Round three was due to start soon and there was a flurry of emails discussing how exactly that should be handled.

To: The Men of the Office
From: ABernard
Subject: The third round
A question about the next round, my friends. I count only seven women in this office, and that is including Jan who doesn't work in Scranton. How are we going to handle this? Unfortunately, we can't just add in members of the women's badminton team like we did at Cornell.

To: The Men of the Office
From: KMalone
Subject: The third round
Round three could be sober Meredith, drunk Meredith and really drunk Meredith, hee.

To: The Men of the Office
From: RHoward
Subject: Meredith
Is she a natural redhead?

To: The Men of the Office
From: ABernard
Subject: Our Lady of the Flask
I'm not sure, Senor Ryan. This is one time where I don't care to find out if the carpet matches the drapes.

To: The Men of the Office
From: RHoward
Subject: I've always wondered
I'm surprised it doesn't increase Dunder Mifflin's insurance premiums to have something that alcohol-soaked above a paper warehouse.

To: The Men of the Office
From: Creed
Subject: What ever happened to her?
Did anyone ever buy any of those purses she was always trying to sell?

To: The Men of the Office
From: JHalpert
Subject: The obvious solution
We should just reuse some of the women from the previous rounds and add Meredith.

To: The Men of the Office
From: RHoward
Subject: I agree with Jim
I wouldn't mind another shot at Karen.

To: The Men of the Office
From: Creed
Subject: Better Yet
We should just name three of us instead.

To: The Men of the Office
From: TFlenderson
Subject: I'd rather not
This is turning into the sexual equivalent of the Donner party.

To: The Men of the Office
From: OMartinez
Subject: You guys
I've been listening in as you know and I have to say...didn't you guys see this coming ahead of time?

To: The Men of the Office
From: KMalone
Subject: Hey
We are in the paper business in the twenty-first century. Foresight isn't our strong point.

To: The Men of the Office
From: DSchrute
Subject: The third round
I'll make an executive decision shortly.

Jim looked over at the receptionist desk. He could barely see Pam; she seemed to be either working hard at her screen or staring at it in order to avoid him. He started to get up and go talk to her but lost his nerve and sat back down again. Maybe he should send her an email instead, he thought, since that is what caused this mess to begin with.

"What are you guys up to?" Michael took the fake arrow off his head and laid it the edge of Jim's desk. He leaned from side to side, trying to catch glimpses of Dwight and Jim's screens, with the grin on his face of a child who can tell someone is having fun and is determined to find out who and where.

"A morale...building...exercise," responded Dwight, arching his eyebrows in a transparent attempt to subtly signal Michael as to what he was referring to.

"Oh that! You were supposed to include me." Michael stood up and went around behind Dwight, leaning over his shoulder and reading his screen.

"I did. I forwarded everything to you so you could watch it unfold." Dwight was proud of his attention to detail and disappointed that his boss had not noticed his attempt to include him.

Jim leaned back and swiveled his chair a little, with a bemused look on his face. "Isn't that breaking one of the rules, Dwight? First you left the sword at home, now this?"

"Quiet, slacker."

"Bah that's not enough. I wanted to play." Michael took the mouse and scrolled through the emails.

"Well we're running into a problem now anyway," Dwight sighed. "We've run out of women."

"Who do you have left?" Michael frowned at some things he read and smiled at others.

"Meredith," Dwight said, dismissively.

Hi boss shivered. "You should include Jan."

"We did," said Jim. He was pleased to see Michael interfering with Dwight's leadership of the game.

"Didn't you see the last round?" Dwight asked, somewhat perplexed.

"No, no I couldn't watch," Michael pointed at his office door. "I had the problem with Pam and ended up giving her my seat and getting out of there." He squinted at the screen as he scrolled through more emails. "Some of these are surprising. Kevin wants Jan? Well he can't have her, she loves me twelve percent. Andy, typical, creepy as hell, can't understand what he's saying." Michael scrolled down to Toby Flenderson's emails. "Toby, Toby, Toby. He's just - you know, why does he even bother getting up in the morning? Just to screw with us?"

"I had to allow him to play," Dwight explained, apologetically. "So that none of us would be written up if someone complained."

Michael nodded. "I figured it must have been something like that. Nobody would include Toby just because they wanted him. If this were Friends, he'd be Gunther."

At that moment, Pam walked up and went around to Michael's side of the desks. Jim was surprised and sat upright as she plopped some papers down in front of the Scranton branch manager and handed him a pen. "Michael, about the tax forms you asked me yesterday to help you with? I need you to redo this line on page two here. Where you have to list any year end bonuses and you put ‘sex with Jan.'"

Michael frowned. "I wrote that? I thought I was only thinking it."

