...Then it’s a date.

Such innocuous words have never felt so loaded. 

Mundanity has been the glue holding her world together; bits and pieces of a life she’s just barely begun to live bound by a thousand square feet of worn gray carpet, plain white walls, and scattered encounters with the guy she’s in love with. But now the mundane finally feels escapable. 

Jim’s words echo in her ears as she tears her closet apart, looking for something to wear tonight. Something… sexy? Something cute? Something with tags still on it, preferably. She hasn’t been on an actual date in years. That Freedom Fries guy did not count.

She chooses a navy blue dress with cap sleeves and a V-neck. Heels or flats? Shit. She wants to look like herself, but she also wants to look as amazing as possible. And Jim is so tall… she pulls down the dusty Marc Jacobs shoebox with the black strappy heels she impulsively spent her entire paycheck on while at the mall with some girlfriends. The silica gel packet is still nestled inside the heel.

She slips them on, applies as much makeup as she’s comfortable applying (not much) and sends up a silent prayer of gratitude that her period finished four days ago. You never know.

Why is she so nervous? He’s already told her he’s in love with her. But, she reminds herself, that was months ago. A lot has happened since then. What if something has changed? 

Jim picks her up on time and opens the car door for her. She sits and waits the excruciating six seconds of deafening silence after he slams her door shut and hustles to the driver’s side, and they don’t say much of substance for the entire drive. Certainty, inevitability, expectation. The things she should be feeling are drifting around the car like an errant vapor but all she can feel are her nerves.

He reaches over to take her hand at one point, and it calms her a bit. They’ve earned these butterflies, surely. She tries to enjoy them. 

They arrive at the nicest steakhouse in the city and are seated at a table by the window. For the first time tonight she really looks at him: gray suit, blue tie, freshly shaven. She’d told a little white lie when she said she liked his new haircut: it’s way too corporate. But it’s still Jim. Jim.

A date. We’re really doing this.

They order drinks and he clears his throat. They’ve said virtually nothing to each other since he interrupted her interview in the conference room. She thinks of the million things they’ve talked about over the years, and how she now has no idea what to say.

Luckily, he speaks first.

“Before you say anything, I need to tell you something,” he says. “Something important.”

“Okay,” she says, with trepidation. Don’t talk about Karen, is her first thought. Please don’t tell me you haven’t actually broken up with your girlfriend.

Jim looks at her intently. He doesn’t blink. “Do you remember that… casino night we had at the office? Back before I left for Stamford?”

She pins him with an equally intense stare and can feel her cheeks getting hot. Do I remember that night? The night you told me you were in love with me? I’ve only thought about it every waking moment since it happened.

“Yes,” she stammers, eager to hear what he has to say but almost just as afraid.

“Well,” he says, suddenly looking around surreptitiously like someone is watching him. He’s probably used to that. “Here’s the thing.”

Oh God, she thinks. This is the part where he says he shouldn’t have said what he did, that it was a heat-of-the-moment utterance, that he’d overcompensated. That he’d been planning to leave, and it was merely the hail-iest of Marys.

She looks down at her drink, picks it up. Stirs it a bit self-consciously. It looks stupid and pink now, too pink. The maraschino cherry drifts to the bottom where it appears oblong, stretched out into something unrecognizable. She should have ordered something more mature, like a martini or a Manhattan or something. That’s what Jim’s girlfriend would order. 

“I just want you to know that I meant every word,” Jim says. “I meant what I said to you, Pam. I still mean it.” He looks at her and she can see his eyes soften in that way she’s seen before, like they do when things get quiet and real. Like they did on that night he said what he meant.

She still doesn’t know what to say. She knows what she wants to say, what she probably should say, but this isn’t the way things usually happen for Pam Beesly. Pam Beesly settles for a love that is just barely good enough; a love that feels just enough like something to lull her into a false sense of security. 

A love that is quite simply false.

Now, she looks into her best friend’s eyes and suddenly she’s living a new life: one in which the stars align perfectly in the perfect moment with the perfect guy. This is most definitely the perfect love she’s been waiting for her entire life and it’s too much, it’s all too much to process.

She suddenly worries she could fuck this up, just like she did last spring. She could say the wrong thing. She could lose him all over again. Her head begins to spin and she sets her drink down, bringing her hand to her forehead. Is she sweating? Dammit, she should have gone with the sleeveless dress.

“It’s too much, I know, and I’m sorry to bring it up again,” he says. He fidgets with his napkin. “You don’t have to say anything back, I’m not looking for that, I swear.” He leans forward then, covering her hand with his. “I just think I’ve hidden my feelings from you long enough, and I want us to start in a place of honesty, wherever that may be. Is that okay?”

Honesty. If she’d been honest with him from the start, they’d have done this years ago. 

His hand is large, and warm, and she can feel his fingers trembling. It must be just as scary to admit this to someone when they already know it. 

Honesty. He deserves it after all this time, after everything she put him through. And if it’s too much for him to handle, at least she won’t have any regrets.

“I think…” she begins, “...that’s a good idea. And if we’re starting with honesty, then I need to say something to you right now, too.”

His expression is curious: hopeful, but not expectant. “Okay.”

She feels fear first, coursing through her veins like fire. But then she remembers walking across that coal at the beach. She remembers how it burned, how much it hurt, and then how good it felt when it was over: the knowledge she’d been braver than she’d ever been in her life.

She takes a deep breath.

“I’m in love with you too,” she says bluntly. “I have been for a really long time. And I should have said it back to you that night.”

A smile breaks out across his face, brighter than she’s ever seen it before. And she’s made Jim Halpert smile countless times. She isn’t certain but she thinks she even sees a tear in his eye, and while it instantly reminds her of the one he wiped that fateful night she fucked everything up, she knows this time it must be a tear of relief.

He shakes his head slightly. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that, Pam.”

She nods, and their eyes connect in the same way they have for years; exactly the same, only this time there are no more barriers between them whatsoever. 

“Well, okay then,” he says after a moment. “This is hands-down the best first date I’ve ever been on.”

She laughs in agreement, unable to look away from him, and all she can think is how easy this is, how right this is. This must be what it was always supposed to feel like. And they haven’t even ordered their appetizers.

They both look away from each other simultaneously, breaking the spell a bit. Jim clears his throat and picks up his glass of red, swirling it around a couple of times. He takes a sip and she can see his ears are pink, something she’s always been able to spot even from eight feet away, even when she’s only watching the back of his neck. She wonders what he’s thinking about. Unsolicited, dozens of images flash through her own mind like slides: the two of them in the break room eating lunch, walking to their cars in the parking lot, an air-high five across the bullpen, then suddenly she’s in his apartment and she’s kissing him, taking off his jacket, tugging on his tie, running her hands through his hair and pulling him against her and now she knows exactly why his ears are pink.

Everything around them grows quiet; she no longer hears the soft clinking of glassware, the gentle murmurs of restaurant patrons. She sees Jim, hears his voice whispering in her ear like a phantom, and she suddenly wants nothing more than to leave, now.

“Jim?” She says it softly.

He looks at her, slightly startled by her change in demeanor. “Yeah?”

She leans in, resolute. “I think… I want to skip dinner.”

He looks around the room, probably for the cameras. It occurs to her that she hasn’t thought about them at all since they arrived. “You aren’t hungry?”

She’s hungry, all right, but not for surf n’ turf. 

She shakes her head slowly, making her meaning clear. She isn’t even sure she’s going to sleep with him tonight, but her body seems to be making the decisions right now. 

His eyes widen and he visibly gulps. He’s nervous, she ascertains, to her very great delight. It’s exciting and terrifying all at once. She can’t wait to wrap her arms around him, to kiss him properly. It feels like the hard part is over, and she just wants to get to the good stuff.

Almost comically, Jim attempts to call for the check, thinks better of it, and opens his wallet, laying down twenty bucks, more than enough to cover their two drinks and the practically nonexistent service. He stands and offers her his hand gallantly, and she takes it, allowing him to lead her through the crowded restaurant, past the hostess stand, and directly out the front door. She barely has time to register the butterflies flapping wildly in her stomach before they are outside, and Jim is pressing her against the brick wall next to the entrance. 

His kiss is somehow soft and intense all at once, but not too assertive; she knows he is waiting for her to give him permission. She isn’t typically one for public displays of affection, but she can’t wait anymore for him, she can’t. Her breath catches in her chest and all she can feel is relief. This nightmare is finally over and he is hers, all hers.

Fully aware of how exposed they are, she opens her mouth and he takes her cue, responding in kind. She moans softly, and he wraps his hands around her waist, so large it feels like they’re encircling her completely. They are kissing at last, really kissing, the way they should have on a different night, right next to his desk. 

This is Jim, this is finally real, she marvels, and just as they had all those months ago her hands move to his face, and he pulls her close, and there are no more obstacles, no more miscommunications. She is kissing Jim Halpert the way she’s wanted to for years, and she doesn’t even have to feel guilty about doing so.

His hands slide to the small of her back and he pulls her into him gently. She can physically feel how much he wants her and she can’t remember the last time she felt like she genuinely turned anyone on this way. Sex had become so routine with Roy over the years, but that’s what was supposed to happen. Wasn’t it? 

He pulls back, his lips slightly parted, and his eyelids droopy. She’s never seen Jim drunk before but she’s positive this is what Drunk Jim looks like.

Drunk on her.

“I... think we should stop, Pam,” he says. “I’ve thought about this so many times, so many ways, and none of them involved me embarrassing myself in a public place.”

She laughs. “So many ways, huh?”

“So many.”

“I’d like to hear about those sometime.”

“Oh, you can count on it.”

She smiles, closes her eyes, lets her head fall against his chest. Then her eyes fly open.

“Jim.”

“Hm?”

“Do you think they followed us?” she asks, peering around him.

She doesn’t have to say who she means; the camera crew has been as ubiquitous in their lives as their unspoken love for each other. He turns around and they both scan the parking lot. No cameras, at least from what she can see. There’s actually no one in sight at all except for a couple approaching the restaurant, holding hands. 

“That’s… odd,” he muses. She silently agrees, as the camera crew is usually underfoot whenever something big happens. And this night is without a doubt the biggest thing that’s happened to them since the cameras arrived.

“It is odd,” she says. “Odd enough that I actually don’t quite believe it.” She continues to scan the area, but sees nothing.

“Maybe we ought to get out of here,” he suggests. “We shouldn’t press our luck.” He takes her hand in his and with this simple touch the camera crew is forgotten. Their fingers intertwine and they head back to his car, the evening air ripe with promise.

Once inside, Jim turns, grins, and leans in to kiss her again softly. Her hand touches his cheek and she still can’t believe any of this is happening.

“Where to, Beesly?” he grins, pulling back.

“You mean, my place or yours?” Her own boldness surprises her. But the heart wants what it wants. And hers is finally getting its wish.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” he grins stupidly.

“Is... your roommate home?” 

“No roommate,” he says. “Not since I moved back.”

“Ah, well I’m glad I waited around for Fancy, Grownup Jim,” she teases as she buckles her seat belt. When she finishes, she glances over at him and he’s still gazing at her, one hand on the steering wheel, with a gentle, serious countenance.

“So am I,” he says, and his sincerity shakes her to her core.

***

Don’t forget us when you’re famous.

Pam probably hadn’t intended it, but her words had slammed into him with a weight he thought he’d rescinded: Don’t forget us. Hoped, rather than thought, he supposed.

Don’t forget me.

Forgetting her was exactly what he’d failed to do for months. It only took a foil yogurt lid attached to some paper clips to make him realize he never would. 

Two years ago he’d kept Pam’s makeshift Olympic medals wrapped around his desk lamp, treasured them the way an actual athlete would an actual medal. It never once struck him as strange or unusual. Pam had made them with her own hands as a supplement to his own attempt at making the day just a little less unbearable. Perhaps he should have told her then that she was the only thing making all of his days bearable. 

In his interview, David Wallace had asked him what he enjoyed most about Scranton. He’d replied it was the friendships but that was only partly true: it was really just the one friend. And as for where he saw himself for the long haul… well, there was no answer to that question that didn’t somehow include Pam. In that moment he knew he had to try again, one final shot at the buzzer, because after everything she’d said to him at the beach, he knew he’d be a fool to turn down one last chance with her. 

He’d declined the job offer, leaving the CFO alone in his office. Unfinished business, he’d cited apologetically, and from the stunned look on Wallace’s face he was certain that had he not done so he’d be on the corporate fast track, headed to New York right now. Headed towards a real future.

But it wasn’t the future he wanted. 

He’d texted Karen and met her outside on the sidewalk. The breakup was quick and he could tell it was painful; not because she hadn’t seen it coming but because she very much had, and holding onto something that’s slipping through your fingers makes losing that thing even more difficult.

He hadn’t shied away from the truth, however: that the reason was Pam, is Pam, would always be Pam. And it wasn’t fair to Karen to lie, even if only to soften the blow.

She nods, a tear forming, but she does not let it fall. She knows. He’s pretty sure part of her has always known.

“Are you mad?” he asks stupidly.

She looks at him, and her expression hardens. “Not at you,” she admits. “I’ve never settled for being second best. I’m mad at myself for letting you take that away from me.”

He doesn’t want to hurt Karen, he never has. Oddly, he thinks of Roy and how he must have felt when Pam broke off their engagement. The collateral damage of his and Pam’s inability to get their shit together has been staggering. 

“I’m sorry, Karen,” he says. “I should never have let this… us... get this far without dealing with… everything.”

Her stare is icy. “Well, don’t expect brownie points from me for trying, Halpert.”

He deserves this. He deserves worse. But he wants nothing more than to get into a cab and let it take him far, far away from here. A bus honks. It smells like garbage. Someone yells from across the street. He thinks of Pam and prays to god she still wishes he’d come home… all the way home.

I’m coming home, Pam, he thinks.

Jim tilts his head a bit, not out of pity but more out of helplessness. Does he just walk away? Does he say goodbye? 

“I hope you get the job,” he says. 

She merely glares at him. He really, really hopes she gets the job.

Karen turns and walks away without a goodbye. He sees her hail a cab and, just before she gets in, wipes the tear from her cheek.

Jim and Pam walk into his apartment and the door closes gently behind him. She’s never been here before, and he watches her as she looks around, taking everything in. 

“Feels different from your old place,” Pam notes. It is different. He has fewer possessions around; two moves within a year has thinned his belongings significantly. 

“Well, it hasn’t had you in it, for one thing,” he says. He takes her coat and removes his own, then walks over to his vintage record player. She grins, impressed, as he turns it on. He doesn’t remember which LP he’s got in there until he hears Lindsey Buckingham’s guitar chords fill the room. 

Jim turns the music down to an acceptable level and grins at her. She brings her hands up to hug herself protectively, for the first time appearing a bit vulnerable. He’s suddenly aware this isn’t the same Pam from the restaurant who’d practically propositioned him over a couple of drinks.

“Are you… okay?” he asks.

“I’m good,” she replies quickly. “This is just…” she shakes her head. “It’s a lot, is all.”

He nods as he approaches her, rests his hands on her waist again and bends his head down towards hers in invitation. He doesn’t want to be presumptuous but all he’s been thinking about for the past twelve minutes as the car sped away from the restaurant is how much he wants to kiss her again; how much he wants to keep on kissing her until he either dies from happiness or wakes up. 

Thankfully, she tilts her head to receive him and their lips touch once more, this time more urgently. The privacy his space offers seems to make her braver. She slides her tongue into his mouth and she tastes like heaven; like berries and sugar and Pam, Pam, Pam.

It seems like they are kissing for a long time, although his brain feels like it’s short-circuited. She moans again softly, pressing her body against his, and his natural instinct is to slide his hands up along the back of her dress. Just as he reaches for the zipper, however, he hears her say the word he’s been dreading all evening.

“...Wait.”

He stops, leans back to look at her. “I'm sorry. Is it... too soon?” The last thing he wants is to make her uncomfortable.

“No, Jim, it’s not that… I mean, not really,” she stammers. She looks nervous again. “I want to, believe me.”

He tries not to feel embarrassed. He thought he was being smooth, but at his core he really is just that dorky guy in the yearbook photo of whom she’d been so fond. “But..?”

“This is going to sound so stupid, but... I think… I don’t want to rush this. You and me.” She reaches up to put her hand against his face, and he closes his eyes, leaning into it. If she just wanted to hold her hand against his cheek all night and repeat the phrase you and me he’d be perfectly content to let her.

“Sure, of course,” he nods. 

“Most people don’t get ‘I love you’ on the first date," she grins. "At least the sane ones don’t.”  

“Yeah,” he agrees. "I get it." And he really does. His breakup is still fresh, and while he doesn’t owe it to Karen or even to himself, he does owe it to them to do this the right way.

You and me.

“I’ve never really had the opportunity to enjoy this part,” she says by way of explanation. “The beginning part.”

He wonders at this, at what she means. How had it been with Roy? How could a three-year-long engagement have possibly progressed to that point without a ‘beginning part?’

“Can I ask why?”

She looks up at him, confused. “You... want to know that stuff?” 

He nods. “I want to know everything about you, Pam. Everything you want to share.”

She smiles with a slight shake of her head that betrays her disbelief. “You two are like night and day,” she whispers to herself. And rather than saying no shit, Sherlock, which is his first thought, he opts for silence. He knows he isn’t Roy, could never be like Roy, but he wants to know what Pam needs. He’ll try to give that to her, whatever it is.

“Things moved… quickly for us, at the beginning. I was caught up by his attention, he was this super popular guy in high school. And I probably let my emotions get the better of me.” Her eyes dart to the floor. “He was… you know. My first.”

Jim suddenly feels a chill go up his spine. “He didn’t pressure you, did he?”

She looks up. “Oh, no, it wasn’t like that,” she says. “It never felt like that. But looking back, I think, maybe… I’d have done things differently.”

She stops, and while he is curious to hear more, he figures this is the most he’s probably going to get out of her right now.

“I understand,” he says. “Slow it is.”

She lets out a sigh of relief, her eyes closing. He isn’t sure what to do next, what exactly she wants, how far she wants to take things tonight. But he doesn’t have to wait long before she wraps her arms around his neck again, pressing her lips against his. He lives inside their kiss for as long as he can, and as her hands find his hair and she tangles her fingers within it, messing up his shitty new haircut, he feels as if his soul is leaving his body, actually lifting up above them. He has to pull away from her to ground himself.

“I can’t really believe this,” he says quietly. He closes his eyes, worried if he looks into hers at this moment he might pass away. “It’s... this is all I’ve wanted for way too long. It doesn’t even feel real.”

He can’t see her but he feels her fingers move from his hair to his face. “I know what you mean.”

“Do you?” he asks, eyes open now.  He covers her hands with both of his. “I mean, do you really?”

“I think I have some idea.”

“How long, Pam?” He thinks of endless hours spent pining away after her, all the moments he wanted her and she was with someone else. All the times she turned a charged moment between them into some kind of misunderstanding. “How long have you had feelings for me, really?”

She looks up at him and he’s never been this close to her, looking into her eyes this way. He might just fall all the way into them. 

She brings their hands down from his face and holds them against her heart. “For a long time, Jim. Long before I admitted it to myself. It wasn’t obliviousness. I knew there was something between us, I’ve always felt it. So that night…” she trails off, looking down. “I just… I lied.”

He’d believed her when she told him he’d misinterpreted things. What choice did he have? After everything, she still picked Roy. He’d convinced himself he’d been entirely alone in his feelings. The amount of time he’d spent agonizing over every moment they’d shared, seeing it all through the lens she herself had given him, and now to find out she’d just... lied?

“Why?” he asks, shaking his head. 

“It should have been so easy,” she says, shaking her head. “But things like that don’t happen to me. I didn’t know how to react. And all I could think about was the ripple effect choosing you that night would have caused in my life.”

He must look lost in thought, because she continues. “If it makes you feel any better, I regretted it about a millisecond after I told you no.”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t.”

They both just look at each other for a moment, and he hears Stevie Nicks singing behind him: But she'll leave you crying in the night.

Ironic, he thinks. The pain he’d gone through that night is still palpable.

He thinks about that night, really thinks about it. How hopeful he’d been despite all of the obvious hurdles, how her rejection had hit him like a tidal wave, washing him out to sea. How he had cried, so much he’d felt like drowning. 

How he hadn’t ever fully gotten over his heartbreak, even as of this morning.

Pam seems to read his mind. “Jim... I’m really sorry I hurt you,” she practically whispers. “You have no idea how sorry.”

There’s nothing either of them can do now about what had gone down that night, and he knows that. They can’t change it, or make it so Karen wouldn’t be hurt, so Roy wouldn’t be hurt. So both of them wouldn’t have been miserable. They can’t get back all the months they wasted not telling each other the truth.

He then thinks of his own poor timing; that there had been three people involved in his overtures that night, not two. That he knew Pam better than he knew anyone, and that he should have known she would put Roy’s needs above her own, regardless of her true feelings. What happened afterwards was just as much Jim’s fault as it was hers.

He can’t change the past. So instead, he smiles. She’s here with him now, and she loves him, and there are no more obstacles. There is no more waiting. They have a future in sight, together. He doesn’t remember ever being this content in his life.

“Let’s not give it another thought,” he decides. He lifts her hands to his lips and kisses them, his eyes never leaving hers. She nods, and the past is in the past.

He leads them over to the couch, kicks off his shoes and collapses onto it, throwing his feet up onto the coffee table. She nestles into him, relaxing into his arms. 

“Can I just say, it’s nice being here with you. Alone,” he says pointedly.

She grins into his shoulder. “I’m shocked. They knew we were going out, why didn’t they follow us?”

“Uh,” Jim mutters, a bit guiltily. “I actually have a little confession to make.”

Pam eyes him. “What?”

“I might have told Dwight that the crew was planning a coup,” he explains. “I saw him locking them in the office park before I left this afternoon.”

She grins, impressed. “And you didn’t want this momentous occasion caught on film?”

He swipes a tendril of hair away from her face. “Pam, this is about you and me, only. It’s no one else’s business.”

She nods. “Do you think… should we keep this quiet, then? Just for now?” 

He pictures Michael, his jubilant face, probably finding a way of somehow taking credit for their relationship. Angela, rolling her eyes and calling Pam a tramp behind her back, or maybe even to her face. Dwight, using this information against him in some diabolical way. And Karen, who for all intents and purposes, might show up at the office tomorrow. The body of their dead relationship isn’t even cold.

“Yeah, maybe, at first,” he says. “That’s probably a good idea.”

She snuggles into him. “And it’ll be kind of fun, too.”

Fun. God, he’s missed fun. Especially with Pam.

“Yeah.”

He sighs. She sighs. They simply sit together in the quiet comfort of two friends having laid everything on the table. His air conditioner kicks on, breaking the silence.

“I’m actually getting hungry now,” she says. “I’m sorry I ruined dinner.”

“You didn’t ruin anything. Given the option I’d much rather be making out with you, anyway.”

She laughs. “Do you want to… go back out, somewhere?”

“Sure, or we can just stay here. I can order in.” He turns to look her in the eyes, his next words layered with meaning. “Anything you want.”

She thinks for a moment, then gets an idea. “How about you make us a couple grilled cheese sandwiches?”

He does. They eat them on his couch and she stays all night: talking, laughing, kissing. She falls asleep on his shoulder and he doesn’t wake her this time.

It takes him exactly one week to buy the ring. He knows which one to get her, has daydreamed a hundred times about slipping it onto her finger after she tells him yes. He considers giving it to her right away but changes his mind, and instead quietly tucks it away into the drawer of his bedside table for another day, a perfect day, the perfect moment. Whenever that may arrive.

That very night, when she unlocks his apartment door (with the key it took him only two days to have made for her) she takes off her coat and leads him into his bedroom. His heart pounds in his chest with both eager anticipation and nervousness, knowing their time has come. They've waited long enough.

They share very few words, the weight of it surrounding them both like a warm blanket; this thing they’ve been destined to consummate feeling right and real and honest. 

“Are you okay?” he asks afterwards, moving a sweaty lock of hair away from her eyes.

She nods, eyes closed. She looks happy. “I’m perfect.”

“Known that for a while,” he says softly. He leans down to kiss her forehead. He’s the luckiest guy alive.

He falls back onto his pillow and Pam nestles into the crook of his shoulder. He feels the ring’s presence in the drawer a foot away from his head. He could give it to her right now, he thinks. He could make her his forever. He’s tired of waiting. He’s tired of dreaming.

“Hey Jim?” she suddenly asks. 

“Mm?”

“Remember that day at work when Jan came in and took all of the women into the conference room? And Michael took you guys down to the warehouse?”

“I do remember,” he says. He remembers that it sucked. He remembers missing her the entire time.

“Jan asked me about my hopes and dreams,” she said. “I had to think about it. My dream wasn’t Roy. Even then.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “What was your answer, then?”

“Well, when I was twelve…” she stops. “It’s stupid, never mind.”

“It isn’t,” he assures her, and wonders how often those words had fallen out of Roy’s mouth whenever Pam had something to say. He will be different. 

She sighs. “I used to read this book, I don’t remember what it was. But there was a girl in the book who had a house with a little terrace outside her bedroom window. She had flowers on it, and when she woke up every morning she could see them. I don’t know, I just always associated happiness with the way she must have felt. It felt like that could be my dream… something simple that made me happy.”

She sighs against his chest, traces a finger along it. He drags his own along her shoulder.

“I don’t have a terrace,” he says. “I don’t even have a house. But I’ll get you one someday, if it makes you happy.”

She laughs. “That’s not what I’m saying. I just wanted to tell you my real answer to her question.”

“Yeah?” He knows what it is, at least he’s pretty sure. But he wants to hear her say it.

“It’s not the terrace, or the house, or the flowers that could make me happy,” she says. “It’s this. It’s… us. It has been, always.”

He closes his eyes and feels the same: real happiness. It crashes into him like a wave, and he is washed out to sea again, but this time he’s with her. 

Always with her.

He doesn’t need to pull out the ring for today to have been a good day, a perfect day. And he’s not in a hurry. He will know when the time is right.

Jim looks at the ceiling, searching like a reflex for the obligatory lens pointed at him to make a face, share his triumph. But there’s nothing; no one else here but her. 

He smiles, just fine with that, and holds her closer.

They’re kissing on his couch again. It’s what they do now, how they spend most of their time together outside of work. Sometimes it leads to more, and sometimes it doesn’t. But on the nights when it doesn’t, Pam has no complaints; kissing Jim has become her new religion.

Her favorite part is how she can feel him smiling when they kiss, as if the act itself is physical evidence of how happy she makes him. And it’s contagious. Sometimes it feels like they’re doing more smiling than kissing these days.

“Mmm,” he hums softly against her lips. “You’re a great kisser, you know?”

She opens her eyes, the corners of her mouth predictably turning up. “Really?” No one’s ever complimented her kissing prowess before. She has a feeling there’s never really been a reason to, but something about being with Jim has skyrocketed her confidence.

“I mean, I’m admittedly biased, being in love with you and all,” he grins. “But you are.” 

“You’re not too bad yourself,” she replies. She considers diving right back in and never coming up for air, but his comment has given rise to an opportunity. “How many girls have you kissed?” 

“Wow, Beesly, you’re really going for it tonight, aren’t you?”

“I want to know!” She pushes him playfully on the shoulder. He leans back into the couch, his expression contemplative.

“I’m not sure I can answer that accurately,” he admits. “I mean… could you?”

“Yes. I’ve kissed zero girls.”

Jim laughs, but she can count them, actually. There were a couple of boys in high school she’d kissed: her date to the junior prom, and Matthew somethingorother from one of her history classes. But after Roy, there was no one else. No one but Jim.

“It’s a pretty embarrassing number,” she says. “I can promise you that.”

He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. Clearly you’re a natural.”

He leans in again, starts kissing her neck. She’s learned by now this is Jim’s “move” that means he wants to go further, but right now she wants to know more.

“When was it you first wanted to kiss me, Jim?”  

He doesn’t stop. “Um… the day I met you?” he mumbles behind her ear. His hand weaves into her hair at her temple, letting his fingers run through it a bit. She’s been wearing her hair down more lately and isn’t sure why, but suspects Jim’s fingers are a primary factor. 

“Okay, fine, but when’s the first time you really wanted to go for it?”

“The booze cruise,” he responds immediately, pulling back and catching her gaze, “when we were alone outside. There were a million times I wanted to do it but that was the first time I seriously considered it.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’ve thought long and hard about this.”

“That’s what she said.”

He raises an eyebrow appreciatively. “Well played, Beesly. But it’s true. That was my moment, and I blew it.”

She’s thought about that night a lot about it herself. She remembers wanting him to say something in that moment, to do something, to change her life. She hadn’t been entirely certain of her own feelings at the time, but they’d lived in those silent twenty seven seconds together in hope. The ball had been in his court. Then Roy set the date and the moment passed. Subsequently, she convinced herself she’d imagined the entire thing. 

“I think I wanted you to,” she admits. “Maybe. Subconsciously.”

“You think?”

“Okay, I definitely wanted you to.”

He scoffs dramatically, looking at the ceiling. “Unbelievable.”

“Why didn’t you?” 

“You were engaged,” he shrugs. “I didn’t want to be that guy.”

“The guy who breaks up a wedding?” 

“Yeah.”

“You were that guy, I hate to remind you,” she smirks.

She watches his chest rise, then fall. “Well, that was different. I thought I’d never see you again. And what would have happened if I hadn’t said anything to you at all?”

“I’d be married to Roy.”

“Or engaged,” he says with a wink.

“Shut up,” she laughs, grabbing the nearest pillow and hitting him with it.

“What was it about him?” Jim suddenly asks, not unkindly. 

Pam sighs. “Well, you didn’t see everything, you know,” she says, a bit defensively. 

“I know. I don’t mean that the way it sounds.” 

She can tell he means it exactly the way it sounds, but appreciates his discretion. Roy wasn’t a bad guy, really… she can simply see now she’d gotten too comfortable with him. She should have realized they’d outgrown each other long before she finally did. 

“I guess... I just thought he was the one,” she replies. “We’d been together for so long even before I met you, the idea of leaving him for someone else just felt wrong. Even in the moments he felt wrong.”

“But... you did have that idea?” Jim prods. “About leaving him?”

Even now, every time she admits to Jim she’d had more-than-friendly feelings about him well before the night she’d rejected him, she feels even worse about what she’d said to him. He never misinterpreted their relationship because even then she felt the same way he did and she knew it. He’d simply called out the true nature of their friendship and that truth scared her.

She heads straight to Jim’s desk and picks up the phone, her mind reeling, her heart racing. It’s late, and it only takes a ring and a half for her mother to pick up.

“Mom? It’s me…. something just happened and I need to talk to you.”

“What is it, honey? Are you okay?” 

She’s quiet, not for dramatic effect, but because she honestly doesn’t know how to start. 

“Pam?”

She sighs. “You know Jim, the... guy from my office?”

“Of course, you talk about him all the time.”

Does she? All the time? Her mouth is dry. What will her mom say about this? “Well, he just… I don’t even know how to say this.”

“Tell me, sweetheart.”

“He just told me… that he’s in love with me.”

Silence. 

“Mom? Help.”

“Now I don’t know what to say,” her mother replies.

“What do I do? I don’t know what to do.”

There’s a sigh on the other line. “Where are you? When did this happen?”

“About ten minutes ago.”

Her mom is quiet for a moment, then surprises her. “And did you tell him how you feel?”

Pam usually tells her mom everything. She’s realizing now that she’s probably made no secret of the fact she’s been falling for Jim, however subtly she may have been dropping those hints. However she’d been denying it to herself. However engaged to Roy she might be. 

“No, I didn't know what to say.”

“You’re getting married in three weeks, Pam.”

“Yes, I know.” She just wants her mom to tell her everything is going to be okay, that of course she shouldn’t tell Jim she loves him back. That doing so would turn her entire world upside down. That she loves Roy, she should marry Roy. But her mother does the opposite.

“Well, you have to make a decision, honey. Do you love Jim?”

“Um, I don't know, mom, he's my best friend.” She says it like a mantra, like a scripted reply. My best friend. My best friend. As if that’s a way out, some excuse as to why she shouldn’t want him the way she does.

“The way you talk about him, though, honey… I’ve only met him a couple times but he seems like such a nice guy.”

“Yeah, he's great.”

“Well, then? Are you in love with him?”

She’s grateful for her mom’s openness, that she hasn’t freaked out over losing wedding deposits or upsetting guests and family members and all of the other things Pam can’t help but worry about. Her mother has always been a voice of reason, getting to the heart of the issue. She always wants what’s right for her daughter. Her mother truly does know what’s best. 

Pam doesn’t even have to hesitate. She may have lied to Jim but she won’t lie to her mother. “Yeah, I think I am.”

“Well, sweetheart, I think you have your-”

Just then Jim is here again, moving through her peripheral vision like a ghost. She was certain he’d left already, yet here he is.

“I have to go,” she says into the receiver, abruptly changing her attitude. Her mother barely has time to instruct her to call her back when she says “I will” and slams Jim’s phone down. She wonders why she’d gone to his desk without a second thought.

“Listen, Jim-”

Her plan is to tell him she needs time to think, to process her own feelings. That she obviously cares about him more than she’s letting on but this is all happening too quickly. But before she can, his lips are pressed against hers, and that line of friendship has been irrevocably crossed. 

She’s wanted this for so, so long, that she allows it; lets him kiss her, hold her, pull her close. She tries to ignore her guilt for these precious seconds and simply enjoy what it feels like to kiss her favorite person in the world. Her best friend. It feels unavoidably right while her brain is screaming that it’s wrong. She wants to pull away; she never wants it to end.

She doesn't know how many seconds pass but she knows it's been too many. She pulls away from him, gently, and Jim looks at her with such an earnest, loving expression she wants to live there. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he says quietly.

Her rational mind knows it’s the wrong thing to do but her heart wants nothing more than to tell him the truth: that she’s wanted to kiss him too. She never “misinterpreted” their friendship. If anything, she’d rebuffed him earlier out of guilt for letting things get this far. Everything had gotten too messy, so messy that he’d gone and confessed his love for her. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. She’s supposed to marry Roy, and this entire thing with Jim was just for fun… just how she got through the day.

How she got through every single day.

“Me too,” she replies. 

Where the hell did that come from? 

This can’t be happening. She’s marrying Roy. What would he think? What would he do? Her brain misfires. 

Shut it down.

“I think we’re just drunk,” she tries. Make it light, Pam. Turn a heated moment into something innocent, like she has so many times in the past.

But this time, his face falls. “I’m not drunk. Are you drunk?”

And the truth comes out once again: "No.”

Jim takes this as a green light, which she knows he should, but she cannot take any more truth tonight. She has responsibilities: to herself, and to Roy. She cannot make her body move, however, and as his lips touch hers again, she stops him.

Shut it down.

“Jim.”

It’s not what he wants to hear. She knows what he wants to hear but she cannot give him what he wants. She's can't even form any more words. So he does it for her.

“Are you really gonna marry him?”

Her head is swimming and she flounders, she cannot find the surface. She feels her neck move, nodding, as if some unseen force is making it happen. What that force is is something she will toil over for months to come. Is it duty? Guilt? Hell if she knows. All she knows is he is squeezing her hands softly, backing away, and letting go. He is walking away from her and now she feels completely empty. 

The moment he’s out of sight her legs give way and she sinks down into Jim’s chair, sobbing uncontrollably. She wants to chase after him but she’s such a fucking coward she knows it won’t happen.

She doesn’t call her mom back. 

What has she done?

Her mind is a torrent of contradictory thoughts, ticking down the list of vendors she’s hired, the irretrievable deposits on photographers, caterers, bartenders. Roy’s parents, of whom she’d always been fond. And Roy… someone who, despite everything that’s happened with Jim, is someone she cares about. The idea of being that person who jilts their betrothed at the altar (practically) is appalling to her, it isn’t the person she ever thought she’d be.

But thoughts of Jim push their way to the forefront: Jim, who apparently scheduled a trip halfway around the world just so that he wouldn’t have to watch her take vows with someone else. Who must have been experiencing such torment that he’d complained to Toby about her wedding planning. Everything clicks into place now, and it’s not that she’s stupid or oblivious, she’s just not accustomed to being fought for. Maybe she’s simply refused to believe anyone ever would.

“I’m in love with you,” he’d said. “I’m sorry if that’s weird for you to hear, but I need you to… hear it.”

It should have been weird to hear but really, she almost expected to hear it: in the deepest darkest part of her heart, the part that has always known he loves her. It’s the same part that knows she loves him too.

“I can’t,” she’d told him.

I can’t.

That part is true: it’s not that she doesn’t love him, it’s that she can’t love him.

What she really wants to do is to run after him, throw her arms around him and finish the kiss. Take their friendship to the next level, see where it can go.

She wants to. But she can’t. 

I can’t.

I can’t.

Pam Beesly’s entire life has centered around this very notion: I can’t.

After her confusion and frustration come the tears, and through her tears she remembers she’d had every intention of asking Jim to take her home before he’d confronted her in the parking lot. She’s stranded, in more ways than one. 

After calling a cab and sobbing in the backseat the entire ride home, she wipes her eyes and walks into the apartment she shares with Roy, closing the door behind her. It’s dark in their bedroom, and she sees the half lit familiar form of his body under the covers. She doesn’t know what else to do, so she undresses and gets into bed next to the man she’s planning to marry. There’s a tightness in her chest that constricts, and it only gets worse. She has trouble breathing, she has trouble sleeping.

She cries softly to herself night after night and Roy never notices. 

A few nights before the wedding, she wakes up with a start. It’s the kiss again, The Kiss, the one she’s been reliving in her mind, in her soul. Her heart will not let go of that night she’d sent him away and very possibly made the biggest mistake of her life. 

She rarely goes to Roy for comfort, but she needs something from him tonight: to know she's making the right choice, to not feel this aching doubt. It’s never been more important.

The taste of Jim’s kiss still lingers from her dream, but she leans over to kiss her fiancé softly. He stirs, mumbles a bit.

“Hey, baby.” He slaps her backside playfully. “Someone’s frisky.”

She isn’t, not at all. She just needs to feel in Roy’s kiss what she’d felt in Jim’s. She needs to feel it right now. 

Roy opens his mouth and pulls her in, hard. He always kisses aggressively, always rushes to the finish line. For the first time, she realizes she hates it.

She brings a hand to his face, tries to emulate what had come so naturally with Jim. But it doesn't feel right anymore. Roy doesn’t touch her tenderly, or cradle her in his large hands like she’s the most precious thing in the world to him. And she doesn't kiss Roy the way she’d kissed Jim: with a sweeping passion that made her knees weak and her heart flutter. 

Passion is what she feels for Jim. She’s never done this with Roy because she feels no passion for Roy. 

And now she knows for certain she cannot marry him. 

She sits up a bit, pulls back. “Roy, I…”

In the dim moonlight she can see the annoyance on his face. “What’s wrong?” he asks, and for the first time she can see it, really see it: this kiss was for him, not for them. And maybe that’s been the problem all along.

“What is it, baby?” he asks again.

She summons up the courage she should have had years ago, and tells him the truth.

“...I can’t.”

Jim notices her hesitation in answering his question. The answer is simple: yes, she’d thought about leaving Roy, many times. But she isn’t sure how to tell Jim that. 

“I’m sorry, Pam, you don’t have to answer. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” 

“No, it’s not that,” she says. She wants to start fresh with him, to not have to hide anything. But it’s hard to do that when she can’t stop thinking about how his face looked when she’d lied to him. “I know you said not to give it another thought, but… I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“About what?”

“About that night, when you kissed me. And what I said to you in the parking lot. Because I did think about you, Jim. I did want to be more than friends. And after so many years, you said the one thing I always wanted you to say, and I just… I panicked.”

Jim puts his arm around her. She lays her head against his shoulder. “When I said let’s not give it a second thought, I meant the whole heartbreak part,” he explains, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

“I broke my own heart too, you know.”

He chuckles, just a tiny bit, then turns his head to look down at her. “Well, I know how you can make it up to both of us,” he says.

“How?” 

“Tell me about those times,” he says instead. “That you thought of me as more than a friend. Any of them. All of them. Whenever they come to you.”

“Really?”

He nods. “I think knowing will make everything better, not worse. Trust me.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

She sighs against his chest. “But... we wasted so much time, Jim.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t regret a single second I spent with you, Pam. And knowing you felt the same way I did helps. A lot.”

She snuggles into him closer. “Well, okay. Let me think.” There are so many to choose from. After a moment, she decides. “That day I told Roy I wanted to pursue my art, and he told me not to, and you told me to do it.”

She feels him sigh, his warm breath against her crown. “I remember that.”

“I felt so trapped, Jim. I knew what the right thing to do was but I couldn’t do it. Deep down I knew you just really cared about me, and Roy really didn’t, and I didn’t know what to do with that.”

“Well, you sort of yelled at me.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry,” she says. “I only yelled at you because I knew you were right, though. About me, and about Roy.”

Jim’s gentle breathing against her head is so soothing, she wonders how she ever got by without it. He’s quiet for a moment, then responds.

“Look, it wasn’t my place to get involved. But it was hard not to. You two just… never really made sense to me, that’s all.”

He’s right, but she doesn’t want to talk about Roy anymore. She takes Jim’s hand, holds it up. Presses her own small palm against his large one and interlocks their fingers. 

“You and me, though,” she says, lifting her head up to look at him. “This makes sense.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up in that Jim way. He leans in, and their lips touch again. It makes sense.

Jim wakes up with Pam in his bed, something that only began a few weeks ago but has become so normal he can barely remember what it was like beforehand. She’s sitting on the edge this morning, her back to him, leaning over and slipping on her shoes. 

For a moment he just watches her, reminded of a thousand times he’d caught himself staring when she belonged to someone else. He never wanted to be the guy who stared, especially at the woman he was in love with. But he couldn’t help himself; she was so perfect to him, she always had been. He’d often found himself torn between thinking Roy didn't deserve her and that he was the luckiest man alive. 

Now, however, Pam is his. He can look all he wants.

His fingers find her hip, touching it softly. She turns a bit and catches his eye. 

“Hi,” she greets him with a smile, pulling her sleep-tousled hair into a messy bun.

“Hey,” he mumbles.

“I should probably get out of here before they show up,” she explains.

He yawns and looks at his bedside clock: 6:41. The documentary crew has started filming again, and although they rarely show up at his house, if they do it’s usually around seven thirty. He and Pam have been keeping their relationship under wraps, and it’s not worth the risk of them finding her here, at least not yet.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I really don’t want to,” she assures him. “I just… need time to shower and get ready anyway.”

“No problem,” he says, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “Have they… asked you about us yet?”

“Not really.”

“Are we thinking that’s weird at all?” he asks. “I mean, they saw me ask you out. They caught it on tape.”

“I’m trying not to think about it too much,” she says. “I think when they find out, they find out.”

He nods a silent agreement. Sneaking around has been pretty fun, but he can’t deny his desire to date her openly. “Maybe tonight we can stay at your place? Then we can have a little extra time.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You’re not getting sick of me yet?”

He can feel the stupid grin stretch across his face as he shakes his head. If she only knew. 

“Never gonna happen, Beesly.”

She returns his smile as she leans over to kiss him. It’s just a peck, but she stops short, her eyes closing.

“What is it?” he asks.

She shakes her head, opening her eyes. “Nothing. Everything is perfect.” They gaze at one another for a moment, then Pam breaks the spell to glance at his bedside clock. 

“I’d better go. Michael texted me about bringing in exactly forty two doughnuts this morning.”

“Forty two?” he asks, puzzled. 

She nods. “I couldn’t figure it out either.”

He tries to summon up a reason for their boss’s strange request but, as usual, he comes up empty handed.

“What do you think he’ll say?” she asks suddenly. “I mean… when he finds out?”

Jim thinks, for the first time playing out that particular scenario in his mind. “I think... he’d be happy for us, actually,” he admits. 

“While simultaneously taking credit somehow?”

“Obviously.”

She grins. He rubs his eyes. “Let me make you some coffee before you go,” he says, rolling out of bed. 

“You don’t have to,” she says. “It’s so early, go back to sleep.”

“I want to.”

He sits up, leaning over to kiss her shoulder as he does. He doesn’t like that she has to leave every morning, would much rather her stay. Would love to drive to work together and let everyone know they’re a couple. But for now, this is the way it has to be. Making her a cup of coffee is the least he can do.

While it brews, he watches her wanders into his kitchen, taking note of her surroundings. They’ve been so wrapped up in each other, it occurs to him she hasn’t had the time to really notice much about his place. She picks up a familiar looking plastic trophy from on top of his microwave.

“‘Mr. Nice Guy,’” she smiles, remembering Jim’s last Dundie award. “Personally, I thought you deserved ‘Hottest in the Office.’”

“So close,” he smirks. “Honestly, I’ve pretty much blocked everything about that night. Well, except when you kissed me.”

She blushes, which he finds adorable considering the fact that he’d been inside her last night. Twice. 

“Despite what you may believe, I do remember that,” she grins, setting the award back down. 

He’s surprised. She’d been so drunk he thought for sure she would deny the event, even now. He’d actually convinced himself she’d excused her behavior based on her inebriated state; that it was the same reason her immediate reaction to their kiss on casino night was to blame alcohol.

“You do?”

“I mean, it wasn’t a planned attack or anything,” she laughs. “But I did want to do it.”

“Maybe it was that ‘second drink’ talking.”

