Uppercross Studios
A/N: Tartie Week- Day Four- Crossover AU (Jane Austen's Persuasion)
Tina nursed the glass in her hand wishing it was stronger. While it was weird enough to be standing in what was until a month ago was her house, it was even weirder to see the ghost of her past sitting no few feet away from her.
She had known that Kurt and Sam were friends with Artie Abrams when the rented the house from her, mentioning in passing a friend that was upcoming director about to come into town to shoot a number of short films and a tv pilot However she didn't expect their path to cross this quickly.
Mercedes advised it was bet to get the first meeting over quickly like ripping off a band aid. Mercedes's blunt approach might work in other causes like when Tina had returned her engagement ring and unopened wedding presents to Mike, but this was something different. Seven years she had broken up with Artie, after being persuaded by the arguments off her friends, her family, who cited their match was one that wouldn't hold in the long run. They were too young. They were too different. He was pursuing an unstable career with not alternatives. The weight of those suggestions pushed Tina to abruptly break up with him, and to make the matter worse she even botched the job giving him a feeble excuse.
Now, as she stood across the room, blocked by a number of strangers and friends of the new owners, Tina wished she could fade back into the wallpaper and disappear before he noticed her.
"Oh, Artie this is our lovely landlady," with an impervious flick of his hand Kurt pointed Tina to Artie. "Tina Cohen-Chang. She works at Uppercross Studios, production assistant right?"
Tina nodded, unable to speak.
Artie hadn't changed that much in the passing years. A number of things were the same. The wheelchair of course, but so where the dark rimmed glasses, and style of clothing that veered a bit out of fashion with their generation. But one thing had changed , the way his eyes has gazed back her with no more warmth than politeness required.
He turned back to Kurt, to inquire about something, and soon the pair departed back into the room, leaving Tina on her own. With a sigh she relaxed. The worst was over, and now she could go on. They seen, they meet, and were in the same room, and that was all. Seven years had passed after all, seven years filled with different experiences, people, and events that separated them from the teenagers they were once. They were nothing but strangers now and she was content to let things be.
Felling better about herself, attempted idle talk with the other people in the room before she retreated to tidy herself out in the bathroom. As she washed her hands, she paused hearing her name spoken in the hallway outside the door.
"Tina Cohen-Chang," Artie said his voice slightly muffled, "I find it very odd she has a house to rent to you."
"Don't fret," Sam's voice came from the other side, "she was going to get married, she owned this with her ex- fiancée, she was given the task to see to it."
"I heard from Mercedes that she was engaged. But I didn't know she broke off the engagement?"
"Got cold feet at the altar I hear." Sam's voice lowered, "I heard she was only going to get married because her parents persuaded her that the guy was a great match."
"Hearing that I feel more sorry for him than her," Artie replied.
'Why?"
"Cliché or not, a person to flighty that they can don't even need to have their arms to twisted to think differently, is no one I want to be in a relationship with."
Sitting with an ear to doorway Tina felt her inside squirm from embarrassment and twinge of feeling such remarks were justly earned for eavesdropping and her own past deeds. She thought of her work at Uppercross and wondered just how she was going to manage over the next few months running in the same circles.
Hopefully he'll quickly shoot his films, shoot his pilot and leave both the studios and her life so she wouldn't have to be reminded of her biggest mistake every step of the way.
Luckily for her he did just exactly that.
It was awkward as she expected to be at first. His words from the party echoing in her ears, each time the ran across from each other. But oddly enough him paying little attention to her or even referring to their shared past made things easier. In fact soon within the first month, she was used to see him around, even was on hand to help get the props or space he needed to shoot his film.
However the rhythm of their routine took a sudden turn.
Tina didn't know much about the short film he was directing. She just knew from Kurt that Rachel Berry was starring in it. Nearly six weeks after Artie had come to Uppercross, Tina learned one more thing about the film.
One of the actress, Quinn, had gotten into a bad accident that had delayed filming. It was accident that shouldn't have happened, but she had insisted on doing the stunt over and over again, without the aid of the double, confident in her abilities. Unable to be persuaded by anyone to stop, she jumped before anything could be prepared to catch her, and she fell hard on the soundstage.