"Yes, and over here..." Pam pulled another page out and pointed, "....on page three, you can't get a deduction for claiming Ryan as a dependent."

Michael did as she asked. "Presto, change-o, there you go, Pam. Are you feeling any better?"

"I...yes, a little." She walked away, glancing briefly at Jim as she did. He caught her eye but it was fleeting and he wasn't able to read her mood but she didn't seem to have tears in her eyes and he took that was a hopeful sign that the worst had passed.

"Dwight," Michael said, returning to his fascinated scanning of the game emails. "Go get us both coffee while I look at this on my own monitor. I'm going to run the last round."

"I'm sorry, but according to Schrute family rules, only I should be--" Dwight nervously tried to regain control of his game.

"Well we're playing by Scott family rules now." Michael interrupted, and went back into his office as Dwight, feeling dethroned, walked off towards the kitchen.

Jim returned to work to try to get his mind off of the game that he had used to get his mind off of work. It wasn't long before he had another interruption though, when Ryan walked up, looking around. "Hey, Jim," Ryan said. "The guys were wondering when we were going to continue. I don't see Dwight around."

"He went to the kitchen area for a minute. He'll be back. But it looks like Michael is taking over." Jim pointed to Michael's office and Ryan went over to the doorway. Something puzzled him. "You do realize you left your computer unattended again and Kelly could be checking things out?"

Ryan stopped and stared and then turned on his heels and rushed away in the direction of the annex.

*****************************

To: The Men of the Office
From: MGScott
Subject: From the bossman
There's a new sheriff in town, and he be me. Dwight says you've run out of women, well not on my watch! The third round will be Jan, Jennifer Aniston, Teri Hatcher.

To: The Men of the Office
From: ABernard
Subject: Excellente
Your taste is impeccable as always, my liege.

To: The Men of the Office
From: TFlenderson
Subject: What's going on?
Where's Dwight? Why isn't he running things anymore?

To: The Men of the Office
From: MGScott
Subject: Typical
None of your business, Snape.

To: The Men of the Office
From: Creed
Subject: Why her?
Teri Hatcher is not a good idea. I was in London when she stepped down and people were pretty happy to see her gone.

To: The Men of the Office
From: JHalpert
Subject: Not that one
You're thinking of Margaret Thatcher. And on that note, I need to stop with this game for today. It was fun but I need to get a little more work done and also some private issues came up that I have to deal with.

In the kitchen, Dwight was busily getting a couple of coffees when Angela walked in and started looking for her sandwich in the refrigerator.

"Did you and the others play that game you told me about?" she asked Dwight, quietly.

"Yes, monkey. It's almost over."

"So...how did it go?" She was a little nervous and it showed in her voice.

"The way you wanted it to," Dwight responded, looking over and smiling at her. He added some sugar to the coffees and stirred. "Most of them chose you for vanquish. Except Jim, of course. He's always a troublemaker."

"Yeah. At least he finally got a haircut though," said Angela. When Dwight had first told Angela about the game they were going to play, he was concerned that she'd be upset and ask him to call it off. But it all worked out as they'd hoped. To Angela, being killed off in the game was far from an insult: it was a sign that the other men saw her neither as someone they would defile, nor as someone who would be so whorish as to rush into marriage with a coworker they didn't know. Being vanquished was infinitely preferable to her and she left the kitchen satisfied.

*****************************

As the afternoon wore on, Jim found himself less and less able to avoid doing what he knew was necessary. Around 4 p.m. he opened his email window and started trying to find a way to explain it all to Pam. It was not going to be easy; he'd have to wing it. He wasn't sure what was going on in her mind, and why should she be so upset. It would be nice if she had feelings for him, but he'd learned the perils of assuming that. Regardless he could tell he hurt her and had to say something.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: Hi
Are you alright?

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: re: Hi
Better than I was last time I sent you a message earlier. I had an interesting time in Michael's office.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: That email
Yeah about that, about that message I sent you by accident....this is where I'm supposed to say something to smooth it all over but the truth is I don't even know where to begin.

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Re: That email
Oh I realize now, it was just a game.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: Phew!
Okay good, so you know that? That we were playing a game? Dwight asked us to.

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: re: Phew
Yes. Michael left his office and I was in his seat and there on the screen it all was. So I forwarded it all to my reception desk and came out to read it in detail.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: Okay
Oh wow. I don't even know what to say. He isn't called king of the email forwards for nothing, I guess.

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Tilting?
You've already said quite a bit actually. So is it the boxy skirts? Is that it?

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: Now I'm Confused
Huh?

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Your reasoning
They make me look like a windmill? Should i do the Safety Dance to complete the effect?

