A/N: Well, that's it! I think this is the first time I ever completed a story. Ever. To say I'm excited would be a massive understatement. Mostly I'm really looking forward to hearing what you all think! And if you liked this and want more of the same in the very near future keep an eye on my author's page. The second story in the series is already written and I'll probably start posting it up on the site in a week or two.

I'm always looking for ways to improve, and to make my Doctor more Doctorey and my Quinn more Quinn-like, so if you have any feedback, either positive or negative, I'm all ears! Otherwise, I hope to see a lot of you for the next installment! Allons-y!

Finn, Quinn, Kurt, Mercedes, Tina, Artie, and Rachel stared, dumbfounded, at the alcove the Korosis had occupied only a moment before.

"Where'd it go?"' Finn asked. "Did it make it through?"

"It's gone," the Doctor said. "Absorbed into the Time Vortex when you lot disrupted it's harmonic phase regulator. Good thinking on that, by the way, Rachel. Without any kind of stabilizing effect, anything in there would be cut to ribbons."

"But those things we saw..." Rachel said. "You said the Korosis was trying to go back in time. That was our past we saw, wasn't it, Doctor?"

"Yes. It was." He sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Why're you sorry?" Mercedes asked.

"Because we're... we're dead," Kurt said. "Thats it, isn't it? We're dead."

"No, but," Mercedes said. "I mean, we can't..."

"We saw it happen, Mercedes!"

"Right before our eyes," Artie said.

"I... don't remember it," Tina said. "How can that be? If that was us, if the Korosis changed the past, then... how can we still be here?"

"The Korosis' machine used your harmonic resonance to force open the time vortex from here, but it used your voices from the past to do it. Using the past to shape the future - which is the way it's supposed to work - but then subsequently using the present to alter the past. It's a sort of predestination p-... p-..." The Doctor fumbled with the "p" sound on his lips a few times.

"Paradox?" Quinn offered.

"Pretzel." the Doctor finished. "A big temporal pretzel folding in on itself."

"A pretzel?" she asked. "Thats the highly scientific analogy?"

"Well, a more apt analogy is a möbius strip where any entity on the time stream can loop back in on itself without crossing its own path, but it's not got the same impact. Plus I'm tired of saying 'timey-wimey'."

"You were saying?" Rachel asked, getting annoyed.

"Ah, right! So, the Korosis displaced you all into the time vortex, Poof! Completely atomized. It'll take a minute for the strands to sort themselves out, but eventually..." He trailed off.

"We... we all..." Quinn sputtered, holding her stomach.

"You'll be fine. The Korosis didn't get you - you weren't singing. Just the rest of you."

She turned to face them, making eye contact with each one, then turned back to the Doctor. "You can't let this happen!"

"I can't help them. They've been pushed into the vortex, all their potential energy used to tune the harmonic phase regulator."

Quinn looked at it. "Then reverse it, or turn it off, or..."

"I can't. Won't help. You can't turn off the gas today to stop yesterday's fire. Damage done, it's just their bodies are too stupid to have caught up to the effect. Er, no offense. Unless..." His eye lit up and he got a faraway look. "Unless, unless... Oh yes!"

"You can do it?" Quinn said.

He fixed her with a hard gaze. "There could be... consequences."

She took a deep breath, then nodded. "It's okay. Whatever it takes to save them."

"In that case... they're in the vortex now. But everything in the time vortex wants to flow one way - towards the future. It takes tremendous power to move the other way, to fight your way upstream. That means that those scattered out bits are still there, and they're heading this way."

"Meaning?" Artie prompted.

"Meaning we - meaning you all - have a shot! Come on!" he called, grabbing the Korosis device and running into the TARDIS, where he attached leads from the regulator to the center console and buzzed over everything with the sonic screwdriver. He twisted knobs and pulled levers, and when he was done he pulled one big switch. The column started moving, accompanied by a grinding sound, but the ship didn't shake as if it were moving. Kurt looked out the still-open door. They were still in the basement. "Cause it just so happens you know someone with the power to go against the flow of the rapids in the time stream - Me! And if I can navigate the waters, maybe I can pull a few survivors out! Rachel!" the Doctor called out, smacking the regulator and making it glow an eerie green. "G sharp! I need a G sharp!"

