Community: Evolution in Friendship: A Case Study
Title: Evolution in Friendship: A Case Study
Author: arliddian
Rating: PG
Fandom: Community
Characters/Pairing: Abed/Annie
Summary: What does it take for a friendship to evolve into something more?
Word Count: 7147
Author's Note: Spans season 1 to beyond season 4.
Warnings: Includes some spoilery speculation for 4x08 (Herstory of Dance) that will no doubt prove to be entirely non-canon when the episode actually airs.
Disclaimer: Don't own it; don't sue me.
Annie shifts slightly on Abed's couch as he loads Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark into his DVD player. He had invited her and Troy over for an Indiana Jones marathon shortly after she gave him the DVDs, but it's fifteen minutes after they were supposed to start watching and Troy still hasn't arrived yet. As much as she appreciates Abed's invitation, she's mostly looking forward to the opportunity to spend a bit more time with Troy.
Just as she's resigning herself to an awkward evening alone with Abed, the object of her affections rushes into the dorm room, and Annie feels her face light up and her back straighten at the sight of him.
"Abed! I gotta take a rain check on Indy," Troy says, out of breath, and Annie feels her excitement fade. He glances at her, and flashes a smile that makes her heart skip a beat. "Oh, hey, Annie."
"Hi, Tr-"
"I totally forgot that my dad wanted me to pick his girlfriend up from the airport," Troy continues, his attention immediately turning back to Abed, who is now standing by the DVD player. "And then he wants us to have a family dinner or something."
"Oh. That's okay," Abed responds, emotionless as usual.
"We still on for Star Wars next week?"
"Yep."
"Sweet."
Annie watches as the two boys reach out and clap hands together while simultaneously patting their own chests. Troy rushes out again with a "See you guys later!" and Annie tries not to feel too disappointed as he leaves.
"You guys have a secret handshake?" she asks curiously as Abed settles on the other end of the couch.
"It's not really 'secret', but yeah," he answers with a shrug, picking up the remote.
"I think it's nice." She gives him a small smile. "I've never had a friend I could do something like that with," she adds quietly, looking down at her hands in her lap.
Abed looks over at her. "Me neither." They're both silent for a moment. He cocks his head to one side and studies her. After a beat, he offers, "We could make one up too, if you want."
Startled, Annie blinks at him, but she's not quite able to keep the excitement out of her eyes. "Really?"
"Sure," he says. "We're friends."
She thinks of the twenty-six hours he spent in a room for her, and the smile one his face when she gave him the DVDs they are now about to watch. Her heart warms and she smiles broadly at him. "I'd like that."
"Cool." Abed turns his attention back to the TV and selects 'play' on the DVD menu. "We can work on it after Indy."
Annie relaxes back into the couch a little more as the movie begins. We're friends, she thinks, still smiling. Suddenly, spending the evening alone with Abed doesn't seem so weird any more.
* * * * * * *
When Annie was in high school, the inside of her locker was plastered with motivational quotes written on pretty paper, her timetable, a pen holder, her goal list, and later, one picture of her boyfriend. She spent all her time studying, so there were no ticket stubs or posters or souvenirs to hang up. She didn't have friends, so she didn't have photographs or notes to remind her of all the good times they'd shared.
After a few months at Greendale, Annie goes to her locker and takes down all her motivational quotes. She moves her timetable to a pocket in her planner, and throws her goal list away and writes it in the back of her journal instead. And then, over the course of two years, she fills her locker with photos. All of them are full of smiles and laughter, reminding her of good times and the fact that now she has people to share those good times with.
There's one of the whole study group from the Día de los Muertos party from first year. One of her and Shirley, a nice one taken (surprisingly) by Britta. Another one of the whole group together. One of her, Jeff, Britta and Troy.
And Abed. There are a couple of photos of just her and Abed together. If anyone asks (even though nobody will), she can say that it's because she picks out pictures where everyone looks their nicest, or because nobody else ever wants to get in front of the camera with her.
But really, she has a lot of pictures of them together because she thinks that maybe Abed is her best friend.
It's not how she planned things to happen. The first few weeks in the study group, she'd hoped that Britta would become her best friend, or maybe even Shirley. But Shirley's niceness could be suffocating sometimes, and Britta was... Britta.
But Abed - Abed listens without judgment and gives logical, practical advice when she needs it. He accepts her as she is and doesn't try to change her. They don't always understand each other, and God knows that sometimes his stubbornness and childish habits get on her nerves. But they both know what it's like to have people walk out on them. They both know what it's like to be an outsider. And while he might not be great at understanding social cues or emotions, he tries hard to connect.
He invites her to join in with his games sometimes and lets her experience the fun that she missed out on when she was too busy trying to grow up and be the best. There's not enough immaturity in your life, he'd said to her once. He might have been Han Solo at the time, but it's still true. Abed brings out the fun, happy, youthful side of her that she spent years repressing. He's good for her.
She has no illusions about their relationship. She knows that in the best friend pyramid, she'll always be second tier to Troy. But she's happy all the same. When she started at Greendale, she never thought that she would become part of a group of misfits that would grow into such a close-knit family. She wasn't sure she'd have friends, let alone someone she might call a best friend.
She finishes pulling out her books for her next class, balancing them in her arms as she looks at her locker. She lingers for a moment, her gaze flickering from picture to picture, finally resting on the latest addition: a picture of her and Abed from last year when they'd started spinning each other around during the Spring Fling Picnic. They're about to take off, gripping each other's arms, knees bumping together.
Remembering that moment - the dizziness, the laughter, her hair flying out behind her, and Abed's firm grasp keeping her steady - Annie can't help smiling.
The smile stays with her long after she shuts her locker door and hurries off to class.
* * * * * * *
When Troy leaves for the Air Conditioning Repair Annexe, Abed doesn't cope well. He spends all his time watching TV with the occasional break for reading a comic book. He doesn't go into the Dreamatorium; he doesn't leave the apartment; and Annie isn't sure if he even leaves his recliner to go to sleep in the blanket fort some nights.
Annie misses Troy too, but she pushes it down so she can be strong for Abed. She makes him buttered noodles every other night, gently nags him to make sure he has breakfast in the morning, and when summer classes begin, she studies at the kitchen table instead of in her room so she can be close by and let him know by her presence that she's there for him.
As the summer wears on, she can tell that he's getting worse. It scares her. She's so used to Abed being self-possessed and in control that seeing him this vulnerable and anxious makes her want to cry every time she comes home and finds him sitting in exactly the same position as when she left, or pacing back and forth and muttering under his breath. She doesn't know how to help him except by trying to reassure him that he's not alone, that she's not going anywhere, that she's his friend and she cares about him.
So every night at nine-thirty, she closes her books and joins him in front of the TV, perching on the arm of his chair. She watches with him in silence for an hour, then kisses him on the cheek and goes to bed. At first, he accepts her presence without reacting. And then, slowly, night by night, he begins to respond: letting his fingers curl around hers when she takes his hand; making the occasional comment about whatever show they're watching; saying "Goodnight" to her with a tiny, brief smile when she retires for the evening.
One night, Annie comes out of the bathroom and stops short when she hears the familiar monologue from the opening of Love Actually. It's one of her favourite movies, but she stopped watching it with the boys because she didn't like how they pointed out all of the clichés.
"Love Actually?" she asks tentatively, hovering just behind Abed’s recliner.
"Yep," he replies without turning around. She's surprised when he pats the armrest and glances back at her.
"Come watch," he says.
His tone is neutral and he immediately faces the TV again, but it's the first time he's actually invited her to join him since Troy left, and she finds her eyes filling with tears.
"Okay." She immediately sits next to him without looking back at her textbooks. If Abed wants her, study can wait.
They watch in silence, as usual, but it feels a little different this time - like he's being quiet because he knows she doesn't like him over-analysing the film, not just because he doesn't want to interact with anyone. And when Annie "awwww"s and nudges Abed's shoulder happily when Colin Firth's character proposes to Aurelia, he nudges back ever-so-slightly.
The credits roll, and Annie stretches.
"Thanks, Abed," she says softly, touching his arm. "This was nice."
She leans down as usual, but Abed turns his head at the last moment, and her lips find his mouth instead of his cheek.
It's only a slight peck, but Annie jerks back immediately, flushing bright red, and she begins stammering apologies, hastening to get off the chair and retreat to her room.
