Fic: Glee: Making A Baby 2/2
Part one.
“I wonder if she needs any help.” Blaine looks over his shoulder toward the bathroom. It feels like Rachel disappeared behind that door an hour ago. He didn’t think this would be difficult for her, but it is a medical procedure. He doesn’t want her to have to figure it out alone. “Rachel?” he calls and then lowers his voice again. “Maybe one of us should check - “
“Even though I wasn’t born with the equipment to write my name in the snow, I can still pee on a stick without help, thank you!” Rachel replies from behind the shut door. There is a frustrated determination in her loud voice that keeps Blaine rooted his spot.
“I’ve never written my name in the snow,” Blaine says in surprise and maybe a little indignation. “Not, um, like that, anyway.”
“It’s fun if you can avoid frostbite,” Jesse says with a shrug.
Beside Blaine on Rachel’s couch, Kurt puts his hand over Blaine’s in what is probably supposed to be a soothing gesture, only Blaine can see the color high on Kurt’s cheeks and feel the fine tremor in his fingers.
Kurt is excited, too. Kurt is nervous, too.
Somehow that actually makes Blaine feel better, because he’s not alone in his feelings. He’s not the only one who has been on the edge of his seat all day waiting to get to Rachel and Jesse’s apartment so she can take a pregnancy test to see if she’s carrying their baby.
Oh, god, she could be carrying their baby. Blaine feels the world spin around him, and he holds onto Kurt’s hand to keep the anticipation from sweeping him away.
“How long does this take?” Jesse asks from where he’s sitting - far more at ease than either of them - in one of the chairs.
“There’s supposed to be a result, either positive or negative, within two minutes,” Kurt says. He raises his voice. “Which she is not allowed to look at first without us!”
“I’m washing my hands!” Rachel snaps back.
Blaine’s stomach churns, because this is it. They’re about to find out whether or not they’re having a baby. This is a defining moment in their lives, or at least it might be.
They might get something they’ve been dreaming about for years and actively working toward for months... or they might not.
They might get the promise of a beautiful little baby to coo at them and play with them and sing with them and throw up on them and keep them up at night and make everything perfect... or they might not.
They might get this last piece of the puzzle they call their lives. Or they won’t.
Blaine wants it so much it burns in his throat. He wants a child. He wants a little Kurt. He wants a boy or a girl with blue eyes and a warm heart and an excitement for the whole big world he cannot wait to show to his child.
He loves being with Kurt, the man he was lucky enough to get to marry, but he also wants sleepless nights and hard homework and worrying about teenagers missing curfew.
He wants it all.
One little line will tell him whether he will get it. One little line on a test will tell them their future.
Blaine clutches at Kurt’s hand and tries not to jump at the overly loud click of the bathroom door opening.
“Okay,” Rachel says, holding a white and purple stick on a little white plate.
“You peed on that?” Jesse asks as he sits forward in his chair. “And now it’s in here? That’s kind of gross.”
Rachel sets the pregnancy test down on the coffee table and ignores her husband. “One more minute,” she tells Kurt and Blaine. She stands opposite them, her hands twisting together in front of her. “Oh, god, this is the longest minute of my life. Longer even than waiting for Carmen Tibideaux to give me the thumbs up or thumbs down after my Senior Showcase performance.”
Blaine barely is able to laugh; he just stares at the stick, its result window turned upside-down, as Kurt holds onto his hand with both of his own.
In a minute, one of them will turn over the test, and their lives will change.
Or they won’t.
Jesse glances at his watch. “Has it been a minute yet?”
“How are you the most impatient of all of us?” Rachel asks him.
“We should have set a timer,” Kurt says, and Blaine puts his free hand on top of their joined ones to keep them both from shaking apart.
Rachel gestures to the pregnancy test and blows out a heavy breath. “Okay. It has to be time now. Who is going to do the honor?”
“Kurt?” Blaine offers. His heart is beating too fast, and he’s not sure his hands are steady enough to do the job.
“Maybe it should be Rachel,” Jesse says, “because she’s the one who peed on it.”
“But it’s their baby,” Rachel tells him.
“Fine. I’ll do it.” Kurt leans forward and turns over the stick.
They all lean toward the coffee table.
