It’s Tina who first realizes he’s a year behind Kurt, on his second day at McKinley, when she catches his eye across the classroom in Honors English III and raises an eyebrow. He smiles at her, mouths “after class” and turns back to his notebook, jotting down whatever the teacher’s writing on the board, even though they’d covered this back at Dalton in Sophomore English, and he’s already bored. By the time the bell rings, he’s moved to sketching in the margins of the page, and is more than ready to head to his next period. Tina catches up to him as he’s sliding the notebook into his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. They fall in step as they enter the hallway, and she looks him over in her peripheral vision, considering what to say.
“I thought Dalton was supposed to be harder than McKinley,” she blurts, immediately biting her lip. “Oh, God, I mean-”
“It’s okay, Tina,” Blaine smiles, immediately putting her at ease. “Actually, we already covered this last year at Dalton, so-”
“Then what are you doing in Junior English, Blaine?” Tina asks, turning to face him as they walk, her brows drawn in confusion. “I mean, does Kurt-oh my God, does Kurt know?”
Blaine snorts, biting his lip to cut off the rest of his laugh.
“Tina, we went to school together for months. Of course he knows.”
“That you failed English?”
“What?”
“Isn’t that why-”
“Tina, I’m a Junior,” Blaine interrupts, his smile faltering for the first time. “I thought Kurt would’ve-”
“He never mentioned he’s into younger men,” Tina returns, clapping her hand over her mouth. “Oh my God, I need to shut up.”
“We’re the same age,” Blaine counters, his voice significantly quieter than it had been. “Me and Kurt, I mean.”
“Then how-”
“I’m late for class,” Blaine responds, effectively ending the conversation. “I’ll see you later, in Glee Club, okay?”
Without waiting for her response, he speeds up and is soon lost in the crowd of students ahead of them, heading to class. Tina pauses, chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully as she watches Blaine disappear, a thousand reasons for his status as a Junior running through her head. Resolving to ask both him and Kurt about it at Glee practice, she heads to her locker to switch her books before class.

- - - -

By the time the final bell rings, Blaine is ninety-percent sure that McKinley is going to be a joke compared to Dalton, and that what feels like half of the school has been staring at him all day. He shrugs it off, heading to the choir room for Glee where Mr. Schue introduces him to the group, to Finn’s dismay. It’s only at the end of practice that everything falls into place, when both Artie and Tina round on him, the rest of the club hovering behind them as they bombard Blaine with questions.
“So when did you get held back, prep school?”
“Who’d you piss off in kindergarten?”
“Did you fail a year at Dalton?”
“Hummel, did you know you were cradle robbing?”
He’s suddenly overwhelmed that they’ve all gone from ignoring him to questioning him within the span of ten minutes, and gapes at them, unable to string together a sentence. Kurt jumps in immediately, saving him from having to do so.
“Okay, stop. First of all, Noah, I’m not ‘cradle-robbing,’” Kurt starts, complete with air-quotes. “Blaine and I are the same age.”
“Then how-”
“And yes, Blaine is a Junior, and I’m a Senior. It’s Blaine’s call if he tells you anything else.”
Blaine reaches over for Kurt’s hand, interlocking their fingers and squeezing gently.
“It’s okay, Kurt. It’s not a big deal.”
“Blaine, you don’t owe them anything. Especially after the way Finn-”
“Hey!”
“Finn, you were entirely rude to Blaine earlier, and it was uncalled for. Blaine, you honestly don’t need to tell them anything if-”
Blaine cut Kurt off with a squeeze of his hand, and lifted his shoulder in response.
“It’s okay, Kurt. It’s-it’s not like it’s a secret, it’s just-”
“Personal,” Kurt finishes for him, smiling gently at Blaine as he remembers the conversation they’d had a few weeks after they’d gotten together. Blaine returns the smile, then turns back to the New Directions, taking a deep breath.
“I’m a Junior because I missed nine of the ten months of my Freshman year.”
The silence that greets his statement isn’t surprising, but it is unnerving, and he bites his lip, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes as he waits. Finn, surprisingly, is the one to break the silence, his voice full of disbelief.
“But-why, dude? What the hell happened?”
Blaine drops Kurt’s hand, pushing back his gelled bangs with both hands. He gestures to his forehead, indicating something along his hairline that no one but Tina, who leans close, can see. A sharp intake of breath from Puck’s direction means he’s noticed it as well, and suddenly Blaine feels exposed.
“What happened?” Tina breathes, and Blaine lets his hair fall flat again, covering the scar along his hairline. He smoothes his hands over his hair, making sure it’s in place before choosing to answer.
“I don’t know if-if Kurt told you about my Sadie Hawkins dance? At my old school?”
By the looks on everyone but Finn’s faces, he guesses no. Blaine takes a deep breath, starting his story over.
“When I was fourteen, there was a Sadie Hawkins dance at my high school. I asked a friend of mine-another guy-and we went together. While, um, while we were waiting for our ride these three guys jumped us in the parking lot. They’d been waiting for us, apparently.”
“Oh my God, Blaine,” Rachel whispers, and she’s suddenly next to him, grabbing at his hand and crying. He’s startled but doesn’t push her away, letting her grab onto his upper arm and hug him. He chances a look at the rest of the club, and is surprised that they all look almost ill. He swallows thickly before continuing, reaching back to take Kurt’s hand.
“They uh-they beat the shit out of us,” he gets out around the lump in his throat, and Rachel’s grip on his arm tightens.
“Blaine-”
“I was in a coma for two months.”
The silence that greets this statement is almost deafening, and Blaine suddenly wants to run, as if that would make the whole thing disappear. He closes his eyes, afraid to make eye contact with anyone while he doesn’t have a handle on his emotions. When he opens them again, everyone’s still staring at him, but their faces are a mix of emotions, anger, and pity, and things Blaine doesn’t even want to understand.
“What happened?”
Blaine takes another breath, letting his eyes slide shut again as he speaks.