But Abed's hand wraps around her wrist and keeps her in place. Puzzled, she pauses, staring at him with wide eyes, her heart pounding with embarrassment and confusion.
He looks back at her with that inscrutable gaze. And then he leans forward and presses his lips to hers in a slow, chaste kiss.
Annie's eyes drift close. His lips are soft and his kiss is incredibly light and gentle, and it drags up long-buried memories of Don Draper and orange paint...
But it only lasts for a second, and when he pulls back, she sees her own startled expression mirrored in his eyes.
She blinks rapidly, trying to calm her racing pulse. "A-Abed?"
He withdraws from her and looks away, shaking his head. "Sorry," he says in his usual monotone, though it's clear from the way he fumbles for the remote that he's unnerved. He gets up abruptly and switches off the TV.
"Goodnight, Annie," is all he says, not quite meeting her eyes.
He disappears into the blanket fort, leaving her sitting on the armrest of his recliner, bewildered and wondering what the hell just happened.
Neither of them mentions it the next day. And later, when Annie overhears him on the phone telling Britta that he's ready for therapy, she tries not to read anything into it.
We're friends, she reminds herself firmly. We're friends, and Abed was just feeling vulnerable and lonely last night, and that's all there is to it. We're friends.
The thought is less comforting than it should be, but she doesn't allow herself to ponder the significance of that fact.
* * * * * * *
In their fourth year at Greendale, Abed starts getting a lot of attention from a cute, quirky girl named Kat. And he also starts hanging out with a girl named Jessica.
Annie knows she should be excited for Abed, like everyone else (it's sort of like the Jenny thing all over again, except this time they know to let Abed do his own thing). This is good for him, and he's been feeling a little lonely now that a lot of Troy's time is being taken up by Britta. And, really, Annie has no reason to feel threatened or jealous or whatever because A) she's not romantically interested in Abed; B) she and Jeff have their own little unspoken almost-sort-of thing going on (okay, so she knows she's not in love with him and he's not in love with her - but there's nothing wrong with a bit of harmless flirting, right?); and C) she's still Abed's third-favourite show and probably his second-best friend.
But that doesn't stop her from feeling very miffed when Abed's newfound popularity interferes with her own plans with him.
"You're going out?" she asks, following Abed across the living room. She can feel herself pouting before she can stop herself. "But... we were gonna watch Cougar Town tonight."
"Yeah," Abed acknowledges, pulling a few DVDs out of the cabinet. "But Jessica's never seen Indiana Jones.. Or Star Wars. Or The Breakfast Club. Or The Karate Kid. She's been pretty sheltered. She needs educating."
"Oh. Well, if Jessica needs educating," Annie snarks, crossing her arms and trying not to feel irritated that he's picked half the films that she likes to watch with the boys on movie nights.
"Yep," Abed says blandly, the sarcasm obviously going straight over his head. Annie rolls her eyes, but quickly smooths her face into a neutral expression when he turns around to face her.
"You're only up to the second season," he points out, shoving the DVDs into his messenger bag. "We've got the DVD. We can watch the episode together tomorrow."
"I guess so."
She realises that she's still pouting a little when Abed tilts his head and stares at her with a slightly furrowed brow.
"Are you okay?" he asks. She hurriedly flashes a smile.
"I'm fine." Does her voice sound too cheerful? Probably, but thankfully Abed isn't great at reading that kind of thing. "You go have fun with Jessica."
He shrugs, clearly unperturbed. "Okay. See you later."
Annie waits until the door has shut behind him before she lets her face fall. She plops down on Troy's recliner and turns the TV on. Cougar Town is just starting.
She tries to enjoy it, but she gives up after five minutes and switches the TV off. It's just not the same without Abed watching her watch the show, eating popcorn and smiling every time she laughs at a joke or gasps at a plot development.
The apartment is quiet without the boys, and while normally she would enjoy the opportunity to get some cleaning or studying done, tonight she just feels lonely.
She considers texting Jeff to see if he wants to hang out, or calling Shirley to ask if she needs some help with the kids tonight. But what she actually wants to do is watch Cougar Town with Abed. Only he decided to forego his second-favourite and his third-favourite shows to watch movies with some girl he's only known for a couple of weeks.
She ends up cleaning the apartment, alternating between sulking and berating herself for sulking the whole time.
You are not in a rom-com, she scolds herself as she scrubs the bathroom sink. Abed is your friend and it's nice that he's found a girl he likes who likes him back. Stop acting like a jealous idiot.
But he's only known this girl for, what, two minutes? And he's been friends with me for four years, she grumbles as she wipes down the kitchen counter.
Her mind keeps chasing itself in circles, and when she finishes cleaning every nook and cranny of the apartment she winds up watching season twelve of Inspector Spacetime until Abed comes home in the early hours of the morning.
"Hey Annie," he greets her nonchalantly as he places his bag on the dining table.
"Oh, hey Abed," she replies, pausing the DVD and trying to sound completely casual, like she's forgotten that he went out and not like she's spent the evening obsessing over that fact. "Have fun?"
"Yep." His tone of voice and his face give nothing away, and Annie has to tamp down the sudden irritation she feels.
"Good," she deadpans, turning back to the screen.
He points a finger at the TV. "You're watching Inspector Spacetime," he observes, cocking his head.
"Oh. Yeah." She tries to match his blank expression. "I just thought I'd try to catch up a bit."
"But you never watch Inspector Spacetime without me and Troy," he remarks, looking slightly confused.
"Yeah, well, you were both busy tonight," she returns with just the slightest bite in her tone.
"Okay." He gazes at her for a while, just long enough for her to feel uncomfortable and shift in her seat. She knows she’s not being fair, and that Abed finds it hard to grasp subtle emotional nuances, and she starts to feel guilty for taking out her personal... whatever on him.
"It's pretty late," she says finally, glancing at the clock. "We should go to sleep."
"Okay," he agrees. "'Night, Annie."
"'Night."
She gets up and makes for her room, more than ready to be done with this thoroughly confusing day.
"Annie?"
She turns. "Yeah?"
"We'll watch Cougar Town tomorrow," he offers, and she thinks she detects a conciliatory note in his voice and a bit of softness in his normally unreadable eyes.
After a brief pause, she nods. "Okay." And for the first time tonight, the small smile she gives him is genuine.
* * * * * * *
Despite her newfound love for forensics (she has Abed to thank for that), Annie doesn't end up changing her major because she doesn't want to be the only one in the study group left behind while everyone else finishes up at Greendale and moves on. So she follows the original plan and graduates as a hospital administration major, and when the job offers don't exactly come rolling in, she takes a position in a small hospital two states away, because what else is there? Besides, isn't this what she always wanted? A chance to prove her strength and maturity? Moving away from her friends and her hometown is the perfect way to do that, right?
She and Jeff tie up their loose ends and decide they're better off as friends, especially since both of them are moving away for this-is-my-only-prospect jobs. She gets a little tipsy and extremely maudlin at the farewell party the boys throw her at the apartment, and packs her bags. They all come to see her off at the airport, and after six tearful goodbyes, she starts her new life.
Four months pass and her days become routine: wake up, shower, eat, work, come home, eat, watch TV, sleep. Her colleagues are nice, but her job is tiring and stressful and dull, and she spends a lot of her evenings watching crime shows with the vague, knotted feeling in her stomach of having missed an opportunity.
After a particularly trying day at work, she comes home, places her keys on the hook and her handbag on the hall table, and pauses for a moment. The small apartment still feels too new, too empty, and far too quiet. Even after four months, it doesn't feel like home. There's no Troy humming Daybreak in the kitchen, no Britta dropping by and burning dinner, no Abed asking her to sit down and watch Cougar Town or Inspector Spacetime with him. It's lonely out here on her own, and she's starting to think that she shouldn't have been in such a rush to prove that she's a grown-up.
She checks her watch. 6:48. It's almost time.
She sits down at the kitchen table with her Chinese take-out and her laptop and opens up Gmail and Twitter, but she's really just watching the clock in the corner, waiting for those numbers to tick over. She rolls her shoulders back and forth, trying to relieve some of the tension that has built up through the stress of the day.
She smiles and rolls her eyes at Jeff's Twitter updates about the latest Banana Republic collection, and types up a quick "aww, so cute!" reply to Shirley's update about her kids. Pierce has sent her a surprisingly sweet email asking how she's going (though the last part of the message is just a rant about a barista at the new coffee house he's been frequenting, and he still hasn't figured out how to use emoticons properly), so she marks it as 'unread' to remind herself to reply when she has more time.