Blaine stares at the two blue lines, one darker than the other, for so long the image starts to blur in his vision. No, it’s tears making it blur, not his eyes getting tired, because it’s two lines. Two.
“I’m pregnant!” Rachel says, her hands coming up to cover her mouth and her eyes shining, and Blaine realizes the reason he feels like there’s an earthquake is that Kurt is hugging him and shaking him and then bouncing up to grab Rachel and jump up and down with her in the middle of the living room.
Blaine watches them, and he feels like he’s free-falling, like he’s flying, like he’s tumbling down the softest hill with the greenest grass cushioning him as he rolls. He gets slowly to his feet and looks down at the test again.
It’s still positive.
Rachel is pregnant.
They’re having a baby.
Joy catches in his throat, cutting off his ability to breathe and leaving him light-headed and giddy. He looks up at the ceiling and smiles so widely it hurts his cheeks.
They’re having a baby.
Jesse claps Blaine on the back and announces, “This calls for a celebration!”
“Blaine!” Rachel flies into his arms, and he hugs her tightly, then relaxes his hold all at once, because she’s pregnant; he has to be careful now. She’s carrying their child.
“Thank you,” he says to her, barely a whisper, his heart so full of her and everything she’s giving them that he doesn’t know how to say any of it, and she kisses his cheek and steps back to dash the tears from her cheeks as Kurt steps around the coffee table and hugs him again.
Blaine almost falls against him, looking up into Kurt’s bright face. They’re both smiling and laughing and crying at once, and Blaine kisses him hard, because he’s so happy he could start sobbing, and he would rather kiss Kurt instead.
“You guys!” Rachel says, her voice thick with joy and tears, and Kurt opens his arm to let her into the hug with them.
As much as Blaine wants this moment to be about Kurt and him, about them having a child, it feels even more right to him to have Rachel there with them. She’s part of their plan. She’s part of their family. She was even before she became their surrogate, but now she’s even closer.
She’s so precious to him, so kind, so generous, so important in so many ways well beyond this baby, and they’re so lucky to have her in their lives.
He sniffles into her hair, fists his hand in the back of Kurt’s shirt, and feels like he could burst. He’d thought marrying Kurt was the happiest day of his life, but today could tie it.
“Champagne,” Jesse sings, and Blaine lifts his head to see him walking in with a tray of champagne flutes and two bottles. He sets it down on the table beside the pregnancy test.
“This is incredible,” Blaine says, touched that that Jesse had planned ahead, both that he wanted to and that there is champagne at all, since Kurt had called it unlucky for the two of them to buy any before they knew the results of the test. It feels so right to be able to celebrate such amazing news.
“Oh! I guess I can’t have any!” Rachel says with a laugh and a shake of her head. “Wow, this is real!”
They all pause for a moment as her words sink in, and then Blaine looks over at Kurt, his heart in his throat, and says in wonder, “We’re having a baby.”
Rachel pats her flat stomach as Jesse tells her, “I also bought some cider. Just in case.”
“We’re having a baby,” Kurt whispers back to Blaine, and he leans in to grab Blaine’s hand. He’s incandescent and straight-backed with triumph, his eyes and his face and his smile all radiating joy and certainty.
Caught up in his husband, Blaine jumps when Jesse pops the cork, but he takes a bubbling glass - his whole body fizzing even more than the drink - and holds it up as they toast.
“To Rachel,” Kurt says, smiling at her with his heart in his eyes.
“To Rachel,” Blaine echoes, and Jesse pulls her against his side and kisses the top of her head as he clinks glasses with Blaine.
“To Kurt and Blaine,” Rachel says after they take their sips. “The best pair of fathers in the entire world. My own included, because they got divorced and no longer will sit together at my performances, creating logistical nightmares for me every opening night.” She waves away the thought. “I know no one in the world will love a child more than you two will love yours.”
“Congrats, guys,” Jesse says.
“Thank you both very much,” Blaine says, meaning every word, and Kurt smiles serenely at him.
“So,” Jesse says after he takes another, longer sip of champagne. “How long do you think it’ll take until she starts demanding that we fulfill all of her ridiculous cravings? One week? Two?”
“That started the day she was born,” Kurt replies with a smirk in her direction.
Rachel’s eyes narrow at him. “Excuse me?”
“He’s not wrong,” Jesse tells her, and she turns her glare on him. He leans in to kiss her. “But we love you.”
