Pam was convinced the image of Jim walking out the door with a suitcase was real right up until her eight-year-old daughter belly flopped on top of her and her eyes widened so far it hurt. Cece, with her darling light blue eyes, blinked down at Pam. Pam hadn’t understood until motherhood how you could be so overwhelmed with love and absolute exasperation at the same time.

“Cece, Mommy told you not to do that anymore.”

“Was that your stomach?” Cece asked, indicating the spot where Pam had tensed with the impact.

“Yes, and it’s not a trampoline!” Pam sat up and caught a squealing Cece in her arms before she could wriggle away. “Well? What is it, missy?” She tickled Cece’s sides and fought to maintain a serious expression as Cece’s giggles bounced off the bedroom walls. “What was so important that you had to wake Mommy up at—” Pam glanced over at the digital clock on Jim’s nightstand and blanched. “—5:30?!”

Cece fell prey to another wave of laughter and Pam sank back into her pillows, straightening Cece’s pink polka-dotted PJs as she went. “Sorry, Mom,” Cece said when her giggles had finally subsided. “The home phone rang.”

“All of this over the home phone?” Cece started giggling again and Pam sternly poked her stomach. “You didn’t answer it, did you?”

“No.”

Pam lowered her eyebrow.

“Yes.”

“Cece!” Pam slapped her own forehead with the heel of her palm. “Stranger danger!”

Cece mimicked Pam’s action and snorted. “Over the phone?”

“It’s possible!”

Pam frowned at her daughter even as she flashed her a toothy grin. “Not if it was Daddy’s phone number. He said he tried to call you but your cell was dead. Again.”

“Did he sound mad?”

“No. He feels bad he missed movie night.”

Pam nodded. “As he should,” she and Cece said together.

On Friday nights, Pam and Jim let the kids stay up half an hour past their usual eight o’ clock bedtime. As soon as Jim got home from work, they got a movie going and watched it until 8:30 or when the kids just passed out. Last night, Jim had called around 6:00 and notified them that he was stuck at the office. Again. Pam had let Cece start The Sound of Music and it wasn’t until the credits were rolling across the screen that she realized the three hour long movie was over, it was almost 9:30, the kids were asleep in her lap, and Jim still wasn’t home. As she carried the kids upstairs, Pam noticed Jim’s text informing her that they were crunching numbers at the office on a tight deadline but he’d have the whole day off tomorrow. You should, she’d thought, because tomorrow’s Saturday. 

“What else did your father say?” Pam asked, shaking her head.

Cece paused in the middle of playing with Pam’s curls. “He’s headed home...That’s what she said, anyway. She interrupted us.”

Pam almost laughed at the phrase reminiscent of her old boss before she winced and had to look away. She didn’t like how Cece was picking up on the late nights and somehow attributing them to a woman she barely knew. It made Pam’s stomach turn. If anyone understood Jim better than Pam, it was Cece. She was his baby. She was his blood. So much of him was her that lying to his daughter was as close as Pam had ever seen him get to lying to himself. 

“That’s good, I guess,” Pam said at last. Her mouth had run dry. Jim had let Cece talk to her? “Weird for him to call though when he knows you guys should still be asleep.”

“He probably did it because I called him at three.”

“What? Why?”

Knotting her sleep shirt in her hands, Cece avoided Pam’s eyes. “I had a nightmare. I wanted to talk.”

Pam pulled Cece to her chest and kissed the top of her golden brown curls. “Aww, baby, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you come get me?”

“You’ve been so tired. I didn’t wanna bother you.”

“You never bother me. If you’re scared, you’ve got Daddy and Mommy. This is what I’m here for, okay?”

“Okay...”

“...Would you like to go back to sleep now?”

“Yes.”

Pam carried Cece down the hall to her bedroom and tucked her in. Quietly closing the door behind her, Pam tip-toed past Phillip’s room and down the stairs. They had simple white walls and beige carpet, plain lace curtains in the front windows that looked out on a picket fence and terrace she’d given up on only to have Jim tell her he’d found their perfect house. Their house. Not his house. Not Pam’s house. Jim and Pam’s home.

