Blaine breathes in sharply, his hands gripping the armrests of the chair he sits in tightly, as yet another contraction rips through him. The clipboard on his lap falls to the ground and the woman sitting behind the desk in front of him smiles at him sympathetically, leaving her post to pick up the fallen item and sit next to him.

"You're sure you don't have anyone to come and help you, hun?"

Blaine whimpers through clenched teeth, brow furrowed as he shakes his head.

"No, I don't. My parents are out of town and they aren't picking up their phones. I'm not due until next week, I don't – something's wrong, right? It has to be, I –"

The woman – Laura, her name tag reads – lays a comforting hand on his knee and speaks softly to him, her eyes reassuring and calm.

"Honey, it's going to be okay. Nothing's wrong, I promise you. Those due dates aren't a definite thing you know."

Blaine nods at her, closes his eyes briefly and leans back into his chair. He still has to fill out the rest of his paperwork and be evaluated to see if he can be admitted or not and he really, really doesn't want to do this by himself.

He's not sure how he's going to be able to give his baby up after she's born with his parents absent. Who is going to shield him from looking at her, or hold tight to him when he hears her cry?

Laura sits with him and helps him through his paperwork, holds his hand patiently when he gasps in pain and discomfort, and then finally a wheelchair is being brought around the corner for him and a nurse takes over for Laura, wheeling him away to his room.

-

Blaine opens his door slowly, balancing a still crying and squirming Birdie in his arms.

Kurt's eyes are focused downwards as he types a message on his phone, but when he hears Birdie's cries – no longer muffled from behind the wooden door - his head shoots up, his eyes wide, mouth parted.

"Blaine... what – what is going on?"

Blaine bites his lip, averts his gaze and instead beckons Kurt inside with a quick wave of his hand. He needs a moment to gather himself, to figure out what he's going to tell Kurt, but first, he has to get Birdie to calm down enough to take her medicine.

He hears Kurt walk inside after a brief moment of hesitation, and then Kurt is quietly closing the door, leaning against the wall with a deep sigh.

"Blaine, is this – who is this, what is-"

"Just give me a minute, okay Kurt, please?"

Kurt's eyes are narrowed when Blaine looks at him, but after a moment Kurt nods, eyes flickering towards Birdie, who is finally getting too tired to continue her screaming.

"Could you pass me that bottle of cold medicine, please?" Blaine nods his head at the coffee table, the bottle of children's medicine sitting next to one of Blaine's textbooks.

Kurt hands Blaine the medicine quickly, eyes continuously darting between Blaine and Birdie.

Blaine thanks Kurt with a small smile, then he makes sure he has the appropriate amount of medicine in the stopper before he holds Birdie steady, coaxing her to drink the pink liquid and kissing her on her forehead when she manages to drink it all.

He sets the medicine down gently on the counter behind him and begins to rock Birdie gently in his arms, one hand resting protectively on the back of her head, the other rubbing circles on her back.

Kurt is silent throughout all of this, unnervingly so, and so Blaine finally breaks the silence, his voice soft and quiet when he speaks.

"Kurt, this is Birdie... my daughter."

Kurt nods, biting his lip and crossing his arms across his waist and replies in whisper. "I know, but I didn't – I couldn't, couldn't make myself ask. She um, she has your eyes – and your lips." He adds as an afterthought, a little laugh making its way into his words.

Blaine smiles at that, looking down at Birdie and sighing in relief when he see her eyes closed peacefully, mouth parted and breath escaping in small little puffs of air. Blaine bites his lip, his eyes watching Kurt from beneath long lashes and then he takes a breath, beckons Kurt to follow him down the hall.

He leads Kurt to Birdie's room, moving forward to lay Birdie down on her small bed. He glances back briefly to see Kurt leaning against the doorway of Birdie's room, looking around at the Wizard of Oz themed room with a grin tugging at his mouth before his gaze settles on Blaine.

Blaine gives Kurt a tight lipped smile, still nervous and unknowing about how Kurt is dealing with all of this, and he exhales in immense relief when Kurt returns his smile. He turns back to Birdie then, tucking her in and retrieving her stuffed dinosaur for her – 'Dino', she calls him, affectionately. He huffs out a laugh when she immediately latches onto the doll, snuffling in her sleep and scrunching her nose adorably – a habit she has that always reminds him of Kurt.

