[OPEN] "It's a big girl world now, full of big girl things. And every day, I wish I was small."

[bitofheavenwithawildside]

Who? Maggie Gresham and OPEN
What? Arrival
When? A few days after Blaine's arrival, Sunday afternoon
Where? The beach

This could not be happening. It just couldn't. There was no way on earth that Maggie could've screwed things up this badly. In the wake of Kurt and Blaine's wedding, which had rapidly disintegrated into a murder scene from some godawful movie, everyone had been in a state of depression, shock, and grief that was far beyond their ability to just deal with. You didn't just "deal" with watching a dear friend, a precious person that you loved dearly, being shot down in front of you in cold blood. There was no dealing with that, and while everyone was horrified, and trying to be there for Blaine at the same time, while somehow trying to keep living, it was far, far too much.

It was what had driven Maggie, grief-stricken and alone, to a bar in Manhattan, where she had every intention of drinking until she was numb. What she hadn't expected was to find a familiar face there, someone who'd been at the same wedding, witnessed the same horrifying scene, sitting a few barstools down from where she was planning to sit. Neither of them really wanted or needed to be alone in the wake of that, and after far too many drinks, they ended up back at Maggie's apartment, where they'd shared a drunken one-night stand. It wasn't exactly the run of the mill pull, given that they'd known each other for years, and were good friends, but it had been something that both of them needed -- the contact, the intimate connection, the reminder that they weren't alone, that they could still feel something.

The next morning, he'd left, though both of them promised to keep in touch.

But they hadn't. And several weeks and one missed period later, Maggie was in a state of utter panic. A panic that led to her sitting alone in her apartment on the toilet seat, watching her watch until the pregnancy test beside her was ready to read. Picking the plastic stick up in shaky hands, she looked down, waiting for an answer. And there it was, plain as day.

Pregnant

Caught between the urge to scream, the urge to cry, and the overwhelming wish that she'd somehow managed to do the test wrong and it was all a joke, Maggie just stared. And just when a choked sob, delayed though it was, escaped her, she felt the strange sensation of sand beneath her bare feet, and her bathroom was gone, the toilet she'd been using as a chair disappearing with it, and leaving her to drop on her butt in the sand, pregnancy test still clutched in her hand.

Great, so this was a dream. It had to be a dream, right?

Yeah. Dream.

Comments

[justbeingaqueen]

Kurt was glad at this point that Blaine was actually here. Kurt knew he was here... he had felt his heart beat, ran his fingers through his thick curls, got re-acquainted with his dick, felt him inside him. Because he was pretty sure that if someone other than his husband had arrived from home and he had to greet them, he would have had an irreversible nervous breakdown and probably needed to spend the rest of his island years locked in a padded room in the hospital. He had barely kept it together greeting Jeff. Well, he hadn't really kept it together at all. He had lost it and Jeff copped it, but at least he had kept his sanity. But now Blaine was here, so he didn't need to fly off the edge over yet another familiar face arriving when the damn place took its time bringing Blaine to him. But Blaine was snoozing peacefully in the bungalow, and Kurt's were a little more at ease now, even if it was all going to be a bit stressful as they helped Blaine adjust to this new life in the wake of witnessing Kurt's death. He was okay sometimes, but others, like with this nightmare, it was obvious his brain probably felt like it was in the washing machine spin cycle that just wouldn't stop. It was why Kurt was keeping extremely close to him. He wasn't going to work, he was barely leaving the bungalow in case Blaine needed him. He wanted Blaine to know he was there as much as he could... there, and not dead.

He just sighed and looked down at her with a tired blink, his brain giving him a sing-song, 'Here we go ag-ain'. Which was rude, to say the least. Everyone was in the same shock boat when they arrived. He had just gotten old and grumpy (well, he felt old, so it counted) and set in his island ways that he probably should be banned from greeting newbies. But apparently those old and set in their island ways were the best to greet because you got a knack for explain the nuances without it getting too confusing. And another one who came from around the time of his death too. He needed to get a t-shirt or a hat to explain all this, or maybe a little printed card he could just hand everyone once they got here.

