They talk about it. They talk about their future and they decide that they don't even want to be engaged while Pam is in New York. Jim makes a joke about Roy to the crew, but it actually is a sore spot for him.

He still hates Roy, oops.

He kind of hates that Roy is the reason that he can't put this ring on her finger right now. That instead he's still walking around with it in his pocket, hiding it. That Pam is going to be three hours away for months and he can't just propose to her first.

He sends her off and he's really sad. And Michael, as usual, doesn't help, ruining his last few moments with Pam before she drives off. He feels like it's three years ago and he just wants to relish his alone time with her while he can and then someone shows up and ruins it.

Halfway through the summer, he finally visits her. He's just there to hang some shelves or whatever but oh God he cannot wait to see her. He thought missing her was bad when she wasn't his, when she was dating Roy and she would leave for a few days, when he left and went to Stamford. That was nothing. Knowing that he could be with her but he can't because she's doing this (totally amazing) art school thing and he's working, or trying to...it's somehow worse. He misses her so badly and - oh, once again, they are interrupted.

It's like their entire story is just full of these annoying, pointless, weird interruptions and God he just wants five minutes alone with his girlfriend.

When he has to go nearly another two weeks without seeing her, he decides he can't stand it anymore. He isn't even thinking, just doing. He asks her to meet him, like it's some casual thing.

"It's gonna blow your mind, Beesly," he'd told her all those months ago. And while proposing at a gas station is certainly not romantic, he also knows she won't be expecting it. And that he just literally can't stand the idea of her not wearing this damn ring anymore. It's her ring, it's meant to be hers and he wants her to have it and to wear it and for everyone in the entire city of New York to know that Pam Beesly is his and he is hers and that is all that matters in this world.

As soon as he sees her, he's down on one knee. He barely says hello, doesn't wanna wait.

No one walks by, no one honks their horn or calls or bothers them. They finally have the five minutes of alone time he's been so desperate for and thank God she says yes so he can just kiss her like he so desperately wants to. And they go their separate ways and it sucks but he can't stop smiling because Pam Beesly just agreed to be his freaking wife and yeah he knew she would say yes, but he also worried and was nervous and now he doesn't have to be because she said yes.

He doesn't stop smiling for a week.

It's different being engaged. Not within the scope of his relationship - he's planned on marrying Pam practically since he walked through the door of Dunder Mifflin for the first time. But in the office. Without her there, he doesn't have the same NEED to tell everyone that he did when they started dating. When they got together, it was a feeling of "I knew it, I told you so, I knew she loved me," but now it's something they're sharing that's private and secret and no one else deserves to know yet.

Plus, he knows his co-workers, and telling them goes...pretty much as expected.

And then he's on the ground because Michael Scott has tackled him.

Yep. Just another normal day in the office.

They have a few weird days, with Pam in New York and him in Scranton. They can't connect, can't hear each other, have to rush through every conversation. But he still wants her to know about this weird baby shower and Jan's singing and he still wants her to tell him about...what was her friend's name? Stacy?

He wants to tell her everything and he wants to know everything and dammit he just wants her to be here. He finds a strange comfort in the fact that the message she leaves him is so similar to the one he's just left her. Even when they can't connect, they're still connected. And he misses her and he's sad, of course, but that small comfort gets him through the next week, at least.

Seeing Roy is what finally brings him back down to reality. He doesn't think Roy is going to punch his lights out all this time later, but it's still not a situation he wants to be in. Roy is not a person he wants to see. It's so weird, because he's with Pam, engaged to Pam, but he still hates Roy for how he treated Pam three years ago.

Weird.

Which is why, when he finds himself driving to New York City in the middle of the night, he tries to rationalize it. Tries to act like it's not because of Roy. But it's Roy's voice ringing in his ears:

"You were her friend."

He was. Jim was just her friend. He was her friend who sat across from her and spent time with her and got to know her and fell in love with her and through it all, she was falling in love with him, too. And her engagement to Roy didn't matter to either of them when they were together, so what if-

No. Jim is not jealous of some random people in New York. Jim is not jealous of Pam's friends from art school, of her drinking buddies. Nothing could ever compare to his and Pam's relationship and a few drinks on a Thursday night can't be enough to change that. So he turns around and forgets Roy's voice and Roy's face and pretends the whole thing never happened.

He believes in his relationship with Pam. More than anything in this world.

Jim has always been defensive of Pam's art. When she was with Roy, he wanted her to pursue it - got in a fight with her over it in fact. When Dwight insults the painting of the office, Jim wants to find some extra annoying prank to pull on him. Jim will always defend Pam's art, because it's damn good and because Pam loves it. And anything Pam loves, Jim loves. That's just how it goes.

So, suffice it to say that he is thrown off guard when both of his brothers start going in on Pam about her art. It's supposed to be a nice, congratulatory lunch, and they're both, honestly, being dicks. He can tell Pam is annoyed, but she's not defending herself, at least not much, and Jim seriously has no idea what's going on. When it turns out to be a prank, he wants to hug Pam. That's it. Because he knows how uncomfortable she must have been for the past hour with her future family making fun of her passion, and he knows that she put up with it because she wants them to like her.

