A/N: I sort of ended this on a bit of a cliffhanger...sorry! The conversations that should have taken place at the end of this chapter would have been cutting it a little too long, so I decided that they best thing to do was to wait and put them at the beginning of the next chapter.

This is where the truth begins

Where teardrops glance the sallow skin

You lose your will and I can lend you mine

The west way walls so tall and bleak

Reflect the words we dare not speak

By the bottle's end we may have done our time

What you want's to stay away from people like me

Who twist most everything they see

and leave the grey old world behind you

So sew it up, kid, have some clout

We'll do some wine and fall about

The sun will shine again tomorrow.

~Dirty Pretty Things, Truth Begins

Kurt hadn't been back to Lima for Christmas in thirteen years. The first year, he and Blaine had hosted his dad, Carol, and Finn (which had, in true Finn and Rachel fashion, ended rather dramatically) but every year after that, he had been busy or Greg had been busy and it hardly seemed worth it. But this year, he had vacation that he had to take, and right then, no place seemed better than the sanctuary of his father's house.

"Are you sure you don't want to come?" he asked Rachel, zipping the last of his meticulously chosen and even more meticulously wrapped presents into his carry on. "because you could. It turns out that Lima, Ohio isn't exactly most people's ideal winter getaway and the flight was unbelievably cheap."

Rachel smiled, shaking her head. "Unlike you, I don't have any plans of rekindling old romantic feelings."

"He's married anyway," Kurt replied with a little smile. "They have three little kids. Wish me luck."

"Oh lord." Rachel rolled her eyes. "Bullet dodged."

"Right?" he scanned the apartment, looking for things he might have forgotten. "Okay. I think that's everything. I love you. I'll see you when I get back." he hugged Rachel tight and then was seized by a sudden inspiration, dashing to his bedroom and coming back with Rachel's present, tied with a ribbon, a key laced through it. "I almost forgot."

Rachel took the present, fingering the key, and then, suddenly, recognition dawned. "Kurt," she said softly, eyes lighting up. "Did you...?"

Kurt suddenly felt slightly embarrassed. "It's a start."

Rachel hugged him tight, almost unwilling to let him go. "I love you."

When she finally let him go, Kurt turned to open the door. "Thanks," he said, "For not giving up on me."

It had been a hard decision. In fact, he had only called the locksmith the day before, after waffling for weeks, but he knew it had to happen, and as soon as it had, he felt at least a little better. Greg hadn't called or been by in almost a month and Kurt was sure he wasn't coming back, but he wasn't taking any chances. He had spent the last three weeks picking up the pieces, changing the locks, booking his trip, calling a therapist, pouring himself into work and Rachel and trying to remember what normal felt like.

He hadn't talked to Blaine yet. At first, he wasn't sure what he had been waiting for, but now he knew. As he sat in the airport waiting for his flight, he unzipped his carry on, checking for the small, gold-wrapped present, a kind of nervous excitement settling in the pit of his stomach. It might have been too late, but he needed to try, if only to get some closure.


"Do you remember the words?" Blaine tied a plaid ribbon around the top of one of Annika's pigtails, then another. Annika squirmed, then nodded, singing him the first few bars of the song she was going to sing at the winter pageant.

"Very good!" Blaine kissed the too of her head, straightening the collar of her dress. "You're going to be great."

Annika pouted. "I want to be the snowflake princess," she whined. The snowflake princess wore a sparkling gown, and when she raised her magic wand, glittering snowflakes fell from the ceiling, bringing winter back to the town of Winterland.

Blaine held Annika's shoulders. "You were chosen to be Sally Snow for a reason, Annika. Do you know why?"

Annika tried to cross her arms. "Because Lily is prettier than I am," she grumbled.

Blaine shook his head. "Nope. Not true. You were chosen to be Sally Snow because Sally Snow has a very important job to do. Do you remember what that is?"

"She sings the snowflake song and summons the princess," Annika recited.

