A/N: Epilogue, people. Epilogue. This feels a little epic; it's my first proper story with an epilogue and a beta reader and everything.

Speaking of beta'ing, I owe a-simple-rainbow a huge, huge, huge THANK YOU for all her help and the support and the advice and gaaah, for everything. :)

And thank you, my dear readers, for all the love and reviews and following... y'all are awesome. :)

- Nothing Ever Lasts Forever -

Back at McKinley, the New Directions get welcomed back with cheers and celebration instead of their usual slushy treatment. At first, Kurt thinks he's dreaming but apparently the hierarchy changes when one wins a national championship title for the school.

Not that he's complaining. He'll take confetti over an iced beverage in his face anytime.

Of course, it doesn't stay like that for the rest of the school year. Things go back to normal the next day, actually, and Kurt witnesses Rory take a slushy facial with a sympathetic wince before taking him to the bathroom to clean up and give him a change of clothes.

His final exams are nothing compared to the nightmare that is planning what to pack for New York and what to leave behind for the time being, and Kurt ends up staying up late most nights racking his brain over how to organize his suitcase instead of how to conjugate irregular French verbs.

He still does well on his exams, though. Blaine, of course, does too. Quinn's grades slip a little bit, considering she hasn't been in school for almost two months, but overall, she manages to almost maintain her GPA. Even Puck does well enough on his exams to at least get a good enough grade to graduate with, and as soon as he receives the news, he finalizes his plans to enlist in the army with Finn. However, Brittany fails most of the exams and doesn't graduate, and for a week or so, it makes Santana glare at anyone who even mentions the word "graduation".

But even Santana can't stop or turn back time, so sooner or later, all of them find themselves facing the fact that graduation is only a week away.

Which means that Kurt's only two weeks away of starting a new life in a different city, hell, a different state.

He sometimes thinks back to when he was a shy, lonely freshman at McKinley High, and he never in a million years would have thought that he would leave the school with a best friend and a boyfriend, heading to New York City, of all places, to start school at one of the most prestigious dramaticarts academies.

Rachel, of course, hasn't been as euphoric about the whole thing as he has, and has thus stopped mentioning New York altogether. Kurt knows she talked to Carmen Tibideaux on the phone, asking for a reason why she hadn't come, and that Miss Tibideaux flat-out told her that she wouldn't fly out to a city as far away as Chicago for someone who she'd already seen audition.

"You'll audition again for the spring term," Kurt tells her again, and Rachel nods.

"I know," she sighs. "It's just really hard to accept the fact that I let it slip through my fingers like that."

"Nonsense," Kurt tells her. "You have an internship on Broadway waiting for you and if you show them what Rachel Berry is all about, I'm pretty sure you'll be the first NYADA student ever who got a role on Broadway before enrolling in the school."

Rachel flings her arms around his neck when he says it.

"Thank you for believing in me," she mutters in his ear, and he just hugs her a little tighter. "I'm writing a killer text for your yearbook, by the way, and you will cry like a baby."

Kurt laughs. "You're on, Rachel Berry. If you win, I'll do your chores for the first week in our new place."

"Deal," she says and leans back to offer her hand for him to shake it.

Rachel's lovely words in Kurt's yearbook do make him cry in the end but Kurt takes his defeat in stride. Her words were nothing short of moving and totally worth having to do the dishes and clean the apartment for a week.

And he has an awesome response for Rachel as well that she starts crying over as soon as she even reads the first word – though they didn't have a bet going for that side of things because Rachel cries whenever the opportunity presents itself, anyway, which she claims as practice for her future acting career.

It's much harder to come up with something to write for Blaine's yearbook, though. Kurt has been getting quite good with friendship speeches – and that in itself is definitely an improvement from lonely, friendless freshman year – but he has never had to publicly talk or write about his boyfriend before. And it's proving to be difficult. Are there any limits? What is too cheesy, what will get Blaine to treasure the text forever, what will make him smile or cry, what will make Santana snap a picture of it and post it on Facebook because she finds something that can be misinterpreted?