They've all drifted apart a little since graduation, despite their best efforts, even though she and Jeff are the only ones who actually moved out of Greendale. That's how life goes: new jobs, new priorities, new opportunities. Annie makes sure to keep in touch with everyone, but as they each become busier living their post-Greendale Community College lives, it's getting harder to keep things going and stay as close as they used to be.
She's just opened Facebook to a flood of notifications (both Troy and Britta like posting links to pictures of cats) when the clock changes to 7:00, signalling the familiar tones of an incoming Skype call.
Annie answers immediately and turns on the webcam, and she feels her whole body relax as Abed fills the screen. He Skypes her twice a week: with Troy (and sometimes Britta) on Saturday mornings, and just by himself on Wednesdays, when Troy's out coaching at the high school. He's the only one out of the group who calls her consistently, and his calls are always the high point of her week.
"Hey Annie," he greets her with a little wave.
"Hi Abed," she replies, waving back. Her face eases into a grin, an expression she can't seem to control whenever he calls her. She peers at the screen: the image is shaky, and his face drops in and out of frame. "Where are you?"
"I'm at home," he answers easily. "I was in the kitchen but I'm moving to my room. It's easier to talk to you in here."
The image steadies and he comes back into focus, now in what used to be Annie's bedroom.
"There you are," Annie smiles. "So. What's new?"
They talk about anything and everything: her day at work, her frustrations with her job, Abed's latest project for film school, the latest goings-on in the lives of the rest of the Greendale Seven. They discuss the recent developments on Inspector Spacetime, even though they watched the episode on the phone together when it aired last Friday. They ponder the status of Troy and Britta's relationship, which has gone from steady to uncertain to steady again in the course of the five months since they all left Greendale. He reads her the new scene he and Troy have written for their screenplay and she has to get up and grab the tissue box to wipe away her tears of laughter.
Before she knows it, it's nine o'clock, and Abed's checking his watch.
"You'd better go. You need the sleep," he says, and as flat and unemotional as he sounds, it warms her heart because she knows he's being empathetic.
He's gotten quite good at it, actually - he knows she's been feeling lonely, so he makes sure he never misses a call, and he sends her witty text messages every so often just to make her smile. Over the past few months - maybe even the past couple of years - he's become her most dependable source of comfort and laughter and fun. She misses him more than she ever thought possible, and she's hit by a sudden wave of melancholy at the thought of hanging up and not seeing his face for another three days.
"You're probably right," she says reluctantly, mousing over the red 'hang up' button.
She pauses and opens her mouth to say goodnight. But instead, what comes out is "I miss you," soft and sincere.
Abed tilts his head, eyes narrowing thoughtfully, and suddenly she's scared that she's overstepped something, so she rushes to add, "I mean, I miss everybody..."
At this, his expression falls in a gesture so tiny that she doubts she would have noticed it if she were anyone else. But they've been friends for four and a half years, roommates for two of those, and she's had plenty of time to study the nuances of his facial expressions during these bi-weekly Skype calls.
And there's something about his face that has her blurting out the whole truth anyway: "... but I miss you the most."
He raises his eyebrows and just looks at her for a second with a piercing, inscrutable gaze. She can feel her cheeks heating up and for the first time ever, she wishes they couldn't see each other during these calls.
Just as she's decided make a hasty retreat, he says, "You should come home for Christmas."
Taken aback, she blinks. "What?"
"You should come home for Christmas," he repeats decisively. "You can stay here with me and Troy. And you should stay for New Year's, too. It wouldn't be a good holiday without you."
His words go straight to her heart, and she beams at him, maybe a little more bashfully this time. "I'll have to check that I can get some extra time off. But I'd really like that."
His lips quirk upwards at the corners. "Me too."
There's a brief pause, just long and awkward enough to feel like they have just shared a moment, but Annie isn't totally sure what it means.
"So... I should get to bed. I'll see you and Troy on Saturday as usual?" she says just a little too brightly, hurrying to break the silence.
"Yep," he answers, popping the 'p'. "I'll call you on Friday for Inspector Spacetime."
"Okay. When Troy gets home, tell him I liked his line about the lasers."
"I will." He flashes another soft, small smile. "'Night, Annie."
"'Night, Abed."
As she closes Skype, she feels the familiar wash of loneliness that always comes over her whenever she finishes a call with him. With a sigh, she shuts her laptop and gets up from the table.
Her phone buzzes in her pocket. To her surprise, it's a text from Abed.
I miss you too, she reads, her stomach fluttering and a lump forming in her throat as she smiles at the brief message. Sleep well.
She opens her laptop again. Sleep can wait. Right now, she has flights to book.
* * * * * * *
It takes two days back in Greendale for Annie to realise three things.
The first is that she doesn't really want to be a hospital administrator any more. The second is that she really misses Greendale.
She confides these two realisations to Abed while they clean up after the Christmas party and Troy is looking after Britta who is throwing up Pierce's overly-spiked eggnog in the bathroom.
Abed tosses another plastic cup into the garbage bag and tells her, "Annie, it doesn't take a psychiatrist to see that if you used to be truly happy and now you're not, then you should go back to the way it was when you were happy."
His advice cuts straight to the point, and she's a little surprised by how incisive it is. She blinks and stares at him, his words setting in motion a rapid train of thought.
He glances up at her, and seems to interpret her silence as confusion. "Scrubs, season 4," he explains. "Heather Graham said it; she was guest-starring as a psychiatrist."
"Oh," Annie says, sitting down at the dining table. "Well, whoever said it, it's true. I'm not happy - living out there all by myself, working in a job I don't even like..."
Lost in thought, she watches Abed's long fingers sweep a pile of empty chip packets and candy cane wrappers off the tabletop into his garbage bag. She's always tried to make the best of her circumstances, but it's almost a relief to finally admit out loud that things aren't working out. And, as usual, Abed has picked the perfect pop culture reference to sum up her situation and get her thinking about her next step.
"Maybe I should think about moving back here and enrolling again, to do forensics," she muses out loud, and at this, Abed looks up quickly and stops examining the tiny liquor bottles that Jeff brought from his hotel room mini-bar (Troy had requested them for a miniatures shoot he and Abed were planning).
"You want to move back to Greendale?" he asks her, tilting his head and giving her that impenetrable gaze.
"Yeah. I think I do," she admits slowly. Suddenly feeling nervous for no conceivable reason, she tucks her hair behind her ear. "It... it just feels like home here."
"Cool," he says, and she's surprised by how pleased he sounds. "Cool, cool, cool."
The smile that curves his mouth is infectious, and as she relaxes into a grin, she feels a wash of some warm emotion she can't quite place.
After a beat, they both continue clearing up the remains of the party. And as they work in comfortable, companionable silence, she's struck by Realisation Number Three: she doesn't just want to come home to Greendale - she wants to come home to Abed.
It's huge and dumbfounding and comes to her like a bolt out of the blue, accompanied by a million questions. When had her feelings for her best friend gone from purely platonic to definitely-more-than-that? How did this happen? And most importantly, what the hell is she going to do now?
The silence is no longer comfortable on her part, and she finds herself getting distracted, sneaking glances at Abed as they manoeuvre around each other. She suddenly feels hyper-aware of his presence and proximity, and nearly jumps out of her skin when he reaches for an empty cup at the same time she does and their fingers brush together.
They finish up just as Troy emerges from the bathroom with a very pale Britta, who proves to be a welcome distraction. As soon as Annie has given her friend a glass of water and a couple of aspirin and sent her off with Troy to his room to sleep the rest off, she retreats to the blanket fort that the boys rebuilt for her visit.
"Goodnight, Annie," Abed calls after her.
"Goodnight," she calls back timidly, sounding pathetic to her own ears. She escapes quickly and prays that Abed didn't notice anything unusual about her behaviour.
Sleep doesn't come easily. She feels paralysed by the fear of doing or saying something that will ruin their closeness and spoil the rest of what is supposed to be a happy, relaxing holiday. Her mind races, trying to recall and analyse every interaction she has ever had with Abed, searching for obscure clues and hidden meanings. She tries to figure out how long she's felt this way, and worries that he might have figured it out already, since he's such an ultra-observant student of human character. And she tries and fails to stop herself from wondering if he might feel something more than friendship for her, too.
