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Story Notes:
I'm fascinated with Jim's psychological history and this is my conjecture as to what some of it might be.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Many thanks to Callisto and NanReg for their invaluable help on this one.
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.





It was a quiet ride home from work that day in Jim’s Saab. She wouldn’t say it was exactly tense, but the events of the day hung heavy in the air. Pam had seen a lot of Jim Halpert’s moods, both before they were a couple and now, more intimately, but she had never seen him in a funk quite like this.

He drove silently, except to give brief responses to her occasional attempts at conversation. Ironically, he looked as neat and handsome in his tux as he had that morning, and he hadn’t so much as undone the top button to his shirt or removed his bowtie yet.

When they got home, she trotted upstairs quickly and threw on some jeans and a t shirt. When she came back down and found Jim thumbing through the mail, he looked up at her and morosely said, “Bills.” She offered to start dinner and he thanked her, disappearing upstairs into their bedroom. The shower ran for a long time, and afterward he reappeared downstairs in a hoody and jeans, hair tousled and wet. He only looked slightly less stressed.

He helped with dinner, microwaving the peas and setting the table, but he pushed his chicken around on his plate in a convoluted journey through the rice, eating little, and talking even less. She knew from experience better than to pressure him, so as difficult as it was, she let him stew. He insisted on cleaning up after dinner, so she went on to do some laundry, in hopes that she could reach him later in the evening.

Pam finished folding the last of the whites, and walked through the house to look for him. She finally caught a glimpse of him through the kitchen window, out on the patio sitting in a lawn chair, looking out into the darkness of their backyard.

She put on her coat, and remembering he just had on the hoody, tucked his jacket under her arm. As she headed out the back door, she breathed in the chilly March night air - it smelled earthy and alive. It was one of those early spring nights when mother nature promises what will soon come.

He didn’t turn to look at her, but spoke, “Hear the frogs?”

“Yes,” she said, acknowledging the loud “peep peep peep” coming from the neighbor’s landscape pool.

“Those are spring peepers.” Jim stated. “I used to know all the frog calls in this area.”

She walked over to stand behind him, and put her free right hand on his shoulder. He reached with his left hand to cover hers and then he laid his head down sideways, embracing their hands between his head and shoulder. He remained like that for a couple of minutes before he straightened up and dropped his hand back to his lap.

He sighed deeply. “Frogs first appeared in the Triassic Period, did you know that?”

“Really? “ Not what she was expecting him to say, but then again, she didn’t really know what to expect.

“Yeah.”

Pam unfolded his jacket. “Lean forward,” she requested, as she helped him put his arms into the sleeves. Once he pulled his jacket closed in the front, she wrapped her arms around his neck from behind and gave him a little hug.

“Thanks,” he said, finally glancing back at her for a moment. She recognized the invitation.

Pam unfolded another lawn chair and sat it next to his, chair arms almost touching, and buttoned her coat tightly before she sat down. The frogs kept up their chant insistently, “peep peep peep” and she waited. Finally, the words came pouring out.

“I had this teacher in fifth grade for science and social studies. His name was Mr. Westner.” Jim paused to snap his coat closed and then continued. “He was horrible – the school had hired him to coach the JV football team, and that’s all he really cared about. But he had to teach something so they stuck him with us. You need to know first that when I was in elementary school, I was obsessed with dinosaurs. ” She was watching him intently and he turned his head to smile at her briefly, maybe to see if she thought it was stupid.

“I bet you knew all of them.”

“Yeah, I did. I was a dinosaur dork,” he admitted, crossing his arms and holding them in toward his body.

Pam chuckled kindly, and Jim went on.

“One day Mr. Westner was “teaching” us about prehistoric eras and periods and stuff, and he mentioned the Cambrian. And he said that was when the dinosaurs lived. Well, I knew that wasn’t true, so I raised my hand and very respectfully – I thought -,“ Jim said with a shrug, “pointed out that the Cambrian ended 500 million years ago, way before the dinosaurs appeared.”

"So he singles me out in class and calls me a smart aleck, and says since I think I know so much about the dinosaurs I need to write a five page report on them, and he only gave me a couple of days to turn it in."

“That was mean.”

“Well, yeah, I guess it was, but I didn’t mind that much because I liked reading about dinosaurs and I wanted to prove to him that what I’d said was right. So I checked out a bunch of library books and stayed up late the next two nights writing. I picked a dinosaur from each subdivision of the Mesozoic, and found pictures to trace of them. I worked so hard on that.”

“I turned it in on the day he said to, all nice and neat, right there in the middle of his desk that morning.” He uncrossed his arms to feign his action, straightening the imaginary pile of papers. “After we came back from lunch that day, he called me up in front of the class, looked at my paper and copied “I-C-H-T-H-Y-O-S-A-U-R” on the board, and then he asked me how to say it. I’d never heard the name pronounced, I’d just read about them, so I guessed, ”itch – yo –soar” The entire class cracked up, and Westner went ballistic - he accused me of just copying the report word for word out of a book. He sent me to detention because he said no fifth grader could have written that, that I’d plagiarized all of it and he wanted to make an example out of me. I didn’t even know what plagiarism meant.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

“Oh man,” Pam said sympathetically. “What a jerk.”

“When I got home that night I told my dad the whole story of what had happened. He believed me and agreed to go in and talk to the principal, but he also said that correcting the teacher wasn’t a very smart thing to do, and that teachers usually knew best. I pointed out that I was right about the facts, and that Westner was a terrible teacher, but that only got me the the look and he reminded me it was "Mr. Westner." I’d seen Pete and Tom both get the look, so I knew it was time to shut up. My dad did go to the school with me the next day, and I got out of detention, but I was “Itchy Sore” for the rest of the school year to every kid in my class. And of course Westner made my life miserable each and every time he got the chance.”

Pam hooked her arm through his, leaned her head over onto his shoulder, and looked up at him. He met her gaze with dark eyes, and she could see the hurt little boy in them, still angry and humiliated.

He closed his eyes for a moment, sighed again, and looked back out into the yard. “I screwed up today, Pam.” He paused. “ I know that.”

“Maybe you got off on the wrong foot with Minor, but it’ll all work out,” she reassured him. “You’re an asset to the company. They have to know that - your sales record is really, really good, Jim. David Wallace knows you do a great job.”

Jim slowly swiped his face with his free hand. He didn’t look convinced.

“Hey,” she said.

Jim looked over at her again, doubt lingering in his face.

“I love you, Itchy Sore.”

“Jesus, Pam.” He shook his head and snorted a laugh. “Et tu, Beesly?” But the tension had suddenly melted away - she could almost see it drain out of his shoulders as his face cracked into a huge smile. “I love you, you know,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

“I know.”

“What would I do without you?”

“You’d be a mess,” she teased playfully, and he nodded in agreement.

“I can’t feel my toes,” he observed, stamping his feet on the patio.

“My teeth are chattering,” she said, shaking slightly.

“Inside?”

“Definitely,” she said. As they rose from their chairs, they heard a magical
“Who cooks for you,
Who cooks for you,
Who cooks for you allllll”

float down from high in a group of trees across the back fence.

“Barred owl,” Jim said authoritatively.

She smiled when he put his arm around her shoulder, and as they ambled toward the back door, he asked, “So, do you think Charles Minor had his sense of humor surgically removed, or was it a congenital defect?”

She laughed softly, and said in a stern, professor voice, “Ahhh. Hypohumorosity. We see a case of that from time to time.”

“Nice, “ he said as he squeezed her shoulder, and together, they walked back into the warmth of their house.




The End
Chapter End Notes:
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jazzfan is the author of 16 other stories.
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