Disclaimer: [insert witty way of saying that Glee isn't mine]
Summery: Burt tells the story of him and his wife, from the start of their relationship to her untimely death. Guest starring: young!Kurt.
Rating: T
Warnings: character death, angst, mild sexual references.
A/N: This is something that I had to write, because I really wanted to know (even for myself and my glee fanon) what happened to Kurt's mother. I also handed this in to my Honours English class as a short story and got full marks on it. I had wanted to keep this to myself because it doesn't perfectly adhere to canon (like, the smattering of religion), but it steals the line "angels are watching over you" from the TV show Supernatural. In Supernatural, a mother dies and the last words to her young son are this line, and it's something that he always carries with him and is part of the reason he despises religion. I'm not saying Dean is anything like Kurt, for those who don't know Dean is manly, but in my head the stories and emotions overlap somewhere.

And yes, writing this made me tear up so much that I stopped writing. I thought I would never finish this, so enjoy (or rather don't), Angels Are Watching Over You.

)::(

Katharine Wendy Hummel nee Carson. It's a pretty name, isn't it? I always thought the "K" made it special, when she was just a friend that Billie Mason (my old college roommate) wanted to set me up with. She, of course, was a lot more than Kathy Carson. She was a wonderful wife and mother—now, I sound like I reading off her gravestone, don't I? Eh, it's true.

I was never good at affection, showing love and all that mushy stuff. I figured little No-Name knew I loved him and if he didn't, well, I must've dropped him on his head. Kathy was an incredible woman, very open and willing to show anyone that someone loved them, whether it was Jesus or God or whoever, and she seemed to channel that love when she talked to someone.

Oh, but she had her fierce side, too. She always dated up, these pre-meds and law applicants, and then there was me, Burt, just Burt, who took over his old man's shop and went to college to get an automotive degree. But Kathy liked me and trusted Billie to set her up with a decent guy (which I was).

But whew, man, you should have seen the fight when she brought me over to meet her parents.

Mr. and Mrs. Carson, sitting prim and proper in a sharp suit and tailored dress, looking like they were heading to a gala or something. Kathy, wearing her long brown hair up for once, and in a beautiful glass blue summer dress that matched her eyes to the letter. And me, in my dad's blue blazer and jeans, holding onto her hand. I had scrubbed my jeans hard with all the old wives' tricks I could find, but there was a few oil specks left. Mrs. Carson was on it like a vulture and there started the fight. I had never seen Kathy fired up like that before, and up until she died, I never saw her mad like that again. She was just sad when her father didn't walk her down the aisle, and her mother didn't turn up to the hospital when she was giving birth, when her parents didn't do the things parents are meant to do.

That night, she moved in with me and we bought our first apartment later that week. It wasn't big and we didn't have a lot to put in it, but we had a TV and a chair and that was what mattered. Oh, and each other. That, too. Kathy was an awesome cook, so we saved a ton on take-out but paid a mint for real food. Like vegetables. She waitressed at a steak house that made her wear those tight little black dresses and high heels—hey, I was twenty-two and I had a hot girlfriend. I was proud of her, especially when I came home in blue overalls covered with oil and crud and smelling of metal.

Kathy was religious, not hyper-religious: private religious. She believed there was a God no man could understand, that Jesus was a great guy, but she didn't go to church and prayed silently when she was alone. Thank God she believed in contraception, if not, well, No-Name would have quite a few older siblings. She was still religious enough to say when she tucked No-Name into bed, "Angels are watching over you."

Kathy was twenty-three when she got pregnant. Really, No-Name was an accident, like most kids, but an accident we were thankful for. She wanted a boy and I was ecstatic. We both talked about what we would do with the boy. We were big football and baseball fans (I know, I got lucky: a hot girl who liked sports) so taking him to games was a must; sending him to a co-ed sports camp Kathy had gone to was something she was looking forward to, and I couldn't wait to see him play in his school team. Of course, we both had academic expectations. She could tutor him on her nights off (she was a valedictorian who majored in political sciences), and monitor his girlfriends. I could play baseball in the local park, teach him about girls—girlfriends, not the sex part. Mommy could do that.

Then, we were told we were having a girl. Kathy shrugged and started talking about cooking and baking. I was at a loss before my baseball-crazy girlfriend reminded me that girls liked sports, too. Thank God!

No-Name was due in spring and when March rolled around we didn't have a name. Well, we didn't agree on a name. I wanted Elizabeth ('cause I loved the name Lizzie) but Kathy liked Valerie. Compromise: Valabeth. She told me that sounded like a new sci-fi villain. Then I suggested Lizarie. To the day, I love that name.

