Snow and a Rash Moment.

The country would enter February 2021 with the promise of a new order; one of the first tasks facing the new President was overseeing a change to the way that the Supreme Court was organised. The idea that someone was elected for life was an outdated one, and a bill was waiting to be submitted at the first opportunity to the house which would restrict the term of a judge to five years before they had to face re-election. That way there could be a reflection of the way that the nation was changing and would also mean that justices that had failed in their duty could be removed.

There was also a promise that the new government would treat the heartlands better, and would ensure that the kind of prosperity seen on the east and west coasts came to even the smallest of settlements in the Dakotas. There was to be an unprecedented investment in agriculture, to ensure that the nation had access to good quality, affordable, safe food. There would be new and upgraded infrastructure to ensure it got to markets faster, and a new system of subsidies and payments to bolster the incomes of the smallest of farmers, which would in turn help the economy of the small towns nearby. Communication networks were also to be upgraded to ensure that the best internet speeds were available everywhere, which would allow access to high tech jobs and services from even the remotest of spots, ending it was hoped the drain of the younger generation to the coasts.

Similar high levels of investment would be made in healthcare and transportation, in an attempt to reduce the nations dependence on the car and indeed, air travel. The arts would also benefit, and the public broadcasting system, which had struggled on in the face of death by a thousand cuts would be restored and revived to the standard the nation deserved. As the President had said in his speech,

"A civilised nation is judged not just by its victories in war and conflicts, not by the great and good men and women it produces, nor by the size and scale of its economy. No, a civilised nation is judged by the culture that it protects and promotes, and the degree of humanity with which it treats all of its peoples. I pledge today that we will restore our nations humanity and compassion; we will listen to you, and we will learn. We cannot after all properly govern the people if we ignore the input from all of the people. You have told those of us now in Washington DC what you want to see, and we will do our utmost to ensure that you are given what you want."

Even as people listened, they all knew that in reality the promises would take some time to deliver, but with the Democrats now in the majority in both of the houses, the President's programme would have a much easier progress. They also accepted that there would have to be tax increases to pay for it all, but it was clear now that those interventions had to be made for the good of everyone. They did not want to see sections of their nation's highways collapse due to poor maintenance, as had happened in Genoa in 2018; they wanted to see the repair backlog dealt with, and that would cost. Above all, they had to protect the future of the next generation of Americans. There was no place any longer for the selfish attitudes of the past. If they wanted a good safe country to live in for themselves, their children and their grandchildren, then they had to make small sacrifices of their own. A secure future was essential, and for the first time in years, it now seemed possible. That feeling of safety was one reason why away from work, both Trent and Rory had decided to hasten on with their plans for surrogacy…

February was of course the shortest month of the year, and for once it passed without any major event disturbing the peaceful life of the group of friends from Ohio. True, there were still those little moments when events in the outside world intruded into their lives and created problems, not least of which was when a major blizzard blanked the whole of the north eastern United States with two foot of snow just after Valentine's Day. Even the middle of the major cities found themselves dealing with a foot of the white stuff, and the hustle and bustle of daily life was stilled as the traffic vanished, stopped on the orders of the politicians for the safety of everyone. In New York, only those parts of the subway that were below the ground functioned, minus the express trains, so that the greatest numbers of people could be catered for. Nick woke up to the scene of winter outside the window, and hastened through his morning routine, before much against his husband's wishes, he left home to battle his way to work; he was fully aware that the needs of the rest of the world would not diminish or vanish just because one metropolis was partly paralysed.