She narrows her eyes. “Probably.”

He shakes his head. “Okay, Beesly. Spill it. Why?”

She shrugs. “Well, I did like you. A lot. And I was so grateful... I had a feeling you’d somehow convinced Michael not to embarrass me three years in a row.”

“And Roy wasn’t there, which helped, I’m sure.”

“Did it?” she grins. “I’m sure the engagement would have been off much sooner if he had been.”

“Good point.”

“Anyway… did you?” she asks, now serious. “Tell Michael not to do it?”

The coffee maker beeps, and he pours hers into a to-go Dunder Mifflin tumbler he got from the Christmas party a couple years ago. Cream and sugar, the way he knows she likes it from watching her all these years. He walks over and hands it to her, looking into her curious eyes. 

She’s crying in the parking lot. He might not have even noticed her if he hadn’t gone to get his jacket out of his car, but there she is, sitting on the curb in her enormous lavender peacoat, drowning in it, drowning in something. It’s not his place, but deep down he knows she’s only out here by herself because she doesn’t have anyone else to talk to. So he sits down next to her. She sniffles, tries to hide how upset she is.

“You know he doesn’t mean it, right?” Jim offers. “He’s not trying to hurt your feelings.”

Pam shakes her head. “Sometimes I feel like it’s all just a big joke to him.”

“Well, it is. He’s Michael Scott. Everything in his entire life is a joke.”

Pam looks up at him. “That’s not who I- yeah, you’re right,” she corrects. “Thanks.”

He realizes she’d actually been referring to her fiancé’s callous “see you next year” remark as Pam accepted her second World’s Longest Engagement award. He curses his bad luck that she’d actually made an effort to open up to him about her dissatisfaction with Roy and it had gone completely over his head. But she looks back at the ground again, spins her engagement ring around her finger. It doesn’t feel right to steer the conversation back around now. 

“Besides,” Jim tries, “there’s no way this will happen again. Right?” If he finds himself in a position to watch Pam accept the ‘World’s Longest Engagement’ Dundie for the third year running, not only will he want to kill Roy, he’ll want to kill himself.

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s just… it’s been crazy the past couple of years, with Roy’s family and… stuff. Family drama. I guess.” She doesn’t sound certain at all. “Planning a wedding hasn’t exactly been high on his priority list.”

Jim glances around the parking lot. “Where is he, by the way?”

She looks up, eyes cast towards the neon red chili pepper sign. “Inside. At the bar.”

“What did he have to say about everything?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. He thinks it’s funny, I guess.”

“Would he think it’s funny if he knew you were out here crying like this?” 

He’s treading on dangerous ground and he knows it, but Pam has never been one to advocate for herself. He hasn't quite been able to figure out if that’s a Pam thing or a Pam and Roy thing. He’s never had the opportunity to test that hypothesis.

“I think he’d feel guilty,” she says. “But not because of me, because… of the way it probably looks. You know, from the outside.”

For someone so intent on blinding herself to the obvious, she’s certainly nailed that one. If it did offend him, Roy would certainly take Michael’s joke as a slight to his pride over anything it might be doing to Pam.

Jim sighs. He wants to shake her out of this place where she thinks she deserves anything less than absolutely everything. She’ll never get that from Roy, and he knows that. Even as someone on “the outside.” 

So why can’t she see it?

“And how do you think it looks?” he asks cautiously. It’s the most they’ve ever discussed her relationship, and he wants to be there for her but is worried the deeper he digs and the more she reveals, the more she’ll think of him as simply her friend.

She eyes him, a bit challenging. Almost as if she’s reading his mind. “How does it look?”

He wants to tell her she deserves better. He wants to tell her she should give him a chance to give that to her. But seeing the tears in her eyes makes him remember this isn’t about him, it’s about her, and she doesn’t want that from him right now. She’s not looking for a way out. She’s looking for a friend. Her best friend.

“It doesn’t really matter how it looks, does it? What matters is how you feel about it.”

What matters is whether or not Roy gives a shit how she feels about it, actually, but he doesn’t say that part.

They look at each other for a few seconds. He can hear the sounds of traffic flying by behind them on the highway, and a long strand of her hair blows across her face. He has to shake himself out of thinking how beautiful she looks even when she’s sad. She doesn’t let the moment linger, however, wiping her eyes and sitting up. “Well, I feel a little better about it now,” she says, to his surprise. “Thanks.”

She stands, turns around to discreetly wipe the dust from the back of her skirt, and he stands too. “You’re okay?”

“Yeah, I think I am,” she says, nodding. “It’s just a stupid office award, that’s all.” It’s very much not “all,” and he suspects she knows that. He suspects it’s the reason she’s smiling at him awkwardly, trying to end the conversation. “Want to head back inside?”

“Sure, I just have to get my jacket,” he gestures towards his car. It hits him then that of all the cars in the parking lot, his is the one she’d sat down next to.

Pam sips the coffee he made her, eyeing him closely. “Well? Did you tell Michael not to do it?”

“I just... didn’t want to see you hurting, Pam,” he admits. The Whitest Sneakers award had even been his idea, but once Michael had successfully convinced himself it had been his own brilliant concept, Jim was happy to relinquish it. And instead of crying that year, Pam ended up kissing him. He’d felt as if the universe had rewarded him somehow.

He remembers her at the end of the night before he carefully saw her into Angela’s passenger seat, wanting to ask him a question that had remained unasked, then turned into a simple “thanks.” 

She sips the coffee, regarding him. “I knew it,” she says quietly. “I was going to ask you about it that night, but I already knew.”

“What can I say?” he shrugs. “You always saw right through me.”

Then she leans in, placing a hand against his pilled gray T-shirt, and kisses him in that way that’s become comfortably familiar yet still brand new all at once.

“You really are the nicest guy, Jim,” she whispers. She flashes her thousand watt smile and heads for the door.

“I hear they always finish last,” he calls after her, unable to help himself.

She smiles, turning at the door. “Maybe so. But at least you finished right.”

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.”

She watches Jim look up from his desk and smile at her. It’s something he does every single time she answers the phone now and she wonders how on earth he’s getting any work done whatsoever. She smiles back, because now that the documentary crew is very much aware of their foray into a romantic relationship, they only have to hide it from their fellow office members. Particularly Michael. And most of them are so oblivious it hasn’t been terribly difficult.

Pam looks at the clock. It’s only 10:13, and she needs another cup of coffee. Having Jim nearby helps, but getting through the day isn’t as easy anymore because the part she’s looking forward to is no longer the workday itself, it’s what happens afterwards.

Just as she’s wondering when and how they can fix that, a familiar IM pops up.

JIM9334> You look really pretty today.

She glances over again at him. He appears to be hard at work, but she somehow doubts that’s the case. 

Receptionitis15> Thanks. Is this your idea of sexting?

JIM9334> No. This is me controlling myself.

They’d agreed to keep everything physical out of the office. Everything. No kissing, no hugging, no touching. Jim had insisted it was to keep their relationship secret, but over the past few weeks she’s become increasingly convinced it’s more of a game to him than anything else. A fun game that usually ends in the two of them being all over each other at the end of the day.

It’s been long enough, and today she decides to up the ante. 

Receptionitis15> I’m bored. Want to play a game?

JIM9334> I’m listening.

Receptionitis15> It’s called “Don’t Get Caught Being a Couple.”

Jim looks up from his computer briefly at her, his expression an adorable mixture of confusion and intrigue. He turns back to his keyboard.

JIM9334> I thought we were already playing that game…?

Receptionitis15> True, but I was thinking more of a little wager.

JIM9334> You have my attention, Beesly. 

Receptionitis15> One point for any kind of PDA, doesn’t matter what it is. Extra point for each person within witnessing distance.

 JIM9334> What do I win when I inevitably score more points than you?

Receptionitis15> My love and affection.

 JIM9334> Try again.

Receptionitis15> Winner buys lunch?

 JIM9334> Okay, you’re on.

Receptionitis15> I’m going on break. See you later.

She closes her IM window, sets the office phone to voicemail. As she passes behind him she gives him a Look that, while not winning her any PDA points, definitely makes her intentions clear.

Five minutes later, he wanders into the break room. Angela is at the front table reading a magazine and doesn’t seem to notice him enter. He plucks a paper cup from the Arrowhead machine and gets some water, making his way over to Pam in the back. 

“Morning,” he says to her casually. “How’s your day going?”

“Good, thanks. Yours?” she asks.

“Pretty good. Filled out some reports, made some sales. The usual.”

Angela scoffs quietly from across the room but doesn’t look up. Pam catches Jim’s eye.

“You want to sit down? I’m just taking my break,” she offers.

“Sure. You don’t mind?”

“Nope.”

He sits next to her. Pam crosses her legs, scoots a teeny bit closer to Jim. 

“Whatcha reading, Angela?” Jim asks, taking a sip from his Dixie cup.

Angela doesn’t look up. “It’s rude to ask people what they’re reading,” she says.

Jim nods at Pam with his standard bemused expression. Angela has never been the most pleasant person to be around, but lately she's been downright awful, and they've both noticed. As he takes another sip from his cup, she ever so slightly stretches her leg out, hooking her toes behind his calf. Angela isn’t watching, so for good measure, she rubs her foot up and down a couple times. Jim cocks his head, impressed. She mouths the word “two” at him.

“Did you watch Friday Night Lights last night?” Jim asks her.

“Oh, of course,” she responds. “I have such a huge crush on Tim Riggins.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” 

“It’s the hair, I think. It’s really… floppy.”

“I didn’t know you liked floppy haired guys,” he says with a smirk.

She shrugs. “Some of them.”

Jim moves his hand behind Pam, between her back and the chair. She can feel his heat near her, so close, moving lower, and when he softly palms the small of her back she slightly exhales. 

“Hey Angela, have you seen that show?” Jim asks. Pam flinches away from his hand as Angela looks up, annoyed.

“I hate football.”

“Oh, well, you know, it’s really not about the-”

“No.” She flips a page, irritated, and looks back down.

Pam eases back into Jim’s hand, realizing this is easier than she thought it might be. Just then, Phyllis walks into the break room and very clearly clocks the position of Jim’s hand.

“Oh,” she says in her tiny voice. Jim quickly retracts. Pam scoots away. Angela turns around.

“Phyllis, did you call corporate about that missing account?” she snaps. 

“I was gonna do it before lunch,” Phyllis replies. 

Angela looks at her watch. “It’s almost 10:30. What time do you usually eat lunch?”

Pam decides to take advantage of the extra points available with the new arrival. She quickly reaches underneath the table to squeeze Jim’s thigh, then slowly drags her hand back, and back, and back...

“Well, I’d better get back to work,” Jim suddenly yelps before she can get any further, standing up so quickly his chair falls over.

“Are you sure?” Pam asks sweetly. “You just sat down.”

“Just, uh… wanted some water,” he says. His cheeks are red and Pam grins triumphantly. “And, uh… I got it.” He holds up the cup and drops it into the trash can. “All right. See you guys later.”

He smiles way too widely and makes eye contact with Pam as Angela and Phyllis watch him, slightly bewildered. No one but Jim sees her hold up five fingers and mouth the word “five.”

Pam waits a few more minutes, chats with Phyllis. Then she gets up and walks back to her desk. There’s an IM waiting for her. 

JIM9334> That was just cruel.

Receptionitis15> It’s 5-2. I came to play.

JIM9334> Alright. You asked for it, Beesly.

She looks up at him and he’s got that look in his eye she’s far more used to seeing in his bedroom lately. She’s a little concerned. Mostly excited. 

An hour passes without anything happening. Jim seems to have gone back to work, and she takes enough calls and sends enough faxes for their little game to have moved to the back of her mind. She wonders if he’s genuinely busy or if he’s just lulling her into a false sense of security.

Around 11:30, she decides to get him a soda, mostly because she just misses him. As she’s pulling it out of the machine he’s suddenly behind her, behaving completely normally. 

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey.”

She hands it to him. “I got you one.”

“Oh wow, thank you,” he says. “I’m just gonna grab some chips, you want some?”

“No, thanks,” she responds. His completely casual manner makes her wonder if he's forgotten all about their game, or if he's only messing with her. It's Jim, so it's probably the latter. She isn’t sure what the status of their bet is, but she hopes it hasn’t interfered with their plans. “Uh… we’re still having lunch today, right?”

“I guess,” he mock-grumbles, and even though she’s beating him, even though he hasn’t given her any indication he’s still playing, she can’t resist stealing another point. She walks up and gives him a quick peck on his cheek. There’s no one in the break room but it’s the most daring either of them have been thus far. 

“How dare you,” he says, pointing at her with a smirk. 

6-2, is what she thinks as she smirks back at him.

They’re standing at the back of the dojo, wrapped up in their own little world. She doesn’t even know what they’re doing and it doesn’t matter. He makes a joke about love lines, she bops his nose with a boxing glove and scores a point for… something. It’s just what they do. 

“One point for me.”

He taps her playfully on her head. “Tied up.”

“Oh, you’re dead.”

“What are you gonna do?” he chuckles. “Bring it, Beesly.”

Suddenly they’re fighting, just play-fighting, and they’re laughing and he’s holding her and she likes it, she likes being held by him. She’s ashamed to admit it to herself but it’s true. It’s just a tiny split second of her day when someone is paying her attention, and the fact that it’s Jim makes her feel comfortable. 

Comfortable for now, but then the eyes of onlookers slap her out of that little world. When it’s no longer just her and Jim, it’s wrong and bad and not the way an engaged woman should be behaving.

“Put me down, hey! Put me down!”

She doesn’t turn around as she walks away from him but she knows him well enough to know exactly how his face looks. Hurt, embarrassed, confused. She’s pissed, but not at Jim for crossing a line; she’s pissed at herself for allowing it. 

Why did she allow it?

She avoids him for the rest of the day and she wants to tell herself it’s his fault but it isn’t. There’s something between them, it’s always been there. Playing around with Jim is playing with fire and it’s her own fault she signs up for the game every time. 

He can’t even look her in the eye when he goes home but he leaves her the chips he’d promised. French onion, even. He remembered because he’s Jim and of course he did. She’d held up her end of the bargain, but it’s more of a peace offering. It’s an uneasy peace, however, and things still feel unresolved. Maybe they always will. 

She sits alone in the break room and eats the chips before she goes home. It feels illicit for some reason. 

It’s her first fight with Jim, and even though it's not much at all, it feels worse than it ever has with Roy.

The clock on the wall is approaching lunch time, and the office has that comforting sound of actual work getting done. Computer keys tapping, phones ringing. Gentle voices selling paper. Pam enjoys it; anytime the office is free of some interruption by Michael it’s remarkably soothing.

Just as she comfortably resigns herself to having won their little bet, Jim appears next to her, bending down over her shoulder, looking at her screen.

“Five of hearts, right there,” he says, pointing. “How’d you miss that one?”

Pam glares at him. “Just a fluke. I’m really, really good at games.”

“Hmm,” he nods. Then, without warning, “Oops, dropped my pen.” He deliberately tosses a ballpoint near her feet. Before she can protest he is down on all fours, moving her chair aside, crawling underneath her desk.

Oh my god.

Dwight looks up at the slight disturbance, then back at his paperwork. Phyllis and Stanley are working quietly, Andy is trimming his nose hairs with a mirror. Creed and Meredith haven’t so much as moved. She then feels the tip of Jim’s finger running up the inside of her leg.

“Jim…” she warns, sotto voce.

Suddenly Kevin and Oscar appear right in front of her desk. “How’s it going, Pam?” Oscar asks.

She panics. Reflexively she slams her legs together, crushing Jim’s head between them. He yelps just loudly enough to be heard.

“Pretty good. You guys need something…?” she asks, her voice high-pitched and weird.

“What was that noise?” Oscar asks, looking Pam directly in the eye. She shrugs.

“Can I have a jelly bean?” Kevin asks. Pam nods, looks back over to Oscar. Jim backs off a bit, but apparently has no intention of relenting. He readjusts his hands to grip her calves, sliding them up higher and higher until his fingers are just at the edge of her skirt.

He wouldn’t dare...

“Wasn’t Jim just over here?” Kevin asks, shoving three jelly beans into his mouth.

“Oh, he’s uh… I think he went outside.”

Jim’s hands have now practically hiked her skirt all the way up past her knees; she has no choice but to pull her chair even closer to him to attempt to obscure it. 

“Oh? I bet he did,” Kevin says, nodding with a broad smile. “I bet he’ll be back.” He turns to wink not-so-subtly at Oscar, and Oscar stares at Pam knowingly. 

She can feel Jim’s breath between her legs and for a moment she’s legitimately concerned he’s going to attempt the unthinkable right here in the office, eighteen inches from Kevin and Oscar. Part of her wants to kick him, but the part of her that’s new, the part of her that’s bold and confident and in love is dying to see what he’ll do next.

Thankfully, he plants a single soft kiss on the inside of her knee, then slowly pulls her skirt back down. It seems even Jim wouldn't be so brazen surrounded by the Dunder Mifflin crew. Still, the idea of what might have happened has entered her mind and her eyelids feel heavy, her breathing a bit erratic. She’s absolutely certain her face is a shade of red neither of her coworkers has ever seen, and while she’s slightly mortified, she’s also extremely impressed with Jim’s play.

Pam gives Oscar a stilted nod and Kevin a tight smile. “Don’t you need to send a fax, Kevin?” Oscar asks pointedly.

“Yes,” he says in a very rehearsed manner. “I need to send this very important fax right now. And I need to do it myself.” 

To Pam’s horror, Kevin begins to walk around her desk. Just when she’s certain the jig is up, by the grace of God (and she would never think so in any other similar circumstance) Michael comes out of his office.

“Everybody listen up!” he yells across the bullpen. Kevin stops in his tracks and turns to look. “Jan’s birthday is coming up and I need everyone’s best ideas for the perfect gift! Go!” Nine faces are turned towards their boss, always somewhat grateful for the distraction regardless of the inevitable disruption his announcements tend to cause.

No one, however, is more grateful than Pam, as she nudges Jim a little harder than she should. He crawls out from beneath her and stands up holding the pen, hair tousled, victory etched across his smug face. Distracted by Michael’s antics, no one notices him lean down and whisper into Pam’s ear.

“Twelve to six. Your move, Beesly.”

***

It’s been a pretty good day.

After Toby’s PDA memo goes around and they are officially outed, a weight is lifted off both their shoulders. Hiding has been fun, but they don’t have to do it anymore, and just knowing that has moved their relationship into a new level.

Pam shuts down her computer at 5:00, prepared to head out of the office and wait for Jim halfway down the street per their usual routine, but as she gets up to leave, he’s standing next to the coat rack, pulling down her aquamarine coat. 

“Ready?” he asks her, holding her coat open. 

Out of pure habit, she glances surreptitiously around the office. No one is looking, but she realizes it doesn’t even matter anymore.

Her lips curve into a smile as she turns around, allowing him to help her into her coat. He takes his time; carefully fixing her collar, making sure her hair isn’t being crushed. Sliding his hands along her shoulders. It’s gentlemanly and boyfriend-y and she’s a complete sap for it. 

Phyllis turns around and gives them a coy smile. “Good night, you two.” Andy looks up as well with a goofy grin and a thumbs up. Dwight is diverted but only long enough to roll his eyes. Michael, obviously having been waiting for their precise moment of departure, pokes his head out.

Grinning from ear to ear, he walks up to them, letting out a huge, contented sigh. “Look at you two. Such a cute couple. Second cutest couple in the office.”

Pam indulges him, because despite his awkwardness, she knows he’s truly happy for them. “Thanks, Michael.” 

“Right after me and Jan.”

“Got that.” 

“You guys leaving?” he asks, wide-eyed. “What are you doing tonight? Want to come over and hang out with us? A couple of couples just hanging out? What do you say?” 

Jim shakes his head slightly. “Sorry, we already have plans.” He turns to her and gallantly holds his hand out. “Pam?”

She looks around, feeling an unusual fondness for all of her coworkers, even Michael. It’s out, it’s done. They’re no longer just Jim, or just Pam. They’re Jim and Pam now. It feels right.

She takes Jim’s hand, squeezes it. They look at each other for what feels like only a moment but it’s long enough to hear a slight sniffle coming from Michael, who is grinning from ear to ear.

“Good night, everybody,” she calls back over her shoulder as they walk out together hand in hand. They don’t let go until they reach the car.

It’s dark out, and the Pennsylvania night air is chilly. They climb up to the roof to escape the hostage situation that’s brewing below, but mostly because it probably would have been their plan anyway. He’s relieved they’ve gone public, but it doesn’t change the fact that he prefers having her all to himself.

Jim drags two lawn chairs from their hiding spot behind the stairwell door, and situates them just so, so that he and Pam can look out across the street. She hands him a plate of pizza and they sit, quietly at first, perhaps both remembering the snap fizzle of Dwight’s impromptu fireworks display the last time they were up here.

She sighs, pulling a blanket across her lap. “I can’t believe these chairs are still up here. Feels like forever ago.”

She doesn’t intend it, surely, but her words are loaded. He doesn’t like to think about all the evenings they could have been up here if they’d both been braver.

“That night was technically our first date,” he points out. “I’m standing by that.”

She narrows her eyes. “I don’t know, Jim, I kind of liked our actual first date. A lot.”

The memory flashes through his mind: hearing her finally confess her love for him, pushing her up against the brick wall of that restaurant, their lips pressed together in sweet relief. Finally sharing the freedom to show each other how they truly felt. Yeah, that was a pretty perfect first date.

“Oh, me too,” he agrees. “But facts are facts, Pam.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Does it really count if I was engaged?” 

“Absolutely it does.”

“Okay then, sell it to me. Because I’m not sure I believe you.”

“Well, I’ve given this some thought,” he muses. “At the time I think I agreed with you, that it didn’t count because you were with someone else. That it was a one-sided date. But lately I’ve changed my mind.”

“And why is that, exactly?”

He gets serious, looks her right in the eye. “Because now I know you had feelings for me, too.” 

He’d convinced himself in some of his lowest moments that the reason she’d gotten defensive when he called their rooftop dinner a date was because he’d overstepped. It hadn’t really occurred to him at the time her reaction might have been a way to mask her own true feelings.

She nods. Fair enough, he can see written across her face. “I guess you’re right about that.” 

“Besides,” he continues, “the only prerequisite for a date is to be alone and attracted to each other.”

She shakes her head. “No, you need a meal. Or at least drinks.”

“Well, we had that.”

Pam chuckles, takes a bite of her pizza. “Wonder bread, a couple slices of cheese, and a microwave,” she grins.

“Hey, I used the toaster too!” he pouts.

“Your grilled cheese is very good, Jim.” 

“Only the best for my girl.”

There’s a familiar glint in her eyes that he knows means she’s only being playful; that it meant the world to her then just as it does now. A year ago, however, that glint was exactly the same, and as happens frequently nowadays, he wonders if it actually was.

“Do you know when you started thinking about me as more than just a friend?” he asks. 

She swallows her bite. “You mean, like… the exact moment I knew I liked you liked you?”

“Yes.”

She sits back a bit. The metal bars of the lawn chair creak. “Do you?”

“Definitely.”

“Well, you tell me yours first.”

He shrugs. “Okay.” He already knows the moment. He’s thought about it frequently.

His interview had gone well. The boss is a bit much, but what boss isn’t? It’s a good, stable job that will get him out of his parents’ house and propel him into independence. And paper shouldn’t be a hard thing to sell. Everyone loves paper. Everyone needs paper.

His mom offers to iron his shirt for him, which he refuses. She makes him scrambled eggs and wishes him luck. “Have a great first day,” she says. 

“First day of the rest of my life?” he asks with a grin, parroting one of her oft-used mantras back at her. 

He has no idea how right he is.

Jim pulls into the parking lot of his new job, takes the elevator to the third floor, and when he rounds the corner he sees her for the first time.

Her.

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.” 

Pam. Pam. She hadn't been here when he came for his interview, and he wonders why. But it doesn't matter. She’s the first person he sees, the first face he will see every day when he comes to work. And she has a nice face. Jim doesn’t have a type, never really has, but there’s something about her he’s drawn to instantly. 

She catches his eye and holds a finger up, ‘wait a second.’ 

“Yes, he’ll be available at eleven thirty. Yes. I’ll have him call you back, thanks.” She picks up a pen and writes down a message, hangs up the phone, and turns her attention back to Jim. For the first time he looks into her eyes. They’re beautiful. “Hi, can I help you?”

“Yeah, um… hi, I’m Jim. I’m new here?” He’s stuttering, practically. What the fuck? Where has his ability to speak gone? “Jim.. Halpert. It’s... my first day?” He can feel his cheeks turning pink. 

“Oh, right!” she says. She gets up and walks around the front of the desk, her eyes on the bullpen. She seems to be looking across the room at someone, something, and as she comes up beside him she leans in closely, just barely touching his forearm. 

"I have to warn you, Jim Halpert,” she says quietly, with the tiniest smile, and he swears at this moment everything else around them goes completely silent. “Enjoy this moment, because you're never going to go back to this time before you met your desk mate Dwight.” 

His lips curve into a smile of his own. “Who is that?”

“He’s…” she shakes her head, and in a perfect deadpan: “Beyond explanation.”

His smile morphs into an even bigger one, stretching from ear to ear, and that feeling comes over him of having found a real, true friend. He instantly trusts her assessment of this person he’s never laid eyes on. “Thanks. I’m slightly terrified, I have to admit.” 

And then she laughs. It’s just a small one, a tiny giggle, but his heart suddenly feels different, like her words and her smile and her laugh are filling up empty space there he didn’t even realize existed. He can’t explain it, but in this moment he decides making Pam the receptionist laugh is the greatest thing he’s ever done and will ever do. He wants to do it again as soon as possible.

She leads him to his desk, and he thanks his lucky stars it’s right next to hers.

“Hey, Dwight?” she says.

The guy at the desk across from his looks up. He’s serious in a rather intense way, and Jim pegs him instantly as a no-nonsense, no-fun kind of guy. 

“This is Jim, the new sales associate,” Pam says. 

“Hello,” Dwight says with a dubious look on his face. “Are you from another paper company?”

Jim eyes Pam, who shrugs. “Um. No?” he says. “Sort of new to the whole… paper industry.”

“But you’re in sales?” Dwight asks, skeptical.

Jim had sort of stretched the truth with Michael Scott in his interview; he hadn’t had a real sales job before, although he’d helped out at his dad’s sporting goods store as a teenager. 

“I’m the top salesman at Scranton,” Dwight continues. “I’m sure you’ll learn a lot from me.”

Jim nods, unsure of how to respond. Pam jumps in. “Jim’s actually being modest, he came from Hammermill. He was their top salesman last year.” 

The ease with which she delivers this lie makes him think it isn’t the first time she’s done so with Dwight. She briefly glances at Jim and winks at him, and, incredibly impressed, he finds himself wondering if she’s single. 

Oh, no.

Dwight, indignant, glares at Jim. “Oh. Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing, then.”

“Welcome to Dunder Mifflin, Jim,” Pam beams. “Oh, I almost forgot!”

She bounces back over to her desk to grab something, and as she does, he takes note of what she’s wearing; a simple gray skirt, a white collared shirt, and a pale pink cardigan. She presents the forgotten item to him: his nameplate. The sight of her holding the name “Jim Halpert” in her hand is an odd comfort. He takes it, and when he does their fingers touch. It’s electric and he wonders if she feels it, too.

“I’m Pam, by the way,” she says, as if he could forget. He nods sort of crazily, but she doesn’t seem to notice his nerves as she turns and heads back to her desk. He sits, but mostly because his legs have gone a bit wobbly due to his rapidly progressing crush on this girl.

The first couple hours of the day go by pretty quickly; he actually makes a sale, Dwight glowering at him from across the desk. Michael screens an orientation video entitled “The Scranton Witch Project” which is - as many things today are - beyond explanation. But he spends most of his time stealing glances at the cute receptionist. He can’t help it, he’s absolutely smitten. 

At noon, she stands up and walks around her desk, brushing past him with a smile. She smells amazing. He watches her disappear into the break room, and as he’s been waiting all morning for another opportunity to talk to her, he figures there’s no time like the present. So he waits a reasonable few minutes, then stands up and follows her. 

She’s sitting at the back table with an older woman with short, curly brown hair. He recognizes her from the next desk over, but they’d only exchanged brief hellos this morning. The other woman smiles politely at Jim. She seems to have a sweet, motherly vibe. 

“Hi, Jim,” Pam says. He feels a slight thrill that she remembered his name. “This is Phyllis. Phyllis, Jim. She’s a salesperson too.”

He waves. “Hi.”

He sits at the next table over from them with his ham and cheese sandwich, giving them space.

“So, Jim, what’s your story? Are you single?” Phyllis asks coyly. 

Jim, somewhat shocked at the forwardness of the question, cocks his head a bit. “Wow, you jump right in there, don’t you, Phyllis?” 

He thinks Pam is blushing, just a tiny bit, but her smile is brighter than the fluorescents above them and he hopes more than wonders if she’d possibly put Phyllis up to it.

“Uh… yes, actually, I am,” he answers. “Why, are you looking?” 

Phyllis grins at him, playing along. “You’re a little young for me. Although I’ve definitely had some cougar days in my time.” Jim’s eyebrows fly practically to the ceiling. So much for the motherly vibe. 

Phyllis looks down at her salad and he catches Pam’s eye, exchanging surprised looks like they’ve known each other for years. It’s so natural and comfortable; he’s dying to ask her the same question but he chickens out. 

They all chat for a few minutes about Dunder Mifflin, tell a couple of stories about their boss Michael. Pam’s story is so ridiculous he wonders if she’s making it up. Then with very little warning, Phyllis scoops up her trash, deposits it into the garbage bin, and heads back to her desk. Jim almost swears she winks at him. Suddenly he and Pam are alone in the room.

She takes a bite of her Yoplait and grins at him, one arm crossed in front of her on the table, slightly hunched over. He can’t quite put his finger on what it is, but he’s completely enamored of this unassuming receptionist in a way he’s never quite experienced before. It’s so overwhelming he’s finding it difficult to summon up anything to say. 

“...So,” he attempts.

“So.”

“What’s with Dwight?” he finally asks. “What was that all about earlier?”

“Oh,” she shakes her head, smiling. “It’s just fun to mess with him, you know? He’s a little much.”

“Yeah, I noticed that,” Jim grins. “I guess I’d better live up to my reputation. Hammermill’s best salesman, was it?”

She laughs. He decides it’s his favorite sound in the world. “Sorry, I’m sure he’ll do a complete background check on you now.”

“Are you serious?”

She nods. “He’s a volunteer Sheriff’s deputy. Has a plastic badge and everything. Hope you haven’t committed any crimes or anything.”

His eyes widen and they share another laugh. “Fortunately, I’m clean as a whistle.”

She smiles and goes back to her yogurt. They share a slightly awkward silence. The room, however, is thick with an undeniable energy. He wants to ask her out so badly but knows it’s way too soon. She finally breaks the silence.

“So... how’s your first day going so far?”

She’s looking him right in the eye and he feels dazed, practically loopy. The nerves in his stomach are intense and he’s warm everywhere; his heart is beating out of his chest and he’s genuinely worried she can somehow see it.  He tries to memorize everything about her he can: the color of her eyes, the little crinkle in her nose, the tiny pearl pendant around her neck. It’s a moment, a definite moment.

“Really, really great,” he says. It’s close to the truth, which would be ‘perfect.’

After they’ve gazed at each other for a few seconds, she takes a sip of her soda, looking a little shy. It’s a bit of an abrupt change from her playful demeanor all morning. Then he hears someone enter the break room behind him.

“So, how did you end up working here?” he asks her, not turning around.

“Oh, well...” she says, looking up at the arrival in the break room. “My, uh… fiancé actually works in the warehouse.”

His body freezes; his heart drops into his stomach like a chunk of lead.

Fiancé.

“Roy, this is Jim,” she says to the guy walking in. Jim turns around to see a beefy guy striding towards them, slightly threatening, but also fairly unbothered. He nods briefly at Jim, barely registering his presence.

“Hey baby, do you have ten bucks? I forgot my lunch and the food truck’s downstairs.”

“Oh, um… yeah, at my desk, in my purse,” she says, stilted. “You don’t have your wallet?”

“Think I left it in my other pants.” He leans down and kisses her, right there in the break room, right in front of Jim. He feels his heart crack in two and now he knows, positively knows he’s got it bad for this woman. And apparently he’s much too late.

“You want anything?” Roy asks Pam brusquely, on his way back out of the room.

“I’m good, thanks,” she says, gesturing at her almost-finished sandwich.

“Cool. Later, man,” he says, finally acknowledging Jim. All Jim can do is nod and give a slight wave. And then he’s gone.

He and Pam are alone again, but now everything has changed. She’s no longer something he can reach for, someone he can hope for. She is engaged. Almost as quickly as he’d thanked his lucky stars before, he wants to curse them.

“He seems… nice,” Jim offers. He can’t think of anything else to say.

She seems to take his comment as sarcasm, which he finds interesting. She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Yeah, well… that’s Roy,” she says. “Sometimes it feels like he never really left high school, you know?” She then smiles, as if she finds this objectively unattractive trait somewhat endearing. 

Pam stands up, having finished her lunch. She drops her trash into the bin, and for the first time he sees it: the engagement ring on her finger. He feels stupid for not having noticed it sooner, or even thinking about checking for one. He’s immediately curious how long they’ve been together, what exactly their situation is. Maybe it won’t work out between them, he tells himself. He feels slightly terrible for thinking it but his affection for her is outweighing everything else as he feels the hope he’d previously extinguished inexplicably ascending within his chest once again.

“See you later,” she says. “Put Dwight to shame today, okay?”

“Will do.”

She smiles at him, and he smiles back, and then she’s gone. He sits alone in the break room and thinks of what he said to his mom this morning about it being the first day of the rest of his life. A couple of hours ago he had no idea this person existed and now, regardless of her relationship status, he can’t wait to come into the office again tomorrow just to see her.

When he gets home, his mom is sitting on the couch, reading. She looks up. “Well, how was it?”

He grins, and nods with a satisfied look of approval. 

“First day of the rest of my life.” 

Pam looks at him adoringly, the sounds of faraway traffic cutting through the silent evening.

“...And that's when I knew,” Jim says. “You?” 

She looks down at her lap with a smirk. “You came up to my desk, and said 'this might sound weird, and there's no reason for me to know this, but that mixed berry yogurt you're about to eat has expired.'” 

Jim balks a bit. “That was the moment that you knew you liked me?” 

She gives him a soft, gentle, earnest smile. “Yep.”

He thinks, trying to remember when exactly it was he’d said that. He’d very quickly picked up on her routines, her habits. Her likes, dislikes. He’d paid attention. Sometimes he’d get weirdly happy just looking at the row of yogurts in the office fridge, knowing she put them there.

“Wow,” he replies, unsure of how to react to her obviously having noticed his over-the-top attention. “Can we make it a different moment?” 

She shakes her head. “Nope.”

“You didn’t find that a little creepy?” he asks. “Me studying your yogurts?”

“Not at all,” she replies. “I actually found it sweet.”

He shrugs, a bit embarrassed. “I guess I like to think I was charming, even at my most pathetic.”

“Jim, stop. I never, ever thought that. And would never think that about you.”

“It’s nice of you to say, but I really did feel that way sometimes.”

She picks up her chair and scoots it closer to him so they are touching. She reaches out to take his hand.

“I prefer to think of it as ‘hopelessly in love,’” she grins. “Which is, I must say, an incredibly attractive quality.”

“Thanks.” He brings her hand to his lips and kisses it. “So, what do you think now? Did I sell it? Was the rooftop our first date?”

She seems to acquiesce. “I’ll consider it half a date.” 

“Half?”

She shrugs playfully. “Facts are facts, Jim.”

He thinks for a moment, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out his new iPhone. He scrolls a bit, makes a selection, then puts the phone back. Tom Petty begins to play from his pocket.

He stands up, holds out his hand. “Then the other half we can have right now.”

She grins, taking his hand, standing and letting him pull her close. She puts her arms around his neck and they don’t just sway; they dance, really dance this time. 

“Here comes my girl…”

She rests her head against his chest and it’s as if the contact alone causes his heart to pound harder. Closing his eyes he tries to transport himself back to that night they stood in front of Dunder Mifflin and swayed together as they listened to music, living in that moment, in love with each other and neither knowing it. 

Now they both know it. 

She sighs happily. “Well, you’ve convinced me,” she says softly into his shirt. “Now this is a real date.”

“There’s one thing we’re missing, actually,” he decides.

She pulls back and looks up at him. “What’s that?”

He grins, tilts his head a bit and smiles. The fall air surrounds them but cannot penetrate their little bubble as he gently moves a blowing strand of hair out of her eyes, leans down, and kisses her half a decade deep.

Jim and Pam sit across from each other on separate twin beds in the Irrigation Room at Schrute Farms. It isn’t an ideal location for their first overnight trip, but for some reason it feels weirdly appropriate. Indulging Dwight all day long while simultaneously poking fun at him is, at this point, an odd form of foreplay for them.

The cameras have disappeared (from the room, at least) and they both look around it for the dozenth time, wondering just exactly how they’re expected to sleep comfortably in here. The most glaring problem at the moment, however, especially considering said foreplay, is the Hays Code-esque sleeping arrangement.

Jim gives her a tight smile. “Now are you wishing we’d booked that Hyatt in Manhattan instead?” 

Pam shakes her head. “Next time.”

“But then we won’t know how Harry Potter ends, I suppose.”  

“Maybe we can get him to finish it at work if we lodge a complaint at the front desk?” she suggests. 

Jim narrows his eyes and, before she can prolong their banter, practically leaps across the room towards her. He wraps his arms around her, tickling her as they fall down onto the tiny bed, pulling her into his chest. There’s no room to move away from him even if she wanted to, so she just goes with it, giggling. After a minute he stops, and they lay entwined in each other’s arms, face to face. She can feel herself sliding off the edge of the bed and Jim has to throw one of his legs over her to keep her from falling.

“Well, this isn’t going to work,” he points out, swiping a loose tendril of hair out of her eyes.

“I don’t know, I think it’s kind of cozy.” She leans forward and kisses him softly on the tip of his nose. He smells good; freshly showered but remnants of working a farm all afternoon (or at least pretending to) still persist. It’s weirdly primal and she can hardly wait for whatever might come next. “There are other options, I guess?”

“Lay them on me, Beesly.”

“Um. The floor?”

“Splinters.”

“Against the wall?”

“Too many pipes.”

She thinks for a second. “There’s always the car.”

“Pam, I didn’t agree to this bed and breakfast idea to not have a bed.” 

She laughs, presses a long, lingering kiss to his lips, deciding he’s right. 

She slides off the bed and stands up. “Let’s just move them, then,” she suggests. 

Jim sits up, slightly concerned. “I don’t know… I think Dwight might freak out.”

“And we care why?” she smiles, gently pushing him off the bed. Gripping the railing of the headboard, she starts to pull, but the bed does not budge. She crouches down to investigate.

“What is it?” he asks, craning his neck to look.

“Oh, god. They’re bolted to the floor.”

Jim taps his bottom lip thoughtfully. “Wrench or screwdriver?”

Pam looks closely. “A wrench. Pretty heavy duty one, it looks like.”

He nods. “I’m on it.” Turning to the side of the room where their bags are located, he unzips his and rummages through it, triumphantly retrieving… a wrench. Pam gawks at him, amazed. 

“What? Why on earth do you have that?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know, I just sort of had a feeling we’d need it.”

“Jim,” she says, not believing him.

“To be honest, Pam, I thought it far likelier I’d need it to rescue you from one of Dwight’s ceremonial traditions or something.” He holds it up. “I suppose all these years of sitting next to him listening to the stuff that’s gone down here has paid off.”

She nods, impressed. “Well, okay then.” She holds out her hand for the tool, but he shakes his head.

“I got this. You just relax.” He kneels down and begins to loosen the bolts, one by one. Pam notices after a few minutes he’s worked up a bit of a sweat, and she isn’t sure if it’s the manual labor or just being somewhere new with Jim alone but she’s absolutely ravenous for him.

“There,” he says as he removes the final bolt. He puts them all in a little pile next to the wrench on one of the night tables. “We should probably put everything back tomorrow morning, though. God only knows what his damage fees are.”

“Let’s do this then,” she says, impatient. She pulls all the blankets off, gets on one side of her bed, and he gets on the other side of his. There’s a loud creeeeaak as they push them together and she hopes that if Dwight hears, he chalks it up to the wind or something.

Finally they have what could pass for a very small double bed. She stands on one side in her simple pajama pants and a gray tank top, no makeup, nothing, and Jim is looking at her like she’s the most beautiful creature in the world. Her heart beats wildly that he could possibly think so; that after dating the likes of Katy or Karen, he somehow still finds her preferable. She’s never thought herself unattractive, but years with Roy’s indifference hasn’t exactly boosted her self confidence. 

“This is my favorite version of you, I think,” Jim says. “And I like every version, for the record.”

She smirks, not believing him. “Shut up.”

“It’s true. You know why?”

She looks down at herself. “Fewer clothes to take off?”

“No, although that’s an added bonus,” he winks. “Seriously though… because I’m really the only person who gets to see you like this.”

“Lucky you.”

“I am lucky. Incredibly lucky. And now, here we are, at the most romantic beet farm in the state - nay, the country.”

She gestures melodramatically. “Why not the world?”

He smiles, completely serious. “I had a great time today, Pam.”

“Me too.” 

She suddenly feels a bit shy. The anticipation is maddening; it’s as if the room expects sex, even though everything about it screams otherwise. Nothing about this is necessarily new for them, but being away together like this still feels like a big deal. 

She reaches over to turn the bedside lamp off; the moonlight shining through the window is so bright, it isn’t even necessary. She then crawls onto the makeshift bed on all fours, stopping at the center, and he does the same. When they meet in the middle, they both rise onto their knees and he puts his arms around her, holding her close. It feels so good to be wanted like this, truly wanted the way he always wants her. She’s never felt so loved in her life.

“So… it was a perfect first night away, then?” he asks softly into her ear, his hand drifting slowly down her back.

She grins, narrowing her eyes. “Just about.”

And then he’s upon her, his lips pressed against hers, his hands pulling her in, sliding up beneath the bottom of her top. She’s so turned on by him she can almost put the fact that Dwight is just down the hall out of her mind. 

Almost.

“Wait… are you sure you want to do this?” she asks breathlessly against his lips. “I mean… it always felt a little weird but now we’re here, and Dwight’s just, like…”

“No, no, no,” Jim says, “please don’t say his name while you’re kissing me.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just-”  

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Jim pulls away from her, his hands still on her waist. He glances to the window behind them, and Pam does the same, searching for the source of the noise.

“What was that?” he asks, and he looks a little spooked. Her eyes dart over to him and she gives him a sly grin.

“Are you scared, Jim?”

“No,” he says unconvincingly. 

Bang. Bang. Bang.

He flinches, looks around the room slightly maniacally. 

“You are!” she exclaims, delighted. 

“Okay, well, like I said before, I’ve heard a lot of stories about this place.” he says, his eyes darting around the room suspiciously. “And to be honest, I’m not entirely convinced it isn’t haunted.”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“I think it’s coming from outside,” she says.

“Okay, Pam? I need to tell you something really important, and that is that if we die here, just know that I love you.”

She rolls her eyes and unravels herself from his arms, stepping down from the bed. She flips on the light.

“Wait, you’re going out there?” he asks, horrified.

“Yeah. Coward.” She opens their bedroom door quietly, peering out into the hallway. It’s dark and drafty, but she suspects Jim won’t be up for sex or sleep if they don’t get to the bottom of this.

A few moments later, she’s back in their room, closing the door behind her. She looks at Jim with a confused expression.

“Well, what was it?” he asks.

“Oh, just Mose. Outside, going to the bathroom.” She shakes her head, laughing. What is their life?

“You’re kidding.”

“Do you want to go out there and see for yourself?” she offers. “I got quite an eyeful.”

Jim makes a face. “Well, at least it seems to have stopped.”

“Bet that put you right back in the mood though, huh?” she asks. He turns around to switch the light off, then lays down, holding open the blankets. She’s slightly freezing so she jumps into the bed with him, pleased to find that, while the sheets do smell pretty much exactly like Meemaw’s guest sheets, at least they’re clean. She snuggles close to Jim, tangling her legs with his, putting a hand on his chest.

“You really think this is gonna happen?” she asks. 

“Nothing is going to stop us from making this trip perfect, okay?” He leans in again to kiss her, and she threads her fingers through his hair. His hand dips down to the waistband of her pants and starts to untie them, and just as she’s beginning to think they might actually be able to go through with this there’s a strange moaning sound.

“Are you kidding me?” Jim exclaims. Pam shushes him.

“Shh, what is it?”

Silence. Then moaning, again. 

She lets out an exasperated sigh. “Your turn.”

Jim begrudgingly throws the blankets off and rolls out of bed. While he’s out in the hallway, the noise comes again, more clearly. And now she’s certain it’s the sound of Dwight crying.

He’s not the likeliest of confidants, especially at this particular moment. But she feels utterly hopeless now, as if the final nail on her and Jim’s coffin has been secured, and worse, she’d hammered it in herself.

“I’ll bet you’re PMSing pretty bad, huh?” Dwight asks.

His comment makes her start crying again, and not because he’s hurt her feelings or been uncharacteristically insensitive, but because she’d normally look for a camera to roll her eyes at and she can’t even bring herself to care. 