Eventually, she falls asleep thinking about three things: orange paint, I miss you too, and the look in his eyes when she called Greendale 'home'.
* * * * * * *
The following year, Troy moves in with Britta, and Annie moves back in with Abed and re-enrols in Greendale Community College.
It's not the same, because she's on campus by herself and she doesn't ever see the whole group together any more, what with Jeff still living and working in another state and everyone busy with their own jobs and families and lives. But she studies diligently, makes new friends in her forensics classes, and gets a bit of work experience through Professor Garrity's contacts in the police department. She stops by Shirley's Sandwiches once a week for lunch and a bit of gossip, accepts Pierce's occasional invitations out for coffee with his latest wife, has long Twitter conversations with Jeff, and joins the boys and Britta for the occasional movie night or weekend road trip. Her life is different now, but familiar, and for the most part, she likes it a lot.
The only problem is Abed.
She's accepted the fact that she's fallen in love with her best friend, but Abed is painfully oblivious for someone so observant, and he's still adjusting to living without Troy. After a couple of months of trying to drop a few subtle and not-so-subtle hints, Annie gives up and resigns herself to the familiar bitter-sweetness of unrequited feelings, contenting herself with harmless fantasies and being Abed's second-best friend.
But something changes after the classic 80s rom-com movie marathon they hold with the rest of the group for Annie's birthday. Abed starts acting strangely. She catches him staring at her thoughtfully at random moments during the day, but he doesn't seem to want to talk to her much anymore. He spends a lot of evenings watching chick flicks and romantic dramas, and when she catches him watching Clueless for the third time, he just says he's doing 'research' and ignores all her follow-up questions. He locks himself in his room for hours at a time, and sometimes she hears him muttering to himself in there, just quietly enough so she can't hear any individual words. But whenever she asks if he's okay, he deftly dodges her questions, and since he's still leaving the apartment and eating and sleeping normally, she eventually stops asking.
It feels like they're drifting apart, and no matter what she does, she can't seem to stop it. And it hurts, because romantic feelings aside, Abed is still her roommate and her best friend, and she would give anything to get that closeness back again.
She confides her relationship woes to a couple of friends from class during a girls' night out, and they shake their heads and pat her arm sympathetically and tell her that it's not worth worrying about, that there are other guys out there, that if Abed can't see how awesome she is then he's not worth it. And she smiles and nods and agrees with them, all the while thinking that they just don't know Abed like she does. They don't know how quirky and sweet and wonderful he is, and if anything, she's the one who isn't enough for him.
But their attention and sympathy is kind of flattering, so when they insist that she comes with them to the End-of-Spring Fling Dance to have fun and maybe meet a nice guy, she says "I've love to!" even though she would much rather curl up on the couch with her Mad Men box set.
The following Saturday night sees her putting on her favourite blue party dress and a pair of high heels, and taking an additional hour to carefully curl her hair and do her make-up perfectly. When Abed sees her come out of her room, he actually stops dead in his tracks on the way to the DVD cabinet.
"What do you think?" she asks in a slightly flirtatious tone, smoothing down her skirt.
She sees his gaze flick from her head to her toes and back up again, lingering a little at her neckline, and she can't help feeling kind of pleased with herself.
But "You look nice," is all he says, and she tries not to let her disappointment show.
"Thanks." She presses her lips together and watches him resume his movements as if nothing had happened.
"Have fun at the dance," he intones, flicking through a drawer of DVDs without looking up, and suddenly she's irritated and out-of-sorts.
"I will," she returns curtly, and she shuts the front door with slightly more force than necessary.
She doesn't, though. Try as she might, she just can't enjoy herself. She feels nostalgic for the Greendale Seven days and more than a little disgruntled over the Abed situation. Not even the Dean's spectacular goddess-of-flowers costume can cheer her up. There are couples everywhere, and even though she's asked to dance a few times, all she feels is lonely.
Around eleven she makes her apologetic goodbyes to her friends. They try to convince her to stay and offer to introduce her to their eligible acquaintances, but she brushes off their protests with a forced smile and the insistence that she's just tired and wants to get home to sleep.
With a sigh, she makes for the door. She pulls her phone out of her purse and stares at it, considering her options. She really doesn't want to go home and deal with Abed tonight. It's too late to call Shirley; she'll wake up the kids. Maybe she could crash with Britta and Troy? She could always make earplugs out of tissues...
Distracted, she doesn't look up until she's two feet from the door. And she immediately stops short, because there's Abed, slightly out of breath and looking straight at her.
"I've been doing a lot of thinking," he says, taking a few purposeful steps towards her. "And the thing is, I love you."
The phrase "taken aback" doesn't even begin to describe how she feels at the sound of those words.
"What?" she manages to squeak, and she's pretty sure her eyes are as wide as saucers.
"I love you," he repeats frankly, earnestly, and disbelief and warmth and hope begin expanding in her chest like a bubble. He loves her? He loves her!
But her jubilation is cut off by a niggling feeling of déjà vu, a sensation that she's encountered this situation before. And when she figures out why, the bubble bursts and her deer-in-the-headlights expression morphs into something a lot more dangerous.
"Abed," she says quietly through clenched teeth. "Are you trying to When Harry Met Sally me?"
He doesn't say anything, just keeps looking at her with a beseeching face that she realises is way too expressive to be him just being him, and she snaps.
"Abed! No! You can't show up here and tell me you love me just because you want to re-enact a scene from some movie! I'm not an actor in one of your films, okay? I'm - I'm your friend, and I have feelings, and you can't do this to me."
Her voice is rising in pitch and her hands are shaking. She turns aside so he can't see her face because she's already revealed too much, and if she looks into his eyes, she knows she's going to burst into tears. Trying to keep her voice steady, she says, "Find some other girl to do your homages with," and pushes past him.
"Annie, wait." He catches her hand and tugs her back, but she pulls away from his grasp and refuses to look at him.
"Annie," he tries again, and this time his fingers stroke softly down her cheek to her chin.
She never could resist a man touching her face, so she turns her head with the gentle coaxing of his hand, all the while cursing herself for giving in and cursing him for knowing her weakness. To her astonishment, there's a hint of anxiety and apprehension in his eyes that she's never seen there before, and her own well up before she can stop herself.
"I'm not good at this kind of thing," he states plainly, hand falling back down to his side, and though his voice is back to his usual monotone, his eyes give away his sincerity. "I still find it hard to express myself without using TV or movies. I thought When Harry Met Sally was the best fit for our situation."
"What are you talking about?" she asks shakily, blinking rapidly to get rid of her unshed tears.
"Two good friends whose relationship evolves from platonic to romantic." He tilts his head. "Only I don't want our resolution to take twelve years and an awkward sexual encounter."
She feels her chest constrict and she stares at him. "You think we've... evolved?"
Abed simply nods and waits, studying her face intensely.
Annie closes her eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath. When she opens her eyes, he's still there, looking awkward and lost and like he really doesn't know what to do next. And despite her frustration with how he's chosen to do it, she understands that he really is trying to express his feelings. He really does feel the same way about her as she does about him.
She doesn't know how hard it's been for him to take this step, but she can guess, and it melts her heart. So, with growing confidence, she meets him halfway.
"How do you expect me to respond to this?" she asks, quoting directly from the movie but with a much softer tone.
He recognises the reference immediately and gives her a look of such subtle adoration that it takes all her willpower not to break the 'scene' and just kiss him right then and there.
She expects him to revert back to Harry-Abed, but to her surprise, he doesn't return to character.
"How about, you love me too," he suggests, delivering his borrowed line with an uncertainty and vulnerability that's clearly all Abed.
Annie's face breaks into a grin so wide that it almost hurts, but she doesn't care.
"Okay," she improvises, because she can't wait any longer, and the smile spreading across his face confirms that he doesn't mind this departure from the script. "Yeah. I do."
They both step forward at the same time, and even though it's been years since she's felt his lips against hers, his kiss feels familiar and exhilarating and so perfect that she can't believe it's taken them so long to get here.
They break apart for air, and Abed tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. She’s breathless and dizzy and she thinks her knees might buckle if it wasn’t for his arm tight around her waist, anchoring her and holding her steady.
"End scene?" he asks with a hint of humour and one eyebrow raised.
"No way," she answers, tugging him back down. "This is the best bit."
He kisses her again, long and deep and passionate, and even with all those years of build-up, there's nothing anti-climactic about it.
