It’s one of those days I hate Michael, as he sits in front droning on and on about the failed diversity day events.

Yes, I’m mad I lost my sale. It’s even worse who I lost it to, but I can’t blame Dwight for taking it. Still, it was a crappy situation and it had, in fact, put a damper on the day as a whole. I sigh as I slowly sunk into my seat, trying not to look too annoyed.

The sudden weight on my shoulder startles me. I glance over to find myself staring at the top of Pam’s head. It doesn’t register at first, but when it does I cannot help but smile. She likely just recently dozed off, something I wish I could do so easily, and she managed to slump a little bit against me.

I have no problem being a pillow, for the record.

I try not to watch her. The camera’s lens continually keeps moving over to us for whatever reason; all I need is to be shown staring at her or something.

Did I mention I hate this whole documentary thing? Regardless of the fact the man doing it is rather friendly, it sort of puts a lot of unneeded stress on me. Not that I’m doing anything I don’t want to be taped, or something.

Right.

I can feel her relax against me and I stay still, not wanting to disturb her. Michael doesn’t even notice she’s fallen asleep. Then again, he certainly isn’t one that would win an award for most aware of his surroundings. He blathers on and I keep sneaking glances and come to the eventual conclusion that she looks different when she’s asleep; peaceful, happy. It’s a nice look, one I don’t see often enough.

I don’t even notice Michael’s ended his speech until I see people leaving, and even then I want so much to just sit there and let Pam sleep. It felt almost wrong to wake her; perhaps she needs it. The camera is on us again, though, and I reluctantly attempt to wake her.

“Um, hey,” I whisper, nudging her gently.

“Mm?” she mumbles softly, her eyes opening with a slight start. She looks at me, probably confused, before slowly lifting her head up. “…Oh.”

“We can go,” I say softly as she smiles sheepishly, embarrassed.

“Sorry,” she replies as she makes sure she has everything. I watch as she slowly stands.

“…It’s fine.”

Really, it is, I add in my head. Feel free to do that any time.

I get up myself, though am stopped by the filmmaker. He do what he asks, sitting down in one of the empty chairs.

“So how did you like the diversity day?” he asks, the lens directly right at me.

“Um…not a bad day,” I reply after a pause, grinning slightly. I fail to mention exactly why.

They don’t need to know everything, after all.

So really, for the most part, his little health care thing isn’t really bothering me. I know someone is going to tell Michael and Michael is going to eventually have to fix it or he would have a group of very angry workers after him.

He hates confrontation; it’d never get that far.

Yes, I made up the fake illnesses that he’s been huffing about. I thought a lot of them were particularly hilarious, though it seems Dwight does not share my sense of humor. He’s been attempting to talk to everyone since it happened, which is actually making it more humorous because no one is taking him seriously.

And then Pam goes in.

I figure she’d give him the same treatment, but after a minute or so I can hear him raise his voice, though the words are muffled by the door. I turn my chair a little, staring at the closed shades, straining my ears to listen.

She walks out a few minutes later, looking utterly upset. She doesn’t make eye contact with me as she stamps over to her desk, scowling.

Yeah, it’s not so funny anymore. A good amount of irritation quickly develops; it’s one thing to waste everyone’s time with his interrogation but when he brings someone to that point of distress…

Pam’s still not looking at me, her head bowed as she tries to compose herself. I take a breath as I turn to stare at Dwight’s room, seeing him sitting at his desk with a smug look on his face. Tossing my pencil down, I stand and walk purposely into the room, closing the door behind me.

He’s standing now and glances up at me. Instead of punching him, which I admit crosses my mind, I take a different route.

“Dwight, I uh…I have something to confess.”

A gleam of utter glee crosses his features. He thinks he got me; perhaps he even upset Pam to get me to come in like this. “You’re doing the right thing,” he explains as I sit down, attempting to look as solemn as possible. “Go ahead. What’s your confession?”

“Um…”

I stall, waiting for him to sit. He does, his hands clasping in front of him. He’s loving this, thinks he has me where he wants me. “Let it out.”

I look him straight in the eye. “You’re a jackass.”

It takes him around five seconds to get pissed. This makes me extremely happy. “Okay. You want to do this the hard way!”

Yes, yes I do.

“Well this is the hard way,” he continues, glowering at me. “You wrote down those fake diseases didn’t you!”

