"Oh, Kurt, we can't get rid of that. Remember, we bought it when —"

This had been going on for hours. It had taken Kurt several weeks to get Blaine to actually come over and sort through their belongings and now he was starting to regret asking him over at all.

Kurt would put something in the donate or throw away pile and Blaine would object, performing some tear-filled soliloquy about each item's significance to him, to them. This happened for Every. Single. Item. He couldn't touch anything without his husband trying to take him down memory lane with him.

"But Kurt! You love this thing!"

"Don't need it."

"We got that at that thrift shop on 42nd, remember?"

"The one that closed down?"

"That's an antique!"

"All the more reason to sell it."

"Kurt…"

"What?!" Kurt finally snapped. Blaine's eyes were honest-to-god teary this time.

"That… was a wedding present. From my grandmother." Kurt's eyes shifted to the gravy boat in his hands. He remembered when Blaine's grandmother gave it to them.

She insisted on watching them open it instead of leaving it on the table with everything else. They had been surprised when she came. Blaine's own parents left them dangling until the very last second for their still very hesitant RSVP, so it was honestly astounding to see the even more conservative 80 year old Filipino woman in attendance.

She told them a long-winded story about how it was given to her and her husband as a wedding present when they first came to America. She had no idea what it was or what it was used for and thought it was the ugliest thing she had ever seen. Then the person who gave it to her (one of their only neighbors in Ohio who didn't shun them) explained the American tradition of Thanksgiving and family and bringing people together, no matter how much they didn't see eye to eye, just to spend time in each other's company. Blaine's grandmother had explained the same thing to them and Kurt remembered how much it touched his heart at the time.

It remained untouched through every Thanksgiving since then.

"You can have it." Kurt conceded, handing it over to him. Blaine gave him a watery smile and put it in the pile of the things he would be taking with him to his apartment.

They went at it for another hour before deciding to call it and order lunch. As soon as Blaine got off the phone with the pizza place, Talulah woke up from her nap. Kurt went to get her, walking around the room and bouncing her on his hip as she started to get a bit fussy. He didn't blame her.

He looked around the room, seeing the piles he had started to work on on his own of baby things. A pile to give to Rachel, a pile to throw away, a pile to keep for the next baby. Kurt was glad that Blaine had let him deal with everything on that front by himself. He couldn't imagine the types of waterworks that would come every time Blaine saw an outfit that he remembered or a book that he read Lulu to sleep with on the off occasion he was home at night. That and he knew that he too would get emotional himself (he already had when he started that process a few days ago) and he didn't need Blaine to see that.

His relationship he could get over easily enough. Marriages end. People change and grow. But anything having to do with his child, something that he and Blaine created together that would never go away… That was something that might send him over the edge. He was going to have that bond with Blaine forever through their children and if he let himself be vulnerable with those feelings in front of his emotionally manipulating husband, he might do something stupid like take him back. Work on becoming a family again.

He had always been a sucker for Blaine Anderson. Even when he didn't deserve his love.

Talulah was calming down now and Kurt decided to take her out into the living room. Blaine had his back to him, admiring their gallery wall filled to the rim with pictures. Pictures from high school, college, their wedding, performing at Lincoln Center and them with Talulah in various settings. It was like a museum of Kurt and Blaine.

One that was shutting down permanently.

"Such good memories." Blaine said with a sad smile on his face, not looking over at Kurt and Talulah who had moved to stand by his side and take it all in. Kurt hummed in agreement. They were. Nothing in one of these pictures of smiling faces showed a bad memory. Sure, if he really thought about it he could remember some negative parts of the memories, like when Blaine missed a line during one performance of Virginia Woolf and almost sent the whole thing to a screeching halt or when he got horrifically sunburned on his honeymoon and it hurt to exist for an entire month afterwards.

These pictures though, with smiling acne-covered faces posing with their Nationals trophy and unposed kisses, didn't show the bad times. Didn't show the way Kurt's face would get blotchy when he cried after a fight or Blaine's broken hand after he got so mad he punched a hole through the door of their last apartment. There were no conveniently timed snaps of the moment Blaine finally and completely ripped Kurt's heart in two when he admitted that he had shared an intimate night with a cast member only months before.

