Title: She's in Jail and It's Giving Me Hell
Spoilers: Through 1.25
Rating: K+
Word Count: ~6,500
Disclaimer: Community and the related characters are © 2010 NBC Universal
Notes: Based on the M/M Ficcy Friday prompt "Ambitious journalist Annie Edison + foreign prison = counselor Jeff to the rescue" by LJ user ljubavirakija. It also incorporates, after a fashion, the M/M Ficcy Friday prompt "After a summer of no contact, Annie walks into the first day of study group announcing that she and Jeff are going to start dating" by LJ user and ff.n author amtrak12. Title taken from the song "Holloway Jail" by the Kinks. Thanks to LJ user catko for serving as a sounding board in the planning stages, and to LJ user dearygirl (a.k.a. ff.n author shannanagin) for being an outstanding beta reader.

.

Jeff stood in the doorway to the bedroom and sighed. A king-sized bed, he thought, was far too large for one person. He'd found the same to be true of his couch, and his kitchen table, and, for that matter, the whole apartment. It wasn't even that large a place, but with Annie traveling overseas, it felt as huge and as empty as Pierce's mansion. He hated it.

At least he could avoid the kitchen table and the couch. After the first day, he'd eaten all his meals in restaurants, and he'd spent the time he normally devoted to watching TV doing other things: grocery shopping, going to the bar, seeing movies, visiting friends—whatever he could think of to keep him out of the apartment, away from the emptiness.

But he could hardly avoid the bedroom, not without renting a hotel room for the week, and it wasn't like sleeping alone in a hotel would be any great improvement. So here he was, facing another night in a bed that was far too large for just him. At least he only had a few more days of this to endure before Annie returned home. He crawled into his side of the bed, trying to ignore how empty it felt, and how empty it made him feel, and settled into a restless sleep.

He awoke to the sound of his phone ringing. He could tell it wasn't a call he wanted to take—the people he would actually want to wake up to talk to had custom ringtones—but he did occasionally get calls from clients in the middle of the night, so he grabbed the phone off his nightstand and answered it without bothering to check the Caller ID. "Jeff Winger."

"Mr. Winger! Good morning!"

Jeff winced at the booming voice of the man on the other end of the line. He glanced over at the alarm clock sitting atop the nightstand on Annie's side of the bed. "I hope you have a better reason for calling at 4:00 AM than to wish me a good morning," Jeff said groggily. "Who is this?"

"My name is John Stratton," the man on the phone said in a broad Texas accent. "I'm with the American Citizen Services Unit of the U.S. Consulate General in Amsterdam."

Jeff was suddenly wide awake, and very afraid. Annie was in Amsterdam.

Jeff looked up as Annie flew through the door into the apartment, bursting with excitement."Jeff, you'll never guess what happened!"

He paused the ballgame he was watching. "Ah, I don't know ... you got a raise? A promotion? Oh, a new beat!" Annie had been covering the state legislature for almost a year, and he knew that she found it a frustrating and tiresome assignment.

"The last one! Sort of. The governor is leading a delegation to the Netherlands for a conference, and since some members of the legislature are going with him, the editor is sending me along to cover it!"

Jeff was duly impressed."Wow, that's great, honey! It's about time they started treating you like the ace reporter I always knew you were!"

Annie blushed a little. "Come on, I know you just said that to get rid of me ..."

"Well, yes. But no matter what I meant, you earned it. You know as well as I do that the Greendale ... Whatever never would've won that ACP award without you."

"It is a pretty big honor," Annie admitted happily. "And I've never been to Europe! My editor said I could take a couple of days off after the conference, so I thought I'd take the train from the Hague up to Amsterdam. Britta was there a few years ago and she raved about it. I don't think I'll visit any of the 'coffeeshops' where she spent most of her time ..." Jeff knew from experience that when she was in a mood like this, it was best to just let her carry on, so he leaned back and basked in the glow of her excitement.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

"I said I'm sorry I don't have more information for you," Stratton said. "The police here in Amsterdam are good about telling us when they pick up one of our nationals, but aren't necessarily forthcoming with more than that. But I was told Miss Edison was in custody, not under arrest, so ..."

"But they thought it was potentially serious enough to ask her if she wanted to contact a lawyer?"

