Author's Note: Author QuinnAbrams wrote a substantial part of the middle and inspired the parts I put in. Special thanks to her for giving me an idea to breathe new life into the tail-end of this story.
College Move In Day.
They were gonna make a whole weekend of it, beginning on Friday. Classes started Monday. Freshman orientation week was pretty much over, and Artie had skipped it in favor of more summertime at home with Kitty.
As for Kitty, her summer had already ended a week before his, but she was not missing the chance to move he and Sam into their dorm, so she'd made an excuse with Coach Roz and had taken Friday off. Bree, in particular, hadn't made it easy for her when Madison accidentally let it slip why Kitty would be missing the Back-to-School Pep Rally.
She'd cornered Kitty on Thursday afternoon, when they'd both been the last to leave the locker room after practice. "It sure would be nice to have a captain who made us a priority," she snarled, arms folded, blocking the door so that Kitty couldn't leave.
"I got everything ready for the pep rally," Kitty said, coolly. "What more do you want me to do? I won't be there, end of story. Madison is covering for me."
"I'd say it's only part of the story," Bree shot back, her nose stuck up high in the air. "Because Madison says you said you're moving your brother into college, but I know good and well it's not him. He left a week ago. With that Asian hag from glee club."
Kitty was dumbfounded. How could she possibly know all that? But then again, Bree had once used Dottie to get to Tina, and Tina probably wasn't smart enough to unfriend the little two-faced wench after the infamous slushy bucket. Bree was probably just a few clicks away from finding out all the dirt she needed and more on Kitty via social media. Afterall, Dottie, who hadn't made the team, had gotten on as Cheerios manager. It meant that she got to wear a uniform, but instead of performing, she just got them water and did anything Roz or Sue asked of her.
"Alright, well if you're so smart, what am I doing, then?" Kitty challenged her, even though she already knew that Bree knew that she was seeing Artie off, not her brother.
"Besides embarrassing yourself?" Bree pretended to think. "And embarrassing the rest of us, by association? I'd say what you're doing is risking an awful lot for some guy who just might dump you when he leaves anyway, making the whole thing that much more pathetic, that you not only dated, but got dumped by a—."
"If you say 'cripple,'" Kitty started to say, as her hands unexpectedly balled into fists. She'd never punched anyone in her life, but she'd also never wanted so badly to hit someone.
"— nerd from glee club," Bree finished, tilting head to the side. "But way to make everything about his wheelchair, Kitty." She smirked. "Don't worry, I won't say anything about you ditching us for him tomorrow. Your secret's safe with Bree."
Except it wasn't safe at all with the psycho chick who had just referred to herself in third person. Kitty was certain she'd be paying a hefty price later, but she'd just pushed past the other girl and went on her way.
She had more important things to think about. Like going over to Artie's that evening and helping pack his things into the small luggage trailer that Artie's dad had rented to help haul everything he'd need for college. For Artie, this was much, much more than your typical student. For starters, he had his exercise mats and his seated elliptical. Then he had a mattress and a box spring, to replace what the college provided, which wouldn't be sufficient. Kitty had googled questions long enough to know why he needed those but Sam clearly hadn't ever given it a spare thought.
"I'm pretty sure you don't have to bring your own bed," Sam was saying, as he helped Artie's dad load both things, with Artie sitting nearby, with that all-too-familiar look of discomfort on his face.
"You do if you're me," he said, simply. When Sam still looked confused, Amy stepped up behind him and patted his shoulder, as though she were taking care of a very dumb animal.
"S'okay," she told Sam. "Ride with me in the truck and I can give you a crash course in paraplegic one-oh-one, since you're gonna be living with him."
"I already did live with him," Sam pointed out.
"Not in the same room with him."
"There was that one time we went on a road trip."
"Still," Amy concluded, as Kitty and Artie just watched their playful banter, with Artie looking more and more spiteful. "It's not the same thing. There's stuff you should know."
Amy was going to be driving her father's truck and pulling the trailer. (She didn't have a teaching job yet and was just subbing regularly with the Lima Public School this year, so it was easy for Amy to take off work and help.)
Artie's murderous glance said it all.
"What? Would you rather just surprise him?" Amy asked, thoroughly unconcerned with the look she was getting from him.
"I was kind of hoping he'd just roll with it," Artie cracked, a smile playing on his lips. Even if she'd embarrassed him, it seemed to be impossible for him to stay mad about it.
"Well, lesson one," Amy went on, her smile matching her brother's as she turned to address Sam. "Adaptive equipment takes up a lot of space. Case in point..." And, to emphasize her point, she helped her father lift the elliptical in the trailer. "You sure you wanna crowd in a room with him all year?"
