guess what we'll discover (9a/10)
Pairing: Jeff/Annie
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 5,825/12,609
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Description: Jeff gets a new roommate
Author’s Note: Sooooo, I have no idea how this took me almost four months to write, but I'm hoping the monster sized word count will make up for it a little bit. There's two parts so follow the link at the bottom!
God bless 0penhearts for the beta, Dan Harmon for bringing her into my life and Denny's for providing us with a writer's room.
Previous chapters
~*~*~
Annie grips the steering wheel with both hands and stares wide-eyed through the windshield. Her bag sits next to her on the passenger seat where she’d thrown it in her fumbled rush to start the car and get out of the parking lot as fast as possible, eyes on the rearview mirror. She’d driven a block away before pulling over to the side of the road, hands shaking and blood rushing in her ears.
I’m in love with you.
There’s a fluttering in her stomach that works its way up into her throat and catches, making her swallow hard and blink back the tears that spring up in the corners of her eyes. She hunches forward, resting her head against the top of the steering wheel, and lets out a whimpering groan.
Her own words replay on an endless loop in her head, getting louder and more hysterical until she visualizes herself practically screaming the words in Jeff’s face and then running for the door like a crazy person. Annie lets out a loud, tense laugh that turns into a hiccup as she lifts her head and looks out over the street in front of her. An older couple in tracksuits walks by with two dogs on leashes, the woman glancing briefly into the car as they pass, and Annie’s eyes follow their movement until they round the corner out of sight.
I’m in love with-
“Stop it,” she whispers and takes a few long deep breaths through her nose, finally nodding firmly and turning the key in the ignition. She checks the street and quickly flips a u-turn, headed back in the direction of Jeff’s apartment building. But as she approaches the turn-in a cold heat washes over her and she continues driving past, muttering curses under her breath. Now a block in the other direction she pulls over again and immediately reaches for her bag to grab her phone.
She freezes with her hand on the zipper, the image of her phone on the nightstand flashing through her head. On Jeff’s nightstand. Next to his bed. Where she spent the last two nights.
Her laugh is a little more manic - high in her throat - this time and she tips her head back and squeezes her eyes closed. She can’t go back. At least not right now. Not yet. But there’s no one to call, nowhere to go and the panic that seizes in her chest is like that of a little kid lost in a mall and crying searching for her mom. She’s less than a mile from the place she’s called home all summer, in the city she’s lived in her entire life and she’s never felt so lost.
She rolls her eyes and mentally gives herself a shake.
“C’mon, Annie,” she mutters and slowly begins cataloging her options.
Ten minutes later she’s pulling up to a small townhouse with brown trim and shutters and a walkway leading up to the front stoop lined by neatly groomed primroses. The mailbox at the curb says “Nadir” in white block lettering.
Abed’s dad opens the door, his eyebrows rising slowly as he takes in Annie’s bright pink pajama pants and camisole, the bag slung over her shoulder.
“Annie.”
“Hi, Mr. Nadir,” she chirps. “Is Abed home?” She gives him a sunny smile, hoping to win him over but he just lets out a long-suffering sigh and turns away.
“Abed. One of your friends from school is here.” He doesn’t invite her in as he disappears into the house and Annie waits, glancing back toward her car and hiking the bag up higher on her shoulder, unsure if she was supposed to follow him.
“Did you and Jeff have a fight?”
She twists back around, startled. Abed is standing in the doorway with a bowl of cereal in one hand. He takes a bite, brow furrowed slightly and Annie flushes at the hawk-like way he observes her.
“No. What? No.” Her laugh is forced. “Why would you think that?”
He points the spoon at her bag, “You look like you moved out.”
“No,” Annie sighs. “What are you doing today?”
“Troy’s coming home this weekend. I’m driving down to pick him up after breakfast.”
He takes another bite, chewing slowly. Annie knows that Abed’s idea of breakfast is however long it takes to work his way through about half a box of cereal and whatever block of cartoons is currently airing on the Disney Channel.
“Oh. Can I come?”
“Sure. But--”
“Abed.” Annie holds up her hand. “This one of those times where it’s better not to ask questions.”
Abed frowns. “But you know I don’t like not understanding what’s going on.”
Annie’s features soften and she lets out a long sigh as she shifts and looks down at her feet. “I just needed some space.”
There’s a long pause. “Are you…?”
She looks up and meets his eyes, widening hers plaintively. Abed blinks.
“Cool. Cool cool cool.” He opens the door further. “Do you want breakfast?”
Her entire body tenses in an effort to fight back the pressure behind her eyes. “No. I’m not really hungry.”
~*~*~
They’re on the road, headed south in Abed’s dad’s Corolla, by ten-thirty. They don’t say much; Abed hums along to his favorite smooth jazz station, bobbing his head and shoulders ever so slightly to the beat, and Annie sits with her legs pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped around them and hands clasped. Every so often her fingers twitch and she moves as if to reach for her phone before remembering where it is and slouching with a silent sigh back into her seat.
She watches the dotted yellow line up the center of the highway whir by in a hypnotic blur and it doesn’t take long before her eyelids start to go heavy. The soothing melody of saxophone music straining in over the radio fades into the background as her entire body relaxes into a light doze, her mind a jumble of distorted half-dreams.
After what could either be a moment or an hour her head lilts to the side, smacking into the window and she jerks back awake, blinking rapidly. Abed looks over at her but she gives him a closed-mouth smile and leans her head, gently this time, back against the warm thick glass.
She squeezes her eyes closed again and tucks her legs tighter into her chest. After being pushed along by a nervous momentum all morning there’s nothing left to do now but sit and think and let the car carry her along and all she can see is Jeff’s face - a mix of stunned and confused as she ran out the door.
Annie wonders if he’s still at the apartment and there’s a regretful twinge in her chest at the knowledge that she’s basically ruined their day. He had been so perfectly content to make her breakfast and stand in the kitchen looking sleep-disheveled in a faded gray t-shirt and his hair flat and lying in strange directions and she had gone and unraveled the entire thing.
As much as he likes to put up a show of indifference, she knows that it doesn’t take a lot to screw with Jeff Winger’s head and she wants to apologize, tell him she’s sorry for leaving, sorry for saying out loud the thing that had been scratching and tearing its way out of her since she woke up.
But she’s in love with him. It’s a feeling that buzzes and nips at her fingers and toes and makes her feel weightless like she’s filled up entirely with air. She wants to laugh and run around in circles and burst into tears all at the same time and she can’t even figure out when that happened. At the beginning of summer she had come to him and asked to stay, rolled her eyes and assured him that romantic intentions were the furthest from her mind and she had believed it because it had been true.
But now with this overwhelming new zip of realization coursing through her veins she can’t recall any one moment where everything changed - she’s been falling all summer, maybe even longer than that and it’s as if she’s lost hold of the string of a balloon and claws desperately at thin air as it bobs and floats higher into the sky.
