Full summary: Kurt and Rachel are on their rocky start of a dream of owning their own theater in Lima. However, after a year of terribly acted plays and no money coming in from audiences, their dream is moments away from being taken from them. The hopeful souls that they are, Kurt and Rachel decide to put on a play by themselves as a last ditch effort to save their dreams and their theater. But as they can't stage a play with just the two of them, they have to find human actors they can't pay and use clockwork actors that are in dire need of repairs. Kurt is determined to replace every broken spring, every cracked jewel, and every exhausted wheel to get the heart and soul of his theater ticking and turning again. But even though he's willing to compromise and waste no expense he can on this make-or-break performance, there is no way Kurt Hummel is getting up on that stage to perform.

Author's Note: This is my entry to this year's Kurt Big Bang. There is artwork to go along with this story - drawn by my two absolutely incredible artists, freakingpotter and keep-frozen - which can be found (along with a longer and far more detailed author's note) on the masterpost at my LJ sundayrainbows or my tumblr sundaysalvation. Please check out the artwork - both pieces are some of the best art I've seen for ages, and I'm still amazed at freakingpotter's and keep-frozen's work. All the stories written for the KHBB this year are wonderful so please do check them out!

I've decided to post my story here too - after my posting date - with one chapter posted a day until it's complete (there are five chapters in total).

Alternatively, this story can be read at my LJ (sundayrainbows) or AO3 (sundaysalvation). Links to my LJ and AO3 can be found on my profile.

Disclaimer: Nothing you recognise, including steampunk machinery and ideas, is mine.

Clockwork Heart

Chapter One

It's one of the iconic moments in theater when everyone, soft-hearted or not, a theater lover or not, will whip out their handkerchiefs and sob silently into them. Some people will bawl with tears, making more noise but they'll always be hushed by their fellow audience members. No one wants the scene disturbed.

Romeo has just drunk the poison on stage and died lying next to Juliet. She's moments away from waking up and seeing her love lying dead next to her but as Romeo is still twitching, she's waiting patiently.

Meanwhile no one is crying in the audience: they are all laughing. Kurt can hear them as if they are laughing right in his ear. He's standing in the wings, right at the front and peering round one of the heavy velvet curtains that he'll soon sweep across the stage to mark the welcomed end of the show. But all he can see are the people watching this fiasco with their hands covering their mouths to catch the laughter, not the tears.

"Oh!" Juliet cries dramatically, sitting up with a sweep of her hands and tossing her long hair over her shoulder in waves. She makes a big show of looking over the stage, even going so far as to shade her eyes when she peers into the audience.

Eventually, after long minutes, she spots her Romeo lying next to her. "Oh!" she cries again and holds out her hands over his shoulder. A shoulder that is obviously moving up and down as the actor breathes.

Kurt is seconds away from banging his head into the wall. He pointed that out weeks ago when this troupe – by far the worst he and Rachel have hired to perform in their theater – was still rehearsing but the actor playing Romeo, an arrogant man by the name of Gavroche, had loudly claimed he was as still as the dead and Kurt should just look harder. He'd also mentioned it again on opening night, a week ago, but his advice had been ignored like the actors couldn't hear him speaking.

"You said he was moving," Rachel hisses into Kurt's ear. She's standing next to him and is probably visible from the audience seats but that's the last thing on either Kurt's or Rachel's mind. She'd been playing the nurse as a fill in for one of the actresses who'd been sick that night and is still wearing the costume, although it's not too much of a change from what she'd be wearing on any other opening night. And while it was true that Kurt would support his friend wholeheartedly, she had been the best performer on that stage tonight by miles.

Kurt nods in reply to Rachel's statement. Of course he was right: he's seen enough plays in his short twenty-five years to know when someone who was supposed to be dead did a terrible job of making it seem like that.

"What's worse," Kurt says, keeping his voice as low as possible. He nods in the direction of the giggling audience members and says, "they know he's moving."

Rachel looks out in the direction Kurt indicated and sighs. Their laughter is obvious now, the snorts muffled by hands are audible in the theater and even Juliet's over-dramatic acting isn't drowning them out. One woman, dressed in a tight corset over a long flowing gown in material Kurt could never afford, is dabbing at her eyes with her husband's handkerchief and has a grin on her face visible from anywhere in the hall.

In fairness to them, Kurt can see the comedy in the supposed tragedy. Terrible acting, ill-timed set transitions, actors forgetting their lines: all ingredients in the perfect slapstick comedy. If it had been Kurt and Rachel's intent to stage a comedic version of Romeo and Juliet then they'd have succeeded with honors. Unfortunately, this is the third acting troupe in a row who claimed they could perform a Shakespeare play and have utterly destroyed the classic.

"Haply some poison yet doth hang on them to die with warm lips- no," Juliet says, forgetting her lines yet again. Kurt closes his eyes in despair: Harmony, the girl playing Juliet, had boasted of her talent and the surety that her Juliet would be the most memorable. Kurt wishes with all his might that her performance will vanish from his memory, because it's definitely memorable but not at all for the reasons she wants. The chortles of the audience grow louder as Juliet shakes her head and starts again. "Haply some poison yet doth hang on them to die make die with a restorative."

Juliet leans down and aims for Romeo's lips but Romeo twitches his head away. Rachel's hand flies out and grabs onto Kurt's jacket sleeve. She squeezes in dismay, narrowly missing grabbing onto Kurt's arm, but Kurt doesn't really notice. He had opened his eyes again as Juliet spoke but wishes he'd kept them shut.

"Did he just turn his face away from her?" Rachel asks quietly, her eyes wide with the horror she can't convey with her tone. Kurt nods with his own horrified expression, transfixed at the so-called acting before him.

"Thy lips are warm. Yea a noise?" Juliet says, sweeping her arm in an arc high over the bed and speaking her line before her cue. A belated thud comes from stage right as whoever was waiting for Juliet's line makes the noise she's supposed to hear. Someone watching actually guffaws.

"O happy dagger," Juliet shouts, stretching over Romeo to reach the dagger that Romeo was supposed to leave in an easy position to find before he drank the poison. "This is thy sheath."

She plunges the dagger against her side: the side of her torso facing the audience so any illusion of the blade killing the actress is lost. As more people lose their control over how loud their laughter is Juliet looks down at which side she's chosen to stab herself in and hurriedly swaps to the side facing the back of the stage.

