A/N: Hi! So this is a continuation of 'fill my lungs with sweetness' and 'the trees are filled with memories'. This is set a couple of months after 'the trees are filled with memories'. I would really advise reading those before trying to read this one! :) This is rated M, mainly for mature themes/a super light smut scene/etc.

Thanks to Emily for her hand-holding and ability to deal with my weirdo writing style. You the best. And thanks again, to Ally and Kelsey for running finchel-prompts (aka, the place where I find all my inspiration.) And thanks, to you, for reading this! Hope you enjoy. It's been a lot of fun writing this little 'verse.

Title of the piece is again from the lovely and beautiful 'Bloom' by The Paper Kites. I don't own that, or Glee.

-x-

The day after first grade starts, Adam informs Finn that he's going to marry Elise Carpenter. At first, Finn doesn't think much of it because Adam's six and it's not as if he's actually going to end up marrying the girl. But then Adam keeps bringing it up routinely, sometimes two or three times a day, and so after a week or so of the Elise obsession, Rachel decides to have Finn sit Adam down and have some sort of weird father-son talk with him.

Finn doesn't think it's completely necessary but Rachel's getting all antsy and saying that she doesn't want Adam to fall in love too quickly, or have his heart broken. Again, Finn's pretty sure that none of this is going to happen because kids are kind of fickle at this age and Adam still thinks that love means sharing pretzels at snack time. It's not like the kid actually knows what marriage means, you know? And besides, maybe in a few weeks Adam will decide that he doesn't want to marry at all, and just wants to live with himself and Elephant for the rest of his life.

Kids change their mind super quickly at this age. Finn knows this because sometimes Adam will change his shirt literally three times before deciding on an outfit for school. Though, Finn's not sure if that's all kids or just Adam, because Burt says that Kurt used to do the same thing when he was little.

Regardless of what Finn says, though, Rachel's still determined that the best course of action for this problem (that Finn really doesn't even think is a problem, but whatever, he's not going to argue; what the boss lady wants, the boss lady gets) is for Finn to talk with Adam about Elise.

So, after Finn gets out of work one day, he takes Adam over to this one ice cream shop they always go to so they can talk this over. Finn's not even really sure how to bring the whole situation up, to be honest, but he doesn't have to worry about that for too long because Adam basically brings it up himself.

"Elise wore her hair in pigtails today," he says, taking a big bite out of his pumpkin ice cream cone. Adam nibbles at the waffle cone thoughtfully for a second, his eyebrows drawing together. "They sort of look like how Mama's do, except Elise's hair is super long."

Adam takes another bite of his ice cream, making sure to lick the drips up off from the sides.

"Yeah?" Finn asks, taking a bite out of his own ice cream. Adam nods and he motions with one hand towards his waist, still managing to hold onto his ice cream cone with the other.

It's still totally bizarre to Finn, how fast Adam's growing. Last year at this time, the kid could barely manage to eat an ice cream cone successfully without ruining his like, entire outfit, and now Adam's telling stories and motioning with his hands and everything.

"Her hair's down to here," Adam says, patting his stomach. "That's long, isn't it?" He looks to Finn for confirmation, as he bites off a particularly big chunk of his ice cream cone. A little dribble of pumpkin ice cream slides down his chin, and he wipes at it haphazardly with his hand.

"Definitely," Finn agrees, finishing off his cone. He wipes his hands on his jeans, as Adam keeps going on and on about Elise's hair, and the art project that she made today in class – a picture of some cartoon character who has pink hair or something, and according to Adam, it's like the best thing ever.

After a couple more minutes of Adam talking about school and his friends and Elise (always Elise), Finn finally finds a pause in the conversation so that he can start to talk about what Rachel – well, sent him here to talk about.

"So, you think you're going to marry Elise someday?" he asks, and yeah, he's not going to lie; he kind of feels stupid for having this quasi-adult conversation with a six year old. But Rachel's really big on taking Adam's feelings seriously, and making sure that he doesn't ever feel like what he feels isn't important just because he's little.

So. That means that if Adam's saying he wants to marry Elise Carpenter, Finn has to take that seriously. Which, honest, he's trying to do, but seeing Adam look at him so earnestly, nodding his head as the streaks of ice cream dry on his chin… Finn just wants to start to laugh, because it's fucking adorable, how like, importantly Adam views this entire situation.

"I know I am," Adam says. "She's awesome."

Finn nods, and he bites at his bottom lip and looks down at his feet for a second because he's trying his best not to laugh or smile or anything, because he doesn't want Adam to get pissed or embarrassed. He's kind of moody sometimes, kind of anxious – if he thinks that Finn's making fun of him or anything (which Finn's not) he'll clam up and ignore him for a while.

Which obviously, Finn doesn't want, so he takes a deep breath to try to steel himself before he looks back over at Adam's face.

"I mean, what makes her so awesome?" Finn asks, and Adam thinks about the question for a second, pursing his lips and tilting his head in this way that basically makes him look identical to Kurt.

"She likes to talk about Legos," Adam says, and Finn nods.

"Yeah, that is pretty cool," he concedes, and Adam continues excitedly,

"And she likes to draw. And she always has the best snacks at lunch – and she always shares, but just with me," Adam says, and he sort of puffs out his chest a little, like he's super proud of that fact. Finn smiles at him, but not in a laughing way or anything, just in a happy way. Because it's cool, you know, to see his kid get so damn excited. It's something Finn thinks that he'll never get sick of seeing, ever, not even when he's ninety and in a nursing home or whatever.

"But other kids probably share with you too," Finn says, trying to focus back on the task at hand and not just the fact that he has the best kids on the planet. (Because even though Eli's just a baby, Finn can already tell that he's going to grow up to be just as great as Adam.) "And you don't want to marry them," Finn says, after a moment's pause.

Adam averts his eyes from Finn's, stares at his ice cream cone solemnly as he eats up the remainder of the ice cream. He sighs and he says finally,

"Dad, other kids aren't Elise." He shakes his head, almost as if he's insinuating that Finn wouldn't understand. He also rolls his eyes a little too, and that actually kind of bums Finn out for a second, because he doesn't want Adam to keep getting bigger and rolling his eyes at him and getting annoyed with him.

For a moment he thinks that he wouldn't really mind if Adam just stayed six years old forever. He knows that probably sounds super weird and stuff, but it's just the truth. He doesn't want Adam growing up so fast, and he definitely doesn't want to become that lame dad that kids roll their eyes at.

But then Adam lets out a burp and laughs hysterically, and that sort of brings Finn back to reality, as Adam laughs,

"Dad, you do it."

(Okay, so maybe, occasionally, Finn and Adam have burping contests. Yeah, whatever, fine, it's disgusting and crude, and a bunch of other synonyms that Rachel likes to toss out. But they really never do it in public and like, fuck it, if Adam thinks it's funny to hear Finn fake burp once in a while, Finn will fake burp until he's blue in the face, okay?)

Finn just shakes his head though, says, "Later, bud." That appeases Adam for now, even though Finn knows that the minute they get in the elevator at their apartment building, Adam will demand to have Finn follow through on his promise.

"Just – look, I know you're totally in love with Elise, which is cool," Finn says, "but don't get bummed if she doesn't like you back, or like, if you decide you don't like her. Okay?"

He thinks that's about as detailed as he needs to get with a first grader, and he's pretty sure that's all Rachel wanted him to talk about, anyway.

Adam grins at him, pushes his baseball cap up farther on his head so that it's not drooping down over his eyebrows.

"Okay," Adam chirps, and he slides off from the chair, walks over to Finn's side of the table. He holds out his hand so that Finn can grab onto it, and he pretends to pull Finn out of the chair, huffing and puffing under the strain. Finn slowly stands up, acting as if Adam's actually the one doing all the work of getting him out of the chair.

"Thank God you're here, man," Finn says, placing his hand on top of Adam's head. "I would've been stuck in that chair for years if you hadn't helped me up."

"Decades," Adam says excitedly, because he just learned what decades were yesterday and he now tries to push that word into just about every conversation he has. He holds onto Finn's hand tightly as they head out of the ice cream shop, down the street towards their apartment building.

Adam makes Finn stop at the pet store so that they can pick up some new treats and toys for Olive. The cat's still as cranky as always, but Adam's obsessed with her and he likes buying her all these flashy toys, even though the only thing that Olive really likes is this strand of beads that definitely looks like it's seen better days.

"We can buy something for Eli to give her, too," Adam says, as he picks up toys at random, thrusting them into Finn's arms. "Like a ball or something." He picks one up, looks at it, before placing it back on the shelf. "That one was boring," he tells Finn, before picking up a little squeaky mouse that has some catnip shoved inside.

"Cool," Adam says, drawing out the word to make it sound like it has about five syllables. He lets out a little meow sound, licks his hand and then pretends to wipe at his imaginary cat ears with them, before placing the mouse in Finn's hand.

