***

because christmas is the time to tell people how you feel..

She has her hands on her hips and she inhales deeply, sighing, as she glances around their bedroom. Boxes everywhere, masking tape scattered about, cardboard; the works. There was certainly work to be done and it was a miracle she could even stand in the room.

They both clearly owned too much crap. At least they already had their bed set up. Bonus?

An hour later, she was nodding her head to whatever song Jim had blaring from the living room and she thought she even had the room semi-organized. Maybe. Possibly. It's not as if she has never been through this process before, but she really had forgotten how tedious the process of merging two lives into one was. Not that she was complaining, she thought with a smile, she had a good feeling about it this time around.

She glanced at the diamond on her finger, sparkling as the light outside shined against it, as if the ring actually knew what she was thinking. Yeah. She thinks maybe it'll work out alright.

She stumbled onto a box labeled JIM - CARDS/LETTERS and when she opened it, she grinned, kind of weirdly touched that he was one of those people. You know, the ones that save everything; he even kept the envelopes! Who does that!? Well, she did too, but yeah. She thinks it's just another reason to add to the long list of why her fiancee is so amazing.

(It'll take a while for her to get used to that. Fiancee. Jim. Fiancee!)

She half-heartedly flips through them, giggling at the snowmen, and race cars, and birthday cakes. She spied a few graduation caps and a bottle of beer, and one of a skin-clad woman with a police cap on and snorted with laughter. Clearly, these went pretty far back and she was tempted to read through them but figured that was too slight an invasion of privacy. Maybe she'd tease Jim about it later and use it as an excuse to read the best ones.

She's ready to close the box and move onto the next one when something catches her eye. It's a plain white envelope, obviously a card, with one word scribbled on the front.

Pam.

She cocks her head sideways in confusion; it wasn't a card that she'd given him, she knew that much. She picked it up and held it in her hands, studying it like it was some complicated calculous equation to solve. It must have been a card he wanted to give her, but hadn't? Yet? Didn't want to? Forgot to? Whatever.

She flipped it in her hands and the flap was folded into the envelope, so all she had to do was open it.. bring the card out.. read it..

What was that she was talking about earlier? Invasion of privacy or some shit? "It's not a big deal.. whatever it is.." She whispers to herself. "Really now."

Fuck it. She's too curious to put it away and forget about it. And yes, she's aware of that age-old saying about curiosity killing the cat but she shakes her head of those thoughts and opens the envelope, sliding the card out of it's perfect slot.

She immediately laughs when she sees the front of it, covering her mouth to stifle her giggles. (Not that he'd hear her with the music, but still.) She laughed again, as she opened the card and smiled, wondering where this had came from.

She leans back against the bed to read.

She slowly closes the card when she finishes, blinking furiously. She would not cry, she wouldn't. Because.. there was no reason to and. But still, as she stared at the baby Jesus and Mary, her throat tightens and she can barely see it as her eyes pool and goddamn it.

She stands and is down the hallway before she even think about it. She's down the stairs in record pace and she scans the living room quickly, noting the music was still going but he was nowhere to be found. She enters the kitchen and he's there, leaning against the kitchen counter, a beer in his hand, laughing at whatever Mark's talking about.

He still takes her breath away.

There's no way he could have heard her enter the room but he turns to look at her, his smile radiating. "Hey! We were just talking about getting something to eat. Pizza sound good?"

She doesn't answer him, doesn't say anything, as she moves to stand in front of him in two large strides. She grabs his face and pulls him to her, kissing him. It takes him a moment to respond but he does, like it's second nature, and his arms encircle her, pulling her closer. She's holding onto his face like it's her lifeline and her eyes are clinched shut and her heart feels like it's on fire and she know she's shaking but she doesn't care, she just kisses him like it's the last thing she'll do, like it's the only thing that matters.

When she finally does pull away, and opens her eyes, she notes the gazed look on his face and any other time, she'd laugh but she just stares at him and watches as he opens his eyes and thinks and wonders if she would ever really know the pain she caused him. If she would ever be able to repair it.

