Never in a million years did Kurt guess he would be walking the halls of his high school again only seven years after he graduated from that hellhole. Due to a series of events he was back at William McKinley high school, only this time, he was a teacher. Kurt still couldn't believe he was a teacher. That wasn't what he planned when he was still a teenager. He had planned to get into NYADA, move to New York City, become a Broadway sensation, and be married by the time he was thirty.

Fate had other plans though. He didn't get into NYADA. He lived in New York for about two months before he moved back home and attended college in Ohio. He doubled majored in music education and fashion design and, to his own surprise, graduated four years later. Kurt went back to New York again, hoping to get an internship with Vogue, but once again, fate wouldn't allow it. Within a year, he returned home again, this time for his dad.

His father had suffered a second, near fatal heart attack. The doctors did everything they could, but they couldn't guarantee that Burt would survive if it happened again. Kurt moved back to Lima to be with his father and to help him and Carole with anything they needed. With Burt's heart being as bad as it was, he was forced to retire and hand the shop over to Finn to run while Kurt occasionally helped out with it.

Nothing went as he planned. He was twenty-four, still single (and would probably be single for a while now that he was back in Ohio), and teaching music classes at his old high school. His dreams were buried in the ground. Now, Kurt was sitting in Principal Figgins' office, waiting to receive his class information.

"Here is your classroom key and the class rosters," Figgins said, handing Kurt a small silver key and a folder of papers. "I trust you know where the choir room is?"

"Of course," Kurt said with a smile. How could he forget the three years he spent in the choir room? Those were some of the best days of his life.

Figgins nodded. "Good. You may go. If you run into any problems, let me know."

"Thank you, sir," Kurt said, grabbing his bag and leaving the office. He headed down the hall and turned the corner, walking through a sea of students just arriving for their first day of school. He let out a sigh. It wasn't as though he wasn't grateful for the job, because he really was, it was so much better than working at the garage full time, but he just felt like he was never going to escape Lima and McKinley. It was like he was doomed to roam those halls forever.

Upon entering the choir room, Kurt's mood changed. He smiled fondly at the red chairs lined in neat rows. The glee club trophies still sat proudly in their glass cases. Kurt noticed that there weren't many trophies won over the years since he graduated. When his class graduated, the talent seemed to have left. Kurt shook his head. That needed to be changed. As the new choir teacher, he assumed he would responsible for taking over the glee club. He would probably have to since Mr. Shuester left to do work in Washington DC.

Kurt noticed a small desk sitting in the corner of the room. He walked over and sat his bag down behind it, before sitting on the desk, looking through the class roster. He had two classes. One was a simple music theory class and the other was the regular choir class. Both classes only had about fifteen students; most of them were in both music theory and choir.

"Obviously the lack of musical interest hasn't changed," Kurt said as he began going through the names of this students. He didn't recognize any of the last names, which he thought was a good thing. That meant no one was going to know who he was.

One thing Kurt feared about coming back to Lima was the harassment. He knew Lima hadn't changed. He knew that the bullies who grew up with were still living in the town. He didn't want to run into any of them. They didn't know Kurt was back in Lima, and Kurt wanted to keep it that way.

He was brought out of his own thoughts when the bell rang. Kurt slid off the desk and went to stand in the hallway before his first class started. He smiled and greeted students that walked into the choir room. He was happy to see that there were actually jocks and cheerleaders in the class.

Kurt was just about to go into the classroom when he heard a loud, familiar 'bang.' He turned to see a boy, slumped against the lockers and two large football players walking away from him, laughing as they did. Kurt walked over to the boy as he stood.

"Are you alright?" Kurt asked with concern. He knew all too well how painful a locker slam could be.

"I'm fine," the boy said, looking up into Kurt's eyes.

Kurt had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from gasping. The boy in front of him was gorgeous. His golden colored eyes warm and welcoming. His hair, though encased in gel, was styled in a way that compliment his facial features. His dark, triangular eyebrows were slightly raised, as though he were surprised about something. The boy was wearing red capri pants, a black collared t-shirt, and a red bowtie that made him look absolutely adorable.

"Are you sure? They could have hurt you! What are their names?" Kurt asked rapidly to hide the moment of silence and awe he had just experienced.

