He had his phone out again, and she felt her heart clench at the sight. He was texting a ghost, a figment of his imagination.

She walked up to his lunch table and hovered just off to the side. She liked Kurt. A lot. Mercedes liked having a best friend for the first time in her life, and Kurt was a great person to hang around with. He was sweet to her in a way no guy had ever been. She really liked being his friend, but this was almost too much. She just wasn't quite sure how to handle something like this. "Kurt. Um, hey. Can I talk to you for a second?"

"In a minute, Mercedes." He finished tapping out his message and folded his phone shut, setting it down carefully on the table. He looked up at her, a little smile painted on his lips. "What's up?"

He hadn't touched the lunch sitting in front of him. The food sat there, cold and sad and uneaten. She wondered if he was eating much of anything these days. She'd have to watch for that.

She slid down onto the table's bench beside him. He looked completely normal, just like the Kurt she knew, if maybe a little curious. Like nothing was wrong. He must have seen the worry in her face because his smile fell as she sat down. "Is everything okay?"

"Kurt, does Blaine go to Dalton Academy?" She knew the answer to this question. Hell, Kurt was the one who told her in the first place, but she needed to see his reaction.

He rolled his eyes with an exasperated sigh. "Not this again. I told you Mercedes, he's not a threat to you or your replacement. He's just a friend."

"Just answer the question, please." Her voice was flat and a little cold, leaving no room for argument. She didn't understand why he was getting so defensive about this.

"Yes, okay? That's where he goes. Why do you want to know? So you can go down there and harass him?"

So he'd forgotten their conversation. He didn't remember telling her where Blaine went to school. Her chest grew tight and she found it hard to breathe. Maybe she was looking too much into this. It was only a little thing to forget, even if Kurt himself had told her. Maybe it just skipped his mind. "No. I just wanted to know, that's all."

"Why are you so jealous? I'm not ditching you for him, if that's what you're implying."

"No, Kurt. It's not. Everything's fine. I just couldn't remember where you said he went to school, and I'm curious about him. You never say much about him to me. He's in their glee club, right?"

"Yeah, the Werblers."

Okay, she knew that wasn't right. Please say that was just a slip of the tongue. "The what? I didn't quite catch that."

"The Werble—wait, no, that isn't right. The Wobblers…or something." He shook his head and lowered it into his hand, screwing his eyes shut.

"Are you all right, Kurt? Do you need to go to the nurse or something?" Oh god, he wasn't going to go all psycho on her, was he? Seeing things didn't make you go nuts at the drop of a hat, did it?

"No. I'll be fine. It's just a headache."

"You've been getting those an awful lot lately."

"No more than usual. Look, Mercedes. I'm fine. Nothing's wrong, and you have nothing to worry about with Blaine. He's a sweet guy, that's all."

"I believe you, babe," she said softly, trying to placate him. "I was just curious was all. I mean, I've never met the guy, so I don't really have any clue what he's like. Can't blame a girl for wanting to know a little more," she said nervously, hoping Kurt would buy into it. "Do you think that maybe I could go out with the two of you sometime? I'd really love to meet him." Please say yes. I need to know that I'm making this up, that you're really okay. I don't know what I'm going to do if you're not.

"Sure. I'll talk to him. I think the two of you would really get along."

She smiled sadly. "Yeah, well, we're both friends with you, so there's at least one thing in common already. Just let me know, okay?"

"Sure thing."

She stood and watched him for a moment as he shuffled around in his bag for homework or something else to do. He still hadn't touched his tray of food. "Hey, Kurt?"

"Yes?" He didn't bother looking up, instead pulling out a bright red folder stuffed with neat little sheafs of paper from inside his bag and placing it on the table in front of him. Homework or something, she guessed.

He seemed so normal. There couldn't be anything wrong with him. "You'd let me know if there was anything going on with you, right?"

This time he did look at her, his expression more confused than ever. "Of course, Mercedes. You know I'm not one to keep secrets," he replied softly. He was smiling at her again, and that nagging feeling in her gut wouldn't let her be.

Liar.

You've kept plenty of things from me.

What else are you hiding?

What else are you not telling me?

"Thanks. You know how I worry."

