As it turned out, Annie liked going out of character to portray a wicked witch for Halloween. Not that she got to enjoy it much, since an alien Chang did terrorize the school in the afternoon – before Britta got mistaken for a slasher at the actual Halloween party. But it left too little room for any more Jeff/Annie/Alison drama that opening week.

Annie returned perfectly to her normal school/study group schedule, as did everyone else. Having eight members now instead of seven didn't throw things off at all, especially since Alison already had her two month training period. Her and Jeff talked and hung out like normal, and Annie said hello and talked with Jeff whenever she got the chance, yet nothing really serious was brought up.

In their second week back, Annie started off sitting next to Jeff at lunch while Alison took the seat across from her. Since the lunch seating charts were fluid and nothing had gone wrong yet, Annie just rolled with it and breezed through. Alison got herself next to Jeff on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, however, but Annie had too much actual school work to think about it then.

The only real challenge left was to endure a side-by-side adventure Jeff while staying on her best behavior. But this week actually gave her a side adventure with Pierce instead – which was rare but probably more difficult in its own way. Yet Annie had that ordeal taken care of and scrubbed out of her brain by Friday morning, nonetheless.

After the hysteria of Halloween, Annie figured there wouldn't be anything huge again for a few weeks. That was probably when she'd get paired with Jeff – but she knew even before Alison arrived that she could do friendship adventures with him. Until she had to prove it again, there wasn't much to really think about.

Yet with Troy and Abed out on location that Friday night, Annie had the apartment to herself and was ready to give her brain the night off. It only got one or two of those a month, and since this was an early vacation day, Annie knew this would be her last chance to tune out for a while.

But that didn't mean she couldn't do some light textbook re-reading to start off. Doing it on Abed's recliner, where he watched more mind-numbing stuff every day, seemed deliciously subversive.

Before Annie could make for the recliner, she had to make for the door after hearing several knocks. She sighed, figuring Abed forgot some imaginary weapon in the Dreamatorium again. Yet when she opened the door, she didn't see Abed.

"Alison?" Annie asked, although she clearly knew it was her. "Um, come in. Are you looking for Jeff or something?" Alison just strolled in and closed the door behind her.

"Troy and Abed aren't here, right?" she asked for some reason.

"No, they're shooting their Kickpuncher/Cougar Town crossover, remember?"Annie answered, remembering their brainstorming for crossover ideas this morning – more vividly than she cared to. At least they didn't go with their Emma/The Walking Dead idea.

"Good," Alison replied, then Annie waited two seconds for a follow-up.

And got it with a slap to the face.

The sound of the slap just rang in Annie's head for a second, before the pain finally registered. Yet even as she covered her cheek, she didn't make a sound – her entire voice box seemed paralyzed. But after seeing Alison's furious face – and realizing she had no idea what the hell was going on – Annie finally coughed out a "What?"

"I needed to do that just once." That answer hardly cleared things up at all.

"Do what?" Annie asked, only capable of adding one extra word.

"Shut up. I need to be angry with you just once. I need it before you go little Ms. perfect on me!" Alison stated with growing fury as she was advancing towards Annie.

"Where did you, what the hell?" Annie panicked, barely any more coherent than Alison. All she could do well was back up towards the kitchen.

"Just shut up and let me hate you! I have every right! Your sweet, innocent act is a lie!" Alison shrieked, as Annie thought she might have to grab a kitchen knife with her like this. She knew she had a big temper, yet this was nothing like when she defended real psychiatry against Britta. This was nothing like anything she could imagine, and she didn't even know what was happening. "Why am I lying?" Annie desperately asked to try and get one clear answer out of her.

"BECAUSE I DUMPED JEFF!"

That was far too clear and confusing all at once.

"You did….you did…?" Annie almost asked "You did what?" but she'd said 'what' once too often already. She needed to use a lot more words now, yet the only one coming to mind was, "Why?" And immediately she knew she could have done better.

"Don't you dare play naïve with me! Maybe it works on him, but not me! I know! I know I'm not the most important woman in the world to him, and I never was! I know it for a fact now! So congratulations, you got what you wanted!" Alison spat.

