AN: Sorry for the sporadic updating. Bet you wouldn't believe this story is written through chapter 17 would ya? Anyway, hope you enjoy the new chapter and hope 2014 is treating you all well!
Kurt found himself holding his breath as Finn worked through the math problem on his own. He was out of ways to try to explain the concept and if the other teen didn't get it this time, he wasn't sure what else to try though he would try to think of something. He refused to just give up and call it a hopeless cause because he refused to give up on anyone.
As Finn finished the problem, Kurt let out the breath he was holding in relief.
"It's wrong, isn't it?" Finn immediately asked, his self doubt causing him to think Kurt's sigh was one of exasperation. He couldn't blame Kurt for getting frustrated with him, especially as more than one math teacher had all but written him off as a hopeless cause.
"No, you got it right for a change," Kurt said, cringing at not only the choice of his words but at the tone of surprise he hadn't been able to keep out of his voice. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"Relax. Your surprise is totally understandable. I'm an idiot when it comes to math and you've shown more patience with me than any of the teachers in Lima's school system have."
"Try the next problem," Kurt said, trying to hide the fact that his heart had sped up at the praise. As he had told Finn, he had accepted that Finn didn't play for his team and nothing more than friendship could ever develop between them. Still, he couldn't deny he still felt some attraction to the McKinley High quarterback. Apparently his brain hadn't quite convinced his heart to see logic yet.
Finn started on the next problem, Kurt watching over his shoulder again until the shorter teen heard footsteps on the stairs leading down to his room. Looking over his shoulder, Kurt saw his dad standing at the foot of the steps.
"You two still at it?" Burt asked easily.
"Yeah. We've made a lot of progress," Kurt replied.
Finn kept diligently working on the math problem, seemingly blocking the conversation out.
"Good," Burt said, pausing briefly as he took in the scene. "You know I've never been one to discourage the educational process, but it is getting late. Carole just called looking for Finn and the two of you both have finals tomorrow. All the studying in the world isn't going to help you if you sleep through them."
Kurt automatically looked toward his alarm clock forgetting that he had put a piece of duct tape over the red numbers earlier that evening. Finn had kept looking at the clock and stressing about how much time he had before the final instead of concentrating on the work. Covering the numbers had helped him concentrate on the math concepts rather than the time.
"What time is it?" Kurt asked, looking back at his dad.
"Going on ten."
"It's that late?" Finn asked, finally looking up from his math book. "Mom's going to be looking for me," he commented, shutting the book, clearly not having heard Burt's comment about Carole already calling.
"She already called," Burt told him, amused at the reaction. "I told her you were still here so she's not worried but she would like you to head home."
Finn nodded as he continued to gather his belongings.
"And Finn," Burt added.
"Yeah?" the teen replied, pausing in the action of stuffing his math book into his backpack to look at Burt.
"Drive the speed limit. There's no need to rush home."
"Yes, sir," Finn replied, going back to putting his things away.
With that said, Burt headed upstairs.
"Thanks for your help tonight, Kurt," Finn said, zipping his backpack up and slinging it over his one shoulder. "At least I have a chance at passing Geometry now."
"You're welcome, and you'll do fine tomorrow. Just try to stay relaxed and don't panic and you'll do fine," he added, trying to reassure the other teen, even though he had his doubts on how much information Finn would actually retain come the following day. He wasn't about to tell the other teen that. He figured a little extra reassurance couldn't hurt anything.
As Finn headed upstairs to head home, Kurt looked to his own pile of school books. He had been planning on studying a little more for biology but giving the time, the studying that he had already done was just going to have to be enough. With a sigh, he headed to his vanity where he kept all his skin care products. He was going to have to shorten his normal nighttime routine and hope he didn't end up regretting it later. Still, if he went through the whole process he had no doubt his dad would be back down here more than once with a subtle or possibly not so subtle reminder that it was time for bed.
As Carole had the next day off, Burt made it an early afternoon at the garage to spend some time with her. Even the weather seemed to be cooperating with them, as it was a gorgeous day for the start of June - blue skies, not too warm, and a slight breeze blowing. Wanting to enjoy the gorgeous weather, Carole and Burt found themselves on the Hummel's porch swing, idly swinging back and forth and they enjoyed one another's company. Carole had to admit she felt quite cozy sitting next to Burt, his arm across her shoulders and her head resting against his shoulder.