"I wouldn't read too much into that," Stratton said. "It's routine in situations like this for the police to ask foreign nationals for an emergency contact they can pass along to the U.S. mission. It's not unusual for people to give the name of a lawyer, especially if they're unmarried."

Jeff wondered if he should read anything into the fact that Annie had apparently identified him as her lawyer rather than as her boyfriend. "I see. Well, I guess I'm coming to Amsterdam."

"Look, this could be a big nothingburger. I'd hate for you to spend a lotta money getting here if she ends up not being charged with anything. I can get back in touch with you once I know more."

"Yeah, but suppose it is something serious?" Jeff countered. "Better I leave now and risk an unnecessary trip than wait and risk Annie being thrown into some foreign prison waiting for me to show up."

"Bijlmerbajes is not exactly Brokedown Palace, Mr. Winger," Stratton said, amused. "But I take your point. Shoot me an email with your itinerary when you know it, and I'll keep you posted. With a little luck, everything will be settled before you even get to the airport.

"And Mr. Winger, I know this is gonna sound like I'm asking a lot given the circumstances, but try not to worry too much about this. We're good at what we do here. We'll look out for your girl until you get here."

Within minutes of getting off the phone, Jeff had found and purchased a ticket to Amsterdam on a flight leaving a few hours later. It was expensive, but any concern he might have had about the cost was shoved aside by his mounting concern for Annie's well-being. He carelessly tossed a few items into a small duffle bag, not bothering to put any real thought into what he was packing, and spent a few frantic minutes tearing his desk apart looking for his passport before finding it in a file folder neatly labeled "travel documents." Seeing Annie's handwriting on the label touched off a fresh wave of panic and nervous pacing. A hot shower calmed him to the point where he thought he might be able to get some rest before leaving for the airport, but instead he found himself tossing and turning, more acutely aware than ever of Annie's absence from the other side of the bed.

On his way to the airport, Jeff called Annie's father. Mr. Edison was a nervous, high-strung man under the best of circumstances, and he reacted to the news of Annie's troubles badly. This had the effect, as he had feared it would, of heightening Jeff's own anxiety about the situation, but he managed to remain calm and repeat Stratton's words of reassurance. It didn't seem to Jeff that they were working any better on Mr. Edison than they had on him, but he didn't know what else to say.

Just before he ended the call, Mr. Edison thanked Jeff for calling, and said, "And thank you for making the trip, Jeff. I don't think I would have had it in me to react so quickly."

Jeff thought that too, but didn't say so. "Yeah, well, there's not much I wouldn't do for Annie."

Annie's dad chuckled slightly. "I got that impression the first time we met."

The night of the Tranny Dance, Jeff had been ready to spend the rest of the evening, maybe even the rest of the summer, kissing Annie.

The next day, Jeff called Michelle to apologize for running away the night before, and explained that while he was willing to try being friends, he had no interest in resuming a romantic relationship with her. She explained exactly where he could shove his apology and hung up. That evening, he met Britta at a coffee shop to make a similar apology. They talked about everything that had happened over the course of the last year, and by the end of the night they had decided to go on a few dates over the course of the summer, to see what would happen. The dates themselves were fairly disastrous, but they somehow came out of it better friends.

He didn't do much else that summer. He visited his favorite bar a couple times a week, went to a ball game with Troy and Abed, even spent an evening drinking Scotch and smoking cigars with Pierce at his club downtown, but mostly he stayed home, watching TV and messing around on his laptop. An unintended consequence of the latter was that he ended up knowing every single thing Annie did over the summer. She was a Facebook addict, and she thoroughly documented everything she did in dozens of long notes and countless photos. And she'd done a lot: visited her grandmother in Missouri; gone to the zoo two or three times a month; accompanied her temple's youth group on a camping trip in the Rockies; helped a group from Shirley's church build a house with Habitat for Humanity.

Seeing Annie's name pop up in his Facebook feed so frequently had helped him answer her question from the night of the Tranny Dance about what he wanted.She was a sweet girl, and a good friend, but a potential romantic partner? He didn't think it would work. The age difference, the likelihood that he would screw it up and ruin their friendship—everything about it screamed, "bad idea!" It was best if he just chalked up the kisses as aberrations brought about by extraordinary situations, and continued on as before.

