Fic: Teenage Dream 1/2
Fandom: Community AU
Rating: PG
Characters: Jeff/Annie, Annie/Abed friendship
Disclaimer: I don't own Community.
Summary: Mr. Winger probably just needed a friend. Or even better, an exemplary student.
Author's Note: So a few months ago, I wrote this, my little ficlet about highschoolteacher!Jeff and highschoolstudent!Annie. And I could never really let the idea go, so lo and behold...A HIGH SCHOOL AU. THE DAY OF RECKONING (terror?) HAS ARRIVED. SOME DORKY GIRL HAS WRITTEN A FULL LENGTH HIGH SCHOOL AU.
I actually wrote this a while ago, but I didn't want to post it until I was finished, and then I never finished it. So I just decided to polish this and post Part One. (It's a good thing too, because now I know how I'm going to end this thing!)
Either way, I hope you enjoy! Imagine Pretty Little Liars, except without the mysterious person lurking and texting, trying to humiliate you. I also named this fic after a Katy Perry song, don't judge, I couldn't think of anything else!
Annie stared at her reflection in her bedroom mirror. She evaluated her outfit: a blue dress that fell a few inches above her knees, a light green sweater tied around her shoulders, and black Mary Jane's.
Annie bit her lip thoughtfully, then untied the sweater and stuck her arms through it. Much better. Now she looked less like a schoolmarm and more like a high school student. A mature high school student. One who was in her last year of high school and who would be attending a fabulous university next fall, where she would do exciting things like join protests, and maybe date a rebel. But not too much of a rebel. Just enough to make him cool. Like, he wouldn't wear shirts indoors or something.
But the rebel was a fallback fantasy. What she really wanted was a long term guy, someone to go steady with in high school, then graduate with, then go to college with, so they could walk around campus holding hands.
She thought she had found that guy last year. But in the end...Annie's smile faltered a bit. She shook her head. Best not to dwell on that. Her ex had found his long time guy, and she couldn't help but be happy for him.
Besides, Annie had found her true soulmate.
She glanced up at the right hand corner of her mirror. There, carefully cut out from her junior yearbook, was a picture of Troy Barnes, the most perfect guy in the entire universe. She had placed little red sticker hearts around him when she put the picture up last year; some of them were fraying at the corners. She smoothed down one of the corners with an index finger, then swept a finger over his cheek.
"This year, Annie Edison gets what she wants," she whispered to herself. Her hand dropped back to her side. She smiled brightly at her reflection and left her room, skipping down the stairs and out the front door.
* * *
Annie's last class of the day was Yearbook. It was also her only class without Troy. But Troy was an Office Aid, which was basically a free period. And his best friend, Abed Nadir, was in Yearbook with her. Which meant Troy would probably be spending a lot of time in her class.
Annie had known Abed for two years without ever really knowing him. All they had was the journalism class connection. Well, it was time for Annie to make that connection a little closer. After all, Troy was going to be her soulmate. She needed to be best friends with his best friend, right?
Annie walked into Room 106 and immediately zeroed in on Abed. He was sitting in a desk at the front of the room. Nobody was around him. Perfect. She slid into the seat next to him.
"Hi, Abed," she said cheerfully.
Abed was building a paper fortune teller. He looked up from his desk at Annie, and raised an eyebrow. He glanced over her shoulder to their other classmates, then looked up at the ceiling, then to the window behind him, and back to Annie. She gave him a confused look.
Abed looked back at his desk. "Plot twist," he said simply.
"Umm, what twist?" Annie followed the path Abed had looked at earlier and glanced at him, the ceiling, and the window.
"Plot twist. You're sitting next to me. You've never done that before. Which means you're changing the story. So, plot twist. We should expect the unexpected. A shark could crash through that window." He paused. "Or something less surreal. Although I feel like there isn't an appreciation for the surreal in stories these days. I guess Lost could count, but everyone demanded answers for everything. They weren't content with things just being mysterious. Like the smoke monster."
Annie was getting a little weirded out. Maybe being friends with Abed to get to Troy wasn't the way to go. But she'd already sat down. It would be rude to leave. It would be weak to leave. Didn't she tell herself that she was going to get what she wanted?
Annie shook her head and smiled. "I don't think it's a plot twist. Like you said, that would be totally unexpected. This isn't totally unexpected. I just want to be friends with you."
Abed gave her a thoughtful look. "Okay. Cool." He looked back up at the ceiling. "But I still feel like a plot twist is coming."
The bell rang and the classroom door opened. But it wasn't Mrs. White. Instead, a thirty something guy with dirty blond hair and blue eyes walked in. He was wearing a white button up shirt rolled up at the sleeves, a skinny black tie, and blue jeans. He was also gigantic, over six feet tall. If Annie wasn't totally devoted to Troy, she might have admitted that he was pretty cute. For an older guy.
