Ode to Optophobia (2B)
Title: Ode to Optophobia, or: Ten Men That Loved Annie Edison (4/19)
Author: veryspecial0ne
Rating: R for the whole series, to be safe
Word count: ~3200 for the chapter, ~12,400 for the series thus far.
Disclaimer: I have now been tweeted by both Dan Harmon and Alison Brie. I'm pretty sure that's the closest I'll ever come to having any ownership over Community.
Spoilers: Through the end of Season 2.
Summary: Chapter Two (in which Annie is loved in a way she's now aware she doesn't need), Part Two. Starring Jordan Harding, Annie's history teacher. "Jordan glances down at the floor, fleetingly studying the scuffed tile between his own loafers and Annie's high heels. The combination of the extra three inches they give her and the improvement in her posture puts Annie much closer to Jordan's own eye level than he remembers her at. He looks back up at her and she's smiling."
A/N: Unbeta'd. Title is from the song "Ode to Optophobia" by Danielle Ate the Sandwich. Just a warning, the updates may be coming a little more slowly for a while because I'm in rehearsal for a show and things get busy around the holiday. Also, this chapter may go in a different direction than you guys were expecting, and if so, that's because it went in a different direction than I was expecting. But I think it's right.
Previously: Chapter 2A.
Jordan turns the corner leading to the administration office at precisely half past eleven and, as he knew he would, sees Annie Edison handing over her driver's license for identification confirmation before receiving a visitor's pass, which she peels off and sticks carefully, dutifully, to her cardigan. She looks up and sees Jordan, then waves enthusiastically at him. They start towards each other, meeting in the middle, and Annie greets him with a brief hug. "Hi, Mr. Harding." When they break apart she looks around at the entrance hallway and whispers to herself, "Wow."
"Strange to be back?"
Annie grins. "'Strange' is one way of putting it."
Suddenly it hits Jordan. "You haven't…is this the first time you've been back here since…you left?"
"You mean since I dropped out," Annie corrects. "It's okay, Mr. Harding. If anyone's allowed to phrase it that way, it's you. Oh, that mural is new, isn't it?"
Jordan glances down at the floor, fleetingly studying the scuffed tile between his own loafers and Annie's high heels. The combination of the extra three inches they give her and the improvement in her posture puts Annie much closer to Jordan's own eye level than he remembers her at. He looks back up at her and she's smiling.
"Yeah," she confirms, "it's the first time I've been back." Annie glances around again. "I don't know what I was expecting it to be like…it just feels like a building now."
Jordan considers telling her that it was only ever a building, then immediately decides against it. "We have a few minutes if you want to come to the lounge for a quick cup of coffee."
"Ooh, that'd be great. I got up really early this morning for the drive over here. I think I'm starting to fade a little."
The entrance to the teachers' lounge is right around the corner Jordan has just turned, so they're there in steps. Jordan opens the door for Annie and she steps through with only an inkling of the pause that accompanies many an initial entrance into a once-forbidden space. Jordan pours them both coffee into disposable cups from a stack in the cabinet above the sink and adds sugar to Annie's before bringing it to her where she has settled in at the nearest table and asking her, "Why so early? It's not that long of a drive here from Denver, the last time I checked."
Annie blows on the surface of her coffee. "Oh, no. We decided to make some plans for breakfast as long as we were coming out, though." She takes a tiny sip, slurping just a little bit to temper the scalding heat.
"We?" Jordan asks absently, turning back to the little counter space to add creamer to his own coffee and swirl it in with a wooden stirring stick.
"Oh!"
Jordan looks over at Annie at her exclamation. She doesn't seem to have spilled or burned her tongue. Her cheeks have gone slightly pink and she looks suddenly excited. "Jeff came with me," she explains. "We had breakfast with his mother."
"That sounds nice," says Jordan slowly. He knows Annie has a boyfriend named Jeff with whom she lives in Denver; he also knows they met back at Greendale and have been dating for several years, so he's not sure why the mention of Jeff or his mother has made Annie jumpy.
