His conversation with his dad hadn’t been the easiest, but Kurt understood. He had just used almost all the money his mother had left him to buy a house on a whim in a country where he didn’t speak the language. It would have been odd if Burt hadn’t been worried.

“Well, bud, if that’s what you think you need to do, then that’s what you need to do. But when you do decide to come home, I’ll be waiting at the airport with open arms.” Kurt heard his dad’s voice hitch as he passed the phone to Carole. He made Carole promise to get his dad and Finn on a plane for Christmas, swearing she’d understand when she saw Montelunato and the house.

Isabelle was upset and frustrated with him but she was adamant about keeping him on the payroll. She was going to give him the freedom to create a new section of the website on any topic he wanted (pending Anna’s approval, of course).

He also called Rachel and Quinn, with whom he was supposed to be staying with when he returned to New York. He hoped everything was okay but he was too busy throwing himself into the renovations to give it any second thought.

Bianca drove him to an IKEA in Florence the day before Kurt would be moving into his house. As they wandered around the superstore, Kurt occasionally testing a chair or a sofa, she answered his questions about town and all the gossip he needed to know to survive as a resident.

She had just finished telling him about a woman named Paola who had left her fiance at the altar only to run off with her maid of honor during the ceremony and the scandal it created.

“Can you imagine?” she asked. Kurt was moving from mattress to mattress, struggling to find one that didn’t feel like a rock. Kurt bit his lip, reminded of how Rachel ran out on Finn not once but twice for Quinn. He wondered if Bianca knew that it he was gay, he had told her that he had left New York because of a bad break-up but he hadn’t said that it was with a man. He blended in a little better in Italy than he did in America. Granted, Montelunato was smaller than Lima was, but no one gave him a second look for wearing pastels or pieces of clothing that were more fashionable than functional.

“Well, Bianca, there’s nothing wrong with being gay--” he started by Bianca cut him off with a wave of her hand.

“Oh, no, Kurt! I know, but this happened fifty years ago!” She laughed at the aghast look on his face. He had to admire how “You will want to meet Paola and her wife, Sofia, they are good friends of my father’s.”

“Oh... Oooh....” Kurt laid on a mattress that felt heavenly in comparison to all the others. “Write down the style number for this. I need this mattress in my life.”

Bianca scribbled it on their sheet as Kurt begrudgingly sat up. “Kurt? You do know that Blaine is gay, right?” she asked offhandedly.

He froze as he gripped their cart. “Um, no, no, I didn’t.”

“I just want you to understand that you won’t have any problems from my family. Because Blaine is everything that a young man should be and that fact that he’s gay doesn’t define him. It’s just a part that makes him who he is.”

He nodded. They began walking to another department. They selected some cookware and dishes for Kurt’s kitchen before heading to the checkout. Bianca took over and did the talking for him, arranging for his larger purchases to be delivered the next day. They walked silently back to Bianca’s car and loaded his things into the tiny trunk. Bianca started the engine and as they pulled out of the lot she told him her story:

“I went to law school in England when I was about your age and met my sons’ father. John was--is a very traditional man and when I found out I was pregnant with Cooper, we were married right away. Blaine came not long after. And we were happy for a while. But...” Bianca sighed, tears welling in her eyes, “Blaine wasn’t a “normal” little boy. He liked to play football with his brother and friends but he was happier singing and playing the piano. There was also something... just different about him and his father and I both suspected what it meant. It didn’t matter to me, so long as he was happy. His father had no patience for it. John slowly went from being sharp whenever Blaine said or did something he didn’t like to physically punishing him for it. I came home from a business trip and John had locked Blaine in his room for the entire time I was gone without food.” She took a deep breath, forcing herself to say the next part. “He had beaten him as well. I had to take him to hospital and lie to the doctors about what happened. He--” her voice broke, “He had a broken nose, four cracked ribs and a burst ear drum. He was thirteen. I made it clear to John that it could never happen again. I would leave and take both boys with me. Cooper did what he could to protect him but he was studying for his A-levels and John put him in extra tutoring. When Blaine was fourteen and Cooper was seventeen, we came to to Italy to visit my father for what was supposed to be a summer and never went back to England.”

Bianca wiped her tears away from her face. “I sued him for divorce and he signed the papers right away. We were done with him and he was clearly done with us.”

Kurt was speechless the whole ride back to Montelunato. Blaine seemed like a happy-go-lucky guy, Kurt had no idea that he had been through so much. Bianca didn’t say anything else and it was obvious that she wasn’t in the habit of telling that story often. As she carefully navigated the narrow alley behind Kurt’s house, Kurt finally whispered, “Why did you tell me this?”

She pulled into the carriage house that had been turned into a garage by the previous owners. “Because I have a feeling, Kurt Hummel, that you are always going to be a part of my family.”