Little Kurt is eight years old when he gets a phone call from Blaine one Sunday morning. He's immediately confused because Blaine never calls on Sundays. They always spend Sundays at home with their families (even though Blaine doesn't like his).

"H'lo?" Kurt answers the phone.

"Kurt?"

"Blaine?"

"C-can you and your mom or dad come get me?"

"What's wrong, Blaine?" Kurt asks because Blaine sounds really, really worried.

"M-my dad's been drinking all – all night and he's yelling and throwing things and he…he…"

"He what?" Kurt prompts. "What happened?"

"I don't know what happened, but he hit my mom real hard and she won't wake up."

Kurt's heart froze. "Is she…is she still breathing?"

"Yeah," Blaine says quietly and Kurt immediately sighs in relief.

"Did your dad hurt you?" Kurt asks because he's terrified.

"A – a little. But I'm okay, just…please, please come get me. Please, Kurt, I'm really scared…"

And then he hears Blaine crying on the other end of the phone and he hates it when Blaine cries.

"I'll tell my mom and dad, okay? We'll be there real soon. It's gonna be okay."

"Okay," Blaine whispers.

Kurt hangs up the phone and rushes into the living room. "We have to go get Blaine, his dad hurt him!"

"What?" his dad asks in shock. "What happened?"

Both of his parents are already standing up and his dad snatches his car keys off the kitchen table.

"His dad drank a lot and Blaine said he…he hit his mom and he said he hurt him too, but he didn't say how."

"Kurt, you need to stay here with your mother," his dad says.

"No! He's my friend! He said I needed to-"

"Kurt, honey, your dad's right," his mom says, pulling him into a hug.

"No! Let me go! I wanna see him!" Kurt cries, trying to pry his mother's hands off him. "I wanna see Blaine!"

"You will, sweetie," his mom says, trying to calm him down as his dad walks out the front door.

"No! No! Blaine said he'd always be my friend! I have to go help him!"

"Kurt, this isn't something you need to be involved in, this is something that requires an adult. Blaine might need to go to the hospital."

"Mom, please! Let me go, please!"

Kurt's pleading, he's begging to see his friend, why won't they let him go help? He can help, he can! He's struggling against his mom's grip but she won't leave him alone.

"Please," Kurt whimpers, crying so hard that he's having trouble breathing. "Please, mommy, I need to see him."

"I know, baby, I know. You'll see him soon, I promise."

But Kurt doesn't get to see Blaine.

His dad comes home later that afternoon and Kurt's asleep on the end of the couch, his head in his mother's lap. His dad kneels down in front of him and shakes him awake.

"Kurt," he says quietly.

"Dad?" Kurt asks sleepily. "Where's Blaine? Didn't he come home with you?"

"No," his dad says, shaking his head. "Kiddo, Blaine was taken away by child protective services."

Kurt sits up quickly because he doesn't know what that means. All he hears is 'Blaine was taken away'.

"Who're they? What's that mean? Where's Blaine?"

"Kurt, his dad was very abusive and his mother was neglectful. He couldn't stay there anymore," his dad explains.

"So he can come live with us, right?" Kurt asks hopefully. "He's here all the time anyway, he can share my room. He can! We can be brothers and-"

"No, honey, it doesn't work that way," his mother says softly.

"I don't understand," Kurt whimpers. "I don't understand."

He's got tears pouring down his little red face now and he wipes them away angrily. Blaine is his friend and who are these people that are trying to take him away?

"Blaine's going to get a new family," his dad says. "A better family than his old one."

"But what if – what if they take him away from here and I don't get to see him again?"

"Don't worry," his dad tells him. "I'll make sure we know where Blaine's new family is."

"Kurt? Baby, did you know something was wrong with Blaine's dad?" his mother asks. "We know his family didn't have a lot of money, but is there something else?"

Kurt bites his lip so hard that it almost starts to bleed and his dad reaches up to pull it from between his teeth.

"Kurt, answer your mother," his dad says.

"It's a secret, I'm not supposed to tell," Kurt tells them. "I made a promise."

"Sometimes secrets need to be told," his mom says. "Sometimes if you tell a secret, it can help someone."

"But – but they already took him away," Kurt tries to reason. He doesn't want to betray his friend's trust. He swore. "It doesn't matter if I tell."

"Exactly," his dad says quickly. "So it's okay for you to tell us now."

