Much to Blaine’s credit, he stays quiet.� His forehead creases and his eyes look lost, and Kurt can tell he has a million questions.� But at the same time, he knows Kurt needs to speak.� He needs to speak, and he needs to do it now, before he completely loses the little bit of nerve he has.

�

“My mom,” he begins, his voice cracking on the word, “was still alive, and I was… I was so much closer to her when I was little than I was with my father.� I had the relationship with her that I have with my dad now, except even more.� I just… I worshipped her.� From the moment I could walk, I would just toddle around behind her all day.� She taught me so much.� She – she was a stay at home mom, so I was around her all day for years…”

�

“Mama, Mama!”� Kurt giggled.� He ran into his parents room and flung himself on the bed, landing on top of his mother’s legs with an ‘oof.’� “Look, Mama!”

�

“Why if it isn’t my little sweet pea,” Elizabeth Hummel cooed.� She wrapped her arms around Kurt, pulling him up into her lap.� “Someone’s supposed to be napping, and it’s not Mama.”

�

Kurt, a small three years old, bit his lip nervously.� “Not tired.”

�

His mother ran her finger lightly down the bridge of his nose, smiling softly.� “You need to sleep, baby.� Don’t you want to be all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when Daddy gets home?”

�

“I would do anything she asked me to do.� She would let me ‘help’ her in the kitchen and with the housework and everything.� She was so beautiful, and I swear, I thought she was a princess…”

�

He pouted and shook his head stubbornly.� “Not tired!� No nap!”

�

Elizabeth sighed.� “Well, since you’re awake, why don’t you show me what you made?” she asked, gesturing to a piece of paper clutched tightly in the toddler’s fist.

�

Kurt beamed and thrust the paper at her, quickly crawling to sit beside her.� “I drawed a piture.”

�

“You drew a picture?” she asked, placing emphasis on the correct pronunciations.� “What did you draw a picture of?”

�

“Yeah!� I drawed it!” he said, practically bouncing up and down in his skin.� “Look, see, me and you.”

�

“You drew us?” she asked again.� “That’s very good, baby!� Are you going to be an artist when you grow up?� You could paint Mama and Daddy a million pictures to fill every single wall.”

�

Kurt’s eyes widened in wonderment.� “You can draw for a job?”

�

Elizabeth nodded, stroking his hair gently.� “You sure can.� If that’s what you want to do.”� She laughed as Kurt nodded so hard he nearly knocked the top of his head against her chin.� “Maybe we’ll buy you some new crayons next time we go to the store.� Would you like that, sweet pea?”

�

“Yeah!”

�

“Well, we’ll see what we can do, okay?” she said.� She glanced back down at the picture.� “Where’s Daddy?� There’s Mama, and there’s my Kurt, but where’s Daddy?”

�

Kurt pouted.� “Daddy working.”

�

Elizabeth pressed a kiss to his forehead before pulling back, looking down at her son with a devilish gleam in her eyes.� “You know what we should do before Daddy gets home?”

�

“What, Mama?”

�

“We should make cookies.”

�

He gasped and scooted back on the bed to look up at his mother.� “Can we?!” he cried.

�

“Only if you can stay awake.� Only big boys who don’t need naps can help their Mamas in the kitchen.”

�

“Not tired!� No nap!” he repeated, pounding his little fists into the blanket for emphasis.

�

“Well let’s go, then!� We don’t have much time!”

�

“She was perfect in my eyes.� But I think – I think maybe my dad was a bit sad that he didn’t get to see me much… that my mom and I had such a wonderful relationship.� He wasn’t sad for us, but I think just – he wanted that too, you know?� And I really only got to see him for a few minutes in the morning and then at dinner.� He worked even longer hours back then, because the shop was new and he needed to get it off the ground.� So when I was six, she came up with an idea…”

�

“But Mama, why aren’t you coming?” Kurt asked, his lower lip sticking out far.

�

Elizabeth finished zipping up his jacket before patting him solidly against his tummy.� “Because you and Daddy are going to have some time together, sweet pea.� You’re going to have so much fun camping with Daddy.� You’ll get to make a big, big fire, and go fishing…”

�

Kurt pulled a face, his little nose scrunching up in disgust.� “Gross.� Fish are gross and smelly and dirty.”

�

His mother slid his backpack onto him, tutting softly under her breath.� “You’re going to have so much fun you won’t even care that the fish are a bit smelly.”� She brought her hand up to his hair, smoothing it back out of his face.� “And you know what?”

