How Kurt Hummel Found a Baby, Fell in Love, and (Almost) Failed His Vocal Exam

I. Special Delivery

"Late, late, I am so effing late!"

Kurt Hummel skidded through the hanging partitions of his bedroom, wide-eyed and panic-stricken, a very stylish slim-fitted vest hanging off one shoulder and a toothbrush poking out the corner of his mouth. Outside his Bushwick loft window blew a blustery, gray morning; typical for the winter season in New York, and a perfect backdrop to the scene of unbridled terror that was waking up a mere fifty-five minutes before the most important vocal exam of the semester.

"Carmen Tibideaux is going to feed my vocal cords to her terrier if I'm even a minute late," Kurt rambled to himself, his speech slightly garbled due to the toothbrush still in his mouth. Hurling himself in front of the hanging mirror next to the loft door, he fumbled with the tie slung haphazardly around his neck, his fingers clumsy and stiff with nerves.

Of all the days to sleep in, it had to be this one. The end of Kurt's second semester at NYADA, the prestigious performing arts school, was coming to a close, his last (and, as unlucky happenstance would have it, scariest) exam scheduled for early that morning. It was a test Kurt had been spending the better part of two months preparing for; a vocal exam that, if performed well, would land him in the top and most coveted of Dean Tibideaux's performance courses for the rest of his schooling career. It would be the break Kurt had been yearning for since he had discovered his passion for the spotlight. A position in Carmen Tibideaux's advanced class meant first pick for all future Winter Showcases and Spring Recitals; it meant being placed on audition lists and rubbing elbows with big Broadway names; it meant gaining recognition of being one of the most talented, the most promising, most elite students attending the New York Academy for the Dramatic Arts. Acing this exam would not just open doors for Kurt: it would blast down the entire wall. It would be a step that much closer to his lifelong dream of seeing his name in lights – a dream that was now dangerously close to never coming true, all because he had woken up late.

So late, in fact, that he had had to forgo his entire morning routine, a sacrifice he knew would wreak absolute havoc on his pores later. But it was too late for him to worry about it now. There had barely been enough time for him to dress, much less shower and cleanse; he could forget about grabbing a bagel to munch on the train, as those precious few seconds had already been used up trying to find an appropriate "please don't flunk me" tie which, hello, priority; and all that did not even begin to encompass the travesty that was his hair …

Which Kurt had only now just seen. "Oh my god, I look like an electrocuted hedgehog." With a grimace, he abandoned the tie and fruitlessly tried to arrange his hair into a more presentable mess. Half-dead woodland creature was a difficult look to pull off, one that required eye-liner and very specific shoe wear, two things for which Kurt had absolutely no time for.

Glancing over to the kitchen clock, Kurt caught the time and swore. Forty-seven minutes until his test, and the NYADA campus was twenty-two miles from the loft. If Kurt didn't leave soon, it was going to take a miracle for him to get to school in time to warm up properly.

A final swipe to his hair, and Kurt was now frantically searching for his coat. "I swear to all that is holy I will throw myself in front of a bus before I flunk out of the school of my dreams," he told himself, his voice going shrill and his words accelerating as his nerves continued to grow. "God I'm going to wind up the most fashionable street-busking hobo in New York, all because of that one last Project Runway episode I just had to watch last night, and – you!"

One of Kurt's roommates had emerged from her own curtained-off portion of the apartment, looking infuriatingly put together in her work uniform and flats, the very picture of well-rested. She paused on her way to the kitchen and raised a sculpted eyebrow when Kurt jabbed his toothbrush at her. "I know you're the one who turned off my alarm last night, Satan, and I want you to know that retribution will be swift and dire."

Santana Lopez looked remarkably unconcerned by Kurt's threat. "Oh please, Hummel," she yawned, stretching her arms above her head and winking salaciously when her girlfriend, who had followed her from the bedroom wearing an identical outfit, gave an appreciative wolf-whistle at the display. "I was doing us all a favor. Obviously you could use the sleep, I mean, I'm sure by now Google Earth has an entire satellite dedicated to honing in on the puffiness under your eyes –" Kurt sucked in a horrified breath and scrambled back to the mirror – "and if I'm being frank with you, Kurt, which I know you appreciate, since you're constantly up my ass about 'open communication'," she emphasized, air-quotes and all, "and 'keeping the peace for the sake of the loft', and of reminding me just how reluctant you were to even let me move in here in the first place …"

Worst decision of his life, Kurt thought wrathfully to himself, pressing and pulling at the skin above his nose and shooting a glare at his roommate's reflection. Subjecting himself to high doses of the same girl who spent the entirety of their high school career chanting "pear hips" whenever he walked past, just so he could dedicate more money to his scarf budget, had been a definite low point; right up there with drinking rubbing alcohol, and wearing those silver Lady Gaga heels to public school.

