Timeline: After Season 3's Dreamatorium episode, and before the season finale.

Author's Note: I want all my Annie/Abed fics to take place in the same universe, so there may be a reference or two from "Lessons in Modern Chivalry" in this fic. With that said, this takes place after Lessons in Modern Chivalry, and though it isn't really a sequel I think it would help if you read it first.

A/N 2: I'm prematurely releasing this! I planned on posting the first chapter sometime mid or late November, but it's AA Week! It's a celebration! =D


Chapter 1: The Problem

Annie was feeling horrible. She shouldn't— she knew this— she should feel over the moon right now— even the girl she was in her past life given the totally-uncreative and uncalled for title of "Annie Adderall" that she had been working so hard to erase would have reacted more appropriately.

It happened yesterday. She was talking— and she knew it was just talking; she wasn't trying to win boys over in Organic Chemistry, never mind that she did look cuter than most girls in an unflattering lab coat— to a classmate for the past few weeks. They were lab partners after all so it made sense when his hands occasionally brushed hers when he passed the microscope to her, made sense that she shared her double spaced, Helvetica-fonted, color-coded notes with him when he missed a class, or two, or three— made sense that he asked her out for a dinner and a movie this coming Friday out of the blue.

She said yes, of course.

He said dinner and a movie after they studied, so he meant it as a study break. No biggie. It would be fun!

And then Troy reminded her a couple hours later while she made dinner (it was her turn. Troy would be washing dishes so he was chaperoning to make sure she didn't use too many dishes while cooking) of the chick flick marathon they were supposed to have that day.

"I'm studying that day." she said, popping the lasagna into the oven with mitten-covered hands. She was wearing Abed's Inspector Spacetime apron.

"By day you mean before 6pm, right?" Troy said seriously, arms crossed to indicate he meant business. It would have looked threatening had he not been wearing his Spider-Man pajamas with matching slippers. "Because we had been planning this since last month and it was your idea."

She closed the oven and started to take the mittens off. "I know, but I have a test next Monday and James is busy this weekend. Can't we reschedule?"

"Abed and I are busy this weekend too," Troy began, following Annie as she walked to hang the mitts on the wall, "Need I remind you that we have a very important showing of Sesame's Street to catch at 11am sharp on Saturday? Then that brownie-making contest we have on Sunday with Shirley. Or did you forget about that too?"

She turned to face her roommate. "We could do the chick flick marathon Saturday night."

"Who studies on a Friday night?" Troy grilled.

"I do. And it's Friday afternoon, technically." She shrugged a little, not meeting his eyes. "We have a study break at night."

"What's a study break?" Troy's eyes suddenly widened in panic. "Annie, how long are you going to be studying Friday? Will we ever see you again?"

"Troy! Calm down. It's more like an after-study break. A reward for studying so much." She ignored Troy's 'smart people are weird' comment, "It's just dinner and a movie."

"Whoa." Troy's expression changed so quickly from concerned and a little sad to inappropriate and cheeky that Annie took an unconscious step backward. "You go girl. All you had to say is that you were getting some ting tang in the bing bang."

"What?" Annie blushed, her mouth working furiously in embarrassed retaliation. "I am not getting some— some ting tang walla bing bang. It is just a study break!"

"On a Friday night? Dinner?" Troy was moving in closer with each sentence while he nodded suggestively. "And a movie?"

Before she could so much as think of a response, Troy pivoted and began walking toward the blanket fort room. "Wait'll I tell Abed!"

"It's not a date!" Annie yelled uselessly after him. Then quietly to herself, "Right?"


Annie had walked into the study room the next day with a renewed gusto. She had been thinking about what Troy said all night and though it did seem a bit... "date-y," James hadn't dropped any romantic hints before, so clearly he meant just a study break and nothing else. She was not going to continue thinking about Friday and make it a bigger deal than it was. She was going to enjoy today. Nothing was going to bring her down—

"Finally putting those large knockers to some good use Friday, 'ey Annie?"

Britta gaped. "Pierce!"

Annie whirled. "Troy!"

Troy gasped. "Jeff!"

Jeff lowered his phone in dismissive irritation. "What?"

"Oh. I thought we were just yelling each other's names?" Everyone was still looking at Troy expectantly. Troy visibly shrunk into his chair. "Guess not."

"So by 'tell Abed,' you also meant Jeff, Shirley, Britta and Pierce?" Annie said, hurt at Troy's betrayal.

"Well now that we've addressed the elephant in the room..." Pierce began.

"There was no elephant in the room, Pierce." Britta started, "Annie didn't know that we all knew she was going on a date with James from her Organic Chemistry class. And what she does or does not do with her breasts on Friday is none of your concern."

"Britta's right." Shirley interjected supportively in Annie's direction, "Even though the preservation of a woman's girlhood before marriage is very important and something Annie should be proud—"

"I am not going to have sex with James—!" Annie yelled sharply to the group.

Shirley looked at Abed across the table. "Did she just interrupt me?" Abed nodded. "She did not just interrupt me right now." Pierce put a comforting hand over hers and the beginnings of Shirley's anger shriveled into disgust. She pulled her hand out from under his.

"—We're not even going on a date! We are just having a study session followed by a study break. It just happens to fall on a Friday night."

"You know what else falls out on a Friday night? My pe—"

"Pierce!" Jeff shouted. Pierce looked in his direction. "Shut up. Annie," Annie snapped her attention to Jeff in clear annoyance. "sit down. Troy," Troy looked up. "Stop tweeting about how much sex Annie is going to be getting from James this Friday. You're blowing up my phone."

"You're tweeting it?" Annie squeaked, her voice hitting a new hysteric octave.

