Academic achievement had always been the cure for what ailed Annie. Now that winning a debate all by herself reminded her of that, even in these dark times, she began to feel like the old Annie again.

She rededicated herself to schoolwork again, and not just to distract her from Jeff and the others. She even got a head start on looking for job and grad school opportunities, as originally planned. All of this helped her remember that grades and career dreams were the first great loves of her life.

Yet she had a lot more than she did back then, even with Jeff out of the equation. She had many more people that cared about her, missed her and cheered her on even while she was cutting them out. She was afraid that they would remind her of Jeff too much and derail her treatment, but over a month of that specific fear was enough. Besides, she still lived and hung out with Troy and Abed and even they knew better than to bring up Jeff or Alison. So Britta, Shirley and Pierce couldn't do that badly.

Still, setting up a girl's night with Britta and Shirley would be tricky without attracting Alison, whom Annie wasn't ready to face yet. So when Annie texted then, she offered that it should be in Britta's less attractive apartment – although she left out the less attractive part – and reminded them that they couldn't be hung over the next day at school. Shirley would be looking out for….hangover substances at Britta's anyway, so this gave Britta time to hide/flush her supplies.

Luckily, Britta's cats were also too distracting for them to get wasted. Yet Annie's cheer over seeing her friends again, and their barely under control cheer at seeing her, also helped distract them from drinking. It also killed a lot of time when Britta and Shirley struggled to edit stories of recent study group adventures, without mentioning Jeff or Alison.

But Annie could fill in how Jeff might have saved the day in at least three of them, and how Alison would have been his partner-in-crime. Imagining that did still hurt a bit, though. Especially when she thought of how well they likely worked together in that "Mad Men" esq story.

Yet when she snapped out of it, she recalled that she was still hanging out with two of her best friends, who she had missed so much. That was a lot better to think about than what she didn't have – especially when Shirley "accidentally" revealed some of Britta's more notable Britta's while Annie was gone. Instead of being sad that she missed those, Annie just laughed as discreetly as she could, and was happy to hear about her friend's misadventures again. Which was easier when she was far away from the damage.

Annie's next step was to visit Pierce, although his mansion was where she first met Alison. But fortunately, there was absolutely no chance of running into Jeff in there. And apparently Shirley made it very clear to him that Pierce would….lose some things if he talked about Jeff or Alison in front of Annie.

Yet Annie liked to think she wasn't that fragile about them anymore, especially now that hanging out with other friends was making it better. Even Pierce was making it better, since he was genuinely relieved to see her again. And since he wasn't facing the preying eyes, suspicions and judgment of the rest of the group, he was….at least 5 percent less gross around just her. It went down to negative 5 percent when he talked about some of his cult's more elaborate rituals. But other than that, Annie emerged unscathed and happy to see him.

With these barriers crossed, Annie moved onto the much easier goal of more Troy and Abed time. Although they were the only two friends she saw for about four-five weeks, she was too wrapped up in work, her Jeff paranoia and her self-loathing to have a huge amount of fun with them. Yet now that she felt more ready, she was up for some Troy-and-Abed kind of fun, and even dared to enter the Dreamatorium again while she was at it.

By mid-October, Annie had set up a rather nice schedule for herself. She made her usual extensive time for school work, dioramas – which they even had to do in English – and studying. But whenever she had free time, she filled it with talks and meetings with her non-Jeff friends, instead of more studying and panic.

This time with them wasn't really filling in for lost time with Jeff, since she didn't spend that much one-on-one time with him before. But spending more time with everyone else she cared for showed her what a wide world she had beyond Jeff. A wider world than she ever had before Greendale, and one that didn't deserve to be collateral damage from her Jeff meltdowns.

But were Jeff meltdowns really a rational fear anymore? Annie certainly thought they were when she started this crazy plan. However, the more she remembered her life wasn't that Jeff-centric, and the more she indulged in everything else that made her so happy, the less plausible her absence from the group became.

