We open with a quick scan of the front of the bullpen, where everyone is stationed at their desks and working away. The SALES TEAM is on the phone with clients. OSCAR crosses to MICHAEL’s office with paperwork. We land on PAM at the reception desk, writing something on a pink message slip.

We hold on PAM a beat. She looks up and politely smiles at the camera, then returns to whatever she’s writing.

We continue to hold on PAM, who eventually looks again and is a little startled to find them still there.

PAM (perturbed):
What?

We cut to the conference room for a talking head.

PAM (in recognition):
Ohhhhh. Yes, actually, I have heard of it!

Quick cut to suggest a question was edited out. PAM rolls her eyes.

PAM (bemused):
No. Believe it or not, Jim refuses to observe. (beat) He’s a conscientious objector. (beat) To National Grilled Cheese Day.

We cut to the conference room again, this time for a talking head with JIM, who is giving a perfectly wiseass JIM smile.

JIM:
I just think it’s become very commercialized, you know. (faux serious) People have forgotten the true meaning of the holiday.

His eyes open a little wider and the corners of his mouth fall, just a touch. He is clearly making direct eye contact with the producer. His pretend solemnity has become… genuinely a little solemn.

JIM:
It’s not just about Kraft and Pepperidge Farm padding their profits and doing cute little contests. It’s about what a grilled cheese means. I mean, it’s the first hot meal a lot of kids can make for themselves. It’s a sign of maturity, a milestone on the way to adulthood.

JIM has grown fiercer as he’s continued his speech. He’s now impassioned now, calling to mind nothing so much as DWIGHT’s Mussolini impression.

JIM:
It’s the sandwich you make with your brothers over the barbecue in the summer, with your buddies when you’re camping and none of you really know how to make anything over the fire.

His face and his voice soften.

JIM:
It’s the sandwich you make for your first date when you don’t think she’s ready to admit it’s a date. (He looks away from the producer, off into the distance, thoughtful.) It’s family and friends, you know? It’s… memory.

JIM remembers himself and shakes it off.

JIM:
So, no. Pam wasn’t kidding.

JIM sighs a little.

JIM (all business):
So is that all you need?

A pause as someone without a microphone indicates yes.

JIM:
Great.

JIM rises and exits the conference room. The camera follows him to his desk… where he finds something wrapped in a very greasy paper towel by his mouse pad.

He looks confused, and unwraps it to find a very delicious looking grilled cheese sandwich. He’s now part-confused, part-pleased. He picks up a small pink message slip from right next to where the sandwich was, and reads it.

His confusion fades, and he smiles like he’s just won the lottery. Or perhaps read a love letter from the love of his life.

He glances towards RECEPTION. The camera follows his gaze to PAM, whose head is tilted and is grinning right back at him. She giggles a little.

They continue to stare into each other’s eyes. JIM, with an ostentatious flourish and without looking away, folds the note and puts it into his shirt pocket, right by his heart.

DWIGHT:
Uh. Hello? The phone is ringing. Is no one going to get it? What is the purpose of having a receptionist if she’s just going to make goo-goo eyes at her shaggy-haired hippie boyfriend all day? You’re distracting Jim from sales! Or you would be if Jim ever made any sales.

DWIGHT continues to rant. As far as JIM and PAM are concerned, he might as well be on another planet.

We cut to the conference room with PAM, who shrugs and smiles sweetly.

PAM:
I never said *I* didn’t celebrate National Grilled Cheese Day. (meaningfully) I really love grilled cheese.

“Jiiiiiiiim.”

That whisper kills him every time.

Jim looks away from the spreadsheet he’s been staring at for the last 20 minutes, trying to summon the energy to make cold calls while the documentary crew is off chasing Creed and there’s one less thing to distract him, and sees one of his favorite Pams at reception. Barely-Able-To-Contain-Her-Excitement Pam. Her eyes are bright, her smile’s wide, she just radiates warmth and sunshine, and…

…and she crooks a finger at him in a come-hither gesture that he knows full well is meant to be friendly, it’s quick and jaunty and not seductive, her face says “come look at this awesome thing I found on the Internet” not “come on over here and let me have my way with you, stud.” He knows that.

He also knows the image is now tattooed in his brain.

(It’s moments like these Jim’s sure Pam has no idea what she does to him. She’s not cruel, she wouldn’t… whatever she’s doing. All these things, the way she leans into him during interminable conference room meetings, the way she perches on his desk just a little too close to him, the way she holds his gaze a little too long to be appropriate… she’d go out of her way not to do any of that if she knew he wanted her.

Right?)

He goes to her, leans on the reception counter. Even if he wanted to resist, he doubts he could pull it off. He has to see whatever it is that’s put that look on her face. It’s all totally out of his hands. He should be used to the feeling by now

“What seems to be the trouble, Beesly?”

“Look,” she says, turning her monitor towards him, and Jim forgets every bit of his angst.

“Oh my GOD.”

“I know!”

“Great find, Beesly!”

“This is the greatest day of my life.”

“How did you even…”

“Penny sent it to me.”

That catches him off guard. “Why would she…”

She cuts him off. “We have to do something.”

“Obviously.”

“I mean…”

“Yeah, this is basically our holiday.”

“Totally. Can you blow off sales?”

Jim puts on a scandalized look. “Of course not, I have that super important meeting with the Central Northeastern Pennsylvania United Public Association of Private…”

Pam rolls her eyes and giggles, smacks his wrist lightly. Then rests her fingers on the back of his hand, just for a moment. And his entire world is reduced to the places where her skin touches his.

(She doesn’t know. She would never touch him like that. Unless…)

“Okay. I just restocked, so we’ve got a full arsenal of jelly beans ready to launch. What are we gonna do with them?”

(Jim freezes, because if he can’t give her this, than what good is he to her? And there are moments when he is not the funnest most super awesome source of entertainment, there are moments when he can’t come up with some new game, there are moments when he just wants to drop the act he always puts on for her and just be honest, be a man and not a playmate, and he’s…

He’s got it.)

“Okay, we’re going to need 20 plastic cups and an excuse to close the blinds in the breakroom.”

***

“Practicing Jim’s sales pitch, and he doesn’t want anyone to steal his trade secrets” turns out not to be the best scheme to hide their vigorous game of jelly bean basketball. Mentioning trade secrets to Dwight was like waving a red cape in front of a bull, although they have a fun hour trying to convince him that throwing jelly beans into plastic cups is just a cover for what they’re really up to.

But their scuffles manage to draw Phyllis and Kevin into the game, then Kelly and Ryan, and pretty soon Pam has convinced Michael that a jelly bean basketball tournament was a great team-building exercise. Then she gets him to send Ryan out for enough jelly beans to feed a small nation. Pam crows that it’ll take even Jim all summer to finish them.

After an over-zealous Dwight throw ends up leaving a perfect jelly bean-shaped bruise on Oscar’s forehead, Jim proposes a switch to jelly bean bowling, which ends up requiring too many judgment calls about whether or not a bean has been moved to work, and Pam finally gets everyone to agree to jelly bean curling. It’s “a sport of champions, people! You roll your jelly beans across the conference room table, like so, attempting to get them as close to the edge as possible without going over the side, and the player with the most jelly beans on the edge after 10 rolls each wins.”

Curling was a “misnomer,” as Dwight explained ad nauseum, driving Jim to organize those watching to make signs declaring the “Jelly Bean Curling World Championships” and tape them all over Dwight’s desk.

Stanley disappears around 4:45, and everyone else starts to drift off at 5:00. Michael hangs in there until 5:30, having the time of his life, before he remembers to his bitter disappointment that he has improv. Pam and Jim politely decline to promise they’ll still be there when he’s done.

They’re playing for the title, and they’re both in it to win it. Pam’s got the finesse to put her beans wherever she wants them, but Jim’s leaned into Meredith’s “purposefully roll into your opponent’s beans to take points off the board” strategy. They’re deadlocked after 25 rounds, after 30, after 40. Their trash talking gets more and more brutal. Jim can’t remember the last time he’d had this much fun.

Finally, on Round #47, a breakthrough. Jim has last roll with a tie score… but it’s zero-zero, he’s been spot on hitting Pam’s point-beans. He can put this game to bed… but he has to ride the edge this time.

“Well, I’m going to limber up for Round #48. No way you’re pulling this off, Halpert.”

“You underestimate me, Beesly. I’ve been lulling you into a false sense of security, and now I’m ready to spring my trap.”

“Oh, I’m sure. Dynamite lulling. I mean, your imitation of a broken man when you had that one pineapple that hung on for like five Mississippis before falling? I was sold.” She grips the edge of the table, staring at the spot where Jim’s fate in Round #43 had been sealed with trepidation and clenched teeth, before letting her jaw drop and her shoulders sag in defeat in what he’s pretty sure was a perfect re-creation of his heartbreak, and sinking into one of the conference room chairs with her hands over her eyes.

“Oh, bravo, bravo,” Jim gives her a sarcastic slow clap. “Encore.”

Pam pops up with a smile on her face and bows. “Thank you, thank you. Please tip your waitresses and stick around for my evening show, where I’ll be playing the title role in ‘Jim Halpert’s Field of Screams.’”

“You really think you’re gonna psyche me out?”

“I don’t need to, Jim. I’ve seen you roll. I would bet you literally anything you’re not landing this one.”

“Really? Anything.”

“Anything.”

And all of a sudden they’re there again.

(He feels like he never sees it coming, how one second they’re them and then out of nowhere they’re them, and the air is heavy and there’s something in his throat and she’s looking at him with those eyes and she’s not smiling so much and she’s breathing a little faster...

He knows, in this moment, that she does know. That she knew exactly why he bought that ticket for June 8th, that she knew exactly why he wouldn’t let go of her hand even after she had gotten the hang of skating again. That she knew that things always seemed a little brighter to him when she walked into the room.

And that she felt it too. She wasn’t cruel, she leaned on his shoulder and invaded his personal space and stared into his eyes because she felt it too, she was just scared to leave Roy behind without a clear sign, and if he just gave it to her…

He could bet a kiss. He could bet a kiss, and right now, in this moment, he knows she’d let him kiss her.

But that’s the problem. He doesn’t know. Anymore than he knew in the parking lot the night they swayed or on that goddamn boat.

In one of those chick lit books Kelly is always going on about while Ryan rolls his eyes and pretends he’s not hanging on every word, he would know. He would be sure, and it would be perfect.

But Jim’s life is not a romantic comedy. He is not Hugh Grant or Colin Firth or whatever stammering, awkward English dude women find charming these days. There is no music swelling to tell him the moment is right. The lighting is the same harsh fluorescent it always is. There’s not even the camera crew there, trying so desperately to not attract attention to themselves he can tell they think something big is happening.

And perhaps most importantly, if he’s wrong, there will be no cut to black. Jim will have to live with the fallout.

They’d never be the same. He’s not sure of much, but he’s sure of that. And he loves her, in this awful, all-consuming, genuinely sort of self-destructive kind of way… but he also likes her, the best friend he’d ever had, the person he’s closer to than he’d ever been with anyone. Can he risk that when it’s not a sure thing?

The odds have always been against him. The idea that Pam was secretly harboring feelings for him, enough that she might leave Roy, while also dragging Roy kicking and screaming to the altar? It just didn’t make sense. And if he says nothing, he can keep what they have, and maybe eventually he’ll learn to live with just that. Maybe. But if he puts himself on the line and fails…

He just wants to know for sure. Before he tries. Is that too much to ask?)

“Okay… loser pays for dinner?”

Pam nods, maybe a little too quickly, maybe like she didn’t trust herself to speak, maybe like she was disappointed… or maybe like she was nervous he was going to try to kiss her and she’s relieved she won’t have to gently let him down, or maybe like she’s hungry and she’s ready for this game to wrap up. He just… can’t tell.

He bends down over the table as Pam crosses the other side. He practices his wind up, once, twice. He looks up to find she has mockingly (maybe?) matched his hunched-over stance and is staring at him. She raises a challenging eyebrow.

He rolls.

And his little blueberry Jelly Belly rattles its way across the conference room table towards her, kisses the edge…

…and holds there.

Game over.

***

Roy had texted mid-afternoon that he was going to Poor Richard’s with the warehouse guys, so they’d planned to do dinner together from the beginning. Not unusual for them on Roy’s nights out. They’ll go somewhere cheap and well-lit where they’ll get served from behind a counter by a bored-looking kid in a paper hat and they’ll sit on hard plastic benches and try to guess what the rowdy gang of teenagers a few tables over is going to get arrested for that night and steal each other’s fries and it’ll still be the romantic highlight of Jim’s year.

Well, now Pam will be paying. So there’s that.

It’s freezing when they get down to the parking lot, and Pam had dressed for the 40-degrees-warmer weather they’d had in the morning, so he tells her to wait and heads off to bring his car around. She doesn’t even bother to try to talk him out of it, so maybe she needs some time alone too. Or maybe she just has no intention of freezing her ass off.

(There are times when he’s almost looking forward to this being over. To knowing it’s over.

He’s not stupid. He doesn’t need a therapist or a roommate or a know-it-all little sister to tell him he’s been frozen in place. There’s possibility, and as long as it exists, he can’t let go of it. Maybe when he gets back from Australia and she’s A… he can finally move on. Just be the friend she deserves, the friend she wants, and maybe start figuring out what he actually wants to do with his life, “like you said you were going to do when you first took this job, remember, Jim?” Yes, Larissa, he remembers.

And since Roy set the date, it’s been… hard. He can feel himself getting impatient, getting mean. He’d actually run to Toby and complained about her wedding planning, who does that?

