The light always woke him first. The buzzing vibration and the brash showtune blaring out of his phone were just noises to make sure he would get up and turn it off. He wanted to change the ringtone but Kurt refused to tell him how.

“If it’s going to wake me up too then it’s gonna be something I like.”

“Ridiculous,” he’d muttered as he stabbed at buttons on the screen, “I’m a healer of the sick, I can deliver a baby, but I can’t change my damn ringtone…”

Now he didn’t even groan, just hauled himself to his feet and swiped at the screen to switch it off. Kurt rolled over, distressed as always by the sudden lack of warm, soft husband next to him, but Blaine shushed him and leaned over to kiss his cheek. Kurt, still half-asleep, manoeuvred himself so he could catch Blaine’s lips instead, cupping his jaw and kissing him sleepily. Blaine smiled against his lips but eventually pulled back, stroking softly down Kurt’s chest until he was laying flat on the bed again.

“Sorry, babe. No time.”

“Later?” Kurt drawled, rubbing at his eye with the heel of his hand.

“Later,” Blaine dropped a kiss to Kurt’s forehead, “I promise.”

Kurt smiled and snuggled down into the sheets, clutching at Blaine’s pillow and inhaling deeply. Blaine grinned. It took all his strength not to jump straight back in, but he got dressed anyway. He knew there would be some child in desperate need waiting for him at work. For now, he could still take a second to see the child sleeping next door.

She was already awake, calmly waiting for something cry-worthy to happen.

“Morning, baby girl,” he whispered to her as he scooped her out of the crib. She didn’t need changing or feeding, but he couldn’t resist taking a minute just standing with her, feeling her tiny warm body moving in his arms, watching her chest rising and falling, feeling her fingers grip around his. She yawned and he automatically did the same. “Hey, it’s okay for you; you get to go back to sleep. I’ve got to be at work in half an hour – that’s 3am. Are you going to try and get some more sleep instead of waking my husband up before then?” She blinked twice at him. He took it as a yes. “Good girl. Okay, honey, I guess I’d better get going. Just wanted to come and say hi. So. Hi.” She blinked again, bubbles forming at her lips.

He lifted her up, not to kiss her cheek or smell her hair, but just to have her as close as possible for a second.

“God, I love you. You probably already know, but I do.” He didn’t even realise he’d said the words. They’d just fallen out. Even if they’d registered with him, if he’d had the energy yet to process what he was saying and somehow try to think himself out of it, it wouldn’t have worked. It was true whether he wanted to admit it or not.

Blaine walked into the hospital with a skip in his step and a song in his head. It was still pitch black outside, and Mike, Santana and Brittany were all nearing the end of 13-hour shifts, but he couldn’t stop smiling. He didn’t even notice the looks they gave each other, the ones that said ‘he’s kidding himself’ and ‘well I’m not saying anything to him’. He just picked a chart from the front desk and got straight to his first of a double shift. It would be just as dark when he left as it was when he arrived.

His first patient was a little boy, just under four years old, screaming with stomach pains. Blaine managed to distract him for long enough to ask him exactly where the pain was, and when he clutched his side Blaine was pretty certain he knew what it was. The boy was wheeled away for an appendectomy twenty minutes later. Blaine had to see to other patients for a while, but when he got a second he went to speak to the boy’s mother, waiting on a cold, plastic chair outside surgery.

“I promise, he’s going to be fine. This is totally routine.”

“Mmm. I know that, really, but it doesn’t stop you worrying. Nothing does.”

“I know.”

“Thank you, though, so much. You were so great with him- do you have kids?”

Blaine paused for a moment then looked down.

“No,” he replied, shaking his head, “but we want them. Me and my husband.”

She smiled.

“I’m sure you’ll get there. I mean, you can’t get a much better parent than a children’s doctor, can you? And from what I can tell, you’re a natural. I almost wish you were my dad.”

He laughed.

“I don’t know about that. It’s not easy, getting there.”