"I'm fine. They didn't hurt me, and it doesn't matter what their names are. It's fine," the boy muttered. "I need to get to class." The boy stepped around him, and Kurt watched him go into the choir room.

Kurt bit his lip. He wanted to help the boy. He knew how it felt to be bullied and harassed in school. Kurt, however, was very intrigued with the boy. He knew that he probably should be thinking that his (most likely) underaged and straight student was beautiful and had a nice ass.

Woah! You can't think like that, Kurt thought, mentally scolding himself. He has jailbait written all over him. You can't think anything like that about your student!

Shaking the thoughts from his mind, he entered the choir room just as the late bell rang. His eyes were on the boy though, and the surprised look the boy wore on his face when Kurt came into the choir room.

"Welcome to Music Theory!" Kurt greeted his class happily, his eyes moving away from the boy and scanning the class. "Now, I'm going to go through the roster and make sure everyone's here then we'll talk about what will be expected in this class."

Kurt grabbed the roster from his desk and scanned it over once. "Anderson, Blaine?"

"Here," the boy from early said.

Blaine…that's a nice name, Kurt thought before continuing. "Barnes, Melody?"

"Present," one of the cheerleaders said.

Kurt continued down the roster, putting names to faces, hoping he wouldn't forget anyone. Once he called everyone's name and made sure they were present, Kurt sat the roster aside and glanced around at his students.

"Well, like I said, this is Music Theory. My name is Mr. Hummel. In this class we're going to do a lot of work since this class is only half a term. We'll start out with the basics of how music is composed with key signatures, notes, and rhythms.

"We'll then spend a little bit of time learning about different composers. After that, we're going to jump into composing music. Your final project for the class will be a three-minute piece you've composed. This can be either for vocals or for instruments, but we'll talk more about that when the time comes." Kurt paused. He looked around the room and saw that his students were still paying attention.

"I want this classroom to be laid back and relaxing. I want us to have fun, but you need to respect me as your teacher, and I will give you the same respect in return. If you're having trouble with homework or study material, please come talk to me. I want all of you to pass with flying colors.

"I will do everything I can to help each and every one of you, but you need to let me know if you're not understanding something. I can't help you if I don't know you need help. Understand?"

A murmur of yeses came from the students. Kurt smiled. "Excellent," he said. "Now, let's get you your books and you can have the rest of the period to yourselves. Tomorrow we'll start learning tomorrow."

Kurt spent the next few minutes distributing books to everyone. When he finished, he went over to his desk and pulled out a small sketchbook that housed some of his fashion designs. Every few minutes he would look up and make sure no one was doing anything he or she wasn't supposed to be doing. Every time he looked up though, he would notice Blaine.

Unlike the rest of the class, Blaine was not talking. Instead, he was looking through the music theory book. Kurt couldn't help but notice how sad and lonely he looked. He frowned and wondered if Blaine had any friends, because from the looks of things, he didn't have any friends in class.

Well, hopefully that will change, Kurt thought. He'll get to know his classmates and he'll make friends with them. You can't be his friend. You're his teacher and nothing more.

When the bell rang, Kurt watched his students go, which really meant he watched Blaine go. There was something about Blaine that Kurt just couldn't stop thinking about. It wasn't sexually or anything. There was just a desire to become close with the student. No matter how many times Kurt reminded himself that Blaine was his student and he couldn't have anything more than a student-teacher relationship, Kurt just couldn't shake the idea of a personal friendship with Blaine.

Kurt went back into the classroom and looked at the choir roster. Sure enough, Blaine was the first name on the list. Kurt let out a sigh. This was going to be an interesting year.

X-X-X-X

"Porcelain!" Came the voice of one Sue Sylvester.

Kurt looked up from his salad and saw the cheerleading coach entering the teachers' lounge. She looked, well, enraged.

"Coach Sylvester," Kurt greeted politely. He didn't want to get on Sue's bad side. She may have liked him while he was a student, but her feelings could have easily changed.

"Sweet Porcelain, stuck in this run down dump of a town with nothing but you tickle me dough face and your father's tire shop," Sue said as she sat down across from him.