"We need to do something," Kurt whispers in Rachel's ear. He's taller than her, especially with the extra height his boots give him that Rachel doesn't have in her costume, so he's leaning down to make sure she's the only one who hears. "We can't just keep hiring mediocre acting troupes who don't even deserve to call themselves actors, let alone perform on our stage."

"At least we can cancel any more performances of this," Rachel says, although she's staring at the stage like she's transfixed rather than looking at Kurt as she talks, "I just don't know if we'll have the funds to hire anyone else. You know we were both hoping this performance would be better, and actually start bringing in some money."

Kurt and Rachel have known each other for years, ever since they'd both been outraged at their high school not having a class specifically for drama. At the time, Kurt's dreams for the future had involved saving enough to buy a ticket on an airship and travel across country to New York, whereupon he'd be snapped up by the greatest acting troupe of the time – and when Kurt was fourteen and dreaming, it was the Adam's Apples – and never look back at the tiny town of Lima where he'd grown up.

Dreams change and life gets in the way and a year ago Kurt and Rachel reopened the old theater in the middle of Lima, the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion. It had once been the talk of the town and the place to see the latest shows as well as the classics of old. Then the audiences stopped coming; preferring to watch the recitals of the new automatons, self-operating robots that rose from obscurity to the height of fashion. The theater couldn't compete so closed down after decades of success.

Kurt could remember the one and only show he saw when he was four years old in the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, a few weeks before it closed its doors forever. It was a musical, once loved by so many that it's considered a classic today. Kurt's dad had been convinced to buy the record and Kurt would play Wicked songs over and over again, until even the neighbors knew the words. When asked why he loved the musical so much, Kurt had said it wasn't about the musical but seeing the magic in front of him.

He'd begged Dad to take him to see Wicked again – "or if not Wicked then another show please Dad" – but the theater had closed by then. There weren't many that were still open, either being all the way in Columbus or the largest theaters in the state, both of which Dad just couldn't afford.

The theater had been dusty and derelict when Kurt and Rachel had opened the doors again but they'd repaired it piece by piece. Kurt had hand-stitched new curtains from fabric he'd bartered down to a reasonable price. He'd persuaded – or rather bribed – the mechanics who worked for his Dad to help with the repairs of the stage, testing their skills as builders as well as mechanics. The theater itself had been re-built from the ground up and during the three months of repairs, it had been the talk of the town.

Whilst at first it had been the appearance of the theater that had stopped the audiences flocking, once it was refurbished there was nothing to stop them. Nothing until audiences, and Kurt and Rachel, saw presented as performances on stage. Troupes would rent out a theater for a few weeks, a month or two at the most. They would stage their play, perform it for the time they had hired out the theater and then move on. The theater owners would then hire another troupe to perform another play.

It was that that wasn't going to well for Kurt. This was the third consecutive acting troupe to produce something Kurt wouldn't pay to see even if it was the last live performance in Ohio. How could he ask for money from patrons to sit through this if he would never do the same?

His dreams had changed so much and a year ago, Kurt had honestly thought things were looking up. He'd been convinced that once the audiences started coming back to the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion, and started enjoying the performances that he and Rachel could proudly state were theirs, his theater life would take off.
Maybe some dreams were meant to stay fleeting.

The following mornings dawns gray and dreary, with the promise of rain if the heavy clouds on the horizon are any indication. Kurt wakes up early, rising with the sun and hurrying across town to the empty theater through the cobbled streets with drunks from the night before lining the path, passed out where they fell.

Kurt unlocks the main door with a brass key, once the symbol for his dreams coming true and now feeling as heavy as iron chains around his neck. He keeps his head down as he enters the theater, letting the heavy wooden door fall back into place with a loud bang that startles pigeons into flight in the square outside. The noise also reverberates around the main hall, bouncing off every wall and making the theater seem larger than it really is.

The theater is made up of a single room to form the front of house with only one storey, at least twenty rows of red velvet folding seats and seven seats on either side of the central aisle making up the stalls. There are boxes lining the walls to sit the important folk but they've never had enough aristocrats come to their theater to fill the boxes. The floor is covered in a thin carpet the same deep red as the seats but flecked with gold threads that shine in the flickering lights when Kurt turns them on in the evening. The walls are painted in golds and bronzes, frescos of clockwork patterns decorating each wall to match the ceiling beams. Kurt had wanted the clockwork patterns adoring the walls and beams and he still looks at the decorating idea as one of his better plans.

The stage itself takes up at least a third of the room, built from solid wood and painted with layers of varnish so it shines in the light just like a beacon. At the moment, the heavy curtains – also made of red velvet and hemmed in the same golden thread that's found in the carpet – are covering the stage but its magnificence is undeniable. Kurt, who has walked down the central aisle towards the stage a hundred times in the last year, still finds his eyes drawn to it.

Unlike most of the other times he has looked at the stage is his theater, however, today Kurt doesn't see the fulfilment of dreams. He doesn't look at the stage and picture all the fantastic places a play or a musical can take someone to. Where once he saw the potential for endless love, a thriving theater and raving reviews, he now only sees the theater as derelict as it had been a year ago and a place where dreams go to die.

He walks down the central aisle towards the stage, the heavy soles of his thick leather boots loudly echoing around the theater. Someone has left a half eaten packet of cracked corn underneath one of the seats, the snack spilling out into the aisle. Kurt steps on one of the abandoned corns, hears the crunch and closes his eyes in despair. It's such a little thing but he's probably ground some of the corn into the carpet and he wanted to spend the morning looking over how much money they've lost from the disaster of the last week.

By the time Kurt's swept all the left-over cracked corn, and the other small pieces of parchment from ripped tickets, away into a corner, the sun has risen and the sounds of the street outside are filtering in through the shuttered windows. Kurt can hear people laughing for joy, talking loudly about their days and how excited they are to start whatever they planned for today.

Kurt wishes he could be as happy.

Another hour has passed before Rachel walks into the theater, her heeled boots clicking off the polished wooden floor of the backstage area where Kurt's footsteps were thuds. Kurt hears her long before he sees her. He's hidden himself in the room he reserved for their paperwork and he's staring at a sheaf of parchment that details everything they've spent on the most recent production. Romeo and Juliet has never cost so much before, he thinks as his eyes trace the costs over and over again.

The parchment that shows how much money they've brought in is half finished but already Kurt knows it won't even remotely cover the cost. It's been barely a week since opening night but last night's performance was the last they'd sold the tickets to already. Kurt had thought that they could save a few shows for last minute tickets in case the performance was so fantastic it was considered a must-see after a week. Now he's seen the play, he knows he'll never be able to sell more tickets.