It's no wonder he kind of panics when they exchange their yearbooks to sign, right?

But, as he's learned several times with Blaine, communication is key. So he takes the book, a deep breath, too, and bites his lip shyly when he admits, "I'm afraid this might not turn out perfect."

Blaine cocks his head to the side and considers him for a moment. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know what to write," Kurt says with a self-conscious chuckle.

"Hey, that's okay," Blaine replies softly, and strokes Kurt's hand lightly. "A guy like you? I'd be happy if he signed, 'Hey Blaine, have a good summer, see you in the fall.'"

Kurt giggles. "I can do better than that."

"See? Already dodged the worst yearbook cliché known to mankind," Blaine says cheekily. "Seriously, though, just write what comes to mind and I'm sure I'll love it."

Kurt sighs. "Are you not freaking out at all? What if we look back at our yearbook messages in a few years and decide that they were super tacky?"

"Kurt, come on!" Blaine smiles brightly at him. "A few years down the road, I'm pretty sure our yearbook messages won't be the most important thing in our lives. And if we do look back, I'm sure it will be cute in all its tackiness."

"Tacky isn't cute," Kurt says, wrinkling his nose, a warm feeling spread inside him when Blaine leans in to kiss the tip of it.

"But you're cute," he tells Kurt. "I'll love it, I promise."

It doesn't bring Kurt any closer to knowing what to write but his panic does dissolves into a more content, almost excited tingle, and Kurt takes the book home with a smile on his face.

And once he gets started, instead of not coming up with anything, all of a sudden he doesn't know what to leave out.

Hey Blaine,

have a good summer!

I'd say I'm kidding but I'm not. You're going to have a great summer because a) you are going to New York City, b) you are going there with Rachel and me, c) you're one of those crazy people who love the warmth more than the cold and d) because it's going to be our first summer together, in New York City no less.

I love you. I think that goes without saying but it still should be written down a million times (I don't have the space for that so that one time is a stand-in for all the others). I am really glad neither of us got caught up in all those stupid competitions because I honestly don't think I could have hated you even if I tried. Have I ever told you I wanted to get to know you better ever since we got paired up in Cheerios practice? What can I say – you're way too charming for your own good.

I've always wanted my senior year to be magic – and you made it so. Thank you for that.

See you in the fall, Katy Perry boy. (Okay, now I'm kidding. About the fall part.)

Okay, space for one more: I love you,

Kurt

Dear Kurt,

thank you for making my senior year so special. Being with you is the best thing that ever happened to me and here's to hoping (well, knowing) that it will continue to be that way. I can't wait to explore the Big Apple alongside you.

Speaking of which, I know you doubted yourself when you applied for NYADA but I've always known in my heart that you were meant for that school. You are the greatest star, Kurt, and I'm not just saying that because you blew me away with that song when we both secretly listened to each other sing (my, weren't we cute?). You are going to impress every single person out there, be it at Vogue or NYADA or Broadway or wherever life takes you (us!). Watch out, New York City, Kurt Hummel is coming your way!

We'll have the best of times in New York City. And remember, when you're on stage and those big bright lights are blinding you, I'm always gonna be in the front row cheering for you.

I hope this isn't one of the things you'll find tacky in a few years because it is so, so true: You are my teenage dream. You are everything I could have hoped for, and much, much more. I love you.

Yours forever,

Blaine

They didn't really mean for the books to be passed around over dinner but since they're still both sitting at the dining table, misty-eyed and lost for words, when Quinn and Puck come in with the food and Pam trails behind them with Beth in her arms, it is almost inevitable.

There's a lot of cooing and blushing, the latter on Kurt and Blaine's part, and then also a lot of relieved sighing because Beth almost spills her bottle of milk all over both of their yearbooks.

Blaine fixes her with a playful glare. "Young miss, if you ruin my boyfriend's love letter to me, I'm gonna withdraw all peek-a-boo privileges."

But because Blaine is as threatening as a baby duck, Beth just squeals at his words and makes grabby hands.