- - - -

“Luke, not here,” Blaine giggles, twisting in the other boy’s arms and pulling away slightly as they fall to the curb outside the gym. They’d spent the night dancing to almost every song, and ended it outside, goofing off under the stars. They’re more or less the only people left in the parking lot-Luke’s dad had called to say he was running late, and that it’d take him at least another fifteen minutes to get there. They’ve exhausted every other option, so they’re huddling together on the curb, shielding themselves from the cold October air.
Luke is leaning into Blaine’s side when they hear it. Someone catcalls across the parking lot, and the sound sends a shiver down Blaine’s spine when he looks up, recognizes the person who owns the voice.
“Luke,” he hisses, tugging on Luke’s hand until they’re both standing. “Let’s go back inside.”
“Wait, Blaine, why? What are they going to do to us, huh? We’re in a parking lot, it’s fine. Just hold tight, they’re only gonna try to piss us off like normal.”
By now, Carter Russo and his two buddies have caught up to them, and Blaine realizes a split second too late that this is going to be different, because the smell of alcohol is rolling off Carter in waves, and John and Michael have already closed around Blaine and Luke, effectively trapping them.
“Luke,” Blaine whispers weakly, tightening his grip on Luke’s hand. He can’t say anything else-words are caught in his throat as Carter leans in, grinning.
“Who invited you two fags to the dance, huh?”
“Carter, go home,” Luke tries, but he’s cut off by a fist to the jaw, sending him sprawling backwards. John catches him, pushing him back to his feet. Carter smirks reaching out to grab Luke’s shirt and pull him in.
“Shut your mouth, Blakely,” he hisses, pulling back and sinking his fist into Luke’s stomach. Blaine cries out as Luke buckles, dropping to one knee. This draws Carter’s attention back to him, and Carter smiles.
“You know, Anderson. I never took you for a fag. Was kinda surprised when you came out last month, you know? What did he do to you to turn you?”
Blaine blanches, his mouth dropping open silently as he stares at Carter.
“He get you on your knees? Make you suck his dick?”
Blaine starts to shake, and he’s vaguely aware that next to him Luke is up and fighting against John, who’s pinned his arms behind his back. All Blaine can focus on is Carter, who’s now leaning closer, putting a hand behind Blaine’s neck to hold him in place.
“Or maybe he got on his knees for you? That what happened, Blaine? He sucked your dick for you, now you feel like you owe him something?”
Blaine is terrified, too afraid to breathe, let alone move, and he stares blankly at Carter, barely comprehending the other boy’s words.
“Maybe you just need to someone to knock you out of this phase, huh, Blaine? Maybe we should just teach you your lessen?”
Without any other warning, Carter’s fist meets his jaw, and Blaine feels his head start to snap back, stopped by Carter’s hand at his neck.
“Maybe this will help?”
Carter hits him again, his head again stopped from completing it’s trajectory by Carter’s hand. Blaine feels a pain starting in his neck, rivaling that in his jaw as Luke explodes next to him, swinging wildly at both John and Michael. Carter’s still holding Blaine in place, and he takes a third swing, this time to the side of Blaine’s right eye. Blaine cries out as he feels something give, agony shooting through his eye and head as Carter hits him. His eye is already swelling, his vision obscured by a combination of blood and his inability to open his eye.
“I wanted to hear you scream,” Carter whispers, bringing Blaine closer to him by the hand on his neck. He reaches out, grabs Blaine’s jaw in his free hand and tightens his grip. Blaine sobs, tears streaming down his face as he feels the pain pulsing beneath Carter’s grip. He can’t talk anymore, can barely open his mouth. All he’s aware of is the pain, white-hot and all-encompassing. He blanks for a few moments, coming back to himself when Carter’s got him on the ground, sinking his booted foot into Blaine’s abdomen repeatedly.
Blaine’s not sure when he passes out, but the last thing he is aware of is Carter laughing above him as he fades in and out of consciousness.