"How bad is it?" Rachel asks when she finally makes her way to where Kurt is hiding. She's wearing a shawl over her gown, a black and gray dress with the corset hidden. It's the new style of fashion for women these days and that lifts Kurt's sunken spirits: she'd listened to his advice about what to wear that would suit her. It's nice to know his advice is taken once in a while.

"Bad," he says in reply. He sits back in the hard-backed chair and waves his hands over the parchments, inviting Rachel to take a look. She stands on the opposite side of the desk and picks up the list of outgoings for Romeo and Juliet.

Her eyes widen when she sees the total Kurt has written at the bottom, in big numbers and underlined twice. Without even reaching for the half-finished list of incomings, Rachel says, "We'll never make this back. Not with what happened on opening night."

"And definitely not with what's happened since," Kurt adds after she falls silent for a moment, her eyes looking over the list again and again. She frowns, adds two numbers together on her free hand and then puts the parchment back on the desk with a deep sigh.

"Kurt," Rachel says quietly, licking her lips and not quite meeting his eyes, "we won't be able to pay our rent again."

The lease they had negotiated in order to open the theater again was just like the lease Kurt's father had on his garage: renting from unsympathetic lawyers who want their money without argument. Their agreement with the lawyers is to pay the rent quarterly and it's the biggest outgoing every three months. Kurt winces every time he thinks about how much of their incoming is spent of renting the theater.

"How many times in a row is that?" he asks, rubbing at the sides of his temple with his thumb and index finger. He's only been awake for a few hours but already he's drained and Kurt can feel the beginnings of a headache coming on.

Rachel frowns as she thinks, tapping the wooden desk absentmindedly. "We paid the rent late last time," she says after a while, then pauses for a moment longer to think, "and late the time before that. But I don't even think we'll be able to make up the money to pay the rent late this time."

Kurt uncrosses his legs, stands up and walks around the table to where Rachel is standing. He opens his arms and she practically falls into them: but Kurt needs this hug as much as she does. It's their dream that's dying, the only thing that had kept Kurt warm on the cold winter nights while he lamented living in such a tiny insignificant town.

"What are we going to do?" Rachel asks in a small voice, muffled against the thick fabric of his suit jacket.
He has no answers to what they can do now. The last troupe before this one had also been a disaster but Kurt's idea then had been just to hire another troupe. It hadn't worked out and he was fresh out of ideas now.

"Honestly," he says to her hair, "I have no idea."

The moment is shattered by the theater doors opening with a loud bang and the grating laughter of the acting troupe echoing round the hall. Kurt's eyes narrow and his headache rages: it's their fault that he and Rachel are in this mess. They had claimed to be able to stage a production Romeo and Juliet that could rival the professionals on the trans-Atlantic airships. Only to put forward a worse than amateur production that left Kurt and Rachel stuttered to find explanations as to why it was advertised as being so great.

"You've been here for hours, haven't you?" Rachel asks, stepping out of the hug and disentangling their limbs. She looks up at Kurt, sees him nod and says, "You go home. I'll deal with this lot."

Kurt smiles at Rachel, grateful that he doesn't have to speak to this troupe yet again and be ignored yet again. They'd probably view him firing them as a suggestion that they don't have to listen to: like Romeo obviously not being dead in the final scenes; and the confrontation with Romeo and Tybalt needing to take place at the front of the stage, as opposed to right at the back where most people can't actually see what's happening.

"Besides," Rachel says with a smile that's far happier than either of them feel at the moment, "you got to fire the last group. I want to do it this time."

With that she's off, skirts sweeping behind her and Kurt watches her head off to the main hall of the theater. Kurt wishes he had even just a little bit of confidence to know that this will all work out in the end.

As usual when he's troubled or has things on his mind, Kurt ends up back at his father's garage. It's a large space, filled with all the different types of machinery that could possible need repairing at any one time. Kurt remembers when it was a small space, filled with Dad, Kurt and one or two employees at the most. Now it's a flourishing business, where Dad is one of many mechanics who works here.

Kurt's sat on a high stool, brass legs tarnished from the oil that gets used freely around the place. He's crossed his legs, the buckles of his thigh-high boots glistening in the lamplight. His eyes are fixed on one of the eyelets, the circle of brass polished to a shine and Kurt keeps moving his foot this way and that, making the reflective light bounce off his shoe in patterns.

It's all Kurt can do to just stare at the tiny circle of shining metal on his boot. His mind is whirling as fast of the wheels on a steam train bound for parts of the country unknown. But unlike that train, whose destination is set before they depart from the station, Kurt has no idea where his thoughts are taking him. His ears are full of the sounds of gears turning, the clicks of the clockwork and the murmurings of Dad's employees as they encounter a problem they didn't recognize right away.

All the sounds are familiar, even the smells of the metal and the oil in the garage take Kurt back to a time in his life when everything was so much simpler. When he was young and unafraid of failure: convinced that whatever he chose to do with his dreams, they would play out perfectly.

"When Jack told me my son was here doing nothing but admiring his shoes," Dad's voice breaks through Kurt's reverie and even though Kurt knew he wasn't alone, it makes him jump, "I thought he was exaggerating."

Dad is leaning on the table next to Kurt's stool, his forearms resting on the edge and bracing his body weight. His goggles, well worn and tarnished, are hanging around his neck and there's a faint smudge of grease on his cheek. The smile on his face is warm and a very small part of Kurt unwinds in relaxation.

Kurt shrugs at the accusation that he was staring into space with nothing on his mind. He'd arrived at the garage to find everyone busy with their own work and Dad nowhere to be found. Jack, one of the mechanics who had been working with the Hummels since Kurt was a young boy, had told Kurt to take a seat and he'd sent his Dad Kurt's way when he was free.

There is an open tool box on the table, tiny spanners and thin, sharp pliers haphazardly left on the desk. A half-finished clockwork timepiece is left on the table as well, a magnifying glass on a metal arm lying next to the clockwork and a polishing cloth clutched in Kurt's hand. Kurt had been working on it, fixing the misaligned gears and replacing the pinions to start the clockwork ticking again. It's something complex enough to keep Kurt busy but something he's done for so many years that he knows he can repair a broken clockwork almost with his eyes closed. It had kept him occupied for at least thirty minutes while waiting for his Dad but his thoughts had taken over and his eyes had been distracted by the glinting of the eyelet on his shoe.

Dad indicates the tools and says, "You only work on clockwork pieces like that when there's something wrong, or you want to ask me for something." He reaches into the large pocket on the front of his baggy overalls and pulls out a cloth that is so grease stained the original color is entirely undecipherable. He quickly wipes the excess oil off his hands as he says, "What's on your mind?"

