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This is so sweet and hot at the same time. Thanks for sharing!

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Oh.My. God. What a stunning story! I listened to Everything Has Changed a couple times after reading and read it again and this is just a stunning match to that gorgeous, gorgeous song. I’ve read it before but read it again in anticipation of traveling to London in a few weeks and I just love it soooooo much. This Jim and this Pam and the way she just hands him her coffee in the elevator and that they just happen to work in the same place and both come from Pennsylvania?!? The dialogue was funny and heartwarming and you just feel like you’re in a little pub staring at this incredibly star crossed couple falling in love and starting their story. I love how Jim just blew off that girl from the back of the cab too. I mean, like she was just nothing… and she is compared to Pam. Your use of canon dialogue is so beautiful too in the way Pam tells Jim about Roy and finally decides it’s truly over with Roy. And I love this idea that they’re just so destined to be with each other that they aren’t waiting agonizingly to make decisions… like they know this is it, and they’re just tying up loose ends— as Pam promptly calls Roy, says it’s over, and heads home with Jim. Just stunning! There are 1000 incredible lines but one of my favorites is the one where they’re at the parrot tree and Jim has a vision of Sunday mornings with the paper and groceries and children and phone bills. Come on! Loved this so much!

Author's Response:

Thank you so much! I’m thrilled you liked it.

Enjoy London! It’s one of my favorite cities. If you have never been, you will love it. Paris is my fave (which is where part two of this story goes) but London holds a special place for me as well.

Thanks again for commenting and letting me know you enjoyed it!

HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!

Awwwww…. That would have a been BRILLIANT for the end of the art show d84;a039;

Marvelously done. Sensory overload from it all, but really well done.

Author's Response: Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it. :)

Finally getting to settle in and read… great start d84;a039;

Umm… I’m going to need chapter 3 of this immediately. Please.

It’s a crime that I haven’t reviewed this yet.

The twists. The turns. The twists again. I love it so much.
I can’t even go through & pull out some of my favorite lines because I’d just be copying the entire story here.
It’s so clever. All the little details. I love this version of Pam, she’s got that end of Season 3 confidence. Don’t even get me started on this Jim. I adore him. I adore it all.

I'm kicking myself for not getting to reading this sooner! First of all, I love stories that hurt me, that leave me staring off into space and make me want to read them again instantly so I can feel the burn one more time. This is one of those painful stories (in the best of ways). One of the things I noticed right away was how you wove, so expertly, the lyrics of this haunting song into the words. So well done.

This line got to me: "And that’s probably what does it, she thinks, when she’s laying in bed later and replaying every second of what happens next."

and then you absolutely murdered me with: "She doesn’t look back as she leaves because she can’t stand to know whether or not he watches her."

Ughhh BT this was amazing.

This story is an example of why Jim was
such an ass in season 3.
His constant hot and cold attitude towards Pam
was very juvenile, especially since he completely ignored the fact he started the problem with the the two of them in the first place.
It’s no wonder Pam had emotional whiplash.
It’s too bad she didn’t tell him to piss off. 😂

Author's Response: lol definitely didn’t intend to write him as an ass in this chapter. I think there was some hot and cold action on both their parts throughout the years and that Jim definitely has some emotional whiplash too. He didn’t make perfect choices in season 3 and I agree that he had some low points, but I also think he was really doing his best to protect himself. 🤷🏻r05;a92;a039;

WELL. I never.

I'm always curious about what their interactions might have looked like thoroughly out of the camera's eye in Season 3, and you've doubled up on it here by also removing them from all familiar context. It's a moment out of time, a vacation from reality, doesn't really count, and while they're not quite shedding all their baggage they at least come a lot closer to being their true selves with each other than they usually are in canon. And you did well letting us feel Pam's relief at that... even where it's painful, even where she's making herself vulnerable, it's still better and *easier* than all she has to do to pretend this connection between them isn't real and never was.

I also liked how this is a fraught moment that they get around not by diving into it, but through their normal sort of interaction, just bonding as friends do. In a lot of ways, this feels like Season 3 Jim and Pam escaping back to their Season 2 status quo, where their deepest feelings are below the surface but they're comfortable with each other and are able to enjoy each other. I'm sure this makes it all intensely painful for Jim, who is basically living his nightmare, but it's a special moment for Pam who is badly missing it.

Interesting reading Pam trying to come to grips with her relationship with Roy. There's so much going on beneath the surface there that we really don't get to see and can't easily infer about how she feels about her choices in canon. Her knowing on some level this is an admission of defeat at best and that it's already doomed at worst is something I'm going to be mulling over for a bit. ("Maybe Roy can build up some walls of his own and climb on top of them so he can at least look down and see her every once in a while" is such a great but also terrible image of how their relationship would work.)

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Jim Halpert walks into hers." SOLD. On so many different levels.

"she needed a little bit of home without being at home" Oooof. Yep. Makes sense. Makes way too much sense.

"the place where loving someone feels a lot like grieving for the living." - Ummmmm. OW?

"a tarnished, strained version of his Jim-the-paper-salesman smile" is a spot-on description of S3 Jim.

Sprinkles!

This is one of my favorite songs on the album (shocking, I'm sure) so I was so excited to see where you would take it.

There were so many layers to season 9 and I always felt was an honest look at a very adult relationship, which is never perfect. You did such a good job at capturing that. Like this line "She was just so angry at him all the time now. Not in a yelling, slamming doors kind of way. It was the snippy comments, and the sighing, and sarcastic way she talked to him about Athlead. It felt like there was nothing he could do to make her happy." Such a simple, succinct way of encapsulating that.

LOVE that whole flashback to the time period after they started dating and oh My God even though I knew it was coming lyrically, I gasped when he almost got hit. It was such a clever way to jolt them both and put it all into perspective.

And of course, the hotel room was perfect. I would expect nothing less. ;)