Kurt had always known he was different, ever since he was a little kid. For the longest time he went about thinking he was the only person who felt like that, the only person who was so different, that was until he met Unique in his senior year of high school. Then he realized that there were people out there who looked at him and saw something they could never be, which was normal. At least he was sure of who he was, of what he was. He was a man, who just happened to love other men. Kurt never questioned his gender identity or felt like his body was lying to him, not the way Unique's body was. Which was why when it came to his life after graduating, Kurt knew exactly what he wanted to do, he wanted to be able to help other kids who might being going through the kind of stuff that he and Unique had gone through. It was a difficult choice, staying in Lima instead of following his 'hag' to New York to be her own personal stylist and backup, but when it came down to it, Kurt just knew his heart wasn't in it. He wanted more than to follow Rachel Berry around for the rest of his life, he wanted meaning. Which is why he stayed right where he was and studied his butt off, so that by the time he was twenty-seven he had a job as the high school guidance counselor at his old alma mater. A position that brought him an amazing amount of joy, considering he had promised himself that once he had left that place he would never return there.

He also had a very happy home life, even though he seemed to be perpetually single. He owned his own home on the same street as Burt and Carole did, because his family meant more to him than anything else in the world. He also happened to be a father, which was something he never thought would ever be possible. But the world was changing, in Obama's second term in office he had legalized gay rights in all states. Kurt and hundreds of thousands just like him had very suddenly found themselves with all the same rights as everyone else, it was a shock to say the very least. That new legal system is what led him to adopting a little boy when he was twenty-five when he had gotten a call from Brittany, the woman working for child services of all things, with a plea for help. There as a little boy in the system who was six years old and had been there for a couple years, he was supposedly un-adoptable, or at least according to his file he was. Which of course had intrigued Kurt, what could possibly make a six year old child so hard to home? No kid was that bad, he just refused to believe that. Of course that still didn't explain why she had called him of all people, surely one of their friends who were in a stable relationship would be better? 

After a lot of prodding on the woman's part, Kurt had finally broken down and driven into Columbus to meet her and this apparent devil child. The moment the man had walked into Brittany's office he wanted to vomit in disgust, because he knew instantly why people were refusing to foster the angelic little boy sitting at Britt's desk. The child, who had told Kurt that his name was Jamie, was wearing a pair of faded jeans with a sparkly pink skirt over them. He had on an adorable t-shirt with a My Little Pony on it, and a light decorative scarf was wrapped around his neck made out of the same sparkly material that his skirt was. He had large wide babydoll eyes that were a soft chocolate color and a mane of unruly dark curls that were in desperate need of a trim. Kurt instantly loved the little boy, seething silently that straight couples would turn down the chance to love a child just because he happened to be different.

Jamie was a bright child, smart and funny. He was soft spoken with a small lisp on his R sounds, which just made him even more adorable in Kurt's eyes. He said that his mommy had named him James, but he didn't like that name, that Jamie was better. So Kurt never called him anything else, he also never used a male adjective when referring to Jamie in person, as per the child's request. Jamie said he was a girl, just because he had boy parts didn't mean that he didn't have  a girl mind. It was such a simplistic explanation, yet it made so much sense. After a few test runs of brunch and shopping trips, Kurt agreed to foster Jamie for a while, it lasted about six months. It was one night during a bedtime story when Jamie asked if he could call Kurt daddy, that Kurt knew that he couldn't just let this little angel that had walked into his life, leave. So he adopted him, it was amazingly painless considering he now had the legal right to be a father. A few trips to a lawyers to sign papers, two surprise visits from child services to make sure the house was a safe environment and Jamie was officially a Hummel.

"Jamie! Slow down, I'm old, you're young, I can't keep up." Kurt called after the eight year old that was running ahead of him, his messy hair bouncing as he rushed toward the shoe store.

"Come on dad!" Jamie yelled back, sighing when he saw how slowly Kurt was moving. "I said come on! You're not that old." The little boy said, running forward to grab Kurt's free hand to drag him along in a plea to move quicker. "Grampa moves faster than you, and he's bald." 

"I don't see what Grampa not having hair has to do with how quick he moves." Kurt chuckled.

"Means he's way older than you but still moves faster." Jamie reasoned which just made Kurt laugh but pick up his pace nonetheless. The child was extremely excited to be shoe shopping for the spring session of school, even though they had spent most of Jamie's March Break in the mall already. But that had been for clothes and then toys when his birthday rolled around, but now it was the really important purchase, the shoes. Jamie was shoe crazed, which is why Kurt made him wait until the weekend before school started up again to go shopping for them, because the little boy would've worn the soles out already had they not waited. "Over here!" Jamie squealed excitedly as they entered the store, still dragging Kurt by the hand down the isle to the children's section. He steered them right past the boy's shoes, what with the superhero sneakers and little loafers, not stopping until they were standing in the middle of the girl's area. 

