Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 45th cycle. Now cycle 46!

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** UPDATED WITH CYCLE 45 CHEAT SHEET ** Check it out to find out about shift days! (cycle 46 cheat sheet will be up later)

This is a shift day [see above]. There was another upload this morning: You'll Find Wonder, chapter 22.

"Never Far Away"
Kurt

(A/N: Day 4 of 7 in Jade's awesome birthday week! ;))

He had heard his father say so many times how much he would miss him after he left for New York. It was going to happen for him, NYADA or not, this much he knew. By the end of the year he'd had to face the fact that it was going to be without NYADA, but he wasn't letting that get in the way. He was going, and that was that. He'd already been making arrangements for it, been preparing himself and others for this parting, and he wasn't letting it go to waste.

And then the day came, the day before he would board a train and head on to New York. It was madness, both his father and Carole and Blaine were determined in helping him get ready, but there was still something he had to do before he went, and he had to do it alone.

He had been packing the things he had marked for the move when he had come upon the small figurine, nudged to the back of a shelf by accident, and he stopped. He picked it up, swiping his thumb against it to remove dust. He smiled, bringing it to the bubble wrap to get it in one of his boxes.

It had belonged to his mother, and he still remembered how she would say the Hummel figurine had been a sign of things to come. 'Umbrella Boy,' it was called, and when Kurt was all of four or five, she had given it to him, telling him there was no one who deserved it more than him, because she knew he would take good care of him.

Now here he was, years later, his mother gone, about to leave town himself, and Umbrella Boy had ended up nudged to the back by a book hurriedly slipped on the shelf. Now he knew what he had to do.

He left the house on pretense that he was going to get more bubble wrap. Instead he stopped by the flower market, picked up some lilies, and headed in to the cemetery. For so long he'd had trouble coming here, and after that he would need a little more time to get himself to speak, but he had gotten past that now, which was good… There were things he needed to tell her.

He stopped in front of the grave, adjusting his jacket, then laying down the blanket he'd brought along before he could sit down. He placed the flowers at the bottom of the headstone, took care to make sure they were not bent or crooked, then sat back with a sigh. He took a moment, searching the words.

"I'm sorry I haven't been here the last couple of weeks, things have been crazy, I…" He breathed again. "I'm leaving tomorrow, mom. I'm going to New York. I didn't get into NYADA, but that's okay. I kind of think this might be good for me. I'll have to fight harder, but I can do it, I know. You always said that, don't think I forgot. 'You can always do anything you set your mind to, and no matter what I'll always be proud of you.'" He paused, smiling. "I'm going to give you reason to keep being proud of me, I swear. I know where I need to be and I'm going to get there. It's going to be hard, leaving Dad, and Carole… I wish I could take Blaine with me, you have no idea. And then there's you… I won't be able to visit as often, and I didn't want you to think I had forgotten you." He paused again. "Sometimes it's hard to draw the line on where belief starts and ends, and maybe this part is just me missing you, or worrying about the rest of them but… Please look after them? If I'm a part of you, then you're a part of me, and you're not here either but in a way you are, so… I need to know they're okay. That's the part about going away that's the hardest for me right now. It's not whether I'll succeed or fail, it's not having all these people there that I care about, that I love. They've been there for me through a lot of difficult times, and now the biggest change in my life is happening, and it has to be without them…" He reached to his face, feeling like he might be crying but finding nothing. He sniffled back nonetheless. "I think I'm more scared of disappointing them than myself."

For a while after that he just sat in silence, like he was sitting with her and he had to absorb the feeling of being in this spot so he could remember it down to the last details, so once he was in New York he still could take a moment and imagine himself in this place, with his mother. He would remember the feel of the grass through the blanket and the grass he could feel under his hand when he would lay it there. He would remember the sun coming in through the branches of the tree above, creating a pattern on the stone. He would remember that tree, and he would remember that stone, with the words he would read out every time he arrived there, even if he knew them by heart. He would remember that he both hated and loved this place, hated because it reminded him of what he'd lost, but loved because even for a small moment he could let himself believe that he was with her again and he could still count on her.

When he managed to stand and gather up his blanket, he looked to the stone again, to the flowers he'd rested there. He knew that as soon as he got back home his father would know where he had really been, but that he wouldn't say a thing about it unless Kurt brought it up first. Kurt would still stop by the office supply store on the way back to get the bubble wrap, and he'd apologize it took so long without giving any particular reason.

"I have to go now," he told the headstone. "Next time I come though, in a few weeks or a few months, I don't know… I'll tell you all about it," he promised.

When he would get to New York, as he would unpack this and that, the Umbrella Boy would find its place, no longer nudged to the back. Instead Kurt would find himself talking to it, sometimes. At first he would address it as the figurine it was, but sometimes he would talk to it the way he talked to his mother's headstone. He had once granted that stone the power to represent the woman who had brought him into the world, and if he was here without more of his entire world, then why not transfer that power on to a porcelain boy under an umbrella?

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!