Still, Annie remained aware that it could all be a trick. After all, she was relatively fine with not being with Jeff for about a year until Alison came along. She might be just fine when she returned, maybe even for several months. But if Alison then moved in with Jeff, or even got engaged to him, would she blow up again even after all this? Could she really kill all her desire to be with Jeff and make it stick for a year, or two – or 10 or 50?

Then again, how could she see the future 50 years from now? Especially when even seeing him was still too scary in the immediate future? Annie certainly wouldn't get any answers, or prove to herself and Jeff that she had moved on, until that changed.

Nevertheless, there was one big baby step she had to take first.

So on Friday, October 26, she got a specific phone number from Shirley, then spent all late afternoon trying to craft a perfect text message to its owner. Finally she settled on, "Alison, it's Annie. Can I take you out to lunch tomorrow? Alone?"

Annie spent the next minute wondering if Jeff might find that message – more so wondering than actual worrying. After a few moments thinking about that distinction, her phone buzzed with a text response.

It read, "Where and when?" This made Annie smile brighter than she expected, or hoped for, as she filled Alison in on the time and location.

Although she told Alison to meet her at 12:30 p.m. the next day at a café, Annie still arrived fashionably early at noon. It helped her get out any final anxiety over seeing her, and what she represented, after all this time away.

This was the next to final test of the new, less Jeff-focused Annie. And if it could survive this one, the final test would seem the tiniest bit less scary. Depending on what Alison told her about how Jeff was doing, of course. But Annie would have to ease her way into that subject.

"Annie?" Starting now.

Alison had arrived fashionably early as well, if only by 12 minutes. Annie quickly got up as she approached her table, then had no idea what to do next. How exactly was she supposed to greet Alison after two months of avoiding her? Not to mention the other reasons to feel awkward around her.

But as Annie thought this over, she soon noticed that Alison was fidgeting as well. Soon it dawned on her that she was as confused and uneasy about this as she was. A few months ago, the rotten part of Annie would have been satisfied to see her like that. Yet the dominant part of Annie – the real Annie, she hoped – asserted itself more in feeling sympathetic for her.

As hard as these last two months were for Annie, they had to have taken some toll on Alison as well. Becoming part of the infamous study group, taking over for Annie under these unique circumstances….and to say nothing of Jeff. Who knows if Alison was handling this as well as Annie had tried to do?

Annie went out of her way to make sure she didn't know, lest it derail her own goals. And she had no illusions that Britta, Shirley, Pierce, Troy and Abed successfully hid that they were excluding Alison from their time with Annie. It all might have done a real number on her – one that Annie created – and the fact that it was an unavoidable side effect wasn't enough. Especially if it really wasn't unavoidable.

But making things worse was avoidable now. And Annie came here to finally start making things right after all. So once the long, already awkward moment of self-reflection ended, she finally addressed Alison by gently saying, "I'm glad you came."

"That's good to hear. If you say that in an hour, it'll go right up to great," Alison informed in a half-joking, half all-too-truthful manner. Annie took what she could get and sat back down as Alison sat across her.

It took just a few moments of silence for Alison to speak up again. "I want to say something reassuring, but I'm not sure it's okay."

"Well, that already told me it's about Jeff," Annie predicted. "Go on, I can stand hearing about him and you. That's the point of this, really."

"Like I said, it is reassuring. He doesn't know I'm here, so don't worry about him spying on us," Alison reassured.

Annie then got brave enough to inch towards the bigger issues. "Did I have to worry about that before?" she had to know. "I guess I have you to thank for keeping him away….was it difficult?"

"Technically, it was a standard lockdown, really," Alison started. "There were a few rants here and there, and vows to find you and 'set you straight' in Greendale. Finally I had to lock him in his room and take away his phone at least four times."

"My God, you did that and lived?" Annie actually joked, which was either encouraging or disturbing.

