Blaine never did drive Kurt home that day, much less share the paella he had brought Kurt to eat. As family and friends came and went that Sunday evening, Blaine disappeared and Kurt didn't go looking for him, wanting to stay with his dad and celebrate his awakening. He took Monday off school to spend time at the hospital to learn what he would need to do to help care for his dad and plan his transition to home on Tuesday after school. A day in which Kurt not only learned that Puck had gone to juvenile detention for the singularly moronic act of trying to steal an ABM, but that they had a new member in glee club.

Sam Evans had to be gay. Not only did he not have any game with the ladies, but his hair was platinum blonde - something that had to come from a bottle given the darker shade of his eyebrows and stubble. When Mr. Schuester announced the duet competition with dinner for 2 at Breadstix as a prize, Kurt knew that Sam had to be his singing partner and so introduced himself to Sam the very next morning where he also suggested their pairing for the competition.

By the time French class had begun, Kurt was having a less terrible day than usual. He had avoided the bullies for the most part and found out he had aced the test from last week in his first period class.

"Monsieur Hummel, Monsieur Anderson. My desk please." Mademoiselle Bouvier directed to them both before the bell rang. Blaine immediately got up and went to the teacher's desk, but Kurt, in his confusion at being called up, hesitated before joining them.

"Both of you have demonstrated exceptional French skills, so I have decided to pair you for the rest of the semester to complete higher level projects and assignments. This will help you with your credit needs Monsieur Anderson, and I believe you will appreciate the challenge Monsieur Hummel." Mademoiselle Bouvier explained as they joined her. Kurt cast a questioning glance to Blaine when she spoke about his credit needs, a look that wasn't acknowledged as Blaine nodded to her and thanked her quietly before returning to his desk.

"Mademoiselle Bouvier... are you sure?" Kurt asked as he stayed at the front, looking back to Blaine and then to her again.

"Is there a problem I need to be made aware of Monsieur Hummel?" she asked, propping her chin onto her hand and looking up toward him inquiringly.

He shook his head, "No... just... a little confused at the suddenness..."

"You have amazing skills in French, and I know based on your essay from last year that you'd like to vacation to France for the fashion there. I thought you might enjoy the chance to improve your French skills beyond that of an intermediate high school French class."

Kurt couldn't disagree with her reasoning, so he nodded and said thank you to her before returning to his own seat.

He was about to pull the customary papers from his binder for Blaine when he saw a strange sight. Not only did Blaine have papers of his own, but they were in a binder and he had not one, but two pencils today. Kurt had to rub his eyes to make sure he was seeing things correctly.

Once class began, Mademoiselle publicly congratulated the boys for their advanced skills and explained that they would be following a separate curriculum from the rest of the class which is why they would no longer be available for pairings with the rest of class. Instead of applause or compliments, they received death glares and sneers. Kurt shrunk a little in his desk, while Blaine didn't even seem to notice as he flipped his binder cover open and closed repeatedly at his desk - Kurt was sure Blaine thought having a binder of his own must be a novelty.

The boys were given their first assignment - a translation project, while the rest of the class did the usual coursework.

"And here I thought I was useful to you." Kurt said in French as they began their work.

Blaine looked at him quizzically and Kurt had to explain, "The binder and paper... you won't need me anymore."

Blaine made an O shape with his mouth as he understood what Kurt was alluding to and shrugged up his shoulders. "Since you weren't here yesterday... thought I'd better start taking care of myself in here. No one else sits close enough to me to get supplies from aside from that asshole jock."

Kurt offered Blaine a smile, which wasn't returned, so he shifted onto a different topic. "The paella was delicious by the way. I just finished the rest of it off for breakfast this morning."

"Good." Blaine murmured, dragging his pencil over the text they were supposed to be translating.

Kurt shifted a little in his seat, and thought to himself that perhaps even though he and Blaine had been friendly outside of school, that Blaine probably didn't want to acknowledge their... whatever their relationship was... in public. Kurt was still a social amoeba after all, and certainly wouldn't help Blaine's reputation any.

So he worked diligently with Blaine to translate the English poem they were given into an equivalent French work and handed it in, keeping focused on the task at hand, and ignoring the voice inside his head which was telling him to ask what Mademoiselle Bouvier meant when she said Blaine needed credits, or thanking him again for the food he brought.

At lunch he was getting his food in the cafeteria when Finn came up beside him and began giving him hell for pairing up with Sam for a duet. Apparently Finn thought that if they sung together, Sam would get so much crap from the rest of the student body that he'd quit Glee. Kurt managed to snap back at Finn, but ended up just throwing his lunch in the trash after Finn left, having lost his appetite.

