Two Years Later

Rachel appeared at the door with greetings and hugs and cheesecake from their favorite bakery. Colin abandoned his blocks and came trotting up.

“Look, Colin, Aunt Rachel is here,” Kurt said. She wasn’t really his aunt, but their closest friends got the honorary title. Living nearby, she was much more present in Colin’s life than either of his uncles, Finn and Cooper, were.

“Ray-sho,” Colin repeated.

She squatted down to be at his eye level. “Hello there, little guy! What were you building over there?”

He walked back to the blocks, sat down, and started arranging them in a row. By the time dinner was arranged and set out on the table, he’d built a complete pyramid, ten blocks across at the base, tapering to a perfectly-balanced point on top.

Taylor emerged from her bedroom, wearing a wispy dress and brown knee-high boots. “I’m off! See you later!”

“You’re not staying for dinner?” Rachel asked, disappointed. They got along quite well, Taylor was a theater buff.

“I have a date!” Taylor said excitedly. “Second date, really excited!”

“Ooh,” Rachel said. “Who’s the lucky … guy? girl?”

“Girl this time,” Taylor said. “Another nanny, I met her when I was at the playground with Colin. Her little boy stepped on his sand castle.” Kurt frowned at her. “Accidentally!” she added.

“Well, have a great time,” Rachel said as Taylor breezed out the door.

“Okay, Colin! Dinnertime!” Blaine called. He picked up the little boy and set him in his high chair. They were having butternut squash lasagna, and Colin was having a deconstructed version, little cubes of squash and slices of mushroom and a piece of lasagna noodle and some shreds of mozzarella cheese laid out separately on a plate, carefully not touching each other.

Kurt handed a glass of red wine to Rachel. “Oh, none for me,” she said. “I’m trying to cut back.” He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

They talked easily over the dinner table, the chattery happiness of people who have been friends so long they’ve become family. After dinner they played with Colin, and then he demanded a song at bedtime, so Rachel orchestrated a mash-up of Itsy Bitsy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, with Kurt and Blaine singing harmonies. Colin fell asleep without much fuss, and the adults retreated to the living room for coffee and cheesecake.

“Have you thought about having another baby?” Rachel asked. “Colin is so fun, are you going to do all this over again?”

Blaine and Kurt glanced at each other. It was Kurt who spoke up. “We’ve talked about it some … but it’s such a difficult process, regardless of whether we do adoption or a surrogate pregnancy. After Colin came into our lives so easily, it just seems like a ton of work. It would be nice to have another child, Colin is so wonderful and we’d love for him to have a sibling too, but … I don’t know. We’re still thinking about it, is the answer.”

“What if another baby just dropped into your lives the way Colin did?” Rachel asked.

“Well, that would be an easy decision, but it’s not likely to happen,” Kurt said.

Rachel bit her lip. “I’m pregnant,” she said.

Kurt’s jaw dropped open. “You … what? How? Oh my god, Rachel!”

Blaine put a hand on her knee. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, her eyes a little misty, and Kurt felt a little bit guilty for letting his shock get in the way of immediate concern for his friend.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Rachel said. “I can’t keep the baby, of course, I don’t want to be a single mother and I certainly don’t want directors looking at me as a mother type. I have years and years left to play romantic leads, and I’m not going to let a baby get in the way of that.”

“Can I ask … who is the father?” Blaine asked carefully.

Rachel looked down at her coffee mug. “Jesse St. James.”

Kurt was appalled. “Oh god, Rachel, not again! That guy is toxic.”

“I know, I know, I was an idiot and it was just once and I should have learned my lesson last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. And now he’s being a complete jerk about it. Says the baby isn’t his, which is ridiculous, there’s nobody else it could be.” She wiped at her eye and Blaine handed her a handkerchief. She looked up at him with a thankful half-smile. “I could make him take a paternity test, but since I’m going to have you two adopt the baby anyway, it doesn’t really matter.”

Blaine and Kurt exchanged glances. “Rachel?” Blaine said tentatively. “Have you thought about what you will do if Kurt and I decide not to adopt the baby? I’m not saying that we won’t. Just that we have to think about it, and it’s possible that we might decide that it’s not a good idea. What would you do then?”

“Give it to another family, I guess,” Rachel said. “I definitely don’t want to raise her myself, and there’s no way I could have an abortion. This is the next generation’s Rachel Berry growing in my womb! You don’t just deprive the world of a talent like that.”

“You can’t possibly know it’s a girl already,” Kurt said. “How far along are you?”

“Seven weeks. But I know it’s a girl. Mother’s intuition.” Kurt tried not to let her see him rolling his eyes.

They promised to think about it. They promised to help her during the pregnancy, either way, and to help her keep it a secret from the press and the Broadway gossip circles. They told her to call if she needed anything, anything at all, or even just someone to talk to. And they helped her into a cab to get home, even though she insisted that she was completely fine to take the subway.

Kurt stacked the dessert dishes and brought them to the sink.

“So what do you think we should do?” Blaine asked.

Kurt looked at him. “Don’t be ridiculous, Blaine. Of course we’re taking the baby. We just need to figure out the ground rules.”

Blaine smiled. “It’ll be fun, being there for the whole pregnancy this time. Getting to plan in advance.”

“Knowing what we’re doing!” Kurt said.

“Very civilized,” Blaine agreed. He leaned in for a quick kiss.

Taylor unlocked the door and came in, preventing them from turning it into a full-on makeout session. Blaine winked at Kurt, a promise for later, in the bedroom.

“Hi Tay,” Kurt said. “How was your date?”

She sighed. “I didn’t like the band, but they’re her favorite. I think this relationship is doomed.”

“Too bad,” Kurt said. “Tay? If we had another baby, would we have to give you a raise?”

“Damn straight,” she said. “What’s going on?”