"I've got to go away."
She looks at him sadly as she says it and for a moment he forgets to shield his expression from her, lets the full force of his disappointment show on his face. Her two week vacation to return home for Christmas and Hanukkah - granted to her by a very flustered Human Resources intern who had never faced a determined Annie before- has passed them both by too quickly and he curls his arm around her on the bed to pull her closer. She's been with him every night since she arrived, there was never any question of him making her go back to stay with Britta when all he wanted was to be able to kiss her and hold her. The feeling turned out to be mutual. Still, that time was never going to be enough and he knows he should have expected this crushing disappointment at the end of it. Her suitcase is packed in his living room, ready to be loaded in to his car in the morning and he knows that she has already packed away most of the toiletries that have peppered his bathroom counter the past two weeks.
It was a struggle not to fall apart when she had called to tell him she wasn't coming back from DC after the summer; her bosses at the FBI had been so impressed with her that they offered to sponsor her to complete her forensics degree at a local college part time. Three months later and the ache is still there, still keeping him up at night even though she comes back to visit every few weekends and always, always finds time to see him.
He thinks of Christmas morning with her; lounging around in their pyjamas drinking mimosas and waiting for the others to arrive for Christmas lunch. Or New Years Eve, where he kissed her openly in front of the others at midnight and felt her laugh against his lips at the sound of their friends' cheers. He's kissed her a hundred times this past week and even that hasn't been enough.
"When can you come back?" he asks quietly, rallying, and tries to set a smile on his face as if he's okay with this, as if he's okay with watching her walk away every month and take a little part of him with her as she goes. Underneath the blanket he runs his fingertips over her bare skin, his usual proven method of seduction, but it's half-hearted and, although she shivers at his touch, she keeps her face serious.
"I don't know, Jeff. Soon, I hope. Maybe," her voice is sad, resigned and he can't help but notice the way she can't meet his eye.
"Maybe," he repeats quietly, echoing the words that cut him so deep back in summer. With nothing else to say he pulls her even closer, wraps her up entirely in his arms so she can press her face in to his chest. It's not fair, he thinks, that she has to be so torn over following her dreams. But he can't bring himself to let her go, not now, not again.
"Come with me," she says eventually, her voice so quiet he has to run the words back through his mind to make sure he's made sense of them. He says nothing, but for a moment imagines himself locking the door to this condo behind him and not looking back. It's his home, and it's seen him through the years, but after everything it's just a few walls and windows.
"I don't think anywhere other than Greendale will hire me as a teacher," he begins thoughtfully, rolling back to face the ceiling. He doesn't dare look at her. "If I sold this place I could pay our rent while I looked for something in a law firm. I'm a little rusty but I've got a couple of old contacts who could give me a reference. Or maybe I could sublet this place. What do you think?"
When he turns to face her she's staring back at him, wide-eyed, and for a moment he panics that he did mishear her after all. Then her lip quivers and she's on him, pressing him down in the mattress as she kisses him, her hands pressed firm against his shoulders.
"Annie!" he laughs and pushes her up so that she's upright and straddling him, "So, it's a plan then?"
She kisses him again, hands planted on either side of his head as she leans over him. He lets his hands wander over her bare skin; across her back and up to her shoulders to pull her closer against him. After a moment she pulls back from his lips, eliciting a sigh from him, and presses her forehead against his.
"You'd really leave Greendale, for me?" she asks, face suddenly serious when he meets her eyes.
"At this point, Annie, I'd leave Greendale for a bottle of scotch and a sandwich. What's keeping me here now? I like teaching, I don't love it. I like Britta and Frankie, I don't love them. I like this apartment, I don't love it. When it comes down to it the only thing that I can really say I love is… well… you."
As soon as he says it she stiffens under his hands and he realises that she didn't know, couldn't have known because he's never told her how he actually feels. But he's learnt the difference between her sad doe eyes and her happy ones and the look she's giving him is about the happiest he's seen her in a while.
"I love you, Annie," he says, softer this time, and pulls her down to kiss her, once, on the lips, "And I don't want to hold you back. I want you to be able to do all the things you planned on doing… but I want to be there with you when you do. So, yeah, I'll come with you, if you want me to."
For a moment she lays flat across his chest, making patterns with her fingertips against his skin. The silence that stretches on is a comfortable one, although he can sense her building up to speak again.
"It wouldn't be forever," she says finally, thoughtfully, "I want to finish my forensics course at the college they've sent me to, financially it makes sense, and it would be good to spend a year at the DC office. After that, who knows?"
"Too many variables?" He grins up at her as she gives him a strange look, then recognition dawns and she's on him again, kissing him hard.
"Too many variables," she whispers against his lips and he rolls her on to her back.