Artie POV:

It was like a dream.

There I was, sitting at a little table in the hole in the wall that passes as a coffee shop on the corner of Main and St. George, when she walked in. She looked exactly the same, but different...if that makes sense. It was like she was still the same Quinn from high school, but older. Wiser. And even more beautiful. Sure, only two years had passed, but it might as well have been a lifetime. At least, for me.

I couldn't believe it when I got her letter. Out of everyone I went to school with, Quinn Fabray was the last one I expected to hear from, ever. Well, maybe that's not true...there would probably need to be be icicles in hell if Santana were to contact me.

I couldn't believe that she would actually take the time to handwrite a letter...so much of our lives is controlled by the internet and super fast communications. It was nice to get a letter. I wish more people would write letters, or even pick up the phone...it seems like things such as Facebook and email have become the main way people communicate now...convenient, but also kind of sad.

I probably should have responded to her second letter, but I just couldn't. What if she snapped to her senses and realized that she didn't want to do this? I couldn't take that chance. She said to contact her if that didn't work for me, so I assumed if she heard nothing from me she'd take that as "it works."

I got there about half an hour early, because I wanted to make sure I was already there if she was early too. The thought that maybe she wouldn't show up was in the back of my head, but I couldn't let that get to me. After all, she contacted me, right? Why wouldn't she show up?

Honestly though...after I mailed my response to her first letter, I was sure I'd never hear from her again. I couldn't even really remember what all I had written, but I know that most of it probably didn't make sense. It was like the worst case of word vomit ever, topped with some awkward sprinkles and a nerdy cherry.

I told her things haven't been going well lately in my letter, but didn't really elaborate on that. So much has happened since we left high school...I really would have written her a series of books if I'd gone into it all.

After we graduated, most people that I had been close to moved away, and those that stayed kind of fell out of touch. That summer I ended up having major surgery on my back as a result of complications from my previous spinal cord injury, and then spent the following couple of months in rehab relearning a lot of what I learned after the accident when I was 8 and rebuilding all the muscle I had lost. Apparently there was a ticking time bomb in there just waiting to go off. I'm glad it waited until after I was finished school.

Once I was all fixed up and had regained my independence, it was too late to think about going off to school somewhere, and I resigned myself to a "temporary" job in a local electronics store. Two years later, I was still there. So much for "temporary." I did manage to move out of my parents' house about a year after graduation (much to their dismay) into a small, accessible apartment that was far enough away from them to give me some privacy, but close enough to put my mother's mind at ease.

A few days before I got Quinn's letter, I had been wallowing in self pity, but her letter changed all of that. It gave me hope, that maybe things would be ok, even if they felt hopeless at the time.

I guess my birthday didn't help. I always thought I would accomplish something by the time I turned 20, but apparently not. I just kept telling myself that it was only 20. Not 25. Not 30. Not 40. I still had lots of time, right?

Her letter was like someone folded up an angel, stuffed it into an envelope, stamped it, and sent it to me. Seriously. It was like a message from God. Via Quinn.

I told her I thought about her "so much" since we graduated, but that may have been an understatement. I thought about her at least five times every day, regardless of what was going on. She was like one of those completely unobtainable things that we all lust after but know we'll probably never have.

And then she dropped herself in my lap. Funny how life works, isn't it?

Her face lit up as she spotted me, and she made her way over to the table. When she got close enough, she threw herself at me (at least...it felt like she did. Hard to tell sometimes...).

After a couple of seconds, she backed up enough that we were face to face. I looked into her eyes, and it was like everything else melted away. She looked like she'd been crying. She looked relieved, scared, and happy all at the same time. I will never forget the look on her face at that moment.

She seemed like she wanted to talk, but all that came out was "oh, Artie..." before she burst into tears again and pushed her face back into my neck. I didn't know what else to do, so I just stroked her hair and held her, and told her everything would be ok.

It would be eventually, right?

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this! It kind of didn't go where I had planned (wait...was there a plan?), but I'm fairly happy with it. Next chapter will be some Quinn backstory, and then after that we'll get down to the...details.

Oh yes, there will be details. And they will be amazing. (I know I pretty much just said there's no plan, but even without a plan I can tell this is going to be amazing). I know what I want this story to be...I just have to get there.

At least we know now why I like to write Artie word vomit so much...I have it too!

If anyone has anything specific you'd like to see in here, let me know, and I'll see if I can incorporate it somehow.

Feedback greatly appreciated. If you must be negative, please try to say one good thing along with it. Good with the bad, all that stuff. You know the drill.

...longest A/N ever. Sorry!