“Marry me.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Marry me. Really.”

“Are you pregnant?” She lifted her head slowly off of him, trying to push on a smile as he started to sit up too.

“No, I don’t think so.” He laughed. “I mean it. Why not?”

“Why not? Honestly, Halpert, I’d have thought you could come up with something better than that.”

Leaning forward, he took one of her cheeks in each of his hands, his fingertips extending to the curls that framed her hairline. His lips brushed her forehead, his own resting against hers as he moved his mouth down to her nose.

“There’s never been a doubt in my mind that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. We just have to do it, you know? I mean... I love you. I think I’ve made that pretty obvious. We can make it.”

She smiled, her eyes trailing down from his earnest face to his wrists brushing against her chin.

“Sorry if that sounds cheesy, Pam. I just really think we can make this whole thing work. Pam? You can say something.” He laughed again, his eyes following hers down to her lap.

“It’s not like I don’t... I want it. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but I don’t...”

“You don’t have to say that.” His hands fell from her face, finding her own on the cushion between them. His fingers curled around her knuckles while she shook her head, freeing her hair from behind her ears.

“The thing is I did this, you know? I mean, I know you know. It seemed the longer I was engaged, the less likely I was going to be married.”

“Because I’m exactly like Roy, that’ll probably be what happens.” He was mumbling now, his fingers still locked around her hands. It was actually starting to bother her, mostly because she was used to talking with her hands, but also because he was pressing harder the lower his voice dropped.

“I don’t mean it like that. You’re not, I mean... Don’t play dumb, Jim, you know I know you’re not. I’m a lot the same, though. I may be trying to evolve or whatever, but I’m still the same person as I was then.”

“And that’s why I want to marry you. I want that girl who gets scared by zombie movies and has three of the same colored cardigans and blushes when people talk about her hair whenever she changes it. I want her for the rest of my life.”

“I know. I just... I can’t do the whole engaged thing much longer. If we... were going to do this, I’d basically want to get married tomorrow. Why else be engaged, right? We’re fine right now; we’re great right now. I just don’t know if we’re ready to be... those married people, and that’s where I’d want to be if we were going to do... that. Am I making any sense? Because I don’t want you to... look at me like you’re looking at me now.”

His gaze had wandered back up to her neck, still too stubborn to look at her eyes as she rocked towards him, talking with the movements of her back because he was holding her hands prisoners. He shrugged and shook his head, sticking his bottom lip out.

“I don’t... Don’t worry about me. You didn’t have to say yes or anything, I just... I thought it’d be... Whatever.”

“Jim, this wasn’t a proposal. And I didn’t reject you; I just think...”

“That we’re not ready to get married. I understand. And I thought a proposal was just a promise that I... that we were going to get married. I didn’t know you needed a speech or a scoreboard flashing or something.”

“That’s not fair. I don’t need...”

“It’s cool. I was just wondering anyway.”

“Are you seriously going to be mad at me? Because it’s not like I want to... it’s not that I don’t want to be with you. Because I do. So much, Jim.” She leaned gently forward, but he ducked his face back down to look at his hands grasping hers. She sighed, frustrated.

“I’m not mad.”

“You just won’t kiss me.” She closed her eyes, shaking her head again.

“I think we should talk about this is all.”

“What is there to talk about? We’re the same people we were this morning. We didn’t have anything to talk about then.”

“You're right. We don’t have anything to talk about. Even though you don’t want to... Whatever. I’m just not going to... I’m going to go for a walk, I think.” He dropped her hands on the couch, grabbing the remote off the coffee table and shutting off the television.

“Jim...”

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you watching that?”

“God, stop it. You’re acting like a four year old.”

“You sure complain about me a lot. I understand. You know, if you don’t want to marry a dumb four year old. That makes sense. Especially since I’m only asking you to marry me to keep you around, not because I actually want to marry you. Who does that, right? Propose because I’d like to marry you. Soon. Crazy shit, right?”

“Why does this always have to be so hard? We can talk about anything, except ‘us.’” Her air quotes from her newly liberated fingers made him jerk his head away again and stand up.

“That’s because the easy thing to do would be to actually say yes when I tell you how I feel. Once. You know, for future reference.”

“Do not. Jim, that’s not fair.” She stood up too, her free hands sitting firmly on her waist.

“No I get it. You can’t marry me.”

“I didn’t say that. I said I wanted to marry you, just not right this second. I think that’s fair.”

“You’re right. You’re perfectly fair, and I’m being immature. I’m sorry, Pam. And I’m not mad.”