“I’m fine, Dwight,” she sniffles.

“You’re not,” he says. “I have an incredibly good sense for female behavior.”

She wants to laugh but can’t. Jim’s girlfriend is here to stay now. All of the hope she’s tried so hard to keep alive seems to be slipping through her rapidly weakening grasp.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he says. 

“Do you really care, Dwight?” she asks, not to be rude or shut him up but because she honestly wants to know. They’ve always been on the edge of friendship and the side she leans across changes day by day.

“I do care, Pam,” he says, and for right now she believes him. “We’re friends, aren't we?”

She looks over at him and can tell he’s actually quite sad. Her mood is affecting him, and she isn’t sure what compels her to disclose but maybe it’s the stark realization she’s hit rock bottom.

“It’s just… Jim.”

Dwight’s expression darkens. “I knew it.” He stands up, faces her. “What has he done to you?”

“No,” she says, reaching out to grab his arm. “He didn’t do anything. It’s my fault.” Saying it out loud has an effect on her she hadn’t anticipated and she starts sobbing again.

Dwight sits back down next to her. “Wait, are you…?” She glances over at him, suddenly embarrassed. “You and Jim?”

“It’s nothing,” she adjusts, wiping her eyes. “I’m overreacting.”

As she watches him mull over what she’s said, it occurs to her she hasn’t given Dwight much credit over the years as a functioning human being with actual emotions. Learning he’d begun dating Angela was a fun diversion at first, but as far as she’s aware, they’re still going strong. He has some knowledge on the subject of love, surely. The subject of heartbreak, however, is another story.

“I see,” he says suddenly, having come to his own conclusion. “And he’s with someone else.”

She doesn’t know how to respond to this. There’s really nothing to be done, but for some weird reason having told someone about her pain helps. A little.

“All of it is my fault, I just… I can’t go back. I can’t change anything.”

He scoffs. “You can do so much better than Jim, you know,” he says, and she can’t help but let out a slight chuckle. Thinking he’d be sympathetic to anyone being in love with Jim Halpert is perhaps a bridge too far. “But… I do know that the heart wants what it wants. And yours is clearly suffering.”

She nods. Suffering is the most apt way to put it. She’s missed her chance with Jim, he’s obviously moved on. And to make matters worse, she actually really likes Karen. She can’t even put all of this emotion into hating her, so instead it just sits in her stomach, a persistent ache that gnaws at her daily.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asks quietly, and she’s reminded of the time Dwight had a concussion and actually appeared to enjoy her company, actually seemed to care about her. 

Maybe it wasn’t the concussion. Maybe it was always just Dwight.

“Not really, but thank you for listening,” she says. 

Neither of them speak anymore. Dwight sits next to her quietly for several minutes, his hand on her back, and lets her cry. He will not offer any particularly brilliant advice or a helpful solution; but what she will remember is, simply, a friend, sitting quietly in support.

Jim opens the door, shuts it behind him. She waits for an explanation, but he says nothing, trudging over to her, slipping back into bed, and pulling her close into a spooning position.

“Is everything okay?” Pam asks.

“He wouldn’t admit it, but... he’s just not doing well after the whole Angela thing. I feel kind of bad for the guy.”

“I know. So do I.”

He sighs. “I wish he’d snap out of it. I don’t really know how to handle this Dwight.”

For a moment she considers going into Dwight’s bedroom herself, to offer some kind of support the way he had for her. But she has a sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t be as open to her as she’d been with him. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do, really. He’s heartbroken.” 

She’s pretty sure at this point sex is no longer on the table, but she isn’t in the mood anymore anyway, so she snuggles into Jim’s warm cocoon, covering his hands with hers across her chest. She then feels him kiss the back of her neck tenderly.

“Hey,” he whispers in the darkness.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

She almost tears up; not only at the sentiment but that, in spite of the perpetually antagonistic nature of Jim’s relationship with Dwight, he truly does care about him. They are friends, whether Jim wants to admit it or not, and the way this is affecting him is evidence of that.

“I love you too.”

They drift off to peaceful sleep in each other’s arms, and she knows they’re both hoping that somehow Dwight will, too.

***

Pam wakes to the crowing of a rooster, which is something she’s never had the opportunity to do before. She’s strangely thrilled about it. Turning around in Jim’s arms, she wants to share the moment with him but she can see he’s still asleep, will probably sleep right through the damn thing unless she wakes him. 

After a minute or so she hears the front door slam and she eases up onto her elbows to look out the window. Dwight and Mose are puttering around in the front yard doing… something. She isn’t quite sure. Whatever it is involves Mose getting on top of a tractor and Dwight yelling at him to get down.

“Jim,” she says softly, nudging him. “Hey, wake up.”

“Mmm.” He doesn’t move. She sits up, crossing her legs beneath her, and drags a fingertip down the bridge of his nose. He twitches a bit, finally opening his eyes. 

“Morning.”

“Good morning,” she replies. Her fingertip continues down his torso, then lower, then lower. “Actually… I was hoping maybe we could make it an even better morning.”

He’s definitely awake now, eyes widening, his body stretching. He reaches out to grab her waist. “Oh yeah?”

“Dwight and Mose are outside. The place is all ours.”

He grins, and she leans down to finish the kiss they’d started last night, but after a moment he stops her, looking at something over her shoulder. “Beesly.”

“Yeah?”

He points behind her and she spins around, remembering the menagerie of taxidermied birds sitting along one of the shelves, at least a dozen beady eyes staring down at them. Somehow they're even more disturbing in the broad light of day.

She grimaces and looks back at Jim.

“Yeah,” he says solemnly. “Those are going to have to go.”

Jim pulls into the driveway, puts the car into park, and shuts off the engine. He turns to look at Pam, who pulls down the visor to fix her hair.

“You ready?” she asks, applying lip gloss and then flipping the visor back up.

“Yep.” 

It’s been a few weeks since they’ve visited Pam’s parents. While they've always liked Jim, he can’t help but feel a tiny twinge of guilt every time he sees them that he’d been the one responsible for derailing their daughter’s life in such a huge way. He’s not sure how to ever make up for that, except to do right by Pam. Luckily that’s always been his plan anyway.

“Feeling good today?” she asks, reaching down to pick up the bottle of wine they’d brought.

“About your parents? Sure.” 

“No, I mean about work,” she clarifies. “I mean about Ryan.”

Jim heaves a sigh. A couple of years ago Ryan wasn’t even on his radar at all, and now the slimy douchebag is apparently trying to get rid of him. He’s not exactly sure what triggered the ex-temp’s vendetta against him, but he supposes it could be a number of things: going over his head with David Wallace, dating not one, but two different women Ryan had been interested in. Whatever it is has certainly left a mark, because Ryan doesn’t seem to be easing up on him any time soon.

Things changed yesterday on that golf course, however. For the first time in years he’d felt a fire within him; an eagerness to do better. Mr. Maguire had told him “It’s just not in the stars, Jim,” but his words had only emboldened him. There is, in fact, something in the stars: him and Pam. He wouldn’t give up on that, even if it meant literally throwing his body in front of the man’s car. Which he then did.

“I feel much better,” he answers her. “That sale was huge. Even if Ryan wants to go after me, this will buy me some time, at least.”

She reaches over and takes his hand. It continues to amaze him that whenever she touches him all of his worries just seem to fade away.

“I’m really proud of you,” she says. “I know it’s not exactly what you like to hear, but you really are a great salesman.”

He grins. “Thanks.” As long as he’s at Dunder Mifflin, he wants to make her proud of him. For now, it feels good, and that’s what matters.

“Do you realize our anniversary is in a couple weeks?” she asks. “My god, time has flown.”

He does realize that; in fact, he has some pretty huge plans for their anniversary. Plans that involve the engagement ring currently gathering dust inside his bedside table. Tonight, however, is going to be a special night too. Pam doesn’t know it, but he has every intention of making her parents aware of those plans.

“I can’t believe I’ve put up with you for an entire year,” he says. “It’s been… just awful.”

She playfully punches him in the shoulder, then they gather their things and make their way to the front door. Helene and William Beesly greet them, giving hugs all around. Pam’s mom immediately carts her off towards the kitchen, and her father claps Jim on the back.

“Good to see you, Jim,” he says. “Especially without those damn cameras.”

Jim winces. “Yeah… sorry about that,” he says. “I keep wondering when we’re going to be boring enough for them to leave us alone.”

“How’s my daughter doing?”

“She’s great,” he replies, and is fairly certain he’s correct about that. “Actually, I, uh…” he cranes his neck to make sure Pam and Helene are well out of earshot. “...I'd like to talk to you privately about something, if that's okay.”

“Sure, son,” William says. “Let’s head into the backyard and grab a couple cigars.”

Jim nods, unfamiliar with the act of smoking cigars but prepared to do whatever Pam’s dad requests. They sit on the back patio, light up the cigars, and William looks at Jim expectantly. He wonders if the man knows exactly what he’s here to do.

“So,” William begins. “What is it you’d like to talk about, Jim?”

Jim grins tightly, the nerves rolling in slowly like evening tide. “Well, Mr. Beesly…” he starts, but her father puts a hand up. 

“Please, call me William,” he says. Good start, Jim thinks, nodding.

“Well, as you know, Pam and I have been dating for almost a year now,” Jim says. He feels like throwing up. Turns out doing this is more nerve wracking than the proposal itself. At least he has some confidence in what Pam’s answer would be. “I’m… well, I’m planning... to ask her to marry me. And I was hoping to get your blessing.”

The older man looks at Jim with an expression on his face that’s somewhat unreadable. Is it shock? Confusion? Disappointment? Please, don’t be disappointment. Whatever it is, he suddenly has a terrible feeling this isn’t going to go as he’d hoped.

William takes a long puff of his cigar, then turns to Jim. “I have to tell you, Jim,” he says, and Jim’s heart begins to drop. “You’re not the first man to ask Pammy to marry him.”

Jim decides he’d rather drop into the floor right now and completely disappear than continue this conversation. He should have waited until the evening was over. Fuck, he shouldn’t have done this at all. It’s a stupid tradition. What was he thinking?

“But,” William continues, “you are the first man to ask me for my blessing.” He looks at Jim and smiles, and Jim heaves a sigh of relief, a huge weight lifting. Thank God.

He’d always known Roy was a bit of an ass, so this revelation doesn’t really surprise him, but he finds himself somewhat thrilled that Pam’s ex had inadvertently made him look even better to her father.

William turns to look at Jim. “I never told my daughter this, but that relationship never sat right with me,” he reveals. 

Jim isn’t sure what to say, but he figures honesty is the best policy at this point. Especially since he agrees with the man. “Well, obviously you know my feelings on that,” he chuckles. “But I never really apologized for the way… all of that… went down.” He doesn’t want to ruin the moment but this feels important. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he says, to Jim’s immense relief. “I spoke with Pam’s mother before she called it all off, and she indicated that, well… let’s just say she wasn’t too surprised.”

Jim sits quietly, listening. He’s dying to know more, but he doesn’t want to push. How much had Pam told her mother about what actually happened? 

“I was surprised, myself,” William admits. “But I was also relieved. Calling off that wedding was the wisest decision my daughter has ever made, and I was proud of her for having the guts to do it. So there’s no need to apologize, Jim.”

Jim is stunned speechless. 

William puts out the cigar, turns to look at his future son-in-law. “She just never seemed very happy when they were here together. And the reason I’m coming to that realization now is… well, because of you, Jim.”

“What do you mean?”

Pam’s dad looks him right in the eye. “I can say, without a doubt, that I’ve never seen her happier than when she’s with you. And really, what more can a father ask for?”

Jim exhales an audible sigh of relief. “I’m really glad to hear you say that. Because…” he shakes his head. “I feel so incredibly lucky that she wants to be with me. And I promise you that I will do everything in my power to make her happy, always.”

Pam’s father regards him with a peculiar look in his eye; Jim can’t quite place it, but something makes him think it isn’t necessarily about him and Pam. “I know you will,” he says softly. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the expression is gone.

Jim’s cigar smolders in his hand. He hasn’t yet taken a puff, but now it feels appropriate. He then lets out another huge sigh of relief, which, coupled with a mouthful of cigar smoke, leads to an unexpected coughing fit. William claps him on the back again, laughing. 

“So when are you planning on doing it?” he asks. “Or is that a secret?”

“I’m not sure exactly how, but very soon,” Jim says, his eyes slightly watering from the smoke. “I was thinking maybe on our anniversary.”

Just then the sliding glass door opens, and Pam and her mom join them on the patio. 

“What are you guys doing out here?” Pam asks, approaching them.

“Just… guy talk,” Jim grins with a shrug. Pam narrows her eyes. He suspects she probably knows exactly what they’ve been doing out here.

“Well, I wanted to share something with you guys, since you’re all here. See how you feel about it,” Pam says. Her mother sits down next to her father. Jim cocks his head to the side, wondering what Pam is about to announce.

“As you all know, I’ve been taking art classes for awhile,” she begins. “Well, we were at the job fair at my old high school yesterday for work, and it got me thinking… I’d like to finally pursue it. For real. I think it’s a good time to explore that. What do you guys think?”

Jim feels his eyebrows leap skyward, and a surge of pride blooms in his chest. “Really?”

“I was looking into it a bit yesterday and it seems like if I get some basic graphic design courses under my belt, I could have the tools to maybe do this, you know. As a real job.” She looks at Jim hopefully.

“Beesly!” he exclaims. “That’s awesome!” He gets up to hug her, and while the vast majority of him is filled with pride and support and encouragement, he can’t deny there’s a tiny part that feels slightly envious. His triumph at the golf course notwithstanding, even the success of a job well done doesn’t quite have the same luster of pursuing one’s dream.

“Sweetheart, that sounds great,” Helene says. “Which schools have you looked into?”

“Well, just a few,” she explains. “The best ones are in New York and Philadelphia, which are both a couple hours drive away from here. But I’m thinking maybe Pratt, in New York, is my favorite.”

“Does this… mean you’ll have to move to New York?” Jim says, posing the obvious question.

“I’m not sure, I really haven’t done a lot of research yet.” She turns to look at Jim. “I’m just… thinking about it right now, you know? I wanted to hear what you guys have to say.”

Pam’s parents both give their encouragement, but Jim can tell Pam cares mostly about his opinion on the matter. They haven’t discussed this as an option since before they were even a couple, before he left for Stamford, when she’d given him a resounding no. So what’s changed?

He wants to ask her, but doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable in front of her parents. So, saving those questions for another day, he simply grins, puts his arm around her shoulders, and pulls her in tight.

“I think… it’s amazing,” he says. “You’re amazing. And if this is what you really want to do, I’m with you a hundred percent.”

Just before Pam throws her arms around him he sees a brief look of relief in her eyes, and he can’t help but wonder how many times Roy had held her back in the past. He knows this moment is about her, but it does give him a sense of satisfaction that the reason she’s doing this now is because she’s with him, and not some other guy who refuses to see her potential.

He catches her father's eye over Pam’s shoulder, and immediately wonders where this leaves his plan to propose. Surely Pam will be gone for an indeterminate amount of time now. He’s put it off for months because, despite his own certainty Pam is the one, he wouldn’t have wanted to freak her out with his over-exuberance. He’d already been caught inventorying her yogurts over the years, after all. He’d told himself to play it cool, that a year sounded right. 

Now he isn’t quite sure when it will be exactly right.

She pulls away from him, her eyes sparkling, and she smiles in a way that reminds him of why he fell in love with her in the first place. She is happy. And for the very first time, he sees it the way her father does. 

They’re at Pam’s this morning, which has been relatively rare. They usually end up staying at his place, since it’s closer to the office and a bit bigger. But there’s something about Pam’s new apartment that he absolutely loves. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but maybe it’s the way it represents this new Pam he’s become so fond of: honest, confident, bold. He loved her before, obviously, but there’s something special about the way being with him has allowed her to spread her wings like a butterfly.

Pam sits propped up against her pillow, engrossed in some classic novel. Probably for the Finer Things Club meeting he won’t be invited to. He taps her leg a few times.

“Hey. Hey, babe.”

She doesn’t look away from her book. “Kinda reading here, babe.”

“Okay, babe. Whatever you say, babe.” They share a chuckle over Michael and Jan’s ill-fated pet names for each other.

After a few more minutes Pam closes her book, sets it on her bedside table. She takes off her glasses and lays down next to him, snuggling in close, her head resting on his bicep, his fingers playing with her hair. 

“What should we do today?” he asks her.

“Nothing,” she replies. 

“Sounds perfect.”

There's rarely been a night they’ve spent apart since they began dating and he knows cohabitation is inevitable and imminent. Lately, he’s been finding himself going over the pros and cons of both their abodes in his mind at random moments during the day. The only real question he has at this point is ‘which place will become their place?’ 

“I’m going to take a shower,” she says, sitting up. “Maybe you ought to join me. Just a suggestion.” She pulls her shirt up over her head, which is actually his shirt, and gives him a single look that would compel him to do whatever the hell she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She tosses the shirt at him, giggling, then turns and walks to the bathroom. Just then, there’s a knock at her front door. She covers herself reflexively.

“Ooh, can you get that?”

“What, you don’t want to answer the door like that?”

“Jim.”

“...Because I really think that should be your new thing.”

She gestures at the door wildly, and he grins as she turns with a flip of her hair and walks into the bathroom.

Jim walks through her tiny apartment to the front door and opens it up. A woman stands there, who looks to be in her mid-forties, brown hair and kind eyes. “Hello, I’m looking for Pam? I’m her landlord.”

“Oh!” he responds. “Hi, I’m Jim. Pam’s boyfriend.” He’s never actually said it out loud before to a stranger. It feels awesome.

She reaches her hand out to shake his. “Ah, Jim. I’ve definitely heard that name,” she says with a smile. “Nice to put a face to it. I’m Margaret.” 

“Pam’s, just...” he jerks his thumb in the direction of the bathroom, “in...dis...posed,” he mutters slowly, not really sure what to say. “Can I give her a message?”

“Would you mind giving her this? It’s just her lease agreement. We were talking about moving her to a month-to-month and I just wanted to know if she's still interested.”

Jim takes the form. “Sure.” 

“Thanks. Nice to meet you,” Margaret says, and waves goodbye.

He closes the door and looks down at Pam’s lease agreement. Could she have been talking to her landlord about changing her lease because she assumes she’ll be moving in with Jim soon anyway?

He smiles, looks in the general direction of the bathroom, the sounds of the shower coming through the slightly ajar door. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. It feels wonderful that ever since they got together they've been so consistently on the same page. 

He lays the contract on her dining room table and starts stripping his clothes off, leaving them in a trail from the kitchen to the bathroom. He opens the door slowly, stepping inside, steam surrounding him. For a moment he just watches her hazy form through the fogged glass as she washes her hair. It feels so comfortable and domestic. Fantasies of doing this with her every morning for the rest of their lives have been on his mind since he met her, but certainly more often lately, ever since it’s become a reality. It’s hard to believe they’ve been together for almost a year, and he wonders why he’s waited so long to pop the question but the truth is he’s honestly lost track of time.

Opening the shower door, he steps in behind her. “I just met your landlady.”

She turns to face him, water cascading down her shoulders. “Margaret? What did she need?”

“She said something about you going to a month to month lease.” He reaches behind her, grabs the soap. “You, um… thinking about moving?”

She shrugs, smiling at him. “I dunno. Could be time.”

He nods, feeling her out. “Could be.”

Pam turns around again. “Can you get my back, please?”

“Absolutely.” He rubs the soap between his hands then washes her back, taking his time. As he does, he runs down a mental checklist of every single place they’ve been together, every romantic memory he can access, trying to figure out the perfect way to ask her to marry him. 

“You… want to talk about this?” he asks, his mouth close to her ear.

She spins around again, puts her arms around his neck.

“I do,” she says. “But maybe not… right now.”

He isn’t sure exactly where her hesitation is coming from. But when she pulls him close and kisses him underneath the spray of hot water, he forgets everything else. 

For now.

“So, what’s the plan?” Jim asks her as they walk into her apartment. He tosses his keys onto the dining table. “You have to apply, right? What do you have to submit?”

She throws her jacket over a chair and walks over to her closet, pulling down her portfolio. “I’m not sure, really… it can be anything I want, I guess whatever showcases my strengths.”

He walks up behind her as she opens the portfolio, flipping through the large pages. Sketch after sketch tucked behind plastic cellophane. He’s amazed at how many there are. 

“When have you found the time to do these?” he asks. “They’re incredible.”

“I’ve shown you these before.” 

“I know, but not all of them.” He looks at the dates. “Some of these are from years ago.”

She grimaces. “Yeah, I guess I should send in some of my more recent stuff. Probably some more graphic design type stuff.” She looks unsure, and he knows it’s because she hasn’t been incredibly confident in her graphic art.

“I don’t know,” he shakes his head. “These are pretty amazing. And aren’t you there to learn graphic design? You probably won’t wow them with that stuff. You want to make a good first impression and I think sketches like these are your sweet spot.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she says thoughtfully.

“They really demonstrate… you, if that makes sense.”

“It does,” she smiles. “And thanks.”

“What about this one?” He points at a colored pencil drawing of a familiar container of jelly beans. The attention to detail in the lighting and the way it reflects off the curve of the candies is stunning. “Did you draw this at the office?”

“Yeah, some day when I was bored,” she guesses. “Probably before you were around.”

He flips through more pages. It’s legitimately difficult to pick a favorite. And then he suddenly stops. Pam inhales sharply next to him. There, on the page, is undeniably a sketch of him sitting at his desk.

“Oh,” she says, slightly embarrassed. “This is… I was just sort of practicing, you know. Faces.”

He looks up at her with a grin. “Why haven’t you shown me this before?” 

“It’s not very good,” she says, and she tries to close the portfolio. “It doesn’t really look like you.”

“Pam, stop,” he says. “I want to see.” He then notices on the opposite folio another sketch of him. This time he’s on the phone. “How many of these have you done?” he grins.

He flips the page and is almost overwhelmingly assaulted with sketch after sketch of Jim Halpert, in various poses, making various faces. Different styles, different variations. Some are caricatures, some are cartoons.

Pam shifts uncomfortably next to him. “I forgot there were so many,” she says. 

Jim points at a tiny cartoon sketch of him. His nose is enormous. “Really captured me there, Beesly.”

She sucks air through her teeth. “Sorry about that.”

He chuckles. “No, it’s great. I just can’t believe I had no idea you were drawing me all this time.”

“You were just my closest subject, that’s all.” 

“Really? That’s all?” 

She looks at him, suddenly serious. “No, that wasn’t all.”

Touched, he sets the portfolio down. It’s a strange comfort to know that she’d evidently studied him over the years just as closely as he had her. It’s rendered him practically speechless.

“I guess I should show you this one,” she says, flipping through the pages, searching for a specific drawing. Locating it, she slides it out of its protective sleeve and hands it to him. When he looks at it he feels something stir deep inside, as if she’s physically handing him a piece of her heart.

It’s a drawing of his profile, overlaid with hers. His is sketched in various shades of blue, hers in various shades of pink. It’s so raw and real and them it nearly takes his breath away.

“I drew this the night of my art show,” she explains, lightly dragging her finger along the side of the page. “I was feeling really down that night because nobody came.” She looks directly at him. “Well, because you didn’t come.”

He shakes his head, feeling terrible. She’d just gotten back together with Roy and he’d decided not to go for fear he’d have to see them there together. He honestly thought he hadn’t been missed at all. But seeing this…

“You were with Roy,” he says. 

She shakes her head. “No. I was really with you.”

Her words hit him square in the chest. Getting back together with her ex had obviously been merely an act of desperation; whether to salve her broken heart, or simply because she just didn’t know how to be single. It wasn't because she didn't love Jim, and he knew it then, if only subconsciously. But the proof is in his hands now.

“You did this… from memory?” He’s completely blown away.

“Well, yeah. I look directly at you eight hours a day, I know your profile by heart.”

“I guess we’re even then,” he grins, “although at least you had an excuse to stare.”

She smirks a bit, then looks back down at the portfolio. She’s turned to a copy of the watercolor of the office building Michael had purchased.

“This one should definitely be included,” he says. 

“My first sale.”

“That, and a visual representation of the daily grind this art program is destined to help you escape,” he grins. He’s only half joking.

“That’s not the reason I drew it,” she says. He looks at her inquisitively and her mouth forms a thin line. “It wasn’t a picture of the office. It never was.”

He’s confused. “Then… what is it?”

She takes a deep breath. “It started as a picture of the parking lot. Where I made my biggest mistake.”

He closes his eyes. “Oh, Pam.”

“And then Michael hung it across from my desk where I had to look at it every day and be reminded of that.”

He winces. “Whoops.”

“Thanks for your sympathy,” she says with a tiny laugh.

“Well, that’s not what it is anymore,” he says. “Now it’s a picture of the place where you and I found each other.”

She looks up at him. “Yeah, it is.”

They gaze at one another for a moment, then he holds up the sketch of the two of them. “Can I… keep this one?” he asks. 

She smiles. “Be my guest.” 

He lays it down carefully on the table, then pulls her into a tight hug. “I’m so proud of you. You deserve this. And whatever you submit… they’d be crazy not to accept you, babe.”

“Thanks, babe,” she says.

“You’re welcome, babe.”

She laughs. “Is that getting old yet?”

He breathes her in, wonders if now would be the perfect time to drop to one knee. But maybe this moment is enough. He wants to remember tonight exactly as it’s unfolded.  

He leans back and smiles, holding her by both her shoulders. 

“Never, babe.”  

Pam had always liked college; school in general, really. She’d always been good at it. Straight A’s, teacher’s pet, the works. Setting her mind to a task and accomplishing it had always been a source of pride for her, and she truly enjoyed learning.

So why is she finding it so difficult this time around?

She sits in her dorm room, attempting to maneuver her way around this stupid Quark program. It’s only been a few weeks but she feels as if she’s already struggling in certain classes. She wants to blame her distractions: the documentary crew still tailing her relentlessly, and missing Jim so much that sometimes it’s hard to remember to breathe. But deep down, she knows the truth is that graphic design just isn’t her thing. 

3D Modeling. Typography. Logo Design. They’re skill sets she needs to function in the art world nowadays, but unfortunately they’re just not her speed. Sitting through the classes and attempting to pack in all the information reminds her of trying to learn the copier back at work, and that’s not really what she wants. It’s not the kind of art she likes. She would much rather just enjoy her courses in illustration, figure drawing. Even animation has been fun. When she can just sit in her own little world and draw, that’s when she’s happiest.

She finds it incredibly ironic that, after leaving Dunder Mifflin to pursue her dreams, all she really wants is to be left alone with a pencil and some plain white paper.

In any event, Jim is supposed to be visiting tonight. She can hardly wait to see him; it’s been over a week since she has, and this is getting harder, not easier. Just as she’s wondering what she should wear, her phone rings.

“Hi,” she answers immediately, grateful for the interruption.

“Hey,” he replies. “How was class?”

She shrugs. “Fine.” She doesn’t really want to tell him she hates half her classes after everything she’d gone through to get here. “How’s work?”

“Exactly the same. Michael Klump visited today.”

“Oh, god.” Pam is no stranger to Michael Klump. The last time he’d visited the office there had been a Twinkie eating contest which Oscar had been very loudly and inappropriately excused from by Michael for reasons that were apparent to everyone. “Sorry about that. At least you’ll be free soon enough. I can’t wait to see you.”

She hears him slightly inhale on the other line and with a twinge of sadness knows instantly what it must mean. “Well, about that…”  

“Oh, no.”

“So as it turns out, tonight is my nephew’s T-ball game and I kinda missed the first three, so…” 

“You've already disappointed him so much,” she teases. “He can't be expecting a lot from you.” 

“I know. I suck.” 

She’s disappointed as well, and although she knows Jim wouldn’t cancel this evening if it weren’t absolutely necessary, a tiny part of her wonders if he’s just getting tired of the drive. 

After some obligatory fighting on the other end between Jim and Dwight, she tries to turn his attention back to their situation. “I... listen, um- we're still good for this weekend, right? No football games, recitals, karate tournaments…” Missing him tonight will suck, but at least they have something to look forward to. And she knows he’ll make it up to her.

His tone changes slightly. “Hey, can you go to IM?” 

She obliges, suspecting Dwight is eavesdropping.

JIM9334> Let's meet for lunch. 

She’s slightly thrown. Maybe it isn’t the drive, after all.

Receptionitis15 > What -- today? 

JIM9334> Yeah. C'mon we'll meet halfway. You'll be back for your 4 o'clock class. 

She loves when Jim is thoughtful about these things; that he remembers her classes, what time they’re at, which ones she has. He knows when she’s available and isn’t. The idea he just really, really wants to see her badly enough not to wait until this weekend delights her.

Receptionitis15> Where? 

JIM9334> The rest stop where that soda exploded on me. Exit 17, I think. 1 o'clock. 

Receptionitis15> Alright. See you there. 

They say their goodbyes and log off. She glances over at the clock, realizing she’d better get on the road now if she’s going to make it by one.

When she opens her door, the camera crew is sitting in the hallway waiting.

“You guys are still here?” she asks them. “There’s got to be something more interesting to film.” 

She shakes her head, locking her door. They follow her, which she realizes must be very strange to onlookers but she’s so used to it by now she no longer thinks of it as such.

“Where are you headed?” asks Delilah, one of the producers. 

“Going to see Jim. He wants to meet for lunch. Guess he can’t make dinner tonight.”

The filming crew had given her the option to decline their presence in New York. She’d been briefly thrilled that she might be free of them (mostly) for three months, but Jim had convinced her she’d be far safer with them around. Knowing she would be alone in a big city had made him rather insistent. Wanting to ease his fears (and knowing he was probably right) she’d agreed.

“Can you let us know where you’re meeting him, so we don’t lose you?”

Pam sighs. Surely this is not worth all their trouble. “I guess so, it’s a rest stop, exit 17 off I-80. But we’re just having lunch. Maybe you guys ought to take a breather.”

After her orientation at Pratt is over, Jim drives them back to Scranton, his hand covering hers on the console. She’s been talking nonstop about her new classes and he just listens, enjoying her happiness.

She’s incredibly excited to start her new adventure, but even more so that she’s with a guy who actually supports her endeavors. She wants to kick herself that she waited so long to try this out, but knowing she’s gone through so much real change over the past year helps her feel secure in the trajectory of her life. She is with Jim now, and he wants her to succeed. It sounds so cliché, but he believes in her, and it’s been such a long time since she’s felt this way.

“We need to get some gas,” he says, glancing over at her as he puts on his turn signal and exits off the interstate. They pull up to a rest stop, and he unbuckles his seatbelt. “Be right back. You want something to drink?”

She nods. “Yeah, thanks.”

She watches him put the pump in, and go into the service station. She isn’t sure if it’s the sudden silence permeating the car, or the thought of leaving him for so long, but a strange sense of uneasiness comes over her. 

It’s been over a month since he told her he planned to propose. Over a month she’s been waiting for his relentless pranking to turn into something real. It’s not that she doubts Jim’s commitment, it’s just that she’s starting to realize something that should have been fun has slowly evolved into something slightly tedious.  

She sees him walking back to the car holding two Cokes, and he gets in, handing her one. “Slowest pump in existence,” he explains. “I’d move the car, but by the time I did it…” he shrugs.

“Jim, can I talk to you about something?” she blurts out, looking down at the can, absently circling her thumb around the edge.

“Sure,” he says, giving her his full attention. “What is it?”

“It’s just…” she reaches for the right words, because she doesn’t want to ruin whatever surprise he has planned, if he even has a plan. But she wants to stop feeling this way, especially if they’re going to be apart for three months. “First of all, you know how much I love you, right?”

“Are you breaking up with me, Beesly?” he says it with a grin, so she knows he’s kidding. 

“Of course not,” she says, with a slightly awkward chuckle. 

Jim’s smile fades. “Is everything… okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just…” she considers chickening out but she’s come this far. “I have to tell you that I was really disappointed when you didn’t propose last week.”

It’s out, and she feels sort of bad about saying it. Telling him this makes her feel high-maintenance and she isn’t high maintenance. Jim closes his eyes, exhales, and sits back into his seat.

“I’m really sorry if it feels like I’m putting pressure on you, because I promise I don’t mean to,” she continues. “I’ve just been feeling a little sad about it and I wanted you to know why. I just... I think this whole fakeout thing is kind of losing its charm, you know?”

Jim opens his eyes to look at her, his face falling a bit. “If it makes you feel any better, that was the plan. I swear it was.”

“What was the plan?”

“I planned to propose that night. I bought fireworks and everything.”

Her jaw drops. “I knew it!” She’d been so certain it would happen that when it didn’t, her excitement had deflated into very real disappointment she hadn’t wanted to feel. 

“But then Andy sort of…” 

“Schruted it?” she grins.

He laughs. “I’m sorry, Pam. I wanted it to be perfect, you know? And it would have been far from perfect if I’d gone through with it after that.”

She nods. Relief floods her body, knowing he’d been absolutely serious. “Thanks for telling me.” 

“So… how are you feeling now? Because the only reason I’ve been waiting is because I want to make it special for you. And that opportunity just hasn’t quite presented itself yet. Again,” he adds with a smirk.

“You know what?” she suddenly decides. “I think we should wait.”

“Wait… for what?”

“Until I come back from New York.”

He crinkles his brow. “But that’s three months away,” he says, stating the obvious.

“I know, I know it is. But it would take the pressure off both of us, I think.”

Jim blinks. “Are you sure?”

She nods, completely certain. “I didn’t realize how stressed out I’ve been, and I really don’t want to be stressing about this while I’m in New York.”

He nods, but the crinkle in his brow betrays his emotion. “I’m really sorry, Pam,” he says earnestly. “I hope you know I never wanted to make you feel like that.”

“No, Jim,” she takes his face into her hands and leans forward to assuage his concerns with a kiss. “You haven’t done anything wrong. My classes have sort of thrown a huge wrench into our plans.”

He looks at her for a moment, and his eyes soften. “What if... I just ask you right now?”

Her heart pounds at the suggestion. But it doesn’t feel right. This shouldn’t be their story; her expressing frustration and his proposal being a reaction to that. 

“No, baby, let’s wait. I’m okay with it,” she says, and she really is. He loves her and she knows he wants to get married. It doesn’t matter if they have to wait a little bit longer. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to spend the first three months of our engagement apart.” 

Pam, I’ve waited for you for years. If you’re really okay with this, I can wait as long as you want.” His eyes sparkle in that special way they do when he’s only looking at her, and she melts a little bit. 

“I really am,” she promises. 

He nods, takes her hand and brings it to his lips. “Then… we wait,” he says. 

“We wait.”

She feels a tiny thrill inside, knowing they’ve discussed their future in a way that means something. It isn’t about being in a hurry, it never has been. They will wait until the timing is perfect. They always have.

Jim picks up his Coke, holds it up to hers. “To waiting,” he says with conviction. 

She smiles and pops hers open. When he does the same, it explodes all over his face.

“I just… I couldn’t wait.”

Jim kneels before her in the rain, and she can’t quite catch her breath. While it isn’t exactly what she’d pictured, it’s still somehow perfect. His hair is slick with the spontaneous August downpour, and the warm wind whips her own hair across her face.

He pulls out a small black box, holds it open. She can’t even see the ring clearly but she does see a flash of something wet in Jim’s eyes, and for the first time in weeks she can feel it in her gut, in her soul, in her heart: this one is for real. 

This is their story.

“Pam, will you marry me?” 

Oh my god, she thinks she utters, but she’s so busy looking into Jim’s eyes she can’t think straight. After everything, each and every fakeout, his proposal has still somehow managed to properly kick her ass. 

“So?” he asks with the biggest smile she’s ever seen on his face. Her own cheeks hurt as she beams with happiness, and she feels her head nodding yes, yes yes.

Everything seems to be slowing down in some kind of dreamlike haze where her fantasy has become reality and her mouth can’t quite keep up with her mind. But he deserves to hear her say the word 'yes' to him after all these years, especially after their entire romantic relationship had begun with a 'no.'

“Yes,” she says, and sees relief in his eyes she hadn’t been expecting. 

He stands and leaps towards her, kissing her soundly, his hand cradling the back of her head, his thumb softly caressing her temple. The rain patters against the steel roof of the service station and she can smell the tang of gasoline in the air, knowing she will forever associate the scent with this moment. 

He pulls away from her with his eyes still closed, resting his forehead against hers. It’s as if he needs to pause to catch his own breath, to know it’s real. She understands the feeling completely.

“I love you,” he says, simply and without any fanfare. She’s so caught up in the moment she’d almost forgotten about the ring, which he holds up between them, taking it out of the box and slipping it onto her finger. It’s a simple solitaire on a platinum band. She’s no expert on the subject, but she’s also no stranger to engagement rings, and while that fact remains slightly unfortunate, she will not allow her past to taint how perfect Jim’s ring looks on her hand. 

Sometimes the simplest, most ordinary things are the most beautiful.

“Do you like it?” he asks.

“I love it,” she says, feeling tears welling up in her eyes. “And I love you.”

He kisses her again, using his thumbs to gently wipe the corners of her eyes. She can honestly say she’s never been happier in her entire life.

“I’ve had that ring for a year,” he says. Her heart nearly stops in her chest.

“A year? Jim, we’ve only been dating for a year.”

He takes both her hands in his. “Pam, I’ve known you’re the one ever since I met you.”

She closes her eyes and lives in the moment, her small hands warm inside his large ones. The rain is now coming down so hard it’s bouncing off the pavement, splashing onto her legs, and the humidity is wreaking havoc on her hair. But she doesn’t care. 

“I know you don’t want to be separated right now, and I’m sorry I didn’t stick to our deal. The next couple months are going to be hard. But I’ve waited for you for so long, Pam. I’m ready to move forward, whether we’re together or apart.”

Pam looks down at her ring, and forgets about everything she’d told him she wanted.

This, exactly this, is what she wants.

Nodding her head, she looks back up at him with tears in her eyes. “I’m ready, too. And thank you. This was perfect.”

He grabs her again, pulls her in for another kiss. “You wanna get out of here?” he asks throatily against her lips. She recognizes that particular Jim voice, but it’s the one that they unfortunately can’t really do anything about at the moment.

She laughs. “To where, exactly?”

He sighs and looks around, his eyes landing on the car, then visibly thinking better of it. “Yeah… I guess I didn’t really think this part through,” he admits, scratching the back of his neck. His hair is getting wetter by the second, his jacket forgotten on the ground, puddles of rainwater gathering among its folds.

And then she sees them: the camera crew, camped out across the interstate, hiding (badly) beneath a tarp.

She takes his hands in hers once again and looks up into his eyes. Her heart is full to bursting.

“Jim,” she says to him with a smirk, after surreptitiously glancing at the crew. “It can wait.” 

There’s something about New York city, he can’t deny that. It’s an energy, a kind of excitement that’s always intrigued him, motivated him. It’s the kind of place that makes you feel bigger than you are, just by existing within it. 

It’s been a long time since Jim has felt motivated. The sensation is new and somewhat foreign.

Pam sits across from him at their little table at the River Café overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge. He can hear boats in the East River and traffic speeding along the bridge, ostensibly in a hurry to get somewhere better, faster. 

She takes a sip from her wine and eyes him adoringly. He holds up his own glass and grins. 

“To the future,” he says. He can’t seem to get that afternoon in the rain at the rest stop out of his head, even though it was weeks ago: hearing her saying “yes” on a loop, over and over. 

“To our future,” she replies. They clink glasses and she smiles back at him. The past few weeks have been tough being away from each other, but there’s only one more week of this. And even though she’s sitting right here, even though they’re together celebrating in the greatest city on earth, all he can think about is how he cannot wait for her to come home. 

“So, about our future...” he continues, after clearing his throat. “I want to talk about what happens when you come home.”

“Oh yeah?” She sets her glass down and looks at him. “What’s gonna happen?” 

He pauses for a moment. “Well, I’d like you to move in with me. If you’re ready.”

Her eyes light up. “I’m definitely ready.”

“I mean, before you left, we practically lived together anyway.”

“Practically.”

He grins. “So that’s a yes? To living in sin?”

She smiles back. “Of course it’s a yes.”

They gaze at each other for a moment, just enjoying the way their lives together seem to be unfolding flawlessly. The waiter stops by to ask how they’re doing, and, while never breaking eye contact with Pam, Jim replies “perfect” with no degree of disingenuousness.

The waiter departs, and Jim’s eyes narrow.

“Speaking of sin, I have a little surprise for you,” he says, much to her apparent delight. “To celebrate my last night with you in New York, I booked us a room at the Waldorf Astoria.”

Her jaw drops. “For tonight? But you have work tomorrow.”

“I’ll set an alarm.” He grins. “Don’t keep me up too late.”

She shakes her head. “You really are good at this whole fiancé thing, you know.” 

He throws his arms out, what can I say. “You bring it out in me, Beesly.” 

“One more week,” she says. Then she exhales loudly. “Thank god.”

He eyes her curiously. “I thought you liked it here?”

She looks thoughtful, and maybe even slightly put off by the question. “I do, the city is awesome. I just… I don’t know.”

She picks a bit at her plate. He wonders what’s changed in the past few days. That little speech he’d overheard her friend Alex giving her has been on his mind ever since. Part of him still thinks the guy had an ulterior motive, but after he and Pam had hung up the phone he’d thought about it some more, and deep down he knows Alex is right. There really is much more opportunity here in the city for Pam than there ever would be in Scranton.

“What about... what your friend said?” Jim asks. “About staying?”

Pam shakes her head immediately. “I’m not staying.”

“You’ve thought about it?” He takes a bite of his chicken. 

“Yeah, but I don’t really have to think about it,” she responds easily. “I’ve done what I came here to do and now I want to come home.”

He studies her, suspecting perhaps she’s holding her true feelings back to spare his own, but the conviction in her eyes leads him to believe she isn’t. 

“Are you sure, Pam?” he asks, and although the second part is difficult, it has to be said: “Because... if you really want to consider this, now is the time to tell me.”

He’s already got some huge plans in the works for them: his parents are selling their house and it’s a perfect fit for a couple starting out, raising a family, all that jazz. But he could live in New York, he muses. It’s expensive as fuck, but maybe they could make it happen. When he’s with Pam, their future always feels so bright he imagines he could do anything. 

“Consider what, moving to New York?” she asks, looking genuinely perplexed.

“Sure. If you really want to, we can talk about that.”

She looks at him for a moment, as if she honestly hadn’t thought too much about it herself. “You’d move to New York?”

“Well, it would take some maneuvering, but… maybe? I could look for something out here. We could make it work.”

The idea, while only now really occurring to him, does intrigue him. It might be crazy, sure, but it could also be perfect. From the look on Pam’s face, however, she doesn’t seem to share his level of excitement.

Perhaps, for whatever reason, this endeavor hasn’t turned out quite the way she’d anticipated. She’s always seemed enthusiastic on the phone about her classes, but it’s not as if they’ve had an in-depth conversation about the inner workings of art school. Jim can barely draw a stick figure, he doesn’t typically have a whole lot to offer in that regard. 

Pam appears to ponder his idea, but at the same time he can feel her foot make contact with his, as if her thoughts are somewhere else. He doesn’t mind, of course, but it begs the question: which is Pam more passionate about? Him, or her dream?

“That’s really good.”

It’s just another day at the office. Pam is sitting at her desk with a sketch pad, drawing her coffee mug. Jim stands on the other side of her desk where he usually does, watching. He doesn’t know too much about art, but he likes what he sees. The past few months getting to know Pam has been like unraveling a mystery, and typically he only gets the bits and pieces she wants to show him.

“You really think so?” she asks him. 

He cranes his neck over the edge of her desk to get a better look and yes, he really thinks so.

“I didn’t know you were an artist,” he says.

“Well, I’m not,” she corrects him. “I just sort of do this for fun.”

He takes a jelly bean, pops it into his mouth. “You have talent and you’re using it. You’re an artist.”

She blushes a bit and looks down, but he can tell his compliment has made her day. “So what are you doing stuck at this place when you can do that?” he asks, jabbing a finger at her sketch pad.

“I don’t know what to do with it, honestly. I’ve just always liked to draw.”

“That’s really cool,” he says. “And you know, you have a lot of time to figure that out, if you decide you want to.”

She nods slowly, and a look comes across her face he can only presume means she’s never actually considered this before. “I guess you’re right.” 

“That’s not something you want to do someday?” 

She shrugs. “I’m not sure. I guess it just never seemed very practical.”

“What was your answer when you were a kid when someone asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up?”

“Wow.” She exhales. “It’s been so long since I’ve even thought about it. I guess when I met Roy my focus changed to more… sort of real life possibilities.”

“Such as…?” he prods.

“Well, getting married, having kids."   

“Okay sure,” he says, trying to blow past the image of her actually marrying Roy and breeding with him. “But before that, like when you were really young?”

She thinks for a minute. “I’m not sure. There just really hasn’t ever been anything that’s clicked for me, you know? Other than art.”

Admittedly, he doesn’t know a whole lot about her relationship with Roy, but he can’t help but wonder if this is just one of those situations where high school sweethearts stay together because they simply can’t imagine there being anything better out there. Are they actually a good match, or is Roy just a bullet point on Pam’s to-do list? Get married, check. Have kids, check. Have a magically fulfilling life, check.

