A/N: I've split what used to be Chapter 21 into two chapters. None of this chapter, the current Chapter 21, is really new, but I did make a few non-plot-altering changes.

On his way to lunch Sam got a text from Artie: "Meet me in the choir room NOW."

But he didn't see Artie when he walked in, he saw Blaine. "Hey, Blaine," he said. "Did Artie text you too? This seems more like a Tina plan—"

"It's a Tina and Artie plan," Tina said, walking in through the other door. Artie followed her in. "Don't worry. We're not scheming to get you back together."

"We're just scheming to invite you to our graduation parties," Artie added.

"Okay..." Blaine said, "but you already invited everyone at the last glee practice."

"Right, but we want to make sure that you two know that you're specially invited. And by invited we mean required to attend. We're all graduating together, the five of us—"

"Five?" Blaine asked.

"Yeah, Brittany's graduating too. So..." Tina continued, "...we don't care if you guys don't talk to each other, we don't care if you cause a scene, but...You. Will. Be. There."

"And bring your families to mine," Artie added. "Your parents are driving up, right, Sam?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "My brother and sister are coming too."

"Bring 'em all. My party's going to be very family-friendly."

"But not mine," Tina said. "No parents, no younger siblings."

XOXOXO

Blaine didn't see Sam when he and his parents got to Artie's house, but he knew he must be around because Quinn was in the backyard teaching Stevie and Stacey how to play croquet. Stacey spotted him first. "I remember you," she said. "You came to our house."

"That's right. I remember you too," Blaine said. Then he asked, "How've you been?" and he immediately wondered if that was as weird a question to ask a little kid as it sounded like to him.

"Not bad," Stacey said, in what Blaine gathered was supposed to be an adult-like tone. But she sounded just like an excited eight-year-old—nine-year-old? Blaine couldn't remember—when she said, "I'm gonna be an aunt!"

"And I'm gonna be an uncle!" Stevie chimed in.

"So I heard," Blaine said. "Congratulations."

"I'm still talking to Brittany about a-d-o-p-t-i-o-n—" Quinn said.

"We can spell, you know," Stacey said.

"What do you think I spelled?"

Stacey was silent for a minute before saying, "I didn't say I was paying attention. Just that if I was I'd be able to figure it out."

Quinn turned back to Blaine. "So, now you and Sam—"

"No," Blaine said. "I agree that...what you mentioned would be best. But they shouldn't do it for me."

"There are so many reasons, and that's not the biggest one," Quinn agreed. "So where did you decide on for college?"

"NYADA. After Sam dumped me—"

"Quinn! Stacey moved her ball!"

"Shut up, I did not!"

"You're not supposed to tell me to shut up!"

"You're busy," Blaine said to Quinn. "We can catch up later." He ducked into the house before he could get pulled into helping referee the croquet match.

The first person Blaine saw inside was Sam. Some girl he didn't recognize was holding his arm. She pulled Sam over to him and said, "Hi, I'm Ashley! This is my brother Sam."

Sam pulled his arm out of hers and patted her on the shoulder. "Blaine, this is Brittany's sister, Ashley."

Ashley gasped and clutched her chest. "This is Blaine!?" She whispered in Sam's ear, but not quietly enough for Blaine not to hear, "He's so cute!"

Sam smiled sadly and said, "I know."

"Hi, Ashley. So what grade are you in?"

"Ninth. I mean I will be, I'm starting at McKinley in the fall. I'm thinking of trying out for the Cheerios..." Blaine tried to listen politely, but it was hard to do with her soon-to-be brother-in-law standing there. He was right next to him and he smelled so good and he had just said Blaine was cute. And Blaine felt so...so gooey just being that close to him and not able to do anything about it. He had an incredible urge to lean on him, to just sort of ooze onto his shoulder.

Thank God Mercedes pulled Sam away before Blaine could do anything stupid. He didn't even know if she really wanted to talk to him or if she somehow knew that Blaine needed to be rescued, but regardless of the reason, he was grateful.

