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.
Author’s Note Remember me? Anyone? It’s certainly been a while. I haven’t written any Jim/Pam in ages but after ‘The Delivery’ I got the urge to write this wonderful pairing again and now I’m back, I have all these ideas bouncing around in my head. Unbetaed so apologies for any mistakes.
~
Plan A was marrying her a long, long time ago. Pretty much the day I met her.
~
Jim’s crisp new shirt is stiff and uncomfortable, the collar starched into an awkwardly pointed curve that’s been rubbing against his neck since he put it on. He waits nervously by the Reception desk for his manager, trying to ignore that half the office is openly staring at him.
The girl nearest to him smiles politely over the Reception counter as he tries to discreetly smooth out the crease in his shirt, the one that still outlines how it had been folded in the store.
“Do you want to get settled at your desk?” she offers after a moment.
“That’d be great,” Jim agrees eagerly, glad of something to distract him from the overwhelming urge to loosen his tie or undo his cuffs or maybe, just maybe, run for his life.
The Receptionist comes around the front of her desk and contrary to what he will argue in years to come, the first thing Jim notices about her is not her smile, or her hair, or her eyes. It is her Keds.
Despite his nervousness, he smiles.
“I’m Pam by the way,” she tells him as she comes to stand beside him.
“Pam, right, nice to meet you. I’m Jim.”
“... Yeah I know. We don’t get a lot of new faces around here so you’re kind of big news.”
“Oh, great,” he deadpans.
She smiles sympathetically at him and points the way to his desk. Before they reach it, they’re stopped by a man with an armful of paperwork and a mumbled greeting that Jim doesn’t really catch.
“Jim this is Toby, he’s our HR guy,” Pam introduces him. “You come to hijack him already?”
“I thought it might be better to do the paperwork now, y’know before Michael...” Jim can’t help but notice that although Toby’s talking to him, he’s only looking at Pam.
“Probably a good idea,” Pam agrees, stepping back behind her desk. “I’ll come get you in about an hour or so,” she tells him, “we’ll get you all sorted with office supplies.”
“Thanks.”
There are what seems like an unnecessarily large number of forms to sign and though Toby seems nice enough, his desk is in a depressingly windowless section of the office that Jim prays is not going to be his as well. There’s little to distract him from the uncomfortable pinch of his tie as he signs form after form and Jim’s nerves make him fill every gap in conversation with increasingly pathetic attempts at small talk.
By the time Pam reappears, Jim is very glad to see her.
“Having fun so far?” she asks as they make their way back to the main office. She’s watching him with a look that suggests she already knows the answer.
“One hour fifteen minutes of it.”
“Time checking already? Not a good sign.” She looks at her watch and then, “Ooh! One hour sixteen minutes now.”
He smiles down at her. “Awesome.”
Pam looks up at him for a moment, as if considering something and then smiles, seemingly decided. Next minute she leans in towards him a little, as though to whisper. Instinctually he moves in closer too, catching a hint of some sort of floral scent from her hair.
In a serious tone that does not match the sudden amusement dancing in her eyes, she tells him, “Now I want you to remember this moment. Because you can never go back to this time before you met your desk-mate Dwight.”
“What?” He laughs, though he doesn’t know what’s funny. She seems to have that effect on him. That weird, dizzying, drop-in-your-stomach, hitch-in-your-breathing sort of effect.
She bites back a smile. “Just enjoy it. Trust me, you’ll understand soon enough.”
“Oook,” he agrees, lengthening out the word to underline his confusion.
She smiles brightly at him and Jim finds himself smiling back automatically, a little dazed.
As they reach his new desk she makes a little “ta-da” gesture with her hands. “Three drawers, one lamp ... and I’ll throw in some stationary.”
He nods, feigning the thoughtful look of a potential buyer. “And the view?”
“Some would say picturesque.”
“Previous owners?”
“None.”
“Ah a new build. Interesting.”
She laughs again. He likes that.
‘It’s the neighbour that might be a problem,” she tells him in hushed tones. “Dwight, this is Jim Halpert, the new salesman,” she announces, raising her voice back to normal.
Dwight does not look up from his work, merely reaches into his desk drawer and deposits a sheet of paper from within onto the smooth surface of Jim’s new desk.
“I am Dwight K. Schrute, Assistant Regional Manager,” he introduces himself pompously, still not actually looking at Jim. “Those are the fifteen rules I have drawn up for the purpose of our peaceful coexistence. Read them immediately.”
