This contains spoilers for episode 401, but the main spoilers are for a J/A centered plot line coming up in episode 403 next week, so this is set after that episode. There's no word on how this plot will turn out, yet this is pre-emptive damage control in case it doesn't make Annie look good or makes her look too childish – or doesn't make J/A in general look promising for the future.
Annie barely let herself take in how the Dean had decorated his apartment. She'd probably go blind if she looked too hard at the glitter and colors anyway. In any case, she had a task ahead of her that she couldn't get distracted from.
"So Annie, what can I Dean you for?" Dean Pelton asked. He didn't even find a word that rhymed with Dean before he started the puns. Maybe Annie could work that concern in somewhere, but she had to get to her main point first.
"Dean, you can Dean one thing for me," Annie almost rolled her eyes at herself. "I need you to back off Jeff."
Dean Pelton looked at her curiously, but without much shock on his face. "Oh, I knew this day would come. I almost thought Britta would try it first for some reason, but it makes more sense with you. You're afraid I'm stealing Jeffrey away from you."
"What? Dean, that's not what I'm afraid of!" Annie said. "I'm more afraid for Jeff than me! You moved next door to pretty much stalk him! Don't you think that's going too far?"
"You can't stalk the willing, Annie. You can't stalk best friends either, so double points for me!" the Dean cheered.
"You can't really visit best friends every night. Not if they don't want you there, and I'm sure he doesn't!" Annie exclaimed.
"Did he send you? Is this one of his hard to get games? He's done better, but you're making it more original than he has," the Dean praised.
"He doesn't know I'm here. I'm asking you to leave him alone by myself," Annie stated.
"Okay, how am I not supposed to believe you don't want me to steal Jeffrey? My brain can't do all the heavy lifting here!" Dean Pelton said.
"Jeff's not yours, and he's not mine either! I learned that the hard way, and I don't want you to do that too!" Annie got to the point.
At that point, Annie had to make herself calm down. Everything she'd been through lately, and everything she'd figured out, was supposed to make her calm and accepting. Now she would come full circle and stop the Dean from going over the Jeff cliff, like she almost did. And then it would really all be over.
"Dean, you remember that me and Jeff kissed before, right?" Annie asked.
"That's still part of my conspiracy flashbacks and nightmares, yes," the Dean assured.
"Right. Well, Jeff told me later that any romance between us was in my head. I couldn't believe that until I went in Abed's dreamatorium. It taught me I was in love with the idea of being loved, not with Jeff. But eventually, I thought I was just telling myself that because he hurt me. And then I was Mrs. Winger at the Inspector Spacetime convention," Annie transitioned into.
"Okay, you worked for my newspaper, so I know you know not to bury the lead like that!" the Dean panicked. "Where's the wedding ring? At least tell me it matches his eyes!"
"We pretended so we'd get a good hotel room, Dean!" Annie cleared up.
"So you didn't sell it with a ring that matches God's canvas. Is that what you mean?" the Dean asked.
"I don't mean any of that!" Annie sighed. "We didn't even spend much time together! I was all alone, wondering what it'd be like to be Mrs. Winger for real. And it wasn't very flattering. I don't want to get into how and why that was. But needless to say, I learned about separating my Jeff fantasies from reality. And I'm tired of having to learn that lesson over and over."
Annie kept closing in on her main point and continued, "It's not healthy for me to think something might happen with Jeff, when it clearly won't. He's not some fantasy, or some way to prove I can be loved. He's just as screwed up as I am, so that makes us equal. But if that was enough to bring us together, it would have happened already. But it won't. It…can't."
Now that the main point was at hand, Annie finished, "I'm here because I don't want you to go through that too. Please, stop being so Jeff crazy before you lose yourself. You already have a bit, but it's not too late."
The Dean looked skeptical, which wasn't that surprising to Annie, although it was disappointing. "Is this a trick? Are you just getting rid of the competition?" he asked.
"We're not in competition!" Annie stated. She then regrouped and took another approach.
"Dean, I know what you're going through. You're too sad to see Jeff moving on. You've never been connected to anyone else like you are with him. But he's not ready, willing or able to be that connected with you. Or me. I need to stop thinking it might happen, and you do too," Annie hoped.
"But I've never been this close before! I know I can get it right this time! I have to, it's my last chance!" Dean Pelton declared.
"Is that all you care about? You have a lot more going for you than Jeff. You're more well rounded than that, or at least you used to be," Annie reminded.
"I don't know if you're subtly calling me thin or fat. But thank you and hey!" the Dean covered his tracks.
"Come on, you know what I meant! You're not that dumb yet," Annie said before cringing a bit. Despite everything, talking to a school authority figure like that was still uncomfortable for her. But the Dean did need tough love and some gentler support to wash it down.
"Dean, you and I are a lot alike. We both thought we were too good for this place at first. We both didn't have anyone until we met Jeff and the study group, and we've both been transformed by Greendale. But all my progress will be ruined if I don't close the door with Jeff. It's already happening to you too," Annie pointed out again.
"What the Dean are you talking about? If you're just going in circles, I don't have time. I have to try a bunch of new outfits before I see Jeffrey tonight, and I can't listen to two nagging voices in my head while I do it!" the Dean argued.
"See, there it is! All you do now is make Dean puns, try on outfits and stalk Jeff! I could understand some of it at first, but now it's just creepy! Creepy childishness is all you've been doing lately, and I know that's not all of you! I know that because it could have been all of me too!" Annie said.
"I find a lot of that hard to believe. And not just the stuff about me," the Dean answered. The last part surprised Annie a bit, but she continued on.
"I know we're both not creepy children. But something inside ourselves makes us forget it once in a while, even when we should know better already. It makes us forget we shouldn't idolize someone who can't love us. I'm breaking that habit now, and you'd be better off if you did it too. If you do, maybe you can become real friends with Jeff, instead of just someone who….sees something with him that's not there," Annie exclaimed.
