Ode to Optophobia (4B)
Title: Ode to Optophobia, or: Ten Men That Loved Annie Edison (8/19)
Author: veryspecial0ne
Rating: R for the whole series, to be safe.
Word count: ~2300 for this installment, ~22,600 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 Four (in which Annie is loved from much further away than she would like), Part Two. Starring Bryan Edison, Annie's father. "She's already explained that she has a wealthy friend who can produce pretty much anyone, and that she has some news. Bryan's e-mail correspondence, already slowed to a trickle for the holiday season, can wait."
A/N: Unbeta'd. Title is from the song "Ode to Optophobia" by Danielle Ate the Sandwich. Well, there was that gap in posts I kept warning you all was coming! Sorry it was before the shortest chapter yet so it wasn't even really worth it. This chapter is dedicated to stephanierb -- or at least the end of it is, because I wasn't going to have Jeff in this one at all until she said she wanted to see Jeff meet Bryan. Even if it only half-happens.
Previously: Chapter 4A.
It's another Monday, nearly a decade after Bryan's aborted conversation with Rob the caseworker. Bryan still works in the same building, but his office has been upgraded significantly as his administrative duties have increased and his time in the lab has decreased. Usually around this time on a Monday afternoon, Bryan would be starting to answer the e-mails that had arrived during the weekend. He'd be chewing gum to freshen his breath after his early lunch and hopefully get some of the minuscule food particles out of his teeth, unless he could feel something really stubbornly stuck in there, like a seed or something, in which case he'd be in the bathroom down the hall flossing -- his office hasn't been upgraded quite enough to have one en suite.
Instead, at this very moment, Bryan's twenty seven-year-old daughter is standing in front of him and it's the first time he's seen her in person in a dozen years. He lost the exact count of how long it had been several years ago, but it wouldn't be difficult to figure out down to the minute. She's already explained that she has a wealthy friend who can produce pretty much anyone, and that she has some news. Bryan's e-mail correspondence, already slowed to a trickle for the holiday season, can wait.
"I'm getting married," Annie says quickly, with none of the drama and grandeur that Bryan has been led to believe usually accompanies such an announcement from a daughter to her father. "And you can come if you want, but you won't be giving me away. Or sitting in the front row. That's for family. You can sit in the regular seating with the rest of the acquaintances."
She's still matter-of-fact, cutting to the point as soon as possible. She has no time for games. Bryan wants to ask her what she's been doing with her life, who she's marrying, who she's become…but he's not sure yet if questions are a welcome addition to this conversation. Reading his thoughts on his face in that unnerving way she was always able to as a child, Annie's face noticeably softens.
"My fiancé…" she begins haltingly, and even through the awkwardness Bryan catches the delighted glint in her eye at the word as she toys with the ring on her left hand, "he hadn't talked to his father in a long time. But after we got engaged, he decided he wanted to find him. And tell him about it. And tell him a lot of other things that needed to be said. So our friend, he found his dad. Well…we found out he was dead." Her eyes dart away from him, around his office, across his framed degrees and the patents hung in a neat grid on the south wall. Bryan has three more patents in a closet behind him but he's waiting to get one more before he hangs them up so the grid's pattern won't be irregular. At one point Annie would have wholeheartedly understood and supported that logic. Something about the way her hair is hanging loose now, though, with almost the hint of a wave daring to emerge, and the drapey cut of her stylish business suit makes Bryan wonder if that's still true. Annie sighs. "And that wasn't how I wanted it to go with us…I mean, that's not how I wanted it to end. With...." Her head tilts and a tiny grimace contorts her mouth.
Bryan, who remembers every word Rob the caseworker said, nods dumbly. Annie looks more like Ellen than she used to, the baby fat having melted away to reveal an impressive and familiar bone structure. Bryan hasn't talked to Ellen in years now either, not since the day of the Riverside graduation. Their prenuptial agreement had precluded him from needing to pay alimony, and Annie's departure from the family fold had taken away the only other reason the former husband and wife might have had to exchange any communication at all.
