JAM 6.0 by DoomGoose
Summary:

Sequel to Pam 6.0 

Pam broke up with Roy after his comments in S01E06 – Hot Girl, and after a summer of simmering tensions Jim and Pam have finally admitted their feelings for each other. 


Categories: Jim and Pam, Episode Related, Alternate Universe Characters: Ensemble, Jim/Pam
Genres: Drama, Fluff, Humor, Romance, Workdays
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Challenges: None
Series: Pam 6.0
Chapters: 15 Completed: No Word count: 31719 Read: 25730 Published: May 18, 2020 Updated: September 29, 2020
Story Notes:
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

1. Prelude by DoomGoose

2. Sexual Harassment by DoomGoose

3. Not a Date by DoomGoose

4. Halloween by DoomGoose

5. Performance Reviews by DoomGoose

6. Christmas Party by DoomGoose

7. Christmas and The New Year by DoomGoose

8. Booze Cruise by DoomGoose

9. The Injury by DoomGoose

10. The Discovery by DoomGoose

11. The Farm by DoomGoose

12. Take Your Daughter to Work Day by DoomGoose

13. Michael’s Birthday by DoomGoose

14. Drug Testing by DoomGoose

15. Casino Night by DoomGoose

Prelude by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
A teaser to keep my promise of getting this story on the road.

It had been nearly a week since Pam had admitted her feelings to Jim only to discover that the were reciprocal, and she felt as though she had been floating for days, hardly able to focus at work, always glancing over at him for to share secret smiles, and painting or drawing his features in her evening art classes. Jim hadn’t yet asked her on a date, but Pam’s mom was in town to take her out for dinner and had been asking after Jim almost all summer, so Pam decided that she could get the ball rolling. They had started carpooling into work together on days that Pam didn’t have classes last week, and they weren’t even met with any raised eyebrows at work, which honestly surprised Pam. She had been expecting to have to justify the action to Angela at the very least, but no one had said anything if they noticed.

Pam wondered what all of that said about her and Jim’s relationship if admitting they were in love with each other changed so little that their nosy co-workers hadn’t picked up on anything. Did everyone just assume that they had already hooked up months ago, or did they really buy the best friends line that they had been fooling themselves with for years? Ok, that wasn’t quite true, Pam amended, she had been selling herself, Jim had apparently known all along, and he was very adamant in that fact.

“What ch’ya thinkin’ about there Beesly,” Jim pulled her out of her thoughts, and she looked over in the car to see him quirking am eyebrow at her.

“I was just wondering if maybe you’d like to join my mother and I for dinner tonight,” Pam said, purposefully leaving it rather open ended, bracing for Jim to turn her offer down.

“So, you think we need a chaperone for our first date,” Jim shot back with a reassuring smile, relaxing her fears.

“Purely for your benefit of course,” Pam said with a smile, “We wouldn’t want you to feel like I was taking advantage of you.”

“This is the second time you’ve threatened to take advantage of me Pam,” Jim said with a smirk, “Do I need to bring my mother along?”

“I mean,” Pam fumbled for a comeback, “If you want to do the whole meet the parents thing before we’ve even gone on a date, that’s fine by me,” she recovered.

“Miss Beesly, how forward of you,” Jim’s smirk cracked into a wide smile, “Of course, I would love to join you and your mother for dinner, I’ve got it on very good authority that she is a very nice lady.”

“Oh,” Pam challenged, raising an eyebrow back at him.

“Well, you know what they say, like mother like daughter,” Jim said, shooting her a significant look, “And if I love her daughter…”

“Wow, ok, walked right into that one,” Pam chuckled, “I love you too.”

“Not to mention I’ve already met your parents,” Jim pressed on with a wink as they pulled into the business park, “So there is that.”

As Jim pulled his car into the parking space, Pam cast a quick glance around the lot, before ducking over to plant a quick kiss on Jim’s cheek before fleeing the car, skipping towards the office doors giddily. Pam heard Jim call out from behind her.

“How dare you,” he called out, and she looked over to see him halfway out of the car with a huge smile on his face.

Pam just giggled and turned back towards the door, slowing her pace to let Jim catch up to her.
End Notes:

I can promise that updates for this will not be nearly as frequent or long as the previous installment, but regardless I'll do my best to work on it as inspiration strikes! I may also be shamelessly reallocating my favourite S4 JAM moments into this AU S2, so be on the lookout for those I suppose!

Coming up next is a rendition of Sexual Harassment.

 

Sexual Harassment by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
Jim and Pam get through a workday

Pam wasn’t about to let anything ruin her mood today. She was in love with Jim, her mom was coming to town, and Jim was joining them for dinner. Pam felt emotionally invincible. This was challenged when Pam noticed Todd Packer creeping up behind Michael while he was making some joke between the sales desks in the bullpen.

Pam had to stifle a giggle when Jim replied to Packer’s taunt of ‘Still Queer?’ with a smirk as he looked her dead in the eyes and said that absolutely, he was.

Pam tried to ignore Packer for the most part, but she couldn’t help but groan and let her head hit her desk after Packer inevitably made a pass at her. She was almost relieved that Toby was doing a corporate mandated sexual harassment policy review, until she remembered what usually happened after these meetings. Namely, some people – primarily Kevin if she was naming names, sexually harassed her for the fun of it.

The rest of the day passed with the usual harassment, but with Jim just a few feet away to roll her eyes at it was a lot easier to deal with. Jan and some suit had dropped in to pull Michael into a meeting, and apparently comedy was dead, but to Pam it was no big loss. Pam was excited for the end of the day and kept glancing up to see if her Mom was coming through the door, but of course she appeared sometime shortly after four-thirty the moment Pam was distracted.

Jim was having a pretty good day, all things considered. Sure, Packer was in the office and he hated him, but Pam had kissed him this morning, so that was a trade-off that he was willing to take. Add on top of that hearing Pam sass Packer about needing to be driven around by Ryan because of his DUI really warmed his heart. Jim was in the middle of trying very hard not to be productive when he noticed Helene sneaking up to Pam’s desk with exaggerated tiptoeing, and Jim couldn’t help but smile as he watched them out of the corner of his eye. Helene made it to the coat rack before Pam looked up and noticed her.

“Oh my god,” Pam yelped as she sprung from her chair, “Mom, hi,” she exclaimed, wrapping her mother in a hug.

Jim watched discreetly as Pam showed off her workspace and moved his hand to his chin to hide a smile at her wording, thinking back to the day he and Pam had pranked Dwight with all of the fake diseases because he had tried to violate their privacy. Jim shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts and glanced over again to see Pam and her mom huddled behind her desk.

“So how are things going with Jim,” Helene asked Pam quietly, and Jim’s smile grew even wider as he watched Pam blush.

“Mom!” Pam chastised, mortified at the thought of someone in the officer overhearing her.

Jim figured he’d save Pam any further embarrassment and spun in his chair to get up and make his way over to the reception counter, seeing Michael dragging the blow-up doll by an arm in the corner of his eye.

“Mrs. Beesly,” he greeted with a smile from the corner of the desk near the coatracks, reaching out to shake her hand and she spun around to address him.

“Mr. Halpert,” Helene responded with a wink and a light handshake, before pulling him into a hug, “That’s Helene or Mom to you,” she said into his ear as just before she pulled away from the embrace, giving him a grin with a twinkle in her eye that reminded him of Pam.

Jim and Helene had started playing this sort-of game over the summer, he would always greet her with an overly formal address, and she would do the same. She seemed to get a kick out of it and so Jim kept doing it. Her eyes sparkled just like Pam’s when she was amused, and that was reason enough for Jim.

Pam was relieved that reinforcements had arrived in the form of Jim, but she was also very concerned that her mother would use this opportunity to interrogate Jim, but she had to run some forms back to Toby before she could finish her faxes for the day.

“You two behave,” Pam said, fixing Jim and her mom in turn with a stern look, “I just have to run these back to Toby and then finish getting the faxes out,” she waved the forms as she disengaged and retreated to the annex through the kitchen.

“Would you like to have a seat,” Jim asked Helene, gesturing to the couch.

“Of course, thank you,” Helene moved to sit down, and then patted the cushion beside her, “Care to join me?”

“Sure,” Jim lowered himself down beside her, “I’ve been done working for a while anyway,” he supplied.

“That’s good,” Helene nodded, “So Pam tells me that you two have finally started carpooling,” she looked at him with a raised eyebrow and as he nodded she continued, “Did she tell you that I was coming to take her out for dinner tonight?”

“She may have mentioned it,” Jim answered cryptically, not quite sure where Helene was going with this as he glanced around the office.

“Did she invite you to come along,” Helene prompted with a raised eyebrow and a straight face.

“Yeah, she did, I hope that’s alright, I don’t want to impose,” Jim started before she cut him off.

“Good, I was afraid she wasn’t going to let you come along because you hadn’t been on a real date yet,” Helene finally clued him in with a smile, before adding in a low voice, “Although if you ask me the summer of picnics in the park should have counted.”

“Phew, you had me worried there for a minute Helene,” Jim said with a good-natured chuckle, relieved that she wasn’t upset about him tagging along, and that she seemed to be rooting for him.

Jim chose not to comment on her opinion on date eligibility because they were in the office, he continued to entertain Helene as Pam returned and puttered about her desk getting the evening faxes out. Their coworkers trickled out, their assorted grunts and goodbyes reaching his ears as they made their way through the doors and out into the night. Pam finished up at around ten after and Jim offered that she ride with her mother to the restaurant, so he wouldn’t intrude on their entire evening together. He followed them in his Corolla the short distance to the restaurant with a huge smile plastered on his face.

Helene had told him he could call her ‘Mom’ was all that was running through his head as he pulled into the space beside her car and got out to open the passenger side door for Pam.

End Notes:

It's short and not a lot happens, I know. On the bright side we're all set up for supper with our favourite people, so that should be nice. I might throw a few timeskips in, I haven't really decided yet. There are a few key points I want to hit in this story, but I'm not too sure what to do with the inbetween bits. 

I think of this story as kind of like an extended epilogue, so we'll see how it goes.

Thanks everyone for reading and reviewing, your feedback means a lot to me! 

Not a Date by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
The Beeslys and Jim have dinner.

Dinner with Pam and her mother was not nearly as awkward as Jim had imagined it would be. Jim had met Helene a few times over the summer and he was always surprised at the rapport he found with her. Jim supposed it wasn’t really too far fetched given the dynamic that he and Pam shared, but it never ceased to amaze him. Jim was also in awe of the Beesly dynamic, and he could see so much of where Pam got her warm, bright, light-hearted personality from. While Jim was content just to sit back and observe, Pam or Helene seemed to know how to pull him back into the conversation, leaving him feeling very included, and loved by the end of the dinner. When it came time to get the bill, Jim tried to take it, only to get caught in a stare-down with Helene, who insisted she pay as she was the one who came out to treat her daughter. While they argued pleasantly, Pam excused herself to go to the washroom. Jim and Helene conceded to a compromise and split the bill in half. With that settled the interrogation began.

Pam was concerned when she emerged from the bathroom to find her mom leaned close to Jim with her head propped up by her hands stacked under her chin. That was Helene’s interrogation posture. Pam hastened her return, hoping to stymie any possible scarring or embarrassment that would inevitably be accompanied by an interrogation from her mother. As Pam returned to the table, she did her best to disrupt whatever thread her mom had been pursuing.

“What are you guys talking about,” Pam asked as she burst into the conversation.

Helene shifted her gaze to Pam and answered nonchalantly, “I was just telling Jim about how much I’d love some grandchildren, and how since Penny doesn’t have any prospects lined up the ball is in his court.”

Pam, who had been trying to surreptitiously take a sip of her water, did a literal spit take, spraying the table as she sputtered. Pam glanced at Jim to see his eyes wide and brows raised, but with a slight grin adorning his face. Pam wasn’t sure what to make of that as she tried her best to salvage the situation.

“Mom,” Pam gasped exasperatedly, “We haven’t even been on a date yet,” Pam exclaimed as she pleaded to Jim with her eyes not to run away on account of her crazy mother.

“Oh come on Pamela,” Helene rolled her eyes as though Pam was the one being ridiculous, “I was just telling Jim earlier that if you don’t call what you two did all summer dating, then I don’t know what is,” she finished with a wink to Jim, and Pam saw his smirk growing.

‘Traitor,’ she thought mock-bitterly, as Pam realised that Jim was greatly enjoying the beet red her face must be by this point. Pam tried to convey ‘You’ll pay for that later’ with her glare at Jim, but he just kept smiling. Pam took a sudden interest in the tablecloth to try and hide her embarrassment. In retrospect, if Pam was being honest with herself, which she had promised herself she would be after the night of the Dundies, she could see how one could interpret some of their summer activities as dates. In fact, she recalled initially fearing that they were dates when she was still fresh out of her relationship with Roy. When Pam looked up again the bill had been paid and Jim was offering her his hand and a ride home, which she mimed thinking over before she accepted.

Jim saw her to her door, and he couldn’t help hoping for a kiss goodnight. He was not disappointed when she turned in her doorway, half a step taller than she would be on level ground and cupped his face to pull it towards her mouth. After parting they made plans to hang out in the park in the morning, and Jim couldn’t help the elation he felt when she responded, seemingly echoing her mother’s sentiments after all.

“It’s a date,” Pam said with a smirk.

End Notes:

I struggled to get this one out, in the end I decided to just spit it out so that I could move on with the plot.

I hope it was enjoyable nonetheless! I appreciate all of the feedback you folks leave, it humbles me greatly that my stories can make you smile. Thanks to everyone who has left reviews or 'beans, you make me smile.

Next up will be a series of shorter chapters, probably just covering key differences in the timelines and letting you folks fill in the rest.

Halloween by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
Jim and Pam have their first fight?

Pam felt like she was high on life. Jim was taking her out for official dates now, after their first date in the park, they had decided to distinguish between their now traditionally entrenched ‘best-friend dates’ and ‘date-dates.’ This meant that Jim had taken her out to a restaurant for a romantic dinner for the last two Fridays, and Pam had invited Jim to her place a few times for movie nights without Mark or Larissa around – although those still happened too. Things were going really well as far as Pam was concerned, dating your best friend was a blast. They managed to make each other laugh all the time – even while making out like teenagers on the tiny couch in Pam’s living room, Pam blushed.

Jim looked up from his desk to see Pam blushing with a far off look in her eye, and he couldn’t help catching her eye to grin slyly at her, imagining what she might be thinking about over there behind reception. Pam was dressed up as a cat for the Halloween party today, with whiskers and a nose drawn on her face and her hair down and held back by a cute headband with ears on it. Jim loved it when Pam wore her hair down, she looked so beautiful and carefree, and he loved the feel of running his hands through it.

Pam met Jim’s eyes after he caught her attention and she had to look away at what she saw in them. The unabashed emotion warmed her heart and she couldn’t help but feel like she was blushing even harder now. Pam thought back to two weeks ago when he had given her a similar look after she revived him to run the Office Olympics. Pam knew now that was the look Jim got in his eyes when he was passionate about something – in this case her. Pam had felt invincible after feeding off of that look, and even Angela’s snide comment about Pam Pong hadn’t broken her stride that day. Pam didn’t care what the office thought or if they figured it out – but she wasn’t going to be giving away any clues either. The cameras had been especially relentless after her drunken kiss at the Dundies, and Kelly had only just this week stopped speculating about it in her presence. Jim had had the forethought to pick Kevin to throw people off in their impromptu round of ‘Who Would You Do’ after Ryan set the building on fire last week. Pam was almost grateful that Katy had shown up to take Roy out to lunch, ending up as the crowd pick for the male office members.

Pam was actually surprised that Katy was still hanging around with Roy, she seemed to be nice and smart. If Pam was honest with herself though, Roy had cleaned up his act a lot since she had left him, and the fact that she may well have been holding him back stung. Pam hoped that she wasn’t holding Jim back. Was that why Jim didn’t have something to strive for like she strove for her art? Pam was concerned by this revelation, because she didn’t know what Jim wanted to do big picture, and she felt like she should. Pam’s thoughts were interrupted by Michael calling her into his office.

Jim listened as Pam debriefed him over coffee in the kitchen about her latest experience in Michael’s office. She had just finished telling him about Michael saying that he needed to fire someone and her attempt to brush it off by saying that she just answered the phones.

“And then all I could think was, ‘Escape, Evade, Survive,’ over and over in my head from that war movie we watched last week with Mark, and so I complimented his costume, giggled a bit, and got the hell out of there,” Pam wrapped up her report.

“Well, let me tell you Beesly, I am glad you lived to fight another day,” Jim teased her, loving the way she curled in on herself, utterly failing to stifle her giggles.

“It was a close call, he was all ‘And sometimes you let them go to voicemail,’ and I just,” Pam giggled, “I couldn’t even defend it, because you know how little work actually gets done around here!”

“Says the one who got promoted to Administrative Assistant,” Jim challenged her, “I thought that was supposed to come with increased responsibilities?”

“Please, all that did was make my Michael Wrangling official,” Pam sighed, “At least it pays for my art classes.”

“There’s my Beesly,” Jim beamed, “Always looking at the bright side.”

“You know,” Pam trialed off as though she was about to suggest a prank.

“I really don’t,” Jim said with a smirk, wondering what she had cooked up, “Please enlighten me.”

“Consider yourself prematurely elucidated friend,” Pam winked at him and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially, “If we could get Dwight a job somewhere else, nobody would have to get fired!”

That was how Jim ended up hunched behind Pam at the reception desk, only too aware of the ever present camera trained on them as they bounced ideas back and forth to create Dwight’s fake resume. After posting his resume and getting a few bites, Jim returned to his desk to lay low, but he was shaken from thoughts of his self-imposed exile when he heard Pam answer the phone.

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam,” Jim saw movement in his periphery and looked up to see Pam trying to get his attention, “Hang on one second while I transfer you to our Regional Manager, Michael Scott,” she said before his phone started to ring.

She was so good, perfect, even, was all Jim could think as he picked up the phone to impersonate Michael in order to provide a reference for Dwight’s resume. Jim hung up the phone and meandered up to reception where Pam was positively beaming at him. Jim loved that smile, that smile was a job well done, but now Jim knew it also meant ‘I love you,’ among other things.

“Hey, don’t take this the wrong way,” Pam trailed off as Jim leaned on her counter, and Pam saw the corners of his mouth tug down into a slight frown, but pressed on, “You should look into some of those postings, they pay like, double you make here, have better benefits, and you know… might actually be challenging for you,” Pam felt a stab of fear as his frown deepened, had she pushed too far? The boundaries of their new relationship were still relatively untested, but Pam just wanted to see Jim in a job that brought him joy, was that really so bad?

“Jim,” Pam pleaded as his lips drew into a line and his back straightened, “Stairwell?”