I literally have to stifle my laughter. A smirk crosses my face. “No! …Is that the hard way?”

He’s getting angrier. I can tell by the way his face is getting red. This is going far better than I imagined it would. “I know you did!”

“Well then why are you wasting everybody else’s time interrogating them?”

This makes him stumble; I have a point. He loses his edge, stutters a bit. “B-Because I want to know who wrote those diseases down!”

I nod, pretending to go along with him again. “Right.”

He tosses a pad of paper and a pen at me. “I want you to take this pen and this piece of paper and write this down. Write this down.” He starts to rattle off an obvious confession. I smirk, writing down something alright. “I, Jim Halpert, confess to health care fraud…”

“Wait, one second; that sounds really good…” I stop writing, looking up at Dwight. “Is ‘jackass’ one word or two?”

Dwight sighs heavily; I can see his fist slowly clenching. I continue on, making sure I get him to his breaking point.

“One, right?” I ask thoughtfully, beginning to write it down. “Because of the MTV show…it’s one.”

Dwight grabs the paper from me. “Out. Get out!”

“But I’m not done,” I protest innocently, my smile growing more.

“Out!”

So I do leave, knowing full well I accomplished what I went in for. I close the door behind me, leaving Dwight brooding, all smugness now clearly taken off his face. Pam is better now and looks up as I walk over to her, leaning against her desk.

“You okay?” I ask quietly.

“Yeah,” she nods. “…Thanks.”

“It was nothing. He had it coming to him.”

It was true, he did. Still, she looks more grateful than I expect she would be; I suppose she guessed I wouldn’t have gotten that up front with insulting him if he hadn’t messed around with her. I clear my throat, trying not to look too happy with the response I was getting.

“So what did you say?”

She’s grinning wide now, her body shifting a bit closer to me, waiting expectantly to hear what I did to him. There was the Pam I knew; she certainly recovered from whatever Dwight had said to her.

“Well, I walked in and…”

Oh, Dwight. Why must you make it so easy for me?

I want to tell Pam the newest development as quickly as I can, but I know to keep up the joke I’d have to wait until Dwight isn’t around. He stays at his desk for a while, trying to be sneaky as he obviously begins to put ‘our’ plan in motion. He finally leaves and I don’t waste a moment making a beeline to Pam’s desk.

She looks surprised as I place a hand on her arm. She looks up with a curious glance, a smile crossing her face. She knows I did something; I hardly ever act like this unless something big is going on. I feel her hand rest on mine as I begin speaking.

“Okay, okay,” I say, out of breath. “I have something that’ll totally top the box.”

I see the cameraman has seen my enthusiasm and follows me, its lens trained right on us as I excitedly tell Pam what happened. She continues to look up at me with even more growing interest.

“Oh! Tell me, tell me,” she urges.

Don’t need to ask twice. “I have just convinced Dwight that he needs to go to Stanford and spy—“ she is cracking up already, covering her face with her hand as she stifles her laughter. I’m not done explaining though, so I quickly call her attention back to me. I release her hand for a moment and place it on her shoulder. “No no no, but before he does so, I told him that he should dye his hair to go undercover.”

She’s laughing so hard that she’s near tears now. “That is perfect,” she manages to gasp out.

“If we can get him to drive to Connecticut,” I explain as I place my arm around her shoulder. She places her head against my own hand this time, her body quaking from giggling. “and put peroxide in his hair…”

I don’t hear the door open and close. I do, however, take notice when I suddenly hear, “What the hell is this?”

I glance up, nearly frozen. This doesn’t look very good at all and I know it. Pam is in a similar state.

“You trying to cop a feel or something, Halpert?”

I’m standing now, found the will to move my legs. Roy is quickly advancing toward me and I realize there’s a large possibility I may be punched in the next couple of seconds. He moves quickly and shoves me backwards as I protest meekly, “Dude. No, dude, I was just, listen, woah—“

Pam is trying to calm him down. I’m vaguely aware of her between us, trying to keep the distance wide. She knows I would never touch Roy unless it was in defense and doesn’t want it to go that far. I don’t even want it to go that far; I’m already regretting putting her in the situation. Roy is placated for a moment by Pam. I take the opportunity to spit out what I want to say.