Pam sank into the gray vinyl couch and stared up at the ceiling, one hand pressed to her heart to keep it from flying from her chest. They’d certainly had their fair share of late nights at Dunder Mifflin and if it caused him to miss saying goodnight to the kids he always tossed and turned in his sleep. When he’d been commuting to Athlead at the very beginning he had video chatted them every night he was gone to make sure they were doing okay, and wasn’t Cece the sweetest baby in the world? Pam twisted her wedding band around her finger. He would tell her, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t say “late nights”. He would come and sit her down and take her hands in his and say “I’m having an…”

Affair. Affair, affair, affair. Pam flinched every time the word flitted in and out of her brain. She told herself it was just like exposure therapy. The more she heard...it, the less power it would have over her. Right? Maybe. That hadn’t worked so well for her when Jim had gone to Stamford and come back with another woman. Girlfriend had been the word of the week then. However, this time they were married and the other woman was so much worse.

Eleven months ago Jim’s assistant had broken her ankle snowboarding with a client on an Athlead office trip with Jim and a couple of the other executives. Jim, who’d been overloaded with work as it was, had needed an immediate replacement. She still remembered their phone call the very next morning, how he “got incredibly lucky” and “you won’t believe how smart she is” and “she’s fluent in Māori, Pam!” Which, admittedly, was impressive. It was one of the first things Pam had asked Jim’s new assistant about when she’d come to dinner not two weeks later. 

Born and raised in New Zealand, Amaia Vox was one of the most stunning, stylish women Pam thought she’d ever meet just shy of an actual queen. She was perfectly tan with silken black hair and eyes that sparked like dry ice in water. Only thirty-two years old and an international sales associate with a Masters in business, Amaia was the embodiment of everything that Pam had known Jim was capable of being from day one; an intelligent people person who easily worked their way up the corporate ladder. When Pam met Jim, she’d had the immediate sense that she’d known him forever and also not at all. She loved him so much that any new piece of him that revealed itself was like finding gold in a mapped out mine. You were supposed to know every part of it, know it better than you knew yourself, only to one day discover there was far more beneath the surface than you’d dreamed of and some of those dreams didn’t align with reality.

Meeting Amaia had been like a bulldozer of reality barreling into their simplistic life and then backed over the rubble. Amaia was sexy, outspoken, witty. Pam had sat across from her for ten minutes and in that time she had watched how inextricably entwined Amaia and Jim had already become. She knew his schedule down to the minute. His work week down to the hour. The entire dinner, Amaia went out of her way to be polite to Pam so when she corrected her on what Jim’s favorite kind of coffee was and said Pam just needed to trust Amaia because it was her specialty after all, well. Pam didn’t really have a leg to stand on, did she? She’d been so irrationally bothered that she’d gone upstairs to their room and debated for an hour on whether or not dialing Kelly to vent was too drastic a move.

When they had first moved to Austin, this had been their normal. Jim couldn’t get away from work, Pam couldn’t sleep without him, and Cece and Phil couldn’t sleep in “the big scary house” without Pam. After a few weeks, the kids got settled and she’d been able to convince them to go upstairs to their own rooms. She tried to convince herself, but then she’d remember the last time Jim had come home at two in the morning and awoken her with heated kisses that sent warmth blazing through her chest and she’d stay on the couch. She didn’t expect that tonight. She hadn’t expected it for a long time, but she’d wait for him anyway. After all the time he’d spent waiting for her, it only seemed fair.

“Pam.”

She arched her stiff back away from the cushion and right into his arms. She didn’t bother opening her eyes. He’d barely remembered Valentine’s Day on Thursday, which was fine, if you weren’t the one who’d spread a bunch of little knick-knacks for him to find when he got home from work that you had to rush to get rid of that evening before he could realize you’d done something as embarrassing as actually making an effort on a stupid romantic holiday. Gasp. She needed a breather from her own thoughts and she’d barely woken up. Jim had gotten her flowers but she’d barely managed to get a hug out of him before he confessed he was exhausted and went to bed. If she were someone else, she would have insisted he stay up with her for another hour and at least just tell her about his day. Unfortunately, since Pam was Pam, she’d let him go and cried herself to sleep in the guest bedroom downstairs like Cece when she threw a tantrum and needed a door that locked.

Pam ran her nose along Jim’s jaw and got a strong inhalation of the delicate mixture of cinnamon and something woody and warm. The combination of her fragrance and his earthy musk was almost enough to make her weep. He’d sprayed his tie with her perfume this morning. He hadn’t done that in years. She opened her mouth to ask him why right as her husband nipped at the fragile skin beneath her jaw and she took a sharp breath instead.

“God, Jim!” she yelped, eyes flying wide.