“We do,” Blaine promises. She’s given him so much over the years - friendship, understanding, now a baby - and he loves her so much he doesn’t even know how to put it into words. He’ll have to find ways to show it.
“I love you, too,” Rachel says, her smile bright and wide. She’s radiant with joy, joy for them, and Blaine finds himself taking another quick sip of champagne to keep from being overcome.
Yes, he thinks as he sways into Kurt’s side, this is definitely going to be one of the happiest days of his life.
*
Once they get home, Blaine heads to kitchen to put away the handful of groceries they’d picked up at the bodega on the corner, but instead of following him Kurt finds himself lingering by the front door after he deposits his keys in the bowl there.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he scans their living room with newly critical eyes and a quickly shifting perspective.
The room is not a bad size, really, if they aren’t going to move. It’s not cluttered, and there’s plenty of space, at least by cramped New York standards. They can probably make do here for a couple of years before they’ll absolutely need more room, and it might be good to stay and wait for their paychecks to get bigger as their careers grow so they can get something better than they can afford now.
He’d been thinking of replacing the couch, since they bought it off of one of Elliott’s more trendy friends soon after they got married, and it’s getting a little worn, but maybe it’s a smarter idea to keep it until they get through the spitting-up stage of babies, however long that lasts. He’d hate to buy something new only to have it get ruined.
The built-in shelves in the corner are practical and aren’t taking up any floor space they might need as a play area, though he’ll have to adjust the artfully arranged pictures and books to accommodate toys and board books.
The upright piano they love to gather around can stay, too, but he’ll have to research ways to keep the fallboard up so that little fingers won’t get mashed... or maybe to keep it shut, so that those little fingers won’t bang on the piano without permission instead.
“Hmm,” he says to himself absently.
Their lamps are sturdy, their area rug is machine-made and durable enough to be played on, and their side tables are as old as the couch. They can all stay.
Their coffee table, though, has a glass top and a sleek, sharp-edged metal base.
Kurt sighs. He loves that coffee table. It’s one of the first real, new, designer pieces of furniture they were able to buy, and he delights at how its modern lines and transparency transform the room into something special without weighing it down. It feels elegant and modern, mature and stylish, just like him, just like Blaine.
Kurt loves it.
It will have to go into storage for sure. There’s nothing about it that’s suitable for having a child, except for informing his or her budding aesthetic sense.
“Hmm,” he says again. He drums his fingers on his arm and imagines different options for the space. Maybe he can find something like that antique padded, wooden-legged bench he saw in a window display the other day. It was a real statement piece like the glass coffee table, but it would be far softer and also double as seating when they have dinner parties or playdates.
“I’m going to make some sparkling juice,” Blaine says, leaning out of the doorway to the kitchen. “I thought some non-alcoholic bubbles might be calming after so much champagne. Do you want some?”
“We’re going to need a new coffee table,” Kurt tells him, frowning at it.
“What?”
Kurt looks away from the table and over toward him. “We’re going to need a new coffee table.” He gestures at it. “This one has too many sharp edges.”
“Oh.” Blaine comes to stand beside him and looks at the room with a crease between his eyebrows. “You’re right. I didn’t even think of that,” he says. “I’m going to need to read a book about childproofing. Or maybe we should hire an expert to come in. I read about this woman who is supposed to be great last week in the paper.”
“Maybe,” Kurt says, feeling the gaping chasm between what they know and have and what they will need to know and have stretch out in front of them like the Grand Canyon of child-rearing. Neither of them has any real experience with children. They don’t know how to fold a stroller or put on a diaper. They don’t know how to make a bottle or even how to clean one. And those are just simple tasks to figure out. Then there’s childproofing and sleep issues and teething and finding the right daycare or maybe a nanny...
Kurt looks around him and tries to imagine how a child and all of its many needs and belongings will possibly fit into this room he knows so well and that he and Blaine have put together just the way they like it (as their paychecks have allowed, anyway).
It’s disconcerting to layer this new future over the present he loves, the ground shifting beneath his feet.
Before they started this whole long process toward parenthood, everything was just as he liked it, his life and his space tidy and under his control, and now there’s so much to learn about. There’s so much to do. He is going to have to make so many lists and so many decisions.