"Yeah, it was touch and go for a while. But we fought over the phone enough that we almost broke it. That made him back off just enough every time," Alison recalled. "It got us through before we came back to Greendale, so thank God things got that crazy on the first day!" she reflected although Annie only had some idea of what she meant.

"Still, it took about a week before he got your notes and didn't try to send a text," Alison counted. "It took a week and a half before he stopped talking about you at least once a day. Then I could let him go walk around on his own. But it took three weeks before he stopped glancing at you once a day in English and lunch."

"What about the fourth week?" Annie wondered, as Alison knew just what she was hinting it. "Debate week was not fun. Especially when he heard that Simmons guy was coming back," Alison noted.

"Well, that could just be about wanting to kick his chair in again. He loved doing that," Annie tried to excuse.

"If that was it, he hid it well. But after a few more lockdowns, I figured I had to give him something," Alison recounted.

"So you did let him see me behind the bleachers, then," Annie guessed. "Was that enough for him?"

"He didn't say much when he got back. But I think….well, I'd like to think….that seeing you do so well on our own set him straight. And he's barely made a peep about the whole thing since – in an 'I'm proud of her and she'll be okay' way, I'm sure. Not a 'Forget her, she's not worth it anymore' kind of way," Alison vowed.

"Did he think that at the beginning?" Annie quietly asked. "What did he think of me back then? I mean, if you told him why I did this…." she stopped, not wanting to hang on his feelings too much either way.

"I'm not going to lie, he was angrier at you at first. And as much as I tried to make it clear, he still misinterpreted why you were doing this. He had some various theories of his own," Alison informed.

"And one of them was that I wanted this to break you up," Annie easily guessed. "Even though that's exactly what I'm trying not to do."

"It took the first day-and-a-half until he got the irony," Alison went on. "Then he spent the next day on a guilt trip, then he got angry at you and himself this time, and then he told me he'd steer clear. I didn't believe he was happy about it, of course, so I still kept my eye on him. But I have to say….the fact he was dealing with all that, settling me into the group and still leading us through that insane first month? He really is quite a leader."

"That's one of the few things he really puts an effort into," Annie reflected without swooning. "But now he doesn't miss me as much anymore?"

"If he does, he's hiding it better. He's found other things and people to keep him busy on the surface, just like you have. How much he still thinks of you, I don't know for sure. But I am sure if you came back, he would barely be able to hide his relief."

Annie knew what she would normally ask herself – or even Alison – after hearing that. She'd want to know why Jeff was that emotional in the first place, and think that someone who just considers her a friend wouldn't react quite that way. She'd wonder just how relieved it would make him when she came back – and wonder what her comeback might make him think about doing.

All of this was perfect evidence for the theory that he wanted her, had always wanted her, was only with Alison to hide from her, couldn't deny it anymore now that she left, was getting ready to tell her so, and would leave Alison to be with Annie if she took Jeff back now.

If Annie still let herself subscribe to that theory.

Believing in that theory had cost Annie too much, and made her have to cost herself too much these last two months. As….appealing as these theories still were, and perhaps would always be….it was too great a risk to believe them again.

So she wouldn't, unless Jeff actually confirmed them with words instead of half-truths, and glares that were just as likely to mean nothing. Maybe she wouldn't even do that then, anyway. But now that he had Alison, he had even less of a reason to test her. Speaking of which.

"What about you and him? Are you two doing okay with all this?" Annie dared herself to ask. She got through hearing about Jeff okay, so now it was time for the really big test.

She was left in suspense as Alison paused for a few seconds before answering. "You were right, being in the group together is quite a big step. And Abed keeps reminding me how "new characters brought in for ratings or late-series shakeups" aren't received well."

"Did he tell you exactly what they did wrong in every episode?" Annie asked. "If he did, that means he's warning you how not to act like them! If he only lists general plot points, then he could go either way with your story arc. But if it's the first way, he's really trying to help you, in his Abed way."

"Wow….you know how to translate him like that?" Alison was amazed.

