A/N: Thanks for the great reviews! To the person who asked me to show more of Tina's home life, I totally agree that this is something I need to explore in a story. I'm just not sure this is the right one for it since the focus is Tina and Artie. I know I did show a bit of Artie's in the first version. I have Artie's family figured out in my head, as do a lot of authors around here! In my mind, he's Arthur, Jr. and he's got his dad, Arthur, Sr., mom Charlotte, and older sister Amy. I don't have anything cooked up for Tina's family! But a future Christmas story I have in mind will require me to come up with something! I'm considering giving her a fun aunt with a wild streak.
Also, to the person who wanted me to go all McHalowitz with this story, I am trying to keep details about the real people in this story to a minimum. Mostly, this has been a story about how Jenna and Kevin try to help out Artie and Tina. But I totally agree that they are cute together! :)
We've just got one chapter left! Chapter NINE! I was hurrying all along, trying to get this written before episode nine. But I may wait until after and use whatever happens in next week's episode somehow. I'm not entirely sure yet. Stick with me and find out!
Artie
As luck would have it, Tina and I weren't scheduled for filming the next day. Naya, Cory, and Lea would be busy with a scene between Santana, Rachel, and Finn. That took care of Lea. For whatever reason, I just didn't want the one person besides Tina who knew my true identity hanging around. I'd skimmed the script out of curiosity to find out what was going down between Rachel, Santana and Finn during my day off. (All I can say is poor, poor, Finn.)
It was great not to spend the day pretending to be me, keeping my legs still and sitting in the chair. The wheelchair was somewhere on set today, far away from me. Cory would probably be rolling himself around all day. Apparently, the cast liked to play around in it between takes.
Interestingly enough, I made plans to spend most of my second day in Kevin McHale's able body… on wheels. I was able to borrow a couple of bikes, thanks to Lea, to take Tina out on the type of date I'd only been able to dream of before now.
"Tee- Jenna!" I call, banging on her door with the excitement of an eight-year-old boy who's just received a brand new toy. I feel kind of childlike, having never properly finished out my days of being a typical kid who loved riding bikes, running around, and climbing on things.
The door opens, slightly ajar. A bleary-eyed Tina gawks at me. "I figured we'd wake up in our own bodies again…" she murmurs, glancing over her shoulder at the clock on the microwave. "Artie! It's six-thirty!"
"I know," I say, excitedly. "I've been up for two hours, riding around on this bike Lea loaned me. I've got one for you, too. I figured six hours would be enough sleep for you so I waited until six-thirty."
"You've been up since…?"
"Four-thirty, yeah," I admit. "Who can sleep at a time like this?"
She smiles and holds up one finger, shutting the door so that she can change out of her pajamas. A few minutes later she reemerges in jeans and a grey hooded sweatshirt, looking positively stripped of her personality. She informs me that these are the types of outfits Jenna keeps around for down time.
"You look cute in anything," I say, pushing her bike forward.
She accepts the bike with a wry smile.
"Then why did you look at me like I had two heads when I wore an outfit like this to school after Figgins had a cow over my 'vampire' clothes?"
"Because," I reply. "You didn't look happy. You still looked cute, but you just looked unhappy. And I'd never seen you in anything that didn't double as a nice Halloween costume…"
For this, she slugs my arm. It's only then that I realize I've accidentally offended her. "My stupid mouth," I sing. It's a John Mayer song, one that my older sister once deemed appropriate for me after I told her that her hair looked better before she got it cut short.
My singing gets me off the hook this time as Tina smiles. "Lea came over to my trailer last night after you dropped me off to talk to me," she tells me. "She says that whenever they – the cast, I mean – really want a song on the show, they'll hint to the directors by singing it or humming it on set. I thought that was kind of funny since we do the same thing to Mr. Schuester."
"Hey, it's how you got to sing True Colors," I recall, as she smiles and nods. "Not a bad tactic, using subliminal messages…"
"So, are we going to race these?" she asks, swinging her leg over the bike with a nod to mine. I laugh and give one affirmative thumb up. Without a word, she pushes off the pedal, leaving me behind. I cry out in protest and begin pedaling after her furiously.
We leave the trailers behind and start across an empty parking lot. I don't know where our finish line is until Tina looks over her shoulder at me and cries out, "First one to the school bus wins!"
Sure enough, at the far end of the parking lot is the handicapable bus that we took to Sectionals last year. I pump harder on the pedals to overtake Tina. I touch the bus a fraction of a second before she does and pump my fists in celebration. We both stop to catch our breath, laughing and enjoying the surreal bliss of this moment. This happiness is only somewhat hindered by the knowledge that it can't last. If it were going to be forever, I would have stayed in Kevin's world the first time. There's no telling how much longer I've got. As Tina's laughter subsides, I can tell she's thinking the same thing I'm thinking.
