Chapter 4
Author Notes: This is a AU of season 4, Jeff didn't Graduate early, so almost all of events of season 4 didn't happen in this story (like the hungry Dean, so Annie never change her major in this). This is because I started writing this before season 4 aired and this is my interpretation of were season 3 left the character and the prompt and I'm not going to change my plan even for the canon. Thank you.
P.s., Sorry about this being so late, I've been really busy with school.
"Okay, Annie, we need a Caramel Funky Java and a Funky Chunky Smoothie." Annie sighed and looked up at the clock. 12:25. Troy and Abed's flight should be getting ready to leave now. She hoped that everything would be okay and that they wouldn't britta their big plans.
"Oh and Annie, when your done with that I'm going to need you to take over the register while I go for a smoke," Annie's manager, Mandy said. "I should be back in a half an hour or so, maybe."
Annie looked at the long line of customers waiting at the register.
"Now? We're right in the middle of the lunch rush, can't you wait?" The place was packed because the Starbucks on the other end of the mall was getting fumigated and her coworkers still hadn't gotten used to the increased numbers.
Mandy glared at her and said "How 'bout you stop bitching and do what I say or I'll kick your skinny little white ass? Capisce?" Annie sighed and nodded reluctantly. For some unknown reason Mandy hated her guts from the moment they'd met and was dedicated to making Annie miserable. Annie was still confused as to why Mandy hired her, but the pay was good enough, so she didn't risk asking.
"Billy, get your ass out of the goddamn storage room, I need you to make some goddamn coffee for dumb-ass sheep," Mandy yelled. This earned her a dirty look from a mother with some small children. "What are you looking at, you fat cow?" Mandy responded. The mother scoffed and grabbed her six thousand calorie drink order and left the place in a huff.
"Seriously, the nerve of some people! Okay Annie, Billy's going to make the drink, don't try to rush him, just let him go at his own pace and everything will be fine. If any the 'customers'," Mandy air quoted, "give you a hard time, tell them to screw themselves. If they keep bitching, tell them to fucking get out and go to MacDonald's. And above all else, don't let Billy talk to anybody, ever. Okay? Good. See ya later, bitches," Mandy said leaving the shop.
Annie sighed and walked over to the register to take the orders of the long line of angry, impatient customers who were used to the well, oiled machine that was Starbucks. "This is going to be a long shift," Annie thought to herself.
Thirty minutes later Annie was relieved that the lunch rush was almost over, and there was only a handful of customers in line and still lingering at the tables. Annie had Billy go back in to the storage room a little while back when things quieted down, it was faster now to just do it all herself. Nothing too bad had happened, the only incident was when one guy got impatient waiting for Billy to make his coffee and pushed to the front of the line and demanded a refund, which Annie gave him. Billy muttered, "Mandy wouldn't have liked that," but Annie ignored him. Mandy still hadn't come back and probably wasn't going to. It wouldn't be the first time she skipped work. Annie had complained to their boss but he told her that they couldn't fire her because she had "friends in high places," which made Annie wonder why she was working here?
Annie sighed and finished the order and called out the order, "One Funkuccino and Monkey Beard for Judy."
Then she went to the register to help the next customer, who was a really tall man in a train conductor uniform who was texting on his phone. Annie figured he must have worked at the train themed restaurant/train model store across the street. Annie couldn't see the man's face from under his hat and he didn't seem to notice she was there, or he just hadn't bothered to looked up from his phone yet.
"Hello, welcome to Java Funk, what would you like to order today?"
"Oh umm…" He finally looked up for his phone and greeted Annie with a very familiar face.
"Jeff?" Annie said in surprised.
"Annie!" Jeff said stunned, he was unaware that Annie worked there.
Annie burst in to laughter.
"What?" Jeff was now regretting that he didn't drive the five minutes to the closest open Starbucks.
"Sorry, but… your outfit." Annie managed to squeak out between giggles.
"Well you look like thanksgiving of 1975 threw up all over you," Jeff said weakly and pointed to her uniform which was a turkey brown A-line dress with orange and yellow striped hem.
Annie ignored his jab at her uniform and continued to giggle. "It looks like you work at Choo Choo Charlie's."
Jeff didn't say anything. Annie gasped.
"You are working at Charlie's, aren't you!"
Jeff remained silent.
