The wind tugged at Kurt's hair and clothes as he opened his eyes. Dead leaves swirled around his feet, blowing across the playground as the wind rattled the jungle-gym and made the empty merry-go-round spin on its axel. He blinked at the grey clouds rolling across the sky, his stomach twisting. Stormy weather here was never a good sign.

He shifted from foot to foot, his arms crossed over his chest as he frowned at the sky. The alters were scattered around the playground as well, but Eleanor and Robbie were both warily watching the clouds along with Kurt. Craig was the only one missing.

Eleanor came over to stand by Kurt. "What's going on?"

He worried at his bottom lip. "I don't know."

"Craig's up top," said Robbie from Kurt's other side. "Can't be good."

Eleanor stuck her thumbnail between her teeth as a low rumble of thunder rolled in from the distance, lightning flashing over the horizon. "You think they'll drug us?" she asked.

"I don't know," Kurt repeated. He didn't know what the playground might look like if he was heavily sedated, and he wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

Blaine's head was pounding as he crossed the parking lot towards school on Friday morning, shivering underneath his coat and trying not to slip on the icy pavement. The streets had been cleared of snow and the power was back on, but the only real reason he was forcing himself to come to school today was because he needed an excuse to get away from home. Not to mention that Rachel would have his head if he didn't show up to rehearsal today (Regionals was being held on Sunday, so Rachel was in hyperdrive along with Mr. Schue).

Trying to get rid of the headache beating against the walls of his skull, Blaine breathed deeply, hoping the frigid air in his lungs would make his nerves quiet down. The majority of yesterday had been spent arguing with his parents (more because of his father's homophobia than anything else), and workmen had been there sawing away at the tree in Blaine's bedroom, so Blaine was not looking forward to the loud school bells and Glee harmonization and kids jabbering at each other in the hallways and the slamming lockers.

He needed sleep.

"Dude, you okay?"

Blaine jumped slightly as he passed through the front entrance, noticing Puck next to him for the first time. "What? Yeah. Why?"

Puck shrugged. "I said hey and you didn't answer. Plus you look like something out of Left4Dead."

Blaine huffed. "I do not."

"Your bowtie's crooked."

Blaine blinked, his hand shooting up to his neck to feel that his bowtie was not just crooked, but almost entirely vertical. He sighed, his cheeks flushing slightly, and took the tie off completely rather than try to fix it. Puck gave him a strange look as Blaine stuffed it into his coat pocket.

"You sure you're okay?" Puck asked again.

Blaine shook his head. "Yeah, I'm— I'm fine, just… issues at home is all."

The bell rang and Blaine winced as the sound made his brain stem twist around his spine. Puck clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, dude," he said. "Let's go punch the crap out of the boxing bag."

Blaine sighed, grateful for the excuse to not go to class, and followed Puck down the hall to the weight room.

Dropping his backpack and coat by the basketball cart, Blaine stripped off his sweater and polo and grabbed a pair of boxing gloves from the shelf, pulling the Velcro tight with his teeth. Rather than simply sit on the bench like he'd done the last time they were here together, Puck also pulled on a pair of gloves and took the punching bag next to Blaine's.

"So, you wanna talk or something?" Puck offered as he threw his first punch.

Blaine shrugged, driving his fist into the bag. "Not sure if it's something you'd get," he said.

Puck gave him a dark look. "Yeah? Try me. I've got a lot more crap in my life than people think."

"Sorry," Blaine said, switching his stance to put more force into his punches. "Just… my dad's kind of an ass."

Puck actually stopped hitting his bag in order to turn and give Blaine an incredulous stare. "You really think I wouldn't get that?"

"I know your dad's MIA, but mine's actually there, all the time," Blaine said, grunting slightly as the strength behind his blows increased. "He's a homophobic asshole and frankly, I'd rather he was gone like your dad."

Puck's jaw twitched as he turned back to his bag, but he didn't say anything.

Blaine's shoulders and biceps began to burn slightly from the workout, but relief was beginning to seep into his muscles and he could feel his headache slowly subsiding.

As much as Burt wanted to direct every ounce of his energy into finding Franklin and possibly beating him within an inch of his life, then allowing him to heal just to beat him all the way to his grave, Burt was an adult and there were responsibilities he had to take care of. Not the least of which was his actual job.

