turned onto another road - one that looked at least mildly more like it led to civilization. Evergreens and hills began to give way to palm trees and an array of streets with small, taffy-coloured cottages evenly spaced along each block.

The scent hit him suddenly. As Peter paused for a stop sign, the smell of something fresh wafted on the cool cross-breeze - light, pleasant, salty, with something almost like plants or flowers but not floral. Floral was what his mother wore, heavy and artificial with the sharp undertone like rubbing alcohol.

Peter drew in a deep breath and let it out with a long, contented sigh. "Different than the Channel, but it'll do," he observed.

"What is that?"

"Sea breeze. We're getting close."

"It's amazing. Kind of like..."

"Like freedom?" Peter half-teased and half-agreed, grinning over at him. "I wish I knew someone with a convertible. Something tells me that would make things even better. Oh well; this isn't so bad, is it?" He pulled through the intersection, and Blaine resumed watching out the window. Activity increased as they approached the destination - Young couples on bicycles, groups of teenage girls in sundresses looking straight out of Gidget, families with children lugging beach bags and towels, convertibles stuffed with high school boys trying to look tough and relaxed at the same time to impress any girls that walked by.

They turned left, and Blaine found himself staring at strips of light brown, leading from sidewalk to walkway to beach until finally stopping at the ocean. The deep blue looked even darker at midday, contrasting against the white-gold glow of sunlight atop each ripple and wave. Just beyond the palm trees that lined the street figures dotted the landscape, and Blaine found himself wondering how he could have not known this place even existed. Peter was right: he had been only an hour away for five years, how did he not know anyone who had at least come down here for a bonfire or party or something? Though no one he knew would want to drive all the way down that highway while they were drunk, certainly not at 4 in the morning as they worked their way back from a party on the beach.

Peter turned a final time, pulling into a mostly-full parking lot. As Blaine stepped out of the car, he shielded his eyes against the glare of the sun. It was just strong enough to counteract the gentle breeze and leave his skin feeling warmed but not warm. Just beyond the parking lot stood a long building - red-roofed in a style more familiar to New England than to California, stretching at least the length of a couple city blocks. Beyond it, he could see the silhouette of a ferris wheel turning slowly and the elegant curves of a roller coaster jutting up above the skyline. There was a distant roar that seemed to come from the other side of the building, a combination of waves and conversations, punctuated by a thunderous whoosh and shrill screams as the roller coaster cars descended the first hill. "Where is this?" he asked, unable to stop himself from smiling.

"Santa Cruz," Peter replied. He pronounced it in an accent somewhere between proper Spanish and clipped British, adjusting his driving cap. "Do you like it, my boy?" he added, just a bit nervous. Blaine couldn't imagine why - he wasn't sure he could imagine a more fun place to spend his first day on the beach. The atmosphere was intensely upbeat, bustling with people and bursting with energy, and the sensation of levity was as immediate as it was palpable. He wanted to run down the boardwalk and let himself flop back on the soft white sand (that would probably be uncomfortably hot) and just take in everything.

He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so eager. It wasn't the sort of thing he'd been allowed, even as a child - maybe especially as a child - and though the boys at Dalton and Stanford were a lot of fun, he wasn't sure he had ever felt this sort of active jubilance before. It was like wanting to hop up on the car and sing and dance and just live...but for once in his life, he thought as he inhaled a deep breath of salty sea breeze, he could just feel it without a song if he wanted.

"Yeah," he replied, returning the grin, and Peter beamed. "It's perfect."

* * * * *

By the time the sun set, Blaine wasn't sure he had ever been so exhausted and invigorated at the same time. Sitting on his beach towel, Peter sprawled beside him in an old-fashioned and yet very flattering bathing suit. Earlier, when the late afternoon rays had beaten down on them, he had unfastened the tank top portion - who knew that bathing suits had zipped at one point? - and padded out to the water's edge. He had looked like something out of an exercise magazine - the shorts created a perfect kite shape of his waist, hips, and legs, all of which looked that much more trim thanks to the width of his shoulders...Blaine had been careful not to ogle him too much, but he wasn't afraid to steal a peek or two. Now, though, in the cooler air of early evening, Peter's shirt stretched across his chest. Arm outstretched, he held an old paperback in his hand - something in Latin Blaine couldn't make out - but mostly stared up at the sky with such intense concentration that he wondered if Peter might be trying to count the stars.

He could hear music drifting down from the boardwalk, even over the noise of the rides. The crowds of midday had died down a little, and though there were still plenty of people on the beach each group could have just enough space to create the illusion of privacy. Blaine laid back on his elbows, gazing out at the water.

