He moves his neck slightly and she scolds him again, as she wipes the eraser marks off of her paper and brings the pencil to it once again.

“I said not to move.” She reminds him, and she hears another groan of discomfort escape from his throat as she continues to focus on the paper. “Not. One. Inch.” She articulates, and he rolls his eyes so far back in his head that she notices even though she isn’t looking.

He’s sitting at his desk, his back upright and straight, because she won’t allow it to rest comfortably against the back of his seat. His phone is held up to his ear by his arm, which she won’t allow to rest on his desk. His other hand is holding a pencil, that he has pressed against paper, pretending to write some imaginary numbers from his imaginary sales call.

She's sitting directly across from him, in Dwight's desk, and it's the best view he has had in months.

He is uncomfortable, and his arms are numb, but he holds the same pose, because she has asked him to.

“Pam it’s seriously been like three hours.” He whines again, and she let’s out another sigh so he shuts up.

“My art class is tomorrow, and you volunteered to help me with this.” She explains again, and continues to draw carefully on her sketch pad.

“Is there any part of the sketch you’re done with?” He asks, “Like, can I put one arm down? Can I close one eye?”

She ignores him, and continues, erasing slightly when she slips on a line.

“Oh, you’re erasing now!” He remarks incredulously, refusing to let her have her moment of peace.

He let her have that the first hour.

His arms were numb, but it was for Pam, so even if one of them fell off, he would pick it back up and place the receiver back to his ear. He complained, but it was only because he liked to see her expression when he made her playfully annoyed, and he liked to see the corners of her mouth tug into a small smile when she thinks he isn't looking.

“The phone is making my ear sweaty.” He says simply, and she lets out a small laugh that she hadn’t intended to escape.

“What?” She asks critically, and she doesn’t look up from her paper as she shakes her head.

“You know when you talk on the phone for too long? Your ear gets sweaty from the headset? That’s when you usually switch ears, but you won’t let me.” He digresses into whining again but lets his voice fade off as the last words escape, moving his eyes slightly to catch her smile in the corner of his vision.

“You know Jim, if you have to go, I’m not going to stop you. I might fail this assignment, but I can find someone like Kevin to sketch, who isn’t so opposed to remaining sedentary.” Even as she gives him his way out, she continues drawing, because she knows he won’t take it.

“No, I’m free to stay, even though it’s 8 o’clock on a Friday night.” He shrugs his shoulder slightly, but catches himself before making a larger movement, almost wincing in anticipation for the ‘Stay. Perfectly. Still.’ that has repeated in his head like a broken record for the past hours.

“Good.” She states simply, “Because I have nothing to do on Friday nights either.”

She continues to draw and this time it is the corners of his mouth that pull back into a slight smile that she doesn’t catch as she focuses intently on a curve of her drawing. It was the underhanded remarks that they always found themselves making, that meant a lot when you thought too much about them, but were ultimately nothing but friendly exchange on the surface. They were free to do nothing on Friday nights because they were both single, dateless, and expectation free.

“Can I see this drawing?” He asks sincerely, and she shakes her head adamantly.

“As an artist, I only show the final result.”

“Can you at least tell me what you’re working on now?” He tries again, and she lets out a small sigh and looks up from her paper.

“Your nose. I am awful at noses. And sorry, but yours is complicated.” She says and goes back to erasing carefully, blowing the excess of rubber off of the paper.

“What does that mean?” He is mock offended, but his heart beats nervously as he thinks that she is busy drawing every one of his imperfections and he can not find a single flaw in her.

“One of the nostrils is bigger than the other. But it’s cute.” She says, in a very off-handed way, and doesn’t look up from her paper for his reaction.

He is smiling slightly, but his brain flips in a million different directions at the meaning behind the words, as his heart tries to drown it out as it beats against his chest like butterfly wings.

“Well thanks, I guess.” He replies in the same tone that she did, and they continue to skate along the surface of friendly exchange as something else threatens underneath to crack the ice.

He is slouching slightly, unconsciously, and she corrects him as he straightens his back, bringing the pain into his spine and neck again. He winces, but remains as still as he can, and she smiles and continues to examine the paper.

“So does Karen like New York?” She asks softly after a period of silence.

“Um, I guess, I haven’t really heard from her.” Jim replies honestly, and looks straight down at the pencil in his hand instead of up at her expression.

Pam nods slightly, with a small hint of satisfaction.

The silence settles in again, but it is not an awkward one, it is calm and comforting, and washes over them both with relief, relief that they can both be alone without any expectation of the conversation. Just there, together, like it used to be.

The hum of the air conditioner fills the room with white noise and the scratching of the pencil becomes the only distinguishing fluxuation in the sound of the room.

“So how specific was this assignment?” He asks, needing to talk to keep himself alert and his mind off the desire to let his body relax and fall against the desk.

“We just had to draw something from work.” She says in reply, shrugging her shoulders slightly, “I’m kind of tired of drawing inanimate objects I stare at every day.”