He’d hurt her a little on Valentine’s Day, and while it hadn’t been the point, he’d kind of liked knowing he could. He wishes he doesn’t know that he’d liked that.

But it also feels like there have been more and more of these moments recently, like in the elevator the day he’d told her about his “crush,” like when she’d hugged him after he nailed the Virtuis Hospital Systems sale, like in the break room when she talked about how her dad had taken her mom on the perfect honeymoon… and it crushes him each time, and he wants it to be done, but it also feels like the universe is maybe giving him a sign. Or, as Larissa insists, like Pam is giving him an opening.

Like he needs to take a chance.

Because after all, what is there to lose? He can’t bring himself to call her Anderson in his head. Does he really think he’s going to be able to braid friendship bracelets with her when she’s someone else’s wife?

Things are going to change. This thing he’s desperate to protect, it’s going to go away.

He wants a guarantee. Something, after all this time, that he can control.

Maybe knowing it’s ending, one way or the other, is the only guarantee he’s going to get.)

We open in the front of the BULLPEN. We scan from MICHAEL’S OFFICE, where the door’s closed and he is visible through the blinds talking animatedly on speaker phone, to the DESK CLUSTERS, where DWIGHT and PHYLLIS are hard at work, to RECEPTION, where we find… JIM????

The phone rings, and Jim picks up.

JIM: Dunder Mifflin, this is Sam. (listens) Yes, I can connect you, let me put you on hold for just… one… second. (Jim holds the phone against his head with his shoulder, presses a button, and holds the receiver back to his ear… and winces as he hears the voice again.) Yes, sorry, one sec.

Jim tucks the phone back into his neck, and tries another button. He puts his ear back to the receiver, and sighs in relief. He then pokes at the handset a few more times, until the phone rings…

…at PHYLLIS’ desk.

The camera zooms in on JIM, who gulps.

We return to PHYLLIS, who picks up.

PHYLLIS (professionally):
Phyllis Lapin. (pause) No, I’m sorry, you’ve got the wrong extension. (She shoots Jim a baleful look.) Dwight is at 5332, I’ll connect you.

DWIGHT’s head snaps up at the mention of his name, and as PHYLLIS starts to transfer the call, he slaps his hands on his desk.

DWIGHT:
*Dammit*, Jim!

We return to JIM, who actually seems a little embarrassed. He gives the camera a chagrined shrug, as we…

…cut to PAM, doing a talking head while in line in the LOBBY of the SCRANTON BUSINESS PARK.

PAM:
Once a year, they bring in a little cart and they give away free pretzels. It’s really not a big deal.

We hear a scoff from behind her, and the camera turns to LEO, one of the dirtbag deliverymen from VANCE REFRIGERATION. (Where BOB VANCE works.)

LEO:
(to Pam) Really? Pretzel Day’s not a big deal? Pretzel Day???

He scoffs again, and looks straight to camera, shaking his head. Can you believe this chick?

PAM (smiles politely at LEO and turns back to the camera):
To some people it is. (beat) And I don’t know if you remember, but about two weeks ago…

We cut to a clip package from They Can’t All Be Winners: DWIGHT running out of MICHAEL’s office with the shoebox as MICHAEL shouts; DWIGHT running by JIM and PAM as they snicker at the prank in progress; DWIGHT shoving STANLEY out of the way in the KITCHEN and spilling some of his lunch; DWIGHT awkwardly tossing the shoes in the microwave by waving the bottom of the shoe box at it; MICHAEL and DWIGHT arguing while JIM and PAM try to direct their attention to whatever is happening in the microwave; DWIGHT blockading the microwave with his body while MICHAEL and JIM try to get past him and STANLEY and PAM shout; DWIGHT retrieving steaming, dripping, misshapen shoes with tongs from the microwave while MICHAEL, JIM, PAM and STANLEY cringe away from the smell, and finally a new shot: DWIGHT tossing the microwave in the dumpster while JIM and PAM watch… and then notice STANLEY glaring at them.

We cut back to PAM, in line, looking remorseful.

PAM:
So we’ve been bringing Stanley lunches from Cugino’s, but we still think he’s mad. (beat, as Pam tilts her head to the side in consideration and looks into the distance for a moment, then looks back to the camera) It’s hard to tell when Stanley’s stopped being mad.

PAM continues her lines in voiceover, as we cut to earlier that morning in the office. STANLEY packs his briefcase, puts on his coat and leaves, a sour nod his only acknowledgement of PAM’s goodbye. Quick cut to later in the day, with everyone looking up at the P.A. speaker in the ceiling as an announcement comes on… and MICHAEL sprints out of his OFFICE and out the door. PAM and JIM exchange a look.

PAM (in voiceover):
And Stanley loves Pretzel Day. If he knew the building decided to do a second one while he was out on sales calls, he’d be crushed. Or as crushed as Stanley gets, anyways. That’s where we come in!

JIM (talking head at RECEPTION):
I can make sales from the reception desk, but even Michael might notice if Pam just flipped voicemail on for no reason. So we decided I’d cover the phones for 10 minutes. (beat) That was an hour and a half ago. (beat as we cut to an annoyed-looking Pam, and pan the line to show there are a large number of people both ahead of her and behind her, and then return to JIM) People really like Pretzel Day.

We flip between the following shots:

-PAM, with her arms crossed, tapping her feet impatiently in line.
-JIM, getting another call, fumblingly transferring it, looking with trepidation at PHYLLIS… and fist-pumping as her phone rings and she picks up. PHYLLIS gives him an approving nod.
-PAM, repeatedly blowing a curl of hair out of her face.
-JIM, drumming his fingers on his desk, looking around, waiting for something to do.
-PAM flagging down a TALL BRUNETTE about her age who is walking away, pretzel in hand, and them chatting for a minute.
 -JIM, playing Solitaire on PAM’s computer, getting to the last card, and minimizing the window without winning the game.
-The WOMAN who PAM flagged down approaching her in line and handing her a pad and pen. PAM smiles brightly at her, thanks her, and begins to sketch.
-JIM, spinning around in PAM’s chair.

JIM begins to speak in voiceover over the chair-spinning shot, and we shift to a talking head at RECEPTION as his line continues.

JIM:
You know, I always knew Pam had a lot of time to kill on the days when Michael was behaving himself, but wow. I can feel my brain liquifying. I’m feeling a lot better about never making my own copies now.

JIM’s face falls as he realizes what he’s admitted, but he's saved by the bell as the phone rings.

JIM:
Dunder Mifflin, this is Pete. (listens) Mr. Hudson’s not in right now, could I take a message? (JIM grabs a pen, and writes on a pink message slip.) Okay, he should be out the rest of the day, but I’ll make sure he calls you first thing in the morning, all right? (listens) Great. Thank you for your business!

JIM hangs up, tears the message slip off the pad, and realizes it’s the last one. He looks around RECEPTION and doesn’t see a replacement, then turns around to the desk against the wall and starts opening drawers on the right-hand side, looking for more. He then opens the top drawer on the left-hand side, closes it, opens the next drawer down… then pauses, closes that drawer and starts to reopen the top one, as if he’s noticed something.

PAM (from off-camera):
Uh, can I help you there, Snoopy?

JIM closes the drawer quickly and looks up as PAM enters the shot.

JIM:
Used up your message pad making stuff to throw at Dwight. You get it?

PAM:
I got it!

She proudly displays the pretzel, salted with just a hint of mustard and wrapped in a napkin, with both hands. A sheet of paper dangles from between her pinky and ring fingers.

JIM:
Nice work, Beesly!

They high five, and JIM notices the sheet.

JIM:
What’s that?

PAM:
Oh, nothing. I got bored. Chloe from W.B. Jones loaned me stuff to draw with.

JIM takes the pretzel and the sketch as he stands up. PAM sits back down at her usual station and starts straightening up her desk. JIM looks at the sketch and the camera zooms in on it.

It’s terrific. PAM has captured the sheer enthusiasm and joy of Pretzel Day without losing the underlying sadness of wage slaves lining up for a hot, chewy roll of buttered dough like it’s the highlight of their year.

PAM (teasingly, from off-camera as JIM takes in the sketch):
Jim, you totally messed up my filing system. It’s gonna take me months to get this right again! Oh, but I see you left my Solitaire for me to finish, thank you for that.

JIM looks over to her and opens his mouth to speak, but the phone rings, and PAM holds up a wait-one-minute finger.

PAM:
Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam. (listens) Yes, I’ll transfer you.

She expertly connects the call without looking as TOBY approaches and hands her a fax. PAM takes it, crosses to the machine, and starts punching in numbers.

JIM watches, looking pensive. Everything’s back to normal. Pam is back where she always is… and maybe always will be.

He sighs, crosses to STANLEY’s desk, puts the pretzel in a drawer, adds a quick few lines to the message he took earlier and leaves it on STANLEY’s keyboard. JIM drops his pen, and returns to his own desk, glancing over at PAM as he sits.

We cut to later in the day. The office has emptied out, except for MICHAEL, still visible behind his blinds talking on speaker and clearly in a sugar-high frenzy. We see enough to hope JAN has wine waiting for her at home after what she’s gone through today, then pan to STANLEY, re-entering and crossing to his desk. He picks up and reads the pink message slip, cocks his head curiously, opens his drawer and finds… the pretzel! He holds it up and gazes at it in wonder, like an archaeologist who has just found the hidden treasure they’ve been searching for their entire life. Stanley closes his eyes, breathes deep to take in the smell… and smiles.

As STANLEY sits down to enjoy his treat, the camera operator walks behind RECEPTION in a continuing shot. A hand opens the top drawer of Pam’s filing cabinet on the left side, and we see what JIM might have caught a glimpse of earlier – another sketch, this one a gorgeously rendered pencil drawing of two hands clutched together on top of a desk. PAM has managed to evoke happiness out of that simple image – you can tell from the hands somehow that the people they belong to are laughing.

The smaller hand wears an engagement ring. The larger one does not.

This is bad.

This is way worse than she thought it was going to be, and she thought it was going to be pretty bad.

Michael has been bouncing off the walls since first thing Monday morning, when he’d charged into the office demanding the Party Planning Committee join him in the conference room “STASAP… sooner than as soon as possible, GOD,” because it was “almost 05-05-05,” and it happens “only once every billion years, Pam, we have to celebrate it.” Since then it seems like every hour he comes up with something new they “absolutely have to have for this party, Pam,” because “it won’t be an 05-05-05 party if there aren’t five different kinds of cake, Pam,” because “it won’t be an 05-05-05 party if there aren’t five different color streamers, Pam,” because “it won’t be an 05-05-05 party if there aren’t five separate stations for party games, PAM,” and Pam has been having trouble whittling down her list to just five different ways she’d like to murder him.

“PAM.” “PAM.” “PAM.” “ONCE EVERY BILLION YEARS, PAM.”  “PAMMMMMMMMMMMMM.”

She knew something was going to ruin what should have been a nice, quiet week. Dunder Mifflin Scranton is Murphy’s Law in office form, Jim says. It’s very reliable that way.

She’d been in a lousy mood to start with, which hadn’t helped. Between the usual weekend housekeeping and grocery shopping and errands and helping Larry and Dinah move, she hadn’t had a moment to decompress, and she’d been hoping she’d be able to settle in and whine to Jim and hear about his weekend before Monday got going, maybe get an early Cugino’s lunch to celebrate being free of the cameras, and instead she had Michael in her face before she’d even finished the voicemails.

And Angela had been unpleasant even by Angela standards, because she “didn’t have enough time to properly prepare for a once-in-a-billion-years party!”, and Phyllis has been totally cowed as usual, and Jim was apparently taking advantage of the crew being away to sell paper, and she’s just been on edge.

And now this.

Because the party is good. Great, even. It’s the first time they’ve had something like this without the documentary crew in their faces in a while, and everyone is so much more relaxed. Oscar is actually talking for a change, she doesn’t know what’s been up with him the last few weeks, and Oscar is one of her favorites to chat with. Kevin and Creed got deeply involved in a quiet, serious conversation (probably about porn, Pam guesses) right at the start of festivities, and have been huddled by one of the computers ever since, which means less drunken leering at her. Toby has been keeping an eye on Meredith, which means the five different brands of soda are only lightly spiked instead of flammable. Without a crowd to play to, Jim has been going easy on Dwight, and has been patiently listening to him explain why the orca was a terrible choice for a favorite whale instead of messing with him (mildly disappointing, but helpful for party purposes). Even Angela appears guardedly pleased with the results, and isn’t storming around making everyone as miserable as she is.

Michael should be content.

Michael should be calmer.

Michael should not look like a first grader who really, really needs the bathroom pass right this second.

Which means there’s more to come.

Pam just hopes it’s not Todd Packer.

* * *

The thing about Dwight is he’s smart. While Jim would never admit it to anyone, some of his obsessions are even interesting to hear about in small doses. He hadn’t known that orcas (“delphinus gladiat-OR, Jim”) were dolphins or that they only put one hemisphere of their brain to sleep at a time or that there are recognizable orca languages. He could’ve also easily gone the rest of his life not knowing, but Jim has definitely engaged in more boring small talk than this.

If the cameras were still here, he might have needled Dwight a bit, see if he could get a reaction. But his only audience now is Pam, and if he’s going to try this with Katy, he owes it to himself to stop doing stuff for no other reason than because Pam.

Although she does look tense. And the way she keeps checking on Michael, Jim is positive he knows why. And maybe trying something different means trying something other than pulling away from Pam a bit at the beginning of a new relationship, maybe he has to figure out a way to make it work with someone else while she’s still a big part of his life. He doesn’t want her gone, after all. She’s his best friend. He just wants something… different.

