"The Mistaken M. Jones"
31. With Eyes Wide Open
March 2012 – Lima, Ohio
Her grandmother used to tell her never to stick her ear against the door unless she was prepared to have it smack her in the face. She'd never believed as much as she did on this day. She hadn't planned to eavesdrop, but as she'd walked past, she noticed Puck and Artie, and then she'd heard Artie say something that caught her attention.
"You broke into her office to get Gemma's address?"
After that, she'd stayed out of the way, as much as could be managed, but she had kept on listening. She didn't know why, but it felt like she should be listening, so she did.
It didn't take her really all that long to clue in to what was really going on, though that was in great parts thanks to her conversation with Quinn a few days before. Because of that conversation she knew that there were others around her who had met the Doctor, too, and though neither of those boys had actually said the name, she only needed to take what had been said in order to understand. Artie, and Puck… They'd met him, too. It made her want to go to them, but then she remembered what Quinn had told her, about what her 'friend with the sunglasses' had instructed her to do: she couldn't go to them, couldn't let them know what she knew, not yet.
She was still thinking about all of this when she walked into Miss Harrison's class. She sat in her seat, took out her things in order to present herself as attentive, but really she knew there was no way it would happen. Her head was too fixated on what she'd heard, and something else, too, something that was bugging her for reasons unknown. What was it that was so important for her to figure out? Her mind was miles and miles away, her eyes trailing along after the substitute like a pair of dutiful servants.
Your friend with the sunglasses…
She actually jumped in her seat, and if the desk hadn't stopped her, she might have tipped right over. Her pen had clattered to the ground in the aisle, and the girl in the next aisle bent over and picked it up, handing it back. Mercedes gave her a quiet thanks, looked at the pencil… She had to see if she was right. She kept the pencil at the ready, and when Miss Harrison turned to face them, she lifted the pencil, as casually as she could, up to where from Mercedes' perspective it would obscure the teacher's eyes, leaving the rest of her to look at and pretend as though she was actually wearing…
It was her. She was positive now. That was the woman who'd come to her, the one with the sunglasses, and the one who'd helped her and the Doctor and Clara to break Merit out of prison. She was… Who was she? What had Puck and Artie been saying about someone being here, at McKinley? They'd called her Gemma, said that she was here to do something and they didn't know what. What was she going to do? Was she an alien? Was she going to hurt them? Help them?
The rest of the period was a blur, but as soon as it was done, Mercedes had taken her things and she'd hurried out of class, looking for Quinn.
She found her at her locker. "I need to talk to you," she said, just nearly lacking in breath.
"What happened?" Quinn asked, sensing things had changed.
"Artie… Puck… They're two of the ones you were talking about, aren't they?"
"Mercedes…" Quinn tried to silence her, but the best she would get was that she'd try and lower her voice, because this was too much and she needed to know.
"You said 'my friend with the sunglasses.' That was Miss Harrison, wasn't it? But Artie and Puck, they called her Gemma."
"Alright, slow down," Quinn wished very much she could be standing on her own two feet at that moment, and it wouldn't even have been for the sake of having legs that worked, it would have been to make Mercedes stop talking.
"They said things about her, they said she was here to do something. Who is she? What is she? Is she an alien or…"
"She's human, okay?" Quinn cut her off, hands up so she would stop talking. "She's a companion of the Doctor, not any of the ones you met but the one after, the Twelfth. For some reason, she's here, and we don't know what it is, but it is to help the Doctor, got it? She's one of the good guys, so just…"
"Are you sure?" Mercedes asked.
"Very sure," Quinn promised. "Look, the day I had my accident, the Doctor sent her to stand by the road so that she could call for help, make sure I'd be taken care of in time. After that she came to me, she told me who she was, and she asked me to help her. I had to let the others know that I'd met the Doctor, without them knowing I'd talked to her, and then she told me to go and talk to you. That was all. She is with us. But you can't tell anyone, and you can't tell her you know either, alright?"
Mercedes bowed her head, finally nodding. She soon went on her way, and Quinn finished getting what she'd needed from her locker and started on her way toward her next class. She'd barely rolled inches though that someone came and stopped in front of her, blocking her path and forcing her to stop.
"Hey, Quinn," Santana was looking down at her with a triumphant smile.
"What do you want, Santana?" Quinn frowned, trying to get around her.
"Oh, I just wanted to tell you something, and please, just stay where you are right now because I'm going to enjoy this," she leaned in to look her in the eye. "Gotcha."
TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)