I.
So, Blaine discovers, New Directions has a Facebook page.

It's mostly maintained by their little brunette soloist girl, Rachel GoldStar Berry, as far as he can tell anyway. Their young director guy lurks around some too, like a parent trying too hard to be hip to his kids' tastes. In fact, Kurt probably touches it the least, other than the wrestler girl with the glasses and the tall blonde cheerleader who can't seem to get the hang of how the internet actually works. There's a huge photo album from Tina CC, but it's mostly from last year's regionals and they're mostly tagged as herself, Mercedes Jones and DJ Artie A, and there are exactly two videos. Only one of them is tagged with Kurt's name. That's the one he clicks on.

(Blaine would be lying to himself if he said that Kurt wasn't pretty much the only reason he was looking into it.)

The video turns out to be a pitch-perfect remaking of Madonna's video for Vogue, subbing in McKinley's demented cheerleading coach (David's girlfriend has plenty of horror stories) for Madge herself and Kurt, Mercedes, a pretty hot Asian guy and some other non-glee people for the backup. It's fascinating to watch once through, in kind of a trainwreck sort of way, but it really doesn't solve Blaine's problem.

The problem that kind of arose as soon as Kurt Hummel's eyes met his on the stairs of Dalton Academy, wide and skittish on the surface, blazing fierce behind it. The worst kind of look for what he was doing, of course, giving everything away with one glance (and, okay, one failed but admittedly impressive attempt at the wardrobe), but the best, best kind of look for sort of, maybe, kind of making Blaine fall in love with him.

If only that had been what he was going for.

But Blaine's always been incredibly reluctant to admit in love at first sight. Even if everything in his eyes, his smile, his skin is that right perfect vulnerable diamond fabulous everything that has always just sort of lived in Blaine's fantasies and kind of stabbed straight through to his very soul, Blaine can't possibly love Kurt just by looking at him. He needs to hear him. Somehow, Blaine's got it into his head that falling for another glee club boy pretty much hinges on the quality of his voice. That Blaine's ears will be smarter than his eyes, smarter than his heart. That music truly is the food of love, and Blaine is freaking starving.

So after some careful Facebook stalking, Blaine plans himself a little dinner for one.

The McKinley High auditorium (or maybe it's the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, but that really doesn't make any sense to Blaine) is large and low-slung, and doesn't make for very many good hiding places. He wants to get closer to make sure he can hear Kurt, but the whole thing rides on not getting caught – at the very least because he needs to be a more successful spy than Kurt or he will never let Blaine live it down. Grinning to himself, Blaine slinks in through the door furthest to stage-left, hugging the edge of the seats as he slips down the aisle to about halfway. Any closer and someone will see him, probably the competition-paranoid Rachel, so he peers just over the side of the chair in front of him, and watches.

It's a sprawling, girl-heavy group number*; they're actually kind of all over the place, and Blaine's slightly embarrassed, because this would never fly with the Warblers. But somewhere between the tall ditzy girl busting some incredible dance moves and some impressively tight harmony between the other two cheerleaders, Blaine realizes that what might be a hot mess for his own glee club is somehow kind of...working for these guys. Their director sits dead-center a few rows back and smiles and claps along, and here and there different people get little call-out lines, not full-on solos but enough to make themselves heard. Facebook's Tina CC. Kurt's tall, awkward stepbrother.

Kurt.

Kurt, who opens his mouth and for what's already the third or fourth time in the few short days Blaine has even known who he is, astounds him. Clear as a bell and shockingly high – a truer countertenor than the Warblers have ever had, that's for certain – and all with the deepest penetrating sincerity Blaine's seen in a long, long time. As the song moves on to Rachel some more and the group swelling together, Kurt's few brief and remarkable notes linger in Blaine's ears, ringing, repeating. Sealing the deal and slaking his appetite more than he ever would have dreamed.