Jim nodded reluctantly, and they made their escape as the film crew was busy filming Dwight talking to the hiring manager from Cumberland Mills. By unspoken mutual agreement, they sat down next to each other on the landing, and waited for someone to break the silence.

Pam broke first, she hated not being able to talk to Jim, “Why are you mad at me,” she asked in a small voice.

When Jim still didn’t respond, she prodded again, “I just wanted to encourage you to go after something like you’ve always done for me, I know you don’t want to sell paper as a career, but… I also don’t know what your dream job is, and I want to,” she added quietly, silently begging Jim to meet her gaze as he stared determinedly down the stairwell.

“Listen, I’m sorry if I overstepped,” Pam started before Jim cut her off.

“You didn’t overstep,” Jim assured her, and Pam was relieved to hear no anger in his tone as he finally met her gaze.

“It’s just, when you get excited about something, like the Office Olympics, or the games we did in the parking lot, you get really into it and do a great job, but you work here, so… I guess what I’m trying to say is that my wish for you, is for you to have a job that brings out that side of you,” Pam got out, and gave Jim a small smile.

“Pam, can I be completely honest with you,” Jim asked with a small smile of his own.

“I should hope so,” Pam shot back with a raised eyebrow.

“Right now, my dream job… is being your boyfriend, and I don’t know if that’s weird or what, but it’s true. Career-wise? I have no idea, and I’ve been wrestling with that for a while now, and I’m sorry that I let you think I was angry at you; I wasn’t. I’ve just been really frustrated with the ‘What do you want to be when you grow up’ question for a while now,” he sighed and shrugged, and all Pam wanted to do was hug him for letting her see his insecurities, his weakness. Roy had never been this open with her.

“Oh Jim,” Pam leaned into him and started idly rubbing is back, “Thank you for letting me in,” she felt Jim wrap his arm around her shoulders and sighed contentedly, because these were the hallmarks of a healthy relationship in her mind, being open and accepting of one another. Explaining feelings and talking instead of shutting the other out.

They sat there together for a few more minutes before Jim reluctantly let go and said they should get back, and shortly after making their discrete return to the office, Jim got pulled in to the conference room for an interview with the film crew. Jim knew the drill by now, and so he sat and waited for Greg to start asking him questions, preparing his answers for the probing questions they usually gave him about Pam. Surprisingly, there were no questions about Pam today, the focus was on how Michael was going to decide who to fire, and when Jim finished his answer he heard a throat clear to his left. Jim looked over to see Michael scowling at him, and followed him into his office, dragging his feet. Jim met Pam’s eyes and saw the concern there and tried to reassure her with a smile before closing the door behind him.

Pam was worried when she saw Michael pull Jim into his office with grim features. Someone was getting fired today, and she refused to believe it could be Jim – everybody loved Jim. The evidence to the contrary was stacked against her right now though, as Dwight make a throat slitting motion with his finger and chuckled darkly. Pam waited anxiously for the door to open, and when it did, she sprung from her chair and suddenly she was holding Jim’s hand.

“It wasn’t me,” was all she needed, as she felt the relief flow through her.

Jim pulled her towards the breakroom, and she didn’t resist, following along behind him. Pam sat herself down heavily and Jim went over to the vending machine.

“Phew,” Pam exhaled, “I don’t know what I’d do if you left,” she said earnestly.

Jim quirked an eyebrow at her as he set a coke down in front of her, “This coming from the one that was just encouraging me to look into other job offers?”

“Just because I want what’s best for you doesn’t mean I can’t be selfish too,” Pam stuck her tongue out at him, glad that they could so easily fall back into their dynamic of playful banter.

“Well, I appreciate your concern, but you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“And thank god for that,” Pam raised her coke in a cheers motion, and he clinked his grape soda can with it.

The last hour of work was filled with shouting from Michael’s office, as first Creed, then Devon, were called in to be fired. Michael finally managed to fire Devon and tried to offer him a Chilli’s gift certificate on his way out. When Devon invited ‘Kevin, Jim, Pam, Toby, Oscar, Meredith, Phyllis, Stanley, and The Temp’ to Poor Richards, adding that the rest could ‘Go to Hell,’ Pam looked over to Jim to gauge his reaction. Jim jerked is head towards the door and shrugged, Pam shrugged back. With that decided they grabbed their jackets and ditched the after-work Halloween party in favour of a couple of drinks with Devon.

Pam stuck to Lite beer and Jim ribbed her for being a light-weight, but Pam replied coyly that she didn’t need liquid courage to kiss him anymore, and Jim promptly paid their tab and escorted her home ‘To test that theory’ as he put it.

The day had had its ups and downs, but in the end as Jim kissed her senseless on her doorstep, Pam acquiesced that any day with Jim was a good day.

End Notes:

While I was procrastinating writing last chapter, I finished the rough plot for the next 9 or so... so so long as my motivation keeps up, delivery should be a lot fast for the next while.

Hope you enjoyed this smooshing AU of Office Olympics through to Halloween, it feels good to be moving on with the plot, and I have big plans for the next few chapters.

Initially my plot draft had this story ending at the end of S2, but the more I think it over the more I want to cover early AU S3 as well, so maybe I will, maybe I wont. Depnds how my plot works out I suppose.

Thanks everyone for reading, and for those reviewing thank you for your kind words, I always look forward to hearing from you! 

Performance Reviews by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
Pam is an evil mastermind.

Today marked the start of phase two of Pam’s campaign to make it up to Jim for overreacting when they were horsing around at the dojo last week during Michael and Dwight’s fight. When Pam saw Meredith and the cameras noticing, she just shut it down. She was not ready for the office to start gossiping about them. Jim had been understanding, and had even gotten her a bag of chips to say sorry, but Pam felt like she was the one who should be apologizing, and so that was how she found herself early to work for the last week and a half; the first person in the office. Pam made her way over to Dwight’s desk quickly, as he could turn up at any moment, and peeled Wednesday and Thursday off of the tear-off calendar on his desk, before moving back to reception to shred the evidence.

Dwight had been suspicious early last week when she started doing it, but after the outrage of the ‘dwigt’ find and replace error in Michael’s screenplay that they had read late after work, he had promptly forgotten about it. Pam recalled that night fondly, as she and Jim had escaped the cameras to eat sandwiches on the roof while watching Dwight and Kevin play with fireworks. It had been so mundanely romantic, and to cap the night off they had swayed in the parking lot, tethered to each other by the wires of Jim’s ear buds, before he dropped her off at home and they went their separate ways.

Pam started taking down voicemails onto memo cards as she did every morning. Dwight entered the office at precisely quarter-to. Pam greeted him with a sweet smile and asked about his plans for the weekend, to which he said something about playing board games with his girlfriend. No cameras or coworkers had appeared other than Dwight, and so when he went to get his coffee after starting his computer, Pam quickly scuttled over to deliver his messages. While she was at it, she changed the date on his computer.

When Jim walked into the office to be greeted yet again by Pam’s bright smile and mischievous eyes, he knew she was up to something. When she asked a little too loudly about his weekend plans when Dwight exited the kitchen, he was confused but played along regardless. The first time Dwight let slip that he thought it was Friday, Jim was in awe. How did she do it? Was that why she had refused to carpool with him for the last week and a half? She was amazing. Jim decided right then that it was time to get a ring on her, social norms be damned. He’d had a ring since a week or so after they started officially dating, after spending almost an entire weekend picnicking and playing with her and Nikita in the park near their homes. Jim wanted her in his life forever. Sure, right now she was his girlfriend, but that term just seemed so trivial and insignificant. Jim wasn’t sure if he could call her his lover though, because they hadn’t actually made love yet. Pam had jokingly said that she was ‘over’ pre-marital sex, and that she didn’t want a relationship based around that this time. While Jim could agree with the sentiment, when kissing her and holding felt as good as it did, he couldn’t imagine what all the rest would feel like when they finally got around to it. Jim was shaken from his thoughts when Jan appeared and Michael called them all into the conference room, breaking him out of autopilot.

Pam winked at him when Dwight mistook the date again, and they rolled with it like a well-oiled prank machine, being vague but confident in their responses and preventing any of their coworkers from questioning it. Jim and Pam exchanged wide-eyed looks as they and the entire office overheard Michael and Jan’s conversation at the elevator. At the end of the day Jim walked out of the office and overheard Dwight making plans to go play laser tag with someone, he nudged Pam away from the elevator and towards the stairwell so he could express his awe and love of her.

End Notes:

The next one will probably be short too. We're racing ahead to my big plans at full speed. Next up should be the Christmas Party, because what good is a Season 2 AU without that? I'm really on a roll with this one, it's a lot of fun to write it! Updates will slow down going into next week though, as I am starting work fulltime again, so I will no longer been in this blissful state of fun-employment.

Thank you for reading and reviewing, I love hearing from you folks! 

Christmas Party by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
Yankee Swap strikes again.

Last week at Jim’s barbeque, Pam had dropped a bomb on him. Dwight and Angela were likely dating, but he was prohibited from using that knowledge to mess with Dwight. Jim fell more in love with Pam every day, because of course she cared in her own special way about Dwight’s feelings, and by extension Angela’s. Pam was the nicest person he knew, and she proved it yet again by coming to the barbeque straight after her evening class with a bag of vegetarian patties, because she knew Angela would like the option. Jim was really looking forward to showing his appreciation to her come the Office Christmas party later in the day, because he had paid Creed five bucks to get Pam in Secret Santa.  Jim was a little nervous that his gift might come across as stalkerish, he had gotten her a little teal teapot so that she could have tea at her desk, and filled it with mementos of the time they had spent together over the last few years as best friends, and now significant others. At the same time, Jim rationalised that it had to be better than whatever Creed would have come up with, so at least he had spared her that.

The film crew had been pulling everyone in to do interviews about their Secret Santa gifts all morning. Pam watched as Jim grabbed a nondescript white box and followed the producer to go do his interview. Pam had been trying to get Jim to spill the beans on who he got for Secret Santa this year, but even utilizing her feminine wiles there had been no success, he was playing this one close to his vest as it were. That in itself was a dead giveaway for her though, because it meant either he got Dwight and the payoff was going to be substantial, or he had her. At this point in the game Pam had resigned herself to waiting to see what she got and making a determination based on that if he hadn’t cracked by then. Pam was pretty sure she was going to win though, Jim usually let her in on pranks.

Later as they all gathered around the tree and Dwight started distributing gifts with ruthless efficiency, Pam was not disappointed to be proven right in her assumptions. As Pam opened her gift to discover a card and a teal teapot, she looked up to meet Jim’s gaze and held it. His eyes told the story, this was definitely his gift for her. Before Pam could explore any further, Dwight had moved on to the next person, cutting their moment short. Everything went downhill from there. Ryan opened an IPod, Michael got his feelings hurt and changed the game, and Meredith stole her teapot in the first round of what was now Yankee Swap. The only consolation Pam had was that she had managed to save the card by slipping it between her leg and the chair she was sitting on.

Jim was silently fuming. Of course, Michael would find a way to ruin a Secret Santa gift exchange. Jim looked on as the teapot was stolen from Pam, and he noticed her shifting in her chair like she was uncomfortable. He could tell by the look she had given him that she knew that it was from him. Jim loved that they could communicate without words sometimes, and right now he thought his face was screaming ‘I will get that teapot back to you if it’s the last thing I do,’ but what he saw on Pam’s face confused him. She was looking at him like it was ok, and when he mouthed ‘How?’ at her, she shifted again and he noticed a white envelope fall to the floor behind her chair, and looked up just in time for her to wink at him. So, she had saved the card. That in itself was a balm to Jim’s foul mood, but there were things inside that teapot that meant a lot to him – and to Pam as well he hoped – that not just anyone should be allowed to have.

Round and round the IPod went, it was a highly sought-after item. Jim watched as Pam stole the teapot back, only to have it taken from her again the next round by Phyllis. Jim moved to take it from Phyllis when it was his turn, giving her an apologetic look, only to have it removed from his grasp by Dwight. Pam was the last one to go, and when she asked for the teapot Michael interjected that she couldn’t take it as she had stolen it already, ‘And them’s the rules.’ Jim was disappointed, he had spent so much time choosing mementos to stuff that teapot and now Dwight of all people was going to end up with it. With no real choice, Pam went and stole the IPod as the last move of the game. Jim hung his head.

Their coworkers dispersed, and Jim sat himself down heavily in the conference room beside the punch and snacks, having some of Pam’s iced brownies to try and fill the hole in his gut. When Jim looked out into the bullpen he noticed Pam sitting at her desk looking down at something, probably her new IPod. Jim figured the least he could do was be happy for her, it wasn’t every day you got a free IPod, and so he trudged over to her desk, trying to plaster a smile on his face.

Pam frowned when she saw Jim making his way over with a forced smile, but her lips quirked up again when she reminded herself that she was about to make his day.

“You know you don’t have to answer the phones during a party,” Jim finally leaned against her desk.

Pam bit her lip, barely containing her excitement, “I was just checking out,” Pam moved the teapot in its box into view on the counter between them, “My gift!”

Jim gaped at her, “How?”

“Well Jim, I did grab the best bargaining chip around in the last move of the game,” Pam beamed.

“You traded the IPod for this,” Jim asked in awe.

“I did, you obviously put a lot of thought into this, and that means a lot to me so,” Pam shrugged and trailed off.

“I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t get to read the card before opening the gift, although knowing you I think it’s going to make me cry, so maybe I shouldn’t read it here.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s a sad card,” Jim trailed off with a smirk.

“You know what I mean! I am capable of happy crying too you know,” Pam said as she reached up to smack his arm.

“Well in that case, yeah, you should probably save the card for home,” Jim smiled down at her, and she almost burst into tears regardless at the pure adoration she saw in his gaze.

“Well, you made the right choice choosing the teapot,” Jim steered the conversation, moving the teapot closer to Pam, “Because this gift comes with bonus gifts, look inside,” Jim smiled encouragingly.

Jim and Pam spent the next half hour at her desk laughing and reminiscing over the various trinkets in the teapot, from a yearbook picture of Jim, a boggle timer, one of Nikita’s old chew toys, to some hot sauce packets. Jim was pleased to note that she found these memories significant too. When they left the office to drive home, they confirmed plans to visit her parents on Christmas morning for the Beesly Annual Christmas Brunch. They would then go to Jim’s parents for Christmas supper. Jim was extremely anxious, because there was something big he needed to ask Will and Helene.

End Notes:

I hope you all have as much fun reading this chapter as writing it has brought me. If I can get you to smile - mission accomplished.

Thank you everyone for reading and reviewing, I love seeing your feedback.

Tune in next time for the dreaded Booze Cruise. I should have it out before I got back to work on Monday, fingers crossed!

Edited 2020-06-12 @ ~11:30 AM CST:

Discovered that my plot is out of whack, Thanksgiving should have happened between Email Survailence and Christmas Party. As a bandaid fix I've done a find/replace of Thanksgiving and changed it to Christmas... Oops! I dropped the ball on that one, the plot point ended up in the wrong chapter on my draft. 

Christmas and The New Year by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
The Jim and Pam Christmas Special.

Jim was wracking his brain trying to figure out how he was going to get Pam’s parents alone without arousing her suspicion when she called and solved the problem for him – he hoped anyway.

“Hello beautiful,” he answered his cell, seeing her number on the caller display.

“Wow, do you say that to all the girls that call you,” Pam shot back.

“Just the pretty ones,” Jim smirked as they fell into their usual banter.

“Well, I guess that’s alright,” Pam paused, “So the reason I’m calling is I just got off the phone with Penny.”

“Mhmm,” he hummed encouragingly, nodding along even though she couldn’t see him.

“She thought it’d be a cool idea if we all showed up early tomorrow to surprise my parents and make brunch for them this year, would you be up for that?”

“Yeah, sounds like a great idea, do we need to bring anything other than the gifts?”

“No, they should have everything, we’re just going to kick them out of the kitchen and take over,” Pam explained.

“Good, I call dibs on making the bacon,” Jim seized the opportunity, bacon was much less involved than all the other trappings of a continental breakfast, so that could give him the time alone with Pam’s parents that he needed.

“Ok, wow, I knew you weren’t a sous-chef or anything but really Jim,” she mocked him with a playful lilt in her tone.

“Well, I don’t know any of the landmines involved with your family traditions, what if I made scrambled eggs and that got me exiled? I can’t take that risk,” Jim feigned worry.

“Well, I can promise you there are no land mines, so long as you stay within the clearly marked path, but I’ll let this one go because I wouldn’t want to risk your exile either, I don’t like my odds by association” Pam joked back.

“Glad we’re on the same page, I am not opening myself to criticism in front of your family. I’ll stick to bacon,” Jim defended his choice.

Jim stayed on the phone with Pam a while longer until he started to hear her yawning with increasing frequency.

“Hey, I should let you go to bed, we’ve got an early morning tomorrow if we’re going to be early to your parent’s,” Jim said to bring their call to a close.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Pam sounded disappointed, “I’ll pick you up around seven,” she bounced back.

“Who said you were driving Beesly,” Jim asked with a smirk, “I don’t remember voting on this.”

“Executive order,” Pam yawned, “So suck it, Halpert.”

Jim chuckled, that caught him off-guard every time, “All right, I suppose I can ride shotgun just this once, see you then.”

“G’night, Jim,” Pam managed after letting out a huge yawn.

“I love you and have a good sleep.”

“Love you too,” Pam said drowsily, and Jim heard sheets rustling through the phone.

It was really endearing to him how Pam refused to be the one to hang up their phone calls, even before they had been officially together. Jim heard what he could only assume were blankets being shuffled around in the background and he imagined Pam burrowing under the covers. Jim listened as her breathing steadied and she fell asleep, after a minute or so of her steady breathing Jim was able to bring himself to hang up and go get ready for bed himself. It felt strangely intimate that she would fall asleep on the phone with him. Jim finally crawled into bed after brushing his teeth and changing and was grateful that at least he wasn’t going to be driving in the morning, because he had to be up in six hours.

 

The next morning found Pam loading up her car with presents and Nikita’s kennel, stuffed with supplies for a long day away from home. Pam was grateful she didn’t have to find anyone to take care of her dog, both sets of parents seemed to love Nikita. Pam’s sister Penny had been away for College and hadn’t met Nikita yet, so Pam was excited to bring the dog to her parent’s house so her sister could meet her.

