Blaine Anderson-Hummel stared out the window, holed up in his room. He could hear the faint sounds of Rachel and Tina playing with Eli in her room while he wiped at his eyes, constantly running his hands through his hair.
It was March 15th; their anniversary.

Seemingly at war with himself, Blaine groaning, covering his face with his hands and pacing around, fingering the gold band on his left hand.

And he made his decision.

***

Eli sprinted out of Rachel’s arms, launching herself into Blaine’s. He laughed a little, scooping his up and cradling her thighs. She giggled loudly as he spun her around, kissing her on the cheeks before setting her down on the couch and turning to Rachel and Tina.

“Hey, thank-you for coming over. I know you guys have lives, too.” He smiled gratefully at the two girls who shooed him off.

“Oh, stop it, Blaine. We know how hard it is.” Tina smiled, but her words were heavy.

Rachel sighed, brushing away a few stray tears, her voice thick, “Y-yeah. We get it. We do miss him, after all.”
Their words hung in the air and Blaine sighed as well, letting the two hug him.

Eli watched the scene, an oddly somber and mature expression on her face; this happened every year, she noticed.

Something about March 15th.

She thought to herself, before letting it slip away as he daddy came back smiling, tugging her up off the couch.
“C’mon, pretty girl. Go say buy to Auntie Tina and Auntie Rachel.”

The two women bent their knees and opened their arms to her and she jumped in, waving at them and following them out onto the yard.

She and her daddy waved until their car was out of sight.
Blaine watched her daughter, giggling and waving in delight, wriggling in his hold.

She turned to him and he felt his heart break just a little because her eyes were exactly Kurt’s.
His eyebrows furrowed, but smoothed as he thought over his decision; he was going to make it through this because it was important. Blaine cleared his throat to speak.

“Eli, I want you to meet someone today, okay?”

Eli grinned, her voice tumbling through different octaves.

“Is it a special someone, daddy?”

Blaine smiled, a bit sadly, and nodded. “Y-yes, he’s really special.”

Eli nodded excitedly, “Well, okay!”

They piled into the car, Eli reminding him about all her favorite Disney princesses, and Blaine tried to ignore the fact that Kurt’s old sunglasses had fallen into his lap.

***

“Okay, we’re here!”

The graveyard was beautiful; the stones that marked the places of people’s loved one were clean and bright, glinting in the morning sunlight. The sky was a beautiful sapphire and fat clouds floated around lazily, drifting over the outskirts of New York.

Blaine opened the door and headed to the backseat to unbuckle Eli, carrying her out of the car and grasping her hand one he had set her down.

“Time to meet your Papa.”

Eli gasped, before beaming.

“I get to meet Papa?! Today?!” She exclaimed, bouncing
around on energy.

Blaine laughed at her reaction; at least it was a good one, he thought to himself, and he nodded at her, weaving his way through the gravestones.

He finally stopped at a small clearing, a single, shiny black stone marking the circle. New Directions had reserved the space for them after Kurt was buried.

Blaine hadn’t visited this place in two years and seeing it now, his eyesight blurred, but he pushed through it, trying to smile for Eli.

He walked forward slowly, stilling grasping Eli’s hand, and sat directly in front of the grave, crossing his legs and patting the grass beside him.

“Well, don’t just stand there! Come sit!”

Eli plopped herself down beside him, smiling.

“Hi, Papa! Daddy tells me a lot about you! He said that you are really pretty and you like Disney princesses, too and that I look just like you! Do you think so? I think so. You must have been really pretty if I look like you. You want to hear a secret?”

Blaine smiled faintly at the girl’s enthusiasm, covering his ears like she told him, too because she was “Telling Papa this secret!”

Eli leaned in close, pressing her nose against the stone and whispered loudly, “Every year, Daddy cries, and sometimes I hear him yelling your name when he thinks I’m asleep. Why did you leave, Papa? It makes Daddy sad and
when Daddy’s sad, I’m sad…”

And she leaned back, pouting and looking confused before eagerly turning back to Blaine.

“How did you meet him, Daddy?”

And Blaine smiled at this, swallowing down the lump in his throat that had appeared after he heard her ‘secret’.

He looked to the sky, still grinning.

“Well, as I’ve told you, we spent seven years, six months, and twenty four days together—“

“Are you gonna tell me about every single day? Well that will take forever!”

Blaine laughed, “Well, maybe everyday has a story to tell, but don’t worry I’ll try to skip the boring parts.”

“But—“ Eli protested, but Blaine cut her off with a smile.

“Anyways,” He began giving her a pointed look, to which she beamed, showing off her teeth, “We also spent almost two years together in high school, and that’s where we met.”

Blaine paused, waiting for her interruption, but nothing came and he looked over at her; she was leaning forwards slightly, eyes opened wide, dark curls escaping her pin and falling into her face, listening intently. He pressed on.

“I was heading off to an open performance that the Warblers, our show choir, were hosting, but I was stopped on the staircase by a boy dressed in an outfit that vaguely resembled the uniforms we had to wear.”

Eli stopped him, wrinkling her nose, “You had to wear uniforms?”

Blaine chortled, “Yes, and they were amazing, thank-you. Back to the story. Later, I would come to learn that the boy who stopped me on the staircase was your Papa, and that he was spying on our show choir.”

Eli’s eyes widened in amazement, “Papa was a spy?! That is so cool!”

Blaine nodded seriously.

“And after that, I showed him to the performance, impressed him with my lead singing, and bought him lunch a day later.”

“And you lived happily ever after?”

Blaine shook his head, grinning at this, “Well, no. There is a lot more to our story than that.”

Eli looked confused, “Then what happened after that?”

Blaine turned his body completely towards her now.

“Well, there was the trouble with Dave Karofsky, a bully on the football team, New Directions, the Warblers and Uncle Sebastian, a boy named Jeremiah, flirty duets, and—“

“Drunken kisses and gas pains?”

Blaine and Eli turned to see Rachel and Finn standing there, and a row of cars trailing their own. Blaine laughed exuberantly, grinning.

“Well, that too, but I’m trying to filter this a little for my daughter, thanks.” He joked.

“Trying to filter our lives is pretty much not telling any of it,” Mercedes remarked as Sam helped her out of the car.

Quinn nodded, “True.”

Eli bounced elatedly, before jumping onto her father.
“Daddy! Daddy! Everyone is here at the same time! It’s like Christmas!”

She giggled, rolling on the grass, her hair flying out beneath her.

Finn and Puck tossed her back and forth, while the group finished exiting their cars, moving as one to hug the duo telling stories on the ground.

They huddled around the grave stone in a lousy excuse for a circle.

“Now, Eli, you are going to get the best love story of all time: your fathers’!” Lydia stated, clapping her hands together and laughing at her brother’s face.
And they began to tell their favorite story.