"That'll be from Eli," Adam says, smiling up at Finn. Finn glances down at the assortment of toys in his hands and tries to figure out how he can reason to Rachel once he gets home why he thought spending fifty dollars on needless toys for their cat was a solid idea.

(And yeah, normally Finn would try to put some of the toys back, but he's always been shitty at saying no to Adam, and he's especially shitty at saying no to Adam whenever he mentions something about being a big brother, or doing something for Eli. That always kills him, seriously, in the absolute best way.)

-x-

Rachel's taking the next couple of years off from work. She's not totally avoiding the stage though; she's thinking about doing this one workshop next year, and she's in constant contact with her old director, some of her castmates, and she's always texting or calling her agent to make sure that she's not completely losing all of the ground that she'd covered within the theater world.

Even though she gets a little sad sometimes about not working, Finn knows that there's no place she'd rather be than at home with Eli and Adam. Rachel's one of those people who's just super natural at being a mom – like, Finn doesn't know how she does it, because she gets kind of stressed out easily about work and other things like that. But when it comes to her kids, she's just so confident and sure of herself; like she knows exactly what she's doing at all times.

Finn can't put it into words, this feeling he gets whenever he sees Rachel taking care of Adam and Eli. But it's this weird sensation that he gets all throughout his body, this bizarre feeling of like, okay, this is good, this is home. To him, Rachel means home. And when she's with their kids, that feeling's just multiplied by like a thousand percent.

She's sitting in the living room on this one evening in September. Eli's on his tummy for a few minutes, just sort of giggling and making all those awesome baby noises that Finn's so totally in love with, and Adam's sitting on her lap as she reads him a story about some fairytale land. Adam's completely engrossed in the story, and Rachel points to each word as she says it out loud. After a couple pages have been read, Adam covers her hand with his, so that it's like he's pointing the words out, too.

Finn's on his stomach next to Eli, rubbing his hand against his back. Eli's still so skinny and little, and Finn's hand basically covers his entire back. It's so crazy, being around a baby. Finn never babysat or anything, so when Eli was first born, he kind of was scared that he was going to be horrible at all the baby stuff.

It took a lot of practice, figuring out how to work the diapers and the bottles and learning how to get the formula just right. But he thinks he's got a good hold on it now, and Rachel always tells him that he's the best dad she's ever seen.

She has to say that – they're engaged and have two kids – but still, it's nice to hear.

Finn presses a kiss against the top of Eli's head before he picks him up, holds him in his arms. He knows that Eli could've stayed on his belly for a couple more minutes, but he gets freaked out if Eli's on his stomach for too long; Rachel thinks it's cute, like he's trying to be some protective dad or something, but Finn's not even trying to be cute. He's just being way overly cautious.

Rachel and Adam finish up the story, and Adam lets out this satisfied sigh when it's over, leans his head back so that it's resting against Rachel's shoulder. Rachel brushes the hair away from his forehead, drops a quick kiss there before letting the hair flop back into place.

"Bed time?" she says, squeezing a hand against Adam's arm. "I'm getting sleepy." She fakes a big yawn, and Finn does the same. He's not sure how much longer they have, until Adam realizes that his parents don't actually go to bed at eight-thirty, too… but he's sort of hoping that they can at least squeeze another year or so out of it.

Adam nods, stands up and stretches his arms out above his head. He's wearing these pajamas that have dinosaurs printed all over them – triceratops and all that – and he grabs Elephant up from off the floor. Looking over at Eli and Finn, he says,

"Eli looks really tired." And it's true. The little guy's eyelids keep fluttering shut, and he lets out a little yawn that crinkles up his nose and causes his eyebrows to furrow.

Adam presses a fingertip against the wrinkle between Eli's eyes, gently though, so it doesn't disturb the baby. He really is a great brother. Kurt would've been so fucking proud of him.

Glancing down at Finn, he gives him a half-smile, but says in this nervous sort of tone, "I don't think he'll be able to stay up for the whole wedding, Dad."

Finn and Rachel's wedding is in a couple of weekends, and besides Elise and Legos, it's just about the only thing that Adam's been able to talk about for the past few days. Every day after school, Rachel lets him try on his little tuxedo for a few minutes, and she always sends Finn a photo; she knows that Adam doesn't look any different than the day before, but she says that there's just something about seeing him with his bow tie and cummerbund on that like, compels her to take yet another picture.

Anyway, he's really excited about it, but he gets all edgy about the idea of Eli at the wedding. He's nervous that the music's going to be too loud, or that Eli's going to start crying during the ceremony, or that he's going to poop all over the place. Finn's basically positive that the reason Adam keeps bringing this stuff up is because he's nervous that Eli's going to take all the attention on that day.

Adam's a good big brother – the best – but the kid's still six years old, and he's still human.

Jealousy happens, you know?

Finn says, "We already talked about that, remember? When Eli's tired, Papa's going to take him back to the hotel and stay with him for the night."

Honestly, that's probably the best thing for everyone, because Burt always gets cranky if Carole tries to keep him out on the dance floor for too long. It's not that his step-dad doesn't like to, and Finn quotes, "get his groove on", but it's just that when he's ready to call it quits and watch Sports Center… well, he's ready to call it quits and watch Sports Center.

And Rachel doesn't like when Burt watches television and Eli's in the room but Eli will be asleep, so Finn doesn't think it's that big of a deal.

(Rachel's tried printing off all these journal articles that say things about how dangerous it is, for babies and toddlers to watch television, and how it affects their cortical something or other, but Burt always retorts that Kurt never had a problem growing up, and he watched television with Burt all the time. Rachel doesn't say anything after that, but she still sends the articles to Burt at least once every other week.

They love each other, obviously. Rachel calls Burt her third dad, and Burt calls Rachel the daughter he never had. They just like to rag on each other once in a while.)

Adam sticks out his bottom lip for a moment, before saying, "But that means Papa can't be with me."

He looks down at his feet when he says that, almost like he's ashamed. Finn can see Rachel over Adam's shoulder, and she's doing that thing where she plays with the ends of her hair, all anxious and nervous. She hates, hates, hates thinking that Adam's not getting enough attention now that Eli's around. She knows that he is, it's just that she gets nervous thinking that Adam doesn't think he is.

Finn says, "Yeah, true. That's true. But you know, that's totally okay because remember how Mama and I are going away for that week, after the wedding? You'll be with Papa and Nana that whole time. So… Eli gets a head start and stuff, but like, you'll still get to see Papa just as much as he does, if you think about it."

Adam considers this, rocks back and forth on his heels for a couple seconds. "He does take longer naps," he says, conceding that point.

"Right? And besides, you'll be having so much fun at the wedding with Aunt San, and One and Two… you'll barely even notice that Papa's not there," Finn says.

Adam nods and he smiles, clearly relieved. He kisses Eli on the head and says, "Night, baby," (because that's what he hears Rachel and Finn say all the time, to each other and to their kids, and sometimes Adam gets really into copying the way that Finn and Rachel talk) before looking back over at Rachel.

"Can you read me another story before bed?" he asks, and Rachel nods.

"We'll read it together," she says smiling. "Just go brush your teeth and I'll meet you in there."

Adam gives Finn a kiss on the cheek, and then scampers off down the hallway towards the bathroom. Rachel crawls on her hands and knees over to Finn and Eli, kisses Finn on the cheek, too.

"You can get Eli ready for bed?" she asks, and she cups his cheek with her hand, brushes her thumb back and forth. Finn glances down at the sleeping baby in his arms, smiles and says,

"Yeah. I got him."

Rachel brushes her lips against Finn's. Her breath tastes like spaghetti sauce but her lips taste like her vanilla lip balm and Finn's positive, he's absolutely sure without a doubt in his mind, that in two weeks he's going to be getting married to his soul mate. He knows that sounds super fucking cheesy and maudlin, but it's just the truth. It's at these odd moments, these random life moments like when he's kissing Rachel and he has their baby boy lying asleep in his arms, and Adam off brushing his teeth in the bathroom, when Finn realizes for the umpteenth time that it's a simple fact.

-x-

He gets a phone call at work the next week. It's from Adam's school, and that's never a good sign. The only time the school calls him is if it's something super serious or if they can't get a hold of Rachel. His assistant pops her head in to tell him that the secretary said it was urgent, and Finn picks up the phone, all the while mentally preparing himself to hear that Adam's broken his wrist or like, puked all over the classroom or something.

He takes a deep breath, steadying himself, and says, "Hello?"

"Mr. Hudson? Is there any possible way you'd be able to pick Adam up from school?"

Finn glances at his schedule for about a half a second, trying to remember if he has any meetings in the afternoon, before he realizes that regardless of whether he has meetings or not, obviously if Adam needs him he's going to skip his meetings in order to get to his kid.

"Yeah, yeah, absolutely. What – um, I mean, right now? Is he okay?" Finn says, stumbling over his words. He's not all that good at staying calm under pressure and he's already wondering why Rachel wasn't called first, or whether or not Adam's sick or just upset or -.

