As Pieces Slip Away, Others Fall into Place

by Elle D'Elajoie

Nearly 6 months after Kurt turned down the proposal, Kurt and Sebastian reconnect on Labor Day 2013 at a park in Columbus, neither one alone. Kurt had finally gotten his spot at NYADA and Sebastian was headed to Columbia University the last time they had seen each other. What has lead them to be there when they had both considered New York City their future home? New chapters T/Th.

8. Chapter 8

!¡!¡!¡! Dublin – Early December !¡!¡!¡!

A week later, Kurt was wearing sweats and a hoodie sitting at the kitchen table. He let his head drop, landing on his forearm to pad the impact. "I don't want to study anymore."

Sebastian turned and looked at him. "That's going to be hard to pull off. You've got at least five semesters of school left. And you mentioned possibly adding the History endorsement to make yourself more marketable." He teased before he went back to paying attention to what he was cooking.

"Shh. Don't remind me."

Sebastian chuckled. "The girls will be up soon. They'll entertain you for a while. That should clear your head. You can't possibly be down after we feed the two of them and bathe them. It's too much fun to watch them splash in the sink."

"You're right." Kurt sighed and closed his notebook and textbook. "Do you need any help?"

"Not really, but lemonade sounds good, even though it's cold outside."

"I'll make some."

Sebastian put the diced chicken he had been sautéing into the stockpot with the vegetables and rice. "We can eat it whenever we want. I'm turning it down to warm." He stirred it one last time and put the lid on.

When Kurt finished making the lemonade, he put it in the fridge. "I'm going to do some stretches before they wake up. Maybe that will get my blood flowing and I'll remember what I'm reviewing." He sat in the hallway that led outside and started with butterfly stretches.

Sebastian went and sat in the open space between opening to the hallway and the playard. "I should add a 1-credit dance class next semester. I feel like I'm super out of shape now. I don't go jogging anymore and I'm not going to play lacrosse this spring."

"We could take one together. If I were still at NYADA, I'd take dance every semester. If I'm going to be any good at coming up with choreography for my future choir or Glee Club, I'm going to need more dance training. I was thinking Modern or Jazz."

"Jazz, definitely if you're hoping to learn something useful for a choir. Modern will be too slow and it involves being on the floor a lot. It's very moody, if that makes any sense. It's like interpreting the music through movement. Not much of it would crossover into something that could be considered choreography for a group, but it could really help with expressing yourself."

Kurt changed positions and continued to stretch. "I wonder if I could do both. I'll have to see what I have room for based on when the classes are offered. We both picked our classes like a month ago. I bet we could still add one."

"I miss tapping. I might see if can fit it in."

"Is that why the center part along the back wall in the garage has a wood floor?"

"It is. I used to practice out there. My parents had that 6x12 section put in when I really got into it when I was about eight or nine. You can use the space to practice if you want. There's a small electric heater out there you can turn on and warm that area up first, if you decide you want to use it. I can show you which storage tote it's in. The baby monitor will work out there."

"I'll definitely do that since I could practice here rather than trying to fit it in some time while I'm on campus." He turned and lay on his back and pushed up into a bridge and then kicked over to standing.

Sebastian's eyes grew wide, but he regathered his wits before Kurt stood up. He wondered where he'd missed the detail that Kurt could do gymnastics. He didn't manage to wipe the surprised look from his face completely.

"Obviously, you missed the part about me being a cheerleader."

"Um, yeah. I guess so." He tried not to show other than a regular amount of interest in learning something new about Kurt.

Kurt stepped around Sebastian and picked his phone up off the table. He pulled up the Cheerleading Nationals video and handed it to Sebastian. He went back to stretching while Sebastian watched the video.

Sebastian tried to keep his eyes on the phone, but Kurt doing the splits and more stretches kept distracting him. He did his best to keep Kurt from noticing his struggle. Fifteen minutes later, Sebastian exited YouTube and put Kurt's phone to sleep.

"Well, that was definitely entertaining." He put Kurt's phone back on the table and sat back down on the floor.

Kurt sat criss-cross and faced him. "We won."

"I can see why. So, you sang lead and won the National Championship and Mr. …"

"Schuester," Kurt provided.

"Mr. Schuester didn't see fit to give you the lead?"

"I'm too effeminate to be the male lead in anything. Even my own dad basically said so. You think so. Everyone thinks so, except Adam. He was really supportive, but I never could really tell whether he was serious or not because he seemed so serious when he said things that were complimentary. He was a really good actor, so reading him was really hard."