"Wow.." He murmurs. He's smiling but it quickly fades when he looks at her, closely. "Hey.." He asks softly, concern on his face. "Have you been crying?"

She backs away suddenly, glancing back apologetically at Mark, who couldn't look more uncomfortable. She turns back to Jim and offers a timid smile. "I'm.. I'm good," she gestures to behind her. "Just going to go finish what I was doing."

She doesn't give him any time to respond or stop her as she quickly escapes and makes her way back up the stairs.

She plops down onto the bed when she enters the bedroom again, and groans softly. She's not really sure what that was all about or why she ran away and she's definitely not sure why she's so emotional and weird about finding a stupid Christmas card.

Except it's not so stupid. She grabs the card from the floor and opens it again, and reads it over and over like it's something she needs to memorize. She'd always known that Jim loved her, that he had for quite a while. That's not a secret at all, but when she thinks about how he wrote this card.. these wonderfully, amazing, thoughtful words that would have changed everything, and how he never gave it to her. Just.. held onto it. It's just.. sometimes the depth of how Jim loves her, all that he was forced to suffer through because he loved her is something that both humbles her and makes her feel like absolute crap.

She can feel him, standing against the doorway a moment before he enters their bedroom, closing the door behind him.

She doesn't look at him, just leans into him as he lays down next to her. "I'm sorry I'm a drama queen, by the way."

He chuckles softly and kisses her hair, sighing into it. "You okay?"

She sighs deeply and nods. She hands him the card and lifts her head to look at him. "I suppose this is what I get for reading it without your permission."

His eyes grow wide and he stares at her a minute before shaking his head. "Don't worry about it," he says softly as he reads the card. He shakes his head and laughs. "It's been a while since I've seen this." He smiles softly and scrunches his nose as he looks at her, forcing her to smile. "Totally not a big deal, this, you know that, right?"

"Why didn't you give it to me?" She asks, not entirely sure she wants to hear the answer.

He shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know, planned to. Just wimped out, I guess."

She props her head into her hand and gazes at him, squinting at him. "What if you had?"

"What if I had?" He sighs and moves to lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. He doesn't say anything for a moment before he reaches for her, pulling her to him. She settles against his chest and he plays with her hair, taking a few more moments before he speaks again. "It doesn't matter, Pam. We've been through this before, and we're in a really, really good place now."

She moves to look at him. "Absolutely," she agrees, whispering. "Amazing, really."

"And we've been through too much since to backtrack, so. You can just stop feeling so guilty when something from.. before.. pops back up again, okay? We're going to be married, we have a house, and.. just.. we don't need to think about that stuff anymore."

She takes in a deep breath and smiles. "Okay." She says, kissing him. "Yes to all of that."

He stares at her intensely, his eyes never leaving hers. "You have to know," he begins, whispering. "You have to know what no matter what happened before, the pain, and us hurting each other; that I don't care about that at all, I don't even think of it, because this.." he gestures between them. "It was totally worth it. I'd do it all again if it'd meant we'd have this."

She moves to lay on top of him and covers his face in kisses, before nestling her face into his neck, and literally feels herself relax and settle when he wraps his arms around her, holding her tightly. She sighs into his neck and smiles. "I love you so much."

She squeals, laughing with delight when he flips them over, so he's above her. He rests his arms beside her head and kisses her softly. "Love you too."

She runs her hands underneath his shirt, enjoying the warmth of his back. She wraps her arms around his waist and smiles when he kisses her neck. "Before you get any brilliant ideas, Mark's still downstairs."

"Yeaaaaah. He excused himself when you had your meltdown."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, I think he saw it as an excuse to go see Marla."

"And escape furniture duty."

"Probably." Jim begins to work on the buttons of her shirt. "Buuuut, I see it as a perfect excuse to christen our awesome new bed."

"I thought we already did that."

"What? I don't know what you're talking about."

He's removing her shirt and she's working on his pants when she kisses his ear and tells him that he should give her a Christmas card this year.

"Of course. I'll be sure to go into explicit detail about how I hate you."

"Yeah, you do that."

***