“I’ll let you get onto that,” Pam says, her voice shaking with suppressed laughter.
Jim watches her for a few moments, trying to be subtle about it. She is biting back a laugh and her cheeks are flushed pink with the effort of keeping calm. He can’t help but notice that she looks really, very, very completely inconveniently pretty.
He drags his gaze away and picks up Dwight’s printout. Jim is reading rule one (Maintain a clear line at all times between each desk) when Michael, his new boss, appears by his side. He seizes his hand and shakes it in an exaggerated way that moves his whole arm up and down before marching him off on a tour of the office.
For the next hour he is whisked around by Michael and by the time they’ve finished, Jim is fairly certain that even if he can’t yet remember anybody’s names, at least he won’t forget any of the singularly inappropriate facts Michael chose to introduce them with. Even if he wants to.
“Michael,” Pam stops him as they return to beside her desk after a tour of the warehouse. “There’s a call for you. It’s urgent.”
“Jim I have an urgent business call,” Michael repeats, looking pleased with himself.
“I heard,” Jim nods.
“Ok! So Pam has stocked your desk with some Dunder Mifflin high quality office paper and some stationary and Dwight can set you up on the system.”
The second Michael’s door closes, Pam turns to Jim and admits, “It’s not urgent. You just looked like you could use a break.”
“Thank you.” He steps closer to her desk, dropping his elbows onto the counter. “Is ... is he always -” he trails off, unsure where exactly he’s going with that sentence.
“Pretty much,” Pam answers his unfinished question.
“And Dwight?”
“Yep.” She nudges the dish of jellybeans towards him sympathetically. “Candy?”
“Actually it’s Jim,” he says, the joke slipping out before he can stop himself.
Pam actually snorts. ”You know you do look like a Candy.”
“I get that all the time,” he agrees, heading back over to his desk.
By lunch, Dwight has gone through rules one to five and Jim is beginning to wonder what would happen if he just went home and didn’t come back. He won’t of course, can’t really afford to anyway, but it’s a tempting thought.
He enters the break room nervously, choosing a table by himself and ignoring the fact that everyone in there is looking at him. He’s halfway into a sandwich when he realises the room has now emptied, leaving just him and Pam, sat at a table a few feet away.
“How is it going so far?
Jim looks at her for a moment, contemplating a lie. But she’s looking sideways at him like she might just understand and Jim kind of likes her so he just shakes his head and drops it like a lead weight onto the table.
“This tie is choking me,” he says, eyes closed and voice muffled by the table.
“Then loosen it,” she says matter-of-factly.
“It’s a metaphorical choking,” he tells her, raising his head to meet her gaze.
"Oh."
She’s watching him, sympathetic and interested and so very pretty in a way that he bets she doesn’t even realise.
“I never wear ties,” he admits. “I feel like a fraud.”
“Want to know a secret?” she says, looking at him over her coke can with wide eyes.
“Always.”
“Everyone feels like that sometimes.”
“Fake it ‘til you make it, huh?”
“Exactly.”
He nods. She smiles. And just like that, he feels better.
“I’m sure I’ll be fine. I can sell paper, no problem and everyone here seems really ...” he falters here, unable to lie.
“-crazy?” Pam offers.
“Yes!” He says, hugely relieved. “I was a little afraid that no-one had noticed.”
“Yeah no-one has,” Pam tells him, looking a little relieved herself. He wonders if she’s glad she met him. He likes that idea.
“So what you’re saying is you’re pretty much the only sane one here?”
Pam gestures between them both. “And then there were two.”
She pokes out the chair next to her with her foot and he takes it, moving over to sit beside her for the rest of lunch. He rolls up his sleeves, loosens his tie and feels a bit more like himself.
That afternoon, when Dwight has gone through the rest of his rules in excruciating detail, Pam jumps in to save him again.
“Dwight, you’ve got an urgent call.”
Jim shoots a grateful look over to Reception and Pam smiles back at him. She is all innocence save for a spark of amusement in her eyes that makes his stomach drop in a way that is not entirely unpleasant.
When Dwight finishes his call, Jim breaks rules two and seven just to see what will happen.
Pam laughs, her whole face lighting up.
Jim watches her for just a moment too long and thinks, suddenly, fleetingly, “Yeah, I’m gonna marry that girl.”
He does not know it yet, but that thought is going to stick around.
~
:)
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