- - - -

“What’ve you got for us?” Dr. James Michal steps up to meet the paramedics outside the emergency room of Ohio State University Hospital, already gowned, gloved, and ready to take over the care of his patient. The two medics unload the gurney, and the doctor gasps when he sees his patient. The kid’s head is held in place by a collar around his neck, a strap crossing his forehead and mirroring those across his torso. His face is swollen and bruised, but James can clearly see that the boy can’t be more than fifteen.
“How old is he?”
“Blaine Anderson, 14. Victim of assault,” the female paramedic begins, unlocking the wheels of the bed and reading off her clipboard as they hurry into the ER proper, James keeping pace with the other paramedic. “Blunt force trauma to the chest and abdomen, and severe blunt head trauma, took a few hits to the jaw and eye as well. Some bleeding and clear fluid from the ears, LOC at the scene and he’s been out since. GCS was about five when we arrived, some movement in response to painful stimuli but no spontaneous eye opening or speech.”
They reach the trauma room and James counts them off as they switch Blaine carefully onto the waiting bed, the room buzzing to life around them as the trauma team sets to work.
“Pupils unequal and unreactive, resps are shallow and uneven. We intubated in the field and started saline. He seized once on the way in, but other than that he’s been relatively stable.”
She continues her assessment, rattling off symptoms, until she signs off on the chart and hands it to a nurse, following her partner out with the gurney from the ambulance. James then turns his full attention to his patient, frowning when he sees the amount of damage now visible on his bare chest, in addition to the damage to his head.
“Alright, let’s get a series of films done, head, neck, chest, and page CT. I want him in radiology in five minutes, I want to know what we’re dealing with. Page surgery, have them send someone down. Run a trauma panel, and let’s get an ultrasound of his abdomen too. Keep bagging him, but page respiratory and get a vent down here. Let’s go!”
The rest of the team works quickly, assessing and treating Blaine’s numerous injuries. The receptionist sticks her head in to inform them that Blaine’s parents have arrived, but James has them sent up to the surgical floor to wait. They bring Blaine to radiology, and minutes later he’s back in the trauma room as James waits for the films he’d rushed. As he’s sticking the x-ray films on the light board, the nurse at Blaine’s head cries out, drawing his attention back to the bed.
“He’s seizing again!”
Sure enough, he turns back to see Blaine jerking on the bed, his limbs drawn up and shaking. He darts back, reading over the vital signs on the monitor at the head of the bed before making his decision.
“Give him two of Ativan, see if it stops. Lower the bed rails, make sure you keep ventilating him.”
James administers the sedative, waiting to see if the seizure dies down. A few minutes later, Blaine’s trembling fades off, and he’s again motionless on the bed. James grabs his stethoscope, placing it to Blaine’s chest and frowning.
“His breathing’s labored again. We need that vent, page respiratory and get neurology down here. Is the CT back?”
An intern shoves an envelope into his hands, and he turns back to the light board, snapping the film into place next to the skull x-ray. James inhales sharply, pointing to the area of question.
“We’re looking at a subdural hematoma, he needs to go up now.”
- - - -

