Over the next few days, Jeff fell into a routine, pretending to go to bed in Abed's room and sneaking over to Annie once Britta began to snore. He woke at 6:30, so that he'd showered and sat down for breakfast by the time Britta woke up. Abed never asked why—never said anything about it at all, in fact—and Jeff didn't exactly feel inclined to provoke a frank conversation about it.

In fact, by the light of day, it felt silly, and he found himself wondering off and on whether he should just sleep in Abed's room. It had to be a fluke, how much trouble he'd had falling asleep without her.

After that first night, though, after Annie texted him and told him to come back to her room… After that night, Jeff knew, deep down, that he wasn't sleeping in Annie's bed because he couldn't fall asleep elsewhere.

He was sleeping with her because he wanted to. Because he liked it.

Not that Jeff would ever admit it aloud. Hell, he tried not to even think about it. Things with Annie had been very complicated for a very long time, but they'd struck a delicate balance. He didn't want to fuck that up with feelings.

Then Saturday came. Jeff always cherished Saturdays, cherished the opportunity to sleep in and, perhaps more importantly, the opportunity to avoid developing lesson plans for the coming week that would be low-effort but would trick his students into thinking that he cared about his classes.

Which was why, when Jeff rolled over and glanced at the clock to see that it was nearly 7:30, he initially didn't think twice about it.

He rolled onto his side and glanced at Annie's sleeping face and he smiled as he closed his eyes to go back to sleep.

And then he remembered where he was.

And then he remembered that he had no clue when Britta got up on weekends.

If he'd had any presence of mind, he'd have woken Annie up and asked her to check whether it was safe for him to sneak out there.

But Jeff was still drowsy.

He opened the door and had barely stepped into the living room when a voice from the kitchen said, "Oh good, Annie, you're up, I wanted to ask you something."

It was Britta, who was peering into the fridge. In his head, Jeff was screaming, but he didn't even have time to turn back into Annie's room before Britta had closed the refrigerator door and turned around to see him standing there.

They stared at each other a moment. Her jaw dropped just slightly. And then: "You're… not Annie."

"Good eye." Jeff hesitated for a moment before gently pulling Annie's door closed.

Britta stared at him hard, and she wasn't yelling but Jeff knew that she was probably ready to do so if he opened his mouth and said the wrong thing.

"I'm not sleeping with Annie."

"Right…" Britta said slowly. "So you're just coming out of her room at 7:30 in your pajamas because…"

"Because I've been sleeping in there. With her. But not with her, just… we're not having sex," he clarified at last, exasperated.

"What a relief," Britta retorted in monotone.

"Isn't… it?" Jeff asked.

Britta frowned. "Honestly, Jeff, I feel like there are a few other questions that are a bit more pressing. Questions like, 'If you've been sleeping in there, how many nights have you done this?' and 'Why are you doing this?' and 'Have you been intentionally hiding it from me?' and 'Does Abed know?'"

Jeff allowed these questions to hang in the air for a few moments before squinting at Britta and asking, "Are those not rhetorical questions?"

"Oh, God no, they are 'please answer these' questions."

He swallowed nervously. Neither he nor Britta had moved an inch, so there was still so much space between them, but he felt very vulnerable and scrutinized and he wished he could still be in bed.

"I've slept in Annie's room every night that I've been here. Abed knew. I got up earlier than you every morning because Annie and I didn't want you to find out."

Jeff had avoided answering the most difficult question, and he knew there was no chance Britta hadn't noticed, but she didn't address that. Instead, she strode over to the living room and gestured for him to sit across from her. As he walked over to her, she said, "The fact that you didn't want me to know suggests that you know how stupid it is."

He shrugged, and he didn't agree, but he didn't argue, either, and that said a lot more.

"You also probably knew that, unlike Abed and Annie, I would actually be willing to ask what the hell you're doing." And what took Jeff aback, in that moment, was that she wasn't angry, she wasn't threatening. She just looked and sounded… worried. And he couldn't have said whether she was worried about Annie or worried about him.

Perhaps it was both.

"I'm just…" Jeff wasn't trying to stall, but he sincerely didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to say that would wipe that sad, anxious look off Britta's face and he didn't know what to say that would actually be the truth and he sure as hell didn't know if those things overlapped.

"The first night it was just because Abed was being a pain in the ass," he said carefully. "I wasn't able to fall asleep so I came out here and she found me and wouldn't let me sleep on the floor. And then she asked me to come back the next night, so I did."

"She asked you, so you… did," Britta echoed. She gave him a look that made him feel like she expected more out of him, but when he didn't continue, she prodded. "Why?"

Jeff was beyond uncomfortable. "I don't know, I wanted to."

"Right…" Britta leaned forward in her seat and Jeff was certain that the lecturing was about to start. "I'm going to say something, Jeff, and you're going to let me say it."

"Fine, go ahead."

Here it was. She was going to call him out on his shit, just like she'd said.

"As much as you try to pretend otherwise, you have feelings." That was… not quite what he was expecting. "Stunted, repressed feelings, maybe, but feelings. You even kind of admitted it last semester down in Borchert's lab, which was an interesting change of pace for you. And I honestly don't think you have bad intentions here, which annoys me because I'd really love to be able to yell at you about it. I just…"

She paused, glancing from Jeff to Annie's door and back. "I just want you to be ready to go home when your apartment is done."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

Britta rolled her eyes and stood up. "God, I guess we hit your vulnerability quota for the day. Just think about what I said, Jeff. For Annie's sake, as well as yours."