“God, I don’t even know how to explain this,” I state, nervously touching my hands to my head. I know I have to come up with something, though, so I quickly motion to Dwight, attempting to spit out the reasoning without showing how panicky I am. “Um…uh… Dwight asked me to be in an alliance…” God, I already can hear how stupid this sounds myself. “…and then um…um…we were…we’ve just been messing with him. Uh…because of the whole alliance thing.”

I’m stuttering bad. Pam is looking between us, making sure Roy doesn’t try anything. I heavily doubt she can do much to stop him if I don’t successfully explain what had been going on. I’m less worried about myself and more about her, though. I can take a punch or two if need be, but she would likely be blaming herself if it happens.

“It’s just office pranks,” she supplies, looking at Roy.

That’s exactly what I was looking for.

“It’s stupid but…it’s just office pranks,” I agree quickly.

Roy turns to Dwight, staring at him. “Alliance? What the hell are they talking about?”

For one time, one time only, I hope and pray that Dwight isn’t an ass.

“I have absolutely no idea,” he says without hesitation, shaking his head.

If we weren’t in the office and I wasn’t in the middle of nearly getting my ass kicked by my best friend’s fiancée, I would likely strangle Dwight at this very moment. I glare at him, my mouth agape—one time, just one time I need him to help me out and what does he do?

“Come on,” Roy says, gaining my attention again. He’s ushering Pam out, giving me one last hard look. I watch as they leave and I glance about, seeing everyone staring. Regardless, I breathe a sigh of relief, though soon after guilt wells up in me. I can already imagine how badly they’re going to be fighting about this because I was an idiot.

I don’t speak to Dwight the rest of the day nor do I take any enjoyment in seeing him suddenly with blonde hair the day after. Pam walks in the usual time, looking tired. I hope it’s not because they had been fighting all night or something like that.

“I’m sorry,” I say quietly when I have a chance to head over and talk to her. She shakes her head and smiles.

“It’s okay,” she replies and then looks toward Dwight, her voice lowering “Oh my gosh, he dyed his hair! You did it, Jim.”

I look over as she begins to stifle a bit of a giggle and smile myself. I know she’s already trying to push past the moment, pretend it never happened. I can’t help but be thankful.

“Yeah, he looks like an idiot,” I nod my head, smiling a little at her.

“I think we should repay him for yesterday,” she looks thoughtful.

We share a momentary look before I smirk slyly.

“You got a plan or something, Beesly?”

It becomes apparent now that Pam can’t hold her drinks, though I sort of figured that as she became more giggly as the night went on. Just before she went up for the award she was giving a speech for now, I was ready to start limiting her—it was one thing to let her get drunk, but it was an entirely different story to let her get sick from it.

Something had happened. I wasn’t sure what, but I figured it had to do with Roy. Right after she came back from being outside with him, she started sucking down the drinks, taking from other tables, even taking mine. I kept my eye on her, growing more and more worried as the night wore on.

“Finally, I wanna thank God,” she says now, staring at the stupid looking statue clutched in her hands. “…because God gave me this Dundee.”

She is making no sense. I can hear people snickering just a little bit and I try hard not to laugh myself. She’s straight faced as she says all this, hardly even noticing the stares she is getting.

“And I feel God…in this Chili’s tonight,” she finishes in a solemn tone. I shake my head and grin when she cheers, moving over to pull the seat out for her. All she needs is to miss it, fall, and hurt herself.

As I do so, I pause only for a moment to see her actually hug and kiss Michael on the cheek. He looks justifiably stunned, as am I. There are a few things in life I thought I would never see and that is likely on the top of the list.

She walks – no, bounds – over to me and I start pulling out the chair, expecting her to flop into the seat to continue finishing up her drinks. Instead she holds her arms out to be hugged. I comply with no hesitation.

Her arms wrap around my neck, nearly pulling me down to a stooping position. I laugh as she giggles gleefully; her enthusiasm is infectious. She pulls away only slightly and I glance down at her, only to find her leaning up suddenly, pushing her lips against mine.

For a second, my mind completely just leaves me. No thoughts, no feelings except the dull screaming of ‘Oh my god, she’s kissing me’ that repeats itself in my head. Then I come back, I know this is not the way I want it to be, no matter how much I want it to progress. I gently pry her from me and she breaks the kiss, holding my gaze for a second, a big smile lighting up her face.

