"The Mistaken M. Jones"

25. Denial, Denial

March 2012 – Lima, Ohio

Santana didn't know what it was about this whole thing that bothered her so much. Even by her standards, it did feel sort of off balance, but she couldn't help herself. This fake substitute situation was becoming a bit of an obsession for her. She hated not knowing, and the longer it stretched on, the bigger the danger felt, even if they didn't know exactly what it was.

Everything had worked itself out in the end with her and Brittany, she knew, but before it had, there had been this period where they really didn't know that things would be better. For a while, all she knew was that Brittany had been made a prisoner, and that this man Benedict was likely running science experiments on her. Then she'd been a cat, and it remained one of the strangest images she had seared into her memories. But the Doctor had been there, everything had been sorted out… Slowly but surely, the cat features had given way for those of the girl who'd become her best friends.

For days after they'd returned home, Santana had been dedicated to Brittany, making sure she was alright. Even though she looked completely restored, she couldn't shake the thought that maybe her symptoms would reassert themselves and get worse, and then there would be no one to fix her, so she would become more and more of a cat, until there was nothing human left in her.

Maybe, if she was completely honest with herself, that was what drove her. The feelings she'd had for Brittany when this had all begun had been one thing, but compared to what she felt for her now, it was nothing. Now, as much as she had enjoyed herself, seeing the future, and aliens, and all of that… All she could imagine was that they would get pulled into some other grand old adventure, and they wouldn't get through it, one of them, both of them…

And they had to know, didn't they? The Doctor, Gemma the fake sub… They were smart people. Well, she knew the Doctor was smart, and she guessed as far as Gemma… They had to realize that some of them would start piecing it all together, start asking themselves some questions. And all this time, Gemma was there, in their school, their classes, and she was pretending to be someone else, as though it wouldn't be driving them crazy. It just made her want to go up to her and say 'give it up already, we know who you are.' Artie didn't want them to, no. According to him, they had to stay away, and on the one hand she could see his point. But on the other hand, she thought he was being a complete idiot. Then there was the Quinn thing. Something about it just didn't measure up. She was missing something, she knew. There was something about how she was around Gemma. Were they working together? That was really the only possibility, wasn't it?

"Santana?"

She turned at the sound of her voice and found herself standing a few feet from Quinn in her wheelchair.

"Do you mind just…" Quinn pointed to the classroom door next to her and Santana saw the end of a textbook poking out. "It got away from me," Quinn explained awkwardly. Santana went and pulled the textbook from under the door, stood back up, then paused.

"Want it back, follow me," she started down the hall.

"Seriously, we're playing that game now?" Quinn had no choice but roll after her, and Santana wondered if she had any aspirations of speeding along and running her over. But she just followed, and they went together into an empty classroom.

"We need to have ourselves a serious girl on girl talk, Fabray."

"I thought girl on girl was your department," Quinn fixed her with a smirk.

"Hilarious," Santana rolled her eyes.

"Too easy," Quinn shrugged.

"What are you up to with the sub?"

"The sub?" Quinn frowned, clueless.

"Miss Harrison, according to her. I saw you two talking the other day, and…"

"What, I'm not allowed to talk to teachers all of a sudden?" Quinn asked.

"You know exactly what I mean. There's a difference between asking for help on an assignment, or giving a fake excuse to get out of something, and definitely what you were going on about." Quinn kept staring at her. Others might have fallen for her bait more easily. Others weren't Quinn Fabray.

"Which was what?" she asked, which was as good as saying 'I know you have nothing, so if you think you do, then you're going to have to lay it out, because I won't.' It was all in the eyebrow.

"You're spying on us for her," Santana leaned in, planting her hands on the chair's armrests. Quinn smirked.

"Aren't spies supposed to be, you know, able to hide? This thing squeaks, I'm not sneaking up on anyone."

"There is such a thing as hiding in plain sight," Santana turned it back on her.

"And what would I have to gain exactly?"

"Everyone has their price. Just because I don't know what yours is, at least for something like this, doesn't make it any less true. So come on, Fabray, cough it up."

"Don't you have Mrs. Carter next period? I thought she said if you showed up late one more time she'd put you in detention for a month or something." Santana glared at her; she was going to need more than this to break her and, unfortunately, she wasn't wrong. With a frown, she handed the textbook back, and she walked out of the room. She wasn't going to ridicule herself by pulling some kind of 'we're not done yet' parting line.

But they weren't done yet, that much she believed. She might not have gotten through Quinn that time, but she was going to figure out what was going on. Just because she had promised she wouldn't go near Gemma, it didn't mean there weren't other ways for her to get what she wanted. There were so many ways, and she was only getting started.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)