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Story Notes:

Disclaimer: I own nothing, apart from my collection of The Office inspired t-shirts and a gift voucher from winning a The Office themed trivia night (which may just be the highlight of my life to date). Any lines of recognisable dialogue are adapted from the show.

The title comes from the song About Us by Dashboard Confessional which is an emotional bop if ever there was one... 

Author's Chapter Notes:
Just when you thought I couldn't possibly write another Jim-in-Stamford-early-Season-3 fix-it, here we are...

He finds himself watching the receptionist.
It aches in a way that he didn’t know it could. How he can feel both relieved and overwhelmed with regret in the same breath is nothing short of a mystery. And yet here he is, glad to glance up a stranger for whom he feels absolutely no affinity because he can get his messages without his heart catching in his throat. But, somehow the sting of missing her burns his eyes and has him blinking back tears.
Considering the emotional rollercoaster it sends him spinning on he really shouldn’t cast his eyes up to the reception desk every twenty-seconds. Yet he does.

She’s nothing like her. If it had to liken this receptionist to anyone, it would be Kelly. She’s shrill and sharp and oh so chatty. She’s nice enough, but she’s a bit much.
Jim has a feeling that she’s rather unimpressed with him too - it’s almost like she’s sized him up based on his knowledge of twenty-first century pop culture icons and found him lacking.
If she catches him staring, which she has, a couple million times, she rolls her eyes at him. It’s not in that shared commiseration over their dull workplace way either. It’s more of a stop looking at me you creep sort of way.
He feels like - well hopes - he’s perfected the blank stare over her shoulder look because she probably hasn’t been too off the mark with finding his staring weird…
Despite regularly mulling this all over, when the phone rings, his gaze immediately shifts back to her.
He watches her uninspired and yet enthusiastic, “Dunder Mifflin, this is Linda,” with as much disinterest as he can muster. Her nose scrunches and she frowns. He hears her mumble something else and then her eyes are zeroing in on his. The distaste on her face intensifies.
“Please hold, I’ll transfer you,” she bites out, sounding decidedly less than impressed.
The phone on his desk screeches to life. He grasps the receiver. “It’s for you,” she states and transfers the call.
Everything he’s missing hangs heavy on his chest. He tries not to imagine the way that Pam’s voice would have floated softly down the line. He tries not to remember the teasing lilt to her tone as she informed him who was calling.
He tries. He fails. Every time he fails. He hates himself all the more for it. He can’t even do the most menial of all tasks like answering the damn phone without thinking of the woman who crushed his heart.

