Jim finally arrives at Dunder Mifflin, where he oddly feels at peace.  He walks over to his wife, who gives him a small smile as he pecs her on the lips.

Dwight looks up and down at him as he gets situated, “So, Pam told me you’ve come crawling back.”

“That’s not what I said,” Pam quietly defends herself.

“I wouldn’t say crawling,” Jim jokes as he sits down, “More like…”

“Graveling?”

“Sure.”

“Psh, whatever.”  Dwight tries to convey how little he cares, even though he obviously totally does.

“Well, now I’ll be getting all my clients back,” Jim says proudly, “and then I’ll get even more.”

“Oh, really?” Dwight asks him condescendingly.

“Really.”

Dwight scoffs, “Please.  Like that’ll happen.  You have no drive, no initiative.  All you do is sit there with your gelled hair, making sarcastic quips all day.”

Pam listens to the conversation, trying to keep from breaking down.  He’s right, that is what Jim does all day.  He could be making his own idea a reality.  But no, best to stay here and do nothing because she prefers Scranton, she thinks that Athlead isn’t worth it, and she’s keeping him from his dream.  She breathes out her anxieties, hoping she’ll be fine, but Dwight just has to antagonize Jim one more time.

“You’ll be lucky if you’re out of here by the age of 70.”

She gets up and hurries out the door.

She knows that Jim will follow her down the stairwell, but what should she say to him?  “Sorry I deprived you of this amazing opportunity”?  “Thank you for giving up your passion project for me”?  “I hope you enjoy being in this dead-end job forever”?

She stands there, halfway down, swallowing her emotions and doing everything she can to not break.

“Hey,” he reaches her.

“Hi.”  It’s all she can say to him.

“Are you alright?  What’s going on?”

The concern on his face… she can tell all he wants to do is to help, to prove to her that he loves her and he’ll do anything to make her happy.  But what worries her is that she’s not doing enough to make him happy.  That she isn’t enough.

She can’t stop it at this point, “I’m so sorry, Jim…”

“Hey…” he gathers her in his arms as she starts to cry into his shoulder.  After a bit, they ease away and he gently cups her face to wipe her tears.  “What’s wrong?”

“It-it just hurts,” she laments.

“What hurts?”

“Seeing you give up this huge opportunity for me.”

He’s confused.  This is what she wants, isn’t it?  “Pam, I’m doing it for us.”

“You shouldn’t have to.  You’re so smart and talented and I’m afraid that I’m keeping you from your dream.”

“Pam—”

“I would never want to hold you back, especially after you supported me through Pratt and sales and everything else.  You deserve better than this, Jim, and I’m afraid you’ll realize that and…”

“And what?”

She starts to cry again, “You’ll start to resent me.”

He hugs her again, trying his best to calm her down, wanting to get rid of all this fear and doubt.  How else can he tell her exactly what she needs to hear?  He’s not sure, but he has to try his best.

He pulls back and gently rubs her shoulders as she attempts to control her emotions.  “Pam, listen to me,” he starts, “I could keep working at Athlead.  I could keep busting my ass to gain investments and look for potential clients.  I could keep working with Doctor J and all my childhood heroes.  But I won’t, because none of that means a damn thing if I don’t have you.”

She knows he’s being genuine, he does want her.  But he wants Athlead too (at least part of him does), and she wants to give him that.  She just wishes she had the wherewithal to take on everything like she had to before, knowing it’ll only hurt them both even more if she tried.  But she can’t forget the look in his eye when he first told her about it six months ago, he was so excited.  Despite all the shit he put her through, she wished it would have worked out, too.

“I’m here for you now, like I should have been,” he continues, “I want to be here for you.  The only thing that matters to me, that’s always mattered, is you.”

She looks down, still ashamed of herself, “I just want you to be happy,” she whispers.

“You already make me happy,” he reassures, gently lifting her head up, “This is exactly where I want to be, and even if it takes the rest of our lives, I’ll prove that to you.”  He gives her another kiss, and she realizes how badly she missed this when she returns it.  He then gets an idea, “Hey, how about you let your mom keep the kids tonight so we can spend some time alone?”

“I… I’d like that.”

“And then we can spend the weekend with the kids.  I’ll have my phone off the whole time.”

“That sounds nice.”

He starts to smile, “Doesn’t it?”  She starts to smile as well, the first genuine smile she’s expressed today.  He embraces her yet again, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“And I promise you, everything will be okay.”

He’s said this before, many times before, but this time she believes him.

A few hours later, the workday ends.  Pam, ready to leave, gets up while Jim has to finish one more call.

“One moment, please,” Jim tells the person on the other line.  He turns to Pam, “I’ll meet you downstairs,” he lets her know quietly.  She nods and leaves, just wanting the day to be over already.

Jim wraps up his call and gets up to leave when

“Jim.”

He turns to Dwight.

“Before you leave, I want to apologize for my behavior earlier today.  You make a fine salesman.”