"You can play peek-a-boo with uncle Blaine tomorrow," Puck says when Beth finishes her bottle a minute later. "Right now, we're gonna get you ready for bed."

Quinn starts getting up with him but he lays a hand on her shoulder and tells her he can do it.

"I want to sing her to sleep tonight," Puck says softly and kisses Quinn on the forehead.

Quinn smiles at him, and when Puck carries Beth out of the room, she sighs.

"Is he feeling like his time with her is running out?" Pam asks knowingly.

"Yeah." Quinn nods. "But he's going to come visit a lot… it's just- I think I'll really miss him. He's been so good with Beth. And me."

Blaine reaches over the table to take her hand and Kurt lies his on top of theirs and squeezes.

"Whenever you're lonely, come visit us," Kurt says and gives Quinn his most reassuring smile.

"And don't worry, sweetheart," Pam says while she starts stacking the empty plates, "I'll always be there to babysit her if you need me."

She had announced over dinner that she found an apartment around the corner from Yale's acting department, which will make it easy for Quinn to just drop Beth off when she's going to school.

Quinn nods and her small smile actually splits into a grin. "But remember, no Fairy Grandmother moments, okay?"

Pam pouts and whines, "But I already have that blog layout ready to be launched." She turns to Kurt and Blaine. "You two, hurry up with the children, will ya?"

"Mom!" Blaine says with a blush. "We haven't even been dating a year."

The fact that Blaine's only reason for not discussing children is that, makes Kurt's heart beat faster. Because one day, sure, they will probably have children and Pam is going to be just as embarrassingly adorable with them as she is with Beth.

And it reminds him of the talk he had with Burt that morning.

His father had insisted on taking him out for breakfast before school, claiming that he needed some quality time with his son before he disappeared to become famous, to which Kurt had scoffed (and secretly preened).

"How are things with Blaine?" his dad had asked once they were settled, and Kurt had smiled happily.

"Couldn't be better," he had responded, dragging his finger through the whipped cream on his hot chocolate. "We were looking at color patterns for our room in the apartment – well, once we have one – and we're so compatible I could just marry him." He had paused, the whipped cream sitting forgotten on his finger. "I mean, um. Once we're older, of course. Much older."

Burt had chuckled at his son's outburst of a mini-panic. "Don't worry, you'll feel it when the time is right."

"Isn't this the part where you tell me I should wait until I'm thirty like you did when we talked about sex?" Kurt had huffed with a half-serious, half-amused glare.

Burt had looked at him in silence for a few seconds, before shrugging. "Well, yeah, you're young. I'm not saying go do it now, you haven't started living together yet… you should definitely wait and see how that goes first." He had looked up at Kurt with a sly smile. "And it's not like you waited that long to have sex anyway."

"How do you even know that?!" Kurt had asked, blanching.

Burt had laughed at Kurt's horrified face. "If I didn't know before, your face just told me everything."

"Oh god."

Burt's grin had morphed into a wistful smile after a few more chuckles. "Your mom and I married when we were 22 so I'm in no position to tell you to wait until you're thirty… in fact, if I had waited that long, you wouldn't even have been born, Kurt."

Kurt had gulped, feeling his eyes well up with tears. "That doesn't happen to everyone, though."

"Of course it doesn't," Burt had said quickly. "But I'm just saying, you can't measure a good decision by how much time passed until you made it. And I don't want you to think I wouldn't approve of something you decide because it's 'too early.' I'll be proud of you anyway, Kurt."

"Thanks, dad."

"Hell, I'm so proud of you right now," Burt had added. "You're graduating tomorrow. You're going to New York, to the school of your dreams, and to work for a company you admire… you're doing it, Kurt. You're starting a life. You're still that little boy in my eyes, sometimes I forget how much of a man you already are."

"I'll always be that little boy for you, though," Kurt had said and a tear had slipped out despite his best efforts to keep it in. "And I'll always need my dad."

"I'll be right here," Burt had answered and he had teared up as well. "Just remember to call every now and then and not just when Rachel or Blaine drive you crazy, you hear me?"

