Cemetery Song for Spring - Part 1 of 4

[kappamaki33]

Cemetery Song for Spring

Home is people. It may be a cliché, but sayings are often well-worn because they’re true.

Home changes. Discovering that the coffee shop where you went on your first date has been turned into a Dollar General is one kind of sorrow. But forgetting how his laughter sounded, or how it felt when her soft hand enveloped yours, or the moment when you start to think, “I can’t wait to tell-” and then realize that you can’t, that they will never hear this story…that is what never coming home again means.

And the hardest part of never coming home again is that lives don’t end neatly. There are always loose threads, and there are never any instructions on which ones you should tie up and let go and which ones you should cling to for dear life.

~*~*~

Kurt flops dramatically onto the bed which is not theirs. He feels slightly guilty about what they’ve done on and to the poor mattress, but Blaine’s colleague should have known that’s the sort of thing that’s going to happen if you sublet to newlyweds. Then again, he can’t feel too sorry for their sublessor. After all, Demetrius’s apartment was available because he’s spending a semester in Rome.

“Remind me again why we’re in Philly rather than Europe right now?” Kurt says, lying flat on his stomach and poking Blaine’s thigh with his elbow. Blaine is sitting up in bed, bespectacled and frowning at his laptop.

Blaine says without looking up, “A, my thesis is done; B, I needed to be available for fly-back interviews, and universities rarely spring for international flights for aspiring assistant professors like me; C, even if I were lucky enough to get a grant like Demetrius did, we wouldn’t be in Europe anyway because my research focus isn’t European history; or D, all of the above?”

Kurt suppresses the eye-roll building within him, even though he thinks he could get away with it without Blaine noticing. He’s really starting to get tired of Blaine speaking in multiple choice format, even if it’s because he’s been prepping lesson plans for classes he hopes he’ll be teaching. Kurt decided weeks ago he won’t complain about it until A, Blaine gets a job offer and finally stops vibrating from nerves; or B, he incorporates multiple choice into foreplay.

Oh god, it’s contagious, Kurt realizes.

Kurt has almost managed to let himself forget (again) what he’s come in to talk about, but he can’t put it off any longer. He worries his lip and watches Blaine concentrate on the computer screen for a long time.

“I think we should go on a second honeymoon,” he finally says.

That makes Blaine lift his gaze from the screen. “As much as I enjoyed our first honeymoon back in November, we’re a bit…broke at the moment.”

“Lucky for us, I’ve already thought of that little complication.” Kurt wraps his fingers around the laptop screen’s frame. This is their version of the cutesy close-your-partner’s-laptop-for-a-serious-conversation thing people do in movies. It’s less dramatic this way, but the thing that movies don’t show is how slamming a laptop shut on your partner’s hands mid-sentence tends to spawn its own serious conversation about crunched fingers and lost trains of thought.

Blaine finishes typing his sentence, then shuts the computer and turns to him. Kurt rolls over and slides up the bed so his shoulders are resting on the pillow. His stomach twists unpleasantly.

“I talked to Carole,” Kurt says. He knows he’s making it sound like she called today, though it’s been a lot longer than that. “A while ago, I told her I wanted to sell the garage and asked her to get me some information from my dad’s account books. They’re not really all Dad’s, though, because Ernie from the garage has been taking care of them since Dad got sick the last time.” His voice catches-god, is he ever going to get less prone to crying? (He does not ask himself, is it ever going to stop hurting so much?) “Anyway, Carole said that from what she saw, Ernie probably struggles to balance his own checkbook. So, the bookkeeping for the last year and a half is a mess.”

Kurt sighs and looks up; Blaine winces sympathetically. Kurt continues, “I can’t sell the business like that, and I can’t ask Carole to take on such a big project for me. I need to go back to Ohio for, I don’t know, maybe a week or so to perform triage on the shop’s records before putting the garage up for sale. I thought it would be marginally less awful if we could call it a second honeymoon.”

Blaine thinks for a moment. “I can sit and wait for more rejections in Ohio just as easily as I can here,” he says, trying to joke and failing miserably. “There’s no reason to even come back here at all, is there? If I get a job offer, we’ll be moving, and if I don’t…”

“When you get an offer,” Kurt reassures him automatically. He’s a little shocked at how fast they’ve gone from vacationing to moving, but Blaine is right.

“How much notice do you need to give your boss?” Blaine asks.

“It doesn’t matter. As if I’m going to want a letter of recommendation from JC Penney, anyway. Our lease is month-to-month, right?”

Blaine nods, but he looks like he’s deep in thought about something not entirely pleasant. “I…didn’t know you were thinking about selling the garage.”

Ah, so Blaine is worried he’s being impulsive. Deciding to take up a nomadic lifestyle in the space of five minutes is a little impulsive, but it’s not like they haven’t done it before. Philadelphia has never been any more permanent than Columbus was before it. Still, it annoys Kurt. Not enough to regale Blaine with the whole story of how selling Hummel Tire and Lube has been in the back of his mind for weeks, and then probably cry, though.

“Unless your fall-back plan if you don’t get a professorship is to become an auto mechanic, there’s no reason to keep the place.”

The instant it’s out of his mouth, Kurt regrets what he’s said. That’s the thing about rapier wits: they’re always sharp, but not always well-aimed. Blaine may talk about Plan Bs, but that’s only because planning is the one thing he can do at this point to give himself the illusion of control over the future. Kurt has taken it upon himself to be the one who promises everything will work out and makes cruel jokes about the selection committees’ wardrobes every time another rejection arrives.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Kurt says. He slides over in bed and looks up at Blaine through his eyelashes. “What I meant was, Ohio is a pit-stop. We could use the money from selling the garage to get a nice place to live wherever we finally land.”

He runs his fingers up and down Blaine’s arm, feeling the muscles relax. “A down payment?” Blaine says, smiling tentatively.

