Annie wakes up with a gasp and jumps out of the chair she's in.
Wait…
She looks around.
I'm in a trailer?
There's a groan behind her and she turns to see Jeff sprawled out at an uncomfortable angle on the floor. She helps him up, and they stare at each other in confusion.
"Weren't we in a parking lot?" She asks softly.
Jeff nods faintly, confused.
He looks around a little, then back down at her. "I just remember having some sort of… problem. I couldn't breathe."
She nods. "That's what happened to me too."
He looks around some more. "So what the fuck happened to us?"
xxxxx
Alison wakes up with a start. It's dark, so she can just make out that Joel is waving a hand in front of her face. "What happened?"
He looks grim. "I have no idea. But we're not in your trailer anymore."
She sits up and realizes that she was lying next to car.
Her eyes are now adjusted to the gloom, so she notices the way Joel's eyes are wide and confused.
Before she can ask, he helps her up and directs her attention to something behind her.
It's a very familiar looking building.
Her brain tells her what it is, and she tries valiantly to come up with a different explanation.
It's Greendale Community College, but not in pieces. It wasn't a set with Joe Russo running around, and Danny prepping a shopping cart for the two of them to play with. It was an actual building.
She looked around. People are getting into cars, yawning tiredly, driving away… there is an awayfor those people to drive to.
xxxxx
Annie isn't the sort of person to take too kindly to things like being transported magically.
She's the sort of person who freaks out when those things happen.
So when Jeff starts looking around the trailer for clues, she stays in the spot she's in, stubbornly trying to blank out what's happening around her.
Maybe like last year, she's in the Dreamatorium with Abed. Maybe she's just in a crazy Inception-type pretend-dream that transported her somewhere and she doesn't remember.
"Um, Annie?" Jeff suddenly asks. She looks up.
He's holding a photo frame. She leans closer to look at what's in it.
The picture is divided into two. The one on the left is of a Maxim magazine cover on it. The right side had a picture and article of a woman who looked just like her, with the number 99 next to the picture.
"She plays a buttoned-up bookworm on Community and a repressed '60s housewife on Mad Men. Someone cast this talented babe as a crazed exhibitionist, stat!" Jeff reads out.
He looks up at her, simultaneously putting down the frame. "She's called Alison Brie."
xxxxx
"There has to be an explanation."
"Yeah. Um. You got one?"
"Nope."
"Maybe we should go inside."
"And do what? Attend a study group meeting?"
"It's too late for that, everyone would've gone home."
"Well, except for Abed, right? He's shooting a late night special for the Community College Chronicles."
"Oh, yeah."
Alison suddenly slaps Joel on his arm. "Listen to us! Listen to the way we're talking! It's like we've come up with the one explanation and decided that's it!"
Joel frowns and pulls his arm away, then starts walking towards the doors of the building. "We're not going to think of any other explanation without going in and looking around. If we stay in the parking lot, all we're going to have is this."
She stops him. "And what exactly is 'this' anyway? We're in some sort of TV land? We somehow got transported toGreendale?"
They stare at each other for second, minds contemplating the real meaning of the sentence before turning away.
Joel coughs and opens the door. "We're probably just over-reacting."
Neither wants to put what's in their minds into real words.
If it's true… then they're probably stuck in a place they know someone makes up on a weekly basis.
Then everything they worked for in their real lives is most probably lost.
Instead, they walk in, hoping that for some reason they're just wrong and that the sets always looked this real.
They don't, surprisingly, consider the fact that Jeff and Annie might be in the real world.
xxxxx
Annie jumps nervously from one foot to another, hand on the door of the trailer, watching Jeff call up an Internet browser on the mysterious Alison's laptop.
She doesn't get what's happening, but instead of thinking about it, she's just focusing on the job at hand. Finding out where they are.
Jeff opens a Wikipedia link and scans through.
"Well?" Annie demands, half reluctantly.
He doesn't acknowledge her until he's done scrolling, and even then just beckons her towards the screen.
Letting go of the door, she walks forward and reads the page.
She scans through the whole thing, looks pensively at the accompanying picture (that looks exactly like her – or how she would look in a low cut sleeveless dress), then moves back up to the first line.
Alison Brie (born December 29, 1982) is an American actress best known for portraying Annie Edison on Community,Trudy Campbell on Mad Men, and Rebecca Walters in Scream 4.
She pushes Jeff's hand lightly off the mouse pad and opens the link to Community.
xxxxx
Joel McHale has seen lots of things.
He's a huge mystery science geek.
He's worked with Dan Harmon for the last three years, damn it.
So one would think that he'd be able to handle a situation like him and a friend being transported to a land where his work comes to life pretty well.
