A/N: I'm just blown away by these reviews! Thank you, thank you! Means so much!

He didn't transfer?

Lauren was completely distracted by her thoughts as she found her seat again for the third and final group. But now Lauren could hardly enjoy the sexy performance from the Warblers. All she could do was study Matt, out of the corner of her eye, and wonder why he'd been intentionally deceptive. Hadn't he? She was almost certain he'd said he transferred. It was when they were talking over coffee on that first date. He'd explained that he left McKinley because his mom got married, they'd moved, and he'd transferred. Isn't that what he said?

As everyone cheered for the Warblers, Lauren realized she hadn't really paid much attention and, consequently, didn't really know if they were going to be a problem for the New Directions.

"You guys were still better," Artie was assuring Kitty, as she cuddled up against him.

On her other side, Artie had Kitty in his lap now. The New Directions were sitting all around them, and since they'd been short a seat, she found one on his lap. She did that a lot, Lauren noticed, almost as if she were staking her claim. Like... a kitty. Like a cat in heat. Gross.

They were a weird couple, too, Artie and Kitty. Yet no one would dare to come right out and say to him, 'Oh, you're in a wheelchair, sorry, that means you can't date a hottie like Kitty Wilde.' So, why then, did everyone want to hate on her and Matt?

Puckerman had to be lying. Right? Lauren's eyes went to the other end of the row, where Mike Chang was leaning over to whisper something to Tina. But why would he bring Chang into it? She decided, then and there, that she'd have to find a way to get Mike alone and ask him.

There was one more intermission after the Warblers, so that the judges could deliberate. When Mike got up, Lauren casually got up too, and followed him. He was headed, of course, to the men's room. Since she couldn't follow him in there, she got in line for the ladies' room, in order to wait for him to come out. Lines for the bathroom for women were notorious for being much longer and slower than for men. Sure enough, Lauren saw him exit the men's room right before she was about to step foot into the ladies' room.

"S'cuse me, changed my mind," she said, slipping out of the line and falling into step behind him. "Hey, Mike? Mike?"

He stopped and turned to face her, looking a little bewildered by her presence. "Yes?"

Oh, shit. She hadn't really decided how she was going to start the conversation with him. She had to figure it out, and fast, because her hesitation already had him looking at her with a puzzled expression.

"Um, I was just wondering..." She tried to think fast. "If you, uh, if Matt has ever talked to you about dance school. Personally, I think he should look into it. Do you think that school you go to in Chicago accepts students with a GED?"

Mike tilted his head to the side. "I dunno, I mean, possibly?" He studied Lauren, suspiciously. "But my school's more of a classical conservatory for ballet. As far as I know, Matt only does hip-hop..."

"Right," Lauren said, quickly. "Do you think there might be a better dance school for him? One that would accept someone with their GED?"

Mike narrowed his already kind of narrow eyes. He was seeing right through her, she was sure of it, but at least he hadn't called her on it. "Are you sure he's interested in going to school for dance? I'm pretty sure he's taken an interest in becoming a project manager for the construction company he's with..."

"Oh." Well, shit. "Well... do you think it'll be okay that he just has a GED?"

Mike now looked like he was getting ready to defend his friend, and she'd never, ever seen the chill Asian guy get even a tiny bit mad about something. "I think it'll be perfectly fine that he got his GED," Mike said. "I told him that when I found out that it was his plan."

A-ha! "So, did he tell you why he wanted to get his GED?" Lauren pressed on, even though she knew that Mike was going to be super weirded out by her questions, if he wasn't already.

"Look." Mike held up his hands and began to back away from her slowly. "I think that's something you should ask Matt about yourself. Sorry, I can't help you."

So Lauren returned to her seat, defeated but not without a plan. As the New Directions were announced as this year's Regional champs, Lauren was formulating her plot. As they jumped up and down to celebrate the win, and Matt hugged her, Lauren just pretended nothing was wrong.

"Another trip to Nationals!" Matt gave her a high five. Lauren responded to his huge, goofy grin with one of her own.

If you are lying to me, you're a dead man.

As Lauren's dad had always told her, the key to any campaign was to dig up dirt on your opponent. The main reason anyone went digging, of course, was to expose a liar.

So, she did a little digging. She knew where Matt lived, even though she hadn't been invited in, because they'd driven by once during a February snow storm to grab his old sled out of the garage. So, yeah, she'd seen the inside of the garage but hadn't actually been in his house. So, right away, that was one red flag she'd stupidly overlooked. He'd already been to her house a bunch of times. And she'd only seen the inside of a garage. Maybe it wasn't even his garage. Maybe he was homeless and didn't want Lauren knowing.