“Jim Halpert,” he paints on a hint of professionalism, his tone far lighter than the black cloud weighing heavy on his soul.
“Jimbo,” Michael trills down the line. He doesn’t have to see him to know he’s bouncing excitedly on the balls of his feet.
“Hi Michael,” and tries to infuse some slightly artificial joy into his reply. Things between him and Michael have been strained at best in recent months. It’s only because of their heart to heart at the convention last week that Jim was able to reassure him that the move had not in fact been about Michael and had been about his own personal life being shot to hell. Michael had enthusiastically forgiven him for the slight - which as it turned out had meant a phone call everyday to bro out and catch up (Michael’s words). Jim would describe it as heartfelt procrastination.
“What are you doing this weekend?” Michael’s tone is casual and breezy, but Jim knows him well enough to detect that this is some sort of a trap.
“Stuff. Plans. You know,” he brushes past the question. “What are you doing?”
“I’m throwing a birthday party!”
“Oh?”
Michael’s birthday is March and it’s, he glances at the calendar on his desk to confirm he hasn’t lost his mind, October. “Who for?” he adds.
Michael chuckles at his confusion. “My condo!”
“Your condo?” Jim clarifies with the quirk of his brow.
“Yes! My baby is one whole year old! It’s a day to be celebrated!”
“Oh.” Sure. That seems… on brand for Michael.
“You’re invited,” Michael beams. “I’ll send you the e-vite,” and then he twists the emotional knife. “I’ve never gotten an e-vite. You must have typed my email address wrong when you sent the ones for your barbecue last year.”
It’s all Jim can say to mutter, “oh,” again.
“We really miss you. You have to come. You don’t have any real plans for the weekend.” He just keeps twisting that knife that’s plunged into Jim’s chest.
He’s about to ask the question that he dreads he already knows the answer too. Will Pam be there? He blanches at their horrible almost interaction on the phone last week at the conference, Michael’s have fun on your date rings in his ears.
“Have you invited…” he starts to say, but then he hears Michael’s office door open and another voice hums in the background.
“I’m telling Jim how much we miss him,” Michael bellows excitedly.
“No. Michael. Stop.” There’s a kerfuffle and he can hear what he assumes is Dwight wrestling the phone away from Michael. “He’s lying.”
“What’s that, Dwight? This line is a little patchy. Did you say that you miss me? That’s sweet.” Jim takes an opportunity when he gets one.
“No!” Dwight thunders, “I do not miss you! I didn’t say that.”
“I’m touched, Dwight. I miss you too.” He knows exactly which buttons to press. The sad thing is, based on this interaction alone (which has unintentionally improved his mood as messing with Dwight always does) he actually does miss Dwight. What has he become?
“Michael,” Dwight hisses softly, clearly trying to mute the receiver. “Jim is as insufferable as always.”
He can hear them struggle over the phone. Michael wants to give him reassurances that his absence has indeed been felt by all and Dwight wants to continue putting him in his place.
“Dwight,” Jim calls, pulling his attention back to the phone.
He grunts in response.
“If you didn’t care that I was gone, you wouldn’t be in here talking to me. You’d be out making a sale. Obviously, talking to me is more important than doing a good job. I’m touched, really.” He even places his hand over his heart in jest, as if Dwight is standing before him and can actually see the motion.
“Pfft. Please, no one cares that you’re gone. Only Pam is miserable,” he snorts derisively. “I bet I’ve made more sales than you this month.”
Jim loses focus on the game he’s playing with Dwight. Pam is miserable?
He probably has made more sales than Dwight this month and he’d love to rub it in his face just a little, enough so that he’ll stomp his feet walking from Michael’s office to his desk. But instead he mutters a distracted, “uh, sure,” and ignores Dwight gloating in response.
“Will you come to my party?” Michael has reclaimed the phone.
“I don’t know, Michael,” he answers honestly. “It might be… hard.”
“I know she misses you too.” God he hopes Dwight has left the room. “She’s quiet all the time…” he trails off. “Please say you’ll come?”
“I’ll think about it,” he lies through his teeth. There’s no way he can do that. No way.
“Call me back tomorrow and tell me your answer,” Michael demands, quickly adding, “bye,” and slamming down the receiver.
Jim is left saying, “you can call me back,” to the dial tone. He can’t call Michael back because that would mean calling the, he swallows the lump in this throat, receptionist. Nope. Not happening.


She’s permitting herself eight glances at his desk per day. Enough for one per hour. She keeps a tally on the post-it note next to her monitor.
She leads a sad, sorry existence. It’s pathetic. The only reason she’s put a cap on it at all is because Ryan was starting to get weirded out. A weirded out Ryan was a pretty rude Ryan to be frank. And even if he hadn’t figured out why she was staring at his desk, his comments would have certainly alerted the rest of the office.
She doesn’t need these people knowing any more about her personal life. Calling off the wedding had been awkward enough as it was, and the constant barrage of super inappropriate comments from her coworkers hadn’t helped.
She might have laughed some of them off, had she had someone to laugh about them with.
Kelly was the closest thing she had to a friend in the office these days, and she certainly wasn’t about to have a deep and meaningful conversation with her about the mess of emotions that had taken over her life.
She did not need to be gossiped about even more. And that was that.

She already had a strange feeling that Michael knew far more about her personal life than she’d ever told him. That feeling had multiplied tenfold since his return from that stupid convention last week. He’d gone from talking about Jim only in terms like traitor betrayer Judas to fondly reminiscing about all the good times they’d shared. It felt like he was deliberately dropping his Jim-love in front of her too.
She wasn’t an idiot. She knew that Michael was calling Jim everyday. They’d obviously mended some fences. Good for them.
If Jim wanted to mend fences with her, he knew where to find her. But, clearly he didn’t…
Hell, she could see that Dwight and Michael were in his office on the phone to Jim now. Dwight’s face was brightening to a rosier shade of red with each passing second. A sure sign that Jim was pushing his buttons as only Jim could.
Michael was grinning from ear to ear.
She remembered smiling like that for Jim too. She didn’t need Michael waxing lyrical about the good times to remember them. It was all she thought about.
How was Michael to know that Jim consumed every waking thought she had?