"You're still in love with him," Ashley said.

"What?"

"It's okay, I know all about you two." She sighed and then kissed him quickly on the lips.

"What!"

"I'm sorry!" she said, her cheeks turning a deep pink. "I just have a thing for cute boys torn apart by tragedy."

"Uh, it's okay."

"I think everyone's bisexual. Some people just don't realize it."

"Mmm..." That really wasn't a conversation he wanted to have right then with Brittany's little sister.

She took his hand. "I mean, I know you're mostly gay, but...you know, if you married me then you and Sam could be brother-in-laws and see each other all the time. I wouldn't even care that it was a sham marriage because I'm such a romantic and I think you guys should be together." She looked in his eyes and he got the feeling she was totally serious.

"Oh. I couldn't do that to you."

"Of course you'd say that," she sighed.

Blaine saw his father across the room talking to Artie's mom. "Dad!" he called, walking over to him.

Ashley followed him, so he had no choice but to introduce her. "This is Ashley—"

"I'm Sam's sister! And Brittany's."

Blaine's dad shook her hand. "I'm pleased to meet you. I'm—"

"Ashley!" Brittany yelled from across the room. She was overdressed in a sparkly gold cocktail dress with a black tulle underskirt and a gold bow resting just above her baby bump. "Come here! I need your help!"

Ashley rolled her eyes. "Speak of the devil," she said. "Brittany probably wants help unzipping her dress so she can go to the bathroom, which she has to do like every ten minutes ever since she's preggers. Also she doesn't realize that it's a dress, so..." She walked off toward Brittany.

"Sam as in the boy you were dating?" his dad asked when Ashley was gone.

"That's the one."

"His sister looks kind of young to be pregnant."

"Brittany's not his sister."

"Oh." His dad looked confused. "But his other sister just—"

"Ashley's not his sister either. Ashley's going to be his sister-in-law." Blaine hadn't told his parents any details of the break-up, so he gave him a minute to put the pieces together.

"So Sam, the boy you were dating until just recently, is going to be a husband? And a father? He's bisexual, I take it?"

Blaine nodded and added, "He didn't cheat on her with me. Or on me with her." Although the proposal could maybe be considered cheating.

"Wow," his father said, shaking his head. He put his hand on Blaine's shoulder and said, "I have never been happier that you're gay."

"Ha ha." Blaine knew his dad meant it as a joke, or at least wanted it to sound like he meant it at joke. But it was undoubtedly also literally true. Since the initial surprise and denial he had come to accept that Blaine was gay, and he was fine with it. But fine wasn't the same as happy.

XOXOXO

Sam's parents took the whole family out to dinner at Breadstix, and by "whole family" they also meant the Pierces and the Hudson-Hummels. Only Kurt was missing; he had stayed in New York to catch up on some Vogue work he'd neglected during the school year.

Sam's mom and dad kept thanking Burt and Carole for letting Sam stay with them, and Burt and Carole kept insisting that it was no problem, that Sam was a joy to have around. They were so gracious; Sam knew he and his family would never be able to repay them—especially since they were letting him stay all summer, until he moved to Boston with Brittany in the fall.

If that was still on, which he didn't even know.

As they were eating, Brittany told Stevie and Stacey about the time Lord Tubbington started a riot at Disney World. Ashley showed them how to turn their straw wrappers into worms. Finn...well, Finn didn't exactly have a way with kids. He did enjoy learning the worm trick, however.

"You've got some spaghetti sauce there, dude," he said, pointing his knife at Stevie's shirt.

"He's eating mac and cheese," Ashley said.

"Mom!" Stacey yelled. "Stevie's nose is bleeding! I bet he's been picking it again!"

Stevie blushed and elbowed her. "Shut up! I don't pick my nose."

"Come here, hon," Mary said. Stevie went over to her and she cleaned his face off with a Kleenex from her purse. She whispered something in his ear and he tilted his head down and squeezed his nostrils together. When he let go of it less than a minute later, she held them shut herself, rubbing the back of his neck to gently keep his head tilted down. She turned back to Burt and asked him about Kurt's semester at NYADA, still holding Stevie's nose.

