A/N: I usually forget to put one of these on until I've already uploaded the chapter! Thank you for all of the great reviews. This chapter is a little early, but I'm trying to get caught up on this story myself.

For those who asked, this story will go through season one. I'm currently working on chapter 43, so it will be very long. Who wants to make a bet on how long it takes before our wonderful boys actually have sex?

Kurt POV

"I think Mr. Shue is like, repressed or something." Finn tossed the football to Puck, who lobbed it across the room to Mike. "He's barely even showing up for Glee."

I was perched on the piano, pretending that I wasn't staring at the muscles moving under Finn's T-shirt. Mercedes, who was leaning next to me, snorted. "It's depressed, not repressed, Zac Efron."

"Yeah, that too." He gave her one of his adorable grins, and I had to fight back a lovesick sigh. "I wonder what his problem is."

I leaned back on my elbows. "I think he's divorcing his wife."

"He is." Quinn's voice was very soft, barely carrying over from where she sat alone, her hands resting on her stomach. "He already moved out. No counseling, no second chance, no marriage."

"How come?" Finn caught the football and held it, his dark eyes curious. "I mean, she's kind of psycho and all that, but that isn't anything new. She was crazy back when we did Acafellas, too."

With as much attention as I paid to one Finn Hudson, I couldn't believe that I had managed to miss the entire Acafellas thing. Finn in a tux? Yes, sir.

Quinn sighed, looking down at her stomach. "He found out that she was lying about being pregnant. She's not."

Finn's forehead creased as he tried to piece that together. "How do you know so much about- oh! Shit."

If Finn could figure it out, so could everyone else. Puck froze, his jaw dropping. "You were going to sell our baby to Shuester? Quinn, I though you said she was getting rich parents who could give her everything! Shit, I probably make what Shuester does just from cleaning pools!"

Her blue eyes narrowed and Finn got out of the line of fire, coming over to stand by me. Because I was still sitting on the piano, we were almost the same height. He leaned his head back and whispered to me. "Here comes the screaming."

Only Quinn didn't scream. She just narrowed her eyes at Puck in a way that made all other conversations cease. When she spoke, it was in a low hiss. "You make more money then Mr. Shue because you whore yourself out to lonely housewives. Pool cleaning? Please, who needs their pool cleaned in November? But that wasn't enough, was it? No, you had to go after me, and ruin my life, too!"

This was the sort of drama you usually only saw on television. Everyone else had completely given up the pretense of not listening, and was now staring. "I hate you Noah Puckerman! I had absolutely everything, and you took it away! I was head Cheerio, now I'm nothing! I had Finn, and now Rachael Berry does. Rachael Berry! I lost the head quarterback to someone who dresses like an 80's woman!" Now she was starting to scream.

"You stole my entire life from me! I hate you, and I hate this baby! Terri Shuester might be a fucking lunatic, but Mr. Shue would have taken good care of her! He would have loved her, which is more then I can say for either one of us! What am I supposed to tell my parents, huh? 'Hi, Mom, hi Dad. I know I'm your perfect little girl and the president of the celibacy club, but guess what? I'm carrying your first grandchild! You know what else? It's half Jewish!' They will kill me, Puck. Then, my father will kill you!"

We all held our breaths, waiting for Puck to scream back. He didn't, though. He didn't do anything but stare at her, looking shocked. I leaned forward, trying to figure out if the shine in his eyes was a reflection or actual tears. When he finally spoke, it wasn't to say anything I would have expected. He just shook his head. "I would have loved her. I already love her. But if her own mother doesn't, it's probably better that you do give her up. I can't love her enough for two." Then he turned and marched out.

It was like he had sucked all the air out of the room with him. Normally anything that made Quinn Fabray cry was alright with me, but Puck's words had hit unexpectedly close to home. Even Puck didn't think that one parent was enough, no matter how much that one parent tried. It was true; not having a mother's love caused damage.

Oh, get over yourself. You had a mother who thought the sun rose and set on you for 8 years, the most formative years of your life. Plus, what should your father have done? Given you away after she died, like you were a puppy that couldn't stop wetting the carpet? He loves you, Kurt. He might be all you have left, but you're all he has left, too.

