Based on another prompt by Hypnotoad 76.
Spoilers for "Intro to Felt Surrogacy" – or rather, just one debatable part in the final song involving Annie. Pretty much everything about this will be made AU by this week's Christmas episode, and the next three eps after that – so I'm going to preemptively pretend those episodes never happened in this story. For all we know, we'll want to do that anyway for other reasons – so hopefully this helps if that's the case.
"I was struggling in History/I'm normally the best/I let Cornwallis rub my feet/To give me all the answers to a test."
It didn't really hit Jeff until an hour after Annie sung that lyric.
Hell, it didn't hit anyone – even the Dean – when they first heard Annie's musical confession. That was the only reason Jeff didn't throttle them first when it finally got through to him.
But when he fully realized what Annie said, Jeff wanted to throttle someone.
The others were out, the Dean's ignorance was all too predictable now, and Jeff couldn't throttle his own gorgeous face – which would even be gorgeous in puppet form if the Dean didn't make it, for the record. That left one very obvious choice.
By the time Jeff got towards the history classroom, he managed to calm down a little. At least enough to not break down the door and break Professor Cornwallis's teeth that very second. For this particular crime, he wanted to torture him first.
Against all his instincts, Jeff stayed outside until class was over and Cornwallis's afternoon students left. Since they were all alone now, Jeff had a better chance of covering his actions up, at the least. He then entered the room, closed the door and found his future victim preparing to leave/escape.
"Mr. Winger!" The professor exclaimed when he noticed Jeff. "You're 17 hours early for tomorrow's class. This is refreshingly out of character."
Jeff just nodded, as he needed a second to make himself speak calmly. Staring at Cornwallis's hands wouldn't help, so he avoided any eye contact. When he was as ready as he would get, he started, "Yes, well it's funny you should use the word character."
"All right, I've got some spare time. How is it funny?" Cornwallis asked, like a creepy British pervert to the slaughter.
"Greendale is filled with characters," Jeff set up. "Crazy characters, annoying characters, usually all of the above. On rare occasions, there's even someone with actual character. They have it all the way down to their feet."
Jeff made that obvious illusion sooner than he wanted. But it wasn't like he could have kept the charade going much longer. Yet Cornwallis merely said, "You don't say" so it looked like Jeff would have to keep going.
"Yes, I did. They have so much character, they feel really embarrassed when it's taken advantage of," Jeff went on. "They might even think it's their own fault, for some reason that makes no sense. They can believe it so much, it would take laced berries and Dean puppets to get the truth out of them. But it came out, nonetheless. Over 90 minutes ago, in fact."
Jeff thought he had him then and there, as he finally saw Cornwallis blink and look nervous. However, his face went back to normal quite suspiciously. "Wait a moment….over 90 minutes ago, you said?" he asked.
"Around that, yeah," Jeff answered confidently before he realized his error.
"So the Dean used puppet therapy to make you and your group talk again," Cornwallis reasoned. "He heard some….things as a result, apparently. But he hasn't come here or called me to his office, or sent anyone here. That means he wasn't paying attention. Or he just doesn't care. Either way, if nothing's happened by now, it likely won't happen at all."
Jeff was left speechless and angry at himself, the group and the Dean. Mostly the Dean before long. "Yeah….it's more out of ignorance and worshipping me, I think."
"You should see him gush about you at facility meetings," Cornwallis actually joked.
"I'd rather not, thanks. I see quite enough at the study room," Jeff took the easy bait.
"I would imagine!" Cornwallis laughed. "Has he stalked you like that for four whole years? How is he still not locked up yet?"
"Technically, he was locked up last spring, but not for the right reasons," Jeff quipped. "I'm glad he just whittled a regular Jeff doll instead of a sex doll in Chang jail. He probably still has that back home, right next to my apartment."
"You're kidding!" Cornwallis chuckled.
"God, I'm sure I'm not," Jeff sighed.
"My word, the inmates truly run this asylum. With that example, it negates anything anyone ever does around here," Cornwallis concluded.
"Yeah, probably," Jeff admitted – then came to his senses. "Hey! Don't use his insanity as a smokescreen! Granted, it was a clever and pretty funny move for a while, but only a while! I hate him rubbing up on me, but I hate you rubbing up on Annie more!"