Kurt smiled a fond smile as he watched Jamie pull down a couple pair of shoes to look at, most of them some form of tappy shoe or ballet slipper. "Don't forget, you need runners for gym." Kurt reminded.

"Ugh, but runners suck!" Jamie lamented dramatically.

"Even those Skechers with the diamonds on the toes?" Kurt asked with an arched eyebrow, smiling when Jamie's face lit up.

"Really!?"

"Really." He nodded. "I called in an order for them two weeks ago. You stay here while I go ask about them at the front desk, okay?" 

"Kay!"

Kurt grinned with a little shake of his head at his son's excitement, finally getting the fifty dollar sneakers he'd wanted since Christmas. That was one of the lousy things about living in a small town, besides the close minded hicks, was that unless you could get it from a Wal-Mart, it pretty much needed to be ordered. It only took Kurt a couple of minutes to check to see if the shoes were in, they were, which made him smile as he told the girl behind the counter that he'd be back with another pair soon enough for her to ring up as well. As he headed back down the isles of shoes toward where he had left Jamie, Kurt could hear what sounded like a female voice talking. Frowning slightly, he sped up, not liking the idea of Jamie talking to strangers. He nearly sighed in relief when he turned the corner to see an elderly woman with a store name tag speaking to Jamie, that was until he noticed the look on her face. "Something wrong?" Kurt asked, walking up to where she was standing.

"Are you his father?" The woman asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"Yes."

"You shouldn't leave him around to play."

"I didn't, I was checking on an order on the front desk." Kurt explained.

"I tried to tell her I wasn't playing, I was trying on shoes." Jamie said to Kurt, looking up at him.

"This is the girl's section." The woman pointed out.

"Duh." Jamie huffed.

"Don't be rude." Kurt chastised softly, placing a hand on the little boy's shoulder. "I'm sorry if you thought he was playing, but he honestly is just trying on shoes." Kurt said to the woman, feeling Jamie tense up under his hand at the use of 'he'. It was a constant uphill battle trying to explain to the child that even though he felt like a girl, until he was a grown up and could make that fact a physical reality, people would still see him as a little boy and that sometimes Kurt had to pander to those close minded people. Typically it was the elderly and men, but there was the occasional woman who didn't quite understand Jamie. It was hard for people to believe that someone could be transgender from such a young age, even though Kurt knew that much like how he had been born gay, Jamie had been born transgendered. It's not like trans people woke up on their eighteenth birthdays and then decide that they are in the wrong bodies, no, the issues were always there, just not every trans child is able to articulate it like Jamie did.

"Hmhp." Was all the woman said, eyeing them.

Kurt turned his attention to Jamie, figuring they might as well wrap it up before a scene was caused. "Did you find anything you like?" He asked.

"These ones." Jamie said, holding up a shiny patten leather tap shoe that was dark purple with a little strap that clipped with a sliver buckle that had, what looked like a bunch of colorful cellphone charms, hanging off it.

"Get them in black so they match all your clothes." Kurt said simply, refusing to allow any child of his to leave the house clashing.

"They don't have black in my size." Jamie pouted.

Kurt took the shoe from him and turned to the woman who was still standing there, gaping slightly. "Do you have these in black in a size four?"

The woman looked from Kurt's face to the shoe in his hand and then back, her jaw suddenly setting firmly, which made Kurt want to roll his eyes. "No." She said.

He just sighed, giving a little nod. "Okay what about a size five? We'll stuff the toe."

"No."

"Lemme guess, you're suddenly out of every size I'm going to want to buy, right?" Kurt asked, shooting the woman a scathing look. "And you know this, without even checking." When the woman said nothing, Kurt huffed, putting a hand on his hip, taking a bitchy stance. "I'd like to talk to your manager."

"Fine." The woman said in a snippy tone before turning and walking off, stopping at a far wall to use an in store phone.

Jamie sighed defeated, looking down at the floor. "We can just forget about it daddy, you can buy me Spiderman shoes."

Kurt looked at the little boy sadly before crouching down so that he was eye level with him. "Look at me." He said, getting the child's attention. "I'm not going to make you wear something you don't want too because someone else is being stupid, what's our rule about stupid people?" Jamie just gave a little shrug. "What's our rule?" Kurt prodded.

"Never listen to them." Jamie mumbled.

"Right." Kurt nodded. "So we're not going to listen to her, are we?"

"No." Jamie said, smiling gently.

