"Mom?" Cooper answered immediately. "Thank god. We've been trying-" He grimaced, running a hand over his face. "You saw the news."

Kurt's stomach plummeted. He couldn't even imagine what the elder Andersons must have felt finding out about their son being brutally beaten from a newscast. The Andersons might be more distant than Kurt's family, but even Blaine's parents had to have been horrified to see their son's name on television in relation to a hate crime when they must have assumed he was at home on Spring Break.

"I- Yeah, he's awake. They weren't sure for a while." Pause. "No, no brain damage. The last thing he remembers is the day before the- It happened on Monday, Mom.  The last thing Blaine remembers is Sunday evening, but the doctors said memory loss is norm-"

Cooper pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand as his mother kept interrupting him. He listened for a few moments before speaking again. "He's having another surgery tomorrow. For his knee." Cooper ran an irritated hand through his hair. "Those assholes beat the shit out of him, Mom. He has broken ribs, a broken arm, broken fingers, torn ligaments in his knee, his brain was swelling..."

Cooper slumped against the doorway, shutting his eyes as his mother spoke on the other end. Kurt could just make out a tinny higher-pitched voice from his spot on the couch.

"He's going to be okay," Cooper said quietly. Kurt turned away, suddenly feeling like he was intruding as Cooper slid to the floor, his back against the doorframe. "Blaine's strong. He's a fighter." Pause. "Yeah, Mom. I can pick you guys up from the airport. Call me when you book a flight."

After a few more moments of listening to his mother, Cooper hung up his phone and sighed. "They're, uh, they're going to get the first flight out of port."

Kurt turned to look back at Cooper and nodded. "So they really didn't know?"

Cooper shook his head. "Dad's been a work-a-holic lately-not that that's much of a change," he added in a bitter aside, "so apparently my mother's stipulation for the trip was that they be completely away from technology. Their phones were off and they hadn't even brought their laptops." His shoulders slumped. "They were at a restaurant in port when they saw the news."

"Oh."

Cooper's head thunked quietly against the doorframe. The tense silence stretched on as Cooper remained mute and Kurt had no idea what to say; he hadn't had much interaction with Blaine's parents in the time he'd known Blaine, though he got the distinct impression they didn't approve of him. He just wasn't sure whether it was because he was Blaine's boyfriend-actual proof of Blaine's orientation that they couldn't ignore-or that he was unable to pass the way Blaine was. And Blaine always changed the subject whenever Kurt asked.

But either way, Blaine had done his best to keep Kurt out of his parents' paths, though they seemed to travel a lot, making it a fairly easy task. And Blaine far preferred to spend time at the Hummel-Hudson house anyway, since Kurt's dad and Carole were happy to include him in their family events, like Friday night dinners.

So while Kurt hadn't spent much time around Blaine's parents, he did have a distinct impression of the Anderson family dynamics with everything Blaine and Cooper had told him. He had a sinking feeling that things were going to get more complicated-the last thing Blaine needed right now-once the Andersons arrived. He only wished he knew what he could do about it.

"I'm going to crash," Cooper said finally, pushing himself to his feet.

"Night," Kurt said for lack of anything better to say.

Cooper gave a short wave before walking toward the stairs, though he paused at the bottom of the stairwell. "Kurt, as far as I'm concerned, you're welcome to say here. But I can't make any promises for my parents."

Kurt's stomach twisted, but he knew Cooper was right. He wouldn't be the cause of extra drama; that was really the only thing he could do right now.

"I understand," he said quietly. "I appreciate you letting me stay at all." Because what else could he say? Cooper and Blaine hadn't chosen their parents any more than Kurt had, yet Kurt seemed to have won the parental lottery.

Cooper opened his mouth like he wanted to say something but, apparently thinking better of it, shut it again. He nodded and silently headed up the stairs. It wasn't until his footsteps had faded away behind the shutting of his bedroom door that Kurt dropped his face into his hands.

If it wasn't one thing...

