Things were oddly quiet in the Berry household once their guests had left. They'd exchanged weighted good-nights and preoccupied thank-yous, and then Rachel had quietly retreated upstairs to her bedroom while Hiram and Leroy cleaned up. As he wiped down the counters, Hiram remained deep in thought until Leroy broke the silence.

"Well… that went as well as could be expected, I suppose," he said. "That poor kid."

"I know," Hiram agreed. "He always seemed so stable."

"It blows my mind that anyone could do something so horrible that it would cause that reaction," Leroy mused aloud as he filled the dishwasher.

"There's a lot of sick people in the world," Hiram replied. "I'm just grateful that Rachel's never been exposed to that sort of thing."

"Well, she's exposed now."

Hiram sighed and poured himself a fourth glass of wine. He leaned back against the counter. "I wonder if this 'Franklin' guy is easy to find," he said, and Leroy straightened immediately.

"What do you mean?"

"Leroy, whatever happened to Kurt was definitely not legal. And I'm a criminal lawyer, so… maybe I should talk to Burt."

Leroy shook his head. "Hiram, your heart's in the right place, but it's not our business. If they want to find Franklin – if he's even real – then let them come to you. Don't push it."

Hiram made an absentminded noise of agreement as he sipped his wine.

"Hiram," Leroy said patiently.

"Hm?"

"Did you hear what I just said? It's not our business."

"Oh. Yeah, of course."

Leroy sighed and went back to stacking the plates into the dishwasher. "Best to let them deal with it however they choose."

As it turned out, despite her crazy and deluded narcissism, Sugar ended up being extremely talented at party hosting. Admittedly, she might've had her dad hire someone to cover all the real details, but Mercedes thought that at least the gift certificates and cheese hearts were a sweet compliment. Plus, the party had been crazy fun. Nothing like last year's Rachel Berry House Party Train Wreck Extravaganza. It had also been the first time in weeks where Mercedes had been able to forget about Kurt for a little while – not that she wanted to ignore him, but she did need a break from worrying.

Once the party had finally wound down enough to be considered over, Mercedes offered Artie a ride home and the two of them left Sugar and Rory slow-dancing in the middle of the floor, much to Artie's chagrin.

"I cannot freaking wait until the leprechaun is deported back to the Land of Potatoes," Artie said as Mercedes pushed his chair out through the front door of Breadstix and down the handicapped ramp.

She snorted. "Yeah, you and me both," she said. "His voice is fine, but he's only got two expressions when he sings, and the fact that his eyebrows dance better than he does bothers me a lot more than it should."

Artie cackled as they walked/rolled across the parking lot to where Mercedes' blue Beetle was squatting. "Hey, didn't Rachel and Finn say they were going to come?" Artie asked while she unlocked the car.

Mercedes nodded. "Yeah, but they were also having dinner with both parent sets tonight, so maybe they got caught up."

"Or in trouble," Artie grinned. He pulled the brakes on his chair and hoisted himself into the passenger seat. Mercedes deftly removed the wheels from Artie's chair, sticking them into the trunk with the frame and seat (he'd carpooled with her enough times for her to know how to disassemble and reassemble his chair in less than thirty seconds).

"Don't get yourself down too much over Sugar," Mercedes said, plopping into the driver's seat and revving the engine. "You deserve better than a skinny-ass like her, and she wears too many bows anyway."

Artie snorted and said he would keep that in mind.

Mercedes' phone buzzed in her pocket, loudly singing "Loathing! Unadulterated loathing!" She hit the Answer button and held it to her ear. "Hey, Rachel."

"I thought you two were on good terms," Artie said.

"It's an inside joke; shush," Mercedes hissed at him. "Sorry, what was that, Rachel?"

"I was just calling to see how the party went," Rachel said on the other end.

"It was fun; we missed you and Finn, though," Mercedes replied. "Blaine wasn't here either. How was the dinner?"

Rachel hesitated, and Mercedes felt her stomach twist. "Well, um…"

Mercedes sighed. "Oh, no, did he switch out?"

"Yeah, but… I don't know. It was strange."

"What's going on?" Artie prompted. Mercedes shushed him again.

"He kind of got stuck, I guess."

Mercedes frowned. "What do you mean, 'stuck'?"

"I really don't know how to describe it, Mercedes."