Everything she was saying was true, but it didn't do much to quell my worries. As much as I knew that there was a world of difference between two teenagers trying to raise a baby that only one of them wanted and neither one knew how to care for and a married woman who was expecting the child she and her husband had been trying for for years, it was still strange to me.

Finn pushed away from the piano. "I need to deal with this." He left the room without waiting for a reply.

Apparently Finn and Puck had come to some kind of truce in between Puck finding him at the playground drunk and him being dropped of at my house. Then again, I guessed that once you had had someone else take care of you while you were puking your guts up, it lead to a certain amount of bonding. I was glad that they were at least taking a few steps towards being friends again, but I really wanted Finn to stay with me. It didn't matter what I had wanted, though, since Finn hadn't even thought to look at me.

Yeah, because he reads minds now, too. If you had wanted him to stay, you should have called after him. Oh, that's right; you can't, because you refuse to let anyone know that you're with him.

Mercedes replaced Finn, shaking her head. "Damn. I never thought I'd say it, but I kind of feel sorry for Puck."

"Me, too." Don't get me wrong, I still hated the man with a passion, but he had been good to Finn, and that made me a tiny bit sympathetic. Plus, I understood what it was like to lose someone you loved.

"Finn will know what to do." I had a lot of confidence in him; more then I would have had in anyone else. Also, he knew Puck, which was a plus.

Her head shook. "I hope so.

Whatever else we might have said was interrupted by Mr. Shue finally appearing, Rachael attached to his side. He looked absolutely exhausted, his eyes shadowed and his shoulders tensed. "Rach, we've been over this three times a day for the past week. I'm sorry the Glee club doesn't have a page in the yearbook, but there's nothing we can do about it. I don't have the money to buy one, and that is final. Now get with the rest of the club." He looked over us without any enthusiasm. "Kurt, get off of the piano, please. It's a musical instrument, not a piece of furniture. And where are Puck and Finn?"

Big mistake. Quinn was still worked up from earlier, and turned her rage on Mr. Shue. "Puck's probably off fucking some other girl. After all, there are five or six that he hasn't been with." She turned to Rachael, and this time there was no mistaking the tears for any sort of reflection. "I would keep an eye on Finn, Babs, or Puck might get to him, too. God knows Finn is stupid enough to go along with it."

Then she was storming out, too, the door slamming behind her. Artie raised an eyebrow at the noise. "We finally got Rachael to quit doing that, now Quinn is. Don't you girls have any other ways to express displeasure?"

Tina gave him an evil glare. "Do you really want the answer to that? I can cut you off, don't think I won't."

"Sorry." He pushed his glasses back up on his nose and looked appropriately ashamed.

Mr. Shue slammed his book down. "We can't have practice if a quarter of the club is missing. If you guys aren't going to put in the effort, I'm not going to either. Go home, all of you. We'll practice tomorrow, if all of you can be bothered."

His storming out was less dramatic then Quinn's, but it was much sadder. Mr. Shue loved Glee more then anything in the world, enough that he had kept on teaching with only five kids. The fact that he wouldn't even try right now, with nine, told me just how unhappy he was.

Rachael stared after him a look of pure desperation on her face. Then she turned to the rest of us. "Finn and Puck might still come back, and we need to be practicing when they do. There is no excuse for the club falling apart now, not when we need each other, and the trophy, more then ever. I don't care if the rest of you like me or not, but we need to keep it together for Mr. Shue. If he can see us succeed, it will help raise his spirits and make him believe in us again. Also, I am not dating Finn, so there is no reason for me to keep an eye on him, other then the fact that he is still quite attractive and I will be getting him back after I refind myself."

Oh, I wouldn't bet on that, bitch.

Everyone looked at me, and I for a second I thought I had actually channeled Galinda and spoken out loud. Rachael glared. "What are you giggling about, Kurt? Self discovery is very important, and I have to make myself as perfect as possible so I will have more energy to help improve my partner."

Why, Rachael, that's lovely. Unfortunately, Finn is also going through some self discovery, and his self discovery involved a few revelations about his sexuality. More specifically, he's mine now! Well, mine and Kurt's but Kurt's a wimp when it comes to sex, so I get him there.

"Whatever, Rach." I jumped lightly off the piano and took my place, making sure that I did it with the perfect mix of disdain and arrogance.