When he arrived at the UN, twenty minutes late despite the fact that he had left home nearly an hour earlier than normal, it was to find an almost empty building, his feet echoing in the corridors that normally were buzzing with conversations in a myriad of languages. His own department was even worse; it was the Marie Celeste. He found himself entirely on his own, making him, in theory at least, the senior human rights lawyer that the world could turn to in a crisis - and that fact scared him. He checked his own mail first, after switching on the coffee machine, then having done so, he accessed the mail that had been sent to the department in general, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw no major global crisis alert on the screen. There were updates on a couple of ongoing problems, and he read through them carefully. Then he opened a few others that looked simplest of all, and answered them as best as he could, stating that the senior staff were absent due to the weather first, then giving them a list of the options they had in his opinion. He did have to check up on a few legal codes that he was unfamiliar with in the process, but he was proud of the fact that by the time he stopped for a later than usual lunch, he had resolved some of the smaller issues…

Ethan, Beats and Flint had also managed to make it into work; Leo, Flint's cousin had accompanied Beats to the MTA offices, as he knew his external job site would be as deserted as all the others that day. In every case, they discovered that the more senior staff were absent; this was down to the fact that they lived out in the outermost suburbs, which might as well be on an other planet at the moment, with the road network closed and public transport outside the five boroughs being non-existent.

That fact had not stopped some of the more determined folks in the suburbs from reaching the city; in other cases, they had not even gone home the night before. Santana had taken a few days off work, so it was only Sebastian that had hurried through the falling snow to Penn Station the previous night to board the usual post theatre train to Maplewood; it had managed to get as far as Secaucus Junction before it stopped. After an hour of not going anywhere, Sebastian had accepted the grim reality that he was not going to get home that night, and that he was facing the prospect of having to hunker down on a New Jersey Transit train with all the other late workers. He had decided to get up and get a breath of air, stepping off the train into the cold night air, and that was how he had heard the announcement that there was a city bound train approaching on the other side of the island platform. He dashed over, and climbed aboard. The train was caked in snow and ice, but was soon on the move again, albeit slowly, leaving the station behind…

Sebastian called Dave to let him know that he would not be home that night as he was on a train back to the city, which made his husband relieved, as he had been picturing him trying to sleep on a train. As the train crawled towards the tunnel, he caught glimpses of other trains on the opposite track, going nowhere fast. Just before he headed into the tunnel below the Hudson and lost signal, Sebastian made another call to an old friend that he knew would probably be awake at what was now almost 1am to ask if he could come and sleep on their couch. After a long trudge along an almost completely deserted 34th Street, Sebastian found himself entering the street he had lived on for so long, and after a few more minutes, was knocking quietly on Cooper's front door. His old landlord came to let him in, and hurried him through to the kitchen, where there was a pot of hot soup waiting for him. As he tucked in gratefully, Sebastian watched with a smile as Cooper took Devon back into his arms, his son now almost asleep. All that meant though was that it would soon be time for Lily to wake up…

No-one was at all surprised when the theatres began to announce the cancellation of the matinee shows initially; the bigger surprise was that some of the shows would actually be going ahead, albeit with understudies in place and fewer people in the chorus as a result; Evita, Oklahoma! and Book of Mormon soldiered on, testament to the calibre of their casts, and the houses were busy; those that were unable to attend due to the weather had left open seats for others whose original shows had been called off, or who could not make their travel plans. In any case, life in the city was starting to get back to the normal rhythm as best as it could be early afternoon. The storm had past, and as the snow was no longer falling, the authorities could begin to deal with it effectively.

When Nick had heard the voice of Miss Worthington talking to someone on her phone as he ate his lunch at his desk just after 2pm, he had smiled; she had just shaken her head and smiled right back when he had headed along to her office shortly thereafter to tell her all that he had accomplished that morning on his own. As the plows reopened the roads, the city began to open up; the bigger stores were trading not long after 2pm, with reduced staffing levels. Some of the banks had opened up too, and the coffee shops and drug stores that had helped keep the heart and soul of the city alive were no longer the only places that were available to eat and drink. By the time that Miss Worthington virtually frog-marched Nick out of the door at 4pm, he found that his walk back to Grand Central for the subway was along now cleared sidewalks, and his journey home was almost the same length as on a normal day, albeit on a quieter subway system. Jeff had dinner prepared for him, and as they ate, Nick was regaled with the story of the fun day he and little Wes had had building snowmen in the back yard, as Caleb looked at them as if they were quiet mad…