When the number is over Blaine is clapping before he realizes what he's doing. His hands smack together three full solid times and are on their way to a fourth when he remembers, suddenly, embarrassingly, that he's supposed to be there in secret, spying. Only a couple of people notice and their heads jerk sharply over to his side of the auditorium. He shoots up, and makes a mad dash for the door, but not before a fierce, sparkling moment of eye contact with none other than Kurt himself.

Kurt cocks an eyebrow and mouths, gotcha.

Blaine, thinking almost retroactively about the song's lyrics, swallows hard, because he so, so does.

II.
"Tony's working the show this weekend!" David announces at lunch, and a buzz instantly reverberates through many of the other Warblers, already growing excited. Wes is excited, too – he was hoping fortune would smile on them in this way – but he doesn't need to be a fool about it. He smiles into his juice and starts making plans in his head.

"Hey, hey, keep it down," says Blaine, and Wes glances up at him, pleased that he's making a responsible choice – but it's all undermined when Blaine continues, "If anyone but the Warblers gets wind of it there'll be too many of us to fit in the choir van."

"We can't take the choir van out to that place," Wes tells him. Theoretically they could, of course, but they just – they can't.

"Uh, sure we can," says Blaine, rolling his eyes, "I'm the one licensed to drive it. But seriously, it's already a tight fit with us."

"Well, I can't go," says Nick, frowning. "My sister's baby shower. Bogus."

"And Cameron won't want to go, he hates loud stuff," says Marc, "so there's that."

"Uh...dibs on one of the empty spots, then," says Blaine. David raises a questioning eyebrow at him, smirking, and the others dissolve back into energetic whispers about the concert. Wes narrows his eyes at Blaine across the table, though, because here comes more of this business.

"Blaine," he begins, "you cannot just invite Kurt along to things like this that are traditionally Warblers-only. Especially in the van."

"Kurt's coming to Dalton on Monday, and he will be a Warbler," says Blaine, all but staring him down.

"You can't make that true just by saying it," says Wes. "He has to try out just like everyone else."

"He's already proven himself capable in McKinley's glee club, I'm sure ours won't be any different!"

"Blaine, you know that's not true."

"Then I'm calling in that favor you owe me."

Wes scowls. Blaine alone is aware of the actions that resulted in Wes having to sit out sectionals the previous year, a suspension that had most likely cost them the shot at regionals that ultimately went to Aural Intensity instead. Blaine testified before the schoolboard against the junior athlete whom Wes had punched square in the face, citing all sorts of little nitpicky elements of the anti-harassment policy when it came to things like dorm room boundaries and passive-aggressive racism. Blaine alone knows that what Wes takes after school on Thursdays is not a specified chemistry lesson to help him toward his career goal of medicine, but a dumbed-down anger management course from their school counselor.

Blaine is boring into him with wide, deadly serious hazel-brown eyes across the lunchroom table, and Wes's scowl deepens. If he weren't so over-the-moon about this kid this would hardly be worth it, but as it is, maybe Blaine will finally shut up and stop doing his harried, barely-noticeable Blaine-moping that only Wes and David are acutely trained enough to see. So Wes nods once, and takes another bite of his wrap, and tries not to be annoyed when Blaine's face splits in a lovesick grin and he dives back into the planning for Saturday night.

In a somewhat miraculous manner, Saturday night goes off without a hitch. Jeff brings his roommate and Blaine brings Kurt, filling up their two leftover seats in the cramped-up van. There's a bit of a fuss when Kurt snipes a call for shotgun faster than most of them can usually snap up bids on comic book collectibles on eBay, but he does call it fair and square, and David is right when he mumbles to the rest of them that it's better than having to listen to either of them sigh and whine about any seating arrangement that would set them further apart. They crowd into the van a tangle of tattered skinny jeans and hooded sweatshirts, the kinds of things one wears to a show like this. Blaine opens the passenger-seat door for Kurt and takes it as an opportunity to lean in and tell him, "You look great."

Kurt's wearing pants that look to be uncomfortably tight, a deep stone-washed red color, and a snug scoop-collared long-sleeve black top with an over-the-top hipster scarf tied artfully around his neck. Even Wes's relatively underdeveloped gaydar pings off the charts at it, but he supposes "great" is still possibly accurate. Even in the semi-dark in which they're departing he can see Kurt flush.

