Pam wanted to sit there with Jim forever, but the five minutes he’d asked for from his friends and familly were going to be up very shortly—and the looming presence of the moving van was a reminder that he was planning to leave. And if his surprise at seeing her (and the presence of the moving van on a weekend) was any indication, without saying goodbye.

She wasn’t sure exactly how to broach the topic, however, because it seemed like poor repayment for his forgiveness to immediately demand why it was that he was abandoning her. Besides, she thought she could guess: it was probably the same reason that (she now let herself realize) he’d been planning to miss her wedding to be in Australia. If he was really in love with her (and all signs pointed to that conclusion, certainly) it was probably impossible for him to sit around quietly and watch her plan her wedding to Roy, especially after she’d rejected him.

Oh god, that was why he’d complained about her wedding planning. How short-sighted she’d been. It had all been self-preservation.

But now that she wasn’t going to marry Roy...

Mark stuck his head out of the house. “Is it safe to come out?”

She and Jim looked at each other. “Is it OK if they come back?” he whispered to her.

She started to nod, then stopped. They hadn’t really established what was going on between them, even though she’d told him the most important thing—that she’d broken up with Roy—and even though he’d forgiven her for last night. Were they together? Was he still leaving? What was going to happen next?

He must have seen the confusion in her eyes, because he started to wave Mark off, but it was too late. The young woman Pam had seen earlier had dodged past Mark in the doorway and was rapidly approaching them.

“Hi, I’m Larissa, Jim’s sister,” she said, while pushing her hair out of her eyes in a way that only confirmed for Pam that the two of them were related and then sticking out her hand. “You must be Pam.”

Pam took the offered hand. “Good guess.”

“Oh, it wasn’t a guess. Jimmy-boy here has told me all about...” Jim nudged her in the ribs with his elbow. “What? I was just going to say he gave a very accurate physical description of you, so I recognized you immediately.”

Pam looked down at herself. “Did it include the wrinkled blue dress?”

“Maybe not the wrinkles, but last night we...”

Jim slung an arm over his sister’s shoulder. “How about you let me tell Pam about what I said last night?”

She leaned into her brother just far enough to wrap an arm around his side and begin to tickle him, which forced him to pull back. “Oh, I think Pam deserves to know.”

“Deserves to know what?” Pam couldn’t help herself, even if on reflection she was worried that drawing attention to her interest in what Jim had said to Larissa would cause her to clam up.

She needn’t have worried, as apparently Jim’s sister liked nothing more than to embarrass Jim.  “How absolutely gorgeous he thought you looked.” She looked Pam up and down. “Not that he’s wrong.” She moved away from Jim before he could grab her again and slipped her left arm around Pam’s right. “Now, does your presence this morning mean I can stop feeling sorry for my big brother?” She lowered her voice to a whisper only Pam could hear. “I’m kind of sick of being sympathetic. It’s much more fun to tease him.”

Pam felt herself get carried away by Larissa’s evident enthusiasm. She looked Jim in the eye and quirked an eyebrow. “That kind of depends on him.” Jim’s jaw dropped open and he gaped for a moment like a fish, which prompted her to whisper back to Larissa. “You’re right, it really is.”

Before Larissa could formulate a response Jim had recovered enough of his sense of speech to cut her off. “What are you saying?”

She raised the eyebrow again. “What does it seem like I’m saying?” She was not going to be the first one to say it, even if she realized it was probably her turn. After all, she thought, she’d told him about Roy. It was up to him whether he still wanted to be with her or whether her rejection last night had revealed to him that she wasn’t the woman he thought she was. Oh God, was that why it was so easy for him to forgive her?

Before her thoughts could travel any further down that particular road, Jim had taken a step closer, almost up to her chest, and the sheer force of his presence distracted her. He looked down into her eyes. “Please, Pam, just tell me what you want here.”

