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 77th cycle. Now cycle 78!

"The Mistaken M. Jones"
Doctor Who/Glee crossover #7 (following "The Benevolent Doctor")
DW: 10th + Martha, 9th + Rose, 11th + Clara
Glee: Mercedes, Quinn, Artie, Puck, Sugar, Santana, Brittany

A/N: Updates will now be daily, if I have any hopes of finishing this series anytime soon ;)

1. What Surrounds

March 2012 – Lima, Ohio

Mercedes had carried this secret for nearly an entire year already, and she had to admit there was a bit of pride in that. There she'd been, one amongst many at McKinley High, and only she knew about what she'd experienced over those days the summer before. Only she had met the people she did… or she'd thought. She had been sworn to secrecy, and that had been fine. Who would even believe her here? And to be truthful, she liked having this thing that was just hers.

Except now she knew that wasn't the case. It wasn't just hers, it was Quinn's, too, and if she was to believed, there were others here who'd also had this experience. She could have lingered in this feeling of suddenly not being as unique as she'd believed herself to be, but then the moment Quinn had proven herself to know about the alien man Mercedes had started feeling something like joy. As nice as it had been to have that all to herself, the potential to talk about it with someone else, a friend, also had its advantages, possibly outweighing the rest.

They hadn't gone too far into the subject on that day in the library. Mercedes had to get to class, and even though they were in a quiet place, it didn't feel right to be so exposed. So that afternoon, they'd gone the both of them to get Slushies.

"Are there really others?" Mercedes asked. Quinn nodded. "How many? Who?"

"It might be best if I didn't tell you," Quinn frowned to herself.

"Why not? You just told me…"

"If you did know, you couldn't tell them."

"Why not?"

"Mercedes, you have to keep it a secret. No one can know that you know about him, not now. If you don't know who it is here that knows about him, it'll be easier not to give it away, won't it?"

"You don't trust me, is that it? Who made you the boss anyway?" Mercedes asked, getting aggravated.

"I was told to say 'your friend with the sunglasses,'" Quinn recited, not sure herself what that meant. Mercedes for her part froze, looking back at her. "That mean something to you?" Mercedes nodded. "Then from her, you can't tell anyone." Mercedes hesitated.

"Fine. But what if they come to me, like you did?"

"Then you lie. You tell them you have no idea what they're talking about. And you come to tell me." Mercedes sighed. She didn't know what this all meant, but she had a strong feeling that something was going on, something she didn't know about, something possibly dangerous.

"So… You met him…"

"When I had my accident, or well, right before I had my accident," Quinn nodded.

"Just him?"

"Yeah, just him."

"My Doctors, when I met them, they had a companion with them," Mercedes declared.

"So I've heard," Quinn nodded. The others, every one of them, had mentioned these people. Rose, Jack, Martha… Gemma. Who knew who else? "But when I met him, he was alone."

"What happened?"

"I got thrown back in time when this guy popped up in my car. I was lost, on my own, and then I met the Doctor… He showed me his ship," she smiled, reminiscing. "We had to find the guy who brought me there, so I could go home, and then there was this sort of circus, but the people who were performing there, they were aliens, captured, forced to do things in there, like circus acts. We helped to free them, brought them back to where they belonged. And then I was sent back and…" she motioned to her chair.

"Woah…" Mercedes was stunned, and she took a gulp of her Slushie, so distracted that the cold went to her brain and she had to pause until it would subside. "Sorry," she laughed.

"You said you met more than one," Quinn smiled.

"Yeah," Mercedes nodded, her thoughts going back to that summer. "It didn't happen right away, and not all at once. I was on my own for a while, but then he came, one of them…" she frowned. Even after all she'd been through, and regardless of the fact that it had been explained to her, more than once, the concept still didn't seem completely sound, that one man could turn into another and still be the same person except not really. Even if he was an alien and it was a relatively 'alien' thing to do, it was still absolutely mind boggling.

As Mercedes would share her story, Quinn would see how much her friend had been eager to speak about this, to her, to anyone, and she knew exactly how that felt. Up until a few days ago, Gemma excluded, she'd been going around with this event that she could tell no one about, and she had felt so much better when she'd gotten to let it out. Was this why Gemma had told her to seek Mercedes out? Because she knew she had this thing in her heart that needed getting out and she wanted to provide that to her? If that was the case, was it possible there were more? As the weeks had gone by, there had been more and more of them, so what were the odds that there would be others?

Then there was the Gemma thing. In telling her to approach Mercedes, she had specified not to tell her about her involvement yet. Quinn knew, from having spoken to Gemma and to the others that the companion/substitute teacher had been getting around, visiting this one and that one in their encounters with the Doctor. So far, Mercedes had not mentioned having seen her while she was out there, but what if she had? Would she ever put two and two together?

For now, all that she could have done was good and dealt with. She had been a willing ear for Mercedes, and she had given her the warnings she needed to give her. Now that it was done, there wasn't much else she could do, was there? Besides, Gemma's current stint at McKinley was a short one and would be done after tomorrow.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)