A/N: If anyone hated the fact that Finn didn't appear in the previous chapter, about the dream, hopefully this makes up for it. Please drop me a review, if you have time :-) Keeps the muse alive!

As soon as Dream Artie told his two Ghosts of the Future that he wanted to wake up, wake up he did. His eyes fluttered open and took in the dim nurse's office where Nurse Penny had been thoughtful enough to keep the lights off, so that only light from the windows came in. Sitting in the corner thumbing through one of her health pamphlets, this one about Diabetes, was none other than Finn Hudson. For a moment, Artie thought Finn was another one of his ghosts, like Rory and Matt. But no, Finn was as real as the lack of feeling in Artie's legs. Artie shut his eyes one more time, savoring the memory of walking once more, before opening them again and pushing up on his elbows. Finn lowered his pamphlet and looked his way. When he saw that Artie was awake, he rose from his seat and made his way over.

"Weird, you don't look like my mom," Artie commented, reaching up and brushing his fingers over the scratch on his check, which had been bandaged by the nurse.

"You look like Nelly," Finn said, grinning and motioning to the bandage on his cheek. His smile faded as he looked Artie over. "Pretty bad-ass, actually. Are you okay, dude? I'm here because your mom was out for coffee with my mom when the school called her about your fall. My mom suggested that I come pick you instead. Yours agrees and figured you might find me showing up less... embarrassing."

That got a small smile out of Artie. Leave it to his mother to be intuitive about that kind of thing. Sending Finn after him was a good idea. He sat up further, noticing that his head felt a lot better after the nap. Artie gazed down from the cot to his chair.

"Y'know, I could use a little help here," he said. Truthfully, as sensitive as he'd been earlier with Sam about help, he never seemed to mind it from Finn. That porta-potty rescue had set a precedent for them.

Finn immediately obliged by lifting Artie, as Artie draped his arms around his tall, strong friend's neck and let himself be moved. He noticed his body was still sore and stiff from the fall, making accepting that help a wise thing to do.

"I'm sorry, man," he said, as he waited for Artie to get settled. "I ran into Sam and he told me what happened. He checked on you between classes, I think."

"Between classes?" Artie echoed. "Hold up, what time is it? I don't have my phone, it's in my backpack pocket. Hopefully it survived the fall."

"Almost time for third period," said Finn, pausing to get Artie's phone for him. Normally, Artie would protest anyone messing with those front pockets of his backpack, for they contained a lot of the supplies he needed for the restroom. This time, he didn't care. He was just glad that wasn't what spilled out all over the ramp when he'd taken his tumble.

"Guess I could go to my next class and try to move on with the day," Artie murmured, as he accepted his phone from Finn. He noticed a text from Kitty, which he was going to ignore for the time being. He was so mortified that she'd seen him fall.

"Dude, what?" Finn shook his head. "You're already excused for the day. They're expecting me to take you home, make sure you're okay..." he studied him. "And I'm not convinced that you are. Let's get some breakfast and then make a day out of hanging out and playing video games. Or just catching up, if video games hurt your head. What do you say? Finn and Artie day? Fartie day?"

The corners of Artie's lips curled up. "Fartie day," he agreed. "Just let me use the restroom here first and we'll be good to go."

"Need any help?" Finn asked, before thinking about what he'd just said. "Right. Right, of course not. Well I... need to drop by Mr. Schue's office for a minute but I'll make it quick. I'll be back before you're done."

"K, thanks." Truthfully, Artie's head still hurt and he could have used a little help from Finn in the restroom. Or the pretty blonde ex-Cheerio nurse. Nope and nope. Seeing as he didn't want help from either of them, he was on his own.

When Artie finished up, Nurse Penny checked him over one last time and sent him on his way. Leaving the quiet, dimly-lit office and heading out into the halls was disorienting at first. Maybe Finn had been right, maybe he wasn't fit to go back to class. Since everyone was in class at the moment, at least the halls were empty for him. He wanted to hurry, though, because he didn't want to run into anyone who'd witnessed his spectacular display of helplessness. Especially not her.

"Had to get this!" Finn did hurry back, as promised, and he was holding a copy of the 'Guys of Glee' calendar as he jogged towards Artie. "I told my mom about it and she wanted me to get her one, to support your upcoming trip to Regionals."

"We've made a lot of money off those things," Artie said, grinning in spite of his pain now. "And of course, somebody already bought one just to deface it and hang it outside the choir room."

They'd written 'Gays of Glee,' as Blaine had grimly predicted, and had mostly just drawn facial hair, blacked-out teeth, and glasses on everyone. But the culprit had spent ten dollars to do it, so that was a win.

"My mom will love this," Finn said, shrugging. He averted his gaze down to Artie's bloodied knuckles that clutched the rims of his wheels. "Mr. Schue said to tell you to he's sorry you fell and he hopes you feel better soon."