Jim was leaning over her on the couch in the same light blue button up, slacks, and black suit that he’d left—was it yesterday?—in. The same once white now unrecognizable tie that Cece had made special just for him. His hair was different, as it had come loose from the gel he’d pushed through it—seriously, what day was today?—and his bangs curled across his forehead. He gave her that goofy grin that looked so much like Cece it physically pained Pam to see it. She hadn’t looked that way last night. Last night his daughter had fallen asleep with the home phone cradled to her chest, a surprising turn of events after all the times Pam had been forced to give up a chair or a tea cup for Raggedy Ann.

“Hey, Beesly. I thought we talked about you not sleeping on the couch when I’m gone?”

Pam rolled her eyes. “You think you’re so cute, don’t you?” She pinched his nose and Jim made a face. If Cece had been awake, she most assuredly would have cried, “Honk!”

“I don’t like you sleeping so close to the door,” Jim went on, lifting her away from the couch and falling back on the other end of it with her on top of him.

“I hate to say it but it just might be possible that an intruder would think to climb the stairs.”

Jim pulled her tighter to him and kissed her cheek. “Still. You would have more time to react while he was getting to the second floor.”

“What if it’s a she?”

“Then I expect Cece to distract her by asking to braid her hair and then you can use the nunchucks Dwight gave you for Christmas to sweep her leg.”

“You overestimate my skill.”

“Never,” Jim purred.

Pam wanted to be mad at him. She wanted to go to battle over movie night on Cece’s behalf. She wanted to ask the questions that had sat burning on her tongue for the past eight months. She wanted Jim to know that he couldn’t just waltz in here before the sun had even risen and start nibbling on her earlobe and just expect her to—

“Are you upset?” he breathed against her neck as he ducked his head and sucked on the skin there.

Damn. It.

“I should be,” she murmured, even as her fingers curled into his hair.

“I love you so much.”

“I know.” She blinked. Hard. Nope, nope, nope. She wasn’t going to cry over this. Not now. He would know something was wrong.

Pam took a stuttering breath and Jim pulled back far enough to see her face. She tried to hide against his shoulder but he’d already seen her flushed cheeks and overbright eyes. Jim frowned, biting the inside of his cheek. A muscle in his jaw jumped. If she didn’t know any better—which she really, really should by now—she would think he was about to carry her upstairs.

In one swift motion, he stood and swept her into a burning kiss with his arms braced under the tops of her thighs. She hovered above him, tilting her head and deepening the kiss with a tug on his lip. She paid attention to the way his tongue pressed against hers and special notice to what she tasted there. The faint brush of coffee—her coffee, which she hadn’t realized he’d brought to work with him—and a heady amount of the rock hard biscuit disaster she’d attempted when she’d woken up to extreme failure. 

“I told you those belonged in the trash,” Pam muttered.

“Hmm?”

“I taste the cinnamon on you.”

Jim laughed and kissed her with a smile on his lips, walking her backwards into the guest bedroom. It was pitch black and he managed to locate and lay her down on the comforter without turning on the light. His suit coat was on the ground in a heartbeat and all Pam could think about was the fact that it was going to get wrinkled after she’d just ironed it that morning. No, yesterday. No—ugh. She was still mulling this over when she glanced up and caught the overwhelming adoration on Jim’s face.

“I’m not mad,” Pam said, knowing and not understanding how it was true.

“I know.” Jim laid down next to her and brushed his nose up her cheek from the corner of her mouth. “You should be.”

“I should be,” she agreed.

Jim slowly rolled on top of her and her hands slid instinctively up and under his shirt as he touched his forehead to hers. “You have every right to be. I’m going to try to fix my schedule so this doesn’t happen anymore.”

“I wish you would,” she whispered.

Even when she recognized what she’d said, the phantom of a plea from years ago repeating itself in a dark room instead of a dark night, the lapping of water coming from the fish tank around the corner instead of the receding tide, she hadn’t expected Jim to notice or to care. She hadn’t anticipated the pain that would flash behind his eyes or the way he would thread his fingers through hers and pin her to the bed.

She didn’t have a coherent thought for a full minute as he kissed her over and over and over again. She hadn’t tried to make a move on him all week. He often told her he’d never refuse her but she still couldn’t bring herself to initiate when she knew he had a forty hour work week and her job was extremely flexible by comparison. She reported to Smart Resources at 8:00 a.m. where she kicked off the day by fielding the first fifteen or so artists who came through the door looking to have their work commissioned to their group of agents. When they’d gotten to Austin, Pam had walked into this same store just for the sake of not missing a shot she didn’t take. Now that she’d seen what they could do, she was happy to be there every Monday through Friday until 11:00 or noon, when she usually had to leave to take care of a commission of her own. After a few months of working with them, Pam had gotten on her feet. She didn’t make as much as Jim, and she barely made more than what she had at her job at Dunder Mifflin, and yet...if Pam was honest with herself, these past couple of years had been the happiest of her life. Sometimes her clients were jerks, and sometimes Cece or Phillip had a bad day, or Jim came home late, but those days just made her more grateful for what she had. She wouldn’t have clients without Jim. She never would have gone after art, and she definitely, definitely wouldn’t have had her wonderful husband or those two beautiful babies upstairs if Jim had never taken a leap she’d been too afraid to even consider.

