You Got Growin' Up To Do
Timeline/Spoilers: somewhere in Season 5, post-Geothermal Escapism
Disclaimer: I own nada.
Warning: Firmly J/A, but there are some references to Annie/other stuff. Oh, and Annie is definitely a little angry and frustrated here (probably because I'm feeling a little angry and frustrated these days).
She is halfway through her third strawberry watermelon margarita when she looks up and finds Jeff gazing at her, almost fondly, from across the table.
They made it to Dave and Buster's in time for happy hour, when her fruity drinks are two-for-one and she's indulging a little more than she might usually. Abed is off playing Dance Dance Revolution and Shirley and Britta are in the bathroom, so she thinks that maybe Jeff's been stuck with babysitting duty. Shirley has been suspicious of a couple of middle-aged guys in rumpled suits at the bar who, according to her, have been giving Annie the eye since she sat down. As she left the table, Shirley even bent and whispered something to Jeff, probably about how he should defend Annie's virtue with his life or there would be hell to pay.
It is insulting, of course. Annie is more than capable of fending off the unwelcome advances of the midlife crisis crew, though the rest of the group apparently hasn't gotten that memo. They've been back together for three months, and at times, she thinks that they're learning each other all over again.
Maybe it's silly to think that a year of little contact beyond sporadic e-mails, texts, and voice mails could leave them back at square one with each other, but sometimes, that is how she feels. Sure, she saw plenty of Troy and Abed in that time, but she has come to realize that they're slightly different people when they're all together then when they're one on one or broken off into smaller groups.
There's a dynamic that they all naturally fall into when they're in the group, but this time around, something seems slightly off.
Maybe the problem is that they're not all back together – Pierce is gone and Troy is sailing around the world and no matter how many seats are filled at their table, the circle isn't complete any more.
Or maybe it's that she has changed and she isn't quite as willing to fall back into the role of the group's sweet, innocent little baby.
She glares at Jeff, making him the target of all the tipsy annoyance that she feels.
"What?" she demands.
"You have a little…"
He gestures toward his mouth, and maybe there's more tequila in these fruity margaritas then she realizes because she can't seem to make sense of what he is trying to tell her. So Jeff scoots over a couple of chairs to the seat just beside her and reaches out to carefully rub his thumb against the corner of her mouth.
She stays very still, telling herself that she does not feel warmth spreading through her belly like wildfire - or if she does, it's just the alcohol, settling hot and heavy in her gut.
"Sugar," he says, and holds up his thumb so she can see the smudge of sparkling green on his skin.
Her glass is rimmed with the emerald-colored sweetness, and when she looks down, she sees a spot where it's all been rubbed away. When she looks over at Jeff again, he's licking the smear from his finger - there is nothing seductive or suggestive about the gesture really, but something about it sends another jolt through her system and she lowers her head to avoid whatever may or may not be lurking in his eyes.
Because it's just platonic, she reminds herself. Friends wipe sugar or mustard or chocolate off the corner of other friends' mouths and it doesn't mean anything. And maybe they lick it off and that doesn't mean anything either. It isn't an intimate gesture or an invitation for something more; it isn't anything but friendly.
When she looks up, he is still watching her with a vaguely entertained expression, and she panics, her face feeling very warm.
"I really want a puppy," she hears herself blurt out - because she has to steer this conversation somewhere harmless and innocent, somewhere that isn't littered with minefields that she has only recently learned to sidestep.
Of course, she chooses a topic guaranteed to make her sound like a wistful, little girl, so maybe she's fallen back into her role in the group easier than she thought. Jeff cocks his head, smirking in his pretty way. The look on his face suggests amusement and affection, the way she imagines that he might look at a particularly cute, precocious child, and it makes her want to slap him – which, of course, is irrational. But she slides her hands under her thighs anyway, so she isn't tempted.
"Okay…" he says, dragging out the word like he suspects she might be insane.
"Our downstairs neighbors just got the cutest golden retriever puppy," she explains, so he doesn't think that she has totally lost it. "And it reminded me that I've wanted a dog since forever. Well, since I was like eight years old anyway. Every year for my birthday or Chanukah or Christmas, I would beg and beg, and my mother would say that I wasn't old enough, that I wouldn't be able to take care of it. This went for like 6 or 7 years and then my parents got divorced and I got…"
She doesn't need to remind anyone of where she's been - Jeff bobs his head to confirm that fact, more than willing to glide right past that unpleasantness.
"Okay," he says again. "Well, now, you're all grown up. So get a puppy if you want one."