Now Jeff was done with torturing him and wanted to get to torturing him. He advanced on Cornwallis as he continued, "I'll bet you altered her scores so she thought she needed those test answers! Then you made your move and made sure her character and integrity wasn't an obstacle anymore! I'll admit, it must have been pretty hard to do that, and make her think she could possibly struggle in a lowly History class! All of that is quite laughable, except for the end result!"
He didn't mean to set Cornwallis up to laugh himself – or let his mouth do anything but bleed – yet he started laughing anyway. "Is that what she told you? She said she let me do it for test answers? For her?"
"Yes, it was a laughable setup, we established that. But thanks to the punch line, you're not going to laugh again for a very long time. Not in this school or country, anyway," Jeff said, sounding quite super heroic, if his inner Abed said so.
"Actually, this is too funny for England. After what you told me, maybe it's safe to share why. You might even share a relieved laugh with me too," Cornwallis offered.
"That sounds like a famous last boast," Jeff scoffed.
"It works on many more levels than that," Cornwallis set up for the kill. "She didn't do it to save her grade, Mr. Winger. She did it to save yours."
Jeff certainly wasn't laughing anymore. He was too confused to laugh – but he felt he should savor being confused while he could.
"Let me explain the punch line further," the professor began to deconstruct.
Days before the balloon trip, Annie was at Cornwallis's desk, waiting to talk to him about an upcoming assignment. But before he got back from the bathroom, Annie's wandering eye saw that Cornwallis hadn't closed up his grade book.
Before she could even think of taking a peek, or start fighting her own conscience about it, she got a glimpse at the bottom of the list. And the failing grade next to the last name on that list. A name that looked a lot like Jeff Winger – for good reason.
As Annie took that in, Cornwallis returned and –
"Stop! I don't need detailed descriptions of your scenes!" Jeff interrupted. "Just give me the Cliff Notes version of the Cliff Notes!"
"Oh, very well," Cornwallis huffed. "The short version is, she saw you were failing, begged me to change my mind, and offered to do anything. I then made a very strong case for my counterproposal. Especially once I proved you'd never be able to cram enough to do the work yourself, even if she tutored you. Then she accepted my terms, and I accepted letting you pass."
With the joke now thoroughly explained, Jeff wasn't laughing anyway. "You're lying…." was all he had to counter with.
"You said it yourself, her struggling with this class is impossible. Despite my best efforts," Cornwallis glossed over. "It is much more likely that you'd barely skate by in a real class, to the point of failure. Wouldn't you agree?"
"Okay, there's no arguing that," Jeff conceded. "But….but I found my dad and battled Changnesia! And I gave up History of Ice Cream! Of course I'd be too distracted to just skate by. But not enough that I'd be failing! And not enough that Annie would need…."
"To make sure you graduated early, like you wanted. I'm well aware it was the only reason she did it. My hands did try to give her a better reason, but it was no use," Cornwallis tempted Jeff's rage further. However, he was still too stunned to really feel it – and if he didn't know why by then, the professor clued her in.
"So there's the joke, you see. You're going to pass my class and finally leave Greendale. And the only reason why is that Ms. Edison offered her feet to me. After I gave her the idea, but still," Cornwallis qualified. "I understand this wouldn't be the first time you pretended to pass college for legitimate reasons. I suppose that adds to the humor."
Jeff still wasn't laughing. But now he wasn't laughing for two reasons.
The second reason made him realize that all his dreams, his long overdue rewards and relief at leaving Greendale were ruined. That should have meant so much more than the first reason. The fear of it should have made that first reason irrelevant.
Yet he then gave himself one of the greatest shocks of his life. "I'll laugh when I make the Dean put you on the first Concorde out of here. Even if I don't pass my final with a new teacher."
Jeff finally saw something funny in this. The fact he just threw away his chance to leave Greendale now should have made him try to take it back. But he didn't feel the need to. Not when it came to this. To her.
Of course, he didn't trust his will power for that long. As such, he was filled with dread when Cornwallis struck back.
