Riiinnnngggg!

"Wait! Before you go." Mr. Schue hollered as the glee club students headed for the door.

Everybody froze.

"The charter bus will be here around five thirty, be here no later then five fifteen. I will bring donuts and juice for the ride. If you want coffee, bring it yourself." Mr. Schue said. "I don't care if you come in your pajamas or dressed but you have to be covered. The trip is three hours, feel free to bring DVD's for the trip, we'll alternate playing them. And…that's it. See you tomorrow."

The kids continued out the room.

"How am I going to get my mom to drive me to school at five on a Saturday?" Damian muttered, walking behind Cameron.

"I'm crashing at Cam's place." Samuel said. "I doubt they would mind having you sleep over too."

"Since when are you in glee club?" Lindsay asked, joining their small huddle.

"I joined yesterday after school." He said.

Lindsay nodded.

"Ellis is staying the night too. And Tyler and Zack will be home…so I don't know if it'll be okay with Mom. I'll have to check." Cameron said.

"If you need a ride, we can pick you up." Lindsay offered.

"Thanks. I'll let you know." Damian said, walking into his next class.

"Mom! We're home!" Cameron hollered walking into the house with Damian, Samuel and Ellis.

Samuel dropped Damian's duffle bag and pillow in the foyer and continued on into the kitchen, where the smell of fresh chocolate chip cookies was coming from. Ellis dropped her backpack, duffle bag, blanket and pillow with Damian's things.

"Are you two moving in?" Eliza joked kissing them both.

"We're just staying the night so we can bum a ride off you in the morning." Ellis said, walking into the living room.

She sat down at the desk in the back and started on her trigonometry homework.

"How's your knee feeling, Damian?" she asked as he flopped down on the couch.

"I can put some pressure on it. Still stuck on crutches for the next two weeks. But I can walk short distances without them." Damian smiled.

Eliza laughed and went back into the kitchen.

Samuel was sitting on the counter with a glass of milk in one hand and a half eaten cookie in the other. He had melted chocolate on his lips and fingers.

"Did you eat lunch?" she asked.

Samuel nodded, his mouth too full to eat.

"Have you thought about what you are going to tell Tyler when he gets here?" the mom asked, stirring a pot that sat on the stove.

He nodded apprehensively.

Samuel saw disappointment and admiration in his older brother's eyes as he told him everything that had happened in the past week. Tyler stared at him for a long time once he was finished.

"Are you okay?" Tyler asked.

The younger boy shrugged. "Define okay."

"Are you high?" Tyler asked, forcing his little brother to look at him.

It was impossible to see if his pupils were dilated or not in the darkness of the back porch.

"Mama Mitchell doesn't let me get high." he said, pulling away from his brother, worried he might feel the tears rolling down his cheeks.

"That's a good thing, Sam. You don't need to me high all the time."

"You were."

"I know. But I stopped. I found other things that helped me forget."

"No you got a scholarship to a fancy boarding school over an hour away and left me alone with that fucking jack ass and Mom who was too afraid to do anything to stop him from beating me!" he yelled, his voice cracking, giving away his crying.

"Sammy, you don't understand." Tyler tried, reaching for him little brother.

"No. I'm not a kid anymore. I understand perfectly. In our house it's everyman for himself." Samuel choked out. "Dad's a damn drunk who would beat us senseless. Mom was too scared of him to do anything to protect her own kids so she ran. And you. Once you got the chance to leave, you did. Not even bothering with me. Where does that leave me?"

Tyler, not being able to come up with anything to say, pulled his little brother into a hug. Samuel tried to pull away.

"Let me go!" he screamed, making his hand into a fist.

Tyler didn't let go. Samuel loosened his fist, unable to hit one of the few people he knew cared about him deep down.

"Sammy, I'm sorry I left you. I just couldn't stand it anymore." He said, tears rolling down his cheeks. "It's gonna be okay now though. I'm graduating soon. I'll get a job in Lima, we'll get an apartment and I'll take care of you."

Samuel sniffled. Tyler pulled back and held his little brother by his shoulders.

"It's you and me now, kid. We'll work something out with Eliza about you staying her e till I graduate. I'll take extra classes so I can graduate early." He explained like he was talking to a small child. "I have over five thousand dollars saved up. Once I get back we'll get an apartment. It might be hard, but I'll make it work. I swear on my life you will never have to live with Mom or Dad again."

Samuel nodded wiping his cheeks.

Ding-ding-ding-ding

"Damian." Cameron groaned, rolling over. "Damian. You're computer's going off."

The laptop sat open on the nightstand in between the two beds. A Skype request was on the screen.

"Damian!" Cameron yelled, throwing his left shoe at a lump on the other bed.

"What?" Damian said, sitting up.

"You're computer." He said flopping back down on to his pillows.

Damian hit accept and Keagan's bright smiling face filled the screen.

"What do you want Highlander?" Damian groaned.

"Turn on a light, lad. I can't see you." Keagan said.