She's a good sport, and she shouldn't have had to do that. But she did anyway. He loves her so damn much in these moments. And when she mentions Thanksgiving, his imagination runs wild. Family get-togethers with rings on their fingers and babies in their arms. Thanksgiving and Christmas was kids' tables - little mini Jims and mini Pams with their glasses of milk and their Christmas lists and tiny, sticky hands. A Christmas tree in their living room - the living room he celebrated so many of his own Christmases in - with piles of presents labeled "From Santa" and cookies left out on the table. He can't wait for her to come home so they can just get started on the rest of their lives.

And he misses her as soon as he leaves to drive back home.

The day they use the bluetooths is somehow both the best day and the worst day he's had in Scranton since Pam left. He almost - almost - feels like she's there with him, or he's there with her, or a little of both. But his day in the office is tainted.

"Sprinkle of cinnamon," they say at the same time and he smiles. He knows his Beesly, that's for damn sure.

But his bonus is kind of extra important right now, and he feels more stressed about money than he has since Ryan put him on probation. He's buying this house for his future wife and he needs this bonus money. Jim knows he's not perfect, but he also knows that customer service is probably the part of his job that he's best at. He gets people, and people like him. So what is going on?

"Maybe it's 'cause you spent the whole year flirting with the receptionist," Pam suggests in his ear. And he smiles.

"Little bit. Worth it." And it was. Really and truly because even if he can't get this bonus and he can't buy this house, he still has Pam, and that's all he's wanted for as long as he cares to remember. But still...that bonus is really freakin' important.

When it turns out that Kelly was just pissed because he didn't go to some dumb party of hers, he doesn't even care if she's punished or not - he just wants that bonus.

And he's so excited about the bonus but also really depressed because he's heard what Pam's classmate, her "friend", has said about New York. And he cannot and will not be the thing that holds her back if she wants to stay. But God he loves her so much and he misses her and he thinks about that "For Sale" sign in front of his parents' house and he kind of wants to slug this guy for even suggesting that Pam stay because Pam needs to be right here with him. But he also knows that, if she were to stay, he'd wait for her. He's waited this long. He won't be the thing that she resents in 50 years if she's wondering what could have been.

Things are not looking better when it turns out that Pam fails a course. He's still stuck. He still wants her to come home, but he wants her to want to come home. He doesn't want to tell her to come back to him. He can't do that to her. So he lets it be her choice. But when he hears her choke up on the phone, hears her lie about her phone battery, it takes all of his strength to not hop in his car and drive to New York just to hug her and tell her that, no matter how many times she has to take these damn courses, things are going to be okay.

She comes home.

He's so ready to deal with another three months of long distance. Another three months of bluetooth phones and missed calls and long drives. He's so ready but he's also so not ready and God he's damn thankful that she's back that he doesn't even care that she's lying right to his face about not coming home for him.

She comes home for him. And he never ever would have asked her to but he is so thankful that she did.

And of course, in true Dunder Mifflin Scranton fashion, Dwight interrupts this nice, beautiful, calm moment with some task for Pam.

"Welcome back."

He finally buys the house and his parents finally move out and it's finally time for Jim to do the scariest thing he's done since the night he kissed Pam while she wore a blue dress and told him she was still going to marry someone else.

Jim is not an impulsive person. It took him years to tell Pam how he felt, another year to finally ask her on a date, and months of carrying around a ring in his pocket to finally put it on her finger.

Buying a house is a huge deal. Buying a house without Pam knowing is even bigger.

He takes her on a tour of this house she's seen dozens of times. He shows her around, hoping she's looking at it with new eyes. He's hoping she's seeing Their House instead of His Parent's House, but she's not saying anything. She's just staring at him and not saying a word and he is so scared that she hates it. He doesn't know what he'll do if she hates it.

"I love it," she's saying and he's finally breathing again. And they're hugging in Their Garage and he's thinking about all of the memories that he has in this house and how many new ones they're going to make and Pam loves it and he is so glad he decided to be impulsive for once and just do it without wondering about the consequences.

When Pam first gets out of the car, she is...lost. Why would they need to stop at Jim's parents house? She sees the For Sale sign and is even more confused.

She can't say anything while he shows her around. She's been in this house a thousand times - the dangers of Jim living so close to his childhood home: they often end up at his childhood home for dinner. But she's seeing it with new eyes.

He's talking about the shag carpet, but she's already picked out a new color for the walls. They walk past the master bedroom and she's thinking about waking up next to Jim in-okay, wait, maybe not in his parents' room. But that's a discussion for later.

They walk through the kitchen and she's already picked out new cabinets, new backsplash, new tiles. This isn't Jim's Parents' House anymore. This is Jim and Pam's House and they're going to make it their own.

The garage makes her cry. She thinks back, just for a moment, to telling Roy about the Dunder Mifflin art program, about how he shot her down immediately, without a second thought, while Jim told her she should do it. She thinks about their fight, about her choices back then. She thinks back to when she and Roy first broke up, about how the first thing she did for herself was enroll in art classes. She thinks about how Jim supported her every single day that she was away in New York and how she failed and how this is what she came home to. She thought she was coming home to her normal life, to boring Scranton, boring Dunder Mifflin, and Jim. But she came home to a house of her own. She came home to an art studio, to a supportive fiance, to the best life she's ever imagined for herself.

"You bought me a house," she keeps saying, because she can't believe it. She is the luckiest girl in the whole damn world, and nothing will ever convince her otherwise.