A/N- If anyone is confused by the lack of Warbler/McKinley backstory in my verse, for simplicity's sake, here are the cliff notes. Kurt did not ever transfer to Dalton. He met Blaine after ND's first competition against the Warblers. Blaine transferred to McKinley during January of his sophomore year. They didn't go to war over Michael Jackson songs in a parking garage and Blaine didn't get blinded by a rock-salt slushy.

And that's what you didn't miss on gigundoly Glee!

Artie Abrams was on top of the world. For one thing, he was practically famous in the halls of McKinley, thanks to his work in the 'Guys of Glee' calendar. It had been out for two weeks, and girls were still stopping him in the hall to autograph his months. Becky Jackson asked him to make it out to "my future wife, Becky." And when the impartial panel of judges, which consisted of Coach Beiste, Ms. Pillsbury, and crazy Ms. Castle, voted for a favorite month, they picked one of Artie's. Though they said they liked July, their pick for the winner was November.

Mr. November.

He'd almost flinched when they'd first assigned him the month of his accident. On Saturday, November 24th, the tenth anniversary would be upon the family once more. But Artie, who was focused on keeping his grades up when he wasn't autographing calendars between class, wasn't as worried about the anniversary this year. He had one other thing keeping his mind off of it.

Kitty Wilde wasn't his girlfriend, but she wasn't entirely indifferent towards him either. In fact, he and Kitty took every opportunity they could to meet for a make out session in an empty classroom. The astronomy class was usually available, seeing as the class only met a couple times a day. Kitty would slip him a note that said 'Meet Me Under the Stars.' Was it unconventional? Yes. Was it a secret? For now. Was it fun? Yes, and maybe even more fun because it was a secret.

Artie didn't want anyone thinking he'd cast Kitty as the lead in his show because he was infatuated with her. That infatuation had happened later, after the show. But who would ever believe that? So, in order not to undermine himself as a director, he opted to keep their little rendezvous on the down-low.

"Meet me under the stars," read the yellow star-shaped note from Kitty that he received in his locker at the end of the day, with just one class to go before Glee club.

Kitty knew it was Artie's study hall period, and it was her class period for photography, which meant she was allowed to roam campus to work on her projects. Crazy Ms. Castle was in charge of photography and they met in a different classroom, which was precisely how Kitty knew the astronomy class would be available during the last class period before the clubs and teams met after school.

Artie smiled to himself as he studied the note in his hand. It was why the locker slamming right next to him startled him. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Tina there and hoped she hadn't read over his shoulder. Not that she'd know what "meet me under the stars" was all about, but he didn't want anyone to ask. Luckily, Tina seemed pretty preoccupied with something as she heaved a great sigh, leaning against the lockers and staring straight ahead.

"Something... wrong?" Artie asked her. "That's Blaine's locker. Why were you opening his locker?"

"Getting his Chem notes for him," she said. "Today's our last rehearsal before our puny three-day Thanksgiving break. Then it's time for Sectionals, Artie, and he's sick! We need him to sing lead on, like, all the songs. I'm going over to his house later to bring him this. And I'll bring him every cold remedy I can think of! Even Mike's Mom's chicken feet soup. That did actually help me when I got Asian Bird Flu."

"That's stressful," Artie agreed, casually folding up his star-shaped note and sliding that on into his pocket. "You could bring him some Vaporub. That stuff always helps me when I have a cold."

"Got it already," Tina said. "Plus cough drops, cough syrup, the soup, a heating pad, nasal spray, and some hair gel. The gel's just because he ran out and I was at the store anyway. Hey! You have study hall too, right? Want to come with me to bring his notes and the cold remedies over to his house?"

"Oh, no, that's okay," Artie said, shaking his head. "I'd just slow you down. You have to hurry back in time for rehearsal. We already don't have Blaine, which is bad enough. And don't, like, catch his cold or something."

"Of course not, it's not like I'm gonna make out with him," Tina told him, as if that was something he might have suspected her of doing. Which was never going to happen, seeing as she wasn't exactly Blaine's type. Wait. Did she know about him and Kitty? Was that was she really meant? Was she implying that she knew?