The past few weeks and months with Jeff, all the kisses and stray touches and the time spent just being with him, had coalesced into an easy contentedness - she can’t even remember the last time she went looking for an apartment - and she hadn’t really stopped to pay it any attention, save for the random awkward moment that made her pause and then quickly brush aside for the sake of their living situation, friendship, relationship - this thing between them that’s she’s never fully understood.
They are friends. And they kiss on occasion. And they live together. And are attracted to each other and sometimes act on that attraction. They watch bad television together and share ice cream and actually kiss a lot more than occasionally. They tell each other those stupid details that seem so inconsequential - he hates pickles, he was once suspended for three days in high school for going to class drunk, he cried the day he was disbarred - but really fill in and color the complete picture of who a person is and the certainty of him, of how well she knows him, makes her bite her lip and curl her toes into her flip flops.
How could she not have seen what was happening?
On Monday they had met for lunch at a little vegan restaurant a few miles away from his office. It was nicer than where they usually ate but he had shrugged and said he was paying and she hadn’t really bothered arguing. They placed their order and Annie was in the middle of telling him about a patient who had been driving the office staff crazy when Jeff leaned over, cupped her cheek in his hand and fit his mouth to hers. It caught her off guard and she had inhaled sharply before relaxing into him.
He had pressed one last lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth, nudging his nose over hers before pulling back. The waiter came back then with their drinks and Annie had blushed, a fire spanning out under her skin, watching out of the corner of her eye the tiny smile on Jeff’s lips as he carefully squeezed a slice of lemon into his iced water.
The sense memory of his kiss, his hand warm on her cheek sends a shiver up her spine that makes her sit up straighter. Annie clenches her fists, nails digging into the palms of her hands, a scream bubbling up in her chest. She keeps her eyes squeezed shut, breathing in deeply through her nose, and hopes that Abed doesn’t notice her distress.
Two years ago she had spent an entire summer building up the memory of a kiss and all the meaning behind it and the passion with which he had hauled her into his arms, until no reality ever could have matched the fantasy, only to be told that what it meant was nothing - chemicals, hormones, generic lust.
So she had stopped letting herself read into things - like when he’d find her eyes first with his at the study table, when he’d catch up with her in the hallway and slip easily into conversation as if they had been chatting for hours, when he’d text her randomly on a weekend to ask a homework question and then tease her about how quickly she had responded with the answer - until he had reached for her in bed this morning, a soft smile playing at the corner of his mouth, the sheets rustling with their movement, his skin warm from sleep and the sunshine slanting in through the blinds and…
…crap. She opens her eyes and squints at the road ahead. She feels disoriented, lost in Jeff and just like that she’s one step away from drawing his name surrounded by hearts in her diary. She drops her legs off the seat, stretching her arms out in front of her with a yawn.
“So.”
Abed startles and looks at her with wide eyes and Annie realizes she’d practically barked the word at him. She clears her throat and tries to steady her nerves. “Have you heard any new spoilers about Inspector Spacetime?” she starts again, softer this time.
His face lights up and he launches into news from the recent Comi-Con where the new assistant had been introduced. Annie listens with interest, nodding along and forcing all thoughts of Jeff to the back of her mind.
~*~*~
With only one stop for coffee and a bathroom break they make it to Rotin, New Mexico by three o’clock. Annie frowns as they turn into the bus station and looks to Abed in question.
“Troy told his mom he was taking the bus home. She doesn’t approve of road trips.”
Annie purses her lips as her eyes trace over his impassive face. “Parents are weird,” she sighs. He shrugs and doesn’t say anything but nods his head down once in agreement.
They get out of the car and are immediately greeted by a shout of, “Abed!” Annie shades her eyes as she looks over the car at a figure headed full tilt in their direction, a duffel bag slung across his chest and knocking against his thigh as he runs.
“Troy!” Abed manages to get out before Troy reaches him and without slowing throws his arms around him, propelling them both back slightly into the car.
When they pull back Troy has an irrepressible toothy smile spread from ear to ear. “I missed you, buddy.” He pulls the duffel bag off over his head and smacks his chest with the palm of his hand as he and Abed do their handshake twice in quick succession.
Annie stands on the other side of the car, watching in amusement and trying to ignore the inexplicable pang in her chest when Troy pulls Abed back in for another hug, resting his head on his shoulder. Abed stands still, not reciprocating at first, until the faintest of smiles flickers at his lips and he bends his arms up and pats Troy on the back.
“I missed you too.”
~*~*~
Abed and Troy decide they want to take the long meandering way home and stop at every truck stop, landmark and viewpoint that shows up on the map from New Mexico to Greendale. There’s a familiar gleam in Abed’s eye and Annie feels a nervous jittering that he’s going to find some way to stage a flat tire or the car getting stolen or some mishap that ends in them walking stranded down the road and thumbing rides from tattooed truckers with hook hands.
“We are going to get home by Monday, right?” she asks from the backseat, leaning forward with her hands on each of their headrests.
“That’s the plan,” Abed says in a dreamy way that is not at all reassuring.
Annie sighs. “As long as you realize that you’re not John Candy. And he’s not Steve Martin.” She hooks her thumb at Troy. “And that I do need to go back to work eventually.”
Troy turns to look at her incredulously. “Uh, clearly not.” He lets out dry laugh. “I’m John Candy. He’s Steve Martin. Have you seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Annie?” He and Abed both shake their heads, chucking in amusement at her utter wrongness and she sinks back into her seat, eyebrows knit together, arms folded over her chest in a huff.
~*~*~
Two hours later they stop at a quiet rest stop to stretch their legs and Abed and Troy make a beeline for the vending machines while Annie settles at a picnic bench and rests her chin in the palm of her hand, staring out over the expanse of grass toward the parking lot where an older woman in faded jeans and t-shirt stands alone near a beat up old Dodge, puffing on a cigarette. Annie watches her as she looks around, shoulders drooping back in a sigh, and then checks her watch. She takes one last drag and flicks the cigarette into the dirt, then gets into her car and pulls away, back towards the highway.
“I thought you might be hungry.”
Annie startles as Troy sets a bag of chips and a can of soda in front of her and then drops down on the other side of the bench.
“Fritos are your favorite, right?” He’s rooting through his own bag of chips, trying to pick out the ones with the most cheese powder, and not looking up at her as she blinks rapidly and fingers the squared edge of the bag. “So how was your summer?” Satisfied with his choice he pops a chip in his mouth and finally looks up at her, freezing mid bite at the look on her face. “Annie?”
Her lips purse together, quivering slightly. “Good,” she manages to choke out before her entire body seems to shudder with a sob and she covers her face as tears pool in the corners of her eyes.
“Annie?” he says again, voice higher pitched. ‘What’s wrong?”
“I just.” She tries to choke back another sob but now that it’s started the well of emotion can’t be tamped back and tears begin to slip down her cheeks. “I had a really good summer,” she cries loudly and drops her head into the crook of her elbow, shoulders shaking.
Troy’s eyes widen all the way and then flicker up toward the Welcome Center where Abed had gone to explore, and then around the rest of the park before coming back to rest on Annie.
“Don’t be sad,” he sniffles.
“I’m not!” Her words are muffled and wet.
