"So," Mercedes began, wincing as she popped her shoulder back into its socket, "are you going to arrest me?"

The officer sitting across from her in interview room one cringed as Mercedes cracked the bones in her right forearm, banging it repeatedly against the dull metal desk that separated them.

"Will you stop that?" He grimaced.

Smirking, Mercedes pushed her right arm off of the table, letting it swing at her side, before using her left hand to grab her right wrist and place it in her lap.

"Sorry." She sighed, "it's just that, the bones grow back stronger if they're broken completely and not just fractured." She paused, biting her lip to keep from laughing at the officer who was swallowing the urge to gag. "I keep forgetting that some people find rapid regeneration disgusting."

The room they were sitting in was cold, frigid even. But Mercedes relished the icy air that hit her skin, and the cool metal chair that soothed the aching muscles in her legs.

The walls were painted a deep periwinkle blue, the door outlined with a thick pin-striping of white. Across from Mercedes and directly behind the officer was a wall-to-wall two-way mirror, that Mercedes was both amused by and terrified of. Amused because she knew that half—maybe even all—of the on duty detectives were sitting behind it gawking at her and terrified because with the mirror, she could clearly see just how much damage that last fight had done her.

Mercedes leaned back, raising her left hand to brush strands of hair from her face, lingering a moment too long on the diagonal gash that ran from her forehead to her temple. She pressed her finger against the wound, rolling her eyes, and turned back to the officer. "Can I at least get some peroxide? I don't think it's legal for you to keep me here while hurt."

The officer sat straighter, the corners of his mouth turning up into a snarl. "Heal yourself, Miss Jones."

Although, if he was being truthful, he couldn't see how she could possibly do that—even if she had her so called superpowers. Because when Mercedes Jones walked into the precinct, rather when she was escorted in with thick chains locking her ankles to her one good wrist, she looked like she had been hit by a bulldozer. Repeatedly.

Her hair curled loosely and laid limp around her face, stiff from the drying mud that coated it. It fell raggedly past her shoulders, her ends frayed and smoldering—as if it had previously been on fire. The gash that curved around her left eye wasn't too deep, but it looked nasty. The skin that was broken giving way to a steady stream of blood that rolled down her cheek and settled into the hair that matted her face. There was a bruise under her right eye, turning a shade of royal purple as it ripened. The thin, dark gray hoodie she wore was completely torn down the middle, exposing a form-fitting, low cut, red tank top and effectively turning her hoodie into a long, button-less jacket. With each step she took, her right arm would swing, haphazardly, at her side. It stuck out, her shoulder was dislocated, her forearm was twisted in the wrong direction, her fingers paralyzed into the makings of a fist. The skin along her knuckles were rubbed raw, like she had been ramming them into cement. Her nails were ragged, the one on her pinky bleeding from the place where it had been almost completely ripped off. Mercedes' legs managed better than her upper body did, the leggings she wore were torn but only in a few places around her ankles. She could feel a large bruise running from her thigh to her knee, the skin was tender, a jolt of pain shooting up her aching spine every time an officer forced her to keep moving. The only part of her body that seemed to come out okay were her lips, they were chapped to be sure, but they weren't swollen, bleeding or gone altogether.

Narrowing her eyes at the officer, Mercedes sucked her lips in before nodding. "Contrary to what you may believe Officer..."

"Schuester," the officer provided.

"Well, Officer Schuester, contrary to what you may believe it takes a lot more than an idiot telling me toheal myself for me to actually do it." She caught him scowling at her and jerked forward, causing him to jump. "When my boyfriend gets here," she whispered so that the officers standing on the other side of the wall length mirror couldn't hear, "you're going to be in big trouble."

Officer Schuester looked at her, his eyes grazing the shallow cuts littered across Mercedes' cheeks and laughed. "Miss Jones," he said bringing his gaze back up to meet hers, "I thought you were in the business of justice. Now correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't that include respecting the law—and those who enforce it?"

This time Mercedes laughed, "Officer Schuester, if I'm being frank... I don't give two shits about the lawor you."

"Well in that case, I won't give you the benefit of the doubt." He reached underneath the table and grabbed a briefcase, slamming it onto the tabletop with extra force. Wiggling his eyebrows at Mercedes, he snapped open the bag, pulling out a thick stack of manilla folders. "Do you know what this is?" he asked, slapping the folders in front of her.

Mercedes squinted at them for a second before shrugging, "I don't have x-ray vision."

Officer Schuester pursed his lips, he was getting sick of the attitude his suspect was giving him. How dare she smirk at him when her ankles were chained and bolted to the floor? How dare she roll her eyes when the precinct had two sharpshooters training their guns on her forehead through the one way mirror she kept winking towards? How dare she still have a sense of humor when she was most likely going to jail for the rest of her life?

Biting back a groan, he spread out the folders, flipping each one open and turning them so that Mercedes could read them right side up.

"This," he spat, pointing to the first folder, "is a list of all the people who've ended up in the hospital because of you—"

"Because of?" Mercedes cut in, her eyebrows shooting up, the corners of her mouth twitching downwards. Her left shoulder stiffened and she pulled her head back, craning it to the right, "if you do a little more research you'll find that the only plausible alternative to the hospital was much, much colder and...six feet under the ground."

Officer Schuester cocked an eyebrow at her. "Miss Jones," he began, excited that he had managed to get under her skin, "you may think that you served those citizens well—that you saved them. But I'd like to remind you that none of that would've been necessary had it not been for the prior commotion youcaused."

Before Mercedes could respond, Officer Schuester slammed his palm onto the next folder. "This is a list of all the damage you and your boyfriend managed to rack up in the past couple of months. Do you know how much money you've cost the city?"

