Mercedes and Finn eventually rejoined the others in the kitchen, where Kurt was cheerily working his way through a grilled cheese sandwich. "I've never seen him enjoy something so fattening," commented Rachel, making Puck snort.

"Finn, can we go to the park later?" Kurt asked, a few breadcrumbs stuck to his cheeks.

"Maybe," Finn answered. "If you're still around."

"I hope I am. I want to go to the playground."

"It's the middle of January, honey," Carole reminded him. "The playground's buried in snow."

"Oh…" Kurt looked crestfallen.

"It's fine, Zack, we can still go," promised Finn. "We'll build a snowman or something."

Kurt brightened again. "Okay!"

A few moments later, Kurt suddenly spit a mouthful of his sandwich onto his plate, eyeing the rest of his sandwich with disgust. Finn glanced over with a frown. "You okay, Zack?"

Kurt dropped the sandwich onto the plate next to the ball of half-chewed bread and cheese. "It's Robbie," he snapped, his voice turned low and graveled. Without waiting for any further conversation, Kurt stood and strode out of the room with his shoulders slumped.

Finn sighed. "I'll go," he said, standing up and following Robbie down the hall, leaving Puck and the girls confused and a little afraid.

Ever since they'd gotten him home, Kurt had been switching every forty minutes or so, so tense and anxious that he couldn't hold on to any one personality for very long. Even Truman, whom Finn had never met before, had emerged with his spiked-up hair and his rapid speech before giving way to Zack's giggles and wide smiles. But, while Puck had been more than amused by Truman and Zack, Finn knew that inside Kurt's head there was currently a war going on as his brain struggled to cope with the massive stress of the episode earlier that morning. And to make matters worse, Finn was pretty sure that even though he was not in control, Kurt knew that his life had changed drastically in the last few hours, which only served to make him more upset and in turn triggered rapid switches.

Finn opened the bathroom door just as Kurt was sticking his fingers down his throat. He winced as Kurt's torso spasmed and he emptied his stomach into the toilet, indifferently pulling the flush handle and moving over to the sink to brush his teeth. Finn leaned against the doorframe until Kurt snappishly asked him what he was looking at.

"Do you really hate yourself that much?" Finn asked, crossing his arms.

"How do you figure?"

"Rob, shoving your fingers down your throat doesn't exactly scream self-esteem."

Kurt stuck his toothbrush into his mouth, speaking through a mouthful of toothpaste. "Yeah, pudge-boy, and you lift weights just because it's fun."

"I lift weights to be healthy. Different ballpark, dude."

"Oh, please." Kurt spat the toothpaste into the sink and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "You do all your shit so you can look like the pucker-faced assholes on the billboards, and so do I. Don't talk down to me, because those sloppy joes and Doritos and McDonald's meals that you suck down every day aren't exactly helping you."

"It's not even your body."

Kurt leaned against the sink, his eyes narrowing. "I have as much a right to this body as Kurt does."

"No, you don't. Especially when you do this crap to it."

"You ever really think about this?" Kurt asked, a slight tone of accusation seeping through his words.

Finn frowned, caught slightly off-guard. "…About what?"

"You say I don't have a right to this body. Well, that would make me a part of Kurt's head and nothing more than that," Kurt continued impassively. "If that's all I am, then my self-esteem is actually Kurt's."

Finn gritted his teeth. "Kurt's more than you. He's better."

"So you admit we're separate people?"

"You're not Kurt."

"Okay, then it's as much my body as his and I can do what I want with it when I'm in control." Kurt straightened again, running a hand through his hair. "Normal people get to wonder why they exist, and that's great and all. But us? We get to wonder if we exist." He brushed past Finn, growling under his breath as he went, "Now how's that for a damaging self-image?"

After a polite nudge from Carole, Puck and the girls all left before Kurt could switch again. Characteristic of Robbie, Kurt refused to say goodbye beyond a low grunt of acknowledgment as the three of them filed out the door.

"When's Burt coming back?" asked Finn while Carole picked up the dishes from the table. Kurt had sullenly retreated to his bedroom, and would probably stay there until Robbie checked out.