But Annie's positively beaming at him. "It was." She starts to squirm a little in her chair like she's sixteen years old again and is the only one who knows the answer to a question in class, but is stopping herself from raising her hand because she's already answered every question correctly so far that period and her classmates are starting to mutter in revolt.
Back then the squirming troubled Jordan a bit for the subtext it contained, but now it's so incongruous with this current, more polished, adult Annie that he has to laugh a little bit. "Annie?"
"We're engaged!" she blurts out, and Jordan's eyes immediately and automatically dart down to her left hand, holding onto her coffee cup, and spot the diamond-encrusted band there. "We got engaged last weekend, and we waited until today to tell his mother because I was coming out here today anyway, so Jeff took the day off of work and we're telling everybody in person."
"And it's my turn, is it?" Jordan asks mildly, to which he is given an exuberant nod. He laughs again and sits down across from Annie at the table. "Well, it's wonderful news. Congratulations."
"Thank you," says Annie before scrunching up her nose. "It feels funny, though. Accepting congratulations for getting engaged. All I did was find a ring in my sorbet and say 'yes,' and all the girls at work have been acting like I've accomplished something monumental since the minute they spotted the ring on Monday morning. I don't feel like I've done anything, really."
"Now, you know that's not true."
Annie grins sheepishly. "You know what I meant. I meant with the engagement. Although now that I think of it, there are probably plenty of women in the world who think I deserve the Congressional Medal of Honor for getting Jeff Winger to put an engagement ring in food."
"I do so look forward to meeting this young man," Jordan says dryly. "He helps you with such interesting additions to your ever-growing list of accomplishments. Speaking of which," he adds, checking his watch, "should we head over?"
Annie nods and drinks down one last sip before standing to accompany Jordan out the door. "What, you don't think that winning paintball assassin and learning to use nunchucks are enterprises worthy of my precious time?" she asks in an innocent voice with a gleam in her eye. Jordan only chuckles at her as he takes her used cup, pouring the leftover bit down the sink and dropping it into the bin with his own.
"You know, you can meet him today if you like," she continues conversationally as they stride down the hall. "He dropped me off so he could hang out with his mom a little longer, but he'll be here to pick me up for lunch with a bunch of our old college friends. You could come out to the car and say hi!" Annie gasps a little, like she's hit on the best idea ever conceived. "I bet he'd really like to meet you. I've told him about you."
Jordan agrees, half out of affection for Annie and half out of pure curiosity. This isn't the first time he's heard Jeff's name, and every tidbit he hears about Annie's boyfriend -- now fiancé -- has been compiled to form an image in Jordan's mind that contrasts sharply with the kind of partner he had expected Annie to settle down with.
She's telling the story of how they became engaged in more detail, including the surprise cameo by Andrew Cohen -- "Do you remember Andy? My old boyfriend? Reddish hair? Gay?" -- when Jordan notices that they're nearing the plate-glass door by the cafeteria that Annie catapulted herself through, once upon a time. He braces himself for a stumble in her words, a halt in her monologue, or even a total body freeze when she's struck by her most traumatic memory. None of them come. Her steps remain smooth and steady, and the next moment they round another corner and the door is out of sight.
Annie finishes her story at the entrance to the library with one more fluttering display of her left hand, and Jordan is happy to indulge her by taking her left hand in his to examine her engagement ring as if he knows a single thing about jewelry, which he doesn't. It's silver and sparkly, and he tells her that it's lovely.
Inside the library, Jordan's senior homeroom class is already seated in an alcove at the back, waiting for the alumnus presentation to begin and talking amongst themselves with the slight buzzing undercurrent of excitement at being excused from their fourth period classes to hear about the wide world that awaited them when they broke free of Riverside High School in several months. Annie takes a deep breath while she still stands, unnoticed, at the back of the space with Jordan, who isn't surprised that she's a little nervous.
"I'm not even a technically an alum!" she had maintained when Jordan had proposed the idea of her coming in to speak over coffee a couple of months previously, on her last visit from Denver. "I didn't graduate from Riverside."
"Irrelevant," countered Jordan, shrugging. "You went there for three and a half years, you were my student, and yours is a story I want my current students to hear."
