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Story Notes:
Scenes from a mall. Maybe the Steamtown Mall. Maybe the outlet mall. Making that gift list and checking it twice...
Author's Chapter Notes:
These started as drabbles then they sort of got away from me. Happens all the time!

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

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She practically skipped through the mall. This was their first Christmas as a couple and they had just gone through a rocky patch. She had seen their future together slip completely away. But then, thankfully, there was a reprieve and all was right with the world again. The merger had changed everything.

She carefully selected the pink dress shirt which would complement his eyes and match her pink sweater. It wasn't something he would normally wear, but she knew if it came from her, he'd at least try it on. Then she could tell him how handsome it looked and he would wear it again. She picked out a ridiculously expensive silk tie to match.

As she waited in line to pay, her favorite Christmas carol started to play. She was so looking forward to Christmas this year.

She wondered what kind of awesome gift Ryan would buy her.

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He trudged through the mall. He'd always found Christmas shopping a chore and this year was no exception. The line for Santa stretched beyond the food court and he had to resort to pushing to get through when his third "excuse me!" failed to dislodge anyone from his path. "Jerk!" he heard faintly as he shuffled past Auntie Anne's pretzels.

He was half-heartedly looking at some rather generic earrings in Macy's when he spotted her coming down the escalator. He ducked behind a display of scarves. He was just about to exhale when he felt a hand on his arm.

"Ryan! I didn't know you were going shopping! You should've told me. I could've given you a ride!" Kelly pulled him in for a hug and once again he was trapped.

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He was torn. He didn't know where he stood with either of the special women in his life. He hadn't been able to get one of them alone for quite some time. He wanted to though. He needed to find out once and for all what her true feelings for him were. The other he'd only gotten to know well since the summer. He had finally taken the plunge into a relationship with her when all hope seemed lost with the first one.

In one hand he held a scarf, soft, with muted colors for the woman he'd been wanting for some time now. In the other he held a wispy piece of silk with an exotic pattern for his most recent conquest. After several minutes of agonizing indecision he put both of them back. He'd have to think it over and come back later.

He figured he'd bring Dwight along for a second opinion. Or maybe that new guy Andy. He really seemed to be fitting in well at the office.

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He spotted his boss in the accessories department. He wasn't surprised that he looked confused. Most men didn't have a clue as to what to buy a woman for Christmas and the boss was no exception. He mulled over whether or not to interfere for about two seconds before making his way over.

"Michael, how's it going? Can I help you out?"

He hurriedly stashed the two scarves in a bin of ladies gloves."No, I was just, uh, buying myself some gloves! Cold weather snuck up on me and I can't find my old ones."

"These are ladies gloves."

"I know that. God! Did you think I didn't know that? These are for my sis - uh, mother. Anyway, what are you doing here? And why does your name tag say 'Greg'?"

"Oh, well, this is a great place to make a little extra Christmas cash, pick up the ladies. Only sometimes it behooves me to not give them, you know, my real name."

"Wow." Michael looked pensive. "Hey, Andy, you guys still hiring?"

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Sometimes after closing, the manager of the men's department passed the time by trying to guess how many sweaters and shirts she had folded over the past few years in this place. She estimated it somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000.

Today she was amusing herself by watching a customer. The woman was well dressed, sporting expensive shoes, bag and coat. She'd been in the men's department for over an hour. She'd picked up the sweater, ran the soft cashmere over her face, then shook her head and placed it back on top of the pile. Then she'd step away, idly glancing over piles of shirts and slacks. She'd even taken to sniffing cologne samples. But she always ended up back at the cashmere sweaters.

Finally, she seemed to have made a decision. The saleswoman put down the scratchy brown wool pullover she was folding and stepped up to the register to ring up her purchase. She was one of those customers who didn't make small talk and the saleswoman worked quickly. She folded the sweater one last time and slid it into the bag. As the customer handed her back the signed credit card receipt, she smiled as she had hundreds of times before.

"Thank you, Ms. Levinson. Happy Holidays!"

Jan gave her a tight lipped smile. "Thank you. Where is the gift wrap counter?"

She needed to get this done before she changed her mind again.

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"Okay, monkey. I'll meet you back here in a half hour." She gave him a quick smile and a small peck on the cheek.

