Blaine could barely contain his excitement as he bounded up the walk toward Peter's. He clutched the tickets tighter in his fist - there was no way he was going to risk losing them to the wind, not the way he had rushed out to get them. He had planned on sending away for them the same way he had for the Beach Boys when they had come to Sacramento two summers ago, but there had never been fistfights over the last few tickets to see the Beach Boys. The Beatles, on the other hand... in Newcastle there had been a melee, and they had sold out every stadium they played in, and he had been too afraid of missing the best concert of the year to leave it to chance. What if, even though he sent in his order form first, it ended up at the bottom of the pile - or lost on the floor of some mailroom somewhere? How was he going to be able to explain to students in the future that he hadn't gotten to see the best band of all time because a postal clerk had lost his order form behind a cabinet?

The ticket line had been a little intense, but the girls had been mostly pretty nice. At least no one had thrown any punches - he guessed he would have expected British teenagers to be a little more civilized than their American counterparts, but apparently not. There had been a lot of high-pitched screaming and squealing, though. Still, in his hand he held two tickets to what he was sure would be the first of dozens of amazing shows he would see the Fab Four perform.

He couldn't wait to share the good news...and convince his boyfriend to go. Peter could be a little set in his ways when it came to his music - a little too obsessed with jazz and classical and something people could dance the Charleston to and a little too dismissive of anything popular - but he knew his boyfriend's softspot for anything British would work to his advantage here. After all, was Peter really going to be short-sighted enough to love Dusty Springfield but hate the Beatles based only on the fact that more Americans knew who the Beatles were? Surely someone as tolerant as Peter could come up with a better reason than that - or admit the foursome's songs were catchy and that he would have a great time at the concert.

Blaine was pretty sure his powers of persuasion, combined with his argument toward tolerance and rationality and artistic appreciation, would win in the end. Was Peter really going to turn down Beatles tickets on some kind of moral grounds? He really didn't think so.

With a spring in his step, Blaine bounded up the walk toward Peter's apartment. The concert was going to be amazing - and with his boyfriend by his side, what could be better? They were really great tickets, too - right down front, worth every penny of the $14 he had spent on them. And because it was for the matinee, he was pretty sure the band wouldn't even be hoarse from trying to sing louder than the screaming girls yet - plus it would mean he and Peter could grab an early dinner up in San Francisco before heading home for the night. He was sure his boyfriend had plenty of places yet to take him - every time they were north of Redwood City Peter managed to find some excuse to take them further north, always to a different eatery with amazing food Blaine had never even thought of eating. Sometimes they meandered to one of the bars in Polk Gulch after, spent some time enjoying the knowledge that they weren't alone, but more often it was just a comfortable dinner where no one hassled them followed by a contentedly-quiet drive home.

He couldn't think of a better way to spend the last weekend before school.

He rapped on the door, bouncing on the balls of his feet with enthusiasm. He could hear the faint strains of something vaguely familiar through the door - piano plinking out an odd, unconventional chord every so often - and when the door didn't open he frowned, confused. Clearly Peter was home, since he didn't exactly leave the turntable running when he was out. He knocked again, a little louder this time, and when no answer came he tried the knob. The door gave way easily, and Blaine stepped into the entryway. "Hello?" he called quietly as he shut the door behind him. "Peter? I'm sorry, you didn't-"

"One second, Janie - It's buried, but I promise you'll get it before I-" Peter hurried into the room, a pair of wingtips cradled in one arm, and made a beeline for the bookcase. He pulled one, two, three hardbacked volumes from different shelves, balancing them unevenly on the ankles of his shoes. His movements were too fast, aiming for precision but coming up short and instead reaching something rife with frenetic energy. His hair was mussed, sticking out on the side instead of slicked down neatly, and his shirt was untucked for what Blaine was pretty sure was the first time ever.

"Are you okay?" Blaine asked without preamble, and Peter's head jerked up. His eyes widened in surprise, then lowered in something akin to regret, and he let out a quiet sigh of not-quite-relief.

