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Story Notes:

I'm not going to lie, this might be the dumbest thing I've ever written, but here's the thing. I love it a lot. And I think that if you give it a chance, you might love it too.

This premise is based off of a short story that I will give credit to at the end of the story, so as not to give away any spoilers. I know I've asked you to suspend belief in other things I've written but this is the first time I've attempted writing anything with even the slightest hint of fantasy so let's all just go with it and see where we end up, yeah?

Story title credit goes to the song Wishin' and Hopin', but specifically the version from the My Best Friend's Wedding soundtrack, although the Dusty Springfield version is a close second.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of it. 

Author's Chapter Notes:
Starts off in Season 3 sometime after Back from Vacation

Chapter title credit goes to the Barenaked Ladies, and if you haven't heard the song If I Had a Million Dollars, an entire section of this chapter isn't going to make much sense. 

 

When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams come true. Unless it’s really a meteor hurtling to Earth which will destroy all life. Then you’re pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it’s death by meteorite.

Pam had once seen that quote on a poster in Michael’s office. It had been hanging on a wall with four other motivational posters that had been really popular at the time; the ones with bold lettering screaming words like attitude, teamwork, or perseverance against a backdrop of some blue or purple tinted seascape. She hadn’t really paid much attention to them; she just knew that Michael had seen one in his dentist’s office and fallen in love with the idea of them so he bought as many as he could find. Then one day he had called her into his office to take notes on an infomercial that he wanted to film because didn’t she know that late night TV was where the real money and fame was at? She had started to zone out after about five minutes but then her eyes had landed on the wall of posters and for the first time, she really read the “inspirational” quote on the bright green one proclaiming Wishes.

Clearly, Michael hadn’t read it at all before buying it and hanging it up and she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him about it.

She told Jim immediately though and it had instantly become one of their things. For days, and then for weeks, any time one of them was having a bad day, the other would whisper or email the word meteorite and they would instantly be cheered.

One day Michael overheard Ryan telling Toby how lame he thought motivational posters were and they were all gone within the hour. Pam had tried to save the Wishes one, but Michael insisted on burning them all in the parking lot.

In time, she and Jim had forgotten about the poster, but every now and then, mostly on the rare nights where she saw a shooting star, Pam would think of the quote, and of Jim, and though she was an adult and not a four-year-old, she would make the same wish and hope for the best.

Eventually she stopped wishing on stars because all she’d gotten was meteorites. The most recent one coming in the form of a tall and gorgeous brunette named Karen.

So it was weird that all of a sudden today, a perfectly random and boring Monday in March, she found herself thinking about that poster and wishes. She wouldn’t fully appreciate how weird it was until the end of the day, but she still knew that it was.

Maybe it was the exhaustion she felt that had her thinking about random things. Because Pam was tired. She hadn’t been sleeping well recently and she was starting to feel a bit like a zombie, which was the It was the only reason she could come up with as to why she was willingly sitting in the break room and letting the other women in the office talk about her lack of a love life and how to fix it.

Because oh yes. They all had opinions. And she was too tired to argue with any of them.

“It’s simple math, Pam. The more guys you go out with, the more chances you have to sleep with them, which means more opportunity for a meaningful relationship.” That was from Kelly, an obvious mathematician.

“Have you thought about dating an older man?” Phyllis asked. She had not. “I know you’re still a young thing, but let me tell you, there’s something to be said about a man who’s been around the block a few times, you know?” Meredith shouted her ‘amen” from by the vending machines.

“There’s nothing wrong with sitting home every night. Maybe more of you should lead a righteous and chaste life.” Thanks, Angela.

“I know a guy. It’ll cost you eighty bucks an hour and he has a hook for a left hand but the women seem to love it. If you know what I mean.” When the hell had Creed snuck in?

“Hey, I bet Jim has a friend or two that’s single right now.” At this, every head in the room whipped toward Karen’s direction. To her credit, Karen didn’t flinch under their stares.

Pam barked out something similar to a laugh. She really was too tired for this. “Sure, go ahead and ask him for me.”

“Ask who what?” Now all of their heads turned to the door where Jim stood, looking uneasily. “Sorry to interrupt… whatever this is, but Michael wants everyone in the conference room in two minutes.” His head tilted to the side. “What is all of this?”

“Nothing,” Pam answered before anyone else could say anything. “But hey. Karen just offered up that you might have a single friend to set me up with.” She gave him a wintry smile and cut her eyes back at the other woman whose usual air of confidence was betrayed by the way she nervously played with the ends of her hair. “Maybe we can double,” she added sarcastically over her shoulder as she left the room.

“Pam, you are so brave.” Kelly waited for her to sit down next to her before reaching over to clutch her hand. “I don’t know how you don’t punch her in the face every morning.”