"You said that Adam was your friend. I would think he was being sincere."

"He probably was, but he's one person out of everyone I've ever met. It doesn't matter. I'm not working towards being a performer anymore anyway." He heard Aliza babbling and got up to go get her, hoping that Rose would still sleep if she needed to. He picked her up swiftly and quietly and brought her out to the playard kissing her all over making her smile. "Did you have a good nap, beautiful?"

Aliza cooed and babbled in response.

"Well, that does sound nice. I'm going to let you play with your toys on your playmat while I get your bottle ready."

While he was getting it, Rose woke up and Sebastian went to get her. He changed her before he brought her in and put her in the playard. He picked Aliza up.

"She needs a new diaper too. I'll go change her."

When he came back, he found Rose in her high chair. Kurt was feeding her a jar of broccoli and singing to her to get her to eat it. Sebastian sat down with Aliza in his arms and gave her the bottle Kurt had put on the table.

"Just think, Little Missy, in a month or so, that will be you getting fed broccoli or green beans or something really green for dinner," Sebastian teased.

Aliza kicked her feet because he sounded so enthusiastic.

He continued on in a sing-song happy tone. "You're excited now, but that's because you haven't tasted how truly terrible it is."

Kurt laughed and stumbled over the words to the song he was singing to Rose. He got her to eat all of the broccoli and opened a container of pureed apricots, which went down quickly with no need for entertainment to get her to eat them. Once she finished, Kurt put a sippy cup with a baby bottle nipple on her tray. She was getting better at it, but needed a little help to tip it up to start each time. She was used to reclining when taking a bottle, so the tipping the cup up part was a new thing for her still.

He got up, poured the glasses of lemonade, ladled the soup Sebastian had made into deep bowls, and put everything on the table. By the time he had done that, Aliza had finished and Sebastian put her in her high chair with a couple of toys with suction cup bottoms on them. Rose was trying to lean out of her chair to play with the toys Aliza had. Sebastian stuck a toy to her tray as well.

Kurt took a bite. "The soup is good. You've come a long way from 'I eat take out for dinner every other night.'"

"I guess I have. I hadn't thought about it really. It's been gradual. I didn't stop tonight and ask any questions at all even though it was a new recipe, now that I think about it." He took his first bite. "It did come out really good. You're a good teacher."

"Well, I hope I will be in a few years, otherwise all of my students will dislike me as much as I disliked most of my teachers."

"That's not going to happen. You're kind and patient. They'll like you."

"Not two descriptors I've ever really associated with myself, but thanks for saying so." Kurt looked down at his bowl and mindlessly stirred his soup.

"Wait. You don't believe me. I can tell."

Kurt looked up. "Accepting compliments isn't my forte. I think that was Adam's goal actually. He complimented me about something not long after we met, and I deflected. He repeated the compliment and waited patiently for me to accept it. This went on the whole time I knew him. I spent time thinking about it and one things I came up with was that he was just saying nice things to get me to learn the art of accepting positive statements because it's part of the process at NYADA. When you go in for a critique, the professor will point out both the good and the bad of a performance. I think he just wanted me to learn to accept a positive statement before I went through that process, so I wouldn't argue back with the professor or something."

"I suppose that's possible, but I think it's more likely that he might just be the type of person that enjoys pointing out positive things about people. Didn't you ever know anyone who just randomly said nice things to people?"

Kurt thought for a little bit. "Brittany. She used to say nice things. Mercedes a long time ago."

"Maybe he's just like that, but since he's a guy, it just felt different."

"He wanted us to date."

"You didn't like him in that way?"

"I could have if I had been away from Rachel and Santana. They butted into everything. Rachel was initially supportive, but then seemed to believe that Blaine was my Prince Charming and she was 1000% convinced that I would eventually take him back and we'd live happily ever after."

"Sounds like she had a crush on him."

"She did. If he had been bi, she would have never gone back to Finn after the train wreck of a party she threw my junior year."

Sebastian raised an eyebrow and shrugged slightly, looking completely clueless.

Kurt told him about the party.

"There's more to it than that."

"There is, but it falls into the 'list of red flags Kurt ignored about Blaine', which is a list I'm not interested in rehashing right now. We were talking about Adam."

"Go on." Sebastian let it drop, but wondered about the details Kurt had left out and what the other red flags were.

