Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 52nd cycle. Now cycle 53!

THIRD ANNIVERSARY CYCLE: It's late October again, and within this cycle I will be completing my third year of daily gleekathon stories and commencing a fourth! As in previous years, this means special things happening. I've selected my favorite stories from throughout the year, and I'll be treating them to something special. In previous years this included Prequel, Sequel, and POV Swap, and then Additional Scenes and Alternate Endings. This year I'm adding two new treatments: Genre Swap (I think that's pretty straightforward) and Element Change (I change one thing in the story, see how it affects the rest). Note that in both these cases and some of the others, there may excerpts directly transferred from the story it references. Also, since this year saw the addition of 'shift days', and since I suck at picking, I have selected 42 stories, to be treated two per day! So here we go!

This story is a POV Swap to Step Fifteen, Take Perspective, a Paper Heart series story, originally posted on March 27 2012.

This is a double shift day. There will be one more upload today: Looking & Knowing.

"New Definitions For Us"
Kurt & Santana(/Brittany)
Paper Heart series extra
(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)

He had been open with himself for some time now, and although he was a bit uncertain still about the process, he knew he wanted to find someone, fall in love, have a boyfriend… As awkward as that was though, today it was nothing compared to his new reality. If he hoped to ever have a boyfriend, it would have to be one who didn't mind the part where he had a kid already, or at least would have a kid in a few months. He wasn't going to be out there looking for someone, not now, not when he was getting ready for the baby's arrival, and then when he was a newborn… So who knew when he'd even get to really put any sort of effort into this search, but… either way, he would have this deal breaker, of 'deal with the fact that I'm a father or keep on walking.' His child would not become an afterthought.

But then there was his child's mother, Brittany. The two of them could never be a couple; that was a fact. And where it came to choice of partners, while he was thinking of a boyfriend in his future, he was beginning to think Brittany had already found her significant other… they were just both unable to own up to it. He may not have liked to meddle, but he saw nothing wrong with giving a friendly nudge.

He had it on good authority that he could find her at the library. He wouldn't go to Brittany with this. From what he knew, she wasn't the one who needed the talking to. When he got to the library, he found Santana, just as he'd guessed. He sat down across from her, looked to her in silence. She was ignoring him for now, but he stayed as he was. Looking at her, he knew their paths were different. For him it had never really been a question, even if he'd tried to hide it at first, he knew he was gay. Santana for her part might not have accepted this for herself, if at all, until recently. He knew he wasn't wrong about her though, and he felt he had to do this, for her, for Brittany, but also for his child, and like he'd already decided, his child always had to be priority. And then Santana had looked up.

"What's up, Kurt?" she asked, like she was just hoping to get rid of him.

"I need to talk to you about something," he started.

"Alright, go for it," she told him, carrying on in her efforts to get him to leave. He took this in stride, moving to sit next to her. He wasn't sure how he would start, and the words that came first were…

"What are you doing?" It was direct, but that was needed. When she just indicated her work, he shook his head. "Not what I meant. Look, I'm gay…" he had started, but then was interrupted at seeing her in her fake shock.

"I am going to need a moment to adjust to this, but don't you worry about a thing."

"You're hilarious." He hadn't expected this to be easy, and Santana was proving him right. "Now let me finish," he instructed.

"Fine," she had agreed, so he forged ahead.

"What I'm trying to say is this whole thing, with you and me and Brittany and the baby, it's not exactly the most common of situations, but there are things you have to be aware of, all of us do." He could see she wasn't board with him, even before she spoke up.

"Okay now I think you're losing me." He sat up with a sigh, changing tactics.

"Let me tell you a story."

"Oh, please, not this," she didn't like the sound of it, but he had to keep going.

"I said let me finish," and he waited with his finger in the air until she agreed. "Thank you. You should like this, it's a story about you. You and Brittany," he revealed, and he could see her shields go up right before his eyes. "Now I'll be the first to admit, when I first had to… deal with you, I didn't have particularly happy feelings… no offence."

"None taken," she told him, and he decided this was a good sign.

"From what I could tell, the two of you were friends… close friends… close, close friends."

