Disclaimer: I do not own Glee.
RACHEL
It wasn't hard to notice that Kurt and Blaine, for all their outward appearances, had problems behind closed doors and there was no way to hide them from Rachel now that she lived with them. They were hardly ever home at the same time – Kurt spending long days with his theater troupe while still going to the occasional stage audition and Blaine stretching himself too thin between his Masters' studies, tending at Marco's bar, and mixing music for any friend that asked him to – and when they were home together, they could be found bickering more often than they got along. Rachel briefly wondered if it was because of her and the secret she shared with Blaine, that it might be affecting him more than he let on, but the more she observed, the more she realized their arguments were too old to have anything to do with her now constant presence.
Most of their fights weren't much about anything, just whatever there was to argue about at any given time. They would later be forgotten, usually by the time they went to bed, but Rachel could put money down on the fact that at least once a week, she would find Blaine asleep in the couch curled under a thread-bare blanket. On those days, Rachel would make breakfast as quietly as she could and just as he was waking up to the smell of bacon, she would join him in the living room and watch early morning cartoons while she munched on her toast and he stewed in silence over the colossal mess that was their lives.
No matter what Blaine told her, she knew it was mostly her fault; retrospect told her that. He might have made his fair share of manipulations, but if she traced it back to the beginning, it had been her idea to keep things casual. Even after she started developing closer feelings, she made herself believe the most important thing was making sure they didn't go too deep and in effect, she pushed Blaine away and into Kurt's arms. She had told him to work things out with Kurt, to give it another shot and she never really asked him to do the same for her and she slipped away from Blaine until it was easier to pretend she never felt anything real for him. That, more than anything, hurt them more than any of the secrets ever had.
Still, she hated that those secrets had to hurt other people and it was this fear of doing so that held her back. Every time Kurt walked by without saying something to her, even if it was just because he was late to work or late coming home, she imagined it would be like that once Blaine broke down and told him what they did. He would soon, she knew, and she knew it was something that needed to happen, but she just didn't want to lose Kurt. It was a simple and as selfish as that, just like he had been in high school when she wanted so much to have a friend. Kurt had become that for her, almost against his will, and it was hard to let go of that.
Not that remaining his friend wasn't killing her with guilt as well; she felt like she lied to him a little more each day every time he smiled at her or made her laugh. Even more so whenever he asked about Jesse, whom she let Kurt believe fathered her child. It was the easiest solution after all, though it vilified Jesse even more in Kurt's eyes, which she regretted. She wasn't sure that he truly believed her when she told him she had asked Jesse not to be involved with raising the baby, nor that Jesse has actually agree to it, but Kurt at least seemed to accept it for her sake.
Life had almost reached a kind of stalemate for her over the past couple of months. She couldn't take back what had happened – and truthfully, she never would want to – but she couldn't move forward either. Summer passed her by and even as she started her fourth month of pregnancy, nothing seemed to change. She was still stuck between Kurt and Blaine, between Blaine and her heart, between her heart and her head and she was at a loss for how to make it all come together. The only thing she knew for certain was that this time, it wouldn't just work itself out.
It never really had anyway.
So she just tried to pour herself into the one thing she could always count on: performing. She was still only an understudy and so far had only a few bit parts on stage while the rest of the main Mamma Mia cast went on every night , but that didn't stop her from putting everything she had into rehearsals. It was the one place that still made sense to her and she wasn't going to let anything – not her awkward living situation, the fights between Kurt and Blaine, the unresolved everything between her and Blaine – take her stage away from her.
Which was exactly why she hadn't told anyone from her company that she was pregnant; she knew they would have to know eventually, but she also knew as soon as they did, they would ask her to temporarily retire her role and everyone knew that was simply code for being recast. She just wanted one night before she had to give it up, one night where she was a star on Broadway before she resigned herself to lurking in the background for the rest of her life. Logically, she knew should would work after she gave birth, but a voice she couldn't quite in her head told her this was her last shot.
Rehearsals weren't exactly harder, but she did get find herself longing for a break, or drinking more water than she previously might have. Everything else seemed normal to her. She could sing, she could dance, she could run one from one length of the stage to the other without falling on her face and the doctor had said as long as she felt fine and rested when she didn't, there was no reason she had to stop working right away. So she did and managed to keep herself together pretty well.
And then it happened, right in the middle of the big dance she was practicing with the other understudy, an excruciating pain shot through her lower abdomen, fast as lightening and she broke mid term, nearly doubling over from the sensation. It went away as quickly as it came. Her hand came to rest on her still mostly flat stomach as if to settle it. This wasn't like anything she was used to, nothing like the flu or even cramps; no this was something specific.
"Are you okay?" her dance partner Dillon whispered and only then was she aware that several other members of the company had stopped to look at her, concerned and curious at the same time.
"I'm fine," Rachel said with a smile much to wide, holding her hand out for Dillon to start their dance over. "It was just a weird turn."
They barely got through the first sixteen bars before it flared up again, this time making her gasp out loud, her eyes screwing shut as she bit her lip. Both hands clutched tightly at her stomach as if that might make it go away. She could vaguely head Dillon call her name, but she couldn't find the breath to respond. Instead she shook her head, slowing falling to her knees until she could sit on the stage before her legs gave out from under her. A cold sweat beaded at her neck. Her fingers seemed to shake and just when she thought she might actually throw up, the pain subsided once again.
"I think I need to sit down," she whispered.
"You are sitting down," Dillon answered, smoothing her hair back from her forehead. "What's wrong, songbird?"
She tried to smile at the nickname Dillon had given her over a year ago, but it wouldn't come. "I need to go," she said softly, leaning back onto his shoulder, "to a clinic or something."
"There's the university hospital by Rockefeller," he suggested, rubbing circles into her back. She just nodded and let him help her up from the floor and down the stage stairs, her director wishing her well before she walked out of the theater, panicking only slightly that this might be for the last time before another wave of pain washed over her. Dillon found her a cab fairly quickly, a miracle in and of itself, and rode with her to Rockefeller even though she insisted he didn't have to come.
It wasn't until she was sitting in the waiting room that it occurred to her to call Blaine, but almost as soon as she had that thought, a nurse was wheeling her to an exam room and hooking her up to several machines, including a heavy belt that wrapped around her midsection. Dillon, who was never the brightest though certainly the sweetest, nearly passed out himself when Rachel had to explain that it was so they could monitor the baby's heartbeat; and that was the end of her secret.
"Dillon?" she pleaded, his eyes wider than tea plates. "I need you to call Blaine for me please."
"Baby?" he ignored her request, seemingly stuck on that one word.
"Baby," she repeated with a nod. "Can you please call Blaine? We left my phone at rehearsal."
"But like a real baby?"
