David left the teacher's lounge just in time to hear frenzied yelling. Down the hallway, a man wearing clothing much too fancy for Lima was shaking his finger in the face of a rather horrified teacher. His hair bounced as he did so, his face flushed red.

"-so if my daughter wants to be straight or a motherfucking lesbian, more power to her!"

A smile, a really ridiculous smile spread across David's face before he could stop it. He breathed out a single word with as much shock as happiness. "Fancy."

Kurt Hummel turned dramatically on his heel and reached down to grasp the hand of a little girl with chocolate pigtails. As he stomped down the hall she half-ran to keep from being dragged along. "Daddy, what's a lesbian?"

"It's just a stupid word. It's someone who loves someone. The word doesn't matter."

The girl pulled at the side of her dress, looking uncomfortable. "Is Miss Cynthia mad at me?"

Dave saw Kurt's jaw become a hard line. "Yes, baby, but that's only because Miss Cynthia…" He turned his face back to the woman still standing in the doorway of her classroom, raisinghis voice pointedly. "… is a bitch."

The teacher went white, and the sound of giggles coming from the room behind her was easily heard. Toronto just grinned. "That's what I told her."

Kurt looked down at his daughter, alarmed for a moment. Slowly, horror and then self-disgust painted his features. "I'm a terrible parent."

David was still smiling, his grin maybe even a bit larger than before by the time they reached and passed him. A few steps more… and then Kurt stopped abruptly, turned around, and locked eyes with his old classmate. Dave didn't know what to expect and nearly walked away. But Kurt's look of confusion morphed into one of recognition, which was soon replaced with excitement.

"David!" He nearly squealed the name, taking a few steps towards him. Toronto swung around on her father's hand, already disinterested in whatever was happening. "David Karofsky. Lord, it's been years."

This wasn't the reaction David had been expecting. He really didn't know what he'd been expecting, but it hadn't been anything positive. This was… good. After standing there for a moment it occurred to him that he should probably move or speak, so he held out his hand. "It has. You, uh… you look good."

Kurt sighed and shook his hand in the tired way that parents do, but even after all these years there was still a touch of something dainty and refined about the gesture. "Thanks. I'm a little worse for wear, but it's not as big a disaster as it could be I suppose."

He didn't really think before he spoke again. "What? Kurt, you look amazing."

The sheer inappropriateness of the sentence hit him a half second later, and he shifted his feet uncomfortably. Kurt, however, bit his bottom lip and blushed like a girl who'd never been told she was pretty. Neither of them spoke for a while. The silence was punctuated with awkward smiles and Toronto humming Seasons of Love as she used her free hand to try and pry her father's fingers off her captured hand. He held fast, not even noticing her struggle.

"So, uh…" Dave immediately knew the words about to fall from his lips would only serve to make the moment more awkward, but it was too late to stop them. "Where's Blaine?"

Toronto stopped what she was doing and looked up at him, squinting. "You know Daddy?"

"Sure he does," Kurt answered. "We all used to be good friends."

Dave struggled with the response. Good friends? Is that what they had been? The three had spent sparingly small amounts of time together during their senior year. They got along, but Dave wasn't aware Kurt had ever categorized him as a friend.

Kurt turned his eyes back to Dave's, and exhaled before speaking. "Blaine is still in New York. He, um… we're separated actually. As of three weeks ago."

Separated. It seemed the whole world fell with the weight of that word. Blaine and Kurt had been Blaine and Kurt for so long that Dave couldn't imagine another reality. They had been the ideal couple, completely in love, unbreakable. They had everything anyone could ever want. David had spent years dying to see even one crack in their perfect lives, but it just hadn't been there. And now… separated.

He struggled for some kind of appropriate response, but all he managed was a quiet, "Kurt, I'm so sorry."

Kurt gave a weak half shrug. "Oh, don't be. It was a long time coming."

In some way, David was aware that he should happy about this. In a twisted, very wrong way, he should be relieved. Kurt Hummel was back in town, and single. The boy he thought he'd never see again, much less…

But Dave wasn't happy. On the contrary, he felt sick. Kurt was still smiling, but he'd never been good at hiding the emotions in his eyes. The weight of Kurt's broken heart was shattering David's, and as strange as it was, a part of him was praying that Blaine would appear and repair whatever had broken between them.

He had spent years feeling okay because he knew Kurt was loved. He didn't know how to handle this.

Dave's eyes were drawn to the little girl, who seemed not to be listening. He knew young children were always listening, especially when they seemed not to be. He motioned back down the hall, and tried to save the conversation. "So, what was that about?"

The hurt drained from Kurt's eyes, quickly replaced by annoyance. Success. Kurt could always be distracted by something that angered him.

"Well, apparently my daughter kissed one of the girls in her class." He saw Dave's flinch and nodded. "I know, right? And in case the PDA wasn't bad enough, the teacher then told her that girls who kiss girls are 'nasty' and 'bad'."

David sighed and tried not to look too angry; he'd been told he glared too often. "Cynthia has a history with that kind of thing. She even gives me a hard time now and then. You know, telling me I'm going to hell, starting petitions to get me fired, then there was this one time she actually threw a Bible - what?" He stopped abruptly at the look of complete bewilderment on Kurt's face.

The other man seemed to be struggling for words. "You… you came out?"

Dave shrugged. "A few years ago. It's not a big deal."

Dave only got to see a glimpse of Kurt's smile before he released his daughter's hand and threw both arms around the taller man's neck. Over his shoulder, Dave watched Toronto run over to a nearby corkboard to look at the drawings pinned there.

Kurt's voice was almost frantic. "What? Are - are you kidding? It's a huge deal!"

Dave laughed softly and hugged him back. His arms had never been around Kurt Hummel, and he tried not to lose himself too much in the moment. As they both pulled back, he saw the pride and thrill in Kurt's eyes, and he couldn't stop himself from smiling again. He hadn't smiled this much in awhile.

"Thanks, Fancy."

The nickname was a slip-up - Dave didn't catch it even after it'd happened - and Kurt just let out a small half-laugh. "Congratulations, David."

His eyes wandered back to Toronto, who was now repeatedly jumping on and off a bench against the wall. He nodded towards her. "Um, I think you may have lost your little Broadway star."

"What, Toronto?" He shook his head wearily. "I wish. Her hobbies are a bit more… I don't even know. I mean Blaine was thrilled, but I don't really know how to handle it."

"Handle what?"

He looked over his daughter, his expression adoring but concerned. "Tor wants to be on the football team."

Dave looked to her as well. She was tiny, dainty, with the delicate features of one father and the miniature-pony size of the other. She didn't look like a jock, but… "What's the problem with that?"

Kurt's eyes went back to David's, and he blinked in confusion. "I - well, I mean… she is a girl. The coach would probably just turn her away without giving her a chance."

"Nah," David said slowly. "I'd give her a fair shot."

There was a short pause as Kurt processed this new information.

"You're the coach." It wasn't a question so much as a statement of the obvious, or what should have been obvious.

"And Social Studies teacher, but who's keeping track?" Dave watched the girl rush back to them, bouncing with every step. "How about this - you bring her around to tryouts after school Thursday, and we'll see what she can do."

Toronto perked up. "Football? Dad, can I please? Please, please, please, please, please, please-"

"Okay!" Kurt cut off her string of begging before it could go any further, laughing as he clapped a hand over her mouth. "Okay, we'll go to tryouts."

She wriggled free of his grip and threw one arm in the air victoriously. "Yesssss!"

The men laughed together, and Dave's world felt considerably brighter than it had in twelve years.