It was bad enough that Blaine was clearly embarrassed to be seen in public as a ... friend? Were they friends even? But now Finn had to remind Kurt that he'd be making a target of Sam by singing with him.

He had already sent Sam a dozen music files of him singing though, and had already started narrowing down their music selections though, so he wasn't about to back out. Besides, Sam had been nice to him, and people who were nice to him, IN PUBLIC, were few and far between.

"Your Tupperware is in my car." Kurt greeted Blaine with as they sat beside one another to work on their assignment in French on Wednesday.

"I'll get it after your Glee practice." Blaine responded as he scanned over the assignment sheet. "Your old man back home?"

"Yes. Though he's attached to an IV drip still and it's become clear that I need to buy him less worn pyjama's to wear around the house." Kurt replied.

Blaine smirked in response. They both read the assignment and then went to work on conjugating the verbs they needed to. With ten minutes to spare in class, they finished and Blaine looked over at Kurt.

"Who was that blonde guy I saw you talking to yesterday?"

Kurt tilted his head to the side as he recalled the past day and then it clicked for him. "Oh. You mean Sam. He's a new recruit in Glee club. I'm doing a duet with him."

"I don't like him." Blaine grumbled without looking at Kurt, idly doodling on his otherwise clean paper in the binder he had managed to bring two days in a row now.

"Do you even know him?" Kurt queried, his eyes watching the end of Blaine's pencil as it drew nothing in particular.

"He looks like an ass."

Kurt made a small chuckle and shook his head. "And people think you're an ass and they actually know a bit about you. You, however, don't know anything about him."

"Is he gay too?" Blaine stopped the drawing, and looked intently at Kurt through his curls.

"Ah... well.. not sure. I mean... I hope he is. Would be nice to have someone else around here like me." Kurt smiled gently as he looked back at those hazel eyes which winced shut and looked back to the doodled paper.

"Singing a duet with him is a bad idea."

"You too?" Kurt's smile immediately faded and was replaced by a scowl as he looked away from Blaine and down at the top of his desk. According to the etchings in his desk, CC + WS = LUV 4ever.

"Me too?" Blaine asked and Kurt could feel Blaine's eyes on him with the question, but he wasn't going to look up with his face as sour as it had quickly become.

"Finn told me that I'd just be making Sam into a target by singing with him."

He heard Blaine huff. "That's not what I meant. I just don't think you should spend time with the guy."

"Right. I thought you weren't a homophobe... but you're just as bad as everyone else. It's okay to be gay, just not okay to act on it." Kurt snapped over at Blaine as the bell rang, and before Blaine could get a response in, Kurt was walking briskly out the door.

When Glee was done that day, Blaine wasn't waiting for him for the Tupperware.

The next day, Kurt was solemn. Dinner the night before was another lesson in dejection as his dad sided with Finn on not doing the duet with Sam. He resigned himself to having to be lonely.

Blaine was waiting for him at his car when Glee ended. Kurt had been quiet in French and since they were given individual assignments, they had no excuse to continue their conversation from yesterday.

Kurt sighed and went into the back of his car to retrieve the Tupperware for Blaine. "I called off the duet with Sam. Even my dad thought it was a bad idea." Not to mention that as much as he wished Sam were gay, Sam simply didn't look at guys the way he looked at girls.

He didn't miss the slight smile on Blaine's face and Kurt's heart fired up knowing that Blaine was clearly happy that what he probably thought was gay pride display in song wasn't happening anymore.

"So what are you going to do now?" Blaine asked while Kurt slung his briefcase into the backseat.

"I already did it. I sang by myself... rather... did a duet with myself."

"Uh... how?" Blaine's curls bobbed in front of his face when his brow lifted in question.

"I sang Le Jazz Hot... it's from a play."

"Victor/Victoria. Yah. I've seen it. Julie Andrews and all."

Kurt stood up straighter as he regarded the other boy, arching his brows towards Blaine now. "YOU'VE seen it?"

Blaine frowned. "Not a neanderthal remember?"

Kurt let out a small, surprised chuckle and shook his head, slamming his back door shut. "Mr. Anderson - you are full of surprises."

Blaine took the Tupperware as Kurt handed it to him and spun it in his hands. "Well... I was hoping you could drive me over to your dad's shop. Got a call from one of the guys there that my mom's van is ready."

Kurt nodded and gestured over to the passenger door. "Sure, but I want to drive my baby today. I've been able to catch up on my sleep."

They got into the car and Kurt told Blaine about the performance. How he had pulled some strings with his previous Cheerios colleagues and gotten them to do backup dancing for him, and how he had gotten a standing ovation from the Glee club.

