***

because christmas is the time to tell people how you feel..

She has her hands on her hips and she inhales deeply, sighing, as she glances around their bedroom. Boxes everywhere, masking tape scattered about, cardboard; the works. There was certainly work to be done and it was a miracle she could even stand in the room.

They both clearly owned too much crap. At least they already had their bed set up. Bonus?

An hour later, she was nodding her head to whatever song Jim had blaring from the living room and she thought she even had the room semi-organized. Maybe. Possibly. It's not as if she has never been through this process before, but she really had forgotten how tedious the process of merging two lives into one was. Not that she was complaining, she thought with a smile, she had a good feeling about it this time around.

She glanced at the diamond on her finger, sparkling as the light outside shined against it, as if the ring actually knew what she was thinking. Yeah. She thinks maybe it'll work out alright.

She stumbled onto a box labeled JIM - CARDS/LETTERS and when she opened it, she grinned, kind of weirdly touched that he was one of those people. You know, the ones that save everything; he even kept the envelopes! Who does that!? Well, she did too, but yeah. She thinks it's just another reason to add to the long list of why her fiancee is so amazing.

(It'll take a while for her to get used to that. Fiancee. Jim. Fiancee!)

She half-heartedly flips through them, giggling at the snowmen, and race cars, and birthday cakes. She spied a few graduation caps and a bottle of beer, and one of a skin-clad woman with a police cap on and snorted with laughter. Clearly, these went pretty far back and she was tempted to read through them but figured that was too slight an invasion of privacy. Maybe she'd tease Jim about it later and use it as an excuse to read the best ones.

She's ready to close the box and move onto the next one when something catches her eye. It's a plain white envelope, obviously a card, with one word scribbled on the front.

Pam.

She cocks her head sideways in confusion; it wasn't a card that she'd given him, she knew that much. She picked it up and held it in her hands, studying it like it was some complicated calculous equation to solve. It must have been a card he wanted to give her, but hadn't? Yet? Didn't want to? Forgot to? Whatever.

She flipped it in her hands and the flap was folded into the envelope, so all she had to do was open it.. bring the card out.. read it..

What was that she was talking about earlier? Invasion of privacy or some shit? "It's not a big deal.. whatever it is.." She whispers to herself. "Really now."

Fuck it. She's too curious to put it away and forget about it. And yes, she's aware of that age-old saying about curiosity killing the cat but she shakes her head of those thoughts and opens the envelope, sliding the card out of it's perfect slot.

She immediately laughs when she sees the front of it, covering her mouth to stifle her giggles. (Not that he'd hear her with the music, but still.) She laughed again, as she opened the card and smiled, wondering where this had came from.

She leans back against the bed to read.

She slowly closes the card when she finishes, blinking furiously. She would not cry, she wouldn't. Because.. there was no reason to and. But still, as she stared at the baby Jesus and Mary, her throat tightens and she can barely see it as her eyes pool and goddamn it.

She stands and is down the hallway before she even think about it. She's down the stairs in record pace and she scans the living room quickly, noting the music was still going but he was nowhere to be found. She enters the kitchen and he's there, leaning against the kitchen counter, a beer in his hand, laughing at whatever Mark's talking about.

He still takes her breath away.

There's no way he could have heard her enter the room but he turns to look at her, his smile radiating. "Hey! We were just talking about getting something to eat. Pizza sound good?"

She doesn't answer him, doesn't say anything, as she moves to stand in front of him in two large strides. She grabs his face and pulls him to her, kissing him. It takes him a moment to respond but he does, like it's second nature, and his arms encircle her, pulling her closer. She's holding onto his face like it's her lifeline and her eyes are clinched shut and her heart feels like it's on fire and she know she's shaking but she doesn't care, she just kisses him like it's the last thing she'll do, like it's the only thing that matters.

When she finally does pull away, and opens her eyes, she notes the gazed look on his face and any other time, she'd laugh but she just stares at him and watches as he opens his eyes and thinks and wonders if she would ever really know the pain she caused him. If she would ever be able to repair it.

"Wow.." He murmurs. He's smiling but it quickly fades when he looks at her, closely. "Hey.." He asks softly, concern on his face. "Have you been crying?"

She backs away suddenly, glancing back apologetically at Mark, who couldn't look more uncomfortable. She turns back to Jim and offers a timid smile. "I'm.. I'm good," she gestures to behind her. "Just going to go finish what I was doing."

She doesn't give him any time to respond or stop her as she quickly escapes and makes her way back up the stairs.

She plops down onto the bed when she enters the bedroom again, and groans softly. She's not really sure what that was all about or why she ran away and she's definitely not sure why she's so emotional and weird about finding a stupid Christmas card.