"As soon as he's done talking with Figgins," answered Carole. "This kind of thing can take a while. Be patient." She gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

Finn sighed and cleared his plate, then went to the living room with the intent of cleaning up the arts-and-crafts disaster that covered the coffee table. After piling all of Zack's drawings into one stack and tossing Puck's doodles into the trash, he pulled out the sheet of paper where he'd asked Kurt to draw all of his alters, each of them labeled with the corresponding name in Zack's handwriting (if it could be called that – he was four, after all). He was about to place the drawing on the top of the stack to put into a folder in Kurt's closet along with all of Zack's other drawings from the last several years, but then a thought occurred to him. Leaving the rest of the stack on the coffee table, he climbed the stairs to the second floor with the paper in his hand.

He knocked on Kurt's door before sticking his head in. "Hey, Robbie, I need to talk to you about something."

Kurt looked up from where he was reclined on his bed with his nose buried in a Holly Black novel. "What?"

Finn came around the side of the bed and plopped down on the mattress by Kurt's feet. "Zack drew this earlier," he said, handing it over.

Kurt gave it a quick glance before returning it. "If you're looking for artistic criticism, there's not much to give to a preschooler."

"You all know about each other, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, so… is that everyone?"

Kurt frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"In the drawing," Finn clarified. "Is that all of you?"

There was a long pause in which Kurt stared at Finn, evaluating. "Where is this going, Finn?" he asked gruffly.

"This morning, after Eleanor left, someone else came out. Someone I'd never met—"

"You never met Truman before today either."

"—or heard of," Finn finished.

The muscles beneath Kurt's eyes tightened. "You know all of us," he said.

Finn bit the inside of his cheek for a moment. "…I don't buy that."

The book in Kurt's lap snapped shut loudly. "Why the fuck would I hide another personality?" he asked, a little too angrily.

Finn didn't move. "I think you're scared of him."

"Of who?"

"Whoever this other personality is."

"There is no other personality," Kurt snarled through clenched teeth, his fists curling beside him. "It's just us. What, is seven for the price of one not enough for you?" He threw the book onto the floor and stood up, storming out of the room and slamming the door shut behind him with enough force to rattle the furniture.

Dr. Goldberg's office had been fully booked that afternoon, but Carole had managed to schedule a last-minute appointment for Kurt the next day around noon. Kurt himself still had not been seen since the previous morning before his public episode, and had repeatedly cycled through every personality except his own. Burt (and Finn, who had insisted on staying awake) had been up for the entire night making sure that Eleanor, Craig, and Robbie, when they were awake, didn't do anything to harm themselves or Kurt.

Burt yawned as the four of them sat in the waiting room of the Goldberg-Lynne Private Practice, waiting for the aging receptionist with grey hair horribly disguised as pinkish red to allow them into Dr. Goldberg's private office. Carole sipped a cup of water from the cooler and held Kurt's hand as he squirmed in his seat.

"Calm down, honey," she soothed, squeezing his hand.

"Am I gonna get shots?" asked Zack's voice.

"No, you know that Dr. Goldberg isn't that kind of doctor."

Finn jiggled his leg and tried hard not to pay attention to the strange looks Kurt was receiving from the small handful of other patients scattered around the room. "Zack, do you want to play with the bead coaster?" he suggested, gesturing to the short table mounted with wooden beads threaded onto colored wires.

Kurt relocated to the bead coaster, sitting on the floor with his legs crossed. Finn watched him as he played, sending the beads back and forth, and for the millionth time wondered why the hell someone like Kurt had to be broken this way.

"Kurt Hummel?" called the receptionist, cutting through Finn's train of thought.

Burt and Carole stood up. "Come on, Zack," called Burt.

"Is Finn coming?"

"No, Finn's gotta stay here. But he'll be here when you get out."

Kurt looked disappointed, but followed Burt anyhow.

The inside of Dr. Goldberg's office was never quite at the right temperature – today it was a little too warm for Burt's taste. The walls were painted shamrock green and decorated with more than a few paintings of sea birds. Dr. Goldberg was sitting behind his desk, but stood and shook Burt's hand as they walked in. "Good to see you, Mr. Hummel," he said with a professional smile. "Or should I call you Senator now? I've been following your campaign on the news."

"Uh, Representative, actually," Burt corrected. "But Mister's fine by me."

