Kurt doesn't remember his dad carrying him back home. He doesn't remember his dad taking off his shoes. He doesn't remember falling asleep in the crook of his arm.

All he knows, when he wakes up, is that he feels empty.

He keeps expecting his mom to walk through the bedroom door and bring them soup like she did that one time he and his dad were really sick one autumn. He's looking at the door, waiting for her to walk in, when his dad wakes up.

"I miss her," Kurt says softly when his dad sits up next to him. "I miss her so much."

"Me too, kiddo."

"What are we supposed to do now?" Kurt asks.

"We gotta keep on living."

Kurt doesn't know if he can do that when it feels like he just got his heart broken a thousand times.

He lies back down.

He just wants to sleep and hope it's all a dream.

Kurt's dad leaves the next day because he says he has to make funeral preparations. Blaine and his new mom come over while he's gone. Kurt's sitting at the kitchen table, using his fork to pick at the cold eggs on his plate.

"Hi, Kurt," Blaine says quietly, sitting down next to Kurt at the table.

"H'lo."

"I'm – I'm really sorry about your mom. She was always so nice to me."

"I feel like I'll be sad for the rest of my life," Kurt tells his friend.

Blaine worries his little lip between his teeth. "I wish I could make you feel better."

"It's okay," Kurt says.

"Do you want me to hold your hand?" Blaine asks. "I always felt better when you held mine."

Kurt nods and drops his fork. He's not hungry anyway. Blaine scoots his chair over and slips his hand into Kurt's. Kurt sighs with relief almost immediately. Blaine's hand is his anchor to good things. He's so glad that Blaine didn't go away forever.

Because his mom did.

And he doesn't know if he could handle losing two people almost all at once.

The funeral is long. The minister guy is talking about a bunch of things that Kurt's not really listening to. All he sees is the casket. His mom's body is inside.

He's never thought of it that way.

They're putting her in the ground.

And when that happens, it's over. There's nothing left but the pictures they have and the smell of her perfume in that dresser she kept in her closet.

He wants to cry. But he's cried so much the past three or four days (he can't even remember) that he thinks he can't cry anymore.

He sees Blaine and his new family standing around the burial site. Blaine's eyes find Kurt's and neither of them wave or smile because this is a funeral and that doesn't seem to be the right thing to do at all. So they simply stare at each other, hazel locked on blue until the minister stops talking and they slowly start to lower the casket into the ground. Kurt wants to stop looking, he doesn't want to see this, but he can't tear his eyes away.

Until Blaine comes over and hugs him really, really tightly. He pulls away just enough so he can tilt his curly little head up and rub his nose against Kurt's.

Kurt smiles ever so slightly and rubs his nose back.

"I'll see you soon," Blaine says when they part.

Kurt nods and watches as Blaine and his new family walk away. He and his dad stand there for a long while in silence.

"She loved you more than you'll ever know, Kurt," his dad says.

"I still love her. A whole lot."

"I know. I love her too."

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we – can we go home?"

His dad holds his hand out and Kurt takes it, relief flooding through him when they turn and walk away. He doesn't want to stand there and watch them pour dirt over his mom's casket. He doesn't want to stand there and look at the headstone. It's over. She's gone. She's never coming back. And eight year old Kurt Hummel feels like he's aged a thousand and one years in the course of three or four days.

The next few months are difficult and they seem to stretch on and on. Kurt often ends up crawling into his dad's bed at night because he feels so lonely without his mom's presence in the house.

The only one who still seems to treat him normally, the only one who doesn't look at him with too much pity or sadness in their eyes, is Blaine, of course. Blaine is always there, ready to play pretend and have tea parties and help make necklaces. Blaine always makes Kurt laugh even when he feels like he shouldn't be laughing quite yet because his mom's still gone and she's still under that headstone in the graveyard.

But Blaine's hand is warm and sure in his and Blaine's eyes are still really pretty and Kurt feels sort of normal with him. He doesn't feel like the eight year old who lost his mom. He just feels like Kurt.

One night, they're having a sleepover at Blaine's. They'd had two sleepovers before, now that Blaine had nice new parents, but this was the first night Kurt was spending away from his home since his mom died. His dad thought it would be good for him to do something he used to like so much.

They're lying in Blaine's bed because Blaine's still small and Kurt's still skinny, so they fit even though it's a twin size. They're laying side by side, heads on pillows and eyes focused on the glow in the dark stars stuck on Blaine's ceiling.

"Blaine?" Kurt asks softly.

"Yeah?"

"Do you…you think it's okay…f-for friends to say, um, for friends to say I love you?"

It kind of worries Kurt when Blaine stays quiet for a few moments too long so he turns on his side to face him. Blaine turns his head and even though it's really dark in the room, there's light from a streetlamp and from the moon pouring in through the window so he can still see his friend's eyes.

