For the next few days following Shirley's visit, Jeff avoided his friends when he wasn't at the apartment. He got to committee meetings last minute and cleared out as soon as they were done, and he stopped eating in the cafeteria. He tucked himself away in his office and he mindlessly scrolled down Twitter, rereading the same posts he'd read earlier that day.

He didn't get away with this for long, though; Ian Duncan found him in the middle of the week, appearing in his doorway with a cafeteria tray and a pathetic, "none of the kids want to sit with me at lunch" expression on his face.

"You don't normally eat in your office," he told Jeff.

"That's one of those keen insights that your psychology background has enabled you to make, yeah?" Jeff raised his eyebrows.

"Not my keenest insight at the moment, either."

Jeff's tone was flat: "Do tell."

"You're hiding from everyone you really care about. And I don't know why, but what I do know is that's all the more reason to invite me in there to eat lunch with you."

And now, as annoying as it was to admit to himself, Jeff's interest was piqued, although he still kept his tone dry. "Why?"

"Because I'm not one of the people you really care about."

Jeff didn't know what annoyed him more—the fact that Duncan had called him out on avoiding his friends, or the fact that Duncan was kind of wrong.

Because if Jeff thought about it too hard, he couldn't really justify to himself why he was still friends with Ian Duncan. Once upon a time, having Duncan as a friend at Greendale had meant something, giving Jeff at least the illusion of a leg-up among his peers. That dynamic had long gone by the wayside, leaving a discomfiting explanation in its place: Jeff somewhat liked Duncan's company.

What an awful thought.

"Fine, come in."

Duncan didn't have to be told twice. He rushed inside and sat down across from Jeff, taking a bite of his hamburger as he said, "Care to share your troubles?"

"Not really, no." Not least of which because Jeff didn't really know how to articulate why he was hiding. It wasn't like any of his friends knew what Shirley had said. It wasn't like Shirley was right.

Probably. She probably wasn't right.

"I can respect that," Duncan said.

"Thank you for your generosity," Jeff muttered.

Jeff was ready to just sit and eat silently while Duncan inevitably went on about whatever poorly-made British television show he currently thought was deserving of more attention from American audiences. But only two or three minutes passed before: "Jeff, you are in here. You're not seriously grading through lunch again, are you?"

His heart stalled and it wasn't because he was kind of a little bit happy that Annie had come to look for him, it was not.

On the outside, though, he made a show of squinting down at the nearest sheet of paper – not even a test, it was a memo from the dean about the faculty/staff roller derby team he was trying to start – before looking up. "Oh, Annie, hi. Why do you sound surprised? Weren't you saying the other day that I should try not to let my workload pile up again this semester?"

"I know, that's why I'm surprised. Since when do you listen to my advice?" Annie took a few steps into the office. "Do you mind if I interrupt for a second?"

"Of course, any time," Jeff said. His voice sounded too serious to his own ears and he swallowed hard.

"I just wanted to remind you that you said you'd take me to the printer today after your last class so that we can pick up the posters for our flu shot initiative. And I didn't want to text you in case you were in a bad mood and decided to bluff and say you didn't see it."

"He pulls that with you, too?" Duncan exclaimed.

Jeff tried not to take it personally as he glanced over at his phone and said, "I don't do that."

"Right." Annie – understandably – sounded unconvinced, but not in a way that seemed judgmental. "So I get out of class at 3:30, how does that work for you?"

"I'm not done until 4:45. Do you mind sticking around?"

"Nah, that's fine, I'll just do some studying. Come meet me in the library whenever you're finished?"

Duncan jumped in again, this time to say, "Oh, that's brave. Don't forget that the College Writing study group converges on the library on Wednesdays because they know it's your committee's day off. You'd be lucky to find a square foot of floor to stand on, let alone a place to study."

"Oh, that's…" Both Jeff and Annie hesitated before Jeff said, "Well, hang on Annie, you can just borrow my spare office key."

"Sure, okay, that's rich," Duncan said. "You wouldn't let me use your office in my time of need, but Annie can just twiddle her thumbs in here undeservedly."

Jeff groaned and rolled his eyes. Looking over his key ring to find his spare, he said, "Shut up, Duncan, wanting to mix chocolate pudding in a kiddie pool 'to see what would happen' is not a time of need."

He tossed the key toward the door and Annie caught it gracefully, giving Jeff a warm smile. "Thanks. You guys have a nice lunch."

When she was sufficiently out of earshot, Duncan looked between the door and Jeff a few times before squinting at his friend. "Are you—"

"Still not sharing my troubles, Ian."

Perhaps it was the use of his first name that told Duncan just how serious Jeff was, because he started talking about the football match he'd watched the day before.

The occupants of Apartment 303 were nearly finished with dinner that evening when Jeff received a phone call. Britta was in the middle of dramatically recounting the argument she'd gotten into with the librarian over whether it was ethical to use the library copier to print non-school-related flyers – "and then she had the gall to ask me whether flyers were really the right medium to spread the message about the Brazilian rain forests" – to Jeff, Annie, and Abed's great delight, so Jeff nearly sent the call to voicemail. But then he glanced down and saw his landlord's name flashing up at him.

"Hey, I actually should probably take this," he said, rising to his feet and going out into the hallway.

He barely had time to say, "Hello?" before he heard a gruff, "That you, Winger?"