His office desk was just about as cluttered as the rusty gears that formed the inner workings of his head, but he managed to make sense of it every day and juggle fundraisers and weekly plane tickets to Washington. Today, his focus was reading up on the latest bills the legislature was trying to pass, though it was difficult to concentrate with the ghost of Franklin feeling like it was looming over Burt's shoulder constantly.

And Linus wasn't making it much easier.

"What is it?" Burt asked wearily as Linus burst into the office for what had to be the tenth time in the last hour. Burt held his empty mug out. "You mind getting me some more coffee?"

Linus took the mug but didn't leave immediately. "Uh, there's a Dr. McManus on line one," he said. "He says it's important?"

Burt's head snapped up. "Okay, thanks," he said. He waited until Linus had left before grabbing the phone. "Hello?"

"Hi, Mr. Hummel, this is—"

"Yeah, my assistant told me," Burt waved him off. "What's going on?"

"Kurt managed to get a name for you," McManus said. "Just a first name, though, and I don't know how much use it'll be. Does 'John' line up with what you remember about this Franklin guy?"

Burt felt his stomach curl around itself as something deep inside his head clicked almost audibly. "Yes," he said, a little breathlessly. "I-Is Kurt okay?"

"It… It was a long night."

Burt swallowed. "What happened?"

"He's not hurt or anything, but he did have a very hard time recalling this stuff. We had to let him spend the night in solitary."

Burt's teeth ground against each other as he suddenly felt a strong urge to punch something. "I'm coming to see him tomorrow," he said. "Is that all right? Does he need some more time to calm down?"

"Well, it's hard to tell. He's back in the ward now, but I haven't actually seen Kurt since the beginning of our session yesterday. He's dealing with a lot of stuff right now so I can't promise that Kurt'll be back. I think a visit from you would do him good, though." There was a pause, and then McManus added, "But if it makes you feel any better, Mr. Hummel, it was Kurt who chose to talk about it. I left it entirely up to him."

It didn't really make Burt feel any better about it, but he swallowed and thanked the doctor anyway.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then," said McManus.

Burt said goodbye and hung up the phone, praying to God that Kurt would be there when he saw him.

By this point, most of the people outside of the Glee miniature social circle seemed to have forgotten about the article Jacob had posted in mid-January, and Finn was grateful for it. The cafeteria was crowded but he didn't notice anyone casting him a side-eye or see anyone mouth "Hey, what happened to Hudson's crazy brother?" to their friends. Jacob himself had stopped trying to talk to Finn after his nose had been broken, and had refocused his energies on filming the Cheerios whenever one of them bent over in the hallways.

Rachel was already rattling on at a mile a minute about Regionals preparation when Finn sat down at the Glee table for lunch. "Finn! Good, you're here," she said, her eyes glinting the way they always did when she was frighteningly focused. "Because the school was shut down yesterday we're going to have an extra rehearsal tomorrow morning here from eight to twelve. Whatever plans you have, cancel them."

Finn blinked at her. "Okay." He knew Burt and his mom were going to visit Kurt tomorrow, but he would rather be pouring his energy into something that didn't make him feel sick.

"How's Kurt doing?" asked Mike, earning a surprised glance from Rachel, as if she was amazed he was talking about anything other than Regionals.

Finn stabbed at his plate with a fork, purposefully not looking Mike in the eye. "He's doing good, as far as I know," he replied as nonchalantly as possible. "I haven't gotten to talk with him since before he left, but I think he's settled in and stuff now."

"What's the hospital like?" asked Tina.

Finn tried not to make it too obvious how much he didn't want to talk about this. "I dunno, I've never been there. I know it's pretty liberal, though. They're not kept locked up or anything."

Rachel cut in then, placing a hand on Finn's shoulder as she addressed the group. "While I'm very concerned about Kurt and how he's progressing in regards to his mental health, we agreed that we would focus solely on our set list for the next couple of days. Now, I know we've got our costumes in order, but since us girls are dying our hair for the competition, we need to figure out the details for a sleepover at one of our houses. Any volunteers?"

Finn drew a relieved breath, sitting back to listen to what felt like the first normal conversation in months.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed when Kurt was at the playground – partly because it was never night time here, but also because there had been times when it seemed like five minutes and he'd woken up to see that the calendar had skipped ahead a day, as well as times when he'd been stuck with his alters for days on end and found that he'd only been gone for an hour.

