Missing moment from Epidemiology

VI: Save

He sees a flash of red out of the corner of his eye and Jeff turns to watch Annie making her way down the steps of the library amidst the still lingering chaos of paramedics and confused students. She glances around, lifting her hood back over her head and starts walking briskly down the tree-lined pathway toward the back parking lot, the red cape fluttering around her.

It's late, way past midnight, there's clearly some kind of ruffie-wielding psycho on the loose and these thoughts are racing through Jeff's mind as he tugs on his jacket and jogs after her.

"Annie! Wait up!"

She spins around at the sound of his voice, eyes wide and her basket clutched to her chest.

"Oh," she breathes, "It's just you."

"Well, I'm flattered."

Annie unclenches and smiles weakly, peering around him and eyeing the library with distrust, "This place is kind of giving me the creeps right now."

Jeff nods, "I'm pretty sure that's the new Greendale motto."

She leans in close, whispering, "Jeff, this wasn't Pierce on an acid trip building a chair fort. This was really weird."

He shrugs, "On the CRAZY scale of 1 to Greendale? I'd still only give this about a 6."

"Jeff!"

"Although, I do have some questions about what happened to my jacket."

Annie just stares at him.

"It's doesn't fit right." He rolls his shoulders. "It's stretched out or something. And this is a-"

"Six-thousand dollar suit. WE KNOW." She lets out a noise of exasperation and starts walking away. "Can't you take anything seriously?"

He cocks his head to the side, squinting after her. After a moment he follows, catching up to her in only a few strides.

"Annie, I have what appears to be a human bite mark on my neck. Sometimes these things are better left a mystery."

"But one of our classmates might have done this! Someone we see every day!"

Jeff grimaces. "Okay, first? Please don't use the word classmate. Second, you really want to know? Let's think about this. Clearly it was someone who has access to drugs right? Someone who knows what he's doing well enough to take out an entire party? Someone who was very helpful, overly helpful even, in aiding the paramedics in there..."

Annie narrows her eyes as Jeff taps his finger against his chin.

"Someone like a DOCTOR maybe?"

"Rich did NOT ruffie us!"

"Hey. I didn't say it was Dr. McDouchey. YOU inferred it from all the evidence."

They reach Annie's car and she spins around to face him. "Well, I think it was Chang."

"What's your proof?"

She looks incredulous, "It's CHANG."

"Okay. It's hard to argue with that. Chang's insane enough to do it. But how?"

Annie unlocks her car door and tosses the basket inside. "It wasn't Rich."

"You know, now that I think about it, this makes a lot of sense. And I don't recall seeing any bite marks on him."

"Ha! He had one on his leg. So there."

Jeff snorts and looks away. "Too bad it wasn't on his face." And then he instinctively twists away as she swats at his arm.

"WHAT is wrong with you? What do you really have against him?"

"Besides the fact that he's practically the poster child for wannabe serial killers?"

Annie crosses her arms over her chest, looking annoyingly smug. "You really can't handle not being the coolest guy on campus can you?"

"He is absolutely NOT cooler than... Jesus Annie." He grabs her hand to tug her arm up to the light, noticing for the first time the angry red marks all down her forearms. She tries to pull away but he holds on to her. "What the hell?"

"Ohhhhh, I thought it wasn't a big deal," she smirks at him.

Jeff rolls his eyes and coasts his thumb along one of the marks at her wrist. Annie inhales sharply.

"Does it hurt?" And he hates the tone in his voice, tries to bite it back quickly but he can't help the sudden surge of protectiveness that makes his jaw clench. And there's a little bit of guilt there too, which is weird because it's not like he was the one trying to make a snack out of the ridiculously soft flesh of her inner arm.

She hasn't said anything and Jeff looks up, afraid she's going to be crying in pain or something. She's not; but what he sees is almost worse.

Her eyes are downcast, watching the back and forth path his thumb makes along her skin and even in the darkness he can see the pink flush rising up her neck and into her face. When he stills his movement her eyes flicker up to his and hold, dark and intent.

