A/N: This little section is just an interlude from Burt's perspective, separate from the main storyline. I'm sorry it's only a time-stamp - please don't tar and feather me for not immediately resolving the big blowout in the last chapter. :) I'll try to have Ch. 9 posted by Tuesday or Wednesday. Thanks to all of you for reading and favoriting/subscribing/reviewing!

Interlude

September 2018

Lima, Ohio

It was barely six in the evening when Burt Hummel was urgently shaken awake from an impromptu nap by his wife.

"Burt!" Carole hissed, tugging insistently on his arm while he struggled to clear the fog from his mind and sit up on the couch. "Burt, wake up!"

"Wha-?" He finally got a good look at her face and felt his insides freeze up when he saw her expression. "What the hell happened?" His bleary eyes focused on the cell phone propped against her ear. "Who is it? What's wrong?" His heart skipped a beat. "Is it Kurt?"

Wordlessly, she nodded, handed him the phone, and sank down on the cushions, gripping his arm so tightly he would have winced if he was alert enough to really notice it. His complete attention - what little of it was there - was centered on the phone. "Hello? Kurt?"

There was a choked noise from the other end.

"Kurt?" Burt repeated, his throat suddenly constricted. A thousand frantic thoughts dashed through his mind, which was growing clearer and more alarmed by the second. "Kiddo, it's me. Tell me what's wrong. Talk to me. You hurt?"

He could hear heavy, unsteady breathing on the other end, but Kurt apparently couldn't find the words. An image of his kid lying injured in some New York back alley somewhere consumed his brain, and he grew impatient. "Kurt, come on, please. Is it Jace? Where are you? Where's Emmett?"

A low sob broke through the line. "Home, Dad, I don't - help me. Em's parents - they're here, he's dead."

Burt's immediate reaction was overwhelming relief that Kurt wasn't bleeding out on the street, and then the second half of the rambling speech caught up with him. "Jesus Christ."

Carole's hand bit down like a vise on his arm, and he glanced up at her worried face. His automatic reaction was to reassure her, but he didn't have a damn thing to tell her. Vaguely, he shook his head and hunched over, cupping the phone in both hands as if he could reach through to his kid. "You're sure?" he blurted and then cursed himself. What a dumbass thing to say. Of course Kurt would be sure about something like this.

"Yes. Yes. The police came; they told Sheila." Kurt's choppy breath crackled in the speaker. "They told her. They found him."

"I'm so - wow, kid, I - god. Is someone with you and Jace?"

"They're still here," Kurt managed.

"Sheila and Rod?" he clarified, already making travel plans in his head. If he could catch a plane out of Columbus or find some quick connecting flights, he could probably be there by early morning . . . . "Good. I mean, that's good."

There was a long pause. "I need you. Please," Kurt said, sounding small and bewildered, and Burt felt it like a sucker punch. He knew how hard it hit you, the realization that someone could be there one minute and gone forever the next and there wasn't a thing you could do to get them back. It probably hadn't sunk in just yet, but it would, and god, Burt did not want him to be alone when it did.

"Of course," he grunted. "Of course, Kurt. I'll be there as soon as I can, the first flight I can find. I swear, okay? You just hang on and stay with Sheila, and I'll be there tomorrow."

Kurt didn't protest. Burt stayed on the phone as long as he could while Carole tapped away at their computer, scouring the web for the earliest flight available. She finally found seats on a four o'clock track the next morning at a price that was goddamn highway robbery, but he told her to book it and rattled off the details to Kurt, hoping that the preparations would give his son something to focus on for a few hours.

Knowing he didn't have much time, he reluctantly hung up, forced to leave Kurt to his sort-of-in-laws' care. Carole trailed after him into the bedroom, watching him drag out his old suitcase and throw clothes haphazardly into it.

"Burt?"

He forced himself to slow down. Running around like a chicken with its head cut off wouldn't help him get to Kurt any faster. Kurt would probably nag him about how it wasn't good for his heart either. "Emmett's dead," he said, grimacing at how the words sounded out in the open air.

Carole's face was a picture of shock. "How?"

"I don't know. Kurt couldn't tell me - we'll know soon enough. It doesn't matter." He tossed in a toothbrush and half-empty roll of toothpaste. "I'll have Finn open the garage for me this week and then see how it goes."

"Should I go with you?" she asked, uncharacteristically uncertain. "I booked another seat. Would he want me there, Burt? I can cancel if he doesn't."

He paused long enough to grasp her hand, and a moment of silent understanding passed between them. "Pack your bags quick. I need to leave some messages at the office and get some papers that Kurt'll need this week, and then I'll stop by the ATM." His thoughts already racing ahead, Burt dug in the closet for his coat and keys. "Can you give Finn a call and see if he'll drive us to Columbus?"

"Done," Carole said resolutely, her phone already out of her pocket.

