When she steps into the water, Pam feels her pulse drop from her throat all the way to her feet. When she hears Jim say, “How are your feet?” she feels her pulse come back up again.

“Medium rare, thanks,” she manages. In another universe—one where she hadn’t said I can’t, and one where he hadn’t pulled away and walked out the door—she would have made a joke about how she cooked her feet like Michael did, and Jim would have laughed. In this universe, though, he simply smiled. Which is enough, she thinks.

            The sand shifts and Pam knows he’s padding closer to the water. She thinks for a moment, wildly, that she can run from this. It’s cold tonight—way too cold for just a bikini top and a zip-up sweatshirt— and she thinks for a second, wildly, that maybe the temperature will drop a little more and the lake will freeze, and she’ll glide across the ice and run away, run away from another conversation, another missed chance, another mistake.

            The lake laps at her toes. She exhales as she hears him take a sharp breath in, and she waits.

“The real reason that I went to Stamford,” Jim says carefully, “was because I wanted to be… not here.”

            “I know.” And she does, really.

            “And even though I came back,” he continues, “I just feel like I’ve never really… come back.”

            Pam swallows. “Well, I wish you would,” she says, and there it is. She looks at Jim plainly.

            They’re quiet for a few moments. She almost looks away, but she doesn’t. She won’t let herself.

            “You want to know what I was most excited about, coming back to Scranton?” Jim asks, and she nods. “Don’t laugh,” he warns.

            “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

            “Okay. Well— I was most excited to be able to pull pranks on Dwight again.”

A laugh bubbles from her mouth, lighter than the air around them.

“You said you wouldn’t laugh!” he protests.

 “I’m sorry! I just—that, of all things?”

He smiles and shakes his head. “I wasn’t finished,” he says gently, and her throat dries up again. “In Stamford, I decided to mess with Andy a few times. Thought it might scratch that itch. But when I put Andy’s calculator in Jell-O, it wasn’t the same.”

“Probably because he didn’t file a complaint with Toby.” She goes for deadpan, but the rasp of her voice gives her away.

“Maybe. Or,” he begins, “maybe it was because I didn’t hear you laughing from your desk when he did. Because that was the best part, Pam. Every time.”

Pam looks down. Her feet are throbbing. “Jim—”

“You don’t have to say anything back. I just wanted you to know.”

She closes her eyes, turning to face the lake. All she hears is her breathing and his, and the soft push-pull of the water as a cool breeze runs across its surface. She shivers.

Pam hears Jim kick off his shoes and step into the water before she feels him come up behind her. His chest just barely brushes her shoulder blades, and her breath catches. She hears him exhale shakily. For a few moments, they’re still. Until Pam leans back ever so slightly to rest her head underneath his chin, and she feels him against her, warm and solid and here. He brings a hand up to rest on her waist, gentle but unmistakably. She smothers a sigh before turning to face him.

“Pam,” he says, more of a question than a statement, and she wraps her arms around his neck.

“You came back,” she whispers.

When Pam kisses him, Jim doesn’t think about all the moments in Stamford he spent remembering how she’d looked in that shimmering periwinkle dress, or how warm her back had been. No—this time, when she kisses him, he does nothing but let his eyes flutter shut and let all he feels for her wash over him.

Eventually, she pulls away, and he takes in the sweet air between their mouths.

“Hi,” he murmurs, and he feels her smile against his mouth.

“Hi,” she breathes, her voice caught somewhere between a rasp and a sigh. Something deep in the pit of his stomach swells with affection, and his self-control evaporates.

He brings his lips back to hers, harder this time, and brushes his tongue against her bottom lip. His hands thread in her hair, cradling her head, and she sighs into his mouth. A second later, he feels her mouth open, and her tongue meets his. He trails his hands down her back to rest on her waist where her sweatshirt had ridden up to find smooth skin, which he strokes with the pads of his fingers. She moans softly and arches her back, and Jim marvels at the effect just the lightest touch has on her. Then, she sucks gently on his bottom lip, and he groans into her mouth and holds her even tighter against him.

With some difficulty, he pulls away from her mouth and crushes his lips against her neck, pressing kisses to the delicate hollow of her throat, savoring every noise she makes. He runs his hands up and down her sides underneath her sweatshirt. His fingers make contact with thin straps, and he can’t see them but he knows they’re brown and stretched across her sides and he can’t think anymore, he can only feel.

But then he hears her say his name suddenly, and he removes his hands immediately, eyes wide. “I’m sorry,” he says, cursing himself for being too eager. “God, I’m sorry, Pam, I should’ve—”

Pam silences him with her mouth, kissing him deeply. She covered his hands with her own and brings them back up to cover her ribs.

“This is okay?” he asks almost disbelievingly.

“Yes. I want this.” She stroked the backs up of his hands with her thumb, and he feels a lump form in his throat before she slides a hand onto his jaw. “I want you.” He leans into her touch, head heavy, and swallows a shuddering sigh as she looks into his eyes, seeing the tears that had gathered there.

“Oh, Jim—” Pam begins, and he sees her eyes well up, too. She throws her arms around his neck like she did when he walked into the office his first day back, and he thanks his lucky stars that he can take her in his arms and bring her as close as he wants now, knowing that she wants it too.

She wants it too, he remembers with his words. Then, he remembers with his hands.