"Promise." Kurt had smiled at his dad. "I'll call you so often, it's going to drive you crazy."

So, first Burt, now Pam. Everybody is surprising him with their faith and open-minded stance on his and Blaine's relationship.

So maybe there's still a lot of time until Blaine and he are going to get married and have children of their own and be famous. But they're going to live together and work their way up to that stage as a team, get their first taste of adulthood in each other's company, and do their best to have each other's back, and Kurt thinks maybe it isn't too weird to acknowledge what waits for them eventually, if they keep going as strong as he hopes they will.

He lets Blaine and Pam bicker and doesn't say anything, instead watching them with a content smile on his face, and waits until Blaine takes him up to his room after they've cleaned up the kitchen.

"Do you want to have children later?" he asks bluntly, feeling his face warm a little but not enough to make him feel embarrassed.

Blaine seems surprised by the question. "Uh," he says timidly. "Yes. I love children. I'd really like to have children one day."

"Good," Kurt says happily. "Me, too."

"Kurt," Blaine says, visibly moved. "Don't you think we're…?"

"Too young?"

"Yeah."

"To have children – yes," Kurt says. "To talk about it – not at all."

Blaine grins happily. "Okay. I like that."

Kurt pushes him down on the bed a little and settles over him to kiss him deeply.

"By the way," he says between kisses. "I love that we both have Katy Perry references in our yearbook letters."

Blaine giggles against his lips. "I love how it wasn't planned." He leans up on his elbows and bites his lip, looking almost shy. "Do you think you'll look back on it in a few years and think it's tacky?"

Kurt gives him the once-over. "Blaine Anderson," he says. "Did you freak out about what to write?"

"No," Blaine says defensively but his tone gives him away. "I just… wanted to do right by you."

Kurt takes Blaine's face between his hands and bops their noses together before moving in for another kiss.

"You know you don't have to try, right?" he asks. "You could be as tacky as you wanted and I'd still love you."

Blaine smiles up at him. "Just don't forget that goes both ways," is all he says before he pulls Kurt flush against him and ends their conversation by not letting go of Kurt's mouth for a long while.

It has never felt so surreal to walk through the school hallways. Kurt knows it's irrational to feel like he won't ever roam the halls of McKinley again because he still has friends here, he will visit, hell, he will probably watch the New Directions perform for as long as they will exist… but it's graduation day, and Kurt's active time at McKinley is ending.

Sure, there were times when he hated that school with a passion, but it shaped him as a person, too, and he made amazing friends in this building.

Blaine and Quinn haven't arrived yet and Kurt still has a little time left before they're meeting in front of the auditorium and he decides to stop by the choir room just in case it's not as empty as it should be on a morning without class.

Sure enough, he finds Rachel sitting in one of the front-row chairs, looking around and smiling at the walls.

"Ready for the big day?" Kurt asks in lieu of a greeting.

Rachel just smiles and pats the chair next to her. Kurt sits down obediently and takes in the room as well.

He has so many great memories here.

"Do you think we'll ever be the stars we claimed we were in here?" she asks quietly.

"I don't know." Kurt shrugs. "Maybe it doesn't matter."

"It doesn't?"

"Do you really want to be the next Barbra Streisand when there could be a Rachel Berry, no matter how successful she is?"

"Funny you should say that," Rachel comments and leans back in her chair. "There's a Funny Girl revival on Broadway. They're holding auditions in a month."

Kurt nods. "Yeah, I've read that. Do you want to go for it?"

"Yeah." Rachel smoothens the material of her skirt. "But I'm a little afraid I'm not cut out for it."

"Sure you are," Kurt says. "You'll never know if you don't try."

"So you think I should do it? Even if I'm just Rachel Berry?"

"There's no just Rachel Berry," Kurt says with a chuckle. "And I was just saying you should make a name for yourself instead of comparing yourself to someone who came before you."

"Maybe you're right," Rachel says and gets up from the chair. "I think I'm going to choose a different song for my next NYADA audition."

