Returning from the holidays was always complicated by the coming of the first snow. It took a lot of snow to cancel school in Lima. For Artie, it was all about bundling up and getting inside as quickly as possible. In the winter, just to avoid having to spend time dismantling and reassembling his chair in the freezing temperatures and falling snow, Artie sometimes got rides to and from school with his mom. Especially on days when the snow was really coming down.
A couple of things added up to the perfect storm to ruin Artie's day. First, it was unspeakably cold the day before the day before the holiday break. Second, someone hadn't salted the ramp.
There had been some sort of scandal with Mr. Figgins, the kind of things students weren't privy to. Naturally, Jacob Ben Israel was trying to dig up the dirt to give an exclusive report on the situation. But whatever had happened, Figgins was gone, and their new interim principal was none other than Coach Sylvester. Or, as they were now instructed to call her, Principal Sylvester. Systematically, she was trying to run off anyone she didn't like by ruining their lives. The first to leave was the school nurse. She was close to retirement and, though she'd nearly given Artie another student's medication once, she was a nice lady who did a pretty good job most of the time. But Principal Sylvester saw to it that she transferred schools, and quickly. Now there was a new school nurse, a former Cheerio named Penny.
And the next to go, apparently, were the janitors.
Artie hadn't counted on the lack of qualified custodians affecting him quite as badly as it did that day. He was halfway up the steepest ramp in their entire town, the one that he should have just avoided entirely on a day like today, when he noticed the lack of salt. His wheels, which also lacked anything like chains to grip the pavement, slipped right out from under him. Down he went. Since he was on an incline, it was an even harder fall than usual. He hit his head so hard on the pavement that he actually blacked out. When he came to, he was shivering so badly that he couldn't even attempt to get up by himself. The icy patch right under him was stained with blood.
"Artie? Artie!" It was her voice. Oh, no, anyone but her! Kitty knelt beside him, clad in her Cheerios outfit and jacket. He looked up and saw... three little Kitties. Oh, wait, no. One of them was another underclassman Cheerio he didn't even know, a freshman or a sophomore maybe. And on the other side of her was the famous Bree. All three hovered over him with matching expressions of deepest concern.
"Mm..." was all Artie managed to say, as he tried to get off of his back and failed to even do that, thanks to the trifecta of being upside down on an incline, being dizzy because of the fall, and shivering violently because of the cold.
It took all three of them together but they did it. One of them took Artie's chair to the top and the other two managed to carry his body up – Artie supposed they were stronger than they looked, due to being pyramid bases. Oh, wait, no... someone else was with them. It took Artie a moment to realize that Lauren Zizes had shown up and had singlehandedly hoisted him off of the ice and into his chair. Kitty was now kneeling beside him to arrange his feet in his footrests, something she'd seem him do many times, as the other three looked on.
"You cut your cheek," Kitty pointed out, biting her lip and rising to her full height, then bending and examining the cut closely. "It looks pretty deep. You hit your head really hard when you fell. Want me to take you to the nurse?"
Lauren and the Cheerios (one being Bree, who had compared him to a wooden puppet) just stood back and stared. Artie saw the Cheerio he didn't know whisper something to Bree.
"No." His response wound up coming out sounding like the time he'd yelled at Tina for doing absolutely nothing wrong. He'd just been embarrassed then, for falling in front of her, too. He swallowed hard as Kitty took a step back. With knuckles that were cut and bleeding too, he gripped his wheels and avoided looking at any of them as he headed into the library to get out of the cold. "I'll be fine."
Except he would not be fine. Tears filled his eyes as he realized this was probably the second most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to him in the chair. (And the first thing was so bad that he'd dropped out of third grade.) He could not believe he was letting himself publicly fall apart at school. He willed himself not to let the tears spill over as he slowly made his way to his locker. The halls were almost empty, since he was now late to class. He was intent on getting to his locker, making it a point not to look up. He discovered then that his backpack had come open in the fall and someone had haphazardly shoved his AP Economics notes back inside. He proceeded to take out the entire notebook with all the papers still falling out and thrust it carelessly into the locker, with more force than needed.
