Disclaimer: Community belongs to NBC and Wizard Master Dan Harmon. This little tidbit was written out of nothing but pure love for the show and a desire to show the network just how much we want it back. #sixseasonsandamovie!
They meet in a Denny's halfway between his office and her house. It's late March now, and she called that morning to tell him that the divorce had been finalized the evening before. She's not celebrating the fact that she's no longer Mrs. Robert Lyman, but she's not exactly mourning either.
She's nursing a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream when he walks in, sees her sitting in a booth by the window, and comes striding over. His coat and scarf are damp from the first of the spring rains outside, and he isn't carrying a briefcase. He slides into the seat across from her and just stares for a moment.
"Are you okay?" he blurts then, his glove-clad fingers gripping the edge of the table tight, the classy, expensive leather squeaking against the faux-wood. Before she can answer, the waitress approaches, having seen the new arrival. Jeff orders a coffee, black, just to get her to leave.
He looks back at her as soon as they're alone again. Annie idly stirs her hot chocolate, mixing in some more of the cream floating on top before answering him. "Yes," she breathes, finally meeting his gaze. "I think I really am."
"And the kids? How are they doing?" he asks, and she's touched at the concern in his voice for the three little people he's never met and has no connection to in the world except through her. She thinks back on the one other time she called him since January: It was halfway through, when things had started to get nasty and Robert had been threatening to push for full custody of their children. Her lawyer had managed to talk his lawyer out of it, but still, it was a terrifying time and Jeff's soothing voice over the phone had been the only thing to get her through it in one piece.
She nods. "They're… adjusting. I think it helped that we never had screaming fights in front of them." She pauses, thinking about that statement. "We never had any screaming fights, actually. I can't really remember ever fighting at all," she murmurs. Not like her parents did, that's for sure. Maybe she did make some of their mistakes – like marrying a man she knew she didn't really want to spend the rest of her life with – but she was at least determined not to drag her children into the mess she'd made. There would be no tug-of-war over their affections, no manipulations, no trying to use them just to win a petty argument.
Jeff frowns at her words and looks away to remove his gloves, finger by finger. Annie watches him for a moment but then goes on.
"Josh didn't even seem surprised when we told him," she says. Her firstborn is mature beyond his years, wild and adventurous sure, but also wise, contemplative, more so than any ten year old should be. "It was like our marriage was a cat that crawled under the porch to die, and the kids had all seen it coming and just accepted it as a matter of course." If anything, her daughter Katie seems to have taken it as an opportunity: two birthdays from now on, sixteen Hanukkah celebrations instead of eight, maybe even some extra gifts and special trips, just because each of her parents would see their time with her as so special and rare now. Conniving Katie, her parents call her, and Annie has always thought that someday she will make a wildly successful lawyer.
Jeff is still staring down at the tabletop, his brows knit, looking like he's thinking very hard about something.
Annie sighs and curls her fingers around her hot chocolate, warming her hands. She's not sure why she's still talking, and about this of all things, but it's a relief to get it out, to be done with it. And besides, Jeff will tell her what he's thinking when he's good and ready. "It wasn't… I mean, he wasn't… bad. A bad husband. He didn't hit me or come home drunk or anything like that. He just… stopped coming home at all, after a while."
She pauses and Jeff nods at this, though he's still studying the fake woodgrain between his hands. In his mind, she knows, fathers and husbands should get gone and stay that way. She can't begrudge him that view, considering he spent his childhood surviving the alternative. "Then last fall, I found out he'd been having an affair with a woman in his office for the last four years or so," she says.
He hisses in a sharp breath through his teeth and finally looks back up at her, and she can't help the old smile that pulls at her lips, because him hating any man in her life is such a familiar sensation that she thinks if she closes her eyes she could almost pretend they were back in their old study room and the last fourteen years hadn't been spent convincing herself she didn't miss him. But either way, they're here now, and he's still jumping to defend her honor, even after all this time, and… it's nice.
"The thing I realized, though," she presses on, tapping her fingers against the sides of her mug and irrationally smiling down into the cooling brown liquid, "was that I didn't care. I didn't feel betrayed or like I had lost anything. I know my children will be affected by us breaking up, but I can't even be angry at him for that. Our marriage fell apart because I didn't love him. Because I never loved him. He just realized it before I did."
"I thought-" Jeff says suddenly, pulling her gaze back up to his face. "I mean, I was afraid that-" But he chokes on the words, and then the waitress walks up with his coffee and he's given a quick reprieve as he thanks her and they decline to order any food at the moment. The girl walks away and they face each other again.
Jeff's eyes are tight, his expression cautious and she recognizes the look as meaning he's on the verge of hoping, of believing in something, but he can't quite let himself yet. He licks his lips. "I was afraid you did this because of me," he says at last, holding her gaze, his words quiet and steady. "I was afraid I'd broken up a perfectly happy family."
Oh. Anne feels her expression soften and she reaches across the table for his hand. He looks at her for a second, and then meets her halfway, his fingers curling around hers, warm and solid. "No," she says. "I didn't do it because of you. You didn't cause this. But, seeing you last December…" She trails off and squeezes his hand, reassuring them both at once, and finds she can be nothing but honest from here on out. "Seeing you that day… I think it was the push I needed. The reminder of what it was like to be happy, what it felt like to be with someone I love."
His fingers are suddenly tight around hers, almost painfully so, and she knows when she looks up at his face again that it's because she said love, not loved. His eyes are intense, unwavering, and focused solely on her, and that hope that he's so afraid of has pushed its way to the surface again. "You…" He clears his throat, looks down at their joined hands. "You really think we can do this?" He doesn't need to say the last part aloud: After all this time?
She squeezes his hand again, holding on tight. "We can… We can do whatever's comfortable. For both of us," she says, smiling encouragingly when he meets her gaze once more.