“Mmm. You know you want a white picket fence,” Kurt says as if that’s the dirtiest, smuttiest thing in the world. Blaine chuckles, spurring Kurt on. “A porch swing. Association fees.”

Blaine sets his laptop aside. “You had me at ‘porch swing,’” he says, getting into the game. Then he adds too seriously, “Though really, I think we’re more townhouse people.”

“Yes, but I’m trying to seduce you here, honey, not discuss paint swatches.”

That brings the playful tone back, not to mention a shift in weight distribution on the poor, abused mattress that indicates things are going in the right direction.

“You’re choosing me over interior design? I do feel honored,” Blaine says.

Kurt sinks into the heat and pleasure. He was right to make this his reward for finally going through with the dreaded Ohio conversation. Such a good reward…

“Sex as a reward for what?” Blaine asks, eyebrows quirked. Only then does Kurt realize he must have said something out loud.

Kurt only hesitates for a moment. “Since when do we need a specific reason for sex?” he dodges.

He can see the gears turning behind Blaine’s eyes. He takes Blaine’s glasses off with one hand and pulls him in for a deep kiss with the other. Thankfully, it seems to be enough to make Blaine forget his train of thought.

Too bad it isn’t enough for Kurt to forget his.

~*~*~

Blaine envies how quickly Kurt can fall asleep, even folded up in the passenger seat. Blaine had only been able to doze fitfully while Kurt drove, but ten minutes after he and Blaine trade off driving duties, Kurt is snoring softly, head resting on the star-dotted window.

They both like driving at night. For Blaine, it feels a bit rebellious, especially as he passes through another silent little town whose sole traffic light is blinking yellow. “Love Me Tender” plays on the oldies station. He rolls down his window and lets in the cool night air until he sees Kurt shiver, then closes it again.

In the middle of scanning the ditches for deer, Blaine’s eyes fall on the glove box. Before they left Philadelphia late yesterday, Blaine had placed two waterproof envelopes in it: their powers of attorney and living wills and last wills and testaments and every other legal document Blaine could think of, along with copies of their marriage certificate. The lawyer who’d drawn them up had recommended leaving copies of the powers of attorney at all the hospitals in the city they settled in, “just in case.”

Blaine is not good at rootlessness. He doesn’t even feel comfortable going on vacation unless he’s booked every night’s hotel in advance. Having a place to belong-any place-as well as a person holds considerable charm for him.

The headiness of finally getting love right had made him think Columbus would be that place, simply because that was where Kurt had been. He’d quickly learned what he should have known all along: Kurt still hated Ohio, and the only person Kurt ever would have moved back there for was gone. They’d stayed until the end of his lease, then gone to Boston, then back to Philadelphia, hopping from sublease to sublease because Blaine’s assistant professorship had to be coming any day now, somewhere.

Blaine had meant it when he’d held Kurt and said, “This is my home,” less than two years ago. But he’s ready for their lives to not be able to fit into an SUV.

The late-night DJ must have a thing for Elvis, because “Are You Lonesome Tonight” waltzes through the speakers. Blaine hears Kurt sigh in his sleep, and he’s surprised at how hard that still hits him. He can answer Elvis “no” with such beautiful certainty now.

~*~*~

They had agreed they’d stop in Westerville first since it was on the way. They pull into the drive of Blaine’s old house around seven on Sunday morning and are met with lung-crushing hugs that shouldn’t physically be possible from a four-foot-eleven woman.

His mother has breakfast waiting for them. The conversation stays light, with only a few mentions of the not-a-wedding-reception party she is throwing them next week. (Blaine knows Kurt is hoping she’d forgotten their promise to let her have a party in the yard in recompense for their guestless wedding. Blaine also knows there is no way she was going to forget it.) Apparently Kurt hadn’t slept as well in the car as Blaine had thought. At one point, he barely avoids face-planting into his omelet.

When Kurt tries to help her with the dishes, his mom says, “That’s very sweet, but you go sleep. Blaine’s room is all ready for you.” Before Blaine can follow Kurt, she tells him, “I’ll be done with the dishes by the time you finish your shower. Don’t spend too long on your hair-Mass is at ten.”

At first, Blaine thinks his mother is taking him to Mass because it’s a sure-fire way to get time to talk to him without Kurt around. He’s not wrong; it’s just not that simple.

He offers to drive, but his mom insists. He feels very young again, having her drive him to church. She still sits on a cushion to see over the steering wheel. Traffic is very light as they drive into Columbus. Blaine assumes they’re going to the church he took First Communion at, but he’s surprised when they pull into the parking lot beside a much less church-like building.

“This is Old Catholic,” his mom says as they walk to the door. “They do Mass a little different. You’ll catch on, though.”

Everything clicks when he sees the rainbow flag tacked to the bulletin board on the far side of the lobby.

His mother’s eyes follow Blaine’s gaze. “They do weddings here. See the two nice young ladies with the baby? They got married here.”

Blaine follows her into the sanctuary and slides into a pew beside her. He whispers, “Mama-”

“I know, I know. But renewing vows is in style now. I’m not saying do it tomorrow. I’m only saying think about it.”

Blaine smiles, just a little. “Mama, we’ve been over this-”

“Hush. The service is starting.”

His mother is right about the liturgy’s differences from what he remembers. He’s a little rusty anyway, but he keeps up with the service. He enjoys it more than he had expected. Blaine could take or leave even the core beliefs, but he had always been fond of the ritual. The lesbian couple’s baby wails during the homily. She seems to like the music, though.

Blaine feels oddly lighter when they step out into the sunlight after the service. He gives his mother his arm. She smiles indulgently at the gallantry but still accepts it. It feels like they should go out for brunch, but it hasn’t been that long since breakfast. Blaine can tell his mother still wants to talk before they go back home to Kurt, though, because she’s excited when he points out a coffee shop.