"Whoa... hey, dude, are you all right?" Artie looked up to see Sam and Blaine hovering above him. It was Sam who had spoken.
"Yeah, what happened to your face?" asked Blaine.
"I fell, okay?" He returned his attention to trying to fit the mess of papers into his locker. "The stupid janitor didn't put salt on the ramp, like he's supposed to, and my wheels don't have chains, so I slipped backwards and tipped over on the ice."
His explanation was met with stunned silence. Artie tried two or three times to slam his locker shut, with it popping open each time and exploding with papers, which Blaine and Sam quickly stooped down to gather for him.
"It's fine. It's nothing," Artie said again, when they continued to stare at him with matching looks of pity. He grabbed his wheels to go but Sam stopped him.
"No, no, hey..." he said. "That's not nothing. That's some pretty serious road rash. Let me take you to the nurse's office, all right?"
Artie didn't answer him but he did let go of his wheels. He stared at the cuts on his hands as Sam took over the job of pushing for him.
The nurse looked up from her desk as the three entered. Even though she was new, she was already familiar with all the kids like Artie. It didn't take her long to find him a bottle of the medication he kept at school for emergencies, the good stuff that would put him right to sleep. She started by giving him a bottle of water and a pill to swallow.
"He tipped over," Blaine explained, as the nurse then put on gloves and grabbed some ointment for the gash on his cheek. "Someone's got to do something about the ice on the ramps."
"Did you hit your head?" asked the nurse, who was so young and attractive that she could have been their age. It made the whole thing ten-times worse. Artie just nodded miserably, as the room continued to spin. "I'm going to go call your mother. Lay down until she gets here."
Sam, who had commented to the guys about the young, good-looking nurse once before said nothing about her now. Both he and Blaine were completely focused on Artie.
"Want me to help you get up on the cot?" Sam asked, innocently.
"No." Artie was just as harsh as he'd been with Kitty outside. Why, oh why, did she have to be one of the people who witnessed that? "I don't want anybody to help me with anything..."
As he said this, he began taking the right armrest off his chair, in preparation for the tricky transfer that wouldn't have been so hard if the room wasn't still spinning.
"I'm tired of being so helpless," Artie went on, not holding back anymore. "I'm tired of everybody pitying me, and I'm tired of being in this damn chair."
"Anyone could have fallen on the ice, all right?" Blaine said, trying in vain to reassure him.
"Yeah, but they could've gotten back up, instead of lying there while a bunch of girls witnessed the whole thing." And she was there.
"Dude, don't bite my head off," Sam stopped him before he could attempt to haul his tired body onto the cot. "But you need some rest, so I'm going to help you out, all right? Just like you helped me out a few weeks ago, when you made me eat some pizza."
The comment was meant to lighten the mood, but nothing could cheer Artie up at the moment. Resigning himself to accepting Sam's help, he just sighed and wrapped his arms around the other guy's neck, letting him lift him with ease and place him gently on the cot.
Why would Kitty even want someone like him, especially after she'd witness his spectacular display of complete helplessness? It wasn't supposed to be this way. If that car hadn't crashed into them ten years ago, he could be on a completely different path.
"I'm supposed to be applying for soccer scholarships right now..." Artie murmured, more to himself than Sam and Blaine. "I wish I'd never been in that stupid chair."
"I know, buddy," he heard Sam say, as he drifted off to sleep.
...
Artie didn't know how much time had passed when he awoke. He was by himself in the nurse's office now and his mother still hadn't arrived to pick him up.
And then, as he gazed down his body, two strange things happened. Number one, he noticed he was wearing jeans, athletic trainers, and a McKinley letterman's jacket. Number two, as he stared down at his feet to wonder about the new shoes, he flexed his ankles. Right, left, right, left.
He sat straight up, swung his legs around with ease, and positioned his feet so that they hovered just off the ground. I'm doing this, he thought. The feeling of his feet on the ground was so real and satisfying that he would have thought it was really happening. It was the sort of dream, however, where he knew it was a dream. He'd scored many a soccer goal this way, too. He was just going to enjoy it while it lasted.