"Dad?"
Bryan realizes he still hasn't said anything since Annie began talking. He takes another brief moment to appreciate her calling him "Dad," a name he hasn't gone by for a decade, before finally speaking. "Sorry. Um. This is...a lot to absorb. In a very short amount of time."
"I've been getting that reaction a lot lately. You're not alone."
"Have you…told your mother?" Bryan winces, not knowing how sensitive Annie will be to the topic after all this time.
Annie does take a deep, shaking breath at the mention of her mother, but says slowly, "I wrote her a letter. She probably has it by now. I told her the news…but I'm not inviting her to my wedding."
"Why?" Bryan can't help blurting out. He's not sure there's a way to incorporate social grace into a conversation like this anyway, so he's abandoned the effort. "I just mean…why me and not her?"
Annie levels a gaze at him, but there's finally something a little soft in her expression and Bryan thinks that he can catch just a glimpse of his daughter as he last saw her at the age of fifteen, so obviously unhappy but grateful for the rare attention she got from her father. "I haven't completely forgiven you for leaving me the way you did," she says bluntly. "I may never forgive you. But I also haven't forgotten that you at least tried. It was too little, and too late, but you tried, and that's something Mom never did." A smile starts to form across Annie's lips. "Besides, my mother-in-law is kind of great. She's been doing all of that mother-of-the-bride stuff with me, so…I don't really need Mom." She drops her voice and shakes her head on that last part, almost saying it to herself.
Bryan says nothing. He can't think of anything to add to what she's said that won't damage the fragile fabric of their conversation.
"Which is not saying that I need you," Annie adds, and it's clear that she's not trying to be cruel, so Bryan bites down and tries not to take it that way. "I just needed to give you a chance. If you want it."
Bryan nods, again. It feels like there should be more to say, but even Annie is looking at a loss for words, having run out of steam after her first couple of planned speeches were over.
"So…" Annie ventures. "I guess that's it." She nods firmly and starts to turn and go.
"Annie." The name comes out of Bryan's mouth, unbidden, and she turns back to him expectantly. Bryan, however, is busy marveling at how long it's been since he's said his daughter's name out loud. He's spent several years trying to pretend to himself that he hasn't spent every day craving his daughter's forgiveness. He never expected her to come back to him like this and so he's become accustomed to acting like he didn't want her to. But now she's come to him and he'll be damned if he'll let her walk out without letting her know that he wants to try.
It's been a lonely ten years.
"How long are you in town for?" are what end up being Bryan's next words. "Would you…can I take you out to dinner? Or something? Before you leave? Maybe tonight?"
Annie looks a little sheepish. "I actually live here now."
"You do?"
"I did my master's at Regis and I've been here ever since."
"Oh." Bryan imagines what might have happened if he had run into Annie on the street, or at the grocery store, or in his favorite restaurant having dinner with her fiancé. Maybe he's seen her fiancé on the street, or stood behind him in line, or had an idle conversation with him while waiting for a cab.
"My friend found your home address too, and we actually only live a couple of miles from you."
There's not enough air in the room. Bryan has a sudden urge to open a window, but they live in Denver -- Annie lives in Denver -- and it's December.
December…
"It's your birthday soon," Bryan blurts out, remembering.
Annie nods, not indicating whether she's surprised or not that he's retained this information.
"Maybe I could buy you dinner then?"
She shakes her head now. "We're going to visit friends in Greendale that weekend and staying for New Year's."
"Okay," says Bryan, but before he can decide what his next offer should be, Annie's beat him to it.
"My Christmas Eve is free." He voice is generous but shy.
"Yes," Bryan says immediately. "Dinner. Any restaurant, your choice."
"I'll think about it," says Annie. "The restaurant, I mean, not…we're on for dinner." Her eyes narrow a bit. "By the way, I'm telling you right now that my fiancé just turned forty-one. You have from now until our dinner to get used to that fact, because I am not having that fight again."