It took much longer than Rachel would have liked to get Dillon to snap back to his senses, which he seemed to do as another pain passed through her side. He fumbled for his phone and let Rachel punch in Blaine's number, but she couldn't speak to him herself as a doctor had come through to ask her some more basic questions and prod at her stomach. His brow furrowed slightly when he came to what she thought was the source of her pain, muttering something about her kidney before he asked if she could go ahead and lay down on the bed, adding that he would be back shortly with a nurse to do an ultrasound.
"Shortly" turned out to be over half an hour, which seemed much longer as she spent half of her time avoiding Dillon's questions and the other half trying not to cry from the pain. The doctor's need for an ultrasound frightened her and she wondered just how badly she had hurt her baby by being selfish enough to push herself around all day long and not expect it to have consequences. Maybe this was her punishment for being so fucked-up, for stringing everyone along for her own needs and this was the universe's way of giving her hell back; all of a sudden, she wanted to cry for an entirely different reason.
She needed Blaine, and that was all she could think. When he finally burst through the door in a flying rush of flying limbs and panicked eyes, she broke down into hysterics, falling into his arms as he gathered her up and set her in his lap on the bed.
"I'm so sorry" he spoke quickly, his words coming in short spurts as he tried to catch his breath. "There was an accident and the cab had to take a detour, but then we got in traffic and I just got out and ran the last ten blocks. Are you okay? Has anyone been in to see you yet? What's happening?"
"I don't know," she sniffled into his simple white shirt that was already saturated in tear spots. "It just really hurts and they want to do an ultrasound and what if something bad has happened?"
"Nothing bad will happen," he insisted, holding her tighter to his chest. "It's going to be fine."
They sat in silence for another thirty minutes until Dillon came back in the room with a handful of snacks from a vending machine and a large cup of coffee for Blaine, followed by a the same doctor from before and a nurse wheeling an ultrasound machine into her room. She didn't want to let go of Blaine, but they assured her he could stay while she lay back down, so she settled for holding his hand as they set up the machine. When they were ready, she pulled her shirt up and Blaine kissed her knuckles while the nurse spread the cold gel around on her stomach.
She couldn't see much on the screen, only a few grainy black and white lumps spread here and there, but the medical team seemed to know what they were looking for as the started on the side she had no pain in and made careful notes before positioning the wand right over where all her discomfort was coming from. Her grip on Blaine's hand tightened and a scowling frown appeared on his face. She held her breath, almost expecting something grotesque and horrible to appear in the tiny monitor, but nothing like that happened. Instead the doctor just make a clicking noise with his tongue, marked a few columns on his charts and nodded to the nurse who removed the pressure from Rachel's stomach.
"Well the good news is there are no evidence of kidney stones, which was my first suspicion," the doctor said in a soothing voice, "but your kidney is slightly inflamed. I think you may have a kidney infection, which I want you to know is not uncommon in pregnant women. I need to run a few more tests – blood work, things like that – but if it is a kidney infection, we can treat it with antibiotics fairly easily, though the next few days may continue to be uncomfortable."
"Nothing's wrong with the baby, right?" Blaine asked as Rachel went rigid.
"Nothing at all," the doctor smiled and Rachel sagged in relief. "Would you like to see?"
Her heart fluttered, but she managed to nod weakly. The nurse turned the machine back on and placed the wand back on her stomach moving it slowly in search of her child. She passed just below her navel and Blaine sucked in a breath next to her. One second, all Rachel could see was the same black and white grain and the next, the delicate curve of a spine, a slightly enlarged head, but two hands with fingers and two feet with toes and a tiny flickering in the middle of the screen.
"That's the heart," the nurse said knowingly as she moved slowly across the image, pointing out all the little things Rachel hadn't been able to see when she had her first and, until then, only ultrasound as she was trying to determine if she were truly pregnant. It was overwhelming in a way she never expected, a surge or pride and love taking her over. The pain in her side was forgotten as turned to look at Blaine with a true smile on her face. She watched him gaze in amazement at the monitor and it was a struggle for him to pull his eyes away to look at her, but when he did, he was smiling with the barest hint of tears in his eyes.
"Would you like to know the sex?" the nurse asked. "That is if you don't know already."
"Can we?" she asked Blaine, squeezing his hand as tightly as she could.
"Do you want to?" he whispered, leaning in closer to her and wrapping their clasped hands in his free one.
"If you want to," she whispered back, resting her forehead on his shoulder.
"We would-." Blaine gulped, a nervous tremble to his voice, "yes, we would like to know."
"It's a perfectly healthy baby girl."
The world fell away from them as Rachel collapsed into a fit of giggles and Blaine's face fell into the silliest grin she had ever seen. Suddenly it didn't matter so much that she would have to give up being an understudy on Broadway, or that she still felt grossly unprepared to have a baby, or that she couldn't even tell anyone who the father truly was. She was having a little girl; her little girl, Blaine's little girl, and for the first time, she could see herself in this role and that was more important than anything anymore.
-:-
BLAINE
"Are you sure you're going to be okay?"
His stomach churned as he hesitantly reached for his book bag, silently begging Rachel to ask him to stay. Ever since his mad rush to her in the hospital a few days ago, it was getting harder to leave for class in morning and once his lecture started, he couldn't focus on anything but her. What if something like that happened again and she couldn't get in touch with anyone to help her? She had been lucky at rehearsal, but now that she had resigned from the production, she just sat at home by herself, watching day time television on the couch and fighting off the occasional wave of stomach pains. Blaine didn't like it; he didn't like it at all.
"I'll be fine," she always said, though she couldn't hide her grimacing frown from him. "School is important. Go."
But every day he left, he would come back to her curled into a tight ball on the couch, muttering in discomfort as her "common" kidney infection rode it's way out through her body. The doctor had told them both it was normal to still feel the pains, but it terrified Blaine more than he was willing to admit to her. So when Kurt texted him in the middle of class to say he was taking Rachel to a nearby clinic - "just the get checked out, don't worry" - Blaine decided then and there he had to do something about it.
Which is how he ended up in the admissions hall of NYU, trying to explain to the academic adviser why he was withdrawing from his Masters degree with only a semester and a half before completion. He insisted it was a deferment, that he had every intention of obtaining his Masters, but he honestly felt like he had more important things to take care of right now. The adviser said he shouldn't let his obvious talents in musical engineering and business go to waste, that this was not the time to lose focus on his future and a few months ago, Blaine would have agreed with him without a second thought. Except now his future had changed; it was this little girl, it was Rachel, it was figuring out how Kurt fit into this. It was in his family now, not a slip of paper that proved he spent the past six years with his nose in a book.