He chuckled a little at that. "Yeah, but what else are friends for? I'll see you in English."

"Yeah. Okay, I'll, um, I'll see you later. Don't forget to ask Blaine."

"I won't."

And she walked away, hoping, praying, that she was wrong. Maybe those guys at Dalton had just been jerking her around, messing with her. Maybe Blaine really was Kurt's friend and that crumpled piece of paper at the bottom of her bag wasn't really anything. She quieted the little voice in the back of her mind that was screaming at her to do something, that Kurt was not okay and she should tell his dad, tell a teacher, tell somebody. But she couldn't do that. Kurt was fine. Absolutely fine. She needed to believe that.

Nothing was wrong. Nothing at all.

Kurt made a beeline for Mercedes at their after school glee rehearsal. "Guess what?"

She'd watched him throughout the entirety of English class. It wasn't hard to do without him noticing—Mrs. Carter had a habit of arranging seating assignments alphabetically by last name, which happened to put her directly behind him. Nothing funny had happened. He'd seemed perfectly fine, if maybe a little bored. Nothing out of the ordinary. His headache hadn't gone away, judging from the way he'd cradled his head the entire hour, but some headaches were like that. Maybe she was just looking a little too hard into things.

"What?" she quipped with a smile. "Just tell me. You know I'm bad at guessing things."

He plopped down beside her. "We," he gestured at the two of them with his finger, "are going to Breadstix tomorrow night for dinner. Blaine agreed to come down, and you two are going to meet."

"So he finally agreed?"

"Yup. So you can stop pestering me about him," he said with a playful shove to her shoulder.

"I haven't been pestering you about him."

"That's not true, Mercedes. You really have."

"Well, when you keep cancelling on me to hang with him…"

"Also not true, but you've always been a little heavy on the drama."

"Look who's talking."

Mr. Schuester chose that moment to burst through the door with their new assignment. He'd been experimenting with different songs for them for sectionals to help them improve their sound. Mercedes thought the whole thing was kind of stupid; they'd sound so much better, more polished and professional, if they just stuck to a set list of songs instead of jumping from sound to sound. She put up with it, though. Each new song was a potential for a solo, which was perfectly fine by her.

Mr. Schuester passed around their new material and was babbling loudly at the front, scribbling something down across the white board, but Mercedes wasn't paying him any attention. How could she when Kurt had suddenly burst into tears beside her?

"Kurt." She shook his shoulder, trying to get him to respond. "Kurt, baby, what's going on? Are you okay?"

He couldn't answer; he just shook his head minutely around the rushing flow of tears and wrenching sobs. The other kids were starting to notice Kurt's sudden breakdown, and Mercedes couldn't take it any more. Her hand shot up into the air. "Mr. Schue!"

The man turned around to see what all the commotion was about to find Kurt sobbing in his chair, one of Mercedes's hands on his back to keep him steady. He twisted the lid back onto the dry erase marker in his hand and walked over to his students. This was odd; he'd never seen Kurt like this before. He kneeled in front of the boy and tried to get his attention, ignoring the worried looks and whispers of the rest of the group.

"Kurt? Hey, are you okay?"

Kurt wasn't calming down. He was shaking lightly under Mercedes's hand, and she felt her anxiety growing. "Mr. Schue, do you think it would be okay if I just took him home? I don't he's in any shape to be singing right now."

Schuester nodded, his eyes still fixed on Kurt. "Yeah, that would be fine, Mercedes." He placed a comforting hand on Kurt's shoulder. "You're going to be okay, Kurt. Mercedes is going to take you home."

Kurt wanted to scream at him that he was fine, that everything was fine and he should stop talking to him like a toddler, but he couldn't seem to get his mouth to move. Instead, he just nodded and let Mercedes help him stand. He saw Finn hand her his bag, and a terrible, crippling embarrassment filled him. He didn't know what the hell was wrong with him, but he couldn't calm himself down. It was like the walls were closing in on him, the whole world crashing down on top of him, and he couldn't do a thing to stop it. The air was too heavy; it was suffocating, crushing him with its impressive weight. There was nothing to be afraid of, but he couldn't help it. His heart was beating too fast, his breath too short, and his head hurt like no other. Those were tears dripping down his face, weren't there? The collar of his shirt felt damp.

