Blaine Anderson could not believe his eyes. They had made it. he kept expecting to wake up and find he had drifted of to sleep, falling into his wildest dreams. He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again and pinched his arm. 

Nope, it seemed as though this was reality. And it was the best reality he could have hoped for.

Okay, so there was lots of work and planning to be done: they would need to give the whole place a revamp and hold auditions and plan their first show and clean the auditorium out completely (Blaine dreaded to thing what kind of substances were in the fabrics of those chairs). The list seemed never ending. But that didn't make him feel dread. Infact it did the opposite.

For the first time in his life Blaine Anderson was completely and utterly content.

He couldn't remember exactly how long he had wished of this, planning it inside his head over and over since his teens, his plans changing and growing with him into adulthood. He'd known for definite when he was fifteen years old, finally realizing exactly what aspect of the art he loved the most. Blaine can't remember a time when he didn't love music, and when he joined the Warblers at Dalton Academy, it seemed like he'd finally found his place. After his first week of rehearsing and performing with the group he'd never felt so wanted and so in sync with other people. He knew then, that musical theatre was his passion.

His biggest fear was getting to forty or fifty and realizing that he never did what he wanted, that he let boundaries and people's hate or rejection stand in his way. The thought haunted him; he didn't want to end up wasting his life trying in vain to please other people.  

Blaine found through personal experience that there are always people who want to hold you back.

He refused to let the thought of his mother and father cloud his happy moment, so he pushed them to the back of his mind. Besides, this wasn't a time to revisit his past; this was a time to look to the future.

He heard his name being called from behind him, pulling him out of his daydreams and turned to find his high school friend looking at him, a smirk on his face and a playful look in his eyes.

“You look like a kid seeing their first Christmas” Wes claimed, the smirk growing into a full blown grin. Blaine returned the smile, feeling it take over his entire face and his eyes squinted and crinkled in delight.

“I feel like them too!” Blaine exclaimed, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet “I just can't believe it Wes, we actually did it. This whole situation seems unreal”

Blaine laughed wholeheartedly as he looked at his closest friend. Wes had always been there, through everything, since Blaine's first day at Dalton. Wes Davison had been drawn to the shy, introverted new boy and made it his mission to befriend him. Blaine still felt as though he hadn't repaid him for that for if it hadn't have been for Wes, Blaine would've been extremely lonely at Dalton. Maybe he would have made friends eventually, but having someone there to help him through the first days and weeks was just irreplaceable to Blaine. And so they had bonded and, up until this day, remained the best of friends.

Wes felt his chest expand as he looked at his friend, turning on the spot, gazing at his surroundings with a look of complete awe filling his honey coloured eyes. He knew just how long he had wanted this. They had spent most of their high school evenings together; Blaine would think aloud and Wes would just listen, offering his input occasionally. He heard Blaine's ideas evolve into something beautiful and when his friend had told him he wanted him to be a part of his project, he had been speechless.

“But Blaine, this is your thing! I don't want to alter any of your dreams or make any wrong decisions-you know just how dumb I can be sometimes. I mean, have you thought this through properly? What if we fall out and you don't want me there anymore, or if I do something wrong and the whole thing goes to shit, what then? I don't want to fuck this up for you in any way” he had rambled, completely astounded and unsure about the request.

“Wes, my dream has changed since I've known you. You've always been there man, since day one. You've sat there and you've listened to me plan and stress and dream and this whole thing wouldn't be right without you; you're part of the dream now, man. As soon as I've finished college I'm gonna start this thing up and I would love it if you'd do it with me” Blaine had replied assuredly. He'd never been so sure of anything in his life. 

And how could Wes refuse? Blaine always said he had been a glimmer of hope in his life, now Blaine was his and he'd have to be a fool not to take him up on that offer.

 “Oi, daydreamers!” they were both snapped out of their trances by a harsh Scottish accent and spun round to be met with a small  young woman with thick, ginger hair and deep blue eyes “Snap out of it guys, there is actually work to do you know?” she smiled, he words dripping with false annoyance.