"Good." Kurt smiled as he straightened up, turning to look toward where the woman was now talking to a man and motioning to where they were standing. Great, Kurt thought with a roll of his eyes. He had been hoping the manager would be a younger woman, not a man. Men always were such a pain when it came to Jamie, it was so hard to find people who were understanding. He took in the look of the manager, sizing him up. Luckily Kurt seemed to be quite a bit taller than him, which worked in his favor. But the newcomer was quite a bit more muscular and looked like he needed a bit of a shave, his five o'clock shadow giving him a slightly rugged look which seemed to contradict his gentle honey colored eyes and gelled back curls. "Hi." The man said with a kind smile as he walked up. "I'm the manager, what can I help you with?" He asked. Kurt read his name tag, it said 'B. Anderson, Owner and manager' on it.

"You know what, don't worry about it." Kurt said with a little defeated sigh, he didn't want to have to get into yet another argument with yet another person in front of Jamie. It always upset the little boy so much, nearly as much as it upset Kurt when he was faced with supposedly grown people who would call an eight year old child names. "We don't want any problems."

"Okay?" The man said, looking torn between perplexed and amused. "I don't want any problems either, so why don't you tell me what's going on and I'm sure we can fix it. Unless you're casing the joint." He said in a mock seriousness, looking at Jamie, who was now holding Kurt's hand. "Are you casing the joint?" He asked, Jamie just shaking his head. "You sure?" Jamie nodded. "Okay then, let's hear about this problem."

Kurt gave yet another little sigh, holding up the shoe. "We just need this in black and a size four, that's all."

"Hmm." The newcomer hummed, taking the shoe and looking at it. "Okay." He nodded. "Gimmie a second." He said before walking off, shoe in hand. Kurt looked at Jamie who gave a little shrug, like he didn't know what to think either. It was a couple minutes before the manager returned, two boxes in his arms, a foot measurement device sitting atop them. "We do have a pair in a size four, but I wanna make sure they'll fit first." He said as he stooped down to put the boxes on the floor, looking up at Kurt with a disarmingly handsome smile. "You don't want to get a kid the wrong size or you'll mess up their arch." He explained before looking at Jamie, his eyes kind and warm. "Take a seat." He motioned to a stool before him, the little boy pausing for a moment before giving in a sitting down gingerly. Kurt had to admit, the man could have just as easily thought the shoes were for a little girl who happened to not be there at the moment, but instead he willingly engaged with Jamie without even a hit of prejudice in his features. "What's your name?" He asked.

"Jamie."

"Nice to meet you Jamie, I'm Blaine." He introduced himself as he careful measured Jamie's foot. "And I have some bad news and some good news for you." Blaine said, sitting back on his haunches once he was done with the measurement. "You're a size four and a half, and unfortunately we don't have the shoes you picked out in that size, but, we just got these in and maybe you'd like them." Blaine explained as he opened the second shoe box to pull out a pair of shoes that looked nearly identical to the one's Jamie had picked out only instead of being a simple black tone, they were a glittery grey color with a small rhinestone heart on the side of the toe. Jamie gasped like they were the most wonderful thing ever, reaching out to grab one to look at it  closely as Blaine put the other one on his foot, squeezing the toe slightly to make sure they weren't too lose or tight. "Perfect fit." Blaine smiled as he stood back up, watching Jamie put the other shoe on before getting up to look at himself in the mirror, clicking the small heals together like he was in the Wizard of Oz.

"I love them! Can I get these ones? Please daddy!?" He exclaimed, skipping over to pull on Kurt's arm. Kurt chuckled, nodding, which only made the little boy squeal happily.

"Thank you." Kurt said to Blaine, smiling softly.

"For what?" Blaine gave a little shrug as he cleaned up the other shoes, although he had a look on his face like he knew exactly what Kurt meant. "He's a cute kid." He said simply, giving what Kurt was sure was a little wink before walking away. Kurt canted his head to the side curiously, watching the man's retreating back, that was.... interesting.

"Come on honey, we need to meet Unique in twenty minutes." Kurt called, looking down at his watch. 

"Kay!" Jamie grinned as he skipped over to take Kurt's hand, the two walking to the front desk. There they could see Blaine off to the side speaking gently to the older woman who had given them trouble, the man looking slightly annoyed as he shook his head at her when she spoke. Kurt wished he could hear what they were saying as he eyed them from the register, the younger girl behind the counter coming around to use the handheld scanner on the shoe's Jamie was wearing, telling him he looked fab in them. She couldn't have been more than nineteen, most likely a college student. Kurt found that teenaged girls loved Jamie, it was like they all wanted to be his 'hag' even though he wasn't technically gay. Jamie would most likely grow up to be like Unique, a straight woman who happened to have started out as a man. "I'm going to go look at the puppies." Jammie informed Kurt once his shoe's had been scanned, Kurt just nodding.

