The photos lined the hallway. More than fifty student's faces stared back at her from behind glass frames. Each face was lit up with a smile, or a shrug of the shoulder. Some were portraits, others were candid photographs taken at student carnivals, or college food fights. Most of the students Annie didn't even recognize. She did notice Paige and every single member of Leonard's Hipsters, as well as Rich, Buddy, and that red headed student who's name she never managed to get.
Above the rows of photos, a series of blocked letters read: "In Memory of those now gone."
Annie shook her head at the sight. What had happened? Each picture bore a name and a year of birth as well as a year of death. Each student had died last year. Every last one of them! How was that even possible? At least the Glee Club members she could account for. But the rest?
The clapping of shoes on the tile floor pulled her attention from the wall. A lone figure walked down the hallway holding something, but Annie couldn't make out what or who. After everything she'd seen, Annie had to fight the instinct to run and hide. It seemed each encounter with another person was just worse and worse.
But she was in the middle of an empty hallway. Running would only make her seem even more conspicuous. So she opted to stay put and get answers.
As luck would have it, the person approaching was someone Annie knew not to fear. Someone that, even though they weren't friends, wasn't someone Annie could have greatly affected as they almost never spoke. And as far as Annie knew, this person wouldn't hurt anyone… unless you mocked her publicly in front of the school during a student government debate.
"Excuse me," Annie said as soon as Vicki neared.
Vicki glanced up from under the brim of her hat like she'd just noticed Annie was there. She held some thin books tightly against her yellow sweater, almost as if she was afraid they'd slip from her arms and fly away. Annie took a moment to figure out where that image had come from and made a note that if she ever got back to her reality, she'd stop watching so much Reading Rainbow with Troy.
"I'm… I'm new here," Annie said, deciding that she'd make more headway with a simple fib. "I was just wondering… what's up with this wall?"
Vicki's lips pursed together and she squeezed the books a little tighter against herself. For a moment she stared at Annie, as if trying to figure out if she was being honest or not. Then she sighed and motioned for Annie to walk with her.
"2010 was… a horrible year for Greendale… or City College Southwest Division I guess. The second highest death toll of any college in the entire nation, right behind Weber State. Most of the students died during some sort of weird animal attack on Halloween. I wasn't there… but nobody really remembers what happened."
"Halloween," Annie felt her stomach sink. She was there that night, but she didn't know anything about an animal attack. Everybody at the party she was at was mass roofied. Nobody had died. How had she affected that?
"So…" Annie glanced over to Vicki. "Did you… you lose someone that night?"
"This isn't just for that night," Vicki said. "It's for the entire school year."
Abruptly she stopped and went to a picture. She took it off the wall and held it out to Annie. As soon as she saw the face though, Annie couldn't bring herself to touch it. Her heart pounded and her breath caught in her throat.
"This is Neil, I really cared for him and…" Vicki said, her voice growing thick with emotion. "… he… he didn't have anybody and they made fun of him his entire life. Eventually it just became… he couldn't handl… he…"
"I understand," Annie whispered.
Vicki nodded. "I look back at the time just before it happened. I was so stupid for not having recognized it. All the signs were there. If I had just said something to him, let him know how I felt…"
"Somebody should have been there..."
"He must have felt so alone," Vicki said. "So I come here every now and again to read to him. I don't know. Maybe somewhere he can hear me."
Annie nodded and backed away. She took slow and deliberate steps. Each one carefully measured to give off the idea that she was giving Vicki a respectable distance when in reality she was trying to get as far away from this wall as she possibly could. This, this couldn't all be her fault. These students didn't die because she wasn't there. She didn't need to look at their accusatory faces.
"I'm… I'm sorry for your loss," Annie breathed out just before she put her back to Vicki and Neil. For each footstep she took she tried to add half a footstep more. She could almost feel the stares on her back and she wanted to shut her ears to the sound of Vicki talking to Neil's picture.