He nods, thoughtfully.
"Even if it's just this," she adds, looking around at the cheerily lit restaurant with its plastic menus and worn carpet. "Just having coffee once in a while to catch up." She shrugs, smiling slightly, because she really would be okay with just that. But Jeff's eyes narrow suddenly and his mouth presses into a thin, flat line, and Annie can't help thinking that this must be the look he gives rival attorneys when he sees a key flaw in their argument.
"No," he says succinctly. "I don't think that's going to work for me."
She blinks, and for half a second she wonders if she's been reading this wrong the whole time, if he's going to throw everything she's said back in her face now, pull away and leave her with nothing. But he hasn't let go of her hand, so she just takes a breath and asks, "What do you mean?"
Jeff's still studying her with those shrewd eyes. "I mean," he says carefully, evenly, but she can hear something else in his tone, something that sounds like determination and maybe even anger, "that I'm done sitting back and accepting whatever consolation prize I get handed. And I'm really done with watching you do that."
Some small voice in the back of her mind is incredulous and bemoaning the fact that they're fighting again already, but she just can't help herself. "Consolation prize?" she echoes, keeping her voice low but unable to completely mask the shrill note in it.
Jeff's brows draw together, looking suddenly confused. "Annie, wait, I think you may have-"
"I'm sorry you're getting a thirty-six year old divorced mother of three," she says, her voice heavy and angry and rising with every word, "instead of a perky twenty-two year old who follows you around like a little lost kitten, Jeff, but you know what, you're the one who left!" She draws in a deep breath when she's finished and is somewhat surprised to find that she's not sorry, because the words were there inside of her all along and they needed to come out, they needed to be expelled from where they'd been festering for the last fourteen years.
But when she meets Jeff's gaze again, she is sorry. He's watching her with an expression unlike any she's ever seen on him before: open, unguarded, vulnerable. So sad, so full of remorse. In a word, heartbroken. And she's the one who did that.
He swallows with some difficulty, his eyes drifting away, looking anywhere but at her. "I know," he says quietly, roughly. "I deserved that."
"No," she tries to disagree with him, "I shouldn't have-" But he shakes his head, and she falls silent, because even if she's sorry for hurting him, it doesn't change the truth of her words. She looks down at his hand, still clinging to hers, and asks, very softly, "Why did you leave?"
He makes a strange sound then, somewhere between a hiccup and a bitter laugh and a quickly, expertly covered sob. "Honestly? I thought I was doing you a favor." He sobers, swallowing again. "That's what I told myself, anyway. I thought… once we weren't seeing each other every day at school, once you could… get some distance… I thought you'd get over me. That you could finally forget about me and be in a healthy relationship."
She shakes her head, squeezing his hand again, not quite able to laugh about it yet. "Look how well that turned out."
He smiles slightly, bitterly, squeezing her hand back, and then places his other on top of it, cupping her smaller hand in between both of his. "That's exactly what I mean, though," he says, "about consolation prizes. I can't… I can't do that again. I can't step back and let you go, even if I've somehow convinced myself it's what's best for you. I can't. Not again."
Her eyes are on their hands, on the way his thumb is stroking over the backs of her knuckles. "I never wanted you to."
"I know," he answers, looking back up at her at last, and there's a very small smirk playing on his lips now. "But I'm a high-handed jerk who thinks he knows more than everybody else. Or did you forget that?"
She does laugh then, shaking her head, her chest tight.
"Look, if we're gonna do this," Jeff goes on, serious once more, "then I'm in, one hundred percent. One hundred and ten percent. None of this holding each other at arm's length, or worrying about propriety, or what anyone else thinks, because we've played by their rules for too goddamned long, and I'm – I'm done. With all of it."
She can't help it – she supposes from an outsider's perspective she must look rather ridiculous, acting impulsively and wildly, like a woman half her age, but then age has always been a funny concept for Annie, and besides what do any of them know anyway? – she all but leaps forward, pulling Jeff in by their still-connected hands, and seals her lips to his. Jeff's mouth opens under hers, eager and forceful and everything she's wanted and missed and longed for and he's really right here.
They break apart after a few heated moments, but they don't go far. Their faces are only a few inches apart and they're both breathing hard when Annie whispers, "I guess I'm in too."
Jeff smiles, his eyes literally lighting up. "One hundred and ten percent?"
Annie squints one eye at him, but it's with amusement. "You know, by definition, 'percent' means you can't have more-" But Jeff just kisses her again and she is more than happy to forget whatever it was she was saying.
She sighs contentedly as they part this time. "Well, it will be nice for Jeffery to get to know his namesake," she comments, trying to make it sound off-hand, casual, but she's watching Jeff's face closely through her lashes and she isn't disappointed when his eyes pop open wide.
His expression seems to be equal parts fear and excitement. "I don't have much experience with kids," he warns her.
"Don't worry. I have enough for the both of us," she smiles. "Besides, Jeffery's the nice one."
He gives her a bemused smile. "Seriously?"
"Yes," she nods. "He was the quietest baby you ever saw, he didn't even have the 'terrible twos,' and now, he's four and I swear, he is the sweetest, most easy-going kid you will ever meet."
"Wow," Jeff says, sounding impressed. Then, "Guess I'll have to teach him a thing or two about trouble-making," and laughs when Annie swats his shoulder. He captures her hand with one of his, holding them both together between them on the tabletop. She curls her fingers around his, holding on. "So this is really it, huh?" he asks, and his eyes are soft and full of hope when he looks at her.
She nods and smiles. "This is really it."
His smile broadens and he lifts one of her hands. "Milday," he grins, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand, his eyes never leaving hers.
"Milord," she answers, her smile wide and warm and – for the first time in a long, long time – really, truly happy.