A/N: Hi, everyone - I've had some unpleasant things going on IRL, and I apologize that updates fell by the wayside. Things are better, and since I have time to write again, Ch.10 should be up within the next week. Thank you all for sticking with this!

Chapter Nine: Mothers and Sons

February 2021

"Blaine? It's me again. I know you're upset - you have the right to be, I'm not trying to say you don't - but please leave me a voicemail or a text or something to let me know you're okay. We don't have to talk. Please, Blaine."

Disconnecting the call, Kurt dropped his phone onto his lap; Jace squirmed a bit where he lay sprawled out on the couch, complaining softly about the noise. Kurt ran a hand through his hair to soothe him and wished he could sleep as well as his son could. Sleep would be a relief at this point.

The past two weeks had been quiet, sedentary hell. Righteous anger had kept him relatively composed for a few days, and then the anger had melted away into regret, and then to shame, and then right back to anger - this time at himself.

Still, Kurt went about business as well as he could. He had work to do and a child to look after, and he couldn't spend his days shut up in his room wallowing like a teenager. Once a day, he did allow himself the time to call Blaine, hoping to get at least some message through. He suspected that all of his voicemails and texts were being deleted on sight - either that, or Blaine simply wasn't answering his phone at all. As remorseful as he was, it irritated Kurt that Blaine wouldn't talk this out like adults.

Like adults. He winced a little, his hand faltering on Jace's head.

Kurt had no qualms about owning up when he'd made a mistake. The Hummels took responsibility for fuckups, and he wasn't going to give up on this without at least some attempt at fixing the damage he'd done.

And yet, the damage hadn't been completely on his side. Blaine had to know that things weren't quite right with him. Why hadn't he stopped them? Kurt had made it abundantly clear that he was here temporarily, that he didn't want the complications of getting himself attached to someone else, that Jace was his first priority - he'd made that all crystal-clear to Blaine.

Hadn't he?

He loved Blaine dearly, of course he did, but Kurt couldn't help but feel a little betrayed. He'd needed Blaine to be his friend, someone he could rely on for a stable, comfortable friendship while he picked himself back up, and the very first time they were alone, Blaine jumped at the chance to sleep with him - as if he'd been waiting for the opportunity all along.

But then Blaine hadn't been the one to slap a hand on his thigh. Or kiss him out of the blue.

Kurt scrubbed at his face, sighing at his own paranoia. His phone buzzed abruptly, and he tapped the unopened text message before he could talk himself out of it.

Im ok. Please stop calling me.

His eyes stinging, Kurt erased the text.

Carole wandered into the living room, groping for the armchair without looking away from her book. Once she was settled, she glanced up at him and her eyebrows rose. "Are you alright, Kurt? You look a little down."

Kurt bit back the sardonic quip that leapt immediately to mind. "I'm fine. Just tired."

She removed her tortoiseshell reading glasses and set them on the table. Watching silently as he lifted limp-limbed Jace onto his shoulder, she smiled when Jace yawned into Kurt's neck.

"He looks about ready for his nap."

"He should be. We spent the morning at the playpark inside the mall, and he actually went down the little slide by himself." Kurt shifted Jace to the side, straightening out his leg. "We had a good time, but we're both definitely ready for a rest."

"Hmm. I remember that part. Their energy is amazing, isn't it? I wish I could still move like that."

He nodded absently, his attention focused on settling his sleepy son into a comfortable position. "What have you been up to today?"

"Reading a bit. Thinking."

"Hmm."

"May I tell you something personal that you probably won't like?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral as she placed her novel next to the glasses.

Kurt's eyes flashed up to meet hers with equal parts surprise and suspicion. "Go ahead."

"You keep saying it, but no one here really believes you're fine. I'm guessing you don't either."

"That's presumptuous."

"It is," she said, unruffled by his frosty reply. "Your dad thought we should let you come talk to him in your own time, but I think he underestimates the Hummel stubbornness. We have waited - for a few months now - and I've always thought that there's a fine line between letting someone have the space to mull things over and letting someone stew."

Kurt bristled. "If you want me out of the house, just say so."

"That's not what I said." Carole shifted, propping herself up with her elbows. "I'm not your mother, Kurt, but I do think I have a good idea what she might say in this situation if she could."