Bryan's reeling from that bomb as he tries to stammer, "I don't-- I mean, I wouldn't--"
"I don't mean with you," Annie says simply. "I mean with him."
Bryan fiddles with his tie for a moment, sensing a land mine and trying to decide where to tread next. "Can I ask his name?" he tries, and is rewarded with a smile from Annie.
"Jeff," she says. "Jeff Winger. He's a lawyer."
"And you are…" Bryan trails off.
"Oh!" Annie seems to have genuinely forgotten that Bryan doesn't know a thing about her life now. There's a floppy bow at the neck of the blouse underneath her blazer, and her hands fly there to adjust the knot briefly, a little proudly. "I work at Saint Joseph. Administration."
"Good for you."
"Thank you." Annie checks her sleek watch and continues, "Speaking of which, I'm actually on lunch right now, so I should probably…" she gestures vaguely over her shoulder towards the door. Her engagement ring catches a ray of sun from Bryan's office window as she does. It's sizable but tasteful. Bryan briefly wonders if Annie picked it out herself or if she actually managed to find a mate who has taste on par with her own. Maybe the watch was a gift from him too. Even when she was a dumpy fifteen-year-old, she'd had high standards for everything from her brand of index card to what she got Bryan for Father's Day. He tries to remember what tie he's wearing today without having to look down at it. He hopes she likes it. She's shaking the cuff of her blazer sleeve back over her watch, where it falls neatly, and looking at him expectantly.
"Right," agrees Bryan, desperate for her not to leave but knowing she will. "Let me just…" he starts to reach for one of the business cards in the holder on his desk, but Annie waves him off.
"I have all of your information," she reminds him.
When Annie opens the door of Bryan's office, she freezes for a moment before physically relaxing further than she has since entering the room -- maybe further than Bryan has ever seen from his intense, stress-prone daughter. She lets go of the door handle easily and strides into the waiting area just outside. Bryan walks just enough towards the door to be able to see the couch upon which a lean man in early middle age is lounging in an expensive-looking suit. He puts down his magazine when he meets Annie's eye and runs a hand through his stylishly greying hair.
"I told you not to come," Bryan can hear Annie say as she approaches him.
The man stands. He towers over Bryan's still-diminutive daughter. "And I came," is his reply.
In the next moment it seems that Annie has completely wrapped herself up in this man who can only be Jeff Winger, who buries his nose in her hair as his arms envelop her. He presses a kiss there before looking up to meet Bryan's eye, as if he knew beyond a doubt that Annie's father would be there. His face betrays none of his thoughts.
Bryan, however, is sure that this man, this Jeff Winger, is able to read every ideation that is flitting unchecked through Bryan's mind. He's sure his instinct should be to despise this man, who probably has receding gums to go with his grey hair, for taking Bryan's little girl away from him. He's seen enough movies and been to enough weddings of his colleagues' daughters to know that's how it goes.
The problem is that Bryan doesn't have Annie to start with. He hasn't for quite some time. And this urbane woman standing between them is so far from the last version of Annie Edison that Bryan knows he has a right to lay a claim on that all he can muster is a deeply buried ache of regret. There may as well be an impenetrable glass wall between Bryan and the couple as Bryan's hold Jeff's gaze.
Annie steps back, still clinging loosely to Jeff's waist, and his eyes dart down to meet hers as his hands brush up and down her upper arms. The glass wall becomes one-way glass. "Did you eat yet?" Jeff asks. Bryan watches the back of Annie's head as it bobs up and down. "Good, me too."
Jeff gathers Annie under one arm and escorts her towards the elevators with only a split-second glance back towards Bryan, who's still not entirely sure he hasn't become totally invisible to the twosome. They disappear around the corner, and when Bryan hears the tell-tale ding of the elevator he knows they're gone. He slowly closes his office door. When he's back at his desk he presses a random key on his keyboard to startle the computer out of sleep mode, but instead of opening his e-mails, he pulls up his calendar and selects December 24.