He stood by the desk in the front, looking over the class silently. He sighed dramatically, running a hand down his face before turning towards the chalkboard, hunting for a piece of chalk. Annie and Abed shared a look as the guy wrote out "Mr. Winger" on the board. He dropped the chalk on the ledge and turned back around to face the class.
"Alright. I'm Jeff-I mean, Mr. Winger, and I'm your new yearbook teacher," he said in a bored tone.
Annie reluctantly raised her hand. Mr. Winger pointed at her. "What."
"Umm..." Annie lowered her arm slowly. "What happened to Mrs. White?"
"Dead. Or retired, I can't remember." He wasn't looking at her anymore, but was sitting at the desk searching through the drawers. He fished out an old school newspaper from last year. "Alright, I don't have anything planned yet, so uh, free period." He propped his feet up on his desk and dropped the newspaper to cover his face.
A few minutes later, he was snoring.
Annie let out a small gasp.
* * *
"I can't believe Mrs. White retired and left us with...with him!" Annie was sitting at her station with Abed and Troy in Home Economics and furiously stirring a bowl of cake batter.
"I like him," Abed said. "He has the potential to be the classic rebel teacher, like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. I hope he makes us rip pages out of our old yearbooks."
Annie let out an indignant gasp. "He'd probably be too busy using the yearbooks as a pillow!"
"Well, I think he sounds awesome," Troy said, sticking a finger in the bowl and popping it into his mouth. "I'm gonna try and stop by today. It depends on how many errands Ms. Perry wants me to run."
Annie stopped stirring. Abed slid the bowl away from her and resumed her duties.
"You're...you're helping Ms. Perry? I thought you were just an office aid."
Troy was trying to dip his fingers into the bowl again, but Abed slapped his hand away. "Yeah, I was. But I ran into Ms. Perry in the hallway when I was delivering a message to Senor Chang, and she said she needed help organizing her Vegetarian Awareness Fair, so I said I'd help her. Besides," Troy grinned, "She's really hot."
That's exactly what Annie was worried about. Troy was just popular enough...and Ms. Perry was just liberal enough...
Annie snatched the bowl away from Abed and began stirring frantically, chanting You're gonna get what you want Annie! and Troy and Ms. Perry are not having a scandalous affair! over and over again in her head.
"My, my, there's a lot of chatter over here this morning!" Annie turned around to face their Home Ec teacher, Mrs. Bennett, who was smiling at the three brightly. She was wearing her favorite apron, a light pink one that said "Jesus loves the Cook!" on it. "What're you all talking about?"
Annie knew she wasn't in trouble. Mrs. Bennett just liked to know what her students were talking about. All the time. So she could give them "advice." Annie gave Mrs. Bennett a small smile and muttered 'Oh, nothing' while Troy looked at some point on the ceiling.
Abed however, answered her. "We were talking about the new teacher, Mr. Winger."
Annie let out a frustrated sigh, and Troy punched Abed in the arm. Mrs. Bennett pretended not to notice their reactions. "Oh, that's nice! He's a cute one, isn't he?" she said, winking at Annie.
"He is," Abed said. Mrs. Bennett gave him a puzzled look, while Annie turned back to the bowl. She motioned Troy to slide the cake pan over to her so she could pour the batter in.
"You know, he's not just new to Greendale High. He's new to Greendale! Apparently he used to be a lawyer in Denver but he got--" Mrs. Bennett looked around them and lowered her voice to a whisper--"disbarred."
Annie looked up. "Really? Why?"
Mrs. Bennett shrugged. "I don't know. He was taking one of Principal Pelton's classes at GCC and I guess Craig really liked him because he offered him this job. Apparently Mr. Winger got his Bachelor's in Journalism."
"Yeah, I'm sure Pelton's PANTS really liked Mr. Winger," Troy said. He held up his hand and Abed automatically gave him a high five.
Mrs. Bennett narrowed her eyes. "Mr. Barnes, you know I do not approve--" she was cut off though, when the classroom door opened. Her disposition darkened further when she saw who it was.
"Shirley! Brittles just told me your divorce was finalized! I'm here for you, Mrs. Bennett. Or is it 'Miss Bennett, if you're nasty' now?" Mr. Hawthorne walked towards Mrs. Bennett and offered her a bouquet of flowers.
"Mr. Hawthorne," Mrs. Bennett said, and Annie could tell she was doing everything to keep her voice even. "Will you join me out in the hallway?" She grabbed his arm and dragged him outside before he had a chance to answer.
Troy leaned over and whispered in Annie's ear. "That was close, huh?"