“I don’t understand!”
Annie peeks up at him, wiping her cheek along her arm.
“Troy! Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know! You started it!” He presses his fist to his mouth. “With your weird emotions. Who cries when they’re not sad?!”
“Lots of people!”
“Well they shouldn’t!”
Neither of them notices Abed sidle up to the table with a bag of Chex Mix in his hand. He stares at them, eyes volleying back and forth as they yell through messy tears.
“Okay. I missed something.”
~*~*~
She pulls herself together, a few last dry sobs shuddering in her chest as she wipes her eyes and it’s probably a good thing that she hadn’t put any make-up on earlier. Troy watches her, wary and leaned back in his seat as if trying to stay far away as possible from her contagious emotions while still being a good friend.
“I’m okay,” she murmurs.
He relaxes slightly, still frowning. “Promise?”
His concern makes her want to burst into tears all over again but she nods and smiles as Abed returns with a handful of toilet paper that Annie accepts gratefully and uses to blow her nose. She pauses though when he slides a bar of chocolate from the vending machine in front of her and looks up at him through her eyelashes.
“I’m not charting you anymore. I just know you like chocolate.”
Annie presses her lips together and nods quickly. She smoothes her finger along the silver foil wrapper and it’s a moment before she can talk again. “Thank you.”
Her tears seem to have hit a momentary pause button on the road trip and none of them has any real inclination to get back in the car but the sun beats down hot and severe from a blue cloudless sky so they move under the cooling shade of a large Sycamore tree for relief, sitting cross-legged on the grass and fanning themselves with maps from the car.
Abed and Troy chatter on but Annie barely listens, her fingers pulling absentmindedly at blades of grass and twisting them together in braided circles as she stares off into space for so long that her vision goes blurry and she has to blink rapidly to clear it. Her entire body feels drained and heavy from crying so hard and all she wants to do is curl up with her eyes closed and sleep for the rest of the day.
Preferably snuggled deep into a particular set of soft Egyptian cotton sheets.
Annie has to hold back a tiny giggle at that and she presses her fingers to her lips and glances sideways at Troy and Abed. The last thing she needs is for them to see her sitting here laughing silently to herself - she’s pretty sure they already think she’s nuts. She contemplates telling them, telling them everything, because she needs to talk and explain this to someone and isn’t she supposed to have a girlfriend she can go to? Someone to dissect every detail with over wine and junk food, to encourage her and tell her what it means and not judge her or stare at her like she’s an insect in a zoo? She can’t go to Britta or Shirley for the obvious reasons and other than them… she really has a sad lack of female presence in her life.
“Here.” Troy carefully plucks out a long-stemmed weed from where it’s growing under the grass, brushes the dirt off it and drapes it over Annie’s knee. She looks down at the growing wreath in her hand and then over at Troy. He gives her a small smile and she beams at him and picks up the weed to twist it into the wreath.
“So I was watching this movie the other day,” she starts suddenly.
Abed and Troy stop mid-conversation, heads swiveling toward her in perfect synchronization.
“What movie?” Abed asks.
“Um. I don’t remember the title. But it was about this guy and this girl and--”
“When Harry Met Sally.”
“Ugh.”
“No… what?” Annie answers Abed and furrows her brow at the look of disgust on Troy’s face.
He sighs heavily. “I thought you were going to tell us about an awesome movie. Like Kickpuncher. Or the Matrix. But it’s one of those dumb girly movies you like, isn’t it?” His voice gets whinier. “Was Katherine Heigl in it?”
Abed nods and points his finger at Troy in agreement.
“Noooo.” Annie purses her lips as she thinks about it. Her eyes brighten. “They were on a spaceship.”
Abed’s eyes narrow. “Alien?”
“Nice.”
“No. I--”
“Wall-E?”
“No.”
“Galaxy Quest.”
“NO.” Annie clenches her jaw. “I don’t remember the title. It doesn’t matter. It was one of those cheesy sci-fi movies. You’ve probably never heard of it,” she adds when Abed starts to stare hard at the ground, eyes flickering back and forth.
“Pandorum.”
“NO.” She shakes her hands out in front of her and takes a deep breath as she continues. “It’s just a guy and a girl and a spaceship. And when they first meet, the girl… has a little bit of a crush on the guy. It’s silly really because he doesn’t seem interested, or he’s in complete denial, whatever.”
“This still sounds like a girly movie,” Troy says slowly, voice tinged with suspicion.
“It’s… not. Because there’s also a… war.” Annie draws out her sentence slowly as she thinks. “Their spaceship is attacked by another more state of the art, expensive spaceship and everyone has to band together to save their home. There’s a lot of fighting and guns and death and… blood?”
Troy’s eyes continue to get wider the longer her description goes on. “Awesome,” he breathes.
“Star Wars.”
“No. And through it all the two main characters become friends. Really good friends. And they start spending a lot more time together. She helps him study for bio-flight school and he helps her deal with this pesky new girl who comes in thinking she’s better than everyone when she’s NOT.” Annie’s voice gets tight as her fists clench where they’re resting at her knees.
“Are you sure this was a movie? These sound a lot like classic sitcom tropes.”
“Why does a spaceship have flight school?” Troy muses.
“I guess it was more of a space station then.”
Abed and Troy whip their heads toward each other. “That’s no moon; that’s a space station,” they say in unison with deep husky voices.
Annie rolls her eyes and she’s quiet for a second as she thinks, her face relaxing and one side of her mouth twisting up.
“And then one day they kiss again and they play it off like it’s not big deal, but--”
“Again?”
“Uggggggh.”
Annie shakes herself out of the reverie she’s fallen into and sighs loudly. “What now?”
“This just got boring again,” Troy grumbles.
“Battlestar Galactica. Farscape. Lost in Space.”
“NO. IT WASN’T…” Annie takes in a deep breath and crosses her arms over her chest, choosing for the time being to ignore Abed and turn her attention to Troy. “Romance isn’t all bad.”
“Duh-doyyyy. But it sucks when it’s boring. If two people want to be together then they should just be together.” He shrugs and waggles his eyebrows. “And then get to the fun stuff.”
Annie flushes a little at the insinuation but Troy continues. “Like saving the rebels from the Empire and blowing up the Death Star. Or having sword fights with six fingered men.” His eyes set defiantly as he pretends to brandish a sword. “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father…” His wrist flicks as he stabs at the air, but then he drops his arm and smiles wistfully. “I wish I had someone to avenge.”
Abed shakes his head. “I’ve always thought of you as more of a Fezzik.”
Troy squints as he thinks about it. “Nah, man, I’ve never been good at rhymes.”
Annie glances between them and slumps forward in resignation with her elbows on her knees. “I always liked Princess Buttercup,” she offers. “I liked her name.”
“If you’re going to be a princess, you should be like Princess Leia, cause then you get to make out with Han Solo.” Troy sighs a little dreamily before catching himself and glancing sideways at the raised eyebrow Annie is sending his direction. “I meant that in a manly way.” He coughs and pounds his chest with his fist, grunting low in his throat and Annie rolls her eyes.
