OCTOBER 4TH, 2018, SEATTLE, WA

       LINDY STOOD OVER her stove top, sniffing the air as she stirred a large pot of pasta sauce in slow, lazy circles. There had never been a period of time in which she had been a more than stellar cook, but pasta was Charlie's favorite, and Trae had given her the recipe for his own personal batch of sauce. When Lindy had asked Charlie what he wanted made for his birthday dinner, she'd been relieved that he'd replied with 'spaghetti.' She couldn't exactly make anything else but that.

"No hospital today?"

Kurt entered the kitchen, his white socks drooping around his ankles and his hair bedraggled as usual. Lindy turned halfway around, the sound of his voice exciting her soul almost just as much as it had some twenty years earlier.

"Hey," she smiled warmly. "I didn't think you were coming out today."

When Lindy had woken up that morning, Kurt's side of the bed had been empty, the only evidence that he'd been there being the indent of his body on the mattress. She'd gotten up and gone looking for him, but as soon as Lindy heard the sound of guitar playing coming from Kurt's music room, she'd retreated. She found it better to give him space in those moments. It was intensely personal to him, the concept of creating music -- he could sit in his room for hours, filling stacks upon stacks of wire-bound notebooks with lyrics. Those towering books of lyrics and music never left the room, though eventually, Kurt always did.

"I lost track of time," Kurt admitted, floating over to Lindy's side and lovingly tucking back her hair. "What about you? I thought you were working today."

"No, not today," Lindy corrected him.

She still worked as a nurse at Virginia Mason hospital in Seattle, a position she had proudly held for twenty-seven years, but she no longer worked full time. The change had happened for a variety of reasons, but mainly it had become hard for Lindy to go into work and be recognized constantly by patients as the wife of Kurt Cobain. It had gotten to the point where gaggles of teenagers would linger in the hallways of the hospital, even just hoping to catch a glimpse of Lindy, something she found to be unsettling. As a result, she'd decided to work only two to three days a week, an adjustment that still accommodated for her love of the job.

"I've got something to tell you," he began, wearing a sheepish expression. Lindy cocked a single eyebrow, physically suggesting that Kurt spit it out instead of making her guess.

"We have to go tonight, to Charlie's party at Neumos," Kurt said. "I was talking to him yesterday and he told me that he's invited Trae, Krist, Shelli, I mean everyone. Even my sister and Beth. Do you know the immense size of the dicks we would look like if we didn't show up?"

Lindy, taken aback, frowned. "I was never opposed to going, it's just I thought . . . since it's not going to be a private event . . ."

Kurt gnawed the inside of his cheek, his eyes falling to the kitchen floor and away from Lindy's questioning gaze. He pushed his blonde hair out of his face, appearing to contemplate something.

"It'll be fine. Doubt anyone will care if I'm there anyways. And . . . it wouldn't matter if they did. I want to be there for Charlie's birthday. It's important."

"I think you're right," Lindy agreed, laying her hand against Kurt's thin face.

"He also invited Dave, but Dave had to decline since he's on tour. But guess what he fucking sent him as a birthday gift? A Les Paul Standard. One of the newest models."

Lindy chuckled. "Of course Dave would do that."

Kurt grimaced, and Lindy could see in his calculating eyes that he was mentally going crazy over whether or not his own gift to Charlie would measure up next to Dave's. She stroked his face once more, sighing.

"Guess it's good that I wasn't at work today. Now I've got a party to get ready for."

"I like it better when you're home anyways," Kurt murmured, leaning forward and pressing his lips to Lindy's forehead. She tilted her mouth up, catching him in a kiss that roused her constant state of longing for him, even when she already had him in her grasp. He clasped a hand around her neck, holding her to him for just a little longer than called for while standing in front of a hot stove.

This is good, Lindy thought brightly. Kurt's demeanor suggested to her that he had gotten over the grim news of the Rolling Stone article, taking his son's word for his well-being and deciding to not let it torture him. It was funny, the way Kurt listened so intently to Charlie. Charlie could have announced that he thought the earth was flat and Kurt would have gone right along with him.

