Now that he thought about it, Kurt Hummel had never pegged himself as a doctor. He had always figured he'd do something spectacular, like become a Broadway mega-star or the next Alexander McQueen. Even after his father's heart attack, he wanted to be something big. He'd taken good care of his father, and wanted him to be better, but that was just being a good son, right?

It wasn't until David Karoffsky's suicide attempt that he considered being a doctor. Because seeing someone so young, with so much potential, lying in that hospital bed, heartbroken, with no will to go on, had hurt him so badly. And what hurt more was that he knew this wasn't the first case like this, not even in Allen County, Ohio. And he also knew that it wouldn't be the last.

He was upset when NYADA rejected him, sure. Devestated, even. But maybe, he thought, it was some kind of sign.

Little did he know it was fate, which would eventually present itself in the form of a girl with a pink dress and pigtails.

"You're a guy people can talk to."

It was something Blaine Anderson had heard his whole life. He didn't mind; it was true, after all. Blaine was a great listener.

Not only could he listen, but he loved it. He wanted to make people feel better, whether it was with his words or his music. But he'd never been able to find a way to combine the two.

Well, not until his best friend Wes's father, a surgeon at the local hospital, had told Blaine about a new position opening up: a musical therapist.

Someone who got paid to listen to people and play them music.

He took the job without hesitation.

He assumed he'd be working with old rockers, on the verge of death, or something like that. But instead he was assigned a teenage girl, who'd dressed to the nines and taken a razor to her wrists. He thought he might have trouble with her, that maybe he'd cry too much or just hug her a lot and make her uncomfortable. But a case was a case, and money was money, so he accepted.

And what happened next changed him forever.

To Jodi Kale, there was nothing more beautiful than her own blood. The way it trickled, dark reddish-brown like the stones she was so often hit with, the way it tinted her too-light skin. 

"Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself!" She heard the other teens commands, even in her sleep, the only time she had to herself. She felt their fists and sticks and stones, even when they weren't there, and she was locked in her bedroom listening to Escape The Fate.

She'd cut a billion times before, but this was different. This time was the last time she'd cut, the last time she'd cry, the last time she'd breathe.

Hanging in her closet was her favorite dress, pink with tiny blue hearts, the top corseted and the bottom short and puffy. She pulled it on, zipped up the side, and slipped into her bubblegum-pink heels. With shaking hands, she applied mascara to her eyelashes, and slick, shiny, candy-looking lip gloss to her mouth. Then, she took the razor blade in her right hand and slashed her left wrist open. She laughed and cried as the blood spilled from her arm, staining her hemp bracelet and covering all the old scars. She tiptoed into the living room then, positioned herself on the couch, and slit the right wrist. The blood pouring out of her stained the sofa's soft, white fabric and she felt herself blissfully slip out of consciousness. The last thing she heard was her mother's scream.

~*~*~

"Jodi?"

The voice was unfamiliar, high but undeniably masculine, dripping with general concern. She opened her eyes to see a young man looming over her wrist. He couldn't have been older than twenty-five, with crystal blue eyes and a creamy white complexion, and he was biting his bottom lip anxiously.

"W-who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Kurt. I'll be taking care of you for a while, okay?" The man smiled, finishing the last stitch on her left wrist.

"Oh. Okay," she said, flexing her right hand, as that wrist must have been sewn back together while she was still unconscious. She smiled sleepily at him. "Kurt," she mused. 

Kurt chuckled. "You should get some sleep, okay? Your therapist will be in here soon."

"Th-therapist?"

"Someone named Blaine Anderson. Your mom said you like music?"

Jodi smiled. "I'm gonna be on Broadway."

"Well, Mr. Anderson's a musical therapist. He plays guitar!"

"Is he nice?"

"I don't know, I've never met him." When he saw Jodi's frightened expression, he added, "But he must be. Don't worry."

Jodi grinned and her eyelids drooped. "I hope he's pretty like you."

Kurt blushed a bit. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Jodi said, and drifted off to sleep.