Mercedes licked her lips, "a dollar?"

The officer leaned back into his seat and folded his arms over his chest, "try twenty-five million...dollars that is."

At that Mercedes stalled, her bottom lip jutting forward as she sighed. "I can fix it."

"You mean to tell me," the officer laughed, "that you can fill in the crater that now occupies Jackson Elementary's playground? You can unflip the moving truck that caused the 32-car pile up on highway 43? You can rebuild the Hotel Ritz? Complete with its rooftop hot tub?"

Mercedes furrowed her eyebrows against the smug look on Officer Schuester's face and sniffed.

"Yeah."

"Please enlighten me, Miss Jones. How do you plan to payfor all of that?"

"Well," Mercedes flicked her hair backwards propping her good arm on the table and resting her chin against it, "we can start by implementing some very necessary budget cuts for the city. Getting rid of some unneeded programs, some excessive luxuries and some... incompetent police officers."

Officer Schuester put a hand to his heart. "Oh you really do care about the people," he said looking her up and down, "by the way, those ankle bracelets aren't hurting you are they? They have a tendency to chafe."

Mercedes looked at him, a smile playing on her lips. "They're fine."

The officer smiled back, linking his eyes with Mercedes', then shoved the next folder towards her. "This is a list of all the complaints lodged against you by various citizens over the past couple of weeks. I think you'll find that not everyone is a fan of your...heroics."

"Well I can't please the whole damn city—"

"This is the list of known criminals you've maimed and/or endangered—"

"It's a good start right—"

"This is the list of the first aid you lifted from every hospital in the tricounty area—"

"Like I said it takes a lot of work to heal bones—"

"Now you listen here!" Officer Schuester snapped, banging his fist against the table.

"I'm here to make sure you know exactlywhy you're going to rot in jail." He smirked at the look that Mercedes gave him. Jabbing his index finger in her face, he pushed back his seat and leaned over the table. "I'm not here to indulge in your little superhero fantasy or reward you with an honorary police badge! I'm not here to understand where you come from, or your perspective—"

"But I am."

Mercedes and the officer both looked up, the latter cringing as the door to the interview room slammed open. It banged against an adjacent wall, shooting back in the direction it came from, narrowly clipping the woman who glided through it, and circled the officer. Her long black hair, which was up in a tight ponytail, bounced as she strutted to Mercedes' side, her bronze colored eyes, steely and unmoving from the officer's face. The black on black three piece suit that hugged her body tightly, was pressed andsocrisp that the officer actually wondered if she had the power to slit throats with her cuff links.

She dropped the black bag she was carrying to the ground, pulling out a chair next to Mercedes. It scraped against the floor and she scoffed as Officer Schuester winced, again.

The woman turned to Mercedes and stuck her hand out, "Santana Lopez. I'll be your lawyer, Mercedes." Mercedes nodded at the woman, who shrugged when she found that she couldn't bring her right hand to grip Santana Lopez's left. Ms. Lopez took a sweeping glance of Mercedes and furrowed her eyebrows at the sight of Mercedes' arm sitting limp in her lap.

"This right here is exactlywhy none of this interview will be permissible in court." Santana gestured to Mercedes,"my client is hurt, have you even offered her medical attention? Let alone questioning her without representation present." She leaned over to rifle in her bag, revealing a yellow legal pad and a pen. "Has she even been read her Miranda Rights?"

"I assure you Ms. Lopez, everything I've done has been up to code. Completely."

"Mercedes," Ms. Lopez spoke, ignoring Officer Schuester, "we need to get you to a hospital."

Mercedes stiffened for a moment then shuffled around to face Ms. Lopez with her entire body, "Ah, no." She shook her head, plastering on a blistering smile that made the apples of her cheeks puff up.

"Ms. Lopez, I need to stay here. Um—and I—I can heal myself you know."

"Are you serious," Ms. Lopez huffed, folding her arms over her chest.

Mercedes nodded furiously, her hair bobbing around her. " Yeah! Yeah, Officer Schuester wants to arraign me, something about the, uh, the Hotel Ritz I destroyed. I can't let him think all those things about me without knowing the whole story."

Ms. Lopez rolled her eyes, "who cares what he thinks?"

Officer Schuester perked up, "actually a lot of people. People who've made it impossible for Miss Jones to leave the precinct without first posting bail."

"Post bail?! What exactly have you charged her of?"

The officer waved a hand regally over the manilla folders, and sheets of white paper that littered the table top. Ms. Lopez scooped up a handful and scanned them over, throwing dirty glances at Mercedes every couple of seconds.

"Okay," she instructed, "Mercedes why don't you explain what happened?"

"Yes Miss Jones," Officer Schuester agreed, "tell us everything."

Mercedes cleared her throat. "It's actually a long story."

"Don't worry, you've got the time."

Mercedes rolled her eyes. "Okay. Ms. Lopez, Officer Schuester," she began looking between the two of them.

She paused for a moment and winced, biting down on her bottom lip. Mercedes held up the index finger of her left hand for a moment before arching her back to stretch, and rotating her left shoulder in its socket. She paused again and squinted at the officer before looking at her right arm. Sucking in a sharp breath, she jerked her right arm upwards, rotated her shoulder in it's socket, and turned her forearm in a tight circle. Mercedes heard Ms. Lopez let out a low whistle as she brought both of her arms up and rested her elbows against the table. She laced her fingers together and leaned forward, settling her chin against her hands. Mercedes smiled again.

"Let me start from the beginning."

A/N: So now that you know where Mercedes is and what she can do, we're going to travel back to the beginning to find out just how she got that way. Please forgive any typos and grammatical errors. I did edit but I'm not perfect and I'm bound to miss something.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of its characters.