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I don't own these characters. If I did, Jim and Pam would be getting it on right now and Karen would never exist. Anyway...

I had to actually refer to Wikipedia several times for this story so I have to thank them for the help.
She remembers sitting in her art class that cold October night, thinking about that phone conversation with Jim. She had spent three days playing it in her mind just to remember his laugh about her mix-up with her movie rental or his calling her Fancy New Beesly. She only came out of her haze to hear Prof. Byron talk about an exchange program the university had with an art school in Florence, Italy. She had never been to Italy -- frankly, she had never been out of the U.S. -- so the thought of going to Italy was daunting. But then she kept hearing Jim's voice repeating "Fancy New Beesly" in her head.

She took an application, filled it out in class, and handed it back to her teacher before she could think about chickening out.

* * *

It was April, the trees were getting their leaves back, and her relationship with Jim was finally on solid ground again. After Karen dumped him a few months ago, they had both decided to take it slow, find their footing as friends again before trying to move on to something more than that.

Last night, they went to get drinks at a new bar in town and shut the place down at 1 a.m., not realizing how late it was because they had talked the whole time. Jim drove her home and she gave him a quick kiss before saying good night. With all that, she figured she had an excuse to not remember grabbing her mail.

She threw it in the front seat of her car the next morning and only sorted through it after she got to work. Bill, junk mail, junk mail, a letter from Italy. She almost tossed in the passenger seat before she realized what it was. Her hand was shaking as she looked at the return address again before quickly shoving it in her purse.

It was still there at 10:30. She looked up to see Jim's desk empty and figured it was better to open it now than with him around. She didn't want to have to explain the whole application thing and she was sure this was just a rejection letter anyway so what would be the point?

She grabbed the letter opener off her desk and ripped it open. She read the first sentence with a bit of a shock and sort of grasped what it was saying by the five or sixth read. It was hardly a rejection letter.

She started to feel hot, her hands shaking. They wanted her in Italy for three months starting in June. The receptionist from a paper company in Scranton had been accepted into a program in Florence...that cost way more than she could afford, based on the third paragraph. Too good to be true. She knew that was going to happen, which is probably why she got stuck on the opening sentence instead of reading further down the page the first time.

"What's that?" Jim said, leaning on her desk.

She hadn't noticed him come up until it was too late for her to hide the letter. "Oh, nothing," she said, trying to brush it off as she folded it back up.

"Pam, you're red. It's either something important or it's Michael's renewal notice for Hooters Monthly."

She didn't laugh at the joke, instead looking down at the paper in her hands, not wanting to make eye contact with Jim. "It's just a letter from an art program I was accepted to, but I probably won't go so no big deal."

"Let me see," he said, holding his hand out.

She reluctantly put the letter in his open palm and watched him unfold it and read over the whole thing. He even read the second page filled with class descriptions, which she hadn't even been able to look over yet.

The smile on his face kept getting wider and wider as he read. "Pam, this is amazing! Italy for the summer would be so cool!"

"Yeah, it would, but I'm not going to take it."

Jim looked down at her with a look of concern as he handed the letter back. "Why not? It would be such a great opportunity for you."

"Well, I mean, it is Italy, but it's alot of money and I can't afford it right now with my own rent and bills and everything. Plus, you know Michael. He goes nuts when I'm on vacation for a week. There's no way he'd let me take off three months. And like I said, it's alot of money."

"So you're not going."

"Not going," Pam told him, a note of dejection in her voice. "Plus, if I was gone," she said, perking up and smiling at him, "I would be away from you for the whole summer. That wouldn't be any fun."

"No, I guess not," he said, breaking eye contact with her.

"Thanks for encouraging me to do it though," she told him. "That means alot to me. Really, it does. It's just...I don't think it's gonna work right now...maybe next year," she added hopefully.

"Maybe." Jim looked back at her and smiled. "I have to get some work done."

"Oh yeah, no, totally. Sorry about that," she stammered.

"You should be, Beesly. A beautiful woman like you is a huge distraction for someone as smitten as I," Jim confessed, one hand over his heart.

She rolled her eyes before instructing him to leave so she could get more work done on her Solitaire skills.