Annie's heart fluttered and she nodded and ducked her head, smiling.
* * *
In Yearbook later that day, Annie decided that she probably misjudged Mr. Winger. He had a dark past! A dark past which was so haunting the only way to escape it was to sleep instead of teaching. Annie's eyes filled with sympathy tears. He probably just needed a friend. Or even better, an exemplary student.
Which she excelled at.
Annie straightened up in her seat, folded her hands on top of her desk and gave Mr. Winger a large smile.
Mr. Winger eyed her warily. "Edison?"
"Ready to learn!" she chirped.
"...Right. Okay, guys, it's Darkroom day." He pointed at the revolving darkroom door. Everyone stood up and filed towards the door. "And don't pack in there like sardines. Take turns. Wait." Mr. Winger turned towards Troy. "Who are you?"
"Troy Barnes."
"You weren't here yesterday."
"Yeah, I'm an office aid."
Mr. Winger crossed his arms. "Do you have something to give me?"
Troy shrugged. "Nope."
"Then get out."
Annie stepped between the two. "Mr. Winger, Troy doesn't have very many errands to run, so he thought he'd help out with the yearbook." Mr. Winger opened his mouth to say something but Annie cut him off. "Please. Let him stay." She gave him her most wide eyed, pleading look.
Mr. Winger glared down at her, but Annie didn't let up on her doe eyes. "Alright," he said, defeated.
Annie beamed. "Thank you, Mr. Winger."
"Yeah." They filed into the doorway and Mr. Winger spun the door around. Annie and Troy stepped out and stood by Abed while Mr. Winger stood opposite the class.
"Alright, I know you all can work a digital camera, but I think it's important that you all learn how to develop pictures the old way." He went around the room and handed everyone a long strip of film and a small reel.
"So when you develop pictures you can have the safe lamp on. But when you first take the film out of the camera and roll it on the reels, you have to do it with no lights, not even the safe lamps. You can only turn the lights on when the reels are tucked safely into the film canister." He rested a hand on top of a canister that looked like an oversized tumbler. "We'll do a few practice runs then try it in the dark. Alright, get going."
Annie went to work on her reel. Mr. Winger went around and checked their work, pointing out mistakes in her classmates' final product. Annie was just finishing her reel when Mr. Winger walked up to her. He gently plucked it from her hands and examined it. "Perfect. Very nice, Edison." They shared a smile before he stepped over to examine Abed's work.
* * *
A month passed, and Mr. Winger became Annie's favorite teacher. He was just so laid back and undemanding. It was nice. And he was nice to her.
She knew that all he needed was an exemplary student!
Annie started spending more and more time in his classroom. She spent her third period study hall in the darkroom, and she stayed for at least an hour after school, developing photos for Abed's yearbook layouts.
She was developing a photo of Troy playing football when Mr. Winger came into the darkroom. He leaned over her shoulder to look at her photo.
"Nice shot," he said.
Annie placed the photo on the counter to dry. "Thanks!" She turned around to face him and noticed that he was looking at her thoughtfully.
"Mr. Winger?"
"You're my new Editor-in-Chief."
Annie squeaked. "Yes! I mean...what...can you do that?"
Mr. Winger just shrugged. "I just did."
Annie looked down at the floor, before shyly looking up at him. "You think I'm good enough?"
"Of course. You're talented, responsible and awesome. You were made for this."
Annie beamed. "That means a lot, coming from you."
Mr. Winger laughed. "Most people wouldn't think so."
Annie locked eyes with him. "I do."
They held each other's gaze for a beat before Mr. Winger broke it off. He stared at the floor and cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah. I'll tell the class tomorrow." He walked towards the door, stopped, then turned around. "Congratulations, Edison."
Annie made a pleasant little hum and turned back to her photos.
* * *
Annie went to the Homecoming game to take photos, but she didn't go to the dance. Abed convinced her that no big game changers happened at Homecoming dances, and said she should just save her money for Prom, which according to Abed, would have so many revelations and plot twists and end of season cliffhangers her head would explode.
That made Annie feel a little bit better about Troy taking Randi to Homecoming. So instead of going to the Homecoming dance, Annie went over to Abed's house and watched horror films.
But on Monday in Home Ec, they both discovered they had missed a pretty big game changer at the dance.
"Oh, isn't it nice! Mr. Winger and Ms. Perry decided to start dating! They both finally realized how perfect their love could be!" Mrs. (newly Ms., actually) Bennett clutched her hands to her chest and cooed happily.
Troy scoffed. "Yeah, if perfect means 'hookup in the library'."
Ms. Bennett glared at him. Troy's eyes widened fearfully. She held her glare for another minute before moving on to the next station.