So he was taken by surprise when, shortly before the start of the new school year, he read her most recent status update—Going to Morty's for Daddy's birthday!—and suddenly felt like he'd been punched in the heart. It was one thing seeing her go to the zoo or on a camping trip, but seeing that she had gone to his favorite restaurant, and realizing that he hadn't been there to go with her ... He grabbed his keys and headed for the door.

He found Annie and her parents in a booth near the back of the restaurant. "Annie."

She looked up with a surprised expression that turned to a bright smile when she realized who had spoken. "Jeff! Hi! I should've expected to run into you here!" She gestured across the table. "You haven't met my parents, have you?"

Jeff glanced their direction and gave a little nod. "Yeah, good to meet you." Turning back to Annie, he said, "Annie, I— look, I don't want to get into it all right now, but ... I know what I want. If you're still trying to figure it out, that's fine. Take as much time as you need, but ... just know that I'll be waiting for you. If that's the way you decide you want to go."

Turning to Mr. Edison, Jeff said, "Happy birthday, sir. You're a very lucky man." With that, he turned and left the restaurant, feeling better than he had in weeks.

A week later, Annie strode determinedly into Group Study Room F on the first day of the semester, and, as she had at the debate tournament the previous year, forcibly turned Jeff's face to hers and kissed him. Jeff likewise fell back on old habits, dropping what was in his hands—just his anthropology textbook this time—grabbing her by the hips and drawing her closer as he returned the kiss. Once they broke apart, Annie announced to the study group that she and Jeff were dating and that if anyone had questions, comments, or concerns, now was their chance to air them. But the rest of the group had been stunned into silence by what they'd just seen, so ultimately nothing was said at all.

To his surprise, Jeff spent most of the trip from Denver to Toronto asleep. He hadn't slept well—his lanky frame was not designed to be folded into a coach airline seat, and his dreams were haunted with visions of Annie in a cold, dank prison cell—but at his age any sleep was better than none. He spent the first hour of his layover on the phone. He called John Stratton in Amsterdam for an update, but the call went straight to voice mail. For the sake of his nerves, he decided to assume that he was meeting with the Amsterdam police, working to secure Annie's release, or at least to make sure she was placed in a comfortable cell. (Jeff doubted the prison in Amsterdam had much in common with the dungeon he'd seen in his dreams, but who could say?)

He called his secretary, a cousin of Abed's who had come to Greendale to work in the falafel shop but had failed to master the deep fryer. He had hired him as a favor to Abed, but he turned out to be a surprisingly good secretary, despite a tendency to overshare. Case in point: once the situation had been explained to him, he launched into a story about a female cousin who had been arrested in Gaza and forced to share a rat-infested cell with six other women and a broken toilet for two weeks. Jeff was horrified, and not comforted in the least when he finished with a cheery, "but I'm sure things are much better over there."

He called Pierce. The group needed to know what was going on, and while Pierce would not normally be his choice of messenger, Jeff needed to talk to him anyway. There was, he thought, an outside chance that he might need to bribe someone to get Annie released, and whatever his other faults, Pierce was unfailingly generous with his fortune and surprisingly competent at working through back-channels to get things done. Sure enough, Pierce promised to do whatever was necessary, and to spread the word, and somehow managed to get through the conversation with only a single tasteless remark about women in prison.

And he called his mom. He knew she would want to know he was leaving the country—well, had left the country, technically—and Jeff knew he could rely on her to be properly concerned about Annie and to say the right things to make him less nervous. "Well, honey," she said after Jeff had filled her on the details of his trip, "if there's anyone who'll be able to take care of all this, it's you. God knows your father never would've done for me what you're doing for Annie. Well, he might've, but I wouldn't've wanted to bet my freedom on it." She paused, and Jeff could almost hear her smile. "You're just as special as I always said you were."

Jeff glowed. Talking to his mom always made him feel better. Well, almost always.

"I'm so proud of you, honey." Jeff had just finished telling her about a

"Thanks, mom. I—"

She continued as though Jeff hadn't spoken. "Annie's been so good for you. I think meeting her was the best thing that ever happened to you."

"I agree," Jeff said, puzzled by the seeming non sequitur.

"I hate to say it, but I was really worried about you there for a while. I knew the college thing would catch up with you eventually, and—"

"Wait, what?"

"Jeffrey, I'm your mother. I knew you hadn't earned a college degree. I was proud of you for getting into law school without one, of course ..."

"Thank you."