Damian flipped on the lamp on the nightstand and closed his eyes tight, not yet used to the bright light.

"It's barely one in the morning. What could you possibly want?"

"I talked to Brooke." The boy sang. "You look like shit."

"Thanks. That means so much coming from you."

"I'm serious. Look at yourself. You don't look too good."

Damian opened his eyes and looked in the lower corner of the screen. His black hair was in desperate need of a hair cut and sticking up at odd angles. He had dried blood under his nose that he never bother to wash off after he limped into a door before he went to bed. His blood shot eyes had dark circles around them.

"Did you get in a fight?"

"Rough few days. Now what about Brooke?"

"She loves you, Damo." Keagan said.

"Seriously?"

"Well…she did…does…she doesn't really know. So I don't really know. So you don't really know. I talked to her she said that some pretty important things went down a few nights before you left for America…she wouldn't tell me…what happened?"

"I have to be up early in the morning. I'll talk to you later."

"That bad?" Keagan laughed.

"Worse." Damian said, turning his computer off.

He dropped his laptop on the floor and turned the lights off. He fell face first into his pillows and groaned.

"What happened with you and Brooke?" Cameron asked, propping himself up on his elbows.

Damian said something but his words were muffled.

"Say again. I can't hear you." Cameron said.

Damian pushed himself up and took a deep breath.

"Okay. A few days before I knew I was moving…me and Brooke…" he trailed off.

"You and Brooke." The blonde urged.

"We had sex. Made love. Fucked. Any word you want to use. We did it. A lot…she wanted to go another round but we were out of condoms and I told her I didn't want to get her pregnant yet. That I was going to wait until we were married." Damian rubbed his eyes, remembering the day like it was yesterday. "I promised her that I would marry her someday and that we would make blue eyed babies together. But a few days later my parents divorced was finalized and Mum told me that we were moving in less then a week. I told Brooke and she freaked out. She cried and smacked me. I never say goodbye to her."

He dropped on to his pillows and groaned loudly.

"It's to early." Damian groaned limping down the stairs.

"Where are your crutches?" Eliza asked, helping Damian into a chair.

"Brittany took them." Cameron said from the couch.

Ellis and Samuel stumbled up the basement stairs still in their pajamas.

"Does anyone want anything to eat?" Eliza asked.

All she got was groans in response.

"I put snacks in each of your bags." She said as Brittany came into the front foyer on Damian's crutches. "Brittany. Give Damian his crutches. Let's get to the car kids."

The kids piled into Eliza's mini van. None of them complained when she turned the radio on to a love song station, like they normally did.

"How did everybody sleep?" Eliza asked perkily.

"Like shit." Damian muttered from the very back.

"I didn't." Samuel groaned from the middle row.

"Your basement couch is very uncomfortable." Ellis moaned from beside Samuel.

"Damian snores." Cameron said from beside Damian.

"Well. That's not good. But, you can all sleep on the bus once it gets here. Now get out. I have things to do." Eliza said, parking the van.

Everybody stumbled out and grabbed their things from the trunk. Samuel and Cameron were carrying Damian's things for him, even though Damian insisted he could carry them himself.

Damian sat down on the front steps next to McKynleigh. She scoffed and moved away. Cameron took her place. Ellis went to talk to McKynleigh.

"What did I do?" Damian asked resting his head on Cameron's shoulder.

Cameron's hear sped up. "She likes or liked you…until you said you were only interested in Brooke."

"Girls are so complicated." He yawned.

"Hi Sam." Marissa smiled sitting down next to him.

She was wearing a purple sweat suit and green Converse sneakers. Her hair was pulled into two pigtails down her back and she wasn't wearing any make up. Samuel still thought she looked beautiful.

"Hey." He said, not feel up for sounding happy, even around her.

"What's wrong?" she asked sounding truly concerned.

She sat down really close to him, their legs touching. She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder.

Samuel wished he would have worn at least clean pajamas instead of his old, Dalton hand me downs from Tyler.

"I like your pajamas." She said, running her fingers over the soft material on his thigh.

Samuel felt a rush of heat to his cheeks.

"So, what's wrong?" she asked leaving her hand on his thigh.

"Family issues." He said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "I…don't really want to get into it right now."

"Okay. We can talk later." She sighed, snuggling into him.

"Hey love birds." Lindsay giggled walking up to Cameron and Damian.

Damian groaned in confusion.

"You too look really cute. Damian asleep on Cam's shoulder." Lindsay said sitting down on the step above them.

"Cam's a good friend. I love him." Damian said.

Cameron was thankful that that sun was just staring to come up, the darkness hid his blushing cheeks really well.

"Well that's so sweet." Lindsay said tussling Damian's hair.

Author's note

I can't remember if I had Marissa in glee club or not. I don't think so. Let's just say she joined at the same time as Samuel. Okay?

I'm just curious. I know a lot of you read my other stories, which ones do you want me to update more often? I don't know which ones y'all like best or what, I just need to know so I can update them more often for you.