“I was just, um, checking out my present.”

Pam couldn’t keep the soft smile off her face as she watched her younger self place the teapot on the reception counter. Her smile grew wider as she remembered the look on incredulous joy that had bloomed on Jim’s face when she revealed she’d switched the iPod for the teapot. Her grin stayed on her face as she relived the moments where she started to discover all the bonus gifts Jim had left in the teapot.

Oh Jim, how could I have ever doubted you? Wait! She thought at the computer screen. What are you doing leaning over like...there was a card?! Why didn’t you ever tell me there was a card? What did you write? JIM!

Staring at the screen she so lost in thought she didn’t hear it when Jim came back in the room. It was seeing his reflection in the blank screen that caught her attention. Wiping a stray tear from her cheek she looked up at her husband.

I watched it without you! Please don’t be mad! You looked mad earlier outside, please don’t be mad! He’s smiling, okay, he’s not mad.

Jim had his own soft smile on his face as he looked down at her. “You watched it.”

“Yeah,” she said with a sniffle.

“Well, then I guess you’re ready for this.” Jim reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small white envelope. The letters of her name were slightly faded, but they were still clear on the paper.

“What’s that?” More surprises? I don’t know if I can handle anything more.

“It’s from the teapot. Everything you’ll ever need to know, is in that note.”

The card! That card! He kept it? Pam’s thought started to race again as she reached out with a shaky hand to take the card from him. However, everything came to a screeching halt in her mind as she opened the card and read his words from so many years ago.

Pam,

Merry Christmas! You’re the one getting the gift, but I feel like
I’m the one getting the best present of the year. What I mean by that
is that I get to share this moment with you.
There’s only been one other time I’ve been more excited or happy than I am now.
The day we met.

You are a remarkable person. You’re fun, smart, mischievous,
beautiful, caring, and so much more. I don’t
think I could ever have enough time to fully describe it all.

You’re the reason I get up and come here every morning.
I’ve never met anyone else I’d rather spend my days with.
The way your eyes light up when you smile never fails
to brighten my day, regardless of how dark it might be.
Thank you for being the wonderful woman you are.

With all the love I possess,
Jim

She felt her throat tighten up as she held the card to her heart and looked back up at him. The fears and doubts of earlier in the day completely forgotten.

“Not enough for me?” She caught the hint of exasperation in his voice. A tone that was replaced by the quiet confidence of his next words. “You are everything.”

Pam’s smile bloomed once again on her face as she stood up and reached for him and his arms wrapped her. While she’d watched his little movie a host of thoughts, memories, and emotions had gone through her. With his fingers in her hair and her nose in his shoulder there was only one thing she could say.

“Thank you,” she whispered to him.

Jim didn’t say anything back to her. He just held her close. She shifted her arms down from around his neck to curl up against his chest, making sure not to crush her card. A hum of pleasure escaped her when she felt him softly kiss the top of her head. Pam looked up at him when she felt his lips leave her hair. Reaching up she pulled his face to hers and kissed him.

“So, you liked the movie?” he asked when they broke apart. He was grinning at her with her favorite lop-sided smirk.

“Yeah,” she nodded and took a half step back though she kept her hands on his forearms. “I had no idea they caught so much of us together like that.”

“Same here,” he admitted. “I got a little choked up when they showed it to me.”

Pam felt her eyes rise in surprise. She couldn’t resist teasing him. “Oh? So, you watched it before me and didn’t tell them they spelled my name wrong? I’m disappointed Halpert. Maybe I’ll just send it back.”

“You send the movie back, I take the note back,” he countered.

“Oh no!” she slipped out of his arms and held the card to herself protectively. “You’re never getting this back.”

He laughed at her antics. “It was probably the new guy. If you want, I’ll have them edit it.”

“You know what? It’s okay,” she smiled back before turning to eject the disk from the computer. “I do want to watch this with you tonight when we get home though.”

“You got it Beesly,” he agreed. “Maybe after we put the kids to bed so we can have a glass of wine with it.”

“Or we could try that new bottle of Scotch your Dad sent over,” she suggested.

Jim smiled back at his wife. “That could work too.” He gestured over his shoulder. “Come on, we should go help set up for the big dance number.”

Their arms found their familiar spots around their waists as they left the break room.

