Kurt Hummel's dreams have see-sawed pretty spectacularly over the course of his life. He still remembers being seven years old and wanting nothing more than to be a world-famous chef, helping his mother out in the kitchen and singing along with the radio. He also remembers being ten years old and dreaming of being a glitzy, glamorous fashion designer, with a high-rise apartment in New York City and weekly flights into Paris and Rome. But it was the final of these childish dreams, that of being a performer, that was the sweetest and most sorrowful. The one he still aches after, because he really thinks he could have done it.

Kurt Hummel was sixteen when his father died.

He still insists, to this very day, that he wasn't depressed. Kurt knows depression when he sees it - indeed, has experienced it occasionally. But when Burt Hummel died, Kurt wasn't depressed. What he was, most of all, was scared. Burt had been dating Carole Hudson, but they'd never made anything official. And although Carole was anxious to take care of him(and did, by housing him under her roof until he graduated), she was never what she could have been to him. Kurt always prided himself on being an independent character, but it was when his father died that he realized how deeply he feared loneliness.

And then David Karofsky entered the mix, and Kurt was beyond scared. He was terrified. He spent his last two years of high school tip-toeing around, holding his breath and praying that Karofsky would not notice him after their one encounter in the locker room.

Unfortunately, his prayers came to naught. Karofsky pursued him relentlessly, and Kurt began to forget what it was like to feel safe. When he finally graduated, he felt as if he would faint with relief. He was free. He was out.

He might be safe.

It was this crippling fear that led him down his final dream, the career path he eventually chose for himself. Kurt hated - still hates - the fright he felt then. He wanted nothing more than to be able to provide a safe space for people who might feel the same way. Thus, psychiatry.

The road was long. He cannot say he isn't glad to see the end of it. And even though he is still restricted to practicing at the Lima hospital, at least he can start. Every great story has a beginning, and Kurt has lost none of his ambition over the years. He will build himself a clientele through residential psychiatry, and then he will open his own practice. If he makes even one person feel a little safer, it will be plenty. But Kurt certainly plans on doing more than that.

He's been working at the hospital for close to three months now. His clients haven't taken too much out of him, emotionally - the little part of him that still harbors a shameful hatred for Lima wondered spitefully if there was even a need for counselling in the town - but he's had his fair share of patients. Adult, all of them, and none of them stayed for more than a few sessions. So he is pleasantly(cautiously) surprised when he is informed that a young boy of fifteen years will be coming to see him on his twelfth Friday at the hospital.

He is given no background whatsoever, save for the fact that the boy attended(he squints at the word - isn't that the wrong tense? Well, he shouldn't judge) a local high school. Not McKinley, and Kurt feels a flare of relief. He can do without ever remembering his high school years ever again.

When he hears a timid knock on his door on Friday morning, Kurt doesn't know what to expect from this Blaine Anderson. But as he opens the door and stares down at the short, dark-haired boy, Kurt's first thought is that this boy is broken.