McKinley High School teachers Holly Holiday and Will Schuester herded their students through the Allen County Museum of Archaeology and History, which was Ohio-renowned for its research and historical collections.  The museum had invited the junior and senior history classes to view the new crown jewel of its collection, the “Greek Women in Myth Exhibition”.  Admission was  free, and the museum was close enough to McKinley that buses were unnecessary.  As a result, the school administration had approved the outing, even though Greek mythology had nothing to do with McKinley's history curriculum.  

Senior Kurt Hummel was glad to be out of the slushy-filled halls of McKinley High School, regardless of where the trip was held.  But this trip had an extra benefit, because it meant extra time with his boyfriend, Blaine, who was close by his side as they filed through the galleries.   They'd had a rough couple of weeks.  Blaine had suffered a serious corneal injury requiring heavy pain medication, and keeping him at home until he'd recently recovered from eye surgery.  And Kurt had been deeply shaken again recently, when Dave Karofsky, a closeted gay teen who had bullied Kurt mercilessly through the beginning of junior year, had been outed before he was ready … and attempted suicide.  The school was abuzz with the gossip, many people judging Dave a coward, but Kurt just felt guilty over the whole incident.  He was glad to have a mental break from the talk and from school, and to have a chance to see some amazing works of art up close rather than in his dingy, ten-year-old textbooks.

Blaine's mother, Anna Anderson, PhD, had personally curated the new exhibit, and was their docent for the field trip. Professor Anderson's shock of thick, straight black hair was swept back from her face in a messy bun with a chewed-up pencil stuck through it.  She wore nondescript vegan shoes; her suit was two years out of style, and would not be retro for at least another ten.  But her pretty, youthful face, so much like his boyfriend's, shone when raving about her life's work, oblivious to her young audience's complete disinterest.  She stopped before a wide, waist-high marble pedestal holding a life-sized silver statue of a woman, side-by-side with an identical casting in bronze.  The unusual twin figures each depicted a heavily pregnant, kneeling goddess, her arms outstretched in supplication.

“Here we have the centerpiece of our exhibition,” Professor Anderson announced with obvious pride. “The images of Ariadne, believed to be from approximately 800 B.C., which were recovered from an archaeological excavation on Cyprus.”   She paused, as if waiting for applause.  When none was forthcoming, she pressed on.

“The significance of this find is exceptional,” Professor Anderson prattled cheerfully.  “The writings of Plutarch tell us of an ancient cult of Aphrodite and Ariadne.  Ariadne, in labor, was shipwrecked on the island.  She died in childbirth, and her husband Theseus, in his grief, created a shrine to her memory.  He was said to have commissioned these images,” she explained, gesturing to the two figures, “and decreed that sacrifices be made in her memory every year.  It was said that exactly nine months after Ariadne's first festival, two young men  returned to the shrine in vicarious labor, through the power of the goddess.  They were known as true lovers, and they died in their travail, clasped in each other's arms.”

Titters ran through the group, and Kurt's boyfriend Blaine bit his lip.  Kurt squeezed his hand and smiled supportively.  “Your mom is awesome,” Kurt assured him, whispering in his ear.  “This is really interesting.”

Blaine smiled, looking around furtively and then stealing a kiss in the shadowy room behind the backs of the teachers and most of their friends.  Kurt wished that they could be more open with their affection, like all the other McKinley couples were, but even in Glee Club they usually refrained from too much overt display.  “You're sweet to say that,” Blaine whispered, his lips tickling Kurt's ear pleasantly.  “But I know this is like watching paint dry.”  

Kurt pulled Blaine a little farther away from the group and snaked his arms around him from behind, resting his chin on Blaine's shoulder. Closing his eyes a moment, he reflected that it wasn't all that boring of a field trip.

After rambling on for another ten minutes, Blaine's mother finally wound up her presentation, and the group clapped faintly.  Mr. Schuester called, “Okay … that's it for the tour, folks.  You're free to walk around the museum for another half hour independently.  Then we'll meet in the gift shop and head back to school.”  The group started milling about, chattering and gossiping more than looking at the ancient artifacts which were Anna's passion.

“Half an hour. Plenty of time to find someplace to make out,” Kurt murmured.  “Maybe even a little more… you must know where the supply closets are in this place. You've probably spent enough afternoons here with your mom.”

“That's exactly why we're not doing anything here,” Blaine said, leaning away from Kurt with a giggle and dragging him over to the center of the room.  “Mom's workplace?  Total mood kill.”

“You sure?” Kurt recklessly palmed Blaine's plump backside and squeezed it.  “It's been a whole two days since we've had any time alone.”

