2023

"Mr. Hummel?"

Kurt looks up, eyes sharp with annoyance at the interruption. It's Krista, biting her lip, clutching at the folder in her arms like it's in danger of falling. It's hard to avoid rolling his eyes at her timidity, but he manages it.

"Yes?"

"Did you, um...did you have anything else for me? I was hoping I could get home before 7 today. My family's in town, and – "

"Did you send those sketches off, like I asked?"

"Yes, I did it right away." She says it quickly, like the faster she talks, the more likely he is to believe her.

"Did you schedule that shoot with Mario?"

"For Tuesday of next week – it's in the black book."

"What about Vogue?"

She opens her mouth, pauses. Her eyes widen ever so slightly in what Kurt presumes is fear. His nostrils flare. She swallows.

"I tried. I really did, I left several messages, but I couldn't get through. They kept telling me she was unavailable."

Great. Wonderful. Just what he needs, today of all days.

"And you just rolled over and took it, did you? Jesus, Krista, where the hell is your spine?"

"They told me she would get back to us at her earliest convenience." Her eyes have gone glassy and big, but, to her credit, she juts her chin out in what Kurt assumes is a subconscious attempt at defiance.

"Do you remember what I told you, Krista?"

"Of course."

"Did I tell you to call Vogue and leave a message with one of Anna Wintour's legion of assistants?"

"Um. No."

"That's right, I didn't. I instructed you very clearly not to give up until you'd spoken to the woman herself. The deadline is Friday." He pauses here, waits for the gravitas of the situation to sink in. She swallows and nods, tight and quick. "I didn't get where I am by waiting and hoping for people to see me, Krista. I got here by demanding to be seen. If that's not something you can do..."

He leaves it hanging with a shark-eyed smile, satisfied that he's made his point.

"Of course, Mr. Hummel. Sir. I – I understand."

"Do you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you'll have no trouble understanding why I want you to get back on the phone and stop taking no for an answer."

She bites her lip.

"Do you really think she's still there?"

Kurt narrows his eyes.

"Why wouldn't she be?"

"It's just – it's 5:30. On Christmas Eve."

Kurt glances up at the clock he keeps on the wall by the door. So it is.

"You'd better hope that she is."

Krista breathes in sharply and scurries back to her desk, folder pressed tight against her chest.

Kurt sighs. He really doesn't want to fire her. He'd hate to have to train someone new. Again.

Concentration thoroughly broken, he stretches his arms above his head and gives in to the giant yawn that's been tickling at his throat for what feels like hours.

It got dark at some point. The only light in the office comes from the lamp on the desk and the faint glow of electricity from the city around him. That never really goes away. He might be tempted to go home himself if it weren't for the half-finished sketches littering his desk. As it is, he's looking at another few hours at least.

He's interrupted again when Krista comes back with red-rimmed eyes and a very straight back and tells him that Ms. Wintour has left the building for the duration of the holiday. She looks him in the eye and doesn't cringe, but he can see the effort that it costs her. Kurt generously dismisses her with a stern warning to come in early on Boxing Day to make up for her error in judgment. She quickly agrees and practically flies through the halls toward her freedom. Kurt rubs at his temples in a useless attempt to stave off a headache and gets back to work.

It's nearly 9 by the time he leaves. He's the last one out, save for the security guard and the cleaning crew. He hears a "Merry Christmas" as he exits through the front doors, but he doesn't turn around to acknowledge it. Christmas has long since stopped meaning anything to him at all.

He hails a cab and settles in to check his personal e-mail. The radio is playing some children's choir singing "Silent Night," and the cab driver is singing along, just off-key enough to be really annoying. Kurt lasts about 15 seconds.

"Can you please just turn that thing off?"

The driver makes a face at him but complies.

"You got something against Christmas music?"

"Besides the fact that it's cheesier than my stepmother's lasagna and pays tribute to a fairy tale that people only tend to believe in when it gives them a convenient excuse to be ignorant? Not a thing."

The driver's brow furrows, but he doesn't respond. He mutters something under his breath that sounds a lot like "Goddamn atheist."

Damn right, Kurt thinks, but doesn't say. Proud to be.

He can't wait to get out of this cab and off of the streets, where the barren trees sparkle with pretty little white lights and the storefronts are dressed up with tableaux of snowy wonderlands and Santa Claus' workshop. He can't wait to curl up in front of his TV with a plate of re-heated Chinese leftovers and a cup of chamomile tea, curtains closed against the multi-colored lights strung up around apartment windows across the street.

