The senior class president escorted them to their seats, as had been tradition for nearly a decade.

They had been upgraded this year, to spray-painted thrones placed near the 50-yard-line, instead of the handicap-section seats they had been assigned five years ago, the “enhanced” stadium seats they had received a few years before that, and the metal benches they had made do with for so many years before.

"The view's better up in the stands," Kurt grumbled, reluctantly taking his seat.

"It's kind. It's sweet. And we're on the sidelines," Blaine said, leaning in, speaking in low tones, aiming for discreet. "You can check out the butts."

”They're kids!” Kurt responded with mock indignation. “And I'm perfectly satisfied with the view I've woken up to for the last 50 years.”

"The view's fine from here, too," Blaine said, reaching over, touching fingertip to fingertip. "Happy anniversary."

"How is it exactly we've ended up here every year on a night when we should be eating chateaubriand and drinking Mouton Rothschild?"

"We haven't been here every year, and you don't eat chateaubriand.”

Maybe they hadn't attended the McKinley High School homecoming game everyyear since high school. There had been a few lapses. The year of the great separation and break up, and the year that followed—the year of the great reconciliation. And there was that second, unfathomable separation, which both knew in their gut was wrong but somehow happened anyway, inexplicably for over a year, right until the point where the bumped into each other in the alumni section of the homecoming game, and then bumped into each other again and again and again underneath the risers during the fourth quarter.

The following year, they returned during the homecoming week planning to marry, a convenience of scheduling for their many friends, only to show up having quietly wed in a civil ceremony days before.

They'd missed a year for the baby, and passed another year, weeks after a funeral that had left Kurt in stunned silence for weeks.

After that, it was simply an unintentional tradition: a few days, maybe a week, visiting friends and remaining family, overlapping with homecoming week.

No one thought much of it at first. Plenty of alumni returned for homecoming festivities. They were simply part of the ebb and flow of former students.

They had run into so many old friends the year of that they commemorated McKinley's championship teams: the cheerleading squads, of which they'd both played small roles; the flukey year when the football team couldn't lose; even the show choir, once known as New Directions, now known by a catchier, pun-based name which made them both cringe. That year brought all of their old friends out of the shadows, second only perhaps to the last year for the old stadium—and old school— before its demolition, making room for a new school, and new field, built several blocks away.

They watched it all in relative anonymity as time passed, until a friend of a friend of a friend told someone the story of the high school sweethearts, long since married, who returned each year.

It earned them upgraded seats, and a proclamation from the McKinley administration, along with an eye roll from Kurt, and a polite ‘thank you' from Blaine. Now, they were being declared “homecoming kings for life” by the school board.

"That's easy to do when most of your life's behind you," Kurt groused, earning a subtle side-eye and the slightest shake of the head from Blaine.

"They wanted us to wear McKinley jerseys, you know," Kurt said. "I told them a red scarf, fine. A red football jersey? Absolutely not."

"I never did get to see you in uniform," Blaine said.

"You saw pictures."

"Not the same. Hey, remember the first year?" Blaine asked, resting his chin to his fist, taking full advantage of the fact they had somehow earned armrests.

"Hmm? You mean the wedding?"

"No, the very first. You asked me out.”

"I invited you to a football game. I didn't ask you out.”

"Whatever you say. But you asked me out."

Blaine flashed a smile. His patented grin has scarcely dimmed over the years, Kurt thought—the flirt.

"I wanted to ask you out, or for you to ask me out."

"That's when we were still at Dalton."

"We came to the game with dad, and Carole."

"We moved higher up in the stands in the second half."

"I had such a crush on you."

Kurt reached over, and took Blaine's hand.

"I hadn't figured it out yet."

"Tell me about it," Kurt said, giving his hand a squeeze.

"Excuse me?"

A scruffy teen-ager with wild hair, thick glasses and a tiny video camera planted himself directed between their seats and the field, obscuring their views.

"I'm Joshua Ben Israel with the Muckracker."

"Ben Israel?" Kurt said. "Any relation to…"

"My grandfather. He says you went to school together."

"That we did. How is he?"

"Retired. Lives in Florida now. Do you mind if I…?"

The kid toyed with his camera for a moment.

"The paper would like a story about you two, if that's okay."

Kurt and Blaine looked at each other for a moment, then shrugged. “Fire away,” Kurt said, leaning back in the thrown.

"I guess the main question is why? Why do you keep coming back every year? Don't you two  live in New York?”

"We did," Kurt said.

They'd actually sold the apartment in the city years before, finally making good on a childhood promise to retire up the coast, not quite to Provincetown as they had once planned, but close. But they also kept the home in Lima. Kurt had intended to sell it after his father's death, but ultimately couldn't bring himself to put it on the market.

They offered it to their daughter instead. She had met a boy on one of their many trips to Lima, and when that boy became a man, he asked her to stay, to settle down, to marry. Giving them the house as a wedding gift was the best decision they had ever made, they reasoned, or at least a solid second.

The best decision they had ever made was dumping the plans for a big wedding that had left them fighting over everything from flowers to table linens, and simply eloping one day.

That they had kept the house in the family for all these years gave Kurt peace, and the Hummel-Andersons a familiar guest room from which they could visit their grandchildren.

"I guess we're a bit like the swallows," Blaine said.

"What?" the boy scrunched his face in confusion.

Something had distracted Joshua—whether it was the play on the field of the cheerleaders on the sidelines wasn't clear, but he quickly made excuses, with a promise to be back.

"You and your damned birds," Kurt said.

"You love the birds."

"I tolerate the birds. But I love that you love them.”

"You know, it's actually a pretty good question," Blaine said.

"What?"

"Why we come back every year. We hardly know anyone here any more. It's our golden wedding anniversary, and we're here at a high school football game."

"I think you're right about the swallows," Kurt said. "They return to that same place each year. No one really knows why. They just know, every year, it's time to go home."