David sits right behind Blaine, to help direct him to the venue, and they get there fairly quickly and with relatively no fuss over what station to keep the van's pathetic old radio tuned to. Blaine chats mostly to Kurt, telling him how the band* has a history of jokingly covering Britney Spears songs. The roll of Kurt's eyes suggests to Wes that Blaine has probably told him this already – that this was possibly even the selling point behind getting Kurt to come in the first place – but the fond smile never leaves his face.

Blaine deposits them all at the side door to the building and then drives around a few times to find a parking spot. David's up at the front of the line, but Kurt and Wes end up together near the end, the air thick with tense awkwardness as they wait for Blaine to come back and bridge the gaps between them.

"Thank you," Kurt says after a moment, stilted. "For inviting me along."

Wes tries to smile. "Consider it a Dalton welcome, unorthodox as it may be." As an afterthought he adds, "And don't thank me, thank Blaine. He's quite glad you could make it."

Kurt flushes again, and fidgets with the fringe on the edge of his scarf, staring off out over the street in the direction Blaine should be coming from whenever he reappears. "He's pretty incredible, isn't he."

Wes thinks about Blaine. He thinks about Teenage Dream and sectionals and the schoolboard. He thinks about the half-day of class Blaine missed a week ago to drive to Lima for the boy standing in front of him, a boy whom at the time he had barely known. He's tempted to agree.

Blaine finally shows up and hovers bouncily next to Kurt just as David's reaching the door where his cousin is serving as bouncer.

"Dammit, Dave, all these kids? All these underage kids?"

"Come on, Tony, you promised!" whines David, putting on a beautiful act of being younger and more petulant, too cute to refuse. Tony rolls his eyes and sighs heavily, turning his back to the lot of them.

"Okay, I'm going to count to ten, and then I'm gonna turn back around, and however many of you make it inside make it inside. But if there's anyone left, I am gonna card you."

"Geez, yes, thank you Tony – "

"One!"

They swarm the door, all the boys in front of Wes squirming and crowding and trying to fit even as Tony is hitting six, seven, eight. Wes makes it in on nine, and Blaine a split-second after, but Kurt hesitates at the threshold, deterred by the thrashing crowds and bright lights. Just before they can get caught, Blaine reaches out, and takes him by the hand, tugging him through.

Yes, perhaps fairly incredible indeed.

III.
Kurt wishes he couldn't remember so painfully the exact number of days since he auditioned for the Warblers solo. He wishes he couldn't see so vividly the exact expression on Wes's face, on Blaine's face, or hear the kind and caring and well-meant and totally wrong words that Blaine said to him, how it was possible to be asking him to be something that he is one-hundred-percent not and still be so encouraging. It's heavy and weird and sits inside of Kurt in a way that he can't quite puzzle out. And it has sat there for ten irritating days.

Every one of those ten days, Kurt has thought about Blaine's backwards advice, and has tried in every little way he can think of to push the envelope. He raises his hand to be called on in class as frequently as possible, until finally his history teacher prompts the other boys with "Someone other than Mr. Hummel?" He tries everything with the uniform, ascots with the sweatervest, elaborate brooches on the lapel of the blazer, shoes with a sharp significant heel. It's a little, but it isn't enough. It will never be enough unless Blaine looks at him in front of absolutely everyone with that same bright, almost involuntary joy he has with Kurt when they're alone.

Kurt's individuality is what makes him. Kurt knows this about himself and always has. And Kurt knows, knows that Blaine knows it too. And Kurt might be kind of head over heels for Blaine, but nothing between them can ever work if even a fraction of Blaine still wants him to be someone that he's not.

On the eleventh day, Warblers practice is going particularly smoothly, not a hitch, not a complaint, not a single counter-argument to anything. Exactly how everyone wants it to go, and Kurt can't stand it. He rolls his eyes and goes through the motions on his notes, and if everyone can tell that he's half-assing it, well, good. Because as soon as rehearsal lets out, he's getting in his car and driving up to the place where he can be himself.

