~~~!~~~

Creed had formed the Committee to End Really Obvious Unresolved Sexual Tension about three years ago, when the temp had come in with a chip on his shoulder the size of the entire state of Pennsylvania. Creed had looked at the temp, looked at the chatty Indian chick staring at the temp, and put two and two together to make five: the ultimate rib, the ultimate exasperation, the ultimate frustration for any guy was to be with a chick like her.

Back then, the Committee had consisted of Toby, Jim, Oscar, Kevin, and an unwilling Stanley who ended up doing nothing. When the mission was accomplished, the Committee was put on indefinite hiatus until another real assignment came by. Upon its return, Creed added the Indian chick, Phyllis, and little miss vodka.

He had forgotten to send Jim an invitation, and on second thought he realized it was perfect this way. Toby had told him the real reason why the hot Stamford chick had left earlier this month.

It wasn’t like Creed had anything better to do. There were only so many bats that could fly into the office, and bringing people together would have made Lennon proud. Besides, the bottle of iguana aphrodisiac in his desk drawer had inspired him. No matter how disgusting it tasted.

~~~!~~~

Stanley had refused to go to the first meeting of the new committee. “Creed,” he had said in the parking lot, “I have much better things to do with my time.”

Creed had nodded. “I’ll send you a report. With instructions.”

When Stanley opened his email the next morning, it was there. A single message from Creed, with no subject line as usual. He opened it.

From: creed@dundermifflin.com
To: shudson@dundermifflin.com 
Subject:  <no subject>

During Michael’s little field trip today, get in the van as fast as possible.

Stanley sighed and got back to work.

~~~!~~~

At exactly two o’clock, Michael burst out of his office with the worst “Gooooood morning Vietnam!” in recent memory.

“So who’s excited for our trip today, huh? Huh?”

Dwight leaped out of his seat and pumped a fist into the air. “I’m excited, Michael!”

Michael ignored him and turned to Pam. “Pam? You excited? You super hyped up? You psyyyched?”

“I’m excited, Michael.”

“Pam!” Michael sniggered, and Pam looked up from her game of Chinese Checkers. “Y’know…we’re taking a van…with leather seats…and I think you should sit in the backseat with me…mmkay?”

“What?”

“C’mon, Pam! Haven’t you heard White Houses?” Michael burst into falsetto. “My…first…time…hard to explain. Rush of blood, oh, and a little bit of pain – “

“Michael, no.” Pam fixed her sternest schoolteacher eyes onto him. “Absolutely not.”

Andy jumped up and stood by Michael, fixing his eyes on Pam. “On a cloudy day, it’s more common than you think,”

Dwight screamed, “He’s my FIRST MISTAKE!”

“No, no, no!” Michael yelled. “No, Dwight, you’re ruining – you ruined the song, you…no…okay, y’know what, let’s just go on the trip. C’mon. Into the vans.”

Jim turned to Pam and gave a lopsided grin. “Vanessa Carlton. Who knew.”

Pam giggled. “If they could fall into the sky…”

“God, Beesley,” Jim chuckled, “such a dork.”

“Then what does that make you? Friend-of-dork? Y’know, you’re a dork by association.”

“I prefer to think of myself as adorkable.”

“Ohhh,” Pam’s mouth was a perfect oval. “I did not just hear you say adorkable.”

Jim shrugged into his coat and cocked his head in mock contemplation. “That makes you adorkable by association, hmm? Honestly, Beesly, I have to agree.”

Jim turned then to gulp down the last of his soda. He didn’t see the huge smile break out on Pam’s face. She didn’t see the huge smile break out on his.

~~~!~~~

The entire staff of Dunder Mifflin sat miserably in the Philadelphia cold of the parking lot. Michael was frantically pushing buttons on his cell phone, having retreated to a small corner between his car and Dwight’s. “Where is the van?” He hissed.

“Michael, can we wait inside?” Kelly squeaked from where she was bundled up in Ryan’s stolen coat. “It’s freezing out here, and Ryan’s getting very cold.”

Michael waved his arm frantically behind him. “No, no, no, it’ll be here any minute. Just…channel your inner, uh, Caucasian, Kelly. We’re built better for cold, we…have more hair on our bodies in the important places.”

Jim tilted his head. “Wow, Michael, that is really smart. How do you know about Asian body hair?”

“Well…there was a woman last year that I met at…the movies. It was Hero. Anyway, um…ah…oh, look at that, the van guys are calling.”

Dwight shifted very close to Jim and spoke almost into his ear. “I saw Hero. There was a sex scene with red sheets and when she – “

“Okay, Dwight.”

A moment later, a large gray van pulled into the parking lot to Dwight’s lone cheering. Michael rushed forward and tossed a few bills at the driver before tossing him out of the van and taking the driver’s seat for himself.

“Shotgun!” Dwight raised a fist.  “Michael, I said shotgun, I’m going to drive with you!”

“No, uh…I believe Ryan called shotgun first, Ryan, could you come up here, please?”

“Ryan didn’t say anything, Ryan didn’t even speak, Michael I called shotgun, the rules of shotgun are clear and absolute.”

“It’s okay,” Ryan called weakly, rubbing his arms frantically. “He can take shotgun.”

“Dammit,” Michael hissed.

The entire office seemed to be in a terrific hurry to get out of the cold. They bundled too quickly into the van, and in all the pushing and shoving, Pam was left last to find a seat.