It was hard to stay angry at someone you felt you owed your entire life to.

Jim nudged her thighs apart and settled themself between them, deftly pulling her sweater over her head and bending to kiss her over the fabric of her bra the way he knew she liked. “Since when do you not wear an old shirt of mine to bed?” Jim asked, his words buzzing through her body.

“Since it’s just another reminder that you’re not here.”

Jim paused. “I need those reminders.”

“What?”

He peered up at her through heavily lidded eyes. “Your art is all over my office. More than the kids.” When Pam clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing, he laughed instead. “I’m serious! It’s embarrassing. For me, not you. My entire executive board thinks Cece is the next Picasso because I can’t make myself tell them that eighty percent of those pictures were done by my thirty-nine-year-old wife—”

“Oh, the mood is so over.”

“Beesly—”

“You just reminded me I’m—”

“Almost forty? That’s hardly an issue,” he said, unhooking her bra and throwing it across the room. “We can be forty together.”

“What if I don’t want to be forty together?”

Jim feigned a serious expression. “Then I guess our wedding vows are just a sham, aren’t they?”

Pam tried to wait him out. Really, she did. Fortunately, as everyone who’d ever worked with him at Dunder Mifflin knew, Jim Halpert was the reigning champion of the waiting game and Pam wasn’t going to be the next in a line of many who’d tried and failed to dethrone him. She certainly had in the past, and where had it gotten her? Michael Scott esque feet burns, thank you very much, and Pam could have gone her whole life without that.

Pam giggled and it seemed to only make him more determined to tease her bare flesh until she woke the kids up. “That’s an unsexy thought,” Pam said, continuing the conversation in her head aloud. “See, the moment is ove—”

Jim’s hands, which, when she’d last paid attention to them, had been squeezing her breasts while she tried not to think about his lips suctioning over her nipples, were now busy hitching up her hips. His mouth skated down her body leaving a fiery trail in its wake. Pam was too mesmerized by what he was doing, not to mention what he could be doing any second now, to move. When she remembered she was wearing the white underwear with tiny pink hearts, she miraculously regained mobility.

“Jim, don’t!” she squealed, catching him by the hair before he could go any further.

“Ow! Don’t what?”

“You know. You don’t have to do that.”

“Pam. This is like denying me crack after giving me a second hand high.”

Pam covered her face with her hands and laughed. “Did you really just say that? Ryan would have some opinions about you saying that.”

Jim groaned. “Don’t mention his name in this room.”

“Wait a second, you haven’t vetoed everyone in here yet—”

“Paaaaam—”

“—so that means I can talk about Michael and Dwight and Kelly and—”

Jim launched himself back up the bed and silenced her with a crushing kiss. She couldn’t take it anymore. She tugged at his shirt but struggled with the buttons. Apparently, he couldn’t take it either. A moment later his hands were replacing hers and the buttons were ricocheting over the hardwood floor. His fingers slid beneath her waistband and down her thighs, taking her sweatpants with them. He followed the gray cotton to her ankles where he peeled it away and tossed it over his shoulder.

“Jim,” she warned, anxiously shifting her hips as she watched the beginnings of the sunrise through the curtains.

“We have time.”

“If Cece walks in on us, I’m blaming you.”

“If Cece walks in on us, I’ll have a heart attack.”

Pam nudged his face with her knee and Jim caught it and planted a kiss where she’d bumped him. “I told you not to joke about that!”

“Okay.” His lips smoothed over her stomach and toyed with her underwear. “Pam, I’m being completely serious here. Notice how I didn’t say Beesly? Completely serious. If Cece walks in on us, I will have a heart attack.”

“Okay.” Pam rose up enough for him to tug her underwear off. He helps her settle her legs over his shoulder and she rushed through the last thing she had to say before she wouldn’t be able to think at all. “If Cece walks in on us, you are sleeping in the living room for a week.”