His McKinley parking pass is still in his glove compartment and when he's a few miles from the school he slips it onto his dashboard and calls Mercedes. "I'm coming to glee practice."

"We're not having practice today, Kurt," she says, confused. "Puck, Rachel and Tina are all out for the last day of Hanukkah, and Lauren's got a wrestling match. Schuester figured it'd be pointless."

"Well I'm almost to McKinley already and I need to sing something," he insists, making the second-to-last turn. "Promise you'll be there for me."

"I promise," she says. "Artie and Brittany are still around, too, we got you." She pauses, and Kurt braces himself for the inevitable. "What's...what's the problem?"

"I'll spill, I promise, but just – not over the phone," he says, with a sigh. "I'd rather not – oh. Oh no."

"What is it?"

"I cannot pull into school if one D. Karofsky and company are just going to be lounging around in the bed of his pickup in the freaking parking lot!" Kurt squeals, because seriously, today of all days. "Can you get out here and run backup for me or something?"

"Lemme get my coat."

He parks as far away from Karofsky's dingy red truck as possible, and leaves the heat running until Mercedes and Brittany show up, tucked into cute scarves against the December chill. Together the two of them shield him from sight and any potential harm across the entire parking lot, and smuggle him into the auditorium. By the time they make it inside their cheeks are flushed hot pink from the cold and their giddy laughter at making it home free.

"Oh, Mercedes, what am I doing with myself," he whines as his giggles die down.

"What's the problem, Kurt?" says Artie, wheeling over to them at the piano.

"Nothing," he says instantly, but then, "everything. I don't know. It's like that gross aggravating feeling when you have the vision of the perfect outfit in your head and you realize you have exactly all but one of the essential pieces in your own wardrobe. So you try to replace the missing part of it with something similar that you do actually own but it never quite works the same, you know?"

Artie and Brittany look confused, but Mercedes nods her head, and presses her hand soft against the shoulder of his sweater. "And I guess Dalton red and blue aren't really what you're going for here."

Kurt sighs, and slumps onto the piano bench next to Brittany. "I like him so much, Mercedes," he nearly whispers. He doesn't miss the awkward face that Artie makes, but he keeps going. "And I know he likes me, satellites from outer space can see that he likes me. But I just – he doesn't understand. Or something. It's like he does and he doesn't and he just needs to get that last bit to fall into place – "

"I know, baby, I know," she says.

"He's always telling me to have courage," he realizes suddenly, "but it's him that's scared. I just – I want to have enough for both of us! But I can't do that if he won't just let this happen." He looks up at her, fully aware that he's pouting a little and beyond even caring any more. "How do you just get a boy to tell you that he likes you?"

Mercedes's solemn expression quirks up into a little smile. "Honey, if I knew how to do that, I wouldn't be single either."

"Wow, I really don't think it's that hard," Brittany deadpans, blinking. Artie punches her playfully in the shoulder with a gloved hand, and then they're all smiling.

"Okay, enough of this. I didn't come here to be serious, I came here to be silly," says Kurt. "Dalton's got me covered as far as serious goes until I'm at least twenty. We need to rock."

In the end, the four of them do a loose, spastic version of Britney Spears's Soda Pop, chasing each other around the stage, and then Kurt hugs them all and makes the reluctant drive back to Dalton before it gets too dark outside. He's following along the hallways to his dorm room on automatic, looking down at his feet and trying to cherish his impromptu New Directions performance for as long as he can, and when he arrives at his own door to find Blaine sitting slumped right in front of it, he jumps. Blaine jumps, too, to his feet, and then for some reason is reaching out to Kurt, taking his gloved hand, and looking that tiniest bit up at him with the Blaine-and-Kurt-alone-together face – but with something else behind his eyes, too, that Kurt wonders if he's ever really seen before.