"… But if I had to wake up one more morning listening to the sound of your sordid and disturbing mating call –"

Kurt whirled back around to face her. "'Good Morning, Good Morning,' is a seminal classic, how dare you imply otherwise you uncultured she-devil …"

"– then I would be forced to go on a murderous rampage and bludgeon all the furry little rodents taking residence in this city," Santana continued blithely, acting as though Kurt had not spoken at all. Her gaze rose a few inches, and she smirked. "Starting with the family of voles that's clearly building a nest in your hair."

Kurt was going to end her. After he inevitably failed his exam and flunked out of NYADA, he was going to come home, eat an obscene amount of Chunky Monkey, then throw Santana off the fire escape and feed her non-synthetic remains to Carmen Tibideaux's dog. He was going to run gleefully through the streets, her extensions streaming behind him like a banner of triumph. He was –

"I think what she's trying to say," Santana's girlfriend Dani stepped in; clearly she had identified the look in Kurt's eye as I am going to bleed the life from your girlfriend and do it very very slowly, and was trying to diffuse the tension; "is that she's sorry for touching your alarm, she'll never do it again, and break a leg with your test, because she's sure you'll do great. Right, Santana?"

Kurt and Santana both rolled their eyes and scoffed, because chyeah, right – but Dani had crossed her arms and was now gazing pointedly at her girlfriend. Kurt had to give her props; for a cute little blonde guitar player she sure knew how to stare someone down. Apparently even Santana "Lima Heights Adjacent" Lopez was not wholly immune, for it only took a few seconds of feigned interest in her nails before Santana finally rolled her eyes again, muttered, "Yeah, sure, whatever," and made a retreat into the kitchen.

"I'm not done with you yet, Lopez!" Kurt hollered after her, to which she responded testily, "Like you could even begin to handle all this!"

Fuming, but pressed for time and acutely aware of the fact, Kurt located his coat, flung his bag over his shoulder, and hastened to the door. "I know some nice, wholesome girls who'd be interested in getting your number," he told Dani, making sure his voice carried when he added, "In case the smell of brimstone ever gets to be too much!"

Santana yelled back something vulgar in Spanish.

"I mean it, Santana!" he said, as Dani smiled and winked at him before following after her girlfriend. "We're not done with this conversation." He unlatched the large, sliding metal door and glanced back over his shoulder just in time to catch Santana flipping an unconcerned hand in his direction. "When Rachel gets back from Ohio we are all going to sit down and have a very serious discussion about the importance of not being a callous, self-centered harpy and going into our roommates' private, sectioned-off areaahhhs!"

There was the sound of breaking dishes behind him, as well as some very creative cursing followed by an aggravated, "What the hell, Hummel?" but Kurt didn't respond. He was too busy staring blankly down at the thing he had nearly tripped over on his way out the door.

His press for time momentarily forgotten, it took Kurt a few seconds to realize what precisely it was he was looking at. When it finally clicked, his mouth slowly dropped open.

Santana appeared beside him, shoulders vibrating with her irritation. "I swear Hummel, there had better be an amazing pair of boobs jiggling around out here somewhere, because I can't think of anything else that would warrant such a terrified, ear-splitting screech from you." She glanced up and down the hallway and, when no spectacular rack presented itself to her, scowled. "Figures. Well, you can do the honors and inform Berry of her broken teapot when she comes home, because I sure as hell am not subjecting myself to …" She trailed off as her eyes caught sight of the object lying innocuously at Kurt's feet. Her expression was as blank as Kurt's when she asked, "What the hell is that?"

"That," Kurt breathed, eyes wide, his bag strap clutched tightly in hand, "is a baby."

Or at least, that's what Kurt thought it was. It was hard to tell what precisely the white-and-pink car carrier actually contained; for all Kurt saw, it could be nothing more than a pile of fuzzy, white blankets.

There was a moment of silence as Santana slowly absorbed the situation. "I can see that it's a baby," she said slowly, her eyes narrowing with suspicion as she peered up and down the hallway again, as though expecting the perpetrating baby-abandoner to jump out unexpectedly and reclaim it. She looked back down at the carrier distrustfully. "What I want to know is why it's on our doorstep."

