Jim was, by his nature, a very confused person. It was fortunate, and slightly ironic, that he knew this, acknowledged it, and pretty much had accepted it as a fact of life for himself, especially within the four walls of Dunder-Mifflin. That didn’t make it any less annoying though, and always guessing what something meant, or really meant, or shouldn’t mean, as he had for years and years had become as regular and tedious to him as pushing cardstock.

And this moment wasn’t any different. As he looked over the table into Pam’s wide eyes, which were set determinedly in opposition, he didn’t know what to think.

Still, that didn’t stop him from gazing into them. Up until now, he had been wandering in a desert of broken glances, broken feelings, and avoidance….but now he drank her in like the parched man that he was, and was replenished and renewed by it.

But what did it mean?

Jim hadn’t forgotten the fact that she had been working on a Christmas gift for him while he still was in Stamford with no indication of coming back to Scranton, and he certainly couldn’t forget the fact that he and Karen had just had the worst fight of their short relationship in the Conference Room. What did it all mean? What could it mean?….and why did he feel so guilty about some of the possibilities that he imagined as answers to those questions?

“Oh! Staring contest!” Andy eagerly exclaimed. Jim didn’t need to break eye contact to know that he was grinning crazily.

Unfortunately, his words broke the spell between them. Like a rock of reality shattering the glass house of fantasy his mind had gone to while staring at Pam. Their eyes both flickered away from each other.

“Um, I’ve got to use the…uh…” Pam mumbled, quickly stood up, and walked towards the door hastily.

His voice was caught in his throat, but as she crossed the threshold, he managed to croak out. “D-Do you want us to hold the game?”

She turned, her curls cascading down on her shoulders, framing her flushed cheeks. “No, no…that’s fine.” And without another word, she was gone.

“Finally!” Dwight breathed out in a huff. “Who invited her anyway? A woman in a war-zone is a terrible idea.”

“But it’s good for morale!” Andy chirped. Jim would have said something, but his eyes were still on the now empty doorframe, and his mind was still lingering on the questions that floated adrift in it.

“It’s good for a distraction, Andy. Women are wily, they’ll confuse you with their…...wiles, and next thing you know….bam!” Dwight slapped the table, bringing Jim back into quasi-concentration on the proceedings, and in doing so; he noticed Andy jumped slightly in his chair at the noise. “….you’ve lost half of a continent, because you were smelling their bath powder.”

Jim took in a breath, and decided to fully focus himself back on the game. Pam had gone to the bathroom, right? She’d be back. Right? She hadn’t left because of the eye contact….right?

With that ironclad train of thought, he jumped back into the conversation. “Geez, bath powder? How old is this woman, Dwight?”

Before Dwight could answer, Andy interrupted. “Maybe that’s why she’s so wily?”

“No. That’s not…women of all ages use bath powder, okay?” Dwight stared angrily at Andy, and then shifted his intensity to Jim.

Jim sucked in the right corner of his mouth, and looked with arched eyebrows over at Dwight. “Are you going around smelling women?”

“No, Jim. I’m—

--That’s probably why he’s home alone, playing Clue with his imaginary girlfriend…” Andy joined in gleefully, sensing an opportunity to pile on.

“That’s not…I have a girlfriend! I’m saying women and war do not mix.”

There was a pause as Jim nodded his agreement. However, he couldn’t help himself for very long. “Certainly not like women and bath powder, that’s for sure.”

He watched with barely concealed amusement as Dwight struggled to control himself at the table. This was his favorite part.

“Oh well, look, Jim and Andy….it appears to be my turn at global domination.” Dwight said softly, and Jim thought, in a way that seemed almost Hannibal Lecterish.

“…Now that there are no women in the room, I can actually get down to business.”

Jim looked at the board to calculate Dwight’s next moves, which he figured would probably follow the pattern that Pam had outlined before….and he also mentally told himself to remember to ask her how she was so knowledgeable about RISK because it would be a good ice breaker and he was curious.

It was then that he heard what he, for a split-second, thought was Kelly giggling to his left. However, a quick glance showed Andy, with his hand over his mouth.

“Do you usually need women to be out of the room to get down to business, Dwight?” Jim heard Andy ask.

Oh right. How had he missed that?

Dwight didn’t flinch in response. “Yes. Women are distracting, we-we’ve been over this a million times, are you trying to stall Andy? Because it won’t work. War may not be—

“Yeah, yeah, we know, Dwight, The Prince. Just, let’s go….it’s already like almost three o’clock.” He interrupted. Of course, the time didn’t really matter, anyway. It wasn’t as if he really had anywhere to be, he certainly wasn’t going out to dinner tonight.

“Very well Jim. For my first move….I shall attack Brazil from Venezuela.”

“That’s shocking.” Jim grabbed the defense dice, and rolled two 4s, before Dwight could roll.

“It’s about to be. Lightning war, Jim, lightning war.” And with that obscure emphasis and wording that Jim didn’t understand, Dwight rolled a 5,4,2. They each removed a soldier. Jim had six remaining troops to Dwight’s ten attacking ones.

After picking up the dice several times more, and rolling, Jim was left with only one soldier to Dwight’s five.