It had taken another hour of cajoling and two weeks of relentless e-mail campaigning on Jordan's part, but Annie had finally agreed to it. She lets out her deep breath which, to Jordan's surprise, appears to have calmed her considerably. Annie throws her shoulders back, marches down the aisle, and spins around on her heel with impeccable balance to face the group of teenagers, once her worst fear that would have sent her into a cold sweat.
Now she only smiles endearingly and begins, "Hi, I'm Annie Edison, class of 2009, and I now work in health administration at Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver."
The students are unusually attentive -- or, at least, the boys are, and even the more overt attention-seekers among the girls soon settle into a disgruntled silence when they realize that they won't be pulling focus from the perky brunette who represents the promise of a real world and real women beyond the brick walls they presently inhabit.
Annie's nearly done when Jordan hears the ancient floor creak under someone's feet behind him and turns automatically towards the sound, expecting a latecomer. Instead he sees a tall man not much younger than himself approach, and Jordan frowns. It's only the third week of school, and Riverside is large, but he didn't think there were any new additions to the teaching faculty that he hadn't met. The next moment, though, he sees a visitor's pass that the man had let stick to the tip of his index finger on his left hand, apparently having delayed putting it on. Jordan searches his mind and remembers that the next alumnus talk is supposed to be from an engineer named William Sands that Jordan has never met. Sands isn't scheduled for another half hour, but maybe engineers are notoriously early for things. Jordan's contact with them has been limited. He quietly slips over to the man, keeping his voice low to keep from distracting Annie or the students from her conclusion.
"You must be Mr. Sands," Jordan whispers, offering his hand for a shake. "I'm afraid you're a bit early, so if you'd like I can take you down for some coffee in--"
"Ah, no," cuts in the tall man, also whispering, but a little more loudly. "Sorry, I'm not here for a talk. Well, not my own." He gestures with his chin towards Annie. "That's my fiancée. I'm just here to pick her up, thought I'd spy a little if that's cool."
"Your…" Jordan's words catch in his throat and he swallows them. "Oh." He turns back to look at Annie, who still looks so young to him -- not so very much older than the students listening to her. No longer listening, in fact, but applauding politely. She's done. She gives them a grateful smile and a little ankle-dip before moving her gaze back to where the two men are standing. Her face lights up and she hurries to them.
"I didn't know you were coming in!" she squeals to Jordan's new companion as the students start to gather their things, their chatter an incomprehensible background track, and she hops up on tiptoe to kiss the tall man on the cheek. He still has to bend a bit to let her reach. His hand slides around her waist easily as they both return to their normal heights. "I think it went well," Annie divulges gleefully up at him. "Mr. Harding," she adds, glowing, "this is Jeff Winger. Jeff, this is my old history teacher Mr. Harding."
Jeff belatedly offers his right hand back, which Jordan grasps automatically. Jeff's grip is firm and practiced. "Call me Jordan, please," Jordan says a little hollowly. After all, they must be nearly the same age.
"Are you all right, Mr. Harding?" questions Annie, looking concerned, and Jordan realizes he's been staring unnervingly at Jeff.
"Oh, god," says Jeff suddenly, dropping his hand. "We haven't met before, have we? Like, in court? I don't know if I could take it if Annie was introducing me to someone I'd once ripped apart on the witness stand. Not again."
"No, of course, it's a pleasure to meet you. Annie's told me plenty. You're just, um," Jordan clears his throat. "You're not quite what I imagined."
"Ah." Jeff turns to Annie. "You, ah, never told him."
"I...didn't even think of it," she protests, apparently somehow immediately on the same page as Jeff, and turns back to Jordan. "I know I told you I met him at school…I didn't think you'd assume that meant he was my age. You knew I stayed at Greendale. I mean, one of our good friends there--" Jeff clears his throat and she hastily amends with an eye roll "--okay, one of my good friends there was nearly seventy when we graduated."
"Yes, of course," says Jordan, trying to nod. "So, you're a lawyer?" But his attempt to change the subject is for naught, as his nod feels jerky even to him and in all likelihood it looks that way too, because Annie pulls him off to the side, with a restraining hand held out to Jeff.
