Jim lounged against the corridor wall and amused himself by attempting to imagine what the same corridor would look like in zero-G, when he could choose any orientation. Would it be funnier if the door was in the floor or on the ceiling? How would it feel to be upside down? Because right now he felt pretty damn upside down; he couldn’t be sure what was going on with Pam (though he thought it had to be something good—for him that was, in that he thought it was bad for Roy, and he was afraid possibly not good for Pam either). He wasn’t sure what his place in her life was, although he’d be damned if it wasn’t going to at least be “best friend.” Hopefully more.

But he couldn’t count on that. He would just have to focus on being the best friend to her that he could be—after all, she was definitely aware by now of how he felt about her, and he didn’t think she’d forget that quickly. So he tried to keep his heart-rate down, and appear relaxed. Because if he appeared calm, maybe, somehow, he’d be calm. And that would be a nice change.

Try as he might, though, his heart-rate spiked back up as the door started to open. For a fleeting moment he worried that Roy was about to step through the door and deck him—but before he could even move off the wall he realized that was not the case. It was Pam stepping out of the Almanac, datasleeve to her face as she finished dictating some kind of message.

“…said he was going back, so he might be joining you. Comms out.” She bounced over toward him—literally bounced, pushing herself off the far wall and turning on a dime to stand in front of him. “Hi Jim.”

He cleared his throat. “Uh, hey Pam.” His treacherous hand slid up behind the back of his head to rub at his neck.

She mimicked his gesture. “What’s up with this, Jim?”

His hand stilled. “What?”

She grinned. “Come on Halpert. What’s with the nervous tic? Afraid I’m going to bite?”

One of the problems with having told Pam how he felt about her was that now he was apparently incapable of shutting off the overactive part of his brain that thought about her sexually. It wasn’t like he had never thought about Pam that way. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about her that way in fact. Pretty much every night in his berth. Alone. A lot of nights before they took off on this journey, too. But he had always been able to shut it off when they were together, or at least shut it down enough to make sure that he never said or did anything out of line. Now, though, he couldn’t help but think about the ways, times, and places he would most definitely not object to her choosing to bite him, and now he was blushing and he still hadn’t said anything and this was going to be so awkward.

Was she…laughing at him?

She was definitely laughing at him.

It was not helping the blush.

Well, with embarrassment as with black holes, the only way out was through. “Just wondering how you’re doing.”

“Honestly, Jim?” She twirled in a little circle as her datasleeve pinged with an incoming message (which she ignored). She reached out to touch his arm to stop her angular momentum and stood still in front of him again. It felt like his skin burned where she touched it, though his suit’s feedback informed him this was merely a psychological manifestation because his ambient temperature was unchanged. He focused instead on her face, which broke into a gigantic grin. “I’m great.”

He stared into her eyes. “Really?” He hoped his voice hadn’t cracked. It probably had. Just his luck.

“Really, truly.” For a brief moment he was terribly worried that she and Roy had patched everything up—after all, the last time he’d seen her look this happy was when she heard that Roy had set a date. What if all this happiness was just because she’d found a way to excuse Roy’s boorishness yet again, and had decided that getting married was, once again, the most exciting thing in the world. Something of this must have showed in his face, because she tightened her grip on his arm and moved her head slightly to ensure eye contact. “Do you know why I’m happy, Jim?”

“No?” He hadn’t meant it as a question, but apparently his voice wasn’t actually doing what he wanted it to do anymore.

“Come on, Jim.” She reached out and grabbed his other arm; it was all he could do to stop from pulling her into his arms. “You know me better than anyone.” She laughed. “Ask my mom.”

“What?” This was definitely a confusing conversation, and he wasn’t sure he would have been up for a more straightforward conversation, given the way her close proximity was affecting him.

“Never mind. Tell you later.” She smiled again, not a grin this time but the kind of wide smile he mentally associated with her bending over a sheet of paper, sketching or coloring something. “Just guess, Jim. Guess why I’m happy.”

“Uh…you really, really like bad beer?”

“Jim.”

“Fine…” He started to tread lightly in the direction he was most afraid of. Best to know the worst first. But something held him back from being too direct—probably the months and years of beating around the bush before yesterday’s ‘I’m in love with you.’ “You’re happy because you’re getting something you want.”