Jim tensed. She meant to ask him if he was alright but then she felt his tongue against her skin and she didn’t remember anything except that she ought to scream into the pillow or Cece really was going to come downstairs and they were going to have a problem they couldn’t ignore.

By the time Jim had kissed his way back up her body she was barely coherent. Fortunately for the both of them, she was so practiced at ridding him of his pants that doing it again in the dark while he left love bites in pinkish purple hues along her throat didn’t prove an issue.

“Do you forgive me?” Jim murmured against her.

“No. I just have an appreciation for your body.”

“Ah, yes.” His eyebrows twitched as he struggled to be witty while she had her hand down his boxers until finally—“God, Pam, how am I supposed to keep my train of thought when you’re doing that?”

She giggled, gazing starry eyed up at the ceiling and surrendering herself to sensation. “What were you going to say?”

“There’s more to me than my body? Maybe? ”

She laughed. “Really?” Pam squeezed and his hips jumped towards her. “Prove it.”

“Again?”

She swatted his shoulder. Jim nuzzled her cheek with his nose before kissing her open-mouthed. She drew his tongue into the heat there and he broke away on a groan. “And you said the heart panties weren’t sexy.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice,” she said as she worked him out of his boxers.

“I always notice. It’s all in the details.”

“Quit paying so much attention.”

Jim pressed their hips flush together and she gasped. “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

Pam reached down for him, stroking him once, twice, three times. Even after all their years together, there were certain things Pam did that drove him crazy. When they’d started dating, he’d begged her not to smile with her tongue between her teeth or whimper when they were kissing. Pam, who hadn’t realized she’d been whimpering, had been mortified. Jim hadn’t understood that part. She was beautiful. She was perfect, what was she embarrassed about? She did have to quit doing that though because they’d only been seeing each other for six days and they’d decided together they’d try to make it a week before they jumped each other or lost their minds trying to avoid it. Once that seven day period was up, they’d spent forty-eight straight hours together and Jim had flinched every time she grasped him with her hand. After the first couple of times it had happened and she’d thought she was doing something wrong, Jim had admitted that it was more about what she was doing so right. Pam had responded to this by leaning over and taking him into her mouth.

“Pam,” Jim groaned into her ear, catching her hand with his and pinning it above her head.

Pam pushed her fingers deep into his hair with her free hand and pulled the side of his face flush with hers. “Guess what, Jim?”

He made an unintelligible sound and rocked forward into her grip.

“I pay attention too.”

He glanced in her eyes for a heartbeat to make sure before pushing into her fully and covering her moan with his. She could tell by the way he was holding her hips to his that he was desperate to make this last. She could also tell that he was so deep inside her that if he didn’t start moving soon she was going to scream.

“Jim.”

“Working on it.”

Pam, who’d been arching towards him, dropped her body flat to the bed before slamming her hips up against his. Jim made a noise somewhere between a moan and her name and she wrapped her legs around him before he could recover. Burying his face in her shoulder, he whispered things to her that set her nerves on fire and reduced her vocabulary to three and four letter words. She couldn’t make out all that he was saying but his warm breath sent goosebumps racing up her arms and the power of his thrusts soon had her eyes rolling back into her head.

“Love you,” Jim breathed.

“You more,” Pam said, surprising herself when the words caught in her throat. She pulled his head down to kiss him and tightened her arms around his shoulders.

She let the room go dark around her and just focused on the feel of him. Now, now that he was completely distracted and she could almost pretend this wasn’t even a question in her mind, she was going to do some investigating.

Her hands slid down to his upper back. No nail marks. Good. He smelled like Pam, not her. His lips were swollen from Pam’s kisses, not hers. He’d woken up with Pam, he’d eaten breakfast with Pam, he’d smushed her and the kids in a giant hug before she had to take them to school. He’d turned around when he was almost at work because he’d forgotten the spreadsheet he didn’t really needed in the first place and he’d caught her up on her way out the door in a kiss that had her heels dangling a foot above the ground. He’d come home to Pam…How long had it taken for him to decide to do that?

For a fleeting second she was sure she was going to have to fake it, something she’d had a lot of practice at with Roy but had never had to do with Jim. Oh god. She only had about T-minus five seconds before Jim completely lost control and she would have to make a choice.

Five. Four. Three—

“Pam.”

She might have blacked out. She had blacked out for a couple seconds on their wedding night in the honeymoon suite, and it had certainly had nothing to do with the alcohol she couldn’t drink because she’d been pregnant with Cece. When her ears finally stopped ringing and she could think around the warm buzz pervading her entire body, she realized Jim was saying her name and that her face was hidden against his chest.

