Chapter 2: Roots Before Branches

ARTIE

"Artie! You came!"

The way that Quinn's face lit up upon seeing him enter her backyard made him extra glad he'd been able to rouse himself out of bed on his first official day of summer vacation to attend the small graduation party Quinn's mother had planned in her honor on Saturday morning.

"Of course I came," Artie replied as Quinn hurried over to where he was stopped at the top of the two stone steps leading from the walkway to the patio below. "Here, want to grab this for a sec? It's for you. A little congratulations gift from the Abrams fam. Sebastian insisted on adding his name to the card too, but I was the one that picked it out, I swear."

"You didn't have to get me anything," Quinn insisted, accepting the envelope and small wrapped jewelry box that Artie handed her as he prepared to tackle the challenge of getting into the backyard.

"Um, do you… would you like some help?" She tentatively asked him, sounding unsure of whether or not she should have offered. "My dad's here, and-and my sister's husband…"

"No, no, I'm fine. Just needed to hand that to you so I had my hands free." Artie popped a wheelie and expertly bumped himself down the two inconvenient steps, mentally commending himself for his good balance and smooth moves (though he knew he'd take her up on her offer when it was time to get back up the stairs). "There. Easy!"

Artie grinned up at Quinn before realizing that everyone at Quinn's small graduation garden party was now looking in their direction. He sure knew how to make an entrance. He blushed, hoping that if anyone at the party noticed he was a little redder than usual, they'd attribute it to the mid-day June sun blazing down on him.

"Can I get you anything to eat or drink?" Quinn asked him as she led them both over to the buffet-style table in the shade that was covered with all kinds of picky food– tea sandwiches, various appetizers, and small fruit pastries for dessert– and different colorful drinks in clear beverage containers. "I'm going to get myself a lemonade."

"Then make that two!" Artie told her, remaining by her side as she filled up his glass first and handed it to him before filling up her own.

"Quinnie, who's this?" A woman who looked a lot like Quinn but was a handful of years older asked as she came up behind the pair.

"This is Artie," Quinn replied as she turned around, juggling her cup of lemonade in one hand and her gift from Artie in the other. "Artie, this is my older sister Frannie."

"Nice to meet you," Artie told her politely, setting his drink between his legs and extending a hand out for her to shake.

Quinn's sister Frannie was wearing a long floral dress and had darker hair than Quinn's, but her same green eyes. Artie guessed that she was seven or eight years older than them, and he knew she was married. She had presented a sickeningly-sweet smile in his direction, but other than that, Artie found her to be kind of difficult to read. He was used to people making assumptions about him based on a first glance, and he was nearly certain that's what Frannie was doing right now. She was sizing him up, probably speculating that he was Quinn's new boyfriend that she hadn't heard about.

Not quite yet.

"Alright, well, we're going to go sit under the cabana," Quinn told her sister, effectively ending their awkward, albeit short-lived, conversation.

He followed Quinn over to where a nice outdoor cabana-style tent covered some patio furniture– a couch and two cushioned chairs. The location was as secluded as one could be in this backyard full of relatives and family friends.

Artie set his lemonade on the coffee table before transferring onto the couch, patting the spot next to him and encouraging Quinn to take a seat.

She held up the card and small gift that Artie had brought along with him. "Should I open it?"

Artie nodded. "Go right ahead."

She remembered her manners and opened the card first, silently reading the congratulatory message Artie had written inside. She unwrapped the small square-shaped velvet box, opening it to reveal a necklace with a small red gemstone pendant.

"It's a Garnet," Artie explained. "Your–"

"My birthstone!" Quinn cut him off excitedly.

"My mom said that that's what she received for her graduation. There's a receipt in there, too, in case you don't like it and want to take it back," Artie was quick to inform her. When he was nervous, he tended not to be in control of his words, and they seemed to just all tumble out at a speed that he wasn't able to stop. He didn't realize how anxious he'd be about her opening the gift he'd so painstakingly selected at the department store earlier in the week (all the while, Sebastian was nagging him to hurry up and make a decision).

"Artie, don't be silly, I love it," Quinn assured him, taking the necklace out of the box and securing it around her neck. She didn't seem to mind that the red stone clashed a little bit with her all-blue outfit. "Thank you so much. This is so sweet of you."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and enveloped him in a huge hug that lasted a bit longer than a usual one between friends might.

When they broke apart, they sat there smiling sheepishly at one another for a moment before Artie reached for his lemonade.

"So, uh, any other friends of ours coming?" Artie tried to ask casually before taking a sip. Subtlety had never been his specialty, though, and the question Artie meant to sound cool, calm, and collected, came out a little more gauche than he intended it to.

Quinn, however, didn't seem to take notice of his awkwardness as she just shook her head. "I only invited you, Brittany, and Santana, but Santana said she wasn't in the mood to celebrate graduation since Brittany has to repeat senior year," she explained. "I probably would have invited Rachel and Finn too, but Shelby told me something about Rachel's dads hosting some sort of brunch. We'll see them later anyway. So, nope. Just us. Hope that's okay."