By the time that the theatre's ended their shows that evening, there was good news for the casts; having resigned himself to having to sleep on Cooper's couch again, Sebastian almost kissed the stage doorman when he announced that the trains to New Jersey were up and running again. He hurried to the station again, and caught a train, which he had almost to himself, back to Maplewood, where his husband was waiting to welcome him back with open arms…

By the time the end of the month came, both Santana and Sebastian had received their official scripts for Cabaret, and had begun the process of studying them at home; there was naturally a lot more to it than Money, Money and the important thing for both of them was that they made it work as a show; they did not want it to appear as just an opportunistic vehicle launched on the back of their current success in musical theatre. On the train to and from work, Sebastian had taken to listening to the soundtrack album that the original cast had recorded, concentrating naturally on the songs that Joel Grey had recorded. He could emphasis with the terrible story behind the song Tomorrow Belongs to Me; in fact, he could almost picture the singer that would eventually drown him out as a brown shirted Hunter Clarington. That gave him the parallel with real life that he needed to get the emotional feel, which he would use to create his character's expressions.

As for Santana, she had bitten the bullet and headed back to NYADA, to ask for some help with developing the more interesting choreography from Cassandra July. She knew about Carmen's plans, and was only too happy to assist Santana with learning the legendary dance with the chair for her part as Sally Bowles. She was the only other person that knew what was going on at the moment; neither of them had told their other halves, and Sebastian had not mentioned anything to his Aunt Bette. If she did have any inkling, as she so often did, she said nothing to him about it, other than to comment that he should think about looking for a new role soon. She knew that despite the popularity of Oklahoma! It would not have the kind of sustained long term run that shows like Phantom of the Opera or Book of Mormon could. Even if it could have, he needed to avoid being tied down and typecast. What Sebastian was also unaware of was that Bette herself had begun to put out feelers for him, and the role that she pictured him in in the future was a million miles away from the world of musical theatre…

The first cast read through was to be in mid March; before that, Cooper would have the first read through for his own new role. The announcement that he was returning to the Broadway stage in a straight role had raised a handful of eyebrows, some wondering if CJ Hummel-Warbler could pull off such a major role in a serious show; others wondered if the show could be turned into something more contemporary, and instead of having a murderer on trial, it could be all about a case of serious political corruption. It was only at this point that Cooper was finally told the names of all of his co-stars, and he discovered that he was going to be sharing a stage with some of the biggest names in the acting world. People that he had admired on the screen as an aspiring actor would now be colleagues, and that left him more than a little anxious as he walked into the first of the read throughs….

As it happened, when Jake Gyllenhall and Stephen Amell arrived, they were the ones to make the first approach, and tell him how much they admired and respected his work; he was left more than a little shell-shocked by that, thinking that they would hardly know his name, let alone have seen him acting in both of his Broadway shows. It would be the former that he would be spending most time with, as Gyllenhall was playing the only other juror whose name was made known by the end of the show. As was inevitable, there was a moment when the press appeared, and a photo of the three of them ended up online. The response was very positive, but there was also a request made directly to Cooper by Julian Smythe. He wondered if he could obtain Stephen Amell's autograph for him, as Peter's favourite superhero after The Flash was The Arrow. Cooper smiled, and decided that he would ask Isabelle about the possibility of an interview in Vogue with him and his two much more famous co-stars; she could always bring her stepson with her to the meeting…

It was almost exactly a week later when the cast of the new run of Cabaret came together for the first time; in this case though, the two big stars were Santana and Sebastian, and neither of them had to take starry eyed photos. As an icebreaker, the two of them recreated their version of Money, Money, exactly as it had been sung on a November night at the Spotlight Diner so many years ago. The chemistry was still there, as indeed were the moves, and the applause they were rewarded with at the end was genuine. The cast was a mix of young actors, not long graduated in many cases and anxious for their first taste of Broadway, and old stalwarts who had so much knowledge and experience to share. The most important thing was that they all gelled in their parts, and on that there was no ground for complaint.

