“Phil go down alright?” Pam asked as she entered their bedroom, removing her earrings as she walked inside.
Jim looked up from the laptop that was balanced on his lap and chuckled under his breath. “Yeah, he basically fell asleep mid-sentence telling me about some game he and his friend made up today.”
She placed her earrings and her watch in the large jewelry box on their dresser, running her hand over the top of the box. Jim had given it to her their first Christmas in Austin. It was handmade by a local woodworker in Scranton, using wood taken from native Pennsylvanian trees. He had told her that he knew it was a sacrifice to move to Austin and this way she could always have a piece of Scranton with her.
She smiled remembering that December morning where she had teared up and clung to his neck until Cece groaned and asked if they could keep opening their presents. It was now one of her most prized possessions, next to the teapot and the Christmas card Jim had held on to for years before giving it to her.
“How about Cece?” Jim asked, pulling her from her memory.
Pam pulled back the covers and sat down on the bed. “She was almost asleep when I left her room. She says she’s excited for tomorrow, but I feel like she was also a little apprehensive about it. I can’t believe she’s starting first grade tomorrow.”
Jim closed his laptop and leaned back into his pillows, turning his head toward Pam. “I know. How did that happen? I swear we were just in the hospital, mixing her up with another baby.”
Her eyes rolled and she playfully punched his arm. Jim placed the laptop on his nightstand and pulled Pam under his arm so her head was resting on his chest.
“Are you going to cry tomorrow?” he asked, his lips against her hair.
“Probably. I know you are.”
“Oh, I totally am,” he agreed. “One of us has to be the emotional one.”
Pam ran her hand up his chest and buried her head in the crook of his neck, taking a deep breath and inhaling the familiar, comforting scent of his aftershave. Something about that smell always made her heart flutter, eliciting memories of when they were first dating and he would wear the same aftershave. When she could hug him whenever she felt like it, and how his shirt would smell of it as she pulled it over head on Saturday mornings at his place.
She tilted her head up to look at him, catching his gaze, which seemed to harbor the same spark she was feeling in her chest. She crooked a sly smile before bringing her lips softly to his jaw as his grip tightened around her. His fingers found the sliver of exposed skin between her shirt and pajama shorts and the trail they left sent a warmth through her. In one motion, she slid her body over top of his, straddling him, and bent down to press her lips against his.
“You like when I’m all sensitive, huh?” he whispered against her lips with a smile.
She smiled back and answered his question by slipping her tongue past his lips, sliding her fingers into his hair, and deepening the kiss. His hands found refuge tightly on her hips as she kissed him further, involuntarily moving against him as he released a soft groan in the back of his throat. His hands ventured deeper past the elastic of her shorts, when a small voice was heard down the hall.
“Mommy?”
Pam let out an entirely different kind of groan as she pulled back and rested her head against Jim’s shoulder.
He gave a low chuckle and kissed her temple. “Go ahead. I’m not going anywhere.”
With a hefty sigh, Pam flung her leg back over and rolled off the bed, adjusting her hair and pajamas before heading down the hall to her daughter’s room.
“Have kids, they said,” she mumbled to herself, dragging her feet. Poking her head into Cece’s room, she saw her 6-year-old sitting up in bed, hugging her beloved stuffed giraffe to her chest.
“What’s up, baby?”
Cece shrugged one shoulder. “I can’t sleep. I’m really nervous for first grade.”
Pam’s shoulders fell and she softened. “Oh, honey, it’s going to be great. You loved kindergarten, remember?”
Cece let out an exaggerated sigh. “I know, but I only went in the morning. Now I’m going to be gone ALL. DAY. What if my teacher is mean? What if the other kids don’t like me? What if...what if I miss you and Daddy too much?”
Pam walked to her bedside and sat down next to her, stroking her hair. She looked so much like Jim it was almost startling. "First of all, how could anyone not like you, Miss Cecilia Marie? And you already met your teacher and know she was super nice."
Cece seemed to mull this over, taking in her mother's words with a dipped brow. "Okay, but what about missing you?"
It was then that the idea struck Pam and she was surprised it hadn't come to her sooner. She rubbed Cece's leg over the pink comforter. "I'll be right back. I have something for you."
She walked back into her bedroom and went straight to her jewelry box.
“What are you doing?” Jim asked from bed.
She just smiled at him and grabbed something from the box, then returned to Cece’s bedside. She grabbed her daughter’s small hand and turned it palm-up, placing four small stones in it.
“Rocks?” Cece said, deadpan.
Pam chuckled. “That’s what I thought at first too. But these are special rocks. They’re wishing rocks!”
The little girl’s eyes brightened. “Wishing rocks?”
“Yep. Before your dad and I started dating each other, he gave them to me as a Christmas present. I thought it was kind of silly, but it turns out they actually work.”
A smile started spreading across Cece’s face. Pam took one of the rocks from Cece’s hand and rubbed her thumb across the now-smooth surface, remembering that day at the office all those years ago.
