A/N: Okay, I've been on a writing kick for a while, but haven't been able to do anything about it till now. Enjoy the end product.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but Gwen, her dad, and their family.


Chapter Nine

"Hi!" Gwen twittered as she knocked open the door of Kurt's trailer. Inside, he was gasping and quickly pulling a shirt on over his head.

"You could knock!" he shouted at her, tugging the hem over his waist. She walked straight past him and began raiding his pantry.

"Yeah, well, you could be fully dressed to begin with," she replied. "I mean, you knew I was coming. Hey, I didn't have too much dinner; Edward kept giving my dad weird looks during it and he asked me to leave so they could talk. Do you have anything good to eat here?"

"There's some cookies to your left," Kurt told her. "Er...what's that book you're carrying...under your shirt?"

Gwen removed three of the pastries from the packaging and shoved them all in her mouth at once, set down the box, and pulled out the journal she had been holding against her stomach since she had left the house.

"It's nothing weird, I just didn't want to drop it. Safer this way," she said through a mouthful of crumbs. Swallowing, she set the cookies on the table and took a seat beside it. "It's a record of every single thing that's happened to the Wagner family over the years. At least, the things that I know about. I also wrote down random stuff that might be connected to other stuff. Like tonight, with Edward."

"Oh." Kurt looked impressed. "That's a good idea."

"Yeah, I know." She smugly opened the book to the first page. "I put dates where I could, and tried to organize it timewise."

"You mean chronologically?"

Gwen's expression was one of slight confusion. "Sure, chronolo...whatever it was. So I did that too, and I pumped Alice for some information. Harriet won't let her out of her room during the day, so she'll tell me a few things no one wants me to know about for revenge."

"She sounds like a nice woman." He sat down next to her and peered over at the book

"You'd like her. So it starts here, with grandpa – your dad – meeting grandma..."

This sort of conversation had been the norm ever since Gwen first met with Kurt. True to their words, they had seen each other the next night. At first, it had begun with her asking him the most seemingly random questions: Favorite color? Birthday? Foster siblings? It appeared as though she had completely forgotten that she was there to get help controlling her mutation.

However, when Kurt had asked her what she was doing, she said it was all relevant. The further it went into the night, the more personal the questions got.

"Do you ever get scared about what people might wanna do to you?" she inquired, her eyes deadly serious, all the usual impertinence she had around him gone.

He had thought for a moment, knowing perfectly well what the answer was, but not sure if he wanted to tell her. But she had given him her most direct stare, and Kurt decided it was safe to tell her.

"Yes," he admitted, returning her gaze as best as he could manage.

After the first night, which had been nothing but talking (barely any of it had been about their powers), she had come back, this time much later than before. There, she had met Amanda, Kurt's foster sister. And, as she found a second later, his girlfriend. She was pretty, with light red hair and blue eyes – exactly what Gwen would look like if she had the option. But she was careful not to mention it.

"So you're the niece," Amanda said upon meeting her. "Kurt told me about you." She had smiled then, genuine and real. Gwen had given her a fake grin back, feeling a bit awkward as she pulled her tangled black deathtrap of a mane into a ponytail. Stupid hair, she thought.

Amanda had hung around for the rest of the evening, reading a book in a different language. It had taken Gwen much longer to warm up to her than to Kurt. She had the same quiet power that her mother Margali had, and it was quite intimidating. But with promptings from Kurt, she had soon gotten to like her, even tease her a bit.

"So...sister AND girlfriend?" she had asked Amanda a few hours soon after, with a sideways glance at Kurt. The woman took it very lightly, even laughing a little.

He didn't find it nearly as amusing as they did.

Still, he let her continue visiting him, even if all they really did was ask and answer questions. But the deeper they went into each other personalities and pasts, the more they realized how many mysteries there were that connected them. It seemed daunting at times; all of the riddles and scary truths there were about their family. Finally, Gwen came up with a plan, a way to make sense of everything. She had worked on it for a couple days after her twelfth birthday, and then brought it with her when she next saw Kurt.

"...and when grandma and grandpa came to this party, that's when he met Raven."

"My mother," Kurt said quietly. Gwen didn't notice the change in his voice.

