It was 2 am when another clatter made Rachel let out a huff of exasperation. Abed had been in her living room for the past three hours making a racket that didn't allow her to sleep. Yes it was a Friday which meant she didn't have to wake up early to go to work tomorrow, but she was still tired and a little bit cranky by the week. It was bad enough she didn't get rest because of work. But not resting because of her eccentric boyfriend, and not because they were involved in a form of physical activities, acting like a twelve year old was where she drew the line.

Abed had been slightly weirder since last weeks' events unfolded, when the Save Greendale Committee stopped Subway from taking over their school. She wasn't aware that anything odd was going on since she had been in Denver when everything was going on. Abed had told Rachel the story with incredible detail, as he most often did whenever he 'explained an episode' to her (though others might find it odd, she couldn't help but find it adorable). But when he got to the ending about Jeff opening the door, he got this glazed look on his face. Since then, going on five days and counting, whenever they weren't talking Abed had that same glazed look in his face, as if he was seeing multiple things at once in his head. In the middle of watching E.T Abed had suddenly jumped out of his seat and started pacing back and forth rapidly, mumbling to himself. It might've been weird had it not happened before, usually whenever Abed had a realization. It must've been a big one though since asked to borrow her whiteboard. She had given it to him and, knowing that he was going to be busy for a bit, kissed him on the cheek and informed him that she was going to bed. The only time he came into the room was to borrow her variety of dry erase markers before quickly going back to whatever it was he was doing. But she was tired now, she needed sleep. Rachel cracked the door open to find Abed staring intensely at a drawing that seemed to consist of him and five others that was then surrounded by an array of colored writing that was all interconnected.

"Abed?"

Abed turned. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I wake you?"

Rachel sighed and shook her head. "Never went to sleep. You kept making so much noise." She tried not to sound to accusatory but Abed's head hung slightly as he frowned.

"Sorry about that. Wasn't really thinking, just needed to get everything out of my head to get a clear look of it."

"What exactly is it?" Rachel asked as she stepped closer to inspect Abed's work. Abed stood up, an shine in his eyes as he gestured towards the board with raised arms. "This, is my answer," Abed said in a mystified voice.

Rachel couldn't help the smile that spread on her face. "Your answer to what?"

"To how Jeff opened the door in Borchert's lab."

Rachel gave Abed a quizzical look. "I thought you said Jeff used the love he had for you guys to open the door."

Abed nodded, pointing at a drawing that was meant to be Jeff connected to a computer. "That's what I thought at first. But the more I thought about it the more it bothered me. Yes Jeff does love us, the study group I mean, but the only ones of the group there were me, Annie, and Britta. The Dean was there too but he doesn't really count. Plus Jeff definitely wouldn't find any sort of emotion towards the Dean, he finds his advances to be a little creepy. Then I hit the major breakthrough." Abed pointed at a row of people below the drawing of Jeff, meant to signify Annie, Britta, him, the Dean and Brochert. "He made us turn around."

Rachel sat down on her couch, sleep slightly gone now. "Ok why does that matter.?"

Abed pointed at her, his voice rising. "Precisely! Everyone knows Jeff Winger isn't the most admitting person when it comes to caring about others. He'd rather pass it off with a joke or simply run away before admitting he cares about others."

Rachel grimaced at him. "Abed please remember that I have neighbors who've complained before at the excessive noise level in the middle of the night."

Abed blinked and nodded. "Sorry." Rachel smiled and waved her hand for him to continue.

"I didn't question him having us turn because I know Jeff likes nipple play so I thought maybe he was going to try the same thing as Brochert."

Rachel laughed. She couldn't help it. The cool, couldn't-care-less Jeff Winger into nipple play, that was just too funny.

Abed stared emotionless at Rachel, before she cleared her throat and mouthed 'Sorry.'

"As I was saying," Abed continued as he began to pace back and forth across the white board, "it came to me afterwards that I had it all wrong. I was too preoccupied with the notion of trying to dig ourselves out of the ground to really question anything. But then Jeff and Britta canceled their engagement quickly afterwards. I mean I had called it, explained it all to Annie, but that's when I really started thinking. What if it wasn't nipple play that opened the door? What if it was a specific one of us?"

Well if Rachel wasn't awake before she definitely was now. "What makes you say that?"

