Disclaimer:  I still don't own 'em, but I wish I did.  Sigh.  No copyright infringement intended.

Pam hung up her coat and put her purse away under her desk.  She knew it was early – but she didn’t see the point of lying awake alone in her bed any longer.  The sooner she got here, the sooner she would see him again, be near him again.  She’d been in the habit of getting here early for this exact reason for the last few months.  Once he was back and she knew that she could sit near him for eight solid hours, she found that she usually couldn’t get to the office soon enough.

Today was different from all the other mornings, today was the first morning after the conversation.   Jim had stayed with her until the wee hours of the morning, but in the end he went back to his apartment.  It was strange to her that despite the fact that it had only been a few hours since she was holding him, she still woke up with the familiar need to get here to be close to him.  The world had tilted on its axis last night, the wonderfully unthinkable had finally happened.  Finally, they had just said what they felt and what they wanted from each other.  No hiding or lying or misinterpretation.  Everything was different now.  Yet, as she looked around the office, it felt just the same. 

When Jim came over last night, she was deathly afraid that she was too late to love him, that she wouldn’t be able to make up for all the mistakes that she had made.  She was a little afraid that he wouldn’t be sorry for all the mistakes that he had made, that maybe he wasn’t who she thought he was.  But of course, he was sorry.  He was Jim after all and she knew him very well.

She picked up her teapot and went into the break room to make a much needed pot of tea.  She yawned as the water ran into the pot.  Wasn’t she the one who just yesterday argued for the necessity of eight hours sleep?

Last night had been intensely emotional for her.  She had screamed at him, he had screamed at her.  And to be honest, Pam thought it felt pretty good.  Not the yelling at the love of your life part, but the getting it all out in the open part.  And once they had cleared the air, they weren’t yelling anymore, they were kissing.   The kissing……..Pam felt herself blush at the very thought of all the kissing, and how good his lips felt on hers.  It was even sweeter than she had remembered.  A single kiss from Jim was more sensual and arousing for her than years of full on sex with Roy had been. 

“Pamela Beesly?  Earth to Pam?”

Pam looked up and saw Michael standing there. 

“Are you planning on turning off the water one day there Pam-e-la?  Your teapot runneth over as they say, literary type people that is….”

“Oh, yeah, sorry I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”  Pam smirked at her toes, she didn’t want Michael to catch on because she really didn’t want a bevy of his inappropriate questions.

“Me neither, me and J -,” he stopped and looked sheepishly at Pam, “I was just up late shall we say,” and he winked at Pam and nudged her elbow.  When she didn’t respond with any questions about his sex life and instead just gave him a deadpan glare he walked out. 

She thought,  “So the world has tilted on its axis, but Michael is still the same.”

“Morning Jimbo!”  Pam could hear Michael from the main floor, “Must be something in the water, everyone looks tired today!”

Pam had to smirk at herself again, and tried to stop the blush that she knew was rising in her cheeks.  The very idea that Jim was tired made her very happy - He was tired from being with her all night.  She really wanted to scream that piece of information off the rooftop, but of course she wouldn’t.  She and Jim had decided to keep their relationship quiet at this point, so she tried to pull herself together so that she could nonchalantly greet Jim on the way back to her desk. 

Once the water was hot, she walked out and saw that Jim was settled in checking emails.  He looked up at her and smiled a little, and she was back to smirking at her toes. 

“Same old Jim and Pam,” she thought, “but so totally not.”

Feeling the excitement from that thought in her soul, she went to her desk, poured a cup of tea, and she turned on her computer.  Slowly everyone filed in for the day, happy that they were one day away from the weekend.  She stared at his back and his neck and felt her heart beat faster.  Being nonchalant was going to be hard.

Jim watched Pam walk by him and give him the barest of smiles.  He thought that nothing could be worse than sitting in this office day after day wanting to touch her but knowing that he couldn’t.  In fact, it was way worse wanting to touch her and knowing that he could!

“This is going to be a very long day.”  He said under his breath.

He got up to get coffee from the breakroom.  As he walked he unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie slightly.  Pam nearly knocked her tea over.