"I would say get a room, but I think it's kinda' cute that you two still love each other enough to make out in the kitchen."

Lindy jerked back so quickly away from Kurt's embrace that she knocked right into her pot of boiling sauce, sloshing a good portion of it over the rim and onto the stove. It sizzled viciously, objecting to the hot burner.

"Shit," Lindy gasped, a reaction to both being startled and having clumsily spilt pasta sauce everywhere. Her hand flew to her chest, right over her heart as she looked past Kurt's shoulder.

"Frances Bean, you scared me!" she said, shaking her head as Frances stood with her arms folded, leaning against the wall to the kitchen and wearing an amused smile.

"Sorry family, I let myself in."

"I don't recall saying you could," Kurt remarked, unabashedly walking over to his daughter. He gently brushed his thumb to her chin, a loving gesture as he smiled into her eyes -- a carbon copy of his eyes, right down to the striking way that they viewed the rest of the world.

"Am I still welcomed here?" Frances shot back, though her voice was filled with teasing sarcasm.

"Always," Kurt pledged, ceasing their playful banter and kissing the top of Frances's head. As he began to amble out of the kitchen, Frances called out to him.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Have to make myself presentable for Charlie's dinner," Kurt replied over his shoulder. "I've had this same shirt on for three days."

Lindy rolled her eyes, her back to them both as she mopped up the mess of sauce with a towel. Leave it to Kurt, a fully grown man, to pout about having to take off his prized Sonic Youth t-shirt. He'd had it for ages, and as testament to how little he had changed over the years, it still fit him just the same.

Lindy felt a pair of slender arms wrap themselves around her waist. A face came to rest directly between her shoulder blades, affectionately clinging to her.

"Hi Dee," Frances said, nuzzling Lindy's back happily.

"Hey there, Bean. I missed you."

Lindy bundled up the dirty towel in her hand and threw it in the sink, spinning around so that she could properly envelop Frances in a hug. Frances's hugs, she had learned, were the best. She always squeezed Lindy tight enough to let her know just how much she was loved by Kurt's first-born.

"You should have waited for me, I would have helped you cook," Frances said, taking charge and grabbing the wooden spoon resting against the edge of the pot.

"I was worried I'd screw it up if I didn't start soon enough," Lindy confessed.

"You could never screw anything up. You're my Dee, I would know," Frances smiled, setting the stove top to a simmer.

When it came to Frances, she never fell short of expressing to Lindy what she thought of her. Of course, Lindy had known early on in her and Kurt's relationship that Frances was fond of her. From the beginning, when Frances had been barely two years old, she'd worshipped Lindy without a trace of doubt in her feelings. She welcomed her in her life as a second mother happily and had grown up content to have her around.

But much of that had changed once Frances got older.

Perhaps change was not the right word for it, though. No, it was more like Frances's feelings for Lindy had only intensified as she'd grown up.

In all honesty, Lindy had only Courtney to thank for that, although she wouldn't have chosen the life Frances lived alongside her mom. Courtney's high-profile downward spiral seemed to have correlated inversely with her daughter's aging -- as Frances grew older, Courtney grew more out of control.

It had been a harrowing few years for everyone involved as Courtney battled her personal demons, struggling with drug abuse and depression in a way that was explosive by anyone's definition. And unfortunately, Frances had been in the line of fire when that explosion hit and had faced much of the debris that it left behind in its wake.

Kurt had been unsurprisingly furious, though his anger came with a price; he himself had once been in Courtney's shoes and it nagged him relentlessly to place blame on her. But Lindy knew that the only thing harder than seeing himself in Courtney's behavior was witnessing Frances's pain, and no matter what, Frances always came first.

