Wednesday came and so did Olivia. She turned up on Blaine's doorstep at six, just as they had agreed, and he hugged her in greeting before taking her in to the living room, where his mom was watching whatever reality TV show was on. She got up to hug Olivia, telling her how nice it was to see her, saying how good it was that she was in remission. Olivia smiled and agreed with everything Marie said, which Blaine was thankful for. Olivia understood his parents in a way that so many of Blaine's other friends didn't. It was clear then how good of a choice Olivia was for being a dinner guest.

Blaine then took Olivia up to his bedroom, where she sat down on his bed, looking up at him. "So," she said, "talked to Kurt recently?"

Blaine closed the door and shrugged. "How recently is recently? We agreed to Skype tonight after dinner, but it's been a couple of days. Why?"

"Because you're totally in love with him and won't admit it and I want you to be okay with that."

He clicked into a playlist on his docked iPod to create some background buzz while they talked. He pulled his desk chair up to face her and sat there. "I wouldn't say I was totally in love with him."

"But you agree that you are in love with him, at least a little bit?"

Blaine looked down at his hands. "Maybe. Maybe more than a little bit. Every time I talk to him I get reminded how far away he is, and that doesn't help. He's one of my best friends, Liv. Even if nothing ever happens between us."

There was a brief pause, while the weight of Blaine's words settled in around them. "You know your eyes kind of sparkle around him?" Olivia said.

"Do they?"

"Yeah. They're getting a little bit sparkly now, because you're thinking about him." His eyes really were lighting up, but she said it in a teasing sort of tone, trying not to make it into a bigger deal than it actually was.

"Oh god, really? Is it that noticeable? What about all those times I texted him in class, would I be sparkling then too?" Blaine said, having a minor freak out about nothing that he actually should be. The thing with Blaine's classmates was that they weren't particularly observant. It was unlikely anyone would be looking at him long enough to notice something like his eyes sparkling.

"I don't know. I'd guess so, but I haven't been in any of your classes. I wouldn't say it was obvious as such, but there's a definite change there..." Blaine's phone buzzed and Olivia beat him across the room to where it was sitting on his desk. She picked it up and Blaine's eyes seemed to darken with vengeance. "Hedwig, huh? That's Hummel?" She didn't open the text, watching as Blaine's eyes lightened up again for a moment. That was answer enough for her. Olivia was one of the few people Blaine had no problems with getting a little bit rough with, and his current mindset was leaning towards getting the phone back.

"Give me the phone, Liv." He said calmly, holding his hand out expectantly.

"Why should I? You won't even answer my questions!" Olivia teased, starting to back away from her place.

"Just give me the phone." Blaine said, hand still extended as he stepped closer to her, closing the gap.

"Make me!" she shuffled further back, before trying to walk around the back of Blaine to put yet more distance between them.

"Do you really want to go there?"

"Maybe I do!" she said. Blaine continued with his composed exterior for a moment, lulling Olivia into a forced false sense of security. It didn't last long before Blaine grabbed her around the waist and successfully tackled her onto his bed. She shrieked at him, trying her best to hold the phone out of reach. He eventually managed to wiggle it out of her grip and sat up, opening the text and scanning it.

Is Olivia over yet? Good luck for dinner.

Blaine replied quickly. Yeah, she's here. She is also the reason for the delayed response. Sorry.

Olivia raised an eyebrow at Blaine. "What does he want?"

"Nothing interesting," Blaine said, too quickly for it to sound honest.

"Oh god, you were totally sexting. How shirtless was he in the photo he sent you?" she teased, moving so she could look over his shoulder. Blaine clicked out of the message and moved the phone out of her view.

"He didn't send me any photos, I-" Blaine said his sentence a little too fast. Olivia cut him off.

"Blaine, you are the most wonderful shade of crimson and your eyes are glittering more than I think they ever have."

"Oh."

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Now come downstairs with me to see if dinner's ready, because it might be inappropriate to go by myself." Olivia said, standing up and practically dragging Blaine out of the bedroom.

The kitchen smelled delightfully of roast chicken and red wine. Marie was standing in the kitchen, washing her chopping board and knives from the vegetables, getting her dishes out of the way before the chicken was ready. She smiled at the entrance of the two teenagers and greeted them, before asking if they would mind setting the table. Blaine did as he was told and Olivia followed him around, not completely participating herself.

