“Hey Michael?” Jim asked through the office door after knocking several times. He tapped his foot impatiently, and ran his hand through his hair in a swiftly frustrated motion.

Where was she? Why had she left like that?

He was about to knock again, this time with his fist, when he noticed that through the blinds to the left of the door, Michael was staring at him with wide and nervous eyes.

“Did Angela send you?” The muffled voice came through the window.

“Um, no.”

With another flurry of activity, Michael vanished, and moments later the door opened to show his relieved smile.  

“Good...good...what’s….uh…” Michael frowned and a strangely guttural sound came from his throat. He stopped on his way back to his desk and placed his hand on his stomach. “Ugh, sorry, a little Snickers coming back up….so, what’s up?”

“I wanted to ask—

“Is Angela here?” Michael interrupted, his voice suddenly cautious and his eyes looking past him and towards the window.

“Uh, no, she’s out buying decorations for the party on Tuesday.”

“Yes! MLK Day. Gotta keep it diversified, Jim. One love.”

“Yeah, um….”

“One love! Right? Gotta….gotta keep the stirring pot melted.” Michael punctuated the sentence with a chuckle, and smiled widely.

“Sure, but…” Jim stepped a little further into the office, and closed the door behind him. “I just need to send something off to…Nashua, so….do you know where Pam is?”

“Hmmm…she’s probably in the bathroom. ‘Cause you know….” Michael sat back down in his chair and nodded a little at him.

Jim shook his head in reply. “Uh, nope, I don’t.”

“Geesh, Jim. C’mon, be a little sensitive!”

“Is-Is something wrong with her?” He asked, his voice wobbled slightly with surprise and worry. How could Michael know something about her that he didn’t?

“No, no. It’s just…let’s say…” His voice went down to a knowing whisper as he continued, “….Alabama is in town.”

“What?”

“Ala-ba-ma.” Michael sounded it out slowly and phonetically, as if Jim didn’t understand the word.

“The state?”

“No, what? No.” Michael’s hand flew up in front of him, as if he was trying to bat away the question. “The college, Jim. The college.”

Jim pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, and steadied himself with a breath before he continued. “The University of Alabama is in town…and that’s what’s wrong with Pam?”

“Correct, sir.”

Jim stood for a second in thought, trying to decipher what the hell Michael seemed to be alluding to. Sometimes talking to him was like breaking a crayon-scribbled code.

The University of Alabama? The University of Alabama? What….but then in a second he had it, the school’s nickname.

He tried not to shiver in revulsion at Michael.

“Ugh, Michael. Alabama?” Jim winced, and spoke with a disappointedly edged voice.

“I know! I was reading the ‘Girls of the SE…T..or P’ issue of Maxim last night and thought of it. I’ve been waiting all day to use it.” Michael smiled widely, and leaned back in his chair happily.

“Okay, but….the Crimson Tide? Just say….

“Ew, no. That’s lame, and gross.” Michael shook his head violently, like a child in a highchair rejecting the airplane spoon filled with vegetables.

“Alright, I’m going…” Jim turned to leave the office, but then realized he hadn’t made any progress on Pam’s location.

“So you don’t know where she is?” He asked tiredly, his frustration with the entire situation weaving itself in his words.

“Jim, I told you, she’s Alabama-ering, in the bathroom, probably.”

“Michael, how could you possibly know….” He stopped himself, not wanting to go down that path. “….right, okay, thanks.”

Without another word, Jim turned and walked out of Michael’s office, and closed the door behind him. He had taken one step towards Reception, when he heard a tapping behind him.

Without looking, he asked, “what?”

Michael was back up against the window, with his head stuck between the blinds. His frantic voice muffled by the pane of glass. “If Angela comes back….I’m not here. Also, make sure she got sweet potatoes and watermelon.” With that he disappeared again, and Jim heard the door to the office lock.

With a sigh, he put his hands in his pockets and took one last look behind him to see that Karen was still not at her desk, as she had left during his conversation with Dwight. He walked over to Reception to try to figure out where Pam had gone.

It was in moments like this that he was very, very glad that the cameras had left for the day. He knew that if they hadn’t, they would have not only filmed his argument with Karen, but he’d probably have had to put more effort into the half-hearted attempt to look for a pretend fax on Pam’s desk while he searched around.

He noticed that in addition to her coat still being on the rack, her purse sat underneath the desk. She hadn’t left the building then, and she wouldn’t have gone up to the roof or outside, after all it was winter in Pennsylvania.

That left two options, and both made his stomach fill with a warm, tight nausea that instantly had him trying to breathe evenly. She was either in the stairwell, alone, or she had gone to the warehouse, with Roy.

But hadn’t she just said that she was finished with him? Or had he misinterpreted that? The hands in his pockets balled into fists, and he walked out of the office.

--

--

With an echoing squeak, the door to the stairwell closed behind him. It was completely quiet; he didn’t hear the squeal of a shoe, the muttering of a sigh, or anything to give away the fact that she could be here.

It felt like a lifetime ago that they had used this place to get away from the cameras, whether to just eat a lunch in peaceful silence with one another, or to talk about things that they didn’t want to have broadcast to anyone.