"Hi Neil," her voice echoed down the hall. "I brought the 2nd Edition Monster Manual again. I hope you like it. Let's start out with the Absorbaloph… it can only be defeated by a +2 warhammer with anti-cold spell ensorcelled about it…"
By the time she was down the hall, Annie held her hands over her mouth and tears forced themselves from her eyes. She rounded the corner and prepared to run, back to the study room or to the cafeteria where she figured she could find Troy and Abed. Even in the weird state they were in, they were better than no company.
All she knew was that she didn't want to even slightly ponder everything that had just happened. Things weren't supposed to have changed that much without her. Her college, the one that in the back of her mind, always felt like home. Now it was cold and frightening. And she needed a friendly face.
She wiped at the tears in her eyes and planted one foot in front of the other, just beginning her sprint. Unfortunately she didn't get the chance. Instead of breaking into a marathon run, she bumped smack dab into a pair of hardened pecks and washboard abs. Annie stepped back to apologize but froze in place.
"Are you okay Mountain Flower?"
"Vaughn!" Annie jumped at him, wrapping her arms around his exposed torso. "Oh Vaughn! You're still here!"
"Hey, it's alright, everything's okay, no worries," Vaughn cautiously put his arms around her. Annie laughed in spite of herself at hearing him say three different comforting things in one sentence. She squeezed Vaughn a little tighter just happy that no matter what, in this reality Vaughn was Vaughn.
"So what seems to be the problem Moonbeam?" he pulled away and ran his thumbs over her cheeks, clearing the tears. "You gotta stop those tears. Whenever a pretty gal like you cries it puts bad vibes in the air."
Again, Annie let out a chuckle and nodded. "I'm sorry… I didn't mean to startle you or anything. I'm just having a really bad day."
"Well bad days are like… eating a mouthful of hay, on a rainy bay, and not everything's okay," he stared off for a minute before snapping back. "I should be writing this down."
"Yeah," Annie nodded.
"Well tell you what," Vaughn walked over to a nearby locker where his shirt and his guitar lay. "I've got a jam session with my band that's sort of going on. Why don't you come with and sit in? I can guarantee that listening to 'Some Worries' will make you have no worries in no time flat."
"I'd like that."
Vaughn flashed her that grin she always loved then held out his hand. "I'm Vaughn Miller, you probably already knew that though."
"You have a band," Annie shrugged and took his hand. "I'm Annie."
"Annie," Vaughn nodded then kissed the back of her hand before pulling his shirt over his head. "Well come along little Sunshine Blossom! You'll love our jam sessions."
Together they fell in step down the hallway. For Annie it was both wonderful and a little disconcerting. Vaughn hadn't been part of her life in over two years. He moved on from Greendale and she moved on from him. But here? In this messed up reality he was an oasis of… well not normalcy, but at least of comfort. Of course the closer they got to the music room the more his presence raised questions in her mind.
Finally, just in front of the door to the room, Annie stopped, only then realizing he held her hand in his.
"Vaughn," she disentangled her fingers from his. "I have to ask you… are you good at hacky sack?"
"Oh are you kidding me?" Vaughn's face lit up. "I'm the hacky sack King of City College Southwest Division! I've even started a small hacky sack league!"
"You ever… think about doing it professionally?"
"Oh I don't know," Vaughn's voice dropped just a bit. "I mean… I guess I thought about it. I really thought about it a couple of years ago, but never really seriously. I mean my band was just starting to pick up and I just… I just didn't feel that drive to really go for it. Like I was missing something to really push me into the Zen of Hacky sack."
"Oh," Annie nodded as another piece of the puzzle snapped in her mind. "Well, maybe you should give it another try. Who knows, you could be the next Ying Yang Mac a Ding Ding Jr."
"Yeah," Vaughn lifted his eyes like the idea was taking off in his brain. "Maybe you're right! I might give that a try. Thanks Mountain Flower! Come on, come on into my jam session. Who knows what good ideas you'll come up with next?"
Annie grinned while internally beating down any traces of guilt she might have felt for the implications of her effect on Vaughn's Hacky Sack career. He gripped her shoulder and threw open the door. They walked in together to meet his bandmates. And as soon as Annie saw them her knees locked together.
