A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET MISTAKEN FOR DAWN
PART V

Dave snorted loudly, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t think this is a good idea at all,” he insisted, while Kurt whined, already wrapped in his expensive black coat that – despite how new it was, since it had been bought just a couple of months before to replace the old and smaller one – barely fit on him anymore.

“Oh, come on, Dave,” Blaine smiles, placing both his hands on Kurt’s shoulders to reassure him: he had promised his friend the day before that he would have found a way to convince Dave that, after weeks passed locked inside the house or in the backyard, the time for a stroll outside had finally come, and he didn’t want to disappoint him. “The weather is fine and Kurt feels good. Don’t you, Kurt?”

“I do! I do!” Kurt answered quickly, nodding as he spoke, “I feel alright. I can go.”

“It’s dangerous,” Dave insisted, stubbornly trenching behind his crossed arms, “You heard the doctor, he said you have to be careful.”

“Honey, that was almost six months ago, and you keep repeating it every time I want to go out,” Kurt protested, lowering his eyes. He was aching for a walk on the streets, hearing the voices of the city all around himself and feeling the warmth of the sun on his skin instead of having to hid under the gazebo in their garden at every hour of the day.

“What makes you think that the fact that some time has passed could mean that now would be less dangerous to go out and exhaust yourself?”

“Exhaust myself!” Kurt almost yelled, waving both his hands in the air in frustration, “Do you even hear yourself when you speak? I don’t want to go out climbing mountains, I just wanna take a walk!”

“Now, now, why don’t we all calm down?” Blaine interrupted them, smiling patiently, “Dave, it’s just a walk to the temple. We’re only going to attend mass, and then walk back home. Kurt’s not going to be in any danger, since we’re both going to be with him, aren’t we?” Dave muttered something in protest, but Blaine just smiled added “You wouldn’t let me and Kurt walk all the way to the temple alone, would you?”

“Of course I wouldn’t,” Dave finally surrendered, grabbing his coat and wearing it quickly, while Kurt struggled to contain his joy, letting it out only in small happy noises without jumping around.

“And then, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to go to the temple and pray closer to the Gods,” Blaine suggested, nodding to himself, “Maybe, in their wisdom, they’ll be merciful enough to forgive you and protect you.”

Dave nodded too, still muttering unintelligible words in protest, though he couldn’t really argue with that. Kurt smiled gratefully at Blaine and Blaine smiled back at, satisfied. His presence had been more than needed, in the last few months, especially with both Kurt and Dave growing more and more frustrated as time went by, with Kurt always asking for more freedom while his husband got more and more prone to not give him any, scared that his peculiar condition would cause him harm if he overworked himself.

They had needed somebody to mediate between them, and – luckily enough – Blaine knew a thing or two on mediation, thanks to his job.

When they finally got out of the house, Blaine smiled fondly looking at the ecstatic expression that was smoothening and enlightening the lines of Kurt’s face. His friend was finally smiling happily, breathing in and out the fresh air of the city and enjoying a glimpse of normality shining into his usually not-so-normal-anymore life.

The three of them walked slowly down the street, heading to Temple Square. Kurt leant on Dave, holding onto his arm, and Blaine walked beside them, chatting with Kurt about the weather and all the new shops that had opened in the last months, while Dave made sure that, if something should have had happened to Kurt, he would be the first knowing it, by watching his husband so close his concentrated and restless eyes could have been easily mistook as a sign of mental illness.

“Dave,” Kurt said in a light chuckle once that Dave had stopped screaming about the dangers of bad paved sidewalks after his husband almost tripped over a little hole in the ground he had not seen coming because of his prominent belly, “Would you please calm down? I’m not gonna die on the street for a little fall.”

“You didn’t fall,” Dave pointed out, frowning. He had been able – and good enough – to catch Kurt before he could really fall. He wanted his efforts to be recognized.