Most of the time, Rachael is about as dense as Finn, at least when it comes to someone else having the audacity to think that she might not be perfect, but she understood me this time and gave me an evil look.

I took my place on the risers, settling down next to Mercedes and primly crossing my legs. Something was nagging at me, so I mentally reran what had happened today. When it finally hit me, it didn't surprise me that it all came back to Finn. He had dated both Quinn and Rachael, and they had both brought him up today. Except they really hadn't.

Quinn had been upset about losing the head quarterback, more specifically because she had lost him to Rachael. She wasn't sad to have lost him because he was sweet, or because he had taken care of her and baby Drizzle as best he could, even pretending to be in a wheelchair to make more money. She hadn't brought up the gentle way he touched her, or how he put up with her constant badgering. No, she had lost her status symbol.

It was much the same with Rachael. The first thing that came to her mind was that Finn was attractive. Again, not sweet, not caring. Nothing about the way he patiently learned song after song with her; listening calmly to a thousand suggestions that didn't end up making things sound much different then they had the first time around. Again, it was about status, not about Finn. In her eyes, he was in desperate need of improvement, rather then being great exactly how he was.

If I lost Finn I wouldn't care that he had been good looking, or the head quarterback, or that he could sing. I would miss the way he smiled when he finally got something right, a quick twitch of first one side of his mouth, then the other, then finally both sides at once. I wouldn't care about losing the sex (ok, that was a lie, I would care a whole lot about losing the sex), but I would care about not having him rub my back afterwards as I was dozing off. It would kill me to be without his big hugs and his stupid little nicknames and the way he would rest his chin on the top of my head and sigh softly, like he was perfectly content with exactly what he had.

You love him, they didn't. Does this really surprise you, Kurt?

No, not really. I didn't understand how anyone could look at Finn and not see how great he really was. Maybe it was a girl thing. You know, maybe ovaries make them stupid?

Mercedes handed me a stack of music. "Here she goes again. Want to ditch and go to the mall?"

Much as it pained me, I had to admit that Rachael was probably right this time. We had to pull it together for Mr. Shue, if for no other reason. "Can't. Finn and I have plans." I thought and revised it. "If he comes back, that is."

"Oh, sexy." She held up a fist and I gave it a quick bump.

"We're going to the cemetery, it's not sexy." I flipped through the music, less then thrilled. It never failed to amaze me that Rachael could be so talented, yet be completely unable to choose a decent piece of music.

This had to be the least enthusiastic practice ever. Despite knowing that we needed to do this, for everyone's sake, I just couldn't summon any joy. I wished that Mr. Shue would come back, but he didn't. If he ditched us now, it was over.

We were all so quiet that it was easy to hear the click of the door opening again. Puck walked back in the door, followed closely by Finn. There were no tear marks on his face, and his eyes weren't red, but there was a hollowness there that I had seen way too often in the mirror. It was a look that said you were three steps beyond exhaustion and couldn't handle any more. I looked past him to Finn, who was glaring at us all with a steely 'don't say anything' look. Despite everything that had happened between them, they were sticking together now.

Having them back didn't do much for the general attitude of the club, though. Even Rachael gave up eventually, telling us we could all go home if we weren't going to work any harder then that. Finn gave me a quick smile and asked me to hold up for a few minutes, so he could get his football stuff together. He must have read my face, because he gave me a quick laugh. "You don't have to go in, Spider Monkey. I'll just meet you at your car."

"Fine, but if you take longer then 15 minutes, I'm leaving without you and you can walk home."

"Ok." Then he was gone, leaving me shaking my head. Finn had two speeds: fast and asleep.

A rough hand closed on my shoulder and I pulled away sharply. "This shirt is dry clean only, so I would appreciate you not wrinkling it."

Puck raised one eyebrow and cocked his head. It was a silently intimidating look and I found myself backing down a little. Not much, since he already knew about Finn and I and seemed surprisingly cool with it, but enough. "What do you want, Puck?"

He smirked and gave me the patented Noah Puckerman grin, the one that tended to make Cheerios fall over on their backs for him. I would be lying if I said it didn't do a little something for me as well, though I would die before saying it out loud. "You're good for him."

"What?" That was the last thing I had expected to hear.

