The computer lab was empty on Tuesday morning as Artie rolled to the back of the room, where the A/V club stored their equipment on the designated shelf block. He'd spent the majority of the previous afternoon and evening writing up a list of questions to use in the interviews for his movie and then arrived at school early in the morning to sign out the cameras he'd need for the project.

It was Valentine's Day, but Rory had won Sugar fair and square (well… maybe just square), and so Artie was pouring all his energy into preparing for his film project. Kurt was leaving by the end of the week, so he and everyone else involved had a very limited amount of time to work with. Artie was already planning on just filming everything he could and then figuring out some coherent editing sequence with it later.

He was just stacking the two best video cameras from the school's meager collection (all the others were completely broken or slightly malfunctional in various ways) onto his lap, along with all their accompanying wires, when a voice spoke up from behind him.

"Independent project?"

Artie twisted around in his seat, his face hardening when he saw Lauren Zizes standing at the end of the last row of computers. He turned back around and grabbed the USB cables he'd need. "Your suspension's over?" he said idly.

"Got back yesterday," Lauren nodded, tapping two fingers against the computer table. She was nervous about something – chewing on her lip, clutching her books tight. It was an odd look for her.

Artie sighed, spinning his chair towards the door. He'd gotten so used to her being gone during A/V club meetings that he'd almost forgotten her completely. Her suspension had been longer than Jacob Ben Israel's, since she'd been the one to actually plant the microphones in the choir room.

"What are you filming?" she asked before he could leave.

His jaw twitched, but he stopped. "I'm making a documentary," he said. "About Kurt."

Lauren swallowed. "You need any help?"

"Not from you, I don't," Artie snapped, rolling out the door and not caring that he hadn't signed out the equipment.

He'd thought the conversation was over until Lauren followed him into the hall, shouting, "Hey!"

Artie was forced to stop again as she circled in front of him, cutting off his path. "Get out of my way, please," he said calmly.

"I just wanted to apologize, Abrams. Jeez," she snapped back, sounding more like herself.

"You don't owe me an apology," he said, his fingers clutching the wheels of his chair. "You don't owe me anything. And regardless, I already have Blaine, Santana, and Puck to help out with the project." Technically Blaine hadn't agreed to it quite yet, but Lauren didn't need to know that.

She quirked her eyebrow. "You got Satan, the Hulk, and Frosted Mini-Wheat? They don't know anything about camera work."

Artie rolled his eyes. "Yes, and this is exactly how to go about an apology."

Lauren huffed. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I bugged the choir room, but I bugged it in freshman year when Berry asked me to. I switched the microphones off but then Jacob asked me to switch them on again to get anything gossip-worthy. He was the one monitoring the audio feeds – once the mics were set up I didn't have anything to do with them. And I didn't know that Kurt was… having problems, okay? I didn't think Jacob would find anything like that. I thought it was harmless."

"Well, it wasn't," Artie spat. He gripped his wheels and rolled past her, not even caring that if Lauren wanted to, she could easily lash out and knock him unconscious. He'd been in the same clubs as her for long enough to know that she thrived on people fearing her, but he was past that now.

Lauren did nothing, though, and let Artie roll away.

Kurt was startled awake by the doorbell ringing downstairs, but figuring that Carole would answer it, he kept his eyes shut and shoved his head back under the pillows. The one good thing about his expulsion from school was that he got to sleep in for as long as he wanted every day. The cigarette burns on his back – which as far as he could tell had been seared into his skin sometime between Saturday and Sunday – still hurt every time he moved his torso, but at least the pain was beginning to subside and the singed skin cells were slowly being replaced with scar tissue.

The doorbell rang again, and Kurt groaned into his pillow, forcing himself to lift his head. His eyes scrunched up in the mid-morning sunlight streaming in through the windows. "Carole?" he called.

There was no answer, and Kurt sighed, pulling himself out of bed. He rubbed his eyes and descended the stairs barefooted in his plaid pajama bottoms and grey wrinkled t-shirt. The bell rang a third time before he finally reached the front of the house and opened the door. His eyes widened.

Sebastian was standing on the porch.

"…Hey," said the Warbler, who was oddly not dressed in the Dalton uniform and instead was wearing everyday clothes and a heavy winter coat with the collar pulled up against the cold.

Kurt didn't know what to say, so he said nothing.

"…Did I wake you?" Sebastian asked, shifting from foot to foot.

"Yes," Kurt replied, finding his voice again.

"Oh. Sorry."

"Don't you have school?"

"I'm playing hooky."

Kurt's toes curled against the foyer floor, freezing in the cold air wafting into the house. "Sebastian, what are you doing here?"

Sebastian blinked. "Oh, sorry, I—" He reached into a coat pocket and pulled out Kurt's phone. "You left it at my house."

Kurt took it without saying thanks, instead asking why Sebastian didn't just have it mailed.

