“I’m sorry,” he muttered softly, staring at the documents in front of him. “I don’t know if I fully understand.”

“It’s simple, Blaine,” his father answered. “Your mother and I have made it clear how we feel about this, but you’ve chosen not to hear us.” Douglas Anderson was an imposing figure, his voice deep and his hazel eyes hard. Blaine tried to remember a time before… before now, when things where good and they’d been happy, but it eluded him. His mother bit her lip and he knew she didn’t agree with his father, but she would never speak out against him either.

“You’re giving me an ultimatum?” Blaine whispered.

“It’s the only thing we could think of to get through to you,” Douglas replied, his tone firm.

“Dad, it’s not like I can change this,” Blaine’s eyes filled with tears but he choked them back, refusing to let them fall. “I’m gay. That’s who I am.”

“Then you’ve made your choice,” Douglas sounded defeated and disappointed and those were two words Blaine had never thought to equate with his father. “So be it then.” His parents rose stiffly, his father waiting until his mother was out of the room to speak again. “You have until the end of the school year to find somewhere to live. I suggest you use your time wisely.”

“And NYU?” Blaine had no idea how he forced the words from his lips, his mouth had gone so dry.

“If you want to go to NYU, Blaine, you’ll find a way to pay for it yourself.”

Blaine nodded, not trusting himself to speak. His father hesitated as he headed for the door, pressing his hand lightly to Blaine’s shoulder, and then he was gone.

Blaine stared dumbly at the paperwork in front of him. It was a sheaf of paperwork with revised bank account information and trust information from his parents and all of it stated one thing: Blaine Anderson, unless he was willing to deny his sexuality, would be cut off the day he graduated from high school. He’d turned eighteen a few months ago and Blaine didn’t know whether he should be grateful his parents didn’t just kick him out now.

He would have no money and no place to live. No way to pay for NYU in the fall and no backup plan in place. Blaine shoved the documents to the floor, breathing hard to keep in the pain and anguish.

He would find a way. He was Blaine Anderson of the Westerville Andersons, damn it. He would not let this break him.

He wouldn’t give his parents the satisfaction.

*

Kurt Hummel was motionless. His father’s hand was limp in his and the whining sound of the machine in the corner that kept track of his father’s vitals echoed in his ears. Carole’s sobs broke through after a moment, but Kurt couldn’t move. He wasn’t even sure how he was still breathing.

He didn’t know he could feel this kind of agony.

Kurt registered Finn getting up and helping his mother into the nearby chair she’d been using. The three of them had been keeping vigil for two days, in the wake of his father’s second heart attack and subsequent stroke.

There had been nothing the doctors could do but make him comfortable and wait.

Wait for Burt Hummel to stop clinging to life.

Kurt thought that maybe he would cry when it happened, when his father slipped away from him at last, but he remained stone faced.

The pain he was feeling went too deep for that.

I won’t forget, he promised, staring at his father’s lifeless form on the bed in front of him. I’ll take care of them.

He stood up, letting go of his father’s hand reluctantly, and moving around the bed to Carole’s other side, joining his family in a three-way hug. It was just the three of them now, and Kurt was determined to keep his promise and make his father proud.

*

Blaine was running out of time.

He had a month left and no options. He had no way of even getting to New York, let alone a plan to look for a job there in order to pay his way by. He didn’t qualify for any scholarships or federal money, because he was an Anderson and both NYU and the government didn’t understand what it meant to be cut off financially.

That’s how he’d ended up at his best friend Wes’ house, combing his financial documents diligently, looking for a loophole. Wes was a sophomore at Ohio State (thanks to AP classes and taking college credits in high school, something Blaine had also done), pre-law and currently interning at his family’s law firm. Blaine had no idea what they expected to find on the documents that he hadn’t already seen.

His parents had sewn this whole thing up pretty tightly.

“Have you thought about calling Cooper?” Wes wanted to know, once Blaine explained the situation. Cooper was Blaine’s much older brother, who’d split town for LA the day he had turned eighteen, leaving an eight-year-old Blaine at home and never looking back. He checked in occasionally but Blaine had basically written him off years ago.

“He made it really clear that he wants nothing to do with me, Wes,” Blaine murmured. “He’s not an option.” Wes held his hands up in surrender.

“What’s this?” Wes held up a stack of three or four pieces of paperwork. Blaine looked at his friend, currently sitting at the desk of his Dalton dorm room.

“What’s what?” Blaine asked.

“This set of documents that mention something about a trust from your grandmother,” Wes told him. “I found it wedged in here with some stuff about your mother’s family accounts.”

Blaine hadn’t recalled seeing that document and remembered shoving the folder of paper to the floor in his anger at his parents. He must’ve put them back together and buried it.

“A trust from my grandmother?” Blaine got up and crossed the room to peer over Wes’ shoulder. He scanned down the document and then sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t get it until I’m twenty-five.”

Wes flipped the page to finish reading and then paused. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you can present a valid marriage certificate,” Wes replied, reading the rest. “You can access this money the now, if you were to do that.”

“Are you serious?” Blaine exclaimed. His heart pounded. Could he have found the way out? “But I’m gay. They’d know I was being fraudulent if I showed up with a wife. That’s what started this entire thing.”

Wes smiled. “The rules of the trust don’t dictate that you have to be married to a girl, Blaine.”

