Chapter Text
It's been ten years since Annie and Abed left Greendale and never looked back and even if he thought his life would be even more miserable without them, he is really thriving. When they left he was a 37 years old professor in a toilet shaped community college, drowning in alchool and desperation.
Now he is a 47 years old attorney at law, on his way to become partner to Mark, his old colleague, way better than Alan. He is still quite handsome, even if his hair are getting more grey and his abs are not there anymore, but he still looks very good with a suit on.
After Annie got a position in the FBI and decided to finish there her major in forensics he stopped having a reason to go to work every day and after a 48 hours long hangover he came to the realization that he wasn't cut for teaching. He could have never enjoyed that job and doing that job was making him more miserable than he should have been.
So he cleaned himself up, cut a lot the drinking during daylight and week days and most importantly he swallowed his pride.
He started asking around in any good lawyer practice in Greendale-Denver-Boulder area, every position, he didn't care about how many people would have been on top of him, he just wanted to be back in the game and to be truly useful, to use that tongue the Nature gave him for good. Many rejected him, Alan made sure to spread mean things about him, too humiliated by their last encounter. In the end Mark, the only true friend he had in his past life came to the rescue and offered him a job. Not the corner office he offered him out of college, a humbler one, but he made sure to work hard and deserve every promotion. He has just moved in the corner office and life has never been better for him.
He fondly remembers his old study group, but life happened and slowly they started to drift apart even more. Britta stayed in Greendale, she is a child therapist, she has a nice studio, full of toys, she became the person she wished she could look up for when she was little. Her old guerrilla marketing boyfriend Rick finally gave up on his career and affiliations to corporations and they eventually reunited and married. They are the proud adoptive parents of Daniel, a very funny kid.
Abed and Troy reunited in LA, Troy sold for a lot of money his shares of Hawthorne Toilets, sold Pierce's boat and Mansion and moved in with Abed in a magnified version of Apartment 303. Troy set up a Foundation to help elders in need all across the USA and with all the money he has left he produces Abed's movies, one of those even got into Sundance and he entered a bunch of "New Directors to Watch"'s lists.
Shirley came back to Greendale once her father passed away. After three years apart she got over Andre and she started dipping her feet in the dating pool and she hit the jackpot when she found on Tinder her old friend Gary, that boring, former and finnish Greendale student. Turns out he was not so boring and he was a great match for Shirley, a loving man who supports her business career with the relaunch of Shirley's Sandwiches and a great step dad to her kids. He wishes his numerous step dad were as cool as Gary.
And last but not least there's Annie. The woman he once loved and let go to let her live her dream. She met a man on her second year in DC, she married him after a year into the relationship (he was the only one to not attend, with the excuse of a big case in Texas), they have two children, Sebastian (isn'it ironic?) and Ruth, and she quit her cool job in the FBI to stay home with the kids. Last time they chatted on the group chat she mentioned being back to work, but in hospital administration, her first major. A major she hated with her whole heart. Maybe something changed.
He doesn't love her anymore. He cherishes their time together, but ten years apart without seeing each other more than once a year in the company of that hideous husband of hers are not the best ingredients for a love story. He has always been against her boyfriend and crushes, but only because he was jealous, he knew that both Rich and Vaughn were good guys. But this Peter she married has the same look that his father had and he is afraid that sooner or later he'll make his Annie suffer.
In the past ten years he has stopped loving her, but he never settled down. He moved from his bachelor's pad in Greendale to his new and way bigger bachelor's pad in Denver, near the office, with a big tv, a huge walk-in closet and a huge bathroom cabinet for all his fancy scrubs and skin care products. He has had his fair share of hook ups and flings, but never anything too serious.
To a stranger eye he still seems the douche he was before Greendale, but he isn't. He has changed.
He doesn't cheat and avoid doing his work, he works hard for his clients. His clients are not rich drunken people anymore, he truly helps people in need now. He is not selfish anymore, he even babysat Ben, who's almost a teenager by now, when Shifley and Gary wanted some alone time. He helped Britta become an adoptive parent, and he has been a great uncle figure to Daniel, who moved in with them five years ago, when he was already three.
He goes to a therapist. After years of feeling like a failure, of feeling broken like his parents' marriage, after years of abandonment issues thanks to his dad he is starting to get better.
He believes in himself more, he is confident enough not to cheat his way out of things, he stopped texting fake people and started looking his friends in the eyes, he had the guts to call his mother to tell her all the truth, to rebuild a relationship with her. She had him when she was just 20 years old, she has tried to defend him by his father's abusive words and behaviours with all her strength and she just tried her best, and he has to be grateful for that and have her back, especially now that she's getting older and she's almost 70.
His only regret is not having children of his own, he wanted to prove William Winger that they're nothing alike, that he could be an excellent father, but the only woman he has ever wanted to settled down with has two kids with another man.
So he found joy in his work, in his closest friends, in his occasional glass of scotch and in having occasional and great sex with random women every once in a while.
He sits in his corner office, with a smirk on his face thinking about how great and well adjusted his life is when a buzz from his phone interrupts his daydreaming. It's a text from Britta:
"Annie just called. Peter and her split up. That cheating bastard. She's coming back to Greendale for good with the kids. Thought u wanted to know".