He walked out of the living room, barely registering the sound of her stomping after him. Grabbing his coat, he opened the door, not looking back when he noticed it didn’t close.

“Jim, you want to throw sarcastic lies at me? Fine, go ahead. I’m sorry I told you how I feel for once.” She was nearly shouting from the doorframe, feeling slightly like a trashy wife from COPS in her tee shirt and too big jeans, yelling after the man she loved as he ignored her. It almost made her cry. It would’ve, if the visual of her crying over her boyfriend as he walked away from her wasn’t even more pathetic.

Once he turned a corner, Jim reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, dark box. He popped it open, the diamond inside mocking him as it caught the light from the sun. It looked so hopeful.

He came back home around ten, wordlessly slipping into the bed beside her, turning on his side just as she had so they didn’t have to look at each other.

“I don’t want to break up,” he said, instead of good night.

“Me neither.”

“I want this to work.”

“Me too.”

“I’m not sorry.”

The first time they’d walked in together at the same time, the entire office seemed to stand up. Michael started a slow clap, Angela sighed, and Phyllis beamed, radiating I told you so. Pam didn’t seem capable of stopping her blush, making Jim laugh and shake his head as he hung up his jacket and sat down like it wasn’t a big deal at all. They’d been “dating” for three weeks and sleeping together for ten days, but nothing seemed to be as real as that final squeeze he’d given her before letting go of her hand and opening the door to the office.

The first day after she’d asked him to stay the night, he’d kissed her in his car for at least fifteen minutes, complaining that he wouldn’t be able to kiss her all day. That he would have to see her and think about kissing her, but pretend that he wasn’t. She heard the silent “like I used to” that followed, but ignored it and giggled instead.

“See, what if you laugh like that? I’m not going to be able to stand it. Why don’t we just not go in?” He laughed too, crashing his mouth into hers.

“You know, someone would probably come out and see us eventually.”

“Yeah...” He slumped in his seat, pretending to think. “Don’t really care.” He leaned back over, cupping the back of her head and pulling her bottom lip in between his.

“Even Meredith?”

“Nope.”

“Dwight?” she mumbled against his lips.

“Sorry, my name’s Jim...”

She giggled again against his smile as he closed his eyes and kissed her again.

He’d groaned when she’d pulled away, shoving her watch in his face. And she’d gotten out of the car first, saying goodbye to him for the fifteen minutes before he was allowed to walk in behind her. And as soon as she had turned around, Roy had looked down at the clipboard in front of him.

The first day after the first time he’d proposed to her, she pretended to ignore that he had yet to try to grab her hand or put his hand on her lower back, a move that usually got him slapped when Michael Scott was so close. She’d forgotten that he’d been mad at her when she initially woke up, meaning her better judgment wasn’t able to stop her from slipping in the bathroom behind him and kissing under his hair when he bent over to wash his face. When he hadn’t thrown her over his shoulder and run her back to their bed, she’d remembered.

They’d come in the same car, but he’d asked her if that was what she wanted. She hadn’t rolled her eyes like she’d wanted to, simply nodded and followed him out the door. Like he needed her permission to do anything, even drive her to work.

“This isn’t going to be the way it is until I change my mind, right?” She was slightly irritated, the increased silence encouraging her to spit out words that she didn’t think about first.

“No, Pam, I’m not going to force you into doing anything you don’t want to.”

“Stop it. Please. Don’t make it seem like I... I’m attacking you.”

“I’m not. I don’t think you’re... Let’s just forget this, okay? I don’t want to fight. Not here.”

She looked up at his eyes that had finally found hers. His jaw was gently clenched, but he wasn’t outwardly angry. She’d never seen him as angry as he’d been the night before. He usually exercised the kind of control she could now recognize.

“Fine.” She held his stare until he nodded, breaking it and opening the door.

“Well, if isn’t the Halperts!”

“Michael, don’t...” Pam shook her head quickly, but Jim just kept walking to his desk, his jaw significantly tighter. Not that Michael had ever been able to notice.

“Coming in late, but we forgive it. Why? Because maybe some of us are holding out for a new, little receptionist to join us here. Jimbo? Doing your best work, I presume?”

Pam’s face skipped three flush tones, her own jaw stiffening. Jim’s, however, seemed to have the opposite effect.

“I do what I can, Michael, but sometimes I just want to sleep, you know?”

Pam was past flushed now. Michael’s eyes widened, more in pleasure from his confidante than in shock from his employee’s first allusion to what he did outside of the building. He perched on the edge of Jim’s desk, lowering his voice very ineffectively.