She orders caffeine-free herbal tea, of course. Just as she’s about to ask for two cups with the pot, Blaine cuts in, orders a medium drip, and hands over his credit card. He loves his mother dearly, but Blaine can’t help but feel a tiny, rebellious so there. They sit down with their drinks at an umbrella-shaded table outside.

“Mama,” Blaine says seriously. “You’re okay with the way Kurt and I got married, right? You eventually said you were fine with it when we were engaged last year, remember?”

His mom very deliberately takes a sip of tea before answering. “Yes, yes. You love Kurt, Kurt loves you, you’re married, you’re happy. I shouldn’t want anything more than that.”

Oh, those are dangerous, dangerous words. “You don’t sound happy about it.”

She huffs and lets her posture slip in a way that Blaine is so not expecting. “Of course I’m not, but what was I supposed to do? Not give my blessing and make us all unhappy? At least this way it’s just me unhappy.”

Blaine reaches across the table and takes his mother’s hand. “Mama, Kurt really needed for us to do it alone. Burt not being there was hard as it was, but having you and Carole and Finn and everyone there and him not…”

“I know, I know,” she says, and this time, it’s completely genuine. “I want you to be happy, baby. You both deserve it. But you deserve to have other people be happy for you, too.”

Something in her eyes reminds Blaine of the way she’d looked at him back in high school, when she’d straighten his tie before he left for a formal dance: like if she just smiled fiercely enough, that would cancel out any sneers that might come Blaine’s way.

“You’re right. And that’s exactly why the party is such a good idea,” he says brightly.

Over the years, he’s honed his charm considerably. His mother can still see straight through it. “Something is wrong,” she states. “Is it-marriage is hard work, sweetheart.”

That’s when Blaine realizes he’s been tensing his muscles. Just her pointing it out lets him relax. “No, Mama, Kurt and I are fine. I guess I’m nervous about finding a job, that’s all.”

His mom relaxes, too. “Oh, don’t worry about that. You’ve always been very smart, and you work so hard. I never doubted you would be successful.”

He knows she’s trying to make it better. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? He knows he’s smart, and a hard worker-that he’s a great candidate on paper. So if selection committees don’t want him, they don’t want him because-why? Because there is something innate about Blaine Anderson they don’t like. How is that supposed to be more comforting than a committee simply thinking his research is mediocre?

“Everyone keeps telling me things will work out. I suppose all I have to do is have faith in all of you. That shouldn’t be too hard.”

He forces a smile again, and this time, he thinks his mother doesn’t see through it. Maybe she doesn’t want to.

~*~*~

Though the words “engagement brunch” never leave his mother’s mouth, the only thing missing is champagne. That, and an engaged rather than married couple.

Blaine’s mother and Carole are dominating the conversation. Of course they’d known each other quite well when he and Kurt had been together in high school, though Blaine had never really given any thought to them wanting to catch up with each other. What surprises him is how much they seem to genuinely like each other. Right now, to his horror, they’re trading potty training war stories. Finn is so lucky he couldn’t get time off work to join them today.

Even more surprisingly, Kurt is obviously not having fun. He lives for restaurants like this, all white tablecloths and copious, gleaming silverware. Yet there he sits beside Blaine, morosely picking at a salmon and spinach frittata so beautiful that Blaine has to restrain himself from offering to eat it for him.

The thing that fascinates Blaine most, though, is that not only did his mom allow him to keep his phone on at the table (apparently there is an etiquette exception for awaiting job offers) but that her phone is sitting beside her butter knife as well.

He really thinks he may have entered the Twilight Zone.

At the end of a laughing fit, his mom says, “That’s enough embarrassing you for today, baby. Time to get down to business.” She pulls a small legal pad out of her purse. “The party rental company said set-up and take-down is all part of the table-and-chair rental. The caterer’s quote was ridiculous, and her deviled eggs were salty, so I’m working on Plan B for food. Do you boys want music?”

“No,” Kurt answers before Blaine can even think. His tone is barely sitting on the right side of rude.

His mom takes it in stride. “Okay. Cross music off the list,” she says with a nod. “Invitations. I sent them all out, but if you forgot someone, we can put it in the mail today. I sent one to your father. I assume he’ll RSVP to you, so please let me know when he does.”

“Fine, Mom,” Blaine says evenly.

It’s good that there’s more on her list, so they don’t have to end on that note. “Kurt, I still can’t find Mercedes Jones’s home address. Did you find it through the Facebook?”

“I’m sorry, I forgot,” Kurt mumbles.

“At this point, maybe you should just e-mail her. Make sure she gets it in time,” Carole says.

“No. E-vites are tacky. I’m sure Finn can help me track it down.”

Carole gives Kurt a look. Blaine recognizes it as the one Carole gave him when he followed Kurt up to his room that fateful Christmas break night of their first year in college: frightfully assessing and perceptive.

Blaine reaches for his phone and says, “We can figure it out right now. I’m Facebook friends with half of the old McKinley glee club.”

“Really?” Kurt says.

“Of course. You know that.” That’s when Blaine realizes, maybe Kurt doesn’t know that, because Kurt’s never on Facebook anymore. Even back in college, after he transferred to OSU, Kurt’s Wall had always been weirdly barren.

Before he can pull up his Facebook page on his phone, his mother’s cell vibrates against her silverware. Her face lights up when she looks at the caller ID. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been waiting to hear from him all week.” She answers the call in Tagalog, and for a moment, Blaine wonders wildly if she has invited his ninety-four-year-old great uncle in Manila whom they’ve never exactly bothered to tell that Blaine is gay.

“Yes, that’s the date,” she continues in English. “No, not two pair. One pair, but both boy-doves.”

Kurt’s eyes go wide, and he turns to Blaine and mouths, “Oh dear god.”