Then, we saw the nurse bring over the baby in a blue blanket and I shrugged. If we were raising a tomboy, blue would be fine. We already had a bunch of purple and yellow and blue stuff at home—blankets, toys, a crib, little knick knacks and stuff. Kathy took her. They were both red-faced and had a sheen of sweat (in No-Name's case, I think it was something else) on their bodies and they were both beautiful. I was tempted to sing Isn't She lovely by Whatshisface but I couldn't sing. Still can't.

Then, Kathy took her closer and the blue blanket, which was wrapped badly, opened. I frowned and opened it a bit more. "That's—uh? Nurse? Did you give us the wrong one?" Kathy hit me in the gut.

The doctor turned around and said, "You have a boy. That's the one that came out of you—your wife, at least." I ballooned with pride at the thought of Kathy being my wife, even though she wasn't.

Kathy and me high-fived. A boy! Thing is, now we really didn't have a name. He went several weeks before we found the perfect name we both liked. During that time, we called that little boy No-Name, and we did in private for a long time after that. The name, though, was Kurt. After Kurt Cobain—we were both big Nirvana fans, and despite his drug problems, Kurt was a fantastic name. Then Eli, as a compromise for Elizabeth.

Kurt Eli Hummel.

He was always No-Name to me.

Kurt loved him some Disney movies and since Kathy went to work at night, she sat through, day after day, week after week, watching the same movies with Lil Cobain sitting in her lap singing along to him Colours of the Wind and The Circle of Life. When he started humming, I smiled, imagining him fronting a rock band in twenty years. If he ever did get into hardcore drugs, though, I'd be the one to knock some sense into him—physically. Very, very physically. And God help him (and her) if he ever picked himself a Courtney Love!

We had some financial problems that were tough on our relationship, but we stayed together for Kurt and when he was two, we got bought a real house and got married in the backyard. Kathy and her friends cooked for fifty people, me and the guys set up the tables and chairs, setting down sheets of plywood and two dollar bed sheets for a dance floor. Everything was homemade—the officiator was Billie, for God's sake! The wedding gifts of cash we were very thankful for.

Little Kurt was now singing into water bottles and hair brushes, more than Disney songs, though. Radio hits and Britney Spears songs and other stuff. We took him to a baseball game one weekend, bought him a hat three sizes too big, messy hotdogs, screaming to catch the ball—the whole shebang. Kathy jumped high and managed to get the ball, passing it down to Kurt, who hugged it tight. He treasured that thing, sleeping with it for a few weeks before it went forgotten in a chest.

Just before it started, though, the anthem was sung by a very pretty girl in a shimmering red dress and Kurt's eyes grew to the size of truck tires. He was mesmerised. He tugged on Kathy's sleeve and she bent down, so her ear was by his mouth. Later, she told me he said he wanted to sing in such a pretty dress one day with all those people watching him.

Neither of us thought much of it. She told him girls wear dresses and that was that. A little "Oh," of disappointment, that was all. A few months later, he wanted a pair of what Mommy called "sensible heels". We laughed at that, too. It was just too cute for this big-eyed little boy to ask (oh-so-seriously, too) for heels, when Mommy came home every night from the restaurant complaining for the same thing.

Kathy and I took Kurt to the sandboxes at this playground near the elementary school. He loved sand and liked digging for things, getting sand everywhere and becoming absolutely filthy. He had a little "treasure box" he made out of an empty Kleenex box and coloured paper, where he kept pretty stones and shells before stringing them into two bracelets for Mother's Day and Father's Day that sort of looked like puka shells.

Cute little boy, huh?

He put on shows for us, too. He stood on the coffee table (which I was proud to say I made myself) with a toy microphone and sang Beatles songs. Let it Be was his favourite, since it was Kathy's favourite, too. Mommy's boy. Apparently he found Kathy's record collection. When he started in on Aerosmith's Dream On, I knew he was something really special. Not just special to me, but truly special. He was a screeching three-year-old, but still special.

Kathy quit her job as a waitress (mostly because of the hours, but partly because of the shoes) and joined an interior designing business that her friends had started a few years ago. She had an eye for colours and knew what was good. Kurt used to stand on her stool and point at the sketch boards saying "What's that?" and reorganising her pencils and materials. God, it used to drive her insane. I shouldn't talk, though; he did the same to me at the shop, since from then on I had to bring him to work with me.

