Quartie Ever After

By Wilde Abrams

Rating: T

Characters: Quinn, Artie, Shelby C, Beth C, Mercedes, Brittany, Santana

Pairings: Quartie, mentions of past Quick, Tartie, Tike, and Kartie/Wildebrams

Summary: Following the high school graduation of her biological daughter Beth, Quinn Fabray approaches her best friend Artie Abrams with an unusual request. (Future Fic c. 2029)

Author's Notes: In commemoration of the two year anniversary of the publication of my first Glee story, I present to you something new and different. I know this is something kinda different than you'd expect from me, but inspiration struck. Wildebrams is my OTP, but I also like Quartie. Glee didn't give us either endgame, but it's fun to read and write about.

This story is an alternative time line from my other stories and assumes everything that happened on the show though Dreams Come True is cannon. It also accepts the events in Artie and Quinn's friendship described in my stand-alone story Quartie Headcannon.

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Chapter 1: Regrets

By Wilde Abrams

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Quinn Fabray sat in the auditorium of Professional Performing Arts High School in New York as the daughter she had given birth to and given up for adoption walked across the stage at her high school graduation to receive her diploma.

Quinn had read online that PPAHS had been the Alma Mater of many students who later went on to become famous performers, including Alicia Keys, Max Ehrick and Britney Spears. It was no wonder that Beth's adoptive mother had chosen this school to send her daughter to.

On Quinn's left sat Shelby Corcoran, the women who had adopted Beth, and the only mother that the girl had known for most of her life, until only a few years ago. As frustrating as it had been for Quinn, not having her daughter in her life, this had been Quinn's own fault, and she had no one to blame but herself. Shelby had agreed to an open adoption, and had returned to Lima only about a year after Beth's adoption to give Quinn, and Noah Puckerman, Beth's biological father, the chance to be a part of her life, as well as try to reconnect with her own biological daughter, Quinn and Puck's classmate, Rachel Berry.

Unfortunately, both Quinn and Puck had betrayed her trust: Quinn had tried to paint Shelby as a bad mother to social services in an attempt to get custody back, and Puck had seduced Shelby in an attempt to get closer to Beth once he determined that Quinn was - in his words - "bat-shit crazy". In retrospect she had to admit that he'd had a point, but that didn't make the memory hurt any less.

At the time, Quinn had been going through a hard time in her life because of her continued tendency to measure her self worth by her relationships with the men in her life: her father, Finn, Puck, Finn again, Sam, Finn again, and Puck again. Over the summer between junior and senior years, after a sudden and final breakup with Finn, who once again chose Rachel Berry over her, Quinn had dyed her hair pink, started hanging out with the schools "girl gang" The Skanks, dating a much older man, and gotten a "tramp stamp" tattoo of Ryan Seacrest. When fall arrived, she hadn't come back to the Cheerios or the glee club.

But when Shelby had showed up at at McKinley one day, Puck had approached her and over the period of several days convinced her that the four of them had a chance to be a real family. She dyed her hair back to blonde, and the two of them had worked themselves into Shelby's good graces by babysitting and helping out with other things.

Quinn thought that Puck had really wanted to be with her, but when Quinn revealed her true intentions to win back custody, Puck had angrily revealed "I don't care about you, I care about her (Beth)!" In retrospect she didn't blame him, but the memory of that day still stung.

She later found out that he had been pretending to be going along with Quinn's plan, but secretly sabotaging it. Shortly thereafter he revealed that he'd been working on his own plan to get close to his daughter, and been sleeping with Shelby.

Quinn lashed out and planned to report Shelby for their inappropriate relationship, thus get her fired and possibly arrested, but Rachel Berry of all people convinced her not to, and for that she was infinitely grateful. It would have mostly hurt her daughter the most; as Shelby was getting out of teaching anyway, and had no intention of maintaining a relationship with Puck.