"New Event -> Dinner with Annie."
Next: Chapter 5A.
Author: veryspecial0ne
Rating: R for the whole series, to be safe.
Word count: ~2300 for this installment, ~22,600 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 Four (in which Annie is loved from much further away than she would like), Part Two. Starring Bryan Edison, Annie's father. "She's already explained that she has a wealthy friend who can produce pretty much anyone, and that she has some news. Bryan's e-mail correspondence, already slowed to a trickle for the holiday season, can wait."
A/N: Unbeta'd. Title is from the song "Ode to Optophobia" by Danielle Ate the Sandwich. Well, there was that gap in posts I kept warning you all was coming! Sorry it was before the shortest chapter yet so it wasn't even really worth it. This chapter is dedicated to stephanierb -- or at least the end of it is, because I wasn't going to have Jeff in this one at all until she said she wanted to see Jeff meet Bryan. Even if it only half-happens.
Previously: Chapter 4A.
It's another Monday, nearly a decade after Bryan's aborted conversation with Rob the caseworker. Bryan still works in the same building, but his office has been upgraded significantly as his administrative duties have increased and his time in the lab has decreased. Usually around this time on a Monday afternoon, Bryan would be starting to answer the e-mails that had arrived during the weekend. He'd be chewing gum to freshen his breath after his early lunch and hopefully get some of the minuscule food particles out of his teeth, unless he could feel something really stubbornly stuck in there, like a seed or something, in which case he'd be in the bathroom down the hall flossing -- his office hasn't been upgraded quite enough to have one en suite.
Instead, at this very moment, Bryan's twenty seven-year-old daughter is standing in front of him and it's the first time he's seen her in person in a dozen years. He lost the exact count of how long it had been several years ago, but it wouldn't be difficult to figure out down to the minute. She's already explained that she has a wealthy friend who can produce pretty much anyone, and that she has some news. Bryan's e-mail correspondence, already slowed to a trickle for the holiday season, can wait.
"I'm getting married," Annie says quickly, with none of the drama and grandeur that Bryan has been led to believe usually accompanies such an announcement from a daughter to her father. "And you can come if you want, but you won't be giving me away. Or sitting in the front row. That's for family. You can sit in the regular seating with the rest of the acquaintances."
She's still matter-of-fact, cutting to the point as soon as possible. She has no time for games. Bryan wants to ask her what she's been doing with her life, who she's marrying, who she's become…but he's not sure yet if questions are a welcome addition to this conversation. Reading his thoughts on his face in that unnerving way she was always able to as a child, Annie's face noticeably softens.
"My fiancé…" she begins haltingly, and even through the awkwardness Bryan catches the delighted glint in her eye at the word as she toys with the ring on her left hand, "he hadn't talked to his father in a long time. But after we got engaged, he decided he wanted to find him. And tell him about it. And tell him a lot of other things that needed to be said. So our friend, he found his dad. Well…we found out he was dead." Her eyes dart away from him, around his office, across his framed degrees and the patents hung in a neat grid on the south wall. Bryan has three more patents in a closet behind him but he's waiting to get one more before he hangs them up so the grid's pattern won't be irregular. At one point Annie would have wholeheartedly understood and supported that logic. Something about the way her hair is hanging loose now, though, with almost the hint of a wave daring to emerge, and the drapey cut of her stylish business suit makes Bryan wonder if that's still true. Annie sighs. "And that wasn't how I wanted it to go with us…I mean, that's not how I wanted it to end. With...." Her head tilts and a tiny grimace contorts her mouth.
Bryan, who remembers every word Rob the caseworker said, nods dumbly. Annie looks more like Ellen than she used to, the baby fat having melted away to reveal an impressive and familiar bone structure. Bryan hasn't talked to Ellen in years now either, not since the day of the Riverside graduation. Their prenuptial agreement had precluded him from needing to pay alimony, and Annie's departure from the family fold had taken away the only other reason the former husband and wife might have had to exchange any communication at all.
"Dad?"