A lot of the time they just told stories, embarrassing ones of course, about their families, or themselves. Sometimes they talked about what they were going to do after Dunder-Mifflin, as if this was just a nightmarish chapter that they could punctuate with a period, and turn a new page on.

He remembered the bitter sweetness of the time they had spent together here. Any time alone with her was special, and left him with a nervous energy that shook itself out of him in laughter, smiles, and animated conversation. But on the other hand, learning about her, about her family, and especially about what she wanted to do after Dunder-Mifflin only reminded him that he really wasn’t a part of her life and that she would be gone soon enough. She’d be married, and he wouldn’t even be able to be on the outside looking in, he’d just be alone.

“Pam?” He asked to the quietness, the noise of his voice reverberated against the walls of each of the floors of the building, up and down. But there was no reply. She wasn’t there.

--

--

“Hey Hank, how are you?”

The security guard looked up at Jim tiredly, but a polite smile came to his face at his words.

“Hello James, I’m fine.” His faint smile quickly disappeared. “Did Schrute send you down here?”

Jim forced a small laugh, but got to the point quickly. “Uh, no….um, actually I was looking for Pam. Have you seen her?” He tried to sound nonchalant, but the sound of his fingers tapping in rhythm, pinkie to index, index to pinkie, on Hank’s station betrayed him.

“Mmm-hmm. She left a couple minutes ago.” He gestured towards the doors.

“Right. Okay, thanks.”

--

--

Considering that she didn’t have her purse, Jim reasoned that there was little chance she had driven anywhere, and so his immediate reaction was to go through the doors after her into the cold. But he thought better of it, and went upstairs. A minute later, with his own coat, and scarf on, and her jacket draped casually over his right arm, he emerged from the elevator and walked back into the lobby.

Despite the precaution, he squinted hard into the cold blast that met him when he opened the doors. It immediately sent a flush to his cheeks, and tinged the tops of his ears with a piercing frigidness. He blew out a hard breath that floated visibly in front of him, and then dissipated slowly.

Pulling the coat slightly tighter around him, he looked up and down the parking lot, and the side of the building for her. At first he didn’t see anything, and the growing dread that she had gone to the warehouse for some reason, to see him, or be with him, sent a humming heat under his skin that was more than enough protection against the weather.

Before he could question why he exactly felt that way, or if he had any right to, he saw what looked like a silhouette in a car at the end of the lot. He strode briskly towards it, the salt scattered on the pavement crunching underneath his feet. As he got closer, he saw her, reclined in the driver’s seat of her car, with her eyes closed.

His first instinct was to leave her alone, to back away slowly, and go upstairs to keep playing the game. He didn’t want to disturb her…..nap? But the jacket in his arms reminded him both of the cold and its absence on her.

He rapped lightly on the passenger side window, and leaned his lanky frame over to look in on her reaction. He wasn’t disappointed. She jumped half a foot out of her seat, then turned towards him, and stared with wide and surprised eyes. He waved, and without permission he opened the door and attempted to fold himself into her car.

She was half leaning over the passenger seat, in an attempt to open the door for him, as he slid in. Quickly, her arms snapped back to her side, and she adjusted the seat back into a more upright position.

“Uh, hey.” He watched her sweep a strand of hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear in an unconscious movement that he couldn’t help but be conscious of every time she did it.

“Hey, I…” he paused for a moment, forgetting why he was here, in her car. He licked his bottom lip slowly, and looked down, away from her….and to her jacket.

“Oh, yeah, I brought you your jacket.” He passed it to her, and she smiled weakly and then held it in front of her, unsure how to put it on in such a confined space. With a shrug she just put it over herself like a blanket.

As she did, he tried to figure out something to say, but he had no ideas, because he was so unsure of what she was thinking. Why had she just left like that? And why was she sitting in a cold car in January instead of upstairs at her desk? He wanted to ask, but he was scared she’d just lie, or leave, or….be mad. So, instead, he did what he always did.

“I know gas is like two fifty a gallon, but you’ll freeze out here Pam.” It was admittedly, a weak joke, or really, not even a joke, but it was the closest he could come to asking her.

She laughed lightly, but he could tell it was more of an automatically polite reaction than a genuine one. “Yeah, I know, I just…there was nothing to do in the office, so I thought I’d get some of my drawing stuff.” She looked over at him briefly to see if he would believe her, but they both knew it was a lie. And, so after a quick moment, her gaze whipped back to the steering wheel.

“That’s…really great. I mean, the drawing and sketching and stuff. It’s…I’m glad that you’re doing that.” He dared to glance over at her, and saw her nodding, but still looking directly in front of her.

“Yeah, me too. I’m really enjoying it. I’m, uh, glad I chose to do it.”

“Well, I always knew you’d be great at it…..” he stopped himself, inwardly grimacing at the self-righteousness of the statement. She’d been the one that had done it, she didn’t need to be chastised for how long it had taken her.