“Yeah, but even if I did, I would have been perfectly safe, Dave!” Kurt insisted with another happy laughter. An argument like that would have been fast to turn into a serious fight if they still were in the house, but being finally out put Kurt in a good mood. Luckily for Dave. “Come on,” Kurt added, kissing Dave lightly on his cheek to reassure him, “I will be fine. Nothing bad is going to happen today. I can feel it.”

He was wrong.

Temple Square was crowded, but no one seemed to notice them because the mass was about to start, and whoever was still crowding the square was already late, as they were too. With his wide-brimmed hat, the long coat covering him down to his feet and the sweet curve of his belly so clear despite all his attempts not to make it too obvious, Kurt could easily pass for a woman to a careless look.

But not to the watchful eyes of a priest.

“You can’t come in,” one of the priests guarding the huge doors of the temple waiting for everybody to come in said, standing still with his arms crossed over his chest in front of Kurt and Dave, his hands disappearing inside the long sleeves of his frock.

It was so sudden that Dave stopped abruptly in midstep, almost unbalancing Kurt. He had to cling to his husband’s arm harder not to fall.

“Excuse me?” Dave asked, astonished, as Blaine approached them with eyes wide open, staring at the whole scene in disbelief.

“You can’t come in,” the priest repeated, casting them all a stern glare, “You’ve been reported to the Council for your sin against the law of the Gods, and that thing,” he added, pointing a finger toward Kurt’s prominent belly, the features of his face twisted in a mask of disgust, “That thing is the proof that what has been reported is true. For this reason, you can’t come in, and from now on you’re permanently banned from public masses in every temple of the city.”

“What? You can’t do that!” Blaine cut in, almost standing between the priest and his friends while Kurt covered his mouth with a hand and moved closer to Dave, almost scared that he could lose all his strength and fall on the ground, “Everybody has a right to attend mass!”

“You lose your every right the moment you sin against the Gods,” the priest answered, his cold eyes still locked on Kurt and his belly, “Punishment will come from them, and until then, and even after, we can’t let him in.”

“But what if they came to ask for forgiveness?” Blaine insisted, gesturing nervously, “Would you deny them that chance?”

“They can ask for forgiveness into their own house,” the priest said, finally turning to Blaine and looking at him just like he had looked at Kurt up to a moment before, “They don’t need to walk inside this sacred building and make it dirty.”

Blaine parted his lips, shocked, disgusted, even outraged. He had always thought about the priests as a reasonable group of pure-hearted, faithful people, ruling them all by the law of the Gods only with patience and compassion, and though he himself had sinned enough in his life to know he didn’t deserve any forgiveness, he just as strongly believed that, for Kurt and Dave, it was different. They were good people. They just wanted to be happy. They didn’t deserve that treatment. “This is… unacceptable!” he yelled, his hands shaking violently out of rage, “It can’t be tolerated, you’re overstepping your borders! You can’t keep believers out of the mass, it’s unfair, and I will not—”

“Blaine, don’t,” Kurt interrupted him, parting from Dave. He was unsteady on his legs and his voice was shaking, but he looked so pure, so dignified in his painful resignation that Blaine couldn’t help but do as he told, and Dave could only follow him a step behind, to assure he would be there to catch him if Kurt ever lost his few remaining strength all of a sudden. “It’s not him keeping us out of the temple, it’s us not wanting to come in.”

The priest faced him steadily, outraged. “How dare you, sinner?” he roared, waving a fist not more than a couple of inches away from Kurt’s face, “You dare to talk against a priest speaking on the Gods’ behalf! You’re shameless!”

“Well, maybe I am!” Kurt replied, yelling, his fists clutched down his sides, “But I’m not going to ask for your forgiveness, since you’re not a God but only a priest, and actually I’m not going to ask for any forgiveness, since whatever I did, I did it to bring happiness to my life, and that’s what the Gods want for us!”

It was in that moment that a high-pitched neigh and a heartbreaking scream broke the muttering sound of the people looking at the scene on the stairs of the temple. Everybody turned to the place the scream had come from all at once, to try and understand what had happened.