Abed nods in approval. “Annie would be a good Princess Leia. She has the right combination of innocence and badassness.”
Annie preens at the compliment, sitting up straighter and throwing her shoulders back. “Would I have to wear those little buns though?” She holds her hands up around her ears to demonstrate. “I feel like that would get annoying.
“No. Despite the iconic imagery Leia only wore her hair like that in the first movie.” Abed glances at her and tilts his head to the side. “You could wear the gold metal bikini.”
Troy’s eyes widen as they drop to Annie’s chest. “Yeaaaaah, you should do that.”
Annie lets out an indignant gasp and pushes against his shoulder. “Troy!”
“What?! You would look hot.” He shakes his head in confusion as pink blossoms up her cheeks. Abed nods.
“You guys are such… guys,” Annie grumbles, trying to press back the pleased warmth in her chest.
“Hey, Princess Annie.” She looks up at Troy and he pushes back lightly against her arm. “Finish telling us about the movie.”
“I thought it was too girly for you.”
He shrugs. “I want to know how it ends.”
Annie opens her mouth to tell them that she never saw the ending, that she doesn’t even know how it turns out, but they’re both watching her curiously and a mischievous smile spreads across her face as she leans forward.
“Okay. So, here’s the twist. The entire time all this was going on, aliens were infiltrating their space station. Only no one ever knew because they looked just like humans and were killing everyone off and replacing them one by one with identical counterparts.
“WOAH.”
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Abed snaps his fingers and points at her.
Annie shrugs, “Sure. Whatever.”
“How do they kill them?” Troy asks breathlessly.
“They eat their brains.”
“Gross.”
“Suck them right out through their ears.”
Abed shakes his head. “This movie sounds terrible.”
~*~*~
It’s nearing dusk when they arrive at Bishop Castle, a strange winding structure of stone and iron, an in-progress work of art situated on a mountainside amidst towering pines.
Abed and Troy disappear inside immediately but Annie, eyes on the sign that reads, “Enter at Your Own Risk”, chooses to stay safe on the ground. She looks up and up to the top of the highest tower, her stomach tumbling as she catches glimpses of other tourists making their way up the seemingly endless steps.
It really is quite beautiful - large arching windows and sloping stone walls that would almost seem better suited on a country cottage but continue rising up into spiraling turrets. It’s like something out of a fairy tale and it’s a little surprising that Abed and Troy didn’t insist on taking her up to the highest tower and proclaiming it her castle.
The “Princess Annie” nickname had stuck for the rest of the afternoon and everywhere they went she was flanked by Troy and Abed pretending to be her bodyguards. They had even bought matching pairs of sunglasses from the gas station for verisimilitude. Annie had stopped them short though when they started talking about finding suits to wear to complete the look, managing to convince them that real bodyguards would travel in plain clothes.
A young family of five emerges then from the entrance of the castle, both parents looking frazzled and exhausted. Two young boys weave between and around them, tugging on hands and legs and talking a mile a minute, the youngest shouting things like, “DO ARMY GUYS LIVE HERE? DO THEY HAVE SWORDS? DO THEY FIGHT DRAGONS? ARE DRAGONS REAL? CAN I GET A HAPPY MEAL FOR DINNER?”
The father, holding a little girl with blond pigtails draped dead asleep over his shoulder reaches into his pocket for his keys and hands them to his wife.
“Yes, you can get a Happy Meal,” he says wearily as the entire family walks by Annie towards their car. Both boys cheer loudly.
Annie turns slightly, continuing to watch from a distance as both parents maneuver all three kids into their SUV. As soon as the little girl is strapped into her car seat she jerks awake and starts crying. The mother hands her a little stuffed animal and then slides the door closed, muffling her daughter’s cries. Both parents stand there for a moment, talking quietly until he rubs her arm with a smile and walks around to the other side of the car.
“Princess Annie!”
She turns and looks back up at the castle where Troy and Abed are waving to her from a rickety looking metal staircase on the outside of one of the turrets. She waves back and resists the urge to tell them to be careful.
~*~*~
It’s almost nine o’clock when they spill out of the car at a truck stop outside Colorado Springs, stretching and groaning. Annie’s skin feels grimy from the recycled air of the car and she heads straight toward the bathroom to splash some water on her face. She peers into the mirror and makes a face at her reflection as she pats her skin dry with one of the cheap paper towels that smell like cardboard. Her eyes look a little glazed over and bloodshot and there are flyaways sticking out from her temples and out of the messy bun she’s pulled her hair into. She attempts to pat them down with wet fingertips and then sighs in resignation and tosses the paper towel in the trashcan as she pushes back out the door.
Abed and Troy are sitting at a table under the large window facing out toward the parking lot and Annie slides in next to Troy, facing away from the window so she’s not blinded by the glare of headlights from the big rigs that pull in and out at intervals. She eyes the two trays on the table loaded down with hot dogs, cheese fries and large chocolate cookies. Her stomach churns.
Troy has his phone tucked between his ear and shoulder, keeping his hands free as he struggles to open a packet of mustard. He looks up and nods toward her as she sits down.
“Hey, Annie. Jeff can’t find Monkey. Do you have any other tricks for getting Ben to sleep?”
“Wha--” She blinks at him, startled and gaping. “Why? Wait. What?”
“Jeff’s babysitting Ben and he can’t find Monkey and now Ben won’t go to sleep.”
Annie continues staring at him, unable to wrap her mind around what’s happening. Troy widens his eyes expectantly and she snaps out of it, the scrolling marquee of information going through her head finally catching up to speed.
“Um. Tell him to look between the wall and the crib. Sometimes Monkey gets wedged in there.”
Troy relays the message and then waits, taking a bite of his hot dog in the meanwhile. Faintly Annie can hear Jeff’s muffled voice through the speaker. Troy rolls his eyes. “Uh. I’ve seen Jurassic Park, Jeff. You can’t tell me that a rhinoceros isn’t a kind of dinosaur.”
He looks over at Annie a moment later. “Jeff says thanks.”
“Oh. Tell him I said you’re welcome.”
Troy gives her a strange look as he hangs up and she realizes how stunned she must look. She quickly looks over at Abed but he’s not paying any attention.
“I have a question,” Troy asks over another bite of food. “If there weren’t people during dinosaur times, then how to we know the names of all the dinosaurs?”
Annie barely listens to Abed’s answer, her attention turning back towards Troy’s phone where it’s resting on the table.
She’s spent the entire day feeling lost and disconnected, from Jeff, from the summer, from her own damn emotions, but there’s a sudden settling familiarity in her stomach that spreads out into each of her limbs and tingles at the back of her neck.
He’s still there - miles away, but there - being Jeff Winger. He hasn’t evaporated into the ether of distance and daydreams and exaggerated memories, and the certainty of him makes her relax back into the booth, tension draining from her body and leaving her boneless and exhausted.
She’s ready to go home.
“Annie?”
She looks up to see Abed and Troy smiling at her expectantly.
“Sorry. What?”
They turn and grin at each other and then back at her and she leans her head back warily.
