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Author's Chapter Notes:
The rest of the phone call.

“Well, then, what I was going to ask was whether you’d take my promotion to Stamford if I can convince Jan to give it to you instead.”

 

There. It was out there. The temptation to elaborate, to beg, to say something more was almost irresistible. But he and Pam had discussed it: Ryan was the sort of person who sought out weakness, who noticed it, and who tended to take advantage of it. Even his relationship with Kelly, much as he seemed to be aggressively uninterested in it most of the time if not actively annoyed by her, was an example. He noticed that Kelly was interested in him (OK, a dead person might notice that, but still) and he knew she was the sort of person who didn’t give up easily—and so he could do pretty much whatever he wanted and she’d still be there.

 

Including, Jim expected, move to Stamford, but he wasn’t going to say that right now.

 

Still, Ryan was the sort of person who took advantage. And that meant you had to let him think he was taking advantage. You couldn’t make it seem like there was more advantage to be taken, more opportunity to squeeze you, or he’d push. Well, he’d probably push anyway, but you had to make sure he didn’t push in the way you didn’t want him to push. So—state the problem. Simply. Let him think he was winning because of Jim’s personal issues. Don’t blather.

 

He reached across and squeezed Pam’s hand in order to stop himself from talking when Ryan was silent.

 

“You can’t be serious.” This was classic Ryan—fishing.

 

“I mean, if you don’t want…” he made sure it came out slowly, calmly, in the closest he could come in the stressful moment to his typical Jim-leading-Dwight-on voice.

 

“I didn’t say that.” There it was.

 

“Right.” Wait. Wait. Wait.

 

“How much is it?” He could hear Ryan’s fingers tapping on the desk, which meant he was thinking.

 

“Technically, that’s confidential information.” Let him think he’s getting something hidden, secret, exclusive. “But let’s just say…they said they’ll put me up in a hotel for as long as I want before I found an apartment, and that kind of expense doesn’t even touch the compensation.” This was technically true—they didn’t come out of the same budget—but didn’t really answer the question. “Of course, that includes the cost of living adjustment for the New York area.” That, at least, was true.

 

“Of course.” Ryan was, of course, waiting him out in the same way that Jim was waiting him out. But Jim had a secret weapon that Ryan didn’t. One he could summon with just one sentence. Or really, any number of sentences, as long as Ryan was sitting at his desk and Jim raised his voice.

 

“But of course, I don’t expect an answer right now,” he went on. “Just think about it. And give my love to Dwight.” That last with a raised voice received exactly the reaction he’d expected: the brief sound of a tussle and a sudden change in the voice on the other end.

 

“I want to be extremely clear that I do not accept anything from traitors.” Ah, Dwight. He was surprised to realize he actually had missed him. “Please cease use of this line unless it is for official Dunder Mifflin paper-selling business.”

 

“Ah, Dwight,” he cooed, winking at Pam. Right on schedule. “This is official Dunder Mifflin paper-selling business. How can I trust that my replacement is properly trained if I do not…”

 

He had never really planned the other end of that sentence, because as he’d known he would, Dwight had cut him off.

 

“I will take care of any training needs, James.” Dwight must have cupped the phone with one hand because his voice became slightly muffled but still quite audible. “Temp! I am ending this phone call, and we will be leaving for your training immediately. Bring a trowel.”

 

And the line clicked dead.

 

**

 

“How’d it go?” Pam was almost bouncing out of her seat, anchored to the ground only by Jim’s hand which was still holding hers.

 

“I expect an email from Ryan in the next two hours saying he’ll do it. Assuming Dwight lets him near anywhere with internet access.” He chuckled, and it made her giggle, and before she knew what was happening they were both almost rolling across the floor laughing, only the fact that they were crammed into a phone booth clearly designed for about one and a half people keeping them upright as they clung together. They must have looked deranged to the front desk of the hostel, but then again they were Americans spending good money on calling back home, so the front desk would accept some deranged.

 

It was, she reflected, a bit of a mean trick to sic Dwight on Ryan, but then he’d started looking at her really weirdly over the last month—mostly because, she admitted in the comfort of her own head, she was looking at him, occupying Jim’s seat, a little too much, but just enough more weirdly than that that she almost worried he might be getting strange ideas in his head about her potentially being interested in him. Which she emphatically was not, even if Jim had never existed. Even if Jim and Roy had never existed.

 

So she didn’t really feel all that bad about it. Bad for Kelly, maybe—but as she and Jim had discussed, she didn’t think that odd relationship was likely to actually be stopped by distance, time, or the heat death of the universe, and if it did, well, Kelly was probably the one getting the better of that.

 

When they both quieted from the laughter—which took a while, since they kept almost getting there and then one of them would start thinking about it again and giggle, or chuckle, or even smile and set the other one off—she nodded towards the computer room.

 

“Shall we begin the second phase? We need a name for that, by the way.”

 

“I thought we were calling it Operation Jan.”

 

“I love you, Halpert, but you need to come up with better names.”

Chapter End Notes:
Thank you for the reviews! Operation Jan (????) to commence next chapter.

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