Pam was finally back to work after being out sick for most of the last week. She had caught a bad cold that she blamed being out on the deck for too long on the booze cruise for. Pam thought it was cute that Jim felt it was his fault as he had proposed to her on the deck, thus leading to them staying out there longer, but Pam felt it was a small price to pay to be engaged to her best friend. Jim had come by almost every lunch hour to make her soup, even though she was more than capable of doing it herself. Pam still had a runny nose, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as her symptoms had been on the first day. She had been rudely awakened by Nikita and forced out of bed to let the dog out, as she had forgotten to do so the night of the proposal between her excitement and calling her mom.

Pam carpooled with Jim in the morning as had become their norm and they were greeted by an empty office as they entered, obviously the first ones to show up for the day. Pam started the day the same as many others, with transcribing the after-hours messages to memo cards. Pam was just finishing up when Jim appeared bearing her favourite pink mug with steam rising from the top. Pam smiled as she accepted his offering before setting it down beside her keyboard and turning away quickly to sneeze. When Pam looked up with a sniffle, she was greeted by Dwight staring down at her from beside the coatrack.

Dwight made one of his usual comments about superior Schrute genes and said that he pitied her, before he moved off to start his daily routine. Pam just shrugged at Jim before she plucked a Kleenex from the box at her desk and turned away again to blow her nose. The camera crew was just arriving when Pam took the phones off voicemail and the rest of her coworkers arrived shortly thereafter save for Michael, who was usually late anyways. Jim had returned to his desk to get ahead on his actual work, as they had long since agreed to get as much done in the mornings as they could so that afternoons could be better spent pranking Dwight or running damage control on Michael. The camera crew had other plans however, as they asked both Pam and Jim to join them in the conference room.

The crew sat Pam next to Jim in front of one of the windows after drawing all the blinds closed and shutting the door. Pam folded her hands atop one another, conscious of her ring hiding under her right hand and noticed the TV cart in the corner of the room. Something was definitely strange with the interview setup; the film crew had never had them react to any footage before. As Pam felt the cameras zoom in on them, one of the crew hit play on the VCR and everything became clear.

Pam couldn’t help the tears that formed in the corners in her eyes as the film crew allowed her to relive one of the happiest moments of her life to date, and as she brushed them away she realised that in doing so she had just brandished her ring, ruining any sort of plausible deniability that she and Jim may have tried to employ. Pam smiled sheepishly at Jim and shrugged her shoulders, which was met with a huge smile as Jim wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her and consequently their chairs closer together.

“So, you guys are obviously engaged,” Greg, the producer trailed off.

“Yep,” Pam replied cheerfully as she showed off her ring finger and looked over to beam up at Jim.

“Congratulations, by the way,” Greg offered.

“Thank you,” Jim said genuinely.

“So how long have you two been in a relationship before this point,” Greg asked, “Because obviously nobody around here has any idea you two are even together yet.”

“Uhm, well, Jim has been my best friend for years,” Pam started, “And my mom always said that your fiancé should be your best friend so… after I left Roy I just came to some realisations,” Pam shrugged, not directly answering his question.

Before Greg could follow up on his question, everyone’s attention was drawn to the conference room door which had just been thrown open.

“Inappropriate, Jim,” Dwight said with derision as he looked down his nose at them, presumably admonishing Jim for having his arm around Pam, “Pam, phone,” Dwight jerked his head towards reception, and Pam heard the phone ringing behind him.

“Sorry, I should go get that,” Pam excused herself from the interview as she brushed past Dwight and made her way around her desk to answer the phone, suppressing a smirk as she looked back over to see Jim left to fend for himself.

Jim had to think fast before Greg recovered and resumed the interrogation, he quickly got up and spoke over his shoulder as he made his way quickly towards the door, “I should make sure she gets that, sometimes she just lets it go to voicemail,” Jim shot off with a shrug, grimacing as he finally made his escape.

