Yay! I got review thingies! Thanks. :D Here's chapter three...yes, the title is from Clocks by Coldplay. I just love that line for some reason.

I think I forgot to mention this before, but this takes place after the episode where most of the Institute kids, minus Kurt, were revealed. It also has a lot of elements of InterNutter's universe in here because that's the Kurt I know and love. And I haven't seen the show in a while. So, if you're confused, go read InterNutter's stuff. And even if you aren't confused. Cuz her stuff is great.

Chapter Three: Confusion Never Stops, Closing Walls and Ticking Clocks

It had been two days. Two excruciatingly quiet days since Kurt had come out of his room to do more than eat. Monday, Tuesday…they'd passed with a sort of surreal quality as if no one could quite wake up.

Frankly, Kitty couldn't stand it anymore. She stood outside his door, one hand raised to knock. Two days…Amanda hadn't called either. That was a bad sign. The debates had been scheduled for tomorrow, but then postponed because Pietro and Todd had decided to get creative with some ketchup, mystery meat, and silly-string in the school auditorium. Kitty had nearly strangled Todd the next time she had seen him. This meant the three-day debate would be spread over the weekend and that god-awful silence would continue that much longer.

"Like, maybe I can make him feel better," she muttered to herself. "Just don't, like, try and change his mind for him…" She knocked at the door…and missed.

She screamed, he bamfed, and the door swung wildly on creaking hinges.

She coughed, waving at the sulfuric smoke. "That, like, could have gone better. Kurt!" she yelled. "Get back here!" Not knowing where he'd gone, she tapped her foot impatiently, hoping he'd have the good sense to come back.

"Katzchen…you scar—"

She shrieked again and backed against a wall, looking up. He was sitting on the wall, his head cocked at her. "Sorry," he whispered.

Kitty could feel her heart racing. "It's okay…" she said breathlessly. "I hope I didn't, like, startled you as much as you, like, startled me." There was an uncomfortable pause in which they just stared at each other, not sure what to say. Suddenly, she didn't want to be craning her head to look at him. "Come down here." He obediently dropped to the floor. He was holding a backpack. "Going somewhere?"

His glowing eyes found the floor and studied it with an unhealthy fixation. "My…group…is meeting today…"

"Oh." She started playing with her hair. "You know, you don't, like, have to be sorry?" she offered.

Kurt looked up. "It's not like I haven't scared you before."

She blushed. Ouch. "That's, like, not what I meant."

"I know." Another pause. "I have to get going."

"Yeah…okay…like, see you later…"

Kurt dragged his feet through the muddy streets. His head was spinning with…everything. Before they'd been postponed, his group had decided that the debates should be an individual thing. Translation: Getting together took effort, and half the group couldn't even find that word in the dictionary. But, on reflection, it had been gradually agreed that a meeting was, er…necessary. Translation? Bigot party time.

Yippee. Maybe if he sank far enough into ignorance, all this would just fade away…

At least Kitty hadn't come to lecture him again. They'd been doing it since last week. Oh, no one had said anything, but then they hadn't needed to. They did it with their eyes and Amanda did it with her silence. Hell, even Logan had looked disgusted.

It's your imagination, Elf, Kurt thought. This will all be over soon enough…

"Oh, who am I kidding?" he groaned. "It isn't supposed to be like this. I'm supposed to be the hero!" The empty street echoed his words back to him. The wind was picking up…a storm was coming. Was Ms. Monroe upset then too? He sighed. "This hero needs redemption…"

At least Kitty…oh, shut up.

The "meeting" was being held at Duncan's and, will wonders never cease, there were "refreshments". Kurt managed to whittle the evening away, avoiding all the drinks despite the fact that "German spirit, man! You best be drinking!"

Oh yeah, everything was going just peachy. Until, of course, it wasn't. Stephanie Feotting, the only other person on the team with an IQ not comparable to most forms of lichen, decided that they should actually do some work. Kurt drifted over to an unoccupied chair and sat down beside a lovely piece of diligent clockwork.

Tick, tock.

"So, to begin our meeting, I'm going to assume that you all know your assigned positions and have already prepared your speeches." Glares were exchanged. "Let's go over it, shall we? Just to make sure we don't have any repeats."

One by one, they said their topics, calm, coolly…

"So, like, I'm going to talk about how, like, mutants could rob banks and junk." Snapping gum.

Tick…

"I'm doin' the whole bio thing, how mutants are unnatural and clossser to animalsss."

…tock.

"I'm doing magic and how it's close to mutants and how they're against God!"

Tick…why was it suddenly so hard to breathe?

"Kurt?"

...tock.

"Kurt...?"

Tick...

"KURT!"

...tock... "Huh?" ...tick...

"Dude...what's your topic?" Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick.

"Oh, um...past instances of violence and that mutants shouldn't have anything to hide."

"They'll have to hide from my fist." Duncan had a very ugly sneer, Kurt thought absently. Tick. Hey. What happened to tock?

"Sandy?"

"I'm doing blah, blah, blah."

Blink. That can't be right. Tock...

The clock's glass face shattered and Kurt jumped in surprise. Did glass explode spontaneously?

"Dude, you broke my parent's clock!!"

Author's Note: Hey, that's almost a cliffhanger. Mwhahaha. Stand by for more chapters to come. And please review! I need to know what I'm doing wrong!!