Author's Note: This is a birthday gift for my good friend who showed me Paperman a few years ago. I wasn't sure how to write about two characters who never really spoke and whose histories were undisclosed. But, by doing some research, I found out that the characters had names, and that the man is actually named after and inspired by George Bailey, the protagonist of one of my favorite movies, It's A Wonderful Life. Then the headcanons came rolling out, and this was the result. Reviews, especially suggestions for improvement, would be greatly appreciated. Enjoy!


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George didn't believe in coincidences. He couldn't buy the idea of randomness defying odds. Although the devastation of the world wars and the Holocaust made it difficult to believe in God's control over human events, there were certain circumstances that could not be explained unless something or Someone was pulling strings.

He figured that there had to be something bigger at work, for him to end up just one or two hundred feet from the woman he had encountered that very morning. Not that he didn't believe in free will—there was plenty of room for that, when it was in his hands to decide whether or not to seek the commuter's attention, to fold the forms into airplanes, to run out of the office. There was also another option: he could go to that building and wait in the lobby until she came out. But George had no idea how long she would be, and his boss might fire him for being absent for too long without a documented excuse.

Maybe it wasn't imperative for him to connect with her again. If she often made the same commute, their paths might cross again. But what he saw through the window of the building next door looked more like an interview or conference than an everyday work routine. If she was only visiting that part of New York on that particular day, they might never see each other again.

He had to at least establish the option of them … having some kind of relationship. If she wanted nothing to do with him, that was fine, so long as they acknowledged that knowing each other had been a possibility.

When he bolted out of the office—knowing that, by doing so, he was forfeiting his job—and lost sight of her in the busy street, he gave up hope, let his rekindled faith flicker out.

Then, when he was feeling lower than he had ever been in his life, the airplanes—the fruits of his determination—took matters into their own hands. Or perhaps, more accurately, they fell into Someone's wise, guiding hands.


Meg's parents always said makeup was vain, indulgent, superficial, a waste of money and materials and time.

Meg didn't seeing that way. For her, it was a way to bring some color into the often too bleak atmosphere of gray offices in a gray city.

She gave it up for periods of time, when resources and funds were short. But once rationing ended and finances improved, she took it up again. It made her feel colorful and confident, which was helpful when she tried to look for work.

She never felt embarrassed about it, until she saw her lipstick imprinted on her fellow commuter's paper. She was grateful, though, that it was a blank form, not something important that he would have to show other people. How awkward that would have been for him!

Meg put him out of her mind during her interview, but once she was outside she thought about him again. She had him in mind when she walked up to the flower stand. She only recognized the paper airplane that landed among the bouquets by the mark of her lipstick in that unintended kiss.

(In the future, Meg continued to wear makeup, but from that day forward she saved that particular lipstick for her dates with George.)


"It's you," they said at the same time. They almost laughed, but their surprise was more of a serious kind of awe than a comical reunion.

Their attempts to speak overlapped and trailed off:

"How …"

" … did you …"

"… I'm not sure …"

" …you would…"

"… believe me …"

Dozens of paper airplanes fell onto the ground around them. Meg looked down at the one in her hands and held it out to him. He reached for it in disbelief. "You got it?"

"More like … it got me."

They both held on to the airplane, as though afraid to let go.

"I realize this is crazy," he said sheepishly. "I don't even know your name."

"It's Meg," she offered. "And yours?"

"George."

"I'm glad to see you again," she said, and the happiness in her words and expression was sincere.

One of the many airplanes on the ground brushes against George's pant leg. He glanced toward it, and then noticed the neighborhood surrounding the train station. "Do you … want to get something to eat?"

They had lunch at a café and talked about everything that had happened, was currently happening, and was likely to happen in their lives. They discussed what they had done that day—she had secured a new job, while he had walked out on his old job. He reassured her that it was worth it.

Meg laughed when George told her about his many attempts to get her attention from his window. She almost wanted to scold him for being so wasteful, before she reminded herself that the Depression and the War were over, that there was enough paper and generally enough of the goods everyone needed. She later told him that she had helped organize scrap drives, including collections of scrap paper.

"It's not the strangest way to send a message," Meg said finally. That got them talking about different ways to communicate: smoke signals ("I could have borrowed some colleagues' cigarettes"), carrier pigeons ("Maybe I should have tamed one of the pigeons flying by"), flags on ships, the Pony Express, Morse code, radio. They unfolded a few of the airplanes and used the blank sides to doodle and make up codes.

They had to part ways at the end of the day, but exchanged telephone numbers, addresses, and promises. They promised to communicate openly and regularly, but not to go to such great lengths to accomplish it, as George had done that day.

They managed to find unorthodox modes of communication anyway. Meg made origami animals and left them in his mailbox. George filled bottles with rolled-up messages and left them on her doorstep. When they were together, they learned sign language out of library books. When they spoke on the phone, they used the bits of French and Spanish they knew (they were still too wary to use German or Italian).


Occasionally they went to the movies together. Their favorites were Casablanca and It's A Wonderful Life. Miracle on 34th Street was a particular treat, showing their own city on the big screen. They even joined the families and crowds of children who went to see the animated Disney films. George felt embarrassed about being the only adults in the theater unaccompanied by children; but Meg just smiled, held on to his arm and told him to watch. He cried even more then she did while watching Pinocchio and Dumbo's tribulations and near-tragedies.

"I never thought I'd cry over a puppet or a circus elephant," he confessed while they were comparing the two animated films. "You wouldn't expect them to be relatable."

Meg didn't think it was so strange that people identified with them, fantastic as they were. "Their stories about people—or, well, I guess creatures—who get separated from the people they love and try to get back to them. I think everyone who lived through the war can relate to that …" She trailed off when she saw George looking at her, as awed as he had when they reunited that first day. He seemed to be having an epiphany, and it took her a moment to realize what he must be thinking.

"Yeah," he said finally, smiling and taking her hand. "That is relatable."


When people asked the casual question, "How did you two meet?" they skirted around the answer.

"We crossed paths on our commutes to work."

"We just happened to be in two buildings across the street from each other."

They didn't lie. They just left out details that stood out as too embarrassing (like George forsaking his job to chase a stranger), or too personal (like Meg's lipstick leaving a kiss on the paper), or too unbelievable (paper moving of its own volition, or being moved by unseen forces).

On their one-year anniversary, Meg gave George a fairly long paper chain—the kind that people strung up at birthday parties, or put on a Christmas tree in lieu of a popcorn string. He thought it was a whimsical home decoration, until she showed him what was written on each construction paper link. She had added a link for every time they saw each other. There were two for that first day—one of them marked with her lipstick—and one for each of their dates since then. All the restaurants and parks they had visited, all movies they had seen, all the activities and conversations they had shared were written on the paper rings.

"It's not finished," she explained, "because I'm hoping we'll keep adding to it."