Summary: House-guest is being charitable. Every morning Britta reminds herself: this is temporary. Like they only ever were. (Season 3 AU)

Author's Notes: I seem to be one of those Community fans who is doing it wrong: I didn't like Season 3, especially the direction Britta's character took or the way the group treated her. Although some canon events will be referenced up to "Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism", assume this fic takes a sharp left in early November.

Accident

Britta's not surprised at being ignored. It's two in the morning in the middle of a blizzard, and the waiting room behind her breathes and sweats and coughs as one huge, germy, parka-clad mass. The triage nurse doesn't even listen to what she says, simply thrusting a clipboard beneath her nose and ordering her to the back of the line.

Her weapons are limited: ducky pajama pants, a baggy red turtleneck, a pair of faded Birkenstocks over neon orange socks. Her hair is pressed down flat beneath a black wool cap, and she's pretty sure half her face is marked with red lines from the pillow.

"Um, there's a mistake," she tells the nurse. "I got a call. I'm here to pick someone up?"

"Who?" says the nurse, scratching his patchy mustache.

"Jeff Winger?"

Rich finds her in the crowd—she sees the brief mirage of a banana as he reintroduces himself, smiling way too wide.

"I hope this is okay," he says, leading her past a corridor of dark, curtained rooms. "You were the first actual name in his phone, and Greendale's closed."

"Yeah, it's—whatever," she says. The yawn wins out over the sigh. "What happened? How come you're here?"

"Just the right place at the right time, I guess," Rich grins. "I saw the accident happen and called the paramedics."

Jeff's room is at the end of the hall, the only light after the nurses' station. He is awake, sort of.

"Hey, Britta!" he slurs, lifting his arm and immediately tangling his IV and pulse monitor. "What's up, buddy?"

She suppresses a laugh.

"Hey, hey, buddy, come here."

She obliges, taking one of his wandering hands while Rich fixes the lines. Despite an inability to focus, Jeff's serious gaze manages to find hers once or twice.

"Tell me the truth," he says gravely. "How is my face?"

Swollen is the first thing she thinks: skin reddish with marks that will become ugly bruises tomorrow, and tiny cuts spiraling from his nose to just beneath his hairline.

"It...looks fine. Great, even."

"Liar," he accuses, and his eyes well up. "I'm ugly now."

"That's the Vicodin," Rich assures her.

She gently sets Jeff's hand back beneath the blanket and takes the chair Rich offers. Jeff's left leg is wrapped in a blue cast from the knee down, and his toes curl weakly.

"It's just a simple fracture," Rich explains. "He'll have it off in a few weeks, and that bruising should clear right up."

"I'm sure he'll find that comforting. When can we go?"

"Are you sure it's not an inconvenience? I mean, he could stay with me for tonight."

Britta just stares, willing her irritation to manifest as powerful eye lasers which could burn Rich to the ground.

"No," she says shortly. "I'm already here, awake, in the middle of the night. He can stay at my place."

"What about my place?" Jeff says, trying to wiggle his eyebrows suggestively. He ends up in the neighborhood of nauseous and brings an unsteady hand to his mouth.

"Elevators are for the weak, remember? And you live on the fourth floor."

She dozes off while Rich expedites an exit, but comes to just in time to keep Jeff from a painful face-plant. He's too tall to use her as a crutch, so she trails behind with a bag of his bloodied clothes spilling from her purse. The long, cold walk to her car is punctuated by inane pottery chatter. Rich helps Jeff fold into her backseat and produces a shovel so suddenly Britta can only assume it was hiding up his ass. She presses her blanched fingers to the vents as he cheerily tunnels them to the edge of the parking lot.

Jeff has sobered considerably when they reach her place. He pulls himself out of the car and up the curb without complaint, but his face is pale and his lips are pressed thin beneath a sheen of sweat.

"Sorry, sorry," she mutters, struggling with her keys. He shakes his head in weak protest and leans heavily against the wall. The door clatters open at last, and he pushes past her for the bathroom. It's just as frigid and disordered as when she left three hours ago. Her cats uncurl from beneath the blankets and mewl for food as she counts out Jeff's painkillers and fills the kettle.