“Well, well, well, Jim…it appears as though Brazil is lost. South America will be mine.” Dwight leaned back in his chair, pursed his lips, and pressed his hands together and against his bottom lip. “Would you like the opportunity to surrender?” He asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Jim decided not to lose a beat, or another soldier. “Sure, I’ll move him to Egypt. Thanks Dwight.” With that, he picked up his last Brazilian soldier, and transported him.

Dwight shot up in his chair. “What-No. You can’t do that Jim, I was only kidding! There is no surrendering in RISK!”

Jim feigned ignorance in an attempt to get Dwight back to the bath powder levels he had just been at. “Uh, you just offered it to me. So, verbal agreement.”

“Witness!” Andy chimed in.

Jim thought he heard Dwight growl before spoke. “Fine. But that is the last time I offer it. And don’t worry, I’ll be in Egypt soon enough.”

“Okay, I mean, I wasn’t worried, but that’s a good reminder. Thank you.” Jim shrugged nonchalantly.

“Well now that I have all of South America, I think it’s time to….” Dwight’s eyes stopped covetously on Greenland, but he also saw the small nation of soldiers that were spilling out into the sea on the territory, and so they kept roving.

“Take back the Urals!” He announced dramatically. Jim was waiting for the ominous music to cue behind him, but to no avail.

Still, Dwight’s decision was rather odd. As Jim surveyed the board, he couldn’t make out what importance the Urals had.

Dwight controlled all of South America, and was close to capturing North America. Meanwhile, Andy still controlled Europe, and had taken a territory from him in Africa, meaning he no longer got bonus troops for it at the beginning of his turn. For his part, he still had Australia, and pretty much all of Southeast Asia. Jim surmised that he was in last place….still, maybe he could sit back and watch Andy and Dwight fight each other. In fact, he could start right now…because the only reason he could think of that Dwight would want to conquer the Urals, was because Andy had them. It certainly wasn’t because he had a troop advantage. In fact, it was three attacking to three defending.

“I attack the Urals from Siberia.”

Andy grabbed the defense dice, as Dwight picked up the offensive ones, and they both rolled.

“Ohhhh….show me round your snow peaked mountains way down south….” Andy began to sing slightly too loudly. Jim was so distracted by the sudden interruption that he hesitated to glance down at the result of the rolls. Though considering that Andy was singing….

He looked over to see Dwight remove two soldiers, leaving him with only one that could attack.

“Again.” Dwight said sternly, his eyes completely focused on the Siberian-Ural border.

“What? You’ve got one soldier left you can attack with.” Andy stopped singing, and asked incredulously.

“Which means I can attack.”

With a shrug of his shoulders, Andy picked up the defense dice and rolled a 3 and 2.

Jim looked over to see Dwight, his eyes wide as he picked up his one and only attack die. He held it in his hand for a moment, and muttered something under his breath. He rolled it, and it skipped, bounced, and ultimately came up a 5.

“Yes!” Dwight air-punched excitedly. “Where’s your singing now, Andy?”

Jim looked over to see Andy hunched over the table, supported by his elbows, eyeing the attack die like a lion eyes a gazelle…or like he normally eyed most of the women in the office generally.

“Again, Bernard.” Dwight said confidently.

Without a word, or even an expression, Andy picked up his two defense dice and rolled them, again. This time they came up 5, 1.

Jim looked bemused over at Dwight, knowing that he needed to roll a 6 to win this round. Once again, with a reverent motion, he picked up the die, muttered something, and rolled.

“Six! The Force is balancing itself out, Andy. You can’t stop it.”

Andy didn’t respond again, he just continued to look silently dumbstruck at the turn of events. Jim, however, was not so numb.

“Did you just reference Star Wars?….as a reason for the fact that you rolled a six?”

“Fact. In 2001, almost four hundred thousand people identified their religion as Jedi in a census study in England and Wales.”

He wasn’t sure exactly how to respond to that, and simply nodded to Dwight, who in turn, smiled in victory and looked back across the table at Andy.

“Again.”

Andy reluctantly picked up his last defense die, and this time he rolled it simultaneously with Dwight.

The dice slid across the board, colliding with each other. They both came up as 1s. Andy had won.

“…and Moscow girls make me sing and shout…That Georgia’s always on my…

“Andy”

“….my my my my….”

Jim rolled his eyes. “Andy.”

“….my my my my….mind!”

Dwight stood up immediately from his chair, and crossed his arms dejectedly. Jim thought he was about to sit back down, but he turned around, paced for a second, and then announced.

“Break…I need, a, um, break.” And then, he was gone.

Andy smiled, and removed Dwight’s soldier from Siberia, leaving him with the requisite one defending piece. He turned and smiled at Jim.

“This is really my game today, first Greenland and now the Urals.”

Jim nodded wide-eyed, but he had a pressing question on his mind. “Yeah…..um, are you going to sing geographically significant songs every time you have a battle with Dwight?”

Andy paused to consider the question but then smiled again.

“No, of course not. If Dwight does attack Egypt, I’ve Toto ready for you, Tuna.”

“Oh boy.”