"Okay, this is getting uncomfortable," the Dean cringed.
"It should, that's how reality checks work. But I had to figure mine out on my own. I'm not going to let you do that too," Annie assured as she sat next to the Dean. "He's not going to love you or be your best friend. He might be a new Jeff, but he still doesn't believe in those things. If you think you can change him, or should change him to prove something about yourself, then you don't know how love and friendship work. Trust me."
"I trust you with school stuff. But this…." Dean Pelton trailed off.
"You know I'm right. There's more to you than Jeff worship, or at least there was. I know there's a lot more to me. I just can't forget it every few weeks or months like I usually do," Annie admitted. "It'll help me a lot if you won't make the same mistakes I did. Technically, you've made worse mistakes, but it can stop now. It'd help Jeff, and it would really help you."
Once Annie finished making her case, she was encouraged to see the Dean thinking it over. However, he concluded, "I'm sorry, Annie. You're making some sense, but I can't stop thinking you'd muscle in on Jeffrey if I backed off. My paranoid side has a big head start on my logical side, and I can't close a gap like that myself!"
Annie was saddened, but not that surprised. Mainly because she came prepared.
"All right. If logic won't work on you, let's put it all out there," she warned. "Let's talk about something else. Like how I'm the one who moved your stapler. And I helped put popcorn in your car too."
"That was you?" the Dean gasped. "I put Leonard on a most wanted list for nothing? For the first time?"
"That's right. It was all Senioritus Annie. And she's been laying low since then," Annie got into character and into a new accent. "But if you don't give Jeff some space and stop buggin' him, she'll wake up and make your neat, careful life a livin' hell! She already found five new ways to prank your new house alone, you hear?"
"She wouldn't! She has no idea what she'd do to me! I can never look at my stapler the same way again!" the Dean said.
"Well, your stapler won't be alone. Or it will, it's up to you. She doesn't care either way. The only learnin' and lessons she cares about is teachin' guys like you a long overdue lesson," Annie warned before looking over. "You know, she could use those heels as part of her lesson plan."
"No! Not my tango heels!" the Dean panicked. "Fine, fine! Tell her I got the message! Just put her back to sleep, okay?"
"I knew that'd get her napping again," Annie declared, barely caring that she used g's again.
"So what, that means I have to move away from Jeffrey?" the Dean checked.
"Not necessarily. I mean, it's still creepy, but it doesn't have to be creepier," Annie said. "Just don't visit Jeff every night like you're been doing. Don't slap or squeeze his chest every time you're near him. Try dressing up in crazy man clothes again once in a while. And when he doesn't want to hang out with you, try not hanging out with him anyway."
"Oh, it's that easy?" the Dean asked, with a slight sarcastic tone. "It might be for you because you have other friends. Despite what you said, not all of us are like you."
"But you are one of us," Annie assured. "You're not an official study group member, and you keep stalking our leader. But I've always thought you were one of us deep down. That's why I want you to be happy and be loved. But for the right reasons." Her throat caught a bit before she finished, "You can still do that. Just please don't be like me."
She ignored the flashback she got to the end of the yam trial, and prepared to make her way out of the apartment. Yet the Dean stopped her by calling out, "Annie!" in a tone that actually sounded concerned. She stopped as he went up to her and asked, "Are you gonna be okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I will be now," Annie said, now that she thought she got through to him.
"You were a little hard on me. But you shouldn't be that hard on you, too," the Dean stated. Since he said hard twice and didn't expand on it, it meant he was being serious. "You might be the smartest student Greendale's ever had. You're not some love sick school girl, you're a growing woman! And you're certainly not desperate for Jeffrey like I am."
"I know I'm not. But I keep making myself look like I am, and I shouldn't. Especially now that I have a new major. Not to mention no idea what to do with my life anymore," Annie recapped. Yet she owed the Dean the courtesy of not rambling about that issue.
"Do you want me to find an extra credit class for you? You can always go back on the paper and slander me as a racist," the Dean tried to perk Annie up.
"Thanks for the offer, but I'll be okay. Not being Mrs. Winger, or anything close to it, isn't the worst thing in the world. If I can figure that out and make it stick, so can you. If you can't, you can always call me," Annie promised.
"Well, if my nights are free now, I'll have to call someone, right?" Dean Pelton pointed out. It still sounded a little off, but it was progress. He then added, "Jeffrey wouldn't offer that to me. Would he?"
"Maybe. But not when you're at your worst. Or when I'm at my worst. Even at our best, it's 50-50 on any given day," Annie admitted. "But it would have been 10-90 before. He is getting so much better, and he is an amazing friend most of the time now."
Now that Annie finally gave Jeff some deserved praise, she was more comfortable with adding, "We just can't force him to be like the way we want. Or wanted. I know I can't do it anymore."
In lue of bringing the Dean down further, Annie gave an encouraging smile that hopefully conveyed her support and friendship. Once he nodded, Annie took that cue to leave on a good note.
After closing the Dean's door, Annie breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe she didn't get Dean Pelton to quit Jeff cold turkey. But if she laid the groundwork for him to back off and start being his own man again, then she did what she came out to do.
She came full circle by stopping someone else from being Jeff obsessed. Of course, he was already more Jeff obsessed than she'd ever been, even during those daydreams at the convention. But the things she realized in those daydreams, and the implications of having them in the first place even now, were as far gone as she wanted to get.
It was time to close the door on being closer to Jeff, once and for all. Maybe getting the Dean to give him some space would be a good enough closing gesture. Not that he'd ever know about it.
Then Annie saw that Jeff's apartment door was open – and saw Jeff looking at her from behind it. So much for that theory.
