Chapter Text
She’s crouching in the grass to take an artsy photo of some daisies and none of them are coming out right. The focus isn’t good, the light isn’t hitting the lens in the best way, her hand is getting cramped holding the phone at that angle, and all she can think about is stupid Jeff Winger and damn it, he’s messing everything up.
Because when she went to DC it was supposed to be her first preview into what her life could be. It was the first breath of true independence she had had in quite a while, since she moved into the tiny apartment above Dildopolis and pooled the rest of her savings to buy the beat-up car she used to love. Sure, living with her friends was great, and the group was great, and Greendale was… Well, it wasn’t great, not exactly, but it was okay. Interning at the FBI was an Important Thing in her life and it was nice to be doing something without the group, for once, and now he was ruining it, the stupid… Ruiner.
Anyway.
Checking the latest photo she’s snapped of the flower patch, she shakes her head. It’s still bad, still not quite enough, but it’ll do. She stumbles back up, massaging the aching backs of her knees and swiping at the dirt on her skirt. (Yes, she’s started wearing sundresses again, occasionally, because it’s warm in DC, sometimes, and no, she absolutely doesn’t care that a certain someone alluded to liking them, thank you very much.)
It’s been a long day (not quite) and she feels like heading home, even though she doesn’t really need to be back for another few hours, but the quiet idleness of the nature park she made her way into is kind of suffocating, and she would much rather be at home, or on the busy train, or literally anywhere else right now.
So she drops her phone into her purse and does just that, because she is New Annie Edison and she doesn’t have to think twice about her decisions anymore.
Except the loneliness of the train ride home just gives her even more time to think about everything that has happened and everything that is about to happen, and she knows that tonight they are going to have a Serious Talk and maybe she’ll gain the confidence to tell him exactly what she thinks of him, once and for all.
(Because when she asked him to kiss her goodbye, she thought maybe that she was over it. It was wrong and stupid, but in her mind she felt like she was doing him a sort of favour, like he was more invested in it all than she was, but this time spent away from him has just sort of served to prove that the dumb feelings she has for him are probably never gonna go away. Some part of her still feels like the 19-year-old-with-a-crush.)
And then the walk home only serves as more food for nostalgia, for melancholic what-ifs and just-maybes.
(Like, what-if this is it, what-if he really does love his new - girlfriend - and everything that once was between them is just… Gone? What-if he did once care about her - not that he loved her, not that she could ever hope or expect him to - but she just wasn’t aware and he just wasn’t brave and now, now he’s properly moved on - not in the way she tried to, but really, actually moved on - and now he’s happier with someone else? What-if they truly did care about each other, as she thinks they might’ve, but it was just never at the same time, never when the timing was right - they just kept circling each other for years until he eventually gave up?
And yet, just-maybe, he really does like her after all. Just-maybe, the kiss back in the Study Room, at the end and beginning of everything, truly meant something to him - maybe not as much as it means to her, but still something. Or, just-maybe, he’ll tell her that it was always her, it was her all along, and everything else, the fling with Britta and flirting with other women at school and the relationship he’s found his way into, was just…
Well, just what? No one does those things for nothing, not even someone like Jeff Winger, he must have a reason, there must be—)
And the like.
She’s midway through a half-hearted fantasy about a dramatic profession of love over the landline when she realises she’s already reached her street, and is currently walking past the door to her building.
She quickly backtracks, hoping nobody saw her, fumbles with the code, and shuffles her feet into the cramped little hallway, shooting a glare at the door of the guy who always parks his bike next to the door (seriously, it’s driving her insane, she’s tripped over it one too many times already and she’s actually considering filing a complaint to the landlord) before heading up the gloomy spiral staircase, counting the floors until she can see her door.
Her key clicks in the stern lock until finally, she’s pushing the heavy door open and setting her purse down on the kitchen counter and wondering if she’ll have enough time to order Chinese.