Rachel obliged; she let out a long note, and seconds later something formed in front of her. A blue spectre that formed a human figure. It turned out to be... herself. Blue and transparent but definitely Rachel in a T-shirt and jeans.

"C'mon everyone! Same note!" the Doctor said, but he subtly placed a hand on Quinn's shoulder and squeezed. When she looked up at him he shook his head.

Everyone else was having a similar experience to Rachel. Mirror images of each member of the glee club except Quinn were staring at their counterparts, and as each finished their notes, the blue forms seemed to merge with them. Each found themselves in the red T-shirt and jeans, rather than what they had been wearing before.

"Aha! That's done it! You're ready!"

"For what?" Finn asked.

"You're merged with your past selves that were pulled out of your time streams. Which means I can put you back!" he pulled another few switches and the column started moving again, this time driving the TARDIS back through the vortex.

"I'm lost," Artie said. "What's happening?"

"I'm injecting you back into your own time stream, something that would be against the laws of time if it wasn't just to keep a paradox from forming. But think of this more as... well, replacing you, I suppose. Restoring you with your exact selves." The TARDIS stopped lurching and with a thump, it had stopped moving. "Now, come on you lot. Back out there. Next number's starting up. Because there's a catch to all this."

"What?" Tina asked.

"You have to re-live these last few months over again, exactly as you did the first time. It's got to be as close as possible to the first time through the loop, have you got that?" Everyone nodded. "Good. Because even the slightest changes can ruin this world. You mustn't change a thing so far as you can help it, or it could wound time itself. And make no mistake... if that happens life on Earth perishes. All of it."

"Seems dangerous," Artie said.

"It is. So don't screw up. I'm not saying the world is going to end it you don't have the same breakfast a week from Thursday that you did the first time around, but no using your foreknowledge to alter time. No telling Will not to sleep on the mattress, or stopping Quinn and Puck from getting together that night. No staking out Sue to catch her handing over the set list. Nothing like that at all. Everyone understand?"

Rachel looked at the Doctor. "Why are you doing this? I mean, if this is bending the laws of time... why us? Not that I'm not grateful to be alive but..."

"Because sometimes I get to decide who lives and who dies," the Doctor said, then busied himself with the console, avoiding Rachel's gaze.

"I thought that maybe... maybe we had something," Rachel said to him.

He sighed inwardly. Will's story about Suzie Pepper was still fresh in his mind. He had to say something to her, something to make her understand. He looked right at her, gazing deep into her eyes.

"You know that I'm not really the one you're looking for," he said. "You wouldn't have told Finn about Puck and Quinn otherwise."

She turned away and leaned on the console. "Maybe not, but if I knew, really knew that someone else was carrying a torch for me..."

"I've been thinking, and it all adds up to one thing: you're staying here and going to Broadway where you belong."

"But..."

"Now, you've got to listen to me! You have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we'd both wind up in a Sontaran prison camp. If you pass this opportunity up you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."

"But what about us?"

"We'll always have Endless Love."

She nodded. "Goodbye, Doctor,"

"Goodbye, Rachel." She walked out of the TARDIS.

Kurt sidled up to the Doctor. "Casablanca?"

"MmHm."

"Classic romance. You know Ms. Berry well. A musical would have been better but, well done nonetheless."

He nodded absentmindedly, but he was listening in on Finn and Quinn now. They were sharing a moment by the railing to his left.

Finn looked at Quinn. "This isn't fair," he said.

"I know."

"I'm not sure I can go back to pretending that... you know," he said, pointing at her stomach.

"I'm so sorry I lied to you, Finn."

"I'm not sure I'm ready to forgive you. I don't know if I ever will. And I'm not sure I can play the role over again."

"You have to," the Doctor said. He looked completely serious, all his manic energy gone. "You have to do everything you did the first time, exactly the same, as much as you can. Otherwise, it'll put a hole in the universe. And trust me, you don't wanna see a wound in time get cleaned up." He looked Finn right in the eyes. "Promise me."