Well actually only one of them surprised her.
"Sup guys? How you doing? What's going on?" Vaughn said to his bandmates "I was just down looking for the inspiration bug to bite me when I had an awesome idea for this new song…"
"Who's the skirt?" Pierce said from behind his keyboard.
"Oh," Vaughn nodded. "Right, guys, this is Annie. She's awesome. She's like if proteins and vitamins had a baby and called them protamins or viatameins! Annie, these are my bandmates, Evergreen Saw Dance, Chubbs McCooley, and Old Man River."
"That's Pierce Hawthorne!" Pierce narrowed his eyes at Vaughn then turned to Annie. "You'll have to excuse Vaughn sometimes he talks with the brain in his butt."
"Pierce?" Vaughn said. "I thought we said you could come back to the band only if you stopped spitting the bad karma all over. There's no need for that."
"And you don't need to be introducing me to hot tail like her as an 'old man'!"
"Dude, it's a title of honor."
"Is it? Or are you just trying to sabotage me because you know that the band only got good once you let me back in!?"
"You know what Pierce!?" Vaughn started unstrapping his guitar. "You're the one with a butt brain! We're settling this once and for all!"
"I wouldn't have it any other way!" Pierce flipped a couple of switches on his keyboard. "Jam off right now! Winner becomes new leader of the band."
"Oh you'll wish they'd named you Peace after this!" Vaughn shouted. "And when you lose you can go crawling back to that study group you got kicked out of!"
"I'll see you in Hell first! Nobody cared about me there and nobody cares about you here!"
The other band members scooted as far back as they could, leaving Pierce and Vaughn facing each other wielding their instruments like some sort of medieval dueling weapons. They stared for a full minute before, as if some unspoken signal had been given, they mashed their fingers against strings and keys, and the room flooded with what amounted to musical white noise punctuated by explicatives thrown at each other like monkey's trying to prove a point with their feces.
Annie backed away. It was bad enough seeing Pierce trying to be in a group that didn't tolerate him. Worse was seeing an angry, almost violent side of Vaughn she'd never seen. Was he always like this or was it because she wasn't there for him?
Pierce cranked the volume on his keyboard and Vaughn started screaming his lyrics in an attempt to be louder than the speakers. Annie twisted the door knob and slipped out completely unnoticed.
Once the door was shut, Annie closed her eyes and leaned her back against it. Her head rested on the flat surface and she let herself sink down to the floor. Pierce and Vaughn's noise vibrated through the wood and Annie just shook her head. She'd go back in after a minute. She couldn't just leave them there fighting it out like really musically talented animals.
Before she could get up, a scream came from around the corner and a security guard pulled at a thin arm. The body it was attached to didn't come so he yanked a little harder until both he and his prisoner almost toppled to the floor.
Annie stood up straight when she recognized the mass of blonde curls beneath the layers and layers of black leather. The security guard tugged at Britta again and she resisted just enough for him to drag her feet, squeaking across the floor. The entire way Britta screamed, squealed, and cursed. Then she and the security guard swept past Annie and the two of them locked eyes.
"Fight the power! Dean Laybourne is suppressing your student rights! Rage against the antidisestablishmentarianist bacon of tyranny in the name of the scrambled eggs of freedom!"
"But bacon and eggs go together," Annie found herself muttering, apparently a little too loud because Britta heard it.
"That's exactly what I would expect a sheeple to say! Read the third amendment!"
"Soldier's can't be quartered in private residences?" Annie started, following them without even knowing it. "You're not making any sense."
"Britta here never does," security guard Nuñez said. "This gal isn't happy unless I'm dragging her to the detention area at least once a week. There's nothing to see here."
"That's right there's nothing to see!" Britta flailed, almost getting loose. "Nothing to see but the Cat of Tyranny knocking over the Christmas… Holiday… yeah! Holiday Tree of Justice!"
"Britta, you're not making any sense! Calm down or you're going to be in trouble!"
"I was born in trouble. Trouble, Michigan! Population: Britta!"