"Blaine. Oh- my dear boy. I'm sorry, Janie's been asking me for a few albums all morning, and I thought she had come over to pick them up." He raked his free hand through his hair, leaving it even less neat, and shifted his weight from one long leg to the other. "Did you knock? I didn't hear-"

"Yes," Blaine replied, blinking. In ten months he had seen many sides of Peter - from the dapper perfectionist to the boy with a shyly wicked sense of humour to the brave young man who was so proud of him - but never had he seen him so completely rattled. "What's going on?"

Peter let out a sigh, blinking hard like he thought it might change what he saw before him, and he shook his head quickly. "Nothing. I- nothing. Do you need something to drink? I'm sorry- did I know you were coming, or did you just-"

"No," Blaine replied gently, trying to save his boyfriend from the agony of searching so hard for sentence fragments. "I just came over. Are you okay? Did something happen-"

"Ah," Peter cut him off. He fidgeted again, smudging away an invisible spot on the shoes he held with his fingertips, avoiding Blaine's gaze. There was a pause, then he began again with hesitation, "You see...my dear, dear boy..." He stopped himself again, then shook his head as though it didn't matter. Blaine liked to think neither of them was quite that dumb. He turned and quickly carried the books and shoes back into the bedroom, and Blaine followed, confused. "Really, you see, it's not- well. I wasn't expecting you yet, so I haven't exactly..."

His tone was more affected than usual, the height of trying to pretend, but what Blaine noticed first was the open suitcase on Peter's bed. It was half-full with an assortment of folded shirts, the top pocket bulging with suspenders and bowties; books and hats were strewn across the blanket, and Peter dumped the armload of items into the suitcase. After a moment he seemed to catch himself and try to fidget the items into place with quick, jerky movements, sneaking and grasping at some semblance of order.

He hadn't mentioned a trip. Had he? Blaine was pretty sure - completely sure, actually - that his boyfriend hadn't talked about going anywhere further than the beach in...months. Longer, probably; before they had become a couple, Peter had suggested he might tour Europe and meet up with friends of his after graduation, but now that their plans were firmly rooted in Palo Alto for the next year all talk of a voyage had stopped.

"Is something wrong back home?" he asked, suddenly worried that something had happened to Peter's family. The poor boy - he hated his own parents sometimes, but he still didn't wish them ill, and he knew that as strange and distant as Peter's relationship was with his parents that he would still be devastated if-

"No," Peter replied quickly. "Everyone's fine. Everything there is exactly as I left it. What I wouldn't give for it to be that simple..."

"For what to be that simple?" Blaine pressed. Peter sighed, and Blaine sat on the bed, trying to catch his eye - trying to force his boyfriend to look at him, to talk to him-

Peter sighed again, hanging his head. He had never seen him defeated by anything before - not the police, not anyone. He drew in a deep breath, and when he finally spoke his voice was high, clipped. "You see...my boy-" His tone wavered and he swallowed to keep it in check. "My notice came."

"What notice?" Blaine asked, eyebrows lowering in confusion.

"I'm to report-"

"No." That didn't make sense, he couldn't- he couldn't possibly be saying what it sounded like he was...could he?

"-to the induction center for my physical on-" Peter's voice was even now, surreally so, and Blaine wondered how he could possibly sound so steady when his own lungs felt like they were collapsing in on themselves.

"But- how?" he asked, swallowing. His throat was unbearably dry - how had it gotten so dry so quickly? "You just graduated...you burned your card..." He knew as he was saying it that it was a dumb reason; it didn't mean that the government couldn't find you anymore, it was symbolic, a protest; that was all.

Peter choked on a mirthless laugh and shook his head. "Just lucky, I guess," he replied dryly as he fussed with his shoes again. "I leave in the morning. I'm sorry, my boy - I was going to tell you, I just hadn't figured out how yet-"

"Why are you packing?" Blaine asked, confused. A physical didn't require a suitcase, it was only an hour away. "You'll be home by dinner."

Peter stopped, turning to look at him, and there was such pity in his eyes that Blaine wasn't sure whether to be more worried or kind of a little insulted. "No - I won't," he replied clearly.