When he got home, he put his bag in the closet on the top shelf, knowing he wouldn't have any reason to get it down for months. There was an odd sense of finality to it, but it didn't feel like he had given anything up. It felt like, for the first time in a very long time, he had done the right thing. He only hoped Kurt and Rachel would see it that way too.
Kurt, he knew, would be gone until late night again, but he found Rachel in the kitchen stirring up a pot of vegetable soup and humming softly to the radio. Her hair was tied back in a messy bun and she wore no makeup, but there was something beautiful about her as she stood in the midday sun. It was hard to take his eyes off her and he was content to watch her from the doorway, but she turned and saw him lurking before too long.
"Hi," she greeted warmly, with only a touch of confusion in her voice. "What are you doing home so early?"
"Class ended," he said with a shrug, leaving the door frame and crossing over to the cabinets to pull down two bowls. "Did you make enough for me?"
"You can have a little," she said, but covered the pan with a lid before he could scoop any of the soup into their bowls, "if you tell me why you're really home so early."
Blaine chuckled and leaned against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. "I left early," he admitted before taking a deep breath, "because I needed to go to the admissions office to hand in my withdrawal slip."
"Your with- you dropped out of school?" she exclaimed, her voice shrill and ringing through his ears by the time she completed her very loud question.
"I deferred," he replied automatically.
"Why would you do that?" she demanded, her jaw locked tight and her hands on her hips.
"I think the answer is fairly obvious," he remarked in return, staring pointedly at her and then her stomach.
"Blaine, no!" She had progressed to yelling at this point and he winced as the sounds bounced off the tile. "That is unacceptable and I won't allow it. You go take it back right now. Tell them you made a mistake and you want to be re-enrolled in your classes. I won't let you do this."
"It's already done," he argued back, though he made a conscious effort to keep his voice calm. "I made a choice and honestly, I feel good about it."
"Well I don't!" Rachel groaned as she started to pace the kitchen. "It's one thing for my life and my career to be put on hold because of my pregnancy, but there's no reason for you to have to do the same thing. Your education is important and you've worked so hard for this degree and I know that if you 'defer'," she said the word as if it were venom in her mouth, "now, you won't ever go back. That's what happens with things like this. You quit because you think there are more important things, but there's not Blaine. What's happening with me is not more important than this."
"Us," he corrected sternly and she stopped pacing long enough to look at him, her expression carefully guarded. But he could see the light in the corner of her eyes that meant she had heard the implication, that she understood what it meant even if it was still a thought far off in the distance. "This is happening with us and whether you like it or not, both of our lives are changing faster than we can keep up. Well, I'm trying and I can't be here and be in school at the same time. So yes, this is more important to me right now."
"You are here though," she said with a sigh as she sat down at the table. "You're always here when I need you."
"Like I was when you went to the hospital?" Blaine asked, his eyebrow quirked knowingly as she looked down away from him. "What would have happened if you hadn't been at rehearsal? I wasn't supposed to be home for hours and God know when Kurt was supposed to come back. You would have been alone and in pain and what would you have done?"
"I would have called someone, obviously," she replied.
"Rach," he sighed this time, sitting down next to her. "You forget that I saw you in there. You think you can hide these things from me, but you were in full panic mode and I wasn't there. I didn't even know anything was wrong until Dillon called. I don't know him, I don't have his number, what if I hadn't answered?"
"So your solution is to babysit me?" she groaned, rolling her eyes.
"No," Blaine laughed and she cracked a tiny smile. "I'm just saying I want to be around, and not just because something could go wrong. We both know there's more to it than that."
"What if I said there can't be?" she challenged.
"I think we're way past that," he said as he reached for her hand under the table, linking their fingers together and gave them a reassuring squeeze.
"Yeah, we are" she chuckled quietly as she shook her head, "but that doesn't change anything right now."
"I think we both know that too," he agreed sadly, his thumb tracing slow circles into her flesh; she was right of course. He was getting closer and closer to knowing what he wanted, but it still felt like too little, too late. He had run away from anything hard or difficult for too long, and he had let himself settle into a life he wasn't sure he ever wanted. I was comfortable and secure and somewhere down the line, he convinced himself it would be selfish to ask for more. He had a home, a boyfriend he loved, a best friend he loved just as much, a decent enough job; he didn't need more. He was lucky and he wasn't willing to risk that; except he could see now how this complacency had screwed everything up in the long run. He was running out of time to make it right.
"Are we horrible people?" Rachel wondered out loud, her voice wistful as if she were talking to herself.
"No," Blaine told her, kissing her shoulder as he got up to finish making their lunch. "We're just people with a lot of mistakes between the two of us."
She only tried once to convince him to go back to classes the next day. He refused and insisted they spend the rest of the day watching movies, which they did until Rachel complained that she was hungry. Even then, they only left the couch to answer the door when their food was delivered, spreading it across the coffee table like a grand feast and continued watching Saturday Night Fever – his pick obviously – and watched Tony Manero disco during their meal.
At some point during Hello Dolly, Rachel had curled into him, her head resting against his chest as his arms went around her waist and by the time they had moved on to Labyrinth, they were both laying across the couch in a comfortable tangle of limbs and warmth. Before the Goblin King had even made an appearance, Rachel had completely fallen asleep and Blaine found it difficult to concentrate on anything else but the way he could feel the slightest swell to her stomach as it pressed against his, how content she looked as she slept in his arms. An overwhelming realization washed over him as she smiled against his skin; he felt whole.
He couldn't remember the last time he felt like this, like everything in the world was the way it should be. It dawned on him that every moment he could think of that even came close to this involved Rachel in some way and guiltily, he knew he should have immediately thought of Kurt and all the times they were happy. Because they had been once; they had loved once, deeply and part of him knew that thread would always run through his life. Nothing would ever replace who Kurt was and what he meant to Blaine and it hurt more than he could bear to imagine that was over.
He could fight it, he knew. He could ignore Rachel's pleas to keep their infidelity a secret and tell Kurt everything. He could grovel and plead and do literally anything to convince Kurt he needed him and wanted to stay with him. And every terrified part of him wanted to do just that, to keep things the way they had been so long. To love his boyfriend, but he just... couldn't anymore. He knew, as Rachel sighed softly in her sleep, that he would never be able to walk away from her. As much as he loved Kurt, he loved Rachel and he loved her more.
He always had, he just didn't understand what it meant and now it was like being run over by a freight train. It could kill him.
Blaine heard the door open and close to the sound of roaring laughter quickly quieted once Kurt realized most of the lights in the apartment were off. "I think they're sleeping," he said in a hushed whisper as he passed the living room.
"Is that them on the couch?" Blaine recognized the second voice as Eli's, a friend of Kurt's he had never particularly liked, though he often resisted saying so. There was just something about the way he spoke to Kurt, things he would say about Blaine or about Rachel, that rubbed him the wrong way. Often because it felt too close to the truth.
