Title: The Song Remains the Same
Pairing: Jeff/Annie
Rating: PG
Length: 3,081
Summary: It's like deja vu on steroids. The other timelines begin to seep into Annie's subconscious.
Timing/Spoilers: Takes place after "Remedial Chaos Theory." Spoilers for all timelines in that ep - that's kind of the point.
Author's Note: I own nothing but a deep devotion to Community and Dan Harmon. And some very nice Fiesta Ware.

It's like déjà vu on steroids.

The first time it happens she's late to Biology class. Well not late, exactly, but late for her because Annie normally gets to class five minutes before it starts. She always saves a stool for everyone so that they can all sit together and she puts one of her extra pens down in front of Britta's seat, because the blonde has new highlighters and a backpack but she still forgets her pen every single time. Then she smoothes down her skirt to wait patiently for everyone else to arrive.

But that morning when Annie bursts breathlessly through the door wearing jeans (jeans) with her hair thrown up into a careless ponytail, everyone is already perched on their stools waiting for her (her). Annie ignores the way that Shirley purses her lips with concern and the way that Abed tilts his head to the side in curiosity, and plops down next to Jeff.

"Everything okay Edison?" he asks under his breath.

Annie frantically pulls a notebook, highlighter and two pens out of her backpack. "What? Oh yeah -" she tries to chirp, but a massive yawn bubbles up from somewhere deep inside of her so the 'yeahhhhhh' drags on longer than she intended it to. "I just didn't get much sleep, that's all."

He sucks in a sharp, audible breath and Annie shakes her head quickly. "Oh God, Jeff, not like that."

"I wasn't -" he protests (and even though Annie only got two hours of sleep, she knows that he totally was). Then he just sighs and slides his coffee towards her. "Okay. Why didn't you get any sleep?"

"It's nothing." She flips open the notebook to a fresh page, trying to ignore the way that Jeff narrows his eyes at her. "Someone in my building has apparently been running a meth lab and police showed up to bust him at 2am," Annie shrugs, placing the two pens on the right side of the notebook and the highlighter on the left side. Just like always.

"What?" She doesn't have to look at Jeff to know that he has dropped his chin down and widened his eyes in disbelief.

"It's no big deal." She takes a sip of his coffee so that she doesn't have to watch him watch her. It's kind of, definitely, a very big deal and even she can't muster up a positive attitude about this one.

Jeff just shakes his head and levels her with one of his no nonsense lawyer looks. "You gotta get the hell out of that apartment, Annie," he says, his voice more gentle than his stare.

And that's when it hits her. Like déjà vu but somehow much more magnified. It's déjà vu with sights (the back of Jeff's neck in a bathroom mirror) and sounds (Troy's high-pitched wail) and smells (Shirley's burnt pies). It's crystal clear, but also impossibly hazy.

"Annie? Did you hear what I said?" Jeff asks again.

"Yeah, I -" Annie blinks her eyes rapidly and just like that the shadows of memories have all flitted away. She must be even more tired than she thought. "Abed and Troy asked me to move in with them at the party last weekend."

A weird, conflicted look crosses Jeff's face for a split second before he puts back on his usual mask of indifference. But that brief glimpse is enough for Annie. He's relieved she's moving, but annoyed that he wasn't the one to come up with the solution. For all the ways that Jeff tries to keep his distance, he can be so darn easy to read sometimes.

"I said I'd think it over," Annie says after a moment. "But I think you're right. I'm going to say yes."

Jeff is fiddling with his phone, but she thinks she sees a hint of satisfaction cross his face. "That's good. I'm glad you're getting out of that hellhole."

"Me too."

Annie yawns again and when she opens her eyes Jeff is watching her with an unreadable expression. She opens her mouth to say something, but right then Professor Kane comes out of his office and just like that they're learning about how prison gangs are the perfect real-life example of Darwin's survival of the fittest tenet.

Annie swipes her thumb over the lid of the coffee to wipe away the shiny pink stain of her lip gloss and slides the cup back towards Jeff. He shakes his head and slides it right back to her. "You need it more than I do," he shrugs.

Their fingertips touch as she takes the cup back from him, and Annie tells herself that the stupid grin tugging at the corners of her mouth is just the result of sleep-deprived delirium.

It happens again a few days later.

They've been sitting in the study room for a full hour without getting any actual studying done, which is not totally uncommon for them but Annie's not in the mood for it today. Because Biology is already way, way harder than Anthropology ever was (there will be no diorama finals this time) and she's starting to feel that twitch behind her eyes again - the twitch that used to mean pills but she's fine, she's totally fine, they just need to start studying, that's all. She's fine.

But Shirley is busy trying to convince Britta to knit a hat for Ben's Halloween costume and Jeff's pretending to text (but she knows he's just playing Angry Birds) and Troy and Abed are discussing the latest Dark Knight movie and whether Anne Hathaway will make a good Catwoman. Suddenly Pierce gets that sly smirk on his face that lets you know he's about to say something inappropriate in 5…4…3…2…1…

"Did you know that I once had sex with Eartha Kitt in an airplane bathroom -?"

