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Author's Chapter Notes:
Another quick one to get us to the main plot again.

The rest of the morning and the early afternoon passed quickly—surprisingly quickly, from Jim’s point of view at least. He hadn’t expected to slip so quickly and quietly into a routine with Pam. He’d expected to take more than a week to be comfortable being her boyfriend (well, to be fair, before this week he hadn’t expected to be her boyfriend, but even in the fantasies he’d woven himself about it, he hadn’t thought it would be so easy. Then again, he hadn’t expected to have already bought a ring either). But it was natural. They wandered down the street, took about hour to explore the Museum of Sydney (not bad, but hardly worth the intensive focus he’d spent on it before, back when he was desperately trying to distract himself from Pam). It was an old government house, and he did love the little models of ships they had—and Pam quite enjoyed sketching them—but they were done quickly, and found themselves poking around the central business district for another bite to eat.

 

That accomplished at a little hole in the wall with great Lebanese food, they started the long walk over towards where the rugby match was being held. They spent the walk chatting about nothing—and if you’d told him a week ago that he’d have been able to not remember any detail of any conversation with Pam he’d have blessed you, though he wouldn’t have thought it was for that reason—and honestly, he probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you two details about the rugby match either, except that it turned out Pam really enjoyed rugby union. They’d been able to find a second ticket near his, and a couple of very generous people had swapped seats so they were actually sitting together, and while he’d been willing to just sit there and let the event wash over him, Pam had remembered that he’d said he knew the rules, and pestered him (enjoyably) to explain everything.

 

She picked a random side (or at least it seemed random to him) and started rooting for them, and oddly enough it turned out that she drew him into the pleasure of the game.

 

**

 

Apparently being with Roy Anderson for ten years meant you learned a thing or two about sports fandom. Not that she hadn’t had those tendencies all along—she’d been on the volleyball team, after all, and there was a reason she and Roy had gone to a hockey game as a first date and it wasn’t all him—but they’d been honed by years of trying hard to be a part of a couple, part of a team. She didn’t just know rules, or sports, she knew how to be a fan. She knew that a rooting interest, even a feigned one, mattered. And she knew that becoming a part of the collective effervescence of a rooting crowd was the major pleasure of it all.

 

So she picked a side.

 

She started rooting.

 

And by the end of the game, when her team the resounding victors at what was, apparently, their home stadium (she had an instinct for that, too, it turned out), she threw her arms around Jim’s neck and gave him a smacking kiss, to the emphatic enjoyment of two women sitting in the row in front of her with whom she’d bonded in the course of the match.

 

“Get him, girl!” one of them shouted, and she was surprised to find herself not blushing.

 

“I’m pretty sure she already ‘got’ me.” Jim was quicker on his feet than she was. “Years ago.”

 

“Years ago, hmm?” she asked, her arms still around her neck.

 

“Yup.”

 

“So what have we been doing for the last week?”

 

“Making up for lost time.”

Chapter End Notes:
Now that the time zones might start matching up again in the evening/morning, they might be able to move forward with Ryan and/or Jan. Thanks for reading and reviewing!

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