The formalities were easier than they had any right to be. Brittany signed away her parental rights without so much as a second thought, and went to stay with Rachel until she was recovered enough to fly back to Chicago. The baby went home from the hospital with his “father” and “father’s husband,” and the attorney reassured them that Blaine’s second-parent adoption would be routine and could be completed within a few weeks.

They named him Colin, not for any strong reason, but because they both liked the name. Blaine confessed that he’d wanted to be named Colin when he was a kid, and Kurt confessed his longstanding crush on Colin Firth. They both laughed a little, and then put the name down on the Social Security form and grinned at it stupidly for at least ten minutes: Colin Anderson Hummel.

Kurt made a very confusing trip to Babies R Us for a shockingly large number of baby supplies, each of which was available in at least a dozen different varieties. Blaine hit up the Baby Gap at the end of the block because “it’s right there, Kurt, and it’s easy, and you can pick out his new wardrobe from the most stylish baby boutiques when he grows out of these in a month or two.” Kurt sighed and agreed, and secretly thought the romper with the penguin on it was completely adorable and the red corduroy pants were an absolute fashion staple.

Blaine retrieved the crib from Patty’s apartment, and thank goodness she stayed to help him assemble it, because there was nowhere else in the apartment to set the baby down so Kurt ended up holding him the entire time. Kurt laughed at the pink butterfly sheets and made a joke about raising a gayby, but when they set Colin down in the crib, of course he fell asleep just as he would have on sheets of any other color.

“Kurt?” Blaine called from the kitchen an hour later. “Could you give me a hand here?”

Kurt walked in, bouncing the crying baby. “It’s okay,” he said in a soothing tone. “Daddy is making you a bottle.”

“How do these fit together?” Blaine asked, gesturing to the mound of small plastic pieces drying on a kitchen towel.

Kurt’s face paled. “I bought ten different kinds of bottles because I didn’t know which one he’d like best. And then I washed them all at the same time…”

“Why do they need so many parts? Why isn’t it just a bottle and a nipple?” Blaine’s voice was on the edge of panic.

Kurt shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Colin’s wailing grew louder. They finally put one of the bottles together, but it was the longest ten minutes of their lives.

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

“Kurt?” Blaine’s fingers twitched nervously. “It’s seven thirty.”

Kurt looked up from where he’d been staring at Colin in the crib, waiting to see if he’d need a pacifier after being set down. “You can do this, Blaine. You know they love you, even if they’re not always…”

“Yeah.” They tiptoed out into the living room and Blaine unplugged his phone from the charger. He honestly didn’t know whether his parents would consider this good news or bad news. But he was about to find out. He sat on the couch and dialed their number, Kurt right beside him.

“Hi Blaine,” his father said. “Anna, it’s Blaine, pick up the other line.”

“Here I am,” she said cheerily. “So what’s the big news?”

“It is big news,” Blaine said. “And surprising. Very sudden. I … Kurt and I … we adopted a baby.” There was no sound on the other end of the line, so he continued in a rush. “I mean, we’re in the process of adopting legally, but we have him already. In our apartment. He’s asleep right now, we brought him home from the hospital today. We named him Colin, and he was born two days ago, and we had no advance notice and everything is crazy and we just … we … it’s overwhelming but we’re so happy.”

Dead silence. Kurt reached out and took his hand.

A sniffle and soft gasp.

“Mom?”

“I have a grandson,” she said, her voice breaking with disbelief.

“Yeah,” Blaine said. “Yeah, I guess you do.”

“I’m so proud of you, Blaine,” his father said.

“I … I …” Blaine stammered.

“When can we come visit?” his mother asked.

They settled on a week in August, which Anna complained was much too long to wait, but James said was just barely enough time for the baby to start doing anything more than sleeping all the time. Blaine almost laughed aloud at that, given the all effort they spent trying to get the baby to fall asleep, but when three months rolled around and Colin started to spend an hour at a time batting at toys and making an effort to roll over, he finally understood what his father meant.

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

Burt and Carole showed up the next morning, unannounced but absolutely welcome after a night of feeding the baby every two hours. “We didn’t want you to spend any effort getting ready for us,” Burt explained after Kurt finally stopped hugging him.

“It’s a baby!” Carole squealed, throwing her hands up in the air. She scampered across the room to Blaine and took Colin from his arms with no preliminaries.

Blaine laughed good-naturedly at his mother in law. “You sound like that XKCD cartoon, Carole. The one with the kitten.”

She nudged him playfully with her elbow, leaning in toward Colin’s face. “Yes, you’re the baby! You’re the baby! Aren’t you so precious! Yes you are! Yes you are! Ooh! I think he smiled at me!”

“The parenting book I bought says he’s too young to smile,” Kurt said, holding in his laughter.

“Nonsense! He smiled at his grandma!”

Blaine yawned, suddenly overcome by the exhaustion. Burt swooped in, pushing Blaine and Kurt toward the bedroom. “Go to sleep. Both of you. We’ll take care of everything for a few hours.”

“But you don’t know—”

“Forget it,” Burt insisted. “Both of us know more about babies than either of you, so go sleep and we’ll catch up later.”

“He likes—”

“Bed. Now. Go.”

Kurt sighed. “Fine.” He and Blaine headed toward the bedroom.

“And no hanky-panky!” Burt called after them.

“Dad!”

“Just for old time’s sake,” he said, winking.