He wandered out of the nurse's office, preoccupied by watching every satisfying step. This was just about the best, most vivid walking dream of all-time. He decided to go looking for Kitty but ran into someone else first.
"Matt Rutherford?" The quiet guy who had briefly dated Mercedes before his untimely transfer stood before him dressed in white. "Are you going to actually talk to me?"
Matt chuckled. "I do talk, Artie," he said. "I wait until I have something important to say. Like right now. I'm here to tell you that I'm the Ghost of Your Distant Past."
"Ghost?" Artie echoed. "Are you dead?"
"By now you've worked out that you're dreaming or you wouldn't be doing that," Matt said, ignoring the question and gesturing at Artie's fully functional legs. Artie looked down and back up. "I'm here to take you back to when it all began..."
"Where what began?" But Artie had no sooner gotten the question out then they were both enveloped in a mysterious fog, not unlike the fog they'd used for the Teen Angel scene.
When the fog lifted, Artie looked around and realized he and Matt were next to a soccer field. Right in front of where they stood sat two people in camping chairs, his mother and father. A twelve-year-old Amy, with her glasses and the braided pigtails she used to wear all the time when her hair was long, had spread a blanket on the grass and was seated cross-legged while working on her croqueting. She could not have looked more like she didn't want to be there. And, across the field, Artie watched his younger self run by with Finn and Puck.
"This is the last game I ever played," Artie realized, as he watched the memory from an outsider's point of view. "This is the Saturday before my accident, the first day of the two-day tournament where I scored the winning goal."
But as he watched his younger self dart across the field just in time to receive a pass from Finn, who had just set him up for the winning goal, a strange thing happened. As little Artie took aim, the goalie was ready for it. His game-winning kick was deflected and went flying out of bounds.
"That's not what happened!" Artie exclaimed, loudly. When he cried out, his parents didn't turn around to see the older version of their son standing right behind them. His sister did pause her crocheting long enough to acknowledge Artie's failed attempt at the goal and shake her head. "That's not what happened. I scored that goal, winning the game and sending us to the second day of the–"
"Or," Matt interrupted. "Let's just say you missed it instead, and the other team won the game, which would've meant you would have been out of the tournament before day two."
That had crossed his mind before. Winning this game had ironically sealed his fate, resulting in him getting into the accident on the way to the second day of the tournament. Winning the game had led to him never playing again. He gazed across the field at his disappointed younger self, being consoled by a clap on the shoulder from Finn. If you only knew...
"We wouldn't have even gone to Dayton. No tournament, no accident..." He cast an earnest look up at Matt Rutherford. "So, how does it all work out? Do I go on to be a jock? Do I have a scholarship to play soccer? Am I popular?"
"I'm not the person to show you that," said Matt, as the mysterious fog suddenly enveloped them both once more, transporting them to a new place.
"I am," said a new voice. Matt Rutherford was gone and, in his place, stood none other than their foreign exchange student, his former competition for Sugar Motta, Rory Flanagan. They were back in the halls of McKinley.
"Rory!" Artie exclaimed. "What are you doing here? And... talk slowly so I can understand you."
"I'm the Ghost of the Not-So-Distant Past," Rory said. "It's almost 2012. You're graduating at the end of the school year, with your best friend, Finn. He moved on from soccer to play football. You, being on the smaller side, were just the kicker for the football team and you just did it as a favor to Finn. Soccer is your life... your whole life..."
Well, that didn't sound so bad. And kicker for the football team? That really sounded like something he would have enjoyed, to kill time before soccer season. Rory led him to the lunch room, where the first people he noticed were Puck and Quinn, eating alone at their own table. Quinn was pregnant, sitting with her feet propped up on the bench and her hand resting atop her very obvious baby bump.
"Huh?" Artie looked from Quinn back to Rory. "No. You said it's almost 2012. Quinn had Beth back in 2010, when she was a sophomore."
"That's baby number two," Rory said. "Due pretty soon, too. It's Puck's. After graduation, he's going to find work and she'll stay home with their two kids. Eventually, they'll get a divorce, with three children by then, and Quinn and the kids will have to move back home with her mother."