"Where did you…." Annie started and stopped. "What the hell do you think you know?" she finally said with a bit more strength.

"I know he wasn't as happy with me as he was when you were around. I now know for certain that he's been better these last two weeks because of you! Even when I called him out on it, he wouldn't admit it! You think I was going to stick around after that? So again, congratulations, you split us up just like you wanted all along! Your 'oh, I'm so good and decent and I don't want to bang Jeff anymore' pretend act paid off perfectly!" Alison sarcastically congratulated.

And with those offensive insinuations, Annie had now found a few new words.

"I'm sorry? You're telling me I left the study group, left him….so I could break you up? When you know that's the one thing I didn't want to do?" Annie reminded her. "When I gave up being with my family so I wouldn't steal him? When I let you in my family and get closer to him when I was gone?"

As confused and lost as Annie still was, being angry at Alison's awful words was nice and clear to focus on, so she ran with it. "If you're the one who dumped him, then don't blame me! I did nothing but support you after that first day! And I could have done and told you a lot of things if I wanted you to dump him! But I let you have my friends! I let you have Jeff! I did everything to believe you were good enough for him and them, but maybe-"

And then six months of personal growth and rehab really paid off.

If they hadn't, Annie would have torn Alison apart, told her the real truth about her and Jeff – if she hadn't figured it out already – and felt joy in her heart over having a shot at Jeff again.

But Annie did none of that. She felt none of that either. Instead, she made herself take a few deep breaths, step away from Alison, and sit in Troy's recliner to try to kill her remaining anger with television.

Since there were no educational channels, this probably wouldn't calm her down that much. Yet flipping through reruns that Troy and Abed discussed a hundred times while Annie was trying to study, was at least something different to think about. Anything other than what Alison was telling her – and still hadn't told her.

Annie heard her sitting down in Abed's recliner, but still wasn't up to looking at her. She flipped through the channels faster, although it wasn't an effective distraction anymore. Especially when she heard Alison say, "That's why I had to be mad at you right away. Before I knew better. Now that I do, I'm so sorry, Annie….God, I really am."

The first part was kind of infuriating, but the second, third and fourth parts made Annie mute the TV and look over at Alison – whose face was far more human now. Maybe too much so, given the watery eyes and the shaky voice.

"I have every right to be mad, jealous and resentful of you. And I had to get that out before I remembered I can't be. Because you're right. You could have made life Hell for me, but you tortured yourself so you could accept me. You even let me join them, be closer to him, and find connections with people that I never had before. I know you didn't do it for me, but….the sick joke is that you might have gone out of your way for me, and cared about my happiness, more than anyone I've ever met. Even Jeff…."

Annie both felt bad for Alison, and felt bad for feeling bad for Alison after her attack minutes ago. But all of a sudden, that deranged Alison had been replaced by her sadder, sympathetic side – a transformation Annie knew of all too well.

"But you helped get me that much, then you helped take it away without even trying to!" Alison reverted back to lamenting. "I've been hating you for that for the last hour! And then I've hated myself even more for it, because….I get it! I really, truly understand why Jeff loves you! More than he could ever love me!"

There was way too much for Annie to address after the first review of that speech. So she settled on going over the last thing – the most important, most incorrect thing. "Jeff doesn't love me," Annie informed her quietly. "It was all in my head…"

"So he told you that too, then?" Alison said with a bitter chuckle. "I can see how annoying that was for you."

That was all of the cryptic hints Annie could take about whatever happened with the ex-couple. "Alison….I need you to tell me what the hell happened tonight. Please. Maybe I don't deserve that much from you anymore, but pretend for a little while."

"It wasn't just tonight," Alison finally started, before sighing and filling in more. "Like I said at lunch, Jeff took a while to get back to normal when you left. But although he stopped talking about you, I knew he was still thinking about you. In the two months you were gone….Jeff wasn't the Jeff I knew from the spring and summer. He only acted like he was."

Annie couldn't even get out a "What? or a "Huh?" or even an "Acting?" to inject. So Alison continued with, "He acted the same as ever, and no one from the group noticed anything. I think he knows how to actually fool them by now. But he couldn't fool me. I knew there wasn't the same spark in him that there was while you were here. We both know he pretends not to care about things, but I could tell he actually, really didn't care a lot these last two months. Because you weren't there to make him care, and I couldn't do any better. How could I?"