Admittedly, his excuse was pretty weak, but the odds of Greg pulling them back in once Pam was off the phone were pretty high anyway, so Jim figured if he at least escaped the one on one interrogation he was counting himself lucky. He cursed Pam and her job that provided an easy out in almost any office debacle, as he moved to lean over her desk and grin down at her. He was so going to get her back for abandoning him.

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam,” She said into the receiver as she smirked up at him, before her face suddenly morphed into a look of extreme concern that put Jim on edge, as he leaned closer to try and hear what was being said.

“Michael, what’s wrong,” she asked with worry, but Jim couldn’t make anything out. He shot a questioning look a Pam, but she didn’t seem to know entirely what was going on at that point either.

Pam tried to cut Michael off, “Michael do you need me to call an ambulance,” she asked forcefully, and Jim’s heart stopped. Thankfully, a moment later she half-rolled her eyes, seemingly de-escalating as her shoulders relaxed a little.

“I thought you said you were hurt,” she tried to clarify, and Jim tried to get Pam to let him know what was going on but she put her hand over her face exasperatedly, before just giving up and pointing to the receiver.

Jim needed to know what was going on, he thought he heard Michael yelling about his foot, so he reached over Pam’s desk and put the phone on speaker.

“Oh god,” Michael’s voice suddenly filled the office as he yelled in distress over the phone.

Jim managed to talk Michael down, discovering along with the rest of the office that their boss had somehow managed to grill his foot. Jim was immensely relieved that Michael hadn’t actually suffered a mortal injury, and so morbidly curious as to how he had managed to grill his foot. From that point onward the conversation devolved into people producing excuses as to why they couldn’t pick Michael up to bring him into work, as well as an escalation of injuries and emotional distress on Michael’s part until Dwight walked in. Of course, Dwight immediately volunteered to pick up Michael, and he shot out the door before he could hear Michael asking for anyone but him. Additionally, they learned that Michael’s girlfriend that he had been raving about for the better part of last week was a work of fiction. Jim watched as Pam struggled not to break, and he gave a significant look to the camera operator to make sure they just got all that, and was rewarded with an OK hand sign from the sound guy Brian who was standing behind the camera guy.

As everyone started to trickle away from reception, Pam was about to share her theory on how Michael burnt his foot on a grill when she saw Jim’s head whip towards the conference room, and she suddenly registered a muffled thump-crunch from what sounded like the parking lot. Everyone rushed to the windows to see what had happened but Pam in her semi-congested haze lagged behind a little and got there just in time to hear Jim exclaim, “Oh my god, Dwight you forgot your bumper,” and hear Dwight’s Trans-Am peeling out of the lot.

“What happened,” Pam asked from Jim’s elbow as she sidled up beside him.

“Dwight just hit the pole and drove off,” Jim said as he turned towards her, making his classic ‘wow’ face.

“Wow,” Pam affirmed, amazed yet again at the lengths Dwight would go to for Michael, to be treated as poorly as he was, “I hope he’s all right.”

With the show over they all shuffled back to their desks. Luckily one of the side effects of Michael’s dramatic injury and Dwight’s exit was that the camera crew had seemingly forgotten that they were in the middle of prying into Jim and Pam’s personal lives before all of that happened. Pam certainly wasn’t going to remind them though; it was really none of their business. She was curios if they could get a copy of that tape as a keepsake though, it wasn’t often that you got to have such a huge moment in your life immortalised on film.

Pam decided that she was going to need more tea to get through today, as Michael was probably going to be in a particularly volatile and needy mood. As she moved towards the kitchen to fill her special teapot, she saw Jim get up to join her. Pam started the water boiling and leaned against the counter, turning towards Jim.

“So, I know it’s only my first day back and all, but should I be hurt or relieved that no one has realised that we’re engaged?”

“Honestly, I have no clue,” Jim shrugged, “Whenever I hear you answering the phone I look up and the ring is staring me in the face, I can’t not see it,” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck, “Although I guess I’m pretty biased.”

