Pam’s nod was the only sign that she’d heard him, that and the fact that she aggressively (for her) and immediately changed the subject to how they were getting home. Well, to the hostel. But he thought of it as home, and she used the word at least at first, and it was nice to think of going home with Pam.

“Um, I’m afraid it’s the same way back as in.” He shrugged. “2 klick walk and all.”

“Klick?” She raised an eyebrow. “Klick?”

“It’s slang for kilometer. I think in the military.” He shrugged. “I picked it up somewhere.”

“Where?” She openly gaped. “Jim Halpert, did you go to a military boarding school?”

“What? No.” He laughed. “Trust me, Beesly, you’d have heard.”

“I don’t know, maybe you have this deep dark past I’m only just getting to know.” She seemed in better spirits as she teased him, so he didn’t try to change the subject even as she paused. “But seriously, Jim, what?”

“OK, so, it’s a little embarrassing,” he started, and she latched onto that with glee.

“Oh, now you have to tell me.”

“Uh, the guys—and I guess the girls too, everyone—at Stamford apparently play this, uh, military game? Like, as teambuilding or something?” His voice rose at the end of each sentence making it a question, a habit he thought he’d left behind in high school. “And, I guess, I did some research? On the whole military-warfare-gaming thing?”

“Jim, I’m pretty sure you don’t need to know anything about the military to play video games.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, probably not. But I thought, hey, maybe if I found something interesting I could share it with people, like trivia or something. And since a bunch of the books the library had were on World War II, I thought maybe Dwight…” he trailed off and realized something he hadn’t told her yet. “Not like he’s in Stamford, but I do have some of his stationary. I’ve been planning, once I get back to the office, to fax him instructions from his future self. And I was thinking some of them could reference deep dark family secrets from the second World War.”

“That’s brilliant.” She hugged him and he hugged her back, enjoying the feel of her in his arms. “Not the video game stuff. That was silly of you. But the Dwight prank?” She kissed her fingers. “Bella.”

“Thank you.” He frowned. “You really think the game stuff was silly?”

“Jim, if they play video games as teambuilding—what is it, America’s Army, Wolfenstein, Rainbow Six, Call of Duty?—they don’t care if you know about the military. They care if you can play the video game.”

“Fair point.” He paused. “Wait, how do you know that many games? I didn’t know you played. Are you the one with the deep dark secrets?”

“Roy was into them.” She said it like it explained everything about both how she knew and why she hadn’t mentioned it before. “And believe me, he may not have been great at them, but none of what skill he had had anything to do with knowing anything at all about anything military.”

“I suppose that makes sense.” He shrugged again. “It’s Call of Duty, but I don’t know anything about it. The strategy guide for it was checked out of the library.”

**

“All that research and you couldn’t get the one thing you actually needed?” She clucked her tongue. “I expected better of you, Halpert.” They had been walking as they talked and were just reaching the entrance to—well, from this direction, the exit from—the park. “Right or left?”

“Right.” He jerked his head and she followed, enjoying the walk a lot more now that she actually knew that they had done this in the other direction.

She didn’t want to talk about Stamford. Not here, at least, not in the middle of nowhere in suburban Sydney. Maybe later, if they could find a teashop and she could cuddle up with a nice hot mug and look at him across the table and then slide up next to him and let his arms fold over her as he reassured her that he’d find a way not to leave her…maybe then. But not here on the side of a dusty road with a two hour bus and train ride ahead of them.

Maybe that made her a coward. Maybe it just meant she was marshalling her strength. Because she’d spent so much of it already—it took a lot to end a wedding, an engagement rather, and to fly halfway around the world and confess your love—and she needed to husband a little of it (ironic word) before she exposed her vulnerabilities again. Or maybe she was just enjoying being a couple with Jim for a little without having to think about the entire future. Even if that future was hurtling towards them at a distressingly rapid rate of one second per second.

They reached the bus stop—or what she assumed was the bus stop—and stood around to wait. Fortunately this time the bus was serendipitously present almost at once, and whisked them toward the train station at speed.

Of course, that just meant more time waiting at the train station, but there was something solid and reassuring about a train station. You knew where you stood (back of the yellow line please) and there was a board that told you just how long you had to wait, or at least that the train you were waiting for had a delay. Bus stops were a catch as catch can business, and that had the potential to fail; a train station was reliable.

Reliably late, in this case. But then again, that gave them enough time to rummage around the shops next door in the mall, and while she was no Kelly, she wasn’t going to turn down a chance at a shopping trip to a foreign mall. Who knew what they might discover?