He baits Dwight into going to check on Kevin and Creed, which is probably in everyone’s best interest, and makes his way over to her.

Oscar gulps and walks away as he approaches. It must feel as abrupt to Pam as it does to Jim, because her “okay, bye” is definitely Confused Pam.

She smiles at him like he’s made her less nervous simply by coming over, and he can’t help but smile back. He remembers why he tries to put some distance between them when he starts dating, because honestly, how could Katy ever top that¸ ever make him feel like this?

She leans in and his heart stutters, even though he knows she means nothing by it.

“Well, I thought he was better, but…”

“Yeah,” Jim agrees. They’ve been speculating about this for weeks, and they’re no closer to an answer. “I maintain he just doesn’t like being on camera.”

“Yeah, but why not? He’s one of the normal ones.”

“Plus, it doesn’t explain his little escape act there,” Jim gestures his head towards Oscar, who has joined Kelly and Toby in guarding the drinks.

Pam raises her eyebrows in that challenging way he adores. “Maybe he just doesn’t like you.”

He feigns offense. “How could he not like me?”

“You wanna hear the list?” she teases.

He put a hand to his chest in shock. She laughs, and nudges him with her shoulder. It’s totally friendly, and it’s not at all flirtatious, and she’s so close to him. He nudges her back.

“Nice party.”

“Thank you. It’s the five different brands of mild salsa, I think, that put it over the top.”

“Yeah, so Michael really didn’t mean five different spice levels, huh?”

“Nope, five different brands of mild. ‘Because not everyone likes spicy and we have to be inCLUsive, Pam!’” She rolls her eyes dramatically, but he can tell she’s genuinely pissed, and not only about Michael’s poorly-disguised fear of hot salsa.

“You’ve had a fun week with him.”

“I feel like he wasn’t this bad before, right? So he should be back to his normal levels of insanity soon?”

“Yeah. He just needs a minute to adjust.”

Pam gives him a look he can’t quite read. “You’ve been busy. I feel like I haven’t seen you all week.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve been throwing together a party for absolutely no reason, and as you know I am extremely dedicated to my craft.”

She smirks at him. “You’ve been phoning it in since they got here, huh?”

“My numbers are so bad, Pam.” She throws her head back and laughs again, and he wishes he wasn’t so proud of that. “But we couldn’t expose a national television audience to Dwight without taking him down a peg. I was doing a public service!”

“You’re a hero, Jim Halpert. They should name a municipal building after you.” He can see she’s pushed Michael to the back of her mind. He’s done his job. He’s served her well. He’s valuable to her.

“I’m happy they’re gone.”

“I know.”

“I don’t like it when people stare at me. And the wires, and the extra people, and the…” she waves her hand vaguely. “mess.”

He wants to say something comforting, but he’s not sure what could fix this. It’s just… Pam.

“And I feel like I get a case of the dum-dums whenever they’re around, you know?”

“I know.”

She looks at him skeptically. “Yeah, right. You’re a star in the making. Hollywood Halpert.”

“No, I get it!” he protests.

He doesn’t, really. He doesn’t mind being onscreen, at least not when he’s messing with Dwight. And he honestly mostly welcomes the chaos and disruption. He’s very glad they’re through with the project, but it’s got nothing to do with looking silly and everything to do with how uncomfortable Pam is with them here… and with the increasingly loaded questions in his talking heads.

She ignores him. “Plus, I look awful. I’ve been eating my feelings since we delayed the wedding. I’m a horse.”

A boyfriend could say something here, could tell her how sexy she looks, could touch her and make sure she feels it.

A friend could say something here, could tell her she’s beautiful. And could maybe also say something about her fiancée and how he always seems to be doing some sort of damage to her feelings.

Jim doesn’t know what he can say. What’s going to reveal too much. What’s fair. What he’s objective about. What’s in her best interest, and what’s he’s only convinced himself is.

“You look fine, Beesly, and I hate to break it to you, but horses are a lot taller than you.”

She smiles at that. He’s distracted her. Job well done again.

“So how was your date?”

Wow. Out of left field.

The date was… good. Better than he’d expected. He’s not sure how much of his motivation in asking Katy out was sending a subtle middle finger to Roy, but he knows it was a lot more than generally leads to a healthy relationship. But she’d been fun. Game. Openly interested, which felt like a gift. She’d had a lot of stories about various other weirdos she’d met in the purse business (shockingly, neither Dwight nor Michael would crack her top five), and they hadn’t run out of stuff to talk about. Which was odd considering they didn’t have much in common. Chemistry, but not a real connection. Nothing like the spark of being known he’d felt from the very beginning with…

“Fine.”

“Good… good.” Pam pauses. Is she waiting for him to go on? Gossip like they’re girlfriends? “Do you think you’re going to see her again?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He knows so. They’re going hiking on Saturday. Her idea. It’s been a long time since he’d dated a girl who liked hiking. So that was something they had in common.

“Great.” She falls silent again. Maybe she’s not actually interested? Perfectly polite thing to ask, after all.

He never knows how to talk to her about this. He’s purposefully kept this part of her life away from her. It’s… uncomfortable. He doesn’t want her thinking about him dating, doesn’t want her setting him up or noticing he can’t keep a girlfriend, doesn’t want to make himself in any way unavailable to her… or see how not jealous she is.

“Hey, so I learned a lot about orcas today.”

“I saw that.”

“I’m a killer whale expert now. For instance: did you know orcas are among the few animals documented to go through menopause?”

“I did not. And kind of didn’t want to.”

Pam jumps a little when Michael bursts out with “OKAYCOULDIHAVEEVERYONESATTENTIONPLEASE.” Jim decides it’s a victory that she’s forgotten him for a minute.

Michael notices the collective confusion without needing it spelled out for him, which is an improvement from the last few weeks. Still, this is clearly a moment he’s been waiting for. “Could I have everyone’s attention, please?”

“I think we all agree that this party is AMAZING. I don’t know if you all know this, but 05-05-05 is a day that only comes around once in a billion years…” Jim finds himself reflexively looking for a camera to smirk at. Pam notices and giggles at him. “…and this is a once in a billion year party! Party Planning Committee, you ladies have outdone yourselves. EVERYONE CLAP!”

They give a nice round of applause. Jim directs his towards Pam, who responds with a mini-curtsey. Angela looks vaguely mollified, if only for a moment.

“But I have an announcement that will make this party even better. Can I have a drumroll please?”

Dwight immediately starts pounding his hands against the conference room windows, in a way that makes Angela and Oscar shout about him breaking the glass.

“Thank you, Dwight. Now the big news issssssss… IHEARDFROMTHEPRODUCERSANDTHEYWANTTOCOMEBACK.”

“English, please, Michael,” Oscar says, and Michael ignores the opportunity for the joke. “I heard from the producers of the documentary! They want to come back in the fall and film us more!”

Jim’s heart sinks. He can’t look at Pam. He instead looks for Toby, who gives him a sour confirming nod.

Toby doesn’t look happy either. No one does.

“Guys, come on! This is great news! They really like me, this might be my big break! I could be a star!” Michael sighs, taking in their lack of enthusiasm for his bright future. “And you know what else this means?”

“You’re gonna work even less than usual?”

“Shut it, Stanley. No, it means they’re gonna sign a new agreement with corporate… and their fees keep getting added to our sales totals! Huh? No branch closing, team! We’re safe!”

Jim can’t help it. He has to check in with her.

He can see this mix of relief and hopelessness playing across her face. He assumes he looks about the same.

He golf claps. She silently, sarcastically cheers in response, and there’s something about the way she drops her left shoulder to add pizzaz that makes Jim fall for her a little harder.

Not good.

* * *

Everyone has gone back to murmuring in little clusters. Michael looks… disappointed. Deeply disappointed. And Pam’s sure she’s going to want to throttle him again in a minute, but she doesn’t like that look on his face. Not when he’s delivered good news – she knows how big a difference the documentary money makes to their numbers.

“I really thought you’d be excited about this.”

She and Jim watch as he turns and leaves the conference room, and they hear his office door not quite slamming behind him a moment later.

Pam sighs. “I should probably go deal with that.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, this sucks.”

“Yeah. At least we get a few months off from them.”

“I guess. And we’re more used to it now? I was a lot more aware of them when they started.”

“Yeah, me too. They started blending into the background after a while.”

“And hey! You know what this means?”

“What?”

“Maybe it’s worth doing the vending machine trick.”

Jim hadn’t considered that. It would be a lot of work, and he’s sure Steve’s asking price would be high. But with the cameras there…

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll start floating it with Steve, see if he’s into it.”

“And our jobs are safe.”

“I thought we were cheering each other up, Beesly.”

“I don’t have the energy to job search. It’s gonna be summer.”

“Writing cover letters is one of my favorite beach activities.”

She giggles. “Plus, if Roy and I both got laid off, who knows when we’d get married?”

She sees Jim start at that, and decides Michael wasn’t going to get any easier to handle with more time to pout.

“All right. Say good luck, Halpert.”

“Good luck, Halpert,” he chirps back.

She makes an annoyed face because she knows that’s the reaction he’s looking for, and heads out the conference room door.

She pauses to collect herself before she knocks. She needs to get in the right frame of mind.

It turns out it’s not that hard. She’s not thrilled about the cameras, but the branch? Michael’s right, they should be happy about it.

She doesn’t like Michael’s childish antics, or Dwight’s endless eccentricities, or Angela’s judgmental bitchiness, but she can count on them. She doesn’t like Michael turning a quiet week crazy, but she likes knowing it will happen, and that Stanley will never stay a minute past 5:00, and that Meredith will grunt at her instead of saying good morning on Wednesday and Friday and only Wednesday and Friday, because her babysitter is available Tuesdays and Thursdays. She likes seeing Jim walk up to the copy machine, poke at its buttons once, twice, then turn to her and ask for help, every time. She likes knowing when she’s unhappy that Jim will notice and come check on her.

She likes knowing what’s coming. Her mom says she always has, even when she was little. She’s not ready for that to stop.

* * *

He watches her gather herself and knock, grind her jaw at Michael’s plaintive “insistence” she go away, and let herself in. She’ll be out in five or 10 minutes, and Michael will follow, magically recovered and bubbling with plans for how he’s going to wow the cameramen this time and likely accidentally sending Angela flying into a rage, and Pam will be tired but relieved, and he’ll give her a drink and a slice of cheesecake, and she’ll grin and say something like “you think maybe I can get a raise if I convince them I’m the assistant to the assistant to the manager?”

He loves her.

He starts making plans for a third date with Katy. Because that’s what this summer is going to be about, seeing if he can make it work with a ballsy, bubbly, smoking hot woman who’s into him, seeing if he can avoid the moment a few months down the line where she sadly explains to him that he’s a great guy, but she needs someone who is ready to emotionally commit, and she feels like he’s holding back part of himself from her.

Because he can’t go on like this. It’s been two years, and he’s not moving. Something has to change.

The clock tells him it’s almost four in the morning, which means Jim’s been sitting here in the dark staring at this stupid box for more than an hour now.

Everything else is finished: he’s called Jan to let her know he’s accepting the transfer and he wants to make the move right away, he’s emailed the landlord Josh recommended and told him he’d take the one-bedroom in Harbor Point sight unseen, he’s cleared out his desk and cleaned up his client files. Now he just needs to throw away the box and send the email he’s drafted to folks in the office, and he’ll be done. Can leave this place behind. (Can avoid the consequences of his actions.)

It shouldn’t be this hard. It’s just… junk.

A few receipts.

Some sketches on old pink message slips.

A little chain of paper dolls holding hands.

A cootie catcher.

A print-out of a high scores list, gleefully labeled “SUCK IT!” in big red letters.

Three yogurt lids paperclipped together, one of them upside down.

Actual, literal trash. All of which Jim’s talked himself into assigning some weird significance to. Perfect symbol for the last three years of his life.

He won’t be mean. He’s… tempted, but he won’t be. He’ll toss it in the annex, somewhere she won’t see it. (Should he bother? It’s not like she’ll care.)

He needs to do it, though. It would defeat the whole goddamn purpose if he doesn’t. Clean break. Fresh start. No more tying himself in knots, obsessing over stupid little moments he has to know – he does know – didn’t matter much to her. No more sacrificing for a relationship he’s the only one in.

It's easy. It’s all conveniently stored in one place. Pick it up, cut through to Toby’s desk, drop it in his garbage can, put something from recycling over it so he won’t see… or hell, just take the damn garbage out himself on his way out the door. Simple.

Instead he keeps staring.

Jim’s at least been able to stop himself from running his hands over it, remembering the specific look or laugh or stuck-out tongue he’s associated with each piece of actual, literal trash. But he can’t get himself to stand up.

If he gets rid of it, that means he’s fleeing to Stamford with practically nothing of Pam. Which is stupid, because he is anyways, which is why he’s throwing it out.

But… without even the little things they’ve touched and shared, without even an artifact of this pocket of the world he pretended was theirs …

He’d be leaving without her.

But he is leaving without her.

Ridiculous, he thinks. Pathetic.

“You’re not pathetic.”

He doesn’t turn to look at her.

There’s no need, after all. He can picture her down to the last detail. How many hundreds of times has he stolen a glance over at Pam behind that desk?

And of course, she’d still be in that blue dress. He’s never going to stop seeing her in that blue dress. God, why did he tell her?

He’d been worried about how she was going to get home, but she’d made it very clear tonight she wasn’t his to worry about. Apparently she just… hadn’t left at all. He hadn’t even noticed her slip back in the room, how long has she been watching him moon over the scraps she’d thrown him?

