“Would some tea help?” Of course some tea would help. She’d been trying to get tea from this silly place for weeks now. But she also knew Jim—while the sort to play pranks, yes, definitely, 100%—was not the sort of person who would have denied her tea while there was  tea to be had.

Not if he liked her, as they seemed to be somewhat sort of moving towards acknowledging.

So while she nodded, because she wasn’t going to lie about this, she was also very confused.

She was even more confused when Jim literally jumped the counter and ran out of the coffeeshop.

“Was it something I said?” Izzy inquired.

Pam hit her on the arm. Hard.

“I guess I deserved that.” Izzy leaned against the counter and rubbed her arm. “But seriously, that guy was mooning over you, I couldn’t just sit there watching you each make cow eyes at each other.”

“Bad form.” Before Pam could respond to Izzy (which would probably have been something along the lines of “what the hell is wrong with you”) Dwight Schrute was speaking. This seemed to be all of a piece with what she knew of Dwight—he wasn’t the best at noticing social cues that would indicate that he shouldn’t talk—and so she was more focused on the words than the rudeness of them. “Don’t tuck in your thumb.”

“What?” She and Izzy both turned to stare at him.

“The punch.” He grabbed Pam’s hand and demonstrated. “You kept your thumb inside when you hit her arm. If you do that, you’ll break your thumb.” He frowned. “Well, assuming you hit hard enough. How many kilopascals of pressure do you think you were applying?” He poked Pam’s arm. “Well, maybe just pascals.”

“What are you talking about?” Pam openly stared at him. “I wasn’t trying to hurt either of us.”

“Hm. Never strike an opponent you aren’t willing to put down. If I were to hit you, you wouldn’t be rubbing your arm. You’d be dead. She’d be dead. Jim Halpert” there was definitely a hiss in that name, which was actually oddly impressive when you considered there were no sibilants in the words “would be dead. A proper attack should take out the enemy and remove all possibility of retribution. That’s what my grandpappy taught me, and he fought in World War II.”

“For the Americans or the Germans?” Pam rolled her eyes.

“My grandpappy wasn’t a traitor!” Dwight pulled himself up to his full height and sniffed. “The Germans, of course.”

Izzy was staring at Dwight in what Pam really hoped was horror and not attraction. All Pam herself could think of was that Jim was going to be absolutely devastated that he’d missed this: she was going to have to recount it in excruciating detail when he got back.

Assuming he did get back.

Which, given that he’d just sprinted out of his place of business at full speed without saying anything to anyone, was perhaps not entirely a given.

“Pamela.” Dwight’s voice turned indulgent and condescending. “If your concentration is going to wander like this, you’re dead meat. You can’t punch someone and then stand around loosely! Attack! Attack! Attack!” He waved his arms in the air at her as if trying to spook a turkey. “Constant vigilance!”

“OK, we’re going to get you some more beet coffee.” Izzy grabbed Dwight by the shoulder and steered him away, mouthing ‘I’m sorry’ at Pam over his shoulder. “Someone is getting really cranky.”

“I’m not a crank! It’s important that she learns the basics of tactics and strategy!” But Dwight let Izzy drag him off, and Pam tried her best not to think about the fact that apparently discovering Dwight had Nazi ancestors he was proud of wasn’t dissuading her friend from contact with him.

Unfortunately, now that Dwight was not interrupting her she had plenty of time to wonder what had happened with Jim. Was he so spooked by her saying she wasn’t rejecting him that he felt the need to reject her preemptively? Or…

Or was it a stress reaction like hers?

Or what?

Before she could go too too far down that rabbit hole and end up in Wonderland, she was startled by the sudden reappearance of Jim, still running at top speed but this time back behind the counter.

He was clutching a bag from the CVS down the street, from which he pulled…tea.

A Bigelow assortment, specifically.

“Sorry about that! We didn’t have any on the premises, but I can now officially offer you our very first The Comedy Roasters tea, on the house.” He grinned, still panting a little from the run, and pulled the tea out of the box, fanning it towards her so she could see the varieties. “So, what will it be?”