She changes into pyjamas and in the end, the allure of Chinese is too much to resist (when is it not?) and that’s where 7pm finds her: curled in the armchair, a half-eaten carton of garlic noodles balanced atop 2 other cartons, sitting precariously at the edge of the coffee table.
The time crept up on her, she realises - and she leaps to her feet, ignoring the way her eyes momentarily go fuzzy (there is no time for sitting up slowly, damnit!)
Then she remembers the fact that Jeff isn't exactly known for his punctuality, and this thought relaxes her enough that she can justify using the time between now and the call to tidy up the area a little.
She scoops the empty cartons into her arms and tips them into the garbage, placing the half-empty one neatly into the fridge, and sits primly in the nearest bar stool, just like a relaxed person would.
Because she is a relaxed person.
Loosey-goosey.
Chill.
Except ‘relaxing’ gets boring after about 30 seconds, so she fusses with her hair for a minute or so, scraping it back into a tight ponytail before changing her mind and raking her fingers through it to get rid of the bump. She’s considering running to her bedroom to grab a headband or something when the phone trills, loud and piercing in the vacant apartment.
She freezes. Uh-oh.
The trilling stops. And starts again.
It’s now or never.
(Why again can’t it just be never—-?)
(Shut up.)
“Annie?” He asks as soon as she picks up the phone. No hello or how are you today or whats up? He is just. Right down to business.
“…” She tries.
“Are you-“
“I’m here.”
“Do you want to-“
“You first.” She licks her lips. “I think I need a minute.”
“Okay.” He sighs down the line, and it crackles next to her ear. “I’ve gotta say, you freaked me out a little with the whole we need to talk thing. Y’know, usually that doesn’t mean anything good.”
“Yeah.” She breathes in, but it’s too ragged, so she tries again. And again. And it gets better. “Jeff…”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know what to ask.” She admits, slumping over in the stool she preemptively placed in the hall before her food arrived.
“Just - say whatever you want. I have time.”
“Yeah.”
There’s a long silence.
Really, there’s so much she wants to ask him. But she doesn’t want him to ask questions, doesn’t want to have to explain to him why exactly his answers mean so much to her.
Maybe it’s best to start at the beginning.
“End of first year.” She states, because she can’t make herself say when we kissed or after the dance because those terms just aren’t adequate to explain what happened. “Did you really - Was it - Not…”
“Not?”
“Didn’t it affect you at all?” She blurts out, fisting her spare hand in the fabric of her shirt.
“It did.” He speaks slowly, like he’s choosing his words. “But, honestly, I think… I think less than you.”
“Okay.”
“You understand, though, why… ‘Cause we couldn’t have. Not then.”
“I know.” And she does, even though she might not always have.
“I was a jerk about it, though.”
“You were.” She huffs out a laugh, feeling a little breathless even though she’s barely moved since picking up the phone. “A huge jerk.”
“I wouldn’t say that…”
“Uh huh?”
“Well. I guess.”
“Yep.” At least now, with the teasing, she can feel more at ease. “Um.”
“What is it?”
“I also wanted to know… Why it took me leaving for the Summer for you to actually, y’know. Talk to me.”
“Oh.”
“I just.”
“I don’t know. I’m like that - I didn’t think you’d be leaving so soon. I thought - I would’ve said something eventually. I think.”
“But we’ve known each other for six years-“
“I know.” He sighs, muffled as if he’s running a hand over his face, and Annie tamps down any sympathy she has for him. This is important.
“And, um.” She gulps, and refuses to worry if he heard it over the phone. “Why - I mean, who - ugh.”
“Everything okay?”
“Uh-huh. Just peachy.” She bites back. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“What’s been going on with you?”
“What do you mean?” He sounds slightly wounded by her blurted-out question.
“First you’re all, the heart wants what it wants, then as soon as I leave we’re back to, what? Completely platonic friends? And then you say you’ve got a - a girlfriend, or whatever - and you expect me to be just fine with that?”