"I'm sorry, Kurt," says Blaine, so earnestly Kurt would almost want to laugh if he didn't also kind of feel like fainting. "For everything."

When Kurt kisses him and Blaine clings tightly and kisses back, Kurt thinks that maybe Blaine has worked up some courage after all, and he can taste it, bright and fizzy on his lips.

IV.
Joel is the first to see the sign. It's there when they get back to school after break, not on the door to Dalton's big public performance space, where the drama club does their fall and spring productions and the Warblers give their yearly Founders' Day concert, but the smaller, more intimate theater that sometimes hosts senior research presentations and jokey, impromptu performances but not much else. But the sign has been typed up very plainly, and stuck with a piece of blue painters' tape:

This Space Reserved
Sunday, January 9
Eight O'Clock PM
For A Private Event

Joel thinks nothing of it, and ignores it, for the most part. It's rare that he goes past the room, anyway, and it's weird that someone would try to lay dibs on it a week in advance with something like a paper sign, but it doesn't really bother him.

Marc, meanwhile, has never been able to deal with weird inexplicable stuff like this.

"Did you guys see that sign?" he asks Jeff and David at lunch on Tuesday the fourth, desperate for some answers.

"What sign?" says Jeff.

"On the door, to the little auditorium." But Jeff hasn't seen it, and David just shrugs and keeps chewing. So the next day when Marc passes it by he takes the sign down to show everyone.

"Huh," says Cameron, unimpressed.

"Why wouldn't they just go through the administrators to book the room properly?" says Wes.

"Maybe it's something illegitimate," says David.

"Maybe it's something illegal!" adds Xavier.

"I wish it were handwritten," says Marc with a frown, "or in a particular font, or something. I want to know who it is!"

"You'll do anything for a little bit of excitement around here, won't you," says Kurt, rolling his eyes.

David gets a pass for the bathroom out of English on Thursday, and walks by and sees that the sign is back. This time, however, there is a bit of a difference.

"An exclamation point, wow," Blaine deadpans, as they all huddle around it again. "Whoever it is is getting touchy."

"Exactly!" says Marc. "'This Space Reserved,' exclamation. That's irritation, I'm telling you. I wonder if we keep taking them down, if we could get under their skin."

"Or you could leave well enough alone, and stop bothering whoever it is, and just let them have the space on Sunday."

Wes nods his agreement. "He's got a point. Let's not turn this into a big deal, I don't want anything explosive to come of this."

"Oh, don't act like you guys aren't curious," says Jeff, taking the sign from Marc to look it over again, searching for anything that might identify its maker. "Maybe we should dust for fingerprints."

"Oh, please, if you're Sherlock then I'm James Bond," says Kurt. "And as we've established." He inclines his head sardonically toward Blaine, and Blaine laughs, and they exchange a grin and knock their feet together under the table.

But Jeff takes down Friday morning's sign, and Friday afternoon's sign has the exclamation point and an underlining in black Sharpie.

"What's so special about January ninth anyway?" Marc wonders aloud, staring at his ceiling Saturday night before lights-out.

"Dunno, man," says Cameron from his side of the room.

"It's not anyone's birthday."

"No holidays that I'm aware of, even in a couple other religions."

"No major historical events."

"No one would give a test on a Monday morning so it can't be cram-studying."

"Ugh," says Marc, rolling over onto his stomach with a sigh. "How is something so mundane suddenly the weirdest thing that's happened to us in a long time?"

Cameron thinks about it, and Marc is right. Dalton is usually pretty rules-and-regulations, which Cameron really likes about it. It's quiet and peaceful and the status quo is rarely interrupted. Even something as simple as a paper flyer is enough to...

Well, it's enough that when Cameron and Marc come sneaking up to the theater door at about eight-oh-five on Sunday night, they're not the only ones. Wes, David, and Jeff are coming from the senior dorms in the other direction, and they all meet up outside. Jeff nearly starts laughing, but Wes quickly shushes him and they slowly, carefully, quiet-as-a-mouse ease the door open and duck inside.

