Just a quick note: there will be about five more chapters (not counting this one) and an then epilogue and it'll be over! Only six more weeks guys! Wow. Weeeell, I hope you have enjoyed it thus far as much as I have.
Chapter 18
Burt was getting better and better every day. As he predicted, Kurt and Carole became 'Food Nazis' and wouldn't let him eat anything that his doctor didn't specify was okay. They were also religious with him taking his medication. Kurt was so busy taking care of his father that he and Blaine didn't spend as much time together, but that was okay since Blaine had been asked to speak at graduation.
He had no idea what to say. He still had mild post traumatic stress disorder whenever he went to a graduation—he'd even ditched his own college graduation half way through. But these students had been his History students since they were sophomores, and he really wanted to do this for them. So Blaine planned out his speech while Kurt nursed his father back to health.
But besides that, Blaine had to get his History students ready for finals and his kindergarteners ready for their Kindergarten graduation. They were very disappointed that they wouldn't have Blaine next year, but they had a blast at 'move up day' in the first grade classroom, and every time a little six year old burst into tears, he reminded them of that.
A week before graduation, Kurt called Blaine up. "Blaine Anderson, I haven't seen you or Rose in four days. And when I saw you before, it was for thirty minutes over coffee. This is not acceptable."
Blaine laughed. "I'm free this weekend. What do you want to do?"
"I was thinking of taking Carrie, you, and Rose to the zoo. Has Rose ever been there?" Kurt asked.
"No." Blaine said, "We were going to go a couple months ago, but she got sick and we never chose another date to go."
"How does Saturday sound?" Kurt asked.
"Saturday sounds great. I'll see you then." Blaine said. "I love you."
"Love you too. Bye." And Kurt hung up the phone.
Blaine and Rose arrived at Kurt's house to pick him up early Saturday morning and they drove to the zoo. Rose was so excited she was bouncing in her seat the whole hour and fifteen minutes to the zoo. When they pulled in the parking lot she unbuckled herself and jumped out of the car.
"Come on Daddy, come on Mr. Kurt, come on Miss Carrie! Hurry up! I wanna get to the zoo!" Rose called, running ahead, stopping, waiting for them to catch up, and then running ahead again. Carrie jogged up to where Rose was and took her hand to keep her in range.
Blaine, much to Kurt and Carrie's protests, bought tickets for the four of them and they went into the zoo.
"Alright Monkey," Carrie said, using her pet name for Rose, "Where should we go first?"
Blaine opened his map. "It looks like most of the zoo is on this one trail, in a circle, so we can walk around it and see everything. Sound alright to you, Rosie?"
Rose nodded vigorously. "Yeah. Now let's go!" she grabbed Carrie's hand and started dragging her down the path.
The first things they saw were the flamingos. Rose was momentarily distracted from her mission to find the panthers, her favorite animal, to look at their pink feathers. "Daddy?" she asked, "Why are they standing all funny?"
"You mean on one leg?" Blaine asked. Rose nodded. "Because that's how they sleep, Rosie. Just like you in your bed with your blanket and pillow."
"That's weird." Rose said, continuing on with her walk. This time she grabbed Kurt's hand and dragged him along with her. Their next stop was the Rhinos. "Mr. Kurt?" she asked, "Why do those elephants have their trunks cut off?"
Kurt tried to hide his laugh. "Those aren't elephants. They're called rhinoceroses." Kurt explained.
"Rie-noss-ur-ses." Rose tried to pronounce. Blaine and Carrie watched (and laughed) as Kurt tried to help her say the word right, but to no avail.
"You know what sweetie? Most people just call them rhinos. So we can stick with that." Kurt said, trying not to laugh.
"Good." Rose said, looking seriously relieved, "I was getting scared cause I couldn't say their name right and that would be mean to not know someone's name, but if I know their nicknames then it's okay."
Kurt hid his giggle by grinning. "Good. So say hi to the rhinos!"
"Hi rhinos!" she called.
Next they walked past the giraffes. Rose announced to Miss Carrie that she wanted a pet giraffe for her fifth birthday.
"I'm not sure we could take care of a giraffe, honey." Blaine said.
Rose sighed dramatically. "Well then can we get a panther? Because I've been begging for months." In reality, she had been begging for exactly two weeks—since the day she had decided that panthers were her favorite animals, but Blaine let it go.
"I'm not sure about a panther either. Those sound like hard work." He paused. "What about a puppy? Would you be okay with getting a puppy?"
Rose's eyes lit up. "Can I have a blue alien puppy!"
Blaine frowned. "I'm not sure any shelters would have a blue alien puppy, but we can look." Rose cheered and they moved on to the next animal.
The next section of the zoo was the cats. The first animals they came upon were the Tigers and White Bengal Tigers. "White tigers are my favorite zoo animal." Blaine commented. "I've loved them since I was little. When I was six, Cooper and I used to sneak out with his best friend's older brother who would drive us here, to the zoo. They would go off eating all the ice cream they could, talk to the monkeys, hang out at the reptile house, and so on, but I would just plant myself here in front of the white tigers. I literally watched them for hours at a time."
"And the other three just left you, little six year old Blaine, in front of the tigers?" Carrie asked in disbelief.
"Yup. Come to think of it, I'm not sure how I could sit here for so long and not have someone that works here come up to me and ask where my parents were, but I always went about my tiger watching undisturbed." Blaine laughed.
Just then, Rose squealed in excitement. "Daddy! Miss Carrie! Mr. Kurt! The panthers are right there!" She pointed towards the next cage and, sure enough, there were the panthers.