The consequences of their actions were that neither of them were allowed to see their daughter anymore. Quinn had been torturing herself ever since giving up Beth, and being completely cut off from her daughter again, after the brief reconnection, had torn her up inside. But, it had also sparked her to better herself, and launched her on the path to Yale and a successful future. So, in retrospect, it wasn't all bad.

This banishment from her daughter's life lasted about ten years, until Shelby finally reached out to Quinn when Beth began asking questions about her biological parents in middle school. Unfortunately, by this time Quinn and Puck were no longer speaking to each other, and he was in prison, so Quinn was the only parent to reconnect with the young girl.

During the years between, Quinn had graduated high school and moved onto college at Yale University where she proceeded to make the same mistakes with guys she had in high school. Within her first month she'd begun 'dating' one of her married professors, who had promised to leave his wife for her, but of course never did.

It was a Christmas visit from her friend Artie, where he told her about a very unusual dream he'd had, that had prompted her to end things with the professor. Artie had fallen down and out of his wheelchair while going up one of the accessibility ramps at school. The janitor had neglected to put salt on the ramp, and Artie did not have chains on his wheelchair. Quinn remembered the ramp he told her about from the several months when she had been confined to a wheelchair herself after her car accident senior year. She'd had difficulty with it in the spring. She could only imagine what it must have been like in the winter. He had slid backwards and sideways, and fallen completely out of his chair and been forced to lay there helplessly until some freshmen girls had happened along and helped him back up.

Their friend Finn Hudson had seen Artie with scrapes on his forehead and arms, and taken him to the nurse's office to get checked out, and the nurse had given him permission to go home for the day. While there, waiting for his mom to pick him up, he had vented to Finn about how frustrating it was being confined to a wheelchair, and wished that he had not been in his accident.

While he was laying there waiting for his mom to pick him up, Artie had fallen asleep and had a very realistic dream where Rory Flanagan, who had been a foreign exchange student during Quinn's senior year, had been his Guardian Angel and showed him what it would have been like if he had never been in his accident. In the dream Artie was a jock, and he, along with Finn and Puck had been bullies; Glee Club had never been restarted by Mr. Schue, who had become an alcoholic and still been married to that shrue of a woman Terri; and the most tragic at all, Quinn had still texted and driven that day, only this time Artie wasn't around to help motivate her to recover, and sadly Quinn herself had died of a broken heart.

As Artie described the dream she could tell how realistic it had been for him, and both of them were physically moved to tears. Quinn broke down and told Artie how her life had been going. Artie, the one person in Glee who had always genuinely missed her when she was gone and had always encouraged her, reminded her that she had more worth than to be the object if someone else's selfish needs.

That had given Quinn the drive to end the relationship, such as it was, when she returned to college after Christmas Break; and for a while Quinn focused on herself and her studies.

Unfortunately she still hadn't completely learned her lesson, and by spring she'd begun dating a man who was the epitome of privilege, Biff Mcintosh - heir to the Mcintosh Apple fortune. Once again she had convinced herself that if she managed to hook herself up to him, he would bring her into his world and she would have a happy future, such as had happened with her mother. But Biff had never really loved her for who she was. Surprisingly it was Puck who showed her how wrong for her that he was when they had all come back to say goodbye to the glee club when it was canceled the following spring.

It became clear that Puck had set his sights on her again, and he seemed to have matured since joining the Air Force after Finn's death, so she decided to give him yet another chance, and the two of them had decided to give their relationship a go again after that.

They lasted for just over a year before it became apparent that he hadn't really changed, and that they would never work long-term. It had really only lasted that long because they rarely saw each other on account of he being in the Air Force stationed in Texas, and she being in college in New England.

The final nail in the coffin of their relationship was when Puck had gone back to Ohio and hooked up with the mother of one of their friends at a wedding. She's had finals that week and just couldn't get away. Quinn and Puck had had a fight and he took advantage of her absence to return to his old cougar chasing ways. It was her friend Artie, who always seemed to have her back who had informed her of Puck's indiscretion complete with discreetly taken photographic evidence.