"He's. Well, he's not sick," the secretary says, kind of delicately. "He's just very upset. I think something in class happened, maybe something said about – you know, about fathers? And the guidance counselor thinks it'd be best if you came to talk to Adam. He's really too upset to be in a classroom setting right now."

"He's not in the room with your right now, is he?" Finn asks, and this huge sense of dread starts to fill up inside him, because Adam seriously fucking hates being talked about – he hates when adults talk about him and pretend he's not in the room or something.

But the secretary says that Adam's in the guidance counselor's office and at least that's one thing to be thankful for. Finn thanks the secretary and says he'll be there as soon as he can. He tells his assistant that he's going to have to reschedule all his meetings for the rest of the day, and tells her to call Rachel and let her know that something's up with Adam.

The entire cab ride over to the school, Finn's trying to wrack his brain, think of whether or not there's anything that happened recently that could have set up this outburst. But he honestly can't even think of anything – Adam hasn't gotten upset about Kurt in months, and he barely even flinches anymore any time someone mentions something about like, dads and sons or whatever. Maybe something was said about gay people and it upset him? Like one of his classmates or something? But Adam's only six and Finn's also not even totally confident that Adam knows what being gay means.

He tried to explain to Adam in super, beyond simplistic terms once, that Kurt was gay, but then Adam kept trying to say that Finn was gay, because he and Puck hug all the time and stuff. Finn tried correcting him but just gave up after a while and figured he'd try talking to Adam about it when he was a little older.

But what if Adam said something about how Daddy Kurt was gay, and one of the kids said something rude? All these thoughts are just flying through Finn's mind right now but he can't even stop them, even if he knows deep down how unrealistic they are – kids are cruel and everything, but they're six. God, though, if one of those kids in his class said something about gay people, Finn probably will pull Adam from the school and place him in a different one like, immediately. Honestly, he's not dealing with that shit. Seriously.

Finn's sufficiently freaked himself out by the time he gets to the school, and he practically sprints into the guidance office. Adam's sitting there, and there're these tear tracks down his cheeks and Finn wraps him up in a bear hug immediately, looks over at the guidance counselor, Ms. Pillsbury.

She's looking at Adam with this sad look on her face, and Finn just holds Adam tighter to him for a brief second, before placing him back on the ground.

"Wait outside for me, just for a sec, okay? I'll be right there," Finn says, bending down so that he's eyelevel with Adam. Adam wipes a hand across his nose, sniffles. "I promise."

Adam picks his Spongebob backpack up off from the ground and nods, shuffles out of the room slowly. Finn stands back up, looks over at Ms. Pillsbury. He knows that he probably has a beyond bewildered look on his face, but he can't even hide it, because he's confused as fuck right now as to what's going on.

Ms. Pillsbury covers her mouth with her hand for a second, collects herself and says, "I'm – I don't even know what to say, I'm sorry. I just… it's so upsetting, seeing Adam so obviously distraught." She takes a deep breath, and then says, "His teacher said that Adam was working on an art project with Elise Carpenter, and – Adam won't, he won't even say what happened, but out of nowhere he started hysterically crying…" Ms. Pillsbury trails off, shaking her head. "I think Elise may have been asking about his biological father. I know she was, but she won't say what she asked, and neither will Adam."

Finn runs his hands over his hair, closes his eyes tightly for a brief second, trying to collect himself. He knows it's not the guidance counselor's fault that Adam freaked out, but still.

"Okay," Finn says after a moment, opening his eyes and dropping his arms down by his side. "I'm gonna take Adam home for the day then." He sighs, asks, "Is Elise okay? Did Adam upset her?"

He wants to make sure that some six year old girl isn't off in the corner crying somewhere just because she asked some inquisitive questions that she didn't realize would set Adam off.

Ms. Pillsbury says, "No, she's fine. Confused, maybe. But one of the other guidance counselors talked to her, helped her calm down. She's fine, though. Really. And we called her parents, just to let them know what happened."

Finn should probably ask for their phone number, so he can call them and like, tell them that he's sorry if Adam made Elise upset? But then there's another part of him that thinks they should be calling him and Rachel, and apologize for their daughter being so nosy.

Elise isn't the only one who's confused right now.

Finn says goodbye to Ms. Pillsbury, then heads out of the room. Adam's sitting in a chair by the door, and he looks up at Finn, his eyes clear of any tears. He looks pretty calm right now but who knows how he'll start acting once he realizes that Finn wants to know the whole story of what happened in the classroom.

Adam grabs onto his hand and shoulders his backpack, and they're in the cab on their way back to the apartment before Finn finally says,

"So, we're gonna have to talk about this. You know that, right?" Because he doesn't want Adam thinking that he can get out of this or something, or pretend that nothing happened.

Adam looks out the window, but he nods, so Finn knows that he heard him. They don't talk the whole way back to the apartment, which is fine, because Finn knows that sometimes Adam doesn't like to talk and he just likes to process things on his own a little. Finn sends Rachel a text, lets her know the gist of what happened, just so she'll be aware of why her guys are randomly trudging through the door at one o'clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday.

When they finally get up to the apartment, Adam's not holding onto Finn's hand or anything. He just keeps sighing every so often, brushing his hair out of his eyes, biting at his nails. When they get inside, he says a quiet hello to his mom and to Eli, and then follows Finn into his bedroom without even being told to.

Finn sits down on the bed next to Elephant. Adam climbs onto the bed too, and Finn hands him the old stuffed animal. Adam looks at him for a second before slowly pulling Elephant onto his lap.

Leaning back against the wall, Finn tries to get comfortable and look relaxed, because he thinks that if he looks all chill, that Adam will kind of follow suit. Finn figures that he's willing to do just about anything to make sure that this conversation goes as smoothly as possible.

Adam doesn't get really ridiculously upset often but once in a while he does have these outbursts, just like any other normal kid has. But Finn knows, he just has this feeling that as Adam gets older, the outbursts regarding Kurt are going to get a lot more – a lot more emotional, you know? A lot more personal, the older Adam gets and the more he starts to understand the situation.

Finn wants to protect Adam from that though, for as long as possible. And he thinks the way to do that is to show Adam that it is possible to remain kind of calm while talking about emotional things. Not that he's saying that Adam has to act like a robot or something and not show emotion – it's just that Finn wants Adam to learn that like, it's not always the best thing, to let the emotions get the absolute best of you.

Adam leans back against the wall right beside Finn, holds onto Elephant tightly. The little guy's missing an eye and his trunk's looking pretty rough, but other than that, Elephant's still the same Elephant that Finn first met all those years ago.

"Ms. Pillsbury said you were upset during art class?" Finn says, glancing over at Adam. Adam's just picking at the tufts of hair that are sticking out of Elephant's ears.

"What were you upset about?" Finn asks, pressing, and he hates doing that but he really does need to know. He's not just trying to be a douche dad and get Adam to talk to him about something upsetting for no reason.

Adam sighs and he pets Elephant a couple of times before responding. "It was about Daddy Kurt," he says, and Finn nods, looking up at the pictures of Kurt that are on the shelves in Adam's room. He still has to fight that urge, that seemingly instinctual one that always creeps up on him whenever he has talks with Adam about his brother. His initial instinct is always to run from the room, run from the situation, get Rachel to deal with all of this.

But he's Adam's, and Adam's his, and he has to set a good example for him. Finn has to remind himself that being able to have conversations about Kurt is pretty much the very definition of setting a good example.

"Right," Finn says, and he pulls at a loose thread on his jeans because he has to be doing something with his hands right now. "Did Elise say something to bother you? Did she say something about your dad?"

Finn's trying his best not to pester Adam with all these questions, and he's not trying to drag the answer out of him, and he forces himself to shut up until Adam answers at least one of his questions with a full answer.

Adam's hands tighten around Elephant, holding him closer to his chest. Adam has all this curly brown hair, and it's a little longer than usual just because he was completely adamant about not wanting it cut before the wedding. It's falling in his eyes, and Finn reaches a hand out, brushes it away and then watches it fall quickly back into place. He smiles despite the situation, lets his hand linger on Adam's face.

"She said he was dead," Adam says, and his voice is all quiet and Finn has to strain to hear him. "And I said yes, because he is, he's in Heaven, just like you and Mama told me."

Finn nods and swallows a couple of times. He can see a tear rolling down Adam's cheek and past his chin, and it drips onto his shirt before Finn can catch it with his fingertip.

Adam lets out a big breath that ruffles the hair on his forehead and he says, "She asked how he died." His voice cracks as he says that sentence, the tears starting to fall more readily from his eyes now and he takes a big, shuddering breath, his chest heaving. He shakes his head and he says, "I don't like talking about that, Dad."

As if that fact even needs to be stated.

But Finn says, "I know, bud."

Adam wipes his arm across his face and he says, his voice muffled, "It hurt my feelings. She shouldn't have asked." He shakes his head again and he mumbles something about not wanting to marry her anymore, not at all, and Finn pulls Adam up onto his lap.

Finn pets Elephant for a second, trying to gather his thoughts (or what's left of them, at least), and he asks, "Did you tell her?"

