Dr. Iplier was thankful his small home office was stocked, because after the breakfast incident he'd needed most of the supplies he had.

He had been correct when diagnosing Ed. Edgar, the ego did have a fractured wrist, concussion, broken nose, as well as an unexpected hair line fracture in his left humerus, but thankfully the ribs seemed to only be brussied.

As Dr. Iplier began the tedious process to set Ed's wrist, who was seated on the doctor's desk, he had to fight the urge to finish what Dark started, "Of all the idiotic thing you could do, Ed, you really picked the crown jewel. Are you happy now?"

Ed clinched his teeth, "Damn it doc, could you be a little gentler with me?"

The Doctor made sure to squeeze a little tighter, taking a tiny bit of satisfaction at the little groan the cowboy let out, "So now you care if something hurts, hmm? Do you care that your little stunt landed Shepherd with a major concussion, and Bim with thirty-one stitches right down his back? Not to mention yourself. If you had been anyone, anyone, other than a Iplier Dark would have killed you." He was finished setting the bone, and went to grab the casting supplies, "Stay still."

The injured ego winced slightly at the Doctor's tone, "I'm sorry, I lost my head. I should have thought long and hard before I opened my mouth."

He plopped all of the materials down to the left of Ed, took his seat, and got to work. "What were you trying to do, Ed? Were you trying to make him lose it?", Dr. Iplier asked quietly, he suddenly felt too tired to keep up his anger.

"I was."

Dr. Iplier's head shot up, "What?!" his hand involuntarily flexed around Ed's wrist, which caused the man to yelp in pain. The doctor scrambled to make sure he hadn't offset the bone again, a string of curses left his mouth until he finally confirmed that the wrist was still lined up. The ego took a moment to calm himself before he re-asked the question, "What do you mean you meant to?"

The cowboy took a deep breath in through his nose, "I knew if I wound him up, he'd snap. Doc, you know just as well as I do that when Darks on a tear he can't keep a secret. I was a sure-fire way of getting some answers." He winced slightly when he shifted, "I just didn't think he'd go that crazy."

Ed had exploited a weakness in Dark, he had manipulated the demon. Dr. Iplier would have been impressed if he hadn't been so horrified. Not being able to keep a secret was putting it to lightly. When Dark lost control, it was as if someone was removing all the contents of the demon's mind and put them on display. The worst part was, it was impossible for Dark to regulate when he was in an episode.

All the Iplier egos knew about the condition Dark had, as they had taken to calling it. Early on in their existence they had agreed not to use it against him, both because of how dangerous it was, and out of respect. With this in mind Dr. Iplier couldn't help but spit out, "And how did that work out for you?"

Ed bristled slightly as he heard the disgust that dripped off the doctor's tone, "Pretty well actually. I found out a lot more than we would have known if I hadn't."

"Christ, Ed. I want to help him as much as anyone, but we might do more damage than good if we force our way in like that. We've worked years to make our group into a family, but it will only take a few instances like this to destroy it."

Edgar avoided the doctor's eyes, and gruffly changed the subject, "The Host, and Google didn't get hurt, did they?" Dr. Iplier watched him for a moment, before he got back to work.

"No, the both of them and I came out unscathed. Google was in the hall, I got lucky, and Host had his very own meat shield."

A chuckle left Ed, "I didn't see much of what was going on, but I'm putting my bets on that meat shield being Bim." He tilted his head back a bit, and watched the ceiling fan whirl slowly, "You think that boy is ever going to learn Host don't want anything like that with him?"

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes as the doctor worked.

"Well, go on and tell me what you figured out."

Ed looked down at the Doctor, a bit surprised at the sudden command, "I thought you're against what I did?"

"I am. But you already did the damage, might as well use what we can out of it." The doctor didn't make eye contact with Ed instead continuing to work diligently on the cast.

"Well, I was wrong about Evelyn being Dark's sweetheart, that's for sure." Ed started after a few seconds, then scowled momentarily, "If I had known she was a baby I wouldn't have said Dark was having his way with the kid. Also, did you know Wilford's was a colonel? While you yellow bellied cowards were hiding, I was privy to all of his rant. And frankly I got mixed signals."

The Doctor looked up at that, his hands dropped to his lap as they came to the end of their work, "Mixed signals?"

Ed hummed in conformation, "For one thing he kept shifting around in how he was talking. One second he was talking about some woman named Celine, next he was talking like the lady was him."

Leaning back Dr. Iplier's face scrunched in confusion, "Are you sure?"

"He went between calling the kid Wil and Celine's to calling it his."

The doctor blinked, that was strange but could wait till later for them to tackle, "Anything else that seemed not to fit?"

"Something about having 'miscarried once with Mark' and how it 'wasn't fair he lost Evelyn after she'd lived for nearly a year.' Now I'll admit that threw me." A look of horror hit the cowboy, "Hey Doc . . . Do you think the fans could have . . . Mpreged him, if you know what I mean?" He said it in a hushed tone, and a shifty look in his eyes.

Dr. Iplier sometimes forgot how much of a genuine idiot Ed was, then the other ego would say things like this. "No Ed. They didn't 'Mpreg' him." Finally, the urge was too much and he delivered a swat to Ed's ear, "They can't do that you idiot. Not unless nearly all of them unanimously decided to, and I think we would have heard about that."

Ed tried to hide his relief, that the fans couldn't magically impregnate him, by rubbing his ear and defending his point, "Don't be too hard on me. I recon a lot of folks would have thought the same thing. Do you have any other ideas?"

That stumped the doctor, but that didn't mean Ed was correct, "No but jumping to conclusions is what got us into this situation in the first place. So instead of making wild theories, we're going to pretend to be decent for once in our lives, and wait for Dark to explain on his own terms. At this point I think to save what's left of his pride he may have to, so there's no point to it anyways."

Ed was about to snap something back at Dr. Iplier when a knock sounded at the doctor's door.

Dr. Iplier stood, and made a motion telling Edgar that they would pick the conversation latter. He strolled across the room to open the door, revealing Google standing stiffly on the other side. The Android waited only for a moment before speaking, "I have done as requested. Silver Shepherd is in his room with a cold compress, And Bim has been temporarily transferred to your quarters."

The doctor smiled at the droid, "Thank you Google. I don't know what I would do without you."

The android seemed to take that as a question, "Your productivity would lower by sixty-eight percent." He then cocked his head, and for a moment Dr. Iplier was struck with the thought that Google looked rather like a dog awaiting praise.

His smile was just a little warmer now, "I suppose it would Google." He then shook that silly thought from his mind, and got to the most important matter at hand, "And Dark? Has he shown back up yet?"

"No. He has not returned to the building, as of yet." Was Googles reply, and the doctor's heart dropped a tiny bit. Hopefully the demon would return sometime soon, and they could get some answers out of this mess.

Until then Dr. Iplier had a family to look after.