"Oops?" Kurt offered weakly. His abrupt snap back to reality had him shaking beneath his hologram. Duncan looked like he was about ready to punch someone whose name could say, start with "K" and end with "urt", but that wasn't the problem. He really, really, hadn't meant to hit the clock.

Duncan was turning a lovely shade of chartreuse by now, but bewilderment was staying his hand, er, fist. Kurt's mouth opened and closed several times without issuing any sort of coherent sound and he was sure he was going to get it—and exposed—any second now...but luck, it seems, is not without a sense of humor.

Josh was lazy in every sense of the word. Everything from his slouch to his slur conveyed the fact that he just didn't care about anything that, well, he didn't care about. It was nearly everything. He didn't care that the clock might be priceless; he didn't care that there might be a reason that Kurt looked like he'd just swallowed an extremely bitter bug. All he saw was the simplest explanation possible.

"Duncan, chill. He was jussst reachin' for hisss drink."

Ah, yes, the untouched alcoholic beverage was sitting rather unobtrusively on an ornate bookend next to the ill-fated clock. The gathered stared at it in a moment of silence, judging the angle, and Kurt couldn't help feeling that his heart was being weighed against the feather of truth. Duncan's fists were still clenched but he was stilled, grudgingly waiting for the verdict and, in a moment of giddiness, Kurt decided he was not unlike the Devourer of Souls. At least, the position of his jaw made the Hippopotamus part work.

"Shi-it. You must have one hell of a backhand." And the jocks were patting him on the back with congratulations on a nice swing and Stephanie was shaking her head like Kurt had just joined the Lost Cause Club. Kurt—thanking God he was wearing a thick jacket—ducked under their hands and backed toward the door.

"Like, where ya goin'? We ain't done yet." Shana. He'd forgotten about her, sitting by the door. She snapped her gum and smiled, well, leered, obviously as pleased as the jocks and made to grab his wrist.

Kurt leaped backwards, meeting the doorframe with his head and stammered, "Have to go do something I forgot! I'll pay for the clock!" And then he was out the door, his last view having been of Duncan, still purple and sputtering.

"Ow," Kurt protested, feeling the lump on the back of his head as he walked through the dark. It was throbbing and he was still shaking from the close calls and the fact that he'd been saved—saved!—by a person who would happily crucify him if he knew the truth and sell tickets. If Josh hadn't said what he did, when he did...but then if he hadn't said that mutants were animals, Kurt might have not smashed the clock in the first place.

His hand dropped from his head and Kurt stared at it. His perpetual Vulcan salute, hidden beneath the hologram, glared back and Kurt concentrated, as if trying hard enough to get those first two fingers to split into something normal. Normal. Hate was normal. It was the opposite of love. Without one, the other was nothing, without hate, love wouldn't be so beautiful, so pure, so needed. But hate could be deserved, like love, and shouldn't be blindly followed or accepted.

"They hate me," he murmured into the air. He couldn't do this and yet he couldn't not do it. The night was witness to the fact that they hated him, saying it aloud made it so. And what was so was so. It couldn't change. "And I shouldn't try," he said louder, testing the words on his tongue. They tasted bitter.

"Kurt?"

His head jerked and he winced, and his hand, still blathering on about living long and prospering, came up in defense.

"Omigod, Kurt, what happened?"

"Amanda?" He stared at her blankly, like he would a stranger...or rather, like anyone one else would look at a stranger. Though he tried to see the good in people, always, strangers were dangerous by necessity until they weren't. She took his hand—when had she walked over?—and pulled him up toward what he belatedly realized was her home. Some part of him registered that that was a Bad Thing and pulled back but she was insistent and his traitorous hand clung to her, making the whole viva la resistance thing a moot point.

"Kurt, what happened?" For the second time that day, Kurt snapped back to reality with such rapidity that it was painful.

"Hit my head," he muttered shortly, not looking at her.

"Well, you're not bleeding," she said, trying not to sound hurt. She rocked back on her heels and then said quietly, "You're going to go through with it, aren't you?"

He frowned. Was it really that easy. "Ja." He could feel her disappointment, but didn't have the strength to argue. She sighed and laid her head on his shoulder.

"Amanda??" The voice was shrill and female and Kurt opened his eyes, startled. Wow, even her shoes managed to look angry. The rest of Mrs. Sefton looked like she's sell her soul for a broom to whack him over the head with. Her husband appeared at her side and went volcano. "I thought it was clear that you aren't welcome here."

Kurt felt an unfamiliar surge of anger and stood, incidentally shoving Amanda back in the progress. "Ja, clear," he said icily. "I was just leaving."

bamf

Kurt appeared back at the Institute and, ignoring those residents still awake, dizzily stalked his way toward his bedroom.

"Kurt?" Scott called, holding up the phone as he shoved past. "It's for you. It's Amanda." Kurt ignored the other boy and stomped up the stairs and a second later Scott heard a door slam. He frowned. "Okay, then." He put the phone back to his ear. "Sorry, he's being a bit...unresponsive. You'll have to try again tomorrow." He hung up. Tomorrow the debates started. Scott looked again at the stairs and his expression turned from worry to anger and back again.