AN: My timeline's a bit sketchy so just go with me on this and say that Kurt and Dave were married a year before Emmie's birth. Now, feel free to read on.
Dave's been gone 1,095 days sometimes Kurt can hardly believe it. It's been three years and as it turns out he was right, his definition of the word "Okay." has changed greatly.
Being okay now means hugging Emmie everyday even though she fights him. She's too big for hugs at seven. It saddens him how tough she's become so quickly. She's so amazingly self-reliant it frightens him.
Okay is mani-pedi Monday's with Rachel and baby Ryann. It's helping out at the shop because Finn doesn't know his ass from an alternator. It's making sure his freshman learn something before leaving him and helping Will with glee club.
It's living life and moving on. It's finding happiness without Dave and being glad for the time they had.
Emmie flounces in with the grace of a butterfly and the disposition of Ouiser Boudreaux. Emmie is no longer a morning person.
"I hate life." she tells him.
"You're seven; you haven't lived enough of it to hate it." She groans and sits down at the vanity to for him to fix her hair. She's wearing a hibiscus print tube dress the flowers multicolored over the khaki fabric. he gives himself a mental note to grab her white denim jacket before he leaves.
"What look are we going for today?"
"Fun but hippie chic." She replies
Kurt nods and sets about doing a French waterfall braid. "No falling asleep." he gives her hair a gentle tug and he grins at the dirty look she shoots him.
"I want to join the Pop Warner football team." She says apropos of nothing.
"You want to what? Why?" Kurt's all for equality but she's tiny and crushable and a girl. He tries to keep the alarm inside and not show it.
"Well I like it and I'm good, or at least that's what Gramps, Papoo, and Uncle Finn say. I'm fast."
And she was Kurt knew that it just wasn't a talent he wanted to bank her safety on.
"I'll think about it."
"That means no." She whined.
"It does not. It means exactly what I just said." He continues braiding her hair.
"You joined Glee and sang girl songs why can't I play football?" She asks
He can't come up with a plausible reason that will make sense to her. All he knows is that for some reason the thought of all the tackling scares him.
He just says "It's too early for big decisions baby, but I'll let you know before sign ups close."
-/-/-/-
He's straightening his classroom up before finishing for the day when a shadow darkens his doorway. He looks over and sees an athletic blonde man standing in the open door poised to knock on the frame.
"Can I help you?" Kurt asks eyes scanning the lithe muscled body before him. He's attractive Kurt can admit that much. He smiles and white straight teeth flash and the smile reaches his faded blue eyes.
"Are you Emily's father?" He inquires.
"Yes, is she alright?" Kurt's heart rate kicks up a little.
"Oh she's fine I'm Rider Talbot. The pop warner and PE coach." He extends his hand which Kurt shakes. He has a uniquely handsome face. All rugged planes and angles a chiseled jaw.
"Is she pushing Elodie Ben Israel down again? I told her to stop no matter how annoying the child is." Kurt inquires. Clasping his hands in front of him.
"Nothing like that, though I think the annoyance may be genetic Jacob interviewed me about pop warner for the gazette," The man grins and Kurt's pulse stutters.
"Yes well, some things they never change." Kurt says ruefully.
"I'm here to ask you to let Emmie join my team. I know you are frightened for her safety and I can't promise you she won't get hurt at some point but I can promise you I'll do everything I can to prevent it. She's talented Mr. Karofsky and she enjoys it. To be perfectly honest with you I need her on my team. I'm just vain enough to admit I really want to win. I want my kids to have fun of course but I want to win too! I believe Emily can help us with that." Rider finishes his speech.
There was a bit of a pause, Kurt can feel the other man checking him out and is surprised to find himself enjoying it.
"Well I guess we'll see you at try outs." The man smiles wider just this side of mischievous. It reminds him of Dave and he feels guilty for the simplest of flirtation.
-/-/-/-
Marina and Carole switch off every other day and watch Emmie while Kurt works. He walks up the steps of the Karofsky's Victorian era home. He opens the door and walks in without knocking. He follows the sound of Emmie's voice into the kitchen. "But Yaya I don't like math."
