Protection

When Pierce announced he needed to take a big dump, Jeff called for a nurse and decided he needed a break. As he walked toward the vending machines he saw Abed sitting in the waiting area, furiously writing in his notebook.

Taking a seat next to him he said simply, "You're early."

Abed looked up and noticed him for the first time. "Yeah," he answered, "gives me time to map out my editing strategy for the documentary."

When Jeff just nodded, Abed asked, "How's Pierce?"

"He's still a complete douche, which I guess means he's going to be fine."

"Cool, cool, cool," he replied. After a few moments of silence he turned his face to Jeff. "You protected Annie yesterday."

"I did what now?" Jeff asked quizzically.

"When the nurse called Annie to get her bequeathed gift, you wouldn't let her go in," Abed explained. "You were protecting her from Pierce's head games."

"I was protecting the group," he scoffed as nonchalantly as he could. "I thought I could get Pierce to listen to reason and leave the rest of you alone."

Abed shook his head then pointed his finger at his friend. "If that were true, you would have done something after Shirley, because it was obvious with her gift that Pierce was messing with everyone. But you let Britta go in. You only intervened when it was Annie's turn."

Jeff thought for a minute, looking for a good response, but didn't find any. He remembered feeling Annie's whole body tense up beside him when the nurse had called her name; how frightened she had looked. What else could he do?

But he wasn't about to say that, so he settled for, "It's a good thing you don't have a camera in my face right now, Abed."

"It's okay, she protected you, too," was the reply he got.

"When did you decide to start talking in riddles?"

Abed explained, "After your blow up in the hallway yesterday, Annie came to me and asked me not to include that footage in the documentary. She said, 'Jeff's dealing with his father is a serious thing, so please don't trivialize it or exploit him.'"

Jeff was clearly taken aback. "Wow, she did that?" He thought she was too caught up in her tiara torture to pay much attention to his freaking out. A small smile formed on his lips as he pictured her using her most formidable face on the filmmaker.

"Yeah, she did," Abed answered, "so I'm not using a lot of the footage. It would make for a better movie, but Annie suggested that friendship trumps a quality film, at least when it's just something I'm doing for Pierce."

"I've always said Annie's the smartest person in this group," Jeff noted, to which Abed nodded his head. After a few beats Jeff gave him a pointed glare. "You're not planning to use this protection thing as a part of the movie, are you?"

Abed looked directly at him, clearly unfazed by the threatening stare. "I thought a side romance might add something, but there isn't going to be enough time for it. Besides, Troy's freak out over meeting LeVar Burton is much more interesting footage."

Jeff had never been happier to be boring. "Great. So, this conversation is going to stay between us, too, right?"

"Don't worry, Jeff. I won't tell anybody that you and Annie protected each other, so no one will sit around wondering what that means," he said. "Besides, it will all come out eventually, with or without my help."

Before he could comment, the alarm on Abed's watch went off. Abed silenced the beep, closed his notebook and tucked the pen into the spiral wire. "It's time for my shift," he noted as he stood up. "Later, Jeff."

Over the last 24 hours, Jeff felt like he had been picked up and tossed into a tornado, and was now being unceremoniously dumped on his ass. Shaking his head, he called out, "Bye, Abed," to the fleeting form of his friend.

He sat there for a few minutes longer, thinking about Pierce's head games, his dad and his friends: how they had each, in their own way, been there for him yesterday.

He pulled out his phone and typed out a text: "Thanks for having my back with Abed re: the movie."

A response came in a few seconds later: "He told you?"

A minute later came a second text: "You're welcome. Let's not tell anybody, ok? I don't want people to think Abed comprised his artistic integrity."

Jeff laughed as he left the hospital and walked to his car, wondering how she managed such a lengthy text while sitting in the front row of her Calculus class. The smile vanished, though, as he realized it was him that she was protecting again, not Abed.

After he buckled in his seat belt he stared at his phone for a few seconds before finally typing in: "Our secret, but you've earned a latte and a muffin. About to drive; see u tomorrow."

The only response he got was a smiley face because she didn't want to distract him on the road.

If he thought too much about it, the idea of Annie protecting him just might freak him out. But at this moment, after everything that had happened in the last 24 hours, it felt pretty damn good.