“Do you mind?  Some of us are interested in seeing the exhibition.  Not in exhibitionism,” head cheerleader Quinn Fabray sniped from behind them.  

Kurt jumped, then blushed irritably.  “Mind your own business, Quinn.”  He and Quinn faced off in front of the twin Ariadne statues.    “We weren't doing anything you and your multiple jock boyfriends haven't done all over school.  Interesting that it bothers you so much when two guys do the same.”

“Will you two knock it off please? You've been bickering for days and it's ridiculous,” Blaine said, exasperated.  “Look, Quinn - - Kurt was just upset about what happened to Karofsky when you had that argument that started all this - -”

Quinn held up an imperious hand.  “Stop right there.  That was no excuse for Kurt to say that having a baby at sixteen was no big deal.” Quinn's cat-like eyes were glinting eerily at Kurt in the darkened, track-lit gallery.  

Kurt rested a hand on the nearby gleaming silver Ariadne statute, leaning against it as he regarded Quinn coolly.  Blaine clutched at his other hand, trying to draw him away; but Kurt kept staring Quinn down.  “You need to check your straight privilege, Fabray, and check it hard.  You have no idea what David went  through, and no business judging him or any other LGBT kid until you've walked a mile in our shoes.”

Quinn tossed her head.  “Maybe.  But maybe you should check your male privilege,” she drawled in her slow, husky voice.  “You'll never know what it's like to lose control of your own body - - to watch it swell up to twice its size and be taken over by another person.  Not to mention labor, and then - - giving up the baby and having nothing to show for it?  You have the gall to dismiss that, as a man who never has to worry about that happening to you?  How dare you?”  

Kurt shrugged, but he felt a little uncomfortable at Quinn's vehemence.  Maybe he could have worded his opinion a little better. But although Quinn was a friend and had a good heart at times, she could also be an insufferable prig at others, and a hypocrite in the bargain.  He didn't feel like backing down right now and stiffened his spine.  “You could have avoided all of it if you'd just made Puck use a condom.  You brought it on yourself.”

“I - - I brought it on myself?” Quinn spluttered.  “How, exactly?  By having unsafe sex at 15?  Puck did too, you know.  But I'mthe only one who paid the consequences.  And I doubt you've been 100% careful every time you've done it with Reggie Mantle here.”

“Hey!” Blaine exclaimed.  “Why are you taking shots at me?  I'm just standing here!”

Kurt had about enough.  HIs nerves were shot.  David had nearly killed himself because the two of them had been spotted at Breadstix together.  Blaine and Burt had insisted, repeatedly, that what David did wasn't his fault.  Logically, he knew they were right.  He owed David nothing and it wasn't his responsibility to help his former bully deal with exactly the same type of abuse he had handed out freely for years to other, weaker kids.  

But … emotionally, he wasn't able to shake his guilt since David's rash act.  Of all people, Kurt should have known just how dark a place David was in and gotten help for him, especially after he was outed.  It wasn't fair for Quinn,  the popular straight girl and queen of the school, to look down in judgment. “I'm just saying … your problem went away after nine months.  You can put it behind you and go on to Yale like it never happened.  David can't escape his problems, not as long things are how they are in this country.  Can't you see the difference?” Kurt asked pointedly.

“That's where you're wrong.  What I had to go through physically and mentally?  Those memories will never be behind me. ”  She scowled fiercely, reaching out a hand and gripping the edge of the bronze statue of Ariadne beside them, her manicured nails scraping along the surface.  “I really, really wish you could know what that's like —”  Quinn's words were cut off with a shriek, as a sudden flash of blue-white light seared and sizzled through the room.  

Kurt felt an excruciating jolt of pain in his hand.  A force, a wave of heat or energy, surged through him, and a high-pitched, whirring buzz deafened him for an instant. Blaine jerked  beside him, before pulling his hand from Kurt's grip with a gasp.

The next moment, still breathless and tingling, Kurt looked down at his palms.  They were bright red and blistered, as if from intense heat.  He turned stunned eyes to Blaine, who was holding his own injured palm against his mouth, and then to Quinn.

She was shaking her hand in pain.  “The - - the statue gave me a shock,” she gasped.  “But — it's been a clear day - - not a hint of thunder —”

“And we're inside,” Kurt finished for her, confused.   His hands were already feeling better, the burns fading rapidly. Impossibly so. He looked up.  “How could we be struck by lightning in here?”

“What were you three yelling for?” Finn asked curiously.  The others were all staring as well.

“The lightning, of course,” Kurt stammered.  “We all got a shock.”

Finn frowned, and the other students looked mystified, first at each other and the at the three friends in the twin shadows of the goddess.  Then he turned back, his face puzzled.

“What lightning?”