Because Rachel is pregnant.
Rachel is pregnant with their baby.
Suddenly this is all real, not just the achievement of a goal they’ve been working toward for months and celebrated with their friends tonight but all that comes after it. He’s been focused on this goal, the pregnancy, but so much comes after it, so many new challenges.
The changes in their lives will be enormous, far larger than just a new coffee table. Kurt’s not prepared, not in the slightest. He knows he isn’t.
But as he fills his lungs with another deep breath he also knows, like he knows when he opens an unfamiliar score and prepares to rehearse and conquer a song until it’s entirely under his command, that he will be.
Kurt is hit with a sudden rush of giddiness, like the champagne is catching up to him all at once. He feels the world spin around him, golden and bright.
“We’re going to be parents,” he says to Blaine, looking over at him in utter amazement. They’re finally here, with a baby on its way. It’s happening.
“Yeah,” Blaine replies, but his mouth twists a little, uncertain, and he looks down instead of into Kurt’s eyes. “We are.”
Kurt knows that expression. It’s doubt. So he draws Blaine into his arms, leans in to press a soft kiss to his mouth, and then pulls back and nudges the tip of his nose off of Blaine’s in silent encouragement as he watches Blaine’s face.
Kurt’s not worried, not at all. He can wait for Blaine to find his words.
“We’re going to be parents,” Blaine says finally, not looking away from Kurt. “What if I’m not good at it?”
“You’re going to be an incredible father, Blaine,” Kurt tells him without a single bit of hesitation. He knows it’s true. “You will. You’re the best person I know, with the best heart in the world. That’s why I married you.”
Blaine smiles his thanks, but his expression remains cloudy, worried.
“There’s nothing the two of us can’t do if we have each other,” Kurt says. He searches Blaine’s eyes. “Right?” They are an unstoppable team. They’ve proven it again and again, from standing up against bullies in high school to making their way in one of the hardest industries in the world.
Blaine nods. “Of course,” he says.
“Then we’re going to be fine,” Kurt tells him, willing Blaine to believe him. Willing Blaine to see what he sees. There’s so much they’ll have to learn, and he’s ready to start. “No. We’re going to be amazing.”
Blaine lets out a little laugh and leans up for another kiss. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It is,” Kurt says. “We’ll might make a mistake here and there, but we’ll figure it out. It is simple.”
Blaine’s smile turns brighter, like he thinks Kurt hangs the moon and stars in the sky each night, and Kurt is never going to be immune to that kind of adoration from him. He thrives on it, thrives on them, on what they are together.
“We’re a team,” he says to Blaine.
Blaine nods, and his eyes start to shimmer with tears again. “We’re having a baby,” he says with wonder, and he pulls Kurt in to hug him close, his arms tight around Kurt’s waist and his face buried against Kurt’s shoulder.
Standing at the edge of their tidy living room, they hold each other for a long while, soaking in each other and the enormity of the moment.
Kurt breathes out against Blaine’s hair and is grateful to have Blaine as his anchor in the changing tide of his life. They’re being carried forward into a new phase of their lives, and there’s no fighting it now. They’re having a baby. He knows there will be a lot of upheaval, but with this man in his arms - this man he loves and who loves him, this man who will stand by his side and reach for the happiness they both want - he knows it will all be worth it.
When they finally pull apart with trembling smiles, their hands link together, and they look at their living room side by side.
“We need a new coffee table?” Blaine asks.
“And some way to secure the piano,” Kurt replies.
Kurt tilts his head and tries to imagine their currently serene and stylish space with an infant swing in the corner, stuffed animals on the couch, blocks on the floor, toy cars under the chairs, and Sesame Street on the television.
It will be so different.
Everything will be different, not just the space but their routines and their lives. It will all be overrun and re-ordered, set into disarray.
All that they’ve created together will be changed in one way or another by this child they’ve created, the child Rachel is having for them.
Everything Kurt loves - from his coffee table to his quiet home to his husband to his father to his own heart - will change when their baby is born.
It feels enormous and overpowering, too big to contemplate. He hates disarray. He hates not being able to plan every little thing he’s doing. He hates not being able to control change.
Yet when Kurt squeezes Blaine’s hand and smiles over at him, he is helplessly, deliriously happy.
Everything is going to change with this baby. Everything.