He just let her ramble, checking his watch and nodding along with a slight bored look on his face... until she got to the ghost of Christmas past thing and this earned her a Kurt Hummel patented Bitchpls look. "Bitch, please, I would never lower myself to unclassy hauntings. Why the hell would I hang around the afterlife waiting for you all to drop dead and meet me when I have hell to explore? Aren't you forgetting that queers don't get into heaven? Oh great, now you're giving me the inevitable 'But you're dead' look. I hate this part," he bitched. He wished he was back in bed having hot, sweaty sex with Blaine. He didn't mean to be bitchy, but he was still recovering from Blaine's arrival. "I'm dead back home. I'm not dead here. I'm very much alive here. This is Etre Libre. It's an island somewhere, but no one knows where. You know those movies you see that are an alternate reality? Where people wake up in a different time and place but they don't know how they got there? Well, that's this place. You were having a bad day, you consciously or subconsciously wished you were anywhere but where you were, and you got your wish. Only here, there's no genies with bottles. Just a tropical island with me, who could never pull off a genie outfit. It would make my hips look big."

[bitofheavenwithawildside]

Maggie was still in a state of shock. What the hell was this supposed to mean? If Kurt was alive here, it meant everything was different, right? She'd had the wildly inappropriate comfort fuck because Kurt died. She'd reached out to an old friend who was going through the very same thing because they'd both lost a person they loved dearly, and they'd shared a night of much needed care and comfort, albeit drunkenly. But if Kurt wasn't dead here, maybe that meant that the comfort sex had never happened, which maybe meant that she wasn't pregnant after all. That could make sense, couldn't it? But she didn't say anything right away, letting Kurt explain to her what was going on, despite the fact that, through it all, he looked very much... almost annoyed by the whole thing... as if people randomly ending up on beaches when they were just sitting in their houses was a completely normal thing that she should just expect.

But his explanation made no more sense to her than randomly appearing on a gorgeous tropical island. No sense at all. Though she couldn't deny that this place felt a lot better than home did right now. It was peaceful, beautiful... it was a fucking beach, and she was just here. So even if it did turn out just to be a dream, she wasn't really planning to fight it much more at this point. Out of curiosity, she sneaked a peek at the pregnancy test again. Fuck. It still said pregnant.

"Okay, fine, no ghost of anything... But hey, if all the queers go to hell, it sounds like my kind of place to be. Once a fag hag, always a fag hag, and all that. Speaking of fags and hags... Is Nick here? I really need to see Nick. Hell, is anybody else here? Any of our friends? Or is it just you and me from home?" She sort of looked around her at the palm trees, and the waves rolling in, and just shook her head. If she had to be pregnant, at least it came with a really nice vacation. She couldn't deny that staying pregnant wasn't the only option in her mind right now, and she had to wonder if the island offered modern medicine, like safe terminations. She hadn't decided on that yet, but she really just wasn't sure where this whole thing might lead her. She wasn't sure she could handle being a mom along with the shock of this island thing, too. But it was way too soon to make any huge decisions, and she wasn't going to make the mistake of jumping right into a decision right off the bat. "I guess I could freak the fuck out right now, and panic, but I have to admit, at least it's... a nice kind of crazy, if that's what I am."

[justbeingaqueen]

Kurt waited while the information probably attempted to sink in. He fought the urge to tap his foot impatiently, but busied himself with replaying little patches of his reunion lovemaking with his husband. It was still blowing him away that Blaine was here, but it did mean he coped a lot better apparently with welcoming faces from back home now. Before, one more familiar face that wasn't Blaine, and Kurt probably would have ended up in a jail cell for his response... or a padded cell. He knew his emotional and psychological responses had really been almost worn bare after the news that Blaine had committed suicide back home years after Kurt's death, and then prior to that how he had slowly, more and more, lost himself and let go of any hope without Kurt. It had broken Kurt's heart, but he had been so convinced upon hearing about it that Blaine wouldn't come. He had died back home, so he wouldn't make it. Then all of a sudden he was here, and being drawn from the exact moment of Kurt's death. They needed to talk about that, but Blaine was still recovering from the ordeal so it wasn't time yet. They had plenty of time. Kurt refused to believe otherwise. If Blaine died back home, surely that meant he was here on the island with Kurt for good now? The only niggle in the back of his mind was... were they legally married here on the island? That was something he had to look into. As far as he was concerned, they were married in every other way and now he could finally start to live that. He never had a chance back home before he was murdered, and it was all he yearned for.

