Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 83rd cycle. Now cycle 84!

A/N: Well it's been another hellish week... Now I've got six days' worth to catch up post! And going double-single-double-etc days, so that makes nine chapters coming your way right now-ish!

"The Theater, The Theatre"
Doctor Who/Glee crossover #11
Doctor Who: (alternate) (female) 12th Doctor
Glee: Rachel & Glee Club

1. The Regular Crowd

New York City, in the year 2047

On a night like this, when their stage had seen not one but two representations, when the second one ended, there would be one of two ways for all those who remained in the theater after the audience had left. Some would finish whatever it was they had to do and go on their way, while others, select few as they were, would linger, as though leaving this place was the very last thing they wanted. On this night, there were seven of them.

Chloe Clarke would have been deemed an audience member on that night, if they had to be precise about it, however anyone who saw her and was familiar enough with the other shows in production in the city and with their casts would have recognized her as being one of the rising stars of the Broadway stage. She was here that night, as she had been several nights already, in order to support two people very dear to her. One of them was her mentor, and the other was her boyfriend.

George Stephanidis was as green as Chloe was, even though she'd had her big break a year or so before he did. This distinction was never mentioned except in playful teasing. If anyone ever doubted just how proud Chloe was of George, then they didn't know either of them at all.

She went to find him in his dressing room, and when she opened the door, he was standing there, halfway through doing up his shirt, as though he'd been stalled by something.

"George?" she called, and he startled, looking back at her. "You okay?" she asked, smirking.

"I just saw… or I thought I saw…" he looked back to where he'd been staring, but then he shook his head, squeezing his eyes together for a moment. "Never mind."

"You need a nap. A big one," Chloe declared.

"Was I off on the finale? My sleeve caught on the gate and it tore, see?" he reached for the shirt he'd just removed a minute before. "I think it threw me off."

"You were fine," she promised, then seeing the look he got, "More than fine. I had no idea anything was wrong, and…"

"George?" a voice called from out in the hall, and a moment later a young woman with frizzy hair came barging into the dressing room. She didn't have to look far, as George still held the shirt. "I knew it! Give me that, I'll get it mended."

Mackenzie Rios could have seemed as though she was on her first gig, too, but the young costumer had been at this for four years already. Nothing ever got by her, and her involvement with the shows she had worked on so far was bordering on legendary. She was also of a mind that if something could be done today, then she would not leave it for tomorrow.

She'd sit with needle and thread and the shirt and in no time the tear would have disappeared as though it had never been there in the first place. She was so focused on her task that it took her a while to hear what sounded like a child's laugh. Even then, she wrote it off and kept working.

Up on the balcony, Jamie Dean Kent sat gazing at the stage below. He'd only been an usher for a few weeks but already he felt more at home here than anywhere else. He'd been entertaining the idea that one day he would be standing on the stage instead of looking at it, though he had told no one; the belief that he would never accomplish anything of the sort had been deeply ingrained into him by his father.

"Don't lean too close now," he heard and turned to find Tom Barren standing a few rows above. Tom was the man with the lights, everyone knew. He'd worked at the theater longer than any of them.

"Sorry," Jamie stood back, though Tom only laughed and came to stand with him.

"You're not the first, you know? And you won't certainly be the last. I could tell you so many stories you wouldn't know what to do with them."

"I'd love to hear them," Jamie nodded honestly.

"Oh, well," Tom chuckled, "Better wait for another day, it's getting late and..."

"What the..." Jamie cut him off, approaching the ledge as he squinted. "Did you see that?"

"See what?" Tom asked.

"I thought I saw a kid run by..."

Below them, in the orchestra pit, the conductor, Maggie Shu was talking, laughing, with the star of their show and Chloe Clarke's mentor.

Rachel Berry had been telling Maggie all about her old show choir director, Will Schuester, after Maggie had referred to her husband as "Mr. Shu" and it had mad Rachel beam.

"He's coming up to New York next month to see the show. He hasn't missed one, right from my first," she smiled, for a moment taken back to those days when her dream still seemed so very far away. Every time Will Schuester came into town, it reminded her how far she'd come.

Later she would swear she had heard something in that moment, or maybe she'd only felt it. Either way, she had felt a chill, and she wasn't sure why.

X

It was already late at night when the Doctor opened the TARDIS doors and peered out, but she didn't mind. Ever since her last regeneration, the one that had left her a 'her' rather than a 'him,' she had been particularly appeased by the night's sky. And she had to hand it to New York City for being one of her favorites.

She hasn't known, when she'd come here, what it was she was getting herself into. But then she'd turned and seen the poster, impossible to miss, with a face she knew, one she'd first seen in her previous incarnation, in Lima, Ohio.

"Hello, Rachel," she smiled before returning into the TARDIS. Now she knew.

TO BE CONTINUED (TODAY)