"You did all that for a dinner at Breadstix?" Blaine asked when Kurt was done, playing with the automatic seat adjustment, much to Kurt's annoyance.

"Well that and the prestige that comes with winning of course. Breadstix is a bigger deal for those in the club who can take a date there... for me it's more about the competition."

"Right..." Blaine's body was moving back and forth and up and down with the hum of the motor adjusting his seat. Kurt was cringing with irritation from the action beside him which Blaine was clearly oblivious to as he spoke. "Why can't you get a date?"

Kurt sighed and shook his head, "Well for starters... there aren't any openly gay kids in the school - let alone in Lima. I am very much a solo act here."

"What about that Sam twerp?" The seat motor continued to buzz as Blaine played around with it and before he had fully opened his mouth to respond, Blaine was being interrupted by Kurt.

"Can you please stop playing with that?! It's driving me crazy!"

Blaine went wide eyed and the seat motor stopped as he lifted up his hand from beside the seat where the adjustment knobs were, leaving Blaine sitting very low to the bottom of the car and as far back as the seat went.

Another sigh passed through Kurt's lips, "Sorry... I'm just... edgy."

"Why?" Blaine tried to sit himself up higher as he asked, though was pitifully low to the car ground from where he had been left off from playing with the adjustments.

"Everyone pushed me out of doing the duet with Sam... reminded me of how low my social status is and how it would look bad on him. No one seems to care about how I felt on the matter... I just have to get used to being alone I guess."

Kurt glanced over at Blaine and made a weak smile at the boy's awkward seating, "You can readjust it if you want..."

Blaine was quick to take him up on the offer, moving the seat back into a better position where he didn't look so much like a little kid in a seat too big for him.

"You know Hummel... You aren't alone..."

"I know, I know... I have all my friends in Glee, and my dad thankfully."

Blaine huffed a little, but didn't say anything more and they pulled into the auto shop soon thereafter.

Kurt got out along with Blaine to say hello to the staff there and check to see if there was anything he needed to do for his dad while his dad was absent. Thankfully the guys had everything under control and sent along well wishes for Burt via Kurt, letting him know in turn that if Burt or he needed anything, they were there.

"Why's my bill paid?" Blaine demanded, coming up behind Kurt and waving the invoice in his hand.

Kurt glanced back and smiled softly, "It was balanced out by the taxiing services from before."

He had paid for the bill out of his wages. It had turned out that the transmission had gone while Blaine was driving due to the wrong transmission fluid being used and causing the transmission to overheat. It was a costly fix for something that could have easily been avoided, but Kurt wanted Blaine to know how much he had helped him in the past couple weeks.

"But it was fucking expensive!" Blaine snapped, throwing the invoice down and pulling the wallet from his back pocket. "You can't pay."

Kurt watched the paper float to the floor and his smile turned into a frown. He had just been trying to be nice. Once again trying to be friendly had backfired on him. "I already did Blaine. Please. Just accept it. I don't think I can handle more rejection right now..."

Blaine stopped rifling through his wallet and looked towards Kurt, who was trying to keep it together. He was being honest. He was so tired of being made to feel like he couldn't do what he wanted to do - even if it was just paying a bill.

"I... okay." Blaine snapped his wallet back closed and tucked it back into his jeans - having to hold them up with one hand so he didn't push his jeans off with the push of the wallet in his pocket.

"I'll see you tomorrow." Kurt managed to muster out as he turned away from Blaine who stayed in place, and Kurt could feel his eyes on him again. Wasn't having friends supposed to be easier? But Blaine wasn't a friend he reminded himself. Blaine was something else.

He walked back to his car and sat in the driver's seat, leaning back and just listening to the music on the radio for a few minutes before driving home. He needed that few minutes to regain his composure. He needed to be okay when he got home so he could take care of his dad.

The next day Blaine missed the first half of French class, apparently in the principals office according to the gossip he overheard. When Blaine did arrive, his hair was more askew than normal and his wrist was bandaged up - though not well enough since Kurt could see the dark outline of blood under it.

"What happened to you?" Kurt asked him as soon as he could, while the rest of the class was doing their oral practices.

"Got in a fight."

Kurt looked at Blaine's bound wrist and then back up to his face, now seeing the bruise that had blossomed around Blaine's left eye under his curls.

"With who?"

Blaine shrugged and looked away as soon as he noticed Kurt inspecting his eye. "Doesn't matter. Tell me what I missed and let's do our work."

Kurt sighed and begrudgingly agreed, showing Blaine the assignment and insisting on doing the writing for him even though it was Blaine's non-dominant hand that was injured and he still could have done his own writing.

"Did you get in trouble?" Kurt finally asked.

"With Figgins? Nah."