Adam looks up at Finn and he nods slowly, the tears dripping off from his cheeks and onto his shirt. Finn tries to wipe them all away but it's kind of a lost cause because there're just so many of them, seriously, too many to keep up with.

"She said it probably hurt a lot, when Daddy died," Adam says, and his voice is sounding all choked up, like he can barely get the words out, and Finn's barely fucking holding it together right now; he's trying to stay calm, trying not to puke, trying not to push Adam off from him so that he can run out of the room, run away from this situation, run back to his mom, to Burt, to Lima. To Kurt.

Kurt.

"It didn't," Finn says suddenly, because fuck, if Kurt could see him right now, sitting on Adam's bed like an idiot as his son cries his eyes out, he'd probably be kicking Finn in the shins. "It didn't hurt."

Adam looks up at him incredulously, disbelieving, and Finn says gently, because he thinks that maybe Adam's old enough to hear a little bit more of the story now, "Daddy went to Heaven right away. Right when it happened. It didn't hurt him at all."

Adam still looks unsure. "But it was a car accident," he says, and from what the average six year old has seen or heard about car accidents, Finn gets that it's probably difficult to comprehend the fact that – that some people, you know, some people who get into accidents slip off into death without even realizing what happened.

And Finn tells Adam, "Sometimes, in the accidents like the one that your daddy was in – sometimes they happen so fast, and so quickly, that there's no." He pauses and he stares at a picture of Kurt, and he says, "Sometimes there's just. There's."

Finn stares at the picture for a few more seconds. It's one of Kurt and Finn from high school, right after their parents got married; they're hugging and Kurt's crying and it's one of Finn's favorite pictures of them, ever. He wishes his brother was here.

He wishes Kurt was here more than anything.

Finn says after a moment, "You know, Ad, some accidents just happen really quickly. And Heaven acts really fast."

Finn was never super religious growing up, and so he talks about Heaven as if it's a person sometimes, when he's discussing it with Adam. Adam seems to accept his explanations, though, and that's something that Finn will probably always be grateful for.

-x-

The morning of Finn and Rachel's wedding, Adam comes down with this weird cold thing. It's nothing serious or like, hospital worthy, but he is sick and it's one of those needless stresses that Rachel seriously doesn't have the time for. She's already running around the apartment like a chicken with her head cut off. Now she's constantly rushing back and forth between trying to take care of Adam, and also trying to get done all the shit she needs to before going to the temple where the ceremony's being held.

She bursts into tears around ten o'clock, as her hair's being set by a stylist and Adam calls out hoarsely that he thinks his snot is turning a funny color. Finn knows that's when she burst into tears because that's when Santana calls Finn, demanding that he come back to the apartment immediately to take care of Adam.

"But Rachel said that she wanted to drive over to the temple with the boys," Finn says, confused. He's at the barbershop with Puck and a couple of his other guy friends, and he's really trying his best to hear what Santana's saying, but every so often Puck lets out this stupid comment about Finn finally marrying the ball and chain, and all the other guys start laughing hysterically.

None of his friends are married. To be totally honest, that fact doesn't surprise Finn.

"I don't care what Rachel said before," Santana says, and Finn can practically see his best friend in his mind's eye, hissing these words at Finn so that Rachel can't hear. "Rachel's seriously freaking the fuck out because there's something wrong with the cake, and she's worried about getting everything done with her hair and her dress, and your eldest son is moaning on the ground about how he thinks he has mutant boogers."

"Mutant boogers?"

"I think he has a little sinus infection," Santana says, before saying, "That's not the point! The point is, get one of your parents over here to come get Adam, or you come back over here to get Adam. Either way someone needs to, because right now he's all Rachel's thinking about and she has other things that she should be worrying about."

There's a muffled sound, and then something that sounds like a crash, and Finn's eyes widen as he tries to piece together what's going on. He hears Adam giggling though, so he figures that means everything's pretty much okay. Hopefully.

"I'll be over in like, ten minutes," Finn says, and he glances up at the barber, who wordlessly starts to cut his hair just a little bit faster. Finn shoots him a quick smile and tells Santana, "Just try to keep Adam away from Rachel, okay?"

"You think that Mama's going to let anyone besides immediate family near her precious baby boy right now?" Santana asks incredulously. "I told her that I could drop Adam off at your dad's hotel room, and she said that she didn't know if Adam would be able to handle travelling right now without her."

"But Adam loves you," Finn says, confused.

Adam's beyond obsessed with Santana; he usually goes over to her loft every other week or so for a sleepover, just the two of them, so that he has her complete and undivided attention. Santana doesn't even allow her girlfriend over during Adam-time.

"I know," Santana says, "so can you possibly begin to understand the crazy-ass mindset that your fiancée currently has?"

That sort of puts things in perspective. Finn tries to finish up at the barbershop as quickly as he can, and then hails a cab back to the apartment building. It's sort of weird, because he's all dressed up in his tux and this is his wedding day, and he's conversing with his cab driver about how he thinks the Giants are doing this season. Completely and totally surreal.

He gets up to the apartment in record time, and when he opens the door he's immediately greeted by Santana clamping her hands over his eyes. He stumbles a little as he tries to walk, but Santana refuses to take her hands away from his face.

"Rachel's in her dress and you cannot see her," Santana says, in this warning sort of tone. "I think that would just about set her over the edge upon which she's so perilously standing."

"I heard that," Finn can hear Rachel grumble. It sounds like she's in the kitchen, and he can hear all this rustling fabric noise. He thinks that's her dress moving and he immediately starts wondering what it looks like; is it long, is it short, is it strapless, does it have sleeves, is it white, does it have color on it?

He can feel his heart beat racing and he can't even help himself as he smiles at the sound of Rachel's voice. He is so beyond ready to be married to her.

"Babe?" he says, and he reaches a hand out. Santana kicks him in the shins, but he doesn't care, because a second later he feels Rachel's soft hand covering his, and she squeezes his fingers lightly. She smells like blueberries; he's still not sure how she manages that, but her perfume always reminds him of berries.

"Yes?" Rachel asks. Finn seriously wants to push Santana's hands away so that he can just look at Rachel for like two seconds, but he knows that he can't, so instead he just swallows tightly and asks where Adam and Eli are, so that he can grab them and then head back to the barbershop to meet up with the other groomsmen.

He knows his orders were just to pick up Adam but like, he doesn't want Eli to feel left out or anything. And yeah, he's aware that Eli's just a baby, obviously, but this feels like one of those stories that could possible come back to haunt them when Eli's a teenager – that time his parents got married, and his dad only hung out with Adam the whole day.

"Adam's laying down in his room and Eli's in his pack and play in the living room," Rachel reports. "Now, if you have time, your parents are still in their hotel room, so you can drop Eli off with them. But keep Adam with you, and when you get to the temple, just have him wait by the door with Puck, and then I can meet up with him before I walk down the aisle."

Adam's walking with Rachel down the aisle. It was Rachel's idea and somehow, to Finn's eternal amazement, her dads were on board; they'll just walk down the aisle together with Eli right before.

Finn and Santana stumble over to Adam's bedroom, and Santana drops her hands from Finn's face once they're safely inside with the door closed. Adam's laying on his bed with his tux on, Elephant safely tucked in by his side.

"How you feeling, bud?" Finn asks, going over and sitting next to him. Adam shrugs, kicks his feet up and down a couple times while letting out a dolphin noise.

"Okay," he says. "My nose is stuffy. I have alien germs in there."

Finn doesn't really see the point in arguing about something like that at this moment in time, so he just nods and agrees, and tells Adam that they're going to finish getting ready with the guys at the barbershop. Adam looks excited at this prospect, but then looks guiltily over at Santana.

"But who's going to hang out with Aunt San?" he asks. "She says Mama's friends are weird."

To her credit, Santana actually manages to look somewhat embarrassed by Adam saying that, and she mumbles something about how she didn't use the word 'weird', she said they were 'unique'. But Finn can tell by the way Santana's scratching lightly at her arm, looking anywhere in the room besides him, that she most definitely said 'weird'.

But whatever, Finn gets it; Mercedes and Tina are ridiculously loud sometimes, and when they're all around Rachel and hyped up, it's almost like they're talking in their own kind of language or something.

He says, "Aunt San's gonna be okay. She'll be at the temple soon, too."

Adam looks a little apprehensive about this, but Santana gives him an encouraging nod, so he says okay and climbs off the bed. His nose really is running a lot, and Finn wipes it with a tissue a couple of times before allowing Santana to cover his eyes back up while he walks out into the living room.

"This would be a lot easier if you just blindfolded me," Finns tell her.

"Wanky."

"Shut it," Finn says, as they walk over to the area of the living room where Eli is. Santana helps get all of his stuff ready while Finn keeps his eyes closed shut, promising not to turn around and take a peek at Rachel's dress. He can still hear her moving about the apartment, calling out to Mercedes and Tina about lip gloss or hair spray or something. He feels Adam tug at his shirt sleeve, and he bends down so that Adam can whisper into his ear.

