Santana smoothed the skirt of her very short Candy striper outfit down and balancing the jug of water she was carrying in one hand she pushed the hospital room door open with her butt. There were only two people in the room at the minute. She looked first at the person visiting, although judging by the amount of bruising she could see on his face beneath the unruly mop of hair he looked like maybe he could do with a bed himself. She walked around the side of the bed to place the water on the nightstand before glancing at the bed's occupant. Luckily she had already put the glass jug down because she couldn't have been more shocked at the large pale eyes that she found herself looking into.

"Kurt, what the hell?" she exclaimed loudly and Kurt immediately put his hand up to shush her as the other person stirred slightly at her loud voice.

Realisation dawned as she took a better look at the other boy currently slumped across Kurt's bed, holding tightly to his hand, even in sleep.

"Is that Blaine?" she whispered, her head on one side as she took everything in. He was almost unrecognisable from the well groomed boy she was used to seeing. When she'd met him at Rachel's party she'd found him more than a little easy on the eyes, had all sorts of dirty thoughts about him. Yeah okay so that was never likely to happen considering they both played for the same team but she'd have considered a relapse for a chance at those sexy lips and just because he was gay aswell didn't mean he wouldn't have enjoyed what she had to offer, she was sure of that.

"My god what happened to you two? Did you wreck your car, I always said you drove like a girl?"

"No" Kurt said "some guys jumped us and..."

"Wait, people did this?" she was pointing at both of their injuries now and she could see Kurt was shocked by the fury in her eyes. He just nodded in response. "How...why?" she trailed off. Kurt was one of the gentlest people she knew and from what little she knew of Blaine he seemed much the same. It would be like kicking puppies . To think that someone had attacked the two of them shocked her to the core. She prided herself on always being so quick with some kind of sarcastic or cutting remark. Had earned her rightful place as Queen bitch once Quinn had gone all soft because of pregnancy hormones or some other lame excuse like that but right now she felt like crying.

She looked away for a minute to compose herself and then looked back at Kurt feeling a little bit more like herself, although there was still a pit of rolling anger in her stomach.

"Tell me what happened, and then I've got some phone calls to make."

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Finn knew it was a bad idea as soon as Burt mentioned it but what choice did he have , he could hardlly let the older man face it by himself. They had stopped to pick up Kurt's car before heading back to the hospital and then Burt had decided that he wanted to go see the alley, wanted to see the place that his son had been so visciously attacked the night before. Finn had tried to talk him out of it, tell him it wouldn't be good for his heart, it was bound to be upsetting for his stepfather. What he hadn't counted on was how much it would affect him aswell.

Standing there in the gloom, surrounded by the foul smell of rotting garbage, watching Burt rubbing his hand over his face in horror he tried not to think about how terrifying the whole thing must have been. There were a couple of dumpsters and he found himself trying to figure out which one Kurt had been thrown against. His attention was drawn to Burt when he heard a loud sob escape the man's mouth and looking around he saw what had caused the man to lose control. Burt was crouched down on the floor amongst the filth and broken bottles staring at a dark red stain. Finn suddenly couldn't stand it any more and with a strangled half sob of his own ran towards the end of the alley and the bright sunlight that waited there. Once he could feel the warmth of the sun on his face he stopped and slumped against the wall. He rested his hands on his knees as he took deep breaths, trying to clear the disgusting smell of that place from his nose. He felt bad for abandoning Burt like that but he couldn't spend another minute down there, imagining what had happened . He didn't have to worry though as Burt appeared by his side wiping the tears from his own face.

"I'm sorry I just couldn't stand it down there, they must have been terrified. I just..." he trailed off unable to form the words to explain what that alley had made him feel.

"I know" Burt said crouching down next to him. "All I could think about was Blaine sitting there with Kurt waiting for help, he must have been so scared". Finn could see that Burt felt bad for not realising how much the other boy had been affected by all of this.

"Blaine's strong" he tried to reassure his stepfather.

"He's a seventeen year old kid who was beaten up and had to watch his boyfriend beaten up. Jesus his parent's aren't even here yet, what the hell was I thinking, I pretty much ignored him."

"You were worried about Kurt"

"Yes, but that's not enough of a reason. I don't think I've even asked him how he is?"

