Title: Dead Of Winter
Disclaimer: Tch, yeah. As if. Toby and Kelly would have LINES if I owned the show.
A/N: A bit of shameless V-Day fluff for my favorite UC couple. Because who deserves it more? This was written and posted at nearly lightning speed for me, so apologies for any mistakes.

"I think Valentine's Day was invented just to torture single people," Kelly sighed dramatically, leaning on the thin divider that walled in her desk. It was actually the thirteenth, but everyone was celebrating the holiday on the last workday before it hit.

"Probably," Toby droned, not especially wanting to join her pity party but finding himself in a similar funk. He'd had to walk past Pam and Phyllis this morning as well.

"I mean, it's the dead of winter, so it's not like it's there to celebrate love or anything. It's just to make lonely people feel more cold and lonely because the whole world sucks."

"Mmm-hmm."

"Valentine's Day is ruining the color pink for me," she announced with gravitas.

Toby bit his lower lip to keep his expression serious.

"You know what else sucks? Today is Ryan's and my third anniversary," she continued dismally.

"I'm sorry," he offered.

"Me, too. Sorry I wasted so much time on that slimeball."

"You said you were going to start dating again. How's that going?" he asked suddenly, knowing all to well where that road led.

"Ugh, it's all..." She waved an arm in disgust, attempting to convey the frustration and misery words could not encompass. "And I'm getting old! Nobody's ever going to want to marry me!"

"You're not old," he said patiently. He used to get annoyed with Kelly's tendency to hyperbole and random subject change, but over the years, it had become a simple, almost soothing routine to offer the calm counterpoints and simple reassurances she was digging for.

"I am," she protested weakly. "I'm going to be thirty next year. That's ancient. Ugh, let's so not talk about this right now. It's too depressing. What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Are you dating anyone?"

He gave her an odd look. "...No."

"Why not?"

He shrugged, feeling ambushed.

"Seriously. You've had some hot girlfriends in the past. It's not like you're a bad-looking guy or anything. So?"

He shrugged again, grimacing. "Dating is..." He imitated her earlier gesture in a much more sedate, Tobyish manner.

She nodded sagely. "We're just both unlucky in love, I guess."

"Guess so."

"Maybe we should just date each other," she said with a giggle, turning back to her desk.

He looked up sharply, but she was already gone.

Surely, that was just a joke. Logic dictated that it was just a joke. She was laughing when she said it, so it was a joke. It had to be.

So why was he suddenly so off-balance?

No, just a joke. He was just way too lonely and the holiday was making him paranoid.

Kelly was lonely, too, and likable and approachable and idiosyncratically sweet to him, if occasionally a bit trying.

He stood up, gripping the edge of the divider apprehensively. "Hey, Kelly?"

"Huh?"

"Uh... heh... When lunch rolls around, do you want to... get out of here? Go somewhere so we don't have to... be here?"

She instantly lit up with the brightest, happiest, most grateful smile a woman had given him in he didn't even know when. "Oh my God, you have no idea how awesome that would be!"

He felt his lips splitting open into a grin all of their own accord, wide and relieved and unexpected and... awesome. "Okay, then. Um, around twelve?"

"Sounds cool."

"Alright." He sank back down to his seat, still smiling. Gotta love Valentine's Day.

This fic is dedicated to my partner-in-crime Steph, to hopefully cheer her up. You know I wrote that Paul grin in just for you! Well, for both of us, really.