Sebastian was glad to see that the young actor that would take the part of the Nazi singer in Tomorrow Belongs to Me was a shy, blond haired, blue eyed boy, still in his senior year at drama school, and slightly in awe of meeting him. He reflected that he had not been that much older himself in that golden summer when he had wowed the world with his show saving performance. His voice was just right too, and to Sebastian's ears, it did sound quite uncannily like Hunter's…

Santana's fellow chorus girls were a diverse mixture, all of them with the talent and drive needed to perform the show eight times a week. She recognised a couple of them as NYADA students; people that she had actually taught before she had been so lucky and had taken the part of Eva Peron. The fact that she found herself signing autographs though did make her blush, and the same was true in the case of Sebastian. The only thing it did make them feel, in a bad way, was their age…

As that first read through had been held on a Monday, neither Sebastian or Santana had to hurry to their respective shows when they finished up; however, they both knew that if they headed home to Maplewood now at just after 5.30pm, it would involve standing for most if not all of the way home on an overcrowded train, as the exodus of office workers from the city was in full swing. "As I see it," said Sebastian, "we could head down to the old Spotlight for a couple of hours to get a bite to eat, which comes with the risk that we might find ourselves waiting tables or having to sing for our supper in the process, or we could try and find somewhere closer to Penn Station and eat there in relative peace. I am of course assuming that you have no other plans and are prepared to share a dinner table with me."

"I was considering suggesting that we could head to the Spotlight as well, but the more that I think about it, and factor in just how busy the subway will be at this time of night as we head downtown to reach it, then your plan B is all the more attractive. As for having dinner with you, that is no issue; we can always sit and bitch about our new co-stars," replied Santana with a grin.

"That sounds fun, but it rules out Sardis or anywhere else within a five block radius of the theatre district," Sebastian answered with a smirk of his own. "I guess that we could head to the place that Thad always seems to organise an outing of Warblers to when he is in town; the Heartland Brewery. It is on 34th at 5th, so just a few blocks from our trains home, and they do have pretty good food; not a patch on the Spotlight naturally, but good enough. I will even pay…"

"As a strong, independent woman, I should naturally take offence at that and say that I will pay, or that we should go dutch; but hey, I was also told never to look a gift horse in the mouth. What say you pay for the food, and I will pay for the drinks?"

"It's a deal," Sebastian replied, then started to chuckle. Santana just looked at him for a moment, wondering what the joke was, then he said, "I was just imaging our high school selves looking at the pair of us right now, and wondering what the hell happened, given how much we detested even the sight of each other back then…"

"I sometimes so ask myself that question," Santana responded. "I guess that I realised that you weren't a completely spoilt prep school boy, and that we were actually fairly similar in some ways. Also, I am less of a bitch now than I was back in Ohio. It is far too much effort…"

A short while later and they had both eaten the generous plates of food put before them, and were finishing up their drinks. "So, how is the biggest of all secrets getting on? Everything still going according to plan?" asked Santana.

"Yes; mother and baby are both doing fine, but I have to admit that I still worry constantly that something might go wrong. To be honest, it would devastate me if something was to happen now that jeopardised our happiness, and Dave would be ten times worse; I have caught him looking at baby clothes online, and he is talking about decorating the nursery…"

"I am sure that everything will go okay, and you and Dave will soon be enjoying what Cooper and Grace do every night - I mean of course night feeds and diaper changing. If I am being totally honest though, I wouldn't mind having those kind of problems myself…."

"Honestly?" said Sebastian, unable to hide the note of surprise in his voice. "I always thought that of the two of you, it would be Brittany that was desperate to have children of her own."

"Oh, she is, trust me, but she has a substitute of a kind in all of her cats, whereas all that I want is to hold a little someone in my arms and be able to say that they are mine. Of course, my child will take after me in all respects…"

"Well, that will make your life very interesting when they become a teenager," quipped Sebastian, and luckily for him, Santana just laughed.