He waited until she disappeared into the cavernous department store before doubling back to Victoria's Secret. The first time he'd bought her a fuzzy robe through their catalog, she'd been mortified.

"You went into that store?" she huffed.

"It's very good quality robe. And besides, I ordered it on the internet. I know you don't like me going in there."

"Good," she said curtly. But when she ran her fingers over the pale pink chenille, her eyes lit up.

He'd managed to convince her that everybody needed undergarments so it really wasn't such an evil store after all. And she did love that robe. For her birthday he'd ventured back online to buy her pajamas. They chastely covered her from neck to ankle and were soft Egyptian cotton. They were covered in tiny hearts and once again, she loved them.

He thought maybe Christmas was the time to take a chance on something racier. He ventured into the store and was immediately overwhelmed by the racks of wispy material with various ties and clasps, some with tops and bottoms, some just tops - do you need to buy matching bottoms for those? - and got a bit dizzy.

A saleswoman approached him. "May I help you, sir?"

He whirled around from the rack of teddies. "Yes. Question. Do these come with everything I need or do I need more, um, parts?"

She blinked. "What do you mean exactly."

"Well, for instance, this here," he pulled out a sheer black teddy. "Would I wear another layer under this?"

"You mean, like a bra?"

"Yes!"

"Uh, generally no. But you can wear whatever you like, sir."

"Oh. OH! It's not for me, I mean I just..." suddenly Dwight shoved the hanger back on the rack and backed away, mumbling something about woman being too complicated.

He glanced once over his shoulder as he merged with a stream of shoppers heading in an unstoppable line toward the food court. He followed along, dazed, when he noticed a cart in the atrium called "The Cat's Meow".

At the agreed upon time, he met Angela. He smiled to himself. The cat sweatshirt he'd purchased was practical and warm. Maybe he could try Victoria's Secret again for Valentine's Day. Perhaps Michael could come with him. He probably had much more experience at this sort of thing.

Dwight still remembered with awe the night Michael had two dates at once.

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He was lurking outside Victoria's Secret again just before Christmas. He just couldn't get the idea out of his head of Angela wearing one of those flimsy pieces of material he'd seen. But after his last visit he hadn't quite worked up the nerve to give it another shot.

"Dwight? What are you doing here?"

Dwight turned slowly to see Kevin standing there, sucking soda noisily through a straw. Damn. He tried to think up a good excuse.

"I was just, uh, getting a gift."

"For who? In this store? You got a girlfriend or something?"

"No, uh, it's for Mose..." Kevin's eyes grew wide. "No! Not for Mose, I mean, for Mose's girlfriend. He's busy on the farm so he asked me to pick something out."

"That's kinda weird. I've gotta get something for Stacy. You going in?"

"Sure." He followed him into the store. He figured a deviant like Kevin would know how to shop for this sort of thing.

"So what Mose's girlfriend look like? What size?"

Dwight thought for a moment. He stunned himself with his brilliance. "She looks like Angela. Petite, blond, fair skin..."

"Oh, that's gonna be weird."

"What?"

"Picturing Angela in this stuff."

"Yes...weird..." a slow grin spread over Dwight's face.

Kevin was quite knowledgeable about teddies and garters and peignoirs and boudoirs. He knew the difference between hi-cut and boy cut and hipsters and thongs. Dwight mused that he was like the Yoda of undergarments to his Luke Skywalker. And in no time he had picked out a sexy ensemble for his Princess Leia. Oh no wait, that was wrong - that was his sister. Maybe he was Han Solo. But Yoda never schooled him. Anyway, Kevin was too big to be Yoda. He was more of a Chewbacca to his Han Solo.

Yes, that was perfect.

He had promised to buy Kevin something at the food court. As they headed out of the store, Kevin stopped one last time to ogle the window display.

He grinned lecherously. "Check out that poster!"

Dwight nodded. "Oh yes. Angela looks like that. I should buy that outfit she's wearing next time."

Kevin stared at the poster. Then he stared at Dwight. "That's Heidi Klum."

"Who's that?"

"Only one of the hottest supermodels there is."

"Oh. Yes, she's rather attractive."

Kevin took one last look at the poster as they pressed through the crowd. "You think Angela looks like that?"