"Mr. Harding, is something wrong?"
"I'm just a bit surprised, Annie," Jordan tries to mollify.
She smiles a little. "I know, I never thought I'd end up with a lawyer either…"
"Not that," Jordan mumbles before he can stop himself.
Annie frowns, though, having heard him. "What, because of the age thing? Really?"
Jordan hesitates, which is as bad as a confession to Annie.
"It really bothers you, doesn't it?"
"I'm only concerned for your well-being, Annie."
"You're the one who told me I was an adult almost ten years ago," she says, sounding confused. "That conversation set me on my path to recovery. If I could be trusted to make my own decisions about my life then, why not now?"
"It's not that I don't trust you," Jordan says in a low voice, still very conscious of Jeff hovering several feet away.
"But I'm not asking you to trust Jeff," Annie presses.
"Annie, you must understand my reservations here," entreats Jordan.
"I do," she says, nodding. "Jeff had them too, once upon a time. I didn't like them then from him and I like them even less now from you."
Jordan is wishing he'd just stayed quiet until he could talk to Annie alone, rationally, and get her to understand, when Jeff steps up behind her cautiously.
"You know, you're not exactly what I imagined either," says Jeff, but his tone has no edge to it. He actually seems to be trying to defuse the situation. "When Annie told me about all you did for her with rehab and all that, I always pictured someone a little older, more like a father figure."
"I have been a father figure," Jordan snaps, looking him in the eye. "Because it's the acceptable way to act towards a young girl when you're our age."
"Mr. Harding!" Annie gasps. Jeff looks like he wants to hit him.
"I'm sorry," Jordan backtracks hurriedly, glancing between the pair. "That came out wrong."
"No, it didn't," snarls Jeff.
Annie steps between the two, facing Jordan, but standing close enough to Jeff that Jordan thinks they may be touching.
"Mr. Harding," and her voice is shaking a little as she says this, "I'm always going to appreciate what you did for me. Honestly. I would never have gotten my life together without you. But…my life…I share it with Jeff now." Annie shakes her head slowly and her eyes start to fill -- it's still just as effective as it was when she was seventeen -- as she finishes, "I owe a lot to you, but I owe a lot to him too, and what's more, he owes a lot to me. And what I don't owe to you is any right to judge me on who I choose to spend my life with. Because you're not my dad, and I am an adult." She says this last part gently, but matter-of-factly, a trick Jordan has come to recognize as inherently Annie, but he suddenly suspects it might not be all her. He sneaks another look at Jeff out of the corner of his eye. He looks nettled but proud.
Jeff's hands land on Annie's shoulders. "We've got lunch with the group," he murmurs in her ear. She nods, blinking away her tears. As Annie starts to walk away, Jeff is reaching into his pocket. "I'll be right behind you."
"Jeff--"
He turns to look at her. "Annie, I'll be right there."
Annie disappears into the main part of the library without another word.
Jordan's entire body stiffens. He wonders if Jeff would hit him in a high school library. He wonders if being with Jeff for so long has turned Annie into the kind of girl who would leave her tall, intimidating, angry boyfriend alone with her former mentor to beat him up. Jeff's hand comes out of his pocket.
He's holding out a business card. Jeff's business card. Jordan takes it, numbly.
"It took me about two years to get past the age thing. If it take you less time than that, you can give me a call and I'll talk to Annie for you."
Jordan looks up from the card. He doesn't ask the question, but Jeff answers anyway.
"She likes you. You're important to her. You were there for her, and you helped her, and that means something." Jeff turns on his heel, much like Annie did just before beginning her speech to the students, and starts to follow after her. Just before he vanishes behind the same corner as his fiancée, though, he turns back. "But if you try and get back in touch with her without talking to me first, you'll probably get punched in the nose. If not by me, then definitely by her." He shrugs. "Just giving you a fair warning, because I can tell you from experience, that girl will hit you like a Winnebago."
Plucking off the visitor's pass that had still been stuck to his finger, Jeff crumples it and drops it on the floor before leaving Jordan standing alone in the alcove.
