Blaine Anderson was adamant about one thing. The day he turned 18, he would sign up. He would join the army and fight for his country. Men all around him were signing up. Boys around him were attempting to join up. Noah Puckerman the year previous, at only 16, had practically been on a ship to England before he was caught and dragged back to Lima. If he could, if there was even the slightest possibility he could get away with it, Blaine would have faked his age and laid his life down for his country.

His mother had begged him to not be so rash. He was a bright boy, she'd say. With University starting only a short time after he turned 18, it would be stupid to join the fight. His sister was far from pleased with Blaine's wishes, but knew how much it meant to him. Her husband was part of the Navy, a vital player in the transportation of goods to Great Britain. She already missed him terribly, sick with worry about whether or not he would come home. She didn't want her baby brother off in the midst of a war too.

As far as Blaine's father was concerned, this was Britain's war, and though he supported supplying the country with food and resources, he was not happy about sacrificing American soldiers and civilians in their plight to defeat Germany.

"We are fighting the Japanese," he would say. And Blaine would bite back the retort of "No, we are fighting the Nazis. This is more than a petty fight between the Brits and Germans." But his father was an ignorant man. He chose to be ignorant, that was. He would turn a blind eye to the increasing number of Jewish immigrants coming into the country from Europe. Refuse to acknowledge the rumors of what was happening to them in Europe; about the so called "Holiday Camps".

It was the views of many of the older men. Many of them had changed these views after the devastations of Pearl Harbor, but there were a few who believed the English had started this petty fight and were bringing the whole world into it. But Blaine wasn't an ignorant boy. He didn't close any eyes or ears, going out himself to find out exactly what was happening in Europe.

So, his father had believed him foolish to want to join the fight. But Blaine was adamant. He would not be a coward. Not in the ways he had been before. He could redeem himself. He could fight and that lump in his throat from times before would go.

Shortly after Blaine's 17th birthday, Victory in Europe was announced. Their war was over. Pen to paper hadn't yet happened, but the Germans had surrendered. The Brits and their allies had won, and soon the horror stories of the camps they had liberated came to light, and even Blaine's father couldn't turn a blind eye anymore.

The Jewish members of their town had spent the past six years worrying over their family in Europe. Some mourned their losses; some had no family over there but still spent time grieving for them. The Synagogue held a special service in memory of all those who died, and Blaine went along. He went with his friend Rachel and her father, but would have gone anyway even if he hadn't had his Jewish friend grieving.

"It wasn't just Jews," Blaine said to her, as they sat cross legged in her bedroom. "It was Negros," he thought briefly of the Jones' and Rachel's father's friend, "and the disabled ," he thought of his choir friend, Artie, "people like Becky Jackson," he hadn't seen the poor girl since she had been taken away when she was 11 to a school for…what his mother had called a school for different children, when he had asked. She left because the time had come that it was obvious she was different from the other children, who were beginning to realize who or-in the minds of some people- what she was.

The last thought never left Blaine's mouth. He couldn't begin to think of how to form the word, when it hit even closer to home than all the other people who might have been put into those camps, if they had been in America. It was Rachel who said it, when Blaine faltered.

"And homosexuals." It was barely a whisper that left her mouth, but they both looked up from their crossed legs and looked each other in the eye.

Not many people their age really knew what homosexuality was. They of course would hear stories about men who liked other men. Of women who would prefer the company of other women. But no one ever spoke of it. Because it was a terribly rare affliction, apparently, and their friendly neighborhood need never think of such things.

Perhaps he and Rachel were the only teenagers who really knew about it. And understood the stigma against it. And the lengths to which some people would go to not be like that. To not be ill. Or sick. Or wrong.

He left Rachel's shortly after that, bidding goodbye to her father, who was busying himself with work at his desk. It had never been said between Rachel and him, but it had always been implied.

Rachel would tell stories of the other man who used to live in their house but was off at war at the moment. She would tell Blaine how her father would love to be fighting right now, but knew he had to stay to raise his daughter. He couldn't leave her alone, when the other man who helped look after her was off fighting, and when she was already sick with worry over him. She would silently indicate she thought of the other man as her father as much as her biological one. Silently indicate that her father was with the other man in more than a platonic way. And Blaine would silently indicate back he was like her father. And they would never say a word, nor would speak of it to anyone else.

It was seeing Rachel's father's relationship with the other man which had helped him to believe he wasn't sick. Those times he came home briefly before heading back to the war and he saw them together. There were still times when Blaine would be sickened with himself, for the thoughts he would allow himself. He felt dirty and wrong. But when he saw how the two men looked at each other, with such love and adoration, he couldn't let himself believe it was wrong.

Blaine felt like a coward for pretending to be something he wasn't. For lying to his family. For not even having enough courage to tell Rachel, his closest and oldest friend, what he was.

If he could fight, he could be courageous. If he could fight, he wouldn't be coward. America was still at war. He could still have a chance at fighting.

It was only a few months later when the Japanese finally surrendered. When the two bombs which had been dropped had destroyed them and left them with nothing. Blaine felt the disgust of what it took for them to win. He didn't want to know. For a moment he wanted to do what his Father would do and ignore it. Ignore the evil that had been done, what many people were calling a necessary evil. But Blaine wouldn't let himself become ignorant to the evil in the world. Even if it shocked him to the core and as much as he didn't want to believe something like that was a necessary action to end a war, he wouldn't let himself become an ignorant man.

There were many celebrations over the next week. That now finally America could join the British and the Europeans in their celebrations that war was over. There was no need to fight.

There was no chance at redemption.

Blaine should have at least tried to lie about his age. He should have at least tried to fight for his country.
He felt like such a coward.

He felt like a disappointment. Like a traitor.

His sister, who had been celebrating the pending return of her husband, noticed Blaine's sad demeanour.

"There will chances for you to fight," she had said one day while sat at the breakfast table in the morning room. "For now you should be glad war is over and the world is beginning to rebuild."

"I am glad," Blaine said. "Ecstatic. I am over the moon the war is finished. I just wish I could have done something more."

"I know, Blaine," Sarah had sighed. "You don't think many of the boys here feel the same?" Blaine nodded, glumly, understanding where she was coming from. But she wouldn't understand. They weren't already cowards in the first place.

"Father wants us to go to the Fabray estate tomorrow," she told him. "He has some business to do with Mr. Fabray and wants us all to tag along." Blaine grumbled something in reply, resting his head against the table.

"Don't be so miserable, Blaine," she snapped. "The Fabrays are fine people, and their youngest daughter is a lovely girl. No matter what she may have been up to in the past." They both shared a look, knowing exactly what each other was thinking. The scandal of the summer before where the Puckerman boy had become involved, though hushed up and swept under the rug, had never really been forgotten in the town.

"I like Quinn," he said. It was the truth. The previous year she had spent most of her time locked away in her house, which by no means was a punishment. Their estate, though not as large as the Anderson's, was grand. She had been kept away from prying eyes, home schooled until well after the birth of her bastard child. Blaine had gone to visit her many times, realizing more than most others how lonely and fed up she must feel.

"I know you do, which is why you should look a little more cheerful that you are going to see her," Blaine suppressed a snort. He would love to see Quinn (he hadn't seen her since school had let out) but the prospect of dealing with her parents, and her older sister, and her snotty husband, made him want to curl up in bed and never leave his room. His sister stood up and turned to leave the room.

"Besides," he heard her say, "I'm sure you'll be interested to meet this new family they've hired."