"... But I was concerned that you'd gone that route. It ..." She hesitated. "I'm sorry, but it seemed like something your father would've done."

"Mom!" Hearing his mom say that was almost physically painful. "That's the worst thing anyone has ever said to me."

"Well, I'm sorry, but it's true," she said firmly. "Lying, cheating, taking the easy way out—that was him to a tee. And as long as I'm hurting your feelings, the arrogance and the way you treated women was right out of his playbook, too."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this."

"But the thing is," she said, "I'm not worried anymore. You earned your degree, got your license back, and you worked hard to build a successful practice. You treat people better. And you've been with Annie, and faithful to her, for what, five years now? Your father could hardly go five weeks without cheating on me, even before we got married."

"Then why—"

She sighed. "What can I say, I thought I could change him. I know, it's a cliché, but ... and then when I got pregnant—"

Jeff groaned. "Oh, God. How do you not hate me?"

"Jeff. Listen to me. Your father was a bad father, and a bad husband. But you're not him. And Annie's not me. We've talked about this, and believe me, she would've dumped your sorry ass long ago if you were anything like him."

She fell silent, and for a few moments neither she nor Jeff said anything at all. Jeff finally broke the silence to ask, "Mom, why are you telling me this?"

She gave an exasperated grunt. "You're a smart boy, Jeffrey. Figure it out for yourself," she said shortly, and hung up.

Jeff got out of the cab in front of the Consulate General in Amsterdam, an attractive red-brick building facing a large public park. A U.S. Marine, slightly shorter than Jeff but broader in the shoulders, stepped out of a small guard booth as he approached the main gate. "Is there something I can help you with, sir?"

He hadn't expected an armed guard. "Um. Yes. My name is Jeff Winger, I'm an American. I'd like to see John Stratton, please. He's in the American Citizen Services Unit."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"Uh, no. I wasn't aware I would need one."

"I can't let you on the premises without an appointment, sir."

Jeff pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, but forced himself to set aside his anxiety and deal with this calmly. "No problem." He walked over to a nearby bench and pulled a mobile phone out of his pocket, looked at it, and returned to the Marine, who had not returned to his booth. "OK, actually there is a problem." He held up the phone. "This isn't mine. I dropped my phone in a toilet in Toronto while I was waiting for my connecting flight. I rented this one at the airport here—"

"I understand, sir. I can't give you Mr. Stratton's direct number, but ..." He stepped into the guard station and returned a moment later brandishing a brochure. "This has the consulate's general contact numbers. The main switchboard'll be able to connect you with his office." He paused for a moment before continuing. "And if I may, sir, if you remove the battery and put your phone into a container of rice for a few days, that may get it working again."

Jeff blinked in surprise. "Oh. OK, yeah, I'll try that. Thanks." He returned to the bench and placed the call.

It took him a minute or two to work through the automated menu system, but he finally reached a real live person, a pleasant-sounding woman with a light Southern accent. "U.S. Consulate, John Stratton's office, may I help you?"

"I really hope so. My name is Jeff Winger—"

"Oh, Mr. Winger, I've been expecting your call! Welcome to Amsterdam! Are you at Schiphol? I can send a driver to pick you up, get you over here in a jiff so we can get this all straightened out."

"Actually, I'm not at the airport. I'm in the park across the street from the consulate. I just figured the sooner I got here ..."

"Oh my gosh!" the woman exclaimed. "Didn't you get the voice mail I left you?"

"I, ah, had a little trouble with my phone, so I haven't been able to check it. I hope I didn't cause any problems by not calling ahead ..."

"Oh, not at all, Mr. Winger. I just hope Charlie didn't give you too much trouble!" She laughed delightedly, apparently tickled at the thought of Charlie—the armed guard, Jeff assumed, who was still standing outside the guard station, occasionally looking in his direction—causing anyone any trouble. "Now, Mr. Winger, I need you sit tight there for a few minutes while I call Mr. Stratton and tell him what's going on. He's out of the office right now, but he's only about 10 minutes away. Now let's see, I'll need to create an appointment, one sec ... OK, I need your full name as it appears on your passport, your date of birth, and your social security number." Jeff could hear her typing as he gave the information. "OK, you're in the system. Lemme make that call, then I'll come on down and get you myself, I wouldn't mind a little trip outside, it's such a beautiful day. I'll see you in a few minutes."

