"Do you want some more coffee?”

Jim was positively beaming at her as he picked up his coffee cup on cue. “Yes, please.”

Pam poured him a new cup as daintily as possible, something that set them both off into a new round of giggles. “Oh, you want a muffin or something?”

Jim had been busy glancing around at the elegant but empty cafe. “Um, sure, why not?”

Pam held up a hand and an irritated looking waiter marched up to their table. “Uh, we'd like a muffin, and a crousant, please?”

The waiter rolled his eyes and left. Jim hid a laugh in his coffee cup. “Jeez, Pam, he had to be a snooty French waiter? You just had to fall prey to sterotyping?”

Pam feigned insult. “Hey! You're the one who said Paris. We could have just as easily done a cafe in New York or Philadelphia.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jim muttered. He glanced at where their waiter stood with a few other waiters. “Is it just me or does their French sound...off?”

“Oh. That.” Pam blushed. “Yeah its because anything I project I have to...know. And since I took two years of Latin in high school...”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Latin?” Jim looked at her with disbelief. “When will you ever need to know LATIN?”

“Next week, when Julius Cesar comes to dinner,” Pam insisted.

“Oh right. Forgot. My apologies.”

Pam giggled and focused on sipping carefully at her coffee. The illusion around them wavered a little and she and Jim both looked up to see Mark standing in the middle of their 'cafe' in his pajamas looking confused.

“Oh. This again,” Mark grumbled sleepily. After a few days of Pam staying with them, he'd gotten used to being the odd human out. “So where are we today?”

“France,” Pam pulled out a chair for him and Mark took it great fully. “Would you like a muffin?”

“The muffin's don't actually exist, right?”

“No. But I can make you think they do.”

“Nifty.” Mark grabbed a muffin and sighed. “Well I hate to be the barer of bad news...” he slapped a copy of the paper on the table and Pam and Jim instantly craned their necks to see the front page.

“President signed the bill,” Jim sat back in his seat with a sigh and put his muffin down, imaginary or no, he was no longer hungry.

“We knew he was going to,” Pam whispered, she inched the paper closer to her. She stared down at the black and white photo of the president signing the bill, a line of bigots and the American flag behind him.

“Yeah, I know but...”

Pam tossed the paper aside and stood up. She rest her hand against Jim's for a moment and tried her best to smile for him. It didn't look very believable, but Jim looked appreciative regardless.

“Well, I'm going to go change. We should get to work soon.” Pam waved her hand and the cafe around them faded back into Mark and Jim's kitchen.

“Okay Pam, warn me before you make the food disappear. I just bit my finger.”



“Hey Michael, can I use the TV in the conference room?”

Pam looked up from her faxes to where Dwight was talking to Michael in front of the entrance to Michael's office.

“Ugh. Why? Did you bring your Beast Wars DVDs again?”

“No.”

Jim swerved in his seat to face them. “My Little Pony?”

“HA!”

Dwight glared at Jim. “NO. My cousin Mose just emailed me, there's this big riot in DC, it's all over the news.”

“Like cops? Sweet, yeah go ahead,” Michael shrugged and Dwight gave a thankful bow before heading for the conference room. Jim shot a look at Pam before nodding in the direction Dwight fled in. Pam nodded and the two of them headed into the conference room.

Dwight already had the TV on. He was standing a couple feet away from it, looking focused.

“What's going on?” Pam asked.

“It's the mutants. They're rioting.”

“Oh God, look,” Jim pointed to the ticker crawling across the bottom of the screen. “They killed ten people already.”

Pam felt the color drain from her face and she took a step back away from the TV. She felt Jim's arm wrap around her as she closed her eyes as tight as she could.

“This whole bill was a mistake,” Dwight muttered. “Politician's don't know the first thing about how to deal with potential super beings. You don't want to anger them, they have the advantage. Obviously.”

The images on the screen changed and Pam felt Jim take a sharp breath. She had to open her eyes at that and she grew cold as she saw soldier after soldier in uniform march into the crowd of rioters.

“What are they doing?”

“I think...”