"So they were still both studying when you went down?" Carole asked, referring to the night before.
"They were. Didn't really surprise me with Kurt though. I've never had to worry about him doing his school work; he's always done it without me telling him to."
"That must be nice. It always has been a fight with Finn. I think he gets discouraged because he does try, but the results just aren't there."
"Has he ever been tested for a learning disorder."
"Quite a few times actually. None of them revealed anything. Finn even tests above average on the intelligence tests but his schoolwork doesn't show that," Carole replied, thinking about her son and some of the more heated conversations they'd had over his school work over the past few years. "He's convinced that the only shot he has at college is going to be get a football scholarship because no school will ever take him based on grades. The thing is that unless he does pull his grades up the next couple of years, he may be right. Waiting for the last report card of the year is always nerve wracking as I wonder if he'll actually move onto the next grade or not."
"At least he's trying," Burt told her, giving her shoulders a slight squeeze. "He's a good kid, though he still needs to learn to think before he speaks sometimes," Burt said, a trace of bitterness in his voice. "Besides he's got football and Glee to help keep him out of trouble and help him toward a career path. College isn't for everyone, you know."
"I wasn't trying to imply anything," Carole told him, feeling a little guilty as she knew other than a few business course at the local community college to learn some necessary skills to run his business, Burt had never attempted higher learning. "I just want to see him happy, and Finn seems so set on needing to go to college."
"Then he'll find a way. He's still has two more years of high school left. There is still plenty of time for him to figure out his future."
"You're right and I have seen improvement this year. I mean at least he's making an attempt at passing Geometry. Last year if he had been told he had to score an A on the final to pass a class he probably would have written it off as a lost cause and not even studied."
"Well there you go then," Burt said, looking to the driveway as he saw his son's car pull into the driveway.
Parked in his driveway, Kurt paused in the process of taking the key out of the ignition, as he spotted his dad and Carole sitting on the front porch swing. The swing that his mother had always been sitting on as she waited for his school bus every afternoon. The same one he had fallen asleep many of summer nights, tucked in between his parents, while one of them a read out loud from whatever book he had read. Long after he had learned to read he had still liked to have story read out loud, as there was something soothing about hearing the sound of his parent's voice.
Now his dad was sitting there with Carole.
"Apparently nothing is sacred anymore," Kurt muttered under his breath, pulling the key the rest of the way out. "Next thing he's going to do is start inviting them over for our Friday night dinners," he grumbled, as he grabbed his school bag and climbed from the car.
Head up high, shoulders back and fake smile on his face, Kurt strode up the driveway and up the porch steps. "Hi Dad. Hi Carole," he greeted in what he hoped was an upbeat tone.
"Hi, Kurt."
"Hey, Kiddo," Burt greeted. "How was school?"
"Not bad considering it was a whole bunch of finals," Kurt replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "I think the jocks are too busy trying to remember what they studied the night before to be bothered with kids like me, which is a plus of finals week," he added, letting a bit of his normal sarcasm sink in.
Burt's expression grew serious. "Kurt, if anyone at school is harassing you-"
"There is no need for you to get involved. I can look out for myself," Kurt said, interrupting something that he had heard from his dad repeatedly ever since the school had called him about the pee balloon incident. Seeing how upset his dad was then had convinced Kurt to keep the bullying to himself - his Dad had enough to worry about without him adding to it. The anonymous phone call to the garage and the smash windshield had only reinforced that feeling. He would protect his father from the ugliness he knew was inevitable as much as he possibly could.
"Kurt," Burt said, a warning edge to his voice.
"I just told you they left me alone today, so just go back to playing Ken and Barbie with Carole," Kurt told him, striding across the porch and disappearing into the house.
As he made his way to the kitchen for a snack, Kurt half expected to hear his father's footsteps behind him. His dad gave him a lot of leeway but he usually didn't except anything that might be construed as backtalk and Kurt had to admit that the Ken and Barbie comment might have been a bit too much - even if they did look like the perfect American couple out there on the porch together.
