Developmental Cognitive Psychology

The Greendale study group, although lethal, is still a family.

They may not want to admit it, but Todd was right when he stated that their love was weird and toxic. The connection they have is very weird, very abnormal, very unnatural. But they still love each other, despite everything that's happened (and that's a lot of shit). They've always been there for one another, they've always banded together during the hard times, and during the good, there's always been a crazy situation in which they can just let loose and be themselves. They may be a little incestuous but they were still an unbreakable unit.

Of course, along with being an unbreakable unit comes knowing one another's secrets. There wasn't much the study group didn't know about each other, now. Ever since Troy's twenty-first birthday, when everyone found out about Annie's horrible living situation, they had been pestering her nonstop to move elsewhere. Months after Ben's birth, it was revealed that Shirley had never actually signed the divorce papers, so technically she and Andre were still married. It took awhile for everyone to convince her that she really did need to tell him. And a week after school started the third year, they all discovered Jeff's secret- that Chang had lived with him for good a month and a half. He got an earful for keeping that one a secret.

However.

Certain members of families are closer than others and this is the same within the study group. There are secrets among certain members that the others don't know. There are a few between new-roomies Troy and Abed, things they won't tell the others. There are just a couple between Annie and Shirley, details they feel the group doesn't need to know. But the plethora of secrets that the study group didn't need to- and would never- know existed between the two members who had been using each other for sex. Throughout that year, Jeff and Britta learned a lot about each other. Like, a lot.

Things the others didn't ever need to know.

This may pose a problem in the near future.

Jeff finds out that Britta's a rich kid one late autumn morning and to say he's shocked is an understatement.

It's a Saturday morning; Jeff knows because they spent the night before as they always do- participating in drinking games and contests at dive bars before arguing about the dumbest shit (and you thought The Hurt Locker argument was bad). The sunlight's streaming through the windows of Britta's bedroom, because she insists on eco-friendly window treatments that reflect the sun's rays rather than blocking them and scatter them all over the room. It's nine a.m., which is much too early, and Jeff pulls the pillow from behind his head and smashes it over his face to block the light. Britta jumps awake when the phone rings, but groans and ignores it, snuggling deeper into the blankets.

"Can you answer your phone?" His voice is muffled from beneath the organic, hypo-allergenic pillow, but she answers his question with another question.

"Can you turn down the sun?"

"Maybe, if you didn't insist on cheap blinds made of driftwood and dental floss," Jeff bites back. He hears clattering as she feels around for her cell phone, but it's the house phone that's ringing and he's about to tell her this when the machine picks up.

"Hey, this is Britta. Leave a message if you want. If not, I don't care."

"Well good morning to you too, dear. This is your mother. Where could you possibly be on a Saturday morning at this hour? I really don't understand why you had to move off to Colorado, of all places. What's out there that you can't get here? Anyway, I was just calling to confirm that you've booked your airline ticket for next weekend. Katherine is very much looking forward to seeing you and having you as her mentor for cotillion! She's going to look lovely; I gave her your gown. You know, the one I had special-ordered from Milan, two weeks before you quit and embarrassed us all? Anyway, she looks fantastic in it. She's got the perfect figure- not too skinny, not too bony. It's almost as if the dress was made for her. I'll send the car to pick you up at the airport. See you soon, darling."

The machine beeps a second time and then the room is quiet. Jeff's not even sure if Britta's breathing. He pulls the pillow off of his face and glances over towards her, but she's still in shock. Her eyes are wide and her expression is panicked. So many things slide into place in Jeff's mind that he can't even form a coherent thought. It all makes sense- the compulsive donating, the obsessive need to care for other people, her overly generous nature, even when it was completely unnecessary, as it often was. Britta comes from money… but she doesn't want to.

A moment later Jeff opens his mouth to speak, but before he can say anything, Britta is out of bed, slipping a t-shirt over her head and heading out of the bedroom mumbling something about coffee. For a moment, Jeff does nothing. Now probably isn't the best time to comment and mock her about this. But at the same time, he doesn't want things to be weird around one another, so he decides to keep things normal. He foregoes dressing, sticking with just his underwear, and follows her into the kitchen, where's she's watching the coffee brew and running her fingers through her tousled hair, her face brooding with displeasure.