Pressing a kiss to her cheek, he whispers softly to her, "I love you, darling, sleep tight."

-

Blaine's body flops back down onto the bed, completely exhausted.

He stares up at the white ceiling, tears making their way down his cheeks as he listens to his daughter's first cries.

The nurses bustle quickly around him, and he closes his eyes tight, tries to clamp down the need to see his daughter, tries to block out the sounds of her whimpers.

But he just can't make himself ignore his daughter, and so when he opens his eyes he gasps, just in time for a nurse to carefully place his little girl in his arms.

Andoh, his daughter is so perfect, with her dark red hair and bleary brown eyes. Blaine holds her delicately in his arms, sniffling past his tears absentmindedly.

He trails a slightly shaky finger over her plump cheek, a choked up laugh escaping his mouth when her head turns, mouth open wide.

"You hungry, baby girl?" He asks in a whisper, his words only for her, for his precious little girl.

Hislittle girl,hisdaughter.

Blaine squeezes his eyes shut, a warm feeling settling in his belly. He knows now - knows that despite going through months of dealing with the fact that the daughter he was carrying was not his, would never be his - that he can never give her up.

A nurse comes up to him quietly, a small, standard hospital bottle in her hand, and Blaine takes it with a grateful smile. Feeding his daughter feels so natural, so effortless, and Blaine knows that his unconscious decision to keep her is right; everything about this feels soright.

"She's just darling, sweetheart. Does she have a name?" The nurse who brought him the bottle asks him, a motherly smile on her face.

Blaine sucks in a deep breath and gives her a watery smile, his thumb brushing circles over the blanket covering his daughter's small body.

"Birdie. Birdie Elizabeth Anderson."

-

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

The air is thick around them, the living room lit dimly with natural light. Blaine sits, exhausted, on one end of his old couch, Kurt on the opposite end, his body tense and rigid.

Kurt sighs, some of his tension leaving his body, and takes a sip from the cup of coffee he has in front of him before he answers Blaine.

"It's okay, Blaine. I mean – it was definitely unexpected and I wish that you would have trusted me enough to tell me about – about yourdaughter, but-"

"No, no Kurt that's not it – I do trust you, Ido, Kurt. But I was just... scared. You don't know how many times I opened my mouth to tell you about her, but my heart would just beat like crazy and my throat would close up and I – I just couldn't say it."

Kurt is silent then, his eyes conflicted as they stare down into his mug. His jaw is clenched tightly, and he struggles around silent words, swallowing several times past them, before he can speak again, Blaine biting his lip nervously as he waits for Kurt's words.

"This is... big, Blaine. I mean you have a kid! That you didn't tell me about! And while I understandwhy, I just – I need some time, okay? I just need – I need to let this sink in and then... then we can pick back up where we left off and – and move on."

An image of Kurt declining his offers of lunch, of Kurt rejecting his calls and forgetting about him – and Birdie – passes through Blaine's mind and he swallows heavily past sudden tears. He's not sure he can handle losing Kurt again – not after he just got him back into his life.

But he has to trust Kurt, has to push past his insecurities and his fear and trust that, this time, Kurt won't shut him out, won't push him out of his life.

So he stares down at the carpet, eyes focused on a spilled juice stain that he just couldn't get out, and he says, voice hoarse and hollow, "Okay. Whatever you need, Kurt."

Blaine doesn't look up when he hears Kurt move, and instead closes his burning, wet eyes and turns his face away, listens to the sound of the door closing with a heavy heart, his breath coming short and shaky.

He opens his eyes only when he hears a door creak slowly from down the hall, little pitter patter feet falls following after.

Birdie walks into the living room, rubbing her tired eyes, her cheeks flushed. She climbs into his lap with lazy limbs, cheek resting on his hand, her little fingers gripping his other hand tightly as she snuggles in.

And Blaine smiles down at her, shrugging his shoulder up to his face to hastily wipe his tears, and tugs his hand free to run his fingers through Birdie's long locks, laughing quietly when she leans her head into his hand, practically purring.

He doesn't know what Kurt will do, but he wishes more than anything that Kurt will stay in his life, that he won't cut off ties with Blaine, that one day Kurt will want to get to know Birdie, and maybe, one day, they can all be a family; him, Kurt, and Birdie.

Blaine can only hope, and wish, and dream.