They had to be in one of Abed's other timelines. They just had to be. Abed never talked about happy timelines, so for all Annie knew, this would fit the description.

How her and Jeff got to another timeline before – or during – the sex, she didn't know. But they had to be there now. The thought that she was lying naked in Jeff's bed, with Jeff, the morning after they had sex in the real timeline, still seemed too outlandish.

Was it more outlandish than Abed's dark timeline – and his disturbing Annie and one-armed Jeff theories? Given their history, it did seem more plausible than this….ultra-happy timeline now. Especially when she felt Jeff's thumb brush her stomach.

Annie shut her eyes tighter, savoring the feeling and trying to come to terms that it was happening.

This….just did not happen to her. Years and years of misery, setbacks and harsh reality kept telling her that, no matter how much she blocked it out. It made it more ironic that she couldn't do it now.

Maybe she never really expected this would be her ending with Jeff in May 2013. Maybe deep down, she was convinced they'd never be allowed to resolve anything. Maybe they'd still be up in the air after four years, or pretend that that never needed to change.

For three years, those seemed like more plausible endings than this. That's why this had to be a different timeline that made less sense.

But the more Annie waited to wake up and face the ugly truth, the more it didn't come. She just kept lying in bed with her eyes closed, as Jeff did the same and kept rubbing his thumb on her tummy.

Unknown to her, that was the only thing keeping him from getting up and letting the old, cowardly Jeff win one last time. It was the only thing subduing his impulse to destroy his happiness – at least happiness he was supposed to be too cool to want. At least by his old standards of cool.

It was why he left his last dream girl. It was why he lied his way into law to begin with. It was why the Annie-free summer of 2010 happened. It was why he couldn't go more than one full week without being a selfish jackass, even after four years of actually trying not to be. And it was making its last stand here.

But it was harder when he realized his graduation was the last thing on his mind today. And before he realized he was rubbing Annie's stomach, without any thought of going lower.

Yeah, real Jeff would be waking up to real life any minute now. But maybe touching Annie more before the end wouldn't be so bad.

Yet even in his sleepy, self-destructive paranoia, Jeff didn't think to touch her private parts one more time while he could. The mere touch and feel of Annie's smooth, regular skin was still satisfying him. Just as it satisfied Annie while she waited for the other shoe to fall on her again.

If it was, Annie wanted to fit one more thing in. She had to lie her head on his chest and sleep on it just once. And maybe get greedy and kiss it a few times.

When she did that, Jeff took his right arm from between them, wrapped it around her and let his hand go up to her hair. If they weren't in pure fantasy land now, this put them there.

And yet the more they felt their skin against each other, the more they didn't want to leave fantasy land. If possible, that feeling was more intense than last night – both when they screwed and made love.

They both just wanted to caress each other once more before harsh reality returned – as it always did for them. Yet the more they fit in before that happened, the more they realized it wasn't enough.

But that wasn't possible, right? Building on one magical night couldn't be the payoff to these four years, right?

Jeff knew there was no world or timeline where he could leave Greendale with….this, right?

And Annie knew she couldn't be allowed to have this and be grown up…..right?

They'd have to go back to a world where these things couldn't happen. That was where they really belonged. That was where they had to stay.

Annie almost thought she was giving Jeff a good bye kiss on his chest before snapping out of it; just as Jeff thought while he kissed the top of her head at the same time.

Then when they couldn't tear their lips away, they thought that a world/timeline where they could keep doing this was just….better.

This was one beyond belief ending they didn't want to end yet.

"Screw it, I'm not waking up," they both said, which made them actually open their eyes and see each other.

Both of them were too awkward to address what they said – so maybe some traces of the real world were still there. Yet as they opened their eyes wider and looked at each other, they felt more awake. As such, their sleepy thoughts and paranoia were fading.

Now that they were fully awake, conscious and clear headed, they could accept that this was really reality. And the more they looked at each other, the more they didn't care if it wasn't.

Jeff was about to celebrate by saying "Good morning" to a woman in bed for the first time. But Annie suddenly jumped up with a more vocal greeting.

"Oh God! I need to go home and change!" Annie remembered. "But Troy and Abed are still home! How am I gonna change without…..and what if they don't keep quiet?! We can't let the group bug us today! Tomorrow, maybe!"

"Morning to you, too," Jeff finally fit in. But this rare gesture was overshadowed by Annie's more typical panic. Yet it was almost….reassuring, in a way.

Since Annie was still pretty worried about what others might think, it made this new world look like reality. And when Jeff had to take Annie home, get Troy and Abed out of the apartment while she snuck in, and then pretended to just get out of her own bed when they got back, it really felt like reality. A Greendale reality, anyway.

This was still a place where stupid, crazy things like that happened. It was still Jeff's real world, graduation or sex or not.

A real world where he did sleep with Annie, make it romantic, promise her he wanted more and….kind of wanted to keep that promise.

If he could do that in reality after all, what else could he do?

On the very very illogical chance Abed was right after all, maybe most of their timelines had nothing good for Jeff and Annie together. Maybe everywhere else, they'd burn out or never start, exactly as Jeff always imagined here. Maybe they couldn't work – for one reason or another – anywhere but here.

Here, where he was about to leave Greendale – and where Annie swallowed her various fears and emotions to hug him before the ceremony started.

Maybe Jeff could try to keep this fantasy timeline going after all.

But he'd still draw the line at fake beards.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX

It was so weird in the end for Annie.