“I really am. Look at this. I’ve been saving a box full of garbage.”

He gestures at the box, but he doesn’t break his stare. He won’t look at her. He can’t. He doesn’t want to.

“It’s sweet. I have some, too, you know.”

He wants to ask, but he knows better now. It doesn’t mean what he wants it to mean.

“I’m transferring. To Stamford. Effective immediately. So you don’t have anything to worry about. I’m not going to make things uncomfortable.” He tries to keep the edge out of his voice.

“I know. I mean, it’s the last thing I want, but I know.”

“I can’t. I have to stop, Pam,” and that feels a lot more honest, and why not be honest now? Not like his heart can break again.

“I know. You’ve given up a lot for me.”

“I’ve been living in a fantasy. Like me collecting garbage meant something when he gave you a ring. It’s childish,” he scoffs. He’s thought all this before, but there’s always been a butbutbut at the end. Not this time. “And I need to grow up. I thought we were making a life together because you doodle on my messages sometimes? Pa. The. Tic.”

“You’re not pathetic, and it’s not garbage. It’s important. It means so much to me that you kept all that. I mean, the receipt from the first time we had lunch, Jim… that you saved that? Who does that?”

“Losers. Creeps. Guys who can’t take ‘she’s marrying someone else’ for an answer.” Why is she doing this? Hasn’t she jerked him around enough? He’s gotten the message. He knows.

“Jim, look at me.” Seriously, does she think this is helping? “Look at me, Jim.”

Her voice is soft, but firm, and he can’t help but obey her command. He’s never learned how not to do that. God, he wishes he had.

“Stop talking about my best friend like that.”

CHRIST.

“I know you don’t want me to call you that right now. But you are my best friend. And you always will be.”

She’s in a wedding dress.

She’s in a wedding dress, because he’s fallen asleep at his desk and his brain won’t even let him escape in his dreams.

“Not a dream.”

It’s not even her real wedding dress, and how pitiful is it that he knows that? It’s got spaghetti straps, and none of the pretty lace over her shoulders and arms she’d been so excited about, and a sort of jewel belt, and instead of flowers in her hair she’s wearing…

“Your veil is torn,” he points out, stupidly.

“Oh, yeah,” she says, and rubs the ripped end between her fingers, almost fondly? “Kind of a funny story.”

The way she’s looking at him… he wants that. And she’s not turning away. She’s still gorgeous in the blue light of their computer screens, and it’s not fair. Because he’s going to remember this when he wakes up like it’s real, and it’s not real, and it’s not fair. This dream…

“Again, not a dream. You ever notice you never have to realize you’re dreaming when you’re in a dream? People talk about that, but I always either know on some level or don’t while it’s happening.”

He sighs. Dream Pam is giving him dorm-room stoner insights at 4:00 in the morning. It’d be funny if he could possibly find anything funny right now. “What is it, then?”

She considers that a moment, and settles on an answer. “A wish.”

He laughs. He’s never laughed like this with Pam. After leaving her… after watching her leave him at the end of the day, sometimes. Bitter. Cynical. The kind of laugh you laugh so you won’t scream or hit something. “Nothing about tonight is what I wished.”

But that’s wrong, isn’t it?

The press of her against her chest.

Her hands in his hair.

The look in her eyes when she’d said “me too.”

She smiles. Actually smiles at him, and honestly, how dare she…

“I didn’t say it was your wish, dork. Not everything’s about you, Halpert.” Her grin gets wider as she says his name.

“Why are you here, Pam?” And he’s trying, he’s really trying, but there’s a part of him that’s so mad at her, there’s a part of him that’s always been mad at her. She takes and takes and takes, and when he needs something in return she slaps his hands away. She’s happy to accept his promises, be his obligation, his priority, as long as he never, ever asks to be hers. How could she look at him like that, like he was scaring her, betraying her by telling her something he’s been telling her every day, tell him everything he saw was all in his head? And he’s never wanted to be that guy, he knows he’s not owed anything, but really, how could she not know? And she said “misinterpreted,” she said she was really marrying him, but she also said me too, she does want him back at least a little, how could she…

She shrugs. “I’m not, really.”

She catches him off guard with that. She’s done that a lot tonight.

“I’m sitting on a very ugly couch in my living room, curled up into a ball in my underwear. I’m not crying, because I’m a little too stunned for that, but I’m staring at that stupid periwinkle dress which I tore off the second I got in the door, and I hope it found a nice life at Goodwill, because I’m never going to wear it again.”

Jim did not need those images of Pam in his head, either in pain or her underwear, especially now that he knows what her body feels like moving under her dress. “Pam…”

“I’m here to say thank you. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for being my friend while you were in love with me, because I know, Jim, I really do know how much that cost you every day. Thank you for being brave enough to tell me when…”

She’s suddenly by the coatrack, and had it really been less than 24 hours ago she’d used it to help him prank Dwight?

“And I’m here to tell you that I’m going to be brave too, eventually.”

She’s in his usual spot at reception, right by the jellybeans.

“I want you to know I’m in love with you, too. None of it was in your head. It was always real, way before I recognized what it was. I want you to know I’m sorry I wasn’t ready to hear it. And you don’t have anything to feel bad about, because I don’t think I ever would have been.  And it hasn’t hit me yet and it won’t for a while, but you changed the course of my life. None of it was worthless, Jim. All of it mattered.”

She’s leaning against the far corner of Dwight’s desk now.

“More than anything I want you to know that in exactly 370 days… really, not too long from now… I’m going to tell you that.”

She’s standing on the side of his.

“And in 371 days, you’re going to wake up next to me for the first time.”

She’s standing at her usual perch on his desk.

“And in 379 days, you’re going to buy me a wedding ring, and you won’t know it, but I’m already going to have to decided to say yes when you ask.”

She’s close now.

“I hurt you, Jim. And there’s more hurt ahead. But I hurt me, too. And I want you to know that everything you wanted is coming. It’s all coming, really, really soon.”

She’s so close.

Please don’t touch me, Pam. he thinks. I’m going to die if you touch me.

She touches him. Takes the tips of his fingers between hers, and puts his hand on her belly. He feels…

“You’re pregnant.”

She nods.

He wants to tell her she’s letting Roy ruin her life, but she’s saying things, and he’s so lost, so instead he just says “congratulations.”

“Congratulations to you, too, Halpert.” She smiles at him, and he thinks he’s crying again. She leans in, whispers to him. “One day, you’re going to use the things in that box to make a mobile for this baby’s crib.”

* * *

He jerks awake.

It’s past 5:00 now, and the sunrise is just starting to leak through the blinds in Michael’s office.

He’s been dreaming… and a nasty dream, from what he can remember. The details are fading fast. He’s sure his subconscious is going to be a rough place to be for a while.

He supposes he should be grateful for whatever woke him up. The last thing this night needs is to end with him getting caught snoozing at his empty desk when Angela shows up for work.

He reaches over and flicks one of Dwight’s bobbleheads absent-mindedly, looking around the office that in a moment will no longer be his. He sees Meredith has claimed the Homer doll for herself. Stanley has left tomorrow’s crossword out and ready to go with one word already filled in (“to make it easier to get started, Jim”). Phyllis has a new framed photo of her and Bob. Kevin is proudly displaying the hateball champion trophy Pam had made for him.

I fell in love here, he thinks, and he picks up the yogurt lids, remembers Pam chastising Creed for flipping his bronze medal to a gold.

For better or for worse, Pam has been at the center of his life since the first time she made him laugh. He’s defined himself by what he is to her, judged his days by how happy he’s made her, learned everything of her he possibly could and sweetly tortured himself with theories about the rest.

Loving her was the most adult thing he’d ever done. And as much as he's spent the last 38 months feeling like Pam had his balls in her purse, she’s also taught him how to be a man.

He’s leaving. But he can’t erase the last three years. They happened. They will always be a part of his story. All of it was his life. All of it mattered.

Maybe one day he’ll be able to look back on it without feeling sick.

This is what he has to do to make this okay. When he can’t spend 40 hours a week pretending, when he doesn’t have her in his life to compare every other woman to, he’ll be able to move on. He’ll fall in love again, and he’ll be better at it because of Pam. More gentle, more giving. More grateful. He’s sure he knows a little more about being a partner… and how not to be one.

Maybe one day when his son goes through his first serious breakup – his son who will not have curly hair or a knack for sketching – he’ll tell him about the person he loved so he could love his mother, about getting your heart broken and how to let it heal. About the people you meet who aren’t your soulmate but help lead you to them, make sure you’re ready for them.

Maybe he’ll want all of this to show him.

He does feel a little better. He did it. At least he did it. He told her. Finally, he said told her. He won’t have to live the rest of his life driving himself mad going back and forth, yes, no, it means nothing, it means everything. She felt something, not what he felt, but something. It wasn’t all in his head, and he didn’t chicken out again. He was man enough to say it once, to kiss her once.

Maybe he needs these reminders that there’s something to be won just by being a little braver.

He thinks of her hands in his, her lips, what her face looked like so close…

He’s making excuses, like always. He knows that. All of this is just rationalization for doing something he wants to do because he can’t accept that it’s over. She said me too, she said me too, she said me too.

I don’t *have* to keep it, he thinks. I can throw it out on my way out of town, or in Stamford. If I toss it right now, it’s gone. But I can always bring it and decide to get rid of it later.

He puts the box under his arm, hits send on the email, and shuts down his computer. He gives one last long look at reception, and shakes it off. It’s the damndest thing. He almost feels at peace.

And he walks out the front door of Dunder Mifflin Scranton for the final time.

* * *

Pam falls silent. For a moment they just lay there, curled together so they’re barely using a quarter of the big hotel bed, her head on his chest, their fingers and legs intertwined, touching as much as they possibly can.

The sunrise is leaking through the blinds. He should really tell the front desk to have someone fix that, but he only notices at moments like this, and he loves the way the light hits Pam. There’s something about the combination of the early morning Caribbean sun and her pregnancy that just makes his wife glow.

His wife.

His lovely, talented, giving, gorgeous, very strange wife.

“So that’s what you’d change?” He’s trying to keep the amusement out of his voice, he really is. “Out of everything?”

“Is that so crazy?”

“There are about a thousand things I would have done differently. I’ve got to admit, babe, trying to make you feel a tiny bit better that night would not have been on the list.”

“But we can’t control what any of that would do. And we needed to go through it all.”

Pam has always insisted on this, that the next year of her being alone and him punishing her (and completely screwing over a perfectly lovely woman just as an added bonus!) was necessary for them to make it work. That she needed to be on her own for a while, to learn who she was without Roy or Jim, that she needed to know what it was like to watch him choose someone else and he needed to know how hard it was to choose.

“If you told me that night we were going to end up like this, I wouldn’t have wanted to change a thing. I would have been terrified that even the smallest difference would mean we wouldn’t get here.”

He kisses her on the forehead. He has to. And he can.

“I’m happy, Jim. I’m so happy I can’t believe it’s my life. All I would’ve wanted is to be there to help you ice the wounds along the way, you know?”

She brushes a stray hair back from her face.

“I remember thinking that night on the couch, ‘I made Jim cry. He makes me laugh and I made him cry.’ I mean, this was way before I realized… I kept going over it in my head, what I should have said differently. Done better. Not hurt you so much, as much as I could.”

He thinks about how much he’d hated Pam then. That night and later that summer when the realization hit that she was never going to call and when he came back and she was always there, free and still out of reach, wanting her buddy back, not letting him move on, not leaving him alone…

He knows she was hurting, but he’s not sure comforting her would have ever occurred to him. And he’s damn sure that no matter how many times they’ve talked about this he wouldn’t be able to access her feelings from that night the way she did his.

She understands him. She knows him. She’s so much kinder than him, and…

“You’re so good, Pam,” and it’s lame and it doesn’t begin to convey how he feels. He briefly considers asking her to marry him a third time. “I don’t think I deserve you.”

She gives him a wry smile.

“Well, you’ve got me whether you do or not. So you better step up your game., Halpert.”

“I’ll do my best, Halpert.”

He kisses her again.

“Working in some of our vows was a nice touch.”

“Thank you, I thought so too.”

She raises her head off his chest and props herself up on her side next to him, looking a little smug.

“So, what did make you decide to take the box?”

“I mean… we’ve talked about this. I wasn’t ready to let go. Not really.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“Yeah, right.”

“What?”

“What? You’re taking credit for it!”

“I mean… in a way, yeah. Maybe I didn’t break the boundaries of space and time, but yeah. It was about me kissing you, me giving you just enough to see what was happening in my head. A little hope, you know?”

“Wow.”

“What???”

“You totally think you visited me in the past.”

“Shut up! I do not.”

“I don’t understand, you look so normal, no one would ever guess you’re completely Looney Tunes.”

“Oh my god!”

“What?”

“The kid’s awake. Here, feel!” She takes the tips of his fingers between hers, and puts his hand on her belly, and he feels the thump, thump, thump he’s fallen in love with.

“Hi, baby,” he says, and rests his cheek against her stomach to get as close as possible to their kid.

The life we made together, he thinks, and smiles.

We open with an establishing shot of the FRONT OF THE BULLPEN.

JIM is restarting his computer, looking a little frustrated. DWIGHT is leaning across to his desk to micro-manage the restart, which can’t be helping in any sense of the word. ERIN is tapping at her keyboard, also clearly not in the greatest of moods. ANDY and PAM are out on sales calls. PHYLLIS and STANLEY are working the phones.

NICK THE IT GUY enters the office.

