Warnings: Eating disorders, mentions, occasional flashbacks and conversations concerning abuse and neglect, and bullying

Sam Evans was sitting on the bed in his new room reading through the lyrics to the latest Glee song the group was working on. They were given the lyrics that afternoon, but he wanted to have them memorized by the next day. Then he planned go back to that spot he'd found in the woods in the backyard and practice the song until he had it perfect. He never practices inside, he doesn't want to disturb the other members of the household. He spends a lot of time in that spot unless it rains, then he just has extra time to work out.

Sometimes it was hard to find time for Quinn. It had take a lot of re-working of his schedule to make it work. He knows the others guys on the team would never let him hear the end of it if they knew he actually has a written schedule, but he does. It was the only way to fit everything in.

Once he gets home from school he practices for Glee in the hour until supper. He helps the kids with their homework for an half an hour and then has half an hour to talk to Quinn on the phone, an hour for his homework, and two hours to work out in his room while the TV is on so he can make conversation at school the next day. A quick shower and he's in bed by eleven-thirty so he can be up at five-thirty to do whatever he sees that needs to be done around the house, make breakfast and help get the kids ready for school.

He's the oldest kid in the house right now, so he's decided it's his job to do as much to help as possible. He cooks, he cleans and he helps with homework. He's going to be the perfect student, the perfect football player, the perfect singer, the perfect brother, the perfect boyfriend and he will have the perfect body. He will be the perfect teenager. The perfect son. Maybe then he can stay.

He knew his room used to be the guest room. He knew there was a reason that the other kids were several years younger then him. He knew he was an emergency placement, taken in out of pity because there was litterally no where else for him to go. This was his seventh home in nine years. He had been bounced from place to place for various reasons, he'd been in a group home twice and he was sick of moving. He knew he only had a couple years left before he had to fend for himself. He hoped that maybe if he was perfect they would just keep him until then.

Except he was not perfect. He knew that. There wasn't much he could control about that. But, he thought, he wasn't really stupid, he wasn't a bad singer and if he practiced enough he could be a decent football player. He just hoped that if he worked hard enough, he could make them think he was perfect. And he was definitely working hard. He even scheduled his weekends as strictly as he could. He didn't have time to have free time.

He was strugling to keep up in everything but he knew that if he backed off with anything, his whole carefully constructed life would all fall apart. It was all connected. If he didn't have the perfect body, he couldn't be the perfect football player. If he didn't have the perfect body, if he wasn't the perfect singer and the perfect football player, he wouldn't have the perfect girlfriend. If he didn't have the perfect body, if he wasn't the perfect football player, if he didn't have the perfect girlfriend, he wasn't not even past mud on the popular scale. And if anything fell, he wasn't the perfect son.

It wasn't that he didn't love Quinn. He did. Now. But at first, he had flirted with her because she was popular. He had heard about her pregnancy, but she was already well on her way to being one of the most popular girls in school again. Joining Glee had definitely not helped his plans of being popular at first, but it had helped him get the perfect girl. He didn't expect to really end up liking her. That was definitely a plus. However, now he wasn't just scared of losing her because it would mess up his plan, he was scared of losing her because he loved her.

Glee had really thrown a wrench into his other plans too. He had friends now. Real ones. Sometimes his morals would really clash with his plan. How could he be the perfect football player when the Quarterback position was so important to his best friend? And how could he stay remotely popular when the other popular kids were tormenting the Glee kids? When Karofsky knocked Artie out of his wheelchair, he decided that the least important thing in his plan was being popular. It wasn't worth sitting by and watching while people hurt his friends.

The rest of his plan seemed to still be working, however. He knew he had impressed his new foster parents and so he deiced that he just needs to keep it up. So, if sometimes he had to get up at four-thirty to get all his homework done, it was ok. And if he was tired and hungry most of the time, he would live. He'd had worse. It was all worth it if he could just keep them thinking that he was perfect. It was all worth it if he could just stay.

Author's Note: Well ... this started off as a one-shot. But the idea just won't leave me alone and now I've got a whole multi-chapter story outlined. If I do end up adding more (which I'm 99% sure I will), I can't promise that I'll be able to update very fast, but I will promise that I will finish it. I hope you guys liked this!