Quinn kept talking, standing there in the doorway of the garage, but all Finn heard was blood rushing in his ears and the sound of Burt lowering a car over in the far bay.

And the word 'pregnant' echoing over and over again in his ears.

He didn't understand. They hadn't done any of the things he thought could get a girl in trouble...at least, he didn't think they had. But they had fooled around in the back of the car quite a bit, especially at the drive-in (he probably was gonna live to regret that when Kurt finally got a girlfriend and wanted payback on the chaperon duties), and one time went a little too far, but he didn't think that was enough to-

But she said it was. With that look like 'Ugh, Finn, you're such a moron, what is wrong with you?' that she got a lot when he was dumb. And he guessed he didn't really know that much about how it worked for girls, y'know, he got what happened with guys and everything but all he knew about girls was what Coach had drawn up on the blackboard that looked kinda like a cow's head or something with eggs in its ears. It was kinda confusing to try to figure out what part of that he might have gotten stuff on when he...exploded like that.

He thought they were fine because they were still wearing clothes, and his jeans were pretty thick and stiff, but she said something about denim having holes and that was kinda true - after Kurt tried to explain something about thread count to him one time and showed him how to look and see where the strings went across on a piece of fabric, and there were pretty big ridges and strings and stuff in jeans, right? So he guessed.

None of this would've happened if the mailman trick would've worked.

"What are we going to do now?" he asked finally. His voice sounded stupid even to him, which meant he probably sounded even worse to her.

"Nothing," she replied quietly, tears streaming down her cheeks. Was he supposed to hug her now? It was kinda his fault and all, but she seemed almost mad at the same time so it might not go well. She might not want him really near her too much. "I don't know."

"Should we-...I dunno, maybe my mom will-"

"No!" Her eyes narrowed, glaring up at him like she would kill him if he even suggested such a thing again. "No. We can't tell anyone. You understand? No one."

"But aren't you, like, gonna start getting fat and stuff once it's growing in there?" His cousin had, he knew that, women around town, that girl his mom worked with.

"Not yet," she replied, her voice a fierce, hoarse whisper. "We can't tell anyone. Not even your parents. Especially not either of our parents."

"I just think we gotta-"

"No," she repeated. "Why can't you get that, Finn? No. We're not telling them. They'll freak out."

"But-"

"I'm right, you're wrong. I'm smart, you're dumb. This is your fault anyway, if you hadn't-"

"I already said I'm sorry like a thousand times for that, Quinn, I didn't mean to-"

"I've gotta go," she said, shaking her head, arms crossing tighter over her chest. "Just don't tell anyone."

He felt kinda dizzy and faint so he grabbed onto the edge of the counter. What was he supposed to do now? Start...getting stuff ready for the baby or something? Like guys did when their wives got pregnant? But Quinn wasn't his wife and most of the time those guys were like 20 and they weren't even close to that. He should call Puck. Puck would know what to do in all of this, with the way he got around? He'd probably been through this a couple times before. And Puck was his best friend, he would totally help in all this.

"Anyone," Quinn repeated as she left. "Especially not Puck."

...Crap. There went that plan.

* * * * *

Kurt barely looked up when he heard books slam onto the table across from him, but his head jerked up when he heard the laugh that followed. Blaine stood beside the table, looking down in amusement, and Kurt felt a smile spread across his own face though he could never pinpoint exactly why that happened every time he saw the lead Warbler. "I thought for sure that would have gotten your attention," Blaine joked. "I'd been calling your name for at least five minutes."

"Really."

"Yeah." Blaine slid into the seat across from him and tried to read the page Kurt was looking at upside-down. "What are you working on? The past two weeks every time someone's looking for you, you're over here." He paused, then added, "Do you want me to start setting up one-on-ones or anything? I know the curriculum here is probably a lot to get used to, especially transferring in Junior year which is hardest-"

"Oh, no," Kurt assured him. "No, classes are fine. This is better, actually." He smoothly closed the book, his hand coming to rest on top of it as he stated with a self-satisfied smile, "I'm figuring out what's wrong with Sam."