She tilts her head, swirling a swizzle stick around in the pink slush at the bottom of her glass.
"But I'm hardly ever home. And our apartment really isn't that big and I don't want a yappy, little dog. I want a real, big dog and we don't have a yard or anything…"
She is babbling and her voice has that high-pitched whine to it that she hates. But Jeff smiles, taking a sip of his beer.
"What kind of dog are you thinking?"
"In the third grade, my best friend Nicole Spadafina had a black Lab," she says, and it's been years since she thought of Nicole and her dog, but suddenly the image of them is so strong and clear in her mind that it doesn't seem like it can possibly be more than a decade ago since she knew them. "He was probably 80 or 90 pounds, but he was the sweetest dog ever. I want one like that."
Jeff tilts his bottle at her, almost in agreement.
"I had a Lab growing up."
She grins, because there is something so charming about the thought of Jeff with a dog.
"You did?"
"Chocolate, though." He bobs his head almost absently, his expression earnest and pensive in a way that she doesn't usually associate with him. "She was a really good dog."
She tilts her head, trying to look at him from a different angle. The tequila has her head swimming, but his face is still so familiar and precious that she just can't seem to see him any other way than she usually does.
"What's with that look?" he asks after a moment.
"I have a really hard time picturing you as a kid."
It is the truth - it is nearly impossible to imagine Jeff Winger as anything other than the cool, careless, cynical, independent adult that she met five years ago. He huffs out a quiet laugh, shaking his head, and she hears her phone chime inside her purse to announce an incoming text, but she ignores it because she can't think of anything else that could be as important as whatever he is about to tell her.
"I was pretty cute," he says, without a hint of self-consciousness. "Even back then."
She nods, trying to smooth the wrinkles out of the wet cocktail napkin beneath the stem of her glass.
"I can believe that."
When she looks up at him, his smile is the achingly soft and tender kind that sometimes makes her think that she is the only person in the world that he looks at quite that way. But that is a silly, romantic thought, certainly not platonic, so she tries to tamp it down.
Fortunately, Shirley and Britta come back to the table before she can do something embarrassing like ask him if it's true or what it all means.
"What are you two talking about, looking so serious?" Britta asks impishly, as she sinks down in the chair on the other side of Annie.
Jeff shrugs, rubbing his thumbs against the side of his beer bottle.
"Puppies," he says simply.
Britta narrows her eyes, like she doesn't believe him for a second, but she lets the subject go. Annie lifts her fourth strawberry watermelon margarita and takes a long sip.
She doesn't remember her missed text until the next morning when she crawls out of bed with a dull headache and the taste of sawdust in her mouth.
It's just a message from Jason, wondering if she was free – completely casual, relaxed, and lacking any expectation, like all of his texts. It's not as if they owe each other anything, but she still feels a little guilty for leaving him hanging all night.
She does have an excuse, though – she was drunk on sweet, fruity margaritas and Jeff Winger and his stupid, perfect face.
It may be pathetic as far as excuses go, but she has always cut herself a little slack where her feelings for Jeff are concerned.
Because it's only common sense that getting over someone is nearly impossible when he is always there, every single day. That's what Greendale did – it kept them in constant contact, where she could go days without feeling anything more than annoyance or frustration with him and then he would tilt his head in her direction, grinning in his infuriating way, or pull her aside to talk to her in a low, sincere voice, and she felt herself sinking down into the quicksand of everything that he stirred up in her again. She started to think that she would always relate to him like a teenager with a crush, that there would be always be something about him that could send her giggling with just glance, make her blush with the faintest touch of his fingers.
It took a year of minimal contact with him to make her realize that she wasn't that silly school girl who fantasized about living happily ever after anymore. She didn't wake up each morning missing Jeff Winger. She didn't contrive ways to run into him.
She had her own life, as incomplete as it might be.
She went on dates.
She had sex.
She became a worldly, sophisticated woman.
But now, they've fallen back into each other's lives and they've fallen right back into their old patterns.
Well, not exactly.
Because she doesn't exactly feel like a school girl around him anymore.
She is an adult and he doesn't make her giggle or blush uncontrollably anymore.
But that is the rub, really, because he still stirs up something in her that she is beginning to realize other men just don't. So her feelings have become even more dangerous because maybe it isn't a phase; maybe it isn't something that she can outgrow; maybe it's just something that she is always going to carry with her as long as he is part of her life.
If she'd seen Jason's message last night, she might have left Jeff sitting alone at a table in Dave and Buster's and not fallen under that same old spell again.