He didn't have time to worry about it, because Tina didn't stick around and he had a date in the astronomy classroom. Kitty was sitting atop one of the tables when he arrived and wheeled his way to the back of the room. When he approached and came to a stop in front of her, grinning like an idiot, she tilted her head and leaned down to kiss him, their lips just grazing. Then she paused, looking up to check the door.

"I shut it," he assured her. "I just saw Tina in the hall. She's taking Blaine some cold remedies and tried to get me to come along. I told her I had to study. I thought maybe she suspected us of being... involved."

"Why would she think that?" Kitty asked, taking his glasses from him and being silly, as she stuck them on her own face. "How do I look?"

"Nerdy cute," he replied, but went back to focusing on the first thing she'd said. "Why would she think that? I don't know, maybe because she's my friend and probably the only person who looks for me during my study period sometimes. Besides you, that is."

"Well, tell her you're doing an independent study."

Now Kitty climbed into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck, to continue kissing him. As nice as it would be to tell people that he was spending part of each day making out with the prettiest Cheerio on the team, sneaking around was fun too. When their fun was halted by the end of this class period, she put his glasses back on him, straightened his collar, and hopped off his lap with one final smirk.

"Pleasure doing business with you," she quipped, turning on her heels and scooting out of the room without waiting on him. He needed a few minutes to compose himself, as he breathed heavily, processing what most definitely seemed like an incredible dream, only it was really, really happening...

"Artie? You okay?" Sam asked, jogging alongside his chair to grab the door to the auditorium for his buddy on the way in. They'd managed to book the auditorium for their final rehearsal of their 'Grease' set list - 'Greased Lightning,' 'Born to Hand Jive,' and 'Hopelessly Devoted.'

"Fine, why?"

You're all red-faced and out of breath," Sam observed. "Been working out during your free period, eh?"

"Well, it was you and your seminar that inspired me," he said. Kitty squeezed past them on the way in and couldn't stop herself from giggling at Artie's lie.

"Okay, we'll get right into rehearsal," Mr. Schue said, with a nod to Tina, who was the last to come running in. "I know it's strange that we don't get to rehearse again for the next three days. I know you guys are aware, a scheduling error resulted in Sectionals being scheduled the Saturday of the holiday break."

"How un-American," Kitty noted.

"How's Blaine?" Artie turned to inquire about their sickly friend, as Tina slipped into the seat right behind him.

"He was sleeping when I got there," she answered. "His mom let me go up to his room and drop off the basket of stuff for him."

You went in his room while he was sleeping? Artie thought that was a little strange, but Tina, Blaine, and Sam had become a close little trio over the past several months. So close that they sometimes forgot they weren't the only seniors in the club. He and Brittany were there, too.

Speaking of Brittany, she had taken the stage and was standing next to Mr. Schue, looking nervous. He put an arm around her shoulders. "Sorry, Britt, I almost forgot," their teacher said. "Listen up, before we start rehearsal, Brittany has an announcement."

"I'm not good at speeches, it's one reason I didn't run for class President this year," said Brittany, nervously. "The other reason is they told me I couldn't be a two-term Senior class President. It's un-Presidented." (She meant unprecedented but no one bothered correcting her.) "Anyway, that's not my point. My point is, um..."

Brittany paused to collect herself as tears suddenly appeared. Artie looked over his shoulder to confirm that the sniffles behind him meant Tina was indeed crying too. She never could stand to watch someone else cry, even if she didn't know why. He faced the front again to listen to Brittany.

"It's kind of good news, kind of bad news," she went on. "See, the good news is, I'm in special education now, so I had lots of help to get the credits I need to graduate. And Coach Sylvester knew someone important at the University of... I forget the name. The one with the pretty, red cardinals. Santana goes there."

"The University of Louisville?" It was Sam who helped her out then. "That's awesome, Britt!"

"I have a full scholarship to cheer for them," she added, as the rest of them let out whoops and yells, bursting into applause as she laughed, then buried her face in her hands and cried.

"But I only needed a semester's worth of credits to finish high school and Cheerio College wants me now," she said, through tears. "So I graduate next month."

