"I'M NOT MAD. I swear. Honestly, it was kind of funny."

Lindy's mouth puckered into a grimace as she listened to Charlie's short-winded promise that he was not angry about what had happened on his birthday with Kurt.

"Tell him that. He's been in his music room sulking since we got home last night," Lindy sighed, balancing one hand on the wheel of her Jeep Wrangler and using the other to massage her aching temple. She was on her way home from an eight hour shift at the hospital.

"I did! I texted his phone like, six times. No response."

"Charlie, your dad hates texting just about as much as he hates conversation in general," Lindy said.

"I'll call him. But I'm serious Mom, it was no big deal. The show went on. What's he so keyed up about?"

"You know how he gets with you. That was your moment and he feels like he stole it."

Charlie's sigh blew directly into the speaker, making it crackle in Lindy's ear.

"Have you ever told him that he's dramatic?"

"You should have met him back in nineteen-ninety two."

"I'm calling him as soon as we hang up," Charlie pledged, sounding genuinely adamant.

"Let me know how it goes," Lindy muttered, tapping the red button on her iPhone and effectively ending the call. She tossed her phone into the passenger seat and turned up the radio, pleased to hear the Red Hot Chili Peppers crooning out of the speakers.

Kurt was a friend of Anthony Kiedis — she'd met him many times. He was a nice guy.

She would have enjoyed the drum-heavy beat of 'Californication' more if it weren't for Kurt himself, clouding her mind and making any other type of thought impossible when she knew where he was and what he was feeling.

In all honesty, she felt bad for him. First the Rolling Stone article, and now the ridiculous ordeal at Charlie's birthday party. She knew just from existing alongside him for so long that he was miserable with himself, and just as he had years prior, he thoroughly believed that he was a nuisance to everyone around him.

Kurt never felt such heavy things on a small scale, nor did he go vying for anyone's attention when he felt them. His moods were not determined by how much of his ego could be inflated if he felt particularly self-deprecating. Everything that Kurt felt was real, and when he felt like an inconvenience, he felt it deep to his core.

As Lindy pulled up to her driveway, she nearly cried out with relief to see Frances perched happily on the bumper of her car, waving with a light, carefree smile on her face. Tendrils of her blonde hair swirled in spirals as the Seattle wind blew in small gusts, ringing in the fall weather.

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you," Lindy groaned, climbing out of her Jeep and slamming the door shut. Frances tucked her hair behind her ear, smiling knowingly.

"Are you not happy to see me every other time that I visit Seattle?"

Lindy hitched her bag of things higher on her shoulder, copying Frances and leaning up against her bumper. She sighed, but could not help smiling back at Frances. It was impossible when Frances had the sort of infectious smile that lit up every face of whoever came near her.

"Just tell me now. Have you been upstairs to see your dad?"

"Yes, and it was easy to get him out of that room. At least it was for me. I suspect that he might have wandered back in there though, now that he's alone."

Lindy glanced up at the far right corner window if her house, the very one that belonged to Kurt's music room. She didn't have to have supersonic hearing to know that Frances was right, and Kurt was most definitely in there playing again.

"That damn room," Lindy grumbled, bringing both hands to her face and pushing them all the way back to her hairline.

"He feels so much at once, but I don't think that's a bad thing," Frances said, nudging Lindy's shoulder against hers. Of course she'd say that — she was ever the optimist.

"You don't understand . . . you and Charlie . . . you guys are his whole world. You both are what kept him . . . kept him alive," Lindy attempted to explain, faltering on the last part.

It wasn't as if Frances didn't know. Once she had been old enough to comprehend what the media said about Kurt, both he and Courtney had explained to her what he'd been through. Kurt had done the same with Charlie, except with Lindy at his side.

No one outside of their closest family and friends knew about Kurt's suicide attempts. There had never been a threat of the media leaking the truth to them before Kurt could have explained it all himself; the kids would have never needed to know if he had not decided to tell them.

Lindy thought he would have felt too ashamed to confess that he'd almost left them. She never imagined that Kurt, who still felt guilt over what he had almost done, would tell them. But he couldn't be dishonest with his children. After they had both gone through almost a year of therapy, the conversation was eased in slowly and the truth had eventually come out 

Naturally, as loving as they were, Frances and Charlie had understood Kurt's plight and loved him all the same. Lindy knew that their acceptance meant more to him than simple understanding, though — it was an enormous relief.