“But Jo, it's so...pretty” Blaine whispered the last word into the huge space around them; the theatre.

Their theatre.

Jo smirked at Wes, glancing back to Blaine as he continued to gaze in wonder.

“I think you're in love Blainers” she said through a laugh. She walked up behind him then and wrapped her arms around his torso, making Blaine smile and laugh with her, their chests moving together. He turned around in her hug and returned it, squeezing her little waist and lifting her up in the air. Jo giggled loudly, her voice filling the large room, bringing the theatre to life.

Wes watched them, smiling at the two friends before walking towards them and encircling them both in his large muscular arms, pulling them against his chest. Jo and Blaine leaned into the embrace easily. Wes was much taller than both of them, so they rested their heads on his collarbone, reaching their arms around his broad back.

“We did it guys. We made Blaine's dream happen” Wes spoke proudly. Jo turned her head and pressed a kiss to Blaine's cheek while Wes pressed one to her forehead.  

They had worked long and hard to get to where they were, and where they were was home.                                                          

Over the next few weeks, they spent almost every day at the theatre, which was located in the centre of New York City, completing essential tasks such as painting the walls of the huge room and sanding and polishing the wooden stage floor until it gleamed. Some of their college friends had offered to help them out and they couldn't have been more grateful.

There were some things that they just couldn't do on their own, like re-upholster the auditorium chairs or have the ceiling checked out to make sure it wasn't going to fall in, but their budget was big enough for them to be able to employ professional tradesman to do the jobs for them.

Blaine project-managed the whole thing, making sure everything was going the way he, Jo and Wes wanted it-and of course making everyone cups of tea and coffee at least four times a day. Blaine had never been great at hands-on work, so he thought it best to leave it to the more experienced.

They had spent the last 6 months working non-stop, trying to earn enough money to buy the place and make sure they had enough to sustain it too. Although Blaine had been saving up for as long as he had known that this was what he wanted, he soon realized that it just wouldn't be enough, and they would have to compromise. Jo and Wes both received financial help from their parents as they strongly believed it was a worthwhile cause. Anything that made their children happy was worthwhile-except in Blaine's case of course. They simply couldn't have done without the help of Wes' and Jo's parents and the kindness of their friends.

Blaine spent most of his time planning their first musical. His whole body itched to get started so he filled the hours designing tickets and programmes and working out possible audition schedules that would suit all three of them. They had decided together on what their first musical would be, and Blaine couldn't be more excited about it. He thought it was the perfect way to start their company and get it noticed.  

At NYADA, Blaine had majored in Musical theatre-obviously-wanting to learn and become the very best he could be before he embarked on his dream, but when he noticed the course of song writing, he couldn't resist.  He knew he could write songs-he had been doing for many years on the guitar and piano in his room-and he knew they weren't that bad-he'd performed some to Wes in their high school years to earn some opinions. So, after much consideration, Blaine put in a late application to minor in song writing. He'd always loved writing songs and now, after his course at college, felt much more confident about both composing and performing them. People's compliments had encouraged him, pushing him to believe in himself more, and now, what Blaine really wanted to do, was write a musical. He felt it would be a great way to incorporate his song writing into his dream of musical theatre. Blaine carried a notebook with him wherever he went, longing for some inspiration for his project. He'd had a few small ideas, but nothing out of the ordinary; and Blaine wanted to write something different and original, not just some copy of a Broadway show that had been done hundreds of times. He wanted to be noticed.

Occasionally he would have to oversee something being done in the theatre to make sure it was done the right way, but mostly there was little for him to do. It was Jo who suggested that Blaine should undertake the large backroom of the theatre-he had peeked inside it before buying the place and knew it was full of clutter that would need sorting through. He had accepted the challenge gratefully; happy that there was something useful for him to do while the main work was still being done.

It was only when he began work in the room that he realized just how big it really was-the whole place was filled with boxes and boxes and even more boxes of goodness know what. Blaine refused to give up, taking it one box at a time.

Blaine didn't know what to expect when he opened the first-there could've been anything in them. He wasn't surprised to find that most contained old clutter; at some point this room must have been a dumping ground.