He can’t wait.
~end~
“I wonder if she needs any help.” Blaine looks over his shoulder toward the bathroom. It feels like Rachel disappeared behind that door an hour ago. He didn’t think this would be difficult for her, but it is a medical procedure. He doesn’t want her to have to figure it out alone. “Rachel?” he calls and then lowers his voice again. “Maybe one of us should check - “
“Even though I wasn’t born with the equipment to write my name in the snow, I can still pee on a stick without help, thank you!” Rachel replies from behind the shut door. There is a frustrated determination in her loud voice that keeps Blaine rooted his spot.
“I’ve never written my name in the snow,” Blaine says in surprise and maybe a little indignation. “Not, um, like that, anyway.”
“It’s fun if you can avoid frostbite,” Jesse says with a shrug.
Beside Blaine on Rachel’s couch, Kurt puts his hand over Blaine’s in what is probably supposed to be a soothing gesture, only Blaine can see the color high on Kurt’s cheeks and feel the fine tremor in his fingers.
Kurt is excited, too. Kurt is nervous, too.
Somehow that actually makes Blaine feel better, because he’s not alone in his feelings. He’s not the only one who has been on the edge of his seat all day waiting to get to Rachel and Jesse’s apartment so she can take a pregnancy test to see if she’s carrying their baby.
Oh, god, she could be carrying their baby. Blaine feels the world spin around him, and he holds onto Kurt’s hand to keep the anticipation from sweeping him away.
“How long does this take?” Jesse asks from where he’s sitting - far more at ease than either of them - in one of the chairs.
“There’s supposed to be a result, either positive or negative, within two minutes,” Kurt says. He raises his voice. “Which she is not allowed to look at first without us!”
“I’m washing my hands!” Rachel snaps back.
Blaine’s stomach churns, because this is it. They’re about to find out whether or not they’re having a baby. This is a defining moment in their lives, or at least it might be.
They might get something they’ve been dreaming about for years and actively working toward for months... or they might not.
They might get the promise of a beautiful little baby to coo at them and play with them and sing with them and throw up on them and keep them up at night and make everything perfect... or they might not.
They might get this last piece of the puzzle they call their lives. Or they won’t.
Blaine wants it so much it burns in his throat. He wants a child. He wants a little Kurt. He wants a boy or a girl with blue eyes and a warm heart and an excitement for the whole big world he cannot wait to show to his child.
He loves being with Kurt, the man he was lucky enough to get to marry, but he also wants sleepless nights and hard homework and worrying about teenagers missing curfew.
He wants it all.
One little line will tell him whether he will get it. One little line on a test will tell them their future.
Blaine clutches at Kurt’s hand and tries not to jump at the overly loud click of the bathroom door opening.
“Okay,” Rachel says, holding a white and purple stick on a little white plate.
“You peed on that?” Jesse asks as he sits forward in his chair. “And now it’s in here? That’s kind of gross.”
Rachel sets the pregnancy test down on the coffee table and ignores her husband. “One more minute,” she tells Kurt and Blaine. She stands opposite them, her hands twisting together in front of her. “Oh, god, this is the longest minute of my life. Longer even than waiting for Carmen Tibideaux to give me the thumbs up or thumbs down after my Senior Showcase performance.”
Blaine barely is able to laugh; he just stares at the stick, its result window turned upside-down, as Kurt holds onto his hand with both of his own.
In a minute, one of them will turn over the test, and their lives will change.
Or they won’t.
Jesse glances at his watch. “Has it been a minute yet?”
“How are you the most impatient of all of us?” Rachel asks him.
“We should have set a timer,” Kurt says, and Blaine puts his free hand on top of their joined ones to keep them both from shaking apart.
Rachel gestures to the pregnancy test and blows out a heavy breath. “Okay. It has to be time now. Who is going to do the honor?”
“Kurt?” Blaine offers. His heart is beating too fast, and he’s not sure his hands are steady enough to do the job.
“Maybe it should be Rachel,” Jesse says, “because she’s the one who peed on it.”
“But it’s their baby,” Rachel tells him.
“Fine. I’ll do it.” Kurt leans forward and turns over the stick.
They all lean toward the coffee table.
Blaine stares at the two blue lines, one darker than the other, for so long the image starts to blur in his vision. No, it’s tears making it blur, not his eyes getting tired, because it’s two lines. Two.
