Sugar Baby

Twenty-Four

"It's like I told you, Mercy," Kurt said to the image of Mercedes on his computer screen, scratching at the heavy bandage over his ankle and smiling reassuringly at her unimpressed expression. "I broke my ankle, so I won't be able to come home for another six weeks, but then, I swear, I will be on a plane and back with you as soon as I can. If I stay much longer I won't be able to fly, and I want to have this baby in Ohio with you, away from his toxic father."

"This is crazy, Kurt," Mercedes said, staring at him through the screen. "First, you're sleeping with Blaine Anderson. Then, you're pregnant and you're moving to New York with him. And now you've been attacked by some crazy psycho and you're stuck in his house for another month after he cheated on you. Your life has turned rapidly into a soap opera."

"I think it's an occupational hazard of hooking up with celebrities, hon," Kurt said with a laugh. "And, um...it wasn't just some psychopath who attacked me and tried to kill the baby. It was...it was Dave."

"Karofsky?!" Mercedes shrieked, and Kurt nodded once, concisely. "Jeez, I always thought there was something off about him, but attacking you? Breaking your ankle and knocking you out and cutting up your arms? Trying to kill the baby? You really think he's capable of all that?"

"He thinks everything was my fault," Kurt murmured, pulling the computer closer, eyes darting to his slightly open door, a measure Sam had insisted on to keep him safe after the attack, and he could hear the vague sounds of chatter and clanging from the kitchen. "It was Paul's idea for them to take me in when my parents died, Mary always hated me and when I was ten Paul left because he couldn't deal with her. He blames me for his dad leaving, they argued about me a lot. And since then he's wanted out, desperately, and because I got pregnant, I got out, I got to come to the place I've always dreamed of being in with an amazing man. He wants that chance, to escape his mother, and he thinks in some twisted way that killing my baby will change things."

"Okay, well, that's a whole other tin of snakes to get into right now," Mercedes said, and Kurt nodded in agreement, watching her rearrange herself on the bed, eyes glancing down to Kurt's belly, straining against his shirt. "I want to hear more about little Kurt Hummel Junior. How's he doing?"

"He's fine," Kurt answered proudly, rubbing his stomach and grinning at Mercedes. "Not kicking yet, but the doctor said all his development is normal, despite everything, and I've been feeling that fluttering people always tell you about, but not anything concrete yet. I've half-chosen a name for him too. I don't know about a first name, but I want to give him Burton as a middle name. For my dad." He frowned and told her, "However, his father is not in my good graces right now. Barely even worthy of being looked at."

"God, I know you said you were in love with him and stuff, but for him to cheat on you with that Smythe guy - who always seemed like a big jerk to me, not gonna lie, no matter what kind of crush Tina had on him - is just crazy," Mercedes observed. "I mean, why are you staying with him? In his house, to boot."

"I'm not with him, I left him for what he did, but he's trying to get back into my life, for the baby," Kurt corrected her. "And I'm in this house because I was attacked at Quinn's, where I wanted to stay, and because of it Sam's insisting that I stay in a place where there's always someone around, and no one else's place fits the bill. And I have to admit that this is a gorgeous house, even if I'm not fond of the person in it right now."

"Okay, well, I gotta go, calculus homework calls, but I will call you tomorrow and I'll have a list of first names that go with Burton and Hummel," Mercedes said with a smile, and Kurt waved as she blew a kiss and her image on the screen vanished.

He sat on the bed for a while, lying back, grimacing at the flair of pain in his ankle and wishing he didn't have to wait another hour to take his next dose of painkillers. Finally, he rolled over and started to sit up, only to hear the rustle of paper beneath the mattress. Pulling his wheelchair closer, he clung to it as he leaned carefully down and extracted a single sheet from between the mattress and the frame of the bed. Sitting back up, he smoothed the paper out and read over Blaine's familiar handwriting.

Kurt, I love you. And I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I'm sorry for the way I've treated you. I'm sorry I'm rapidly turning us into an imitation of the sham of a relationship my parents had. I know I've been awful to you. Believe me, if my instincts didn't stop me from punching myself hard enough that I blacked out for at least a few hours, I would do it.

I didn't start this between us expecting to have a crying, pregnant teenager in my arms five months later. I didn't expect to fall in love. Honestly, I didn't expect anything but one night with an unbelievably hot teenager who said he knew what he was doing and proved it a thousand times better than I'd expected in bed. I would never have guessed that I was his first, that he would fall in love with me, that he'd get pregnant with our baby, or that I would ever want to pursue a commitment with him.

I know you don't want me in your life right now. That maybe I'll never see you again, I'll never get to meet our son or see you smile at me again. For now, I know you're doing right by you and our son, and maybe the next time you see me you'll slam a door in my face and refuse to let me in. But that doesn't mean I'll give up on you. On us. I will never stop trying to get you back, Kurt. Even if what we have can never move forward, you at least deserve to know the whole truth. You at least deserve to hear me tell you out loud that I love you.

Kurt read the letter again. And again, a disbelieving smile on his face and tears in his eyes. Blaine had sat down, at some point after he'd left, and written this. Laid himself on the line, bared his soul. Of course, he was sleeping on Blaine's mattress, Blaine having dragged the extra one out in order to keep Kurt comfortable. Blaine was in love with him, desperate to be back in his life, wanting to be there for him and their son. He wanted the family too. He understood Kurt's right to take some time and think everything over, and he was freely offering it, he wasn't going to push his way back in, all he'd wanted was to tell Kurt that he loved him.

Blaine was in love with him. Kurt had the heart of an amazing, handsome man and it was his to break or heal. Blaine trusted him with everything, with his heart and soul and body, and Kurt had so much influence over where his life would go from here.

He reached over to the nightstand and extracted the bracelet from his birthday, shiny and new and barely worn, running his fingers over the words Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity, and you won't bring me down. His freedom song, it always had been. He had the chance to be free of the world he'd found himself catapulted into, to get away, find his place back in Ohio.

But he would never truly be free. He would have the baby, his and Blaine's son, he couldn't just give him up. And he would always harbour feelings for Blaine, always wonder what could've happened if he'd just taken that step, risked himself and let everything happen.

What Blaine had done had hurt him. Horribly. Broken his heart. But Blaine had promised he hadn't done it out of lust or spite, that the reason had been much bigger. If Cooper was to be believed, Blaine had never been in love before. It was possible that Blaine had realised his feelings and tried to avoid them, made a mistake and slept with someone else trying to escape from something he didn't understand. Kurt could understand, and he could think about forgiving.

He could think about loving Blaine again.