“C’mon, Pam, this baby seats ten!”

“We have eleven people. Andy and Toby and Angela decided to stay.”

Kelly piped up impatiently from the backseat, where she was holding onto Ryan’s right arm. “Pam, just get in beside Jim back here. Hurry up!”

Jim shrugged. Pam nervously crawled to the back of the van and settled in the little space not taken up by Jim’s large frame. “This would be so much easier if you weren’t so big.”

“That’s what she said!” Michael screamed from the front of the van, pulling it into reverse and screeching out of the parking lot. He stopped abruptly just before crashing into Kevin’s car.

The sudden lurch propelled everyone forward and then slammed them backwards again, and somehow Pam ended up crashing into Jim’s chest. She reached blindly to catch her bearings. Her hand landed in the space just next to his thigh, and her curls reached up to tickle the bottom of his chin.

“Sorry,” she murmured awkwardly, and sat back up in her space, tensed up. Jim muttered something like “don’t worry about it” and tried hard not to think about the scent of lavender.

Kelly reached into the row in front of her and tapped Kevin on the shoulder, who coughed three times to alert Phyllis, who let out a long and loud sigh to catch Oscar’s attention. Creed was sitting right next to Oscar in the front row, polishing the silver of his seat belt buckle, and only gave a bored nod as Oscar muttered the details. He then strategically moved the belt buckle so that the light glinted off of it just right, casting a small bright square onto the dashboard directly in front of Dwight.

Dwight looked at the square, looked back at Creed, looked at Michael and pointed to a dirt road on the side of the street. “Turn right.”

After half an hour, Michael turned to Dwight with a look of confusion. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“Yes,” Dwight nodded. “Turn left. And then after that, turn right again. Then make a U-turn and turn left.”

“Got it,” Michael muttered. “Where in the land of Mordor is my Mapquest printout?”

Oscar coughed and shifted in his seat. Something in his back pocket crinkled.

~~~!~~~

Pam giggled and pointed out the window. “There. K.”

“What?” Jim threw up his hands. “Are you serious? What was it on?”

“Try our new corn chowder.”

“Pam, there’s no K in corn chowder.”

“There was on the sign.”

“God…” Jim sighed and shook his head. “All right. L for me then.”

He leaned over to peer out the window, catching Pam in the junction of his shoulder. It was then that Pam realized that his arm had been lying on the seat behind her head. Jim reached out a hand to grab onto the handle above the window, and Pam suddenly realized how close they were sitting. She was effectively pinned under his body.

“Found it!” He grinned and pointed to a passing billboard. “Ad for Baked Lays. M for you now.”

Pam tore her eyes away from the little hollow at the base of Jim’s neck and looked out the window. She saw a large billboard immediately and coughed a little. “Uh, Match.com. Find your true love here. That’s, uh, an old ad.”

When she looked back at Jim, his eyes were on hers. He was frozen, the muscles in his arm tightening where he’d rolled up his sleeves. His lips were slightly parted, a bead of sweat running down his brow from the heating system that Dwight insisted on keeping at 75 degrees. Her eyes left his eyes and wandered down to his lips. She could feel a little gasp escaping her despite her best efforts to keep it down.

Jim coughed slightly and tore away, looking out the window again and dropping his arm. “So I’ve got N, right?”

“Yeah, you do,” Pam murmured, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ears. He made a show of looking out the window and she laughed a little, trying her best not to notice that his other arm was still around her shoulders.

Kelly let out a tiny squeak which alerted Kevin, who nudged Stanley’s thigh beside his. Stanley looked up from his crossword puzzle long enough to tap Meredith in the front row with his pencil. She reached into the front seat's cup holders for a bottle of water and knocked Dwight’s armrest up.

Dwight didn’t even look back. “Make another left, Michael.”

~~~!~~~

After two hours, Stanley convinced Michael to head back to Dunder Mifflin. Per Dwight’s instruction, they returned to the parking lot in a short ten minutes. They emptied out of the car and returned upstairs, ignored Toby’s smiles and packed up to leave.

“How was the trip?” Toby quietly grinned at Creed.

“Pretty good,” Creed nodded, tipped his hat and left.

Pam was putting her coat on and organizing her last faxes when Jim came up to her. “So, Beesly.”

Pam dropped a stapler. “Oh, uh, hi Jim.”

“We had to stop at 10-11, but I swear,” he shook his head playfully. “I’ll win.”

“Not likely,” Pam retorted, “because the next letter is V. And I have a secret weapon for the next time we play it.”

“Oh, really?” He reached over to grab an M&M. Pam tried hard not to think about him slipping and M&M through his perfect lips and fumbled with her stapler instead. “And when would be the next time we play it?”

“I dunno,” Pam flustered, trying to sound casual. “Whenever we’re driving someplace together.”

Jim nodded and tapped a little on the edge of the counter. “All right then. See you later, Pam.”

“Bye, Jim.”

He could still taste the M&M on his tongue. She watched his frame disappear through the door and around the corner and tried hard not to think about the warmth of those shoulders.

~~~!~~~

The next morning, Ryan came into work early to finish up some orders he hadn’t pushed through yesterday. There was an email from Creed in his inbox.

From: creed@dundermifflin.com
To: rhoward@dundermifflin.com
Subject:  <no subject>

Phase one is deemed a moderate success. 

Phase two is coming. 

~~~!~~~