When he had cleared some boxes however, tipping most of the stuff he found into the skip outside, he came to a clearing in the mass of cardboard and in the space stood an old, gnarled table with slightly crooked legs. Blaine examined the table curiously, surprised to find something other than boxes in the backroom. It was obviously very old and worn and had a bad case of the woodworm but it was on top on the table that interested Blaine the most. It was a box again, but this time, it was a large plastic container, not like the other cardboard boxes he's been finding. He opened it inquisitively, eager to see what was inside. And he wasn't disappointed.

Inside lay huge numbers of old theatre programmes from past years of the theatre, ranging from the 1950s to only a few years ago, containing shows such as Wicked, Cats and even Spring Awakening. Some were handwritten, the more modern ones in colour and typed and a few had obviously been written on a typewriter. Blaine smiled, lifted them out of the box and spread them out on the table, looking at each one carefully as if they were buried treasure. In a way he supposed they were, enclosed in all the other boxes and clutter Blaine had dug through to find them.

He glanced back in the box to see a large book, with a broken spine and a thick layer of dust smothering the front cover. He picked it out of the box, lifting it up to eye level and blowing the dust off into the surrounding air. He set the large book down on the table and leant a hand on its leather cover before lifting it, his smile growing into a grin when he saw what was inside.

It was a photo album; photos of black and white littered the pages picturing the theatre in days gone by. Many of the photos weren't of the theatre itself but of members of the cast during make up, in their costumes or on stage. Some of the pictures were beautiful, capturing moments of natural beauty in the cast in close up shots. Blaine noticed many of the people reappearing several times throughout the album. He noticed one woman in particular; she seemed to have been in almost every show since the opening of the theatre, pictured in many cast photographs and what seemed to be spontaneous ones taken by the photographer and Blaine found himself wondering what happened to her and whether she was still alive. He almost wanted to return the album to her so she could remember the times in the photos, but there were no names included in the book, only faces and smiles and anonymous identities.

Amongst the pictures were many show tickets from the theatre, writing a history of the plays performed there. Blaine didn't know how long he looked at the book, falling in love with it over the hours. It didn't take him long to decide that he wanted to make one for their time in the theatre, to capture all the moments of their journey to keep and remember, and he decided he would start immediately.

And that was how Blaine Anderson became not only one of the theatre's directors and performers, but also its photographer.

He was going to make sure their time was remembered.

Blaine found himself with his camera at all times after that day. He had managed to finish clearing out the back room, finding some things that might come in handy to them, such as a couple of large, full length mirrors that needed cleaning could definitely be used and a number of both wooden and fold out chairs that would be useful. Mostly though the room had been completely cleared and now, as Blaine looked around it, it seemed empty and almost lonely. Blaine mentally rolled his eyes at himself for personifying a place.

The room was long and thin, a large window situated at one end, letting light fill the space. The window looked out into a car park and Blaine wished it had a nicer more scenic view. He couldn't complain though, this whole place was what he'd always dreamed of.

He found himself picturing what this room would look like when they finally came to redecorate it and use it as a large communal dressing room. There would be dressing tables down one side with mirrors surrounded by light-bulbs for hair and make-up and the other side of the room would be lined with clothes rails and full length mirrors for costumes. Blaine could already imagine the drama and excitement that awaited them in the walls of the dressing room and he felt his whole body ache to begin.

“Not long now” he told himself “not long now”.

Jo wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her paint-covered hand, leaving a smudge of crème paint in its path. She sighed in exhaustion and leaned down to replenish her paintbrush. Beside her, Wes continued to paint absentmindedly, humming a soft tune to himself.

“Hey Wes would you just pass me that cloth from over there please?” she asked, turning towards him as she did. Wes swivelled his head to look at her and his mouth twitched at the corners to form an amused but fond smile.

“You are aware of the enormous white patch of paint dominating your forehead, right?” he sniggered, unable to control his amusement. Jo was always so clean and refined and to see her sweaty and covered from head to toe in paint was a sight to behold.