“I think I’m going to go with relieved for now,” Pam nodded with mock seriousness, “Although I reserve the right to change my mind at any time,” she added firmly.

“As is your right,” Jim nodded solemnly.

“Can you imagine the comments Michael is going to make? Wait no, don’t even think about it, even asking the question-” Pam cut herself off with a grimace and an exaggerated shudder.

“Wow, you just became your own worst enemy,” Jim chuckled, “I vote we just never tell Michael, other people can know when they either see the ring and connect the dots, or we give out wedding invitations and they find out they didn’t get one.”

“It could actually all be a part of our cunningly simple plan to select guests from the office,” Jim continued enthusiastically, and Pam couldn’t help smiling warmly at him as she heard the water come to a boil, “We only need to invite the people who actually figure it out!”

“Well, for that to work we would need a date,” Pam reminded him lightly, nervous that he may brush her off and say it was too soon.

“Indeed Beesly,” Jim looked at her seriously, “Do you want to set one tonight? How far out does it have to be,” Jim asked in rapid fire, looking at her with a heavy gaze that reminded her of out on the deck all over again. She shouldn’t have doubted that her best friend knew that she wanted to set a date right away.

“Tonight,” Pam confirmed brightly as she poured the hot water into her teapot and started towards the door back out into the bullpen.

Jim held the door open for her and they went back to their respective desks, smiling at each other every so often just because they could. The fact that her best friend was now her fiancé still seemed so surreal to Pam, although it was fifty-fifty that it could just be the decongestants talking, they usually made her feel fuzzy and disconnected from reality. Speaking of being disconnected from reality, Pam discreetly pinched herself as she observed Michael hobbling in on crutches, followed closely by Dwight.

What followed was a series of blow-ups by Michael about how no one cared about him, when had explicitly asked to be treated normally upon entering. Had Pam been on top of her game this morning she would have caught his classic reverse psychology move, but she had decided not to expend too much effort on Michael today, especially when he was being so fussy. Eventually Pam relented and asked if he’d like some coffee, which he agreed to. Pam then grabbed her purse and made her way back into the kitchen to make it for him. She wasn’t surprised to find Ryan hiding at the table in the corner, she’d heard Michael calling on him for various things all morning.

Pam grabbed one of Michael’s ‘World’s Best Boss’ mugs and filled it half with coffee, before she produced a bottle of painkillers, crushing two up on a piece of paper towel with a spoon.

“Rough morning,” Ryan asked with a significant look at the crushed pills.

“Oh, no,” Pam realised he must had assumed it was for her, “I’m hoping this will take some of the edge off of Michael’s fussiness.”

“Ah,” Ryan nodded, “I do that with my dog all the time to get her to take her meds, works like a charm.”

Pam finished dumping the pills in before she heaped in some sugar and creamer, and departed the kitchen with a wave to Ryan, who returned it with a mock salute. Pam made the delivery without incident, glad that with what little coffee Michael liked with his cream and sugar that he wouldn’t be able to notice the bitter painkillers. The effects took some time to show, but by noon he wasn’t complaining about the pain anymore, just everyone’s general lack of care for his wellbeing. Pam had been distracted however by Dwight, who had been acting increasingly unlike himself ever since his return. Pam noticed him stop mid-sentence when she gave Michael his ‘coffee,’ and as the morning wore on, he even started making non-work-related visits to her desk and eating Jim’s jellybeans. To top all of that Dwight was being kind, not just the usual Dwight respectful, but unabashedly kind. It was all sorts of strange, but Pam couldn’t figure it out with her fuzzy mind, as dots just refused to connect for her.  Pam got concerned when Dwight called her ‘Pan,’ as he departed her desk again, he had been visiting almost as much as Jim regularly would. Speaking of Jim, he seemed to be taking advantage of the fact that Dwight was no longer at her desk and had made his way over to lean on her desk. Pam smiled up at him, and he returned it before lowering his head conspiratorially.