On break, Tina was on hand to get the actress the medical attention she needed, and was there when the reports had come that Quinn was otherwise find except for suffering an notable injury to her spinal cord.
It was this bit of information that made Tina come to Artie later on that day, with a cup of coffee in hand. She hid her concern under the guise wanting to keep the studios best interest in mind, but she really was listening as Artie relayed how the wasn't to blame and that Quinn's doctor's report had come back hopeful of only temporary paralysis.
Tina heard the shake in voice, that was so quiet she couldn't help but notice. She had placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, and he stared at it as if spider was there instead.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Don't be," Artie said crisply, "I just wanted a distraction."
"If the film's production is halted, you might find just that working on Glum. Since every other they at least one of them vows to quit."
"They do it in cycle or something?"
"I work their sound stages, and there's so much negative energy, towards the show's writing, the crazy fans, the lighting crew even went on strike. I'm probably one of the few consistent faces there and someone even thought I was an cast member once."
Artie's mouth twitched into a smile. "A cast member, not an extra?"
Not wanting to say anything else aloud to merely said, "I'm just saying if you want a distraction that's the place.?"
He laughed, and in many ways the ice finally broke between them.
In the following days, Tina would swing by to check on him, while over his scripts, both Glum and his own movies, interrupting his one minded attempt to redo the world of movies.
That was that one thing she had and would always would admire about him. And she was starting to realized as she was counting down that days until he ready to wrap up his film in regret instead of anticipation, she had quite snuffed her feelings for him.
They were always there, even if she let others, let other people persuade her to think otherwise. Maybe they were only romanticized by lost love and unfortunate circumstances. And maybe they weren't. But the one thing she knew that were no way she could dare to hope that Artie would return such harbored affection after all this.
"Miss?" An actor in full regency dress appeared before her, holding out a script. Tina didn't recognize him, but she knew a tv movie that was being wrapped up in the studios. "Can you help me run lines, for this scene?"
Adjusting the prop rope on her arm, took the script from him and read off from the first line he had marked.
" 'It would not be the nature of any woman who truly loved.'" She said.
Across from her, the actor paced fiddling with a button at his collar as he spoke.
" 'Do you claim that for your sex?' "
" 'Yes,' " Tina turned the page of the script, " 'We certainly do not forget you as soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit.'"
Somehow the words struck something within her, and they reminded her something, but as she struggled with the unfamiliar she turned her attention to the written word and helping out the actors as needed.
" 'No, no, it is not man's nature, ' " the actor said searched for his next words, " 'I will not allow it to be more man's nature than woman's to be inconstant and forget those they do love, or have loved. I believe the reverse. '" The actor leaned over to look at the script Tina carried, " 'I believe in a true analogy between our bodily frames and our mental; and that as our bodies are the strongest, so are our feelings; capable of bearing most rough usage, and riding out the heaviest weather. '"
" 'Your feelings may be the strongest,'" Tina said, " 'but the same spirit
of analogy will authorize me to assert that ours are the most tender.
Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived;
which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments.
Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise. It would be hard, indeed, '" she faltered as she gasped for breath, " 'if woman's feelings were to be added to all this.'"
"'We shall never agree upon this question,'" the actor said only to stop when a clatter filled the hall.
Tina looked up from the script to see, Artie hastily tried to pick up the assorted doll heads that were tumbling off the shelf, handing over the script to the actor, she ran over and went to help him.
"Or you okay," Tina asked, "did you need anything?"
"No," he said rushed, his words clipped as he wheeled himself out, "I fine, I'm perfectly fine."
She watched him go, wondering if the whole cast of Glum really did quit, only to be distracted by the actor signally for her attention once more.
Later that evening, she was greeted by Mercedes who tossed a phone at her. Her cell phone actually.
"You left it here," Mercedes grumbled as she carted a carton of thai food in one hand, doing her best to keep it off her hospital scrubs. "I was woken up to the sounds of Florence chick you like, get this ten times."
"You could have shut it off," Tina sank into the couch next to her, and pressed the buttons for her voicemail.
"You wouldn't want me to do that," Mercedes stirred the food in the carton, "because I would have smashed that-"
"Shh-" Tina waved her friend quiet as she listened to the message.