A man was lying on the tiled ground on the street. A crying woman was holding him in her arms as he puked blood, her white, elegant dress stained in red all over. “No, no, no, please, no…” the woman cried, while the man tried to move and couldn’t, his breath only hardly slipping out of his lips in short, painful gasps, “No, oh Gods, please, no!”

Both Kurt and Dave stood on the stairs, looking at the scene in horror, while Blaine moved closer, a niggle in the back of his mind that wouldn’t leave him alone: he knew that voice, he was almost sure he did.

“What happened?” somebody asked, “The horses of a carriage went wild, they stepped on him. He’s done for,” somebody else asked. Blaine listened to everybody, but the more he moved closer to the crying woman and to her dying husband, the more he felt like he already knew what was going on.

The man drew his last and passed away, and the woman screamed again, before her voice turned in a soft whisper, as she kept murmuring reassurances to the ears of a husband that couldn’t hear them anymore.

Blaine was right, he knew that voice. “Samantha,” he whispered, kneeling beside the woman and placing a hand over her shoulder, “I’m sorry.”

She suddenly turned towards him, her eyes wide, he lips parted in both horror and shock, her tear-stricked cheeks flushing. “Who…” she started in a low voice, but then he thought about his voice and recognized him.

Blaine could only hold her in his arms as she kept crying her heart out, the corpse of her husband lying on the street, and he only barely noticed the people murmuring all around, the priests all yelling “she’s that abomination! The man who changed his gender with forbidden alchemy! You see, that’s what happens when you sin against the Gods!”, and even Dave jumping at one of the priests’ throat after those harsh, heartless words.

The only thing he could think about was that he would have never, never stepped inside a temple again.

*
Samantha's husband funeral was a very intimate ceremony.

She had wanted something sober and quiet at the mere presence of her family and a few of her closest friends. Blaine attended the whole service and he was moved to see how many people had showed up to pay their respect anyway, standing in silence outside the house where the funeral was taking place.
The hate of the people he had felt for her and her husband on the very scene of the incident in the streets of the city was nowhere to be found here in the countryside where Samantha's and her husband lived. In fact, as Blaine had found out, her house wasn't far away from his own.

Also the priests there had been more sympathetic. One of them had actually agreed to come and say mass for her husband, leaving aside all the prejudices and concentrating only on the death of a human being. Maybe he didn't know the man and his speech had been dreadfully generic for a funeral, but it was respectful and Blaine could tell this was all she wanted at this point.

After the service, Blaine followed the casket to the family's graveyard where she had decided to bury her husband and held her close as she would break in tears unable to accept what she was looking at. It was moving and heart-breaking and as her husband was lowered down in the grave, she was so in pain that Blaine felt his own heart crack in half.

He went back t Dave and Kurt's house after sunset, leaving Samantha to her mother's care but determined to come back to her as soon as he could. Whatever reasons had brought them together, now he felt her really close and wanted to help her through this, hoping to do a better job than the one he had done with himself.

When he got to the house it was well past dinner time, but Kurt had left something aside for him and he was waiting for his return, sitting in the dining room with a cup of tea in his hands. “I wasn't expecting you up,” Blaine said, giving his coat to the always obliging maid. “You should be sleeping by now.”

“I can't,” Kurt smiled tiredly.

Blaine joined him and sat down with an exhausted sigh. “Do you feel sick?”

“Luckily my sickness have long gone. This is one of the few good things about being eight months pregnant,” he smiled, caressing his belly. “He's just restless tonight.”

“He's moving around?” Blaine asked quite curiously, as the maid served him his dinner. He thanked her with a nod and she walked away swiftly. “Can you feel him?”

“I can actually see him. Every now and then he presses his little feet or hand against my belly and I can see it.” Kurt chuckled at Blaine's almost horrified face. “Don't worry, it's not so bad as it sounds.”

“It certainly sounds pretty bad,” he said. “Does it hurt?”

“No, it's just annoying. I hope it's not a sign of his character,” Kurt said.