“We have a proposition for you.”
PART TWO
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 5,825/12,609
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Description: Jeff gets a new roommate
Author’s Note: Sooooo, I have no idea how this took me almost four months to write, but I'm hoping the monster sized word count will make up for it a little bit. There's two parts so follow the link at the bottom!
God bless 0penhearts for the beta, Dan Harmon for bringing her into my life and Denny's for providing us with a writer's room.
Previous chapters
~*~*~
Annie grips the steering wheel with both hands and stares wide-eyed through the windshield. Her bag sits next to her on the passenger seat where she’d thrown it in her fumbled rush to start the car and get out of the parking lot as fast as possible, eyes on the rearview mirror. She’d driven a block away before pulling over to the side of the road, hands shaking and blood rushing in her ears.
I’m in love with you.
There’s a fluttering in her stomach that works its way up into her throat and catches, making her swallow hard and blink back the tears that spring up in the corners of her eyes. She hunches forward, resting her head against the top of the steering wheel, and lets out a whimpering groan.
Her own words replay on an endless loop in her head, getting louder and more hysterical until she visualizes herself practically screaming the words in Jeff’s face and then running for the door like a crazy person. Annie lets out a loud, tense laugh that turns into a hiccup as she lifts her head and looks out over the street in front of her. An older couple in tracksuits walks by with two dogs on leashes, the woman glancing briefly into the car as they pass, and Annie’s eyes follow their movement until they round the corner out of sight.
I’m in love with-
“Stop it,” she whispers and takes a few long deep breaths through her nose, finally nodding firmly and turning the key in the ignition. She checks the street and quickly flips a u-turn, headed back in the direction of Jeff’s apartment building. But as she approaches the turn-in a cold heat washes over her and she continues driving past, muttering curses under her breath. Now a block in the other direction she pulls over again and immediately reaches for her bag to grab her phone.
She freezes with her hand on the zipper, the image of her phone on the nightstand flashing through her head. On Jeff’s nightstand. Next to his bed. Where she spent the last two nights.
Her laugh is a little more manic - high in her throat - this time and she tips her head back and squeezes her eyes closed. She can’t go back. At least not right now. Not yet. But there’s no one to call, nowhere to go and the panic that seizes in her chest is like that of a little kid lost in a mall and crying searching for her mom. She’s less than a mile from the place she’s called home all summer, in the city she’s lived in her entire life and she’s never felt so lost.
She rolls her eyes and mentally gives herself a shake.
“C’mon, Annie,” she mutters and slowly begins cataloging her options.
Ten minutes later she’s pulling up to a small townhouse with brown trim and shutters and a walkway leading up to the front stoop lined by neatly groomed primroses. The mailbox at the curb says “Nadir” in white block lettering.
Abed’s dad opens the door, his eyebrows rising slowly as he takes in Annie’s bright pink pajama pants and camisole, the bag slung over her shoulder.
“Annie.”
“Hi, Mr. Nadir,” she chirps. “Is Abed home?” She gives him a sunny smile, hoping to win him over but he just lets out a long-suffering sigh and turns away.
“Abed. One of your friends from school is here.” He doesn’t invite her in as he disappears into the house and Annie waits, glancing back toward her car and hiking the bag up higher on her shoulder, unsure if she was supposed to follow him.
“Did you and Jeff have a fight?”
She twists back around, startled. Abed is standing in the doorway with a bowl of cereal in one hand. He takes a bite, brow furrowed slightly and Annie flushes at the hawk-like way he observes her.
“No. What? No.” Her laugh is forced. “Why would you think that?”
He points the spoon at her bag, “You look like you moved out.”
“No,” Annie sighs. “What are you doing today?”
“Troy’s coming home this weekend. I’m driving down to pick him up after breakfast.”
He takes another bite, chewing slowly. Annie knows that Abed’s idea of breakfast is however long it takes to work his way through about half a box of cereal and whatever block of cartoons is currently airing on the Disney Channel.
“Oh. Can I come?”
“Sure. But--”
“Abed.” Annie holds up her hand. “This one of those times where it’s better not to ask questions.”
Abed frowns. “But you know I don’t like not understanding what’s going on.”
Annie’s features soften and she lets out a long sigh as she shifts and looks down at her feet. “I just needed some space.”
There’s a long pause. “Are you…?”
She looks up and meets his eyes, widening hers plaintively. Abed blinks.
“Cool. Cool cool cool.” He opens the door further. “Do you want breakfast?”
Her entire body tenses in an effort to fight back the pressure behind her eyes. “No. I’m not really hungry.”
~*~*~
They’re on the road, headed south in Abed’s dad’s Corolla, by ten-thirty. They don’t say much; Abed hums along to his favorite smooth jazz station, bobbing his head and shoulders ever so slightly to the beat, and Annie sits with her legs pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped around them and hands clasped. Every so often her fingers twitch and she moves as if to reach for her phone before remembering where it is and slouching with a silent sigh back into her seat.
She watches the dotted yellow line up the center of the highway whir by in a hypnotic blur and it doesn’t take long before her eyelids start to go heavy. The soothing melody of saxophone music straining in over the radio fades into the background as her entire body relaxes into a light doze, her mind a jumble of distorted half-dreams.
After what could either be a moment or an hour her head lilts to the side, smacking into the window and she jerks back awake, blinking rapidly. Abed looks over at her but she gives him a closed-mouth smile and leans her head, gently this time, back against the warm thick glass.
She squeezes her eyes closed again and tucks her legs tighter into her chest. After being pushed along by a nervous momentum all morning there’s nothing left to do now but sit and think and let the car carry her along and all she can see is Jeff’s face - a mix of stunned and confused as she ran out the door.
Annie wonders if he’s still at the apartment and there’s a regretful twinge in her chest at the knowledge that she’s basically ruined their day. He had been so perfectly content to make her breakfast and stand in the kitchen looking sleep-disheveled in a faded gray t-shirt and his hair flat and lying in strange directions and she had gone and unraveled the entire thing.
As much as he likes to put up a show of indifference, she knows that it doesn’t take a lot to screw with Jeff Winger’s head and she wants to apologize, tell him she’s sorry for leaving, sorry for saying out loud the thing that had been scratching and tearing its way out of her since she woke up.
But she’s in love with him. It’s a feeling that buzzes and nips at her fingers and toes and makes her feel weightless like she’s filled up entirely with air. She wants to laugh and run around in circles and burst into tears all at the same time and she can’t even figure out when that happened. At the beginning of summer she had come to him and asked to stay, rolled her eyes and assured him that romantic intentions were the furthest from her mind and she had believed it because it had been true.
But now with this overwhelming new zip of realization coursing through her veins she can’t recall any one moment where everything changed - she’s been falling all summer, maybe even longer than that and it’s as if she’s lost hold of the string of a balloon and claws desperately at thin air as it bobs and floats higher into the sky.
The past few weeks and months with Jeff, all the kisses and stray touches and the time spent just being with him, had coalesced into an easy contentedness - she can’t even remember the last time she went looking for an apartment - and she hadn’t really stopped to pay it any attention, save for the random awkward moment that made her pause and then quickly brush aside for the sake of their living situation, friendship, relationship - this thing between them that’s she’s never fully understood.