Because while there are plenty of things that bug her about Jason, he is, at the very least, safe. He sat in the cubicle next to hers at the pharmaceutical company and always brought her and Stephanie, the woman who sat on the other side of him, coffee in the morning without being asked. She liked that he didn't know anything about her – not her addiction problem, her degree from a third-rate community college, her twisted family life – so she could be whoever she wanted with him, have a fresh start.
Best of all, he was only 29 and seriously good-looking, but in a way that wasn't the least bit intimidating, like there was something almost generic about it so there was no danger of losing her head.
Or her heart.
By the time he asked her out, she already knew that she hated her job and was plagued daily by the frightening vision of spending the next 40 or so years of her life just like this, waking near dawn to spend most of the day in traffic, mindlessly peddling pills and potions to try to reach unattainable sales goals, having to stay late most nights to finish mindless paperwork, eating too-late greasy fast food dinners, and not feeling an ounce of real joy or purpose for even a minute.
She would have done anything to shake things up.
But it only took two dinners for her to realize that Jason wasn't the guy for her. If they weren't gossiping about people from the office, they had nothing to talk to about. She didn't really want to hear about his golf game or fantasy football team, and he had no interest in listening to her detail her favorite episodes of Cold Case Files or the rules of the game that she, Troy and Abed had invented that was a cross between Clue, Monopoly, and Risk.
A the end of their second date, though, he'd kissed her all the same, and for the first time in months, she felt heat mainlining through her veins, reminding her that she was young and alive and the future was a blank page without a single word written on it yet.
Maybe she had become as grown up as Jeff and Britta because she understood in that moment that sex didn't necessarily have to have anything to do with real feelings. It could be about nothing more than feeling good for a little while, and there wasn't any guilt or shame in that.
She honestly didn't want anything more.
Afterward, when they both dressed again, she told Jason that it was obvious that they shouldn't date anymore. He agreed, and surprisingly, there wasn't any real awkwardness between them so they could go back to being merely co-workers. But then, there were a couple of nights when they were both working late or bored at an office party, and they wound up at his condo or her apartment when Troy and Abed were out.
Even now, when they haven't worked together for several months, it still happens.
Jason calls or texts every so often and asks if she wants to get a drink, so she puts on her laciest underwear and meets him. Sometimes, she calls him – like after Pierce's memorial service and will reading when she felt lost and off-kilter – and it's nice because there is never any weirdness, there is never any tension, there is never any sense that they're doing something wrong. It's simple and easy, so they can both just go back to their separate lives for another three, four, or five weeks like it never even happened.
For someone who usually obsesses, overanalyzes, dissects every event in her life until she's dizzy with it, the whole thing is strangely liberating.
So she texts Jason back with her apologies, asking for a rain check, just before she steps into the shower. Even with the warm water pelting her skin, she feels hot and shaky, her headache rattling through her body, all the way from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She is back in her bedroom, toweling off her hair when she sees the icon on her phone that indicates she has a new message. She assumes that it's from Jason, letting her off the hook for last night, but when she scrolls to her messages, it's Jeff's name at the top of the list.
Coconut water + 3 mile run = hangover gone. You can thank me later.
Her thumb hovers over the delete button for a solid ten seconds before she just turns the whole thing off and flings it on her bed.
At least she endures nearly three hours of misery before she finally gives in, jogging to the grocery store and back for a couple of bottles of coconut water.
She kind of hates that Jeff is right.
Britta waits until after a committee meeting to pull Annie aside and beg her for a favor.
It isn't a big deal really – she just needs Annie to answer some questions for a project in her Psychology of Gender class so she can write a paper about the psychological differences between men and women – but Annie is tired and doesn't particularly feel like spilling out her deepest, darkest secrets even in the name of academic curiosity. Still, she agrees to help Britta out because they're friends and that's what friends do. Britta needs five men and five women to participate, after all, and it's not like their circle of friends is that large.
"I'm kind of torn," Britta admits as she pulls out the questionnaire. "The feminist in me want to prove that men and women are exactly alike. You know, equals. But there's also part of me that wants us to be better than them. More sensitive, compassionate, loving, yada yada yada. That's really terrible, right?" She shrugs, though it seems almost unapologetic. "But I mean, I practically had to tie Jeff down to get him to do this and you're doing it willingly and generously, so we really are the fairer sex, right?"
Annie shakes her head as she scans the list of questions.
"I just feel like we're always focusing on the ways that we're different. Maybe we should pay more attention to the ways that we're alike."
Britta grins, jabbing at the air with her pen.
"Oh, that's great stuff! I'm totally writing that down so I can put it in my paper. My professor is going to love it!"