"That's right." Blaine nodded. "And you were chosen to be Sally Snow because Sally Snow has the most beautiful voice in all of Winterland, and you have the most beautiful voice in your whole class."

Annika's eyes twinkled. "Really?"

Blaine nodded. "Absolutely. And you know what? I'd rather have a beautiful voice than a beautiful dress any day of the week."

Annika giggled. "You don't wear dresses, daddy!"

Blaine winked. "Even if I did, I'd still choose to have a beautiful voice. So go out there and knock 'em dead, baby girl. Make your daddy proud."

Annika looked determined. "I'll try."

Blaine kissed her nose. "You will, my baby. You always do."

If you asked Blaine, the show was a success. The snowflake princess's dress was resplendent, the kids knew all their lines, and nobody threw up, but it was Sally Snow, he thought, that really stole the show, and by the sounds of what the other parents were saying, he wasn't the only one who thought so. "The little girl who played Sally was just darling," one of the grandmothers was saying. "And such a sweet voice!"

Blaine waved his hands to get their attention. "That one is mine! Sally Snow, that's my daughter!"

The woman turned to him, smiling. "Oh, she's beautiful. You must be so proud."

Blaine positively beamed. "You have no idea." Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Annika talking to one of her teachers. "Excuse me." He headed over to her, grinning, and handed her the bouquet of pink and white roses he had picked up before the show and stored in the trunk of his car. She squealed, flinging her arms around his neck. "Did I do good?" she asked, eyes sparkling with excitement. Blaine scooped her up, hugging her tight. "You were the best," he promised, kissing her cheek. "I am so proud of you!" He set her back down on the ground and held out his hand for her to walk back to her cubby to get her jacket and boots. "Daddy," she said, clutching the bouquet to her chest, "I'm really glad everybody got to hear me sing. I wasn't even nervous!"

"That's because you're a star," he said, beaming down at her. "I'm so proud of you for getting up there and doing that. It's a very brave thing."

Annika nodded, sitting down on the floor in front of her cubby to pull on her boots. "I want to do that every day and then get really famous and have my own TV show," she declared.

Blaine smiled, holding open her coat for her. "Why don't we work on finishing first grade and then we'll talk about that, okay?"

Annika shrugged into her coat, lifting up her chin so Blaine could do up the zipper. "Don't worry, Daddy. When I move away, you can come with me."

Blaine zipped up her coat and gave her a kiss on the nose, shaking his head. "Let's talk about this when you're a teenager," he said, smiling and taking her hand to walk out of the school.

"Daddy," Annika said once they were in the car, headed toward home, after she had been quiet for so long that Blaine thought she had fallen asleep. "What do you want Santa to bring you?"

The question made Blaine pause and glance up at her in the rear-view mirror. "You know, I haven't really thought about it."

Annika leaned her head against her car seat. "You want it to be a surprise?"

Blaine nodded. "I think Santa is going to surprise me this year."

Satisfied, Annika closed her eyes. "Me too," she agreed, and then she was quiet again.


Burt and Carole were waiting at the airport when Kurt got off the plane, and he could barely resist the temptation to drop his suitcase and run over to them like he was a little kid, although he couldn't resist the temptation to give his father a giant hug. He had only had minimal contact with his family in the past thirteen years-after he and Blaine had broken up, he had a blow out with his father, who had insisted that he was doing the wrong thing, and he had decided it was best to cut his losses and keep a distance-a stance that Greg had, of course, agreed with. So it felt good to know that even after years of sporadic contact and chilliness, his dad, at least, loved him just the same.

"How was the flight? Okay?" Carole asked when Kurt and Burt finally pulled away from each other, reaching to give Kurt a hug of her own.

"Okay," Kurt agreed. "Quiet, thankfully. Rachel sends her love."

"We're really glad you decided to come, son," Burt said, picking up Kurt's suitcase and heading back toward the exit.

Kurt took a deep breath, feeling tears catch in his throat. "I'm really glad I decided to come, too," he said, voice soft. "We have a lot of catching up to do."