Pam finished loading the car and drove down the block to pick up Jim, and after a quick hug and a mumbled ‘Morning’ from Jim they were on the road. Pam couldn’t help but notice that Jim seemed a little fidgety, which was odd considering that he hadn’t really been nervous when she invited him over for Thanksgiving, and he had already met her parents on a number of occasions and it was obvious that he had charmed them. Maybe he was nervous to meet Penny? Pam decided that must be it, sibling approval was very important after all. Not that Penny hadn’t already done that before they had even started dating, when they were still just best friends… but Pam decided she wasn’t going to worry too much about it, Jim was naturally charismatic anyway. Instead, she gave Jim a big smile as he turned back from leaning into the back seat to scratch between Nikita’s ears, and reached over to take his now free hand in hers and rest them on the center console.

After a couple hours of driving they arrived at her parent’s and unloaded the car, Nikita bolting from the back seat and excitedly trotting up the front steps to sit in front of the door. As they started walking towards the house carrying a bag each, Pam noticed Jim hesitate, and saw the anxiousness flash across his face before he could hide it from her.

“Hey,” Pam grabbed his elbow as he turned towards her on the path, “No need to be nervous, I love you, so they love you too,” she smiled encouragingly.

“Thanks,” Jim smiled convincingly, but Pam thought she could still see something bothering him, “I love you too, very much,” Jim added as he pulled her into a tight embrace, their winter paraphernalia making it a little awkward.

Pam decided not to press him, and instead turned to continue towards the door where Nikita was impatiently waiting, her tail having swept a half-crescent of snow clear from the porch like a giant living swiffer-sweeper. Pam chuckled at the mental image as they came to the door and met Jim’s inquisitive eyes when he cocked his head at her.

“I’ll tell you later,” Pam promised as she got her key out to let herself in, so as not to alert her parents and spoil the surprise.

That became a moot point as she pulled the door open to find her sister waiting in ambush. Penny immediately launching an all-out affectionate assault on Nikita as she unknowingly squeezed beside Pam and into the entryway. After many ‘Aww’-s and ‘Who’s a good girl?’ and a fair amount of belly scratching from Penny, the jig was up and her parents made their way in from the living room to see what all the ruckus was about. Penny finally let up on Nikita and stood, so Pam stepped forward to give her a big hug.

“Nice to know you missed me,” Pam teased as she let go, “You greet my dog way better than me.”

“What, you want belly-scratches and baby talk too,” Penny shot back, “Because that can be arranged!”

“On second thought, I love you, great to see you again,” Pam backpedalled, and Penny burst into giggles.

Pam moved on to greet her parents, and when Helene made a move towards the kitchen to start making brunch, Penny intercepted her and banned Helene from the kitchen. Pam worked on making some eggs of both varieties and threw some hash browns in the oven as well. Jim was frying some bacon on a griddle, while Penny made pancakes on the stovetop. Nikita sat in the doorway with her head cocked and tongue lolling out to the side, obviously very intrigued by all of the wonderful smells. At some point Pam noticed Jim had finished making the pound of bacon and had plated and covered it, but he seemed to have disappeared. Penny was busy filling her in on her studies between bouts of interrogating her about Jim however, so Pam couldn’t really investigate and it soon left her mind as she focussed on not giving any embarrassing details to her overly curious little sister, and not burning their brunch.

When it came time to set the table and serve brunch, Pam was pleased to see Jim make a reappearance, seeming much less fidgety than he had been on the ride over. Pam was glad that he was settling in nicely with her family, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself if they didn’t get along. That was a lie, Pam admitted to herself, she would probably do what she had done when she was with Roy – visit infrequently and endure an awkward, stifling atmosphere in the house. Pam was overjoyed to feel the laughter and happiness around her, Jim just fit right in.

After they finished eating and doing the dishes, they exchanged gifts. Pam and Jim gave as a couple, which tickled Pam so much, as with Roy although she had put both of their names on them, he never invested the time to come along and pick them out with her like Jim had.

The time to leave came much to quickly, and soon they were packing their gifts, bundling them into the trunk and luring Nikita into the back seat of her car with some cold bacon before they set off back towards Scranton to try and make it to Jim’s parent’s in time for Christmas dinner.

 

Jim was relieved that the most nerve-wracking part of the day was over. After asking Penny to keep Pam occupied and being met with a nudge and a wink when he made his escape to go talk to her parents, he had been instilled with a little bit more confidence that maybe he wasn’t crazy. However, actually asking her parents the question he felt he should had been one of the most daunting conversations in his life. Jim was glad that was all over with, and he tried to put it from his mind and simply enjoy how seamlessly Pam had inserted herself into his family’s dynamic. Even his brothers seemed to have warmed up to her and his niece Vanessa was smitten, they were hanging out in the corner colouring and doodling. Jim nearly choked on his drink when he heard Vanessa call her ‘Auntie Pam,’ and he had to keep the glass by his mouth to try and hide the huge smile that had grown there.

Jim had been worried that Pam wouldn’t want to come back here given the grilling his brothers had given her when she was over for Thanksgiving, but thankfully like always Pam was quick on her feet and gave as good as she got, which seemed to have earned their grudging respect. It also may have been due to his threat to never babysit for either of them (again, in Tom’s case, ever, in Pete’s case) if they somehow scared Pam off, but Jim didn’t put much stock in that, even if Vanessa did love ‘Uncle Jim.’

Nikita was draped across Larissa’s lap, who was sitting in the recliner next to the loveseat that Gerald and Betsy presided over the proceedings from. When they announced it was time to pass out the presents Jim couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth when Pam volunteered herself and Vanessa to be Santas, much to his niece’s delight. Of course, Vanessa ended up with the largest pile of presents, but such was the lot of the youngest in the family. Pam got a few of her own, and a couple were addressed to Jim and Pam as a pair.

Pam was having a great time at the Halpert gathering. After the presents had all been opened Vanessa had conscripted her and Jim to help with a Lego set that was for ages ten and up.

Pam couldn’t refuse when the little girl innocently asked, “You’re over ten, aren’t you Auntie Pam?”

At some point Nikita made her way over to sit across Jim’s lap and stole the show, Vanessa had seemingly forgotten that there was a dog sitting just across the room just waiting to be pet up until that point. The girl showered Nikita with pets and scratches behind the ears eagerly, and Nikita basked in the attention, rolling over to present her belly for rubs.

When Nikita fell asleep in Jim’s lap and Vanessa didn’t look too far behind her, the adults all agreed to call the evening to a close. Tom gingerly picked up his daughter and made his exit with his wife and bundles of presents. Pete and his wife were staying the night at the Halpert’s, as well as Larissa who had been staying there over her semester break, so they made no move to leave. Jim and Pam bid farewell, giving and receiving hugs all around, before coaxing a tired dog into the back seat of her car to make their way home across town.

Jim kissed Pam goodnight before he left her car and paused, suddenly remembering that she had promised to tell him what she was laughing about on her parent’s porch.

“Hey,” Jim said, ducking his head back down into the car as he held the passenger door open, “You never told me what cracked you up on your parent’s porch,” he accused.

“What,” Pam looked deep in thought before she brightened up, “Oh! I was laughing because Nikita was like a living Swiffer-sweeper with her tail, blowing all that snow clear behind her,” she giggled.

Jim laughed along with her, marvelling at how adorable some of the stuff she shared with him was. After bidding her a final good night, and parting with shared ‘I love you’-s, Jim finally shut the passenger side door and watched as she drove off down the block to her house. Jim turned to head inside after he saw her tail lights disappear and made his way in with his modest collection of gifts. When he got inside, he went up the stairs quietly to put them in his room, and then slipped out to quickly brush his teeth before he stripped and lay down in bed. Jim had hoped to fall asleep quickly after such a long and emotionally draining day, but his mind wouldn’t allow it. Seeing Pam with his family, and being welcomed in to hers just confirmed everything that he already knew, she was it for him. Admitting that to himself wasn’t even a challenge. He hadn’t told her in those words, but every day he tried to find a new way to show or say that he loved her.

Today Jim had taken the fir- second – Jim amended mentally, he had bought a ring previously after all – step to hopefully showing Pam once and for all just how much he loved her. Now all he had to do was ask, and while he was pretty sure she wouldn’t say no… was it still too soon? It had really only been just about half a year since she ended her relationship with Roy, and they had only been officially dating for a few months now. Jim didn’t want to wait though, he just wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, but did she feel the same way?

Jim supposed he was just going to have to ask and find out. Needless to say that realization led to what felt like ages of second guessing, while at the same time looking for the perfect opportunity to lay it all out. In the following weeks Jim did his best to hide his nerves from Pam, and he was pretty confident he was doing a good job, because she hadn’t said anything. Jim just hoped he cold get it out before she noticed his daily struggle.

End Notes:

The following is a note that I wrote before I even started this chapter: 

 

Hey, quick note here for anyone confused with Thanksgiving suddenly turning into Christmas. I just realized the other day and Coley pointed out, that I had American Thanksgiving out of order in my plot. It would have had to have happened between Email Surveillance and Christmas Party. As such I went back and edited the last paragraph of the last chapter to retcon this discrepancy, this means that we unfortunately missed Jim and Pam’s first Thanksgiving together, or maybe I added a reminisce to this chapter? I won’t know until I finish writing it (I wrote this part-way through as soon as I realized my mistake). The how of this one is fairly simple – I pasted the plot point from my plot draft to my written draft… into the wrong chapter. I however would like to claim ‘Weird American Holidays’ as my official defence! For those of you who didn’t notice, great! For those of you who did, sorry! Hope it didn’t pull you out of the story too badly.

---

Hey, hope you all enjoyed, it took me ages to eke this chapter out. Between retconning myself, work, and all of the other wonderful stories floating around, I just didn't find the time to write all that often. But, the chapter is done now! I hope that the next one will be easier, it's certainly what I based almost this entire sequel on, so fingers crossed maybe I'll get it done for the next weekend.

As always, I love hearing from you folks, you encouraging reviews and feedback make this process so much more special, so thank you for all of your kind reviews and I would love to hear your thoughts on this one.

Happy America day to all you Americans. 

P.S. - Yes I did skip new years. You should just be glad I finished Christmas lol. 

Booze Cruise by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
A Dunder Mifflin aquatic adventure.

Pam had noticed a definite shift in Jim’s demeanor since sometime around the new year, he was almost always antsy, fiddling with his hands and then stuffing them in his pockets as though he had been caught and scolded for it. Pam was pretty sure on more than one occasion that she saw his hands moving even after he put them in his pockets, which she really didn’t know how to interpret. Pam hoped that Jim would let her in on whatever was bothering him, and she didn’t want to push him, but it had been days of this now and they had a sure-fire disaster coming up in the form of Michael’s office camaraderie event where they would need to be on top of their game to keep each other sane – preferably as far away from Michael and Dwight as possible.

The worst part of all of it was that Jim only seemed to be antsy around her. He talked with Kevin and Oscar just fine, no weird hand wringing or finger twisting to be seen. But when Pam made an appearance, he was all sorts of awkward. Sure, he still recruited her for the prank he pulled on Dwight with the vending machine, but her jellybean dispenser was three-quarters full when it should be time for a refill by now this late in the week. Pam had been wracking her brain trying to figure out the why of it, but so far, she’d only come up with a few theories, and none of them were especially spectacular. One, Jim was scared of women – she’d scrapped that one pretty quickly. Theory two, she had made some faux paus at Christmas and he hadn’t figured out how to tell her, but his family had prematurely disowned her – the jury was still out on that one, but they weren’t even engaged yet – let alone married, so yeah, hopefully not. Third – and most terrifying – he wanted to break up and go back to just being best friends – Pam had struggled to outright dismiss the theory as old insecurities arose like in-corporeal beings and haunted her every interaction with him, ending up with her looking for hints and overanalysing everything he said and did.

Pam was glad to momentarily forget about all of that as they sat down for a Michael conference room meeting to discuss what had been revealed by Stanley to be a Booze Cruise. Joking with Jim and stringing Michael along was a welcome respite from her insecurity and doubt, and the meeting passed quickly. Pam left the conference room and sat down at her desk and couldn’t help overhearing Roy and Darryl discussing their plans as they walked past her and out of the office.

“Who’re you inviting,” Darryl asked Roy as they strolled past, “Still seeing that Katy girl or what?”

“Nah, I haven’t seen her for a while,” Roy replied as they reached the door, “I was thinking the chick from wings night last week, remember her?”

Pam didn’t hear any more as they exited the office. Pam glanced over to Jim and caught him looking at her, so she gave him a shrug and an eyeroll. Who was she to judge Roy for his lack of commitment, wasn’t that why she had left him in the first place? Pam wasn’t sure what to think other than she was glad she was done with him, even if she had noticed he’d been working on losing his beer gut. Not like she had much of a choice with all of the times the vending machine downstairs had apparently been out of stock lately, leading to him stopping by her desk at least once a day. Pam didn’t really have much to say to him though, and she noticed Jim tense every time Roy came to talk to her. Maybe this whole secret office romance thing was starting to wear at him, and that’s why he was antsy? Pam just didn’t want to tell anyone in the office, it was none of their business, and she thought that Jim felt the same, or at least he had the last time they talked about it. Maybe it was time to revisit that conversation, Pam didn’t really feel too strongly about it, but she could already imagine some of the ‘jokes’ that Michael would come up with if he found out, and wanted to avoid that if at all possible.

The day wore on and Michael finally let them all go early, as attendance to his ‘Leadership Training’ was mandatory. Pam shot a sympathetic smile at Brenda, the lady sent from corporate, as she and Jim left the office to go home for a quick dinner before they were required to be at the dock. After quickly eating some cold sandwiches, Pam noticed Jim was doing the antsy thing again as he stood in the doorway waiting for her to get her shoes on. Tired of trying to read into things, Pam finished slipping her shoe on, before she stepped over to him and gently pushed his back up against the wall, placing her palm in the middle of his chest. Once she had him there, she reached up to run her fingers through the hair on the back of his neck and kissed him hard. He responded immediately, before reluctantly pulling back before they got carried away.

“As much as I don’t want to right now, we should probably go,” Jim nodded in the direction of the door, “We won’t hear the end of it from Michael if we skip a,” Jim made finger quotes, “mandatory event.”

Jim turned to make his way out the door but Pam wasn’t done with him yet, “Jim,” she caught his arm, “Whatever’s eating at you, I love you, you know you can tell me anything right?”

Jim’s gaze was heavy and Pam felt like the air had left her lungs, “I know Pam, I love you too,” Jim finished with a nervous looking smile, before wrapping his arm around her shoulders and ushering her out of the house, “But I’ll tell you later, we really need to get going.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Okay,” Pam finally relented, if he wasn’t ready to share yet, she could respect that.

It had taken them a long time to get to where they were today, so she grudgingly accepted that she could wait a little longer to figure out what had been eating at him. Pam blushed as they got into the car and she tried to rationalize the kiss at the door. Pam justified it to herself by mentally scratching out the theory that he wanted to go back to best friends, best friends did not kiss back like that, Pam thought with a small grin as she stared out the passenger side window of Jim’s car at the passing streets. Pam zoned out and a short while later Jim was nudging her arm and telling her that they were there. Pam jolted, and upon looking up to see the docks quickly got out of the car.

They made their way towards a file of their coworkers on the gang plank, Pam brushing her hand against Jim’s every twenty feet or so just because she could. Pam grimaced upon spotting Michael greeting everyone in turn as they walked onto the boat. Pam really didn’t want to hear whatever crass comment he was about to make about her and Jim coming together, after she had been so careful to only let her hand brush his four times on the walk over – she hadn’t even held it.

Michael frowned as they approached, “Blegh, you guys are so boring,” he complained, “You didn’t even bring anyone!”

Pam gave him a practiced blank stare, and felt Jim shrug beside her, “Whatever, I guess you can go aboard, just try not to suck all of the fun out of the party,” Michael said as he stepped aside to allow them passage.

Pam could swear she heard Michael mumbling something about ‘Fun sucking vampires,’ as they walked away, but she couldn’t be bothered to really address it. Jim stopped when they got onto the main deck and looked towards her with a shrug, wordlessly asking her where she wanted to sit. Pam jerked her head towards the front of the cabin area, where she could see some dimly lit tables closer to the corner of the space where they were less likely to get roped into whatever Michael was planning for tonight. Pam also couldn’t help noticing that the small boat did not contain purely Dunder Mifflin personnel, there were other party goers here as well. Pam settled onto the bench seat at a table nicely tucked away and scooted over so that Jim could sit down beside her, taking the opportunity to link their hands underneath the table away from prying eyes. Pam wondered what kind of person would willingly go on a booze cruise on a tiny lake in Pennsylvania in the middle of winter, but quickly turned her attention to the centre of the deck where Michael and someone that had introduced themselves as Captain Jack were fighting over the microphone. Captain Jack shut Michael down and announced a Limbo competition, Pam wasn’t surprised to see Meredith was one of the first ones up there.

Pam was holding Jim’s hand and staring out the porthole at the lights dotting the shore when she felt Jim shift slightly, alerting her that someone was approaching.

“Hey,” Pam looked up to see Oscar greeting them with a drink in hand, “Mind if I sit?”

Jim shrugged and deferred to Pam.

Pam nodded, “Sure.”

Pam happened to like Oscar. He appreciated art, and because of that they’d had some great conversations over lunches when Jim was on sales calls or otherwise occupied in the recent months since Pam had started her classes. She’d even become comfortable enough with him to show a few of her pieces, and his way of giving her honest and constructive feedback had meant a lot to her. She could always rely on Jim to encourage her, but when it came down to critiquing her work and helping her improve, he was pretty hopeless. Jim thought anything she did was worthy of being put in a museum, which didn’t really help her with growing her style. That’s not to say that Pam didn’t love that about Jim, but sometimes she needed a neutral observer who would tell it to her like it was. Oscar was constructive with his criticism, he always told her why he didn’t like something and suggested a piece he had seen that had done it differently or better, so that she could improve. Oscar wasn’t shy of giving her praise though, and the hard-earned, honest approval and appreciation from him meant a lot to her. They sat and chatted with Oscar for a while, but eventually the cacophony of noise in the cabin became too much for Pam and she excused herself, moving towards the washrooms at the front of the boat.

When Pam didn’t return for a few minutes, Jim got worried. He excused himself and set off towards the bathrooms at the front of the cabin area. Jim was scanning the crowd looking for her face, wondering if maybe she just got caught chatting with someone, when he caught a glimpse of her pink coat and curly reddish-brown hair out one of the portholes. Jim made his way out onto the deck and stopped suddenly, watching her as she leaned against the railing and gazed up at the stars. A chill started in his scalp and ran down his back, sending tingles down his arms. Jim’s neck and palms began to sweat. This was it, Jim thought, as he stared at her simple beauty under the stars. He was going to ask her to be his wife on a mandatory office outing that just so happened to be a booze cruise in the middle of January. Jim hoped that one day they could look back on that and laugh together, as opposed to the terrifying reality of the other alternative, where she said no and never spoke to him again, then moved to Europe or someplace equally out there. Jim clamped down on these thoughts. She loved him, Jim repeated the mantra in his head, she may say not yet, but he didn’t believe she would say never. He had to believe that, otherwise there wasn’t really a point in asking. Jim didn’t think she saw it coming, and he knew how much she hated surprises, but he hoped for his sake that she would make an exception for this.

