Michael had been able to talk of nothing else but the “new blood” all week, and Jim was very ready for them to be in and done and it all to be over. He and Pam had been planning various ways to mitigate the damage he would inevitably do, but they were more than moderately hindered by Michael’s surprising secrecy about his plans. Jim knew Michael was capable of keeping secrets—he’d mostly kept Jim’s for a long time, after all—but it still shocked him when Michael was quiet about something. If anything, it was more worrying than Michael at his worst.

Still, they had come up with something. Pam was on the front lines, of course, because she was the receptionist and Michael (in an odd moment of what seemed like compassion, might be poor planning, and probably had something to do with whatever surprise he was planning) had allowed the Stamford people to come in late their first day. That meant Pam would be in position to head off whatever Michael was planning, and also to do triage: which of the new people were like Dwight and which like Phyllis. Jim had called this, in a reference back to when he’d gone to Sunday School a lot more frequently than he ever would now (a fact he avoided telling Angela about like the ten plagues of Egypt) separating the sheep from the goats: those they could befriend from those who were going to be problems.

This was Dunder Mifflin—there were definitely some who were going to be problems.

He had looked over their names the night before, and done some basic Googling, but nothing really stood out. He supposed he would just have to do his part of the plan he and Pam had worked out—when she signaled him, he’d wander up to the Phyllises in the bunch and “turn on the Halpert charm,” as she’d put it. He didn’t know how much Halpert charm there was to turn on, but he’d do his best—anything to get some more friends out of this ridiculous situation.

**

Pam got to work on the dot of nine and waited impatiently (for once) for the workday to start. She and Jim had still not found a place to move into together yet, but she was strangely at peace with the decision. Izzy had suggested politely, and her mom not so politely, that this was exactly what she’d done with Roy: move in with him before he’d made her any definite promises of anything, and as her mother had put it, “where had that gotten her?”

Out of a toxic relationship, she thought. Not that she’d felt that way then—she was well aware of what both Izzy and her mom were referring to, the years of heartache when she and Roy had lived together “in sin” as Angela had (repeatedly) put it, or simply without commitment as she’d realized after he made no move to ask her to do more than live with him. Yes, he’d proposed, a year later, when his mother had made some kind of comment (to him, thankfully, not to her) about when he would make an “honest woman” out of her (at least so he said to her later) but it had been clear from the start that he hadn’t really meant to go any further than they’d already gone once they were living together, and that had hurt her.

Jim wasn’t like that, though. More importantly, she and Jim, as a unit, weren’t like her and Roy as a unit. She could trust him. She did trust him. And she could and did trust herself. She was a fancy new Beesly in action and thought as well as word, and she wasn’t going to let anyone, even someone she loved, walk all over her.

And of course, she knew Jim wouldn’t do that either.

She stopped this woolgathering as a tall gangly man who reminded her of dimestore Jim walked through the door alongside a shorter, attractive brunette. Since she didn’t know either of them, she was pretty sure that these must be their new coworkers—and so it indeed proved.

“Andrew Bernard, Cornell University—and Dunder Mifflin.” The tall man bowed and her eyes went, without volition or intent, towards Jim, who quirked an eyebrow. She noticed as her head tracked that the brunette with him was also looking less than impressed.

“Karen Filippelli.” She stuck out a hand and Pam shook it. “Just Dunder Mifflin.”

“Pleased to meet you both.” Pam smiled and gestured them into the office. “Pam Beesly. I run reception here. This is Jim Halpert, one of our sales…I mean, our assistant regional manager, and Dwight Schrute, our assistant to the regional manager.” Her smile widened into a grin. “Jim, could you show Karen around, and Dwight, would you mind doing the same for…Andrew, was it?”

“You are not my boss, Pamela, and I do not take instructions from you.” It was probably too much to hope that Dwight would take a hint.

“You do, however, take instructions from me, your new ARM.” Jim slid quickly into the breach. “And I think Pam’s suggestion is a good one—I think you two will get along swimmingly.” Pam smiled to herself. Jim wasn’t slow on the uptake, no sir. And more to the point, he knew how to handle Dwight—just start doing what you wanted and ignore him as needed (unless there was a good prank to pull). “Karen, have you met Phyllis Lapin? She’s another one of our salespeople…”

It was going to be a good day, she could already tell. And she and Jim were already planning to meet for coffee after work to talk about the new arrivals—maybe if Karen had the sense of humor that she thought she might have, they could invite her along. It would be nice to have another friend around at work.