"Will you listen to yourself!? You're contradicting for the sake of contradicting! Britta, you have to get a hold of yourself! You have to think!"
"NEVER!"
They continued down the hall, but try as she might, all Annie could get out of Britta was more needlessly defiant ramblings that not even the most hopped up hippy could have understood. When they finally got to the small detention area Annie found herself sitting on one of the nearby 'waiting chairs' while Britta banged on the glass.
After about fifteen minutes of that, Annie noticed Nuñez starting to nod off as well as the receptionist. How could they sleep with that kind of racket? After about another ten, Annie found herself nodding her head. At first she fought it but then it occurred to her that maybe, just maybe, if she went to sleep she'd wake up where she belonged; back at Greendale, where her friends weren't insane and the school wasn't a mad house… all of that being a very relative definition.
She just rolled her head to the side and rested it on the wall and closed her eyes. Hoping that when she opened them again, she'd be dropping out of school again but at least know that everything else was in a state resembling 'okay'.
Peace, however, didn't accompany her sleep. Her dreams were filled with the memories of what brought her here in the first place. The dean trusting her with the Salvation Army money. Her convincing each member of the study group to let her do the work for the end of semester project, The Christmas Terrariums. The kindly stranger that promised to watch them while she chased down Abed's lost present. Then all of the accusatory faces when it all went to Hell. Jeff yelling at her and turning his back on her…
Not the stuff sweet dreams were made of.
When she finally opened her eyes, Nuñez was snoring softly and the secretary had her head buried between the open pages of a book. Britta, while no longer shouting, still mumbled curses against the 'man' while resting her head against the window. Also, sitting in the chair next to her, Garrett browsed through the latest copy of Redbook.
"Garrett!" Annie whispered as loud as she could.
Garrett jumped and his arms jerked, nearly tearing the magazine in half. The others in the room rustled but didn't wake. Garrett clutched at his chest and set the remains of the magazine back down on the small end table. And Annie waited for him to calm down enough before speaking again.
"Which one are you?" she leaned forward. "The real one or the… or the angel?"
"Just because I'm an angel doesn't mean I'm not real!" Garrett said, the sleepers stirred again and Annie put a finger to her lips.
"Of course that means you're not real," Britta's voice echoed from behind the glass. "Angel's are as fake as the CGI in the Muppets movie."
Annie rolled her eyes and turned back to Garrett. "Seriously, what's wrong with her? Britta has always been too counter… everything movement, for her own good but now she's belligerently defiant about everything that doesn't matter."
"You weren't-"
"No! Not this time Calvin Cline!" Annie jabbed her finger at him and he shook nervously. "There has to be more. Britta and I were even less close than Shirley and me. I mean we had our moments but they were few and far between. I couldn't have affected her that much!"
"Do you still not understand?" Garrett said, wide eyed and slacked jawed. "It's not just your direct actions but… it's… don't you see? Without you her relationships with ever member of the study group changes! She's acting this way because this is all she has now! And if you… oh no…"
"Oh no?" Annie raised a brow then followed Garrett's gaze to the office door. Jeff was closing it behind him. Annie sat up a little straighter without realizing it. Her eyes roamed over him in fascination. He looked exactly the same. Well, they all did, but with Jeff she paid extra attention.
He approached the front desk while adjusting the tie on his no doubt thousand dollar suit. Then he took a look at the sleeping office secretary and brushed at the perfectly sculpted bedhead-shaped spikes that made up his hair. Underneath his jacket his shirt pressed tight against his toned chest as always. By every noticeable detail this Jeff was exactly like her Jeff.
Except for the worry lines on his forehead and maybe a couple of extra bags under his eyes.
The receptionist started to rouse herself and Jeff turned his head Annie's direction. She did her best not to smile, he'd only been in the room less than a minute and already she found herself trying to get his attention. And somewhere in the back of her mind the thought popped up that this Jeff didn't hate her like her Jeff did.
If he noticed her, he didn't show any sign and he quickly turned back to the receptionist and started bartering for Britta's release. Annie frowned then leaned over to Garrett.
"What happened to Jeff in this timeline?"
