A/N: Back to the Future. Have you seen Back to the Future? If you haven't, do not read this. Go watch Back to the Future and then come back.
If you have seen Back to the Future, take a minute to refresh it in your mind. Do some searches for videos. I recommend a fanvid of OK Go's "Here it Goes Again" with Back to the Future, and the mash-up "Brokeback to the Future" and a cute albeit low-budget "Back to the Future with lyrics" video you can find online pretty easily. I'd post links but that's not permitted in this space. At the very least, listen to "the Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News.
If this was an episode of Community rather than a piece of fanfiction, there'd be an alternate credits sequence wherein the Community theme was recast in the vein of the Back to the Future theme.
Back to the Future. Cannot stress this enough.
Also, thanks again to Amrywiol for beta-reading and offering useful commentary.
Also also, according to my timeline, this episode takes place on October 19th, 2012.
THE SPIRIT OF THE STAIRWAY AND THE POWER OF LOVE
Act 1
The Hawthorne mansion stood on what had been the outskirts of Greendale when it was built, nearly a hundred years prior. It hadn't been the Hawthorne mansion then; it had been the Outlook Hotel, a big slab of resort intended to entice the hep young rum-runner and his moll, and separate them from their money while keeping smiles on their faces.
It had changed hands, and been remodeled, several times since. Pierce had overseen the most recent renovation himself, during Ronald Reagan's second term. With garish neon and bold designer colors and shapes, stepping into the Hawthorne mansion was in many ways like stepping into 1985. Certainly that had been Pierce's goal, when he decorated it: 1985 had been peak Pierce Hawthorne, in his mind, the era of his largest flickers of greatness. After 1985 had been Pierce's forties and fifties and now sixties, grim decades of decline not just for Pierce personally but, he believed, for America.
It was a dark and stormy night, when Abed came knocking, but Abed was too caught up in his experiences to fully appreciate that reference. Lightning crackled, cloud-to-cloud, overhead as he pounded on the Hawthorne mansion's massive door, refusing to give up even after several minutes without a response from within.
Eventually the close-circuit camera mounted next to the door whirred to a semblance of life. "Come to the door, Pierce, this is important!" Abed exhorted the microphone attached to the camera.
The intercom crackled. "Aybed?" Pierce asked, through layers of technology. "Why didn't you call? I'll buzz you in."
"No!" Abed insisted. "Come to the door! It's important! Hurry, I'm getting drizzled on!"
"What's this about?"
"Come to the door!"
"Fine, fine." The intercom clicked off and the camera's iris spun closed. Abed stood on the mansion's stoop, bouncing on the balls of his feet, for almost a minute and a half until Pierce finally opened the door. He wore a purple silk dressing gown that might not have looked out of place on Hugh Hefner, and slippers.
"Pierce!" Abed cried, as if they hadn't just spoken on the intercom. His tone was tinged with desperate excitement. "You aren't dressed right but that doesn't matter right now. I've just had the most incredible experience! I had to run home and change clothes, but then I came straight here."
Pierce looked Abed up and down. The younger man had changed, apparently, into blue jeans, a denim jacket, and a red down vest. "What did you… no! Let me guess," said Pierce.
"Yes! Good!" Abed lit up. "Exactly. You don't want to know anything about me!"
"Jeff finally came out of the closet," Pierce guessed.
Abed shook his head. "No, no. Never mind, I'll just tell you." He leaned in close and lowered his voice. "You still have a model DeLorean that can reach speeds of up to eighty-eight scale miles per hour? We're going to need it."
"Abed, what do you —"
"That's right, Doc," Abed declared, "we're going to do Back to the Future. Dramatic pause." He froze for a moment.
Pierce harrumphed. "You're all wound up."
"I'm in character. Don't call me chicken." Abed glanced up at the sky. "There should have been lightning. But it's okay. We have a lot to do before the Enchantment Under the Sea dance tomorrow night."
"The what?" Pierce asked, as Abed slid past him into the mansion.
