Jeff pulls into the Greendale parking lot at about 7 pm. He's been alone at the front of the truck for the past hour or so. It's been just over a week since he left this exact parking lot with Troy, Britta, Annie, and Shirley to go and pick up Abed in California and now everything is different. Now Abed and Troy are happily in nerd love and Jeff's broken and fixed his friendship with Annie. Now Jeff is married. The six of them shouldn't be allowed to get together, Jeff thinks. It's total insanity.
Total insanity, and yet it makes sense. How the six of them enter and re-enter each others' lives, how they mess everything up and manage to get their shit back together all in a week or so. How they end each episode a little less broken. Episode. Five days with Abed Nadir and the TV-talk is rubbing off on him.
Tomorrow will be their last full day together. Annie's leaving for Washington the day after so she can get everything in order before her suspension ends and Troy's going with Abed to LA. Even Shirley's taking some time off from the sandwich shop and she'll be gone for most of the summer. Everything will be like it was before, just Jeff and Britta.
Jeff's scared to be alone.
Not alone. He has Britta (his wife, he thinks and the words sit comfortably in his head). He has the weekly video calls the study group's promised to hold every Friday. He has Chang and Frankie and the Dean and so, so many other people who don't need him.
Even after the RV is parked Jeff sits still with his hands clutched tight on the steering wheel, takes several shuddering breaths. He can't go back and join the rest of the group just yet. He can hear the muffled sounds of chatter and laughter from people who are perfectly capable of enjoying themselves without him. Jeff needs to be needed.
They've agreed to sleep in the RV for the next two nights. The group discussed having Troy and Abed stay over at Jeff's and Annie and Britta at Shirley's, but it felt wrong to separate when they only had such close proximity to each other for a little over a day. Six pairs of lungs, six chests rising and falling in sync, is better than three.
Jeff still can't bring himself to join the rest of the group. He knows he's being ridiculous. He knows this trip was about reuniting Troy and Abed and watching their years-long love story finally come to fruition, and now they're together and the trip has served its purpose. But maybe Jeff is the B-plot of this reunion special. Jeff and Annie and Britta and the love-triangle-that-wasn't. It's like an episode of Friends: The One Where Jeff Winger Says Goodbye, Again and Again and Again.
He remembers talking to Shirley at the beginning of the summer. Leaning over the counter at Shirley's Sandwiches and watching her work, saying "You can't manufacture shenanigans." It appears that he was wrong, that everyone else can manufacture shenanigans and Jeff Winger just gets dragged along with them. He's known for a while that he's not the protagonist but an anti-hero along for the ride. But when there's not enough room for him on the ride, what does he become?
At least for the next day, though, the ride is taking place on this RV. Jeff smooths down his hair and joins his friends.
Abed is sitting at the coffee table alone when Jeff wakes up. He has pages of notes spread out in front of him and he's typing something on his laptop. It looks like a script of some kind.
"Morning, Abed," Jeff says, finding a chair with a few inches of open table space. He grabs a mug and an instant coffee packet. "Where's everyone else?"
"Shirley and Britta said they had stuff to take care of at their jobs," Abed says. He's still typing furiously and hasn't looked up from the computer screen. "Annie's taking Troy to go visit people. You know he's never met Frankie?"
"Yeah, I know." Jeff watches Abed for a few moments. He's in the zone. "Why didn't you go with them? Chang would've loved to see you."
Abed shrugs. "Didn't really feel up to it. It's about Troy, not me. And it's not like we'll never visit again."
Words that should reassure Jeff, but instead make him feel a tug in his chest. How much he missed them all - Troy, Abed, Shirley, Annie - and how much he should have appreciated them a few years ago, when they were always there.
"Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something," Abed continues.
"What's up?"
He finally stops typing and closes the computer, looking directly at Jeff. "When Troy and I lived together I always worried that I was suffocating him. I didn't reach out to Troy after he left because his trip was about him becoming his own person."
"You may have overdone that one a little."
"Yeah, I know." Abed glances around at the pile of papers that cover the coffee table. "Anyway, I've been working on a personal project for the past few months, outside of work, and I think I finally have an idea of what it's gonna be. Could you read this and tell me what you think?"
He slides the computer across the table and Jeff opens it to what he thinks is a screenplay. Difficult to read with Abed's eyes studying your face the entire time, but Jeff manages. It's pretty bare-bones, just a couple pages long, but reading it causes all of Jeff's emotions from last night to come flooding back. If Abed could turn a minute-long clip of Chang ordering lunch into a full-fledged sci-fi movie, who knew what he would do with this?
"What do you think?"
Jeff, after a few moments, finally meets Abed's gaze. "Abed Nadir, you're a genius."
"You think so?"
"Yeah, yeah, I do." He hands the computer back to Abed, the impact of that short script still there (the most apt term he can think of is "wrinkling his brain"). "Your films are a little rough sometimes, but they have this - this substance. This emotional core. And if this is the emotional core of your project, the rest of it is gonna be amazing." Jeff pauses, collecting his thoughts. Carefully, he asks, "Is this about Troy?"
Abed nods.
"You do know you've only been together for two days, right?"
"Romantically, yes."
It's a very Abed thing to say, but Jeff thinks he understands. That's how he feels about Annie. How he feels that they were always together, even when they weren't. But their relationship will never again be romantic. And finally, Jeff thinks he's okay with that.
So he just says, "I see." Then, "Why did you show me?"
Abed is gathering up all his papers. "You're a study of character, Jeff. Not like I am, you go with your gut and you lead by emotion and you always know what to say to get what you want. I knew you would tell me the truth. And this group needs someone like you to balance us out."
"I... balance you out?"
"Always have." He packs up the papers into a folder. "I should go find Troy and Annie."
And all of a sudden Jeff is alone at the coffee table with his shitty instant coffee and his emotional epiphany. Abed, at least, needs him.
Maybe saying goodbye won't be so hard after all.
He's wrong. It's hard.
They go to the airport together, in Shirley's minivan instead of the RV. Shirley has a flight to catch too so Jeff and Britta will be returning it to her house. Getting out of the car is a flurry of activity and luggage flying everywhere, and somewhere Annie accidentally smacks Troy in the face with her purse. They swarm him and Britta with goodbye hugs and promises, we'll get together for a video call next Friday, we'll come back to visit when work isn't so busy.
Jeff's felt their absence like a gaping wound and the road trip is just a band-aid.
He hugs Shirley tight. Wraps his arms around Abed and asks him to keep him updated on how the project goes.
Troy melts into Jeff's hug and his beard tickles Jeff's chest through his shirt. How unfair, three years after losing Troy, he's being ripped away from Greendale again. But Jeff knows he's meant to be with Abed. He sees Troy's face light up when Abed's around, notices the tension in Abed's shoulders releasing when Troy kisses him. "Guess you didn't need my help after all, huh?"
"I couldn't have done it without you," Troy tells him.
And then there's Annie. He extends his arms, offering her an embrace, and she throws hers around his neck. Her face is buried in his shoulder and Jeff thinks she's crying. "Thanks for being there," she murmurs into his hug.
"I love you," Jeff tells her, and he doesn't need to add but not in that way because they both know what he means.
"I love you too," she says, and she doesn't add any clarification either because finally, after eight years, they're on the same page.
A shuttle comes and picks them up and they're gone.
Next to Shirley's minivan, Jeff grabs his wife's hand and tries to say something without tearing up. It doesn't work. There's nothing worth saying.
"Wanna come back to my place and watch Breakfast Club?" Britta asks.
"Yeah." Jeff watches the shuttle disappear and everything is fine.