With his mental pep-talk concluded, Jim closed the rest of the distance. When she turned to see who was coming and smiled sheepishly up at him, all the speeches he might have prepared for the moment flew from his mind, leaving it a barren plain with only humor and their daily shared experience to fall back on.

“Sorry,” Pam grimaced, “It was getting kinda rowdy in there, and then I looked out and the stars were so beautiful,” she trailed off with a shrug, scooting over to be shoulder to shoulder with him where he had stopped to lean against the railing.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Jim cracked nervously, “Darryl, Darryl, Darryl,” he imitated awkwardly, still winning a giggle for his efforts, she beamed up at him.

Coworkers be damned, Jim couldn’t not kiss her, attempting to capture some of the joy and warmth radiating off her face for himself. She met him halfway as he lowered his face towards hers, and he felt the warmth of her body through his coat as she moulded against him.

Pam wasn’t sure what had gotten into Jim, kissing her with such abandon in a place where not only strangers but also their coworkers might see, but she forgot about that as her knees became weak and she leaned against him for support. She wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, but when they finally broke apart Pam was breathless. Pam felt Jim’s hands fall from her hair and trail down her arms to hold hers and let him hold her up as she leaned back, holding his hands tightly. She felt light-headed and before she could stop herself, she was giggling madly, she buried her head in Jim’s jacket as she tried to control herself to no avail. After a minute or so of Jim rubbing patterns on her back, she finally felt settled enough to try and look him in the eyes, when she raised her head and looked up, she couldn’t.

‘Jim just kissed me silly,’ was all Pam could think, bursting out into another fit. Jim pulled away from her slightly and she tried to meet his gaze for the second time.

“Pam,” he asked, finally drawing her eyes up to his face from where she’d been resting them over his left shoulder.

“You just literally kissed me silly,” Pam gasped out, still short of breath, “Like, how cliché is that?”

“Pam,” Jim said her name and reached up to caress her cheek with his right hand, and Pam finally noticed the intensity of his gaze, it took her breath away all over again.

“You are,” Jim paused, “The warmest, funniest, kindest person I know,” he started haltingly, picking up speed and confidence as he went on. Pam’s heart was racing, this was the kind of speech that was a leadup to something big. Was she about to get friend-zoned?

“You’re my best friend, confidant, and partner in crime,” Jim continued, his hands trailing down to hers again as Pam felt herself starting to float away, Jim was shrinking out of her sight.

“And you know me so well,” Jim said from below her as Pam realized that no, she was not floating away, Jim was kneeling.

‘Oh my god, Jim is kneeling,’ rang through Pam’s head, this was so not what she had been expecting.

“The thing that’s been bothering me is,” Jim trailed off as one of his hands fumbled in his pocket, so reminiscent of the nervous tic Pam had noticed over the last week or so, “A question that I need to ask you,” he finished as he fished out a small black box.

Pam couldn’t tear her eyes off the box, but Jim’s voice drew her back up to his face. In her periphery she saw the box open, and the ring inside sparkled under the stars, dazzling her. There was a far-off commotion and maybe a splash, but Pam barely registered any of it for the man kneeling before her.

“Pam, will you marry me,” Yes, “And be my partner in life,” Yes, “My best friend forever?”

Pam let out a squeak, her vision blurry with unshed tears. Words wouldn’t form for her, so she nodded frantically. Jim removed the ring from the box and took her shaking left hand in his as he poised the ring just beyond the tip of her ring finger, before looking back up at her with a nervous smile and a quirked eyebrow.

“Pam,” Jim prodded.

“Yes,” Pam managed to squeak out, tears streaming down her face as she kept nodding.

Jim slipped the ring onto her finger and stood, pulling Pam into a tight embrace.

“Oh thank god,” he breathed into her hair as they swayed there.

“You’re a jerk,” Pam mumbled into his jacket, “I thought your mom had cancer or something.”

 

The rest of the night was a blur to Pam. They ran into Michael tied to the railing out on the deck, and he was not nearly as insufferable as he usually was, so they stayed to chat a while. Pam remembered Jim putting a hat over his ears for him. She didn’t think any of her coworkers even noticed she was wearing a different ring on her finger when they made their way through the gathering to get to Jim’s car. When Jim dropped her off, she almost didn’t let him leave, but tiredness and the need to call her mom won out and she bid him farewell with one last kiss. Pam called her mom and gushed until one in the morning, when her mom ended their conversation with something along the lines of ‘Well, that boy certainly doesn’t waste any time.’

Pam fell asleep with both a smile on her face and a ring on her finger for the first time in a long time.

End Notes:

And there we have it, the big thing! I'm fairly certain you all saw it coming. This was a challenge to write, definitely outside my writing comfort zone, but it's out there now!

Let me know your thoughts and hopes for our favourite couple! 

I hope to get them into early season three and then push them off into the sunset. 

The Injury by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
Concussion-Dwight is a gem.

Pam was finally back to work after being out sick for most of the last week. She had caught a bad cold that she blamed being out on the deck for too long on the booze cruise for. Pam thought it was cute that Jim felt it was his fault as he had proposed to her on the deck, thus leading to them staying out there longer, but Pam felt it was a small price to pay to be engaged to her best friend. Jim had come by almost every lunch hour to make her soup, even though she was more than capable of doing it herself. Pam still had a runny nose, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as her symptoms had been on the first day. She had been rudely awakened by Nikita and forced out of bed to let the dog out, as she had forgotten to do so the night of the proposal between her excitement and calling her mom.

Pam carpooled with Jim in the morning as had become their norm and they were greeted by an empty office as they entered, obviously the first ones to show up for the day. Pam started the day the same as many others, with transcribing the after-hours messages to memo cards. Pam was just finishing up when Jim appeared bearing her favourite pink mug with steam rising from the top. Pam smiled as she accepted his offering before setting it down beside her keyboard and turning away quickly to sneeze. When Pam looked up with a sniffle, she was greeted by Dwight staring down at her from beside the coatrack.

Dwight made one of his usual comments about superior Schrute genes and said that he pitied her, before he moved off to start his daily routine. Pam just shrugged at Jim before she plucked a Kleenex from the box at her desk and turned away again to blow her nose. The camera crew was just arriving when Pam took the phones off voicemail and the rest of her coworkers arrived shortly thereafter save for Michael, who was usually late anyways. Jim had returned to his desk to get ahead on his actual work, as they had long since agreed to get as much done in the mornings as they could so that afternoons could be better spent pranking Dwight or running damage control on Michael. The camera crew had other plans however, as they asked both Pam and Jim to join them in the conference room.

The crew sat Pam next to Jim in front of one of the windows after drawing all the blinds closed and shutting the door. Pam folded her hands atop one another, conscious of her ring hiding under her right hand and noticed the TV cart in the corner of the room. Something was definitely strange with the interview setup; the film crew had never had them react to any footage before. As Pam felt the cameras zoom in on them, one of the crew hit play on the VCR and everything became clear.

Pam couldn’t help the tears that formed in the corners in her eyes as the film crew allowed her to relive one of the happiest moments of her life to date, and as she brushed them away she realised that in doing so she had just brandished her ring, ruining any sort of plausible deniability that she and Jim may have tried to employ. Pam smiled sheepishly at Jim and shrugged her shoulders, which was met with a huge smile as Jim wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her and consequently their chairs closer together.

“So, you guys are obviously engaged,” Greg, the producer trailed off.

“Yep,” Pam replied cheerfully as she showed off her ring finger and looked over to beam up at Jim.

“Congratulations, by the way,” Greg offered.

“Thank you,” Jim said genuinely.

“So how long have you two been in a relationship before this point,” Greg asked, “Because obviously nobody around here has any idea you two are even together yet.”

“Uhm, well, Jim has been my best friend for years,” Pam started, “And my mom always said that your fiancé should be your best friend so… after I left Roy I just came to some realisations,” Pam shrugged, not directly answering his question.

Before Greg could follow up on his question, everyone’s attention was drawn to the conference room door which had just been thrown open.

“Inappropriate, Jim,” Dwight said with derision as he looked down his nose at them, presumably admonishing Jim for having his arm around Pam, “Pam, phone,” Dwight jerked his head towards reception, and Pam heard the phone ringing behind him.

“Sorry, I should go get that,” Pam excused herself from the interview as she brushed past Dwight and made her way around her desk to answer the phone, suppressing a smirk as she looked back over to see Jim left to fend for himself.

Jim had to think fast before Greg recovered and resumed the interrogation, he quickly got up and spoke over his shoulder as he made his way quickly towards the door, “I should make sure she gets that, sometimes she just lets it go to voicemail,” Jim shot off with a shrug, grimacing as he finally made his escape.

Admittedly, his excuse was pretty weak, but the odds of Greg pulling them back in once Pam was off the phone were pretty high anyway, so Jim figured if he at least escaped the one on one interrogation he was counting himself lucky. He cursed Pam and her job that provided an easy out in almost any office debacle, as he moved to lean over her desk and grin down at her. He was so going to get her back for abandoning him.

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam,” She said into the receiver as she smirked up at him, before her face suddenly morphed into a look of extreme concern that put Jim on edge, as he leaned closer to try and hear what was being said.

“Michael, what’s wrong,” she asked with worry, but Jim couldn’t make anything out. He shot a questioning look a Pam, but she didn’t seem to know entirely what was going on at that point either.

Pam tried to cut Michael off, “Michael do you need me to call an ambulance,” she asked forcefully, and Jim’s heart stopped. Thankfully, a moment later she half-rolled her eyes, seemingly de-escalating as her shoulders relaxed a little.

“I thought you said you were hurt,” she tried to clarify, and Jim tried to get Pam to let him know what was going on but she put her hand over her face exasperatedly, before just giving up and pointing to the receiver.

Jim needed to know what was going on, he thought he heard Michael yelling about his foot, so he reached over Pam’s desk and put the phone on speaker.

“Oh god,” Michael’s voice suddenly filled the office as he yelled in distress over the phone.

Jim managed to talk Michael down, discovering along with the rest of the office that their boss had somehow managed to grill his foot. Jim was immensely relieved that Michael hadn’t actually suffered a mortal injury, and so morbidly curious as to how he had managed to grill his foot. From that point onward the conversation devolved into people producing excuses as to why they couldn’t pick Michael up to bring him into work, as well as an escalation of injuries and emotional distress on Michael’s part until Dwight walked in. Of course, Dwight immediately volunteered to pick up Michael, and he shot out the door before he could hear Michael asking for anyone but him. Additionally, they learned that Michael’s girlfriend that he had been raving about for the better part of last week was a work of fiction. Jim watched as Pam struggled not to break, and he gave a significant look to the camera operator to make sure they just got all that, and was rewarded with an OK hand sign from the sound guy Brian who was standing behind the camera guy.

As everyone started to trickle away from reception, Pam was about to share her theory on how Michael burnt his foot on a grill when she saw Jim’s head whip towards the conference room, and she suddenly registered a muffled thump-crunch from what sounded like the parking lot. Everyone rushed to the windows to see what had happened but Pam in her semi-congested haze lagged behind a little and got there just in time to hear Jim exclaim, “Oh my god, Dwight you forgot your bumper,” and hear Dwight’s Trans-Am peeling out of the lot.

“What happened,” Pam asked from Jim’s elbow as she sidled up beside him.

“Dwight just hit the pole and drove off,” Jim said as he turned towards her, making his classic ‘wow’ face.

“Wow,” Pam affirmed, amazed yet again at the lengths Dwight would go to for Michael, to be treated as poorly as he was, “I hope he’s all right.”

With the show over they all shuffled back to their desks. Luckily one of the side effects of Michael’s dramatic injury and Dwight’s exit was that the camera crew had seemingly forgotten that they were in the middle of prying into Jim and Pam’s personal lives before all of that happened. Pam certainly wasn’t going to remind them though; it was really none of their business. She was curios if they could get a copy of that tape as a keepsake though, it wasn’t often that you got to have such a huge moment in your life immortalised on film.

Pam decided that she was going to need more tea to get through today, as Michael was probably going to be in a particularly volatile and needy mood. As she moved towards the kitchen to fill her special teapot, she saw Jim get up to join her. Pam started the water boiling and leaned against the counter, turning towards Jim.

“So, I know it’s only my first day back and all, but should I be hurt or relieved that no one has realised that we’re engaged?”

“Honestly, I have no clue,” Jim shrugged, “Whenever I hear you answering the phone I look up and the ring is staring me in the face, I can’t not see it,” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck, “Although I guess I’m pretty biased.”

“I think I’m going to go with relieved for now,” Pam nodded with mock seriousness, “Although I reserve the right to change my mind at any time,” she added firmly.

“As is your right,” Jim nodded solemnly.

“Can you imagine the comments Michael is going to make? Wait no, don’t even think about it, even asking the question-” Pam cut herself off with a grimace and an exaggerated shudder.

“Wow, you just became your own worst enemy,” Jim chuckled, “I vote we just never tell Michael, other people can know when they either see the ring and connect the dots, or we give out wedding invitations and they find out they didn’t get one.”

“It could actually all be a part of our cunningly simple plan to select guests from the office,” Jim continued enthusiastically, and Pam couldn’t help smiling warmly at him as she heard the water come to a boil, “We only need to invite the people who actually figure it out!”

“Well, for that to work we would need a date,” Pam reminded him lightly, nervous that he may brush her off and say it was too soon.

“Indeed Beesly,” Jim looked at her seriously, “Do you want to set one tonight? How far out does it have to be,” Jim asked in rapid fire, looking at her with a heavy gaze that reminded her of out on the deck all over again. She shouldn’t have doubted that her best friend knew that she wanted to set a date right away.

“Tonight,” Pam confirmed brightly as she poured the hot water into her teapot and started towards the door back out into the bullpen.

Jim held the door open for her and they went back to their respective desks, smiling at each other every so often just because they could. The fact that her best friend was now her fiancé still seemed so surreal to Pam, although it was fifty-fifty that it could just be the decongestants talking, they usually made her feel fuzzy and disconnected from reality. Speaking of being disconnected from reality, Pam discreetly pinched herself as she observed Michael hobbling in on crutches, followed closely by Dwight.

What followed was a series of blow-ups by Michael about how no one cared about him, when had explicitly asked to be treated normally upon entering. Had Pam been on top of her game this morning she would have caught his classic reverse psychology move, but she had decided not to expend too much effort on Michael today, especially when he was being so fussy. Eventually Pam relented and asked if he’d like some coffee, which he agreed to. Pam then grabbed her purse and made her way back into the kitchen to make it for him. She wasn’t surprised to find Ryan hiding at the table in the corner, she’d heard Michael calling on him for various things all morning.

Pam grabbed one of Michael’s ‘World’s Best Boss’ mugs and filled it half with coffee, before she produced a bottle of painkillers, crushing two up on a piece of paper towel with a spoon.

“Rough morning,” Ryan asked with a significant look at the crushed pills.

“Oh, no,” Pam realised he must had assumed it was for her, “I’m hoping this will take some of the edge off of Michael’s fussiness.”

“Ah,” Ryan nodded, “I do that with my dog all the time to get her to take her meds, works like a charm.”

Pam finished dumping the pills in before she heaped in some sugar and creamer, and departed the kitchen with a wave to Ryan, who returned it with a mock salute. Pam made the delivery without incident, glad that with what little coffee Michael liked with his cream and sugar that he wouldn’t be able to notice the bitter painkillers. The effects took some time to show, but by noon he wasn’t complaining about the pain anymore, just everyone’s general lack of care for his wellbeing. Pam had been distracted however by Dwight, who had been acting increasingly unlike himself ever since his return. Pam noticed him stop mid-sentence when she gave Michael his ‘coffee,’ and as the morning wore on, he even started making non-work-related visits to her desk and eating Jim’s jellybeans. To top all of that Dwight was being kind, not just the usual Dwight respectful, but unabashedly kind. It was all sorts of strange, but Pam couldn’t figure it out with her fuzzy mind, as dots just refused to connect for her.  Pam got concerned when Dwight called her ‘Pan,’ as he departed her desk again, he had been visiting almost as much as Jim regularly would. Speaking of Jim, he seemed to be taking advantage of the fact that Dwight was no longer at her desk and had made his way over to lean on her desk. Pam smiled up at him, and he returned it before lowering his head conspiratorially.

Jim’s face straightened and Pam could see a hint of concern, “I think something is wrong with Dwight,” he said, keeping his voice low, “He’s been acting really out of it all morning, and just now? Calling you Pan? Something is definitely off.”

“I agree, he’s definitely been way nicer to me than usual, which is strange, but what could be causing that? He was fine yesterday, what’s so different about today?”

“Well, he did crash his car into a pole,” Jim deadpanned as he gave her a look.

“Oh yeah, I guess I forgot about that part,” Pam blushed, embarrassed that she had missed the obvious, “I blame the drugs,” she defended herself.

“So… Dwight might have a concussion,” Pam stated like a question, not too sure herself that was the right diagnosis.

There was a commotion and they both looked over to see Dwight had collapsed on his desk, Jim looked back to her, “Dwight definitely has a concussion,” he confirmed with a nod.

“All right, we need to get Dwight to the hospital,” Jim took command of the situation as he spun away from her desk and went to Dwight’s side, waking the unconscious man up, and trying to move him towards the door.

Dwight made a fuss about wanting Michael to take him, and so Michael tried to fob off the responsibility as usual, but it was eventually agreed that Jim would drive Meredith’s van, and Michael would ride along for moral support. Pam noticed Angela standing beside the copier and worrying.

“Angela should go along,” Pam declared confidently, “She’s the office safety officer after all, she’ll need to, um,” Pam faltered, looking back to Angela and seeing the hope in her eyes, “File the report,” Pam spit out, and their coworkers seemed to either buy it or not care enough to say either way.

Angela gave her a severe nod, and made to follow Michael, who was following Jim and the stumbling Dwight. They almost made it past her desk, when suddenly Dwight started making what he called ‘Vietnam sounds,’ and sat down on the couch by reception, refusing to be moved by Jim. Neither Angela or Michael stepped in to help, and so Pam made her way around her desk towards him. Michael had apparently tired of waiting, and exited the office, with Angela trailing behind hesitantly. Pam heard the elevator ding and depart, taking them with it.

“Come on Dwight,” Pam encouraged, putting one of his arms around her shoulder, “Upsy-daisy,” Pam said, and Dwight finally cooperated with raising himself from the couch.