As much as he didn't want to, he thought of little else all day.

That week, Jeff had lived on Greendale cafeteria food, take-out, and Britta's groceries (only when Britta wasn't home, of course). But he knew very well that his wallet would thank him if he stuck to his Sunday routine of going out and buying his own groceries.

"I'm going to the supermarket in a little while, does anyone need to come with me?" he asked at the breakfast table.

"I wish I'd known that before I took the bus to get there yesterday…" Britta muttered at the same time that Abed said, "No, but thank you."

Jeff looked over to Annie, who was focused on eating her yogurt. "Miss Edison?"

Eyes on her spoon, she told him, "I'm trying to remember if I need anything," as if it were obvious. "I usually only buy groceries every other week."

Silence hung over the table for about ten seconds before she finally said, "Alright, I'll come."

And Jeff was about to make some snarky comment but then she looked up at him and gave him a small, soft smile and Jeff's heart burst, taking all thoughts of a snappy retort with it. He tried to ignore the warmth in his voice (and Britta's raised eyebrows) as he said, "Cool. I'll let you know when I'm ready to go."

The two of them almost never went anywhere alone, and Jeff suspected that he could count on one hand the number of times that Annie had been in his car, with or without any other members of the group. It was possibly a subconscious thing for Jeff—part of his attempt to maintain that delicate balance that he was always hyper-aware of.

He started the engine and she immediately changed the radio to her favorite station (the twenty-somethings alternative-pop mix that didn't resonate with Jeff but didn't annoy him, either). It was in the middle of some song and Annie knew it, evidently, because she started to hum along as Jeff pulled out of his parking spot.

The previous afternoon, Britta had asked Annie to get coffee with her, in a tone that heavily implied that Jeff and Abed were not to consider themselves invited.

The two women had left the apartment for nearly two hours.

Jeff didn't think he was being paranoid by imagining that they had discussed his stay, even though Annie had said nothing to him upon his return, and she had made it very clear, when she went to bed, that she assumed he was still sleeping in her room.

("I'm going to make an early night of it, Jeff, don't be too noisy when you come in.")

He had sworn to himself that he wouldn't ask her about it if she didn't bring it up, but here they were sitting in silence and he couldn't help blurting—

"So Britta."

"Annie," she corrected him, her eyes on the road ahead.

This might have garnered a chuckle from Jeff if he weren't legitimately feeling a little bit stressed. "So about Britta," he said instead.

And Annie did laugh because she wasn't tense, she already knew exactly where Jeff was going with this and she could decide how he got there. "Yes?"

"She saw me coming out of your room yesterday."

"Yeah."

"I was convinced she was going to beat me up or chew me out to defend your honor but she didn't."

"No," Annie agreed.

"But yesterday, you two hung out for a while…"

"We did."

God, she really was going to make this as agonizing as possible.

Jeff glanced away from the road to look at Annie; she looked cool and collected and she was still nodding her head along to the radio. "Annie, c'mon. You know I'm trying to ask if she said anything to you about it. If she tried to talk you out of it."

"Did she try to talk you out of it?"

"No." Although it felt like it, kind of.

"Well, she didn't try to talk me out of it either." She paused and for a second, Jeff thought that was going to be it, and his stomach churned. Thankfully, she continued. "But I guess I can put you out of your misery. She told me what you told her and asked if it was true. I said yes. That was pretty much the end of it."

He frowned and twisted to look at her, and he could hear how petulant he sounded but he couldn't turn it off as he said, "You were gone for two hours."

"You're not our only conversation topic, Jeff," she retorted. She sounded amused, rather than annoyed, thank God.

One other question nagged at him, a question that he knew he wouldn't be able to ask.

Britta had asked him why he was sleeping in Annie's room. Had she asked Annie why she wanted him there?

"I have a confession to make," Annie said, and for a few moments, Jeff's heart beat faster.

"Go on."

"I honestly don't need to go to the supermarket yet. I just don't really get out of the apartment very often on Sundays."

And it was not what Jeff expected (wanted?) to hear but it somehow still relieved the knot of tension in his gut as he laughed. "Coming grocery shopping with me cannot be your exciting Sunday outing, Annie. That's a sad life and I refuse to even be on the periphery of it. If you came with me to get out, let's get out. Do something."

"W-what?" Annie sat up a bit higher in her seat.

Jeff couldn't blame her for sounding surprised. He sounded a hell of a lot more sure of himself than he felt, but he… he wanted to hang out with her. "If… if you want, I mean. You've lived here your whole life but I bet there's something you've always wanted to do and have never gotten around to."

She opened her mouth, but she seemed to suddenly think better of herself, because she shook her head. "I can't picture you wanting to—"

"That's not what I asked, Annie," he told her.

"Well…" She still seemed skeptical, but she said, "When I was in high school, I always used to tell myself I shouldn't take time away from my homework and my extracurriculars just to go to the botanic gardens, but I've heard they're beautiful."

Jeff tried to picture himself walking around with Annie and looking at flowers as they tried to navigate between families and tourists.

He was surprised to realize that he did not hate the idea. It seemed kinda nice.

So he turned into the first parking lot he could so that he could turn around. "Cool, let's go. It's near the zoo, right?"

Annie looked over at him, and because Jeff was waiting for traffic to clear, he could look back and see the genuine surprise in her eyes. "Yeah, I think so."

It seemed as though she wanted to say something else, but Jeff looked back at the road, and the moment was lost.

Their delicate balance was maintained.