---------
Roy had once again decided not to join the office Christmas party, and honestly, Pam couldn’t blame him. Michael’s parties could be...well, she just couldn’t blame him. So the majority of the party was spent joking and hanging out with Jim. The camera crew that had been in the office the last few months had taken a three week break for the holidays, and it was nice not to feel like everyone was constantly being watched. Even Michael seemed to tone down his ridiculousness.
“Hey,” Pam remembered. “I have something for you!” She beckoned for Jim to follow her to reception. Opening the bottom drawer, she pulled out a large envelope tied with curly red ribbon. “It’s not much.”
Jim grinned with eyes wide as he opened the envelope and pulled out the contents. “This is...awesome,” he marveled. It was a watercolor painting of a black stapler propped perfectly in a neon dome of Jello.
She clasped her hands by her chest as she watched him look over the painting. “It was some of your best work, so I figured I would immortalize it.”
Jim looked up at her and cracked a gentle smile. “I love it. It looks so realistic!”
She bit her bottom lip through a smile, grateful that he seemed to like it.
“I, uh, have something for you too,” Jim said. He walked over to his desk and put his fingers on the handle of the top drawer before hesitating slightly. “Oh, you know what?” he said, almost nervously. “I just forgot it was in my car. I’ll be right back.”
Several minutes later he came up with a small gift bag, handing it to Pam, running a hand through his hair. She could sense something was different about his demeanor but shook it off as she opened the bag.
“Rocks?”
Jim gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah. They’re wishing rocks. It’s...just a little tradition my mom and I had growing up and I...I don’t know, thought I would pass it on. You are supposed to rub them while wishing for something.” He tried to read her expression. “I know it’s kind of lame.”
“No, no!” she stopped him. “I love that idea. Thank you,” she said warmly.
It wasn't until a few years later that she learned he meant to give her a watch that day but chickened out at the last minute, thinking it was too much. And he still gave her the watch the Christmas they were engaged, having kept it with him through all the bumps in their road,
reminding her that the wishing rocks he gave her were still romantic.
But those wishing rocks came to mean so much more throughout her life. After that Christmas party where Jim gave them to her, she tucked them neatly in her purse. When she got back to her apartment that night, she found Roy passed out on the couch with no less than 5 empty beer bottles on the coffee table. With a sigh, she walked back to their bedroom and pulled the rocks out of her purse. She turned one over in her hand a few times, remembering the look on Jim's face as he had opened her gift for him. The way he smiled. The way he made a bag of rocks feel like a bag of diamonds. She glanced toward the door, then back to the rock in her hand. Putting her thumb against its rough surface, she rubbed it a few times, refusing to acknowledge what her heart was actually wishing for.
-------
Cece put the rock under her thumb. "So I just rub it? Like this?"
"Yep!" Pam replied. "Then your wishes will come true."
"All of them?"
"If it's something your heart truly wants, I think it will!"
Cece marveled at the magic rocks in her hand. "So...they've worked for you?"
Pam smiled. "See how they are smooth in some parts? They haven't always been that way. I've used them for a lot of things and one way or another they have all come true."
And really, that was mostly the case. She thought back over the last decade and how the rocks had kept reappearing when she needed them most.
------
After that first time of wishing for everything while pretending it was nothing, she put the rocks back in the gift bag and put them in the top shelf of her closet. Honestly, she probably could have thrown them out. They were just rocks and really, it seemed like Jim might have just picked them from the front of the Dunder Mifflin parking lot. But something tugged within her that prevented her from getting rid of them.
She had forgotten about them completely until she called off the wedding and was moving into her new apartment. While cleaning out her closet, she saw the glint of the red iridescent bag and her heart sank. The sting of Jim's abrupt absence was fresh and any little reminder of him created a tight fist of regret in her chest.
The rocks made their way into her new place, because any piece of Jim she could hold on to, she would. One night in particular, with sleep evading her, she got up and dug the rocks out of a box under her bed. She climbed back under the covers and fell asleep running her thumb over them, wishing she could just hear his voice again. The next day Jim called the office looking for Kevin's voicemail and they ended up talking for two hours, like old times. The wishing rocks were given a permanent home on her nightstand after that.
The day the Stamford and Scranton branches merged, Pam spent the morning nervously running her fingers over the rocks, the anticipation of seeing Jim giving her heart a permanent place in her throat. But as the day went on and her expectations fell flat, she returned home, throwing her cardigan on the floor and sliding the wishing rocks into the drawer of her nightstand, soon to be buried by receipts, pay stubs, and whatever book she was reading that week.
The rocks had nearly been forgotten, until Jim was about to leave for New York to interview at corporate. With their friendship mending and more confidence growing from Pam, she drove home on her lunch break. As she pulled open every drawer in the apartment to find the gold yogurt lid she had saved, her fingers grazed the stones at the bottom of her nightstand drawer. She picked them up gingerly and stuck them in her purse along with the lid once she found it.
Back at work, she scribbled a note to him, pinning the lid to the papers with a paperclip, and squeezed a wishing rock in her hand before taking a deep breath and handing the folder to Jim on his way out the door.
