Letter 8: January 30th

Don't cling to me, I swear I can't fix you

Still in the dark, can you fix me?

Freefall, freefall, all through life

(Evanescence – Weight of the World)

The hospital's main entrance slid open before them, as they rushed inside, trying not to slip on the glossy floor. Kurt almost lost his balance, when he took a sudden turn into the left-hand hallway, noticing the board saying MATERNITY WARD in capital letters. Blaine followed him, barely keeping up.

Kurt couldn't understand, why he was told only after his niece was already in this world for an hour? Did they think he was scared of vaginas? Or that he would get more nervous about the whole situation than the father? He was sure he couldn't have been more upset than he was now, feeling entirely left out. He could understand, if Finn or Rachel forgot to call him in the frenzy of labour, but why wouldn't his dad or Carole call? The decision to scold them for that had already been made the second he found out they were both with the fresh parents at the hospital.

On the way, Blaine tried to calm him down, repeating a hundred times that Kurt wouldn't really be of much use, had he been at the hospital. It wasn't Kurt's child that was being pushed out of Rachel's birth canal, so why was he acting like it was? Obviously, he couldn't phrase it quite like that, so he just sighed and kept it to himself. Who knows, maybe if Cooper finally settled down and became a daddy, Blaine would be as excited about becoming an uncle as Kurt was now?

They ran to the nurses' station in the Maternity Ward, Kurt almost completely out of breath, and Blaine hurrying a few yards after him.

'Could you tell me, please, which room is Mrs Berry-Hudson's?,' Kurt panted, clutching the edge of the high counter.

'Are you family?,' the middle-aged stocky woman in blue scrubs eyed him, and then proceeded to Blaine.

'Yes, yes. It's my sister-in-law.' Kurt's breath would probably have come back to normal by now, if not for the excitement that buzzed in his chest. Not being related by blood to the kid didn't make him feel any less like an uncle. Finn and Rachel were family, had been since their sophomore year of high school.

'Room 132.'

With a quick thank you and a goofy smile, Kurt hurried on, not even waiting for Blaine to catch up. And Blaine rolled his eyes, heading after his husband.

They found the right room without a problem, and Kurt knocked lightly on the door, before entering. The single room was packed; all the grandparents and the father were gathered round the bed, on which an exhausted, sweaty Rachel, her hair stuck messily to her face, was sitting, propped on a huge pillow, with a small, blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms.

And once a tiny chubby face peeked out of the folds in Rachel's arms, Kurt forgot all about the late notice, and began to just stare, wide-eyed at the baby.

'Oh my god, Rachel, she is so beautiful!,' he whispered, coming closer to his best friend and his new niece.

'Yeah, I know. She's a little treasure.' Rachel could barely take her loving gaze off her daughter.

'Are you sure she's Finn's, though? Kinda hard to believe he could make something this pretty,' said Kurt playfully, turning his face to his brother, who seemed positively stunned. Everyone laughed, except for Finn, still quite oblivious to anything that wasn't his daughter.

They all fell in love with the tiny dark-haired girl in a matter of minutes.

***

That night, Blaine was reading in bed, when Kurt snuggled up to him, making him lose his focus.

'Hm?,' he muttered, keeping his eyes on the pages.

'I want us to have a child.'

'What?' Now Blaine's eyes fell on his husband's face, and he realized it was a serious conversation.

Kurt sighed, fitting his body even closer to Blaine's.

'I want to be a daddy. Maybe not now, but in a few years.'

Blaine nodded solemnly; he knew this topic would come up eventually.

'Are you sure, or is it some sort of surge of paternal feelings after today?'

'I'm sure.' Kurt paused, shifting to have a better view of his husband's face. 'Wait, don't you want us to have kids?'

Blaine laid his book in his lap and took Kurt's hand. Biting his lower lip, he considered how to formulate the answer for a moment.

'You know, they say that people tend to repeat their parents' shortcomings while raising their own kids. Remember that Larkin poem?' Kurt nodded. 'I'm just- afraid I wouldn't be a very good dad. Your parents, your dad especially gave you everything to make you a good parent yourself, but mine- You know it wasn't exactly flowers, rainbows and cotton candy in the Anderson household.' He grimaced at the memory of being constantly overshadowed by Cooper, always treated as the lesser son. It was never an overt agenda of his parents', but he felt it acutely with all the praise given to Cooper, and all the disregard to his own achievements, and all the times his father attempted to "toughen him up" and turn him straight, while his mother pretended to take no notice of that.

A few minutes passed in complete stillness, both husbands immersed deep in their own thoughts.

'You'd be a wonderful father, honey,' said Kurt finally.

'You think so?' Blaine looked into his husband's sparkling, loving eyes.

'Yes. And even if you weren't, I'd be, right?'

Blaine laughed in spite of himself.

'Right.'

***

Kurt was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, waiting uneasily on the Hudson doorstep. A huge teddy bear, for which he had made a jacket and a cap himself, was sticking out from under his arm.

This was only another thing he now had to be doing on his own, and he felt unbearably alone, his hand painfully empty, cold from the touch of another hand which was no longer there.

The door opened at last, revealing a panting Rachel, who smiled at Kurt widely.

'Hi! Come in, come in! You're first!'

Kurt had hoped that the sight of his best friend will curb the uneasiness he was feeling, but her chipper self only increased his discomfort, causing his guts to wrench. What was a family gathering, if one of the family was missing? When Blaine was gone? There was a gaping hole in what used to be the Hudson-Hummel-Anderson-Berry clan. And Kurt just couldn't ignore it. Christmas dinner was easier, because it was only the Berry-Hudsons and him; the parents and in-laws were back in Lima, so it was possible to persuade himself that everyone is just elsewhere.

