Disclaimer: I own neither Glee nor any part thereof. No money is being made off of this story and is intended only for entertainment purposes; therefore it falls within the parameters of "Fair Use"

A/N: I'm still writing "What's Your Fantasy?" The next chapter is nearly done. The developing Quartie plot thread in that story gave me the idea for this one, and I just needed to get it out since it was taking up precious real estate in my brain. I have no idea how often this story will be update, probably not as often as the other.

This is set in the summer between Season Two and Three. Everything in the show is canon unless or until I decide I need it not to be. Could possibly fit into the same universe as "Things Santana Doesn't Do" but probably won't have much to do with that story even if I do establish it officially. So, without further ado…

Chapter 1

A Blind Date Gone Sideways

Quinn Fabray was running late… like really late, half an hour late already and she was furious with herself. She was never late. Punctuality had been drilled into her head from a very young age and it was something that had stuck with her through the years. Of course there were times when she was late, but only when it was understood that she would be late. She was always a least an hour late to any party she attended, so that she could be fashionably late, and naturally when she was pregnant last year, she had been late to a great many things, early on because of near constant morning sickness and later because it just took her forever to get anywhere when she was huge and pregnant and her everything hurt all the time.

Those were times when it's either expected or forgivable to be late. This was not. This was a date. A date arranged by her mother with the son of a friend of the family no less. She was expected to be prompt and make a great impression. It was the "making an impression" part that precipitated her present lateness. She'd gone to the salon… or what passes for a salon in Lima, at any rate… to get her hair styled. Two weeks after she'd gotten the bulk of her hair lopped off in New York, Quinn still found she didn't really know what to do with it other than just push it out of her face with a headband. The stylist had taken far too long, in Quinn's opinion, to do as little as he actually did. Next time she would just conference call Mercedes and Kurt and ask their thoughts. When she left the salon, she found herself parked in by a delivery truck making a stop at another one of the shops in the same building. She had no idea which shop it was and had to wait nearly ten minutes before the driver returned. As if that weren't enough, an accident on Main Street had traffic slowed to a crawl, so Quinn didn't reach The Lima Bean until 1:35. She was supposed to be there at 1:00.

When she did finally arrive, Quinn surveyed the crowd looking for anyone who was sitting alone. She had no idea what this guy looked like since apparently his mother is the only person on Earth who doesn't know how to text a picture to someone. Sam's five-year-old little sister could send a picture message, but not this woman. So she was stuck surveying the patrons of The Lima Bean, looking for a guy with dark hair and blue eyes who looks like he might answer to the name Aaron.

Not seeing anyone who fit that woefully inadequate physical description, Quinn switched tactics and consulted the baristas. "I know this is a huge long shot, but have you served a guy named Aaron in the last half hour or 45 minutes? He'd be about five-ten, dark brown hair, blue eyes… hopefully cute."

There was a bit of murmuring amongst them for a minute. Most of them were uncertain, since one o'clock on a Saturday was pretty busy times for them. They had likely turned out over a hundred cups of coffee in that time. However, there was one tiny redheaded girl who spoke up. "There was a guy sort of like that about 40 minutes ago. Dark hair, blue eyes, and cute are right, I don't think he said his name was Aaron though, and I'm not sure how tall he was," she said as she pointed to a table in the far corner, "cuz he's in a wheelchair."

Quinn looked in the direction the girl, Shannon, pointed. When the girl had said "wheelchair" she was certain she knew who she was about to be directed to, and sure enough in the far corner of the shop sat a rather forlorn looking Artie Abrams. Artie's first full name was Arthur and his middle name, Quinn seemed to recall, was John, so he definitely wasn't an Aaron, but it did start with an A and she also knew that her mom could be terrible with names at times. She was reasonably sure that her mom didn't know the Abrams Family, they weren't among Lima's well-to-do, and unlike Artie's parents her mom didn't come to Glee performances or football games, which meant the odds were next to nil that Artie was who she was here to meet. Still, you never know, right?

"Thank you," Quinn said to Shannon over her shoulder and made her way through the crowd. She was just going to make sure he wasn't her intended date and then leave… or maybe she'd see how he was dealing with his break-up and then she'd go. Not that she had anything she could really tell him about break-ups. Quinn had been broken up with three times, twice by Finn and once by Sam and although she'd been expecting it both times with Finn, they had both left her feeling like she'd been punched in the stomach my Mike Tyson. She was trying to think of something that wasn't some horrible platitude but her legs had carried her through the room too quickly. She reached the table far too soon for her liking, and she stood there not talking for over a minute, feeling more like a moron every second she didn't say something.

Artie looked up and saw the striking blonde standing over his table. "Quinn? Hey! You look great," he said suddenly trying to affect his usual carefree, optimistic demeanor, and then realized what it was he'd just said. "I mean, you know, nice. You look… I mean, you know, always look nice, but… you look really different with your hair and jeans and a t-shirt. Not bad, I mean. Like I already said you look great, stunning really. I mean… I'm just going to shut up now." He slumped his head down to tabletop in embarrassment.

Quinn couldn't help but be amused and flattered that she could render Artie quite so inarticulate. "Thank you, Artie," she said, "You aren't by any chance here because one or both of your parents set you up on a blind date, are you?"

"No," the boy said without lifting his head.

"Okay," Quinn replied, concern in her voice.

"Wait," he said raising his head, "you accepted a blind date with someone named Artie and didn't clarify whether or not it was me ahead of time?"

Quinn sighed and plopped down in the seat opposite him, "Well, saying I 'accepted' this date would be a bit of a stretch. I was informed of it yesterday by my mother. I could have said no, but I'd have needed a pretty good reason and I honestly had nothing better to do. Also I was given a rough physical description, which you match, and the name Aaron, but my mother is sporadically horrible with names so it was possible that she meant Artie or Arthur."