"Oh, no, yeah, sure, of course," Artie tripped over his words trying to assure Quinn that he didn't care. He glanced around the yard, taking in the various adults talking before his eye was caught by two blonde children playing together, knee-deep in a bed of daylilies while looking for a ball they'd been tossing back and forth. He pointed to the kids. "Who are they?"

"Leo and Sasha," Quinn answered, following Artie's gaze. The kids managed to find their ball within the flowerbed and had begun playing together again. "My mom's boyfriend's kids. They're, like, ten and eleven."

"Oh, hey, I remember you telling me about them last week," Artie said, the glimmer of recognition present on his face. They had been slow dancing at the wedding, he'd had Quinn on his lap, and she'd asked him what it was like to have a step-sibling. She mentioned that her mother had recently started seeing someone new and that he had kids. "What are they like?"

"They're fine," Quinn replied with an indifferent shrug. "We just don't have a lot in common, with the age difference and all. But at least they're not out to destroy the Glee Club, right?"

Artie snapped his head back towards her with his jaw dropped, in awe of how forward she was about with poking fun at him. Usually, he found that others considered him to be off-limits of the good-natured teasing. He appreciated that she didn't seem to think that. "Too soon, woman!"

"Sorry, I couldn't resist," Quinn laughed, placing her hand on his arm and making no effort to move it.

Not even when her father came over to their shaded sitting area with a plate of appetizers to offer them.

"Quinnie, have you had one of these Caprese skewers yet? They're your favorite," Russell Fabray said, seemingly proud of himself for remembering something small about the daughter he'd kicked out of the house and was currently trying to reconcile with.

"They're Frannie's favorite," Quinn corrected before reaching for the plate anyway, passing a skewer to Artie and taking one for herself.

The presence of the fancy selection of hors d'oeuvres amused Artie. Even though it wasn't a relatively large function, there had clearly been a lot of thought put into Quinn's backyard party. Much more than any pool party his family hosted– they usually just grilled hot dogs and left chips out in a bowl and called it a day.

Mr. Fabray seemed to then notice how closely the two of them were sitting on the couch before him.

"Are you two, uh…?" He began to ask, gesturing for the two of them to finish that sentence in their minds to spare him from having to ask his youngest daughter if she'd found herself yet another boyfriend only two years after the teenage pregnancy that had been the straw that broke the camel's back, unraveling all of their family's other problems shortly after.

Artie squirmed uncomfortably under her father's gaze. He quickly tried to think of a way to assure the man that they were just friends and that he didn't need to be the recipient of some sort of terrifying lecture on how to treat his daughter right (Despite the fact that you can't seem to do that yourself, Artie thought but wouldn't dare say).

All that came out of his mouth, however, was another jumble of words tumbling out of his mouth randomly at super speed.

"Oh, uh, well, you see, we're–"

Judy Fabray– who had a nearly-empty glass of Chardonnay in her hand and her new beau's arm around her waist– joined the group then, and when Russell Fabray noticed his ex-wife come up from behind him, he promptly walked away, not even sticking around long enough to get the answer to the question he'd asked.

Artie had noticed the cold glances shared between the parents and how they'd spent much of the party on opposite sides of the yard. He couldn't help but observe the dynamics of Quinn's family, and how different her divorced parents were from his. His had done what they had to do to be there for each of their children and support them physically, emotionally, and financially as they grew. It wasn't like that for Quinn, he knew. Her parents just plain resented one another, with no goal of being civil for their daughter's sake.

"Quinnie, would it kill you to run a brush through your hair? You're the guest of honor, and your hair looks like a bird's nest. And sit up straight," Judy berated her daughter before going to refill her glass.

Quinn's face fell. She ran her fingers through her blonde curls, tucking them behind her ears. She sat up straight, too, smoothing out the chambray striped dress she wore. Seeing Quinn's light dulled so suddenly by her own parents hurt Artie's heart.

"I think your hair looks pretty," Artie told her. He wasn't sure how much weight that statement would hold, coming from a guy who didn't know anything about hair and usually just swept his over his forehead every morning, but he hoped it counted for something.

It did get Quinn to smile, even if it was a small one. She took his hand in hers and kissed the top of it, setting their clasped hands in her lap and not saying anything else. The coziness and comfort she exhibited were all he needed to know that she thought of him more than just her friend from Glee. She didn't need to speak. He knew how she felt.

She continued to hold onto his hand, and as she did so, Artie began to feel his sixth sense start to tingle. He was no stranger to being stared at, and he knew what it felt like to have lots of eyes perceiving him. Frannie's. Judy's. Russell's. Various aunts and uncles. Quinn didn't seem to notice, but he did. He always noticed.

…

"Where are they? What's the hold-up? We've been waiting out here forever. If they aren't here in the next five minutes, I'm jumping on the next train myself," Santana complained, crossing her arms over her chest as they stood on the platform at the train station.

"They'll get here when they get here," Artie told her, sick of the girl's relentless complaining. "He's breaking up with her for God's sake. I'm sure she's crying."