How does a person break free from that mindset? He wonders again, as he does every day, if continuing to pursue a relationship with her is merely a fool’s errand.

“Getting married and having kids is a great goal,” he says, even though he’s trying to think about anything but Pam doing those things with fucking Roy. “Lots of people want those things, though. Having something that’s just for you is also a really worthy pursuit.”

She looks at him, and her eyes look different somehow. It almost feels like she’s seeing him for the very first time.

“What about you?” she asks, and he’s taken aback.

“Me?”

“Yeah, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

He probably should have been prepared for this question, but he isn’t. The dreams he’d had as a kid were mostly impractical as well. Pete had relentlessly teased him for wanting to be a professional basketball player, which he’d obviously never seriously considered. So he’d majored in communications in college, thinking maybe he could be a journalist or sportscaster of some kind. 

He shifts uncomfortably, wondering why he’d pressed Pam at all. He’s five feet away from a desk where he does work every day that’s as far from fulfilling as he could possibly imagine. He’s certainly one to talk.

“Professional basketball player,” he smirks, and hopes she takes it with the spirit he intends. Luckily she smiles, and as it seems every time she does, the predictable drudgery of the day morphs into something pleasant.

“There’s still time, right?” she teases. “You’re in your prime, after all.”

“Oh yeah. Got some stuff in the works. Lots of interested scouts after me.”

She raises an eyebrow, nodding. “Well, don’t forget us when you’re famous.”

Grinning, he straightens up and looks into her eyes. “I couldn’t,” he says, his lips falling into an easy smile. 

And there’s a moment then, a genuine couple of seconds, where he sees something on her face like understanding; that she gets where he’s coming from completely, she knows the way he feels about her and maybe, just maybe, feels the same way. 

It’s this moment that instills in him the hope he will hold in his heart for years to come, that encourages him to build upon their friendship rather than stifle it. It’s just a brief moment but it’s the most real he’s ever felt with her. And then, just as suddenly as it had settled upon them, it evaporates.

“I mean… Dwight is definitely unforgettable,” she declares quietly, her eyes darting over to their coworker’s desk, then looking back down at her drawing. 

“Yeah,” he says, his eyes never leaving her. She shifts in her seat a bit in an attempt, be it purposefully or inadvertently, to break the spell. 

He doesn’t want to let the moment end, even though she’s clearly trying to, so he remains silent and just watches her sketch. After a couple of minutes he figures he should probably get back to work, although he wouldn’t mind getting paid to stand here and watch Pam draw all day.

“I’ll let you get back to it,” he says, grabbing one more jelly bean. 

She looks up at him again, a smile in her eyes. “Thanks. You know… for saying they’re good.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Pam,” he lies, his traitorous heart racing with that very enormous truth he cannot tell her.

Jim watches her across the table, trying to read her expression.

“I just don’t want you to think you’re turning down an opportunity because of me,” he says. “I want to support whatever it is you want to do.”

She shakes her head and shrugs. “I don’t know.” 

He feels like maybe there’s something she isn’t telling him, that she’s made up her mind about wanting to leave New York for some other reason.

“Let’s just get through this last week,” she says. “I have a meeting with my advisor on Tuesday, and I’ll talk to her about my options. Okay?” It seems like she wants to stop talking about this. “You’ve been incredibly supportive, Jim. The best. And I’m very grateful. But I’ve been looking forward to coming home for so long… right now I don’t really want to think about anything else.”

While he’s somewhat surprised at her reaction, he’s not altogether displeased. The more he thinks about it, the more this outcome might make sense for Pam. New York is the kind of place that will chew up and spit back out anyone who isn’t absolutely determined to want it. If she isn’t incredibly motivated, could she make it here? Is it even worth it for her to try?

As much as he wants this for her, she’s going to have to want it for herself. And as long as she’s happy, who is he to push her towards anything? In any event, she’s coming home soon. They can always discuss New York later, if she decides she wants to.

“Sorry, I’ll drop it,” he says. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t,” she says, reaching her hand across the table to cover his. “It’s not anything you said, Jim. I don’t know. It all just feels really… big.”

Jim smiles. “Well, sometimes that’s how dreams are.”

“Dreams don’t have to be big to be dreams.” 

He looks at her, the woman he loves more than anything in the world, and it feels like another one of those moments where he completely gets her. Maybe she really is speaking her truth. Maybe she doesn’t need more to be happy.

Maybe this is enough.

“You’re right about that,” he says gently. He certainly can’t count the times over the past several years where he’d only thought of her, so much so that he’d actively avoided thinking about his own future. She’d been his only dream for so long that he can’t remember the last time he had one for himself.

He has her now. That dream has come true, although he can still hardly believe it. So... what’s next?

“Let’s just enjoy our last night here together, okay?” she says.

He grins, squeezing her hand gently. “Okay.” 

She sits back into her chair, gazing at him in that way he’d give up absolutely everything for at any given moment. 

“One more week,” she says again, sipping her wine.

“One more week,” he echoes. 

Tonight, they'll focus on them. The lights of the city aren’t as bright as her smile.

She hadn’t been lying when she told Jim she didn’t like graphic design. She doesn’t. And as much as she’d enjoyed New York, the thought of spending three more months away from him while attempting to do better in classes she’s already failed is a difficult prospect enough without the added element of disliking them.

I’m coming back the wrong way.

At least that’s what Jim had called it. But coming home to him had been the only right way, in her estimation. She doesn’t look at it as giving up, she sees it as a choice: her choice to come home the way she wanted to.

She tries to remind herself of that over the subsequent months, as she sits at reception, back at the Dunder Mifflin grind. 

Today is Michael’s last day, and he’s been not-so-quietly attempting to poach her fellow employees to start a brand new company with him. While she predicts his departure will be anything but smooth, she does want to help create as easy a transition as possible. So she decides today will be the day she learns everything there is to know about the brand new copy machine to create some excitement among the troops, and distract them from any impending Michael antics. 

There are hundreds of functions, at least ninety percent of them unnecessary for the office’s purposes, but she’s committed to learning them all. She can’t figure out graphic design, dammit, but she is going to learn everything there is to possibly learn about this copier.

“Hi, Pam,” Kevin says, shuffling over to reception.

“Hi,” she says, looking up from the instruction manual.

“Why aren’t you in New York?” he asks, appearing genuinely confused. She glances over to Jim.

“I’ve been back in Scranton for four months, Kevin.” 

“Oh.” He looks at her for a long, long time. Too long. “I thought you went to art school.”

“She failed art school, Kevin,” Oscar calls from the corner.

“Hey, easy,” Jim pipes up, throwing his arms into a what the fuck, Oscar? gesture. “She wanted to come home.”

“Because she failed,” Angela sneers. “Right, Pam?”

Pam rolls her eyes. There’s not much else to do. She’s been the butt of these jokes ever since she returned from New York, and while they still sting a bit, at least she’s been getting used to them. 

“I guess I just missed you all way too much,” Pam retorts, flipping a page to look up the proper methods of collation with different sizes of paper. “But I appreciate the support.”

“We’re just messing with you, Pam,” Oscar says.

She knows they are, but it still bothers her. She can only imagine everyone has decided to shift the attention away from Michael today and that attention has unfortunately settled upon her. 

Jim glances over to catch her eye, concerned, mouths you okay? She nods to put him at ease.

As the day goes along, the tension in the air remains thick. Dwight attempts to help her with the copier in his own Dwight way, and in a remarkable demonstration of either restraint or compassion, holds back on saying anything about the unpleasantness from before. 

Eventually, with one final push of a button, the machine is completely set up. She feels oddly triumphant, and while this achievement pales in comparison to the feeling she might have gotten from completing her art courses, it’s something; a small success in the shadow of a larger failure.

Phyllis tries out the copier first, and when Pam asks how it’s working, she replies “It’s fine.”

Fine.

It’s exactly the response Pam expects, no more, no less. And while she’s pleased with a job well done, nothing changes the fact that what she does as a receptionist will forever just be... fine.

Fine.

There’s a feeling inside her she can’t quite identify: dissatisfaction, surely, but it’s something else. Like she’s tied to this place somehow, trapped like a caged animal. There’s more inside her than “fine.” She has more to give, and will there ever be a way she can give that here? Will she ever have the opportunity to do so?

Just when she’s certain the topic of conversation surrounding her had been completely forgotten, Toby ambles over from the annex.

“Hey, Pam,” he says in his withdrawn manner, but definitely loudly enough for anyone within earshot to hear. “I heard some people were being disrespectful to you earlier today.”

Pam glares at him. Really? Michael typically says more disrespectful things in an hour than were said to her this morning and Toby felt the need to come over and talk to her about it now?

“It’s fine, Toby,” she says. 

“I just wanted to say if anyone bothers you, you just let me know, okay?”

She nods tightly.

He smiles. “It’s good to have you back. Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be, and that’s okay, you know?”

She appreciates he’s trying, but none of this is actually helping. Especially considering the source. “Thank you,” she says, hoping he takes the hint and leaves her alone. Michael emerges from his office, taking in the conversation.

“You know, Pam, this is probably for the best,” Angela pipes up. “Now you can focus your attention on being a good, responsible wife.”

“To Jim,” Dwight grumbles with an enormous eye roll. 

Jim shrugs. “Zero complaints from me.”

“It takes practice, Pam,” Phyllis says in that backhanded compliment way she’s so good at. “You’ll get there.”

Pam gives her an annoyed look, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Thanks, Phyllis. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“And hey,” Kevin interjects. “If you fail at that too, there’s always just… being single,” he finishes weakly, having clearly not planned anything to say.

“Hey, hey,” Michael finally calls out. “What’s going on out here?”

“Everyone’s being rude to Pam for flunking out of art school,” Dwight relays, ever the helpful assistant.

“Whoa, what?” Michael says, looking personally offended.

“Michael, it’s really not a big deal,” Jim tries to interrupt, attempting to save Pam from Michael piling on, either purposefully or inadvertently.

“Hey! Pam is a valued employee of this office, and I will not tolerate people saying mean things about her,” he says instead, to Pam’s surprise. Maybe the prospect of leaving this place has made him slightly soft.

“But Michael, you quit,” Kevin reminds him.

“That is true, but for the rest of the day I am still your boss,” Michael points out. “So… shut it.”

“So does that mean… tomorrow, it’s okay for us to talk about Pam again?” Kevin asks, genuinely curious.

“Everyone!” Michael shouts, then looks at Pam directly. He has a sad sort of look in his eye that she’s only noticing for the first time, as if the reality of his situation is only hitting him. “Pam Beesly is a wonderful person, and a gifted artist. She painted that,” he turns around and points at the watercolor of Dunder Mifflin hanging on the wall. “For all of us. So just… stop being dickheads, alright?”

Pam tilts her head and smiles at her boss, her soon to be ex-boss. Her friend. He doesn’t always show up, but when he does, it’s magic.

Pam is subdued, alone in a sea of people who are laughing, chatting. Talking about art. She wants to engage but she doesn’t feel particularly engaging at the moment. She’s felt alone for months now, and the glaring absence of any of her friends has made it even worse.

Looking around the gallery now, she sees no one she knows, but there’s really only one person she wants to see.

She hadn’t told Jim (mostly because he hardly speaks to her anymore) that he’d been the reason she’d finally decided to pursue art. To dream of something else, something better. Something that would help her escape the mundanity she’d become so accustomed to. When she began taking art classes in Scranton, she felt alive again, and it hadn’t just been because she was painting. It was because she felt Jim’s presence, even though he was far away, and she knew that if he were around he’d be rooting her on.

It hadn’t only been his words of encouragement regarding her art that inspired her, however; it had been the confession of his feelings that night. Even though she’d messed that all up, the idea that someone like Jim could be in love with her had spurred her to leave Roy behind as well.

Now she feels as if she’s sliding back into old habits. While a few days ago she’d considered it growth, she isn’t so sure anymore.

Roy finally arrives at the gallery, and she’s glad he came, but he barely looks at what she’d poured her heart and soul into over the past few weeks. He’s too busy congratulating himself for showing up at all, and she’s reminded of what it used to be like with him: always the bare minimum. She’s been wondering if what she’d previously identified as change is actually nothing more than an act, but she's depressed enough already tonight and she doesn’t want to examine what she’s gotten back into with Roy, if she’s just wading back into mundanity once again. He begs off after about fifteen minutes anyway.

“I’ll just drive myself home,” she tells him. His expression changes to one she definitely recognizes as he asks if she’ll spend the night at his place, but she isn’t ready for that step yet, and definitely isn’t in the mood to take it tonight.

Oscar arrives with his boyfriend and at first she’s thrilled to see some friends, but after Gill calls her work “motel art” and Oscar doesn’t necessarily defend her, she’s not feeling very friendly anymore. Oscar’s not wrong, anyway. He’s rarely wrong, and calling her out on her cowardice is no exception. 

The truth hurts, but tonight it hurts worse.

She hasn’t felt this low in a very long time, and just when she thinks things can’t get any more upsetting, Michael walks in, most definitely in a prime position to say something insensitive and hurtful. 

“Pamcasso!” he greets her, with a heartfelt apology for being late. She’s about to tell him not to bother, he can go home, no one showed up anyway, but when he sees her paintings, his face changes. 

There are moments Pam has borne witness to over the years where Michael seems to mysteriously transform into something resembling human, and while these moments are few and far between, they do occur.

“Wow,” he says, and his face is full of such wonder she knows in her soul he isn’t putting her on at all. “You did these freehand? These could be tracings.”

Michael is the first person to care, actually care about something she holds dear, and it touches her. She thinks about Jim, and how interested and engaged and even impressed with her work he’d been over the years. Her heart wants to burst from missing him. While Michael is certainly no art critic, and his opinion on her work doesn’t really matter in the academic sense, she’s so close to breaking down emotionally right now that ‘academic’ is not what she needs. She needs a friend, and that’s exactly who has shown up for her tonight. 

“I am really proud of you,” Michael says, his deep brown eyes full of authenticity. And this is the moment for Pam: the moment when her ridiculous, exasperating, maddening boss becomes an actual, true friend. 

She approaches him slowly, giving him a hug that’s really more for her. “Thank you,” she whispers.

Michael, her friend, has shown up for her. And she’s never been more grateful.

“This is not Michael Scott talking right now. This is your future. Hello. I am your future.”

The day has been interminable, and she hadn’t been expecting a Jerry Maguire-esque recruitment scenario, but she’s in the middle of one just the same. Michael is folded against the file cabinets, his suit disheveled, his back against the wall, literally and figuratively. As long as she’s known him he’s been lonely, but at this moment he’s never looked so alone.

“Are you doing your best here?” he supplicates, and while he’s addressing the entire office, today of all days, Pam feels as if it’s directed solely at her. 

She isn’t doing her best here, and she knows it. For some reason Phyllis’s “Fine” is bouncing around her mind, in tempo with her beating heart. Fine. Fine. Fine.

“Are you being the best you can be?” Michael adds.

The scene Michael is creating has caught the attention of Charles Miner, who, unaccustomed to the fact that this really is just another normal day with Michael, has reached his limit. For a moment Pam believes he might actually physically escort Michael off the premises but fortunately, Michael gives up and walks out himself. 

Pam sits at her desk at reception, the same desk she’s been in for eight years. She glances over at the copier, that goddamn copier she’s been learning all goddamn afternoon. She didn’t let it beat her. She dominated that copier today. 

Right now, she feels strangely powerful, like she can accomplish anything.

She watches her friend’s retreating back, and for some reason the mere possibility of never seeing Michael Scott again is what tips it. She knows it’s crazy, she knows it, but all she can think about is that damn copier and “Fine” and she knows he’s right. 

Michael Scott is right.

Are you being the best you can be?

She stands up slowly. “Oh, no.” She knows what’s happening, but she cannot stop it. It’s as if her body is moving without her brain’s permission, as if the rational part of her got sent to voicemail.

“What?” Jim asks.

“I’m going with him.” 

Just saying the words aloud helps; she’s making a statement, a declaration, a decision. Maybe this will be a mistake, but if it is, at least it will be hers. And besides… what if it isn’t? What if she gives this a real chance? 

What if she believes in Michael the way he’d believed in her?

She doesn’t grab anything, just runs out, her only goal to stop him, to reach him in time. Jim follows her out, incredulous, but he does not hold her back. He watches her make this life-altering decision, his hands in his pockets. Not convinced yet, perhaps, but still trusting, supporting.

The relief on Michael’s face that someone, anyone, believes in him, makes her feel more accomplished than beating the copier did. 

She bids Jim goodbye and leaves Dunder Mifflin, just like that.

***

“So.”

Pam looks up as Jim enters their house, a questioning look on his face. 

“So,” she replies.

He grins tightly, waiting for some kind of explanation she surely won’t be able to satisfactorily offer. 

“The Michael Scott Paper Company,” he says with a broad gesture, closing the front door. “Pioneers in a dying industry.”

She drops her head into her hands. “I know.”

“What were you thinking?” he asks. He isn’t upset, or even disappointed. Just genuinely curious. She knows part of him gets it, understands why she’d quit to support Michael. But there’s a part of him, perhaps the very same part of her, that cannot comprehend the absolute lunacy of what she’s done.

“I’ve been thinking about it all day,” she says, “and I just… I think... I just know what it feels like to have no one around believing in you. It sucks.”

Jim nods, and seems to empathize. “I get that,” he says. “But… it’s Michael. Michael,” he adds with emphasis, as if she’s forgotten the hundreds of times he’d made her day a little (or a lot) worse. 

“I know,” she repeats. “But I really want to give him a chance. He was just so great today, you know? Defending me when everyone else was being mean. I felt like it was me hosting the Dundies this time.” 

Jim tilts his head, regards her. “I hear you. He did make a stirring, compelling argument. And it obviously worked on you.”

Pam shrugs. “What can I say? The guy knows how to sell.”

“And I suppose if anyone has enough passion to start a paper business from scratch, it’s Michael Scott,” he concedes. “I gotta be honest though, Pam, I’m a little worried. We have a mortgage now, and I’m on thin ice as it is with Charles.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she really means it. 

He shakes his head, waving it away. “Forget I said that. That was not very supportive of your new endeavor. Besides, it’s not your fault the new boss hates me.”

She grins. “I told you that tux wouldn’t be worth all the trouble, didn’t I?”

He closes his eyes. “I’ve never worked harder at anything in my life than I have been at making this guy like me.”

“You’re really easy to like, babe.”

“You think so, babe?”

She nods. “Mm-hm. When you don’t try so hard.”

He sets his bag down on the dining table, pulls a chair out and sits next to her. “I’ll try to remember that.”

“Do you miss Michael yet?”

His eyebrows lift. “I do, actually, believe it or not. But I have to be honest, I miss the receptionist a little bit more.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“Just a little bit, though. It’s neck-and-neck.” They give each other easy smiles as he leans forward a bit, his elbows propped up on his knees. “Charles put Kevin at reception, so that was the adventure of the afternoon.”

Pam makes a face. “Kevin? He couldn’t have asked Meredith? Or even Andy?”

“He doesn’t know anything about any of us,” Jim sighs. “It’s... sad. Even Michael would have made a better decision.”

“Oh god,” she suddenly laments, the reality of this venture continuing to hit her in waves. “What have I done?”

“Maybe he’ll be easier to manage when there’s only one person around for him to impress.”

Pam looks at him, slightly horrified. “Or maybe I’ll just have to take the weight of the entire office onto my own shoulders.”

“If anyone can handle Michael, it’s you,” Jim points out. “Nice work, by the way, parlaying this job switch into a higher position.”

 “I didn’t plan it. It just sort of came out of my mouth.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, we’re gonna be okay, all right?” He puts a comforting hand on her knee. “And I don’t necessarily believe in Michael Scott the way you seem to, but I do believe in you.” 

She smiles. “Oh yeah?” 

“Absolutely I do.”

She leans over to give him a hug. She isn’t really sure she wants to be a paper salesman, but it’s a step up from receptionist. Maybe she’ll even be good at it. But she knew when she stood up and followed Michael out of Dunder Mifflin that the real reason she’s doing this is to gain control of her path, to seize her own narrative. And if it all goes to shit, at least she can still throw her arms around Jim at the end of the day. 

“Thank you,” she says against his shoulder. “Thank you for being so great. And I really do have a good feeling about Michael, you know? It’s hard to explain.”

“You have the biggest heart of anyone I know, Beesly,” he says into her ear. “It’s just one of the many reasons I can’t wait to marry you.”

She smiles as he cups her face with one hand, drawing her into a kiss. It begins slowly at first, but soon she’s standing and he’s backing her up against the dining table. She hops up onto it, wrapping her legs around his waist.

“You don’t want to get some dinner first?” she grins, knowing the answer. He shakes his head, and just as he lays her back down onto the table there’s a loud rap at the window. Jim groans as they both turn their heads to see Michael fucking Scott on the porch, peering through the blinds at them with an insane smile plastered across his face.

“Oh, god,” Pam exclaims, pushing Jim off her.

“You gave him our new address?” he hisses, slightly horrified. 

Pam looks helplessly at him. “I had to, he made me fill out start forms!” 

“Already?”

“He said he wanted to hit the ground strumming. Then he imitated Bob Dylan.”

“That tracks.” 

Jim peers through the blinds and waves awkwardly. 

“Maybe it’s work related,” she suggests hopefully. “Maybe he just needs to give me something, or ask me which tie he should wear tomorrow.”

“He is… holding a bottle of wine,” Jim points out. “And four DVDs.”

Pam closes her eyes and lets out a heavy sigh, exhausted. Her time with Michael was already at a barely tolerable level. She isn’t sure she’ll be able to handle house calls.

“I guess let’s just see what he wants,” she relents, gesturing at the door. 

Jim points at the dining table with a wink. “Hold that thought, by the way." 

“Hi, Michael,” Jim opens the door and greets his old boss. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

“Hey guys, I was just in the neighborhood and wanted to stop by,” he holds up the bottle, “...brought a little celebration vino for the new company.”

“Oh, well…” Pam gestures between herself and Jim. “We were sort of, you know. In the middle of something.”

Michael looks at them blankly. “What?” 

“You know.” Pam widens her eyes, silently imploring him to remember what he’d witnessed through their front window a mere ten seconds ago.

After far too many awkward moments pass, his own eyes bulge in understanding. “Oh!” He holds up the wine, looking anywhere but directly at Pam. “Gotcha, that’s cool, that’s cool. Why don’t you just take this, and we can do it another night? Yeah?”

Pam smiles in relief, taking the wine as Michael begins to mercifully back out of the entryway. “Sure.”

“Unless you want to change your mind, I mean, I brought The Scorpion King. ” He holds up his DVDs.

“Michael.” Jim shakes his head, unamused.

Pam raises an eyebrow at Jim. “Well, actually, I kind of-“

“Pam.”

“-like the-“

“Pam.”

“-Scorpion King. Sorry, Michael,” she says apologetically. 

He holds a hand up. “No problem. Just… do her good, Jim. She needs her rest.”

Pam is so used to Michael’s inappropriate sexual commentary she barely flinches. “He will.”

“Night, lovebirds,” he says, walking away and waving. “Bright and early tomorrow, Pam!” 

They say goodbye to his departing figure and Jim closes the door. He turns to Pam with a very serious expression. “Guess I have to do you good now.”

“I guess so,” she grins. “He is still my boss, after all.”

 Jim Halpert has rarely been rendered speechless, but today is one of those days. 

Pregnant. 

Pam is pregnant. 

“Send in the subs,” he tells Dwight over the phone. Volleyball is the last thing on his mind right now. Ten seconds ago, everything changed. 

Now he’s going to be a father.

He glances at the cameraman, Will, not quite knowing what to say. He's been present in Jim's life since the beginning of the documentary, and while Jim wouldn't necessarily consider him a close friend, he's sort of become one by default. This is the kind of news worth celebrating, but from the looks on every crew member’s face, he knows they understand as he leaves them all behind to go back into the examination room. Now is the time to be with Pam; to celebrate this wonderful —albeit unexpected —milestone in their lives.

The crew hangs back, and Jim promptly forgets about them as he pulls her into an embrace. “Oh my god,” he whispers into her ear as the doctor leaves to give them some privacy. “I don’t believe this. How far along is it?”

“Four weeks. We’re supposed to come back in two weeks for an ultrasound.”

He pulls back, holds her by her shoulders. “Who should we tell? I mean, who can we tell?”

“The doctor said it’s pretty safe to let people know after twelve weeks, so… maybe we should just keep it between us for now?”

Jim nods. He feels like his smile might rip his face in half. “And them, I guess…?” he says, gesturing at the cameras out the window.

Pam waves them away. He’s continually impressed by her ability to ignore the cameras when she feels like it; he’s almost constantly aware of their presence. “They’ll be discreet,” she says, and he knows she’s right. 

“What about you, how do you feel about all this?”

“I mean… it’s a little ahead of schedule, but I feel good.” She eyes him. “You?”

It’s most definitely ahead of schedule, but not entirely unwelcome. Their timing has been so historically bad over the years, this feels somewhat appropriate, in a weird way. He’s nervous and terrified and exhilarated and frazzled but above all else, he’s happy. He and Pam are going to have a baby. A baby.

“I’m great,” he says. “I’m excited.”

She looks relieved, and he suspects she’d been slightly worried he might freak out after the initial shock wore off. He wants to make sure she’s aware he’s obviously all in, so he puts both hands on either side of her face, anchoring them within this moment, and leans in to kiss her. When he pulls away, now she is grinning from ear to ear.

“So, two weeks? Did you make an appointment?” he asks.

She glances over his shoulder at the cameras. “I’ll make it after they leave,” she whispers.

Maybe she doesn’t always forget about them after all. 

***

It’s difficult hiding their secret over the next couple of weeks. They can’t seem to stop smiling at each other, and while their overt glances have always annoyed their fellow office mates, Jim’s starting to wonder if some of them are actually on to them this time. Dwight has been eyeing Pam suspiciously across his desk, and it might seem crazy, but… it’s possible that he senses something? He’s made no secret of the fact that he keeps track of the female office employees’ menstrual cycles, and the guy never shuts up about his farm animals when they’re in heat, or pregnant, or anything approaching pregnant.

They’re back in the doctor’s office today, Pam on the exam table, Jim seated next to her. He reaches out to hold her hand, and she takes a deep breath.

“Big moment,” she says. “Are you ready for this?”

“Yeah. Are you?” 

He can tell she’s been nervous today, probably because she’s been Googling way too much about all the things that could possibly go wrong. It’s not like her to be overly anxious, but he’s starting to suspect that the camera crew’s awareness of her pregnancy has put more pressure on these early weeks.

“Yeah, I’m excited,” she says. “I’m just trying to think positive thoughts.”

“Everything’s going to be okay, Pam,” he says. He squeezes her hand and she nods.

“What about you, are you nervous?”

“About the sonogram?”

“No,” she says. “About being a parent.”

He exhales loudly. “I mean… yeah,” he admits. “This is the most important thing either of us are going to do, like... ever. No pressure or anything,” he adds with a smile.

Her mouth forms into a thin line and she nods. “Yeah,” she says in a bit of a daze. “Yeah.” Her eyes dart around the room nervously.

The doctor comes in and asks Pam what Jim assumes are all the standard questions. It’s weird; it’s like he feels more grown up than he should. He’s listening to everything the doctor is saying but his brain is in overdrive, trying to tick off all the things they will need to do before the baby comes, how much time they have. And the wedding, too; there’s no way he’d want to make Pam wait any longer for that.

But suddenly, a sound fills his ears that snaps him completely out of it. 

Blip. Blip. Blip.

He feels Pam squeeze his hand and her eyes tear up at the persistent thud of their baby’s heartbeat, filling the room with hope and wonder and a love much bigger than such a tiny sound ought to contain.

“Would you want to have kids someday?”

It’s date number two. Two. They’re at the only putt-putt course in Scranton, the same one they’d been to before with the Dunder Mifflin gang a few years back. 

Pam asks the question casually, as if he hasn’t pictured having kids with her for years. As if any child he’d ever had the presence of mind to imagine hadn’t been a perfect amalgamation of the two of them, together.

“Sure,” he answers with a shrug as he bends over to take his shot. “You?”

She nods. “Oh, definitely.” She pauses for a second to let him putt his ball, which bounces off a large Egyptian pyramid and misses the hole by about two inches. “How many kids would you want?”

He grins, amazed that he’s actually having this conversation with Pam his girlfriend, rather than just Pam his friend. The difference is palpable and yet it feels oddly similar to the way it always has. Maybe that’s the point, he decides.

“I haven’t thought about it, really.” 

It isn’t true; he wants two kids, one of each. It’s a boring fucking answer and he’d rather not be boring on their second date.

“I think I’d want two,” she says, beating him to the punch. He finds it adorable that she’s speaking about this hypothetically. She’s most definitely feeling him out, that old cautious Pam still in there somewhere, and doesn’t want to send him running for the hills. 

She sets her pink ball down on the rubber starting plate. “I think siblings are really important.”

He grins. “Yeah, me too.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. You know, I have three. But I think two is a perfect number,” he says with a definitive air. He’s as serious about her as anything, and she might as well know it.

She smiles with visible relief, then hits her ball down the miniature fairway. It doesn’t quite reach the green.

“Crap,” she says. “That was embarrassing.”

He comes up close to her, leaning down to speak into her ear softly. “Four worst words in golf: it’s still your turn,” he whispers.

She stiffens a bit at his proximity, and he’s enjoying this all so much; it’s exactly what he’d imagined dating her would be like. The nervousness still exists beyond any of their prior declarations, beyond any of their expectations.

“I suck.”

“You don’t suck,” he tells her. “You’re just a little… competitive.” He grins, recalling the tiny pencil he’d put into her teapot Christmas gift, the one she’d thrown at him last time when he’d beaten her by a single stroke. 

He takes her by the hand and leads her over to her ball to give it another go. 

“Do you mind?” he asks, moving behind her. She shakes her head and he wraps his arms around her torso, covering her hands on the grip of the club with his own. She’s the perfect height, fitting comfortably beneath his chin, and he can’t help but breathe in the scent of her hair. 

“Nice move,” she smirks.

“I’m just teaching you how to swing, Beesly,” he insists. “Not my fault the method is incredibly romantic.”

“It’s a little bit your fault, though.” 

He practice-swings the club gently, a few more times than necessary, just enjoying being able to do this at all. He moves his face right next to hers, his lips ever so slightly brushing against her cheek.

“The trick is the follow through,” he says, showing her. “Don’t stop the club once you’ve hit the ball. You’ve gotta keep going.” 

“Ah. I see.” She twists her head a bit, giving him the opportunity to kiss her; gently at first, then as eagerly as their very public situation will allow.

*ahem*

They both turn to see a somewhat bedraggled father behind them, clearing his throat, waiting with two small kids who are pointing at them and giggling. Jim can feel Pam chuckle a bit, see a blush form on her cheeks. 

“Sorry,” he calls out to the little family, even though he’s not really sorry at all.

He laces his fingers through hers to hit the ball for real, and they watch it sail directly into the hole.

“See?” he says, letting her go and stepping back. “Follow through.”

“That must have been it,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Jim steps over to his own blue ball, tapping it into the hole, and it lands on top of hers with a quiet clack. He leans over and retrieves them both, then takes her by the hand.

“Why don’t we let them play through,” he suggests, and they walk over to a nearby bench to fill out their score cards. 

They sit in silence for a couple of minutes, watching the father attempt to wrangle his kids while they hit their balls haphazardly around the course. Pam loops her arm through his and gently rests her head against his shoulder.

“Do you think I’ll be a good mom?”

“Of course,” he says instantly, her switch from the hypothetical not going unnoticed. “I mean, you already are, sort of. To Michael.”

She laughs. “I’m serious, though. I don’t have much experience with kids.”

The idea that Pam wouldn’t be a good parent had never crossed his mind, even for an instant. She has all of the qualities that would make a great mother as far as he’s concerned: patience, kindness, tolerance. 

“I don’t think experience is what makes you a good parent,” he says. “I think it’s your heart. Your dedication. That you’re a good person. And you’ve got all of that in spades.”

Pam sighs contentedly on his shoulder, and takes one of his hands in hers, tracing its outline idly, holding her hand against his. He leans over to kiss the top of her head, and it’s another first for them. It comes so naturally he feels like they’ve been dating for years, not mere days.

One of the children, a little boy, finally hits his ball in the hole and cheers wildly. The father gives him a high five and the kid positively beams. As they pass Jim and Pam to go to the next hole, the dad nods at them, and Jim nods back.

“I think you’ll be a great dad,” she offers. “I was very impressed when we did Take Your Daughter to Work Day a couple years ago.”

“With Dwight’s guitar skills? Me too, actually.”

“I'm serious,” she laughs. “You seemed like a natural.”

“Thanks,” he says, actually delighted by the compliment. “And since I have nieces and nephews, I don’t necessarily have to have any of those other qualities. So between the two of us, I think we’re all set.”

The words are out of his mouth before he realizes he's no longer speaking hypothetically, either. He wants to stop second guessing himself in regard to the way they feel about each other and their future, but the last thing he wants to do is scare her off by being too forward about this stuff way too soon. Luckily, she simply continues rubbing his hand with her thumb comfortably. 

“You have a lot of those qualities, Jim Halpert,” she says softly. He hadn’t been fishing for the compliment, which makes it all the more sweet. “And maybe one of your nieces or nephews will like me.” 

“They’ll love you.” 

She snuggles into him a little closer, and they sit in the midst of a cozy, comfortable silence as they wait their turn. After a while, they notice the family has either finished playing or given up, moving on to the next hole. Jim stands and takes her hand, each time he does so feeling better than the last. He’s still amazed that he’s allowed to do this with her at all.

“So, were you much of a mini-golfer as a kid?” he teases. 

“My dad took me and my sister sometimes. I always won, but I have a feeling he always let me. Penny never cared. She just came to look for boys.”

He laughs. “On the putt-putt course? Did she ever find any?”

“Very infrequently.”

They laugh, and Jim leans down to place her ball. She bends over and very cutely shimmies a bit, taking a practice swing. “I think I need your help again, Jim.”

“Oh?”

“Definitely.”

Butterflies flap wildly in his stomach as he steps over and puts his arms around her once more. He wasn’t sure they could top their first date, but he has a sneaking suspicion their lives are going to continue to get better with every passing day. 

They are quiet for a second, both just enjoying the closeness of him holding her this way, then finally they take her shot. The ball goes up a ramp, between the slats of a spinning windmill, and down a pipe, plopping right into the hole.

“Nice one, Beesly,” he congratulates her. She tries to hide it, but he can tell she’s secretly thrilled. 

“What about you, do you have like… a favorite childhood memory?” she asks. 

Jim thinks for a minute. “Well, when I was eight, there was this special anniversary event for the Blue Angels, and my dad took me. They unveiled the F/A-18 Hornet and I got to meet the pilots. It was awesome.” 

“Wow,” she says. “I don’t know what any of that is, but it sounds... really cool.” 

He chuckles, loving every second of this. It’s not as if they haven’t had a million conversations before about their lives over the years, but now they’ve already had a discussion about kids. It's like there are no topics that are off limits anymore, and the feeling is incredible.

He bends down to place his ball, but before he can hit it, she steps over to him and pulls him in for a real kiss, effectively eliminating every other concern from his mind. His heartbeat pounds in his ears and the floor feels like it’s shaking. Pam’s kiss puts the Blue Angels to absolute shame.

She pulls away from him after a moment and slowly opens her eyes.

“Wow,” he says, almost breathless. “What was that for?”

She shrugs. “Just wanted to. Your swing.”

He shakes off his butterflies and leans down to hit. His knees are still a little wobbly. The ball whooshes up the ramp and past the windmill, but stops a foot short of the hole.

She leans in to whisper into his ear. “Four worst words in golf, Jim,” she grins wickedly. “It’s still your turn.”

It’s hot out as they walk back to the car, Pam clutching the first photograph of their new baby in her between her fingers. He holds her other hand, every step like he’s walking on air, or walking on the moon. 

“I didn’t realize they could trace it back to practically the day,” he laughs. “What do you think we were up to that night?”

“I know exactly what we were up to that night,” she says, squeezing his hand. “That was the night Michael sold the company. We were… celebrating.”

“Oh yeah,” he says, sharing a cocky grin with her. He remembers that night. There had hardly been a room in the house they hadn’t defiled.

They walk for a bit, rightly impressed with themselves. “So how do you think it happened? Was that when you were switching your birth control?”

She sighs. “I think so.”

They’d both known there was a slight risk as her body was adjusting to the new medication, but they couldn’t help themselves. And Pam had been so raring to go, the last thing on his mind at the time was rushing out to the pharmacy for condoms ‘just in case.’ 

As for the wedding, the planning had ramped up rather quickly over the past couple of weeks. So quickly, in fact, that he’d be surprised if Pam’s parents didn’t suspect something was up. They’ve been dealing with their separation, however, so he thinks it possible this sort of thing is not necessarily at the forefront of their minds.

“I’m excited to tell your parents,” he says. “They could both use some good news.”

She stops at the car door, a sort of horrified look coming over her face. “It just occurred to me that when I tell them, they’re going to absolutely know for sure we’re having sex.”

“Pam, we live together. In a house that we pay for. Together. I think the jig is up.”

“I know, it’s just… weird. At least before we had plausible deniability.”

They get into the car and he turns on the ignition. The air conditioning blasts loudly, and he turns it down. “You really think they might have a problem with this?”

“Well, they won’t,” she says. “But… some of my family can be a bit traditional. My grandma is going to lose her mind if she finds out you impregnated me before we were married.”

“That sounds so romantic.”

“Proud of yourself, there, stud?” she winks.

“Kind of,” he responds. “It’s hard to explain, but there really is some kind of weird satisfaction about having knocked you up.”

“Good job,” she laughs. She holds her hand up for a high five, which he delivers.

She settles back into the passenger seat and looks down at the sonogram. “Wow,” she says softly. “In just a few months everything is gonna change.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. And then suddenly, as if it’s waited two weeks to materialize, the reality of their situation slaps him in the face, hard. He grips the steering wheel, his vision starts to blur, and he breaks out into a cold sweat, breathing heavily.

“Jim? Are you okay?” Pam asks, noticing his strange behavior.

He nods, trying his best to push through this so as to not upset her.

“I’m good, I’m good,” he says, exhaling. It’s not going away, and he thinks he might be having an actual panic attack. “I’m good.”

“You’re not good, you’re sweating,” she says, and she can hear genuine concern in her voice. She lays her hand across his chest. “Jim, your heart is pounding.”

He reaches up to cover her hand, trying to control his breathing. 

“Breathe,” she says, and he remembers what she’d once said about these kinds of situations in the past: that when one half of a couple starts to panic, the other half becomes surprisingly calm. Maybe because they have to.

Luckily, her touch, as usual, has its predictable soothing effect on him, and after a few seconds he can feel his heart rate slowing beneath her fingers, his breathing evening out.

“I’m okay,” he says. He inhales, then exhales, and Pam keeps her hand against his heart as they ride it out.

“Baby, what is it?” she asks after he’s calmed down.

“I think… I don’t know, I was just having a moment. I'm okay now, I promise."

She eyes him a bit skeptically, but he squeezes her hand to reassure her. 

"Tell me."  

He takes a deep breath. "You’re right, that everything is going to change, and yet… for me, things are still exactly the same.”

“What do you mean?”

What does he mean? What the hell has he been doing? He’s watched Pam over the past two years attempt to take control of her future, twice, and he’s just been sitting at Dunder Mifflin selling paper. And now they’re going to have a family to support.

“I mean… I think it’s time I do something about my future,” he says. 

He’s been wondering for a while what his next move will be, and he hasn’t quite figured anything out. This job is what he knows, and while he’s not passionate about it, he is good at it. But the thought of supporting a family has seemed to light a fire beneath him. “I can’t just keep… doing this forever, can I?”

“Well, what is it you’re thinking?” she asks. 

Maybe it’s time he finally goes after a promotion, for real. He’s avoided them in the past, all because he’s refused to admit to himself that working at Dunder Mifflin has become his career. But facts are facts. He’s been there for seven years, and never once moved up, when he knows he’s fully capable.

If this were my career, I’d have to throw myself in front of a train.

Even though he’d said it to the cameras half in jest, he’d said it knowing he has no real plans. It’s time to make a decision. He needs to shit or get off the pot, so to speak. He’s tired of drowning in professional stagnation.

“I think… I should see how far I can go in this company,” he says slowly, as if this is a much harder decision than it should be. He turns to look at her. “Maybe it’s time that I follow through.”

Pam sets the sonogram picture on the dash so she can take his hand with both of hers. “Jim, you can do anything you want to do,” she says. “You can do whatever makes you happy. And I’ll be right here, loving you no matter what.”

He turns to her, not thinking it possible for anyone to be as lucky as he is to have someone like her in his life. 

“We’re going to be parents soon,” she continues. “And I know you’re going to be great at that, no matter where you’re working or what else you’re doing.”

He brings her hands up to his lips and kisses them. He takes a final deep breath, the panic attack or whatever it was now completely gone.

“Thank you.” 

She grins at him, looking immeasurably happy and, if he dares to say it, proud of him. He wants her to be proud of him. He wants to do the best he can to support her and their new little family.

So he makes a decision right now, while looking into her eyes, to do something about his professional future.

Nothing had quite gone to plan today, but Pam has gotten used to that by now. Somehow when it comes to her and Jim, everything still always feels perfect. 

It's their wedding day, and absolutely nothing: not Jim’s slip-up the night before, or Andy’s ill-fated split, or corny recreations of YouTube videos could ever take that away from them. 

After they exit the church hand in hand, he gently pulls on her arm to spin her around and press her against the side of the stone entryway out of view from their guests for a brief, but decidedly non-church-friendly kiss. Her breath catches in her chest and she feels such relief: he is hers now, all hers. She’s instantly reminded of their first date and wonders if he’s done it on purpose, but it’s Jim, so she suspects he probably has. She smiles against his lips, hardly able to contemplate the depth of her own bliss.

The reception goes surprisingly smoothly, and after so many twists and turns and bumps in the road this weekend they figure it’s about time for something to proceed normally. So normally, in fact, that the documentary crew turns in before the night is even over. 

At the end of the evening, just before they say their goodbyes, Pam turns to Jim to take a mental picture of him: click. She wants to remember him exactly like this. 

When they arrive back in their honeymoon suite, they’re exhausted, but exhilarated. He locks the door behind them and turns to face her, his expression etched with yearning she hasn’t seen since the first night they made love. Yet again, something has shifted between them, made them different than they were before, and she appreciates Jim’s small moment of acknowledgment. And just as they had that very first time, when he takes her into his arms tonight they remain wordless; wrapped up in each other and the enormity of this moment where two lives officially merge into one.

She now lies strewn across the bed on her back, naked, the sheets tangled around her body. Her hair, which had been pinned up since the falls, has been let down, and she massages her tender scalp with her eyes closed.  Jim lies next to her, propped up on one elbow, just gazing at her. He takes out his invisible camera and shoots his own mental picture of her with a soft click.

She twists her head on her pillow to look at him. “That photo is inappropriate for the mental scrapbook.”

He shakes his head and holds his hand out, showing her the imaginary photo. “It’s perfect. It’s going on the cover.” He pretends to look at it closely, squinting. “Oh wait, you blinked again.” He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, I’m not gonna be looking at your face anyway.”

She rolls her eyes and throws a nearby pillow at him, which he catches with a laugh, turning onto his stomach and tucking it underneath. He reaches a hand out, dragging a finger gently along her stomach. 

“We did it, Beesly,” he says softly. 

“Halpert, you mean.” 

“Holy shit,” he laughs. “You’re right. Pam Halpert. Wow.” 

Ever since she’d seen her married name written out on Kevin’s gift check, she hasn’t been able to get it out of her mind, but hearing him call her by that name on their wedding night is next-level. 

“I like when you call me Beesly, though,” she says. “Don’t stop now just because I’m taking your name.”

“You don’t have to, you know. Liberated woman and all that.”

“No, I want to,” she affirms. “I think it’s romantic.”

“Alright, Beesly. Whatever you say.” 

He moves his hand up to stroke her cheek. Jim’s always been incredibly romantic with her, but she can tell it's been turned completely loose today and he’s not quite ready to reel it back in. Luckily, she doesn’t mind at all. 

She turns onto her stomach carefully to better look at him.  “So tell me about your other mental pictures from the day,” she instructs him. 

“Right now?”

“Yes, now,” she prods. “We should tell each other before we forget everything.”

He looks thoughtful. “You go first.”

“You don’t want me to go first, or I’ll start with Andy’s scrotum.”

He makes a face. “That was a high point for you?”

“Well, not as such,” she laughs. “But when the doctor started poking at him he let out this really high-pitched girly scream, and I couldn’t help myself.”

He looks at her wistfully. “I’m really happy you’ll think about Andy’s balls whenever you remember our wedding.” 

“I thought you would have enjoyed it. That’s why I took a picture for you.”

“So thoughtful, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiles and scoots even closer to him. “Now you go.”

“Hmm,” he thinks for a minute. “Kevin’s Kleenex box shoes were pretty great.”

“It was even better when your brother tripped over them,” she adds.

“Meredith and Kelly fighting over the bouquet.”

Tilting her head a bit, she changes the tone of her voice. “Our first dance,” she says, a bit more quietly. 

They’d chosen Here Comes My Girl, which had become their song over the past couple of years. She’d been instantly transported to that night on the rooftop during the Dunder Mifflin Infinity launch party. 