Kurt sighs, looking down at the polishing cloth he's still holding in his hands. When he speaks, it's more to the table and the cloth than to Dad, "Rachel and I are stuck. We've got no money coming in, so much money going out. I don't know how we can get this back. We may even have to sell the theater."

When Kurt speaks the words that have been running around in the back of his mind, he's surprised. He didn't really realize he was thinking that way and he certainly hadn't come to Dad's garage to tell him that he and Rachel were planning on giving up.

Dad looks taken aback at what Kurt's said, as much as Kurt is although he knows he's hiding his own shock better. "I thought you had a new show starting?" Dad asks.

Kurt nods and says, "We did. It was so bad, Dad. We can't put on another performance. We've already made people sit through a week's worth of disaster. No one else will want to come and watch Romeo and Juliet the comedy."

Kurt starts picking at a stray thread in the polishing cloth, feeling like he's looking for straws to grasp in order to keep the theater alive and kicking. He ignores Dad's confused sound, no doubt confused about whether Romeo and Juliet was supposed to be a comedy or not, and says, "Without people to watch the plays at the theater, we'll never cover the funds it costs to put on the plays. And then we'll never make our rent payments."

He looks up at Dad, looking for answers in the one person Kurt has turned to his whole life. "The theater isn't making any money," he says with a shrug, "and dreams don't fill empty stomachs."

Dad sighs deeply and reaches over to clap a big hand to Kurt's shoulder. Kurt is overdressed to be working in a garage, even tinkering at a small clockwork motor like he was doing while waiting for Dad to be free. Kurt is dressed in his best, tight suit pants tucked into his knee-high boots, a white shirt with embroidered collars and cuffs, a waistcoat that looks molded to his torso and his heavy suit jacket. He doesn't think about the potential dried oil, dust or grease getting on his clothes just sitting here. He came to Dad's garage today to hear his Dad say that whatever happens, everything will be okay.

He hasn't felt this helpless for years: not since he was point blank refused from any acting school in New York, let alone in Columbus, and had no other way of breaking into the business. Kurt feels like an airship that's lost its navigation systems, or a balloon that's been left to float without a mooring line. As if he's clockwork that's ticking without a mainspring to wind, just going through the motions with no clear path and no way of finding that path again.

"No chance of finding other people to put on a play?" Dad asks.

Kurt shakes his head. "Even if there are troupes that don't have theaters to perform in," he says sadly, "they won't be good enough to bring in the kind of money that we need. We were scraping the very bottom of the barrel with the last troupe: it can only get worse from here."

What Kurt and Rachel need right now is a miracle. A miracle troupe who has come from New York, or Los Angeles or maybe even from out of the country and are looking to expand their repertoire by performing in a small theater in a town that only really thrives when the aristocrats come to their summer homes from Columbus.

"So you and Rachel have changed plays," Dad asks, and Kurt nods, "and changed troupes. Why don't you just hire the actors yourselves and put on a play of your own?"

For a moment, the only sound that's audible in the garage is the background din of gears, wheels and the murmurings of the mechanics: sounds that Kurt ignores every time he comes in to visit his Dad. He came here today looking for an answer that doesn't involve his dreams crashing down around him. Was it really that simple?

"Hire actors ourselves? Make a troupe of our own?" Kurt asks, turning the situation over in his mind. That's just not done these days. Troupes of actors travel the country and perform in any theater they can. If they are lucky enough or well connected enough, they get commissioned to perform in the larger cities and when they've built a good enough reputation, the troupes are moved to perform on airships. A theater is simply a space that lets the troupes perform and show off their talent – or in the case Kurt's seen, their lack of talent.

And yet, it seems such a simple solution. If Kurt could pull it off, he and Rachel would have a group of actors who would perform any and all plays put on in the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion. Any play or musical they staged would be acted by the same group of people and they would only get better and better as they worked together. With travelling troupes, a patron would only have to wait for the troupe to come to their city before seeing the play. If Kurt and Rachel's troupe was in a permanent place, audience members would have to travel to Lima in order to see them, if they ever gained such a good reputation that would cause people to want to travel to see them perform.

The tight knot in his stomach begins to unwind. This could work. It could save the theater and give Kurt and Rachel that special something that they need.

"Not one that travels," Dad says, confirming what Kurt was thinking, "Surely there are plenty of actors around. You and Rachel were actors without a troupe: you can't be the only ones."

Kurt shakes his head and says, "We're not. There might not be enough people here, but we can go to Dayton, or maybe even to somewhere like Westerville, to find potential actors."

Dad squeezes Kurt's shoulder and gives him a smile that warms Kurt completely. He came to the garage looking for a potential solution and Dad has done more than just that.

"You feeling better about your theater, kiddo?" Dad asks, his eyes serious even though he's smiling. Kurt nods with a small smile of his own on his lips for the first time in what feels like days. Dad points at the pile of clockwork parts left on the table and says, "Then finish up with that. None of my other guys are half as good at tinkering as you. And you've started so you can finish."

Kurt laughs but dutifully picks up a pair of pliers with the points filed down so they are nearly invisible to the naked eye. He moves the arm of the magnifying glass until the glass is back in position and he can see the wheels he needs to change. Kurt's always been good at tinkering: it comes from growing up in this very garage and having long hours of waiting for Dad to be finished with his days work with nothing to do for himself.

Too often, fixing complicated mechanical motors or clockworks is so much easier than fixing human problems.

A week has flown by, passed with the theater remaining as empty has it had been a year ago and both Kurt and Rachel travelling from town to town looking for the actors who, like them, are without a troupe but still hoping. Rachel had been as excited by the idea as Kurt had been and had only been stopped from spreading the word that they were looking for actors that very day by the promised rain.

Today is the day of their auditions. Kurt's set up a table at the front of the auditorium, sheaves of parchment, a lamp just for him and Rachel and pens placed there just in case they need to make notes. Kurt's seen the audition process before – he's been the one of the stage, singing a song or reciting a monologue – but he's never actually sat behind the table and judged the potentials before.

"I am so excited," Rachel declares as she hurries down the central aisle to where Kurt is standing. She got a smile on her face that Kurt hasn't seen for weeks, and he's sure he looks as excited as she does. What they are doing is new and both of them can't help but look forward to the day.

Rachel shrugs off her thick shawl and drapes it over the back of her folding velvet chair, takes a seat and then immediately jumps to her feet again. "I've never been on this side of the audition desk before," she says as if in confidence.