Fin
Author: arliddian
Rating: PG
Fandom: Community
Characters/Pairing: Abed/Annie
Summary: What does it take for a friendship to evolve into something more?
Word Count: 7147
Author's Note: Spans season 1 to beyond season 4.
Warnings: Includes some spoilery speculation for 4x08 (Herstory of Dance) that will no doubt prove to be entirely non-canon when the episode actually airs.
Disclaimer: Don't own it; don't sue me.
Annie shifts slightly on Abed's couch as he loads Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark into his DVD player. He had invited her and Troy over for an Indiana Jones marathon shortly after she gave him the DVDs, but it's fifteen minutes after they were supposed to start watching and Troy still hasn't arrived yet. As much as she appreciates Abed's invitation, she's mostly looking forward to the opportunity to spend a bit more time with Troy.
Just as she's resigning herself to an awkward evening alone with Abed, the object of her affections rushes into the dorm room, and Annie feels her face light up and her back straighten at the sight of him.
"Abed! I gotta take a rain check on Indy," Troy says, out of breath, and Annie feels her excitement fade. He glances at her, and flashes a smile that makes her heart skip a beat. "Oh, hey, Annie."
"Hi, Tr-"
"I totally forgot that my dad wanted me to pick his girlfriend up from the airport," Troy continues, his attention immediately turning back to Abed, who is now standing by the DVD player. "And then he wants us to have a family dinner or something."
"Oh. That's okay," Abed responds, emotionless as usual.
"We still on for Star Wars next week?"
"Yep."
"Sweet."
Annie watches as the two boys reach out and clap hands together while simultaneously patting their own chests. Troy rushes out again with a "See you guys later!" and Annie tries not to feel too disappointed as he leaves.
"You guys have a secret handshake?" she asks curiously as Abed settles on the other end of the couch.
"It's not really 'secret', but yeah," he answers with a shrug, picking up the remote.
"I think it's nice." She gives him a small smile. "I've never had a friend I could do something like that with," she adds quietly, looking down at her hands in her lap.
Abed looks over at her. "Me neither." They're both silent for a moment. He cocks his head to one side and studies her. After a beat, he offers, "We could make one up too, if you want."
Startled, Annie blinks at him, but she's not quite able to keep the excitement out of her eyes. "Really?"
"Sure," he says. "We're friends."
She thinks of the twenty-six hours he spent in a room for her, and the smile one his face when she gave him the DVDs they are now about to watch. Her heart warms and she smiles broadly at him. "I'd like that."
"Cool." Abed turns his attention back to the TV and selects 'play' on the DVD menu. "We can work on it after Indy."
Annie relaxes back into the couch a little more as the movie begins. We're friends, she thinks, still smiling. Suddenly, spending the evening alone with Abed doesn't seem so weird any more.
* * * * * * *
When Annie was in high school, the inside of her locker was plastered with motivational quotes written on pretty paper, her timetable, a pen holder, her goal list, and later, one picture of her boyfriend. She spent all her time studying, so there were no ticket stubs or posters or souvenirs to hang up. She didn't have friends, so she didn't have photographs or notes to remind her of all the good times they'd shared.
After a few months at Greendale, Annie goes to her locker and takes down all her motivational quotes. She moves her timetable to a pocket in her planner, and throws her goal list away and writes it in the back of her journal instead. And then, over the course of two years, she fills her locker with photos. All of them are full of smiles and laughter, reminding her of good times and the fact that now she has people to share those good times with.
There's one of the whole study group from the Día de los Muertos party from first year. One of her and Shirley, a nice one taken (surprisingly) by Britta. Another one of the whole group together. One of her, Jeff, Britta and Troy.
And Abed. There are a couple of photos of just her and Abed together. If anyone asks (even though nobody will), she can say that it's because she picks out pictures where everyone looks their nicest, or because nobody else ever wants to get in front of the camera with her.
But really, she has a lot of pictures of them together because she thinks that maybe Abed is her best friend.
It's not how she planned things to happen. The first few weeks in the study group, she'd hoped that Britta would become her best friend, or maybe even Shirley. But Shirley's niceness could be suffocating sometimes, and Britta was... Britta.
But Abed - Abed listens without judgment and gives logical, practical advice when she needs it. He accepts her as she is and doesn't try to change her. They don't always understand each other, and God knows that sometimes his stubbornness and childish habits get on her nerves. But they both know what it's like to have people walk out on them. They both know what it's like to be an outsider. And while he might not be great at understanding social cues or emotions, he tries hard to connect.
He invites her to join in with his games sometimes and lets her experience the fun that she missed out on when she was too busy trying to grow up and be the best. There's not enough immaturity in your life, he'd said to her once. He might have been Han Solo at the time, but it's still true. Abed brings out the fun, happy, youthful side of her that she spent years repressing. He's good for her.
She has no illusions about their relationship. She knows that in the best friend pyramid, she'll always be second tier to Troy. But she's happy all the same. When she started at Greendale, she never thought that she would become part of a group of misfits that would grow into such a close-knit family. She wasn't sure she'd have friends, let alone someone she might call a best friend.
She finishes pulling out her books for her next class, balancing them in her arms as she looks at her locker. She lingers for a moment, her gaze flickering from picture to picture, finally resting on the latest addition: a picture of her and Abed from last year when they'd started spinning each other around during the Spring Fling Picnic. They're about to take off, gripping each other's arms, knees bumping together.
Remembering that moment - the dizziness, the laughter, her hair flying out behind her, and Abed's firm grasp keeping her steady - Annie can't help smiling.
The smile stays with her long after she shuts her locker door and hurries off to class.
* * * * * * *
When Troy leaves for the Air Conditioning Repair Annexe, Abed doesn't cope well. He spends all his time watching TV with the occasional break for reading a comic book. He doesn't go into the Dreamatorium; he doesn't leave the apartment; and Annie isn't sure if he even leaves his recliner to go to sleep in the blanket fort some nights.
Annie misses Troy too, but she pushes it down so she can be strong for Abed. She makes him buttered noodles every other night, gently nags him to make sure he has breakfast in the morning, and when summer classes begin, she studies at the kitchen table instead of in her room so she can be close by and let him know by her presence that she's there for him.
As the summer wears on, she can tell that he's getting worse. It scares her. She's so used to Abed being self-possessed and in control that seeing him this vulnerable and anxious makes her want to cry every time she comes home and finds him sitting in exactly the same position as when she left, or pacing back and forth and muttering under his breath. She doesn't know how to help him except by trying to reassure him that he's not alone, that she's not going anywhere, that she's his friend and she cares about him.
So every night at nine-thirty, she closes her books and joins him in front of the TV, perching on the arm of his chair. She watches with him in silence for an hour, then kisses him on the cheek and goes to bed. At first, he accepts her presence without reacting. And then, slowly, night by night, he begins to respond: letting his fingers curl around hers when she takes his hand; making the occasional comment about whatever show they're watching; saying "Goodnight" to her with a tiny, brief smile when she retires for the evening.
One night, Annie comes out of the bathroom and stops short when she hears the familiar monologue from the opening of Love Actually. It's one of her favourite movies, but she stopped watching it with the boys because she didn't like how they pointed out all of the clichés.
"Love Actually?" she asks tentatively, hovering just behind Abed’s recliner.
"Yep," he replies without turning around. She's surprised when he pats the armrest and glances back at her.
"Come watch," he says.
His tone is neutral and he immediately faces the TV again, but it's the first time he's actually invited her to join him since Troy left, and she finds her eyes filling with tears.
"Okay." She immediately sits next to him without looking back at her textbooks. If Abed wants her, study can wait.
They watch in silence, as usual, but it feels a little different this time - like he's being quiet because he knows she doesn't like him over-analysing the film, not just because he doesn't want to interact with anyone. And when Annie "awwww"s and nudges Abed's shoulder happily when Colin Firth's character proposes to Aurelia, he nudges back ever-so-slightly.
The credits roll, and Annie stretches.
"Thanks, Abed," she says softly, touching his arm. "This was nice."
She leans down as usual, but Abed turns his head at the last moment, and her lips find his mouth instead of his cheek.
It's only a slight peck, but Annie jerks back immediately, flushing bright red, and she begins stammering apologies, hastening to get off the chair and retreat to her room.