"What do you mean?" Blaine asked.

"Why he can know all the information but still do horribly on exams and assignments. He's not slow, it's something with the way he sees things and I swear I'm this close, but I keep running into walls. Say, you don't know anything about getting Warblers into a local medical school library, do you? I figure if you can get weekend passes the first week, anything's possible."

"What is it you need?"

"At this point? A decent medical dictionary." The school had almost everything else, even if it was all piecemeal and most of it was older so he couldn't guarantee any of the information was still accurate. After all, the older books said he was a sociopath and now he knew that part wasn't true, so who knew what else it could be wrong about?

After finding the study with the mysterious Man #16, the one that said he didn't have to be emotionally disturbed or as crazy and nonfunctioning as a schizophrenic, he'd set out to devour everything else the library might be able to offer him on the topic of his...well, saying his 'condition' didn't really make as much sense if it turned out it wasn't a sickness, though he had learned that it was still listed in the giant book of mental illnesses so technically it was a condition. His differences- okay his differences beyond the obvious. Whatever he was choosing to call it for now, because that 'h' word still unnerved him a little and everything else was either a legal term, a religious term, a slur, or a combination of the three. In any event, he set out to read every piece of information the library had. That turned out to take approximately ten minutes, as there were exactly four items in the library with any reference to the topic at hand: the psychology book, the report on everyone having sex except for Kurt, a newspaper article about the numerous reasons it was illegal to open a bar in Columbus for 'deviants'...and the study that almost made up for the other three all on its own.

So with those out of the way, he could turn his research time and attention back to his original question - diagnosing Sam - and leave the rest for that time between when Sam started snoring quietly and when he finally drifted off to sleep himself. In the dark room with no other pressing thoughts, he let himself be distracted by all the seemingly neverending questions.

Was he sure he wasn't even a little crazy? Was that inversion thing still a problem, or did the fact that they were wrong about his attraction to males mean they were wrong about him being too feminine, too?

Would he ever find anyone who would-...he didn't know how else to put it, but...want him? Want him the way Finn wanted Quinn or his dad wanted Carole. Want to hold his hand and maybe kiss him.

Was there even anyone else out there?

He knew there were obviously at least 30, thanks to that study. There were at least 30 somewhere...but how many others? Because all of those 30 were significantly older than he was, and how would he even find them in a country of 175 million people? How did he even go about finding people like him? He couldn't exactly go up and ask people, and he'd never known anyone who was enough like him that he could reasonably guess. And, he figured, if therapists and experts couldn't tell who was or wasn't like him, what chance did he stand?

Because even as great as it felt to know he wasn't psychotic and he wasn't a dangerous attacker without even knowing it...it didn't help the feeling of isolation. He knew he should be used to it, he'd been alone practically his entire life - except for his dad and the Joneses, of course - and he couldn't help but wish-

Someday, he told himself with a sigh in the darkness every night. Man #16 found someone, somewhere, sometime, and he might, too. But Man #16 was more than twice his age; he had time.

So for now he sat in the library every evening and poured over medical textbooks and wished he could translate any of them into something an actual person might say so that he could understand if what he was reading about applied to Sam or not. He felt like he was ruling a lot out, but not nearly enough.

"Really?" Blaine asked. "I'll bring you one after fall break if you want."

"You have one lying around?"

"My father's a psychiatrist. I can't guarantee how updated it is, but he has a couple."

Kurt wondered if Blaine's father was the kind of psychiatrist who believed in the first book, or one of the ones like the study. Though it didn't entirely matter, he realized; if the study taught him anything, it was that he didn't have to see a doctor even if this was technically an illness. Man #16 hadn't and he was perfectly fine and well-adjusted. He knew it was kind of ridiculous to cling to an unknown patient in a psychological study like this, but he couldn't entirely help it. Who else was he going to look to? Who else was there? It wasn't as though he had ever met someone else like him who could reassure him that he might not be miserable forever. Man #16, wherever he was, was eccentric, unconventional, happy, and not alone - everything Kurt could hope to be. So there he was, this almost-fictional beacon of theoretical hope. A liferaft.