"How do you know?" Blaine pressed. "You could fail the physical - or the questionaire. If you tell them-" There was an easy solution, and they both knew it. If he just checked the box-

"First of all, we both know I am not about to tell them that I'm ill when I'm not," Peter stated shortly. "I will not say that I'm sick to save myself."

"But that's not what the question asks," Blaine protested. "It asks if you're a homosexual, and you are - you're proud of that. If they say that makes you unfit, then so be it - but you're not lying, and you're not-"

"I won't," he repeated. "I'm not going to their physical. I'm not going to stand in a room with other young men who are destined to be rifle-fodder and then going to use their ignorance to save myself. I won't do it."

"You have to go to the physical," Blaine replied, as it was obvious. Whether Peter checked the box or not - and clearly he should, but in either event - he had to at least go.

"No," he replied, shaking his head. "I'm to report in a week, and I'll be long gone by then."

An odd, uncomfortable chill settled in the pit of Blaine's stomach, and he shifted as he looked up at his boyfriend, trying to read his face and understand - trying to get a sense of what he was going to say. Everything was moving too quickly, and maybe if he could anticipate the answers before they came it would give him a chance to ease in a little better, to stop feeling like the world was spinning too fast. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Where are you going?"

"Rafael - remember, you met him at one of the rallies, I think? He has a friend who gets men like me out."

Blaine wasn't sure whether he remembered Rafael or not, or what it mattered. There were a handful of organizer-protester types he had met at the meetings and rallies he'd tagged along on, but he didn't know any of them all that well. Still, he had a sinking suspicion he knew what Peter meant. He'd heard rumblings, offhand conversations, references to an underground railroad and homes in Vancouver... "Wait, you're not-"

"You can come with me," Peter said quickly, and Blaine's head jerked up. Of all the responses he had expected, that one hadn't been anywhere in the realm of possibility. "If I call Rafael right now, he'll have arrangements for us both by morning."

"What? That's- okay, you know what, that's ridiculous. I'm not moving to Canada," Blaine stated, trying to even sort out what that would mean. What in the world would he do in Canada? He didn't have a job up there, and he couldn't just enroll in school- "I only have a year left, I can't-"

"Exactly," Peter cut him off, grabbing his hand. His grip was tighter than usual, verging on desperate, as his tone of voice rose with every sentence. "In a year, you'll be in the same position, and the last thing in the world I would ever want...I couldn't bear the thought of them sending you over there, my dear boy. Thinking of you traipsing through a jungle, losing your soul bit by bit until one day your life followed? No- No. I'm not about to let that happen. But if you come with me now, it wouldn't have to."

Blaine felt like somewhere, underneath the insanity of this, he should be flattered - touched, even. Peter was terrified of him being sent to war, more than he would have been based just on the principle of it all; he was afraid of losing him. But he couldn't focus on that - it was maybe the fourth most important point. The first three were much more pressing. "There are other ways," he stated.

Peter stared at him, an edge of betrayal in his eyes. "Like what?" he asked defensively. "I'd love to hear your plans instead, your ways of avoiding the inevitable."

"There are ways of getting out of this that don't involve fleeing the country, Peter, you could-" he racked his brain. He knew there were ways, he knew Peter's friends talked about them, but it was hard to piece them together when everything was being thrown at him like this. It was hard to piece together much of anything. "You could file for conscientious objector status. You don't believe in war - not just this one, but any of them. You have something like ten days to file a request to be excused from service."

Peter shook his head. "First, they never approve it unless you're practically a missionary. They say it doesn't have to be religion-based, but it always is. Always. And you know how I feel about organized, Western-based religion, which is all that some Texas good-old-boy out at the base is going to recognize anyway. Besides, even if they would approve it: I'm not going to use their system-"

"Peter-" Blaine tried to butt in, trying not to roll his eyes. Of all the times to be against something-

"I'm not going to use their system to my advantage," Peter continued, talking over Blaine. His jaw set firm, he shook his head, adamant. "I'm not going to go through the niceties of filling out their paperwork and slip my way through their loopholes when I fundamentally believe that everything they do is bullshit. It's disingenuous, it's aiding a machine I don't support and will never support. It's- it's the same thing the sons of senators are doing when they go join the Air National Guard and know they'll never in a million years have to do anything combat-related. For every boy who uses bureaucratic excuses to get out of it, another boy has to go in his place. What am I supposed to say to the mother of the son who gets sent when I get out of serving because I'm an antiwar homosexual."