"Neither have I," Kurt says. He looks up at the stage, lit by the stage lights and the daylight streaming in from the open window. It does remind him of when he was auditioning for the troupes and for the acting school: and when he was point blank refused from all of them on account of his inability to be cast in anything.

"Do you think we'll get many people coming today?" he asks. They prepared information fliers to announce that they were looking for actors, telling people to come to the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion in Lima at ten o'clock. The grand clock in the middle of the square that the theater opens out onto has just struck quarter to.

"I think so," Rachel says, then changes me mind, "I hope so. People seemed interested when we told them right?"
They had seemed interested. Kurt had travelled with Rachel to Dayton, Cincinnati and Akron and he'd gone to Westerville alone, finding the taverns where actors without troupes were performing for drunken jeering crowds. They had all looked interested about what Kurt had said, and had told him they'd consider coming for an audition.

When the clock strikes ten and no one walked in through the open theater doors, Kurt is still hopeful people will come. He's still standing by the table when the clock strikes quarter past, facing the doors and listening to Rachel as she suggests which plays they should put on first.

"I think we should put on a musical," she says, drawing geometric circles on a loose piece of parchment, "We haven't staged a musical yet and people love musicals. We could even put on Wicked! That's the last musical ever shown here before it closed, and there'll be a certain symmetry to the first musical being Wicked as well."

But Kurt shakes his head. They need to attract the aristocrats and the rich people to their theater. Musicals are the soul of the lower classes. Street bands play iconic songs from classic musicals, drawing crowds and getting the children to dance. Musicals are staged in the winter and in the smaller theaters in Columbus, when the aristocracy are watching the automatons perform dance recitals or watching famed actors act scenes from Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller or Lorraine Hansberry.

That's why they staged Shakespeare plays in the first place: to attract the much needed upper class to fund their theater.

"We still can't stage a musical Rachel," he says, still facing the doors. "We still need the aristocracy to want to see it. We need to stage something that they'll want to watch, and want to pay to watch."

Out of the corner of his eye, Kurt sees Rachel deflate as her excitement abates ever so slightly. He knows his friend: she loves musicals and there's a part of her that doesn't understand that not everyone does. Kurt is with Rachel wholeheartedly. He loves musicals; loves the iconic songs they produce, the dramatisations of those songs, the way they lift a person's spirit higher than a play ever could. It's an integral part of Kurt's dream, staging a musical he loves in the theater that he part owns. But he also knows that the rich people don't like musicals and won't pay to see them. So for now, at least, they need to pander to the aristocrats' desires.

"The rich and powerful don't like the musicals, Rachel, you know that," Kurt tells her in no uncertain terms. "We can't start staging musicals until we can pay our rent for the next two years, let alone the next few months."

"So another Shakespeare play then?" she asks, her circles taking up most of the parchment now. "Can it be a comedy this time? I don't think I can face another tragedy."

"There's As You Like It," Kurt says, wracking his memory for the long forgotten Shakespeare plays that the aristocracy love, "and Taming of the Shrew-"

"No," Rachel interrupts, finally putting down her pen to look at Kurt, "we're not staging a play that starts with women being independent and ends with them not being that at all. Because I'll be playing the lead and I'm not being Katherina in our first play."

Kurt laughs but holds out his hands in surrender. He's about to list another comedy when someone walks in. She's a thin girl with long brown hair, curled and pinned under a small cap. Her skirts are cut short at the knee to reveal ankle boots and black stockings. Her corset is on the outside of her dress, decorated with bows and strips of ribbon so it's not just bare fabric with metal bones.

"This is for the auditions right?" she asks, striding down the central aisle towards Kurt. She holds out her hand and gives him a piece of parchment where she's written all her details. Kurt nods in reply to her question, smiling widely. This is their first, the person who could kick start their own troupe. He glances quickly down the information she's given. Her name is Marley Rose, she's younger than both him and Rachel and she lives and works in Lima. There are no acting credits amongst her details that go beyond high school, but that's exactly what Kurt is expecting.

Kurt passes Rachel the information sheet, taking his seat and waiting for Marley to climb onto the stage and stand in the central spotlight. She smiles out at them, her hands behind her back and blinks a little, squinting in the bright light.

"Okay," Kurt says, his voice carrying over the small distance to the stage, "please." He gestures with his hand and Marley nods, taking a step closer to the edge of the stage.

"Hi, I'm Marley," Marley says, wincing at the bright light shining in her face, "I know you mainly do plays here but I'd like to do a monologue from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll."

The way she says that – "I know you mainly do plays here" – Kurt wonders what else Marley would have done at her audition. He first wonders if she can sing.

Marley closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and then opens them again, immediately looking angry like Kurt knows this particular monologue should start. "Why, how impolite of him. I asked him a civil question, and he pretended not to hear me. That's not at all nice." she says, then looking into the distant audience like she's performing in the midst of the play and really about to talk to the vanishing White Rabbit. Her voice is quiet but there's a hint of projection: nothing like Rachel but Kurt has no doubt Rachel would quickly teach her to project properly. And if not Rachel, then he could ask his friend Mercedes to teach Marley. Her voice also rises and falls in tones as she acts out her piece – not too long but enough to let Kurt see exactly what she can do – and Kurt's curiosity about singing is piqued.

When Marley finishes minutes later, Kurt doesn't rise – neither does Rachel – and he doesn't clap but he gives Marley a smile that he knows she can see. "Thank you," he says sincerely. It must be a good omen to open their auditions with a good performer. Kurt can see how she's been overlooked for the troupes: she hasn't got a stage presence, even alone on the stage. But she's good, and good enough for them.

"You mentioned you performed that monologue because we mainly stage plays," Rachel asks as Marley starts to walk towards the edge of the stairs leading to the main theater hall. She stops and walks back to centre stage again, "What else would you have performed?"

"I can sing as well," Marley says and Kurt feels his chest swell with pride. Apparently he has an ability to tell when people can sing. And if Marley could sing and act, then perhaps they did have the makings of a musical theater troupe as well. He hardly wanted to be forced to stage plays for his entire career, when musicals were his favorite too.

Marley walks down the stage steps to the main floor when Rachel says nothing more. She pauses by the desk, her hands behind her back again, as if she wants to ask a question. Kurt raises both eyebrows, waiting for her to ask. He doesn't know what she might say so can't exactly pre-empt her question.

She doesn't ask anything. "Thank you," Kurt says again, "We'll be in contact."