Eventually dinner was ready and Marie fetched Phillip from his office, where he had been doing more work on a case. He never seemed to leave the office, constantly working whether he was at home or not. Blaine thought that his work was suddenly more demanding now that he had a gay son, but he never mentioned it, knowing that he preferred only having to try half as hard to avoid his father when he was doing such a good job at avoiding Blaine.

The four sat at the large table in the dining room, Blaine and Olivia on one side of the table, facing Marie and Phillip. The conversation largely consisted of generic and polite small talk, until Marie asked about Olivia's health. She explained her remission once again, and again Marie congratulated her, changing topic then to ask about her school life. Olivia smiled along, answering all the questions Marie asked, while Blaine and Phillip each focussed on eating on their food, occasionally agreeing at Marie's prompt. Every so often Olivia would say something and Marie would say something to the effect of, "Isn't that wonderful! Isn't that great news, Phillip?" and Phillip would have no choice but to eventually say yes, doing the same for Blaine.

Marie stopped asking questions and eventually Phillip stepped in, making a comment about how nice it was to finally meet one of Blaine's girlfriends. Marie and Olivia went sort of quiet.

"Dad, we talked about this the other week. I don't have a girlfriend, nor do I ever intend on having one. You don't have to accept it or understand it, not right away, but please, don't just pretend that this isn't happening. I'm gay, dad. All I ask for is acknowledgement." Blaine said, and Olivia reached under the table to take his hand in hers. It was a small gesture of physical support and he was thankful for the reminder that he would never be alone. Phillip swirled and sipped his wine, and although it was clear he had heard Blaine he made some kind of effort to forget that he had.

"Do you have a boyfriend then, Olivia?" he said, seemingly choosing which parts of what Blaine had said to remember. He had absorbed the part about Blaine not dating Olivia, but suppressed the reiteration of his homosexuality, or at least suppressed reaction.

"No, sir," Olivia said, "I have a girlfriend." She was incredibly comfortable in that fact and she wasn't going to let her friend's dad change that. Phillip just about spat his mouthful of wine everywhere.

"Oh," he eventually said, and Blaine gave Olivia's hand a little squeeze. Marie asked Blaine to collect the plates, now everyone seemed to have finished eating, and he did so, stacking the dishes on the counter by the sink as usual, before Olivia thanked Marie for dinner and hugged her goodbye. She would have shaken Phillip's hand but gave up, after finding he had already retreated to his office.

"I think that went well, all things considered," Olivia said as they headed into the porch, as she planned on leaving shortly to make it back to Lima in plenty of time.

"It could have gone a lot worse. We didn't suffer any verbal abuse, which is a plus." Blaine agreed.

"True. Now run along and Skype the not-boyfriend, and tell me how it goes. I want to be able to visualise the eye-sparkle levels." She teased, pulling Blaine in for a hug before they exchanged goodbyes and she left.

Blaine headed upstairs and texted Kurt, asking if they were going to Skype after all, but got no reply. Kurt usually replied almost instantly, so it seemed out of character for him not to have his phone near him. Hoping that maybe he had just missed it going off, he texted again, with still no response. Thinking maybe his ringer was off for messages he decided instead just to call him.

He scrolled through until he found Hedwig in his contacts and pressed the call button, sitting down at his desk as he did so.

Kurt's phone had buzzed twice while he had been out of the room, and now it was ringing. It wasn't just another text coming through either, it was buzzing continuously and insistently, meaning it could be nothing other than a call. Leah looked at the phone on the coffee table, hoping it was just an alarm- it wasn't. "Kurt?" She called out, "You have a call coming through!" There was no response from the other room, so Leah guessed Kurt had dozed off. She let it ring out, figuring that if it were something important the caller would ring back or leave a message. The phone stopped buzzing.

Blaine went through to Kurt's voicemail and hung up. That had never happened before. For whatever reason he wasn't thinking rationally and started worrying about Kurt, panicking that something had happened.

He called again, just to be sure.

Moments later it was ringing again. Leah looked down at it, picked it up without answering it, and carried it into Kurt's room, where he was sleeping softly on top of all his bed covers. She couldn't bear to wake him for one persistent caller and chose instead to take it back out into the living room and answer it professionally, take a message for when Kurt woke up.