Blaine rolled his eyes, unable to stop himself now because of all the dumb things he'd heard someone say, that had to rank in the top five. "Wouldn't they send someone else in your place if you go to Canada?" he asked, sure that they both knew the answer. "The draft doesn't stop just because one person runs away, Peter. They just send someone else."

"Which is why we should all go," he stated. Blaine started to shrug off the flip answer, but Peter continued, "We should all refuse. We should all stand up and tell them that we won't fight their war, we won't further their ignorant and moronic 'domino theory', we won't do it - if there were enough of us, it would work. It worked with boycotts in the South; enough brave men and women stood up and said they wouldn't support Jim Crowe anymore, and now look where things are. It- it worked on New Years, my boy, you saw it - you saw the law come down on our side, but only because we stood together. If we all stood up-"

"How is this standing up?" Blaine demanded. "How is it anything other than running away? You're not chaining yourself outside an Army base or protesting in front of the physical, you're sneaking off to Canada and hoping nobody pulls you back before you hit the border. That's not standing up for anything at all."

It was the first Peter had been silent, and Blaine looked him over, trying to figure out what was going through his mind. Maybe he really had convinced his boyfriend that this was crazy. Maybe he had made him reconsider-...but the wounded look in Peter's eyes made Blaine think otherwise. "They would arrest me," he stated quietly, his voice even with defensive contempt simmering just beneath the surface. "That doesn't help a single person. They would arrest me and move on to the next. What good would I do anyone from jail? What would it help anyone if I were spending five years in Leavenworth? At least in Canada I can help, I can...I can bring others across, I can set up lives for us there. I can do something besides sit in a cell and listen to snide comments from young men who won the job lottery and aren't getting blown away in Southeast Asia. But I suppose I shouldn't expect someone who would just check the box and be done with it to understand that."

It was clear from the way he threw the words back at Blaine that he was hurt and just trying to lash out in return, but they stung nonetheless. Even if they were just retaliation for- Blaine didn't even know what exactly, for insinuating that running away wasn't the answer? - they hurt just the same. A year ago he couldn't have checked it; a year ago he would have been terrified that someone would look at his physical paperwork for some reason and know who he was. If he had been drafted instead of going to graduate school, he would have gone without saying a word because it would have seemed less terrifying to die than to admit to being exactly what he had known for years. Admitting that - illness or not - was progress and would never be cowardly to him. "I'm sorry we can't all have your moral conviction and would rather proclaim who we are than run across the border in the middle of the night," he replied, eyes narrowing.

The change in tone seemed to strike something in Peter, because his entire posture changed - the rigid defensiveness giving way to hunched contrition. "I'm sorry," he replied quietly, then let out a long, quiet sigh, head down, before lifting his gaze to Blaine's. "My dear boy. I'm sorry," he repeated. "I didn't mean- you know I understand...it's been an awful day."

"I know," Blaine replied. It had only been awful for him for half an hour, but it felt like a lifetime; he could only imagine how frantic and alone Peter had felt for the few hours before he had arrived. He reached out to take Peter's hand again, earning an exhausted but genuine smile. "But we can figure this out." He didn't know how yet, but they could. There had to be a way to get Peter out of this. If anyone deserved to be a conscientious objector on the grounds of hating war, he was sure his boyfriend qualified. And there had to be some way to get him to see that he had options that, while maybe not perfect, were better than the alternatives. Maybe-

"We could do this together, my boy," Peter said, squeezing his hand, and it was then that Blaine saw the first glimmer of hope return to his eyes. "If you came with me-"

"But I-"

"Shh - just for a moment, just listen. There are schools up there, great ones. And they need music teachers everywhere, don't they?"

