Annie was awakened early by the bright sunlight from the east-facing windows, with no sign of the previous day's storm to be seen. She kept her eyes closed, trying to hold on to a familiar dream, one she would be too embarrassed to think about when fully awake.

Remembering what had happened the day before, she started and opened her eyes. This time it wasn't a dream.

Abed lay on his side facing Annie. He was already awake, watching her. She rolled over to get closer and he reached out to touch her face.

"This would be a good moment to cut to in the PG-13 version," he whispered.

Annie laughed. "I'm glad we're watching the director's cut instead."

"Annie? Are you awake? I made muffins for breakfast!" Annie flinched at the sound of Shirley's voice, seemingly right outside the bedroom door. How could they not have planned for this? She and Abed had fallen asleep before Shirley got back last night, but they should have realized the trouble they would be in when morning arrived.

"Just a minute!" Annie called nervously, glancing at Abed in panic. "What do we do?" she asked him, belatedly being careful to whisper.

"We don't have to tell the others now," he replied, his voice reassuringly even. "In fact, secret relationship plots are a staple when sitcom couples get together. We're supposed to eventually learn that it's a bad idea to keep secrets from our close friends, but we can realize that when we're not in the guest room of someone so judgmental about premarital relations."

"Abed, she's gonna notice us—"

"Wait." He jumped out of bed almost silently and quickly pulled on his clothes. Climbing back onto the bed, Abed bent to kiss Annie and opened the window above her. In a few seconds he had scrambled out the window onto the balcony.

"You know, there's a door over there," Annie whispered, leaning out after him.

"Not as stealthy or as cinematic," Abed informed her. He walked over to the twin railings separating her balcony from the one outside his own room. Annie watched nervously; the balconies almost adjoined each other, but there was a gap of a few inches, just enough to induce vertigo even if it was too narrow to be actually dangerous.

"I should've brought my grappling hook," Abed added. Annie gasped in fear. "That was a joke. Did I forget to inflect again?"

"Not funny, Abed!" To Annie's relief, he climbed over the railings carefully and without incident. Gaining the other balcony, he pushed the window to his room open and, in an impressive athletic display, used a chair as a footstool to get enough elevation to pull himself through. Giggling, Annie carefully slid her window closed and got out of bed, searching for the clothes she'd abandoned yesterday.

A minute later, she walked into the kitchen and did her best to greet Shirley as if there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. Her friend didn't make it as easy as she'd hoped. "Where were you two yesterday?" Shirley inquired. "You were out all morning and then you'd both gone to bed before we got back."

"Oh, w—I just went to see some more of the surroundings. And I was tired last night. Not from doing anything in particular, it's just jet lag. I mean not jet lag because we drove here and haven't changed time zones. It's the weather. I'm not used to how hot it is here. Probably not Abed either, but I wouldn't know. Even with the air conditioning—"

To her relief, Abed emerged from his room before Shirley, already looking at her quizzically, could ask why she was rambling. "Annie helped me scout for filming locations," he explained calmly. "We had a good Inspector Spacetime reenactment going, but we got caught in the storm and had to run back here."

Shirley chuckled and whispered across the table to Annie. "You don't have to feel embarrassed about playing pretend with Abed. You should see what I get up to with Ben. Since you're both going back to Greendale, maybe you two should babysit him sometime."

Annie couldn't help but be annoyed by the suggestion that their epic simulation would be cause for embarrassment, but she held her tongue, knowing she was lucky not to have incited further suspicion with her shaky cover story. Instead she settled for rolling her eyes at Abed. Through the open bedroom door behind him, she noticed that he had pulled the covers partway off his bed to create the illusion that it had been slept in. If we're doing this secret relationship thing, I'd better ask Abed to explain some sitcom tactics to me. Improvising isn't going to cut it with another amateur detective around. And Britta was already getting suspicious.

As the three of them waited for Jeff and Britta on the beach, Abed considered the ways this scenario could play out. As he'd assured Annie, sitcom storytelling usually demanded that such a situation be resolved fairly easily after some comical attempts to evade discovery, but he still privately felt nervous about how their relationship would affect the group dynamic when it became known to the others. Not that most of them would disapprove; while she would likely not have reacted well if she'd discovered them in bed this morning, Shirley would probably be delighted if simply told they were dating. Britta's self-congratulatory reaction to having her recent suspicions confirmed would be annoying, but in this case she had earned it. It was really just Jeff who concerned Abed. Though he'd been wrong to assume that Annie was still hung up on their relationship, Abed doubted Jeff felt the same way, and however close he was with Abed the group's leader did not handle jealousy well. Maybe they needed a plan to mitigate his reaction.

As Shirley laid out a towel on the sand, Annie glanced at Abed and walked closer to the waves. Abed wasn't good at recognizing social cues, but he knew an opportunity for covert scheming when he saw one. He followed her down to the water's edge, reflexively scanning the horizon. No sign of Troy. It was still a day or two before he was expected to arrive.

"I need some help with this secret-keeping stuff," Annie whispered, glancing around to make sure Shirley wasn't watching too closely. "How do TV characters cover up their relationships?"

"Well, I can give you some examples but the truth is, we shouldn't worry too much about it. These plots are designed to have comically implausible excuses that quickly get exposed. It might be better to just plan on telling the others soon, and get our stories straight anytime we sneak off together before then." Abed thought for a moment. "Sometimes one character discovers the secret first and helps the couple, like when Joey knew about Monica and Chandler's relationship on Friends. We might consider telling one of the others ahead of time, and they could help us manage any fallout when the rest of the group finds out."

Annie nodded. "Who would we tell? Shirley or Britta?"

"Has to be Britta. Shirley will want to tell people right away. Britta saw us rehearsing, so she'll be proud of herself for guessing there was something going on between us and enjoy being the only one who knows."

Annie thought about it for a minute. "If we tell her, maybe she could deal with Jeff when he finds out. Just—I don't know, have a big date planned or something to distract him. I don't want this turn into a big crisis, or feel like I'm coming between you two, you know?"

Seeing that Shirley was facing away from them, Abed reached over to touch Annie's cheek, hoping the gesture was reassuring. "I'm worried about that too, but some things just have to play out. Remember when Jeff attacked me in a pile of Frisbees to stop me from editing one of his scenes out of my movie? The study group survived a whole lot of things like that, we'll get through this one too."

Annie smiled. "They're here," she announced, pointing up the beach to where Shirley was greeting Jeff and Britta. As she started towards them, she brushed Abed's hand for a moment. Abed followed her, somehow feeling more confident about the future than he had a minute ago.