Title: Never Comes the Day
Author: wordybee
Spoilers: Season 1 finale; season 2 premiere.
Warning Does "frustrating amounts of UST" count as a warning?
Word Count: 2,700ish

Author's Note: This does have other chapters, but they weren't well received on livejournal. I suspect I'm a bit of a slow-plotter, so I bored them... but this as a one-shot shouldn't be too hard.

After a few hours' worth of a startlingly nice visit, considering everything everyone in the study group had said to one another, they all left Jeff's side. There'd been some tears (mostly from Troy) and some laughter and everything seemed to work out for the best. Jeff had slept through most of it, but he'd caught the gist. When he half-woke for the third time during the visit, they were all saying their goodbyes and telling him that there was a study session planned tomorrow at eight. Everything looked like it was back to normal between the group – at least until something made them snap again, and they brought all this stuff back to the surface out of anger or resentment or whatever. That's how they worked.

The school nurse told Jeff he'd be all right to leave whenever he wanted since there didn't seem to be any permanent damage to anything other than his reputation. Jeff decided to relax for a few moments longer in the quiet of the school infirmary before realizing that the stench of urine was a bit overpowering and whatever drugs they'd given him weren't lasting nearly long enough for his liking. Carefully swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Jeff slowly sat up. His head was swimming, his throat hurt, and he didn't really know how he was going to make it home in this condition.

Taking a deep breath, Jeff silently berated himself for not requesting a ride back to his apartment from one of his friends.

Slowly but surely, he stood up. He was only aware of the fact that he was falling back over again when he felt hands grasp his shoulders.

"Jeff!"

There was a bit of stumbling and flailing of limbs, but eventually Jeff was upright and leaning on the tiny-framed individual who had caught him. He blinked through bleary vision: Dark hair. Floral shirt. Disney Princess eyes set to "wide and worried" (Annie Expression When Dealing With Jeff Setting #6, as Jeff called it).

Huh. Annie.

Jeff squinted. "Hi," he said. He was incapable of saying much more.

"Jeff, are you sure you should be leaving? Maybe I should get you to a real hospital…"

"'mfine, Annie." Jeff blinked, shook his head, regretted it, and blinked some more.

"I don't know… you were out for a really long time. You'd be surprised how long it took to stop that crazy old lady from strangling you!" Annie stood on her tiptoes so she could try and look Jeff in the eyes and still ended up a couple inches too short. In spite of this, she nodded to herself. "I think you were out of oxygen long enough that it might've caused some damage. I'm taking you to the hospital."

Annie started to maneuver Jeff away from the bed and into the hallway, obviously struggling with his much larger stature. And with the fact that Jeff was stubbornly refusing to be maneuvered.

"'m fine, 'm fine, fine fine fine," he was chanting. Every time he tried stopping in his tracks, Annie would move forward and he'd be forced to follow her or otherwise fall on his already-too-damaged-for-his-liking face. The Money Maker had been getting a lot of abuse since Jeff arrived at Greendale.

When Jeff plopped down on a bench in the hallway outside the infirmary, Annie's upper hand in the situation dissolved and no amount of tugging on Jeff's arms would lift him up.

"Jeff, come on! You look awful, you have to see somebody!"

"I did! The school nurse said I was fine. It's just the medicine they gave me." He managed to say that sentence completely, though his words sort of slurred together in some parts. It wasn't his fault. How was he supposed to speak when his head was all heavy like this?

Annie tugged his arm a few more times before giving up and letting go, crossing her arms over her chest as Jeff's hung limply over his knees.

"The school nurse is an idiot. He thinks he's qualified to give Pap smears! You're in no condition to be released. Please get up?" She confronted Jeff with wide, pleading eyes (Setting #2) that, despite Jeff's rather muddled state of mind, still had the power to move him into action.

"Fine," he said. Annie smiled briefly and helped Jeff lurch to his feet. The sudden movement went straight to his head and made him stop and hold very, very still. This was like a hangover without the fun part of drinking first. "But I'm still not going to the hospital."

"Jeff! I—"

"If you drive me to my apartment, I promise I'll go straight to bed and rest." Jeff paused and sniffed, the scent of urine clouding his nostrils and making his headache pound even worse. "After I shower."

