In the grand scheme of things, Kurt knew that the awkwardness with Ricky was relatively minor. Compared to the agonizing loneliness that had persisted for years, to the death of his mother, to the wrench of Blaine's abandonment, even to the daily frustrations that came from sharing an apartment with Rachel, it should have meant nothing at all - merely the uneasy dance of two people who didn't quite know each other or know why they felt drawn together. It wasn't as though either of them had had an easy time of things, that much he knew, and he also could recognize how distrustful he himself generally was of people and their motivations; it was an instinct he'd had in childhood after too many boys pushed him on the playground that only sharpened after each trust he tentatively offered was broken. Maybe Ricky's instincts were just better than his. Maybe he was just slower to pin his hopes on someone - Kurt knew that was a weakness of his, that once he decided someone seemed like they might be acting out of kindness rather than malice he tended to fling himself open and leave himself vulnerable. The boy probably wouldn't have trusted Stu, for one thing. Maybe not appreciating how genuine his inexplicable affection for the boy was, wasn't such a bad thing after all.

Though his instincts couldn't be too good, Kurt concluded, if he kept ending up in jail and had been sleeping on a park bench.

But for some reason, no matter how reasonable the distance, Kurt couldn't put it out of his mind.

It wasn't so much the distance itself that was the issue, but the problem it presented: he felt a kinship to this boy, he finally had someone to talk to, and it felt incredible, but if Ricky was going to run off like he had in the morning, he wasn't sure it actually felt any better than being alone. Ephemeral, frantic connection weren't exactly what he was searching for, and a part of him wondered if that wasn't all he had a right to expect. After all, most of what he'd seen fit that model - men pawing at each other in a desperate, hedonistic frenzy for momentary pleasure?

Not all of it, he reminded himself as he snipped his way around a blouse pattern. Don and John were more than that.

Not that he was thinking of Ricky in those terms. It wasn't like Blaine, where he was instantly taken with the boy. He had been sincere earlier when he said nothing happened - and unlike the night Blaine had spent at his house in Lima, he hadn't wanted it to. He wanted to talk to Ricky all day and night and feel-

...however it was he felt. He was having a hard time putting his finger on it or giving it a name. But he wasn't going to have any better chance identifying the sensation or how to replicate it if Ricky had vanished again.

Had he said something that put him off? Done something? Was it Rachel and Mercedes who made him uncomfortable? Was it-

He sighed as he set down his scissors, carefully folding the silk with its muslin pattern still attached and placing it on the table by the door. The knowledge that there was the potential for people out there in the world to understand him was exactly as useful as the knowledge that he wouldn't be in the cutting room forever: it was nice to hear, it was necessary to improve his state of mind, but ultimately it didn't help anything yet. It could pull him out of the funk he'd been stuck in for the past few months, and that was important - he didn't know how much longer he could live feeling like there was nothing left for him except a legacy of sad songs - but at best it put him on sort of neutral ground. It was enough to sustain him, but not enough to let him thrive and live up to all the dreams New York had offered him back before he'd ever set foot in the city.

Mostly he just needed to know what to do now.

He'd found people like him - an entire restaurant full. And a park full, and, if John was to be believed, an entire part of the city full. And he'd been assured that his eye was as good as he knew it was. But how he could get from where he was now, where he was still not exactly happy, to where he wanted to be...well, that was still a mystery. What he'd thought he was meant to do hadn't worked over the past two years, that much was for sure, but he wasn't sure what he was meant to be doing instead.

But unlike a few days before, he did have a resource now. He had inside information - or, even better, someone who could give him whatever inside information he needed. Someone who liked him and his style and was willing to help him.

Determined, Kurt snipped his way around the final piece of the pattern - the blouse's large collar - and set the piece on top of the stack. He scooped up the bundle of fabric into his arms and strode confidently upstairs. After all, if he was trying to be helpful and take the fabric to the sewing room to save them time but didn't know precisely where that was because he'd never actually been to where the next cog in the Mainbocher machine was, would it be his fault if he happened to wander up a few floors to run into Don and ask for directions? Could anyone blame him or say he was doing anything completely wrong? Surely not. He smiled slyly to himself at his plan and his alibi as he walked deliberately through the halls, the silk and muslin pieces draped over his arm, doing his best to look at once obliviously lost and completely purposeful.

