"Blaine."

He says nothing, simply grins and turns to walk backwards down the aisle a bit, nearly knocking over a display of toy cars.

"Blaine," I laugh, watching as he gets further away from me and the boys, headed straight for a wall of Disney toys.

"Your father's a goober," I tell the twins, who've just passed five-and-a-half and can't stop telling everyone they meet that they're nearly six years old, and shoving the appropriate number of tiny fingers in their faces.

"What's a goober?" Micah asks, grabbing one of my hands and bouncing excitedly as I begin to steer them further into the huge toy store in the mall to find their dad.

I peek around a corner. No Blaine. "It means he's just like a really big kid, even though he's supposed to be an adult," I explain, stopping at the mouth of an aisle stuffed with everything Barbie a child could ever want.

"Hey," a voice speaks up behind me, and a gentle weight settles on my back. "I resent that."

I turn, the weight lifting as I go, to see Blaine hugging an enormous stuffed version of Stitch to his chest. He grins from between the two large ears, waves the paws around at his kids who squeal at seeing the blue creature.

"Stitch!" I cry. "Oh he's adorable, I want him, can we get him, please?" When I try to wrestle the toy from Blaine's arms, he tugs on my wrists and pulls me into a hug, Stitch trapped between us. He laughs in my ear and kisses my temple.

"Now who's the goober?" he chuckles, but he lets me go and gives me the toy to cuddle while we wander the shop some more.

I watch Blaine and the kids pick out a plastic dumpster truck set, and a fashion doll with two changes of clothes and a hair brush. Christmas is coming up, and we've decided to sponsor a low-income family through the homeless shelter. It's a program that happens every year, families that barely have enough money to eat, let alone buy presents for their kids, are registered at the shelter. Other families pick up a tag with the children's names and ages and what they'd like or need, buy and wrap the gifts, and then drop them off at the shelter to be sent out on Christmas. It's something I've been doing for several years now, and it makes me giddy that I've got a family of my own to share this with this year.

"Got everything?" I ask as my three boys finally meander back to the front of the store where I stand with my Stitch plush.

Blaine nods happily, dumps the basket of toys at the register. I let Micah and Luca take turns carrying Stitch, who stands only a few inches shorter than them, to the clothing store. Here I grab a couple packs of basic t-shirts, using the twins to gauge how big they should be. The family we're sponsoring has a little boy a year younger than our boys, so I grab one pack in the size they are now, and another one size smaller, to hopefully last the kid a while. They also have a three-year-old girl, so I guess at her sizes and add a pack of colorful long-sleeve t-shirts alongside a pack of plain ones to our cart. A couple of comfy zip-up sweaters, one size too big for them to grow into, and we're done.

"Now we get to go home and wrap these up," I tell the boys as I pay for the clothes and take the bags from the cashier.

"With the shiny paper?" Luca asks, bouncing a little ways ahead of us before he's scooped up by Blaine.

"With the shiny paper, yes," Blaine agrees, taking a few bags in his free hand so I can take Stitch from Micah and lead him across the parking lot.

Home.

I'd moved into Blaine's apartment with the boys over the summer. It wasn't much of a discussion- my place was smaller, and trying to move with two kids was just asking for stress. So I let my lease run out, packed it all up and hauled box after box over to the Anderson home, where I would have bothered unpacking if Blaine hadn't decided on something a little more adventurous.

"I want to buy a house," he'd said, stuttered it out over breakfast one morning when I'd been trying to find the will to wake up in my cup of coffee, the twins still sleeping.

"Hmm?" I'd replied, hunched over my mug, letting the steam carry the bitter scent of the drink across my face.

"I want a house," he'd repeated, more energetic this time, and it made me more alert. "I want a yard and a porch, a place that's all our own where the boys can spread out and grow up, and maybe..." here he'd paused, "and maybe someplace we could have a baby together."

We'd talked about it, absolutely. I want a family. A big one. I adore the twins, they've become just as much mine as Blaine's, and there's nothing I'm more sure of in this world than the fact that Blaine and I are going to grow old together. I've known it for over a year now, since our very first 'I love you's.

Of course, I'd said yes.

The house hunting is on the back burner for now, until after Christmas. We've set up some appointments the first week of the New Year, and I'm itching to go and see them. My head spins with colors and patterns and wood floors and carpets daily. But for now, I am content.

"Shoes off, please," I remind the boys, all three of them, when they make to walk straight into the apartment and track dirty snow slush all over the wood floors.

Blaine grins while he knocks his shoes off in the entryway and lines them up next to mine, looking at them sitting side-by-side fondly. Without a word he snags my coat from my shoulders and hangs it up in the front closet, placing his directly beside it, and the boys' on either side. He's been very enthusiastic about incorporating my belongings into his, and pouts when I remind him there's no point in me fully unpacking if we're just going to be moving in a month.