As they made their way over to wait at the elevator doors, Pam bid farewell to her brief friend Dwight, and he called her adorable and bopped her on the nose, which Pam found strangely endearing. The elevator returned and before she could usher Dwight inside of it, he looked down towards the floor, and then looked up to her again taking her left hand and raising it as if to show her.

“You guys are engaged,” Dwight exclaimed with a dopey smile, “I am so happy for you Pan,” he continued before he pulled her into a crushing hug.

Dwight finally released her and took a half step back, glancing back and forth between Pam and a bemused Jim still wearing his dopey look, “I can see how happy you guys are together, congratulations,” he said genuinely.

“Thanks Dwight,” Jim broke in, putting an arm around him and ushering him into the elevator, “Let’s get you to the hospital.

Pam felt bittersweet as she waved goodbye to her new friend Concussion-Dwight again as the elevator doors closed. Pam trudged back to her desk and the rest of the afternoon passed slowly. She’d phoned Jim for an update closer to five, and he said that Dwight was getting a CT scan and would be released shortly. Pam offered to come pick him up after work and he gratefully agreed, so she found his keys in his desk and drove his car to the hospital, from there they drove home to her place to have supper together and hang out. Not just hang out, Pam amended, to make wedding plans, she thought with a smile.

After supper, Jim pulled the calendar down from her fridge and grabbed a pen, hovering it over a weekend in March, and looking at her. Pam shook her head, and he flipped it to June, hovering over the weekend of the 10th. Pam thought a June wedding would be wonderful, and it seemed like it should be enough time to plan everything, and so she nodded with a smile that hurt her face.

“We’re getting married on June 10th,” she breathed excitedly as Jim circled the date.

“And by my own rules I now have to invite Dwight,” Jim said dejectedly.

Pam giggled, “Now who’s their own worst enemy?”

End Notes:

Thank you folks for your continued reading and encouragement, I hope you continue to enjoy this story.

You guys bring a smile to my face with your reviews, so if you feel so inclined, please do continue, I love hearing from you! 

The Discovery by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
The office discovers Jim and Pam are engaged. Merger of The Secret and The Carpet.

Jim and Pam’s secret engagement didn’t last very long. Pam had spent the rest of the week after the cameras cornered them hiding her hands behind her desk, which worked well enough until she had to answer the phones or make copies for someone, but somehow she had managed not to flash her ring at anyone. Pam didn’t want to explicitly hide her ring, because she felt like that cheapened it somehow, but she also wanted to keep on living in the bliss that was no one in the office being in on their business. Except for Dwight, who aside from the occasional weird look when he walked in on them sitting together in the breakroom hadn’t said a peep since his concussed congratulations.

Unfortunately, according to Jim there was paperwork that needed to be done with Toby, something that apparently should have been done when they started dating that had to do with corporate liability. Pam had followed Jim to the annex to get the forms from Toby together, and just as Jim asked for them Pam realised their fatal mistake.

“Oh my god, you guys are dating!?” Kelly’s face appeared over the divider as she screamed in delight.

The cat was out of the bag at that point, Pam was pretty sure the entire office had heard that, so she just smiled sheepishly and showed her ring, “Um, we’re not dating, we’re engaged actually.”

“What,” Kelly gasped, “How long!?”

“Two weeks today,” Jim stated proudly, and Pam almost melted into the carpet with the gaze that he gave her as his right hand found her left.

Pam cleared her throat, forcing herself to look away as she blushed, “So, Toby, about those papers,” she asked, trying to get what they came for and get out.

“Uh, yeah, I -uh, was just going to say that if it wasn’t,” Toby fumbled, evidently flustered, “You know, serious, you guys could wait,” he finished like it was a question.

“It’s pretty serious,” Jim said irrefutably, and Pam nodded along.

“Um, yeah, right,” Toby nodded as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, before finally retrieving a folder, “Um, just copy this form, sign it, and fax it to corporate HR,” he sighed, presenting the paper to Jim who took it.

Jim tried to usher Pam towards escape, however Kelly had other plans as she rounded the divider coming out of her cubicle with a determined glint in her eyes. Jim decided that this called for Kelly Diversionary Tactic number 3, and so he commenced.

“Hey Kelly, did Toby tell you about that sale he saw at the mall the other night,” Jim asked, going on before either could question him, “Man that was some big savings on name brands,” Jim threw over his shoulder as he tugged Pam towards the door, though she didn’t appear to need the encouragement.

Jim shouldn’t have been surprised that they had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire when they stepped back into the bullpen. Phyllis was looking at them like the cat that got the canary, Kevin was nodding emphatically and saying ‘Nice’ repeatedly, and Michael was staring at them wide eyed through the blinds of his office.

“Um, yup, hi everyone,” Jim have the office a slight wave as he gripped Pam’s hand tightly to try and steal some of her calm optimism for himself, “As you may have heard, Pam and I are engaged, that is all.”

Jim escorted Pam to her desk, feeling as though he was an ant under a magnifying glass as he felt all of the eyes in the office following them. Pam sat at her desk and pretended to work, and Jim sat down at his desk. Eventually the office resumed its normal activities, but the respite was short-lived as the camera crew started pulling people away undoubtedly to get reactions to the latest office drama, and soon enough they were calling Jim and Pam into the conference room.

As was becoming routine, Jim and Pam were seated in front of the conference room window, facing towards the door. Jim decided that if everyone knew they were engaged anyway, there was no harm in holding Pam’s hand in front of the cameras while they all got set up. Jim was frequently amazed that he got to hold Pam’s hand and feel the ring that he had put there, it was so much better than the stolen moments they’d had before. Jim wasn’t even sure that his life was for real most days, except for the fact that he was pretty sure his imagination wasn’t good enough to reproduce the taste, smell, and feel of Pam.

The cameras finally framed up, Greg cleared his throat and started asking questions.

“So now that the entire office knows about your relationship, do you think things will change?”

“I don’t think so,” Pam trailed off, “Jim and I have been best friends for years, and no one’s ever really had a problem with it,” Pam shrugged.

“What about Roy,” Greg asked immediately, and the setup was revealed.

“We’re all adults, and yeah while Roy may have taken issue with it in the past, that’s not his place anymore,” Pam said.

“Fair enough,” Greg conceded, “Moving on, do you guys have any plans made for the wedding yet?”

“We set a date,” Jim answered, “The rest of it is in very early stages,” Jim purposely omitted the date that they had chosen, not sure if Pam would want to share that with the crew, and received an appreciative hand squeeze in return.

Greg asked them a few more questions, and as Jim and Pam were about to get up and leave out of habit as the recording lights on the cameras went out, Greg motioned them back down, pulling his chair closer.

“Hey, just a second guys,” Greg said as he scooted his chair, “So you know that the contract you signed allows us to film at events outside of the office…”

Jim glanced at Pam, seeing the discomfort and trepidation in the way her shoulders hunched, “Go on…”

“While it’s not entirely necessary, we were hoping you would give us permission to film at your wedding.”

Jim turned to more fully look at Pam and read her face, it wasn’t a flat out no, Jim turned back to Greg, “There would have to be some conditions,” Pam nodded as he said this.

Greg didn’t look too pleased by this, but he also didn’t look unreceptive, “Such as?”

Jim looked over to Pam and gave her hand a squeeze, deferring to her. He wanted to make sure that whatever was making her uncomfortable about the idea was taken care of.

“Uhm, if you guys film the wedding like… a wedding? And not like you film around here?”

“I think I see where you’re coming from, and I think we can make that work, was there anything else?”

Pam squeezed Jim’s hand back, so he took lead again, “Can we let you know if anything else comes up? Things are still very much subject to change right now.”

“For sure, we’ll do our best to address any concerns you guys may have,” Greg said with a slight smile as he got up, “Thanks, and again, congratulations.”

With that, Greg let them out into the office and back to work. Other than the obnoxious looks some of their coworkers gave them whenever they sat down together or Jim felt the need to see Pam’s smile a little closer and wandered up to reception, the rest of the day, and then the week passed without major incident. Jim and Pam spent most of the free time that they created in their afternoons looking into various wedding plans. Jim would be the first to admit that he didn’t have a clue what went into one other than the bride and groom, and so he was relieved that Pam had picked up on this and gave him lists of things to look into. Jim’s first task was finding a venue for the ceremony and reception (preferably together, said the subitem to that point), and from what he’d seen of the list before Pam ripped the sheet in half, she was looking into caterers. The goal of course was to get everything before the day had chosen to get married. The fact that Jim could think the phrase ‘choosing to be married,’ – to Pam – still boggled his mind sometimes and he was so grateful to finally have the opportunity.

Pam had expressed her wish for a small wedding, maybe outdoors. Thus, Jim had been scouring the internet for venue ideas, and had stumbled across an advertisement that he had to do a double take for. It read: “Shrute Farms – Agritourism, Beets, Special Events including Wedding, Funeral, and other – Contact Mose Schrute to book.” At first Jim had shown it to Pam for a laugh, but after eliminating the majority of their contenders mostly based on price, it was becoming horrifyingly attractive. On the pros side it had price, obviously, but also it had indoor facilities should they get rained out, large flat areas for a tent or something should they so desire, and lots of room for parking. On the cons it was first and foremost run by Dwight. Another con was the apparent lack of running water, so they’d need porta-potties, not exactly a sight that screams classy wedding. Add to that the fact that Dwight had actual farm animals, so the chances of stepping on a brown landmine were frighteningly high. Jim really hoped he could find something better, because having their wedding at Dwight’s would be all kinds of ironic – or maybe it was fitting? Jim dismissed those thoughts and redoubled his efforts throughout the week to find a different venue.

Near the end of the next week something happened to Michael’s carpet that got Jim usurped from his usual desk, and so he was moved to the annex where he worked even faster than usual with the lack of any distractions, leaving him with ample time to track down more venues. The conclusion that Jim came to after his long day trapped in the annex, with his only respite being a lunch with Pam, was that Dwight’s farm was a top contender for the location of their wedding. The thought horrified him. Jim really wished he could relay his distress to Pam, but Roy was in the office today and that just felt like cruel and unusual punishment to talk about in front of him – Jim knew what it felt like to  be on the other side of that, even if there hadn’t been a date.

 

Pam’s day hadn’t exactly been one of her favourites so far. It had started with a decidedly toxic smell coming from Michael’s office, which had somehow led to her fiancé being shunted into the back annex. One of the bright sides was that Pam was discovering how she could intersperse fiancé when she thought of Jim, the idea was still so novel to her and she loved it. That small high was quickly overshadowed however, in the form of Roy lumbering into the office alongside Darryl. They were supposedly ripping up the carpet, but Roy seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time casually leaning against her desk like she wished Jim was around to do.

Pam was pretty sure that Roy should know by now that she was engaged to Jim with how fast rumours spread around the office, but he had been trying to awkwardly flirt with all day. The next time Roy approached her desk she tried to look busy but didn’t find any papers to shuffle, so she quickly dialled Jim’s temporary extension and hung up, hoping he’d call her right back; it was a trick they usually used to get one another out of talking to Michael, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Pam wasn’t disappointed when her phone started ringing within five seconds of her calling. Pam stopped Roy mid-sentence and answered the phone as she normally would, she was surprised at how calming Jim’s voice was after not hearing or seeing him since lunch. Pam quickly forgot about the pretense of the call as she lost herself to filling him in on what he was missing in the bullpen, like how Michael was trying to usurp his role as the office prankster with his ‘prank’ raid of accounting. Pam was brought back to reality by Roy’s awkward throat clearing. She looked up to see his gaze locked on her left hand which was holding the receiver. More importantly, it was the hand adorned by her new ring.

“Hey Pam?”

“Just a second Jim,” Pam moved the receiver away from her mouth, but didn’t cover it, “Yeah Roy?”

“Did you, um,” Roy fumbled, looking increasingly flustered, “Did you find your ring,” he asked, pointing at Pam’s new engagement ring.

Pam was flabbergasted, how unobservant was Roy? Did he seriously think that it was the same ring that he had thrown in the garbage last year?

“Um, no Roy,” Pam shook her head, “I’m engaged,” Pam tried to affect a kind smile, but she wasn’t sure it looked very genuine.

It was like a switch was flipped, gone was flirty Roy, and in his place was the Roy that had almost hit Jim for holding her hand last year, “What? To who,” Roy raised his voice, drawing the attention of the whole office.

“Pam, get out of there, abort, I’m coming,” Pam heard Jim’s far-off voice from the phone handset that was hovering near her ear.

Pam was tired of pandering to Roy’s pride however, he had no right to dictate how she lived her life now, and he shouldn’t have back then either.

Pam frowned at Roy’s demeanor, “I’m engaged to my best friend, Jim,” Pam said as she registered the kitchen door opening in the back of her head, “And you can do nothing to change that, understood,” Pam asked coolly, giving Roy her best disapproving parent look.

Unfortunately, Roy had never been one to bow to authority, “Like hell I can’t,” Roy said as he spun from her desk, casting his gaze about the office wildly spotting Jim walking towards him from the kitchen, looking decidedly manly and displeased, “What the hell, Halpert!”

“Roy!” Pam yelled as he started to stomp away from her desk, everyone else in the office was frozen. Pam moved to intercept him by the copier, but she was too slow.

“For years,” Roy raged, “You were trying to seal my g-AAAH,” his rage turned into a bellow of pain, as Dwight had suddenly produced a can of pepper spray and absolutely drenched him.

Pam, who had been eclipsed by Roy, escaped the worst of it, but she still felt her eyes tearing up and her nose starting to drip as she gasped and accidently inhaled the powerful concoction. Her vision blurred as it stung her eyes and she reached out to find her desk, only to feel a strong hand at her elbow guiding her away. The hand guided her towards what she could only guess was the conference room, before seating her and becoming a body that sat beside her and pulled her close. By that point pam was certain it was Jim, and she let him hold her close until the police and paramedics arrived.

The rest of the day was a flurry of recounting events to the police, to corporate, and to HR. Interspersed were bouts of blowing her nose and wiping her eyes as the lasting effects of the pepper spray worked their way out of her system. The paramedics had cleaned her eyes out and wiped down her face, but Pam still felt the slight burning well into the evening. Jim took her home as she had needed to get her contacts taken out and she’d forgotten her glasses at the house. Pam didn’t make Jim leave when night came, she didn’t feel like being alone after the events of the day. She was still a little shaken by how quickly things had escalated with Roy, he was obviously not well. Pam was glad that Jim hadn’t gotten hurt though.

As Jim wrapped himself around her after they got ready for bed, Pam was struck by how awkward the situation wasn’t. Like with almost all other things when it came to Jim, he just fit right into her life.

As Pam closed her eyes Jim laid a kiss on her forehead, and whispered to her, “I think we owe it to Dwight to have our wedding on his farm now,” he joked.

Pam’s eyes shot open and her body was wracked with giggles as Jim held her, of course Jim could find a way to make light of the situation.

Pam sighed contentedly, “I agree,” she laid a kiss on Jim’s neck and continued, “Let’s check it out this weekend.”

With that, Jim tightened his embrace, and Pam let the tiredness of her eyes carry her into a deep sleep.

End Notes:

Hey, hope you enjoyed this weird mashup of episodes, there were elements from all over the place in this one. I'm not sure how well it all fit together, but hey, it's out there now!

Yet again, thank you for all for reading and your kind reviews, you make writing this that much more special, and bring a smile to my face. I can only hope to do the same for you.

A JAM Schrute Farms wedding? What have I done? This may have been poor choices, but I guess we're rolling with it now. That was 100% not in the plot draft, let me promise you.

 

Thoughts? Comments? Feedback? Funny stories about crashing airplanes? Feel free to review and share! 

The Farm by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
Jim and Pam take on The Farm!

 

Pam made Jim ask Dwight to see the farm on Friday. She claimed it was because Jim was in charge of the location, but Jim suspected she just wanted to see him squirm. It was an ordeal not to just walk away from the conversation at numerous points, as Dwight realised that he finally had the upper hand, but he powered through it and arranged to meet over the weekend to see a few locations on Dwight’s property. Pam was lucky that he loved her. Somehow that all lead to Jim driving down a gravel road on Dwight’s farm, scanning for any sign of the man. Jim was convinced that Dwight had given them bad directions on purpose as revenge for the years of office pranks, and he was about to suggest they turn around and go back when Pam nudged his arm and pointed him out along the side of the road just as an awful smell hit him full force.

Pam was excited to go see the farm, and regardless of the horrified façade that her fiancé put on she knew he was probably overflowing with glee at all of the possible prank ideas that a visit to the personal domain of Dwight Schrute could provide. The rest of the week after Roy’s episode and subsequent firing had left the office quieter than usual, but Pam didn’t mind because other than Jim and Oscar she didn’t really like talking to anyone there too much anyway, so it wasn’t really a huge loss. The others would come around eventually.

The directions that Dwight had provided to get to the farm had been comical, but once they were on the gravel road leading into the property, they made a twisted sort of sense. There were a few places on the farm that Dwight wanted to show them, the fist of which was about a mile east of the house. As they cleared the bush that surrounded the road, Pam sighted Dwight standing at the side of a field leaning against a shovel, and was hit by the smell of manure, prompting her to quickly roll up her window in a vain attempt of holding off the stench. Pam turned to Jim to make a reaction and found him with his shirt around his nose. Pam started to giggle but stifled it as the sudden intake of air left her retching. Jim brought the car to a halt next to Dwight and put the car in park. Pam shook her head vigorously, staying firmly in place.

“I am not going out there, if it’s this bad in the car,” Pam pleaded, as Jim made an exaggerated grab for his door handle, Pam glared at him as he made to pull it.

“You know, Dwight already has a shovel, and I bet he’d love to help me hide your body,” she threatened, and Jim held his hands up in mock surrender, “That’s what I thought,” Pam said with an indignant huff.

Jim noticed Dwight had grown impatient with waiting near the roadside and was coming towards the car, looking quite smug.

“Here comes Dwight,” Jim said with a nod, as Pam whipped around and to see for herself.

Dwight came to a stop beside Pam’s door and beckoned them out of the car, but Pam protested, yelling through the glass, “Nope, No, Dwight, I am not getting married in a manure soaked field, I refuse. I am not going out there!”

Dwight’s response was muffled, but he gestured somewhere behind Jim. Jim turned to look and spotted what he could only interpret as a cemetery in the clearing of the windbreak. Pam’s gaze met his and he could see she was not impressed so far.

Pam turned back to Dwight, again yelling, “I am not getting married in a graveyard Dwight!”

Dwight started to reply, moving towards the passenger rear door before letting himself in, “-s a longstanding Schrute tradition Pam, I thought as an artist you could appreciate the symbolism,” Dwight finished whatever he had been saying.

“Dwight,” Pam said as she twisted around in her seat to face him as he sat in the back, “I appreciate the thought, but I’d rather not be smelling manure the entire wedding.”

