A/N: Alright you guys. First off, thanks for the reviews! I appreciate the feedback, and it helped me write this chapter. I tried my best to fix what you guys felt was out of character for both Jeff and Annie. Hopefully the explanations will suffice. Enjoy and Review!

Mondays sucked.

Of course, this particular Monday sucked even more than the others. Jeff walked down the hall towards the cafeteria. He had spent the first half of the day by himself, making sure to avoid everyone. He didn't really want to see his friends right now, particularly one friend who was probably trying to scope him out from afar to apologize. Oddly however, he hadn't seen Annie all day. Whatever; he wasn't necessarily complaining. He'd speak to her when she was ready. As much as he was annoyed with her, he knew she must be embarrassed about the whole thing. So he resolved to let her come to him. Of course, if she acted like everything was fine, he'd call her out on the situation that played out last night. His sympathy only went so far, after all. For now though, all he wanted to do was eat, skip biology and leave before study group. Then when he got home, he would have the greatest nap of life to make up for the lack of sleep he got last night. And not the good lack of sleep that involves a lot of noise and sweat, the bad lack of sleep that involves your wonderful girlfriend lecturing you on things that you have to improve on as a person so that a love struck 20 year old girl doesn't try and sabotage your relationship after a few too many drinks.

That was the longest 6 hours of life. Period.

Jeff Winger never used to be one for relationships for this very reason. For someone who spent the majority of his life talking bullshit, he never thought he'd grow to dislike doing it again. But this stupid school had changed him. Now he was all sappy and weird. Now, he cared more about making other people happy than making himself happy. This past month had tested him though; everyday he was finding it harder and harder to keep this up. It felt like an act now. When compassion and caring for others had finally started coming naturally to him, this whole debacle had once again caused him to start regressing back into his old ways of caring only about himself. Ironically, by trying to be understanding, he was turning selfish again. He was honestly beginning to stop caring about it too. At least not caring made life easier for him. As he kept walking, Jeff decided this would be what he'd start doing again from now on. The old Jeff was back, and sleepless nights were out the window.

Now all he had to do would break the news to Natalie.

Annie woke up with the worst headache she had ever experienced in her entire life. As someone who was relatively new to drinking, she wasn't very experienced with hangovers. She couldn't remember exactly what happened last night either, which freaked her out. She knew she was a lightweight, but she had a good idea of how much she could drink before calling it quits. And she recalled only having 3 screwdrivers, although the headache she had was begging to differ.

She dragged herself out of her bed, deciding not to even question how she made it there. As she walked slowly to the kitchen, Abed was already up and dressed. "Hey, Annie. I made you a cup of coffee; you should probably have it," he said matter-of-factly. Annie nodded as she took the mug from Abed, smiling at him. She then turned towards the stove to look at the time and almost spit out her coffee. "Abed! It's 12:00! I've missed like 3 classes already! And we're going to miss biology! Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god-"Abed simply grabbed her shoulder lightly, causing her to snap out of her paranoia. "Annie, it's alright. I've got Troy getting notes for both of us for biology. I figured you needed to rest today after last night, and missing one day of school isn't that bad. Especially not at Greendale." Annie relaxed a little bit, but was still pretty paranoid on the inside. "Thanks for staying Abed, I guess I should just try and rest up, huh?" Abed walked over to the table, and she followed sitting next to him. "I guess you don't really remember what happened last night do you?" Annie shook her head. "I remember some parts. I remember dancing with Britta and Troy for a bit, and I remember talking to Pierce at the bar about...something. I also remember meeting Natalie when we arrived at Jeff's, and trying to get Shirley out of the kitchen. But I have no recollection of anything after those events. It's really weird, Abed. I mean, it was a Sunday. I highly doubt I would have had enough to get me that drunk." Abed listened intently to her ramble on before replying. "Annie, you don't remember anything because the 2 screwdrivers you had were a lot stronger than you probably intended. I saw Pierce make them, because I was at the bar with him for a while." Annie sat back in her seat, looking slightly offended. "And you were just okay with letting me drink those? Abed! You could have clearly stopped that!" Abed simply cocked his head a bit before replying. "I'm strictly an observer, Annie. Always have been. Thought you might have known by now. Also, you would have noticed they were too strong by tasting them, but you decided to drink them anyway. I think on some level, you wanted to drink them and let the events of last night play out." Annie looked downcast at the table as she took another sip of her coffee. "Abed, what events are you referring to exactly?" Abed looked into her eyes with a weird expression that she couldn't quite describe. It looked like sincerity mixed with disappointment with a bit of intrigue tossed in there too. "Annie, I won't lie to you. You made some bad decisions, some of which seemed way of character for you."