He swallowed down a wash of resentment toward her that he hadn't felt since the day she'd become his stepmother. Carole hadn't known his mother; pictures and stories could never give her the right to speak for her, the right to claim some kind of intimate knowledge of her . . . but the outrage was fleeting. He didn't want to fight with anyone else.

"Your dad's been worried about you," she continued. "I know you'd rather have this conversation with him, but it occurred to me that maybe I could offer you something that he couldn't."

"And what's that?" he said with more resignation than spite.

"I know what it's like to be left with a baby to raise alone," she said simply. "Finn's dad died so quickly. I'm not trying to minimize what you and your dad felt when your mother passed away, but Burt knew about it beforehand - the illness was so long, and there really wasn't a chance of recovery. There was a little time to plan, a little time to expect it." She ran a hand through her hair, smoothing it behind her ears. "But there's something about losing someone suddenly that shocks you down to your bones, and it's very hard to live with it, don't you think?"

"Yes," Kurt admitted after a moment.

"When Chris died, I was nineteen, and Finn had been born just a few months before. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. Back then, everyone said that a single woman couldn't raise a child by herself. I was told that I'd ruin him somehow if I didn't have a man around the house. My parents wanted me to move in with them, but I stayed on my own. I needed to be independent," she smiled a little, "and for the most part, it worked. I made it, but Kurt, it was very hard. And it still would have been hard even if Chris had lived. Raising a child is a fulltime job, as I'm sure you know.

"There is one thing I would have done differently: at first, I refused help because I felt like I had something to prove. I wanted them to see that I could do it on my own, that I was surviving just fine and I didn't need a man around to make me a good mom. Well, that was true, but I made it a lot harder on myself than it had to be."

Well-intentioned but not exactly subtle, Kurt thought sourly. "Carole, I understand, but it's different for me."

"How?" she challenged.

"I did accept help: I moved back here. I left my job and house and started leeching off my parents like the rest of my generation."

Her face lit up, as if she'd caught him. "See? You think of it as 'leeching.' That's not accepting help – that's doing something because you feel like you have no other choice. Accepting help is letting us babysit for you once in a while or letting yourself take a break now and then without feeling like you're imposing on us."

"So I let you do everything for me for the rest of my life because I lost my partner? Lots of people lose their husbands or wives – you know that, and I don't think you or Dad did that."

Carole was silent for a minute. "Kurt, of course I don't think that it's healthy for a person to just give up on their responsibilities because they've suffered a loss. That's probably as detrimental as trying to do everything by yourself. What I'm trying to say is that there isn't a big black line separating the two. It doesn't have to be one thing or the other; there's a happy medium in there somewhere."

He was starting to lose his patience. "So how do you find it?"

"Stop pretending that everything's fine."

"Are you moonlighting as a counselor or something?"

That came out a bit harsher than he'd meant it to, but Carole laughed anyway. "No, but when Finn was about seven, I was considering marrying again." She waved away his startled look. "No, not to anyone in particular – just getting back into the dating scene. I was feeling pretty indecisive, and my sister sent me a few book suggestions, so I started digging. There are hundreds of books about grief and loss and single parenthood. A lot's pure bull, of course, but there were a few helpful things that stuck in my mind.

"Kurt, I'm not trying to lecture you. You're a grown man, and I don't want to sound . . . " she flapped a hand as if she could pull the appropriate word right out of the air ". . . condescending. And maybe none of this will help. Maybe it doesn't apply. I just want you to be aware of what worked for me so that you might see if it works for you. But it all really comes down to one thing: you shouldn't have to keep suffering like this."

Kurt planted one hand on the cushions, ready to push up and escape from this conversation. "I'm trying. I don't know what else you want me to do."

"I want to help you." Carole stretched her hand out, as if to touch his shoulder, and then withdrew it uncertainly. "Look, I know I'm not the first person you'd come to for advice under normal circumstances. That's okay. But no one else is going to push you, Kurt. And it's none of my business, but I want to try. Will you let me just say a few things? Just a few things, and then we can drop it."

He struggled for a minute and then grudgingly agreed.

