It’s been a rough couple of days. Actually, it’s been a rough several months.

Jim had been skeptical about the counseling session, but at least it got them talking. It hadn’t been easy sitting in that office and hearing what Pam had to say, but the reason it had been so hard to hear is probably because of how much of it was the truth. 

He sits in the conference room, setting up his materials for a call from Athlead that’s supposed to begin in about fifteen minutes. He looks down at his phone, noticing a barrage of missed calls and messages. 

He tries to remember when he didn’t have so many calls to return, so much work to attend to; when the highlight of his day had been tricking Dwight into eating only orange-colored foods, or stealing a kiss from Pam in the break room. It’s been awhile since he’s even thought about those things, and he can’t help but notice it’s making him feel better than he has in some time.

As he contemplates the mountain of work voicemails he needs to return, he sees a call coming through from someone he hasn’t heard from in a long, long time: 

Michael Scott.

He hasn’t heard from his old boss since he and Pam had attended his wedding in Boulder nearly two years ago. He briefly considers sending it to voicemail, but oddly enough, seeing Michael’s name has stirred those same happy memories inside him, back when working at Dunder Mifflin was fun. Memories of when Pam was happy. 

He wants to live there again, if only for a moment.

Jim answers the phone. “Hey, Michael!”

“Hey, Jim, how’s it hanging?” Michael’s voice is somewhat comforting and while Jim finds this surprising, at least it’s a welcome surprise. He’ll take whatever comfort comes his way.

“Pretty good," he lies. "How’s it going in Colorado? How’s Holly?”

“It is going wonderfully, our contentment is great and our bliss is un… surmountable.”

Jim grins tightly, a bit jealous. “Glad to hear it.” 

“And Holly is pregnant again, can you believe it?”

A real smile breaks out across Jim’s face in spite of everything. “Wow, Michael… that’s so great! Congratulations, man!”

“Thank you, thanks.”

“Pam is going to be thrilled, I can’t wait to tell her.”

“Well, Jim...” Michael says, his voice turning serious. “Pam is actually the reason I’m calling.”

Jim is slightly thrown. “What do you mean?”

“I just got off the phone with her.”

Jim’s heart nearly stops. Pam? Why on earth had she been talking to Michael?

“Oh,” he says, unsure of what to say.

“She sounded miserable, Jim. And to be honest, I expected more from you.”

Jim nearly drops the phone. Of all the things he might have expected to happen today, this was definitely not on the list. 

“Um…” he looks around the room. For what? An escape hatch? “Wow, okay. I don’t understand.” The idea Pam would confide in Michael Scott, of all people, is confusing, to say the least.

“You promised me that you would always take good care of her,” Michael says, quite sternly. 

“I did?”

“The night before your wedding, remember? You bought me and Dwight shots, and then he spilled his on his stupid wolf T-shirt and got pissed at you, and then I told you Pam is like the daughter I never had and then you promised.”

He does remember that now. He’s surprised he’d forgotten in the first place. 

“Did she… what did she say to you?” he asks. 

His mind races: everything he’s done over the past several weeks that had definitely not included taking good care of Pam. He’s amazed that Michael, of all people, has the power to make him feel incredibly ashamed.

“She told me enough,” he replies. “I know I’m not your boss anymore but I have something to say and I want you to listen. Okay?”

Jim suddenly has a strange feeling that something about Michael has changed. It could be a million things: being with Holly, becoming a father. Even the absence of the cameras could have had a massive impact. But it really feels like he’s talking to a different person, not his ridiculous ex-boss, but someone akin to his own father. Maybe Michael, far, far away from Dunder Mifflin, has taken on that role for him and Pam regardless of whether or not either of them have any say in the matter.

“I’m listening.”

“You need to open your eyes, Jim. I don’t think you realize how close you are to losing her.”

Losing her. Losing her. The words hang in the air, bouncing around the room like a bad omen.

Jim doesn’t know what to say, and when that happens with Michael, he can usually be counted upon to keep talking. But there’s a silence now that Jim didn’t know Michael was capable of. He’s waiting; not to talk more, but to hear Jim explain himself. Michael has never waited before. 