"Mama looks so pretty," he says, his nose sounding all stuffed up. "She looks like a princess."

And when Finn sees Rachel walking down the aisle an hour later, her brown hair all wavy around her shoulders, her long dress trailing out behind her, he thinks that Adam was definitely telling the truth.

Eli doesn't cry once during the ceremony, Adam only sneezes a handful of times, and Finn messes his vows up just twice. So all in all, it's about as successful of a wedding ceremony as he could've hoped for.

-x-

Rachel and Finn decide to go to Hawaii for their honeymoon. It's really far (and really expensive but like, whatever, Finn's pretty sure he'd find a way to fly Rachel to Bora Bora if that's where she had her heart set on going) but Finn knows that Adam and Eli are in great hands with his parents. Finn's mom already has a ton of fun activities for them lined up, and Adam and Eli are both obsessed with Burt.

Rachel cries the whole way to the airport, flipping through pictures of Adam and Eli on her iPhone, forcing Finn to look at the ones she finds particularly cute. He thinks that he sees the one of Adam holding Eli on the couch about five times before he finally forces Rachel to put the phone away.

"I know we're going to miss them," Finn says loudly above Rachel's protests, "but this trip is for us, remember? The kids are going to be fine with my parents. They're probably like, eating ice cream and watching movies as we speak, and not missing us at all."

Rachel looks a bit flustered at that thought, and she says, "I made Carole promise me to limit the television intake to a half hour each day. And she also said that she wouldn't let Eli in the room when the television was going."

Finn doesn't have the heart to tell her that he also saw all of the Shrek movies in his mom's suitcase, and a onesie for Eli with Shrek's face on it. It's not that his mom wants to go deliberately behind Rachel's back or anything – it's just one of those things where she thinks that Rachel is being a bit overdramatic.

But Finn's not stupid and he's well aware of the fact that if he tells Rachel about his mom's movie plans, she'll make the cab driver turn around and drive them straight back to the apartment. That can't happen. Finn spent too long planning this honeymoon and too long thinking about how Rachel will look in all those bikinis she packed.

Nope. He's sure Eli will be fine even if he watches a little more television than he's used to.

Their plane ends up getting delayed in LA for a night, which beyond sucks at first because getting their luggage off from the plane and then trying to find the hotel that the airplane company comped them for wasn't exactly the way Finn planned on spending the first night of their honeymoon – he's not exactly the best driver in the world and Rachel's not exactly the best copilot. (Left, Finn – the GPS says left!). But they find the hotel eventually, after like fifty wrong turns and accidentally running one or two red lights. By the time they get to the room, Finn's so fucking exhausted that he doesn't even feel like going out for dinner.

It's a nice hotel room, though, which is at least one good thing. It's got like a king-sized bed and a stocked mini-bar and even though Finn's well aware that those things are ripoffs, after the day he's had, he seriously doesn't care. So, Rachel orders them a bunch of room service and Finn opens up a couple bottles of beer, and, yeah. That's how they spend their first legit night as a married couple on their honeymoon: eating garden salads, drinking Heineken, and then having sex while some informercial plays out on the television.

"I always thought the sex would be different after we got married," Rachel says afterwards, stretching her arms out above her head and letting out a little yawn. Finn glances over at her and he's not really sure what she's implying there, because he's pretty sure he just gave her the best sex he was capable of giving after three hours of sleep and a totally shitty day at the airport.

Rachel looks over at him and she giggles, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm not saying it was bad, honey," she says, and yeah, that still sounds kind of completely offensive, and she puckers up her lips, gives him a big kiss on the cheek. Finn doesn't say anything though, because he's thinking that he should be pissed off at her right now, but he's almost too tired to even try. "I just – I don't know," she says, laughing again. "It's weird. We're married now."

"I know," Finn says, and he looks at her left hand that's resting by her head on the pillow. He's gotten used to seeing her engagement ring there, but now that the thin, silver wedding band is there too; it definitely will take some getting used to. In a good way, though.

"And I guess for some reason I thought everything would suddenly change, but nothing really has." She doesn't sound sad about this fact, just reflective. Finn shrugs and lets out a big yawn, not even trying to hide it.

"Well. That's what happen when you have an illegitimate kid," he says, and then winces as Rachel pinches him hard on his forearm. He lets out a little yelp because yeah, her pinches could be considered lethal in some countries, and she rolls over closer to him, gives him a kiss on his arm to make it better. He lifts his arm up a little and she presses herself against him, snuggling up as he drapes his arm around her.

"Are you… feeling bad about getting married?" Finn asks and then he wishes he could just like, reverse time and gobble those words back up. Rachel loves to talk about her feelings, which is awesome, but it's midnight and he's so tired and he's not sure if he can handle an emotional conversation tonight; or at least, an emotional conversation to the extent that Rachel likes to have her emotional conversations.

"No!" she says immediately, and he can feel her grip on his waist tightening, her fingers digging into his skin. "No, of course not. It's just… sometimes, you know, I step back and I look at our life and the path it's taken. It's all very different than how I thought my life was going to play out." She kisses his chest. "Not in a bad way. Just different, baby."

Finn nods and he brings his hand up underneath her chin so that he can tilt her head up. He gives her a kiss and he can feel her smiling through it. She bites her lip once he leans back and she says,

"I'm glad nothing's changed. I like how we are." She smiles at him, and she has a little smudge of mascara underneath her eye, and her hair's all tangled and loose, and Finn's almost positive that he'll never get sick of her. He knows that probably all newly married guys say that, but he seriously means it.

"So you're saying the sex wasn't bad?" Finn asks, jokingly. Well, mostly jokingly, because he's almost positive she was joking but still, he kind of needs to make sure for his ego and everything that getting married didn't suddenly decrease his ability to make his fiancée (wife – he has to get used to saying that) like, happy and stuff.

Rachel gives him this little grin and she rolls over so that she's pulling him on top of her. He gets all tangled up in the sheets but he pushes them off, kicks them down to the end of the bed, and then leans up on his forearms so he's not like crushing Rachel or anything. He knows that they have to wake up in a few hours to catch the next flight out to Honolulu… but he can't bring himself to care about that at this moment. He's kind of buzzed off the fact that he's drank so many beers but he's also thinking that he's mostly just buzzed off from her. She's here, they're on their honeymoon, they're fucking married, and he's completely and totally in love with her.

Everything about her, from the way she wakes him up in the morning by singing old Broadway songs into his ear, the way she always stays up late with him whenever there's a big football game on television, and the way she scrunches up her nose and lets out this soft little sigh every single time she comes.

"I'm saying the sex was just as wonderful as it always is," Rachel says, her voice soft as Finn snakes a hand in between their bodies. "And I'm glad," she says, sighing quietly as Finn presses his lips against the side of her jaw, his fingertips pressing against the skin of her tummy, then pressing down lower. "I'm glad. Santana -." Her breath catches as Finn nips at her skin, and she says, "Santana said that the sex always goes south after marriage."

Finn would try to make some sort of stupid pun about going south but like, he doesn't think this is really the time.

"Santana's never been married," Finn says, laughing quietly as Rachel closes her eyes, her breath quickening. Her eyebrows quirk and she says,

"Well, I suppose I hadn't thought of that." Finn shakes his head and he just kisses her again. Her legs widen, almost imperceptibly so, and she shifts her hips, trying to draw his hand closer still. She says that she loves him and he tells her that he loves her, too, and that she needs to stop listening to Santana's advice.

"She's just trying to rile you up," Finn says, and Rachel closes her eyes tightly, and she bites at her bottom lip, looking as if she's searching for that one thing that's just not happening fast enough. "We have time, baby," he says quietly, laughing, and Rachel opens her eyes then, her brown eyes wide.

"I just want more. And for you to stop talking about Santana when your fingers are inside me," she says, and she giggles, and there's this saying? About how in order to have true love, or a true relationship or something, you have to be able to laugh with your lover? Finn totally detests the word lover, because it just sounds awkward and retro and stuff, like a word an old lady would use, but he gets the sentiment behind the saying, and he thinks it's true. He knows it's true.

As much as he loves having super emotional or intense sex with Rachel, he also just likes when it's fun and easy, like right now – no rhyme or reason to what they're doing, or why they're doing it, no trying out crazy ass positions or whatever. Just normal, like, committed relationship sex.

It sounds boring. It's totally not.

-x-

Adam tells Rachel in November that he wants to be a Hudson, too. Rachel gets all confused and tells Adam that he is, just like Eli, but Adam shakes his head and says that he's a Hummel, not a Hudson. And that he wants to be a Hudson, like everyone else – Dad, Eli, and now Mama. Rachel immediately texts Finn to let him know about the conversation, but Finn ignores it.

Does that make him a shitty person? It probably does. No, he knows that it does. It's just that he's in the middle of this meeting and he's trying to pay attention, and getting a text from his wife about how Adam wants to change his last name; it' s not good timing. That sort of conversation should be done in person, and like, at night or something, in the privacy of their home. Not sent in a text message, as simply as if Rachel was asking him to pick up some vegetables for dinner.