NICK (cheerfully):
Good morning, everyone!

ERIN nods grumpily at him. No one else responds, or even looks at him. NICK blinks at this, but is mostly unfazed. He turns to ERIN.

NICK (service with a smile!):
So I understand we’re having some network issues?

ERIN (noticeably snippy, at least by ERIN standards):
Since yesterday. When I called.

NICK:
Well, have you tried turning the router off and on again?

ERIN sighs and grits her teeth, shooting a look to the camera. Yes, she’s tried turning the router off and on again.

NICK (rolling with the punches):
I know, I know, but I have to ask. (confidentially) You’d be shocked how many times you drive all the way out here and that’s all it takes.

ERIN:
Right.

There’s an awkward silence as NICK waits to see if ERIN has anything more to add.

NICK (what a great guy!):
So, let’s take a look!

We cut to a talking head recorded in the “server room,” aka RYAN’S CLOSET.

NICK (maintaining his fundamental good nature):
So I’ve been working with this branch since the Sabre buy-out, about three, four months now. They seem great! (pause) We haven’t really… clicked. But you know, they’re a close-knit bunch, and I’m the lame IT guy they only see when they’re frustrated and stressed out. And it’s like a fire extinguisher… if you don’t need it, who thinks about it? There’s never a good time to bond. I don’t take it personally or anything.

RYAN (off-screen):
Could really use my office back!

NICK (tries to smile even bigger):
Yeah.

We cut to RECEPTION, where NICK is updating ERIN.

NICK (friendly and familiar)
So it turns out I’m going to need to reset some things on the back-end which the last admin password protected. (ERIN sighs) Hey, nothing to worry about. I got in touch with his company, and it turns out he was already in the neighborhood, so he’s going to pop by himself any minute now, and you can just send him right back when he gets here. It’s a guy named…

DWIGHT (off-screen):
Sadiq!

And the camera swings to reveal SADIQ is, in fact, in da house. We do a series of quick cuts to joyful reactions to his arrival from JIM and DWIGHT; PHYLLIS and STANLEY; and ERIN… who is still next to a non-plussed NICK.

JIM rises to greet him.

JIM:
Welcome back, man! We miss you around here.

JIM and SADIQ do a half-handshake, half-hug.

SADIQ:
Nice to see you too, Jim. How’s fatherhood treating you?

JIM:
It’s amazing. Although they weren’t kidding about babies not sleeping much.

The camera is shooting this from the window of MICHAEL’S OFFICE, leaving NICK visible in the background. We do a brief focus in on him to find him waiting patiently, smiling politely… and watching closely.

SADIQ:
Pretty bad?

JIM:
Oh, she’s ready for college. Parties all night. And the set of lungs on that kid!

SADIQ:
Something to remember when she’s complaining about having to mow the lawn before she can take the car, right?

JIM:
(laughs) Yeah, I’m definitely gonna throw this back in her face. Is that bad parenting?

SADIQ chuckles, pats him on the shoulder and reaches over to shake DWIGHT’s hand. Behind them, NICK raises his eyebrow in surprise and looks to camera.

DWIGHT:
Your presence is badly needed. I’m tired of listening to these slackers whine about the Internet being down, like no one sold paper before 1991.

SADIQ:
Well, I’m happy to help. I was just thinking about you the other day. I went to a new restaurant over on Jacobs Street and had this terrific borscht. I was wondering if those were your beets?

DWIGHT:
Jane’s? (SADIQ nods. DWIGHT is quite pleased.) Why, not just my beets. That’s Mose’s own borscht recipe!

SADIQ:
No kidding!

Under this dialogue, NICK has grown more and more astonished to see DWIGHT having such a… normal social interaction.

PAM (returning to the office):
Sadiq!

She runs over to the FRONT DESK CLUMP to give him a hug… passing right by NICK at RECEPTION without a glance.

SADIQ:
Hey, momma! You look fantastic.

PAM:
Oh, you’re sweet. And a shameless liar.

That earns another chuckle from SADIQ. Behind him, NICK laughs too, as if by doing so he can become part of the conversation.

SADIQ:
Don’t be silly. So, Jim said Cece’s not sleeping too well?

PAM:
(rolls her eyes) She’s real lucky she’s cute.

SADIQ:
You got pictures?

PAM (fakes confusion):
Hmmm. Maybe, let me check… (SADIQ laughs as she pulls a leather mini-album out of her purse and hands it to him.)

SADIQ starts to flip through them, with PAM looking over his left shoulder.

SADIQ:
Awwwww! Wow, Pam, Jim. she’s adorable. Seriously.

During this dialogue, NICK subtly tries to sidle over so he can look too… and is accidentally blocked by JIM, who crosses to SADIQ’s right side.

PAM:
Thank you.

SADIQ:
Looks like she’s got your nose?

PAM:
Yeah, we lucked out on that one, right?

JIM (mock offended):
Hey!

They laugh.

NICK’s smile noticeably flickers watching this, but he recovers quickly. Of you weren’t watching him intently (and who is?) you’d never know this wasn’t the same bland but kindly old… Shadow? Garth? Something.

NICK:
So, shall we?

We cut to a talking head with NICK in front of the refrigerator.

NICK (glances over to see if SADIQ is paying attention):
Yeah, I’m surprised. (rationalizing, remaining pleasant) But, you know, they all worked together for a long time, and we haven’t yet. It’s a good thing, actually! It means if I just keep trying, keep being friendly to people, eventually we’ll get along, too.

We cut back to SADIQ’s journey through the BULLPEN. He starts to walk with NICK towards the KITCHEN, but briefly pauses to visit with STANLEY and PHYLLIS.

PHYLLIS (putting a hand over her phone):
Hi sweetie!

SADIQ:
Hey there, Mrs. Vance!

STANLEY:
How’s the ‘vette coming?

SADIQ:
Might be able to get her on the streets this summer. Engine’s purring like a kitten now.

STANLEY:
You let me know, you owe me a road trip.

SADIQ:
I’ll call you.

NICK swallows his frustration.

We cut back to NICK’s refrigerator talking head.

NICK:
Apparently Sadiq is restoring a ’67 Corvette. (pause) I actually built my Buick from recovered spare parts, so. That’s something I can talk about with Stanley.

We return to the door to the kitchen, where KELLY runs to greet them. SADIQ stands in the entryway to chat with her, while NICK awkwardly holds the door open. He’s openly a little irritated for the first time.

KELLY:
Oh my god, Sadiq! Have you heard the new Kanye album?

SADIQ (rapping, and rapping *well*):
“No one man should have all that power.” It’s his best since College Dropout.

KELLY:
I was just telling Ryan that! (leans in) He thinks Graduation was better.

SADIQ scoffs.

KELLY:
I know, right? So stupid!

We see NICK, getting the mask back on.

Cut to the CONFERENCE ROOM for a talking head.

KELLY:
Sadiq. Is. So. Awesome. He’s the only guy in Scranton who *gets* the rap game. And he’s really cute! I’d totally date him. (pause, then regretfully) But my parents would probably see him as an improvement over a white guy.

We return to the break room, where SADIQ and NICK have finally made it to the CLOSET. NICK is sitting down at RYAN’S STATION, while OSCAR chats with SADIQ in the doorway.

OSCAR:
You listen to All Things Considered this morning?

SADIQ:
About antibiotic resistance? Yeah, scary stuff, right?

OSCAR:
I’m forwarding it to everyone I know. So glad that’s finally getting some attention. And here we’re all worrying about the Times Square bomber, like that’s our biggest threat! (can you imagine?)

NICK is definitely starting to run out of patience, but he brightens again when SADIQ turns back towards him.

NICK (back in his refrigerator talking head and feeling a liiiiiitle picked on):
Look, Oscar listens to the news, the Times Square attack had been on the news this morning. I was just trying to make conversation!

We cut back to the CLOSET door. SADIQ has taken a seat next to NICK, but is facing out to talk to TOBY, who has stopped by for a visit. NICK is no longer bothering to hide his annoyance, not that anyone cares.

SADIQ:
The new Oracle database management software is just a huge step up. More user-friendly, way better security. I’d definitely recommend the upgrade.

TOBY:
Well, I’ll definitely check it out.

NICK (to the refrigerator once more, exasperated):
I told Toby that exact same thing, he wasn’t even listening!

We return once more to RYAN’S CLOSET, where Angela has appeared at the door.

NICK (making a valiant effort to be nice):
Hey, Angela.

She flat out ignores him.

ANGELA (formally):
Hello, Sadiq. It’s good to see you again. Those brownies you like are in the break room. Once you are done getting us back online, you may have two.

SADIQ:
You know how much I enjoy your desserts, Angela.

NICK drops his jaw, perhaps more at ANGELA’s politeness to SADIQ than at her rudeness to him, as we…

…cut to the conference room for an ANGELA talking head.

ANGELA:
Yes, Sadiq is a godless heathen who rejects the word of our Lord and Savior. (pause) But he’s also the only person in this company who seems to care what Kevin’s doing on the Internet. So… he can have a snack while he waits to answer to the Almighty.

We do a quick cut back to the conference room, for a talking head with NICK… who just huffs and shakes his head.

Looks like everything’s up and running again, and SADIQ and NICK are packed up and ready to go at RECEPTION. SADIQ stops to check in with ERIN.

SADIQ:
All right, you should be all set, but here’s my cell. (He hands her a business card.) If you all have any questions about what I set up, please call. Dunder Mifflin’s still contracted with us for Utica and Binghamton, so you can bill through them. (leans in conspiratorially) Just remember…

ERIN (leans towards Sadiq in similar fashion, so happy to be part of an inside joke!):
…make sure to try turning it off and on again?

SADIQ:
You got it!

They laugh as the camera zooms in on an appalled NICK watching.

ERIN (warmly, just off camera):
Thanks for coming, Sadiq.

SADIQ (sincerely):
Any time.

NICK is a volcano waiting to blow.

We cut to a talking head with NICK outside the office. He stews for a moment.

NICK:
F(bleep) these people.

We open at RECEPTION, where PAM is standing on a chair hanging decorations off the wall behind her desk.

We see MICHAEL enter, in full Uncle Sam regalia: a top hat with red stripes and a blue band with white stars around the base, an obnoxiously big red bow tie, a blue waistcoat, red and white striped pants and a fake white beard. The image is only broken by Michael’s smile, very distinct from Uncle Sam’s typically stern countenance.

MICHAEL:
Uncle Pam, check it out!

He gestures to his attire, and then spreads open his coat to reveal another twist on the classic Uncle Sam image – an amateur-designed t-shirt featuring a Photoshop of Joe Biden with a broad, open-mouthed grin, shooting finger guns. It’s set against a background that reads “Straight Outta Scranton,” aping the “Straight Outta Compton” style.

MICHAEL:
Ah?

He shoots PAM finger guns of his own and matches Joe Biden’s grin.

PAM responds with the same gesture and smile, albeit with somewhat faked enthusiasm. She has turned away from her decorating to do so, revealing the poster is the same picture featured on Michael’s shirt. The banner above it reads “Happy Joe Biden Day!”

MICHAEL (snaps his fingers):
And that’s not malarkey!

He winks. PAM smiles indulgently.

We cut to a talking head with MICHAEL in HIS OFFICE, still in full costume.

MICHAEL:
Today is the biggest day in Scranton history. Even bigger than when Kevin McCallister’s mom came here! Because 66 years ago today, a baby was born in a little house right over on Washington Avenue. (Quick cut to a photo of MICHAEL on the lawn of a grey three-story Colonial, where he is being yelled at by the homeowner.)  And that baby is now the Vice-President of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden. (Note that MICHAEL mispronounces Robinette.) So our city has decided to host the First Annual Vice-President Joe Biden Festival in his honor. Long overdue, in my opinion. And what better way is there to honor Scranton’s favorite son than by buying paper from a Scranton business? I think Joe Biden would want that. And I would know! When I was little, I played on the exact same coal slag heap that he did! (A quick cut to another photo – this one of a young Michael cheerfully posing with a red plastic beach shovel in front of what is clearly industrial waste.)

We cut to a CONFERENCE ROOM talking head with PAM, who has had MICHAEL’s Uncle Sam hat foisted on her.

PAM:
No, it’s not just Michael. Everyone around here is really excited about this. (beat) Not the sale, obviously. (brightens) But we love Joe! I worked at this ice cream place in high school that’s supposed to have been his favorite as a kid, and the owner had these big framed photos of him eating a cone at the exact same table, in the exact same way at seven years old and when he was running for president the first time. He made all of us memorize the story to tell the customers. And that was just when he was a senator! Now he… (pauses, frowns, thinking, thinking…) breaks ties in the Senate, I think? (shrugs)

We return to the FRONT DESK CLUMP, where we find JIM working the phones.

JIM:
…I know, such a big day for Scranton. (listens) Yeah, that’s actually why I’m calling. In honor of our 47th Vice-President, Dunder Mifflin is offering a 4.7% price reduction on all bonds, cardstocks, and recycled paper products for today only. (listens, smirk of victory) That’s right, you’d be locking in that price point for the entire length of the contract, so the longer you sign up for, the longer the savings last. (listens a bit, then laughs) The sort of deal Joe Biden would have been proud to cut in the Senate, I like that!

We stay with JIM in the CONFERENCE ROOM for a talking head.

JIM (surprisingly earnest):
Look, it’s silly… but it is pretty cool! I mean, I’m going to be able to take our children and show them this little house just like ours, and tell them a little boy who grew up here just like them got to be one of the most powerful people in the world. And if it can happen once to a kid from Scranton, it can happen again. There really aren’t any limits on what they can achieve. (He smiles, a twinkle in his eye… then reconsiders) Well, not on our son, anyways.