“Pfft, fine,” Dwight acquiesced, and after a bit more cajoling he agreed to show them around the farm to the other prospective locations.

They were shown two more spots by Dwight, each just as discouraging. The first was a pasture of some sort, and while it was visually appealing, when they got out to take a look Jim managed to find a brown landmine every ten feet or so, and thus they quickly ruled it out. The next was a all the way on the other side of the farm and consisted of long grass in a forest clearing. It lacked the manure that the previous two locations had in common, but it didn’t have much else going for it, and Pam found herself picking burrs off of her clothes after their short walk-through. When Pam and Jim didn’t bite on that one either, Dwight offered them one final location, and they reluctantly went along with it.

They drove past what must have been Dwight’s house, and they were directed down a dirt path towards a barn that was just on the other side of some trees a few hundred yards away. When they cleared the trees and pulled around the barn, Jim heard Pam gasp. Suddenly it was revealed to him that they were on top of a gently rolling hill, with a beautiful valley down below, and the sturdy rustic barn behind them. Jim looked over to Pam and she turned towards him with a huge smile on her face, nodding emphatically.

“This is it,” Pam declared, and Jim smiled back at her, his own excitement bubbling over as she turned to face Dwight, “We’ll take it.”

 

The next few weeks passed in a bit of a blur for Jim, between calling their parents for help with coordinating things for the wedding, deciding on a caterer for the reception, and lining up all sorts of things like tastings and fittings, Jim almost forgot that it was their first Valentines day as a couple coming up. Of course, he didn’t actually forget, but it was upon them so fast that it didn’t even feel real. Pam was also supposed to hear back from Corporate about the internship she had applied to soon, and having seen some of her recent projects that she had made in class for a mandatory showing that was happening at the end of the semester, Jim was sure she would get it. Jim was aware that he wasn’t the most qualified art critic, but after enough sitting with Oscar over enough lunch hours, he was confident in saying he could definitely point out how Pam’s form had been improving over the last year.

Valentines day came quickly, and Jim was anxious to see if Pam would like what he had planned for her. Watching her eyes light up as he greeted her in the morning to go to work with a bouquet of tulips was immensely gratifying, and the kiss when she after she spotted the daisies on her desk was very much worth staying late the previous day. When Pam invited him in after their late dinner out, she just about made his year. Jim couldn’t say it was the number one thing to happen to him, as she had agreed to marry him, which Jim had retroactively ranked number two as he figured that being married to Pam was likely to take the number one space. Jim could however say with confidence that what happened after dinner was definitely the third best thing that would happen to him in the year, and there was no going back.

Since that night it was rare that Jim went to sleep or woke up alone, which he was very much ok with, and he was pretty sure Pam was too with how often she was the initiator. Jim was quite honestly surprised at how forward Pam was now that she seemed to have decided that she was ready to go all in, and Jim wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth and ask what all had brought this on. Loving, being loved, and making love to Pam were Jim’s favourite things to do, and not a day went by without one of those things it seemed. Jim existed in a state of bliss. Pam had an art show for her class in just under two months, she was supposed to hear back about the internship soon, and they were getting married in June, which was closing fast. To add to all that, most evenings were spent poring over Pam’s wedding planning notebook, making calls, going out to shops, and making and completing lists. Jim had no idea that so much logistical work went into planning a wedding.

It was a good thing that he didn’t intend to ever do it again, he reflected with a smile as he pulled Pam’s still sleeping form close before the start of another day.


 

End Notes:

So this is one of those chapters where it takes so long to write that you go back over and it feels choppy... Probably not my best work, but I hope you folks can find some enjoyment in it regardless. I just needed to get this one done and move on at this point.

As always, I love hearing your thoughts, feel free to share with me in the reviews! Thank you to everyone who has already done so, and also to those of you just reading along.

To my fellow northerners: Happy Civic Holiday weekend! 

Take Your Daughter to Work Day by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
Jim and Pam make new friends. Pam buys enough candy for an entire preschool class.

 

Pam was stressed and beginning to feel overwhelmed with all of the plans and different things going on in her life and March was already halfway through. Even with being able to get a fair amount of wedding planning and coordination done in their self-created free time at work in the afternoons, Pam still felt like they were falling behind, and June was screaming towards them. To add to that, today was ‘Bring your Daughter to Work’ day and Pam had completely forgotten about it until her calendar event in Outlook told her to remind Michael about it at the end of the day yesterday, leading to Pam spending an inordinate amount of time at the dollar store trying to figure out what candy kids liked these days. Pam was glad that Jim hadn’t been there to see her mini-meltdown in the candy aisle, eventually she just ended up grabbing something of everything; some Reese’s cups, Jolly Ranchers, suckers, Star Bursts, and of course a refill of jellybeans. Pam didn’t miss the look that Jim gave her in the morning when she got into his car with two shopping bags full of candy.

“Bribery, really” Jim asked as he quirked an eyebrow and gestured to the candy in her lap when she was settled.

“I need the kids to like me,” Pam explained exasperatedly as the car began moving again, “Kids hate me.”

“Kids love you,” Jim objected, and Pam looked at him incredulously, wondering if he had forgotten what happened last year, “Come on, don’t give me that, Vanessa loved you the moment she met you.”

“She was just being nice,” Pam shot back, “It’s probably all an elaborate prank on me by Tom and Pete anyway, I’m waiting for the big reveal.”

“Ok, wow, first of all you think way too highly of my family’s pranking skills, and secondly, Vanessa was calling you ‘Auntie Pam’ within the hour,” Jim gave her a significant look, “You know how shy she is, she loves you.”

“Ok, fine, but that’s one kid, and they’re practically family,” Pam argued.

“Pam, you’re going to be great,” Jim assured, “They’re just little people, talk to them, treat them with respect, learn their interests,” he trailed off for a second, “And I guess bribing them with candy couldn’t hurt either,” Jim finished with a smirk.

Pam wasn’t entirely convinced, but she let the conversation go with a small smile. By the raised eyebrow he gave her when they got out of the car to go into the office, he saw right through her. She was thankful that he’d dropped the subject though. Pam went about putting the extra candy out and noticed the camera focusing on her, making her feel just a little self conscious about the variety of candies in bowls set out on her desk, and so she stopped and left the contents of the second bag under her desk where no one could judge it.

As was routine by now for so called special events, everyone was called into the conference room in ones and twos to do interviews and speculate on the day ahead. When Michael entered and made an inappropriate comment, Pam was glad she was there to shut him down and remind him that there were kids around. Immediately afterwards she and Jim were pulled into the conference room to talk to the crew. Pam justified her candy to the crew by saying that she was getting married so she better improve her kid skills, which earned her an intense gaze from Jim that she was sure had her blushing well after the interview.

Most of the early morning was parents making the rounds with their kids and doing introductions. Pam had met most of them in previous years, although this was the first year that Toby had brought in his daughter Sasha, and Meredith had brought her son in because he was suspended or something. As a result, Pam wasn’t able to get much done as her carefully crafted routine fell by the wayside. Pam mentally imagined her wedding planning timeslot being pushed off a table and falling over the edge like a poorly balanced plate of cake and couldn’t help grimacing at the thought.

To top all of that off, Pam was still waiting to hear back about the graphic design internship at corporate that she had applied to. Pam was looking forward to knowing, but she dreaded the choice that would come after. Would she sacrifice her dreams of working with art to plan a wedding? One of her dreams was the wedding. The internship, if she got it, was an opportunity of a lifetime for her, a practically zero-risk foot in the door of an entirely different and hopefully fulfilling career path. With these thoughts Pam noticed she had been unconsciously twisting the engagement ring on her finger and pulled her hand away as if physically burned. She recalled the thoughts that she associated with that subconscious gesture from her previous ring, thoughts of doubt, regret, and despair. Pam did not regret being engaged to Jim, she did not doubt that they could make it work, and she was happy with how her life was going right now. As if she needed a reminder of all of this, she looked up to see Jim smiling down at her with concerned eyes. Pam gave him a small smile in return to reassure him that she was fine.

Pam almost jumped when Jim he called over to Abby, who had taken to sitting on the couch by reception, asking about her book and getting her talking. Pam watched as Abby made her way to join them at the reception counter, and just as the girl was leaning in to snag a peanut butter cup from one of the many bowls lining the top of Pam’s desk she saw Abby’s gaze drawn to something on her desk.

“Did you draw that,” Abby pointed at one of the sheets of paper haphazardly strewn about the surface of Pam’s desk, which turned out to be a drawing she had been working on yesterday.

“I did, it’s for an assignment in my art class,” Pam said as she extracted the paper from the pile it was falling out of so that Abby could take a closer look, “Do you like to draw?”

“Yeah, I want to be an artist when I grow up,” Abby enthused.

Jim covered his mouth to hide his growing smile as he stood by and watched Pam and Abby interacting.

“Me too,” Pam said with a small laugh, and Jim wanted to tell her she already was when Abby beat him to it.

“But you already are an artist,” Abby said as she cocked her head at Pam.

“I know,” Pam said and looked up at him, “Sometimes it seems to good to be true,” and Jim couldn’t help but feel there was a double meaning there as Pam smiled softly at him.

Abby narrowed her eyes at them, “Are you guys married,” she asked, snapping Jim and Pam out of their moment with her inquiry, as if it was the most natural thing for someone to assume of them within minutes of meeting.

Jim noticed Pam blushing a little as she looked back up at him, smiling with her tongue between her teeth before she responded to Abby, “Not yet, we’re getting married in June.”

Jim hung around reception for a bit, watching on as Pam pulled a chair around for Abby and produced some art supplies for her so they could draw side by side. Jim was kind of jealous that Pam had actual skills to teach Abby, but he was so proud of her in that same moment. When Jim noticed Sasha wandering by with some of Michael’s office toys, he ambushed her and soon they were playing with trains on his desk. When Jim looked up to reception, he met Pam’s eyes and smiled warmly, she was going to be an amazing mom.

All Pam could think was what an amazing dad Jim was going to be when he paused to look up at her from where he had been playing with Sasha. The day went by faster than Pam would have thought possible after she, Jim, Sasha, and Abby formed their own little pod together. Other than just generally having fun with them there were a few moments that stood out to Pam during the day. Notably Stanley could be heard yelling at Ryan in the breakroom just before lunch, and after lunch Pam had seen Dwight make Meredith’s son cry, which she had promptly admonished him for. As the end of the day neared and Michael had a meltdown Pam found herself standing between his office door and the conference room, debating with Jim as to whether Michael was in need of an emotional intervention or not. Fortunately for them, Toby inadvertently beat them to it when he waddled by to return all of the toys that Sasha had managed to smuggle out over the course of the day. Toby still hadn’t left Michael’s office by the time everyone was calling it a day and packing up to go home.

Kevin and Abby approached her and Jim as they were getting ready to leave and Abby invited them over for dinner that night. Pam was touched and seeing as she didn’t have a class, after looking over to Jim to see if he had an opinion one way or another and seeing him nod slightly, Pam agreed on their behalf. As she and Jim drove home from work Pam couldn’t help but contrast Jim’s personable and friendly approach to dealing with kids to what she had witnessed of Roy’s roughhousing at family gatherings they had attended in the past. Pam gazed over at Jim warmly in the car as she thought again about how lucky she felt to have Jim, and what a great dad he was going to be.

As they got into bed after the evening hanging out with Kevin, Stacey, and Abby, Pam couldn’t chase away the niggling doubt that had been eating at her in the morning.

“Jim,” she asked quietly, “What are we going to do about the wedding if I get the internship? I can’t plan a wedding from New York.”

When you get the internship,” Jim said as he pulled her close, “We will recruit our sisters and mothers, and if we’re feeling particularly desperate my brothers,” Jim said as though it was the simplest thing in the world.

Pam couldn’t help but tear up a little at the sheer confidence he had in her, that there was no room for doubt in his mind that she would get the internship and that the wedding plans would work out. Pam rolled in his embrace and tried to burrow deeper to steal some of that confidence for herself. She wasn’t sure how successful she was, but she fell asleep quickly and woke up the next day feeling well rested and maybe a little relieved. Everything was going to work out, even if she had to get married in her tiny back yard with Nikita as the ring bearer.

 

End Notes:

Hope you can find enjoyment in this latest chapter! 

Thank you to everyone reading and reviewing, I love hearing from you folks, the feedback is much appreciated.

We're coming up on the finish line! I only have 3-4 more chapters penciled in on my plot draft! 

Edited 2020-08-24: Some phrasing and spelling mishaps. 

Michael’s Birthday by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
Michael's strongest trait is bringing people together.

 

Jim regretted not making up an excuse for him and Pam to stay at home in bed today. It was Michael’s birthday and he was being particularly childish today with his need for validation. The reason things were worse than usual this year was that Michael had discovered that their coworkers cared more for Kevin’s wellbeing than they did Michael’s feelings. Most of the time, Jim knew that Michael meant well, but today with Kevin waiting on results for a biopsy he was just about ready to snap. Thankfully for Jim, his trusty Fiancée was as observant as ever and had picked up on his discomfort. Jim was watching Michael get hoisted up on a chair from the kitchen door when he felt Pam sidle up to him and grasp his hand, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“I feel kind of bad for Kev,” Pam said quietly from his side, but Jim still managed to hear her over the ruckus going on in the bullpen, “Do you think we could go get something to cheer him up?”

Jim looked down to see Pam looking up at him from where her head rested on his shoulder and felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth, “I don’t know, I think we’re going to have to come up with a distraction before we can make an exit,” he finished, smiling now.

Pam laughed lightly and put her hand on his arm, pulling him toward the back stairs, “Come on, dork,” she said, grinning as she pulled him along, “I think we’ll be fine.”

That was how Jim found himself in a grocery store, pushing a cart slowly down the aisles with Pam at his side, occasionally picking out something that they thought would cheer Kevin up, or something that was running low at home. Jim noticed that his usual fabric softener was on sale and dropped some in the cart on the way by.

Pam guffawed, “Fabric softener,” she asked incredulously, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah,” Jim asked, not quite sure what Pam was getting after.

“How did I not know this about you,” Pam marvelled, leaning against him again to rub her cheek on his sleeve exaggeratedly, “Huh.”

Jim just shrugged and put his arm around Pam’s shoulders to pull her closer to his side, still tickled by how nicely she seemed to fit there, “It’s on sale.”

Pam let out a small, “Hmph,” as they continued to trawl the aisles.

Eventually they ran out of aisles and grudgingly admitted that they should probably get back to work. As they passed a profit panel full of cologne on the end of an aisle Jim spotted a box of Nightswept that was so perfectly Michael that he couldn’t pass it up, adding it to the cart. Pam gave him a funny look but otherwise didn’t comment on his addition.

Pam noticed they were getting a lot of people rubber-necking as she and Jim ambled by with the camera crew tailing them, it was the first time she’d been out in public with the crew following them and it was admittedly pretty strange. By the time they got to the checkout Pam had mostly forgotten about them, and when Jim dared her to use the PA, she did it without question just to see the look of shock and awe on his face. Pam made it halfway through a Darth Vader impression before she broke down into giggles on the intercom, pulling away. Pam was admittedly a little embarrassed that the cashier lady had called her out, but the appreciative gaze that Jim gave her as they carried the bags out to the car did a lot to dispel the feeling.

Jim could tell that Pam was cooking up an idea when they drove back towards the office in silence. When they reached around the halfway point Pam finally gave voice to whatever had been stewing, starting by clearing her throat slightly.

“You know,” Pam started hesitantly, “This Kevin thing is kind of what Nikita was trained for… would it be weird to bring her in to sit with him?”

Jim never ceased to be amazed by Pam’s kindness, and quickly found his voice to affirm her thought. That was how they found themselves making a quick detour by Pam’s house, before finally heading back to the office. When they snuck back into work, everything seemed to have died down from the chair-lifting craziness that they had witnessed before they left. Angela gave them a stern glare as they walked over to accounting with their grocery bags and Nikita in tow, but Jim was used to that by this point, he was pretty sure Angela just hated the idea of anyone being happy if she couldn’t be.

“Hey Kev,” Pam greeted as they rounded his desk, “We brough some stuff that we hoped you might like,” Pam said raising the grocery bags as Jim leaned against the filing cabinet, watching the whole scene.

“Hey,” Kevin said slowly, looking pointedly between Pam, Jim, and Nikita who was sitting on the floor beside Pam, “P B N J,” he enunciated slowly, before giggling a little to himself, “Get it?”

Pam smiled warmly, “Yeah we got it,” she paused, looking over to Jim and he couldn’t help but smile back, “We brought Nikita in if you’d like to sit with her,” Pam offered.

Kevin thanked them and pulled them into an awkward group hug, and Jim patted his back a few times before they were finally released from the embrace. Jim followed Pam back towards their desks, satisfied with a job well done, and Pam gave him a smile over the reception counter as they settled in again. The calm that had settled over the office didn’t last long however, as Michael emerged from his office to try and rally everyone to go to the community centre and go skating. After some initial resistance, their fellow office workers filed out, Kevin being the last with Nikita following until she reached Pam’s desk, sitting down to wait for them.

Pam finished setting up her out of office email responder, put the phones on voicemail, grabbed her bag and let Jim help her with her coat, heading towards the door with Nikita trotting along at their heels. They got to the rink and sat with Kevin for a little but Pam managed to convince Jim to take her out on the rink to skate for a bit, so they left Nikita under Kevin’s care and went out on the ice. Pam was having a wonderful time wobbling along beside Jim and leaning on him until Ryan skidded out of control and bowled them over. Pam tried to get back into it but reluctantly they retired from the ice and went back to sitting with Kevin in the box.

Pam was relieved for Kevin when his test results came back negative, and everyone could finally relax and actually enjoy the outing. Pam had to admit that Michael’s outing would have been pretty nice if it hadn’t been for the poor timing. They eventually retired to a side room where Pam presented the Nightswept that Jim had picked out and was tickled by how pleased Michael seemed to be with it.

The end of the day found most of their coworkers heading straight home from the community centre, but Pam had to go back to the office to make sure that nothing time sensitive was laying on the floor near the fax machine. Jim took her back, and they left Nikita in the car with the windows rolled down while they went inside quickly. Jim leaned against the counter while she sorted through the faxes that had piled up while they were out, setting aside the ones that she would have to get Michael to address first thing tomorrow.

Jim was content to watch as Pam caught up on all of the so-called urgent matters that a mid-range paper supply company could generate in an afternoon. She rifled through some faxes and using some arcane method produced three sperate piles which she put sticky dividers into and recombined, before moving to take down voicemails. Jim watched her as she recorded each onto a memo card until she stopped, her brow furrowing, and hit the two key on the phone to replay something. Jim looked down at her quizzically, but she wasn’t looking at him, her head had snapped over to her computer screen.