It wasn't until he got down the correct hallway that he realized he didn't actually remember the number for Don's suite. The clusters of offices - four or five, half of them along windowed walls and the other half along interiors, surrounding a pool of desks with secretaries and what Kurt assumed were detailed junior staffers - all looked ostensibly the same with their wood paneling and bright, unflattering fluorescent lights overhead. Even the secretaries looked the same, women in uninspired dresses and strands of pearls, hair cut short or pulled up and back with headbands. He wasn't sure he remembered what Don's secretary looked like enough to pick the right suite, and what was he going to do in the meantime - go into each secretarial pool and ask where he should take the fabric, see if he spied someone familiar or if Don came out at the sound of his voice, and if neither of those happened then simply moved on to the next?

...In absence of a better plan, he took it, watching the far right windowed office in each suite where Don would be if this were the right place. The first two yielded nothing - a junior staffer in the first one looked at him like he was out of his mind but pointed him down to the second floor, while a kindly secretary in the second one pointed him toward the third, which did make Kurt feel a little better that apparently no one quite knew what anyone else did or where they did it. But on the third try, he recognized the tacky gold-framed photos on the desk nearest to the hall and stood a little straighter as he walked over to Don's secretary. "Excuse me."

She peered down at a legal pad and quickly typed to the end of the line before looking up. "Yes?" she asked, not unkindly.

"I was wondering where to take these," Kurt stated, speaking deliberately a little bit louder than he needed to. The doors couldn't be that thick, after all, not with how quietly the secretaries spoke to one another as though they were trying not to disturb the men working in their offices, and he knew Don would hear him if he were around.

"What are they?'

"They're a blouse - with a large turn-down collar," he added, then laughed nervously to himself. What was he doing? Did he think that a reference to the jacket he hadn't actually screwed up was somehow a shibboleth to call Don out of his office.

The secretary just stared at him. "Third floor."

"Really?"

"Yes."

The flaw in the plan, of course, the real flaw, was that at some point he was going to finish the short conversation he'd prepared on having, and if Don didn't hear him or happen to come out, what was he supposed to do then? Find some other reason to wander up here and pretend he didn't know he was four floors too high for what he was meant to be doing? At what point would that make him look like a buffoon instead of a go-getter, anyway?

"...You're not here for the blouse."

Kurt looked at her, eyes wide. "Of course, I just-"

She looked him up and down a moment. "You need to be careful. He'll get paranoid if you just show up here without a good reason. Just between us," she added with a wink before pressing the intercom button. "Mr. Harlow, someone's here to see you if you have a moment." Kurt was about to ask what she meant when a familiar voice crackled through the speaker, and she flashed him a smile. "Go ahead in."

"Thank you." Kurt quickly moved to the door and pushed it open, feeling instantly more comfortable as soon as he saw Don. Similar to the sensation with Ricky, though not quite as strong, there was something powerful that washed over him as soon as he knew he was in the company of someone who understood him. "I hope I'm not interrupting-"

Don looked up quickly and nervousness flickered behind his eyes, but he offered a friendly smile. "Kurt. Yes, come in." When the door was closed securely behind him, Don asked, "Did you have any trouble getting home last night?"

"No - thankfully," Kurt smiled. "For the first time, I didn't spend the night at a police station, so that was a plus. I wanted to say thank you."

"Oh, that didn't require thanks. There are plenty of places you can go that don't end in jail-"

"Not just that," he tried to explain. "Last night was...incredible. I had started to give up on the idea of ever finding a place like that, and it was exactly what I needed." And it had been, in every conceivable way. Not just getting out to enjoy himself, not just smiling again for the first time in what felt like an eternity - or, at least, smiling for his own happiness and not because of Mercedes' star turn at the club. Feeling like he wasn't completely isolated or as much of an aberration as he had been in Ohio, but like there were other people in the world who could understand and even appreciate him. Let alone the budding potential friendship that confused him as much as it piqued his curiosity. None of which could have happened without Don's invitation. "Why did you help me?" he blurted out, then blushed and tried to walk back the seemingly ridiculous question. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but you don't even know me and you gave me something that changes so much. Why-"

"Because I've been there," Don replied. "Because we can hardly tell anyone and we can trust even fewer. We've gotta stick together the best we can. I know not everyone's like that - there are guys you have to watch out for, guys who'll blackmail you or turn over your information to authorities - but for the most part...I mean...if we don't look out for each other, who will?"