She leaned back and rolled over facing away from him. “Night.”

“Did you—Pam. Did you just try to ‘night’ me and sleep your way out of this conversation?”

“What conversation?”

“The one where I’m having sex with my wife and she’s squinting off into the distance like she’s mentally diffusing a bomb.”

Pam shrugged even as she laughed into her hand. “Maybe I was.”

His heated hand closed over her shoulder and he reached over her to turn on the bedside lamp. “Come here.”

“No. I’m not coming.”

“...I—”

“Don’t—”

“—am resisting.”

“Good.”

He was quiet for a long moment before his stuttering breath blew stray curls into her face. “You’ve never said that to me before.”

Pam rolled out of bed and walked around the room systematically picking up all of their clothes. Tossing his onto the desk in the corner by the door, she yanked her sweater and her pants back on. Jim sat up, his smile widening.

“Stop that,” she laughed.

“Stop what?” The sheets rustled as they fell to the floor and Jim came up behind her, his arms sliding around her waist, his chest molding to her back. He reached for his slacks and she held them away. “Hey,” he murmured. She loved that she knew without looking that his eyes were closed. “Pants.”

“No pants. Cece’s upset.”

“Are you sure Cece’s the only one?”

Pam wrung her wrists and stepped away. “Maybe you should go to sleep. Surely you’re tired.”

“Pam—”

“Mom, is Daddy home?” Cece’s voice carried down the stairs and it only made Pam second guess what she was about to do for a solid instant. “I see his car!”

“He’s here, hon,” Pam called back. “Daddy’s going to rest for a bit though.”

Jim laughed and made another valiant effort to retrieve his pants. Pam ducked under his arms and opened the window. “I’m not tired.”

“I think you are.”

“Is there a reason you don’t want her to see me right now?”

Pam glanced back at him, the smile falling from her lips. She took in the purple smudges under his eyes that were now plain in the light leaking in through the blinds, his hunched shoulders, the slight sway in his stance. Her eyes drifted behind him to the spot where Cece’s tie was lying, forgotten, in a knot on the ground. Pam recalled how her daughter had stayed up all night the day before Father’s Day sewing little hearts on it and then waiting for the blue and green stripes of glue to dry. Objectively, it wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world. Realistically, in Pam’s world, it was everything.

“Jim.”

Jim tilted his head. “Yeah?”

“I’m trying not to be underhanded and tricky.”

“Okay.”

“So will you please just go lay down?”

“I don’t want to—”

“Oops!” Pam shucked his clothes out the window into the front lawn and whisked out the door, tie in hand. She slammed it after her to muffle Jim’s surprised laugh and ran away before he could reach out and retrieve her. “Cece, come help Mommy with breakfast!”

“Already on it!” Cece shouted from across the hall.

Pam ran into the kitchen and caught her before she could start cracking the eggs. “Just because you can pull up the stool and reach the oven doesn’t mean you’re old enough to use it.”

“Why not? Daddy’s really old and you just put him in time out.”

“I did not.”

“Did so. I know he’s not asleep.”

Pam ruffled Cece’s curls and started mixing the mess of batter her daughter had dumped into a measuring cup. “Yes he is.”

“No, he’s not. I heard him using his outside voice.”

Pam paused with an egg in hand. “What?”

“Yeah, he was like ‘Pam!’”

The egg exploded over the tile and Pam stared down at it for a long moment as her face warmed terribly. “...Cece, look what you did.”

“How is that my fault?!”

Using Cece’s indignance to her advantage, Pam set her back on the stool and got her assistance in cracking two eggs—not on the floor—and showed her how to choose which tablespoon to use from the big ring Pam kept on a hook in the cupboard. Cece, only too happy to get flour all over her shirt and Pam’s face, was distracted enough not to notice her father make a run up the stairs in nothing but a bed sheet. Phillip, on the other hand, padded into the kitchen a moment later and flopped into the nearest chair looking quite perplexed.

“Did you sleep well, baby?” Pam asked, pushing Cece back before she could burn her fingers on the hot metal of the stove.

“I think so.” Pam smiled fondly at him when he wasn’t looking, his brown hair flopping into his big hazel eyes as he turned his head to squint out the window. “Mommy, didn’t you get the house checked for the spookies a long time ago?”

