Story Notes:
Following on from where the show has most recently left off (in the Season 7 finale), my story is an imagined alternative to what will come of Season 8. It focuses on Jim and Pam, and the next twist in their story, but incorporates the ensemble as a backdrop to the relationship. The narrative is told as similarly to in the show itself as possible, with an awareness of the cameras.
If you've seen my "Jim & Pam: The Office Love Story" video, it pretty much just picks up from there, including their entire seven season history.
If you've seen my "Jim & Pam: The Office Love Story" video, it pretty much just picks up from there, including their entire seven season history.
Author's Chapter Notes:
I hope you enjoy this, as nervous as I am about posting. This chapter's more like an introduction as to where I'm headed, I guess.
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.
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.
“Our summer?” Pam grinned as she sat beside her husband in the conference room, reunited with the cameras that made their annual return following another summer at Dunder Mifflin, Scranton.
“Well…” Jim’s expression mirrored Pam’s.
“I became manager!” Pam exclaimed as though she couldn’t keep it in any longer.
“Mm.” Jim nodded proudly beside her with a thoughtful hand covering his mouth, before pausing. “But then, I got Pam pregnant.”
“Good job.” Pam spoke directly to Jim this time.
“Thank you. It was my pleasure.” Jim smirked at his wife.
“But, obviously…”
“Maternity leave.” He finished for her.
“I can afford to take some this time!” Pam spoke proudly.
“Pam’s salary is considerably better now, as a result of her poor sales skills.” Jim explained, comfortable that his comments wouldn’t bother Pam, who nodded along to every word.
“Yes, but I really am better suited to managing sales, rather than making them.”
Jim nodded in agreement before continuing. “So while Pam is on maternity leave, I will be covering as manager, despite my wishes...”
Pam ignored Jim’s ever so slightly bitter tone. “It’s to ensure my job security. I don’t want to get replaced by my cover.”
“And I don’t want to get shot.” Jim added.
“So, this benefits everyone.”
“Obviously, Dwight doesn’t see it that way.” Jim spoke, smugly.
“Or Kelly.” Pam added, with an undertone of warning directed at Jim. “Kelly wanted to be manager of the branch, but more than that, she wanted herself and Ryan to be the ‘power couple of Scranton’.”
“The names of the Clintons, ‘Brangelina’ and the Beckhams were mentioned.” Jim sighed, and the word ‘Brangelina’ was spoken with a distinct judgement of the term.
A separate talking head of Kelly briefly interjects.
“Screw Jim and Pam! Me and Ryan are the Brangelina of this office! And I am a sexy, Indian Hilary! Pam can go running back to John Mayer.”
“But Michael’s happy for us.” Pam commented, back in her talking head beside Jim.
“And by happy for us, Pam means that Michael has sent a musical card every day since we found out.” Jim clarified.
“Michael’s found a website where he can record his own voice to go inside the cards.” Pam continued.
“Which is, frankly, even worse than you might think, considering the comfort that Cece finds in Michael’s musical cards.” Jim sighed.
Pam picked up a pile of cards, her face half amused and half annoyed. “Jim, Jim, Jim, stop banging Pam, stop banging her so haaaaard, or the next baby won’t get a caaaard.” Michael’s voice sang out from the inside of the card, with as much conviction and gusto as the couple remembered of their old boss, and friend. The next one was mellower, “Pam! I’m sorry you’re getting fat, next time get a cat, I am really happy for you, another Halpert to sing to.” The jingles sang out from the cards, some more crude than others. “Big boobs, you’re gonna get… big boobs!”
“I like that one.” Jim quietly commented, before receiving a stern glare from his wife.
“Testing, testing 1, 2, 3. Is this thing on?!” Michael chuckled on the voice recording. Jim and Pam pictured the hours he had sat around recording the messages, with tears in his eyes from laughing.
“He’s also downloaded the pregnancy app, and sends me updates as to how my baby is developing. However, he likes to edit the information a little.” Pam spoke, with an affectionate tone. “Most recently, I was informed that my child is developing the part of its brain that will hold The Simpsons trivia.”