"Hey, man, even if I have to hang a hammock from the ceiling to room with you, it's gonna be okay."
At which point Artie then turned to his dad and jokingly asked him if he could spare them the hammock in the backyard.
"You sure it's okay with you that Mom and I are gonna miss this, Sport?" his dad asked.
"Yes, yes," was Artie's response. "Go. I'll see you next weekend when you bring the rest of my clothes. It's not everyday you have your fiftieth high school reunion."
"Thirtieth," his dad corrected him.
"Whatever," Artie said, with a sly grin.
The next day, Artie looked even more uncomfortable than he had before, as they arrived at the university, unloaded his stuff, and paraded it out in front of the dorm. He appeared to search the ground. When Kitty asked what he was doing, without missing a beat, he replied that he was looking for a hole to wheel into.
"You don't have to feel bad about all of this," Kitty pointed out, as she passed him a plastic bin that was small enough for him to put in his lap. "Anyway, here, there are like five of these. We'll leave them alone and you can go get a work out."
The distraction seemed to help, and even though it took Artie much longer, he completed his task and stayed busy enough to forget about his sudden attack of self-consciousness.
Hey, you made sure to pack a swimsuit, right?" Artie asked Kitty, seemingly out of the blue, several hours later, as they added the finishing touches to his and Sam's shared, accessible dorm room. Thankfully, it turned out to be feasible to cram Sam's bed into the back corner and have enough space for all of Artie's stuff.
Kitty nodded as she pulled her phone out her of back pocket to check the time. It was nearly dinner time already, and Amy and Sam had just left to make a trip to Target to pick up some necessities that the boys had forgotten at home. Was now really the right time to hit the pool?
"Good. Because we aren't staying at a hotel tonight," he said. At Kitty's confused expression, he elaborated, a giant grin spreading across his face. "My grandparents have a lake house about 40 minutes away. I figured since classes don't officially start until Monday, that gives us all weekend to spend together. One last hurrah of summer."
The look that appeared on Kitty's face was a mix of love and surprise. She set the picture frame she was holding down on Artie's bedside table before taking a few steps towards her boyfriend. Artie took her hands in his and pulled her down into his lap. Kitty noticed that it was a lot more comfortable to sit this way without those pesky arm rests from his old chair getting in the way.
"When we were in California for Nationals, I remember you telling me that you wished we could go on a real getaway together — one where we didn't have to worry about getting back to Mr. Schue on time," he told her. She nodded and smiled, loving how Artie always seemed to remember the little things about their conversations that most other guys would've completely missed.
"I've been wanting to take you to the lake all summer, but with my college decision process and your cheer obligations, I was worried that we wouldn't be able to make it work. But I called my Mimi and Pops yesterday, and they told me that we were welcome to spend the weekend with them," Artie went on.
"Did I mention I'm really glad I skipped school for this?" Kitty said, with a laugh. She hadn't mentioned to him that she'd also skipped out on her cheer obligations. But she'd heard from Madison around 4:00, and the pep rally had gone just fine. Oh, and Bree had fallen out of her back tuck and landed hard on her rear end. Served her right.
"I guess it won't really be 'just us' because Sam is tagging along too," Artie added. "But I've noticed – for awhile now, actually – that he seems a lot more interested in Amy than he is the two of us…" Artie rolled his eyes as his voice trailed off, eliciting a giggle from Kitty.
Sam always did have a thing for girls who were older than him (Nurse Penny and Mercedes, to name a few). Maybe now Artie would understand why she was so apprehensive about Hunter and Tina's relationship in the beginning.
Kitty's arms were now wrapped around Artie's neck as she leaned over and quickly pecked his lips.
"I love that idea," she said honestly, causing Artie to blush slightly. "And I can't wait to spend one last weekend with my favorite guy."
An hour or two later, they pulled up to a charming yellow house with a wrap-around porch overlooking Buckeye Lake, as the sun was beginning to set. Though it was smaller than Artie's home back in Lima, Kitty still thought it looked pretty sizable to be a vacation home.
Artie put the car in park and began assembling his chair, as Amy and Sam pulled up behind him. Artie and Kitty had ridden together in Artie's car, but Sam had once again accompanied Amy on the drive over.
Kitty grabbed she and Artie's duffel bags out of the trunk and slung them both over her shoulders as she followed the Abrams siblings and Sam up the ramp leading to the front door.
Amy rang the doorbell, and seconds later, a tall older man answered the door with a huge smile on his face.
"Welcome to the lake!" he exclaimed, as a shorter woman with white hair appeared at his side. Mimi and Pops began greeting their grandchildren with hugs and kisses before they introduced themselves to Sam and Kitty.