In the meantime, he sighs and gets back to his phone.

He doesn't expect anything new - he's made himself perfectly clear to his family and his friends. Even Carole has given up this year. She sent him a card with a chatty note that didn't even mention coming out to Ohio for the holiday. We miss you, she said instead. We hope to talk to you soon. You know you're always welcome. He could feel the resignation behind her words. He almost convinced himself it made him happy.

He has three new messages, as it turns out, only one of them spam. His heart gives a shudder when he sees who they're from.

Rachel's came an hour ago. Blaine's, almost six. He opens Rachel's first.

Hello, Kurt,

Here's a little something to put a holiday smile on your face! The sound quality is rather poor, unfortunately, but that's to be expected. A recording is never an appropriate substitution for the real thing (you know where to find us, eight shows a week!).

There's a link, here, to a YouTube video. Kurt ignores it.

I do hope that you'll consider joining us tomorrow. There won't be a huge crowd of us, just those of Jewish descent and the Christmas orphans, like Blaine. You'll know plenty of people, I promise, and we've hired an accompanist to accommodate any impromptu performances that may arise.

So bring a beverage of choice, your best holiday cheer, and the song in your heart, and we'll (hopefully!) see you tomorrow!

Lots of Love, Rachel

Kurt doesn't delete the message, but he does close out of it without a second of lingering. Rachel should know him better than this. She used to, not that it ever stopped her. It's ridiculous to believe for a second that he's capable of bringing "holiday cheer" anywhere, much less to a room full of shiny, happy people who know him and look at him with pity practically seeping from their pores.

He doesn't need anyone's pity. He's made it through more than any of them and come out on top. He's Kurt Hummel, soon-to-be fashion superstar, feared and worshipped and completely self-made. He doesn't need anyone, period.

He almost turns off his phone and stuffs it in his coat pocket to push it from his mind. His finger has gotten so far as to hover over the power button when his eye catches on that one last unread message. He can't help himself. He clicks.

Hi, Kurt,

First of all, it would be completely remiss of me not to congratulate you on that wonderful piece in last Sunday's Times. It seems like only yesterday you were designing in the margins of your math homework and sewing your prom outfit on that old Singer in your bedroom. Now, you've got Marion Cotillard singing your praises on the red carpet! I hope you know how happy I am for you (not that your success comes as any sort of surprise).

I completely understand that you've been busy – I know how hard you work! – but I hope that you're at least planning to take Christmas Day off. Rachel and I are throwing a party for those of us without family in town to celebrate with this year, and I'm really hoping that you'll come. It will be at Rachel's place starting at 5, but you're welcome anytime before or after. Please call if you have any questions or need directions (my number hasn't changed).

If you have plans already or otherwise can't make it, I'd love to catch up whenever you're able. There's a front row ticket with your name on it at the box office – just give me a head's up and you're in, any night of the week. We can go for a drink, after. Or we could just meet for lunch sometime, or coffee. Whatever you'd prefer.

I still think of you as family, Kurt, and I don't want us to drift any further apart.

I hope to see you tomorrow!

Blaine

Kurt lets out a breath that he didn't know was building.

There's a place in Kurt's heart that's still tender, and it's signed all over with that name.

Blaine knows him so very well. He knows just what buttons to push to get exactly what he wants.

Well, not this time. Not anymore, and especially not on this day. Kurt Hummel is no one's good deed. He pulls the shutters on that corner of his heart and abandons it to the dark. He jabs his finger viciously down on the power button.

They've pulled up to Kurt's apartment by now. He shoves a few hastily-counted bills into the driver's hand and rolls his eyes when the man smirks and wishes him a Merry Christmas. Kurt refrains from retorting with an ironic "Bah, Humbug," but it's a near miss.

The apartment is cold and dark when Kurt makes his way in. It's quiet, too, after the bustle of the streets. He turns up the heat, turns on the lights, finds some mindless reality television for background noise. He changes into his sleep clothes, microwaves the last of the Kung Pao chicken, and starts water boiling for tea. He pulls a blanket over his legs and settles in for the marathon of classic Jersey Shore they're showing on MTV. It's soothing in a way that orange-skinned fashion disasters never ever should be. His cat, an old Siamese named Audrey, pads into the room and practically hurtles herself onto his lap, whiskers twitching as she noses at his plate. He shoves her aside and lets one hand linger to pet absently down her back as she purrs softly and flicks her tail against his elbow.