* * *

Despite the fact that she decided not to go to Florence, she left the letter on her desk, figuring it would at least encourage her to do something with her desire to take more art classes. If Florence wanted her, she told herself she was sure it wouldn't be a problem getting a weekend class in New York or Philly for the summer. They weren't Florence, but the boost of confidence made her start to think she could make them her fake Italy for the summer.

As with most days, she waited to start packing her stuff up until she saw Jim putting his messenger bag together, but today he was in a late meeting with Michael. She had finished her faxes and her emails and was trying to look busy with a game of Sudoku when Jim finally came out.

He walked over to her desk, looking a little nervous for some reason. "Hey, um...do you have a second to talk?"

"Who would I be talking with?"

He smiled. "Me."

"I guess so," she said sarcastically. "What's up?"

He nodded his head toward the conference room and she followed him, taking a seat as he closed the door.

"So I talked to Jan and Michael and I have an offer for you," he said, taking a seat next to her.

"An offer? From you and Michael?" she asked, a look of worry on her face.

He smiled, understanding her implication. "Not like that, Beesly." He looked up at her and got serious again. "So here's the thing. When I was in Stamford, we had a graphic designer on our staff to help design letterheads and stuff. You know, things that our clients would ask for. But when the branch shut down, we lost that person." Pam saw him look at her with a hope that she was catching on, but she still felt confused. "So anyway, I talked to Jan about it. We are picking up more clients in Scranton with the other branch closed and she wants to have someone do graphic design part-time here. Would you be interested in doing that?"

"Really?" Pam asked. "You're not joking, are you?"

"I'm totally serious," he told her. "Listen, I know it's not your normal art stuff, but I wanted to at least see if you would like to do something like that here."

Pam smiled at him. "Jim, really? Because I would love to do that! I just...," she said, calming herself down. "I really appreciate that you thought of me."

Jim looked down sheepishly. "Well, it wasn't just the position itself -- not that you're not qualified or anything. It's just that there's more to it." He started fidgeting with his hands and Pam was getting worried there was some kind of string attached to this.

"Please don't be mad when I tell you this," Jim said, looking up at her, "but I noticed you left that letter from Florence on your desk and I kind of swiped it one morning before you came in."

"Swiped it?" Pam asked.

"Yeah. I faxed it to Jan," he explained. "The letter and the course descriptions."

"Jim," Pam said, staring at him. "I barely took a passing glance at the course descriptions. Why would Jan care about them?"

Jim took a deep breath. "Ok, don't be mad at me, but I talked to Jan because I noticed one of the classes on the list was a graphic design course. And I pulled alot of strings and really had to convince her, but she agreed to pay for the class and give you the same amount of money for a room there that you would've gotten if you took a class in New York."

Pam tried to give some kind of answer, but her mind was trying to figure to out how she was feeling. It was amazing that Jim did that for her, amazing that Jan even said yes, but even with that kind of money from Dunder Mifflin, it still wasn't going to work.

"Um, Jim, I...I don't know what to say...," was all she could get out before Jim interrupted her.

"Listen, I know it's probably still not enough," he said as if he was reading her mind, "and I know you want to be independent and all that, but I got a raise when I took the promotion to come back here and I can afford to send you there so...I want to give you the rest of the money to go to Italy."

This time, Pam's thoughts were much clearer. "Jim, I can't do that. It's great that you want to help and I love the fact that you want to do that, but I can't take it."

"Pam, please," he said. "I want you to be the new graphic designer here and I want you to go Italy. You're talented, Pam, really talented, and you deserve this."

She felt pulled in two directions. This is not what the Fancy New Independent Beesly would do. And what about them? They had finally gotten back to being friends again. "I don't know, Jim. It sounds fine, but I don't want to feel indebted to you for this. And things are just starting to fall in place for us, you know?"

"Pam," he said in a pleading tone as he took her hands. "First of all, I waited more than three years for you. Three months will be nothing. And second, I'm giving you this money. No strings attached, no ulterior motive. I just want you to go to Italy."

She looked down at their hands, their finger intertwined. "I have to think about it," she said, standing up and letting her hands slip from Jim's before she walked out of the conference room and left for the day.

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