"That would be great. Thank you." Kurt smiled and reached up to flick his hair back as he settled in his chair. "So what brings you over here?"

"I've come to rescue you."

Kurt's heart surged a little, though he couldn't figure out quite why, and he was careful to keep his face and voice even as he replied "Oh?"

"You need a break. Believe me, it's easy to go stir-crazy in here. And if you're not holing up here because you're trying to study, then even more reason to spring you."

Two weeks of barely seeing each other had left Kurt more lonely than he realized; he missed seeing Blaine all the time, and the prospect of spending the rest of the evening with him sounded fantastic. "I could use a break," he allowed, standing smoothly and grabbing his notebook. It was nearly filled with notes, scribbled medical terms, and potential diagnoses crossed out as he figured out reasons they couldn't be the problem. By contrast, his notes for school were much fewer and further between.

"Anything in particular you'd like to do?"

Kurt thought a moment, then suggested, "You still have the Garland at the Grove in your room?"

Blaine froze. That wasn't in the plan. The plan that had been working so well the past few weeks - the plan where he avoided Kurt and the feelings went away, the one that had been going swimmingly when Kurt barricaded himself in the library...spending all evening with Kurt sprawled out on his bed was not going to work for him.

But the idea of not spending the evening with him...

He missed Kurt. Not in a romantic or sexual way, just...he missed him. They'd gone from hanging out together a decent amount during Kurt's first two weeks at school, to not seeing each other except at rehearsals. And Kurt was the only person he knew at Dalton who had similar taste in music to his.

Besides. If there was one thing they were used to doing together, it was singing. There was nothing inherently untoward about any of that. He'd been keeping it together, staying cool, feeling perfectly normal at Warblers practice. He would be fine.

"Yeah," Blaine replied. "You want to bring Star is Born?" he added, not minding in the least that he was prolonging the evening with the addition of another album.

* * * * *

More and more, Kurt found himself without adequate words.

It frustrated him. He had always been an articulate child, growing into a teenager who used increasingly verbose insults while most of his peers turned monosyllabic, and while he rarely knew the right thing to say, it was rarely because he couldn't find the correct words to express what it was he was feeling or thinking.

Except these days.

It was just that he had this feeling-...not even a feeling so much as a sense, an instinct based on something completely intangible, that Blaine was like him.

Not just like him as in they had similar interests - that was easy to pinpoint as he sat on the rug by Blaine's bed, Blaine sprawled beside him, while they listened to Judy singing "Day In, Day Out" on the record player on the desk. At the very least they had similar taste in music, though not identical (Blaine listened to a lot more popular music and not quite as many Broadway classics, but he didn't dislike them like Finn or Sam did), and movies (Blaine was the only other boy who spoke adoringly about Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina). And Blaine read Vogue, which was amazing to Kurt because it was one of his secret obsessions and he was just glad to have someone to share it with. But what Kurt was feeling wasn't as simple as that, because they had plenty of different interests. Blaine didn't care about his own fashion, and he liked football (to watch, not to play), and he didn't care about cars which Kurt had developed some interest in thanks to his dad's shop, and Kurt was sure there were plenty of other areas in which their interests diverged. So they had more in common with each other than Kurt had in common with any other boy he had ever met, including Sam, but there was something more to it than that.

A connection. A...something. A feeling like Kurt was safe around him. Something about Blaine that made him feel like he could let his guard down, which was a huge deal for him. Years of public school torture and humiliation by larger boys had taught him to stay distant, to not care so much, to trust few people and only after they'd earned it. Blaine shattered all of that practically in minutes, and there had to be some reason for that. Something beyond merely being vulnerable in a new place, because no one else at Dalton had done it to the same extent. Not even Sam, who was the guy Kurt knew most intimately - roommates had kind of their own special relationship.