"If your child turns out to be like you, Meerkat, I would also pity you and Dave," she responded in kind.

"True," said Sebastian with a smile. "Now of course, a child with my talents and your looks, or vice versa, would be pretty formidable. They would know instinctively how to handle themselves around bullies, how to wrap their teachers around their little finger, and generally wow the whole world with their total awesomeness…"

"Or get the worst of both of us, and end up hanging around in the wrong kind of bars, making more than a few potentially catastrophic mistakes in their live that would leave us both pulling our hair out."

Sebastian shook his head, and wagged his finger at her. "Now stop being such a pessimist, Satan. Our child would be a prodigy! In fact, it hardly seems fair to deny the world the joy that the combining of our DNA would bring. I will be your donor if you want; send you round the necessary in a jiffy bag…" He began to laugh, but quickly it stopped when he realised that he was laughing on his own.

"You would do that? Be my donor? Meerkat, that is the kindest offer that anyone has ever made to me! It does make sense when you think about it, as we live so close to each other, so it would be easy to get all the necessary, as you put it, sorted. I accept! Obviously I will need to talk to Brittany about it, and you should talk to Dave to see that they are both okay with the idea, but yes, I accept!"

As Santana beamed at him, Sebastian said nothing; he smiled, but largely out of fear. He was now in quite the quandary. He had intended the idea of being her donor as a joke, thinking she would laugh then say not in a million years. Now however, he also knew that the wrath of Satan would know no bounds if he said that was his intention. He now had a very interesting chat with Dave in the near future, and his reaction would be very interesting too… He suddenly looked up, across the shoulders of a now beaming Santana - and that was a scary sight - to see Wes standing there, his arms folded across his chest, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. However, the angelic man was smiling, and there was something in Sebastian's head that told him that just maybe, this had actually been meant to take place…

Sebastian spent his train journey home that night dreading his husband's reaction. He had no choice other than to come clean the moment that he got home, as he knew that Santana would tell Brittany that night, and once she heard, it might only be seconds later that she was on her way over to thank him. As if she had been reading his thoughts, Santana stopped him at the point that there paths home diverged and said "I do want to go home and tell me wife exactly what you have offered to do for us right now, but I will resist the temptation and give you a little bit of time… I will tell her at breakfast tomorrow, which gives you a bit of a head start."

"Of one night, Santana! What if Dave is dead set against the idea when I tell him about it?"

"Then I will have to have a word with him then; I can be very persuasive when I need to be, and can make people see my point of view…" She laughed at the look of horror on Sebastian's face as he pictured her persuading Dave with the legendary razor blades in her hair. "I am only joking, Meerkat. I have a funny feeling that he will be okay with it all, once he has told you off about saying you will do stuff like this without talking to him first."

"You think?" asked Sebastian.

Santana replied with a wink, and the words, "We will be having breakfast around 7.30am… I would expect a visitor around 8am…" With that she headed off towards her home, leaving Sebastian standing on the sidewalk, shaking his head and groaning internally at what he had just got himself into.

"She is probably right; I think that he should be okay with it," came a voice, and Sebastian turned to see that Wes was now standing at his side. "Okay, so I know that you did not mean it seriously when you said it, but when you consider it, is it such a bad thing? A child born between the two of you will certainly be a strong one, blessed with all the positive attributes that the two of you possess; tenacity, drive and talent."

"But what if instead of all of that, our child gets all the bad stuff? The nasty streak, the ruthless nature, the need for pranks and revenge? It would be akin to creating a monster!"

"I think that in the process of creating a child, there is a lot of nature, but just as much nurture at play. Can you honestly see any child that was reared, for want of a better term, by Brittany, being anything other than sweet natured? Also, before you start saying I should look at Hunter, consider Jeff; he had the same biological parents, and yet he ended up as such a well balanced soul, because of how the Sterlings brought him up. Your child will not be going out there and starting World War III; if there is a child, of course. Now, would you like me to come with you and help explain all of this to your husband?"