"Thank god," Annie breathed. He didn't know if it was his compliance or the fact that he promised to take a shower that made her sound so relieved. "We're taking your car, by the way."

Annie revealed that she already held Jeff's keys. His brain couldn't quite wrap itself around how she'd gotten them. He was pretty sure they'd been in his pocket this morning.

It was Jeff's assumption that Annie had helped him to the door of his small, definitely-within-budget apartment and got on the bus back to her car, still parked in the Greendale parking lot. He'd taken some aspirin, inspected his bruises and cuts in the bathroom mirror, and got into the shower with little more than the thought of sleep on his mind. After he got out of the shower, though, he found Annie sitting awkwardly on the edge of his couch-slash-bed, her leg hopping anxiously. Thanking whatever higher being that might or might not be out there that he'd had the foresight to put on pajamas before leaving the bathroom, Jeff cleared his throat noisily.

Then he winced, because that was a stupid thing to do after being garroted by an insane octogenarian earlier in the day.

Annie jumped up, flattening her skirt nervously with the palms of her hands. She stepped around Jeff's tiny coffee table and squinted at him, no doubt inspecting him for signs of concussion or loss of brain cells or god knew what else.

"Sorry, I was sitting at the bus stop and I had to come back because all I could think about was you falling over and hitting your head against something." Annie cast a glance around the apartment. The place was so tiny that if Jeff fell at all, he'd probably hit his head against something. "And you know most accidents happen in the bathroom. You could've slipped and fallen in the shower!"

Jeff looked at her curiously. "And what would you have done if I'd fallen in the shower?"

It took exactly three seconds for that question and the idea of naked shower-Jeff to filter through Annie's mind. Jeff could time it exactly because it took exactly three seconds for her face and neck to blush bright red after he'd said it.

Jeff gingerly sat down on the couch. The pills he'd taken earlier had kicked in well enough that he could walk and stand and speak in coherent snark, but he was certain that any extreme jostling of his head or limbs would bring the pain right back. Annie moved to his side, peering at him nervously again, this time with an overcast of chastisement. (Setting #5).

"Jeff, where are your bandages?"

"I couldn't wash the old lady pee off my face with them on," Jeff groaned. He poked at his eyebrow, then his nose. Annie winced sympathetically before standing up in a swirl of flower-sweet perfume that was a total blessing after the other aromas of the day. Plus Annie always smelled really pretty.

Jeff zoned out for several moments.

Annie brought him back to his senses when she sat down next to him, a dingy off-white first aid kit in one hand. Jeff frowned. He hadn't even noticed she'd left. He must've been more out of it than he thought.

Annie rummaged through the kit. "I found this in your bathroom cabinet. I assume there's some sort of code that they have to be in all the apartments… It's not the best kit in the world, but it'll do."

Jeff was about to respond with a sarcastic question about how you determine the "best" first aid kit in the world when he realized that Annie probably could. And did. She probably bought a series a first aid kits and judged them based on things like organization, content, and ease of use under stress. She probably charted them and listed them from best to worst and kept the charts and lists in a binder somewhere and then kept that binder in another binder, and then that binder in a filing cabinet full of binders. As he thought about it, Jeff couldn't help the smile that crossed his face. Annie looked at him, confused, before shrugging it off.

"Turn this way," she said. Without thinking, Jeff turned to face the young woman next to him and was met with a spritz of something cold to the forehead.

"Hey!" Jeff flinched back. There was a second's delay before, "Ow, good god, it stings, ow!"

Annie rolled her eyes. "Stay still, Jeff," she said. She put a hand against his face to steady him as she applied some sort of ointment on the bruise-slash-cut over his eyebrow. The wound still stung – almost blindingly so – but Jeff found that he couldn't move with Annie's hand holding him there. Her palm was warm and soft and he tried desperately to ignore the fact that she was rubbing her thumb against his cheek in short, apparently unconscious motions. Instead, Jeff watched her face with rapt attention as she applied the large bandage over the cut. She was very professional about it all. (Setting #7)

"Have you ever thought about being a nurse?" Jeff blurted. Annie finally looked him in the eyes, a blush much softer than the one Jeff had inspired earlier rising in her cheeks.