But his and Blaine's was deeper than that.

He didn't understand how or why. It wasn't friendship, not precisely - he'd had friends, though not great in number, and it was a similar feeling but not quite the same. Certainly not this early in the friendship. And it wasn't just Blaine's charismatic charm, his disarming smile, his kind eyes that always looked excited, as though you could just tell he actually wanted to listen to you.

He wasn't sure if he was imagining things, but it seemed like Blaine got that look more with him than with any of the other Warblers. Blaine always looked engaged, but with him it seemed more intense somehow. But then, he had imagined that Finn liked him a lot more than he actually had, and the memories of the pain of figuring out that the friendship he'd thought they were forging was little more than a forced truce for sake of the glee club and their parents...Kurt was reluctant to jump back into assumptions like that.

But if he was trying so hard to be cautious...why did he want to tell Blaine everything? What was it about Blaine that made him want to spill every secret he had? Even that one?

...oh god. Was that what-

No. Well...maybe. How would he even know?

Was Blaine like him like...like him?

Kurt's head jerked towards him in surprised, and Blaine looked up at him. "What?"

"Nothing," Kurt stammered. "Just...haven't heard this song in awhile," he lied poorly as "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" came on. "So which one's your favourite?" he asked, knowing the segue was imperfect but at least it was distracting in a way that Blaine might not follow up on what was causing Kurt to look at him like that. because that was a conversation he didn't begin to know how to have...and he doubted he ever would.

"Favourite what?" Blaine asked. "Song, album, movie?"

"Any of them." Anything to keep you talking Kurt added as he felt the familiar warm sensation he got whenever Blaine smiled at him. Like he was tingling all over and his cheeks were on fire and he couldn't quite breathe but in a good way.

"Hm. This is tough," Blaine said, thinking a moment. "Okay, movie's easy - Wizard of Oz. It's a classic, and the first one I ever saw of hers. Whenever there's a theater replaying it, I have to go. Album...probably this one, though I am a sucker for the soundtrack to Meet Me in St. Louis. Song..." Blaine hesitated, his lips curling into something like a small, awkward smile, though significantly more nervous. "She sang this version of 'Smile' live on some show once, and it was the most incredible...musical moment I've ever heard. Like you could feel everything she was feeling right there through the television. The other versions of the song seem so light, but when she sings about pasting on a smile to conceal everything that hurts and forcing yourself to go on, you can just hear it and know that's what she's doing right at that moment." His voice was quiet, and Kurt leaned in a little closer - not much, just enough. Blaine glanced at him, then admitted, "I do that sometimes. When I sing. Because up there, performing in front of people, it's like you can be whoever you want and you don't have to be yourself for awhile. Everything you don't like about who you are can just...go away for those three or four minutes. It's just you, and the music, and how the music makes you feel."

Kurt wondered what in the world Blaine could not like about himself; everything he saw about Blaine, he liked so much - even now. Especially now. Something about the boy being quiet and self-reflective was almost entrancing, as though if Kurt looked away it would take a part of him and he could never get it back.

"I know it sounds stupid," Blaine added, shaking his head and rolling his eyes at himself.

"It's not," Kurt replied quietly. "I do that too, sometimes. It's why I love musicals - the emotion. Don't get me wrong, pop songs are fun to sing, and the Warblers do them incredibly well. But there's something about the feeling behind a great Broadway ballad that's just so much...more."

"Exactly." Blaine's smile was returning, though it was more shy than Kurt was used to. "Like in West Side Story, you know, you can feel Tony falling in love with Maria and feel the agony of the death scene, the longing in 'Somewhere' - you don't even have to watch them. It's all in their voices, in the songs."

