Pam’s coat was warm around her shoulders and she quietly kicked at the dirty snow beneath her  feet as she and Jim strolled slowly down the sidewalk.  He hadn’t said much, and neither had she, not wanting to ruin their walk with the thoughts that were heavy on her mind.  But finally Jim cleared his throat and she felt a knot of fear form in her stomach because that was almost never a good sign.                 “You aren’t having fun,” he murmured quietly.  She snapped her head toward him and lifted a corner of her mouth in denial.                

“Yes I am,” she promised.  He sighed and shook his head, his eyes sweeping over the streetlights and the starry sky.                

“I should’ve warned you about how my family is really overbearing, but I just…I didn’t even think about what that might be like for you,” he admitted, his tone sincerely apologetic and his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets like that could save something or salvage something.  She shrugged.                

“No, your family is,” she inhaled a deep breath, “they’re great, Jim.  You should be so thankful that you have them so close by,” she told him honestly, but she was somehow unable to remove the tinge of hidden meaning in her words…the way she emphasized the word ‘family’ because she was sure there was at least one person who wasn’t included in what she thought was so great.  He glanced down at her with a furrowed brow.                

“So what’s wrong?” he asked, and she bit her lip in defeat because she was hoping he wouldn’t ask her that.  She hated to lie to him and now that he’d asked she felt like she was obligated to admit how silly she was being.  She supposed they’d have to talk about it eventually.                

“I guess I just…” she sniffed, “You could’ve…I don’t know…” she braced herself and just spit the words out, “warned me about Anne, maybe.  Or just mentioned her or…” she shrugged again and tried as hard as she could to not sound as upset as she really felt deep down.                

“Anne?” Jim repeated, and Pam felt her feathers ruffle a little bit.  Why would he act like he didn’t know what she was talking about?                 

“Yeah, I mean she’s your ex, right?” she asked him, her voice tight with impatience.                

“Uh, yeah unfortunately she is,” he conceded.                

“And she still spends Christmas with your family,” she stated, her voice flat to emphasize how odd that might seem to any normal kind of person.  Jim rolled his eyes and it only made her that much more anxious.                

“Yeah, she says the Halperts have always been her family or something so she just…shows up every year,” he mumbled.  “It bothers you that she’s here?” he asked, and she crossed her arms and told herself that it was only because she was cold.                

“It’s stupid,” she admitted, “But I feel like your family really likes her, and I’m not even…” she sighed.  “I’m not a really loud person,” she said this as if she was informing him of something he didn’t know, and he chuckled.                

“I know,” he told her warmly.                  

“Well I just… Anne comes in and is all getting everything right in Taboo and joking around with your Uncle Greg and talking with your mom about someone named Sylvia who I have no idea who that even is and you got so excited when she showed up and it was like…”  she swallowed and shook her head a little, “Your favorite cookies are gingerbread?” she wondered quietly, shrugging her shoulders in defeat and disbelief that she could’ve been so wrong, disbelief that she didn‘t even actually know what kind of cookie was his favorite.                  

“Not really,” he interjected, but she went on as if he hadn’t spoken.                

“I didn’t even know that this Anne person existed, Jim, and according to Larissa she was like your one true love or something.  She kept just saying that you were ‘Jim and Anne’ like that should mean something to me,” she told him, her voice starting to tighten with a hint of frustrated tears.                  

“Pam,” Jim interjected again, “Anne and I are not…‘Jim and Anne,’” he promised her and she shook her head again, silencing him because she was too convinced that just by saying they weren’t he was confirming that really they were.  She sighed.                

“I can’t even believe that this…” she drifted off and kicked at more dirty snow beneath her boots,  “I’m Karen,” she announced, and he turned his head sharply to look down at her in surprised confusion.                

“What?” he asked.                

“I am, I’m Karen.  Because I thought this was a huge thing that we were doing.  I thought you and I were… ‘Jim and Pam.’  I had no idea that it’s just because you’re like…Are you just this guy?  Like you fall in love, and then something goes wrong and you move away and fall in love with someone else?  I mean…”she took in a deep breath and stared down intently at her shoes, “I was never really in love with anybody before you.  I loved Roy but it was so…immature, the whole thing.  But you’ve got this whole like…list of girls.  I’m so afraid that if I just say the wrong thing you’ll…I‘ll wake up the next day and you‘ll be in Iowa or something.”  She clicked her tongue at herself and pressed a chilly hand to her forehead, “I told you this was stupid, I sound crazy,” she mumbled quietly.  He blew a lungful of air out of his mouth and frowned thoughtfully, unsure what exactly he should say in response to her.  “Your family loves her, and they don’t even know I exist…” she finished, her voice unmistakably water-stained.  He looked over at her and stopped walking, taking her arm and stopping her from walking ahead of him.                