"You need it though sweets." She replies. Kurt enters the kitchen and sits his bag on the island where Emily has her math homework and a bowl of grapes for snack spread out. "Hey my Darling." He grins at his daughter pinching a grape from the bowl. "Rina," he says in way of greeting to Dave's Mother.
"Hey Papa. Multiplication sucks." He moves around to stand at her shoulder and look over the paper. The teacher in him taking over. "You know your Daddy liked math?" Marina says and the thought doesn't hurt. It just makes Kurt smile.
"That's right baby, a trick he taught me for calculus was to start with what I knew."
"I don't know my sevens yet it's new."
"What's two times seven?"
"Fourteen."
"Right. So seven times two is the exact same." He ate another grape.
"I get the trick now." She gives a toothy grin.
"Good. You really want to play football?" Kurt asks.
"I really really do." Her smile wides and her eyes shine with hope.
"Okay you can try out Gramps will-" the force of her hug knocked the air out of his lungs.
"Thank you Papa! Thank you so much." she hopped down.
"Where are you going? You have math too finish." He admonished halfheartedly.
"To tell Papoo. Be right back." She ran down the hall into Paul's office.
"That's a good thing you just did," Marina said.
Kurt shrugged. "If it makes her happy."
-/-/-/-/-
"Are your pads secure is everything properly protected?" Kurt asks as fiddles with her jersey proudly displaying # 76.
Emmie rolls her eyes. "Yes Papa. Anymore padding I may as well be a walking mattress." She says tone dry.
Paul and Burt walk up together.
Burt smirks "Even though you might be right don't sass your father."
"Yes sir,""
Paul walks over with Marina. He squats down to Emmie's level and helps tighten her chin strap.
"Remember to leave your mouth guard in little one. You need your teeth." Paul says slapping her shoulder pads.
"Keep your head down on tackles, Priss." Burt adds slapping her helmet playfully.
"Don't call me that." Emmie says with an eye roll and takes to the field.
"Let's go get a seat. Don't bite your nails sweetheart." Carole says moving his hand away from his mouth.
As they climb the bleachers Rider winks at Kurt. He's too nervous to give it any real thought.
He's sandwiched between Finn and Rachel.
"Kurt I love your sweater. Where'd you get it?" Marina asks.
"I made it." he's wearing a red sweater with Emily's number on the back her name is down the left sleeve and across the front is "Football Papa!"
"Yes Rina, I've become one of those parents. Would you like one?" before she can respond the game has started.
They are five minutes and four seconds into the first quarter. Emily's been tackled three times and he's chewed all the nails off his left hand. His right hand is clapped around Finn's wrist nails breaking skin.
Rachel takes pity on him and thrusts Ryann at him and says. "Here you watch my girl and I'll watch yours deal?"
Kurt consoles himself with making faces and bouncing the baby on his knees as Ryann smiles up at him. He hears Rachel squeak and his head snaps up.
He looks up as the ball spirals gracefully through the air and into Emmie's arms. She takes off and Kurt gets to his feet swinging Ryann on to his hip. "Go Em!" he shouts unsure if he's being heard or not.
They were right. She is good, fast in a graceful precise way. Determined much like Dave was once given a worthy goal.
The whole family is on their feet shouting various things as Emmie makes it to the end zone. She hikes the ball and turns to Kurt giving him a triumphant dazzling smile. It's a smile he hasn't seen in a while. A lump rises in his throat.
Rachel leans into him. "She loves it. You did a good thing letting her play. When was the last time we smiled like that? Just because we'd found joy?"
"It's been a while Rach." He replies.
At the end of the game she runs up to him sweaty and grass stained.
"Hi Papa! Did you see my touchdown?"
"Yes of course you were fabulous." He high fives her. She takes the baby from him and runs off to show Ryann to her friend on the cheer squad.
"Don't drop your cousin!" he hollers.
-/-/-/-
They are going to the car when Rider catches them. "Kurt!" Kurt turns into a solid wall of muscled chest. He looks up into Rider's smiling face. He fights off a blush knowing his daughter is watching. "Rider." he grins.
"I was glad to see you didn't drag my best fullback off the field."