The two seniors present who could easily run to the edge of the stage and hop up there to embrace Brittany did so. She buried her face in Sam's shoulder as Tina enveloped then both in a hug.

Artie was a little concerned, the way Santana had gone on and on about her new girlfriend, Elaine, at their Homecoming reunion. Hopefully, Britt already knew about Elaine, or maybe those two had split, giving Santana and Brittany an opportunity to rekindle what they'd started. Now that he and Brittany were ancient history, he rooted for them. Whatever the case, he hoped Brittany would be be happy and wouldn't regret having to leave mid-year. Like Artie, she wasn't supposed to have another year anyway. Unlike him, though, it hadn't really been planned that way. (Well, technically, neither had his extra year, but it had been the plan for him a lot longer than it had for her.)

"I'm really glad we have a lot of dancing in this show," Artie spoke up, from his place on the first row. "Because it means we've featured you, Britt, for what's gonna be your last competition with us.

"We love you, Brittany!" added Kitty, from the third row back.

Brittany sniffled and smiled through tears, then cried even harder when the rest of the team joined her onstage and formed a circle around her. When they'd finished their cry-circle, however, it was time to get to work if they wanted to kick some Warbler ass on Saturday.

At the end of the rehearsal, someone had another announcement. He must have waited, so as not to take the focus off of Brittany and her big news. And also, he probably waited for a certain red-headed counselor to make her way down to the auditorium and join him in sharing the big news.

"We're engaged!" Mr. Schue said, giving his fiancé a side-hug onstage as she flashed the bling on her left hand. "I know, most of you seem to be thinking it - finally!"

"Well, we were all hoping to help with the proposal," Tina spoke up. "I had some ideas, but you're probably better off doing that kind of thing in private. In case the other person says no."

"Uh... right, Tina," Mr. Schuester said. "Well, in any case, we wanted to invite you all to the wedding! We've decided to get married over the Christmas holidays, because there was a cancellation at the church Emma's always wanted to be married at."

"Last-minute cold feet, I guess," Ms. Pillsbury quipped. "Yes, all of you, please come! If you can, please come. I've actually brought your invitations with me. And I'll be passing them out to all the alumni at Sectionals as well. Or, well, mailing them if they can't make it, I suppose."

Wow. A wedding. Would he be bold enough to invite Kitty as his date? He turned around to look at her on the third row, maybe see if she was thinking the same thing, but she was too busy talking to Marley and Unique to even catch his eye. I'll text her, he decided, on his way out.

But as Artie was stopping by his locker on the way out to collect the books he needed to bring home, someone came looking for him. "Oh, Artie!" she exclaimed. "Your locker could use a good spring-cleaning, you know!"

Artie grinned up at her. "But it's only fall, Ms. Pillsbury."

"All the more reason to clean it," she said, sneering as she peeked inside over his shoulder. "It's flu season, and I can practically see the virus growing in here already. I'll get some gloves and Clorox wipes for you soon. That's actually not why I stopped by to talk to you. How would you like a blind date to the wedding?"

"Oh?" Artie adjusted his glasses and looked at his counselor, surprised that she was coming to him, of all people. "A date?"

"Yes, she's my niece, Betty," Ms. Pillsbury explained, kneeling by him and avoiding looking at his locker too closely. "She's eighteen and a senior, she's blonde, she's an amazing singer, and she has very, large, um..."

"Feet?" Artie guessed.

"Boobies." Ms. Pillsbury turned as red as her hair. "And she'll be sitting next to my sister, who looks just like me, on the front row of the bride's side."

"Oh!" Artie fake-coughed and pretended to clear his throat. "Uh, Ms. Pillsbury... can... can I think about it and give you my answer at Sectionals?"

He didn't want to flat out tell her no until he'd asked Kitty first. He had caught Ryder stealing glances at Kitty, ever since Marley had dumped him for Jake, which meant he'd have beat Ryder to asking her. And in person was better than a text.

"Kitty! Hey!" Thankfully, she was still waiting on her brother out in front of the school. Sometimes, if her brother was running too late or working later than usual at the restaurant, Artie still offered to drop her by her house.

"I don't need a ride today," she said. "My brother just called, and he's five minutes away. She paused, noticing he was out of breath. "Wow, are you okay? Did you want to talk to me about something?"