“I’m pregnant!” Rachel says, her hands coming up to cover her mouth and her eyes shining, and Blaine realizes the reason he feels like there’s an earthquake is that Kurt is hugging him and shaking him and then bouncing up to grab Rachel and jump up and down with her in the middle of the living room.
Blaine watches them, and he feels like he’s free-falling, like he’s flying, like he’s tumbling down the softest hill with the greenest grass cushioning him as he rolls. He gets slowly to his feet and looks down at the test again.
It’s still positive.
Rachel is pregnant.
They’re having a baby.
Joy catches in his throat, cutting off his ability to breathe and leaving him light-headed and giddy. He looks up at the ceiling and smiles so widely it hurts his cheeks.
They’re having a baby.
Jesse claps Blaine on the back and announces, “This calls for a celebration!”
“Blaine!” Rachel flies into his arms, and he hugs her tightly, then relaxes his hold all at once, because she’s pregnant; he has to be careful now. She’s carrying their child.
“Thank you,” he says to her, barely a whisper, his heart so full of her and everything she’s giving them that he doesn’t know how to say any of it, and she kisses his cheek and steps back to dash the tears from her cheeks as Kurt steps around the coffee table and hugs him again.
Blaine almost falls against him, looking up into Kurt’s bright face. They’re both smiling and laughing and crying at once, and Blaine kisses him hard, because he’s so happy he could start sobbing, and he would rather kiss Kurt instead.
“You guys!” Rachel says, her voice thick with joy and tears, and Kurt opens his arm to let her into the hug with them.
As much as Blaine wants this moment to be about Kurt and him, about them having a child, it feels even more right to him to have Rachel there with them. She’s part of their plan. She’s part of their family. She was even before she became their surrogate, but now she’s even closer.
She’s so precious to him, so kind, so generous, so important in so many ways well beyond this baby, and they’re so lucky to have her in their lives.
He sniffles into her hair, fists his hand in the back of Kurt’s shirt, and feels like he could burst. He’d thought marrying Kurt was the happiest day of his life, but today could tie it.
“Champagne,” Jesse sings, and Blaine lifts his head to see him walking in with a tray of champagne flutes and two bottles. He sets it down on the table beside the pregnancy test.
“This is incredible,” Blaine says, touched that that Jesse had planned ahead, both that he wanted to and that there is champagne at all, since Kurt had called it unlucky for the two of them to buy any before they knew the results of the test. It feels so right to be able to celebrate such amazing news.
“Oh! I guess I can’t have any!” Rachel says with a laugh and a shake of her head. “Wow, this is real!”
They all pause for a moment as her words sink in, and then Blaine looks over at Kurt, his heart in his throat, and says in wonder, “We’re having a baby.”
Rachel pats her flat stomach as Jesse tells her, “I also bought some cider. Just in case.”
“We’re having a baby,” Kurt whispers back to Blaine, and he leans in to grab Blaine’s hand. He’s incandescent and straight-backed with triumph, his eyes and his face and his smile all radiating joy and certainty.
Caught up in his husband, Blaine jumps when Jesse pops the cork, but he takes a bubbling glass - his whole body fizzing even more than the drink - and holds it up as they toast.
“To Rachel,” Kurt says, smiling at her with his heart in his eyes.
“To Rachel,” Blaine echoes, and Jesse pulls her against his side and kisses the top of her head as he clinks glasses with Blaine.
“To Kurt and Blaine,” Rachel says after they take their sips. “The best pair of fathers in the entire world. My own included, because they got divorced and no longer will sit together at my performances, creating logistical nightmares for me every opening night.” She waves away the thought. “I know no one in the world will love a child more than you two will love yours.”
“Congrats, guys,” Jesse says.
“Thank you both very much,” Blaine says, meaning every word, and Kurt smiles serenely at him.
“So,” Jesse says after he takes another, longer sip of champagne. “How long do you think it’ll take until she starts demanding that we fulfill all of her ridiculous cravings? One week? Two?”
“That started the day she was born,” Kurt replies with a smirk in her direction.
Rachel’s eyes narrow at him. “Excuse me?”
“He’s not wrong,” Jesse tells her, and she turns her glare on him. He leans in to kiss her. “But we love you.”
