Author's Note: This is a strange little thing that grew around one line which had been bouncing in my head for a while. Style is odd, as my Jim/Pam usually is. Just some cheerful harmless fluff. Enjoy...
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.
He used to think that it was never going to happen. That they were never going to happen.
Their timing was wrong, their mistakes were irreversible, their pain went too deep.
They were never going to be that ordinary couple, holding hands and bickering in a supermarket on a rainy Wednesday.
He used to think he’d give anything if they could just be that ordinary couple. That would be enough. That would be everything.
One day, when his hopes were long since lost and his several second chances willingly discarded, a short note and a yogurt lid fell into his lap. He took a second glance at them, the warmest things in that cold corporate office, and knew what he was going to do.
Ever since that day, he has been quietly rethinking his theories.
They are happening.
Their timing is perfect, their mistakes are forgiven, their pain is healing.
And they can seem like that ordinary couple sometimes.
On their first date, they held hands across the table and talked for hours.
They like to lose whole Sundays to newsprint and ruffled white sheets.
She carries a picture of him in her wallet, and he treasures one of her.
They fight.
They make up.
They share their dreams.
They love each other.
They hold hands and bicker in supermarkets on rainy Wednesdays, just like he imagined they could.
And yet, he knows now how wrong he was. Being ordinary isn’t enough. It isn’t everything.
It’s what the second glance shows that he’d give anything never to lose.
On their first date, they held hands across the table and talked for hours.
They didn’t talk for hours about family and friends and childhood pets. She didn’t ask him any of that; she already knew his answers.
Instead she told him about her tenure as Secret Assistant to the Regional Manager and when he was squeezing her hand and laughing so hard he couldn’t speak, she found the courage to bring up the sorts of issues that shouldn’t even have existed on a first date. She asked him why a golden yogurt lid brought all this on when burnt feet and blunt truth couldn’t.
He confused himself with metaphors and analogies and in the end he just shrugged and told her it was all down to the yogurt lid because the yogurt lid was just everything. She smiled at him like there was no-one else in her world and he knew she understood.
She showed him her apartment and her artwork, grabbing his lapels and kissing him suddenly when his eyes shone with honest admiration. When they lay in her bed, he told her he loved all the changes she’d made. She ruffled his short hair and smiled, but she couldn’t say the same to him. She told him she liked it better as it was and when he agreed they both knew they weren’t talking about his haircut.
They like to lose whole Sundays to newsprint and ruffled white sheets.
He always gets up before her to fetch the paper and skim the Sports section just so he can fight her for the Arts and Entertainment when she wakes. He lets her win so he can pull her into his arms and read it over her shoulder. He doesn’t try to cast the paper away and pull her back under the covers until they’ve passed the cartoons. She won’t let him succeed until they’ve finished the Sudoku. He never tries harder to finish a puzzle than he does on Sunday mornings.
She carries a picture of him in her wallet, and he treasures one of her.
It’s his High School yearbook picture that greets her when she pulls open her wallet these days. He keeps a funny little sketch she did of herself for him.
They fight.
They don’t fight about money or old relationships.
They fight about the future because they’re both scared a present this good can’t last.
He worries that her art will keep raising her up until one day she’ll look down and realize a paper salesman isn’t good enough for her.
She worries that she can never live up to the imagined relationship he longed for. She thinks the pedestal he puts her on is so high that the inevitable fall will break both of them.
They make up.
She tells him that she can’t succeed without him. She tells him how her first art show was full of mediocre aspects of the dull, mundane life she was living. She pulls her latest piece out and shows him how it’s alive and bright and honest. She tells him she can do her art anywhere, as long as he’s there. His being a paper salesman doesn’t matter to her, but it’s not good enough for him and she knows he sees that.
After a moment he nods and smiles. When he pulls her into his arms with an apology, she doesn’t need to hear it. He kisses her and she knows that argument is over.
He yells that he does know she’s not perfect. He tells her that she’s too quiet sometimes, that she still takes too much from her colleagues without standing up for herself and that she’s just as afraid to leave Dunder Mifflin as he is. He rants that she’s always on his mind and he’d thought that if he ever actually got to be with her, she might not drive him crazy anymore.
He leaves a moment for his honesty to sink in and then he looks her in the eye and tells her that he’d rather spend five minutes with the real her than a lifetime dreaming of a perfect version that doesn’t exist. He takes a deep breath and tells her that in the morning her curls are a complete mess and he absolutely loves her.
After a long moment in which he wonders if he proved his point about her flaws a little too well, she suddenly smiles and rushes into his arms. When she kisses him he knows that argument is over.
They share their dreams.
Now she draws on plain white office paper they steal from work. He writes Sports stories on the back of half finished drawings. She pins up the ones she likes and he turns them over to show off her drawings instead.
They love each other.
He sometimes thinks they might be the only couple in existence to make the phrase, “I hate you” mean the same as, “I love you.”
They hold hands and bicker in supermarkets on rainy Wednesdays, just like he imagined they could.
As much as he loves being that ordinary couple that bicker in the cereal aisle, the second glance that reveals they’re fighting over who gets the toy out of the box this week is what he really treasures.
That is everything.
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it :)
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