Even now, having seen her, he couldnt believe she was really gone.

Kurt laid back on the braided rug - it was a cozy touch for the room but had never been all that comfortable to recline against, but he didnt care. He wasnt in a mood to be comforted, really. There were times during the phases of grief that comfort would help, and there were times that a person should be allowed to wallow and revel in misery. The silence of the empty apartment echoed around him, and he rolled onto his side, reaching for the albums along the bottom shelf of the bookcase that held all their records. He had never understood why Rachels filing system had put so much of his music along the lower shelves when he was at least 9" taller than she was now, but he had long since stopped asking. Besides, it came in handy now.

Snagging the first cardboard record sleeve his fingertips came in contact with, he tugged it toward his chest and, lying back again, he slipped the vinyl from its protective covering. He didnt look at it before placing it on the turntable and lowering the needle; he didnt have a listening preference right now, it just needed to be her voice filling the emptiness. His throat caught as he heard the opening strings of the "Judy at Carnegie Hall" album - she had seemed so alive then. Everyone had said she was doing well, vibrant and eager...and she sounded incredible. The few albums before she had sounded tired, but at Carnegie Hall she had been even better than her younger days.

He had wanted so badly to go to that concert, but it had been much too expensive...and he hadnt actually been in New York yet at the time. Instead he had sat in his room in Ohio and vowed to see her live one day. He could take Rachel, even though she wasnt the first person he associated with the musical idol, and they would have a brilliant night in New York, watching the incomparable Ms. Garland belt out her repertoire.

Eight years later and they were too late. He would never be able to see her live - or run out and buy her new album and play it nonstop for a week the way he had when Home at the Palace had come out-...had that been two years already? Where had time gone?

He wondered if-...no. That was even more time gone, and he didnt need to let his mind wander that direction anymore. Almost a decade had passed, he was living a great life, and he really didnt care what someone else was up to.

Mostly he just wondered if that someone else had heard the news...and if he cared.

That was dumb; Kurt knew he cared about the news - and everyone had heard about it by now. Though he had found himself looking around while they stood in line with throngs of mourners up on 81st Street, seeing if maybe...just maybe...

Blaine hadnt been there, of course, at least not that Kurt had been able to see, and that wasnt really surprising. Who would fly from California to New York just for that? There wouldnt have been enough notice to come by bus even if he wanted to, and besides, Blaine probably had a wife by now to dissuade him from going cross-country at a moments notice to see a coffin enclosed in glass.

Kurt sighed deeply and shifted again to reach for another album. He couldnt handle something so upbeat right now, and there was no reason to dwell on how healthy she had been such a short time ago. What would be the use in that, anyway? However well she might have been doing at one point, clearly she had slipped downhill because now she was dead.

Dead. He had kept repeating the word to himself, still in disbelief, all week. Nine hours of standing in line with a million fellow mourners had done nothing to make her premature demise make any more sense to him. People could die unexpectedly, he knew that of course, but somehow no ones passing had ever seemed so jarringly sudden to him. Even his own mother- she had been sick first, for awhile, and though hed only been 7 he had still at least had time to prepare for it. He had been able to steel himself against the impending reality that soon, she wouldnt be there. But Judy had been so-

One day she had been there, and the next...

He knew logically that she was no more gone for him than she had ever been - it wasnt like he had known her personally, even if it felt like he had through her soul-stirring music, her deeply emotional renditions that seemed like a window into every emotion the woman had ever felt...he still had the records. He could still pluck an album from the bottom shelf and hear Smile fill the room and steel his frayed nerves the same way the song had for as long as he could remember. But it felt different now - more than ever it seemed like she had been just barely holding on, putting on a brave face for everyone before retreating at night to a world of sleep-inducing pills and capsules to calm her nerves just enough to get through to the next show.

He ached for her. Knowing she ached the ways he did had been bad enough; knowing that however bad his own pain was, hers was worse? Was almost unbearable.

He wondered where Blaines ranked, between his and Judys agony. Because the boy had been so terrified of everything, including and especially himself, and that had to be worse than mere sadness, right? It had to be worse than anything Kurt had ever felt, including the gripping loneliness of the first few years in New York, the sharp pain of his first relationships falling apart, the despair of always wondering if anyone would ever love him and want him at the same time - because he had people who loved him, and he had seen men who wanted him, but never could he manage to make those things match up in quite the way he had imagined. All of those things had felt beyond awful in the moment, but at least they had subsided; a showtunes night with Rachel, a shopping trip with Ricky, popcorn and movies with Mercedes, along with a few days of self-indulgent catharsis to a soundtrack of Judys greatest hits, and he could move beyond the malebogie. But if on top of all those things, he had hated the main thing about himself - being different, the way Blaine had? It must have been unbearable.

He wondered if the boy he had once known could sleep. Did he lie down beside whatever poor girl he had forced himself to love and drift into dreamland? Or did he rattle around their perfect little house, worrying and wishing and trying to feel something else before succumbing to the sedatives in his medicine cabinet?

