This isn't Annie.
Jeff knew it couldn't be.
Annie was the girl who took 6 months to decide on a backpack.
Annie was the girl who tore up the study room over a purple pen!
Annie was the girl who managed to get Jeff Winger of all people to study for a championship debate!
And yet it took all of one hour to get her to betray the group? Betray them for Glee Club!?
No.
No this isn't Annie.
It couldn't be.
...though if it was, major props for learning both this entire routine in apparently under an hour.
Very impressive.
Or very disturbing.
He quickly snapped his mind back in place and decided on the second.
The part of his mind favouring the first one seemed somehow easier to shut up this time...
Diminishing returns?
Yeah. That seemed like a good excuse. People would buy that.
But he wasn't trying to convince people. He was convincing himself. And he knew the reality. It was obvious. It had been from the very start.
This isn't Annie.
It couldn't be.
And whoever this was... she had just finished her performance.
Very, very close to him.
Suffocatingly close.
He forced himself to meet her eyes.
She had this look of... expectancy?
Like she expected his mind to have... changed...
Did she...? Did she think that would work!?
Did she think he was that easy to convince!?
One appeal to lust and he was going to go to Glee Club!?
Did she really think he was that shallow!?
...Fair enough.
"Look, eventually, you hit a point of diminishing returns on the sexiness"
He didn't know why this girl was trying so hard to get him into Glee Club, and frankly he wasn't sure he wanted to. The feelings were complicated enough without... this, and there was no way he was going to deal with this now. Annie crazy was supposed to be at the very least endearing. This was just...
He had to clear his head.
He stood up to leave, and had half turned to the door when he felt something wrap around his leg.
"Jeff... please, wait."
He stopped dead.
She sounded weary, desperate... mournful.
Her grasp was constricting, she was practically hugging his leg against her, so tightly he could feel the pounding dread of her heartbeat pulsing against his leg.
Jeff cautiously turned to face her, and was immediately drawn back into Annie's eyes. He stared deep, immersing himself deep within the gaze. And in amongst the gleaming blue he saw something.
Annie was afraid.
Annie needed him.
Jeff delicately removed her hand from his leg, deftly unravelling her clasped arms and carefully lifted her up onto the chair he had been previously confined to.
"...Then tell me what's going on. I mean Pierce I can just about understand, but you?"
The desperate look in her eye was swiftly masked with a mock indignance, just as the lawyer had planned.
"Really? You're putting me and Pierce on the same scale?"
"I know, its crazy, but what else can I do! You lost a battle of wills with Glee Club! A couple of years ago and you were beating me at that! I've gotta have some standards left! Right?"
Annie giggled a little bit. Jeff seemed to be easing her up a little more, hopefully enough to draw some answers. But traces of awkwardness still crept into her tone. "I didn't lose, not exactly. I just think that maybe... it's better if we do."
There was an awkward pause as Jeff processed this.
"And naturally, getting us into Glee Club means trying to seduce me with the Dean's Santa costume?"
It was a guess, but the possibility seemed strong enough to send a shiver creeping down her spine.
"It was a gamble. I threw the dice and I guess I lost."
Dice...
The housewarming...
The song...
Suddenly everything about the last 24 hours begun to click in Jeff's mind.
"This is about Abed."
It wasn't a question. They knew it was true.
Annie nodded.
"I felt bad for him. We're the only family he has, and we weren't going to be there for him! And without us..."
Jeff nodded, slowly, but enough for him to display that most rare of Winger emotions. Empathy.
Satisfied, Annie continued.
"He seemed so happy at home after he got Troy into it! And he seemed so convinced that singing was like mind control that I just decided... playing along might be better for him."
Jeff gave a wry smile.
"Fair enough, but we both know his power isn't mind control."
There was a knowing look between the two, and the shy smile and hint of a blush appearing on Annie's face all but confirmed she was recalling the results of Abed's first demonstration of supernatural powers.
Jeff was still donning a slightly sarcastic smile as he interjected.
"So rather than Claymation therapy, our present this year was to give Abed control of our minds for a day?" He quirked his eyebrow.
"Well... yeah." She lulled her head with that lovely little smile where she knows her plan was teetering the brink between inspired and insane.
"Pierce I wasn't so worried about, and Shirley's never going to pass up a chance to sing about Christmas. But you and Britta? You'd never touch this with a ten foot pole. Without you it would never have worked. Abed needed all of us."
Jeff just shook his head.
"And you really thought this was going to get me in on this?"
Annie tilted her eyes down to the floor, crestfallen, and more than a little embarrassed.
But Jeff continued, passionately. Like he had just been dealt some personal offence.
"Annie, you gotta understand, that there is only one way I am ever going to join that shameless, overbearing, ear grinding, obnoxious, lame ass cult!"
She looked down sheepishly, her features awash with self critical shame, until she felt soft contact against her chin, gently brushing her gaze back into Jeff's uncharacteristically warm eyes. Rolling his next words off his tongue as tenderly as he ever could.
"If you ask me."
And just like that, in one brief moment, Annie Edison's big doe eyes were glazing over, and whatever maelstrom of emotions had been storming away within her had been washed away by an indescribable wave of purest joy and delight.
"You'll do it? For me?" She was simultaneously trying to suppress both her tears and delighted squealing, and was delightedly failing at both.
Annie's smile, as it always had been, was infectious, and Jeff had, for this short while abandoned his usual apathetic pretence and just grinned away.
"For Abed. Because of you. That's generally how this goes."
Whatever words she would have woven together for this situation were lost to an unintelligible shriek of adoration as Annie dived into Jeff's already outstretched arms.
Maybe he would regret this. Maybe he wouldn't.
He didn't care about that 'maybe'.
This was Annie.
This was his Lady.
It couldn't be anyone else.
And how could he ever want her to be?