The Rainbow Castle

A/N: So I wrote this back in 2006, way before Glee existed. Some of my readers have been asking to read some "old school" Lily fics, so I thought I could convert this for you all. It's very AU, but I like the concept and the style is a bit different than usual. FYI Artie is not in a wheelchair. I hope you enjoy, and if you do, please review!

Artie was a simple man. He worked as a tax code editor. He rose at six and drove his Honda Civic to work after a breakfast of oatmeal. He ate a bologna sandwich at the same corner deli at 12:30 every day. He left work at 5 pm on the dot. On Mondays he would stop at the market to buy more oatmeal and dinner for the coming week. He called his mother every Thursday. He was asleep by 11 every night. He never broke his routine and that pleased him very much.

The large shed in the backyard of Artie's house was unassuming, but did look a bit odd when given more than a passing glance. The outside was wood, but through the single window you could see the inside of the shed was coated in metal. It had one large door with a freezer latch on it. Outside the shed was a generator and a heap of metal casts of various shapes and sizes. There were round casts and square casts and just about every other shape you could think of, scattered haphazardly across the backyard. It would have looked forgotten if the casts didn't seem to rearrange themselves every few weeks.

Artie always started with the purest water. He would pour it into a cast and freeze it slowly, because it didn't matter how pure the water was if you didn't freeze it right. For the big statues, he started at thirty-three degrees, and took the temperature down one degree every five hours. It took days, sometimes a week, depending on how big the block was. If he had simply stuck the ice in a freezer, beginning at zero degrees, the ice would have turned white, ruining the crystalline effect of his final product. He never seemed to mind waiting days for his ice to freeze. When the ice was frozen solid, his real joy in art began.

Quinn was a beautiful woman with long blonde hair she usually fastened in a loose braid behind her. Artie would stand at his kitchen sink and gaze through the window into her living room. Some nights she would play the piano, and Artie could hear it tinkling through the walls between them, although he couldn't see her. It was sad and melodic and made Artie want to weep. When she was not playing music, she was spent most nights in her stuffed armchair reading or having tea with a friend. In the winter she would light a fire in the fireplace, and in the summer she would drink lemonade. Artie never stared into her house for too long, because he felt there was something sacred about Quinn that best be left undisturbed. She was not the object of sexual fantasy, rather a muse he silently consulted before beginning his work.

Artie knew Quinn worked at the library in the children's section. In the first week he had lived in his house, he found her ID tag in the snow on the sidewalk between their houses. He had rung the doorbell and when she answered, simply offered her ID tag back to her. She smiled and thanked him. He looked at the ground, muttered a string of words that puffed out around him in the icy air and shuffled back to his house.

That was the night Artie made his first ice sculpture. He found a small block of ice that had formed in a bucket in his backyard. He slid the ice out of the bucket by running the metal under hot water in his sink. He used a hammer, a chisel and a book of matches carve out a heart the size of a tea saucer. It wasn't smooth or clear or perfect; one side of the heart was slightly bigger than the other. His hands were red and stung by the time he finished. He took the ice heart into the kitchen, and holding it in both hands, held it under the faucet until it had melted completely.

The next day, Artie went in search of information. For the first time, he took a different route home from his job as a tax code editor, stopping by the local bookstore. He found a book in the back corner titled Ice Carving Made Easy and read it from cover to cover that night. The next day he set a few buckets of water out in his backyard overnight so they would freeze. Every night after work he worked on his sculptures until he could carve the most exquisite forms. He bought equipment to make his creations less choppy. He learned how to make his ice crystal clear. And all the while he thought of Quinn.

For Valentine's Day, Artie made an intricately carved vase of ice. In it he placed a single pink rose. He saw her through the window, sitting by the fire reading as usual. He walked hesitantly over to Quinn's house. He placed the vase on the snow-covered doorstep and held his finger up near the bell. It felt like a full minute passed before he had the courage to ring the bell. As soon as he did, he turned and walked quickly back to his house. Quinn opened the door, gathering a blanket around her shoulders. She smiled as she bent down to pick up the vase. There was no note attached other than the footprints leading to Artie's house.

In March Artie transformed his shed into a huge walk-in freezer so he could continue sculpting in the warmer months. He collected casts to make larger pieces. He made an ice swan and left it on Quinn's lawn when the snow finally melted. The next morning, although the swan's feathers had lost their definition to the first warmth of morning, there were breadcrumbs scattered on the lawn around the swan.

In April, Artie carved a small piano just the size of a dinner plate and left it on Quinn's doorstep. Moments after returning to his house, he heard Quinn begin to play. His cheeks flushed and he sat at his kitchen table, mesmerized by the sound.

Every month Artie made something new for Quinn: an ice bowl of watermelon on a warm summer evening, and an ice pumpkin in the fall. Quinn always found a way to subtly acknowledge his gifts.

When January came, Artie didn't know what to make for Quinn. So her doorstep was empty, and Artie heard no music coming from her house. He sat at his kitchen table, frustrated, not knowing what to do next. He got up to pour himself a glass of milk. And there, with the milk carton in his hand, he knew.

Artie bought brick moulds. Dozens upon dozens of them. To each mould he added food coloring, making rosy pink ice, or pale green ice, or sky blue ice. He made every color of the rainbow. He slowly froze the water to make perfect blocks of ice. And finally, by mid-February, he had enough.

As soon as Quinn's lights were turned off for the night, he began unloading his shed. He took all the blocks of ice out to the front yard. From there, he began to build a castle on Quinn's lawn. He scraped the bottom and top edges of each ice block with an pick to rough them so they would not slip. Then he pressed a layer of snow on top to solder it before adding another brick above. He slowly worked his way up, building a small house of ice in every color. He made one simple door and no windows; it didn't need any windows, for the ice was perfectly clear. He slowly curved the ice up to form a rounded ceiling above him. By the time he finished, it was three in the morning.

He woke at six as usual and put on his winter coat. He went outside and prepared to wait. But no sooner was he standing beside the castle then Quinn came out, bundled up, carrying a blanket and a tray of cinnamon rolls and steaming hot chocolate. She paused, smiled, and continued walking towards Artie. He did not know whether to smile or say hello or wave; some part of him certainly wanted to walk away. But she kept her smile fixed on him. She entered the ice castle and spread the blanket on the ground. Artie looked at her, unsure of what to do. She handed him a mug of cocoa.

"Are you going to join me?" she asked softly.

Artie took the mug and slowly sat down.