A/N: Even though Cecelia is sixteen in this story, this does not take place sixteen years in the future. Since I don't own a DeLorean that contains a flux capacitor which runs on plutonium, I'm afraid I don't know what things are going to be like in 2026. (Extra Brownie points if you know what movie I'm referencing to.)
Disclaimer: I do not own the Office
Whenever Jim got nervous about something, he would start fidgeting, and Pam Halpert would be lying if she said she thought it wasn't cute. His eyes would widen and his eyebrows would jump up his forehead. His hands would start rubbing up and down his pantlegs, as if trying to dry the sweat on his palms. He would shuffle his feet and his eyes would dart to anything but the person in front of him. When he spoke, his voice would be about half an octave higher, laughing unnecessarily at unfunny things. His smiles would be tremulous, pleading almost, as if silently asking the person to save him from this constant state of torture he was suffering through.
Jim Halpert was nervous this cold Friday morning in October because later this day, he would be taking his daughter Cecelia out driving for the first time.
"I don't get why you're so nervous, sweetie." Pam, Jim's wife, leaned against the front door frame, a mug of coffee in her hands. She sipped at it as she watched her husband in the driveway, the front door to their car thrown open and Jim sitting in the driver's seat, his legs sticking out onto the pavement. "I've driven with Cece tons of times around the industrial parking lot before and she's not that bad- -"
"Nervous? No, no I'm not nervous." Jim interrupted hastily, his voice sounding muffled as his upper half was twisted around and leaned inside the car, his head hidden around where the glove compartment was. "I know I left the car registration number here somewhere..." he mumbled to himself, shifting maps and miscellaneous items around.
"Check your back pocket." Pam suggested, shivering in the early morning cold and again raising the mug of warm coffee to her lips.
Jim froze in his fervent searching, and his hand quickly jumped to his back left pocket, feeling the packet there. Sighing with relief, he straightened up and rubbed a hand across his forehead.
"I knew that." he said unconvincingly, moving the hand on his forehead up to his hair, running his fingers through the shaggy tresses.
"Sure you did." Pam smiled as she walked, barefoot, out onto the driveway toward her husband. She stopped in front of the car, her hand on her hip, observing him. "That's why you're preparing the car for a road trip that's not happening for another seven hours." Pam raised an eyebrow meaningfully, and Jim's face reddened, choosing not to answer.
Suddenly, a teenage girl appeared at the door, looking at neither Jim nor Pam. Backpack slung over her left shoulder, her eyes were focused downward on a small, green ipod, which she was thumbing through. White earbuds were hanging from either side of her head as she walked across the threshold, allowing the screen door to slam shut behind her as she made her way across the lawn.
Cecilia Halpert was definitely not what Jim and Pam had expected. True, she was a very beautiful young woman. Cecilia had inherited her mother's slight figure and Jim's lanky stature, giving her the tall, willowy appearance of one of those supermodels you only ever saw on TV. But, her parents had to admit, her personality was nothing short of odd. It all started when she was about twelve, when she went up to her mother and said that she wanted to cut her long, brown hair short and dye it red. Jim had come home that day and practically yelled in surprise when he saw her. Around that age, she also began writing poetry and changing her sense of fashion into a tomboy-ish nightmare, consisting mostly of overlarge men's flannel shirts with skinny jeans and Chucks. Not to mention, along with her obscene style, she was rather fond of getting into screaming arguments with her parents over the most trivial things, like babysitting when she didn't want to. When unprovoked, however, she was rather sulky and moody, rarely uttering more than a dozen words to her parents every day. Cecilia constantly stated that she hated to draw (whether this was true or just a rebellious act toward her mother, neither Jim nor Pam knew), but she was artistic in every other sense of the word. She wrote poems and stories, was a member of her high school's drama club, and was very musically gifted. She was incredibly good at the violin, but she would never admit it to anyone other than her instructor, Ms. Pricsilla (the woman seemed to take Cecilia in sort of as her protégé, a fact Pam and Jim supported, though never fully understood). But if she wasn't practicing the violin or doing her homework, she would be locked up in her room, presumably listening to her ipod or writing her adolescent angst out on paper.
Yes, Pam and Jim were rather aware of the fact that they were rather frightened of their little angel.
Cece (her choppy hair, as of last year, now a shade of buttery yellow) glanced up when she noticed she was not alone in the front yard. She stared mutely at her parents, still with the earbuds inside her ears, before turning her attention back to thumbing through her ipod. That was the most the two adults usually got out of her.
Pam and Jim silently watched their daughter walk toward the end of the driveway, her back turned to them. Today, she was wearing a huge grey Boston sweatshirt that seemed to swallow up her skinny frame, black skin-tight jeans, and large clunky hiking boots. Jim looked at his wife with raised eyebrows.
