AN: Chapters will definitely be coming slower, since a bout of writer's block and a busy holiday week means I'm literally posting right after writing instead of being a couple chapters ahead like I normally try to stay. However thanks to the help of a couple of my reviewers, I've gotten ideas for a few extra chapters, including this one. The idea for this was a sort of combined effort between xnerdark and miss maggie. It ended up being sort of longer than the usual, mostly because it features an Artie rant that I might have gotten just a little carried away with. Hehe.


The next time I saw Tina broken, I wound up sitting through the most awkward dinner of my life.

It was nearing the end of our sophomore year and after a couple months of almost dates and dancing around the question, I'd finally gotten up the nerve to ask Tina to be my girlfriend. I'd gotten a half-exasperated, half-amused "finally" and a very enthusiastic kiss in response, and that's how we'd made it official.

When the Glee kids found out, their reactions were about the same as Tina's, well minus the kissing because that would have been extremely worrisome. Despite the fact that we had only placed, not won at Regionals so we didn't qualify for Nationals, there were still Glee jam sessions after school half the week while we threw around ideas for songs and performances. It seemed like maybe things for Tina and I were really getting great.

About two weeks after we'd started dating, I made my way over to Tina's house to meet her before going to the movies. Just as I got to the end of the walk, her door flew open and she stumbled out, slamming the door behind her and then covering her face in her hands.

"Tee, what's the matter?" I asked, rolling up the sidewalk to meet her.

"Parents," she mumbled out between her fingers. I reached up for her arm and when she pulled her hand away from her face I saw she was trying not to cry. "They, uh, they found out we're dating," she said and I felt a bit of trepidation in my stomach. "They're not happy."

"When are they?" I asked in a brave stab at humor and she gave me a small smile.

"They've been going on for the last hour straight about how I don't have time to date, and how I should have asked permission first, and how you're surely going to be a bad influence on me that will ruin my chances for a successful future." I snorted a little at the last one, because if either of us was a bad influence on the other, it wasn't me. Tina seemed to be thinking the same thing when she half-returned my smile.

"What are we going to do?" I asked, taking her hand again and squeezing it.

Tina blinked furiously a few times and then gave a partly-hysterical laugh. "They want to meet you," she said and her tone of voice made it feel sort of like I'd just been sentenced to the guillotine. "Dinner at my place. To make sure that you're not going to be a blemish against my college records and whatever else it is they think you'll do." She wasn't looking at me, licking her quivering lips the way she always did when she was trying not to cry, and I could feel her hand shaking in mine.

"Okay. When?"

Tina's eyes widened and she finally looked at me. "Really? I mean, you really want to do this? You know it's not going to be pleasant."

Did I really want to do it? Oh dear God no. Not in the slightest. I had heard enough horror stories about the adult Cohen-Changs from Tina over the last four years and they did not sound like the sort of people I wanted to meet. I hadn't forgotten the several nights over the years that Tina had climbed in through my bedroom window, crying because of some fight with them. Neither had I forgotten that animalistic desire to dismember Mr. Cohen-Chang after that first night she'd snuck into my room with a bruise on her cheek.

At the same time, she was my best friend. My girlfriend. I would brave anything for her, even if that thing included a meeting with the parents, which I was pretty sure would turn out even worse than that Ben Stiller movie about it. So I was confident as I met her eyes and nodded. "Yeah, Tee, let's do this."

She smiled and leaned down to kiss me. "Okay, I'll tell them," she said. "But not right now. We're going to miss our movie if we don't hurry. We can do it another night." We went to our movie, talking about anything but the forthcoming disaster dinner, and for a while we managed to be happy again and forget about it.

Six days later I was rolling up to the Cohen-Chang house again, this time so nervous I was pretty sure I was on the verge of fainting. As much as I tried to stay positive, assure myself that we could make everything work out okay, the closer I got to that front door the more I felt like I was rolling into the mouth of a waiting monster. And one with a particular liking for shredding up paraplegic boys, at that.

Before knocking on the door, I tugged off my gloves and tucked them into my pocket, wiping my sweaty palms on my slacks. I took a deep breath and then knocked. I didn't have to wait more than a few seconds before the door opened and I looked up at an American woman, with dark brown hair pulled back into what seemed like an overly-elaborate twist for the occasion and narrowed dark green eyes. She might have been pretty if her smile wasn't mocking and pitying at the same time, and she looked down on me. Literally and figuratively, I could tell.