"You think there would be a final?" Cornwallis warned. "From what I heard, you had an entire Biology grade thrown out when a teacher resigned. If they made you take summer school for that, what will they do when this comes out? You'll all have to repeat this class next semester, and with a far more uptight teacher than me, most likely! How do you think you can pass then?"
Now that was a threat to fragile willpower if there ever was one. The best solution Jeff could argue with is, "We'll just make the Dean make an exception this time."
"Ask him to pass up the chance to keep you here another semester?" Cornwallis countered.
"You're right, I knew it was dumb the second I….hey, don't trap me with Dean rants again! I'm supposed to hate you, not find a kindred spirit in Dean hating!" Jeff reminded himself. "You took advantage of Annie! Nothing's worth letting that slide!"
"Not even when it would make you free of Greendale next week?" Cornwallis reminded.
"Damn it, it still sounds good coming from you. Wait, no it doesn't!" Jeff tried to stay focused.
"It obviously sounded good to her," Cornwallis reminded. "And now you want to take away the only thing that got her through it?"
"You're overestimating a few things," Jeff scoffed.
"Oh really? You said she claimed she did it to get test answers for herself," Cornwallis recalled. "She would have rather made herself look like a slutty cheater than tell you that you were failing. Or that she saved you the way she did."
"Yeah, well she had to know it wouldn't hold up," Jeff scrambled. "Annie is nothing close to a cheater! You have no idea what she did to prove it two years ago!"
"But she still made herself look like one, just to keep you from ruining everything," Cornwallis pointed out. "Yet here you are. Once you expose me, you won't graduate and she'll have nothing left to justify what she did."
"What you did!" Jeff corrected, if only to make him stop talking for a second.
"She consented to it in the end, Mr. Winger. She made the choice to be a co-conspirator to academic fraud, just for you," Cornwallis rubbed in. "But once you report me, neither of you will get what you wanted. She'll live in shame with no silver lining, and you'll suffer in this sinkhole for five more months. You can't tell me you wouldn't hate her for that before long."
"What kind of ass do you think I am?" Jeff growled, before he realized he made things too easy for him.
"The kind who couldn't even do basic work to legitimately get his diploma. That's the kind of man she degraded herself for, in here and out there," Cornwallis said. "And you repaid her by taking 90 minutes to let her lie bother you. Granted, so did all your other misfits and the Dean, so I can't complain."
"When it gets through to them…." Jeff warned.
"If it didn't bother her closest friends then, it won't now unless you do anything. Either way, we both know the Dean is a lost cause, and that's what counts," Cornwallis baited, but Jeff didn't pile on this time.
Undaunted, the professor added, "But it's clear she wanted this to stay a secret, to an incredible degree. Perhaps it's time you respected her wishes. You'll get a diploma from it and you'll make it easy for her to move on, like she wanted. If she thinks that's a proper upside, you owe it to her to think that way too."
"You don't know what she thinks," Jeff grumbled.
"If you had a real idea how she thinks, things might have been quite different, wouldn't they?" Cornwallis argued. Jeff would have argued right back, but he made the mistake of really thinking about it. When that tripped him up and disturbed him, Cornwallis set up his exit.
"I believe we've cleared up everything we had to. I'm going home to prepare for work tomorrow. I even hear you're having a Christmas party soon, so I might prepare for that too," the professor said as he reached the door. "Give my regards to Milady Edison."
Jeff almost wanted to vomit at that moment. Yet once Cornwallis was gone, there was no point in doing it if he wasn't there to take the hit. That would be a gross way to get him back, but at least it was something.
For the second time today, Jeff was too confused, awkward, ashamed and mixed up to move or say anything. But there was no way talking and singing to puppets would fix this one. For the first time ever, he wished he could just talk to a puppet to resolve everything.
However, he had to talk to someone else. Someone he'd barely had words with in the last month and a half – and the consequences of that were all too clear now.
For once, it was time to get some balls and willingly have a real talk with Annie. Whether she'd appreciate his effort at the end or not. But with at least two futures on the line, he'd have to show some real effort. That had to count for something.
If it counted enough to help him find a less than terrible solution –whatever it might be – that would be nicer.