"Well, yes," he admitted.

"And Canada's not perfect, but there are cases working their way through the courts now that might even decriminalize sodomy - like in Britain. I have no idea how many decades it may be before they do that here. For that matter, we could go up there just long enough to settle in, get passports, and then go to Europe. You would love London, my boy, you'd love it as much as I do - maybe more. They have so many kinds of music, so much vibrant fashion and literature and these cozy little homes..."

"We can't get passports in Canada, we're not from there," Blaine pointed out. He hated to do it, being the voice of reason when Peter looked halfway contented and excited for the first time all day, but it needed said. "And we're breaking the law going up there, so I don't think they'll let us become citizens."

"I suppose you're right," Peter replied. "Toronto, then. It's meant to be the closest thing they have to San Francisco. I doubt anywhere outside Europe could quite measure up to that, but anything near wouldn't be awful. And you could handle the cold, since you're from Ohio - I don't have to worry about you freezing to death in snow," he joked weakly. Blaine offered a faint smile, and Peter let go of his hand for a moment to shove the suitcase aside; it clattered to the floor, shoes and shirts spilling out, but his boyfriend didn't seem to care enough to gather them and put them right again. He crawled into bed, opening his arms, and Blaine laid beside him. "We could get a place together up there," Peter offered quietly, broad hand rubbing slowly up and down Blaine's bicep and shoulder. "An apartment that's both of ours - much larger than that little hole in the wall you live in now. Maybe even one with a second bedroom, somewhere we can set up a study. Or - better yet - a room just for records. How does that sound? With a turntable and all our albums..."

Blaine was tempted to wonder where the albums would come from, since from the looks of it Peter was going to be traveling pretty light. And he knew for a fact he couldn't fit even half of his own music collection into his luggage any more than Peter could fit his books. But he forced a faint smile and managed, "It sounds great."

Because it did. It sounded fantastic - a place of their own, with space to lounge around...a tea kettle on the stove, a closet full of button-down shirts and stacks and stacks of bowties and caps...a bed that fit them both easily and a room just for listening to music. It was something straight out of his dreams. But how did someone rent an apartment - of any size, let alone with two whole bedrooms - without a job? And what job could people get if they ran across the border to escape the US government? He didn't know for sure, but he was pretty sure it wouldn't be a good one.

Maybe it would. Peter had his degree already, and classics weren't specific to America so maybe he could get a job teaching at one of the universities up there. They had to have plenty of colleges in Canada, right? And he could finish his degree and teach at one of the elementary schools, and they could make things work.

...Except they couldn't.

He had turned down two domestic fantasies in his lifetime. The first had been because what the boy thought he wanted was all wrong...and because the idea of having a fantasy like that at all had been too terrifying for words; the second...he wished he could be 17 and naive enough to think it might work. He wished he could be as young and foolish as Kurt had been back at Dalton so he could genuinely believe the dream Peter was spinning. Kurt had thought everything would just come to them back then, that just by wishing and being in the right place a lifestyle would appear...and if only that were true. If only wanting something enough could make Canada a viable option, a place to make a life together. If only there weren't practical considerations like money and school and kind of technically being fugitives.

But he wasn't 17 anymore. Neither of them were.

"We could get a place anyway," he offered quietly. He half expected Peter to contradict him, to reassert his plans to flee, but his boyfriend remained silent but for deep, relaxed breathing. "Not this year - I mean a two-bedroom apartment on just a first-year professor's salary? We'll need more than that. But by next fall, when I'm working too, we could get somewhere together...with a record room, and the living room full of all your books with big, comfortable chairs to read in..."

They could have all the things they both wanted if Peter could calm himself down enough to stay. They could work it all out, Blaine was absolutely sure - there were lawyers that they knew through friends of friends of protesters who were fighting draft notices all the time. They had whole systems worked out to make a person as unfit for service as possible - and he was pretty sure that while Peter was brilliant and incredible in a lot of ways, he could look unsuitable for the military without much help.