"You must be Tina's friend," she said, like she didn't already know. I could still remember when Tina'd told me her mother had called me a meaningless cripple, and I tried really hard not to let that show on my face.

"Artie Abrams, ma'am," I offered and held out my hand. She ignored it entirely as she stepped back, holding the door open for me. Letting my hand fall, I pushed myself into the house. I'd been to Tina's house several times now, because whenever my sister had a bunch of friends over at my house we'd escape down here for the peace and quiet, but somehow it felt a lot more ominous than usual.

"Right this way," she said after she'd shut the door behind me, and then turned and led the way to the dining room. I once again privately thanked the fact that their expensive tastes meant the entire house was floored with hardwood. Pushing the chair over carpet is never easy.

The Cohen-Chang dining room was enormous. Freakishly so for being in a house with only three occupants, and two of them were basically only residents part-time. Tina had told me before it was for the times when her parents had work dinner parties, where they'd have to lay out the enormous tables. At that moment, the little rectangular table in the very middle of the room seemed unbelievably tiny.

"Hi Artie," Tina said and I looked over at her hopefully. Apparently her parents had gotten to her because her hair was pinned back and curled, her make-up had been toned down a lot, and her black dress was simple and severely lacking in pins or chains or rips. I wondered if it was because her parents had vetoed or if she'd just done it to keep them in a better mood, but I never did ask her.

"Hey, Tee," I replied gratefully. For a moment I'd forgotten I wasn't braving this alone, and seeing her there, even if she did keep biting the inside of her cheek anxiously, was relaxing. A little.

"Artie, this is my mom, Margaret, and this is my dad, James," Tina said, gesturing to first her mom, who had deserted my side the moment we'd gotten into the room, and then to her dad, standing at the head of the table. "Mom, Dad, this is my boyfriend, Artie."

"Nice to finally meet you," Tina's dad said, not bothering to even pretend to smile, and I knew right away how this night was going to go. And it was not well.

The dinner was good, even if it was sort of bizarre, (Korean cuisine, I figured), but I didn't really get to enjoy it much because I spent most of the time answering every question the Cohen-Changs shot at me. They grilled me about just about everything that was humanly possible to ask, a lot of which I felt was really unnecessary.

I don't know if I could have held up under all the questions if it wasn't for Tina. After the first few, I'd heard a quiet thunk. On the pretense of straightening my napkin in my lap, I'd looked down and noticed she'd reached across under the table and hooked one of her feet around mine. I couldn't feel it, but when I glanced up at her I saw in her eyes the message she was trying to convey. I'm here. I couldn't help but smile at that, which ended up coming across oddly since Mr. Cohen-Chang was saying something serious at that moment.

Tina also ran interference whenever her parents' questions got out of control. She'd exclaimed loudly when her mother had very pointedly asked if I had any intention of "having intercourse" with their daughter (seriously, who says intercourse anymore?). I'd only been able to blush bright red while Tina berated her mother, and finally after her mother only protested that she wanted to make sure her daughter wouldn't wind up pregnant and have to drop out of college, I managed to squeak out that I didn't plan on it. It might have been a lie (teenage boy, after all) but it seemed to satisfy her parents for a second. It also seemed to be the only answer I'd given so far that had come close to making them hate me less.

As the dinner and the questioning was drawing to a close we could both tell that her parents were not thoroughly pleased. Or really pleased at all. "You seem like a very nice boy," Mr. Cohen-Chang said in a very condescending tone, "but really we'd rather our Tina didn't date. It distracts from her schoolwork and she needs to be fully focused on that. We would really prefer that you respect our wishes and stop seeing her."

"Dad!" Tina said in alarm, looking horrified.

"Don't argue with me, Tina," he said firmly. "I will not stand to watch you continue to disgrace this family because of your wild fantasies. It's about time you get yoru head out of the clouds and start acting like an adult. You need to grow up and accept the truth, that singing show tunes and dating charity cases," she screamed 'Dad' a little louder this time, looking torn between terror and rage, "isn't what will help you succeed. I'm just keeping the best interests of our family in mind," he said unconcernedly.

And then I did something very stupid. I scoffed. Instantly I felt everyone's eyes on me and I very nearly panicked. When I looked across at Tina I could see fear and hurt in her eyes, and that sealed my resolve. It was too late to back out now anyway.