"Wash your hands," she reminds him through the door. "Are you hungry?"

He looks only slightly better on his return and sits shakily at her table.

"No," he says. "Just sleepy. I'll take the couch."

"I don't have enough blankets," she confesses. "I sleep in the nest."

She gestures, and he turns—the mess of pillows and blankets spread in front of the TV is deliberate, sort of, a semicircle of crappy quilts and linty wool into which the cats have dug small hollows.

"Still?"

"Food or heat. I put the mattress under there this year."

Britta sets out the cat food while Jeff arranges the nest. He gives up on pulling the blanket over his exposed toes and leans his head back to watch her rush around upside down. It's five o'clock.

"Come sleep," he says. "I'll buy you breakfast before class."

"It's still Sunday, Jeff."

"Even better. We'll sleep in."

He stretches out a hand as she flits back and forth behind the couch, collecting the scattered essentials.

"Hurry. I'm losing residual heat."

"Just go to sleep, Jeff. I'll stop by your place and get you some clothes."

"Aren't you going to sleep?"

She grimaces into the bathroom mirror.

"I've got work in an hour. Look, I'm gonna take a shower. I'll try to be quiet."

She takes ten minutes—shampoo only, shaves just her underarms, and washes her face with hand soap. She's more likely to frost than air dry, so she towels her skin bright red and winces as she pulls on the nondescript uniform that bags up under her breasts and pinches her hips.

Jeff wakes himself with effort on her reemergence.

"When'll you get back?"

"Um, later, I guess?"

She combs her hair with still-damp fingers in the microwave's reflection.

"You'll be fine, Jeff. Just sleep."

Her job is an hour's drive, and she's one of three that made it. Ten hours of cleaning rooms and sanitizing dishes and shuffling trash down endless corridors, listening quietly to her radio, hunched, face hidden by a slowly loosening braid. At lunch she sits alone, picking at a brown salad. The TV is a blur, so she squints, but it's the expected apocalypse montage: monumental snowfall, record cold, interstate salted, plows stuck in parking lots.

She writes up a brief log for Rosa (creeper in 204, third's empty, watch the windows downstairs), and shuffles into her coat at four.

She can't really remember the drive back, but she makes it, somehow, waking up in her usual spot, which is cleared of snow by some miracle—or by Carlos, who waves from his front window as she trudges inside. She has no mail, as usual, and struggles again with her keys.

"Lemme get it!"

A crash, a thud, and a desperate clawing at the knob—she opens the door to find Jeff clinging onto the other side, grinning and unfocused.

"Jesus, Jeff, did you hit the car with your face?"

"Very funny."

She helps him back to the couch and the imprint he's made over the day of discarded blankets and cracker crumbs. He's down to just boxers, skin dull and oily, and his hair flops tragically across his forehead.

"You stink," she says, sloughing off her coat and her painful shoes. "Did you eat?"

"Sort of."

"Crackers do not count."

"That's racist."

The familiar sights and sounds hit her all at once: bloodshot eyes, lazy half-smile, sated murmur, slow giggling.

"I swear to god, if all you left me are stems and seeds—"

She finds the empty bag hanging from the banana hook.

"You are a dead man, Winger."

"I'm sor-ry," he whines. "I woke up and took more painkiller and then threw up and couldn't eat and then I found your sugar bowl..."

"And only ate crackers."

She closes her face in both hands, breathing bleach and fruity air freshener.

"I have no food here. And I forgot to get your stuff."

"I really am sorry."

She opens her eyes and claps her hands once—something learned from her mother, a borrowed mnemonic which sends a brief spark of clarity down her spine.

"Okay. We'll get delivery, and I'll go to your place tomorrow after class. I might have some stuff here you can wear."

There's no might about it. She heads for her closet and the stash of his clothes from last year: some sweaters and shirts, underwear, a pair of artfully destroyed jeans. She even has one of his shoes tucked beneath her bed. He's mildly suspicious when she presents him with a plain white tshirt and blue boxers, but it's tamped down by sudden embarrassment.

"You don't have to do this," he mutters as she helps him to his feet, leads him to the bathroom, and sets him on the closed toilet.

"This is for me," she assures him. "You smell really bad."

