Rory did that weird thing that he claimed was not apparation, taking Artie to another time and place. He once again left Artie in his currently able-bodied state for the next journey.

"Moving forward a bit now," he said. "This is Regionals. Your senior year. Sadly, you no longer have the handsome exchange student filling out the back of the stage."

He punctuated this statement by handing Artie a four-leaf clover. "This is what I gave you the last time you needed a bit of luck," he said. "I won't spoil the ending by telling you what happens, but you've got some tough competition this go-around, so you need all the luck you can get. Oh, look, here are some seats in the back."

"I'd rather stand," Artie muttered, folding his arms across his body but still holding that four-leaf clover, that apparently Rory just carried around, between his index finger and his thumb.

The girls were in purple dresses that matched the purple ties on the guy's suits. Artie didn't recognize a lot of the people on the stage this time around. Puck, Finn, Rachel, Kurt, Mike, and Santana had all graduated by now. With Rachel Berry gone, Artie wasn't so sure this club still stood a chance.

Four guys, including Sam and the dreadlocked hipster dude, were among those featured in the opening lines of Hall of Fame, as they traded off solos every couple of lines. Artie was stunned to see himself, chair and all, featured during the chorus of the song and for the entirety of the performance thereafter.

Although the next number, I Love It, was mostly sung by the girls, Artie had a funny part where three of the ladies surrounded him and teased him, as he rolled his eyes.

The last song, All or Nothing, didn't exactly feature him but he wasn't excluded either. The dark-haired friend (or boyfriend) of Kurt's sang with one of the new students. As he watched this one, Rory pointed something out to him.

"See the pretty blonde girl there?" Rory asked. Artie noticed that he was talking about the girl on Tina's left. "That's Kitty. She's a Cheerio. She's pretty into you. She's not sure about you just yet, but she's noticed that you like her, too, and she doesn't exactly hate the idea."

"Why would she want me?" Artie heard himself blurting out. "I mean, in this universe. In my universe, yeah, she'd probably be into me. She's kind of short, like me, and I'm in football, she's a Cheerio, so..."

Rory shook his head. "She's had enough of football players," he said. "You can match wits with her. And yeah, you're right, you're probably not the kind of guy she usually dates, not in your chair, anyway. But Artie? Even now, you're still the glue. Especially now. Glee club's not going to be the same when you graduate either."

"Despite the chair?"

"Despite it," said Rory. "And because of it. Now, follow me a bit closer to the stage, because you're going to want to see your face when they announce the winner."

"Third place," the announcer bellowed. "In the 2013 Greater Midwest Show Choir Regionals goes to the Waffle-toots!"

"Well, obviously," Artie muttered. "What a stupid name." As the all-guy group, clad in suits, hurried to receive their trophy, Artie snickered. "So many gay jokes, so little time."

"Now, the moment we've all been waiting for," the announcer went on. "In second place, from Indianapolis, Indiana, the Hoosierdaddies! And first place goes to McKinley High New Directions!"

Several things happened at once. The able-bodied version of Artie at the back of the auditorium almost cheered out loud, but Rory promptly muffled him by clapping a hand over his mouth. Artie supposed they weren't invisible or anything. The second thing that happened was that some guy from the team pushed the other Artie's chair to the middle of the stage, to receive an enormous trophy.

Artie's eyes met Rory's as Rory removed his hand, allowing Artie to speak.

"Why are you showing me all this?" Artie wanted to know. "I mean, yeah, so what? So I helped a bunch of nerds win a trophy. Who cares? Why are you showing me this?"

Rory sighed. "We need to go back," he said. "Back to your world, so you can see what's ahead." As he took Artie by the hand, Artie had never felt gayer in his entire life.

One blink later and they were back in the same deserted hallway where they'd met before. Artie looked around, trying to figure out what it was the strange dude wanted to show him this time. He finally spotted it. An empty wheelchair sat at the end of the hallway. In its seat lay a single white rose.

"Is that mine?" Artie wanted to know.

"It's Quinn's," he said. "She was texting and driving, so she got in an accident. Without you there, to show her the way, she never did find the strength to recover. She died, Artie. She died of a broken heart."

Artie held his gaze for a long time, wondering why it had to be this way. Why did he have to be the glue? And why did someone have to be in a chair? Though Artie didn't want to see it be his mother instead of him. He didn't want to see Kurt Hummel continue being tormented every single day at school, because he didn't have a place to belong and to be accepted. Most of all, he didn't want to see Quinn Fabray lose her will to live.