"Because you're his girlfriend?" Annie finally proposed. "He was just getting used to a new routine, you know how he hates change! None of that's proof about anything!"

"I told myself that at first too. Then I thought about the summer. You remember how he avoided too much contact with me during group outings? He's not a PDA person, I know! But he only started kissing me and touching me around you guys after our paintball game. When he knew we were getting along and you liked me. He only got closer to me in public after he knew you didn't hate me!" Alison theorized. "Even then, you had more influence on him than I did. In fact, all of his behavior since May was influenced much more by you than me! And you weren't even trying!"

"I wasn't!" Annie repeated. "And that still doesn't prove how he feels about….us!"

"That was my next mantra. And it did work for a while. I put it aside and actually enjoyed being with him and the group. Some part of me thought I should enjoy it while I had the chance," Alison theorized. "And I was happy….we were happy. And then you told me you were coming back, so I had to resume my research. When I did, I knew for sure I was second place to him."

"Just from seeing things?" Annie checked. "Did he actually say anything? Wait, never mind, dumbest question I ever asked."

"Touche," Alison complemented. "But I didn't need him to. I saw it when you came back. With you there, he came alive more than he ever did while you were gone. I saw him sharing googly eyed looks with you at the study room far more than he did with me. And far more than he ever did with me while I was in that chair! I was next to both of you and I kept a tally in my head, and it was not a close call!

"Wait, is that why you let me sit in my old chair?" Annie voiced. "You were spying on our googly eyes?"

"Half of it was to welcome you back and show I wasn't trying to replace you!" Alison insisted. "The other half….was that other thing."

"But that could have been because I was at his left! You were sitting farther away, even though you're – were – his girlfriend!" Annie responded.

"That's why I double checked in the lunch room," Alison notified. "And at lunch, he paid far more attention when you were sitting next to him than when I was. I tested it very thoroughly this week to be sure! Oh, and let's not forget the head patting I saw in the longue area on the first day!"

"You saw that?" Annie gasped. "No, no, that wasn't out of love or anything! I was poking fun at one of our inside jokes!"

"And you have inside jokes too! Even if I had a 'Milord/Milady' bit of my own, I'm sure he'd think that was a cheap rip off! Leaving aside how it would be!" Alison added to talk herself down again.

"Alison, I'm sure it was just because it was my first week back," Annie tried to reassure. "Once he's used to me being around again, he'll focus on you. Like he's supposed to."

"That's why I stuck around for the second week. I thought one week of this was all he needed, but it stayed the same all this week too," Alison concluded. "That was more than enough for me to know. No matter what he says we mean to him, and even if he really believes he's telling the truth, his eyes don't lie. They tell me I'll never mean as much to him as you do, then and now. I mean, you didn't see how his body language and attitude were so different with you near him?" she inquired. "Did you really not notice?"

"I made sure I didn't notice because there's nothing to notice!" Annie asserted. "You got paranoid and your eyes lied to you, they had to!"

"Just like you told yourself your eyes lied to you, when they saw something that 'wasn't there,'" Alison looked back. "But I know they weren't lying now. I told him when I broke up with him."

And there was the other big elephant in the room. "You told him that?" Annie took in. "What else did you tell him?"

"Everything I had to. I used my notes, math and common sense to tell him what he was doing! I thought maybe if he admitted some things, we might have a chance, but he kept shutting down. That's how I knew it was over. And then I just kept pressuring him, citing my stats and my notes, and throwing his denial right in his face until I just had to go," Alison recapped.

Now Annie was into full on panic mode for the first time since Alison's initial outrage. "You pushed him on all of that? Do….do you realize what you did? You made him retreat into his feelings bubble! You can't push him on personal stuff like that and expect him to admit anything! Especially if you call him out like that! I know what I'm talking about!"