She looked up at him, seeing the naked emotion in his eyes for the first time, and instantly felt terrible for how she’d been treating him. It was one thing to tease, but it was another to send mixed messages, and while she knew that she’d finally come around to realizing that she needed to be with Jim, he hadn’t heard that yet. The worry in his face was a stark reminder that she had to let him in; that for all that Jim had always been wonderful at guessing what she was thinking without her actually having to say it, she’d hurt him last night, and (perhaps worse than the actual rejection itself) made him doubt his instincts.

She put her hand on Jim’s face, feeling the slight rise of stubble that indicated that he had probably not taken time to shave this morning. It made her smile to think that while she was still wearing the dress, he was still wearing the face he’d kissed her with the night before. She remembered the light touch of a day’s growth of hair pressing against her and suddenly one hand wasn’t enough. She disentangled the other from Larissa and cupped his face in both hands while making eye contact.

“I want you.”

He blinked, and she heard (as if from a long distance away) Larissa’s gasp by her side, but she didn’t let either one interrupt her.

“I’m in love with you, Jim Halpert, and I. Want. You.” She shook his face lightly with each word.

The most amazing smile lit up across his face; it was like the way he’d looked at her when she’d first proposed ridiculous names for diseases during the incident with their healthcare, crossed with the relief of speaking after a full day of jinx and deepened by the dark look in his eyes that reminded her of the time she’d thought he was going to kiss her on the Booze Cruise.

As if he was lifting the thought from her very soul he bent down. “If you aren’t careful, Beesly, I’m going to kiss you again.”

She felt the opposite of careful. She felt reckless, abandoned, delightfully out of control. So before he could finish bending down to her mouth she launched herself upwards, and melted into his kiss.

Sometime later she became aware of Larissa shaking her head fondly while looking at the two of them. She and Jim must have come out of their haze at the same time, because his sister wasn’t looking at Pam but at him, and the only word Pam could hear properly was a mildly amused “again?”

He reddened. “Uh...I may have left something out of my account of last night.” His muscles tensed as if he was going to raise his arm up and rub the back of his neck again, but Pam tightened her arms around him (and when had that happened?) and held his own around her instead. She glanced up at Larissa, who was quite clearly amused rather than offended to find out that her brother had been holding out on her.

“For your information, Larissa, your brother is a gentleman, and a gentleman never kisses and tells.”

“A gentleman? This one?” Larissa turned back to Jim. “You’d better stay in Scranton; you never know when she might recover from the head injury.”

Pam and Jim both started at the mention of his leaving, but Pam strove to keep the conversation light. “What head injury is that?”

Larissa looked at her with disappointment and made a “get with the program” head gesture that Pam was momentarily surprised to recognize until she considered that Jim did the same thing. “The head injury you’re obviously hiding because otherwise you’d see my brother for the big goof he is.”

Pam grinned. “Yeah, but he’s a gentlemanly goof.”

Larissa shook her head. “I don’t know how you did it, big brother, but she seems to really believe it.”

Jim had been watching their byplay with a dazed look on his face—almost as if he’d been the one to receive the head wound Larissa had referenced—but now it had faded away into a serious expression Pam wasn’t entirely familar with. If she had to guess, she’d have said it was his businesslike look, but since Jim hadn’t been businesslike yet in three years at Dunder Mifflin, she wasn’t sure.

“Do you want me to stay?”

God, what had she done to this man that he could doubt it? Well, it was impossible to change the past ,but she made herself a promise silently that she would never let him doubt her intentions or her feelings again.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll stay.” He frowned. “Jan said the transfer would go through first thing Monday, and I could take the week off to look for places up in Stamford while staying in a hotel on the company’s dime.” He gestured towards the van. “I got a storage locker up there for the stuff, but that can just stay empty. It’s not like it cost that much.” He waved Mark over, keeping his other arm around Pam. “Hey man, is it OK if I just don’t move out?”

Mark looked back and forth between Jim and Pam and a huge grin broke out slowly over his face. He clapped Jim on the shoulder. “I dunno man, I was looking forward to having all that space to myself.” He shook Jim’s shoulder lightly. “But I suppose I could deal with seeing your ugly face again if I had to.”

