One night—one morning?—later that week, Jeff found himself stirring at some un-Godly hour. It was pitch black outside and as he was pulled, gradually, toward consciousness, he became aware of some odd weight that had distributed itself on top of him.

And then he turned his head slightly and got a whiff of Annie's hair.

Everything came into very sharp focus then. When he had fallen asleep, Annie had already been snoring softly on her side of the bed, but at some point since, she must have rolled closer to him in her sleep. She'd curled in toward Jeff, her face inches from his shoulder; her legs close to his and one of her knees settled awkwardly on his thigh; her fingers splayed across his chest and her elbow hitting his ribs in exactly the wrong way.

Jeff had never been much of a cuddler, but he had dated one or two women who had tried to goad him into it by pretending that they had just so happened to start cuddling him while they were fast asleep, when in reality they had fabricated the whole thing.

Frankly, though, there was no way Annie could have done that because the way that she had positioned herself just seemed too damn uncomfortable.

He swallowed, feeling hyper-aware of how her arm moved with each of his breaths, hyper-aware of how she exhaled and he could feel it on his skin just below the seam of his shirt sleeve.

There were two ways he could proceed:

1.) He could attempt to carefully extricate himself from her grasp, at the risk of potentially waking her up and revealing to her that not only had she accidentally started cuddling with him, but Jeff had caught her and his first instinct had been to pull away.

2.) He could… go back to sleep.

Jeff took a few careful breaths, trying not to breathe too deeply or rapidly.

Slowly, tentatively, he moved his hand—the hand on his non-Annie side—and he slowly rested it over Annie's hand. He didn't link their fingers together but some of his fingers slotted under hers and it made the corners of his mouth quirk up but he tried not to think about it too hard.

He closed his eyes and breathed slow and tried to clear his head; it was maybe fifteen minutes later when he fell back asleep.

By the time he woke up in the morning, it appeared that Annie had carefully extricated herself from his grasp, because she had cleared out of the room while he slept, completely undisturbed.

Annie didn't bring it up and neither did he.

The weekend came, and to Jeff's dismay, he realized that he'd been in such a hurry to get out of Greendale on Friday that he left the tests in his office that the Type A student in his class had already been nagging him about grading for a week. (It was remarkable how much less endearing this sort of nagging was to Jeff when it wasn't coming from Annie.)

So, after lunch on Saturday, he begrudgingly told the residents of apartment 303 that he was going into work and that perhaps he would stay there for the afternoon to grade so that he wouldn't be a buzzkill.

"Wow, Jeff Winger working over the weekend. It's almost like you're a real professor," Britta mused.

"How dare you suggest that I even vaguely resemble a real professor," Jeff retorted as he was on his way out the door.

The moment his friends called him a professor, it meant he was doomed to spend eternity at Greendale, and he wasn't willing to resign himself to that fate yet.

Jeff had gone in once or twice over the weekend before, and there was one undeniable benefit: somehow, Greendale didn't feel as much like a parasite that was gradually draining his life force when the halls of the school were not filled with students, when he wasn't having to worry about how he and the rest of the Committee were going to better Greendale next.

He thought he might grab the tests and go spread out in the cafeteria—it was locked over the weekend, but he'd swiped Britta's key and made a copy only days after she officially took over Shirley's Sandwiches.

Speaking of which, perhaps he would also help himself to one of Shirley's Sandwiches.

As he arrived at the cafeteria, though, he was surprised to discover the door already open.

Peering into the dark room, he said, "Hello?" His voice cracked and he cleared his throat and went on in an attempt to cover it up, announcing, "If there's a paintball game going on and no one told me, I am going to be very upset."

"Jeffrey, is that you?" a disembodied voice called from the direction of the kitchen.

He walked deeper into the cafeteria, bewildered. "Shirley?"

Immediately, Shirley appeared behind the counter of Shirley's Sandwiches, a smile spreading across her face at the sight of Jeff. "Oh, good, you're alone. I was worried you might be with Britta."

"No, no, just me… I'm assuming Britta doesn't know you're here, then."

She cringed and shook her head. "Not really. You won't tell her, will you?"

"Tell Britta that you snuck into Greendale over a weekend just to check in on the sandwich shop you told her you trusted her to run? You couldn't pay me to break that news to her, though I'd kind of love to see someone else do it."

And Shirley giggled. "Good. Now get over here and give me a hug, and we can catch up while I make sure that Britta's keeping the perishables properly sealed."

Jeff sat on the counter and watched Shirley go through the fridge, listening as she described her new life in Atlanta.

"I miss Andre and my boys, but I know I'm where I need to be right now. My dad needs me, and my boss does, too. He's really good to me, even if he is a little bit off his rocker."

"In a good way?" Jeff asked with a laugh.

"Honestly, Jeffrey, sometimes I don't think I could say for sure," she admitted, which had them both chuckling even more.

"So you're actually in town to visit Andre and your kids," Jeff asked, although it seemed logical enough that he just said it as a statement.

"That's right. I told myself that I wasn't going to come back here for at least a few months to give Britta some breathing room, but Shirley's Sandwiches is like another child to me. And frankly, I don't think I could leave one of my children in Britta's hands without checking in once or twice, either."

"Don't blame you," Jeff agreed, smirking.

Shirley smiled, but then her face fell and she said, "What are we doing, Jeff? We shouldn't be teasing Britta when we only have a little bit to catch up. You need to tell me about everything happening here at Greendale."

Jeff thought about their friends, thought about how irritated they would be upon learning that Shirley came into town and he was the only one who got to see her.

"I feel like Abed, Annie, and Britta would be very disappointed in me if I didn't point out that you could always get dinner with us tonight and hear from everyone."

