Thank you all so much for reviewing, I'm so glad you're enjoying the story. I'm not totally happy with this chapter, it's short and kind of sappy but here it is. Hope you enjoy. I encourage (nay, demand) lengthy comments and look forward to hearing from each and every one of you which parts of Jim and Pam in this chapter made you gag and which parts made you 'aw'.
Pam held her breath as she set the table for dinner, knowing that if the slightest feather fell on this thin mist of peace, everything would shatter. She and her parents had invited the Halperts over for dinner. When they'd arrived, they were surprised to find Jim, Pam and her parents in the living room looking grave and nervous.
"It's our baby. It's our decision." Jim had said when they'd told them about keeping it.
"This is...there's not enough time, Jim, think rationally about this." Mr Halpert kept saying. Mrs Halpert put her hand on her husband's arm.
"No, they're right. It's their baby, their choice. And Jim was never okay with adoption, you know that."
"We both have jobs." Pam put in earnestly. "At the daycare, and Jim fixes all those cars. The baby could have our spare room as a nursery,"
"And I still have some of Pam's things from when she was a baby." Her mother added.
"This is a huge responsibility." Mr Beesly said. He'd taken the news fairly calmly when Pam had told him, the way he often took news. He let it register before putting in his thoughts.
"And you have to be prepared for it. You'll have to tell the adoption parents and you have to be sure about it. Don't back out two weeks from now, you have to make this decision right here, right now, so be sure. Do you really want to keep this baby? Are you absolutely sure? Because say yes, and we're here. We'll support you," he gestured to the adults and himself, "but you have to be sure." Pam and Jim exchanged glances and said in perfect unison:
"Yes."
It had taken a couple of hours and a couple of drinks in Mr Halpert's case but they'd all come around to the idea. They had decided the baby would live at the Beesly house and while Jim and Pam couldn't live together, Jim could spent 4 nights a week at their house (in separate sleeping rooms, Mrs Halpert stressed more than once). Over two hours later, they sat down for dinner. Their parents continued discussing arrangement, possibilities and responsibilities. They went over the same points, again and again until the plates were cleared and their parents were content with it. She couldn't be sure, but Pam even thought she saw Mr Halpert smiling at the idea of having a baby around.
It was 4am when Jim shook Pam awake gently. He'd stayed over, sleeping on the couch but he kept waking. He wanted to be with Pam. They'd spent so much time fighting and having things be tense between them and now that things were working out, he wanted to be with her. He woke her up, careful not to wake her parents.
"Jim?" She whispered.
"Come down to the beach with me."
"What?" She woke up fully and laughed a little. "The beach?"
"It's only a fifteen minute walk." So they ended up sitting on the beach – everything is different at night. The world is quiet and you feel a different kind of atmosphere everywhere.
Jim looked at Pam hard and serious, like he was trying to read her mind. She couldn't possibly find words for the way she was feeling so instead she did the next best thing and kissed him. He kissed her back, deeper and more intense. Pam felt things she had never felt before, in places she didn't know existed, like a hundred hungry little flowers waking up and blooming in the sun after a long, harsh winter. Her heart was beating faster than her mind and she didn't try to slow it down. She wanted to devour everything about him. The taste of his mouth, his shampoo, the brightness of his smile...Through the silk of his hair, she watched the low orange moon, breathing heavily and waiting for the stars to fall down around them. But they didn't fall. They just faded, looking on in silence, lingering over the rushing waves as Jim broke away from her and smoothed her hair. The night sky paled along with the receding tide, evaporating in the weak dawn along with the tension
between them they'd at long last abandoned.
"Stay with me, Pamela Beesly," he whispered sleepily, smiling. She reached down to touch his cheeks lightly.
"I'm not going anywhere." She said. He closed his eyes and she looked out to the licorice soup sea. The waves whispered upon the shore, surging forward only to pull back.
It was after five now and she lightly shook Jim's shoulder. He stirred and sat up, looking at her with his hazy green eyes, shivering in the morning cold and smiling.
"What?" She asked self consciously, burrowing her foot in the sand, hiding her own secret smile.
"Don't move, okay? Everything is perfect right now." He lay back on the sand again, gesturing for her to do the same. She looked up at the sky, studying the last traces of the stars.
"What do you see?" He asked. She told him about the shapes she found in the stars, like they were clouds. The sky was turning from smoky gray to a pale pink, signaling morning was coming and they had to get back soon.
"We have to get back." She said. They both sat up again. Her skin was tingling and her feet were covered in sand. She felt a million and twelve times better after last night. She had missed feeling so close to Jim.
"Let's just stay for 5 more minutes, then we'll go back." He promised her. The clouds were ablaze with colour, covering the stars so that it was properly morning now. The clouds turned amber, tangerine, lemon, dusty rose. Although Pam couldn't explain how, she felt that everything was going to turn out okay. Jim slipped his arm around Pam and drew her close. She lay her head on his shoulder.
"Now is a time for us to cherish." Pam said, without even thinking about it.
"Cherish?" He echoed.
"Yeah," she felt a little embarrassed. "I thought this was the worst time of my life, I thought this baby ruined everything and all I wanted to do was get rid of it. Give it up. I don't know, it's like now that I've accepted it and just accepted the fact I want to keep it, everything's easier. And I can work through it."
Pam could hear Jim's echo of agreement from her snuggled up position against his chest.
"I like that," he said. "A time for us to cherish."
"And so are you, Pam" He added. "You are the one I cherish."
What's that? Oh, it's the sound of my gagging. I forgot how much I hate writing the sappy stuff. I don't feel very good at it but I thought you guys deserved some pure fluff between Jim and Pam – they've been apart so long. I know this was a slightly pointless chapter but I'm working on the next chapter (when they tell Lily and Everett the news, dun dun dun) right now so it should be up soon.
Okay, so this chapter fought me every bloody step of the way. I know most of you are probably disappointed I didn't go into more detail with them telling their parents and discussing keeping the baby. I was planning on doing that, it was supposed to be most of this chapter but I couldn't get it right. I rewrote it about 5 times before giving up and leaving it as that. So I'm sorry about that, I just wasn't happy with it.
Anyway, thanks for reading and please review!
Love, SS.