"Children complicate things," she began. "A lot of people don't realize how much becoming a parent changes you." Her hand tentatively wrapped around the crook of his elbow, and he didn't shrug it off. "You know that's okay, don't you? No one expects you to be exactly the person you were before. And you want to know something that every parent feels but never says out loud?"

He nodded with all the airy indifference he could muster.

"It's normal to think about – even wish for – the times before you had your children. It's okay to feel a little sad about how you've changed or a little nostalgic for the days when you didn't have that kind of responsibility."

He stared at her, stricken, and her eyes widened a little with sudden understanding.

"Oh, honey," she murmured, squeezing his arm emphatically, "you're not a bad father. That does not mean that you're a bad father. It means you're human."

Kurt didn't know what to say. He felt oddly stripped down - as if Carole had somehow sliced him in half and was now able to see every little fissure and rotten patch inside. "Sure," he croaked.

"You don't believe me," she said, "but it's true." She tucked her hair behind her ear reflexively, looking troubled. "I don't know exactly what you've been thinking, Kurt, but I do know how it was with me and how it is for lots of single parents. You don't really have time to grieve because you're in a hurry to make yourself okay so your child can be taken care of. Was that how it was for you?"

"Yes," he managed. "I guess . . . yes."

She smiled sympathetically. "I know how that feels, believe me – I know how it is to feel like you need to fix everything and you need to fix it now. But that hurts you."

"Maybe I didn't - I think I didn't really have to time to think about it. About him dying." Kurt choked on the word a little. "It was so fast. There was so much to do." His watery eyes spilled over, and he swiped at his cheeks as surreptitiously as he could, humiliated.

"Don't be embarrassed," she said tenderly. "There's nothing wrong with you. You know your dad's proud of everything you've done - and so am I. You haven't failed." She squeezed his arm, just this side of too-hard, her own eyes damp. "You did not fail. You're a wonderful father and a wonderful man, and if those voices inside tell you otherwise, you tell them to shut the hell up."

"I'm not," he ground out. "I keep hurting people, and I never want to, but I always do."

She pursed her lips and scooted closer. "Blaine?"

"Blaine," he confirmed miserably.

"With Blaine - I don't know what happened between the two of you, and I certainly don't expect you to tell me, but can I give you another piece of advice that I learned the hard way? Just because someone has feelings for you doesn't mean that you're obligated to force yourself to feel something for them in return. And if you do have feelings, don't be upset if you're not ready to move as fast as they are. If you try to rush these things, they get all tangled up, and you have to look out for yourself, Kurt."

"I hurt him."

"We do that to people we care about sometimes. This might sound mean, but that's secondary now. Right now the most important thing is making sure you're okay. You need to work on yourself before you can expect other people to make demands of you, even if they're well-intentioned. How can you move on with someone else if you haven't moved on with yourself?"

"I can't move on, Carole."

"I guess I don't really like the term 'move on,'" she amended thoughtfully, offering him a tissue from the side-table and then taking one herself. "It sounds like you have to pack up all your bags and go on your way and never come back. I don't think it works like that in real life."

"What do you mean?"

Carole hummed contemplatively. "I don't know if you ever really get over anything. I think it's more like you accept that it happened and that you can't change it, and then you learn to live with it."

Kurt snorted into his tissue. "That's not particularly optimistic."

"No," she agreed, "but death isn't exactly optimistic either, and you don't look forward to it. Unless you're a character in a Thomas Hardy novel."

He honked out a muffled laugh, and they regrouped for a minute, sniffling companionably into their Kleenex.

"What do you want me to do?" he said after a while. "What's the end here?"

"I don't have some kind of master plan, but do you want my honest opinion? I think you've been having some pretty bad spells of depression, honey."

He balked at the word, but she steered forward without pausing.

"You haven't been you. From some of your presenting symptoms, I think this is something that you need to see someone about. It doesn't necessarily mean pills or anything - they might suggest a counselor. Just going in to check up on it might be good for you, and depression isn't just something you can will your way out of. Please think about it, Kurt."

"I will," he said, beginning to feel the weight of the conversation. "I'm going to stretch out with Jace upstairs. I could use a little . . . space."

"I understand." She swiped at her eyes one last time before replacing her reading glasses and taking up her novel again. "I love you, Kurt. You know that, don't you?"