“Oh, are we getting mushy now?” he grins.

“I think it’s a good day for it.”

“Okay. Can I tell you my favorite part of the day, then? It’s pretty mushy.”

“Go on.”

He sighs contentedly, his eyes softening in that way they do when he gets serious. 

“After the ceremony, when we just stood at the back of the boat watching the falls. The moment I truly knew you were mine forever.”

His words bring up emotions she’s never quite experienced before, her passion for him only growing with time. She leans in to kiss him — her new husband — and even though it’s at least the thousandth time they’ve kissed, it miraculously feels even better than it did when they were just engaged.

She grins against his lips. “I meant to ask you… why’d you kiss me on the cheek on the boat?”

“Well, I wanted to save something for the second ceremony. So it wouldn’t be entirely pointless.”

“Nothing about that was pointless,” she laughs. “I had no idea Oscar could Vogue like that.”

“I guess it’s a good thing we anticipated Michael.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” she admits with a smile. “I think, as much as Michael enjoys making a spectacle of himself, he really did just want to make our wedding special. It’s hard to be mad at him for that.”

Jim shakes his head. “I’m not mad at him for that. Still a little pissed about how that whole co-manager thing went down, though.”

“I told you to be honest with him.” 

“I know, and you were right,” he agrees. “I just can’t believe he undermined me to Wallace.”

Pam thinks for a minute. “Well, look at it this way. You love me, right?” 

Jim raises an eyebrow, confused. “Of course.”

“And if anyone threatened me in any way, what would you do?”

“I’d kill them,” he says. “Or at least write them a very strongly worded letter.”

“Well, Michael’s job at Dunder Mifflin is the love of his life. And if he thought you were threatening the love of his life, he’s going to react proportionately. It doesn’t matter how much he likes you.”

Jim looks at her for a long beat. “It’s weird, how you have this sort of Michael instruction manual in your brain. How do you do that?”

She often wonders the same. But whenever she does, the answer is crystal clear. “It’s not something you can learn from a book, Jim. It’s pure instinct when it comes to Michael Scott.”

He nods, taking this in, seeming to relax a bit. “Anyway, Michael was actually… the best possible version of himself today.”

“He really was. I kept waiting for something awful to happen but it seemed like he was really on his best behavior.”

Jim’s expression suddenly softens. “You know what he said to me last night, when we were down at the bar?”

“No, what?”

“He made me promise to take care of you,” he reveals. “He said, and I quote, you’re like ‘the daughter who’s too hot for him to have.’”

She laughs. “Well, that was sweet of him, I guess.” As usual, she’s touched by Michael’s sentiment, however inappropriately expressed. 

“It’s the best you’re gonna get, I think.”

She lays back onto the pillow, feeling his eyes on her. “So... will you make him proud?” 

“Absolutely I will,” he grins. 

She puts her hand over her slightly protruding belly, a bit self consciously. Jim covers her hand with his. 

“You looked perfect today,” he says, like he’s reading her mind. 

“Before or after the falls completely ruined my hair? And my shoulder strap broke when I sat down?”

“All of the above.” 

“You’re sweet,” she says with a small sigh. “I don’t feel perfect. Far from it.”

“Look at you,” he says, his eyes now roaming every exposed curve he possibly can. He gives her a soft smile. “You’re exquisite. And you’re carrying our baby.”

It’s magical, the way that whenever she looks into his eyes she always believes he means it.

“I don’t think I ever said thank you, Jim.” 

“For what?”

“For today. Everything. For just... being you.”

“You’re welcome,” he says. He looks at her for a moment, and the room is quiet, save for the fire crackling across the room. He lays back down and stares at the ceiling, apparently deep in thought. 

She turns her head on her pillow to look at him. “What is it?” 

“I was just thinking. Will said something to me today on the boat. After you left with Delilah.”

Will has always been one of the quieter cameramen, and none of the crew makes a habit of speaking to them at all, really, but he’d been left alone with Jim for a few minutes. Pam hadn’t left Jim’s side for the entire whirlwind boat excursion, but the pregnancy had made avoiding the bathroom impossible, and she’d requested Delilah’s assistance with her dress for a few minutes after the ceremony. It was definitely something she hadn’t wanted Jim taking a mental picture of.

“What did he say?” she asks.

Jim turns his own head on his pillow and reaches out to gently move a strand of hair out of her eyes. “He said... that you and I have something really special. That we should treasure it.”

She’s surprised. It’s a little weird -- she barely knows Will -- but not in an off-putting kind of way. 

“Well, that was nice of him.” 

Jim looks at the ceiling again. “Do you ever wonder how they’re going to edit us? You know, for the documentary?”

His question comes out of the blue. The pillow bristles softly as she cocks her head a bit. 

“I don’t know,” she admits. “How do you mean?” 

She’s become so accustomed to the cameras that she occasionally stops thinking about them altogether, let alone how the crew sees them, or how the finished product will turn out.

“Just… that it seems like they know us. That they know so much about us. It just threw me a bit, that’s all.”

She isn’t quite sure what to think, how to answer Jim’s question, but she’s seen enough reality television to know she and Jim could come across any way the production deems entertaining. 

“I never really thought about how we might look to other people. I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I sort of forget about the cameras.”

“Me too.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Oh come on, liar. You’ve shown off for the cameras more than anyone.”

“I never have!” he says, indignant. “I’ve only ever showed off for you. The cameras just happened to be there.”

She grins, not buying his excuse for a second. “Is this something you’re really worried about?” 

“No,” he says, and she isn’t quite sure if he’s being entirely truthful. “I just think about everything that’s happened over the past few years. How much of it they caught on tape, how it might come across. And how, sooner or later, we’re gonna have to watch it. It made me think about how far we’ve come, how different things used to be.” He turns to look at her. “I’ve been so happy to be with you that I almost forgot what it felt like... before.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t do that to yourself, Jim.”

He smiles at her and she’s comforted, even though she presumes it’s mainly for her benefit. But she can tell he’s somewhat distracted, perhaps even slightly unsettled, and the more she thinks about it, she can empathize.

The days at Dunder Mifflin are typically uneventful -- at least, as uneventful as Michael will allow -- but today, there’s enthusiasm in the air. For some reason completely out of the realm of Pam’s comprehension, a PBS documentary crew has decided to film the inner workings of a paper company. While she’s a bit apprehensive about the idea of cameras capturing her every move, she can’t deny there’s something exciting about it; it makes her, and this boring job, feel a little more important. Like she matters.

It’s been awhile since she’s felt that way.

She sits at reception and for the first few hours, she has to remind herself not to behave like the cameras are there. She feels restless and observed, which is a far cry from the way she usually feels for the most part: ignored and unnoticed.

Michael has been doing an interview in his office for at least twenty minutes, and she wonders if all this time spent not working is going to be taken from their pay at some point. But, then again, she thinks of all of the time she spends not working anyway, and it doesn’t seem so strange after all.

Jim wanders over to her desk, leans against it in his usual way, twisting his neck to watch Michael doing his interview through the window. 

“Did they talk to you yet?” he asks, taking a jelly bean. The amount of jelly beans Jim consumes at reception daily makes her amazed he’s as lean as he is.

“Not yet. You?”

“Yeah, about an hour ago.” 

She tries to ignore that fluttery feeling she gets in her stomach whenever Jim pays attention to her. She’s used to it by now, but it still gives her a secret thrill every time.

“What did they ask you about?” 

He shrugs. “What I do here. I talked about paper. I nearly fell asleep doing it.”

She laughs a bit, wondering what on earth they will possibly ask her. How she answers the phone? How she takes messages and sends faxes? How she spends way too much time helping Jim prank Dwight in an effort to curtail the mind-numbing monotony of this place?

“I feel like... this enormous pressure to entertain them or something,” he continues. 

“Oh God, I didn’t even think about that,” she remarks. “I’m just praying I don’t say anything stupid.”

Jim nods, sucking air through his teeth. “Luckily, we have Michael around to do that for us.”

“Good point.” 

Pam casts a glance around the office and her eyes land on the accounting corner, where a camera is set up and pointed directly at them. No one has mic’d her or anything, so she figures their audio is probably not being captured. She leans in closer to him and drops her voice.

“Do you think they’ll follow us home and stuff? Are they allowed to do that?”

“Better check the contract, Beesly,” he says. His hands drape over the ledge of her desk, inches from her face. “Because I think we all pretty much signed our lives away.”

“Maybe I should have read that.”

“Yeah.” 

“It was so long.”

“I didn’t, either.”

“Weird to think that anything we say or do could just… be out there, forever,” she muses. 

“Well,” he shrugs, “I have a terrible memory, so it’ll be great to be able to watch this later and remember every single paper sale I make.”

“Every magic trick Michael does for the office?” she suggests.

“Every useless fact Dwight has to share about Battlestar Galactica.”

“The names of each and every one of Angela’s cats,” Pam giggles.

“See? We’ll want to remember all of that. Important stuff.” Jim grins at her in that special way he has that makes her feel seen.

Their eyes connect for a moment and her mind gets a little hazy at how close he’s standing to her, how comfortable she feels when she and Jim are in their own little bubble. It always feels like Dunder Mifflin is one enormous joke and they’re the only two people who are in on it. 

She’s acutely aware of the camera capturing the tableau of the pair of them, and immediately wonders what they look like together. She can picture it in her mind; that deep dark part of her brain that occasionally goes there, allows herself to wonder what Jim might be like as a boyfriend. 

As her boyfriend.

She knows it’s wrong. She tries to shrug these thoughts away whenever they invade, but sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes she doesn’t even want to. She’s been with Roy for so long the mere idea of someone else is a welcome fantasy, a brief respite from her reality. And it’s not that she doesn’t like her reality, she just occasionally wonders what things might be like on the other side of it. 

Jim is cute, she’s always thought so. She flirts with him quite a bit, and knows he flirts back. But it’s always just harmless. These thoughts are fleeting; she never allows herself to take them too seriously. Jim doesn’t feel that way about her. Obviously neither of them mean anything by it. 

Obviously. 

She hopes it’s as obvious to the cameras.

“Speaking of cats,” she says, trying to distract herself from how good Jim smells today, “I have an important question for you.”

“Yes? 

“Are you going to Angela's cat party on Sunday?” She can barely get the question out without laughing. 

“Yeah, stop. That is ridiculous,” he grins. They chuckle together for a moment, then he suddenly looks somewhat serious. “No, but are you actually going?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh yeah, no. Me neither.” He stands up and takes a step back. She gets the feeling if her answer had been different, his might have been, too.

The head producer walks over to reception just then, almost as if she’d anticipated the awkward break in their conversation. Like she’d been watching them. 

She sticks out her hand for Pam to shake. “Hi, I’m Delilah. You’re Pam, right?”

“Yeah, hi.”

“Can we grab you for a quick interview, if you’re not too busy?”

Pam catches Jim’s eye and she can tell the same thought passes between them: No, I’m not busy. I’m very rarely busy around here. Delilah seems to notice this silent exchange before Pam answers.

“Not too busy.”

Pam sets her phone to voicemail and Delilah leads her into the conference room, which is filled with half a dozen people and various pieces of film equipment. There are a few camera operators and a couple of sound guys. Everyone introduces themselves and Pam promptly forgets every name.

“So, Pam,” the producer says. “Have a seat. We’ll just be checking in with you periodically to see how things are going, get some insight on the office dynamic. Nothing to be nervous about.”

“Okay.” She is nervous, very nervous, actually. But hopefully the nerves will fade with time.

“Tell me how you started working at Dunder Mifflin,” Delilah begins, then sits back expectantly.

“Okay. Well, my fiancé actually works downstairs in the warehouse,” Pam explains. “He heard about an opening, I was looking for a job, and here I am. That was… about three years ago.”

“And how do you like it here?”

She shrugs. “It’s fine, I guess. It’s just a job.”

“Say more about that.”

Pam looks around the room, feeling like she really has nothing to say and yet somehow everyone looks interested. 

“Um. Well, it pays the bills, is what I mean. And it’s pretty nice here. The pay is decent, they have health care. And the people are…” she trails off a bit, unsure of how to finish the sentence. “Interesting.”

Delilah leans forward. “Apparently there have been talks of downsizing the company, can you tell me your thoughts on that?”

“I did hear something about that.” She thinks for a minute. “I don't know. I don't think it would be the worst thing if they let me go, because then I might…” 

It occurs to her she’s never really articulated these thoughts aloud before. Two minutes with a documentary crew and they’ve somehow gotten it out of her. Who knew? 

“I just... I don't think it's many little girls' dream to be a receptionist.” 

She sees a look on Delilah’s face that she identifies as sympathy. She has a sudden urge to elaborate.

“I like to do illustrations. Mostly watercolor. A few oil pencil. Um... Jim thinks they're good.” She realizes the familiarity with which she’s uttered his name would not be shared by these strangers. “Jim Halpert, he’s one of the sales guys, you met him, right?”

“Yes, we did this morning. He seems like a nice guy.”

She smiles. “He is. He’s really funny, too. You guys should ask him to do his impressions.”

“You two seem close,” Delilah says.

Pam is taken aback by the observation, even though she realizes it’s a perfectly harmless one to make. She is close with Jim, definitely more so than anyone else in the office. 

“Yeah, he’s probably my best friend here.” 

Jim is probably her best friend, period, but she doesn’t say that.

“Must be nice to have a friend at work you can talk to,” Delilah says. “I don’t think everyone is that lucky.”

Lucky. It feels strange hearing someone to associate that word with her. She’s never felt particularly lucky. Her life feels like it’s moving along the way it's supposed to for the most part, but she can't deny that sometimes it feels as if it’s missing that spark she suspects it should have. Rather than look for that spark, however, it’s easier to just assume it's not for everybody.  

“I guess I am lucky. He’s a really good friend.” 

She feels like it’s important to draw a distinction -- friend -- create a boundary here and now, so that the crew doesn’t necessarily get the wrong idea. The camera can’t look into her brain, thank god.

Delilah suddenly reaches forward to swipe something off Pam's skirt with her finger. “Sorry, that’s been bugging me. You had a tiny spot on your skirt.”

“Oh. That’s embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not on camera.”

“What is it?” Pam asks, leaning forward to attempt to inspect the mysterious substance.

“Looks like... yogurt.”

“Oh,” Pam laughs. “Sorry. I just had lunch.”

“Mixed berry?” Delilah asks, oddly, as she wipes the goop off on a paper towel one of the assistants hands her.

“Um. Yes, actually. How did you know that?”

Delilah looks a little chastened, as if she’s been caught saying something she shouldn’t have. 

“Oh, your friend Jim mentioned it was your favorite.”

Pam blinks. “Are you serious? He said that?”

It isn't the first time Jim has appeared interested in her yogurts. One time -- and she remembers it vividly -- he'd even warned her about one's impending expiration. She'd thought it strange at the time but also oddly endearing.

Delilah asks another question. “Can you tell us a bit about your fiancé? The one who works downstairs?” 

Oh. Roy. She’s so thrown by the idea Jim had been talking about her at all that she doesn’t really know what to say about her fiancé. Suddenly the idea of having cameras around capturing everyone’s every thought sounds much more complicated than she’d originally anticipated.

“Well, he’s…” she tries to come up with something to say about the man she’s marrying, but for some reason all she can think about is Jim, apparently studying her yogurt habits. She has to know, she has to. “Jim said mixed berries?” 

Delilah nods, and Pam grins, slightly incredulous but weirdly delighted by this news all the same. ”Oh, wow. Yeah, he's on to me,” she laughs.

She lets herself wonder, again, what it would be like to be with a guy that pays such close attention to her. Someone with an easy power to make her feel like she matters. But nothing will ever come of it anyway. Cameras or no cameras, she’s engaged to Roy. That’s just the way things are.

“So… your fiancé?” Delilah asks again.

“Yes. Roy.” 

She tries to refocus, and think of what to share about Roy, but she can’t help but notice a funny look on Delilah’s face; almost as if the producer has clued into something Pam isn’t aware of.

She’s not entirely sure what she’s signed up for, here; what she’s committed to. The trouble she might be walking into every day. But the cameras are here for the foreseeable future. And if she can’t have Jim, she’ll at least have the memories of their time together.

Maybe she will want to remember that, at the very least.

Pam’s memories of the day the cameras first arrived are vivid. She’d always been comfortable with Jim, always behaved the same way around him, but after being so observed, she’d begun to feel more hyper-aware of the way their relationship might be perceived. Especially that night at Jim’s barbecue, when Phyllis had assumed she and Jim were engaged in some kind of illicit love affair.

Now, they lay curled up together in their honeymoon suite. It’s so strange the way things work out, she thinks. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring the mood down,” he grins. “It’s just got me thinking, that’s all. I hope I don’t come across as some asshole who tried to break up a wedding.”

She raises an eyebrow. “It wasn’t just you who broke up a wedding. I played a pretty important part in that too.”

There really isn’t anything she hadn’t told Jim about how she’d broken off the engagement. It’s a strange feeling to know they have no secrets anymore, and at the same time be unsure of what the documentary will display, what new light they could be cast in. He still looks a bit sad about it, though, and she really just wants to make him feel better.

“For the record, you’re not the only one who has to worry about how you come across.”

Jim looks at her. “What do you mean?”

She sighs. “Just… I don’t know... the way we flirted all the time. Since we can admit it now.”  

“Pamela Morgan Halpert,” he says with feigned horror on his face.

She laughs, still riding the high of hearing him say her name with his. “It was always just for fun, I thought. I mean, I liked it, I liked you, but I never thought it would turn into anything real.”

“And yet here we are,” he says softly.

“Here we are.”

She reaches out to run her fingers through his hair. “So… does any of that other stuff really matter now?”

“Yeah, well,” he muses. “Whatever it is, once this documentary airs, it’ll be out there forever.”

Forever.

She looks at him: her husband. No matter what comes their way, everything has worked out for the best.

“I guess the difference is, if we don’t want to see it, we can always turn it off,” she reasons, snuggling in close to him. She then extends her hand in front of their faces, snaps a mental picture of them, and holds the ‘picture’ up. “See? That’s a good one. That’s forever.”

He tangles his hand in her hair, playing with it a bit. “I love you.”

She closes her eyes, feeling her entire body get warm, as he twists his body to kiss her properly. That spark she’d been missing all her life always crackles inside her when his lips touch hers, and it’s still hard to believe that after so many years of waiting for her dreams to come true, she is exactly where she wants to be. If this documentary is the price of admission for her to be able to feel this way, she’d gladly pay it all over again.

“And eventually the cameras will be gone, right?”

“Well, yeah,” he says suggestively against her lips, his hand starting to wander. “But they aren’t here now.”

“No, they aren’t.” 

“Hmm. What should we do with that information?”

She knows he’s tired -- hell, she is, too -- but she’s game for another round. After a minute or so of kissing, however, she stops, eyeing something over his shoulder.

“Jim.” 

“What?”

“The painting is looking at us.”

He turns his head around to see Michael’s gift for the two of them sitting across their honeymoon suite, propped up against the wall behind all of the other gifts: a crudely painted Pam and Jim, in their work clothes, holding hands in front of a sunset.

“It really is something special,” he says, and she knows he, at the very least, half-means it.

“I never saw anything more beautiful.”

“He really captured your eyes.” 

“And your hair,” she chuckles. 

“I think we should hang it at home right next to the clown,” he suggests.

“Good plan.” She pushes him gently. “But can you do something about it for now, please?”

He rolls off the bed and pads over, stark naked, to the enormous pile of gifts to turn Michael’s painting around the other way. Then he slides back into bed, pulling her into his arms again.

“Thanks for that,” she says, snuggling into his neck.

“No problem. Thanks for marrying me.”

She smiles, and as he leans in to kiss her again, she feels a sharp jolt in her belly. She pulls away from his lips with a loud smack.

“Jim! I think the baby just kicked!”

He opens his eyes, his lips still slightly puckered. “What?”

“Here!” She sits up, takes his hand and places it on her belly, sliding it around until it’s directly over where she’d just felt a flutter. “Wait.”

They wait in breathless silence, the fire crackling across from them, the sheets quietly rustling beneath her. His eyes meet hers and they just look at each other, as if the electricity thrumming between them can somehow coax the baby into moving again. Time seems to slow down, somehow aware this is an important moment for them. And eventually, another kick comes. 

Jim’s eyes light up with pure delight.

“Oh my god,” he says, with wonder in his voice. “Tonight. Of all nights.”

“Interrupting sex.”

“Well, the baby definitely inherited our timing.” 

“Sure did,” she says with a dramatic sigh. “Little Michael Scott Halpert.”

“I do not think that is funny,” Jim says, complete with Stanley inflection.

She laughs and they lay back down, his hand gently rubbing her abdomen, waiting for more kicks. 

“I can’t believe it’s only going to be you and me for a few more months,” he says. “I’m excited, but I’ll miss this, you know? Just us.”

She pulls out her mental camera again, points it down at his hand across her belly. Click. Jim mimes taking the picture from her and looks at it, then holds it to his heart. 

“Well then,” she says, leaning in closely. “I guess we’d better make every moment count.”

It’s strange to admit things are going so well you hardly notice how good they are, but life has been moving along for Jim and Pam this way nonetheless. 

The addition of Cece into their world a couple of years earlier than expected has been challenging, but absolutely wonderful. Jim is making more money as a salesman for Sabre than he ever had with Dunder Mifflin. And Pam, after a series of dramatic events, has finagled her way into a position that suits her: office administrator. 

Negotiated, Pam always says to him with an air of annoyance. She doesn’t like “finagled” because, regardless of how it actually came about, she doesn’t like the idea she’d been dishonest getting the job in the first place. But Jim looks at it as the greatest coup in Dunder Mifflin history and insists she be proud. She’s earned it, after all. It isn’t flashy or impressive; it isn’t “famous artist” or “top salesman” but she’s finally doing something she enjoys, and she’s good at it, to boot. 

The past several months have been a blur of firsts: experiencing the ups and downs of new parenthood together; falling in love with their new baby and each other all over again. He still occasionally wants to pinch himself that his life has turned out exactly as he’d hoped it might all those years ago, sitting at his desk, daydreaming about Pam while watching her answer the phone.

Well, almost exactly. 

He doesn’t think about it as often anymore, but there’s something he feels is still missing, though he just isn’t quite sure what that is. He isn’t sure how to find it at Dunder Mifflin, either. But that missing piece flits in and out of his mind only rarely because there simply isn’t time to worry about it. And he’s just fine with that. For now.

Meanwhile, Dwight’s new acquisition of the Scranton Business Park has been the bane of Pam’s existence over the past few weeks. Between cutting the electricity at will and relinquishing a precious (yet important) ply in the office toilet paper, he’s made everyone’s lives a bit more miserable. 

“I’m going to kill him,” Pam grits under her breath as Dwight heads out of the bullpen to presumably come up with some new money-saving venture that will ruin her day. Or maybe just ruin her plan to move the company to another location entirely. 

“I’ve been saying that for years,” Jim grins. “What happened to him being your friend?”

“He is my friend,” she retorts. “It doesn’t mean I’m not going to kill him.”

She shakes her head and looks at her computer screen. He can tell by the tiny crinkle in her brow she’s thinking hard about something. 

“Hey. You okay?” he asks quietly.

She glances in the direction Dwight scampered off to, then back at Jim. Jerking her head a couple times towards the front entryway, she gets up, indicating for him to follow. He’s seen that look before, and since he’s not incredibly busy anyway, he gets up casually and obliges.

They head out into the stairwell and he’s fully prepared for her to pull him into the corner, sneak a few private moments like they do from time to time. But from the look on her face he quickly realizes that is most definitely not the reason she wanted to see him right now.

“There's no building,” she says of her alleged location scouting. “it doesn't exist.” 

“What does that mean?”

“I needed leverage, so I pulled those pictures off the internet,” she explains.

Ah. He grins a little. It was a good bluff, and he wants to tell her so. Dwight is just… not a typical opponent. He used to be an easy target, but dealing with Jim’s shenanigans over the years has built up his resistance. 

Before he can say anything, however, she continues.

“It's just... this office administrator thing, I don't wanna…” she trails off, looking at the blank wall helplessly.

“What?” 

“Fail.” He can tell she hates the word. “I don't want to fail... again.” 

“But... you didn't fail.” This doesn’t make sense to him. Even if Dwight finds out she lied about the office building, it doesn’t make any of the crap he’s rained down upon the employees her fault.

“That's what you said about art school, and that's what you said about sales,” she says, and suddenly everything is different. This isn’t about what’s happening here today. This is about something Pam has apparently been internalizing for months, years maybe. It breaks his heart that she could be thinking about herself in this way. 

“And you didn't fail those things either,” he argues. While she didn’t necessarily follow through with everything she’s tried, he’s never considered her a failure. 

Pam looks him right in the eye. “Well, I'm not an artist, and I'm not a salesman. So what would you call it?” 

Her eyes betray how heavily this has all really been weighing on her, and seeing it play out now because of some stupid Dwight nonsense makes his heart ache for her.

“Hey,” he says gently, folding her into his arms. He kisses her cheek. “Hey, hey, hey, hey. Easy, that’s my wife you’re talking about.” She shivers a bit, a familiar tell that she’s doing everything in her power not to cry, but remains silent.

“Pam, you didn’t fail at being an artist. You are an artist. Just because it doesn’t say it on your paycheck doesn’t make it any less true.” 

He doesn’t patronize, he doesn’t coddle, but he fears anything he tells her, even the truth, might come across that way. 

She inhales, exhales, trying to even out her breathing. He holds his hand against the back of her head and she pulls him in even tighter.

“As for sales, well… you may not have sold a lot of paper, but you helped sell that company. That worthless, doomed company. You did that.” 

He looks over her shoulder protectively, like a habit, for the cameras, hoping Pam can have some privacy for such a moment of vulnerability. He doesn’t see them but he does see someone he does not expect: Dwight, above them, peering through the doorway down the stairs. Their eyes meet.

“You can’t think of everything that doesn’t work out as a failure, Pam. That’s just how life works sometimes… these things make us change and grow. And as for this office administrator thing… I mean, Beesly, you were brilliant. You sold yourself to get a job you deserved, and just because Dwight is being an asshole,” he glares up at his nemesis, “it doesn’t mean you failed.” 

Jim’s glare turns into a challenge, daring Dwight to say something, to speak up and make Pam feel worse. But to Jim’s surprise, Dwight already looks properly chastened. Sad, even. As if he really hadn’t counted on this unfortunate consequence of his own actions.

“It’s gonna be okay, whatever happens,” Jim now says, ignoring the interloper. He can feel her body relax, and they sort of sway a bit in place. Suddenly Dwight is gone and they’re alone again. 

“And Pam, at least you tried. You have to give yourself more credit for that.” At least Pam has a vision for something else, something better. Something she’s good at. “It’s more than I can say for myself.”

“What do you mean?”

He isn’t sure what to tell her. But he does want to be honest. Maybe letting her in on his own struggle will help her appreciate that she isn’t the only one who feels like a failure sometimes.

“I guess… that I don’t want to work here for the rest of my life, you know?” he says. “But I haven’t really done anything about that.”

 It’s out in the open now. She pulls back to look at him, wiping the corner of her eye. “What is it you want to do?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. What else can I do? What else am I qualified to do?”

She tilts her head to the side a bit, regarding him. “I didn’t know you felt this way,” she says, more surprised than anything else. “I mean… I know this isn’t the most exciting job in the world, but I can’t really say working here is ever boring. And you’re making more money now than you ever did before.”

He nods. “I know, you’re right,” he says. 

“And you get to sit next to someone who loves you a whole lot.”

He makes a so-so gesture. “I think Dwight mildly hates me, actually.”

She laughs. “Only mildly?” 

“I was being generous.”

“So what’s the problem?” she asks.

What is the problem? He isn’t unhappy here. It’s just that the idea of being at Dunder Mifflin forever isn’t any more appealing to him now than it was eight years ago. Everything about this place is just so… ordinary. And that’s not a bad thing, necessarily, he’s just always wondered what it would be like to be doing something slightly more… extraordinary.

He shakes his head that he keeps doing this to himself: wondering what something else would be like, then allowing time to pass him by year after year without doing anything about it. 

“Well, there are definitely benefits to working here. Being near you is the best part about this job, by a long shot,” he admits. “But there were times when I hated it. Really hated it. All the crap with Michael, or Dwight.” His voice drops a bit in volume. “Watching you with Roy.”

She exhales sadly. “Oh, Jim.”

“What can I say? I loved you a whole lot.”

She crinkles her brow a bit, looking slightly uncomfortable. He shifts his tone, because while he does feel restless at Dunder Mifflin from time to time, he’d be lying if he told her he regretted a day. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I like it here.” He searches for what he’s trying to get across. “It’s just… you have something else, your art. And even if you aren’t doing it full-time, it’s something that’s yours. Something you’re passionate about. I’ve never been passionate about this job, but at the same time, I don’t really know what else to do. So I feel a little bit stuck, if that makes sense.”

“I get that,” she replies. “I do.” She looks down at his chest. “I’m sorry, I got mascara on your shirt.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

She tries to pick at the stain a bit. He watches her face screw up in that cute little way it does when she’s concentrating really hard on something, and regardless of all the feelings this conversation has brought up within him, it’s easy to forget everything else when she’s near.

“Hey,” he says, stopping her hand. He pulls it down slowly, taking her other one as well, and looks into her eyes, trying to steer this conversation back around to her. He sort of feels bad for letting it become about him in the first place. “Just remember, no matter what happens, I’ll always be proud of you. And this office administrator thing? You’re great at it. It doesn’t matter what Dwight says or does.”

Her eyes fill with relief, and thankfully, that smile he lives for appears again. She’s always been his favorite part of the job anyway, and whenever he sees her smile, he feels like his job is done.

“Thanks,” she says softly. “Just for being there.”

“Always. You gonna be okay?”

She nods. “Yeah, I’ll figure something out.”

“I know you will,” he grins. “And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go watch Oscar absolutely annihilate Michael in a conversation about foreign policy.”

She laughs. “Never a dull moment, right?”

“Never.”  

Regardless of everything else, that’s definitely true. 

If anyone ever bothers asking him, Jim will say the pranks began as a way to kill time, to get through the monotony of working at Dunder Mifflin. He knows people wonder; his coworkers, the documentary crew. Why does he spend so much of his time and energy on elaborate pranks that always have the same outcome?

Pissing off Dwight is admittedly amusing. He’s such an easy target, and he does make Jim’s life more difficult than necessary on a daily basis. But that isn't the real reason. 

Pam’s laughter is the real reason he does it. 

Dwight’s predictable reaction is an added bonus, but it doesn’t bring him the same amount of joy and satisfaction as Pam’s approval does, and that’s the honest truth.

For instance: it had taken him weeks to slowly fill Dwight’s phone handset with nickels, one each day, until he’d finally removed them all last week. He felt a bit guilty about the goose egg that appeared on Dwight’s forehead, but it was the hardest he’d ever seen Pam laugh as long as they’d known each other.

Totally worth it.

Three years at this office have actually flown by, and it surprises him. This isn’t the place he’d like to see himself working in two more years, or in five more years. He’s not even really sure why. He’s good at sales, always hits his numbers. But he’s actively avoided promotion in this company more than once, for reasons he’s not entirely certain of. 

Actually, he is pretty certain what the reason is. Maybe he doesn’t want to admit it to himself because part of him knows it’s slightly pathetic to hang around year after year like this; stuck in some sort of maddening limbo in which the girl of his dreams belongs to someone else, yet is still somehow partially his. 

He’s exhausted from all of this waiting: waiting for Pam to either get married and let him off the proverbial hook, or break up with the guy and run away with him. To where, he doesn’t care. But he wouldn’t still be here if it weren’t for her, and that fact has become abundantly clear. 

He’s basically existing for their friendship nowadays, but what he really wants is more. He wants to be the one who gets to hold her and kiss her. He wants to be the person she goes home to after work, too. 

He wants to have all of that. But what he does have is the ability to make her laugh, and it will have to do for now.

It’s early at Dunder Mifflin; earlier than he would ever come in for actual work. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t here with a job to do. He’s sitting in the break room watching Steve the vending machine guy replace all the snacks with Dwight’s various personal items.

“If he reports this…” Steve says, slightly nervous.

Jim shakes his head. “He won’t. If he tries, I’ll get everything out before he can do anything.”

Steve balances the ‘Dwight K. Schrute’ nameplate in a place of prominence, then goes to shut the glass door, but Jim stops him, hearing someone come into the office. “Hang on,” he says. “I have to get one more thing.”

Steve shakes his head with a slight chuckle. “Do you people ever get anything done around here?”

Jim grins at his friend, then heads out of the break room, through the annex, into the kitchen, and peers out into the bullpen. Dwight has arrived, right on time. He’ll have to move fast before his coworker notices his missing belongings.

Pam is already at reception and catches Jim’s eye through the blinds with a slight wave. He holds up his cell phone, dialing the front desk.

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam,” she replies, looking right at him.

“Hey, I need your help real quick. With Dwight. Can you just say something paper-y?”

Pam’s eyes don’t leave Jim’s. “Yeah, 500 sheets in a ream. I can put you in touch with a salesperson.”

“I need you to get him away from his desk for a minute, okay? But don’t send him into the break room.”

“Absolutely, I’d be happy to help you with that. Let me transfer you.” 

“Oh, and there’s a bag of nickels in my top right desk drawer. You know, from last week? I need them.”

A huge smile spreads across her face she’s unable to hide. “Sure, I can take care of that.”

Pam hangs up the phone and stands, heading directly for Jim’s desk, where he watches her remove the bag of nickels. She then heads towards the kitchen, handing them to him, and after giving him a wink that sends a shiver up his spine, turns and heads into the bathroom. Jim quickly backs into the annex to wait and see what she comes up with. 

After a few seconds he hears a piercing scream, and Pam bursts out of the bathroom, heading back out into the bullpen.

“There’s a huge black widow spider in the ladies room!” she shrieks. “Can someone please get it?” 

Dwight, having just flung his jacket over his chair, spins around bravely. He opens his desk drawer and pulls out a set of nunchucks, and although Jim has absolutely no clue how he plans to use them on a nonexistent spider, he appreciates his dedication to the task.

Dwight disappears into the ladies’ room, and Jim acts. He quickly makes his way over to Dwight’s desk, reaches into the pocket of his jacket, and pulls out Dwight’s wallet.

Success.

Pam is standing in the bathroom doorway as a lookout but also dictating confusing instructions to Dwight on where she’d seen the deadly arachnid. Jim passes her with the wallet and winks, and she watches him go back into the break room. 

Steve places the last item, closes the door, and smirks at Jim. 

“Let me know how it all plays out,” he says. 

As he leaves the room Pam peeks inside to see what Jim has done. Her mouth opens in amazement and her smile is enormous and really, it’s enough. 

It’s enough, and the work day hasn’t even begun.

Pam climbs into the passenger seat, her eyes red around the edges. He knows exactly what saying goodbye to Michael must have been like for her, because his own goodbye had been difficult enough. 

As they pull away from the curb she sniffles and takes a deep breath, staring out the window at the planes departing as they tear across the sky towards change. He reaches over to put his hand on her thigh and she covers it with her own, but doesn’t look at him.

“You gonna be okay?” he asks softly.

“Nothing is going to be the same ever again, is it?” she says sadly, and he knows she’s right. “I don’t think I ever truly thought Michael would leave. Like… ever.”

“I know what you mean,” he agrees.

They drive for a couple of minutes as Jim navigates the car away from the airport. When she’d gotten back to the office and he told her Michael had left, forever, she made him follow her back to her car and drive her to the airport as fast as they could, so she’d be able to catch him. 

Jim can tell Michael’s departure has clearly hit Pam harder than anyone in the office, but something else seems to be bothering her, and he can’t quite put his finger on it. He knows her well enough to understand this is affecting her on some deeper level. Putting his turn signal on, he pulls over into a waiting lot.

“Pam, is there something else you’re upset about?”

“No… I’m not upset. I’m sorry, I’m just having all these feelings and reactions to all this change,” she admits. “I’m so happy for Michael, and for Holly. That they’re off starting this new life together. But for so long Dunder Mifflin was the only love of his life, and he just… left it.”

“I think we can both agree that Holly was the better choice.”

She turns to look at him. “I know this sounds silly. But it’s just scary how things can shift so suddenly, how people change. Life changes, and we all just have to move on and deal with it.”

“Change can be good, Pam.”

She nods. “It can. I guess I just never thought I’d see the day where I’d have to admit I’m going to actually miss Michael.”

He squeezes her hand. The thought of coming in to work tomorrow and not seeing Michael Scott feels wrong somehow to him, too. 

She sniffles and wipes a tear. “I’m sorry, I’m acting a little crazy.”

“It’s gonna be okay,” he consoles her. “And you’re not crazy, you’re just… emotional. It’s completely understandable.”

She turns to him, and blurts her next sentence without any preamble. “I’m pregnant, Jim.”

He blinks, shocked at the abrupt change in topic. “You’re... what?”

“I mean… I think I am. I took a test this morning.”

This isn’t entirely unexpected; not long ago they’d made the decision for Pam to go off her birth control to ‘see what happens.’ 

“Oh my god, Pam!” he smiles, pulling her into a huge hug. 

“I think it explains all… this,” she says after he releases her, gesturing to the tears streaming down her face.

He laughs. “Why didn’t you tell me right away?” He’s not mad, just curious.

She blinks. “Well, I was trying to come up with some cute way to tell you but now that’s ruined, too.” Her face crumples up and she starts crying again.

He knows she isn’t really upset, so he chuckles and pulls her into another hug. “Well, this way was definitely memorable, if it makes you feel any better,” he laughs into her ear.

“Good.”

“I just… this is incredible news, Pam,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m good, I just… can’t stop crying, apparently,” she smiles. “I’ll be fine. Let’s go home, okay? It’s after five. And the boss is gone.”

He nods, giving her a tight smile, and settles back into his seat with a huge sigh. Number two already. He can hardly believe it.

“So… can we name this one Michael Scott?” she asks.

“Still not funny.” 

She smiles, to his very great relief, and turns to look out the window again wistfully. 

“Do you think he’s asked the flight attendant for slippers yet?”

Jim laughs. “At least twice,” he says, and pulls out of the parking lot towards even more change. 

Everything about her life is exactly the way she wants it.

It’s been almost two years since Michael left, and she’d been right about things changing. She’d always assumed her goal would be to escape mundanity, but oddly enough, the mundane now feels perfect: the predictable chaos, the warmth of security, and most importantly, the thriving love from her family that’s supplied in abundance. She’s fallen into a comfortable rotation -- work, kids, Jim -- and while it’s not anything particularly exciting or dramatic, she loves its simple beauty. 

Jim seems happy as well. His concerns about being in a professional slump appear to have ebbed, for now at least, and while she hopes he figures it all out at some point, she can’t deny that she likes him exactly the way he is. When he’s at his desk right next to her, pranking Dwight or smiling at her about something Creed or Kevin said, he’s her Jim, and she likes him that way.

She sits at the kitchen table, feeding six month old baby Phillip, beginning another predictable morning. Jim stands next to the counter and his phone dings; it’s been blowing up the past couple of days, and she hasn’t bothered asking him about it. But now feels like the time.

“You got another wife on the side or something?” she teases.

“Ha,” he says a little awkwardly, checking his text. “Just my friend Colin, from college. You remember him, right?” he asks, looking up from his phone. “You met him once or twice.” 

Pam spoons some pears into Phillip’s mouth. “Yeah, sure. How’s he doing?”

“Well.” Jim sets the phone down on the counter and pours two cups of coffee. “Turns out those nights getting hammered in our dorm room and talking about the future might finally pay off for the guy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, apparently he’s starting a sports marketing company in Philadelphia.” 

Pam is appropriately impressed. Phillip spits the pears back out, and while she is quite adept at catching most of them with the spoon, the mess remains. 

“Wow. Good for him. Can you grab me a napkin, please?”

“Yeah, and guess what?” Jim tears a paper towel off, then wets it in the sink, this routine secondhand nature by now. “The entire thing was my idea.” 

“Really?” she asks skeptically, holding out her hand for the towel. “You’re sure it wasn’t a joint drunken effort?”

He gives Pam the paper towel and she wipes the baby’s chin. 

“Really!” he exhales, walking back to the counter to collect Pam’s coffee mug, then setting it down next to her. “I should have written it down on a napkin or something, dammit.”

“It’s okay, honey,” Pam says to him, then turning to Phillip and trying another spoonful. “We believe you, don’t we sweetie? Yes, we do.”

Just as he sits down at the table, Cece runs into the room with no pants on, holding two trains and depositing them into Jim’s lap. “Daddy! Play trains with me!”

“He asked me to help him, actually,” Jim says distractedly, almost as an afterthought, setting the trains on the table. Cece suddenly seems to find the table leg more interesting than the prospect of train time with daddy, and bends down to inspect it closely.

“Help him, as in… work for the company?” Pam asks.

“Yeah, I mean… I’m sure he feels guilty for stealing my idea.”

She grins. “You mean the napkin idea you’ve been sitting on for fifteen years? That idea?”

“Shut it, Beesly,” he smirks playfully.

“Well, what did you say?”

He shrugs. “I haven’t actually called him back.” 

“Oh?” she asks. “Why not?”

“I guess I thought I’d tell you about it first. See what you think.”

Pam levels her eyes at him. “It’s in Philadelphia.” 

She says nothing more, because to her, it feels like the conversation ends here.

“Right. Yeah, you’re right.” He nods and looks back at his phone. 

She waits for him to say something else, but he doesn’t. Whatever this thing is, it doesn’t sound like it’s even a ‘thing’ yet anyway, so she’s not sure what else there is to be said.

She nods. “Well, maybe you can be his Scranton liaison,” she teases. With the exception of some volleyball back in school, she isn’t much into sports; it’s the one thing she and Jim really don’t have in common. But she knows enough to know there really isn’t much in the way of sporting events in this town.

Jim smiles, but there’s a funny look on his face. She’s been seeing it more and more ever since Phillip was born and she wants to ask him about it but there’s a part of her that’s slightly terrified to hear the answer. 

“You okay?” she asks him.

“Yeah, I’m good. It’s just… never mind. It’s all just so impractical.”

She wonders if this is something he actually wants to do. She wonders if she should press him about it. But he leans down to pick up Cece, tossing her into the air, and amidst their child's delighted squeals Pam can almost convince herself she’s forgotten about the entire thing.

***

It’s been difficult getting a read on Nellie since she arrived; first with the weird way she essentially stole Andy’s job, then the whole magician ex-boyfriend debacle. But girlfriends have been in short supply lately. Isabel visits whenever she can, but with two kids and a full time job, work is really the only place Pam gets to have much adult human interaction. And she’s tried and failed over the years to develop meaningful relationships with the other women in the office. 

Well, she’s sort of tried.

In any event, she thinks she’s actually starting to like Nellie as a result of their little impromptu driving lesson. The woman is a terrible driver, and not a minute passes where Pam isn’t terrified she’ll total their car, but she can’t deny she’s sort of fun. And when Pam shows her a picture of the mural she’d painted on Angela’s nursery wall, Nellie seems to genuinely like it. 

Maybe that’s why Pam decides to open up; or maybe it’s just because something’s been bothering her, and putting it out into the open makes it real. 

“...I actually do have this weird feeling that there's something Jim isn't telling me,” she reveals to Nellie in the car. Ever since their last interview for the doc crew a couple of weeks ago, she’s noticed Jim behaving sort of distantly. She’s run down the list of possibilities in her head, and she’s landed on the morning they’d discussed Colin and his new business venture as the source of the change. 

She isn’t stupid. Something inside her is saying he wants to participate in the new business. But for whatever reason, he’s holding back from telling her how he really feels about it. 

Nellie, meanwhile, looks absolutely horrified. “Oh no! Oh! An affair! It is always an affair!” 

“Jim?” Pam laughs, actually laughs. “No.” 

Nellie sighs. “How can you be sure?” 

Pam smiles, because whatever Jim is hiding from her, she’s one hundred percent certain it isn’t that. She shrugs. “Because he just loves me too much.”

Nellie gives her a little side-eye, and while Pam instinctively believes Nellie thinks she’s full of shit, she’s being entirely serious. “You're a cocky little thing, aren't you, Pam?”

Pam grins, completely aware of how lucky she is to feel so secure. This attitude doesn’t always stretch across everything in her life, but her relationship with Jim has been the one area in which she’s always felt absolutely confident. 

“Well, Pam from a few years ago would tend to disagree with you.” 

Nellie grins, thankfully now looking back at the road. “You never can tell, you know. Men.” She utters the last word with just the right amount of veiled disdain.

“Jim isn’t… men,” Pam says. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“I used to think like that as well,” Nellie says in that way she does that means she’s got a whole story to unpack. “Then they just rip your bloody heart out, don’t they?”

Pam watches her, waiting for the inevitable sad tale that will surely follow, but Nellie is silent, staring straight out the windshield. Perhaps her story is a bit too painful to share. Maybe they aren’t quite there yet.

“You remember Cathy, who used to work with us?” Pam offers up. “She opened the store in Tallahassee with you guys?”

Nellie turns to her with the same horrified look on her face as before. “Oh Pam, I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s not what you think,” Pam says quickly. “I mean… well, not really. But she did practically throw herself at Jim.”

Nellie cocks her head sympathetically. “I knew it. Somehow I had a feeling about those two.”