She frowned and put a hand on his wrist.

“Have you- are you trying-”

He shook his head quickly, feeling a swelling in his throat.

“Oh, it’s a long story. Look, I’ve got to run, but I’ll definitely see him again before you two leave, okay?”

She nodded, understanding that even if he wanted to vent, he didn’t have time for a meltdown at work. She went to phone her husband and tell him everything was going to be fine.

There was a thirteen-year-old girl waiting for him when he got back down to the waiting area. She told him she’d been exhausted and throwing up for a week, and her father had insisting on bringing her in.

“No problem,” Blaine said with a smile and a gentle hand on her shoulder, “let’s just get you into a room.”

He held the door open and gestured to the bed for the girl to sit down, and her dad sat in the seat next to it, holding her hand and putting his free palm to her forehead to check her temperature.

“Okay, honey, just tell him what’s wrong.”

“Well, I can’t concentrate on anything. I’m super tired all the time, and I’ve thrown up, like, every day this week. And I just feel kind of achy all over.”

“Have you eaten anything unusual recently?”

She looked at her father, who shrugged.

“I don’t think so.”

“How long has this been going on? Have you had any flu-like symptoms? Coughing, runny nose…”

“About two weeks? And not really. It doesn’t feel like a cold or anything.”

“She just got over a cold a couple of weeks ago. Could it be some kind of residual thing, from that? She so rarely gets anything, that’s why I brought her here. She’d only complain if she was really sick.”

“Right. Honestly, it doesn’t sound like flu, not if your nose isn’t blocked or anything. Faye, I have to ask you this, but is there any chance you could be pregnant?”

Her mouth fell open, but she shook her head.

“No. No, that can’t be it. I haven’t- I- I haven’t even started my period yet.”

Blaine glanced at the girl’s father, whose grip on her hand had tightened.

“Well, actually,” the girl’s eyes immediately started glistening with tears, terrified, “you might have started your menstrual cycle without actually having a period yet.”

“What? How? But- I can’t be. No.”

Faye’s father was staring at her now. He looked nervously over to Blaine.

“What are you trying to say, doctor? She’s thirteen. Of course she’s not pregnant.”

Faye had gone quiet.

“Faye, honey?” Blaine asked, tentatively putting a hand on her elbow, “Would you rather have this conversation with just you and me? Maybe get Dad to step outside just for two minutes while we talk?”

“I’m not going anywhere. Faye, tell him you can’t be pregnant.”

She shook her head, staring at the ground, blinking quickly.

“I… I can’t be. We-” she swallowed, “we were careful.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I can’t be.”

The father was shaking his head. His hand dropped hers and fell into his lap, making her suck in a quick, sobbing breath.

“You mean you- Faye, you can’t be… you’re thirteen. You can’t be having sex. Who is it?”

“It- it’s a boy in my class- you don’t know him.”

Blaine was sure everything was about to kick off. He tried to figure out a way to stop all hell from breaking loose.

“Sir, maybe you should step outside for just a minute-”

The man ignored him, but took his daughter’s hand again.

“Did he- force himself on you?”

She steeled herself to look him right in the eyes, and shook her head. His hand stayed where it was. Blaine could see utter panic in his eyes, but he took a deep breath, stood up and wrapped his arms around his daughter. She started crying, enveloped in the soft flannel of his shirt and scrunching her nose where his beard was tickling her. He nudged her a little to the side so he could sit up on the bed next to her, keeping his arm tightly coiled around her shoulders, and kissed the side of her head.

There was a mixture of ‘I’m sorry, Daddy’ and ‘no, honey, everything’s gonna be okay’ and all Blaine could do for a moment was sit and watch.

“Would you like a moment? I could go, if you two-”

They both shook their heads.

“Sweetheart, I think before we start panicking we need to know where we are.”

She nodded quietly and sniffed.

“So, I’ll get you a pregnancy test if that’s okay?”

She nodded again.

“Okay. I’ll be right back; I just have to go and get a couple of things.”