"Tell the truth Jeff, or I my slip up and mention it to the dean when I see him later."
"Go ahead. He was banned from this location."
"AHA! I got you!"
"Damn it!"
Annie smile faded. "Jeff why are working at Charlie's? I thought you had a consulting job at your old firm."
"Well, when did you start working here? I thought worked at a nursing home or something," Jeff said, trying to divert the conversation away from him.
"Yeah, it closed down a month ago after my old boss and his secretary ran off to Rio with all his patients' money. Remember they had an episode of Scandal Maker about it? Now stop trying to divert the conversation. What's going on with you? You've been distant… well more distant than usual."
"Hey babe, could you stop flirting with your boyfriend, some of us have places to be," the man behind Jeff interrupted.
"He's not my boyfriend." Annie said bashfully, the man gave her an "I don't give a crap" look. "It'll just be one more minute," Annie said to the man, before turning back to Jeff. "We need to talk. When do you get off of work?"
Jeff thought this over, he could lie and say he didn't get off work tell much later, but that wouldn't really stop Annie, and he'd be risking her bringing it up in front of the group, which he was not ready for. No, it would be better to fess up and be honest this time so he could manipulate Annie into keeping it between them.
"I just got off," he sighed.
"Oh, well take a seat and let me finish up with these customers and then we'll talk."
"One small black coffee, one sugar."
Jeff looked up from his phone. Annie stood in front of him with two cups of coffee and a paper bag in hand. "Wrong," Jeff said smugly.
What this is what you always order when the group gets coffee"
Jeff raises his eyebrow at her. "On a normal day, maybe, but today I need the whole pot."
"Oh, well I can get you that if you want."
"No, just sit, this will be fine." Annie sat across from him.
"Are you trying to pull a Shirley and butter me up with baked goods?"
"What?"
"The bag"
"Oh, that's my lunch," Annie said taking a tuna sandwich out of the bag. "I don't have any baked goods but you can have half my sandwich and some grapes," she offered
Jeff wrinkled his nose "No, I'm good." Annie suddenly regretted her choice in lunch.
"So this place seems..."
"Tacky," Annie filled in.
"Actually what I was going to say is it looks like a place Pierce might frequent."
"He does," Annie said bluntly, which caused Jeff to tense and looked like he was getting ready to make a break for it. "Don't worry, he already left for Pawnee." Jeff relaxed. They sat in silence for a minute or two while Annie ate a little bit of her sandwich and Jeff took a couple sips of his coffee. This should have felt completely comfortable. Well, that's not true. Things with Annie were never completely comfortable; there was always this something strange that hung over them, and the added awkwardness was making Jeff feel like he is going to explode. For some reason, he just couldn't stop the truth bubbling to the surface like he normally did.
"Alan blacklisted me. That why I'm working at Charlie's." Jeff blurted out.
"What? How?"Annie asked in shock.
Jeff shrugged. "I'm not sure how, but somehow he used his connections to make it impossible to be able to get a job at a firm in Colorado."
This caused Annie to raise an eyebrow. "Alan has enough power to do that?"
"Apparently so." Jeff sighed frustrated.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be, it's not your fault that Alan is a total dick."
"Um, Jeff?"
"Yeah?"
"Why didn't you say anything about it to us?"
"Well it's our last year as a study group together, I just wanted to enjoy it with you guys. Besides, the thing with my dad was bad enough that I didn't what to bog things down with more of my drama." Jeff took a sip of his coffee. "Besides if I did, Britta would have forced more of her pitiful attempts to therapise me"
"Yeah, I think we need to hold an intervention for her."
"Tell me about it. Last week she asked me to "help" the lunch ladies work together better, and let's just say it didn't turn out well."
"Is that why the skinny one has an eye-patch now?" Annie asked
"Yeah." Jeff and Annie shared a laugh before she sobered.
"What are you going to do? I mean after graduation?" she asked.
"An old colleague of mine offered me a job at the new firm he started."
"That great news! You really had me worried there."
"But it's in Vegas," he explained.
"Oh. But what about us?" Annie asked, then realized how that sounded. "Us as in the study group, I mean," she clarified.
"Well it's not like it's the 1970's or something we can text. And besides, it's only two states over, not the other side of the world, so I could fly up every couple of weeks."
"I know, but it won't be the same."