She had to laugh because she had imagined punching Karen a time or two, but then she shook her head and sighed, tilting her head back until it rested against the wall. She wished she could close her eyes and just take a nap right there. Instead she turned to look at Kelly. “Karen hasn’t done anything wrong,” she pointed out. “Not really, anyways. None of this is her fault.”

“I don’t know, Pam. She’s been super bitchy ever since Phyllis told her that Jim used to have a thing for you. She’s like Regina George now.” Kelly shook her head. “No, that’s not right, she doesn’t have a Gretchen or even a Karen, because she is Karen. But you’re totally a Cady, so I guess it could work? Or maybe she’s a Heather? Or a Heidi! Except, that’s a TV show and not a movie but you know what I mean. Oh, you know what!” Kelly’s eyes lit up as she bounced up and down in her seat. “You and I should totally have a movie night this weekend and watch all of the girly movies and find out which bad girl Karen really is. Won’t that be so much fun?”

Pam was saved from having to answer her because without warning, all of their conversations were drowned out by Genie in a Bottle blaring from a CD player as Michael danced through the door with a beach towel wrapped around his head like a turban.

Well that wasn’t something she saw every day.

“Greetings!” He cried out dramatically, first sweeping his arms out wide and then clasping them over his head as he stopped and did something Pam thought he intended to be a shimmy.

Michael shimmying well, anything, was nearly too much for her to handle. They were forced to endure his dancing for half of the song before he got a cramp in his side and shut the music off abruptly.

“I love you all very much,” he declared as he stood at the front of the room. “Except you, Toby, because no one could love you. Anyways, where was I? Right. I love most of you. You’re all like my children that I’ve had with my hot wife who still looks really hot after giving birth to you. If I had a wife.” He nodded to himself. “And I want you all to be happy. That’s all I want in this world, okay? For you guys to be happy. I know things, okay everyone? I see how tense and weird things can be in the office and I don’t like it. It hurts my heart. And sales, but mostly my heart. I was telling my girlfriend Jan about it last night while we were snuggling and she had the best idea. Are you guys ready for her idea?”

“I’m ready to go home,” Stanley muttered from the back of the room. Pam had never related to Stanley so much in all of the time they’d worked together.

“Stanley, even you can’t kill my joy for what’s about to happen, so don’t even try.” Michael was positively beaming as he reached under the table and held up a white basket the size of a punch bowl. “Does anyone know what this is? That’s right, it’s a basket. But it’s not just any kind of basket; that would be lame. No, this is a Jamaican Wishing Basket. I got it in Jamaica when I was there with my girlfriend Jan. And it works. You know how I know it works?”

“Because you wished for a girlfriend?” Kelly asked, raising her hand.

“Yes, and now I have a girlfriend. It’s incredible, right?” Michael nodded eagerly. “So what we’re going to do, what you’re all going to do, is make a wish right here, right now. It’s going to be miraculous.” He started handing out pens and slips of paper. “Write down your wish, don’t sign it, just write down your wish and throw it into the basket. That’s it! Boom! Bang! Pow!”

Pam was only half surprised when Dwight jumped up and demanded to go first. Michael set the basket down on the conference room table and turned the CD player back on as everyone reluctantly gathered around.

“Pam! Hey Pam.” She watched warily as Michael walked like an Egyptian over to her. “You wanna rub me the right way?”

“Michael.” She heard Toby sigh to the left of her. “Come on man, we’ve talked about this. You can’t—“

“Why are you even here, Toby? You aren’t going to ruin this for everyone. You know what I wish for? I wish for you to go away. How’s that sound? Hey everybody! Let’s wish for Toby to die in a fire.” Michael’s face twitched and then he frowned. “Dwight, come here and wiggle my nose. Like I’m Jeannie.” Surprising no one, Dwight obliged. He wiggled Michael’s nose back and forth with the tip of his finger as Michael bellowed, “So it was written, so it shall be done!”

Pam was not only exhausted, but now she had a headache to go along with it. Plus, as a bonus gift, she was stuck with the image of Michael dancing like Christina Aguilera forever burned into her memory.

It was a lot to take in all at once, so she tried not to think about any of it as she scrawled out her wish on the piece of paper and folded it twice before dropping it into the basket. She fled the room as quickly as she could, happier to see her desk than she had been in a long time.

“I’ll tell you what I wished for; I wished for Scranton to get a decent acapella group because the tunes are seriously lacking in this city, am I right?” Andy looked around the room expectantly but no one answered him.

They had only managed about eight minutes of silence before everyone started talking about what they’d wished for and Pam was learning more about her co-workers than she really needed to know.

Dwight had wished for new ninja stars and a boomerang. Because had any of them ever seen how cool it was to kill a bird with a boomerang?

Phyllis had wished for a romantic vacation with Bob Vance. That one seemed fairly obvious.