Shouldn't that have made him happy though? Isn't that what he had wanted - for his Dad to be happy again? Because he had achieved that but it hadn't turned out as he had envisioned it would.
It hadn't brought him any closer to Finn. In fact, having Finn involved had only added for conflict. The debacle over the room, Finn doing things with his dad, and his dad finding the son he had always wanted. It had resulted in losing things that had held special meaning to him because of the memories associated with his mother.
Well Dad could move on all he wanted. He could let Carole and Finn in on the things that had been special to their family but he wasn't going to. He would hold onto the memories he had with mom and he would constantly remind his father of that. Kurt wondered if his Dad would even remember the anniversary of her death this year, which was fast approaching.
No longer in the mood to eat, Kurt abandoned looking for a snack and headed for the piano.
"Did I say or do something wrong?" Carole asked, looking from the closing front door to Burt after Kurt's abrupt retreat.
"No and I'm sorry about that outburst. Kurt's been kind of moody lately though, and I think he's resenting our relationship a bit right now," Burt told her apologetically, thinking about the conversation he had with his son at the dinner table last night.
Carole looked at Burt sympathetically.
"I thought only teenage girls were supposed to go through mood swings but seriously he goes from the sweet, compassionate Kurt that he usually is to this moody, sullen kid that I don't know. And then when he starts crying I'm totally at a loss for what to do," Burt said, leaning his head back and staring at the underside of the porch roof, his one arm still draped across Carole's shoulders.
From inside the house, strains of "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" could just barely be heard.
"That's what I was afraid of," Burt said softly listening to the familiar song.
"The song mean something special?"
"It was Kathleen and my song," Burt admitted. "Kathleen taught him to play it when he was like six and told him the history behind it and everything."
"And some of his mood swings lately have to do with him feeling like I'm taking her place?" Carole questioned as she tried to put the pieces together.
Burt nodded, fighting the urge to go into the house and tell Kurt to stop playing the song. Not only was there the promise he had made to Kathleen but he knew storming into the house and telling Kurt to stop playing wouldn't help anything. He wasn't an expert on all this emotional stuff but he did know enough to realize that his son was hurting and needed understanding not discipline. He just had no idea what to say or do.
"I thought we were making progress with him wanting Finn and I to celebrate his birthday with the two of you."
"Believe me, that was progress," Burt told her. "He hasn't even let me invite the Joneses over to celebrate his birthday since his mom died and Mercedes and Kurt have been celebrating birthday's with each other since they were three. The one year I did invite them, he locked himself in the bathroom and refused to come out until they were gone."
Burt thought over the conversation he had with Kurt the night before. While he wasn't about to tell Carole exactly what his son had told him, he wanted to give her some kind of insight to his son's behavior.
"I think maybe opening himself up to letting someone else in on his birthday celebration may have scared him. I think he enjoyed having you and Finn there and that made him start feeling disloyal to his mom. Like he was replacing her or something."
"I can understand that," Carole said glancing toward the front door again. "Do you think maybe I should go talk to him?"
"You sure you want to brave dealing with an emotional seventeen year old boy?" Burt replied. "The kid uses words like a weapon when he gets upset. Sometimes I'm not even sure what all the words mean."
Despite the seriousness of the situation Carole chuckled at Burt's choice of words. "I think I can handle one teenage boy," she assured him, patting Burt's knee.
A silence hung in the air. Carole watched Burt who seemed to be mulling something over in his head. "What I don't get is Kurt is the one that suggested I start dating again. He's the one the introduced us. I would have thought he would have the least amount of problems with our relationship but he seems to be taking it harder than Finn. I mean sure, I met some resistance at first from Finn, and we've had our problems since, but he seems okay with the idea of you and I. Kurt's been all over the place. He's gone from being excited about the idea, to resenting the relationship I had with Finn, to being okay with the whole thing again, excited about the idea of us all living together. Now he keeps going back and forth between being okay seeing us together and not being okay with the idea."
"I think the difference is that Finn doesn't remember his father at all and he's been exposed to several different men over the years. Once he accepted the idea of letting someone else into our life, he was okay with what you and I had until the whole living together thing. I think that was a big change, even for Finn. However, Kurt has eight years of memories that he's fighting with. He wants you to be happy but he still feels a loyalty to his mother. It's perfectly understandable even though he might not really understand what he's going through. We just need to have patience with him," Carole replied.