Cece looked up at Pam with a lowered eyebrow and Pam tsked at her. Phillip was still convinced that if anything moved without his knowledge, it had clearly been the doing of displeased spirits. This was convenient for Cece who liked to get up ten minutes before him and shift all of his toys fractionally closer to the bed. Or, you know. If she was feeling particularly ambitious, arranged them all around his head so when he woke up the big stuffed bunny Jim had gotten them last Easter was looming over him with its massive cartoon eyes.

“Yes, I did, and there were no spookies to be found,” Pam reassured him, giving Cece the ‘Do you want to make your brother cry again?’ glare to silence her.

“That was a while ago though. Shouldn’t you do it again? Just to make sure?”

“Honey, what’s bringing all this on?” Cece hopped off the stool and pretended not to notice when Pam tapped the spoon unnecessarily hard on the pan to get the extra batter off.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“No I’m not.”

“Pinky promise?”

“I’ll do you one better.” Pam flipped the first three pancakes onto a plate and brought them to her sleepy eyed son, placing a soft kiss on his forehead.

Phillip giggled and squirmed when she rubbed her flour covered cheeks against his. “Mom!”

“Sorry, honey, you’re just too cute.”

“The ghost didn’t think so.”

“What ghost?”

“This big white blob came running up the stairs and when it saw me it went ‘Ah!’ and then ran even faster. Did I scare him off?”

Pam pinched the bridge of her nose and stifled a laugh. “Maybe. Cece, do you want to help me do the next three? We can make Mickey if you want.”

“Yeah!” Cece cheered, slamming her hands down on the table and making Phillip jump.

“You might want to put on your apron. I’m going to give you instructions while I make Daddy’s coffee.”

It wasn’t like Cece wasn’t constantly impressing Pam with her very existence but the fact that she willingly listened to her for an entire half hour practically blew her mind. Not to mention that when Phillip got a tummy ache from Mickey’s chocolate chip caked ear, Cece had gotten him water in his favorite plastic cup with the sharks on the side and distracted him by showing off her math homework.

“Do you know what five times ten is?”

Phillip blinked up at his sister like she had just asked him what the meaning of life was. “No...Do you?”

Cece threw back her head and giggled. “Do I? Phil, it’s easy, look. Five times zero is zero and…”

Pam didn’t deliberately tune Cece out. She also hadn’t deliberately tuned out every math teacher she’d ever had, or intentionally gotten benched on the softball team for a week for failing Pre-calc. Sometimes these things just happened. Unfortunately, this time in particular, Jim snuck up behind her and left a smacking kiss on her cheek. After feeling behind her and ascertaining that he was, indeed, wearing pants, she stepped aside so he could come into the kitchen.

“Watch those hands, Beesly,” Jim whispered. Due to his gravelly voice, his version of whispering was often just talking and that talking turned their daughter’s head.

“Daddy!” Cece grinned momentarily before wiping away her joy with a pout. “You missed movie night, you big meanie.”

“Woah, language, Marie.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Marie is a meanie,” Jim said in a sing-song voice, kneeling down between the kids and putting his arms around them. Pam did a double take at his sleek gray suit and gelled hair. It was Saturday, wasn’t it? “Cece, do you know what I see…”

“Daaad.”

“...see?”

Cece sighed dramatically. “What do you see?”

“The prettiest princess in the whole wide world!” Jim gasped, pressing a frenzy of kisses to Cece’s face.

“Ahhh!”

Pam crossed her arms and did her best to look suspicious when nothing was more distracting than Jim doting on their kids. “What’s going on?”

Phillip reached for Jim and Jim stood, scooping him up in his arms and bringing him along to get his coffee. “What do you mean?”

“I just pranked you. Good. What are you up to?”

Jim smirked and winked at her. Pam banged the back of her head against the wall. So. Maybe her little stunt with the window had been a major mistake. She’d once asked him what he would do if she hung all his underwear from the branches of the giant oak tree in their front yard and if she’d be at risk of losing her bras if she did so. Jim had reminded her he didn’t want anyone save a certain special someone seeing any of her underwear ever—especially that white lacy ensemble she’d gotten for their anniversary that Jim wouldn’t let her leave the bedroom in—but if she messed with the prank master she was going to be in serious trouble. Pam, who had been thus far feeling victorious, narrowed her eyes at her husband who had just inadvertantly become the enemy.

Cece squealed and clapped her hands, math homework a thing of the past. “We’re having another prank war?”

“No!” Jim and Pam yelped.

