Disclaimer: I don't any of these characters or The Office. No copyright infringement intended.

♥

When she laughed, he had no choice but to smile. She had a number of different laughs, and each one evoked a particular range of admiration from him. He had to admit though, he had a favorite laugh of her’s. It was the least common one, and he could remember every occasion on which she had let it out. She’d begin laughing like a sequence of hiccups were in her belly, the volume not yet reaching her vocal chords. Slowly, the sound would seep from her throat, and she’d hunch over like the time-elapse of a moon flower sealing shut at dawn. Sometimes, she’d hold her half-curled fist at the seam of her lips against her soft, porcelain cheeks. Her heart-shaped lips would split apart to reveal the tip of her tongue sticking out just a tiny bit, tucked between her clenched teeth. The sparkle of her hazel eyes would hide behind her eyelids, squeezed shut, but the glimmer still hung on the tips of her eyelashes. He loved that laugh, a laugh that was almost inaudible, but the joy overcoming her evident in every pore of her presence.

Pam laughed like that this morning, and Jim felt his heart hitched in his throat. The blush of her cheeks matched the pale peach blouse she was wearing. Her amber curls grazed her skin as they tumbled in front of her forehead, curtaining her face as she slumped over in laughter. With one elbow propped up on her desk, acting like a pedestal for his chin as he picked out jelly beans with the other hand, Jim laughed too, mostly because it made him so happy to see her like that.

It was moments like this one that had been the deciding factor for Jim: for the past week, he had come in early every morning to spend some extra time with Pam while the office was still vacant, and Karen hadn’t arrived yet. It might’ve seemed wrong to deceive his girlfriend like this, but was there anything that wrong with it? All they did was talk for fifteen minutes, make stupid jokes, and plan petty pranks. It wasn’t Jim’s fault that Karen was so paranoid and insecure that he had to resort to these measures in order to socialize with his best friend.

Sometimes when Pam passed his desk on the way to reception, she would flash him a seductively secret smile, and despite the slight pang of conscience he felt in those moments regarding Karen, he still knew that he wasn’t doing anything wrong. But those sensual smiles Pam would slip him when Karen couldn’t see... they were intoxicating. They reminded Jim of the looks two secret lovers stealthily show each other– until he reminded himself that Pam didn’t feel like that about him.

♥

Around eleven, Jan came into the office, her lips drawn tight and her elbows stiffly holding her purse up against her. Her thin eyebrows were angular in severity, and the little geniality she was capable of did not evidence itself in her confident march into the room this morning.

"Hello, Pam!" she said with the over enthusiasm of a liar. "Where’s Michael?"

"He’s in his office. Do you want me to tell him you’re he–" Before Pam could finish her sentence, Jan was already at the closed door of Michael’s office, knocking. She opened it at his permission, and through the open slats of the blinds in Michael’s window, Pam saw a look of horror pour over him at her entrance.

"I have to talk to you, Michael," Jan said before she shut the door and closed the blinds.

"What do you think they’re talking about?" Jim asked Karen, taking a bite of his ham and cheese sandwich, as they ate lunch in the break room.

"I don’t know," Karen said. "Maybe they’re still arguing from that fight they had two weeks ago."

"I hope not... they’re good together." Karen almost choked on her Diet Coke.

"Wow. Didn’t expect to hear that from you, especially regarding Michael and Jan," she said with a laugh.

"I don’t know," Jim blushed, masking it with laughter. "They’ve had a lot chemistry between them for a long while now."

"I wouldn’t know. I just transferred here, so I didn’t see the chemistry."

"Yeah, well. People like that should just get together and stay together, not let obstacles get in their way." Jim stared down at the table, masticating the bite of sandwich rolling around in his mouth. Get together, stay together. Life always seemed simpler than it was when spoken of with mathematical fluency. Or... maybe it really was that simple.

"This is weird," Karen said.

"What is?"

"We’ve been dating for six months, and you never struck me as a romantic before."

"Yeah, that’s ... weird." Jim took a sip of his grape soda. Karen, having finished eating, got up, and left Jim to his thoughts with a kiss on the crown of his head.

He stayed sitting at the table in the empty break room, his eyes focused upon some blank spot on the wall as four years worth of memories relayed in front of him like the mythological final flashing of your life before your eyes in that last moment. He wasn’t a step away from death, but he felt himself at a precipice, one that he had stood on the edge of before. The same precipice that had caused him to rearrange everything he once knew as truth, just so he wouldn’t have to be standing here again.

Almost a year had gone by, and he was still was in the same spot. It was kind of like that song he used to listen to a lot in high school, that great song. He remembered May nights of his senior year, driving around with his friends and without a destination, the windows rolled down. They’d blast that song, singing the chorus at the top of their lungs, each breath filling them with the magic of the complete gospel of youth: We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year, running over the same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.