So he ignores it, and then Rachel tries to call him on his lunch hour, and he ignores that call too because he's busy and he needs to send a few emails out to make sure that everyone in the office is on the same page before the Thanksgiving break. And then she calls his assistant, to try to see if Finn can take a call on his office phone, but Finn tells Marie to just take a message because he's trying to finish up this one project and he's right in the middle of it.

He doesn't look at Marie when he says that because he feels like a shitty person already and he doesn't need the judgmental stare of his assistant to remind him of that fact. He shouldn't be avoiding calls from Rachel – that's not how their relationship works, they've always been good at communicating with each other – but he doesn't even think of this as like, avoiding calls.

This is just something he doesn't want to deal with. Not right now. Not ever, really.

He goes to Puck's bar after work for a while. Santana meets him there and she orders them a couple of beers, but Finn doesn't even drink his. He just stares at it and pretends to listen as Santana goes on and on about some fight she had with her girlfriend, and about problems she's having at work, and how she needs to go shopping for a new couch soon.

She sighs after a couple minutes, takes a sip of her beer, and then says, "I think I've just about talked about every single stupid thing I can think of. Are we going to start talking about the real reason you wanted to meet up tonight? Or am I going to have to guess?"

Finn pushes his beer bottle around the table a little, the condensation cold against his fingertips. He's not sure what to say or how to say it, because even though he knows what he's feeling, trying to communicate it to another person might not be the most simple thing he's ever done.

"Rachel texted me today," Finn says, and he grabs a handful of peanuts from the bowl in the middle of the table, eats them one at a time slowly. "Like, right at the beginning of the day, and she tells me that Adam told her that he wants to." He breaks off and he lets out this laugh, one of those 'what the fuck is going on with my life?' laughs that he can't even control. He says after a moment, "Adam wants to change his name."

"What, to Optimus Prime?" Santana asks, taking another drink of her beer. She's trying to lighten the mood, and Finn loves her for that, even if she's not doing that great of a job.

"No," Finn says uncomfortably, and he drops his head into his hands for a brief moment before looking back up at her. "His last name. He wants to change his last name to Hudson."

Santana doesn't say anything for a minute, just picks at her fingernails and takes a few more sips of her beer. The silence is killing Finn, because he'd rather have Santana fill up the space with small talk right now versus not say anything at all.

She purses her lips a little and her eyes are kind of getting a little glassy. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, it almost looks as if she's trying to get a grip on herself or her emotions. Sometimes it takes moments like this to remind Finn that he's not the only person in the world who misses Kurt.

"Are you going to let him?" Santana asks, and her voice sounds as if it's coming from faraway, and she quickly takes another drink of beer, downing the rest of the bottle. She coughs a little at the end, places her bottle down, and then reaches over to grab Finn's.

"It's not about letting him," Finn says, and he leans back in his chair, motions over to Puck to bring over more beers. Santana's steadily making her way through his bottle and he feels like this is going to turn out to be a long night. "Right? Like, he asked, and what kind of – what kind of father would I be if I told him no? He'd feel like shit."

Finn scratches at the back of his neck and he feels so fucking uncomfortable right now. It's been over three years since Kurt died, and it's been over three years since Adam came to live with him. The adoption papers have long since been signed but, still. It still feels weird, not right, sometimes, calling himself Adam's father.

Adam wanting to change his name makes Finn feel like he's winning a war that he never wanted to be a part of.

"I just can't…" Santana breaks off and it looks like she's going to cry, which is something that she rarely, if ever, actually does in public. She lifts up one shoulder and she says, "Adam's yours now. And you're doing a fantastic job with him. But it's still so fucking weird that Kurt's not here." She licks at her bottom lip, trying to regain some semblance of control over herself, taking another drink.

"I know," Finn says, "and it's like – God, what the fuck would I tell my mom? And Burt? Burt would probably kill me."

Finn knows that Burt's obviously super appreciative of like, how good of a job Rachel and Finn have done of keeping Adam safe and healthy and everything. But he also knows that it's strange to him, so strange, to see his step-son raising his only son's child. That has to be, even if Burt's never said the words out loud to Finn.

"Burt won't kill you," Santana says, rolling her eyes, and Puck comes over then, with a tray filled with two more beers, and two shots of tequila.

"I didn't ask for shots," Finn says, and Puck just slaps him on the back in a friendly sort of manner, saying brightly,

"Just got a text from Rachel saying that when you come home, she wants to talk. I'd do the shots since this'll probably be your last night out for a long, long time."

Finn stares at the shot guiltily, looks up at Puck and asks, "Is she mad?" It's a stupid fucking question because obviously she is but he needs to hear the answer, anyway.

"She just wanted to make sure that you get home okay," Puck says. "I told her that I'd make sure Santana gets you home by curfew."

Finn lets out a little laugh and does the shot simultaneously with Santana. He wipes at the back of his mouth once he's done, and he tells Santana, "I remember when Kurt first told me he was having a kid."

Santana immediately shakes her head, even shaking her finger at him, too. "No. No, we are not doing this reminicising, walk down memory lane, stuff tonight. Nope. I am not drunk enough and I'm still recovering from last month's episode."

So Finn and Santana get drunk every couple of months and talk about Kurt and how much they miss him. It's probably (definitely) not healthy but it's necessary, sometimes.

Finn grabs another handful of peanuts and he says, "I'm just saying. Kurt kept trying to tell me that he wanted to give Adam the middle name of Elizabeth, and I had to like, seriously spend weeks convincing him that wouldn't be the best idea."

Finn stares at the peanuts in his hand, makes a fist, crushes them just because he can. "And it was like, that whole thing – picking out the name, that was such a fucking dramatic hassle, you know? It was the same way with Eli. You find a name you like, but then you get sick of it after a couple weeks, and then you come up with a new one, but no one else likes it…" he trails off because he's not even entirely sure where he's going with this conversation, or if he's just talking to hear the sound of his own voice. He looks up at Santana for help, and she smiles at him and she says,

"I still hate the name Eli, but don't worry. I'll never him." She takes another drink of her beer and she says, "I feel like – I feel like you're so nervous all the time, still, about what Kurt would think… in terms of how you're raising Adam." Santana's cheeks are flushed and she's starting to talk in a higher pitched tone, her tell-tale signs of being drunk, but she's also talking seriously so Finn knows that she's meaning what she says.

"And just – fuck that," Santana says, so sincerely and so honestly that at first it makes Finn want to laugh but then it immediately makes him want to cry. She repeats herself and Finn's jaw drops and she continues, "Seriously, Finn. You can't keep looking to your brother's memory for, for tips or whatever, on what the best thing is for Adam. Kurt knew what he was doing when he made you the guardian of Adam. He wouldn't have done that if he thought you were going to do a bad job."

Finn lifts his shot glass up so that Puck sees it and can bring him another.

"I just don't think he meant for me to take his place," Finn says. Santana rolls her eyes and she runs her hands through her hair, and she says,

"Finn, stop. God. Do you hear yourself right now?" She sounds upset, and Finn thinks that this is the first time that Santana's been mad at him since he was fourteen years old and suggested that they make out after homecoming. "You sound so pretentious! You're not taking Kurt's place – no one could. But Adam needs a dad and for fuck's sake, being that person for him doesn't make you a bad brother."

She's quiet for a moment and Finn takes a drink of beer, eats a couple more peanuts. She says, finally, "Just because Adam wants your last name doesn't make him any less of a Hummel. Have you seen the kid's high kicks? He'll always, always be Kurt's son. He's just yours now, too. And you need to stop beating yourself up over that."

Santana takes another drink of her beer, and she's quiet now, waiting for Finn to respond. They've been friends for, what, like fifteen years now? She gets probably more than any other person who knows Finn (besides maybe Rachel) that sometimes he just needs a minute to sort of wrap his mind around whatever emotions he's feeling.

He nods after a moment. He says, "Yeah, I guess you're right." And then he takes his phone out and he shows Santana the pictures from Hawaii, and the new video of Eli laughing.

When he gets home later that night, around eleven o'clock, he first goes into Eli's nursery. He's sleeping, snoring a bit, and his little fists are right up by his face. Finn just ghosts his fingertips over his son's chest lightly, feeling the breath moving in and out, watches as his little mouth puckers up and his forehead crinkles. Finn's always wondered what babies dream about; lights, colors, sounds. He leans down and presses a kiss to Eli's cheek, before turning on the mobile and heading out of the room.

The lights are all off in the apartment, and the nightlight that's perpetually on in Adam's room is casting a soft glow out into the hallway. Finn pokes his head inside Adam's room; the kid's all tucked up in bed, Elephant underneath his arm. He just got his hair cut recently, and Finn misses the curls already. Adam looks too grown up with his short hair, too much like a little man.