Pam takes a deep breath, not wanting to have heard that. 

“Well, Jim called me right away. To tell me nothing happened.”

“Guilty conscience,” Nellie nods, off in her own little world. “And you believed him.”

Pam bristles a bit in Jim’s defense. She would never believe Nellie over Jim, but the other woman’s skepticism in this moment of Pam’s own certainty is irksome. 

“Well, what should he have done? Not told me about it at all?”

Nellie shrugs. “Who knows the ways of men and their lies?”

Pam smiles a bit, shakes her head. “You are something else, you know that?”

“So, what did he tell you?” Nellie asks.

Pam remembers that night clearly. It hadn’t been easy after Phillip’s birth to regain her self confidence, and while she knew in her heart she completely trusted her husband, Jim being gone for three weeks, and in close proximity to someone she was certain was interested in him, had added up to just enough anxiety for her to eagerly await his phone calls every night on schedule.

“So… I owe you twenty bucks.”

It’s late, and while she’s thrilled to hear Jim’s voice, he had already phoned to tell her good night an hour earlier. The necessity of a call at this hour from Tallahassee to discuss some bet they’d made eludes her.

“What do you mean? Is everything alright?”

Pam hears him sigh on the other end of the line and can picture it: her exhausted husband propped up against a pillow in his hotel room, pinching the bridge of his nose in that way he used to when Michael was around. 

“Everything’s fine,” he says. “You’ll never guess where I am and why I’m here.”

She’d just gotten both kids to sleep and had really been looking forward to taking a long bath. She plops down on the couch and kicks her legs up onto the coffee table. 

“Please don’t make me guess.” 

Jim exhales loudly. “Remember the other night, when you swore up and down Cathy had the hots for me?”

She’s slightly startled by this abrupt announcement. 

“Yes…?” she says, her stomach suddenly churning in a sort of helpless, unfortunate way. She hates that she immediately looks at her feet. Angela’s earlier comment about ‘cankles’ looms far too prominently in her mind.

“...And remember when I said she didn’t?”

Pam cringes. She does. She also now remembers betting him twenty bucks Cathy would make a move on him while they were in Florida.

“What happened, Jim?”

“Well, nothing happened. But you were right about her wanting it to.”

Pam isn’t typically the jealous type; mostly because she has no reason to be. The idea of Jim cheating or even having the desire to cheat is unfathomable to her, and while most people might scoff at such a notion, she doesn’t care. It’s just the way she feels; she’s always felt secure about him in that way. But she’s been feeling particularly vulnerable lately. Her unequivocal trust in Jim doesn’t make the idea of some attractive, younger woman throwing herself at him any more palatable. And regardless of what he would actually do, she can’t help but wonder what he’d been thinking. 

She speaks slowly and deliberately. “What. Happened.”

“She came to my room, wanting to hang out because her heater had broken.”

Pam rolls her eyes. “You fell for that?” 

“Well, no,” he sounds a bit defensive. “I had no reason to think she had an ulterior motive.”

“Besides the very valid reason that your wife told you she does?”

He laughs a bit. “Well, besides that.”

“So then what happened?”

“Nothing. She was just sending me all these signals, so I shut her down, and that was the end of it."

"Uh huh."

"I’m only calling to tell you that you were right. So you can gloat.”

Pam smiles. “I plan to.”

“And to tell you I love you.”

“Well, that I approve of. I love you, too.” 

She can tell he’s being serious, and can’t help but acknowledge the possibility that if anything untoward had actually occurred he might not be calling her at all. 

“I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to work with her after this, though, to be honest,” he says.

Pam grits her teeth. She doesn’t like to think negatively about other women, especially women she works with. But ‘how fucking dare she’ and ‘I will kick her ass’ and ‘maybe I can get Andy to fire her’ have all entered her mind without a moment’s hesitation. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she decides, after taking a deep breath. “You know what does matter?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line, but Jim delivers.

“Us.”

Her stomach calms, her heart rate slows. If there was even a moment’s doubt, it’s evaporated now. 

“How is everything else? How’s Florida?”

“It’s… fine.” He's quiet, as if he doesn’t want to say much. “I’m not sure if this whole brick-and-mortar idea is going to work out, but I suppose they’re not paying me for my ideas.”

“A paycheck is a paycheck.”

“True,” he says. He sounds as if he might have something to add, but then changes the subject. “That Nellie sure is a character.”

“Wait,” Pam says, sitting up a bit. “Nellie? That woman who applied for Michael’s job?”

“Yeah, she’s running the project out here. I guess she’s a good friend of Jo’s. She’s… nuts.” 

“Wow, you really have your hands full out there.”

“Well, you have your hands full over there. How are the kids?” he asks, and it makes her insides warm. She stares across the room as Phillip’s video monitor flickers on: that brief charged moment where she isn’t sure if he’s awake or just wiggling around in his sleep.

“They’re good,” she says, watching him settle. “Cece has been talking so much. Today she said ‘Grammy is crazy, Mommy.’” Just like that. The whole sentence. Her affectation was on point.”

Jim laughs on the other end of the line. 

“That’s my girl,” he says. “And she’s not wrong. Don’t tell your mom I said that.”

Pam shakes her head, pinching the bridge of her own nose now. She’d never really thought so before, but after your mother has had sex with Michael Scott, there’s a certain amount of respect that’s just irretrievable. It’s true, as it turns out, all these years later: you simply can’t come back from that.

Crazy or not, Grammy has been incredibly helpful while Jim’s been gone. She and Penny had gone home just after the kids went down, and Pam is suddenly very, very aware of just how alone she is. She feels a pang she hasn’t had a moment to properly acknowledge since Jim left. He feels so far away; even though he’s only been gone for a few days she aches for him. 

“I wish you were here right now.”

“Me too. I miss you.”

She switches the tone of her voice to a very specific one she knows he’ll recognize, her fingers toying with the waistband of her pajama pants. “Why don’t you tell me how much you miss me?”

Jim’s voice drops a bit. “Um… I’m not sure now is the greatest time for that…?” He drops it even further, to a whisper. “I’m in Dwight’s room.”

She retracts her hand. “What? Why?”

“It’s a long story. Let’s just say bed bugs were involved. He’s in the bathroom, but I just heard the toilet flush.”

She shudders. “Are you… gonna sleep in there?”

“Yes. Don’t judge me.”

Pam chuckles, things becoming clearer in an instant. “So Dwight rescued you from… bed bugs? Or from the scary twenty-year-old seductress?”

“Both, and I’m incredibly grateful.” She hears him hold the phone away from him, then louder, “say hi to Pam.”

“Hello, Pam,” the very serious voice of Dwight comes through. “Don’t worry, we took care of all the bed bugs.”

“Tell him I said thank you for taking care of one particular bed bug,” she says pointedly to Jim. 

“Hey,” he says after a moment, sounding serious now. “I hope you know I didn’t need Dwight to take care of this.”

“Oh, really?”

“It was just easier that way.”

She smiles. “I know. You are Mr. Nice Guy, after all.”

“Wouldn’t want to tarnish my reputation.”

She grins. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

"And I miss you so much."

The fire inside her that's always burned just for him flickers with comforting familiarity. They say their good nights and as she hangs up, her eye catches his “Mr. Nice Guy” Dundie across the room, sitting on their mantel right next to her Whitest Sneakers award. 

She feels a cozy sense of relief that, when it comes to her and Jim, some things will never, ever change.

“Hmm,” Nellie says. “Sounds like a classic cover-up to me.”

Pam rolls her car window up. “Are you being serious, or are you just trying to get a rise out of me?”

“There are two things you need to know about me. The first is that I will never, ever trust another man again.”

“And the second?” Pam asks, almost afraid to know.

Nellie turns to grin at her. “The second is that I like you, Pam.”

Pam narrows her eyes. “I’m still deciding.”

“That is fair,” Nellie replies. They’re pulling into Dunder Mifflin now, and Pam thanks her lucky stars they’ve arrived intact. 

“I actually have something I’d like to show you,” Nellie says as they climb out of the car. She makes a detour from the front door and heads around back, towards the warehouse entrance.

Pam is slightly exhausted by Nellie’s antics, but also curious to see what she wants to show her. As they enter the warehouse, Nellie gestures up at the enormous empty gray wall before them.

“That is quite an ugly wall, isn't it?” 

”Yeah. It's really ugly,” Pam agrees.

“Needs something, doesn't it? I'm thinking… a mural.”

It only takes a second, but the feeling of elation that runs through Pam when she realizes what Nellie is proposing is real and powerful. 

“You mean... me?”

“Yes! You! You are soooo talented!” Nellie looks extremely proud of herself for her amazing idea but being called ‘talented’ by someone who isn’t Jim has the exact amount of serotonin Pam requires right now. “It's going to be my next special project. Hiring Scranton's most dangerous young muralist to paint the warehouse wall.”

Pam cannot believe it. She will actually be paid to do art, and right here at Dunder Mifflin: the place she’s come to love in spite of everything else. It’s the best news she’s had in awhile.

“Oh my god! I love it! Nellie, this is brilliant!” 

What started out as a typical day at work is shaping out to be rather incredible. A new job, and maybe even a new friend. 

Jim and Darryl walk over just then, and Pam can hardly contain her excitement to tell him. 

“Hey!”

“Hey!” Jim replies, and then follows that up with “Can I talk to you? For a second?”

Nellie gives Jim the stink eye, and he looks slightly confused, but as Pam walks towards him, rolling her eyes, she can tell he understands. 

He opens the door to the warehouse office for her, and follows her in. The door shuts and they’re engulfed with a heavy silence.

“What’s up with her?” he asks.

“Oh, she’s… she’s slightly insane, Jim. I think you’re right.”

He laughs. “I told you.”

“But... I actually do kind of like her.” She smiles, making sure Jim knows she’s being serious. “Sort of related, you’ll never guess what I’m going to get to do.”

“What?”

“Nellie just commissioned me to paint a mural on the warehouse wall. As one of her special projects.”

He looks taken aback, but predictably thrilled. 

“Beesly!” he exclaims in that way she loves. “That’s great!” He charges forward to hug her. “I mean… this is exactly the kind of thing you should be doing.” He holds her for a few moments, then pulls away, looking genuinely happy for her. “Do you know what you’re going to paint?”

“I got the job about thirty seconds ago, Jim,” she laughs. 

He smiles, but she hasn’t forgotten that he’s pulled her in here because he clearly has something important to tell her. They’re quiet for a few seconds before he steps back, his hand going to the back of his neck. When he turns around to walk behind Darryl’s desk, she can see his ears are pink, Jim’s tell that he’s very, very nervous about something. He suddenly looks a bit awkward, like he’d rather be anywhere but here.

“So… what did you want to talk to me about?” she asks cautiously.

From the look on his face, a horrible thought strikes her that maybe he is going to tell her he’s been having an affair after all. Maybe Crazy Nellie had been, in fact, spot on. In the excruciating seconds she waits for Jim to speak, a handful of names cycle through her mind, each one less likely than the one before, and she hates that she’s even considering this horrifying possibility at all.

“Okay.” He walks behind Darryl’s chair, grips it with his hands. He takes a deep breath. “So… you know my friend Colin and the business he’s starting?”

It’s about work, it’s just about some job. Sweet relief courses through her veins and she immediately feels guilty she could even for a second have suspected him of anything else.

“Oh!” she replies. “Yeah? The… sports thing?”

“Yeah, the sports thing,” Jim says. She hadn’t meant it to sound flippant, but can’t help but notice he flinches a bit. “Well… he offered me an actual job, Pam. A real job. And, well…” he looks a bit guilty as the next part of his sentence comes out. “...I took it.”

She stares at him for a full five seconds before replying. 

“You... took it?”

He nods.

“The… job... in Philadelphia?”

“Well, it won’t be. While we’re starting up it’s just going to be part time, from Scranton.”

“Oh.” 

“I can keep my job here, you know, and do this on the side,” he explains.

“Oh.” 

She hates that she can’t seem to formulate any other words, she’s just so taken aback by this entire development.

She isn’t quite sure what to say because whatever this is doesn’t sound quite real yet. But Jim seems very excited and she wants to share in his excitement the same way he’d always done for her. 

“That… sounds really great, Jim,” she says. “So what will you be doing, exactly?”

He seems to unclench a bit, the hard part apparently over. “I’ve just been going over logistics with Colin and the other partners, trying to secure some office space, and getting some investors. Feeling around for clients, that sort of thing.”

“Wow,” she says, slightly thrown. “That sounds like a lot of work. How long… how long have you been doing this?”

“Um,” he says, that guilty look back on his face. “I mean, it’s only been a couple of weeks.”

She feels a cold chill run through her body. 

“You’ve known about this for weeks and you didn’t tell me?”

Jim shrugs. “It’s not a big deal, you know. I guess I just sort of wanted to see what it was all about before I told you anything official.”

A memory surfaces of that day at Roy’s wedding, knowing he had something to tell her and watching him squirm all day, simply unable to open up. She and Jim had always told each other everything. The idea that he’d keep something important like this from her is not only unbelievably confusing, it stings.

“I mean… gosh, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he says. “I really am. But this could be so great, Pam. Remember what I told you about finding that thing I wanted to do? That thing I could be passionate about?”

She remembers. She also remembers feeling included in that conversation.

“Well, I think I may have finally found it. This company seems like it can really be amazing, if we can just get it off the ground. Colin and Wade seem to really have a handle on where they want this thing to go.”

Colin and Wade. He says their names smoothly, with familiarity she finds jarring. She barely knows these people. She can’t help but wonder if Colin and Wade have wives from whom they hid all of this, too.

She finds herself nodding, again, her head bobbing up and down of its own accord. This always happens when she’s put into fight or flight mode: it’s as if when she wants to argue, or stand up for herself, her body starts making decisions on its own. Kind of like the way Jim makes these decisions on her behalf: Jim, who bought their house without consulting her. Who proposed at a gas station in the rain despite the fact that they’d agreed to wait. She’s by no means ungrateful or resentful for those things, but she can’t deny there’s a pattern emerging, and she isn’t entirely pleased about it.

She still feels like Jim is holding something back, although she isn’t sure what else that could possibly be. He just sounds distant and secretive, not his usual self. She isn’t sure she likes this Jim; the one who makes executive decisions and keeps secrets. It’s condescending and disrespectful and slightly selfish but what can she do? Tell him no? He looks so happy. 

For a moment, that old part of her rears its ugly head and she wants to shut this all down right here, right now.

I can’t.

I can’t.

But as she looks into Jim’s eyes, she can see herself from years ago: the person who, even for just a moment, wanted to do something different with her life. Someone who could be brave, take a risk.

“And... this is it?” she asks quietly. “This is really what you want to do?”

He nods at her. “It really is.”

She will not tell him he can’t pursue his dream, she would never want to tell him that. Especially after he’d been so supportive of her own pursuits. But the way this has begun… it feels tainted now, oddly doomed.

“Okay,” she says, feeling slightly apprehensive about the whole thing. 

He’s her husband. She’s his wife. She’s promised to love and support him no matter what. 

Jim reacts instantly, gratefully, and pulls her into an embrace. She clings to him, hoping beyond hope that this thing she’s agreed to doesn’t spiral out of her control. 

“This is going to be great for us, Pam,” he says into her shoulder. “I just know it.”

Us, he said. She wants to believe he means it. 

Maybe it will be great, she tells herself. Maybe it will work out, and he can have what he wants and she can have what their family needs and everything will be perfect. 

Just like it always has been.

”I don't know if I want this.” 

Pam looks at him from across their table for two in the Athlead office, remnants of their Chinese take-out scattered across it. Two glasses of consolation champagne from the Philly job she didn’t get are completely drained. 

Jim is well aware things have been far from perfect for the past few months. Although they haven’t really discussed any of it openly, he continues to tell himself things aren’t as dire as they seem. She’s been going along with this whole endeavor for so long, he’d simply assumed she’d go along with a potential move to Philadelphia too. 

He can’t remember when he stopped believing she actually wanted it, but now he knows for certain it’s true.

“Huh. This is a little out of left field,” he replies. It’s not fair of him, and he knows it, but Pam sees right through him, as she tends to do.

“Is it?” She pauses, but has more to say. “I just... I liked our life in Scranton.” 

He shakes his head slightly, his frustration only outweighed by a dull despondency deep in his gut. “And I have started a business in Philadelphia.”

She shrugs. They eye each other nakedly: after months of awkwardness, their unspoken impasse is finally uttered into existence. 

“So.”

“So,” she parrots, poking at her food with her chopsticks.

“Look, the telecommuting thing… it wasn’t working,” he stammers. “I can’t just do that again because it would make you feel better.”

“It wouldn’t. It wouldn’t make me feel better. It wouldn’t make the kids feel better, either.” 

He shakes his head. “I don’t get it, Pam. What exactly is the problem?”

“The problem?” she asks, and looks surprised he’s even asking. “Apparently, the problem is that you’re so busy you don’t even seem to realize there’s a problem.”

He’s taken aback, and slightly offended at her implication. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Look, Jim,” she says, trying to switch gears a bit. “I’m really happy for you, that you’re enjoying this job. That you’ve found something you like to do, and you’re going after it. And I’ve really been trying to be supportive, especially knowing how great you were back when I was doing the same.” 

The hesitancy she’d had before seems to begin to slip away, and she gets a little louder. 

“But things are very different now. We have built a life together in Scranton. Our kids, our friends, our families. My job, which I’d also like to keep. All of it is in Scranton.”

“But… can’t you be open to trying something new?” he asks. “I mean, change can be good sometimes, right?”

She bites her lip, as if stopping herself from saying something.

“If you have something to say, Pam, by all means, say it.” He doesn’t mean to utter the next part, but it slips out anyway. “Or you can just air it all out to the boom guy tomorrow.”

She looks up, her eyes fiery. 

“Do you want to know the reason I was crying, Jim? Why I broke down in front of the entire film crew? Because I have been doing everything in my power to keep us afloat at home, and when I finally had one tiny piece of good news to tell you, you were so overwhelmed with work you practically bit my head off about Cece’s video.”

He remembers that phone call, vaguely. He’d been so distracted with the account he’d just lost that he hadn’t even considered what Pam had been up to that day, how she’d been feeling, if she had anything to share. 

“You’ve never talked to me like that before, Jim. Ever. I know it’s not you. It’s this job, what it’s been doing to you.”

He’s exhausted. He’s always exhausted lately, and it’s taking its toll. That night sucked, but it was just a fight. Couples fight sometimes, it happens. He knows he fucked up, but he isn’t sure what to do other than apologize. 

“Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you on the phone,” he says. “I just… I’d been excited to see her dance for weeks. I was upset, and I took it out on you.” 

He was mad about the video, is still mad about the video, but he knows deep down he’s not mad at Pam. He’s mad at himself for not having been there in the first place.

She drops her head a bit, looking down at the table, and for the first time he notices just how exhausted she looks as well. 

“The past few months for me have been awful, Jim. Did you know that? Awful.”

He doesn’t know what to say. He’d assumed things weren’t easy, but her saying this to his face makes him feel terrible. She picks up her napkin, fiddles with it, and keeps staring at the table.

“Pam, can you look at me?” he pleads. “I’m sorry.” 

She pauses for a few moments, then looks up again. He braces himself. 

“You know what, Jim? I’m sorry, too,” she says, her eyes leveled directly at him. “I’m sorry I messed up the video. I’m sorry you missed your daughter’s dance recital.” 

He’s momentarily thrown, allows himself a cautious moment of relief that maybe this is going to be simple this time. Maybe they can apologize, and smooth things over. Maybe things will get better.

“You know what else I’m sorry about?” she continues, the tone of her voice indicating she isn’t quite finished yet. “When Phillip took his first steps last month and you weren’t there. I’m sorry you missed that.”

He feels a cold chill sweep into the room, the mood shift now impossible to ignore. He’d gotten that news in a text and watched the video Pam had sent over a dozen times while alone in his apartment. He can still hear her excited laughter in the background. 

“The other day Cece scraped her knee and couldn’t stop crying for Daddy. You weren’t answering your phone. There was nothing I could do about it, so I just held her until all three of us were crying.” Her eyes begin to glisten. “I’m sorry you missed that, too.” 

He feels a palpable ache in his heart. He doesn’t know what to say. 

“Pam, I-”

“Do you have any idea how hard it’s been at home without you?” she says. “Not just physically exhausting taking care of the kids, but afterwards? When they’re finally asleep and you’re not there at the end of the day?”

Guilt fills him like lead. What began as a celebratory night in Philly is quickly devolving into a fight.

“I am doing this for us,” he says for what feels like the dozenth time, which he knows is annoying but it’s all he’s got. “I’m doing this for our family.”

A tear finally breaks free from the corner of her eye. “Are you? Are you really?”

He wants to tell her that isn’t fair, you agreed to this. It didn’t go over so well the last time. 

“I really want this to work out, Pam. And if it means going through some tough times to get there, then… can’t we at least try? Together?”

“We can’t seem to do any of it together,” she counters. “We don’t talk about it, and when we do, we just fight. I don’t know how much longer I can take all of this, to be honest. I’m just… so tired.”

She looks at him, the tear making its way down her cheek.

They sit in a heavy silence, the likes of which they’ve never before experienced. With each passing second he feels the horrible burden of this deadlock constricting both of them, squeezing tighter and tighter.

“What are we going to do, Pam?” He shakes his head. “I mean, it’s a little late now to back out of this.”

He doesn’t intend the double meaning, but as the words escape his mouth he fears she might read it that way anyway.

“It isn’t, really,” she says. “You could just come home.”

“Just like that, huh?” he asks. “What if I like it here? What if I think we could make a life here, one that’s just as good as our life in Scranton? Maybe even better, if we let it?” 

“I don’t know,” she says. “I just don’t know. It all feels wrong to me.”

He’s frustrated that she doesn’t even want to try. Even if she could somehow be convinced, going into something as huge as a move with such a negative attitude would certainly doom it from the start.

He settles back into his chair. He has no idea where they go from here. If neither of them want to budge, where does it leave them?

“I hate this,” she whispers. “Everything about this.”

He catches her eye and sees pain he’s never wanted to see there. But this truly feels like an impossible situation. The answer should be simple but it isn’t. 

“This isn’t about the job anymore, is it?” he asks. “This is about you and me.” 

He’s put it out there now. He waits to see if she takes the bait.

“It’s never been hard to talk to you, Jim,” she says, her lip beginning to tremble. “Something has changed between us and I don’t know why.”

He’s silent, trying to make sense of all this. It has been difficult to talk to her about anything lately, but mostly because they’ve been avoiding so many topics. He desperately wants to believe that the problem isn’t them, it’s just this difficult circumstance they’ve found themselves in, but he doesn’t know, either. He just doesn’t know.

“Maybe…” she starts, clearly gauging his reaction, “...maybe we should try couples’ counseling.”

He can’t help but let out a scoff. Just the idea of it means there’s something very, very wrong here. He’s not ready to admit that yet, even if it’s true.

She rolls her eyes at his reaction; makes a sort of knew that was coming face.

“What?”

She shrugs. “Roy didn’t want to do it, either.”

He blinks. Why is she bringing up Roy? Now? 

“You guys did couples’ counseling?” He’s slightly surprised, wondering at what point in their relationship that conversation came up and why.

She looks right at him, eyes narrowed. “No. We didn’t.”

Her implication has enormous weight, and that same silence hangs between them again like a death. He hates it. The mere notion she’s drawing comparisons between himself and Roy at all makes him want to throw up. He’d always promised himself he’d never, ever treat her the way Roy did. He’s definitely not starting now.

He thinks of what Brian the boom guy had said to them in the restaurant on Valentines Day, about what had happened to him and his wife. That they couldn’t seem to get on the same page, and eventually they stopped feeling anything at all. At least the fighting made it feel like their relationship was still breathing. 

He doesn’t want to wait around for the moment everything goes numb.

I think you should stay and I think we should fight.

Put your dukes up, Beesly, indeed.

“Let’s do it,” he says, reaching across the table to touch her hand. “If you think it will help, I want to try.”

“Weird day,” Pam says from the passenger seat. 

It’s the understatement of the year. They’d attended her ex-fiance’s wedding in the morning, then he’d spent the rest of the day avoiding telling her something he knew he should.

“Really weird,” he agrees. 

Roy’s comment about Pam being a bullet he’d dodged still makes Jim seethe with rage. Having the gall to insult his wife directly to his face isn’t something he thought even Roy was capable of. He’s kicking himself for not calling him out, for not saying it was she who, in fact, actually dodged the bullet. But at the end of the day, he’s still Jim Halpert. He just wouldn’t do that to a guy on his wedding day. Back at home above their fireplace, that ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ Dundie’s tiny golden ears were probably burning.

Roy’s success has been wearing on him all afternoon. The knowledge that this guy he used to hate with every fiber of his being has ended up with pretty much everything he wanted is gnawing away at him. Jim doesn’t want to be jealous, it’s an ugly look, but he can’t help it. 

Hopefully things will be turning around for him, career-wise, very soon. Pam will be happy for him, he knows it. He just has to find the right time to tell her.

He reaches over the console to take her hand. “I think you look gorgeous today, by the way. I don’t know if I told you.”

“You didn’t,” she says with a smile. “But thanks.”

“Hey, it’s something you didn’t know about me, right?”

“I knew.” 

She squeezes his hand, and even though they have this unspoken thing hovering between them, he always feels like everything is going to be okay when she touches him. 

“It’s funny the way things turn out,” she suddenly says. He can see out of the corner of his eye she’s tucking her hair behind her ear, a nervous tic he knows indicates whatever she’s about to say she’s been considering for a while.

“What do you mean?”

She shrugs. “Well, it seems like Roy is really happy. It seems like he’s changed. And I should maybe feel resentful or annoyed that it didn’t happen when he was with me, but I’m just not feeling that right now.”

“Well, I should hope not,” Jim grumbles good-naturedly.

She laughs. “No, that’s not what I mean. I just…” she seems to be battling with something. “It makes me wonder… did he really just sort of grow up and find this person who changed him? Or was it something about me, at the time, that made him behave the way he did?”

Jim turns to look at her briefly. “That sounds a bit like you’re blaming yourself,” he says, slightly upset at the notion. “You didn’t deserve the crap he put you through. None of that was your fault.”

“No, you’re right, and that’s not what I’m trying to say.” She shakes her head. “I just mean… I wasn’t the same person with him as I am with you. I never was. And maybe that’s the whole point.”

He nods slowly, getting it. He’d never blame Pam for Roy’s behavior, but her reluctance to stand up for herself at the time, to feel free to share her opinions or assert herself, had surely had an impact on their dynamic. Maybe Roy didn’t work very hard at their relationship because he didn’t think he had to; maybe Pam, in her perpetual acceptance of its mediocrity, was telling him it was exactly what she deserved: no more, no less. 

He knows with absolute confidence he would have loved her in every single one of her iterations, but by the time she’d gotten together with Jim, she’d begun to undergo such a transformation all on her own. The experience of watching her grow and become the person she was meant to be, all while being right by her side, is an extremely special gift that Jim will always be grateful for. 

“I think we’ve all changed,” Jim says. “Not necessarily as people, but... the things we want, the things we feel we deserve become clearer as time goes on. As we learn more about ourselves.” He can't help but think about all that time years ago he'd spent away at Stamford, trying to convince himself he was over Pam, then ultimately realizing that not only did he not want to get over her, but that he didn't have to.

“Yeah,” she agrees, holding his hand in her lap, absently stroking his fingers. “And it’s important to go after the things you want.” 

He clears his throat, wondering if maybe now is a good time to bring up Athlead. She can’t kill him while he’s driving, right?

“He called Laura his mystery girl,” she continues pensively, before he can say anything. “There was no mystery between me and Roy. He knew everything there was to know about me because I never changed.”

None of this is about Roy, really. Jim wonders what's going through Pam's mind. He knows the idea that they don’t necessarily surprise each other anymore seems to be bothering her, and has since they’d left the wedding. But it doesn’t bother him at all. He loves the fact that they know each other so well, that they’ve already reached a level of intimacy that many couples never reach, or at least don’t until they’re practically ancient. He’s also convinced that their evolution isn’t over: that they’ll continue to grow and change and surprise each other regardless of the way she feels today.

“Is that really still bugging you?” he asks. 

She looks over at him “No. I’m sure you’ll sing Billy Joel to me someday, too.”

He rolls his eyes. She smiles and looks out the window.

“Well, I’m certainly glad you figured out you deserved better than Roy before the Billy Joel medleys began,” he smirks.

“I think deep down I always knew I deserved better,” she counters. “I was just afraid to admit it to myself. And it was you who showed me that every day.” She looks over at him. “So thank you, Jim.”

He grins. “You’re very welcome.”

She sighs and lays back into her seat, cradling Jim’s hand in her lap.

“It’s funny, the things that make you realize your life is perfectly on track.” 

He feels a nervous rumbling in his gut, the knowledge he’s going to have to break this news about his new job to her teetering on the edge of his mind. What he thought might be a great time is now most definitely not the time.

When they arrive home, they say goodbye to Helene and check on their babies. Everything is quiet, save for the clinking of the dishes Pam begins loading into the dishwasher.

He watches her for a minute as he undoes his tie, their routine so familiar, so comfortable. From time to time he supposes that, like Pam, he does catch himself wondering if they’re stuck in a rut, but in moments like these, he can’t imagine wanting anything else.

She takes off her sweater and drapes it over a chair, then starts to take off her earrings, facing the sink with her back to him. He’s constantly amazed at how attracted he is to her in every single variation, but right now, an opportunity arises to show her.

He steps over to the sink just behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. With his other hand, he gently moves her hair aside and leans in to kiss the back of her neck. He can feel her still, setting her earring on the counter as she sways a bit, most definitely aware of how turned on he is.

“Well, hello there,” she says softly. “Bedroom?” 

He turns his head gently until his cheek rests against her crown, pulling her against him, wanting her so badly there is no way they’ll make it to the bedroom.

“No,” he says. “Right here.”

She inhales sharply as his hands travel up her body, then to the back of her dress, where he starts taking down the zipper.

“See? I can still surprise you,” he whispers against her bare neck.

He isn’t sure how she’ll react; it’s been awhile since they’ve had sex anywhere but the bedroom, due to the kids and just general exhaustion. But she turns around in his arms and her hands slide up his chest, into his hair, drawing him in for a very suggestive kiss. She grabs his tie and pulls it through his collar with a gentle rustle, that smile on her face that always turns him into a pile of mush, and hops up onto the kitchen counter, wrapping her legs around his waist.

Turns out she can still surprise him, too.

Divorce. 

It’s such an ugly word.

He hates that he’s even thinking it, but the threat, while perhaps distant, is still very real. He’s prepared to do whatever it takes to make it go away.

“So how does it work?” Jim asks, still not quite believing that he’s ended up in the break room, talking to Toby about couples’ counseling. But here they are. “It's like... the action of talking to a third party breaks up the log jam, or…?”

“You're really there to talk to each other,” Toby clarifies. “I would say that the therapist is more of a facilitator. He might start by asking each of you, ‘Why do you think you're here?’”

Jim pauses. Why the hell are they going to be there? 

“I wish I knew, man.”

“Was this Pam’s idea, then?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, someone her mom recommended. Obviously it did wonders for her parents, so…”

Toby’s eyebrows go up. “Well, Jim, if you go into it with that attitude, it’s pointless.”

He considers this, that he’d only recently felt such frustration with Pam for approaching this entire Philly situation with the same attitude. Maybe he needs an adjustment, as well.

“You’re right. It’s just… we always used to be able to talk about anything. Everything. And now it’s as if every topic is tainted with this… thing between us. It sucks.” He drops his head into his hands. “Just the idea of even doing this counseling thing, it feels so unnecessary.”

“If it’s unnecessary, then you should be able to talk to Pam. About anything.”

Jim sighs. “I really want to. It’s just certain things… I know her so well that I feel like I can anticipate what she’s going to say, and when it’s something I know I won’t like, I guess I just avoid it entirely.”

“That’s not very healthy.”

“I know.”

“And it’s not fair to her.”

“I know.”

It’s weird talking to Toby about this stuff, especially considering the fact that their H.R. rep most definitely had feelings for Pam at some point. Maybe even still does. Perhaps he isn’t such an unbiased party after all. 

“Do you mind telling me what started your troubles?” Toby asks curiously. “If you even know?”

Jim is immediately uncomfortable, because deep down he knows exactly what started all of this, and he knows exactly why Pam was upset. But he remains defensive of his choices and still feels somewhat justified.

“I sort of… made an executive decision to take this job in Philly without telling her. And she wasn’t too happy about it.”

“Wasn’t?”

He exhales loudly. “...Isn’t.”

Toby screws up his face in concentration. “And… you didn’t tell her because you were afraid she'd say no?”

“I guess so. But I figured she wouldn’t really understand, that I at least needed to give this a shot. It’s going to turn out amazing for us, I can feel it.”

“But did you give her a chance to tell you how she really felt? You don’t think she deserved a say? You said she wasn’t happy with this decision.”

“Look. If I didn't do certain things without telling Pam, she'd be…” he reaches for the worst possible example, “...married to Roy,” he sort of laughs. 

“Married to Roy, and… unhappy?” Toby raises an eyebrow. 

Jim glares at Toby. The man has a point. He fucking hates that.

“What if you had told her, and she’d said no?” Toby says, switching gears. “What would have happened then?”

He laughs uncomfortably. “Well, I guess… then I wouldn’t have taken the job. I didn’t want to even entertain that possibility, which is probably why I didn’t tell her in the first place.”

“You don’t think that was selfish?”

He sighs. It was, and he knows it. 

“I suppose it was a ‘better to beg forgiveness than ask for permission’ sort of thing.”

“And has she?” Toby asks. “Forgiven you?”

“At first she seemed to. At first it all seemed to be working out fine. It just feels like everything has gotten harder, not easier.”

“Why do you think that is?” Toby asks.

“She’s struggling at home, and I get that. I understand, I do. But… If she can just hang on for a little while longer, I—this will be so huge for our family.” 

“Well, what's ‘a little while?’” Toby asks.

Jim blinks. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean, what's the end date? It must be really hard for her to sign on to be unhappy if she doesn't know when it's gonna end.” 

“That's kind of an impossible question,” Jim answers. “But I feel like... if she would just get onboard to move to Philly, this could all be resolved.”

“Are you sure it’s that simple?” Toby asks. 

Jim shrugs. “I mean, yeah. My being away is the main source of all our problems.”

Toby eyes him closely, and hmms quietly, as if he’s absolutely not buying what Jim is selling at all.

“You don’t think so?” Jim asks.

“Well, I just think if Pam wanted to go to Philly, you all would be in Philly. No?”

Pam had really let him have it the other night when she told him how much she’d been struggling without him at home. He feels terrible for everything she’s been shouldering, but at the same time -- he continues to tell himself -- he’s doing this for them. Just like the things she’s been doing have been for them. All he wants is for Pam to see that, to understand that.

And then, all of a sudden, for the first time in months he has a stark realization, in the form of a question:

Who is he really doing this for?

He hates that they’ve come to this. He doesn’t want to feel trapped. But deep down he knows this was never what she wanted. She’d made that perfectly clear from the start, he’d just refused to see it. She’d only agreed because she loves him, and would never want to hold him back from anything. She’d only agreed because she wanted to be as supportive of his dreams as he’d been of hers. And now everything has gotten so out of hand to the point where she feels trapped, too.

He knows how right Toby is, how wrong he himself has been this entire time. It’s seemed as if he simply buries these truths the way he has for months, he’s been able to ignore them, or hope they’ll change, or that the problems will all go away. But he’s clearly been dreaming. 

And Pam does not share that dream.

“Well, if Pam says she won't go, then…” he shakes his head helplessly, “...we're gonna need a lot more than counseling.”

He stops short of saying we’re gonna need a miracle because it hurts too much. But they’ve officially reached that point.  

That's kind of an impossible question.

The words had come out of his own mouth and he now feels the weight of their veracity. It is impossible. What he’s asking of Pam is simply impossible. He can’t make her want something she doesn’t. He can’t force her to want the same things he does. He doesn’t even want to try. And in perhaps the first genuine moment of self realization he’s had since all of this began, he wonders if maybe she could have wanted it, maybe she would have been more open to it if he’d given her the option to express her opinion in the first place.

Toby sits back into his chair and brings his hands together, sort of smugly, like an actual therapist. 

“You’re right,” he agrees, and his next words make Jim cringe. “Sounds like you two are gonna need a miracle.” 

It feels wrong that they’ve arrived here, now.

There is no shame in couples needing professional help addressing their issues. Pam knows this intuitively, but what she knows is that it’s true for other couples. It shouldn’t be for her and Jim. 

They walk into the therapist’s office and she wants to take Jim’s hand, but there’s a disconnect they’ve reached she can no longer ignore. Simple touch is a struggle, and it breaks her heart but she cannot deny this is where they are now. She’s tried pretending everything is fine, that they will carry on, that they will get through this rough patch and things will be like they were before. She’s tried, but she’s failed.

Pam is no stranger to failure. It’s just that this -- them -- is something she never thought could fall apart.

The therapist leads them into her office, which is pleasant enough. It smells like lavender and there’s a painting of laughing children in a wagon on the wall across from her. Just cute enough to not be creepy. Dr. Cohen is kind looking, mid-fifties and graying. Pam immediately wonders if this woman is married to the love of her life too, if she can even comprehend the loss she’s feeling right now.

They exchange pleasantries, and the doctor picks up a notepad exactly like Pam imagined she might. 

Everything about this situation feels so cliché: she and Jim are sitting next to each other on a couch, the therapist sits across from them, clicking her ballpoint and tapping her foot. She asks them why they’re here today, and maybe it’s the two cups of coffee Jim hadn’t noticed she’d guzzled before they left, maybe it’s the simmering desperation she’s felt for six months, or maybe it’s just those children in the fucking wagon laughing at her, but suddenly Pam wants nothing more than to get this over with as soon as possible. 

“I’m afraid that I’m losing him,” she blurts out. 

She cannot look at Jim but she can feel him shift a bit, next to her, as he turns to listen. 

“Can you elaborate on that?” Dr. Cohen asks.

Yes, yes she can.

“I feel like he has this whole other life that he’d always rather get back to, and we’re just…” she trails off. 

She doesn’t know how to finish the sentence because she honestly doesn’t believe Jim thinks of his family as inferior to his work. She just doesn’t understand this new Jim, the one with ambition and drive that’s pointed far away from her. The Jim that looks past her now, rather than at her.

Dr. Cohen looks at Pam. “You’re feeling unimportant, is what I'm hearing.”

Pam nods. Jim looks somewhat shocked at this revelation and the doctor picks up on it. 

“Jim, how does that make you feel?”

He looks confused. “Pam, you have to know that isn’t true.”  

She can’t help but identify his tone as more defensive than anything else. She feels like she’s revealed so much already, but her revelation oddly makes her braver, as if her emotions are behind some invisible dam, and with every word another crack appears.

“It reminds me of when you came back from Stamford,” she says. “It was like you were this different Jim. You weren’t fun anymore, you barely talked to me. You said you were ‘evolving.’”

He sits up straight. “That’s not fair. That was an entirely different situation. That was me trying my hardest not to be in love with you.”

She eyes him, not having intended to trap him into admitting something, but the realization that she has indeed done so dawns on them both. 

“You’re right. The situation was very different. But I can’t help that it feels the same.”

Dr. Cohen turns to Jim, attempting to take control of the rapidly spiraling conversation. “Jim, Pam’s just told you what she’s afraid of. Is there anything you’re afraid of?”

He doesn’t look at the therapist, instead just looks into Pam’s eyes as if he’s truly feeling the weight of their problems for the very first time. She tries her best to decipher what she sees in his expression, but it feels like there’s a mist between them that’s been turning slowly into a thick fog. She desperately wants to reach him, but she doesn’t know how.

“I guess…” he searches for his words, “I’m afraid that she doesn’t believe in me. That I can actually do this, turn this company into something amazing.” He looks right at Pam. “That the real reason she won’t commit to this is because she’s waiting for me to quit. Like she did.”

The jab slices properly. It’s not the harshness, or the meanness that hurts: it’s his deadly accuracy.

To his credit, he immediately looks ashamed. “I’m sorry, Pam. That came out wrong.”

“No it didn't,” she says. “You’re right. I did quit. But it was my choice. To come home, because I wanted to be here with you more than I wanted to go back. And it wasn’t even a difficult choice.”

She knows that he really does understand deep down why she’d quit art school. But she’s also suspected, especially over the past few months, that the two of them are simply built differently. Her passion for Jim had easily overridden her passion for those classes at that time. And Jim, now, well… she feels like he only has enough passion for one thing, and he’s choosing his work. It hurts.

Dr. Cohen sits back into her chair and regards her closely. “And Pam, you feel like Jim is choosing this job over you?”

“I don’t think he’s doing it to hurt me,” she clarifies. “But… yes.”

Jim is what makes her happy. She can’t think of anything in her entire life that has ever made her happier. She used to believe she made him just as happy, but now she’s terrified that he’s found something else. 

“I just don’t understand why I can’t have both,” Jim says, and shakes his head. “Things are tough right now, but I have faith they’ll get better. And if we both just hang on…” he turns to the therapist, slightly pleadingly. “I mean, shouldn’t she want to support me? If this is something I really want to do?”

“I have been supportive,” Pam protests before the therapist can interject. “I have been incredibly supportive, Jim, especially considering the fact that you took this job without telling me, and that our situation keeps changing without my approval or consent.”

Dr. Cohen eyes Jim. “How long has all this been going on, Jim?”

He looks helplessly at Pam, and she can tell he’s doing some mental math. “I mean… I started commuting in December, so it’s been about four months, I guess.”

“You were telecommuting two months before that.” 

“Well yeah, but I was home then,” he tries to explain. “I was there.”

Pam raises an eyebrow. “Were you?” 

Jim sighs. This job has taken every ounce of his energy, every thought, every waking moment, and they both know it. Time away from her, away from their family.  

“This job is important to me, Pam.”  

“Aren’t we important to you, too?” she says, suddenly feeling courage she’s been suppressing for months. “I don’t think you really understand how hard it’s been for me here, doing everything without you. And have I complained? No. Because you said you didn’t want any more stress. I didn’t want to make your life more stressful.”

They are both quiet for a minute, until the therapist speaks up. “Holding things inside isn’t healthy, and it’s important to speak your truths. Honesty is important. So, Pam, I would like you to tell Jim something you haven’t told him that maybe you’d like to.”

Honesty. If they’d been honest with each other from the start, they wouldn’t be in this position, she knows that much. 

She takes a deep breath and turns to her husband. 

“I don’t like Philly. I don’t want to move our family there. In fact,” she turns back to the therapist, “before all of this even started, Jim and I agreed we wouldn’t.” She turns back to Jim. “So when you told me a few weeks ago that this was all coming out of the blue, I can’t believe you really think that.”

She is speaking her truth, and it’s something. She doesn’t like Philly, she doesn’t want to move to Philly. But there’s more and she knows it. What she really wants to tell him is that she’s afraid of being left behind. That Philly Jim with his new Philly job isn’t the same Jim she fell in love with. That he’s not the same Jim she married. And that, if she’s being perfectly honest, she doesn’t really like this new Philly Jim very much, either.

He sighs. “We did agree we wouldn’t. But I didn’t realize how serious you were about it at the time. And I wish you’d told me earlier.”

She tries to recall the moment he told her he’d taken the job, that his dreams were coming true, that Athlead was really happening. She’d wanted to be happy for him, proud of him, everything she should have felt at the time. But all she could think about was that he’d kept it from her for weeks. That he’d broken her trust, and for what? She still doesn’t know.

“You wish I’d told you earlier?” she challenges him. “Well, I wish you’d been honest with me from the beginning, Jim.”

This is what’s really bothered her for months. This was the moment he stopped being Jim and started being this other person she didn’t recognize: a person who kept secrets and made decisions and plans without her. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done things like this before -- his clandestine purchase of their house leaps to her mind again -- but at least in those moments he could anticipate her reacting favorably. Disguised as a grand romantic gesture, it was still something for them, for their family. For their future. 

As much as she wants Jim to follow his dreams, Athlead never felt like that, not from the start. 

Jim doesn’t seem to know how to respond. She doesn’t like the idea she’s hurting him, but she’s so relieved to be talking to him at all, she presses on.

“I wanted to be there for you when all this started, I swear I did,” she says. “And then when I found out you’d taken the job without telling me, I just… it made me feel so small, Jim. Like my opinion didn’t even matter. And then it felt impossible for me to really, truly get onboard.”

Dr. Cohen turns to Jim. “Is there a reason you kept this a secret from Pam?”

Jim looks slightly trapped, and she hates that she feels bad, but she does. This is supposed to help bring them back together, not divide them even further.

“I guess…” he scrambles, presumably for some excuse, but she looks him in the eyes with every bit of sincerity she can muster and he seems to crumble. He clicks his jaw a couple times and looks down. “I figured you wouldn’t like it. I did it anyway.”  

Pam waits for the doctor to have some kind of aha! moment, to turn to Pam and say you are in the right, he made a huge mistake and now you’re both paying for it. But she doesn’t. And truth be told, it isn’t even what Pam wants to hear. She doesn’t want to be right. She doesn’t care about any of that. She just wants her life back. She just wants her husband to smile at her the way he used to, to hold her and tell her everything will be fine the way he always did, back when they were both always on the same page.