Jeff returned the phone to his pocket and leaned back on the bench. He wanted to relax, but couldn't. His nervous anxiety was getting to be too much for him. To be so close to getting inside the consulate and being unable to do so was maddening. He stood and walked over to the guard. "It's Charlie, right?" Not bothering to wait for an answer, he said, "Charlie, I just talked to Mr. Stratton's assistant, and I have an appointment now. If you want to check the computer there in the booth you'll see it." The Marine made no move to check the computer. "She said she was on her way down here, but she seemed pretty busy, I hate to make her come all the way down here. If—"

"No, sir."

"I'm sorry?"

"Sir, no one is allowed admittance to the grounds without an escort."

Jeff returned to the bench, rummaged around in his bag for a bit, and walked back to the guard.

"Look, there's another guard there in the booth. He—"

"Sir, neither he nor I are allowed to leave our post. I'm sure your escort will be here shortly. I recommend you go back to that bench and wait for her."

Jeff walked across the street, turned around, walked back. "Look, I don't think you understand how important it is I get in there."

The soldier leaned forward ever so slightly, and said in a low, menacing voice, "and I don't think you understand the latitude I have to prevent that from happening, sir, whether you have an appointment or not." Jeff shuddered slightly. "Do I make myself clear?"

Jeff exhaled heavily, ran his head through his hair, and stomped back to the bench. He paced back and forth, his anxiety and his anger feeding off one another. He occasionally shot baleful looks at the Marine, who still hadn't moved but whose eyes were now trained directly on him. He stopped pacing and peered closer at the guard. Had his hand moved closer to his gun? He resumed his pacing, less angry but considerably more nervous.

He had no idea how long he'd been waiting before he noticed a petite young woman with wavy brown hair and a bright smile making her way toward the front gate. She stopped just outside the compound and spoke briefly with the guard before crossing the street and approaching Jeff's bench. "Mr. Winger?" Before he had a chance to respond, she laughed and said, "what am I saying, of course you're Mr. Winger, you're the only one here! I'm Ashley, Mr. Stratton's personal assistant." She held out a hand for Jeff to shake; he did, and was a little surprised at the firmness of her grip. "Let's go talk to Charlie about getting you inside."

After allowing the guard to examine and photocopy his passport, Jeff was finally allowed to walk through the gate onto the consulate grounds, Ashley on his heels. She turned to wave goodbye to the guard, then turned back to Jeff and said, "if you'd like to follow me, I'll take you upstairs to Mr. Stratton's office. I have to say, I was a little surprised when you called and said you were here. Here at the consulate, I mean, I knew your flight had probably landed, I'd seen your itinerary. All of Mr. Stratton's emails come to me, he's not very comfortable with computers, can you believe that, in this day and age? He's a sweetheart, but old-fashioned, you know? You took a cab here from Schiphol, I suppose? I hope you get to see more of the city than what you can see on the way to and from the airport, you can't tell from the freeway what a beautiful city Amsterdam is."

Ashley continued to chatter cheerfully as she led Jeff into the building, up a flight of stairs, and through a maze of corridors. She didn't seem to expect Jeff to respond to her stream-of-consciousness rambling, so he followed silently, growing more anxious with every step. They eventually reached a small office, barely large enough for the desk and file cabinets it held. Entering, she stepped to one side and gestured toward Jeff as she spoke to the man standing behind the desk. "Mr. Stratton," she said, slipping effortlessly into the professional tone she had used while taking Jeff's information over the phone earlier, "this is Jeff Winger. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Stratton looked up from the document he was reading. "If you could check in with the guests in Conference Room A, tell them we'll be with them shortly?" Ashley nodded crisply and strode from the office as Stratton reached across his desk to shake Jeff's hand. He was tall and thin, with brushy gray hair and round glasses resting on a long nose even pointier than Jeff's own. "Pleased to meet you in person, Mr. Winger," he said. "I'm really sorry you had to go through all this." He shook his head. "Well, no use cryin' about it. We'll have everything taken care of in two shakes." He placed the document he'd been reading in a drawer and stepped around his desk to leave the tiny office. "Come on along with me."

They'd only gone about 200 feet down the hall before Stratton stopped at a door labeled "Conference Room A." "Wait," Jeff said with some confusion, "what's going on? Aren't we going to the, I don't know, whatever they call a police station over here?"