The next day, she waited to hear anything from New York, knowing full well that they probably wouldn't make a decision that soon. She carried around one of the stones in her cardigan pocket, something to keep her hands busy when she just couldn't handle the nerves. She knew Jim had to have seen the note. But what was she expecting from it? She rubbed the wishing stone harder.
And soon there he was.
And there everything began.
But the wishing didn't end there. When she worried one night that maybe she felt more strongly about him than he did for her, but he showed up at her door at 11:30 that night saying that he already missed her even though he had only dropped her off an hour earlier.
When she wanted nothing more than to wear a ring from him on her finger, despite already telling him it was probably best to wait until she got back from Pratt. Then he dropped to his knee in the pouring rain and asked to be hers forever.
When the shock and adrenaline had worn off the night after finding out they were pregnant and she worried that it was too soon, or they weren't ready, she sat in bed turning the rocks over in her hand. Jim walked in, looked at her with such love and awe, then laid next to her, kissing her stomach gently, and she knew they would be just fine.
When each of her babies were born, she stood over their bassinets as they slept, wishing with a rock in her hand that they would know how much they were loved, hoping they would be safe and happy and healthy, and grow up knowing who they are and what they wanted.
And when her marriage seemed to be hanging by a thread, the dishes piled in the sink because she didn't have an ounce left of strength after putting the kids to bed by herself (again), and things seemed hopeless, she rubbed each rock with her thumb, sometimes more angrily than others, praying for an answer to the mess they had found themselves in. And sure enough, she and Jim clawed their way back to the surface. Their marriage became stronger and deeper.
And while she understood it couldn't all be the wishing rocks, there was no way she was ever getting rid of them.
--------
"Did you wish for me?" Cece asked.
Pam pondered how to answer that question, seeing as Cece wasn't exactly planned. "You know," she started. "As soon as I knew Daddy was the person I wanted to marry, I wished and wished that one day we would have a little girl that he could raise and love, because he loves me so much."
"And you had me!"
She smiled and leaned in, kissing Cece's forehead. "We had you."
"Sorry you had to have Philip too."
Pam chuckled. "Hey, we wished for him too."
Cece shrugged and looked at the rocks again. "So I guess they do work."
"I sure think so. So how about you take one with you to school tomorrow and any time you start to feel worried or nervous, you can hold it and remember how brave and strong you are. And I know you're strong and brave because I wished for it."
A tired smile appeared on Cece's face before a giant yawn overtook her.
Pam pulled the blanket up over Cece's shoulders and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "You should get some sleep now, munchkin. I'll see you in the morning."
"Love you, Mommy," Cece said, her eyes already drooping closed.
"Love you too, sweetheart."
Pam smiled as she slowly shut the door and made her way back to her bedroom. She shimmied her way under Jim's arm and he pulled her closer.
"Is she okay?"
Pam nodded. "She is now. I gave her my wishing rocks."
Jim's brow furrowed. "Your what?" Then the realization seemed to hit him. "Wait...like, the rocks I gave you for Christmas after I chickened out about the watch?"
"The very ones!"
"Wow," Jim marveled. "I didn't realize you kept those. I literally just picked them up from outside the building and threw them in a random gift bag I found in my car. I thought for sure you would have just thrown them out when you got home."
Pam turned her head upward and kissed him lightly. "You thought wrong."
She heard a low rumble of a laugh in his chest as she laid her head back down.
"Why did you keep them?" Jim asked after a few seconds.
She looked up at this man who had always loved her. Who fought for them, who gave her two beautiful children. They were in a home they built together in Austin after emerging from some of their darkest days. She was happy. Truly, wonderfully happy.
She stroked his cheek and gave him a smile.
"Because they work."
Story Notes:
In the Office Ladies Podcast episode from Moroccan Christmas, Angela brings up a plot line that never made it into the show. (You should all listen to it.)
Because Jim and Pam just bought a house and funds are tight, they agree to not get each other any traditional gifts, but instead set ground rules that they can gift each other anything they can find in the office. Pam crafts Jim a pair of sunglasses made from office supplies. Jim gives her a watch. She gets upset that he cheated but he explains that it was technically in the office. He had meant to give it to her years prior and chickened out. Pam says, "Wait, was that the year you gave me rocks?" He replies with, "Wishing rocks. Still romantic."
And thus this fic was born.
(Also, wishing the fluffiest of birthdays to my OG, TPB. Love you, lady!)
As usual, I own nothing.
Because Jim and Pam just bought a house and funds are tight, they agree to not get each other any traditional gifts, but instead set ground rules that they can gift each other anything they can find in the office. Pam crafts Jim a pair of sunglasses made from office supplies. Jim gives her a watch. She gets upset that he cheated but he explains that it was technically in the office. He had meant to give it to her years prior and chickened out. Pam says, "Wait, was that the year you gave me rocks?" He replies with, "Wishing rocks. Still romantic."
And thus this fic was born.
(Also, wishing the fluffiest of birthdays to my OG, TPB. Love you, lady!)
As usual, I own nothing.
WanderingWatchtower is the author of 23 other stories.
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