She eyes him. “I guess we’ll never know, will we?” 

She says it slightly more harshly than she intends. But it’s true. If he’d approached this entire situation differently from the beginning, who knows where they might have landed? It’s not that she was inherently opposed to any of this. She’d simply grown so tired of him making huge decisions on his own. She’d hit her limit.

Dr. Cohen speaks up, but rather than calling Jim out on his selfish decision, she turns to Pam instead. 

“It’s clear that Jim kept his true intentions from you, but you also kept your truth about the sacrifices you’ve been making at home from him. Can you tell him why?”

The language the therapist is using feels so clinical and foreign. But Pam wants this to work, badly, so she reaches for the answer. 

“I should have told him, I guess. But I didn’t because… well, I thought the less I burdened him with, the quicker this would all be over.”

“So you do want this to be over,” Jim retorts. “This job, Philly, all of it.”

She gathers every single ounce of courage she has left over from that coal walk six years ago to speak her next truth. 

“Maybe I do.”

He shakes his head. “This is the first time I’m doing work that means something to me, that I’m excited about. I thought that you of all people would understand that, Pam.”

Jim looks at her miserably. She can tell he's incredibly upset. He doesn’t want to give up this job, and she doesn’t want him to have to. The last thing she wants to do is crush his dream. But everything is so fucked up right now. She doesn’t know what to do.

“I do understand that,” she says. “And I want you to have that, Jim. What I don’t understand is how you can’t see that this -- this situation, right now -- isn’t working for our family. For us, Jim.”

How does she tell him she doesn’t know how to have both? That she doesn’t see a way out of this tunnel if they’re moving in two different directions? 

“Remember? Us.”

They look at each other for an extended silence, and all she wants is to see that same spark in his eyes she remembers before all of this began. Back when she felt like she was his favorite thing to look at.

“This might be slightly abrupt,” the doctor asks, interrupting the heated moment, “but... when was the last time you two were intimate?”

Pam is indeed taken aback by the forwardness of the question. Jim shifts uncomfortably next to her.

“Oh. Well, it’s tough, you know,” he starts to answer, in a clear effort to dodge the question. “With the kids and… and I’ve been gone a lot.”

“My birthday,” Pam answers.

Jim turns to look at her. “No, really?” He looks slightly chagrined. “That’s not…”

“Six weeks,” she announces, equally upset. The words sound ugly coming out of her mouth; false, incomprehensible. 

Six weeks. 

They repeat in her brain on a loop, taunting her. Forget about the sex. When was the last time he’d kissed her? Or even hugged her? 

She’s been sleeping on Jim’s side of the bed every night he’s been gone for weeks, just to feel close to him; to breathe him in, try to remember what it felt like to really have his arms around her. She’d become so used to his absence, practically numb to it, that the stripped-down reality of where they are -- where they’ve been for some time -- slams into her with the ferocity of a sledgehammer, and Pam cannot hold in her tears anymore. She folds over into her lap, her hand across her face, and sobs. This is deep, real love, the kind she would die for, and it feels like everything is crashing down around her.

The worst part isn’t even the crying, the worst part is that Jim would typically pull her into his arms and hold her close against him, say comforting things into her hair, never wanting anything in the world to cause her pain, least of all himself. Now, all he can muster is a hand softly resting on her shoulder. She can feel his restraint, his trepidation, as if he’s worried she wouldn’t welcome his touch, when all she wants is to feel it again. 

“Please don’t cry,” he says, and she can hear real pain in his voice. She knows he doesn’t want to hurt her, that he’s not doing any of this deliberately. But she hates how strange and unnatural it all feels. “Please, Pam.”

“It’s important you see how all of this is affecting her, Jim,” Dr. Cohen says. “You both need to take advantage of these opportunities to hear each other, to know how the other is actually feeling.” She hands a box of tissues to Pam, and she takes one, attempting to control her emotions.

“Marriage is work,” Dr. Cohen continues. “It isn’t the answer, it’s the equation. And it’s about showing up for each other. Choosing each other every day.”

Pam closes her eyes, completely exhausted. She knows this, has known it for years. But she can’t remember the last time she and Jim actually chose each other. 

She thinks about what they’d always said to each other in the past, that they were the only thing that mattered. 

Us. 

She wonders if they’ll ever feel that way again.

Dr. Cohen gives them their therapy homework, says her goodbyes, and they are alone again, walking silently to the car. Jim awkwardly opens her door, and while she’s glad he’s at least trying, the act feels so forced and empty. 

She sits and waits the excruciating six seconds of deafening silence after he slams her door shut and walks to the driver’s side, and they don’t say much the entire drive home. She’s reminded of their first date, and wishes they could go back. Hopefulness, determination, expectation. The things she should be feeling are drifting around the car like an errant vapor but all she can feel is dread.

Jim, sensing the tension in the car, reaches over to take her hand. She clasps it tightly, afraid to let go.

It’s not much, but right now what she needs is something. 

The “I love yous” are the first to go.

She remembers when she first noticed: it was Christmas, when Jim left on his first trip to Philadelphia. She’d stood at the taxi and waited for him to say it, to tell her the most important words she could possibly hear as he was leaving her like this for the first time, but he didn’t. And she didn’t want to be the wife left standing in the parking lot without an “I love you” so she’d said it to him first as he was climbing into the car. He responded in kind, but even then it felt like an afterthought. 

She’d brushed it off; he was simply excited about the new job, his new opportunity. It didn’t mean anything, of course it didn’t. But apparently it had only been the beginning. It seems that, over time, saying it has gotten less and less important. Less natural. 

She dares not wonder if it’s become less true. 

At first it’s just at home, whenever he’s around; she hears his footsteps in the other room, sees the dishes in the sink, notices his towel is damp. It’s physical evidence he’s existing in their space, and she is grateful he’s here. But there are no more words of affirmation. They operate in necessary silence. Sometimes it feels as if he may as well still be gone. 

Soon, they stop saying it over the phone. She senses its absence after a while, and chalks it up to a missing formality, just saving time. Then she realizes how terrible that sounds. Without his physical presence, words are all they have, and they’ve stopped using them.

They used to say it all the time: before bed, when they would wake in the morning. After making love, sometimes during. She’d felt loved. She’d always tried to make sure he felt it too. Saying the words didn’t make it so, but for the longest time the words merely supported what their actions already showed: their passion for each other had been a well-oiled machine, kept, maintained, functional.

But next to go is touch. There seems to be no time anymore, and whenever there is time, passion is replaced with ambivalence. It feels perfunctory and rehearsed.  She’s starting to feel the way she did with Roy and whenever that abhorrent thought enters her mind she immediately banishes it; she has no desire to examine it. 

Sometimes she worries she loves Jim too much, and that this life they’ve built together is perhaps suffocating from the weight of it. That maybe her desperation to hold on to him is actually holding him back from the things he really wants, from the things he really needs.

Which are apparently all these things that are not her.

The chasm between them is wide and she doesn't know how to bridge it anymore. Words are gone. Touch is gone. 

What is left for them?

Will mics her up. Emily, another camera operator, sets up the camera in its usual place. Delilah sits across the room. 

“So, now that we’re alone, how’s the counseling really going?” the producer asks.

Pam shrugs, looks at her lap. “I thought it went pretty well, I guess. At least it got us talking. But I suppose Jim thinks it’s kind of silly.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I don’t know. He’s not taking it very seriously, I don’t think.”

Over the years, Pam has caught on to the way Delilah looks at her when she’s waiting for more she knows is there. Pam isn’t sure how much she wants to reveal. In general, she tends to keep her deepest fears close to the vest, or at least tries to do so. But she feels like she’s given everything she has at this point. Maybe there’s nothing to lose anymore. And although she knows the crew is filming her, that any of this could come out at a later point for anyone to see, including Jim, it doesn’t seem to matter. There are times when these are just people in her life she’s become so comfortable with that she stops caring that the cameras are even there. 

For some reason it helps to talk. It’s always helped to talk. 

“Actually, I think… he hasn’t really been himself lately.” 

The second the words are out of her mouth she knows this is the problem, the real problem. It’s not about the distance, or the new job. Even being home alone with the kids. Because if she felt as solid in her relationship with Jim as she’s supposed to, none of that should really  matter. 

She shakes her head in disbelief, remembering what he’d said in their session. 

“He said I don’t believe in him. I don’t know why he would think that. It’s just not true. I’ve always thought Jim wasn’t living up to his potential. Always. I guess I’ve gotten so used to him sticking around that I never really considered what moving on from here would look like for him. How it might... change him.”

The producer tilts her head compassionately, as if she understands. Pam is somewhat relieved to know the change has been real and noticeable to more than just herself. 

“He’s just so obsessed with his work now. I feel like there’s no space for the old Jim anymore.” 

“Tell me about the old Jim,” Delilah prompts.

Pam smiles, warm memories stirring. “He used to come talk to me at reception all the time. He probably had work to do, but it didn’t matter. I’m sure you caught that on film, like, a lot,” she laughs. “He was just… so funny, and thoughtful. Kind. He never lost his temper.”

She thinks about that horrible night on the phone, how the old Jim would never have talked to her that way in a million years.

“And he isn’t those things anymore?”

“Well, maybe he is. I wouldn’t know, because he’s never around.”

Delilah cocks her head sympathetically. 

Pam shakes her head again. “Maybe I’m just being selfish, but I miss the Jim who joked and laughed and goofed around. The Jim who always made the time to show me how much he cared about me.”

She doesn’t want to admit her greatest fear, the scariest possibility of all: that he is no longer the Jim that she knew, and they are no longer the them that they were. Speaking it into existence is terrifying.  

Pam looks up. “Do you remember a few years ago when I’d gotten accepted into art school? Things were just beginning for us. There were no kids, no roots, really. And he was so supportive, he really was. I sat in this room and told you everything was perfect.” 

She smiles a bit wistfully. Perfect.

“I know it probably feels from the outside like it should be his turn, and it’s not that I don’t think he should have his turn, I just…” she gestures helplessly. “Things are not perfect right now, not by a long shot. His timing is terrible. And the way it all began? As a secret?” 

The producer nods, and Pam feels like she understands. 

“I get that he loves this job, I really do. And I wish I could just... be happy for him, and that would be the end of it. But things are just so awful, and getting worse, and it’s like… he thinks this can wait.” She puts her hand across her heart. “This can wait, and that needs his attention right now.”

Delilah doesn’t speak, just watches and listens with a melancholy look in her eyes Pam has never seen before.

“I’m just… I’m tired of waiting.”

She’s tired of feeling this way, that she’s just not as important to him as she used to be. Is this too much to expect? Doesn’t she deserve as much from the man she loves? 

“I'm afraid that maybe we don’t want the same things anymore. That being happy and content with our life here just isn’t enough for him. That speaking our truths and appreciating our sacrifices isn’t going to be enough.”

“Will you talk about that in counseling?” Delilah asks.

Pam shrugs sadly. “I don’t know. I’m worried that it’s too late. I wish we’d started this exercise six months ago. My heart just feels so... blocked up.”

Delilah sits and listens, and it seems she’s mirroring Pam’s helpless expression. These people have been Pam’s constant companions for years and she knows they care about her, and about Jim. About the two of them together. It weirdly feels like this is all hitting Delilah as hard as it’s hitting herself.

“I keep thinking about a moment, a night years ago, when everything changed for us.” She’s unsure of how to say what she wants to say. Even now, it’s unclear exactly how much the documentary crew has seen and observed about her and Jim’s relationship. “Jim told me how he felt about me, and I just sort of panicked. I wasn’t brave. But he was. He fought for me. He risked everything.”

The crew exchange subtle glances and she suspects they probably do know exactly the night she’s talking about. Parabolic mics, hidden camera crews. She now supposes nothing has ever really been off the table.

“That Jim fought for me. And now it just feels like he doesn’t want to fight anymore, for this. For us.”

The crew is only slated to be around for a couple more weeks. They’re all going to wrap filming and go home, regardless of what happens with her and Jim. The idea that their story might end like this is devastating.

“I suppose he would argue that I’m not fighting, either,” she continues. “That I should just uproot our family and move to Philadelphia. And… I could do that, I guess. But the truth is I really don’t think it will change what’s wrong at this point.” Her eyes feel wet now and it’s so hard to breathe. “Something is broken here and I don’t know how to fix it.”

The conference room is absolutely silent. She isn’t sure she’s ever heard it this way in all the time she's been here.

She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a folded piece of paper. It’s the winners/ losers sign Jim made for her a year ago: Pam, Cece, and Phillip on the winners side. Everything else on the losers side. 

“Remember this?” She looks at it and smiles. She shouldn’t take it too seriously, she knows that. Maybe she’s over-romanticizing their relationship. But there’s a good reason she always keeps it in her purse. When Jim made it for her, he meant it. It breaks her heart to think it might not be the same anymore.

Suddenly she hears a loud click in the room and with a series of melancholy, descending beeps that seem to mock the way she’s feeling, the camera shuts off. 

Emily grunts in frustration. “Sorry, something’s wrong with the camera,” she explains. 

She sets it down to inspect it, and Pam wipes a tear, folds the chart back up and puts it back into her pocket. 

“Can I take a break, please?” she asks quietly.

“Of course,” Delilah says, looking at her with such sympathy Pam wants to leave as quickly as possible. “Come back whenever you feel like talking.”

Pam gets up and walks out of the conference room. Jim is at his desk working, his back to her. No one else looks up. She walks over to her desk, praying he can’t tell she’s been crying. Again.

He glances up at her briefly. “Hey, everything okay?”

“Yep.” She opens her desk drawer and grabs her phone, slips it into her pocket. “Just gonna go get some air.” She turns and walks out of the office, feeling his eyes on her as she does.

It’s only about three o’ clock, and today has already been so intense she feels completely drained. She can’t talk to the camera crew, and she certainly can’t talk to Jim.

She sits down on the bench around the side of the building, staring at the spot where Jim told her he was in love with her all those years ago. 

She pulls out her phone and dials.

It’s been a rough couple of days. Actually, it’s been a rough several months.

Jim had been skeptical about the counseling session, but at least it got them talking. It hadn’t been easy sitting in that office and hearing what Pam had to say, but the reason it had been so hard to hear is probably because of how much of it was the truth. 

He sits in the conference room, setting up his materials for a call from Athlead that’s supposed to begin in about fifteen minutes. He looks down at his phone, noticing a barrage of missed calls and messages. 

He tries to remember when he didn’t have so many calls to return, so much work to attend to; when the highlight of his day had been tricking Dwight into eating only orange-colored foods, or stealing a kiss from Pam in the break room. It’s been awhile since he’s even thought about those things, and he can’t help but notice it’s making him feel better than he has in some time.

As he contemplates the mountain of work voicemails he needs to return, he sees a call coming through from someone he hasn’t heard from in a long, long time: 

Michael Scott.

He hasn’t heard from his old boss since he and Pam had attended his wedding in Boulder nearly two years ago. He briefly considers sending it to voicemail, but oddly enough, seeing Michael’s name has stirred those same happy memories inside him, back when working at Dunder Mifflin was fun. Memories of when Pam was happy. 

He wants to live there again, if only for a moment.

Jim answers the phone. “Hey, Michael!”

“Hey, Jim, how’s it hanging?” Michael’s voice is somewhat comforting and while Jim finds this surprising, at least it’s a welcome surprise. He’ll take whatever comfort comes his way.

“Pretty good," he lies. "How’s it going in Colorado? How’s Holly?”

“It is going wonderfully, our contentment is great and our bliss is un… surmountable.”

Jim grins tightly, a bit jealous. “Glad to hear it.” 

“And Holly is pregnant again, can you believe it?”

A real smile breaks out across Jim’s face in spite of everything. “Wow, Michael… that’s so great! Congratulations, man!”

“Thank you, thanks.”

“Pam is going to be thrilled, I can’t wait to tell her.”

“Well, Jim...” Michael says, his voice turning serious. “Pam is actually the reason I’m calling.”

Jim is slightly thrown. “What do you mean?”

“I just got off the phone with her.”

Jim’s heart nearly stops. Pam? Why on earth had she been talking to Michael?

“Oh,” he says, unsure of what to say.

“She sounded miserable, Jim. And to be honest, I expected more from you.”

Jim nearly drops the phone. Of all the things he might have expected to happen today, this was definitely not on the list. 

“Um…” he looks around the room. For what? An escape hatch? “Wow, okay. I don’t understand.” The idea Pam would confide in Michael Scott, of all people, is confusing, to say the least.

“You promised me that you would always take good care of her,” Michael says, quite sternly. 

“I did?”

“The night before your wedding, remember? You bought me and Dwight shots, and then he spilled his on his stupid wolf T-shirt and got pissed at you, and then I told you Pam is like the daughter I never had and then you promised.”

He does remember that now. He’s surprised he’d forgotten in the first place. 

“Did she… what did she say to you?” he asks. 

His mind races: everything he’s done over the past several weeks that had definitely not included taking good care of Pam. He’s amazed that Michael, of all people, has the power to make him feel incredibly ashamed.

“She told me enough,” he replies. “I know I’m not your boss anymore but I have something to say and I want you to listen. Okay?”

Jim suddenly has a strange feeling that something about Michael has changed. It could be a million things: being with Holly, becoming a father. Even the absence of the cameras could have had a massive impact. But it really feels like he’s talking to a different person, not his ridiculous ex-boss, but someone akin to his own father. Maybe Michael, far, far away from Dunder Mifflin, has taken on that role for him and Pam regardless of whether or not either of them have any say in the matter.

“I’m listening.”

“You need to open your eyes, Jim. I don’t think you realize how close you are to losing her.”

Losing her. Losing her. The words hang in the air, bouncing around the room like a bad omen.

Jim doesn’t know what to say, and when that happens with Michael, he can usually be counted upon to keep talking. But there’s a silence now that Jim didn’t know Michael was capable of. He’s waiting; not to talk more, but to hear Jim explain himself. Michael has never waited before. 

“Well, Michael,” he says, “I’m not sure what Pam told you, but there are two sides to this thing. It’s just... a really delicate situation.”

“Delicate, shmelicate.” There he is. “She’s your wife.” 

Jim is silent. He’s completely unprepared for this. For some reason Kevin is at the conference room window now, making faces. Jim waves him away angrily.

“Look… the timing isn’t great, but I had to take this opportunity. I’m finally doing something that feels right, something I’m good at.”

“I thought you were a pretty great paper salesman, Jim,” Michael counters. “And a great husband. A great father. I thought you were pretty great before.”

It sounds so much like Pam, he suddenly feels tears welling up in his eyes. What exactly did she say to him?

“I thought… if we could just get through the beginning stages,” he scrambles. “I thought she would come around and we’d move to Philly and everything would be fine.” 

Fine. It all sounds stupid coming out of his mouth right now. He actually isn’t sure what he thought would happen. All he knows is that everything is worse now than it was six months ago. So much worse.

“And fine is good? You’re okay with fine?” Michael asks. “Even if it isn’t what she wants?”

Jim closes his eyes. He’d been so supportive of Pam chasing her dream years ago, back when they were only engaged. He’d missed her deeply, but he’d bitten his tongue and let her do her thing. So why won’t she do the same for him now?

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“No it isn’t, Jim. It’s love.” 

Jim takes a deep breath. Michael continues.  

“When Holly and I finally got back together,” Michael continues, “she told me something that I want to tell you: that what we are is never going to be decided by some company. That what we are is up to us.”

Us. 

His mind flashes wildly to the deck of the Maid of the Mist, to the moment they put rings on each others’ fingers and became one. He tries to remember the last time they were a united front, the last time they were on the same page about anything.

“Do you remember how it was back in the beginning?" Michael goes on. "I do. You would have moved mountains for that girl.”

This hits Jim square in the chest. Does he remember that? Of course he remembers. She was the only thing he’d wanted for so long, he’d avoided opportunity after opportunity for the mere chance to see her face every day. He never even considered it a sacrifice because being near her was the only thing he wanted. It strikes him that she’d revealed as much in their session: she hadn’t considered choosing him over art school a sacrifice, either.

Now he has something else he wants, and Pam is the one making all of the sacrifices. 

He wonders what would have happened if she had stayed in New York, if she’d completed her classes, decided she wanted to move there. He would have gone with her in a heartbeat, and he’d told her so. But even now, he has to admit things were much different then: they were younger, less settled. They didn’t have two small kids. And unlike Pam with Philly, he actually would have enjoyed living in New York. 

The most important difference of all, he knows full well, was that they’d discussed it. Together.

For the first time it really hits him, painfully, how close he could be to losing her forever. He’s been so busy convincing himself everything will be fine that he never really considered for a moment it might not be. And since when was "fine" something he strived for anyway? Back in Stamford, when he was barely surviving? When he'd considered choosing Karen while deep down knowing that all he wanted was Pam?

And now he's to the point of almost losing her?

How could he have been so blind? 

“Jim?” Michael asks, probably wondering why he’s been so quiet. “Are you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I know this job feels really important right now, but it isn’t. It really isn’t,” he says in a sort of desperate way. “Jobs come and they go. I left Dunder Mifflin, a job I thought I loved more than anything in the world, because I realized there was something else I needed even more.”

The abruptness with which Michael had announced his impending departure from Dunder Mifflin had surprised both Jim and Pam. They’d been certain he would be there until his dying breath. But when Holly needed him, he didn’t hesitate. 

“We made so many mistakes at the beginning, Jim,” Michael says, his voice filled with emotion. “We let distance tear us apart, and rather than fight for our relationship we just… gave up.”

Jim is quiet, just listening.

“You two have something really, really special,” Michael says, and Jim can swear he’s actually getting a bit choked up. “Please. Don’t give up.”

Jim is stunned speechless. This is Michael, the same man who donned a captain’s hat and inadvertently caused a panic on their booze cruise. But he remembers their very first heart to heart, in the brig, Michael zip-tied to a railing, about Pam, of course. 

And he remembers the advice his old boss, this very same Michael Scott, had given him:

Never, ever, ever give up.

Michael is right. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, it’s magic.

“Do you remember what I said to Holly in our wedding vows?” Michael suddenly asks, after another extended silence.

Jim smiles, and laughs quietly; the first real, genuine laugh he’s experienced in some time. “Yeah, I do.”

“Say it, Jim.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes, or I’ll keep calling you until you do.”

Jim sighs. “Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down. Never gonna run around and desert you.”

“Don’t forget that.” He can hear his old friend smiling on the other side of the line.

Jim smiles, too. “I won’t.”

“Alright, I’ll let you go. This is Michael, last survivor of Dunder Mifflin, signing off.”

Jim is silent for a moment.

“....Alien? Ripley Scott?” Michael attempts to clarify.

“Right,” Jim rolls his eyes. “Of course.”

“Bye, Jim. And give Pam a big hug for me.” 

“Goodbye, Michael. And thank you.” 

He hangs up the phone and looks at it for a long, long time. 

Never, ever, ever give up. 

His Athlead call eventually comes through, but he feels like he’s sleepwalking through it. He “uh huh’s” and “mm-hmm’s” as much as possible but all he can think about now is that horrifying six weeks from the counseling session, and how he doesn’t actually remember the last time he wrapped his arms around his wife. 

He wants this job, he does. He wants to succeed. But what he wants more than anything else is for him and Pam to be them again. To laugh and joke around with her. To see her smile, and actually believe she’s happy in the way he’d promised her father he would make her, all those years ago. 

He listens to unimportant business chatter about acquiring some huge new client while he stares at the wall of the conference room and remembers another day: a day when he’d lost his biggest sale of the year, but because Pam had fallen asleep on his shoulder it had turned out to be the greatest day of his life. 

His heart aches. She’s right outside the door, she’s his now, and he’s losing her.

“So, Halpert? You’re due in at 8:30 tonight, right?” Colin’s voice comes through, hollow in his ear. He’s suddenly sick of Colin’s voice.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says automatically. The call ends. He has no idea what even happened and he doesn’t really care. 

He walks out of the conference room in a bit of a daze, puts on his jacket, grabs his bag. Pam is hard at work and all he wants to do is hug her, but everything is so fucking awkward and he hates it. He doesn’t want it to be like this. For the first time in months he really, really doesn’t want to go to Philadelphia.

He looks at her sitting at her desk, typing away at something. He crouches down close to her, in the hopes of catching a rare private moment, and she looks over at him, perhaps surprised by his proximity. Maybe she’s expecting another sarcastic bit of ‘truth,’ but the time for fooling around is over.

Never, ever, ever give up.

“I know this was really weird, and it was really hard,” he says, “but I think we’re making progress. So… I’m really sorry I have to go, but let’s keep at this.”

He can tell it isn’t really what she wants to hear. He wishes he knew what to say, what he could possibly say, some magic words that will make everything better. 

“Okay,” she nods unconvincingly. 

He leaves the office with an uneasy feeling in his stomach. Maybe leaving is a mistake. Maybe this could be the time she doesn’t welcome him back with open arms.

He walks through the parking lot, the tops of the trees lining the streets bathed in golden afternoon light. He turns around and takes a long look at Dunder Mifflin, this place where everything began. How lucky he’s been to have had this job, this desk, this life: a thousand square feet of worn gray carpet, plain white walls, and scattered encounters with the girl he’d fallen in love with.

It’s only been six months since things started falling apart but he feels as if he’s missed so much; with his family especially, but even around the office. And then, remembering what Pam had said in their session, it hits him: he haschanged. He can’t remember the last time he really felt like himself, the Jim who’d spent hours out of each week simply waiting for another opportunity to talk to her, the Jim who always wanted something more out of his work but never took that plunge because there was something else that made him perfectly happy keeping him right here. 

What was so wrong with that Jim?

As the cab pulls up, his eyes drift over to a spot in the parking lot, the place where Pam had rejected him that fateful night and everything changed. Moving to Stamford had turned him into a facsimile of himself. He wasn’t the same without her, and he’d known it even back then. Is the same thing happening now? Is Pam right about Philly Jim?

More importantly, is Philly Jim worth breaking both of their hearts all over again?

His world feels like it's turned completely upside down. All he wants to do is to find a way to right the ship, but now he truly worries they’ve run out of life preservers. And if he had the presence of mind to locate one, would she even catch it? 

Before he climbs into the cab, he hears her calling his name from the front door of the building. For a brief instant he feels relief; she’s come downstairs to give him a proper goodbye, she doesn’t want to leave things in this horribly awkward place that’s shrouded their every interaction for months. But she merely holds up his forgotten umbrella.

“Have a good trip,” she says, and kisses his cheek with such forced enthusiasm it breaks his heart. He can’t take another second of this. It’s Pam. His wife, his best friend, his soulmate. 

She is more important than anything.

She turns to go and he runs after her. “Hey-” he begins, gently tugging on her arm, making her turn and look up at him. He wants to tell her what Michael said, wants to tell her something, anything, that will make her look at him the way she used to. But he doesn’t know what to say. All that’s going through his mind is how on earth did we end up here?

He looks into her eyes and they appear dull, almost lifeless. Like she’s already given up on them. He misses those eyes that used to sparkle just for him, the ones that made him into a better person. The eyes that made him fall in love with her not just the first time he looked into them, but every single day afterwards. 

And suddenly it doesn’t matter who is right, who is wrong. Who deserves what, whose dreams are being put on hold. Something needs to change. Right now, in this moment, there is nothing else but Jim and Pam and an idling taxi and the golden sheen from the setting sun on her hair as she’s about to walk away from him and he cannot leave her like this. Not now. Not today. Not ever again.

He refuses to let her be unhappy for another second. 

He does the only thing he can think of, which is to wrap his arms around her, to just hold on to this woman he loves with all of his heart and never let her go. It feels like the only thing he can do to keep her from slipping away and he knows it’s desperate, he knows it’s not enough, but it’s all he has.

And she does not reciprocate.

I’m too late, he thinks. He holds her tightly, pulling her in as close as he can, forced to imagine his life without her and it’s physically impossible. Unfathomable.

She does not engage, does not participate, but she also does not move away. She lingers, somewhere between today and tomorrow, between like and dislike, between apathy and regret. He can sense her brain working overtime, feel her trembling in his arms, her heart pounding against his chest, and this cannot be over. It simply cannot. 

Never, ever, ever give up.

His job isn’t the most important thing in his life. It’s not even close. But he hasn’t been careful. Pam must absolutely believe it’s true to not want to give in, to not allow him to put what she must interpret as yet another band-aid on this gaping wound they’ve created.

But this is no band-aid, not this time. And he will wait patiently with his arms around her, as long as it takes, for her to realize that. It isn’t merely an embrace. It’s actually the grandest of all the Grand Jim Gestures he’s ever made in his life: he’s forced her hand. He’s gone all in. He’s refusing to waste another minute in this hellish limbo. 

All of the moments they’d spent with each other flash randomly through his mind like a zoetrope: countless times when she was what mattered to him most, when she was the only thing that mattered. Decision after decision they’d made that would alter the direction of their lives, big or small, important or unimportant. Every decision that had led them here, on the edge of breaking, where they now face their biggest decision ever.

He’s sitting at his desk, selling paper and watching the receptionist. He’s in love with her. He doesn’t care for the job, it brings him no joy, but she does. He will do it forever if it means he can be near her.

They’re standing together at a rest stop, halfway between Scranton and New York, a compromise they’d never intended to make but arrived at all the same. He kneels in the rain and she says yes to forever. 

They’re on the booze cruise, the chilly air of Lake Wallenpaupack blowing her hair across her beautiful face. The truth is, he would save the receptionist. Time seems to slow down, as if the universe is giving him the opportunity to tell her that, to tell her how he really feels, but he chickens out and she walks away.

He’s sitting at corporate, a huge promotion within his grasp. Where do you see yourself for the long haul, David Wallace asks. He can visualize what his life will look like: New York, the fast track, Karen, everything he could possibly want. Then he sees a foil yogurt lid and remembers how being in love is supposed to feel. He leaves all of it behind in an instant. 

They’re in their bedroom, tearing off each other’s clothes with such fervor absolutely nothing could make them stop. His fingers dig grooves into her hips as she sits on top of him, her hair falling into his face, and before he has a second to think or worry they become one. Neither of them suspect that tonight, on this very night, they might be making their daughter.

She’s giggling at his old yearbook photo, that giggle that breathes life into him each day. She hadn’t accepted his gift with as much enthusiasm as he’d hoped, and he fears the timing is not right for her to read the note he’s poured his heart and soul into. He snatches it back while she admires her new teapot and buries it, along with his feelings.

They’re in Ryan’s closet-slash-office with the lights out, the green tint of glow-in-the-dark stars reflecting in her eyes, the bottomless Valentines Day champagne from lunch only beginning to wear off. Jim’s got her up on the desk and her skirt is hiked up, his fingers looping around the waistband of her underwear. They look into each other’s eyes - are we really doing this? - and they do. Nine months later Phillip is born.

They’re standing beneath a single street light in the parking lot of Dunder Mifflin, and he can feel himself start to break. His eyes are clouded with tears that he cannot hold back as much as he wants to. She’s slipping away from him, and she’d never even been his in the first place.

She leans against his car, a sight for his sore eyes, the afternoon sun reflecting on her copper hair. He’s missed her so much; the only thing he wants to do is hug her and kiss her and never let her leave him again. She tells him she’s coming back the wrong way, but when his lips touch hers his heart knows it doesn't matter; there is no right way or wrong way. There is only their way. 

And now they’re standing on the deck of the Maid of the Mist, making the most important decision of their lives. He stands before her, the Niagara spray in his eyes, and promises to love her, cherish her, honor her. He recites his vows, the ones he’d written weeks ago, as he tells her their life is only just beginning: a blank sheet of paper like the ones surrounding them in the office where they fell in love. And that he will choose her every day, even when it’s hard, even when there is something else on the page that may try to steal his focus. 

He will love her in the margins.

Pam smiles at his self-admitted cheesiness, but accepts the sentiment with all the sincerity he intends. Her eyelashes are dotted with drops from the falls, more beautiful than any day that came before. 

He’d written these vows long before knowing what might come their way, what a marriage truly entailed. He’d written them never fathoming a time when choosing her might be difficult, when there could even be an option. In a time when hope was in great supply, and there had been nothing but love on their horizon.

They seal their eternal bond with a kiss.

Jim’s eyes sting with tears, like phantom mist from the falls, and he remembers the happiest moment of his life as if it were yesterday: standing on the deck of that boat with her that day, replete with absolute satisfaction that he’d finally married the love of his life. And at the same time he remembers the worst moment of his life: that night in the very same parking lot they're standing in right now when she’d let him go; when, despite everything he knew they had between them, she could not reciprocate. 

This hug, this simple hug, is much more than a hug: it’s a silent plea for her to remember their eternal bond. To decide today, right now, that this is worth saving.

And finally, mercifully, he can feel her arms around him like an answered prayer, a wish fulfilled, a dream achieved. He’s not necessarily a religious man but the least cynical part of him imagines their embrace from on high, a divine intervention: the desperate grip of his fingers tangled in her hair, the sunset bathing them both in a graceful golden light that is patient and kind, that does not self-seek or boast or keep a record of wrongs. It’s love; quite simply the greatest of all things. And today, in this empty parking lot where they made their first mistake, it is the very thing that prevents them from making their last. 

She wraps her arms around him, kissing him for the first time in weeks, and it makes him whole again; it’s sustenance he hadn’t realized he needed. This feeling is powerful, to stay here with her, to stay grounded. To hold onto each other forever and never let go again. They’re still so young, but to him they feel ancient: like two stars burning infinitely, their light never fading. 

This, he is certain, will never die.

“I love you,” they say to each other, at the same time, at last on the same page. And as he holds her close he feels the impact of what it meant when they exchanged rings and took vows on the deck of that boat. 

He is completely enveloped in her warmth, in safety: his Pam, his home, his only dream. 

Everything else can wait.

Time seems to slow down, actually lose its meaning when things become very, very clear. She doesn’t know how else to explain the way everything turned around. 

It takes her several seconds to even process that Jim is actually holding her for the first time in weeks, then a few more to battle through her confusion. Another to revel in stubbornness, another to remain in her anger and frustration, and yet another to remember how it was before; to remember her promise to the person she loved the most. 

Loves the most.

Her mother had always used the phrase ‘this too shall pass’ whenever things became difficult. She isn’t quite sure what she’s been waiting for, what could possibly cause all of this to pass, but she has not been waiting for their relationship to break, has not been waiting for things to get even worse. She knows now that she’s only been waiting for this moment -- just this -- when Jim finally puts his arms around her and chooses her first. She knows now, only now, that her faith in them had indeed been alive this entire time.

“I don’t want you to go,” she says when they pull away from each other at last. She is speaking her truth.

He fixes a strand of her hair that he’d unsettled while embracing her, tucking it gently behind her ear. 

“I don’t want me to go, either.”

She nods, relief flowing through her like a life-giving elixir. Jim turns, ducks his head into the cab to retrieve his belongings, and hands some cash to the extremely patient driver, who gives them both a smile as he drives away. She wonders what tale he’d spun for himself as he watched the two of them, surely suspecting there was no way one embrace could encompass all of the love they share. 

And yet, somehow, that’s exactly what it had done.

They stand side by side as the cab drives away, and Jim takes her hand. The light is magical this time of day, and she’s reminded of when she came home from New York: an afternoon when the situation was different, but the simple act of choosing each other was what made everything the same.

He turns to look at her, taking both of her hands in his. “I want you to tell me everything,” he says. “Even if it hurts. Please. Let’s find a way to start over.”

Her smile is one of relief but she shakes her head. 

“I don’t want to start over, Jim. We have a story, and this is part of it. I want us to grow from right here.”

He nods. She can see remnants of tears in his eyes as he moves to kiss her again, first her lips, then her cheeks, then her forehead. He wraps his arms around her, pressing her close against his chest and she can feel his heart pounding. It's music to her hears.

“I’m so sorry, Pam,” he says softly. “For everything, but mostly about the way this all began. I should have told you how I really felt about the job offer. I don’t even know why I didn’t. I should have trusted that we’d make that decision together.”

“I’m sorry, too.” She moves her hands underneath his jacket, around his back, gripping his shirt tightly with her fingers to pull him in even closer. They hold each other in absolution and time slows down once again.

“How do you feel about it right now?” she asks him. “And please be honest.”

“I feel better right now than I have in six months, and that’s the god’s honest truth, Pam.”

She closes her eyes; all of it, every horrid minute they’d spent apart falling away like shedding skin. While their future is still uncertain, they’ve found a foothold once again in each other. 

“So... what about Athlead?” she asks, looking up at him.

There is no hint of ambivalence on his face. No hidden disappointment or hesitation. Instead she sees Jim, just Jim, herJim, as he tilts his head ever so slightly and gazes right back into her eyes.

“It’s just going to have to wait.”

She nods, knowing this is a conversation they will have at some point in the near future, but when they do, it will be together. Just as it always should have been.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you for doing this for me.”

“I’m not,” he says, the same twinkle in his eye that was there the day she met him. “I’m doing it for us.” 

Pam will remember being on the deck of this boat forever, every instant, every glance, every word. 

It feels surreal; this place is the last thing she’d pictured whenever she imagined getting married. But that’s the way things seem to work with her and Jim, something unexpected always turning into something wonderful. And standing beneath the falls feels somewhat serendipitous; they were soaking wet when he proposed, and now it feels as if they’ve come full circle.

The spray fills the air and his hair is damp, tiny beads of condensation forming on the tip of his nose. She can only imagine what her own hair must look like. She worries for a moment that perhaps this wasn’t the best plan ‘C’ they could have come up with, as they still do have a ceremony to attend. But the feeling only lasts for a moment. One look into Jim’s eyes and she forgets everything else: her hair, the tie, the veil. The church. 

The office.

It’s not that she regrets inviting everyone from Dunder Mifflin to their wedding -- it does feel appropriate, after all, to have the group of people who spend the most time with her and Jim there to celebrate -- but at the end of the day, what they’ve decided to do feels right. It’s just her and Jim and a love so big it rivals the thundering roar of the cascading falls.

They’d decided to write their own vows, and Jim’s had been perfect. What he’d jokingly told her beforehand would be the “height of cheesiness” had actually been profound and wonderful and so very Jim. 

After he’s delivered them, he looks at her expectantly with a smile on his face unlike any she’s seen before, and suddenly her own vows, the ones she’d spent weeks putting together, finding the perfect words, are not the words she wants to say to him on their wedding day.

She looks around, realizing the only ones listening are Jim, the captain who’s officiating, and the documentary crew. Jim and Pam had been hesitant about letting the crew join them at all, but Delilah had promised the audio wouldn’t be used, so they’d agreed. 

“I had something written down but I don’t want to read it anymore,” Pam says to him. “I just want to tell you what’s in my heart, right now.” 

He smiles and nods his approval, squeezing her hands, rubbing the tops of her thumbs gently. 

She takes a deep breath. “I was thinking about what you said during your toast last night. I know that we both had to wait for each other for a really long time, and I used to wonder what we should have done, or could have done, to get back all of that time we wasted.” She shakes her head. “But the truth is… I just don’t see it that way anymore. I don’t think any of it was a waste. Because everything that happened led us here today.”

The noise of the falls is miraculously silent, and she feels so present in this moment as she stands before him, their eyes locked in an eternal gaze. Pam looks up at him now, and she can feel it, she will always believe it: Jim Halpert is a man deeply in love. 

“You said that all you had were moments with someone who saw you as a friend. And I did see you as my friend. You are my friend, Jim. You’re my best friend. The best friend I’ve ever had. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love you then the same way I do now, because I always have. And it’s the same way I’m going to love you forever.”

He nods, tears in his eyes. She takes his wedding band and slips it onto his finger, praying the boat doesn’t suddenly lurch and send it flying. At this point she’s ready for anything. 

“I’ve always dreamed about this moment: the perfect place, the perfect dress, the perfect veil, all of those things I’m supposed to want. But I realize now that none of that really matters. The only thing that matters is us.” She squeezes his hands, her smile so big it threatens to fly right off her face. 

The boat rocks gently beneath them and they sway together, new versions of the same two people who once did the same in the parking lot of the office with a shared set of earphones. 

He looks back at her, his smile a mirror image of her own. “Us,” he repeats.

It feels like a dream.

The days that follow Jim’s decision to stay in Scranton are wonderful; a euphoric, dizzying blur of reconnection and affirmation. Pam’s mother, well aware of the difficulties Pam and Jim had been going through, is happy to take the kids to allow them the time they desperately need together. He makes a single call to Athlead that he’s taking some personal time, then the phone stays off all weekend.

Touch returns first. It’s a sweet solace she can feel with every kiss, every caress; mapping every inch of each other’s bodies in eager rediscovery. It isn’t starting over, it’s picking up where they left off, and she is relieved to know that he’s clearly been missing her touch just as much as she’s been missing his.

Words return as well. They talk to each other, really talk about the important things; their family and everything that Jim’s missed, what they mean to him and how happy he is to be home. The chasm that existed between them feels like it’s sealing up as her heart reopens to him once again.

Most important to Pam, however, is the laughter. They laugh again together, and she realizes she’s felt its absence almost more than anything else. It's been so long since she's experienced that irreplaceable rush she'd get from Jim's specific type of humor perfectly complimenting her own, that having it back again is like finding some precious item she hadn't realized she'd lost. 

She has her Jim back. She recognizes him again, she recognizes them again, and everything finally feels the way it did before.

Perhaps a little bit too much like it did before.

They're back at Dunder Mifflin and she doesn’t want to doubt anything that’s occurred over the past few days, but she’s been shaken by Darryl’s incredulity that Jim could possibly be happy. She knows Darryl isn’t necessarily privy to everything that’s gone down over the past several months, but maybe that’s the problem. His is just a passing comment, an idle observation from an outsider, and it makes her question everything.

It’s nice to have you back, she’d said when Jim had taken a seat at his old desk, right next to her, giving her a familiar air high five. She’d meant it in every possible sense of the phrase. But is he truly feeling the same?

She watches Jim place a silver tinfoil crown (that she’d happily made for him) on Dwight’s head, proudly declaring him the new Assistant Assistant to the Regional Manager. Everyone claps and she looks at Jim’s grinning face, and although this is typically the kind of thing that would turn a boring day into an excellent one, she instead feels everything she thought was true collapsing around her.

What if his smile is something he's faking for her sake? What if it’s all just a lie?

Afraid she might start to cry, she bolts out of the bullpen and runs outside, knowing he’ll be a few steps behind her, but also having no idea what to say to him. He wants to make sure she’s okay, but she isn’t. She isn’t okay and if she doesn’t speak her truth right here, right now, she might never be okay again.

“Are you happy?” she blurts out.

He looks somewhat relieved, like this is something he can handle. “Yes, I'm happy.” 

“No, I know that you're, like, happy, and you had fun today. And that was fun,” she scrambles for her real meaning because she never wants to hold anything in again. “But what about a year from now? What about five years from now?” 

“Pam.” 

“Because I'm so glad you're back, baby, but I'm just—I was talking to Darryl, and he was talking about the trip, and I just feel like you're giving up so much.” 

He looks resolute; they’d talked this over already. 

“This was my decision, not yours. You didn't force me.” 

“I kind of forced you to do it.” 

“You did not force me to do this.” 

“Yes, I did.” 

She never actually forced him, not with her words, but she knows he’s staying for her. As much as she loves him for that, she can’t help but worry it’s not what he actually wants. 

He looks at her earnestly. “I don't know how else to tell you-” 

Suddenly the words she’s been holding in for months come flying out of her mouth and the truth crashes down around them like a falling house of cards. 

“I'm afraid that you're gonna resent me and I'm afraid that this is not enough for you, and... I'm afraid that I'm not enough for you.”

I'm afraid that I'm not enough for you.

She’s finally uttered her deepest fear aloud, perhaps the only reason she's felt so distant from him these past few months. She’s never felt more vulnerable in their entire relationship. To put it out there, plainly: that what she wants the most out of her life is to simply love and be loved. And if Jim wants more, how can she ever compete with that?

He looks at her, a slightly horrified look on his face. “Is that really what you think?”

She doesn’t know what to think anymore. He’s been so fantastic these past few days, doing everything she could ever possibly ask of him to prove he’s come back the right way, that he’s come all the way back. But she can’t stop the nagging doubt in her mind: that not only does he want more, he deserves more.

“Pam, what else can I say to convince you that I’m happy here? That no matter what happened, no matter what happens, everything I want is right here.” He rubs her shoulders. “It’s always been that way, I swear to you. Even when it didn’t seem like it.”

“I just worry you’re only staying because you feel like you have to. And you don’t, Jim.”

“I know I don’t have to,” he says. “I want to.”

She closes her eyes. She wants to believe him so badly. But is he only telling her what she wants to hear? And how will she ever know the truth, if that’s the case?

“Please,” he pleads with her. “Tell me what this is really about.”

She takes a deep breath. “I know in my heart I don’t need more than what we have to be happy but… I think you do, Jim. You’re so amazing, and talented, and you deserve to have everything you want. And I guess…  I’m scared that if you won’t admit it now, it’s only a matter of time until you do.” She shakes her head. “Or don’t. And then this whole mess just starts all over again.”

Jim looks somber and somewhat helpless, like he really doesn’t believe what she’s saying. But she knows deep down he’s better than this, he’s better than sitting in an office and selling paper and making foil crowns and obstacle courses to prank his old deskmate, the man who now signs his paycheck.