Except it's not so stupid. She grabs the card from the floor and opens it again, and reads it over and over like it's something she needs to memorize. She'd always known that Jim loved her, that he had for quite a while. That's not a secret at all, but when she thinks about how he wrote this card.. these wonderfully, amazing, thoughtful words that would have changed everything, and how he never gave it to her. Just.. held onto it. It's just.. sometimes the depth of how Jim loves her, all that he was forced to suffer through because he loved her is something that both humbles her and makes her feel like absolute crap.

She can feel him, standing against the doorway a moment before he enters their bedroom, closing the door behind him.

She doesn't look at him, just leans into him as he lays down next to her. "I'm sorry I'm a drama queen, by the way."

He chuckles softly and kisses her hair, sighing into it. "You okay?"

She sighs deeply and nods. She hands him the card and lifts her head to look at him. "I suppose this is what I get for reading it without your permission."

His eyes grow wide and he stares at her a minute before shaking his head. "Don't worry about it," he says softly as he reads the card. He shakes his head and laughs. "It's been a while since I've seen this." He smiles softly and scrunches his nose as he looks at her, forcing her to smile. "Totally not a big deal, this, you know that, right?"

"Why didn't you give it to me?" She asks, not entirely sure she wants to hear the answer.

He shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know, planned to. Just wimped out, I guess."

She props her head into her hand and gazes at him, squinting at him. "What if you had?"

"What if I had?" He sighs and moves to lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. He doesn't say anything for a moment before he reaches for her, pulling her to him. She settles against his chest and he plays with her hair, taking a few more moments before he speaks again. "It doesn't matter, Pam. We've been through this before, and we're in a really, really good place now."

She moves to look at him. "Absolutely," she agrees, whispering. "Amazing, really."

"And we've been through too much since to backtrack, so. You can just stop feeling so guilty when something from.. before.. pops back up again, okay? We're going to be married, we have a house, and.. just.. we don't need to think about that stuff anymore."

She takes in a deep breath and smiles. "Okay." She says, kissing him. "Yes to all of that."

He stares at her intensely, his eyes never leaving hers. "You have to know," he begins, whispering. "You have to know what no matter what happened before, the pain, and us hurting each other; that I don't care about that at all, I don't even think of it, because this.." he gestures between them. "It was totally worth it. I'd do it all again if it'd meant we'd have this."

She moves to lay on top of him and covers his face in kisses, before nestling her face into his neck, and literally feels herself relax and settle when he wraps his arms around her, holding her tightly. She sighs into his neck and smiles. "I love you so much."

She squeals, laughing with delight when he flips them over, so he's above her. He rests his arms beside her head and kisses her softly. "Love you too."

She runs her hands underneath his shirt, enjoying the warmth of his back. She wraps her arms around his waist and smiles when he kisses her neck. "Before you get any brilliant ideas, Mark's still downstairs."

"Yeaaaaah. He excused himself when you had your meltdown."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, I think he saw it as an excuse to go see Marla."

"And escape furniture duty."

"Probably." Jim begins to work on the buttons of her shirt. "Buuuut, I see it as a perfect excuse to christen our awesome new bed."

"I thought we already did that."

"What? I don't know what you're talking about."

He's removing her shirt and she's working on his pants when she kisses his ear and tells him that he should give her a Christmas card this year.

"Of course. I'll be sure to go into explicit detail about how I hate you."

"Yeah, you do that."

***

***

in fact, i'm in love with italian food..

Jim lights the last candle and stands back to admire his handiwork, grinning. Yeah, he didn't do too bad if he had anything to say about it.

He stole a quick glance at the clock and nodded approvingly. Just in the nick of time. Pam would be home from her class in about.. oh, 5 minutes. Awesome.

The entire house's only light were the candles that sat on the dining room table and in various places around the living room like the mantle and the side tables and even the window sills. (He rolled up the curtains, 'cause you know, possible fire hazard and all.) The night's main course would be the only thing he could cook decently; lasagna and garlic bread to accompany a tall bottle of red wine. He cooked, okay bought whatever, one of Pam's favorite desserts, strawberry cheesecake and he's pretty sure that alone would get him laid.

Not that he was after that, really. One can cook an entire meal with wine and candles without that single intention in mind. Seriously. But if it DID happen.. holla.

He hears her car in the driveway and makes sure the oven is off because he can't remember if the turned it off before he rushes to the door to greet her. He has it opened halfway because it's a little cold outside but holds it wider when she reaches the entryway.

Her frizzy hair is hidden under her hat, her cheeks rosy, and her smile bright. "Hey you!" She kisses him for as long as she can as she walks past him, into the house.

She's taking off her gloves when she does a half-circle, glancing around the room. "Did the power go out or something?"