It reminded him of Ethel, walking home any of the weak-looking boys he saw, standing in front of him and Ricky all night to make sure no one messed with them, and he couldn't help but feel a little warmer at the prospect. "So there's a connection," he concluded.

Don smiled and tossed out in a playful tone, "Why do you think we call each other 'family'?"

It wasn't something he'd heard before, but he liked the sound of it anyway. Like the guys at the club who called Mercedes their sister even though they weren't related and would have protected her just as fast as her brother would have if someone tried to mess with her - especially him. "So we're family," he repeated slowly. "You and I?"

"Yeah. And John, and the boys last night, and the boys in the newspaper...all of us. It's not a personal, one-to-one kind of a thing, it's...all of us."

All of us. It sounded so simple but held so much promise, so many things he'd dreamed of but hadn't witnessed... "I like that."

"Good. Now. We've gotta get you a better alibi if you're going to be coming up here every so often. What did you use to get past Dawn?"

"A blouse, but-"

Before Kurt could explain that Dawn knew he was there to talk to Don - or express surprise and amusement that Don's secretary was named Dawn and didn't that get confusing? Even before he could make a joke about whether he was even allowed to talk to Don since his name didn't rhyme with the rest of the crew - Don shook his head. "No, too obvious. I've gotta find a project to put you on."

"What do you mean?"

"Kurt- well. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there's no reason a kid from the cutting tables with no family connections in the business would be talking to an associate designer unless it's not about work."

Kurt tried not to look as crestfallen as he felt. "So I shouldn't come talk to you," he surmised slowly.

"No. Not at all. If you want to, or if you need something - by all means. We just need to give you a good reason so people won't ask too many questions. If I put you on a project or some kind of specialized assignment, it'll give you an excuse to come up here." Kurt blinked, not sure how to feel about that, and Don added, "It works out well for you all around. You get to start adding some things to your portfolio, you get to meet more people in the company than just that pissant you call a boss, you get to spend time outside that cutting room..."

"Sounds fantastic - I might even see sunlight," Kurt offered brightly, laughing awkwardly at his own joke. It did sound promising - if unexpected. "Are you sure-"

"Remember what I told you last night?" Don cut him off pointedly. Kurt wasn't sure what thing Don meant; he had told Kurt a lot of things, and he doubted 'don't trust any bar without a bouncer who knows patrons on sight' was applicable here. "You have the eye and the talent. In fact..." He thought a moment, then lit up and nodded. "I know just the thing. Because something tells me you know your fashion history."

"Well, anything that's been in Vogue since 1946," Kurt allowed.

Don laughed and clapped his shoulder, grinning as he shook his head. "This'll go back a little further. C'mon - I'll explain on our way down to the library." He opened the door of his office and led Kurt out, calling over his shoulder, "Dawn, I'll be back in a few minutes." Kurt wasn't sure how Don managed not to catch the knowing look his secretary gave them, but he would ask about that later.

"So am I allowed to know what this mystery project is? Or are you just sending me to 42nd Street to kill time?"

Don hesitated a moment as though trying to figure out how to break down months' worth of conversations into something succinct and easy for Kurt to understand out of context. "There have been a lot of meetings lately about our direction. We're not at the forefront of anything anymore, except for the fact that we have a House in the US which almost no one does. In the 30s and 40s, we were even ahead of Dior, but now the only people who come to us are, well, the stuffy wives of even stuffier businessmen if you know what I mean." Kurt nodded that he did, and Don continued. "Main doesn't want to go modern." It took Kurt a minute to realize who Don meant, that it wasn't an odd reference to the state; he meant the founder, the designer, the one whose name was pronounced "Maine Bocker" instead of the elegant French-sounding "Mainbocher." Because Don was high enough on the ladder to actually talk to the man and be on a first name basis with him. Which meant this assignment was only one step removed from the designer in charge of everything. "He keeps saying that our strength is in our luxury and ability to flatter a woman's body. I think he's right, but I don't think that's what we do anymore - I think we make a lot of custom pieces that don't look outstanding on anyone and come across like a second-rate Chanel. So what I want to do is pitch to him some designs and concepts to take us back to the sophistication of our roots but look like something a woman under age 40 might wear. Because this-" he indicated the pieces of the silk blouse draped over Kurt's arm "-isn't going to do it."