They are friends. And they kiss on occasion. And they live together. And are attracted to each other and sometimes act on that attraction. They watch bad television together and share ice cream and actually kiss a lot more than occasionally. They tell each other those stupid details that seem so inconsequential - he hates pickles, he was once suspended for three days in high school for going to class drunk, he cried the day he was disbarred - but really fill in and color the complete picture of who a person is and the certainty of him, of how well she knows him, makes her bite her lip and curl her toes into her flip flops.
How could she not have seen what was happening?
On Monday they had met for lunch at a little vegan restaurant a few miles away from his office. It was nicer than where they usually ate but he had shrugged and said he was paying and she hadn’t really bothered arguing. They placed their order and Annie was in the middle of telling him about a patient who had been driving the office staff crazy when Jeff leaned over, cupped her cheek in his hand and fit his mouth to hers. It caught her off guard and she had inhaled sharply before relaxing into him.
He had pressed one last lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth, nudging his nose over hers before pulling back. The waiter came back then with their drinks and Annie had blushed, a fire spanning out under her skin, watching out of the corner of her eye the tiny smile on Jeff’s lips as he carefully squeezed a slice of lemon into his iced water.
The sense memory of his kiss, his hand warm on her cheek sends a shiver up her spine that makes her sit up straighter. Annie clenches her fists, nails digging into the palms of her hands, a scream bubbling up in her chest. She keeps her eyes squeezed shut, breathing in deeply through her nose, and hopes that Abed doesn’t notice her distress.
Two years ago she had spent an entire summer building up the memory of a kiss and all the meaning behind it and the passion with which he had hauled her into his arms, until no reality ever could have matched the fantasy, only to be told that what it meant was nothing - chemicals, hormones, generic lust.
So she had stopped letting herself read into things - like when he’d find her eyes first with his at the study table, when he’d catch up with her in the hallway and slip easily into conversation as if they had been chatting for hours, when he’d text her randomly on a weekend to ask a homework question and then tease her about how quickly she had responded with the answer - until he had reached for her in bed this morning, a soft smile playing at the corner of his mouth, the sheets rustling with their movement, his skin warm from sleep and the sunshine slanting in through the blinds and…
…crap. She opens her eyes and squints at the road ahead. She feels disoriented, lost in Jeff and just like that she’s one step away from drawing his name surrounded by hearts in her diary. She drops her legs off the seat, stretching her arms out in front of her with a yawn.
“So.”
Abed startles and looks at her with wide eyes and Annie realizes she’d practically barked the word at him. She clears her throat and tries to steady her nerves. “Have you heard any new spoilers about Inspector Spacetime?” she starts again, softer this time.
His face lights up and he launches into news from the recent Comi-Con where the new assistant had been introduced. Annie listens with interest, nodding along and forcing all thoughts of Jeff to the back of her mind.
~*~*~
With only one stop for coffee and a bathroom break they make it to Rotin, New Mexico by three o’clock. Annie frowns as they turn into the bus station and looks to Abed in question.
“Troy told his mom he was taking the bus home. She doesn’t approve of road trips.”
Annie purses her lips as her eyes trace over his impassive face. “Parents are weird,” she sighs. He shrugs and doesn’t say anything but nods his head down once in agreement.
They get out of the car and are immediately greeted by a shout of, “Abed!” Annie shades her eyes as she looks over the car at a figure headed full tilt in their direction, a duffel bag slung across his chest and knocking against his thigh as he runs.
“Troy!” Abed manages to get out before Troy reaches him and without slowing throws his arms around him, propelling them both back slightly into the car.
When they pull back Troy has an irrepressible toothy smile spread from ear to ear. “I missed you, buddy.” He pulls the duffel bag off over his head and smacks his chest with the palm of his hand as he and Abed do their handshake twice in quick succession.
Annie stands on the other side of the car, watching in amusement and trying to ignore the inexplicable pang in her chest when Troy pulls Abed back in for another hug, resting his head on his shoulder. Abed stands still, not reciprocating at first, until the faintest of smiles flickers at his lips and he bends his arms up and pats Troy on the back.
“I missed you too.”
~*~*~
Abed and Troy decide they want to take the long meandering way home and stop at every truck stop, landmark and viewpoint that shows up on the map from New Mexico to Greendale. There’s a familiar gleam in Abed’s eye and Annie feels a nervous jittering that he’s going to find some way to stage a flat tire or the car getting stolen or some mishap that ends in them walking stranded down the road and thumbing rides from tattooed truckers with hook hands.
“We are going to get home by Monday, right?” she asks from the backseat, leaning forward with her hands on each of their headrests.
“That’s the plan,” Abed says in a dreamy way that is not at all reassuring.
Annie sighs. “As long as you realize that you’re not John Candy. And he’s not Steve Martin.” She hooks her thumb at Troy. “And that I do need to go back to work eventually.”
Troy turns to look at her incredulously. “Uh, clearly not.” He lets out dry laugh. “I’m John Candy. He’s Steve Martin. Have you seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Annie?” He and Abed both shake their heads, chucking in amusement at her utter wrongness and she sinks back into her seat, eyebrows knit together, arms folded over her chest in a huff.
~*~*~
Two hours later they stop at a quiet rest stop to stretch their legs and Abed and Troy make a beeline for the vending machines while Annie settles at a picnic bench and rests her chin in the palm of her hand, staring out over the expanse of grass toward the parking lot where an older woman in faded jeans and t-shirt stands alone near a beat up old Dodge, puffing on a cigarette. Annie watches her as she looks around, shoulders drooping back in a sigh, and then checks her watch. She takes one last drag and flicks the cigarette into the dirt, then gets into her car and pulls away, back towards the highway.
“I thought you might be hungry.”
Annie startles as Troy sets a bag of chips and a can of soda in front of her and then drops down on the other side of the bench.
“Fritos are your favorite, right?” He’s rooting through his own bag of chips, trying to pick out the ones with the most cheese powder, and not looking up at her as she blinks rapidly and fingers the squared edge of the bag. “So how was your summer?” Satisfied with his choice he pops a chip in his mouth and finally looks up at her, freezing mid bite at the look on her face. “Annie?”
Her lips purse together, quivering slightly. “Good,” she manages to choke out before her entire body seems to shudder with a sob and she covers her face as tears pool in the corners of her eyes.
“Annie?” he says again, voice higher pitched. ‘What’s wrong?”
“I just.” She tries to choke back another sob but now that it’s started the well of emotion can’t be tamped back and tears begin to slip down her cheeks. “I had a really good summer,” she cries loudly and drops her head into the crook of her elbow, shoulders shaking.
Troy’s eyes widen all the way and then flicker up toward the Welcome Center where Abed had gone to explore, and then around the rest of the park before coming back to rest on Annie.
“Don’t be sad,” he sniffles.
“I’m not!” Her words are muffled and wet.
“I don’t understand!”
