Author's Note: Not terribly enthusiastic about Lea/Artie? ;-) Okay, I heard that.
I do intend to go easy on the chapters about the actors for fear that this website will give me the boot over violating terms of service or something. I've also added a disclaimer in chapter five after one reader made this suggestion. I always dismiss disclaimers as being silly or unneccessary, but it appears I was wrong in this case.
Disclaimer, Part Two: I in NO WAY mean to seriously criticize Kevin's portrayl of Artie. I think he's amazing.
Spoilers: Just one, about a future guest star. Not plot related. I don't really know any plot spoilers.
Claimer(?): I also use my invented Abrams family in the livejournal roleplay game, crunk_club, where I play Artie.
Kevin
I had to leave the diner and go home sooner or later, or rather, had to go to Artie's home. Tina gave me a lift in her trusty Buick, which was a lot more complicated than it sounded. She insisted that she and Artie had done this numerous times before. Usually, she said, Artie was able to get into her car all by himself. It must have taken him lots of therapy and practice to learn to do that.
"OW!" I'd relied on Tina to tilt the wheelchair slightly, essentially dumping my body into the passenger seat. As we performed this complicated maneuver, I managed to hit my head on the top of the car. I closed my eyes and rubbed the spot on my head, already realizing that I was going to have a goose egg in the morning. When I opened them again, Tina was hovering over me, looking undecided between feelings of concern and amusement.
"How does he do it?" I wondered, wincing. The corners of her mouth twitched. "Don't. laugh."
She snorted, covering her mouth with her hand. "Sorry," she said, giggling behind her hand. "Kevin, honestly, how do you expect to fool Artie's family if you can't even get into my car properly? I think we might have a problem here. Do you realize what this means? Artie definitely doesn't spend all of his time at home in this chair. In fact, he's hardly ever in it. If you sit in that wheelchair all evening, it's gonna look strange to them."
"Good to know," I said, sarcastically. "But I think I'll have no trouble fooling them seeing as I look like Artie and sound like Artie. Who else would I be? I can always just say I'm tired. It was a long day. Lots of steep ramps. I'll think of something."
"This reminds me of when we all had to spend three hours a day in a wheelchair," she mused. "It was really, really difficult for me. I kept catching the doorframe when I tried to go in and out of rooms. And there were lots of tight spaces that made it hard to get around. Ramps were terrible, too. You ought to try the same thing, you know..."
"I'll have you know I've spent plenty of time practicing in the wheelchair," I said, a bit defensively.
"And yet, you don't know how to transfer in and out of that wheelchair," she pointed out, shaking her head sadly.
Before I could come up with some sort of comeback for that, Tina shut my door and made her way around to the driver's seat. I didn't say anything as she started the car and backed out of the parking space. I remained silent, alone with my thoughts. I was thinking about Artie. Was she right? Was I doing him a disservice by not looking into every aspect of his life? Tina was driving now, but I wondered why Artie still wasn't. Weren't there hand controls or special cars out there for people in wheelchairs? It could be worth addressing this on the show. Artie learning to drive might make for a cool episode. We'd need a song...
"Get outta my dreams," I began singing, inspired. "Get into my car..."
Tina laughed and switched on her iPod, which was connected to the car steoreo by a tape adapter. She just so happened to have this Billy Ocean eighties hit on her playlist and we sang it together. By the time the song ended, we were pulling into the drive of a very ordinary looking house. I was feeling consideraly less moody.
"Abrams' residence," announced Tina, putting her car in park. "Sure you wanna do this?"
"Do I really have a choice?" I wondered.
"Well, you don't really have to do it on your own," she said, casually. "Artie's mother wouldn't bat an eye if I came over to work on homework. Artie always tutors me in Spanish and math. But you don't have to do that. We can just hang out. Artie and I do that, too."
"You're going to help me fool his family?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. "Funny, I wasn't under the impression that you liked me much, Tina Cohen-Chang."
"No, no, I like you," she disagreed. "Oh, don't look so surprised! You're alright, Kevin."
She gave me a reassuring smile, and I was quite glad that the non-psychic who knew my secret wasn't holding a grudge against me afterall. She got out to unload the wheelchair, which was stored securely in the Buick's trunk. As she brought it around, I mentally prepared myself for the next transfer from seat to wheelchair. If I thought this was difficult, how much harder would it be to get up off the floor and into the chair?
Using all of my strength, I pushed on my arms and lifted my body into the wheelchair. As I did this, I let out a groan. It was all I could do not to lose my balance, but I managed to make it safely into the wheelchair without Tina's help this time. As I arranged my feet in the rests, Tina was laughing again.