"I couldn't agree more," Kurt stated. "Everyone wants Givenchy, even Dior seems old-fashioned now and he revolutionized the entire shape of women for 15 years. Instead we do calf-length dresses and boxy cropped jackets, and ugly floral prints with stones?"

"See? I knew you would understand what I was saying. The two guys who work directly under me just stared blankly when I tried to explain what I wanted, but you..." Don smiled proudly. "You get it. You see it."

Kurt smiled proudly, then asked the ever-important question. "So what do you want me to do?"

"I'll show you when we get there. It's not as glamourous as you'd like, I'm afraid, but it's a step up and at least uses your brain - and your eye - instead of just your cutting hand."

Anything would be an improvement, Kurt knew, and being praised for being able to see how trends played their way out in fashion meant this was already the best day he'd had on the job in more than a year and a half of employment. His smile grew as they turned the corner and he saw John striding down the hall in their direction. He knew the man's reaction would be even more enthusiastic - judging from last night, Don's lover was incapable of being anything less than effusive, so wholehearted in his emotional expression. John wasn't happy, he was jubilant; he wasn't concerned, he was worried in a way that had him wanting to reach over and take a person's hand with big sympathetic eyes. If anyone could share in his triumph of finally moving his way out of the cutting room, finally getting an assignment he had any interest in, finally feeling like he was doing anything even remotely related to fashion, then surely it would be John. "John - guess who is the newest-" he began excitedly, but was cut off with a stern Look from the other man before his gaze jerked back up to just above eye-level.

He looked to Don curiously, wanting to ask what the man thought was wrong with his lover, but the look on Don's face was distant, closed-off, devoid of any familiarity with the man he shared what Kurt assumed was his entire life with. "John," he acknowledged coldly, no more intimately than he would have greeted any other person in the hall, with a short jerk of his head and a low exchange of unpleasantries.

"Sir," came the reply, John's voice pitched down a full octave from where it had been the night before. It didn't sound forced but seemed completely unnatural even though it went along with the stiff, purposeful gait and the affected disinterest in John's eyes.

Then suddenly he was past them. Kurt looked over his shoulder to see the man disappear around the corner, then looked up at Don in confusion. The two of them were lovers, they were intimate, they were...sweet together. Had they had a fight after he left Mama's last night? Maybe Don thought John wasn't spending enough time at the table with him, flitting around to talk to everyone else in the restaurant - he supposed if he had a lover he would want to be the center of his attention, but still it seemed so sad to think of the two of them not being happy with one another. Especially considering how matter-of-fact Don had been about John's excitability at being surrounded by people like them - how he'd good-naturedly joked with the waiter about how John would come in for a landing eventually and want dinner when he did, the sweet-on-you look in Don's eyes as his gaze followed John from table to table. What had happened the night before to cause this kind of distance and downright coldness?

Before the question could leave his lips, Don's response came: "Don't do that here."

Kurt was about to ask what 'that' Don meant - Brag? Say hello? - when suddenly it hit him: Don't acknowledge homosexuals from outside your station at work. Because if people knew he knew Don, they would want to know why. Because if people knew that Don and John knew each other, they would ask questions - let alone if it was obvious that they spent a lot of time together. Obviously no one could know they were lovers, he didn't know why that hadn't occurred to him before because it was so obvious, but even the act of saying hello to one another too familiarly was dangerous.

He swallowed hard, trying to settle the queasy feeling in his stomach. Even here, even in New York, even in fashion where he was fairly certain it was nothing but inverts of varying degrees, it wasn't safe.

"Here we are," Don said as though nothing had happened - because for him it wasn't anything novel, Kurt realized - as he pushed open a door. Kurt found himself standing in a windowless room maybe half the size of his cutting room lined with shelves with a small desk in the middle. "Unfortunately you still won't get sunlight, but at least it's above ground instead of in the basement so the hallway's a little less gloomy. But you understand, we can't have too much light - it would fade them."

"Fade what?"