I am still in shock but manage to wobble over to my seat as she sits. I glance over at her before looking away, feeling my cheeks begin to burn red from embarrassment. Any semblance of acting cool is thrown out the window; suddenly I feel like I’m a teenager shy around my first date.

She luckily, thankfully, notices nothing.

It isn’t much later on that we’re outside. Pam spots the camera and runs at it, probably startling him the way he jerks back a bit. I manage to only barely manage to calm her down. She grows mellow and calm for a moment as she randomly begins to hug everyone goodbye. Everyone plays along, lets her do what she wants for the most part.

After she’s done, I attempt to guide her to a bench. I had asked Angela to get her car and drive up instead of making Pam walk the distance. She was stumbling madly; I didn’t want her to get hurt. Angela agreed, though walked off looking rather annoyed about the whole situation.

Pam plops down and I sit next to her. She idly plays with the trophy she got, looking down at it thoughtfully.

“…I feel bad about what I wrote on the bathroom wall,” she suddenly says, not looking up. I glance over, a slight grin forming.

“No you don’t,” I reply matter-of-factly, shaking my head.

She laughs harder than she should and lets her head drop a moment as she tries to somehow compose herself. I see the lights of a car coming up to us and know it’s Angela.

“Oh, here she comes,” I announce and we both stand together. I know she isn’t going to be able to make it there by myself.

I guide her, my arm slightly extended and ready to catch her if she trips. She takes it slowly as I move around to the passenger side.

“Hey, um.” I look behind me to see she’s stopped, her expression growing serious. “Can I…ask you a question?”

A part of me is suddenly excited as I step closer, tilting my head a bit to the side. “Shoot.”

She stumbles back a moment, staring at me thoughtfully. The silence makes me more uneasy; for the first time in a while I can’t even read her face to know what she’s thinking. She suddenly seems to snap out of it, her eyes focusing on the camera before looking down at the ground.

Whatever was there is gone.

“Um…I just wanted to say thanks.”

What had I expected? Even so, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. “That’s not really a question,” I mention, thinking maybe, maybe I can bring what was on her mind back. She does not reply and I know it is a lost cause. “…Okay, come on, let’s get you home.”

I open the door for her and she gets in, sitting down awkwardly. “Have a good night,” I say as I close the door. “Thank you, Angela.”

I can hear her grumble as I shut the door tightly.

The camera is still on me, I can feel him hovering just behind me as I watch them depart. My mind wanders to the moments before and the look she had given me. For a second, it had looked like…

I stop my mind from wandering too far from reality. After all, she was drunk—she probably really didn’t even have a question at all, never mind the one I was hoping for.

What kills me, really, is that she likely will not remember it or, even worse, might have really only did it because she was drunk.

I glance up at him and see he’s smiling, clearly meaning it. “…You are?”

He nods and I glance back down at the table a moment, pulling open my chocolate bar. “She’s going to be here soon, I think.”

“Great, that’s great.”

I can’t help but smile, thinking how sweet it is for him to say that—though, after a week of me blabbing about how excited I was about this day and him listening with interest each time, I should not be so surprised.

“I’m really excited to show her around,” I say, breaking off a piece of my food. “…She really wants to meet everybody.”

This is only partially true. She’s coming, yes, but really it’s only because she wants to meet Jim. There isn’t much good stuff to talk about in this place and I certainly don’t want to worry her with all the antics half the people in this place do—instead, I supply her with the only good things that go on. These stories usually just happen to revolve around Jim or have him involved in some way.

I think her exact words were, ‘I’d like to meet that Jim boy you always talk about. Will he be there?’

“Oh yeah?” Jim asks, tilts his head. I know he’s probably wondering why I would ever bring her to a place like this.

“Mmhmm,” I reply, chewing slowly.

In truth, I really didn’t want to let her come. She insisted, though, and when she was stubborn about something there was little I could do to change her mind. I was hoping that somehow everyone but the relatively normal members of the staff would come in today. No such luck. In fact, of all the days he could come, even Todd Packer had suddenly appeared in the office. All I need is for him to do something inappropriate…I’d just die.