She would escape to Kurt and Lindy's house due to their shared custody of her, where she would vent about the tumultuous burden of living in the same quarters as Courtney. Nothing had pained Lindy more than to see Frances hysterical over the death of her cat, who was strangled in a clutter of Courtney's belongings. The final straw had been when Frances, only in her early teens at the time, extinguished a fire caused by her mother from falling asleep in bed with a lit cigarette in hand.

After that, Kurt had filed for full custody of his daughter and was granted so in court. Courtney had been ready to raise hell, but upon learning from Frances herself that that was what she wanted, she had bit her tongue and accepted her daughter's decision.

Throughout the turmoil, Lindy had done her best to be Frances's safe place, someone who represented a motherly figure that she could come to in times of need. Besides Frances's close relationship with Charlie (who was more than exuberant to have Frances living permanently with them) and her bond with Kurt, Lindy had truly encompassed exactly what Frances needed in her period of heartache.

Together, they'd done everything. Movie nights, shopping trips, staying up until the early morning hours talking in the kitchen. Lindy had even held Frances's hand when she'd gotten her nose pierced for the first time. There had been countless mornings where Kurt had woken up to find Lindy and Frances at each other's sides, curled up on the couch fast asleep. Lindy was everything that Frances wanted but couldn't get out of Courtney, at least not while Courtney suffered in her own hell.

"Adopt me," Frances had once pleaded at the age of fifteen. "I want you to be my mom, Lindy. Please do it. You know Dad would be okay with it."

Lindy had approached the situation hesitantly, not wanting to disappoint Frances but also knowing the undeniable truth of the matter.

"Bean, you'll be eighteen in a few years time. There's no need for me to adopt you," Lindy had reasoned, cautiously running her hands through Frances's hair.

Frances, smart enough to know what Lindy was getting at, did not ever bring up the request again. But the one thing that had remained constant was the affinity that she shared with Lindy, unbreakable even with the passage of time.

"Are you giving Charlie your gift tonight?" Lindy asked conversationally, pulling down bowls from the cabinet.

"Yep. It's one of a kind," Frances said proudly.

"Show me," Lindy smiled, causing Frances to excitedly bound out of the kitchen and towards the front of the house. She returned holding an ordinary Fender acoustic guitar.

"You bought him a new acoustic?" Lindy asked, mildly confused as to why Frances would spend her money on something that Charlie already had plenty of.

"No, I made him an acoustic," Frances grinned. She turned the guitar around to reveal its forefront, except the actual face of the guitar was missing. It had been torn out, and in its place was the empty shell of the guitar's innards, filled a miniature shelving unit. On the shelves were pictures and placed on the empty wooden wall behind them were pieces of memorabilia, such as a guitar pick. It was a guitar shadowbox, except much cooler than anything Lindy could have imagined herself.

"Frances, that's amazing," Lindy exclaimed, stepping away from the stove to get a closer look. As she inspected the inside of the guitar, she saw that the pictures were all themed around Charlie's musical abilities -- baby pictures of him holding his toddler-sized guitar and snapshots of him performing in his high school's jazz band. It was a visual documentation of Charlie's love affair with playing, starting right at the very beginning.

"See the pick? That's the one he used at his very first show, back when he was playing with Academy Black," Frances said, pointing to the faded pick positioned behind the pictures. Academy Black had been Charlie's first band that he played with right out of high school. It hadn't lasted long, but they'd gotten in a few good gigs before the split.

"You're a genius," Lindy said in disbelief. "He's going to love it."

The front door opened and there was a scuffling of feet that echoed into the kitchen, followed by wisps of conversation between two boys.

"Mom? It's me and Liam," Charlie shouted from the front room.

Frances made a face, scampering out of sight in order to stash away Charlie's gift before he could find it. Lindy hurried over to the counter and grabbed the bowls and silverware that she had laid out, realizing she had yet to set the table.

"In here, Char," she called.

Charlie lumbered into view, wearing a hole-ridden Black Keys shirt with his hands in his jeans pockets. Behind him tailed Liam Harvey, lead singer of The Finks and Charlie's sometimes-best friend.