She notices he's followed her and sighs. "Whatever you're going to say, can you just… not?"

He nods and asks, "Who's Katharine?"

Britta looks at him in confusion. This was not at all what she was expecting. "My cousin. She lives in New York. Well they all do; my family, I mean."

"And cotillion?" Jeff smirks. He tries not to- really, he does- but it's so, so difficult. "What the hell is that?"

"Dangerous territory, Winger," Britta tells him, pouring coffee into separate mugs. "Mention it to the group and you'll regret it."

He accepts his coffee and grins at her. "Your secret's safe with me, Ms. Waldorf."

It's mid-December, a couple of days after Greendale lets out for winter break, and Britta wakes up in Jeff's apartment, a little disoriented and squinting in the sunlight that's reflecting off of the freshly fallen snow. There's a flurry of flakes swirling about outside of his bedroom window and she sits up, rubbing her eyes and noticing the full cup of steaming coffee resting on the bedside table. His thoughtfulness makes her smile and she smells the strong scent of maple emanating from the kitchen, knowing his cooking anywhere.

Pushing back the sheets and duvet, she gasps when her warm feet hit the cool wooden floors of his bedroom and curses him for not buying a carpet. When she peers out the window, she notices the flurry of snowflakes is actually a blizzard, and she can no longer see her car in the parking lot, for it's covered by a full blanket of white. The t-shirt she's slept in is thin and light, so she's shivering and is contemplating crawling back under the covers and making him bring her breakfast in bed. She searches for a sweatshirt, a sweater, anything to match the warmth from the bed instead.

His dresser drawers are full of underwear, socks, ties, and work-out gear, so she abandons ship and pads across the room, yanking open his closet doors instead. And there's a reason she's never been in his closet- it's a disaster. It looks like a bomb site and she carefully moves things, peels back layers, searches and tries not to get swallowed in by the mess. Then she discovers it- underneath a pile of heavy winter coats is a mahogany bookcase and, surprisingly, it's full. Britta's eyes widen and she kneels in front of it, her eyes scanning over the titles of the novels. Jeff Winger reads? Jeff Winger reads for fun?

Fahrenheit 451. The Great Gatsby. A Farewell to Arms. Catch-22. Their Eyes Were Watching God. To Kill A Mockingbird. Britta is in suspended shock because, honestly? This isn't the kind of person Jeff claims to be. These are the kinds of novels she read in her high school English classes; books she'd have to read and then right five-page papers on, explaining the higher meaning to the text. It was that kind of crap that made her drop out anyway. She wanted to read just to read- not to write essays or analyze literature. She keeps reading titles, but the shock never wears off.

The Catcher in the Rye. Slaughterhouse-Five. Lord of the Flies. Animal Farm. He even has the box-set of the complete Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter series. As she picks out The Count of Monte Cristo, because she's never read that one, Jeff enters the room and his entire visage completely changes. "What are you doing?"

Looking up from Alexandre Dumas's novel, she smirks and asks, "You read, huh?"

"They're… not mine." Jeff offers lamely and Britta laughs out loud.

"Are you holding them for a friend?" She teases as he sits beside her and glares in her direction. "What are you in some kind of book club? You've got thousands of pages of classic literature, here."

"For your information," Jeff defends himself, snatching The Count of Monte Cristo out of her hands. She rolls her eyes and picks up The Hunger Games. "The girl at the bookstore was really hot."

"So you pretended to be some kind of novel laureate just so you could see her all the time?" Britta questions. "I don't believe you. I think you actually read these."

Jeff shrugs. "Whatever. She was hot. She got all sexy when she was discussing Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy."

Britta frowns. "I hated that book."

"Not my favorite, either," Jeff agrees. "Make fun of me all you want, but these books paved the road to becoming a well-rounded individual."

Britta eyes him. "And how did that work out for you?"

