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Author's Chapter Notes:

This is a silly, fluffy little thing. Also, do I lose points if I admit that I totally ganked this title from a Madonna song? Ha!

Spoilers for Diwali, 3X05 

When he woke up the next morning, his mouth tasted like cotton. And something really, really disgusting. He moaned, rolling over onto his side, and met the backside of his couch. Damn. What the fuck happened last night?

Everything came back in hazy memories: realigning order forms ... Andy breaking out the Jagermeister ... singing Indigo Girls ... wait ... really?

He sat up, and realized he'd slept the entire night on his couch. How had he gotten there?

He thought again. He remembered trying to ride his bike home... falling in the bushes? And then Karen --? Oh, God. Karen. She'd seen him acting so damn stupid, what the hell was he thinking? How had she stayed so sober?

She had... driven him home...

He squinted his eyes, trying to remember. Damn, he must have fallen asleep in her car. He couldn't even remember getting up to his apartment. He wondered if Karen had helped him upstairs. He glanced down at himself, noting that he was still fully clothed, but had a blanket at his feet. Had she come in? Did she put that blanket on him? Damn it, why couldn't he remember?

Had he said something stupid? Did he tell her her something he shouldn't have?

Damn it.

That was definitely the last time he was drinking Jager with Andy ever again.

Jim ambled to the bathroom, shedding his clothes along the way. He rubbed his face, looking at himself in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face -- God, he had a huge crease along the side of his face, what the fuck? From sleeping on the couch.

Never. Again.

The warm water felt good on his face, and he went over last night's events in his head again. He tried to remember if anything happened with Karen... she obviously must have helped him upstairs, right?

He remembered her calling out to him after he'd fallen over, outside: "Hey, dummy!"

He closed his eyes, trying to wash away the memories of the night before.

Seriously: never again.

He got out of the shower and finished getting ready, transferring his wallet and other items from yesterday's clothes. He realized his phone was vibrating when he picked it up. He looked at it, still in a haze. Messages.

He flipped it open and clicked on the "Message" screen. 1 voice mail, 1 text message.

Yawning, he pressed the voice mail button. After entering the prompts, he set it to "speaker" so he could grab some cereal out of the cabinet.

"Jim: it's Karen. Wanted to make sure you survived the night. Consider this your wake-up call. Call me back."

He shut the phone, not wanting to deal with Karen right now. She probably just wanted to make fun of him and his inability to hold his liquor.

As he poured out some Raisin Bran into a bowl, he remembered he had a text message, too. Probably another message from Karen, telling him he was a lightweight. Grabbing the cereal, he walked over to the couch, taking the phone with him. She was probably never going to let him live that one down...

Wait -- Message from Pam -- what?

He almost dropped the cereal bowl. Jim set it down carefully on his coffee table, feeling his stomach tighten. They hadn't talked at all since that last (accidental) phone conversation, and before then, not since he'd left Scranton. He wondered what the message was about. He took a deep breath, before clicking on "OK."

It said: OMG Michael just proposed to Carol!

Just the one message. Wait ... Michael proposed to Carol? He laughed suddenly, trying to imagine what the circumstances must have been. He must have done it in front of everyone. Jim checked the message to see when she'd sent it: yesterday, at 8:36 pm. He wondered where she was at with Michael at 8:30 last night?

It could be anything, knowing Michael.

He wondered whether to write her back. She'd written him last night... she had probably expected to hear from him then. Would she think he was being rude if he wrote her back today? Damn it, why did he get so drunk? He'd probably been passed out when she sent the message.

He set the phone back down, and decided to eat his cereal before it got too soggy. What would he say to her? Should he ask her where she was? Should he ask her how she was doing? Should he apologize for not writing back last night?

He couldn't tell her he was drunk. Pam would definitely never let him live that down.

After a few minutes, he decided to go for it. Steeling himself, he flipped it open, and typed:

Pam, details please

Before he could think about it, he pressed "send" and shut the phone. Jim glanced at his watch. If he didn't leave soon, he was going to be late for work. He glanced at his bicycle, which was propped haphazardly up next to his door. He did not remember bringing that up last night. He wondered if Karen brought it up for him. Oh, God. She was going to rip the living crap out of him when he got into work. Stupid Andy and his stupid drinking games. If he'd just gotten his work done and gone home instead of drinking like an idiot, he wouldn't have ended up having to make Karen drive him home and carry his bike up ... and he wouldn't have missed Pam's message...

Idiot.

Jim dumped his bowl of cereal in the sink, and went to the door, eyeing his bicycle again. He had promised himself that he would try to ride to work on his bicycle as long as the weather was still good... but after yesterday's sweaty disaster and the attempt at drunk bicycling, he wasn't sure he was ready for that again. Sighing, Jim grabbed his car keys and headed out the door. He was almost down to the car when his phone rang. Probably Karen, he thought, wondering why he hadn't called her back yet. He flipped it open without looking at it.