Once she was gone, Annie leaned towards Troy. "Is that really what happened?"
"Uh...yeah." He was still staring at Ms. Bennett's back nervously.
Annie sighed inwardly. Why did Miss Perry get everything?
Wait...what? Annie frowned thoughtfully.
This wasn't a bad thing. If Mr. Winger was with Ms. Perry...that meant that Troy wasn't having an illicit affair with her! Which meant Troy was destined to be with her...crap, Randi! How could she forget about the girl that actually went to the dance with Troy?
For some reason, Ms. Perry just felt like a bigger threat.
Annie decided to push away the thoughts of Mr. Winger and Ms. Perry and casually ask Troy about Randi. Maybe they only went to the dance together and it was nothing bigger than that. "So, did you have fun with Randi at the dance, Troy?"
But Troy was still stuck on Mr. Winger and Ms. Perry. "Maybe it was more than just a library hookup. Abed, what did you say they had? Tense sex?"
Annie gasped.
"Actually, sexual tension. And lack of chemistry. Which means nothing more happened outside of the library."
Troy nodded in understanding, and Annie let out a sigh of relief. "Good. Besides, Ms. Perry is waaay too good for Douchebag Winger."
Annie gasped even louder. "Troy! Mr. Winger is NOT..." she lowered her voice to a whisper "A douchebag!"
"You would say that, teacher's pet."
"Look who's talking, you...you...vegetarian's pet!"
Troy glared at her. "You don't know Ms. Perry! She has layers! She's like an onion! And when you peel back each layer you discover something SO AWESOME it makes you cry!" Troy stormed to the front of the classroom. "Ms. Bennett, I'm using the bathroom!"
And then he was gone. Annie crossed her arms and glared at the table.
"After their fight, Annie realized that the connection between Ms. Perry and Troy was something real and not just a figment of her active imagination. There was also something else, something deeper, but Annie was still mad at Troy that she didn't quite yet realize that she--"
"Abed."
"I'm done. Also, Randi's not with Troy."
"Yay," Annie said flatly.
* * *
"Edison, that picture of Barnes is a bit overexposed. Actually, it's a lot overexposed."
"Is it?" Annie said tersely.
"Yeah. You can barely make his face out."
"Well, maybe I want him to fade out of existence." Annie grabbed the picture with tongs and shook it out roughly before slapping it down on the table.
"Alright, Edison, what happened?"
Annie 'hmphed' and crossed her arms. "Nothing."
Mr. Winger didn't say anything. He walked over to the opposite side of the room and calmly looked through the cabinets.
Annie stood there stiffly, staring at her washed out Troy picture, listening to Mr. Winger rummage through the cabinets. Stupid Troy. What did he know about anything? He thought Mr. Winger was a douchebag, when he totally wasn't! Well, she'd show Troy.
Annie turned around and blurted out, "Troy called you a douchebag!"
Mr. Winger stared at her. Annie stood there, her eyes wide.
That sounded totally dumb outside of her head.
But Mr. Winger just tilted his head thoughtfully. "He also called me Dr. Dougie Seacrest. 'Douchebag' is actually a step down from that."
Annie looked at him in awe. "You...you don't care?"
Mr. Winger shrugged. "Should I?"
Annie sighed and threw up her hands. "He should! I mean, you're my favorite teacher! My soulmate should like what I like!" Annie blushed and covered her mouth. Did she just..? Great. She just confessed to Mr. Winger that she thought Troy was her soulmate.
Mr. Winger stared at her in shock. Annie braced herself for a humiliating conversation about teenage relationships.
But instead, Mr. Winger just said, "I'm your favorite teacher?"
Annie blinked in surprise. "Yes! Of course! I mean...you're Mr. Winger. And just...you're just..." she trailed off.
Mr. Winger stared at Annie, his face a mixture of awe and admiration. He smiled.
"That means a lot, coming from you."
Annie shuffled her feet awkwardly. "Well. Most people wouldn't think so," she said, mirroring their old conversation.
Mr. Winger took a couple steps towards her, stopping just in front of her.
"I do," he said softly. He reached up and brushed her hair behind her ear.
Annie's heart was thudding furiously.
What...when...
When did this happen...
Suddenly a voice called out from the classroom.
"Jeffery! We're here! Are you ready for our Sausage Fest?"
Annie and Mr. Winger jumped apart.
"Uh," Mr. Winger said in strangled voice. "Be right there!"
Annie quickly gathered her things. "See you tomorrow, Mr. Winger," she said hurriedly. She brushed past him and stepped into the revolving door alone, quickly spinning it around. She kept her eyes on the floor as she walked past Mr. Hawthorne and Senor Chang and left the classroom.
