Hey everyone! I'm sorry I've taken so long to update, but I started on a couple other stories that started to distract me from this one! I think I'll be attempting to update this one more often now seeing as I'm on the last couple chapters of everything else. I think I'm going to end up making this a future-fic in either the next chapters or two from now. Who knows? I might not! But personally, I've always been curious about what the dynamics of the study group would be like years after their time spent at GCC. Anyways, thank you for all your lovely comments and enjoy!

He had started to notice the little things above anything else.

How wide her eyes opened when something interested her.

The scent of her shampoo that lingered in the hall whenever she finished showering.

How nurturing and affectionate she really was towards them.

Troy had managed to push aside any jealousy that he felt about Jeff and Annie, but he wasn't able to ignore any of the lingering feelings that she had planted in him. Living with her wasn't making it any easier either. Recently, they had started studying for biology mid-terms together and while he knew better,

He just couldn't stop himself.

He couldn't avoid contact with her unless absolutely necessary.

He couldn't help but comfort her whenever she got into a fight with Jeff.

He also couldn't stop himself from finding any excuse to make her smile.

It was obvious that Abed had started to notice some of these feelings and while his best friend was more of a detailed observer than a problem solver, he had spoken up and made his observations clear.

"You need to be careful. I don't think either you or Jeff should be making things difficult for her. She's recently started applying for graduate schools in New York and I don't think you want to be one of the reasons she doesn't make it out of here. Either that, or she'll choose Jeff and hurt you."

Those words echoed in his head and made being near her impossible.

They had always known that Annie was hell-bent on leaving Colorado.

If anything, her and Abed would be the only ones that ever did.

But how do you reconcile your feelings for someone that you can't avoid spending time with?

"Is everything okay Troy? You don't seem to be getting much studying done."

"Yeah, I've just got a lot on mind tonight. The words on the page seems to blurring together."

She placed her purple pen down and smiled at her roommate, comfortingly.

"Oh, I remember that feeling. I used to get that a lot during high school, actually. With the pressure of getting to an top ivy-league school over my head and dealing my crush on you and my break-up, Adderall was a welcomed relief from all of that. Well… for a bit, 'til that glass plate incident."

"Wait, Annie. Did I cause you to start taking that stuff? 'Cause if for one second I ever made you feel that bad, I don't think I could be able to live with myself."

"No no no! Don't get the wrong idea. The fact that I got addicted to Adderall was not your fault at all. You didn't even know that I existed! How could you even think that I blamed you even the slightest?"

He casually glanced over to her hand that had now found his way onto his.

"It was more so the stress of everything finally getting to me and I needed a quick way out."

She looked into his eyes reassuringly, searching for any signs of relief so as to ease both of their elevated nerves. Could she blame their nerves or perhaps was it the signs of something else igniting slowly but surely?

Pulling her hand away and tossing any of these thoughts, she grabbed her pen and continued forth,

"Well, we should get back to studying. This test is making really nervous all of sudden."

Disappointingly, Troy nodded as he attempted to place his focus back on his school work, unaware that every so often, Annie continued to glance his way.

"Abed?"

"Yeah, Troy?

"What the hell am I going to do?"

Covering his face with his hands, he grunted fairly loudly. He didn't need to say anything because he was sure that Abed already knew what was bound to happen.

"I really don't know. She's not going to be moving out though, that's for sure. I actually like having her around."

"That's not even on the table for discussion. I just need to stop feeling anything before it starts. I don't want to mess this up for us and could you imagine if Jeff finds out? He'd kill me and I'd like to live 'til graduation."

Abed stared at the roof of their blanket fort room and chose his words wisely. Troy didn't respond well to preachiness, so he would avoid that tone in anyway. But he also didn't want to come off as being fortune-cookieish, so he couldn't be too forth telling on what could actually occur if Troy's feelings grew.

"Interesting. This is very much like season 3 of Dawson's Creek. Pacey felt guilty for liking Joey as much as he did because of her history with Dawson. He attempted to hide this for the sake of his friendship with Dawson, but eventually gave in and what he thought was going to happen actually did."

"That isn't really comforting, Abed."

"I was going to say that the positive was that he eventually did get the girl. Even the writers saw it and at the end of the series, she ended up with Pacey."

"You've been watching too much of this show."

"You can blame your Joey Potter for making me marathon it with her."