Let's pretend Twitter is still a thing in 2020, okay? In Figgins's words, these things are here to stay.
Kurt was shaken awake by Blaine moving a lot behind him in bed. That wasn't unusual – in fact, Blaine woke up before him 90% of the days, the only exceptions being when he went to sleep late and was exhausted. But this time, Kurt's inner clock told him that it was way too early. He hadn't opened his eyes, but he could tell that the room was dark, meaning the summer sun hadn't come up yet, meaning that it was in fact way too early for his husband to be sitting up.
He was still half asleep, but he thought he heard Blaine saying something, only not to him. His brain figured it was a phone call, but who in hell would call at his hour? Then his heart skipped a beat and his eyes went wide when Blaine said, his voice growing, "She's… Now?"
Blaine's free hand touched Kurt's shoulder, as if intending to wake him up. However, now he was fully awake and was already sitting up as well. The look on Blaine's face said it all; it was time. The call was from Rachel, or Jesse, and this was happening right now.
It took a couple more sentences for the call to end, and then Blaine turned to him completely, his eyes already watery. He grabbed Kurt's hand and squeezed between both of his. "Kurt. Lenox Hill Hospital. She's coming."
"Okay," he breathed out, trying to control his rapidly increasing respiratory rate. "Okay. You grab the –"
"– nursing bag, and you get –"
"– our clothes, yeah."
"Yeah," Blaine whispered, making those big, heart eyes of his, like he was feeling so much that he was about to explode. Kurt knew. Kurt understood. He was feeling the same. Before they could get up and start rushing around, Blaine grabbed his face and kissed him lovingly, as if to convey his endless emotions. It worked.
Kurt wasn't aware of much of anything, really, and at the same time he was too aware of everything. He did things on automatic. He tried to grab matching, comfortable outfits for the both of them, not sure if he succeeded, because his heart just wasn't on it. They changed in record time, rushing out of the door eight minutes after the end of the call, checking everything they were bringing twice.
The taxi driver wasn't any fun. He was probably very tired, as it was four o'clock in the morning, and he took them to the hospital in a very calm manner. Kurt's leg wouldn't stop bouncing. God, couldn't the man see that he had to be there, like, ten minutes ago? He made sure not to tip, and Blaine was already halfway out of the car to reprimand him about taking his frustration on innocent people. Not that Blaine would've cared about that right now, anyway.
From the moment they met with Jesse, time blurred even more to Kurt. He could only breathe because of Blaine's hand, always there grounding him, as Jesse told them he had good news and bad news. They immediately panicked.
"Oh, my God," Kurt said, eyes widening. "Did the umbilical cord lace around the baby's neck?"
Jesse frowned. "No, it's nothing like that."
Kurt breathed out in relief. "Jesus, Jesse, for God's sake, you can't scare us like that!"
He raised his hands in self-defense. "Hey, you took your own conclusion. I was going to say," he kept on talking before Kurt could argue longer, "that the good news is that the doctor said Rachel seems to be progressing quickly."
"And the bad news?" Blaine asked, turning Kurt's fingers white.
"They only let one person in there with her."
Kurt's breath caught. Of course, he had expected that. It was only rational that the hospital didn't allow childbirths to become family parties when everyone wanted to watch. But this was so unfair that they couldn't both be there, and Jesse as well, because that was his wife, and couldn't everyone see this was a special case?
But no, he couldn't ask to be treated any differently. He looked at Blaine, who had been searching for his eyes for a couple of seconds, and knew that there was no way he could go in without his husband. He was sure that his own eyes said Don't you dare move, because if you let go of me, I'm gonna lose control completely. And by the way Blaine was still cutting off his hand's circulation, he couldn't go in alone either. So they came to a conclusion after their silent conversation.
"You go," Kurt said, turning to Jesse. The man's jaw dropped, as if all out of all the answers he had been expecting, this was not one of them.
"It's not my daughter."