Jim feels like he’s dreaming.  A compliment about his sales… from Dwight?

“Wow.  Thanks, man,” he responds sincerely as he puts on his jacket.

“You’re welcome,” Dwight almost doesn’t want to say this aloud, but he can’t deny it, “And Jim?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s good to have you back.”

Jim smiles, “Good to be back.”

Dwight grants Jim a small smile back as the latter turns around and departs.

Helene happily agreed to keep the kids.  She could almost hear the relief in Pam’s voice as she told her that Jim’s home now, really home.  Cece and Phillip miss their Daddy, but Mommy reassured them both that he’s back and will be around a lot more often.  Cece also gave Pam a great idea, a surprise for Daddy.  She loves it.

As soon as the couple walk in the house, they immediately take to the bed, just so they can sleep the whole day off.  It was only a few hours, but they both feel far more rested afterwards.  When they wake up, they finish off that last DiGiorno pizza before it gets freezer-burned.  Jim’s usually not a fan, but they don’t have the energy to go out and, after all the stress and deadlines, the taste of sauce and cheese on cardboard never felt so heavenly.

It’s 9:15 PM, and Pam can hardly believe that she’s sitting in Jim’s lap, their arms wrapped around each other, mindlessly watching what’s on.  For the past month, she’d feel cold and uncomfortable around this time, but now she’s never felt more at ease.

She kisses his cheek, “I missed this,” she whispers.

“Me, too,” he responds.

She doesn’t want to ruin the mood, but she needs to say something, just so they can get everything out of the way.

“I want to ask you something about work, and then I’ll let it go, I promise.”

“Sure,” he responds casually.

“I was honest with you when I said how I felt about Philly.”

“Right.”

“And I want you to be honest with me.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to keep working at Dunder Mifflin?”

“…I don’t know,” he answers, “I wouldn’t mind working in another department or something, but being a salesman, it’s just… boring.  Like mind-numbingly boring.  Before I called them and accepted the job, throughout the whole day, I felt trapped.  Like I needed an escape.”

“I never knew you felt that way.”

“I never said anything.  Especially since you seem so happy with our lives here in Scranton.  I guess I went for Athlead because it was something different.  It was new and exciting and something I’ve always dreamed of.  And it was, for a while.  Despite all the fun I had, the longer I worked, the more hectic it was.  I was under constant stress.  I actually had to keep tabs on my blood pressure.”

“Really?  It was that bad?”

“Yeah,” he admits, “I’m definitely not going to miss sales if I decide to move on, but part of me isn’t going to miss Athlead, either.”

Pam gets a determined look on her face, “Well, you will move on,” she says, “I’m not about to let you stay at a boring job for the rest of your life.  You said that you’re not gonna sacrifice my happiness for yours, but I’m not about to let you sacrifice your happiness for mine, either.”

“I’m not sacrificing anything.  I’m fine where I am.”

“You deserve better than ‘fine,’ Jim.  Let’s look for something you’d love, something that you can be proud of.  I know there’s not a lot of options here in Scranton, but there’s gotta be—”

“Pam, baby,” he stops her running thoughts, “I appreciate it.  I really do.  But for the next 48 hours, I don’t even want to think about my job, either of them.  It’s been weeks since I’ve got to spend any time with my wife and kids and I wanna spend as much time with all three as I can before I have to get up Monday morning.  So let’s just table the discussion for now, okay?”

She starts to smile again, “Okay.”  Considering the past 24 hours, she agrees that it’s better to just not speak about it for a while.

“Good, because there are other activities we could be doing right now,” he gives her that smile, the one she can’t get enough of.

“Oh?” she asks playfully, “And what other activities would those be?”

“Allow me to show you.”  He carries her back to their bedroom, her giggling all the way.

“Daddy!”

Little Cecelia, wearing her puffed-up purple coat and bows in her hair, runs in the arms of her father as soon as her feet touch the ground, completely ignoring her mother.  Pam wasn’t offended, she knew how badly Cece missed him.

Jim kneels down and embraces his daughter, squeezing her tightly, and gives her a big kiss on her cheek.  “I missed you so much,” he says.

“I missed you,” she says happily.

As Jim gets back up, Pam walks over with Phillip, all bundled up.  “He missed you, too,” she says, handing over their son to him and smiling wide.

“Hey, buddy,” he whispers to him.  Phil coos in response, resting his head on Jim’s shoulder.  He nearly cries, realizing how close he was to losing all of this.  The very sight of this has Pam barely holding back tears herself.  “Come on, let’s get you two inside,” he says.

Cece hurries to the front door and Jim’s close behind, Phil in tow.  Helene walks up to Pam and she hugs her.

“Thank you so much, Mom.”

“Of course, I’m glad I could help,” as the ease away, Helene asks, “How are things?”

“Things are… better,” Pam reports, “Not a hundred percent, but certainly better than they were.”

“That’s great,” Helene rubs her daughter’s arm in comfort, “You have no reason to feel guilty.”

Pam nods, “I know.”