He bit his lip and shifted off the couch, carefully holding Jace steady. "Thank you."

She smiled a bit ruefully and then opened her book, allowing him to make a graceful escape.

His head spinning with a hundred thoughts, Kurt started up the stairs only to meet his dad halfway. Burt, in the process of failing to properly adjust his formal tie, stopped in his tracks when he got a good look at his son.

"You okay, kiddo?"

Kurt laughed a little shakily, disbelieving, and continued on up the steps. "I think so. I had a come-to-Jesus moment with Carole."

"She's pretty persuasive, huh?" he said knowingly.

He couldn't quite contain an incredulous chuckle. "Understatement, Dad."

The doorbell rang for the second time, and Blaine debated whether answering the door was worth the effort of extracting himself from the sofa. Probably not, because the odds of it being someone he wanted to see were fairly low.

Burrowing further under his flannel blanket, he turned up the volume, letting the sports announcer's voice drown out the insistent chiming. He'd had a long day at work, and he just wanted to watch some goddamn football.

The doorbell finally stopped. Tossing aside the remote, he sank back down into the cushions and refocused his attention on the game.

A key jingled in the lock, and Blaine bolted upright. Only one person had a spare . . .

"Blaine?" his mother's voice called. "I know you're home. Your car is out front."

Before he could stop her - although how exactly he could stop her was up for debate - his mother's diminutive figure appeared in the threshold.

"Um, hi," he stuttered.

Marijo took one long, faintly alarmed look around the living room, and Blaine felt himself flush. The end table was cluttered with empty coffee cups, wrappers, and dirty dishes, and there was actually a Blaine-sized hollow in the sofa – not surprising, considering how much he'd been lounging on it these last two weeks.

"I see you've been busy," she said, her voice carefully even.

"Yeah, I've - yeah." He threw off the blanket, wishing he hadn't changed into his oldest lounging pajamas, and frantically tried to arrange the mess into some semblance of order. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I can tell."

"What are you doing here?" He stacked the dishes haphazardly and hoisted them up, struggling to remember if he'd washed the ones that had been piled in the sink. "I mean, it's nice to see you."

She bent to pick up a few scattered spoons, wrinkling her nose at the half-crusted pudding puddle on one of them. "Your father is worried, and he wanted me to check on you."

Blaine did a double-take. "What?"

"You haven't looked like yourself at work lately, and he's afraid you're coming down with something." She lifted the grocery bag in her hand with a tentative smile as she led them both into the kitchen. "I brought you some soup and cranberry juice."

At a loss for words, he managed to say, "You didn't have to do that."

The tension in her shoulders eased. "Of course I did. Someone needs to look after you." Peeling off her faux-fur coat, she slung it over a kitchen chair, along with her purse and the groceries. "I haven't seen you for a few weeks. You didn't come over for dinner at all this month."

"I know." He didn't have a ready excuse, so he decided not to bother. "I'm not sick, Mom."

She tossed a puzzled glance over her shoulder. "Oh?"

"No." He steeled himself for a stream of questions, but to his surprise, she nodded silently and started unloading the sack. "Have you had supper yet?"

Blaine tried to remember the last time he'd eaten, and he vaguely recalled a greasy pizza late last night. "No."

"I'll heat up the soup," she said decisively. "It's Virginia ham and bean. There's enough for us to split, and I picked up a fresh baguette too."

He thought about politely refusing and sending her on her way, but the prospect of a little company was nice, and his mother had gone to all this trouble besides. She rarely came over to the apartment as it was, and he was beginning to feel a tiny stirring of guilt for skipping dinner.

He followed her into the kitchen and cleared the table, setting out the silverware and bowls. She shooed him away when he tried to slice the bread for her, so he took a seat and watched her heat the soup over the stove.

Blaine had spent a lot of time in the kitchen when he was younger, watching his mother cook and occasionally helping with any simple prep that didn't require using a sharp knife. He'd always liked the pungent, spicy scents and the warmth that seemed to radiate from the oven, content to listen to her talk about her day. It had been a safe place – a warm place in a cold house.

"It's done," she announced, searching for a potholder in his dishtowel drawer.