“Thanks, man.” Jim’s face was still furrowed in thought. “I think if I could get Jan to cancel the transfer before Monday, it would work. She won’t be happy, after all the fuss I made to make it happen in the first place,” here Pam squeezed his side to reassure him that she wasn’t mad at him for wanting to leave—or at least that she understood why. He smiled down at her, but continued in the same unusually serious tone. “But I don’t know how to do that before the paperwork goes through.”

“Doesn’t Jan have a cellphone?” This was Jim’s dad, or at least Pam assumed so, who had strolled up to the conversation along with Mark. “Also, are you going to introduce me, or should I invent a name for this young lady?”

“Oh! Sorry, Dad. Pam, this is Gerald Halpert, my dad. Dad, this is...this is Pam.”

“Jim’s girlfriend,” Pam added, glancing at Jim to gauge his reaction while reaching out a hand to shake Gerald’s. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Halpert.”

“Please, call me Gerry. Pleased to meet you, Pam. Now, Jim...” Gerry Halpert grinned at his son, who was staring down at Pam and mouthing “girlfriend?” down at her. She shrugged, and mouthed “if you want.” He mouthed “girlfriend” again and smiled until Gerry cleared his throat. “Jan’s cellphone?”

“Oh, right.” Jim shrugged. “She definitely has one, but I don’t know the number.”

“HR would definitely have it on file, though,” Pam mused.

“Yeah, but the building’s closed...” Jim began. “And Dwight has both keys,” Pam sighed.

“Is that all?” Larissa put her arms around both of them and stage whispered. “Did you forget how I spent my misspent youth, brother mine? Don’t tell Dad, but I can get you in there.”

Gerry took a step backwards, shaking his head. “I’m not listening to this.” But he was smiling, and Pam got the sense this was a long-running joke among the Halperts. It warmed her inside to be witnessing it.

“You sure, L?”

“Of course I am.” Larissa rolled her eyes at Jim in Pam’s direction. “You think Jim is good at pranks? I taught him everything he knows. And I still have a few things up my sleeve he doesn’t know...”

“You taught me? Please, I was pulling pranks literally before you were born.”

“Yeah, bad ones.” Larissa stuck her tongue out at Jim. “Do you want to get that number or not?”

“Fine, fine.” He squeezed Pam. “No time like the present, right?”

“Right,” Pam nodded. Thinking of this as a big prank helped her ignore the little voice that was saying that breaking into work after hours was a bad idea. “You know, while we’re there, we could always grab something of Dwight’s.”

“And do what with it?” Jim was instantly invested, though whether this was because it was actually a good idea or simply because he was no longer hiding his feelings about her Pam couldn’t quite tell.

She mused for a moment, then bounced up and down with glee. “Put it in the storage locker in Stamford.”

“And leave him a series of clues as to its whereabouts?” Jim wasn’t about to be left beehind.

“Exactly.” They grinned at each other. “Perfect,” Jim concluded. “I have some of Dwight’s old stationary I...recycled. I can send him a message from his future self telling him he had to stash whatever we take in Connecticut.”

“Brilliant. We can tell him it was to keep an eye on the Stamford branch somehow.” Pam was enjoying the feeling of planning a prank while tucked into Jim’s arms. It felt different, but the same in a delightful mix of old and new.

“Come on you lovebirds, let’s get going.” Larissa was walking over to Pam’s car. “And because you won’t look at the road if you’re both sitting in front, I call shotgun.”

Jim shrugged. “It’s probably best to let her have this one. She sulks otherwise.” He waved at Mark and his dad. “We’ll be right back.”

Mark and Gerry shared a glance. “We’ll just start unloading the truck, shall we?” Mark inquired sweetly.

“That’d be great, thanks.”

“No problem.” Mark grabbed a box out of the back. “But don’t blame me if it all mysteriously ends up in the basement bathroom.”

Jim made a rude gesture. “No, I’ll blame dad.”

“Hey, leave me out of this, boys,” Gerry added genially as he hefted a box of his own. “And that goes double for whatever you and your sister are planning. You tell your mother I had nothing to do with it.”

“Sure thing, dad,” Larissa chimed in. “You were never here.”

“That’s my girl.”