Burt wasted a few minutes putting away the video game accessories and checking on dinner, needing a little time to consider what he wanted to say to Kurt. But when Kurt did not come back upstairs, he went down to find him.

The basement bedroom was empty, a light from the partially open bathroom giving away Kurt's location. With a cursory knock, Burt opened the door and stuck his head in.

"Hey!" Kurt yelped, automatically covering his chest with the t-shirt he had previously been wearing, then relaxing when he realized, "Oh, Dad, it's you. For a second I thought you were Mercedes. I'll be up in a minute. All that jumping around got me kind of sweaty and I wanted to wash up a little before dinner."

"Didn't mean to startle you," he said, absently noting that the boy had wet his hair and slicked it back out of his eyes before starting on his face, which was now covered by the suds of some sort of fruity smelling soap. "Mercedes decided she didn't want to stay for dinner, after all. She told me to ask you to call her tomorrow so you can set up your spa-day."

A dismayed look came over Kurt's face. "She's gone? Without even saying goodbye?" Outrage suddenly snapped in his eyes, the flash of emotion turning them a vivid shade of blue. "What did you say to her? Did you kick her out?"

Exasperated, Burt came all the way in and helped himself to a seat on the closed toilet lid. "Kick her out? Why would I do a thing like that? After you went stomping out of the living room a few minutes ago, your friend thought she might be intruding on something that was going on between you and me. And the way you're acting now, I think she might be right. Are you still upset about what happened this morning?"

"Of course not," he said, so quickly that Burt instantly knew that he was lying. The additional fact that Kurt had begun scrubbing his face with a level of violent concentration that seemed more likely to remove his skin than clean it, also gave away his distress.

"Well, I'm surprised to hear that because it sure as hell upset me," Burt told him. "Frankly, I could use an ear to bend for awhile if you've got one to spare."

Kurt straightened and stared at him, so surprised that he did not even seem to notice that beads of water were dripping from his nose, chin and eyelashes and sliding down his torso. "You . . . want to talk about your feelings? With me?"

Burt stood and grabbed a towel from the rack, helpfully patting Kurt's thin chest and sweet boyish face dry, unable to keep from smiling at the long-lost familiarity of the gesture. "Sure. Isn't that part of what family is for? I mean, I know I'm not exactly the poster boy for that kind of sharing, but you're growing up, Kurt. I figure you're old enough now that I can trust you with a little man to man conversation."

Pride visibly welled up in the boy, straightening his posture and bringing a happy gleam to his eyes. "I'll be glad to listen, if you want me to. I . . . I did kind of wonder what was going on between you and Mr. Meyer today. Why'd you let him talk to you that way and . . . and why did he bring up Mom?"

Kurt ducked his head at the mention of his mother, but Burt crooked a finger under his chin and lifted it back up, encouraging his son to look him in the eye. "I guess I never told you about any of that, did I?" Moving his hand to Kurt's narrow shoulder, he gave it a squeeze. "Why don't you finish up here and come up to my room? I got something to show you."

Kurt nodded, clutching the towel in both hands and watching wordlessly as his father turned and quickly exited the room.

In less than five minutes, Kurt was at his father's door, clothes changed, hair combed and face gleaming slightly with a layer of moisturizer that had not yet soaked all the way into his pores. Burt smothered a smile, thinking he could have saved himself a lot of late mornings if he had known that the promise of a little personal sharing would be so motivating.

"C'mere," he said, patting the bed next to him.

Kurt obeyed, casting a curious look toward his mother's old dresser which sat with its top drawer open, the scent of familiar perfume barely perceptible in the air.

Burt held out a cardboard shoebox.

"What's this?" Kurt asked, tracing the edge of the box without opening it.

His eyes again moved toward the open drawer and Burt nodded. "It's the one from your mom's dresser. You ever looked inside before?"

Kurt blushed. "I wanted to," he admitted softly, "but I . . . wasn't sure if I should."

A sigh drifted from somewhere deep in Burt's chest, almost feeling as if it came from his heart instead of his lungs. There was such longing in Kurt's eyes, now flashing green in reflection of the soft, moss colored sweater he had donned; changeable eyes so much like his mother's.

"She wouldn't have minded, but I'm kind of glad you waited for me," Burt told him honestly. "It took a long time before I could look at this stuff and enjoy the memories, but I should have tried harder for your sake. It's not fair that you have so little to remember your mom by."