Blaine was the first person Kurt had ever known who understood that, and he couldn't help but smile. Maybe this was why he felt the connection to Blaine. Maybe it had nothing to do with that other thing he was slowly coming to terms with (though a part of his brain did seem to enjoy shouting I bet that's the part he doesn't like! He doesn't know about Man #16! over and over again, no matter how much Kurt wanted it to shut up), maybe it was because Blaine was the only other person who connected to music the way he did. Mercedes loved singing and sounded amazing when she did it, and she was incredibly proud of her voice - as she had every right to be...but it wasn't emotional for her in the same way it was for him. The same with Finn, he liked being part of glee club and sang lead well, but it was always more of a hobby than an outlet.

It was just that music said so much more than words could. Even when he could find the right words for the job, there were so many limitations, so many things they couldn't express and so much depth that was lost when there was no music to go with them. It was like music could turn up the volume on an emotion from 4 to 10 with barely any effort. Blaine was the first person he'd ever met who understood that.

Maybe that was what all of this was - what it felt like to connect with someone musically. Maybe that's why it was like a friendship but not quite, it was more like some strange Broadway world where everything felt deeper.

The song changed again, and so did Blaine's face. It was back to being bright, expressive in a more stage-friendly way, and he grinned. "Oh, I love this song. Do you know it?"

Of course Kurt had heard Zing! Went the Strings of my Heart before, though it wasn't one of the ones he listened to often as it wasn't on any of the albums he owned. "Sort of," he replied.

"It's one of the first ones she ever did, but one of the only ones from when she was young that she still performs. I just love it - ballads are beautiful and everything, but I love upbeat music, you know?" Blaine grinned winningly and began to sing along. The roughness of his voice didn't mesh particularly well with Judy's, but Kurt could imagine how great Blaine would sound on the song on his own. Maybe not with the Warblers, it would lose a lot in the lack of orchestration, but somewhere, someday, on stage with this song and that grin- God, Kurt felt like he would turn into a puddle of goo just seeing it.

Dear when you smiled at me
I heard a melody
It haunted me from the start
Something inside of me
Started a symphony
Zing! went the strings of my heart

He wasn't sure how the song managed to read his mind like that, managed to sum up so perfectly how he felt the first time he saw Blaine...and every time thereafter, if Kurt were to be honest with himself. Of course, it got exponentially more intense whenever Blaine sang - but that was what they'd been talking about earlier with music in general, wasn't it? It just amplified whatever else was already there, whatever words or emotions were underneath it.

Or maybe it had more to do with the way that Blaine came alive when he sang. Unless it was all an act, all a facade like he was saying...no, Kurt concluded. Blaine had said sometimes he pasted on the smile and performed to get away from everything, not all the time. And the entire point about the song Blaine liked was that you could feel what Judy was feeling when she sang it, that kind of desperate attempt at making herself feel better by pretending to be okay - this felt genuine. It sounded real and it sounded like...like whatever it was that Kurt was feeling that he couldn't figure out the words for.

Twas like a breath of spring
I heard a robin sing
About a nest set apart
All nature seemed to be
In perfect harmony
Zing! went the strings of my heart

The way Blaine touched his arm was different. And the kind of smile, and just- everything. It was like-...well, it was like the way Mercedes' brother acted when that girl from two doors down came to ask if she could borrow his notes from science class. No one in the universe actually thought she needed to borrow notes, they just wanted to see each other, and they both would smile in this kind of ridiculous way and look at each other really intensely and just be so flirty about it all. That was the way Blaine looked at him when he sang was...was flirty.

...maybe. He wasn't actually sure. He hadn't exactly had anyone flirt with him before. For that matter, he hadn't had boys singing songs in his direction before, so for all he knew this was just the way boys sang. And it looked about like Blaine did during the first number he ever saw the Warblers perform, so maybe this was just the way Blaine sang in general, and it wasn't specific to him.

He wanted to do it back but had no idea how as he stared intently at Blaine, blushing when their eyes met, feeling like he should be looking away but not quite able to bring himself to do it for more than a second or two.

Your eyes made skies seem blue again
What else could I do again
But keep repeating, "Through and through
I love you, love you!"