Marley nods and leaves the way she came, her heels clicking against the wooden floor. Before she's even out of the theater, Rachel turns to Kurt. She's smiling and her eyes are bright with excitement.

"She's great," Rachel exclaims, loud enough that it's audible at the other end of the main hall, "not perfect, but we can train her. I doubt she'd be heard in the back of this room but it's not like we've got opening night tomorrow."

Rachel's seen the same things that Kurt has about Marley. They've known each other for most of their teenage and adult lives, and have lived together for the last three years, but Kurt can't help but think that it's nice to know she's on the same wavelength as he is. Especially when it concerns their theater.

The problem is that no one else arrives for another hour, and when they do it is two consecutive people who are nothing like Marley. The first is another girl, short with long brown hair pinned to the back of her head, a dress made of material that Kurt knows is expensive and she's holding a parasol in one small hand.

"Sugar Motta," she says as soon as she reaches Kurt and Rachel. Before either can say anything else, Sugar's up on stage, holding her now open parasol over her shoulder and twirling it in what's probably supposed to be an absentminded way.

"I saw your show here last week," she says, almost looking down on the two of them in the front row, "and I knew I could do so much better. So here I am."

She takes a deep breath, seemingly to steel her nerves, and then starts a monologue that Kurt doesn't recognize. He lifts his eyebrows at Sugar, whose arms have opened wide and whose parasol is now dangling uselessly from one hand, and looks to Rachel. Her face is fixed in a blank expression, a look he knows as one where she's trying to appear professional in the face of disaster.

The main problem with Sugar's audition is that it's long. She speaks, in a voice that's not quite monotonous, and speaks and speaks. Rachel holds up her hands at one point, making like she's going to cut her off but she closes her mouth again before she's even uttered a word.

It seems like forever when Sugar lowers her hands, closes her parasol with a snap and looks down at Kurt and Rachel. "Let me know when you want to start rehearsing, okay?" she says and it takes Kurt a moment to realize she's talking to them rather than saying another line in her monologue.

"Um, thank you Sugar," he manages to stammer out, thrown by her abrupt end to the long monologue and her attitude in regards to securing a place in their play. They haven't even decided on a play yet and Kurt knows for sure there won't be a place in it for Sugar.

Rachel waits until Sugar is almost out of the building before turning to Kurt and saying, "Never going to happen."

The second disastrous audition comes in the form of a man who insists he can sing. He stands with his hands linked behind his back, singing a cappella in a voice that booms and cracks as if he's only just started puberty.

"I want to show you that I'm versatile in my acting ability," he had said when Kurt had invited him to stand centre stage and begin his audition. Listening to him try to sing, Kurt wishes he hadn't given him that invitation.

At least he didn't assume they would give him a part in the play, like Sugar had done.

By late afternoon, they have a small collection of parchment sheets separated into two piles. One is the resounding no pile, including the singer, Sugar and a handful of other people who were obviously trying their luck in auditioning for a play without any real convincing talent. The other pile contains the information of the people Kurt and Rachel would like to star in their first play.

It's not a big pile by any stretch of the imagination but there are six names and that's six more people than Kurt and Rachel had in mind at the beginning of the day.

"I think we should go with Much Ado About Nothing," Rachel is saying as she looks over the pile of people they want to include in their first production. She's pulled out the information on Marley and the sheet belonging to a man named Joseph – "Joe, please" – and has placed them in a separate pile.

"We'll need more people to do that one," Kurt says. He's standing again, leaning against the table with his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle. It's late and the sun is slowing descending, the rays entering the theater at the perfect angle to illuminate the gold flecks in the carpet. Kurt's eyes are on those flecks and he's watching the light dance but his attention is fixed on what Rachel's saying. "We'll have to stage the reduced version, of course, but there are still about fourteen parts."

"We don't have to cast everyone now," Rachel says. She holds up the two parchment sheets she separated and shows them to Kurt. "I was thinking Marley could play Hero. I'm-"

"Taking Beatrice, of course," Kurt finishes for her, smiling fondly at Rachel as she nods. Of course she'll want to go for the part that isn't the lovesick ingénue who has to hide her identity by the end of the play.

"And the other one?"

"I was thinking that Joe could be Benedick, if you aren't..." Rachel says in a voice that drops off to ask an unfinished question.

Kurt knows what she wants to say and he shakes his head. "No. I'm not acting," he says firmly, feeling the familiar twinge of his heart as he says that.

She's quiet for a moment that stretches past the point of a pause simply for thinking. It's like she's waiting for him to say something else, perhaps explain why Kurt still won't take a part in a play in his own theater.

"No one will tell you 'no', this time," she says eventually, her voice quiet in the otherwise silent hall, "You could take the lead and-."

"Rachel, I'm not doing it," Kurt says firmly, cutting her off again. Determined not to see the look of pity laced with concern that she's no doubt giving him, Kurt looks down at the flecks of the carpet again. And then up towards the door as a knock sounds through the hall.

A man is standing in the doorway, partly hidden by the shadows created by the fading light of the day. He's holding a piece of parchment folded into a small rectangle in one hand and Kurt can tell from the parts of him that are illuminated that he's impeccably dressed.

"Are you still holding auditions," the man asks, "or am I too late?"

"Come on in," Rachel says immediately, standing up and turning to face the doorway. The man moves inside and into the artificial light inside the theater. Kurt's breath catches in his throat as he takes in the man, and not just from the combination of clothes that he's wearing. He's wearing calf-high boots made from soft leather over light brown pants, a long blue coat that's too heavy for everyday-wear, a white shirt with a loose collar and cuffs underneath a waistcoat moulded to his torso like Kurt's is and what looks like a tie that's been knotted in a bow tucked underneath the soft collar and hanging below the open top button of his shirt.

Kurt sweeps his eyes up the man as he walked into the theater and down the aisle towards them. From what Kurt can tell the man's shorter than he is, has curly hair styled by a pomade of some sorts and once he's close enough to be seen properly, has big eyes that are the color of a golden clockwork mechanism and seem to draw Kurt in ever so slightly.

He hands Kurt the parchment and waits with his hands pushed into the pockets of his outdoor coat. Kurt drags his eyes from the man only when the rough parchment is pushed into his hands to see his name – Blaine Anderson – that he lived in Westerville but has recently moved to Lima and that he, just like most of the people they've seen today and Kurt and Rachel, has very little experience in the way of professional acting troupes. Blaine does seem to have a bit more experience listed on the parchment but it's all amateur.

