Disclaimer: Me no own Community. Me stupid.
A/N: AU after mid-Season 3. This is written entirely in Jeff's POV. I hope you like it and thanks for reading! :)
June 2012
On the first day of summer before his final year at Greendale, Jeff cracks open a bottle of beer and sinks into his couch.
The apartment is quiet and the air is heavy with the lingering heat that only the summer brings, and he releases a deep satisfied breath as he takes in the moment and how it settles around him - a relaxed kind of contentment he's never really felt before.
He thinks it might have something to do with meeting his father after all these years; finally getting a few things off his chest, things he's held inside for twenty years and then some. Even though they were never going to have a relationship - not that he wants one, seriously, the guy's a douchebag - Jeff feels some kind of release, an unburdening. It's like the weight of bitterness built over many years has melted and bled away.
Okay, so not completely. An absent father is not something anyone gets over with a few choice words. He doubts he'll ever really be over it. In fact, he's pretty sure he'll be in some form of therapy on and off for the rest of his life. But he feels slightly better inside now, a little less hollow - free and light and kind of bouncy on his feet. If he has to describe it, he feels like Annie and how she looks every day of her life, how she chooses to be.
And suddenly, inexplicably, just like that, he has to see her.
There's a dog barking non-stop and the muffled sounds of someone's TV playing too loud on the floor above, and Jeff doesn't want to think about why he's there, standing outside her apartment, staring intently at the three digits on the door until they aren't there anymore. He'll deal with the reasons later.
Eventually.
At some point. Whenever.
"Jeff!" Annie squeaks in surprise, though it appears to be a happy one as she opens the door wider. "How long have you been standing out here?"
"I just got here."
Annie smiles and thankfully doesn't realize that he was, in fact, standing outside her door for longer than is acceptable or sane, and beckons him inside with a little wave.
"Troy and Abed aren't here," she says. "They've gone grocery shopping. I put my foot down, applied my formidable face and told them I wasn't going this week. You'd be proud of me."
"Formidable face, huh?" He grins as she nods with a proud cheeky smile that makes him feel pretty proud too. "They didn't stand a chance."
"I know, right? So, did you want a drink while you wait for them?" She moves into the small kitchen and opens the refrigerator, bending slightly to survey the shelves. "We might have some beer…"
"Annie."
"Nope, no beer. There's coke but it's not diet and I know you only drink diet."
"Annie."
"Water?"
"Annie, shut up."
The refrigerator door falls closed and all the condiments and bottles clink inside with the sudden movement as Annie spins around to face him, wide eyed, mouth open, perhaps a little offended.
"I didn't come to see Troy and Abed," he continues. "You're my friend too."
It's a little awkward at first, at least on Jeff's end, because he's never told her how much he actually likes being her friend even though it might not always seem like it, but their eyes hold over the kitchen bar, shared smiles inching across their faces as the truth of his words sink in.
Jeff only then notices the tiny green sundress she's wearing and the creamy skin it doesn't cover. There's a pair of sunglasses perched on top of her head and a wave to her normally straight hair and a shine to her lips and -
She's free and light and bouncy.
Annie flushes under the weight of his gaze and looks at the floor for a moment. "Oh, yeah, of course. I just didn't think…Um…What did you want to do?" she settles on, finally.
Jeff can think of lots of things he'd like to do and right now all of them involve her and a hard surface, his hands on her skin, her taste on his lips and his name on hers. He's suddenly all to aware of the silence of the apartment and how alone they are, how dangerous that is. He might have had similar dirty thoughts such as these before, more than once, more than a lot of times, but there's always someone around to distract him eventually.
"Were you going out when I arrived?" he asks, the words kind of strangled in his throat as he swallows hard against his thoughts.
Dangerous, dirty thoughts.
He folds his arms as an excuse to do something with his hands, anything but touch her. The woman is already tempting in prim cardigans and tights but now? He finds his foot tapping erratically.
It's an energy he's having to expel in other ways more and more lately.
"Yeah, I was going to grab a coffee around the corner," Annie says then, completely oblivious to his inner turmoil. "Maybe sit outside with a book or something. It's too nice to be indoors."
Before he can question his own reasoning, he plucks at his own pair of sunglasses hooked over the collar of his t-shirt and puts them on.
"Want some company?"
Her wide smile is all the answer he needs.
It turns out that Annie is easy company. Not that he didn't know it before but sometimes they're so wrapped up in study and stupid Greendale problems named Chang or Pierce, that they go days without having proper one-on-one conversations. The kind where they can just talk about random things, quote their favorite movies and discuss the mysteries of life like whether or not the Dean really does have a sister.
Jeff likes school Annie; the one full of determination, who embraces their crazy adventures with boundless enthusiasm and never fails to surprise him. But he soon learns that he likes summer Annie just as much. The way she relaxes into the chair at the coffee house, and tells him his jokes are lame but laughs anyway. There's an easiness to her presence that he doesn't always experience when she's berating him across the study room table for not doing his share of the homework, and her smile is so contagious he's near sick with it, and he thinks shit, this is what I missed out on every summer when I stayed away?
At one point during the afternoon, a car drives past blaring a rap song by Snoop Dog, and Annie randomly mentions her outrage that Troy and Abed never let her rap with them and proceeds to make one up on the spot, just random nonsensical lyrics about her day so far, and Jeff laughs long and hard, a deep rumbling in his chest that makes his sides ache. It's a freeing feeling he hasn't had in a long time and it has nothing to do with having met his father.
