A/N: Hello everyone. So writing has been difficult lately given the state of things in my life, but thanks to a very good friend who has given me a good smack upside the head I'm back to give it another go round. So this is going to be a drabble collection based on this 30 Day Writing Challenge (a drabble a day for 30 days) that's been circling the internet, I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks to everyone who sent well wishes and for being so nice when I realized that I wasn't ready to continue my last story. You all are wonderful people and it's going to be a while before I'm ready to start that story up again, just getting this out was beyond hard, but I think it's a good thing. *deep breath* So, here we go.

Disclaimer: Don't Own Glee

These Small Hours

Prompt: Beginning

Notes: Major Angst, mentions of Klaine, Furt, Canon compliant through 5x03

Moving to New York was the kind of beginning every story needed. It was the perfect setup for the Lifetime movie that Kurt's life would eventually become (after he's made his Broadway career, started his own line of men's fashion, and completed his book deal, of course). It was everything Kurt wanted, and after all the crap he'd had to put up with in high school, Kurt Hummel was going to make damn sure he got it.

That didn't mean the whole process wasn't the most terrifying thing he'd ever done.

But that was the draw of new beginnings wasn't it? They were so full of potential, of possibility. Even when there was a chance you might fail, there was still that little voice in the back of your head reminding you that you might not, and that little voice is what got you through the scary times.

It'd been helping Kurt the day he signed up for glee club, and really wasn't that when his life had taken such a small and yet drastic turn?

He knew the risks. He knew that joining glee club would do nothing good for him. He'd still be picked on, tossed into dumpsters, slushied; none of that would stop. But maybe—just maybe—the voice said, it would be the beginning of something great, something wonderful in his life. Hadn't Rachel spent most of that year saying it? Being part of something special makes you special. At fifteen Kurt needed something to make him feel like he wasn't a waste of space. And although the bullying only got worse, he's sure that being in glee club saved his life. It gave him something to look forward too, something to live for.

It made him braver too, made him take more chances.

Like a year later when a cute sophomore with dark hair and warm hazel eyes had asked Kurt what was wrong and actually cared about the answer.

To this day, Kurt still isn't sure what made him tell Blaine everything that had been bogging him down for so long. He had no reason to after all, this boy was practically a stranger (dreamy voice or not), and if Kurt didn't trust his friends then why would he trust anyone else with his deepest fears and later his darkest secrets?

But he had. That had been a beginning as well, though maybe he didn't realize it at the time.

Glancing down at the ring adorning his left hand he can't help but smile. He definitely recognized it as a beginning when Blaine had finally confessed how he felt. And even though there were rough patches and heartbreak and a lot of growing up done on both sides, he never doubted that that beginning would have a happy ending. Not really. Not even on his darkest days.

It was why he'd said yes, despite every rational thought in his head, when Blaine proposed. He loved Blaine, and there was nothing logical about it.

Which, when he thinks about it, is part of what made going to New York so hard.

For all the many beginnings and ending Kurt had experienced in Lima, he'd always had someone, something to fall back on. His father, Blaine, his friends, glee club. So many things in his life had morphed into a safety net, always there to catch him when bad things happened.

New York meant cutting that safety net, leaving him free to tumble into the unknown. It was exhilarating. It was terrifying. It was the start of the next chapter in his life, the one he'd been putting off since graduation and his rejection from NYADA.

He's so, so thankful he has people in his life who believe in him. Kurt's sure that if his dad had shown an ounce of hesitance about his big New York plans then he would never have gotten on the plane.

But he did, and life kept going. Kurt Hummel got out of Lima, Ohio and the world didn't stop turning.

He thinks that might have been why things also got so out of hand so quickly after he arrived. While he wishes none of it had ever happened—Blaine cheating on him, his dad getting cancer, things back home spinning so wildly out of control—a small part of him is glad it did. It reaffirmed his faith in himself. It made him stronger, in the end, even if he wishes there were an easier way for that transformation to occur.

And then winter came. He got into NYADA, he started to mend things with Blaine, he even tried dating again (and even though that failed it just solidified his belief that Blaine was the love of his life and that one day they would fix things between them), he settled into himself, into his new life. He's happier for it. So much happier, he thinks as he twists the gold band on his fourth finger. There's so much to look forward to. His future is as bright as the stars back home on a summer night.

There's so much yet to begin in his life. So many possibilities.

But there are also the inevitabilities too. The ones that no one ever told him about. The ones he never realized existed until they slapped him in the face and left him reeling in the aftershock.

The funny thing, when he finally allows himself to think about it, is that he really should have seen it coming. He's familiar with endings after all—his mom dying, glee club losing at regionals that first year, graduation, his break up with Blaine—in some ways, beginnings can be the cruelest type of endings.

Because for something to begin, despite its potential, something else must end.

And even though of part of him recoils at the melancholy philosophy of it all, it doesn't make it any less true. He just never had to stop and think about it. Not really. Not until recently.

He was so young when his mom died. So young. He remembers it of course. It's not something you forget, no matter how many years pass by. But at this point… he's lived longer without her in his life than in it. That doesn't mean he doesn't miss her every damn day, that he doesn't want to be able to introduce Blaine to her, to have her there at his wedding. But… he doesn't have a mother. He hasn't for nearly eleven years now. It's almost like a state of being.

When he was a kid, just after she died, he understood that her life had ended, that she could no longer be a part of his. (It would take a long time before he came to believe that she was still a part of his life—it's probably the only thing outside of the tangible world that he does believe in).

He understood that his mother's death was an end. The end, at the time. And now, as he flies home to mourn his brother, that same feeling of ending creeps up on him.

It's really happening.

It doesn't hit him until that night after they've tried, and failed to go through Finn's things. He sits in his room, wrapped in Finn's old letterman's jacket, still smelling of Axe and that unnamable boy-scent he always associated with the gangly teenager, and just let's himself fall into the comfort the jacket offers.

Getting the news was awful. Burying his brother had been near impossible. But throughout all that it's never really seemed real. Finn was always larger than life in Kurt's mind. A solid presence; immovable, like superman.

Now though, the house echoes with the silence, with the lack of Finn's presence. He can't ignore it anymore. And wrapped in the over-large warmth of Finn's jacket, he finally allows himself to accept it.

His brother died. Finn's life ended. And Kurt's life without Finn in it began.

A/N: Jfc, Glee just really hit home for me this past week and I cried writing this, but it feels better to get it out. Drop a review and tell me what you think, next drabble will be out tomorrow.

-Skylar