"I've thought about being lots of things," she replied cryptically. She rummaged around in the first aid kit some more before holding up a bandage for Jeff's nose. Jeff turned away now that Annie's hand wasn't holding him in place with some sort of Annie Hand Magic (Oh wow, not a good thing to call it, Jeffrey) and rested his head against the back of the couch. The injury on his forehead barely stung and suddenly he felt very, very exhausted.

After she set the bandage on Jeff's nose, Annie looked at him with more than nurse-like professionalism. Her eyes were clouded with guilt (Setting #8) and she worried her bottom lip as she inspected Jeff's face.

"That's why I went back to the infirmary," she said. Jeff wondered if he'd zoned out again but she motioned to his nose, her fingers just barely brushing against the new bandage. "…to apologize. For hitting you. I shouldn't have done that."

Jeff sighed. "Yes, you should have," he said. "You should have probably hit me a long time ago… You had all summer to do it, I don't really know what took you so long."

"I don't know—" Annie took a deep breath, as if to steady herself. When she exhaled, she was sitting a little more stiffly and refused to look at Jeff as she balled up the bandage wrappers and put the first aid kit back in order. "I don't know what came over me, Jeff. The way I was acting, it's no wonder you avoided me all summer. I knew you were nervous about… whether I'd take it all well, and there I was acting like a fifteen-year-old with a crush on a Jonas Brother or something. It was ridiculous; I was ridiculous. I should've been a lot more mature about what happened."

"That doesn't excuse the fact that I was a jerk. A sleazy, gross jerk who made out with one of his best friends and then pushed her away at every opportunity afterward. I'm glad you broke my nose. When it heals, you should break it again."

Annie stifled a grin, finally glancing back at him. "I think it's been broken enough this past year, actually."

"Fine. The arm's next." Jeff held his arm out to Annie and she dissolved into a fit of giggles, pushing it back down onto the couch.

Jeff couldn't hold back a grin of his own. He saw the laughter glitter in Annie's eyes (Setting #4) and his chest filled with a sort of airy pressure, even though that didn't make much sense. How could pressure feel airy? He didn't know, but Annie made him feel it.

"I mean it, though," Jeff said, sitting up a little straighter. "I don't blame you for hitting me… and I'm glad you think I'm gross now." It's much safer this way.

Annie's smile dimmed a little. "I could never think you're really gross, Jeff. You're still my friend. I don't make friends with bad people."

The sincerity in her voice made Jeff's breath hitch slightly. He could feel himself zoning out again, into that flower-perfume Annie world where everything was meadows and sunshine and Jeff Winger wasn't a tool.

The world only lasted a second, though, and Jeff recovered fast enough that he was sure Annie hadn't even noticed. His mouth curled up in a half-smile.

"Just people with a constantly shifting moral compass?"

Smile going full-wattage again, Annie nodded.

Their eyes met and the mood changed so quickly that Jeff could almost hear the ker-thunk of the levity leaving and the tension falling into its place. The small room suddenly felt like an impossibly smaller room. They were closer to each other than they really should've been, after everything that happened. In all honesty, as far as Jeff was concerned, Annie should probably keep a good three-foot distance from Jeff at all times. For her own good. The proximity made Jeff's skin heat up and his eyes go dark in the same way being close to Annie had made him a monster who craved young flesh at the dance.

Annie's eyes were wide and bright as she looked back at him. She seemed to recognize something in Jeff's expression. The corner of her mouth twitched upwards in a bitter sort of smile.

"I guess neither one of us handled this well, did we?" she asked.

It broke the spell that silence had cast over the room. Jeff looked down at his hands, unsure of what else to say. Annie looked at him, a sad disappointment crossing her features. (Setting #1. The first and the worst.)

The mood shifted again, turning awkward. Annie got up to leave. She told Jeff she'd take a bus back to Greendale to get her car and he nodded numbly at her, mumbling something about being careful. She'd smiled in a way that didn't quite reach her eyes and made a joke about being an expert with pepper spray.

When the door closed behind her and Jeff was alone again he tried to ignore the fact that he could still smell her flowery perfume, even over the medicinal scents of the ointment and astringent. Jeff took a deep breath before falling stiffly onto the arm of the couch, bumping his nose lightly.

"Ow," he said dully.