"It was a struggle but I managed." He fires back only half teasing.
"I don't normally do this but would you go to dinner with me?" Rider cocks head in question.
"Well…"
-/-/-/-
"Do you like the guy?" Blaine asks sitting across from him. Perfectly coiffed and holding his Lima Bean latte aloft.
"I don't- I barely know the man Blaine."
He sees the wheels turning in his friends mind. They had remained friends though it had made Dave uncomfortable. Blaine is happy with a buyer for Macy's named Sebastian.
Kurt is glad he's maintained this friendship with Blaine and has someone who understands his life in a more personal way. Blaine sips his latte. "Is he hot?"
Kurt smiles. "God yes, it's like Jason Lewis and Charlie Hunnam had a baby and Rider's the result."
"Glad to see aren't blind as well as celibate." Blaine smirked.
Kurt threw a creamer packet at Blaine's head. "Shut up you overly gelled Pilipino elf." Kurt shoots back.
"Oh wait I forget how well you and rosy palmer get on." Blaine teases.
"Fuck you Anderson."
"We almost tried that remember? Then, suddenly…Karofsky. You and this Rider? Yes, no, maybe so?"
"Just…maybe." Kurt takes a fortifying gulp of coffee and is pulled backward through time.
-/-/-/-
Kurt lays propped on his side content to watch Dave sleep. A shaft of light just above Dave's shoulder plays host to a column of dancing dust motes and the morning light slowly eats away darkness.
"We have to talk about it you know?" Dave says without moving or opening his eyes.
"About what? Painting? I'm really starting to loathe this gray." he gestures to the slate gray army issue paint.
Dave opens his eyes and smirks. "Baby,"
"No!" Kurt harrumphs and turns on to his stomach. "If we talk about it, it's like you're saying like it's going to happen and I just can't…our child is snoring in the next room and our life is as perfect as it's ever been. Please don't fuck with it."
Dave walked his fingers up Kurt's spine. "Kurt we aren't guaranteed shit. I love you god knows I do and it drives me bat shit insane to think of you with someone else but if the time comes…" Dave clears his throat.
"If the time comes when I'm not here to love you as you deserve to be loved. I need to know that you'll move on and be happy again. Don't wait twenty damn years like Burt and Carole either. Promise me Fancy,"
"You aren't being fair!" Kurt sniffled into his pillow. "You're making me promise something that doesn't exist no one else is you."
Dave chuckles "Can I get that in writing." He jokes.
Kurt shoots him a withering look. "Right, poor timing sorry babe." he wipes Kurt's tears.
"If it happens, I need that promise Kurt."
"What if I don't know how to let you go?"
"I think it might be a little like falling in love for the first time. You won't know it happened until it already has. Besides you'll have Emmie, you'll never lose me not completely."
"So I just let you go?" Kurt asks looking straight ahead at the wall.
"Yeah, eventually when you are ready." He kisses Kurt's shoulder as a cry sounds from the next room.
Dave's eyes widen comically. "Its alive." he teases. "I'll get her." he adds getting up and moving toward the door.
"David pants are needed."
"Right." he grabs his jeans from the floor. "What would I do without you Fancy?"
"Walk around naked and permanently scar our daughters psyche obviously." Dave laughs and slips on the jeans.
"Just so you know I love you Kurt Hummel." he says and walks out.
"I love you too and its Hummel-Karofsky." he shouts back.
-/-/-/
Kurt is sitting on the stairs to the apartment watching Emmie do cartwheels when Azimio arrives. He climbs up and plants himself down on the step beside Kurt.
"Emmie told Mara somebody asked you out. Had a funky name like Slider Abbot?"
Kurt laughs. "It's Rider Talbot, and yes he asked."
"What'd you say?" Azimio asks eyebrows raising
"I haven't yet." Kurt shrugs.
"You should go, even if you don't like the guy. You should try and get back in the game. You can't live this way on pause waiting for…god I don't know Dave to be undead."
"That was cold." Kurt stares off into the middle distance.
"It's the fucking truth and I'm sorry it hurts dude but I know Dave and if he thought for one second that you'd stop living, he'd of been so pissed…it'd be like the time you washed the lucky red wings jersey times fifty."
