Outside the windows of Apartment 303, beyond the rooftops of the neighboring buildings and the campus in the distance, the snowy peaks of the Rockies glowed with the last light of the sunset. Annie watched fondly, finally feeling at home. Turning away from the window, she grabbed a blanket and headed for the half-finished fort rising in the middle of the living room that had looked sadly conventional since Troy's departure. Abed took the other end and helped her pull the quilt up to roof level while Troy adjusted the ropes they had added for extra structural support, a task delayed a bit by the two cats competing to capture the dangling end of the string.
She and Abed had spent most of their last few days in Florida with Troy, sharing more stories of life at Greendale and on the high seas, filming the dramatic (and romantic, thanks to Annie's contributions to the script) conclusion of Time-osaurs 2, and even returning to the sailboat for a day out at sea. Now, after all the excitement, at last they were back home, getting ready for another semester at Greendale. Ordinarily Annie would have been spending most of her time preparing for her classes and her new internship, but restoring the apartment they'd been absent from for a summer to its former glory clearly took precedence. Besides, she'd already reviewed everything several times before leaving for vacation.
Britta, walking from the kitchen to her fold-out couch, stumbled over one of the support ropes. Though not hurt, she sighed in exasperation. "Do you even need a blanket fort? I let you have the bedrooms and if Abed and Annie are a thing now…"
"Uh, yeah!" Troy announced. "We need it to have awesome sleepovers and movie nights in!" He gestured to the TV they had placed in a corner of the fort. "Besides, you can have your room back when my architects are finished with the mansion."
"How long will that be?" Britta asked with apprehension.
"You can't rush something this great," Troy said defensively. "They aren't plumbing geniuses like me, it'll take them some time to understand my design for the indoor water park."
Annie smiled and took Abed's hand. Of course the two of them had immediately accepted Troy's offer to move in with him when his estate was ready. Troy had also bought their current building from the creepy landlord; he meant to give Britta a deal on the rent so that she and the cats could have the place to themselves and keep the apartment in the study group. But Annie was glad it would take a long time for the new place to be ready, so they could all be back in their old apartment for a while.
After a few more minutes of work, the roof of the blanket fort was finished. The three roommates looked around, admiring their handiwork. "The floor is lava!" Abed shouted, jumping onto an armchair. Annie scrambled to the couch, watching him affectionately. He hadn't often been so enthusiastic when Troy was away. She recognized the callback to bookend Troy's journey, too.
Troy had taken the other end of the couch, standing precariously on the back. Grinning mischievously, Annie leaned over and pulled on the arm, rocking the sofa sideways. Troy kept his footing effortlessly and scoffed at her ploy. "You can't out-balance a sailor, Annie," he said, advancing and swinging a cushion at her.
With no room to retreat on the couch, Annie spun around and vaulted towards the bunk bed, restored to its place in the fort for sleepovers even though Troy had his own room and Abed would be sharing with Annie. She barely managed to grab hold of the top bunk to keep from falling, then ducked onto the bottom level. "Over here, Abed!" she called. "This is the best defensive position!" Abed slid across the TV table and swung the remaining distance on one of the fort's support ropes. To Annie's amazement, the blankets shook but nothing fell down; Troy had secured the structure well. Dodging a flying pillow, Abed dove acrobatically onto the bottom bunk to sit next to Annie.
"No fair, we didn't discuss alliances!" Troy yelled.
"Good point," Abed observed. Annie gave him her Disney look and leaned close against him. "But that's part of the accepted game strategy," he added quickly.
Troy grabbed one of the ropes on the ceiling and hoisted himself onto the top bunk before they could intervene. Annie and Abed huddled together, pillows in hand, awaiting his next move. At first nothing much seemed to happen, except for a string falling down in front of them and waving around as if Troy was trying to modify the fort. Then there was a scuffling sound beneath them and Annie suddenly understood. Before she could do anything, the string lifted up and a cat burst onto the bed in pursuit, claws out. She and Abed instinctively sprang backwards, crashing through the wall of the blanket fort, and landed tangled together on the floor near Britta's bed, leaving Troy and his feline ally in triumphant possession of the bunks. Laughing, Annie sat up and bent to kiss Abed.
Britta groaned. "You know what, I'm going to Jeff's place tonight. Can one of you feed the cats?" Troy eagerly volunteered.
When Britta had left the apartment, Annie glanced conspiratorially at Troy and Abed. "To celebrate our return, should we make the whole place a fort for tonight?" They assented, and agreed that before they took down the extension of their stronghold they would host a reunion of the Save Greendale Committee. Annie hoped that a taste of traditional Greendale weirdness would persuade Frankie and the Dean to embrace more of the school's wacky nature—especially with Troy as a newly influential alumnus to lobby them. They'd accomplished a lot in the last couple years, but Annie had come to feel that Greendale was a place that should always be a little bizarre. Not that she really needed to worry about any administrative policy changing that; she'd learned some interesting things about her school recently. But in any case, with Troy back and her new connection with Abed, she knew her life here would never be dull.
Later, when they had created tunnels of blankets stretching from the front door to the bedrooms—Annie suspected Abed had kept so many blankets in the apartment just in hopes of having another chance to do this with Troy—the three of them sat down in the central fort for a cozy night in front of the TV. "Inspector Spacetime? Inspector Spacetime? Inspector Spacetime?" Abed asked. As he set up the DVD, Abed echoed Annie's earlier thoughts. "It's good that we're taking a class together. It'll help get us back to our formula." Troy had signed up to take one class with the others just to spend some time at Greendale. "But it's weird now that we've solved so many of Greendale's problems. It kind of constrains the opportunities for hijinks. Maybe the reboot will focus more on our home lives. Acting on our romantic subtext does help make that a compelling premise." Annie giggled and wrapped her arm around him. "But I hope we can keep the school storyline vital as well. Maybe we'll discover a secret that opens the door to some more exciting plots."
"You mean like buried treasure and a secret government operation hidden on campus?" Annie suggested, trying to sound mysterious. Troy and Abed stared at her, intrigued. "I still haven't told you guys exactly how I left the FBI…"