He left in search of a urine cup, but as he went, he stopped to look back at the man and girl on the bed. He just kept holding her, stroking her hair, rocking her a little, and she leaned into him, her eyes closed, as if in spite of everything he still made her feel totally safe. He had to stop and lean against the wall for a second.

What would he do in the dad’s situation? Would he cope that well? He’d always thought he would, but that man – he’d held that little girl when she was born, sent her off on her first day of school, maybe taught her to read, to ride a bike, and now her whole childhood could be about to disappear.

And of course, his brain looped right back to the baby. What if her mother was in the same situation, without the love and support back home? Just because she didn’t have the same supportive parents some kids had, did that give her any less of a right to try to look after her baby? What if she’d just panicked and thought she wasn’t good enough to do this by herself, and maybe with support from people like Rachel (or maybe some slightly more tactful people), maybe she could make it work.

All Blaine could think was that whatever the circumstances, she’d carried a baby for nine months, and now she was out there somewhere, alone, terrified, with no idea if her daughter was okay – alive, even. She would probably need medical attention, at the very least. He had to admit to himself that he couldn’t bear the thought of giving the baby back, but he knew the mother needed to be found. However wrong it was for her to leave the baby, she deserved another chance, just as much as Faye deserved support from her father.

When Blaine went back into the room, Faye’s dad was still holding her.

“You know, no matter what happens, whatever you want to do, me and your mom and going to be here for you. No matter what. We both love you so much, honey.”

She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“I love you too, Daddy.”

Blaine handed her a box of tissues for her nose, and the cup for the pregnancy test.

-

If only that had been the most stressful case of the day.

A little boy had meningitis. A broken leg from a volleyball game had led to the discovery of cancer in the girl’s bone marrow.

One woman brought her daughter in with a headache and left alone.

The baby they were looking after was someone else’s baby, and so was her mother. Two lost children.

He had almost twenty minutes left of his shift, but he was ready to throw in the towel.

“Now, look into my eyes, mister. Right here.”

“Kay.”

The boy sitting on the bed stared straight at Blaine’s face, just inches away from his own.

“Tell me. What are you never, ever going to put up your nose again?”

The boy chewed on his lip for a second, brow furrowed.

“Beads.”

“You promise?”

He nodded.

“Okay. Put it there, so I know we’ve got a deal.”

The boy shook Blaine’s hand.

“Honey, what do you say?”

“Thank you, Doctor Blaine.”

“You’re welcome,” Blaine grinned as he lifted the boy down from the bed. He felt his phone buzz in his pocket. “Take care of yourself, buddy.”

The boy’s mother shook his hand tearfully.

“Thank you so much, I’m so sorry, he just-”

“I thought it was pretty. I didn’t want to lose it.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Maybe try a pocket next time you see a really pretty bead, okay?” Blaine turned to the mother. “He’s a great kid; he’s gonna be fine. Just make sure he doesn’t get anything else up there.”

As soon as they were gone, he checked his phone.

Kurt: I think we may have been wrong about her being a girl…

There was a picture of the baby in the sink full of soapy water, a foamy beard on her chin. Blaine snorted, then came that same feeling as always. The heavy coldness in his gut, reminding him that this wasn’t the future he’d been imagining for years. It wasn’t their family.

“Blaine?” Mike said, his head poking out from behind the doorframe. “You okay?”

Blaine looked up at him and gestured to his phone.

“It’s Kurt. Picture of the baby.”

Mike smiled and ducked his head to catch Blaine’s eye.

“Oh, right. How’s she doing?”

Blaine looked at the picture again and his face crumpled.

“Amazing.”

Mike didn’t have to ask any questions. He walked over to Blaine and pulled him into a hug, feeling his whole frame shaking as he cried into his shoulder.

-

Blaine heard Kurt’s voice as soon as he walked into the apartment, quick pecks between his words that he knew were being peppered on the baby’s cheeks.