Jim smiles, rolling his eyes. He helps her take off her coat and throws it on the couch, leading her to the table in the dining room. "I know your lecture was probably really enthusing and the last thing you want to do is sit in the dark but I'm feeding you so deal with it."

Pam grins. "You made dinner?" She scans the table. "Aww, lasagna. Did you manage not to burn it this time?"

"Hey, I remember that not being entirely all my fault. You shouldn't have distracted me. I'm a weak man, Pam. Weak."

"But still. Impressive."

She slides off her shoes and claps her hands giddily as she sits down in the chair. She takes a sip of her wine and smiles as Jim sits across from her. "This is fantastic, really. Thank you."

"You're welcome." Jim grins, also taking a drink from his glass. "Now if you want to spend the rest of night listing all the ways I'm awesome, I have no problem with that."

"Oh, whew. Thanks, I was really worried about conversation."

"I'm glad to help."

Pam smirks and takes a bite of the pasta, nodding approvingly. She takes another drink of the wine and sighs. "It's delicious. But I have to ask, what's the occasion?"

"To celebrate my awesomeness."

"Okay, seriously, you have to stop that."

Jim shrugs his shoulder and takes a moment before answering. "I don't know, I just don't think we've had a night like this in a while. I mean, we have dinner all the time and go on random dates but nothing like this. Plus it's in our new house and we're engaged and.. yeah.

Pam shakes her head, kind of amazed her heart still does that flutter thing when it hits her, yet again, how amazing he really is. She doesn't think she'll ever get tired of that realization. She's indeed a lucky girl. "I guess you are kind of awesome. Kind of."

"I told you. Anyway, I figure it's the last romantic thing I do before we get married and you start wearing sweats and we stop having sex because why do that when I could be sleeping."

Pam laughs. "Oh my god, please don't let that be us."

"Something tells me that we won't have a problem with that."

***

They're into a second bottle of wine and her head is feeling a little fuzzy and she keeps giggling because, well, why not, and Jim's funny. He's always funny. He always makes her laugh. Jim's the best.

So she tells him. "You're the best."

"What? No, you're the best!"

"Tell me."

"What?"

"Tell me all about how I'm the best."

They're sitting next to each other on the couch, leaning back against it, and they're each holding their glasses and he turns his head to look at her and finds that she's completely serious.

"Really? You like, want me to list your positive attributes?"

"My what?"

"Attributes."

"Please don't stop saying that word. You're so cute when you say that word."

"Oh my god," Jim laughs. "You are so cut off."

"Hee, I love that you still blush whenever I tell you you're cute."

"Wow."

"You are even cuter when you blush."

"Would you stop it!?"

Pam giggles because even though she won't admit it out loud, she is kind of drunk (she could never hold her liquor well) and because, yeah, he is really cute when he blushes. Among other things. "Do you even know just how endearing it is that you don't even know how ridiculously hot you are?"

"Did you sneak a couple of glasses when I wasn't looking? Like I was in the bathroom and you just chugged a whole bottle or something?"

"And that you shrug off compliments with lame jokes? It's adorable."

Jim rolls his eyes and he's not entirely sure he hasn't stopped smiling in the past hour. Dinner went great and he couldn't remember the last time they had just hung out like this, enjoying each other and drinking too much and just. He thinks he could literally spend the rest of his life having every night be like this and he'd die a happy man with a life well spent.

"I love you."

He says it so softly that Pam almost doesn't hear him and he's looking at her, a slight wistful smile on his face and it reminds her of a time at a poker table and going all in. She sees everything on his face, in one simple glance; of wonder and amazement and love, and it hits her so hard, and she sometimes just doesn't know how to deal with being loved so much, so effortlessly, so easily.

She's not so sure she'll ever deserve it.

Pam smiles and leans towards him and he meets her halfway, like he's waiting for her, and their lips meet and she's grinning against his mouth and he laughs but then her mouth opens and. It was supposed to be a simple kiss but somehow the wine glasses get put on the table, and her hands are around his waist and he's halfway on top of her, all done without breaking contact. It's actually kind of impressive.

After a few moments, they break apart briefly, Jim leans his forehead against hers and they're breathing hard and Pam inhales deeply. She's inching his tee-shirt up and up and trying her best to get it over his head but he's otherwise occupied with her jeans and she sighs.

"We should go to the bedroom."

"That's effort."

"But if we go now, we won't have to leave the rest of the night."

Jim stops and lifts his head to look at her. "I like the way you think." He moves off of her, slowly but surely, and stands.. slightly wobbly as he offers his hand to her.

Pam grins as he pulls her to her feet and kisses him when she stands. "I know, I'm awesome."

"I love you so much for your modesty."