Rachel stirred in his arms as Kurt and Eli moved around in the kitchen, her round eyes fluttering open questioningly as they found his. He quieted her with a gentle finger to her lips and she sank back down into his chest and seemed unwilling to move anymore and he wouldn't be the one to ask her.
"She doesn't look pregnant," he heard Eli announce and the sharp intake of breath told him that Rachel had heard him as well.
"She's not even five months yet," Kurt explained with disinterest, and Blaine could almost see how he might shrug and turn around, his signal that it wasn't a thing worth talking about. "It's like, four and a half."
"I thought that's when girls started to show," Eli pressed on anyway.
"It's different for everyone, I think."
"Maybe she's faking it," Eli laughed and Rachel gasped in surprise, but Blaine held her still and tried to ignore the way his blood had started simmering at the mere suggestion.
"She would have nothing to gain from that Eli," Kurt sighed. "Trust me, she's pregnant."
"I'm just saying, she looks awfully cozy with your boyfriend out there," he retorted.
"You don't know what you're talking about," Kurt hissed and it hit Blaine like ice, cold and hard. Kurt was defending him and Blaine didn't know how to feel about it. Guilty mostly for doing exactly what Kurt was saying he hadn't, but a jolt of pride and love flashed through him as well until a deep sadness drowned it out.
"Maybe I don't," Eli admitted, but Blaine could practically see the smug grin on his face, "or maybe I do. But onto more important things: are you going to do it?"
Blaine heard Kurt laugh, a light and free sound he hadn't heard in so long. "I don't know," Kurt said. "You know I've been thinking about it for weeks. It's like the only think on my mind, but Los Angeles is so far and I haven't even talked to Blaine about it."
"Screw Blaine; no one cares what he has to say!" Eli practically screamed as Blaine began to fume silently. Rachel was glaring towards the kitchen, but her hand found his in comfort. "This is a once in a lifetime chance," Eli was saying, "and you have to take it. Kurt, this is a real movie set and the director wants you there."
"You act like I'll be starring in this or something," Kurt laughed. "It's just as an assistant to the director. I'll be getting him coffee more than anything."
"You will be an assistant director on a movie that thousands, if not millions, will see," Eli said emphatically. "Your name will be in Hollywood and you can get out of this town directing small time plays only half the house sees. You could make it out there. You have 'the eye' he said."
"He was being flattering."
"He wants you."
"I still have to talk to Blaine," Kurt sighed sadly.
"You better do it soon," Eli insisted. "You're supposed to leave in a week."
"I will," Kurt agreed. "I'm just waiting for the right time.
Blaine couldn't bring himself to say anything; just listened to the pair rummage around the kitchen before leaving again. Rachel sat up quietly, asked if he was okay, but he couldn't answer her either. No, he wasn't okay. He was far from okay. Kurt was leaving him and it was painful, but at the same time, Blaine knew it had to happen, that even if they were still in a stable relationship, Kurt would be a fool to turn this kind of opportunity down and Blaine wouldn't let him.
But that conversation was everything that was wrong between him and Kurt. They couldn't talk to each other, not about the things that matter. It was all carefully guarded words and half-truths, fears they couldn't express and it hurt even more to think he had caused Kurt to feel that way. Blaine, he had reasons for the things he couldn't tell Kurt, but he didn't know that Kurt might have his own to keep from being open with Blaine. It was a wedge driving them apart, and it had been for years. They were just feeling it now.
It had to end.
"So, when were you going to tell me about LA?" Blaine asked as he sat down across from Kurt, who started sputtering and choking on his morning coffee. Blaine waited for him to settle down and push his drink away before he said anything else. Taking Kurt by surprise wasn't the best idea perhaps, but it was the only way Blaine knew to get the upper hand and for this, he felt he would need it. "I heard you talking to Eli the other night."
-:-
"Eli was just being a jerk," Kurt tried to explain, but Blaine merely shook his head.
"I think you missed what I said," he interrupted. "I heard you and what you said was that you were just waiting for the right time to bring it up. Well this is it, this is the right time Kurt."
"It's a good opportunity," Kurt insisted, his hand reaching over the table as if to take Blaine's, but Blaine pulled back, folding his in his lap. Kurt looked hurt, but his eyes hardened as he sat back, his arms crossed over his chest. "You can't expect me to turn this down."
"I don't," Blaine sighed. "I think you should go."
"I'm so glad I have your permission," Kurt scoffed, standing up from the table and paced over the the sink, throwing his half-consumed coffee down the drain in a show of irritation. Blaine didn't try to stop him, just let him rant on about the work he would be doing on a movie set, the experience he would get and the connections he might make to further their lives together. He didn't know that Blaine had different ideas and when he was finished, looking to Blaine for whatever answer he wanted, Blaine took a deep breath:
"And I think we should take a break."
It was amazing the effect a few simple words strung together could have on a person. Kurt's arms fell to his sides, his jaw dropped slightly, and his eyes, his crystalline blue eyes became shaded in panicked tears. He almost seemed to shake or shiver, as if her were suddenly cold, but they both knew it wasn't a chill. It was Blaine. It was his words. It was the looming inevitability that one way or another, something was being broken and Kurt was powerless to stop it.
Again, Blaine waited for Kurt to collect himself before speaking. "You didn't talk to me," he explained, surprised that he could manage to look into Kurt's wavering eyes, "and that's a problem, Kurt. We have problems."
"Everyone has problems!" Kurt exclaimed. "That doesn't mean that we should just throw away all these years of being together because we have communication issues and I know you don't tell me everything."
"That is exactly my point!" Blaine argued. "You want to fly across country for three months and you didn't feel like you could talk to me about it and there has to be a reason why. Did you think I'd say no, don't go?"
"I knew you wouldn't!" Kurt shouted, "and damn it Blaine, you're supposed to tell me you don't want me to leave you. You're supposed to say you can't be away from me for three months, and I knew you wouldn't say that. I knew you would smile at me and say you were happy, and you would wave me off at the airport and I would spend the next three months missing you and you wouldn't even care."
"I wouldn't care?" Blaine repeated, his voice rising angrily for the first time. "Kurt, I can't imagine my life without you and it's killing me. I don't want to hurt you but I-." His throat closed up on it's own accord and he struggled to find the words he needed to say to Kurt without breaking his promise to Rachel, but they weren't coming. There was no middle line anymore. "I just don't know what to do anymore."
"Try."
Blaine flinched away from the word as if it has been a knife aimed at his heart. "We try," he whispered, finally looking away from his upset boyfriend. " What do you think we've been doing for the past six years. Ever since that Christmas in Rockerfeller, all we do is try and I can't do it anymore. I can't."
"It sounds like you don't want a break, you want to break up entirely," Kurt muttered, tears falling freely down his face at this point.