It's a routine that works for him.

It hasn't always been like this, but, all in all, he's happier now. He tends not to think about the sacrifices he's made to get to where he is, poised on the verge of true greatness. He has himself. That's all that matters.

He's so busy with this mental pep talk that it takes him longer than it should to notice.

He freezes, mid-chew, when he does.

There, in the background of a toothpaste commercial - one of the extras, Kurt could swear... In spite of himself, he can feel his heart drumming faster.

That man is the spitting image of his father.

He's looking directly into the camera, into Kurt's own eyes, one corner of his mouth tweaking up in a smile that Kurt knows as well as his mother's perfume.

Kurt gasps. He blinks, like a reflex.

His father is gone.

Appetite suddenly vanished, Kurt sets his half-finished plate on the coffee table and lets Audrey go to town.

It's got to be the Kung Pao.

He puts it forcibly out of his mind, shoves it away with all of the other thoughts and feelings and things he doesn't want. Kurt Hummel is strong. Kurt Hummel is in control.

Kurt Hummel is not going crazy.

It happens again.

And again.

Kurt shuts off the television. He brings his now-empty plate to the sink and sets it down carefully. For once, he's willing to let it sit until morning.

He rushes through his nighttime routine, eager to get to the end, the lovely part where he gets to swallow down a sleeping pill and say goodbye to the world for a well-deserved night of rest.

He goes out to the living room to turn off the lights and say goodnight to Audrey. He stops, frozen in place as something icy seems to crawl up his back.

The lights have all been dimmed, leaving the room in an eerie half-glow of warm lamplight.

Kurt doesn't have a dimmer.

He checks the locks - just as bolted as they were before.

He marches calmly to each and every switch and turns it firmly off, leaving himself in a total darkness that absolutely does not make him panic. He ignores the heavy thudding in his chest and walks rather than runs to his bedroom, where the light is still full and friendly. He locks the door behind him.

He breathes in, deeply, breathes out. He feels safe in here.

He decides to settle in for a bit of reading, just long enough to calm his foolishly beating heart. He picks up a recent issue of Marie Claire and tries to immerse himself in the stories told by color and texture and flow of fabric. He almost succeeds, too.

The lights flicker.

Once.

Two heartbeats. Three. Four.

Again.

One heartbeat.

Again.

Kurt moves to get up, get out of bed and turn off those obnoxious, malfunctioning lights once and for all, because he is scaring himself for no reason and the electric company is going to be getting an earful in the morning.

The TV flares to life in the living room. Just as quickly, it fades out.

The bedroom door knob rattles.

Kurt stills.

"Who's there?" he calls out, voice loud and steady, thank god, because the last thing he needs is for some violent criminal to think he's an easy target. He gropes around on his nightstand for something heavy and hard enough to cause a concussion. His lamp should do the trick.

The whole door rattles now, almost vibrating in its frame.

Kurt's grip tightens.

The door stills.

Suddenly, improbably, a hand is reaching through. A silvery-white translucent hand, and Kurt is pretty sure now that the mushrooms they use in the kitchens at China Dream are actually of the magic variety, because that's the only thing that makes any kind of sense right now.

He can do nothing but stare as the rest of the arm makes it through, and then the other, and the legs and the body and the head, moving through the wood as if in slow motion.

God, it can't be.

The figure stops at the foot of Kurt's bed and smiles lopsidedly.

"Hey, kid," it says.

It waits.

"Who - what are you?" This time, his voice is rough and shaky. He can't bring himself to care. Nothing he thought makes any sense right now anyway.

"You should probably ask who I was, when I was living. But then, I think you know."

"Dad?"

He looks the same, exactly the same as he did on the day that he died. Except, well, healthy, if you disregard that whole ghost thing. His face is full and smiling, his body whole. He's wearing that stupid NYADA cap that he wore all the time, even after Kurt quit the theater scene and dedicated himself to his designs. Kurt used to hate it, told his dad it did nothing but remind him of the years and the money he wasted on something that was never going to make him happy. His dad would chuckle and grip his fingers protectively around the bill.

"Hey," he'd say. "I love this hat. It reminds me that there's nothing you can't do if you set your mind to it."

He didn't live long enough to see whether he was right. Kurt made sure that he was.

"You got it, kiddo."

