Outside, the streets bake in the bright July sun and only the tiniest hint of snow can be glimpsed atop the far-off mountains. The sunlight glows hazily through the blinds on Apartment 303's windows. Abed thinks for a moment that it would be ideal lighting to film the opening scene of a mystery movie he'd written last semester...but that just reminds him that his co-star is absent. Instead he sits down in his armchair-he hasn't used the other one all summer-and starts an episode of Inspector Spacetime. Before the opening credits are finished, he hears a key in the door. She must have hurried back after class.
Annie walks in, immediately looking around, her mouth curving up slightly when she sees Abed in the living room. "Have you seen Troy?" Abed asks abruptly, as he has each time she's returned from the Greendale campus since Troy joined the Air Conditioning Repair Annex.
"No," she replies. "I've been waiting around outside the annex in the mornings, but they keep the doors closed. You know the Dean told us he's OK." She watches Abed with an expression similar but not identical to her Disney face. Unsure of what to say, Abed turns back to the TV.
"Is Geneva in this one?" Annie asks in a lighter tone of voice, and Abed nods. Leaving her backpack by the table, Annie walks over and, ignoring the empty seat, perches on the arm of Abed's chair. She tentatively reaches out to take his hand. Abed is reminded of Christmas, when they sat just like this while the study group gathered after escaping the glee club.
When they finish the episode, Annie wonders, "Did they ever explain what happened to that desert planet? What were the Blorgons doing there?"
"No, the next season's budget was cut and they couldn't afford so many different sets, so they didn't end up revisiting it," Abed says. He realizes that Annie has been showing an impressive ability to discern plot holes when they watch shows together-a logical result of her character's attention to detail. Abed makes a mental note to be aware of this skill when he runs scenarios. Maybe she would discover a talent for detective work if the study group got involved in a plot that demanded it.
"Sounds like this calls for a Dreamatorium session to fill in the gaps," she announces excitedly. Abed glances at her, skeptical. In Troy's absence, Annie has been frequently suggesting they run scenarios together. Abed knows she's trying to help him by taking Troy's role. He went along with it a few times, but mostly he's declined, spending his Dreamatorium time alone looking for scenarios that might reveal how to get Troy out of air-conditioning school or prevent the group from fragmenting further.
Then again, Annie's turned out to be pretty good at rendering scenarios. And that plot line really deserved a sequel. "Let me get the costumes," he tells her.
"Render environment: observadeck, H.M.S. Spacetime 12, orbiting planet YZ Ceti F." As Abed pushes buttons on the cardboard control panel glued to the wall, Annie lets her imagination paint the scene, the orange grid of the Dreamatorium giving way to a futuristic, yet somehow outdated-looking spaceship with a window overlooking an alien world.
"We've received new reports of Blorgons landing on this planet, Constable," Abed warns. "We'll need to approach stealthily and find out what they're up to."
"Aye, guv'nor!" Annie exclaims, hoping she's not overdoing the accent. While she's looking forward to another simulated adventure, it's also a relief to see Abed getting into character-though it's not always obvious, Annie's learned to recognize when Abed's enthusiastic about something, and she hasn't seen that enough in the weeks since Troy left.
They land on the planet surface and set out to explore. The episode they just watched had used a cheap, less-than-convincing desert set, but here, without the constraints of a special-effects budget, they can picture a vast landscape of dunes and rocks stretching to a distant horizon. While they search for signs of the Blorgons, the Inspector and Geneva debate the possible reasons they could be here; Annie feels proud of her ability to improvise passable sci-fi jargon. After a little while, Abed points to the ground of front of them.
"Look, Geneva! This sand has been disturbed by rockets! They're nearby now. But what's this?" He leans over to pick something up. "Why, it's just a broken faster-than-light communicator-but the label is in the Glorbon language, not Blorgon. Mysterious indeed!"
"Wait a minute, Inspector!" Annie jumps up and down a little in excitement at her realization. "In that other episode-um, I mean on that other mission we discovered that the Glorbons had stolen interdimensional transports and were plotting to attack Earth in the past to change history in their favor. They must have persuaded the Blorgons to help them take over this planet so they can mine its rare metals to build a fleet of, uh, time battleships!"
"Good thinking, Constable. We'll have to hurry to find their base and stop them before they can attack."
Before long they've infiltrated the Glorbons' lair and have a plan to destroy the unfinished time machines. Having fought their way past a few guards, they run in place down a long hallway towards the high-tech shipyard. Then Abed stops, points at something in front of them, and gasps. "Look out! There's an entire Blorgon battalion!"
Dodging energy beams, the two of them duck into a room to the side. "It's no use, they'll soon find us here," Abed warns.
"What about the vents? We can hide there and approach the ships without being seen," Annie suggests, remembering using Greendale's vents to surprise other players during paintball. She blushes slightly, reminding herself of why she tries to avoid thinking about paintball while running scenarios with Abed. If he notices, she doesn't see any sign of it.