"I know 'Dee," Frances murmured, tilting her head closer towards Lindy's. "And that's why he tears his heart out for us like it doesn't even hurt him to do it."

"I told him it was nothing. That it was no big deal. Charlie was even able to finish the show. It was a slip-up that lasted five minutes . . ."

"Maybe it lasted five minutes, but to Dad, it left an impression on Charlie that will last a lifetime."

"Charlie's not worried about sharing the spotlight with Kurt," Lindy said, frustrated. "He's never felt over-shadowed or anything like that. At least, he's never told me if he has."

Frances looked away, out towards the skyline where Lindy couldn't read her expression.

"It's not easy, doing what you love and being the kid of someone famous," Frances said.

"Bean . . .," Lindy began, feeling sudden guilt creep up on her.

Between Charlie and Frances, it had always appeared that Frances struggled more when it came to coping with her inherited stardom. Lindy knew why — it wasn't just Kurt that she had for a parent, but Courtney too, who was famous in more ways than one. Her whole childhood had been strewn across the tabloids.

Charlie was more fortunate. By the time he'd been born, Nirvana had ended and Kurt had become a total recluse alongside Lindy. Of course, he was still hunted by the media from the time that they'd found out Charlie existed, but it was on a different scale.

Even when Charlie had started to join bands with the intent of growing famous, he never seemed to fear being outshined by Kurt's legacy. He kept pace with it, acknowledged it, and respected it, but never let it bother him. But that was only what he'd made seem obvious to Lindy.

"It's not a problem," Frances assured her, focusing her attention back onto Lindy. "Charlie and I have both accepted that Dad's fame would always play a role in our lives and we're okay with that."

"So Charlie has cared in the past, then?"

"Not to the point of showing it, but . . . he tells me a lot of things."

"Of course he does," Lindy mumbled. "You two share more secrets than the U.S. government."

Frances laughed, wrapping her arm around Lindy's midsection and giving her a squeeze. She was smiling blithely again, obviously trying her very hardest to spread her contentment over to Lindy.

"It's a sibling thing. But listen, you're right. It's no big deal and Dad shouldn't worry about it anymore than he already has."

Frances swung forward, planting both feet on the pavement and turning to face Lindy. She pulled her car keys out of her denim jacket, turning them over in her hand. Lindy took it as a sign that she wasn't flying home to Los Angeles yet — she had an apartment in Seattle along with her when for when she came to visit. Charlie had the same, though he hung around Seattle more often than she did those days.

"My main reason for stopping by was because I have some interesting news," Frances grinned.

"Is it good news? You can tell me if it is. Otherwise, I don't want to hear it," Lindy said with a playful roll of her eyes.

"It's good. Oh, trust me, it's really good."

"Well, don't leave me hanging. What is it?"

"Charlie's in love."

Frances looked as if she were teetering on the edge of an explosion of happiness, her cheeks rounded to fit the colossal smile on her face. She rocked back and forth on her heels, looking like she'd just announced the official start of world peace.

"In love?" Lindy repeated, fighting back a laugh. "With who? His Sunburst Strat?"

"No," Frances said, drawing out the 'o' in her voice. "One of my friends."

Lindy raised an eyebrow skeptically, wondering if perhaps as a prank, Frances was winding her up so she'd then go heckle Charlie. It was the kind of thing that a brother and sister might do to each other. Except as Lindy analyzed Frances's face, she had the strangest feeling that she wasn't lying.

It wasn't like Charlie was incapable of being in a relationship. He'd been in several, his most recent one being with a girl that he'd met while she had played acoustic in a bar. Most of those relationships only lasted for a few months, though his college girlfriend, Kristin, had lasted a whole year and two months exactly. Charlie always said that he didn't have time for a girlfriend and that was why each attempt to have one was so short-lived.

Once Charlie had hit his teenager years, Lindy had barely had time to take pride in how good-looking her son was before the rest of the world did. His face cropped up in all sorts of teen magazines that deemed him a heartthrob, and girls certainly fawned over him enough to prove it. When he turned eighteen, Calvin Klein had contacted him in hopes that he would sign on to their brand as their latest male underwear model.

That had been a definite no on Charlie's end.