"Finn. You're good for him. He seems really happy ever since the two of you started making the beast with two backs. Can't say I would want to take it up the ass, but apparently it works for him."

I gave a strangled squeak, and he gave me a searching look. "Why, Hummel, you've become quite the blushing maiden. Are you two not fucking yet? Funny, I would have pegged you as more of a 'get it while the getting's good' sort of guy."

"I am not discussing my sex life with you. You seem to have more then enough of one to occupy any four typical men."

He visibly puffed up. "That's true. But Finn is still my boy, and he's obviously too stupid to make good dating choices on his own, so I have to step in sometimes."

"By sleeping with Quinn?" One of these days my mouth was going to get me in big trouble. I noticed that Puck had called Finn stupid, just like Quinn had, but it seemed different. Puck made it sound affectionate; Quinn made it sound like Finn was a mess.

"That was a huge mistake, and I wouldn't have done it if I had known how much she meant to him, just like I wouldn't lay a finger on you now. Well, that and the whole taking it up the ass thing." He thumped my shoulder again, and this time I didn't say anything. "You love him, and you've been taking good care of him. So when this all blows up, and it will, I've have both of your backs. Later, chick."

Watching him go, I had to admit that it hadn't taken long for Puck to get his trademark swagger back. He stopped in the doorway and grinned. "So? Go get your boy."

Finn wasn't there when I made it out to the car, even though I was right at the fifteen minute mark. I wasn't going to leave him here, and we both knew it, but usually he listened to me pretty well. I started the engine so I would have some heat and waited.

It took almost another 15 minutes for him to show, storming across the parking lot and kicking up snow. His head was down and he flung himself into the passenger seat. "You, ok, Cowboy?"

"Yeah." He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Are we still going to the cemetery?"

"If you want." He nodded and I rubbed his thigh affectionately, causing him to smile bit and touch my hand. Whatever was wrong with him, his mood seemed to be lifting.

I always felt nervous about going to the cemetery, even though there was no reason for it. Everyone in there was dead and gone, no threat to me. I didn't believe in any sort of God or afterlife, so I didn't think that my mother was looking down on me and judging me for anything that I did. Maybe it was that every horror movie I had ever seen (all four of them, and those four had caused more then enough nightmares) started out in one

It wasn't until we were actually at the cemetery that he turned to face me head on and I saw the black mark running across his right cheek. "Finn Hudson, what happened to your face?"

"Oh, uh…" His hand came up and touched right at the mark, so I knew that he was aware of it. "It's just marker, no big deal."

"Do I even want to know how you smeared marker all over your face?" Even as I asked, I was rummaging around in my bag for something to clean it off with. I finally located a moist towelette and unbuckled my seatbelt so I could use it to wipe his face. His eyes fluttered shut in obvious contentment as I tended to him. Luckily, most of the marker came off with a couple passes, and a second towelette took care of the remainder. "There you go." I kissed the spot I had just wiped, making him smile again.

"Thanks, Dude." He opened the door, shivering as the cold air rushed in. "So, do you want to come with me, or do you want to do a little visiting of your own? It's cool if you would rather say hi to your Mom by yourself."

"Would you rather have some privacy?" I wasn't sure what he wanted or needed right now.

His head cocked. "No, it's alright."

This was embarrassing, but as long as he had already told me that it was alright, I thought I might as well tell him the truth. "I'm a little nervous being in a cemetery by myself."

Another sage nod. "Zombies?"

"Kind of." And vampires, and werewolves, and truck-smashed toddlers that could become evil and crawl out of their coffins, anything else that could conceivably be hanging around with sharp teeth and claws.

He slipped an arm around my shoulders. "I'll protect you. Anyway, you have the car keys, so I'll just hold them off long enough for you to escape."

I was grateful for the chance to snuggle into his warmth. Finn is like a furnace, throwing off enough heat for both of us, no matter how cold it is outside. He started off to the right, clearly knowing exactly where he was going. We walked for a few minutes before he took a careful step off the path. "Right here."

His Dad had a nice headstone. It wasn't huge, but it had nice writing with a picture of an American flag above the dates. Below his name and dates of birth and death were the simple words 'You Are Loved.'

"That's a nice thing to put." I might as well have been talking to myself for all the attention Finn was paying me. He let his arm drop as he stepped forward to trace the letters in his fathers name with a finger. He didn't say anything for a long time; though I was sure he was saying plenty to himself.