Later that night he tries to do some calculations, adding the two of these Annie's together, and realizes that he may have a slight problem, as if he didn't know that already.
A week later and it's a thing.
Not that kind of thing but enough of something that he finds himself thinking about her a lot, wondering what she's doing and what else he's missing out on when she's not around.
After work one evening he's roped into going to a bar with Alan and before he knows it, they're sat in a dark booth with two women, drinking cocktails and falling back into the life that used to come so easily, one that didn't take much thought.
One of the women shuffles closer to play with the length of his tie in a way that's supposed to be seductive but is really just fucking annoying, a red smile plastered on her fake lips, but all Jeff can think about is how Annie's lips are natural and soft and taste like bubble-gum. And then he starts thinking of Annie's tongue and how it played with his perfectly, like a duet, and how great she felt tight against his body, how amazing she felt in his hands. And then he realizes that it's an old memory he's going on and he actually hasn't kissed her in, what, two years?
Is it normal to remember a kiss from that long ago?
He reasons then that thinking about her is dangerous and so figures it's probably better to just spend as much time in her company as possible. That way, he won't have to think about her because she'll just be there.
His logic is infallible.
On the days that he's consulting at Ted's firm and she's working at the local library around the corner, they start meeting for lunch, although it happens by chance at first.
Annie only works three days a week – not to mess with her volunteering schedule – but it's enough that it becomes a habit. It's enough that he starts to look forward to it; that his heart races just a little as he reaches the diner where they eat or that his favorite thing becomes Annie's wide smile and bright eyes when she sees him enter.
He tries not to think too much about what it means.
It's Wednesday and she's sitting in their usual booth sipping on a cherry coke, eyes narrowed watching his approach.
"Hey," she says with a soft smile. "I ordered your usual. You okay?"
Jeff slides into the cool leather seat, stretching one arm along the back of the booth and fiddling with his tie. "I'm fine. You?"
She eyes him for a minute before setting her drink to one side. "You know, we've been meeting like this for two weeks now and whenever I ask how you are you're always fine. No one is fine all the time, Jeff."
"Annie. You can rhyme. Congratulations."
She frowns but her eyes are amused, which is something. "I'm being serious! You've listened to me rant about the goings-on in the library. Let me do the same for you."
"But your stories are much more fun than mine," he says. "Tell me again what you called that old lady when she put a book back on the wrong shelf?"
"The books and shelves are clearly labelled, Jeff. Just because she's old does not excuse her lazy behavior. So I got a little carried away. Who doesn't?"
He laughs, slowly feels the stress of the morning start to fade. "Sure, Annie. Whatever you say."
"Wait a minute! You totally changed the subject. No fair!" She shakes her head at his crafty smile before her own lips quirk in amusement. "I meant what I said though, Jeff. I'm your friend and when I see you like this-"
He frowns, a little startled by the seriousness on her face now. "Like what?"
"Tense and stressed and angry. It makes me, I don't know…sad, I guess? And worried. I just want you to know that you can talk to me, that's all."
Jeff is drawn to the hope in her eyes and the anticipative lilt to her small smile, and he can feel the burden of his words right there, waiting to spill out, but all he manages in that moment is to lift her glass and take a sip of her drink, shuddering at the sweetness of it on his tongue.
"Bleugh, Annie, you need to stop drinking stuff that will put you in a diabetic coma."
Annie shakes her head in resignation because they really have been playing this little game for weeks now, and their food arrives shortly after. Soon the seriousness is swept away into random chatter about Abed and movie nights and what time Britta's returning from her three week trip to San Francisco.
Their lunch is over as quickly as it begun and Annie asks for the check, fussing with her purse and not really looking at him. In the silence Jeff replays what she said to him, over and over, and the guilt settles heavy in his chest. He knows she was only trying to help but honestly, just being in her presence is really all he needs to get rid of the day's stress for a little while – because she's free and light and bouncy and that rubs off on a guy - but she wouldn't know that. It's not like he's told her.
Maybe he should?
No. That's…weird.
But then he looks at her face, so open and sincere, and the resigned slope of her shoulders, and he exhales a breath of agitation at what he's about to admit.
"Work is not good."
Annie's gaze snaps up from her wallet, wide and alert suddenly. "What?"
"When I returned to consulting I thought I'd just pick up where I left off but I'm not a Lawyer and so I can't do everything I did before, even though I'm clearly capable, and it's just so…" His fist tightens on the table and he grits his teeth until he's able to speak the word that doesn't really encapsulate how he's feeling. "Frustrating."
"Oh, Jeff."
He looks up from where she's placed her palm delicately over his fist and catches her eyes and there's so much warmth and concern there that he doesn't quite know what to do with it. And the silence, that's taken hold of them, what does he do with that?
He fills it.
And just like that, as if some kind of floodgates have opened, he tells her about Alan and how much he wants to punch him in his annoying smarmy face, and the pitying looks he sometimes receives from co-workers and he hates that because Jeff Winger doesn't do pity.
They only sit there for five more minutes but Jeff finds himself relaxed again, his shoulders less tense and tight in the same way they were at the start of the summer, and he's never been more grateful for the soft graze of her thumb against his or her understanding nod to his every word or the concern lighting her eyes.
But, you know, it's all normal because they're friends and they like each other and this is what friends do.