“Good, ‘cause I have a lot of questions,” Jim informs me and I glance up, coming out of my thoughts. I grin a bit, raising a brow.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah,” he nods as he speaks in a mock serious tone. “’As a child, did Pam ever show any traits that would head towards her future career as a receptionist?’”

I can’t help but laugh. Jim finishes his food then and stretches his arms over his head, sighing.

“Back to work. See you later,” he stands and exits, leaving me to finish my bar. I remain alone for a little while, smiling slightly to myself. Somehow, all the things that might happen seem so insignificant compared to how much I know she’ll enjoy Jim.

It’s much later that my mom shows up; sneaks in is a better word for it. I’m almost glad she has come so much later than expected; she certainly would not have enjoyed Michael attempting to make me make out with a plastic doll. All thoughts of that are gone immediately, though. It’s amazing to see her after such a long time and I hug her tightly, not caring it anyone is staring.

“I finally made it,” she declares as she pulls me close.

“Hello!” I reply cheerfully, unable to mask my excitement.

Finally letting go, I sit down at my desk as she admires my area. “This is all yours?”

I beam a smile. “Yeah, I’m in charge of this whole thing.”

“Oh, my goodness, that’s great.”

And then Michael comes out of his office as if on cue, carrying that stupid blow up doll. I stare right along with my mom, feeling my entire face flush red. He says not a word as he carries it out, tossing it into the hallway. He walks off afterwards, not even looking up as he passes us. This is when my mom looks at me, her brows furrowed in confusion.

“…Don’t ask,” I finally say after trying unsuccessfully to think of a way to explain what happened, attempting not to look too annoyed. She just nods, shaking her head a bit in bewilderment.

I clear my throat and quickly change the subject, standing to turn and face the wall. “This is where I used to keep my computer,” I say, motioning to the area.

“Oh, right, I remember, with the picture—“

I had sent her a picture of my desk a while ago—a long while ago. I had moved things around for various reasons to the point it is today. I like how my area is set up now, I can sit and see everything going on—though that can have its good and bad points.

This really isn’t interesting, but I don’t want my mom to be looking around while Todd Packer is anywhere near the building.

“Yeah, yeah, but I switched stuff around ‘cause I actually needed more room for organization, so this is like…”

I faintly hear footsteps behind us, but don’t turn around. I’m hoping if I just ignore it, they’ll go away—especially if it’s someone I really don’t want to expose my mother to. I do turn when I notice the door open out of the corner of my eye and Roy steps in. Roy and my mom always have gotten along pretty well, and she smiles and walks over to hug him. “Hey, handsome.”

Roy is smiling, though I know it’s a bit forced. He’s always uncomfortable with my parents, says he’s worried about saying something wrong. “You look great,” he compliments, which makes my mom smile even more.

“Thank you!” she says before looking between us. “So, we ready for dinner?”

I glance at my watch. It isn’t closing time just yet, as much as I wish it were. “Oh, you know, I need to stall a bit,” I say, giving an apologetic look. “But, it’s OK, because I’m very used to killing time.”

This gets a laugh out of the two of them and I smile slightly.

Roy takes that time to excuse himself, turning to walk out the door and wait downstairs for us. The minute it shuts behind him, my mom turns to me, giving me a mischievous look. I’m confused only for a moment by the action. She glances at the door again, making sure Roy is gone, before leaning over and whispering, “So which one is Jim?”

I’m pretty sure my face turns beet red at that. We’re close enough for Jim to hear, though my mom does not know that. I glance over at him and she follows my gaze. “Mom,” I whisper in a bit of a warning tone. He’s doing his work; I don’t think he heard her.

“Just wanted to know,” she giggles, clearly teasing me. If I wasn’t red then, I probably am now.

“No, it’s—“

I can’t believe I’m acting this bashful and at a loss for words. She gives me a look over before realizing it best to drop the subject. I’m not sure if I should be dismayed that my mother noticed my reaction.

“Alright, okay,” she concedes, though she still holds the playful look.

Time to change the subject—quickly.

“Ten minutes; then we can go to dinner.”

“I’ll make myself busy,” she nods. I sit down at my desk, trying to do the same.

Glancing up a few seconds later, I notice my mom staring at Jim in a rather thoughtful manner for a moment before looking away to smile down at me.

For the first time in a long time, I can’t read her face to know what she’s thinking. I’m not sure I want to know even if I could.