Over the years Quinn had dated many other men, some of whom she'd even convinced herself that she loved, but they all ended the same way, in heartache for her because she was never really there priority.

Eventually Quinn had completely disavowed her relationships with men and chosen to focus on her Quinn-dependence and career. Marriage and child rearing, once priorities were placed on the perpetual backburner.

Now, more than a decade and a half after graduating high school, Quinn was alone and single and childless. This was something that she tried not to think too much about, but at times like this it was hard not to. Quinn had once told Puck that their daughter was the one perfect thing she had ever done in her life; something that even she couldn't screw up, and it just killed her that they were not a part of her life all that time; and deep down she regretted not having any more children.

Providing the eggs for Kurt and Blaine's two children didn't count. She didn't carry and give birth to them, Rachel had; and she wasn't a part of their life any more than she was of Beth's, living on the opposite coast from them. She wanted to experience the entire childbirth and parenting process herself, but that was becoming less and less likely with each passing year.

# # # # #

Next to Quinn sat Artie Abrams. Artie had known Quinn Fabray most of his life. They had met as children, been separated when her family moved, and reconnected when they had been in high school glee club together. The two of them had become even closer when she he'd suffered a spinal injury, and been temporarily confined to a wheelchair during her senior year.

Like Quinn, Artie was single. Unlike her, Artie's dating life had been much more sporadic. He knew that the fact that he was in a wheelchair had a lot to do with that: most girls and women just weren't willing or able to look past it, or the 'inconvenience' that being with a man in a wheelchair would cause. In retrospect, he had to admit that his sometimes chauvinistic attitude during his younger years probably had a lot to do with it as well. As a result, Artie hadn't started dating until later than most other guys.

His first girlfriend had been his friend Tina Cohen-Chang, during their freshman year of high school, which had almost ended before it even started, thanks to the before mentioned chauvinistic attitude, and she revealing that her stutter was fake, but they had gotten past it and dated the rest of the year.

Over the summer Tina had attended Asian Camp with their glee club mate Mike Chang. Over the summer she had cheated on Artie with Mike and when she returned, she broke up with him and announced that she was in love with Mike whom she started dating. She blamed the whole thing on him supposedly ignoring her for weeks. For a long time he believed that himself and it was years before he accepted that while he should have paid more attention to her, that was still no excuse for her cheating on him.

The breakup with Tina had placed him in a deep funk, during which he joined the football team and began dating cheerleader Brittany Pierce, who it turned out was using him because she needed a duet partner, and to make her lesbian girlfriend Santana Lopez jealous.

When Artie had tried to back out, Brittany had decided to 'help' Artie get over his breakup by taking his virginity. The whole thing hard happened so fast that neither of them had taken the time to consider the repercussions of their actions. Afterword Artie had felt deeply used and ended their relationship.

Eventually the two of them had made up and dated for several more months before she had dumped him when, in a moment of frustration at her not seeing that Santana was manipulating her, he had called her stupid. He'd regretted it immediately, and gone to considerable effort to apologize to her, but it was too late. They had eventually become friends again, but it became obvious that Brittany's heart belonged to Santana. Eventually he'd made peace with what had happened, but he'd always carried the scar deep inside of him.

Several months later he'd become enamored with Sugar, the new girl in Glee, who, while tone deaf, was gorgeous. He chased her off and on for months, even though she was extremely ableist, because deep down inside he didn't think he could do any better. Eventually Sugar all but disappeared from Glee Club and Artie hooked up with wheelchair bound bitchy cheerleader from another school, Betty Pillsbury, at Mr. Schue's almost wedding on Valentine's Day Weekend of his senior year, as a rebound. But that only lasted a couple dates before she dumped him as well.