"Oh, it's heavy, Doc…"
Twelve hours later Jeff Winger stood in front of his locker and tried to stay chill. Morning at Greendale was, all things considered, Jeff's second-favorite time of day. His favorite was leaving Greendale, or so he resolutely told himself. But mornings were close, especially ever since Chang had figured out that if he cancelled the stupidly early Historiography classes then no one would mind. Jeff could stroll in around ten, get coffee from Shirley's, and feel, however briefly, like life was worth living.
"Jeff! Good morning!" Annie bouncing up to him at his locker, every single morning, all fired up as though they hadn't seen one another in a week or more… that was a larger part of his affection for this time of day than he liked to admit, even to himself.
"Good morning yourself," he said to her. "You seem chipper."
"Why not be chipper?" she replied. "Life's short. Grab the bull by the horns, life's a banquet and people are starving, and, you know, stuff like that."
He nodded slowly, making an effort to keep a straight face. "Is that why you're in heels?"
She practically glowed. "You noticed!"
"Well, sure," he said, copping to it in part because it gave him an excuse to admire her legs without feeling like a dirty old man. Shut up, brain, I'm not a dirty old man. "I mean, it's hard to miss. You're very short so the heels have a disproportionate effect. What's the occasion?"
"No occasion." Annie shrugged. "I just thought it would be good to, you know, be able to reach taller things. My mother used to say high heels were trashy but, you know, I'm dead to her so her opinion no longer governs my shoe choices. I tried them a little freshman year, but, um, it didn't take." For a moment she looked acutely self-conscious, but it passed.
"You look great," Jeff assured her, resolutely not thinking about any implications of anything she was saying in re freshman year. "Although it's a little disorienting, seeing your face closer to my face than usual."
Annie flashed a smile. "I could take an extra step back to balance it out," she offered, and did so.
"No, see, that just makes things worse." Jeff took a step closer to her.
The two of them stood there, looking at each other, for a long moment. As always, Jeff was of two minds when it came to Annie.
Shut it down. Getting inappropriate. Take a step back. Kid sister. Too young. Ruin her life why don't you.
Oh look, it's the greatest woman on Earth and she's come to smile at me! Today is a red-letter day! Pretty smart kind sexy Annie.
Leonard, passing by, intruded on Jeff's reverie. "Get a room!" he barked.
"Shut up, Leonard!" Annie shouted at him, before Jeff had a chance to. "Your generation dismantled domestic infrastructure and destroyed the middle class!"
"Nice one," Jeff told her.
"Easy for you to say; I'm going to be renting forever." She shot the back of Leonard's head a withering glare, then turned back to Jeff and brightened. "Where were we?"
Her cheer was infectious. "I was about to head to class, and you were about to walk with me and fish for more compliments." Jeff grabbed a textbook from his locker and sauntered towards his next class. Annie fell in beside him. "You know," he said, "it's weird not having any classes together. I mean, besides Historiography, which doesn't count."
Annie nodded absently. "Yeah, it's just me and Pierce most mornings." Jeff shot her a look. "Someone needs to be there in case Chang decides to show up, hold class, and give out a thousand-point pop quiz that everyone gets a zero on because you thought sleeping was more important than your education."
"Than my education?" He chuckled. "I don't see how…"
Suddenly Jeff spotted Abed over her shoulder, at the far end of the hallway. His eyes widened, and he stepped back around a corner out of Abed's sight.
"Jeff, what —?" Annie started to turn and look behind her at whatever he'd seen, but he grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her around the corner, close to him.
He held her close for several seconds, neither of them saying anything, until Jeff realized what the hell he was doing.
"Abed," he said, releasing her. "He's dressed like Marty McFly."
Annie's eyes widened. "Really?" She nervously peeked around the corner. "I don't see him."
"He might have gone into a classroom. You know what this means, though."
She nodded solemnly. "He's doing Back to the Future."
He nodded, too. "Hopefully only Part One." Jeff took a deep breath and shifted his weight from one foot to another. Now or never, he told himself. You can do this. "You want to opt out?"
"What?" she asked, confused.