"What? She would never!" Artie exclaimed. "She's- she's gonna go to Yale. She's going to forge her own path. I don't know what happens after Yale, but it's a great start. She would never let history repeat itself and get pregnant again in high school."
"All she had was Puck," Rory reasoned. "You never joined glee club because you were too busy playing your sports. That also meant that Tina didn't join, because she didn't have a friend to encourage her to get over her shyness and audition. Mercedes and Kurt auditioned, but they quickly got sick of Rachel getting solos. You weren't there to set a precedent for someone else getting the solo..."
Rory motioned to the other side of the cafeteria, where Mercedes cuddled up next to Kurt. Tina sat across from them at the same table, but it appeared like she was actively trying not to look at them.
"Kurt went out with Mercedes so no one would find out he's gay," Rory went on. "Mercedes knows, deep down, but pretends she doesn't so they can continue with the charade. Kurt never meets Blaine Anderson. Are you following everything so far, or should I slow down so you understand me better?"
"No... I... understand." Except I don't, he thought. I'm only one person. How could one person not joining mean that the New Directions fall apart?
Rory followed his gaze back to Quinn, who was getting up and walking across the cafeteria now, to return her tray. She had to walk past a table full of football players and Cheerios, all of whom stared. Artie saw Brittany say something to Santana, who laughed out loud. It looked like she hadn't bothered to whisper. Quinn looked back so quickly that it went unnoticed by the girls. When she turned back in Artie's direction, though, her heartbroken expression told him what he needed to know. The Unholy Trinity had never reunited in this world.
"Quinn lost her rep with the Cheerios when she got pregnant the first time," Rory explained. "Since she never joined Glee club, there was no one and nothing else to turn to. Quinn only ever had Puck. And because they already had one baby in high school, she didn't even care when she got pregnant with one more before they graduated."
Artie couldn't even focus on himself, as he was so wrapped up in hearing this alternate future for all of his friends. Tina. Did she ever find a friend who could get past her shyness and the fake stutter? Quinn. Didn't she know that she could be so much more than a wife and mother to Puck's kids? And Puck. Would he ever come to realize that he could be so much more than a baby daddy and a Lima Loser? And if they kept Beth, then that meant Shelby never got her. That was sad on a whole other level.
Rory directed his attention back to the table with the football players and Cheerios. "And there you are," he said, pointing across the room. "With Finn, Mike, and Sam, regular guys who play sports and don't dance or sing in public, just like you."
Artie had been so preoccupied by watching Brittany and Santana make fun of Quinn as she passed by that he hadn't even caught sight of himself. He was talking excitedly about something to a captive audience of Finn, Mike, and Sam. Well, at least Mike and Sam were a captive audience. Finn kept staring over Artie's head, past him to where Puck and Quinn sat huddled together. He isn't over her, Artie realized. He never moved on. Because Rachel... where is Rachel?
"Where's Rachel?"
"Ah," said Rory. "I thought you might notice her missing. Rachel couldn't stand the bullying in the cafeteria, so she stopped eating her lunch here. Follow me."
Rory led them to the library. There was Rachel, shelving books for the librarian during her lunch period. As she did, she sang a very familiar tune to herself. "Don't stop believing, she sang, hold onto that feeling..."
This was where Artie couldn't stop himself from joining in. "Streetlights, people..."
"Oh!" To Artie's great surprise, Rachel spun all the way around and faced him. Artie didn't think she could see or hear him, what with the whole ghost dream thing. "Artie Abrams? Wow... you-you have a nice voice. I didn't know you could sing but it makes sense. Your sister and I, we were in Glee club together during my freshman year... she had a nice voice, too."
Artie nodded, taking a step towards Rachel. "What are you doing after high school?" he asked her. "Have you applied to NYADA?"
"NYADA?" Rachel looked at Artie like he had two heads. She shook her head and went back to shelving books. "Oh, no, I can't apply to NYADA. For one thing, I don't have the resume for it. I haven't been in any school productions. And our Glee club has never been to a competition. We're more like a choir. A really... dull choir. I did apply to community college. Maybe, if I have time, I'll audition for a community theatre show. The Lima Community Players are doing 'The Music Man' next fall."