Towards the end of his Senior Year, he began dating another bitchy cheerleader in the person of Kitty Wilde, whom he'd had a growing attraction to, but he never thought would give him the time of day; and he hadn't seriously considered going after her because of his attachment to Sugar. But that all charged when she had noticed that he was upset about something one day, and then, once he told her what was bothering him, she conspired with his mom to give him the courage to go to college in New York despite his fears. A week later they began dating, and continued to do so through the end of the year.

But when he'd gone away to college, he did what he now regarded as the biggest mistake of his life: he'd broken up with her. Like Quinn, he'd viewed moving away to New York as a fresh start and decided that he didn't want to have anything or anyone at home holding him back. He'd managed to date a few women in college, but most turned out to be superficial and cold, and the relationships hadn't lasted very long, so he focused on his schoolwork.

When he returned to Lima to help relaunch the glee club at McKinley, he'd taken the opportunity to reconnect with Kitty, and the two had dated again for a while, but it wasn't the same. They had lasted for a while, but it ended again when she turned down a role in one of his films in favor of her own aspirations.

He'd ended up casting Tina in the role, and 7 years after their breakup they had agreed to try again. But once Mike came knocking, history repeated itself and she had dumped him like yesterday's take-out.

By then it was too late to reconcile with Kitty, and over time he grew apart from her. Over the years he dated other women off and on, but none of his 'relationships' - if they could even be called that - went anywhere; so, like Quinn, he had focused on his career and neglected his dating life. He'd always wanted kids, but it had become increasingly apparent that marriage and family weren't in the cards for him.

In the years since high school, Artie had attended the Brooklyn Film Academy, and gone on to become a moderately successful director. Quinn had gone to Yale University where she majored in drama and had gone on to become a moderately successful actress. When they reconnected in Los Angeles and worked together on several projects, the two of them had become close friends again.

Over time the two of them had spent a lot of time together both professionally and socially. Eventually they agreed to share an apartment in LA; and since neither of them had had a serious relationship in years, and barely dated, they tended to accompany each other to official Hollywood events that one or the other was invited to. Several tabloids had supposedly linked them romantically, but they were really never more then just close friends.

It had only felt natural for Artie to accompany Quinn to her daughter's high school graduation. After all, he had been friends with Quinn before the little girl was born, and he was proud that the little girl was finishing her primary education, and beginning to take her steps out into the world.

When the principal had formally presented The Class of 2029, most of the audience rose to their feet, and the auditorium erupted with applause, and cat calls.

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Artie and Quinn had accompanied Beth, Shelby, Robert, Shelby's boyfriend; and a few other family friends to a congratulatory dinner after the graduation ceremony, before eventually returning to the hotel. Artie had made the necessary polite small talk that evening, and so had Quinn, but neither were really into the conversations, and Artie couldn't help but notice that Quinn seemed distracted most of the evening.

This behavior continued the following day, and all through the plane ride home that afternoon. He considered asking about it, but knew her well enough to know that if he pushed it she would become defensive, and that in all likelihood she would tell him what was on her mind when she was ready.

That evening, Quinn finally approached him. Artie had transferred out of his wheelchair and onto the nice firm couch in the living room, and was reading a script on his iPad when she came out and sat next to him. He had been so engrossed in what he was reading that he didn't notice her come out of her bedroom and sit on the opposite end of the couch from him until she spoke.

"Artie," she began sheepishly, "I need a huge favor."

Artie and Quinn had been roommates for many years and friends for most of their lives. They were extremely casual and comfortable around each other, so Artie barely looked up from his script as he responded, "Sure Quinn, whatever you need," and took a swing of his bottled water.

"I need some of your sperm," she told him matter of factly.

Artie was so shocked by her words that he violently spit out the water he had just drank.

"Wait! What?" He asked her, turning to face her, not believing his ears.

"I need some of your sperm," she repeated casually, turning to meet his gaze.

"I'm confused," he told her.

"Artie," she began, "I'm thirty six years old. I never intended Beth to be my only child when I gave her up. I always expected to have at least one more someday. Attending Beth's graduation yesterday has really brought home the fact that I am getting older, and I only have just so many childbearing years left. I haven't had a serious relationship in years, and honestly, even if i had, none of my past relationships were really fatherly material.