Artie picked up the white rose and held it to his nose, taking in its fragrant aroma. He closed his eyes briefly, knowing fully what he had to do. He took a seat then, in a place that suddenly seemed so familiar, placing his feet in the footrests, one at a time. Taking a deep breath, he placed his hand on the rims above the wheels.

"Artie?" a female voice was saying. "Oh, good, you're waking up. Why did you let him go to sleep?"

Artie's eyes fluttered open to spot a small blurry figure in red facing off against a second blurry figure in white. He grasped the black frames that were, at present, laying on his chest and put them back on, so that he could now see Kitty staring down their rather apathetic school nurse.

"Artie?" Kitty turned her attention back on him, as he sat up, propping himself up on his elbows. "Take it slow, Artie, you hit your head on the piano. And, as any qualified nurse would know—" she fired the next part back at the nurse. "— you shouldn't just let people who might have head injuries just go to sleep."

The nurse seemed to cower a little. She pretended to be busy looking for something in her desk. Kitty directed her attention back to Artie, gently pushing his hair out of his face and settling herself next to him on the cot.

"How did I hit my head?" Artie wanted to know. He frowned down at his legs. Immobile. Useless. Paralyzed.

"You don't remember?" Kitty looked worried. "Tina Cohen-Sociopath challenged you to some kind of whacked out glee club duel that ended in her tipping you over backwards and you smacking your head against the piano on the way down."

Artie felt himself reddening. "N-no, I do remember," he said. "Sorry, I just got a little distracted by my dream. It was a really long one. Did you ever see the movie Inception?"

As Kitty shook her head, Artie was hit with the uncomfortable thought that it was Tina who'd gone with him to see that in theaters, when it first came out.

"Well, it's like a dream within a dream within a dream," he explained. "I just had the longest dream ever, that started with me running around, playing football in a parallel universe where the cool kids never joined glee club, and glee club never made it past Sectionals. But then Rory the Leprechaun showed me an alternative universe where I was in a wheelchair and glee club was winning, because I was the glue holding it all together."

Kitty touched his forehead. "I think we need more ice," she barked at the nurse.

"I'm fine, Kitty," Artie insisted. He slipped one gloved hand into hers, adjusting his glasses with the other and looking her straight in the eye. She hesitated, for just a moment, and then leaned in for a kiss, which started out as a simple peck and then turned into something longer and heavier.

"You heard the man, he's fine," Kitty said, as the nurse tried to interrupt them with an ice pack.

Artie laughed, shaking his head. "It's weird," he told her. "I didn't know I could be so happy to leave a world where I could walk behind. But I don't want to, if it comes at such a cost. You see, in my dream, I wasn't paralyzed in a car accident. My mom was instead, though. So, I was too busy playing football to join glee. Rory — you didn't meet him, he was a foreign exchange student — he was like my own personal ghost of Christmas past or something. He showed me a couple of our best performances and talked about all the reasons it wasn't possible without me there. Oh, and then he told me I saved Quinn Fabray's life."

"On second thought, maybe the ice..."

Artie laughed again and leaned in to kiss her, but she pulled back a moment, as though just realizing something. "What?"

"You never did tell me what happened to you until just now," she said, smiling sadly at him. "I figured you probably walked at some point and then got hurt. I just wasn't sure, and I didn't want to ask."

"Oh, sorry." Artie really didn't realize he'd left that part of his life such a mystery to the girl he was now dating. They hadn't gotten around to that conversation, similar to the way it took Tina asking for it to come up way back then.

Kitty shrugged. "It's your stuff, it's personal," she said. "So, how old were you?"

"Eight," Artie replied. "That's why you see these buff shoulders and biceps you like so much. A lot of years of wheeling. Speaking of which—" He'd spotted his chair, several feet away from the cot he'd been lying on. "— could you bring that closer?"

"Sure," Kitty said, moving to retrieve the wheelchair. She watched Artie move himself from the cot to the chair with a series of methodical movements. "Tina will be glad to see you're okay. She nearly had a panic attack when you fell."

"Let's go find her," Artie suggested, as he finished setting his feet in place. It was then that Kitty stopped him to say something else, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry, Artie," she said. "I know you must get tired of being in this chair."

"For better or for worse," Artie said, leading the way out of the nurse's office. "This chair is a part of me. It's made me who I am."

As he left, he noticed something very strange. There, sitting curiously atop his pant leg, was that four-leaf clover.

Thanks, Rory.