Finally he got it all sorted out. "Hi, Dad, it's me. Uh, I haven't come here for a while, but I do talk to you at home, so that has to count for something, right? Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I know everything now, that you killed yourself and didn't die over in Iraq like they told me you did. Mom told me about everything, stuff I bet she didn't tell anyone else, ever. So, I'm kind of confused right now. I mean, no one is who they said they were, not even you, and everyone lied to me. It's kind of freaking me out, to be honest."

I wondered if I should step a polite distance away and let him have his moment alone with his Dad. I started to move, which caught Finn's attention and made him shake his head. He wanted me here, even if he wasn't acknowledging me right now. "But Mom said something else, too. She said that you were really good at living in the moment, just like me. You didn't let the past worry you too much, except at the very end, I guess, and you didn't worry too much about the future. So that's what I'm going to do, ok? I'm just going to accept that what happened happened 15 years ago, and that's too far back to change how I feel about Mom right now. Ever since that, she's been the best Mom ever. So I'm going to forgive you for what you did, and her for lying to me about it, because now is now, and I can't live in the past. I still love both of you, forever."

It was such a simple, heartfelt, little speech that it almost brought tears to my eyes. Finn was a genuinely good person, and, even though he had had to think hard about everything, he was willing to move on from what could have destroyed him.

I thought Finn was done, but he gestured slightly at me. "So, this is Kurt, and he's my boyfriend. I mean, I guess you already know about that, since you can see everything that I do, and, by the way, could you maybe look the other way when I'm doing stuff to him? Thanks, that would be great. Anyway, I don't know what you would say about him, but I think you'd like him a lot. So, that's what's new with me, I guess not much is new with you. Mom is dating Kurt's dad, which is kind of weird, but kind of not, it's hard to decide. But she thinks you'd be alright with it, so I'm going to go along with her on that."

He stood up and patted the headstone gently. "I love you lots and lots and I'm really trying to make you proud of me, even though I screw just about everything. But I'm trying really hard not to screw it up with Kurt, just like you tried really hard with Mom. So, I guess I'll see you when I get home. I know, it's kind of weird, you know, you being in two places at once, but Mom says you're everywhere, all the time, which is even weirder. So I guess I didn't need to come here, I could have just talked to you at school, but I like having something to look at when I talk, even if it isn't you at all because you're in Heaven. Yeah, that's it."

I put out my hand, wishing I had thought to wear gloves. Damn it, my skin was going to be all chapped and rough. Then Finn's hand enclosed mine, and the gloves were forgotten. If I had remembered them, then I wouldn't be able to feel the calluses on his palm from playing football, or the soft way his fingernails raked across my hand as he tried to get a gentle grip. He pulled me closer and I used my free arm to give him a quick squeeze. He squeezed back. "Do you want to see your Mom?"

Suddenly, I did. Usually I avoided her grave, because, when I saw it, all I could think about was standing next to it in my tiny little suit and watching them put her in the ground. But Finn had been so calm and brave about seeing his father that I didn't feel like I could do any less. "Yes." My voice was unexpectedly small, and he squeezed my hand again.

I wasn't as familiar with the cemetery as Finn was, but I knew that Mom was next to a tree with a bench by it, and I used that to get my bearings. The stone was bigger then the one for Finn's father, due to a larger verse that her parents and my aunt insisted on and Dad and I hated. It was a sappy thing, and had nothing to do with the woman she had been. Or at least the woman Dad claimed she had been. If I had learned nothing else from this weekend, I had learned that people aren't always who you think they are, no matter how close you were. I cleared my throat once, then twice, but couldn't make myself speak. I looked at Finn. "I don't know what to say to her."

He nodded. "Can I try?"

"Sure." I was curious to know what he might have to say to a woman he had never met and who had been dead for 8 years now.

"Hi, Mrs. Hummel, I'm Finn. I'm Christopher's kid, if you know him. Anyway, I've been kind of taking care of Kurt when he needs it, which is pretty often, so you don't need to worry about him, ok? Oh, and I like your name, too. That's what my Mom and Dad would have called me if I had been a girl."

