She’s been watching The Colbert Report almost every night for three months now on Jim’s insistence.

“You’ve never seen The Report?” he’d exclaimed one night over dinner, almost spitting his peas onto the floor. “Do you hate America or something, Beesly?”

“Maybe I just have better things to do with my time,” she’d teased back, flicking his errant food off her plate.

“No, Pam. No.” he’d set his fork down firmly. “You might have better things to do than watch Battlestar Galactica with Dwight. You might even have better things to do than watch Trading Spouses, but not The Report.” He’d shaken his head at her seriously and she wasn’t quite sure whether to laugh or not.

She hadn’t seen him this worked up about anything since she’d told him Michael had tried to kiss her.

“Okay,” she’d told him, thinking about sitting on the couch with Jim’s arm around her every night for half an hour. “I’ll watch it.”

*****

The night Stephen announces he’s running for President, Pam turns to Jim with a gleeful grin and grips his arm. “We are so going to see the show tomorrow,” she tells him, almost warningly.

Jim realises his heart might burst if he looks directly at her, so instead he focuses on her left earlobe.

“Absolutely we are.” He can’t hide his happiness when she buries her face into his arm and giggles, and he thinks, this is why people are born.

*****

So there they are, sitting on the freezing pavement in Midtown Manhattan on a blustery fall day in October. They’re waiting in the line for standby tickets to tonight’s show, and Jim doesn’t think he’s stopped smiling since the night before. Stephen Colbert! In person! His face feels like it might be splitting. A leaf drifts past and hits Pam in the face, sticking to her pink-tinged nose. She blows it off with a visible puff of air and Jim laughs.

“Hey, are you cold?” he asks her, looking at the people around them bundled in heavy jackets and scarves, walking quickly to avoid the crisp air seeping into them.  

“No,” she smiles up at him, but he tightens his arm around her shoulders anyway. She leans towards him and kisses his cheek, soft lips against his skin.

*****

They are sitting on a bench in DeWitt Clinton Park, a block away from the studio. Pam is swearing she will never wash her right hand again where Stephen Colbert gave her a high five, and Jim is memorizing every crease on her face.

“This was the best trip ever,” she gushes, the streetlight above them make her face glow as she beams at him. “New York has never been so awesome. Have you ever had a better time here?”

“Well… last time I was in New York, I saw a professional woman have a major breakdown down and I dumped my girlfriend.”

It’s not like Karen hasn’t been mentioned at all since they started dating, but so far they’ve both been happy to be happy, and she hasn’t really come up. But on this night, in this park, sitting next to Pam and not quite looking at her, none of that seems to matter.

“Yeah,” she says slowly, as if testing how far to go. “That sounded really, really rough. The Jan thing, I mean.”

He shrugs, her cue to go on.

“Jim, what happened at your interview?” her voice is cautious and he loses his nerve for a minute.

“Oh, you know… I was just hoping my new breast implants wouldn’t get me into the same trouble as Jan’s,” he smirks.

She sounds grateful. “No, yours are tasteful.”

“Thanks, that means a lot.” There’s a pause. “You know, I don’t even remember that interview, to be honest. I don’t remember a lot about those months.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you were missing much. I mean, apart from Sanjaya on American Idol, there wasn’t really anything notable.”

He can’t help himself. “I did not know you were a Fanjaya, Pam. Wow.”

“And I cannot believe you know that term,” she mimics, an eyebrow raised challengingly. The wind ruffles her hair and he notices just how cold it really is.

“But I do remember your note. And I remember… I don’t even really know how I got there – I must have spoken to Karen first – but I then I was driving back to Scranton and I was listening to – I had ‘Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want’ by The Smiths on repeat. Like, the entire way home.”

“Oh my God, I had no idea you were so… sensitive.”

There is something to be said for starlight and truth and the intoxication of requited love.

“You broke my heart, Beesly,” he tells her with a wry half grin, a hopeless raised eyebrow, not looking at her. The silence between them is flat and warm, despite the chilly air. His feet tap ground.

“I know,” she replies matter-of-factly. She’s staring at him steadily and he hesitatingly raises his head to look at her, the question in his eyes. “And you broke mine,” is all she has to say. A throb goes through his heart and reaches his toes. Oh, he thinks. Oh. She’s still staring at him and he thinks for a second that he might be about to cry in front of her again. He feels another throb and his heart remembers to beat again. The moment is broken as she smiles half sheepishly, half hopefully.

“C’mere,” he says and lifts an arm as she falls into him, encircling his torso and resting on his chest. “Oh, Pam,” he sighs as she chuckles softly. “Pam…” he says again into the top of her hair.