"Kurt Hummel's phone," she answered, knowing that only people who were meant to have the number did, and that revealing it belonged to someone famous wasn't going to be an issue. She realised then that she had never checked the caller ID.

Blaine cleared his throat at the other end of the phone. "Oh, um, hello, is Kurt there for me to uh, actually talk to?"

"No, sorry, can I take a message?" Leah said, making an effort to get straight to the point.

"Is he okay?" Blaine asked. After realising that Kurt hadn't answered the phone he had planned on making up some kind of persona, to seem like it was a purely professional call. When he heard that Kurt wasn't around to answer his own phone, he slipped out of that for a moment, which was enough to break the illusion altogether. He gave up on that then and let his concern show in his tone.

"I think so, he's just fallen asleep. May I ask who is calling?"

"Oh, okay. Just tell him that..." Blaine hesitated, unsure whether he should use his real name or not, "Blaine called. Get him to call me back at some stage. It isn't urgent, really."

"Are you sure? You called twice, it seemed quite important..."

"No, really, I only called the second time because I started worrying about him. It's fine."

"Wait, Blaine, right? B-L-A-I-N-E?" Leah clarified, writing it down on the notepad on the coffee table.

"Yeah, that's it. Thanks, uh..."

"Oh, I'm Leah, his PA. I'll let him know you called."

"Thanks, Leah. Good night."

"Good night." Blaine hung up after that, and Leah had no clue who Blaine was or why he had Kurt's number.

Kurt woke up from his nap and stumbled out into the living room, his hair slightly less fabulous than normal, dressed in sweat pants a plain t-shirt, certainly in no state to leave the apartment. He couldn't really be bothered changing, not when he was only going to have dinner with Leah.

"What time is it?" he asked, as he made his way over to the couch and slumped down, ready to roll back over and go to sleep. Filming had been hugely demanding over the last few days and he had been doing interviews for a bunch of different magazines and web sites about the upcoming relationship Elliot had with Jasper. The episode had aired and now it was a hot topic.

"Quarter to eight. You weren't asleep for that long," Leah said, putting down her magazine and looking over at him. "You okay? Just tired, right?"

"Mm," Kurt agreed, "I'll be in bed early tonight, I can guarantee it."

"Don't blame you. Do you want something to eat? I went ahead and ordered Chinese, since you weren't around to be picky."

"Right," Kurt said, "I'll eat in a bit."

"Okay then. You had a call while you were asleep, by the way."

"Oh, who was it? Charlotte? That's fairly standard..." Kurt said, sitting up and reaching for his phone.

"Um, no, it was some guy, um, Blaine? I wrote it down here..." she picked up the notepad. "Yeah, Blaine called. He said to call him back sometime, but that it wasn't urgent."

"Oh, we were going to Skype tonight, that's all." Kurt said, shrugging it off. He forgot that he hadn't ever mentioned Blaine to Leah.

"So you know him then? He called a second time because he was worried about you."

"Oh god, I didn't mean to worry him by sleeping. I never miss his calls or anything, poor kid. I'll call him now, even." Kurt sat up a little straighter, more alert now than he was before, but still not alert enough to actually realise that he was talking about Blaine so freely.

"Wait, what's the big deal?" Leah hadn't even known Blaine had existed until they had talked on the phone earlier, and now Kurt was getting flustered about having missed a call. There was an importance there that she had never witnessed before.

"I told him I'd be there for him and he might actually need me now. I'm not missing this, Leah." Kurt said, standing up and heading back towards his bedroom for some privacy.

"Why have I never heard of him before if you know him so well? You hardly ever do anything without me around! When did you meet him?" Leah demanded, and Kurt turned to face her for a moment.

"I'll talk to you about it later, I promise. I just have another promise to fulfil first."

It was only half an hour or so since Blaine had called Kurt and ended up talking to his PA when his phone rang with the familiar Hedwig's Theme melody. He picked up almost immediately.

"Kurt, hi," he said.

"Hi, Blaine. Leah said that you called. Sorry, I must have fallen asleep earlier, I've been super busy..." Kurt said, pausing for a moment to be ready to explain himself more fully, but Blaine cut him off.