We cut to the FRONT OF THE BULLPEN, where an irritated-looking OSCAR is entering for his workday. He does not acknowledge the decorations. MICHAEL charges out of his office, still in costume.

MICHAEL:
Oscar! My man! You know the rules, buddy. Come on, Oscar! (turns to camera) That’s what he said.

OSCAR sighs and makes the Biden finger gun gesture and face. If you thought PAM was unenthusiastic about doing this, you hadn’t seen nothin’ yet. MICHAEL, on the other hand, is ecstatic.

MICHAEL:
There we go! Happy Joe Biden Day!

He slaps a circular sticker reading simply “JOE” in white letters on a blue background on OSCAR’s expensive-looking coat, to OSCAR’s chagrin. We then join him in the KITCHEN for a talking head, done while he dabs at the spot where MICHAEL stuck the sticker with a damp paper towel.

OSCAR:
It took me an extra 15 minutes to get into work today because most of the main streets are closed, either for the festival booths or for the parade featuring Joe Biden’s third cousin as the grand marshal. (He’s dabbing pretty aggressively now.) I got caught behind a tour bus showing people “Joe’s Scranton stomping grounds,” which was completely full of people paying $10 to be shown the Little League field half of them played at. (Seriously, Oscar, that can’t be good for your coat.) And I can’t drop off my excise tax payment because all city employees have been given the day off. (He inspects the coat and sighs in frustration, then straight to camera:) You know, this is always how I imagined Scranton would embrace America’s first black president.

We do a quick check-in around the office. We find KELLY in the annex, working away with a doleful expression in sharp contrast to the waving Joe Biden beaming from her chest. It should be noted that in contrast to MICHAEL, her shirt is professionally printed, the sort of things one would find at a streetside booth. MEREDITH is pouring over paperwork in a Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders baseball jersey with BIDEN #47 on the back. STANLEY is on the phone, pitching the sale prices unaided by any Biden memorabilia. MICHAEL sneaks up behind him and plops his Uncle Sam hat on STANLEY’s head. STANLEY turns to him and stares. MICHAEL laughs uproariously. STANLEY looks to camera, world’s most patriotic hat on and glum-faced.

We cut to the CONFERENCE ROOM for a talking head with STANLEY, sans hat.
 

STANLEY (as ever, unimpressed):
We attend the Bidens’ old church, something our parish priest has found a way to work into every sermon since the convention. Whole lot of the members were real close with the family, considering they left town 60 years ago. (He shoots a look to the camera.) They did add a new sandwich at the Glider Diner in his honor, though. (This, on the other hand, has his interest.) The Vice-President. Quarter-pound of Black Forest ham, heirloom tomatoes, fresh green peppers, sliced cucumber and four different kinds of cheese on toasted, buttered brioche. (He has a far-off look in his eyes.) Mmmmmm. (Satisfied smile.) I’m proud of my country.

We pay a visit to ACCOUNTING, where a mischievous-looking KEVIN is settling in for the day… extremely late, it should be noted.

KEVIN (with a slow grin betraying his child-like amusement at his own antics):
Hey, Angela. Guess what I got at Bidenfest on my way here.

He pulls from his briefcase a novelty photo of himself standing in between life-sized cut-outs of Biden and Barack Obama, who are standing back-to-back with their arms crossed buddy cop movie poster-style. He has an elbow on each man’s shoulder. Printed across the top of the photo in red bubble letters is the phrase “MEET THE BIG DOGS.”

ANGELA huffs in disgust. KEVIN snickers in triumph. She then picks up her phone and punches in a number.

ANGELA:
Yes, David Wallace please. (who are you to even ask?) It’s Angela Martin, head of accounting.

We cut to the CONFERENCE ROOM.

ANGELA:

I just find think it’s incredibly inappropriate.(Very prim and proper:) When I was growing up, polite people didn’t discuss politics in the workplace. (She sniffs.) I guess that’s another value we’ve lost in this country. You can’t pray in the public schools, but we’ve got paper sales for Democrats! (She shakes her head.) I’m disappointed is all. (beat) We used to be a great nation, a Christian nation. I’m worried we’ll never be that great again. But it’s like *he* says, hope is a powerful thing. (However much contempt you’re reading into this, turn it up at least one more notch.) And I have hope… hope we’ll be seeing a lot more of that lovely Sarah Palin soon. Now there’s change *I* can believe in.

We return to the BULLPEN, checking in again on the REAR DESK CLUMP, where STANLEY and ANDY are working the phones.

STANLEY (in the foreground):
That’’s right, Can I send you over a 12-month contract? (listens) You’ll have it in your hands in the next 10 minutes.

We blur STANLEY and focus in on ANDY.

ANDY:
That’s a good question, and I’ve got a great answer for you… just like Obama and Biden, the quality of our products can’t be beat! (He gives a big smile as he waits for a laugh that is absolutely not coming. Sensing the silence is becoming awkward, he pivots to:) Trees are just *dying* to become Dunder Mifflin paper, you know what I mean? (Andy listens and starts to grimace.) Yes… yes, you’re absolutely right. Climate change, deforestation, very serious. (Beat) Can I interest you in our 100% recycled paper line? (Pause.) Hello?

ANDY (starting in voiceover over him realizing the potential client has hung up on him, sadly hanging up the phone and crossing a name off the list, then joining him for a talking head in the CONFERENCE ROOM):
Yeah, Joe Biden’s the vice-president, it’s a big deal… if you’re from *Scranton.* But I went to college at Cornell University. You know who went to Cornell? The President. (Beat that! Well…) Of the Czech Republic. Vaclav Klaus. (Supremely sure of himself) But I’m just saying, if I ever go to Prague, the Cornell alumni association is gonna hook. Me. Up.

We return to RECEPTION, where PAM picks up a call.

PAM:
Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam. (listens) Sure, Steph, I’ll get him now.

She rises and we follow her into MICHAEL’S OFFICE, where he is punching away at his computer, fake beard still on and hat on the desk beside him. PAM starts to speak, but before she can get a word out, MICHAEL gives her a significant look. PAM sighs and wordlessly acquiesces, shooting him the finger guns again. Her enthusiasm is not as well faked this time. MICHAEL is delighted and shoots them back.

MICHAEL:
Thank you. What’s up?

PAM:
David Wallace’s office, on line two.

MICHAEL:
Ah, the power behind the throne! (makes a connection) Hey, he’s like the Joe Biden of Dunder Mifflin!

He raises his eyebrows. Ah? Ahhhhh?

PAM concludes this will go faster if she resists less and gives him her best “huh, I never thought of it like that!” look.

MICHAEL (picks up the phone):
(singing) Hail to the Chief Financial Officer! (pauses) Oh, hi, Stephanie. Yes, I’ll hold.

PAM shoots a relieved look to the camera and starts to exit. MICHAEL, waiting for DAVID, grabs the hat and throws it after her. It bounces off the back of her head, to her annoyance.

We join PHYLLIS in the CONFERENCE ROOM. She’s dressed for a more typical workday than some, but she’s attached Joe Biden for President 1988 and 2008 buttons to her sweater, and another that reads “Ready to GO with Barack and JOE.”

PHYLLIS:
Oh, it’s so silly, the way people are about it. “I sold Joe Biden a pencil!” “I ride my bike to school the same way he did!” It’s just exciting, and people want to feel part of it. But you know the people who are really connected to the Bidens, we don’t feel the need to brag about it all the time. (She looks over her shoulder to see if anyone is paying attention to her talking head in the office, and then leans forward and whispers conspiratorially.) I knew them pretty good back in the day. Lost my virginity to one of his nephews.

We watch MICHAEL on the phone in HIS OFFICE, shot from outside. He’s pacing back and forth.

MICHAEL (upset, knows he’s in trouble):
Why would I need to ask? It’s my branch, and it’s a great idea! (listens) I mean, come on, David! What is this, Stalin and the USS? (listens) But… this… this is Scranton’s prodigal son! The whole town is celebrating him, and we’re not allowed? (listens) Where would anyone get the idea that this is the company taking sides?

KEVIN walks through the shot, now wearing a t-shirt with the Dunder Mifflin logo, a heart, and a picture of Joe Biden.

We cut to the CONFERENCE ROOM, where KELLY is settling down, although we seem to be joining a conversation already in progress. She’s still putting on her microphone, and from the sound quality she hasn’t turned it on yet as we arrive on the scene.

KELLY (looking farther off to the side than is typical for a talking head, as if she’s speaking directly to someone other than the camera):
I mean, you know the story, right? He’s just been elected to the Senate for the first time, he’s 30 years old, and his wife and kids get in this horrible car accident. His wife dies, his toddler daughter dies, one of his sons fractures his skull. (She pauses) You know, when my sister… she was merging onto the highway in bad weather, she got hit by a tractor-trailer. She was a little older than me, she was 28, finishing up med school. Her whole life was ahead of her and then… (Kelly blinks hard a few times.) I think a thing like that changes you. Teaches you something about how fragile life is, how easily it can all… go away. Hopefully a little something about compassion, empathy. I don’t know. They make so many decisions that impact so many lives, I think it’s good you have someone there who understands what it’s like to lose someone. Maybe it helps. (She sighs and shakes her head.) Anyways. Are you guys ready to shoot? (She seems to receive a signal from someone off camera.) Great. (She fluffs her hair a bit, reaches to her waist to click on her mike, and all of a sudden, she’s our girl KELLY KAPOOR again). I mean, this is the coolest thing that’s ever happened to everyone from Scranton, *ever*. And I bet now he’s going to run for president again, and maybe people will care next time. And that means *John Legend* might come to Scranton. Or Kanye. Sophia Bush, Brad, Matt and Ben. Do you know Obama was endorsed by all three Jessicas? We’re this close to being like… Pennsylvania-wood!

We cut to the BULLPEN, as a shaken and scrambling MICHAEL exits HIS OFFICE. JIM, PAM, and a grim but Uncle Sam hat-adorned DWIGHT all start to raise finger guns at him with various degrees of resignation.

MICHAEL:
Stop, stop that. And take that off.

He swipes the hat from DWIGHT and throws it into HIS OFFICE. DWIGHT looks a little relieved. JIM and PAM exchange confused looks, as we start to take in that MICHAEL has ditched the beard, bow tie and waistcoat and flipped the shirt inside out, leaving behind only the barbershop quartet pants.

MICHAEL:
We’ve gotta… we’ve gotta take all this down. (raising voice) I’m sorry, could I have everyone’s attention please? (Quick shots of folks tuning in at the STANLEY-PHYLLIS-ANDY clump, of the ACCOUNTING STACK and of CREED and MEREDITH). So I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I’ve decided we shouldn’t be doing anything for Joe Biden Day.

ANGELA looks smug. Everyone else makes various expressions of confusion.

PAM:
Michael, you haven’t talked about anything but this since the election.

MICHAEL (getting steadily louder and more strident):
Well, you know what, Pam? Republicans buy paper, too. Magic Johnson said that, and he was right. (JIM gives a “not quite, Michael” look to the camera.) Dunder Mifflin is a company for everyone. We don’t care if you’re black or white or red or blue as long as you’ve got the green. And I just don’t think we should be seen as taking sides like this, so let’s just take all these decorations down. Kevin, maybe put a coat over that shirt. Oscar, lose the sticker. (OSCAR looks like he’s about to burst a blood vessel.) Phyllis, the buttons? Stanley, I’m sure you’ve got some swag from ya boy Barack to take down. (A quick look to camera from STANLEY.)

PHYLLIS:
Okay, but Michael…

MICHAEL:
Look, what if Joe The Plumber walked into this office right now? Wouldn’t we want to be able to say Joe The Plumber bought our paper?

DWIGHT:
Well, the paper needs of a plumbing business couldn’t be that large.

MICHAEL:
Dwight…

DWIGHT:
I’m just saying, I’d rather have Sam the Accountant or Jake the Lawyer.

MICHAEL:
God, Dwight, could you…

PHYLLIS:
But Michael, what about the sale? We’ve promised a bunch of people price reductions.

JIM:
Yeah, it’s going over really well. I’ve picked up a half-dozen new clients this morning.

MICHAEL (has clearly not thought about that before this moment):
Well, obviously we’re going to keep the sale going. The sale doesn’t have anything to do with Joe Biden.

JIM:
Then… why is it a 4.7% discount?

MICHAEL (opens and closes his mouth a few times, then…)
In honor of the great Roberto Clemente. #47. Also a Pennsylvanian, *and* he died in November. We’re doing this to honor the memory of one of the great Philadelphia Phillies.

KEVIN:
He played for the Pirates, Michael.

MEREDITH:
And died on New Year’s Eve.

JIM:
And wore number 21.

MICHAEL
Just… just… take the decorations down.

He spins on his heel and heads back to his OFFICE.

KEVIN (calls after him):
Can we still leave early for the…

MICHAEL:
NO!

He slams the door behind him.

We cut to DAVID WALLACE’S OFFICE.

DAVID WALLACE (well-rehearsed):
Senator Obama winning is great for the country, and like all Americans I wish him success. It’s going to make us truly united, a huge victory for equality. Beyond that, I’m really not comfortable talking about my personal politics on camera.

As he speaks, the camera zooms in on a group of photos on the wall behind him: DAVID WALLACE shaking hands with John McCain; DAVID WALLACE doing a grip-and-grin with Dick Cheney; a candid shot of DAVID WALLACE and HIS WIFE chatting over canapes at a fundraiser with Paul Ryan.