The last time that had happened, Cece and Phil had taken sides and Cece was by far the better evil mastermind of the two. Pam might not have minded this if Cece had been on her team. As it was, she hadn’t really enjoyed the whipped cream in her shampoo, the constant flipping of the toilet paper rolls to the wrong side, the washable Mickey Mouse tattoo she’d woken up with on her forehead, or her jello encased tea pot. Pam had been prepared for disaster, but not that. Jim came downstairs right as Pam had started tearing up and was dismayed that Cece had done that without asking him. Fortunately, Jim had a lot of experience with the ways of the jello and had extracted the teapot in perfect condition in a matter of minutes, even if it meant he would be late to an important meeting. Jim had called off everything after that, declaring it a tie, and that evening they’d gone out for dinner as a family.

Jim’s smile slipped as Pam’s eyes pricked with tears. That had been just over a year ago. Just a year ago he’d dropped everything for them over nothing and now he was missing half of their childrens’ lives.

Jim pointed out the clovers beginning to peek through in the backyard and Cece and Phillip ran outside to inspect. The second they were alone, Jim crossed the floor to her and pulled her tight against his chest. “I have to tell you something.”

She froze with her arms rigid at her side. This couldn’t be happening. He wouldn’t tell her something like that, not with the kids just a sliding glass door away. He wouldn’t flaunt the relationship. He wouldn’t come down here and call Cece his princess after he’d let her wait for him all night because he was with—”

“Amaia got a call last night.”

“Jim—” Pam said, her voice cracking.

“We weren’t crunching numbers.”

“Oh, god.”

“Joel fell in his garage and hit his head on the concrete.”

Pam sucked in all the air around her in a single breath. “What?! Is he alright?”

Joel did most of the overseas in person communication for Jim’s company. They’d hired him right after Jim had come back, about the same time he’d gotten them to get rid of the monstrosity that had been Athleap for the much improved Athlead and he’d been a fixture of the company ever since, even though he was at least twenty years older than everyone else on the team.

“He has a concussion and he pulled a muscle in his hip. He was getting ready to come into work because he had a deadline for all these contracts so Amaia and I stayed at the office to look over all the files...It was a complete disaster, Pam. He’s supposed to be going to this meeting in a couple of days and he says he’s fine but there’s no chance I’m letting him risk his health like that.”

“What about Nick? Isn’t he training under Joel to take his position when he retires?”

“Yes, but he’s only been with us for a couple of months. Joel wasn’t going to retire for about another year. This is a huge international client he was supposed to be meeting. The client prepaid for three weeks on this exclusive cruise and everything. If Athlead doesn’t go it’ll be a total slap in the face.”

Pam’s arms went around him and he swayed with her in much the same fashion as that day in the parking lot when she’d brought him his umbrella. The day she’d known everything was going to be alright, because Jim would make it alright.

“What can you do?” she whispered, kissing his ear. “Anyone who knows what they’re doing is too busy.” Jim stilled and Pam closed her eyes. “Jim?”

“I could go. But I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

“Jim, you can’t put this on me.” Her vision blurred. Great. She was crying. “Y—you’re just—you’re leaving us for three weeks—”

“Shh, shh, shhh,” Jim murmured, kissing her tears away. “There’s no way I’m getting on a plane the week of my daughter’s birthday. No way in hell. I can’t be away from you guys for three weeks. I can barely stand walking around the office without trying to call what I already know will be a phone on zero battery.”

Pam laughed into his shirt and he pulled back slightly, cradling her face in his hands. “That’s not happening. I, um.” He glanced down, his face flushing pink. “I was kind of hoping—I mean—The kids have spring break coming up. And we haven’t gone anywhere as a family in forever. Phillip hasn’t seen the ocean, not the real ocean, and it’s going to be Cece’s birthday and your birthday and I was just thinking maybe—”

“You want to bring us on a work trip?”

“Oh god, yes. I need Cece silliness in the morning and Phil fun in the afternoon and Pam passion to get through a single day, forget about three weeks.”

Pam leaned back and pinched his nose. Outside, Cece shouted “Honk!”

“Jim Halpert, you’re going to bring this family that can create chaos literally anywhere to...wait, where is this trip exactly?”

Cece slid the glass door open and ran inside with Phillip in hot pursuit. “Mom, tell him I didn’t bury his train in the backyard.”

“She did,” Jim and Pam muttered to each other, sharing a grin.

Jim clapped his hands and Phillip ran into Cece when she skidded to a stop. “Family, I have something to announce.”

Cece raised her hand. “You’re repenting for missing movie night!”

“No! But also yes!”

“Dad. Which is it?”

Jim winked at her and spread his arms. “We’re going to Australia!”