So the four spent the next hour sitting in front of the panthers. Eventually an employee of the zoo came over and started talking about their panthers, telling them their names, how old they were, and general facts about panthers. Rose was thrilled. She just sat in front of the zoo keeper, absorbing every word—even if she didn't remember it two minutes later.
Rose started talking about how she was hungry, so Blaine saw a little restaurant called 'The Savannah Grill' where they went for lunch. Rose had grilled cheese, fries, and a milkshake while everyone else had burgers and soda. Rose talked and giggled all through lunch about the panthers, and how she was so excited to be at the zoo with her three favorite people.
As soon as they were done with lunch the group went on to the next exhibit—the lions. Rose was almost as excited about the lions as she was about the panthers, since her favorite animal had previously been a lion. "Miss Carrie, are those baby Simbas?" she asked, pointing to the two lion cubs play wrestling.
"Those are baby lions, alright." Carrie said. They kept walking and finished up the large cats section after seeing the cheetahs and the mountain lions.
Rose squealed and grabbed Kurt's hand, pulling him to the next exhibit. "Look Mr. Kurt! Elephants! Like rhinos, only with loooooong noses!" she exclaimed.
Kurt laughed. "Yeah, they do look like the rhinos. You're right." They walked for a little while longer when they heard squealing again—only this time it was from Kurt, not Rose. "I really like penguins, okay?" he laughed, racing ahead to the penguin exhibit.
The penguins were just getting fed, so Kurt and Rose watched in fascination as zoo keepers threw small fish in the air as the penguins caught them. A zoo keeper came up behind Kurt and Rose.
"Do you guys want to throw some in?" she asked, holding out the bag of dead fish.
Their eyes lit up. "Really?" Kurt asked, "Are you serious?"
"Sure!" she smiled. "Just grab a fish and throw it over the glass." Kurt looked at the glass. It didn't even go over his head. So he reached in, grabbed a small fish, and threw it over. Rose giggled happily as a penguin caught it, and as many more penguins started heading towards their side of the pen.
Rose grabbed a fish and Kurt picked her up and put her on his shoulders so she could toss it over. The zoo keeper let the two of them toss the whole bag in, before pointing them to where the sinks to wash their hands were.
"That was so cool." Kurt whispered to Rose. "We got to feed penguins!" For the rest of the day, that was all Rose and Kurt could talk about.
A little while later, they saw the gorillas, and then the mere cats. Rose wanted to sit and watch the mere cats for a couple minutes before moving on to the seals, and in a cage next to them, the alligators.
Later they saw zebras, gazelles, antelopes, and many other animals. The last thing on the loop was the reptile house. Rose and Blaine ran from window to window to see the different lizards and snakes.
By the time they finished the loop, it was almost three in the afternoon and they were all exhausted. Blaine was very proud that Rose had only complained once about her feet hurting and being tired, and they headed into the gift shop. Kurt bought a zebra t-shirt and a snake teething ring for Levi, as well as some things for Rachel and Finn.
After showing Blaine, Carrie bought Rose a stuffed giraffe and a stuffed panther. After Blaine bought something as well, they all headed for an ice cream concession stand. After eating their ice cream and walking to the car, Carrie showed Rose the giraffe and panther she'd bought. Rose shrieked with excitement and cuddled them the whole way home.
Blaine first dropped Carrie off at her apartment before turning to Kurt. "Do you want to come over tonight, or do you think you need to go see your dad?"
Kurt thought about it for a second before smiling. "I saw my dad this morning, and he's under the safe guidance of Carole. I think I can leave for one night. Sure, I'll head over to your house."
Blaine looked up at Kurt, trying not to be shy. "Do you want me to take you home and get your car so you can drive back after dinner, or do you want to stay the whole night?"
Kurt smiled and leaned over to kiss Blaine. "I would love to stay the whole night."
Blaine grinned like an idiot the whole way home. After making dinner, eating dinner, and watching a little bit of TV, Rose crashed in her bed wearing her clothes. Blaine changed her into pajamas while she was sleeping, and tucked her into bed. Almost immediately, she was snuggling with her teddy bear, panther, and giraffe all at once.
Blaine walked out to where Kurt was sitting on the couch. "Today was really fun." Kurt said.
Blaine nodded. "It really was. It was nice to hang out all four of us. Like one small misfit family."
Kurt laughed. "Misfit. You can say that again. We are an odd bunch."
"We may be a bunch of misfits, but at least we all love each other." Blaine grinned and shrugged. He walked to the kitchen and grabbed his gift bag from the zoo. He held it out to Kurt. "Here, I got you this."
Kurt took the bag and opened it. Inside were two stuffed penguins with magnets in their beaks, making them look like they were kissing. "Aw!" Kurt said. "Blaine they're adorable!"
"I know they're cheesy, but I thought they were cute, and since you like penguins, and that you used to think you were one," Kurt busted up laughing, "I thought you would like it." Blaine blushed.
Kurt wrapped his arms around Blaine's neck and kissed him. "It is cheesy, but I love it. I can't wait to put it in my room when I get home tomorrow." They cuddled on the couch and let the TV play on. Although the TV was on, they weren't really watching. They talked about everything from their jobs to their families to their lives—as if they hadn't already talked about it all.
After a couple hours of just being together, they headed off to Blaine's room, only to be woken up by a very enthusiastic four year old a few hours later.
Okay, so I totally used to own those penguins. Well, I think they were penguins... With my memory though, they might've been monkeys or something.
Anywho, hope you liked it, and I'm looking forward to the last five chapters! :)