Dwight storms from Michael’s office as she loses herself to her thoughts. There’s steam rising from his ears, or at least there will be when she jots down a quick cartoon sketch version of him on her notepad in a minute…
Her gaze flickers back to Michael’s office, wishing she could so easily pick up the phone and call Jim. Michael’s eyes meet hers and he offers her a sad smile. His lips move as he murmurs something into the phone. She blushes under his sympathy and can’t help feeling like they’re talking about her. God, she hopes they’re not.
She drops her gaze, and sets about drawing grumpy Dwight. Once she’s satisfied with the quick sketch, she opens her bottom draw and shoves it on top of the ever growing pile of notes and doodles that she wants to send to him, but never will. There’s also a pile of email drafts and half-written text messages. No words feel like enough to fix anything though, so they remain unfinished.
Michael quietly makes his way over to her desk. It’s disconcerting. A quiet Michael is a gentle, considerate Michael and she feels a lot less sure of how to handle him. He’s more perceptive than he means to be sometimes, and it curls her gut with too much emotion. She can’t deal with too much Jim talk. Her heart throbs too much already with the awareness of it all.
“Pam?”
“Yes, Michael,” she attempts for normal, but her voice is strained. She let herself fall too deeply into her thoughts just now and now she’s on the precipice. One kind word or mention too many and she may just fall over the edge and begin openly weeping in the workplace. She’d really rather save that for her empty apartment.
He clears his throat and eyes her nervously. This isn’t good. “I clicked on another email from a nice Nigerian prince and IT have locked down my account again. What do they know anyway? I was just trying to do the man a favor, and he was going to pay me for it… Win-win.”
He’s lying. Michael is straight up lying to her. Oscar had finally gotten through to him last month about spam-scam emails and given him a great handbook of examples for reference. Just last week he had successfully avoided a celebrity sex tape scam. Jan had had to threaten him with formal disciplinary action to prevent him from calling Oscar to tell him about the victory. Given the recent circumstances, Jan was slightly concerned that direct contact with Oscar would lead to a lawsuit. But that was a whole other thing… This now. This was Michael lying to her. But why…
She gazes up at him, plastering a carefully neutral expression on her face. “Okay.”
“I need you to send an email for me.” There it is.
It only takes a split second before the penny drops. She can’t school the flash of horror that whips across her face.
“No, Michael,” she whispers. “Can’t Dwight?” It’s a plea.
Michael studies her carefully. “I think it would be better coming from you.”
She wrings her hands. “Please Michael…”
“Pamela,” he murmurs. “I need you to forward my condo birthday party e-vite to Jim.”
His name rings in her ears as Michael confirms what she fears. She closes her eyes. “Please Michael,” she begs. “Just send it yourself.”
She takes a deep breath that does little to settle her. Michael slowly shakes his head. “You’re the receptionist, Pam. It should come from you.”
And she can’t. She can’t explain to Michael why she can’t send it. She can’t send it. She can’t. She —
Michael smiles kindly at her. “You can do it. It’ll be okay.”
And once again, she feels like he knows more than she thinks he should know.
He clumsily leans over the desk and pats one of her hands. “You can do it, Pam,” he repeats and flashes her his most encouraging smile.
No. No, she absolutely cannot do it.

Michael returns to his office and grasps his world’s best boss mug in both hands, gazing down at it affectionately. His condo birthday party will be amazing. All his very dearest colleagues - nay friends - will be there. He’s sure of it.
If there’s one thing he’s learned from years in this position it’s that karaoke is better shared with friends. And that his neighbor Colin is a real party pooper at 2am on a Tuesday night. Stupid thin condo walls. Well, Colin can suck it come Saturday when he hosts the best party of the year. Maybe if he wasn’t such an asshat, he’d be invited. But not this time, no, he’s shouted through Michael’s walls one too many times… He’s going to miss out, and that seems like fair punishment for his less than neighborly behavior.

Chapter End Notes:

There's definitely a couple more chapters in this...

Thanks for reading! 


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