He laughs, but still drapes a towel awkwardly over his lap before slipping out of his shorts. Britta finds a trash bag for his cast and bends down to tie it on.

"I think I can manage that part," he says sharply. She releases the bag and steps away, shoving her hands into her uniform pockets.

"Don't use all my shampoo," she warns and leaves him to it.

There's no reason to wait until the water's on, but she does, dialing only after she hears the whine of the shower. Chris answers on the second ring.

"Thank you for calling China House. How may I help you?"

"It's Britta."

"The usual?"

"Yeah. Extra mushrooms."

"Already? Fuck, Britta. Just...you know, do some fucking yoga or get a hobby or something."

"I had an unexpected house-guest, okay? And I actually want extra mushrooms, too."

"Fine. Give me forty. It's a fucking blizzard, you know?"

"I know," she says, but he's already hung up.

So next she fixes herself: carving clean pajamas from the ice cave that swallowed her bedroom, shaking out the nest, rearranging pillows, washing her face at the kitchen sink. She can't remember if Jeff ever took this long before, and feels stupid for standing at the door, listening through the crack.

"I'm okay," he calls. "Just a second."

She listens until she's satisfied that he's at least made it over the rim of the tub, and then retreats to the less stable of her two dining chairs. Jeff shuffles out, awkwardly juggling his crutches and a wet towel. She pretends to look up from a magazine lying open on the table.

"So," he says bracingly. "How was your day?"

"Just fine," she replies. "Yours?"

"Hazy."

She helps him into the other chair and returns the towel to the bathroom. Jeff is picking at the bag when she turns back.

"I tied it too tight," he pouts, and she frees him with an eye roll. "I would've gotten it."

"Uh-huh."

"Eventually."

A knock interrupts them.

"Fuck it's fucking cold!" Chris sings tunelessly. "So come open the fuck up!"

He brings along a flurry of snow, but their combined weight forces the door shut. Chris dusts himself off, shaking the bag.

"Ring, ring, dinner's here. Big romantic—"

He catches sight of Jeff, and his face wrinkles in disgust.

"You again," he says. "Thought you were done with this one, Britta."

"Yeah, I missed you, too."

"Your face is all fucked up."

"Be nice," Britta cuts in, reaching for her wallet. "What's the damage?"

"What do you have?"

Two twenties, a five, and a smattering of singles. It must show on her face, because Chris sighs.

"I'll spot you two weeks," he says. "Two weeks. That's it. Just give me twenty for the register."

"Thanks," Britta says quietly.

"Fucking mooch," he replies with affection. "Don't fuck him too hard. You'll break the other leg."

"Never nice to see you!" Jeff says, waving as Chris leaves.

While she deals with the plates and utensils, he sorts the food, spicing each container with his usual dismissive humor.

"Shut up, Jeff," she says. "Just eat your food. You're not puking in the nest."

She sets the carton of steamed mushrooms between two open textbooks, pulling her hair back into the usual loose braid. Jeff has arranged his food into quarters, sauce running in neat canals between oddly even portions of rice and vegetables. They each take a few bites before he breaks the silence. Compulsion, Britta thinks.

"So what, we're not going to have an awkward dinner conversation?"

She glances at him warily.

"Did we used to?"

"No, but there's no need to cling to tradition."

His weight shifts to both elbows, as he leans across the table.

"Abnormal Psychology by Thomas F. Oltmanns."

"That's what the title page says," Britta confirms shortly, taking her notebook from beneath his reaching hands.

"How's it going, by the way? You never seem to talk about it."

"It's..."

She quickly chews and swallows a mouthful, frowning.

"It's fine. It's going fine."

He nods, looking back to his plate.

"It's not what I thought it was going to be," she offers hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I want to help people, but psych's mostly research, and it turns out there's not a whole lot you can do without a PhD and..."

She shrugs, chancing quick glances up at Jeff's face, but he remains absorbed in the chop suey, picking across the valleys of his plate with chopsticks. He'd tried teaching her how to use them last year, but she could never get a grip on anything.

"So switch majors again."

"Again," Britta repeats. "Yeah, the group would love that. Well, Britta sucks at psychology—now she can go fail at something else. Maybe pre-med. Then she can kill somebody!"