As quickly as they worked, they barely had the luggage hauled to the door when Finn appeared in the driveway just after midnight and honked. Foregoing the usual lecture about waking the neighbors, Carole went out to enlist him as a bellhop, and then they piled into the car.

Burt sat in the back with Carole while Finn drove. It was unusually quiet without Finn's usual 80s rock blasting from the radio, and Carole kept her hand firmly in his as they watched the deserted roads flash by.

He was trying not to think too much about what Kurt was doing right now, but it was pretty much a useless attempt. Maybe someone had gotten him to lay down and get a little sleep - it helped sometimes, after a big shock. Maybe he was resting now, while he still could.

Burt doubted it.

The flight was short - only a few hours - but it seemed to stretch out indefinitely. By the time they found their luggage at the claim in JFK, Burt was practically itching to get to Kurt and Emmett's tiny apartment on the outskirts of Soho.

It was two in the morning when he and Carole finally stepped out onto the rain-slick pavement and pushed through the throng of crabby, sleepy-eyed passengers in search of an empty taxi. It took some aggressive moves from Carole, but they finally got their car and gladly left the airport behind.

Their driver wasn't inclined to be chatty, which was nice, as neither he nor Carole felt much like making pointless small talk. Burt dozed off a few times during the drive, too keyed up to sleep long but still exhausted despite the rush of adrenaline that had kept them both going.

When they finally pulled up beside the ancient brownstone building, his relief momentarily overwhelmed his fear for his kid, and he peeled off a stack of bills for their taxi, grabbed the luggage, and hustled up to the door. Someone must have been watching from the window, because they were buzzed right in, and they hurried up the long flight of stairs and down the hall to Apartment 208.

The door swung open before Carole could reach out to knock, and Kurt barreled straight at him like he hadn't done since he was a kid, squeezing him with quiet desperation. Burt wrapped him up, letting his suitcase drop to the ground.

Kurt was silent - no tears this time - but his arms were steady, and he laid his head against Burt's shoulder and clung tight. After a few moments, Carole unobtrusively gathered up the fallen luggage and slipped inside, leaving the two of them alone in the dimly-lit hall.

"I'm so sorry, kiddo," Burt managed, one hand smoothing across Kurt's back; that had always calmed Kurt down when he was a fussy little kid. "You wanna come inside and sit down? I bet you haven't eaten all day."

Kurt pulled back reluctantly, and Burt took quick inventory: swollen eyes, splotchy cheeks, hair mussed by nervous fingers. Feeling the scrutiny, Kurt lifted a hand to swipe uselessly at his ruined pouf, and Burt felt a tiny release of tension at the familiar gesture. He hadn't shut down yet - it was probably still too raw.

"C'mon," he murmured, hugging Kurt close to his side and steering him toward the door as gently as he could. "Let's sit down, okay?"

Inside the swoopy, chrome kitchen, Carole and Emmett's parents were already huddled around the bar island. Rod glanced up at them through thick, smudged glasses and nodded in numb acknowledgment, but Sheila was weeping into a crumpled tissue, clutching Carole's hand.

Burt led Kurt to a chair, but Kurt could only sit for a second before he was up and mumbling a strained apology before he vanished into the living room.

"Where's Jace?" Burt asked, at a bit of a loss. He didn't know the Mulryans all that well, apart from a few holiday gatherings, and he was used to being on the other end of these sorts of conversations. What was someone supposed to say in this situation? He knew how much he'd scorned the insincere condolences and the ever-irritating 'sorry for your loss' in the wake of Elizabeth's funeral. It was safer to skirt the issue altogether for now.

"He's sleeping," Rod said hoarsely, pinching at the bridge of his crooked nose. Sheila moaned low in her throat and broke into a fresh round of sobs.

Leaving the Mulryans in Carole's capable hands, Burt went in search of his son. He found him on the sofa, his chin propped on his hands as he stared at the unlit fireplace. Burt vaguely remembered Kurt gushing about the rustic charm of the fireplace when he and Emmett had first toured the apartment together.

He sank down tentatively on the cushions with a loud creak, feeling big and clumsy. They sat motionless for a while, the sound of muffled wailing and Carole's soft, soothing noises filtering in from the kitchen.

"Dad?"

"I'm here," he said as steadily as he could, an ache rising like bile in his throat.

Kurt's eyes were wide, lost. "What do I do now?"

That first week was indescribable, passing in a blur of bills and papers and funeral arrangements and flowers and hastily-scribbled sympathy cards.

Emmett had once told Kurt that he'd wanted to be cremated, but Sheila refused to hear of it, insisting on an open casket viewing and a burial. Burt supposed he could understand the desire to keep something tangible even after death, as morbid as it sounded. Losing Elizabeth had been awful enough, but he couldn't imagine the pain of losing a child. Even the fear of it had been enough to keep him awake some nights.

Sheila and Rod wanted to bury their son in Rochester, where he had grown up, where his friends and family could visit the grave. Kurt didn't put up a fight on any of it - not that he'd have had the legal rights to challenge them anyway.