When Finn finally gets into his bedroom, he's not surprised to see that Rachel has all the lights off and is already asleep. He tries to be quiet as he pulls off his shirt and jeans, and he brushes his teeth in the dark, so that the light from the master bathroom doesn't wake her up. He slides into bed a few minutes later and immediately curls himself around her, wraps his arms around her waist.

She lets out a little breathy sigh, and sleepily says, "Finn?"

He kisses the back of her neck in response, rubs a hand over her stomach, her thighs. She doesn't move away from him but she doesn't move towards him either. She just says, "I had to tell Adam that you were called to work late. I don't like lying."

"I'm sorry, baby girl," Finn says quietly, and his breath ruffles some of the hair that's fallen over her shoulder. He kisses the back of her neck again, holds onto her tighter. She doesn't make a move to touch him, though, just keeps her hands where they are, resting by her head.

"You can't shut me out," Rachel tells him, and it's midnight and they shouldn't be having this conversation right now. But then again, Finn shouldn't have stayed out so late, shouldn't have drank so much, and he almost feels like he's at her mercy. "You can't do that. I know things are hard for you sometimes, but… I can't help if you don't let me." She's silent for just a second then says, "It was hard for me to hear Adam say that, too. And I didn't even know Kurt."

Finn feels like he can tell Rachel anything. That's one of the things that he loves most about their relationship, the fact that he doesn't have to really hide his emotions from her. But when it comes to his emotions regarding his step-brother's death, it's like. It's like, two steps forward, one step back, if that makes any sense. One day he feels totally fine and at peace and okay with what happened. Then other days, he doesn't even want to think about Kurt's name at all.

It's complicated, he supposes. And that's an understatement.

"I just needed to process everything, I guess," Finn says and Rachel shifts a little, backwards, more towards him. He feels himself relaxing even though she hasn't yet accepted his apology.

"And you couldn't do that with me?" Rachel asks, and Finn knows that she's trying her best not to sound hurt.

"I was at work when you texted me," Finn says, almost incredulously. "That's not the best place to lay that bomb down, you know? And then you just kept calling and it's like, the more you wanted to talk about it, the more I wanted to just."

"Run away," Rachel interjects and Finn wants to lie and make excuses, but he can't, and so he says,

"Yes."

"Don't do it again," Rachel says and she doesn't sound upset or angry anymore, she just sounds very matter-of-fact. Finn promises that he won't.

And he keeps that promise.

-x-

Adam has Elise over for a play-date after the new year. After what happened at the beginning of the year, Finn wasn't really sure if their friendship would really be able to continue. But, it turns out that kids have a pretty short memory when it comes to things like that, and apparently Adam's 'eternal love' (Adam's dramatic ways rival Rachel's, at times) couldn't be held down forever.

The play date's actually really fucking adorable, because Rachel dresses him up in this blue striped polo shirt and khakis, and Elise is wearing this little tea dress and it's probably the cutest thing Finn's ever seen in his entire life – Elise and Adam building space ships out of Legos and talking about the latest episode of some show on Cartoon Network.

Rachel makes them this chocolate fondue thing for a snack, with all these pretzels and marshmallows. Usually she's totally against stuff like that, but she always makes exceptions for special occasions, and she helps Elise and Adam tuck their napkins into the collar of their clothes so that the chocolate doesn't splash onto them.

Finn gets out of work early that day, and so he catches the tail end of the play date. Rachel and Elise's mom, Sandy (Susanne? Cynthia? Something like that) are in the kitchen, drinking tea and talking about whatever it is that moms talk about, as Elise and Adam look at one of dinosaur books.

Finn grins at Rachel, raises his eyebrows. "Success?"

"Adam ate just about every single pretzel that was within his vicinity, so I'd say it was a success," Rachel laughs, as Finn bends down to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Hi, honey. You remember Sally, right?"

Sally. Right. Well, at least Finn was kind of close.

"Yeah, we've met a couple times. Nice to see you again," Finn says, shaking her hand before glancing back over at Adam and Elise. "It's nice you were able to come over with Elise."

Sally laughs and she says, "Honestly, I joked around with Elise today and said we couldn't come over, and I've never seen her burst into tears faster. She thinks Adam is just the best."

Rachel sits up a little straighter in her chair, looking extremely proud and Finn knows that Sally's words are just totally feeding into Rachel's ego right now. But they're kind of feeding into his, too, because he already thinks that Adam's the best kid ever; but now to know that other people think that, too? That definitely doesn't hurt.

Elise and her mom leave after a little while, and Elise and Adam hug before she leaves. Rachel looks as if she's going to cry, and she says,

"It just makes me so happy to see that Adam has friends!"

Rachel didn't have that many friends growing up – even back when she was in elementary school, Finn knows that she was teased and bullied a lot. So he gets that she's always been a little worried about her kids being able to make friends, and not deal with the shit that she dealt with when she was younger. And Finn knows that it's a big relief to Rach, to see that Adam's well-liked by his classmates and everything.

"Did you have fun, bud?" Finn asks, running his hand over Adam's head as they go to Eli's nursery to check on him.

"Yeah!" Adam enthuses, and he's bouncing up and down on his feet a little. "She has a little brother, too! His name's Andrew, though." Adam rushes over to Eli's crib, sticks his hands through the bars to try to reach his brother.

"Not as cool as Eli, right?" Finn asks, bending down to pick his little guy up. Eli lets out a little yawn, then quickly snuggles up to Finn's shoulder, his little mouth pressed against Finn's neck. He smells like lavender and seriously, he's probably the cutest baby Finn's ever seen in his entire life.

Adam shakes his head immediately. "Nope. No way!" he says, and he trails after Finn as they leave the nursery.

Finn lies down on the couch, holds Eli close to his chest. When he gets off from work, this is usually what he does. He's offered to make dinner a bunch of times, but let's be honest – nothing Finn will ever make will be able to compare with Rachel's cooking. So she usually works at getting that ready while Finn takes a quick nap with Eli.

He can already tell that Eli's going to be a lot different than Adam. Not better, not worse, just different. He's real chill, you know? He doesn't get too anxious or anything, nothing really seems to bother him. He smiles a lot and he doesn't get freaked out at loud noises. He doesn't like bath time, but like, there's no getting out of that one. Eli can cry and pout all he wants but there's no way Rachel would ever allow him to be unclean.

Anyway, he's a good baby to take a nap with, because he doesn't get restless easily and the worst thing he does is sometimes spit up on Finn a little. But Finn doesn't really care about that; kid has to do what he has to do.

Adam plays with his dinosaur figurines when Finn's taking his nap, and he usually manages to do so pretty quietly, only making a few roaring noises as he sees fit. Totally understandable. A t-rex can't be expected to just go down quietly, you know? The noise doesn't bother Finn at all, though. He could just go and take a nap in the bedroom but like, even if he's asleep, he likes knowing that he has all of his family around him. That sounds stupid, right? He doesn't care.

Rachel kisses him awake about ten minutes later, chastely brushing her lips against his, because if she does anything else Adam (seemingly automatically now) pretends to throw up.

"Dinner's ready," she says, smiling at him. "Want me to take Eli?"

Finn glances down at the little guy, who's still sound asleep, and shakes his head.

"Nah, I'll go put him back down in his crib. Be out in a minute," he says, and he sits up, goes to put Eli back down in his crib. He gives him another kiss on the top of his head and then goes back out to the kitchen, where Adam and Rachel are already sitting down.

Rachel makes this kick ass vegan macaroni and cheese (Finn doesn't ask how, he just accepts that it tastes delicious) and she also made this spinach and radish salad that doesn't sound like it'd taste good, but is actually pretty good. Finn loads up his plate as Adam tells him and Rachel all about his day in school, and how's he starting to learn how to do a little multiplying.

"Isn't that hard?" Adam presses, looking for compliments. "I think it's hard but my teacher says I'm like, really good at it."

"Fishing a little, Ad?" Rachel giggles, pouring more water into his glass. Adam blushes and says,

"Maybe. But they really were hard, Mama."

"I'm glad you did well," Rachel says and Adam grins and says,

"Yeah. I did so well that even Elise asked for my help." Adam lets out a rooster noise then eats some more of his salad, picking around the radishes. He sticks his tongue out at them, flicks them onto his napkin. Finn glances over at Rachel, who's clearly trying her best not to burst out laughing, and Finn smiles, looking down at his plate.

Later that night, when the kids are both asleep and it's just him and Rachel lying on the couch together, she tells him that her heart feels very full. Finn says that his does, too.

-x-

Twelve Years Later

-x-

Adam says that he's never been on an airplane without his dad before. He says it with all the teenage attitude he can muster, trying to act like he can't care less. But he looks nervous and Finn can tell, because he's holding into his cell phone tighter and pulling his baseball cap down lower on his head.

"Yeah, you have. You just don't remember," Finn tells him, as he pulls the car up to a red light. Traffic's not too bad right now, the sun barely peeking up over the horizon. They're going to get to the airport early – way too early – but Rachel had insisted that they leave before the crack of dawn because she always gets nervous about things like this.