"Yeah, thanks," Artie muttered. He wasn't ungrateful for the sentiments from his teacher. He was just hating the fact that everyone in the club was going to have to know the reason he'd gone missing.

Would you like a push out of here?" Finn asked. "It'll give your hands a little break."

"Yes, please." Artie was in no position to refuse help. He wanted to shut his eyes, actually, because the fluorescent hallway lights were just too bright. He also wanted Finn to get them out of there before the bell. Though he didn't want to see her, Artie did think of Kitty and wondered about her text. He retrieved his phone before Finn set about pushing him to their destination, Finn's car.

Are you OK? read the text from Kitty.

Just embarrassed, he texted back.

She answered right away, like she'd been anxiously waiting to hear from him. You don't have to be embarrassed, she said. That wasn't your fault. The school really sucks for neglecting to treat the ramp.

I know, Artie wrote back. If he'd just taken another route, this could have been avoided. Of course, the most direct and quickest route would be the stairs, and that was off-limits to him.

OK, she said. Guess no meeting me under the stars today, huh? Sam said you're going home.

Yeah, he typed out. Then added: I didn't want you to see me like that. Then he went back and erased the part he'd added, just sticking with the one-word response instead.

OK, well feel better! I hope that I see you tomorrow before break.

Me too, Artie concluded, adding a smiling emoji for good measure, even though it didn't match the current expression he wore at all.

How could she even want him now? She'd seen him lying prone on his back, upside-down on an incline, positively unable to move. If that wasn't a total turn-off, well, whining about it definitely would be. At some point, Tina had texted him, too. And Sam. And Blaine. And even Lauren Zizes. But since lying and reassuring everyone that he was fine made it that much worse, he neglected to even check the messages. He turned his phone over in his lap and closed his eyes, wishing he could get back to the good parts of that weird and complicated dream.

But the bad parts of that dream... wow. Even if everyone was decidedly better off having found a sense of belonging though the glee club, Artie couldn't decide how him being in the chair had anything to do with it. He supposed there was some truth in the dream, though. If he'd been too busy playing soccer, he probably wouldn't have joined glee club. He probably wouldn't have directed a musical, or cared all that much about making his short films, and so forth and so on. That said, was that enough to give Artie a true sense of purpose? Did that make up for ten years of a daily struggle, plus the added weight of trying to hide the fact that he struggled as much as he did? Not exactly.

On the other hand, if he hadn't been in the accident, he wouldn't have met Kitty Wilde. He would have graduated before she'd ever shown up. Rory and Matt should have pointed that out.

Before Artie knew it, they were at Finn's car and he was letting his friend continue to help him with all the things he usually did himself, including transferring out of his chair and into the vehicle and then breaking down the chair to put it in the back. Artie talked him through the tricky part with eyes shut, seat reclined, as his head throbbed just from being moved again. Not good, he though, hoping he didn't have a brain bleed or something. Was their new nurse qualified beyond checking up on the Cheerios, giving people Tylenol, and being exceptionally pretty? Probably not.

Finn got the message that Artie wasn't ready to talk about it yet. He asked him what he wanted for breakfast. Artie went with an egg McMuffin from McDonald's, since it wouldn't require them to get out of the car, and Finn seemed to be thinking along the lines of fast food, too, as it was cheap. Once they got their breakfast, Artie perked up a little, because of the sugar-loaded orange juice he got to go with his food, which revived him a bit.

"Feeling better now?" Finn asked, pulling into the parking lot to eat, since he'd ordered the pancake platter for himself. Oh, wait, two. Two pancake platters. Artie guessed it took a lot of food to fuel a body as big as Finn's.

"Yeah," Artie said, chasing his bite with a long swig of juice. "Just wishing I hadn't used my get-out-of-school free card up in third grade. Right about now feels like a nice time to take another break."

Finn gave him a small, understanding smile. He'd been there to witness the incident that pushed Artie over the edge and caused him to become a "third-grade dropout," a title lovingly bestowed upon him by his sister.

"I didn't realize you wouldn't come back to our grade, you know," Finn commenting, as he tried to pour syrup on his styrofoam platter of pancakes without making a mess. "I assumed you were doing homeschool and that I'd see you in fourth grade the next year."

Artie shrugged. "No regrets about that part now," he said. "I needed that time to figure out how to live my life in this chair. It meant I got to go back to school more prepared for what that would be like. Nothing could have prepared me for the way people would look at me afterwards though."

Except Kitty, he thought. The first and only time he'd seen pity in her eyes when she looked at him was today, when she'd witnessed his fall and subsequent humiliation in front of her and her friends. He wished she'd go back to being mean. Mean was fun, coming from her, and pity sucked.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Finn said, playing with his plastic fork like he was actually nervous to ask. And truthfully, Artie was a little nervous about a lead-in that started this way, but it was Finn. Finn was an easy person to talk to about just about anything.

