Jim Halpert walks into the Dunder Mifflin conference room for what must be his hundredth interview as Will mics him up. 

“Have a seat, man.” 

“Thanks,” Jim says, and does, his back to the bullpen. Delilah sits in her usual place across from him, right next to the camera. She’s been doing this for so long it’s hard to believe this could be the last time she’ll get to interview her favorite paper salesman.

Jim grins at her. “Last day for you guys, huh? We’re finally gonna be rid of you?” 

She smiles at him warmly. “Are you excited to see the finished product?” 

“Anxious, I guess. Not entirely sure what to expect.”

She shrugs. “Well, you lived it.” 

He has the same easy manner he’s had for the past nine years of this seemingly never ending project, but he’s got a tell that Delilah has picked up on that he’s nervous: his hands. For the first few years, he’d make a fist sometimes, open and close it, bounce it gently on his thigh. After he and Pam married, he’d play with his wedding ring. It doesn’t always mean he’s nervous about her specifically, but Delilah has seen him twist and worry that ring around his finger enough times over the past few months to know something is most definitely up.

Emily finishes setting up the camera and eyes Delilah meaningfully, her something just happened downstairs face all too apparent. 

“Good day?” Delilah asks Jim. 

He smiles, familiar with her first question. Ever since they began filming, she’d made a habit of asking him about his day.

“Yeah, it’s been a great day. A perfect day, until, well…” he scratches the back of his neck. “...the last twenty minutes or so.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

It’s what she asks in all of these interviews. Most of the time the subjects like to talk. In her career as a documentary producer, she’s discovered that ninety-nine percent of the time, people will tell the cameras just about anything if they’re in the right mood.

Jim looks off towards the window, shakes his head. “I guess I’m just frustrated. I finally feel like things are looking up again, like we’ve laid everything out on the table. Our relationship is better than it’s ever been, honestly. And I think that’s saying something.”

“It is.” 

The words slip out before she can stop herself. Delilah isn’t technically supposed to editorialize or give her opinion. Her job is simply to make them talk. More importantly, to remain unbiased. That part of the job hasn’t been very easy.

Jim doesn’t respond, just sort of stares at his feet. 

“Did… something happen?” Delilah asks carefully.

“I don’t know what happened,” he sighs. “Pam said she’s worried I’m going to resent her for not taking this job. And I feel like no matter what I say or what I do, she’s just always going to believe that.”

“Will you?”

It has to be asked. She isn’t sure she even wants to hear the answer.

“I’ve thought about this a lot over the past few days, and I’ll tell you the truth. I want this job, I do. But I want Pam more. And I’m not saying that because she’s making me choose. She isn’t making me choose. I’m saying it because it’s the right decision. Being away from her and the kids is not what’s best for our family right now. It’s not what I want, either.” He looks into the camera. “That’s the way it should have been from the start.”

“I can’t help but notice you didn’t answer my question,” Delilah says gently. “Will you resent her?”

He glares, as much as Jim ever glares. “I can’t resent her for a choice that I made.” 

“Okay, well,” she says, speaking to him now more like a friend than a producer. “I’m not trying to trick you into some kind of ‘gotcha’ sound bite, Jim. I’m not talking about a technicality. You know what she meant. We both know what she meant.”

Jim sighs. It’s indeed frustrating, seeing that look on his face again after he and Pam reconnected so beautifully a few days ago. 

“No,” he says firmly. “I won’t resent her for this, it’s the right decision. But what I wish I could make her see is that it doesn’t always have to be this way. She doesn’t have to feel like this. Down the road something else could happen for either of us, and she needs to believe in me the way she did before if we’re ever going to make these kinds of decisions together.”

“What exactly does she need to believe?”

He sighs, looking somewhat ashamed. “Something that she hasn’t for the past few months… that she will always be my highest priority, no matter what.”

