"So this is awkward," Kurt said into the phone, his voice strained.

"We're married, hon," Blaine said breezily. "Nothing should be awkward between us."

"I need to know your annual income."

That gave Blaine a double-take. "Um ... why?"

Kurt spoke quickly, nearing the edge of panic. "I have to update my FAFSA every year for my student loans. That's the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. And it says I have to enter the total income earned by me and my spouse in 2012. That's you. You're my spouse. So I need to know ... um ... your income."

"Okay ..." Blaine said, speaking calmly to try not to contribute to Kurt's panic. "I'm a high school student. I don't have any income."

"You worked at Six Flags last summer," Kurt pointed out.

"Oh yeah. Um ... okay, I can look up my old paychecks in my bank statement or something ... let me figure out how ..."

"Do you have a trust fund?" Kurt asked.

"What? No! Of course not!"

"Okay," Kurt said quietly.

"Did you seriously think I had a trust fund?"

"Well, I don't know, you went to Dalton and ..."

"So my family has more money than yours, that doesn't mean I have a trust fund," Blaine said in an annoyed voice.

"Look, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that was a thing."

"Let's just ... let's calm down, okay?" Blaine sat down on his bed and took a breath.

"Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't want to upset you," Kurt said. "I'm really freaking out about this FAFSA thing. My information is all different. They want your info now instead of my parents'. And I have no idea what that will do to my loans and my scholarship. What if they take them away, or the amount goes down and I can't afford NYADA anymore, all because we were impulsive and stupid and got married?" He sounded close to panic again.

"Hey, Kurt, no ..." Blaine said soothingly. "Maybe it was impulsive, but it wasn't stupid. I love you, and we're going to get through this together, okay?"

Kurt sniffled a little, and Blaine wondered if he was crying.

"I don't think they'd take away your loans for this," Blaine said thoughtfully. "My personal income is really low, so with my stuff instead of your parents', you'll actually look poorer than before. You might even get a better financial aid package."

"Do you really think so?" Kurt asked, sounding hopeful for the first time in the conversation.

"I think it's likely," Blaine said. "Is there someone you can talk to for advice? In the financial aid office, or maybe at Lambda Legal or something?"

Kurt's voice brightened. "That's a good idea. Actually, I should do that anyway, because the instructions on the form say that same-sex marriages don't count because of DOMA. I figured that can't be right anymore, after the Supreme Court decision, can it? They just haven't updated the form? But it would be good to get some advice from someone who knows about these things."

"Definitely," Blaine said. "Or, worst case scenario, you could say that we're not married, and then all your information would be the same."

"Blaine! This is a federal government program. I'm not going to lie to the federal government! I'm pretty sure they put people in jail for that. I am not going to jail for you, Blaine Anderson."

"What?!" Blaine said, mock scandalized. "What kind of sham of a marriage is this, if you're not even willing to go to jail for me?"

Kurt giggled. "Well, at the very least, I'm not going to jail for saying that I'm not married to you, after all the trouble we went through to get the right to be married in the first place."

"For some broad definition of 'we,'" Blaine teased.

"We helped in spirit."

"We did."

There was a pause as they both collected themselves after that emotional roller-coaster. Kurt finally spoke up. "We should probably talk about, um, all this financial stuff at some point."

"What kind of stuff?" Blaine asked.

"Like, should we combine our bank accounts? Completely, or maybe have a joint account plus separate ones? And how will we do our household budget? Do we contribute the same amount towards groceries and stuff, if we're keeping our money separate? When I go on one of my fashion buying binges, should that come out of my own money, or—"

Blaine cut him off. "Can't we cross that bridge when we come to it?"

"I think we have come to it," Kurt said.

Blaine nodded to himself. "Yeah ... I guess we have."

"This marriage stuff is hard," Kurt said.

"It is," Blaine agreed. He stood up and moved to his desk, opened a blank spreadsheet on his laptop, and got out a pen and paper for good measure. "Okay. Talk to me about your grocery expenses in New York."

"Blaine? I love you."

Blaine smiled to himself. "Love you, too. Now. Groceries. How much per week?"