Mercedes swallowed, her heart clenching. Rachel Berry at a loss for words? A sure sign of distress. "Listen, Rachel, I've got to drop Artie off," she said. "But I'll go on Skype once I'm home, okay?"

Rachel agreed and hung up, and Mercedes pulled the car out of the parking lot and onto the street, driving towards the east side of town where the Abrams lived.

"So, what happened?" Artie asked.

"I'm not sure. Apparently the dinner didn't go so well."

"Man." Artie leaned back, watching downtown Lima go by. "After everyone found out about him, I looked it up. It's… scary."

Mercedes said nothing. She hadn't done any research on the disorder – she'd been too nervous.

"There's a really short list of causes," Artie said, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

"I really don't want to know," she stopped him quickly.

Artie sighed, still staring out the window. He didn't say anything else for the rest of the ride, and neither did she.

The clock was nearing midnight, and Kurt had been repeating his words almost consistently for the past six hours. Burt was sitting in one of the living room armchairs while Kurt had been situated on the couch, staring at nothing and muttering under his breath.

"Franklin's been a bad man. Franklin's been a bad man."

Over and over.

Over and over.

Burt tried unsuccessfully to swallow the boulder in his esophagus. He'd been sitting here watching Kurt since they'd gotten home, and with every passing minute he grew more and more grateful that Kurt's evaluation interview at the hospital was in a few days. He didn't want to send Kurt so far away, but over the years Burt had maxed out his strategies for dealing with it. At least Kurt would have help from people who actually knew what they were doing.

He didn't notice his wife entering the room until she pressed a mug of coffee into his hands. "I know you won't sleep at all tonight," Carole said, sinking onto the arm of his chair. "You might as well have some caffeine in your system."

"Thanks," he said, accepting the cup but not taking his eyes off Kurt.

Carole rubbed his upper back. "Are you just going to stay in here?"

Burt nodded. "I want to be here when he wakes up."

"Okay. Well, I'm going to try to get some sleep," Carole said, pressing a kiss to the side of Burt's head and heading for the stairs. "I'll come back down if I'm awake."

"Night."

As Carole disappeared upstairs, the only sound in the room was once again Kurt's hushed voice.

"Franklin's been a bad man. Franklin's been a bad man. Franklin's been a bad man."

The moment Mercedes got home, she went up to her room and logged onto Skype, ignoring the fact that it was after midnight. Glancing for just a moment at Kurt's name on her buddy list (it had stayed grey for weeks), she moved the cursor upwards and clicked on Rachel's handle.

hey, u still up? she typed quickly.

The response came almost immediately. Couldn't sleep if I wanted to.

do u want to video instead?

Won't that wake up your family?

like i care.

Mercedes clicked the small camera icon and waited for only two seconds before the window opened and Rachel's face appeared on the screen. She was in her bedroom, dressed in her pajamas with her hair tied up in a haphazard bun, still wet from the shower.

"Hey," she said, forcing a smile.

"Okay, spill – what happened with Kurt tonight?" Mercedes prompted, propping her elbows against her desk.

Rachel shook her head, looking down for a moment. Mercedes didn't think she'd ever seen Rachel this agitated over something that didn't really concern her. "I really don't understand what happened," she admitted softly. "But I kind of forced Kurt into the dinner, and I wish I hadn't."

Oh, there was the self-involvement Mercedes had been expecting. "Rachel, whatever happened, I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with you."

"I lied to him," she confessed, making Mercedes' eyebrows climb skyward. "I told him my dads were insisting that he came, but they weren't. They told me it was a bad idea." Her voice cracked, and Mercedes was ninety percent certain that it wasn't the bad internet connection. "I should've listened."

"But what happened?" Mercedes pressed.

"I don't know! He was fine for the first two hours, and then he—" Rachel faltered, pressing her lips together and swallowing almost audibly before continuing. "He just… just snapped and started talking to himself."

Mercedes tried to ignore the sick feeling in her stomach. "What was he saying?"

There was a long pause in which Rachel looked at her keyboard instead of her screen. "He kept saying, 'Franklin's been a bad man' again and again."

"Who the hell's Franklin?" Mercedes asked, feeling like she needed to vomit.

"I don't know. Maybe he's not real."

"Maybe he is."