Kurt and Blaine had led a good life as far as things go. They both shared a good amount of success in their careers, did some traveling, made a home together, raised a child. These were the things that Kurt in his darkest, lowest moments back when he was a scared, closeted teenager couldn't even dream of happening to him and it had. He would always be grateful to Blaine for giving him a daughter and now a son, would always cherish the moments of firsts he gave him.

But now he had to let it go. He couldn't spend the rest of his life in the past. He had so many good years ahead of him, so many more happy memories to refill this wall and several others.

"I'm going to miss you, Kurt." Blaine whispered, tears rolling down his cheeks as he finally looked up at him.

For the first time in several months Kurt didn't have the urge to roll his eyes or say something like "you don't deserve to miss me" or "you did this to yourself" like one of his more feisty coworkers had suggested. He knew Blaine Anderson like the back of his hand and this time, this was not fake. This wasn't a tactic to get Kurt to take him back or make what he had done not seem as big of a deal as it was (the latter something he had done once lawyers became involved). This was the beginnings of closure.

Kurt took Blaine's hand in his free one and squeezed it, returning the sad smile he had given him. He felt emotion swell up inside of him as well but swallowed it down.

It had initially taken Blaine quite a long time to take Kurt's feelings about the situation seriously. Even when he was crashing on someone's couch and being served divorce papers he was still very much in denial. Once it had hit him that this was real, they weren't just taking a break this time, he scrambled. He came to Kurt on his knees, begging for him to take him back.

He offered to pay for couple's therapy, ("spend your money on something useful, like putting food in your child's mouth") go to a sex addiction support group, ("you don't have a sex addiction, Blaine, you're just selfish") swore on every single dead relative's grave that he was never going to do it again ("that's what you said last time and don't you dare bring Finn into this"). Kurt even got a wildly inappropriate serenade at work from him that was really the straw the broke the camel's back and sent him into full gear with the divorce stuff. He even considered getting a restraining order that was how much Blaine was on him all the time, non-stop.

Blaine knew he had completely and utterly fucked up and he had no idea how to fix it. At this very moment as Kurt looked at him with dry eyes and a death grip on their daughter, Kurt could tell that Blaine was finally coming to terms with the fact that there was no way to fix it this time. There was no love song in the entire music anthology that could repair the damage that had been done.

After the initial emotional jolt he got from Blaine's words he realized, as he let go of Blaine's hand and handed over a grabby-handing Talulah, he wasn't going to miss him all that much. Missing Blaine was going to be like missing being a teenager.

Something would trigger a moment of fondness, but after the initial "aw moment" there'd be a bad aftertaste in his mouth. He'd yearn for the days he looked so damn youthful, for the butterflies that erupted in his stomach at every little touch, for the dreams that were limitless. Then he'd be transported back to being thrown in a dumpster, shoved in the background in Glee club, arguments about what cheating looked like and how it was all Kurt's fault, anyway and he'd be left with a bad aftertaste in his mouth until he went through the process of remembering all over again.

Everything about Blaine was just so dreamy teen movie love interest (serenades on the steps of McKinley, cheesy lines, holding hands) and not responsible yet irresistible romantic comedy partner-in-life anyway (answers his damn phone, genuinely cares about what he has to say, makes him fall in love over and over again). He couldn't believe it had taken yet another instance of Blaine cheating on him for him to realize that Blaine wasn't what he needed anymore. Maybe he was when he was sixteen and needed someone who knew what he was going through. Maybe even up until he graduated high school, someone to teach him how to love somebody else and how to be loved back. But after that…

Blaine was perfect for somebody. He knew that as he watched him spin around the room with their giggling toddler in his arms, humming a jolly tune that didn't reflect what he was obviously feeling inside. He had always known that. Kurt had just been naive and… comfortable enough to believe that Blaine was perfect for him. Now it was costing him.

Better late than never, he supposed as he put on his best it's-going-to-be-okay smile and joined in on the dance.