"We need space to figure this out," he answered.
"I'm going to Los Angeles," Kurt scoffed. "That's thousands of miles worth of space. Can I just go to LA, miss you, and then come home? Can we do that?"
"You mean ignore this?" Blaine laughed humorlessly. "That's why we're having this conversation in the first place."
"Is there someone else?" Kurt said with a glare and Blaine's stomach lurched and dropped into his shoes; the truth was right there, in just one syllable – yes – but all he could picture was Kurt screaming at Rachel, picture her crying and how Kurt would look like he might shatter like he did whenever he heard bad news and again, Blaine didn't say anything. At least Kurt didn't give him much of a chance as he threw his hands up defensively and added, "no, I don't want to know. I just want to know how we are going to fix this."
"I told you what I-."
"I don't accept that," Kurt interjected, shaking his head over and over.
"You have to," Blaine pleaded.
"I won't lose you," Kurt cried.
"I don't want to lose you either," Blaine said thickly, "but there's so much- right now, I think that's our only option."
"Fine," Kurt spat at him, his words filled with a venom Blaine had rarely heard from him as he stalked across the kitchen towards the door. "You can have your little break. I'm packing for LA and I'm staying at Eli's until I leave next week and I hope you have a fucking grand time living in my apartment, sleeping in my bed, with all my things."
He paused at the entry way, turning just enough to glare at Blaine over his shoulder. "As for Rachel, you tell her I want to talk to her. You remind her that she was my friend first."
-:-
True to his word, Kurt left and he didn't even look back. He didn't call or text and Blaine didn't try to get in touch with him either. It was one of the harder things Blaine could ever remember doing, staying away from Kurt but the more time that passed, the more Blaine felt he had done the right thing. Still, he worried when he didn't get to hear from him or see him everyday. It was a lingering feeling and the only indication he had that Kurt hadn't simply disappeared completely came from Rachel, who spent most of her time with him in the week before he was set to jet off the the other side of the country.
"I can't believe you did this," she yelled at him on the third day, her glare prickling at his skin. She was in his room, reading a list of things Kurt had forgotten and stuffing them into her pink suitcase for him.
"Did what?"
"This!" she gestured wildly at the room around her that Blaine hadn't bothered to pick up since Kurt had flown out in a rage, leaving clothes strewn everywhere. Pictures of the two of them were turned over and more than half of the en suite bathroom seemed to be missing. "Do you realize what I'm doing here? I'm packing for Kurt because he won't come here because you," she practically hissed at him, "broke up with him and sent him away just when I need him the most."
"I did not send him away," Blaine scoffed, picking up one of Kurt's favorite scarves off the floor, folding it carefully and handing it to her. "And really, you need him? You think you do, but you don't. You use him like a crutch to avoid facing anything that involves us and I know you do because I do the same thing."
"You promised me Blaine," she said in deflection, tossing a pair of skinny jeans into the suitcase.
"I promised that I wouldn't tell him I'm the father of your baby," he reminded her, retrieving the jeans to fold those as well. "And I obviously still haven't, but I couldn't keep lying to him about everything. It fucking sucks and he deserves better. This is the only way I can give it to him."
"You can't give him anything if he's in California," Rachel snapped at him, zipping the suitcase shut in a flourish before she realized he was still holding Kurt's jeans. She sighed, snagging them back from him and stuffed them into one of the pockets on the side. "He's going to be hurt when you don't fight to get him back."
"He's going to be hurt either way," Blaine said quietly, the words sticking in his throat. "Just tell him I'm sorry, okay?"
"Are you?" she demanded of him and he couldn't help the glare he shot in her direction.
"Of course I am," he growled. "He was my life for six years, eight if you count high school and just because I managed to fuck things up beyond repair doesn't change how I felt about him all this time. I loved him, and you know that."
"And this is how you end it?" she questioned haughtily. "Just out of the blue, with no warning and you don't even give him a chance to change your mind."
"Isn't that how you do things?" Blaine finally snapped back. "I mean really Rachel, let's remember how you dumped me over the goddamn phone."
"That was different!"
"It wasn't!" he yelled over her before she could say anything else. "It hurt."
She just stood there, her hand on the little pink handle to her suitcase and even though he knew it was packed with Kurt's things, it looked like she was getting ready to leave him too. Again. Just like everyone else and he knew it was all his fault one way or another, but he couldn't stomach the thought of watching her walk out the door. He couldn't stop her and he knew she would be back, but the image was too much for him. So he did the only thing he could do. He left first.
He wandered the streets of New York until the sun went down, remembering when he had first moved to the city. Things had been simple. He had been so sure he was done with Kurt, that Rachel was just his best friend, that there was nothing holding him down to anyone or anything. But his heart had gotten in the way, and his head in the way of his heart until six years later he was walking the same streets feeling incredibly lost.
He nearly laughed out loud when he finally looked up from the sidewalk to see where he had ended up. A simple brownstone building with ten stories, a rickety old fire escape crawling out of one of the windows on the top floor. The walls in that room were a golden yellow, faded slightly after years of use, but always bright and warm, welcoming the weary home after a long and confusing day. He had been led home, he thought, staring up at Rachel's old apartment. He had run straight to her.
There was a note on the refrigerator, hastily scrawled on pink paper that seemed a direct contradiction to the short and hostile manner Rachel used to tell him she was staying out late with Kurt and he shouldn't expect to see her before he went to sleep. In fact, he got the distinct impression that if he waited up for her, she might wake the neighbors for all her screaming at him. It wasn't until just past eleven when the note fell off the door that he noticed the tiny script on the back; just two little words but it made him smile:
"I'm sorry."
She didn't come back to the apartment for two days, not until after Kurt officially departed for California without a word to Blaine. Even then, she tried her hardest to ignore him, which was increasingly difficult considering they both had very little left to their lives outside of the four walls they lived together in. Blaine still went to work, but the majority of his day was spent with Rachel, whether she was speaking to him or not. If she managed to stay in the same room with him for more than fifteen minutes, he counted that as a victory.
Occasionally she would watch a movie in the living room while he was trying to spread a sheet across the couch so he could sleep later. She hadn't said anything to him about sleeping on the couch, and if she'd bothered to ask, he would have told her that he couldn't stay in the bed he shared with Kurt when he was thinking about her. It felt dirty to him, like one of the biggest insults he could possibly do to Kurt. But she didn't ask and it wasn't something he was willing to say to someone who may or may not be listening. But she would always hand him a pillow as he drifted away before disappearing for the night.