Kurt looks back up at Blaine after he's handed the parchment to Rachel. "Please," Kurt says, holding his hand out to indicate the stage. Blaine nods and heads towards the stairs leading to the stage.

Kurt takes his seat again and rests his forearms on the table, feeling rather than seeing Rachel take her seat as well. He's watching Blaine walk: first up the small stairs to reach the stage, where he shrugs off his outdoor coat and leaves it tucked as small as possible by the top of the stairs, and then to the middle of the stage. He's got his back to the audience at first with his hands raised – probably held up to his face – but when he turns around, his arms are by his side. The loose cuffs fall over his hands ever so slightly.
Blaine gives Kurt and Rachel a small smile and says, "Hi. I'm Blaine Anderson, and I'll be performing a piece from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night."

In the time between Blaine finishes his small introduction and begins his monologue, Kurt's brain whirls with thoughts. Doing a monologue from Shakespeare is hard – Kurt should know as he's seen countless attempts at learning lines from mediocre actors who claimed they can act in the last year – and he can't help but lean forward in his chair with anticipation. He's also wondering which monologue Blaine will be performing. Mainly whether he'll chose the easiest and most common piece: Duke Orsino's famous "if music be the food of love" speech.

"This is the air; that is the glorious sun; this pearl she gave me, I do feel't and see't;" Blaine says, acting with his hands to indicate the air around him, a fictitious sun in the sky and a pearl he's supposedly holding. Kurt lets go of the breath he didn't even know he had been holding. This piece was something completely different, a piece by Sebastian if Kurt knew his Shakespeare – which he did.

As he watches Blaine interact with invisible people in the audience, or on the stage, Kurt realizes that he's good. No: Blaine is really good. He's got a stage presence that commands attention and he's delivering his monologue practically flawlessly. No one can be perfect of course. But he's an absolute must have in their play. Kurt looks at Rachel out of the corner of his eye and sees a look on her face that he knows well but hasn't seen in a while: she's impressed. And that means she's probably thinking that same thing as Kurt is about having Blaine be a part of their new acting troupe.

Kurt also can't help his eyes trail up and down, watching Blaine as he acts his monologue. His clothes are tight enough to frame him body and Kurt notices the way his chest fills the shirt, pressing against the sheer white material of the shirt and the thick black cloth of the waistcoat. He has to shake his head twice to clear those thoughts, as pleasant as they are, because he should be listening to Blaine's audition.

When he finishes, it takes all of Kurt's self control not to stand and applause. He manages it, barely, but can't help the wide grin that has spread on his lips.

Before walking down the stairs to the main floor of the theater, Blaine takes a moment to slip his coat back on. He walks down the few wooden steps with his hand pressed against the right side of his chest and his breathing heavy for a monologue, the look on his face hopeful.

"Thank you Blaine," Rachel says immediately, before Kurt has even opened his mouth to say the same thing, "We really enjoyed that." Blaine ducks his head but Kurt – who won't admit that he's watching intently – sees the smile of gratefulness on his lips.

This time Kurt gets his words in before Rachel speaks. "We'll let you know as soon as possible, Blaine," he says. Blaine looks up and Kurt stares into those golden colored eyes again. "Thank you for coming in."

Blaine nods once before replying with his own thanks and a farewell. He leaves with his hands buried into his coat pockets and his shoulders upright, drawing Kurt's eyes down the line of his back. Kurt watches him leave and only when Blaine's silhouette has vanished through the doorway does he turn away.

Rachel is flicking through the pile of parchments in the yes pile, sorting them into single sheets spread out over the table top. The larger pile of rejections is haphazardly lying on the floor by Rachel's feet. Once she's finished separating those parchments into the order she wanted, Rachel reaches over and takes hold of Blaine's information, adding it to the array.

"So," she says, pointing to the top row where Blaine's, Marley's and Joe's information lie, "we have our four main characters. I'll be Beatrice, and then Blaine can be Claudio, Marley can be Hero and Joe can be Benedick." Rachel looks at Kurt for his approval.

He hasn't seen Much Ado for a few years but he knows the story. Two sets of lovers; one couple who fall in love right away and one couple who have to go through their hate for each other before being forced to admit their love. Trickery and betrayals that are made good run throughout and while it's hardly Kurt's favorite play, it's a good play to stage to attract the aristocracy and earn enough to keep their theater open.

Only once he nods his approval at her selections of the characters, Rachel points at a few more of the parchments on the table. Kurt casts a glance at the information as well, knowing that they'll need at least fourteen more people to cast in the play to cover the roles in an abridged version. There is no way they can stage the full play with the small amount of talented actors who auditioned today.

Kurt taps one parchment. The man who had handed this to Kurt was older than all the other performers but he had impressed Kurt with his willingness to work for two young starters in the world. He certainly hadn't faltered when seeing that he was auditioning for two people in their early twenties.

"This man," he peaks at the parchment again to read the name written at the top, "Bryan Ryan, could be Leonato," Kurt offers, naming the father of Hero and probably the only part that demanded an older actor. All the other parts can be explained away if the actors are younger than the audience anticipates.

Rachel picks up the parchment that Kurt chose and moved it to one side, a part of the table that she'd cleared to store the information of people they'd cast already. They end up choosing three more of the characters then and there, bringing their total up to eight and their play looking more and more likely to happen.

What Kurt sees when he looks at the table and the parchments laid out on top of the varnished wood is a start. A shaky start, where any person might turn down their part or leave unexpectedly or even be far less talented than they appeared today but a start nonetheless. After the despair of a few weeks ago, Kurt can now feel his heart lift and the excitement of staging a play – excitement that had long faded since seeing the terrible performances the so-called professional troupes would stage – fizzing through his veins.

"Rachel," he says in a low voice that carries over the sounds of joy and life floating in from the open theater doors from the darkening streets outside. "I think we can do this." Kurt looks at his friend, his business partner and fellow dreamer, and continues, "I think this will work."

The look on Rachel's face is one of excitement, as if she's presenting in a visual way what Kurt is feeling. What they are doing is something fresh, something new and it's something that will save their theater.

Kurt walks into the theater the next morning with a roll of parchment tucked underneath one arm and a smile on his face that has been present there for months. There's a light on the horizon and while he's still far away from reaching it, Kurt finally feels that he's on the path to get to that coveted light.

He spent all the previous night working on the presentation he'll show Rachel as soon as she comes in. Taking their decisions about who would be playing which character in the play and the throwaway comments both of them had said throughout the day about how they would put the sets together, Kurt had sat down at the tiny table in his apartment – where he worked and ate because there is no room for two different tables – and put all of the separate pieces together to form the puzzle of Much Ado About Nothing.