His mother is too busy with the phone conversation to notice. “I don’t care if it’s a strange request. If you have two pair, it shouldn’t-” Her face darkens, and she makes an apologetic motion to them as she gets up from the table. They can all hear as she walks away, “Have you ever heard of the St. Francis Xavier Church Rebecca Circle? Nearly every Pinoy mother in the greater Columbus area is in it or knows someone who is. One word from me to the rest of the Circle, and your wedding gigs will…”

Carole seems to know a lot more is going on here than she is privy to, but she also seems to be enjoying her role as spectator. “You know the one thing I regret about you two getting married in Boston?” Carole says to Kurt. “That I didn’t get to watch you and her square off over wedding planning. You probably could’ve funded the whole ceremony by selling tickets to the cake sampling.”

Blaine laughs, but Kurt is having none of it. “Doves? Seriously?”

“Maybe it’s a little out there,” Carole says. “But you did try to convince Burt and me to have glitter-shitting doves at our wedding, honey.”

Burt and Carole’s wedding. Blaine still remembers it fondly, even though he hadn’t been invited. Kurt had sent him so many photos and designs while he was planning it that Blaine almost felt like he had been there. Maybe Kurt is associating all wedding accoutrements with the celebration he’d planned for his dad, Blaine thinks. It would explain why Kurt was acting so strangely today. But again, Blaine learns it’s not that simple.

Kurt says, “What’s the point of having a no-guest wedding when she’s basically planning a wedding now? Next she’s going to ask who should give toasts and whether we’d like to write our own vows, and then hell, why don’t we just have it in a church-”

“Kurt, slow down,” Blaine says, putting a hand on his arm. “I hear you. I’ll talk to her about keeping things celebratory but not ceremonial.”

Kurt sighs like he hasn’t been breathing properly for a few minutes. “Thank you. You’d better go stop the doves.”

Blaine doesn’t move. At first, he doesn’t know why. Doves are over-the-top. He associates them with his cousins’ weddings: fluffy white meringue dresses, legions of bridesmaids and groomsmen, teeteringly tall cakes with so much icing they made him sick, food and food and more food and every distant relation packed into a too-small and sweaty ballroom…

…And two ridiculously happy people holding white doves together before releasing them, with a crowd of friendly faces cheering them on.

Damn. He really wants the doves.

“The dove release is a tradition at Pinoy wedding receptions,” Blaine says slowly. “It’s not outlandish to my mom-or to me, really. When the couple lets them go, it’s like everybody is wishing you well as you fly out into the world together.” He stares intently at his water glass and tries to shrug carelessly. “It was kind of my favorite part.”

Blaine is so grateful that neither Carole nor Kurt calls him on being a romantic sap.

“If it’s just two doves, and no glitter is involved, that’s not really over-the-top at all,” Carole says.

“Certainly more dignified than a garter-toss,” Kurt adds, looking a little guilty.

Blaine wants to tell him there’s nothing for him to feel guilty about, that he’s well within his rights to not want to make this a big deal. All that comes out when he tries is a joking, “If my mom wants us to do the Money Dance, I’ll put my foot down.”

He explains what the Money Dance is, and Kurt is as horrified as expected. Blaine laughs long and hard and falls a little bit more in love at how Kurt’s inflection reveals what shocks him most: “They pin money to your good clothes?”

~*~*~

Kurt is behind the wheel when they drive into Lima. He wants to return to town on his own terms. This is as close as he can get to that.

He knows as he drives down the highway that, objectively, Lima hasn’t changed much. There’s the Red Lobster, the East Side McDonald’s, the dry cleaner’s, Mitzi Gannon’s dad’s law office, the post office. It’s too cold for children to be playing in the yards today, but there are Big Wheels in driveways and plastic play sets in front yards. When they reach his old block, Kurt thinks his way down the street: the Hendersons, then the Browns, then the Lees, then the Thomases. Some of the old families may have moved on, but he doubts it.

To Kurt, though, Lima feels all the more alien because it is so close to what he remembers, but not quite right. It reminds him of when he dreams of something familiar, but his brain gets a few details wrong.

He drives up to his old house. Carole had driven back to Lima a little earlier than they had to get in a half-day of work, so she won’t be home for a few more hours.

He and Blaine get out of the car and go inside. Kurt stands in the front entrance a long time. Dad and Carole bought a lot of new furniture and appliances when they’d first moved in, and they hadn’t updated the place much since then. There’s a new accent rug in the kitchen that matches the seat covers on the stools. The third step on the stairway still squeaks. Kurt’s room looks the same as when he left it the week before college started, though he notices when he sets down his bags that Carole has traded his lamp for the one that used to be by his dad’s chair in the living room. He peeks in Finn’s room on his way back downstairs-that, too, feels like the museum version of Finn’s room: historically accurate except for being clean enough to be viewed by the public.

Kurt doesn’t really register that Blaine has been at his side, talking the whole time, until they’re back in the living room. They curl up together on the couch in front of the TV. He manages to smile when Blaine finds Dead Poets Society on and chatters about the time they, Finn, and Rachel had watched it together and Finn had sobbed through the ending.

Kurt’s not really watching. He’s taking the drive through town again in his mind. The independent video rental store is gone. The Big Lots finally fixed the light in the “g,” so he can no longer joke about it being the only non-heteronormative store in town (though he’s too old to make the “Bi Lots” joke anymore anyway, isn’t he?). Kids still hang out in the Little Caesar’s parking lot, but they look so much younger than he remembers. At least Carole had forewarned him about the Lima Bean going out of business.

Kurt is so grateful they didn’t have to drive past Hummel Tires and Lube to get to the house.

~*~*~

Blaine doesn’t think it’s strictly necessary for all three of them to go grocery shopping that evening, but he concedes easily when Carole and Kurt have such strong opinions about it. Carole’s excuse for the group outing is that if the two of them are going to be staying with her for a week, they ought to have food in the house they like. Kurt’s is that he and Blaine should do some cooking in recompense for the free room and board.