Next: Chapter 3A.
Author: veryspecial0ne
Rating: R for the whole series, to be safe
Word count: ~3200 for the chapter, ~12,400 for the series thus far.
Disclaimer: I have now been tweeted by both Dan Harmon and Alison Brie. I'm pretty sure that's the closest I'll ever come to having any ownership over Community.
Spoilers: Through the end of Season 2.
Summary: Chapter Two (in which Annie is loved in a way she's now aware she doesn't need), Part Two. Starring Jordan Harding, Annie's history teacher. "Jordan glances down at the floor, fleetingly studying the scuffed tile between his own loafers and Annie's high heels. The combination of the extra three inches they give her and the improvement in her posture puts Annie much closer to Jordan's own eye level than he remembers her at. He looks back up at her and she's smiling."
A/N: Unbeta'd. Title is from the song "Ode to Optophobia" by Danielle Ate the Sandwich. Just a warning, the updates may be coming a little more slowly for a while because I'm in rehearsal for a show and things get busy around the holiday. Also, this chapter may go in a different direction than you guys were expecting, and if so, that's because it went in a different direction than I was expecting. But I think it's right.
Previously: Chapter 2A.
Jordan turns the corner leading to the administration office at precisely half past eleven and, as he knew he would, sees Annie Edison handing over her driver's license for identification confirmation before receiving a visitor's pass, which she peels off and sticks carefully, dutifully, to her cardigan. She looks up and sees Jordan, then waves enthusiastically at him. They start towards each other, meeting in the middle, and Annie greets him with a brief hug. "Hi, Mr. Harding." When they break apart she looks around at the entrance hallway and whispers to herself, "Wow."
"Strange to be back?"
Annie grins. "'Strange' is one way of putting it."
Suddenly it hits Jordan. "You haven't…is this the first time you've been back here since…you left?"
"You mean since I dropped out," Annie corrects. "It's okay, Mr. Harding. If anyone's allowed to phrase it that way, it's you. Oh, that mural is new, isn't it?"
Jordan glances down at the floor, fleetingly studying the scuffed tile between his own loafers and Annie's high heels. The combination of the extra three inches they give her and the improvement in her posture puts Annie much closer to Jordan's own eye level than he remembers her at. He looks back up at her and she's smiling.
"Yeah," she confirms, "it's the first time I've been back." Annie glances around again. "I don't know what I was expecting it to be like…it just feels like a building now."
Jordan considers telling her that it was only ever a building, then immediately decides against it. "We have a few minutes if you want to come to the lounge for a quick cup of coffee."
"Ooh, that'd be great. I got up really early this morning for the drive over here. I think I'm starting to fade a little."
The entrance to the teachers' lounge is right around the corner Jordan has just turned, so they're there in steps. Jordan opens the door for Annie and she steps through with only an inkling of the pause that accompanies many an initial entrance into a once-forbidden space. Jordan pours them both coffee into disposable cups from a stack in the cabinet above the sink and adds sugar to Annie's before bringing it to her where she has settled in at the nearest table and asking her, "Why so early? It's not that long of a drive here from Denver, the last time I checked."
Annie blows on the surface of her coffee. "Oh, no. We decided to make some plans for breakfast as long as we were coming out, though." She takes a tiny sip, slurping just a little bit to temper the scalding heat.
"We?" Jordan asks absently, turning back to the little counter space to add creamer to his own coffee and swirl it in with a wooden stirring stick.
"Oh!"
Jordan looks over at Annie at her exclamation. She doesn't seem to have spilled or burned her tongue. Her cheeks have gone slightly pink and she looks suddenly excited. "Jeff came with me," she explains. "We had breakfast with his mother."
"That sounds nice," says Jordan slowly. He knows Annie has a boyfriend named Jeff with whom she lives in Denver; he also knows they met back at Greendale and have been dating for several years, so he's not sure why the mention of Jeff or his mother has made Annie jumpy.
But Annie's positively beaming at him. "It was." She starts to squirm a little in her chair like she's sixteen years old again and is the only one who knows the answer to a question in class, but is stopping herself from raising her hand because she's already answered every question correctly so far that period and her classmates are starting to mutter in revolt.