"Don't worry about it. I just freaked out for a moment there because you always answer and you hadn't."

"I know. I feel terrible."

"Don't," Blaine said, "We were going to Skype and I just really wanted to talk to you."

"If you turn on your webcam now we can still video chat. I might have to eat while we're at it, but we still can."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"I'll see you in a minute, then?"

"Yeah." Kurt said, before he hung up. They didn't need to sign off any other way, because it wouldn't be long before they were talking again.

Kurt raced out to the kitchen and took his plate of Chinese food back to his bedroom, before plugging his charger into his laptop to make sure he wouldn't have his battery die mid-conversation, turning his webcam on and logging in to Skype, before hitting the call button next to Blaine's name. Blaine answered the call and then they were both there.

Kurt looked at his face in his box and remembered that he wasn't dressed properly and that his hair had been messed up. He instantly reached up to fix it. "Shit," he said, "do you want to hang on another few minutes while I fix my hair?"

Blaine laughed at him. "No, quite frankly. I've seen it now anyway, so why bother?"

"Gee, thanks." Kurt said, rolling his eyes. He dropped his hands anyway.

"If it will make you feel better you can go and do your hair, but I think you look adorable."

Kurt cocked his head at Blaine slightly. Was he flirting? "Really?"

"Of course. I mean, I think that you always look adorable, and you honestly don't have to try very hard." They had done plenty of things that one might consider to be flirty, but that seemed to be the single most direct flirt Kurt had ever heard from Blaine. It caught him off guard, and he could feel his cheeks flushing with colour. He hoped it wasn't too noticeable once it had passed through the internet.

"Oh, I, uh, thanks. So anyway, how was dinner with your parents?" Kurt said, changing the topic quickly. As much as he liked Blaine, as much as he wanted to flirt with him, he was there to recap the no doubt eventful dinner he had had with his parents, as he had promised to do.

"It could have been worse." Blaine replied.

"Care to elaborate?"

"My mom interrogated Olivia within an inch of her life while my dad chased peas around his plate. Eventually he referred to her as my girlfriend so I reiterated the whole being gay thing, and then he asked if that meant that she had a boyfriend that wasn't me, she said she had a girlfriend, and my dad made an effort to get out of there as soon as possible." Blaine said, counting the events on his fingers.

"What did you say to him, Blaine?" Kurt said, hoping that they hadn't broken out into some huge fight over it.

"I asked him for acknowledgement. I said he didn't have to accept right away, but to just wake up and see that this isn't some stupid phase or anything like that. What I think is possibly a more interesting story, what did you say to your PA?"

"Leah? Don't worry about her." Kurt said, waving a hand as a gesture of brushing it off.

Blaine raised an eyebrow at him. "You're the one who said you had a career at stake- that you were risking everything by communicating with me outside of professional terms."

"I said that?"

"Well something like it, back when we met up in Central Park."

"That was about you not saving me as Kurt Hummel so people couldn't find out unless we told them specifically. And I'm not saved as Kurt, am I?"

"No, you aren't. You're Hedwig." Blaine had thought he had told him before, but apparently not. It was only fair that he knew.

"Hedwig? As in the owl from Harry Potter?" Kurt clarified, assuming that was the only reference it could be. It seemed a little random to be anything else.

"Exactly."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"I didn't set out to surprise you." Blaine said, "So does that mean you specifically told Leah?"

"...no. I promised to tell her after I was finished talking to you. She was suspicious, to say the least, but she doesn't know anything about it all. I'm not going to blab to her about everything you've said to me, I swear. I'm just going to explain to her what she wants to know- how I met you and why we're suddenly such good friends."

"Okay. Olivia's the only one who knows, and she teases me about it to no end." Blaine thought back to the pre-dinner events, when she had claimed that they were sexting, which they weren't. It reminded him of when Kurt had said that the others must think they were sleeping together.

"Aww, does she?" Kurt said, somewhere between teasing him too and genuine concern. He knew Olivia wouldn't be serious about anything like that, and that what Blaine took as teasing would be just that and nothing more.

"Yeah, but it's nothing too serious. I think she just flaunts it that she's the only one who knows."

"To be fair, I would do the same."

"Would? You do." Blaine pointed out, thinking about how often Kurt seemed to be finding thrill in keeping secrets.

"How so?"

