Rachel had offered to watch Sunny once again so he could study in peace, and he was sitting at the library, going through notes on his next reading assignment for Professor Evans, and he was waiting for his phone to ring.

Begging for it, actually.

Not because he wanted out of his homework, no, and it wasn't even Sunny that he was worried about today.

It was Blaine.

Despite the awkward beginning to their afternoon, the rest of it and the evening following had turned out pretty good. Blaine had proved himself a masterful singer as he took on the role of Fiero during their Wicked reenactment, an image which still gave him a little thrill, and not only that, he had been great with Sunny. And she had seemed to love him, and though there was a voice telling him he should be more careful, more cautious, he had shaken it off to bask in the glow of contentment he felt at including Blaine in his little family. It had been pretty close to perfect, and even when Rachel and Brittany had returned from their belly-dancing class, the other boy hadn't even flinched at the addition to the chaos. He had fawned over Rachel, asking for stories of other performances and NYADA, and he had somehow managed to hold an intelligent conversation with Brittany, all while holding a bouncing four-year-old on his lap as they sat around the dinner table.

The evening had turned out, in a word, perfect.

Except it had been three days since he had heard from Blaine, and Kurt was caught between wondering if he had somehow written his number down wrong, or if he had scared the boy and ran him off.

"Don't be such a pessimist," he told himself, but he felt a hint of misgiving creep up his spine.

There had been a boy back at the community college in Ohio, a brief flirtation that had culminated in two dates that had made Kurt think that maybe being stuck in in homophobe-central wasn't the end of the world. He'd been on cloud nine for those few days, until a call from Brittany, worried over what turned out to be Sunny's first teething, had interrupted an almost-kiss. He had apologized, though he couldn't help a smile as he explained the situation, until the word daughter had left his lips, and the smile followed shortly as the boy shut down and said he would 'see him around.' They hadn't spoken since, and Kurt had decided that he would wait until Sunny was older before he would try something of the romantic nature again.

So what was so special about Blaine, then? that small, snide voice in the back of his mind asked, and he rolled his eyes.

He had been asking himself the same question since he had decided to let Blaine meet his family, and he still hadn't found an answer.

His ponderings were interrupted by the phone buzzing, and a wide smile crossed his lips as he reached for it, the word Finally crossing his mind before he realized that it wasn't Blaine's number crossing the screen, but an unknown instead. It was a 406-number, so he knew it was local, but he couldn't fathom why anyone he didn't already have in his contact list would be trying to call him. Unless maybe it was one of the new girls at the caf� asking him to take a shift? He sighed at the thought; he had cut back his hours to almost none when school started. He honestly did not understand the type of people who could go to school full-time and work full-time also. And with a baby? He was down to every other Saturday, which sucked on two points: first, with the long span of time between shifts, his body wasn't really used to standing for eight hours at a time; second, though they had given him a raise before summer's end, his paychecks were still pitiful.

So take the call and pick up some hours, for Christ's sake! the voice in his head shouted, and though he rolled his eyes, he pressed the connect button as he pressed the cell to his ear.

"This is Kurt Hummel, how may I help you?" he asked calmly, and almost jumped at the biting tone that answered him.

"Are you that porcelain boy Brittany's dating?"

He blinked in surprise, and a little insult, scowling as he replied, "Who wants to know?"

"This is Coach Sue Sylvester, in charge of the cheer squad that Brittany is on."

"Cheer squad," he repeated, and then felt all blood leave his face. "What's wrong? Is Brittany hurt? Where is she? Did you take her to St Vincent's? Or Billings Clinic, or--"

"Hold on, Porcelain. Brittany is fine. Physically, anyway," she added, and any reassurance her first words gave him vanished in an instant.

"What do you mean? What's wrong?" he asked again, rising to shove everything into his messenger bag.

"It looks to me like she's gone into some sort of shock."

"Shock? But you said she didn't hurt herself--"

"She didn't," the woman cut him off, a gentle tone mixing with the authoritative one she had been using from the beginning. "Now I don't know exactly what happened. But one minute, the girl is doing the routine, smiling and everything, and then the next she looks like she's seen a ghost, and all of a sudden, she's rocking to herself in the corner."

Kurt fumbled around the other chair at his table, and cursed low as he made his way to the door.

"I don't understand," he began. "She's rocking in a corner? What did she see?"

"If I knew, Porcelain, I'd make sure she never saw it again. All I can get out of her is some pitiful whimpers and your name."

"Christ," he muttered, pushing the doors open only to wince at the flash of cold as he exited into the chill, November air. "You're in the gym, right?"

"The small one, to the left of the main one."

"I'll be there in a minute, then. Thanks, Coach, I--"

"No problem, Porcelain," the woman said before the connection was cut off, and while a part of Kurt wondered at the lack of social graces the woman apparently had, another was grateful that she didn't waste time with any nonsense chit-chat. Pocketing his phone, Kurt broke into a run as he headed toward the fitness center, and prayed to someone, anyone, that Brittany was okay.