"I know this straight out every romantic comedy, but I'm too much of a coward to say it to you in person. After we broke up, I spent more time pretending you meant nothing more to me than a fling in high school. And seeing you that first night when I arrived here in L.A. startled me than I admit. Because for all me trying to make you a devil, you still were an angel. For some reason hearing you today stirred up all this. It may be movie, but I think it's wrong. Men do not forget it as easily as you think. We don't know how to deal with heartbreak and loss, and heal broken hearts in the worst way possible... I don't know what I'm saying anymore …it's just I was really rude to you, and cold, and I can understand if you think completely bonkers but still I -"
The beep that covered his last word was the worst sound she had ever heard, and Tina screeched so loudly that Mercedes not only jumped off the couch dumping her food everywhere, but hit Tina for good measure with a pillow.
"What's wrong with you!"
Tina shoved the pillow off. "He left me message!"
"Who left a message?"
"He confessed," stumbled about looking for her shoes, her keys, that somehow were scattered about in the room ," like in the movies, in the books, in those dreary Jane Austen novels—"
Mercedes grabbed her, "Tell me what's going on because I take you to the hospital! Who's been calling you all afternoon and left you a message to caused all this."
"I don't what's going on, but Artie left me a message. It cut off, but I think-"
"Yu're going to run off, track him down as he's leaving for the airport, you confess, and it's happily every after," Mercedes settled down on the couch picking up her carton off food. "Girl, I've seen that movie over and over again."
"And here's the twist."
The door opened to reveal Kurt and Artie in the hallway. Artie both appearing annoyed and embarrassed, while Kurt greatly pleased with himself, as he tossed the house key to Mercedes.
"You do know if you phone rings ten time, I would check to see who it is right," Mercedes said as Kurt bounded over to Tina manhandling her with a force that surprised her.
"Go talk, and get that water under the bridge."
Kurt pushed her out her own apartment, and locked the door behind her for good measure.
Tina stared at Artie and he stared likewise back at her. His voice message echoing in her ears and in the silence between them.
Tina cleared her throat. "They won't get let us in for while, why don't we go for a cup of coffee? "
He agreed rather quickly and together they proceeded to head in that direction. However they passed the coffee shop and other similar place where they could have stopped, as the power of conversation took hold. In the hour they were locked out of Tina's apartment, they circled the surrounding blocks, exchanging again feelings and promises that were even stronger in the past as they were in the present. Stronger perhaps now, tempered by a maturity of the years of estrangement. For they both known loved and lost it, and attempted to find it elsewhere but it wasn't quite the same.
They talked of their past, of Tina admitting the parental pressure, of Artie revealing how he had pressured Mercedes to tell him the details. She talked about college, and of feeling trapped her engagement with Mike and the nightmare of white picket fence as she stood at the altar. He spoke of string of badly end relationships, crowned by being dumped by him dancer who thought he was porn director and was actually made he didn't release the sex tape of her and her lawyer girlfriend.
They spoke of work at Uppercross, made jokes about the cast of Glum. Talked about their mutual friends, made bets on which actor was going to start smoking habit. They talked about Quinn's accident and slow recovery, and of the parties Kurt threw, and how Mercedes was recording demos between her shifts in the E.R. They talked about almost anything one would could talk about before getting to deeper side of philosophy and the meaning of 42, however tonight wasn't the night for such talk.
As they rounded back to the apartment, still without the coffee, Tina spied the movement of the curtain from her apartment. Their friends were watching them. She knew moment they went up they would be bombarded for gossip and all sorts of chatter, and sly jokes. And while it wasn't horrible thought, it was something she was in the mood to postpone.
"So what do we do now?" she asked. "It's getting dark out, and it's colder than I expected."
"We could go and actually get the coffee," Artie said thoughtfully, "but that wouldn't keep us away as nearly as long if I showed you the rough cut of the movie."
"I like that idea," Tina smiled thinking of how it would keep their friends in the dark much longer, "I like that a lot. I don't think I ever heard what's your movie about?"
"It's mostly experimental", Artie said as he led the way, "but at its core it's about a girl who tried to be invisible and the person who noticed her despite her efforts."