Kurt didn't understand Eva's sullen mood. His little spitfire, a constant bundle of energy, never seemed to tire, especially with Blaine around. Yet there she was, sulking in the corner, as far away from the rest of the family as she could get, avoiding eye contact with everyone.

Kurt looked her over, watching her pick at the frayed threads on the knees of her denim jeans; her blue shirt, so loose-fitting that she looked uncomfortable wearing it, definitely was not one of her favorites. Seeing Eva in jeans and a t-shirt was a rare sight lately, but there she was, and she looked miserable. Kurt's brow wrinkled as he regarded her choice of clothes, coupled with red eyes and splotchy cheeks, as if she had been crying.

Kurt sighed, finally understanding.

“I'll be right back,” he said, patting Blaine's knee. “No, don't look. Just finish the movie,” he added before Blaine could turn around and spot Eva in the corner. Kurt didn't want Blaine to notice before Kurt had the chance to talk to their girl. Kurt rose from his seat on the sofa and walked to Eva's corner. She had pulled her arms tight around her knees when she heard him approach, so he sat a small distance away, giving her space to feel comfortable.

“Eva? Sweetheart?” Kurt started carefully. “Where's your daisy dress?”

Blaine had bought Eva the cutest sundress the last time they all went to the mall. It was green gingham and covered in white daisies. Blaine had started calling Eva ‘his little daisy' due to his penchant for sniffing her hair. One day, she looked at him, all scrunched face and smiling, and asked, “Why you smell me?”

“Because you're my little daisy,” he had replied, rubbing his nose against hers, and the nickname stuck.

So the dress was perfect.

The sundress was a simple cotton frock, nothing at all fancy about it except the daisy trim that lined the bodice and the hem. Eva had put it on the moment Blaine gave it to her and refused to take it off. She wore it to school and to the playground. She even wore it to bed on the days Kurt couldn't convince her to take it off and let him wash it.

But now, the dress was conspicuously absent.

Eva didn't answer Kurt, just fiddled with the threads some more, twirling them around her fingers and pulling hard till they snapped.

“Eva …” Kurt urged.

Eva turned her face to meet his, wide brown eyes watery, lower lip quivering. The girl who never really hugged anyone except Blaine grabbed Kurt's hand and held it to her face, hiding her eyes.

“Oh, Eva,” Kurt cooed. “Please, let me help you.”

Eva didn't say a word. She simply stood, holding Kurt's hand. Kurt stood, too, and she pulled him along, ducking quickly into her room and shutting the door behind them.

Eva stopped in the center of the room and stood there frozen, not telling Kurt anything of what happened to the dress. She stared at Kurt intensely, trying to convey the information using only her eyes, and when that didn't work, she pointed despairingly in the direction of her bed.

Kurt climbed over the small mattress and reached beneath her pile of stuffed animals, each one dressed in an outfit made out of Blaine's old shirts. He felt beneath her pillow and found the dress, carefully folded and tucked away. Eva put her hands over her eyes, hoping that if she couldn't see Kurt, then he wouldn't see her.

Then he wouldn't get angry. And he wouldn't tell on her.

Kurt unfolded the dress and held it up for inspection. Aside for some fading, Kurt couldn't see anything wrong. He shook the dress out. That's when he noticed a length of the daisy trim hanging from the fabric.

“Oh, Eva. Why didn't you just tell me?”

Eva didn't answer. She whimpered behind her fists as she pressed them into her eyes.

“Did you think Blaine would be angry if he saw this?”

Eva whimpered again, but this time she nodded.

“Eva, honey, I can fix this.”

Eva's whimpering stopped. “You mean that?” she asked in a shaky voice.

“Of course,” Kurt said, trying to sound as confident as he could so that she would trust him with her precious dress. “Do you want to come watch me?”

Eva nodded.

“Okay. But we're going to have to be a little sneaky,” Kurt whispered, folding the dress back up and holding it close to his body to hide it from view. “Follow me.”

Kurt and Eva walked back through the house quickly without attracting attention, out the patio doors, and to Kurt's studio in the yard. Eva didn't like the little house with the deep red walls, so she waited outside while Kurt went in to fetch a needle and thread.

“Here we go,” Kurt said when he emerged, holding the threaded needle for her to see. He sat cross-legged in the grass and got to work. They huddled together, Eva leaning over Kurt's lap while he sewed the daisy trim carefully back in place. When he finished, he tied off the thread and snipped it, then held the dress up with a tiny Ta-da! of triumph.

Eva took the dress and brought the trim up to her eye, bouncing from the mended section to another section, examining the stitches.

“That fifteen stitches,” she observed with a note of astonishment. “Doesn't look different.”

“Nope, it doesn't.” Kurt watched her cradle the dress in her arms. She looked at him and flashed her signature smile.

“Can you teach me?”

Kurt jerked upright. Eva never asked him for anything – not to read to her, or play with her, or tuck her into bed. Before he had met Blaine, Kurt was the one who could best ‘handle' her, but they never really had a connection, nothing even close to what she and Blaine shared. But here she was, asking him for something.

Kurt wanted to cry.

“Now?” he asked.

