Pam liked Jim’s grin. It was…well, it was mesmerizing, if she was totally honest. She could look at him grin for hours, and since it was recently established between the two of them (not formally, or out loud, but obviously and clearly) that he would continue to grin if she continued to stare at him, it seemed likely that she could literally do that. Her staring begetting his grinning begetting her staring, on and on and on in an endless loop, until something interrupted.

In this particular case, that something was her phone ringing.

She really didn’t want to stop staring, but he stopped grinning—or rather, shifted grins, and wasn’t it just totally unfair that he could do that, keep grinning but make it different somehow so that she could tell he meant something different by it (this would, obviously, require further, detailed study at a later date, which she was very much looking forward to)—and gestured at the phone.

“You, ah, you gonna get that?”

Now that he’d called her out on it, she supposed, she’d have to. She flipped open the phone, not breaking eye contact with Jim, and raised it to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this Pam Beesly?”

And just like that, her moment was shattered. She recognized that voice. It was a voice she was very much not accustomed to having come out of her personal cell phone, but it was one she heard very frequently coming out of a different phone, one situated in her office at Dunder Mifflin.

“Hi, Jan.”

Jim quirked an eyebrow and she could read the expression as “really?” without effort. She nodded, and he rolled her eyes. She nodded again and he smirked.

“Yes, hi, Pam I’m sorry to call you on your day off like this…”

Something about sitting across from Jim in his hospital room while they exchanged glances gave her a sense of courage she hadn’t known she had—while at the same time making her extremely eager to play with him. Verbally, of course, at least for now…

“It’s not my day off, Jan, it’s my vacation. My honeymoon in fact.” Jim’s eyes almost bugged out when she referred to it so casually as her honeymoon; which was, in fact, why she had done it.

“Yes, well, I heard…that is, my understanding is that while you’ve still taken this time off, the marriage…well, I’m sorry to hear that your engagement was broken off, but it was my understanding that you were not in fact on your honeymoon right now?” The questioning tone in Jan’s voice was not usual, Pam noticed—the other woman was really struggling to avoid saying something like “I heard you dumped your fiancée right before the wedding so where the hell are you,” but she could tell something like that was going on. Still, she had Jim’s eyes on her, and that made her bold.

“Yes, well, I still put in for the time off, and I believe I’m still entitled to it, unless something has changed about corporate policy, so why, exactly, are you calling, Jan?”

There was a little cough on the other line, and then a muttered “I am going to kill Michael for this,” which Pam suspected she was not supposed to have heard. Then Jan continued in a full voice: “Well, since your circumstances have changed, I was wondering….well, to be honest with you Pam, I’ve been having a lot of trouble with Michael recently, and I was hoping I could convince you to come into the office this week and run…well, run interference on him while I patch up a few things between him and corporate.”

Pam knew exactly the reason Michael was running wild, and she was sitting directly across from him. “Does this have anything to do with Jim moving to Stamford, Jan?”

She heard a sigh of what she presumed was defeat on the other side. “I knew you’d figure it out. Yes, yes it does. Does that mean you’ll help?”

Pam raised a finger to Jim, and walked out of the room with the phone, ignoring his questioning look. She had an idea where this might go—two ideas, actually—but she didn’t want to get Jim’s hopes up (or her own, but that horse had left the stable already) if neither was going to come to fruition.

“I might, Jan, but if I’m going to give up my well-deserved and long-awaited vacation I’m going to need something from you.”

Was that sigh relief or consternation? “What?”

“Well, before I ask, I assume there’s no way you can just transfer Jim back as ARM at Scranton? I know for a fact that he hasn’t actually left town yet.”

“No, Pam, I’m afraid…well, let’s just say that I would if I could, because god knows Jim deserves to be ARM somewhere, and Michael needs the help, but the branch structure is just different at Scranton. It’s deep in the budget, it has to do with how the branches were added in the first place, and besides, I’m pretty sure Jim…well, I’m sorry to say that Jim wanted a transfer, not a promotion in place.” If Pam hadn’t known Jan better she’d have thought she was actually being apologetic as that last phrase slotted into place.

“Oh, I’ve talked to him about that, Jan, and I think he’d accept the promotion in place, but I can understand if that’s not possible…”

“It really isn’t. I’m sorry. If that’s what you wanted to ask for, I’d do it if I could, but…”

It hadn’t been. Or rather, it had, but she’d known it was a long-shot. Jim had told her that himself, and she didn’t think he had any reason to lie, or that Jan had had any reason to lie to him before. But it had been worth a shot, so that she could open the way for her second of two ideas.

“No, no, that was just something I wanted to clear up first. I’ll check in on Michael this week, but, I was wondering…about that internship you mentioned at the Women in the Workplace event…”

She could hear Jan’s voice perk up over the phone. “Yes? What about it?”

“I was wondering if there were any more places. I know I’m really late to apply…”

She heard typing furiously in the background. “One second, Pam, I seem to remember something about that coming up in my email…I’ve been keeping an eye out ever since you told me you couldn’t do it, just to see if anything came up that might help…oh here we are. We actually had an intern pull out recently…something about pregnancy or a new job or something…so we have a space, and actually there’s a scholarship attached to the space.”

“Oh!” Pam had not actually expected to hear any good news on that front.

“But I’m afraid it probably wouldn’t suit.”

“Why not?” What was the problem? Did Jan suddenly not think she was a good fit? Why bring it up just to snatch it away?

“Well, it’s just that this scholarship requires the recipient to move to our New York headquarters for the summer, not just for the class weekends. It’s tied up with a yearlong internship in the graphic design department afterwards, you see, and I got the impression you were somewhat tied to Scranton. Although if that’s changed…”

Pam didn’t let Jan finish her sentence. “It most definitely has. Do you think you could get me that scholarship? I’d be very interested, and obviously I’d spend whatever time until the internship started doing whatever you need with Michael.” She knew that returning the conversation to what Jan needed from her was probably a good idea at this juncture, lest her boss lose sight of what she herself had to gain.

“I’ll put you in for it immediately. They may email you some paperwork to fill out, but I know they’ve been desperate the last day or so to fill this, so it shouldn’t be a problem. You should know by the end of the day.”

“OK. If I hear from them Michael will see me tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Pam.”

Pam did a little jig in the hallway, then looked around suddenly to see if the nurses had spotted her. Fortunately, there was no one there, so she did the jig again. She might be going to New York! Only a 45 minute commuter train from Stamford! Jim would be so pleased. She hoped.

Suddenly she realized that by taking the call in the hallway she hadn’t let him get disappointed, but she also hadn’t had a chance to ask him about it. Gulping, she stepped back into his room to see what he might think. “He’s not Roy, he’s not Roy, he’s not Roy” she kept repeating to herself. But what if he was?