_____________________________________________________________________________

“Ready in there?” Pam called out she opened a cabinet and pulled out two Glencairn whiskey glasses along with a green bottle of Scotch.

“Yup, ready and waiting.” Jim’s voice echoed from across the hall in the family room.

Padding into the room, Pam set the glasses down on the end table and look at the label on the whisky bottle. “The Singleton Single Malt Scotch Whisky,” she read. Peeling off the seal she pulled out the cork and poured for the two of them. “Light, fruity, and creamy,” she finished reading from the bottom of the label.

Jim raised his glass to his nose and inhaled for a moment. “Hmmm, Froot Loops.”

“Get out of here with that!” Pam swatted him on the arm with a smile.

“What?” Jim grinned back. “That’s what I smell!

She smirked back before taking her own smell of the amber liquid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it’s clearly Fruity Pebbles.” She shook her head in mock-disbelief as she tucked into his side on the couch. “Froot Loops.”

“Just start the movie,” he said while lightly tickling her side.

She grinned and squirmed away from his fingers while hitting play on the remote. Once more the music started and his opening message, wrong spelling and all, appeared on the screen. Almost immediately she paused it again as she watched onscreen Jim start to smile while onscreen Pam put her head on his shoulder.

“Oh my god!” Pam pointed at the screen and looked at her husband.

“What?” he asked.

“Butterfly Day! That’s what you meant!”

Jim’s expression instantly softened from one of confusion to one of love. “I told you a long time ago that the most beautiful butterfly I’d ever seen landed on my shoulder that day.”

Pam grinned back up at him and raised up to plant a quick kiss on his lips. “Which also explains the butterfly necklace that appeared on my desk the next day too, right?”

Jim only grinned in a very self-satisfied way in response. Pam shook her head and hit play again.

“Your hair was so shaggy back then,” she commented as a few shots of them at each other's desks moved across the screen.

“Well yours had all those wonderful curls,” he replied while twining a few strands of her hair around his fingers.

“Was that the first air-five they caught on camera?” Pam wondered as she hit pause again.

“Going to keep stopping the movie for questions?” he asked in reply.

“Yes,” Pam told him matter-of-factly.

Jim shrugged and took another sip of his whisky. “I honestly don’t know about the air-five. I think that was the first Halloween they got on film, so it might have been.”

“Still cute though,” she remarked and hit play.

“Very.”

With the next shot it was Jim’s turn to grab the remote and hit pause. His on-screen self had just jogged past her while playing basketball in the warehouse. He looked over at her with a very pleased expression. “You were totally checking me out there.”

“I was not!” she feigned.

“Beesly, please,” Jim pointed at the TV.

“Okay fine,” she ducked her head as an embarrassed smile broke on her face. “Maybe a little. Sue me. It was the first time I’d ever seen you play basketball. You looked good.”

“No, it wasn’t. You’d seen me play before.”

Pam furrowed her eyes. “When? Oh! That’s right.” Her eyebrows raised as her mind cast back to high school. “Sorry Jamie.”

“Tisk, tisk, tisk.” Jim clearly pronounced each word. “I had such high hopes for you Miss Morgan. To think you can’t even remember the first time you saw me. I mean it’s not like you then drew a sketch of me and kept it hidden and treasured for years afterwards or anything.”

“I was distracted that day in the warehouse, okay?”

“Yeah?” Jim raised an eyebrow at her. “Distracted by what?”

“Staring at your butt,” she said calmly.

Jim burst out in laughter while Pam gave him the wide toothy grin she knew he loved so much. He kissed her lightly once he got his laughter under control and hit play again. It didn’t take long before the movie was again paused. On the screen Pam was looking up at Jim from his old bed with his high school yearbook open.

“I still think you’re evil for not letting me see my picture in your yearbook back then,” she commented.

“Why?”

“Well that party was well before the Booze Cruise and if I remember right, I was already starting to have doubts about Roy. If I’d known then that you were the long-lost love from high school things might have been different.”

Jim gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. “There were a lot of chances we let slip by.” He hit play again and pointed at the screen where Pam was now looking up at Jim fondly as the elevator doors closed. “Case in point, I shouldn’t have told you that day that what I felt for you was just a simple crush or that I was totally over it.”