He swallowed thickly. "I understood."

You shouldn't have had to understand. The words were in Burt's mind but he clamped down on them firmly before they could reach his lips. Kurt did not need pity, much less to share in his father's self-pity. He needed answers.

Taking back the box, Burt removed the lid and set it aside, revealing photographs and a few old envelopes. There were not a lot of pictures, this had been Burt's own box of mementos and he had never been as good about keeping things organized as his wife was, but the items that were inside were special to him.

Removing one, he handed the picture to Kurt. "Recognize that guy right there?"

Kurt studied the image of two teenage boys in letterman jackets and a girl in a cheerleading costume. He traced the dark-haired football player on the left with his index finger. "How old were you?"

"Sixteen, same as you."

"Not exactly the same," he said with a smile.

Burt smiled back. He had not been any taller than Kurt in those days, but he had been squarely and strongly built, visibly muscular and all but reeking of "jock". "Well, maybe a little bit different. How about the other two?"

Kurt shifted his focus to the happy couple posing with their arms around each other. His pleased expression twisted into one of shock. "Is that Mom and . . ."

"Russ Meyer," Burt confirmed. "Yeah, it is. Russ is a year older than me but he was my best friend when were in high school, the star quarterback, and Karen Marshall was his girlfriend. They were such a perfect, popular, stereotype couple that it was almost sickening. And I had a huge crush on my best friend's girl that I couldn't tell anybody about."

Caught somewhere between fascination and dismay, Kurt looked at him and asked, "What happened?"

"Well, Russ was kind of a wild kid, and I'm not going to deny that I was right there next to him most of the time. If there was a party to be found or a secret stash of booze to be had, Russ always knew where to get them. It was fun at first, daring and all, but the difference was that I could control myself and Russ never could. He'd get drunk and he'd get mean. He'd go after weaker kids, pick on anything that was different about 'em, and while I didn't help, I also didn't try as hard as I should have to stop it." Burt sighed; hating the look of betrayal he could see flashing in Kurt's expressive eyes at those words "Then one night, after the Homecoming game my junior year, Russ got mad because we'd lost the game and he got drunk and tried to take his temper out on Karen."

"He hit Mom?" Kurt gasped, fingers tightening on the photo.

Burt shook his head. "He shoved her, knocked her down. Might've done worse, but I saw red and pulled him away from her. He threw a punch at me and that was all the excuse I needed to beat him to a bloody pulp. Broke his throwing arm in two places."

"Good!" Kurt said firmly, shooting the blond boy in the photograph a look that suggested Kurt would have liked to get in a few blows of his own.

Burt laid an understanding hand on his shoulder. "Not good," he contradicted gently. "What he did was wrong, and I'm glad I stopped him. I'm even glad I punched him, but I went too far, Kurt. He had a lot of issues that it's not my place to talk about, stuff that led to what I now know was about to become a lifelong drinking problem. When I busted up his arm, I also killed his chance at the scholarship that might have got him into college and away from Lima."

"But you rescued Mom," Kurt reminded him, clearly feeling that the end result had decidedly justified the means. "And she fell in love with you, like it should have been all along."

Burt smiled at the youthful idealism of that statement. Hard as he tried to portray himself as a cynic, when it came to love Kurt was still young enough to believe in the possibility of a fairy tale ending.

"Actually, she was mad at me. Lit into me something fierce when I tried to excuse what I had done, saying that if I was going to act like a bully and continue to be just as thoughtless and cruel and superior to all those kids I thought were losers-"

"Kids like me," Kurt interjected quietly.

Burt pretended like he hadn't heard. "As Russ had, then I was just as bad as him. Or worse, because I knew better." Shaking his head, he admitted, "Thing is, she was right. And because I loved her, I set out to prove myself to her. No more partying, no more harassing, none of it. Karen broke up with Russ and we ended up dating throughout the remainder of high school. Then she got a full ride scholarship to Ohio State, while I was only going as far as the Junior College in Carmel, so we called it quits."

"Did you want to go with her, to the University," Kurt asked curiously.

He smiled. "Nah, I had my own dream and while making a career as an auto mechanic in a little town like Lima wouldn't be for everybody," he said, dashing Kurt's bangs away from his eyes, "it was what I wanted. Your mom had bigger dreams. She got an Arts degree, spent a year travelling through Europe, and could have taken the whole world by storm if she'd wanted to. We stayed in touch all that time but I pretty much figured any chance I had at winning her heart had ended with high school graduation. Then she came home and, much to my surprise, we fell in love all over again, even harder than before. I was worried that she wouldn't be happy here but she said that an artist could live from anywhere and Lima was as good a place as any, as long as I was here with her. We got married six months later."