With a sigh, Kurt turned the lights out in the living room and made a mental note to call his dad the next day.

-----

At lunchtime on Monday, Will stood in front of a somber glee club in the choir room, one empty chair drawing surreptitious looks from everyone in the room. Finn was sitting off to the side, but Will nodded for him to stand up next to him. As Finn moved, all eyes focused on the two men and the quiet murmurs cut off.

Will glanced around the room, making sure he had everyone's attention before taking a breath and speaking. "As we all know, last week we nearly lost one of our own," he began, immediately wincing at the obvious statement.

Word had spread around the school like wildfire that morning; the attack had made national news the previous week and Blaine was popular around the school, so the attack was the only thing the student body was talking about. There had also been a faculty meeting, but the only information Figgins had was what he could glean from the news and a short call from Blaine's older brother that morning with a brief update on his condition.

Will was aghast that anyone could do such a brutal thing to a kid, but he also remembered Kurt's junior year when he'd been forced to transfer to Dalton because of Karofsky's bullying. Kids these days went through so much more than Will ever had at their age.

"How is he?" Marley asked immediately.

"He's doing better," Finn answered with a shrug when Will looked at him. Finn was the one with the most up-to-date information, after all. "I saw him yesterday and he was smiling and joking around some. But he's still in a lot of pain and is sleeping a lot."

"Can we visit him after school?" Brittany asked.

Finn shook his head. "Kurt said to wait ‘cause he had surgery on his knee this morning. It went fine, but I guess he's pretty out of it from the painkillers. And his parents are coming in tonight."

Brittany frowned but nodded, lacing her fingers with Sam's and squeezing. Sam wrapped an arm around her shoulders. On Sam's other side, Tina was biting her lip and slouching in her chair.

"What about the assholes that did this to him?" Jake asked from his seat in the back row. His hand was clenching and unclenching a fist.

"The cops arrested three guys," Finn said. "They were, uh," he trailed off, scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably. "They were the same guys who hurt him at his old school. Before Dalton."

There was a combination of confused murmurs from the younger members of the club and outrage from the older ones.

Will, for his part, hadn't been aware that Blaine had been chased to Dalton because of bullying like Kurt had, and the realization that the bright, energetic boy who led the New Directions was hiding pain like that was haunting. Will was an educator; he wanted to help his students become the best people they could be, but realizing he had no idea about such an important part of his lead soloist's life was more than a little humbling. Blaine always seemed so put together that it never occurred to Will that there might be something else going on under the surface.

But then he hadn't known about the extent of the bullying Kurt had endured before he'd left for Dalton either. What else didn't he know about his kids? He resolved then and there that he was going to make sure to pay closer attention to the kids and be the support that they needed. He'd always had a nagging suspicion that he'd failed Kurt, not really knowing what to do with him. But he didn't have to repeat that failure with these new New Directions.

For the rest of the period, Finn answered questions from the glee kids as best he could-the revelation that Sebastian Smythe was the witness who identified Blaine's attackers was in particular met with shock and suspicion-before they made plans to visit Westerville Memorial the next day after school with a card and a song. When the bell rang to signal the end of lunch, Will quickly broke in.

"Ms. Pillsbury wanted me to remind you that her door is always open if you need to talk," he told the kids, who were grabbing their bags and heading for the door.

"What, like a grief counselor?" Ryder asked curiously.

Sugar gave him an odd look. "But no one died."

"Is she even qualified for that?" Kitty demanded, raising an eyebrow.

Will just shrugged, not having the answer to that, and watched the kids leave.

It was only after they'd all left and he was standing alone with Finn that he realized that Wade hadn't said anything the entire meeting.

-----

Blaine groaned as consciousness slowly returned, the throb in his knee radiating through his veins all the way to the tips of his finger and toes. The ache of his other injuries was muted in compared. The pain seemed external and internal at the same time, hitting his knee from all directions.

"Blaine, honey?"

