She should go home, because she knows Roy will probably want dinner. Instead, she stays after to help him clean up. At one point, she’s up on her tiptoes precariously, trying to pull down some length of twine stretched from wall to wall, when she feels his hand land firmly on her back. She shudders for a second, because it’s like that hand belongs there. But then she realizes he’s reaching up to pull down the string she’d been trying to get; of course, with his height advantage, it was far easier for him. He beams down at her when he catches her looking at him, and Pam damns the flush she feels behind her cheeks.
“I think we should each get a souvenir,” Jim remarks at the end of the cleanup. They both have big boxes cradled in their arms. “Medals or the doves?” He shakes his head. “Wait. No way you don’t get the doves. You worked way too hard on those.”
“No, really. It’s mindless. You take them.” She grins. “I can wear the medals like jewelry, anyway. I need a new necklace.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.” She sets down the box of doves she has, and takes the medals from him. “I’ll go put these in my desk now.”
“I hope you know I totally ripped you off there, Beesly.”
“I can live with it.” Her smile spreads. “If you buy me a soda sometime next week.”
“Ouch. You strike a tough bargain.” He grabs his coat, having picked up the box of doves, and then he turns around to look at her in the way that makes her pause too often. He’s not quite squinting, but that’s the best word she’d use to describe it. “Only the best for the best, though.” Then, almost the next second, he’s out the door. Her cheeks almost ache, she’s been smiling so much today.
*
“What should I do with this?” Mark holds up a box. Jim’s heart bumps up a few steps, because it’s the worst possible time to re-discover that. Mark opens the box, and peeks inside. “Like a million origami doves? Is this a secret hobby you’re not telling me about?” He chuckles.
Dump it. Tell him to dump it. For your sanity. “Might as well keep it. Tape it up and put it in one of the other boxes,” Jim mutters, wincing a second after. If Mark notices it, he doesn’t say anything, probably chalking it up to his other strange behavior lately. After all, he didn’t even question the move to Connecticut, or the fact that he'd come home last Thursday after the fundraiser and just sat in a stool in the kitchen, staring at nothing.
*
Pam opens the bottom drawer of her desk and, almost automatically, her hand flies to her mouth. She had completely forgotten the yogurt lids, glinting gold and blue like gems. The truth is, this sort of thing was happening way too often lately; nearly every day before May, Jim had drawn some dumb sketch or wrote her some smartass note that she’d laughed at, then thrown in a desk drawer. She’d been stashing away her own feelings – that seemed obvious to her now.
She hauls the box of medals out on the desk, poking through them briefly, and contemplates getting rid of them. Like she has way too often lately, she glances over at Ryan. It’s easy to remember how much it hurt when she saw him dump his medal into the garbage, while Jim’s hung over his lamp, like a talisman, for at least two weeks. When it finally disappeared, even though she never asked, somehow she knew he didn’t throw it out. She sighs and shoves the medals back in the desk. The memories will always be there, at least.
*
Pam almost writes “love,” but there’s no more room on the paper and she doesn’t want to push it too far. She’s not exactly sure where her words are coming from, anyway. She’s annoyed that Karen felt the need to treat her like a personal secretary and still twitches over her residual nerves from the beach. More importantly, the past few days, Jim’s turned around in his chair to smile at her more than is necessary. It’s getting to be just an iota like old times, and with that slight promise, she can’t let him walk out the door so easily. The last time she let him leave without protesting, the repercussions hurt too much.
The sound of the stapler, when she attaches the medal, is hollow but satisfying. Later, she tells Karen, “Here you go,” and hands over the folder with a big smile. It’s genuine. No one can say she did nothing.
*
“Before anything else,” Jim says, when they’re both sitting down, “I need to give you something.” Pam’s eyebrows pull up, for just a second, while Jim’s hand rummages in the pocket of his pants. After a few seconds, his hand emerges, triumphant, and pushes something across the table at Pam. “That’s yours,” he tells her, and her smile's as wide as his had been across the card table a year ago. Her eyes laugh just as much.
What he’d passed her was a little flattened out, probably from being in his pocket, and the edges weren’t as sharp as they had been on the day she spent making it, when so many of these objects had spotted the office on a length of string. But its shape was unmistakable: a simple white origami bird. Pam shakes her head in amazement, or maybe simply wonder. “You got my note,” she laughs, with a huge, nearly dazed smile.
“I got your note.”
Medals by bigtunette
Author's Chapter Notes:
A few little drabbles, sort of based on "Office Olympics." As always, I don't own The Office.
bigtunette is the author of 7 other stories.
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