A/N: This was written for Quartie Week on tumblr (quartieweek . tumblr . com). It doesn't fit with any of my other fics...just thought I'd post it here too!
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At the start of the summer, Quinn and Artie had started hanging out. After two years of subtle interactions, they'd finally realized that they had a lot in common, and they'd decided to do something about it. She was at his house often, and sometimes he was at hers. They spent hours talking. Sometimes about themselves. Sometimes about the future, or the past. And sometimes about random, interesting topics. It wasn't too often that he had come across someone who he could talk to about so many things. He wondered why they hadn't started doing it sooner. He discovered that she was well-read, and had a variety of interests. She discovered that he knew a little about everything, some things more than others.
They soon came to realize that they had formed a solid base for something that had the potential to be an amazing friendship. Or maybe something more, Artie hoped, although he never said that to her. But he wondered if she felt the same way. Would she have told him, if she did? Maybe she felt the same, but, like him, didn't want to say anything for fear that it might change what they had. He loved what they had. It was beautiful. She was beautiful.
As the summer wore on, Artie started noticing a gradual change in Quinn. Her texts became fewer and far between. She stopped showing up unannounced in the morning, breakfast in hand. The few times he did see her shortly before school started back up, she was withdrawn, cold. He'd asked her about it, but she'd blown him off, saying she was fine. And then eventually, he hadn't heard back from her at all. It didn't take long for his texts to stop. He didn't want her to think he was desperate, even if that might have been a little bit true.
He wondered what was going on. He wished she had talked to him...maybe there was something he could have done. Maybe he could have helped. Or just provided someone to talk to. At first he wondered if maybe he'd done or said something wrong, but he soon realized that wasn't the case. The one time he had seen her from a distance, he'd been more than a little shocked. He almost didn't recognize her. The Quinn he knew didn't have pink hair, and she certainly didn't smoke. He hadn't seen her at all after that.
Eventually, school started again, and, on the surface, it appeared that school for Artie was the same as it had always been. But it wasn't, because something was missing. Quinn was missing. A tiny part of him wished that they hadn't become close earlier that summer, because at least then he wouldn't have known what he was missing. Maybe it wouldn't have hurt so much. But they had, and it did.
Glee club started up again, and he was the first one to notice that Quinn wasn't there. He hadn't really expected her to be, but there was still a small part of him that hoped. Maybe she'd come. He kept glancing at the door, but she never came through it.
And then someone had asked where she was.
Until that point, he hadn't told anyone how he felt about her sudden disappearance from his life. Not that any of them had known just how much she'd been a part of it, even if it was only for those few short weeks. The words that came out of his lips barely scratched the surface of how he was feeling, but it was a start.
"It's sad. I miss her."