He registers briefly that they're alone in a dimly lit parking lot and oh, there's that guilt again, but above all that, drowning out the perpetual voice screaming bad idea, bad idea, is an intensely burning curiosity that he suddenly can't ignore. He tightens the grip on her wrist, his thumb moving higher.

"Does it hurt?" he repeats.

She blinks at him, then nods once. "The paramedics suggested getting a tetanus shot tomorrow." Her voice is soft and distant as his hand moves higher.

"That's probably a good idea."

"Mmmhmm."

He reaches the inside of her elbow, fingers slipping under the cuff of her shirt where the bite marks stop and it's just smooth, pale skin.

"You're okay getting home tonight?"

"What?" Annie's head is titled back enough that the red hood starts to slide down and off. He can see her pulse beating rapidly in her throat and she's beginning to look a little dazed, eyes heavy-lidded as if he's already pushed her up against the car and kissed her senseless. He's abruptly aware of how close she is, that he's drawing her into him by almost imperceptible increments.

"Um. Yeah," She's nodding but he can't remember the question and his fingers are sliding back down her arm, down over her palm, tracing in a circular pattern that makes her fingers twitch and curl inward.

"I…" Her voice trembles. "You didn't have to walk me to my car."

Jeff grins and leans in, "Someone's got to protect you from the big bad wolf." His voice gets low and throaty there at the end in a way that makes Annie's eyes flicker down to his mouth and it's then that Jeff realizes that he's completely fucked.

He watches her without moving, his hand still around her wrist and clearly he should have had a game plan for how far he was going to let this go because she's not pulling away and in about four seconds he's pretty sure he won't be able to either.

Annie's eyes focus as she seems to make a decision. Her hand at his chest, and he doesn't even remember when it ended up there, starts sliding up, fingertips trailing gently along the bandage at his neck and up against the scrape of the stubble at his jaw. She cups his cheek, eyes searching his face curiously.

Jeff's breath catches in his throat and stays there and he's pretty sure he's going to pass out soon from lack of oxygen. He's not… this is not supposed to catch him so off guard. This is nothing new for him - seduction, the touch of a woman's skin, the exploration of an unfamiliar body - but this is Annie and she keeps confounding everything.

Her thumb brushes the corner of his mouth, is just starting to trace down along his lower lip when suddenly there's a loud crashing noise from the other side of the parking lot. They jump away from each other, Annie with her hand pressed to her throat. A drunken cluster of students standing near a fallen metal trashcan laughs raucously, kicking at scattered pieces of trash.

"Um."

Their eyes meet and Annie smiles, a little bemusedly and then they're both laughing. It's a relief and in that second his lungs are filling with air Jeff comes to the conclusion that maybe he's had it all wrong.

This entire time he's somehow been convinced he's had only two choices. Jump headfirst into whatever this is and inevitably fuck it up. Or. Push her away as hard and as often as possible – an option that was never going to really work because, well, he's tried it. And she's still here. They're still here.

But maybe there's this other middle ground. A middle ground that's not going to end with either of them broken.

Annie's still giggling softly.

"Yeaaaaaah," Jeff says and he feels like he's agreeing to something neither of them actually voiced. She smiles at him and he reaches up to tug one of her ponytails, "Stay safe Red."

"Good night Jeff." She gets in her car and he backs away, kicking playfully at the rear tire as she pulls out of the spot and drives off with a little wave.

The parking lot is left eerily quiet, the drunken crowd having moved off to vandalize another trashcan no doubt so when a nearby bush begins to shake, leaves rustling noisily against each other, Jeff almost jumps out of his skin.

"Hello?"

No one answers but the noise continues and Jeff's about ready to bolt when there's a loud howling screech and a skinny orange cat comes flying out of the bushes and streaking across the parking lot in a flash of fur and guttural hisses. It disappears into the night and Jeff looks up at the sky, laughing at himself.

"It was just a cat. It was just a cat."

What is this school turning him into?