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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.

"Pssst. Pam?"

"Mrrg."

"Pam, come on. Wake up."

"Blrphg mnrdbp."

"Pam, seriously. Wake up."

"Nrb?" Pam blinked and opened her eyes, but the room was too dark to see much.

A large, warm hand shook her shoulder gently. "Hey, wake up, sleepyhead."

"Jim? What time is it? Did I oversleep?"

He was a breathing presence in the darkness. She could smell him (warm skin, a little sweat, a hint of soap) but she could not really see him. He seemed to be kneeling beside her bed. That confused her. "No. There's something you should see."

Disoriented, Pam yawned and rubbed her eyes. Automatically, she checked the clock beside her bed. "It's after five thirty, Jim. What's wrong?"

His hand slid down from her shoulder to her arm, raising goosebumps as it did, and settled around her hand. "Nothing's wrong. Come with me."

She yawned, a little irritated. "Jim, I'm not really in the mood."

He chuckled. "Not what I had in mind. Get up." He tugged on her hand, and she came with him, and he pulled her to a standing position against him. Automatically, his arm came around her, and she rested her head against his chest. Her hands, moving on their own, found him wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. He was warm. "Hey, don't go back to sleep," he said. "Not just yet."

"Jim," she whined. "I wanna go back to sleep."

"In a minute. This won't take long."

"That's what she said."

"Funny. You'll pay for that later, Beesly. Here, put your shoes on."

"Why am I putting my shoes on?"

"Because we're going outside."

"What?"

"Trust me."

Too sleepy to argue, Pam thrust her feet into her slippers and felt Jim raising her arms. He slipped her oversized sleeping shirt onto them, then pulled it onto her over her head. When it fell around her hips, he patted her bottom affectionately.

"Where are we going?"

"Not far. Just to the veranda." He took her hand, leading her. As they passed the foot of her bed, he scooped up the quilt folded at the foot of it.

"I don't have a veranda."

"Well, whatever you call that thing that opens off the living room. Gee, Pam, how did you manage to snag an apartment with only one kitchen, but with a veranda?"

"It's a patio."

"No, a patio is at ground level."

"No, it's not."

"Okay, tonight, for one night only, it's a patio."

They were into the living room now, its furniture shaping the darkness in lumps of black and gray. Something about their arrangement bothered her. She hadn't realized before just how dark the night could be in her apartment. She stepped closer to Jim and trod on his bare foot.

"Sorry."

"It's okay. Here, open the door while I get something." He stepped away, a large, comforting shadow moving in the night. She slid the glass door open. The air was cool but not uncomfortable, with a fresh scent to it that told her dawn was not far away. It sharpened her senses, bringing her more awake. Why did Jim want to go out on the patio at this hour?

He came up behind her, his big body solid and warm at her back. "Go on out," he said.

"Who did this?" Pam said, as she stepped out and found her easy chair in the middle of her patio.

"I did, before I woke you up. I just hope I didn't wake your downstairs neighbor."

She yawned. "Pete's a security guard, he works at night," she said absently. "Why did you put this chair out here?"

He chuckled again. "Always with the questions, Pam. No, don't sit down just yet." He turned, closed the glass door, holding something between his body and his left elbow. Then he stepped past her, settled himself in the easy chair and set the object down on the floor beside him. He looked up and extended his arms. "Come on."

She smiled and folded herself into his lap. His arms circled her, pulling her in against his chest. They shifted together a few moments, getting comfortable. He pulled the quilt he'd taken from her bed up around her, snugging them into a warm cocoon that smelled of him and her and a hint of fabric softener. He pulled on the release that brought the footrest up, and Pam felt them tip backwards. He grunted a little as he took more of her weight.

"I've got to stop feeding you at all those expensive restaurants," he murmured teasingly.

"Shut up. I'm not the one who ordered—and ate—two plates of ravioli last night."

"Comfortable?"

"As much as I can be, lying on this extremely bony mattress," she said.

"You didn't complain a couple of hours ago." His voice had a smile in it.

"I wasn't sleepy a couple of hours ago. Why are we out here, Jim?"

His right arm rose, long bicep muscled gilded in faint light, and pointed. "Look at the moon."