"He… oh… well… you're not going to like it."
"Garrett, I might as well have been invisible to him. Even if he doesn't know me that's not like Jeff. What happened to him?"
"Well you see…"
Before Garrett could finish, the receptionist woke up Nunez and the rotund security guard let Britta out of the holding room. Without a word she stomped past Jeff with her head turned up. Jeff let out something that sounded like a cross between a grunt and a sigh and followed after her.
Annie pulled herself up and went to the door, Jeff was catching up to Britta. She glanced back at Garrett who remained seated and started thumbing through a stack of magazines.
"Aren't you coming?" Annie glanced back at Jeff and Britta and then back at him.
"That's not a good idea!" Garrett said. "I don't want to be there when you find out what happened to him!"
"Can you at least make me like… invisible or something? Like in a Christmas Carol?"
"You don't need to be invisible! He's not going to notice you, he has too many things on his mind right now."
Annie stared at the angel for a second, trying to figure out his game, before turning her gaze back to the hallway where Jeff and Britta were nearly about to turn a corner. She sighed and rushed after them.
It didn't take long to catch up. They plodded along with slow steps, it made it easier to argue. And that's the first thing Annie heard once she reached earshot. The same thing Jeff and Britta always did, bicker and fight. Except for there was nothing even slightly amusing about it this time.
"…I'd accuse you of doing all of this to try and get my attention but we both know this is pathological! Seriously Britta, what the hell is wrong with you?"
"Oh you'd like me to be vying for your attention wouldn't you! You'd love it if after everything that's happened I was still a widdle, helpless, girl pining away from the unattainable Jeff Winger."
"I'd like for you to take my name off your emergency call list if you're going to keep doing this," one of Jeff's hands had squeezed into a fist. "You know they're telling me that if you keep disturbing the peace like this they're going to call the real cops? You'll get kicked out of school."
"Good! That will really show them!"
"No it won't!" Jeff stopped and grabbed her shoulder. "Britta! Why can't you get this through your head? The only person all of these antics are hurting is you! You're a laughing stock and when they throw you out on your ass there's nothing I'm going to be able to do about it! Even if I still had pull with the faculty!"
Annie slid into a small alcove of lockers where she could get a better look without worrying about being seen. She tried to keep as much of her body behind the wall as she could but almost stepped out into full view when she noticed all of the anger and fight on Britta's face disappear and turn into a look of concern and worry.
"So... it's finally happening?"
"Oh don't act like you're not thrilled," Jeff bent his back just a little, so he could get closer to her face. "Go ahead. I'm waiting. Gloat. That's what you've been wanting to do for how long now? 'I told you it wouldn't last'. Isn't that what you wanted to say? Or how about 'I told you so!' If our roles were reversed you know I'd do the same thing."
"Jeff… I'm sorry, I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't know!" he jabbed a finger at her. "Because all that matters to you is you and whatever damned issue you've decided to shove down the rest of our throats. God forbid you care about an actual person before you care about some goddamned chipmunk in the rainforest!"
"That's real rich," anger began seething from Britta's words. "Coming from the most selfish, controlling man I know! If you really want a reason why everything's gone south, why don't you use any one of the hundreds of mirrors you keep on your person at all times!"
"Ha!" Jeff threw his arms out triumphantly. "I knew you couldn't resist! I just throw a little bit of cold reality on your righteous indignation and wham! You just default to the same old tired arguments. You don't even stop to think at all about how the past three years have affected me! That's why things never would have worked with us!"
Britta stepped away until her back flattened against the lockers behind her. Her mouth hung open for a moment before she shook her head and stared at Jeff with wide eyes. "You… you wanted me to lash out at you! You were deliberately trying to provoke that response. Jeff… oh my god Jeff, how sick are you? Your relationship didn't work and now you're out to prove that no relationships work?"
"And I'm right! Because the truth of the matter is that relationships are a lie. Either people are only pretending to be happy, like most couples that somehow wind up staying together. Or they use the entire thing like a game, like you did, or they use it as a way to control and dominate others. That's how relationships work!"