"Sam and I have been friends since high school, and now he's my roommate at OSU," Artie explained to his grandparents.
"And Kitty's Artie's girlfriend," Amy butt in, jumping at any chance she could get to embarrass her little brother.
"It's so great to finally meet you both," Mimi said, taking each of them in for a hug of their own.
"We've heard so much about you."
"Hey, do you like my shirt?" Pops asked his grandson, gesturing at the Ohio State University Adapted Athletics apparel he was proudly sporting.
Artie grinned and nodded. "Is that official apparel?" he asked, surprised.
"No, but isn't it nice?" Mimi supplied, as Pops had merely shrugged and looked to her. "I found a lady online who will make college shirts with just about anything you want them to say. I have one for you, too." She punctuated that statement by bending down to cup his face in her hands and kiss his cheek. "No glasses?"
"I've been trying to get used to contacts," Artie explained.
Kitty smiled at the sweet exchange, as she adjusted the bag hanging from her shoulder.
"Well, why don't you kids head upstairs and get settled in while I finish up dinner?" Mimi suggested, noticing the bags Kitty was holding.
It wasn't until just then that Kitty realized that the first floor of the house only contained the kitchen, a living room, the study, and a bathroom, and that all of the bedrooms were located on the second floor. She glanced over at Artie, but he didn't seem phased by this in the least.
"Hey, how… how do you get up there?" she finally asked.
Artie gave a small chuckle as he wheeled over to the stairs and locked his brakes in place before carefully transferring himself to the bottom step.
"It takes a little bit of time, but I can manage," Artie replied as he slowly scooted up the staircase as his sister and friends watched from below.
Kitty knew that Artie was normally a super private person — especially when it came to things related to his disability — but also knew that his roommate, girlfriend, and sister didn't give him a reason to feel embarrassed.
Slowly but surely, Artie made his way up the stairs, arriving at the top several minutes later. When he was settled, Sam picked up the lightweight wheelchair and brought it to him, Kitty and Amy following close behind.
Upstairs, there was a master bedroom with its own ensuite bathroom, which belonged to Artie's grandparents, and two other bedrooms, separated by a Jack-and-Jill bathroom. Each of the smaller bedrooms had two twin beds. Artie had explained to Kitty on the drive over that his grandparents were kind of old-fashioned and that he would be sharing his room with Sam, while she would be staying with Amy. Kitty understood their concerns and silently thanked God that she and Amy had grown pretty close over the last several months, so she wouldn't be subjected to any awkward small talk.
Kitty deposited her own duffel bag on her bed before heading next door to give Artie his. Passing through the bathroom, Kitty noticed the shower chair that was already conveniently placed and ready for Artie's use. Even though this house wasn't ideal for Artie's situation, given the unavoidable set of stairs, Kitty could tell that his grandparents had done their very best to accommodate his needs.
As she started to knock on the boys' bathroom door, it suddenly opened and Artie startled a bit at her sudden appearance. "Here," she said, thrusting the bag at him.
"Thanks," he said, accepting his bag and rolling back a pace to deposit it on the bed nearest to the wall. Sam was already settled on top of the patterned quilt on the second bed, his baseball cap sitting atop his face as he rested.
"Do you need the bathroom?" Kitty asked.
As Artie nodded, Amy appeared in the other doorway of the small bathroom. "Hey, Kitty, want to follow me downstairs and see if Mimi needs help?"
Kitty knew enough to know that Amy was pulling her away to give Artie a little privacy. She promptly followed the older girl downstairs, where they found that Mimi needed no help, as she was already setting the table out on the porch that overlooked the lake. "Dining al Fresca tonight," she had said, as she whisked herself back and forth from the kitchen.
Amy settled herself onto the sectional in the living room instead and Kitty did the same. Amy reached for an album on a shelf behind her, next to several other volumes of older looking photo albums that had numbers on the spine. She took out volume '4' at random, saying, "I think this one has the cutest baby pictures of Artie."
Sure enough, the album contained lots of family pictures, including baby pictures of Artie. Amy explained that any time her dad would get a roll of pictures developed, he'd get duplicates and mail them to the grandparents, so there were almost identical albums to these at their home.
"He was only three when he got glasses," Amy pointed out, as Kitty flipped through the pages. "He had strabismus, where one eye kind of turned in, so he had to get glasses really early. Mom used to say he looked like a little professor..."
Kitty and Amy were finished with book 4 and moving onto book 5 when Sam came down with Artie's chair but no Artie. He thundered back up the stairs, though, and reappeared moments later with a very trusting Artie accepting a ride down the stairs in Sam's back. As Sam lowered him into his chair, he scoped out what the girls were doing.