Those damn things were so easy to get wrong - too many pills without meaning to, doses too close together, and the next thing anyone knew the search for a nights sleep ended in a casket surrounded by protective glass.

He vaguely registered a repeated thudding at the door, but he couldnt bring himself to care enough to answer. A pause, then the sound began again - the landlord kept swearing he would tighten the door on its hinges so it didnt sound like the thing would rattle its way past the entryway and into the living room one of these days, but the promise had been the same for nearly three years now so Kurt wasnt holding his breath. Silence fell again, save the frustratingly upbeat samba of "You Go to My Head." He should change the song, he sighed to himself, to something more befitting his mood. "Stormy Weather" sounded right - Cant go on, everything I had is gone, stormy weather - but he didnt feel like bothering to change the album and search for the right groove from where he lay. He would get there eventually. In the meantime-

"Kurt." Mercedes stood above him, arms folded across her chest. Her face was unreadable, backlit by the living room lamp, but her tone was a mixture of concern and annoyance. Just because she didnt live here anymore didnt mean she had any qualms about using her key if no one answered when she knocked; Kurt didnt mind - it saved the effort of answering the door on days like today. It also meant that when one of them (usually Rachel) was rehearsing and they couldnt hear the knock, neither Mercedes nor Ricky had to stand in the hallway until the rendition of the song was perfect and the room was quiet again. With Rachel, sometimes that took hours.

Kurt blinked up at her. "Mercedes."

"Youve gotta stop this," she urged gently. "This isnt healthy."

"Its only been a few days," he replied. "Im allowed to mourn that long."

"Is that what you said when Dinah died?"

If he remembered right - and it had been more than five years now - he was pretty sure he had dragged her out of her bedroom, turned off the blues music, and force-fed her cheesecake from the really good place just off Spring Street. That sounded good about now, but that restaurant was closed; the little old Italian lady who had made his favourite dessert had died in 65 - at the ripe old age of no one asks because shes too old and proper for that - and now it was a different Italian restaurant with passable tiramisu but nothing like the ricotta cheesecake he had insisted Mercedes use to pull herself out of the funk.

When he didnt reply, not sure how to admit she might have a point even if he didnt feel like it right now, Mercedes asked, "Wheres Rachel? I thought she would at least be lying here in a rut with you."

"She went to try to see her again," he replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. She had asked if he wanted to come, too; the funeral was today, and though the viewing was officially closed to visitors she had talked to someone yesterday who, she claimed, had inside information and said that there would be more opportunity for the public to view her again after the funeral. Kurt doubted that was any more true than any of the other times Rachel had believed someone with alleged exclusive information; she seemed to attract every huckster in the city who desired to prey on the gullible sometimes. But even if it were true...he wasnt sure he wanted to see the coffin again. Once was paying respects; twice was making himself miserable for no reason.

Though he guessed lying in a dark apartment with a stack of his now-departed idols greatest hits might not be the best way to make that point.

"Ricky too?" Mercedes asked, and Kurt shook his head.

"Working."

"Really?" she pressed, eyebrows raised in clear disbelief.

"Yes."

"Or working like he was any of the times he went to stalk Sonny and Cher?"

"Not Sonny - just Cher," Kurt corrected dryly as a new ballad began. "And actually working as far as I know." He was pretty sure if there was ever a time his best friend would relish the chance to sit on the window ledge of the tiny bookstore and bury himself in a complicated emotional tale, it would be now. Even if Judy Garland had never been nearly as important to Ricky as it had been to Kurt or-

He didnt know why he blushed just thinking the name in Mercedes presence, why his stomach flopped like hed been caught doing something wrong. There was nothing suspect about wondering what a person he had known once was up to. There was nothing wrong with wondering whether the person he had known once - loved once - was taking this particular loss hard.

He was sure Blaine was fine. The boy- man, now, he corrected himself, even if in his mind the image would always be Blaine at 18 - probably wasnt going to let himself even think about anything as unpleasant as the death of the one singer who had once really meant something to him. He had probably buried his albums long ago, shoved them deep into the back of a closet behind the boxes that held all the Christmas decorations, lest someone figure out something was strange about a man in the suburbs who had every recording Judy Garland had ever made.

Too much time had passed to be bitter, really; mostly what he felt was empty. And sad - for her, for himself...and for the man somewhere out there who didnt even have anyone who could understand why losing her mattered. At least he had Rachel; he doubted Blaine had anyone like her around to commiserate with.

Whose voice would be there to guide him through tragedies and self-doubt? Who would remind him to force a smile until the storm passed?

He sighed softly and gazed up at Mercedes, who offered a faint sympathetic smile. It lasted only a moment before she declared, "Cmon. Up. Youve gotta get out of here."

"Mercedes."

"No. Were gonna go out and find something decadent to eat in a place where the music doesnt sound like curling up in a grave." When he offered only a weak smile, she added, "Chocolate cake, Kurt. Theres a bakery down by Union Square youll like." She reached out her hand toward him, and he allowed himself to take it, reluctantly letting her help pull him up off the rug.