"Yeah. At that time her last name was Darkholme; did you know that?"

He shook his head no. "I knew her as Raven Wagner."

"Well, he met her there. Grandpa divorced grandma half a year later, and married Raven a little after that." Gwen flipped a page. "She wanted a kid right away, I guess, cuz they were trying to get pregnant from the start. But they couldn't, so they spent a lot of time at the doctors. Two years later-" she gestured at Kurt – "You came along."

He smiled at her, and she mirrored his expression. "I can fill in a few blanks there. I was born in the house, my father came in, saw me, and had a heart attack."

"He wouldn't have been a good dad anyways. Well, he wouldn't!" she shrieked at his shocked face. "Anyways...what happened after that? To you and Raven, I mean."

"She took me away. I think she just wandered around the country trying to hide me away from people until I was about two. Then someone saw me, and since she was near an old friend's house anyways, she ran there as fast as she could. And we stayed for a while. At least...I did." He paused for a moment, took a breath. "She left me there one night, and I haven't seen her since."

He lowered his eyes to the table, and Gwen followed this act, before speaking. "Did she say why she was leaving?"

"No, I was asleep."

"Oh..." she shuddered involuntarily. Vati was her only parent, and she couldn't imagine a life with him not in it. If he were to disappear without so much as a word, Gwen had no idea how she could continue going on. How Kurt had managed, she had no idea.

They were silent for a moment longer, taking comfort in their shared emotions of fear and loss, before he spoke again. "I stayed at her friend's house for a couple of more years. Actually, the friend died a few months after Raven left, so I was left alone with her daughter." His face, if it was possible, darkened even more. "I ran away right before I turned eight, and came here. Mom found me, and...I stayed with her."

"How come you don't call Raven mom and only Margali?" Gwen asked.

"Because Raven never acted like a mother. Mom did."

"That makes sense..." She sighed through her nose. It was definitely time for a subject change. "So after you were born, during all of that stuff, Vati stayed for grandpa's funeral, then went back with his mother to America. He went to college, got a Ph. D in history, and got a job at a really good high school as a teacher. And then – well, all this stuff is from his memories, so it might be wrong. But no matter what, you're not allowed to laugh."

"I won't," Kurt promised, finally looking back up at her.

"Okay. Well, in his mind, I saw him talking to a room full of kids. I don't know how old they were, but they were definitely teenagers – fifteen, sixteen maybe. But Vati – I don't know how to explain it – it's like, there were maybe twenty people there, but he was only talking to this one girl."

"Why that one girl?"

"I don't know...well, I think I do, but I kind of don't want it to be true. She was sitting in the front row, and looking right back at him. And Kurt..."

"Yes, Gwen?"

"I'm not sure, but I think she might have been my mom."

Kurt looked stunned. "Do you mean...did she have you when she was that age? When Sigfried was still her teacher?"

Gwen nodded. "He told me once that he was twenty-seven when I was born. He was twenty-two when he left school, twenty-three when he got the job, and he taught there for four more years. I was born about three months after he left. But my birthday was last week – late July – so that means he left the school in May. That's too early to be normal. What if he had to leave, because one of his students was pregnant?"

"So you think your mother was sixteen when you were born? And your father was eleven years older than her at the time?" He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Well, he still is eleven years older now. Maybe twelve, I don't know."

"Oh..." He considered this. "Wait. How do you know for certain? "

"She looked like me." Gwen pushed her hair out of her face, demonstrating. "Her eyes were brown. Dark brown, and they made it look like she was part Asian. Maybe half. I have that too. And her face was round, like me. Oh, and she had freckles." She tapped her nose. "I don't see how see isn't my mom. She looks like it, and my dad had to leave the school after meeting her. And then I was born. It's too much of a coincidence. Plus, he doesn't ever talk about her. I don't know her name."

"So you think his reluctance to talk about her comes from his shame of...er...having a baby with a sixteen year old girl?"

"It all fits." Gwen stared down at her book, studying all the notes she had made about her parents to defend her argument. "My mom must be twenty-seven now. Huh, that's the same age Vati was when they met."

"Wow," Kurt muttered, his amber eyes wide open. "How long have you been thinking about this?"