Stratton paused with his hand on the doorknob and turned to Jeff with a puzzled expression. "Did Miss Davison not explain everything in the voice mail she left you yesterday?"

"Ah, if you mean Ashley, she did tell me she'd left a voice mail, but I never got it. Phone problems."

"And she didn't tell you anything just now about what was happening this morning?"

"The only thing she told me was that you couldn't tell how beautiful Amsterdam was from the freeway."

Stratton let out a loud laugh. "She does tend to run off at the mouth if you let her. But no, we won't be going to the police station. Unless you want to, when we're done here. But if you don't mind a little free advice, there're nicer places to visit here."

"But—"

"Trust me on this, son, before you go anywhere else, you want to come with me into this conference room." With that, Stratton turned the knob and pushed open the door to reveal a severe-looking police officer seated at a long conference table. And standing on the other side of the room, talking animatedly with Ashley, was Annie. Elation surged through him as he crossed the distance between them in two long strides and enveloped her in a hug. "Oh God, Annie, I—" Too overcome with emotion to say more, he continued holding her tightly, his tension draining out of him as Annie rubbed his back and assured him that she was fine and that he had nothing to worry about.

Once Jeff calmed down and took a seat at the table, Stratton introduced Jacobus Vleugelspeler, area director of the Gordeldierbuurt neighborhood police team, who explained the situation. "It seems," he said in heavily accented but fluent English, "that Miss Edison was passed a number of counterfeit bills by a confidence man on the train from the Hague to Amsterdam. Yesterday morning, she attempted to use one of those bills at a cafe; the server recognized the bills as counterfeit and called the police.

"Two of my officers went to the cafe to speak with Miss Edison. While one of them spoke to her about her travels and where she thought she might have picked up the counterfeit bills, his partner radioed the station to have her name run through our computers."

"And it turned up a match?" Jeff said incredulously. "How is that even possible? She's never even been to Europe before this trip."

"So we later found out," the director said. "But all the officers on the scene knew at the time was that an American citizen named Annie Edison was wanted for questioning in regard to an incident of vandalism in 2010. We had no choice but to take her to the neighborhood office for questioning. As she was a foreign national, protocol demanded that we contact the consulate and inform them that we had a U.S. citizen in custody. Once we retrieved the case file—which took much longer than it should have, since the original documents had been transferred to long-term storage, and the contents never digitized—it was evident that we had the wrong person."

"Evident how? And how did Annie's name get attached to the case in the first place?"

"The vandal was captured on video. The inspector originally assigned to the case made a photographic print from that video and showed it at various cafes known to be frequented by ... radical elements. That led to a hostel, where the desk clerk confirmed that the woman in the photo had stayed there. The name in the register was 'Annie Edison,' so that was the name we used on our file. That same photo, of course, proved that Miss Edison was not the woman we had been looking for.

"Perhaps you would be interested in seeing the photo, Mr. Winger." The director reached into an attaché case sitting on the floor next to him and pulled out a photograph, which he passed across the conference table to Jeff. "Miss Edison indicated that she knew the woman in this photo, but she was reluctant to say more than that until spoke to her attorney. That would be you, I believe?" Jeff nodded distractedly, unable to stop looking at the picture of a young woman with wavy blonde hair, wearing dark sunglasses and a leather jacket. "Is this woman known to you?"

"Yes. And the only thing stopping me from buying you a plane ticket to the States and taking you to her house myself is that I'm her attorney as well."

Vleugelspeler nodded. "I understand. Any information you feel you can share would be much appreciated."

"Of course. And you can count on me to do everything in my power to ... convince my client to take care of this matter as soon as possible."

The policeman gave a small smile. "I've been a police officer too long to entirely trust the word of an attorney, Mr. Winger."

"I'm not giving you my word as a lawyer, Director," Jeff said gravely. "I'm giving my word as a man who just flew 5,200 miles to rescue his bride-to-be from a foreign prison."

Vleugelspeler laughed. "I think I would not want to be in your client's place when you speak of this to her."

"You can count on that too."

"... through her other nostril."

"Jeff, calm down," Annie said placidly. They were seated at a small café in the Museumplein, the public park adjacent to the consulate, and Jeff had been explaining in great detail exactly what he planned to do to Britta once he returned to the United States. "It was an honest mistake. Britta wasn't trying to get me in trouble."