Pam gave Jim’s arm a squeeze. “Yeah, it was because you said that, that I really dived into wedding planning. Before then I thought there was still something more than friendship, but when you told me it was just a crush, well you went back to just being my best friend. At least for a little while.”

Jim nodded slowly and watched as his on screen self turned away from a Pam on the phone with a wedding vendor. While the pain of those years was gone, the scars on both of their hearts still remained. Jim paused the movie just as the shot changed to one of them smiling on an ice rink.

“At least we still had fun times like that one,” he pointed at the screen. “When we were together like that, I could at least pretend like we were really together.”

“You don’t have to pretend anymore.” Pam laid her head on his shoulder. “Speaking of the Booze Cruise,” she pointed at the images of them on the deck of the boat now filling the screen. “What was going through your head right then?”

“A few things,” Jim said while lighting rubbing her shoulder. “First was, ‘wow she looks so pretty right now.’”

“Awww,” Pam cooed.

Jim smiled at her reaction. “Second, was ‘I really want to kiss her, but she’s engaged and Katy is downstairs, and I’m not that guy, and damn why the hell is my life so screwed up.’”

“I would have let you.” Pam looked up at him.

“Let me what?”

“Kiss me,” she answered. “I would have let you kiss me that night. I know it would have screwed everything up, what with me being with Roy and you being with Katy at the time, but in that moment, I wasn’t thinking about anyone else. I was just thinking about how nice it was just being with you.”

Jim didn’t have an answer for her. Rather he leaned down and kissed her.

“I’m in love with you.”

“What?”

They broke apart and watched as a Jim clad in his sweater gathered Pam in her periwinkle dress in his arms and kissed her. Pam hit pause again as she felt her throat grow tight.

“Speaking of screwing things up.”

“Yeah,” Jim said, his voice tight too. He hung his head as memories ran through his mind.

“Hey,” Pam’s voice was gentle as she tilted his head up. “We made it through. Not just that night, and the next year, but this year too. It may have sucked, but we made it.”

Jim nodded back at her. “Yeah, we did,” he said softly as she re-started the movie. At once Jim felt his throat relax and a smile break over his face. “You were so drunk that night.”

Pam was grinning too as she watched herself leap into Jim’s arms and kiss him in full view of everyone from the office in the middle of Chili’s. “I know. And I still can’t believe I thought we would keep that kiss a secret. You wouldn’t believe the dressing down Angela gave me the next day when you were out on sales calls.”

“I still can’t believe you tried to re-name me Jeff when you got online that night.”

She smiled again and gave him a light shove. Her head found its spot again on his shoulder while they watched a montage of them embracing and kissing each other. Her room at Pratt. His return from Stamford. Her waiting for him in the parking lot. A peck on the cheek by the vending machine. A sweet embrace before an Italian dinner.

Pam paused the video again and pointed at the screen. “You still owe me lunch.”

Jim laughed both at her and the image of them kissing after his proposal. “Just let me know when and where.”

The movie played again, but only for a few seconds before Pam once more stopped it. “Did you ever notice that?”

“Notice what?” Jim looked between her and the image on screen. He’d just wrapped her in his arms after being told the news that she was pregnant.

“The room we were in looks just like the set of Scrubs.”

“Not really,” he said.

Pam tilted her head at him and gave him a look of disbelief. “Jim it’s only one of your favorite shows. You're going to tell me you didn’t notice you were standing in a room could literally have been taken off that set?”

He looked back at her with a fond smile. “Well at the time I was first worried that your ankle was broken, and then I was sort of distracted by the news that I was going to be a father.”

“That’s no excuse,” she teased. “I’ve been telling you for years that you need to focus on the important things.”

Jim let out a big sigh. “You're right.” He looked up in the direction of the stairway. “Cece! I can’t watch you at gymnastics. Mommy says I have to watch TV!”

Pam giggled into his shoulder while she took a sip of her drink and the movie started again. Scenes from their wedding day scrolled across the screen and she leaned up to kiss Jim’s cheek. She felt his head lean down to rest on hers. Once more she watched as the teapot was brought onto her old desk. She sneaked her hand out to intertwine her fingers with Jim’s as the movie faded away with one last shot of her smiling face.

She scooted over to straddle his lap and wrapped her arms around him. “I know I said this before,” she whispered into his shoulder. “But just thank you Jim.”

He tilted her chin up and kissed her softly. “You’re welcome.”