But Abed's hand wraps around her wrist and keeps her in place. Puzzled, she pauses, staring at him with wide eyes, her heart pounding with embarrassment and confusion.
He looks back at her with that inscrutable gaze. And then he leans forward and presses his lips to hers in a slow, chaste kiss.
Annie's eyes drift close. His lips are soft and his kiss is incredibly light and gentle, and it drags up long-buried memories of Don Draper and orange paint...
But it only lasts for a second, and when he pulls back, she sees her own startled expression mirrored in his eyes.
She blinks rapidly, trying to calm her racing pulse. "A-Abed?"
He withdraws from her and looks away, shaking his head. "Sorry," he says in his usual monotone, though it's clear from the way he fumbles for the remote that he's unnerved. He gets up abruptly and switches off the TV.
"Goodnight, Annie," is all he says, not quite meeting her eyes.
He disappears into the blanket fort, leaving her sitting on the armrest of his recliner, bewildered and wondering what the hell just happened.
Neither of them mentions it the next day. And later, when Annie overhears him on the phone telling Britta that he's ready for therapy, she tries not to read anything into it.
We're friends, she reminds herself firmly. We're friends, and Abed was just feeling vulnerable and lonely last night, and that's all there is to it. We're friends.
The thought is less comforting than it should be, but she doesn't allow herself to ponder the significance of that fact.
* * * * * * *
In their fourth year at Greendale, Abed starts getting a lot of attention from a cute, quirky girl named Kat. And he also starts hanging out with a girl named Jessica.
Annie knows she should be excited for Abed, like everyone else (it's sort of like the Jenny thing all over again, except this time they know to let Abed do his own thing). This is good for him, and he's been feeling a little lonely now that a lot of Troy's time is being taken up by Britta. And, really, Annie has no reason to feel threatened or jealous or whatever because A) she's not romantically interested in Abed; B) she and Jeff have their own little unspoken almost-sort-of thing going on (okay, so she knows she's not in love with him and he's not in love with her - but there's nothing wrong with a bit of harmless flirting, right?); and C) she's still Abed's third-favourite show and probably his second-best friend.
But that doesn't stop her from feeling very miffed when Abed's newfound popularity interferes with her own plans with him.
"You're going out?" she asks, following Abed across the living room. She can feel herself pouting before she can stop herself. "But... we were gonna watch Cougar Town tonight."
"Yeah," Abed acknowledges, pulling a few DVDs out of the cabinet. "But Jessica's never seen Indiana Jones.. Or Star Wars. Or The Breakfast Club. Or The Karate Kid. She's been pretty sheltered. She needs educating."
"Oh. Well, if Jessica needs educating," Annie snarks, crossing her arms and trying not to feel irritated that he's picked half the films that she likes to watch with the boys on movie nights.
"Yep," Abed says blandly, the sarcasm obviously going straight over his head. Annie rolls her eyes, but quickly smooths her face into a neutral expression when he turns around to face her.
"You're only up to the second season," he points out, shoving the DVDs into his messenger bag. "We've got the DVD. We can watch the episode together tomorrow."
"I guess so."
She realises that she's still pouting a little when Abed tilts his head and stares at her with a slightly furrowed brow.
"Are you okay?" he asks. She hurriedly flashes a smile.
"I'm fine." Does her voice sound too cheerful? Probably, but thankfully Abed isn't great at reading that kind of thing. "You go have fun with Jessica."
He shrugs, clearly unperturbed. "Okay. See you later."
Annie waits until the door has shut behind him before she lets her face fall. She plops down on Troy's recliner and turns the TV on. Cougar Town is just starting.
She tries to enjoy it, but she gives up after five minutes and switches the TV off. It's just not the same without Abed watching her watch the show, eating popcorn and smiling every time she laughs at a joke or gasps at a plot development.
The apartment is quiet without the boys, and while normally she would enjoy the opportunity to get some cleaning or studying done, tonight she just feels lonely.
She considers texting Jeff to see if he wants to hang out, or calling Shirley to ask if she needs some help with the kids tonight. But what she actually wants to do is watch Cougar Town with Abed. Only he decided to forego his second-favourite and his third-favourite shows to watch movies with some girl he's only known for a couple of weeks.
She ends up cleaning the apartment, alternating between sulking and berating herself for sulking the whole time.
You are not in a rom-com, she scolds herself as she scrubs the bathroom sink. Abed is your friend and it's nice that he's found a girl he likes who likes him back. Stop acting like a jealous idiot.
But he's only known this girl for, what, two minutes? And he's been friends with me for four years, she grumbles as she wipes down the kitchen counter.
Her mind keeps chasing itself in circles, and when she finishes cleaning every nook and cranny of the apartment she winds up watching season twelve of Inspector Spacetime until Abed comes home in the early hours of the morning.
"Hey Annie," he greets her nonchalantly as he places his bag on the dining table.
"Oh, hey Abed," she replies, pausing the DVD and trying to sound completely casual, like she's forgotten that he went out and not like she's spent the evening obsessing over that fact. "Have fun?"
"Yep." His tone of voice and his face give nothing away, and Annie has to tamp down the sudden irritation she feels.
"Good," she deadpans, turning back to the screen.
He points a finger at the TV. "You're watching Inspector Spacetime," he observes, cocking his head.
"Oh. Yeah." She tries to match his blank expression. "I just thought I'd try to catch up a bit."
"But you never watch Inspector Spacetime without me and Troy," he remarks, looking slightly confused.
"Yeah, well, you were both busy tonight," she returns with just the slightest bite in her tone.
"Okay." He gazes at her for a while, just long enough for her to feel uncomfortable and shift in her seat. She knows she’s not being fair, and that Abed finds it hard to grasp subtle emotional nuances, and she starts to feel guilty for taking out her personal... whatever on him.
"It's pretty late," she says finally, glancing at the clock. "We should go to sleep."
"Okay," he agrees. "'Night, Annie."
"'Night."
She gets up and makes for her room, more than ready to be done with this thoroughly confusing day.
"Annie?"
She turns. "Yeah?"
"We'll watch Cougar Town tomorrow," he offers, and she thinks she detects a conciliatory note in his voice and a bit of softness in his normally unreadable eyes.
After a brief pause, she nods. "Okay." And for the first time tonight, the small smile she gives him is genuine.
* * * * * * *
Despite her newfound love for forensics (she has Abed to thank for that), Annie doesn't end up changing her major because she doesn't want to be the only one in the study group left behind while everyone else finishes up at Greendale and moves on. So she follows the original plan and graduates as a hospital administration major, and when the job offers don't exactly come rolling in, she takes a position in a small hospital two states away, because what else is there? Besides, isn't this what she always wanted? A chance to prove her strength and maturity? Moving away from her friends and her hometown is the perfect way to do that, right?
She and Jeff tie up their loose ends and decide they're better off as friends, especially since both of them are moving away for this-is-my-only-prospect jobs. She gets a little tipsy and extremely maudlin at the farewell party the boys throw her at the apartment, and packs her bags. They all come to see her off at the airport, and after six tearful goodbyes, she starts her new life.
Four months pass and her days become routine: wake up, shower, eat, work, come home, eat, watch TV, sleep. Her colleagues are nice, but her job is tiring and stressful and dull, and she spends a lot of her evenings watching crime shows with the vague, knotted feeling in her stomach of having missed an opportunity.
After a particularly trying day at work, she comes home, places her keys on the hook and her handbag on the hall table, and pauses for a moment. The small apartment still feels too new, too empty, and far too quiet. Even after four months, it doesn't feel like home. There's no Troy humming Daybreak in the kitchen, no Britta dropping by and burning dinner, no Abed asking her to sit down and watch Cougar Town or Inspector Spacetime with him. It's lonely out here on her own, and she's starting to think that she shouldn't have been in such a rush to prove that she's a grown-up.
She checks her watch. 6:48. It's almost time.
She sits down at the kitchen table with her Chinese take-out and her laptop and opens up Gmail and Twitter, but she's really just watching the clock in the corner, waiting for those numbers to tick over. She rolls her shoulders back and forth, trying to relieve some of the tension that has built up through the stress of the day.
She smiles and rolls her eyes at Jeff's Twitter updates about the latest Banana Republic collection, and types up a quick "aww, so cute!" reply to Shirley's update about her kids. Pierce has sent her a surprisingly sweet email asking how she's going (though the last part of the message is just a rant about a barista at the new coffee house he's been frequenting, and he still hasn't figured out how to use emoticons properly), so she marks it as 'unread' to remind herself to reply when she has more time.