Oh. Well, when his dad put it like that, it kind of made sense. If they already took Blaine away and they already knew how bad his parents were to Blaine, it'd be okay to tell the secret. Right?

"Blaine told me…it was a long time ago, but he told me his dad drank lots of beer and one time he threw a chair at him," Kurt confesses quietly. "But he didn't want people to think he was bad because he talked back and you're not ever supposed to talk back. But he did and so his dad did that."

Kurt's parents share a lengthy gaze before turning back to him. He doesn't know what the look means.

"Kurt, if someone tells you something like that ever again, about their parents hurting them, you need to tell us right away."

"You have to promise," Kurt's mom adds. "You need to promise us."

Kurt does so, but all the while he's thinking that promises seem really hard to keep now.

Kurt waits for weeks.

And weeks.

And weeks.

He cries himself to sleep every night for almost a month and his poor little eight year old heart almost breaks inside his chest. Blaine said he'd never leave. He said he'd always be around but he's not and Kurt doesn't know what to do with himself. He's sad when he wakes up and he's sad at school and he doesn't even yell at the boys who throw him around or say mean things to him at recess. School ends for the year and summer starts and he just doesn't think he can have any fun at all ever again.

There was even a day where Kurt had been allowed to go visit Blaine but his dad said that Blaine had told the people that he was staying with (Kurt couldn't remember the proper name) that he didn't want to see Kurt right now.

Kurt felt sick and he had torn off the friendship bracelet he had made himself. His dad had tried to tell him that Blaine didn't want to see him because his face was still probably bruised the way it had been when his dad had found him. But Kurt didn't believe that. All he could think was that Blaine had lied.

He lost his best friend.

Things change, however, when he gets a knock at his front door a few weeks later. His mom opens the door and he hears a familiar voice.

"Is Kurt home?"

Kurt rushes out of the kitchen and stops at his mom's side.

"Hi, Kurt," Blaine says with a small smile.

Kurt can't speak.

"Blaine, why don't you come in," Kurt's mom says, stepping aside to allow Blaine in their house before closing the door. "Do you want something to drink?"

"No thank you," Blaine says. "I just want to talk to Kurt."

"Alright. Kurt, you can take him to your room."

Kurt wants to scowl at his mother because he's really mad right now, but he simply huffs and lets Blaine follow him into his room.

"I live across the street now," Blaine says as Kurt seats himself on his bed. "So we can play lots more."

"Why would you wanna play with me?" Kurt snaps. "You only left me for weeks and weeks and weeks."

"I'm sorry," Blaine says, hanging his head. "I didn't…I didn't like the place I was in and I didn't want you to be there. I didn't want you to see that."

"I just wanted to see you," Kurt responds. "I didn't care where you were."

"They made me talk to this doctor," Blaine tells him. "I talked to him every day while I was gone. He made me think about you and…he said that I was probably just embarrassed."

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't want you to see me hurt. You told me that one time that it makes you feel bad when you see me hurt and I didn't want to make you feel bad. And I looked…I looked bad. I had bruises that lasted for a long time and I had a broken wrist."

"But I missed you so much," Kurt admits freely, hanging his head in his hands as he begins to cry again. "You were my best friend."

"I missed you too," Blaine says, seating himself next to Kurt and pulling his hands down from his face. "And you're still my best friend. I thought about you like, every day. But now I live across the street with a nice new family that gives me lots of clothes and food and they don't hurt me at all."

"What happened to your mom and dad?" Kurt sniffles. "Where'd they go?"

"I think they put my dad in jail," Blaine says quietly. "And my mom…she doesn't even want me anymore. She's not allowed to see me anyway, but she doesn't…want me."

"But…they're your parents," Kurt says because parents are parents and he didn't know what he'd do if his mom and dad didn't want him anymore. "I didn't know parents could just…give you up like that."

"Me neither. But I'm glad. My new family's way better. And guess what?"

"What?"

"I get to go to the same school as you now!"

"Really?" Kurt asks hopefully.

"Yeah! It'll be lots of fun! We can sit together at lunch and play together at recess and we can be best friends everywhere now!" Blaine says excitedly.

"That's good," Kurt nods, still sniffling a little. "I…I need to tell you something, though."

"What?"

"That day…when they took you away, my parents made me tell them the secret. About your dad throwing the chair at you. The secret from a long time ago."

