A/N: So, this is part of the Expect The Unexpected series I'm working on, which is, frankly, exactly what it sounds like. As part of my everlasting quest to defy any and all possible cliches, something completely unfathomable occurs with one member of the Glee club in each fic of the series. The goal? To have each character (even Matt and Mike, poor underfed pups) so far out of their league, but still remain in character. This is installment number five, but none of them are connected plot-wise, so there aren't any prequels you have to read for any of them. Some will be tragic, some scary, some mysterious, some humorous. Enough jabber - please enjoy!

Mercedes hefted her bag onto her shoulder as she climbed up the steps to school. She still had ten minutes before the bell rang, but most of that time was usually spent gossiping with Kurt. So, after a quick stop at her locker to retrieve her math textbook, she hurried down the hall to where Kurt was intently focused on picking a microscopic piece of lint off of one of the articles of clothing he stored in his locker.

She didn't bother with a hello and immediately launched into their usual routine, leaning against the locker next to his. "Oh my God, have you seen what Rachel is wearing today?" She shook her head. "We gotta give that girl a permanent makeover one of these days, 'cause she seriously needs help."

Kurt hadn't looked up from what he was doing. Which was odd considering the fact that she'd mentioned a makeover.

"Earth to Kurt. Hello." She snapped her fingers in front of his face to get his attention.

Still, he didn't acknowledge that she was there.

"Kurt, what's with the silent treatment?" Mercedes asked, her tone half-angry, half-gentle. "Did I do something?" She didn't think that she had, considering that they'd been texting the night before and there had been absolutely nothing even resembling an argument, not even over whether or not Puck would look good in Alexander McQueen (trying to imagine Puck on the runway, garbed in the latest fashion for both men and women was quite the entertaining pastime, as it turned out, and usually ended up with Kurt giggling hysterically on the floor of his basement bedroom).

"Are you mad at me for something?" she tried again, this time grabbing Kurt's shoulder and turning him around to face her.

Mercedes knew it was weird, but it was almost like his gaze went right through her. Like even though he was looking directly at her, he couldn't see her. "Kurt, answer me," she said, and she couldn't say she was entirely surprised when he didn't. Almost in a dazed state, he turned back to his locker, shoving a couple of textbooks into his bag and shutting the door with a light bang before strutting off down the hall.

"What the hell?" she muttered as the bell rang shrilly throughout the corridors.

Heaving a sigh, she followed in the direction Kurt had headed in – they had math class together first period. As she walked through the classroom door, she reached into her bag to get her math textbook out, only to discover that it wasn't there. She swore under her breath – she was certain she'd put it in her bag while she was at her locker just a few minutes before, but perhaps her memory was playing tricks on her. "Sorry, Mr. Baxter, I forgot my book. I'll be right back, I promise," she said quickly to the teacher, rushing back out without waiting for a reply.

When she came back, she tried not to make too much of a disturbance as she sat down at her desk between Kurt and Hayley Grafton, one of the girls from the Cheerio team, but even though her chair squealed loudly when she pulled it back, none of them seemed to mind or even notice. Mr. Baxter continued with his lecture on the Pythagorean theorem uninterrupted. Mercedes opened her bag to fish out her textbook, her jaw dropping when she found that again, it was not there. She growled under her breath, resigning to withdrawing only her notebook.

The second Mr. Baxter's back was turned, she tore off a corner of one page and scrawled "why the hell aren't you talking to me?" across it, reaching over and placing it on Kurt's desk next to his notebook. He continued to calmly take notes as Mercedes grew more and more frustrated.

When she was almost certain that she was going to rip him a new one once class was over, she saw him move out of the corner of her eye, and watched as he drew his cell phone out of his pocket, punching buttons with practiced speed while simultaneously keeping an eye on Mr. Baxter. Seconds after the phone disappeared from view, Mercedes' own phone vibrated against her leg. Finally, a response.

She tilted her head to read the text message as inconspicuously as possible, her stomach flipping when she read it.