With his hair hanging messy and unkept around his face and a brazen, handsome smile on his lips, Charlie looked to be having a thoroughly good twenty-fourth birthday.

"You made my favorite," Charlie said graciously, only having to inhale and smell the scent of his uncle's pasta sauce cooking on the stove to know that it was being concocted. He pulled Lindy into a hug, something that never failed to nearly set her on the edge of tears -- he was so much taller than she was now.

"Hey Mrs. C," Liam greeted as Charlie stepped back from Lindy. As usual, there was a smug air to him, even as he kindly waved his hand hello.

"Hi Liam. Staying for dinner?" Lindy asked, feeling like a grade school mom as she walked back into the kitchen to fill a serving bowl with noodles and sauce.

"Absolutely," he replied, though Lindy didn't have to guess as to why he was so sure of his answer.

It wasn't exactly a secret that Liam was obsessed with Kurt -- maybe Charlie had missed that detail, or at least pretended not to notice, but his family was more than aware of Liam's fanatical worship of Kurt and all things Nirvana.

"Happy birthday, Charlotte!" Frances yelled, running up on her brother and throwing her arms around him. She'd called him 'Charlotte' since they had been eight and six and Frances had told Charlie that he would have made a good sister -- he'd always participated in her tea parties or allowed her to test out play makeup on him.

"Thanks Bean," Charlie grinned, musing his sister's hair and taking advantage of the fact that he was seven inches taller than she was.

Liam opened his mouth, taking a step forward to greet Frances hello, but she was quick to rebuff him, her face falling into a hardened expression.

"No," she deadpanned before he could even manage to utter the word 'hi.' Charlie snorted, coughing back a laugh and Lindy bit her lip to fight the smile threatening to spread wide on her face. Out of everyone, Frances despised Liam the most. It made sense according to how vigilantly she looked out for Charlie. In Frances's humble opinion, Liam only liked Charlie for being the spawn of Kurt Cobain -- and that was about where his appreciation for Charlie stopped.

"Where's Dad?" Charlie asked, taking his seat at the table as Lindy set down the food.

"Here," Kurt announced, joining them all in a classic pair of his patched jeans, Converse sneakers and a long-sleeved flannel shirt. Being fifty-one years old would never deter Kurt from dressing like he was still twenty-five and in a grunge band.

"Mr. Cobain, it's so good to see you again," Liam said enthusiastically, sidestepping Charlie before Kurt could even wish his son a happy birthday.

"Please don't cream yourself in the middle of our dining room," Frances muttered beneath her breath as she sat down.

Lindy did not know what she wanted to laugh at more -- Frances's snide comment, or the fact that Liam had called Kurt 'Mr. Cobain.'

Together, they gathered around the table and filled their bowls high with Lindy's homemade meal. Frances and Charlie did most of the talking as they always did, and Liam seemed to be doing his utmost best to chat with Kurt, though Kurt was more intent on jumping into Charlie and Frances's conversation when needed.

"Did your Mom tell you we're coming tonight?" Kurt asked, spooning noodles around his fork.

"Really? You changed your mind?" Charlie said eagerly.

"Did you really think we'd miss your birthday party?" Kurt said, smiling with pleasure over Charlie's excitement.

"I think it's great that you're coming," Liam interjected, looking absolutely breathless to get a word in. "We'd love to have you there, Mr. Cobain."

"We get it dickwad," Frances muttered. "You wanna' lick the bottom of our Dad's shoes."

At that comment, Lindy allowed herself to laugh out loud.

[ HEY EVERYONE! look at these fucking brilliant manips that gameofboners made of lindy and kurt! did i cry while looking at them? yes!! are they utterly and devastatingly beautiful? yes!! this talented angel deserves the world for this and i love her and i want her to be my friend forever ]

this one has me screaming bc y'all know shelli would have been behind the camera taking this