"Don't let Artie's parents hear you groaning like that," she adviced me. "Artie makes that look easy, but you sounded like you were passing kidney stones."
"Tina!" I admonished her, turning a deep shade of red.
"Okay, I won't say anything else," she promised, as she grabbed the handles of my chair and began pushing me towards the front door of the Abrams' home. As she did so, she leaned closer to my ear and said, "I'm usually the only person who pushes his chair. Normally, I don't think he likes being pushed, but he says that I'm the exception to the rule."
What's stopping these two from getting together? I wondered. Tina knew practically everything about Artie. I suspected he knew everything about her, too. Who knew how long the two had been friends? (Some details about their first meeting would be a nice addition to the show, I mentally noted.)
"We're ho-ome!" Tina called out, as she pushed me through the door, in a way that made it sound like she lived there, too. Presumably, Artie's family and Tina were on good terms. Tina had a rough exterior, what with all the black clothing and dark makeup, but something told me that the Abrams weren't the sort of people to look at a person's outside appearance.
"Just in time for cookies!" called a woman's voice. "I'm taking them out of the oven right now. And Deal or No Deal's coming on. It's a new one. Want to join us in the living room?"
Tina giggled. "Sure," she said. She continued pushing my chair, leaning over again to say, "The Abrams are hilarious when they watch this show. I have no idea why they like it." Interesting, I thought, musing over how everything seemed to be the same in this universe, except for the fact that there was no show called Glee.
"Do you think they'd want to watch the People's Choice Awards instead?" I wondered, dying to know what would happen if Glee didn't exist to take the award. What would win in its place? But Tina made a face and shook her head. "No, sorry, but that sounds really boring. Besides, what do you expect to see? Artie onstage with the rest of them, accepting your award? Not happening. The show doesn't exist. You probably don't even exist."
"You think I don't exist?" I replied, aghast. "What about... Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel? Do they exist?"
"From Wicked? Yes, they exist. Why wouldn't they?"
She parked my wheelchair beside a very comfortable looking couch and gestured for me to have a seat, the grin spreading across her face again. I used my arms to raise myself out of the chair and attempted to move to the couch. But I had forgotten one crucial step - the break. As my chair rolled out from under me, I went SMACK! It looked like I would get a chance to figure out how to get up off the floor afterall.
"Stop that!" I commanded Tina, who joined me on the floor, doubled over in laughter. I was just lucky that the living room had been empty at the time. If the Abrams had seen that, there was no telling what they would think of their son. Tina obliged to stop laughing, for it seemed that she also realized we needed to keep quiet about my clumsy moment. It was actually not that difficult to get from floor to couch without my legs, thankfully, and I did so very quickly.
Tina joined me on the couch, saying again, "As I was saying, why wouldn't the lead actresses from Wicked exist?"
"Because Idina Menzel is going to be on a future episode of Glee," I explained, not know if my saying this was going to cause the universe to implode or something. "And Kristin Chenoweth was already on the show. You would know her as April Rhodes, Mr. Schuester's former classmate."
Tina giggled. "April Rhodes and Kristen Chenoweth look nothing alike, Ar - I mean, Kevin."
I shrugged. "If you say so."
"Anyway," said Tina, dismissively, "Listen up because they're all going to be coming in any minute. This is your crash course on Artie's family. His parents are happily married. Their names are Arthur and Charlotte, but naturally, you call them Mom and Dad. Artie's parents are incredible. I like his sister, too. Her name's Amy, she's a college senior at Ohio State, she plays soccer on the school team, and I'm pretty sure she's still home on holiday break for the rest of this week. Artie and his sister are really close. Got it?"
"Got it," I said, but I was already looking around, taking in the details of the Abrams' living room. Something that caught my attention were the framed photos of the kids. Amy hadn't always been the family's only athlete, it seemed. She was shown in her soccer uniform, posing with her high school team. But beside that photo was another one - a photo of a boys' team. I could pick out Artie easily. He looked exactly like me as a child. Artie on a soccer team, I thought, wistfully, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was easy to forget that he hadn't always been the kid in the wheelchair.
"You okay?" Tina knudged me as I stared, and it seemed she knew what I was thinking just by the expression on my face. "I know," she whispered, nodding to the picture I was looking it. "Kind of puts it all in perspective, what he's dealing with every day, doesn't it? When you really see what he's missing out on. Amy once told me Artie was a better player than her back then."
"Wow," I breathed. "I - I play the guy, but I had no idea."
"Does it change things?"
"Absolutely," I replied.
