Three Months Later

Rachel greeted Kurt and Blaine with a too-bright smile when they arrived at her apartment for brunch. She was wearing a retro 1950s-style dress and an apron, and Kurt quirked an eyebrow at her fashion choices.

“Coffee? Tea?” she offered brightly. “The blintz loaf is in the oven, it should be ready in just a few minutes.”

“Coffee, thanks so much. What is blintz loaf?” Blaine asked.

Puck answered from the kitchen. “It’s like blintzes, but baked into a casserole instead of rolled up individually. It’s an old family recipe. My mom used to make it all the time when I was growing up, and she got the recipe from her grandmother. It’s delicious, you’ll love it.” He walked into the living area from the kitchen, carrying four cups of coffee on a tray. “Come, sit down, let’s chat!”

Kurt sat on the couch tentatively. “What is going on here? You’re both acting all … domestic and weird.”

Rachel and Puck looked at each other, seated next to each other on the couch. They both grinned. “You tell them,” Rachel said.

“No, you tell them,” Puck countered.

“Okay, I’ll tell them,” Rachel said, still beaming. She turned to look at Kurt and Blaine, sitting across from them. “Puck asked me to marry him!”

“Wow, congratulations!” Blaine said, at exactly the same time that Kurt said, “But you’ve only been dating for three months!”

Rachel’s smile fell away. “Well, the congratulations are not quite in order yet, because I haven’t said yes.”

“Which is very wise,” Kurt said. “Because three months is way too short to make this kind of commitment, especially when you live across the country from each other and have only seen each other like two weeks out of that whole time. And remember the last time you rushed into an engagement? With my step-brother? That was a disaster all around.”

“Kurt, please do not bring that up,” Rachel whined. Then she cleared her throat and said in a more pleasant tone. “That’s not why I haven’t said yes yet. I am in love with Puck and I am absolutely certain that I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Do not roll your eyes at me, Kurt Hummel! I am much more grown-up than I was last time.”

“So what is the problem, then?” Kurt asked.

“Puck has promised that he’s ready to change his philandering ways and commit to me completely,” Rachel said.

“I’m not even sure what that word means,” Puck interjected.

“It means cheating, honey,” Rachel said, patting him on the knee.

“Oh yeah,” Puck said. “I did promise that.”

Rachel continued as if the aside has never happened. “But my firm belief is that if this is going to work, he needs to make a clean break and get rid of all the baggage from his past. We can’t have anything or anyone around to remind him of his former life. I don’t want us to be distracted by raising some other woman’s child when we should be creating a family of our own.”

Kurt turned to Blaine and stage-whispered, “She does realize that we are raising her child, right?”

Blaine looked like a deer caught in headlights, but Rachel was the one who answered, well-aware that Kurt’s comment had been for her benefit. “Kurt, the point is that Puck and I want to make a fresh start, without constant reminders of the past. It’s what will give us the best chance for our marriage to work.”

Blaine finally spoke up, a voice of calm as usual. “I thought Puck was already looking for an adoptive family. Doesn’t that take care of everything?”

Puck’s shoulders slumped. “I was trying to, but then I decided, I can’t give up my little girl to be raised by strangers. They all look so nice on paper, but there have got to be skeletons in those closets somewhere. And it breaks my heart to think that I’ll be out of her life completely. Even if it’s an open adoption and I get cards and letters and a visit or two, it’s not enough. I want to be a real part of her life.”

“So are we here to mediate this dispute?” Kurt asked. “Why us? Why didn’t you go to a marriage counselor or a rabbi or something?”

“Actually, we’ve already figured out the perfect solution,” Rachel said, smiling again. “You two should adopt the baby! That way Puck can still be part of her life without her actually being around us constantly, and we know that you’re great parents, and she’ll be with Asher, and everything will be fantastic!”

Kurt stared at her. “Let me get this straight. You want us to change our entire lives—adopt a fourth child when we said we were done after three—so that you and Puck can enter into a reckless, rushed marriage for no good reason? And all of this after we already told Puck we were not adopting his baby?”

“It’s not that big of a change, Kurt,” Rachel said. “You already have kids. You’re used to it. You have a full-time, live-in nanny. And this marriage is not reckless. We may have only recently realized our love for each other, but we have known each other more than half our lives. We know we’re doing the right thing.”

Blaine squeezed Kurt’s hand. “Kurt … it’s a girl. A little sister for Tess.”

Kurt glared at him, but his resolve was fading fast. “Traitor,” he said.

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

Mary Catherine didn’t want to meet them. She didn’t want to know anything about them. She just wanted to get rid of the baby. Kurt and Blaine stayed in the unfamiliar California hospital’s waiting room during her scheduled c-section, and saw the baby for the first time through the nursery window. It was Puck who brought the baby out to them a few hours later, bittersweet tears in his eyes. They flew home three days later with their new daughter.

Naomi Anderson Hummel was their first winter baby, bundled in fleece pajamas that seemed too tiny to fit anything but a doll. She had a head full of dark hair and when her eyes settled on a color, they were a deep chocolate brown. She was a lover, cuddling and cooing and smiling at anyone who picked her up or even looked at her, but her very favorite person was her big sister, Tess.

Puck hired someone to manage the Los Angeles side of his food truck business, and moved to New York with big plans for expanding the business to his new city. Rachel and Puck married in a very large, traditional Jewish ceremony about a month after Naomi’s birth, with all of their friends and family in attendance. Tess was the flower girl and Asher the ring bearer. Beth, now seventeen years old and fresh off singing a solo that led the New Directions to victory at Sectionals, was a groomsmaid.

Naomi was just past her first birthday when she met her newborn “cousin,” Miriam Idina Puckerman. “Bay!” she said definitively, pointing at the swaddled baby in her Aunt Rachel’s arms.

“That’s right, Naomi, it’s Baby Miriam,” Rachel said gently.

Naomi leaned over and gave the baby a messy kiss on the cheek, and nobody could help but smile.