"Ask away," said Artie.

"Well, it's just that I've briefly heard you talk about film school, but you haven't even visited the school you want to go to yet, have you?"

"No, but my family and I are going to try to go after Christmas and be back in time for Brittany's graduation party on New Year's Eve..." Artie trailed off. "Is that the personal question you wanted to ask?"

"Well, not exactly," said Finn. "More like I'm just wondering if you don't talk much about your future because you're afraid of it. Because of all the complications with your chair and all that?"

Artie hesitated, as he needed to do a little soul-searching. Was he afraid of the future? "No... well, maybe afraid isn't the word, and I'm not saying that because I want to sound tough," Artie explained. "I know there will be new challenges to figure out whenever I go next but I'm not afraid of that..."

"But?" Finn prompted him, munching pancakes as Artie took another thoughtful bite of his McMuffin.

"But I'm finally comfortable where I am now," Artie said. "When I'm not falling out of my chair and making a scene, that is. And..." He so wanted to tell someone else. And I'm secretly making out in the Astronomy classroom with the prettiest Cheerio. But she's only fifteen. And she may not even want to be seen with me after what she witnessed today.

"And...?" Finn asked.

"And I really don't know if film school's what I want," Artie concluded. "I mean, it's my hobby, sure, but maybe it's not the only thing I can do. You know, for the longest time, soccer was the only thing I wanted to do."

"I know, dude," Finn said, sympathetically. "I'm sure you're always left wondering 'what if?'"

"Well, who's to say that soccer would have worked out anyway?" Artie couldn't get the dream, plus the miserable looks on all his friends faces (not to mention the sight of Quinn and Puck with two kids and a third on the way), out of his mind.

"I thought I wanted to join the army," Finn said, changing the subject to Artie's relief, because he wasn't sure how much longer he could have stopped himself from talking about Kitty. "And before that, I thought maybe even following Rachel and trying to just find work in New York was a good plan. Now I'm glad I didn't do either of those things. As weird as it sounds, I'm glad to be right where I am right now, working for Burt and taking care of him during his treatments."

"Seriously?" Artie blinked several times. "That's news to me. You were in a pretty low place earlier this year, when you told me you were hoping a car would fall on you."

"Well, you brought me out of that," Finn said, brightly. "You, plus the realization that if I hadn't stayed home, I would have missed this time with my family. I spent many years wishing for a dad. And a brother! Now that I finally had both, it wasn't the right time to up and leave..."

Artie was nodding, taking in the full meaning of Finn's words. It was nice to hear that Finn was mentally in a better headspace, and nice to know that he, Artie, had played a part in that.

"... what I'm saying is, do what works for you, don't worry so much about how it looks to others or how it compares to what others are doing after high school. No two situations are the same. Oh, and you'd be proud of me, I'm going to start taking college classes in the spring. After I get some community college credit, I'll transfer someplace close and get a business degree. Then I can take over the shop from Burt when he decides to retire."

Wow. Finn Hudson, the guy who froze last year when JBI cornered him and asked him his plan after high school, now had an amazing plan for his life and a solid idea of how to get there. Artie stared at him with an admiration that was different than the admiration he'd had for him in years past.

"Proud of you, man," Artie said, almost finding himself choked up. Maybe his head injury was giving him emotional lability.

"Thanks," Finn said, giving Artie a fist bump and loosening up the tension and awkwardness of the moment by choosing to open up the calendar. He flashed Mr. November. "Proud of you too, man. I'm glad you chose to represent your people by posing in your wheelchair in one of your pictures.

Artie smiled, upon hearing it said that way. My people.

As he munched on his Egg McMuffin, he wondered if he could potentially change the way disability was represented on-screen someday. Maybe someday characters with disabilities wouldn't just be hanging out in the background as stereotypes who served to teach able-bodied people some kind of lesson. Maybe someday, they'd tell stories of their own.

He woke up to more texts the next day.

A few people, like Tina, Blaine, and Sam, had all sent follow-up messages while he was sleeping. "Fartie" day had been a lot of fun. Finn just joined him in video games and laziness, since he couldn't do much else, and that was exactly what Artie needed. Maybe it was what Finn needed, too. He'd had a lot of adult responsibilities lately. He hadn't had much time for fun since the musical had ended.

Artie took more medication the previous evening and had wound up falling sound asleep by eight-thirty. After skimming the well-intentioned, concerned messages from his friends, he discovered he had another from Kitty. And she'd just sent it. You coming to school today?

Yes, Artie wrote back, uncharacteristically short in his response again.

Meet me outside at the ramp of doom, she said.