Kurt smirked. "He didn't speak to me for two weeks. Man could he pout."
"You like the guy?" Azimio looks at his feet.
"I think so."
"Then give it a try just one date we ain't talkin' marriage. Do it. Dave's fine wherever he is, he loved you like I've never known anyone to love. He'd want it."
"Thanks Az," Kurt nods resolutely.
"Anytime Prince of all things glitter and gay." Azimio smirks.
"That one was creative I gotta say."
"Tell anyone I was nice and I'll punch you."
"Tell anyone I took your advice and I'll exchange your shampoo for pink hair dye." Kurt counters.
The next day Kurt called Rider.
-/-/-/-
The date goes well enough, conversation doesn't lag and their differences are just subtle enough to make it interesting but one thing is abundantly clear to Kurt. Rider is not Dave. He stands on the front stoop cuddled in to his trench coat.
Rider leans down and presses his lips to Kurt's. It's a simple soft lingering kiss that carries a ting of heat to it. Something inside Kurt starts to slip toward enjoyment. He backs away startled by the feeling.
Rider smirks at him. "I couldn't resist." Kurt smiles. "I don't mind a little boldness now and again."
Kurt bids Rider goodnight. Two feelings follow him into the apartment. Guilt and desire.
-/-/-/-
The next morning when he goes to pick Emmie up from her sleep over at his parents Carole corners him in the kitchen.
She slides a cup of coffee to him across the island.
"So how was the date?"
Where's my child?" Kurt sweetens his tea and tries to evade the question.
"Nah uh sweet pea answer."
Kurt sipped his coffee. "It wasn't terrible, it was nice even but, I mean I'd find something I liked and then I'd find something that I liked better about Dave. Rider's funny but Dave's wit was drier, Rider likes soccer, Dave liked hockey, Rider's gorgeous in this very polished way. I like my guys a little rough around the edges more down home. It's all so fucking petty and pointless I know that! I like the guy I do but then, is that enough?"
"And this kiss it was…lovely and for the first time in a long time I felt something more than numbness and it was so terrifying."
"It's never easy at first Kurt. You think I liked Burt right off? No, I was convinced that it'd never be enough that no one would ever fill the hole Christopher left behind, I wasn't totally wrong but I wasn't right either."
"Burt didn't fill any holes but my heart grew and I had room for him, and you. I learned to love again. It's different but no less worthy."
"I don't want to lose all those little pieces of him I carry around."
"You won't I find Christopher every time I look at Finn, when he holds Ryann or looks at Rachel like she's the reason the world spins."
"You can't find him? Look at Emmie and he'll be there." She adds.
Kurt sniffs back tears. "Thank you."
"Not a problem, Emily is upstairs with your father eating M&Ms for breakfast."
"Carole!"
"Blame you're father! He's the one who believed her breakfast of champions spiel." Kurt ran upstairs "Emmie Belle! Papa missed you." He shouted
-/-/-/-
Moving on is difficult for everyone, Kurt feels like there will always be some part of Kurt's heart that died along with Dave. He slowly and surely over time lets himself love Rider.
Aside from the occasional fit of jealousy or the none too subtle reminder that her name is Emily Karofsky-Hummel not just Hummel as Rider refers to her, Emily is fairly accepting of Rider's presence in their lives.
-/-/-/-
Rider is moving in with them a little after their first anniversary. Kurt is taking a box into the bedroom when he hears sniffles emanating from the bathroom.
He sits the box at his feet and nudges the door open. Emmie sits fully dressed in the claw foot tub, chin resting on her up drawn knees. Tears track steadily down her face and it tears at Kurt's heart.
"Em?"
"Sorry Papa, I'm fine." She says hastily wiping her tears.
"No, you aren't." Kurt kneels down next to her on the plush bath mat.
"Tell Papa what's up, please?"
"I don't want to just forget him and I feel like I am, I can't remember his voice or what his hugs feel like."
"Oh Emmie." Kurt threads his fingers comfortingly through her dark locks.
"And it makes it worse that I like Rider. We're replacing him."