“We do,” Blaine promises. She’s given him so much over the years - friendship, understanding, now a baby - and he loves her so much he doesn’t even know how to put it into words. He’ll have to find ways to show it.
“I love you, too,” Rachel says, her smile bright and wide. She’s radiant with joy, joy for them, and Blaine finds himself taking another quick sip of champagne to keep from being overcome.
Yes, he thinks as he sways into Kurt’s side, this is definitely going to be one of the happiest days of his life.
*
Once they get home, Blaine heads to kitchen to put away the handful of groceries they’d picked up at the bodega on the corner, but instead of following him Kurt finds himself lingering by the front door after he deposits his keys in the bowl there.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he scans their living room with newly critical eyes and a quickly shifting perspective.
The room is not a bad size, really, if they aren’t going to move. It’s not cluttered, and there’s plenty of space, at least by cramped New York standards. They can probably make do here for a couple of years before they’ll absolutely need more room, and it might be good to stay and wait for their paychecks to get bigger as their careers grow so they can get something better than they can afford now.
He’d been thinking of replacing the couch, since they bought it off of one of Elliott’s more trendy friends soon after they got married, and it’s getting a little worn, but maybe it’s a smarter idea to keep it until they get through the spitting-up stage of babies, however long that lasts. He’d hate to buy something new only to have it get ruined.
The built-in shelves in the corner are practical and aren’t taking up any floor space they might need as a play area, though he’ll have to adjust the artfully arranged pictures and books to accommodate toys and board books.
The upright piano they love to gather around can stay, too, but he’ll have to research ways to keep the fallboard up so that little fingers won’t get mashed... or maybe to keep it shut, so that those little fingers won’t bang on the piano without permission instead.
“Hmm,” he says to himself absently.
Their lamps are sturdy, their area rug is machine-made and durable enough to be played on, and their side tables are as old as the couch. They can all stay.
Their coffee table, though, has a glass top and a sleek, sharp-edged metal base.
Kurt sighs. He loves that coffee table. It’s one of the first real, new, designer pieces of furniture they were able to buy, and he delights at how its modern lines and transparency transform the room into something special without weighing it down. It feels elegant and modern, mature and stylish, just like him, just like Blaine.
Kurt loves it.
It will have to go into storage for sure. There’s nothing about it that’s suitable for having a child, except for informing his or her budding aesthetic sense.
“Hmm,” he says again. He drums his fingers on his arm and imagines different options for the space. Maybe he can find something like that antique padded, wooden-legged bench he saw in a window display the other day. It was a real statement piece like the glass coffee table, but it would be far softer and also double as seating when they have dinner parties or playdates.
“I’m going to make some sparkling juice,” Blaine says, leaning out of the doorway to the kitchen. “I thought some non-alcoholic bubbles might be calming after so much champagne. Do you want some?”
“We’re going to need a new coffee table,” Kurt tells him, frowning at it.
“What?”
Kurt looks away from the table and over toward him. “We’re going to need a new coffee table.” He gestures at it. “This one has too many sharp edges.”
“Oh.” Blaine comes to stand beside him and looks at the room with a crease between his eyebrows. “You’re right. I didn’t even think of that,” he says. “I’m going to need to read a book about childproofing. Or maybe we should hire an expert to come in. I read about this woman who is supposed to be great last week in the paper.”
“Maybe,” Kurt says, feeling the gaping chasm between what they know and have and what they will need to know and have stretch out in front of them like the Grand Canyon of child-rearing. Neither of them has any real experience with children. They don’t know how to fold a stroller or put on a diaper. They don’t know how to make a bottle or even how to clean one. And those are just simple tasks to figure out. Then there’s childproofing and sleep issues and teething and finding the right daycare or maybe a nanny...
Kurt looks around him and tries to imagine how a child and all of its many needs and belongings will possibly fit into this room he knows so well and that he and Blaine have put together just the way they like it (as their paychecks have allowed, anyway).
It’s disconcerting to layer this new future over the present he loves, the ground shifting beneath his feet.
Before they started this whole long process toward parenthood, everything was just as he liked it, his life and his space tidy and under his control, and now there’s so much to learn about. There’s so much to do. He is going to have to make so many lists and so many decisions.
Because Rachel is pregnant.
