Burt had never thrown out the VCR, no matter how much Kurt insisted it was embarrassing to have such an outdated piece of equipment in the house. Burt always just rolled his eyes and said he still had some old NFL games on tape that he might want to watch someday.

Of course he'd never admitted the real reason. If Kurt knew his mother's tape existed, there was no way he would have wanted to wait until he was eighteen to watch it.

Claire had made the tape two weeks after being told her cancer was terminal and she'd left strict instructions that it was to be given to Kurt on his eighteenth birthday. Not before, not after, exactly on his birthday.

"Or I'll come back and haunt you," she'd said.

I was never able to say no to you, Burt thought, as he watched the kitchen clock tick over from 23:59 to 00:00. Kurt was officially eighteen years old.

He gripped the tape and traced a calloused finger over the label and the much-missed handwriting.

For Kurt

He ascended the stairs slowly, not wanting to wake Carole or Finn. When he got to Kurt's room, he wasn't surprised to see a faint glow of light under the door.

He knocked gently, rapping his knuckles three times before pushing the door open.

"It's okay, I'll turn my light out in a second, I promise," Kurt said before Burt was even in the room. He was lying in bed, propped up on his pillows, clutching his cell phone.

"I just wanted to say happy birthday."

Kurt smiled. "Cool. I've been eighteen for less than two minutes and I've already had two happy birthdays."

Burt threw him a questioning look.

"Blaine," Kurt said. "He just sent me this..."

He held out his phone to show Burt a photo of Blaine, wearing his NYU sweater, holding a candle in the shape of an '18' and blowing a kiss to the camera. Underneath there was message:

Happy birthday gorgeous! Can't wait to see you this weekend. Miss you. Love you always. B xxx

"That's nice." With a heaved sigh, Burt sat down on the bed, perching next to Kurt's legs. He took a moment to look around the room before deciding what he wanted to say. The bedroom was a heck of a lot smaller than the basement in the old house but Kurt had still managed to make it look like a page from a magazine.

"God, I can't believe you're eighteen," Burt said.

"It feels pretty much the same as seventeen so far."

"You're a grown up. You're my little boy and you're a grown up. How did that happen?"

Kurt nodded towards the tape in Burt's hands.

"What's that?"

"It's... kind of a birthday present," Burt said, staring at his hands. "From your mom. She made it before she died and told me to give it to you on your eighteenth birthday."

Burt waited for Kurt to say something but he was silent. Kurt was never silent unless he was sulking or upset.

"It's a message," he went on, breaking the silence. "I borrowed Uncle Andy's camcorder so she could make it. It's all the stuff she never got to say to you."

"You've had this all this time," Kurt said finally, his voice thick, "and you never told me about it?"

"Like you wouldn't have tried to find it if you knew about it. Your mom wanted you to have it today."

He held the tape out. Kurt didn't move.

Well this was definitely not the reaction Burt had been expecting. He'd thought Kurt would make some squealy, excited noise, maybe hug him, possibly cry, probably want to hook the VCR up right there and then, despite it being midnight and him having school in the morning. He really wasn't expecting Kurt to go all stony-faced and stare at the damn tape like it was going to burn him.

"It's... it's her talking?"

Burt nodded.

"I can't remember what her voice was like."

Burt swallowed heavily, then set the tape down on Kurt's nightstand.

"Well, there it is. Hey, I know it's your birthday and all but you do still have to go to school tomorrow, so get some sleep, okay? No staying up all night texting your boyfriend."

"I won't."

"Happy birthday, kiddo."

Burt shut the door as gently as possible and padded across the hall to his bedroom. Carole was fast asleep on her side of the bed and Burt slipped in behind her and nestled against her neck, breathing in the lingering scent of her perfume.

He hadn't told her about the tape. He wouldn't have expected her to tell him if Christopher had left something like that for Finn. God knows he loved Carole something fierce but Claire would always hold a piece of him, just as he knew Christopher would always hold a piece of Carole. They got that about each other.

Claire was always the strong one. She was the one who'd started saying, "No-one pushes the Hummels around," as soon as she became Mrs. Hummel.