“I know exactly how you feel. You know, if you ever... you ever want to heart to heart or just get away, my condo’s always fully stocked and I have an XBOX; we just have to find a way to get rid of Jan...”

“I’ll... keep that in mind.” The smile on Jim’s face shot another grind between Pam’s teeth. He hadn’t smiled at her in over twelve hours, but Michael could pull it out in a second. Suddenly, the control he had over his emotions was severely less attractive to her from how it had been in the hall.

Last night, her mom had said she had to try her hardest to not be angry with him, because he was obviously only arguing with her because he cared. This morning, in front of Dwight and Kevin and Andy, it seemed to be less easy.

He wanted to apologize to her the second Michael walked away. It wasn’t fair, and he knew it. He wasn’t even really angry anymore; it had just been easy. He was better than that; she deserved better than that. He’d never been good at apologizing, which is why he usually tried to avoid it at all costs. If he’d turned around and seen the look on her face that he imagined, he would’ve probably fallen to his knees, begging her to not let anything he said ever put such a grimace on her face again.

The idea that dating someone you work with, let alone your best friend, suddenly occurred to him as a bad one. As if simply thinking it would let him go back in time and not fall completely in love with Pam the second she’d walked through the door, or maybe have her not walk in at all. As if he’d want it to.

Dwight was putting the water bottle on his desk into a packing box. Once he got the box closed, he reached for the packing tape, quickly realizing that holding the box shut and stretching the tape over it wasn’t meant to be done on his lap by himself.

“Jim, could you...”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“No. Besides, Dwight, I don’t think wrapping your personal memorabilia during company hours is really appropriate. Neither will I encourage it. As Michael’s number two, in fact, I think...”

“Oh never mind. I didn’t want your kind of help anyway.”

Dwight placed the roll of tape on top of the box, balancing them against his chin as he hefted them over to reception.

“Pam, I request your assistance with my...”

“Dwight, I’m kind of busy right now.”

“Pam, as a proven loyalist and Jim’s significantly better half, I offer to you a percentage of the revenue your assistance provides.”

“What are you... what is this?” She leaned over the counter, pulling the water bottle out of the box. “Is this... juice?”

“Nearly, nearly. This is one hundred percent authentic brown bear secretion, treasured by the...”

“Oh my god, no, Dwight.” She nearly flung the bottle back at him, shaking her hands frantically.

“Trust me; there are literally thousands of Cantonese and Vietnamese farmers who would pay...”

“I do not want to touch that; I...ugh...” She shook her head again. “Sorry, are you sending that to Vietnam?”

“I have made contact with a woman named My-Linh Nguyen who has shown an extremely more favorable response to my bear bile than you have, yes. And we have come to the agreement...”

“Dwight, how much money do Vietnamese farmers have? What are you getting for that?”

“They call it pho, and it is both nutritious and delicious, and I was willing to share it with you, until...”

“I’m sorry; I’m just not in the best mood right now. Of course I’ll help you.”

He turned around from his computer, spinning his chair again when he saw her notice. Dwight smiled.

“I knew I could depend on you, Pam. You are a noble woman.”

“How about you hold the box, and I’ll hold... the tape.”

“Fair enough.” He nodded curtly. Pam looked past his shoulder to Jim’s neck, then stood up and walked around her desk. She stood literally as close to Dwight as she could without actually having to touch him or... feel him and took the tape from his hands.

“Okay, so where do I...”

“Just a couple of times across the slit.” Dwight crouched, his hands bracing the box. Pam glanced quickly up before looking down at the box.

“Right.”

They were both used to taking their lunches at 12:30, later than most people. They could see an end to the day approaching, but it really was the latest they could wait to get a break from unexpected things that drove them crazier than a sympathetic look could fix.

She considered eating at 12, following Phyllis into the break room and throwing herself into conversation about Bob Vance or embroidery. She hated the idea that she was hiding from him, though, so she walked behind him at the same time as she had the day before.

“Are we done?” He turned around before she expected, as soon as the door closed and he realized there was no one else in the room. Her stomach fell, and she was suddenly shockingly aware that she could burst into tears in the break room.

“I...don’t...”

“It’s driving me insane, Pam. I don’t want it to be this way. It’s so stupid that I can’t talk to you. Can we just... stop this? I’m sorry, I guess. I acted like an idiot. Okay? Can we go back to the way things were?”

“Yes.” The traces of her tears disappeared, his smile warming her fingertips. At the same time, she knew he wasn’t over it, but a quick fix was better than none at all.

“Okay.”

He kissed her in the middle of the break room in the middle of the day at the office for the first time.