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Author's Chapter Notes:

I feel like new sunglasses, like a brand new pair of jeans
I feel like taking chances, I feel a lot like seventeen…

I feel like a young John Cusack, like making big mistakes
I feel like for the first time in a long time I am not afraid
I feel like a kid, never thought it'd feel like this

Like when I close my eyes and don't even care if anyone sees me dancing
Like I can fly, and don't even think of touching the ground
Like a heartbeat skip, like an open page
Like a one way trip on an aeroplane
It's the way that I feel when I'm with you, brand new.

 

I know this is a different universe that ATGIG and Another First Date but it’s my universe so why not have them converge so we can visit a familiar place and face to those in the know. 

The bonus check arrived about a week after he’d been back, and just as quickly it was gone. It wasn’t quite enough but it was a big help. He paid for more of it by cashing out some savings bonds and dipping into his rainy-day fund. He financed the balance. He held onto it for about a month more before he decided he didn’t want to wait any longer.

He knew he was taking a chance but he couldn’t risk waiting either. Waiting was something the old Jim did while he overthought and overanalyzed what he knew was in the cards all along. They were destined to be together. The fates knew it, how else could he have wound up back here?

Still, they hadn’t even told anyone in the office they were dating yet, their reasons for keeping it yet undisclosed many.

Nonetheless, Jim suspected many of them knew. Kevin was always smiling and nodding at them when they were together in that knowing way of his. Phyllis was always bringing up romantic restaurants she’d been to with Bob Vance, and if he had to describe her voice with a bodily quality he’d say she was winking her words. Even Kelly who was pretty wrapped up in her relationship with Ryan, had remarked to him after he’d returned that she was glad to see the smile back on Pam’s face and she knew it was because of him. Of course, she might have been referring to his small role in saving their branch and their jobs, but he felt like there may have been something more to her comment. Maybe she’d finally pieced together everything Pam had said in her weepy confession at the bar and later that week. That it hadn’t been about Danny or Roy, and her current joyfulness since Jim had returned could only mean one thing. Pam hadn’t missed her chance with the man she truly loved.

Stanley was still oblivious, but then again, he was oblivious to everything. It took him two weeks to notice the four new employees in the office even though one of them currently sat right next to him.

But if the office knew about them, they didn’t come outright and say they did, which was nice for a bit. It was so much healthier that the early days of their new romance was free from commentary and influence from their officemates which now included Andy, the lone Stamford transplant who actually made it past the first three weeks in their circus of an office. Karen, who given the choice, decided not to come when Jim gently revealed to her everything about Pam and what he felt for her, and after the magical first date, what he knew she felt for him too.

The documentary crew were well aware of their status, especially since Matthew was now so much more than a cameraman.  He was one of Jim’s closest friends and had even joined him and Pam on a double date when he reunited with the crush he himself had left behind when he’d been sent to Stamford.  But the crew kept it quiet even while they doubled up on the time they spent filming the new couple.

Nice as it was to have the privacy, Jim didn’t want to wait any longer to share the news. But more importantly he didn’t want to wait any longer to make his dream come true. Not the crazy one with Michael or the one with the two Jims but the one he’d had the night after his first real date with Pam. The one where she said I do instead of I can’t and said it to him.

As sure as he was, they were meant to be forever, he was nervous that his timeline to start forever might seem a bit rushed to her. Sometime after he moved home, on a date where Pam enjoyed a second, second drink, Chili’s wasn’t the only game in town that served large fruity cocktails on their happy hour menu, he began to tease her when she began slurring words and giggling at his every word. Naturally, she gave it right back to him, sharing in detail every ridiculous bit of his own drunken discourse the night she called while he was blitzed on Jägermeister. When she finished her mocking of him, she went on to describe everything his missed the night of Diwali, every outrageous incident that happened that night and finally it made sense to Jim why he thought he’d dreamed about Michael proposing to his realtor girlfriend and then kissing the girl he had always wanted to be his.

Still, Pam’s ridicule of Michael’s hasty and impulsive action worried Jim. Would she feel Jim was also rushing things, like Carol become freaked out about him asking so soon and slowing begin to pull away as Carol seemed to do in the weeks following his impromptu proposal. When a few weeks into Jim’s return, Carol officially called off their romance permanently, no one was surprised, not even Jim who hadn’t even been there to witness the first phase of the nose dive into relationship doom.

In a way it was what had Jim concerned that his could follow the same destructive flight path if he acted as impetuously as the boss who was once again his fearless leader. It was the fearlessness he wanted to emulate, admiring how Michael went with his gut, no matter what the situation.

In the end though, he knew he wasn’t Michael and that may have been a good thing. And Pam wasn’t at all like Carol and their history was more than that of a realtor and client who had a few casual dates.

Still, he would make sure to ask in private, well at least not in front of a packed gymnasium during the most important Hindu holiday. Hopefully if she wasn’t ready just yet, it wouldn’t be so awkward and unusual that it would send her running.

Of course, the pain of her previous rejection still was a thought, a residue that he couldn’t completely wash away like the stain that still remained on the shirt he wore to his meeting with David, the slightest touch of yellow tinged the sleeve’s edge, barely noticeable to anyone else but if he looked closely enough, he could still see it.

But just as prominent in his memory was the smile that lit up her face when he showed up in the doorway that same afternoon and resurfaced when he came to pick her up for a true first date that evening.

Over the days that followed that first date, he’d learned she’d come to regret her actions from the fateful night of the casino event and wished she had it to do over. He hadn’t misread her kiss, he just reacted too soon. She just needed a little more time to process, to come to terms with what she had been feeling for longer than she could admit at the time.

Hearing from Jim that his abrupt departure and radio silence in the months that followed were not meant to hurt her, but rather were intended to free her from any guilt that she had not been able to reciprocate his feelings for her, in some ways made her more upset with herself that she too had kept silent for so long after he left.

By the time she came to help him pack up his things in Stamford so Jim could leave that part of his life behind him and move home, they’d made a promise to always talk things out, even if they got scared, even if things were confusing and hard to process.  

Though they’d only been dating a few months, they’d discovered what they really felt in the months they’d been apart. That they’d been together for years, both of them deep down knowing that what was building between them was so much more than friendship, it was a love so strong that like the stain on his shirt, nothing could wash it away either.

Tonight, he wore a different shirt to Christopher’s, the same place they went that first night. Beth, the sweet and tolerant waitress who never once rushed them the night they spent hours at the table, barely nibbling on the meals they finally had wrapped up to eat at home, was their server once again. And though they were just another couple at a restaurant he was sure was site to many proposals, on this night she seemed downright giddy when he asked her to be at the ready with champagne.

They ordered a little quicker this night but it was no less romantic than the first visit. The flowers on the table complimented her beautiful green eyes, the shimmering lake view made the perfect backdrop and the brilliant smile that once again bloomed on her face as he dropped down to his knee assured him that his future didn’t just look good, it looked absolutely perfect.

Chapter End Notes:

Hope you enjoyed how it all wrapped up. Thanks to all the readers who have come along for my first fix-it fic. Another big thanks to a great beta - Darjeeling and Coke. This one couldn't have been posted had it not been for his help!

And thanks to everyone who has made this community so much fun to be a part of...see you next time. 



Maxine Abbott is the author of 19 other stories.



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