"The girls at school say it to each other all the time," Blaine points out. "And they're all friends."

"But I never hear the boys say it."

"Well, yeah," Blaine says with a bit of snark. "That's just 'cause they're all really mean and they don't have super best friends like you and me."

"Yeah," Kurt says softly, his head propped up on his little arm and his other hand is toying with the edge of the blanket that's draped across Blaine's chest.

"Why'd you ask?"

Kurt shrugs, lowering his head to watch the movement of his hand. "After…after my mom…I started thinking about like, how much I loved her and stuff. And then I started thinking about all the other people I love and how much I'd miss them if they ever died. I thought about my dad and lots of my family and then I – I thought about you. But then I didn't know if I was allowed to, you know, say I love you because you're not my family. But you're my very best friend and I'd miss you a lot if you left. So…yeah."

Blaine brought one of his hands up to cover Kurt's nervous fingers on his chest. Kurt's eyes met his once more. Kurt thought Blaine's eyes looked pretty, even in the dark.

"I think it's okay for friends to say I love you. Especially best friends who've been friends for a long time like us."

"You think so?"

"Yeah," Blaine smiled. "I do."

And because Blaine often seemed very wise to Kurt, Kurt nods and says, "Okay."

Blaine's grin widens in the dark. "Okay, you love me? Or okay, you don't love me?"

Kurt ducks his head a tiny bit and attempts to suppress his smile. "Okay, I love you."

When Kurt lifts his eyes again, Blaine's smile is even bigger; it's so big it almost looks like it's taking up his whole face and Kurt thinks he looks like he's glowing.

"I love you too, Kurt."

And then Blaine lifts his head up and nudges their noses together in their secret friendship way and Kurt's a little more happy than sad. So he lies back down next to Blaine and finds his friend's hand under the blanket, squeezing it gently.

"I'm glad you're still here, Blaine," Kurt whispers.

"I'm glad I'm here too," Blaine agrees.

"Goodnight."

"G'night," Blaine replies through a yawn.

They fall asleep quickly, as children often do when they're very tired. Kurt sleeps soundly for a couple of hours until he wakes up suddenly, much like he's been doing at home lately, and looks around the room. He realizes he isn't at home and he knows he can't crawl into his dad's bed and sleep in the crook of his arm so he turns away from his sleeping friend, curls up into a ball, and begins to cry as quietly as possible.

"Kurt?" Blaine questions sleepily after a few minutes. He turns to see Kurt on his side, facing away from him. His little shoulders are shaking. Blaine scoots closer and cuddles up behind his best friend, pressing his face into Kurt's hair. "Are you okay?"

Kurt sniffles and lets Blaine's arm come around his waist to settle his hand on Kurt's chest, right over his rapidly beating heart. He holds Blaine's hand tightly.

"I m-miss my mommy so much," Kurt cries softly. "I miss her every day."

"I know," Blaine coos gently. "I'm so sorry."

"Did you ever – ever feel this sad when you had to leave your real mom?"

Blaine doesn't speak for a minute, he simply holds onto his friend as he cries into the night, into his pillow.

"Sometimes I did. Some days I still do," Blaine admits. "But then I think about all the bad things, and the way she looked at me some days, and I think about how she never stopped my dad from hurting me…and then I remember that things are better. So I don't have to be too awfully sad."

Kurt wishes it was that easy for him, but his mom never did anything bad. His mom never hurt him or didn't give him food, or anything like that.

"But my mom never did that kind of stuff," Kurt whispers, his breathing still jumpy from his cries. "So I can't think of a reason to not miss her."

"I know," Blaine says. "I think you're allowed to miss her, though. She was your mom and she loved you a lot. She was like, one the prettiest, nicest moms I ever met."

"Yeah," Kurt agrees, snuggling back into Blaine's warmth and safety. "She was the best."

"I'm sorry she's gone," Blaine says eventually. "I wish I could make you feel better."

"You make me feel better all the time," Kurt says sleepily, a tired haze washing over his red rimmed eyes. "Just by being my friend."

Blaine gives the back of Kurt's neck an Eskimo kiss and then they fall back asleep.

The months fly by and he and his dad settle into a new routine. Kurt wakes up and his dad has something resembling breakfast on the table. His dad gets ready for work and Kurt gets ready for school but he doesn't have time to drop Kurt off at school before he needs to be at work because the two places are in opposite directions. So he walks Kurt across the street to Blaine's house and Blaine's not-so-new mom drives them to school together. When school lets out, he goes home with Blaine and they play or do their math homework or work on projects until Kurt's dad comes and walks him back across the street. They always have dinner together and Kurt always tells him about his day.

Sometimes they talk about Kurt's mom. Most of the time they don't, though, because it's really hard on both of them.

But slowly, very, very slowly, things begin to take the shape of a new kind of normal. By that time, Kurt feels like it's okay to laugh again.