We herd the boys into the living room, push the coffee table to the side a bit and drag out all of our Christmas present wrapping supplies. The boys are adamant that they wrap the toys themselves, so with each of us hovering over them, we manage to produce two, slightly-lumpy, excessively-taped presents with a lopsided bow on each. Blaine and I quickly put the shirts and sweaters into two gift bags and pile in the tissue paper, making them look as festive and neat as we possibly can. No doubt these kids' parents will be working over the holiday, so this may very well be the only bit of Christmas they'll get.

As a final touch to both our own holiday and the family we're sponsoring's, I pull out some bowls and spoons in the kitchen and set us all to work on gingerbread, cinnamon spice, chocolate, and peppermint cookies. A small baggie with a couple of each go into the gift bags, ready to be dropped off at the Center tomorrow.

The boys go down for their nap, and I'm feeling the need for one, as well, so I take up my Stitch and bring him to the bedroom with me, stripping down to boxers and t-shirt and cuddling up with him under the covers.

"Should I be jealous?" Blaine asks on a laugh from the doorway. I only hum in response. "Sleepy time?" he observes, and at my nod he strips down as well and climbs in behind me, arms gripping around my waist in that comfortable way I've come to associate with home.

"Thank you," I tell him, wriggling backwards against his chest to press as much of me against as much of him as I can. He tucks his legs between mine and squeezes me gently around the middle. I smile and nuzzle happily into Stitch.

"For what?" he asks softly, and I can feel his breath rustling my hair.

"For you," I reply, and fall asleep to the feel of his lips against my neck and his murmur of, 'Always'.

This is the fourth house we've looked at today.

The holidays have passed in a rush. It had been my second Christmas with the Andersons, but my first after I'd started living with them. Just as the year before, no place in all of Maine felt warmer than that couch in that living room, Blaine curled into my side and a boy on each of our laps, watching Christmas movies with snow falling steadily past the windows.

I glance down at my hand as our realtor walks us into yet another home. It looks different. It feels different. I'm not yet used to the small additional weight of the ring, simple in design but beautiful and complex in sentiment. Such a cliché, to be engaged on Christmas, but I stopped caring the moment Blaine knelt in front of me, the boys clapping excitedly from the couch.

"It's a little dark," I hear Blaine say, and snap out of my reverie to take a cursory look around the place.

It is dark; every wall and floor is made of the same wood, pillars and counters clutter it up, and the raised, exposed-beam ceiling just makes it look unfinished as opposed to rustic. Still, we stick it out, let her say her piece, then shake our heads and move on to the next one.

"This is getting ridiculous," I mutter, strapping into the passenger seat of our car, getting ready to follow the realtor to the last place she's got lined up today. If this one doesn't pan out, we're going to have to start all over.

Blaine pats my knee, pulls into the street behind the little blue car.

"We will find something, Sweetheart," he states, giving my knee a little shake to drive it home. "Give it time."

I grumble, "I don't want to give it time, I want to be living with you and the boys in a proper house right now." I know I'm being petulant; it must hardly be attractive on a nearly-thirty-year-old, but Blaine just chuckles and glances quickly at me.

"You're adorable," is all he says, and I can't help the grin.

We pull into the drive and I immediately perk up. It looks big, and it has a porch; two-car garage and what looks like a two-story open foyer. Fingers crossed, and one hand held tightly in my fiancé's, I push open the front door and gasp.

It's perfect.

It looks freshly redone, each wall painted a dark grey-green but all the accents are white, which keep it from looking dismal. The floors are all dark tile and rich brown hardwood, large windows let in endless sunlight and the upper landing is exposed to the foyer. My heart's somewhere up near my tonsils as we're led into the kitchen, and I nearly faint; double-stacked ovens, a breakfast island with bar stools, and a pantry big enough to house a small family, all with plenty of room for two grown men and their children to spend an afternoon baking without crashing into each other. Directly opposite sits the living room, and part of me wonders why we're still standing here, where are the trucks, why aren't we moving?

"There are four bedrooms upstairs, would you like to see?" we're asked, and both of us nod fervently.

"Blaine, it's perfect," I breathe at the second bedroom. I'm too busy picturing a crib and gauzy white curtains, stuffed animals piled in a corner near a rocking chair with colorful books on shelves, to notice that Blaine's already asking for all the proper papers.

One year later...

There must be something in our genes, I think, holding my daughter close to my chest while her twin brother is being cuddled and fed by Blaine.

Cooper is with Luca and Micah at the house, the three of them eagerly waiting for us to bring home the newborns from the hospital. There had been very little discussion on the possibility of having more children; whatever discussion there had been, it was always about how we were going to have these other children. Blaine desperately wanted me to father a baby through surrogacy. Part of it was the fact that I have no living family, that there's no one left to pass on the Hummel blood. But another part, and, I think, the greater part, was the fact that whenever Blaine had described the kind of children I might produce, he would always get this absolutely smitten look on his face, often losing himself entirely in imagining small versions of me running around the house.

A testament to Blaine's persuasive qualities- damn writers, damn them all- here I stand ten months after we'd decided I'd be the father, nine months after we'd found a suitable surrogate, and eight months since she'd successfully conceived.