Even the women that inhabited the world of celebrities had taken great notice in Charlie; Lindy had almost given herself a hernia from laughing when she'd received a call from the famed Kris Jenner just a year earlier, asking if she would be interested in setting up Charlie with her daughter Kendall.

Lindy had been more than appeased when Charlie had thankfully turned down that offer as well.

But it never really hit Lindy just how highly the public viewed Charlie's physical appearance until he'd made People's 'Sexiest Men Alive' list the previous month. They'd heralded him as the sexiest upcoming musician. That one had made her gag a little, though Kurt had gotten a kick out of it. He'd pinned Charlie's headshot from the magazine all around the house just to torment Lindy; even the inside of the fridge hadn't been safe.

"Which friend?" Lindy inquired, shaking off the delusion that Charlie couldn't possibly be in love.

"Guess," Frances said coyly, still wearing a sly grin.

"Do you know how many friends you have?" Lindy complained, shaking her bag and raising her pitch to a whine.

Frances laughed. "Does the name Billie Lourd ring a bell?"

Lindy's ears perked and she felt her eyes widen with surprise once Frances revealed the mystery figure behind Charlie's apparent lovesickness.

"As in Carrie Fisher's daughter?"

"The very one."

Although it would have delighted her to no end, Lindy had never known Carrie Fisher personally before she passed, though she did know her daughter Billie.

In Frances's youth, she'd been best friends with the little girl. While Courtney had maintained a friendship with Carrie, Billie had served as a playmate to Frances. On the days that Frances had spent with Kurt and Lindy, Billie had sometimes tagged along to their house for sleepovers. It'd been years since Lindy had seen Billie, but she faintly recalled an image of what Billie had looked like as a lively child.

"Wow," Lindy said, folding her arms and feeling rather awestruck. "But why now? He's known Billie for as long as you have."

"Yeah but he hasn't seen her in ages, same as you. He got one look at her at the party last night and I swear Lindy, it looked like Cupid literally shot an arrow through his ass. He asked me so many questions about her after we left Neumos."

"Think he'll try to date her?" Lindy asked, relying more on Frances's judgement than her own when it came to Charlie's fickle interest in relationships.

"Probably, but I think he's worried that I won't approve. Not that I wouldn't. They'd be adorable together, don't you think?"

"I'm sure," Lindy agreed, though she had an incredibly vague knowledge of what Billie was even like as a young adult. Frances appeared to be sold on the idea though, which was enough to confirm that Charlie was indeed fascinated by Billie, enough to potentially commit himself to her.

"You'll have to tell me what happens between them. I think Charlie is too old now to be telling his mom about which girls he's talking to," Lindy said as she was escorted by Frances to her front door.

"There'll only be one girl now," Frances replied, smiling confidently. She kissed Lindy's cheek goodbye and headed back down the driveway, leaving a trace of flowery perfume in her wake.

Lindy let herself into the house and set her things down, tilting her head skyward when she heard the sound of music from upstairs. From what she could tell, it was coming from Kurt's old record player.

She climbed the stairs and slowly walked down the hallway, lingering outside of the door that led to Kurt's music room before pushing it open.

He was sitting on the small futon couch that he'd shoved up against the wall, one hand cupping his chin and his other arm wrapped around his midsection. When he saw Lindy enter, he jumped out of his contemplative state and rushed to raise the needle off the record that spun in the corner.

"You scared the shit out of me," Kurt accused, flipping the dial off on the record player.

"Sorry, I just wanted to check on you," Lindy explained, her eyes flickering to the motions of Kurt's hands as he stopped the music.

"Glad you're home," he said, breezing by her and pausing to kiss her squarely on the mouth. "I'll start dinner for us."

And then he was gone, bounding down the stairs and pretending as if he had not even been in the room in the first place.

Curious, Lindy approached the record player, stretching her neck forward to peer at the record still sitting on the turntable. She lifted it up from the spindle in its center, bringing it closer to her eyes so that she could read the script in the middle that listed the song tracks.

She recognized them. Or rather, she knew them almost as well as she knew any other catalogue of songs.

Looking down, Lindy spotted the empty sleeve that belonged to the record, propped up on the floor though its back faced her. She picked it up off the ground and turned it over, thoroughly shocked to have confirmed what she already knew was true.

Kurt had been listening to his own album — Nirvana's 'Nevermind,' the very same album that had propelled his career into a world of legacy.