"Actually, yeah," he said, his chest heaving up and down. "Would-you-wanna-go-to-the-wedding-with-me?" Oh, shit. He sounded like Harry asking Cho Chang to the Yule Ball.

She scrunched her face. "Come again?"

"Would you..." he breathed this time. "Want to... go to the wedding? With me? Like a... like a date?"

It wasn't totally out of the blue, him asking her to this wedding. Afterall, they had been making out "under the stars" a lot lately, and well, that meant they were definitely something.

"Oh. Um." She bit her lip. "I think we'll be on a family ski trip that week. I'm sorry to miss their wedding, but well, we've had this planned for awhile."

"Oh." His heart sank. It was disappointing, sure, but maybe in that case, he could help his teacher instead. "Well, would you be mad if I took someone else?"

"Mad?" Kitty raised her eyebrows. "No, of course not, Artie. Why would I be mad? I don't own you."

But I wish you did, he thought, sadly, having hoped she'd react a bit differently. If she'd shown the slightest sign of jealousy and disappointment, he would have immediately changed course.

"Just... making sure," Artie said, like it didn't bother him as much as it did. "Ms. Pillsbury has this eighteen-year-old niece and she asked me, of all people, to be her date. And, well, I don't want to let Ms. P down, but if you don't want me to, I'll tell her I can't."

"Artie, it's fine," she said, putting her hand on his shoulder and looking him straight in the eyes. He searched her gorgeous green ones for any hint that she was saying it's fine and meaning the opposite. Girls did that sometimes. But judging from her tone and the sincerity in her eyes, he guessed it really was... fine... with her.

And that was disappointing.

Four days later, at Sectionals in Dayton, Artie was in line at the snack bar, getting chips for himself and Kitty, when Sebastian Warbler stepped right in front of him like Artie wasn't even there.

He rolled his eyes at the other guy's butt, which was directly in front of his face now. "I'm in line," Artie informed the very slimiest of the Warblers, at least according to Blaine, who knew them all and had met Sebastian shortly before transferring to McKinley.

"Are you?" Sebastian turned to sneer at him, along with the other Warbler he was with, another tall, dark handsome guy. "I couldn't tell."

"Yeah, he was saving me a spot," Blaine said, coming to Artie's aid as the other two guys merely shrugged and got behind them. "There you go. Behind us, where you belong."

Blaine's cold had thankfully disappeared, maybe in part due to Tina's miraculous combination of remedies. That was good, because like Tina had pointed out, Blaine sang lead a lot for this particular set. (Maybe Brittany was right about Blaine being their new Rachel.)

Speaking of Rachel...

"Hi, guys!" Rachel scurried up to them, accompanied by none other than their entire crew of graduates, Quinn, Finn, Santana, Mercedes, Mike, and Puck. Only Kurt was missing.

They couldn't hug them or anything because the Warblers were in the way. "You all got here at the same time?" Artie asked.

"We met up before the show," Quinn explained, positively beaming at Artie, who she hadn't seen in a month. "Well, for lunch. You guys were busy. But we'll meet up with everybody afterwards for the victory party!"

"Don't you mean the consolation party?" spoke up the new Warbler. He smirked at them all, introducing himself. "Hunter Clarington," he said. "Warbler front man."

"Oh, what happened?" Santana teased Sebastian. "Get demoted 'cause you're not as pretty as him?"

"Puck Puckerman," Puck stepped forward. "Pool man. Looking forward to watching our team kick your asses out there." And he cracked his knuckles for effect.

"Your little brother will be glad to see you, dude," Artie commented, grinning up at Puck. He turned to the two Warblers. "On second thought, you guys go ahead of us."

"Don't get used to being first though," Rachel added, her snark obviously inspired by Santana and Puck. Quinn just lifted an eyebrow in her direction.

With matching stink eyes pointed at their competition, Sebastian and Hunter shuffled their way to the front. Now the current and former New Directions could have a proper gathering in line.

"I just saw, uh... was that Wade in a poodle skirt walking by just now?" Finn asked.