"Yeah, but we all knew this would happen sooner or later, if not me going to Vegas, it would have been LA or New York for Abed, and you're going to transfer to a university for nursing, right?" Annie tensed at this a little, but Jeff didn't noticed. "Or god knows, Troy could end up going to...actually I have no idea what Troy's doing. Is he still in the air conditioning repair program?"
"Kind of, but he doesn't really want to commit to anything yet."
"Okay, well, the point is that we are all going to eventuality going to move on with our lives and as much as I love you guys, I'm too close to getting what I want to turn back now."
"When were you going to telling us?"
"I was thinking maybe just after finals."
"I guess I understand why you are doing this. Our group isn't the most supportive of change, but the longer you wait to tell them the worse it'll be."
"Well as bad as they are, I actually didn't want the dean to find out and try and sabotage me graduating. You seen how upset he is about me leaving Greendale, imagine his reaction when I leave the state."
"Well that understandable I guess, but I still think this whole situation sucks."
"You think it sucks? I'm the one having to move to Nevada," Jeff remarked, this made Annie smile a bit but then she got a concerned look on her face.
"Jeff, can I ask you for some personal advice?" she asked timidly. Jeff raised his eyebrow.
"Okay," he said, a little uncertain.
"Well..." but before Annie could continue, she was interrupted by someone suddenly hitting there table hard with a purse. "What the hell are you doing?" Mandy yelled.
"Um, taking a lunch break with a friend."
"Well, while you were eye fucking Franken-forehead -" Jeff's hand immediately went to his forehead and Annie blushed a little. "Billy has been dealing with customers." Mandy pointed to the register, where Billy yelled at Garrett, "WHY ARE YOU BUGGING ME?!" to which Garrett replied, "I JUST WANT SOME COFFEE!"
"Oh, I guess I must have spaced out."
Mandy scoffed and said, "I would fire you but you're not worth the paperwork," then walked away.
"Wow, she..."
"Yeah," Annie sighed. "I probably need to get back to work. Maybe we could talk a little later, after I get off?"
"I'd like to but I can't, I promised I'd go to Denver to have dinner with my mom and her new boyfriend. Which usually ends with me getting really drunk and have to spend the night in a hotel."
"Oh," Annie said, getting that sad look on her face that always made Jeff feel like a dick. Jeff sighed.
"Maybe, since we both work around here we, if we happen to work around the same time, maybe we could hang out after work; like get lunch or dinner or catch a movie or something…" Jeff began to ramble.
"Sure, I would love that," Annie said, smiling as she cut him off.
"Yeah, and if the conversation were to come back to this and you feel the need to ask me for some advice, I guess I wouldn't be entirely opposed to that."
"Are you sure about that? You know I might take you up on that offer."
"Well, I guess that's a risk I'm willing to take to be a good friend." This made Annie smile even wider and Jeff couldn't help smiling back.
"Well, I'd better get back to work."
"Yeah, I should probably be heading home." Jeff and Annie stand up and start to gather there things up. When Annie suddenly turned to him.
"Oh, and I won't tell anyone about the thing we talked about today." Jeff smiled and mentally gave himself a high five, before thanking her. Annie started to walk away but before she got too far she turned back to Jeff. "Also, Jeff could you do me a favor?"
"What's the favor?"
"Could you maybe put in a good word for me at Charlie's?"
If it had been anyone else, the answer would have been no; it would have made it more likely for people to find out he worked there. But since it was Annie, he just smiled and said, "I'll see what I can do." This earned him a big smile and a hug.
Annie's Room
Annie sat on her bed smiling while she put hanging out with Jeff in her in her planner. For the most part, her day was not the greatest. Work was Hell and Troy and Abed got so distracted playing Inspector Spacetime that they almost missing their flight, then in the rush to leave they forgot half of their luggage.
But the Idea of spending time with Jeff just the two of them made her really excited, and extremely nervous. There was something she needed to discuss that made Annie'sstomach turn with anxiety.
Annie looked over at an open envelope that sat on her desk. She got up off the bed and slowly walked over to her desk and picked it up. Inside was both the most beautiful and the most terrifying Annie had ever seen. Annie sat down on the bed, pulled some pages out of the envelope and stared to read them.
Outside a man sat in the tree just outside Annie's window and watched her, smiling to him. It was all going perfectly according to his plan.
With that thought he vanished in to the darkness.