She groaned and tried in vain to wipe the dried paint from her forehead, only to spread more in the same place. Wes chuckled as he watched her beginning to get frustrated as she found clumps of dried paint in her thick ginger hair.

“It's not funny Wesley; you don't like it when I laugh at you! Cut it out!” she grumbled when he started to laugh harder. He moved quickly towards her to apologise.

“I'm sorry Jo it's just, you're always so pernickety when it comes to cleanliness and seeing like this...it's just funny” he tried to reason, calming himself down “aw, hey now, don't be like that” he hastened to add when she turned away from him, obviously upset.   

“You know I'm tired Wes and you know how I get when I'm tired” she said quietly. Wes felt very bad all of a sudden and moved round so he was facing her and kneeled down, so he was chest level to her and gazed up at the girl through his thick eyelashes.

“Jo, I didn't mean it, you know I thick I can be” she nodded and hummed in reply and he smiled in return “I'm sorry if I upset you, that wasn't my intention” she responded by raising an eyebrow “now come on, you know I'd never purposely upset you, you know me better than that don't you?” he replied doubtfully. She looked at the floor.

“I'm sorry Wes, of course I do, it's just this whole thing, it's got me so tired and worked up I just...need to sleep” she said, closing her eyes to prove her tiredness. Wes smiled knowingly; Jo really could get crabby but it was only when she was exhausted that she was like this. He took her hands in his, making her meet his gaze.

“I tell you what, we'll go find Blaine and tell him that I'm gonna take you home, run you nice, hot bath and order take out and the we can just sit and watch a film for the rest of the evening. We can just be together and relax.” he ran a hand up and down her arm “How does that sound, huh?”

“Oh Wes that'd be lovely, but we told Blaine we'd stay tonight, we only have a couple of hours left, and it's not that much...”

“Jo, sometimes, you need to put yourself first. I mean look at you, you're exhausted. I've only ever seen you like this once before and that was a very long night of very intense things...” Wes wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, electing a giggle from the Scottish girl. “So what d'you say hun?”

Jo sighed audibly and leaned into him, embracing the taller boy completely, hugging her arms around the top of his head as he leaned into her chest. She breathed in the sweet smell of his shampoo and pushed her nose into the thick hair on top of his head, planting a little kiss there. She leaned back after a few seconds, pulled him to his feet and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the lips before whispering “yeah” against them. Then, she nodded and they made their way together out of the auditorium, in search of Blaine, palms pressed together and fingers interlaced. 

Little did they know they wouldn't find Blaine outside of the auditorium; he'd been in there with them the whole time.  He smiled to himself as he looked down at the picture he had taken on his camera of the couple embracing, Jo's face pressed into Wes's hair. You could see her smile in her cheeks even though you couldn't see her lips. He felt a pang of jealously in his heart but he discarded it before walking in the same direction as them out of the theatre as he knew they were intent on finding him.

All three of them couldn't take their eyes off of it. They had made it; finally, they had truly made it.

There was nothing left to be done except to post an audition schedule and hope and cross fingers that they would receive interest. But that didn't seem all that daunting the Blaine or Jo or Wes because in this moment, they had made their dreams come true.

They gazed up at the sign that sat on the doorway to the theatre, stationary in the middle of the crowds that rushed by them. They could hear people cursing under their breath about them being in the way but they didn't care, not in the slightest. Those people would probably never understand the feeling of pride and success that embraced the trio now.

The sign read three words:

Past, Present, Future.

Blaine had pondered for hours about what to call it. It was only when he had discovered the photo album that he had decided. They needed to somehow remember the past of the theatre. They also needed to treasure the present and they needed to look to their hopeful futures. Jo and Wes had agreed on the name immediately. Blaine glanced down to the notice on the front door:

 The Anderson, Davison and McDonald theatre company are now auditioning for the musical RENT.

And now here they were, one of Wes' arms gripped Jo's waist and the other held to Blaine's shoulders. All three of them felt tears in the corners of their eyes, the hot liquid threatening to fall but somehow they kept them at bay.

They smiled in synchronisation and moved forward to enter the theatre and embark on their new adventure.

Together.