“Oh my god,” Jim heard her whisper.

“What is it Pam,” Jim asked, growing somewhat concerned by her reaction to whatever she had just heard on the phone.

“Oh my god,” Pam said a little more loudly, and Jim noticed a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Pam, what?”

Pam beckoned him around the desk as she rolled to face her computer properly, “Jim, look!”

Jim came around her desk to look over her shoulder and saw her pointing at an email on screen. He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for, but little bits and pieces registered to him, the email was from Jan, the subject line had internship in it, and the first line said congratulations… Jim felt the smile growing across his face as he stopped reading and spun Pam in her chair, bringing her into a crushing hug.

“Oh, Pam,” Jim said as he held her close, “I am so proud of you!”

“I got the internship,” Pam said, sounding like a mix between giddy and disbelief.

“You did,” Jim pulled back a little, trying to gauge Pam’s reaction to the news.

Pam was absolutely living. She had been accepted for the graphics design internship in New York, she had won out against art students going to school in New York. Pam had no clue how that was possible, but she had a strong feeling that it had a lot to do with the man who was holding her in his arms. Pam didn’t have any words for how grateful she was for his support, so she took the opportunity when he leaned back to pull him in for a kiss. Initially she just wanted it to say thank you, but it went on for much longer than intended, only stopping when suddenly they heard someone clearing their throat awkwardly from the doorway. Pam broke away and tried to bury herself in Jim’s embrace, feeling a blush burning up her cheeks.

Pam felt Jim clear his throat awkwardly as well, “Hey Hank, what’s up?”

There was a pause, “Saw the door was open, though you might have forgotten to lock up… I’ll be on my way,” Pam heard him reply as he promptly turned on his heel and left.

“Oh my god Jim, we have to see him every day,” Pam groaned, muffled by Jim’s jacket.

“So?”

“So, what is he going to think of us now!”

Jim leaned down toward Pam’s ear, “He’s probably going to think that I love my fiancé very much,” he said before planting a light kiss below it, trying to coax Pam back out of her shell, “We’ll make sure we pitch in for a nice gift for him this year.”

“Great, so we’re going to pay him off,” Pam asked, finally raising her gaze up to meet his.

“If it means we get to do this again? I’d gladly pay him off.”

That finally broke her, Pam burst into giggles, “You’re incorrigible!”

“That’s just the way you like me,” Jim said with a wink, reluctantly unwrapping himself from around Pam to let her up from her office chair.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Pam said as she locked her computer, bumping shoulders with him.

Jim pulled Pam close along side him with an arm over her shoulder, and Pam’s snaked across his back wrapping around his waist as they walked out of the office and went home to celebrate properly.


 

End Notes:

Hah, take that Aly! I mean that in the nicest way possible, I look forward to your update!

Hope you all enjoy, and thank you for reading and reviewing!

I'll probably proofread this again tomorrow, as it's kind of late and I've likely missed something, but I just wanted to get this one out there. 

Drug Testing by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
Jim and Pam play a game of Jinx in the middle of preparations for a lot of big moves.

 

It still felt surreal to Jim that today was Pam’s last day in the office. Between the flurry of wedding prep that they crammed into the last two weeks, Pam’s art show, and the packing of essentials for her extended stay in the New York internship accommodations, the time had just flown by. Jim was proud of Pam as he thought back over all of the growth she had done in the last year to make her own dreams come true, and if he was being honest with himself he was also a little jealous of the clarity she seemed to have when it came to life goals. Jim still wasn’t sure what his dream was, but watching Pam prepare for the internship with such joy and determination made him wonder what he could do to find something like that to strive for. That’s not to say that Pam didn’t have moments of doubt or weakness, just last night she had almost broken down saying how much she was going to miss him, and was it really ok that they were going to be spending some of their first months married states apart? Jim did his best to reassure Pam, but privately he had fears along those same lines too. What if Pam discovered that alone in New York was where she wanted to be, and he was holding her back? What if he wasn’t enough for her and her artistic aspirations? Jim knew in his heart that these were unfounded, and that she loved him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling.

Jim had almost forgotten about Dwight finding a joint in the parking lot, so when Pam caught his attention and inclined her head toward the entrance, he was thrilled to see Dwight walking into the office in full regalia. Jim smiled at Pam, but it felt bittersweet, this was going to be the last day of their shared office experience for a long time. Between Dwight’s interrogations and Pam’s trips to his desk to drop off ‘memos’ that mainly consisted of smiley faces on sticky notes, Jim couldn’t help but smile. Pam’s  gesture warmed his heart, and he was starting to come around to some semblance of normalcy when she sidled up to him in the kitchen while he was grabbing a cup of coffee to escape Dwight’s screaming interrogation of Kelly.

Jim could tell Pam was still trying to cheer him up when she started gushing about his impressions to anyone who would listen. He gave in and did his Stanley impression, not realising that Stanley had just emerged from the bathroom. Pam tried valiantly to salvage the situation but her skills as a mediator weren’t getting him out of that one.

Stanley just looked at him, very unimpressed and said, “I do not think that is funny,” with a huff and left the room.

Jim turned to Pam and saw the laugh in her eyes, “I do not think that is funny,” they both intoned to each other in their Stanley impressions.

Jim watched Pam’s eyes widening, and realised his fatal mistake, “Jinx,” they exclaimed together, pointing at each other.

Before Pam could recover Jim quickly followed up, stabbing his finger towards her again, “Double jinx!”

Jim grinned madly as he watched Pam’s mouth form a shocked ‘O’ before her brow furrowed and she pouted at him as if to say, ‘How could you, on my last day?’

Jim shrugged, “You’ve said it yourself Pam, the rules of Jinx are unflinchingly rigid,” he said innocently, following her as she turned on her heel and started stomping exaggeratedly towards the break room.

Pam tried to put on a display of being livid, but that quickly gave way to giddiness. Somehow even with all the stress of moving, her art show the other week, wedding planning, and impending separation anxiety they could still just be them. Pam was ashamed to admit that Jim had beaten her at her own game, and so she immediately took to the breakroom to solve the problem. Her angry quarter dropping and punch of the coke button was met with the clinking of the change return, and a mocking ‘Sold out’ flashing across the seven-segment display. Somehow it seemed fitting to Pam that she would spend her last day at work playing a game of Jinx with Jim.

Not one to be accused of cheating, Pam hung her head and made an exaggerated play at moping as she slowly made her way out of the breakroom. Jim followed her out and matched her pace, giving her a side hug before they left the kitchen and got back out into the office. Pam proceeded to set the phones to voicemail while Jim raised his eyebrows at her. Pam just stuck out her tongue at him in a display of immense maturity and decided that her time could be better spent sketching layouts of her house integrating Jim’s things, as he would be moving in after she moved some essentials to New York. Pam was excited to be taking that step with him, but also sorely disappointed that she was going to be living in New York on weekdays for the next couple of months unable to take advantage of it. At the very least she wouldn’t be coming home to an empty house on the weekends and she didn’t have to find anyone to take care of Nikita, as she wasn’t allowed in the internship accommodations.

Pam was drawn from her thoughts by Dwight appearing in front of her desk and demanding her presence in the ‘Interview chamber,’ immediately. Pam grabbed her steno pad and followed him reluctantly, fixing Jim with her best accusatory glare on her way by. Jim just smiled and shrugged at her, causing Pam to vow mentally that she would make him share in her suffering one way or another. Pam smiled to herself as an idea formed, but she schooled her features as she moved to take a seat across from Dwight at the table after he’d closed the door.

“What were your whereabouts after eighteen-hundred last night,” Dwight questioned impatiently, not waiting for her to get settled.

Pam made a big show of thinking it over, before she just shrugged.

“What does this,” Dwight mimicked her shrug exaggeratedly a few times, “Mean Pam? Do you not remember where you were because you were so high on weed?”

Pam shook her head and started to write something on her steno pad as Dwight continued to work himself up with her lack of response.

‘I know my rights – right to remain silent,’ she wrote, turning the pad around and pushing it towards Dwight.

Dwight’s face scrunched up as he read what she had written, “Well, you- You could waive your right to remain silent, everyone else already has! And they all said it was you too,” he backpedaled.

Pam shook her head, taking the steno back, ‘I have a right to have counsel present during questioning – I choose Jim,’ she presented to Dwight with a raised brow.

“What, no way, you can’t choose your fiancé,” Dwight blustered, but Pam could tell he was close to breaking.

‘Who else here has my best interests at heart – not like I can choose you – conflict of interest,’ she wrote back.

“Wha- I could totally,” Dwight started, but Pam cut him short with a frown and a shake of her head before he could figure out some convoluted way to be both her interviewer and legal counsel.

“Fine,” Dwight grumped as he pushed himself up from the table and opened the door to the bullpen to retrieve Jim.

 

Jim smirked as he heard Dwight interrogating Pam behind him in the conference room, wondering how long it would go since she couldn’t speak. Jim heard the conference room door open behind him and spun around to find Dwight glaring at him.

“Jim, your presence is requested,” Dwight said with disdain, beckoning him towards the door.

As Jim got up, he peered around Dwight to meet Pam’s gaze and she stuck her tongue out at him. Jim had to think fast lest Pam throw him under the bus or something.

Jim moved past Dwight to sit down beside Pam as Dwight close the door behind him. Pam bumped shoulders with him and when Jim looked down to meet her eyes he could see the mischievous glint there, it was if she was saying, ‘You should know better than to leave me out to dry, now we’re in this together.’

“All right,” Dwight began, clearing his throat, “Now that your counsel,” he intoned while gesturing derisively to Jim, “Is present, we may begin.”

Dwight opened a folder from the table and produced a picture, sliding it over to Pam, “What does this picture look like to you?”

Jim looked over to Pam to see her looking up at him, playing along with the whole counsel thing, “Don’t answer that,” he advised.

Dwight huffed, “Fine, we’ll start with something easier,” he rolled his eyes at Jim before looking back to Pam, “What is your name?”

Jim looked down to Pam as she met his eyes and just shook his head.

“Damnit Jim, you can’t just tell her not to answer any questions, I’m trying to conduct an interview here! Someone was smoking marijuana on company property,” Dwight emphasised by stabbing his finger on the picture.

“How can you be sure that it wasn’t you,” Jim posited, loving the incredulous look that spread across Dwight’s face.

“That’s ridiculous, of course it wasn’t me.”

“Maybe you just forgot? Marijuana is a memory loss drug Dwight, you told me yourself last week,” Jim continued, planting seeds of doubt in Dwight’s logic. Jim could feel Pam’s hand tapping on his knee, a sure-fire sign that she was trying not to break.

“Stop it Jim, I’m trying to conduct an interview,” Dwight gestured between Pam and himself.

“No, I’m conducting the interview,” Jim went in for the kill, “You said so yourself before you brought me in! Now you can’t even remember Pam’s name. Exactly how much pot did you smoke Dwight,” Jim interrogated, hitting his hands on the desk to drive the point home.

Dwight just sat there gobsmacked, and Jim knew it was time to make an escape as he could feel Pam’s shoulder shaking against his. Jim pushed away from the table and helped Pam up. They exited the room before Dwight could come to his senses. Jim felt Pam curl into him and press her face against his side to stifle the giggles that had started to bubble up as he guided her to sit down on the couch by reception. When she finally got control again and looked up at him Jim felt like his heart skipped a beat. The way she looked at him with unabashed love and joy never ceased to give him pause, and as he was struck by the look her face got closer and suddenly, she was kissing him. It was over before Jim even really had time to process it but when his brain finally caught up the thing that stood out to him was that Pam had just kissed  him in front of the entire office. Jim took a dazed look around and took in the rest of the office, the kitchen door blinds were swaying, Stanley was working on a crossword, Phyllis and Dwight were in the conference room, and no one else was in his line of sight from the couch. Jim didn’t let that temper his amazement though, he knew it was bold for Pam. He felt kind of bad that he had Jinxed her, but if this was how she said ‘I love you’ without words, he could forgive himself. He was going to miss her so much these coming months, but he knew the joy in her eyes when she was going to talk about all of the amazing and new things that she would be doing at the internship would be worth it.

“I love you too,” Jim whispered as his gaze finally came back to rest on her face, “And I’m really proud of you,” he said, nodding toward the painting that now adorned the wall separating Michael’s office, squeezing her shoulder to pull her closer to his side.

Jim wasn’t sure if he could ever really put into words how proud of Pam he was, she had put on her first art show as part of her class and invited everyone in the office to attend, which was really brave Jim thought, knowing some of their coworkers. Of all the people to show up, the most surprising had been Michael, who had actually bought one of her paintings which featured their office building, and it now hung proudly on the wall. Jim was proud of her for putting herself out there like that, but also how she was chasing her dreams. She was planning a wedding with him, but she wasn’t letting it hold her back from going after the internship. Sure, their sisters had stepped in to help manage some of the smaller details, but Jim was still impressed by her ambition, she was starting the internship early so that she could have the week before and after the wedding off. Sure, they weren’t going away for a fancy honeymoon right away, but they had made plans to go away in August for a trip to the west coast to see the pacific and anything else that struck their fancy along the way.

Eventually, they had to get up off of the couch and do their actual jobs. Since Pam had the phones on automatic voicemail until she could sneak away and find a coke somewhere, she resumed sketching floorplans for the co-mingling of her and Jim’s things. She was interrupted briefly by a Michael meeting about the dangers of drugs. Jim mercifully didn’t volunteer her for any speaking roles, not that she could have with her face buried against his shoulder to stifle her giggles, but it was the thought that counted. Otherwise, as far as Pam could tell, Jim had made it his mission to make her blush as much as possible while she wasn’t able to retort. Not that she was complaining – he was saying the nicest things to her and it warmed her heart – but it did remind her that she was going to be living away from this wonderful man for ten weeks. Even after their wedding, they would only be together for a week before she went back to New York to finish out the last portion of the internship.

Pam shook herself from her thoughts as she spotted an opening to take an early lunch and leave for a few minutes in search of another vending machine. As much as she liked the strange boldness that came with not being able to talk, and the silent conversations she and Jim could hold, she just wanted to be able to speak to him again. Maybe while she was at it, she could ask what the heck was up with Dwight and his toting of the suspicious coffee cup, and why Michael kept going on about clove cigarettes.

Jim watched as Pam grabbed her purse and slipped out of the office shortly before when they usually took their lunch together and was kind of disappointed that their game would be coming to an end. When she returned shortly thereafter and produced a can of coke from her purse and tried to hand it to him, he didn’t take it. Instead, he raised his eyebrow at her in silent challenge as if to ask if she really wanted to exit the fantasyland that their game seemed to place them in. Pam placed the coke on the edge of his desk and nudged it towards him, giving him an encouraging smile, and as much as Jim wanted to make a big scene of thinking it over the gesture was so endearing that he had to take it. Jim lifted the can from his desk and cracked it open, taking a sip.

“Hi,” Pam said after he’d taken a sip, having to clear her throat after not using her voice for a substantial part of the morning.

“Hey,” Jim replied warmly, “You want to take lunch now,” he asked, gesturing towards the back of the office.

“Absolutely,” Pam spun and deposited her purse behind her desk before joining him as he got up to grab their lunches from the kitchen, “I don’t know if I really want to know… but what’s up with Dwight and the cup,” she asked as they seated themselves in the breakroom.

Jim had grabbed a couple of plastic cups from the kitchen on his way through and he split the coke with Pam as they started on their lunches. Jim wasn’t sure why but today the cameras seemed to be close at hand at all times. While to him the game of Jinx was the most interesting thing going on, he wasn’t blind to the fact that most other folks would likely be zeroing in on Dwight’s investigation and the ensuing moral dilemma he was facing, so he wasn’t really sure what was going on there. Jim shrugged those thoughts off as he took his time in filling Pam in on the details of the Dwight-Michael conspiracy, savouring the way that she paid such close attention to his retelling of events. Jim had finished debriefing Pam and she was theorizing as to what Dwight was going to do with two authorities in his life conflicting when Jim noticed some sketches under her lunch bag and slipped them out to take a look.

“I just don’t get what he’s getting out of that relationship,” She concluded wistfully.

“Yeah,” Jim agreed absently as he leafed through the drawings, “Hey Pam… are these what I think they are,” he asked, looking up at her.

“What do you think they are,” She asked, biting her lip.

“Well they’re certainly not plans for the dungeon we discussed,” He trailed off, watching her parse out what he had just said and blush.

“No they aren’t dork,” She hit him lightly from across the table, “They’re plans for where we’re going to put all your stuff,” she finished more confidently.

Up until that point Jim hadn’t even been aware that Toby was in the break room with them, but he sure clocked him making a hasty exit. Jim shot a look to the cameras and saw they had clocked it too, as they were following him out. Jim brushed it off, he had more important things to worry about right now.

“Pam, these are great – they’re so detailed,” he gushed, poring over the plans, “The couch even has the hole in the right place!”

Pam giggled, “Of course that’s the detail you call out, way to shower me with praise Halpert.”

They spent a little more time going over her drawings, before finally settling on the plans that they liked best before their lunch hour was up. Jim stole one of the drawings that didn’t make the cut and put it in one of his drawers when he got back to his desk.

The rest of the afternoon went by without much exciting happening. Jim did notice the look of sympathy that Pam shot Dwight as he came back from a late lunch sans uniform, which made it clear the authority he had chosen, but otherwise everything had quieted down substantially from the craziness of the morning. Jim decided to return Pam’s earlier favour and started trading her smiley post-its for jellybeans when he made his visits, which prompted her to visit him a couple more times at his desk in the afternoon to drop off false messages and steal a few moments of closeness in the middle of the office.

They went to Pam’s house – soon to be their house – after work and discussed plans for Jim to drive her down to New York and stay for the weekend. Jim couldn’t help the feeling that he was going to be leaving his home in New York, and while he knew she would be missing him terribly as well, he hoped for her sake that she could come home the right way after finishing her internship.

They went to bed early after an evening in as they had a long day of moving ahead of them tomorrow.


 

End Notes:

And there you have it! It took me a while to get this one written down, mainly piecemealing it a few sentences a day, but today inspiration struck and I finished it!

Hope you folks can find some enjoyment in reading this, I sure enjoyed writing it.

Thank you to everyone still reading this, and especially to those leaving reviews, I love hearing from and interacting with you folks.

I'll probably get around to giving this a proper proofreading before bed tonight, so please forgive any errors my first read-through didn't catch!

Just a few more chapters to go, we're nearing the end of this ride. 

EDITED: 2020-09-22
Made my final proofing fixes - I guess I have to admit to any errors past this point! 

Casino Night by DoomGoose
Author's Notes:
Pam's in New York, but not for long. Jim is stuck in Scranton.