“I don’t fit into that category?” He replies back playfully.

“No.” She fires back just as quickly, “You’re not completely inanimate.”

“But you do stare at me every day?” The banter comes easily, and he will let the awkward settle in later.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Halpert, I stare at the back of your head.” Her eyes dance playfully at his before she moves them back down to the paper and tries to resume where she left off.

Silence settles in briefly, and a yawn escapes from his mouth and quickly becomes contagious as she yawns as well.

“How much longer, Beasley?” He asks, and his tone is like it used to be, and he sounds like her best friend again.

“I’ll be done soon.” She says as she takes her finger and smudges at the paper. “I’m shading now.”

“You can’t do that without me sitting here?” He digresses into whining again and she begins to roll her eyes.

“It sounds like you don’t want me to do well on this. And here I thought you were the biggest advocate in my art career.” She teases him, knowing she will like his reply.

“I am.” He states simply, and remains still.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see the clock on his telephone reach ‘9:00', and it is then that she announces she is finished.

“Are you sure?” He stays frozen and waits for her confirmation before he collapses into himself and sprawls out on his desk.

When he feels his spine can support him again he stands up and stretches, his tall form rising above her as she adds small final touches and signs her name to the bottom.

“Do I get to see it now?” He asks, leaning towards her as she clutches the pad to her chest, away from him.

“Alright, since you were so cooperative.” She gives in, and turns the pad towards him, and he stares at it in silence.

The picture reflects back to him, but it is not of him sitting in his desk with perfect posture, his phone to his ear and pencil in the other hand. The picture was not even of the office.

He looks at himself, but it is almost unfamiliar.

The Jim shines in the picture and is smiling. Broadly, sincerely. His cheeks are taught, as if he is smiling so wide they burn. His eyes glimmer with emotion, joy and unsaid reflections pooling inside them. It is sketched perfectly, even down to the texture of the Oxford sweater pulled over his white collared shirt.

It is him on Casino night, and he notices the poker cards and chips sketched into the picture, thrown in front of him, as he makes his final bet to her, before she cleans him out.

He doesn’t say anything as his mind reels, he only stares at the picture of a Jim that he does not recognize, a Jim that he hasn’t seen since that night, since that poker game, when they laughed at each other and exchanged ridiculous faces and grins.

“I think I messed up on the nose.” She says humbly, and it startles him and pulls him away before he drowns in the picture.

“It’s perfect.” He says, though he doesn’t know where the words came from, because they didn’t register with his brain first.

“The assignment was to draw joy, and this is the best of memory I have of it.” She says as she slumps in Dwight’s chair and stares at the picture, unsure whether or not she should look up to meet his eyes.

“Then why did I have to sit in that chair for 4 hours?” He asks incredulously, as the thought first dawns on his mind.

“Oh,” she states simply, “That was payback for the jackass you’ve been since you came back.”

He shakes his head, his mind still scrambled, but he is slowly finding his footing.

“You remembered that well enough to draw this a year later?” He ignores her remark and stares into the picture again, meeting the eyes of the Jim on the paper as the feeling of joy transfers over to him.

“It takes a lot to forget that.” She says nodding, and places her pencil down on Dwight’s desk, sitting up in the chair. “I'm sorry I made you stay still for 4 hours.”

“No you’re not.” He says with a slight laugh, and she laughs in agreement with a nod of her head.

“If you don’t mind,” He says, extending his arm slightly, “I am in a very beginner’s art class, and we had the same assignment.”

The beating of her heart subsides from the shock of his first initial outreach, and when she sees he is reaching for the sketch book she hesitantly offers it over to him.

He takes the pencil that he had sat stoic with, and carefully flips her drawing back, exposing a new sheet of paper, and begins to draw intently.

She leans forward to see what he is drawing, but he snaps it back quickly and warns her that he is an artist.

He scribbles something quickly, then signs his name at the bottom as well.

“What the hell is that?” She laughs as he flips it around to her, and he shakes his head.

“I told you it is a beginning class, Pam, you’re not allowed to make fun of my drawing.” He says in mock offense and begins to withdraw the paper as she apologizes.

“No, it’s lovely.” She says with a grin on her face, “It’s art.”

They take the sketchbook to the copier and make copies of both drawings, each autographed for the other. Leaving the building at 9:30 and locking everything behind them, he walks her to her car and says goodbye, knowing that he’ll see her over the weekend, and he doesn’t have to worry anymore.

She closes her car door and sets the sketchbook carefully down beside her, Jim’s drawing flipped to the top.

Two stick figures, one with shaggy scratchings for hair and one with over exaggerated curls stare back at her. Their stick arms extend at angles and touch each other, and widely drawn grins barely fit into their round faces. “Jim” is written with an arrow drawn to the male with shaggy hair, and “Pam” is scribbled above the one with curls.

She looks at it again and laughs to herself as she puts the key in the ignition, and grins almost as widely as stick-Pam the entire way home.