♥

Jan left Michael’s office and Scranton without a word to anyone, and he didn’t come out for hours. Pam watched him from reception as he stood at his window, looking out over the parking lot like the emperor over the spoils of admirable territory. But it wasn’t a sight for his eyes, just something to do with them as his mind attempted the trying task of sorting its scattered thoughts. Pam knew that feeling, and she hoped Michael was okay.

Karen got up from her desk, and migrated to Jim’s, sitting on the edge of it.

"Hey," she said, beaming with a smile.

"Hi!" Jim said, compensating being caught off guard with fake eagerness. Pam watched without watching, her eyes never shifting from her computer screen but her attention never shifting from the conversation in front of her.

"You know, I decided that it’s really cute that you’re so romantic."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. But the fact that it surprised me? I don’t know. Maybe we should be more romantic with each other."

"Maybe," Jim said with a quick smile before he averted his eyes.

"Everyone," Michael interrupted, stepping into the office with his face tilted towards the floor and his hands in his pockets. Jim was sure there must’ve been a God because no timing of Michael’s could’ve been more perfect. "I have an announcement," he said gravely.

"Is something wrong, Michael?" Pam asked.

"Corporate... is firing me," he said. Silence fell over the office. He looked up at them with bittersweet pain in his eyes and halfhearted smile. "They’re bringing in some new guy who used to manage at OfficeMax, and I’m out by the end of the week."

"We’ll fight the power!" Dwight said, jumping up from his chair, a fist thrown in the air. "And if this is about what happened between you and Jan–"

"No, it’s not, Dwight," Michael interrupted. "She wasn’t even the one who made the decision, the CFO was." He shuffled his feet against the long fibers of the carpet.

"But... why? What happened?" Pam asked.

"The company’s dying," he answered. "The Scranton branch, Northeastern, is one of their last hopes, and Corporate didn’t feel I was fit to run it in such crucial times." He paused. No one had ever seen him so sincere. "It’s been an honor working here all these years." He turned around, and headed back into his office.

"Michael? Michael!" Jim called at him before he shut the door to his office.

♥

As the hours passed and the end of the day approached, there was too much hardship clinging to the surfaces and minds of everyone that gossip, chitchat, and pranks were too lighthearted for the employees. Most kept to themselves, only speaking when it was imperative. No one could’ve anticipated this shock, and while they had all (except Dwight) humored the idea in their imagination once or twice, they found themselves weighed down with the reality of fulfilled wishes. No, none of them wanted this. Regardless of all of Michael’s antics, his mistakes, and his social clumsiness over the years, they couldn’t have honestly hoped for something so unsettling. They all had to admit it: in their heart of hearts, they liked Michael, no matter how insane the notion.

Pam set the phones to automatic voice mail promptly at five, and left the building. As she walked across the parking lot to her car, she spotted Jan. She was still here? Leaning against the trunk of her car, she smoked a cigarette, and rubbed her arm unconsciously with the other hand.

"Jan?" Pam said. She looked up, and thought about stomping out the cigarette and leaving at that moment without a word. But her own cluttered emotions kept her rooted to the spot. Pam took it as a welcoming, and she approached Jan’s car, leaning against the truck with her.

"Did Michael tell everyone?" Jan asked. Pam nodded her head in silence. "Is he still crying?"

"He didn’t cry in front of us, so I guess not."

"Well... at least there’s that."

"Why is Corporate doing this, Jan?" Pam asked, looking up at Jan.

"It’s strictly business. Michael’s had an unruly management style for years now, and the company can’t afford that in times like this. Strictly business, that’s all." Jan took a long suck from her cigarette, smoke pervading the air exhaled from her nostrils.

"Is that the excuse?" Pam bit back. She was surprised at her own uncordial remark to her superior, but Jan didn’t flinch.

"Believe it or not, Pam, I tried to save his job. I fought for him. I didn’t want this," Jan whispered.

"But... the huge fight you guys got into...?"

"I know, I know. Does that fight really matter though? Not really, not in the long run. I love him, and no matter how mad I was at him for what happened... I just..." Jan stopped in her thoughts. She put a hand on her hip, and turned halfway towards Pam, smiling at her with a gentility the receptionist had never recognized before from Jan. "I had the chance to see him whenever I wanted because I worked with him. There was so much comfort in that, and he comforted me when I needed it. We’re not going to work together anymore though, and I won’t have the same luxury of seeing or talking to him everyday. I may never see him again. Do you know what that’s like when you love someone? I ... How can I explain it?"

"No, no," Pam interrupted. "I understand completely. I really do," she whispered. "Maybe it’s not too late though. Even if you couldn’t save Michael’s job, there’s still the chance of saving things with him before the fallout from the fight becomes something permanent. If you fix things with him now, at least you’ll have that."

"I might not be ready to fix things yet."

"If you don’t do it now, you’ll regret it for a long time. I promise," Pam said. The two women stayed leaning against the back of Jan’s car, side by side, two parallel figures in understanding of each other.