"You tell me," He challenges.

There's a moment of silence as Jeff re-shelves The Hunger Games just as Britta picks out Catching Fire. She glances up and down the rows of novels before frowning and saying, "You're missing one."

"I know," Jeff responds. "We stopped hooking up around the time that one came out. I never got around to reading it."

Britta's mouth twists into a small smile. "Well good. Now I have something to get you for Christmas."

He grins too, but asks, "Christmas? The holiday we don't celebrate?"

"This year," She leans in to kiss him. "We do."

About a week later, they realize they spend too much time together.

They're slumped on Britta's couch, a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air re-run on in the background, as they're contemplating what to do about their dinner situation that evening. They're watching Carlton dance ridiculously to Tom Jones when Jeff asks, "Should we get a pizza?"

"No," Britta responds half-heartedly. Even their banter has become tired. They need to spend time apart.

"Chinese?"

"No."

"Indian?"

"No."

"Thai?"

"Ugh, no," Britta whines. "And what's the difference between Thai and Indian anyway? I mean, they're pretty much the same."

"No they're not," Jeff disagrees. "Thai is like Asian food and… Indian's Indian."

Britta stares at him. "That was possibly the dumbest thing you've ever said. Indian's Asian… India is in Asia!"

"Thank you for the geography lesson," Jeff rolls his eyes. "And I'm aware, but when you think Asian, you think like Chinese, Japanese… you know. You don't think Indian!"

"Shut up. Seriously. You sound like such a dumbass right now."

He smirks. "What are we even arguing about right now?"

"Honestly?" She shakes her head. "I don't know."

"Whatever," Jeff snatches his Blackberry out of his pocket and dials sinuously. "I'm getting a pizza, because you're indecisive. As usual. And you can go down and get it. It's your apartment."

"You're paying? Fine." She tells him and doesn't even balk when he gives her address just as fluidly as he would give his own.

Around a half hour later, after Britta smacks him for telling the delivery guy "his girlfriend" would be right down to get the pizza ("What was I supposed to say?" He asks. "My fuck buddy?"), she heads downstairs and tells Jeff to find something to watch that isn't a 90s sitcom. He's now crouching in front of her TV, underneath which is a compartment where she keeps her collection of movies. Then he's passing over movie titles and questioning Britta's taste.

She has Forrest Gump, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, The Matrix, The Sixth Sense, and the entire Scream series. She has Brokeback Mountain, The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, and It's A Wonderful Life. She has possibly the most ironic and wide-ranged taste he's ever seen and he's honestly more than a little confused. When he pushes the second row of movies aside to see what other movies are in Britta's possession, his face twists into a grin. She thought she was clever, huh? She enjoyed making fun of his novel collection? Well, what goes around comes around.

In the third row, Britta has movies Jeff would never expect. 50 First Dates, for one. And Valentine's Day. 27 Dresses. The Proposal. Sweet Home Alabama. She even has Titanic. Jeff grins when he hears the apartment door open and shut again and Britta enters the room, tossing the pizza on the coffee table. "Ugh. Biggest creep ever. Why are delivery guys so gross?"

But Jeff doesn't respond and instead continues to grin at her. She looks at him and then at her movie collection and her eyes widen. "That's my secret collection!"

"Britta Perry," Jeff shakes his head. "You have a heart after all."

"No," She's backpedaling fast. "I haven't seen them in awhile! Titanic's a classic and 50 First Dates is funny and The Proposal… No forget it. I don't have to explain myself to you!"

"I just can't believe Miss Female-Empowerment-Doesn't-Believe-In-Marriage likes rom-coms, that's all," Jeff chuckles and Britta frowns.

"Yeah, it's kind of like Mr. Fear-of-Commitment saying that "his girlfriend" will be down to get the pizza," Britta shoots back and Jeff stops laughing.

"What would you have preferred me to say?" He asks and she shrugs because, honestly? She doesn't know. It actually wasn't as big of a deal as she's making it sound. She actually kind of liked it… which is weird and very un-Britta of her. Ugh.

