Lying in the dark she whispered his name a few times. Testing it out again on lips that had wanted to scream it for so long.

"Jim, Jim, Jim. Jim Halpert. Jim. Halpert. Halpert. Jim, I love you."

It wasn't something she had meant to say just now, but it wasn't something she wanted to spend any more time denying. So she said it again, a little louder this time. Enjoying the way it sounded.

"I love you, Jim. I love you, I love you, I love you..." She smiled again and rolled over onto her side. This was exactly what she had waited for.

As she let herself into her apartment, and headed to her room to pick out some clothes to wear to dinner, the one word that kept echoing through her mind (besides his name) was finally. Finally she was here. Finally this was happening. Finally she could let herself go. Finally she could stop pretending. Finally he was hers, for real.

She spent a little longer than was strictly necessary in the shower, lathering up with a sugary scrub that she'd bought on impulse one day. It wasn't something she used every day. Usually the gritty, grainy texture was a bit harsh for her. But tonight she wanted to scrape at her skin a bit, rid herself of the grimy build-up that was the past and just start over fresh. Besides, the residual smell of sweetness that it left on her body was appealing, but not in the least bit overbearing.

In the darkness of her room she held her arm up to her face, to see if she could still smell that sweet, vanilla scent, but when she did, her mind refused to register the smell of her skin, preferring instead to remember the way his hair had smelled when she had rested her cheek against his.

Just the memory of that moment stirred her into shifting restlessly on her bed, suddenly overcome with a wave of fresh images that were all the better for the sheer number of times she had spent imagining being with him like that.

She smiled again and then sighed with happiness. Was it wrong to be this happy? It was overwhelming, she knew that much. She had spent most of the evening trying to keep herself from actually physically trembling with joy.

He arrived on her doorstep holding flowers. It amazed her that he would do that. She knew he was a gentleman, but it had never been something that she could see him doing for her. He had been her best friend, but having a fiance had made it difficult for him to find ways to do things for her without doing too much. She loved that he could do this, even something little like bringing her flowers, it was new, and it was wonderful to her that he could do it now without having to hide it. 

The whole evening had felt like that, in fact. They were still best friends, of course, but now they no longer had to keep putting up little barriers to keep from making more of something than they should. Her eyes widened in the dark as she realized for the hundredth time today that there was no longer any "should" for them. This freedom to want him was so exhillirating, she wondered if she'd ever get used to the feeling. She wondered if she wanted to get used to it.

It was all so new still. Only hours old, this hope that was now consuming her. Just this morning she had been brooding over what would happen if Jim left.

She wondered if he knew that in leaving he'd be taking a part of her with him. Did it occur to him that she'd probably never be the same again if he moved to New York? The first time he left, she had been caught off guard and she had blamed all the changes that were happening in her life--calling off her wedding, moving to a new apartment, learning to do everything on her own--for the loss of her playful side. But close to a year later, there was no denying the fact that it was really Jim who brought out that side of her.

Now, tonight, she remembered how fun it had been to toy with Dwight in Michael's absence, but she also knew that had Jim left for good, she wouldn't have been able to sustain that side of herself without him there to laugh with her. The cameramen were great and they could always be counted on catch the inherent hilarity of their office, but without Jim... Laughing to yourself isn't nearly enough when you're used to so much more.

And now she had even more than that. There were secret smiles to come and kisses to steal in the elevator and whispered conversations in the middle of meetings. Never before had she been so excited about going to work every day.

She walked with him to his car and marveled again at the way he looked in jeans. They had decided to just go somewhere casual for dinner. He had wanted to take her out to a nice restaurant, but she was so nervous about the whole situation already that she had asked if they could just keep it low-key for now.

That hadn't kept her from painstakingly curling her hair into long wavy curls, though. 

They drove in near silence, and she worried for a minute that he might think the silence was a tense one, but then he sighed and looked over at her with a smile.

"This is nice."

"Yeah. It really is," she returned.

And it had been really nice. The quiet had helped her absorb every detail and savor it in a way that made each little thing memorable. In the dark of her room, she closed her eyes for a minute to picture how his hand had looked when he had slipped it over to hold hers. How his eyes, when she had stolen a glance at them, seemed deep in thought as he drove. And how his new haircut had seemed less intimidatingly gorgeous to her now that he had ruffled it up a bit into a more familiar, flippy look.

"Are you sure this is really where you want to go?" he asked as they pulled into the parking lot of a chinese restaurant.

"Yep. I love this place," she said decisively.

Reflecting back on that moment, she wondered for a second if she had been too pushy about her choice of food. But she didn't think Jim would mind that she was finally secure enough in herself to go get the things she wanted. And if he did mind, well then that was just too bad, because it was mostly his fault that she had changed so much. Besides, after just one night she could tell that being around Jim was going to be the final little nudge she needed to complete her transformation. There was just something about him that put her at ease and made her unafraid. She trusted him, she realized. Not just to stay her friend no matter what, but she trusted him to keep her from doubting herself.

And that was just one of maybe five million things that made her love him even more now than she ever had before.