Meredith’s wish was for the guy at the 7-11 to drop the restraining order against her.

Creed asked for a goldfish.

“What about you, Pam?”

Her head snapped up at Phyllis’ question. “Oh me? You know, I asked for the usual,” she said, lifting her shoulders in a small shrug.  “World peace.” She relaxed when no one pressed her further. “What about you?” She surprised herself by directing the question to Jim. “What did you wish for?”

He leaned back in his chair with his hands laced behind his head. “A million dollars,” he said as though it was the most obvious answer in the world.

Pam raised an eyebrow at him, shocked that he would refer to one of their inside jokes so casually now. He raised both eyebrows at her and she shook her head, looking away as her cheeks turned pink at memories of them singing cheesy 90s songs on karaoke nights.

“What would you do with a million dollars?” Karen’s voice pulled Pam out of her memories. Right. She had almost forgotten about her for like, two minutes.

Jim pretended to think about it for a minute. “I’d buy you a green dress.” He paused to point at her. “But not a real green dress.” Pam had to pretend it didn’t sting as he let his new girlfriend in on their old joke.

Karen frowned. “I have a green dress, remember? I wore it the other night to dinner.”

Pam tried to stop her snort but just ended up choking. Jim glanced over at her and now she pretended she was very busy sorting papers.

“Hey Pam?” He didn’t wait for her to look up at him again. “What would you do if you had a million dollars?”

“Oh me?” She shrugged as she continued separating faxes into two different piles. “I’d probably buy you an exotic pet.”

“Yeah? Like a llama?”

“Or an emu.” She was surprised at how effortlessly the words flowed off of her tongue, considering it had been at least a year since she’d last really heard the song.

“Wow, I’m honored. Really, thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” There was an awkward silence as Karen looked back and forth between the two of them with her eyebrows arched into her bangs.

“Hey Pam?”

She bit the inside of her cheek but kept her eyes on her computer screen. “Yes Jim?”

“Do you want to know what else I’d buy if I had a million dollars?”

“I’m dying to know.” She tried her best not to smile but this was the most they’d talked since Christmas and damn it, she was not so pathetic that this was the absolute highlight of her day, was she?

“I think I’d buy you some art.”

“Like a Picasso?”

“Nah.” He shook his head and she knew that this was the highlight of her fucking month. “Maybe a Garfunkel.”

“Tuna!” Andy’s yell startled them both out of the moment and they turned to look at him. “Shut up, I love that song! Let me look up the words real quick and we’ll start over from the beginning, okay? Is this it? Is my wish coming true? Is music coming to Scranton? You guys!”

“Yikes, look at the time.” Pam pointed to the clock. Four fifty-seven. “I’ve got to get home but maybe you and Jim can work out a nice duet together. I’d love to hear it tomorrow.” She stuck her tongue out at Jim just as Karen appeared at his side, running her hand along the back of his shoulders and staring daggers in Pam’s general direction.

Jim laughed, trying to diffuse the situation as they all gathered their coats and headed for the door. “Karen, calm down. It’s just a stupid song we used to sing sometimes.” She just shook her head at him and flounced through the door ahead of him.

Pam was still shutting down her computer when she noticed Jim lingering at her desk. He tapped his fingers nervously against the counter and waited for her to look up at him. “Did you really wish for world peace?”

She nodded as seriously as she could. “It’s what I want most in the world, Jim.”

“Right. Well.” He looked down at his hands and then back at her. “Watch out for the meteorites,” he said quietly just before he slipped out the door.

Pam didn’t stop smiling the entire way home.

Once she got to her apartment it was the same as every other night. She made dinner and cleaned up the kitchen after. Her mom called at seven to say hi and she did some of her homework while Jeopardy played in the background.

It wasn’t until later, once she’d changed into her pajamas, the pink striped ones that she’d had forever, and was settled in front of the TV with a glass of wine she hoped would help her sleep later, that she really let herself reflect on just how weird the entire day had been.

What exactly were the odds that the first day in months that she’d given the Wishes poster any kind of thought at all was the exact same day that Michael would bring in a ridiculous wishing basket he’d gotten from some street vendor in Jamaica? And okay, if that wasn’t weird enough, why was today also the day that not only did her co-workers become invested in her love life but that she and Jim actually managed to be more than just civil to each other? What was actually going on?

Because she had lied earlier. She hadn’t wished for world peace.

No, when Kelly had pressed the purple gel pen into her hand and told her to make it count, she had stared at that blank piece of paper for two seconds before telling herself that the entire thing was stupid, it wasn’t real, and it didn’t actually matter what she wrote down so she might as well write down the one thing she’d been wanting for some time now.

She wished for a fairy-tale romance.

Chapter End Notes:
Lay it on me.

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