Theater of Truth

Chapter 1

A pair of pigeons copulated outside the window. A fly droned while making lazy loops above the desk. The dean's disembodied voice announced a Greendale Medieval Fair, and regrettably also his costume, Guinevere. The human occupants of the study room remained silent through all of this, and pointedly still.

Annie didn't know how much longer her poker face would hold. She'd badly hoped that harmony would be restored after yesterday's events – their reunion for the winter semester, their quick sweep of the remaining 'Paint Wars' debris, their reconciliation with Pierce – but nope. No such luck. Her friends had packed into the room, shuffled to their seats, and had since been looking at each other with all the woe and mistrust of a baby bloodhound. Any second now they would notice the overhanging problem (her heart quailed). Somehow they would notice, and they would wonder, and they would ask

"Do pigeons even have penises?"

"Troy! Is it just me, or is the group dynamic totally off-kilter, even now that Pierce is here?" As usual, Jeff wasn't pulling any punches. His words seemed to take substance, elbow the hulking, gelatinous mass of silence out of the room.

"Now that you mention it…"

"Oh no! How could this happen?"

"Please. Jeff is just looking for an excuse to let the Chinese midget into the group, give us a full palette."

Annie wrung her hands together, squeezing the imaginary rope that would pull her back from the brink of hysteria. The conscience that she had cultivated over the span of four different crushes – three regular and one celebrity – was now bursting into harrowed screams. She was a good person! She shouldn't be keeping secrets! Shouldn't be cocking up the group's chemistry, or disturbing the Force, or bombing the Tree of Souls, or… movie reference! But her voice had retracted to a hollow of her throat, tiny and insecure.

"Birds are descended from dinosaurs, right?" Troy was carrying on, still engrossed in the world's cutest peek show. "Did dinosaurs have penises?"

Confess, her conscience chided. Prevaricate, her inner addict slurred. Well, here at least was a chance for the latter; and envisioning it as a feisty rodeo horse, Annie pounced, held tight and rode. "Speeeeaking of extinct things… what does everyone think of our common class for the new semester? 'Ancient Mythologies Throughout the Ages'?"

"Well, it's… um…"

"Yeah, it's very… 'um'."

Noncommittal noises from all corners, a sneeze, a brief lull when Britta loudly denounced goat sacrifices, and then… with a casualty unforeseen, and all the more delicious for it… the group launched into a different discussion. Annie couldn't believe it. Suh-core! They hadn't asked the right questions. She hadn't been exposed, nor interrogated, nor even suspected. She felt her chest heaving in relief, like a flag under a hearty gust of wind. It was too good to be true…!

It was, actually, too good to be true.

Abed, who had remained quiet and detached for the duration of Annie's panic attack, suddenly swiveled his head like some kind of locomotive, and opened his mouth. "First of all, Troy, those are legit questions about avian reproduction. We'll wiki later. And as for your question, Jeff…" Instantly alarmed, Annie tried to catch his eye, but it was too late. Her world came tumbling forth in rushes: a rickety multi-level wedding cake. "…the cause of the group's presently unstable dynamic can be traced back to the latest paintball episode, when Annie and I kissed in the context of Han/Leia role-play. Because romance is a pretty big deal in the industry, our kiss made the cut as one of last season's dangling plot-threads, which meant that its consequences had to be addressed. In this case, the consequences included a three-month-long affair between Annie and me, the ghost of which will affect the cast's collective interaction, until the secret comes out in the most graceless and humiliating way possible."

Everyone gaped. And gaped. And Shirley actually crossed herself. And gaped. Annie buried her beet-red face in her hands.

Meanwhile, Abed was skimming over his audience's galvanized expressions with a childlike curiosity.

"Exposition dump?"