But he was savvy and observant. Always had been. As soon as she gave that twitchy glance to the thing she was holding, his attention was caught and his eyes zeroed in on it... and he knew exactly what it was. He pointed at it then, quirking an eyebrow at her. "Well, well, well... if ever there was an awkward moment, it's that. Anyone I know? Or the better question is, does he know because I would say that would very much constitute a life moment of get me the fuck out of here to land your butt on the beach just like it has," he pointed out. "You're not crazy. This is a physical transition, not a mental one. Although, some people do go crazy when they can't accept what they're told. And yes, some other people from home are most certainly. Some have even been here longer than I have... but don't let that lull you into a false sense of security. We're all from different times, and all different in general due to experience or what brought us here and why."

[bitofheavenwithawildside]

There was a sick feeling in her gut, and Maggie was praying like hell that she wouldn't end up puking all over the place right now. She already wasn't having the best of days here, and puking in front of the most fabulous of fabulous gay bitches right now would just be adding insult to injury. She couldn't help kind of wishing that it was a dream still, but the sensations were too real... She was really here, she was really pregnant, and the father may or may not be here, may or may not know... She had no clue. Who knew if he was here, or what place in time he'd come from. For all she knew, he could have whole different family here, and bringing this baggage in could fuck that up for him. So maybe it was better he didn't know. Or maybe he wasn't here at all. Which might be better in the grand scheme of things. She couldn't really be sure.

But then Kurt was calling her out on the little test in her hand, and she was shaking her head. Stupid, Maggie. Stupid to show him the goddamn pregnancy test, whether she was trying to or not. But Kurt knew. He knew, and he wasn't playing coy about it either. "Yeah... It's an awkward moment," she bit out, trying not to lose her temper. It really wouldn't be helpful anyway. Kurt Hummel was a class A bitch when he wanted to be, and Maggie had seen it in action before, though never directed at her. So she answered as honestly as she could, but with a hint of sass to her tone. She was a redhead, after all. "Yes. It's someone you know, and no, he doesn't know yet. He might not ever know at this rate. He... He was an old friend, and after you died..." How weird was it to talk to someone about their own death after the fact? "After... all of that, we hooked up for a comfort thing... I don't know what happened... Maybe we were so drunk we didn't use protection, or maybe it failed, but... It was a mistake. And yes. Very much a get me the fuck out of here moment." She shook her head just a little, swallowing hard. This was just too much. "If it's a physical transition, then I'm still... I'm still... Knocked up." Kurt's death really had set off a chain reaction of things going wrong, some that she was sure she didn't even know about yet. "Who... Who's here? McKinley people? Warblers?"

[justbeingaqueen]

Kurt felt the sun on his face the sea breeze tickling his skin as he waited for her to take a little more time to process things. Some people did well with it, others didn't. Kurt never experienced any of this part of things about arriving on the island, on account of the fact he had a bullet in him and had nearly bled to death by the time he got here. He had spent many weeks unconscious in the hospital before he woke up, and even after that, it took awhile to recover before he had any clarity to understand anything of what was going on. It helped that Quinn had slowly and gradually eased him into it, with her visiting him every day in the hospital without fail. He had never quite been the same since she told him Blaine hadn't come here with him, though. In a way, he was glad he skipped it but many had told him since that they would have rathered this than his experience. At least this way, you had no choice but to deal. It was a sink or swim deal, really. Most people chose to swim and deal. Kurt, on the other hand, had never stopped flounder and only barely keeping his head above water without Blaine. Hopefully he would find it easier now Blaine had come. Hopefully they hadn't grown apart so much they could still function as a couple. It was a fear for him, to say the least.

Normally, information like that would probably have intrigued him back in the days before he was dead. These days, he was learning how much people could fuck up and it was why they ended up here in the first place. Not everyone fucked up, but everyone had some sort of baggage. Plus, you have sex with someone unprotected and you had a uterus, you could make babies. Never an issue he had to worry about. Just so long as it wasn't Blaine, he wasn't about to really judge her. "Is it Nick?" he soon asked her suspiciously. "Because if it is, he's very much taken here and very much not in daddy mode. Why do people never seem to remember what a condom is during a 'comfort thing'?" he did have to ask, though. He couldn't understand the concept, but how fucking hard was it for a het couple to wrap?

He had to give her a nod, though. "Unfortunately. If I can turn up with a bullet in me, you can turn up with a bun in the oven. McKinley people and Warblers are both here. There's probably no one the same to how you left them back home. Except maybe Jeff. He's the newest arrival and from right before I dropped dead. There's 'Cedes too, but she's from... from..." He stopped. She was from Blaine's death. It still crushed Kurt's heart. "Five years after that."