Jeff kept his tone light. Because this wasn't a big deal. This was just a guy asking a girl on a date. Not a date. Not a date. Not a date. "I owe you lunch, remember? I figure if we stay here, it's only a matter of time before Abed finds us and recruits us into playing… well, obviously you're Lorraine, because Jennifer is too small a part and the bulk of the first movie takes place in 1955…"
"Yes." Annie nodded grimly. "And you're Biff."
"Gee," Jeff said, as he rolled his eyes. "Thanks a lot."
She gave him an appraising look that started at his knees and ended at his eyes. "You're tall and… fit… and you're definitely too good-looking to be George McFly." She shrugged. "You could be a cowboy from the third movie. Do you still have that hat?"
"I don't want to be a cowboy!" Jeff did still have that hat, but he wasn't going to admit that at the moment. "Do you want to be Lorraine? You'll have to make out with Abed and then complain that it's like kissing your brother."
"Heh, yeah." Annie let out a slightly nervous chuckle.
"So I say we go while the going's good, and leave the flux capacitating to others, just this once." He gave her an entreating look.
Annie did a double take. "Are you making Disney eyes at me?" she asked with barely concealed glee.
"No," he said quickly, blinking and shifting his gaze to the wall over her head.
"Mmm-hmm."
While Annie considered, Abed and the dean suddenly came around the corner together. "Abed, I worry about you," the dean was saying. "Changing tonight's dance to an underwater theme this late in the game? I mean, yes, I'll do it, because I love a challenge, but please. And you spent all last night with Pierce, he says… Don't give me that look," he added, when he saw Abed roll his eyes.
"Pierce is a great man. Not really," Abed amended, "but for the purposes of the exercise…"
"Pierce is an old nutcase," retorted the dean. "Don't tell him I said that, please. But let me give you a nickel's worth of advice, Abed: if you keep hanging out with Pierce, you're going to end up a nutcase just like him. And…" He trailed off. "I'm sorry, I remember there was something else, but not what it was."
"Do I have a real attitude problem?" Abed prompted him.
"What? No, no, no, no, Abed, no." The dean looked at him a moment. "No. No, you're perfectly civil."
Abed winced, but then his face hardened. "You're a feckless simpleton whose mismanagement constantly threatens to destroy this school."
The dean seemed taken aback. "Abed?"
"You're a bad dean," he said.
"Abed, I… I don't know what to say." The dean blinked back tears.
"Say that no member of my family has ever amounted to anything in the history of Greendale!"
"That was very… I didn't expect you to…" His voice cracked. "Excuse me," he said, brokenly, and dashed off.
"History is gonna change!" Abed called after him. He noticed Jeff and Annie standing, staring at him. "What?"
The pair exchanged glances. "Nothing," they said in unison.
"I'm glad I caught you both. We're doing a Back to the Future homage," Abed explained. "See, yesterday the most incredible thing happened…"
Jeff held up a hand. "I'm going to have to stop you right there. If you finish that sentence, then Annie is going to ask follow-up questions, and then you'll explain, and it'll end up with the two of you dancing to 'Earth Angel' at the dance tonight…"
Annie reddened.
"I was thinking Troy and Britta for that scene, actually," said Abed.
"Really?" Jeff was nonplussed.
Abed sighed. "I know you, Jeff, look at the world through the lens of trying to find excuses to be close to Annie, but…"
And now it was Jeff's turn to redden. "Abed!" he hissed.
"Be that as it may," Annie said carefully, "Jeff and I are going to…" She trailed off, elbowing Jeff.
"I'm not…" Jeff sputtered. "I mean, we… yes. Yes, Annie and I need to go off-campus, for… things that need to be done off of campus. So we won't be participating in your Back to the Future homage."
Annie turned to Jeff, and they exchanged a meaningful glance wherein Jeff nonverbally convinced Annie of the rightness of his words, and Annie enthusiastically went along with it while she pretended to reluctantly go along with it.
"Cool," said Abed.
Jeff and Annie exchanged another nervous glance.
"Cool cool cool," Abed clarified, and they both let out sighs of relief.