"Stay in front of the pet shop, don't walk off with anyone." He called after the child.

"I know dad." Jamie called back in an exasperated tone.

Kurt didn't mean to be one of 'those' parents, always warning his kid about the dangers of people and strangers, but it was hard not to be protective, especially when they were surrounded by so many very stupid people so much of the time. "Will that be all?" The girl behind the counter asked with a smile, pulling Kurt's attention away from his son who he could see from the store's doors, looking in the window of the pet store that was across the way. "Oh, yes, that's all." He said as she rung up the two pair of shoes, taking his credit card when he handed it to her.

"This is going to sound like a cliche." Blaine's voice interrupted, Kurt looking up to see the man now leaning against the end of the counter, staring at him. "But I feel like I know you somehow, have we met before?"

"I don't think so." Kurt said. "Oh, unless you have a kid that goes to William McKinley High School." He said, although Blaine hardly looked old enough to have a teenager.

"No." Blaine chuckled with a shake of his head.

"Then I don't think you do." Kurt gave a little shrug, smiling softly. "I thought maybe you had seen me at a parent's night or something."

"You're a teacher?"

"Guidance counselor." Kurt said, not really noticing the girl from behind the counter walk off with a little smirk on her face.

"Oh, nice. Let me guess, your training was the only thing that kept you from slapping Marge?" Blaine asked with a chuckle.

"Marge?"

"The woman who was giving you a hard time."

"Oh!" Kurt laughed. "Yeah, that and I'm not really a violent person, although I've been told that I do have a mean bitch slap.... mostly by my brother, but it seems legit."

Blaine laughed, the sound combined with his wide grin seemed to brighten the room, taking Kurt's breath away momentarily. The guy was beautiful, that much was obvious, and very possibly gay, if Kurt wasn't reading the flirty signals wrong. The dorky little bow tie might have been a slight indicator as well, because he didn't seem to be wearing it to be ironic or because he happened to be a Doctor Who fan, although the jury was still out on that one. "I'd say you have to excuse Marge, she offends about five people a week, but no one ever does, so I don't expect you to be any different."

"I'm actually use to it, I know we sort of stand apart from the crowd." He said, meaning himself and Jamie.

"Probably not for the reason you think though." Blaine smiled gently, opening his mouth to say something else only to stop when the sound of kids yelling drifted in. He looked toward the exit, Kurt whirling around to see Jamie being tackled by an older boy. "Jamie!" He shouted, running out of the store toward his son. He didn't even register the fact that Blaine had swore and was currently following, rushing behind him.

"Ge'off!" Jamie could be heard crying as he kicked his feet uselessly, pinned by the older boy's knees as the bigger of the two pulled back his fist to aim a punch for Jamie's face.

"Hey!" Kurt snapped, getting the boy's attention.

"Off, now." Blaine said, grabbing him by the underarms and hauling the kid, who had to be ten, maybe eleven, off of Jamie like he weighed nothing. Kurt helped Jamie up as Blaine turned the other boy around to face him, fixing him with a stern look. "That's it Jerry, outta the mall."

"You can't do that!" 

"Yes I can, this is the fourth time this week that you've been caught fighting and if I call security again your dad will not be happy, now leave." Blaine pointed toward the doors, when the boy didn't move, he turned him around by his shoulders and gave him a little push toward the door to get him going. "Now." He ordered, the child muttering under his breath as he stalked off.

Kurt had watched the whole exchange with a curious eye as he hugged an upset Jamie. "What, do you own the mall?" He asked in a flippant way.

"No, but my dad does." Blaine said with a little shrug. "I just own the shoe store."

Kurt stared at Blaine for a second, dumbfounded before catching sight of his name tag again. "Wait, Blaine Anderson? As in Anderson's Malls?" He asked, just then putting two and two together.

"The very same." Blaine smirked.

"No offense, but why the hell do you run a shoe store instead, of I dunno, helping to run a multi-billion dollar chain of malls?"

Blaine just shrugged easily. "I like shoes?" He offered.

"Me too." Jamie said softly, looking up at Blaine as he watched the two adults interact from where he was still clinging to Kurt's leg slightly.

"You're a smart boy, Jamie." Blaine smiled.

"Girl." Jamie corrected.

"You're a smart girl, Jamie." Blaine easily corrected his terminology, not even blinking at it, which made Jamie grin brightly. It was right that moment that Kurt knew, without a doubt, that he was completely and absolutely in love with Blaine Anderson.