“Well, Michael,” he says, “I’m not sure what Pam told you, but there are two sides to this thing. It’s just... a really delicate situation.”

“Delicate, shmelicate.” There he is. “She’s your wife.” 

Jim is silent. He’s completely unprepared for this. For some reason Kevin is at the conference room window now, making faces. Jim waves him away angrily.

“Look… the timing isn’t great, but I had to take this opportunity. I’m finally doing something that feels right, something I’m good at.”

“I thought you were a pretty great paper salesman, Jim,” Michael counters. “And a great husband. A great father. I thought you were pretty great before.”

It sounds so much like Pam, he suddenly feels tears welling up in his eyes. What exactly did she say to him?

“I thought… if we could just get through the beginning stages,” he scrambles. “I thought she would come around and we’d move to Philly and everything would be fine.” 

Fine. It all sounds stupid coming out of his mouth right now. He actually isn’t sure what he thought would happen. All he knows is that everything is worse now than it was six months ago. So much worse.

“And fine is good? You’re okay with fine?” Michael asks. “Even if it isn’t what she wants?”

Jim closes his eyes. He’d been so supportive of Pam chasing her dream years ago, back when they were only engaged. He’d missed her deeply, but he’d bitten his tongue and let her do her thing. So why won’t she do the same for him now?

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“No it isn’t, Jim. It’s love.” 

Jim takes a deep breath. Michael continues.  

“When Holly and I finally got back together,” Michael continues, “she told me something that I want to tell you: that what we are is never going to be decided by some company. That what we are is up to us.”

Us. 

His mind flashes wildly to the deck of the Maid of the Mist, to the moment they put rings on each others’ fingers and became one. He tries to remember the last time they were a united front, the last time they were on the same page about anything.

“Do you remember how it was back in the beginning?" Michael goes on. "I do. You would have moved mountains for that girl.”

This hits Jim square in the chest. Does he remember that? Of course he remembers. She was the only thing he’d wanted for so long, he’d avoided opportunity after opportunity for the mere chance to see her face every day. He never even considered it a sacrifice because being near her was the only thing he wanted. It strikes him that she’d revealed as much in their session: she hadn’t considered choosing him over art school a sacrifice, either.

Now he has something else he wants, and Pam is the one making all of the sacrifices. 

He wonders what would have happened if she had stayed in New York, if she’d completed her classes, decided she wanted to move there. He would have gone with her in a heartbeat, and he’d told her so. But even now, he has to admit things were much different then: they were younger, less settled. They didn’t have two small kids. And unlike Pam with Philly, he actually would have enjoyed living in New York. 

The most important difference of all, he knows full well, was that they’d discussed it. Together.

For the first time it really hits him, painfully, how close he could be to losing her forever. He’s been so busy convincing himself everything will be fine that he never really considered for a moment it might not be. And since when was "fine" something he strived for anyway? Back in Stamford, when he was barely surviving? When he'd considered choosing Karen while deep down knowing that all he wanted was Pam?

And now he's to the point of almost losing her?

How could he have been so blind? 

“Jim?” Michael asks, probably wondering why he’s been so quiet. “Are you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I know this job feels really important right now, but it isn’t. It really isn’t,” he says in a sort of desperate way. “Jobs come and they go. I left Dunder Mifflin, a job I thought I loved more than anything in the world, because I realized there was something else I needed even more.”

The abruptness with which Michael had announced his impending departure from Dunder Mifflin had surprised both Jim and Pam. They’d been certain he would be there until his dying breath. But when Holly needed him, he didn’t hesitate. 

“We made so many mistakes at the beginning, Jim,” Michael says, his voice filled with emotion. “We let distance tear us apart, and rather than fight for our relationship we just… gave up.”

Jim is quiet, just listening.

“You two have something really, really special,” Michael says, and Jim can swear he’s actually getting a bit choked up. “Please. Don’t give up.”

Jim is stunned speechless. This is Michael, the same man who donned a captain’s hat and inadvertently caused a panic on their booze cruise. But he remembers their very first heart to heart, in the brig, Michael zip-tied to a railing, about Pam, of course. 