"Yes, you've told us like a million times Pierce!" Annie finally explodes, her voice shrill. It's only when everyone turns to look at her that she realizes that she's also slammed her fists against the study room table. "I mean, we have." They all keep staring at her and Annie falters. "Haven't we?"

Everyone is silent for a few seconds before Troy asks "Who is Eartha Kitt?" just as Abed says, "Was this before or after she took over the role of Catwoman for Julie Newmar on the Batman TV show -?"

"Guys!" Jeff interrupts, sliding his phone into his pocket with a sideways glance at Annie. "I think maybe we should start studying."

And because he's Jeff and he's their leader even when he doesn't mean to be, it works. Shirley nods her head in agreement while Britta uncaps a highlighter, and within a matter of seconds they've all got their textbooks open to Chapter 3 (Photosynthesis) and Pierce is reading the chapter review questions out loud.

Annie takes a deep, steadying breath and tries to focus on the page in front of her. Then she lifts her eyes to meet Jeff's gaze and mouths the words, "Thank you."

They end up going to L Street (or is it The Red Door, Annie can never quite remember how that argument shook out) after their first Biology test.

Jeff and Britta get way too drunk, which is to be expected. They aren't secretly having sex anymore, but they still fight like cats and dogs. Some things change, but some things will always be the same. Annie idly thinks that she wouldn't like it if she slept with someone for months and came out of it exactly the same person. She likes to think that sort of thing would change her - make her grow or something.

She's only half-listening to the conversation so she doesn't hear what Jeff says, but it must have been a doozy because suddenly Britta's flinging a coaster at him. And Annie wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it with her very own eyes, but the little cardboard coaster actually manages to cut his forehead. Well, it's more of a flesh wound than an actual cut, but there's definitely an impossibly thin red line hanging over Jeff's left eyebrow that wasn't there a minute ago.

In the chaos of Shirley screaming and Pierce talking about "that time of the month" and Troy grabbing Britta by the arm to drag her towards the bar, Annie pulls a band-aid out of her purse.

"You carry around band-aids?" Jeff slurs, but he's laughing like ofcourse she carries band-aids for just such projectile coaster injuries.

Annie smiles and tears open the thin paper wrapping. "I never know when one of you is going to maim yourself." She glances over at Britta, who does look kind of sorry for what she did as she takes a swig from Abed's beer. "Or someone else."

Jeff closes his eyes as she presses the band-aid onto his forehead, carefully smoothing it down with her fingertips. "You make a good nurse," he says quietly, and Annie feels a strange sort of fluttering in her stomach. She takes a deep breath to stop herself from counting his eyelashes as they fan out against his cheek.

"That's what I wanted to be, you know," she says suddenly. "Before."

"Before," he repeats, and they both know what 'before' means. Annie doesn't like to remember the time when everything - glass, grades, dreams - came apart. Because now she's got friends and classes and new dreams and she's mostly back together. But sometimes she thinks about it all the same.

"Yeah, I - I wanted to be a doctor."

Jeff opens his eyes to look at her. "Why did you want to be a doctor?"

"Because that's what every over-achieving high school student wants to be," Annie shrugs. "It's the profession for perfectionists."

"And what do you want to be now?" he asks, tilting his head to the side.

Annie thinks about it for a long time. She's still got her fingertips pressed against his forehead and she thinks she can feel the blood pulsing underneath his skin with a rat-ta-tat-tat beat. The rhythm of it somehow soothes her.

"I don't know," she finally says. The words feel strange and delicious on her tongue. "I guess I'm still figuring out what I really want."

"You can be whatever you want to be, Annie." She moves to look down at her lap but he's already tilting her chin up with a finger, his eyes trained intently on hers. "No, I mean it. Not in that 'everyone is a special flower and we're all amazing and isn't it just great that we all get participations trophies' kind of way. You, Annie Edison. You'll be great at whatever you decide to do."

She doesn't blush or duck her head this time. Instead she leans in and plants a soft kiss against the stubble of his jaw.

"Thanks Jeff," she whispers into his skin. She can feel his smile against the side of her cheek and it makes her stomach do that fluttery thing again.

"So am I all better?" he whispers into her ear.

She pulls back and puts on her best smart, fancy doctor face to examine him. "You'll live," she decides and it delights her when he laughs.

"Guys?" Abed interrupts, suddenly standing directly over Jeff's shoulder. Annie pulls back and Jeff scoots away so quickly he almost falls out of his chair.

"I was just -"

"My head got -"

Abed cuts them off. "We have to leave. Britta and Pierce started a bar fight."

Annie cranes her neck around to look and yep, Pierce is holding a bar stool above his head and Britta has someone in a headlock.

"Why does this always happen to us?" Jeff grumbles underneath his breath.

Shirley makes them a cake in the shape of a cell and brings it to their study session one day. It's got gobs of frosting, jelly bean mitochondria, a licorice Golgi body, sprinkle ribosomes, a cookie nucleus and it looks so delicious. But Jeff's giving them all a stern glare (theyhadapact-rememberthepact) so no one touches it. Not even Troy, who might actually be salivating all over the study room table.