Jeff scoffed. "Please. Framing someone for something she did is just the kind of thing she would do. Remember when she tried to blame me for throwing that corpse out the window?"

"I'm not saying it's something she wouldn't do, just that she didn't do it this time. She told me about using my name at that hostel years ago, and it didn't have anything to do with trying to get me in trouble, or keeping herself out of trouble." She paused to take a sip of her coffee. "Not out of legal trouble, anyway."

"Explain."

"Well, she was on the train to Amsterdam, and this real creep started hitting on her. She didn't want to tell him her real name—"

"But telling him your name was just fine. Nice."

"It was a spur of the moment thing. And she may have been a little bit drunk. Or high. I'm pretty sure she was one or the other most of the time during that trip. Anyway, she got to Amsterdam, took a treintaxi to the hostel, and about thirty seconds later, another cab pulled up right behind her, and it's the creep. He was staying there too, so she was stuck. He was right behind her in line to check in, so she signed the register with my name so he wouldn't find out hers."

"And that's when she decided it was a perfect time to resume her billboard-vandalizing ways."

Annie looked at Jeff disapprovingly. "Don't be silly. If she'd planned to do it, it probably never would have happened. You know how Britta is about following through on things." She took another sip of coffee. "And it wasn't a billboard, it was a research laboratory at the university where they did testing on animals."

"Whatever." Jeff signed resignedly. "You're probably right." He shook his head. "Well, I don't suppose we should spend the rest of our day in Amsterdam sitting at this table." Jeff was going to stay with Annie for her last day in the Netherlands. "Ashley was right, I should see more of the city than the freeway. I suppose if this place is called the Museumplein there are probably some museums around here, right? But if we had time to work in a nap, I wouldn't complain. And I'm gonna need your help finding a way home that won't cost me another $2,700. I—"

"Jeff." He looked up, surprised by the tentativeness in Annie's voice. She was staring fixedly at her hands, one atop the other on the table in front of her. "Did you mean what you said to Jaap back at the consulate?"

Jeff frowned, puzzled. "Yop?"

"Inspector Vleugelspeler. 'Jaap' is short for 'Jacobus'. So, did you?"

"What, that I would make sure Britta—"

"No. That— I mean, I know sometimes you say things you don't actually mean or maybe aren't 100% true because of the impact you think it'll have on the person you're talking to? And, I— maybe when you told Jaap—"

It suddenly dawned on Jeff what she was talking about. He reached across the table and placed his hand atop hers. "Annie." He waited until she looked up from the table to continue. "I absolutely meant every word."

He paused, uncertain of how to put into words what he felt so clearly. "I know we've never really talked about it, and that's my fault. It's just ... I was scared. Not of the commitment—there hasn't been a single moment since that night at Morty's five years ago that I haven't wanted to be with you. And if this last week has proved anything, it's that I can't stand living without you."

He saw tears pooling in the corners of Annie's eyes. "I was scared, terrified, that if I got married, I'd screw it up like my dad screwed up his. That I would hurt you the way he hurt my mom. And I used that as an excuse to avoid talking about it, even though I knew you wanted to, and I am so sorry, because you deserved better. And because now I know that I didn't know what being scared felt like until yesterday when Stratton called me."

Annie was crying openly now. Jeff sensed they were becoming the center of attention, and it occurred to him that he ought to do something to prevent people from getting the wrong idea. He stood, and stepped around the table. Taking her hands in his, he gently turned her in her seat so she was facing him, and knelt in front of her. "Annie, I ... I don't want to say the words until I'm putting the ring on your finger, but ... would you like to visit some jewelry stores while we're here in Amsterdam?"

Her response was to fling her arms around his neck and sob even harder into his shoulder. He decided to take that as a yes.

Jeff squeezed himself into yet another coach seat for the first leg of his flight back to the United States. The route Annie had planned for him required him first to take a train to Dusseldorf, from where he would fly to New York, where he would catch a flight on another airline to Boston and thence to Denver, where Annie would be waiting for him at the airport. It was inconvenient, but cost almost fifteen hundred dollars less than his last-minute trip to Amsterdam. He closed his eyes, picturing the diamond ring he and Annie had picked out together, and how it beautiful it looked on her finger, and fell asleep.

He never slept better.

The End