Finn started pacing up and down. "We've got to find them," he repeated, while Carole kept calling person after person, asking if they had seen either Burt or Kurt. She had called every hospital, but every time she looked up the number to call the police, she hesitated. They had been breaking the law and if the police found them with any evidence, she knew what would happen.

She wanted to reassure Finn, who was looking increasingly anguished, and Blaine, who had seemed to shrink on himself, but what could she say? She threw her head back in a moment of despair. They were still young enough to want, even to expect a parent to have all the answers, but too old to be satisfied with the little that she could say.

The doorbell rang and they stared at one another for a moment. Instinct made her act like the prototypical nosy neighbor and draw aside the curtain to see outside first. There was a police car parked outside. Closing her eyes and hoping for strength, she opened the door.

"Mrs. Hudson?" The two officers, a man and a woman, looked at her compassionately as the woman spoke gently. She didn't expect that. "I'm afraid we have bad news. May we come in?"

She stepped aside mutely and was too overcome to speak as both Finn and Blaine rushed to her.

"Are these your sons?"

"They're both mine," Carole said fiercely.

"Perhaps you'd all better sit down."

When they had done so, the male officer spoke. "There was a very serious traffic accident this morning. A vehicle carrying flammable materials crashed. As far as we can tell, the materials weren't secured. There was a terrible fire and traffic pile up. Your husband's vehicle, as far as we can tell, was one of them." She couldn't even feel the hand that he placed on hers, or the boys clinging to her shoulders. "Ma'am, the witnesses say that it would have been over almost instantaneously. He might not even have been aware of the crash. He, well, he certainly wouldn't have seen the fire coming." He added, quietly, "Ma'am, I'm terribly sorry, but we, we may not be able to identify him for certain, but we were able to identify the vehicle."

"What about Kurt?" She heard Finn's voice coming from somewhere.

"I'm sorry? Kurt?"

"His son, my brother. He's a skinny little guy, kind of dark hair.." Finn's voice trailed off as if he were asking if they'd seen him.

"Was he with your dad last night?"

"Yeah, they were out together..."

"Then I'm terribly afraid, son. There were no survivors." Carole felt Finn clinging even harder to her arm and burying his face in her shoulder, while Blaine was as stiff as if the news had turned him into stone. He moved so abruptly when he rose that it startled her; she had thought him immobile.

"Thank you very much for coming, officers. We'll take care of her now." He walked them to the door and closed the door behind them.

"Oh, God," she whispered. "Of all things...a traffic accident." Blaine rushed to her and Finn and crouched at their feet, one hand on Finn's, the other on hers.

"No...no, I'm positive this means they're alive."

"Wait, I don't get it."

"That's one of the things they do. When they sell criminals. If there's anybody in your family, or friends, who would find the money and buy you, they tell them that you're dead and then ship you to another part of the country, maybe even out of the country. It makes the punishment worse. They cover it up in some accident or another, even the local police don't know, in case they have any connection."

"So they could be anywhere?" Her husband and Kurt were somewhere, but she might never know where. She didn't even know whose door to break down to find out. She'd have fought to the death for them, but she didn't even know where the enemy was.


They'd separated Burt from his son. When he saw the other van heading in another direction, he would have given anything to know where they were taking him. Instead, they were lined up, people came through doing paperwork, confirming identifications with wallets, and people were taken in different directions after that. He asked each person he saw where his son was. Most ignored him, others shrugged or said they had no idea in a tone that said clearly that they didn't care, either. When he was taken away, he pleaded to see Kurt, begged as he had never begged another human in his life. But instead he was taken to a small cell and left there.

He could see Kurt all too clearly, trying to hold his head high, trying not to show any fear, but finally crumbling. What the hell had he gotten his little boy into? He was the one who was supposed to protect Kurt, to keep him safe from every danger, and instead he'd led him right into this.

He had no way of keeping track of time. They'd taken everything he had on him, even his wedding ring. They'd also taken his heart medication but at one point somebody with a clipboard had brought him a dose and watched as he took it, even examining his mouth afterward. He thought that it had been perhaps an hour, but his thoughts were coming so rapidly but repetitively that it could have been several or it could have been no more than twenty minutes.

Finally, the door opened and somebody familiar entered. He groaned as he saw him. "Oh, God, Bill, they've gotten you, too?" He didn't even know that Dr. Cooper had been working with them that night or that it was a larger sweep.

"A long time ago, Burt, I'm afraid."