Annie peeks up at him, wiping her cheek along her arm.
“Troy! Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know! You started it!” He presses his fist to his mouth. “With your weird emotions. Who cries when they’re not sad?!”
“Lots of people!”
“Well they shouldn’t!”
Neither of them notices Abed sidle up to the table with a bag of Chex Mix in his hand. He stares at them, eyes volleying back and forth as they yell through messy tears.
“Okay. I missed something.”
~*~*~
She pulls herself together, a few last dry sobs shuddering in her chest as she wipes her eyes and it’s probably a good thing that she hadn’t put any make-up on earlier. Troy watches her, wary and leaned back in his seat as if trying to stay far away as possible from her contagious emotions while still being a good friend.
“I’m okay,” she murmurs.
He relaxes slightly, still frowning. “Promise?”
His concern makes her want to burst into tears all over again but she nods and smiles as Abed returns with a handful of toilet paper that Annie accepts gratefully and uses to blow her nose. She pauses though when he slides a bar of chocolate from the vending machine in front of her and looks up at him through her eyelashes.
“I’m not charting you anymore. I just know you like chocolate.”
Annie presses her lips together and nods quickly. She smoothes her finger along the silver foil wrapper and it’s a moment before she can talk again. “Thank you.”
Her tears seem to have hit a momentary pause button on the road trip and none of them has any real inclination to get back in the car but the sun beats down hot and severe from a blue cloudless sky so they move under the cooling shade of a large Sycamore tree for relief, sitting cross-legged on the grass and fanning themselves with maps from the car.
Abed and Troy chatter on but Annie barely listens, her fingers pulling absentmindedly at blades of grass and twisting them together in braided circles as she stares off into space for so long that her vision goes blurry and she has to blink rapidly to clear it. Her entire body feels drained and heavy from crying so hard and all she wants to do is curl up with her eyes closed and sleep for the rest of the day.
Preferably snuggled deep into a particular set of soft Egyptian cotton sheets.
Annie has to hold back a tiny giggle at that and she presses her fingers to her lips and glances sideways at Troy and Abed. The last thing she needs is for them to see her sitting here laughing silently to herself - she’s pretty sure they already think she’s nuts. She contemplates telling them, telling them everything, because she needs to talk and explain this to someone and isn’t she supposed to have a girlfriend she can go to? Someone to dissect every detail with over wine and junk food, to encourage her and tell her what it means and not judge her or stare at her like she’s an insect in a zoo? She can’t go to Britta or Shirley for the obvious reasons and other than them… she really has a sad lack of female presence in her life.
“Here.” Troy carefully plucks out a long-stemmed weed from where it’s growing under the grass, brushes the dirt off it and drapes it over Annie’s knee. She looks down at the growing wreath in her hand and then over at Troy. He gives her a small smile and she beams at him and picks up the weed to twist it into the wreath.
“So I was watching this movie the other day,” she starts suddenly.
Abed and Troy stop mid-conversation, heads swiveling toward her in perfect synchronization.
“What movie?” Abed asks.
“Um. I don’t remember the title. But it was about this guy and this girl and--”
“When Harry Met Sally.”
“Ugh.”
“No… what?” Annie answers Abed and furrows her brow at the look of disgust on Troy’s face.
He sighs heavily. “I thought you were going to tell us about an awesome movie. Like Kickpuncher. Or the Matrix. But it’s one of those dumb girly movies you like, isn’t it?” His voice gets whinier. “Was Katherine Heigl in it?”
Abed nods and points his finger at Troy in agreement.
“Noooo.” Annie purses her lips as she thinks about it. Her eyes brighten. “They were on a spaceship.”
Abed’s eyes narrow. “Alien?”
“Nice.”
“No. I--”
“Wall-E?”
“No.”
“Galaxy Quest.”
“NO.” Annie clenches her jaw. “I don’t remember the title. It doesn’t matter. It was one of those cheesy sci-fi movies. You’ve probably never heard of it,” she adds when Abed starts to stare hard at the ground, eyes flickering back and forth.
“Pandorum.”
“NO.” She shakes her hands out in front of her and takes a deep breath as she continues. “It’s just a guy and a girl and a spaceship. And when they first meet, the girl… has a little bit of a crush on the guy. It’s silly really because he doesn’t seem interested, or he’s in complete denial, whatever.”
“This still sounds like a girly movie,” Troy says slowly, voice tinged with suspicion.
“It’s… not. Because there’s also a… war.” Annie draws out her sentence slowly as she thinks. “Their spaceship is attacked by another more state of the art, expensive spaceship and everyone has to band together to save their home. There’s a lot of fighting and guns and death and… blood?”
Troy’s eyes continue to get wider the longer her description goes on. “Awesome,” he breathes.
“Star Wars.”
“No. And through it all the two main characters become friends. Really good friends. And they start spending a lot more time together. She helps him study for bio-flight school and he helps her deal with this pesky new girl who comes in thinking she’s better than everyone when she’s NOT.” Annie’s voice gets tight as her fists clench where they’re resting at her knees.
“Are you sure this was a movie? These sound a lot like classic sitcom tropes.”
“Why does a spaceship have flight school?” Troy muses.
“I guess it was more of a space station then.”
Abed and Troy whip their heads toward each other. “That’s no moon; that’s a space station,” they say in unison with deep husky voices.
Annie rolls her eyes and she’s quiet for a second as she thinks, her face relaxing and one side of her mouth twisting up.
“And then one day they kiss again and they play it off like it’s not big deal, but--”
“Again?”
“Uggggggh.”
Annie shakes herself out of the reverie she’s fallen into and sighs loudly. “What now?”
“This just got boring again,” Troy grumbles.
“Battlestar Galactica. Farscape. Lost in Space.”
“NO. IT WASN’T…” Annie takes in a deep breath and crosses her arms over her chest, choosing for the time being to ignore Abed and turn her attention to Troy. “Romance isn’t all bad.”
“Duh-doyyyy. But it sucks when it’s boring. If two people want to be together then they should just be together.” He shrugs and waggles his eyebrows. “And then get to the fun stuff.”
Annie flushes a little at the insinuation but Troy continues. “Like saving the rebels from the Empire and blowing up the Death Star. Or having sword fights with six fingered men.” His eyes set defiantly as he pretends to brandish a sword. “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father…” His wrist flicks as he stabs at the air, but then he drops his arm and smiles wistfully. “I wish I had someone to avenge.”
Abed shakes his head. “I’ve always thought of you as more of a Fezzik.”
Troy squints as he thinks about it. “Nah, man, I’ve never been good at rhymes.”
Annie glances between them and slumps forward in resignation with her elbows on her knees. “I always liked Princess Buttercup,” she offers. “I liked her name.”
“If you’re going to be a princess, you should be like Princess Leia, cause then you get to make out with Han Solo.” Troy sighs a little dreamily before catching himself and glancing sideways at the raised eyebrow Annie is sending his direction. “I meant that in a manly way.” He coughs and pounds his chest with his fist, grunting low in his throat and Annie rolls her eyes.
