Through This House (Give Glimmering Light)

All previous disclaimers apply.

Author's Notes: After an epically long first chapter, the following will seem ridiculously short! Sorry about that! But, it's okay, I promise! To make up for the short chapter and the length between updates I have two chapters prepped and ready to go! Thank you to everyone who commented on the first chapter and thanks so much for waiting so long for this!
The lore I'm borrowing from is the mesh of lores that was presented in Gargoyles: The Animated Series. Some things will be different, but I just loved how clever the compilations were in the series and I think it will work here. Also, I loved my three ladies from 'Would You?' and so they will have small parts here. Hope you're all as glad to see them return as I am!
On a Side Note: I have no artistic ability what-so-ever, but I would love to see Puck, Kurt and Titania. If anyone would like to attempt this for me I would be forever grateful and would love to write a one-shot of the artist's choosing in exchange for the drawings. Please just shoot me a message if you're interested.
After that epically long Author's Note….Please leave a comment if you have a moment and...Happy Reading! T.H.


"Mom! Dad!" The desperation in Finn's voice pulled Burt and Carole out of their sleep, each other's arms, and their bed in half a second. Carole caught sight of the clock on the bedside table and the red numbers- five seventeen in the morning- burned themselves into her brain. Five seventeen in the morning would always be a hard time, she knew it instinctively, and she would never be able to sleep through it again. She also knew that because she knew that the desperation and fear in Finn's voice could only mean one thing. Kurt was gone. He had passed sometime in the night and Finn had just woken with his younger brother gone in his arms. She prayed desperately that Finn would be okay, that this wouldn't scar him for life, as she and Burt ran down the stairs. The thought of "Why couldn't it have been Mercedes or Rachel or Santana sleeping with Kurt last night? They're all so much stronger than Finn." made her frown and scold herself internally even as she and her husband stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked at the bed Kurt had spent his last days in. She expected to see Finn kneeling at the side of it, Kurt's cool hand gripped in his, sobbing his heart out. But, instead what she saw was Finn on his hands and knees, tearing apart the bedding and frantically searching for something.

"Where is he?" Finn was mumbling over and over again, "Where is he? He couldn't walk. He wasn't strong enough? Where is he?"

"Finn!" Carole called to him, then sprinted across the room when he didn't even seem to hear her. She called his name again when she reached the bedside and set a gentle hand to his shoulder. He simply shrugged it off and continued tearing at the bedsheets. She could hear them ripping and it caused a panic just like Finn's to well up inside of her- Where is he? Where's my baby? Finn's right. He couldn't have left on his own! Who took him?- but, she clamped down on it. Right now she needed to get one son calm so that they could start looking for the other. She winced as she reached out and slapped Finn across the face as hard she could, knowing that the shock of the pain and the fact that she had hit him at all would be the only things that would pull Finn out of his panic. His restless movements stopped immediately and he sat back, looking at her with such betrayal in his eyes for a moment that her heart broke.

"Baby," she said quietly, reaching out to him. The dam broke. He threw himself into her arms, sobbing.

"I woke up and he just wasn't here! Where is he, Mom? Where's Kurt?" He whimpered.

"We'll find him, baby," She promised, kissing his hair, rocking him like he was much smaller and much younger, "I promise we'll find him. Burt…" She turned to look at her husband and felt something in her chest clench. He was seated on the bottom stair, his face buried in his hand, his shoulders shaking with repressed sobs. She wanted to go to him, but she knew that her son needed her, too and she couldn't move when he was half curled on her lap as he was. She called her husband's name again, hoping to prompt him into coming to her so that she could hold both of her men and let them borrow her strength. Burt lifted his face from his hands and Carole was more scared that she had ever been when she realized that he wasn't sobbing.

He was laughing. Joyfully. So joyfully that the very sound of it would have sent thrills through her had the circumstances been different. Tears of joy and mirth were streaming down his face and he could barely stop himself from doubling over again as he slapped his thigh with one big hand and gripped the stair with the other. Thoughts of a mental break filled her head and she began to pray again that this wouldn't be the straw that would break the camel's back, that she wouldn't have to lose both her husband and her son to this.

"Burt, have you lost your mind?" She screeched before she could stop herself.