Kurt is torn between the instinct to throw himself at his father for a hug that he's been missing for exactly five years, now, and the instinct to hide his head beneath the covers, stuff his fingers in his ears and sing as loud as he can until this whole ordeal is over. They end up at a stalemate, leaving him still and wide-eyed, sitting straight up in his bed and waiting for something to happen.

"What - how - I don't - "

"I'm here to help you."

"Are you - I mean, how are you here?"

"Turns out there's something to all of that soul business, after all. This right here is what's left when the body can't take it anymore. I'm a spirit."

"Wait, so they're right? Those ignorant, Bible-thumping assholes who say that my biology is a sin, they're all right?"

"Of course not. Don't be stupid."

"But you just said - "

"I told you, this is what happens when your body dies. That's all I know. Honest. But I can tell you without a doubt that those assholes are wrong."

Kurt takes a moment, takes that in.

"Does everyone become a spirit? Are there just, like, spirits floating around us all the time or do you go somewhere when you're not, um, helping?"

"Not everyone sticks around. Those of us that do, well. We're doomed to wander."

"Like, as a punishment?"

He feels a flicker of anger light in his belly. His father was a good man. The best man, actually, that Kurt's ever known.

"Not exactly."

"Then why?"

"To finish the things that we left...unfinished."

"What did you leave unfinished?"

His father, the spirit of his father, levels him a look.

"Dad...I'm fine. I'm better than fine. Everything I've ever wanted is just within reach. If you're being held back from something because of me, if you're being punished because of me - "

"It's my choice to be here, bud, so you can stop worrying."

"Your choice? What would happen if you chose to...leave?"

The spirit smiles, eyes going far off and dreamy, an expression that's foreign on his father's face.

"The particles of my body, such as it is, would fly apart, one by one, and rejoin the world the way they're supposed to. The way your mother did."

His eyes snap back to Kurt's, and suddenly he's wry and gruff and familiar once more.

"I can't leave until I know you're okay."

"Dad, of course I'm - "

"I've been watching all along, you know, and tried to get through to you more times than I can count. But it ain't that simple, apparently, because this is the first time in five years you've been able to see me. I don't know why tonight, but I do know, Kurt, that you need me. No matter what you say. I can help, and I will. That much, I can do for you."

"You don't have to - "

"Listen, Kurt. Just listen. The path you're on is dangerous. I know you're a big success, and you deserve it, but you've given up a lot to get it. Too much. I've watched you give away pieces of yourself for free, like they don't matter. They do. If you take nothing else from tonight, take that. Do you remember what I told you, what was it, 11 years ago now, the night I told you about the cancer?"

Kurt blinks. His head is a mess right now, and it was an even bigger one back then, when his heart was tangled into the mix.

"I remember you told me I was going to kick ass at NYADA."

The spirit guffaws

"Which you did."

"Obviously."

They smile together. Kurt feels a lump form at the core of his throat. This is something he hasn't let himself miss.

"I told you to hold the people you love close to you, no matter what."

Kurt opens his mouth, but he has no response to that. Not a good one, at least. He looks away.

"I tried," he says, softly, without conviction.

"Not hard enough."

"You don't get it, Dad. I'm going to be a household name. That kind of success requires sacrifice. It's worth the sacrifice."

The spirit raises a skeptical eyebrow.

"Is it?"

"Of course it is. Why else would I have done it?"

"I don't know, son. But that's not something I can help you with."

"What - what do you mean? I thought that was the whole reason you were still here."

"You're going to be visited by three spirits. The first will come tonight at 1, the second tomorrow at the same time, and the third the following day at midnight."

"That's - I have to work, Dad, I can't be up until all hours of the morning doing...ghost therapy, or whatever this is."

"Just trust me, Kurt. Trust me and listen to them. Their job is to help you see."

"See what?"

"You'll see."

Kurt can't help but crack a smile at his familiar deadpan humor, but it fades quickly.

"Will I see you again?"

"I don't know. If things go well..."

"Will you be able to...move on?"

"That's the plan."

"Okay. I'll listen."

The spirit smiles, big and fond.

"I love you, kid."

That lump comes back with a vengeance.

"I love you too, Dad."

With that, the spirit floats over to the window and moves through the glass, slow-motion slow like he did when he passed through the door.

"Good luck," he says, just before he fades into the night.

"Goodbye," murmurs Kurt.

He shakes himself, swallows down that painful lump. He turns off his lights, buries himself in his covers, and finds himself drifting to sleep before he has the chance to wonder at this strange turn of events.