“You,” -kiss- “are the prettiest” -kiss- “baby girl” -kiss- “I’ve ever seen.”

Blaine closed the door as quietly as he could, not that Kurt would have heard him anyway, and leaned against it. He let his head loll back and his eyes fall closed, wrapping his arms around his middle and gave himself one moment. One more moment to pretend, to let himself believe this could be real. That Kurt really was holding their baby, that this was what he got to come home to every night, that they would get to see this little girl grow up, that this was his family. But it wasn’t. Blaine felt tears in the corners of his eyes. Kurt was his family, he had been for years, but now – now Kurt knew how it felt to have more than just Blaine, and Blaine was scared to go back.

It was barely a whisper, but he still heard it.

“Daisy. Daisy Anderson-Hummel.”

It was like a punch to the gut. Naming her at all was a terrible idea, but that name – he needed to step in. He gave his eyes a rough wipe on the cuff of his coat sleeve and shook his head quickly to try and gather his thoughts.

“Hey,” he called out, just so Kurt couldn’t say anything else and make everything that much harder, “I’m home.”

He walked into the living room to see Kurt on the couch, baby on his lap, sitting up a little straighter when he saw him. His smile was inhibited.

“Oh. How long have you been back?”

Blaine smiled softly.

“Lovely to see you too, darling.”

“Oh. Sorry. Yeah,” he stood, smiling more freely, and kissed Blaine, settling a hand on his waist. “How was work? Did you get our picture?”

Blaine nodded.

“Yeah. About that.”

Kurt sighed and turned away, walking into the kitchen to get a bottle. He’d only just fed her, but he wanted to avoid Blaine’s eye for a minute.

“What is it, Blaine?”

“Kurt, you can’t- you-”

“Can’t what?” Kurt asked, still looking away. Blaine could see his guard going up, a solid wall coming between them. “She’s a baby. I was a giving her a bath. It’s not like she can do it herself.”

“But Kurt-”

“You don’t have to give me the face. I know you’re doing it again – that ‘my husband’s so silly, getting caught up in a fantasy’ face. I was just giving her a bath. I know we can’t keep her. You don’t have to keep monitoring me so I don’t run away with her or something.”

“One of us has to be serious about this-”

“Why, Blaine? I’m not an idiot-”

“But-”

Kurt was distracted by the baby once, twice, three times while Blaine tried to talk to him – either spitting up or gurgling or suckling on his thumb instead of the bottle.

“Oh, honey, come here-”

“I just think-”

“God, she did the cutest thing just before you got back-”

“Babe, you’re not listening-”

Kurt’s smile faltered.

“I don’t need to listen. I know what you’re going to say.”

“Kurt, do you think I like this? Do you think I enjoy being the mean husband who keeps crapping all over everything all the time? I hate it. I hate the look on your face every time I try to remind you that this isn’t real, like I’m taking something from you. I can’t stand it. But I have to do it-”

“Blaine-”

“I have to do it, Kurt, because you’re falling in love with her.”

There was a moment of silence. Kurt put down the bottle he was holding and wrapped both arms around the baby as he held her against his chest. He sniffed and cupped the back of her head with one hand. His nose buried in the little hair she had, he forced himself to look up at Blaine.

“So are you,” he mumbled.

Tears were stinging in Blaine’s eyes again. He nodded.

“I know. I can’t help it. But Kurt, there’s going to be a call. Any day now. And I’m terrified.”

“You don’t know that,” Kurt mumbled.

“What? Yes I do. Even if she never turns up, they’re not just gonna give her to us; that’s not how it works. There’s a woman, a girl out there somewhere missing this baby. She deserves a chance to be her mom.”

“Well, she should’ve thought of that before she left her out in the snow. She could’ve died, Blaine!”

“But- at least she chose a hospital. She must have cared a little bit.”

“Are you really saying she’d be better off with her? That some- some teenager would really be safer than us, or that she’d love her more?”

“It’s not about that.”