Up on the stage is a small wooden piano, and seated at the bench are none other than freaking Kurt and Blaine, Kurt facing inward toward the instrument plunking out a soft and unsteady melody and Blaine shoulder-to-shoulder with him seated the other way to give enough room for him to play his guitar. From them flows a sweet, slightly sad but entirely hopeful song, that Jeff thinks he might recognize from a movie*, and of course they're singing along too, voices twining together way more tightly and powerfully than their instruments. Both of them are clearly singers first and foremost. On top of the piano, he suddenly spots a bottle of the sparkling apple cider that the Dalton cafeterias serve on special event days, and a small battery-powered candle, and two roses, one a bright pinkish-red and one much, much deeper, lying with their stems crossed.

The beauty of Blaine and Kurt's music has the five of them kind of dumbstruck, and they barely even notice until the song is over. Kurt laughs then, kind of embarrassed about his piano playing skills, but Blaine sets down the guitar and reassures him.

"No, it was beautiful, Kurt," he says, stroking Kurt's bangs tenderly away from his face. It's easy to hear the implied you're beautiful on his voice and Marc and Jeff exchange a look, suddenly feeling really guilty for intruding on such a private event after all.

"Happy one-month anniversary, then," says Kurt, smiling a little awkwardly. "Longest relationship I've ever had."

"And I intend to keep holding that record for as long as possible," says Blaine, grinning at him. They lean together for a long, soft kiss, the piano jangling a little when Blaine presses Kurt back into it, and while they are distracted, Marc, Jeff, Cameron, David and Wes sneak their way back out.

V.
David Bowright is potentially having the worst week of his life.

Monday he receives the grade on his physics test that he never got a chance to solidly study for because of an emergency Warblers rehearsal to rework parts around the absence of a sick Joel (whose voice may or may not come back in time for their singing Valentines at the hospital next week) and discovers, with a force like getting slapped in the face, that he has failed a major assignment for the first time in his academically-overachieving life. Tuesday his mother calls him, and keeps him trapped on the line for nearly two hours, demanding to know why he never keeps in touch with her now that he's away at boarding school and babbling endlessly about some new reality TV show she's started watching that David literally couldn't care less about. On Wednesday, in an act he should have seen coming but that still sort of knocks the wind out of him, his girlfriend breaks up with him over coffee and pastries with it's not you, it's me (when David knows full well that it is neither of them but is, in fact, the new foreign exchange student from Greece that sits in front of her in her math class). And he's still pretty torn up about that on Thursday when Joel makes a miraculous recovery and it turns out the whole business with the physics test could totally have been avoided in the first place. Friday they're serving beef stroganoff in the cafeteria and David is allergic to mushrooms and that's when he kind of gives up and slumps his forehead to the table in front of him.

"What's wrong?" asks Wes, and David can only muster up the energy to say, "everything."

Blaine gives a sympathetic sigh, nudges him in the shoulder, and silently swaps his own lunch – leftover Chinese takeout from a movie marathon the night before – for David's cafeteria food. It's enough to bring a weak little smile to David's face and he manages to sit up and start eating Blaine's rice.

"Are you having a day?" he says.

"I'm having a week, man," he says. "This time of year is so lousy."

From the fourth seat at their small table in the back corner, Kurt purses his lips together and gives David a sort of look. "Might I interest you in a strange and potentially dangerous mission that, if successful, is bound to cheer you up just from the absurdity of it all?"

At the very least David is intrigued. "Go on."

"Plans have been made," says Kurt delicately, "to go on a reconnaissance endeavor of sorts."

"Spying, again," Wes translates. "Because you're so terribly good at it."

Kurt glares. "This is why I am not going alone. Blaine is accompanying me – "

"Because he's so much better – "

" – as well as a couple of members of my old glee club at McKinley."

"Wait," says David, "so they're not the ones we're spying on?"

"Of course not," says Kurt. "After working with them for a year and a half and witnessing their tying performance at sectionals, I'm fairly certain I know what they're capable of without having to sneak in on their rehearsals. I'm talking about the big guns. We're going to Carmel."