And he remembers the advice his old boss, this very same Michael Scott, had given him:

Never, ever, ever give up.

Michael is right. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, it’s magic.

“Do you remember what I said to Holly in our wedding vows?” Michael suddenly asks, after another extended silence.

Jim smiles, and laughs quietly; the first real, genuine laugh he’s experienced in some time. “Yeah, I do.”

“Say it, Jim.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes, or I’ll keep calling you until you do.”

Jim sighs. “Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down. Never gonna run around and desert you.”

“Don’t forget that.” He can hear his old friend smiling on the other side of the line.

Jim smiles, too. “I won’t.”

“Alright, I’ll let you go. This is Michael, last survivor of Dunder Mifflin, signing off.”

Jim is silent for a moment.

“....Alien? Ripley Scott?” Michael attempts to clarify.

“Right,” Jim rolls his eyes. “Of course.”

“Bye, Jim. And give Pam a big hug for me.” 

“Goodbye, Michael. And thank you.” 

He hangs up the phone and looks at it for a long, long time. 

Never, ever, ever give up. 

His Athlead call eventually comes through, but he feels like he’s sleepwalking through it. He “uh huh’s” and “mm-hmm’s” as much as possible but all he can think about now is that horrifying six weeks from the counseling session, and how he doesn’t actually remember the last time he wrapped his arms around his wife. 

He wants this job, he does. He wants to succeed. But what he wants more than anything else is for him and Pam to be them again. To laugh and joke around with her. To see her smile, and actually believe she’s happy in the way he’d promised her father he would make her, all those years ago. 

He listens to unimportant business chatter about acquiring some huge new client while he stares at the wall of the conference room and remembers another day: a day when he’d lost his biggest sale of the year, but because Pam had fallen asleep on his shoulder it had turned out to be the greatest day of his life. 

His heart aches. She’s right outside the door, she’s his now, and he’s losing her.

“So, Halpert? You’re due in at 8:30 tonight, right?” Colin’s voice comes through, hollow in his ear. He’s suddenly sick of Colin’s voice.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says automatically. The call ends. He has no idea what even happened and he doesn’t really care. 

He walks out of the conference room in a bit of a daze, puts on his jacket, grabs his bag. Pam is hard at work and all he wants to do is hug her, but everything is so fucking awkward and he hates it. He doesn’t want it to be like this. For the first time in months he really, really doesn’t want to go to Philadelphia.

He looks at her sitting at her desk, typing away at something. He crouches down close to her, in the hopes of catching a rare private moment, and she looks over at him, perhaps surprised by his proximity. Maybe she’s expecting another sarcastic bit of ‘truth,’ but the time for fooling around is over.

Never, ever, ever give up.

“I know this was really weird, and it was really hard,” he says, “but I think we’re making progress. So… I’m really sorry I have to go, but let’s keep at this.”

He can tell it isn’t really what she wants to hear. He wishes he knew what to say, what he could possibly say, some magic words that will make everything better. 

“Okay,” she nods unconvincingly. 

He leaves the office with an uneasy feeling in his stomach. Maybe leaving is a mistake. Maybe this could be the time she doesn’t welcome him back with open arms.

He walks through the parking lot, the tops of the trees lining the streets bathed in golden afternoon light. He turns around and takes a long look at Dunder Mifflin, this place where everything began. How lucky he’s been to have had this job, this desk, this life: a thousand square feet of worn gray carpet, plain white walls, and scattered encounters with the girl he’d fallen in love with.

It’s only been six months since things started falling apart but he feels as if he’s missed so much; with his family especially, but even around the office. And then, remembering what Pam had said in their session, it hits him: he haschanged. He can’t remember the last time he really felt like himself, the Jim who’d spent hours out of each week simply waiting for another opportunity to talk to her, the Jim who always wanted something more out of his work but never took that plunge because there was something else that made him perfectly happy keeping him right here. 

What was so wrong with that Jim?

As the cab pulls up, his eyes drift over to a spot in the parking lot, the place where Pam had rejected him that fateful night and everything changed. Moving to Stamford had turned him into a facsimile of himself. He wasn’t the same without her, and he’d known it even back then. Is the same thing happening now? Is Pam right about Philly Jim?