Delilah nods, understanding. She knows only too well what Jim is referring to. The past few months have been surprisingly painful for her to come into work. She's in her early forties; old enough to be slightly jaded by the job, but young enough to still nurse a tiny glimmer of hope. And she’s watched these two from the beginning: Jim’s yearning, Pam’s hedging, their terrible timing. Then to get to see them finally find each other, fall in love, build a life and a family together, only to have to watch it all fall apart has been devastating. 

She has good reason to feel this way. She’d become so invested in this seemingly star-crossed couple that it hadn’t been long after the documentary crew started filming at Dunder Mifflin that she’d honed in on the probability that these two were going to be one of their story’s main draws. 

The various members of the crew had all developed their preferences over the years: Emily had been intrigued by the delightfully odd pairing of Dwight and Angela, Will had been endlessly fascinated by the human dichotomy that was Michael Scott. The editors had all become weirdly obsessed with Creed. But Delilah had immediately gravitated to Jim’s adoration of Pam: the simple beauty of two people finding love in the workplace was just so utterly relatable.

“Dunder Wha-flin?”

“Dunder Mifflin. It’s a paper company.” 

“Paper.”

“Yeah, they sell paper.”

The PBS executive looks at Delilah like she has two heads. “You fucking kidding me?”

She sighs. She’d figured this would be a tough sell, but she’s got her pitch all ready. “I know it sounds boring on the surface, but you should see this place. We’ve scouted eight different companies and this is it, I’m telling you.”

“Why this place?” He holds out the information packet, including a photo of the building and a dossier of all the people working there. “What’s so special about it?”

“Well, the idea behind this project is finding something extraordinary in the ordinary, if that makes sense.”

He looks at her with extreme skepticism. “Didn’t they do this same thing in the UK?”

“This is gonna be different, I promise. Different people, different dynamic. The guy managing this place is a real character. So are quite a few others. We’ve been observing them for a week now and I think there’s really something here.”

The executive sets down the packet. “I don’t know.”

She pulls the packet back towards her, opens it to two photographs: a young man, a young woman. They’re perfectly ordinary looking, which is one of the things she loves most about them. 

“There’s a story here,” she says. “A love story. We don’t quite know what it is yet, but it’s something. Unrequited love, maybe even a love triangle? Whatever it is, it’s going to be a real draw, a worthwhile investment, and we want to be there to watch it unfold.”

He leans back in his chair, takes a long look at the producer. 

“I’ll give you six months,” he says. “We’ll see just how invested I am after that.”

***

Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly turn out to be a producer’s dream. The smitten paper salesman and the shy, unavailable receptionist become a huge hit with the high-ups at the network, and as for the crew, watching them in dailies is always a highlight of the job.

It soon becomes a running bet amongst them. How many episodes will it take for them to finally get their shit together? Ten? Twenty? A hundred?

At first it’s heartwarming watching Jim’s yearning for Pam grow. Delilah clues in on it immediately when he talks about the yogurt. In him she sees a version of her past self, young and in love, and she’s perpetually amazed at how relatable their story is. She wants to shake both of them on a daily basis but, for obvious reasons, she cannot.

There’s a moment Emily catches on camera early in filming when, at the end of a particularly grueling day, Pam dozes off on Jim’s shoulder in the conference room. There’s a look on his face of absolute contentment, as if he could want for nothing more in the world. 

Something stirs deep inside Delilah’s chest when she sees the footage: a devastating mix of awe and frustration that Pam may never get to know how much this man truly loves her.

Weeks turn into months and they wait for their subjects to follow nature’s course, to figure this thing out. From the outside, it’s obvious how perfect Jim and Pam are for each other, how wrong Roy is for her. How clear it is to everyone that she’s in love with Jim too. It’s not a grand, sweeping love story; it’s beautiful because it’s perfectly ordinary in the most wonderful way. What was initially the huge selling point of their show has become the heart and soul of it. 

