“I just don’t understand….”

Pam tried not to sigh too loudly at Michael’s despondently whiny voice as she drove everyone back to work from the job fair.

“….Dunder-Mifflin is like the Chuck E. Cheeses of workplaces, you know?” She looked back in her rear-view mirror and saw his face smushed up against the window as he stared out of it.

“I think Chuck E. Cheese is the Chuck E. Cheeses of workplaces Michael.” Oscar responded casually, his familiarity with Michael removing any sense of frustration in his voice.

“Fine Oscar. Then Dunder-Mifflin is the Scranton-based paper seller of Chuck E. Cheeses, okay?” Michael snapped, and Pam felt a light kick against her seat. She looked back in the mirror again and saw him bring his knees up to his chin, and wrap his arms around his legs.

“God, I mean….I told them about the Dundies! And the parties! I don’t know….maybe we needed younger eye-candy…”

“Why don’t we listen to some music?” She interrupted immediately, stopping Michael in mid-insult.

Because if she had to listen to one more goddamn comment from him today about how she looked, or didn’t look….or what flavor of eye-candy she was, she was going to drop him by the side of the road and make him take the bus.

First, she had been a Mounds (for obvious reasons)

Then Nerds (after he asked if she was going to wear her glasses to the job fair)

Then a Peep (because they were part of Darryl’s “crew”)

Then a Chunky (So maybe she hadn’t worked out quite as much now that she was with Jim…so what?)

And, lastly, a Cadbury Crème Egg (…….she was pretty sure she didn’t want to think to hard about that one.)

Actually, on second thought, maybe instead of riding it, he’d get hit with the bus…..no that was too mean.

Her finger was poised over the button for the CD player when she remembered that the disc inside was a mix Jim had made for her that was kind of romantic. Knowing better, she turned the radio on instead.

It didn’t stop him.

"Hey….hey Darryl, you get anyone for the warehouse?”

“No, Mike…guess they’re all going to college.” Pam, Oscar, and the fire hydrant that sat next to them as they stopped at a red light noted Darryl’s sarcasm….however….

“Man, that sucks. It sucks! You know? God, college is for losers anyway, I didn’t need it…and I turned out great. Pam…”

Suddenly Michael and his coffee breath were both dangerously close to her neck. “….didn’t go either! She turned out, well, to be a really good receptionist….except when she lies to me about fake calls so I can’t tell her about NCIS.”

“Michael, that was one time—

“It’s a great show, Pam! You should see the woman on it, I think she’s Mexican…or Latino or something. No offense Oscar.”

“What?” Pam heard Oscar bewilderingly jump back into the conversation. She figured he had probably tuned Michael out for self-preservation.

“Nothing. Wait. What was I saying?”

Nobody spoke, or moved.

“Uh…oh, right, the warehouse.” Michael pushed back from his position of hugging the back of her headrest, and landed back with a plop in the backseat. “Man, we keep losing people down there. Pam?”

“What?”

“Make sure you don’t date anyone else from the warehouse, okay? Even as a rebound thing to get over Jim. We can’t afford it.”

Pam bit her bottom lip to stop herself from saying something she knew that she’d regret later after it made Michael cry. Instead, she pushed down harder on the accelerator, and tried to think about Jim and how the sales call had gone….and not about how much she couldn’t afford a ticket for speeding or that to even get an internship she needed to learn like six different design programs.

---

---

Finally.

That was really the thing that kept going through Jim’s mind. Finally something had gone right….well, professionally at least. He wasn’t asking for much, honestly, just to be employed and have some security before he asked Pam to marry him.

Because he really couldn’t imagine the conversation with her parents if he asked for their permission after being fired because Ryan was jealous he’d talked to David Wallace.

Well, maybe he could, but it wouldn’t end well….

“Bob…..Lindsey…..I’d like your blessing to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

“Hmmm…well, that’s interesting Jim….would you move into a new place if you got engaged?”

“Oh, no Bob. I’d actually move in with her, because I got evicted from my place….. because I’m unemployed.”

“So you’d both be living on Pam’s receptionist salary?”

“Um…..yeah, pretty much.”

“Ah. Then no. You know at least Roy was employed…… Also….you’re not good enough for our daughter…….And get the hell out of our house….”

Yeah…that was pretty much how he imagined it going. At least now he had a big sale to use against Ryan’s claim he wasn’t getting as much work done as he should. Still, all that really mattered was what it meant for them.

“Tuna, tuna, tuna…” Andy and Kevin’s simultaneous tuna-ing snapped him from his thoughts, and he looked down at the recently opened beer in his hand.

“You, Tuna Von Halpert, rocked that sale. It was like Glengerry Glen Ross on that golf course.” Andy smiled as he spoke, and reached out to pat him on the shoulder, but just as he was about to he remembered that his entire hand was blistered. Instead, he hovered his hand awkwardly over him for a moment, and then extended his middle finger down and poked him twice.

Jim smiled reflexively, not being able to contain his happiness at being able to close the deal. It felt different, but good, to actually try at something and succeed. He took a sip of his beer, and nodded.

“Yeah, about the course….are you, uh, you know….okay?” He squinted slightly in painful memory of Andy’s golf-cart kamikaze into the bunker.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I once fell over the side of my father’s yacht throwing Brie at dolphins. So….

“Wow” Jim spoke into his bottle, which echoed it back.

“….yeah, and that was like thirty feet.” He nodded matter-of-factly,

“Right, well—

“….Plus, it’s the fall that will probably kill you, right?” Andy added with a slightly too emphatic chuckle that quickly gave way to silence in the empty office.

Jim thoughtfully took another, slightly larger, slightly more bracing, sip of his beer, before answering. “You, uh, been watching a lot of movies lately, Andy?”

“Mmmm, yeah. I’ve been Netflixing a lot.”

“Oh, cool, that’s—

“I found if you put Angela in front of the plasma with a movie that has talking animals and give her some ice cream she’s happy for like two hours. Which is nice…….‘cause then that’s two hours she can’t complain about….everything else.”

“Women are nothing but trouble.” Kevin said, stumbling back into the middle of the conversation after noticing its existence…….coincidentally his beer was empty. “After Stacey, I decided I’m giving up on relationships….just one night stands for me now.”

“Niiiice.” Andy reached over and fist-pounded Kevin. “I’d totally take that with Angela.”

“Wha-” but Jim stopped himself, not wanting to delve any deeper into whatever that was. Instead, he thought about how lucky he was to be with Pam, which admittedly he probably would have done anyway even without the examples in front of him.

Still, it just reminded him even more of how completely shitty life could be when you weren’t with the person you loved.

Instead you were Kevin…..somehow picking up women, with what was probably a lot of alcohol, and having one night stands.

Or you were Andy, bribing your girlfriend with food and talking kittens just so you didn’t have to argue for a while.

Or you were the person he had been, with someone you didn’t love, pretending that you did or could, and ultimately being a complete asshole to them.

But that didn’t matter anymore, he knew, because finally he had what he wanted. It didn’t matter to him right now that he was still just a paper salesman with Dunder-Mifflin, what mattered was that he was a paper salesman with enough money to marry the woman he so desperately wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Finally.