More importantly, is Philly Jim worth breaking both of their hearts all over again?

His world feels like it's turned completely upside down. All he wants to do is to find a way to right the ship, but now he truly worries they’ve run out of life preservers. And if he had the presence of mind to locate one, would she even catch it? 

Before he climbs into the cab, he hears her calling his name from the front door of the building. For a brief instant he feels relief; she’s come downstairs to give him a proper goodbye, she doesn’t want to leave things in this horribly awkward place that’s shrouded their every interaction for months. But she merely holds up his forgotten umbrella.

“Have a good trip,” she says, and kisses his cheek with such forced enthusiasm it breaks his heart. He can’t take another second of this. It’s Pam. His wife, his best friend, his soulmate. 

She is more important than anything.

She turns to go and he runs after her. “Hey-” he begins, gently tugging on her arm, making her turn and look up at him. He wants to tell her what Michael said, wants to tell her something, anything, that will make her look at him the way she used to. But he doesn’t know what to say. All that’s going through his mind is how on earth did we end up here?

He looks into her eyes and they appear dull, almost lifeless. Like she’s already given up on them. He misses those eyes that used to sparkle just for him, the ones that made him into a better person. The eyes that made him fall in love with her not just the first time he looked into them, but every single day afterwards. 

And suddenly it doesn’t matter who is right, who is wrong. Who deserves what, whose dreams are being put on hold. Something needs to change. Right now, in this moment, there is nothing else but Jim and Pam and an idling taxi and the golden sheen from the setting sun on her hair as she’s about to walk away from him and he cannot leave her like this. Not now. Not today. Not ever again.

He refuses to let her be unhappy for another second. 

He does the only thing he can think of, which is to wrap his arms around her, to just hold on to this woman he loves with all of his heart and never let her go. It feels like the only thing he can do to keep her from slipping away and he knows it’s desperate, he knows it’s not enough, but it’s all he has.

And she does not reciprocate.

I’m too late, he thinks. He holds her tightly, pulling her in as close as he can, forced to imagine his life without her and it’s physically impossible. Unfathomable.

She does not engage, does not participate, but she also does not move away. She lingers, somewhere between today and tomorrow, between like and dislike, between apathy and regret. He can sense her brain working overtime, feel her trembling in his arms, her heart pounding against his chest, and this cannot be over. It simply cannot. 

Never, ever, ever give up.

His job isn’t the most important thing in his life. It’s not even close. But he hasn’t been careful. Pam must absolutely believe it’s true to not want to give in, to not allow him to put what she must interpret as yet another band-aid on this gaping wound they’ve created.

But this is no band-aid, not this time. And he will wait patiently with his arms around her, as long as it takes, for her to realize that. It isn’t merely an embrace. It’s actually the grandest of all the Grand Jim Gestures he’s ever made in his life: he’s forced her hand. He’s gone all in. He’s refusing to waste another minute in this hellish limbo. 

All of the moments they’d spent with each other flash randomly through his mind like a zoetrope: countless times when she was what mattered to him most, when she was the only thing that mattered. Decision after decision they’d made that would alter the direction of their lives, big or small, important or unimportant. Every decision that had led them here, on the edge of breaking, where they now face their biggest decision ever.

He’s sitting at his desk, selling paper and watching the receptionist. He’s in love with her. He doesn’t care for the job, it brings him no joy, but she does. He will do it forever if it means he can be near her.

They’re standing together at a rest stop, halfway between Scranton and New York, a compromise they’d never intended to make but arrived at all the same. He kneels in the rain and she says yes to forever. 

They’re on the booze cruise, the chilly air of Lake Wallenpaupack blowing her hair across her beautiful face. The truth is, he would save the receptionist. Time seems to slow down, as if the universe is giving him the opportunity to tell her that, to tell her how he really feels, but he chickens out and she walks away.

He’s sitting at corporate, a huge promotion within his grasp. Where do you see yourself for the long haul, David Wallace asks. He can visualize what his life will look like: New York, the fast track, Karen, everything he could possibly want. Then he sees a foil yogurt lid and remembers how being in love is supposed to feel. He leaves all of it behind in an instant. 

