Paul could only bear to be in the room with his son for about fifteen minutes. It was too painful to see. His wife stayed with David while Paul was out in the hall leaving messages on his office phone; reminders for things he had to do in the morning. He may have been a defense attorney, but he certainly knew a thing or two about prosecution. Two of the assailants had been caught and the other two had been named. Ohio still had the death penalty and Paul knew the exact people he wanted to pursue it.

He was still on his phone when he saw the Hummel-Hudson family coming. Clicking his phone shut he walked up to Burt. "Last I checked, Kurt is still in intensive care. I don't believe he's conscious, yet."

Burt grabbed Paul by the scruff of his collar. "You tell me exactly what happened to my son."

Paul didn't know the answer, so he told Burt what he did know. David had gone running at the track after the football game ended. He wasn't home by the time Paul and Joan had gone to bed. They got a call from the hospital around midnight saying his son had been attacked. David had been beaten fairly severely. Kurt had been beaten as well, but the doctors were positive he'd make a full recovery. David and Kurt had been attacked by some of the football alum; boys that he, Paul, had known (and disliked for years). Their ringleader, the one that the cop had shot and had been holding the knife was Tony Amata; a psychotic neo-Nazi who had spent more time in juvie than his own bedroom. The others were Cristopher Ferguson; a no-good punk with no direction in life, Hayden Miller; a bully and a thug, and Eric Mazzari; a shadow who did whatever the hell his "friends" told him to.

Finn confirmed the Paul's character witness accounts. He had cowered from most of them his freshman year. Occasionally they still popped around school; probably trying to relive their glory days: when they actually had something going for them.

Joan came out of David's room a few minutes later. One of her hands covered half her face as she cried. Carol felt instant pity for the woman and felt she knew exactly how that woman felt. She went over to her and hugged her. "He's going to live, Mrs. Karofsky. It'll be alright." Joan didn't stop crying and didn't resist the hug from the strange woman. Joan spent almost all her time at home and thrived on any kind of affection and attention. But even if she didn't, she would have been too exhausted to fight Carol's hugs.

Finn put his hand on his mom's shoulder. "Mom, she can't hear you. Mrs. Karofsky is deaf." It was the only thing Finn really knew about Dave's mom. As Carol pulled away from Joan, the woman looked up at her. Something in her eyes, told Carol she was grateful for the hug and she quickly returned Carol's hug before going over to Paul and started signing something to him.

Paul's brow furrowed as he followed the rapid hand movements and abruptly left her and went to their son's hospital room. Burt, despite the concern he had for his son, was curious to know what Joan had just said.

Paul was only gone five/ten minutes before he came back out, not looking at anyone. He sat down in one of the hard plastic chairs, leaned forward with his face in his hands while he took deep breaths for a few moments. He then leaned his head back against the wall and stared at the ceiling.

Something was wrong. Very wrong. Burt went and sat down next to Paul. There was nothing he could do for Kurt at the moment. But Paul looked hurt, more hurt than before, even though he had known what had happened for at least an hour.

Neither man spoke for a few minutes until Paul said softly "Motive, means, opportunity." Burt didn't respond. "It's something of a mantra in the justice field. If you have those three things, it becomes so much easier to convict someone. If you're missing one, it's that much harder. The opportunity in obvious; they did it on the track field in the dead of night. The means? A knife, a bat and their own fists and feet. I'm pretty sure I know the motive now. Why our boys got hurt."

Burt had already had a feeling he knew why Kurt was attacked. It was always because he was gay. Everything. What other reason could you have to not like Kurt? Paul, after a moment collecting his thoughts, continued. "One of them…Tony probably, since he had the knife, carved "FAGGOT" across David's forehead. Paul's breath caught in his throat. He could hear Finn quietly whisper "no way…"

"David says they wanted to kill them, him and Kurt, because they're gay. David never told me…I never knew. How could he keep something like this from me? Keep it to himself all these years?"

Burt wanted to put his hand on Paul's shoulder, but wasn't nearly as straight-forward as Carol. "You gotta look at this from his perspective. The world still hates gays. He had no way of knowing how you'd react." Paul made a motion to speak but Burt kept talking. "You could be the most liberal, honest, decent guy in the world. All for gay rights and all that fun stuff, until it hits home. There's never any way to tell how anyone will react to anything until it affects them directly. And a kid like David? He was probably terrified. Losing his family, his friends, everything." When Burt was finished it slowly occurred to him; he just stood up for David Karofsky, the boy who had made his son's life a living hell, the reason Kurt had to switch schools. Burt wasn't sure how he felt about that.

"God, I must have made him feel terrible all these years. I call my boys pansies and sissy boys when I know they're not giving their best in sports. I make gay jokes. I have a gay friend at the office, an intern. I call him 'twinkle toes' and 'tinkerbell' when he's not around." Paul leaned forward, putting his head back in his hands. "The boys have heard me call him that. And I've probably said a lot worse without thinking about it."