Pierce, as always, was the first to arrive for the group's study session. But unlike the usual Monday morning meet-ups, the group was running late. Three hours late, to be sure.
But still, Pierce waited. A few little catnaps in between the hours (or testing out the waters for his eventual death, as he liked to put it. Actually when he pictured his death, he imagined it would be in bed with Eartha Kitt, Cheryl Ladd, and Shirley. But that was another story for another day.)
Finally, Annie showed up, and as usual, was the one who demenostrated the most concern for the elderly member of their group. "Pierce.." she smiled sweetly, very concerned. "Pierce? Are you..."
"Hmm?" He awoke with a startled. "Shirley, is that you? Come to daddy, Shirley..."he smiled groggily, his eyes yet to open.
Of course, Mrs. Bennett did walk in and that very moment and cringed. "I'm here, Pierce, and you'd best be not having that dream again!"
He said nothing.
"Pierce?" Annie continued, and started to reach for his pulse.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Shirley cautioned.
"Give me one more minute to finish..." Pierce smiled in his sleepful state.
"Uggh!" both Shirley and Annie moaned at the same time.
Troy and Abed walked in. "Hey guys, what's going on?" Troy asked as his best friend watched on in curiosity.
""I was just having my dream again...you know, with me and my three favorite ladies in bed and they were..."Pierce sat up and looked at them. "Ah, forget it. What would you know about romantic fantasies about the ladies?"
Troy and Abed looked at each other, scooted away from each other, and Troy just shook his head in disbelief. They were clearly not gay. Why couldn't two men...two manly men..simply get each inside each other's heads and enjoy the heck out of the other one's company? Then again,what would Pierce know about friends, anyways?
Britta and Jeff follow, and as usual, bickering. From what Pierce could gather, Britta was on one of her save the world kicks (although if she were to fight for the rights of young Asian women to get scholarships to Greendale and start up a dating service, well, he'd be the first to donate. But even he knew not to bring that idea up, just yet. He took out his notebook, scrabbled a few notes, then returned to observing the group.
"Britta, for the last time, OSHA is not a charity devoted to preserving sea life!" Jeff shook his head in disbelief.
"Oh yeah?" Britta retorted. "If it weren't, why does the name itself spell out ocean...well, ocea, without the n."
"Britta," Annie frowned sympathetically. "Jeff is right."
"You would take his side!"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Annie stood up in protest.
Pierce took out a bag of popcorn, and offered Abed a handful of the snack.
"What is this?" Abed inquired.
"You and I, my friend, have ringside seats to what could turn into the catfight of the century. And of course, no catfight could be complete without it leading to pillows and pillowfights, then a couple minutes of that uneasy and hostile tension turning into hours of unbridled passion..."
Abed's face registered confusion, as the rest of the group turned on Pierce.
"Come on, Pierce, really, does this involve you?" Jeff asked. "Actually, does any of what goes on in the group really and truly involve you? Just because Greendale accepts you as a student, and you've been here since the Roosevelt administration- Teddy, not Franklin- doesn't automatically mean you can just sit in with whatever group you choose to. Sorry, Pierce, your money doesn't earn our friendships nor our respect."
Pierce looked down. "Is that how you all feel about me?"
No one said anything, but when he looked up, he saw that the others were all reluctantly nodding.
"I'm truly sorry for that. You see, I happen to know this is the anniversary of Jeff forming this group, and to celebrate our group's anniversary, I happened to bring in little gifts...little tokens of my affection, if you will, for each of you." Pierce then reached for a bookbag from the floor.
"You'd best not be looking up my dress," Shirley remarked.
"I hope it's the collector's edition of Breaking Bed. Technically," Abed began. "The fifth season was divided in two halves, but one could choose to see the second part as a sixth season..."
Troy's face lit up. "Six seasons and a movie!" he exclaimed with glee.
They did their little friendship handshake, and all eyes resumed to watching what Pierce was handing out.
"Jeff, don't you think maybe you've misjudged Pierce?" Annie said sweetly. "After all, he was the only one to remember our anniversary..."
"The group's anniversary," Britta corrected.
"I knew that!" Annie continued. "Anyways, he was the one to take his time and keep track, and he brought us little gifts. I for one don't care what it is...the gesture is very sweet, and I appreciate it."
"You'll be singing a different tune," Jeff pointed out, " when you open this 'trinket' and realize that Pierce has bequeathed us with a package of Hawthorne wipes."
"He wouldn't do that," Britta added.
"Six seasons!" Abed whispered to Troy, who just grinned.
After receiving their gifts, Jeff was the first to grab his and tear it open.
They all watched carefully, and to their surprise, Jeff had called it. It was a small container of Hawthorne wipes.
"See!" Jeff stood and shouted. "See! Some gift! They're probably just some expired products, or some samples that hadn't passed the standards, and so it cost him nothing...nothing! So before any of you think of Pierce as some generous benefactor, ask yourselves...he's supposedly a millionaire, so why hasn't he thrown a party, bought us supplies, thrown a pizza party...anything to display that money of his?"
Everyone started talking at once. Even Shirley nodded her head, and they all began to bicker.
"Enough!" Jeff stood up, grabbed the trash bucket, and threw away his container of wipes. "I suggest you all do the same."
One by one, they all threw the 'gifts' in the trash, while Pierce looked on in confusion.
"I wouldn't do that," he commented, getting the attention of absolutely no one.
Chang, working as the janitor, happened to walk in, and Jeff ordered him to dispose of the trash can containing Pierce's not so generous gifts.
Chang picked up the trash can, and left the room.
"I really, really wish you hadn't done that," Pierce said, and this time, the group listened.
"Oh, why, so you can tell us that you had put a thousand dollars in those containers, rather than wipes, if only we'd taken the time to trust you?" Jeff scoffed, as the group all gathered their books.
"Actually, it was ten thousand dollars."
They all sat down.
Pierce nodded. "I wanted to show you all a bit of gratitude for your friendships, and for letting me be part of your little family, so I gave you all a wad of hundred dollar bills...ten thousand's worth, to be exact, and I put them in my family company's containers so you'd be able to think of me fondly..."
"Pierce, I don't know what to say," Jeff started, and they all bowed their heads in shame. No one said a word, for they all felt horrible at how badly they'd misjudged Pierce.
Just then, Jeff had a horrible, horrible thought. If they had thrown away the containers of money...and if, a big if, if Pierce was telling the truth, they'd all just thrown away 60 thousand dollars. And that meant...
The entire school was filled with the shrieking and screaming and yelling of a certain janitor...Chang had most certainly discovered the money, and was screaming like a schoolgirl.
All eyes fell on Jeff. They were all mad, angry, in fact that instead of being 10 thousand dollars richer each, Chang of all people had just discovered a large sum of money that should have been theirs.
Pierce stood up and grabbed his books. "I'm sorry to leave, but I have class to get to. Happy anniversary."
No one paid him any attention as usual as they all bickered and blamed each other for their loss of their unexpected windfall.
And Pierce approached Chang down the next hallway. "For your effort, here's what I promised you...a thousand dollars. Thanks for the screaming and the giggles...nice acting."
And so Pierce, after hiring Chang to pull a little prank on the group, walked away, laughing to himself. Next time they'd remember him in their activities, that was for sure. Until next time...
the end