"Because," Abed said, "while Jeff does love Britta, their dynamic is more of a siblings always fighting. Jeff loves me too, he fought that bully for me freshman year, planned that awesome Pulp Fiction party for me, but it of course is just friendship. But with Annie…"

Rachel knew Abed must be thinking of all the 'Jeff/Annie' moments of the past five years. He'd mentioned it before. How the whole 'will they, won't they' act had been playing up for years now, but that Jeff was too afraid to do something about it. At first it had been about the age difference between them and the fact that Annie basically had a "schoolgirl crush" on him. Then Abed said it switched more to a Jeff realized he did have feelings for Annie, but they both needed to mature a bit more if they were to ever do anything about it.

"The final transition came with Jeff realizing his feelings were above what he had anticipated, but with his abandonment issues and all about worry of him hurting Annie he definitely wasn't going to do anything," Abed said. Rachel realized he'd done the whole inner monologue thing and couldn't suppress the grin playing at the corners of her lips. Abed gave his eyebrow waggle before continuing. "Of course he's lying to himself."

"What do you mean?" Rachel asked.

"While Jeff is the kind of guy who doesn't show his emotional side, he either doesn't realize, or lies to himself, whenever he does something nice for Annie. Jeff is worried about hurting Annie, really hurting her to the point where their friendship just can't be saved. But I think Jeff is more worried that Annie will hurt him."

Rachel's faced became puzzled so Abed furthered his explanation. "See Jeff and Annie have been in each others orbit since the whole debate thing happened in Season 1, though I think for Annie it may have started around the Dia De los Muertos episode -"

"Abed you're doing it again," Rachel kindly reminded her boyfriend. Abed didn't hear. "-but Jeff had slater and Annie had Vaughn, plus the age thing was an issue so naturally nothing could happen. But then in the season finale at the Tranny Dance -"

Rachel let out a huff and rolled her eyes. They were going to have to talk again about real life and TV. "-Jeff had his character growth moment. He didn't have to choose between Britta and Slater. Between wanting to better yourself and knowing what you are. He chose to know what you are, while continuing to better himself. He chose Annie."

At Abed's final statement Rachel jumped up, her mouth an 'o' as everything Abed stated made perfect sense to her. "So his love for her must've opened the door!" she exclaimed loudly.

Abed gave Rachel a small smile and nodded. "Exactly. After five years Jeff finally admitted to himself that he's in love with Annie, it's the only way he could of gotten us out of Borchert's lab."

Rachel sat back down on the couch as another questioned formed in her mind. "But if you figured all this out why are you still up?"

"Because even though Jeff finally admitted it to himself he still hasn't told Annie. I know everyone says I can be manipulative, and I admit I can be." Rachel nodded, thinking back to when Abed and Annie played Pile of Bullets to decide if she would live there without telling her.

"But this whole back and forth thing has gone long enough," Abed said, grabbing Rachel's attention. "I've been thinking of a scenario that can seem to naturally occur without either of them figuring out that I was the cause. That way the two can finally be together."

Rachel went to Abed and pressed a hard kiss to his cheek. Abed could be quirky and odd most of the time, he could have an unnatural fear of day light saving time, and hate when that waiter at Señor Kevin's says Die Hard sucked. But Abed had a love for his friends, his family, that went above and beyond. "So what's the plan?"

Abed's head hung as he turned to the board. "I don't have one. That's the problem. I can't come up with something logical. In sitcoms things always fall into place easily. In How I Met Your Mother, Ted and Barney's friendship was mended after both got into accidents. In Friends, Monica and Chandler finally got engaged after they bumped into Richard at the restaurant. In Bones, Booth and Brennan slept together resulting in pregnancy after Nigel got shot. But here there are no accidents, old flames, or death to help join these two together."

Right on queue, Abed's phone beeped with a text message. He reached for his phone where it lay on the coffee table and briefly read through it. His mind instantly latched onto the possibilities as he reread the message. A path began to form in his head as he saw the only two possible outcomes this text came to signify.

"What is it?" Rachel asked. Abed gave her the phone and went to the white board, quickly erasing everything before he began to write. She read through the message quickly and went to Abed as he furiously scribbled.

"Isn't this-"

"Yup."

"So then that means-"

"You got it."

"Do you think she'll-"

"I'm not sure."

"Are you going to tell Jeff?"

Abed stopped scribbling. "The universe doesn't just drop coincidences like these. It's a sign. Of course I'm telling Jeff. But I'm not really going to tell him," he answered while he began to write again. "I'll let him find out without telling him."

Rachel was confused. "What does that mean?"

Abed closed off the dry erase marker and led his girlfriend into her bedroom. "It means we can go to bed now. Everything will begin in the morning."