Blaine's eyes snapped open at the familiar voice and he turned his head to see what he was sure must be a painkiller-induced hallucination. It wouldn't be the first one he'd had since waking up, and there was no way...

"There you are."

Blaine blinked several times, not trusting his eyes. The drugs left him sluggish and hazy; that had to be what this was. But when she reached out and took his hand, the contact felt so real. He shivered in spite of himself.

"Mom?" Blaine whispered.

Maria Anderson smiled widely at that, her eyes crinkling the way Blaine's did when he smiled. "Hi sweetie."

"It's good to see you awake, Blaine."

Blaine glanced over to see his father sitting to his mother's left. Oh. "Dad."

Charles Anderson nodded at him and leaned forward in his chair while Maria stroked the back of his hand gently.

"W-when did you...?"

"About an hour ago," another voice said.

Blaine started and turned his head to see Cooper sitting on his other side. His brother gave him a wan smile before nodding to their parents.

"I picked them up from the airport, but when we got here, you were asleep."

Blaine frowned, trying to make sense of that. "When...?" he asked again.

Somehow Cooper seemed to know what he was asking. "They called late last night. By the time I got here this morning, you were already in surgery. And I've got to say," he said with obvious forced levity, "you've been pretty worthless ever since, Squirt."

"Don't call me that," Blaine muttered without any heat.

"We saw it on the news," his mother said quietly.

"We were on a technology-free vacation," his father added. "After we saw the news, we turned our phones on and saw all the calls from Cooper."

"And Kurt," Cooper added. Blaine thought there might have been a note of challenge in that.

His mother stopped stroking Blaine's hand for a moment before resuming the soothing motion. "Yes."

Blaine bit his lip but said nothing. This was not the time for a repeat of this conversation. His parents were here, having cut their vacation short for him. Wasn't that enough?

Wasn't it?

Blaine swallowed and Cooper put a hand on his arm, just above his cast, and squeezed gently. Even in his haze of pain and painkillers, Blaine had noticed that Cooper had purposefully sat opposite their parents. He wasn't sure what it meant, but he still found himself appreciating the gesture nonetheless.

"We booked the first flight back to Ohio," Charles said, picking up the thread of conversation. "Someone must have tipped the media off that we were traveling because there were news trucks outside the hospital waiting for us. Vultures, the lot of them," he muttered.

It took Blaine a moment to register what his parents had said. They'd seen his attack on the news. In some foreign port.

"The news?" he asked, looking between his parents and his brother. "What?"

"Blaine-" his mother started.

But Blaine shook his head, ignoring the headache growing behind his eyes. What was going on? He felt like everything was spiraling around him and he'd only just realized it. "What's going on?"

"Your case was picked up by the national news, Blainey," Cooper said quietly.

Blaine looked at him in alarm. "I don't... Why?" he breathed. He was feeling short of breath and his ribs ached as he tried to take short breaths. Cooper shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "Coop. Please."

His brother's shoulders drooped. "Hate crimes are a big issue right now."

Blaine felt like he was going to be sick. Of course it was a hate crime. From what he'd been told of that night, he'd been targeted because he was gay. And the last time the same three guys had attacked him had also been because he was gay. He'd done his reading; that was the definition of a hate crime...

But somehow hearing it put into words, hearing it categorized, shifted something inside him.

"And you're the family friend of a Congressman who is well-known for his stance in favor of gay rights," Cooper continued.

"Cooper-" Charles admonished, but Blaine barely heard him.

Politics. Blaine was lying in a hospital bed with almost a week he couldn't remember and injuries that kept him from moving and it had been reduced to politics.

Grey began creeping into the corners of his vision again.

"Honey, you look pale," his mother said. "Should I get a nurse?"

Blaine screwed his eyes shut as his headache continued to grow. His knee throbbed, his head ached, his ribs pounded, and his arm felt like a dead weight. And his stomach was in his throat, giving him the sensation of falling. As the world fell away, voices faded in and out around him.

"-oing to get a nurse."

"You shouldn't have told hi-"

"-y not, Dad? It's true."