"Right. Adam and I spent time together whenever I could manage to have an hour or more free, which wasn't often between working two jobs and going to school. I was dealing with my dad's cancer. And as soon as that issue was just beginning to fade, Finn died and we found out about Aliza. When I went back to New York after Finn's funeral, I was behind on schoolwork, and I had made my choice about Aliza. We just stayed friends. We parted ways amicably. He assumed that I came back to be closer to my dad. I never said anything to contradict that belief. It was what I let everyone think. I came back here when the semester ended and he was going to try to get a role in New York. And if he didn't, he was going to go back to England to try auditioning for West End roles. We email back and forth some. He got a small role in an off-Broadway play, so he's still in New York for now."

"That makes sense. And I'm certain that living with Rachel and Santana and not killing either one of them makes you eligible for sainthood."

Kurt chuckled, and then shook his head. "It was an experience. That's for sure. Not long after Santana moved in, she went through everything in the loft – every box, every drawer, every cabinet, everything. And when we got upset, she just smarted off about it being 'a thing she does'."

"So, you traded one crazy situation for another."

"I did. But truthfully, this is better. I needed to get away from 'Lima Kurt'. I went to New York, but with the two of them there and several others planning to follow, I still had this role of caretaker and problem solver. And here, I have that same role, I know, but now it's for a little human who actually needs a caretaker and problem solver, not a group of pseudo-adults with drama queen attitudes."

Sebastian laughed.

"I know you thought, or maybe still think, I'm a drama queen, but I don't think you really understand the phrase drama queen until you've lived with Rachel. Once, she decided that she needed to rest her voice and when her phone rang, she wrote, 'Take a message for me?' on a sheet of paper and held it up."

Sebastian swallowed wrong from laughing when he was eating. He took a couple of drinks and stopped coughing after about a minute. "You're making that up."

"I'm not."

"Has she never heard of voice mail or people texting when the other person doesn't answer?"

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Drama queen behavior and logic rarely co-exist."

"Just for your knowledge, I never thought you were a drama queen."

"Next your going to tell me that you didn't hate my clothes."

"I didn't. Your clothes wouldn't even have really been an issue if we had met in Paris, but I knew that you couldn't have been winning any popularity contests by wearing them in Hickville, Ohio. You were not my target, but our verbal sparing was fun. I realized back when we ran into each other in the park that day that my assessment of the whole situation was wrong. I made a lot of false assumptions."

"And I made assumptions as well."

"But yours were based on what you had seen and heard. Mine were just …"

"Assumptions that turned out to be wrong. There was literally no way you could have known what I was going through or what I had been through. There was no reason for you to have been able to guess that my teammates or fellow choir members, or whatever, actually included people who had previously tossed me in dumpsters and thrown pee balloons at me. I never told anyone besides… That doesn't matter anymore. What I was saying was that I hid everything well behind a mask of indifference and sarcasm. You not being able to see though that was merely a testament to my ability to hide things well, not a fault of yours."

"I still feel bad."

"Which merely proves that you're not the self-absorbed manwhore and jackass that you portrayed yourself to be for a while. Kudos to your acting abilities as well. You played the part perfectly. I had no idea there was a real boy inside with real feelings who is an absolute softie."

"Hey, now."

"Umm hmm. I've seen you blow raspberries on baby tummies about a hundred too many times to be fooled." Kurt winked at him.

Sebastian play huffed and rolled his eyes.

"And I've seen your comic book collection and super hero pajama pants. It actually makes me think of Sam, who I really miss."

"You said that he lived with you."

"He did. He and I were good friends before that though. I haven't told him about Aliza." A few tears escaped. "He's a really good friend and I trust him more than I've ever trusted anyone, but I don't want him to be in the position that I'm in. It's hard to keep my life with you and the girls out of our conversations. I don't want him to be in the same position with other people that he's still in contact with."

"If he's that good a friend, I think he'll understand."

"I don't know. It's been almost six months of lying by omission." Kurt wiped his eyes. "I just don't want to put him in the middle. He's friends with people who are still at McKinley and with the others that have graduated, both this past year and the year before."

"I get that, but if you change your mind, it would be okay to invite him here. We've never really discussed having people over, but we can. Or we can wait until one of us actually has someone we'd want to invite over. Other than the dean of my department, I've never told anyone about Rose. If I need to meet with people, I just suggest places on campus."