Her eyes lit up, although her response was cautious. "I… would love to, but I don't know if I can justify it when I'm only here for the weekend with my family."

"Not even to hear about what it's like for all four of us to be living under the same roof?"

"All four of you?" Shirley exclaimed, looking at him skeptically. "What are you talking about?"

He shrugged. "I guess if you don't hang out with us tonight, you'll never know."

"Jeffrey." Even as her tone was chastising, though, he could see that he had won her over. "Next time I come into town, don't expect to see me."

"Understood."

After calling Abed to confirm that everyone was up for dinner, Jeff and Shirley agreed on a restaurant, and Jeff left Shirley to continue nosing around Shirley's Sandwiches while he tried to actually get some grading done.

He returned to apartment 303 about an hour before they were set to meet Shirley at the restaurant, and Abed, Annie, and Britta were eager to hear about how Jeff had run into Shirley.

"I happened to see her walking out of Baskin-Robbins with her kids while I was on my way to Greendale," Jeff said, matter-of-factly spouting the lie he'd promised Shirley he'd tell so that Britta didn't know that Shirley had been at Greendale to check in on Shirley's Sandwiches.

"Well I hope you told her off for not telling us that she was in town," Annie said.

"Of course I did, but I'm sure you plan to do it again anyway when you see her," Jeff told her, and he tried not to overthink the fondness he heard in his own voice.

Annie pursed her lips to suppress a smirk and didn't deny it.

"I think all three of you are crazy for letting Jeff into your place," Shirley told them with a laugh. "I always thought that apartment wasn't big enough for three, so adding someone else for even a few weeks…"

"He's actually surprisingly tolerable," Britta said.

"But where in the world is there enough room for him to sleep?"

No one spoke for a few seconds, Jeff not wanting to tell Shirley the truth, but feeling unprepared to lie; he was afraid to look at his friends to see their expressions.

Annie opened her mouth first: "With—"

"With me," Abed said. Jeff's gaze fell to his food abruptly, and he stared at his plate with wide eyes, trying to tune out his heart as it pounded in his ears. "I still have the bunk bed from when I shared my room with Troy. Jeff complains about having to sleep on a twin-sized mattress, but it's worked out alright."

"Oh, that does… sound reasonable," Shirley mused. "Still a little crazy, but at least you all have some space for him."

It was nearly ten seconds before Jeff could bring himself to look up at anyone else, and he tried to subtly catch Abed's gaze, but Abed was quite pointedly focused on Shirley. Jeff looked across the table at Annie, who also was looking at Shirley, but her poker face was worse, and a bit of a blush creeped up her neck.

Tentatively, praying that his aim was right, Jeff kicked under the table.

Annie's eyes flickered over toward him immediately, thank God.

Swallowing nervously, Jeff raised his eyebrows just slightly and mouthed, It's okay.

Not what he would have liked to say—frankly, he would have liked to tell her, "Calm down, you're looking suspicious and ashamed when you have nothing to be ashamed of," but something like that would probably draw too much attention.

And Annie bit her lip and nodded, just slightly, before turning back to look at Shirley.

Jeff suspected that Abed had decided to lie on the spot, but he couldn't help but wonder why. It had made him more nervous than he would have been after telling Shirley the truth, because then, even if she had reacted by scolding him, the four of them wouldn't have been holding onto a lie that felt increasingly problematic with every person they decided not to tell.

Over the course of approximately five minutes, an anxious Jeff must have glanced over at Annie again at least twenty times, and half the time she was looking at him too. Finally he mouthed, Stop, and she mouthed, You stop, and neither of them looked at the other for a long time after that.

But Jeff found himself smiling and he couldn't quite put his finger on why.

They stayed well into the evening, long after their plates had been cleared and after Abed and Britta decided to order dessert, but finally, they asked for their checks, and after Jeff had turned his card over to their waiter, he excused himself to use the restroom.

When he came out, Shirley was standing there, and at first, he thought she was just waiting to get into the women's room, but then he processed her reserved yet thoughtful expression and he knew she was there to say something to him.

"Jeff."

"Glad we were able to go out with you tonight," he told her, hoping that he could keep the tone light.

"You four are keeping something from me," Shirley replied.

He raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me? Shirley, we're not—"

"Nuh-uh, don't even try to deny it. You and Annie have been looking nervous all night, and I wasn't going to say this at the table in front of everyone in case you all agreed to keep me out of the loop, but after taking so much time away from my family this evening for this lovely dinner, I think I deserve to know: are you two dating?"

"Are we… what?"

"Dating. You and Annie. You two were trading looks all night and it wasn't exactly subtle, let me tell you."

Jeff stared at Shirley, his expression one of genuine disbelief. "We're not dating. C'mon Shirley, I…" He faltered, and, lowering his voice, he said something aloud that he knew the whole group knew, but he couldn't imagine acknowledging it to anyone other than Shirley. "I decided a long time ago that I wasn't right for Annie, no matter what I might ever feel about her."

Shirley frowned. She turned around, looking back to their table to make sure that Abed, Annie, and Britta were still all situated at their table. Then she looked back to him, and her words were careful. "Look, Jeff. You might be right. But I don't know whether that's a decision it's fair for you to make alone."

"Annie doesn't always know what's best for her," Jeff retorted at a fairly aggressive whisper. He couldn't believe he was talking about it aloud, but he felt like if he spoke quietly, it kept things from feeling quite so real, quite so dangerous.

"Neither do you." And it seemed that she had no interest in saying anything more, because she raised her voice and her tone became abruptly cheery. "Now why don't you hurry back to the table while I use the little girls' room."

Before Jeff could even answer, he found himself standing alone and speechless in the narrow hallway.