“Oh my God” Mercedes gasped, tears springing to her eyes. She felt a hand grasp her own and looked to the side to see Santana, her usually guarded face looking shocked, scared even.

Mr. Schue looked up, eyes locking with the first person he saw, which turned out to be Quinn, “I-I didn't even grab him that hard,” he looked almost childlike and it sent chills through the blonde.

“I think,” she paused, taking a breath, “I think that he just bruises easily, it's probably a side effect of…of” she looked at Kurt, “of such a dramatic weight loss.”

It was the first time any of them had verbalised it, the first time they had collectively acknowledged it. Sure some of them had noticed, Rachel had pointed out a few weeks previous that the boy had lost weight, but they had put it down to his remarkable growth spurt and the stress of what he was dealing with. They didn't realise it was quite as severe as it turned out to be.

The choir room door suddenly burst open and the school nurse, Mrs. Richardson, hurried in, her shoes squeaking on the floor as she knelt down next to the prone boy, Mike skidding in behind her seconds later.

“Alright, Kurt is it? Kurt, Honey, can you hear me?” Kurt's eyes opened again blearily and he made a soft sound of acknowledgement, “Okay that's good Sweetie. Now I need you to tell me where it hurts, did you hit your head or anything when you fell?”

Kurt shook his head slightly, which made him wince as the pounding headache became worse. Mrs. Richardson carried on her checks, not wanting to move the boy to her office before having a better understanding of what was wrong with him. When she caught sight of his arm and felt his prominent ribs it became pretty clear.

“Kurt? I want to come with me to my office now, so we can check you over properly, can you try and sit up for me?”

Kurt struggled to raise his head and shoulders off the floor, but not for long, he didn't have to strength to hold it and fell back moments later. Mrs.Richardson, anticipating the movement, protected his head from the hard choir room floor with her palm. She saw the tears well up in his eyes and knew he was embarrassed at his baby-like strength and hushed him quickly, “Hey it's okay, Honey, we're going to get you better, alright?” She looked up at the crowd surrounding them and spotted Will, indicating with an incline of her head that they needed some space.

“Alright, come on guys, let's step back a bit,” he held his hands out and the students reluctantly moved back until they were clustered around the chairs. They all looked spooked and the nurse was thankful they had sat down; half of them looked ready to collapse themselves. She turned her focus back on Kurt as Will spoke quietly to Finn.

“Mr. Schue he's my brother, I can, like carry him or something, he can't even stand! Please, come on, I won't get in the way.”

Will looked back at Kurt, still lying on the floor and his chest twinged, guilt flooding him, “Yeah…yeah okay, you're right. Listen, I'm going to get everyone out of here, if I can, just-look after him, okay?” Finn nodded, looking grimly determined, before making his way over to the nurse and his brother. Will turned back to the rest of the Glee club, “Come on guys, we need to clear out-” Some of the group-the ones who didn't look like they were about to pass out-protested their being thrown out, wanting to see what happened with Kurt, but the teacher steered them out with the assurance that they would find out as soon as possible.

Once the only ones left in the choir room were the brothers and the nurse, the latter gently pulled Kurt into a sitting position. Kurt felt his vision swim again and he inhaled sharply.

“You're okay, Honey, we're going to get you up now, alright?”

“Here,” Finn stepped forward to help, “I'm his brother,” he told the nurse.

She nodded, indicating that he should help her lift Kurt, “Up we go now.” The two smoothly pulled the thin boy up, each grabbing an arm, ready to make the trek down the hall to the nurse's office. Finn had to hold in his gasp as his hand encircled Kurt's entire bicep, with room to spare. It made him sick to think that he hadn't even noticed that the boy who he lived with had lost so much weight. Sure Rachel had mentioned something to him about how skinny Kurt had gotten but Finn just thought she was like admiring him or something. Everyone knew how much girls obsessed over losing weight, Quinn used to be really weird about it, going all ‘crazy Quinn' whenever suggested going to get burgers, screeching at him about carbs or something. And well, he didn't mean to be like, offensive, but Kurt acted like a girl a lot of the time, he sometimes called himself an honesty girl or something like that (Finn usually zoned out when he started talking girl-stuff). Anyway, the point was Finn thought that Kurt was losing weight to look like one of the guys in that magazine he loved, the one with the crazy outfits and weird hair. But this, this was like those people that they learned about in health class, the ones who were like making themselves sick and starving themselves to be skinny, but not model-skinny, like nearly-dead skinny.

Finn felt sick. And guilty. And then sick again. He wondered what Burt was going to say, his step-dad was like scary-protective of Kurt, he'd seen that first-hand. He wasn't sure what the man would do when he found out what Kurt had being doing to himself.

Kurt closed his eyes, the humiliation was so much worse than his light-headedness, which he had gotten used to over the last few months. The last thing he needed now was for the bell to ring and for the entire school to see him practically being carried through the hallways. It seemed to take an age for the trio to reach the office but once they passed through the door and Kurt was able to lie down again, he didn't care about anything outside of those four walls. All he could think about was that it was over, they all knew and they were going to try and get him to stop. He could imagine them all crying as they told him that he didn't need to do it, that he had people who loved him. He imagined Rachel organising an uplifting ‘we're here for you' song for them to sing. If they'd been there for him then maybe theyd have noticed sooner.

“Okay Kurt,” the nurse started, sitting on a chair beside him, “we need to get your blood pressure back up, first I want you to eat this,” she held up a granola bar.

Kurt paled further at the thought but took it in his trembling hands to stop the look she was sending him. He peeled back the wrapper after a moment of unsuccessfully tugging at it with trembling fingers and stared at the bar.

Mrs. Richardson put her hand over his, urging him to lift the granola bar to his mouth. She saw his eyes widen and he gagged, hand covering his mouth, head shaking from side to side as tears built up in his eyes.

“No,” he whispered, turning his head away.

“Kurt,” the nurse spoke sternly, “You have to eat this.” The boy shook his head again, the smell of the sugary food making him feel even sicker than before.

“Dude they're really good, just take a bite okay? You look like you're gonna pass out,” Finn interjected, stepping forward and placing a hand on Kurt's frail shoulder.

“No,” Kurt repeated, more firmly, he raised his wet eyes to his brother's, “Please don't make me.” Finn had never seen him like that; he looked like he was being forced to commit murder.

“Kurt if you don't eat this I'm going to have to take you to the hospital and-“

“No, you can't, you can't, I won't,” the boy was hysterical now, tears streaming down his hollow cheeks, whispering that he wouldn't go to the hospital. Just as the nurse was about to continue, there was a knock on the door and Emma Pillsbury walked in, her wide eyes even more so than usual as they took in the occupants of the room.

“Hi,” she spoke softly as she walked towards the bed, “Hi, Kurt, Mr. Schuester told me about what happened; your father is on his way.” Kurt let out a small, wounded noise at the news and Finn tightened his hold on his shoulder reflexively. “It's okay, he's just concerned, and once he gets here and you get the okay from Mrs. Richardson here, we're going to have a chat, alright?” Kurt took a deep breath, brow creasing, but he made himself nod to the school counsellor, arms coming up to hug his own slim waist. “Good, that's good, Kurt.”

“Maybe now you'll take some of this?” Mrs. Richardson held up the bar again, “Or would you rather I tell your Dad that you wouldn't?” She raised an eyebrow, smirking when Kurt raised his scared, guilty eyes to her before taking back the food, “Excellent.”

He managed two small bites before they heard a voice in the corridor, coupled with quick footsteps that increased in volume until the door swung open and Burt Hummel was stood in the doorway. His eyes flew to his son, propped up on the bed, “Kurt!”