That pulled a laugh from Blaine. “If he is half as stubborn as you are, then...” He shook his head, “We are ruined.”

Kurt tried to throw a pillow at him but he missed him completely and knocked a very ugly ornament on a drawer just behind Blaine. He didn't even flinch, he wanted to trash it anyway. “So, did you choose a name, yet?”

“Nope,” Kurt shook his head quickly, like a little kid. “I gave Dave tons of options but the moment the doctor said it was a boy three months ago, he went crazy and couldn't pick one since then. No name is good enough for him, I don't even know.”

“He's going to find the right one, eventually. He's his firstborn, just cut him some slack,” Blaine said, playfully.

“I cut him all the slack he wants, as long as he gives me a way to call my son,” Kurt sighed. Then, he put his empty cup aside and crossed his hand on his belly. “I didn't ask you, how was your trip?”

“Sad mostly, but fine,” he nodded. “The service was quite moving.”

The baby kicked him hard and Kurt stroked his belly a little more strongly to soothe him. “I'm sorry for your friend. Have you been knowing her for long?”

“No, just a few months. I made a deal with her and we... just kept in touch.”

Kurt nodded. “I see. Did you know her already when she decided to change?”

Blaine thought about the moment that beautiful woman had approached him and it turned out she was Samuel. He had only seen her once, then. “Sort of. She was undergoing the change.” He decided that was the most honest answer he could give on the matter. “Listen, Kurt... About Sam, there is something I wanted to talk you about.”

“Sure, what is it?” Kurt settled with his back against the pillows and tried to find a comfortable position. His whole body was aching.

“I would like to go back to the country and stay with her for a while,” he said, pushing his now empty plate aside and cleansing his mouth with a napkin. “She is alone, now. I mean, her mother comes visit but that house is huge and I don't even know how it must feel to live there on your own when you just lost someone you love as she loved her husband. I don't trust her to be alone, right now.”

“Of course,” Kurt said, distractedly as he moved again, the pillows not helping him at all. The baby seemed to hate vigorously every single position he tried.

“So, since you're still one month away from the delivery and there is no real danger anymore,” he continued, pointedly avoiding Kurt's fidgeting on his seat, “I thought I could go there and help her for the first weeks. I will be back for when the time comes. What do you think?”

Kurt made a strangled noise. “I think the baby is coming.”

*
Everything happened so fast. Blaine sent for the doctor and woke up Dave, all the while holding a very growling, very whining Kurt in his arms. By the time Dave was up and aware of what was going on, Kurt was screaming in pain, scaring the hell out of both the other men. Luckily the doctor came with his son and nurse, Mike, to rescue them and take charge of everything, even though his face wasn't any less serious than all the times prior.

Dave wanted Kurt to be taken to an alchemical facility but it turned out it was too late for that. If they had tried and get Kurt on a carriage, he would have probably had to give birth on it, which was unthinkable given that he had to be cut open.

The doctor had Kurt and Dave's bedroom prepared for surgery with new sheets and sent the maid for towels and boiled water like they did in the old times. Alchemy should have been enough to prevent infections but you could never be too sure about it. “Help him lay down,” Mr. Chang said to Blaine and Dave. And when they complied and Kurt was on the bed as comfortably as possible in his state, he threw both of them out of the room.

“Did he just lock me out of my own bedroom?” Dave asked, staring at the locked door.

“He did. You wouldn't shut up,” Blaine said, annoyed. His hair was a mess as a result of Kurt reaching out and pull at whatever he found on his way. And his shirt was out of his pants and it was definitely not how he liked to wear it. He looked like someone had attacked him.

Dave slammed his fist against the door but nobody seemed to care. The door remained locked and he was left there standing and hearing whatever noise came from the other side. “What the hell is he doing to him?” Dave screamed, turning to Blaine. “Why is Kurt screaming? Shouldn't he be sleeping by now? He can't give birth if he's awake, can he? Fuck!”

Blaine watched as he slammed his fist against the door once again, always with the same result. “Would you calm down, please? Just sit down. You are not helping him.”

