A/N: This ended up going somewhere different than i intended as i originally had seperate ideas about a Mercedes/Mike scene and a Mercedes/Tina scene but I think i'm quite happy with how it came out.

"A training ground for cruise ship performers belting out Pippin. Really?"

As Mercedes walked out of the classroom where she'd made her plea for votes in the Diva-off, the little voice inside her head that had been telling her she was acting crazy was voiced out loud by Mike. He was waiting for her; leaning against the wall in the hallway, arms crossed over his chest, giving her a reproachful look but still managing to look downright delectable overall.

She scrunched up her face in an apologetic pout that she knew he couldn't resist.

"I know. It's just… there's something about this place that makes me feel like an insecure 15 year old again. It makes me crazy."

Mike's face twinged with sympathy and he pushed himself off the wall.

"There's a janitor's closet right there where we could do some things that affirm the fact you are most definitely not 15 anymore." She punched him on the shoulder and the tight air of her insecurity was broken with a shared chuckle.

She was starting to think it would always feel strange to come back here after everything that had changed.
Before Mercedes got back to Lima, she had been genuinely happy when she heard Rachel got Fanny Brice. Kurt and Santana had told her during one of their weekly post-Scandal-Skype sessions; Rachel hadn't been there because she quote- 'refuses to engage with Shonda Rhimes' brand of emotional terrorism'. Mercedes had squealed with excitement when she'd found out and the noise of her cheering had been loud enough to alarm Mike, causing him to rush in from the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel. The moment he appeared on the camera for Kurt and Santana to see was when she had finally had to tell Kurt about their habitual hooking up and reveal to both of them that with Mike transferring to LA from Boston they were now officially an item.
She had ended up sending Rachel a bunch of flowers, one of the ones with bits of fruit in it, and had got a Thank You note in return that teased about Mike and included the phrase 'climb him like a tree'.
Even after she'd heard about Santana landing the understudy role and the fact that the girls were fighting, Mercedes had figured they'd work it out and still pictured herself making the trip to NYC to cheer on her friends; vaguely preening about the idea of a trivia note on her Wikipedia page saying that she had been a High School friend of Rachel Berry. Their ambitions had never truly overlapped too much and seeing Rachel get her dream role – one Mercedes had no interest in – had cleared up just how silly it had all been. But 24 hours back in Lima and she was stirring up arguments she gave up on long ago.
She was happy. Somehow, in the last few months she had started to get everything she had ever dreamed of. She had everything she needed. She was fulfilled in every area of her life and she was so happy. But this place still made her unsure.

In just the simple act of reflecting on how happy she was, she had migrated into Mike's arms. She looked up at his face and despite the admonishing look that had been there a moment ago, he now looked at her tender and calm. He made her so sure. Didn't make her doubt or feel insecure. And it wasn't even about him. He made her feel like he saw in her what she saw in herself. She was out in the real world now, showing the world the heart of what she had built of herself and he was stood beside her, shining a light on that.

So, whatever had her racing across the choir-room to snag the Rachel Chair she was pretty sure it wasn't really about needing a solo. It was this place. This building where they'd been subjected to 4 years of their own emotional terrorism and it was making her lose her mind.
And it reminded her that she wasn't the only one.

"How worried do we need to be about Quinn?" It had taken one look at the pearls around Quinn's neck for Mercedes to know she was on the edge of going off the deep end. The last time she had seen Quinn, Mercedes had seen someone finding herself; someone more like the girl that Mercedes knew was hiding in there. Today she had seen a miniature Judy Fabray, acting as arm candy to a stiff, and wearing the string of pearls to boot. She just wanted to slap some sense into the girl but she figured that was probably Santana's job.
Mike's dinner with Puck and Santana – some reunion of an old Halo battle team – was the best snooping info Mercedes had to go on.

"Puck swears he has a handle on it." Mike looked like he was trying to sound convincing but his eyebrows were betraying him. She kind of liked that fact that he was a hopeless liar.

"And we're gonna trust him with that?" Mercedes sighed. The best approach she could think of was to let Puck act the fool and then go to Quinn after the fact. Let the really concentrated crazy burn off for a day or two.
Maybe she would invite Quinn to her house for dinner the next night, hopefully without Biff, and leave her Mom to do the grilling. Quinn might be the girl with 100 personalities but every single one of them was slightly terrified of Dinah Carver-Jones.

"How worried do we need to be about Santana?" Mike was the one who had spent the evening with Santana yesterday but Mercedes knew why he was asking for her assessment. The girl was right on the edge of losing it and only a finite number of people knew how to diffuse that situation; Mike had dubbed it her 'Santana-sense' and her senses were definitely a-tingling.

"She's about one weave pack and one more trip down memory lane with Brittany away from tearing the whole choir room down herself with her teeth." She was itching to get all up Santana's business and knock her and Rachel's heads together, even after Kurt had steered her clear, but this time it looked like Brittany was seriously throwing her hat back into the ring. The protective side of Mercedes - the side that had spoken to Dani on the phone and heard the joy seep back into Santana's voice until the Funny Girl thing blew up in everybody's faces - wanted to jump in and ask Santana if it was actually a good idea; but the maturing side of her recognised that someone dating their best friend's ex probably shouldn't probably keep thing to herself.