"Maybe it was left at the wrong apartment?" Kurt suggested, though he seriously doubted that to be the case, considering their neighbors consisted of an eighty-year-old cat hoarder on one side, and what Kurt strongly suspected to be a meth lab across the hall. "Or maybe it's not even a baby. Maybe it's a practical joke. Oh my god." His eyes went wide as the thought occurred to him, and he grasped Santana's wrist in sudden excitement. "What if we're being Punk'd?"

They stared at each other for a beat, then glanced up and down the hall again, this time searching for any potential hidden cameras.

"I think we're too poor to be Punk'd," said Santana, when no good-looking celebrity host was forthcoming. Kurt had to agree, as disappointing as the prospect was.

The pile of blankets moved. Kurt and Santana both took a hasty step back.

"It moved, it moved!" Kurt winced both at the shrillness in Santana's voice so close to his ear, and at the half-inch nails now digging painfully into his forearm. Santana was staring down at the baby carrier, wide-eyed and wary. The blankets moved again, and she jumped, clutching Kurt's arm even tighter. "Jesus, Hummel, do something!"

Kurt stared at Santana, bewildered. "What d'you want me to do, sing at it?"

"I don't know!" Santana was flapping her hand at him again, a habit she had that irritated Kurt on almost a primal level. "You're the maternal one here, I figured it was ingrained into your ovaries or something …"

Kurt cut her a look. "Watch it, Lopez."

"I'm just saying …"

"What's going on out here?" The voice came unexpectedly from behind them and, though they would vehemently deny it later, Kurt and Santana both grabbed each other and shrieked.

This was a mistake. Before either of them could calm their hearts long enough to stammer out a response to Dani's question (who had heard Santana's earlier yell, and decided to investigate), there came a low, burbling cry from the baby carrier. Dani, who had been watching the two roommates in both amusement and mild concern, looked down. She frowned.

"Is that a baby?"

Kurt and Santana glanced at each other before Kurt answered, "We were just discussing the possibility of it being a reality television gag, actually."

"Whose is it?" Dani asked, her frown deepening as the pitiful whimpers and gurgles grew louder.

"Well," Sanatana began slowly, and Kurt noticed her side-eyeing him, "three people live here, and as many doubts as I've had about Berry and her man hands, I don't actually think she's capable of impregnating anybody, so that leaves …"

Kurt knew what she was implying immediately, and he bristled with indignation. "Don't look at me like that," he snapped at her, nearly spluttering in his outrage. "In case you forgot, I'm the only one here who doesn't actually have sex with women!"

Or at all, if truth be told, but he sure as hell wasn't about to admit that.

By now the whimpers had turned into full-blown cries. High, trembling wails filled the hallway as the blankets moved around fitfully. A tiny, mitten-covered fist popped up from the carrier and waved around; Kurt and Santana reared away from it, clutching at each other's shoulders.

Looking thoroughly amused, and also a little embarrassed on their behalf, Dani pushed past them and knelt down next to the carrier.

"What're you –?" Santana stared at her girlfriend's back, her expression as amazed as it was horrified.

"Well, you two weren't about to do anything," Dani shot over her shoulder, "and I couldn't just let her keep crying. Could I, sweetie?" She cooed as her hands reached into the baby carrier and lifted a pink, squirming bundle from its depths. She stood up, cradling the baby carefully in her arms, her earlier frown smoothing out into a warm, gentle smile.

"Hello there, pretty girl. What're you doing in such a big city all by yourself, hmm? Where's your mama?" Dani walked the baby, who had quieted significantly after being picked up, over to Kurt and Santana for a closer look. Kurt peered down at the tiny red face – almost completely obscured due to the pink bunting bag the baby was encased in – and saw wide, watery blue eyes staring back up at him.

It was kind of cute, Kurt could admit. In a wrinkly, naked mole-rat sort of way.

"She can't be very old, she weighs barely anything," Dani was saying, hefting the baby up and down in her arms and letting out a laugh of delight when it gurgled up at her. Kurt and Santana watched in varying states of appalled as Dani smooshed her face up against the baby's, laughing again when a snowsuit-clad arm bopped her on the nose. "Oh my god, that's so precious. You can't be more than a few weeks old, can you, sweet pea? No you can't, no you can't!"

She was very clearly taken in. She looked positively giddy to be standing there holding a baby. Kurt pitied her immensely.

Dani looked over at him and Santana. "There's no note or baby bag or anything," she said. "Think we should call somebody?"