The soup was hot and flavorful and the bread was soft, and Blaine felt himself relax as he filled his stomach with something besides pre-processed takeout. His mother ate quietly next to him, a solid, reassuring presence, as they worked their way through the pot.

"You look sad," she said, apropos of nothing. It didn't shock Blaine that she'd noticed, but it did shock him that she said anything about it. The Andersons didn't draw attention to weakness, perceived or otherwise.

"Do I?" he laughed awkwardly. "I guess I need to get out a little more. Winter blues."

She flipped her spoon over and over between her fingers, looking nervous but uncharacteristically resolute. "Won't you tell me what's wrong?"

"Kurt and I had a fight," he admitted honestly. "A bad one."

"I was afraid it might be something like that," she said. "You haven't been mentioning him at all lately."

"I just - I really screwed up, and I don't know what I did wrong." Dimly, he was aware that he wasn't really making sense, but now that he was talking about it, he couldn't stop until everything was out. "I think I pushed him too far, but he was the one who started it, and I don't - why did he do that? I thought maybe . . . . "

"Maybe what?" she asked, clearly confused.

"It was stupid, but I thought - I thought maybe he still might, you know, care about me."

Her severe frown softened, and she reached for his hand. "Oh, Blaine. I didn't know."

He clenched his jaw and stared down at his soup bowl in search of some kind of distraction from the growing ache in his stomach. That moment when Kurt had kissed him - how stupidly happy he had been, thinking that Kurt was feeling what he was feeling. He'd had all these visions in head, all these expectations, and then Kurt -

Kurt hated him.

"Have you tried to talk to him?" his mother ventured.

We don't have to talk about it. His phone felt heavy in his pocket, laden down with all the voicemails and texts that he hadn't been able to delete despite himself. "I don't think I can. I'm pretty sure I just killed whatever chances I had. I think our friendship is done too."

She withdrew her hand, gold-filigree bracelets jingling. "I'm sorry you were hurt, but in all honesty, Blaine, I'm not sorry that nothing came of this."

He whipped his head up, shocked.

"I don't mean it like that," she said hastily. "Back in college, when he first went to New York - I was glad when he left. I was relieved." She gripped his wrist, as if fearful that he would tear away and leave the room. "Kurt caused so much friction between you and your father, and I thought - well, I thought wrong then, I know that now. I knew it as soon as I saw how deeply it hurt you. You've never been the same, Blaine."

Scooting her chair closer, she cupped his cheek. "When it came to Kurt, you were so invested, so much in love, that you weren't thinking of yourself. You would have gone with him anywhere, been anything that he needed or wanted you to be. And that," she paused, her lips tightening painfully, "that is not healthy."

"He loved me too," Blaine protested faintly.

"I know, but that isn't always enough." She let her hand fall away from his face and settle back on his arm. "I want to be honest with you. Forgive me, but I have to say this."

"Mom . . . ."

"Blaine, look at yourself. You've been isolating yourself for years. You haven't had real relationships for almost as long. You've been waiting on him, haven't you? He didn't wait on you, Blaine. He moved on. I'm sorry, but that's true, and just because that man isn't in the picture anymore doesn't mean it's all going to go back to the way it was. I know that's what you're thinking, Blaine, and it isn't going to work." She shook her head with unusual vehemence, her fingers curling into fists on the tabletop. "I've seen you slide back into it these last few months, and it's college all over again. You can't do this to yourself." Taking a steadying breath, she clasped her hands together. "I don't blame him," she said, more calmly. "I'm not angry at him. I don't understand what it is that made it so impossible for you to put him behind you. You never let him go, Blaine."

"I can't."

"Or you never tried in the first place." She fell silent for a minute, seemingly shaken by her own nerve.

"Why are you saying this now?" he managed to ask.

"I see so much of myself in you. I saw how you were around him then, and it scared me. It scares me now."

"It's not the same." He started to get up from his chair, overwhelmed, but she clutched at his wrist.

"Yes, it is. I know what it is to be in love with an image of someone," she said with a rawness that made his throat tighten up and his eyes burn. "Please, Blaine, be sure that it's Kurt you love, not the memory of him.

"And if it is just the memory you love -" she slipped her hand into his and squeezed it "- just let him go this time, for your sake. And his."