Matt's supposed address would have had him going to Fairbrook High School. He was two years ahead of Lauren in school, so he would have graduated with the class of 2011. As luck would have it, Fairbrook wasn't on Spring Break until next week...

"I don't want to do this," Roderick complained, as she drove them both over to Fairbrook. He glanced over at Madison in the backseat. "And why are you making her come?"

"Because you said you wanted to hang out with her today," Lauren explained, glancing at Madison as well in the rearview mirror. "And when I told her the plan, she thought it sounded kind of exiting."

"I did say that," Madison agreed, as she buckled her seatbelt. "Also, she offered to buy us lunch after this, and well, seeing as I'm broke, I don't turn down free lunch."

"Why couldn't you just call the school?" Roderick wanted to know. He was on the verge of whining. Well, Lauren thought, smugly. Not so fun, having someone crash your date, is it?

"Because," she said. "Back when I called their middle school about Quinn Fabray, the lady got all snippy with me on the phone and said that, really, she wasn't supposed to divulge information about other students to random people over the phone."

The plan was for Roderick to pretend to be enrolling as a new transfer student. While waiting for him to complete the paperwork, Lauren was going to casually bring up that she had an old friend that graduated in 2011 who had transferred from McKinley to Fairbrook, too. And then — this would be the tricky part — she was hoping she could get someone to check and see if Matt had indeed ever been to this school. But Lauren had already thought up a clever way to make sure they would check.

As Roderick slowly completed the form, he glanced at Lauren as if to tell her to hurry up and get to work. Lauren stood from where she'd been sitting next to Madison and strolled slowly over to the front desk.

"You know, Roderick," Lauren said, pretending she was talking to her brother. "If you transfer from McKinley to Fairbrook, you'll be doing exactly what that one famous rap guy did, when he transferred from McKinley to here."

It got the lady behind the desk to look up. "Famous rap guy?" she said, curiously. She had red frizzy hair and glasses, so Lauren had really gone out on a limb to peg her for a rap fan, but clearly, her reach had paid off.

"Oh, yeah, Matt Rutherford?" Lauren said, casually. "I don't know if you've heard of him. He's a new artist. I think he graduated from here in 2011. I bet if you see his picture, you'll recognize him right away."

Looking intrigued, the lady reached behind her and pulled a book off the shelf. It was the 2011 yearbook. Jackpot! As the lady flipped through the pages, she furrowed her brow. "You're sure it was 2011?" she asked. "We don't have a record of anyone named Matt Rutherford. I'm looking at the seniors."

"Oh, really?" Lauren pretended to be puzzled. "Well, maybe I have it wrong, maybe it was the next year or something. Do you... do you have a record of anyone named Matt Rutherford ever attending Fairbrook?"

"Well, I'd have to check." The lady turned to her computer and clicked around until she had pulled up a database. "Rutherford. R-U-T-H-E-R-F-O-R-D?" Lauren nodded. "Oh, yes, here he is. It looks like he withdrew before graduation though."

"Does it say when he withdrew?" Lauren asked, hoping she wasn't pushing her luck. But this last was nothing but super helpful, as she clicked a few more times to try and find out.

"Looks like... August 2010," she said. "And he was a new student. It looks like he enrolled but never actually showed up. Would I know any of his music?"

"Uh, you know what?" Lauren looked at her brother in alarm as Roderick raised his eyebrows and stopped in the middle of filling out his forms. "Roderick, I just remembered, we live in an unincorporated part of Fairbrook Township, which means we need to go enroll you at Belleview."

"Happens all the time," said the clueless lady.

Lauren grabbed Roderick and Madison and ushered them out of there as quickly as she could. She didn't say anything until they'd reached the parking lot. The other two were looking at her as though she'd gone insane. Maybe she had.

"Why couldn't he just tell me about dropping out?" Lauren wanted to know, saying it more to herself than the other two. "He could have just explained how he was gonna transfer but then dropped out and got his GED instead, so he could help his mom. I don't even really know if he lives in that house. It could be a friend's, for all I know! Why does he have to be all mysterious and never talk about himself? He knows all there is to know about me!"

"I-I dunno, Lauren," Roderick touched her shoulder, as though to concern her, but she supposed he then remembered he was owed something. "Can we go talk about this more over lunch? It's like 1:30..."

"Yeah, yeah, fine." Lauren pouted, but she unlocked the car so that they could get in and she could drive them to Subway. As for Lauren, she wasn't even hungry.