Maybe she was right. There was no point in wallowing alone. The only cure for loneliness and despair was cake...and maybe a night of people-watching with Ricky. If there was anyone in the world who could be counted on to make him laugh even when he felt his worst...and the bookstore was the ideal place for it. Right there on Christopher Street, tucked just a block off Sixth and near enough to the train station - apparently they were calling it PATH now that the old H&M had folded, but he tended to think of it as the thing to New Jersey no one I know has ever taken - to see dozens of men stumble past every night. Some of them were regulars, tripping over century-old cracks in the sidewalk, sloshed on watered-down mafia gin; some were terrified, wide-eyed, trembling as they tried to navigate the dark Village streets and find...whatever it was they were looking for. It was easy to tell who would swear up and down they never did this - with their work clothes tidy beneath their overcoats, hat brims slung low over their eyes so a casual observer might think they were trying to be debonair and mysterious but anyone in the know could guess they were attempting to hide from any police or photographers who might report their whereabouts to the wife and kids living on Long Island or in Hoboken or maybe even in New Rochelle or on an estate in Connecticut.

Every so often, if one of the gentlemen looked especially short and particularly scared, Kurt would peer a little more closely out the window to see if maybe - just maybe-...it was never him, of course, and why should it be? Blaine had run for the opposite coast and Kurt highly doubted there was any reason he would ever find himself in New York City. They werent the same man, his long-ago boyfriend and the gentleman with his hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his trenchcoat; just the same type, with the same fears.

The nights he stared too hard were few and far between, though. Ricky had a flare for making up backstories about the men who passed that left them both snickering - who was into which of the boys down by the docks, who was secretly in love with a bull who looked more manly than him, who wore nothing under his coat. As the laughter died down, though, there was a real knack for reading the bevy of men in the neighbourhood. Kurt guessed it came from experience; in Rickys mostly-former..."profession"...it had been necessary. Pick up the wrong one and end up in jail again - or much worse. But from the picture window behind the front counter of the Oscar Wilde Bookstore, they could just watch in safety together as men peered at building numbers and scraps of paper with secret locations, trying to make the two match up...and as groups of friends scuttled quickly down the street toward their favourite hang-out.

He still couldnt believe they had their own bookstore. Sure, it only had a handful of books because the boss was adamant that they not carry anything pornographic, which Kurt supported and Ricky thought was a silly line to draw, but it existed. He couldnt have even imagined such a thing when he moved to town. He could have found everything so much faster if hed been able to just find a bookstore where anyone could walk in and - after a few minutes of talking with Ricky or one of the other young men who worked there - know the lay of the land. It went to show, he guessed, that just when days seemed neverending, years could fly by without even realizing what enormous changes came with them.

The store was tiny, but it was theirs. He was more sentimental about what it meant than Ricky was, but his best friend was certainly more protective of the place. Ricky may have had his own roof over his head now, in a barely-legal bedroom the size of a closet that was made cheaper by the fact that if the LOMEX was ever finished it would be unbearably loud and crowded, but the bookstore was home. Kurt was pretty sure, though he couldnt prove it, that there wasnt a page in the place that Ricky hadnt read at this point. Even the stuff he didnt care about, like poetry...there was always a half-read book face down on the counter.

Ricky tended to roll his eyes when someone - usually Rachel - pointed out how big of a deal it was to have a bookstore, a gathering place. Of course, she also tended to relate it to the importance of Jewish libraries and synagogues in Europe, which was the point at which both of them kind of tuned her out. For one thing, the bookstore wasnt exactly a place to gather; not many people fit in there at once, and it was well-lit which scared a certain clientele off. Arrests aside, it still seemed safer to live in the shadows sometimes than to trek happily down to the Village at 4 in the afternoon to go to a bookstore clearly labeled with the name of possibly the most famous homosexual in history. Kurt would have preferred just an end to the arrests so he could stop jumping every time he heard heavy footsteps behind him. But if he stopped to think about it, it was still something big.

And if it happened to be just steps away from the only bar either of them actually bothered with...all the better. Sometimes it was nice to have somewhere to go after the shop was closed for the night. Sometimes there was nothing better than weaving through the front room at the Stonewall Inn, past all the men who tried to look invisible, until they got to the back room. That room was always more fun - the music louder, the dancing wilder, the conversations more colourful and bilingual with the same nasal lilt Ricky got when he was trying to put someone in their place. Sometimes there was no stronger feeling of belonging than laughing so hard he and Ricky fell onto each others shoulders as boys in tight flared jeans and eyeliner one-upped themselves to upbeat songs in the dark.

Maybe theyd go later. It felt like the kind of night to try to lift ones spirits, and just in case the cake wasnt enough... He doubted it. More likely he would call it an early night and tuck himself into bed early with something suitably depressing and mournful songs he would never hear live.

Kurt scrawled a note for Rachel - he would try calling home if the cake really was as good as Mercedes said, so she could meet them downtown - and pulled on his shoes before grabbing his keys. He straightened his belt, then closed the door the man who got away.

Hed take Ricky a slice, too, then they could wallow together. That sounded like the best night he could hope for about now.