As it turns out, the real reason is that they want to show Blaine off to everyone. After the third time someone stops them in the produce aisle, Blaine mentally rephrases that: they want to show Kurt’s husband off to everyone.

Blaine had known that Kurt took a lot of flak for just being Kurt in this town, in a way Blaine never had. Like the different ways the words “freak” and “fag” had been applied to them, for instance. Blaine had never been called the first until people started calling him the second. For Kurt, one of those two words would’ve still been hurled at him even if he’d slept with more women than Puck had in high school. Blaine knew that Kurt’s family had taken a lot of flak, too. Kurt had told him about “Defying Gravity” and Burt, and “Bad Romance” and Finn, and a dozen other smaller slights and sneers. He knows there are likely hundreds more that Kurt hasn’t mentioned or has pretended not to hear.

Blaine sees the issue of Kurt’s Lima reputation in a whole new light in the grocery store. It’s like Kurt and Carole are making sure nobody can possibly accuse Kurt of sneaking back into town. Kurt Hummel does not sneak, now or ever. He struts. After the inevitable handshakes and “You don’t have to call Blaine ‘Doctor,’” and “It was a very intimate destination wedding,” Kurt wraps his arm around Blaine’s shoulders and dares their fake-smiling selves to call him a freak now, because his life is already so superior to theirs and is only going to get better.

When Kurt goes to the meat counter, Carole stays back with Blaine. “This is fun,” she says, grinning wickedly. “That last woman, Madge? That was Madge Azimio. This is as close as I’ll ever get to being able to call her a bitch to her face.”

Just when he’s thinking he’s had more than his quota of lessons in small-town politics for one day, Judy Fabray accidentally (or maybe not, he can’t be sure) plows her shopping cart into Kurt’s.

“I’m so sor-wait. Are you-Quinny, come over here!”

“Kurt? Blaine?”

Quinn Fabray-Schuler, graceful as ever, glides her own shopping cart up next to her mother’s. Her hair is chin-length and her makeup is a little less dark now, but otherwise, her face looks the same as it did in high school. A chubby blond boy in OshKosh overalls gurgles at her from his perch in the cart. It’s not until she rounds the cart to hug them that Blaine sees she’s heavily pregnant.

“Oh my god, I didn’t know you were still in Lima!” Kurt says, squeezing her shoulders tight but politely giving her belly a bit more room.

“Actually, my family lives in Elida, but the grocery store there isn’t half as good as Meijer.” She turns to Blaine and whacks his arm lightly. “But you know where I live. We’re friends on Facebook!”

Blaine laughs. “Apparently I’ve failed in my duty to keep Kurt up to date on the lives of people he grew up with.”

He rocks Quinn a little when he hugs her, too. It’s even better to see her again than he’d imagined.

Quinn stares at them and smiles like she’s waiting for them to make the next move. When neither of them does, she says, “Come on, I want to see the rings!”

They both blush and insist that there’s nothing to look at as they hold their hands out, but really, it’s nice. Quinn is the first person they’ve met that evening to ask to see them.

“Are you two moving back home to Lima?” Judy asks. Blaine had almost forgotten she was there.

“Mother,” Quinn says much more sharply than Blaine would have expected. “Can you not think about business first, just once?” She turns back to Blaine and Kurt and smiles apologetically. “Mother-daughter real estate agency. It’s a fun job, and it gives me a lot of flexibility for time with my family, but Mom takes it a little too seriously sometimes.” She looks directly at Kurt. “Besides, there’s no way you’re moving back to Lima.”

“I’m getting my dad’s garage fixed up to go on the market,” Kurt explains.

Judy Fabray’s face lights up. “Commercial property-”

“No, Mother,” Quinn says almost as sharply as the first time. She has a very serious and interested gleam in her eye, though. “Kurt’s not looking to just sell a building. He’s selling a business-inventory, equipment, accounts receivable, good will. What you need is a business broker.”

Kurt’s head tilts. “Are you a-?”

“No. Not yet,” Quinn says. “But I can give you some phone numbers, if you’d like.”

“Thanks,” Kurt says. “We should meet up for dinner sometime while we’re here. I’d love to meet your husband, too.”

Quinn has already pulled out a business card and is writing on the back of it. “Sounds great. The top two numbers are excellent local business brokers. The bottom one is my cell. How about Wednesday evening?”

“Perfect,” Blaine says.

Carole clears her throat behind them. “I hate to break this up, but our ice cream is going to melt if we don’t get it home pretty soon. Unless you want to meet me at the checkout, boys?”

“We should be going anyway,” Quinn says. Her smile changes from genuine to fake. It’s a good fake smile. Blaine’s not sure he would have recognized it without the real one so close in time for comparison. “It’s so good to see you both again. Good luck with the garage, Kurt.”

As their carts pass and head in opposite directions, Blaine calls over his shoulder, “You’re coming to the party at my mom’s, right?”

He’s puzzled when he gets Quinn’s fake smile in return. “I’ll certainly try to make it.”

At the checkout line, Kurt is as happy as Blaine has seen him since they left Philadelphia. He bounces from talk of business brokers to chastising himself for not asking Quinn what her boy’s name is (“Jamie,” Blaine informs him-he remembers it from Facebook) to how wonderful it is that a Lima grocery store finally carries gelato. On the other hand, Carole’s good mood has vanished, and Blaine has no idea why.

“It’s nothing. Judy’s been pestering me to sell the house and list it with her, that’s all,” Carole explains when she notices Blaine looking at her in concern.

Blaine leaves the grocery store with four heavy bags looped over his arms and the distinct impression that his unfamiliarity with Lima history and politics is making him miss something here.

~*~*~

It’s funny, Blaine thinks, how much an empty chair can affect a person. He supposes he shouldn’t be so surprised. Symbols are important, and there is perhaps no more potent symbol of loss than an empty chair at a family dinner. As hard as he tries to focus on what Carole is saying, he catches his eyes drifting to the end of the table several times during supper. A part of him wishes Carole had put the chair away, though the rest of him knows it wouldn’t have made the emptiness any less conspicuous.