"Should we just split? Leave 'em all in the dust and head back West?" Mike was teasing but his whole body had been restless since they got here and a heaviness had settled behind his eyes as soon as they touched-down in Ohio. There were a few too many echoes in these halls now. "Santana, Quinn, Puck, Rachel? We'll let them figure it out for themselves." He swayed them from side to side, stepping from foot to foot and pulling her a little tighter. "We can get out of here. Go back to sunshine and the beach and short rib tacos from Kogi."

"Hmmm."

LA was work. There were endless meetings all over SoCal with producers and agents and managers. Mike was always up in NoHo at auditions and training intensives; having something extra prove after deciding to leave the Boston Ballet. They both had classes and assignments and they both took additional skills classes and practices. And beyond that, they were both still trying to find time to perform; she was grabbing every set she could in grimy bars and dim-lit lounges, even when that meant keeping her voice warmed up until 3am; and Mike could spend all day training only to end up itching to go out, too unused to having so many dancing options at his disposal.
So, LA may have been work but their life there was easier and freer.

Mercedes turned her head, closing her eyes and pressing her ear into Mike's chest, listening to his steady heartbeat and imagining they were back on her futon, snatching moments of rest with each other amid the chaos.

She blinked her eyes back open, the streaming Californian sunlight thawing into harsh fluorescent lighting, and right in front of her was a school notice board; littered with tattered flyers for homework clubs and field trip notices and fixed in the corner, a neatly preserved In Memoriam poster of Finn.

The echoes in these hallways.

"No." She straightened up, fixing her spine and calming her busy mind. "I'm going to talk to Rachel and we're going to help our friends, best we can. The tacos can wait."

He'd followed her stare to the notice board and when he looked back at her the heaviness was still behind his eyes but his face was warm and open.

"You were great up there." He was using this quiet and serious tone he sometimes got when he was talking about her singing, the tone that made her tingle up to her fingertips.

"Oh yeah? I got your vote?"

"Well…"

Mercedes swatted at him in protest and he wiggled his eyebrows, moving his hands down her sides, heading for her most ticklish area. Laughter was already rumbling up from her belly when-

"Oh, sorry."

Tina rounded the corner and her face spasmed between embarrassment and her own amusement. Mercedes then sprang away from Mike and that somehow made it even more awkward.
Mike's body was loose beside her, obviously confident in their new understanding with Tina but Mercedes tucked her lips into her mouth, still terrified that this was going to come crashing down around her ears.

To her credit, Tina settled her face quickly. "Relax guys, I know you're together, remember?" But knowing and seeing are two different things –"Besides, Artie and Kitty have desensitised me to PDA at this point. I really have no reason to object… Especially now." Then Tina twisted her fingers together, just once, but Mercedes felt the current of something straight away.

"What does that mean? Especially now?" A brush was creeping up Tina's neck and she had an impish look on her face. She looked at Mercedes and then her eyes quickly flicked over to Mike. Mercedes kept her eyes on Tina as she tried to follow along. "Mike, go and find Puck."

"What? I don't even know if he's here." Mike sounded completely confused.

"Then go and find Baby Puck and impart dancer knowledge on him." She spun her head to look at him this time. Widening her eyes at him to let him know that it wasn't a suggestion. Mike bobbed his head backwards. She suspected it meant that he was going to bring up the janitor's closet again thanks to her tone and couldn't help but smirk slightly as she dismissed him again. "Go on, get."

Mike got in one finger poke to the ticklish spot he'd been aiming for earlier and Mercedes tried to disguise a squirmy shiver as he floated off down the hall. Mercedes didn't pause though, as she grabbed Tina's arm and pulled her to stand against the wall, lowering her voice even though the hallway was empty. "Ok, spill. What do you mean 'especially now'?"

"I just mean, that we're even now." Mercedes could feel a quickly thrumming pulse where she was holding Tina's wrist but she also had a cocky angle to her neck. Mercedes raised her eyebrows, asking for an explanation. "I kind of…sleptwithSam."

"What?" Mercedes felt her mouth hang open.

Tina's pulse jumped and there was a flash of worry on her face but Mercedes mustn't have looked too horrified as Tina continued to stare her down.

"We did this senior lock-in thing and we ended up making out. Blaine broke it up but then I was the last one Sam dropped home in his truck and…."

"Tina!" She snorted and dropped Tina's arm. Mercedes was scandalised to say the least, but she was happy to find that she was buzzing with the energy of gossip and intrigue and there wasn't an actual moment of jealousy or hurt.

"What? I was emotional about graduation and he's a really good kisser." Tina rolled her eyes and twisted her lips as she added, "Though the preview was better than the show." The laughter that never escaped from her tickling earlier burst out of Mercedes as she nearly doubled over. "I'm serious! You experienced those two bozos in the right order, Mercy!" She tried to make her face serious but only succeeded in making Tina laughing herself.

"Can we just please agree to not share any more men? Ev-er." Tina smiled her chipmunk smile, all teeth and cheeks.

"That's fine. I'm planning to do a sample survey when I get to college anyway."

Mercedes toes barely felt tethered to the ground as she was filled up with love and tenderness and a kind of giddy happiness. Not really an expected reaction to your best friend and ex-boyfriend sleeping together but she could feel a bruised part of her friendship with Tina finally blooming back to life. There were so many good echoes here too.

"But I do call all the guys on the East Coast. I don't know if I'm going to be in Rhode Island or New York yet."

"No word from Brown?" A tight-lipped shake of her head had Mercedes pulling Tina into a slack sideways hug. "I know it's on its way."

Behind Tina she could still see the poster of Finn, smiling out at them. Too late for second guessing. Too late to go back to sleep "I can just feel it."