“I think…” she continues tentatively, “that you’re waiting for something.” She says it truthfully, determined to never again let unspoken doubt take root in her heart. “I don’t know if it’s Athlead, or something else someday, but I’m terrified that no matter how happy you say you are right now, you will always be destined for something greater.”

She doesn’t want them to reach another stalemate. What she wants more than anything is to believe that she’s enough for him, that whatever happens or doesn’t happen in the future, she won’t ever feel like a consolation prize.

“I just... I don’t want you to have any regrets.”

He looks at her and listens, really listens to what she’s saying. This is what should have happened six months ago, she thinks. This is the way that conversation should have begun, the way they, as a married couple, should have approached that decision. 

“I don’t want to hold you back from anything, Jim. I hate the way all of this went down, how it all happened. Because I would never want to make you feel like the things you want don’t matter.”

“Then don’t,” he says simply. He wipes a tear away from her eye. “Then trust me, trust that I’m telling you the truth when I say this is exactly what I want. That this, you and me, is what matters.”

She does trust him. But as much as she believes he really does want to stay with her, she knows there’s also a part of him that wishes he could go. She doesn’t want him to leave again for three months, it’s the last thing she wants. But they cannot have both right now, it’s impossible. 

Sometimes there is no compromise. There is only sacrifice.

“What if I told you right now that I want you to do this?” she says. “That I want you to go on this road trip with Darryl?”

She knows it’s a hypothetical, but there’s still a little bit of that old Pam buried inside her. Maybe there always will be. 

“Pam-”

“That I’m ready to do what it takes to try, to give this a real chance for you?”

She isn’t actually sure if she’s ready, but when she looks into his eyes, she knows what he’s given up for her. She wants to do the right thing for him now.

“Pam, you don’t have to say that. I know that’s not what you really want.”

“I know I don’t have to,” she says. She reaches up to hold his face between her hands. “And maybe it isn’t exactly what I want. But I do want you, Jim, and I want you to have everything you want, too.”

He shakes his head in protest, but she presses on.

“I just... I want you to be happy. That’s all I ever want.”

“I am happy, Pam. You are what makes me happy. I know I made some mistakes the past few months, and maybe I made you doubt that. But what can I possibly say, here and now, to convince you how much I want to be here with you?”

“I don’t know,” she says, and she means it. Maybe she'll never know. 

He puts his arms around her, pulling her into a hug. She can tell he’s frustrated. She’s frustrated with herself. What more does Jim have to do to convince her? But she can’t help that lingering feeling that something will always be missing for him. She just wants to make that feeling go away.

“I’m just scared,” she admits. “I’m so unsure about the future right now. I wish I was confident that I could give you everything you could possibly need.”

He leans back and tilts her chin up with his finger to look at him. 

“Pam, I need you to hear me,” he says. “I need you to believe me when I tell you that our future is up to us. To you and me, okay? Just us.”

She looks up at him, nodding, warm tears streaming down her face.  

“There’s no way for us to predict the future, you know that. We don’t know what’s going to come our way. But there might always be something on the horizon for either of us. And I guess... what I need from you... is to be okay with that, Pam.” 

She sniffles a bit and takes a deep breath, listening.

“There are going to be times where we both might want or need something that comes from outside each other, and if and when that happens, I need you to know that the love I have for you will always still be more than enough.”

She nods, the things he’s saying actually starting to make sense.

“Remember back when I interviewed for that job at corporate? Before we got together? David Wallace asked me where I saw myself in ten years. For the long haul. And Pam, I never told you this, but... even then, the only thing I saw with absolute clarity was you. That’s still the truth, that's still my truth.” 

She closes her eyes, absorbing every word.

“But just because at some point in the future I might want something more, it doesn’t mean I could ever love you any less.”

He grips her shoulders again, and looks into her eyes. She reaches up to wipe the tears sliding down her own cheeks. 

“Pam, I love you,” he says. “More than anything in the world. No matter what job I had, what was going on around me, whatever life threw my way, the one thing that always stayed the same was that I adored you.”

“I know you love me, Jim,” she says. “I don’t want you to think I question that.” 

His eyes suddenly widen as if realizing something. 

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I actually don’t think you ever really understood how much I’ve always loved you.” 

He doesn’t seem upset or saddened by this apparent epiphany, but she can see in his eyes his mind at work, mulling something over, attempting to figure out some unsolvable equation. 

“I never had a reason to think you doubted that until now. But this entire thing has opened my eyes.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“I mean, that if you don’t believe that I’m serious, that I’m choosing to stay with you because it’s what I really want, I’m going to figure out a way to prove that to you.”

She squints, a bit confused, and slightly unsure of how he could possibly prove such a thing. She certainly doesn't want to make him think this is something he now has to shoulder as well.

“Jim, you don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t have to,” he grins, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I want to.”

Jim Halpert walks into the Dunder Mifflin conference room for what must be his hundredth interview as Will mics him up. 

“Have a seat, man.” 

“Thanks,” Jim says, and does, his back to the bullpen. Delilah sits in her usual place across from him, right next to the camera. She’s been doing this for so long it’s hard to believe this could be the last time she’ll get to interview her favorite paper salesman.

Jim grins at her. “Last day for you guys, huh? We’re finally gonna be rid of you?” 

She smiles at him warmly. “Are you excited to see the finished product?” 

“Anxious, I guess. Not entirely sure what to expect.”

She shrugs. “Well, you lived it.” 

He has the same easy manner he’s had for the past nine years of this seemingly never ending project, but he’s got a tell that Delilah has picked up on that he’s nervous: his hands. For the first few years, he’d make a fist sometimes, open and close it, bounce it gently on his thigh. After he and Pam married, he’d play with his wedding ring. It doesn’t always mean he’s nervous about her specifically, but Delilah has seen him twist and worry that ring around his finger enough times over the past few months to know something is most definitely up.

Emily finishes setting up the camera and eyes Delilah meaningfully, her something just happened downstairs face all too apparent. 

“Good day?” Delilah asks Jim. 

He smiles, familiar with her first question. Ever since they began filming, she’d made a habit of asking him about his day.

“Yeah, it’s been a great day. A perfect day, until, well…” he scratches the back of his neck. “...the last twenty minutes or so.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

It’s what she asks in all of these interviews. Most of the time the subjects like to talk. In her career as a documentary producer, she’s discovered that ninety-nine percent of the time, people will tell the cameras just about anything if they’re in the right mood.

Jim looks off towards the window, shakes his head. “I guess I’m just frustrated. I finally feel like things are looking up again, like we’ve laid everything out on the table. Our relationship is better than it’s ever been, honestly. And I think that’s saying something.”

“It is.” 

The words slip out before she can stop herself. Delilah isn’t technically supposed to editorialize or give her opinion. Her job is simply to make them talk. More importantly, to remain unbiased. That part of the job hasn’t been very easy.

Jim doesn’t respond, just sort of stares at his feet. 

“Did… something happen?” Delilah asks carefully.

“I don’t know what happened,” he sighs. “Pam said she’s worried I’m going to resent her for not taking this job. And I feel like no matter what I say or what I do, she’s just always going to believe that.”

“Will you?”

It has to be asked. She isn’t sure she even wants to hear the answer.

“I’ve thought about this a lot over the past few days, and I’ll tell you the truth. I want this job, I do. But I want Pam more. And I’m not saying that because she’s making me choose. She isn’t making me choose. I’m saying it because it’s the right decision. Being away from her and the kids is not what’s best for our family right now. It’s not what I want, either.” He looks into the camera. “That’s the way it should have been from the start.”

“I can’t help but notice you didn’t answer my question,” Delilah says gently. “Will you resent her?”

He glares, as much as Jim ever glares. “I can’t resent her for a choice that I made.” 

“Okay, well,” she says, speaking to him now more like a friend than a producer. “I’m not trying to trick you into some kind of ‘gotcha’ sound bite, Jim. I’m not talking about a technicality. You know what she meant. We both know what she meant.”

Jim sighs. It’s indeed frustrating, seeing that look on his face again after he and Pam reconnected so beautifully a few days ago. 

“No,” he says firmly. “I won’t resent her for this, it’s the right decision. But what I wish I could make her see is that it doesn’t always have to be this way. She doesn’t have to feel like this. Down the road something else could happen for either of us, and she needs to believe in me the way she did before if we’re ever going to make these kinds of decisions together.”

“What exactly does she need to believe?”

He sighs, looking somewhat ashamed. “Something that she hasn’t for the past few months… that she will always be my highest priority, no matter what.”

Delilah nods, understanding. She knows only too well what Jim is referring to. The past few months have been surprisingly painful for her to come into work. She's in her early forties; old enough to be slightly jaded by the job, but young enough to still nurse a tiny glimmer of hope. And she’s watched these two from the beginning: Jim’s yearning, Pam’s hedging, their terrible timing. Then to get to see them finally find each other, fall in love, build a life and a family together, only to have to watch it all fall apart has been devastating. 

She has good reason to feel this way. She’d become so invested in this seemingly star-crossed couple that it hadn’t been long after the documentary crew started filming at Dunder Mifflin that she’d honed in on the probability that these two were going to be one of their story’s main draws. 

The various members of the crew had all developed their preferences over the years: Emily had been intrigued by the delightfully odd pairing of Dwight and Angela, Will had been endlessly fascinated by the human dichotomy that was Michael Scott. The editors had all become weirdly obsessed with Creed. But Delilah had immediately gravitated to Jim’s adoration of Pam: the simple beauty of two people finding love in the workplace was just so utterly relatable.

“Dunder Wha-flin?”

“Dunder Mifflin. It’s a paper company.” 

“Paper.”

“Yeah, they sell paper.”

The PBS executive looks at Delilah like she has two heads. “You fucking kidding me?”

She sighs. She’d figured this would be a tough sell, but she’s got her pitch all ready. “I know it sounds boring on the surface, but you should see this place. We’ve scouted eight different companies and this is it, I’m telling you.”

“Why this place?” He holds out the information packet, including a photo of the building and a dossier of all the people working there. “What’s so special about it?”

“Well, the idea behind this project is finding something extraordinary in the ordinary, if that makes sense.”

He looks at her with extreme skepticism. “Didn’t they do this same thing in the UK?”

“This is gonna be different, I promise. Different people, different dynamic. The guy managing this place is a real character. So are quite a few others. We’ve been observing them for a week now and I think there’s really something here.”

The executive sets down the packet. “I don’t know.”

She pulls the packet back towards her, opens it to two photographs: a young man, a young woman. They’re perfectly ordinary looking, which is one of the things she loves most about them. 

“There’s a story here,” she says. “A love story. We don’t quite know what it is yet, but it’s something. Unrequited love, maybe even a love triangle? Whatever it is, it’s going to be a real draw, a worthwhile investment, and we want to be there to watch it unfold.”

He leans back in his chair, takes a long look at the producer. 

“I’ll give you six months,” he says. “We’ll see just how invested I am after that.”

***

Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly turn out to be a producer’s dream. The smitten paper salesman and the shy, unavailable receptionist become a huge hit with the high-ups at the network, and as for the crew, watching them in dailies is always a highlight of the job.

It soon becomes a running bet amongst them. How many episodes will it take for them to finally get their shit together? Ten? Twenty? A hundred?

At first it’s heartwarming watching Jim’s yearning for Pam grow. Delilah clues in on it immediately when he talks about the yogurt. In him she sees a version of her past self, young and in love, and she’s perpetually amazed at how relatable their story is. She wants to shake both of them on a daily basis but, for obvious reasons, she cannot.

There’s a moment Emily catches on camera early in filming when, at the end of a particularly grueling day, Pam dozes off on Jim’s shoulder in the conference room. There’s a look on his face of absolute contentment, as if he could want for nothing more in the world. 

Something stirs deep inside Delilah’s chest when she sees the footage: a devastating mix of awe and frustration that Pam may never get to know how much this man truly loves her.

Weeks turn into months and they wait for their subjects to follow nature’s course, to figure this thing out. From the outside, it’s obvious how perfect Jim and Pam are for each other, how wrong Roy is for her. How clear it is to everyone that she’s in love with Jim too. It’s not a grand, sweeping love story; it’s beautiful because it’s perfectly ordinary in the most wonderful way. What was initially the huge selling point of their show has become the heart and soul of it. 

After Jim leaves Scranton, however, the love story becomes just plain heartbreaking. The betting pool fizzles; it’s not amusing anymore. The crew's hopeful naiveté at the beginning has morphed into a strange kind of helpless despair that this romance may never, ever come to fruition. What started as celebratory beers after work for having captured “amazing Jim and Pam moments” becomes a painfully slow burn that leaves everyone emotionally drained at the end of each day.

Delilah finds herself in the middle of a real life soap opera that’s within her power to manipulate, but her hands are simply tied. There are rules. They cannot intervene in the lives of their subjects in any way. She’s never wavered in regard to her integrity, and as the months go by with little progress, she has to remind herself of that so she doesn’t slowly drive herself insane.

When Jim and Pam finally do get together, everyone on the crew breathes a huge sigh of relief. Pam looks at her from across the conference room with a dazzling smile -- ‘I’m sorry, what was the question?’ -- and Delilah realizes she's completely forgotten it too. She can’t help but juxtapose the joy on the receptionist’s face with her absolute misery from a year ago, when she’d come to the heartbreaking realization that her dreams might be unachievable.

The happy tears in Pam’s eyes are contagious, and Delilah feels one of her own break free as Pam leaves to get ready for her date with Jim. It’s one of the best moments of her entire career.

Delilah is convinced the network will pull the plug now, saying they’ve had enough. But they just can’t get enough of Dunder Mifflin; quite frankly, they’ve become completely engrossed with everyone in that building. None of them can resist the opportunity to see what happens next. 

After Jim and Pam get married, Delilah lobbies the network to stop filming. It’s a perfect happy ending, she insists. No one wants to see what happens when real life starts to kick in. The irony of thinking this while making a living as a documentary film producer is not lost on her.

She’s denied her request. But she stays because she loves her job. And quite frankly, although she knows she hasn’t done a thing to directly affect Pam and Jim’s relationship, she feels somewhat responsible for following through. This couple and their story has been the main thing that’s kept her so invested in her daily grind. Their relatable story becomes more relatable by the season.

Until the moment it becomes far too relatable. 

Watching the cracks widen in the relationship of two people she was absolutely certain would go the distance creates within Delilah an unsettling sense of disillusionment. She’d been present to watch them fall in love, and now she’s present to witness every mistake and anticipate every miscommunication. Worst of all, she’s in the unfortunate position of being unable to do anything about it. It’s miserable to watch, so miserable that she threatens the network with her notice. Twice. 

They call her bluff, demanding the crew finish out the season, and she stays. She stays because watching their love story has come to mean more to her than she could ever have anticipated. She stays because she has to know what happens. 

She stays, because the truth is that she’s fallen in love, too.

***

She’s got Brian the boom operator in her office, a situation she’s been asked to deal with in whatever way she deems appropriate. Nothing about his behavior has been appropriate over the past couple of weeks, and she has a sinking feeling in her gut why.

“Fired?” he asks. “Really? After nine years?”

“The network thinks you intervened unnecessarily. They’ve asked me to let you go.”

“What should I have done, Delilah?” he asks, throwing his arms out. “That animal from the warehouse was charging at Pam. She could have been hurt. I’d do it again, if I had to.”

“You didn’t intervene back when Roy threw all that glass at Poor Richard’s. Or when he attacked Jim in the office.”

He takes a deep breath, as if he’s thinking of an excuse. But she knows there isn’t one. She knows exactly what he’s doing.

“So you’re firing me for a snap decision I made that protected an innocent woman?” 

Delilah shakes her head. She could let him go now, just let him walk out of all of their lives none the wiser, but there’s something inside her that feels the need to address the elephant in the room. 

“This isn’t just about what happened in the parking lot. This is about something much, much more serious.”

She wants him to admit it, that he’s making plans to interfere. That he’s waited nine years for the perfect moment to strike. That he’s a slimy douchebag.

He looks at her for a long time, bites his lip a bit. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She grits her teeth. She can’t get the image out of her mind of him gazing at Pam in the same way they all -- including Brian -- used to watch Jim do it years ago. 

“I saw you. Well, Emily saw you.”

Brian raises an eyebrow. “Saw me do what?”

Delilah points at the monitor. “Are we really doing this? Do you want me to play it back for you?”

He sighs and shrugs. “I can’t help how I feel.”

“Yes, you absolutely can. And you have to. It’s your job.”

"Apparently not anymore.” He stands up to go. 

“Brian, wait.” 

It suddenly occurs to her that, now that he’s fired, he can do anything he wants. He’s absolutely free to insert himself between Pam and Jim if he so chooses. Her interest shouldn’t extend beyond the scope of the documentary, but even though she feels slightly hypocritical, she can’t help herself. 

“Don’t do this.”

He plunges both hands into his pockets. “You’ve been watching them as long as I have. You’re seeing everything the same way I am, Delilah.”

“Meaning...?”

“He doesn’t deserve her.”

Her eyes narrow. “I am not seeing it the same way you do," she says firmly. "What I am seeing is a couple struggling, as couples do.” She looks him right in the eye. ”I know you know what that’s like.”

His face turns red, and he looks angry. “My personal life is none of your business. Stay out of it.”

She can feel her fists curling, her hackles raising, and in this moment she feels powerful. She’s been observing Jim and Pam for so long she’s unwittingly become their de facto caretaker. Brian may believe he’d been protecting Pam, but Delilah has always had only one goal: protecting their story. 

“And you stay out of theirs.”

Brian gives her a challenging look, as if he dares her to do a damn thing about it. “I guess what I do or don’t do isn’t really your concern anymore.”

He turns, heads out of her office, and slams the door.

***

“Morning, Pam,” Delilah greets her as Will mics her up. “How is everything?

Emily had warned her that Pam visited Brian the day before, and Delilah had been incredibly nervous he might attempt to take advantage of the situation. Pam and Jim are still on shaky ground, and while Delilah had never experienced a moment’s pause that Pam harbored any feelings for the recently-fired boom operator, it still hadn’t completely left the realm of extreme possibility in her mind. 

However, Brian had instead revealed to Pam that the documentary crew had captured more footage than any of their subjects had realized. While relieved he hadn’t tried anything, Delilah is convinced he might have if Pam hadn’t left in an understandable huff.

In any event, she’s been nervously anticipating this interview. It’s unclear whether or not Pam is still upset about their breach of privacy. 

“Um… fine, I guess,” Pam answers.

Delilah treads carefully. “Is there… anything specific you want to talk about today?”

Pam looks deep in thought. “I was just thinking about the promos, the ones that dropped yesterday.” She appears to be in a good mood, and Delilah, though surprised, feels a wave of relief. “I was remembering something. There was this clip I saw, do you remember that booze cruise we all went on? Like a million years ago?”

Delilah nods. If only Pam knew how much discourse that particular episode had started amongst the crew, how much disappointment it had caused. 

“I do.”

“I’d almost forgotten what that night felt like,” she says, shaking her head. “I was in such denial, you know? You can see the love painted all over my face. And Jim’s.”

Delilah nods, feeling a tiny twinge of guilt about that night. Even though each employee had essentially signed away their rights in the small print, there had always been something about Jim and Pam that felt distinctly intimate to her. An intrusion she’d rarely felt with the other subjects.

“Anyway, at first I was a little worried, you know? I have no idea what’s going to be put out to the world, what people will see. The things I said, or did. The things I didn’t say and should have. Especially with Jim.” She looks at her fingernails. 

“How do you feel now?”

“Now, I think I just… want to see it all.” She looks up at the producer. “I need to see it all.” 

Delilah wants her to see it all, too. It’s heartbreaking to watch Pam doubt.

They have so much footage and the actual documentary will be showing so little of it. Besides all of the things Pam barely remembers, there’s so much that she never got to witness at all: mountains of physical evidence that prove, when it comes to Jim’s adoration and devotion, she has absolutely no reason for that doubt.

“Anyway, I’m not sure what kind of stuff you’re going to air of the two of us, how much of it is going to hit the cutting room floor, but… I hope you got sound on everything,” she says, a dreamy look in her eye. “I’d love a DVD of that.”

That evening, after hours, Delilah recruits Will and Emily to help her sift through years of footage. The crew never did get them a wedding present, after all.

“I know I messed up, but I never, ever stopped loving her.” Jim gestures at the crew. “You all saw that, I’m sure. My god, you all probably saw way too much. For years.”

He’s quiet for a few moments, looking at the floor, and even though she knows she probably shouldn’t, Delilah decides to ask him something unusual. 

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe Pam didn’t?” 

Jim looks up, regarding her closely. “Didn’t what?”

Delilah shrugs. “Well, she didn’t see some of those moments the way we did, or the way you did. She didn’t even see some of them at all.”

Jim pauses, her words having an effect on him. He looks at her curiously, as if considering the implication of what she’s said; as if some long-held suspicion has finally been confirmed. 

He cocks his head, crossing his arms in front of him. 

“What exactly did you see?”

At first she hesitates. While some of the other producers have perhaps crossed the line from time to time, Delilah has always tried very hard not to address the documentary with a subject in this very direct manner. But at this moment, she doesn’t care. She’s been at this for nine years, nine years, and she can’t hold it in anymore. 

“I saw a love story,” she tells him. “A powerful love story. And it wasn’t just about big, life altering events or changes. It was all of those little moments, the ones scattered in between. The ones that made us fall in love with you two at the same time you were falling in love with each other. And that’s… just life, you know? That’s what made this film extraordinary, Jim. That’s what’s made your love story extraordinary.”

Jim listens intently. His mind seems to be hard at work. For a moment, Delilah worries she’s gone too far, that perhaps Jim will be weirded out by how much she’s revealed. There’s a reason she and the crew are supposed to keep their mouths shut. But he doesn’t look uncomfortable at all, rather completely astonished at Delilah’s revelation.

“I spent all those years wanting nothing but her,” he reflects, more to himself than to anyone else. “Even before you all arrived. So much time just waiting around for something to happen, you know? Terrified to make a move but unable to leave. I just couldn’t.”

It hits Delilah that she’s been doing the same thing: stuck at this job, this endless documentary, waiting for the happy ending they needed with absolutely no guarantee it would occur. 

“Then when I finally found something else I wanted, it was like she couldn’t see that anymore. She couldn’t see how much I loved her.” He looks troubled. “That was my fault, though. It was. I sort of lost myself for a while there.”

Delilah just lets Jim talk, already suspecting where this conversation is headed.

“If Pam didn’t see it the way you did, maybe she needs to,” he says slowly. “I can’t remember all of the things you must have caught on film, but I do remember the way I felt, and there were so many times she was the only thing on my mind. She was the only thing getting me through the day. And she was always, always more than enough for me.” 

He shakes his head to himself, incredulous. 

“Not enough? I don't know how else to explain it to her, so, you know what?” he looks at Delilah, then around the room at the rest of the crew. “I know it's against the rules but... I'm gonna need a favor from you guys.”

Will doesn’t wait for the go ahead from Delilah. “Okay. You got it, man,” he pipes up from the back of the room, anticipating him. That compilation of footage they’d already put together for Pam is surely on his mind as well. 

Jim looks at them, confused. “You… already know what I’m asking for.” It's a statement, not a question.

Delilah had been holding on to the DVD for Pam until after the documentary finishes airing. She really isn’t supposed to release any footage yet. But maybe this is better. It makes sense for Jim to be the one to give it to her, and all it would need are a few minor edits. Maybe, for once, the timing for Jim and Pam can be perfect.

She’s taken the role of their love story’s protector to heart, and they’ve finally got the happy ending within their grasp. The only thing left to do is protect it.

“I think we do, Jim,” Delilah replies. “And of course we’ll help.”

She sits back into her chair, crosses her arms, and prepares to break the fucking rules. 

The weather is perfect for a wedding. 

Pam sips champagne at her table, the air filled with the scent of hay and grass. She watches Dwight bounce Angela around the dance floor like a rag doll, looking at each other like their lives are just beginning. She knows the feeling.

“Hard to believe they’re married,” Jim remarks, watching them dance. “They look really happy, don’t they?”

She nods her agreement. It seems like it should be strange that Dwight and Angela have ended up here after years of missed opportunities and stolen glances and secret liaisons, but nothing really surprises her anymore with the Dunder Mifflin crew. At the end of the day, love conquered all. No matter how long it took, Dwight and Angela’s story played out exactly the way it was meant to, and she’s truly happy for them.

“May I have this dance?”

Pam turns to see Michael Scott behind her, officially graying and quite handsome in his tux, extending his hand. She gives a surprised look to Jim, who winks at her, then she takes Michael’s hand with a smile, letting him lead her onto the dance floor.

“It’s so good to see you, Pam,” he says, as she puts her hands on his shoulders. “Been a long time.”

“I’m glad you could make it,” she replies. “I know you must be the highlight of Dwight’s day.”

“Right after getting married, you mean?”

“It’s a toss-up,” she grins.

They dance for a few moments, and she’s amazed at how different Michael seems just in the way he carries himself. Relaxed, dare she say… matured?

“Holly couldn’t make it?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “Home with baby Gilda.”

She can feel her smile threaten to fly off her face. Baby Gilda. Of course.

“You’re going to have to show me pictures of your kiddos,” she says.

“Oh I will. I have two phones’ worth.”

She begins to ask, but stops herself. It’s still Michael, after all.

“It’s kind of weird having the cameras back,” she says quietly, glancing over his shoulder at Stanley and Phyllis dancing, both grinning from ear to ear. A nearby cameraman she doesn’t recognize is filming them. “I’d really gotten used to them being gone.”

“I know what you mean,” he agrees. “After we got to Boulder I found myself looking over my shoulder every few minutes for weeks.”

“Did you watch the documentary?” 

“I tried,” he says, and there’s a slightly anguished expression on his face. “Couldn’t get through it all.”

She leans back, regards him, feeling yet another unexpected symphonious moment with Michael Scott. “I couldn’t, either.”

He grins, an understanding passing between them she never thought they might share.

“It’s funny, right?” he says. “How differently we would have done things, if we knew what others knew, or saw what they saw.”

“What would you have done differently?” 

She can think of a thousand things Michael should probably have done differently, but is curious about what’s actually most important to him.

“When I let Holly go,” he says. She can tell he’s getting emotional just thinking about it. “I should have fought harder. I should have moved to Nashua, done whatever I could to keep her in my life. It was hard thinking about all that time we spent apart.”

“But it all led you back to her, right?” she says gently. “That was just part of your story.”

He nods. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It was still tough to watch, though.”

“I get that. Believe me.”

He laughs. “Quite a rollercoaster, you and Jim. I had no idea.”

She rolls her eyes and lets out an awkward chuckle of her own. “Yeah, well.”

“How... are you two doing?” he asks, somewhat cautiously.

She leans back and looks at him as they spin lazily around the dance floor. “We’re great,” she says. It’s so nice to say it and really believe it.

“Good for you. I’m glad to hear it.”

“I never thanked you, Michael,” she says. “For what you did. Jim told me you talked to him right after I called you.”

“Eh, you guys would have figured it out.”

“I’m honestly not so sure.”

Pam certainly hadn’t intended Michael to get involved, although she should probably have expected it. She’d simply needed a friend to talk to, and he had been there when she needed one.

He shrugs. “Well. If anything I said got through to him, I’m happy to have helped. You guys are my family, after all.” 

She looks into his eyes and remembers all of their times together at Dunder Mifflin: the good, the bad, even the very ugly. She’d always thought Michael was misguided in his belief that her coworkers resembled a family in any way, but maybe he’d been right the whole time. They hadn’t always gotten along, but they’d been stuck together. And they’d grown to appreciate one another despite their differences. Isn’t that exactly what a family is, after all?

“I want you to know, Michael,” she says seriously, “in case you ever wonder, you have been very much missed.”

He smiles in that old familiar way she’s seen before, when she can tell he’s trying not to completely fall apart. In spite of everything, she can feel her own resolve weakening. So she wraps her arms around her old friend and hugs him warmly, two unlikely kindred spirits sharing a moment. 

Over Michael’s shoulder, she sees Jim sitting at their table, an arm draped over her vacated chair, watching them with a smile. He holds up his mental camera with one hand and snaps a picture of them. Click.

Soon the song ends, and she hears a familiar one starting up. Across the dance floor she sees Jim stand, straighten out his jacket and stride directly towards them, tapping on Michael’s shoulder.

“Mind if I dance with my wife?” he asks their old boss.

Michael steps back and very gallantly takes Pam’s hand, kissing it. He then offers it to Jim in a very dramatic, very Michael way.

“Not at all,” he winks at Jim. “I know you’ll take good care of her.”

Pam wraps her arms around Jim as Michael departs, looking up into his eyes. 

“What are the odds?” she asks. “They’re playing our song.”

“Full disclosure, I requested it. Thought if I didn’t cut in, you might leave me for Michael.”

“He is rather charming now,” she teases. “You were right to be worried.”

They dance for a few moments, then he looks at her with a slightly concerned expression. “Are you okay? After the panel and everything?” 

She sighs. “Yeah, I’m okay. I didn’t realize people would have such strong opinions. I guess they made me into the bad guy, huh?”

Jim had watched the entire documentary. He hadn’t told her much, because she didn’t really want to know, but she did assume that whatever footage was included of their last few months before the doc crew left was probably pretty painful to watch. Even this very morning he’d told her he’d been preparing to defend a lot of his own behavior, not hers. 

He tilts his head a bit sympathetically. “They didn’t, actually. I honestly don’t know what those people were watching. Because I can see all of it very clearly now.”

He still looks so sorry for everything they’d gone through, and while she’d been prepared for today to stir up some of those painful memories, the last thing she wants is for any of it to bleed into this happy occasion.

“You were right, you know,” she says, glancing around for the cameras, “to be worried about the way we looked. But it wasn’t just the way they edited us. People were going to have their opinions no matter what.” 

“It doesn’t matter how it looks, Pam. The only thing that matters is how we feel about it.”

“And how do you feel about it?” she asks him quietly.

His hand moves to her waist, encircling it protectively. “I don’t care what anyone thinks but you.”

She smiles up at him. “I don’t care, either.” 

She rests her cheek against his shoulder, breathing him in, and they don’t think anymore. They just dance. 

After a while she pulls back, resting her gaze upon him, feeling such gratitude they’ve made it through their darkest stage relatively unscathed. She leans in to kiss him, wordless and electric, and it’s such an unexpectedly romantic moment he appears a little dazed when she pulls away.

“See? Now you don’t owe me anything,” he teases, and for a tiny instant, she feels that shy receptionist he fell in love with so many years ago reappear as she blushes and pulls him in close. 

They look young. They look happy. She remembers not the specific moments, but more so the feeling: it’s real and it’s true and it’s love and she can see it before her eyes.

She remembers waking up on Jim’s shoulder, sort of. It hadn’t been a big deal, at least she’d told herself so at the time. She’d already noticed by that point they’d fallen into a pattern of tiny intimacies: standing a little too close, catching each other’s eye across the room any time something unusual happened. Which was pretty much all the time.

She’d told herself even then it was because they were friends, best friends. She’d always felt something for Jim she couldn’t examine too closely because it was, quite simply, impossible. But ignoring it didn’t make the thing not exist: it had always been there, floating in the air between them, around them, everywhere, at all times. 

Watching him now on film, the nakedness of his adoration has never been so obvious to her in their entire relationship. And perhaps even more jarring is how clearly she loves him back.

What she’d said years ago about her parents appears to apply to her and Jim as well: sometimes love affairs look different to the people inside them. 

She sees with her own eyes dozens of times he’d looked at her with a love that never faltered. It’s the same exact look he still gives her today: when they wake up in the morning, when he high fives her across the bullpen, when she holds Phillip. And she still looks at him the very same way. It's as if the past and present are somehow one; different in her mind, yet in her heart they are the very same.

They stand across from each other in front of the office, listening to Jim’s iPod. Swaying, not dancing. It’s a perfect imitation of their relationship at this moment: almost, but not quite. The sentiment is there, but their actions are not.

“I’m in love with you,” he tells her in the darkened parking lot, his eyes wet with tears. She’d played the scene over in her mind a million times after that night but watching it actually happen is even more painful than her memory could ever conjure. He’d told her to leave the past in the past, but here it is before her, inescapable.

She sees her own face and remembers exactly what was going through her mind at the time: that the fantasy was over. Everything she had with Jim was coming to a crashing halt. They couldn’t pretend they were just friends anymore, because as much as she’d denied it to herself and to him, they hadn’t been ‘just friends’ for some time. She knew it, and rather than being brave, she’d broken both of their hearts. She’d made them both wait.

She wipes away a tear as the images pour forth, but it’s a happy tear, a tear of relief. So many years full of moments like these add up over time until she forgets. And seeing so many played back to back tells a story: a story of two people falling in love, living in fear, then in freedom. Sharing each other’s hopes, being each other’s dreams. 

She’s always felt it, but now, for the first time, she can see it.

This is their story.

The video of their past comes to an end but she remains in the present, and Jim is now standing right beside her. Always beside her.

“You watched it,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Well then, I guess you’re ready for this.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out an envelope. It’s addressed to her on the front, and for a moment she’s confused. She’s so overwhelmed she can’t quite make the connection.

“What’s that?”

“It’s from the teapot. Everything you’ll ever need to know is in that note.”

She takes the card, turns it over gingerly like an ancient relic; some long buried divine text that’s finally been unearthed. He’s held on to this for years, kept it secret, something he’s never shown her for some reason even though he obviously keeps it close to his heart. But he’s letting her in now, at last. 

She tries to imagine the Jim she knew so long ago, having this moment of vulnerability, suspecting it wasn’t quite the right time for her to hear whatever he had to say, and removing the card from her Christmas gift. The Jim who, despite everything that had come their way, stands before her now, prepared to bare his soul once again.

She opens the letter and reads.

Pam,

I’ve waited for years to tell you this. I’m not sure why. But with the cameras and everything, it’s been harder and harder to keep my feelings inside, and I figured maybe now is the time to tell you. So here goes. 

Ever since you told me to take that job in Maryland, I can’t get it off my mind. I’ve been wondering why I didn’t apply. I probably should have. On paper, everything about it makes sense. But the truth is that no job, or anything else for that matter, could ever compare to the way it makes me feel to be here with you. And there’s no opportunity in the world that I want more than just a chance to make you mine.

You are the reason I get up every day. You are the reason I want to do better, and be better. But you are also the reason I stay. Because if I get to see you smile, or hear you laugh, or believe for even a second that you could feel the same way I do, it makes everything else -- all of this -- worth it.

No matter what happens, I will love you forever.

Jim

She only reads it once right now, but knows she will read it every day for the rest of her life.

“Not enough for me?” Jim says, a sentimental smile tugging at his lips, a decade-old tear glistening in the corner of his eye. “You are everything.”

A flood of emotion washes over her in an instant, relief she hadn’t really known she needed as she rises, falling into his arms, feeling his warmth surrounding her as he holds her close to his heart. 

“Thank you,” she whispers into his ear.

Finally, irrevocably, she understands. She had never come in second to his dream. She had always been his dream. 

The truth is, it was never even a contest.

***

It’s been a pretty good day.

Jim grabs his jacket, throws his bag over his shoulder, ready to head out. The only thing he’s missing is Pam. He checks the break room, the parking lot, then heads down into the warehouse, where he finds her sitting alone on a palette full of copier paper, staring up at the enormous blank wall. The letter he’d given her from the teapot is still clutched between her fingers.

“There you are,” he says, and she turns to smile at him. 

“Hi.”

“What are you doing down here?” he asks, sitting down next to her. They both look up at her newest canvas. 

“Just thinking about what the mural is going to be,” she says. “I was sitting here and I realized that the way it started was just… all wrong.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I think that’s the reason it’s been so hard. I kept thinking inspiration would eventually hit me but it never really did. I just kept muddling through until… well,” she laughs. “Butts.”

He chuckles. The vandalism had certainly put an end to whatever she’d been working on.

“So you’re saying the butts were a blessing in disguise?”

“They were indeed,” she nods, her mouth curved into a half-smile. “But weirdly the whole thing got me thinking about us, you know?”

“The butts?”

“No,” she laughs. “Just… that everything that felt wrong for us over the past few months felt that way because of how it all started. And rather than come to that realization and regroup, we just kept pushing through until…”

He nods, getting it. “Butts.”

“Exactly.”

She’s right. He’d been so certain he was on the right path in Philadelphia, that everything that was difficult or felt bad was just something they’d have to push through. But ultimately he realized that it felt that way because the entire venture had started out wrong.

He puts his arm around her shoulders and her head falls comfortably into the crook of his neck. 

“Anyway, I have a chance now to start this the right way, to come up with an idea that works. That feels right.” She twists her head to look up at him. “Just like we do.”

“I know you’ll come up with something amazing, Pam. I believe in you.”

She sighs, and takes his hand. “Thanks. And Jim, I need you to know that I believe in you, too. I always have and I always will.”

He squeezes her hand and leans over to kiss the top of her head. They sit together in a comfortable silence, contemplating the task ahead of her, and the road ahead for them.

After a few minutes, the upstairs door bursts open and Erin comes bounding out.

“Pam! Jim! You have to come up for Darryl’s last dance!” she screams, her bright smile visible from all the way across the warehouse.

Pam straightens up to look at Jim, confused. 

“We’ll be right up,” he calls, and Erin gives them two enthusiastic thumbs up before twirling around and heading back inside.

“Last dance?” Pam asks him.

He shrugs and stands, holding his hand out. “I don’t know, but it sounds like fun to me.”

“It does,” she says, taking his hand. She glances around the warehouse. “I just realized what a mess it still is in here.” 

Jim takes a look around at the obstacle course he’d set up earlier in the day to determine his Assistant to the Assistant to the Regional Manager: scattered chairs, boxes of paper and coffee spills.

“Oh, that’s no problem,” he says. “I’ll have my assistant clean it up.”

She bursts out laughing, and he’s reminded of the very first time he’d made her laugh; how even then he believed if that was all he ever accomplished in his life, making Pam laugh was the greatest thing he’d ever done and could ever possibly do.

He still believes that to be true, with all of his heart.

It’s funny the way things work out sometimes. When Jim first started at Dunder Mifflin, he’d been restless and unsatisfied, and over the years that feeling had never entirely gone away. But ironically, for the first time since starting this job, he can say with absolute confidence he’s never been more content. 

And now they are leaving.

I really want to do this, Pam had said, and while working at Athlead (Athleap, now, apparently) had been off his mind for months, the delight and conviction on her face has got him excited again, not just for the opportunity to start a new adventure, but to have the chance to do it right this time. Together.

This entire day has been emotionally draining, what with the documentary panel this morning, seeing Michael only to have to say goodbye to him all over again, and Dwight and Angela finally tying the knot. The documentary party's still going strong in the warehouse, but he and the rest of the Dunder Mifflin employees have sought respite upstairs. 

He sits down at his desk, knowing he won’t be doing it for much longer, and picks up his nameplate, turning it over in his hands, remembering when Pam had first given it to him. It had been the very first time they’d touched, their fingers briefly brushing each other, a moment so small and ordinary that had begun their relationship: the most extraordinary thing in his life.

He looks around the office; this stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing office, and feels an incredible urge to simply stay as long as possible, where it’s comfortable, where he’s grounded. 

Where it feels like home.

Strangely, now that he knows for certain this chapter of their story is over, he doesn’t want it to end.

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.”

He looks up to reception and catches her eye across the bullpen, an unexpected pang in his heart.

“I’m sorry,” she says, looking him right in the eye. “Jim Halpert doesn’t work here anymore.” 

She gives him a sad sort of smile; resigned, but absolutely content. She hangs up the phone and they lock eyes, both sitting in the exact places they’d been when they started this journey together. There’s so much more in their shared gaze now than there’d been all those years ago, and yet, somehow, they are still exactly the same.

The past is the present and the present is the past, but the future is entirely up to them.

Epilogue

It’s hot in Austin in May, but not uncomfortably so. It’s a welcome change, however, considering all of the upheaval they’ve gone through over the past few weeks. Pam and Jim explore the city for their third day, looking at open houses and getting Jim set up at Athleap. 

The kids are back in Scranton with, believe it or not, Dwight and Angela. After escrow had closed on the house, Dwight insisted the Halperts stay at Schrute Farms until they’d gotten settled. The generous severance package their old boss had given them had afforded them a luxury they desperately needed that they didn’t really have before: time. 

Driving back to their hotel after looking at house number six for the day, Pam reaches out to take Jim’s hand. 

“I really think this is gonna be great, babe.”

“You think so, babe?” he winks.

“I can feel it, babe. And the offices look great.”

“Have you thought about what you want to do out here?” he asks, a little tentatively. 

“Yeah, I have, actually. I was thinking that, at least until we ride out the severance, I could stay at home with the kids?” She looks over at him to gauge his reaction, which is favorable. “I can take my time looking for a job that’s the right fit, finding good childcare, maybe even have some time to do some painting.”

“With Phillip and Cece around?” he laughs. 

“Well, now my husband will be home at five thirty,” she points out. “Every night.”

He nods and squeezes her hand, never again wanting ‘workaholic’ to be a term that describes him. 

“Every night.”

“And after that, who knows?” She grins at him. “Maybe Athleap will need an office administrator.”

“Well, I’m not sure about that, Beesly,” he says with a stoic expression. “What are your qualifications?”

She laughs softly, turning to look out the window. Jim puts his turn signal on, taking a slight detour. 

“The hotel is the other way, honey,” she says, pointing.

“I know. Just one more stop.”

She eyes him dubiously. “Is this another big Jim surprise? I really liked house number four, you know.”

He shrugs. “Let’s just see what happens.”

He pulls into the driveway of a lovely two-story house. It’s contemporary, but warm, and even though it doesn’t look much like the one they had back in Scranton, it feels like it. 

“Looks promising,” Pam muses as she steps out of their rental car. An older woman comes out of the front door, holding a clipboard. 

“Oh, Mr. Halpert, you made it,” she says, slightly frazzled. “Come on in!”

“Lydia, this is my beautiful wife, Pam,” Jim says, guiding her in front of him, his hand at the small of her back. 

Lydia shakes her hand, and ushers them inside. Pam mutters under her breath, “I didn’t know we had a realtor.”

“Have a look around, I’ll be here if you have any questions at all.” 

The realtor sits at the kitchen table and makes herself busy. And Pam immediately notices it’s a great kitchen, with a wide open layout that opens up to a sizable living room. Jim takes her hand and they walk from room to room. He watches her closely, studying her reaction, determined to never let her feel silenced again.

After they’ve walked through, he turns to look at her. “Well, what do you think?”

“It’s great. It’s perfect.” Eyeing him suspiciously, she adds, “You knew I’d love it, so why all the mystery?”

He stops in front of an upstairs bedroom with the double doors closed. “Well, there’s one room you haven’t seen yet.”

“I can hardly imagine it’ll be anything less than fantastic. You did good, babe,” she grins.

He takes a deep breath and opens the doors, revealing the master bedroom. She first notes the beautiful lighting and the enormous windows, but before she has a chance to take a look at the bathroom, Jim heads immediately to the back glass sliding door, which appears to have a balcony. She approaches him, and as he opens the door she notices it’s more than just that.

It’s a terrace. Complete with flower boxes and a table for two. And in the corner, overlooking a view of the city, sits an easel. 

Pam gapes at the scene before her, completely speechless. She walks over to the easel and touches it, looking around. 

Jim lets out a nervous breath. “Do you like it?”

“Oh, Jim,” she breathes, completely overwhelmed. “I love it.” 

He puts his hands in his pockets and enjoys this, the happiness on her face that he lives for every day.

“It just went up for sale yesterday. I thought it was great anyway, but when I saw the terrace, I just knew.”

“How did you… set this up? I’ve been with you all day,” she asks, pointing to the easel.

“Lydia. I asked her to help me out.”

“Your realtor did this?”

“What can I say? She likes me,” he grins. “She also knows the owners, and they are apparently very motivated to sell to a family.”

“You can be rather charming, I guess,” she smirks. He can’t help but notice a look of concern flicker across her face. “So… did you already buy it?” 

“Not yet. Never again, Pam. I want to be sure this is what you really want.”

“...Which you knew I would,” she says, raising an eyebrow.

“...Which is why I’ve already filled out all the paperwork making our offer,” he admits. “Lydia has it downstairs. It just needs your signature. So if we want to do this, we have until the end of the day to make that decision.”

She walks over to him and takes his hands in hers. “Together?”

“Together.”

She smiles at him, then looks around the terrace again, still incredibly moved by his gesture.

“I can’t believe you remembered,” she says in a quiet, awed voice.

“You said it’s not a big dream, but it’s your dream,” he says. “It’s important to you. And since we came here for one of mine this time, I think it’s only right you get to have one of yours, too.”

Her eyes sparkle. “Thank you,” she says. “But as far as dreams go, you’ll always be my favorite.”

“Right back at you, Beesly,” he grins.

Pam reaches up and smoothes a piece of hair along his temple. She puts her arms around him and he leans down, kissing her on this terrace: their dream, their future. He closes his eyes and feels it: real happiness. It crashes into him like a wave, and he can feel the two of them drifting along into this next chapter of their lives, together. 

Today has been a good day. Their timing is finally perfect.

She pulls him into an embrace and Jim glances over her shoulder, still searching like a reflex for the obligatory lens pointed at him to make a face, share his triumph. But there’s nothing; no one else here but her. 

He smiles, just fine with that, and holds her closer.

the end