Finn knew that now was the moment he should mention his suspision that Blaine was hurt worse than he was letting on but he didn't wanted to upset Burt anymore than he already was. Seeing Kurt and Blaine in the hospital earlier he felt bad for thinking that any of this could be his fault, Blaine was clearly already blaming himself and Finn had a feeling that was more to do with his personality than with what had actually happened. Blaine seemed to feel the need to come across as the strong one, the one with all the answers and Finn knew that he had probably convinced himself that he should have protected Kurt better. It didn't really explain why he wouldn't let them know that he was hurt aswell though, unless in some sort of twisted way Blaine thought he deserved it. Finn's mind was all over the place again and he really wanted to be able to talk through some of this with someone. Not Burt though, he had enough on his mind right now.

Finn's cell phone rang making both of them jump. He stood up quickly, fumbling at his pocket trying to get the phone out. He looked at the name on the screen sighing as he saw whose name was there.

"Hi Mercedes" he said.

"Don't you hi me, what the hell happened to my boy and why am I only just finding out about it now?" her angry voice came back. Finn saw Burt grimace and knew the girl's voice was loud enough for him to hear. He rubbed a hand over his face, this was not going to be a fun conversation.

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Blaine's phone rang waking him up with a start. He sat up to find Kurt's gaze on him.

"Sorry" he started to apologize but Kurt interupted him.

"Don't be silly Blaine, plus it was kind of nice watching you sleep" Blaine saw Kurt's cheeks color up as he realised how creepy that sounded. His phone rang again saving either of them from having to think of the next thing to say.

"Hadn't you better get that?" Kurt asked raising one eyebrow.

Blaine fumbled around in his pocket for a minute before he pulled his phone free. "It's my dad" he said and he saw Kurt frown at the defeated way he said it.

"I'll just take it in the hall" Blaine was out the door before Kurt could insist he stay. He really didn't want him overhearing anything that might be said.

He debated not answering but decided it was like a band aid, better quick and clean than to drag it out and prolong the agony.

"Hello" he tried to make his voice sound as normal as possible.

"Blaine is that you?" guess he'd failed then if his own father couldn't recognise his voice.

"Yeah dad it's me".

"My god Blaine you sound awful?" his father actually sounded a little bit worried for a change.

"My throats a bit sore, that's all".

"Oh" his father hesitated a moment as if trying to think what to say next."Your mother told me there's been another incident". Blaine could already hear the disaproval in his father's voice and he resisted the urge to hang up on him.

He looked up to see Carole heading his way and, after a quick wave to ackowledge her, he pointed to the phone as an explanation and walked to the other end of the corridor and round the corner out of sight.

"Do you need your mother and I to come back and sort anything out?"

"Well I could.." Blaine's father interupted him before he could say anything more.

"Because to be honest Blaine I'm a little bit disapointed that you've allowed this to happen again. I thought Dalton was supposed to be a fresh start for you, that you we're going to try to avoid stirring any new trouble up." Blaine kept silent through his father's lecture but despite himself he could feel himself tearing up.

"But Dad it was different this time" he attempted to explain.

"Really Blaine you expect me to believe that. You knew that when you chose to live your life this way that there would be negative attention. I hoped you would have learnt your lesson last time but I guess I was wrong."

Blaine just stood with his mouth open in shock at what his father was saying to him. He angrily wiped away the tear that had made it's way down his cheek. He couldn't handle this right now. Not with everything else that was going on his head. He knew that if he didn't end the call soon then he was going to lose all the self control he was trying so hard to cling onto.

"Your right Dad" the words tasted like ash in his mouth. "It was my fault" that at least felt like less of a lie.

"Well" his father seemed flustered by the sound of defeat in his son's voice "okay then, that's good to hear. Take care of yourself, we'll talk more when I get home. Your mother sends her love" Blaine noticed that there was no mention of himself in that last bit." Bye Blaine."

"Bye Dad" Blaine was impressed by how calm his voice was but the second his father hung up he had to resist the urge to throw his cell phone against the wall. Instead he just gripped it tightly in his fist feeling the metal casing digging into his already sore hands.

He realised he couldn't go back in to see Kurt whilst he was still so upset so he headed off in the opposite direction. He didn't have a destination in mind just a need to walk for a while by himself.

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