And Blaine knows the ache in his own heart is nothing compared to Kurt’s. Kurt picks at the Chinese take-out they got on their way home from the grocery store. He’s noticed Kurt has been eating even less than usual of foods Blaine is sure he likes. When Carole brings up going to see Finn’s new house later that week, Kurt mutters something about how he’ll be too busy at the shop to go out of town. Kurt turning down an opportunity to offer decorating advice is either a sign of depression, or a sign of the apocalypse, Blaine thinks.

Blaine and Carole bravely and blindly charge on with conversation. They try to bring in Kurt at first but give up when it becomes clear he would rather not be included. Kurt does offer tired encouragement when Carole asks about Blaine’s job hunt and Blaine struggles to remain upbeat, but that’s it.

At one point, Carole asks Blaine to follow her into the kitchen and help her dish up ice cream for dessert. Blaine is unsurprised that she doesn’t really need assistance handling an ice cream scooper.

“Is he all right?” she whispers.

Blaine had been expecting Carole to ask, “What’s bothering him?” He actually had an answer to that one. Of course, that’s why she doesn’t bother asking it.

“Coming back here is hard for him,” Blaine says, feeling stupid. Nice insight, Anderson. Just the sort of thing only Kurt’s husband and closest confidante could know.

“Yes, but he’s been happy in Philadelphia, hasn’t he?” she asks. Blaine nods-he has been all right in Philadelphia, for the most part. The change in Kurt’s mood since they’ve come back to Ohio isn’t surprising or even abrupt, but it is most definitely a change. “He’s always sounded all right on the phone.”

Blaine nods and shrugs. “It’s been a long day. Maybe tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep…” Blaine doesn’t know how to finish the sentence.

They eat their dessert in the living room in front of the TV so they don’t have to labor at talking anymore. Kurt’s gaze is at least pointed in the direction of the TV; Blaine is staring at Kurt.

The angles of Kurt’s face have grown more defined over the years, as if someone had sharpened him like a photograph. As much as Blaine has wanted to believe he and Kurt had picked up right where they left off at the end of high school, he knows they’ve changed. Kurt has changed. Blaine is only now discovering the new sharp edges in his soul.

Kurt hasn’t had any choice but to harden himself. He’d had to be strong for Burt for a long time. Burt would’ve been a hard person to be strong for, with the way he had of being so solid and determined right back at you.

Blaine remembers a trip he made back to Ohio on the pretext of going to an uncle’s funeral but really just to see Kurt. It had been one of the few times Blaine had seen Burt during those years. Burt was staying overnight with Kurt so he wouldn’t have to drive from Lima to University Hospital so early to get to his tests on time the next day. That evening, there had been a long argument with Burt insisting that Kurt should get out of the apartment for a change and do something fun with Blaine. That was followed by an argument about Kurt not putting himself out cooking supper, then about what on the take-out menu qualified as heart healthy. Blaine had only joined the last argument over who would sleep where, with everyone insisting that they should be the one on the living room floor. Blaine won; Burt got the bed, and Kurt got the squeaky pull-out couch in the living room. Blaine had spent most of the night listening to Kurt’s breathing a few feet away from him. He could tell Kurt wasn’t sleeping, either; he was listening to the gentle, even snores coming from his bedroom.

Blaine knows it's his job to soften those hard edges in Kurt. It’s what he was made for, even if it’d taken him the better part of a decade to figure that out. Now, Blaine has found a whole new reason to feel guilty for taking so long to get his head out of his ass. He can’t help but wonder, if he’d been there for Kurt sooner, as more than the good friend who made excuses to be passing through Ohio all the time, would Kurt have had to build all these new defenses that leave Blaine so baffled?

Blaine is startled out of his thoughts when Kurt’s cold hand wraps around his shoulder. Blaine closes his eyes in shame and defeat. He should’ve done that, been the one to reach out and comfort Kurt. He slides closer to Kurt on the couch and rests his head on his shoulder, because what else can he do?

Kurt smiles down at him gratefully. Blaine is more confused than ever, but he’s so, so glad he’s stumbled into doing something right.

~*~*~

It’s not until they crawl into his bed together that night that it dawns on Kurt: they’ve only once had sex-sex in this bed. (He still refuses to use the word anal, even as an adult with a healthy sex life, even in his mind. He also still pulls out “keelhauling” whenever he and Blaine need a good chuckle.) Even worse, that one time was the disastrous Freshman Year Christmas incident. Just as Kurt is about to share this revelation with Blaine and suggest they make some better memories, Blaine deftly kills the mood.

“Are you going to visit their graves?” he asks, eyes wide and concerned.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Kurt stutters. “Kind of morbid for a honeymoon.”

“I know you miss your dad a lot,” Blaine says. Kurt feels his back stiffening at how obvious and stupid of an observation that is.

“I do,” Kurt says, quietly and evenly and a hair’s breadth away from telling Blaine to drop it because tomorrow he has to go to the shop for the first time since a week after the funeral.

“Mourning is hard for everyone, but with atheism-I’m not talking about belief in an afterlife changing things, but atheism doesn’t have the community structure and the rituals for how to grieve the way religions do.”

Blaine is speaking like a professor, like Kurt and his loss are an abstraction that can be explained with theory. Like Blaine is calmly sitting outside of it, which he is. Kurt hates it.

“Are you trying to convert me?”

“Convert you to what? One Mass with my mom didn’t inspire me to re-evaluate my not being a Catholic,” Blaine says testily. Kurt had expected him to give in. “All I’m saying is, even though you don’t believe you can talk to them or pray for them, maybe the ritual of going there would help.”

“You think I need help?” Kurt asks. It’s a bitter question, yes, but it’s an honest one.