Bryan realizes he still hasn't said anything since Annie began talking. He takes another brief moment to appreciate her calling him "Dad," a name he hasn't gone by for a decade, before finally speaking. "Sorry. Um. This is...a lot to absorb. In a very short amount of time."
"I've been getting that reaction a lot lately. You're not alone."
"Have you…told your mother?" Bryan winces, not knowing how sensitive Annie will be to the topic after all this time.
Annie does take a deep, shaking breath at the mention of her mother, but says slowly, "I wrote her a letter. She probably has it by now. I told her the news…but I'm not inviting her to my wedding."
"Why?" Bryan can't help blurting out. He's not sure there's a way to incorporate social grace into a conversation like this anyway, so he's abandoned the effort. "I just mean…why me and not her?"
Annie levels a gaze at him, but there's finally something a little soft in her expression and Bryan thinks that he can catch just a glimpse of his daughter as he last saw her at the age of fifteen, so obviously unhappy but grateful for the rare attention she got from her father. "I haven't completely forgiven you for leaving me the way you did," she says bluntly. "I may never forgive you. But I also haven't forgotten that you at least tried. It was too little, and too late, but you tried, and that's something Mom never did." A smile starts to form across Annie's lips. "Besides, my mother-in-law is kind of great. She's been doing all of that mother-of-the-bride stuff with me, so…I don't really need Mom." She drops her voice and shakes her head on that last part, almost saying it to herself.
Bryan says nothing. He can't think of anything to add to what she's said that won't damage the fragile fabric of their conversation.
"Which is not saying that I need you," Annie adds, and it's clear that she's not trying to be cruel, so Bryan bites down and tries not to take it that way. "I just needed to give you a chance. If you want it."
Bryan nods, again. It feels like there should be more to say, but even Annie is looking at a loss for words, having run out of steam after her first couple of planned speeches were over.
"So…" Annie ventures. "I guess that's it." She nods firmly and starts to turn and go.
"Annie." The name comes out of Bryan's mouth, unbidden, and she turns back to him expectantly. Bryan, however, is busy marveling at how long it's been since he's said his daughter's name out loud. He's spent several years trying to pretend to himself that he hasn't spent every day craving his daughter's forgiveness. He never expected her to come back to him like this and so he's become accustomed to acting like he didn't want her to. But now she's come to him and he'll be damned if he'll let her walk out without letting her know that he wants to try.
It's been a lonely ten years.
"How long are you in town for?" are what end up being Bryan's next words. "Would you…can I take you out to dinner? Or something? Before you leave? Maybe tonight?"
Annie looks a little sheepish. "I actually live here now."
"You do?"
"I did my master's at Regis and I've been here ever since."
"Oh." Bryan imagines what might have happened if he had run into Annie on the street, or at the grocery store, or in his favorite restaurant having dinner with her fiancé. Maybe he's seen her fiancé on the street, or stood behind him in line, or had an idle conversation with him while waiting for a cab.
"My friend found your home address too, and we actually only live a couple of miles from you."
There's not enough air in the room. Bryan has a sudden urge to open a window, but they live in Denver -- Annie lives in Denver -- and it's December.
December…
"It's your birthday soon," Bryan blurts out, remembering.
Annie nods, not indicating whether she's surprised or not that he's retained this information.
"Maybe I could buy you dinner then?"
She shakes her head now. "We're going to visit friends in Greendale that weekend and staying for New Year's."
"Okay," says Bryan, but before he can decide what his next offer should be, Annie's beat him to it.
"My Christmas Eve is free." He voice is generous but shy.
"Yes," Bryan says immediately. "Dinner. Any restaurant, your choice."
"I'll think about it," says Annie. "The restaurant, I mean, not…we're on for dinner." Her eyes narrow a bit. "By the way, I'm telling you right now that my fiancé just turned forty-one. You have from now until our dinner to get used to that fact, because I am not having that fight again."
