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Author's Chapter Notes:
Here it is, the final chapter! Enjoy!

Jim can't believe it's been an entire year. A year since the cameras have been in his face, monitoring every hour of his workday, and then some. But they're back for the panel, for Dwight's wedding. So Jim doesn't mind, because those are both things he's actually really been looking forward to.

Pam wasn't big on the documentary, but Jim loved it. He watched himself fall in love with the woman he was meant to be with. Even better, he watched her fall in love with him. He remembers those moments, before they were together, when he'd wondered what it would be like to watch this in ten years. How he'd hoped that Pam would be by his side so he could say, "Look! See how I looked at you? And you didn't even notice!"

And she is by his side, after everything. And their kids are too young to understand what the documentary is about, but Jim still made them watch sometimes. Just so he could complete the mental picture he'd had in his head all those years ago. Just missing that dog.

The panel is awkward, to say the least. He'd been hoping for some deeper questions, but so many people just want to know about him and Pam. His defenses are up when someone asks how she's going to pay him back.

Pay him back?

He didn't leave Athlead - er, Athleap, he guesses - so that Pam could 'pay him back' later. This isn't an "I owe you one" situation. He left that company, left Philly, because he wanted Pam to be happy. Because he's only happy when she's happy. Because he loves her, and spending half his week away from her sucked for him, too, if he's being honest.

"She pays me back every day, just by being my wife," he tries to laugh it off.

The questions get more and more invasive. If having cameras follow him around for nine years wasn't enough to prepare him for these intimate questions about his personal life, he doubts anything would have been. Yikes.

And he's bummed because now Pam is talking about how she doubted him, how she was scared. And he still, a year later, hates that he did that to her. So she doesn't owe him anything, not by a long shot.

The good news is that they end the weekend with Dwight and Angela's wedding. Surprise after surprise, Jim is so proud that all of his practice pranking Dwight over the years has culminated into this amazing, unforgettable day. Guten pranken, indeed.

He dances with Pam and he thinks about how crazy their ride has been.

He thinks about dancing with her in Michael Scott's weird disco cafe, the day they were going to elope, but changed their minds. About dancing with her at their own wedding, and the stupid lip sync video they tried to do at the office. About dancing with Darryl, and how bittersweet it was, because Darryl was leaving for good and Jim was doing the opposite.

He thinks about the time Pam asked to share his earbuds, and he called it dancing, and she called it swaying, and she wouldn't call it a date even though it had all the makings of one.

And he's so happy in that moment. Because no matter what they've gone through - other relationships, Jim putting his foot in his mouth non-stop for like a whole year, living apart - both as friends and as a couple, and finally the fight that almost broke them - they've made it. Every time. And it's not like they're making it work because they have to for the kids, or like they're faking it. Jim is so damn happy that he'd do anything right then to bottle up that emotion and hang onto it forever.

He's so in love with Pam, even after all this time. He looks at her, every so often, and wonders how he got so lucky. That he found his soulmate, that she loved him back.

When they get home and...Carol is in their home? Jim is confused, to say the very least.

His mind is going through about a thousand different scenarios, but none of them come close to what Pam is saying to him right now.

"Maybe, Austin?" she's saying, and oh God she's serious.

She doesn't have to do this. He doesn't want a repeat of last year, doesn't want to come close to losing her, doesn't want to take this offer that she's put on the table only to have her regret it as soon as they get there.

"I really wanna do this!" she's screaming and he can't believe, once again, how lucky he is. Pam Beesly is the best, and he's never going to let her forget it.


"Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam," and Jim looks at her, surprised. On a day when it's felt like a lot of the past has been coming back to haunt her, this is a nice moment. Pam at her old desk, Jim at his. The spots they sat in while they fell in love. Before Cece and Philip, before the Michael Scott Paper Company, and before the house and the ring and everything else. This is where they sat. And this is where they became best friends. And this is where they fell madly, truly, completely in love. "Oh I'm sorry," Pam says, looking right at her husband, really wanting to relish what she's about to say, "Jim Halpert doesn't work here anymore."

It hadn't been a tough decision to sell the house. Pam loves her house, loves the memories they've made in it. It's the only home she's ever seen herself staying in for the rest of her life. But after that video, after the card, Pam spent months knowing she had to pull a Jim. She had to do something big, because her husband deserved the biggest and the best.

She hadn't intended to tell him in the way that she did, but this isn't so bad. Now they can tell everyone, while they're all in the office together. She doesn't want a big to-do, but she does want to make sure she says goodbye.

She's a little sad when she talks to the crew about watching the documentary. She couldn't watch most of it. Pam was so obviously in love with Jim for so many years and was just too chicken to do anything about it.

"It's just hard to accept that I spent so many years being less happy than I could have been. Jim was 5 feet from my desk and it took me 4 years to get to him," and she's not waiting anymore. That's why she sold the house, why she's finally going to take that giant leap and leave Scranton.

Her boring life isn't worth a damn if she doesn't have Jim by her side. So, she grabs that painting of the office, and she leaves. On good terms - great terms. And with her husband by her side.


"I'm sorry, Jim Halpert doesn't work here anymore," Pam is saying. It's strange, seeing Pam back at reception. It makes Jim think about all the years they spent just like this. Air high fives and silent conversations with just a look. He thinks about how looking at her, sitting right here at his desk, while she sat right there at reception, has changed over the years.

For so long, he was just a guy in love with a girl who had a boyfriend. And then a fiance. And he didn't give up, didn't move on. And then, when he finally got his desk back after Stamford, after Karen, he was just a guy in love with a girl. Period. And he was lucky enough to get to look at her every single day. For years. He can read Pam like a book because of how long he spent watching her at reception. So it seems fitting that she's sitting there now, while they say their goodbyes.

"You could see yourself change and make mistakes and grow up. You could watch yourself fall in love, watch yourself become a husband, become a father," he's saying. He's always taken those cameras for granted. How many people can honestly say that they can watch those moments anytime, for the rest of their lives. How many people can show their kids the moment Daddy asked Mommy to marry him, or the moment they found out they were pregnant.

Jim is so damn lucky.

"Everything I have, I owe to this job. This stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing job." He doesn't mean to cry. He thinks about how he cried when Michael left. But he also knows that was the right thing for Michael - he was going to be with the love of his life.

So Jim takes Pam by the hand, and they go home and they start packing. Because they're moving on, and they're doing it together, as a team.

Jim had never intended to fall in love with the girl who sat across from him every day. But at some point, she fell in love with him, too. And he'll never let himself forget how precious that is.

Chapter End Notes:
I hope you enjoyed reading The Office from Jim's point-of-view. I always felt like he had so much more to say than what he put out there in his talking heads. I would love to hear what you all think!


caitlinrose923 is the author of 0 other stories.
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