Chapter Text
He didn’t realize he was angry. He didn’t do his best work when he’d lost his cool.
He’d left it behind at the end of last year and had not recovered it over the summer. It took two shots to the moneymaker to remind him what was important.
That was until he saw her, struggling to zip up her backpack at the end of class. He was reminded he wasn’t the only one who was physically wounded in the reentry to their second year.
“Does it hurt?” he asked, gesturing toward her hand.
She flexed her fingers, grimacing. “Nothing a purple belt can’t handle.”
Her hand was tinged blue, and a greenish yellow where it was starting to heal.
“So, you kept up with karate?” he started, hoping to keep it casual.
“I shouldn’t have hit you,” she conceded, even though he deserved it. “I overreacted.”
“Turns out I’m not so good at being discrete,” he admitted, seeking a cease fire.
Annie went for a direct hit. “We never … I never. It wasn’t, we aren’t … a mistake, Jeff.”
No one tarred and feathered him as he predicted. He’d done that all on his own, adding a near-death experience to the mix for fun.
“You’ve said it before, Annie. I am gross.”
“You’re not,” she insisted. “But the things you said these last few days ... I don’t know how to forget them.”
“I say a lot of things when I’m frustrated,” Jeff sighed.
She considered his attempt at a peace accord. “I want to be a good friend to you, but you’re making it hard,” she rightly claimed.
He wanted to ask her why she did it. Came back like that after she said she was leaving and then kissed him when he was plenty confused by multiple declarations of love.
But at this point, it was best to move on. This week proved this entire situation was more than he could manage.
He lifted her backpack off of the table, fixing the zipper. “I want to make it up to you,” he offered, slinging her bag over his shoulder.
“It’s not entirely your fault. Britta was right,” she alleged, sending an invisible gut punch to his conscience. “Sometimes I get so focused on what I want, I don’t think about the consequence.”
“I can relate,” he said, putting them on equal footing again. That’s where he wanted to be with Annie.
Her lips parted, like she was ready to talk to him again. Like they used to. Instead, she suddenly started for the exit.
“You want to be with all women,” she muttered under her breath, stopping short, her back to him. “And you are.”
“I was crazy mad when I said that,” he reasoned, hastily scrambling after her.
“But your actions are what matters, Jeff.”
They were both competitive. There wasn’t enough room in Greendale for them to exercise that tendency without having an impact on the other.
“I meant what I said about,” he faltered, wishing he wasn’t a coward. “Respect.” Though it was his instinct to take advantage of others, born of experiences she’d yet to have, he never meant to exploit her.
“Respect almost got you killed by an old woman.”
“But you guys saved me.”
“I would have punched Professor Bauer, but I am not as accurate with my left hand.” He trusted her hand, either one, not to fail him.
“I suspect I will be equally bad at the study of humanity as I was at learning Spanish,” he warned her, knowing his flaws ruled over his reason.
“Good thing you have us,” she reminded him.
When he thought about her over the summer, he returned to the same conclusion. “I’m not sure I deserve you.”
“We’re friends,” she stated with her formidable firmness. “Friends forgive.”
He had to know if she remembered the spark. It was more like a goddamn inferno for him. “Do they forget?”
“That depends,” she smiled.
“On what?”
“What kind of friends they want to be,” she clarified.
He knew, even if he was too chicken to say. “I’m still trying to figure out how to be a friend.”
“You kept Dildopolis between us. That’s a start.”
“But the other thing … with Britta and you.” He grabbed the door for her.
“You founded this group for a reason,” she paused, facing him dead on “The question is do you plan to keep it together.”
What started with Britta, ended with Annie. Jeff didn’t know how to negotiate that, but he did understand one basic fact. “The group doesn’t work without you, Annie.”
She had the wisdom and drive to keep them intact when he would have let them break apart.
“I am stubborn,” she admitted, passing through the open door he held.
