So, I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, at all. It was written after one of the worst weeks I've had this year, when I had an absolute mountain of work and a terrible feeling of homesickness, so when I read my plan for this story and saw that it was basically about graduating university and parents, I decided to go in a completely opposite direction to my original plan as a sort of therapy. And it worked, I feel much better now :D But the chapter may be awful. Which leads me nicely onto the topic of... REVIEWS! Please review this story if you can, I'd love to know where I'm going right and wrong!

Warning: This chapter contains a crazy ass mother, slight BAMF!Kurt and shepherd's pie.

Disclaimer: Glee is not mine. Never has been, never will be.

Cause getting your dreams

It's strange, but it seems

A little - well - complicated

There's a kind of a sort of… cost

There's a couple of things get… lost

There are bridges you cross

You didn't know you crossed

Until you've crossed

And if that joy, that thrill

Doesn't thrill you like you think it will…

That quote is not about Kurt and Blaine's dreams, don't worry. It's about mine. I was 18 weeks pregnant when I graduated. For the second time. I was finally Dr Kimberley Miller, PhD. After all that work, I had done it. I had achieved my life's dream. And I felt… empty. Not literally empty, I was really rather full of baby after all, but, in the immortal words of Glinda the Good Witch, it didn't thrill like I thought it would. I had worked my arse of since the age of eighteen to get to that point, and I still felt confused and unfulfilled about my prospects. About my future. I mean, what on earth do you do with that kind of qualification? Where was I heading? I didn't know. I just had a fancy title and some letters after my name. That doesn't mean anything. But, as I woke up that morning and looked at my small but rounded baby bump, I realised that I didn't have the time to worry about such trivial things. Because that day was the day I told my parents I was pregnant, and the day they met Kurt and Blaine. And that was important. That day meant something.

The graduation bit itself wasn't a big deal. Nowhere near as big as when you finish your undergraduate degree. God, that day was a farce and a half, all the pomp and ceremony that comes with leaving a historical institution with a fancy piece of paper in your hand is ridiculous. No, the presentation that day was simple. Just me, my professor, the dean and Evie, forty seconds, a handshake and the exchange of a certificate. Done. However, as much as I just wanted to go home, curl up on the sofa and lament my existence over a chinese takeaway with my best friend, that couldn't happen. Because my parents were coming.

When you're in your first year of university, you get terribly homesick all the time. It's not stupid or rare, it happens to everyone, though some handle it better than others. I handled it well, and over the next three years that I spent in higher education and living away from them, I came to be well and truly independent from my parents. By the time I graduated my bachelors, I'd decided I never wanted to live at home again, and accepted the offer of a postgraduate education in London where I could live with my best friend. It was an easy decision for me. Absolutely none of that is to say that I hate my parents. On the contrary, I adored them and loved them to distraction, but let's just say that once I became an adult, having them around in large doses (i.e. more than a couple of hours) became somewhat agonising. And on the day their youngest daughter became a Doctor (yes, capitalised, they were that proud), they wanted to be there. And I just couldn't refuse them that, now could I?

Kurt, Blaine, Evie and I had decided (over a beautifully cooked shepherd's pie made by yours truly) that the time had come to tell my parents about the surrogacy the night before my graduation. I had been dilly-dallying around the decision for a while, but I knew as my friends spoke the words that they were right.

'They're bound to notice the bump, aren't they Kim? I mean, you are going to be wearing a pencil skirt. They're not made to hide indiscretions…'

I rolled my eyes at Evie's choice of terminology, and turned to the couple trying to stifle their chuckles to my left.

'What do you think I should do? They'll want to meet you guys if I do, and they don't live in a cave, they know who you are…'

Kurt looked pensive for a moment before answering with full confidence.

'You should tell them. They're your parents, of course you should tell them. They'd be hurt if you kept it from them any longer. Imagine Christmas, 'Oh hi mom and dad, ignore the fact that I'm eight months pregnant and pass the cranberry sauce would you?''

Blaine stopped feeding Ernie chunks of potato and looked up.

'I completely agree. You should tell them.'

'Well of course you agree, you're married to him' I replied irritably, 'He'd probably deny you sex if you didn't.'

'However true that statement is, it doesn't make mine less false either.'

I sighed, knowing that they'd beat me, and looked to Evie.

'Is the bump really that noticeable in the skirt? Because it's new, and it's not going to fit soon, and I just wanted to wear all my nice clothes before I become a whale…'

My dinner guests took pity on me when they saw the tears begin to shine in my eyes. The hormones made me have terrible mood swings back then, and thinking about getting fatter always made me cry.

Kurt took my hand and squeezed it tightly.

'Honey, you're beautiful, and you'll never look like a whale, we promise. You'll look like a gorgeous, glowing pregnant woman. I swear.'