It’s less than thirty minutes later that Blaine is in an operating room, as a team of surgeons cut into his skull to relieve some of the pressure that had been building steadily beneath his cracked skull. Countless people file through the waiting room, assuring Blaine’s parents that “We’re doing everything we can,” and “He’s in good hands.”
It’s nearing four in the morning when someone finally comes out to talk to Maria and Drew Anderson, an exhausted young woman holding a chart in her hands. She spots them immediately and walks over, taking the seat next to Maria and gently addressing them.
“Mr. and Mrs. Anderson?”
They nod, and Maria takes Drew’s hand, her own shaking as she looks the doctor up and down. They’d been sitting in this waiting room since they arrived at the hospital, the ER doctor coming up to talk to them briefly several hours before, but left to themselves for most of the night.
“Are you Blaine’s-Blaine’s-”
“I’m Dr. Whitman. I was in surgery with Blaine, yes.”
“How is he?” Drew breathes, his voice shaking. He’s terrified, the lack of news almost worse than bad news. He feels more desperate when she frowns, biting her lip as she flips through the chart before answering.
“Blaine is-well, Blaine is in critical condition,” she begins, putting aside the chart and leaning toward the couple. She rests a hand on Maria’s knee, attempting to offer comfort. “As you know, he suffered a severe head injury, due to one or many blows to the head. His skull was fractured at the impact, fairly severely. During treatment in the ER, Blaine suffered a seizure, as Dr. Michal told you earlier, in addition to the seizure he had on the way to the hospital. While these would be enough of a problem in and of themselves, once we evaluated Blaine it became clear that he suffered a secondary injury. Blaine developed what we call a hematoma on his brain, which we had to drain surgically.”
She stops, looking from Maria to Drew to see if they’re following her.
“Do you understand so far?”
Maria shakes her head, her face blank as tears start to fall down her cheeks.
“I don’t-what is that? How bad is that?”
“Sometimes, after a severe trauma to the head, blood begins to pool underneath the skull. Occasionally, this can be non-problematic, and left to heal on its own, but often the buildup of blood puts too much pressure on the brain and must be drained surgically. In Blaine’s case, it’s the latter. The pressure from the hematoma was too severe to be left alone, so we went in surgically to drain the blood and relieve that pressure. We’ll continue monitoring him for signs of increased pressure over time, and for signs of a secondary hematoma.”
“Oh my God,” Maria whispers, holding her hand over her mouth, shaking. When they’d answered the call from the police, both she and Drew had been terrified, but they’d also hoped against hope that it wasn’t Blaine, that the cops had gotten it wrong. Sitting in the waiting room, they hoped that it wasn’t that bad, that they could take Blaine home in a few days and other than some pain he’d be okay. As the doctor lists injury after injury, though, it becomes clear that won’t be the case.
“Blaine’s other injuries were less severe. He suffered some fractures to his face, most notably his right orbital-his eye socket. Blaine suffered what is sometimes called a ‘blow-out fracture,” to the bones that make up the eye socket. We’ll likely have to repair that surgically in the near future, but for now we’re going to leave it be until Blaine is otherwise stable. He also suffered some broken ribs, internal bruising and plenty of contusions and lacerations to his chest and abdomen, but the damage seems to have been concentrated around his head.”
She pauses again, taking a deep breath before delivering the worst of her news.
“As I mentioned, we’ve drained the bleeding around his brain, and we’ll be monitoring for any signs of increased intracranial pressure-any signs that the pressure in his skull is increasing again. We’ve also put Blaine on a ventilator, to ensure that his breathing remains stable, and we’ve admitted him to the ICU. The monitoring equipment we’re using for his head needs to be tended to often, so Blaine will likely be in the ICU for an extended period of time until we feel confident enough that he’s out of the woods for any complications.”
“Is he awake?” Maria asks quietly, looking imploringly at the doctor. Dr. Whitman frowns, shaking her head slightly.
“Mrs. Anderson, the injuries your son sustained were severe. The trauma to his head was extensive, and we won’t know for sure how extensive until the swelling fully recedes. Blaine is still unconscious. We’re unsure when he’ll wake.”
“What does that mean?” Drew grinds out, tightening his grip on Maria’s hand. The unsaid words hang in the air, but neither parent wants to believe them. Dr. Whitman sighs, placing a hand on Drew’s knee as well, trying to remain calm for the clearly panicked parents.
“Blaine is in a coma. He could wake tomorrow, or he may never wake. The damage he sustained was severe, and it’s not at all surprising that his body has gone into a state of preservation. There is still a very real possibility of further brain damage if he does wake. We can only play the waiting game from now on.”
She squeezes Maria’s knee gently, attempting to offer support.
“I’m truly sorry that this has happened,” she offers, her face betraying how sincere she is. “I’m sorry that I have to give you this news. But if you’d like to sit with Blaine, I can take you to his room?”
Maria nods, and fifteen minutes later she and Drew are alone in a tiny ICU room, staring at their son. Blaine is prone in the bed, surrounded by countless pieces of equipment, tubes and wires snaking to and from his body. His eyes are blackened, deep bruising having formed around both of his closed lids. His right eye is a mess of blood and bruising, the eye socket appearing to have almost collapsed. Maria cries out at that, sinking into a chair beside the bed and sobbing.
The rest of Blaine’s injuries wash over her as she stares-the white gauze swaddling his head, the bruising visible on his chest beneath the hospital gown, the monitor attached to the shunt in his head. A tube snakes from his mouth, taped down and leading to the machine breathing for him. Several IVs hang above the bed, their lines snaking to Blaine’s arm.
Both she and Drew sleep there that night, and one of them is always with Blaine, as the days fade into weeks, weeks into months and Blaine still stays unconscious.