She closed her eyes again the moment she heard the gunfire. Jim pulled her even closer but as hard as she pressed her head against his chest she couldn't block out the screaming.

She heard Jim's voice, deep and sad. “This is only going to get worse.”

Dwight's voice was full of pomp and circumstance but Pam heard the sincerity underneath it all. “Jim. For once....we agree.”


Pam was in the kitchen making tea, a natural response to being upset. Jim and Dwight were still in the conference room and actually having a semi-civilized conversation about the Registration Act. Pam hestitated a second before pouring two more cups of tea, thinking maybe Jim and Dwight would want some. She avoided the shudder she got at the mere thought that she was being polite to Dwight but, what the hey. The world wasn't being very kind to her or her kind at the moment, she could be the better person and be kind to Dwight.

She placed the cups on a plate and headed for the door when it abruptly swung open. She jumped in surprise and had to recover quickly so as not to knock all her tea to the floor. Hands joined hers in the fumbling and it wasn't until Pam was steady that she realized it was Roy who was helping her.

“What...” Pam cleared her throat and stepped back from him, forcing his hands away. “What do you want?”

“To talk to you,” he explained, sounding frustrated. “You just left Pam, you didn't even give me a good reason you just took your stuff and LEFT.”

“I had to, Roy, you don't get it.”

“Because you wouldn't explain it to me!”

Because she couldn't explain it to him. She had walked into their house that night with every intention of telling Roy what she was but in the end, she chickened out. She couldn't ask Roy to give up normalcy for her. Not after reading the Registration Act in detail and realizing the simply, every day luxuries she would no longer be able to afford. If he let himself be bound to her, she'd just drag him into the mess. He was human, completely human and she was some abomination. In the end, she knew it was better to walk away, much as it hurt her to do so.

“Just, leave me alone, Roy,” she begged. “For your own good, please, leave me alone.” She left the tea tray and ran out the door towards the Conference Room. Jim met her at the doorway, took one look at Roy, who was fuming in the kitchen, and tugged Pam away outside the office and down the closest stair well.

“What happened?”

“I don't want to talk about it, Jim.”

“Did he threaten you? Pam-”

“No. I just...I don't want to talk about it.”

Jim sighed and for a moment looked genuinely scared. “He won't...tell anyone will he? About you?”

“Oh, no,” Pam stammered. “No, he...he's really not that awful. I know what you think but...”

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed a little too quickly. They fell into silence for a long moment after that until Jim took a tentative step towards her. “Listen, Dwight says they're already converting part of the Sheriff's office into a processing center.”

“The bill was just signed!”

“Dwight says they started months ago, before the bill even went to the Senate,” Jim grumbled.

“That was optimistic of them.”

“Not to mention illegal and just a little suspicious.”

Pam sighed. 'Well. Yeah.” She glanced at Jim and smiled. “So what's with all this info from Dwight? You guys buddies now?”

“No, no, nooo,” he denied emphatically. “Its just...he's on our side. And there aren't many people who are on our side.”

“No I, I get that,” Pam admitted.

“I'm going with him after work, just to check it out. Do you want to come?”


The construction site looked like any other construction site Pam had seen during her life. There were some men mulling about in orange vests and hard hats, and areas roped off with yellow tape. The only indication that this was maybe not a run of the mill construction area was the ominous presence of black government vehicles and men in suits wandering in and out of back doors.

“Governor came by and toured it yesterday,” Dwight told them. “They've added at least ten more cells inside and a medical area.”

“Cells?” Pam tried not to panic. “Why would they need cells? It's just supposed to be paperwork. Right?”

Dwight and Jim exchanged doomed looks and Pam regretted their newly formed alliance she wasn't a part of.

“Its the medical area I'd be worried about,” Dwight continued. “I mean, they could poke you with all sorts of things if they wanted to. Suck out bodily fluids and try to harness your powers for themselves. That sort of thing.”

Pam was shaking now and she stumbled back, away from Dwight and Jim. “Excuse me. I...have to throw up now.”

Jim watched Pam hide behind the car to be sick and resisted the urge to follow her. Beside him Dwight shook his head and sighed.