We then return to the office for a quick whip-around. KEVIN sadly puts his Big Dogs photo in a drawer. KELLY removes a campaign sign she’s hung in her nook. JIM helps PAM take down the banner, while DWIGHT, on the phone, watches with satisfaction.

DWIGHT (in voiceover, then flipping to a talking head):
Oh, I’m very pleased. The sale’s fine, but the rest of it? (He scoffs.) Maybe these city folk are fans of Joe Biden. But I’ll tell you, he’s no friend of the root vegetable farmer. Sold us out to the beet growers in Mexico and China. Disgraceful. (Thoughtful, with an increasingly far-off look in his eye…) It is something, though. Just a boy from Lackawanna County, rising to power. Armies at his command, nuclear football at his side. Really makes you think… what else can a Scranton boy do? (DWIGHT is staring off into space, and starts to smirk.)

Smash cut to a conference room talking head with JIM.

Whose eyes widen in silent horror as we…

…cut to a talking head with CREED.

CREED:
In the spring of 1968, I played Archbold Stadium in Syracuse with The Grassroots. After the show, this law student comes up to me, says he digs our music. Seems like a cool head, so I tell him he should come hang out with us. We shared a couple brews, smoke a little grass, have a few laughs, steal a Caddy, vandalize a draft board, write what eventually became the opening chords to our hit song Midnight Confessions. Fun Tuesday. But the guy tells me that once he graduates, he’s going to go into politics. And a few years later, shows up on the news… as Joe Biden. (very matter of fact) Nice guy. That Obama fella too. (beat) I would’ve voted for them if the state of Florida let felons cast a ballot.

Jim is staying out of his own head these days.

It’s one of the joys of finally being with Pam that he hadn’t anticipated. He’s spent so much of the last four years guarding every word, analyzing every move. Every conversation with Pam had to be reviewed for double meanings, every late night talk with Karen had to be lived at least twice to help keep track of his cover story, check-in phone calls with his mom and Larissa were always about more than they were really about. Too many nights lying awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if anything he’s done has revealed too much, too little, if he’s a little closer to being with her, a little closer to getting over her, if anything is ever going to change…

It was exhausting, more than he realized while he was in it.

Now Jim can just… be. And wouldn’t you know it, it turns out Pam loves him just as he is, unfiltered and unrestrained. Because Pam loves him. (Pam loves him!)

If he’s not especially eager for the Days of Awe, it’s just for that reason. All that self-reflection… who wants to dive back into that?

X X X

But last year had been the first time in his life Jim hadn’t been home for the High Holy Days, and he’d spent so much time that fall missing his dad and feeling like a terrible son (and a terrible friend, and a worthless piece of crap who never deserved to have someone like Pam love him, no wonder she couldn’t). He’s not going to do that again.

So he’d told Michael he had a bunch of sales calls (he’d avoided that conference room meeting for four and a half years and he wasn’t going to break that streak for anything), endured Pam’s teasing (“You get so much more Jewish when there’s food to be eaten or work to be skipped, Halpert”), dug out the yarmulke from his bar mitzvah and spent the morning in the uncomfortable folding chairs Temple Hesed used for additional seating, murmuring along with the ancient prayers.

The right decision. The only decision, really. And the way his father wrapped his tallit-covered arm around his shoulders when he sat down next to him, like he was still a little kid, felt like a great way to start a new year.

Still, as Jim stands on the bridge over the Lackawanna River with the rest of the congregation, enduring the rabbi’s too-long paean to the value of tashlich as a “physical separation of the sin from the self” and “an opportunity to consider one’s wrongs outside of the confines of the service structure,” he feels himself falling down the same old rabbit hole.

He has, he knows, a lot of wrongs to consider. And something the rabbi said this morning is stuck in his throat, a painful lump: “one cannot truly atone without sincerely dedicating yourself to not repeating the sin all over again.”

It’s not like Jim is really religious or anything. Hell, by the traditional definition he doesn’t even count as Jewish, something that has always been a quiet relief to his Adamcyzk grandparents. But by that standard, he couldn’t possibly have atoned for so many things for… years.

And there’s plenty in there he really would like to. Plenty of people who ended up as collateral damage along the way to his happy ending.

Except… now he has his happy ending. Jim woke up this morning spooning Pam Beesly, just like he’d always dreamed. Her clothes are in the top drawer of his dresser and her ring is in a shoebox on the high shelf of his closet.

So maybe things can be different. Maybe he can do more than sulk and beat himself up, knowing he’s going to do the same shitty things all over again.

Maybe now he can put it behind him.

So he takes the bread and repeats after the rabbi and starts to cast it into the water.

Bread for Karen, and every lie he told her, every one of the thousand cuts he killed their relationship with. For Karen, who deserved someone who could keep his promises and got conned into thinking Jim Halpert was that guy.

And while he’s at it, bread for Katy, who was never going to be the love of his life and ended up dropped flat on her ass on her now-ex’s office boat trip for trying to be. Bread for Brenda, and Jennifer, and Amanda, and Sara-without-an-h, and every other woman he used to get over or get at or get away from Pam Beesly.

Bread for Larissa, who was endlessly patient with him through endless pathetic whining. And for Mark, who was less patient but as supportive as a bro can be through night after night of mindless video games and mind-blotting drinking and far more moodiness and sulking than could’ve been pleasant to live with.

Bread for his mom, and how sad he saw his own sadness made her. “A mother is only as happy as her least happy child,” she always says, and that’s been him for a long damn time. He’s going to do his best to make it up to her. (Maybe with a curly-haired green-eyed grandchild.)

Bread for his dad, who he’s let down with how adrift he’s been. Maybe now he can make him proud.

Bread for Tom and Pete for all the crap he’s pulled on them to get his mind off Pam. And, no matter how much Jim hates acknowledging it, for Dwight and all the times he’s messed with him just to have an excuse to talk to her, or to take his mind off not talking to her, or to help him keep his eyes off her, or to take out his frustration with her on someone, or…

Well. Maybe he can’t fairly commit to stopping any Dwight prank-related sins. But he can try to keep it to just those times his desk-mate really asks for it. And maybe be a little more understanding while he’s getting over Angela.

Bread for Roy, and all the coveting he did of the life Roy had… and for unwinding it.

Bread for Pam.

For all the snippy comments when she wouldn’t give him what he wanted. For all the times she needed a friend and he was something other than one. For dropping a bomb on all her plans. For leaving her without saying goodbye. For how cold he was when he came back to Scranton. For taking the olive branch she offered him after the pepper spray incident and snapping it over his knee. For the week she had to wait for him to come back after her Beach Day speech.

He has more to make amends to Pam for than anyone.

He also has a much better idea of how to do it.

X X X

All of a sudden, Jim feels… lighter.

You’re supposed to ask people for forgiveness, he knows that. It’s not enough to ask the world or G-d. And he doesn’t think he has the courage for that, not yet. But now he can see how he might start, and actually mean it. He can see how the vicious cycles he’s put everyone around him through might truly be behind him.

He can be better.

He crumbles the last bits of his bread into crumbs, and watches the water take them away.

X X X

“You seem really good, son,” his father says as they walk to the parking lot.

“I feel really good, Dad.”

“I’m glad.”

He bear hugs Jim, and he feels like a kid again. “You tell Pam we say hi, okay?”

X X X

He can hear Pam clattering around his apartment when he walks in the door, and he smiles to himself. He’s still giddy at the idea that she’s just letting herself into his place, making herself at home.

He finds her setting out candlesticks on his little kitchen table, on top of a tablecloth she definitely brought from elsewhere, because he for sure doesn’t own one.

She looks up at him almost like he’s caught her red-handed at something.

“So I know we were supposed to do all this last night, but I didn’t think of it until this morning, and it turns out brisket is not that easy to make, so I’m picking up some takeout from that barbecue place you like at Washington and Third Street. I did manage to get some challah, though, and we’ve got plenty left from apple-picking, and I bought some honey from a farmstand near the bakery. That’s right, Jim, not just any honey… locally sourced honey. That makes up for doing it the next day, right?”

He crosses the room, takes her in his arms and kisses her. Slow, deep, practically lifting her off her feet. The way he used to dream about.

He tastes the honey on her lips.

“Well,” she says, flushed. “Maybe I stop by the farmstand more often.”

“Maybe,” he says. “You’re cute.”

“I promise I’ll get it right next time, Jim.”

Next time, he thinks.

A happy and sweet new year indeed.

We open on JIM, doing a talking head from HIS DESK. He wears his standard smirk, but under it he’s unsettled and trying to cover.

JIM (faux casual):
So, do you all remember Michael’s nephew?

We cut to a clip of MICHAEL spanking LUKE and LUKE running out of the office in tears, then return to THE FRONT DESK CLUMP.

JIM (leans in a bit):                                                                                         
Did you ever wonder how he turned out?

JIM uses a finger to turn his computer screen to the camera, revealing the Philadelphia Inquirer’s website… featuring LUKE’s picture! Or, rather, LUKE’s mug shot, with creepy glasses and an inappropriate half-smile, below a blaring headline: “POLICE RECOVER THREE MORE BODIES FROM STRANGLER SUSPECT’S APARTMENT.”

The camera pivots slightly back to JIM, who nods a bit. He’s just *thrilled* his beloved wife spent time around this guy, yessiree.

We cut to the CONFERENCE ROOM.

PHYLLIS (in talking head with her back to the office):
Normally when these things happen, you get all these interviews with neighbors and co-workers about how he was such a nice kid, they never imagined he was capable of this. (beat) Haven’t seen any of those yet. (She raises her eyebrows at us, as if to say ‘QED.’)

DARRYL (in talking head with his back to the parking lot):
Kid did a daily coffee run. Every time, he got me decaf. Never showed a bit of remorse. If you’re capable of that… you’re capable of anything.

We cut to the closed door of the women’s bathroom.

KELLY (speaking from behind the door, we will hear various shuffling and rumpling noises throughout her talking head and her voice will be briefly muffled once or twice):
It’s just hard! Because I can’t tell the media *so* much that people go, well, why didn’t you call the cops? But I have to be *interesting* enough they put me in the TV movie. I haven’t figured it out yet. (The door opens to reveal KELLY in designer clothes, hair and makeup to match, camera ready. Various discarded pieces of rejected outfit options are scattered on the floor behind her, and there is a full arsenal of makeup and accessories spread out on the sink.) So instead I’m focused on being hot enough they ask me to play myself. (She shakes out her hair and strikes a pose, blue steel eyes and all.) What do you think?

We return to the parking lot window-side of the CONFERENCE ROOM, where we join PAM and ANGELA.

ANGELA (very proud of herself):
I knew it!

PAM (proud of *her*self and annoyed at ANGELA):
*I* knew it!

ANGELA:
When we were doing our pregnancy walks, we would see him lurking around the building. Walking by the entrance to the parking lot, getting a sandwich from that place across the street… (PAM is clearly restraining herself from jumping in.) One time, he just appeared out of nowhere, came right out of the bushes! And he thought no one would notice, just because he was wearing a t-shirt for a landscaping company?

PAM (okay, I feel like we’re losing them here):
It was actually pretty weird how much he popped up at a place he was fired from.

ANGELA:
So I told Pam, “I would not be surprised if he turns out to be the Scranton Strangler.” And *Pam* laughed at me.

PAM (firmly):
No, *I* said, jokingly, “maybe he’s the Scranton Strangler,” and you said (PAM adopts a precise, snide ANGELA voice) “Pam, that is a vile accusation to make without evidence, and extremely disrespectful to all the victims, as well as the brave and decent law enforcement officers and their volunteers who are working day and night to track him down.”

ANGELA:
Well. I guess we just remember this… differently. (As in ANGELA remembers it right and PAM doesn’t.)

PAM:
I guess we do, Angela. (The way she says “ANGELA” sounds an awful lot like she has another noun in mind.)

They glare at each other.

We cut to DWIGHT’S CAFFEINE CORNER, for a talking head with OSCAR and KEVIN.

OSCAR (with KEVIN initially nodding along like he has the slightest clue what OSCAR is talking about):
Luke claimed to be this big film lover, but he once told me he fell asleep halfway through Rashomon. *Rashomon.* He should’ve been locked up for that alone.

KEVIN (surprised confusion):
And… the murders.

OSCAR (a little embarrassed):
Yes, and of course also the murders, Kevin.

We cut to DWIGHT’S BUSINESS OFFICE.

DWIGHT (looking regretful):
I was very busy solidifying control over the Scranton Business Park that summer. *Very* busy. (sighs) I just… can’t believe I didn’t pick up on anything. That was the closest I’ve ever been to a real murderer. (beat) Unless you count Grandpa Mannheim.

We cut to GABE’S DESK in Tallahassee.

GABE (extremely cheerful):
This is really a dream come true. (He holds up a relatively standard looking Sabre form.) The signature of one of the worst serial killers of the 21st century! Certified original memorabilia, right from the source himself! The guys at the serial killers subreddit go nuts over stuff like this. (He sets it down, looking a bit annoyed.) Well, they’re gonna miss out. Guess you shouldn’t have banned me, mods! (Harumph.) What qualifies as “glorifying” serial killers, anyways. Totally subjective.

We jump to THE ANNEX, where TOBY is reading some of the coverage.

TOBY:
They’re really convinced he’s the Scranton Strangler. Huh. (looks thoughtful) Huh.

We return to the CONFERENCE ROOM.