"Did you find that funny, young man?" Mr. Cohen-Chang asked menacingly.

"Yeah, I did," I agreed. I really wished I could stand up and deliver this, but I had to settle for unlocking my wheels and pushing myself away from the table slightly, so I knew they could all see me clearly. "I think it's hilarious that you'd use the word family to describe this group of people, because there is nothing at all family about any of this."

"I beg your pardon?" Mrs. Cohen-Chang asked, looking scandalized.

"Families care about each other," I elaborated, slowly and deliberately. "Families are actually around when the others need them, they actually like each other. And I can tell already that neither of you actually cares about Tina. Neither of you knows anything about her, apart from whatever things she might be doing that go against your plan. And it's a real shame, because people like Tina don't come along often."

I met her eyes across the table and she was still fighting tears, but there was a faint smile on her shaking lips. It gave me the courage to keep going, and I drew in another deep breath.

"Tina is the single greatest person I've ever met," I say, glancing pointedly from one parent to the other. They were both staring at me in shock and anger. "She works twice as hard as anyone else in our year to keep her grades up for you. Even though you continually brush her aside every single time she tries to come to you about something, she never gives up hope that one day you'll actually listen.

"Your daughter is an amazing performer, which is something you would know if you'd come to a single one of our performances. Did you even know she got a standing ovation for her solo at Regionals? She's also an artist, which I'll bet you didn't know either. Even though she constantly tries to make you proud, in the end she's not afraid to be herself. Chains, colored streaks, crippled best friend, show tunes, and all.

"And greatest of all, she has this beautiful heart. One day in a small town junior high, your daughter looked at a boy, one who everyone else in the school avoided. He was in a wheelchair, labeled a freak and dismissed by his former friends. But she looked at him in a way that no one else did, a way that made him forget that he was different. She became a friend to someone who people like you immediately judge and then push aside. I have no idea where she learned to do it, because it certainly wasn't from either of you, but that day Tina saw me instead of my chair and she quite literally changed my life. Maybe even saved it."

There was a ringing silence in the room following this as both of her parents continued to gape at me. Tina's hands were over her mouth, but I could see her watery eyes over her fingertips and the emotion there was gratefulness and trust and hope and something else that made my heart swell.

Taking a steadying breath, I turned my set expression back to her parents. "I'm sorry, I really tried to just go along with this and pretend that I was okay with what was happening here. I wanted to win your approval, and I wanted you to be okay with the fact that I'm dating your daughter. But no matter what you say about me and about us, nothing is going to change how much I care about her. Tina is a beautiful person. I can only hope that someday you will look at her and see that too, and that maybe one day you'll love her as much as she deserves."

No one said anything as I turned my chair toward the door and left the room. I'd gotten all the way outside and halfway down the sidewalk before I heard the front door swing open again. I braced myself, expecting her father to start yelling at me for being so disrespectful (and honestly if my mother realized I'd talked like that to an adult she'd probably kill me). Instead I heard a faint sob and then a heap tumbled into my arms.

Tina was curled in my lap, her arms around me and crying into my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her too, trying to calm her. "Tee, I'm so sorry," I said, guilt filling me as I listened to her sobbing. I definitely hadn't won either of us any favors and as much as I'd meant every word of it, I wished I could go back and take it back just to make things easier. "I really tried, I didn't want to get mad at them, but I couldn't. Not the way they kept yelling at you. The way they kept putting you down. I couldn't take it, I'm so sorry."

"Artie, that was…" She trailed off, sitting up in my lap to meet my eyes. Instead of fear or anger or frustration or even hurt in her eyes, I saw that same hope and gratitude from earlier. She smiled. "Thank you."

I couldn't help the shy smile at the sincerity in her voice. "You're welcome," I answered. "And I really am sorry about that. They definitely won't be keen on me now."

"It's okay, I'm keen on you," she said and laughed.

And despite everything, all the trouble I'd just gotten us both into, I laughed. "Good enough for me." While she stayed in my lap, I rolled us both to my house. When she went home the next day, she informed me that her parents hadn't said a word against me, and they had instead chosen the very mature path of pretending that I didn't exist and that the night before had never happened. I wasn't about to complain, especially if it meant they wouldn't cause any trouble between Tina and I anymore.

That was the next time I'd found Tina broken, and the first time I felt the rush of standing up for and defending what you really care about.