"You don't know tha... --on't know it was because he's..."

"-ay. He's gay, Dad. It's not a bad word. You ca..."

"It's not polite. It's all be... --at boy he was see..."

"-tlemen, please calm down. You're distressing Bla-"

"-ine, sweetie, this... with the pain. It'll hel-"

And then there was mercifully nothing.

-----

Roy leaned against a wall, a baseball bat resting on his shoulder.  "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Blaine," he said conversationally.

"Do what?" Blaine asked, eyes darting between Roy and his car.

"Run. Not that you have anywhere to go."

-----

The next morning, Blaine was awake early and he was antsy. His knee was throbbing painfully, but his mind would not stop turning over the idea that his story had made the national news. He needed to see for himself. So, once he'd gotten another dose of painkillers, he'd asked a nurse bring him a remote-which was accompanied by a stern warning to turn it off if he started getting any sort of headache.

He flipped through the news channels, finally settling on CNN around the time visiting hours started. Kurt and Sebastian walked into his room a few minutes after eight, neither making eye contact with the other and they took seats on opposite sides of Blaine's bed.

"Cooper called me last night to say he'd keep your parents occupied for a couple of hours so we could visit without any drama," Kurt informed him once he'd settled in.

Blaine nodded and sent out silent thanks to his brother. Whatever deficiencies Cooper had had as an older brother when Blaine was younger, he was making up for them now in spades. And Blaine couldn't help but think it had a lot to do with the fact that he hadn't been present after Sadie Hawkins. Normally he might have been annoyed at his brother's need to fit himself into Blaine's business, especially as a means of penance or whatever it was, but for now he appreciated it more than he could say.

Sebastian nodded toward the TV, which Blaine had lowered the volume on. There was some story about the stock market on. "Interesting choice," he said with a raised eyebrow.

Blaine cracked a wry smile. "I hear I'm famous," he said. "I wanted to see for myself."

Kurt bit his lip. "Blaine-"

There was something in his tone, something wary like Blaine was a spooked animal, that for some reason sparked Blaine's irritation. "Kurt, I'm not some... child," he nearly spat, "that needs to be protected from the big scary world out there." He shook his head in derision. "I know what's out there. I need to see this for myself."

Kurt looked back at him, wide-eyed, and suddenly Blaine's anger was gone, vanished as though it had never existed. He shut his eyes and slumped back into the pillows.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, exhausted and embarrassed all at once.

"Hey," Kurt said, reaching over and taking his hand. "It's okay."

"If I were in the amount of pain you must be in right now, I wouldn't be nearly as nice as you're being," Sebastian added. "In fact, I'd take the excuse to bitch everyone out."

Blaine huffed a weak laugh and opened his eyes to glance over at Sebastian, who had his arms crossed against his chest and was sitting back in his chair.

"As if you need an excuse," Kurt muttered.

"Pot, meet kettle," Sebastian retorted.

Blaine felt more than saw Kurt tense and he sighed, looking back at the television. "Guys."

They both fell silent after that. After a few uncomfortable moments, Blaine picked up the remote and turned the volume back up on the television and all three settled in to watch.

Minutes ticked by in awkward silence. Eventually, Blaine glanced over at Kurt, who was typing into his phone. The other boy looked up when he felt Blaine's eyes on him and shrugged in embarrassment.

"Rachel," he said with a nod toward his phone. "She's been desperate for updates, and she and Finn aren't exactly on speaking terms right now."

Blaine nodded, turning back to the television. The scrolling marquee on the screen was reading Tuesday, March 25. Something about that seemed odd. It took a moment for his sluggish mind to make the connection, but then the pieces fell into place immediately: Rachel, New York, Tuesday. He turned back to Kurt.

"It's Tuesday."

Kurt raised an eyebrow at that. "Yes. Yesterday was Monday and tomorrow is Wednesday."

But Blaine didn't rise to the bait. "That means Spring Break is over. Shouldn't you be back in New York?"