“Annie-“
“I don’t get you, Jeff.” The words come out in a whisper, and she lets her head bump back against the wall, beat.
“Why now?” He asks, cautiously, as if he’s afraid. (Good, she thinks. It’s nice that he’s the one walking on eggshells, for once.) “I mean, why are you calling now? If it’s been bothering you for so long?”
She sighs. Maybe if she were in the right mind, she wouldn’t talk to him as candidly as this, but right now she’s drunk on indignation and honestly, she deserves answers. Jeff Winger is a massive jerk.
“I spoke to Britta yesterday. We were talking about you, and she said - well, she she said something that made me think.”
“And?”
“Is this whole thing, the radio silence and generic texts and emphasis on all-things-platonic, just some weird way of… Of distancing yourself? From me?”
“Annie.” He sighs. “I’m leaving you to get on with your life. Frankie’s right, we were way too codependent, and it’s probably a good thing you and Abed and Troy left to pursue the world, and experience something other than Greendale. This was me, letting you go.”
“But what if I don’t want you to?” Her eyes burn, and she swipes at them as a precaution. (Come on, pull it together.) “We didn’t… In the Study Room. There was no time, and I want, I want…” She breaks off gasping, not even caring whether he can hear or not. Not anymore, not when setting things like this straight is the only thing that’s on her mind.
“Don’t-“
“No, no. We need to talk.” She’s shaking her head, even though she knows he can’t see her. “What did you mean when you said… that?”
“What did I mean?”
“You said you let me go. What were you trying to say?”
“That I was gonna… Leave you alone. Let you get on with your life, stop holding you to Greendale like an anchor. I needed to - sever the ties.” He waits a beat. “Sorry. That sounded worse than it did in my head.”
“It’s okay.” She responds automatically, and has to remind herself of the task at hand. “You didn’t anchor me to Greendale.”
“Maybe. But I felt like I did.”
She hums in the back of her throat. “Okay. Well, I thought you meant something different. And that was confusing.”
“What did you think I meant?”
Is this really happening?
“I thought - I don’t know. It might sound kind of weird, now, but. I thought maybe you…” She mouths the words loved, liked, cared for - they all feel wrong. Too soon. Or maybe too late. “…Had feelings for me.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long time.
“You’re not wrong.” He finally admits, slowly.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Um-“ She doesn’t know what to think. How could he just—? Not even telling her when she was leaving halfway across the country? Did he just assume she would understand? Stupid Jeff stupid stupid stupid stupid-
“Since when?” Her voice is all high and pitchy. Not good.
“I don’t remember.”
“Jeff.”
“I don’t.” He pauses. “I mean-“
“This is meant to be honest.” She reminds him. “And withholding information isn’t honesty, Jeff.”
“I know that, I do. But I really can’t think of an exact time it started. I - The first time I became aware of it, though…”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember Borchert’s Lab? End of fifth year?”
“Please don’t pit Britta against me.”
“No, no, I’m not - That’s not what I’m trying to do. Just. Listen, please? Please.”
“I’m listening.”
“You know how, with the computer - I mean.” He starts again. “It needed a blast of human passion.”
She remembers gagging and rolling her eyes at Jeff and Britta, she remembers panicking at the thought of having to survive for an extended period of time, down there, with them. The two of them. Together.
Gross.
“Yeah, sure.”
He seems put off by her flippancy. Good.
“I made you all turn around, ‘cause I thought it’d be weird, y’know?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I- Sorry, this is weird. Sorry, sorry. Trying again.” He clears his throat.
Her fingers curl around the spare fabric of her pyjama bottoms, pulling until the material is cinched around her thigh.
“Um. So. I stared at each of you, and I thought…about each of you… And nothing happened. Until I saw you.”
…
…?
…??????????
“Oh.”
“Yeah, uh.” He laughs, but it sounds like someone is holding a gun to his head.
“You…?”
“Uh-huh.”
“From thinking about…?”
“Yep.”