On to Part Two!
Rating: PG
Characters: Jeff/Annie, Annie/Abed friendship
Disclaimer: I don't own Community.
Summary: Mr. Winger probably just needed a friend. Or even better, an exemplary student.
Author's Note: So a few months ago, I wrote this, my little ficlet about highschoolteacher!Jeff and highschoolstudent!Annie. And I could never really let the idea go, so lo and behold...A HIGH SCHOOL AU. THE DAY OF RECKONING (terror?) HAS ARRIVED. SOME DORKY GIRL HAS WRITTEN A FULL LENGTH HIGH SCHOOL AU.
I actually wrote this a while ago, but I didn't want to post it until I was finished, and then I never finished it. So I just decided to polish this and post Part One. (It's a good thing too, because now I know how I'm going to end this thing!)
Either way, I hope you enjoy! Imagine Pretty Little Liars, except without the mysterious person lurking and texting, trying to humiliate you. I also named this fic after a Katy Perry song, don't judge, I couldn't think of anything else!
Annie stared at her reflection in her bedroom mirror. She evaluated her outfit: a blue dress that fell a few inches above her knees, a light green sweater tied around her shoulders, and black Mary Jane's.
Annie bit her lip thoughtfully, then untied the sweater and stuck her arms through it. Much better. Now she looked less like a schoolmarm and more like a high school student. A mature high school student. One who was in her last year of high school and who would be attending a fabulous university next fall, where she would do exciting things like join protests, and maybe date a rebel. But not too much of a rebel. Just enough to make him cool. Like, he wouldn't wear shirts indoors or something.
But the rebel was a fallback fantasy. What she really wanted was a long term guy, someone to go steady with in high school, then graduate with, then go to college with, so they could walk around campus holding hands.
She thought she had found that guy last year. But in the end...Annie's smile faltered a bit. She shook her head. Best not to dwell on that. Her ex had found his long time guy, and she couldn't help but be happy for him.
Besides, Annie had found her true soulmate.
She glanced up at the right hand corner of her mirror. There, carefully cut out from her junior yearbook, was a picture of Troy Barnes, the most perfect guy in the entire universe. She had placed little red sticker hearts around him when she put the picture up last year; some of them were fraying at the corners. She smoothed down one of the corners with an index finger, then swept a finger over his cheek.
"This year, Annie Edison gets what she wants," she whispered to herself. Her hand dropped back to her side. She smiled brightly at her reflection and left her room, skipping down the stairs and out the front door.
* * *
Annie's last class of the day was Yearbook. It was also her only class without Troy. But Troy was an Office Aid, which was basically a free period. And his best friend, Abed Nadir, was in Yearbook with her. Which meant Troy would probably be spending a lot of time in her class.
Annie had known Abed for two years without ever really knowing him. All they had was the journalism class connection. Well, it was time for Annie to make that connection a little closer. After all, Troy was going to be her soulmate. She needed to be best friends with his best friend, right?
Annie walked into Room 106 and immediately zeroed in on Abed. He was sitting in a desk at the front of the room. Nobody was around him. Perfect. She slid into the seat next to him.
"Hi, Abed," she said cheerfully.
Abed was building a paper fortune teller. He looked up from his desk at Annie, and raised an eyebrow. He glanced over her shoulder to their other classmates, then looked up at the ceiling, then to the window behind him, and back to Annie. She gave him a confused look.
Abed looked back at his desk. "Plot twist," he said simply.
"Umm, what twist?" Annie followed the path Abed had looked at earlier and glanced at him, the ceiling, and the window.
"Plot twist. You're sitting next to me. You've never done that before. Which means you're changing the story. So, plot twist. We should expect the unexpected. A shark could crash through that window." He paused. "Or something less surreal. Although I feel like there isn't an appreciation for the surreal in stories these days. I guess Lost could count, but everyone demanded answers for everything. They weren't content with things just being mysterious. Like the smoke monster."
Annie was getting a little weirded out. Maybe being friends with Abed to get to Troy wasn't the way to go. But she'd already sat down. It would be rude to leave. It would be weak to leave. Didn't she tell herself that she was going to get what she wanted?
Annie shook her head and smiled. "I don't think it's a plot twist. Like you said, that would be totally unexpected. This isn't totally unexpected. I just want to be friends with you."
Abed gave her a thoughtful look. "Okay. Cool." He looked back up at the ceiling. "But I still feel like a plot twist is coming."
The bell rang and the classroom door opened. But it wasn't Mrs. White. Instead, a thirty something guy with dirty blond hair and blue eyes walked in. He was wearing a white button up shirt rolled up at the sleeves, a skinny black tie, and blue jeans. He was also gigantic, over six feet tall. If Annie wasn't totally devoted to Troy, she might have admitted that he was pretty cute. For an older guy.
