A/N: I don't even know what this is. I was super tired yesterday and I wrote down a basic outline for this before I passed out. Let me just say that if this is totally weird, I blame it on too much Pepsi Max and not enough sleep. Review if you want me to continue. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

Chapter One: The 3I.

Sam had always known he was a little bit strange. Before all of the rigorous workouts, he had been a gangly, awkward kid. His love of all things nerdy had painted a perma-target on his back, it seemed, and he had been the frequent recipient of spitballs to the back of the head and taunts about his appearance since the third grade. It wasn't a new thing, this feeling of wanting to disappear. That's why he wasn't as surprised as he probably should have been the first time it happened.

He was standing in front of the full-length mirror in his bathroom, peering at himself through the steam that was still swirling through the air after his shower. Recalling the cruelest of that day's taunts, Sam's eyes burned as a sudden onslaught of tears threatened to overtake him. He squeezed them shut tightly, feeling the overwhelming urge to just disappear.

When his eyes flickered back open a few moments later, Sam gasped. He was looking directly at what definitely should have been his reflection, but nothing was there. His mouth was agape as he slowly waved his hand in front of the mirror, as though he could conjure his image back up. Sam froze there for awhile, staring at nothing. Or more precisely, staring at the reflection of the Star Wars shower curtain that was behind him. He stayed that way for awhile, wondering if it was more likely that he was dreaming, insane, or just even weirder than he thought. He decided to test it out.

Sam stepped out into the hallway and called out, "Hey, Mom, could you c'mere for a second?" He heard his mom shuffling across her bedroom floor and a few seconds later a petite blonde woman appeared in the doorframe. She looked down the hallway and frowned.

"Sammy?" she called out, looking perplexed. "Are you in your room, kiddo?"

Sam's heart raced. She was looking right at him and couldn't see him. He wasn't imagining this. He wasn't sure why he didn't tell her right then, except that he knew she'd probably faint, and that seemed like something that should be avoided. Besides, sci-fi nerd that he was, he knew that when things like this happened to people they usually ended up being poked and prodded in a lab somewhere, and the prospect of that made him shiver. So instead he softly padded over to his bedroom and waited until he was safely inside to respond. "Yeah, Mom. Nevermind, I found what I was looking for."

Three hours passed before he saw himself again. He was fourteen then, and over the next few months the invisibility came and went sporadically, always during times of intense emotional upset. As time progressed, he started to identify the feelings associated with it and could predict when it was about to happen, and eventually, he taught himself how to trigger it at will. Controlling the duration of the episodes was more of a challenge, but after much practice in the privacy of his bedroom, he had it almost perfected by the summer of his sixteenth birthday. It was sort of ironic, Sam thought, that learning that he could go invisible at any moment somehow bolstered his confidence the way it did. He couldn't fully understand it, but in the few weeks that followed the initial invisibility incident (Sam called it the 3I), the feeling of disbelief eventually relented to the most wonderful feeling of freedom that Sam had ever known. Slowly but steadily, he broke out of his own comfort zone. He started working out, and shortly thereafter he joined the football team. He was just starting to gain control of both his social life and his invisibility methods, one probably directly because of the other. But then a week after that pivotal sixteenth birthday, he found himself seated at the kitchen table across from his mother. She looked uneasy, and Sam couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her look that way. He braced himself for some kind of sad news, like maybe some relative he barely knew had died. He watched her expectantly.

She began with trepidation. "Sammy, I didn't tell you sooner because I wanted to wait until I knew for sure, but I applied for a position as an assistant editor for an up-and-coming political magazine that has a lot of potential for success, and I got it. And they said that if I'm as good as they think I am, I could be their Senior Editor within a year's time. It's kind of a really big deal. The only thing is, baby, we're going to have to move."

Sam stared at her for a moment before asking. "M-move where, exactly?"

His mom sighed and looked down at the table. She already knew how this was going to go. "Lima, Ohio."

Sam cocked an eyebrow. "Like the bean?"

She just nodded.

"But, Mom, things are just starting to be really awesome here, and I can't j-" he abruptly stopped as he saw the utterly dejected look on his mom's face. No matter what, he loved her more than anything, and he absolutely couldn't stand to see her upset. "On second thought, Lima sounds cool." He flashed her his best grin, and she beamed in return.

"It'll be great, Sammy. I promise." she said, getting up from the table and kissing his forehead before she left the kitchen.

Somehow, he doubted that.