- - - -

“How is he today?” Maria asks tiredly as she enters the ward, checking in with Alexis at the nursing station.
“Mrs. Anderson! We were wondering when you’d be in today,” Alexis greets, coming around the desk and pulling the older woman into a hug. In the nearly two months Blaine has been on the ward, both Maria and Drew have gotten to know the nurses, who’ve all taken to Blaine like moths to a flame. He’d been moved to this ward in the weeks after the assault, after the swelling had gone down and they’d been able to close Blaine’s head fully, remove the shunt and the monitor. He’d lost the breathing tube shortly thereafter, and was now simply unconscious, looking for all the world like he was just sleeping. The bruising around his eyes had faded, the swelling in his face subsiding until only his right eye was still puffy. They’d performed surgery to knit the bones together in the first week after the assault, and the tiny row of stitches had recently been removed, leaving a small scar in their wake.
“We think he’s improving again,” Alexis says, grabbing her stethoscope from the desk and falling into step beside Maria as they headed to Blaine’s room. “I’m due to check on him now anyway, so come on in.”
They step into Blaine’s room, and Maria’s slightly surprised to see that there’s a large bouquet of flowers on the windowsill, accompanied by a card signed by almost the entire ward. Alexis smiles, gesturing toward the flowers.
“We figured, what with Thanksgiving and all being yesterday, he should have some kind of holiday cheer in here, right? Being positive can only help.”
Maria nods, unable to speak around the lump in her throat. These strangers, people who had never been in her life until two months ago, have taken her son in and cared for him, even though he’s done nothing more than lie unconscious the entire time they’ve known him. She’s overwhelmed, and steps to the bouquet, picking up the card and reading over the messages.
“You said he was improving?”
“He’s been responding more quickly to external stimuli. Here, watch.”
Maria turns, and Alexis demonstrates, digging her fist sharply into Blaine’s sternum.
“Blaine, can you open your eyes for me?”
He doesn’t, but his eyelids twitch at the contact, his arms flexing on the bed.
“Is that-is that good?”
“His score on the coma scale has been coming up for the last few days, so yes. He might not be waking up, per se, but it’s a good sign, Mrs. Anderson. He’s coming back to us.”
“Has Dr. Creighton been in to see him recently?”
Dr. Bryan Creighton is Blaine’s neurologist, the primary doctor assigned to his care after the surgical aspects had been taken care of.
“He was here yesterday, actually. He wrote some notes, I can check and see what he said?”
“Would you mind?”
“Not at all, Mrs. Anderson. Give me a moment.”
Alexis flips through the chart, reading quickly over the notes Dr. Creighton had scrawled, biting her lip in concentration. She hums when she’s finished, sliding the chart back into its place on the wall and smiling at Maria.
“He says he thinks Blaine is recovering well,” she begins. “The EEG results are fairly positive so far, Dr. Creighton seems optimistic there won’t be too many problems if-when-Blaine finally wakes up. It’s a matter of time at this point.”
“Not too much?”
“Mrs. Anderson, as I’m sure you’ve gone over, there is the very real possibility Blaine will experience some kind of complication. The injuries he sustained were severe, and the length of his coma indicates that there may be some underlying issue.”
“He said that the psychological trauma could be keeping him under at this point, too,” Maria states quietly, dropping into her customary chair beside the bed and taking Blaine’s hand in hers. “That the severity of the attack is keeping him in the coma because he subconsciously doesn’t want to face it.”
Alexis makes a quiet noise, taking the chair next to Maria’s and resting her hand on the older woman’s shoulder.
“Mrs. Anderson, I know this has been difficult for you. And I know you only want him to wake up at this point, but you do need to prepare yourself for the possibility that there may be lasting effects of Blaine’s injuries. We can’t know until he wakes up, but it’s best to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”
“That’s what everyone says,” Maria whispers, tightening her hold on Blaine’s hand. “They tell us to prepare for him to never wake up, to go back to our lives and leave him like this. They tell us he could be brain-damaged, have speech difficulties, amnesia, problems with walking. I don’t care, at this point. I just want him back.”
Alexis nods, and squeezes Maria’s shoulder gently.
“He’s coming back,” she whispers, standing up and making to leave the room. “I believe with all my heart that he’s going to come back from this. It might be a hard road, but I think he’s going to get there.”
Alexis pauses in the door, watching the mother and son for a moment before making to leave.
“Let me know if you need anything, Mrs. Anderson,” she says, shutting the door quietly as she heads back to the nurse’s station. She’s startled two hours later by a frantic cry from inside Blaine’s room, the call light indicating the same room lighting up at the desk. Alexis darts up, her chair skittering backwards as she grabs her stethoscope, heading into the room.
“Mrs. Anderson?”
Her eyes travel to the bed, and she starts, crossing quickly to Maria’s side. For the first time in two months, clouded hazel eyes are blinking up at her, indicating that Blaine is finally awake.