Burt turned to look at him, resting a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, son," he said, a response to the words Kurt couldn't say, and Kurt found himself having to fight back tears for the second time since getting off the plane. It should have made him wish he had never come, but instead it filled him with an absurd sort of relief. Being back here, he thought, was going to be good for him.

Once they arrived back at the house, however, he retreated to the guest bedroom, citing that he still had a few last-minute gifts to wrap, and immediately pulled the card Blaine had written his phone number on all those months ago out of the pocket of his carry on. He held it in his hands for a few long moments, turning it over, tracing the numbers with his finger before finally picking up his cell phone, heart thrumming in his chest. It rang once, twice, three times, and then..."Hey! You have reached Blaine and Annika Anderson

at 614 545 6779. We're sorry we missed you, but if you leave a brief but detailed message with your name and number..." Sighing, Kurt hung up without leaving a message, just in time for Carole to knock on his door. "Finn, Laura, and the kids are here if you want to come say hi!"

That seemed like a worthy enough distraction for the time being, so Kurt got up, stashing his phone in the desk drawer and coming out of the bedroom. He was immediately greeted with the sound of loudly chattering children, all of them vying for the attention of "Grandpa! Grandpa!", and it made his heart ache momentarily for what he could have had, thinking of Blaine and Annika, but he didn't let the feeling last very long. His therapist had told him at their first meeting that he had to stop wondering what could have been now and start focusing on the future, which he could change, instead of the past that he could not.

"Kurt!" Finn waved. "Dad told me you were here. It's good to see you, buddy, how you been?"

Dad? When did that happen? Kurt wondered, but didn't dwell on it too long, instead focusing on the fact that Finn looked exactly the same as he had the last time they had seen each other. A little older, perhaps, but still boyish and gigantic and vaguely confused, and filled Kurt with a sense of relief that at least some things in his life had stayed static. "Hey! I'm...okay. It's good to see you again! Dad said you were coming. This must be your wife!"

Beaming with pride, Finn wrapped his arm around his wife's shoulders. She was small and pretty, dark hair swept up in a neat updo. She looked, Kurt reflected, like a combination between pre-teenage-pregnancy Quinn and Rachel, and it made him smile. "This is Laura," Finn said, "And these are our kids. Lila is nine, Nicky is six, and Kaylynn is three. Kids," he called. "Come say hi to your uncle Kurt."

Uncle Kurt. I could get used to that, Kurt thought, smiling broadly as he greeted the kids and shook Laura's hand. As his dad set to work getting beer and glasses of wine and Carole set to work getting the last of dinner set up and the kids set to work asking him a million questions about New York, Kurt thought that he could get used to family life.


Christmas was always a big deal in the Anderson household. Blaine had grown up in a house where Christmas would have almost passed unnoticed if he had let it, and he had always said that when he had children, he would make sure that they had the best Christmas of their lives every year, and when Annika was born, he made sure that he would make good on that promise to himself. In the beginning, it had been more for him than it was for her, but as she grew, she learned to love the magic as much as he did, and it made all of his efforts seem worth it to watch her face light up with pure joy.

"Daddy!" Annika poked him in the cheek. "Daddy, Santa was here!"

Blaine opened one eye blearily. The digital clock behind Annika told him it was 4:45, and his first instinct was to invite her into bed and tell her to go back to sleep, but her face was all bright with anticipation, and he knew neither of them were going to get very much more sleep anyway. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he smiled at her, reaching for her hand. "Did he?" he asked in his "this is so exciting!" voice. "Let's go see what he brought!"

"Lots of stuff!" Annika enthused. "And he eated the cookies and the reindeer eated the oats and there's lots of presents!"

"Wow!" Blaine exclaimed. "Well, you were a very good girl this year. I'm glad Santa noticed!"

"Me too," Annika agreed. "I was trying really hard. Even when I wanted to be bad."