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: Oh!
The white shoes too, it's the whole package.

"You quit because you knew you were going to lose," Dwight said, with contempt. Jim looked up to see Dwight back at his desk, staring at him accusingly.

"Excuse me?"

"You were way behind in points, and you saw the writing on the wall so you bailed on the game."

Jim loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. "I quit because I needed to get some work done and to deal with a personal issue. Besides, there are no points in marry, boff, kill, Dwight. It's not a game you can win."

"There are in Betrothal, Courtship, Vanquish," Dwight replied, glancing at his screen. "On the scoreboard I kept, you only had 37 to my 54. Kevin was ahead though with 61. I'm not sure how he did that."

Jim sighed and returned to his email conversation with Pam. "Okay, well, just let me get back to what I was doing."

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: The forwards
So you've been sitting there for a while, reading everything we said?

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Of course
Yes, Betrothal, Courtship, Vanquish, I like Dwight's name for it. I'm familiar with the game already though, I've played it off and on for about 10 months now.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: What?
Really? Who with?

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: There's So Much You Don't Know
It's a solitaire version I developed. There was a time, after Roy and I split up, and before I found out about Karen, when I periodically thought of you, of us, in terms of the first option. And there were a few times, like at around 1:15 this afternoon, where I thought of you in terms of the last option.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: ???
And now?

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Well...
The middle option sounds good but you are already being courted by someone else.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: Confused
Where is this coming from? I thought you ‘couldn't'? I thought I had misinterpreted things?

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Things change
Jim, I've been through a lot of changes since calling off the wedding, a lot of sorting through what had happened and what I really want.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: And sometimes they don't
We're both evolving I guess. Mine doesn't seem to be sticking though.

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Re: And sometimes they don't
Mine has, things are clearer now.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: Really?
And Roy?

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Re: Really
As big a mistake as it was, getting back briefly with Roy made me realize how much I'd changed and what I really wanted. I'm just not Pammy anymore.

Jim leaned back a moment and rubbed his temples. This was a lot to absorb. Off to the side he noticed Kevin walk up carrying something.

"Hey Jim, look what I won." Kevin was grinning and holding some sort of covered pan "It's a beet pie, my prize for winning," he said, leaning over to smell it.

Jim shrugged. "I still can't believe he kept score. Congratulations though."

"Dude that game is all about scoring." Kevin giggled and walked off.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: Karen
I'm not sure what is going to happen. I guess I'm going to have to talk to Karen, she won't be happy but I'll try to break it easy, it might take a few days to find the right time...I don't want to treat her too coldly.

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Re: Karen
I'm not asking you to.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: What I need
But she can tell I'm not as gung-ho as she is, she might not be surprised. She might be expecting it. She's a great person but I've known for a while now that she's not right for me in the long run.

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Really?
Why?

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: A bunch of reasons
For starters, I doubt she is even aware of the dangers of a person's teeth turning to liquid and dripping down the back of their throat. That's a very important thing for me in a woman, medical knowledge like that.

It's getting close to five. Can we - you and I - talk about this more? There are some things I've wondered about over the last months.

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Okay
Me too, yes I'd like that. We could go get coffee now and talk if you like.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: Not yet
I have a commitment to go out tonight. If the timing seems right I'll talk to her over dinner.

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Oh
No problem.

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: But soon
But I should be home by ten at the latest. Give me a call later, Beesly?

To: JHalpert
From: PBeesly
Subject: Hmm...
Jim, are you sure you want me to?

To: PBeesly
From: JHalpert
Subject: No question
Absolutely I do.

As the clock ticked past 5 p.m., Creed was tired and ready to go home. He pushed back his chair, grabbed his coat and made his way among the desks towards the exit. He stopped for a moment on the way and waved to a few of his coworkers. "Bye Audrey, Phyllis, Oscar. He nudged Karen who was getting her items together to leave. "Goodbye and please tell your mother I apologize that I never called the next morning."

"What?" responded Karen, confused, but Creed was already making his way across the room, headed out. Karen got up, went over to Jim's desk and patted him on the shoulder. He tidied his desk as best he could, got up and started to follow her out.

Jim stopped suddenly at the doorway and Karen paused with him. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Oh, damn," he said. "Just one second. You know what? Pam borrowed my good pen earlier and I need to get it back or I'll forget tomorrow."

He walked over to reception, where Pam was still seated while busily organizing some papers on her desk before she would be ready to leave. He reached down and took her left hand in his, squeezing it for a couple of seconds gently. She blushed but did not look up. Jim then grabbed a random pen off of her desk and returned to Karen's side. "Let's go," he said, smiling widely as they left, despite his best effort to keep a straight face.