"I haven't told anyone other than the person I talked to in the Registrar's Office about getting a waiver to get priority registration status. I do the same thing you do – meet people on campus. I'm not ready to let anyone else into my life right now. Being able to leave Aliza at home to be cared for this summer and since we moved in with you takes the worry out of childcare. I can't really thank you enough for letting us live here. I had been really stressed out about next semester and having to put her in daycare."

"I can imagine. And it's no trouble having you here." Sebastian wanted to tell Kurt how much he enjoyed having him there, but couldn't bring himself to do it. He had realized that he was in love with Kurt the day they spent cooking together the week before, but he was afraid to risk losing what they had.

"What were we talking about anyway? Adam, drama queens, assumptions…"

"I know what I haven't said that I want to," Sebastian interjected.

"What?"

"I am really sorry about throwing the slushie at you and at Santana. It was really childish and mean. I look back at that and I can't even figure out how that was me. And Dave's attempt was like being dumped into tank full of ice water. I couldn't believe that I had become a bully after having been on the receiving end of bullying before. It was this power trip that felt good for a while. I learned a lot about myself that I didn't like. I had the opportunity to be a leader and instead I became power hungry. I went to counseling. I worked through the issues of feeling helpless and powerless. I guess I just want you to know that I won't ever do that again."

Kurt nodded. "I know, but thank you for telling me. I wouldn't have agreed to move in here if I had any residual fear that you'd do anything to hurt either of us." He reached out and put his hand on Sebastian's arm. "You made some bad decisions, but you learned a lot and you changed. I'm not sure why Dave's attempt was your turning point, but I'm glad that you realized that you were on a path you didn't want to continue to follow."

"Why did he matter to you? I saw you talking to him at Scandals that night."

"He's why I went to Dalton."

"What do you mean?"

"He had always been part of the jocks that bullied the losers in a free-for-all 'target a loser' way. But junior year, he made it personal. He began to by-pass other losers and I became the 'loser of choice', I guess, for lack of a better descriptor. I told you my dad had a heart attack and had ended up in coma."

Sebastian nodded.

"This was going on during that time period."

"Got it."

"So, when we found out who our competition would be at Sectionals, Puck suggested that I go spy on the Warblers. I won't get into how that came about, but I headed to Westerville. I met Blaine that day. I followed some stupid advice. I followed Dave into the locker room after he had intentionally knocked my phone out of my hand into the concrete wall and shoved me hard. That encounter led to the two of us screaming at each other and him kissing me when I thought he was going to hit me."

"He outed himself to you in a terrible way."

"Bingo. I couldn't tell my dad. He hadn't been out of the hospital that long. And in my absolute fear that I'd get more than a kiss the next time, I told Blaine because he didn't go to McKinley. Blaine thought that talking to Dave would be a good idea. He and I approached Dave, but rather than waiting to get Dave to go somewhere private with us, Blaine started the conversation on the outdoor stairwell. Dave shoved him into the chain link around the stairwell. I pushed Dave off of him. Dave walked away. After that, he got creepier. It got more personal – like him stepping into my personal space and putting his finger on my chest and running it down. Anyway, he threatened to kill me if I told anyone else."

"Oh, God."

"I didn't tell anyone else. The intense bullying went on for about three weeks, which at the time seemed like forever. Then he made the unfortunate mistake of harassing me where my dad saw one day after school when I was giving him and Finn dance lessons for the wedding. Finn pushed me to tell my dad that Dave was bullying me and I let it out about the threat. My dad chased him down and pinned him to the wall with his forearm across Dave's throat and told him to pick on someone his own size."

"I take it that your dad isn't a pacifist like you."

Kurt snorted. "Not at all. Anyway, he took it to the principal. Dave was expelled. He was reinstated three days later because his parents appealed the expulsion. I left and went to Dalton."

"Wow. Why did you go back?"

"Lack of money to pay the second half of my tuition for the second semester. My dad was willing to take out a loan, but Santana decided to take it upon herself to figure out a way to control Dave. She observed him for a while and noticed him checking out Sam's ass."

Sebastian laughed. "He is good looking."

"Umm hmm. So, Santana blackmailed him. She forced him to apologize to me in front of the Glee Club. She also forced him to join her anti-bullying club and wear a silk-style jacket and beret and walk me to class. And on top of that, he became her boyfriend and had to run for Junior Prom royalty with her."

His eyebrows went up and he shook his head. "She's something."

"You're lucky you still have your body parts in the right places. The only reason she didn't tear you limb from limb was because she wanted to punish you in an even worse way."