It was hard to fathom just how large the ocean was. He had seen lakes before, and the San Francisco Bay thanks to trips up to Berkeley to bail Peter out of jail, but he could always see the other side of those. Standing on the shore, it was easy to look across and see precisely where the water ended. He could see exactly where, if he were to set out in a boat, he would land. The Pacific Ocean wasn't like that at all; from where he sat, he could see a small breaking wall over to his left to protect the boats harboured here, but other than that there was no boundary. No end. Set out from here and a person could end up all the way in Asia.

The Philippines were in this same ocean. Where his father's family had come from was practically a million miles away - and it was already tomorrow there - but it was all the same Pacific.

He wondered what they were like there. Were they all desperate to fit in, like his father? Or did they all fit in because they weren't different? If they were all Pinoys, they probably didn't have to try half as hard. Maybe if his father had stayed...or maybe if his father went back. Blaine almost laughed at the idea of his father, who he rarely saw wearing anything but a suit, stepping off the plane in Manila...or what he imagined Manila looked like, anyway. Really it probably didn't look quite so much like Hawaii, but he didn't have any better picture to go off of. The man who couldn't help but be stiff and tight-lipped would never fit in somewhere tropical like that...would he?

Probably not, he realized, and for the first time he almost felt sad for his father. If he went back, he would probably be seen as strange regardless and have to force himself to change to adapt to local customs and expectations, just as much as in Ohio. Even if Blaine didn't know what those customs might be...he was sure they had them there - everywhere did. His father's desperate need to fit in would crop up anywhere the man went, unless he happened to be lucky enough to find somewhere that fit his natural tendencies. (Blaine wondered with a sulking roll of his eyes if his father even had natural tendencies anymore or if he had erased them all through the force of will.) No matter where he went, he would always have to change to avoid being an outcast.

And that was why he tried to save his patients by changing them.

He wasn't sure why it had taken him so long to see, but once he did it seemed like the most obvious conclusion in the world. For so long his father's job had seemed terrifying - taking young men's brains apart - and later had just seemed cruel - changing who men were because it wasn't acceptable enough yet. But that was where the crux lie: it was about changing them to be something acceptable, but it was never intended as cruelty...was it? His father wasn't cold and unfeeling; he thought he was helping. Shoving pills at his wife to calm her outbursts - that was helping too, to him, wasn't it? There was no pill the man could take, no shocks he could administer himself, nothing in the world he could do to make himself something else. His faults were permanent, immutable as anything in the world, and he had spent so many years trying to minimize them that when he came upon someone whose faults he thought he could fix, someone whose deficiencies didn't have to be permanent, whose ills could be cured...

He was wrong. He was so very, very wrong; Blaine knew that now. He couldn't change any more than his father could, but he had one advantage over the man he had despised for so long:

He didn't want to.

He had spent the day splashing in the waves with a boy, feeling like an overgrown child as they dove and played tag. He had screamed his lungs out on the Giant Dipper and laughed as Peter squeaked in surprise at each turn of the Wild Mouse and giggled while trying to stay on the spinning disk in the funhouse even as he spun off the slippery wood every time. Nothing he had done had been dignified enough for either of his parents, and it was in the wrong state, and he had done it all with the man he loved more than anything - and there was no way he would rather have spent the day.

His father, meanwhile, had watched every word he said, every gesture he made, for so long that he no longer had to think about it; it was automatic to be fake now, to do everything artificially, to sit across from his wife who was practically a robot...and, to his father, that was the best world he could hope for. His wife wasn't upset. His house was perfect. His practice was successful, hidden behind a proper New England-sounding name on the door. That was all he would ever have, and he had fooled himself into thinking it was all there was.

His father thought that, if he could just help those poor men avoid feeling as empty and conflicted as he did, it would be doing them a service. He couldn't change himself, but he could change the young men who struggled so hard with their 'illness', and if he could treat them... It was beyond misguided, verging on disgusting, but it was the man's best attempt at showing someone mercy.

It was hard to hate his father then. It was hard to do much of anything but stare out at the vast emptiness of the ocean and listen to the Beach Boys sing about how wouldn't it be nice and wish the world was different...for both their sakes.

There were unfair things; the world wasn't right yet. He wanted to be able to curl up on Peter's chest the way a girl down the beach was doing with her boyfriend. He wanted to be able to hold his hand where people could see, to tell people about the amazing man who thought he was worth loving instead of brushing off inquiries about his personal life with a vague lie about seeing several girls but none seriously.

But mostly he wanted people like his father to understand that there was so much more out there. For both of them.