Blaine looks at him for a long time as he tries to form a response. “I think you’re hurting,” he finally says. He wraps his arms around Kurt expecting him to curl into him, but Kurt stays rigid beside him.

“I think I’m tired,” Kurt says, flicking off the nightstand light.

Blaine kisses him in the dark, then lets him go. They’re mere inches apart in the bed, but it feels like miles.

~*~*~

Kurt goes to the garage the next morning. The smell of grease and sweat with an overtone of soot and metal is so thick he can feel it on his skin. It’s not at all like his mother’s sweaters and dresses, which picked up and held a faint shadow of her scent. He has to leave and walk around the block before he can make it all the way in to his dad’s office.

When Kurt comes home that evening, he doesn’t let Blaine shower before pulling him into bed. They make love, and after, they stay lying on their sides. Kurt doesn’t let Blaine turn around, pressing his chest flush against Blaine’s back and hooking an arm firmly around him. He buries his nose in the curls at the base of his skull. He is glad Blaine can’t see his face. He breathes deeply.

~*~*~

Blaine is out on his morning run (he likes mornings far too much for a sane person, Kurt thinks), so it’s just Kurt and Carole at breakfast. Kurt has already apologized for being an unsociable ass the previous night, claiming fatigue and not-a-wedding-party-related stress as excuses. He’s sure Carole knows better, but she accepts it.

They chat about nothing much, mostly brainstorming tasks to add to the list of household chores for Blaine. Carole had come up with the to-do list idea when Kurt had mentioned that Blaine needed distraction from the professorship waiting game. (She never asks why Kurt won’t take him to the shop. He is grateful for that.) Talking about Blaine makes being alone with Carole more comfortable. It’s like Blaine is acting as a buffer between them without even being there, keeping at bay all those hard questions he doesn’t want answered yet (or just one, really: What are we to each other, now, without him?).

But of course, Kurt can’t even get through a morning without something stressful cropping up these days. Carole plops the box of Cheerios on the table with the resoluteness of someone trying to make a statement. “Well, there’s no easy way to say this, so I might as well just say it.” She sits down across from Kurt and looks at him. “I’d like to sell the house.”

Kurt doesn’t choke on his orange juice, and he doesn’t ask something moronic like, “This house?”

“Do you want to buy me out of my dad’s share, or sell it together?”

Carole’s eyebrows rise like she thought this was going to be harder than it’s turning out. “I can do it either way, but I’d have to cash in some of my retirement savings to pay you outright. I’d rather we sell it together.”

“Okay,” Kurt says before he has a chance to get sentimental. He may not have grown up in this house, but he does love it. Dad and Carole both worked hard to make this house a home and forge a family within its walls. There are a lot of good memories here.

Carole’s eyes are misty. The sentimentality bug is catching, apparently. “Mostly, I want to downsize, but…this house has been good to us. I think it deserves to have a nice, young family in it, you know?”

“Yeah,” he says softly. Then he remembers how much he doesn’t want to remember, and he forces his brain to switch gears.

He says, “I think we should list it with Quinn.” Carole looks at him dangerously. “I know you don’t like her, and you’re totally justified. But even you have to admit that young families are exactly the market Quinn is going to know, the people she’s friends with.”

“Fine, so long as Judy doesn’t get her hands on the commission,” Carole concedes.

He doesn’t say it, but Kurt is insistent because he feels sorry for Quinn. He knows everyone is different, and she does seem happy, apart from having to work with her mother. But Kurt can’t get outside of himself on this point. Moving back to Columbus had felt like defeat to him. Staying in Lima is unimaginable.

~*~*~

Against their better gastronomic judgment, they succumb to nostalgia and meet Quinn at Breadstix.

“This place certainly hasn’t changed much,” Blaine says, looking around the room.

“I think these breadsticks have been here since the last time we ate here,” Kurt says.

“Kevin is so sorry he couldn’t make it tonight,” Quinn says, squirming in the booth with an uncharacteristic lack of grace. “Work emergency. His parents are watching Jamie for me.”

Blaine can’t help but wonder if she’s telling the truth or if Kevin didn’t want to be seen with him and Kurt. He can’t tell whether her smile is fake or not. That should be unsettling, but it’s not. That’s what fake smiles are for, after all: they let you believe the best in people when you want to.

Lima was never home for Blaine, but this evening, he feels something like a sentimental tug on his heart from the place. He’s pretty sure it’s because of Quinn. Blaine liked all of Kurt’s high school friends, but Quinn was the only one that Blaine had felt was his friend independently and not only his friend via Kurt. They had bonded over acting and looking like they belonged to a different era, over their comfort with propriety and charm for their own sakes.

He’d tried to explain this to Kurt once, to no avail. “I don’t see why I’m not in your little Etiquette Club. No one is a bigger stickler for manners than I am,” he had insisted. “When I was four, I taught my Power Rangers which fork to use for the cheese course.”

Of course it wasn’t about table manners, but Kurt wouldn’t understand that. Kurt talks too loud when he’s excited and cries so easily. He would be about as good at poker as he would be at playing offensive lineman for the Colts. Not that Blaine would change those things about Kurt for the world now. He’d never wanted to be in love with someone like himself or Quinn, but someone like her is a nice change of conversational pace now and then.

Kurt is talking far too loudly that evening. “Oh, I have good news for you,” he says, tapping Quinn’s arm. “Carole and I are going to put the house on the market, and I’ll be calling to list it with you tomorrow.”

Quinn arches an eyebrow. “Carole Hudson is hiring me to sell her house?”

“It’s half my house, too. I told her you would know the kind of people who’d be most interested in buying a place like that.”

Blaine notices an odd look flit across Quinn’s face for a moment. It’s gone so quickly he wonders if he imagined it. “Wow, selling half a house and a business…are you raising capital to start your own business?”

Kurt looks shocked. “Well, we want a down payment for a house-”

Quinn brushes that off. “You’re not going to need that much for a down payment on a starter home unless you’re moving to New York City or San Francisco.”

