The study group, minus Troy and Abed, have been in the study room for over thirty minutes now. Everyone has been getting increasingly bored and restless waiting for them to show up, until finally Jeff voices what they've all been thinking.
"You guys, they obviously aren't coming. Let's just go home."
It's only Annie who objects. "Well.. they told us to come here and it did sound important. Let's just stay here a little longer." Even her protest sounds forced.
"They better get their asses in here soon." says Shirley rather harshly. She continues to describe the plans she had for tonight with Andre, met with "awws" and giggles in all the appropriate places from Annie and vague nods from everyone else.
All at once, every light in the room turns off (though there is still enough light coming in the room to see very clearly) and loud, ominous music bursts into life, the kind that is probably on the soundtrack of some bad 80s horror movie no one in the room is familiar with. Well, almost no one.
In what the group have become accustomed to calling his "movie commentator voice", Abed stage whispers from behind them. "Ghosts! Ghouls! Gremlins! Gremlins 2! These terrors are just a snippet of the horrible things which await you innocent students. Run! Flee this room now! Or your blood will be on your own hands…"
The lights go on, the music goes off, and Abed and Troy enter the room. Abed is holding a camera and films everyone as they're speaking, and Troy is holding the CD player, which he sets down on the table. Everyone stares back at them, thoroughly confused.
"This better be good." Pierce grumbles. "Do you know how late it is?"
"It's 4pm." Jeff snarks. As much as he tries, he can't bring himself to like these pointless theatrics, despite the fact that everyone else enjoys the hell out of them. Although he can't bring himself to ignore the fact that Annie has the cutest smile on her face right now- she looks like her birthday cake has just been brought in, like she's at a concert and the lights have just gone down.
Britta forces a laugh. "Ha ha, old people. Am I right?" She offers Jeff a high five he doesn't return. Her new and ridiculous insecurity about the age gap between her and Troy has really been getting on his nerves, in addition to the fact it only makes him feel more creepy about how his feelings for Annie.
Just as he begins to list to himself the reasons why she and him could never work, Annie herself, unable to contain her excitement for Troy and Abed's grand entrance, breaks the moment of awkward silence with a squealing "What's going on you guys?"
Abed takes his usual seat. "Me and Troy are making a horror movie and we need your help."
Troy also sits down. "We tried alone but ended up both lying on the floor drenched in ketchup for 6 hours." He looks wistfully into the distance. "We never did figure out who the murderer was."
Shirley looks at him like he's something Chang dragged out of the vent. "Well.. That sounds great, but I really need to be at home at this time of year." Her voice drops to a whisper. "All that candy turns my boys into monsters."
Jeff has no intentions whatsoever of joining them either. As much as he loves his friends, there are some things he just has too much pride for. Actually, maybe a lot of things. Besides, he already has plans for the weekend- a case of beer, the peace of his apartment, and maybe a late night call to some anonymous number in his phone that will help him briefly forget the grinning brunette across the table who just will not give up on him. "I think I speak for all of us, even Pierce, when I say I have far better things to do than spend my precious free time chasing down the Blair Witch."
Pierce, predictably, puts on a faux horrified expression and points at Britta. "Jeff, she's right there!"
She rolls her eyes in response. "Weak. How about instead of making a
'horror movie', you guys put some effort into unveiling the true terrors of the justice system? I read this tumblr post about-"
"The film is for the annual competition "Screamdale" and the prize is $2000," Abed cuts in. Annie and Shirley gasp, Pierce yells "What?!" (he's not shocked- his hearing really has been playing up these days), and Jeff finally looks up from his phone.
"World peace, hair grease." Britta gushes. "We are gonna be rolling in it!"
Hey, who is he to turn down some ridiculous cash? Besides, he knows how much Annie has been struggling for rent money these days- the other day he caught her selling an old bra to one of Starburns' creepier friends- and yeah, okay, this is happening. "Is it any wonder this place is such a toilet?" He shoves his phone in his pocket and leans in. "I'm listening."
Troy turns to Abed. "Let's not even bother with the intro next time."
Abed is lost in thought, and it takes a quick tap on his shoulder from his best friend to jolt him back to life again. "Jeff, your outdated reference has give me an idea." He points at each member of the group. "Camping? Camping? Camping?"
They are less than happy with the idea.
"You mean outside? For a whole night?" says Shirley.
"With you guys?" Jeff chimes in.
Annie, of course, is completely taken with the idea. "Come on! It could be fun! We could make a campfire, tell stories, toast marshmallows-"
"Sing kumbaya and give our souls to Jesus?" Jeff cuts in, getting him a look from Shirley that suggests it won't be long before his soul is headed that way and another from Annie that makes him stop short and wish, for the millionth time, that his default reaction to everything wasn't to act like a complete ass.
"Come on guys. Think of the prize." Troy pleads.
Jeff looks at Annie again, and she looks back at him, that fragile, hopeful look in her eyes that reminds him of how much he would do to keep her safe from disappointment, from ever being let down. He sighs, heavily. "Yeah. All right." The rest of the group, as though they were just waiting for his approval, murmur their agreement.
Abed turns to Troy. "I don't think we ever need any other argument."