Don made his way around the shelves, each of which held row after row of bound notebooks, all labeled with dates on the spine. He pulled out a volume marked "1935" and handed it to Kurt. Flipping open to a random page, he saw a large black and white photograph under which was scrawled, "Marsha Hunt, "The Virginia Judge." On the opposite page he found a sketch of the same ensemble with fabric pasted around the edges. Some were labeled - a soft chamois-coloured felt with the notation "Hat - Robert", two black patent leathers and a suede labeled "shoe options" - but some were self-explanatory, like the square of soft green and white tweed that clearly comprised the majority of the ensemble. Kurt turned the page carefully and found a similar arrangement, this time for an emerald green evening gown in chiffon and silk. "What is this?"

"These are our archives. Every design, every year since 1929. I always thought we should split it by type of garment instead of by year, but for obvious reasons this is easier to keep updated. I want you to go through these, especially the ones before about 1948, and see what stands out...and what that is signature Main would still translate well to a new audience."

It seemed like an enormous undertaking, and a potentially important one - especially considering anything he told Don had the potential to become an actual design - but he couldn't quite get past the knowledge that one day, probably next year, his collar would be in one of these books - the picture wouldn't match the sketch, it would look a hundred times better, because of him.

He had loved fashion for as long as he could remember. When he was five he had asked his parents for a subscription to Vogue for his birthday, he had tried to increase his allowance when he was 7 so he could afford more new clothes. His teenage years were a blur of trying to find more interesting clothes than the local Macys carried, ordering from catalog after catalog based in far-away places. Fashion - not just clothes, but fashion as a concept - had represented not only a hobby and an opportunity to bring aesthetics to a world that considered overalls a perfectly acceptable thing to wear in public, but a kind of power he had. He couldn't choose much about himself, not his inversion or his backwards, segregated town and the way it treated him and his best friend. So much of his life was defined by immutable characteristics and the way the rest of the world reacted to them, but fashion was something he could consciously choose. Not only that, it was ever-changing. Ever-progressing. Nothing in fashion stayed the same for very long - even the New Look was old within five years. It was about constantly trying to push boundaries and reinvent an entire world.

A world he was part of now.

"I'll leave you to get started," Don smiled as he left Kurt alone in the room filled with 33 years of history and the infinite possibilities of the future.

* * * * *

Rachel knew that she was amazing enough to expect great things out of life. From the time she was a little girl in tap class, her mom had made two things very clear: just because she was better than everyone else didn't give her an excuse not to do her best because otherwise the other kids would catch up; and if she stayed focused she could get whatever she wanted. Usually Rachel thought that applied just to roles she wanted, which of course she could get when she was in Lima because she was more talented than the rest of her competitors, but she was quickly starting to realize that it applied to men as well. She knew that she had declared herself on a break from any boyfriends, but she had been clear to herself about what she wanted and obviously that had attracted the right type of man because the date with Fred...

She had never felt so incredible in her life.

She practically danced her way back into the apartment at just past 11, unable to suppress her smile. He had clearly asked their agent about her because he knew all sorts of things about her, about where she was from, and all night he asked questions and listened to her talk. She even tried to apologize for talking so much at one point and ask him about his life, and he said he liked hearing about her. That he found her fascinating.

A star. Found her fascinating.

She had to admit, she had been skeptical - after the previous two men who had expressed an interest in her had turned out to be nothing but pigs who wanted to use her and prey on her naivete - but Fred had been a perfect gentleman. He had pulled out her chair for her and offered his arm when they walked, and then he had walked her home and dropped her off at the front door of the apartment building with a soft kiss on the cheek and a promise to call her soon, brilliant smile flashing in the moonlight as he departed.

She set her purse on the table and picked up the note that had been left there - Mercedes asking Kurt if "that boy" was ever going to pick up his things or if this meant he was planning on staying over again. Rachel spied an unfamiliar duffle by the door that Ricky must have left and smirked to herself. Kurt could say nothing had happened all he wanted, but she would never have left a bag over at Cal's unless she planned on staying there for most of the weekend...or longer. Clearly this was much more serious than he wanted to let on because why else would Ricky even have a duffle bag with him when he arrived? Though she hadn't seen him in a few days, which seemed odd. Maybe he was just busy at work and didn't have time to be social - Kurt did that sometimes.