“What should I do, then? Just stay here and wait while he is in there alone?”

“Yes, that's pretty much the idea.” Blaine sighed and grabbed him by the shoulders. Dave tried to free himself but Blaine wouldn't let go, so he gave up. “Just listen. He stopped screaming ten minutes ago.”

Dave shut up. The house was not completely quiet, he could still hear the rustling and soft voices of two people behind the door, but the painful sound of Kurt's desperate cry wasn't there anymore. “He is not crying,” he whispered.

“Exactly. He must be sleeping,” Blaine nodded. “Doctor Chang knows what he is doing.”

Dave frowned. “Yes, and he hate what we did.”

“But he's been helping you all along, so he will bring your boy into the world,” Blaine tried to smile and patted him on his shoulder. “Now, please, just take a seat. It is going to be over soon.”

It turned out it took a little more than 'soon' to perform the surgery, so when Mr. Chang finally emerged from the room, six hours had passed. Dave woke up as soon as he heard the door open and elbowed Blaine who was snoring loudly with his head resting on Dave's shoulder.

“Is everything alright?” Dave said, which was his tagline by then. He stood up, forcing Blaine to do the same and approached the doctor. “How is Kurt? And the baby?”

“All considered, they are both fine,” the man answered. “The boy is healthy, even if a little underweight. Kurt needs to recover though. His body is weak and will change back in the next few weeks, which means you can expect him to be sick for a little while. But he will be fine.”

“Can I see him?”

Mr. Chang nodded. “Kurt needs to rest, though. So be quick.”

When Dave and Blaine entered the room, Kurt was sitting on the bed, propped against a few large pillows. The sheets had been changed again and the room didn't show any signs of the surgery that was performed in it just a few hours priors.

When Kurt saw them, he smiled lovely. He looked tired and pale but over all he seemed fine. The maid had helped him wear one of his old, silk pajamas and even though the covers hid half of his body, you could clearly see his rounded belly was gone. “Come in,” he invited them, whispering.

Dave reached him first and gave him a tender kiss on his lips as he sat down on the bed. “How do you feel?” He asked, unable to look away from his eyes.

Kurt chuckled because he knew that stare. It was the same Dave had the day they met. He would just look at him, his mouth stupidly open and no idea what to tell him. Kurt had found him sweet back then, and he was finding him sweeter now. “I'm fine. I didn't feel anything,” he said.

“I was so worried.”

Kurt's lovingly smile turned into an amused one as his husband kept staring at him, mesmerized by his well-being as if those past six hours of waiting were just for him to get better and nothing else. “Don't you wanna see your son?”

Suddenly, Dave seemed to remember there had to be a baby somewhere in the room. “I do. Of course I do,” he babbled, confusedly. “I always did. I got distracted by–”

Kurt chuckled. “I know, Dave. I was just mocking you.”

Only when Kurt turned to tend to something at his right, Dave noticed the basket-like cradle safely nested in pillows next to Kurt, in the very same space Dave would occupy if he were sleeping there. His heart started beating faster as his husband picked up what looked like the tiniest bundle of blankets that moved just so very lightly. Kurt smiled at it and whispered soothing words as he pulled it closer to himself. “Here,” he said, looking up at Dave. “Isn't he beautiful?”

Dave opened and closed his mouth twice, but words didn't come out. The baby was sleeping, fidgeting every now and then as if dreaming and he was so perfectly cute, Dave couldn't tear his eyes away from him as much as he couldn't from the baby's other father. The baby was still flushed and puffy but Dave couldn't care less. He stared at his closed eyes and at the curve of his tiny nose that he could already see was going to be snub like Kurt's. “He is wonderful,” he said moved, reaching to his son to stroke with a finger one of his hand. The baby opened and closed his hand at the touch and sighed deeply in what looked like just total bliss. Both Kurt and Dave chuckled.

“Do you wanna hold him?” Kurt invited him. He didn't wait for an answer, though. He handed him the baby smiling and Dave could do nothing but taking him in his arms.

