“Something’s not right about this, Scully,” he muttered, tossing a tennis ball into the air above his head and then catching it just so that he could toss it again. She followed the action with her eyes and tried not to be annoyed with the fact that he was lounging on her motel bed in order to play catch with himself. The thought made her lift an eyebrow.

“You mean besides the fact that seven people are missing and nobody has seen or heard a thing?” she wondered dryly. He chose not to respond and continued to toss the ball into the air. She chewed on her lower lip through the silence and bounced a few times on the desk chair that she was sitting in. She wondered if the motel had purchased the chairs from the same store or manufacturer as Dunder Mifflin and Vance Refrigeration. It was unmistakably identical to the chairs that Jim Halpert and Creed Bratton and Christina Macavoy had been bouncing in all day long, and Scully found herself pondering the people that they had interviewed and the way that they had all been a certain special kind of bizarre that she wasn’t sure she could fully capture in her report. Mulder caught the ball and propped himself up on his elbows to look at her in confusion.

“There’s something Bob Vance…”

“Vance Refrigeration,” she filled in sardonically. He grinned in acknowledgement.

“…isn’t telling us,” he finished. “Somebody’s lying about something. Seven people can’t disappear without somebody witnessing something or overhearing something or…I don’t know. Something about this case…” Scully rolled her eyes. “What?” Mulder wondered defensively.

“You say that about every single case we investigate,” she told him, pushing the chair back and forth with the heel of her shoe and crossing her arms loosely across her middle. His face twisted into a look of disbelief and he huffed out a lungful of air.

“I do not,” he proclaimed dryly. She shrugged her indifference and he went back to tossing the tennis ball. Her eyes followed it, drifting up, and then down…up and down…hypnotized by the rhythm of his catch and release.

“That guy Jim Halpert is good looking,” she mumbled distractedly, and her eyes tracked the neon green of the ball as it came down fast and hit Mulder square in the face, his hands jerking in surprise at the boldness of her statement.

“Excuse me?” he asked, a tint of laughter in his voice, and it made her angry that he would find her impulse and opinion on this matter to be humorous in any way. She felt a pinch of defensiveness and looked him in the eye.

“I said Jim Halpert is good looking,” she repeated. His mouth dropped open as if he was about to mutter the word ‘what’, and she raised her eyebrows to silence him. “Is there something wrong with that?” she wondered.

“He’s a little bit young for you, don’t you think?” Mulder assessed, and she knew that he knew exactly what he was doing…playing on her insecurities and twisting things so that she would drop the subject.

“Not really,” she decided, spinning the chair in a slow circle and taking in the tan colored wall paper and the way that the top left corner of the room had deep brown water stains stretched out like a spider web on the ceiling. When she refocused on Mulder he was staring at her in utter disbelief. “What?” she wondered, ceasing her chair’s rotation.

“I thought you were quiet during that interview,” he replied, “I just didn’t realize that it was because you were undressing our witness in your head,” he finished, his voice full of hard edges and insult. “All this time I thought I was the unprofessional one in this partnership.” Scully let out a single chuckle and shook her head at him.

“I wasn’t undressing him, it’s just a simple observation,” she explained, her voice flat and lacking in any kind of emotion. Mulder pursed his lips and nodded at her, his eyes dripping with suspicion.

“Ok,” he conceded, sighing and reluctantly starting to toss the ball into the air again. Scully watched him through squinted eyes and licked her lips.

“He’s taller than you,” she announced, and tried not to smile when the ball hit Mulder in the face for the second time.

***

“Oh my god, Pam, I can’t even believe how good looking that policeman is, he’s just like so delicious looking like I just want to spread him on a cracker and eat him as a snack before I go out for dinner with Ryan. I mean don’t you think he was so handsome and he was so nice when he was asking questions and he like totally believed me when I said I felt like there were bad vibes and stuff in the parking lot and nobody has believed me about that and I just want to marry him and have all of his little policeman babies. Oh my god, that’s so embarrassing, I can’t believe I just said that Pam, oh my god.”

Pam offered a meek and insincere smile and shrugged, and Jim felt his jaw muscle tense in irritation. He wasn’t sure why, since he was definitely not jealous of this Fox Mulder and the way that Pam’s gaze had swept over him appreciatively when he’d first entered the office…definitely not jealous. That was not what this was about.

“Yeah I guess he’s kind of cute,” she mumbled, shrugging into her jacket, and Jim thought it seemed like she was trying to stall so that she didn’t have to ride down in the elevator with Kelly, who was presently gasping in horror at Pam’s unacceptable understatement.

“Kind of cute?! Pam are you crazy? He totally has that like dark and brooding thing going on, plus he’s got a badge and fancy shoes,” Kelly assured her. Fancy shoes? Jim wondered in confusion.

“Well maybe you should break up with Ryan and hit on the FBI agent,” Pam suggested dryly, and Jim grinned, knowing that Pam’s deliberate comment would end the conversation, which would please him to no end. Kelly took a predictable step back and frowned.