Kurt went still at that, his face going carefully blank. Blaine frowned at the response. There was definitely something going on.

"Kurt."

Sebastian cleared his throat and pushed himself to his feet, making more noise than was probably necessary. "I'm going to get some coffee."

Kurt shot him a look that was a mix between irritated and thankful, but Sebastian didn't notice as he left the room and shut the door without a backward look. Blaine briefly wondered if Sebastian knew what was going on but quickly dismissed it since he and Kurt weren't exactly on civil terms.

Once Sebastian was gone, Blaine turned back to Kurt. "What's going on?"

"I..."

Blaine clenched his jaw, annoyance rising again. "Didn't we just talk about this?"

Kurt sighed. "I'm not trying to protect you," he denied uneasily. "I just... didn't want you to know?"

Blaine blinked. "So you're lying to me?" Kurt pursed his lips and Blaine sighed. "Kurt."

"It's not-" Kurt started but cut himself off. He swallowed and then blurted out, "I'm taking a leave of absence. From NYADA."

For a moment, Blaine wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. The pain and meds must be messing with his hearing because there was no way Kurt had just said what Blaine thought he had. But Kurt was looking at him with that determined look that challenged him to say anything about it, and wow. Okay, maybe he had said that.

"What?" was all Blaine managed to respond.

"As much as I hate to give the meerkat credit," Kurt said, "he got me thinking."

"Sebastian got you thinking," Blaine echoed with an impending sense of dread. Sebastian might be one of Blaine's closest friends these days, but he knew just what the other boy thought of Kurt. Anything he might have gotten Kurt thinking about couldn't be good.

Kurt nodded. "I realized that I was being selfish." He took a breath and said, "I came back last week to ask you to get back together."

Blaine thought his heart might have skipped a beat in his shock. "What?" he rasped.

Kurt nodded, looking a bit wistful. "I broke up with Adam because I realized that I still loved you and that was never going to change." He shrugged helplessly. "I forgave you a long time ago but hadn't even realized it."

Blaine's mouth had gone dry. This had to be a dream because there was no way Kurt was sitting in front of him talking about getting back together. That just wasn't in the realm of remote possibility. It was more than Blaine was ready to deal with.

Kurt shook his head. "Anyway, I came back to talk to you. And we never got the chance because of, well," he said, gesturing around him.

Blaine nodded mutely, trying to figure out where this was going. Everything felt like it was spiraling around him again.

"But while we were waiting for you to wake up I realized, thanks to Sebastian of all people," he added with an eye roll, "that I wasn't being fair to you." Kurt's voice went soft then and he squeezed Blaine's hand. "Even if this hadn't happened and we had decided to get back together, I was still leaving at the end of the week. I was still going to leave you back here in Lima, just like in the fall."

"Kurt, that's your life," Blaine replied, shaking his head. "Your dream. You worked so hard for it. You deserve it."

But Kurt shook his head. "You're my dream, Blaine Devon Anderson. All of that other stuff is meaningless if I can't share it with the man that I love."

Blaine opened his mouth, but Kurt cut him off. "And it's not like I'm giving it up completely. I explained to Dean Tibideaux that my dad's sick and that my best friend's in the hospital." His mouth twisted wryly. "She saw the news too, so understood." He shook his head. "Anyway, I won't get credit for the classes that I'm in now, but I can restart in the fall."

"Kurt-"

"The paperwork's already been filed, so there's no point in trying to talk me out of it," Kurt said stubbornly, inclining his head. "I'm not going to leave you behind this time, Blaine. I'm not."

For a long moment, Blaine just stared at Kurt, the realization of what he'd just given up for Blaine's sake washing over him like a tidal wave. He wasn't sure what to feel. Relief warred with worry. Happiness warred with uncertainty. Gratitude warred with indignation.

But Kurt returned his gaze without a trace of reservation about what he'd done. And that, more than anything, let the tension start draining from his shoulders. He swallowed and nodded.

"Okay."