"Wow Jeff, tattle-tale much?" Troy said. He looked at Annie and mouthed 'I got your back.'

Jeff rolled his eyes. "Annie. You are going out on a date with a classmate. End of discussion."

Annie, now seated in her designated spot at the table, opened her mouth to retaliate.

"No, Annie. You are." Jeff put his phone down. "Define what a date is."

"Ooh I can!" Troy quickly tapped the word in his phone. "'Date.'" Troy recited, "'A sweet, dark brown, oval fruit containing a hard stone, often eaten dried.'"

"Okay, Annie!" Jeff said, rounding his attention and the group's back to their youngest member. "You define date."

"An outing that two people go on with romantic intentions. Usually to get to know one another better."

Jeff kept looking at her.

"...And it's not a date between me and James because there's nothing romantic and we've known each other since the beginning of the semester."

"Oh my GOD," Jeff said in exasperation, "Abed, tell me where I am right now."

"Greendale Community College."

"Oh really? Good! I thought I was back in frikkin' junior high! Annie, it's a date. James is using the excuse of a study session so you would be more willing to say yes to a date code-name 'study break.' I would know, I tried that with Britta during the first semester in this hellhole!"

There were collective groans and murmurs around the room ranging from "Jeffrey, I don't like your language," from Shirley to "It's true," from Britta.

Jeff turned to Britta, "But it worked, didn't it? You had sex with me. I won."

There were more groans from the ladies in the room and variations of "awesome" from Troy and Pierce.

"Um, can we go back to the part where we were talking about Annie's date?" Abed said, pointing at Annie, a piece of popcorn in his hand.

Jeff looked like he was about to ask Abed where he got the popcorn from but then decided against it. He turned to Annie. "Listen, you're going on a date. That's normal."

Rather than calming down, Annie looked frightened. "I've never been on a real date before."

"Plot twist." Abed interjected.

"You've never been on a real date before?" Jeff repeated.

"What was Vaughn and that charming, handsome, young man Rich then?" Shirley asked.

"Even though we did share some real moments picking up trash by the river," Annie giggled a little at the memory, "Rich said I was too young for him."

"And Vaughn?" Jeff asked.

"Vaughn and I hung out a lot but we never... really had a real conversation. We mostly just, um... kissed."

"Seconded." Britta supplied.

"Annie's never been on a date?" Troy said, "Aww..."

Annie was a bundle of nerves now. "There are plenty of people who haven't been on dates yet." she looked around the room, "I mean, at least one of you haven't been on a date either..."

Jeff picked up his phone and continued texting. Britta tried to give her a comforting smile. Troy just kept looking at her like she was a cute little puppy.

Shirley turned away. "Don't look at me, I'm a married woman. I've been on plenty of dates."

"Well since you all are so curious, when I was Annie's age I impregnated at least fift—"

"No one is curious, Pierce." Jeff said without looking up from his phone.

Annie locked eyes with Abed. "Abed, you haven't had a date before, right?"

Abed popped a piece of popcorn in his mouth. "Recently? Or are we talking about last year? The year before that? Trick question. Yes to all."

"Whoa, really?" Britta said, genuinely impressed.

Abed nodded. "Mmhmm." He popped another piece of popcorn into his mouth. "There was Jeff's classmate, Stephanie, who introduced herself to me during that day Jeff played strip pool with the physical education teacher. She was pretty cute but she never watched the Saw movies and thought Star Wars was boring so that relationship ended quick. Then there was this girl you guys don't know named Jackie— it didn't work out but later that year I helped her give birth in the back of an SUV. There was Meghan, the leader of the group of girls that resembled Mean Girls in the women's studies class I took with Annie, Britta and Shirley— after I helped her regain her popularity status she and I went on a couple dates before she transferred into law school. Then there was the secret service agent—"

"You went out with a secret service agent?" Shirley asked.

"—yeah. Her name is Robin. We watched Kickpuncher together. We had something real going but she had to go overseas with the president last year and I haven't heard from her since." He turned to Troy, "You would have liked her."

"Okay great, so I'm just a prude then." Annie said, throwing her arms up in agitation.

Shirley turned sympathetically toward the youngest member of the group. "Oh An-nie. Prude isn't a bad thing. That's just a name sinners use to throw at well-meaning followers of God."

"Prude!" yelled Pierce.

"And what a cute little prude she is!" Troy agreed, his voice taking on the tone a person takes when observing kittens.

"I am not staying for any more of this." Annie got up and made for the door just in time to run into the dean.

"Whoa! Slow down there, busy bee." The dean stepped back a little to give Annie's upset demeanor a once over. "Is this about your date with James? I know he's no James Dean," he looked at the group expectantly before turning back to Annie, "but he's a very nice guy. Straight B student—" Annie brushed past the dean and out the door.

The dean put his hands on his waist while watching Annie leave. "Well not to put a damper on anyone's day, but what did you all do to our future valedictorian?" He looked at the study group. "Jeff? Troy?" When no one responded the dean continued, "I expected more from the most diverse, well represented group on campus." The dean's eyes swept over the group. He put a hand on Jeff's shoulder as if to steady himself. "I am so disappointed that I don't even remember what dean-licious news I had for you all. I need comforting. Jeff—" The dean leaned down as if to hug Jeff.

"No." Jeff deadpanned.

"Not today?"

"Never." Jeff said, still looking at his phone.

The dean straightened proper and nodded, giving Jeff's shoulder one last squeeze. "Okay. Well, you all have a great day! Study hard!" He waved and disappeared from the room.


A/N: Like many authors, reviews make me feel good. =D