They've all drifted apart a little since graduation, despite their best efforts, even though she and Jeff are the only ones who actually moved out of Greendale. That's how life goes: new jobs, new priorities, new opportunities. Annie makes sure to keep in touch with everyone, but as they each become busier living their post-Greendale Community College lives, it's getting harder to keep things going and stay as close as they used to be.
She's just opened Facebook to a flood of notifications (both Troy and Britta like posting links to pictures of cats) when the clock changes to 7:00, signalling the familiar tones of an incoming Skype call.
Annie answers immediately and turns on the webcam, and she feels her whole body relax as Abed fills the screen. He Skypes her twice a week: with Troy (and sometimes Britta) on Saturday mornings, and just by himself on Wednesdays, when Troy's out coaching at the high school. He's the only one out of the group who calls her consistently, and his calls are always the high point of her week.
"Hey Annie," he greets her with a little wave.
"Hi Abed," she replies, waving back. Her face eases into a grin, an expression she can't seem to control whenever he calls her. She peers at the screen: the image is shaky, and his face drops in and out of frame. "Where are you?"
"I'm at home," he answers easily. "I was in the kitchen but I'm moving to my room. It's easier to talk to you in here."
The image steadies and he comes back into focus, now in what used to be Annie's bedroom.
"There you are," Annie smiles. "So. What's new?"
They talk about anything and everything: her day at work, her frustrations with her job, Abed's latest project for film school, the latest goings-on in the lives of the rest of the Greendale Seven. They discuss the recent developments on Inspector Spacetime, even though they watched the episode on the phone together when it aired last Friday. They ponder the status of Troy and Britta's relationship, which has gone from steady to uncertain to steady again in the course of the five months since they all left Greendale. He reads her the new scene he and Troy have written for their screenplay and she has to get up and grab the tissue box to wipe away her tears of laughter.
Before she knows it, it's nine o'clock, and Abed's checking his watch.
"You'd better go. You need the sleep," he says, and as flat and unemotional as he sounds, it warms her heart because she knows he's being empathetic.
He's gotten quite good at it, actually - he knows she's been feeling lonely, so he makes sure he never misses a call, and he sends her witty text messages every so often just to make her smile. Over the past few months - maybe even the past couple of years - he's become her most dependable source of comfort and laughter and fun. She misses him more than she ever thought possible, and she's hit by a sudden wave of melancholy at the thought of hanging up and not seeing his face for another three days.
"You're probably right," she says reluctantly, mousing over the red 'hang up' button.
She pauses and opens her mouth to say goodnight. But instead, what comes out is "I miss you," soft and sincere.
Abed tilts his head, eyes narrowing thoughtfully, and suddenly she's scared that she's overstepped something, so she rushes to add, "I mean, I miss everybody..."
At this, his expression falls in a gesture so tiny that she doubts she would have noticed it if she were anyone else. But they've been friends for four and a half years, roommates for two of those, and she's had plenty of time to study the nuances of his facial expressions during these bi-weekly Skype calls.
And there's something about his face that has her blurting out the whole truth anyway: "... but I miss you the most."
He raises his eyebrows and just looks at her for a second with a piercing, inscrutable gaze. She can feel her cheeks heating up and for the first time ever, she wishes they couldn't see each other during these calls.
Just as she's decided make a hasty retreat, he says, "You should come home for Christmas."
Taken aback, she blinks. "What?"
"You should come home for Christmas," he repeats decisively. "You can stay here with me and Troy. And you should stay for New Year's, too. It wouldn't be a good holiday without you."
His words go straight to her heart, and she beams at him, maybe a little more bashfully this time. "I'll have to check that I can get some extra time off. But I'd really like that."
His lips quirk upwards at the corners. "Me too."
There's a brief pause, just long and awkward enough to feel like they have just shared a moment, but Annie isn't totally sure what it means.
"So... I should get to bed. I'll see you and Troy on Saturday as usual?" she says just a little too brightly, hurrying to break the silence.
"Yep," he answers, popping the 'p'. "I'll call you on Friday for Inspector Spacetime."
"Okay. When Troy gets home, tell him I liked his line about the lasers."
"I will." He flashes another soft, small smile. "'Night, Annie."
"'Night, Abed."
As she closes Skype, she feels the familiar wash of loneliness that always comes over her whenever she finishes a call with him. With a sigh, she shuts her laptop and gets up from the table.
Her phone buzzes in her pocket. To her surprise, it's a text from Abed.
I miss you too, she reads, her stomach fluttering and a lump forming in her throat as she smiles at the brief message. Sleep well.
She opens her laptop again. Sleep can wait. Right now, she has flights to book.
* * * * * * *
It takes two days back in Greendale for Annie to realise three things.
The first is that she doesn't really want to be a hospital administrator any more. The second is that she really misses Greendale.
She confides these two realisations to Abed while they clean up after the Christmas party and Troy is looking after Britta who is throwing up Pierce's overly-spiked eggnog in the bathroom.
Abed tosses another plastic cup into the garbage bag and tells her, "Annie, it doesn't take a psychiatrist to see that if you used to be truly happy and now you're not, then you should go back to the way it was when you were happy."
His advice cuts straight to the point, and she's a little surprised by how incisive it is. She blinks and stares at him, his words setting in motion a rapid train of thought.
He glances up at her, and seems to interpret her silence as confusion. "Scrubs, season 4," he explains. "Heather Graham said it; she was guest-starring as a psychiatrist."
"Oh," Annie says, sitting down at the dining table. "Well, whoever said it, it's true. I'm not happy - living out there all by myself, working in a job I don't even like..."
Lost in thought, she watches Abed's long fingers sweep a pile of empty chip packets and candy cane wrappers off the tabletop into his garbage bag. She's always tried to make the best of her circumstances, but it's almost a relief to finally admit out loud that things aren't working out. And, as usual, Abed has picked the perfect pop culture reference to sum up her situation and get her thinking about her next step.
"Maybe I should think about moving back here and enrolling again, to do forensics," she muses out loud, and at this, Abed looks up quickly and stops examining the tiny liquor bottles that Jeff brought from his hotel room mini-bar (Troy had requested them for a miniatures shoot he and Abed were planning).
"You want to move back to Greendale?" he asks her, tilting his head and giving her that impenetrable gaze.
"Yeah. I think I do," she admits slowly. Suddenly feeling nervous for no conceivable reason, she tucks her hair behind her ear. "It... it just feels like home here."
"Cool," he says, and she's surprised by how pleased he sounds. "Cool, cool, cool."
The smile that curves his mouth is infectious, and as she relaxes into a grin, she feels a wash of some warm emotion she can't quite place.
After a beat, they both continue clearing up the remains of the party. And as they work in comfortable, companionable silence, she's struck by Realisation Number Three: she doesn't just want to come home to Greendale - she wants to come home to Abed.
It's huge and dumbfounding and comes to her like a bolt out of the blue, accompanied by a million questions. When had her feelings for her best friend gone from purely platonic to definitely-more-than-that? How did this happen? And most importantly, what the hell is she going to do now?
The silence is no longer comfortable on her part, and she finds herself getting distracted, sneaking glances at Abed as they manoeuvre around each other. She suddenly feels hyper-aware of his presence and proximity, and nearly jumps out of her skin when he reaches for an empty cup at the same time she does and their fingers brush together.
They finish up just as Troy emerges from the bathroom with a very pale Britta, who proves to be a welcome distraction. As soon as Annie has given her friend a glass of water and a couple of aspirin and sent her off with Troy to his room to sleep the rest off, she retreats to the blanket fort that the boys rebuilt for her visit.
"Goodnight, Annie," Abed calls after her.
"Goodnight," she calls back timidly, sounding pathetic to her own ears. She escapes quickly and prays that Abed didn't notice anything unusual about her behaviour.
Sleep doesn't come easily. She feels paralysed by the fear of doing or saying something that will ruin their closeness and spoil the rest of what is supposed to be a happy, relaxing holiday. Her mind races, trying to recall and analyse every interaction she has ever had with Abed, searching for obscure clues and hidden meanings. She tries to figure out how long she's felt this way, and worries that he might have figured it out already, since he's such an ultra-observant student of human character. And she tries and fails to stop herself from wondering if he might feel something more than friendship for her, too.