The table set up in front of the first row of well-worn velvet seats is still set up so Kurt unfurls the parchment on top, weighing down the corners with ink pots and their lids. He's no accomplished director or producer but Kurt can close his eyes and picture what he wants to see on stage as easily as he can imagine a new outfit out of the old pieces he's got in his wardrobe.

He's kept the setting in Messina but changed the time of the play to modern day. There are rolls of canvas backgrounds in the backrooms of the theater, intricate paintings of villas, gardens and rolling hills set against sunny days unlike what would be found in Ohio. Besides, if they were to change the setting then Kurt would be sitting there shouting out the new location every time an actor or actress forgot themselves and said Messina in the play.

Suddenly Kurt stopped, the smile on his lips growing ever so slightly. He wouldn't have to do that. The people they were going to hire weren't professionals but they would be miles better than the so-called acting troupes. They would be likely to remember their lines, even if it involved a change of location.

Kurt looks over the parchment again, seeing his list of characters and the actors he and Rachel chose to play them, the setting and which of the canvas background paintings they'll need to find in the backrooms, a few of the costumes that he thinks they'll need to find in the markets rather than in their growing wardrobes of new costumes and even a drawing of how Kurt thinks the stage should look when the curtains open.

Behind Kurt, one of the doors to the theater opens and then whoever steps in closes the door behind them. Thinking it's Rachel, Kurt calls out to her without looking away from his parchment presentation of Much Ado, "Rachel, you know we decided that that Brody Weston should play Don Pedro? I was thinking last night that he should actually be Don John-"

He turns around and rather than seeing Rachel walking down the aisle towards him, he sees Mr Schuester. He's the representative for the lawyers who technically own the theater, and by far the last person Kurt wants to see right now. He doesn't want his joyous mood brought down because he'll have to explain why they'll be late on their rent payment once again. Kurt had forgotten that their rent payment was due: ever since his talk with Dad a week ago, Kurt's been thinking about how to stage a play themselves and how to search for amateur actors who had all but given up. The thought of their rent hasn't crossed his mind once.

Mr Schuester almost looks surprised to see Kurt but he covers it up with a small upturned flick of the corners of his lips that Kurt guesses is supposed to be a smile that might be aimed at putting Kurt at ease. It doesn't work.

"Kurt, hello," Mr Schuester says. He's holding a briefcase in one hand and has his top hat tucked underneath his other arm. With his briefcase, he gestures to the table and Kurt's parchment. "Planning another play?" he asks, his face filled with polite curiosity.

Kurt nods and straightens, although he doesn't step too far away from his creation. He tugs sharply on the bottom of his fitted waistcoat. His stomach, which had been filled with nothing but the feelings of joy and excitement and the toast he'd had for breakfast, is now twisted in knots with nerves.

"Yes," he says after a moment of silence, "we're going to stage Much Ado About Nothing this time."

Mr Schuester nods and says, "Yes, I saw Romeo and Juliet didn't last long." Kurt's not too sure how to respond to that so he doesn't reply and silence once again fills the room where silence should never be found. After a moment, Mr Schuester gestures against to the parchment, "I've always liked Much Ado so do let me know when opening night is."

"Of course," Kurt replies. His fingers are twisting a chain hung on his waistcoat pocket, threading the thin golden links through his fingers and then twisting the metal around each other. "Can I help you, Mr Schuester?"

Mr Schuester gives a heavy sigh, gesturing to the table for a third time. "Can I use the table? I had hoped to do this in your office but," he asks, murmuring his words. Kurt nods and carefully caps the ink pots before rolling up the parchment. Mr Schuester first lays his hand on the corner of the table, then puts the briefcase in the centre and pops it open.

"Your rent payment is due this week, Kurt," Mr Schuester says, finding a file and perusing the first page inside. "I know you were unable to make the payments on time last quarter, and the quarter before that but-"

"Mr Schuester," Kurt interrupts, twisting the chain even harder now. As if he can spin his nerves onto the chain using some imagined spindle. "I'm afraid we still won't be able to make the full rent payment this quarter."

Mr Schuester simply looks up at Kurt with an unchanged expression: one of discomfort. It's clear as if Kurt had written it with quill and ink that Mr Schuester didn't expect Kurt to be able to pay the rent. He's here as the messenger to collect what he can and then leave with Kurt's hopes and dreams in the same bag.

He slowly puts the files down and takes out a fresh page of parchment. Without asking, he uncaps one of Kurt's ink pots and dips his quill in the black ink inside. "How much of the rent do you think you can pay now?" he asks.

Kurt swallows hard. Last night he and Rachel had briefly discussed how much money would be spent on hiring their actors, buying any sets and purchasing fabric for costumes. Kurt had reduced that price when he'd thought about it at home, using his parchment presentation to detail how much they could reuse from previous plays stored in the backrooms. But they would still need most of their income to hire the actors and as Kurt had forgotten about it, he knows Rachel would have forgotten about their rent too. That will each up into their funds, if it doesn't drain it completely.

Mr Schuester shakes his head when Kurt lists a percentage. It'll mean they pay less than a quarter of the rent but will still have enough money to hire their actors. "I'm sorry Kurt, but that's enough to cover your rent to the end of next week. I'll need at least half of the rent to be able to allow you to wait a little longer."

"Mr Schuester, we've got very little income at the moment," Kurt pleads. He hates pleading but his mind is blank of a solution. He has no idea where Rachel is but she won't be any more help. What Kurt needs is the theater roof to open up and a deity he doesn't believe in to pour cash through the hole and into Kurt's hands. "If we could have more time to make up this rent then-"

"I can give you until next quarter Kurt, if you pay me half now," Mr Schuester interrupts. "But then I'll have to have the other half, and the next quarter's rent in full."

Kurt's hope fall and any joy he felt mere minutes ago has been forgotten. His face falls too because his hands are tied. They can pay half the payment but that'll cost them nearly all of their funds to hire their actors. And what actor – amateur or professional – will want to work for nothing? Yet it's either their actors or their theater.

A play can't be staged without anywhere to show it.

A heavy hand rests on Kurt's shoulder. "I'm sorry Kurt, but I can't accept anything less," Mr Schuester says in a falsely comforting voice, "Maybe things will turn around for you in the next few months?"

Kurt's reply is nothing more than an attempt at a smile. Now they have almost no funds to pay their actors, he has no idea how that will happen.