ANDY:
Looking back on it, the time he tried to blind me with a laser pointer feels like a red flag. (beat) And I guess it was a little weird that he wanted me to come over and watch Eyes Wide Shut with him. (beat, then fear as he realizes…) And that he showed up at my apartment and said he was just delivering a package to someone with a similar address…

We cut to a laptop in the conference room, where MICHAEL appears on video chat. He looks pensive, and is in the early stages of growing an unkempt grief beard.

MICHAEL:
Obviously, this is a terrible time for our whole family. You keep wondering how you missed this, if there’s anything you could’ve done differently. (beat) I mean, I lost him in that forest for a *long* time.

The camera walks through the entrance to the SCRANTON OFFICE PARK to find PAM sitting in DWIGHT’S CAFFEINE CORNER, wearing a red t-shirt over a black turtleneck. She has a reach extender up her sleeve, and she is repeatedly attempting to slide it out by extending her arm, grab the handle and pick up a salt shaker from her table.

She is not having much success, which has resulted in a lot of spilled salt… to HANK’S chagrin. Nonetheless, PAM seems quite pleased with herself.

PAM (in a talking head in front of the BUILDING DIRECTORY):
Yeah, this is a big year for me! I’ve finally found a good way to get Jim to do a real Halloween costume. And I didn’t even have to convince him the fourth was the “Dress Up as a Fictional Character” anniversary!

We cut to PAM and ANGELA at a GENERIC COFFEE SHOP. ANGELA is clearly upset and talking at length about it. PAM is being patient, although someone a little more socially aware than ANGELA might detect she’s holding back a smile.

PAM (in voiceover on top of the above):
Angela keeps me fully updated on the state of Dwight’s immortal soul. And I’m always happy to talk her through her worries! Whether it’s Dwight’s scarecrow care rituals maybe counting as idolatry, or Dungeons and Dragons being a gateway to worshipping Satan, or, like a couple weeks ago, when she was very upset about Dwight ‘celebrating a pagan perversion of eternal life itself’… with his Halloween costume.

As PAM says her last line, her eyes slightly widen in the COFFEE SHOP shot.

We smash cut to DWIGHT, at THE MANAGER’S DESK. He wears a spiky red wig and a black robe with white stripes criss-crossing it. A black sword is lashed to his back.

DWIGHT (seriously):
Ichigo Kurosaki, protagonist of the legendary manga Bleach. He is a ‘shinigami,’ a reaper, who escorts the dead to the next realm and fights demons who eat human souls… all while protecting his loved ones and seeking vengeance against the evil spirit who murdered his mother. He is tremendously strong, a top-notch swordsman and excels in hand-to-hand combat. (beat) He also has a lot of trouble remembering people’s names.

ERIN walks into his office, wearing a green dress and carrying a bow and quiver of arrows – she’s MERIDA FROM BRAVE with shamefully straight hair. She hands him a fax, smiling broadly, then continues to hover by his desk, watching expectantly. This catches DWIGHT’s attention, and he looks over at her. She bobs her head a little.

ERIN (even by ERIN standards, giddy):
I’m really excited you’re doing this.

DWIGHT (surprised, but pleased):
Why… thank you, Erin.

ERIN exits, stopping at the door to briefly beam at DWIGHT along the way.

DWIGHT (I’ll be darned!, to camera):
A young person with an appreciation for the classics! There *is* hope for this generation.

The camera quick pans to the doorway, where NELLY pops her head in. She is wearing a fake moustache, green short shorts and a World War One British Army captain’s uniform with strategic sections removed for a shirt, which she will spend the entire day explaining to IGNORANT AMERICANS means she’s SEXY EDMUND BLACKADDER.

NELLY (cheered):
Oh, that’s brilliant, Dwight!

DWIGHT:
Thank you!

NELLY heads for her desk.

DWIGHT (gee golly!):
I never realized there were so many manga enthusiasts in this office! (with wonder) Perhaps I’ve underestimated them all along.

We cut to PAM in front of the BUILDING DIRECTORY. She silently holds up a depiction of Ichigo… and beside it, a snap of Syndrome from The Incredibles.

While not “the same picture,” the similarities are hard to miss.

PAM waggles her eyebrows, and then we cut to…

…JIM, outside THE OFFICE’S FRONT DOOR. He is visible only from the shoulders up.

JIM (snapping a black eyemask onto his face):
It’sssssssssssss showtime!

The camera pulls back to reveal JIM, along with CECE and PAM, who is pushing a stroller carrying a standing PHIL and a SMALL BORDER COLLIE PUPPY NAMED FRESNO. JIM AND THE KIDS are wearing red shirts and pants with black gloves and boots, lighter red belts, black shorts and black eyemasks. PAM’S outfit is similar but gloveless – she has gone with the black turtleneck under the shirt as seen at the COFFEE CORNER. THE PUPPY, who has dark fur around his eyes, merely rocks a red t-shirt cut to his size, but the fuzz on his head has been shaped into a cowlick. All their shirts are emblazoned with stickers featuring a yellow i superimposed on a black and orange circle.

In short… it’s THE PARR FAMILY.

They charge into the OFFICE.

JIM (looking around, and dramatically spotting…):
Syndrome!

PAM and CECE gasp and assume fighting stances. PHIL hops off the stroller and babbles something. DWIGHT looks out into the BULLPEN in confusion.

PAM:
We found him!

JIM:
Good work, kids.

JIM holds his hand out to PHIL, seeking a low five. PHIL looks at him skeptically, then makes a burbling sound with his lips that suggests something going fast … or maybe he’s just amusing himself with a funny noise. The DOG, not one to leave anyone hanging, gives JIM a paw.

Quick cut to:

JIM (by the DUNDER MIFFLIN SIGN, still in full costume):
We borrowed Fresno from my brother. I’ve gotta drive my niece to Pittsburgh for a band audition now, but if you’re not going to have Jack-Jack why even bother doing The Incredibles?

We return to the BULLPEN, where DWIGHT has come to his office door, and the show is in full swing.

PAM:
Your evil plot will never succeed, Syndrome! We’ve got super strength!

JIM whacks HIS DESK, which collapses.

Quick cut to:

JIM (by the DUNDER MIFFLIN SIGN in full costume, now carrying CECE in one arm):
Removed the screws. And taught my daughter to use a screwdriver. (turns to her) You’re pretty good now, right Ceec?

CECE (shrugs):
I’m okay. (brightens) But I’m *really* good at jellos!

We return to the BULLPEN.

PAM:
We’ve got elasticity!

PAM uses the reach extender trick we saw her practicing earlier to retrieve a letter opener off her own desk… and she nails it.

PAM:
We’ve got invisibility!

CECE crosses her arms and holds them in front of her face… then steps behind her father so as to be blocked from DWIGHT’s view.

PAM:
And maybe you can replace all that with your inventions… but we’ll still have one thing you never will, Syndrome…

JIM:
The power of love!

The PUPPY barks.

PAM:
That’s right, Jack-Jack!

We do a couple quick reaction shots: PHYLLIS (a PHILADELPHIA PHILLIE) looks amused; DEVON (recycling his HOBO costume) looks resigned; MALCOLM (a FIREFIGHTER, or at least a guy in normal workday clothes wearing a plastic firefighter’s helmet with a price sticker still on it, as if he realized at the last possible moment people were serious about dressing up) and DAKOTA (TESS MCGILL FROM WORKING GIRL) look like they wish they’d sent out a few more resumes; OSCAR (a ROADBLOCK… “actually, I’m the Roberts Court”) wears an indulgent ‘let the children play’ expression; and we finish at RECEPTION with ERIN, who claps gleefully.

Then, we quick cut to PETE in the CONFERENCE ROOM. PETE is wearing his normal work clothes too, along with a fake goatee… making him Tony Stark. Not Iron Man, Tony Stark. Look, he really didn’t want to spend time on this.

PETE (in talking head):
Oh, Erin adores The Incredibles. She says she really likes how they come together and fight evil as a family. (beat) She also roots for Simon in Die Hard With A Vengeance. (beat) Not sure the fighting evil thing is that big a part of it.

We return to the BULLPEN.

DWIGHT:
What’s going on here? What are you doing??

PAM (duh):
Putting a stop to your dastardly plans once and for all!

ERIN:
Yeah, the Parrs have got you now, Syndrome!

CECE starts making karate motions at DWIGHT. Phil eats a goldfish out of his pocket, then makes his blurbling noise again.

ERIN’s commentary makes it finally click for PETE, who has been leaning on the RECEPTION DESK JIM-style and watching with amused confusion.

PETE:
Oh, it’s a group costume. Cool.

This last bit is directed to ERIN, who is tickled, perhaps even hot-to-trot, that her boyfriend is enjoying this too. (Which he’s not, really, but he loves that *she* is.)

DWIGHT (with dawning horror):
You think I’m doing a group costume?!? With them?!?!? And *I’m* the villain?!?!?!?

PAM (victory!):
Ha! We’ve got him on the ropes now, he’s about to start monologuing!

JIM snickers. He’s not alone among the office denizens who get the reference.

DWIGHT’s face hardens. This. Will. Not. Stand.

DWIGHT: Excuse me, I need everyone’s attention for a moment. (PHYLLIS straightens. DAKOTA and MALCOLM exchange a look… is anyone *not* paying attention to this?) I just want to clear up some rumors that are going around the office. I am Ichigo Kurosaki, I am a soul reaper from Karakura who fights evil spirits and can see ghosts. (PETE nods. That tracks. PAM and JIM scoff theatrically.) I am not doing any sort of ‘group costume,’ and I am not, I repeat, *not* Syndrome from the Incredibles.

This may be one of the top 10 most disappointing things to ever happen to ERIN. If you discount anything related to the orphanage. Or sex with ANDY. Or GABE.

MEREDITH (hair curled, wearing a glittery, fancy-looking dress with cleavage cut down to her navel… she’s THE AMY ADAMS CHARACTER FROM AMERICAN HUSTLE, since everyone is too afraid to ask):
…really?

DWIGHT:
Of course really! Why would any of you think that?

PHYLLIS (obviously, knows full well what’s happening, but…):
Because they’re the Incredibles, and you’ve got a very good Syndrome costume, Dwight.

CLARK walks in the front door, dressed as a passable HARRY POTTER, but very late and knows it. He quickly takes in the scene, and like a traveler lost in the desert seeing the mirage of an oasis, spots an opportunity to cover for himself with kiss-assery.

CLARK:
Wow, Dwight! You totally nailed Syndrome! That hair, it’s… it’s perfect!

DWIGHT is horrified… but then spies salvation, in the form of his one true love, who has silently been observing all the uproar from ACCOUNTING, wearing a LEOPARD onesie.

DWIGHT:
Angela! (to the INCREDIPERTS and other assorted lookers-on) Angela knows, she saw me put my costume together right from the start! (to his beloved) Tell them, Angela. Tell them I’m not Syndrome!

ANGELA:
Of course Dwight isn’t Syndrome.

DWIGHT sighs in relief. Behind him we can see JIM and PAM telepathically communicating about their next step, while CECE looks disappointed the game is over and PHIL starts trying to pull off one of his gloves. THE PUPPY appears to have fallen asleep.

ANGELA (to the crowd):
Syndrome isn’t real, he’s an alter ego Buddy Pine created to help him with his mission. Dwight is Buddy Pine. (Quick cut to DWIGHT’S jaw drop of betrayal, then back to the catty accountant) And it *is* a wonderful Buddy Pine costume, Dwight. (with an edge) You’ve outdone yourself.

We cut back to DWIGHT, who is crushed, and then to a talking head with the ANGELEOPARD.

ANGELA (in lecture mode):
Buddy Pine was a fine young man who wanted to preserve law and order and protect his community. As he grew up, he realized he had an even higher cause: to stop those who claimed to act for the good of all, but in truth just sought glory for themselves, and usurped powers that should be limited to God and not man. Buddy Pine was a hero, and those Hollywood heathens *refused* to give him his due. (beat) And Buddy would never force his fiancée into hours of consultation with her pastor on her relationship with an (shudder) *atheist* over a Halloween costume. (beat) I assume.

We return to DWIGHT, who absorbs this blow and then reacts decisively, as any good regional manager would.

DWIGHT:
Okay, that’s it! I’m switching to my alternate costume.

DWIGHT turns and walks back into THE MANAGER’S OFFICE, presumably to fetch something out of his bag.

Meanwhile, at that same moment… CECE holds out a hand.

CECE:
Force field!

DWIGHT turns around again and starts advancing on her.

DWIGHT:
Listen, you…

JIM (chastising):
Dwight! You’re in a force field.

DWIGHT stops on a dime. He’s… trapped! He looks to camera, horrified.

PAM (one proud mama):
Good job, Vi.

PHIL, who has been remarkably focused on this prank all things considered, finally loses interest and toddles off. A now-rejuvenated ERIN takes it on herself to hustle after him.

JIM (back in character):
Go, Dash! Use your super speed!

PAM laughs and looks at JIM fondly.

We cut to THE ANNEX, where we visit with a nondescript, bespectacled man with neatly cut brown hair. This is A NEW HR GUY. He wears a tie and button down, but has a discarded pirate hat, eyepatch, and stuffed parrot at his side… desperately trying to resist his serious nature and be one of the gang. His name is unimportant. DWIGHT goes through human resources staffers faster than KEVIN goes through M&Ms, this guy’ll quit by Thanksgiving.

NEW HR GUY:
I had assumed he was Syndrome without seeing the Halperts. Really for the best we run with that. (beat) He probably shouldn’t be dressing up like he’s Japanese.

And cut to the PLAQUE from the opening credits, reading THE OFFICE: AN AMERICAN WORKPLACE. In smaller writing below is the PBS logo and the words “New Episodes Return November 15.”