Finn swallowed hard, then nodded. "I promise." He held Quinn's hand. "If it's that important, we can do this. Together." She didn't return his smile, and pulled her hand away gently.

The Doctor smiled and walloped him on the back. "Good lad! Now come on, off you go! All of you!" They filed out and assumed positions backstage, ready to jump in seamlessly when the time came.

Quinn was the last one to head down the ramp, and the Doctor called to her. "Uh, Quinn? Have a moment?"

She stopped and turned to face him at the console. Finn turned too, his expression clearly readable - 'You coming?' his eyes asked somewhat impatiently. "Yeah," Quinn said, her voice cracking, because she had a feeling she knew what he was going to say.

"I can't let you go back," the Doctor said.

"What?" Finn said, narrowing his eyes at the Time Lord. "What do you mean she can't come back?"

"Don't you get it Finn?" she asked, tearing up. "The Doctor just said you have to blend in. Nobody can know you're reliving the next few months or it creates a paradox."

"So? If I'm smart enough to do it, you are."

"It's not about that. I'm... I can't blend in like this."

"Like... Oh. Oh no."

He looked right into her eyes as she tried not to weep. "It's OK," she said, putting on a brave face. "Now I don't have to watch my parents kick me out again. I barely got through it the first time."

Finn looked at the Doctor. "But... won't it create problems if she's missing? Gone without a trace?"

"She's not," the Doctor said. "Korosis didn't get her. She's still out there, safe and sound." He inclined his head. Sure enough, up above in the shadows Sue Sylvester's frozen form watched, with Quinn at her side.

"What happens now?" Finn asked.

"You occupy a redundant timeline. Just keep up the act until you get back to this afternoon. Then from there, you go on your merry way. No Korosis, no time paradoxes. Just you living your lives."

Finn nodded. He turned, took a step away, and turned back. "I..."

She shook her head, the tears flowing now. "Don't," she said. "Just don't."

"Will I... ever see you again?"

She nodded at her doppelgänger up in the balcony. "Yeah. In a minute."

He nodded again. "See you in a minute," he said. He looked as if he wanted to say something else, but couldn't find the words.

"Yeah. In a minute. Take care of yourself," she said. The Doctor had come up behind her, and he closed the door to the TARDIS. "And... take care of me," she whispered.

The Doctor was back at the console. "Now, just a few quick adjustments, aaaaaaand..." The machine groaned once more, and the Doctor turned on the scanner, watching the view outside.

For a smile they can share the night, it goes on and on and on and on...

"Aha! There's the song I've been waiting for! Months I've been waiting!"

Strangers waiting

"So now what?"

"Your choice," he said. "I can find you somewhere to put down roots. Somewhere out of the way, nice and quiet."

Up and down the boulevard, they're shadows, searching in the night.

"Or?"

"Or, you could... well, you could come with me."

Streetlight people

"With you?"

"Yes."

"The last Gallifreylian?"

He smiled. "Time Lord."

Living just to find emotion

"Doing this kind of thing, day in and day out?"

"Yeah." he smiled a goofy grin. "The whole of time and space, just waiting."

Hiding

"In, uh... my condition?"

"Well... we could always take it a bit easy to start out with."

Somewhere in the night! Working hard to get my fill...

"What happens to her? I mean, to me? Er..."

Everybody wants a thrill,

"She goes on as normal. Same old life, until this afternoon, and then everyone else blends in and it's just... life as usual."

Payin' anything to roll the dice just one more time.

"So she'll go on with my life. She'll never meet you?"

"No."

Some will win

"Can I ever go back?"

"You can't risk crossing your own time stream, not with time as weak and stretched as it is right here."

Some will lose. Some are born to sing the blues

She suppressed a sob as best she could, then said, "So. Someplace easy, then."

Oh the movie never ends it goes on and on and on and on...

He smiled. "Quinn Fabray. The girl who lost everything. You need a chance to relax. How about some live music?"

Don't stop believin'. Hold on to that feeling. Streetlight people.

The TARDIS made it's wheezing sound once more and faded away from the back of the auditorium.

Don't stop...

A/N: The Doctor and Quinn will return in The Harvesting Darkness