After Jim leaves Scranton, however, the love story becomes just plain heartbreaking. The betting pool fizzles; it’s not amusing anymore. The crew's hopeful naiveté at the beginning has morphed into a strange kind of helpless despair that this romance may never, ever come to fruition. What started as celebratory beers after work for having captured “amazing Jim and Pam moments” becomes a painfully slow burn that leaves everyone emotionally drained at the end of each day.

Delilah finds herself in the middle of a real life soap opera that’s within her power to manipulate, but her hands are simply tied. There are rules. They cannot intervene in the lives of their subjects in any way. She’s never wavered in regard to her integrity, and as the months go by with little progress, she has to remind herself of that so she doesn’t slowly drive herself insane.

When Jim and Pam finally do get together, everyone on the crew breathes a huge sigh of relief. Pam looks at her from across the conference room with a dazzling smile -- ‘I’m sorry, what was the question?’ -- and Delilah realizes she's completely forgotten it too. She can’t help but juxtapose the joy on the receptionist’s face with her absolute misery from a year ago, when she’d come to the heartbreaking realization that her dreams might be unachievable.

The happy tears in Pam’s eyes are contagious, and Delilah feels one of her own break free as Pam leaves to get ready for her date with Jim. It’s one of the best moments of her entire career.

Delilah is convinced the network will pull the plug now, saying they’ve had enough. But they just can’t get enough of Dunder Mifflin; quite frankly, they’ve become completely engrossed with everyone in that building. None of them can resist the opportunity to see what happens next. 

After Jim and Pam get married, Delilah lobbies the network to stop filming. It’s a perfect happy ending, she insists. No one wants to see what happens when real life starts to kick in. The irony of thinking this while making a living as a documentary film producer is not lost on her.

She’s denied her request. But she stays because she loves her job. And quite frankly, although she knows she hasn’t done a thing to directly affect Pam and Jim’s relationship, she feels somewhat responsible for following through. This couple and their story has been the main thing that’s kept her so invested in her daily grind. Their relatable story becomes more relatable by the season.

Until the moment it becomes far too relatable. 

Watching the cracks widen in the relationship of two people she was absolutely certain would go the distance creates within Delilah an unsettling sense of disillusionment. She’d been present to watch them fall in love, and now she’s present to witness every mistake and anticipate every miscommunication. Worst of all, she’s in the unfortunate position of being unable to do anything about it. It’s miserable to watch, so miserable that she threatens the network with her notice. Twice. 

They call her bluff, demanding the crew finish out the season, and she stays. She stays because watching their love story has come to mean more to her than she could ever have anticipated. She stays because she has to know what happens. 

She stays, because the truth is that she’s fallen in love, too.

***

She’s got Brian the boom operator in her office, a situation she’s been asked to deal with in whatever way she deems appropriate. Nothing about his behavior has been appropriate over the past couple of weeks, and she has a sinking feeling in her gut why.

“Fired?” he asks. “Really? After nine years?”

“The network thinks you intervened unnecessarily. They’ve asked me to let you go.”

“What should I have done, Delilah?” he asks, throwing his arms out. “That animal from the warehouse was charging at Pam. She could have been hurt. I’d do it again, if I had to.”

“You didn’t intervene back when Roy threw all that glass at Poor Richard’s. Or when he attacked Jim in the office.”

He takes a deep breath, as if he’s thinking of an excuse. But she knows there isn’t one. She knows exactly what he’s doing.

“So you’re firing me for a snap decision I made that protected an innocent woman?” 

Delilah shakes her head. She could let him go now, just let him walk out of all of their lives none the wiser, but there’s something inside her that feels the need to address the elephant in the room. 

“This isn’t just about what happened in the parking lot. This is about something much, much more serious.”

She wants him to admit it, that he’s making plans to interfere. That he’s waited nine years for the perfect moment to strike. That he’s a slimy douchebag.

He looks at her for a long time, bites his lip a bit. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She grits her teeth. She can’t get the image out of her mind of him gazing at Pam in the same way they all -- including Brian -- used to watch Jim do it years ago. 

“I saw you. Well, Emily saw you.”