"Come on, Kurt," Mercedes murmured quietly to him, leading him by the arm from the choir room.

They were about twenty feet down the hallway from the choir room when the feeling lifted. He wiped away the moisture from his face and frowned.

"You okay, Kurt?" Mercedes still had a firm hand around his arm, and his heart clenched a bit at the intense worry he saw in her face.

"Yeah, I think I'm okay now."

"What happened in there?"

"I—I don't know. I just, I couldn't…it was like my emotions were all screwed up, and I couldn't think of anything else."

"Anything else but what?"

He ducked his head and scrubbed once more at his face, trying to avoid answering her, but Mercedes was having none of it. "You couldn't think of anything else but what, Kurt? I've seen you in some pretty bad situations, but I've never seen you break down like that. And that was completely out of the blue! You were fine before." Her heart was pounding in her chest. She couldn't help but think of Kurt at the mall, chattering away to an empty chair. "What's going on, Kurt? What are you not telling me?"

He kept walking in silence, hugging his jacket tighter around his body. The feel of the yellow fabric pulled taut across his frame was comforting, and he desperately needed to calm down. "I couldn't think of anything except how terrified I was," he whispered.

"Terrified of what?"

He shook his head. "I don't even know."

Kurt fell asleep in her car on the way to his house, but she didn't bother to wake him. He had the faintest dark circles lining the lower part of his eyes and she wondered just how much sleep he'd been getting lately.

She pulled into the familiar driveway and turned her keys in the ignition. The car quieted and stilled until the only sound in the cabin was Kurt's heavy, even breaths. Mercedes was completely at a loss for what to do. There was something wrong with Kurt—the outburst in the choir room had proven that to her—but she still wanted to give Kurt the benefit of the doubt. She looked over at him, how he curled himself against the door, and she felt that little something in her chest tighten once more. Kurt was fine. He had to be.

She sighed and gently shook his shoulder. "Hey, Kurt. Come on. We're here."

He startled awake as he always did, and glanced around the car in confusion for a moment before he realized where he was. He deeply and leaned back against the seat. Mercedes didn't move, just sat there in the driver's seat and watched him.

"When's your dad home?"

"I don't know. Five maybe? Six? I honestly don't remember. Carole won't be home until six, I know that, but Finn should be here right after glee."

She nodded. She knew that Finn's mom and Kurt's dad were dating, everyone did, and now the two were living together. At least Kurt wouldn't be home alone. "Do you want me to stick around until someone gets here? You know, so you're not by yourself?"

He was silent for a moment, and she feared that he would send her home, that he would have another freak out and no one would be there. "Yeah, okay. I think that would be best," he said softly, and she felt a wave of relief wash over her.

Mercedes unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped out of the car, grabbing both her and Kurt's bags from the back. Kurt was a bit slower getting out of the car, and her heart skipped a beat when he stumbled on his way up the front steps. He scowled at the slip-up but said nothing, pulling his keys out and unlocking the front door.

Mercedes was comfortable in Kurt's house. They usually hung out here if they didn't feel like going anywhere. Her house was too often filled with her brothers' friends. College rebounds and middle schoolers were not the best company, especially when she just wanted some girl talk. The amount of testosterone in that house was overwhelming at times.

She placed Kurt's bag on the floor next to his dad's favorite armchair as Kurt curled up on the couch. He was still a bit freaked about his breakdown in the choir room, she could tell. Not that she blamed him; if she'd suddenly started freaking out in front of everyone for no reason she'd be pretty wiped too. He was still holding himself kind of funny, though, and she quickly walked to the bathroom. The painkillers were right where she remembered, and she grabbed two for Kurt, filling the little glass on the counter partway with water.

He was quiet and still, staring at the swinging pendulum of the grandfather clock across from him, when she returned to the living room. "Here." She handed him the pills and water. "For your headache. I know it's still bugging you."

"Thanks," he murmured and downed the medication. He sighed and leaned his head against the armrest of the couch, and they sat together in silence. Neither one felt much like talking: Kurt was far too drained and Mercedes was scared of asking him anything. She didn't want answers right now, no matter how much she needed them. This was Kurt, her best friend, and she needed to believe more than anything else that he was okay, that she was just imagining things, that she was being stupid and jealous and Blaine was not a threat.