- - - -

Dr. Bryan Creighton exits the room, scribbling on Blaine’s chart even as he allows Maria and Drew to exit after him. He shuts the door carefully, and leads them to the conference room at the end of the ward, gesturing for them to sit opposite him at the small table as he spreads his notes in front of him.
“How is he, Dr. Creighton?” Maria asks, her voice breathy and quiet. She still hasn’t gotten over the shock of Blaine’s eyes meeting hers, the mixed joy and terror as he’d blinked at her confusedly, his mouth opening and closing as he stared.
“Well, it seems we’ve dodged several of the complications I was most worried about,” he begins, folding his hands on top of Blaine’s file and looking at Maria and Drew.
“Which are?” Drew prompts, his hands clenched in fists at his sides. He’s taken this harder than Maria, picking up extra hours at the office to cover medical expenses and spending less and less time at the hospital as the months dragged on.
“Well, cognitively it seems that Blaine isn’t experiencing any significant delays. His speech seems intact, though a little stilted due to lack of use, and he’s experiencing a good deal of retrograde amnesia, to a few weeks before the assault, but that’s entirely to be expected. I suspect that he’ll begin to show signs of weakness, and it’s quite possible that some dizziness and concentration issues may manifest themselves later, but right now it’s an incredibly good sign that Blaine’s awake.”
“Why is he so tired, though?” Maria asks, staring intently at the doctor. Blaine had fallen asleep barely thirty minutes after he’d first woken up, and again immediately after the doctor had finished interviewing him. His few minutes awake were hardly lucid, consisting mostly of Blaine blinking and struggling to string together answers, his brain still fogged over with two months of unconsciousness.
“This is completely normal given the length of time he’s been out. Blaine will experience lethargy and exhaustion for some time to come. Additionally, though we’ve been working on muscle movement and the like with the physical therapist, Blaine will have experienced a good deal of muscle atrophy due to underuse.”
“So now what? When can he come home?”
“Mr. Anderson, Blaine still has a long road ahead of him. He’s going to experience prolonged exhaustion for awhile yet, and it will be a few days, if not weeks, before we can get him up and moving. Being awake does not mean that Blaine will spend the next few days mostly lucid. In fact, I expect he’ll sleep most of the next few days. After we get him moving around, Blaine’s going to need a good deal of occupational and physical therapy, if not speech therapy, in order to get back on his feet.”
“So how long are we looking at?”
“Several months. I expect Blaine will be here in the hospital awhile longer, barring any severe complications. I hope to release him by the end of January, to be sure, but there’s the distinct possibility we could run into other problems as Blaine recovers.”
“January? We can’t take him home until January?”
“Once he’s released from the hospital, I recommend that Blaine spend some time at a full-time rehabilitation facility. Such facilities are equipped to provide Blaine with-”
“Hold on,” Drew interrupts, holding a hand up to stop the doctor. “You mean he has to go to another hospital after this?”
“Well, Mr. Anderson, as I mentioned, Blaine will need a significant amount of therapy to recover. His body will be undergoing a great deal of stress in the coming months as he regains his strength. There is always the chance that he’ll recover well in hospital, and we can release him directly into home care, but there is also the chance that getting back on his feet may take awhile. Additionally, there’s the issue of nutrition-we’ve been feeding Blaine via a feeding tube for two months now. It’s going to take awhile for him to reacclimatize to feeding himself and taking in nutrition on his own. We still don’t know if Blaine will experience any physical setbacks from the injury-whether he’ll develop a limp, other difficulties walking. I know it’s been a difficult road, but, unfortunately, it’s still a long climb left.”

- - - -

Blaine spends his fifteenth birthday in the hospital, a week away from his discharge to the rehab center. His big achievements for the day include getting himself into his wheelchair unassisted, and wheeling himself to the physical therapy room, where he struggles through his typical exercises and the therapist lets him out early as a present.
It became clear in the weeks following his awakening that Blaine was experiencing definite mobility problems, in addition to the seizures that would occasionally leave him exhausted and crying in bed. Dr. Creighton is in to see him every other day, constantly assuring both Blaine and his parents that the weakness is normal, even the seizures (post traumatic brain injury epilepsy, he calls it) are normal.
They start Blaine on anti-convulsants, teach all three Andersons what to look for to signal a seizure, the differences between partial-brain and tonic-clonic seizures, what to do when one occurs. They have Maria and Drew practice when Blaine starts seizing, have them demonstrate what they’d do at home if the seizure happened there. They constantly tinker with Blaine’s medication, looking for the right combination to limit the number and severity of the seizures.
The physical therapist pushes Blaine daily, works him through weight exercises to build up the muscle in his arms, and walking exercises to try and get Blaine’s brain to communicate with his legs again. Blaine almost always leaves his sessions in pain and exhausted, frustrated after a bad session or elated after a good one. He’d lost a significant amount of muscle tone, and his arms and legs appear scrawny, under-developed. He vaguely remembers the first few nights he’d been awake, when the therapist would come in and stretch his legs and arms for him, getting the muscles moving while he was still too out of it to do it himself.
He’s also lost a lot of weight, and the nutritionist who brings him his three meals clucks disapprovingly as he picks at his food every day. It’s not that he doesn’t want to eat, but he’s rarely hungry, too tired to care or in too much pain to bother eating. He gets headaches that leave him sobbing and writhing, lights too bright and even gentle whispers too loud. He’s long since overused his pain medication, and Dr. Creighton had lowered him to ibuprofen out of concern, cutting Blaine from stronger painkillers even before they’d pulled his IV.
All in all, he wants to forget his fifteenth birthday as soon as possible, file it away with the rest of his freshman year and never think of it again. He’s spent time working with a tutor, but concentrating for too long makes his head hurt, and he doesn’t even remember half of what he’d learned before the assault. The school has sent over catch-up work, but when the beginning of January rolls around and Blaine’s still in the hospital, his parents make the decision to withdraw him for the rest of the year. There are serious discussions about home-schooling and private school, which are tabled when Blaine gets so worked up at the mention of Westerville High that he sends himself into a panic attack.
The panic attacks are another thing he’s grown accustomed to, triggered sometimes by the smallest things. One of the psychologists comes in to talk to him a couple times a week, trying to get him to open up about an attack he can’t even remember. Blaine knows he’s gay, remembers being harassed for it at school, but can’t remember anything beyond a vague haze of pain when prompted about the night of the dance. Sometimes his dreams turn into nightmares, images of fists and booted feet have him waking up in a cold sweat, screaming into the night. But outside of the occasional flash in the night, he remembers nothing, and thinks quietly to himself that that’s for the best.
Blaine is fifteen years and one week old when he moves to a rehabilitation facility, while the rest of the kids his age are worrying about their first midterms. He spends the next month and a half working to regain the rest of his strength, and when he leaves at the beginning of March, he finally feels somewhat back to normal.