Back then the squirming troubled Jordan a bit for the subtext it contained, but now it's so incongruous with this current, more polished, adult Annie that he has to laugh a little bit. "Annie?"
"We're engaged!" she blurts out, and Jordan's eyes immediately and automatically dart down to her left hand, holding onto her coffee cup, and spot the diamond-encrusted band there. "We got engaged last weekend, and we waited until today to tell his mother because I was coming out here today anyway, so Jeff took the day off of work and we're telling everybody in person."
"And it's my turn, is it?" Jordan asks mildly, to which he is given an exuberant nod. He laughs again and sits down across from Annie at the table. "Well, it's wonderful news. Congratulations."
"Thank you," says Annie before scrunching up her nose. "It feels funny, though. Accepting congratulations for getting engaged. All I did was find a ring in my sorbet and say 'yes,' and all the girls at work have been acting like I've accomplished something monumental since the minute they spotted the ring on Monday morning. I don't feel like I've done anything, really."
"Now, you know that's not true."
Annie grins sheepishly. "You know what I meant. I meant with the engagement. Although now that I think of it, there are probably plenty of women in the world who think I deserve the Congressional Medal of Honor for getting Jeff Winger to put an engagement ring in food."
"I do so look forward to meeting this young man," Jordan says dryly. "He helps you with such interesting additions to your ever-growing list of accomplishments. Speaking of which," he adds, checking his watch, "should we head over?"
Annie nods and drinks down one last sip before standing to accompany Jordan out the door. "What, you don't think that winning paintball assassin and learning to use nunchucks are enterprises worthy of my precious time?" she asks in an innocent voice with a gleam in her eye. Jordan only chuckles at her as he takes her used cup, pouring the leftover bit down the sink and dropping it into the bin with his own.
"You know, you can meet him today if you like," she continues conversationally as they stride down the hall. "He dropped me off so he could hang out with his mom a little longer, but he'll be here to pick me up for lunch with a bunch of our old college friends. You could come out to the car and say hi!" Annie gasps a little, like she's hit on the best idea ever conceived. "I bet he'd really like to meet you. I've told him about you."
Jordan agrees, half out of affection for Annie and half out of pure curiosity. This isn't the first time he's heard Jeff's name, and every tidbit he hears about Annie's boyfriend -- now fiancé -- has been compiled to form an image in Jordan's mind that contrasts sharply with the kind of partner he had expected Annie to settle down with.
She's telling the story of how they became engaged in more detail, including the surprise cameo by Andrew Cohen -- "Do you remember Andy? My old boyfriend? Reddish hair? Gay?" -- when Jordan notices that they're nearing the plate-glass door by the cafeteria that Annie catapulted herself through, once upon a time. He braces himself for a stumble in her words, a halt in her monologue, or even a total body freeze when she's struck by her most traumatic memory. None of them come. Her steps remain smooth and steady, and the next moment they round another corner and the door is out of sight.
Annie finishes her story at the entrance to the library with one more fluttering display of her left hand, and Jordan is happy to indulge her by taking her left hand in his to examine her engagement ring as if he knows a single thing about jewelry, which he doesn't. It's silver and sparkly, and he tells her that it's lovely.
Inside the library, Jordan's senior homeroom class is already seated in an alcove at the back, waiting for the alumnus presentation to begin and talking amongst themselves with the slight buzzing undercurrent of excitement at being excused from their fourth period classes to hear about the wide world that awaited them when they broke free of Riverside High School in several months. Annie takes a deep breath while she still stands, unnoticed, at the back of the space with Jordan, who isn't surprised that she's a little nervous.
"I'm not even a technically an alum!" she had maintained when Jordan had proposed the idea of her coming in to speak over coffee a couple of months previously, on her last visit from Denver. "I didn't graduate from Riverside."
"Irrelevant," countered Jordan, shrugging. "You went there for three and a half years, you were my student, and yours is a story I want my current students to hear."