Burt had been at the point of starting a fight himself at the viewing every time a friend or relative went through the line to offer their regrets and support to the Mulryans and awkwardly passed by Kurt as if he didn't exist, as if he hadn't been anything to Emmett, as if all the years they'd spent together meant nothing because they hadn't signed a goddamn piece of paper. Because they were two men.

He spent the day of the funeral torn between sheer rage at the disrespectful behavior of some of the attendants and concern for Kurt, who seemed to be holding himself together very well. Too well.

Consumed by worry for Kurt's loss, he had barely had time to consider his own, but it hit him hard when he ended up in front of the casket himself. He studied Emmett's still face - a face usually full of smiles and laughing irreverence - surrounded by silk cushions and white flowers, and he wondered what the hell God's problem was.

He hadn't known Emmett as well as he'd have liked to, as New York was a good enough distance from Lima that visits were rare, but Kurt had loved him very much, and that was enough for Burt. And now he never would get to know him better. Now his grandson would never know his other dad.

And that was just damn unfair.

And Kurt . . . . Did these things always have to happen to Kurt? For someone so young, he'd seen too much loss, too much heartbreak. Too much death.

The whole goddamn universe had it out for his son.

One week bled into another, and gradually the overwhelming stream of solicitous neighbors and homemade casseroles lessened as everyone shrugged off their mourning clothes and returned to their own daily lives, glad that they hadn't been the ones in front of the casket - or in it.

Carole ran out of sick days at work, and she reluctantly booked a flight back home, swearing to come back anyway if they needed her. Rod and Sheila returned home to grieve in private with promises to come back later to help. And so it was just the three of them in the suddenly-still apartment.

It was easier in some ways, Burt knew, but in others, it was so much harder. The visitors and arrangements were frustrating, but they were distractions, and without the distractions, the full scope of what had happened would begin to sink in.

There were a lot of things that Burt could never understand about his son, things he'd never really known how to talk about with him. As much as they loved each other, there would always be a little disconnect between them - not because Kurt was gay or because he liked clothes and musical theatre, but because they were two different people who really didn't have a whole lot in common.

But this - this was something that Burt knew, something he could help with.

He watched at first; it was best to let Kurt approach this on his own time. And there was Jace to think about - Jace, who was barely five months old and who needed his dad's constant attention. Kurt seemed to bear it all perfectly, feeding and diapering and rocking and cleaning and cooking with complete composure, the circles growing under his eyes and the tension building up in his shoulders.

So it went for an entire week. Kurt went through the motions of his routine, setting three cups of coffee at the table in the morning and waiting for the sound of Emmett's key in the lock each evening. He didn't look sad, he didn't look angry - he just poured the untouched coffee down the sink. Burt observed him with concern, not making a fuss about the extra cup or the way Kurt forced himself to stay awake into the early hours of the morning with Jace. He waited.

After two blurry, silent weeks, Kurt finally reached his breaking point.

Burt blinked up at the ceiling, momentarily disoriented, and then the sound that had woken him registered in his sleep-addled mind as a child crying. He waited just a minute, rubbing at his eyes, but the howling didn't stop, and he couldn't hear Kurt moving around.

Dread curdled in his stomach, and he crawled off the air mattress in a clumsy tangle of limbs. Kurt's bedroom was dark, but he navigated his way inside, squinting, and stumbled toward the bed. Kurt was awake, staring out his window with blank eyes, and Burt blew out a relieved breath.

"Kurt?"

Kurt's shoulders slumped, but he didn't move, didn't look up. Jace's screams reverberated around the small room, and Burt hurried over to the crib, lifting his grandson out tenderly.

The kid reeked, so Burt changed his wet diaper quickly and then brought him out to the kitchen, rooting through the fridge until he found the extra bottles. He took a moment to comfort Jace, stroking his thin, downy hair, remembering long nights like this with Kurt.

"Love you, squirt," he mumbled, and Jace calmed a little, settling into his arms.

When he came back into the bedroom, Jace suckling contentedly on his formula, Burt found Kurt in the same position. Settling in the rocker, he fed Jace and watched Kurt clutch his covers as Burt hummed tunelessly in time with the creaking chair.

When Jace had fallen back asleep, Burt settled him back in the crib and lay down on the bed, stretching out on top of the covers with a sigh. He reached out and pulled Kurt's unresisting body into his arms awkwardly, a little roughly, and cradled him like he hadn't done since Kurt was eight and crying for his mother.

"You can't do this anymore, kiddo," Burt said quietly.

Kurt's breath hitched and shuddered, his shoulders tensed, and at last he began to cry. Gritting his teeth against a prickle of tears, Burt shifted and squeezed him closer, rocking unconsciously, and cursing whoever was up there for giving people someone to love only to take them away again.

The next morning, Kurt set out two cups of coffee.