He suddenly felt as though he had to lighten the mood, to cover up his own words. “….I’m sure you’ll be signing tablecloths to pay for your meals in no time.” He smiled at her, but clenched his right fist so hard that his fingernails dug into his palm and burned in pain. Why had he said that? It sounded patronizing…she’d think…..

He took a breath and tried to calm down, because it felt like everything he said was wrong. Why did he calculate, analyze, and criticize everything he said to her? Why was this so hard?

There was a silence for a couple seconds, as they sat there, side-by-side in the cold car, their breaths pouring out of them, and co-mingling in the tiny space.

“I know you thought that…that I’d be great.” Her voice was quiet, cautious, and tentative.

He nodded in reply, again not knowing what to say to her. It didn’t seem like he should really bring up the fact that he had negotiated a candy bar and a position for her at the board game in the break room at that moment. It might be a little tactless.

“Who was that?” She spoke again, this time her voice sounded more like her. Like, a sweetness laced with mischief.

“Who?” He asked, confused at what she meant. He looked out the window for the person she was talking about.

“The artist, with the tablecloths….”

“Oh” he laughed a little at his confusion and nervousness at the prospect of someone interrupting them. “It, uh, was Picasso. He used to just doodle something on tablecloths and restaurants would, like, accept it as money.” He looked over at her, and for the first time she looked back, their eyes meeting without the other nervously glancing away. “Not that you’re Pablo Picasso….” He paused for a moment, just long enough to see her expression change into confusion before he continued. “….I’m sure your paintings make sense.”

She laughed a little, and reclined her seat to where it had been. She leaned back and her head lolled to the side to face him. A smile crept over her. “Uh, yeah…well today I drew the McDonalds parking lot. So….”

“Oh, so you’re more Warholian then?” He interrupted.

Her eyebrows rose a little at his comment, and she smirked a little. “How do you suddenly know so much about art?”

Jim reclined back into his seat a little, and then turned his body to face her. He immediately noticed her expression was all softness. The cold made her cheeks and the tip of her nose pink, and somehow even more beautiful then normal.

As he stared at her, he lost himself in this. The quiet, her presence, her beauty, and the desire to have this with her…The fact that since the merger he had forced himself to ignore, subdue, and chastise himself for feeling anything, seemed ridiculous to him now. He didn’t know if it was the fight with Karen, or the board game whose ridiculousness he knew only she could appreciate, but suddenly all the questions in his mind became just one, and the answer was staring back at him, expectantly waiting for him to speak.

But he knew that he couldn’t tell her that. After all, this was the first time they had spoken like this in a while, and it wasn’t as if Karen wasn’t still upstairs or that he knew where that was headed. He had to be careful, with her, with himself, with everything.

“Well…my best friend is an artist, so…I’m obviously going to have keep up with her, and her friends.” He smiled warmly at her, but he knew what it meant to say that to her. He also knew what it meant for her to reply.

“Yeah?” She asked, almost in a whisper.

“Yeah. Maybe….maybe I’ve, uh, not said that lately or, you know, acted like it I guess. But, yeah….I don’t want you to think that you’re….not that….” The words tumbled out of him, and with them a certain amount of relief. He knew looking at her that it wasn’t everything……that it wasn’t the whole truth, but he couldn’t let himself go completely there. Because a part of him wanted her to say something or do something that made it clear how she felt. To break them from this purgatory of uncertainty.

“You’re…..” she inhaled a breath, and Jim noticed that for a moment, it seemed as though an intensity flickered across her face, a resoluteness that quickly scattered. “…my best friend too, Jim. I, uh….thank you.”

They sat in silence for a couple moments, each smiling peacefully at the other. But then, Pam pulled the coat off of her, and sat up in her seat.

“I’m kinda cold.”

Jim sat up too, and looked over at her. “That’s actually good…’cause I need to cash in some best friend coupons.”

Her response was quick, and sharp. Like it always had been. “When did I make you coupons?”

“You didn’t, but you’re an artist so I’m sure you’ll think of something….maybe use glitter. I dunno.” She laughed at him, and this time he knew she meant it. “….we have to get back to the game.”

“The one where Dwight and Andy are beating you?”

“No. The one you’re going to help me win.” He answered playfully.

“Oh, and why would I do that?” Pam responded in kind, her voice back to the plotting and scheming tone that he loved.

“Candy.”

“Candy?”

“Yes, candy.”

“You think I’m going to help you dominate the world….for candy?”

“Pam….I know you’re going to. You’re like the little alien from E.T. If I put pieces of candy in a line you’ll follow it like Pac-Man.”

“Wow. That’s like a lot of eighties references.”

He shrugged agreeably. “Alright, what if….I can get Dwight to buy you the candy?”

She frowned a little confusedly. “Dwight? He’d never buy me candy. Last time I asked him for a dollar for the machine he made me leave collateral and charged interest.”

“He hasn’t had me ask.”

She smiled for a moment, but then it left her, and a seriousness took its place. “Yeah….that’s true.”

But Jim didn’t notice, he extended his hand to her over the center console. “Deal?”

She folded her much smaller hand in his, and let the warmth of his touch melt away the cold of her fingers.

“Deal.”