It had taken another hour of cajoling and two weeks of relentless e-mail campaigning on Jordan's part, but Annie had finally agreed to it. She lets out her deep breath which, to Jordan's surprise, appears to have calmed her considerably. Annie throws her shoulders back, marches down the aisle, and spins around on her heel with impeccable balance to face the group of teenagers, once her worst fear that would have sent her into a cold sweat.
Now she only smiles endearingly and begins, "Hi, I'm Annie Edison, class of 2009, and I now work in health administration at Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver."
The students are unusually attentive -- or, at least, the boys are, and even the more overt attention-seekers among the girls soon settle into a disgruntled silence when they realize that they won't be pulling focus from the perky brunette who represents the promise of a real world and real women beyond the brick walls they presently inhabit.
Annie's nearly done when Jordan hears the ancient floor creak under someone's feet behind him and turns automatically towards the sound, expecting a latecomer. Instead he sees a tall man not much younger than himself approach, and Jordan frowns. It's only the third week of school, and Riverside is large, but he didn't think there were any new additions to the teaching faculty that he hadn't met. The next moment, though, he sees a visitor's pass that the man had let stick to the tip of his index finger on his left hand, apparently having delayed putting it on. Jordan searches his mind and remembers that the next alumnus talk is supposed to be from an engineer named William Sands that Jordan has never met. Sands isn't scheduled for another half hour, but maybe engineers are notoriously early for things. Jordan's contact with them has been limited. He quietly slips over to the man, keeping his voice low to keep from distracting Annie or the students from her conclusion.
"You must be Mr. Sands," Jordan whispers, offering his hand for a shake. "I'm afraid you're a bit early, so if you'd like I can take you down for some coffee in--"
"Ah, no," cuts in the tall man, also whispering, but a little more loudly. "Sorry, I'm not here for a talk. Well, not my own." He gestures with his chin towards Annie. "That's my fiancée. I'm just here to pick her up, thought I'd spy a little if that's cool."
"Your…" Jordan's words catch in his throat and he swallows them. "Oh." He turns back to look at Annie, who still looks so young to him -- not so very much older than the students listening to her. No longer listening, in fact, but applauding politely. She's done. She gives them a grateful smile and a little ankle-dip before moving her gaze back to where the two men are standing. Her face lights up and she hurries to them.
"I didn't know you were coming in!" she squeals to Jordan's new companion as the students start to gather their things, their chatter an incomprehensible background track, and she hops up on tiptoe to kiss the tall man on the cheek. He still has to bend a bit to let her reach. His hand slides around her waist easily as they both return to their normal heights. "I think it went well," Annie divulges gleefully up at him. "Mr. Harding," she adds, glowing, "this is Jeff Winger. Jeff, this is my old history teacher Mr. Harding."
Jeff belatedly offers his right hand back, which Jordan grasps automatically. Jeff's grip is firm and practiced. "Call me Jordan, please," Jordan says a little hollowly. After all, they must be nearly the same age.
"Are you all right, Mr. Harding?" questions Annie, looking concerned, and Jordan realizes he's been staring unnervingly at Jeff.
"Oh, god," says Jeff suddenly, dropping his hand. "We haven't met before, have we? Like, in court? I don't know if I could take it if Annie was introducing me to someone I'd once ripped apart on the witness stand. Not again."
"No, of course, it's a pleasure to meet you. Annie's told me plenty. You're just, um," Jordan clears his throat. "You're not quite what I imagined."
"Ah." Jeff turns to Annie. "You, ah, never told him."
"I...didn't even think of it," she protests, apparently somehow immediately on the same page as Jeff, and turns back to Jordan. "I know I told you I met him at school…I didn't think you'd assume that meant he was my age. You knew I stayed at Greendale. I mean, one of our good friends there--" Jeff clears his throat and she hastily amends with an eye roll "--okay, one of my good friends there was nearly seventy when we graduated."
"Yes, of course," says Jordan, trying to nod. "So, you're a lawyer?" But his attempt to change the subject is for naught, as his nod feels jerky even to him and in all likelihood it looks that way too, because Annie pulls him off to the side, with a restraining hand held out to Jeff.