"I can't leave you alone for a minute, can I?" he addressed his sister, as she flipped through pictures that now showed Artie around age four or five.
"Just showing Kitty what her babies may look like someday," said Amy, blissfully unaware of the conversations Kitty and Artie had been having lately about their relationship. Kitty's eyes flickered to his briefly.
Artie just changed the subject, per usual.
"Someday I'm getting LASIK," he said. "No glasses, no itchy contacts. That would be a dream come true."
"Same," Amy agreed, just as their Mimi appeared to announce that dinner was ready on the porch. She'd arranged a colorful spread of food that she'd prepared and Pops had grilled, veggie and steak skewers and fresh fruit.
"This is still my favorite place to get a home-cooked meal," Sam said, as he took a seat next to Amy. "It looks great, Mimi."
"Any time you boys need some TLC, you know where to find it," Mimi said, as she passed by Sam, stopping to plant a little kiss on his cheek while Artie tried to pretend he wasn't jealous. "Good to see you again, Samuel."
"So, Kitty," Mimi went on, taking her seat beside Kitty. "Artie tells me that you're a cheerleader at your high school and you just got captain, even though you're a junior."
Kitty felt herself blush. "It probably happened before me," she said. "I think this one girl, Quinn Fabray, was actually captain her sophomore year."
"But that kind of fell apart after she got pregnant," Sam added, in between bites of steak.
"Oh, but of course I remember Quinn!" Mimi exclaimed. "We met while she was still expecting. Such a lovely girl. Kitty, you even remind me of her a bit."
"Thank you," Kitty beamed. "I appreciate the comparison. I've always admired Quinn."
"Kitty's being modest," Artie piped up, turning the conversation back to his girlfriend. "Sophomores don't usually make captain, and she was up against three seniors, two of whom were pretty good. But it went to her because she was the best."
"I was head cheerleader, too," Mimi said, fondly. "And my daughter, Artie and Amy's mother. And Amy. But tell me, does your team still have that horribly loud coach that was there when Amy was a Cheerio?"
"She's principal of the school now," Kitty told her, grimacing. "We have a new coach, officially, but Sue's still around most of the time. So it's more like we have two coaches, and they're both crazy..."
"Coach Roz told me she'd never seen lips like this on a white child," Sam added, pointing at his trouty mouth, prompting a flirty comment from Amy.
"I hadn't noticed," she said, staring at Sam's mouth. Artie made a show of nearly spitting out his mouthful of iced tea. Kitty helpfully passed him a napkin.
After the rather interesting dinner, Pops started a small fire by the lake and Mimi brought out ingredients for s'mores and wire coat hangers for roasting marshmallows.
"We've had a lot of mishaps with s'mores over the years," Amy told Kitty and Amy as they headed over, Sam giving Artie a push over the tall grass that Pops muttered he'd meant to cut down before they'd arrived.
"I accidentally hit Amy's arm with a flaming marshmallow when I was five or six," Artie said, as Amy made a show of indicating the scar on her shoulder. "Ever since then, I've hated it when they catch on fire. I prefer mine browned but not blackened."
"Art, check this out," Pops interjected, coming up beside Sam and Artie and handing Artie his wire coat hanger, which he'd modified to make longer by taping it to a second unfolded wire coat hanger. "I remembered the time a spark from the fire landed on your knee and your mother had a fit. Thought up this nifty modification."
"Thanks, Pops, that's brilliant," Artie said, grinning as he accepted his. "Yeah, I have my own scar from that." He indicated his knee, pushing up his shorts slightly to reveal where he'd been marked.
Artie had an affinity for making s'mores, as it turned out, and Kitty figured it would be a chore to get the smoke smell out of her hair, so she let him roast the marshmallows to golden-brown perfection while she did the assembly of the s'mores. Artie turned out to like his with Reese's cups, which his loving grandmother had knowingly provided, and Kitty copied his, even though she was going to regret pigging out all weekend at Roz's next weekly weigh-in.
Sam entertained them all evening with his many impressions. Amy probably laughed louder than anyone and, at one point, Artie actually tried to stick a s'more in his sister's mouth, in attempt silence her, but his aim was off and he ended up getting some of it in her hair.
Once inside, they all showered, to get the smell of smoke out, Artie volunteering to go last on account of how long he'd be taking. When Artie finally got out, he joined the other three in the boys' bedroom for a game of Cards Against Humanity that lasted until just before midnight, when Artie stopped playing and was the first to fall asleep.
"I guess we better do the same," Amy commented, smiling at Sam as she got to her feet, Kitty doing the same thing. "See you guys in the morning."