"Those movies may objectify women by making us seem as if we're helpless and need a man in order for our lives to be complete," Britta begins and Jeff rolls his eyes. "But I like the stories. Don't judge me."

Jeff holds up his hands in surrender, tossing a disc into the DVD player and hitting 'play' as they settle on the couch for another night in. "No judging here. At least not to your face."

"Shut up," She tells him, handing him a beer from the handful she brought from the kitchen. "What did you pick?"

"No Strings Attached," He says and they both chuckle at the irony. "Seemed appropriate."

After winter break, when they've returned to Greendale and rejected both Chang and Annie's crush on Rich, Jeff and Britta continue to hook up on the side. The weekend after the whole Annie and Rich, Shirley and Andre fiasco, Britta's over at Jeff's while he makes them dinner. She's seated on the kitchen counter- even though she knows he hates that- and she's eating grapes out of the bowl he keeps by the sink. Every so often, she chucks one at him, giving herself five points for every shoulder hit, ten points for the head, and twenty points if it hits him in the eye.

"So how come," She asks the million-dollar question. "We're still doing this if you have feelings for Annie?"

He stops dicing tomatoes for a split second before continuing and shrugging. "I don't have feelings for Annie."

"I think you do," Britta states and chucks another grape at him. Five points. "I know our relationship is strictly physical, but don't you think-"

"I do not have a thing for the nineteen-year-old in our study group," He cuts her off, saying 'nineteen-year-old' as if she was infectious. But in a way, she kind of was. "But I do care about her. And I do care about the guys she dates. Rich is an asshole."

"Oh come on, there is nothing wrong with him!" Britta states and Jeff gives her a look that reads, Not you, too. "You just dislike him because other people like him so easily and it took us a while to warm up to you. He's a threat to your throne."

Jeff smirks and says sarcastically, "Wow. You should be a therapist."

Britta rolls her eyes and throws another grape at him. Ten points as it bounces off his forehead. "So what are you making anyway?"

"Homemade spaghetti," He answers as another grape bounces off his cheek. He's had enough. "Stop with the fucking grapes!"

Before she can stop him, he's grabbed the bowl and stuffed it in the refrigerator, away from her grasp. She pouts like a toddler. "Hey! That's not fair. I was eating those!"

"Tell a lawyer," Jeff tells her and then smirks. "Oh wait, you just did!"

"You're not a lawyer anymore, asshole," She responds but immediately regrets it when a horrible dark cloud passes over his face.

"No. I'm not."

"Jeff," Britta starts. "I didn't mean it that way."

"Yes you did," He tells her. "It's fine. Don't worry about it."

But now there's an awkward silence and tension filling the room. Britta shifts uncomfortably on the counter and considers trying to apologize again when he says, "You know sometimes I'm glad I'm not a lawyer anymore?"

Her eyes widen. "Really? Why?"

"Ever since you guys, I've been thinking a lot about everything that's happened," Jeff says, adding the recently pureed tomatoes to a pot for boiling before turning to face her. "Not about the stupid shit, like the DUIs I cleared or the shitty accountants who needed help when they got busted. But a few years ago, I had a legit case. This guy had been accused of having sex with a fourteen-year-old girl he met on the internet and I knew it was going to be a star on my record, so I manipulated my way into getting assigned to that guy's defense."

"You defended that scumbag?" Britta asks and her face is twisted in disgust.

"I was a defense attorney. That was my job," Jeff sighs. "Anyway, we get into one of those conference rooms in the prison they were keeping him in and he breaks down and tells me everything. How he pretended to be a seventeen-year-old guy living down the block from the girl, when he was really thirty-nine. How he proposed they meet up one night when her parents weren't home. How he brought condoms and lubricant, because she said she was a virgin. He was so obviously guilty. There was no way I could win that case."

"What did you do?" Britta grimaces at the details but sits a little straighter, intrigued.

"I did my job," Jeff explains. "And I got him off. I don't know who decided we were right, but somehow the blame was placed on the girl and not this guy. How she could've come forward sooner, and how it wasn't rape if she gave consent. He was registered as a sex-offender already, so he didn't even have to do that. I don't know what happened, but that's when I realized how fucked up our legal system is."