If she locked herself in her room during the day, he set up a makeshift studio in the breakfast nook, running his long extension cords for his sound board down the hall while his laptop and amps cluttered the outlets around the kitchen. Even if he wasn't in school anymore, there was something comforting and familiar about working on his thesis. It was a world he could control. He could change the entire mood of a song by changing a chord or adding a new one. He could strip it away, make it vulnerable. He could make it strong. He could be exactly who he needed to be and eventually, everything would come out right. And if he were lucky, whoever listened to it would understand where he was coming from.
He couldn't exactly blame her for being angry or feeling betrayed, but he had at least expected her to realize why he had to do it. Even if he had called it a break, he knew in his heart his time with Kurt was over. It should have been as soon as he cheated on him with Rachel. He should have owned up to it then and there, but fear and anger and pride had gotten in the way, just like what was happening now with Rachel.
"We're not doing this again," Blaine said after over a week of silent treatment from her.
"We're not doing anything," Rachel sighed, doing her best to look away from him.
He caught her by the arm gently and turned her around, tucking a finger under her chin until her gaze had nowhere to go but to his. "We're not talking," he replied, his voice soft as he spoke to her. "You're avoiding me and I'm doing my best to let you, but if we keep doing this, things are just going to get screwed up again. I don't want that."
"I don't think you know what you want," she said in a heavy voice. "I know I don't."
"This is the time to figure it out."
"Why?" she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "Because Kurt's gone and we don't have to worry about getting caught?
"Because if we don't do it now, we never will," he said in a rush before she really had a chance to get going, "This is too important to ignore anymore Rachel. It's not just you and me anymore." She seemed to soften at that, her hands floating to her stomach. He reached out hesitantly, waiting for her to flinch away from him, but she stay still and watched him until his hand joined her, fingers interwoven over her abdomen. "It's her too."
"One day," Rachel breathed slowly, and he could hear traces of fear and apprehension in her voice, "she's going to ask who her father is and I don't think I'll be able to lie to her."
"I wouldn't want you to," he shook his head. "I want to be there and when I'm not, I want you to be able to tell her about me. I want you to be able to tell her how much I love you."
"You love me?" Rachel scoffed, but it wasn't bitter or harsh, just sad and disheartened. "I don't even know what that is with you Blaine. I've had to listen to you say that to Kurt for six years and you didn't mean it."
"That's not fair," he whispered, withdrawing from her.
"I don't care," she insisted, flouncing down on the living room couch, unmade from his restless night before. "It's how I feel. Can you understand how scared I am? My entire life is spinning out of my grasp and for the longest time, you've been my anchor. But now you're spinning too and I don't know what to believe. I can't trust myself or how I feel because I can't trust you."
"Rach-."
"And I hate it!" she continued, her eyes brimming with frustration. "I don't like feeling this far away from you and I need you. It's not Kurt, it's not anyone but you, but what am I supposed to do when all I can think about is how much it hurt when you left. It was years ago and I should be over it, but I'm not. We had this perfect summer and I always fall too hard and too fast and that's my fault but you do the same thing and I thought at least I'd be at the bottom with you. But I kept falling and you got out."
"You pushed me out," Blaine cried indignantly.
"You didn't fight for me!"
Blaine paused and let the words echo in his head as if it were an answer to a question he never knew he had; in a way, it was. He always assumed the reason they fell apart was largely his fault. He had confused his feelings for her, muddled them up with his reawakening affections for Kurt. But underneath all of that, he had never understood where she was coming from, or why she had pushed him away so suddenly. He had just let her go.
"I didn't know you wanted me too," he finally said, dropping to his knees in front of her. "I swear Rachel, if you had told me back then that this is how things were going to work out, I would have done everything differently."
"Everything?" she gulped, her eyes widening. He nodded, leaning into her until his forehead was pressed against hers with one of his hands cupped around the back of her neck, trailing through her silky hair. "Who's to say we wouldn't have ended up here anyway, but me as Kurt instead?"
"I do," he tried to reassure her. "This has been a long time coming and I'm sorry it took all of this for me to see it. I'm done pretending this isn't real. I'm just waiting for you."
"What if I'm not there yet?"
"I'll still be here when you are."
-:-
It wasn't immediate, but Rachel did start to come around. It was in the little things; she would say good morning or have the coffee ready when he woke up. She would sit closer to him on the couch as they watched yet another movie and if she were really tired, lean into his shoulder. She would text him when he was at work, just to check in. It felt like he was getting her back, piece by piece.
It wasn't until a few weeks later when they seemed to click back into place. He was sitting in the kitchen, his headphones snapped over one ear. His mixing equipment was spread out across the table and counters as he fiddled with the sound on some instrumentals his old band buddy was trying to turn into a song, and he was only half listening as Eric complained about it just not sounding right. He barely heard him at all as he started turning knobs and dials.
"Are you fixing it?" Eric pleaded.
"Just stop mixing man," Blaine laughed, flipping another switch. "You have no feel for this."
"I'm trying to be a serious musician, I should know how to do this shit," Eric groaned, leaning back in his chair. "Can I have that ice cream in the freezer?"
"It's soy, you won't like it," Blaine shrugged distractedly, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he listened to the song in his headphones.. "It's Rachel's."
"And how is baby mamma doing?"
"Go ask her yourself," Blaine glared at him. "She's right down the hall."
Eric didn't move, just continued to ask mundane questions as Blaine worked on his song. Eventually they fell into an easy silence. Eric had "normal people ice cream" tucked into the back of the fridge and was eating his way through the carton while Blaine could feel himself getting closer and closer to successfully mixing the music into a cohesive, interesting composition. It was right there, right at his fingertips.
"BLAINE!"
His little world shattered as Rachel's shrill scream echoed down the hall and he bolted out of his chair, startling Eric even more and ran towards Rachel's room. All the worst scenarios ran through his head; she had another kidney infection, she had fallen, she was hurt, the baby was hurt. A thousand different possibilities and in the few seconds it took to reach the door, he feared the worst. But when burst into her room, she was standing in front of the mirror, her jaw agape while her hands wrapped around her stomach. Her noticeably swollen stomach.
"I'm not just imagining it right?" she asked breathlessly, her fingers roaming around a bulge in her stomach he could have sworn wasn't there the day before. It was kind of small, but on her tiny frame, the roundness that protruded out of her normally flat stomach seemed even bigger on her than it probably was. "It's really there. You can see it right?"
"I can see it."
"I don't- is this normal?" She sounded almost breathless, slightly panicked even. He was by her side in an instant, his hand rubbing soothing circles in her back as she continued to stare are herself in the mirror.
"You're six months now," he said softly, moving her hair off her neck. "You're supposed to start showing now, aren't you?"
"But does it happen like this, over night?" she wondered.
"We can call the doctor," Blaine suggested, "or look it up online."
"I don't feel like anything is wrong," she said shaking her head. "It's just... incredible."
"Yeah," Blaine smiled. "It is."
