Pam wasn't really sure how she was going to face Jim the next day at the office, but oddly enough, she didn't have to. As she was checking her voicemails, between the various orders and requests for meetings, Jim had called in sick. Pam bit her lip as she listened to his simple and short explanation. A message from Jan followed, then one last voicemail. From Karen. Also sick. 

Now Pam felt sick. They'd both called off work. Neither sounding particularly ill. Had they gone away for an impromptu trip? she wondered. Were they just spending the day in bed? Buying each other their Christmas gifts? Pam thought she was about to vomit and ran to the bathroom. She stopped at the sink, splashed cold water on her face, and tried to calm down. It doesn't matter what they're doing, she told herself, they're in a relationship. They can do what they like. But the tape? And the dove? The tape doesn't fucking mean anything. And we've been over this, the dove was a friendship dove. Just get a grip, he's with Karen.

After a few minutes, she managed to pull herself back together and walked back to her desk, intent on getting through the day without thinking about Jim or Karen. By the end of the day, Pam had managed to complete seven sudoku's, twelve games of solitaire, and somehow managed to get Michael to sign all of the expense reports. And she'd only thought about Jim forty seven times.

She did much better in the evening, only managing thirty three times. She focused as much as she could on getting all of her family's presents wrapped, stopping to read the Christmas picture book she'd bought for her little cousin, to tick off a couple more items from the damn bucket list. Pam wrote a thank you note to her mailman as she inhaled the scent of Sparkling Winterberry that wafted around the room from the large red candle she was burning, pleased that two more items from the list could go.

After placing the note to her mailman in her mailbox, along with a small package of the cookies she'd made, Pam slipped into bed so she could stare at the ceiling for two hours, doing her absolute damndest not to think about Jim.

--

Thursday again brought two more voicemails from Jim and Karen claiming sick days, but Pam didn't care. She hadn't heard from Jim since he'd given her the tape, but why should she? He was in a relationship with someone else. He was just being friendly and trying to help her get through the bucket list. Friends don't need to check up on each other constantly.

Friends, she thought, as she stared absentmindedly ahead with a sigh. Who am I kidding? We're never going to be friends, it's just too hard. Being friends with someone shouldn't be full of this much wanting. This much pain. Pam looked ahead and her eyes fell on Dwight who was peeling a boiled egg. Dwight is kind of my friend.

Suddenly a wave of regret hit Pam from the prank she'd pulled on him in the months leading up to Christmas as a gift for Jim. She felt particularly bad knowing that Dwight had thrown his cell phone away, a fact she'd found out when she overheard him giving a client his new phone number because the old one was ‘compromised'. Pam wondered how she could make it up to him. Then a thought occurred to her that she still needed to tick an anonymous act of service off of the bucket list. Maybe it could be for Dwight.

Which is how Pam found herself driving up the long gravel path to Schrute Farms ten hours later, with a cardboard box full of her homemade sugar cookies sitting next to her on the passenger seat. She killed the headlights so as not to alert Dwight of a car approaching his property and slowed down to a crawl. She parked a little way from the main house and grabbed the box of cookies, before walking the rest of the way up the driveway.  

It was dark already, being pretty late in the evening as Pam didn't want to risk bumping into Dwight, so it took her a minute to realise what she was staring at in the moonlight. But there it was, the whole house was wrapped in thick yellow police tape that read ‘Police Line Do Not Cross'. Jim, she smiled to herself. Absolutely one hundred percent this was Jim's doing. She knew he'd bought five spools of the tape and had hardly even made a dent in the first one last year when he turned Dwight's desk into a crime scene. As Pam quietly walked to the house, she couldn't help but giggle at what Dwight's reaction would be in the morning. It was a shame that she wouldn't be there to see it or even to hear about it in the office when he eventually made it in, as she was taking Christmas Eve as a personal day.

She slipped under the tape across the porch and left the cookies, along with an anonymous Christmas card on the seat of the rocking chair that was next to the front door. She ducked back under the tape and silently tiptoed down the steps. Once she was at the bottom, Pam turned and looked up at the house. She took out her phone and snapped a quick picture in the dark. She looked at the screen, and could just about make out the house and the yellow tape reflecting the moonlight. She wondered for a second if she should send it to Jim. It's what you would do if you were his friend, she said to herself, but can you really be his friend?  

Pam continued arguing with herself as she drove home about whether or not she should send Jim the picture of his prank. By the time she reached her house, Pam had decided that a ‘friend' wouldn't debate this much about sending a message, and so she definitely shouldn't send it. But after parking her car and walking to her front door, she went back on her decision and was adamant that this was the perfect thing to have a friendly message about. Before she could change her mind again, she quickly typed out ‘I'm guessing this is your handiwork?' and hit send, along with the picture of the house. 