Brian raises an eyebrow. “Saw me do what?”

Delilah points at the monitor. “Are we really doing this? Do you want me to play it back for you?”

He sighs and shrugs. “I can’t help how I feel.”

“Yes, you absolutely can. And you have to. It’s your job.”

"Apparently not anymore.” He stands up to go. 

“Brian, wait.” 

It suddenly occurs to her that, now that he’s fired, he can do anything he wants. He’s absolutely free to insert himself between Pam and Jim if he so chooses. Her interest shouldn’t extend beyond the scope of the documentary, but even though she feels slightly hypocritical, she can’t help herself. 

“Don’t do this.”

He plunges both hands into his pockets. “You’ve been watching them as long as I have. You’re seeing everything the same way I am, Delilah.”

“Meaning...?”

“He doesn’t deserve her.”

Her eyes narrow. “I am not seeing it the same way you do," she says firmly. "What I am seeing is a couple struggling, as couples do.” She looks him right in the eye. ”I know you know what that’s like.”

His face turns red, and he looks angry. “My personal life is none of your business. Stay out of it.”

She can feel her fists curling, her hackles raising, and in this moment she feels powerful. She’s been observing Jim and Pam for so long she’s unwittingly become their de facto caretaker. Brian may believe he’d been protecting Pam, but Delilah has always had only one goal: protecting their story. 

“And you stay out of theirs.”

Brian gives her a challenging look, as if he dares her to do a damn thing about it. “I guess what I do or don’t do isn’t really your concern anymore.”

He turns, heads out of her office, and slams the door.

***

“Morning, Pam,” Delilah greets her as Will mics her up. “How is everything?

Emily had warned her that Pam visited Brian the day before, and Delilah had been incredibly nervous he might attempt to take advantage of the situation. Pam and Jim are still on shaky ground, and while Delilah had never experienced a moment’s pause that Pam harbored any feelings for the recently-fired boom operator, it still hadn’t completely left the realm of extreme possibility in her mind. 

However, Brian had instead revealed to Pam that the documentary crew had captured more footage than any of their subjects had realized. While relieved he hadn’t tried anything, Delilah is convinced he might have if Pam hadn’t left in an understandable huff.

In any event, she’s been nervously anticipating this interview. It’s unclear whether or not Pam is still upset about their breach of privacy. 

“Um… fine, I guess,” Pam answers.

Delilah treads carefully. “Is there… anything specific you want to talk about today?”

Pam looks deep in thought. “I was just thinking about the promos, the ones that dropped yesterday.” She appears to be in a good mood, and Delilah, though surprised, feels a wave of relief. “I was remembering something. There was this clip I saw, do you remember that booze cruise we all went on? Like a million years ago?”

Delilah nods. If only Pam knew how much discourse that particular episode had started amongst the crew, how much disappointment it had caused. 

“I do.”

“I’d almost forgotten what that night felt like,” she says, shaking her head. “I was in such denial, you know? You can see the love painted all over my face. And Jim’s.”

Delilah nods, feeling a tiny twinge of guilt about that night. Even though each employee had essentially signed away their rights in the small print, there had always been something about Jim and Pam that felt distinctly intimate to her. An intrusion she’d rarely felt with the other subjects.

“Anyway, at first I was a little worried, you know? I have no idea what’s going to be put out to the world, what people will see. The things I said, or did. The things I didn’t say and should have. Especially with Jim.” She looks at her fingernails. 

“How do you feel now?”

“Now, I think I just… want to see it all.” She looks up at the producer. “I need to see it all.” 

Delilah wants her to see it all, too. It’s heartbreaking to watch Pam doubt.

They have so much footage and the actual documentary will be showing so little of it. Besides all of the things Pam barely remembers, there’s so much that she never got to witness at all: mountains of physical evidence that prove, when it comes to Jim’s adoration and devotion, she has absolutely no reason for that doubt.

