Klaine Ever After

Leia Rose

3 Years Later

"Welcome home, Leia Rose!" Kurt announced to the small child in his arms. She gasped as they stepped into their New York apartment, staring at the high ceiling above her and then to the hardwood floors below her. Blaine came in behind them dragging two large suitcases.

It had taken two long years for them to finally adopt their first child. They had just returned from a month long trip to the Philippines to bring her into their lives and before that was the paperwork, and the fundraising, and the preparation for the trip, etc.

The adoption worked out perfectly and for that they felt lucky. It had been a year since Blaine had graduated from NYADA and it had been two years since Kurt's graduation. Neither of them were working on a Broadway show at the time and they were really eager to be parents. Then they became passionate about adopting from the Philippines after learning about a campaign started by Darren Criss raising awareness of orphans in his mother's home country. They soon began looking for reliable Filipino adoption programs and eventually found Leia Rose.

Leia Rose was beautiful. She had smooth, caramel-colored skin, raven black hair that curled at the tips, and the richest, deepest amber-colored eyes that seemed to convey such joy and sadness at the same time. She was just 18 months and was already speaking simple Cebuano (the language of her native area) words; Kurt and Blaine could speak a little Cebuano (they had tried to learn some before their trip), but were working hard on solely teaching her English.

Once they knew that the adoption would go through, they began eagerly talking about names. Kurt wanted to name her after a Broadway character like Nessarose, Nalla, or Maureen. Blaine wanted either a more standard name like Lauren or Meredith or a name from one of his favorite movies or books like Ginny, Leia, or Ariel. Finally they settled on Leia Rose because it blended nicely and satisfied both of their preferences, Leia after Princess Leia from Star Wars and Rose after Nessarose from Wicked.

"Blaine, honey?" Kurt asked when they were inside the apartment. "Can you bring her stuff to her room? I'm going to see if I can get her something to eat. She's getting fussy." As he said this, Leia Rose let out a little cry and reached for Kurt's neck scarf, pulling down on the knot with force. "No, no." He told her as he gently brought the little hand down. "We've already discussed this, sweetie. You're going to choke Daddy if you keep tugging at his neck scarf." She sulked and three little tears rolled down her cheeks. Kurt wiped them from her face and rubbed her back soothingly.

"Maybe you shouldn't wear neck scarves now that we have a toddler in the household." Blaine suggested as he made his way down the small hallway to the room they had designed and prepared for Leia.

Kurt rolled his eyes and shouted back jokingly, "Maybe you shouldn't wear bow ties!" and then took a small cooler he had on his shoulder and set it on the kitchen counter, sighing in relief to have that weight of his shoulder.

He set Leia on the floor and gave her a small teddy bear to hold. At first she stared at her dad, hurt to have him ditch her like that, her little mouth turned down at the corners into a pleading pout. But when Kurt gave her the bear she reached out and held the toy in her tiny hands, squealing with pleasure as she brought the bear down to the floor and banged it repeatedly on the hardwood. Kurt bent down to her eye level and placed the bear's minature triangular nose to Leia's cheek. "Can you kiss, Teddy?" Kurt asked. "See? He likes you, Leia Rose, and he loves kisses." He tapped the bear's nose on her cheek three times imitating kissing sounds, "Moowah, moowah, moowah."

The child cocked her head curiously at Kurt, reminding him of when Blaine did that, so adorable. Kurt stepped back and watched as she looked at the bear. Slowly she brought the toy's face to her mouth and puckered her lips out as she gave it a juicy smooch. "Moowah!" She emphasized the kissing sound and dramatically brought the bear away and held it proudly to Kurt, who had turned to the counter. With one hand she shook the bear back and forth and continued saying, "Moowah! Moowah! Moowah!"