The question seemed to bring Burt back to them and he abruptly stopped laughing. His eyes went soft and understanding as he looked at Finn and Carole, huddled on the bed, terrified. He hoped it wasn't of him. The relief in his body was so palpable as he gripped the stair banister and stood that his legs almost didn't hold him. He gripped the banister harder to keep himself on his feet until he was certain that he could cross the room to the rest of his family. She knelt in front of the confused Carole and the terrified Finn and wrapped them in his arms before breathing their scent in deep, readying himself to tell them what he had never told another living being before.

"I'm sorry," He whispered, kissing Carole's head, then Finn's, "I'm just so relieved. Everything's going to be okay now. Come upstairs. I'll make us all some breakfast and tell you how I know."

He wasn't sure how he got them up the stairs and into the kitchen chairs without anymore questions. He wasn't sure how he kept his hands from shaking as he began to pull out things to make French toast. Kurt's favorite. The enormity of what had happened hit him then. Yes, he was happy. He had to be happy because somewhere in the world his son was alive and would continue to live for a very, very long time. Just that fact should have made Burt jump for joy and in a way he had already, making Carole and Finn think he was losing his mind. But, there was so much more to it than that and now Burt was just realizing that he didn't know if he would ever be able to see his son again, didn't know if he could ever leave the island that no human could find again without his body breaking down all over again. He rubbed his chest where he knew something would be missing for the rest of his life and tried to concentrate on the fact that Kurt would live. It would have to be enough. He was sure, as Carole wrapped her arms around him from behind and set her cheek to the space just between his shoulder blades and Finn began to crack eggs methodically into a bowl, that he had never loved his new wife and his stepson more than that moment. The three of them made breakfast together side by side, then sat down and ate it in silence.

Carole wasn't sure what made her so calm. By all accounts they should be frantically trying to find Kurt, calling the police, searching for him. But, the strength and finality, the absolute content in Burt took hold of her own heart and she smiled when he smiled at her as they were finishing their breakfast. They each pushed their plates back as they did so and, without thinking about it, began to link hands.

"This is going to sound insane," Burt said after a few moments. His eyes swept back and forth from Carole to Finn as he spoke, "But, it's true. I need you guys to try to believe it."

Carole and Finn nodded in unison. Burt took a deep breath.

"I know that Kurt's okay because he's gone. And if he's gone it means that his mom's come to get him."

"But, Kurt's mom is dead," Finn mumbled.

"No, not quite," Burt said gently, "Her human body died, but there's almost nothing in the world that could actually kill her. Kurt's mom's real name is Titania and she's…she's not quite human. Which means Kurt isn't quite human either."

It took him nearly three hours to tell them everything. They were interrupted more times than they wanted to be, mostly by calls from Kurt's friends, asking how he was that morning. Burt took all of the calls amazing Finn and Carole with the story he was able to come up with off of the top of his head. They tried not to wince as he told the kids that it wasn't good. That he couldn't wake Kurt up and he was pretty sure the end was close. He asked them not to come over and said it was a time for Finn and Carole and himself to say goodbye and that they needed it to be private. Even he winced at the tearful acknowledgements and the requests for him to tell the boy no longer with them that they loved him. Even Schuester called. It was going to be hard for Carole and Finn, Burt mused as he finished the last of the calls, to have to lie this way for the rest of their lives, but it was what they had to do. He hoped they would believe him. The last thing he needed was to be locked up in some nut house because his wife thought he'd had a mental break after finding his dying son missing one morning. But, he showed them the rose Tanya had left him before she died. The one that still hadn't died and then compared it to the rose that had been left on Kurt's bed that they had been too busy and worried to see before. He talked about the things that Kurt had been able to do that no human should be able to do as they did the dishes side by side and understanding about things that they hadn't been able to explain before came into their eyes. It was hard for him not to keep going when they all agreed to take a break for showers and changes, but he did it. He told them where he knew Kurt's mother had taken him as the three of them stripped the sick bed, a much more joyful experience than it should have been under the circumstances. It was Finn, finally, who spoke the one sad aspect of all of it that Burt had been trying to avoid.

"We're never going to see him again, are we?"

Burt didn't have any words for a moment. He wanted to tell Finn that there was always a chance, wanted to tell him that Kurt loved all three of them enough that he would find some way…but he had told himself the same things after Tanya. And he hadn't seen her since the end of their time together.

"No," Burt finally said quietly, "No, we probably won't."

"But, he's alive," Carole whispered, running a hand over Finn's mussed hair and keeping Burt's hand firmly intertwined with hers, "And knowing that is all that matters."

They sat in silence for a long time after that, each of them thinking that it wasn't all that mattered. Not even close. But, not one of them could find the strength to say it out loud.