"Cookies are ready!" sang Charlotte Abrams, coming into the room with a plate of cookies in one hand and a carton of milk in the other. Part of me expected Artie's mother to look just like my mother, but she didn't. Artie's father followed closely behind her, carrying cups, plates, and napkins. He didn't look like my dad, either. Yet when you compared the three of us, we looked like a family. About that time, Amy came in from the opposite hall. She had long, brown hair which was pulled into a ponytail and blue eyes framed by a pair of glasses.
"You brought Tina over!" Amy acknowledged the younger girl immediately, giving her a friendly hug. "I'm so glad, Tee, I was worried I wouldn't see you before it was time for me to go back to school again. I leave this weekend, but I'm so not ready to go back yet..."
I could tell right away that this was a close knit family, based on the way they all piled in front of the TV together. Throughout the show, there was constant chatter from all sides.
"... Glee club's working on a new number... "
"... have to try out this new recipe. Maybe for dinner tomorrow night?"
"... all upper level classes and no more electives. I'm so freaking depressed..."
"You okay, hon?" Artie's mother asked me. "You seem kind of subdued tonight."
"Just... just taking it all in," I answered, honestly.
She smiled at me. "I know. It'll be so quiet around here when your sister goes back to school."
Artie was a lucky kid, to have such a supportive family. It made sense why he would be so happy and resilient, in spite of difficult circumstances. It made me feel so honored to represent him, to tell his story. There was so much more to Artie than meets the eye. I could see Tina watching me again, and I knew she knew what I was thinking. (Maybe she was even more psychic than Rachel.)
When Tina was absolutely convinced that I could pass myself as Artie without serious problems, she finally left. I excused myself to Artie's bedroom early, for I wondered how long it would take me to get through Artie's bedtime routine. I decided it was best to do the shower at night, while I was still conscious enough to manage the wheelchair-to-shower transfer.
By the time I finally wheeled myself into Artie's bedroom, it really was time for bed. I managed getting from the wheelchair to the bed, remembering to first set the break on the chair this time. Artie's laptop was sitting on his bedside table. The conversation we'd had about Kristen Chenoweth and Idina Menzel had gotten me thinking. I pulled up the Internet Movie Database website and typed in my name.
Kevin McHale - Forward for Boston Celtics (1980-93).
And that was the only entry that appeared, confirming what I had suspected all along: In this world, I didn't exist. I lay back on Artie's pillows, getting lost in thought. I didn't really mind not existing in this world. It would be weird for Artie to run into his identical twin. I couldn't quite fathom why Kristen Chenoweth managed to exist alongside April Rhodes, but maybe it had something to do with April being such a minor character.
All of my thoughts about myself took me back to the People's Choice Awards. Did the people choose us, Artie? I asked, in vain desperation. Did we win? Win or lose, I knew Artie would be having the time of his life.
Yes, he answered me. Glee won. We went onstage to accept and everything. We even got to give the audience pizza.
What? I replied, puzzled over two things. One, pizza? And two, Artie was reading my mind. I seemed to be reading his as well. Until now, this was the first I'd heard from him. But after all that had happened today, I wasn't terribly surprised.
The pizza was just a dumb gimmick for the show, Artie explained. Nice to meet you, Mr. McHale.
Nice to meet you, I replied. Please call me Kevin. I just met your family. They're really great, Artie.
How's Tina doing? Artie wanted to know. Can you tell her I miss her? Tell her not to worry about me.
I smiled. You'll probably be back soon enough. Aren't you excited to tell her all about the People's Choice Awards?
And about being famous, yeah, Artie added. I wish she could've been here, too.
Artie, I know you probably get sick of hearing this, I said. But I really admire you, dude.
There was a pause. You're right. I do get sick of hearing that, but thanks, he said. Learned enough about me to go back to your world yet? Lea said that was part of it. She's a little bit psychic, did you know? She and Rachel both. And all this time, I thought Rachel Berry was just saying that to get attention.
I laughed out loud, thankful that Artie didn't share a room with anyone. I've learned a lot about you, Artie. There were so many things I never even considered about you. I'll be sure and take it back with me when I go home, whenever that may be.
Another pause. I'm not quite ready to get back in my chair... but I really need to see Tina again. Even if it meant that I got to walk again, I wouldn't like living in a world where she didn't exist. If you see Rachel, please tell her I want to go home soon. And I'll tell Lea. Maybe they know how to make it happen.
I sucked in a deep breath, overwhelmed by what he was telling me. Okay, Artie, I agreed. I'll talk to her, I promise. I want to go home, too. We start filming the back nine tomorrow. I think I need to be there, you know?
Definitely, Artie answered. I'm not an actor.
You'd be playing yourself, dude!
Still.
I laughed again. I think you're going home, soon. Goodnight, Artie.
Goodnight, not Artie.