Now, it felt as though Kurt had been here for at least ten hours, and the wind still hadn't died down, the storm on the horizon only moving closer. Thunder rolled across the sky and vibrated through the air, making the blackish clouds ripple like waves in a pond. Kurt was spinning Tyler and Zack around on the carousel, keeping an eye skyward as the lightning grew more frequent.

Zack didn't seem to be paying attention to the storm, but Tyler was looking upwards along with Kurt, clutching Raleigh in the crook of his arm. "How long do you think it'll be before the storm's over?" Tyler asked as the carousel slowly spun.

Kurt shrugged. "I don't know."

"Faster!" Zack piped up.

"Tyler wants to go slowly, Zack," Kurt said sternly, giving the carousel another push. "You can spin fast later."

Zack pouted at Kurt for a moment, but then he froze, and the pout melted slowly off his face. His eyes widened at something over Kurt's shoulder. At the same time, Tyler screamed, scrabbling backwards.

Kurt turned around just in time to see an iron crowbar swing into his vision before it collided with his stomach. His lungs deflated with a solid whoomph of air and he doubled over, his ribs screaming in agony as they struggled to open. Unable to stand up, his knees buckled and he ended up on all fours, his mouth open as he tried desperately to breathe. He could barely hear Tyler sobbing over the ringing in his ears.

A foot kicked him in the ribs, making him fall over onto his side. He still couldn't pull air into his chest and the muscles of his abdomen felt like they were simultaneously paralyzed and on fire. He gritted his teeth, looking up as another peal of thunder rattled the clouds.

"T-Truman," he choked out, feeling rage boil in his stomach.

Truman glared down at him, twisting the crowbar in his hands. "You fucking prude," he spat.

And then he swung the crowbar up, and brought it down on Kurt's head.

Burt coughed in the small cloud of dust that swirled around him as he climbed up into the attic. It wasn't as dusty as it might've been if they had lived here for more than a year, but there were still a significant number of boxes and pieces of unused furniture stored up here. Burt reached down and gave Carole a hand as she pulled herself up the ladder into the drafty room.

"I should probably do some cleaning up here," she mused, waving the floating dust particles away from her face. "Where are Linda's things?"

Burt headed over to a smaller stack of boxes set slightly apart from the rest. "Right here," he said, pulling open the top of the first one. Carole came up to stand beside him. "We're looking for yearbooks, address books, phone books – anything that'll give us something about this John guy and how to find him."

"Okay," Carole said, opening another box. "You're coming to Regionals on Sunday, aren't you?" she asked as she began to unpack stacks of books.

Burt closed the box he'd been pawing through as it contained nothing other than old clothes. "Uh, I don't know," he said absentmindedly, too focused on the task at hand. "I guess it depends on how Kurt's doing when we see him tomorrow. If he needs me to I'll probably go again on Sunday."

Carole frowned as she removed a stack of Danielle Steele novels. "Burt, you should come to Regionals. Finn needs your support as much as mine."

"Carole, I'd love to be there, but if Kurt needs me then I'm gonna be there to help him."

Carole's mouth pursed. "Kurt is not your only son, Burt. I think you've forgotten a little about how Finn's dealing with all this."

Burt turned around with a surprised frown. "Carole, of course Finn's my kid. That's not even a question. But I think we both know he's more stable than Kurt, and he can handle his own."

"And the doctors can handle Kurt on their own for one day, Burt," Carole said firmly. "Just because Finn's not a multiple doesn't mean he should be left on his own."

"Carole, I'm not trying to leave him on his own!" Burt protested as she cracked open a small address binder and began to flip through the pages. "He knows how to handle himself and—"

"Burt."

"—frankly, when Kurt's in this much of a crisis, he takes priority."

"Burt."

"I mean, if Finn was having serious problems, whether or not he was sick, he'd take priority too."

"Burt."

"What?"

Carole turned around with the small binder in her hand, her eyes watering. "I found him."

Burt's heart catapulted downward into his gut and he reached to take the booklet from her. "What? How do you know?"

Carole gave it to him, a hand over her mouth. She looked sick.

Burt stared at the page, his heart suddenly racing at a dangerous speed. He nearly dropped the book as the name jumped out at him from the paper.

John Truman.