"Well, you're welcome to join me until he gets here," he offered sincerely. "Although I don't know how good of company I'll be, I've been in kind of a huge funk since… since Brittany…"

"Yeah," she said, sparing him the need to finish, "I know. You don't have to talk about it, but you can if you want to."

"I… it's just all so confusing," the boy began. "Part of me is crazy pissed at her for picking Santana over me, but another bigger part wants to come up with some crazy scheme to win her back, show her that I'm better for her than Santana. I just, I don't know what I can do?"

Quinn slid a hand across the table and laid it across Artie's. "I'm sorry, Artie, but there's nothing you can do."

"What?" he said hurt and a little bit of anger in his voice.

"Look, saying hurtful and mean things has kind of been my default setting for the last few years, and I'm still working on how to turn it off. I'm not sure how to say this without it coming off mean and hurtful, but you need to hear this, so please just understand that I don't mean to be a bitch when I say this, okay?" the blonde implored.

"Okay," Artie said somewhat reluctantly.

"It doesn't matter what you try, you're not going to get Brittany back. She was only ever waiting on Santana to be ready for them. She's been in love with Santana for as long as either of them can remember and nothing's going to change that. And I know that's hugely unfair to you, but it is what it is, and I'd hate to see you spend your whole summer chasing after something that isn't going to happen. Again, if this sounds bitchy and mean, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be, it's just a reflex."

"No," he said, "you're fine. I mean, yeah, it's a little tough to hear but then brutal honesty usually is. So there's no chance of them breaking up, in your opinion?"

"Oh, I'm sure they'll break up, probably more than once, but Brittany will forgive Santana anything. They'll likely get in huge fights as Santana bucks against every label someone tried to put on her or them as a couple, but San will apologize and then there will be loud, obnoxious make-up sex and all will be right again with them."

Artie examined the table between them and Quinn's hand, still on his, nodding in understanding. He did his best to hide the hurt in his expression but Quinn, who had spent years trying to see the hurt, now couldn't avoid seeing it no matter how much she wished. "Which is not to say that she was using you, Artie, I know for a fact that she loved you, probably still does, and you were really good for her. She knows that."

Artie's bottled up pain and hurt finally became too much, tears welled in his eyes, and when they finally became too much to keep in any longer, the dam burst. Artie pulled his glasses off, dropping them on the table and brought both hands to his face as he began to cry. Quinn propelled herself from her chair around the table to sit next to him instead. She pulled his head to her chest, resting her chin on top of his head. "Oh God, Artie, I'm so sorry. I screwed up. I never know when to let things go. It's left over from my days as a professional bitch. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been the one to do this with you. I have no idea what I'm doing."

After a couple minutes, Artie had composed himself a little bit, so he lifted his head. "Don't be sorry, Quinn. You didn't do anything wrong." He retrieved his glasses and replaced them on his face. "I actually feel better, kind of a lot better, actually. Thank you. I think I really needed that."

Quinn smiled at him slightly, "Well, then, you're welcome, and I'm glad I could help you."

"At the risk of ruining this nice bonding moment we have going on, can I ask why you're doing this? I mean, not that I'm complaining. I'm just kind of curious is all."

"Oh, Artie, there is a very long, complicated answer to that question and I'll get into it if you want, but before I do, I really need something to drink. You want anything, my treat?" He just shook his head. He needed to eat. Quinn could tell just by looking at him that he hadn't eaten worth a damn in probably a week or two. "There's this really delicious looking Key Lime Pie up there that I really want to try, but it's far too fattening for me to eat an entire piece by myself. Will you split it with me?"

"Well," he said once again in his natural optimistic tone, "in the interest of helping you maintain a healthy physique, I would agree to that, but I'll need a bottle of water in that case. My iced coffee has become too watery and to be good coffee and too coffee-y to be good water."

Quinn couldn't help but laugh at that, as lame as it may have been. She figured he must be in better spirits if he's back to making really bad jokes. "I'll be right back," she said making her way back to the counter. She quickly rattled off an order for a tall house blend, a bottle of water, and the biggest slice of key lime pie they had. She paid and moved along to the pick-up area, collecting plastic forks and sugar for her coffee. Shannon, the tiny redhead, handed Quinn her order wordlessly.

Then from behind her came an unfamiliar voice, "Quinn?" She had a pretty solid idea who it was, but before she could react there was a strong hand on her shoulder. He said again, "Quinn Fabray?" She still didn't speak, just looked at the source. Tall, dark hair, blue eyes, very handsome, this had to be Aaron, almost an hour late. He continued, "Thank God, you're still here. I'm so sorry I am so terribly late. I was in an accident up on Main Street. I wanted to call you but I didn't have your number or even the number of the shop here."

Objectively, he was everything that Quinn went for in a guy. He was tall and handsome, good arm candy. He was well dressed in pressed slacks and a button-up shirt. He seemed to be well mannered, genuinely distressed at be so incredibly late. She should have been happy he was here. She should have been terribly concerned about his well-being since he just confessed to having been in a car accident. She should want him. But that was sort of the problem; he was kind of the same thing she'd done since she started dating, the same thing over and over expecting different results. It was time for a change she decided. She spoke at last, "I'm sorry. I think you have me confused for someone else. My name's Lucy. I hope you find the person you're looking for, but I have to go now. Excuse me."

A/N: Like I say, I have more plans for the story, but I don't know how often I'll get to this story to update. I guess it will all depend on peoples' reactions, so if you want to see more write me some reviews.