'This is going to look suspicious,' he hissed to his satchel. 'We're going to get caught for sure. Why did we agree to this?'

'Okay, firstly…' came a muffled voice from inside the satchel. 'We agreed to this because I have faith that we can pull it off. And we're out of uniform, so we're not going to get caught.'

'But Nick and Jeff-'

'-can handle Wes and have your phone number to call if things go wrong,' Blaine finished for him. He sat in the front pocket of the satchel and looked out through the slit where the pocket gaped open. Though his voice was calm, inside he was a bundle of nerves and excitement. It wasn't the first time he had sneaked out of Dalton, but it was still a thrill to him. He felt Trent pick up his walking pace as the school bell signalling the end of classes for the day rang throughout the concrete grounds.

When Trent slipped into the hallway, there was a sea of color, noise and students; calling out to one another as they walked by, slamming their locker doors shut and moving with their bags toward the exit. As he and Trent has discussed the night before, they were to arrive at McKinley in time for the school's afternoon extra-curricular activities, of which he knew their glee club would be in session, either discussing set lists or rehearsing. They had established that the session would be in either a music room of some sort or the auditorium, so Trent would scope out the likely areas while Blaine would remain behind and keep an eye out for anyone that would even remotely pass as a member of New Directions. Then Trent would sneak Blaine in to their meeting, Blaine would leave when he had gathered enough intelligence and he and Trent would make their merry way back to Dalton. That was the plan, and last night neither Blaine nor Trent found fault with it.

Trent stopped suddenly, and Blaine knocked his head on the material opposite him, ceasing his train of thought.

'Sorry,' Trent whispered above him. 'I've seen him before.'

Blaine stood up on his toes and peeked through the gap. A few feet away stood a pale boy with light brown coiffed hair, placing his textbooks carefully into his open satchel.

'I recognize him,' Blaine whispered back. 'That's Kurt.'

'The guy that spied on us?'

Blaine knew he wouldn't forget Kurt in a hurry. As soon as he had heard a soft voice address a group of boys with Excuse me, I'm new here at Dalton a few weeks ago, he had immediately dived behind a potted plant. Blaine was never accused of being shy around strangers, only those that hadn't been integrated into Dalton yet. Judging from his makeshift uniform (stylish, he had hastened to admit), the boy had not been told of the existence of a four and a half inch student. The Warblers didn't question Blaine's absence when their lead singer failed to show up for their crowd-pleasing rendition of Teenage Dream, nor did they mention his name when they introduced themselves to Kurt. Blaine watched behind the clock on the mantelpiece, completely mesmerized by the joy, apprehension and other range of emotions that flitted across the boy's face as he watched their performance. Not long after, Kurt was discreetly accosted out in the hallway by David and Wes, and that was the last Blaine had seen of him. Until today, that was.

'Put me down,' Blaine whispered quickly to Trent, aware that Trent was standing in the middle of a hallway with students trying to dodge him. 'I've got this.'

Trent did as he was told, setting his satchel down in a gap between a row of lockers where it wouldn't get trampled on. Blaine heard his footsteps walk away in search of the glee club's rehearsal space.

Blaine watched Kurt silently as he closed the door of his locker and fiddled with the clasp on his satchel. He could feel the floor beneath him shake as two jocks walked past, barely slowing down as they approached Kurt at his locker.

'Hey ladyboy!'

Blaine felt his jaw drop as the two jocks pushed Kurt without warning; the force so strong that the boy was slammed into the lockers, causing him to stumble and fall. Blaine gasped and covered his mouth, watching on in horror as Kurt's body crumbled to the ground: the sound of footsteps and loud laughter echoing away. A little shaken from the encounter, Kurt attempted to sit up, hissing in pain when he straightened his right shoulder.

For a while Kurt sat there, breathing shallowly while staring across the hallway at nothing in particular. He sat there as students quickly passed by, directing their gaze elsewhere. He sat there without noticing that a tiny boy had scrambled out of a nearby satchel and was now climbing his way into his own bag. Sighing, he stood up and placed the strap of his satchel over his left shoulder.

Blaine had found himself a comfortable interior pocket to slip into, but he jumped as a hand reached inside the bag, missing him by centimetres. Instead, it clutched around a cell phone in a pocket beside him. Blaine breathed a sigh of relief and felt his nostrils fill with a fresh, minty scent. When he looked down he noticed an open packet of Wrigley's gum wedged beside a notebook and a set of keys. He watched through the bag as Kurt scrolled through his phone, tapping out a message to a Mercedes Jones about skipping glee club practise that day before pressing send.

Blaine didn't have time to ponder the implications of the message as he heard a set of footsteps and the sound of objects being pushed aside. He peeked out from Kurt's bag and sure enough, Trent has returned and was kneeling on the floor, vigorously searching through his bag. By some miracle he managed to raise his head; his mouth dropped open as he made eye contact with Blaine. Blaine raised a finger to his lips in a ssh motion but that didn't stop Trent from scrambling to his feet.