He stood by the desk in the front, looking over the class silently. He sighed dramatically, running a hand down his face before turning towards the chalkboard, hunting for a piece of chalk. Annie and Abed shared a look as the guy wrote out "Mr. Winger" on the board. He dropped the chalk on the ledge and turned back around to face the class.
"Alright. I'm Jeff-I mean, Mr. Winger, and I'm your new yearbook teacher," he said in a bored tone.
Annie reluctantly raised her hand. Mr. Winger pointed at her. "What."
"Umm..." Annie lowered her arm slowly. "What happened to Mrs. White?"
"Dead. Or retired, I can't remember." He wasn't looking at her anymore, but was sitting at the desk searching through the drawers. He fished out an old school newspaper from last year. "Alright, I don't have anything planned yet, so uh, free period." He propped his feet up on his desk and dropped the newspaper to cover his face.
A few minutes later, he was snoring.
Annie let out a small gasp.
* * *
"I can't believe Mrs. White retired and left us with...with him!" Annie was sitting at her station with Abed and Troy in Home Economics and furiously stirring a bowl of cake batter.
"I like him," Abed said. "He has the potential to be the classic rebel teacher, like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. I hope he makes us rip pages out of our old yearbooks."
Annie let out an indignant gasp. "He'd probably be too busy using the yearbooks as a pillow!"
"Well, I think he sounds awesome," Troy said, sticking a finger in the bowl and popping it into his mouth. "I'm gonna try and stop by today. It depends on how many errands Ms. Perry wants me to run."
Annie stopped stirring. Abed slid the bowl away from her and resumed her duties.
"You're...you're helping Ms. Perry? I thought you were just an office aid."
Troy was trying to dip his fingers into the bowl again, but Abed slapped his hand away. "Yeah, I was. But I ran into Ms. Perry in the hallway when I was delivering a message to Senor Chang, and she said she needed help organizing her Vegetarian Awareness Fair, so I said I'd help her. Besides," Troy grinned, "She's really hot."
That's exactly what Annie was worried about. Troy was just popular enough...and Ms. Perry was just liberal enough...
Annie snatched the bowl away from Abed and began stirring frantically, chanting You're gonna get what you want Annie! and Troy and Ms. Perry are not having a scandalous affair! over and over again in her head.
"My, my, there's a lot of chatter over here this morning!" Annie turned around to face their Home Ec teacher, Mrs. Bennett, who was smiling at the three brightly. She was wearing her favorite apron, a light pink one that said "Jesus loves the Cook!" on it. "What're you all talking about?"
Annie knew she wasn't in trouble. Mrs. Bennett just liked to know what her students were talking about. All the time. So she could give them "advice." Annie gave Mrs. Bennett a small smile and muttered 'Oh, nothing' while Troy looked at some point on the ceiling.
Abed however, answered her. "We were talking about the new teacher, Mr. Winger."
Annie let out a frustrated sigh, and Troy punched Abed in the arm. Mrs. Bennett pretended not to notice their reactions. "Oh, that's nice! He's a cute one, isn't he?" she said, winking at Annie.
"He is," Abed said. Mrs. Bennett gave him a puzzled look, while Annie turned back to the bowl. She motioned Troy to slide the cake pan over to her so she could pour the batter in.
"You know, he's not just new to Greendale High. He's new to Greendale! Apparently he used to be a lawyer in Denver but he got--" Mrs. Bennett looked around them and lowered her voice to a whisper--"disbarred."
Annie looked up. "Really? Why?"
Mrs. Bennett shrugged. "I don't know. He was taking one of Principal Pelton's classes at GCC and I guess Craig really liked him because he offered him this job. Apparently Mr. Winger got his Bachelor's in Journalism."
"Yeah, I'm sure Pelton's PANTS really liked Mr. Winger," Troy said. He held up his hand and Abed automatically gave him a high five.
Mrs. Bennett narrowed her eyes. "Mr. Barnes, you know I do not approve--" she was cut off though, when the classroom door opened. Her disposition darkened further when she saw who it was.
"Shirley! Brittles just told me your divorce was finalized! I'm here for you, Mrs. Bennett. Or is it 'Miss Bennett, if you're nasty' now?" Mr. Hawthorne walked towards Mrs. Bennett and offered her a bouquet of flowers.
"Mr. Hawthorne," Mrs. Bennett said, and Annie could tell she was doing everything to keep her voice even. "Will you join me out in the hallway?" She grabbed his arm and dragged him outside before he had a chance to answer.
Troy leaned over and whispered in Annie's ear. "That was close, huh?"
