The next day, the last day in Australia, was somewhat ruined by the fact that Pam, buying her tickets last minute, had a 9:30 am flight, and given the nature of international travel (as well as travel to the airport) that meant getting up ungodly early.

Jim’s flight, admittedly, was at 10:30. So it wasn’t as if they really were getting up that much earlier than if she’d managed to be on his flight together. But he felt the injustice of it as they rolled into bed much too early and he stared at the ceiling.

He didn’t blame Pam. How could he? She’d come to find him. No flight could have been early enough to unmake that gesture. She could have asked him to get out of bed at 1 am after going to bed at midnight and it would have been his pleasure to do as she asked. It was the universe he blamed. Why had the cheapest ticket been the one with the earliest departure? He supposed no one else wanted to get up that early either, and given the massive time dilation on the way (and the second flight needed to get back to the east coast) no one was trying to “get there early” or anything like that. At least no one buying at their price point; he supposed maybe business class or something might be doing that.

Maybe Ryan would be flying places business class now. It seemed like the sort of thing he would do, and maybe the sort of thing assistant regional managers might do? Jim had only a vaguely fuzzy idea of what they did. He hadn’t been interested in the job, after all, just the fact that it was in not-Scranton. Probably they didn’t—after all, he didn’t really think Dunder Mifflin spent money on anyone—but who the hell knew? Not him, and now, never him. Because he wasn’t going to be an assistant regional manager. He was just going to be happy.

The train ride to the airport felt faster than the ride out had; maybe it was because they knew where they were going, or because of the sensation of time running short, or simply because somehow it actually was. But they held each other as they rode, and that made the short trip also more pleasant that the trip out.

Since they both had boarding passes for flights, they were able to pass through security together, even if Jim’s flight was later in the day, and he waited with Pam by her gate until her section was called. They made plans for what they’d do once they got back to Scranton—he via Philly, her via NYC—and promised to call once they were back in the land where their cellphones worked.

Neither of them had deleted the other’s contact information, so that was easy.

He watched Pam as she made her way onto the jetbridge and blew her a kiss when she turned to wave goodbye.

**

Pam’s flight was extremely uneventful—which was nice, because for she found herself completely focused on wondering if things with Jim would actually work once they were out of the magical, distant world of Sydney. Was it just an Australian thing? Was he really serious about all of this? Was he really going to move back to Scranton?

She went round and round and round until she fell asleep somewhere over…she wasn’t sure where. Maybe Vanuatu? That seemed like a nice name of a place.

When she woke up she felt better, and they came around with snacks and drinks, and she recharged herself body and soul. She remembered that she and Jim had written the emails together, that she’d heard him talk to Ryan on the phone, that she’d seen Michael’s ecstatic reply and Toby’s more restrained one herself. She remembered that This Was Jim—the man who, while he’d run away when she’d said no, had obviously never stopped loving her. She remembered that Sydney wasn’t a vacation for them from real life, but an opportunity to reconnect.

That the Jim she’d been with in Sydney had been the same Jim she’d been with in Scranton—only more so.

And that while she was a fancy new Beesly, he was unlikely to become a new Jim Halpert anytime soon.

It was a nice thing to remember. And she slept the rest of the flight back, except for the brief and disorienting changeover in LAX, in a much more peaceful mood.