They'd been born prematurely, but healthy; they're receiving oxygen to help their lungs along for right now, but they'll be coming home with us tomorrow. Our surrogate, a young mother of her own daughter, is recovering in a separate room. She'd needed the money, nothing more, and while her pregnancy had been a little awkward and standoffish for the three of us, we are more than grateful to her.

"How's he doing?" I ask Blaine softly, gently rocking Jodi in my arms, bouncing a little on the spot and watching her yawn.

"He's just fine," he replies, lifting the small bottle from Morgan's mouth, frighteningly tiny fingers reaching out to grab weakly at it. Blaine chuckles and lets him suck at it some more until he's finished, then oh-so-slowly lifts him up against a broad shoulder and taps Morgan's little back.

There's a stirring in my gut, watching Blaine and the baby; I've loved this man for over two years now, and somehow he always manages to top himself. When I think I can't possibly love him more, all it takes is him burping our newborn child and I feel a little lightheaded with it. It had happened at our wedding, as well, and our engagement before that. It had happened the first time Luca called me 'Papa', and then right after when Micah had said the same. The day we added that hyphen to our names, and the boys sat at the kitchen table practicing writing 'Hummel-Anderson' over and over to show their first grade teacher.

Tell me we'll never get used to it...

EPILOGUE- Three years later...

"Daddy, you promised!" Jodi shouts from her bed, all pinks and whites, hearts on every surface. She sits with one stubborn thumb in her mouth, shoulder-length chestnut hair pulled back into a ponytail and gym shorts and a t-shirt serving as her nightclothes as she refuses to wear anything else to bed.

Across the room, Morgan, beneath quiet grey sheets and deep burgundy comforter, leaning against pillows patterned in geometric black shapes, sits silently, eyes wide and observant, taking in everything.

This set of twins couldn't possibly have more startlingly dichotomic personalities if they tried. Jodi can be quite loud, demands attention wherever she goes, and often directs play dates. She's sporty, loves to run and get dirty with her big brothers, and wrestles with the best of them. Morgan spends a lot of his time with Blaine, sitting in the living room or den and just watching him write endless words. He's been able to read for nearly a year now, simple books with lots of pictures, but he often pulls heavy tomes from the bottom shelves of the bookcase and stares at them as if he can understand just by sheer force of will.

Luca and Micah have taken to being big brothers effortlessly. At nine, neither of them stands quite at average height, Luca even less so because of his early childhood illness, and Blaine's jokingly apologized to them for passing on his own lack of stature. They take their younger siblings to parks and to libraries with very little encouragement from their parents, and enjoy teaching them new things.

"What did I promise?" Blaine calls back. He knows the answer, of course he does, but in this house we take every opportunity to teach Jodi a little patience.

"To read!" she exclaims, half out of bed already, probably to storm into the living room and demand her bedtime reading.

"Daddy will be here in a minute," I tell her, ushering back into bed completely and tucking her in. I feel a tug on the leg of my jeans and turn to see Morgan standing behind me, arms upstretched. I scoop him up and plant him on a hip, nuzzle my nose into his soft, light-brown hair. Both twins have my exact hair color, but Jodi's is a little coarser. Her eyes are greener, as well, and Morgan's are entirely steel-grey. It had been a startling color at first, to see it in a baby, but it suits him now.

"Here I am," Blaine announces, stepping onto the soft pink carpet- a color they'd agreed on immediately- of their room and waving around my old, horribly tattered copy of his first book of poems. Luca and Micah follow behind him, jumping up to sit cross-legged at the end of Jodi's bed.

Blaine crawls right up next to Jodi and she leans into his side. I carry Morgan with me and sit on his other side, adjusting the small toddler in my lap until we're all comfortable.

"Which one?" he asks the assembled children, opening the book and smiling at the way the tape along the spine crackles in protest.

The poems aren't happy. They are vivid and chaotic, written during hypergraphic episodes that left Blaine powerless against the deluge of emotion and words at a time when hopelessness happened just as often as happiness. But the kids enjoy listening to them. They understand the words but not the meanings; they listen to hear Blaine speak and to be that much closer to him.

Sometimes he recites his poems to me in the earliest hours of the morning, tracing them into sweaty skin and breathing them into my pores.

"The one about the light," Morgan offers, his voice so quiet, yet high and clear. Blaine is convinced he'll be a countertenor like me, but he gets shy when we try and get him to sing.

"Alright," Blaine nods, flipping to the proper page and settling back more comfortably. I lean my head onto his shoulder, and he reaches out with his free hand to grip my knee in that instantly grounding way he always has.

He clears his throat, and speaks:

"Sunlight pouring across your skin, your shadow

flat on the wall.

The dawn was breaking the bones of your heart like twigs.

You had not expected this,

the bedroom gone white, the astronomical light,

pummeling you in a stream of fists.

You raised your hand to your face as if

to hide it, the pink fingers gone gold as the light

streamed straight to the bone,

as if you were the small room closed in glass

with every speck of dust illuminated.

The light is no mystery,

the mystery is that there is something to keep the light

from passing through."