Author's Notes: Although previous knowledge of iDead Like Me/i is helpful with this story, it is not necessary in order to follow this fic.

The title is in reference to two things: There is an episode in season six of The X-files called "In the Field Where I Died, so it's sort of a play on that, and also a play on the song "On the Street Where You Live," from the musical My Fair Lady, which oddly has an insane amount of relevance to this story come to think about it, but that was a completely happy accident.

This story takes place in a (now) slightly Jossed season 2, written before the announcement regarding Chord's departure, and is fairly AU for Season 3 of Glee based on what's happened so far, especially regarding Blaine's year. Just know canon pairings as they were at the end of Season 2 apply.

For the purposes of this fic, we are ignoring the movie Life After Death .

The song in the Memorial Service is Ingrid Michaelson's iMaybe/i from the album "Everybody."

This would not be the story it is without the input and beta services of Swing Girl At Heart and bonedry_1013.

Written for the Kurt BigBang on Livejournal.

For almost as long as there has been death, mankind has tried to find an explanation for it.

Most people, at least in Kurt Hummel's little corner of the world, bought into the whole Judeo-Christian explanation. They believe that we are mortal because Eve did what any normal, reasonable human being would do and ate the apple, thereby basically ruining it for everyone.

Before that, the Greeks believed that the world began in chaos. Erabus appeared out of the void where death dwells. Then, miraculously, Love was born. Love brought order and light. Erabus got it on with Night, who gave birth to Ether, the heavenly light and Day. Then night alone produced Doom, Fate, Death, Sleep, and Dreams.

Every nation and empire that ever came and went had their own version of the story, their own explanation for why people died. Kurt personally thought that they were all kind of ridiculous, and each one was just as implausible as the next.

There was this one story, though, that he used to love as a little boy. It was called iThe Toad and the Jar/i. He liked the pictures, and his mother even did different voices for the different characters, and it was his favorite bedtime story as a child.

Looking back on it, Kurt supposed that the message was morbid if he dwelled on it for too long, but Kurt loved it. The illustrations were all soft lines and saturated color. He loved the sound of his mother's voice as she changed it to suit the characters in the story. He loved the feel of the fabric of his mother's dress as she pulled him onto her lap. He loved the feel of her arms around him like nothing could go wrong.

Once upon a time is the default beginning for most tales, but that beginning does not apply here, for our story starts when Time itself began, before there was Night; before there were dreams; before there was even Death Itself.

It would seem that god (that's with a lower-case 'g') was busy with the whole Creation thing.

He gave Toad (that was an upper-case 'T') a clay jar and said: "Be careful with this. There is death inside!"

Tickled pink that someone big and important like god entrusted him, of all beings, with something so precious and valuable, Frog promised to guard the jar with his very life.

Then one day, Toad met Frog.

"Let me hold the jar of death!" Frog begged.

Toad, knowing that he was entrusted with such great responsibility and he wasn't sure if Frog was to be trusted with such an important thing, just said "No!"

But Frog whined…and whined…and whined…and Toad finally gave in.

"You can hold it, but only for a minute!" Toad said.

In his excitement, Frog began to hop around and juggle the jar with Death inside from one foot to the other.

Frog, as Toad was about to find out, was an idiot.

"Stop!" Toad cried.

But it was too late. Frog dropped the jar, and the jar shattered to the ground.

When it broke open, Death escaped.

And that is why everyone and everything that lives must die.

When she died, it never occurred to Kurt that the reason might be because Frog dropped the jar. It was just a story, just like every other explanation for why people died.

It didn't occur to him to blame Frog if his father had died of a heart attack last year, either.

He'd found the book again when they were packing up to move to the new house, and it was different than what he remembered. It had definitely lost its entertainment value, and although the pictures were still as bright and vivid and lush as he remembered, the appeal was completely gone. For the life of him, he couldn't remember why he liked it so much.

Like every other myth in the world, that is just a story.

Everyone dies. It is an unpleasant fact of life. He doesn't see a reason for needing an explanation for it, because an explanation doesn't change that fact one iota.

Kurt just can't see how trusting a frog (who was lacking in opposable thumbs, no less) was any more or less valid explanation than a woman thinking an apple might be delicious. He is, after all, atheist for a reason.

It isn't that Kurt was mad at god. How could you be mad at something that didn't exist in the first place? You decay and become fertilizer and that was the end of your story.

Except when it's not.