He's not. He's repressing it carefully, because the moment he acknowledges the fact that this is happening – he's going to go mad. Like, straightjacket mad.
xxxxx
One the page for Community, they start opening the links for every name they see.
The first name is Dan Harmon, who seems to be the creator of the show.
The second name is Joel McHale.
But by the time they actually read that page, they're not shocked to see Jeff's face.
The 'premise' part of the article has told them enough.
Community begins when Jeff Winger (Joel McHale), a suspended lawyer, enrols in Greendale Community College after it is discovered that he falsely claimed to have a bachelor's degree. The series focuses on the experiences of Jeff and the study group that he forms in an attempt to attract the romantic attention of Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), a former anarchist trying to get her life back on track. The other members of Jeff's study group include Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase), a millionaire on a late-in-life voyage of self-discovery; Annie Edison (Alison Brie), a young straight-laced student and former prescription drug addict; Troy Barnes (Donald Glover), a former high school star quarterback-turned-nerd; Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown), a single mother and vocal Christian going to school to jumpstart her brownie business; and Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi), a pop-culture-obsessed film student. The group originally unites as a study group for the Spanish 101 class taught by egomaniacal teacher "Señor" Ben Chang (Ken Jeong), and quickly become friends.
There's a knock on the trailer door, and both Jeff and Annie freeze.
xxxxx
Joel fishes in the pocket of his jeans and quickly pulls out his wedding ring. He needs something to ground him to reality. Or reassure him that there used to be a reality.
Alison stops him. "Wait! People can't see Jeff Winger with a wedding ring!"
He turns towards her. "But I'm not Jeff Winger."
"So? No one here is going to know that."
Joel almost growls out his sentence. "What happened to making sure of what was happening exactlybefore taking any action?"
Maybe she's channelling her character. Alison crosses her arms and opens her mouth again. "Wearing the ring is action, Joel."
He struggles to keep his temper in check.
It is not her fault they're stuck in... Wherever they are.
As they stare at each other, he notices something in the depths of her eyes.
He only recognizes the emotion because he's feeling it too, and it's only been barely repressed.
Fear.
"Hey, guys."
They swivel to see Danny standing in front of them.
Or is it Abed?
He can practically feel the tension coming from Alison. If it's Danny, then they're just fools. Or crazy.
If it's not, then... Well.
The man in front of them raises his eyebrows then nods almost imperceptibly. "Bad time? I'll leave. I have to get back to the shoot anyway. Troy's rigged a roof of pipes to rain over the English Memorial Spanish Centre, so we could shoot the major season finale for the Community College Chronicles. I need to check up on it."
Even if they hadn't listened to the content of the statement, they'd know who it was. The almost emotionless voice is enough of a clue.
Fuck.
xxxxx
Annie squeaks and slowly pulls open the door.
"Oh, it is you. I thought you left a while ago. Saw the light on in the trailer-"
Annie turns slowly to look at Jeff, who quickly flips to the page on the laptop entitled Dan Harmon.
She takes a good look at the picture, and then turns back to the door.
"-thought I'd be the only one here right now, it's been an hour since everyone else left-"
"Can we talk for a second? Um, inside?" Annie cuts in.
Dan Harmon raises his eyebrows.
xxxxx
"Okay..." Alison rubs her forehead, "we need to figure things out. How did we end up here? And how does here exist?"
Joel sighs deeply and sinks deeper into the couch in study room F.
She turns to him. "Joel, come on. You're more of a science geek than I am-"
"Mystery science is not the same as science."
"So? You're still going to be able to think of better things."
He sighs again and sits up. "Okay, um. When did the show ever talk about anything like this? Dimensions, time travel, anything even close to the fucked up crap happening now?"
She casts her mind back.
The seven timelines episode.
Then... there was the conspiracy episode in early season two. She's pretty sure there was something to do with time travel in that one.
Joel quickly shoots down those. "It's not the timeline episode, none of the timelines involves real life. And the other thing was just the gag about the Dean writing a book."
"Then... the Model UN episode?" She offers doubtfully. "There was that whole thing with the two Earths."
He rubs his hands on his face, and then looks up, eyes narrowing slightly. "Is that it?"
He gets up and starts pacing. "Maybe... say there are two earths. One is um, TV land. And the other one is the real world."
She sees what he means. "So, we just somehow switched places with Jeff and Annie from this Earth?"
xxxxx
"Come on. I know you guys like teasing me about drinking while I'm working, but this is the lamest way to screw me over –ever. You can't even show me proof for this one." The man snorted, looking a little nettled.