I giggled at the strange mental image of me being some sort of hippy Eve-esque woman with a halo, wrapped in vines and holding my protruding stomach.

'Oh stop, you're going to make me blush, and make your husband jealous', I replied, hugging Kurt and sticking my tongue out at Blaine behind his husband's back.

'So, the verdict is to tell them, yes?'

The three people facing me nodded their agreement.

'Yes.'

They arrived at the train station about two hours after I received my PhD. It certainly gave me enough time to panic, debate running home to change into something more forgiving, get persuaded out of it by Evie, sneak off to go purchase something more forgiving, get dragged out of the shop by Evie and get my first ever taste of caffeine in over 4 months from Evie because she couldn't stand my nervousness. By the time they arrived, I was blissfully high on a sip of fully caffeinated tea, and not at all bothered by my proudly protruding bump, tastefully accentuated by my high waisted pencil skirt and tucked in white shirt. I was feeling pretty damn good when I heard it reverberate around the station concourse.

'KIMMY BEAR!'

And then the illusion shattered. I span around to be greeted with my parents grinning faces, weighed down with at least 4 suitcases (they were staying for two nights…) and the knowledge that they hadn't hugged me in over six months.

'BABY PIE, WE'RE SO HAPPY TO… wait.'

My mother, an intimidating woman, threw her arm out to catch her husband in the chest and stop him in his tracks. Her lips pursed into a thin line and her gaze was fixed firmly to my stomach. She spoke firmly and without even glancing at my ashen face.

'You're pregnant.'

Her surprisingly youthful features were arranged into a look of disappointment, her usually warm blue eyes ice cold and glaring at the offending bump as if she could wish it away.

'When, Kimberley Andrea Miller, did this happen? Is it that boy's? I warned you Kim, I warned you. And now look at the mess you're in. I don't think I've ever been this ashamed.'

The woman I saw before me at that station was not my mother. It couldn't have been. The amazing woman who had raised me, taught me how to be open minded and accepting, who comforted her eldest daughter when she tearfully came out to us all, and told her that she would love her no matter what, was not the one who angrily snapped at me that day, it couldn't have been. But sometimes people aren't what we think.

'It's not what you think mum, let me explain this to you, please'

She looked into my eyes then, every trace of excitement and happiness gone.

'Alright. Let's go back to your flat then. Don't want to air our dirty laundry in public.'

She brushed past me without looking back, heading to the taxi rank, leaving me and Evie with my father. He wrapped his arms around me with such love that I couldn't stop the tears falling down my cheeks.

'It's not what it looks like daddy, I promise.'

He smiled, and wiped my tear stained face with his thumb.

'I believe you sweetheart. Your mum is just overwhelmed. It'll be fine, you'll see. Now, come on. Best get going, eh?'

He grabbed the suitcases my mum had abandoned, and kissed the top of my head before following in the direction she had stormed off to.

'It's going to be alright Kim, it's going to be just fine. We'll get back, and explain everything. They'll be understanding and wonderful and they'll adore Kurt and Blaine when we go out to dinner tonight, okay?'

Evie embraced me tightly while I sobbed, and shushed me with comforting noises. Truth be told, as she explained to me later, she did that not only to comfort me, but so I wouldn't have to see her tears too. Evie had met my parents so many times in the fourteen years our friendship had existed, and not once had my mother ever been like that. She reluctantly let me go and led me to the taxi rank, where my parents were nowhere to be found.

'They must've already gone. They know our address. Come on, you need a cup of tea. Let's go home.'

As Evie had predicted, my parents were at our door when we arrived home. They looked strained, and my father's face was red, as if he'd just been shouting particularly furiously. I was secretly glad, it probably meant he'd stuck up for me in a slanging match. I trod up the garden path to the door, past my mother who was staring at me again as I passed her.

Once we were seated in the living room, Elaine Miller fixed my eyes with a cold glare and began to speak.

'Go on then. Explain your indiscretions.'

However inappropriate it was, I laughed at the unintentional reference to last night's conversation. I tried to catch it, but not quick enough.

'Do not laugh young lady, this is not an amusing situation. Now, explain.'

'This baby is not mine.' My mother went to open her mouth, but I kept on talking.

'Biologically, I am its mother. However, I am a surrogate for a lovely couple I befriended about six months ago. I am eighteen weeks pregnant with their child, and I will never, ever have anything to do with raising this baby. They are the parents, not me.'

My dad had a relieved smile on his face, but my mum did not look mollified.

'I need to meet these people. They're ruining your future.'

'No mum, they're not. I'm going to be pregnant for five more months, I have plenty of time after that to decide what I want to do in life.'

That was most decidedly the wrong thing to say, as my mum's face burned a bright scarlet and she stood up out of her chair.

'NOT DECIDED? Why did we pay for this degree if you don't know what you want to do? Are you seriously telling me that you have wasted our money on this?'