“Pam,” he stated firmly,  “you have no idea what you‘re…” he sighed in aggravation and she could tell he was trying desperately to keep himself from getting angry, “Look, first of all, Anne and I were…” he paused in thought, “I don’t know what Larissa told you, but you should not listen to her,” he proclaimed, and he said it as if that was statement enough.  Pam raised her eyebrows at him and waited until he finally sagged in defeat, acknowledging that he’d have to explain all of this or she’d be unhappy for the rest of their Christmas.                  

“Anne and I dated all through high school,” he admitted, “but it was like…she loved that I was on the basketball team, and I thought she was cute and she thought I was funny and we were friends and we ended up having sex, basically.  There was no romance involved and I was like sixteen and definitely not,” he raised his fingers and drew quotation marks in the air, “’in love’ with her,” he promised, meeting Pam’s eyes adamantly.                

“Larissa said she broke your heart,” Pam informed him, feeling childish, but unable to help herself because it was Christmas and she didn’t want to feel this way, and Jim was really the only one who could put her fears to rest.  He cleared his throat and shook his head gently.                  

“Right before we went away for college she confessed her undying love for me and I, being the sensitive guy that I am, told her I didn’t want to be in a long-distance relationship and I thought we should break up.  But she refused to end things, and then she went a little bit crazy and all through our freshman year of college she kept sending me things in the mail and calling me and like…” he grimaced at the memory, deciding silently that Pam didn’t need to know the gory details of Anne’s mental breakdown.  He skipped ahead, “So, finally I ended up having to tell her that if she didn’t leave me alone I was going to call the cops and get a restraining order.”                  

Pam’s eyes were wide and she tried hard not to react further to his story, unsure what exactly the appropriate response was to Jim basically admitting that his ex-girlfriend was a lunatic who he‘d threatened with legal action.                  

“I don’t even know what her deal is, she’s a little bit…” he tipped his head and offered her the look of wide-eyed bewilderment that he usually reserved for Michael Scott and she grinned sheepishly, realizing that she really was silly and he was right, she shouldn’t listen to Larissa.  “Anne should probably work at Dunder Mifflin,” he told her and she laughed outright at the way he’d spoken her own comparison between Larissa and Michael aloud.  “She creeped me out, seriously.  And like five years ago or something, after hearing nothing from her for like two years, she showed up at Christmas and acted like everything was cool.  See what I mean?  Creepy,” he stated firmly and Pam raised her eyebrows in simultaneous agreement and amusement, “But I just figured…keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? Like, whatever if she wants to hang with my family and act like she’s sane then fine, I’ll just suffer through it,” he paused, “And I hate gingerbread, just so you know,” he told her warmly.  She shook her head at herself and felt her cheeks redden in embarrassment.                  

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled and he chuckled.  “I’m an idiot, and I’m never listening to Larissa again.”                

“You were so jealous,” he accused and she huffed.  “You were.  You were like sharpening your claws and getting all ready to take her out back,” he assessed teasingly.  She smiled up at him then and shook her head.                  

“Shut up,” she told him firmly.  He wagged his eyebrows at her and smiled.  “I hate you,” she feebly retaliated.                

“So I guess I should cancel that job interview I had in Iowa, though, right Karen?” he wondered, grasping her hand and tugging so that they were walking again down the slushy sidewalk in the orange streetlight.  She sighed.                

“That’s not funny.  I’m really afraid that you’ll do that,” she told him honestly, and he paused in shock because there was no question the amount of seriousness laced with that sentence.  There was a lengthy pause before he finally spoke.                

“I would never do that,” he told her, his voice half whisper and half not, almost caught in his throat.  She bit her lip and nodded, her eyes on the ground until he reached out and took her face firmly in his hands, shaking her a little bit as if to emphasize his seriousness.  “I would never do that,” he stated again.  She blinked up at him and her lips quirked into an attempt at a smile.                

“Ok,” she whispered back.  His thumb swept across her cheek lightly and he bent down to press a kiss chastely against her lips.  “Jim?” she murmured once he’d pulled away and they were walking again.                  

“Yeah,” he replied quietly, his eyes on the scenery around them and the way that the street was covered in decorations and snow.                

“You’d slay a dragon for me, right?” she asked, a hint of humor in her voice at her own question.  His left cheek lifted a little and his brow furrowed as he turned to look down at her.                

“What?” he wondered and she chuckled.                

“Just…I guess I’m asking if you think we’ll live happily ever after,” she admitted, her voice somber and her expression soft and serene.  He watched her for a moment, thinking over her words and taking in the way that she seemed so suddenly at ease when only minutes before she’d been full of anxiety, taking in the way that she had something like Jessie inside of her and she was quiet and earnest and childish and grown-up all at once, and he smiled.                

“Yeah,” he promised, wrapping an arm solidly around her shoulders, “Yeah I think we will.”