A sudden thought occurred to her. Blaine. She looked at Kurt. His face had gone slack; he must have drifted off again. Good. That would make things so much easier.

She picked up his bag and ruffled through the little pocket on the front until her fingers brushed against smooth plastic. Bingo. His cell phone. She pulled it out and dropped his bag to the floor, reaching into her own bag for that stupid little slip of paper Blaine had given her. It was crumpled and the writing was a little smudged, but the number was still there. She opened Kurt's contact list and found Blaine's name at the very top. If she was right, if those stuffy Dalton boys had been messing with her, the numbers should match, right? She had nothing to worry about.

Except that, well, she did.

The number under Blaine's name was familiar and definitely not the one on the little slip of paper in her hand. Oh, Kurt. She looked at his sleeping form and felt her heart break a little. Oh, Kurt. What have you done to yourself?

She folded up the paper and placed it into her pocket. Kurt might want it once this whole thing sorted itself out. She placed his phone on the table, not really caring if he noticed she'd removed it from his bag. Her hands were shaking. She should call his dad, Finn's mom, somebody, and let them know what was going on, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She'd give this another day. Kurt could be normal for one more day.

Then she could tell his dad.

She'd overestimated the amount of time she had. In hindsight, she never should have waited; she should have called his dad the moment she knew something was up and had him take Kurt to a hospital or something to get checked out, but she hadn't. Denial is funny like that.

Kurt hadn't shown up at school the next day, and it hadn't taken her long to figure out that Finn was missing too.

Mercedes knew it was stupid, but her first thoughts were that Kurt's dad had had another heart attack until she remembered how Kurt was acting yesterday. It had to be something to do with that. She pestered Rachel about it relentlessly, having her call and text Finn every half hour until he responded. She needed to know what the heck was going on. She hadn't expected Finn to show up to the after school rehearsal for glee.

The group had walked into the auditorium to find him standing near the front with Mr. Schue, talking somberly about something in hushed tones. Mercedes had never run so fast in her life.

"Finn! What's going on? Where's Kurt? Is he okay? Are you okay? What about his dad?" The questions came in a rush, and she could barely contain herself. Something awful must have happened to put an expression like that on Finn's face. There was that twist of worry in her gut again. "Finn, what's happened? Is Kurt okay?"

He was about to speak, but Mr. Schuester beat him to the punch. "Okay, guys, gather 'round." Even he sounded upset.

"What's going on, Mr. Schue?"

"Kurt's in the hospital," blurted Finn, and the room went dead silent. Mercedes dropped her bag to the floor and almost went down with it. She should have seen this coming, should have told someone about what she'd figured out. Stupid. So stupid.

"What happened?" whispered Quinn from the back. She and Kurt had never been particularly close, but she held a soft spot for him in her heart.

"He had a seizure last night," explained Mr. Schue, relieving Finn of some of his burden. "After his dad come home from work."

"They don't know exactly what caused it yet," continued Finn, "but they found something in one of those brain scan things that they take." He sucked in a deep breath and Mercedes thought he might just break down into tears. "They think he might have some sort of brain tumor."

Brain tumor.

The words hit her like a punch to the gut, and she had to grip one of the auditorium seats beside her to keep her from toppling over to the ground.

Brain tumor.

That certainly explained his odd behavior. The stumbling, the memory loss, that weird freak out he'd had the other day. The whole Blaine business. She'd been so caught up in it all that she'd forced herself to believe that nothing was wrong, and not Kurt was in the hospital with a freaking brain tumor. Oh god, why hadn't she said something? Why had she waited? Some friend she was.

"Is he going to be okay?"

Is he going to die?

The unspoken question hung in the air over their heads like a terrible, crushing weight. No one wanted to say it, but everyone was certainly thinking it.

Is he going to die?

Finn simply shook his head. His voice when he spoke again was quiet, almost inaudible, his expression blank, and Mercedes felt her heart stop at his words. This wasn't happening, couldn't be happening. Not to Kurt.

Is he going to be okay?

Is he going to die?

"I don't know."