"I'd love to do this all the time, Artie," she says, pedaling a bit closer to be as I lean my bike to one side, balancing on one foot. She reaches out and touches my shoulder. "I really admire you…"
"So I've heard," I say, with a slight grimace and a sinking feeling of déjà vu. "It's not really a quality to admire, Tee. It's not like I've got a choice in the matter. But it's nice to really find out what a normal date with you would be like."
"Let me be clear when I say this, Artie," she says, eyeing me seriously. "That was never the issue. And if you don't believe me by now, I really don't know what more I can say to…"
"I believe you," I cut her off. "And look, I know that too much has happened for us to just go back in time. But you don't know how much I'd like to sometimes. Sometimes I wish that instead of being transported to Kevin's world, I could just go back in time to last summer. I'd do it all differently, Tee, I really would…"
"Artie, look, I'm with Mike now and you're with Brittany," she says, holding up a hand and stopping me in the midst of my earnest pledge. "I miss you, but I… I really like him now."
"And I think I like Brittany," I say, sighing slightly at the dilemma I've created. I don't want to think about hurting poor Brittany again. "I mean, I'm not entirely sure she's right for me, but… she's sweet and she seems to be into me."
Tina opens her mouth to say something, but apparently changes her mind and closes it. "What?" I press her, but she shakes her head and mumbles, "Nevermind, nevermind, it's none of my business…"
"Are you wondering if we had sex?"
Her eyes widen. "Actually, no, but did you?"
The John Mayer song pops back into my head. "Um, yeah," I say, staring down at my fully functional legs in shame. "But… I kind of wished it had been with you instead." My head jerks back up as another thought comes to mind. "Did… did you and Mike…?"
Tina bites her lip. "I asked, but he doesn't want to."
"He doesn't…?"
"He said it goes against his values, which I fully respect…."
"Or he's gay," I supply.
"Artie."
"Not that there's anything wrong with that!"
Tina smirks. "Artie Abrams, I can't believe you had sex."
"I still have the use of my –"
"I know, I know, you told me."
"Sacral sparing, my doctor calls it," I charge ahead, even though Tina looks like she wants me to just shut up now. "He said that sometimes happens, but that I wouldn't know just how functional I was until I… actually did it. Really, I almost didn't do it with Brittany, Tee, but I just wanted to know in case…"
I can't say the rest. I can't tell her, "In case you and me ever got back together and decided to have sex."
The look on her face tells me she hears what I didn't say. The fact that the words never actually left my lips spares me a fair amount of humiliation. Letting the subject drop, I issue a challenge. "Race you back to your trailer!"
I take off ahead of her this time and allow her to beat me by slowing down as we approach the trailers. We ride around a bit more slowly after that, pacing ourselves as we circle the set. We only stop when our growling stomachs tell us it's time for breakfast. We head back to Kevin's trailer to eat whatever we can find in his pantry and small refrigerator. It's fully stocked with cereal, orange juice, and milk.
"Breakfast is on Kevin," I announce, as Tina makes herself comfortable on the small loveseat. As I pour cereal for us, she borrows Kevin's laptop and begins playing on the internet. When I approach the couch with her breakfast, she's pulled up a picture of Jenna and Kevin at some event.
"There are more like this," she murmurs. "These guys are really, really famous in their world. And it's all because they're on TV every week, pretending to be us. Crazy, huh?"
"I thought I was dreaming the first time Lea told me," I say, taking a seat next to her and balancing my bowl on my knees. "But walking never feels this real in my dreams."
She runs a hand across my shoulder, pausing to give it a squeeze. "I'm sorry," she says. (I never quite understand why Tina apologizes to me so much.) "I'm sorry you like his life better than yours."
"No, no, that's not it," I say, quickly, and my outburst is received with a puzzled look from Tina. "I mean, obviously I like certain things about his life better. But I don't envy him too much. I think he likes Jenna, but Jenna won't consider anything more than friendship since he's younger. That's my theory, anyway. But in our world, I'm older…"
She giggles. "By two months, big deal!"
"And I had my chance with you…" I go on. "But I blew it."
She smiles, softly. "Maybe there are second chances, Artie."
I close my eyes as she leans in for another kiss. The kiss is perfect, but there's just one problem. Well, two problems if you count Mike and Brittany as the second problem…
The first is that I can't feel my legs.