"I'm not hungry," Annie protests half-heartedly when Shirley offers to cut her a piece. She goes around the table but they've each got an excuse ready.

"I'm trying this new gluten free thing."

"I can't have any sweets."

"Cake gives me gas."

"I don't eat foods that are in the shape of non-food items."

"Jeff told us that we can't eat any more of your baking."

"Abed!"

They all shout at him, but Abed just shrugs. "What? That's the reason."

Shirley's stares down at the beautiful cell cake and her bottom lip starts to quiver just the slightest bit, so Jeff jumps in.

"You bake too much," he explains. "This is a baking intervention."

"But I like baking. I'm good at baking…"

"You can't have baking as a thing," Jeff continues, undeterred. "Right guys?"

They all nod their heads half-heartedly, but Troy's still staring at the cake and Britta is toying with one of the plastic forks that Shirley brought and even Annie is starting to wonder whether there's vanilla or chocolate cake hidden under that delicious looking frosting.

"I can't have baking as a thing?" Shirley's voice drops into that low, scary place and they all know what that means. Uhoh.

"Well…"

"I'm sorry I'm a grown ass woman with a family, Jeffrey. I'm sorry I don't spend all my time making googly eyes at everyone else in the group."

"Googly eyes?" Jeff tries to scoff, but Shirley cuts him off.

"Yes, googly eyes! Don't think I don't see you -"

A high-pitched giggle escapes from Annie's mouth before she can stop it, which makes everyone - including Jeff and Shirley - turn to look at her. She throws a hand over her mouth but another squeal squeaks out anyway.

"I'm sorry, I just…" But instead of dying down, the giggles just keep coming. Maybe it's the googly eyes or the Golgi body or the fact that they always fight about the silliest stuff, but suddenly Annie is laughing and laughing and laughing. She's laughing so hard that her cheeks hurt and her stomach aches, but she doesn't care because after a minute everyone else is laughing with her. First Troy starts to chuckle, then Britta, then Pierce. Next comes Abed, followed by a reluctant Shirley, and finally an incredulous Jeff. They laugh wildly even though they have no idea what the joke is. Even though Annie doesn't quite know what the joke is, really.

"What's so funny?" Troy finally gasps between fits of giggles.

"I have no idea," Pierce says. "But I do know one thing. I am going to have a piece of this cake."

"Me too!" Annie agrees, her body still shaking with laughter.

Jeff opens his mouth to protest but shuts it when he looks around the table. "Fine," he says, throwing his hands up in the air. "But I want a piece of the nucleus."

Shirley claps her hands with glee and it makes them all dissolve into giggles again.

He's walking her to her car when it happens.

It's late and they've just finished studying for the Bio midterm tomorrow. Annie's been ready for the test for days, but she stayed to help everyone else (she likes it when they need her).

She's telling him some longwinded story about Annie Kim stealing another one of her ideas (Greendale Mathletes) when she catches Jeff suppressing a yawn out of the corner of her eyes.

"I'm sorry, this story is boring. You probably don't care."

"What? No, I like this story," he protests. "I'm just tired. But keep going - what did Professor Cligoris say?"

Annie waves her hand in front of her. "It's no big deal, we can talk about something else if you want."

"Why would I want to talk about something else?"

She fiddles with the straps of her backpack. "I don't know. Maybe you don't want to hear about every tiny detail of my day."

"I like hearing about your day," Jeff is smiling but there's something else in his expression. Something deeper.

"I just -"

"You're very important to me." He looks almost surprised that he said the words out loud. "You're very important to me, Annie," he repeats after a moment, his voice more sure.

Maybe it's the words or the way he says them. Or maybe it's the fact that he's Jeff and she's Annie and even when they're with everyone else, it feels a little like it's just the two of them. Maybe it's all of those things. Maybe it's none of them. But something about the moment makes Annie pause - makes her stop short.

When Jeff realizes that she's not walking with him anymore he turns around. "Annie?"

It takes three steps to close the distance between them and just like that she's pressing her lips against his.

It feels like the other times, but also nothing like them at all. Jeff's hands are at her waist and she's holding his face in her hands and it feels terribly important but also impossibly simple. Like she was always meant to end up here, she just got a little turned around along the way.

She can smell his aftershave and something about the sharp, tangy smell reminds her of the way her father used to hug her goodbye in the mornings before he went to work. She almost tells Jeff that - she pulls back from the kiss and the words are perched on the tip of her tongue - but Annie stops herself. Because Jeff stopped calling her kiddo months ago and he's kissing her back and sometimes growing up means knowing what not to say. So instead Annie threads her fingers through his hair and pulls him down for another kiss.

She pulls away first and they stare at each other for a moment that seems to stretch on infinitely.

"You - you taste like bubble gum," Jeff finally whispers.

Annie is hesitant. "It's my lip gloss…"

Jeff brings his hand up to her face and gently rubs his thumb against her bottom lip. His eyes are warm as a slow smile blossoms across his face.

"I like it."

This time, he kisses her.