Stacey turned to Brittany and asked, "Can I paint the baby's fingernails purple? Cause purple's the prettiest color—not pink, which sucks—and if her fingernails are pretty she probably won't wanna put them in her nose and then she won't get nosebleeds."

"No. Sorry," Brittany said.

"Babies' fingernails are too little to polish," Sam explained. "And besides, she won't even know how to pick her nose until she's at least...one and a half or two, probably." He was just guessing about the age, but he thought it sounded reasonable.

"Plus I'm not keeping the baby. She's gonna live with a different family."

Sam stopped chewing the bite of chicken he had in his mouth. He looked around the table; no one except Stacey—who was staring at Brittany with her mouth agape—was reacting at all to what Brittany had just said. He must have heard wrong—he and Stacey both—because she had said it so casually, like what she was saying was of no more importance than her decision on whether to order dessert or not.

He tried to swallow the chicken. Finding he couldn't, he spit in into his napkin instead. "What did you just say, Britt?" he asked calmly.

"I said I'm not keeping the baby."

This time everyone heard. The table was silent for a good minute before Brittany's mom asked her, "Are you sure, baby?"

"Uh huh."

"When did you decide this?" Mr. Pierce asked. Sam was wondering the exact same thing. He'd kind of thought they would decide together. At the very least he would have liked her to say something to him before telling his little sister...and everyone else.

"Just now," Brittany said. "I just now realized I don't know how to raise a child and I would suck at it and Minda deserves better."

"You're not naming her Minda," Brittany's dad said, the name Minda coming out as a near-whisper.

Sam stood up and tripped over the leg of his chair. "Britt? Can we go outside and talk for a minute?"

Brittany got up and they walked out together. It was busy: the parking lot was full, and there were people milling about outside the front doors, waiting for their tables to be ready. Lots of McKinley graduates with their families, it looked like. They walked around to the side of the building where it was a little quieter.

"Your sister is cute," Brittany said. "Some day when she has her own baby—"

"What made you decide...what you did? You said you decided just now. So what was it?"

"I saw your mom take care of your brother when he was bleeding, and she was so calm and she just knew what to do, and I could never do that. If it was me alone with him, your brother would've bled to death."

"Okay, first of all, no one ever died from picking their nose. Second, that's the kind of thing you can learn. My mom didn't know how to do everything when she was our age. And third, you seem to be forgetting about me. I wouldn't let our baby bleed to death."

"Sam, be honest. You don't want to get married and raise a baby any more than I do. Not yet, I mean."

"I..."

"And when you do want that, you deserve for the baby's mom—or other dad—to be competent. And...to want to do it. Your baby will deserve that too."

"You don't know what I want. And you didn't even ask. So basically what you're saying is that I have no choice in what happens."

Brittany tried to take his hand but he pulled it away. "Not if your choice is to try to make me be a mom," she said.

"I didn't even say that!" Sam said. He had to turn away for a few seconds so he wouldn't start to cry. "I just...You can't make every decision without me. I mean, I guess you can and I can't stop you. But I wish you wouldn't."

"Sam..." She took his hand again and this time he didn't pull it away. "There's still a really important decision to make. The most important one. And I promise I won't make it without you."

"What?"

"Her family. We have to choose which family we want to adopt her. I'm gonna go talk to Carrie on Monday. Will you come with me?"

"I'm supposed to start work on Monday." Not only was Burt letting him stay at his house for the summer, but he'd given him a summer job too. Though maybe now he'd change his mind since they weren't keeping the baby and Sam probably wasn't even needed in Lima.

"I really want you to go too. We'll find a time, okay?"

Sam just nodded. He was really close to crying now, and even though Brittany had seen him cry before, for some reason he didn't want her to this time. But when she took off her engagement ring and put it in his shirt pocket, he lost it and wept on her shoulder.