Annie sat back in shock when she heard what Abed was telling her. She wanted lock herself in her room and never come out. She couldn't believe what she had done to Jeff. Sure, she was jealous of Natalie; she had admitted to him that she was. But they talked about that, and their fragile friendship had begun to rebuild itself a bit earlier that day. But now...now they were back where they were a couple weeks ago. No, they weren't even there anymore. Jeff was probably pissed at her. Actually, she knew he was. He had to be; she apparently called out him and his girlfriend and insulted them both. Jeff was trying to spare her feelings, and this is how she had repaid him. The worst part was, he had warned her not to come and she went anyway. She brought this on herself.

She wanted to cry.

Abed handed her a tissue. Never mind, looks like I am already. She took the tissue and wiped her eyes, before getting up to put her coffee cup in the dishwasher. She then walked over to Abed's recliner and collapsed into it, looking utterly defeated. "Abed...what do I possibly do in this situation? How can I possibly make this better?" Abed sat next to her in Troy's recliner, and turned to face her. "Annie, remember when you were interested in Rich and he was about to be a part of the group, but Jeff made it so that he was outvoted?" Annie nodded. "And remember how mad you were at Jeff about that? Well, Jeff is probably feeling similar to that. Granted, he's actually dating the other person this time, but if he's not really interested in her, the same rules apply." Annie furrowed her brow at Abed. "Are you implying that I wasn't really interested in Rich, Abed?" Abed simply nodded, causing Annie to sink lower into the recliner and stare at the wall in front of her. "I don't understand why this surprises you, Annie. It was obvious from my standpoint. Throughout our second year, Jeff had been ignoring you because of when you two kissed at the Tranny Dance, and when you got closer to Rich over the break, you jumped at a chance to get another man's attention so that you could be distracted from your real feelings for Jeff." Annie once again looked offended, but she soon realized that she couldn't fight Abed's logic. She once again looked defeated and grabbed another tissue. "Abed, you're a great friend, but you aren't making me feel too hot right now." She expected him to get up and leave her alone at this, but instead he continued. "I'm not finished yet, and hopefully the next thing I tell you will make you feel at least a little better." Annie looked up at him expectantly. "What I just told you about you and Rich; I am almost convinced that it is the exact same situation for Jeff and Natalie. The only difference I can see is that they are actually dating, but I can tell Jeff doesn't have real feelings for her." Annie looked at him, intrigued. "How do you know that, Abed?"

Abed went on, noticing how eager Annie was to get a straight answer out of him. "Annie, Jeff seemed incredibly different after we got home from the break. He seems more compassionate and caring about others' feelings, but I've noticed that he's only really directed this kind of sympathy towards you. That was the first thing that tipped me off. Think about it; at Shirley's dinner party, he and I were the only ones to recognize how uncomfortable you were when the subject of a possible relationship for him came up in conversation. And then because of that, he jumped at the chance to change the subject. And when we all found out about Natalie during study group that one day, he didn't care that Britta or Pierce made fun of him, but he cared immensely that you weren't speaking to him. Even at the party last night, he tried to reason with you after you embarrassed him. He cares about you, Annie. More importantly, you're the only one he cares about. Of course, Jeff isn't perfect and is still refusing to accept all this, which is why I think Natalie is in the picture right now. To put it simply, his feelings for you haven't subsided, and he's using Natalie and this whole compassionate act as a way to try and get rid of them. I'm guessing this is because he's still afraid of what giving into his feelings for you would mean for him."

Annie sat in her chair, trying to contemplate all this. Basically what Abed was saying was that Jeff still harbored feelings for her, and was using Natalie to try and get rid of them. Of course, this made her upset, but it also oddly gave her hope. It also made Jeff feel more approachable now. And the fact that his feelings were still there after he started dating someone else, proved how strong his feelings actually were. It both a good and bad feeling, kind of bittersweet in a way. She decided that the one thing that would be easier now, would be talking to Jeff. Abed had at least provided her with a basis to talk in a conventional and mature manner with Jeff tomorrow, and she was feeling better about it because of that. She got up and hugged Abed, who surprisingly reciprocated. "Thank you, Abed. I guess you really do know how to make people feel better. I'm really glad to have a friend like you." Abed didn't say anything, and as he pulled away from her his face had a look of concern on it. "I'm glad you feel better emotionally Annie, but you should go back to bed for a bit. Your physical self probably needs some recuperation still." As if on cue, Annie's headache had decided to return and she groaned. "Ugh...you're right, Abed. I'm going to go take some Tylenol and try and sleep this off." He nodded, before heading to the kitchen to get her the Tylenol and a glass of water. After taking them, she started heading towards her room and he went to return to the blanket fort. Before going inside however, another question popped up in her head. "Abed?" she asked. He turned around, expectantly. "How come you're willing to help me now? I thought you were just an observer?" Abed looked to be thinking for a moment before he responded to her.

"Chandler and Phoebe were still best friends, Annie."