"But it is your wife," Blaine explained. "And… if we can't both be there… we're not splitting, we're doing this together. So you should go and hold her hand."
Jesse seemed as if he was about to argue, looking between the two men. He even opened his mouth to say something, but he apparently saw something in their eyes and closed it. Then he nodded and retreated to the corridor he had come from.
"Oh, my God," Kurt whispered, bringing Blaine's hand closer to his chest. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God."
"We should probably sit down," Blaine suggested. "Although I don't feel like I can be still right now."
However, they did resign themselves to a couch in the corridor, sitting close with their hands intertwined, and Kurt figured that it was the only thing keeping him sane. He only let go for a couple of minutes to call his father.
"'ello?" Burt's grumpy voice filtered through the phone when he picked up.
"Dad! Hey," Kurt tried to keep his voice down, as he was in a hospital corridor.
"Is everything okay? Did somethi–"
"Rachel's water broke, like, two hours ago. She's still in labor, and I'm completely freaking out."
"Oh, buddy," Burt sounded more awake. "You are at the hospital now?"
"Yeah. Blaine and I got here half an hour ago." Suddenly, Kurt's hand shook more violently than it had been steadily shaking ever since he'd woken up and he almost lost his grip on the phone. "I'm a bit overwhelmed."
"We've talked about this, Kurt. It's gonna be alright."
"What if I drop her the first time I hold her?" he asked, a bit despaired.
"You wouldn't let that happen."
"Dad! I almost dropped my phone five seconds ago."
Burt chuckled. "Why don't you just go back to your husband for now, huh? Knowing Blaine, he's freaking out as well."
"He is."
"So get back to him and stay with him, okay? Keep each other sane, and Carole and I will be flying out there today. Sound good?"
Kurt agreed and immediately went back to Blaine's side, this time holding firmly a cup of coffee Blaine handed to him, as if afraid that if his hands shook more and he dropped it that it would be a bad omen about the whole situation and that he was totally bound to drop his own daughter. He was wearing light blue socks, but he didn't doubt anything at the moment.
Finally, after almost five hours of never ending nerves and anticipation, a nurse came to point them to the room Rachel had been sent to. The sun was bright coming through the window, and Rachel seemed tired, sleepy, and overall exhausted as they approached her hospital bed. Kurt and Blaine took each side of her and held her hands. Jesse stood at the foot of bed.
"How are you? How are you feeling? Is everything okay?" Kurt fired questions at her.
"Do you need anything? We can get the nurse right away," Blaine completed, equally concerned.
Rachel laughed as much as she could manage. "I'm fine, I'm fine. You guys are sweet, but don't worry about me. They said they'll be bringing her in any time now, just after the shower."
Kurt wasn't sure if he could physically feel any more anxious than he already was, and then time and time again, as the minutes ticked by, he was proven wrong. While Blaine called his mom, Kurt pulled a big chair to Rachel's bedside and sat there holding her hand. Jesse brushed her hair back as he came to the other side of the bed and made sure she really was okay before smiling and just standing there. When Blaine came back, he sat on Kurt's armchair's armrest and held his shoulders, slowly and unconsciously massaging them.
It had probably been just a couple of minutes, which obviously felt like hours, and then a nurse was coming into the room holding a pink burrito of blankets. Kurt and Blaine immediately stood, and Rachel, with Jesse's help, sat up a bit more.
"Hey, she's here, clean and perfectly healthy," the nurse said, making her way to the bed. "Now mom can finally get to hold you properly."
"Oh, no, no!" Rachel exclaimed and glanced at her friends. "They should hold her first. It's their baby, really."
The nurse paused in her way to handing the pink burrito to Rachel and backed away. She came to the other side of the bed, where Kurt and Blaine stood, and handed it to them instead, with a smile on her face.
Blaine was closer, so he carefully took the baby from the nurse's arms and brought it close to him, moving so slowly as if he was afraid he would break her. Kurt stepped as close as he could and moved the blanket from the baby's face. He didn't know if the gasp came from him, his husband, or both.
