Britta stood outside by the steps looking out at the Greendale campus. While she was happy and so incredibly relieved that it had been saved, she also felt very uneasy.
It was finally dawning on her that she had almost gotten married. She remembered his proposal - how crazy it had been to hear it and how calming at the same time. There was a part of her that felt as if she had been waiting for it to arrive without realizing it because it made total sense when it did.
Of course it was supposed to be her and Jeff.
Of course.
And she had seen it in all of its cheesy glory: the road stretched out in front of her, both of them jumping feet forward and side-by-side. For a moment, her inner anarchist/activist fell back a little, as she felt what she rarely ever felt - that there was something right in the world that didn't need fixing even if they would both always be broken.
It had nothing to do with promises of that house they couldn't afford, the annoying dog, and the olive oil.
It had everything to do with knowing he would be right there and he had wanted her next to him too.
Britta thought about her words: "Let's leave this place and never look back."
She had meant them then, but now - mutually retracted, rescinded - it scared her how clear its memory still looked in the rearview mirror of life.
"Hey…" a familiar voice said from behind her.
She turned around and looked up to see Jeff standing behind her.
"Hey."
He took a step forward to stand next to her, "I thought I saw you come out here."
She nodded, "Just taking it all in - now that we've saved it...again."
"Crazy, right?"
"Mm-hmm," she replied. "I really thought we were finally going to lose it." She found herself tossing an awkward laugh, "Weird, right? Didn't we already lose it when we tried to leave the first time?"
"Yeah, but...I guess we get so used to losing that it's hard to think that it's ever really gone," Jeff replied.
She nodded, "It's nice though - that we have it back without destroying it...too much."
A silence set in for a moment as they both stood surveying the campus, it was evening now and it almost felt like the end of just another day - or maybe a "Wednesday" as the case might be.
"Just so I'm clear...we shouldn't be worried about - y'know - the wedding/marriage thing?" he said, his eyes still cast out onto the campus.
"We high-fived on it, remember?" she replied, staring out into the campus too, as if that was all the answer needed, but knowing that it wasn't.
"Yes, it felt like thirty minutes ago - oh wait..."
Britta felt herself smile slightly and then found herself asking - more out loud than to Jeff - "You know, to be honest, for a while there I really thought we were going to go through with it."
She refrained from clipping on a "finally," remembering all the times before where they almost did.
"Well, I am the one that said the 'marriage' was over," he admitted. "And I believed it too...given what else was going on."
"Jeffrey Winger. Have you changed? Are you admitting to a Freudian slip?"
"I...am not admitting to anything more than the fact that circumstances changed and if we were a tv show, you and I would probably going to be denied a spin-off pilot by NBC."
She nodded, "It would have been a pretty boring show, right?"
"Oh yeah - totally. Conversations about olive oil and gluten. Whether we were going to take Fifi the yapping poodle to a kennel so we could go on our inevitable bottle episode adventure to a ski cabin."
Britta added, "Of course, and - in our attempt to have a romantic getaway - Annie and Abed would have decided to surprise us not realizing the point. We'd all be sitting stuck in that cabin learning about each other's pasts and truths while Abed tries to convince us the abominable snowman is outside in the blizzard. But it'll turn out to be the Dean wondering why we didn't ask him to join our trip."
Jeff laughed and looked at her, "Not to mention that episode where you're somehow convinced that the engagement ring I bought you was actually filled with conflict diamonds - a hipster play on the cubic zirconia - because of something Shirley says."
"Naturally. Which - of course - you'd never let me live down because I would be wrong about it," she said meeting his eyes. "Then I would have me'd my own engagement ring story."
"We would have been canceled by mid-season if we were lucky, probably at some episode that could have turned the story a little upside down and around - leaving our few loyal viewers at a cliffhanger."
"What would that be?" she wondered.
They both answered after a moment, "A pregnancy announcement."
And then laughed a little too long while glancing at each other.
"Typical," said Britta.
"Yeah...typical…" he echoed.
They kept a steady look at each other, eyes filled with half-assurances that they had made the right decision in their haste and what ifs that said otherwise. Not wanting to admit that their canceled would-be TV show didn't sound half-bad...nice even.
Britta felt Jeff's hand take hers suddenly, holding it firmly but gently. It was less chaotic than when they held hands earlier, but this was no less different. They were still holding onto each other, just less certain why.
In her head she heard her words again: "Let's leave this place and never look back."
A part of her could almost believe that he heard it too.
But then he said softly, "I should probably go back inside."
Britta nodded, "I'll join you guys in a second."
Their hands lingered for a moment more before they both let go again. It was a second, but a weighted second, one that made them wonder if their story together wasn't over, that maybe their pilot just needed to get re-written before it was really ready for production.