Tuesday afternoon found the Hudson-Hummels in the waiting room outside of Dr. Goldberg's office. Kurt was thankfully himself, though his fashion had been all but eradicated since he claimed that none of his wardrobe would go with what Eleanor had done to his hair, and besides that he was just too damn tired to plan outfits. Instead, he'd been wearing all the plainest articles of clothing he possessed – mostly stuff from Robbie's drawer in his bureau, and occasionally Truman's.

The past few days since he'd woken up to find himself in Sebastian's room had passed in not much more than white noise for Kurt. His transitions were steadily growing more and more frequent, and after Craig had attempted to attack Carole on Saturday morning everyone in Kurt's family had refrained from asking him about what had happened with Sebastian. Everyone – including him – was walking on eggshells.

The worst part was that Kurt had tried to call Blaine at least three times every day, and every time he was answered only by Blaine's voicemail. He could only guess that Blaine had either heard or figured out that he'd…

He didn't want to think about it. He'd let his alters handle that one for now.

Finally, Dr. Goldberg emerged from his office and called Kurt's name. Burt immediately stood up to go with him, but Goldberg flapped a hand at him and said he'd like to speak with Kurt alone for a few minutes, seeing as he was actually Kurt at the moment. Burt sat down with a grunt of slight irritation.

"So, Kurt," Dr. Goldberg said, sitting back in his armchair with his notebook at the ready. "How are things?"

"You want the short list or the long?" Kurt replied dryly.

Dr. Goldberg gave a professional, thin-lipped smile. "Why don't you sum up as best you can."

Kurt sighed, looking out the window at a couple of blue jays perched in the tree outside. "Well, Eleanor chopped my hair off, Truman had sex with a person I hate, and Craig tried to beat up my stepmother."

Dr. Goldberg scribbled in his notebook, the scratching of his pen the only sound in the room besides the buzzing radiator in the corner. "Anything else?" he asked a moment later.

Kurt's mouth twitched and he looked down.

"What is it?" the doctor prompted.

"I… I don't know if it's anything," Kurt said quietly. "I keep having these dreams that just feel so real… I don't know, they're always slightly different, but it's the same kind of thing every time."

Dr. Goldberg's expression didn't quite change, but Kurt could see that his interest was suddenly peaked. "What are the details?" His pen moved faster.

Kurt scratched at his temple, trying to recall. "They're really hazy," he said. "I just remember that there's always this man there – I never see his face and I can't always hear him. All I know is that his name is Franklin."

Dr. Goldberg contemplated this for a few seconds. "And where are you in these dreams?"

"It's always in my old house, from when I was little. Before my mom died."

"No, I meant in relation to Franklin," the doctor clarified. "Are you in separate rooms?"

Kurt shook his head. "No. Sometimes he's carrying me—"

"Carrying you?" Dr. Goldberg repeated. "So you're young?"

Kurt nodded.

"Are you always touching?"

Another nod, this time a little bit hesitant. "Usually we are, yeah."

Dr. Goldberg's beard twitched as he pressed his lips together. "How are you touching?"

Inexplicably, Kurt suddenly felt defensive. The hairs on his arms stood on end. "I don't remember," he lied quickly.

Dr. Goldberg watched him for a moment, then clicked his pen shut and set his notebook aside. "Kurt, you seem like a strong person."

"If I were a strong person, I would not need seven extra personalities to help me deal with things," Kurt snapped, his guard still raised though he could not for the life of him figure out why.

"That's…sort of my point," Dr. Goldberg said slowly, clasping his hands. "What I'm getting at is that, even considering the… violent nature of your mother's death, I think you would've been able to cope with it using an absolute maximum of two alters, if any at all."

Kurt paused, feeling the nerves all over his body prickle in warning. And why did the doctor look like he was delivering bad news? "…If that's true, then why do I have a surplus of five?"

"Well, there is a reason. People with DID only have as many alters as they need."

"You haven't answered the question."

"I don't think that your mother's death is the only severe trauma you've experienced."

The words hung in the air for what felt like several minutes, though in reality it was probably only a few seconds.

"Sitting in my mother's splattered brains for five hours isn't enough?" Kurt's voice was flat, almost sounding like Robbie.

"Not for eight. Not for you."

"What does this have to do with my dreams?" Kurt demanded, his heart thudding against his ribcage (why was he feeling the urge to run away?).

Dr. Goldberg exhaled. "They don't sound like dreams," he replied, tapping his index finger and thumb together. "I believe what you're experiencing are flashbacks. Repressed memories."