She should have been a happy or sad wreck at the sight of Jeff getting his diploma. She cheered loud enough to split Pierce's ears, of course, but there was no anxiety either way.

Her time at Greendale with Jeff was one of the most important times of her life. Three years ago, the thought of losing anyone made her lose her mind. And after last night, the thought of never sharing a class with him again should have killed her.

Yet for all that Jeff meant to her in this school, she was still stable at the end.

Maybe it was because this was a normal graduation day, against all odds. Maybe it was because their special night actually stayed a secret today – which was Troy and Abed's graduation present for Jeff, as they explained the next day.

Perhaps the last four years took so much out of her, she had nothing left for the final day. Or she wanted to rest up before their post-Greendale relationship really began. Nevertheless, Annie felt herself going through the motions after the ceremony – something she never would have done if this happened a year ago.

She excused herself to talk a walk alone, as Jeff was too distracted by his fellow graduates – and on alert for one last Dean Pelton crying attack – to follow her. As she walked around campus as a Greendale student with a half-full study group for the first time, her legs mindlessly led her to the History 101 classroom.

The door was naturally unlocked, so Annie went inside before she knew why. She looked around at the empty classroom, until her eyes stopped on the teacher's desk. And the teacher's chair.

The same chair she sat in when Cornwallis worked on her foot. She didn't want to imagine what sitting there afterwards made him feel. She wasn't even tempted until right now.

It was easy to move past what happened in here during class, with a new professor. But now that she was all alone with her thoughts, the memories returned one last time. They even made Annie sit down in that chair for the first time since that degrading day.

A day which now had closure.

All the consequences of what happened had now been played out. This chapter of Annie's life was really over too. It ended with the best possible outcome – but that outcome never would have happened without that one big mistake.

For the second time in her life, Annie had to feel degraded and humiliated before finding the greatest happiness of her life. Like she could have found happiness without staining herself first.

It didn't have to be that way.

Despite what happened between her and Cornwallis, and all that happened after, Annie never cried about it. Not with a full-fledged cry. Yet now that it was over, she was ready to let it out.

But she wasn't just starting to cry about that.

She cried for the end of her full Greendale study group. She cried for never walking down the halls with Jeff again. She cried for never getting to help him study again. She cried over the fear of what her first real adult relationship could still bring.

She cried for how it only started because she was a Jeff obsessed, grade obsessed idiot and a coward. She cried for not stopping Cornwallis and not exposing him so much earlier. She cried for all the other things she could have done and learned so much earlier.

She cried over all the school girl freak outs, the awkward confrontations, the grade paranoia, the lack of true self-worth, and the arrested development she was just now breaking free from - four years after rehab. She cried for what she should have done, should have become and what she almost wasn't.

But she was now. At least she might be now.

After all that, look where she was now. Look what she was planning to do and become. She wished so much that she did it under better circumstances – but she had done it. Or at least she would do it and make it stick.

She could have remained stuck in limbo right now, between her old unevolved self and the self that was just out of reach. She could have stayed stuck in limbo with Jeff right now, reduced to acting like she was 19 all over again. That could have been the final, lasting memory of Annie Edison at the end of these four years, and it probably should have been.

It wasn't. She had to hit rock bottom at least twice first, but it wasn't. Now that Annie saw that, she was laughing as well as crying.

Incredibly, Annie had one more year in Greendale to make it all pay off. She would truly rest and recharge herself this summer, lick her wounds, and then come back ready for redemption. She would get back on top the right way, ask for help when she needed it, help keep the rest of the group together, and have some real stories to tell Jeff after work. And she'd put herself on the doorstep of a real future in forensics, when she could.

There were so many ways it could all still go wrong. But Annie had imagined things going wrong all her life, if she didn't do things a certain way. Even now, all the worst memories of who she was, and visions of what she could be if she messed up, weren't going away.

She just chose, here and now, to stop letting it define her.

It was time to be the best, and not in the ways she imagined all her life. More in the way of how Jeff put it last night – only with more clothes on. No more false starts or regressing – not like before.

Now Annie was finally laughing more than crying, which allowed her to wipe her eyes. It came just in time, as Jeff opened the door a second later.

"I probably don't have time to ask," Jeff commented. "Come on, Abed wants us to sit outside the library. We give him his 'come full circle' moment, they might let us eat at Morty's again before dinner time."

"I'm having that moment already, Jeff," Annie told him. "Go on, I'll catch up. Tell them you didn't find me yet. We only need to lie to them until lunch tomorrow anyway."

"Doing something I don't understand, because you said so. I'm getting the hang of this boyfriend stuff already," Jeff said, unfazed by certain words for the moment. "Don't dawdle, Milady. I can only do frozen Breakfast Club poses for so long."

Jeff made himself leave, yet Annie couldn't help but stay in place. As if she was stuck in limbo one last time – with the past still surrounding her in this room, and the future waiting outside of it.

All she had to do was get up, head into the brave unknown and do what she was capable of doing long ago. Of course, every time Annie looked ready for that, she'd taken a step back before she knew what she was doing. It was the story of her life for almost four years.

No one would have been surprised if those years ended the same way – not even Annie. They all should have lost hope for something better long ago.

But at least here and now – if only here and now – it wouldn't end that way. At least here and now, she had one last chance. A chance to remain the Annie Edison that made 90 percent of these last four years so wonderful, instead of letting the horrible 10 percent define her anymore.

This time, Annie knew better.

This time, she wasn't leaving herself in limbo, in any way.

This time, she got up and went forward.

And one by one, the fears and excuses for ever looking back all just faded away.

THE END