“Some people can't handle this kind of stuff.”

“No one should have to handle this stuff,” Jim retorted before giving in and walking over to see if Pam was okay.


It was no wonder that Pam couldn't sleep that night. Jim and Mark's couch was less then comfortable and her mind was going mile a minute. She gave up around three in the morning and found herself walking to Jim's room. He'd told her before that he was a light sleeper so she wasn't surprised that he was already sitting up when she opened the door. He smiled at her drowsily.

“Can't sleep, huh?”

She just nodded. “Keep seeing that place. Seeing myself IN that place, in a cell...”

Jim groaned and flopped back down on the bed. “Yeah, I've been trying not to think about it. So...thanks.”

She didn't laugh until she could see that he was smiling, joking. She walked slowly to his bed, hoping she didn't look as awkward as she felt. “Do you think I can...? Its just kinda dark and...empty downstairs.”

“Oh um...”

“I mean, I can just...never mind. I'll-”

“No its okay,” he moved over on the bed and handed her an extra pillow. “Really its...okay.”

Pam tentatively took the pillow and grinned at Jim. She slid under the covers, a little awkwardly, and turned towards him. Jim smiled and did the same so they were face to face on the bed. He moved the blankets up so it covered their heads and Pam could barely see Jim in the dark.

“What...?”

'Ssh, Pam, we're hiding from the government,” he whispered and Pam heard the smile in his tone.

“I can barely see you, though,” she giggled. She reached out with her hand and her fingers brushed his cheek, which was slightly rough because he'd forgotten amidst all the illusions and newspapers this morning to shave before they left for work.

She heard him fumble around a bit and then the light next to his bed came on. Under the blankets the result was a soft blue glow and Pam suddenly realized she was practically cupping Jim's cheek with her hand. She quickly moved away, but made sure to smile so maybe Jim wouldn't catch on.

“Oh, there you are,” she whispered.

He quirked his mouth into something close to a smile, but it didn't quite make it.

“I didn't watch the news tonight, did you?” she asked to break the silence.

“Yeah,” he muttered and looked away awkwardly. “There wasn't anything new, they just kept showing clips from the riot. The mutants ended up killing thirty people. The soldiers killed ten mutants.”

Pam shook her head, still not understanding why the riot had happened at all. “Did you mean what you said earlier? That this is all going to get worse?”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“Just a little pessimistic,” she said, trying to sound like she was just poking fun at him, but her voice fell short of the mark.

“I WAS optimistic about this,” he said. “And then they wrote the damn Registration Act. And then they passed it. And then the President signed it. And then someone ordered troops to kill other Americans.” He shook his head and looked at her, apologetic. “I'm kind of over being optimistic at this point.”

Something about the resignation in Jim's tone made Pam sad. He had visibly withdrawn, his usual goofy smile and sweet expression replaced with something cold and hard.

“There are plenty of good people still out there,” Pam insisted. “You never know.”

Jim glanced over at her and couldn't help but match her cheerful smile. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Ah, see, that's more like it.”

“Well its easy to be hopeful when you're here.”

Pam smiled, pleased. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I'll have to put off that apartment search for another week then,” Pam mused, her fingers playing idly with a loose string on Jim's pillow.

“I'd be okay with that,” he admitted. “But you might run into a problem with Mark.”

“Ooh. I forgot about Mark,” Pam drawled. She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Um, what if I put a strip club hallucination in his bedroom?”

Jim burst out laughing and the noise alone made Pam's smile grow larger. “Have you ever BEEN to a strip club?”

“Nooo. So it would probably end up resembling a scene from Moulin Rouge or something.”

“Okay, I would stick to imaginary breakfast pastries if I were you.”

'Deal.”

Jim stuck one hand out of their blanket cocoon, groping for the lamp. “We should probably sleep.”

“Yeah, probably.”

He found the light switch and the room fell into darkness. She couldn't see him anymore, but she could hear him breathing and after a moment, his hand wrapped cautiously around hers. She smiled to herself and the last thing she heard before drifting off to sleep was his whisper of good night.