When she hugged Adam goodbye at the door this morning, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, she couldn't even pretend to hold back the tears in her eyes. Adam looked all embarrassed, blushed and said, "Mom," in that little voice of his that's reserved only for his mother.

She told him that after raising him for fifteen years, she was allowed to cry if she wanted, and Adam just hugged her tighter in response. Finn pretended not to notice, but he could've sworn he saw a couple tears sliding down Adam's face, too. Rachel kissed him on the cheek and told him that she loved him more than anything and Adam didn't say anything to that, just held onto her tighter.

He gave her a kiss on the cheek and told her that he'd be careful and Rachel's voice had cracked when she said he better be, and that he should call the minute his plane touches down in LA. Adam tried to joke, said that he'd make sure that he let Eli know, but Rachel gave him a little glare and said that Adam should make sure his mother knows.

"I will, Mama," Adam said, and he gave her one last hug before pulling away. He'd glanced around the apartment for a second, and then turned to Finn and nodded, said he was ready to go. He pulled on the new coat that Santana bought him, shouldered his backpack, told Rachel to tell Eli to text him when he woke up. Finn grabbed his suitcase off from the floor, and then off they went.

Finn pulls up to the airport and parks the car. He gets this feeling in his stomach, something like déjà vu, and he tries to think positive thoughts and everything, but he knows that the minute him and Adam really say goodbye. God. He's going to be a fucking mess.

He grabs the suitcase from the trunk, follows Adam into the departure area. Adam's holding onto his ticket and his license nervously, keeps looking through his backpack over and over to make sure that he's not missing anything, left anything back at the apartment.

Like Finn suspected, the security line's short and Adam still has a couple hours before his flight. They sit down at this little coffee shop right near the security entrance, and Finn grabs them a couple of bagels and coffees. On impulse, he buys an apple juice, too, slides it over to Adam once they're both sitting down at a table.

Adam stares at the apple juice for a second, his mouth quirking up into a half smile. He doesn't say anything though, just holds onto the juice with both of his hands.

"I remember," he says, holding the apple juice up. "You bought me an apple juice at the airport when I was really little, right?"

Finn doesn't need to say anything, and he doesn't think that he could even if he wanted to. He just nods, takes a sip of his coffee, tries to hold it together as best as he can. Adam stares at the juice and lets out a deep breath. His hair's kind of long, a curly mess as always, and he tries to brush it away from his forehead as best as he can.

He looks tired. He didn't get a lot of sleep last night – he never does when he's nervous. Finn heard him rustling around the apartment sometime around midnight, and after hearing noises for a half hour, Finn finally got out of bed to see what his eldest son was up to.

Adam was in his bedroom, pulling random things from his closet – what was left in there, anyway.

"Ad?" Finn asked, walking into the room, confused. He rubbed his hands over his eyes, trying to wake up. "What are you doing?"

Adam glanced over at him before going back to digging through the random papers and boxes stuffed in his closet. "Just looking for something." He sounded distracted and anxious; never a good sign.

"Everything you need is packed up," Finn said, walking over and sitting down on the bed. "Mom made sure of that. Trust me."

Rachel made about five lists and checked and double checked all of Adam's about twenty times before finally accepting that he really did have every single thing he needed for his move.

Adam shook his head. "Wasn't on the list." He stood up on his tip toes to try to reach the top shelf of his closet. Even though he's tall, just about as tall as Kurt was, he's still not as tall as Finn. And Finn walked over there, reached up to find whatever Adam thought was up there.

He pulled down a couple of boxes, and Adam immediately started rifling through them. There were a bunch of old papers, some shirts from when he was younger, a foam finger from a Mets game. But clearly, none of those things were what Adam was looking for, and he didn't find it until he got to the final box.

Underneath one of Adam's old soccer jerseys and a deflated beach ball, was Elephant. Adam glanced up at Finn, and said, "I know it's stupid. I just was looking at some pictures tonight and… I dunno. Just thought he should go to LA with me."

Finn glances over at Adam now, who's drinking his apple juice and shaking his legs a little back and forth, and honestly? It's beyond a cliché, and every parent says it, but when Finn looks at him, he still sees that little kid from all those years ago who got pissed when his socks didn't match and his jacket wasn't buttoned up just right.

Adam says, "I hope my plane doesn't get delayed in Chicago. Or like, changes gates or something." Adam's never been through an airport by himself before and the idea of navigating through O'Hare is freaking him out, and has been for weeks. But Finn knows he'll do okay.

"You'll be fine," Finn says. "And when we were in LA last month, remember, we found that one route that goes straight from the airport to your apartment? So it shouldn't be too bad, but if you get lost -."

Adam holds up his phone in answer. "I'll call you."

And Finn knows that sounds stupid because obviously it'd be way more convenient for Adam to just stop in a gas station or something and ask for directions there. But even though his kid's eighteen and moving out on his own, it's still nice to know that he depends on Finn a little bit.

Finn nods. "You'll call me."

He's not necessarily ecstatic about the fact that Adam's going out to California. When the idea was first brought to his attention, when Rachel told Finn that her agent knew an agent out in LA who wanted to work with Adam… yeah, he wasn't really happy. He still isn't happy, if you want to know the truth.

Adam's only eighteen. He's still a baby. But he wants to go and he would never go without his father's support. So Finn sucked it up and accepted the fact that Adam was going to move. He still gets upset about it, still hates the idea that Adam's going to be living all the way across the country. But he supports him, he always has, and in some weird way, it almost feels like some sort of symmetry, that Adam's moving back to the west coast after all this time.

Adam bites at his lip, runs his hands over his face. "You're still going to come out next month to visit, right?" he asks, even though he knows the answer.

Finn nods and says, "Yeah; me and Mom and Eli. And Aunt San will visit you around Columbus Day, and then One and Two want to come out sometime around then, too."

Adam laughs and says, "Two already sent me a welcome home package; my landlord said it's massive and has like, balloons attached and everything."

Rachel's parents have never stopped spoiling Adam, not once since the first time they met him, and that's something that Finn will always be really grateful for.

"That's something to look forward to, then," Finn says, smiling. And he reaches into his wallet because he has this thing that he's wanted to give Adam for a while now, but he didn't know how because he's never been good at these conversations. But he pulls out the small picture, and he pushes it across the table.

Adam picks it up and looks at it. It's a picture of Kurt and Adam, one of those little photobooth ones. Finn thinks that Adam must've been two when the picture was taken; he's wearing a bowtie and suit, and Kurt's wearing a button down shirt, so Finn thinks it must've been taken at a wedding reception or something. Kurt's kissing Adam's cheek and Adam's smiling directly at the camera, waving.

Finn found it the other month when he was cleaning out the attic for his parents, back in Lima, and he just. He thought Adam should have it.

"Thanks," Adam says, and he looks at it for another moment, before he gives Finn a small smile. "You think he'd be happy about me moving to LA?"

Finn says, "God. He'd just be happy that you're happy. That's all he ever wanted."

And he could tell Adam a million stories right now, about how when Adam first started to walk, he used to pretend to fall down just so that Kurt would rush over and kiss his boo-boos better, or how he would make Kurt sing lullabies to him every single night for an hour before he fell asleep, or how he would run into Kurt's closet and pull on his blazers and walk around pretending to be Kurt.

But right now's not the time to talk about the past, to talk about memories, to talk about moments that only Finn remembers, moments that he holds so close to him, moments that he thinks about all the time, constantly, daily, just to make sure that they never fade away; that his brother never fades away from his thoughts.

Right now is about Adam, and Adam's future. There'll be a time and place to tell those stories later. And Finn knows that when that time comes, as it does every few months or so, Adam will be more than receptive and more than willing to hear all the stories about Kurt.

Adam smiles and he puts the picture in his wallet, right next to the family picture he has of Finn, Rachel, Eli, and himself.

"Cool. I'm glad," he says, then glances at his watch. "I guess I should get in there. I want to make sure that I find the right gate and everything."

Adam stands up and Finn follows suit, moving around the table so that he's standing next to him.

There are so many things that Finn wants to say to Adam right now, but none of the words can come out right. He wants to say that he's so proud of him, that he's so fucking proud of the man he's become. But he just can't find the words.

Adam hugs him and Finn says, "I love you, you know."

Adam nods and he says, "Me, too." He pulls back and tells Finn that'll he call once he lands in Chicago.

Finn watches as he passes through security, waves as Adam rounds the corner, away from his view. Rachel calls him barely a second later, and she's crying and saying she misses her baby. Finn laughs, pulls himself together, and says he'll be home soon.

"No, not you – Adam!"

Finn can hear Eli hollering in the background about needing more milk for his cereal, and Finn says that he'll pick some up on his way home, and life goes on.

-x-

(Adam does end up marrying Elise Carpenter, by the way, a couple of years after he moves out to LA. And they name their first child Kurt.)

-x-

A/N2: Thanks so much for reading. It always means a lot, and I hope you enjoyed! Reviews are, as always, appreciated.