Pam used to like it when Roy fell asleep holding her. Except now she knows she knows he wasn't really holding her; he just had his arm flung around her, which isn't the same thing. Jim actually holds her while they sleep, like she's something valuable and precious. He only puts his top arm around her -- it would hardly be comfortable with her sleeping on his other arm -- but it's holding all the same. Pam's comfort and happiness come first, and that is something new for her. Jim gives her foot massages while they watch TV, makes her dinner (grilled cheese, hamburgers, spaghetti: nothing fancy but it's perfect all the same), and tells her she's beautiful and he loves her at least a few (hundred) times a day.

He's always touching her: while they're hanging out on the couch, while she's trying to get dressed or make dinner or find her keys, while they fall asleep. Pam protests, but only a little, and Jim's defense is that he has years of wanting to touch her to make up for. It's such a good defense -- and he's smiling so wide, and God, it feels so good to admit that he smiles that way for her, about her, it feels so good to own that -- she can't argue, and besides, she can't get enough of touching him either.

They stay up all night talking; sometimes Pam looks at the clock during a conversation and is amazed to realize three hours have gone by. She sees him all day at work and all night at home and it's still not enough, and it feels like it never will be. She knows she won't be working there forever, though -- she's already signed up for the graphic design internship, and her first weekend in New York is coming up soon. Jim talks about getting a new job, too, and maybe he will. He tells her, it's not so bad anymore. He buys some new ties, and another new suit, and an iPod for Pam, filled with songs he thinks she'd like. They are both finding that happiness colors everything differently.

Roy's dad always says that if it's easy, you didn't do it right. Pam used to really believe that was true -- that everything worth having had to be fought for, constantly, that life was hard and everything was work -- but now she's not so sure. Worth fighting for and has to be fought for aren't the same thing after all. This is a revelation, and everything is different now she knows it. She puts up her watercolors for now, because they're not vibrant enough. She sketches, pencils in every shade she can imagine, the side of her hand a smudgy rainbow. Trees and wedding gowns and faces, lots of faces. Jim's hands and Jim's perfect teeth and Jim laughing and Jim looking at her like she's the best birthday present in the world, and he can't wait to unwrap her. He's a good model, though he can only sit still for about twenty minutes before he starts to fidget, and then he wants to kiss her, and Pam can't even be mad. Her teacher tells her these sketches are the best Pam's done; whatever you're doing, he says, pinning the one of Jim leaning back and laughing full-throated to the bulletin board by the front door, keep it up.

Jim puts a candle in her ice cream, to celebrate. It's a pink 4, and he's not sure where it came from; it was just in a drawer in his kitchen. But he turns out the lights, sings "We Are the Champions" to her when he brings her the bowl, and claps when she blows the candle out.

Pam closes her eyes, and wishes for exactly this.