The simulated vent is barely wide enough for the two of them; Annie instinctively stands right next to Abed. She tells herself it's necessary for realism in their scenario, but she can't help thinking about that moment: out of paint, City College troops closing in...this simulation isn't quite as dramatic, but for a moment Annie wonders if it could go the same way.
But of course, Abed was playing Han Solo then. The Inspector wouldn't kiss Geneva, that didn't happen on the show. And Abed is careful to make their scenarios consistent with canon, he'd told Annie that.
Then he leans forward until their faces are just an inch apart. Annie stares at him, wide-eyed.
"When we get to the shipyard, take the quantum spanner to the control station and reverse the time-travel fields," Abed whispers calmly in her ear. "That will send the interdimensional engines back in time and leave the Glorbons in the present with unusable ships. I'll hold off the guards and meet you at that rock formation to the north."
Annie freezes, embarrassed by how she's let her thoughts run wild. There are Blorgons nearby searching for their characters; of course Abed would lean over and whisper to keep the simulation accurate. Still, it was annoying to be caught off guard like that. And why shouldn't she improvise some new material? Annie's not as much of an Inspector Spacetime expert as Abed, but she's watched more than enough to notice some hints that Geneva and the Inspector might see each other as more than time-travel buddies.
Suddenly feeling bolder, Annie wraps an arm around Abed's shoulders and stands on her tiptoes to whisper back, "You'd better not keep me waiting, Inspector." With that, she kisses him on the cheek, takes the quantum spanner, and acts out climbing through the vent.
Abed's glad he planned out the details of the Glorbon lair ahead of time; Annie's plot twist left him too distracted to improvise on the spot. Not that it wasn't good roleplaying; even if that was a little more direct than anything on the show, there had been signs of a possible romantic connection between the characters. But even in-character scenarios could have implications for the study group's dynamics. This isn't unprecedented-the memorable incidents during Dungeons and Dragons and the second paintball game went further-but their previous in-character flirtations involved clear plot setups or roles that closely matched Annie's type. Her spontaneously adding romantic subtext to an Inspector Spacetime story seems different; he feels the need to run some new scenarios on his own to investigate her motives. It's clearly too complex to figure out now, so he tries to focus on wrapping up the current simulation.
The Inspector can see Geneva sneaking into the control station while he fights the Glorbon guards (Annie's very committed to acting out her stealth maneuvers, Abed notes appreciatively). Right on time, the engines abruptly vanish and the time battleships are no further threat to Earth. With the character arcs becoming unpredictable, he considers having the battle end there, but this base would be more heavily guarded than that-making their escape too simple could undermine the audience's suspension of disbelief. So, according to the original script, he shouts, "Geneva! Blorgon reinforcements are arriving! Get back to the spaceship and call for backup!"
"Not without you, Inspector," she says confidently.
Abed guesses he should have seen that coming. He'd figured escaping the base alone let Annie improvise a little and the rescue party could include some secondary characters from the show, but really it makes more dramatic sense this way. Of course, it also keeps more of the focus on the Inspector and Geneva's relationship.
Annie charges, surprising the Blorgons and giving Abed time to duck behind a battleship. She runs over to join him. "There's an escape pod," he tells her. "We can be in orbit before they know what's happened!"
They take off, a sweeping view of the planet and the stars beyond opening up. Grinning, Annie hugs Abed. As she starts to back away, she suddenly stares up at him intently. Abed knows it would be a logical time to end the simulation. For some reason, instead he slowly leans toward her. Even at that point, he considers just simulating a kiss, but their lips brush against each other and then they both keep going. When they kissed during paintball, they'd continued while they were covered in paint, even though they were already out of the game. This time, the simulation hasn't ended, but Abed somehow feels like he's breaking character.
After a few moments they pull apart. "End simulation," Abed announces. He's unsure of what to say, but Annie just smiles at him and walks out of the Dreamatorium.
"Should we watch the next one?" she asks. He nods and follows her, half-focused on processing this turn of events.
A couple weeks later, Troy becomes the Truest Repairman and is free to return to the apartment. For the most part, Abed's interactions with Annie are as usual, and he's distracted by catching up with Troy. When they take down the old Dreamatorium so Troy can have his own room, Abed notices Annie looking wistfully at the tape they're pulling off the walls.
"How will you run your scenarios now?" she wonders.
"Don't worry, Troy and I are already experimenting with on-location simulations. Plus I'm working on a miniature design that can be engineered with cardboard."
"The right size for accurate air-vent settings?" Annie gives him a hesitant glance.
"Well, maybe. The on-location system probably works better for two people, though." In truth, the flexibility of that option has plenty of advantages for TV scenarios, but Abed wants a version of the original to study the group's dynamics. He needs to keep track of their story arcs for the upcoming school year, and he still hasn't quite made sense of what happened in that Inspector Spacetime simulation.
Still, if Annie wants to try the new Dreamatorium, maybe he should give her the opportunity. She could certainly be relied upon to make the scenarios interesting.