"No Barbra?"

"Maybe," Rachel says, "but I might shake things up a bit. Challenge myself. I'm always so focused on the things I already can do. Maybe I should learn how to roll with the punches."

"That's what I'm talking about." Kurt smiles and gets up as well. "You'll do great, Rachel."

She hugs him. "So will you."

Before he knows it, he's standing next to Blaine in the auditorium, wearing the same long red robes as everyone else (though he couldn't be bothered to just give in to mainstream and added a scarab broach to the look), cheering for all his friends whose names get called by Figgins to collect their diplomas.

When they're all done with that, Mike gets handed a microphone and starts delivering his valedictorian speech.

"Dear McKinley class of 2012," he begins, "do you remember the day you started out at McKinley as a freshman?"

Kurt remembers. He hadn't known a lot of people, not having made any close friends at middle school, and he had felt too small in the big hallways.

"You didn't know yet that you would get to know the school well enough to know on which days to skip dessert in the cafeteria – Tuesdays and Fridays," Mike continues, earning some cheers from random people in the crowd. "You didn't know the classes you would come to love or hate, didn't know anyone in the clubs you were going to join. You didn't know that you would make friends here, maybe the best friends you've ever had."

Kurt sees Rachel turn around to throw him a wink, and he smiles back.

"You didn't know you would have a crush on some of these people. I know in my case, I would have never thought I'd fall in lovewith the girl from Homeroom who dressed in black and always looked like she would never in a million years go out with a Football player," Mike says and grins at Tina in the audience who blows him a kiss. "I guess I got lucky. Maybe you did, too."

Blaine takes Kurt's hand in his and Kurt throws him a quick smile.

Mike moves on to thanking all of their teachers and fellow classmates for making the time at McKinley so special, and by the time he addresses the Glee club in particular, most of them are a mess.

"Glee club wasn't really popular when I joined," Mike says, and a few people in the audience laugh. "Okay, I guess it still isn't very popular but that doesn't really matter, does it? Whether or not something is popular doesn't determine its real coolness factor. It's how much you love it that really makes you enjoy it, and if McKinley has taught me anything it's that your hate really says a lot more about you than about the thing you hate."

This part is very obviously a "fuck you" to all of their tormentors, and Kurt loves Mike for it.

"I loved Glee club, even though I couldn't sing," Mike says, eliciting another round of laughter. "I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous. But I learned how to sing, and even before I did, I enjoyed Glee way more than any other club because those people just let me be me. I danced and nobody judged me for it, in fact, they needed me to dance for the performances."

Kurt knows how important this support must have been for Mike's decision to enroll at a dance academy instead of following his father's dreams for him, too, so that part is twice as powerful to him, and he feels himself tear up.

"The Glee club has become a second family to me," Mike says, and his voice breaks a little as he addresses them in particular. "I love you guys; you helped me be who I am now. And I hope this won't be the last time we're on a stage together."

Kurt can even hear Santana sob behind him but he's not one to judge, the tissue that Blaine hands him clutched tightly in his hand after he uses it to quickly wipe his eyes.

"There you go, a speech for the five people you really care about and the rest of the monkeys who are graduating," Blaine whispers to Kurt teasingly, though he is tearing up as well.

"Shut up," Kurt groans quietly. "I'm known to be more cynical on the outside than I really am on the inside."

"Aren't you glad to be graduating, though?" Blaine asks and snakes his hand out of his robe to grasp Kurt's. "We're going to New York in a week!"

Kurt nods.

"I am really glad," he says and turns a little to look at Blaine, who stares back at him with a look that can really only be described as loving. "I can't wait to go to New York with Rachel and you. But I'm also sad to leave this all behind."

And he really is.

Because, when you stop and think about it, Kurt Hummel's had a pretty good year.

A/N: The end... dun dun dun. Once again, thank you! If you want to check out other stories (not all of them are on FF) or talk or something, I'd be super happy if you followed my Tumblr notthetoothfairy. :) The ask box is always open and I take prompts, too, so let your imagination run wild. :P