"Kurt," Blaine said in a choked up voice.
Kurt ran his finger softly against his daughter's cheek as Blaine pushed the blanket a bit more away from her face, stroking her other cheek. "She's so perfect," Kurt whispered.
"She's gonna have your hair."
There was a moment of silence in the room. Or maybe people were talking, but Kurt really only had eyes, ears, hands, and attention to the little bubble that was his family. He could feel a tear on his cheek, but he made no move to wipe it. Blaine was slowly rocking the baby, holding her as close as possible.
"What's the name on the charts?" the nurse's voice interrupted his reverie.
"Um," Blaine sniffed and broke his intense gaze for half a second to glance at the nurse before focusing back on his daughter. "It's Tracy Anderson."
The nurse nodded and left, but Kurt didn't notice anything around him. His hand stroked the baby's hair, light brown and so soft, a tiny bit wet yet from the shower, and he used his other hand to steady himself on Blaine's waist. A few moments after, his husband turned to him, eyes tearful and a big smile on his face, and leaned in to give him a brief kiss.
"Here," he whispered to Kurt and handed Tracy over to him.
And, oh, okay. This was his daughter. His and Blaine's. They were gonna know this human being for the rest of their lives. They would raise her, take care of her, watch her grow up and live her life. And her life, by the way, was in their hands now. She was depended on them. And if that wasn't at least a bit scary, Kurt didn't know what was.
But then Blaine's hands were there, caressing his shoulder and Tracy's cheek, and he remembered that he wasn't alone and that they could do anything together. Besides, he already loved her beyond comprehensible words and he never wanted to let her out of his sight ever again. She was just so tiny and fragile.
He didn't know how much time he spent there looking at her, but at some point he snapped out of it and raised his head to see Rachel watching them with a sweet smile on her face. He felt so much love for her as well. She had always downplayed it, but pregnancy obviously wasn't an easy and simple thing to go through. And she had chosen to let them use her body for nine months, asking for nothing in return. Even now, she was looking at them and Tracy, only observing instead of reaching out to hold the baby she had just given birth to. Her hormones must have been crazy and telling her to grab her, but she looked just fine with watching.
Kurt glanced at Blaine and then back at the baby. He stepped towards the bed and handed her to Rachel, smiling. "Here. I know you want to."
"Oh, Kurt," she started, visibly touched, "you don't have to. I'm perfectly fine. She's your daughter – oh," she stopped when Kurt placed Tracy in her arms. Of course, he only let go when he was sure Rachel had a good grip and, gosh, he was going to be the overly concerned dad, wasn't he?
He felt Blaine's arm coming around his waist as he watched Rachel coo the baby in her arms, Jesse looking from the side and smiling just as much. They were Tracy's godparents, which had been decided a long time ago. It seemed only fitting since they'd been so kind and patient.
"Oh, my God, she's so tiny," Rachel exclaimed. "I can't believe it was so hard to push her out."
"Rachel," Jesse laughed. "Let's just focus on the adorableness."
"You say that because it wasn't you there." She looked up to Kurt and Blaine. "She's gonna be so loved. She's the first baby of our generation, you know, and that's pretty special." Rachel sniffed and chuckled, looking back at Tracy. "The glee kids are becoming parents."
"Mr. Schue is gonna feel old," Blaine commented.
Rachel raised her eyes to her friends again. "Little Tracy here is gonna be extremely fabulous, as she has both my and Kurt's genes and will be raised by NYC's most fabulous gay couple. She might explode of fabulousness."
Kurt felt Blaine's hand tighten on his waist before his husband said, as if he couldn't hold it in any longer, "God, can I hold her again?"
"You really don't have to ask," Rachel said as she handed Tracy over to him.