The more Annie went on, the more she realized how bad this really was – and was about to get. "Even if you're right about him, he'll never admit it now! He'll just close off like always when he's cornered like that, and he won't come out anytime soon! He'll act like he doesn't care more than ever, and it could take months before anything real comes out! And we only have months left in Greendale! He might never tell me anything heartfelt again until graduation! Or ever!"

"Yeah….in some subconscious way….and a couple of conscious ways…. I think I knew that," Alison admitted.

"You knew that was the wrong way and you did it anyway?" Annie double-checked. "Well, I wasn't thinking about helping him at the time!" Alison reminded.

"Okay, look, maybe it's not too late. If he didn't confirm anything, there's still wiggle room. Can't you just….try to make it work with him again and believe him? And me? You could be wrong about this whole thing! It took me a while to see I was wrong, but I got through it and you can too!" Annie pleaded.

"You're really going to keep telling yourself you were wrong? If you think you believe that, then you're as delusional as he is," Alison informed. "But I can't live in that dream world, Annie. I can't pretend he feels more for me than he does for you. And I can't stick by while he's lying about what he feels for both of us, whether he knows it or not. You did it for over two years and you're still doing it, but I'm not you, Annie. In too many ways, I'm not you…..the most of which is I'm not as strong as you. Not in that way."

"And now I have to be? Again?" Annie groaned. "I don't have to be….I shouldn't….this isn't fair!" she noted with nothing better to say.

"I wouldn't talk about fair in front of me," Alison reverted back to being angry. "You're coming out of this with Jeff, and all your friends back all to yourself! I have to leave him, and leave all of you so I don't get even more bitter and punch someone! Probably him or you! By the time I feel better, you and him will be together and rubbing it in, then we'll just graduate anyway! So what's the point?"

"We're not together! I mean, we're not going to be together!"Annie corrected. "And if there was even a slight chance, you just killed it! I mean, even if I wanted it, you killed it! I mean…."

Clearly Annie didn't have another theory – or a good one, anyway. But she couldn't cry over it in front of Alison. She couldn't let her brag about leaving her like this – or feel manipulated into feeling sorry for her, in spite of everything. But she couldn't…..she didn't know what she could or couldn't do anymore. Or what she wanted, or what she could let herself want.

That was no longer supposed to be a problem.

"I'm too happy to see you like this," Alison confessed. "And I'm too sad to see you like this too. I can't keep going back and forth between the two….not this strongly. I have to get out while I can, no matter how much I'm leaving behind."

"But I can't get out," Annie pointed out. "I tried, I couldn't do it, and it didn't mean anything now…."

"I want to say it serves you right. I want to say if you never left, this wouldn't have happened and you know it. I want to believe you knew Jeff would miss you so much he'd obsess over you for a change, and you wanted it that way. But I know you didn't at all! And yet a big part of me doesn't and there's no reasoning with her! So the only way to shut her up and stop her slapping spree is to go away. Now that I'm not needed to cover up anything," Alison got out before getting up from the recliner.

"Alison!" Annie screamed out before she had a chance to escape. Once Alison stopped at the front door, Annie realized she really had nothing. But she probably wouldn't get another chance to say anything to her, because of….of them.

All there was to whisper was, "I, I never wanted this," before Annie's eyes watered up too bad – and before she flashed back any more to her last visit at Jeff's apartment. "I really wanted….I really wanted to be a better member of Team….Jalison?" It took a lot of effort not to laugh at that mash-up, although it barely worked.

"I know. I wish I didn't, but I know," Alison admitted. "And I really, really wish I could have been on Team Jannie." Alison didn't even try not to laugh, although it turned bitter at the end. "But relationships are just too complicated."

Both women flashed right back to Jeff, which made Alison frown again and open the door. Yet when she stepped outside and took one more look at Annie, her frown was already melting and had devolved into a tearful quiver. Specifically once she saw the now less red spot on Annie's cheek that she had slapped.

Annie took in the regret and shame on Alison's face – and if it was that awful on Alison, Annie could only imagine how she looked after yelling at Jeff's this May. Yet she snapped out of it when Alison returned towards her and quietly stated, "Do you….need to pay me back for slapping you? Go on. Do it if you want to, before I change my mind."