'Uhh…' Trent began, addressing Kurt as his gaze flickered down to Blaine. 'Your…your satchel.'

'What about my satchel?' came Kurt's melodic voice, though Blaine thought it sounded tired.

'I-' Trent visibly gulped. 'I think you have my satchel.'

'Since I retrieved it from my locker, I'm pretty sure it's my satchel,' Kurt replied with a hint of mockery.

'Well…it might be your satchel,' Trent sassed back. 'But I think there's something in your satchel…that's mine.'

Blaine slapped a hand to his forehead. He couldn't have Trent blow his cover.

Kurt sighed and began to walk away. Panic began to settle in Blaine's chest and he knew he had to act quickly.

'Hey, aren't you going to glee club…rehearsal or something?' Trent called out.

'Not today,' Kurt replied, and Blaine was glad to see that he was facing Trent. Now was his chance. Quickly he flashed Trent nine fingers, then pointed one finger in a downwards motion and mouthed the word tomorrow. Trent seemed to have received the message because he gave Blaine a hesitant nod, and started to walk away.

'Wait…' Kurt replied, turning around to face Trent again. 'Don't I know you from somewh-'

'No!' Trent hastily replied and Blaine snickered as Trent began to walk, then jog, finally breaking into a run as he neared the hallway's exit.

Blaine endured another silent car ride in a satchel, broken only by the unsteady breathing of Kurt in the seat beside him. He assumed that the boy was heading home, and he was correct when Kurt opened the front door of a house with his keys. The interior was modern and looked recently furnished, if the boxes marked 'Furniture' that lined a wall of the living room was any indication.

'Hey, buddy,' said a male voice as Kurt entered the kitchen. From what Blaine could see of the man, he had a baseball cap on his head and wore a flannel shirt. He was standing on a chair, adjusting the light fixture above the table and hadn't looked at Kurt had when he walked through the doorway. 'How was your day?'

'Fine,' came Kurt's soft reply, though Blaine knew he was not fine. He sounded defeated.

Blaine watched the man, who he assumed was the boy's father, look down and fix his eyes on Kurt, but Kurt turned away quickly, ascending the stairs until a bedroom came into view. He placed the satchel on a chair (Blaine was thankful it wasn't dropped) and settled down on his bedspread. Kurt sat in silence for a few minutes, his hands twisting in his lap.

'Kurt?' a voice floated up from downstairs. There was a pause before the voice continued. 'I made some toast if you want some.'

Slowly, Kurt rose off the bed and hugged his arms to his chest. He paced across the length of his bed once, his eyes trained on the carpet. He breathed in deeply and closed his eyes, sighing it out as if he was bracing for something. Then he dropped his hands and walked out of the room, his slow and hesitant footsteps thudding down the stairs.

Blaine was out of the satchel in mere seconds.

As quiet conversation from downstairs began, he closed the small gap between the chair and the bedside table with a giant leap. He pulled himself up on the alarm clock and stretched out his legs so that they were hanging over the digital display.

So the plan had not gone the way he had hoped, but he couldn't stand by and watch another person be pushed around. Especially not someone who looked so broken as Kurt. He had almost entertained the possibility of looking around Kurt's bedroom to see if there were any clues about their upcoming songs for Sectionals, but he didn't have the heart to do it.

If Trent had kept up his end of his deal, Blaine would be meeting him at McKinley the following morning at nine o'clock. Blaine realised with a start that Kurt might not want to return to McKinley the following day.

He really had no other choice.

Kurt Hummel was quite possibly having the worst day of his life.

He'd been double-slushied at recess, received his lowest ever score on his Geography test and didn't have the enthusiasm to attend glee club, even if it was edging closer to competition. He used to be excited at the prospect of being given a solo but now he no longer cared.

The final straw was being pushed into the lockers after school, and the tiny voice in his head that screamed enough. Over breaking tiny crumbs off his slice of toast, he told his dad about Dave Karofsky's possible return, about the harassment and the verbal threats that pursued him daily, and that he couldn't put up with them anymore. He had only one person he knew he could count on, and that was his father. Burt Hummel had called up the school to arrange an appointment with the principal the following day.

'We'll figure something out, son,' his dad assured him.

Kurt felt like some of the emotional weight he had been carrying within him day in, day out had been lifted. He couldn't help but feel a bit lighter as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom and shut the door. Exhaustion suddenly overtook him and he moved over to his bed, hoping to fit in a nap before dinner.

'Kurt!'

Kurt froze before his hand had touched the bedspread. Surely it was just his imagination.

'Kurt!' the voice said again, more insistent this time. Kurt's eyes darted across to the doorway; his name was spoken as clearly as if there was another person initiating conversation in his room, but as far as he was concerned, he was the sole person occupying it.

'Hey, Kurt - down here!'

Without understanding why, Kurt looked down at his bedside table. Sitting on his alarm clock was a dark-haired boy of tiny proportions; his black clothing was topped with an equally dark cardigan, smile beaming and eyes twinkling as he stared up at him.

'Greetings, Kurt.'