"You and I have been such close friends for so long that you're one of the most important people in my life! And I've seen how you are around the kids on the movie sets and the kids of our friends and colleagues. I can just tell that you'll be an amazing dad! Plus, your dating life has been almost as barren as mine-"

"I go on dates," he told her defensively.

"Artie," she told him, "I'm sorry, but every single woman I have see you date in at least five years has been an aspiring actress hoping that you would cast her in one of your movies, and when it became apparent that you weren't going to, it ended."

"Point taken," Artie, conceded, reluctantly.

"In fact," Quinn continued, "I don't think you've had a serious relationship since Tina-"

"Quinn!" He barked involuntarily.

"Sorry," she said, genuinely, raising her hands in mock surrender. Clearly she had hit a nerve.

Artie had dated Tina Cohen-Chang during his freshmen year in high school. She had eventually dumped him for their glee club classmate, Mike Chang. Tina had dated Mike for two years and broke up with him after he graduated highschool and she didn't because long distance relationships were too hard. Tina had tried repeatedly to get back together with Mike, and when Mike had turned down her proposal, she had set her sights on Artie again, but he was with Kitty Wilde at the time. But that apparently didn't last.

Quinn didn't know the specific details of what happened after that. Several years later Artie and Tina had tried again, but history repeated itself and when Mike Chang decided he was interested in her again, Tina had dumped Artie like yesterday's take-out, and within a year she and Mike had gotten married and currently lived on the east coast and had three children of their own. As far as Quinn could tell, Artie had never completely gotten over it.

Artie had really only ever had one other serious relationship, Kitty Wilde, whom he had dated the first time towards the end of his senior year in high school and then a second time a couple years later. Quinn wasn't sure what had ultimately happened between the two of them, but Kitty was currently pursuing her stage career on the east coast as well.

Artie sat quietly taking this all in, and Quinn sat back and studied his body language as he did so. She could see that he was completely taken aback by this whole thing, and was clearly confused and conflicted. She supposed that she would be too if their roles were reversed. Finally after almost ten minutes he spoke.

"So," he began, "you're asking me to go to the sperm bank and make a donation?"

She gave him a rather confused look.

"I suppose you could do it that way," she answered, "But it seems rather clinical and impersonal, not to mention expensive. I just figured we'd do it the usual way…"

"But Quinn," he reminded her, "you and I are just friends. We aren't dating."

"But that's the beauty of it," she told him. "We aren't dating, and therefore we can avoid the usual relationship drama. If all I needed was some sperm I could get an anonymous donor from the sperm bank, but I don't want my child to not know who his or her dad is like Beth. You and I are so close, and have been such constant fixtures in each other's lives, that I'm sure that you will be in our lives for the rest of our lives. I also know more about you and your health history than I necessarily would with an anonymous donor.

"You know that I would do literally anything that I could for you. I would just really appreciate it if you would consider doing this for me. I also seem to remember you telling me that you wanted kids yourself, but hadn't met the right woman yet. This could be good for both of us," she finished.

He nodded, he really couldn't argue with her logic, and she'd clearly thought a great deal about this. No wonder she'd been so distracted lately.

"Look," she said, rising to her feet. "I know this is coming completely out of nowhere for you, and I don't expect an answer right away. All I ask is that you give it some serious thought before making a decision either way. I'm going to bed. It's been a long day. I'll talk to you more tomorrow."

# # # # #

That night Artie barely slept, even though he was completely exhausted from the plane ride.

Artie had known Quinn most of his life. Like everyone else, he'd nursed a crush on her when he was younger, but he had been very careful to hide it. He had long ago accepted his place in the friend zone with her and made peace with it.