Annie starts filling in the little bubbles with her pencil. She has taken personality tests before so none of the questions really surprise her – they do make her uncomfortable, though. She is honest to a fault, so responding to statements like 'I dislike myself' or 'I am afraid I will do the wrong thing' is not exactly her idea of fun. She also finds herself tempted to ask Britta how her answers compare to Jeff's – her initial suspicion is that there is very little overlap, but the more questions that she answers, the more she starts to consider the possibility that they'd fall in line more than not – he might have gone with 'Strongly Agree' while she simply chooses 'Agree', but that's close enough.
Maybe that's why there is so much friction between them – they are more similar than either of them wants to admit.
Britta scans the responses when Annie hands over the paper, but her expression doesn't reveal much of a reaction.
"Great. Thanks so much, Annie. I really appreciate it."
"Anytime," she says brightly, as she grabs her bag.
She feels out of sorts after answering all those personal questions, so she doesn't really feel like going home. She doesn't want to hang out in the library either, though, so she decides to go to the mall.
The one good thing about her job at the pharmaceutical company was that she had some disposal income for a little while, which got her in the habit of shopping and indulging in all sorts of things that she didn't really need without worrying about her checking account balance dwindling down to nearly nothing.
But having returned to Greendale full-time, she is back to a strict budget, trying to scrape by on her savings and a part-time job as a clerk in the Dean's office that barely pays minimum wage. She certainly doesn't have the funds for a shopping spree, but she is feeling a little low so she allows herself the indulgence of a blue button-down blouse that fits her like a glove and a black blazer that nips in just enough to make her waist look tiny.
Sometimes, she misses the flowery little dress and colorful sweaters of years past, but she likes her new look too – it makes her feel serious and powerful, and yeah, maybe even a little sexy.
Like an adult.
Still, when she tries on a gray and white floral brocade dress that twirls in the air around her as she spins in the cramped dressing room, it seems like the perfect compromise between who she is and who she wants to be, so she buys it, even though she has no place to wear it and the price tag makes her cringe just a little.
She stops in Sephora and treats herself to a new perfume too – nothing sickly sweet like the usual body sprays that she picks up at Bath and Body Works. This one has a hint of vanilla, but it's warm and kind of musky, and smells delicious on her skin when she lifts the inside of her wrist to her nose and breathes deep.
On her way out, one of the sales associates stops to compliment her on her skin – which still, five years after life as an acne-riddled high school student, is a novelty – and he convinces her to let him do a mini-makeover on her. She sits on an uncomfortable stool with her shopping bags in a heap at her feet, trying to stay still as he does her eyes up all smoky and sultry and paints her lips a glossy nude shade.
When she undresses in her bedroom later than night and catches a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror above her dresser, she does a double take – of course, she'd looked in a hand mirror at the store, but the impact of it hadn't hit her because the strange lighting and loud music seemed to distract her. At home, with her things all around her, she is taken with the way she looks like herself and someone else all at the same time.
On a whim, she pulls out her laptop before bed and orders everything the makeup artist used on her.
She has spent over $400 since late afternoon, with plenty of new things to fill her closet and vanity, but she still feels a kind of hollow emptiness nagging at her. When she was little, she would have tried to fill it with Oreos or Sour Patch Kids by the handful. When she was a little older, it was bottles full of little orange capsules. Three or four ago, it was sickeningly sweet malt beverages in flavors like sour apple and wild grape that she bought by the six pack with her fake ID. Lately, it's been her nights with Jason – tonight, though, she can't stand the thought of anyone touching her at all.
So she changes into her pajamas – a navy silk baby doll tank and shorts set that she bought when she was gainfully employed – and slides into bed. She thinks about pulling the covers over her head, the way she used to when she was little kid, afraid of monsters under the bed.
Instead, she scoots out from under the sheets and grabs a teddy bear from her bookshelf – she banished all of her stuffed animals from her bed sometime last year, though she couldn't go so far as to get rid of them completely.
She brings the bear under the blankets with her, hugging him to her chest as she tries to coax herself to sleep.
It is starting to become a trend.
At the end of each day, she feels tired and cranky – maybe not as bad as her days peddling psycho-pharmaceuticals, but certainly not as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as she did when she first started at Greendale – like an older version of herself that she doesn't like very much.
She walks to her car just as dusk is deepening into night - she spent two and a half hours studying in the library because she knew that Abed and Rachel were starting their date at the apartment before they left for a showing of 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' By now, though, they should be long gone, and all she wants is to go home and doze in a warm bath with the apartment perfectly still and silent all around her.