They could make this work. He bet if they could just have a little more time, he could convince Peter of what he already knew: that running away wouldn't help anyone, that there was no way the entire population of American men aged 18-26 would leave the country, and that he could do more from within the system than he could from outside it. It hadn't been enough for people in the North to protest segregation, the fight wasn't won by people in Chicago and New York and Philadelphia - it had been by people down South, by sending people who could test the laws and file suits, by getting enough attention on the issues that Congress could pass new laws to protect people...and none of that would have happened if people in the South hadn't stood up, too. Peter could work to change conscientious objector status requirements, he could work with other guys and point out that no man should have to leave his home, his family, his country, just to avoid fighting in a war that he doesn't believe in. He could do so much good, so many amazing and powerful things if he stayed.

They could talk about that in the morning, over breakfast. For now, it was more important to make sure he had something to stick around for.

Because they were worth staying for. There was no way Peter could say otherwise. They would have a future together - if Peter fought half as hard for himself as he had fought for Blaine, for the two of them together...if he fought for the right to live his life even a fraction of how hard he had fought to help Blaine see the same...

He would, Blaine knew. He was strong like that - determined.

At least, he hoped he was.

"Somewhere quiet," Peter mused. "A sidestreet, not too much traffic, but close to everything."

"With somewhere for our own car - so we don't have to keep stealing Janie's," Blaine added, and Peter choked out a laugh.

"Somewhere close enough that we don't need to steal a friend's car and drive an hour and a half each way to find people like us," Peter suggested, and Blaine grinned.

"Yeah, that sounds good, too." There were bound to be places further north where they could get down to the university for Peter to teach - if that was where he ended up, anyway - but still near bars and restaurants where they didn't have to hide. He wasn't sure where exactly, but he was sure of it. Or if not here, then maybe down south - Los Angeles probably had a community, too. For one thing, if creative and performer types were more likely to be homosexuals like them, then LA had to be almost as full as New York. And there were plenty of schools there for each of them. And if the same laws applied there - which they should, right, since it was still California? - then they would be better off there than plenty of other places outside the state.

If they had to leave northern California, which they might not have to anyway - not now, not ever.

"Somewhere nice and cozy," Peter suggested, tugging him a little closer.

"Nothing too grand or ostentatious, just comfortable," Blaine supplied. The opposite of his parents' house.

"Exactly. With all the things that mean something to us...with you."

Blaine smiled broadly as he tucked himself against Peter's chest, feeling his lover's heartbeat through his shirt. They would be fine - they would figure out everything in the morning, and even if it took a little bit of time for a draft exemption hearing it would certainly all be settled by the time he graduated next June. Then they could compare job offers and find somewhere together, somewhere to begin their life as a couple and not just as two silly boys.

Maybe by then things would changing. So much had changed in the country in the past few years, and things were moving so quickly in England now, and maybe in a year it would be okay, to be them, to have a second bedroom that neither of them pretended to sleep in.

They would be okay. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he did. They would be just fine, together, in a cozy two-bedroom apartment up in San Francisco, with overstuffed closets and bookshelves filled to the brim.

If they could get through the next week, anyway. But he was sure they could; in the morning, Peter would be less panicked and could listen to reason, and they could talk things through, and everything would be okay.

Peter kissed the top of his head, his lips lingering for a long moment as the young man held him close, almost clutched him. He murmured something, lips moving against Blaine's hair, but Blaine couldn't make out what it was or why his boyfriend seemed to desperate to hold him. He was probably just afraid - and Blaine couldn't blame him. He would be, too, if his draft notice had shown up. It was probably the sort of thing that could make a man's life flash before his eyes. He wrapped his arms around Peter's waist, holding him securely in return to reassure him.

They would be fine. The worst was coming, perhaps, but it wouldn't last long. In a few weeks, everything would be back to normal.

They fell asleep like that, Blaine's arms snug around Peter's waist, Peter's face buried against Blaine's slicked-down hair, dreaming of a lovely starter-apartment for them both.

When Blaine awoke the next morning, the bedroom was empty.