But now everyone was coming for little Carole's fourth birthday, and there would be no way to try convince himself that Blaine is simply somewhere else, but will be home, when Kurt gets there…

Kurt entered the hall, taking his coat and shoes off, and Rachel called her daughter to come say hello. The girl ran out of the living room, dressed in a frilly dark red dress, her brown hair flying in motion, a smile on her face and dimples in her cheeks. She looked very much like a miniature Rachel, except her movements were much more like her father's.

'Uncle Kurt!,' she squealed happily the second she saw him.

Kurt smiled faintly, handing the teddy bear to her. The toy was met with an even happier cry from the child, as she hugged him tightly with a wide grin.

'Sweetie, didn't you forget about something?,' Rachel asked.

Carole raised her head from the fluffy shoulder of her new teddy bear.

'Thank you, Uncle Kurt.'

'You're most welcome, sweetheart.' Kurt forced a smile; as much as he loved the kid, the only thing that was truly on his mind was how much he had wanted to have a child with Blaine. How close they were to actually becoming parents, before… Before.

'Kurt, you won't mind if I leave you for a second? I have to check on dinner.'

He shook his head in reply, and followed Carole into the living room, while Rachel returned to the kitchen.

Carole sat down on the floor next to the sofa, where apparently she had been settled before Kurt's arrival, and she put her teddy bear next to her. Kurt watched her as she picked up her crayons and resumed drawing the picture she had abandoned to greet him. With her tongue between her lips, she rubbed a pink crayon fiercely over the sheet of paper. After a moment of silence, Kurt crouched down beside her.

'What are you drawing?,' he asked, studying the big pink triangle with an orange ball topped with yellow attached to it.

'Sleeping Beauty.'

'Oh, right, I can see the resemblance,' he choked out, his breath hitching. He had no idea, what was happening to him; an avalanche seemed to be falling on him out of nowhere, taking all oxygen from him.

He managed to turn away and run out of the room, without drawing Carole's attention to himself. He couldn't have a breakdown in front of the child. Desperately gulping for air, he leant on the wall outside the door, until his legs could hold his weight no longer, and he slid to the ground.

Rachel rushed into the hallway, alarmed by the whizzing sound of Kurt's breath.

'Oh my God, Kurt…'

She ran up to his, encircling him with her arms, and he instinctively grasped her close, shaking and sobbing without tears, that this once failed him for some reason. Maybe his tear ducts had finally dried up?

'Shh, sweetie, it's alright,' Rachel repeated in an attempt to soothe him, which was failing miserably.

'It's- not- alright,' Kurt managed to spit out. 'It- will- NEVER- be- alright.'

Realization crept onto Rachel's face, as she gripped Kurt tighter in her arms.

***

It took Rachel ten minutes to calm Kurt down enough to lead him into the kitchen. She settled him at the table and in a few minutes she set a mug of chamomile tea in front of him. Neither of them had spoken a word. Kurt kept his gaze fixed in the tablecloth, and Rachel was watching him closely; she was quite sure he wouldn't lose it again, but she was terribly worried.

'Kurt, talk to me,' she said finally. He didn't even flinch. 'Kurt, please.'

He swallowed and slowly, very slowly turned his head towards her.

'We wanted to have kids,' said Kurt quietly. Rachel nodded; he didn't have to explain who he meant by we. 'We were just starting looking for an adoption agency, when…' He waved vaguely in the direction of his head.

Rachel sat down next to him, and took his hand before he could flinch away.

'I know, honey, I know. And you will have kids, you'll find someone, I'm sure of that.'

Kurt shook his head violently.

'No. There won't be anybody else.'

'I know you think that now, but…'

'No!,' he jumped up to his feet, jerking his hand away from Rachel's and almost knocking his chair over. 'How can you think that?! How could he think that?' That last sentence he said in a small desperate voice.

Rachel was puzzled.

'Who?'

'Blaine.' The name felt like razors in his throat. It was too painful to even think it.

'He told you that?'

Instead of answering, Kurt pulled a creased envelope out of his jacket pocket and threw it onto the table, clenching his teeth not to fall apart again.

With uncertain, trembling hands, Rachel picked up the cream stationary. Where normally an address would be, it said Kurt. Jan. 30th. She glanced at Kurt to make sure he wanted her to see it. He was facing away, pretending to be looking out the window, but his eyes were glassy, lost somewhere far away from the kitchen in SoHo.

Rachel reached into the envelope and took a folded piece of paper out. The handwriting was undeniably Blaine's. She started reading.

Darling, darling Kurt,

Say happy birthday to little Carole for me today! I wish I could be there to see our niece grow up into the beautiful, talented girl I know she is going to be.

I also know that being around her makes you think about having kids of our own. On the one hand I regret we hadn't gotten round to the adoption process before all of this happened. And I know it was mostly due to my silly stubbornness and my screwed up family. But on the other hand, I'm happy in a way, that we're not putting any kids through the whole drama.

But then again, I'm leaving you alone, and that's killing me a hundred times more than the cancer.

Anyway, I need to tell you this: I want you to find someone you could form a family with. Find a guy you'd want to raise kids with. Hopefully, he'd be better father material than I could ever be.

I only wish for you to be happy, and I know you won't feel truly fulfilled until you are a proud daddy. Just don't forget me in the process, okay?

I love you,

Blaine.

Rachel folded the letter back and replaced it in the envelope. Then she got up to hug Kurt again, not uttering a word.