Bryan's reeling from that bomb as he tries to stammer, "I don't-- I mean, I wouldn't--"
"I don't mean with you," Annie says simply. "I mean with him."
Bryan fiddles with his tie for a moment, sensing a land mine and trying to decide where to tread next. "Can I ask his name?" he tries, and is rewarded with a smile from Annie.
"Jeff," she says. "Jeff Winger. He's a lawyer."
"And you are…" Bryan trails off.
"Oh!" Annie seems to have genuinely forgotten that Bryan doesn't know a thing about her life now. There's a floppy bow at the neck of the blouse underneath her blazer, and her hands fly there to adjust the knot briefly, a little proudly. "I work at Saint Joseph. Administration."
"Good for you."
"Thank you." Annie checks her sleek watch and continues, "Speaking of which, I'm actually on lunch right now, so I should probably…" she gestures vaguely over her shoulder towards the door. Her engagement ring catches a ray of sun from Bryan's office window as she does. It's sizable but tasteful. Bryan briefly wonders if Annie picked it out herself or if she actually managed to find a mate who has taste on par with her own. Maybe the watch was a gift from him too. Even when she was a dumpy fifteen-year-old, she'd had high standards for everything from her brand of index card to what she got Bryan for Father's Day. He tries to remember what tie he's wearing today without having to look down at it. He hopes she likes it. She's shaking the cuff of her blazer sleeve back over her watch, where it falls neatly, and looking at him expectantly.
"Right," agrees Bryan, desperate for her not to leave but knowing she will. "Let me just…" he starts to reach for one of the business cards in the holder on his desk, but Annie waves him off.
"I have all of your information," she reminds him.
When Annie opens the door of Bryan's office, she freezes for a moment before physically relaxing further than she has since entering the room -- maybe further than Bryan has ever seen from his intense, stress-prone daughter. She lets go of the door handle easily and strides into the waiting area just outside. Bryan walks just enough towards the door to be able to see the couch upon which a lean man in early middle age is lounging in an expensive-looking suit. He puts down his magazine when he meets Annie's eye and runs a hand through his stylishly greying hair.
"I told you not to come," Bryan can hear Annie say as she approaches him.
The man stands. He towers over Bryan's still-diminutive daughter. "And I came," is his reply.
In the next moment it seems that Annie has completely wrapped herself up in this man who can only be Jeff Winger, who buries his nose in her hair as his arms envelop her. He presses a kiss there before looking up to meet Bryan's eye, as if he knew beyond a doubt that Annie's father would be there. His face betrays none of his thoughts.
Bryan, however, is sure that this man, this Jeff Winger, is able to read every ideation that is flitting unchecked through Bryan's mind. He's sure his instinct should be to despise this man, who probably has receding gums to go with his grey hair, for taking Bryan's little girl away from him. He's seen enough movies and been to enough weddings of his colleagues' daughters to know that's how it goes.
The problem is that Bryan doesn't have Annie to start with. He hasn't for quite some time. And this urbane woman standing between them is so far from the last version of Annie Edison that Bryan knows he has a right to lay a claim on that all he can muster is a deeply buried ache of regret. There may as well be an impenetrable glass wall between Bryan and the couple as Bryan's hold Jeff's gaze.
Annie steps back, still clinging loosely to Jeff's waist, and his eyes dart down to meet hers as his hands brush up and down her upper arms. The glass wall becomes one-way glass. "Did you eat yet?" Jeff asks. Bryan watches the back of Annie's head as it bobs up and down. "Good, me too."
Jeff gathers Annie under one arm and escorts her towards the elevators with only a split-second glance back towards Bryan, who's still not entirely sure he hasn't become totally invisible to the twosome. They disappear around the corner, and when Bryan hears the tell-tale ding of the elevator he knows they're gone. He slowly closes his office door. When he's back at his desk he presses a random key on his keyboard to startle the computer out of sleep mode, but instead of opening his e-mails, he pulls up his calendar and selects December 24.
"New Event -> Dinner with Annie."
Next: Chapter 5A.