The next morning Pam was up before Jim or Mark. She'd left Jim in bed, sleeping soundly, not having the heart to wake him. She was in the kitchen when Mark got up, in his by now familiar pajamas.

“Hey,” he said and nodded at her as he walked to the coffee pot. “Oh. Thanks for starting the coffee.”

“No problem,” she said and gestured to the box on the counter in front of her. “Want a donut?”

“Are these fake donuts or real donuts?”

“Real donuts, I bought them this morning,” she said, she thought if she was going to be living with them, the least Mark deserved was a real donut.

“Phanxs,” he said sincerely through a mouthful of donut. The phone rang and Mark gestured to his stuffed mouth. Pam rolled her eyes and picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Who is this?”

Pam was surprised by the rude, blunt tone at the other end of the phone. “Er, this is Pam?”

“Oh. Pam, he told me about you, okay” the voice said. “This is Gina. Jim's sister.”

“Oh, okay. Um, hello.” Mark was looking at Pam, confused and Pam just shrugged, looking equally baffled.

“Listen Pam, I don't have much time, there's been an emergency session of Congress called,” Gina explained. “After the riots...well....they're proposing an emergency resolution, to bump up the Registration dates. This thing passes and you guys are going to have to start reporting to Processing immediately.”

“Can they DO that?” Pam asked, horrified. “It was just one riot, can they just bump everything up like this?”

“Yeah they can,” Jim's sister sounded annoyed and Pam assumed the anger was directed at Congress and not at her. “Its not just the one riot Pam, there's been threats, some mutant groups are starting to mobilize, they want to nip it in the bud.”

“They just want to legally be able to round up mutants,” Pam grumbled.

“Better they arrest them then shoot them. Again.”

Gina had a point and Pam knew it. “Okay. I'll tell Jim.”

“Thanks. And...I'm sorry, Pam.”

Sorry didn't began to make up for it all, but Pam opted not to tell Gina that. “Yeah. Bye, Gina.” Pam hung up the phone and glanced at Mark.

“More bad news, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Mark sighed and glanced at the box of donuts. “I should buy more donuts then.”

Pam shrugged. “Not all together a bad idea.”

She left Mark to complicate the mental healing powers of pastries and slowly made her way to Jim's room. She opened the door and found him still asleep, curled up on his side. She reluctantly walked to the bed and kneeled on the mattress so she could gently shake him awake.

“Jim?”

He slowly came to, blinking up at her, his gaze slightly unfocused. His hair was a mess and his t shirt was bunched up in places. “Pam? Hey.”

“Hi,” she whispered, matching his soft tone.

He sat up and looked her up and down. “You're dressed already.”

“Yeah I've been up for about an hour.”

“Wow, I must've passed out,” he chuckled. “I never sleep like that.”

“Stress,” she explained simply.

“Yeah I guess,” he shrugged and looked at her like he couldn't believe she was here, in his bed, waking him up. Pam hated to ruin the moment, but she wasn't sure she could stay quiet any longer.

“Jim-”

“Thank you Pam.”

Pam looked at him, surprised. “For...what?”

Jim shrugged and the look he had on his face was so genuinely happy Pam felt her stomach flip. “I don't know. Staying here, being you.”

Pam blushed and searched for something to say in return. “I bought donuts. You can have one, if Mark hasn't eaten them all by now.”

“Donuts? Sugar's an excellent way to start the day.”

He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and stood, making his way toward the adjacent bathroom. Pam watched him, all smiles and contentment and she regretted that she would have to be the one to make that go away. Joy was so rare when you spent every day being so scared.

“Jim, wait,” she slid off the bed and blocked his way.

He looked down at Pam with genuine curiosity. “Yeah?”

She grabbed the sleeve of his t shirt and pulled him down as she leaned up on her tip toes. Their mouths met clumsily at first, until Jim comprehended what was happening and let Pam pull him down an inch further to deepen the kiss.

As she focused on kissing him, Pam closed her eyes and wished.

Stay happy, Jim. Just for one more minute; have hope.