Look at that, two chapters in a week! That pretty good, right? Anyway, thanks so much for all your reviews, please keep them coming :) This chapter focuses a little more on Tina, but we'll see more Artie soon, I promise. And the angstiness is over just yet. But we've got a long(ish) ride ahead of us... so enjoy this update!

Re-uploading due to a mistake/typo I made. Ooops XD

Tina glanced at her phone again. It was now after dinner and she hadn't heard from Artie all day. She had texted him twice, but didn't want to be annoying. She knew he was probably exhausted from his sessions. Still when she returned to her room she check if he was online. Apparently not, although after a couple minutes, she saw he had replied to Kurt's message on facebook earlier in the afternoon. She bit her lip, unsure of herself, wondering whether she had done something wrong.

Shaking her head, and telling herself not to worry she picked up her phone. She just needed to occupy herself, that's all.

"Hey T, what's up?" Mercedes answered after the second ring.

"Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to come over for a movie or something?" Tina asked, sounding so cheerful on the phone she surprised even herself.

"Sounds good. Can Quinn come?"

It was a good thing Tina had called, because there was no way she could've hidden her surprise. It wasn't about Quinn – okay, it was about Quinn, but no matter how much nicer she had become during her pregnancy; Tina was still half-waiting for the day that the old Quinn Fabray would come back. And she was a little scared.

But she seemed to be nice to Mercedes and Mercedes seemed to like her. So who was she to say no?

"Sure! It'll be fun we'll have a girls night!" she said, smiling and Mercedes said they could be there in 20 minutes.

An hour later, they were all huddled up on their sofa, the lame romantic comedy they had been watching was on mute, because they had found better things to talk about.

"So, how's wheels liking his camp thing. He facebooked me today but didn't say much," Mercedes asked, before grabbing another handful of popcorn. Quinn turned to her expectantly also, apparently, interested.

"Um," Tina looked at her hands, "I guess he's fine. He was fine yesterday."

"What do you mean?" Mercedes asked, looking confused.

Tina sighed, and repositioned her legs before answering, "I haven't really heard from him today..." she said, seeing Quinn and Mercedes surprised faces, "like, at all."

Her two guests stayed quiet for a bit before Quinn spoke up, "He's probably just really tired. I mean, that therapy must be hard on him, right?"

Tina nodded, glancing down at her hands which were neatly folded in her lap. Much like Artie's usually were. Mercedes must have noticed too, because she grabbed hold of one of the and pulled Tina up off the couch.

"Come on, girl. I think it's time for a little mani-pedi." She looked at Quinn, who jumped off the sofa nodding excitedly.

Tina couldn't help but grin. Mercedes knew her too well, and if anything made her feel better, it was a new coat of nail polish. She told the others she'd meet then in her room, Mercedes knew where the nail polish was. She went into the kitchen, getting a glass of water and re-checking her phone. Nothing. She drained her glass and made her way up to her room.

Up in her room, Quinn was practically orgasming over the fact that she could paint her own toes again. "Seriously guys, you do not know how good it is!" She had chosen Tina's only shade of pink to do her toes in.

Tina and Mercedes looked at each other and laughed. Mercedes was just putting away her phone when she walked in.

"Kurt's dad is making him watch some game, he wanted to vent during half-time," she said by way of explanation.

Tina smiled and fished out her dark blue nail polish, proceeding to redo her nails with expert precision. Her mom mocked her that she shouldn't get too good at doing nails, but it was relaxing for her.

The girls put on some old school Destiny's child, to which they knew all the words. But they were having too much fun to be embarrassed. In no time at all, Mercedes and Quinn decided it was time to go home, and they left together even though Quinn had moved back in with her mother. Tina made a mental note to ask Mercedes what was going on with her next time she caught her alone.

Tina closed the front door after her friends and was on her way back to her room, when her phone vibrated in her pocket.

Artie flipped through the pictures on his phone. There weren't many, maybe 20 or so, all of them together and one, his favourite, of Tina alone. She's laughing in the picture, and he remembered it was because he did his Jerry Seinfeld impression. He'd been through them a few times now, staring at each one for a few seconds at least before pressing forward to the next one. He'd been lying on his bed for the last hour, doing this.

Sighing he pressed the back button and eventually returned to Mercedes' message. Dude, u better be dying there. Because u need a good reason 4 not texting T. Call her before she bursts in2 tears. M

He couldn't call her. He didn't trust his voice; he didn't trust himself to get through a phone call without letting slip what Sean had said. And he really didn't want to bring that up. He hated that he doubted them; he hated even more how much he would hurt her if he admitted it.

Finally, he opened a blank message. He could text her, he could do that and tell her that he was fine. He retyped it several times, trying to make sure it sounded apologetic and casual and caring at the same time. She was always better at words than he was.

Eventually, he had something he thought was acceptable and he pressed send. He sighed, he didn't want to text her or call her, he wanted to be with her, to hold her hand. Because he knew that no matter what he was feeling, everything would get better when she was next to him. Reaching under his pillow he pulled out the T-shirt she lent him. It smelled like like her, which was the closest he could get right now.

Hey T, sorry i've been MIA today. It's been hard but I'm ok. I miss u. I wish I could see u right now.