As she tidied up the house and got ready for bed, Pam purposefully ignored her phone. It wasn't until she was finally tucked up in bed, an hour later, that she allowed herself to see if Jim had replied. Her heart sank. There was nothing there. Not a reply, not a missed call, nothing. She closed her phone and pulled the covers up around her chin. Taking a deep breath, Pam told herself it didn't matter, and repeated it until she finally fell asleep. 

--

She couldn't help it. As soon as Pam opened her eyes on Christmas Eve morning, she rolled over and grabbed her phone, desperately hoping that Jim had messaged overnight. But he hadn't. Such an idiot, she cursed herself, cringing at the fact she'd sent him a message in the first place. She threw off the covers and got out of bed, stomping her way to the bathroom. After a quick shower, Pam got dressed and made her way to the kitchen to get some breakfast.  

As she sat down at the table with a plate of pancakes, Pam looked down at the almost complete bucket list and sighed. She'd originally decided to do the bucket list so that she could have a Christmas she really wanted and to experience all the festive things that she wanted to do in her own way. But she felt like for the last week, she'd focused on almost nothing but Jim. But none of it had really been intentional. It's not like she knew he'd be at the Christmas tree farm. Or that he'd be stranded at the Holiday Market. And he was the one that wanted to help her pick a favourite song, she hadn't asked him to give her his favourites. Not forgetting about the ornaments too. But hadn't those all been kind of fun? Maybe a little heartbreaking, sure, but more overwhelmingly fun than not. 

So maybe it wasn't that she'd focused on Jim, but that he knew exactly what she needed without knowing it herself. He was so in tune with her, that without him even realising it, he'd kind of given her the perfect Christmas. Well, almost the perfect Christmas. 

One of the last things on the bucket list was to write a Christmas letter to Santa. Pam knew the only thing she'd be asking for was the one thing that she'd probably never get.  

Jim.

With no work for the day, Pam spent the day getting ready for her trip to Harrisburg. She wrapped up the remaining presents for her family and packed her suitcase. After cleaning the apartment from top to toe and making a fresh batch of gingerbread men, Pam finally gave in and sat down to write the letter to Santa. She placed a half letter sized piece of thick cream coloured paper on her kitchen table and found her fountain pen. She paused for a moment, wondering what to write, and that's when her phone finally vibrated. ‘Yeah, that was me :)' the message read when Pam looked at her screen. A warmth flooded her from her chest outwards and she couldn't help but smile at the fact that he'd finally replied. But it doesn't mean anything, she sighed as she closed her phone and picked up her pen again and let the words flow onto the page: 

Dear Santa,

I know I haven't really been all that nice this year, what with everything that happened with Roy and Jim, but I'm really hoping you can look past that and let me have what I want for Christmas. And well, for forever really. 

I've missed him so much, and even though he's back, it's not the same. He's got a girlfriend and I hate it. I mean, I don't hate her, I just hate the fact he's with her. I wish I could go back in time and tell him that I'm in love with him too, but I know you can't do time travel, so I'm hoping maybe you can give me a second chance instead. I can't just be friends with him. I need him. 

The only thing I'm asking for this year is Jim Halpert to love me again.

Merry Christmas. 

Love, Pam

Pam looked at the letter she'd just written and let out a deep breath. There it was, in black and white. She didn't want to be friends with Jim, she wanted everything with Jim. She read the letter twice more before folding it in half and sealing it in the envelope. She wrote a quick ‘Santa Claus, North Pole' on the front, and before she could think about what she was actually doing, Pam grabbed the letter and ran out to the mailbox.

She shivered all the way back up the path, noticing just how cold the air around her had gotten. As soon as she was back in the warmth of her apartment, Pam made a cup of hot cocoa, adding marshmallows and whipped cream, to help warm her up. She wandered into the living room and looked at the Christmas tree, flicking her gaze between the Jim-gerbread man and the turtle dove. Once she finished the hot drink and was feeling slightly better, she took a candle to her window sill and lit it. She wasn't entirely sure what to do with the candle, or how long to let it burn for, so she decided to watch a movie before going to bed.

As she watched the little girl in Miracle on 34th Street get every impossible present from Santa that she'd asked for, Pam wondered if somehow, just maybe the same would happen for her tomorrow. She clicked off the TV and walked over to the candle that had now burnt down almost to the base. Before she realised what she was doing, Pam had closed her eyes and was making a wish as if it was a birthday cake candle. Please, please, let Jim love me again, she pleaded to herself. She blew the candle out and opened her eyes to watch the stream of smoke snaking its way upwards. She watched the smoke until it finally disappeared, praying that her wish would come true in the morning.