"Vocal Adrenaline?" Blaine hisses. "Are you serious? You didn't tell me that when I signed up for this."

"Sneaking in there is basically suicide," says David, "and I'm not sure how suicide is supposed to be a real pick-me-up."

"Especially suicide that involves these two in close proximity," Wes says, frown in place. He turns from David. "Need I remind the two of you that his girlfriend just dumped him?"

"Need I remind you two that I am about as allergic to public displays of affection as Mr. Bowright here is to the food that my idiot boyfriend just inhaled?" He shoots a glance first to Blaine himself and then to the nearly empty plate resting in front of him. Blaine gives a strained sort of apologetic smile around his full mouth.

"Well, I'm not in," says Wes. "Espionage is remarkably unprofessional, and my week's actually been going pretty well."

"What do you say, David?" says Blaine, grinning like a lunatic.

Kurt's smile is tamer and yet somehow more vicious all at once. "Did I mention that my friends coming from New Directions are single, attractive, relatively sane and female?"

David chews thoughtfully on the last of the beef and broccoli, and thinks about it. Cute girls are coming; he won't be playing third wheel to the occasionally unbearable Kurt-and-Blaine. And these guys are going to need someone that knows how to be a little sneaky if they're going to get anywhere. The worst that can happen is basically he takes his three-base shot of utter crap and turns it into a home run, right?

This is how David ends up in the balcony of the Carmel High auditorium at three forty-five Friday afternoon with Blaine, Kurt, a tiny girl named Rachel and a not-so-tiny girl named Mercedes. With the former he's starting to question Kurt's idea of "relatively sane."

"This is the sweet spot in this place," she whispers fiercely. "I have nearly excessive experience sneaking into this auditorium so I know all of its aural and visual weak links. Up here we can see and hear them flawlessly but they'll never know we even breathed in this place."

"And there you have it: the only reason we brought her along," says Mercedes, rolling her eyes.

"Whose idea was this, anyway?" says Blaine, kind of confused. "Because I know you forget this sometimes maybe, Kurt, but New Directions and the Warblers are in competition with each other, too. If you really wanted a leg up shouldn't we have come by ourselves?"

"My old allegiances are dying somewhat hard," he says. "Besides, Vocal Adrenaline is a lunatic juggernaut. If either of our groups want to stand a chance against them at regionals it might be best to attack from multiple angles."

"I knew there was a reason I missed you," says Rachel. She and Kurt hover right on the edge of the balcony as Goolsby warms Vocal Adrenaline up, but David, along with Blaine and Mercedes, quickly loses interest. He reclines back into his seat and tries not to laugh as Blaine attempts to calm Kurt down via a very unsubtle shoulder massage. Mercedes actually does laugh.

"So you're David, right?" she says after a minute.

"Yep. David Bowright."

"Bowright...oh! Is your mom a sales rep?"

"How'd you know?" he says.

"She comes into my dad's office a lot – Jones and Kohansby Dental."

David smiles a little. "Yeah, all right," he says. "So are you Jones or Kohansby?"

"You think my mom would be fool enough to name me Mercedes Kohansby?"

He does laugh, then – and when, by the end of the first song, even Kurt has given up on the insanity and only Rachel remains fixated on the performance in front of them, David decides that his week is definitely looking up.

I.
" – and there he was, just crumpled at the bottom of the stairs looking so unbelievably pitiful, and I cannot believe I used to have a crush on that."

"That's just embarrassing."

"So if he's extra off on the dance moves at glee this week, just be nice to him, because like his entire left hip is probably just this big bruise." Kurt laughs, and it makes Mercedes laugh too. It's so nice to hear him happy. As much as she loves Blaine and a couple of the other guys, she can still remember that miserable day back in December, and she's never quite sure that they're treating him right over there in Westerville.

"I'll make a note of it then," she says, forcing her thoughts back to Finn.