"And that girl? She took the stand, she testified, she even cried. And somehow I still got the guy to walk." Jeff says and Britta can tell he's more than a little disgusted with himself. "I didn't allow myself to think about it. But now? Now that it's over and it's been awhile? How could I have done that? How could I have let that guy go free when it was so obvious that he was guilty? It's sick… And it makes me glad that I haven't been in practice to let that happen again."

"Well he shouldn't have done it in the first place," Britta tells a guilt-ridden Jeff. "It's not your fault."

"It is my fault," Jeff disagrees. "Because I had the chance to present a weak case, to do my job wrong, so the prosecution would win and I didn't take it."

"Maybe it's better on the other side," She suggests and Jeff glances questioningly at her. "Get your bachelor's, but go work for the prosecution instead."

He pulls a face. "Ugh. I can't work for them. Then you have to care."

Britta rolls her eyes. Typical. "Jeff, you do care. You can pretend that you don't all you want, but you definitely do."

"Whatever," He shrugs it off and turns back to his cooking, asking, "Can you grab the pasta out of the pantry?"

She hops off the counter and walks over to the cabinet, searching its content for exactly what he's looking for. Handing him the pasta, he thanks her and says, "You can have your grapes back. Were you winning?"

Britta grins and says, "I always win."

The best part about Britta, Jeff decides, is that she never changes.

She's never stopped being the crazy, feministic, and holier-than-thou person she always has been and that's what he loves about her. She never expects to have to change for anyone and she never expects anyone to change for her and that's always been enough. He knows her quirks, what she likes and doesn't like, and the deepest secrets about her that she's never revealed to anyone- not her parents, not her brothers, and definitely not the study group.

Jeff's thinking of all of this right now as his hands work the clasp on her bra, hers on the button on his jeans. It's always like this; eager, hot, and heavy. But this time, Jeff's determined to make it different. It's the most intimate action, being completely filled and consumed by one another, and he's determined to learn all he can about her. So, he grasps at her hands and moves them away from his jeans, earning a confused glance from the disheveled blonde beneath him, but he ignores her look. He instead traces a small half-moon shaped patch of discolored skin behind her left ear and asks, "What's this?"

"A burn mark," Britta answers. "From the curling iron my Mom used to curl my hair with for pageants. She used to tell me that as long as the judges couldn't see it, it didn't matter."

He kisses it and continues to kiss down her neck and onto her collarbone as she moans in response. The groove of her collarbone is uneven and when Jeff notices this, he glances at her questioningly. She says, "Car accident. I was in eighth grade."

He shakes his head, wondering what he else he doesn't know about her, and continues to bite and lick down her body. The curve and swell of her breasts gives way to the flat plane of her stomach, where he lingers for a moment, toying with the soft metallic barbell in her bellybutton. "Impulse buy?" He asks and she chuckles slightly.

"More like hazy, drunken eighteenth-birthday dare," She replies. "I woke up the next morning with the piercing care instructions written in Sharpie on my arm."

Jeff laughs and continues on, but stops as he notes the horizontal scar on her lower right side. He runs a finger over the smooth skin, making her tremble, and asks, "How'd you do this?"

"Appendicitis," Britta counters. "I was eight. My brother took me to the hospital because my parents thought I was faking it."

"Jesus," He says because, honestly, how inattentive can you get? The body conquest continues as he finds the scar on her right knee from when she crashed her bike into the iron gate outside their penthouse and the vertical scar on her right foot from when her pointe shoe broke in half and the plaster shank cut through her foot.

"You're body's been through some serious shit," Jeff comments, reconnecting their lips and allowing her to continue removing his jeans.

"You're telling me," Britta agrees, succeeding and moving to run her fingers through his hair.

"I can make it better," He grins cockily as he slips into her.

She gasps, moans, and lets him.

Britta clasps the buckle on the hot pink stilettos, stands, and looks herself in the mirror.