“Right!” She squeezed his arm again, both arms, actually this time, and he was beginning to worry what it might be like if he ever did get to do anything more intensely physical with her, because just that little squeezing contact was enough to make him feel like he was having a heart attack. “I get to be free.”

“Free?” Did she mean what he thought she meant.

“Free.” She nodded, and suddenly (he was never sure, even later, exactly how—but then again, movement in low-G was often surprising to the human eye, evolved as it was for full-G maneuvers in which mass played such a big role) she was cuddled up against his chest.

He found it very difficult to pay attention to her words with her right there, but something told him they were probably crucially important, so he worked hard to keep his mind off her body and on her mouth. Or her words—because focusing on her mouth was if anything more dangerous to his ability to keep his mind on what she was saying.

Apparently Pam was in a reflective mood as she nestled into his arms, ignoring another ping on her datasleeve. “I think this had been a long time coming, honestly.” She shrugged, which produced a very interesting sensation that Jim had a very difficult time not responding to. “And not just because he was down in the Warehouse while I was up here. Even before that he…had changed. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that I had. He’s still the same guy he was when we got out of the crèche, or maybe a little worse for wear—after all, when you don’t change for that long, sometimes the world changes around you and it makes the things you do and say seem different. And I changed with that world, or maybe even changed beyond it, thanks to you and the rest of the crew. I became not just Pammy, not just even Pam, but Comms. I got a purpose here, while Roy just got a sleeper car to a new planet. So I don’t feel sad, even if I feel like I ought to. I just feel free. And I like that. I like that I get to be me, no Roy, no obligation, just me.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder while Jim tried to process what she was telling him. On the one hand, she was definitely broken up with Roy. Score one for Team Jim. But on the other…she liked being free. “No obligation.” She didn’t want him. Score negative million for Team Jim.

But she was still snuggling into his arms. He wasn’t sure where that left the score. But it left Jim Halpert in a pleasant muddle.  One that he should probably just enjoy, but then again, when had he been good at keeping his mouth shut? Besides every time he’d thought of telling Pam how he thought before last night, that is. But he was always a sucker for a joke—and he could tell that Pam was waiting for some kind of response.

“I’m happy for you.” And he was. He’d made up his mind to be happy for her even if she married Roy—he couldn’t help but be happy for her now that she wasn’t, even if that meant she didn’t want to be with him. But he couldn’t stop himself from pushing, just a little. He supposed he’d evolved past just keeping his mouth shut when it came to Pam. “So…I suppose that means you won’t be needing that bridal room after all, huh?”

“Not yet, anyway.” She was still leaning against his shoulder. “But it was a nice gesture.” She suddenly whirled in his arms to face him, a giant grin across her face. “Ohmigod, we should totally use that tech for a prank on Dwight!”

“Way ahead of you, Beesly.” He described the plan he’d had in place before deciding to use it for her wedding instead. She nodded along, still not moving from between his arms, and bounced with glee when he mentioned the possibility of bringing in the walls in previously unpartitionable space so slowly that Dwight wouldn’t notice them coming up. The bouncing was…rather distracting, but he managed to keep describing the prank. “And then…”

“We drop all the walls!”

“Exactly.” He smiled down at her.

“And we get Captain Scott…”

“…who won’t have been paying attention to any of this, naturally…”

“…to tell him that there never were any walls in the first place.” She hopped up and kissed his cheek. “Have I told you recently that you’re amazing?”

“Uh…not recently, no.”

“You’re amazing.”

“Thanks.” He was blushing again.

“My pleasure.”

Her datasleeve let forth another plaintive ping, and he couldn’t help himself. “You ever planning to get one of those, or…”

“Oh, it’s just Ice.”

“So? Are you, or are you not, a communications officer, Comms?”

“Since when do you call me Comms, Lieutenant?”

He shrugged. “First time for everything, right? Why does Ice keep pinging you?”

This time, she blushed. “Probably because I told her Roy and I broke up and he was looking to go back in the Warehouse and then hung up on her.”

He stared at her. “You hung up on Ice after dropping that juicy tidbit?”

“…Yeah.”

“You should probably answer.” She looked a question at him and he shrugged. “She’ll only keep pinging you if you don’t.” He finally gave in to what his instincts had been screaming at him to do ever since she touched him and folded her in his arms. “I’ll be right here while you do, for moral support.”