Hey, baby-girl, where are you?

Suddenly furious – because she did not enjoy pranks, and Kurt knew that better than anyone – she angrily punched in a reply ("this is not funny and if u dont talk 2 me in the next 15 secs, i will kill u") and hit Send. She listened for the telltale buzz from Kurt's pocket to force him into checking his messages, but she heard nothing, and Kurt continued to take notes. Frowning, she pulled out her cell again and opened her outbox to make sure the text had been sent, but there was no record of it even being created. She grumbled under her breath, shoving the phone back into her jeans and resolving to berate her dad once again for getting her an old piece-of-shit cellular device (because no matter how much bling she could add to it, it was still a piece of shit on the inside – Like Puck, she'd once reasoned).

"Okay," said Mr. Baxter, calling the students' attention to the front of the room once his lecture was finished. "Why don't you all work on your partner projects from last class for the rest of the period? Try to work quietly, please."

Kurt raised his hand. "Excuse me, Mr. Baxter? What should we do if our partner is absent?"

At that, Mercedes decided she'd had enough. She lurched to her feet, slamming her hands flat on her desktop. "Okay, Kurt, that is it. This is not funny, and I swear to God if you do not say something to me soon, I will personally set fire to every single thing in your wardrobe, starting with the ones you're wearing."

"You can work on the homework assignment and meet up with Mercedes during study hall," Mr. Baxter was saying to Kurt, who nodded and opened his textbook.

Mercedes stared at Mr. Baxter, amazed at the fact that one of the stricter teachers at McKinley hadn't even reprimanded her for suddenly yelling in the middle of class. She looked back to Kurt, furiously scribbling away at the homework assignment as if nothing had happened, and noticed that the note she'd passed was not on his desk. A quick scan of the surrounding floor proved that it had not fallen off the edge, and she dropped heavily back into her seat, feeling frustrated and more than a little confused.

As she went to open her notebook, resigning to work on the homework as Kurt was doing, she was shocked when it wasn't on her desk. Frowning, she reached down for her bag, but it had also disappeared. "What the hell?" she muttered. "Kurt, did you see anyone take my bag?" Still, Kurt didn't respond. "Kurt," she said again. "Kurt!"

Finally, she stood up, marching around her desk to stand across from him. Reaching forward, she roughly grabbed his shoulders, forcing his gaze away from his work. "You look at me when I'm talking to you, Valentino!" she spat, her tone clearly stating that she was Not. Fucking. Around.

Kurt's eyes appeared to just slide off her, returning to his work. A muscle twitched beneath Mercedes' eye, her jaw clenched, and without really thinking, she grabbed his textbook out from under his nose and hurled it across the room. It smashed into the neat stacks of paper across Mr. Baxter's desk, sending most of them to the floor and making a cup full of pencils practically explode in his face. Mercedes' mouth pressed into a tight line and she looked back to Kurt to see his reaction.

He was still writing, and his textbook hadn't budged.

Mercedes whipped back around to see the damage done to Mr. Baxter's workspace, nearly shrieking when she saw that every single item was back in its place, with no evidence of being disturbed. Her heart rate quickening, her eyes leaped from classmate to classmate – not a single one of them seemed to have noticed that she had even stood up. She reached over and repeated her textbook-toss, this time sending it into the window and creating a resounding crack upon impact. A single glassy line snaked across the pane where it had broken and the book slumped to the floor. Her stomach twisted painfully in her gut as right before her eyes, the crack in the glass wavered and was gone in the blink of an eye. The book had returned to its place on Kurt's desk.

She screamed.

A/N: Please leave a review and tell me what you think of it. If you enjoyed it and are interested in the concept of this series, add me to Author Alert to be notified when the other installments in the series are posted. So far, only Brittany's, Santana's, Kurt's, and Puck's are up - check them out, they're titled Tus Spiritus Sancti, La Vida Loca, Take Me Away, and Sun Gone Lost, respectively.