She'd always been such a Mama Bear with Kurt, protecting him ferociously from the first time he chose Ken over Action Man, or arguing with his teachers about letting him wear his Maria bonnet on Halloween when all the other boys were dressing as cowboys or superheroes or something from Star Wars. When Kurt came home in tears because some snot-nosed brat had been teasing him, Claire would always tell him he was perfect and could be whatever he wanted to be.

Burt had never been sure Kurt was old enough to know what she meant but it had always made him smile to know his mom wasn't angry.

But Claire had been afraid too. So many nights, after Kurt was tucked up in bed, she'd let herself cry.

"He's going to have such a tough life," she would say. "I can't bear the thought of my baby being lonely."

They never said the G-word to each other, not until near the end. She was sleeping a lot but in one of those times she was able to keep her eyes open, she'd looked right at Burt and said it straight:

"I think Kurt is gay."

"I figured," Burt had said. "The dolls are kind of a giveaway."

"I figured it out when he begged for sensible heels. Is it... okay?"

"He might not be. It could be a phase, he's only a kid."

"But if it's not a phase, is it okay?"

"I just don't want to jump the gun, is all. Who knows what he'll be like when he's a teenager."

"Answer the question."

Burt had shrugged. "Guess we can't change him if he is."

"Burt. Is it okay?"

He'd leaned over and pressed a firm kiss to her forehead.

"Yes. I promise."

"Thank you."

Her eyelids had drooped shut and Burt had waited until he was sure she was asleep again before letting his tears fall.

In the morning, Carole got up early to help Burt hang banners and balloons. They stuck a candle in Kurt's breakfast grapefruit and sang Happy Birthday and Burt tried not to notice how subdued he was.

"Dude, are you worried about getting wrinkles or something?" Finn said. "It's your birthday. Smile!"

"I'm saving my celebrations for the party tomorrow," Kurt said. "And I'm only worried about inheriting Dad's premature balding."

"Watch it!"

Kurt polished off his breakfast, gently resisting Carole's attempts to get him to open at least one gift before school. He insisted he wanted to wait and that he had to get to the library before first period, then ran out the house before Burt could stop him.

"He's definitely an adult if he's not excited about having a birthday," Carole laughed as she cleared away the dishes.

Burt couldn't help it: the memory of Claire's last birthday came to him. She'd been on her first round of chemotherapy, seven months before she died. She'd turned thirty-six.

He remembered how she'd held his hand tighter than her frailty should have allowed and told him that she expected a huge party for her fortieth birthday. Burt had smiled and promised her it would be nothing on her fiftieth birthday party, or their golden wedding anniversary.

That evening, Kurt was true to his word. He submitted to a second rendition of Happy Birthday and didn't say anything about calories when Carole presented him with a doorstop-sized slice of cake.

His smile even grew wide enough to show his teeth when he opened up his new MacBook and tried on the some-designer-Burt-couldn't-pronounce jacket that Carole had found at the outlet mall Kurt had been hinting about for six months.

Meanwhile the VCR still lay untouched in the living room, its loose wires all bunched up at the back.

As they ate dinner, Kurt babbled happily about the plans for his party the next night. Burt and Carole had agreed to go and stay with her parents for the night, leaving the boys and their friends (the entire McKinley glee club, plus a couple of the guys Kurt had kept in touch with after leaving Dalton, and Blaine, who was flying in from New York in the afternoon) in charge of the house. They'd both been warned that any damage would be paid for out of their college funds and that being eighteen didn't mean they couldn't still be grounded.

They were just finishing up dinner when Kurt's phone rang.

"Hey, you," Kurt said, starting to get up before stopping abruptly. "The window? Why? Okay, I'm going over, I'm looking out, I- OH MY GOD!"

He dropped his phone and practically flew to the front door, yanking it open.

"Blaine!" Kurt threw his arms around his boyfriend and they spun each other round, clutching on tight to each other. "What are you doing here?"

"I blew off my classes this afternoon, got an earlier flight," Blaine said breathlessly "I had to see you on your actual birthday, not just the day after."

Finn was on his feet already, shaking Blaine's hand, and Carole was right behind him, ready to envelope Blaine into a warm hug.

"I hope it's okay, me turning up unannounced like this," Blaine said.

"You're always welcome, Blaine," Burt said, and he meant it. "I don't think the guest bedroom is made up though. Kurt, don't forget to do that before you go to bed."