They’re in their bedroom, tearing off each other’s clothes with such fervor absolutely nothing could make them stop. His fingers dig grooves into her hips as she sits on top of him, her hair falling into his face, and before he has a second to think or worry they become one. Neither of them suspect that tonight, on this very night, they might be making their daughter.

She’s giggling at his old yearbook photo, that giggle that breathes life into him each day. She hadn’t accepted his gift with as much enthusiasm as he’d hoped, and he fears the timing is not right for her to read the note he’s poured his heart and soul into. He snatches it back while she admires her new teapot and buries it, along with his feelings.

They’re in Ryan’s closet-slash-office with the lights out, the green tint of glow-in-the-dark stars reflecting in her eyes, the bottomless Valentines Day champagne from lunch only beginning to wear off. Jim’s got her up on the desk and her skirt is hiked up, his fingers looping around the waistband of her underwear. They look into each other’s eyes - are we really doing this? - and they do. Nine months later Phillip is born.

They’re standing beneath a single street light in the parking lot of Dunder Mifflin, and he can feel himself start to break. His eyes are clouded with tears that he cannot hold back as much as he wants to. She’s slipping away from him, and she’d never even been his in the first place.

She leans against his car, a sight for his sore eyes, the afternoon sun reflecting on her copper hair. He’s missed her so much; the only thing he wants to do is hug her and kiss her and never let her leave him again. She tells him she’s coming back the wrong way, but when his lips touch hers his heart knows it doesn't matter; there is no right way or wrong way. There is only their way. 

And now they’re standing on the deck of the Maid of the Mist, making the most important decision of their lives. He stands before her, the Niagara spray in his eyes, and promises to love her, cherish her, honor her. He recites his vows, the ones he’d written weeks ago, as he tells her their life is only just beginning: a blank sheet of paper like the ones surrounding them in the office where they fell in love. And that he will choose her every day, even when it’s hard, even when there is something else on the page that may try to steal his focus. 

He will love her in the margins.

Pam smiles at his self-admitted cheesiness, but accepts the sentiment with all the sincerity he intends. Her eyelashes are dotted with drops from the falls, more beautiful than any day that came before. 

He’d written these vows long before knowing what might come their way, what a marriage truly entailed. He’d written them never fathoming a time when choosing her might be difficult, when there could even be an option. In a time when hope was in great supply, and there had been nothing but love on their horizon.

They seal their eternal bond with a kiss.

Jim’s eyes sting with tears, like phantom mist from the falls, and he remembers the happiest moment of his life as if it were yesterday: standing on the deck of that boat with her that day, replete with absolute satisfaction that he’d finally married the love of his life. And at the same time he remembers the worst moment of his life: that night in the very same parking lot they're standing in right now when she’d let him go; when, despite everything he knew they had between them, she could not reciprocate. 

This hug, this simple hug, is much more than a hug: it’s a silent plea for her to remember their eternal bond. To decide today, right now, that this is worth saving.

And finally, mercifully, he can feel her arms around him like an answered prayer, a wish fulfilled, a dream achieved. He’s not necessarily a religious man but the least cynical part of him imagines their embrace from on high, a divine intervention: the desperate grip of his fingers tangled in her hair, the sunset bathing them both in a graceful golden light that is patient and kind, that does not self-seek or boast or keep a record of wrongs. It’s love; quite simply the greatest of all things. And today, in this empty parking lot where they made their first mistake, it is the very thing that prevents them from making their last. 

She wraps her arms around him, kissing him for the first time in weeks, and it makes him whole again; it’s sustenance he hadn’t realized he needed. This feeling is powerful, to stay here with her, to stay grounded. To hold onto each other forever and never let go again. They’re still so young, but to him they feel ancient: like two stars burning infinitely, their light never fading. 

This, he is certain, will never die.

“I love you,” they say to each other, at the same time, at last on the same page. And as he holds her close he feels the impact of what it meant when they exchanged rings and took vows on the deck of that boat. 

He is completely enveloped in her warmth, in safety: his Pam, his home, his only dream. 

Everything else can wait.