When she gets behind the wheel of her car, one of the few left in the parking lot, the engine won't turn over. She looks up and realizes that she's left the interior light on all day and now her battery is dead. For a minute, she just sits there, not quite able to accept how terrible her luck is.
But then she is storming out of the car, kicking at the tires with the pointy toe of her pump until the damn thing is scuffed and dirty.
She hears a car roll to a stop just behind her suddenly and curses herself for leaving her pepper spray keychain in her bag back in the car. She glances over her shoulder as discreetly as she can manage, and her luck holds because it's not some pervert or serial killer or other shady character wanting to do her harm.
It's Jeff, rolling down his window with a smirk.
"If I have to pick," he says dryly. "I think I'm going to have to put my money on the car."
She turns, lowering her head to study the dirty pavement at her feet. The universe has a cruel sense of humor because she can't think of a single reason that he should be at Greendale this late other than to torture her by having him catch her in a moment of pure childish petulance. She hears his car door open, his engine still running, and she looks up to find him walking toward her, his expression mostly amused but with a touch of genuine concern hovering somewhere near his eyes.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she says, trying to sound confident. "My battery's dead. No big deal."
He bobs his head briskly and turns back to his car. When he gets back behind the wheel, she thinks that maybe he is just going to take her words at face value, but he pulls his car into the spot beside hers and goes around back to open the trunk. She can hear him moving stuff around, and though she isn't sure what he is doing, she wants to tell him to stop, that he should just head home to whatever it is he does at the end of a long day, that there is no need to stay on her account. He comes back around the side of the car, with red and black jumper cables in his hands and a determined look in his eyes.
"Pop your hood," he says, leaning into his car to open his own.
"Jeff, you really don't have to do this. I can just call Triple A and …"
But he clearly isn't listening to her – he is untangling the cables so he can stretch them between the cars, completely focused on the task at hand. So she gives in, getting back behind her wheel and leaving her door ajar as she opens her hood. He pushes it all the way up, and she watches him go back and forth the between the cars a couple of times to connect the batteries.
She doesn't think of Jeff as knowing how to do things like this - practical, mundane, manual tasks that she imagines he would think beneath him – so she is prepared to call Triple A in a minute or two when he gives up.
But he starts his car and yells to her to start hers and just like that, the engine roars to life. She stands, her hands clutching the top of the door as she watches him disconnect the cables and begin coiling them in his hands.
"You did it," she says.
If he detects the surprise in her voice, he ignores it.
"You've got to let it run for about a half hour," he tells her. "So the battery has time to recharge."
It only takes ten minutes for her to get home, so she's going to have to wait around this damn parking lot for twenty minutes. She sighs, slamming her door and sinking back against it in defeat. Jeff leans against his passenger side door, mimicking her stance. She isn't sure whether it makes her feel better or worse that he plans to wait with her.
"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're not having the greatest day," he says, smirking.
"When the highlight is an awkward conversation with the Dean about whether I think you dress to the right or the left, I think that's safe to say."
Jeff grimaces for a moment, but recovers quickly.
"So you're telling me the highlight wasn't me riding to the rescue like your knight in shining armor?"
He is obviously teasing, but her cheeks get a little warm anyway.
"Thank you," she says. "I don't think I said it. So thanks."
He shrugs, crossing his arms against his chest.
"No big deal. You'll just owe me now."
She frowns and narrows her eyes as she studies his expression.
"What does that mean exactly?"
"It means the next time I ask for a favor, you have to do it. No questions asked."
"I'm not sure I like the idea of being indebted to you like that."
"Relax, Annie," he laughs, pushing away from his car to stand beside her. "I'm not going to ask you to help me get rid of a body or anything. I'll probably just ask you to let me out of some dumb committee thing that I don't really want to do."
"Like supervising the blood drive."
He nods vigorously.
"Exactly. Like supervising the…" He trails off, cocking his head in thought. "Wait. Are there going to be sexy nurses at this blood drive?"
She laughs despite herself and smacks at his hip.
"Too late. You already used up your favor."
"Damn," he says, smiling all the while.
When her battery has charged for nearly 25 minutes, he makes her pull out first so he can trail her for a while, just to be certain that her car is in full working order. She tells him that it is unnecessary, but he insists. A normal person would probably be grateful, but she feels is annoyed, like she isn't capable of making it home safely on her own. She is way too sensitive these days for her own good.
And yet, when she parks in front of her building and she sees him drive past - because he's followed her all the way home and not just a few blocks - something prickly and hot seizes her chest and she has to read three chapters in her probability and statistics text book to make it go away.