"Public humiliation."

"And making you lose your power, which she values greatly. She let you win a battle in order to destroy you in the war."

Sebastian nodded, thinking about what Kurt was saying and piecing everything together. "I still don't know why Dave's attempt affected you so negatively. If anything, him being gone seems like it would have been a positive in your life."

"He didn't go to McKinley my senior year. He transferred to Thurston, so he was already out of my life. I mentioned Junior Prom."

"Yeah."

"Dave won Prom King, but it wasn't Santana who won Prom Queen." Kurt paused and took a deep breath and let it out. "It was me."

"You're not a girl."

"Thank you." He refocused. "I was stupid. I suggested that he come out when we walked down to the floor level for our first dance. He took off."

"Wait. You were expected to dance with him? You accepted?"

"I ran out at first. After a few minutes, I calmed down and decided that I wasn't going to let them get to me, even though I was dying inside. I went back in and I accepted my crown and title. He was still standing on stage at that point. It was when I suggested that he come out that he ran off."

"Okay."

"I was stupid. I knew nothing about his life. I had met his dad once. I didn't know that his fear about being outed went farther than what the jocks would do to him. He was so big, I just figured that he would stand up for himself and fight back and they'd leave him alone. I never thought through the issue from his point of view because I didn't know him well enough to."

"Go on. There's more."

"Yeah. So, I hadn't seen him since Junior Prom that night the three of us went to Scandals. We talked a little that night and cleared the air a bit more. I had accepted his apology the year before once he sincerely apologized. Anyway, the week before Valentine's Day, I started getting 'Secret Admirer' cards and gifts. I thought they were from Blaine. He wasn't at school and I thought he was doing something romantic because he had told me how much he loved the idea of Valentine's Day the year before. So, the last card said to meet up at Breadstix. I went. The gifts and cards had all been from Dave. He told me that he loved me." Kurt wiped his eyes with his napkin. "I turned him down. I couldn't figure out why he had done it. He knew I was dating Blaine. Anyway, a football player from Thurston saw him, and he was outed. I had such tunnel vision about how being out and proud was so much better than living closeted that I didn't look past my own supportive father and consider the fact that the jocks would take it as a personal issue that a gay guy would change with them. I was always forced to get dressed in a part of the locker room by myself. The guys knew I was gay and stayed covered up around me, but Dave was one of them. Anyway, he tried to call me, over and over again, but I ignored every one of his calls. Nine calls I ignored. I thought he was trying to win me over somehow after what he had told me. But he was reaching out, trying to find someone to support him while he was dying inside. Instead, he tried to kill himself. I know that it was his choice, but I felt terrible that I had ignored his calls. What if answering could have prevented what he did?"

"There's no way to know."

"I know. I found out when I visited him in the hospital that his mom is one of those 'gays can be cured' types. His mom disowned him. That's what he was afraid of. If he had been outed on the stairs that day, his mom could have sent him to conversion camp or conversion therapy. It's legal in Ohio and he would have been a minor with no recourse to refuse. He had turned 18 before his attempt, so she couldn't force him to go. She could have also thrown him out. It happens pretty often. Why did it affect you so much?"

"When we were at Scandals one night, he tried to get me to teach him how to pick up guys. And seeing as how I actually suck at it, I blew him off and insulted him, giving him the impression that no amount of help I could offer would be enough for him to attract a guy."

"Ah."

"What's that mean?"

"It means that you were the third out gay teen that he had met. The second, Blaine, nearly publicly outed him. And the two of us both insulted his looks and desirability."

"I see. So, I merely reinforced whatever it was that you had said to him?"

"Probably. All of it lies, of course, because I've learned since then that bears are a hot commodity amongst a certain group of gay guys."

Sebastian laughed. "Um, yeah."

"I had no idea at the time, but anyway whatever you said to him wasn't why he tried to kill himself. I'm sure that both of us contributed to some body image issues, but feeling like there was no reason to live didn't come from our one-time comments. He had years of self-hatred floating around in his head plus a Facebook page full of people he had been 'friends' with, some for his whole life, telling him to kill himself and spouting their hatred for him and for gays in general. Adding that to the fact that I'm sure he knew his mother would disown him, I'm 100% sure it wasn't because either one of us said unkind things about his looks."

Sebastian nodded. "It made me do some self-reflection, though. It made me realize that my little power trips and verbal smackdowns made me exactly the kind of person that caused me not want to go to school. I went to France to avoid the very kind of person I had become." He was staring at his nearly empty bowl, eyes downcast.