My dad looked shocked at her words, and tried to calm her down.

'Come on Elaine, she's smart, she deserved to do this, to challenge herself in this way. We have the money to do let her do it, and she's our daughter, stop being silly. She's allowed to be unsure right now.'

'NO GREG! No. I want to meet this couple. Now.'

'I'm so sorry, I just… I just, I don't know. I didn't want it to be like this.'

Blaine held me as I sobbed into his shoulder on my front door step, with Kurt furiously pacing a few feet away on the cobbled path.

'How dare she? You are amazing Kim, you do not deserve to be treated this way. Nobody does! Wait til she meets me, damn woman won't know what hit her…'

I lifted my head from Blaine, and grinned in Kurt's direction.

'Thank you. I don't know why she's being like this. I didn't think she would be…'

Blaine took a handkerchief from his pocket (Kurt mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'dapper idiot') and dabbed at my eyes.

'Shush now. Let's go inside and face this head on, okay? Besides, we've left Evie and Ernie in there all alone. Can't do that now, can we?'

I nodded shakily, and we trooped back indoors.

'Mum? Erm, this is Kurt and Blaine. They're the parents.'

If my mother's face got any redder, she would've exploded. As soon as she clapped eyes on the pair, she launched herself from the couch to where we were standing by the door.

'You stupid girl! A celebrity baby! I never thought I'd have raised a cash-whore for a daughter! How much are they paying you to do this? All that student debt, got to be paid off somehow, so you decided to sell your body like some common prostitute, right?'

'HOW DARE YOU?'

Kurt could be silent no more, obviously. He pulled himself to his full height, a good eight inches taller than my mother, and stepped into her personal space with a look of pure rage on his usually delicate features.

'Your daughter is an amazing woman, Mrs Miller. She is not a prostitute, she is my friend! She is our friend! She is our friend who is doing a wonderful service for us, by allowing us to have the family we have always dreamed of! How dare you even try and insinuate that your own FLESH AND BLOOD is nothing except a smart, accomplished, beautiful young woman with a kind and loving heart? How could you even call yourself her mother?'

'You have no right to say that to me, you are ruining her life!'

'No, Mrs Miller.' Kurt replied, with a weary voice, 'She is not ruining her life. She is creating a new one. For us. And we could never be more thankful for a person than we are of your child. You don't deserve her as a daughter if this is how you treat her.'

She gave him an icy glare before turning to my father.

'We're leaving Greg. Now.'

Without even acknowledging anyone else in the room, she walked over to me, and spoke in a low and angry tone.

'You have no future. This will ruin it. I hope you can live with that.'

And with no other words, my mother stormed out of the room and out of my life.

'I'm so sorry Kimmy Bear.'

My dad enveloped me in a hug like only a dad can, before pulling away slightly and holding his face in my hands.

'I love you baby girl. I love you, and I always will. I am so proud of you. I am proud of what you achieved today, and I am proud of the selfless thing you are doing for these men. I will never stop being proud of you.'

He hugged me close to him once more, before turning to Kurt and Blaine, holding his hand out to shake.

'Gregory Miller. Sorry it couldn't be in better circumstances. You better look after my girl, you hear me?'

The men nodded their agreement.

'Good.' He shouted towards the kitchen, 'YOU TOO EVIE!'

'WILL DO MR. M'!'

He chuckled at her reply, and kissed my cheek.

'I'll see you soon Kimmy bear. I'll call as soon as I can. I love you.'

And with that, he left too.

After I had cried and eaten enough Pringles to render a grown man comatose, I settled down on the sofa, with Kurt and Blaine on my left and Evie on my right to watch the latest episode of Doctor Who.

'Well, that was a fun day...'

They all giggled, the spell of awkwardness broken, and I got arms wrapped around me from both sides. Then I felt it.

'Oh!'

They all turned to me in confusion, before it happened again.

'Heh! Oh my god!'

Kurt looked curious but excited.

'What is it?'

'The baby is kicking!'

A chorus of 'Oh my god!'s rang around the room, and the three people sitting with me scrambled to find a spare spot on my belly to feel. A few seconds later, as if on command, it happened again.

'Oh wow…'

Kurt and Blaine were crying (well, it was a huge moment for them), and Evie was laughing.

'Got a strong one there, guys.'

'Good', said Kurt through his cascade of happy tears, 'that's good. It's all good.'

Blaine kissed his husband's hair, and then brought his face to my bump.

'Hey there little one. We're so glad you're happy and wriggly in there, but don't hurt Kim, okay? We all love you, Daddy and Papa and Aunty Kim and Aunty Evie love you very much.'

So, maybe my future wasn't completely for certain. But I knew that one thing would be. I'd always have Kurt, Blaine, Evie and the little miracle. And that was enough for the time being.