More often than not, Pam and Jim would let her get away with the silent treatment, but they had important plans involving her today that couldn't be ignored. Therefore, Pam half-glanced at her husband before striding purposefully up to her daughter, who was now standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the bus to bring her and her sister to school.
"Hey," Pam said loudly, ripping the bud from Cecilia's ear. 'Panama' by Van Halen was blasting loudly from the exposed speaker. "Your father and I need to talk to you."
Cece, who looked thoroughly annoyed by her mother interrupting her hard rock reverie, reluctantly ripped out the other bud in order to listen to what she had to say. "What?"
"You remember your father is taking you up to Scranton today to help Grandma move her armoire, right?"
"Yeah." Cecelia dragged out the word, obviously implying 'duh'.
Pam hesitated a brief second before nodding. "... Good." She obviously didn't know what else to say. "As long as you remember."
"We're leaving at around four." Jim piped up helpfully from the car. Cecilia's large brown eyes moved over to her father. "That way you'll have enough time to come home and get ready and stuff. Plus get a bite to eat."
The girl actually grinned slightly. "Jojo's?"
"Where else?" Jim chuckled. Jojo's Burgers had been Jim's and Cecilia's place ever since the family had moved to Preston, New Jersey nearly eleven years ago.
"Yeah!" Pam looked, grinning, between her husband and daughter, apparently wanting to be in on their inside joke. "Yeah, you guys can go to Jojo's!"
Pam nudged her daughter playfully in the ribs. Cece stepped back slightly, her smile dropping.
Suddenly, a large yellow bus turned the corner and pulled up in front of Cece, who quickly shoved both earbuds back in place inside her ears before striding up toward the bus doors, which were sliding open. Pam, who's expression was a look of frozen hurt at Cecilia's reaction, suddenly spun around toward the front door, her eyes wide with shock.
"Jim! Katie's not up! I forgot to wake her this morning!" Pam panicked. Jim stared dumbly at her, his mouth open slightly in surprise.
Cecelia, however, poked her head back out of the bus and called toward the house's open front door: "KATIE! TIME TO GO!"
A young girl of about eight years old quickly sprinted out into the yard, slamming the door shut behind her. She had long, curly brown hair, usually put up into a high ponytail. Today, she was wearing a simple pink t-shirt and jeans with old, worn-out sneakers. A polka-dot Jansport backpack bumped wildly on her back and her ponytailed hair swung crazily as she tore across the lawn, a duffel bag swinging from her wrist and purple basketball tucked under her arm.
"I'm... here..." The little girl panted, skidding to a stop in front of her deeply relieved mother. "Cece... woke me... up..."
"Great." Pam hurriedly leaned down and hugged Katie goodbye. "Do you have a lunch?"
Katie gasped, her eyes round as saucers. "Oh no...!"
"Gotcha!" Jim had silently disappeared into the house, emerging at that moment with two bagged lunches. He tossed one to Katie, who caught it with a grin with her basketball-free hand. He held the other one up questioningly to Cecilia, who rolled her eyes: an obvious 'no thanks' to her father's hastily-made lunch.
The bus driver honked angrily. Cece turned at once to proceed up the steps, and little Katie ran and leapt onto the bus before the doors closed behind her.
The parents watched the school bus drive down the long street before it turned another corner and disappeared. Pam turned wearily around to face her husband.
"We swore we would never screw up like that again after Cece's second day of kindergarten."
Jim shrugged, walking up toward her. "It was bound to happen again. Also, this wasn't nearly as bad as Cece's second day of kindergarten."
Pam nodded resignedly, remembering that fateful day where a five-year-old Cecilia, after throwing a tantrum because she didn't want to go to school, decided to throw up in protest on the bus, which pissed the driver off enough to call in the two parents to drag the girl back home. "True..."
The two stood silently, side-by-side, as they looked thoughtfully toward the rising sun.
"We should probably go inside," Jim surreptitiously glanced down at his wife's rather ratty robe. "And maybe change into proper clothes."
Pam's calm expression darkened slightly. "Yeah. But shouldn't you be getting ready for that three-hour long road trip you're letting Cece drive today, hmm?"
Pam quirked an eyebrow and turned away, a small, triumphant smile on her face as she began walking across the lawn toward their house without even a glance back at her husband. Jim was now looking helplessly and utterly nervous once again.
~To Be Continued~
A/N: So do you like it so far? I wanted this to be a twoshot, but I think it might end up being a little longer than that.
Could you find it in your hearts to review? You'd be making my day:)