Finn had talked with Rachel's dads and they mutually agreed that it was ridiculous for Rachel to defer her acceptance to the prestigious New York Academy of Dramatic Arts in order to have a teenage wedding and hang around Lima for a year while Finn and Kurt worked to improve their applications for next semester. Broadway had always been her dream, and for her one-track mind to have been derailed by the prospect of marriage seemed so unlike her. Finn and her dads had recognized this and agreed that they had to do something.

The plan was to somewhat trick her into getting in the car with Finn, where he would be simultaneously breaking up with her and telling her of his plans to head to Fort Benning, Georgia to join the army. Meanwhile, she would be getting on the four twenty-five train to New York City, where her dads would meet her and they'd begin looking at the school's dorms.

Sure, Rachel had never been Artie's favorite person, but he still thought that this plan was kind of harsh. It wasn't any of his business, however, so when Finn told the New Directions about the plan and asked them to meet him and Rachel at the train station in downtown Lima at four o'clock for Rachel's send-off, they all dropped what they were doing and agreed. Though Artie suspected that a few members of the club had come just to watch the drama unfold.

"I told Lumps the Clown that this was a horrible idea, just sticking Berry on a train like this. She's probably gonna be so dramatic that Finn will give in and change his mind and we'll all have gathered here for nothing."

"That's enough, Santana," Mr. Schue told her, sending a stern glance in her direction.

Artie had begun to lose his patience and was about to say something snarky before Finn and Rachel came into view.

She was wiping her red blotchy eyes as she ascended the stairs onto the platform, with Finn following behind her with her suitcase.

"You guys…" Rachel tried to speak before she began blubbering again and just allowed herself a moment to take in the group that had gathered to see her off. "You guys would all do this for me? Come to send me off like this?"

"We wouldn't miss it," Mr. Schue told her, putting an arm around her shoulder. "We've loved having you with us in Lima, and your roots will always be planted here, but it's your time to branch out now. You'll be a star, Rachel, we all believe that."

"I also went inside and bought this," Quinn told her, stepping forward and presenting the sniffling girl with the gift she'd spontaneously purchased right when they got to the train station. "They have a little kiosk in there where you can buy all sorts of train tickets. So I bought you one from New York to New Haven and one for me to New York. Everyone keeps saying 'stay in touch', and I want to make sure that we do."

"Quinn… I don't even know what to say," Rachel said, accepting her gift and hugging the blonde girl. "This is so sweet, thank you."

The exchange elicited a smile from Artie, who had initially been shocked when Quinn had returned with the tickets earlier. They'd started their time at McKinley off as enemies, then grew to be sort of friends, but he didn't know Rachel meant so much to Quinn until that afternoon.

"Better keep an eye on your girlfriend, Artie," Santana teased under her breath as she leaned over Artie from behind so that he was the only one that could hear her. "Or else 'Quartie' might be replaced by 'Faberry'."

Artie rolled his eyes but kept his mouth shut. This was a big moment for Rachel, and he wasn't going to be the one that ruined it by causing a scene.

The final boarding call for her train was announced over the intercom, and Rachel went around and gave everyone hugs. She paused briefly in front of Finn before kissing him on the platform. Everyone silently watched their deep, passionate goodbye before she stepped onto the train.

Rachel found a seat where she could see her friends' faces out the window, and everyone waved at her as the train began moving and she grew further and further away. Just like a dramatic goodbye scene in a movie, Finn ran alongside it for as long as the platform allowed, before he had to allow Rachel to move on without him, physically and emotionally.

Then it was his turn to sob into Mr. Schue's embrace. The others dispersed, with Quinn following Artie over to where his car was parked in the nearest accessible spot so he could drive her back to her mom's house.

Quinn sat patiently in the passenger seat as Artie broke apart his chair and stowed the pieces in the back. He surprised both her and himself by turning to her and presenting her with a rather fear-inducing question, instead of putting the key into the car's ignition.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"What… what are we doing here?"

"Dropping Rachel off?" She smirked even though he guessed she knew that wasn't his question.

"No, what are we doing," Artie repeated. "Us. I've really loved this last week of hanging with you so much, Quinn, but where is this going? Everyone is either teasing us or just assuming that we're dating, and we've stopped correcting people."

"I don't know," Quinn replied thoughtfully. "I don't have a label for us exactly, but I know that I've had a better experience with you the last few days than I have with anyone else over the last few years. You're special, Artie, and I wish I'd… told you that sooner. What do you think we should do?"

Artie paused. He knew what his heart wanted. But did the rational part of him want this too? Was this even smart, to start a new relationship mere months before she was leaving for college in Connecticut? Could a relationship so new even survive long distance?

"I think… we have to take the advice Mr. Schue gave to Rachel, you know? Roots before branches," Artie concluded. "I know that time isn't exactly on our side, but we need to take the time to… put down some roots. Take things slow and not just dive right into everything too fast. I really like you too, and I do think this will work out, but I don't want to rush it if we can help it. Does that make sense?"

"I think so," Quinn said, nodding as she bit her lower lip.

"So, with all that said…" Artie began, looking over at her hopefully, his blue eyes meeting her green ones. "Quinn Fabray, would you like to go on an actual first date with me?"

"Artie Abrams, I would love to."