“Wait, what?” She looked up at him in total surprise. “You’re staying here too?”

“Seriously?” He was just as surprised as she looked. “Out of all the hostels in all the cities in the world…”

“But, no, wait.” She cut him off. “I’m staying here because I grabbed a brochure at the train station and they happened to have a room. You had time to plan. Months, if I recall correctly. Why are you staying at the ‘Jolly Swagman Backpackers Sydney Hostel.’” She did the air quotes as she said the name. “The ‘Jolly Swagman’ Jim? Really?”

“Hey, if it’s good enough for you…” she swatted him on the arm again.

“That’s my point! It’s good enough for me coming on absolutely no sleep with absolutely no planning! They happened to have a shiny brochure and a room available. You booked tickets! You made plans! You should be doing better for yourself! Is this really how a Dunder Mifflin ARM travels, Jim?”

“Woah, Pam, I hadn’t taken you for such a company loyalist,” he teased. “And besides, do you know what a jolly swagman is?”

“No?”

“Neither do I,” he confided. “But I do know that it’s got something to do with the song ‘Waltzing Matilda,’ and I know that that song is very important to the Australians. So I figured that if the hostel was named for something so important, it had to be good.” He hadn’t, in all honesty, actually thought about it at all. He’d blown so much money on the ticket that he’d been scrimping and saving around the rest of it, and if he were totally candid with himself (which hadn’t been a real strength of his in the months leading up to and through Casino Night) he hadn’t ever really expected to stay here. Everything in June had been a blank for him, and so the issue of where he’d sleep had seemed utterly immaterial. But he’d remembered snatches of the song (which he hadn’t identified until it was on a plaque at one of the museums today) and so he’d picked the place because he liked the name.

“Jim.” She rolled her eyes. “Would you stay at ‘The Star Spangled Hostel’ or the ‘Big Apple Hostel’ in New York?”

“No?”

“Exactly.”

“Oh.” Yeah, this had been a bad choice, when you put it that way. “But hey, it worked out, right? Different routes, same destination?”

“You and me? Yeah. You might call that a metaphor, Jim.”

“I might, but you wouldn’t?” He grinned down at her.

“Exactly. So. You made a very bad choice of hostel that I happen to have copied by complete serendipitous coincidence crossed with my own set of very bad choices...”

He cut her off. “Which bad choices were those again? Because if we’re assessing choices, I happen to be a very big fan of a lot of your choices in the last few days.”

She smiled up at him. “I mean, so am I, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t objectively bad choices anyway.”

“And who said we should be objective about this? That is sounding like some Dwight Schrute talk, young lady, and I won’t be having that in my hostel.”

“What about in my hostel?”

“That either.” He grabbed the door and bowed. “Would milady like to enter her hostelry of choice?”

She curtsied—or tried to, she had clearly not taken two summers of theater camp and been forced to learn both bows and curtsies for curtain calls, but it was cuter that way—and sauntered into the hostel lobby. “Milady would.”

**

As she and Jim trailed upstairs, Pam began to run through all sorts of ridiculous scenarios in her mind. What if the hostel had gotten mixed up and her and Jim’s room were the same room? No, that couldn’t be, because hadn’t they both slept there last night? But what if it were? Or what if she found someone else booked into her room, or into his room, and they did have to spend the night in the other room? Was she ready for that? Were they? How would they deal with it?

She was interrupted by Jim pulling out the large novelty key that she recognized as similar to—but slightly different labeled than—hers. “Well, this is me.” He waved a hand in the air. “Any idea where you are? I’m happy to walk you to your door.”

She pointed down the hall. “One further.” So her wild musings hadn’t been that far off.

“So you’re the quiet German.” He laughed at her confused expression. “The day before there were a bunch of loud Germans yelling about the opera house while I was trying to sleep. When they were quiet this morning I didn’t know what to think.”

“Yeah, that was me, sleeping in.” Pam smiled at him. “Speaking of which…when do you want to meet up in the morning? I don’t suppose we need to find a meeting place, since we can just step out into the hall.”

“Whenever you like, Beesly.” He leaned against the door frame and she was impressed once again with just how tall and lanky he was, especially compared to her. “I’m not sure I’ll be getting much sleep, with all of this to process.” He held up both hands as if afraid of what he’d just said. “Good processing only! I’m really excited to be dating you.” He lowered his hands. “We are, uh, dating, right? That’s what being a couple means?”

“I generally think that’s what it’s interpreted to mean in most cultures, yes.” She winked. “Shall we say 8? And are you suggesting I’m going to be keeping you up all night, Halpert?”

“Oh my god, Beesly, you never quit, do you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know? 8 o’clock, don’t be late.” And with that, she skipped away from him down the hall, blew him a kiss, and slipped into her room.

Because she really was tired, so if she didn’t get into bed soon, she was literally going to fall asleep on him. And she really didn’t want her first time with Jim Halpert to be remembered as the time she couldn’t stay awake.

Though if she mentioned that to Jim, she suspected he’d take it as a challenge.

With that thought, it ended up taking her a little longer to fall asleep than she’d originally projected.