"You loved her didn't you?"
"Still want to know who I love huh?" Jeff sneered. "You had your chance two years ago. But then again, it was just a game to you."
Britta shook her head and slipped away from him. "I'm really sorry that it didn't work out Jeff. I know that it wasn't because you didn't try. It doesn't matter what she says. I'll… I'll take what you said about trouble making under… I mean I'll think about it..."
Jeff did nothing to stop her. He just stood, stooped shouldered and glaring while she almost tiptoed away. All the while she kept glancing back at Jeff, maybe looking for some hint of emotion besides spite and blind anger. She even passed right by Annie and didn't notice her.
As soon as she was gone Annie let out a breath she didn't even realize she was holding. Jeff and Britta had always been argumentative but there was rarely that level of raw bitterness and resent. That was usually reserved for all night emergency study room sessions and ended with everyone screaming at each other, crying, and eventually hugging.
Somehow Annie didn't see any of that happening here.
For a few moments, the hallway remained silent. Annie did her level best to breathe as quietly as possible, all the while she angled head in an attempt to glean any sound coming from Jeff's direction. The scuffle of a shoe, an exasperated sigh, anything that might let her know what he was doing.
When she finally decided she wouldn't hear anything Annie pressed herself against the lockers and edged herself toward the corner to peak around. Unfortunately Jeff chose that moment to finally make a noise as he cursed and punched a nearby bulletin board.
Annie jumped back and made a small 'eep' at the slamming noise. More than enough for Jeff to hear her. In less than a moment he stood in front of her, eyeing her up and down with his brows furrowed and mouth pressed into a thin line.
"You were at the detention area when I got Britta out," he finally said. "Have you been following us?"
"I…" Annie dredged her mind for any sort of coherent response. "I…you knooowww….."
"Okay," Jeff rolled his eyes. "Maybe because it's Christmas and I don't really feel like having another headache, but I don't care. If you followed me and Britta and heard an earful, I hope it was enough for you to get a juicy diary entry. You can entitle it, 'Jeff Winger's long time girlfriend, Michelle Slater, dumps him on his ass.' And be sure to paste glitter hearts all around it. See you around Nancy Drew I'm going to go get drunk. Merry Christmas."
The moment the words left his mouth Jeff turned around and trudged away. Annie stepped out fully into the hallway. Her mind buzzed with that little piece of the puzzle that he gave her. Slater! He had been with Slater!? How did that happen? She had to have more answers.
"Jeff!" she held her hand up as she called his name. He didn't even glance back. Annie's chest heaved as she drew in each increasingly panicked breath. She couldn't leave Jeff like this. Learning why he chose Slater was one thing, but him drinking away his sorrows on Christmas off all times! With literally no one to help him… she couldn't do it! She had to act fast to keep him there!
"Jeff!" she called again the pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and dropped to the ground in a dramatic and surely convincing faint. Jeff would come running. If this crapsack reality proved anything to her, was that even with all the changes, even with all the horrible things that happened. Everybody was the same. Troy was still a dork with a heart of gold, Britta was still obsessed with random causes, and that meant that Jeff would always be there to catch her.
Annie lay there with her eyes pressed shut, listening for the sound of footsteps but mostly only hearing the pounding of her heart in her chest. Any second now she'd hear him curse and turn around. He'd start walking toward her, maybe taking each step a little faster than the last. He'd probably call her 'kid' and nudge her a little. That's how things just went.
And after a few moments of waiting, Annie did her best not to be upset when she heard the exit door slide shut. A few moments later the sound of feet on the tile hit her ears. But it came from behind. She opened her eyes and stared forward. Through the glass panes on the door, Jeff had turned up his collar to protect himself from the cold. Snowflakes caught on the field of black that his coat presented them and he hunched over a little as he walked, hands stuffed in his pockets.
"So that's all of them," Annie remained exactly the way she was, on her side, staring at the door. "Now I've seen what the study group looks like without me."
"Not just the Study Group, but the school!" Garrett said. Somehow she'd known it was his footsteps coming up behind her. "I'm sorry you had to see it."