The baby was so light, Dave didn't know how to hold him properly. He was afraid both to break him if he held him too strongly and to drop him if he didn't enough. But he was smiling stupidly anyway, chuckling every now and then because this was the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to him.

“So, did you pick a name too while you were pounding your fists against the door?” Kurt asked as he couldn't help but smile watching Dave with the baby.

“Actually, I did,” he answered, looking up at him. “But I wanted to see his face first to make sure it is the right name for him.”

“So, what is it?”

Dave looked at his son's frowning face. “Leonard,” he said, proudly. “It means brave. I thought you were so in having him and maybe he will share some of your courage too.”

Kurt smiled at him, lovingly. “I love it.”

Blaine had stepped aside to give them their moment with the baby and he was watching them fondly, just happy for them with no other grim thoughts about the wrath of Gods for once. They looked so totally at peace and complete right now that even in his usually guilty-filled mind there was no room for the thought of punishment.

“Blaine,” Kurt called after a while. “Would you come over, please? I remember you being quite the hero today.”

Blaine smiled in embarrassment as he joined them. “I didn't do anything.”

“You carried me around and I know I was heavy enough for you to be worth of a medal, so please shut up and accept my gratitude for that,” Kurt said, playfully. He opened his arms and Blaine hugged him. “Thank you for being here.”

When Blaine came out of that hug, Dave handed him the baby without even being asked to, which was proof enough of his newfound tolerance for him. Blaine took the baby very carefully, not having held one before.

He had thought himself to be a serious enough man, but he too started to chuckle stupidly as soon as the baby moved in his arms and made the smallest of sounds, yawning. “Hello there” Blaine said softly when the baby opened his eyes and followed the sound of his voice, looking blindly at him. “Welcome to this world, Leonard.”

He was still holding the baby when the door burst open and a group of five priests entered the room. The housemaid followed close behind. “I am sorry Lord Karofsky. I told them to wait but they wouldn't listen to me,” she said, breathlessly.

Dave just nodded at her, knowing the priests had probably stormed into the house uninvited. This was bound to happen eventually because priests always came as soon as a new baby was born to assign him but he had kinda hoped it wouldn't because after what happened a few days before, he just knew the whole ceremony was going to be just ugly.

“I thought the Gods had turned their backs on us,” Dave said angrily as he stepped in front of the bed, protectively. While Kurt looked paralyzed by the priests' invasion, Blaine held Leonard to his chest as if to enforce Dave's guarding stance.
“That's what you sinners would hope for, isn't it?” the head priest said. He wore a red tunic with golden embroidery on the hem and black cape with a hood that covered half of his face. “To be free to live your filthy lives away from Gods' eyes. But this is never the case. Gods have more mercy for you than you have for yourselves. They bless with their righteousness even who betrays their trust like you did.”

“You were the ones who banned us from the temple,” Dave said. “We never denied our faith.”

“You did when you brought to this world that abomination,” the priest said, pointing at the baby who didn't seem happy with all this noise and started fidgeting nervously.

“He is my son,” Dave stated. “And you will not call him that.”

“He is something that should have never lived,” the priest insisted. “And we didn't know what to do with him. For months we wondered who he was destined to, or even if he would be. The Gods would not tell us, we couldn't hear their voices.”

The tension in the room was raising to a point Blaine couldn't take it anymore. This annoyance was bothering Leonard who was now meowing and twisting restlessly, letting out an unconvinced sob every now and then as if he wanted to cry but he wasn't really sure about it yet. Blaine thought to hand him over to his father, but he couldn't resolve to move. He was stupidly afraid to draw the attention on himself and the baby, as if they didn't have it all already.

“But now we know,” the priest continued. “Now that we are here in this house, the voices of the God are loud and clear. Of course they had a plan all along and it's righteous and well deserved as their plans always are.”

The way his mouth was moving, the only visible thing under his black cape, was scarier than ever. He stepped forward, alerting Dave who tensed watching his every move. But the priest didn't go very far. He stopped just in front of Blaine. “What's the boy name?”

