Season 4:
”Fever” (Ray Charles & Natalie Cole)
Lyrics
I get a fever that's so hard to bear
Pam knows that she’s a grown woman and not a teenage girl. Yet, she can’t help the blush that tints her face every time she looks at Jim. And she does it a lot. Sometimes he’ll catch her looking and give her a wide smile, which only makes her blush even more. Sometimes when he’s engrossed in his work (admittedly rarely), she is able to look at him freely without the guilt or unfilled longing of early times. And that would make her blush too because it would occur to her that he was all hers.
At home, doing nothing more than cuddling on the couch watching TV, her face would become a bit warm at his closeness. Or when they’re cooking together in her tiny kitchen and he’s finding all sorts of excuses to put his hands on her. Or walking in the park and they’re just holding hands. And when they’re in bed, wrapped tightly around one another, her blush is of another reason altogether.
The truth is: all of it is the result of the pleasure of knowing they are finally together.
Fever all through the night
It’s our first night away together. The phrase kept going through Jim’s head as he looked at a sleeping Pam in his arms. As soon as the door closed behind Dwight and Mose, he’d pushed the beds together. There was no way they were sleeping apart tonight. And now, after coming back from Dwight’s room and seeing his misery, the phrase went through his mind again as that once familiar lovesick feeling came over him.
He and Pam had talked about this before, on occasions when he’d wake up in the middle of the night, aching and lovesick for her, the way he had when they were ‘just friends’. He just couldn’t stop himself from drowsily reaching for her, kissing her awake, pushing so deeply inside her that it almost seemed like one of the erotic dreams that he would have BP, Before Pam.
Now, looking at her, Jim knew that this was one of those nights when love and lust for her overwhelmed him and the only way he could calm those jumbled feelings was to thrust inside her, to feel her wrapped around him. It was the post-coital bliss, when she’s half on top of him, one leg between his that calmed him.
And he knew that she understood when he slowly kissed her awake. It only took her a moment to look in his eyes and draw her tank top over her head, to reach beneath the covers and cup him in her hands. It only took a moment for her to shift onto her back and open herself to him, encouraging him to fill her. When she wrapped her arms around him and breathed I love you in his ear, he thought: This is bliss.
Moon lights up the night
I light up when you call my name
“Who is it?”
Pam looked up at her sister from her cell phone, not realizing the smile hovering at her lips. “What?”
Penny and Isabel exchanged a look and simultaneously said, “It’s Jim.”
Pam blushed. “Um, yeah. How’d you guys know? He just called to…why are you guys smiling like that?”
“Because Pam,” Isabel told her best friend. “It’s so obvious when Jim calls you. You have this perma-grin attached to your face.”
Before Pam could protest, Penny nodded. “Yup, you do. By the way, you wouldn’t make a good poker player.”
Penny smiled and hugged her sister’s side as the trio walked to the next store.
-----
“Pam!”
Even before turning around, Pam already knew it was her boyfriend and grinned widely as she looked over her shoulder at him.
As he walked across the parking lot of her apartment, she said, “You’re early!”
“I know. But I had packed my stuff already.” Jim replied when he reached her. He leaned down to kiss her lips in greeting. “Why do you look extra happy?”
Pam just shrugged as she opened the door to her apartment. “No reason.” But the smile in her eyes told Jim differently.
-----
“It’s Pam.” Larissa said to her mom as both looked on at Jim from the kitchen window. He was smiling and laughing as he talked on the phone.
Pete chimed in, “It’s definitely Pam. Did you see the goofy look on his face when he answered?”
Sure enough, the first thing Jim said when he walked through the kitchen door was, “Pam called to say that she’s on her way here and…what are you guys shaking your heads at?”
Fever started long time ago
Jim guessed he shouldn’t be surprised at the lack of surprise among the documentary crew when he showed them the engagement ring he’d bought for Pam. After all, these were the same people who had captured, on camera, the lows and highs of his story with Pam. And he shouldn’t have been surprised when his parents just smiled and nodded when he told them of his plans to marry Pam. After all, these were the same two people who worried and fretted over his move to Stamford and correctly assumed that it had something to do with a woman they’d never met. And it wouldn’t have surprised his siblings or friends if they knew, even if they would have ribbed him about it.
Most of all, it didn’t surprise him that he’d already bought Pam’s ring. It wasn’t a secret that he was crazy in love with her. Nor was it a secret that now that they were together, they were permanent, as in, til death do us part. He knew it since practically the first moment he laid eyes on her. He knew it through their friendship, even when she wouldn’t admit it to herself. He knew it when he left and came back, even when he wouldn’t admit it to himself. And he definitely knew when he picked her up that night he came back from New York, when everything was finally right for the first time in so long and she held him close and whispered how much she missed him.
All that was left to do was find the right time and the right place. But all of those didn’t matter that much because he already had the right woman--the only one for him.
“Achoo!”
“I don’t think we’ll ever get better.” Pam said, bleary eyes and sniffy nose.
“Yeah...but at least we’ll die together.”
She swatted him weakly. “Don’t make me laugh! My throat hurts. And this is your fault.”
He pulled her a bit closer and drew the blankets more tightly over them. “Shhh…the cold medicine is kicking in. We’ll be better after a good night’s sleep.”