“You are committed. There’s nothing wrong with that.” It was still there, a trace of them, but it was only embers now. He’d set the bonfire himself.
“If the attachment is one-sided, then it can't be right,” she advised, asking more of him. Jeff was not accustomed to trying with a woman who kept walking away. But he continued his pursuit because there was something about Annie he couldn’t shake.
“It’s not,” he answered vaguely, providing only the bare minimum. She scanned the parking lot before deciding on her direction.
“I waited all summer, Jeff. I thought you might …” she stopped, giving him a chance to turn this ship around.
Shit, if only she knew how unsure he was of anything that deviated from his norm. Annie Edison was different in the most fabulously frightening way.
"Follow through?" he proposed, testing that he was directionally correct.
“Something like that,” she mumbled, wisely retreating from him.
Time. That’s what they needed, which was a new concept for him. Typically, Jeff Winger floated through life, without regard for others.
“I could have spent my summer more wisely,” he acknowledged.
She breathed deeply, steering him toward specificity. “With friends?”
“Yes,” he returned. “Good friends.”
“I would have liked that.” Annie was hungry in so many ways. He could barely sustain himself because he'd been starving for some time.
One thing he knew for sure was that he wasn’t getting a do-over with her. While there was no blank slate, he could try a sequel. In his experience, they were never as good as the original.
“Me, too,” he agreed. Her abnormally expressive eyes enlarged, signaling his paltry pacification was having some effect.
“You have a whole year until summer returns,” she affirmed with an adorable tenacity in her tone. He imagined her penciling Jeff Winger checkpoints into her day planner, documenting his growth over the course of the coming year.
“Summer is overrated,” he told her. “Why wait?”
She grinned at his proposition, granting him an A, when he’d earned a C- at best.
“Time isn’t standing still,” she concurred.
That wasn’t scary if you were 19. It was terrifying, however, if you were him. His arrested development was partially what got him into this mess to begin with. If only he hadn’t taken a short-cut in every way possible, he might be a stronger and more capable man. One that could receive what she offered.
“You learn that reading the National Review?” he chuckled, testing her resolve. The reference to the make-out meter didn’t faze her.
“Nope,” she redirected. “I’ve already read the first three chapters of our Anthropology textbook.”
True to form, Annie Edison was on a research mission.
“The history of man’s evolution is long,” he told her. She had to know he wasn’t there.
“I have time,” she stated without hesitation. The thing about Annie was she seemed to accept him where he was, not where he might be.
“You want to spend that on me?” he pressed, validating his assumption that she was going to invest in him.
“We’re going to study the nature of man all year. It’s hard to avoid you,” she giggled, lightening his darkening mood.
“I suspect you’ll find man is flawed,” he warned.
“That’s a given,” she mused. “History tends to repeat itself.”
If only he’d learned something from it, but he hadn’t.
“This time you have your car,” he said, harkening back to the last time they were alone in the parking lot of Greendale. He unhooked her backpack from his arm, handing it to her.
“This is different,” she whispered. “But better,” she added.
He didn’t want to look back, but he couldn’t move forward without accepting he’d need to do more than improvise with her.
“You think so?” he asked.
“I’m counting on it,” she confirmed.
He’d been prepared to let go of this. Them.
“I’m terrible at math,” he restated the obvious, having proved the fact on many occasions. Three was not as magical a number as an earlier iteration of Jeff Winger might have believed.
“How about history?” she teased.
Though they were together in that moment, they were still divided. Winning her back would be anything but easy.
“I think I stand a chance of learning if you are in the Study Group.”
Those incredible orbs brimmed with it. Belief. Hope. “I know you do,” she told him before climbing into her car.
Many a person faced their history, doomed to repeat it. A community college was full of those people, looking for a fresh start, or a place to belong.
And he found it by accident. Due to a lie.
Bending the truth was his specialty. For the first time in his life, Jeff had a reason to follow an honest path. And he planned to take it.