Blaine arrived home with two containers of berries and a can of whipped cream.

“What’s the occasion?” Kurt asked.

“No occasion,” Blaine said cheerily. “I signed up with this website where they send you an e-mail once a week with stuff about the pregnancy and fetal development, and it also has this cute thing where they tell you what fruit or vegetable is the same size as your baby right now. This week it’s a raspberry, and last week was a blueberry, and I was sitting there thinking, aren’t raspberries and blueberries about the same size? So I went to the market to check, and look! The raspberries really are a little bit bigger! Isn’t that amazing? Our baby is growing! And then I felt weird just walking out of the market without buying anything, so I went ahead and bought the berries.”

“And what does the whipped cream represent?”

“Nothing, it’s just delicious.”

“So let me get this straight,” Kurt said. “You want us to eat our baby? And a bunch of other little babies together with it, topped with processed cream squirted out of a can?”

Blaine rolled his eyes. “Our baby is not actually a raspberry, Kurt. It’s just the size of a raspberry.” He popped the box open and held one up. “Look how tiny! Can you believe that there’s a whole entire human being this size, growing inside Rachel’s body?”

“You’re not helping this be more appetizing,” Kurt said.

“Can I squirt cream directly into your mouth?” Blaine asked.

“I bet you say that to all the guys.”

------------------------------------------------

Kurt twitched his fingers nervously. He and Blaine were sitting in the waiting room of the doctor’s office with Rachel, the first appointment they had attended with her, getting ready for the first ultrasound. It was too soon to tell the baby’s sex, but the doctor would be measuring its growth and looking for signs of any problems. They were sure everything would be okay. Why wouldn’t it be? Brittany had managed to have a healthy baby without a single doctor visit, without taking prenatal vitamins, without blood tests or ultrasounds or anything at all. The lack of stress was probably actually beneficial for the baby, Kurt thought, though of course he knew that medical attention was very important.

“What fruit is it this week?” Kurt asked.

“Plum,” Blaine said.

Rachel groaned. “Oh god, that sounds like the most disgusting food ever. Wait, no, I take it back. All food is disgusting. Whoever came up with the idea that people should eat food was an idiot, and I hate him. It must have been a man. Men come up with all the terrible ideas. I bet a man invented pregnancy, too. Men suck.”

“Thanks for that, Rachel,” Kurt said.

“Are you eating anything these days?” Blaine asked, worried.

“Toast … sometimes with cream cheese on it. And peppermint candies, the white ones with red stripes. That’s about it.”

“Is that healthy? I mean, for the baby?”

Rachel shot him a glare and he wisely decided not to press the matter further.

Everything looked fine on the ultrasound.

-------------------------------------------------------

It was the cusp of weeks fifteen and sixteen, so Blaine made an orange and avocado salad as the first course for dinner with Rachel. Kurt complained that the whole concept of fetus-sized fruits was morbid, but Blaine insisted that it was cute and also healthy, which was important now that Rachel was finally out of the nausea phase and eating actual food again.

Rachel had an odd look on her face when she came into the apartment, but she didn’t say anything out of the ordinary, so they ignored it. Always best to just pretend the hormonal behavior didn’t exist, Kurt and Blaine had realized.

“So, have you decided how much longer you’ll be in New York?” Kurt asked. Rachel wanted to keep the pregnancy completely secret, which meant leaving the city where she would inevitably be seen out and about and recognized. She hadn’t yet settled on a place to go. Staying with her fathers in Lima was the obvious choice, but she was just as likely to be recognized there as in New York, what with the Midwestern appreciation for hometown heroes. They’d discussed a few possible locations, but Rachel was reluctant to spend half a year alone in a city where she didn’t know anyone. But she was starting to show, and she wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret much longer.

“Actually,” Rachel said, a guilty expression clouding her features. “I’ve decided to just stay in New York.”

“Really?” Blaine asked. “But what about keeping the pregnancy a secret? How will you do that?”

“I won’t,” Rachel said. “I talked it over with my publicist and, well …”  She drew a sheet of paper out of her purse and handed it to Blaine. Kurt leaned over to read it at the same time.

It was an advance copy of a one-paragraph blurb in People magazine. There was a picture of Rachel in a skintight black unitard, her baby bump quite visible in the clingy clothing.

Who’s Your Daddy?

Broadway starlet Rachel Berry is expecting, but she has no plans to be a mom! She’s carrying a baby for her long-time friends, fellow Broadway heartthrob Blaine Hummel and his opera-singing husband Kurt, who already have one child. “As the daughter of two gay dads, I am so thrilled to be able to help out my friends this way,” the lovely lady said. She told us she’ll be taking time off from Broadway during the pregnancy, but plans to be back on stage in a revival of The Music Man this fall.

Kurt opened and shut his mouth a few times, too angry and stunned to speak. “How could you?!” he shouted at Rachel when he finally recovered his voice. “You made it sound like we asked you to be our surrogate, like you’re doing us a favor, when actually it’s me and Blaine who are doing you a huge favor by adopting the baby you got pregnant with by accident! Why would you do something like this?”

“It was my publicist’s idea,” Rachel said. “And I didn’t actually say anything that isn’t true. I just, you know, let them understand in a particular way. Come on, don’t you see? This is great for all of us! I look like the most charitable person ever, agreeing to lend my own body out to help a gay couple, and you guys get cast as the adorable dads doing everything you possibly can to have a family.”

“But that’s not what happened!” Kurt said.

“Rachel,” Blaine said, taking a much more conciliatory tone than Kurt’s. “Why didn’t you at least come to us and ask us about this before you gave an interview to a reporter?”

“Because you would have said no,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Don’t you think that’s all the more reason to have asked?” Kurt said.

“What was I supposed to do?” Rachel asked, a touch of whining in her voice. “Spend six months by myself in Miami, living out of a hotel room and with nobody to help me when I’m nine months pregnant and can’t even reach down to tie my own shoes? Or go back to Lima and live in my dads’ basement and never go outside, never see the light of day until the baby is born? No thank you. This was the only way, just tell the world and spin it the best way possible.”

“This is really not okay, Rachel,” Kurt said.

She sighed. “I know, I know. I just … I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. And I’m sorry. But now it’s done and … at least I’m telling you now instead of just waiting for the issue to hit the newsstands, right?”

“When is it coming out?” Blaine asked.

“Two days from now.”

“Excuse me,” Blaine said. “I have to go call my publicist. Why don’t you two go ahead and start eating?”

Kurt looked over to the dining room table, the orange and avocado salad laid out on chilled plates. “I don’t think I’m hungry.”

“Can I have yours, then?” Rachel asked.