Jim’s face straightened and Pam could see a hint of concern, “I think something is wrong with Dwight,” he said, keeping his voice low, “He’s been acting really out of it all morning, and just now? Calling you Pan? Something is definitely off.”

“I agree, he’s definitely been way nicer to me than usual, which is strange, but what could be causing that? He was fine yesterday, what’s so different about today?”

“Well, he did crash his car into a pole,” Jim deadpanned as he gave her a look.

“Oh yeah, I guess I forgot about that part,” Pam blushed, embarrassed that she had missed the obvious, “I blame the drugs,” she defended herself.

“So… Dwight might have a concussion,” Pam stated like a question, not too sure herself that was the right diagnosis.

There was a commotion and they both looked over to see Dwight had collapsed on his desk, Jim looked back to her, “Dwight definitely has a concussion,” he confirmed with a nod.

“All right, we need to get Dwight to the hospital,” Jim took command of the situation as he spun away from her desk and went to Dwight’s side, waking the unconscious man up, and trying to move him towards the door.

Dwight made a fuss about wanting Michael to take him, and so Michael tried to fob off the responsibility as usual, but it was eventually agreed that Jim would drive Meredith’s van, and Michael would ride along for moral support. Pam noticed Angela standing beside the copier and worrying.

“Angela should go along,” Pam declared confidently, “She’s the office safety officer after all, she’ll need to, um,” Pam faltered, looking back to Angela and seeing the hope in her eyes, “File the report,” Pam spit out, and their coworkers seemed to either buy it or not care enough to say either way.

Angela gave her a severe nod, and made to follow Michael, who was following Jim and the stumbling Dwight. They almost made it past her desk, when suddenly Dwight started making what he called ‘Vietnam sounds,’ and sat down on the couch by reception, refusing to be moved by Jim. Neither Angela or Michael stepped in to help, and so Pam made her way around her desk towards him. Michael had apparently tired of waiting, and exited the office, with Angela trailing behind hesitantly. Pam heard the elevator ding and depart, taking them with it.

“Come on Dwight,” Pam encouraged, putting one of his arms around her shoulder, “Upsy-daisy,” Pam said, and Dwight finally cooperated with raising himself from the couch.

As they made their way over to wait at the elevator doors, Pam bid farewell to her brief friend Dwight, and he called her adorable and bopped her on the nose, which Pam found strangely endearing. The elevator returned and before she could usher Dwight inside of it, he looked down towards the floor, and then looked up to her again taking her left hand and raising it as if to show her.

“You guys are engaged,” Dwight exclaimed with a dopey smile, “I am so happy for you Pan,” he continued before he pulled her into a crushing hug.

Dwight finally released her and took a half step back, glancing back and forth between Pam and a bemused Jim still wearing his dopey look, “I can see how happy you guys are together, congratulations,” he said genuinely.

“Thanks Dwight,” Jim broke in, putting an arm around him and ushering him into the elevator, “Let’s get you to the hospital.

Pam felt bittersweet as she waved goodbye to her new friend Concussion-Dwight again as the elevator doors closed. Pam trudged back to her desk and the rest of the afternoon passed slowly. She’d phoned Jim for an update closer to five, and he said that Dwight was getting a CT scan and would be released shortly. Pam offered to come pick him up after work and he gratefully agreed, so she found his keys in his desk and drove his car to the hospital, from there they drove home to her place to have supper together and hang out. Not just hang out, Pam amended, to make wedding plans, she thought with a smile.

After supper, Jim pulled the calendar down from her fridge and grabbed a pen, hovering it over a weekend in March, and looking at her. Pam shook her head, and he flipped it to June, hovering over the weekend of the 10th. Pam thought a June wedding would be wonderful, and it seemed like it should be enough time to plan everything, and so she nodded with a smile that hurt her face.

“We’re getting married on June 10th,” she breathed excitedly as Jim circled the date.

“And by my own rules I now have to invite Dwight,” Jim said dejectedly.

Pam giggled, “Now who’s their own worst enemy?”