“Nope,” Blaine says. Pace and UCSF had turned him down long ago. For some reason, Blaine finds it easier to hide his grimace because Quinn is there. “We’re down to three smaller cities-university towns.”

She turns back to Kurt. “This would be the perfect time to start a business, then. Didn’t you major in Design?”

“Yes, but I haven’t had a job in the field, unless you count the JC Penney’s Home Department.” Kurt shivers in disgust. “What with my dad in and out of the hospital so much, I just never got settled in anywhere. I never wanted to get settled in. It was easier to have work that I would feel fine about dumping at the drop of a hat if he needed me.”

Blaine puts his hand on Kurt’s knee and squeezes. Kurt toes his ankle in reply.

Quinn still won’t let it go. “Okay, then invest some of this money for a few years, work for someone you can learn from in the meantime, and then break out on your own. I think it would be a really good fit for you, and that you’d be good at it.”

Blaine has never thought about this option for Kurt before. But now that she says it, he can see it. More than that, he can see Kurt seeing it, from the light in his eyes. Yet another reason why one of these jobs has to come through for him, Blaine thinks. Kurt hasn’t just put his dreams on hold-he’s put dreaming on hold far too long.

“My goodness, what’s gotten into you, talking all cut-throat businesswomanly?” Kurt teases.

“I don’t know about cut-throat, but I sound like a businesswoman because I am one. And you know this is really not anything new,” she says, her voice lower. “I’ve always been ambitious. So have you.”

Kurt leans back and shakes his head in pleased surprise. “And here I thought you’d gotten stuck in Lima. You’re planning on conquering Lima, aren’t you?”

“I live in Elida,” Quinn says, sipping from her water glass demurely and fake-pretending she doesn’t understand Kurt.

She twists in her seat again and-this is a first for Blaine with Quinn-makes a sound he can’t classify as anything but a grunt. “I hate to do this, especially since we already ordered and I know it’ll confuse our lovely server,” she punctuates this with an eye-roll, “but I really need to move to a table. I don’t fit in this booth.”

Blaine and Kurt are up immediately and chastising her for not telling them she was uncomfortable sooner. Blaine can see just how tight the fit is when Quinn tries to scoot out and nearly gets stuck on the table lip. As soon as she’s close enough, he helps her stand and offers her his arm. He pulls out her chair and helps her sit as well.

“Is it harder or easier the second time around?” Blaine asks her.

“Excuse me?”

“Pregnancy. This is your second child, right?”

Kurt, of course, can’t hide his feelings to save his life, but it’s Quinn’s subtle look of shock that tells Blaine just how deeply he’s stepped in something. He has no clue what, though thoughts of miscarriages and stillbirths are now swirling in his mind and making him sick.

“It’s been a fairly easy pregnancy,” Quinn says, saving him. “Though I’m very ready to not feel like I should wear a ‘Caution: Wide Load’ sign.”

Kurt laughs high and nervous, and for the rest of the evening they act like Blaine had never said anything.

Much later, Blaine isn’t ready to get out of the car when Kurt pulls in Carole’s driveway.

“How could I not know Quinn got pregnant in high school?” Blaine repeats for the dozenth time.

“I guess it never came up in conversation when you were around,” Kurt says simply. “It’s not as if it was something she liked to talk about.”

“But New Directions gossiped ruthlessly about everything!” Blaine says. “I sat with you all every day in the choir room for our whole senior year, and it never came up?”

Kurt turns to him, and there’s a fire in his eyes Blaine hadn’t expected. “What should we have said about it, Blaine? She and Puck hardly needed us to remind them. Knowing that every single time someone looks at you, they could be remembering that you had been carrying another life inside you-a life that is gone and will never know you…. Just being in this place with these people was a reminder every day.” He looks out the windshield and shakes his head. “That’s why I can’t believe she stayed around here. She knows that everyone in town knows.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Blaine says, quieter. “Between Quinn and Puck, and Finn, and oh man, Carole-no wonder she was so uncomfortable at the grocery store. It’s a miracle this is only the first time I’ve put my foot in my mouth on the subject.”

“I considered it,” Kurt says. He sighs. “I decided not to because you and Quinn got along so well. I thought maybe part of it was she wanted one friend who looked at her and didn’t see Beth.”

Blaine doesn’t know what to say.

“Since this has been an evening of serious conversations,” Kurt segues awkwardly, “I’ve been thinking about what Quinn said-about what to put some of the house and shop money into.” He sits silently and stares at his lap for a long time. “We agreed it’s still a long way down the road, but…having a child is going to be very expensive for us.”

Blaine can’t keep up tonight at all, but he’s not going to shut Kurt down, either. “Kids are expensive for anyone.”

“Yes, but in addition to the normal expenses, we’re going to have acquisition costs that most people don’t have to deal with. Oh god, that’s a terrible way to phrase it,” he says, pressing his forehead against the steering wheel. “What I mean is, surrogacy, overseas adoption-even domestic adoption is expensive. You have to plan so far in advance if you want an infant or a toddler, and people like Quinn who never change their minds throughout the whole pregnancy and birth are so rare, and so many couples get their hearts broken, and we wouldn’t even be allowed to adopt in Utah-”

“Kurt?” Blaine says, taking Kurt gently by the shoulders and turning him. “I guarantee you, we will not move to Utah.”

It’s paltry reassurance, they both know. But it’s enough to make Kurt laugh, and that makes Blaine feel warm and useful.

“I’m going to leave the worrying to you, I think,” Kurt says. “You’re better at it.”

“Practice makes perfect.” He pulls Kurt in for a hug despite the gearshift digging into his hip, and he says into Kurt’s neck, “Don’t practice, if you can help it.”

That night as Blaine lies in bed, he tries to imagine what it will be like to hold his child in his arms for the first time. He wonders if he will think of Quinn then, too.

~*~*~

On to Part 2