Blaine seemed to breathe in relief and he proceeded to cuddle his daughter against his chest again, careful not to squeeze her. He stepped back and sat on the armchair, smiling down like a fool, and it was probably the most adorable thing Kurt had ever seen. So he pulled out his phone and snapped a picture, immediately attaching it to a message to his father saying that everything had gone well. Then he put it as his phone's wallpaper before sitting on the armrest and resuming his loving stare.
Jesse went down to the cafeteria to grab them some snacks, and the four of them stayed in the room cooing over Tracy for hours. A nurse came in a couple of times to check on Rachel and the baby, saying that, since there hadn't been any complications, they would probably be good to go by the end of the afternoon.
Near lunch, they FaceTimed Pam, since she would only be able to fly out there in two days and couldn't wait to see her granddaughter. Cooper demanded pics from all angles, and then, after a couple of minutes, Kurt decided to check his Twitter to make sure there were no tweets about how he had the most perfect niece ever – those had been Kurt's strict orders. They didn't need Broadway and Hollywood press spreading it like wildfire yet and had already contacted their publicists.
Around three o'clock in the afternoon, there was a knock on the door, and Burt and Carole poked their heads in.
"She sleeping?" Burt asked in a low voice.
"The only two 'shes' in this room are," Kurt answered from his spot on the armchair. He and Blaine had been switching. "But it's okay. They're both fed and pretty tired."
Carole walked past Burt as Blaine got up to greet them and take their suitcases. She took her time saying hi to Jesse as well, but Burt, after giving his son-in-law an extremely tight hug, came straight to where Kurt was sitting. He got up and turned Tracy to him.
"There she is," Burt said. He would probably deny it, but he was already tearing up; Kurt could totally tell.
"Oh, she's so beautiful," Carole gasped as she came to stand by them.
"She really is," Blaine added, leaning against the bed.
"Gimme," Burt demanded, reaching out. Kurt chuckled and passed Tracy over to him, watching his father's heart melt in the most beautiful way. "She looks a hell lot like you, Kurt, when you were born."
"Oh, I seriously doubt that. She's absolutely perfect."
Burt didn't even get the chance to argue. Blaine got there first, reaching for Kurt's arm. "I don't see how she being perfect excludes her from looking like you," he said simply, pulling his husband to him. Kurt rolled his eyes at the cheesiness he not so secretly adored and accepted the kiss on the cheek before sitting on the bed next to where Blaine was leaned against, careful of Rachel's legs so he wouldn't disturb her.
The rest of the afternoon went by in a similar way. Tracy was passed from arm to arm until she woke up for the third time in her life, crying for food, again. Rachel was already awake, so that was quickly handled. The nurse came by a couple more times to do her checkups, but other than that they were not disturbed.
When finally, at six o' nine pm, after all paperwork had been filled concerning the discharge papers, the hospital bills, the birth certificate, and the document that stated Kurt and Blaine as her legal parents – the last two signed at a registry office nearby –, after grabbing all of their belongings and double checking they weren't forgetting the milk mix they were gonna need, all of them left the hospital.
Rachel and Jesse hugged them all goodbye, promising to visit the next day, and then hopped in a cab. Kurt, Blaine, Burt, Carole, and Tracy took another headed to the other side of Central Park, towards the Upper West Side. It was convenient, really, how Rachel and Jesse lived on the Upper East Side, and then the two couples could meet up in the Park, which they did a lot.
When they got home, Burt insisted on carrying the nursery bag that they had taken to the hospital, while Blaine carried their coats and Burt and Carole's suitcases, and Kurt took Tracy. Carole held the door open for them and said she was going to start on dinner, since they were all starving.
"Where should I put this?" Burt asked, shaking the bag he had on his shoulder.
"Ah, take those to her room upstairs," Kurt said. "Just leave it on the drawer. And Blaine, could you take the milk to the kitchen and grab that rest chair from the craft room?"
"Already on it." And, in fact, Blaine had already been heading to the kitchen before Kurt had addressed him.
"Why was the rest chair in the craft room?" Burt frowned.