Santana stayed silent, as though her ability to speak had momentarily left her. The urge to ask whether the city offered abandoned baby pick-up was on the tip of Kurt's tongue, but he held back; he had the strongest suspicion that Dani would not appreciate him comparing the baby to an old mattress.

"Well, we have to do something, we can't just leave her in the hallway," Dani continued, when no other option was offered. She rocked the baby absent-mindedly, her hand patting its bottom comfortingly as she thought. "Is Child Protective Services open this early?"

"Hmm, probably," Kurt agreed distractedly, as he pulled out his phone and blanched at the time. Thirty-nine minutes and counting, Christ he was not wearing boots conducive to running. Shoving his phone back into his pocket, Kurt clapped his hands together. "Well! You two seem to have the hang of everything. You don't need little old me standing in the way, so I'm just gonna," he gesticulated vaguely down the hall, encouraging smile fixed firmly in place, "get out of your hair."

Santana, who had been standing unnaturally still ever since her girlfriend picked up the baby, in an instinctual pose one normally adopts after they have sensed imminent danger approaching, snapped out of her stupor at the sound of Kurt's clap. She narrowed her eyes at him. "Where do you think you're going?"

Kurt was slowly backing away from her, speaking stiffly through his smile: "I told you, I have my vocal exam."

But Santana shook her head at him. "I don't think so, Hummel," she said, grabbing the strap of Kurt's bag when he tried to make a break for it down the hallway, and yanking him back. "You've got to deal with the infant, because we –" she indicated herself and Dani – "have to be at the diner in half an hour."

Kurt's eyes widened. Him, left with the baby? On his own? "Oh no. No, no, no, you are not dumping the kid on me, Santana Lopez. It's not my fault it was left on our doorstep!"

Santana's hands migrated to her hips, her expression stony. Danger, Will Robinson. "So it's automatically my problem because, what? I have a vagina?"

Kurt suppressed a shudder. Every conversation with her it never failed, Kurt swore he knew enough about female genitals by this point he could teach a gynecology class. "God, Santana, not everything is about your vagina, you can be so … no, you know what, forget it." He folded his arms, one hand cupping his elbow, the other pinching the bridge of his nose. He could practically hear the clock ticking his future away; his patience was non-existent at this point.

"I don't have time to argue with you right now," he told her, still rubbing wearily between his eyes, "just like I don't have time to call and then wait however long it takes for social services to show up. I have the most important vocal test of my life happening in thirty-five minutes; if I miss it, I might as well fly back to Ohio tonight, because my dreams will be ruined forever!"

Santana crossed her arms, staunchly unmoved. "And we'll be forced onto the streets, after Gunther fires us and we don't have enough money to pay rent."

Kurt sighed expressively to the ceiling. "Why can't you just take it with you?"

"Are you kidding me?" Santana scoffed. "You know Gunther, I bring the kid in with me and it'll end up sold on the black market, just like my yeast-i-stat!"

That was a very valid point. "Well, just – just drop it off at a police station on your way into work, then …"

Santana actually snorted at him. "Yeah, right. Like I'm going to willingly walk into a police station after that incident with the Salvation Army Santa last month."

Of course, how could Kurt forget he was living with a fugitive? God, why did he ever agree to room with girls; they were all freaking nuts. "I don't have the time, Santana, you take it –"

"No, you take it –!"

"Could you both stop calling her an 'it'?" Dani interjected, sounding exasperated as she watched Kurt and Santana argue back and forth, their arms crossed, standing so close together their noses nearly touched. "Seriously, she's a baby, not a child-eating clown."

"Huh?" Sufficiently distracted from their glowering contest, Kurt and Santana both looked over in time to watch Dani's expression turn decidedly soppy as she smiled down at the baby in her arms and sighed, "Personally I think she looks like a 'Delilah' …"

In all his years of knowing her, Kurt had never seen Santana move so quickly. "Okay, darling," she said, and the calmness in her tone was belied by the way she all but snatched the baby out of Dani's hands. The smile she wore looked almost painful. "That's enough baby-lesbian bonding for one day. Here you go, Hummel –" Santana pushed the pink bundle forcibly into Kurt's arms, who protested wildly even as he awkwardly cupped the baby to his shoulder. "As much fun as playing Three Gays and a Baby has been, we've gots to go."

"What – but I … Santana, you can't just –!" Kurt watched, helpless, as Santana grabbed Dani's arm and hauled her down the hallway, parting with a smug, "Finders Keepers, Hummel. You found it, you deal with it!"