�

He sulked.� “What?”

�

“I bet if you’re really good for Daddy, he might let you make s’mores over the fire after dinner,” she whispered.

�

Kurt perked up at the prospect.� “Really?”

�

Elizabeth just shrugged, whistling innocently, as Burt walked back inside.

�

“Okay, that’s the last of it.� You ready to go, bud?”

�

Kurt glanced back up at his mother one last time, and she gave him a sneaky wink.� “Yeah, Daddy.� Let’s go.”

�

“So we went camping for a weekend on the edge of this lake.� For the first day or so, everything was good.� It wasn’t really my thing, but I could tell my dad was excited, so I tried really hard for him.� We did all the typical camping things.� We slept in sleeping bags, we hiked through the woods, we fished, we made campfires – Dad even let us make s’mores, like my mom had promised, and I remember singing little songs around the fire, being horribly sticky from the dessert.”

�

Blaine chuckles softly.� “That sounds adorable.� I can’t remotely imagine you camping, though.”

�

“I know, right?� I’m not – I’m not an outdoorsy person.� But I tried, because I love my dad and I missed spending time with him.� And because my mom had been the one to come up with the idea.”� Kurt swipes a hand under his eyes, wiping away a few tears that had started to slide down his face.� Blaine frowns at the sight.� “I’m fine.� I just – I don’t talk about her much.� I’m sorry.”

�

“No, no, no,” he says, wrapping his free hand over their already linked hands, surrounding Kurt’s entirely in his.� “You don’t have to apologize, love.� It’s okay, I understand.� We – we can stop, if you need.� I shouldn’t have pushed.”

�

Kurt shakes his head.� “I need to keep going.� I’m afraid I won’t if you give me time to stop.”

�

So Blaine nods, falling silent again.

�

“The… the second morning, after we had breakfast, we decided to go out canoeing.� I have pretty good balance now, but as you can imagine, it wasn’t so great as a six-year-old.� But we managed to both get into the boat and push off from the shore.� Dad was trying to teach me how to row, and I couldn’t get the hang of it.� I just kept paddling us in circles.

�

“After about thirty minutes or so out on the water, my paddle accidentally snagged in some weeds or something, and it jerked out of my hand when the boat turned.� We weren’t too far away from it, but we floated far enough away that my little arm couldn’t grab it again.� So Dad stood up carefully and said we should switch places, because he should be able to reach it.� But I – I lost my balance.”

�

Blaine’s breath hitches.� “What-“

�

“I fell in.”

�

“You – you fell-“

�

Kurt nods.� “I – the boat started shaking just enough and I tumbled over the edge.� I remember falling face-first into the water, and just… sinking.� Really quickly.� I started panicking and flailing, and I’m sure that didn’t help things any, but it didn’t make any sense that I couldn’t seem to kick myself any closer to the surface.� I knew how to swim – I was a pretty good swimmer, actually.� But I – it was like something was pulling me down.

�

“My dad jumped in after me, but the water was murky.� He couldn’t see where I was, so he just started swimming down and pushing his arms out, hoping that he’d brush up against some part of me eventually.”

�

Blaine’s grip on his hand tightens.� His eyes seem impossibly wide, but he doesn’t speak.� He just listens in rapt attention.

�

“It took him a long time to find me.� It felt like – God, it felt like I was under for forever.� I know he resurfaced once for air before he found me.”� He pauses, swallowing hard as Blaine’s thumb brushes tenderly beneath his eyes, wiping away tears he wasn’t aware had fallen.� “I was all the way at the bottom, he told me.� I was practically blue when he brought me up.� I certainly wasn’t breathing.� He – he resuscitated me, but I had been under for so long.� He carried me back to camp and wrapped me up in a blanket, then immediately put me into the car and drove me to the hospital.� We just – he, he left everything else we had brought with us at camp.� It took us a while to get out of the woods and to the nearest hospital.� By then, I think he said I had fallen asleep.”

�

Finally, Blaine speaks up.� “You – you keep saying he told you most of this stuff.� Do you not – remember this?”

�

Kurt shakes his head.� “That’s the weird part.� Well, one of the weird parts.� I was six.� I should remember it, right?”� He looks over to Blaine.� “I should remember.”

�

“I’m… sure it’s normal to not remember something traumatic like that.”

�

“That’s what the doctor told me when I woke up again.� And then there were a lot of… questions to answer.”

�

“About why you had sunk?”

�

Kurt gives him a rueful smile.� “About why I was a girl.”