- - - -

“So your mother and I have looked into some options for next year,” Drew begins, dropping a stack of pamphlet on the table in front of Blaine, who’s staring tiredly at a stack of biology flashcards he’d been going over the night before the dance, trying to jump start his brain and see if anything came back. He’s taken to spending his days at home, flipping through old notes and watching movies, when he isn’t working with his therapists or sleeping. He pushes the cards aside, looking up at his father.
“What?”
“Let’s talk in the living room,” Drew says, and he hovers at Blaine’s elbow, trying to stop himself from reaching out to help Blaine up. It’s the beginning of April-six months after the assault-and while Blaine is mostly physically okay, he still gets tired, still spends longer sleeping than anyone else his age. He falls occasionally, his motor coordination still not quite right, and it breaks Drew’s heart every time. But Blaine gets upset when someone tries to help him without being asked, so he keeps his distance, letting Blaine get to his feet and walk slowly into the living room, where he sinks onto the sofa next to Maria.
“What about school?”
“Well, we don’t think going back to Wester-”
“Okay,” Blaine cuts his mother off, his breathing already quickening. Any mention of his old high school is enough to send him into a panic, for reasons he (and his psychologist) still don’t quite understand. It’s enough to know the assault happened there; he doesn’t like to think about Westerville High at all.
“We were thinking private school. With the bills that we still have to pay, neither of us can really afford to take time off work to teach you, and there are schools with scholarships designed-”
“I’m sorry,” Blaine whispers, and it’s not the first time he’s apologized. The medical bills alone are astronomical, both of his parents taking extra hours to cover what insurance wouldn’t, his mother picking up extra tutoring jobs on the weekends to cover more. Blaine finds himself apologizing more than necessary, despite the number of times he’s been told that “it’s not your fault.”
“Blaine,” Drew warns, and that’s enough to stop the rest of the apology. Drew hands over a pamphlet that reads Dalton Academy on the cover and features an image of a large school, complete with fall foliage. Blaine snorts, flipping the cover open and reading through the bullet points inside.
“We think this is our best option,” Maria says quietly, waiting for Blaine to reach the part that had sold both her and Drew immediately. When he does, he looks up, meeting each of their eyes in turn.
“Zero tolerance? What is that?”
“We spoke to the headmaster. Dalton has absolutely no tolerance for bullying or harassment of any kind, Blaine. They enforce that pretty strictly, from the sound of it.”
“So-”
“So you don’t have to be afraid every time you go to school, Blaine,” Maria says quietly, her eyes misting as she sees the broken look on Blaine’s face. “You don’t have to be afraid to be yourself.”
“But I missed-”
“We spoke to the admissions counselor, as well, Blaine. Dalton would be well aware of your history, and the limitations of your injuries. They have a well-trained counseling staff in place, both academic and emotional counselors. The teachers are all willing to work with you on any difficulties you might have, and they’re aware that you’d be older than the rest of the students in your year. I think this is our best option, Blaine.”
“I don’t want to go to private school,” Blaine says quietly, but the idea is planted and he’s actually starting to think it might be for the best. The uniforms aren’t that bad, he reasons, and there’s a bit in the brochure about the performing arts, something he’d been interested in at Westerville but never had the chance to pursue.
“Think it over, Blaine. I don’t want you to stress yourself out, but I think we should consider this. They’re willing to work with us on the tuition as well, to accommodate the medical bills we still have to pay.”
Blaine nods, and turns the brochure over and over in his hands, focusing on its smooth texture as he does. He feels the beginnings of a migraine coming on, brought on by too much thinking earlier and too much contemplation about the future, and he looks up at his parents.
“My head hurts. Can I-?”
“Head up to bed, sweetheart,” Maria nods, already standing to head into the kitchen. “Do you need your meds?”
Blaine nods, and he lets Drew lead him by the elbow to his room, smiling when Drew fusses over the covers as Blaine settles himself into bed. Maria comes up a minute later, a handful of pills in one hand and a glass of water in the other. Blaine swallows them down quickly, draining the water and handing the glass back to his mother. The pills are something he’s grown used to-anticonvulsants for his seizures, vitamins to keep building his strength, meds to control the headaches, occasionally anti-anxiety meds and pain meds for panic attacks or migraines. Dr. Creighton thinks the only one he’ll have to stay on are the anticonvulsants, since the epilepsy doesn’t seem to be going away in the near future. The migraines should decrease over time, they tell him, and his psychologist assures him that the panic attacks will as well.
Blaine’s life has become a series of doctor’s visits and check-ups, handfuls of medications that sometimes are too late or too little to help. But considering the alternative-his parents told him how close he’d come to dying-he guesses he prefers the current situation. Blaine falls asleep as his parents watch from the doorway, and he’s soon dead to the world, his eyes closed and his breathing even. Maria and Drew head back downstairs, Drew to his office and Maria to the kitchen; it’s barely seven in the evening, and neither of them is close to finished for the day.