I was again struck by the easy way that he spoke to both of our parents. It was just like he was talking to a real person who was standing right in front of him. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?" He seemed genuinely curious, and I found myself smiling at him. "Just talk to her, like she's right there."

"Well, she is, isn't she? I mean, it's not like my Dad's grave, where there's nothing in there but an empty coffin."

I tightened my hold on his hand. "Her body is, but you do it like it's her, not just the body."

"She's there too, right with the body." He was calm and confident. "I mean, she can see you from where she is, but you can't see her, so it's better to talk to the gravestone. You know, just so you have somewhere to look."

This could be a problem. "I don't believe in God or Heaven. Her spirit isn't anywhere. Her body is in the ground and nowhere else."

"Well, duh. If her body was somewhere else, she would be a zombie an there would be a lot more screaming going on." He brushed the snow off of the bench and sat down.

I sat next to him and cuddled against his body, desperately wanting him to explain this to me in a way that made sense. His arm came around me again, and his breath fogged as he breathed quietly. "You know what I meant, Finn."

"Yeah, I do. It's like this, Kurt…." He stopped there and sat, obviously trying to think. "Look, I don't know how to say this. I can think it, and almost understand it, but I don't know how to say it to you. Can I think about it for a minute?"

"Sure." I pressed close, watching the wind kick up the snow around us. It was oddly beautiful, set against the grey of the sky and gravestones. Because of the cold and time of day, Finn and I were the only ones here, and the silence was strange, but not unwelcome. This way I would be able to hear the zombies or werewolves if they came sneaking up on us.

Finn turned my head so he could give me a gentle kiss on the lips. "Ok, I'm ready."

"Please, Cowboy, enlighten me with your religious wisdom." My tone was somewhere between biting and pleading. I didn't have much faith in his ability to explain any of it, but I desperately wanted him to.

"Ok, do you believe that your Mom had a soul? You know, something that made her special, different from everyone else? I guess you could call it a spirit, too."

"Yes." Someone was wonderful as my mother must have had something special about her.

"Well, what happened to it when she died? You just told me that it didn't stay with her body." He was watching me now, his eyes intense.

Here we went again. Someone found out that I didn't believe in Heaven, and they pulled out the old 'well, where is your mother's soul now' trick. "Well, I'm sure that it didn't float up into the sky where it stood before St. Peter and is now drifting among the sky with a bunch of fat flying babies." I was getting irritated, and it showed in my voice.

"I think they're called cherry-ups, for some weird reason. And I didn't say that it went up there, either. I was just asking where you thought it did go."

"I don't know. I guess it just left her body and broke apart after she died." I didn't know if I wanted to keep talking about this. It was just making me feel like crying. I laid my head on his chest, just so I wouldn't have to look him in the eyes.

"So, if it broke apart after she died, it is everywhere, isn't it? On the ground and in there air and in the trees and stuff, right? Like trillions and trillions of little pieces of her."

That was deeper thinking then I would have ever given him credit for. Actually, it was deeper thinking then I would have given 99.9% of the population, including myself. "I guess that makes sense." Actually, it made a lot of sense. Plus, it was comforting without being patronizing.

He nodded. "Plus, you came out of her, so you have some of her spirit in you, too. So you could talk to yourself in the mirror, and you would be talking to her at the same time." Then he gave me a quick nudge. "But I think you spend enough time looking at yourself in the mirror, so maybe that's not a good idea."

His words made me laugh a tiny bit, but it was mostly so I didn't start crying. "It's hard work being gorgeous."

"Think of it more like having Harry Potter's wand. The magic is all around you, but the wand focuses it. She's all around you, but the gravestone gives you focus." He grinned, clearly pleased with himself. "Or something like that. Anyway, it shouldn't be hard work for you to be gorgeous. You always look good, even first thing in the morning."

There are times when I agree with the majority opinion that Finn isn't that bright. Not that he doesn't have plenty of other great qualities, with his sweet personality and great body, but he can be pretty thick at times. I mean, come on, he dated first Quinn Fabray then Rachael Berry, how smart can he be?

Then there are times like these, when I thought that he might actually be a genius. Granted, one of those geniuses who couldn't dress himself to save his life, but he had me for that now. The strange thing was, he didn't seem to know the difference between his being stupid and his being smart.