"All right, I hate to ever end a conversation with you but I've gotta go, I'm nearly to the choir room." Mercedes says nothing, but her grin spreads out extra-wide and she motions Tina and Mike over hastily to crowd around her phone. "Wes'll have my head if he...what the..."

Mercedes can barely stifle her giggles as she hears what can only be Kurt – and, by the babble that comes down the line, some of the other Warblers – discovering the display that she and the rest of New Directions have sent over into their practice room. If the place did it right, there should be one of those big heart-shaped things made out of flowers on the little stands, and a couple of balloons, and their card they've written, inside of which is a single –

"Hey, there's a USB memory stick in here," someone says, and Tina flails a little with her.

"'Cedes," says Kurt, mock-threatening, "what did you do..."

"There's a video on that jump drive. Just boot it up and watch it." She leaves it at that, because once they watch it, they'll have all the explanation they need. She can still play it back in her head: herself, Tina, Brittany, Mike, Artie, and Lauren, crowded around her computer to get everyone in the shot from her webcam, smiling and waving and doing a little a cappella doo-wop behind her as she spoke.

"My most fabulous gentlemen of Dalton Academy," she said to them, "as most of you must know, this Monday is none other than Valentine's Day. And we, the members of the McKinley High glee club, would be very much pleased if the Warblers would be New Directions' Valentine." (Mike had worked in a cute jokey strain of Teenage Dream at this point.) "Sunday afternoon we have the McKinley auditorium booked, and we'd be honored if you guys would prepare a couple of songs to come and serenade us with. The favor will naturally be returned. Think of it as a labor of love, just in time for regionals."

"And don't let Blaine and Kurt get too disgusting on you, we'll slap 'em if we have to!" Lauren added. "Save the hot guy-on-guy romance for my fanblogs."

"Hugs and kisses!" said Brittany, and then the video was over.

Mercedes is just kicking herself that she didn't plan this well enough to see Kurt's face.

The Warblers – being gentlemen, as she said, and also very susceptible to Hummel-style arm-twisting – arrive promptly at three PM on Sunday, wearing the appropriately red Dalton sweaters instead of the blazers and filing in a little awkwardly, except for Kurt and Blaine bringing up the front. Kurt runs straight to her and flings his arms around her neck, a fiercer hug than they've had in ages. He uses their closeness as an opportunity to discretely whisper, "Easy on the Teenage Dream jokes, he's taking it a little personally." She's laughing when they pull away, because Blaine – and, she blushes a little to notice, David – are right behind.

"Thanks so much for coming, guys!" says Mr. Schuester, finally getting up to speed. "Do you guys have a preference on performance order?"

"If you don't mind, Mr. Schue," Kurt begins, and for a moment Mercedes can see him again as he was, back in their choir room, perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect bright little fire burning inside of him as if neither Karofsky nor Dalton had ever tried to put it out, "we've recently prepared a number* I'm very proud of and I'm anxious to show it off."

"Absolutely!" he says. "Come on guys, let's give our guests a hand." New Directions applauds, Mercedes loudest of all, as the Warblers ascend up to the stage and fall into position. Kurt and Blaine are last to take the stage, and no one misses the deep, soulful good luck kiss they share before moving into place with Blaine just left of center and Kurt standing, head down and leg popped out, dead in the middle.

Mercedes thrills. Did they – did they actually give him a solo?

Wes conducts melodramatically from one end for a few lines, but then Kurt's fingers start snapping hard and poppy and he jerks up and straight-up starts to sing. Mercedes almost gets a little teary-eyed – it's the solo he's deserved forever, that not even New Directions has ever given to him, a chance to be completely surrounded by his peers but building the number on his own. And the closer she listens to exactly what the lyrics are saying, and the closer she looks at the solid, wonderful glances Kurt teases Blaine with every time they pivot close to one another in the choreography, Mercedes is finally convinced that these boys really are treating her boy right, after all.

-xxx-

*(AN: In order – "Pumpkin Soup" by Kate Nash; "Your Kind" by Danger Radio; "Falling Slowly" from Once; and "Grace Kelly" by Mika.)