Annie sat up and scooted herself over until she could rest her back against the wall. Garrett plopped down next to her. For a moment they both remained there, listening to the wind thump against the glass and the sound of Garrett churning air in and out of his mouth. Annie finally shook her head and looked at him.
"They're all so... alone. Even Shirley and she's married."
"What did you expect?" Garrett shrugged.
"I don't know… I didn't really expect anything to be that different. I'm not anybody special. They shouldn't be like this. They still have the Study Group, they still have each other."
"But they don't have you," Garrett said. "And without you and what you bring to the Study Group, things just can't be the same. And each of them went looking for what you brought elsewhere, never really finding it."
"And what do I bring?" Annie let her gaze shift to the outside scenery again. "A good grade? Actual studying?"
"Deep down you know," Garrett said. "But I'm not the one who should tell you that."
"It doesn't matter," Annie shook her head. "I screwed up too much! None of them want me back and I'm leaving the school now, they'll all be better off."
"You think so?" Garrett said. "Annie, without you, this or something like this will happen to your study group too. No one person is too insignificant to not change the lives of everyone she surrounds herself with once she leaves. Troy and Abed won't have their third amigo, Britta and Shirley won't have the glue to keep their friendship together, Pierce won't have someone looking out for him and Jeff…"
"Jeff won't have someone that he knows loves the man he actually is and not the man he pretends to be," Annie breathed.
"Sooner or later they'll be…"
Jeff's Lexus started driving by and Annie pushed herself to her feet.
"Alone, like Jeff is," she breathed.
"Exactly! And that's why you should… where are you going!?"
"I can't leave him like this on Christmas!" Annie was already into a full sprint. "I don't care if he hates, me or thinks I'm weird. He has to know that someone cares about him!"
"And the rest of the Study Group!?"
"Them too!"
"Watch out for the doo-"
Annie barely heard him. Which was why when the door swung open in front of her, she didn't have time to pivot, spin, or stop. Instead she crashed headlong into it and sprawled backward, landing hard on her back and smacking her head on the hard tile. She blinked a couple of times and tried to right her spinning point of view. Off in the distance, Garrett screamed about her falling and it being a crisis.
Her eyes closed, as if mocking her fight keep them open. And soon enough she felt fingers under her neck and an arm just beneath her knees. The heavy breathing she heard told her Garrett was carrying her to the medical center. She tried again to open her eyes but they wouldn't budge and she slipped further into unconsciousness.
The first thing she was aware of, when wakefulness came back to her was the ringing in her ears. An annoying tinkling like tiny bells. The next thing she felt was warm smooth fingers holding her hand. Fingers much softer than hers but much stronger. She opened her eyes staring straight up, and through blurred vision, saw six faces gazing down.
She blinked away the blurriness just in time to see and hear Shirley squeal with excitement and jump up and down a little. Troy and Abed did their buddy shake while Troy sniffed back tears. Pierce started signaling to Nurse Jackie and Britta smiled at her before going over to argue with him about homeopathic alternatives to pain medication.
Annie focused her eyes on Jeff, who smiled in spite of eyes filled with concern. She glanced down at her own hand but couldn't see if it was his holding hers. The fingers squeezed a little tighter around her hand and she looked back up to see Jeff's smile broaden a bit. Then she felt her own lips curve up.
"I'm sorry for weirding all you guys out, I know you all have your own lives and… I just wasn't ready to see what they were like without…"
"Annie," Jeff scooted a little closer. "Are you okay? You haven't weirded us out, just scared us when you went and knocked yourself out like that."
"Jeff I don't know what happened I just… wait… did you just call me Annie?"
"Oh good Lord in heaven she's lost her memory," Shirley moaned and cupped her hands over her mouth.
"I'll get something hard to bump her head with," Abed said. "That's how amnesia is cured in most sitcoms. Either that or a timely montage of all of the character's life memories that happened within the time span of the show."
"You're not hitting her in the head," Jeff narrowed his eyes at Abed then turned back to her. "Don't worry Annie we're going to take care of you."