Looking at him right now, I wondered if things would be different for Finn if everyone, including me, gave him more opportunities to think things through, rather then rushing him to speak before he was ready. Maybe his brain didn't work that quickly, but it worked pretty darn well sometimes. I snorted a little and hugged him, pressing my body against the chill of his coat.

Finn gave a startled grunt, clearly surprised by my actions. "Ok, so, did I say something really smart or really, really stupid?"

"Smart. Maybe the smartest thing I've heard in a long time."

"Cool." He patted my back. "So, do you want to talk to her now?"

I wanted to try, which was more then I could have said 10 minutes ago. So I stood up and faced the stone, taking a deep breath. "Hi, Mom, it's Kurt." My voice cracked embarrassingly, and I paused to steady myself. "This is Finn, my boyfriend. My first boyfriend, if you can believe that. I'm hoping that this doesn't surprise you, but I'm guessing you probably knew that I was gay even before you died, since Dad says he knew since I was three years old."

I was talking to a piece of rock that was sitting over a coffin with a dead rotted woman inside. There was nothing about this situation that was sweet and comforting, except all of it was. For the first time, I understood how people fell under the delusion of their loved ones in Heaven, looking down at them. It was a comfort to think that you weren't alone, even if the other person was only in your imagination. "I wanted to tell you that I love you, and I miss you. Dad's dating again, and I want you to know that I won't let him forget you, no matter how much he likes Carol. But I really like her, too. So, I won't call her Mom, but I want to do stuff with her. Plus, Mom, she needs some style tips bad. I mean, like liberated Amish woman bad."

Behind me, Finn snickered. "Dude, that's my Mom you're talking about."

"I know. You are definitely her child, fashion wise."

"Hey!" He knew that he was being insulted, even if he wasn't 100% sure why or how.

"Oh, shush." I came over and gave him a quick kiss. "I'm having a conversation with my mother, you eavesdropper. You aren't allowed to make comments."

He swung his good arm around my waist and pulled me down into his lap for a kiss that could have melted all the snow around us. He rubbed his nose affectionately against mine, his eyes nearly black. Then he pulled back and nudged me back to my feet with a smirk. "Well, I could always give you some privacy. You know, leave you here. Alone." With surprisingly quick movements, he stood and started walking away.

I froze. Finn wouldn't leave me here, in a creepy old cemetery, all by myself, would he? Except he was now 15 feet away and still moving. With every step he took, I could feel the million and one evil creatures living in this cemetery closing in on my back. "Wait!"

Confusion reigned in his eyes as I raced after him, flinging myself into his arms and burying my face against his neck. "Please don't leave me here."

"Aw, Monkey, I wasn't going to. I was just teasing you. Anyway, you still have the keys, so I couldn't leave you here, even if I wanted to. Which I don't. At all. Ever." He shifted his grip, sliding his left hand down my body and around the backs of my legs so he could lift me up.

Even if I lived to be 100, I would never get over the feeling of having Finn lift me like that. He did it like I weighed nothing, cradling me like I would shatter if he was too rough. Plus, it was nice to be face to face for once. He kissed me again, nipping very gently at my lower lip. "You're perfect."

I was far from it. I was snippy and afraid of cemeteries and didn't have any idea how to give a blow job, which might cause a few problems later today. Still, right now, everything seemed perfect. My heart was still hammering against my ribs, but it wasn't from fear any longer.

All too soon, Finn eased me back to the ground. "So, did you say everything you needed to, or do you want to go back?"

"I'm good." Actually, I was better then good. For the first time since she had died, I felt a real connection with my mother, something that went beyond sitting in her bedroom and trying to catch her smell off of the dresser.

"Awesome. So, I was thinking this morning, that maybe I could take you out to dinner tonight? Our last date was really cool, but we need one that's just you and me. Come on, I'll pay and let you pick the place." I couldn't believe it, but he actually looked nervous. Like I could ever say no to Finn, no matter what he was asking.

"Of course. I would love to go on a date with you, and I know the perfect place." I slipped my hand into his. "I'll drop you off at home so you can get changed, then away we go."

He grinned. "Awesome. I have a date."

Hey, Kurt. What do you want to be he's not going to be smiling like that when you introduce him to sushi?

I have her an evil mental smirk. Guess we'll find out, now won't we?