After a long morning of longing glances and little smiles, Pam felt that the whole office probably knew something was going on between her and Jim.  But surprisingly, no one seemed to notice anything different.  She decided that it was probably safe to watch him as he walked back in from lunch.  He had to run errands during lunch, which Dwight said showed a lack of dedication to the office.  Jim argued that he was running a secret reconnaissance mission to scope out a new client.  Pam knew he was just getting ready for their date tonight and the whole thing was adorable to her.

“Pam!”

“What?  Oh, hi Kelly, sorry I was lost in thought.”  Pam tried to bring her focus back to reality from the pink in Jim’s windblown cheeks and his tousled hair, “What’s up?”

“Well, I know you said that you were ready to be set up with someone, and I have the perfect guy.  Maybe we could double date this weekend?”  Kelly beamed at her, practically bouncing on her toes.

“Um Kelly, I don’t know about that.”  Pam fumbled with her words, not sure what to say to Kelly without spilling the beans about her and Jim.

“Seriously come on, it’ll be so fun!”

Jim turned in his chair and just looked at Pam for a moment as if to see what she would do.  The nervousness and vulnerability in his eyes said it all to Pam and gave her all the courage she needed.  She was ready to let him know that she wasn’t going anywhere.

“I really appreciate that, but the truth is I met a guy last night.”

“Oh yeah? You must give me details!”  Pam was relieved that Kelly was just as excited about this development as the blind date.  This would make it easier to get her to give up the idea of setting her up.

Pam responded with a slight lilt in her voice, knowing that she had more of an audience than just Kelly. “He’s an old friend of mine, and we ran into each other last night.  We talked for a long time and he’s totally amazing.  In fact we’re having dinner tonight.”

“Oh my gosh, it’s not Roy is it?”  Kelly said the last part in her fakiest of whispers.

“No, he is most definitely not Roy. And I think it’s gonna be pretty serious with this guy.”

Pam looked at Jim out of the corner of her eye and saw that he had heard every word.  He had a genuinely warm smile across his face that Pam could tell he was rather unsuccessfully trying to contain.  He turned back to his desk for a moment.

“That is so great!  Tell me all about it Monday!”  Kelly bounded back to her desk.

Jim walked into the break room for a moment to get a Coke and then he walked back over to Pam’s desk.  Pam immediately noticed something was different, and she literally looked around to see if anyone else could tell.  Jim leaned on her counter as he picked a few jelly beans out and popped them in his mouth.  He looked relaxed for the first time in months and had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows.  “It’s the old Jim,” she wanted to scream to the office, “he’s back.”  But then she realized that to everyone else, he looked the same way he always did, there was nothing special happening here, at least nothing that hadn’t happened a million times before. 

But this was special and different, although completely familiar.

“So Beesly, hot date tonight I hear?”

Jim gave her a playful sidelong glance.

“Oh yeah, really hot I think.” 

She felt butterflies in her stomach and thought she may have to jump over the counter at him.  Instead, she leaned towards him.  They just looked at each other with long intense glances, they didn’t need words to communicate what they were thinking.  She looked around again and no one really seemed interested in their conversation, verbal or otherwise. 

“Well make sure he treats you right,” he winked at her and drummed his fist on her counter as he went back to his desk.

“He always does,” she said brightly, and then she said under her breath, “He always will.” 

As she packed to leave, Pam marveled at the day.  When she came in she was sure that everything today would be strange and new, but the truth was, it wasn’t.  Sure she didn’t have a hole in heart and she didn’t feel like crying.  But whereas she thought that she might have it branded across her face, Jim and I are in love, no one seemed to notice anything different.  The only difference was that now the meaningful looks, meant something, something they both understood.  The flirting was building to something.  She knew that she wouldn’t have to spend all day longing for him only to leave frustrated.  She could long for him all day, and love him all night.

Perhaps the reason no one noticed the difference in them today was because it wasn’t the first day that she and Jim were in love.  Their relationship had been there all along, and their love showed in almost everything they did together.  Now they could build on it, and explore it, but it was the same wonderful, funny, loving friendship they always had, but now it was even more.

Jim waited and walked out with her, and they stepped into the elevator together.  He looked down at and her and then back at the doors.  She looked up at him.  Then she grabbed his hand and interlaced their fingers.  He looked back down at her and smiled. 

“So my place in an hour Beesly?”

“Absolutely Halpert, I'll be there.”

Everything was the same, but gloriously different.