"Look, Fillipelli --" he started to say.

"Filli-what? Who?"

"Wait -- what?" Jim said, confused. His stomach felt like it fell fifty feet within a split-second.

"I don't know who that is, but I'm not them."

"Pam?"

"Yeah..."

She sounded shy and hesitant on the other end. Jim instantly regretted answering the phone the way he had. "I'm ... sorry," he said, "I thought you were a co-worker. Um." He paused. "Hi."

"Hey."

"I ... uh ... I'm sorry, I didn't get your text message until this morning. My phone..." He trailed off feebly. He really didn't want to explain.

"Oh, that's -- okay. I just thought you might want to know what happened with Michael."

"Of course I want to know what happened with Michael." Jim got into his car, and started to head off to work. "Tell me he did not actually propose to Carol."

"Do you think I'd lie about something like that?"

Jim chuckled. "If it were anyone but Michael... maybe."

"Do you want to know what happens, or what, Halpert?"

"Easy there, Beesly. You're a little feisty for ... seven-forty in the morning."

"Yeah, well ... I didn't know if you were going to respond."

She sounded surprised. Jim wondered if she was surprised for being so frank. He hadn't expected her to say that. "Yeah," he said. "I had some ... uh ... problems last night."

"What kind of problems?" Pam asked. Her voice was teasing and wonderful. He felt like he could talk to her for hours on end.

"I had to work late, and uh ... well, I don't really want to ... seriously, are you going to tell me about Michael?"

"Fine, fine. Okay, so Kelly invited us all to go to this Diwali festival yesterday..."

"What's Diwali?"

"Hold on, I'm getting to that. So, you know Michael, he starts it all off by trying to explain it to us in the conference room. From what I understand..."

They talked for the entire ride to Jim's office, which, honestly, was only fifteen minutes, but she hadn't even gotten to the part about Michael proposing to Carol by the time he pulled into the parking lot. He pulled into the parking garage, shutting off his car.

"All right, so seriously, I'm almost at work, Pam. I need to know -- how did Michael end up proposing to Carol?"

"Well, I guess he was probably talking to someone about marriage and what-not, because the next thing we knew, he was up on stage, asking Carol if he would do the honor of letting him be her husband."

"In front of everyone?"

"Of course."

"And what did Carol say?"

Pam giggled. "Oh, it was awful, she said she wanted to talk about it somewhere else and apparently, she must have said no, because she left Michael there and I had to give him a ride home."

"No."

"Yes. I made him ride in the backseat. Oh ... and he tried to kiss me."

"Wait ... what? Michael tried to kiss you?" Jim immediately felt his cheeks getting flushed, though he wasn't sure if it was anger, jealousy or embarrassment, or a combination of all three. "How --?"

"I don't know ... he was talking about how horribly everything went, we were sitting outside on these steps, and the next thing I knew, he was leaning over..." Jim heard Pam shudder over the phone. "Ugh."

"What did you do?"

"I said, 'What are you doing?'"

"And?"

Pam laughed. "He said, 'What are you doing?' and I told him, 'Rejecting your kiss.'"

Jim instantly burst out into laughter, covering his face with one hand. "You did not, Beesly."

"I did! I mean, what was he thinking?"

"Oh, my God."

"I mean, I know it's Michael, but ... you know? Oh my God, it was Michael."

"I can't believe he did that." Jim rubbed his face, trying to get the picture of Michael puckering up to Pam out of his head.

"Then, of course, he asks me if I'll give him a ride home! After all of that!"

Jim shook his head, laughing under his breath. "What..."

"That's when I told him he had to sit in the backseat, and oh my God, Jim, I almost kicked him out of the car three times on the way home. He is so annoying sometimes."

"Wow."

"Yeah... so ..." There was a short pause, and Jim could hear her breathing on the other end. He leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes, and imagined her, probably sitting ... maybe in her car? ... on the other end of the phone. He smiled, thinking about it. "Anything interesting happening at the Stamford branch?"

"Um. Well ..."

===

Jim finally made it into the office, but he was forty-five minutes late. Andy was sitting at his desk, eating a Pop Tart with a fork and knife, and just nodded at him when he walked in, thank God. Karen, on the other hand, looked up at him with a knowing smirk.

"Have a little trouble waking up this morning, Mr. Halpert?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Jim said, sitting down at his desk.

He turned on his computer, staring at the monitor with a wistful smile. Reaching up to the side of his face, he touched his ear, which was warm and tender to the touch. He set his cell phone onto his desk, putting his hand on his chin. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad day after all.

===


GreenFish is the author of 15 other stories.
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