“Anyway, I’m not sure what kind of stuff you’re going to air of the two of us, how much of it is going to hit the cutting room floor, but… I hope you got sound on everything,” she says, a dreamy look in her eye. “I’d love a DVD of that.”

That evening, after hours, Delilah recruits Will and Emily to help her sift through years of footage. The crew never did get them a wedding present, after all.

“I know I messed up, but I never, ever stopped loving her.” Jim gestures at the crew. “You all saw that, I’m sure. My god, you all probably saw way too much. For years.”

He’s quiet for a few moments, looking at the floor, and even though she knows she probably shouldn’t, Delilah decides to ask him something unusual. 

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe Pam didn’t?” 

Jim looks up, regarding her closely. “Didn’t what?”

Delilah shrugs. “Well, she didn’t see some of those moments the way we did, or the way you did. She didn’t even see some of them at all.”

Jim pauses, her words having an effect on him. He looks at her curiously, as if considering the implication of what she’s said; as if some long-held suspicion has finally been confirmed. 

He cocks his head, crossing his arms in front of him. 

“What exactly did you see?”

At first she hesitates. While some of the other producers have perhaps crossed the line from time to time, Delilah has always tried very hard not to address the documentary with a subject in this very direct manner. But at this moment, she doesn’t care. She’s been at this for nine years, nine years, and she can’t hold it in anymore. 

“I saw a love story,” she tells him. “A powerful love story. And it wasn’t just about big, life altering events or changes. It was all of those little moments, the ones scattered in between. The ones that made us fall in love with you two at the same time you were falling in love with each other. And that’s… just life, you know? That’s what made this film extraordinary, Jim. That’s what’s made your love story extraordinary.”

Jim listens intently. His mind seems to be hard at work. For a moment, Delilah worries she’s gone too far, that perhaps Jim will be weirded out by how much she’s revealed. There’s a reason she and the crew are supposed to keep their mouths shut. But he doesn’t look uncomfortable at all, rather completely astonished at Delilah’s revelation.

“I spent all those years wanting nothing but her,” he reflects, more to himself than to anyone else. “Even before you all arrived. So much time just waiting around for something to happen, you know? Terrified to make a move but unable to leave. I just couldn’t.”

It hits Delilah that she’s been doing the same thing: stuck at this job, this endless documentary, waiting for the happy ending they needed with absolutely no guarantee it would occur. 

“Then when I finally found something else I wanted, it was like she couldn’t see that anymore. She couldn’t see how much I loved her.” He looks troubled. “That was my fault, though. It was. I sort of lost myself for a while there.”

Delilah just lets Jim talk, already suspecting where this conversation is headed.

“If Pam didn’t see it the way you did, maybe she needs to,” he says slowly. “I can’t remember all of the things you must have caught on film, but I do remember the way I felt, and there were so many times she was the only thing on my mind. She was the only thing getting me through the day. And she was always, always more than enough for me.” 

He shakes his head to himself, incredulous. 

“Not enough? I don't know how else to explain it to her, so, you know what?” he looks at Delilah, then around the room at the rest of the crew. “I know it's against the rules but... I'm gonna need a favor from you guys.”

Will doesn’t wait for the go ahead from Delilah. “Okay. You got it, man,” he pipes up from the back of the room, anticipating him. That compilation of footage they’d already put together for Pam is surely on his mind as well. 

Jim looks at them, confused. “You… already know what I’m asking for.” It's a statement, not a question.

Delilah had been holding on to the DVD for Pam until after the documentary finishes airing. She really isn’t supposed to release any footage yet. But maybe this is better. It makes sense for Jim to be the one to give it to her, and all it would need are a few minor edits. Maybe, for once, the timing for Jim and Pam can be perfect.

She’s taken the role of their love story’s protector to heart, and they’ve finally got the happy ending within their grasp. The only thing left to do is protect it.

“I think we do, Jim,” Delilah replies. “And of course we’ll help.”

She sits back into her chair, crosses her arms, and prepares to break the fucking rules.