She grabs his hands and pulls him towards her as she guides them to their room, walking backwards. They're kissing and Pam backs away a moment, "Did you blow out the candles?"

"Yes."

She wraps her arms around his neck as they back into the bedroom and in a quick stride, she falls down on the bed, giggling softly, and his hands are under her shirt and over her breasts and her breath quickens.

"Thank you for tonight. It was really great."

"You're welcome. And for the grand finale.."

"That might have been the worst thing you've ever said."

"Why are we still talking?"

She pulls him to her and kisses him soundly. "Touche, my friend, touche."

***

Pam loves them best when it's like this. Because they don't often have nights like these, and work and life can get in the way, she loves them together like this; tangled into each other and their thoughts and secrets are spoken in the dark and how it always feels like nothing could ever get in the way of them together in their own private world.

She thinks maybe it's because when she dreamed about him and them together, it was always of this. Totally much better than the dream version, by the way. She'll never get tired of it.

"So, wow."

"Indeed." She ruffles his hair as she's glances at him, smiling, and he's got a goofy, sated grin on his face, obviously very pleased with himself. "I think that might be a new record or something."

His hands are loosely and possessively wrapped around her waist, tapping his fingers against her hip bone as she rests against his arm. "Possibly. I lost count a few hours ago."

Pam laughs. "Yeah, I think you're right. There's no way marriage could slow us down."

"Psft. I wouldn't allow it."

"Really?"

"You're pretty cute yourself too, Beesly. And I think you know of my weakness for red-headed receptionists slash artists."

"Yeah, that's true. It's like, your kryptonite."

She yawns and he wraps his hands around her tighter, pulling her closer. "Sleepy?"

Pam nods, laying her head against his chest, closing her eyes. "Yeah, you wore me out."

"But I also fed you."

"I know. You're too good to me."

Jim kisses her temple and covers them both with the blankets, settling himself against her.

He loves them when the most they're like this, all wrapped into each other, hidden away from the world and they talk, sometimes about absolutely nothing, but it's just them. It always feels like a bad day is made better when it ends like this, and he loves that he always has it to look forward to every day.

It was what he thought about when it was just him in his bed and he would think about the almosts, and the maybes, and what-ifs and wondered if he would ever have this.

He pulls her closer to him and when she falls asleep, he stays awake for a long while listening to her softly snore and thinks about he will never, ever take it for granted.

***

***

"So, twenty questions. Ready?"

"What could you possibly ask me that you don't already know?"

"Lots of things."

"Like what?"

"Like who taught you to do that thing with your tongue? Because.. wow."

"Okay, um. Yeah. Do you even want to know the answer to that?"

"Um."

"Pam?"

"I guess not? Anyway. There are still plenty of questions I can ask you. Like. What's the most awesome thing about me?"

"Oh, but the list is endless!"

"Haha, good answer. But seriously."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Top five, maybe."

"Wow. Who knew you were so conceited?"

"It comes and goes. I mean it, top five."

"Well, first. Your modesty, definitely. It's so.. endearing."

"Why are you being sarcastic at a very serious and crucial moment such as this?"

"Who said I was being sarcastic? That was the truth like, two minutes ago."

"Why can't you take anything seriously? All you do is joke, it's getting old."

"Your face is getting old."

"See?! I can't deal with you anymore."

"I can't deal with your face."

"James."

"Pamela."

"Don't make me give me back the ring."

"Is that like, what you do? Get engaged and ride it out for a few years and then-"

"Shut up."

"Who's the lucky guy? We spend most of our time together but it could be anyone. Is it Hank? I saw you eyeing him the other day."

"Eww."

"It's Andy, right? It took some time but you couldn't deny the banjo."

"Ugh. I hate you. I don't want to marry you anymore."

"Don't tempt me."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Is there someone else in Stamford or-"

"You should take that act on the road."

"Thank you. I'll be here all night."

"Unfortunately."

***

"Jim. I'm trying to sleep."

"Are you ready for the list?"

"What?"

"Top five, remember?"

"I'm sleeping."

"But you're talking. So listen up."

"Ugh."

"One, your heart. I love your compassion and your empathy. Two, your sense of humor. I love that we can joke about anything, even the bad stuff. Three, your passion. I love how you love. Your family, your art, me. Four, and seriously, I do love your modesty. I love that after all this time, you still blush when I tell you how beautiful you are. And five.. ready.. big finish? I love you the most. All that you are, all that you're going to be. I just really love you."

"Oh.."

"Oh, and you're strong. Pam, honey. I can't breathe."

"I love you so much."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Why are you still talking?"

"I think the better question is who taught you how to do that thing with your tongue. Wait.. never mind. Oooh, and that.. who taught you.. that. What? Okay, fine. I'll stop talking now.. wow."

***