Blaine could feel a smile forming slowly, hoping unfurling in his chest.

He’d just found the way out, the answer to all of his problems. “We actually did it,” Blaine whispered.

“Just one question,” Wes continued. “Who are you going to marry?”

*

It had been almost a month since his father’s death. The funeral had been difficult for everyone. Carole had deferred to Kurt’s expertise and let him plan it right down to the flowers.

Against his better judgment, he’d let Carole pick his father’s outfit, almost cringing when he’d seen his father laid out in a flannel shirt and jeans, a baseball cap perched on his head. It was hard to imagine that his father wasn’t just going to get up and start talking, cracking jokes about why they were all there.

Kurt had had to push those thoughts away – he had more important things to focus on. Keeping in control was a way of life for him now. He did what he could to just keep going.

Life had slowly found some semblance of normalcy. Carole returned to work. Finn and Kurt went back to school and helped out in the shop in the afternoons now that the shop was short staffed.

That’s when Kurt discovered the problem.

His father hadn’t had a will, and his life insurance had gone toward paying the funeral costs and hospital bills (thought it hadn’t covered them all). It wasn’t until Kurt sat down to make heads or tails of his father’s books at the shop and then to further go over the family finances that he realized just how much trouble they were in.

Carole’s nursing salary was decent and when combined with his father’s income from the shop it was usually enough for them to get by. With Burt’s passing, the increase in bills, and a balloon payment due on the mortgage on the shop, Kurt had no idea what they were going to do.

Without the income from the shop, Kurt knew that they wouldn’t be able to make the payments on the house – Carole simply didn’t make enough money. He sighed.

He felt a headache forming behind his eyes from the stress of it all. He’d been getting more and more headaches since his father’s passing – too many late nights at the shop, not enough sleep and not enough time in the day to get his homework done. He felt like he was constantly wound, a knot in his stomach so tight he actually felt sick sometimes.

Kurt gritted his teeth and formulated a plan. He’d quit school - there was only a month left. He’d petition for early graduation or get his GED or something. Carole could apply for a bank loan to cover the balloon payment on the shop. He made a note to cancel his NYADA audition – there was no way he could go to New York now. He and Finn could work full time at the shop over the summer and Finn and Rachel could head off to New York together in the fall. They’d figure it all out somehow.

He’d forgotten what they said about best-laid plans.

*

“This is hopeless,” Blaine muttered, crossing another name off his list. “I’m never going to find someone who wants to marry me.” He groaned, his head thumping down on the desk in front of him.

“I’m sorry.” Wes patted his shoulder. Blaine had a week left of school before he graduated school, a week left to find someone to marry. It wasn’t like Blaine could show up and say he was married to someone. He had to show a valid marriage certificate – which meant traveling out of state to one where marriage was legal. On top of that, they’d realized that while he would eventually get the funds released, the trust rules dictated that he be married for a year before he would see the full amount of the funds. In the first twelve months, he’d only have access to the interest, though given the size of the trust it would be more than enough to meet his financial needs.

Finding someone who would agree to that was proving difficult, especially given that most people Blaine knew were pretty young and not looking to get married.

“Short of advertising for someone, I think we’re out of luck,” Wes muttered. Blaine smiled, the perfect idea coming to him. “That was a joke, Warbler Blaine.”

“No, it’s perfect,” Blaine nearly crowed. “We’ll hire an actor and promise them a cut of the trust with an agreement to have the marriage annulled at a year or something.” He bounced lightly in his chair, full of renewed excitement.

*

Kurt’s plans had completely fallen apart. Carole had been denied the bank loan she’d gone for. She’d also refused to let him quit school with such a short amount of time left. The hospital bills were mounting now, things Kurt couldn’t even imagine having to pay for now showing up in the mail. They had less than three months until the balloon payment was due on the shop and no way to pay it.

He closed his tired eyes with a sigh and then went to the sink to wash the grease off his hands. There was a mirror above it and if he hadn’t been so exhausted, Kurt would have been appalled at his appearance when he caught sight of himself.

He was a stranger to himself and to everyone else around him, and he hadn’t the energy to care. He’d virtually dropped out of glee, devoting the time to the shop and his homework. Kurt had insisted that Finn keep it up though, and they’d gone to Nationals and won. Rachel and Mercedes had tried to keep in touch with him, but he refused to see them outside of school – he had more important things to do than shop or talk about cute boys.

If he heard Rachel lecture him one more time about his NYADA audition and how he’d destroyed their dream of going New York together, he might actually scream.

The knot in his stomach got tighter.

He just had to make it one more week – he would graduate and could go to work full time – maybe even pick up a second job.

*

“Who’s next?” Blaine asked Wes, yawning. They’d been interview “candidates” all day – mostly actors, thanks to Wes’ brilliant idea of posting a “casting call” for the role of Blaine’s husband. Blaine had reserved them an oft unused room at Dalton and it was nice to know it hadn’t cost him a thing.

Unfortunately, most of the candidates had been uninterested once they heard they’d actually have to get married and that it would last for a year. A couple of them had hinted they would do it for more money, but Blaine wasn’t going that route unless he had to.

“There’s just one guy left,” Wes said, going over to the door. Blaine hoped that this would be the one. “Kurt Hummel?” he called. Wes stepped back and let Kurt enter the room.