Eva scoffed. “Not now,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Now I put on my dress and show Blaine.”

She took off back to the house, but Kurt sat stunned. Even if she never did come back and ask him for sewing lessons, this whole moment they shared was a huge step. By the time Kurt pried himself off the grass and walked back in the house, Eva had changed into her daisy dress. She sat in Blaine's lap, recounting the harrowing tale of the ripped trim and how Kurt had valiantly fixed it.

That's how Kurt remembered her story, anyway.

“Fifteen stitches, Uncle Blaine,” she chirped happily, with just one or two babbling words thrown in in her excitement. “And Uncle Kurt promised to teach me sewing.”

And Kurt did.

The next day she came to him with a tiny basket full of ripped doll clothes, victims of a few of her earlier tantrums, and they sat together on the living room floor and repaired them.

Repairing clothes led to designing her own, her school binder filled with rough sketches on lined loose leaf. They didn't look like much of anything other than copies of things she'd seen, but before anyone knew it, or realized that her hobby would someday become a career, she received a full-scholarship to Parsons with a portfolio that Kurt helped her put together. It was a thing of beauty in his eyes, representing his and Eva's relationship as it had blossomed from that one afternoon forward.

Kurt sighed at the memory of the day when Eva finally opened that door in her heart that everyone eventually found their way into and let Kurt in.

Kurt would never forget it.

“Hey! Did you fall asleep there?” Blaine joked, tapping Kurt lightly on the knee. Kurt turned to look at Blaine, an older but still beautiful Blaine, past the needle and white thread in his aching hand.

“No, I didn't fall asleep,” Kurt snapped playfully. “It's just …”

“Uncle Kurt,” Eva cut in, “are you okay? Your eyes are watering.”

“I'm fine, young lady.” Kurt sniffled, wiping away an obvious tear with the back of his hand. “It's just a little tiring sewing all this lace by hand. Do you know how many stitches …?”

“Fifteen per inch,” Blaine and Eva parroted together.

They giggled, and Kurt sighed. Know it alls.

“I just don't see why you don't run it under the sewing machine,” Blaine insisted, gesturing pushing fabric through a machine with his hands. “No one will notice.”

Kurt and Eva glared at him in disgust.

“It's a wedding dress, Blaine,” Kurt groaned, “not a Prom dress. I can't just run it through a machine.”

“Besides,” Eva added, “Uncle Nicky would notice.”

“Not Uncle Jeff,” Kurt said with a smile, gently poking the needle through the delicate fabric.

“No, he wouldn't,” Eva agreed with a laugh. Kurt remembered when they tried to get Jeff to join in on the discussion of linens, asking him to choose between the primrose, lavender, or lilac napkins, and how frustrated he got, asking them how he was supposed to choose between purple, purple, and purple. “Now Charley—“

Eva stopped when she saw Blaine's eyes drop to his hands, his fingers fiddling with a spare square of satin. Blaine was still a little touchy on the subject of Eva's impending wedding, especially the idea that some other man had taken his place in his little girl's heart. Kurt turned to comfort him but Eva beat him to it, sitting on Blaine's lap and rubbing her nose against his.

“Don't be mad at Charley, Uncle Blaine. I asked him to marry me, remember?”

“I know, I know. And saying yes was the smartest thing that boy has ever done, but … he doesn't deserve you, Daisy,” Blaine joked somberly the way he always did. But the more he said it, the more he sounded like he meant it, and Kurt had to put his foot down.

“Yes, he does,” Kurt said pointedly.

Blaine sighed, more at the truth than at being scolded. He knew Kurt was right. “Yeah, he does.”

Charley Duval-Sterling. Eva's fiancé. The little boy Nick and Jeff adopted pretty much the day after they got married had grown up with Eva, trading a healthy measure of adolescent disgust for a fond affection through high school. Charley traveled abroad for a year after graduation while Eva went straight to college, eager to follow in her uncle's footsteps, and that seemed to put their friendship on hold. But when they both ran in to one another by chance in New York, they fell in love.

Charley was a wonderful boy - as energetic as Nick, as sentimental as Jeff, and as loving and compassionate a person as anyone Kurt had ever met.

Blaine tried his hardest to hate him for no other reason than he was taking his little Eva away.

Eva put her arms around Blaine's shoulders, and he wrapped his arms around her waist.

“I'll always love you best of all, Uncle Blaine,” she whispered into his curls. “No matter where I go, no matter what I do, I'll always be your Daisy. All the time, every day, all morning.”

He kissed her on the cheek. “And I'll always love you, Daisy,” Blaine replied in a voice as broken as his heart. “All the time … every day … all morning.”

Kurt, trying his hardest to be the stoic one, doing his best to stay strong, let a few tears slip when the room became quiet and he heard Blaine sniffling beside him.

Blaine had thought their goodbye before college would be the most difficult one.

But this one was going to be a hundred times harder.

The little girl who had stolen Blaine's heart had grown into an intelligent, talented, beautiful woman … and now she was getting married. The only thing standing between this moment now with Eva in his arms and “I do” was her dress.

And Kurt had only fifteen stitches left to go.