Artie stooped down next to her, covering her hand with his bare, ungloved one. "Will you at least audition for Marian the Librarian?"
"Oh, no," Rachel said, quickly. "She's the lead. No, a part in the chorus will do just fine for me."
Artie froze as Rachel returned to shelving books for the librarian, completely unaware that she was supposed to be going to Nationals and getting selected for NYADA that year, on her rightful path to stardom. Whatever you thought of Rachel Berry, you couldn't deny her talent. But it seemed like this version of Rachel had done exactly that.
He rose to his full height and backed towards Rory, still staring at Rachel, who had forgotten he was there. "Okay, but..." He licked his lips, thinking of all the trouble he'd just witnessed. Especially Quinn's. "How is this in any way, shape, or form related to me having been the kid in the wheelchair?"
"You're so much more than that, Artie," Rory said. "It turns out, you were the glue of Glee. The quiet, steady beating heart. And without you, it ceases to exist. No glue, no Glee."
But Artie shook his head. "No. It can't all be bad," he insisted. "Show me something good."
Rory seemed to be part ghost and part genie. He nodded and swept Artie up in that great cloud again. When the fog lifted, they were standing just out of bounds during a McKinley soccer game. Artie watched himself accept a pass and go storming down the field, keeping possession of the ball by means of some impressive footwork. When he reached the goal, he lined up the perfect shot and scored. The score changed from a tie, putting them at 2-1 over Fairbrook.
"Yes!" Artie thrust his fist in the air, jumping up and down to celebrate his own goal on the sidelines. This was more like it. This was the future he'd always wanted for himself.
"You're pretty impressive," Rory noted. "College scouts who watch you play seem to think so. You get your pick of schools after this. But..."
"But? Why is there a 'but?'"
That creepy fog covered them again, and they were someplace else. It took a minute for Artie to take in his surroundings, but he soon realized he was in Burt Hummel's garage. A woman with two little blonde girls wearing matching dresses and pigtails walked towards someone working on a car. When the person working slid out, Artie immediately recognized the slightly more grown up, still-not-taller, able-bodied version of himself.
Standing on either side of him were both Rory and Matt. "Why are you both here?" Artie asked them. "I mean, I've seen the Charles Dickens story. I was expecting a creepy dude in a dark hood to show me the future."
"Nah, it's just us again," Matt said, shrugging.
"Hey Quinn," said the older version of himself.
"Hi, Artie," she said. "Is Puck busy?"
"I don't think so..." Older Artie slid out and got to his feet. He grinned down at Quinn's mini-me's, who were both holding their mother's hands. "Hey there, Beth. Hey, Layla." Then he directed his gaze back to Quinn. "I'll go get him for you."
Artie watched himself walk off, clad in oil-stained coveralls. "I'm... I'm limping..." he noticed. "What happened, why am I limping? And why do I work here at Mr. Hummel's garage?"
"Mr. Hummel gave you a job after you dropped out of college," Rory explained. "After you tore up your knee so badly during your first year, you couldn't play soccer any more. You didn't know what else you wanted to do. So you dropped out and you've been here for three years now."
"Three... years?" Artie was unable to believe what he was hearing. "So, in every timeline, I wind up with some kind of injury that prevents me from playing professional soccer or even just college?"
Artie looked back at his older self sadly as he limped back across the garage, with Puck following behind him. "Hey, baby," Puck said, embracing his wife (?!) and daughters. "And speaking of baby... did you tell Artie the news?"
"Oh." Quinn blushed. "I didn't know we were telling people yet, babe. Yeah, we're pregnant with number three." Her smile looked terribly forced as Puck put an arm around her.
"Hopefully it's a boy this time," said Puck.
"Stop, stop!" Artie turned to Matt and Rory. "This is so messed up. And you told me they got divorced. When does that happen?"
"Not long after the next little girl – sweet Caroline – comes along," Matt explained.
Artie averted his gaze back to Puck and Quinn and their soon-to-be broken family. "I want to wake up now."