“Pam, hang on a second. I can’t believe you would even suggest something like that. I know you cheated on Roy with Jim, but I am not that kind of girl,” she finished harshly, pushing past an overtly embarrassed Jim Halpert and exiting the Office with a flourish and leaving Jim and Pam alone to lock up the office. Pam rolled her eyes and sighed as Jim studiously avoided her gaze, trying to make sure he side-stepped whatever comment she might be concocting or conversation she might be hoping they would have. The tension of the moment was thick and he pursed his lips in discomfort.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Yikes,” he finally muttered, and Pam laughed uncomfortably. She bent down and picked up her purse and her Barnes and Noble bag, which he knew from experience was full of her new pencils, a sketchpad, some book about women in New York City who, according to an unenthusiastic description from Pam, met every Thursday to drink martini’s and talk about sex, and remnants of her very meager lunch. She offered a half smile to Jim as she made her way toward the elevator, and he found himself silently grateful that she was letting Kelly‘s comment slide without remark.

“So, any exciting plans for the night?” she wondered. He shrugged and hit the down button with his thumb.

“Not really. The Phillies are playing the Mets, so that should be exciting…” he told her.

“Exciting?” she repeated incredulously, and he smiled, wondering why everybody was picking on his team today.

“Probably not,” he corrected, laughter tinting his words, and his eyes were still fixed on her face when the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, his thoughts full of the idea that they should probably talk about whatever this was…and he should probably comment on the tears he swore were in her eyes that he hadn’t noticed until this particular moment... He took a step forward, but stopped short when he realized that there was someone inside the elevator.

“Creed?” Pam greeted in confusion. Creed’s eyes shifted from Jim to Pam and ended up looking someplace else entirely as he shifted awkwardly on his feet.

“Hey there, Sam, I forgot my uh…I left my briefcase behind,” Creed explained half-heartedly, pushing past the two and unlocking the door to Dunder Mifflin with a key that he probably was not supposed to have. Jim looked down at Pam with a furrowed brow, and Pam looked up at him, equally puzzled. The silence lingered for a moment before she opened her mouth and spoke.

“Let’s get out of here,” she murmured, and he nodded enthusiastically, rushing into the elevator and hitting the number 1 emphatically. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the idea that it was kind of suspicious that Creed had left the office promptly at 5, only to return again at 6 when the office had cleared of employees, claiming he‘d left behind a briefcase that Jim was sure he‘d seen him carrying on his way out an hour earlier.

Pam crossed her arms, and Jim was glad that he was with her.

The elevator landed soundly on the main floor and the two exited in silence, both seriously wondering whether they should be concerned, their inner-confusion only highlighted by the fact that they were both also contemplating why they couldn’t just fix what was between them. Pam nodded to the security guard as they pushed out the front doors, and Jim nodded in surprise at Trout, one of Bob Vance’s sales reps who was leaning against the building finishing a cigarette.

“Trout” was the five foot eight, curly haired, fifty something’s nickname, lovingly bestowed because he spent almost every Sunday fishing in the middle of Lake Scranton, despite assurances and proof that there wasn‘t much to be caught. Trout had been on Jim’s weekend basketball team at the YMCA for the past three years, and the two had a decent, friendly rapport.

“How’s it goin, man?” Jim asked, his voice a little less than casual. Trout nodded back and flicked his cigarette onto the pavement and put it out with the heel of his shoe.

“Good, we missed you on Saturday,” he told Jim, kicking the dead butt aside and shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. Jim turned to walk backwards so that he could keep the conversation going while still making his way toward Pam’s car.

“Did we win?” Jim wondered. Trout chuckled and shook his head.

“With you missing in action we didn’t stand a chance,” he confessed heartily. Jim chuckled and offered a wave before turning back toward Pam and opening her car door for her. He shrugged at her and sniffed.

“Well, we made it,” he muttered, a grin tickling his tone along with some kind of vague double meaning that he wasn‘t even sure he understood, and she smiled without much humor.

“Yes, thank you,” she told him meaningfully. He nodded and watched as she lowered herself into the car and buckled herself in. “Night,” she told him, and he told himself her tone wasn’t wistful, he told himself he was imagining things because it was easier that way.

“Night,” he answered, and retreated to the safety of his Saab, pausing to watch her pull out of the parking lot and to watch Trout retreat to his Honda Civic and start the engine. Finally satisfied, he exhaled and drove away from Dunder Mifflin‘s shadowed parking lot.

The ride home felt long and the night felt even longer as he stared sleeplessly at the walls of his bedroom.

He told himself that he was imagining a lot of things, not the least of which was the look in Pam’s eye and the tone of her voice. He told himself that the tightness that clutched at his stomach every time he saw her or even thought of her would eventually go away again like it had when he was in Stamford…he told himself he was imagining the way that every day her melancholy stare followed him from the copy machine to the break room to the vending machines and back again…

He told himself he was imagining that something just didn‘t feel right…