The song ended, and like itunes on repeat, Kurt started playing it again.
"I'm going to go talk to him," Carole said, slipping out from under Burt's arm and heading into the house.
Carole made her way through the house to the living room. Reaching the doorway, Carole leaned up against the door jam watching the teen play. She could tell from his profile that Kurt was crying as tears glistened on his cheeks. Staying quiet, she let him continue playing not wanting to interrupt him, fearing that might just give the emotional teen more of a reason to be upset with her. When he stopped playing to reach up and wipe tears away, Carole stepped forward.
"Kurt, can we talk?"
The teen jumped, obviously not aware that Carole had joined him in the room. Kurt wiped away some more tears before turning to face her.
"Sure," Kurt replied, not moving from the piano bench.
Knowing the Kurt's mom had taught him to play, Carole steered clear from trying to join him there. If Burt was right about his son's feelings, which Carole had no reason to believe he wasn't, then encroaching on an area that Kurt probably still associated highly with her would only make things worse. She opted for heading for the sofa instead, taking a seat at one end of it.
"How about you come join me over here," Carole said, patting the cushion next to her.
Kurt slowly stood up and crossed the room. Carole made no comment when the teen sat at the far end of the couch, letting him have the physical space that he so clearly wanted.
"Have I done something to upset you?" Carole asked, trying not to sound accusing or to authoritative. Even if his behavior warranted discipline, it wasn't her place to give it, and she didn't want Kurt to think she was trying to do that.
Kurt shook his head.
"Are you sure? You seemed upset out on the porch a few minutes ago," she ventured. She paused, giving Kurt a chance to say something. When he chose not to, Carol kept talking. "You know Kurt, I'd do anything I could to make this whole situation easier on you. I know it can't be easy having to share your father with anyone after having him to yourself all these years but I'm not trying to take him from you. In fact, I want to be a part of your life just as much as his because I know how special you are to each other."
"He built the swing for her," Kurt said softly. Carole found herself leaning forward to catch the words.
"The porch swing?"
Kurt nodded.
"And seeing me on it with your father instead of her upset you?" Carole ventured, trying to piece the pieces the reluctant teenager was giving her together.
Her question earned her another nod.
"I know it's silly and it shouldn't upset me but it does. It feels like the more you're around the more of her I lose," Kurt said, reaching up to wipe away the few tears that had escaped his eyes. Carole could tell that he was struggling to hold back the tears.
"It's not silly at all to feel that way, Kurt," Carole told him. "But I want you to know I'm not trying to take your mom's place. I remember your mom from school actually, and I know exactly how impossible a feat that would be even if I wanted to. I do want to make my own place in your life and your father's life though, and I'm pretty sure that through the hurt and the fear your feeling right now a part of you wants that too. Am I right?"
Kurt nodded again.
"Okay, then I've got a suggestion, and you are free to say no to the idea if you want, you won't hurt my feelings none, I promise. I think that right now you're bottling things up inside, trying not to upset anyone, and when that gets to be too much you're acting out. Instead of doing that, talk about how you're feeling."
"It's not always a feeling really."
"What is it then?"
"It's more that I recall memories associated with a place or an event. And it feels like people are trying to replace them," Kurt said, looking down at his hands.
"Nothing is ever going to replace those memories, Kurt. You just make new ones to go along with them. You know what might make it feel less like they're being replaced though?"
Kurt shook his head.
"If instead of keeping them to yourself, and letting resentment build up, you share those memories. I'm sure your father wouldn't mind reminiscing, he still misses your mom very much too you know. And I wouldn't mind hearing about her either."
"You wouldn't?" Kurt asked, looking at Carole for the first time.
"No, I wouldn't because I know how special she was to you. So, why don't we try it right now. Tell me what memories you recalled when you saw your father and me on the front porch," Carole said, motioning to him to slide over closer to her.
Though he hesitated, Carol was a bit surprised when Kurt did move to sit beside her. Tentatively she reached out and put her arm around Kurt's shoulder, feeling his muscle tense slightly but as he didn't try to pull away, she left her arm there as he started talking.