AUTHOR'S NOTE

                First, thank you for reading. 

Second, about the rating:  yes, there is sex in this story, and some of it is graphic.  For that reason, it does have an M rating.  However, this is more about how a relationship unfolds over the course of approximately forty years than about sex.  If what you're looking for is non-stop smut, this is probably not the story for you.  I will try to make a note before the chapters that have explicit sex, but I will not warn for references to sex that has already occurred, is about to occur, or is desired, or for non-explicit sex.  I have had a request to publish an R or Teen rated version, and I am considering doing so, but I have not yet done the necessary edits.

The next issue is Finn.  Real life means my time to write and edit is very limited, and so this story was more than a year in the making.  I also wrote the end of the story first, as I find that doing so when writing long pieces helps me stay focused on where I'm going with the story.  I began writing it during spring break of 2013, prior to Cory Monteith's death.  The end of the story was already written in July of 2013; Finn plays a fairly critical role at the end.  When Cory passed away, I was faced with the choice of either leaving it as it was written or changing it so another character performed the actions I had written for him.  While it would work with another character, I preferred the words and actions to come from Kurt's brother, and I felt that leaving it as-is was, in my small way, honoring the importance that both Finn as a character and Cory as an actor had to the show.  Therefore, I left it.  It truly was a difficult decision, and not just laziness on my part, to continue the story as planned, including Finn.

Almost all the Glee characters make an appearance in this story or are mentioned at some point.  I have only mentioned those that play significant parts in the story in the character listing.  Don't be surprised when someone not listed shows up.

As I said, this story is completed, and it's just a matter of posting.  It will not change.  However, if anyone is interested in short one-shots that elaborate on a particular event or scene, or provide background, I might be willing to write some of those (I have a few in mind that might be fun to write).  Just let me know.

Most of the chapters are fairly long; however, there are a few short chapters.  This is because while it doesn't take long to discuss the events of the short chapters, they are very important, and I feel they deserve their own chapter, rather than being mashed in with something else.

Next, I edited this myself.  I tend to be fairly good about grammar, but there are times when for stylistic reasons or to maintain a character's manner of speaking I will ignore grammar rules.  In addition, while I am well aware that “him and Blaine” or “Blaine and him” is correct when it is the object of a sentence, “he and Blaine” sounds better, so I tend to use it consistently, even though it isn't grammatically correct.  In addition, I'm human, and I make mistakes; on what was literally the fourth time through I found missing words, incorrect words, and other mistakes.  I also did my best to maintain internal consistency.  I hope there aren't too many blatant mistakes, but I make no promises.

On a related note, computers do not tend to be my friend, so I apologize in advance for any weird formatting issues.

Finally, this story is canon up through the end of the fourth season, with one exception.  You'll see that exception, and the explanation that reconciles it, fairly early, and you'll know it when you see it.  The rest is AU.  For the most part, the relationships were already established as of the end of season four, or of my own creation; however, there was one season five relationship I liked so I dropped it into the story.  The story itself starts literally minutes after the end of the fourth season (another advantage of having written the end first:  the last four chapters and epilogue took until after the fourth season ended, so I was able to include the end of that season without re-writing when I finally started the beginning of my story).

Again, thank you so much for reading!