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I don't know why suddenly lately I'm writing so much fluff about Jim and Pam and the two of them cuddling. But what the hey, I'll go with it.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

This time, it's different.

(The headlights of a passing car rake across the wall of Pam's bedroom, highlighting photographs, posters, the half-open door to the rest of her apartment. He sighs and turns in the sheets, feeling them cool and crisp against his sweaty body. She sleeps, mouth half-open, beside him.)

Every night has been glorious, of course, since he and Pam got together. Searing, sizzling, even incandescent. The sex is fantastic, as he knew it would be, not just because she's beautiful and she turns him on just smiling, fully clothed, but because there's an intimacy between them that has nothing to do with sex.

(He props himself on one elbow, looking down at the curve of her back and hip in the moonlight. She is cool. Serene. Remote. Yet as easily accessible as his hand. He wants to touch her, but he doesn't want to wake her, so he holds back. It's something he's used to doing.)

She knows him. She really, really knows him. Katy didn't know him. Karen knew some of him, but not all of him, and what she knew, she wanted to change. There was always something off, something missing, something they didn't get about him. It hurt. Many nights he lay awake and wondered if there was something terribly wrong with him, some reason he couldn't be fully loved as who he was, rather than who they wanted him to be. He would lie awake, his body sated and his mind racing, wondering why somehow there just was no connection beyond the physical, and there should have been. Karen should have been every man's dream, but for him, she just ... wasn't.

(She sighs and turns in her sleep, winding the sheet about her like a cocoon. He knows she will emerge from it in the morning as beautiful as a butterfly, blinking sleepily, warm and rosy. He always tries to wake up ahead of her so he can watch this emergence.)

It's a little scary, sometimes. She knows him, and she does not--they haven't been together outside the office very long, and he's discovering odd things about her, unexpected things, but still delightful. Like her fear of dogs and her awkwardness around children, her lack of shyness in the bedroom and her utter incompetence in the kitchen. She has strong opinions about art and politics, and he's learned to tread warily there. But whereas it upset him to discover areas of dissonance with Karen and Katy and Brenda and all the other women in his life, with Pam it becomes an adventure. He feels like an explorer, an Indiana Jones. Maybe he should buy a fedora.

(A square of moonlight creeps across the floor, highlighting his shoes next to her bed. That evidence of familiarity, of domesticity, used to give him a panicky feeling in his chest. Not anymore. It feels safe. Warm. It feels right.)

He can already feel them changing. He can feel himself changing. It's not conscious, it's a response to her. Little adjustments, little accomodations he wasn't willing to make, couldn't make, for anyone else. But if she needs more of the bed than she's entitled to, he scoots over. If she needs half an hour in the shower, he waits. If she wakes from a nightmare and has to talk herself down for an hour, he's happy to listen. If she refuses to talk about work until after they've been home for an hour, he understands. He never did these things for other lovers, but it comes naturally to him now. And he's seen her changing, too. She made a place for his shaving stuff in her bathroom, quietly hung some coat hangers in her closet for him, changed her laundry detergent when it gave him a rash from her sheets. They are settling in together. It feels like the beginning of something ... forever. Something that will last. He thinks about looking at her over a dinner table ten years from now, and knows she will have the same laughter in her eyes. He thinks about the future, and for the first time, the idea of leaving Dunder-Mifflin doesn't set off hushed alarms in his head. No matter where he goes from now on, she'll be with him. He'll be with her. He knows that, deeper than bone. So, he can look at a different future, one whose ten-year plan doesn't have to account for a gaping hole in his heart.

(A tiny, faint snore from Pam brings a smile to his face. He told her one morning that she snored and she got beautifully pink. He reaches over and gently nudges her cheek, so soft. She turns her head to the side in her sleep and the snore goes away. Her hair is spread out across the pillow and he brushes a hand across it, sees the gleam of her tiny earring in her ear.)

A huge yawn catches him, and he glances at the clock. Three more hours until they have to get up, climb out of this warm nest and face the Dwights and Angelas of the world. He slides down into the sheets, curls an arm around her. She doesn't wake, but in her sleep her body molds itself against his, seeking comfort and security against his frame. He puts his face in her hair and closes his eyes.

Home.



NeverEnoughJam is the author of 24 other stories.
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