Tess greeted them at the door when they got back from brunch. She looked straight at Puck. “Hi! I’m Tess. Did you bring my baby sister? Where is she?”

The three of them stared at her, dumbfounded.

Faced with no answer, Tess kept on chattering happily. “I don’t see a baby. Is she coming later? You are having a baby, right? I drew a picture this morning, and Taylor put it on the fridge. Do you want to see it?”

Blaine squatted down to be at eye level with his daughter. “Tess, honey, it’s fine to pretend you have a baby sister, but you have to remember that it’s just imaginary.”

Tess rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Daddy. My baby sister is real.”

“That’s quite a big word for a little girl like you,” Puck said.

Tess looked up at him. “You’re kind of a stupidhead. I know lots of words.”

“She’s sure got you pegged,” a voice rang out behind them.

Everyone turned around. “Rachel?” Kurt said. “You said you’d be here at four. It’s not even noon.”

“My oven broke!” Rachel said. “On the day before Passover! Worst possible timing. So I figured I’d just bring all the ingredients and cook over here. You don’t mind, do you? I figured if you weren’t home I’d just let myself in, but here you all are, and Puck, for some mysterious reason! This is going to be great!”

“Rachel, that key is for emergencies, not so you can come over and cook whenever you want to.” Kurt stood there with his hand on his hip, but Blaine and Puck were already unburdening Rachel of the many bags she was carrying.

“A broken oven on Passover is an emergency, Kurt,” she said.

Kurt sighed. “Fine. Come in. Just try not to be in the way all afternoon, would you?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Rachel stepped into the apartment. “Asher? Where are you? Want to learn how to make matzoh balls?” She caught Kurt glaring at her. “Or anyone! Tess? Matzoh balls?”

Puck tentatively peeked inside one of the bags and then pulled out a plastic container. “Are these fresh gefilte fish? I thought it only came in a jar.”

Rachel nodded excitedly. “Fresh is so much better! They’re from a Jewish deli near my place, and they’re actually edible! It’s great! Would you mind putting them in the fridge for me? And then … we’d better get the soup broth started.” She continued spewing out orders, Puck and the kids following her around the kitchen like little ducklings.

Kurt and Blaine watched from the sofa, enjoying the ability to just sit quietly together while Rachel and Puck entertained the kids. Taylor waved and headed out the door, to enjoy her afternoon and evening off.

“How do you think Tess knew about Puck wanting us to adopt his baby?” Blaine asked Kurt, keeping his voice quiet so nobody would overhear.

“She’s a very intuitive person,” Kurt said. “She probably could tell we’d been talking about something important by our body language. And she wants a baby sister so badly, she must have just put the two things together. It’s a complete coincidence. There’s no way she knew that’s what we’d been talking about.”

“She told me this morning that her baby sister was coming today,” Blaine said.

“See? It was on her mind, and then a new person showed up and she made that connection in her head. Complete coincidence. She probably would have asked the next person who showed up, no matter who it was. Would have been Rachel, if Puck hadn’t come back with us. You don’t think Rachel’s pregnant again, do you?”

“Oh god, I hope not,” Blaine groaned.

“What’s going on over there?” Rachel called from the kitchen.

“Nothing!” Blaine said quickly. “Just talking!”

She turned back to the kids, holding a bone with a little bit of raw meat stuck to it. “This is a lamb shankbone. We’re going to roast it so it’s not raw, but it’s not for eating. It goes on the Seder plate, and we’ll explain all about it at dinner. Puck, could you set the oven to … I don’t know, four hundred or so? Where do they keep baking sheets? Colin? Baking sheets? Great … Tess! Just one scoop of raisins in the charoset, not two!”

“Our kids are so … big,” Kurt said wistfully. “Look at them all helping out in the kitchen! What happened to those tiny little babies wrapped up in blankets? Where did they disappear to?”

“Do you miss it?” Blaine asked.

“A little bit. They were so cute. I mean, they still are cute, but differently.”

Blaine got up and took a photo album off the shelf. Kurt flipped to the first page, a picture of him holding baby Colin in the hospital, Blaine sitting right beside them. “Look at us, Blaine! We were so young!”

“God, was Colin really that tiny? I’d forgotten.”

“Look, here he is just starting to crawl.”

“I remember this day at the park, he was so upset that he couldn’t catch a pigeon!”

“Aww, holding Asher after we brought him home from the hospital!”

“And here’s the first one of Tess. You look shell-shocked.”

“Yeah, well, neither of us expected twins.”

“After twins, just one baby would seem easy!”

Kurt looked up. “I see what you’re trying to do, Blaine.”

“No, no, I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I think you’re right, we shouldn’t. I’m just … reminiscing. It really has been fun. I wouldn’t mind doing it again, if it came to that. But we’re on the same side here. Four kids is insane.”

“Yeah, completely insane,” Kurt said, but he sounded quite a bit less sure than he had that morning.

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

Rachel sat at the head of the table, and Puck at the foot, leaving Kurt and Blaine and their kids to line up along the sides. Blaine didn’t miss the tender looks Puck kept aiming at Rachel and the kids.

After the meal, after Asher found the afikomen and they all sang a song about a goat and some other songs that didn’t quite seem relevant to the holiday at all, after they’d cleaned up the dishes, someone finally thought to ask Puck where he was staying while he was in New York.

“I don’t know. I didn’t think I’d be here this late. I was supposed to drive back to Lima, spend Passover with my mom. I guess I’ll pick up a hotel room for the night somewhere and head out in the morning.”

“Why don’t you stay at my place?” Rachel suggested. She blushed a little bit. “I mean, I have a guest room, and it’s hard to find kosher-for-Passover food when you’re staying at a hotel, even if it’s just breakfast. You can leave in the morning, or after lunch, or whatever.”

He ended up staying the whole week. And when he went back to Los Angeles, it was with plans to return soon.