“Which seems difficult since Pam refuses to watch anything except British literary adaptations, period drama and Antiques Roadshow.”
“I want to give birth to a little Jane Austen.” Pam admitted.
“I just want the baby to be healthy… and a boy.” Jim grinned, before retracting his smug facial expression in response to another glare from Pam. “Or girl.”
“We have even reformed The Finer Things Club. Except Kevin is allowed in it now, because I have no one else to eat second lunch with otherwise. Toby appears to be fasting.” Pam continued informing the producers of the updates in the office, happily.
“And Andy.” Jim added.
“Oh yes, that was a bargaining tool so that he wouldn’t send us any musical cards. He found one of Michael’s.” Pam sighed.
“We dodged a bullet there.” Jim spoke only to Pam, in an unnecessarily serious tone of voice.
The office was reasonably quiet but for the occasional ring of the telephone and Erin’s repetitive answer, as well as the sound of Dwight’s violent stapling. Pam was sat in her office, staring at the back of Jim’s head as she waited for Jordan to return with the copies she had asked for.
Jordan had been employed by the previous branch manager, Deangelo Vickers. Whilst Pam had not “clicked”, as she so politely put it, with Deangelo, she saw it fair to keep Jordan on. She got on well with her, as well. Jordan was keen to impress, she was yet to make an enemy in the office and was fairly sane (enough to pass up Ryan’s advances). Upon her arrival, the office staff were quick to comment on her striking looks, with Kelly observantly comparing Jordan to Elle McPherson.
Pam and Jim had shared little interaction with Jordan before Pam’s promotion. A promotion that came as a result of one act of manipulation of Gabe, one act of love from Jim and one act of impatience by Jo. The position suited her though, despite her inexperience. She had superior competency to Michael, all the patience learned from her years of working with Michael, natural managerial skills, with a careful dose of compassion. It also helped that a number of failed managers had briefly come and gone, so by the time her number was up, everyone was too fed up to oppose the decision. The only person that might have was Dwight, and Dwight’s firearm incident had ruled him out. He at least had a vague, distorted friendship to fall back on if the manager was Pam.
“Jordan, can you let Jim know that we need to go meet the doctor at half past two this afternoon? And insist that Angela turns off her kitty-cam until her lunch break. Oh, and pass this post-it onto Kevin please.” Pam grinned coyly, making a vague attempt at hiding her enjoyment of the power as she felt the cameras drawing in on her face.
As Jordan went off on the errands for Pam, her eyes brushed over the words on the post-it. Pam was offering to trade Kevin some red M&Ms if he picked up some food for them from Wendy’s. Jordan thought nothing of it. It was Dwight who provided her with the real amusement, so Pam’s abuse of power and bribery seemed pretty small potatoes.
“Hey Jim, Pam asked me to remind you that the doctor is at half past two.” Jordan spoke quietly to Jim, as he looked up from his desk at her. He said nothing in response, gesturing that he understood, before swivelling his chair to face Pam looking out from her private office.
“I’m right here you know.” Jim laughed.
“I know but I can’t think of any actual work to give her so I just send her to tell people things. How much do we even pay her?”
“Really Beesly? That’s how it’s going to play out? Our relationship will be mediated by your assistant. No more kids from here on out then.”
“Jim! She’s not coming home with us.” Pam giggled, at the thought of Jim’s reference to their home life.
“You’re probably paying her enough to.”
“I’ll look into it.” Pam said, in a faux-serious tone. After a pause that simply consisted of mutual Halpert gazing, Pam continued. “Hey, now I’m boss, do you think I have enough authority to re-hire David Wallace?”
“Are you going mad with power back there?” Jim laughed at Pam’s suggestion.
“Probably. I bet that’s what happened to Michael, Deangelo and Jan!” Pam justified, in a more serious tone.
“I think Michael got slowly saner through the years actually. Jan went crazy because she was like a dormant volcano that just got poked by the Michael stick. And Deangelo… I think he probably went crazy as a result of his own company.” Jim rationalized, as Pam’s expression showed her attentiveness.