"Is letting me live here some kind of penance?"

Sebastian's head shot up and his eyes flashed. "No. I asked you to move in because I wanted to. I enjoy your company. You're my friend now. I haven't been playing at anything. We had spent a lot of evenings together just doing schoolwork and watching a movie here and there before I asked you. I liked having you here. I like having you here." He got quiet. "We are friends, right?"

Kurt reached out to him again and put his hand on Sebastian's arm. "Yes. We're friends. Best friends."

He nodded. "What you said earlier isn't true about me."

"What did I say?"

"That I think you're too effeminate to be the lead in something. I'm sure I made you feel that way back two years ago, but I don't really think that."

"You walked up to a group of us in the Lima Bean and announced that you didn't recognize me at first because I was wearing 'boy clothes for once'. I wasn't really imagining your attitude."

"I had forgotten I said that. One thing I've learned is that it's easy to spout off smart remarks, but it's the person on the receiving end that remembers what gets said. I vividly remember you telling me that I smelled like Craig's List and that I have giant horse teeth."

"You have lovely teeth and a really amazing smile. Usually you smell like baby wipes." Kurt cracked up laughing.

Sebastian joined in. "Well, you have a fabulous smile and a great laugh. I'm sorry I made you feel bad about yourself."

"Me too."

Sebastian took a deep breath. "I'm just going to say this once and get it out there because we've been setting the record straight about things. Anything I said about your looks or your clothes was purely to tick you off. I was being mean. That's just the truth of it. It was a power trip, not the truth."

"I get it. I attacked Dave's looks to hurt him to try to gain some power in the situation that I felt powerless in. Different circumstances, same action."

Sebastian nodded. "I honestly don't remember all of the things I said to you, but I'm sorry for hurting you."

"Sebastian. Look at me."

He finally looked up.

"I forgave you already. It was two years ago. Things have changed. You've changed. I've changed. It's unlikely that either of us will ever stop being sarcastic, but we're not behaving like we did back then. You have to forgive yourself. You've learned from your mistakes."

He nodded.

"I think that's more than enough depressing flashbacks to high school. We have two beautiful little girls who are being very patient with our incessant talking and will find their baths a lot more fun." Kurt got up and cleared his place and put everything in the dishwasher. He pulled the dish drain out of the right side of the sink and moved it out of the way. He cleaned both sides of the sink and filled them about halfway with warm water.

Sebastian loaded his stuff in the dishwasher and went to get the towels and things they needed. Once they had everything set up, they got the girls out of their high chairs and got them ready. They still used mesh reclining bath seats for them.

Kurt said, "I think we're going to have to move this to the bathtub very soon. Miss Rose is getting a little too interested in sitting up and playing in the water to continue being bathed like this for much longer."

"I want to get those Otteroos I saw online. I'll order them tonight. I was going to get them for them for Christmas, but I think you're right. They need them sooner than that."

"Those really do look like a lot of fun. And we'll be able to use them this summer in a pool out back."

"A pool, you say?" He hip checked Kurt. "Spoiling them already?"

Kurt's heart sped up and he had to keep himself in check, not to let how he felt about Sebastian show. Ever since the day they had spent horsing around and cooking, he was having a harder and harder time restraining himself from admitting that he was in love with him. "A large inflatable pool will be fun for all four of us. We can get in with them and splash around. And with those rings, we won't have to constantly worry."

"A pool big enough for all of us? Sounds fun. We can set it up on the porch so we can skip having to put sunblock or long-sleeved shirts and hats on them."

"Or me."

"Or you. Are you still planning to leave Tuesday evening?"

"Yeah. I'm working 10-hour days Wednesday through Saturday. And then a combination of 10-hour and regular 8-hour days for the two weeks after that."

Sebastian focused on bathing Rose. He gave her one last rinse and pulled her out and wrapped her in a baby panda hooded towel. Kurt was right behind him in the process and wrapped Aliza in a baby horse hooded towel. He followed Sebastian to the girls' room. They diapered the girls and put them in sleepers.

"Story time," Kurt said. He grabbed a few books off the shelf and they all went down to the living room.

They sat next to each other and put their feet up on the blanket-covered coffee table while holding the girls and reading the books to them. They turned the girls facing forward on their laps sitting close to each other in the center. Kurt took the first book off the stack and started to read it to them. Sebastian read the next one. They alternated until they had read all of them.