Eventually, she falls asleep thinking about three things: orange paint, I miss you too, and the look in his eyes when she called Greendale 'home'.
* * * * * * *
The following year, Troy moves in with Britta, and Annie moves back in with Abed and re-enrols in Greendale Community College.
It's not the same, because she's on campus by herself and she doesn't ever see the whole group together any more, what with Jeff still living and working in another state and everyone busy with their own jobs and families and lives. But she studies diligently, makes new friends in her forensics classes, and gets a bit of work experience through Professor Garrity's contacts in the police department. She stops by Shirley's Sandwiches once a week for lunch and a bit of gossip, accepts Pierce's occasional invitations out for coffee with his latest wife, has long Twitter conversations with Jeff, and joins the boys and Britta for the occasional movie night or weekend road trip. Her life is different now, but familiar, and for the most part, she likes it a lot.
The only problem is Abed.
She's accepted the fact that she's fallen in love with her best friend, but Abed is painfully oblivious for someone so observant, and he's still adjusting to living without Troy. After a couple of months of trying to drop a few subtle and not-so-subtle hints, Annie gives up and resigns herself to the familiar bitter-sweetness of unrequited feelings, contenting herself with harmless fantasies and being Abed's second-best friend.
But something changes after the classic 80s rom-com movie marathon they hold with the rest of the group for Annie's birthday. Abed starts acting strangely. She catches him staring at her thoughtfully at random moments during the day, but he doesn't seem to want to talk to her much anymore. He spends a lot of evenings watching chick flicks and romantic dramas, and when she catches him watching Clueless for the third time, he just says he's doing 'research' and ignores all her follow-up questions. He locks himself in his room for hours at a time, and sometimes she hears him muttering to himself in there, just quietly enough so she can't hear any individual words. But whenever she asks if he's okay, he deftly dodges her questions, and since he's still leaving the apartment and eating and sleeping normally, she eventually stops asking.
It feels like they're drifting apart, and no matter what she does, she can't seem to stop it. And it hurts, because romantic feelings aside, Abed is still her roommate and her best friend, and she would give anything to get that closeness back again.
She confides her relationship woes to a couple of friends from class during a girls' night out, and they shake their heads and pat her arm sympathetically and tell her that it's not worth worrying about, that there are other guys out there, that if Abed can't see how awesome she is then he's not worth it. And she smiles and nods and agrees with them, all the while thinking that they just don't know Abed like she does. They don't know how quirky and sweet and wonderful he is, and if anything, she's the one who isn't enough for him.
But their attention and sympathy is kind of flattering, so when they insist that she comes with them to the End-of-Spring Fling Dance to have fun and maybe meet a nice guy, she says "I've love to!" even though she would much rather curl up on the couch with her Mad Men box set.
The following Saturday night sees her putting on her favourite blue party dress and a pair of high heels, and taking an additional hour to carefully curl her hair and do her make-up perfectly. When Abed sees her come out of her room, he actually stops dead in his tracks on the way to the DVD cabinet.
"What do you think?" she asks in a slightly flirtatious tone, smoothing down her skirt.
She sees his gaze flick from her head to her toes and back up again, lingering a little at her neckline, and she can't help feeling kind of pleased with herself.
But "You look nice," is all he says, and she tries not to let her disappointment show.
"Thanks." She presses her lips together and watches him resume his movements as if nothing had happened.
"Have fun at the dance," he intones, flicking through a drawer of DVDs without looking up, and suddenly she's irritated and out-of-sorts.
"I will," she returns curtly, and she shuts the front door with slightly more force than necessary.
She doesn't, though. Try as she might, she just can't enjoy herself. She feels nostalgic for the Greendale Seven days and more than a little disgruntled over the Abed situation. Not even the Dean's spectacular goddess-of-flowers costume can cheer her up. There are couples everywhere, and even though she's asked to dance a few times, all she feels is lonely.
Around eleven she makes her apologetic goodbyes to her friends. They try to convince her to stay and offer to introduce her to their eligible acquaintances, but she brushes off their protests with a forced smile and the insistence that she's just tired and wants to get home to sleep.
With a sigh, she makes for the door. She pulls her phone out of her purse and stares at it, considering her options. She really doesn't want to go home and deal with Abed tonight. It's too late to call Shirley; she'll wake up the kids. Maybe she could crash with Britta and Troy? She could always make earplugs out of tissues...
Distracted, she doesn't look up until she's two feet from the door. And she immediately stops short, because there's Abed, slightly out of breath and looking straight at her.
"I've been doing a lot of thinking," he says, taking a few purposeful steps towards her. "And the thing is, I love you."
The phrase "taken aback" doesn't even begin to describe how she feels at the sound of those words.
"What?" she manages to squeak, and she's pretty sure her eyes are as wide as saucers.
"I love you," he repeats frankly, earnestly, and disbelief and warmth and hope begin expanding in her chest like a bubble. He loves her? He loves her!
But her jubilation is cut off by a niggling feeling of déjà vu, a sensation that she's encountered this situation before. And when she figures out why, the bubble bursts and her deer-in-the-headlights expression morphs into something a lot more dangerous.
"Abed," she says quietly through clenched teeth. "Are you trying to When Harry Met Sally me?"
He doesn't say anything, just keeps looking at her with a beseeching face that she realises is way too expressive to be him just being him, and she snaps.
"Abed! No! You can't show up here and tell me you love me just because you want to re-enact a scene from some movie! I'm not an actor in one of your films, okay? I'm - I'm your friend, and I have feelings, and you can't do this to me."
Her voice is rising in pitch and her hands are shaking. She turns aside so he can't see her face because she's already revealed too much, and if she looks into his eyes, she knows she's going to burst into tears. Trying to keep her voice steady, she says, "Find some other girl to do your homages with," and pushes past him.
"Annie, wait." He catches her hand and tugs her back, but she pulls away from his grasp and refuses to look at him.
"Annie," he tries again, and this time his fingers stroke softly down her cheek to her chin.
She never could resist a man touching her face, so she turns her head with the gentle coaxing of his hand, all the while cursing herself for giving in and cursing him for knowing her weakness. To her astonishment, there's a hint of anxiety and apprehension in his eyes that she's never seen there before, and her own well up before she can stop herself.
"I'm not good at this kind of thing," he states plainly, hand falling back down to his side, and though his voice is back to his usual monotone, his eyes give away his sincerity. "I still find it hard to express myself without using TV or movies. I thought When Harry Met Sally was the best fit for our situation."
"What are you talking about?" she asks shakily, blinking rapidly to get rid of her unshed tears.
"Two good friends whose relationship evolves from platonic to romantic." He tilts his head. "Only I don't want our resolution to take twelve years and an awkward sexual encounter."
She feels her chest constrict and she stares at him. "You think we've... evolved?"
Abed simply nods and waits, studying her face intensely.
Annie closes her eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath. When she opens her eyes, he's still there, looking awkward and lost and like he really doesn't know what to do next. And despite her frustration with how he's chosen to do it, she understands that he really is trying to express his feelings. He really does feel the same way about her as she does about him.
She doesn't know how hard it's been for him to take this step, but she can guess, and it melts her heart. So, with growing confidence, she meets him halfway.
"How do you expect me to respond to this?" she asks, quoting directly from the movie but with a much softer tone.
He recognises the reference immediately and gives her a look of such subtle adoration that it takes all her willpower not to break the 'scene' and just kiss him right then and there.
She expects him to revert back to Harry-Abed, but to her surprise, he doesn't return to character.
"How about, you love me too," he suggests, delivering his borrowed line with an uncertainty and vulnerability that's clearly all Abed.
Annie's face breaks into a grin so wide that it almost hurts, but she doesn't care.
"Okay," she improvises, because she can't wait any longer, and the smile spreading across his face confirms that he doesn't mind this departure from the script. "Yeah. I do."
They both step forward at the same time, and even though it's been years since she's felt his lips against hers, his kiss feels familiar and exhilarating and so perfect that she can't believe it's taken them so long to get here.
They break apart for air, and Abed tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. She’s breathless and dizzy and she thinks her knees might buckle if it wasn’t for his arm tight around her waist, anchoring her and holding her steady.
"End scene?" he asks with a hint of humour and one eyebrow raised.
"No way," she answers, tugging him back down. "This is the best bit."
He kisses her again, long and deep and passionate, and even with all those years of build-up, there's nothing anti-climactic about it.
Fin