Annie's heart fluttered and she nodded and ducked her head, smiling.
* * *
In Yearbook later that day, Annie decided that she probably misjudged Mr. Winger. He had a dark past! A dark past which was so haunting the only way to escape it was to sleep instead of teaching. Annie's eyes filled with sympathy tears. He probably just needed a friend. Or even better, an exemplary student.
Which she excelled at.
Annie straightened up in her seat, folded her hands on top of her desk and gave Mr. Winger a large smile.
Mr. Winger eyed her warily. "Edison?"
"Ready to learn!" she chirped.
"...Right. Okay, guys, it's Darkroom day." He pointed at the revolving darkroom door. Everyone stood up and filed towards the door. "And don't pack in there like sardines. Take turns. Wait." Mr. Winger turned towards Troy. "Who are you?"
"Troy Barnes."
"You weren't here yesterday."
"Yeah, I'm an office aid."
Mr. Winger crossed his arms. "Do you have something to give me?"
Troy shrugged. "Nope."
"Then get out."
Annie stepped between the two. "Mr. Winger, Troy doesn't have very many errands to run, so he thought he'd help out with the yearbook." Mr. Winger opened his mouth to say something but Annie cut him off. "Please. Let him stay." She gave him her most wide eyed, pleading look.
Mr. Winger glared down at her, but Annie didn't let up on her doe eyes. "Alright," he said, defeated.
Annie beamed. "Thank you, Mr. Winger."
"Yeah." They filed into the doorway and Mr. Winger spun the door around. Annie and Troy stepped out and stood by Abed while Mr. Winger stood opposite the class.
"Alright, I know you all can work a digital camera, but I think it's important that you all learn how to develop pictures the old way." He went around the room and handed everyone a long strip of film and a small reel.
"So when you develop pictures you can have the safe lamp on. But when you first take the film out of the camera and roll it on the reels, you have to do it with no lights, not even the safe lamps. You can only turn the lights on when the reels are tucked safely into the film canister." He rested a hand on top of a canister that looked like an oversized tumbler. "We'll do a few practice runs then try it in the dark. Alright, get going."
Annie went to work on her reel. Mr. Winger went around and checked their work, pointing out mistakes in her classmates' final product. Annie was just finishing her reel when Mr. Winger walked up to her. He gently plucked it from her hands and examined it. "Perfect. Very nice, Edison." They shared a smile before he stepped over to examine Abed's work.
* * *
A month passed, and Mr. Winger became Annie's favorite teacher. He was just so laid back and undemanding. It was nice. And he was nice to her.
She knew that all he needed was an exemplary student!
Annie started spending more and more time in his classroom. She spent her third period study hall in the darkroom, and she stayed for at least an hour after school, developing photos for Abed's yearbook layouts.
She was developing a photo of Troy playing football when Mr. Winger came into the darkroom. He leaned over her shoulder to look at her photo.
"Nice shot," he said.
Annie placed the photo on the counter to dry. "Thanks!" She turned around to face him and noticed that he was looking at her thoughtfully.
"Mr. Winger?"
"You're my new Editor-in-Chief."
Annie squeaked. "Yes! I mean...what...can you do that?"
Mr. Winger just shrugged. "I just did."
Annie looked down at the floor, before shyly looking up at him. "You think I'm good enough?"
"Of course. You're talented, responsible and awesome. You were made for this."
Annie beamed. "That means a lot, coming from you."
Mr. Winger laughed. "Most people wouldn't think so."
Annie locked eyes with him. "I do."
They held each other's gaze for a beat before Mr. Winger broke it off. He stared at the floor and cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah. I'll tell the class tomorrow." He walked towards the door, stopped, then turned around. "Congratulations, Edison."
Annie made a pleasant little hum and turned back to her photos.
* * *
Annie went to the Homecoming game to take photos, but she didn't go to the dance. Abed convinced her that no big game changers happened at Homecoming dances, and said she should just save her money for Prom, which according to Abed, would have so many revelations and plot twists and end of season cliffhangers her head would explode.
That made Annie feel a little bit better about Troy taking Randi to Homecoming. So instead of going to the Homecoming dance, Annie went over to Abed's house and watched horror films.
But on Monday in Home Ec, they both discovered they had missed a pretty big game changer at the dance.
"Oh, isn't it nice! Mr. Winger and Ms. Perry decided to start dating! They both finally realized how perfect their love could be!" Mrs. (newly Ms., actually) Bennett clutched her hands to her chest and cooed happily.
Troy scoffed. "Yeah, if perfect means 'hookup in the library'."
Ms. Bennett glared at him. Troy's eyes widened fearfully. She held her glare for another minute before moving on to the next station.