"Yeah, Mitch, it's me. I'm kind of in the middle of something, what's up?"

"Oh, maybe I shouldn't share the good news if you're going to talk to me like that."

Jeff squinted at the 303 on the door, assessing whether he should point out that his landlord had been the one to set something of a gruff tone with That you?

No, he realized, no he should not, not when he processed the words good news.

"Sorry, Mitch, I didn't mean anything by it. Good news, you say?"

"Mhm. My guys say your place will be ready in a week. I figured you'd want to know as soon as I did."

"Oh, wow." Jeff swallowed. A week. He'd be back in his place in a week. "That's great, thanks man."

He didn't even have the heart to say that there was no way Mitch was letting him know immediately, not with his history of evasiveness and "conveniently forgetting" to warn his tenants about maintenance work. Chances were, the news was at least two days late in trickling down to Jeff. But that was the least of Jeff's worries.

Abed, Annie, and Britta turned to look at him as one when he stepped inside.

"What was that about?" Annie asked cheerfully.

"My apartment. I can move back in in a week."

All three residents of apartment 303 said, "Oh."

Britta's oh: not bothering to conceal her excitement, and Jeff couldn't blame her. She wasn't actively resisting his presence anymore, but he had no doubt that she still wanted him gone.

Abed's oh: neutral. Internalizing a fact about which he had little to no subjective opinion.

Annie's oh…

Dare Jeff say that she sounded – and looked – disappointed? Her forehead creased, her lips actively resisting her token pout.

"Yeah," he said, instead of allowing himself to dwell on that thought any longer. He sat back down at the table and made a show of looking very interested in his plate. "At least now you guys know when you'll finally be rid of me. So Britta, what happened after the librarian pointed out your blatant activist hypocrisy?"

He didn't eat another bite all evening.

Jeff found himself awake at some un-Godly hour.

Frankly, he'd been sleeping quite fitfully that night. He had excused himself quite early to go to bed, claiming that he was exhausted, which was true… but nearly an hour and a half later, when Annie came in after showering and brushing her teeth, Jeff was still awake. So he found himself pretending, as though he was nine years old again and trying to conceal from his mom that his babysitter had let him drink that can of Coke after dinner. Perhaps she had noticed, but she'd made no indication and had gone to sleep herself with little trouble.

With Annie beside him, he had fallen asleep… for a questionable amount of time. Woken up, fallen asleep again, woken up, fallen asleep…

And, alright, here was the thing—

Perhaps there was a part of Jeff that… envisioned – imagined, if you will – a peculiar world in which the repairs in his apartment kept going wrong, so that he just had to stay. And perhaps there was an even smaller part of Jeff that understood and willingly acknowledged that the only reason he might want to stay in perpetuity – the only thing that made any sense – was that he would still sleep by Annie's side, without ever having to say anything about it.

Without ever having to do anything about it.

He traced the features of Annie's face with his eyes, considering the fact that these moments, when she was sleeping, were probably the most peaceful he ever saw her. He kind of loved it.

By his side, Annie shifted quite abruptly, and Jeff squeezed his eyes shut, in case she was stirring.

She let out a quiet sigh, and he expected that to be it. But then: "Jeff."

He didn't answer, but she poked his nose with one finger. "That's not the face you make when you're sleeping, Jeff."

Not that again.

But he felt too tired to argue. Squinting his eyes open at her, he asked, "Hmm?"

"Can't sleep either?"

Jeff grimaced and tucked his hand beneath his pillow, trying to get a better angle to look at Annie. "Not so much. I don't get it, I feel like I was hit by a bus. It should've been easy to pass out."

"Maybe you're not that kind of tired," she whispered.

"What other kind of tired is there?"

Annie didn't answer. Instead, she, too, tucked her hand under her pillow, shifting her head a little bit. "Now that you know when you'll be out of here, do you think you'll be able to stop avoiding us?"

"I haven't been—" She gave him a look, and Jeff cut himself off. "It wasn't about you guys. You've been great. I'm just…"

"Emotionally stunted."

"Hey."

Annie smiled gently at him. "You must know that we've noticed by now."

"And here I thought I've been so subtle."

She rolled her eyes, but her gaze was affectionate. It had been quite some time, Jeff thought, since Annie last allowed herself to look at him with such open, vulnerable warmth, but perhaps there was something about the dark and quiet that surrounded them. Or perhaps it was something about the ambiguity of the early-morning hour—the feeling that this moment stretched forward, unending.

Perhaps it was one of those reasons that Jeff Winger – heart in his throat and a pit in his stomach – felt emboldened to bridge the gap between his pillow and Annie's. He kissed her softly, his eyes falling closed, and it felt as though he was breathing for the first time in a long time.

And then he heard Annie breathe in through her nose, felt her lean in closer and press her lips harder against his, and his eyes shot open.

He sprang back at once. "Shit, I'm sorry."

She hesitated as her own eyes fluttered open, and she assessed him. There were the little crinkles in her forehead as her mind raced as only Annie's could. "Yeah?"

"I shouldn't have done that, Annie. I'm just… tired, and stressed, and not thinking. Can I take it back?"

For a moment, he expected her to yell at him. But Annie took him in for a few seconds longer before saying, "Sure. I think maybe we both just need some sleep."

They each rolled onto their backs, and neither said another word.