Annie gasps indignantly. "We are telling the truth – wait, you drink while you're working?"
Jeff sighs. "Annie, this may not be the right time for that."
He looks at Mr. Harmon again. "Look, we're not trying to prank you. W-"
"What happens to the orange plushie after the black mould comes to life?" Harmon cuts in.
"Uh, what?" He asked, sidetracked. Black mould coming to life? Was he that drunk?
Harmon then looks at Annie, eyes narrowed. She looks equally flabbergasted. "What plushie? What're you talking about?"
He got up quickly and moved backwards a bit, then started scrutinising the two of them carefully. "That's in the script for four-twelve. You guys read that. So you'd know what I was talking about unless you're not... but you could just be lying... Lie To Me can't be that far off... actually shocked..." He elapses into silence.
Jeff starts feeling every hope he had leave him.
Then: "Who's Isaac?"
Jeff raises his eyebrows. "I have no idea."
Harmon sits back down with a flabbergasted expression. It slowly turns to awe.
"I'm sitting in a trailer with characters I created."
Jeff turns to Annie. He's not sure if he's too happy about Harmon believing them. Because if it's true... then who is he? Who are the people he's spent the past three and a half years with? Heck, what was his whole life?
A few lines on paper and an actor's decision to make them come alive?
Harmon snaps his fingers. "I need that laptop. If you need to go back, you have to be sent. That's only happening if your fate is written."
Yeah, that makes him feel better.
xxxxx
Joel closes the door dejectedly. Their idea to find Abed and seek his council is turning into a dud. They can't find Abed anywhere.
"Did you find him?" Alison calls from down the hallway.
He shakes his head and makes his way towards her. She pats his arm, looking just as miserable as him. "It's okay, Jeff."
He nods heavily. "Thanks."
They freeze. "What did you say?" He demands.
She backs away, hands covering her mouth. "Shit. Nothing! I swear, Jeff! I mean, Joel! Oh, shit. Oh fuck."
He wants to berate her, but a part of him is telling him that instead of freaking out about the real world, it would be just easier to sink into Jeff Winger.
But he's breathing too hard to speak, so he tries calming himself down.
It doesn't work. His chest starts feeling constricted.
In front of him, Alison clutches her head.
xxxxx
Jeff feels the expected symptoms of a heart attack. In front of him, through darkening vision, he realizes that Dan Harmon looks sad for a moment, hands still resting on the keyboard.
Annie falls next to him, head thumping against a stool.
He can't breathe.
xxxxx
Alison jumps up with a gasp, making a dark shape in front of her look up in shock.
She recognizes him and feels like weeping. "Dan?"
There's a groan as the huge lump next to her uncurls and stretches out, rubbing his chest and drawing in deep breaths.
"Joel?" Dan asks with an unreadable expression.
xxxxx
Jeff groans, feeling like someone stuck a hot rod into his head and heart.
"Are you alright?" Annie asks worriedly. She stops leaning against her car and walks nearer.
An image of a dark trailer swims before his eyes before winking out of existence. "Yeah, um, just a sudden headache."
She looks sympathetic. "Should I drive you home? I can leave my car here for a night and take a cab from your place."
He nods and they get into his Lexus.
He wonders briefly if she's had that small bruise on her forehead for a while now, but doesn't ask.
xxxxx
"So, they'll have no recollection of anything?" Alison asked, rummaging through her purse for Tylenol.
Her forehead is paining like someone threw a chair at it.
Dan nods gleefully. "It's practically a masterpiece, this script. I wrote it in half an hour. It starts as a continuation of 'last time's episode' which saves me the work of writing about how guys got there. I included everything from switching you guys again, to making Jeff and Annie forget, to getting the special drugs-"
"What drug?" Joel asks weakly.
"Oh, yeah." Dan looks shifty.
"I may have to give you guys a drug to make your forget about what happened in the past hour."
Alison frowns. "That kind of drug exists?"
He looks like a little boy on Christmas again. "That's exactly what I just said. I wrote two of them into existence."
Joel fixes him with a dark look, then nods wearily.
"Whatever. Just give it. I don't want to particularly remember how I met Abed."
Dan nods and explains how they'll wake up in their respective trailers and just think they're a little later than usual then go home.
They watch as he deletes his script from her laptop.
xxxxx
Dan Harmon fishes out a crumpled ball of paper from the dustbin in the writer's room. He recognizes Andy's handwriting.
He gives it a cursory glance before ripping it and dumping it back into the bin.
Sighing, he takes the third pill – the one he didn't tell Joel and Alison about – out of his pocket and dry swallows it.
He can't remember this. If he does, he knows that one day he'll try going to Earth two.