"Well, you get the hang of it, especially when you live with him and play together more after school. That helps too," Annie recounted.

"God, I have so many questions I can get answered now! You're my own personal Rosetta Abed!" Alison cheered.

Annie then spent the next several minutes translating Abed and Troy as best she could for Alison. Despite all the time they spent together in the summer, dealing with them during group adventures was another world for her, indeed. This made them segway into Alison's ordeals with the rest of the group, and her progress and pratfalls in dealing with them full time. Annie already had an idea of this year's group adventures from her friends' edited recaps, but having Jeff and Alison's parts filled in really did them more justice.

As they talked about how the group – not just Jeff—was functioning with Alison and without Annie, it made Annie feel lighter than she had imagined. Hearing about them functioning well without her, and with Jeff's new girlfriend at that, should have made her super jealous. Just because she was learning to stop feeling jealous about Jeff, it didn't mean she couldn't feel that way about her other friends.

But Annie had lost all reason to be jealous over this last month. Because she remembered that no matter how they were doing with Alison, they still loved Annie dearly. She knew by now how much they missed her in group and were relieved to see her after school again, and that they couldn't wait to see her back full time.

Just because they liked Alison anyway didn't mean they would stop caring so deeply about Annie. And now she'd confirmed that just because Jeff liked Alison more, it didn't mean he didn't miss Annie badly and didn't want her back in his life either. Regardless of how he wanted her back.

And Annie felt that way in return, regardless of however she might have wanted him back as well.

And because of that, she could feel happy that the woman who had Jeff was fitting in with everyone after all. "You do like it there, don't you?" Annie checked after they finished going through the group's early semester adventures.

"I do, and I'm shocked that I do. I….I'm not someone that bonds easily with a group of people. Especially ones as irresponsible as they are sometimes," Alison confessed. "I don't know how you got them to actually study in that study room! Obviously you're better at mothering people you shouldn't have to mother than I was."

Although Annie didn't know the exact details of Alison's past troubles, she knew enough to get what she was hinting at. "Like with…." Annie started, before remembering she really had no right to ask. Then again, Alison was the one who brought it up.

"My dad, yeah," she continued to bring up. "You had your dad abandon you and leave you with your controlling mother. My mom left me to deal with my less than controlling dad. He never used his hands on me, don't worry! But he was so uncoordinated that he wouldn't have known what to do with them on some nights. All the time I should have spent relaxing and having fun after school, I used to keep him out of trouble. As impossible as that was. Between all that and our less than stellar finances, I wasn't able to handle real college on top of it. So I…..just stopped going."

"At least you got to a real college first," Annie pointed out without seeming too envious.

"And I didn't have a pill breakdown, I know," Alison jumped ahead. "Compared to you, I know I had it easy. But I still had stuff like losing out on a real education, having to prop up a deadweight dad alone…..working low paying, rotten jobs because I dropped out of college….finally moving out only to have barely enough to find another roof. It's no Adderall freakout or getting cut off by your parents, but it did a number on me. So much that I would have topped your meltdown in spades if it kept going!"

"That's when you found therapy?" Annie asked like she didn't know.

"It took one or two DUIs to make me give it a try," Alison recalled. "But by then, talking to people, trusting them and actually being cared for was a foreign concept to me. Plus after I did my court-mandated therapy, I still couldn't afford regular shrinks. So I tried group therapy, with guys as screwed up and lost as me and my family….and I already knew too many of those people."

"But it worked! It took years to get me motivated enough to go back to school, but it worked. And I'm still there even now to keep that feeling going! Which is how I met Jeff, and how I met all of you, in the first place," Alison concluded.

"That's us, Greendale's longest running group therapy session," Annie quipped, hoping it wasn't inappropriate to joke.

"It's different with you all, though," Alison laid out. "In group, those people give me strength, but I'd never want to hang out with them. I've been around too many of those guys already. You guys aren't that bad, but you're just as nutty and irresponsible. And you're downright toxic to outsiders!"

