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Something that always brought the study group together during such a dark time as the end-of-year holidays was their little Secret Santa tradition. Every year, no matter what was going on, the group would write their names on little slips of paper and put them in a paper cup, then pass the cup around and see who they’d have to get a little gift for this year.
This time around, Abed was hoping to get a certain best friend of his, because he was the only person that made even a little bit of sense to him in the group in terms of being a real person and not just some kind of TV trope. He waited patiently as Annie walked around the group, holding the paper cup out to each member.
“Now, remember, everyone,” she said as she walked around, “don’t say who you got. I’m looking at you, Troy.”
“But I got-”
“-Zip it! It needs to stay a surprise!”
“Or what, Christmas will lose its sense of wonder and magic?” Jeff retorted, not even looking up from his phone. Everyone in the group groaned collectively.
“Well, I happen to agree with Annie. We should all keep ours secret, so the person I got is surprised when I get them their own monogrammed Bible,” Shirley said, a happy lilt decorating her words.
“About that, can we cap the gift giving at 25 bucks so Hillsong over here doesn’t do that?”
“Jeff!” Shirley started to tell Jeff off, but she was interrupted by Annie.
“-While what Jeff said was rude, he does have a point. Some of us are young college kids without anything to our names, so I’d cap the price at twenty dollars. Is that alright with everyone?”
After a moment of hesitation, everyone in the group nodded. Abed just sat there, waiting for the conflict to resolve itself before he even opened his paper. In fact, he waited until everyone was gone and he was alone in the room, making it look like he was taking a long time to pack up his things. When the last of the group finally left, he opened his paper.
Butts Carlton was scrawled across it in Troy’s distinct handwriting. Abed smiled and made a fist the way he did when he was happy.
“Wait up, Troy!”
~
That night, Troy and Abed had another one of their classic movie nights where they’d watch something hilariously bad and make commentary the whole time. They were about an hour into their first movie when a cat jumped in the open window of Abed’s dorm. He paused the movie when he saw the cat and stood up.
“Hey, Marty,” he said to the cat, grabbing a cat food bowl from a drawer of his desk and a bag of cat food from under the bottom bunk of his bed. He poured the cat some food and set it down on the floor. The cat rubbed against Abed’s leg and then went straight for the bowl.
“Whoa, Abed, they let you have cats here?” Troy asked, very surprised.
“No, this one lives on campus. I named him Marty McFly after Michael J Fox’s character in Back to the Future, one of my favorite movies.”
Troy lit up when he heard that. “Back to the Future is one of my favorites too! You should get another cat and name it Doc Brown so he can be friends with Marty, that’d be so cool!”
“I absolutely would, if I could have a pet. Living in the dorms like this sort of has its setbacks. Maybe you should get the cat.”
“Sure, but where do you get cats? Maybe at the library? I heard Leonard was hosting a cat fighting ring down there…”
“Maybe. In the meantime, do you want to watch Back to the Future instead of this garbage?”
“Absolutely!” Troy responded, a huge smile on his face. The two sat down on the couch and watched the movie, and Abed made a mental note of what to get Troy for Christmas.
~
Eventually, the day of the study group’s secret Santa exchange came around and everyone was excited. Six gifts sat at the center of the table, and the group of seven sat in their seats.
“Wait,” Annie said before they could begin, “There are only six gifts here and seven of us. Who forgot?”
“Wasn’t me,” Britta responded, almost too quickly. “Mine is right there. It’s for-.”
“-Shush, Britta! We still don’t need to know!”
“Why not? It’s already the gift exchange time.”
“Yeah, Annie,” Jeff piled on, “loosen up a little.”
Annie sighed, then turned back to the rest of the group. “Who forgot?”
Abed took the silence as his cue to speak. “No one forgot, it’s just that my gift is being delivered right now.”
“Delivered?” Annie responded.
“Dean-livered!” a voice rang from the entrance to the room. Everyone turned to the door to see the dean, dressed in jeans and a flannel with a red puffer vest and carrying a fluffy white cat.
Britta gasped. “Who’s this little guy for?” she asked, holding her hands out under the assumption that someone in the study group had gotten the cat for her.
“Put those away, Britta. It’s for Troy!” the dean answered, walking over to Troy and placing the cat in his arms. Troy looked down at the animal and then immediately up at Abed.
“From the other night when we watched Back to the Future,” he said, and Abed nodded.
“You should bring him when we watch movies tonight so he can meet Marty.”
“You have a cat too, Abed? I thought you lived in the dorms!” the dean said, a bit concerned for the state of his school.
“No, Marty isn’t mine. He’s a stray that jumps in my window for food sometimes, but he’s about to have a new best friend.”
Troy shared a happy glance with Abed, then looked up at the dean.
“Yeah.”