"I think," Blaine said thoughtfully as they both took their usual present-opening positions in the living room, "that even if you weren't always super good, Santa would see how hard you tried and reward you for your efforts. Don't you think?"

Annika considered. "As long as I get presents," she decided. Blaine tried not to laugh as he picked up her the first present. "You know that's not the only thing Christmas is about, right, Anni?"

Annika rolled her eyes, and in that moment, Blaine saw her as a teenager, annoyed with him for not letting her borrow the car or make out with her boyfriend with the door closed, and it made his throat get tight. "No, Daddy," she replied, back to his little girl again. "It's also about family and love and magic. But also it's about presents a little bit."

Blaine leaned over to kiss her cheek as he handed her the first present. "That's right. Now...open those presents!"

Forty-five minutes later, the living room looked like FAO Schwarz had exploded on it, and Annika was passed out in the middle of it from the dual sugar and adrenaline crashes, and Blaine scooped her up, carrying her back to bed with him as the first light of the day crept over the trees.

When they woke five hours later, the first words out of Annika's mouth were, "Daddy! Santa forgot to bring your surprise!"

Blaine stretched, blinking, trying to get his bearings back. "What's that?"

"Your surprise!" Annika insisted, her eyes wide. "'Member? You said you thought that Santa was going to surprise you this year but you didn't have any presents from Santa, just from me and Nana and Pop and Uncle David and Uncle Wes and Aunt Nina!"

Oh. Blaine sat up, reaching to pull Annika into a hug. "It's okay," he reassured her. "Sometimes Santa forgets the grown ups because he's so busy focusing on the kids. But you know what? Today isn't over yet. Santa still has lots of time to surprise Daddy if he wants to."

Satisfied, Annika hopped out of bed, a bundle of energy although she'd only been awake but five minutes, and ran downstairs to play, Blaine following after, wondering what he had gotten himself into by saying that.


Christmas with children in the house, Kurt was quickly learning, was a totally different ball game than Christmas with adults. He and Greg had always kept things low-key-exchanged their presents and had dinner with Greg's work friends, nothing exciting-but this was a flurry of excitement and noise and wrapping paper flying in all directions, and as much as it gave him a headache, Kurt felt oddly at peace with it, patiently fielding every "Uncle Kurt, look!" with as much enthusiasm as he could muster at 8 am. This was, he realized, what having a family was about. It had been so long since he had been a part of something like this that he had almost forgotten how wonderful it could be.

However, by the time dinner was over, he had about all of playing Uncle Kurt that he could handle, and he slipped into the kitchen where his father and Carole were tidying up. "I'm going to go for a drive," he told them. He knew they had questions, but he couldn't answer them until he did this. "I'll be back in a few hours."

"Have fun," Burt replied, as though Kurt was a teenager, and it made him smile.

"Thanks, dad. I'll see you in a little while."

Once he was in the car, he glanced at the clock on the dashboard. 7:30. It took about an hour to get to Westerville, by his calculations, and Annika's bedtime was at eight. That gave him plenty of time. His heart pounding in his chest, he pulled out of the driveway, heading out of the city and onto the highway, hoping that Blaine had meant it when he said that he'd always be there.


There was a strange car parked on the street in front of the house when Blaine came down from putting Annika to bed, but he didn't think anything of it at first. It was Christmas, after all, and the neighbors were probably entertaining. He was halfway to the living room to finish cleaning up the last of the Christmas debris when the doorbell rang, and he froze. Nina was in Los Angeles visiting her family, and David and Wes weren't coming by until tomorrow, and he briefly entertained the idea that it was a serial killer, even though he knew on a logical level that a serial killer wasn't going to knock, for God's sake.

A serial killer would have, however, been less surprising than what actually stood before him when he opened the door.

"Hi." Kurt raised the hand that wasn't clutching a little box like it was his lifeline in greeting. "I...I need to talk to you. Can I come in?"

Blaine stood there, dumbfounded. Maybe, he thought, Santa hadn't forgotten him after all.