"You never had classes with a guy named Todd last fall, right?" Annie asked out of nowhere.

"I don't think I'd remember that," Alison admitted. "I do remember that I've never known people like you. At least ones that I like being around. I needed to do a lot of growing up, recovery and self-analysis before I could be friends with people like that. Or anything more than that. I hated your type for most of my life, but now I'm old enough and smart enough to see more. And I like what I see."

"It hits you pretty hard when you realize that, doesn't it?" Annie shared. "Even when you feel like the only sane one there, and you want to kill them and just let them fail sometimes. But you love them too much to let anything bad happen to them. For someone who's never felt that way before….or had anyone feel that way about her….it's pretty noteworthy."

"I hated feeling that way about my dad for years. That's probably because all the caring and saving in the relationship was so one-sided. But it isn't here," Alison compared. "As deranged as they are, they care at the end of the day. Even in their own weird way about me, although I replaced you. Even in a much deeper way about you, although you're gone. I mean, they miss you so much that they only let me take your place because you told them to. And you had no reason to go that far for…..someone in my position."

"I, well, I had to do it, that's all," Annie shyly countered. "I needed someone there the group could trust."

"And even when you left them, you still made sure they were cared for. I never had anyone in my life I would do that for, let alone six people. I never wanted that, but you love it, don't you?" Alison wondered.

"Of course I do….I like caring about people. I like making sure my friends are okay. I like being there for them when they need someone," Annie trailed off. "Even when I can't be that someone…."

"Because no one made you feel that okay or needed before you met them. So now you'll do anything to care for them, so they'll never stop caring about you. Things like cut them off for a while so you're less tempted to ruin their love life," Alison 'subtly' inferred.

"Huh….you'd make a good therapist. Don't tell Britta," Annie tried to joke although she wasn't quite in the mood yet.

"But it's not like I want them to need me because of my issues," Annie cleared up. "I mean, take Jeff. He never wants it to look like he needs anyone. But on those times he admits he needs someone and can't just be a douche, he usually came to me. He trusted me more than anyone in the group, and maybe more than anyone ever. That meant so much to me, and not for selfish reasons. Not completely, I hope."

"And now he has me to go to first," Alison reminded. "That would be a major adjustment for someone in your shoes to handle. Enough to require….drastic measures."

"Did they?" Annie proposed. "Even when things between us were super weird, he still came to me. Even when I was struggling with my….emotions, I came to him with things that had nothing to do with love! And he still helped me! For one reason or another, we didn't have people like that to go to before, but we do now! The whole group does now! You do now!"

Alison seemed a little overwhelmed by that reassurance – a feeling Annie was still all too familiar with even now. She was a little hesitant to be overly reassuring, considering the unique nature of their relationship. Yet just thinking of Alison as a normal friend, or one that Annie wanted to be normal, made it a little simpler.

As such, she reached out like she would for any other friend and laid a gentle hand on her wrist, to compliment her smile and her closing argument. "Being loved and cared for like that, in any way, is just too damn special to throw away. For anything. I'm pretty sure I know that now, and you do too," she assured as Alison smiled a little bit and Annie took her hand off her.

Annie already knew all this somewhere deep inside. She knew all the other beloved things and people in her life weren't worth losing from being too focused on Jeff. She probably knew it before she even took her time off, or even before she ranted about Alison that night. But she needed to go through all of this – and to say it in front of her "replacement" – before she could remember it for good.

Yet she'd have no problem forgetting it now. No matter what she had to go through next.

Conveniently, lunch was over by the time this breakthrough came out. Therefore, it was the perfect way for Annie to wrap this session up.

"Well, I'll let you get on with your day now. I'm really glad you took time out of it to come here, so thank you. So much," Annie told Alison after paying the check. "But can you do just one thing for me later?"

"I'll do what I can," Alison retorted, although Annie's smile gave her an idea of what she needed from her.

"Please tell Jeff I'll be back on Monday."