"Unique," Blaine corrected. "And yes. We're using three of the best numbers from the musical. It made rehearsing for Sectionals easy, and we were able to focus our efforts on a cool fundraising project for Regionals."

"Don't get too confident," Mercedes warned them, keeping her voice low, lest the Warblers overhear her. "Listen, I think the numbers are great, but if your judges aren't fans of the musical, you may be in trouble. Just make sure those performances are clean. Project. Smile a lot. Be confident."

"So don't be too confident but be confident," Artie echoed. "Right. Not confusing at all."

"Hey, I choreographed a lot of it, they're really gonna wow the judges with their dancing," said the eternally-positive Mike Chang. "And Artie, Tina told me you're going to incorporate your chair into 'Greased Lightning.' That should be fun to see."

Artie blushed. Once upon a time, he'd tried to stay off to the side, out of the way, during competitions. There was always a small part of him that worried the judges wouldn't take their show choir seriously because of his presence or could even be too busy watching him to notice the other talent onstage. But the last time they'd used his chair as a prop in the show, specifically last year's Sectionals during 'Safety Dance,' it had gone really well.

"Hey, are the calendars the fundraising project you were talking about?" Quinn suddenly asked. She'd heard all about them, of course, through Artie who had given her a play-by-play of how it all went down. (He'd just carefully omitted the part about making out with Kitty at his house. And making out with her at school nearly every day after that.)

"Yup!" Blaine said, looking proud. "Our alternates, Lauren and Mohamed are over there with Tina, selling them now. Everyone come get one, and ring in the new year with me! And then... everyone else."

"Oh, I know Mohamed," Rachel commented. "I was in the Muslim Student Association with him." Cue blank stares from the rest. "What?"

Once they got their snacks, they headed over to check out the calendars. Sam was already there when they go to the table. Someone else had followed them, too.

"Is this even allowed?" Sebastian asked, picking up one of the calendars to peruse. It flopped open to one of the admittedly stranger pictures – Joe Hart shirtless wearing Easter Bunny ears for April. Not their best. He laughed out loud, Hunter Clarington joining in.

"How much for this?" Hunter asked, wiping tears away as he laughed and picked up one of the calendars to see the rest. He was hysterical by the time he reached Jake and his "Jake-O-Lantern."

"Ten dollars a piece," Lauren informed him. "Listen, if you sold a Warbler-A-Day desk calendar for twenty, I guarantee you'd earn enough for a trip to Nationals in a private jet."

"I'll... keep that in mind," Hunter said, as he forked over ten dollars, which he happened to have in his pocket, leftover from buying only boxed salads and bottled water. Laughing and shaking their heads, Sebastian and Hunter walked off with their calendar.

"Why'd you sell him one?" Mercedes hissed.

"Because he had... money?" Lauren said, shrugging. "I thought that was how it worked."

"I'm Mr. March and Mr. September," Sam said, proudly to the others. He turned one of the calendars on the table to the picture of himself in tiny green shorts with clovers all over them and left it open to that page on the table. "What do you think?"

"Not only did you exploit Blaine and the others in this gratuitous publication, you vapo-raped him!"

Kurt had arrived to throw out this accusation, glaring straight at Tina as he stormed across the lobby. Blaine looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole. "Blaine said he woke up and his chest was covered in the stuff."

"I was just explaining to Kurt how I got better so fast..." It was clear Blaine didn't want Tina to be embarrassed. "I think Tina was just... taking one for the team."

"Oh, right, nothing in it for her," Kurt said, sarcastically. Meanwhile, Tina was close to tears now.

"Uh, guys?" Marley appeared with Kitty, interrupting in just the right moment. "Hi. Good to see you all," she said, addressing the alumni and shooting a curious look at Tina's face. "Guys, we drew first. Mr. Schue needs everyone in the green room, stat!"

"Artie?" Meanwhile, Quinn had picked up a calendar and had found Mr. November. That was one detail he'd kept under wraps to surprise her. He just smiled proudly. "This is perfect. I love it. It's gonna be November year-round in my dorm."

"I took that photo and his other pose for July," Kitty told her proudly. "Listen, we'd love to stay and chat, but it'll have to wait, it's showtime!"