Sebastian smiled, and said, "You would come and do that as well… Thank you, Wes, but no. I created the situation on my own, and I need to deal with the aftermath on my own too…"

As it happened, both Santana and Wes were correct; Dave listened, shook his head, then laughed. "I honestly can't believe you sometimes, Sebby. You actually thought you could make a joke with Santana about being her donor…? That was asking for trouble, given what you have just told me about the strength of her desire to have a child. Well, the two of you can deal with the whole process yourself, but if and when you do succeed, they will still be a part of our little family, albeit on the quiet. After all, Santana is not expecting the two of us to live with them in some kind of co-parenting commune?"

"Don't even suggest that in jest!" exclaimed Sebastian. "You, me, Santana, Brittany, our children and all of those cats… it is a nightmarish vision from hell! I am assuming that we will just be 'uncles' and nothing more, and I am fine with that. We will have our hands full with our own little family. So, you really don't mind - because if you do, then I can call Santana right now and tell her…"

"Sebastian, I am very attached to my head, so it is just as well that I am okay with all of this, even if you should have asked me first. Frankly, I think decapitation would be the mildest of the treatments she would meet out to me if I said no. You have my blessing to go ahead…"

It was actually just prior to 8am the next day when a knock at the front door was followed by footsteps stampeding through the hallway, and Sebastian found himself wrapped in Brittany's arms, being showered with kisses. Dave stood by and tried his best not to laugh out loud, but then was rather startled to hear Brittany state that she had posted the news that he was the best birdie ever on Facebook so everyone would know what he was doing. A swift check brought the news that she had meant every word, and the whole of their circle of friends now knew that Sebastian had agreed to be Santana's donor.

At that point there was no response; within an hour, that had all changed. Several of the responses revolved around the fact that they should all start to pray now; David had gone one better and had actually attached a link to the theme music from the film The Omen. "He would not dare to be so brave if he wasn't in Boston," Sebastian had commented through gritted teeth.

Jeff and Nick had both posted very positive comments though, wishing them all the best, and wondering who the child would live with. Sebastian smiled at their warm wishes, and remarked, "I knew there was a reason that I loved those two."

"Just remember that they also have a son that they don't want to end up as an orphan Sebby," pointed out Dave, and much as he hated to admit it, Sebastian could see there was an element of truth there. His love for the two of them further diminished when he arrived at the theatre that afternoon to find a parcel from his two friends waiting in his dressing room. He opened it and found to his horror that it contained a quantity of small reusable tubs, several jiffy bags, and much to his disgust, something that was labelled helpfully as a turkey baster…

The fact that he had still been holding it with a look of total disgust on his face when Bette walked in to greet him would go down as one of those moments in his life that he would rather forget, and one moment that she would not. She was of course all for the idea, saying that the child that was created between the two of them would be born to be a Broadway star, given the amount of talent that it would inherit. "I would hope that I would still be around to witness their opening night, or at least be invited to their school shows, darling boy…"

"That will be down to Santana; after all, this child will be raised by her and Brittany, with just the occasional visit from Uncle Sebastian on his days off," he replied, as he finally managed to put the turkey baster down, a shiver running through him as he imagined where it was supposed to go.

"Well I am sure that when your own child comes along, you will make an excellent father to them anyway. I saw it in the way that you acted when your nephew was missing in L.A. You would have sacrificed everything, including your own life, just to ensure that he was safe, and that is one of the things that a good parent would do." she took his hand and squeezed it, and he smiled.

"Well, it won't be all that long until we see whether that is true or not; sometimes the prospect scares me, the next I just want them to be here!"

"That is perfectly normal; I have noticed how broody you seem, and how you gravitate towards other people's children, given half the chance. I think that this child will be one of the luckiest in the world…"

Sebastian smiled, but could only think that the luckiest person in the world was him; after all he had done over the years, he had found his happy place, and everything was coming up roses for him…