"Oh," Blaine nods, quite sagely for his eight years. "I told the doctor about that. And I told him I made you promise not to tell. He said it wasn't right to make you keep a secret like that. Now I wish I didn't do it because I feel bad."

"It's okay," Kurt shrugs. "Best friends tell each other everything. But my mom and dad said if anyone told me stuff like that again I had to tell them. I think if I'd told 'em before that…well…that maybe you wouldn't have been hurt by your dad so bad later."

"It's not your fault," Blaine says swiftly. "I made you promise. I never should've made you promise. I should've told someone."

"I guess," Kurt says a bit reluctantly.

They're silent, looking down at their entwined fingers when Blaine suddenly notices something is missing from Kurt's wrist.

"Where's – where's your friendship bracelet?" Blaine asks sadly. "I never took mine off once."

Kurt frowns and he almost begins to cry again but he's proud of himself when he doesn't.

"I broke it," Kurt admits. "I thought…I thought you'd left me forever."

Blaine's quiet for a long while and then he pulls Kurt into a hug.

"Well it's okay because I'm back now and you can always make another one."

Their lives change drastically after that. They see each other pretty much every single day for the rest of the summer and Blaine seems a lot happier. Kurt and his parents go over to Blaine's new house to have dinner with his new mom and dad (though Blaine doesn't call them mom and dad yet, it's too weird, he says). Kurt thinks they're very nice people. They smile a lot.

They attend school together and even though they're not in the same class, they still see each other at lunch and they play pretend at recess pretty much every day.

But now they both get pushed around by a bunch of other boys. It isn't fun and it isn't nice because Kurt wants to stick up for Blaine since Blaine's the new kid and he's still really small for their age. Blaine doesn't say anything about it. All he says to Kurt is that everyone else is jealous that they don't have best friends like Kurt and Blaine have each other.

Kurt thinks this is a very good point.

It turns out that Blaine's really, really smart and he gets good grades on everything, even better than Kurt. But Kurt's not jealous because Kurt knows that he helped make Blaine super smart because they used to go to the library on the weekends and Kurt would teach him everything he knew.

Despite a few playground bullies, Kurt thinks his life can't get any more perfect than it already is.

Until tragedy strikes the Hummel household one afternoon.

Kurt and Blaine were sitting in Blaine's room, side by side on the floor, while they colored in one of Blaine's new coloring books. Kurt's mom was at the store (she's been gone for a really long time, Kurt thinks) and he and Blaine were talking about what color they should make the castle's flag in the book when Blaine's new mom knocks on his bedroom door.

"Kurt, honey," she begins, "your dad is downstairs."

"I thought my mom was gonna come back and get me," Kurt states as he replaces the crayon he was using back in the box.

"I…you should…just come downstairs."

Kurt's little brow furrows in confusion, but he shrugs and they all make their way downstairs. Kurt's dad is sitting on the sofa in Blaine's living room. His baseball cap is off and he's got his head resting on his palms.

"Dad?" Kurt asks, moving to stand by his side. "What's wrong?"

His dad lifts his head and…oh no. His eyes are all red and he's crying.

"What…why are you crying?"

His dad swallows heavily and takes a hold of Kurt's shoulders. He maneuvers him around to stand in front of him.

"Kurt," his dad says, "there…was an accident. A car accident."

"Oh, that's not good. Are you okay? You don't look hurt."

"No, it wasn't…Kurt, I wasn't in the accident. It was your mom."

Kurt freezes and for some reason, he looks to the front door as if he expects his mom to walk through at any moment.

"Wh-where is she?" Kurt asks, almost hesitantly. "Is she okay? Is she at the hospital? Do we need to go visit her? What-"

"Kurt," his father interrupts him. "Stop."

"But where is she? I don't understand."

His father lowers his head for a long moment and then looks Kurt straight in the eyes.

"Kurt, your mom…the accident was really, really bad. She…" his dad pauses and takes a deep, quivering breath, "…she died."

Kurt stands there, blinking rapidly. He doesn't move. He doesn't even know if he's really breathing because he feels like this is all some horrible nightmare.

And then he begins shaking.

"Sh-she's dead?" he asks in the slightest of whispers.

His dad nods slowly.

"Just…just like that?" Kurt needs to know.

"I'm so sorry, Kurt," his father says, his voice cracking. "There was nothing any of the doctors could do. She died on site."

"She's gone?"

"Yeah, buddy. She's gone."

Kurt collapses in a heap of strangled sobs.