Kurt frowned and wished he knew what to say to make Blaine more forthcoming. Instead he continued working until he noticed that Blaine was scratching at his hand over the bandage and he could see that he was making his hand bleed again by the red seeping up through the layers of wrapping on his hand.

"You need to see the nurse."

Blaine snorted and shook his head.

"Blaine - if you bleed all over my desk, or my clothing, because you're too proud to get your hand looked at, I will announce to the class, in English, that you need to see a doctor because you have a booboo."

Blaine narrowed his eyes at Kurt as he looked to him, trying to gauge if he was being serious. Kurt cocked a solitary brow, challenging Blaine to test his resolve on this and Blaine grumbled, but agreed.

In French, Kurt asked Mademoiselle Bouvier if they could do their oral practices in the hall since they were being distracted by the other members of the class. She agreed readily, and though Blaine looked uncomfortable, Kurt knew that no one else in the class could speak French so well or so rapidly to understand the exchange.

On their way to the nurses office, Kurt looked down at the offending hand and then back up at Blaine's bad eye. "Why do you do this to yourself?"

Blaine looked at Kurt incredulously, "You think I'm the one hitting and cutting myself?"

"That's not what I meant and you know it." Kurt sighed, leading Blaine into the office where the nurse was nowhere to be seen. Blaine collapsed into one of the chairs to wait, but Kurt, having had to dress his own wounds enough, went to the medical storage and began collecting new dressings for Blaine's hand.

"What the hell are you doing...?"

"If we aren't back at class in a good amount of time, then they'll start to whisper and I know you don't want that to happen." He gestured to Blaine to join him at the table.

Blaine sighed and stood up, walking over and sitting in front of Kurt at the medical table where he laid his hand down in offering to Kurt.

Kurt delicately unwrapped Blaine's hand, wrinkling up his nose at the blood, both fresh and dried, he was exposing in the process, and then dropped the used bandage into the trash. Blaine's hand was marred with deep but short cuts, and as Kurt turned the hand in his own, he couldn't figure out what could cause that kind of damage.

"Your mom works at the hospital... are you sure you shouldn't get this checked out there?"

"No!" Blaine instantly snapped and Kurt recoiled a little in surprise. Blaine had certainly made it clear that was not going to be an option. Though, apparently realizing how he scared Kurt, Blaine sighed and shook his head, "No... I don't want my mom to know."

"Figgins didn't call her?" Kurt moved back forward, though his heart was beating at a rapid pace now. He reached for the hydrogen peroxide wipes to clean off the cuts.

Blaine shook his head and Kurt could see him tense up as he realized what Kurt was about to do. Kurt tried to be gentle about it, but he knew the wipes would sting, and he could hear Blaine hiss under his breath as the solution bubbled on his skin as it killed the bacteria.

Kurt worked as quickly as he could, but he also wanted to be thorough if Blaine wasn't willing to see a doctor. He could feel Blaine's pulse quicken through his fingertips as he worked to rewrap the hand, and realized Blaine was probably worried about being in such close and intimate contact with Kurt given that Kurt was gay. He was surprised that Blaine didn't freak out on him like Finn used to when Kurt was trying to wipe Finn's face.

"There... now if you scratch at it again, I will find a way to embarrass you Blaine Anderson." Kurt announced as he finished up.

Blaine looked it over and flexed his fingers to ensure it wasn't tight enough to restrict his movement. He glanced over at Kurt, "You do that and I'll embarrass you right back."

Kurt smirked and then reached over to brush Blaine's curls away from where he had a bruise over his eye. Blaine immediately tensed up and sucked in sharp breath at the action, though to his credit, didn't pull away as Kurt inspected the eye. "Well I've never had a shiner on the eye quite like that, but a cold compress should help the swelling."

Blaine stiffly nodded and Kurt pulled his hand away, watching sadly as Blaine let out a breath and appeared to relax once Kurt's hand was away from him. Blaine knew that being gay wasn't contagious right?

They went back to class, having not seen the nurse at all. Kurt wouldn't have been surprised if the nurse was out smoking in the back like he had seen her do so many times before. There was a reason she was working in a school and not at a hospital.

Kurt had to suffer through the rest of the week in Glee listening to couples singing sweet, lovey-dovey songs and then Sam and Quinn winning the dinner at Breadstix. This week in Glee had only served to reinforce just how alone he was in the world.

So it came as a complete shock when Rachel cornered him to tell him that only were they not that different (please!), but that she understand how lonely he was. He smiled through the interaction, happy to see a less obnoxious side of the diva, but still knowing that even if he wasn't alone, as she said, he still was terribly lonely.

Just don't start counting the days until graduation he had to tell himself once again.