But, he had to admit that a lot of what Quinn had said made sense; and truth be told, he was more than a little disappointed that he hadn't met anyone and had kids by now. Age was more of an issue with women, but he could still feel the clock ticking, and he really didn't want to be raising kids in his late 50's.

But one thing seriously worried him. In all of his experience, every time he had slept with a woman he had become more attached to her, even the ones that were not committed relationships; and he had a feeling that if he and Quinn slept together his feelings for her would surface again, and possibly endanger one of the closest relationships he had ever had. He wasn't sure if he wanted to risk that.

On the other hand, if he said no, he could seriously hurt her feelings, and if she went elsewhere for what she wanted, he had a feeling that he would be jealous of whomever the other man was, and have the same problem.

There didn't seem to be a clear cut answer.

# # # # #

Across the hall Quinn was also having trouble sleeping, despite what she had said earlier. When she had made the decision to approach Artie she was so certain that it was the right choice, but now she lay there wondering if she had changed their relationship forever.

In addition to being her roommate, and sometimes director, Artie was her best friend. She hadn't really seen Santana and Brittany in years, and only ran into Mercedes and Rachel occasionally. She hadn't really managed to bond that well with any of her actress acquaintances.

As much as she wanted another child, she began to have serious doubts about whether it was worth it to endanger her friendship with him. She was very torn.

# # # # #

The following morning Artie and Quinn ate breakfast in relative silence. She had an audition later that morning and he had a meeting with a producer about the script he had been reading the night before. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement between the two of them not to mention what she had asked him for yet.

Later that day, Artie was very distracted and struggled to remain involved in the meeting. Fortunately this wasn't a one one one meeting so, it wasn't as noticeable. He'd used the voice recorder in his iPhone to record the meeting so he could play it back later and catch anything he missed or forgot about.

For her part, Quinn was so nervous that she completely blew the audition, but for once really didn't care.

# # # # #

Quinn was in the kitchen making dinner when Artie got home.

"Hey," he asked, "How was the audition?"

"Great," she lied, "I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a callback."

He smiled.

"How was your meeting?" She asked.

"Great," he also lied.

She smiled back.

"No," he said, "The truth is, I have no idea how the meeting went because I was so distracted. Ever since our conversation last night I haven't been able to think of anything else."

"Me either," she responded with relief, dropping the charade. "The truth is, I probably bombed the audition, for the same reason."

He nodded.

"Look, Artie, you're my best friend, and I would never want to pressure you into doing anything that you really didn't want to do, so why don't you tell me what you are thinking?" She asked. "Maybe I can help alleviate some of your concerns."

He sighed and noded.

"The truth is Quinn, a lot of what you said makes sense. I always thought that I would have settled down and started a family by now. As you pointed out, I haven't had that many serious relationships, and the few times that children have come up, I could tell that most of them were surprised that I wasn't sterile, or they had a hint of disgust at the even thought of it. I could tell that most of them could not see me as a lifelong partner and father to their children. Kitty and Tina were the only real exceptions there.

"But my biggest concern is that it will change our friendship. We've been friends for thirty years, and lately I've come to see you as my best friend."

Her heart swelled at the revelation that their friendship meant as much to him as it did to her.

"I'm sure it will, but in a good way," she told him. "I can't imagine it not helping us get closer than we already are. I didn't choose you randomly Artie. You're my best friend too, and the fact is, I am more comfortable with you than any other man in my life, past or present. I WANT to be closer to you."

Artie nodded, "I feel the same way. I guess I'm just afraid it will change things between us so much that it damages our friendship …" he didn't dare mention his old long buried crush.

"It won't," she said, looking him in the eye. "I promise."

He nodded his agreement, looked him in the eye and said, "Okay."

"Okay?..."

He nodded.

"Do you really mean it?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, smiling broader.

She smiled and leaned over enveloped him in a hug.

"You won't regret it!" She said.

He sincerely hoped that she was right.

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Author's Endnote: So what do you think? Let me know if you think I should continue in the reviews section.

[ minor text revisions 4/30/17 ]