And suddenly Kurt couldn't breathe.

Love? That was what this feeling was? Did that-...he wasn't sure, he couldn't be certain, and it felt so ridiculous to say that because everyone knew what love was...or they were meant to, at least, and he loved his father and probably Mercedes-

...he didn't want to kiss either of them, though. He didn't want to lean over and grab either of them, and he didn't get erections when he thought about either of them (ew), and he didn't-

So was that what this was? Because it seemed ridiculous, but there was the same kind of gasping relief sensation when the word was put to feeling that he had when he finally connected a word to his identity, so that had to mean something, right?

I still recall the thrill
I guess I always will
I hope 'twill never depart
Dear with your lips to mine
A rhapsody divine
Zing! went the strings of my heart

"Dance with me," Blaine urged, grinning as he stood.

"Ohhh no," Kurt replied, shaking his head. "I can't dance."

"Oh, c'mon." His almost-pout as he started to do a softshoe number around the bed during the musical interlude was enough to make Kurt want to reconsider his policy against dancing. He shifted himself up onto the edge of the bed. Mostly he just couldn't take his eyes off Blaine.

Was he in love with him? Was that what this was? Was the difference between loving, again, his father or his grandparents or someone like that, and loving Blaine...was it that part about erotic attraction? Because that would make sense.

It was. That was absolutely what this was. He was-

He was in love with Blaine.

Blaine began to sing the break again, practically staring through him it was that intense, and Kurt had to remind himself to keep breathing.

Your eyes made skies seem blue again
What else could I do again-

Unbidden, Kurt began to mouth the words along with Blaine, his voice seemingly unable to even creep out as he tried to declare,

But keep repeating, "Through and through
I love you, love you!"

Blaine's grin got even bigger as he saw Kurt singing along - or maybe because he got what Kurt was trying to say, he didn't even know, and he was practically beaming as he sang the last verse.

I still recall the thrill
I guess I always will
I hope 'twill never depart
Dear with your lips to mine
A rhapsody divine
Zing! went the strings of my-
Zing! went the strings of my-
Zing! went the strings of my heart!

He finished the song with a flourish and Kurt applauded dutifully - okay, maybe more like spastically, he felt like the grin on his face might seriously break his cheeks. As Blaine sat down, cheeks flushed, smiling from ear to ear and just ecstatic with the kind of post-performance rush that Kurt knew too well, it was apparent that this hadn't been a forced performance, something about trying to paste on a smile and convince himself he could be okay if he performed hard enough. He was enjoying himself, which meant...

...that meant he meant this, right?

Kurt wanted to lean over and just-...just see what it would feel like to kiss him. It was one of those moments like in a movie, where the boy and the girl have been staring at each other all night and they're so close and all it would take is moving just a little bit, just leaning in, and then the entire world would explode with possibility. Did it work the same if they were both boys? Who made the first move? He had no idea, and he wasn't entirely sure he cared.

But what he did care about was a question he had no answer to:

What if Blaine wasn't....like him?

What if this really was all just about musical connection and Blaine really did like that- that Laura girl he'd gone out with a few weeks ago? What if all of this was just Kurt reading too much into things, like he had into his friendship with Finn, and Blaine didn't-

He didn't know what happened if he guessed wrong, but he didn't think it would be a good idea. He didn't know what Blaine might do, but he was certain of exactly one thing: It wouldn't. be. okay. Whatever action happened after that, it would be bad, and he had the nagging feeling it wasn't just because then others might know his secret.

He couldn't do this until he had more knowledge. Until he knew for sure that Blaine wasn't going to shove him away and tell everyone and have him discharged on medical grounds or something like that, he-...he couldn't. It wouldn't be alright. It wouldn't be safe.

Instead he settled back on the floor awkwardly, in the same position he had, as Purple People Eater began. Maybe he could force himself to pretend he was okay if he sang enough happy songs. Maybe it would distract him enough to forget how desperately he wanted.