Jim distributed wedding invitations around the office the last day of April. It wasn’t as though they had been hiding the date, but when the crew mentioned they might hadn’t acquired the funding to keep filming past May, Jim and Pam may have forgotten to remind them about the wedding that they had reluctantly agreed to have filmed as part of the documentary. It was simply coincidence that when Jim heard all this from the crew that he suddenly remembered to hand the cards out the next week. Of course, family and friends had had invitations for a while at that point, but that wasn’t an important detail, it wasn’t as though they were trying to discourage their valued coworkers from attending or anything like that. Ok, so admittedly it was something like that, they didn’t want to hurt any feelings by not inviting people, but they also didn’t really want most of them to actually show up.

Jim was finding it difficult to adjust to a workplace without Pam, everyone and everything seemed to get on his nerves more readily, and he’d had to check himself on a couple of prank plans that may have been a bit too far. He of course had Pam’s extension for her desk at Corporate, but unfortunately, they couldn’t be on the phone all hours of the day. Since leaving Pam in New York weeks ago Jim had struggled to find ways to occupy his time other than calling Pam, thinking about Pam, and wedding planning. He’d started going to a few more pickup games than usual to let off some steam on weeknights, and taking Nikita for runs, but he still couldn’t push missing Pam from his mind. As a consequence, Jim had started looking at maybe taking some classes for himself at the local college to occupy himself, but as of yet he hadn’t really figured out what he would even be interested in taking at this point. Larissa and Penny popped by occasionally to help him with wedding plans ostensibly, but he was convinced they had ulterior motives and really just wanted to see Nikita. He couldn’t blame them though; she was a cute dog. Weekends were Jim’s only reprieve, as that was when he had unfettered access to Pam, regardless of whether he went to New York or she came to Scranton, the result was the same, he was at home with her.

Jim had something to look forward to today though, Michael was hosting some casino fundraiser and Pam had mentioned to him on the phone the other night that she was going to try to leave New York earlier than usual to make it down in time to join him. If it wasn’t for the promise of seeing Pam in less than eight hours Jim didn’t think that he would be able to make it through the day. Michael had seized the complaint files from Toby and was attempting to use his mediators’ handbook to resolve all of them, which was going about as disastrously as one might imagine. It was just another reminder to Jim that Pam wasn’t there to share in the experience, or steer Michael down a less destructive path. Ryan had been sitting at reception for the past few weeks and Jim was fairly certain that just egged Michael on. Jim hadn’t visited reception for weeks, he didn’t have to because Pam had moved the jellybean dispenser to the farthest corner of his desk with a sticky note on the front that read ‘Smile’ with a heart and a smiley face in the corner. Jim felt a tug at the corner of his mouth as his gaze landed on the dispenser, but his reminiscence was quickly shattered by Dwight storming into the bullpen holding a box demanding that Jim be fired. Jim, no matter how much he disliked his job, wasn’t going to take that lying down, and as such he reluctantly agreed to ‘family counseling’ with Michael and Dwight in the conference room.

Listening to all of his pranks read aloud one after another was an interesting experience, they didn’t seem nearly as funny in that context. Of course, the pranks weren’t about being funny to everyone, although that was certainly a bonus, he only ever really cared about the reactions of one person in particular, and he could almost remember every stifled giggle as the pranks were read to him. Jim had long ago decided that it was worth it to bring a smile to Pam’s face, because her joy was infectious. As they came nearer to the end of his supposed misdeeds, one in particular stood out to him, as it did Dwight.

“Read that one again,” Dwight demanded of Michael.

“Jim and Pam’s public displays of affection are unprofessional, the office is no place for that,” Michael read back, before widening his eyes and looking to Jim, “You guys were getting it on in the office and didn’t tell me?”

“No Michael,” Jim shut him down before he could get any other ideas.

“That is not my complaint,” Dwight declared, “I may agree with it, but it does not belong in my file,” he said before storming out of the room with the complaint in hand, “Toby!”

What followed had Jim embarrassed on Toby’s behalf, as he admitted that the complaint was his own and that he had put it in Dwight’s ‘Special File’ to be destroyed at a later date. In the past Jim had had an inkling that Toby might have a crush on Pam, but the whole debacle confirmed it. Jim didn’t really have anything to add though and so he just let it go and returned to his desk to burn time until he could see Pam.

 

If Pam didn’t allow herself to slow down and think about all of the things that made her miss Jim, she was having the time of her life in New York. Her accommodations where hilariously small, but she didn’t really spend much time in them, preferring to go exploring the city. The internship was giving her work that she could really sink her teeth into, it varied from drafting concepts for company logos, backgrounds for brochures, and even some website design. While Pam wasn’t particularly passionate about all aspects of the work, she was learning and that was enough to satisfy her after what felt like years of stagnation. Pam was in the office early this morning so that she could leave early and beat traffic on the way home to join Jim for some Michael fundraiser. Pam was looking forward to it, which wasn’t something she would have ever in a million years thought she would think about a Michael planned event, but it actually sounded like it might be fun. As Pam approached the elevator to go up to Dunder Mifflin’s floor she noticed the doors starting to close and picked up her pace. Pam held a hand out to stop them and slipped in, then hit the door close button and noticed that her floor was already selected.

“Good morning Pam,” a voice startled Pam from her slightly lethargic reverie, and Pam looked up to see that Jan was the sole occupant of the elevator with her.

“Oh, hey Jan,” she said, still a little startled, “Sorry, I haven’t had any tea yet and you scared me.”

“No, I’m sorry, I’ve already had an espresso this morning,” Jan waved her apology off, “What are you doing in so early, I thought you started at nine most days?”

“Oh, I’m trying to get back to Scranton for the evening to join Jim at Michael’s fundraiser thing,” Pam explained, not entirely used to having an actual conversation with Jan.

“I may have heard of that,” Jan said with a small smile, and Pam started to relax a bit, this wasn’t a job interview, “It’s nice that you and Jim are going together.”

“I think so, yeah,” Pam replied with a small smile of her own growing, thinking of seeing Jim again after a week apart, “I might be jinxing it, but I think it could be fun,” she ventured.

Their conversation was cut short by the ding of the elevator, the doors opened and they both stepped out. They walked together for a few paces before pausing, Pam needed to go left, and Jan’s office was to the right.

“Well, have a good day Pam.”

“Thanks Jan, you too,” Pam said as they went their separate ways.

Since Pam was in the office two hours earlier than she usually would be, she had the run of the place. None of her coworkers had rolled in yet. Damien, their team leader, was pretty laid back about hours worked so long as they got their projects done, so realistically Pam probably could have just come in like normal and left at three regardless, but there was a voice in the back of her head that sounded suspiciously like Dwight accusing her of being a time thief when she thought of that idea. So instead, here she was in a dark office with only some tea to keep her company, and a stack of drafts for various projects piled on her desk. So far for the internship Damien had her focussing on one area of their department per week, of which there were three: promotional materials like brochures and booklets, logo design, and other graphics for various things such as websites. Pam’s first week had been mainly shadowing folks around the office. After that though she worked on logos, which she wasn’t a fan of, but also didn’t hate. The next week she had been working on brochures, which she despised as it was mostly photo-shopping stock photos instead of creating something new. This week Pam had been on web design for the first time, which was challenging because she had no experience with it. At first, she thought making the graphics would be simple enough, but getting them to fit in and blend on a webpage was a unique challenge and she found herself struggling to get the hang of it. Damien had lent her a book on making a website that she had gotten a few chapters in to, and things were finally starting to click.

Pam was starting to think that she needn’t have come in early when in her two hours before her coworkers started to show up she got through half of her assigned graphics and sent them off for approval. She took a break to try and chat with some folks as they came in but other than Damien and a lady named Sherry that sat across the room from her no one really paid her any more mind than the standard good morning. Pam supposed to them she was just the intern so it wasn’t any use trying to get to know her when she would be gone by mid-July, but it still stung.

Pam didn’t let all that discourage her too much though, she didn’t really care what they thought of her. The person she cared about was in Scranton probably suffering from immense boredom, and if she managed to get her work done before three, she could probably make his day by surprising him at work. With that goal in mind Pam threw herself into completing her tasks.

 

Jim was going crazy and just wanted it to be five o’clock. He couldn’t wait to see Pam. Finally, having had enough of tapping his pen furiously against his desk, he picked up his phone and called her extension, just hearing her voice would be enough to tide him over until the evening. Jim was disheartened when he got the automated voicemail prompt. He tried calling Grace but she said she hadn’t seen Pam around and asked if he wanted her extension, which he grudgingly accepted, deciding to leave a message this time in case she came back to her desk from wherever she was.

“Hey Pam, it’s me, just calling to say that I can’t wait to see you tonight,” he paused as the phone ringing at reception distracted him.

“Dunder Mifflin, how may I direct your call,” Jim heard Ryan’s monotone, obviously not enthused with his new job as of late, after short pause he sounded a bit livelier, “Hey, yeah he’s just on the phone right now, can I take a message for you?”

“Uhm, yeah, I love you, and see you later, bye,” Jim returned the receiver to its cradle.

“Yeah, he’s been unbearable all day, and it doesn’t help that he can stare at me from his desk now,” Ryan replied to whoever was on the phone, sounding much more friendly.

“Ok, yeah he’s off the phone now,” Ryan informed whoever was on the line, “Yeah ok, see you later, bye.”

Jim was suspicious although he couldn’t quite place it, Ryan was almost never friendly with anyone on the phone. This latest conversation was a break from his usual cold routine of just transferring whoever regardless of whether they got the salesperson they asked for or voicemail.

“Hey Jim,” Ryan got his attention, “Something for you to sign for downstairs,” he said, back to his usual uninterested monotone.

Jim was suspicious before, now he was wary. Was Dwight getting back at him or something? Regardless, he thanked Ryan and made his way downstairs cautiously, taking the stairs to avoid any traps that Dwight may have laid. When Jim cracked the door to the stairwell open and saw Pam leaning up against Hank’s desk, he had to do a double take. In the time it took him to register that it really was Pam, she had already registered the door opening and turned to face him, a smile lighting up her face.

Pam enjoyed watching the realization spread across Jim’s face immensely. First, he was slack jawed, then a huge smile, and suddenly he was bridging the gap and had pulled her into a crushing hug.

“Surprise,” Pam squeaked out, feeling Jim chuckling into her hair.

“Yeah, you got me,” he breathed into her hair, before finally loosening his grip on her to tilt her head up and into a kiss.

They stayed like that in the foyer for a little before Jim finally broke away from her, “There is no way I’m getting any more work done today,” Jim admitted, fixing her with an accusatory look, “Let me go grab my things, I’ll be right back, stay right there,” he implored, leaving her with another sweet kiss before he spun away and ran up the stairs.

Jim slowed his pace as he approached the office doors, trying to control his breathing so as not to appear like he had just run up the stairs. As he entered the office, he immediately gathered his things before popping his head into Michael’s office, feeding him some line about a sales call in Dunmore. As Jim made his way towards the exit, he nodded to Ryan who smirked back at him for a second before looking back down at whatever he was doing on his computer. Evidently Ryan had been in on this and Pam had been the one who he was just talking to on the phone.

Jim returned to the foyer to find Pam waiting for him again, and couldn’t help but chuckle and shake his head at her, “You have no idea how glad I am to see you,” he said as they walked out, putting his arm around her shoulder as they walked towards their cars.

“Yeah, well I’m gladder to see you,” Pam shot back childishly as she wound her arm around his waist, joining them at the hip.

“Nice one Beesly, well played,” Jim chuckled as they reluctantly parted ways at their cars, “I’ll see you at home,” he shot off with a wink before he ducked into his car.

Pam noticed that he let her leave the parking lot first so that he followed her home, and she couldn’t wait to get there. It was only around three thirty in the afternoon because she had worked through lunch. They had plenty of time until they had to get ready for Michael’s casino thing, and she imagined that Jim would like to make the most of it with her. Pam parked her car in front of the house and beat Jim up the steps, opening the door to be greeted by an overeager Nikita jumping up to meet her. Pam embraced the dog and ruffled her ears affectionately, but Nikita suddenly wasn’t as important anymore when Jim closed the door behind her and pulled her into a decidedly less chaste embrace than the one they had shared in the foyer of the office. They didn’t make it to the bedroom, instead collapsing on the couch as things got heated, and they did their best to make up for lost time.

 

They were both feeling too lazy after their catching up to do anything exciting for dinner, so they ordered takeout to be delivered and ate it sitting together in front of the couch, with Nikita draped across their feet. Pam was content, sitting there with her two best friends, one of whom was the love of her life. In a little less than a month she was going to be married and this is what her life could look like every day. As Pam sat there basking in the warmth and love, she must have drifted off, because the next thing she knew Jim was bumping shoulders with her and letting her know if she still wanted to go to the casino night she’d probably want to start getting ready.

Pam made a show of trudging to the bedroom to get ready, and was joined by Nikita who seemed to be pleased enough with just sitting on the bed, Jim following shortly after citing that he couldn’t let ‘His girls’ out of sight for too long or he got antsy. Pam got changed into a blue dress that she recalled wearing as a bridesmaid a few years ago, but was too pleased with to get rid of, and let Jim help her with the zipper. Pam emerged from the bathroom having done her hair and makeup to the sight of Jim wearing a tuxedo and playing with Nikita. Pam just smiled down at him and offered her hand to help him up, which he took and kissed before pulling himself up.

“You look like a Bond villain,” Pam giggled as she walked with him to the car.

Jim stopped, aghast, “Excuse me Pam, my name is James, how could you mistake me for one of the villains?”

“Sorry James,” she said as she reached up to straighten his bowtie, “How silly of me to forget.”

“I mean come on Pam, you’ve got the Bond girl look down, you look beautiful, who else could I be,” Jim asked before leaning down to give her a quick peck.

Pam blushed at his compliment, “You win,” she acquiesced with a slight bow.

“Yes,” Jim enthused with a fist pump, “What do I win?”

“Find out later tonight,” Pam replied with a mischievous look that left Jim’s mouth dry.

“Wow,” Jim chuckled as he opened the car door for her, “Are you sure we still want to go to a fundraiser with everyone from work?”

“Get in the car and drive, dork,” she giggled as he closed the car door for her.

They arrived back at the office shortly after, and thankfully only Dwight was there to greet them, Michael was out of sight. Deciding to make the most of it, Jim moved to grab them some drinks and Pam went to save him a spot at a table that was starting for poker. Jim thought that he knew all of her tells, but Poker-Pam was a whole other beast entirely, and he struggled to match her in the games. After a few rounds Jim folded and went to go get some more drinks, electing to watch over her shoulder as he clearly couldn’t win against her. Jim watched as Pam got into the final three at the table before being forced out, leaving Phyllis to steal a win from Kevin.

Pam managed to talk him in to one more poker game, which he accepted purely because of the way she smiled when she managed to pull one over on him, and wasn’t disappointed when her last move of the game was to beat him on an all-in. Jim officially retired from Poker at that point, and Pam conceded that she could use another drink. They sat at the bar and nursed their drinks while looking out onto the floor and watched people together. Jim pointed out Creed stealing chips left and right, and he could feel that Pam was hardly containing herself as her shoulders shook under his arm, so he looked for anything else that he could use to push her over the edge.

“Oh my god, look Pam,” Jim nudged her in the direction he was looking, “Michael has two dates!”

That did it, Pam was curling into herself and finally failed to contain her giggles and he pulled her closer to his chest. Jim couldn’t help but shake his head as he watched Michael playing craps and offering the dice to each of his dates to blow on for luck, all of them looking incredibly awkward.

“Is that his realtor,” Pam asked as she finally uncurled, but didn’t move away, “And, Jan? Is that still happening?”

“I mean, I guess something must be going on,” Jim shrugged while still half embracing Pam, “Why else would she come here from New York?”

Pam snickered, “As someone who also came from New York, I can’t really think of any other reason.”

“Speaking of,” Jim trailed off as he made a great show of pulling her a little closer so that he could check his watch on the arm that was draped over her shoulders, “Do you think it’s time we called it quits?”

“Absolutely, it’s after my bedtime,” Pam deadpanned.

“Well that settles it,” Jim said as he got up, helping her down off of the stool she was sitting on and steering them towards the exit, “I can’t be seen keeping a lady out past curfew!”

“I think you’re just embarrassed I stole all your money,” Pam teased as they reached the parking lot.

Jim just shrugged, “You already stole my heart, what’s a little money?”

“Hold on now,” Pam stopped him, grabbing his elbow as they reached their car, “I seem to recall that we traded fair and square, no take-backs,” she emphasised, jabbing at his chest with her finger.

“Never,” Jim said as he captured her hand, leaning down for a kiss.

“Plus,” Jim pulled away from the kiss to whisper next to her ear, “In a month it’ll be our money.”

“That’s what you think,” Pam giggled in his grasp, “I have so many ideas for how I could spend it before then!”

“A fair point,” Jim conceded, “But then it could also be argued that whatever you bought would become ours too, so…”

“Jim, I love you, but you are such a dork sometimes,” Pam said exasperatedly.

“Yeah well, you’re a dork too, but I still love you,” Jim grinned back.

Pam sighed, “Take me home, dork.”

“You got it, dork.”

“You’re lucky I love you,” Pam said as she hit him lightly on his arm.

Jim was struck by her words, because he was incredibly lucky to be in love with his best friend. They were getting married next month. Jim was lucky to have Pam in his life, he couldn’t help but think about the what-ifs, what if she hadn’t broken up with Roy, what if there had never been a Roy, would they be married already, in either case? Jim discarded the what-ifs and focused on what was in front of him. Pam made him a better man, she made him strive to do better, to be kind, and bring joy to others. Jim couldn’t think of a way to say all of these things and he could tell by the way she was staring up at him with wide eyes she was starting to get worried as he was lost in his head, so he snapped himself out of it.

“Very,” was all Jim said before he leaned down to try and convey his feelings to Pam with a kiss, holding her tightly and never wanting to have to let go.

Eventually, because of being in the parking lot, the doors crashing open and closed across it jarred them back to the reality of where they were. Jim briefly registered Jan standing beside the building and lighting a cigarette before Pam stole his attention again, tugging on his hand lightly.

“Let’s go home.”

All Jim could do was nod and get in the car to take them away, because to him he already was home, sitting there beside her. When she looked over at him and he met her gaze, he thought he saw his sentiments reflected there. It didn’t matter for too much longer anyway because they soon pulled up to their house, and it became home as they crossed the threshold together.

End Notes:

Just sent it! - As my good Canadian youtube superhero on a sled would say.

Hope you folks enjoy!

I'll read it again to check for errors later, so please forgive any you see, but for now, that's all!

Thank you everyone for reading, and especially reviewing! I love hearing your thoughts. 

This story archived at http://mtt.just-once.net/fanfiction/viewstory.php?sid=5783