Kurt gave him the puppy-look he'd perfected when he was six.

"Fine, I'll ask Finn to do it, seeing as it's your birthday."

"Dad!" Kurt's voice was pure exasperation. "What does that balloon say?"

"Happy Eighteenth Birthday."

"Right. Eighteen. Which means I am now an adult. Which means..."

Burt sighed in defeat. "Okay, he can sleep in your room."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Kurt squealed, while Blaine just blushed.

Blaine was such a fixture in Kurt's life now, it was funny to think how wary Burt had been of him the first time they met. Sure the kid was polite and well-spoken and smart and treated Kurt with respect and liked football and all those things. The problem was that Kurt, back then, was still insisting they were just friends but Burt could see how smitten his son was. He'd looked at Blaine and seen the boy who was going to break his boy's heart.

He'd been even more worried when Blaine had graduated last year and gone off to study at NYU. They'd promised each other they'd stay together but Burt had just been waiting for the day he'd find Kurt in tears because Blaine had found someone else, or they'd decided long-distance was just too hard. But instead Kurt was planning on going to F.I.T in September, living in dorms a twenty minute walk away from where Blaine lived. Sure, that was still a few months away but Burt didn't feel like he was tempting fate to say they'd made it.

As they all settled in the living room, Burt watched them for a moment – hands entwined, Blaine resting his head on Kurt's shoulder, Kurt pressing his cheek against Blaine's curls. It was weird to think of them as cute but... well, they looked cute.

As he watched them, Kurt whispered something and Blaine nodded in response, then they were pushing up from the couch.

"We're just going upstairs for a little while," Kurt called out when they were already halfway up the stairs.

"They'd better keep the noise down this time," Finn muttered. Burt glared at him.

Burt had thought he was totally cool with the whole 'gay' thing by the time Blaine entered the picture. He was a little ashamed to admit though that it wasn't until he'd seen the boys together that he really got it. He'd thought being gay was about liking showtunes and using organic hair goop. He'd thought it was about sex (in the moments when he admitted to himself that, yes, his son would one day... do that). But seeing the way those boys looked at each other, he'd realised that being gay was about who you fell in love with.

They had just fallen in love the way he'd fallen in love with Carole. The way he'd fallen in love with Claire.

He was in junior college when he met her, just a year or so older than Kurt was now. They had nine years together before Kurt came along, four of them as husband and wife. Seventeen years altogether. Kurt had been alive for longer than Burt had got to have Claire in his life.

The cancer diagnosis had come as a body-blow to them both. She was only thirty-five, surely that was too young to have ovarian cancer? She'd only gone to the doctor in the first place because they'd decided to try for another kid and she'd been worried 'cause her cycle had gone all irregular. Suddenly, instead of planning another baby, Claire was having a hysterectomy, then chemotherapy.

Burt wasn't smart. He could never have been a doctor but suddenly his world was filled with words he wished he didn't understand, like carcinoma and metastasised.

Months of treatment, awful, horrible treatment that left her sick and weak and bald. His Claire was slowly fading away and there was nothing he could do about it.

Kurt had been so goddamn brave throughout the whole thing. As much as they'd wanted to shield him from it, he was old enough to know what cancer meant. He'd only ever talked about 'when' Mom was going to get better though, never 'if'. He'd helped Claire style her wigs (he'd made Burt buy her one in every colour) and decided that she should dye her hair auburn when it grew back because it really brought out her eyes.

Months of treatment and at the end of it all, the cancer had spread. All that pain for nothing. All that hope for nothing.

It was the cruellest end Burt could have imagined. He gave up asking why, why this was happening to his beautiful Claire, why his son was having his mom snatched away from him, why he was losing the woman he'd wanted to grow old with. She was dying right before his eyes and with her was dying all their hopes and dreams.

Burt would watch her sleep for hours, grateful for the peace it brought her, grateful for every laboured breath. Every breath that let him hold off his fear for a little bit longer.

The future had seemed like some terrifying land that he never wanted to visit but the one thing that forced him through was the one thing that scared him most: Kurt. He was filled with terror at the thought of having to guide Kurt through life; this beautiful boy who he loved more than he thought possible but who he didn't really understand.

"Dad? Dad? Dad!"

Burt's head snapped up, shaking him from his reverie. Kurt was standing in front of him.