They were interrupted by an email alert on Pam’s computer. “Michael.” Pam muttered, barely audible to Jim.
“What?”
“Check yours.”
Jim swivelled his chair back to his computer obediently and opened his email window. Sure enough, he’d received it too. Michael had sent them a pictogram, with the message – cheese half ink a baby. It was a line of pictures of each entity. His only additional comment underneath read, “hehehe”.
“Bless.” Jim said, slightly sarcastically to his wife.
“Cece’s really excited. It’s going to be awesome. Pam and I both knew we didn’t want Cece to be an only child, so we’re psyched. Probably, almost as much as Michael. In fact, now I think about it – Cece never really was an only child, was she?” Jim was talking to the cameras in the conference room, as Stanley completed his crossword in the background whilst Pam was signing off on some forms in her office.
Pam surveyed the photos that decorated her new desk. Her distracted moments didn’t quite compare to Michael’s, but she was conscious of being caught out by the cameras. Nevertheless, there they were, watching as she gazed adoringly at the beautiful little thing that she had made with Jim. It made her less nervous about Baby Number 2. She trusted that Jim would make up for all her shortcomings as a parent, and she could enjoy him as a dad for a little while longer. He was as dependable in his parental role, as he was as her husband.
Pam began listing baby name ideas on her desktop pad. She thought of all the people who name their children after family and friends. Middle names, as well. The first to come to her mind was Michael. And there was Isabel too. Isabel would be so touched. She wanted it to be as cute as Cece, and equally uncommon without being bizarre. Her mind drifted back to Michael’s comments about The Simpsons. She daydreamed about Bart writing his lines on the blackboard, “I will not name my child Apple”, over and over again.
As she went to return to work, Pam pulled herself closer to the desk before realising that there was the small obstacle of her baby bump. In actual fact, it wasn’t small at all. They had held off on telling people about the news, people at work, and ultimately it turned out for the best because it likely would have stopped her getting the promotion. However, it did feel like the moment they shared their happy news, Pam suddenly got huge. That’s how she felt anyway.
“Do you think our child will be, in any way, damaged by the circumstances of its conception?” Pam quizzed Jim as they walked out to their car, on the way to the doctors. It was quarter past two.
“Umm… not unless we name the baby ‘Cupboard’.” Jim joked.
“Okay, good. I thought it might have nightmares about sinister stationary for years, until eventually seeing a psychiatrist who, after fifty hours of sessions, deduces that it’s his, or her, parents’ fault that she has a phobia of erasers.” Jim laughed at Pam’s imagined reality until he noticed her unflinching mouth, which appeared in no way amused.
“As long as Michael never deduces anything, baby’ll be fine.”
“Well, let’s hope Michael’s skills of deduction are as poor as ever I remember.” Pam shrugged, before walking round to the other side of the car but Jim knew to follow her, to help her in. He was a very doting husband, particularly now. She took his hand climbing into their car, and he closed the door for her before going to get in his side.
Jim continued once inside, “Anyway, we need to keep the madness to a minimum. It’s therapy or college; I can’t afford both. Not now we’re having another one.”
“But Jim, I really wanted our kids to go to college!” Pam played along. “Maybe if we just keep them well clear of Dwight…”
“A good decision in all circumstances.” Jim agreed.
“An excellent babysitter though.”
“No. Besides, you probably pay Jordan enough to do some babysitting on the side.” Pam rolled her eyes at Jim’s joke.
Unlike when they had first discovered that Pam was pregnant with Cece, the couple left their microphones on when going in to see the doctor. Very little could be heard until, shortly before they came back out, Jim could be heard stumbling over the words, “a healthy little baby?” Pam confirmed Jim’s statement with a wide, assured grin on her face as she acknowledged the presence of the cameras, once more on their side of the door.
“Back to the office?” She looked to Jim.
“Yes boss.”
TBC...
***************
Chapter End Notes:
I began considering this fan fiction at the suggestion of a couple of friends within The Office fandom, so blame them if it sucks. Bad end note, right? Anyway, feel free to critique, suggest and convince me of whether or not I should continue. Thanks!