Kurt smiled and looked down at Tracy in his arms. "Because I personalized her things by writing her name on them in cursive letter. I thought it'd be sweet."
Dinner didn't take long to be served. They put the baby's rest chair in a chair between Kurt and Blaine while Burt and Carole sat across from them. The TV buzzed softly in the background, and the conversation was mostly carried by Burt and Carole. The new parents were too distracted by Tracy to focus on anything else. In fact, they hadn't touched much of their food in favor of watching her sleep.
"Did I not put enough salt for you boys?" Carole asked with a teasing smile. "Because the salt shaker is right here."
Blaine's head shot up and his eyes widened. "No, no, God, your food is delicious as always. I –"
"Blaine, she's kidding," Kurt interrupted without taking his eyes off of his daughter as he stroked her little hand.
"You guys just have been staring a lot," Burt commented. Both of them blushed, Blaine ducking his head and smiling, and Kurt meeting his father's eyes.
"And I will continue to stare, as I am allowed to." And so Kurt did. Blaine decided to focus on his food, at least for a while, before he couldn't help but glance at Tracy again, letting a smile take over his face.
The rest of the evening followed in a similar manner until Burt sent them both to take a shower ("Not together. I know what you guys do, but I don't wanna hear it") so he could monopolize his granddaughter for a while, because he wasn't going to see her every day. Kurt was the first to emerge to the living room later.
"Where's Carole?" he asked as he took a seat next to his father, instinctively caressing Tracy's blanket burrito in Burt's arms.
"She just got up to take her own shower."
Kurt hummed and rested his head on his father's shoulder. They were silent for a moment, watching Tracy's relaxed face and her chest going up and down. Kurt found that he couldn't not touch her, so he reached to stroke her cheek.
"I'm really proud of you, you know," Burt broke the silence.
"Of Tracy?" Kurt asked, because Burt was looking at her.
"Kurt. Having her here is proof of how strong you have been to have gotten here," he shifted his gaze to his son, who looked at him as well. "It shows all those people who tried to put you down that it didn't work. That there's nothing wrong with this. Despite their efforts, you are in the city of your dreams with a successful job and a beautiful family."
"Dad…" Kurt could feel himself getting emotional for the hundredth time that day. Burt wasn't any better.
"That's all I ever wanted for you, okay? And I'm really glad I'm here to see it."
Kurt pursed his lips to hold back the tears and leaned on his father's shoulder again. They stayed there until Blaine and Carole came back from their showers, and everyone agreed that it was time to get some sleep. Burt handed Tracy over to Kurt as Carole said that, if they needed anything, they could call at any time of the night, before retreating to the guest room.
Blaine closed the door to their bedroom behind them and watched Kurt walk over to the crib they had put next to their bed, but he didn't let go of the baby yet. Blaine hugged him from behind and rested his chin on his shoulder.
"How long do you think until she wakes up?"
"Two hours or less, if you go by her eating hours," Kurt answered.
"Hmm." Blaine kissed his cheek and then Tracy's head, lingering in both, and carefully took her from his husband. He hugged her close for a moment before lowering her into the crib. Then he turned back to Kurt, who had been watching them with a tender smile on his face, and took his hand. "Come on; let's get some rest while we can."
They settled into bed, Kurt spooning Blaine from behind so they could both look at the crib. Blaine intertwined their fingers over his chest and snuggled backwards, sighing in contentment. They both felt very tired, but couldn't bring their eyes to close.
"Do we really stare too much?" Blaine whispered into the night.
"Yes. But I'm not planning on stopping."
"Me neither."
It took some time, but exhaustion won over and they finally closed their eyes against their very instincts of having to keep watching to make sure Tracy was breathing. Kurt's predictions were right, and they were woken up by her fumbling an hour and a half later. Blaine slipped out of bed immediately, feeling awake even if he couldn't quite keep his eyes open. Kurt could feel a headache coming, but watching his husband cradling their little girl was worth a million full-blown migraines before he could start to consider caring.