“No. You’re thinking about her like just another patient. You just want to fix her up and ship her out, like you do all the kids you see every day. It’s because of that girl that this baby is sick. It’s because of us that she’s getting better. Excuse me for having feelings.”

The baby started to squirm and whimper in his arms, feeling the tension building. Kurt shushed her, kissed her head and rocked her. They both spoke more quietly, but she was still uncomfortable, as if she could sense how unhappy they were.

“I heard what you called her, Kurt.” That made Kurt stop for a second. He stroked the baby’s hair, his eyes closing for a moment while he sucked in a shaky breath. “Tell me you’re not getting too attached.”

“It- it was just a name. It felt weird not calling her a name.”

“And of all the names you could’ve chosen…” Blaine ran a hand through his hair, “It just happened to be Daisy? My grandma’s name? The name we’d picked out for-” he had to swallow, “you know what I mean.”

Part of Kurt wanted to keep arguing, to keep shouting at Blaine because there was nothing else he could shout at, but he knew he’d lost. Blaine picked up the little yellow bear from the kitchen table, glancing up at Kurt as some kind of reprimand for buying it, and waggled it in front of the baby.

“Blaine, I-”

“I’m gonna go take a shower. It’s been a long day.” He handed the bear to Kurt and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. “He’s cute.”

Kurt stood still, watching Blaine leave, until a wriggle against his chest snapped him out of it. He bopped her nose with the bear’s paw.

“Okay, baby.” His voice cracked as he held back from calling her anything else. “Let’s get you to bed.”

-

“Hey,” he whispered tentatively, wandering into the bedroom where Blaine was standing at the sink in a towel, brushing his teeth. “There’s dinner downstairs if you want it.” Blaine shook his head and spat into the sink. “Okay.” There was a pause. He stepped closer, leaning a shoulder against the wall. Blaine rinsed his mouth out and spat again. “You were right.”

Blaine leaned heavily on the basin, toothbrush still in his hand. His head fell forwards, and Kurt stroked over the small of his back.

“Kurt, I shouldn’t have said-”

He was quieter than before. Sadder.

“Yes, you should.” He came even closer, putting both hands on Blaine’s hips and dipped his head forward to kiss between his shoulder blades. “You were right.”

“She asleep?”

Kurt nodded.

“She’s fine. And I have been- getting too attached. I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”

“I know. You know I feel the same, right? You know I’m just as crazy about her-”

“I know you are. I just thought maybe- maybe it could work. God, Blaine, I really wanted it to work, I wanted us to be- to have-”

Blaine took Kurt’s hand and walked him to the bed. Kurt silently followed him and they sat together. Blaine had to sniff and take a slow breath before he could speak, and Kurt waited for him, trying to ignore the thumping in his chest.

“She called.” Kurt’s eyes drooped closed. “Rachel. My phone was ringing when I got out of the shower. They’ve found her. Actually, she came forward. Sixteen. Sweet kid, apparently. Rach is bringing her tomorrow, around eleven.”

“Okay. Do I- I don’t think I can. Can you do it? Can you get the day off? I can’t-”

Blaine reached up to stroke his hair, gently pulling him down to his bare chest. Kurt huddled in close and wrapped his arms around Blaine’s middle.

“It’s okay. Mike can get cover. You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to.”

Kurt pulled his legs up and clung to Blaine a little tighter, pressing his face into his chest, and Blaine turned to wrap him up, stroking down his side and kissing his hair as they stretched out on the bed. Blaine’s towel slipped off and his hair soaked the pillows, and Kurt didn’t even laugh. He just curled in closer.

“Thank you.”

Blaine cupped Kurt’s cheek, stared into his eyes and kissed him softly.

“You wanna cash in on that promise I made you this morning?”

Kurt gave him a sad smile and shook his head. They cried themselves into a fitful sleep, wrapped around each other, knowing soon they would have to say goodbye to their second baby in as many weeks. They didn’t say another word, but as long as they were still touching, each still feeling the other’s breath on his skin, they knew they would be okay.