Kurt closes his eyes momentarily, praying to a god he didn't believe until he'd met his child.
"We aren't ever going to forget him I swear, I won't forget and neither will you."
"How do you know?"
"Because when someone loves you like Daddy did, it lives forever it doesn't die and nothing kills it not even war. We aren't replacing him baby, we're letting someone else in and that's okay. Now close your eyes." She looked at him skeptically.
"Go on close them." He says and she complies.
"His hugs were tight and warm like being wrapped in a blanket. The kind that made groan they were so strong and heartfelt." He dials up Dave's voicemail.
"Those hugs, they were the very best and its okay to miss them." He gives her phone.
"Now just listen,"
"You have reached Staff Sargent David Karofsky-Hummel I'm unable to come to phone at the moment but leave me message and I'll get back to you. Oh and if this is my Emmie girl, Daddy loves ya Princess."
Tears track down Emmie's face and Kurt's heart is twisting up. She climbs out of the tub and into his lap without a word.
Dave's voicemail beeps into the silence.
-/-/-/-
It's a little chilly for a spring day in North Carolina. Kurt tightens his coat and folds himself to sit Indian style at the foot of David's grave.
"Hey baby," Kurt swallows and breathes deep. He can smell the freesia from two graves over. "I know I broke a promise by coming here but I really couldn't stay away. Ten years of marriage is a big deal. You're gone I know but I wanted to celebrate with you anyway." Kurt removes the tin containing the wishing rocks from their wedding day from his coat. He nestles them by the headstone.
"I went traditional with the Tin and all. Go ahead and roll your eyes where ever you are. I know you want too." Kurt sniffs back tears.
"Jesus do I miss you. Every single day. You know those stones from our wedding we had people write their hopes for us on and drop in that fountain?"
Kurt's laugh is thick and wet sounding from his tears. "The ones I made you fish out the next day, well they're in that tin. I'm giving them to you because I love Rider as completely as I ever will and I know we've only been together two years but he makes me happy. He makes Emmie happy. He makes her laugh and smile. I think I love him most for that." Kurt sighs.
"Anyway baby, it feels wrong to carry around our hopes and dreams when I'm making a life with someone else. So I'll leave them here with you for safe keeping."
"Besides, our dream? It lives and has your beautiful face." Kurt smiles sadly.
"I know you're so proud of her and see all that she does. Isn't she the smartest most beautiful thing you've ever seen? She amazes me daily." Kurt wipes his runny nose inelegantly on his sleeve.
"She wants do something special in your honor so, we're going to light these floating lanterns dad found write messages on them and send them up over the beach." Kurt titled his head in thought.
"She won't let me read her message so just if you could send her a sign that you got it." Kurt stands and kisses his fingertips and places them on the cool headstone.
"I'll be seeing you." He walks away.
-/-/-/-
They are all huddled together on the beach. Emily leaning into him and Rider's arm a comfortable weight on his shoulder. Carole is standing within the circle of his dad's arms. Finn and Rachel stand together fawning over baby Ryann who's amazed by the lantern. Azimio reaches over and ruffles Emmie's hair.
She cuts a look at him that is so very Karofskian Kurt just has to laugh.
"What?" Emmie says.
"Nothing baby, that's just a very old and well known scowl."
They watch the lantern rise higher and higher like a flying ember over the ocean.
Kurt isn't sure what anyone else wrote but Kurt has his script memorized. "I love you. I miss you. No regrets."
If Kurt closes his eyes and concentrates he can see Dave's face and hear his words. "I love you back Fancy."
Kurt opens his eyes to look skyward again. There in the inky black sky two stars shoot across the sky side by side.
"Look Emmie!" he points to the sky and the moving stars. "I think Daddy's saying hi!" Kurt smiles. He squats in the sand next to Emmie and the watch the stars until they can no longer see them.
Today, despite everything Kurt is more than okay, he's happy.
AN: This is it ladies and gents. Thanks so much for all the reviews alerts and long standing support of 21 Gun! I plan to be back with more Kurtofsky soon so keep an eye out for me. Thanks Again, Meghan.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but Emily Belle Karofsky-Hummel.