Nobody answered, so he was forced to repeat the question.

Kurt swallowed hard. “It's Leonard, sir.”

The priest reached out for the baby and Blaine really struggled not to step back. He knew the rituals by heart, so he shouldn't be afraid but that man scared him. His fears seemed to pass to Leonard who instantly started to cry his heart out as the man touched his forehead with his fingertips. “The Gods have spoken,” he said loud and clear, as the other four priests served as witnesses according to the tradition. “Every creature who is brought to this world should not live alone, as it is stated in the Book of Creation. The Gods want us to share our path in life with our soulmate, a soul they choose for us to love and care for until our days are over. But Leonard's life is the result of a sin, therefore his love in life will be his parents' punishment. The Gods destined Leonard to the man holding him now. This is the word of the Gods.”

Blaine opened his eyes wide. “He can't be destined to me!” He shouted. “I had my soulmate! He died more than ten years ago. Nobody has ever been reassigned before!”

The priest looked up to him, so Blaine could get a glimpse of his blue, cold eyes. “Are you questioning the will of the Gods, Blaine Anderson?”

Blaine shivered, wondering if it were the Gods punishing him for helping Kurt and Dave or if it was instead the wrath of a man he had the guts to dare in front of everyone else.
“You can't give him to Blaine!” Kurt cried out. “He will be thirty-five by the time Leonard will be of age.”

“Maybe there is a lesson to learn here, don't you think?” The priest said, hiding his hands inside his tunic's sleeves. “Unnatural births lead to unnatural bonds.”

Kurt closed his fists, fighting tears. “How can the Gods be so evil as to assign an innocent child to a full grown man?”

“Gods are not evil. Or that abomination will be dead by now,” the priest said, heading toward the door. “Be grateful of what the Gods have let you keep instead of whining for something you deserve.”

The four silent priests gathered around the one who had just spoken and they all left the room.

Everybody was too shocked to do anything. They all stared at the door, deaf even to the sound of the baby crying as they tried to figure out what their life would be like from now on. And failed.

*
As his driver put his luggage onto the carriage, Blaine took both Kurt's hands and they shared a very sad look. Now that he was bond to Leonard, he could not stay a day longer, if he didn't want to cause the wrath of Gods once again. “I am so sorry for what happened,” he said. “If I ever imagined, I would have never stayed.”

Kurt shook his head and sighed. He was still very weak and he should have been in bed, but he insisted on walking him to the door. “This is not your fault and I should be the one apologizing to you. It's mine and Dave's punishment and you're gonna suffer it as well as my son.”

After the priests had gone and Dave had brought down a considerable part of the house in a rage fit, they all had sat down in the damaged dining room, little Leonard left to the tender care of the maid. They accepted the fact things were going to change and Blaine was indeed going to be with Leonard in due time. Their practical side had kicked in and they had understood that first of all Blaine had to leave.

“I promise I will keep myself as far as I can from him in the next fifteen years,” Blaine said, as his worst nightmare at the moment was the past repeating itself.

Kurt nodded, overwhelmed. His teary eyes were making Blaine cringe.

“And Kurt, I know it doesn't help at all right now but...” Blaine moistened his lips, nervously. “When the time comes, I will do my best for him. I promise I will give him the happiest life I can.”

Kurt smiled sadly at him and nodded again. “I know you will,” he said and pulled him in a desperate hug, clinging to his shoulders as he let himself cry just for one moment. “I'm just glad that if it has to be, it's you and not someone else.”

When he drew back, the tears were gone and he sighed. “Have a safe trip, Blaine” he said, standing on the front porch as the other walked to the carriage.

Kurt waved him goodbye and Blaine kept watching him until he couldn't see him anymore.

In fifteen years he was going to come back and take their child away from them, the least he could do was ask for forgiveness for what he thought was his sins and not Kurt's.

If he prayed and if he hoped enough, maybe the Gods would listen to him and have mercy.

He closed his eyes and cried because he didn't believe they would.