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Author's Chapter Notes:
Just more JPL.

Doctor Pederson confirmed what the nurse had said: Jim had a hairline fracture in his right fibula, which they had somehow missed in the initial scans. His advice was much like the neurologists’ approach to Jim’s brain function, in that all he advised was waiting and seeing how it developed. As he put it, “if I put you in a cast, it’ll be more of a bother than the fracture. Keep using the crutches, don’t put weight on the leg if you can help it, and by the time we let you out for the rest of your injuries that one shouldn’t be a problem either.”

Pam liked Dr. Pederson.

So did Jim, which was probably more important, since it meant he didn’t grumble or quarrel with the prescription of minimal activity. Instead, he sprawled back in his hospital bed and quirked an eyebrow at his sister and girlfriend (girlfriend. Pam. Still can’t believe this is happening).

“So, I’m officially on bedrest now. What do we do now?”

Larissa grinned at him. No, at Pam. He really needed to figure out how these two had become partners in crime so quickly, because he was beginning to feel outnumbered. He glanced from one to the other, a question in his eyes.

“Well, um…” Pam began. “If you’re free around noon, my mom is coming by.”

A chance to meet the famous Helene Beesly? I can’t wait. Oh wait, did I say that out loud?

“Yeah, well, I’m glad you think so, because there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.” I guess I did say that out loud. The pain meds must be making my filter go away. That, or not having to hide how I feel about Pam means I’ve forgotten how to hide anything.

“I’m sorry, Beesly, but did you just tell me that you tried to stop your mother from coming to visit me? Are you ashamed of me, Pam?”

A blush. Excellent. It was a real pleasure to be able to make her blush and just revel in it, to watch as the red crested up from her neck (or maybe points below—he’d have to check on that someday, a thought which made him start to blush in his own turn) and not to have to worry that Roy or Angela or someone would notice and give him a punch or a glare or a questioning look.

“No, I…” Pam flushed even darker.

Larissa came to her new friend’s assistance. “It’s just that she doesn’t want to freak you out by making you meet the parents while you’re flat on your back.”

“Parents? Is your dad coming too?”

Pam shot him a dirty look. What was that for? She must have seen the question in his eyes (or else his filter was shoddy again) because she actually answered the question.

“That’s exactly the quibble my mom used. ‘Oh, I didn’t invite your father, so it’s not the parents, now is it.’” Her voice got high and breathy as she imitated her mother, and he grinned. He’d never heard her so openly sarcastic about her family before—this was a glimpse at a side of Pam he’d never imagined before.

“Well, I never doubted that Mrs. Beesly would have a superior sense of humor.”

“Dork.”

He looked over at his sister. “Larissa, Pam’s bullying me!”

“By comparing you to her mom? You’re going to have to do better than that, big bro.” She grinned at him. “Anyway, you know how the truth can’t be libel? I don’t think it can be bullying either. And you are a big dork.”

“I’m not the one quoting my one pre-law class. ‘The truth can’t be libel’ indeed.” Jim noticed that his voice did the same thing making fun of Larissa that Pam did imitating her mom. “I thought you’d be on my side here.”

“Oh, I am, Jim. You just don’t know your own best interests.” She waggled her eyebrows at him and Pam.

“And you do?”

Pam broke into the little family exchange. “Of course she does. Larissa, like all intelligent and right-thinking people, knows that what’s best for you is what keeps me happy. And besides, the girlfriend is always right.”

Jim grinned. “Well, if you’re my girlfriend…”

She rolled her eyes. “As I believe we established last night, yes, I am definitely your girlfriend now. Unless you’ve had a change of heart?”

He looked up into her eyes. He knew Pam. Now that she’d admitted he hadn’t misinterpreted anything that night in May, he was actually pretty certain he knew her at least as well as she knew herself. He’d had a hard month thinking that every signal, every sign he’d relied upon in the previous years to keep himself sane had been a lie—that he’d screwed up monumentally in his understanding of who she was and how she thought. But now he knew that was all for nothing; that he did in fact understand her, and had understood her, and could, therefore, conceivably go on understanding her. And what he saw right now in her eyes was that she’d phrased the question as a joke, but his answer was really important to her. He quashed the little part of him that wanted to respond sarcastically, saying something like Oh, well, now that you give me a choice… or I guess I was really loopy last night, so… and instead looked her dead in the eyes and said, slowly and sincerely, “Not a chance. You’re stuck with me, Beesly.”

Her eyes lit up like the sun sliding out from behind clouds. “Good.”

“Good. So that’s settled. Since you are my girlfriend, I will graciously concede that you are always right, and that therefore I am a dork. And that,” and here he cut his sister a dark look, “unfortunately, means that my little know-it-all sister over there is also right. So in the future, if you could just avoid agreeing with her, that would make my life a lot easier.”

Pam giggled. “I don’t know, Jim, I think I owe her a lot, so making sure you have to admit that she’s right seems like a pretty small price to pay.”

“For you maybe! You haven’t had twenty years of her showing you up by always knowing everything.”

Larissa looked mock-affronted. “I’m twenty-three!”

“Yeah, well, for the first three years you were a quiet little thing. Lulling us all into a false sense of security, I suppose.”

“Hmph.”

Jim turned back to Pam. “Once she turned four, though…”

Pam smiled. “I can imagine.”

“Well, now you don’t have to.” He grinned, and decided to risk expressing the depth of his true feelings, even if he didn’t have a full filter right now. “And I look forward to twenty years from now, when you tell me how twenty years of it feels. Of course, by then I’ll be a forty-year veteran, so don’t imagine your feelings will be anywhere near mine.”

She smiled up at him. “Oh, I think they just might be.”

Chapter End Notes:
Helene will enter soon. On a side note, there's no character tag for her (sorrow). Thank you to all who have continued reading, reviewing, and so on. I value you all.

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