"Could you help me set up the VCR in my room? There's..." he glanced quickly at Finn and Carole. "...something Blaine and I want to watch."

Burt nodded and avoided Carole's questioning stares as he helped Kurt carry the VCR upstairs.

"I'm not really sure how this thing works," Burt said, once they were in Kurt's room.

"It's okay, I know how to set it up," Blaine said.

"I just wanted to get you upstairs." Kurt picked up the tape from where it was lying on his bed. "Will you stay and watch it with me?"

"Oh. Kurt, I... I've seen it. I was the one holding the camera. I know what's on it."

Kurt reached out his hand. "Please?"

They settled on the bed, Kurt in the middle. The screen flickered to life with the shaky picture of pair of out-of-focus work boots. Burt jumped when he heard his own voice coming from the TV.

"Okay, I think I got it switched on."

"You need to point it at me," a second, lighter voice said.

Burt felt something constrict in his chest as the camera wobbled for a moment then came into focus on the image of a woman, wearing an elegant auburn wig, her blue eyes less vibrant than they once were but still beautiful.

"Is there a red light on?" Burt's voice said again. Claire nodded. "Okay, that means it's recording. Go."

Claire smiled and took a deep breath.

"Hi, Kurt. It's Mom! It feels kinda weird, talking to you like this. To me, now, you're just a little boy but when you hear this you'll be eighteen. You'll be a young man. I'm trying to imagine what you'll be like. Handsome, obviously, because you have my looks."

Burt heard Blaine laugh. Kurt leaned forward, chin resting in his hands.

"Right now you're so imaginative and creative and strong-willed. You know exactly what you want, even when other people try to tell you that you're wrong. I hope you haven't lost that.

"I was so looking forward to seeing you grow up. The hardest part of all this is knowing how much I'm going to miss. I know your dad loves you more than anything and he's going to take the best care of you. I'm not worried about that. I'm just… angry that I'm being taken away so soon. I know you're angry too right now. I want you to know that that's okay but I hope you don't let it consume you. You have to carry on without me. That doesn't mean forgetting me, it means holding me in your heart, just like I'll always hold you in mine, and then living.

"There are so many things I want for you, Kurt. I want you to go to college, okay? Get a good education. I want you to never let anyone push you around. I want you to have a passion. I think I know what it will be – you're always singing! You sing to me while I'm falling asleep and you sound like an angel to me. But even if you haven't sung for ten years by the time you see this, I want you to have something in your life that gets you fired up.

"I want you to love and be loved. No matter how hard it might seem for you sometimes, there is someone out there for you, someone who will see how wonderful you are. When you find that person, you hold on to them and you make sure they know how much you love them, because life is precious Kurt.

"Don't be afraid of making mistakes. Don't regret the things you haven't done. I don't know if you'll remember this but you have a favourite book right now –"

Claire reached down to the side of her chair and pulled out a thin, brightly coloured paperback.

"Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. You come to me pretty much every day wanting to read it – not that you have to read it anymore, you know it by heart. Your favourite part is right after the kid gets out of the slump, out of 'the waiting place'. You always shout it out so loud:

She flipped the pages and started to read.

"NO!
That's not for you!

Somehow you'll escape
All that waiting and staying.
You'll find the bright places
Where Boom Bands are playing

With banner flip-flapping
Once more you'll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you're that kind of a guy!"

Claire looked up at the camera, her eyes bright with tears that she wasn't trying to hide.

"That's what I want for you, Kurt. I just wish I could be around to see it.

"I love you. You are the best thing I have ever done and no matter how much I wish I had more time, just knowing that I had a part in making you makes me so proud and it makes my life worthwhile.

"Happy birthday, baby."

Burt blinked and felt hot, fat tears rolling down his face. Judging by the sniffles he heard beside him, he guessed the boys were in a similar state. He chanced a quick glance and saw that Blaine had both arms wrapped around Kurt, his eyes closed. Kurt was still staring at the screen, his face red from crying and the widest, teeth-showing smile on his face.

Burt looked away again and his eyes flickered upwards.

See that, Claire? He's okay. He's going to be okay.

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee. At all. It belongs to Fox and Ryan Murphy and probably some other people, none of whom are me. No copyright infringement intended.