"Of what?" Kurt felt an unexplained surge of anger in his chest, as if Eleanor was beating against his breastbone and trying to escape. "I only have these when I'm asleep."

"Which is when your consciousness steps back to make room for your subconsciousness, which is really where your entire problem is located," Dr. Goldberg countered. "When you're asleep, the boundaries between your alters tend to weaken, so it makes sense that some of their memories would leak through to you."

Kurt was growing more and more agitated, and he wished he knew why. "But memories of what?"

"Most likely sexual abuse."

Kurt felt like he was going to throw up. "That's insane."

"Frankly, Kurt, I've been meaning to ask you about this for some time," Dr. Goldberg admitted. "It's extremely uncommon to have DID without a history of some kind of abuse. And the fact that you're already beginning to have flashbacks is a very good sign."

"Good?" Kurt cried. "How the hell is that supposed to be good?!"

"Calm down, Kurt. Take a deep breath and sit back."

Kurt sat back, feeling anything but calm.

"Kurt, you want to get better, don't you?"

"Any sane person would."

"Well, the only way that you can become fully integrated and pull these pieces back together is if you know exactly what happened to you in the past," Dr. Goldberg said, sounding as if he were reading out of a textbook. "There are several paths you can take that will lead to healing, but each and every one of them will require you to face those fears and memories."

"Let me get this straight," Kurt said, his voice hoarse. "Based on a few very foggy dreams, you've come to the conclusion that whoever this Franklin guy was abused me?"

"Yes."

"That's insane," Kurt repeated.

Dr. Goldberg sighed. "I'd like more than anything to be proven wrong here," he said. "But how else do you explain Zack's existence?"

Kurt's eyebrows snapped together. "What does Zack have to do with anything?"

"Alters tend to fall into one of three categories," Dr. Goldberg said, counting off on his fingers. "First, there's the primitive. We already talked about primitives when Schism emerged. Second, there are alters that are based on someone from the person's past or present life – this could be either an abuser or a protective figure, like a parent or an old friend. Even alters that have no apparent base in reality are often combinations of different people that you've known. And lastly, there are alters that are the person's past selves, frozen at the certain ages when the traumas occurred. It's rare that an alter can't be classified as one of those three."

Kurt stared at him. "Can you translate that into English?"

Dr. Goldberg's tongue clicked against his teeth. "You said that in the flashbacks, you were small enough for this Franklin person to carry. We already know that Tyler was brought into being by your mother's death. But Zack is only four – that's much younger, which indicates that your first severe trauma took place when you were four."

"I wasn't abused!"

"How do you know?"

Kurt jaw clapped shut. His blood was roaring in his ears, and he was dizzy. He was about to argue, but he felt himself being shoved out of the way, and everything went black.

Blaine had spent the rest of Monday in a haze, and then skipped class again on Tuesday morning (this time voluntarily, and without Puck) to have another boxing match with a punching bag. The rest of the day was less foggy than the previous, though he spent most of it wrapped up in his own thoughts of beating Sebastian up and what the hell he was supposed to do about Kurt.

On the one hand, he was fully aware that he had very strong feelings for Kurt – whether or not it was love was still sort of up in the air, but that just had to do with the fact that they were eighteen, for God's sake, and what did they really know about love? He knew that the biggest problem right now was his own fear and inability to understand exactly what Kurt was going through, and he wasn't sure if he could work through it (as selfish as it was). He was perfectly capable of admitting that he was the one who was actively doing something to damage this relationship, and it was only because he was too scared to do anything else. Santana had been right – he was the bad guy.

On the other hand, Kurt was insane.

It wasn't until halfway through his family's nightly awkwardly-silent dinner that he remembered the intimate conversation he and Kurt had had on the empty stage after the opening night of West Side Story last October.

"I want you to be proud to be with me," he'd said.

His stomach twisted as he realized that now… Kurt probably wasn't the least bit proud.

Blaine lurched to his feet, startling his parents with the loud scrape of his chair. "Sorry, I…" he started. "I have to go."

Before either his mother or his father could protest, Blaine had grabbed his car keys from the rack by the door and practically run out to his sedan, revved the engine, and sped onto the street.

The entire drive to Kurt's house, he rehearsed what he would say.

"Kurt, I want to stay."

Too selfish-sounding.

"I'll stay, if you'll have me."

Too Jane Austen.

"I love you."

Too obvious.

His mind reeling, he eventually pulled off the highway and through the Lima outer-city limits, navigating the suburban streets by not much more than muscle memory.

As soon as he turned from Spencerville Road onto West Shore Drive, he saw the ambulance's flashing red lights.