"Never mind. It was great to talk to you, but I have to go now, seeing as I never finished my homework." Blaine said, glancing over at his stack of unread books and worksheets.

"I'll let you go, then. I should talk to Leah before she gets any more suspicious."

There was a slight pause before Blaine said, "I've missed you, Kurt."

"Likewise." Kurt said, pausing again before adding, "I'll text you or something soon, okay?"

"Okay."

"Have fun doing homework, Blaine Anderson." They both sat there for a moment with their webcams on, not making any effort to sign out.

"I really should go." Blaine said.

"You really should." Kurt agreed.

"I don't want to."

"Me neither."

"Why is New York so far away?" Blaine mused, although he knew the answer. He was just stalling now.

"It isn't, not really. I'll see you before you know it."

"I just really wish I could hug you right about now." Blaine said, breaking eye contact with the screen.

"I wish you were here to hug me. But you aren't, and you won't be getting here any faster by staying in front of your computer. So we'll go now, because we can talk later but Leah will get impatient and your homework will be overdue." Kurt said, clearly the more reasonable of the two.

"Okay." Blaine was in no position to argue- not with Kurt, anyway.

"Good night, Blaine."

"Night, Kurt." Kurt was the one to end the call, before he shut down his laptop and walked back into the living room, for the inevitable conversation with Leah.

Leah turned the TV off and sat up expectantly when Kurt entered. He took his dishes through the kitchen before he sat down on the couch opposite Leah, ready to have a serious talk with her about Blaine. Leah was the first to speak.

"Is he your boyfriend, then?" Leah asked, clearly the first of many questions she had.

"No," Kurt said, "why don't you just let me tell the story and I can answer you later?" She nodded in agreement, clearly unhappy that he hadn't told her sooner. "You were there when I met him, Leah. How many guys called Blaine do you know?"

"I don't know what probably counts as half a guy, maybe? This Blaine you're telling me about now, and wasn't that kid from the charity called Blaine too?"

"Please, please don't freak out," Kurt said, making sure to look her directly in the eye, "but they're the same Blaine."

"How did you- why did you- just continue the story." Leah was fairly confused by it all, but she had agreed to save her questions.

"When we were heading back up here after the meeting, what did I say to you?"

"I can't remember, Kurt. You say a lot of things. We were talking about the meeting, about how it was successful, and you said something about him, I guess."

"I said that he was kind of gorgeous, Leah." Kurt said, thinking about how truthful that was, "I had his number then. We were just kidding around, I thought. I wasn't planning on doing anything- but then we started texting and we have a lot in common. When I was on tour in Westerville, we met up then. For the two half days that I was there we spent as much of it together as we could, because we were friends. The second day we had breakfast together and then he ended up coming out to his parents. It was rough for him, so he ended up driving over to Lima so I could be there for him a little longer. He had dinner with his parents earlier this evening, and I had promised him that we would talk afterwards, because it's the first time he's been in the same room as his dad in weeks."

"Doesn't he have anyone else though? Quite frankly this isn't a professional relationship- do you know how much could be at stake if someone found out about this all? The Wish Factory could get into huge trouble for a start." Leah said impatiently, worried more about Kurt's image than his emotions.

"It's not like I'm cradle snatching! He's seventeen- there is less than two years difference between us! I didn't tell you because I knew you would overreact!" He stood up, looking down at her, ready to make a dramatic exit if he needed to.

"I'm not overreacting Kurt, I'm being realistic!" Leah got to her feet too, looking him straight in the eyes.

"Well this, what I have with Blaine, is my reality now, Leah. He's one of my best friends, and he's a real friend. We aren't co-stars who get along, we're friends. Actual friends. And whether or not you approve of that, I'm not letting go of him. Not that easily."

Kurt headed back to his bedroom and lay face down on his bed, angry because Leah wasn't supportive, sad because he felt like he was losing one of his best friends because he was friends with the other, satisfied that the truth was out. If Leah couldn't accept that Blaine was part of his life now then she wasn't worth it. Not today. He was sure she would come around eventually, and he knew that she would keep the information to herself. Leah wasn't the type to spread rumours, and there was hardly anybody to listen. If Kurt had met Blaine and it hadn't been set up by a charity there would be no story. The Wish Factory never needed to find out.