Jim wakes up with Pam in his bed, something that only began a few weeks ago but has become so normal he can barely remember what it was like beforehand. She’s sitting on the edge this morning, her back to him, leaning over and slipping on her shoes. 

For a moment he just watches her, reminded of a thousand times he’d caught himself staring when she belonged to someone else. He never wanted to be the guy who stared, especially at the woman he was in love with. But he couldn’t help himself; she was so perfect to him, she always had been. He’d often found himself torn between thinking Roy didn't deserve her and that he was the luckiest man alive. 

Now, however, Pam is his. He can look all he wants.

His fingers find her hip, touching it softly. She turns a bit and catches his eye. 

“Hi,” she greets him with a smile, pulling her sleep-tousled hair into a messy bun.

“Hey,” he mumbles.

“I should probably get out of here before they show up,” she explains.

He yawns and looks at his bedside clock: 6:41. The documentary crew has started filming again, and although they rarely show up at his house, if they do it’s usually around seven thirty. He and Pam have been keeping their relationship under wraps, and it’s not worth the risk of them finding her here, at least not yet.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I really don’t want to,” she assures him. “I just… need time to shower and get ready anyway.”

“No problem,” he says, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “Have they… asked you about us yet?”

“Not really.”

“Are we thinking that’s weird at all?” he asks. “I mean, they saw me ask you out. They caught it on tape.”

“I’m trying not to think about it too much,” she says. “I think when they find out, they find out.”

He nods a silent agreement. Sneaking around has been pretty fun, but he can’t deny his desire to date her openly. “Maybe tonight we can stay at your place? Then we can have a little extra time.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You’re not getting sick of me yet?”

He can feel the stupid grin stretch across his face as he shakes his head. If she only knew. 

“Never gonna happen, Beesly.”

She returns his smile as she leans over to kiss him. It’s just a peck, but she stops short, her eyes closing.

“What is it?” he asks.

She shakes her head, opening her eyes. “Nothing. Everything is perfect.” They gaze at one another for a moment, then Pam breaks the spell to glance at his bedside clock. 

“I’d better go. Michael texted me about bringing in exactly forty two doughnuts this morning.”

“Forty two?” he asks, puzzled. 

She nods. “I couldn’t figure it out either.”

He tries to summon up a reason for their boss’s strange request but, as usual, he comes up empty handed.

“What do you think he’ll say?” she asks suddenly. “I mean… when he finds out?”

Jim thinks, for the first time playing out that particular scenario in his mind. “I think... he’d be happy for us, actually,” he admits. 

“While simultaneously taking credit somehow?”

“Obviously.”

She grins. He rubs his eyes. “Let me make you some coffee before you go,” he says, rolling out of bed. 

“You don’t have to,” she says. “It’s so early, go back to sleep.”

“I want to.”

He sits up, leaning over to kiss her shoulder as he does. He doesn’t like that she has to leave every morning, would much rather her stay. Would love to drive to work together and let everyone know they’re a couple. But for now, this is the way it has to be. Making her a cup of coffee is the least he can do.

While it brews, he watches her wanders into his kitchen, taking note of her surroundings. They’ve been so wrapped up in each other, it occurs to him she hasn’t had the time to really notice much about his place. She picks up a familiar looking plastic trophy from on top of his microwave.

“‘Mr. Nice Guy,’” she smiles, remembering Jim’s last Dundie award. “Personally, I thought you deserved ‘Hottest in the Office.’”

“So close,” he smirks. “Honestly, I’ve pretty much blocked everything about that night. Well, except when you kissed me.”

She blushes, which he finds adorable considering the fact that he’d been inside her last night. Twice. 

“Despite what you may believe, I do remember that,” she grins, setting the award back down. 

He’s surprised. She’d been so drunk he thought for sure she would deny the event, even now. He’d actually convinced himself she’d excused her behavior based on her inebriated state; that it was the same reason her immediate reaction to their kiss on casino night was to blame alcohol.

“You do?”

“I mean, it wasn’t a planned attack or anything,” she laughs. “But I did want to do it.”

“Maybe it was that ‘second drink’ talking.”

She narrows her eyes. “Probably.”

He shakes his head. “Okay, Beesly. Spill it. Why?”

She shrugs. “Well, I did like you. A lot. And I was so grateful... I had a feeling you’d somehow convinced Michael not to embarrass me three years in a row.”

“And Roy wasn’t there, which helped, I’m sure.”

“Did it?” she grins. “I’m sure the engagement would have been off much sooner if he had been.”

“Good point.”

“Anyway… did you?” she asks, now serious. “Tell Michael not to do it?”

The coffee maker beeps, and he pours hers into a to-go Dunder Mifflin tumbler he got from the Christmas party a couple years ago. Cream and sugar, the way he knows she likes it from watching her all these years. He walks over and hands it to her, looking into her curious eyes. 

She’s crying in the parking lot. He might not have even noticed her if he hadn’t gone to get his jacket out of his car, but there she is, sitting on the curb in her enormous lavender peacoat, drowning in it, drowning in something. It’s not his place, but deep down he knows she’s only out here by herself because she doesn’t have anyone else to talk to. So he sits down next to her. She sniffles, tries to hide how upset she is.