Kurt sat on the couch with a notebook and a magazine, taking notes intently, and she paused to watch him. She wanted to tell him about her night because he was the person she told things to - even if he wasn't always kind about them, he at least cared about her in a way that a lot of other people didn't. But if he was busy, she should leave him alone. Studying him, he seemed much more...focused than she'd seen him in a long time. This new boy must be good for him if he wasn't curled up on that chair singing sad songs anymore. Not that she couldn't appreciate that feeling, but it was hard to watch that over the course of months - unlike her own crisis of a mere few weeks. But he looked like he might even start eating again at this rate - which was good, he was too skinny now. His jackets hung off him in a way he would have been aghast to see a few years ago. She was tempted to tell him so...also as a convenient way to start conversation...when she heard him mumble, "Rachel, I can feel you hovering."

She smiled faintly and stepped closer. "I didn't want to disturb you."

"Hovering is disturbing," he pointed out, looking up from his magazine finally, but he flashed her a look she'd dubbed 'You're strange but I love you anyway.' It was one of irritation but also indulgence, like he would put up with it from her but no one else would and he wouldn't take it from anyone else. She found it kind of endearing, really, that they had special looks for each other, even if it was a sign of how crazy they drove each other sometimes. Though it was kind of par for the course, wasn't it? Being a modern, non-married couple and everything. At least they got along better than Mercedes' roommates had.

"Sorry. I just got back."

"I know - before 11:30? Was he boring?"

"How could a star be boring?" she pointed out, and Kurt raised an eyebrow. "He wasn't boring," she replied. "He was actually really...wonderful."

"How so?"

She relayed the entire story of the date - from the way he complimented her dress, to the way he showed her off proudly but without making it about himself like Cal had. It wasn't about "Look how great I am to have such a great girl on my arm," it was more about her and made her feel so special and beautiful to even be in his company let alone his dinner companion. She told him about the way Fred had taken her hand gently on top of the table as they ate even though it meant he had to eat his salad with his left hand, and how he walked her home, concluding with, "He said he would call me soon. It was such a lovely evening, Kurt, you have no idea."

"Sounds like it," he said quietly, his tone distant and stiff, and she immediately cringed. Of course he had no idea - he wasn't allowed to have any idea. He couldn't take the boy he liked out like that any more than he could have taken Blaine out like that in Ohio.

"What made it lovely was him, not the atmosphere. Obviously dinner was nice, and it felt great to be out on the arm of such a handsome leading man, but I'm sure you can find a boy who's just as much of a gentleman and treats you just as well, one who makes you feel the way Fred made me feel. Maybe you and the boy - was it Ricky? - can have a nice candlelit dinner here. I'm sure I could get Mercedes out of here for the evening - or maybe I could go with her to the club one night-"

Kurt rolled his eyes and replied in his trademark deadpan, "As entertaining as it would be to see you up there, Ricky and I are just friends."

"Then why is his bag here?"

Kurt froze, then tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

"His duffle bag is still here - Mercedes left a note asking if he was ever going to come back to get it. I'll talk to her again, she just needs to understand that just as I have boyfriends, so do you, and Ricky- well. He's an unusual choice, maybe, but he certainly seems nice enough and not like he's going to take all of our money or tell the Sharks where we live-"

"Rachel." She fell silent reluctantly, and Kurt continued, "Put his bag in my room, would you please? Because now he'll have to call me to come pick it up, and I want to...know where it is."

Rachel grinned and gave him a knowing wink. "In your room where it belongs."

"No! Just-" He sighed softly. "The second he calls, tell me. Tell Mercedes, too, if you see her before I do."

"I will. And if you need a night alone, just let me know. I can even vouch for the fact that you make a very good boyfriend if he needs references."

She saw the look again, the one that said Kurt was wondering why he didn't find a different fake girlfriend sometimes, but he simply replied with a begrudging, "Thanks." With a smile, she turned and carried Ricky's bag to Kurt's room before taking her own purse into her bedroom, closing the door behind herself as she got ready for bed. Soon both of them would have boyfriends around to make them happy. While she thought it was awfully forward of Ricky to leave a bag of his things here to stay with Kurt, she couldn't help but imagine someday - very far in the future - living with Fred in what she was sure was a very nice apartment while Kurt and Ricky lived here, all happy together.