And then groans and wonders why she agreed to this in the first place.

Jeff is… well, he's Jeff. He's complete douchebag material, but at the same time he isn't, not really. The year she's spent having sex with him has opened up a whole other side of him that she never expected she'd see. She's learned nearly everything about him and she doesn't even feel like it's been too much. At this point, she knows she has feelings for Jeff, sure. She doesn't love him per se, but she guesses she's pretty close. Anyway, learning the oddities and quirks about Jeff Winger has made her grow to appreciate him much more as a person.

She does not however appreciate being dressed in the most uncomfortable costume known to man.

One night, a week or two after Abed's Pulp Fiction birthday party, they're having the discussion on sexual fantasies when Jeff gets super excited and mentions how not one of his former girlfriend/hook-ups had ever taken him up his fantasy. And then Britta made the mistake of asking him what that was. And that's how she ended up dressed as Elle Woods, attorney at law, because Jeff had dreamed of having sex with Reese Witherspoon ever since he heard her use the legal jargon he had grown accustomed to using every day.

"What's taking you so long?" Jeff calls from the bedroom and Britta frowns at herself in the mirror once more. She's wearing the pink stilettos, the pink low-cut and sequined dress, the ridiculous pink hat that she had to bobby pin to her head. She's even got a pink purse with a stuffed Chihuahua she borrowed from Annie (and why Annie has this is beyond her. She didn't ask). To be honest, she looks like a petite bottle of Pepto Bismol.

"Are you sure you want this?" She calls back. "I look so fucking stupid."

"Yeah right," He tells her. "You're just being overly judgmental. Will you just come out here?"

"What if you imagined it differently?"

"How can I?" He asks. "No one's ever done it before!"

Britta sighs and gives in, checking to make sure she doesn't have pink lip gloss on her teeth before turning towards the door of the bathroom. "Fine. But if you laugh at me, I am never having sex with you again."

She twists the doorknob open and steps into her bedroom, where Jeff is already half clothed and waiting for her in bed. He doesn't laugh. He definitely doesn't laugh. He looks her over and grins. "You should wear pink more often."

"Oh my God, definitely not," Britta disagrees. "I look like something you drink when you feel nauseous."

Jeff shakes his head, crawling over to her side of the bed and wrapping his arms around her waist. "You look hot."

"I object!" Britta plays along, winking at him.

He shakes his head again, pulling her onto him. "Overruled."

And then they're off.

When they agree to stop seeing each other, there is also a silent agreement not to tell anyone in the study group what they know about each other.

The rest of the year goes by fluidly and then they all bid farewell for the summer, promising to keep in touch and maybe even get together for lunch one day. They work, they play, they enjoy summer as much as they can before fall begins and melts into a new school year. Classes start, Pierce rejoins the study group and Jeff and Britta fall back into the routine of bickering and flirting, much to the chagrin of the group.

They miss each other. It would be a lie to say that wasn't true. Jeff misses Britta's antics; her silly grape-throwing game, the way she sang stupid pop songs in the shower and messed up most of the words, the way her mind told one story and her body told another. Britta misses Jeff's company, mostly; she misses discussing novels at 3 a.m., joking about the behavior of the rest of the study group, their half-hearted banter that always ended in one of them throwing in the towel, because they honestly were past that. Both of them missed the sex, but neither of them would admit it to themselves.

They weren't going to force it, though. They gave themselves time together and now they needed time apart. If they were supposed to be, then they would be, but not until they gave themselves time to figure out who they were as people. Britta takes Jeff's advice and goes into psychology. Jeff snarks about how she'll be bad at it, but secretly, he knows her love of helping people will actually get the job done. And as for him? He considers working for the prosecution. He hasn't made a full decision, but he wouldn't have ever thought of it if it wasn't for her.

Most people believe Jeff and Britta don't belong together because they can't change and bring out the worst in each other, but it's actually quite the opposite.

They bring out the best in each other and don't allow the other to be someone they're not, which is, ultimately, why they do belong together.

They've realized it. They just need time to convince everyone else.