He was a monkey, climbing on the truck tires to stare at the exposed engine, or into the driver's seat (even though his little legs couldn't reach the pedals) and say "Vroom, Vroom!", his arms stretched to reach the steering wheel. I would explain patiently, day after day, how the engine worked and what the differences between the models of cars, even though he forgot it all by the next day. One day, he brought me a drawing. It was the different logos of all the brands (Toyota, Chevrolet etc.), almost perfect and coloured that I hung in my office.

Then, the worst thing ever happened.

The first morning was crystal clear and still is. I really wish it wasn't. It was seven o'clock on a Monday. Kurt was in the kitchen, playing with a bowl of Cheerios, and Kathy was in the bathroom. Well, she still was. It was her day off but she was taking Kurt to a friend's house for a play date. I had to go to work so I banged on the door. The shower was still running. This was back when my hair was dark and I needed to wash it badly.

"Honey? Something wrong? Should I help you?" The last question was meant to be a little dirty. "Babe?" I opened the door and pulled the shower curtain back, a little smile on my face. I figured maybe she was shaving her legs and cut herself and couldn't get it to stop bleeding, or something girly.

Nah.

The shower curtain was completely open, letting the light come into the shower. Her left hand held her breast in place, her right hand continually poking and prodding it.

"You look like you've never seen a girl naked," I teased, reminding her of the time she got drunk in college—long story.

She looked at me, horrified.

"Sorry, forgot." I raised my hands in surrender. "Never mention it again, especially with Kurt in the house." My pyjama shirt got soaked with shower drops.

"No," she whispered, getting out of the shower and shutting it off with shaking hands. "I thought it was nothing. You know when you touch a part of your body and you're like, 'Wow, I'm getting stronger' or 'Lookie, there's muscle', when it doesn't push it as far as it should?" Her voice was high and shaking. Automatically she started to pull a towel around herself, but she dropped that and combed her tangled wet hair with her fingers.

I nodded, pretending to understand.

"Feel!" she said.

I saw how scared she was and, frankly, she was ordering me to squeeze her boob. I did and felt something odd. Our life was Kurt, work, Kurt, work, sleep. Not a lot of sex, occasionally, yes, but not nearly as much as I would have liked. There was a... a lump in her breast, like a marble, a shooter marble, too. It was hard and sort of felt like muscle. The other one, was still—well, squishy, to be honest, but the rest of the skin on the one with the lump was faintly red and looked like it had a bit of a sunburn, like a bit flaky and all that. She cringed when I touched her. I hoped it was pain and not the marriage.

"Look at this!" she said again.

She lifted her arm. I was confused for a minute. There was a small mole but—oh. A little lump, like someone had pushed a tiny marble underneath the skin of her armpit. I touched it and she winced.

"What's wrong?" I asked, really, genuinely concerned now.

"I don't—I don't know," she said, now trembling from head to toe. She was nearly crying.

Instinctively, I pulled her towards me and hugged. "It'll be okay. It'll all be okay. I'll close the shop for today. Go get dressed and we can go to Dr. Hanssan."

Kathy whimpered against me. "Do we have to?" she asked weakly.

I laughed. She was freaking out in her own shower and her fear of doctors stopped her? "Yes," I said, teasing her again. "Yes, we do. Come on, dress, Kurt, and dress Kurt. He's running around in Winnie the Pooh PJs. Everything's gonna be okay."

Funny, isn't it how the doctors wait forever to tell you the answers, then explain that they don't know for sure? They don't get that you don't care. Their word is has the power of the Word of God. It can destroy you. Easily.

It was breast cancer.

I didn't give a damn where it was. "Cancer" was enough for me. My blood ran like ice. Kathy was still in the exam room, her hair drenched from the shower and wearing a paper gown, her eyes blank and staring in a stunned kind of shock. Her doctor had already told her the news, but needed an MRI to confirm. The reality of scans: cash equals results. With weak insurance, it was still several hundred.

The week that was in between the first exam and the MRI was horrible. Like, we were waiting beneath the knife, knowing we were going to be chopped. Kurt didn't know what was going on. He just knew Mommy was playing with him a lot more than normal and sleeping a lot less.

I didn't know what to do. I became a lot more "attentive" and was very gentle and careful, very loving and nice. I hope. That was what I aimed for but I think we were both treating her like she was on her deathbed.

It was breast cancer. Tests and more tests. Bills, bills, bills. Kurt became more and more confused, then worried. Eighteen months later, Kathy was hospitalised and she went in and out of relapse, then treatment and more treatment. It was too late and we all sort of knew it.

