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.
I do not own these characters, because if I did I would sell Jim's brothers and buy him some new ones.
Preface:
After Jim and Pam’s lunch with Jim’s brothers, we see brief footage of Jim and Pam shopping.
We see the camera crew sneaking into Pam’s dorm room and focusing on a microphone behind the headboard of Pam’s bunk.
We see Jim and Pam return to Pam’s room that evening after dinner.
After Jim and Pam go in, the crew sneaks up the stairs behind them and parks outside of Pam’s room.
We can hear inside the room, but the camera lens is focused the whole time on the outside of Pam’s dorm room door: Pam Beesly RA
Camera focuses on a sign that says “45 Minutes Deleted for Content”
[Suffice to say the listener assumes that, as this aired scene begins, Jim and Pam are lying under the sheets in Pam’s bed in a state of undress]
[PAM] You going to sleep?
[JIM] Nah. I wanna just lie here [pauses] with you.
[PAM] This is nice. I miss you. My feet get cold you know, I have to wear socks to bed.
[JIM in fake angst] I'm just an elaborate foot warmer to you, aren't I?
[PAM] Yeah that's pretty much it. [rustling noises] Hey, scoot over a little.
[JIM] Okay. Ouch!
[PAM] Sorry. Spooning work for you?
[JIM] I think it would work better if we both turned over.
I mean you’re sort of a sugar spoon and I’m kind of an iced tea spoon. So. . . it fits better if the teaspoon bends around the sugar spoon, like this. [muffled sounds] Especially in this hobbit bed.
[PAM] Okay. [giggles]
few minutes of silence
[JIM] Hey, about my brothers…
[PAM] It’s really okay...
[JIM interrupts] No, you’re allowed to think they’re jerks, because they are sometimes.
[PAM] I just want to fit in, you know, with your family.
[JIM] I know. I’m not sure I do, though. Fit in. Myself. With my family.
[PAM] All brothers and sisters do mean things to each other sometimes.
[JIM] Yeah? What’s the meanest thing your sister ever did to you?
[PAM] She threw my favorite house shoes on the fire one Christmas. Burned them to a crisp.
[JIM] Whoa.
[PAM] Well, to be fair, I’d gotten her in trouble with my parents. I got her grounded for the week of a concert she wanted to go to. With a guy.
[JIM] Wow, so you’ve got a mean streak? Good to know in advance.
[PAM] She deserved it. [snickers and then gets more serious] What’s the meanest thing your brothers ever did to you?
[JIM, after a few seconds of silence] When I was a junior in high school, Tom came home to visit one weekend that spring with Marcy, they hadn’t been married that long. So, of course I got pushed out to sleep on the couch so they could have the double bed in my room. I’d been working on writing these sports articles because I wanted to be the sports reporter for the school paper my senior year. I kept them in this red notebook – it was just sitting there on my desk in my room - I didn’t think anything about it. [muffled sound]
Wait, gotta move my arm, my hand’s asleep.
[PAM] Sorry, okay. Keep going.
[JIM] So the next night at dinner, we’re all sitting around the table talking and Tom says something like,”So listen to this everybody, looks like Jimmy wants to be a sports writer. “ And then he proceeds to read out loud some lines from the articles I’d written, and of course picks the reeeeally lame ones. Not that there weren’t a lot of those. And of course everybody had a good laugh.
[PAM, sympathetically] Oh man.
[JIM] Oh, that’s not the bad part.
[PAM] Yikes.
[JIM] So Sunday after Tom and Marcy leave, my dad sits me down in the den for a “man to man” talk.
[PAM groans]
[JIM] Dad tells me I need to get those "illusions of sportswriting for a living" out of my head. That I need to get serious about a profession, and not waste my time on “silly stuff.” And he says that if he’s going to help me pay for college, I need to major in something useful, like business, that would lead to a job so I could support my family someday.
I finally spoke up and asked him if he’d actually read any of my articles. [Jim's voice softens, defeated] He. . .said he didn’t have to. . .it didn’t matter.
[PAM says something so quietly it’s not picked up by the mike]
[JIM] Yeah, but he meant well. He really thought he was doing the right thing. [is silent for a minute] We’re never gonna to do that to our kids. I mean, we’re going to do the right thing. But - not that. [another minute of silence]
Beesly, why are you smiling?
[PAM, amazed] How can you tell?
[JIM] I just can.
[PAM, accusing] You’re smiling, too.
[JIM] Well - thinking about our kids makes me smile.
[PAM] Me, too.
[JIM] I mean, I know we’re not ready for that yet. But . . .how does that work, anyway, you know? How do people have. . . kids?
[PAM, conspiring] Well, I've read that you put tab A into slot A, and, you know, on like that. I’ve seen pictures.
[JIM] I bet you have. Hmmm. Sounds complicated. Maybe we should practice, you know, just so when the time comes, we get it exactly right?
[PAM] You have a point. Maybe we should.
We hear muffled sounds just briefly, and then a loud crunching sound, then nothing but static after that.
We hear the camera man sigh, and then turn the camera off.
Story Notes:
This scene just kept bouncing around in my head so I wrote it down.
Chapter End Notes:
Reviews are appreciated. Except from Jim's dad.
jazzfan is the author of 16 other stories.
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