Rachel is pregnant with their baby.
Suddenly this is all real, not just the achievement of a goal they’ve been working toward for months and celebrated with their friends tonight but all that comes after it. He’s been focused on this goal, the pregnancy, but so much comes after it, so many new challenges.
The changes in their lives will be enormous, far larger than just a new coffee table. Kurt’s not prepared, not in the slightest. He knows he isn’t.
But as he fills his lungs with another deep breath he also knows, like he knows when he opens an unfamiliar score and prepares to rehearse and conquer a song until it’s entirely under his command, that he will be.
Kurt is hit with a sudden rush of giddiness, like the champagne is catching up to him all at once. He feels the world spin around him, golden and bright.
“We’re going to be parents,” he says to Blaine, looking over at him in utter amazement. They’re finally here, with a baby on its way. It’s happening.
“Yeah,” Blaine replies, but his mouth twists a little, uncertain, and he looks down instead of into Kurt’s eyes. “We are.”
Kurt knows that expression. It’s doubt. So he draws Blaine into his arms, leans in to press a soft kiss to his mouth, and then pulls back and nudges the tip of his nose off of Blaine’s in silent encouragement as he watches Blaine’s face.
Kurt’s not worried, not at all. He can wait for Blaine to find his words.
“We’re going to be parents,” Blaine says finally, not looking away from Kurt. “What if I’m not good at it?”
“You’re going to be an incredible father, Blaine,” Kurt tells him without a single bit of hesitation. He knows it’s true. “You will. You’re the best person I know, with the best heart in the world. That’s why I married you.”
Blaine smiles his thanks, but his expression remains cloudy, worried.
“There’s nothing the two of us can’t do if we have each other,” Kurt says. He searches Blaine’s eyes. “Right?” They are an unstoppable team. They’ve proven it again and again, from standing up against bullies in high school to making their way in one of the hardest industries in the world.
Blaine nods. “Of course,” he says.
“Then we’re going to be fine,” Kurt tells him, willing Blaine to believe him. Willing Blaine to see what he sees. There’s so much they’ll have to learn, and he’s ready to start. “No. We’re going to be amazing.”
Blaine lets out a little laugh and leans up for another kiss. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It is,” Kurt says. “We’ll might make a mistake here and there, but we’ll figure it out. It is simple.”
Blaine’s smile turns brighter, like he thinks Kurt hangs the moon and stars in the sky each night, and Kurt is never going to be immune to that kind of adoration from him. He thrives on it, thrives on them, on what they are together.
“We’re a team,” he says to Blaine.
Blaine nods, and his eyes start to shimmer with tears again. “We’re having a baby,” he says with wonder, and he pulls Kurt in to hug him close, his arms tight around Kurt’s waist and his face buried against Kurt’s shoulder.
Standing at the edge of their tidy living room, they hold each other for a long while, soaking in each other and the enormity of the moment.
Kurt breathes out against Blaine’s hair and is grateful to have Blaine as his anchor in the changing tide of his life. They’re being carried forward into a new phase of their lives, and there’s no fighting it now. They’re having a baby. He knows there will be a lot of upheaval, but with this man in his arms - this man he loves and who loves him, this man who will stand by his side and reach for the happiness they both want - he knows it will all be worth it.
When they finally pull apart with trembling smiles, their hands link together, and they look at their living room side by side.
“We need a new coffee table?” Blaine asks.
“And some way to secure the piano,” Kurt replies.
Kurt tilts his head and tries to imagine their currently serene and stylish space with an infant swing in the corner, stuffed animals on the couch, blocks on the floor, toy cars under the chairs, and Sesame Street on the television.
It will be so different.
Everything will be different, not just the space but their routines and their lives. It will all be overrun and re-ordered, set into disarray.
All that they’ve created together will be changed in one way or another by this child they’ve created, the child Rachel is having for them.
Everything Kurt loves - from his coffee table to his quiet home to his husband to his father to his own heart - will change when their baby is born.
It feels enormous and overpowering, too big to contemplate. He hates disarray. He hates not being able to plan every little thing he’s doing. He hates not being able to control change.
Yet when Kurt squeezes Blaine’s hand and smiles over at him, he is helplessly, deliriously happy.
Everything is going to change with this baby. Everything.
He can’t wait.
~end~