Chapter 24 : THE PERFECT DOCTOR
[Greendale Pottery Studio — March 15, 2010, 10:00 AM]
The clay was wet and cold between his fingers.
Beginner Pottery had seemed like a good idea three weeks ago — a skill-building class unrelated to his meta-knowledge, something genuinely new to learn. Now, surrounded by students whose bowls actually looked like bowls, Ethan was reconsidering.
His bowl looked like a tumor.
But he loved it anyway, because he'd made it with his hands instead of his foreknowledge, and that meant something.
"Excellent form, everyone!" The instructor made her way around the room. "Remember — pottery is about process, not product."
"Easy to say when your product isn't a crime against clay," Jeff muttered from the next wheel.
Jeff's bowl was somehow worse than Ethan's. Lopsided, cracked, and actively collapsing while they watched.
"At least you're trying," said the voice from Jeff's other side. "That's what matters."
Rich Stephenson. Doctor Rich Stephenson. The nicest man at Greendale.
Ethan's Aura Reading activated before conscious thought.
And stopped.
Rich's aura was wrong.
Every person Ethan had read since the STD Fair had layers. Contradictions. Emotional turbulence visible as texture variations in their colored halos. Jeff's armor had visible gaps. Annie's focus had underlying anxiety. Even Pierce's loneliness had complexity — grey-blue shifting to gold when he felt included.
Rich's aura was flat. Smooth. A single uniform tone with no variation whatsoever.
Like a perfectly maintained surface covering something Ethan couldn't see.
What the hell?
"You okay?" Jeff asked. "You look like you saw a ghost."
"Fine." Ethan forced his attention back to his clay. "Just concentrating."
But his Aura Reading kept drifting back to Rich. The doctor moved through the class offering encouragement, complimenting struggling students, demonstrating techniques with effortless skill. His behavior was warm, helpful, supportive.
His aura said nothing. Literally nothing. No emotional signature Ethan could interpret.
Either he has the most disciplined emotional control I've ever encountered, or something about Rich isn't... normal.
The fan theory from his past life surfaced. The Community fanbase had speculated for years that Rich Stephenson was secretly a serial killer — too nice, too perfect, too helpful. The show had never confirmed or denied it, leaving the theory as an inside joke among viewers.
Watching Rich's flat aura move through the pottery studio, Ethan wasn't sure it was a joke anymore.
[Pottery Studio — March 15, 2010, 11:30 AM]
Jeff's competition spiral was predictable and painful to watch.
Every time Rich succeeded at something — trimming a bowl, centering clay, receiving compliments — Jeff's attempts grew more desperate. The rivalry wasn't about pottery. It was about Jeff's pathological need to be the best at everything, confronting someone who appeared to be better without trying.
Ethan kept his hands in his own clay and let it play out.
This is Jeff's story. His lesson to learn. Perfection isn't the enemy — the belief that you have to be perfect is the enemy.
But it was harder than expected. Jeff was visibly spiraling, his aura shifting from competitive orange to frustrated red to the specific grey of someone realizing they might actually fail at something. The urge to intervene was real — one well-placed comment could de-escalate the whole situation.
Ethan didn't make it.
Instead, he finished his terrible bowl, congratulated Jeff on effort over outcome, and watched Rich continue being suspiciously perfect at everything he touched.
[Hallway — March 15, 2010, 12:15 PM]
"Hey, Annie — quick question."
Annie looked up from her phone, her aura flickering with the warm pink that had become more common around Ethan since the love geometry episode. "What's up?"
"Rich Stephenson. The doctor in pottery class. Do you know anything about his background?"
"Rich?" Annie's expression shifted to something fond. "He's literally the nicest person at Greendale. He volunteers at the free clinic, he tutors kids on weekends, he makes homemade muffins for the staff meetings." She paused. "Why do you ask?"
"Just curious. He seems... unusually put-together for someone at a community college."
"Some people actually come to Greendale by choice." Annie smiled. "Not everyone's hiding from something."
But are you sure he's not?
"Fair point," Ethan said. "Thanks."
He walked away, but Annie's eyes followed him. Her aura had shifted from warm pink to curious yellow — the color of someone filing information for later analysis.
She noticed I asked about Rich. She'll remember that. One more data point in whatever picture everyone's building about me.
The irony wasn't lost on him. He was investigating someone else's suspicious perfection while being investigated himself for suspicious behavior. Greendale had become a school of watchers, each person tracking patterns that the others couldn't see.
[Ethan's Apartment — March 15, 2010, 9:00 PM]
The sketch covered half a page of notebook paper.
Rich Stephenson's aura, as best Ethan could remember it. A perfect circle, uniform color throughout, no texture variation whatsoever.
He'd drawn auras before — the detective board in his apartment had examples of different emotional signatures he'd cataloged. Jeff's guarded armor with its visible gaps. Annie's focused intensity layered over anxiety. Troy's golden warmth. Pierce's grey loneliness slowly shifting toward belonging.
Rich's looked nothing like the others. It looked like a mask, except masks had seams.
Options, Ethan thought, staring at the sketch.
Option one: Rich had exceptional emotional discipline. Some people learned to control their surface presentation so thoroughly that even Aura Reading couldn't penetrate it. Monks, actors, certain types of therapy practitioners.
Option two: Rich was somehow blocking the Aura Reading entirely. Which would suggest he had awareness of being read, which would suggest he had abilities of his own, which opened questions Ethan wasn't ready to answer.
Option three: The fan theory was right. Rich Stephenson was a serial killer who'd learned to suppress all emotional tells, and his too-perfect persona was a carefully constructed cover for something monstrous underneath.
None of the options were comfortable.
Ethan set down his pencil and stared at the flat circle for another twenty minutes. It told him nothing. The opacity was complete.
File it, he decided finally. Like Abed files things. Mark it as anomaly, monitor for changes, don't push until you have more data.
He pinned the sketch to his detective board, next to the calibration notes and the power tracking sheets. Six powers. Six sets of unknowns. And now a mystery person whose emotional signature didn't follow the rules everyone else followed.
His phone buzzed. A text from Troy:
Troy: abed says you're doing something interesting. he won't tell me what.
Ethan: I'm doing homework.
Troy: he said you'd say that. he also said "exactly."
Abed is watching. Annie is filing. Jeff is shifting. Rich is... whatever Rich is.
The semester was halfway over. Paintball was coming. Chang's exposure was coming sooner.
And somewhere in the background, the Title System was still counting things Ethan couldn't see.
He turned off the light and looked at his detective board one more time in the darkness. The papers were barely visible, but he knew what they contained.
Six powers. One suspicious doctor. One film student who saw too much.
Señor Chang's Spanish credentials are about to become the most important document at Greendale.
Tomorrow would bring new complications. Tonight, he would sleep, and try not to dream about perfectly flat circles that meant something he couldn't name.
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