Low in the west, she could see the full round disk of the moon, glowing softly. But there was something wrong with it—a shadow lay across half the surface. Yet it didn't look like a half moon. Pam blinked, and it slowly came to her.

"An eclipse?"

"It started about half an hour ago," Jim said. "We won't get to see all of it, but I thought you'd like to see the start of it, anyway."

"It's red."

"Yeah. The moon won't get completely dark because some light still reaches it around the edges of the Earth. The light is refracted as it passes through our atmosphere, scattering blue light --which is why the sky is blue--but sending reddish light onto the moon."

She turned and looked into his eyes. "Is there going to be a quiz after this eclipse? Should I be taking notes?"

He grinned. "Sorry. My dad used to take us out stargazing when I was a kid. He'd tell us all kinds of stuff about the stars and the moon. I guess it stuck with me."

She kissed his cheek. "It's okay. I like it. Tell me more."

"Sorry to say we won't get full totality with this eclipse. The sun will be rising in less than an hour, so we'll miss the big show. But this is nice."

"Yes." She sighed and snuggled closer. "Thank you."

His arm tightened, and she felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the breeze go through her. "You're welcome," he whispered. His lips brushed the back of her neck; she knew he knew she liked him to kiss her there.

"So when does the moon turn blue?" she asked.

"Mmm. What? Oh. The moon won't turn blue. That's just a saying." He nuzzled her hairline again. "Sometimes during a full moon pollution can make it look light blue. But that has nothing to do with a lunar eclipse."

He kissed her shoulder and she felt her heart speed up. She sank down into his arms even further, surrounded by him, warmed by him. "What made you think of this?" she asked.

She felt him shrug. "I've always liked eclipses. They remind me that, well, the world is bigger than we are."

"There's a Michael joke in there, but I'm too tired to find it."

He was silent a long moment. "We get caught up in the details, Pam. We get caught up in sales targets, production quotas, the gas and electric bill, worrying about the stock market. We focus on the little things." He kissed her hair.

"Sometimes it's good to look up from that. I know."

"Kind of puts things in perspective."

"Makes me feel small."

His hands slid up and down her arms, under the quilt. "Ah, no, Pam. You're just the right size." He kissed the back of her neck again.

"It's redder now. There's more shadow," she said.

"Mm-hmm," he said, lips against her neck.

She twisted, laughing softly. "Hey, I thought we were watching the moon."

"I can multi-task," he said, his voice low and gravelly. She felt her pulse quicken, hearing that note. She'd heard so many variations on that note, from blissful moans to gasps of pleasure.

"Well you can multi-task us right back inside, mister," she said smartly. His hands slipped up her arms, slid to her waist, slid higher. "I'm not doing this in public."

He chuckled again. "Hey, we're under a quilt."

His hands found a good spot and she squirmed. "Jim, seriously!"

He sighed and stilled his hands. "So shy. How am I ever going to get you out of your shell?"

Remembering the naked romp that had ended their evening, Pam chuckled. "This, from a man who won't even kiss me in front of his co-workers."

"Do not bring Angela Martin into this."

"Ew. No. Look, the whole moon is covered now."

The lunar disk shone as red as a copper penny. The breeze died down; Pam heard a dog bark a couple of blocks away. So quiet.

"So, Professor," Pam said. "I've seen eclipses before. They were darker. Why is this one so red?"

Jim shifted a little, moving her to a more comfortable position in his lap. "Depends on the angle at which the moon enters the Earth's shadow, the amount of dust in the atmosphere, a lot of things. The moon is always red, but the shade of red varies. A really, really dark red looks black during an eclipse."

They lay in silence, watching the moon creep lower in the west, darkening as it went. Distantly, a car horn honked, and then another.

"Someone's trying to scare away the dragon that's eating the moon," Jim murmured.

"Should I go get some pots and pans so we can bang them together and drive off the dragon?"

"Shoulda borrowed some of Dwight's fireworks." His hands cupped her, large and warm and sensitive. She felt as if they were in a world apart.

She turned so that her cheek was against his chest. "Jim?"

"Mm-hmm?"

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. Are you cold?"