"After I met you. I tried not to think about it at first, because it's so...weird, but I think talking about it is better. So I've been trying to make sense of it for a while, so you could help me with it."

"All right. Did I help?"

"Yes, you did. No one back at the house talks to me, except for Alice, and she won't say anything against my Vati." Gwen turned over another page. "Talking about all of this mom stuff makes me dizzy. Let's keep going."

"Okay. Pass the cookies." She followed his command, and he began eating slowly. "Danke."

"You're welcome. So anyways, here I made some notes about the conversations Vati keeps having with Edward and Harriet."

"Not Alice?"

"No, they think she's not up to it. They're wrong, she's fine – stronger than I am, actually. Yesterday she picked up her wheelchair and threw it at Harriet's cat. Oh, don't give me that look, the stupid animal tried to scratch me for no reason."

"That's doesn't mean-" Kurt tried, but she interrupted him.

"So she's great and everyone is just being really not smart about it. Now when Harriet first called Vati in America, he said he hadn't talked to her since I was born...probably because of the whole 'having sex with a kid' thing-"

"Gwen!"

"This may be a shock to you, Kurt, but people my age know what sex is," Gwen said sarcastically, sucking a piece of chocolate off of her thumb. "Although I admit most of my knowledge comes from TV. Well, they haven't talked since all that happened till this summer, but on the phone, Vati said he wasn't talking about 'that' with her, because I was in the room. I think it was about my mom."

Kurt tugged the book out from underneath her folded arms and started reading some of the notes she had made. " 'Harriet and Sigfried argue about circus trip; catch me listening at door. Pretend to have lost inhaler. 'Find' it under a table in the hallway. Run away and have lunch with Alice in her room. Discover a loose tooth. Really lose inhaler. Find it in pocket an hour later.' You trail off a lot, Gwen."

"I know what I wrote, that's why I get to read." She pulled the book back towards herself, looking a little embarrassed. "Hey...wanna see my tooth?"

"Do I have a choice?"

Gwen leaned in, with her mouth open wide. "It's a molar," she announced proudly. "My last baby tooth." She wiggled it with her tongue.

"Good for you," Kurt told her, revealing his own fangs. That made her giggle uncontrollably. She loved being with him.

"How long have I been here?" she asked, when she finally calmed down a bit. He glanced down at his watch.

"About an hour. It's near midnight."

"Okay, thanks. I think Vati feels guilty about leaving me at the house every morning to go hang out with Harriet and Edward, cuz he said he would take me to breakfast tomorrow. I'm going to try to get him to take Alice with us. I have to leave early tonight, though."

"What's early for you?"

"In half an hour, I guess. I don't get much sleep." This was true. Ever since she had begun these late meetings with Kurt, she had to go on very little rest. Her eyes were always a bit puffy, and her limbs ached from lack of energy. However, exhaustion was something that a body could get used to very easily. Maybe she could train herself to not need as much sleep. "How come you don't mind that up come here so late?"

"I'm usually up anyways – insomnia. That's why my circus title is Nightcrawler."

"Because...you crawl the night?"

"Mom made it up when I was a kid." Kurt suddenly ducked his head. "I wish I didn't tell you that."

"Ha! It's a pet name!" Gwen shrieked, laughing. "Aww...that's so cute!"

"Oh, shut up."

"Baby Kurt the Nightcrawler!"

"Very funny," he moaned, his tone sardonic.

"Can I call you Nightie?" Gwen chuckled. Suddenly, she felt a sort of gentle calm come over her body, accompanied with a slight annoyance.

"You're not the only person to think of that," Kurt said, rolling his eyes.

"Oh yeah? Who else has called you that?" Gwen asked, still feeling rather uncommonly mellow.

"I beg your pardon? I didn't say anything." Kurt looked at her, his eyes questioning. He had heard perfectly well what she had said. What was he doing?

"I said, 'Who else has called you that?'" She frowned. "Because you said, 'You're not the only person to think of that.'"

"No, I didn't."

"I heard you! Why are you being weird? You didn't say anything bad."

"I didn't say anything." Kurt wrinkled his brow in puzzlement. "I thought it."