"We did this," she practically giggled, turning around and throwing her arms around his shoulders. Instinctively his arms circled around her waist, holding her tightly to him. Her lips pressed against his collar, and he might have taken it as an accident if she hadn't woven her fingers into his hair and pulled him down, molding her lips into his. It was light and free and it carried him away only to bring him crashing back down with every taste he was given of her. It was more than he ever wanted and for the first time in as long as he could remember, he didn't feel guilty for wanting it.
She pulled away slowly and blushed, but he just cupped the apples of her cheeks, spreading featherlight kisses across her eyelids. She smiled at him happily, her hands curving once again around her new stomach as if it were the most beautiful thing in the world. Right now, looking at her and the way she practically glowed, Blaine could agree that it was.
"Wow," a voice in the doorway said and they both turned to look at Eric, whom Blaine had completely forgotten was there. "You're like, really pregnant Rachel."
She giggled lightly, falling back into the circle of Blaine's arms. Blaine grinned at his friend and said, "Eric, buddy, I have to ask you to leave."
"But my song-."
"I'll email it to you."
"Dude are you like-," Eric stuttered as Blaine pushed him out of Rachel's room and down the hall towards the front door. . "Dude. Did you do that?"
"Goodbye Eric," Blaine replied, using Eric out of the apartment, his resounding "DUDE!" heard through the closed door.
"Is he gone?" Rachel asked, padding down the hallway after him, her eyes shining still.
"He is," Blaine smiled, his hands reaching out curl around her again.
"Good," was all she said before her fingers were tangled in his hair again, dragging him down to crash into her again. It was too much and too little at the same time and he couldn't keep his hands still around her. They ghosted down her sides, trailing along her hips and she pulled at his belt loops stumbling back to her bedroom. He managed to untie the sweats she was wearing and they pooled around her feet as they fell to the ground, followed shortly by his shirt and jeans, until she was left in just a tank top and he in his boxers.
"I'm not complaining," he laughed as she pushed him down on the bed, straddling his waist, "but this is kind of coming out of nowhere."
"I'm pregnant," she whispered huskily. "I'm horny, and I want you. I miss you." He groaned as she gripped him tightly through the fabric of his boxers, stroking up and down at her leisure but he was growing harder with every touch. "Do you know how hard it's been, knowing I could have you, and staying away from you? I thought I was doing right by Kurt by waiting, but I don't want to any more."
"I'm going to leave him, you know?" Blaine said with sudden seriousness, his hand stilling hers. "I am."
"I know," she said after a minute, pulling him up for a soft kiss, the angle of their hips against each other different than he'd ever felt as her rounded stomach fell between them.
"He deserves to be told face-to-face," he explained carefully. "I owe him more than a text or an email. I owe him more than a phone call. When he comes back from California, I'll tell him."
"We'll tell him," she agreed with a nod. "Everything. He deserves to know."
"Thank you," Blaine sighed with relief, his forehead resting against her chest. "Rachel I- just thank you."
"Don't thank me," she replied, her lips dipping down just below his ear, her hot breath on his skin. "Kiss me."
He did; and she kissed him without fear or hesitation, or guilt. Just pure and simple, in a way it had been during their single summer together, when the didn't have much to worry about except what the other wanted, how they felt against each other, how they tasted and flushed under the barest of touches. She moved against him, her mouth against his skin as he grasped her hips as she pushed his boxers away, holding him in her hand until she took him in, sliding as far down as she could. A moan fell from her throat, so deep it seemed to vibrate through him. His hips buckled into hers on their own accord, begging her to move, but he waited until she found a place where she felt comfortable. Slowly, as they grew accustomed to each other again, to her new shape, she guided herself up and down, until they found a pace that worked for them both.
He could see the edge, that dangerous precipice waiting for him to fall off of but he didn't want to go without her. She was just so tight and warm, and he wasn't sure he was going to make it but then her fingernails dug into his chest and she closed in around him with quivering, shaking walls. Her movements became for frantic, desperate and he seemed to take over for her, his hands a vice around her hips as he rose up to meet her. She came with his name dripping from his lips, sweet as any song he had ever heard.
She seemed exhausted afterward, laying on her side as he curled up behind her, their legs tangled together. He listened to her breathe, the sound lulling him into a sleep he knew his body didn't need but there was nothing he wanted more in that moment than to be near her. To fall asleep in her bed, to hold her, to truly feel like he could be with her, it was everything and just before he fell into the beckoning darkness, he heard her voice once again, saying:
"I love you."
-:-
RACHEL
Over the next couple of weeks, the small bulge Rachel had caused so much commotion over grew faster and faster until she looked, for all intents and purposes, properly pregnant. Her clothing before she had managed to stuff herself into, though it had been just a little snug, but as the weeks went by, she had been forced to break out the elastic bands and large shirts. She had borrowed one of Blaine's when she demanded he take her shopping, his smell comforting to her as she tried on skirts in sizes she had never worn.
She had wanted to cry at one point, looking at the long and flowing skirts that just were not her, but Blaine kept telling her she was beautiful, that she would always be beautiful, and to her, nothing else mattered except his voice and the light in his eyes that he looked at her with. She could glimpse in the mirror and see that same light in hers. They were happy, she realized, and free to be so.
Technically, Blaine was still on his break from Kurt, but she knew they were done. She had known it as soon as Blaine initiated it, long before he had explicitly told her that he was going to leave. She just needed to be sure that he was serious about her, truly serious and not just looking for sturdy ground to stand on; and maybe it was petty, but by pushing him away, she could be sure. Because this time, he didn't let her go. He stayed and fought for her in his way and that was all she needed from him.
Because she did love him. Always had. Even when she had been with Jesse, who she loved in the way she supposed Blaine loved Kurt, she had always felt herself drawn to Blaine in a way that pure attraction and friendship could never explain. Jesse had seen it and even though it hurt the way he had left, part of her had expected it. She often wondered if even Kurt knew it, just from the way he said things or looked at them sometimes; the difference was that since Kurt never knew she had been with Blaine, he had the luxury of believing that their friendship was just a friendship, however deep and codependent it might be. She wondered if he would be at all surprised when he found out it wasn't.
"There's no way to know," Blaine said as they sat in Central Park, eating from the picnic she had packed for their shopping expedition. "Maybe he's figured it out or maybe we'll completely blindside him, but either way, we still have to tell him."
"I know," she said a bit too sharply, then softened as Blaine's face fell. "I just wish I knew what to expect."
"At this point, we just have to take whatever comes our way," Blaine shrugged, crushing the foil around his sandwich into a ball. "There's no backing out, not for me, but I can tell him on my own if you want."