Alison presented her face for Annie to actually slap – and it was very tempting. After what she told him, what she did to Jeff, how she made Annie doubt everything about her and Jeff all over again – and that slap to boot – perhaps slapping her back would give her something to build on.

But that something to go on would be built on rage, irrational anger and overwrought emotions. The exact emotions that would only make this mess worse for Annie right now. And they couldn't afford to get any worse.

And she didn't want to be any more furious at Alison. Not when she took a stand, vowed not to settle for being second place to anyone in Jeff's heart, and found the strength to cut the cord for good. Her slap at Annie didn't negate all 100 percent of those admirable, enviable actions. And it wasn't just admirable because Jeff was free now – at least Annie hoped and prayed it wasn't.

So Annie went for something between rage and peace, and gave Alison a relatively light, quick slap. She then grabbed her own wrist to make absolutely sure she wasn't tempted for more. "There. That's all I can let myself do. It might not be all I want to do, but it's all I want to live with," Annie explained.

"Like I said….I'm certainly not as strong as you," Alison reflected one last time, before finally letting herself leave the apartment and leave Annie all alone again.

Although Annie did feel all alone, she knew it wasn't really that way – and that was actually a bad thing here. She was still surrounded by Alison's words, her confessions, Jeff, more Jeff and those old Jeff questions that were supposed to freaking die already. Yet there was no hiding that Alison brought them back to life, halfway because her bitter side wanted to hurt her. Well, that half of her could rejoice now.

It was all for nothing. Everything Annie put herself through these last six months, and everything she tried to fix and preserve, all meant nothing. It meant nothing the second Alison dumped Jeff anyway. Or it meant nothing well before that, if Alison really had seen….something in Jeff. Something Annie trained herself never to see again – and that would soon be all for nothing too.

She was right back where she started, and even worse off for having tried and failed to escape all this. She was worse off because of the collateral damage that was Alison as well. Nothing Annie did – whether it was trying to cure herself of Jeff, have a regular friendship with him, or even just to make a new friend – none of it was worth anything. That combined with her brand new Jeff uncertainty was just too crushing.

Before she was fully crushed, however, she heard her phone ring. Yet she was thoroughly incapable of dealing with anyone right now. Maybe saying so before hanging up would take some edge off. So before she saw who was calling, Annie got out her cell phone, answered it and called out, "What is it?" hoping to get a quick answer and then tell the caller to try again later.

Yet there was no answer. And this gave Annie time to actually read the caller ID. And when she did, her voice was paralyzed once again.

"I was happy, you know," Jeff's unmistakably unhappy voice said over the phone. "I was happy before Greendale, before you, before all of it! Then I was happy with her, and you had to ruin that too!"

Annie was nearly drained, yet was still almost ready to cry crap on that and lay into him. Lay into him for letting Alison go, for not loving Alison enough….for not being…..so many other things with Annie. But as Jeff went on, Annie just realized she had to let him keep going.

"Isn't it bad enough you put things in my head? You're, you're a ruiner! You're worse than a Britta, and at least she stopped nagging me to pieces after I did her! Will you give me my life back now?" Jeff demanded.

Somehow, someway, Annie still knew enough not to take any of it seriously. "Did you do it? Did you get all your bitter, crazy thoughts out of your system?" she asked, knowing full well it wasn't necessary to add on, "Like I did with you back in May." It was too obvious for even Jeff to ignore.

The way he sighed out "Yep…." seemed to confirm that. Yet that was all Annie could handle right about now.

"I don't think either of us can say much more right now, Jeff. Not tonight, anyway. Besides, you need the weekend to make up a good story for why Alison left." Annie was genuinely trying to help Jeff avoid the worst from the group on Monday. She just hoped it came across that way.

"I'll see you there on Monday, Jeff," Annie assured to try and wrap this up peacefully. As she hung up, she thought she heard Jeff take a breath before cutting off the call. She couldn't be sure – but since that applied to everything else in her life right now, just a half hour after it looked solid again, it made sense.

Annie finally did give her brain a vacation that night after all. But it was more of a forced vacation.

Crying into her bed over her failed sabbatical, the loss of her friend, and the loss of anything resembling normal with Jeff was hard enough without thinking even more about them too.