Sebastian shrugged. "I wanted to see if you were okay. I heard about the… the suicide attempt."

Kurt sighed, his shoulders slumping. He rubbed at his eyes wearily, then stood aside. "Come on," he said. "I'll make coffee."

Sebastian hesitated, seeming caught off-guard by the invitation, but stomped the snow off his shoes and followed Kurt into the kitchen.

Kurt began to set up the coffee machine (nowadays Burt tended to just get his coffee at the office, so Kurt was really the only one to use it), and noticed a slip of paper on the counter reading Stepped out for a bit to go pick up some groceries. Call if you need me. –Carole.

Even though his back was to Sebastian, Kurt was acutely aware of the fact that the Warbler was watching him.

"So… are you okay?" Sebastian ventured after a few moments.

Kurt exhaled, steeling himself before turning around. "How much do you know about what's going on?"

"I saw the Grapevine article," Sebastian admitted, making Kurt cringe. "That's about it. Trent didn't say much."

Kurt swallowed. The Warblers knew. Not just Trent and Sebastian – all of them.

Did he have to be broadcasted to everyone?

"Well, there's not much more to know than that," he said, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed.

"Seems like there is."

Kurt stiffened, and Sebastian noticed.

"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to," Sebastian said quickly with a shake of his head.

"Sebastian, you do realize that… whatever happened between you and I… it wasn't really between us, right?" Kurt said.

The Warbler nodded. "Yeah, of course."

Kurt exhaled heavily. "Look, I'm really sorry about what happened," he said. "I know you and I have had our differences, to put it mildly, but I never intended for anything that serious to take place."

Sebastian shrugged. "I owe you more of an apology. I was taking advantage of you."

"Well, from what I understand about Truman, it was more that he was taking advantage of you taking advantage of me, so let's just call it even and forget it," Kurt said flatly. He really didn't want to think any more about what had happened in Sebastian's bedroom.

"Who is Truman, exactly?" Sebastian asked.

Kurt frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

"Where'd he come from? If he's not you, then he had to come from somewhere, right?"

"I don't know where any of my alters come from," Kurt replied, having to force his voice to remain level. It wasn't all true – he knew where Tyler came from and he had a pretty good idea of where Zack and Schism had come from (though the circumstances surrounding the latter were still very unclear), but he wasn't about to readily share that information. Especially with Sebastian.

"How many do you have? Or is that not an okay question?"

"It's fine, I guess," Kurt said. "I have seven, not including myself."

"Jesus."

Kurt shrugged, purposefully giving the impression that it didn't bother him. He wondered how transparent the attempt was.

The coffee machine beeped cheerily behind him, and he turned around to pour a cup for himself and another for Sebastian.

"KURT!"

Kurt jumped, jolted by Sebastian's abrupt shout, and quickly lifted the coffee pot so that it wasn't spilling. He didn't know how, but time had skipped ahead several seconds. Sebastian was now standing beside him rather than on the other side of the counter island, and the coffee Kurt had been pouring had completely overflowed, spilling across the counter and dripping onto the floor. He shakily set the coffee pot down and grabbed a sponge from the sink.

"Sorry," he mumbled, keeping his head down as he cleaned the coffee off the linoleum floor. "Guess I spaced out."

He could feel Sebastian staring at him. "Stop it," he snapped without looking up.

Sebastian averted his eyes.

Kurt straightened, wringing the sponge out into the sink. He braced his hands against the counter, looking out the window so that he wouldn't have to look at Sebastian.

"So, are you okay?" Sebastian repeated. "You never actually said."

Kurt said nothing for a long time, studying the thick layer of snow coating the world outside. Two months ago, he'd thought that he'd be spending Valentine's Day with his boyfriend for the first time, enjoying some semblance of a normal life. Instead, he was about to be handed over to the men in white coats, and he was spending Valentine's Day standing in his pajamas with spilled coffee on the counter and the guy he hated most in his kitchen. Kurt thought he'd learned a long time ago to not take anything for granted.

"Kurt?" Sebastian prodded. "You still here?"

"I'm the most messed up person you'll ever meet."

Sebastian didn't say anything.

Finally, Kurt forced himself to turn around and make eye contact. "You should probably go," he said tightly. He could feel a stretching in the back of his head where Eleanor was beating against the walls of her compartment, but he didn't want Sebastian to know that. It felt almost like there was a tightly coiled spring in his head that he was trying to keep compressed, and he could tell he was failing.

Sebastian gave a small nod, turning towards the door. He hesitated before leaving. "Kurt?"

Kurt tensed, trying to keep Eleanor in her place. "What?"

"I'm sorry, okay? Not just for… what happened, but for everything. I treated you and Blaine like crap."

Kurt nodded, a little too focused on the conflict in his own head. "Is that all?"

"Yeah. I guess it is."

Kurt waited until Sebastian's car had pulled out before stepping back. The spring released, and everything went black.