"Okay, I think we've established we were friends," Santana interrupted him, so he took that as a note and moved forward.

"I never took it too seriously, didn't have to. Then over time, being in Glee Club, I started to think there were crazier things than the possibility that you liked each other as something more than friends. Neither of you said anything, but then I guess you could say I'm in an excellent position to see through things left unsaid." She was letting him speak, which was one thing, but the look on her face was telling him maybe he should go carefully. "And then the baby happened, and suddenly we got to see a lot more of each other, all of us."

"Yeah…" Maybe he was heading in the right direction.

"And then all the lights just came on," he wasn't backing away now.

"Kurt…" she looked to be warning him.

"You love her…" he continued.

"Look, I have a lot of work to do, so…" she was retreating, but he couldn't.

"… and she loves you," he told her, and it was the truth, from what he'd seen. "So that's the story. There it is. Now comes the next part, the one that hasn't been written yet. Me and her, yes, we're having this baby. But we're never going to be a couple. I like boys, and she likes… well, you." He paused, looking to see if she would storm off or let him continue. He was glad to see that she did, because the next part was the whole reason he felt the need to talk to her. "You've been with us from the very beginning. The day she found out she was pregnant, you know how terrified she was, how she couldn't go home. The only way she would calm down was to know you were on your way. You've been doing that a lot, giving her peace. You've looked out for her, made sure she would be okay, physically, mentally. You have been there, and I don't know that I ever told you how thankful I am. You've been a good friend, to her, and to me." Seeing her relax, even just a little, it gave him sudden hope.

"Bet you never thought that would happen…" she spoke, and he smirked.

"Not once."

"I guess we are friends now," she told him, and that told him he could go on.

"So as your friend, I will say this. If you want in to this whole parenting unit, more so than you already have, then you should talk to her." He did mean it. His child would likely end up with four parents, and after him and Brittany, as surprising as it could have been, Santana was kind of part of that world already, whether they'd 'made it official' or not.

"I never said I…" Santana started, and seeing her backing away now, he couldn't let it happen.

"Santana, I look at you, how you've been since this started, and I know that when this baby comes, you're going to love him, care for him, protect him, just as much as me or Brittany will." He could see when she looked to him, he knew, she was right there on that same page.

"I know it probably sounds very simple to you…" she was still playing on the defensive side.

"I think we covered the fact that…" he was defending right back, and she hit once again.

"That you're out, and your father is a gay teen's dream, congratulations." He had never really thought about it, he realized… He didn't know what her family was like, if she felt safe to say anything.

"Have you considered it? Telling your parents?" he asked her, and he could see her searching.

"I'm not even sure what there would be to say…" she looked away, and he decided he'd done enough digging for that day, he had to let her recover, turn everything in her own head, without him there.

"Well, there's no rush," he promised as he got up, but then he had a thought. "We've got a doctor's appointment next Thursday."

"I know," she replied, and he just smiled – of course she would.

"You should come with us. You can see the baby on the screen, hear the heartbeat… The DVD does not do it justice," he tried to sound inviting. She was hesitant. She wanted to, he could tell, but still…

"I… Maybe…"

"I know Brittany would be really happy if you came," he might have been pushing, but well…

"Okay, you can stop, I get the picture. I'd ask you if you're sure it's okay, but considering you just gave me the kind of speech that's usually underscored by a swelling orchestral piece, I guess that's all the answer I need," she told him, and he took this as a good sign.

"So will you come?" he had to make sure.

"I'll be there," she told him, and he tried not to look as happy as he was about it. Looking at her, he could see a smile fighting to show itself, no matter how hard she tried to hold it in. "Does it really look like an alien?" she asked, and he almost laughed.

"A cute one," he vowed. "But looking more and more like a person every time. Maybe you can weigh in to the whole… boy/girl debacle," he offered, even though it was hard not to think of it as a boy, with how insistent Brittany was about the whole thing.

"You're on," Santana smiled, and Kurt left her to her work and her thoughts. If his son could have a mother like Santana Lopez in his life, Kurt knew that would be one lucky kid.

THE END

A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.
In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are
always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!