“You know he doesn’t mean it, right?” Jim offers. “He’s not trying to hurt your feelings.”

Pam shakes her head. “Sometimes I feel like it’s all just a big joke to him.”

“Well, it is. He’s Michael Scott. Everything in his entire life is a joke.”

Pam looks up at him. “That’s not who I- yeah, you’re right,” she corrects. “Thanks.”

He realizes she’d actually been referring to her fiancé’s callous “see you next year” remark as Pam accepted her second World’s Longest Engagement award. He curses his bad luck that she’d actually made an effort to open up to him about her dissatisfaction with Roy and it had gone completely over his head. But she looks back at the ground again, spins her engagement ring around her finger. It doesn’t feel right to steer the conversation back around now. 

“Besides,” Jim tries, “there’s no way this will happen again. Right?” If he finds himself in a position to watch Pam accept the ‘World’s Longest Engagement’ Dundie for the third year running, not only will he want to kill Roy, he’ll want to kill himself.

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s just… it’s been crazy the past couple of years, with Roy’s family and… stuff. Family drama. I guess.” She doesn’t sound certain at all. “Planning a wedding hasn’t exactly been high on his priority list.”

Jim glances around the parking lot. “Where is he, by the way?”

She looks up, eyes cast towards the neon red chili pepper sign. “Inside. At the bar.”

“What did he have to say about everything?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. He thinks it’s funny, I guess.”

“Would he think it’s funny if he knew you were out here crying like this?” 

He’s treading on dangerous ground and he knows it, but Pam has never been one to advocate for herself. He hasn't quite been able to figure out if that’s a Pam thing or a Pam and Roy thing. He’s never had the opportunity to test that hypothesis.

“I think he’d feel guilty,” she says. “But not because of me, because… of the way it probably looks. You know, from the outside.”

For someone so intent on blinding herself to the obvious, she’s certainly nailed that one. If it did offend him, Roy would certainly take Michael’s joke as a slight to his pride over anything it might be doing to Pam.

Jim sighs. He wants to shake her out of this place where she thinks she deserves anything less than absolutely everything. She’ll never get that from Roy, and he knows that. Even as someone on “the outside.” 

So why can’t she see it?

“And how do you think it looks?” he asks cautiously. It’s the most they’ve ever discussed her relationship, and he wants to be there for her but is worried the deeper he digs and the more she reveals, the more she’ll think of him as simply her friend.

She eyes him, a bit challenging. Almost as if she’s reading his mind. “How does it look?”

He wants to tell her she deserves better. He wants to tell her she should give him a chance to give that to her. But seeing the tears in her eyes makes him remember this isn’t about him, it’s about her, and she doesn’t want that from him right now. She’s not looking for a way out. She’s looking for a friend. Her best friend.

“It doesn’t really matter how it looks, does it? What matters is how you feel about it.”

What matters is whether or not Roy gives a shit how she feels about it, actually, but he doesn’t say that part.

They look at each other for a few seconds. He can hear the sounds of traffic flying by behind them on the highway, and a long strand of her hair blows across her face. He has to shake himself out of thinking how beautiful she looks even when she’s sad. She doesn’t let the moment linger, however, wiping her eyes and sitting up. “Well, I feel a little better about it now,” she says, to his surprise. “Thanks.”

She stands, turns around to discreetly wipe the dust from the back of her skirt, and he stands too. “You’re okay?”

“Yeah, I think I am,” she says, nodding. “It’s just a stupid office award, that’s all.” It’s very much not “all,” and he suspects she knows that. He suspects it’s the reason she’s smiling at him awkwardly, trying to end the conversation. “Want to head back inside?”

“Sure, I just have to get my jacket,” he gestures towards his car. It hits him then that of all the cars in the parking lot, his is the one she’d sat down next to.

Pam sips the coffee he made her, eyeing him closely. “Well? Did you tell Michael not to do it?”

“I just... didn’t want to see you hurting, Pam,” he admits. The Whitest Sneakers award had even been his idea, but once Michael had successfully convinced himself it had been his own brilliant concept, Jim was happy to relinquish it. And instead of crying that year, Pam ended up kissing him. He’d felt as if the universe had rewarded him somehow.

He remembers her at the end of the night before he carefully saw her into Angela’s passenger seat, wanting to ask him a question that had remained unasked, then turned into a simple “thanks.” 

She sips the coffee, regarding him. “I knew it,” she says quietly. “I was going to ask you about it that night, but I already knew.”

“What can I say?” he shrugs. “You always saw right through me.”

Then she leans in, placing a hand against his pilled gray T-shirt, and kisses him in that way that’s become comfortably familiar yet still brand new all at once.

“You really are the nicest guy, Jim,” she whispers. She flashes her thousand watt smile and heads for the door.

“I hear they always finish last,” he calls after her, unable to help himself.

She smiles, turning at the door. “Maybe so. But at least you finished right.”