"Mr. Harding, is something wrong?"
"I'm just a bit surprised, Annie," Jordan tries to mollify.
She smiles a little. "I know, I never thought I'd end up with a lawyer either…"
"Not that," Jordan mumbles before he can stop himself.
Annie frowns, though, having heard him. "What, because of the age thing? Really?"
Jordan hesitates, which is as bad as a confession to Annie.
"It really bothers you, doesn't it?"
"I'm only concerned for your well-being, Annie."
"You're the one who told me I was an adult almost ten years ago," she says, sounding confused. "That conversation set me on my path to recovery. If I could be trusted to make my own decisions about my life then, why not now?"
"It's not that I don't trust you," Jordan says in a low voice, still very conscious of Jeff hovering several feet away.
"But I'm not asking you to trust Jeff," Annie presses.
"Annie, you must understand my reservations here," entreats Jordan.
"I do," she says, nodding. "Jeff had them too, once upon a time. I didn't like them then from him and I like them even less now from you."
Jordan is wishing he'd just stayed quiet until he could talk to Annie alone, rationally, and get her to understand, when Jeff steps up behind her cautiously.
"You know, you're not exactly what I imagined either," says Jeff, but his tone has no edge to it. He actually seems to be trying to defuse the situation. "When Annie told me about all you did for her with rehab and all that, I always pictured someone a little older, more like a father figure."
"I have been a father figure," Jordan snaps, looking him in the eye. "Because it's the acceptable way to act towards a young girl when you're our age."
"Mr. Harding!" Annie gasps. Jeff looks like he wants to hit him.
"I'm sorry," Jordan backtracks hurriedly, glancing between the pair. "That came out wrong."
"No, it didn't," snarls Jeff.
Annie steps between the two, facing Jordan, but standing close enough to Jeff that Jordan thinks they may be touching.
"Mr. Harding," and her voice is shaking a little as she says this, "I'm always going to appreciate what you did for me. Honestly. I would never have gotten my life together without you. But…my life…I share it with Jeff now." Annie shakes her head slowly and her eyes start to fill -- it's still just as effective as it was when she was seventeen -- as she finishes, "I owe a lot to you, but I owe a lot to him too, and what's more, he owes a lot to me. And what I don't owe to you is any right to judge me on who I choose to spend my life with. Because you're not my dad, and I am an adult." She says this last part gently, but matter-of-factly, a trick Jordan has come to recognize as inherently Annie, but he suddenly suspects it might not be all her. He sneaks another look at Jeff out of the corner of his eye. He looks nettled but proud.
Jeff's hands land on Annie's shoulders. "We've got lunch with the group," he murmurs in her ear. She nods, blinking away her tears. As Annie starts to walk away, Jeff is reaching into his pocket. "I'll be right behind you."
"Jeff--"
He turns to look at her. "Annie, I'll be right there."
Annie disappears into the main part of the library without another word.
Jordan's entire body stiffens. He wonders if Jeff would hit him in a high school library. He wonders if being with Jeff for so long has turned Annie into the kind of girl who would leave her tall, intimidating, angry boyfriend alone with her former mentor to beat him up. Jeff's hand comes out of his pocket.
He's holding out a business card. Jeff's business card. Jordan takes it, numbly.
"It took me about two years to get past the age thing. If it take you less time than that, you can give me a call and I'll talk to Annie for you."
Jordan looks up from the card. He doesn't ask the question, but Jeff answers anyway.
"She likes you. You're important to her. You were there for her, and you helped her, and that means something." Jeff turns on his heel, much like Annie did just before beginning her speech to the students, and starts to follow after her. Just before he vanishes behind the same corner as his fiancée, though, he turns back. "But if you try and get back in touch with her without talking to me first, you'll probably get punched in the nose. If not by me, then definitely by her." He shrugs. "Just giving you a fair warning, because I can tell you from experience, that girl will hit you like a Winnebago."
Plucking off the visitor's pass that had still been stuck to his finger, Jeff crumples it and drops it on the floor before leaving Jordan standing alone in the alcove.
Next: Chapter 3A.