- - - -

Blaine enrolls as a freshman at Dalton that fall, the only visible reminders of his assault the scar on his forehead and the slight limp he walks with. True to his parents’ word, the academic counselor calls him in immediately the day before classes, walks him through his class schedule and assures him all of his teachers are aware of his situation. She sends him to the school’s counselor then, who asks Blaine how often his panic attacks occur, what triggers them, how bad they are and how he controls them. They talk for awhile about Blaine’s emotional state, how he’s dealt with the attack and the fallout. They spend time talking about Ohio State, predicting the team’s performance and ragging on Michigan for awhile before he sends Blaine to the nurse.
This is the hardest part of the day, and she sits Blaine down, takes his vitals and reads over his file. She asks him about the migraines, what causes them and how bad they are, what she’ll need to do to control them. She asks about his seizures, how long it’s been since the last one and how bad that one was, what medications he’s on, warnings his doctor has given him. They cover the exhaustive list of Blaine’s daily medications and supplementary meds, the litany of the injuries he’d sustained and how they’ve all healed or are healing, the history of his head injury and the nature of his recovery. She lets him know that he’s always welcome in her office, if the day is too hard or he’s too tired to sit through class.
By the time he finishes his first not-day at Dalton, Blaine’s so tired he falls asleep in the car on the way home, and sleeps straight through until breakfast. When he steps through the doors of Dalton on his first day, dressed in his blazer and looking for all the world like every other student there, he can almost pretend he is. That he’s not fifteen, while his classmates are fourteen. That he doesn’t harbor a ticking time bomb in the form of seizures or debilitating headaches, waiting to be triggered. That the smallest detail can send him into a panic attack that could last hours.
He can almost pretend he’s normal, and by the time he finishes his first year at Dalton, with an invitation to audition for the lead soloist spot on the Warblers and a successful first year under his belt, he’s closer to himself than he’s been in years.

- - - -

“Holy shit.”
Finn is the first to break the silence following the end of Blaine’s story, and the look of guilt on his face betrays how badly he feels for giving Blaine a hard time. The rest of the club has tears on their cheeks, and Blaine blinks, coming back to himself when he realizes he’d been in a different world while he was speaking.
“It’s kinda a thing of the past now,” he offers, shrugging. “I mean, I still have seizures sometimes, and headaches, but it’s not that often. I can forget it happened most of the time.”
“How?” That’s Tina, who’s looking at him in disbelief as she clutches Mike’s hand. Blaine’s not sure why they’re all so affected-barely an hour before they’d all acted miffed at his existence, where they’re fawning over him now.
“I mean, I don’t really want to remember it, honestly. It wasn’t the best year of my life.”
“But those guys, they beat you up because-”
“Because I’m gay? Yeah.”
Finn makes a muffled noise, and he clenches his fists, clearly imagining Kurt in that same situation.
“That’s not fair,” Rachel says, and Blaine laughs because that’s the most obvious statement he’s heard all day.
“Life’s not fair, Rachel. I’m gay, some people don’t like that. So they take it out however they know how.”
“How are you so okay with this?” Puck asks, looking incredulously at Blaine. “If it were me, I’d have found those guys and-”
“I didn’t want revenge, Puck. I still don’t. I want to move on. I can’t do that if I keep hating the guys who did it.”
Kurt smiles at him, squeezing his hand in support. They’ve talked about this before, Kurt’s reaction similar to Puck’s the first time the entire story had come out. He understands why Blaine feels like this now, understands that Blaine’s way of moving on involved him putting everything behind him and focusing on getting better.
“Have you seen them since then?”
Blaine shrugs, shaking his head.
“I never went back to Westerville High. I didn’t want to, and never saw a reason to. I haven’t run into them anywhere else. I know they weren’t arrested, there was never enough evidence and Luke didn’t want to testify. Last I heard he’d moved to Columbus, but I don’t know what happened to the three of them.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt anymore,” Brittany speaks for the first time, looking intently at Blaine. “Kurt loves you, you’re his baby dolphin and I don’t want Kurt to be sad.”
Her statement breaks the tension, and they laugh, Blaine the loudest of all. He grabs Brittany’s hand, squeezing it and smiling at her.
“Thanks, Brit.”
She walks over to him then, pulling him into a hug. Kurt soon joins, and Blaine feels like everything is okay in that moment. His past is a big part of him-it’s the reason he won’t be following Kurt to New York in the spring and the reason he’s a year older than all of his classmates, but it’s not something that controls him anymore. He isn’t grateful for the experience, and he’s certainly not grateful for the lingering seizures and the occasional headaches, but he is grateful that he survived and found Dalton-found Kurt-and that everything else will turn out okay because of that.

Fin.