"Definitely not an impressionist," Jeff says with a short laugh. "You really care what they think?"

"Um, you care. Why shouldn't I?"

But that's as deep as Jeff goes: he shovels the rest of his food into his mouth and retreats without ever looking up. He turns on public access to cover the silence and commentates the county board meeting with forced enthusiasm. When Britta gives up on her book, he makes a space for her under the blankets, and she hates how easily she fits beneath his arm.

They fall asleep like that, almost the way they used to, though she's careful of his leg. Jeff twists around her like an old cocoon, and the effort of extracting herself the next morning isn't worth the reward. She makes coffee and eats toast while leaning against the fridge, watching him.

Even in sleep he's guarded, gathering the blankets over his head and beneath his chin. The cats dig uselessly at the corners and huff, twitching their tails over his closed face. Britta scoops them away from his feet and then drags herself to the shower.

When she's done and dressed, he's awake at the table, shaking out her new supply onto a stretch of old newspaper.

"Is this going to become a problem?" she sighs. He's found the rolling papers as well and arranges the buds with ridiculous precision.

"Just one," he says. "You have no idea how shit I feel right now."

"Half," she warns, splitting the load over his protest and sweeping the rest back into the bag. "You want some toast?"

"In a minute."

He's a little conciliatory after lighting up.

"I'll let you have most," he nearly begs, passing the joint for a plate and a coffee mug. "I'm sorry. It just helps."

"It's okay. Just might have to ration it for awhile."

He's not in the mood for another day of convalescence, and of course the campus is open, so she borrows a pair of sweatpants from Carlos while Jeff's in the shower and then helps pull a few oversized socks onto his cast.

"It's not perfect," he grimaces, and then, off her look, "But it's better than nothing."

She makes him wait inside while she pulls the car around, and then gets out to open the door for him. He holds the crutches between his knees and hunches towards the heater while she clears a path through the snow.

"Isn't this a little early?" he whines, wincing as she slides in. "Wasn't it just October?"

"I guess."

They get to campus around ten, just in time for group, and Jeff struggles with the steps up to the library, breathing heavy. She stops with him at the top, hand hovering at his elbow, like she'd be able to stop it if he fell. His face does look all fucked-up, like Chris said, worse in the snow's reflected glare. Britta, unthinking, slips her fingers out of the gloves and sets her bare hand on Jeff's swollen cheek.

"My forehead's not that big, right?" he says, eyes closing, leaning into her hand.

"You might be up to a four-point-five," Britta replies lightly. "You okay? I could take you back."

"It's fine."

But he doesn't pull away, sighing instead, and she warms her hands against his skin.

When they get inside, she says nothing, helping him out of his jacket and folding it over her arm. His wallet and pills are already at the bottom of her bag.

Friends can touch each other, she thinks. Best friends probably touch each other's faces. She can use Troy and Abed as an excuse, at least.

They reach the study room and are immediately swarmed. Jeff deflects, and Britta kicks herself for not calling ahead.

"What happened?" the group asks, as a unit. Jeff tells the story in three sentences.

"I'm okay. Really. Britta's taking care of me."

She takes her seat and doesn't look up for the rest of the meeting—she can imagine their synchronized judgment just fine.

When the group is done and disperses, Shirley walks them to Jeff's class, chattering, arm linked with Britta's.

"I'll find you for lunch," Britta tells him just outside the door. "You okay for pain?"

"I'll text you, just in case," he says. "Least the phone survived the crash, right?"

"I'm still surprised it wasn't the first thing you asked about."

"Hey, this is the money-maker," he says, pointing to his swollen face, and disappears into the room.

Britta smiles, turns, and walks smack into Shirley's frown.

"Sweetie, what are you doing to yourself?"

Britta sighs, taking Shirley's arm again, steering her back across campus, towards their own class.

"Being a good friend. You don't have to say it, you know."

"Mmm-hmm."

"I'm a big girl, Shirley. I know what I'm doing."

"Oh, like you knew last time? When he was just using you like a welcome mat, all the while throwing himself at other women?"

"That's not what happened," Britta says sternly. "I was going after other guys, too. Anyway, we're just friends now. And this isn't permanent, anyway."