"No," she insisted, taking his hand in hers and giving it an assuring squeeze. "I've told you a thousand times Blaine, we'll both tell him. As much as he deserves to hear from you, he deserves to hear from me as well. This was not one sided on your part and I don't want you to take all the blame for it."
"Even though he's going to feel like everything was a lie on my part."
"I know it wasn't," Rachel smiled wryly at him. "One day, maybe Kurt will too."
"I hope so," he sighed, laying his head down on her stomach as she sifted her fingers casually through his hair. "But that's not up to me, or you. However this plays out, at least I'll have finally done the right thing. And maybe you and I can..."
He went silent, letting his thought trail off into the quiet air of the park. Rachel waited for him to continue, but several moments passed without a word from him. "Maybe we can finally work things out," she suggested wistfully. "Just you and me, I mean. No worries about other people and their feelings or ruining our relationship. We're older and I know now you mean so much more to me than I could have ever admitted when we were 19. That was our mistake, you know, convincing ourselves that our friendships were more important than anything else. I think it just made everything harder and it could have all stopped if we bothered to say 'I love you' and mean it."
There was a slight pause and he leaned up to kiss her chastely; as his mouth fell open, she continued, "I love you, Blaine. I've never said it to you when I though you could hear and it's the scariest thing I can think of to say it now. Our lives are so complicated, and the only thing that makes it easier, that makes me think I can do anything at all, is because I love you."
"I love you," he said reverently, a hand tucking her hair behind her ear. "I never want you to doubt that. I'll tell you everyday, as often as you need me too, as long as you know."
"I do," she nodded, brushing her lips against his forehead. "I think I've always known." Peace washed over her as they rested in the park for a little while longer, her hands playing in the ends of his hair, his fingers tracing tiny shapes into her belly. She felt lighter. It was like she could feel her world coming together and if they just stay like that, nothing could hurt them anymore. They couldn't hurt each other anymore.
Eventually, they had to leave, but the feeling stayed with her even as he hoisted himself up and packed up their bag, slinging it over his shoulder. He turned and offered her a hand up, which she took. She must have gotten up too quickly, she guessed, as her stomach lurched and she stumbled into his arms. He caught her around the chest as her knees seemed to give out, concern lacing his features.
"Are you okay?" he asked quickly.
"Yeah," she responded earnestly, finding her feet once again as she carefully stood up on her own accord. She kissed him again, soft and sweet until she felt his worry melt away. "I'm fine, I promise. I just can't move as fast as I used to."
They walked out of the park hand in hand, though she couldn't seem to move her other hand away from stomach.
-:-
They only had a few weeks left where they could lock the door and ignore the world outside and in that time, they tried to pour as much of themselves into each other as they could. Blaine stopped sleeping on the couch at her request and came to rest beside her every night. She would wake in the morning wrapped around him, both of them tangled in the sheets as they held each other through the night. Some days they wouldn't leave her bed until well after noon, just content to lay next to each other, to touch, to kiss, and if they let things get out of control – as they were often apt to do – they would fall into perfect bliss as their bodies made up for all the lost time.
But before they knew it, her seven month came along and with it, Kurt's inevitable return from Los Angeles. It seemed to weigh down on Blaine more heavily than it did her, with good reason she knew, and she did her best to support him through his nerves. He became restless, torn between wanting to get it over with and putting it off, and she sometimes had to remind him to eat or coax him to bed. She couldn't blame him, the stress was having it's own effect on her. She felt tired and sluggish; some mornings she had to talk herself into getting out of bed, telling herself that if she would just start moving around, she would feel better.
The main reason she did was so that Blaine wouldn't worry about her. She knew he did either way, but there with everything else he was trying to deal with, her being tired didn't seem like much in the grand scheme. So she would smile, put a little more makeup to cover up her paling face, and proceed living her normal day, deflecting any observation Blaine made about her pushing herself too hard. She would be better as soon as all of this was over.
Blaine didn't sleep the night before Kurt was due back and she thought he looked like a frayed wire that might spark at any moment. She had heard from Eli via text that Kurt would be in at sometime after four, but didn't know if Kurt was coming over to his place, or going back to the apartment he used to share with Blaine. She hoped, for Blaine's sake, that Kurt would come here. They both needed to see each other after all the time that had passed, after so much had changed.
Blaine offered to make her lunch around one, just to have something to do though she knew he wouldn't eat himself. She let him make it, though she couldn't bring herself to eat it either. She wasn't hungry. She was tired and it felt like every muscle in her body ached and there was this odd floating sensation that would roll through her head every time she tried to stand up. So she didn't, just curled up next to Blaine and held his hand, brushing aside her discomfort for general unease.
It only lasted an hour until she felt so dizzy she couldn't move her head off Blaine's shoulder without feeling like she would faint. She tried to eat her abandoned lunch, hoping it would settle her down, but she just felt weak and nauseous. Her water and special caffeine-free tea didn't help at all.
"Something's wrong, I know it," Blaine said as he brushed her bangs out of her face, his hand coming back with sweat. "You're burning up like you have a fever."
"I'm fine," she argued stubbornly. "I just haven't been sleeping well."
"You don't get a fever just because you haven't slept," he insisted, looking at her sternly.
"I'm stressed out, just like you," Rachel huffed, moving away from him on the couch, her stomach swimming dangerously with the movement. "I'll be fine. I am fine."
She stood up. Then she fell.
Or she thought she was falling, but it was like passing through water in slow motion. The world distorted around her in waves and she felt her feet drift away from her as if they ran along their own current. There was a darkness rushing up to meet her, cool and deep, and she passed through it before she even realized she hadn't hit the floor.
Blaine's voice called her back, frantic and rushed, her name being repeated over and over again. There was a weight on her face, lingering and traveling like it couldn't stay still. She didn't remember closing her eyes, but her eyelashes parted in fluttering spasms. She could just make out Blaine's amber eyes, but she couldn't bring them into focus. She blinked, trying to clear her vision.
"Rachel, wake up," she heard him say and it didn't make sense. She wasn't asleep. She was just looking at him a moment ago. But her body began to feel heavy, like she was being dragged down by something she couldn't see. Like a rope and it was tied around her stomach, tugging and pulling in time with Blaine's voice, fighting him off. "Stay awake, please."
She couldn't. It was too hard. The weight settled on her stomach and if she could have without drowning in the black, she would have screamed.
AN: Sorry it took me so long, as usual. Apparently being in school is not conductive to actual writing. For those waiting on Happenstance, that's my next goal.
a few notes on pregnancy: Kidney infections are common in pregnant women and can be extremely painful, similar or in conjecture with a urinary tract infection. It can and will manifest suddenly, like appendicitis. Also, it is common for women who are small in stature, frame, and are pregnant for the first time to "pop". She can start to show very suddenly, which is what I chose to do when considering Rachel.
I write, you read, you review, and I write more.