"You remember me!" Annie sat up, ignoring how dizzy she felt. "He did it! Garrett brought me back!"
"Garrett?" Britta said as she placed a hand on Annie's shoulder and slowly guided her back down on the bed. "You must have really hit your head hard if you thought Jeff looked like Garrett when he brought you in."
"Jeff found me?" Annie said and turned her eyes back on him. "But… I thought you said that you wished I had never come to Greendale?"
The others immediately fired glares at Jeff and he ducked his head a little before locking eyes with Annie and squeezing her hand tight. "Annie… I was wrong. All of us were. We put too much pressure on you to make our Christmas Terrariums and we know you didn't mean to lose them, or that money for the Salvation Army. And I think I speak for everyone here when I say, that we need you in the Study Group. Not just because you are the only one that knows how to study. But mostly because without you, the Study Group would be just that, a study group. A random collection of students that got together to drill homework. You're the one that makes the Study Group more. You make it a family. You're part of our family Annie."
Annie made an 'aww" sound which was echoed by Shirley, Britta, and Troy. Before she knew it, Annie was the center of one of their group hugs, with Jeff hugging her the closest of all, his head hanging over her shoulder and against her neck.
After a few moments they released each other and Britta snapped something at Pierce about watching the hands, only to blush when she realized Pierce hadn't been hugging her at all but instead it had been Troy. Shirley and Abed went and grabbed a tray of Christmas goodies Shirley had made and Pierce started working on uncorking some champagne.
"What's going on?" Annie raised a brow.
"We didn't know if you'd be well enough to move when you woke up," Abed said. "So we decided to throw my Christmas Rager here!"
"But… but what about the lost Terrariums? And the money for the Salvation Army that I lost for the Dean? He said Christmas was ruined! And… what about… after we all fought I dropped out of school!"
"You did what!?" Shirley dropped a plate of cookies.
"I thought you all hated me and… I wasn't thinking straight and… I sent a letter of withdrawal."
"But Annie…" Britta's jaw hung open. "You can just tell the dean you didn't mean it and…"
"She doesn't have to tell the dean nothing," the voice of Professor Kane came over them all.
The bodies of the study group separated until she could see their bio instructor standing in the doorway. "I know about the Christmas Terrariums and you know without them all of you fail my class."
"But it's Christmas!" Troy pleaded.
"Don't you think I know that? Back in prison all we ever got for Christmas was some extra gravy on our potatoes. And… well… every year I just wished I had some group of people to be my family… like you guys." Tear appeared in the corners of his eyes. "So I guess what I'm trying to say is that… seeming how you all found the true meaning of Christmas Terrariums, you all get 'A's, except Winger. He gets a 'C-'."
"That's fair," Jeff nodded.
"Professor Kane!" the dean ran up then noticed there was an audience. "Hi everyone, hi Jeff… Professor Kane! I need your help! I found all the Salvation Army money! That mean's they're not going to declare war on the school!"
"What do you need my help for then?"
"But someone also sabotaged the computers. I won't get any emails from the last 24 hours! That means I can't email them and tell them not to send their Salvation Tanks and mounted Salvation Submachine guns!"
Kane sighed and followed the dean. By this time the group each practically stood at attention, as soon as they left Shirley cheered followed by all the rest. Nurse Jackie put on some holiday music and Pierce went to work on the champagne again.
Britta, Nurse Jackie, Troy and Abed all started dancing and Jeff lingered by Annie's side. She sat up not really feeling the slightest bit dizzy at the moment. Jeff tried to help her out of the bed but she let go of his hand and hopped out. She grinned up at him and he motioned toward where the others were dancing.
"Happy Holiday's Annie," he smiled.
"Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah Jeff," She motioned for him to follow.
On her way over, Annie glanced at the doorway. Garrett stood there along with Todd of all people. Garrett nodded to Annie and she nodded back before starting to dance. Somewhere she thought she heard Angel Garrett tell Todd that his assignment was Britta and by the time she looked back, Todd had fainted and Garrett was dragging him off. She shook her head and smiled before turning back to dance with her study group.