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She was a little bit flustered as she wandered the mall. She kept thinking that she had forgotten something important only to realize that she was feeling a lot less stress this year as it had been the first time in 11 Christmases she hadn't had to buy him a gift. He'd always been fairly difficult to buy for and it had always been a chore to shop for his gifts. This year seemed too easy.

Still, as she wandered through the department store, she found herself drawn to the men's section. There was something comforting about the packages of dress shirts, the piles of uncomplicated sweaters and the rows of colorful ties. She loved to run her hands over the silk ones except that she'd been working with oil paints lately and had scrubbed her hands so raw her dry skin snagged on the material.

She turned away from the counter and found herself in racks of more casual shirts. One caught her eye. It had green stripes and was made of a soft brushed cotton. She held up the shirt, knowing it was nothing anyone on her gift list would wear. But then she thought of how the color of the stripes would play up a certain pair of green eyes and how the cuffs would look pushed up a pair of familiar forearms and her breath caught a little in her chest.

As she walked across the packed parking garage to her car, she wasn't sure exactly how and where she'd give it to him. But she already had a clear picture of how she wanted to take it off of him.

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He was frustrated. He knew she paid more for some of her clothes than he had paid for his first junker of a car. He'd even ventured into the city once to go shopping with her. He wasn't completely without fashion sense but he couldn't see buying a pair of shoes that cost more than $200.

He found himself at the mall, completely without a clue. Jewelry seemed too intimate considering that he had only begun "sorta seeing" her recently. He didn't want to presume to know what scent she wore. He certainly wasn't qualified to buy clothes for her.

She bought books all the time so that was out. CDs were too impersonal, plus she downloaded all her music. He passed by Victoria's Secret but thought it was way too soon for that. Then he passed by the gourmet food store and paused in front of the window. They had the same kind of teapots he had bought last year for Pam. He bit his lower lip, wondering if she had kept the yearbook picture and the hot sauce packets. He wondered if she thought about him every time she made tea the same way he thought of her when he drank a can of Coke or bought fabric softener or how he actually teared up the last time he saw Edward Scissorhands playing on cable.

As he walked away from the store, he had an epiphany.

He bought colored paper clips, a tiny bottle of Jagermeister, an Indigo Girls CD, and a player's guide to "Call of Duty". He stuffed it all in a Dunder Mifflin tote bag they'd all been given as part of some lame sales promotion right after he got to Stamford. It was the first time he sat across from her at a staff meeting. When she rolled her eyes during Josh's presentation, he smiled for the first time since arriving in that office and he felt like he might have found an ally.

It wasn't much of a gift but he kept telling himself they had just started seeing each other. As he wrapped the whole thing he remembered when he had a crush on Kristen Thompson in seventh grade and couldn't decide whether or not to ask her to the dance. His best friend Tommy Morse pulled out his 12-sided dice and rolled them. Best of three, evens meant he had to ask her.

Evens won out but she already had a date. He wondered which way the dice would fall this time.

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Truth be told, he was relieved. He'd always found shopping a chore. Birthdays, Christmases, even on their anniversary she would buy him gifts. Although she always said she didn't expect anything in return, he knew the disappointment in her eyes if he forgot would be worse than the pain of pushing his way through the mall on Christmas Eve.

This year he didn't have the pressure of buying her a gift. But suddenly he felt he wanted to. He felt like he had a lot to make up for.

He went into the bookstore, a place he didn't enjoy, and with the help of a salesgirl who would've been hot if she lost the thick glasses and did something with her hair, he picked out an art book for her. He wrapped it carefully. He figured he'd give it to her at the office Christmas party. It would seem lower pressure  that way.

Maybe she would see that he was really trying to change. That he really did want her back.

And if it didn't work out, he still had the number of the salesgirl at the bookstore.

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The mall closed promptly at 6:00 on Christmas Eve. Most employees rushed home to be with their families and start celebrating the holiday.

Creed had better things to do.

“Hey, honey, you ready?” The sweet young thing who played one of the elves had offered to buy him a little Christmas cheer at the bar down the street. He didn’t have anywhere else to be so he agreed.

He hung up the Santa suit in his locker for the last time and turned off the lights.



Par5 is the author of 29 other stories.
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