After the group ends their meeting, and hurried plans for tomorrows camping trip are made, and sound bites from every member of the "Screamdale Seven" are recorded, Jeff finally gets his wish of returning home to his empty apartment. He goes to his fridge, opens a bottle of beer, sinks into his couch. But it's too quiet, and he can't get comfortable, or relaxed, or stop his mind replaying the way he and Annie had left things.
Everyone else had left, scurrying off with plans to buy new tents, barbeques, food for the trip. Jeff smiled at them, assured he had everything he would need at home. Annie lingered behind. She had, of course, sensed his hesitation, saw through his smirking façade to how unenthusiastic he really was about the whole thing.
"Hey," she had said, sliding into the empty seat beside him. He had his nose in his bag, pretending to search for his car keys, for his wallet, for any excuse to not have to do this. "Um, you know, you could be a bit more excited about this whole thing."
"What is there to be excited about? Sure, I want the money as much as the next Trobed, but it's hard to stay looking so good without my home comforts. And as much as it pains me to admit, I don't come across so well on camera." He half smiled at her. She almost returned it, then caught herself and sighed.
"Can you at least try to enjoy yourself?" She looked down at her hands, then, as if willing herself, slowly redirected her gaze to him. "I just... Sometimes it sucks being the only person who's expecting the best of things. Who wants other people to have more fun than she allows herself. So. Can you just try?"
It wasn't the first time she'd brought this up. Annie has always fought the hardest for him, and sure, he knows if it came to it he'd put her before anyone, but it never has. She doesn't know where she stands with him, and he's never had the courage to tell her.
"It'll be fun," he said, quietly. Annie smiled, properly this time.
"For what it's worth," she murmured, as much to him as the space around them, the dim quiet of the empty study room which seemed to be closing in on them, "your hair never looked good anyway."
He laughed, and she looked at him with those goddamn eyes, and he stopped laughing.
And now he sits alone, nursing a beer, wishing his feelings weren't so goddamn difficult, and complicated, and that there was some simple way he could get over this girl already. But that's impossible. She is impossible. And in a way he can't really explain he knows it's wrong, that they can't ever really be together- because she's young, and although she is one of the strongest people he's ever met, she's never truly been hurt by the world in the way he saw day in day in day out in his old life. There were hundreds of divorce cases and custody proceedings at his law firm, and hell, he even knows first hand the damage that two people in love will do to each other when they've been hurt enough, and he can't be the person to break Annie's spirit. He just can't. And there doesn't seem to be any way around that. There will always come a day when the person everyone depends on more than anything moves out.
So the next day, only slightly bleary eyed, he meets everyone at Troy, Abed and Annie's apartment. Annie answers the door, of course Annie answers the door, and when her eyes meet his her smile falters only for a second before she exclaims "Hi!" in a cheery tone that only slightly cracks.
He responds with a falsely overenthusiastic "Hey!"
"Everyone else is here," she says, still smiling. "I was.. kinda worried you weren't gonna come."
That stings. As much as he worried about how awkward this encounter- this whole damn weekend- was gonna be after what happened between them last night.. he never once considered not showing up. The fact that she thought he would hurts.
"Well, I said I would," he says, frowning.
"Right." She shakes her head quickly. "You did. Well, come in."
In the car, a beat up old mini van brandished "Hawthorne Wipes" in faded paint, Abed refuses to stop sticking his video camera in Jeff's face from the front seat.
"So when was the first time you heard of the Grizzly Witchgoose?"
"The what? Was that Icelandic?"
"The Grizzly Witchgoose is the legend we're going to investigate."
"Which you literally just made up. "
"Every horror film needs a villain, Jeff. Whether they exist or not is irrelevant. What matters to the audience is our reaction."
"Of course."
"So- When was the first time you heard of the Grizzly Witchgoose?"
"Well, I was sitting right here, and you asked me-"
Beside him, Troy sighs, and motions to Abed to point the camera in his direction. "I first heard of the Grizzly Witchgoose when my grandmother fell deathly ill," he recounts in a soft, low voice. "I was sitting in front of the fire playing with the old toys of my brother Lupin, who had drowned in the lake that past winter. I couldn't hear anything, but I knew she wanted to see me. I went to her room and sure enough, she was sitting upright in her bed, a single candle illuminating her wrinkly old face.
"'Troy,' she said to me, 'Once, when I was a little girl, I went out fishing, because I wanted a new pet. I was standing on the riverbank, enjoying the beautiful scenery, when I started to feel weird, and warm, like I'd just peed my pants. I looked behind me and I saw a woman, covered head to toe in… goose feathers. I looked at her, and she looked at me, and then she squawked and ran back into the woods.'
"I asked my grandmother why she was telling me this, and she said 'I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. Who are you?' And… died."
Annie is sitting to Jeff's left, and though for most of the journey she's been deliberately (though not impolitely) ignoring him, at this she averts her gaze from the window and joins in the conversation. "Oh, give me a break. I've got a much better story than that." Her voice drops to a whisper and she leans forward, staring intently into the camera lens. "Once, these two hunters got lost in the woods…"
For the rest of the journey he sits in silence while she laughs at Troy and Abed's new rap ("the grizzly witch goose is on the loose/ check out her feathers/ and that sweet caboose"), and tries not to think about the fact he is close enough to feel her breathing, that every time he moves away slightly, creating a space between them, she finds a way to shift back so they're touching again, hip to hip.