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Author's Chapter Notes:
Title says it all--thanks to JennaBennett for the idea.

It turned out that the Australian Botanic Garden was accessible by public transit, which was good, because neither Jim nor Pam wanted to figure out how to either get or drive a car in Australia. He figured that his license would be legally good enough, but he didn’t even know which side of the street they drove on here—a fact he made the mistake of admitting to Pam, who pointed out that he’d been walking past cars for the last three days and somehow hadn’t noticed which side of the street they were on.

 

OK, it wasn’t a mistake. He liked the way she laughed, joyous and carefree, like spring coming out in buds after winter. So he deliberately gave her the opportunity to laugh at him, with him, anything he could do to get her to laugh. Just like he had in Scranton, but now with the added bonus that she wasn’t looking over her shoulder all the time to see who would notice her laughing.

 

He said this to her too, as they waited interminably for a train at King’s Cross Station. She sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder and that was even better than her laughing.

 

Not that he didn’t try to get her to laugh again a minute later when the train was finally announced. “Wollongong via Wolli Creek!” He found that just repeating the Australian names in a variety of bad accents he could get her to laugh again and again (starting with Australian, of course, but moving through Russian, German—Dwight-inspired, of course—and Deep Southern kept the laughter going).

 

The train ride was short—but only because they were going to transfer at Central Station to a much longer train ride of about an hour.

 

“Why did we bother to take this train?” he asked as they got out three stops later. “Didn’t I walk this far each of the last three days?”

 

“It’s what the map said to do.” Pam intoned this like it was a gospel truth. “Always follow the map.”

 

“But what if the map is wrong?”

 

“Then we follow the map wherever it goes. The map knows, Jim. It knows.”

 

And this time he was the one to fall over laughing.

 

**

 

Pam settled in for the second long wait for a train that morning and realized that despite her normal frustration at waiting for promised services, there was actually nowhere else she’d rather be at the moment. Oh, obviously she’d like to get to see the kangaroos eventually, but for now, sitting next to Jim, holding his hand, was pretty damn good.

 

Her hands were getting clammy, though, so she shifted to lean further against him so that he moved his arms around her waist—a lovely feeling, much less grabby than when Roy had tried to do the same thing and always ended up groping her “accidentally”—and pulled out a sheet of paper.

 

She was busy sketching the train station when she noticed Jim was watching over her shoulder.

 

“Nice lines, Beesly.” He caught her looking up at him and smiled. “I especially like how you’ve given the impression of motion on the other tracks, but left ours stark blank.”

 

“Thank you!” She hadn’t expected him to actually pay attention to the artwork—the best she’d really been hoping for, if she was honest, was the best she’d ever gotten from Roy, which was a tolerant shrug and a “go ahead Pammy”—but that was, she realized, decidedly unfair. Jim, even non-boyfriend Jim, had always been supportive of her work, always observant of what she was doing. Boyfriend Jim was…well, he was still Jim. And also her boyfriend. She snuggled in closer. “That was exactly the effect I was going for.”

 

“Well, you’ve achieved it.” He squeezed her. “Is it OK that I’m watching you draw?”

 

Roy had never asked that, would never in a million years have thought to ask that. “Sure!” jumped out of her mouth before she could think, but when she did think she decided this was actually an invitation, or at least an opportunity, to have more fun with Jim. Pranks were, after all, their primary form of foreplay, were they not? And this wasn’t a prank, per se, but teasing was somewhere in the same village.

 

“Actually, would you mind not?” She raised an eyebrow. “We artistes are very temperamental you know.”

 

“Oh yes, I’m sure.” He covered his eyes. “Is this better?”

 

“Hmm…no. I’m afraid I’m going to need to see your eyes so that I know you’re not finding some way to sneak a look through the gaps between your inordinately large fingers.” Really, she just liked looking at his eyes. That would be the next thing she sketched, although she probably would actually want him not to look at that one.

 

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Beesly, if you can see my eyes, I can see your sketch.”

 

“Not if I turn it around like this.” She whirled so that the paper was between them, sketch towards her, and immediately felt the loss of his touch. Before she could say anything, though, he’d grabbed the sketch out of her hands and was gesturing to something on the other side.

 

“Halpert Helper? Really, Beesly?”

 

“Hey, give that back!” She hadn’t realized what she’d been sketching on the back of, but of course it was the top piece of paper in her purse. “And anyway, it worked didn’t it?”

 

He handed it over, another thing she hadn’t expected based on past experience. “I suppose it did at that. And what do you know—it did help me.”

 

“How did it help you?”

 

“I mean, we’re here aren’t we?”

 

“Point.” She leaned back into him and started to sketch again. “Just for that, you can totally watch me draw.”

 

“Nothing would please me better.”

Chapter End Notes:
Thanks to all who've read and reviewed! Next time: the train.

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