"Oh, right, my mistake." Dr. Goldberg smiled again. He was just shy of six feet, bald only on the top of his head and with a thick beard that he kept neatly trimmed around his mole-ish features. His close-set eyes turned to Kurt, who was hovering shyly behind Burt. "So, who are we dealing with today?"

Burt glanced down at his son. "Well, it's Zack right now. We haven't seen Kurt since early yesterday morning."

Dr. Goldberg blew air out his nostrils. "Sounds serious." He retrieved his notepad from the top of his desk. "Why don't we all have a seat and then either you or Zack can tell me what happened?"

Kurt immediately flopped onto the couch, pulling his legs up underneath him. Burt pulled Raleigh out of his pocket, setting it on the small table next to the armchair situated off to the side for the occasional parent. "I brought Tyler's stuffed elephant, just in case we see him," he said as he sank into the chair.

"Excellent. Good thinking." Dr. Goldberg adjusted his tie as he sat in his personal, well-worn chair, draping one leg over the other and propped his notebook against his knee. "Now, Zack" he started. "Before I talk to Burt, I'd like to ask you if you remember anything about yesterday morning at school. Were you there?"

"No," Kurt said softly, chewing on his thumbnail and looking intently at his shoes. "But I know something bad happened."

"What sort of thing?"

"Eleanor came out."

"Okay," Dr. Goldberg nodded, scribbling on his notepad. "Good. Do you know what she did, if anything?"

Kurt shook his head wordlessly.

"All right, that's fine. Thank you." The doctor turned his attention to Burt. "Now, Mr. Hummel, if you could summarize."

Burt took a deep breath. "Well, first off, you gotta know that there are some really bad characters at McKinley," he began, adjusting his cap on his head. "There are people there who don't like Kurt or his group friends, and they'll cross a lot of boundaries in order to put them down."

"…Okay," Dr. Goldberg said.

"A few of the students there run a gossip site, and, I dunno how, but they found out about Kurt's… illness, and they posted it online for the whole school to see."

"…And the stress of that exposure was what triggered Eleanor?"

Burt nodded. "Yeah. Kurt, well… he's a private kid. You know, he'll share things with people who are important to him, but he doesn't like sharing things with the whole world. And that's without all the other crap going on in his head."

"Well, Kurt's forced twenty-four-seven to share his body – he's entitled to a little social privacy if you ask me," Dr. Goldberg agreed. "How often has he been switching since then?"

The next ten minutes were spent with Dr. Goldberg asking a long series of detailed questions about what had taken place during the previous thirty-six hours, and scribbling down so many notes that he had to turn the page three times.

"…Finn practically carried Kurt in the house 'cause Kurt wouldn't walk on his own—"

Dr. Goldberg frowned and interrupted. "He wouldn't walk? Or couldn't?"

"I have no idea," Burt answered. "None of us have ever seen him like that. He barely spoke, barely moved…" He let out a shuddering breath, rubbing a hand over his face and looking up at the ceiling. "He was just… dead. Anyways, we put him in his bedroom and, eventually, he switched to Tyler and came downstairs on his own."

Chewing on the inside of his cheek for a moment in thought, Burt had to steel himself before he was able to ask, "You think we're dealing with a new alter?"

"New to Kurt or new to you?"

"…Both?"

Dr. Goldberg shook his head. "Personalities don't develop in the space of a few minutes. They don't just come into being. In that sense, they're people in their own right – put together piece by piece." He scratched at his beard, glancing at Kurt, who was clearly growing bored very quickly. "It's far more likely that what you were seeing is another personality who has simply never needed to come out before."

"So, he's always had eight?"

"Probably."

"Could there be more?"

"Possibly."

"Is there anything you can say that's beyond a maybe?"

"No."

Burt huffed, exhausted. "Doc, you diagnosed Kurt when he was eleven. How the hell is it possible that this other alter hasn't shown himself during the seven years since then? Not to mention the three years between that and the accident. Ten years in all, and this person hasn't shown up 'til now?"

"Well, for all you know, the new guy could have shown up when you weren't around," Dr. Goldberg answered. "I won't be able to give you any solid theories until I talk to him."

Burt blinked. "Um… to who?"

"To the new guy."