Artie stared at the phone for a minute, wondering what had possessed her to suggest that as the meeting place. Knowing that the ice was probably still there, thick and impassable as ever, he had made plans to inconvenience himself and enter on the opposite side of the school that day. But Kitty wanted to meet him there.

OK, if you say so.

It was a little bit early still, so he lie in bed and spent a few moments responding to the previous day's messages he'd collected from Lauren, Blaine, Sam, Brittany, Marley, Joe, and Tina. While he appreciated hearing from them, all the attention was unwanted. He really didn't want to get up today. His mother had even encouraged him not to go, if he didn't want to. But he'd missed a test yesterday, plus it was the last day before the holidays. All that, on top of the fact that he'd just promised to meet Kitty in front of his favorite death trap.

He did catch another ride from his mother, who could make that part a little easier on him. She was a bit confused when he told her where to drop him off. "I thought you'd want the other side of the school, to avoid that steep incline," she commented, lowering the van's ramp for him. "Your father will be calling the school today, by the way."

Interesting. Artie wouldn't stop his parents from advocating for him, but this time, Sue Sylvester would be answering the call. He wasn't sure who would win. His dad could be a pretty damn good advocate, something Artie wasn't always willing to do for himself.

As promised, Kitty was waiting for him. She wasn't just by the ramp, she was on it, wielding a shovel. Scccccrape! went the shovel against the thick layer of ice as she scraped off a big chunk. In her Cheerios uniform, no less. At least they were doing the pants under the skirts, but Artie got cold just looking at her. She noticed him and looked up from fervently scraping the ice off the pavement. Her cheeks were pink and her nose looked like a little cherry. At least she'd added a white beanie, gloves, and a warm-looking scarf to the ensemble. She lowered the part of her scarf covering her mouth with a gloved hand and fixed him with a grin.

"Well?" she asked, expecting a reaction.

"Well, now there's... less ice," he said.

"Also, this!" Kitty produced a big container of rock salt, holding it out proudly. She was smiling, expecting him to smile back, but all he could think about was the moment the day before when he'd seen that dreaded pity in her eyes. He forcibly smiled back anyway as she shook the container of salt all over the ramp.

"Y'know, that'll take awhile to make a difference," Artie pointed out. "The old custodian, the good one who quit when Coach Sylvester became his new boss, I guess, he was out here treating the ramps at 6:00 A.M. on snow and ice days. He told me so once."

That did it. Her smile faltered. "Well, I was only trying to help," she said.

Artie nodded. "It's the thought that counts," he said, reaching for his wheels. "Uh, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go around now." All the way around.

"Wait!" Kitty cried out, so he waited. "It's my fault you're all the way on the opposite side of the building. At least let me push you up?"

Thus far, she hadn't pushed him. She only offered out of clear necessity, of course, but it didn't make him any less hesitant. "Fine," he said, resigning himself to her help as he folded his hands in his lap. "Just be careful."

"I will," she promised, making her way down to him. "My boots have really good traction."

Artie couldn't help but picture her slipping and the both of them going down, his chair crashing on top of her, just about as vividly as he'd imagined that entire story of a dream the day before. Luckily, her boots and their traction did get them all the way up the ramp safely. She stepped around in front of him and gave him a self-assured smirk. "See?"

"Yeah, that was nice of you," Artie said, reaching for his wheels again and avoiding direct eye contact with her. "I'd better be going." But Kitty was blocking the door. "Look, would you please move? Thank you for helping me. Now, it's freezing out here and my body doesn't regulate my temperature very well."

That got her to move. Probably freaked her out. Great, he thought. Just what he was trying to avoid. But as he pushed his way on into the library, she followed him in. Perhaps he hadn't scared her off like he'd thought.

She casually reached over him from behind and placed the container of salt in his lap. As he grasped it, he noticed she'd taped one of their star-shared notes to the side. And that got him to smile. Briefly.

"I have to retake my AP Economics test during study hall," he said.

"You can't just take it during class?" Kitty was not buying his excuse. She furrowed her brow, following him through the stacks. "Why are you avoiding me, Artie?"

"I don't know, okay?" he said, coming to a complete stop, so that she stopped as well. "It's not that I don't enjoy kissing you..." he trailed off, as they both looked left and right, to make sure no one overheard them in the library. "But I don't think you realize what you'd be taking on, if we ever..."

He trailed off, unable to finish that because he was honestly that afraid to say it aloud. Went public. Took this thing seriously. Became more than people who make out in secret. He was honestly afraid to ask for more, to lose what they had.

"I realize," she said, coolly.

"I don't think you do."

There was a heavy silence between them, kind of fitting for the library honestly.

"You should probably go get your shovel before someone steals it," Artie finally said. "I'll... I'll see you in Glee club."