"That does not apply to this situation and you know it, Santana!" Kurt yelled furiously after her retreating figure, which she ignored. "You didn't even grab your coat, you coward!" Still nothing. Kurt scowled. "Your ass looks humungous in that skirt, and not in a good way!" Santana flipped him off without looking back.

"But I've never even held a baby before!" he called out desperately, but it was no use. The two girls disappeared into the elevator at the end of the hall, Dani calling out a helpful "Just make sure you support her neck!" before the doors clanged shut between them.

Kurt stood rooted to the spot, gaping after the girls, shock buzzing faintly in his ears. They left him. They actually just left him. Him, Kurt Hummel, a guy whose only interaction with young children had been with a second cousin's four-month-old mouth-breather, who had taken one look at Kurt and immediately hollered his bald little head off. It was like a sixth sense they had about him; babies didn't like Kurt, which suited him just fine, since he personally had never seen the appeal of screaming, kicking, orifice-oozing, silk-shirt ruining mini-humans anyway.

But how hard could it be? It wasn't like he was making a lifelong commitmentor anything. Hell, he'd seen the movies. All he had to do, really, was make sure it – she – didn't roll down a hill or get eaten by a troll or something before he managed to hand her over to the proper authorities. He didn't have to worry about – about diaper rashes, or choking hazards, or genetically mutated baby food or whatever the hell else it was that parents were constantly freaking over and writing books about.

"I can do this," he said to himself, and he could. He was Kurt Hummel. He flourished in high-stress situations. He graduated from McKinley High School and lived to tell the tale. He studied theater and watched Bravo TV. Hell, his best friend was Rachel Berry. He lived for this sort of dramatic plot twist. If he could handle a Berry Gold Star Meltdown the same week as a PMS'ing Santana (which he had, on three memorable occasions), then he could handle this.

There was no need to panic, he reminded himself firmly. It was simple. He just needed to find the nearest police station, drop her off, and then book it to campus. How far out of his way could it be, really? This was Bushwick, for Christ's sake. A simple Google search would point him in the right direction, and then he could …

But wait. What if he looked suspicious? What if they asked questions? What if they detained him? What if – Good God, what if they put him in one of those garish orange jumpsuits and shipped him off to Sing Sing? Was that a thing that still happened? Would they suspect him of being the culprit baby-abandoner? Would he be allowed his one phone call? What if he wasn't allowed his one phone call?

Could they even arrest him if they thought he was the father? God, it figures the one time the stereotype would actually work in his favor, and it had to be on the day he looked one popped collar away from captaining a lacrosse team.

As wrapped up as he was in his building anxiety, it took Kurt a few moments to notice that something was squirming against his shoulder. Once he realized the baby was starting to fuss again, his heart thudded uncomfortably against his Adam's Apple as his panic swelled.

"Oh no, no no, shh. Shh, please don't freak out," he said, fumbling his grip on the satiny fabric of the bunting bag as he maneuvered the baby into both hands, holding her at arm's length so he could properly see her. The baby's face was red; her eyes were squinched shut, her forehead wrinkled in obvious distress. Her lower lip trembled as she made tiny, pathetic little whimpers with each breath.

"Don't cry, don't cry, shhh, that's it." Kurt jiggled his arms up and down awkwardly, bouncing the baby stiffly, his elbows locked as he tried to settle her down without having any clue how to go about doing that. This, he imagined, was how people looked handling objects that had the tendency to explode unawares, and he was suddenly very thankful for anti-social neighbors who never seemed to leave their apartments, guaranteeing him no eye-witnesses to his glaring incompetence.

"There we go, you like that, right? Oh, please don't freak out on me," he begged, when her lip gave a particularly tremulous wobble. "Because I'm a sympathetic crier, so if you get hysterical then I'll get hysterical, which will probably make you even more hysterical, which will just turn this into a vicious never-ending circle of tears –"

Kurt cut himself off abruptly. He was trying to reason with an infant. He seriously needed to get out more.

On the plus side, it seemed to have worked. The whimpering was subsiding. Kurt breathed a sigh of relief as the baby's face gradually relaxed, blue eyes slowly blinking open to fix steadily with his own. For a while they stood like that, alone in the empty hallway. Staring at each other, silently sizing the other one up.

"This isn't so bad," Kurt murmured to himself, at the exact same moment the baby's head did an alarming wobble and tipped ungainly forward. "Holy, Mary Mother of –!"

So that's what Dani meant about supporting her neck. Good to know.

Shit, he was so screwed.