“Huh.” Her hand stills.
There’s a long pause and she tries to think, but all she can hear in her own head is his words.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think you’d want - I mean, I didn’t think you’d feel the same way.”
“Right.” She chews her bottom lip, stopping in surprise only when it hurts.
“I…”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“No, tell me.”
He sighs. It sounds raggedy over the weak line. “I stopped seeing Grace today.” He chooses his words carefully, like he’s afraid of how she’s going to react.
“What?”
“Yeah.”
“Stopped seeing her?” Her hand gravitates back to the material hanging off her leg. “You mean, you broke up with her.”
“I guess.”
“Because you were dating. Don’t pretend it wasn’t - anything.”
“Yes, sir.”
She waits before talking again, staring at the wall for what might be a full minute. She feels the same as she did a decade ago, when she sat at her expensive mahogany desk in her empty home and reread pages of textbooks until she was so tired the words melted together.
It’s different now, of course.
“Did you do that because you're still- Uh.” Still what????? “Did you do that because… Because, I’m still your blast of human passion?”
He’s silent for a long time.
Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no ohnohohnoohnoohnoohono
“Well, partly.” He finally replies. “And partly because I thought - that - was why you were calling.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t know. I thought, maybe, you were calling because you wanted to… I guess, tell me. What you felt.” A beat passes. “Sorry, I’m being weird.”
“No, it’s okay.” It really is. Better. “I was kind of thinking that, too. It just.. Came out wrong.”
“I’ll say.” A pause. “Sooo… How do you feel?”
“About you?” Her throat gets tight, she swallows but it’s more like a gulp.
“Doy.”
It doesn’t lighten the mood.
“I don’t want to scare you away.” She breathes out, so quiet she can’t tell if he picked it up or not.
But he does. “You won’t. I’m sorry. You won’t.”
“O-kay, then. Um. It’s hard to explain. I, I, I always presumed,” is that the correct use of presumed or should it be assumed i’m too tired forthis i should have waited i should have “that maybe, you and I, we’d be. Together. In the end.”
“The end?”
“Sorry. Wrong wording. I meant, eventually.”
“Is this, now, eventually?”
“I suppose so.”
“And we’re not together.”
“No.”
“Would you still like to be?”
Her breath catches. Go with the flow. “Yes.” Can’tgowiththeflowcan’tbeloosey-gooseyuhoh. “But, you don’t, do you? And anyway, you’re there and I’m here, and you just broke up with your girlfriend and you clearly want to be left alone and you might just keep thinking you’re holding me back or whatever and-“
"I want that, too.”
“I thought you wanted to be able to fall asleep on a beach and not regret it the next day.”
“That’s not as important.”
Um.
“Anyway,” he continues. “I thought you wanted to be able to have so much behind you that you’re no longer a slave to what’s in front of you?”
She feels the beginnings of a smile form on her face. “Impressive memory.”
“I learn from the best.”
“I think… We can have what we want and still want each other. I don’t think the two things should be mutually exclusive.”
“I want you more than sleeping on the beach.”
“You… Should come here.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She licks her lips; they still taste vaguely of bubblegum. “I want to see you when we talk.”
“Soon.”
“Soon.” She agrees. “But don’t think we’re not having a serious talk about spontaneously dumping your girlfriend. That wasn’t cool, Jeff.”
“Okay, okay.”
“And we are going to talk about this.” She warns. “Before anything else happens.”
“Got it.”
She doesn’t bother fighting the grin stretching across her face. “Get on over here, quick, then. Hurry.”
“I will, don’t worry.” He’s smiling too. She can hear it. “And, Annie? It’s getting late in DC. Go to sleep.”
“Fine, then. I’ll just hang up on you.”
“One more thing, though.” He adds, quickly. “Before you go.”
She wonders if maybe he’ll say the words she’s been daydreaming of hearing from him since second year.
“I miss you.”
It’s progress.
“See you soon, Jeff.”
And she does.