"Can I help you, coach?"

"You can call me Sue," Sue answered. "And I was wondering if you will be taking over that pitiful excuse of a nonexistent glee club."

"Of course I am," Kurt responded proudly. "No one else in this school will do it since Mr. Shue left two years ago."

"Then be prepared, Porcelain. I may consider you above the cut of the other teachers here, but you reek of competition and over priced cologne. I will not have my cheerleading budget cut because you want to revive the glee club and go down the route of macaroni hair Shuester," she practically spat before standing and leaving the lounge.

Kurt didn't know whether to be stunned or not even surprised at all. He figured Sue would confront him about it, but he didn't think she would be so vocal about it. After all, during his senior year she helped the glee club win Nationals. He finished his salad and headed back to the choir room to prepare for the next period when the choir class would begin. He was hoping some of the students, if not all of them, would want to join the glee club.

The bell rang and the hustle and bustle in the hallway began. The first few students began to trickle into the room. Kurt recognized them from his music theory class. He greeted with a smile and a hello. However, when Blaine entered the room, Kurt's smile just seemed to grow even wider.

"Hello, Blaine, good to see you again," Kurt said kindly.

"Good to see you too, Mr. Hummel," Blaine responded with a little smile that made Kurt's heart speed up a little. It was a small, but yet completely adorable smile.

Kurt quickly looked away from Blaine, not wanting to linger on those thoughts. When the rest of the class arrived and the late bell rang, Kurt stood in front of the class and took role again. He introduced himself to the students he hadn't had that morning and went over classroom rules. He once again gave them a free period as he did not have anything planned for the first day, and once again, he noticed Blaine sitting by himself was the rest of the class talked amongst themselves. Kurt frowned.

"Blaine, can you come over here please," Kurt said gently as he sat as his desk.

Blaine gave him a confused look and walked over to him. "Am I in trouble?" Blaine asked.

"Of course not," Kurt reassured him. "Pull up a seat. I just want to talk."

Blaine grabbed a chair and brought it over in front of Kurt's desk. He sat down and sat his bag in his lap. "What's this about?"

"I just want to make sure you're okay from this morning," Kurt said. "And…I wanted to let you know that if you ever needed anyone to talk to, I'm always here. I know what it's liked to be bullied."

Blaine gulped. "I'm not being bullied."

"Blaine…from what I saw this morning, you were. Now, you don't have to talk to me about it, but if you ever need an ear, I'll listen."

"Thanks, Mr. Hummel, that really means a lot to me," Blaine said softly. He smiled at Kurt.

"You're welcome, Blaine. Now about my classes…do you not know your classmates? I've noticed you've been by yourself."

"I, well, I know most of them, but we're not really friends," Blaine said. Blaine sighed. "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course."

"I'm gay…and most people around here aren't all that accepting. I don't have many friends here."

Kurt looked Blaine over. He was a little happy to hear that Blaine was gay. "I know how you feel," Kurt then found himself saying. "When I was here, I was constantly picked on. I was shoved into lockers, called names, had slushies thrown in my face, even had a death threat against me. It's hard, believe me, but it does get better. Don't let any of it get you down. You'll make friends who love and accept you for who you are, and those people that bully and harass you, well after this year you'll probably never see them again. You'll go on to do something great and they could get stuck here working at the McDonald's."

Blaine smiled again. "Thanks," he said softly. "Um…if it's not too personal…why did you get picked on?"

"I'm gay too, Blaine."

Blaine's eyes widened in surprise, which caused Kurt to laugh. "Please tell me you at least suspected it? I like to think that it's pretty obvious."

"I…didn't think about it," Blaine muttered, looking down at his hands, his cheeks burning red.

"Fair enough," Kurt said gently. "So now you understand me when I say that I understand what you're going through and why I want to help."

Blaine nodded. "That really means a lot to me, Mr. Hummel." They both gazed at each other a little too long to just be a friendly gesture.

The bell rang and caused both of them to jump. Blaine chuckled nervously and shouldered his bag. "Thanks again, Mr. Hummel," Blaine said again with a grin. He walked out of the room, but not before looking over his shoulder back at Kurt.

Oh yes, this was going to be an interesting year.