Abed nods in approval. “Annie would be a good Princess Leia. She has the right combination of innocence and badassness.”
Annie preens at the compliment, sitting up straighter and throwing her shoulders back. “Would I have to wear those little buns though?” She holds her hands up around her ears to demonstrate. “I feel like that would get annoying.
“No. Despite the iconic imagery Leia only wore her hair like that in the first movie.” Abed glances at her and tilts his head to the side. “You could wear the gold metal bikini.”
Troy’s eyes widen as they drop to Annie’s chest. “Yeaaaaah, you should do that.”
Annie lets out an indignant gasp and pushes against his shoulder. “Troy!”
“What?! You would look hot.” He shakes his head in confusion as pink blossoms up her cheeks. Abed nods.
“You guys are such… guys,” Annie grumbles, trying to press back the pleased warmth in her chest.
“Hey, Princess Annie.” She looks up at Troy and he pushes back lightly against her arm. “Finish telling us about the movie.”
“I thought it was too girly for you.”
He shrugs. “I want to know how it ends.”
Annie opens her mouth to tell them that she never saw the ending, that she doesn’t even know how it turns out, but they’re both watching her curiously and a mischievous smile spreads across her face as she leans forward.
“Okay. So, here’s the twist. The entire time all this was going on, aliens were infiltrating their space station. Only no one ever knew because they looked just like humans and were killing everyone off and replacing them one by one with identical counterparts.
“WOAH.”
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Abed snaps his fingers and points at her.
Annie shrugs, “Sure. Whatever.”
“How do they kill them?” Troy asks breathlessly.
“They eat their brains.”
“Gross.”
“Suck them right out through their ears.”
Abed shakes his head. “This movie sounds terrible.”
~*~*~
It’s nearing dusk when they arrive at Bishop Castle, a strange winding structure of stone and iron, an in-progress work of art situated on a mountainside amidst towering pines.
Abed and Troy disappear inside immediately but Annie, eyes on the sign that reads, “Enter at Your Own Risk”, chooses to stay safe on the ground. She looks up and up to the top of the highest tower, her stomach tumbling as she catches glimpses of other tourists making their way up the seemingly endless steps.
It really is quite beautiful - large arching windows and sloping stone walls that would almost seem better suited on a country cottage but continue rising up into spiraling turrets. It’s like something out of a fairy tale and it’s a little surprising that Abed and Troy didn’t insist on taking her up to the highest tower and proclaiming it her castle.
The “Princess Annie” nickname had stuck for the rest of the afternoon and everywhere they went she was flanked by Troy and Abed pretending to be her bodyguards. They had even bought matching pairs of sunglasses from the gas station for verisimilitude. Annie had stopped them short though when they started talking about finding suits to wear to complete the look, managing to convince them that real bodyguards would travel in plain clothes.
A young family of five emerges then from the entrance of the castle, both parents looking frazzled and exhausted. Two young boys weave between and around them, tugging on hands and legs and talking a mile a minute, the youngest shouting things like, “DO ARMY GUYS LIVE HERE? DO THEY HAVE SWORDS? DO THEY FIGHT DRAGONS? ARE DRAGONS REAL? CAN I GET A HAPPY MEAL FOR DINNER?”
The father, holding a little girl with blond pigtails draped dead asleep over his shoulder reaches into his pocket for his keys and hands them to his wife.
“Yes, you can get a Happy Meal,” he says wearily as the entire family walks by Annie towards their car. Both boys cheer loudly.
Annie turns slightly, continuing to watch from a distance as both parents maneuver all three kids into their SUV. As soon as the little girl is strapped into her car seat she jerks awake and starts crying. The mother hands her a little stuffed animal and then slides the door closed, muffling her daughter’s cries. Both parents stand there for a moment, talking quietly until he rubs her arm with a smile and walks around to the other side of the car.
“Princess Annie!”
She turns and looks back up at the castle where Troy and Abed are waving to her from a rickety looking metal staircase on the outside of one of the turrets. She waves back and resists the urge to tell them to be careful.
~*~*~
It’s almost nine o’clock when they spill out of the car at a truck stop outside Colorado Springs, stretching and groaning. Annie’s skin feels grimy from the recycled air of the car and she heads straight toward the bathroom to splash some water on her face. She peers into the mirror and makes a face at her reflection as she pats her skin dry with one of the cheap paper towels that smell like cardboard. Her eyes look a little glazed over and bloodshot and there are flyaways sticking out from her temples and out of the messy bun she’s pulled her hair into. She attempts to pat them down with wet fingertips and then sighs in resignation and tosses the paper towel in the trashcan as she pushes back out the door.
Abed and Troy are sitting at a table under the large window facing out toward the parking lot and Annie slides in next to Troy, facing away from the window so she’s not blinded by the glare of headlights from the big rigs that pull in and out at intervals. She eyes the two trays on the table loaded down with hot dogs, cheese fries and large chocolate cookies. Her stomach churns.
Troy has his phone tucked between his ear and shoulder, keeping his hands free as he struggles to open a packet of mustard. He looks up and nods toward her as she sits down.
“Hey, Annie. Jeff can’t find Monkey. Do you have any other tricks for getting Ben to sleep?”
“Wha--” She blinks at him, startled and gaping. “Why? Wait. What?”
“Jeff’s babysitting Ben and he can’t find Monkey and now Ben won’t go to sleep.”
Annie continues staring at him, unable to wrap her mind around what’s happening. Troy widens his eyes expectantly and she snaps out of it, the scrolling marquee of information going through her head finally catching up to speed.
“Um. Tell him to look between the wall and the crib. Sometimes Monkey gets wedged in there.”
Troy relays the message and then waits, taking a bite of his hot dog in the meanwhile. Faintly Annie can hear Jeff’s muffled voice through the speaker. Troy rolls his eyes. “Uh. I’ve seen Jurassic Park, Jeff. You can’t tell me that a rhinoceros isn’t a kind of dinosaur.”
He looks over at Annie a moment later. “Jeff says thanks.”
“Oh. Tell him I said you’re welcome.”
Troy gives her a strange look as he hangs up and she realizes how stunned she must look. She quickly looks over at Abed but he’s not paying any attention.
“I have a question,” Troy asks over another bite of food. “If there weren’t people during dinosaur times, then how to we know the names of all the dinosaurs?”
Annie barely listens to Abed’s answer, her attention turning back towards Troy’s phone where it’s resting on the table.
She’s spent the entire day feeling lost and disconnected, from Jeff, from the summer, from her own damn emotions, but there’s a sudden settling familiarity in her stomach that spreads out into each of her limbs and tingles at the back of her neck.
He’s still there - miles away, but there - being Jeff Winger. He hasn’t evaporated into the ether of distance and daydreams and exaggerated memories, and the certainty of him makes her relax back into the booth, tension draining from her body and leaving her boneless and exhausted.
She’s ready to go home.
“Annie?”
She looks up to see Abed and Troy smiling at her expectantly.
“Sorry. What?”
They turn and grin at each other and then back at her and she leans her head back warily.
“We have a proposition for you.”
PART TWO