Once she was gone, Annie leaned towards Troy. "Is that really what happened?"
"Uh...yeah." He was still staring at Ms. Bennett's back nervously.
Annie sighed inwardly. Why did Miss Perry get everything?
Wait...what? Annie frowned thoughtfully.
This wasn't a bad thing. If Mr. Winger was with Ms. Perry...that meant that Troy wasn't having an illicit affair with her! Which meant Troy was destined to be with her...crap, Randi! How could she forget about the girl that actually went to the dance with Troy?
For some reason, Ms. Perry just felt like a bigger threat.
Annie decided to push away the thoughts of Mr. Winger and Ms. Perry and casually ask Troy about Randi. Maybe they only went to the dance together and it was nothing bigger than that. "So, did you have fun with Randi at the dance, Troy?"
But Troy was still stuck on Mr. Winger and Ms. Perry. "Maybe it was more than just a library hookup. Abed, what did you say they had? Tense sex?"
Annie gasped.
"Actually, sexual tension. And lack of chemistry. Which means nothing more happened outside of the library."
Troy nodded in understanding, and Annie let out a sigh of relief. "Good. Besides, Ms. Perry is waaay too good for Douchebag Winger."
Annie gasped even louder. "Troy! Mr. Winger is NOT..." she lowered her voice to a whisper "A douchebag!"
"You would say that, teacher's pet."
"Look who's talking, you...you...vegetarian's pet!"
Troy glared at her. "You don't know Ms. Perry! She has layers! She's like an onion! And when you peel back each layer you discover something SO AWESOME it makes you cry!" Troy stormed to the front of the classroom. "Ms. Bennett, I'm using the bathroom!"
And then he was gone. Annie crossed her arms and glared at the table.
"After their fight, Annie realized that the connection between Ms. Perry and Troy was something real and not just a figment of her active imagination. There was also something else, something deeper, but Annie was still mad at Troy that she didn't quite yet realize that she--"
"Abed."
"I'm done. Also, Randi's not with Troy."
"Yay," Annie said flatly.
* * *
"Edison, that picture of Barnes is a bit overexposed. Actually, it's a lot overexposed."
"Is it?" Annie said tersely.
"Yeah. You can barely make his face out."
"Well, maybe I want him to fade out of existence." Annie grabbed the picture with tongs and shook it out roughly before slapping it down on the table.
"Alright, Edison, what happened?"
Annie 'hmphed' and crossed her arms. "Nothing."
Mr. Winger didn't say anything. He walked over to the opposite side of the room and calmly looked through the cabinets.
Annie stood there stiffly, staring at her washed out Troy picture, listening to Mr. Winger rummage through the cabinets. Stupid Troy. What did he know about anything? He thought Mr. Winger was a douchebag, when he totally wasn't! Well, she'd show Troy.
Annie turned around and blurted out, "Troy called you a douchebag!"
Mr. Winger stared at her. Annie stood there, her eyes wide.
That sounded totally dumb outside of her head.
But Mr. Winger just tilted his head thoughtfully. "He also called me Dr. Dougie Seacrest. 'Douchebag' is actually a step down from that."
Annie looked at him in awe. "You...you don't care?"
Mr. Winger shrugged. "Should I?"
Annie sighed and threw up her hands. "He should! I mean, you're my favorite teacher! My soulmate should like what I like!" Annie blushed and covered her mouth. Did she just..? Great. She just confessed to Mr. Winger that she thought Troy was her soulmate.
Mr. Winger stared at her in shock. Annie braced herself for a humiliating conversation about teenage relationships.
But instead, Mr. Winger just said, "I'm your favorite teacher?"
Annie blinked in surprise. "Yes! Of course! I mean...you're Mr. Winger. And just...you're just..." she trailed off.
Mr. Winger stared at Annie, his face a mixture of awe and admiration. He smiled.
"That means a lot, coming from you."
Annie shuffled her feet awkwardly. "Well. Most people wouldn't think so," she said, mirroring their old conversation.
Mr. Winger took a couple steps towards her, stopping just in front of her.
"I do," he said softly. He reached up and brushed her hair behind her ear.
Annie's heart was thudding furiously.
What...when...
When did this happen...
Suddenly a voice called out from the classroom.
"Jeffery! We're here! Are you ready for our Sausage Fest?"
Annie and Mr. Winger jumped apart.
"Uh," Mr. Winger said in strangled voice. "Be right there!"
Annie quickly gathered her things. "See you tomorrow, Mr. Winger," she said hurriedly. She brushed past him and stepped into the revolving door alone, quickly spinning it around. She kept her eyes on the floor as she walked past Mr. Hawthorne and Senor Chang and left the classroom.
On to Part Two!