Then came the big words. Radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, painkillers, surgery. Each time they tried one and it didn't work, it tore her down a little more until Kathy just wasn't Kathy anymore. That inner fire died a little by little until it was out completely.

Kathy was broken and no drug was going to fix that. Her spirit was gone; whether she was angry or with Kurt, she always had a vibrancy with her, a strength, and I realised why people say "Stay strong". It's not for the patient, it's for the people who say that. It's more painful when they just give up.

I begged the doctor (a specialist at this point) to give her a placebo pill. I had read that a cancer patient had cured himself, being told he had a miracle cure but in truth it was Advil. He said it was a one in a million chance but he broke down. He did and she took it. She was put on a special IV that she was told would save her but it was "experimental". Didn't work, just like everything else. She didn't have the will power, the self-belief to live any more.

I'm not even going to tell you how I felt, mostly because you won't understand. You'll get why I felt the way I did but you could never begin to imagine the pain, the heartache. I looked at the woman I loved and I felt empty inside, like my heart was preparing for life without her. She wasn't even there anymore; it was like living with a ghost.

Kurt was worse. I told you he was a monkey and that was true, but now he had drawn into himself. He didn't really talk, he cried a lot and wouldn't let anyone cheer him up. He slowly lost his friends, forgotten with time, and he stopped singing almost completely. He took that baseball down from his shelf more and more often and he started to sleep with it again.

It was almost a relief when I was pulled aside by a doctor and was given the speech I had been anticipating for almost five years. "Take your wife home... make her comfortable... there's nothing more we can do..."

The not-knowing had been the worst. The constant, tiny flare of hope that some fancy "donations, please" research place would cure cancer, or that some doctor with another weird name would be flown in, or that something would finally work—that flare was extinguished and now it was time to be happy, celebrate the last months of life, grieve and never recover.

I took her home and Kurt was so happy. Mommy was back! Her hair had grown back, even though it was much shorter and had gone a little grey, and she was pale but she was smiling. Kathy made an effort in the last few months to be normal, to be Mrs. Perfect Mother. Both Kathy and me knew she wouldn't last long, but we tried our damndest for Kurt.

She'd play with his soldiers and Power Rangers, get them married, play out stories with them. She supervised the play dates when Kurt brought over his new friend from school, Evan, and made them a nutritious lunch of chicken fingers and fries—fried food, very important for growing boys. And every night, she'd tuck Kurt into bed and sing Let it Be with him.

One day, a month or so before Kathy died, Kurt brought it up at dinner. "Mom, are you going to die?"

Kathy choked. "Why?" she asked after drinking her water.

"You've been eating differently and you still don't look right," said Kurt. I was proud and heart-broken: he wasn't crying, he didn't look sad, he was very mature and adult right then. But what do you tell the kid?

Kathy had been eating very healthy and taking a lot of painkillers and vitamins in a last ditch effort to reverse what an army of doctors couldn't. Maybe it was hope, but it was probably just a habit by now.

She waited a long time before answering him.

I took our plates out to the dishwasher and just... left. I went to our room and waited it out, tears falling to my feet. I didn't want to hear it, let alone allow Kurt to hear it. I wasn't strong enough to hear the reality in the hard, cold words—or even the "it's all okay" words. Soon, Kathy came and found me, wordlessly handing me a tissue box and I pretended that I hadn't been crying for all that this family couldn't be.

"I told him that I was. I mean, there's no use ignoring it anymore." She folded her arms and pulled at her sleeves. I went over to her and like the first day, hugged her tight, as much as for her sake as for mine. "It's not going to be long, is it?" she whispered.

I couldn't answer her and just admired her bravery. I couldn't even imagine the bravery it took to look your seven-year-old son in the eye and say that you were going to die.

"I love you," I said instead, putting my lips to her neck, just wanting to really feel her once more time. But there was no race of blood; she was cold. She felt dead already.

Kathy just cried into my shirt. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I can't be here," she whispered.

That night I saw the most incredible thing I have ever seen. We both kept a careful eye on Kurt that night. He didn't seem to be any different. When Kathy tucked him in, I stayed in the hall, listening. I wanted to make sure this didn't mess with his head or anything.

The last lines of Let it Be were sung slightly off-key and very high. Then, the ruffling of the covers. The sound of Kathy kissing Kurt on the forehead. "Goodnight, sweetie, angels are watching over you." She sat up and walked a few steps.

Then Kurt's voice. "Mommy?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't be scared. Angels are watching over you, too."