She shrugged. "A little. But I don't want to move."

She felt him stir, felt him reaching to his left. He brought up his left hand and she saw now that the thing he'd brought out with him was a Thermos. She watched his long fingers unscrew the top and caught a whiff.

"Hot cocoa?" She straightened a little.

"Yeah. Mandatory at all my dad's stargazing parties." He poured cocoa into the cup and handed it to her.

"Your father is a wise man," she said, sipping. "Oooo."

He took the cup from her and sipped. "The sun's coming up."

It was true. The eastern sky was lightening now, going from indigo to pale blue near the zenith. Pam glanced at the moon, which now touched the western horizon. "I hate to miss the rest of it."

"If I'd known that, I'd have booked us a flight to California," Jim said lightly. "They'll get the full show out there."

"Don't we need passports?"

He sipped chocolate and handed the cup back to her. "Maybe we can go as diplomats. Or smuggle ourselves across the border disguised as movie stars."

"I'll be Angelina. You can be Brad."

"No way. I'll be Keanu, dude, and you can be Sandra Bullock."

She laughed as she finished the chocolate. They sat watching the moon set for several more minutes. "You know," she said quietly. "Of all the many things I love about you, Jim Halpert, I love your sense of whimsy the most."

His hands had been absently roving her arms, her hands, her upper thighs. They stopped moving. "Wow."

She turned to face him, and this close they were almost nose to nose. His eyes were wide and dark, his expression caught between grave and smiling. "Yeah," she said. She kissed him, and his hands slid up her back, spreading out across it, supporting her.

When she pulled free at last, he slid his hands into her hair on either side of her face. "I love you, Pam," he said softly.

"I love you," she said simply, resting her forehead on his. Then she wriggled around to sit sideways in his lap again, encircled by the quilt and him.

They sat there in happy silence until a door banged across the street. Pam sat up and looked around. The shrouded, red-orange moon was halfway down the western horizon, the sun was rising in the East, and a car started down the street. "The world is waking up," she said.

He had eyes only for her. "You know, there's another lunar eclipse in February," he said.

"February? You want to get me out here on this patio—"

"Veranda."

"Whatever. You want to do this in the dead of winter? With a foot of snow on this patio?"

"Veranda."

"There's not enough hot chocolate in the world to get me to do that," she laughed.

"We don't have to see it from here," he said.

"You want to go to an observatory or something?" She shrugged. "But I like this viewing platform better." She ran a hand down his chest. "Much more fun."

He put his hand over hers to stop her. "You know, we can always go to Florida or California or someplace warm to watch the next eclipse."

She looked at him. "Really?"

"It's a big world, Pam. Bigger than Scranton. We can make the world as big as we want." His tone was unusually serious.

She went still. This was about more than an eclipse. "What are you saying, Jim?"

He swallowed, slid his hands down to her hips. "Pam, you know, there's ... another moon made just for us, so to speak."

Her breath slowed, she felt excitement rising in her like a bubble through champagne. "Jim?"

"A ... a honeymoon. We can ... we can spend the next eclipse celebrating our ... our marriage." His voice was very quiet.

She saw his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. His eyes were large, dark, solemn as they'd been on a May night two years ago. Open, showing her everything, hiding nothing. "Are you asking me...?"

He grinned suddenly, teeth white in the dawn light. "I know, it's too soon. And I haven't even asked your fath—"

Her kiss cut him off. Then she pulled back, eyes shining, and said, "Hawaii."

"What?"

"Hawaii. For the eclipse. And the ... the honeymoon."

Joy lit in his eyes as he pulled her to him. "Hawaii it is."

The rising sun found a half-empty Thermos of tepid cocoa, a discarded quilt, and an open sliding glass door.

 

THE END

Chapter End Notes:
Unlike Jim and Pam, I was able to see the full eclipse from California, and it was pretty spectacular. The next lunar eclipse will indeed be on the night of February 21, 2008, and should be visible throughout the Americas. However, Pam should probably change her honeymoon location to Jamaica or Mexico if she wants to see all of it, since Hawaii will be on the far edge. No doubt Jim will persuade her before then...


NeverEnoughJam is the author of 24 other stories.
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