Handing Kurt the photo of his and Karen's wedding, a smaller version of the large portrait downstairs in the living room, he smiled, still feeling the wonder of that fact so many years later.

"You never told me any of this before," Kurt said with a hint of accusation in his voice, examining the stack of bound letters that Burt pulled from the box next, Karen Marshall's letters home addressed to her dearest friend and love, Burt Hummel. "Dad, would you mind . . . I mean, is it okay if I read these? Please?"

Unsurprised by the request, Burt nodded. "Sure you can. Just make sure you put everything back in this box when you're done, okay?"

He nodded vigorously, so overwhelmed with the possibility of recapturing the spirit of his late mother through her letters that he could not speak.

"Anyhow, to make a long story short, I kept working at the garage and eventually became a manager, on my way to becoming a full partner in the business. Russ Meyer took over his dad's furniture store when he died and we pretty much never spoke to each other after that. I did try to talk to him a couple times, to put the past behind us, but he firmly believes that I ruined his life and that's all there is to it. He got especially bad after your mom and I got married. He seemed to think that our falling for each other was some kind of personal vendetta against him. It got even worse a couple years later when I took over as senior partner at the garage and Karen got pregnant with you."

"So, is that why he doesn't like me?" Kurt wondered. "I just assumed he was a homophobe, like so many other people in this town. But it's because I'm living proof that you and Mom loved each other, isn't it?"

A little startled by the insight, Burt nodded. "I think so. He's got a nice little wife of his own and a successful business, but he never had any kids. Russ seemed to think I got everything out of life that he should have had, and even when your mom died it didn't change anything between us. She always felt sorry for him, urged me to forgive him, and I've tried to for her sake. But it ain't easy, kid. Especially now. When he went after you this morning, I could have happily broken the other arm and both legs just to give him the full set."

Kurt laughed at the vicious comment, surprising his father again. "It wouldn't have done any good, Dad. I think Mr. Meyer must be one of those people Great-Grandpa Hummel used to tell me about when I was a little kid." Pitching his voice into a low, reedy pitch, Kurt solemnly intoned, "Some people are just assholes, boy. The only thing you can do is stay out of their way and avoid the shit."

Burt burst out laughing. "That's good advice, son. I think we should follow it." A waft of savory fragrance suddenly caught Burt's nostrils. "And I also think we should follow our noses downstairs and have some dinner. What do you say?"

"Good idea," he agreed, standing and clutching the repacked shoe-box in his arms. "And, Dad? Thanks for this. I mean, not just for the letters and all, but for talking to me."

"You're welcome. Thanks for listening, I really do feel better."

Cheeks flushing, Kurt said, "Me, too. Sometimes, it bothers me a little that. . ."

"That what?" When the boy still hesitated, he said, "You can tell me, Kurt."

Visibly gathering his courage, Kurt told him. "I wasn't going to say anything, but Mercedes thinks I should."

Burt smiled. "Well, her advice is working out okay so far. Why don't you give it a try?"

"It's just . . . I know that you and I don't have much in common, and I'm glad that the stuff we don't have in common reminds you so much of Mom, because I'm really proud to be like her. But sometimes I can't help wondering if . . . well, if Mom was alive; would there be anything about me that would remind her of you? Just a little, maybe?"

Understanding what he meant by that awkward but hopeful question, Burt felt his heart swell. Why had he assumed that being openly gay meant that Kurt would not want to be anything like him? After all, didn't all boys in some way want to emulate their dads?

"You mean, you like artsy stuff and I like sports, but you figure there's got to be something in the middle that we would both enjoy?"

Kurt nodded.

He smiled and looped an arm around his son's shoulders. "That makes perfect sense to me. In fact, what would you say to the idea of you and me having ourselves a guys' night out? It's a little late tonight, but we'll put our heads together during dinner and figure out what we should go do together one day this week."

Kurt's answering grin was big enough to tell Burt that he had, for once, said exactly the right thing on the first try. Not always an easy chore when dealing this mercurial boy of his. And now that the question had been planted, he was kind of curious to know the answer himself.

TBC