8. Viraha - the realization of love through separation (Hindi)

Valentine's Day, 2009

"So I remember a long time ago, like three years ago, the documentary crew asked me about my worst first date," Jim said, taking a sip of soda.

"Mmm-hmm?" Pam replied, her mouth full of pizza crust.

"And I told them about the first time we came here, at lunch your first day, and how we were really hitting it off and having really good conversation, but come to find out you were engaged so of course it went from a great first date to a terrible one." He laughed a little and shook his head, "You probably don't even remember it."

Of course I do, she wanted to say. She distinctly remembered the first time he leaned on her desk, shirt sleeves rolled, hair floppy, announcing to her confidently that she had won a slice of pizza for getting through the first four hours with Michael Scott. He had a wide, bright smile on his face and a mischievous sparkle in his eyes and she very briefly but very consciously wished she wasn't engaged right then. "Is that why we're having Cugino's pizza on Valentine's Day? So you can rewrite history?"

"Maybe a little, but mostly because we have a mortgage and an upcoming wedding to pay for and I had a coupon," Jim said smirking.

Pam gave him a light kick under the table, but then smiled as he reached out to take her left hand, the pad of his thumb rubbing the oval-cut diamond on her ring. "Well, the restaurant may be the same, but at least the ring is an upgrade," Pam teased.

Jim lifted his brows, "Is the fiance an upgrade too?"

Pam screwed her lips to the side and shrugged, but the smile quickly returned to her face. "Of course he is."

After kissing her hand, Jim leaned over in his seat and lifted a wrapped box up to the table. "Happy Valentine's Day."

Pam pulled the gift towards her, knitting her brows at the size and weight of it. Far too large to be jewelry, too heavy to be a plush animal or any kind of clothing. Perhaps a decorative vase, or a set of glassware or . . . she really had no idea what. The box inside of the wrapping paper offered no further clues as it wasn't marked in any way. Pam slipped her fingers under each side of the box top and flipped it open. Inside were artist-grade acrylic paints, at least two dozen colors. On the side of the box, a full set of brushes. "Oh my God," she said quietly.

"I remember a lot of your old ones dried out and you had to toss them during the move," Jim said. "Are they okay? The girl at the art store said this was the best brand."

"Jim, they're amazing," Pam said, running her fingers along the rainbow of paint tubes.

"I do have a request though," Jim said. Pam arched a brow at him. "That one of your first projects is painting something over that clown."

Pam laughed and buried her face in her palms, thinking about the ridiculous and seemingly permanent clown painting in their hallway. At the moment it was covered by a framed Philadelphia Eagles poster, which in Pam's opinion was only slightly better. "I'll make it a top priority." She sat up and leaned across the table, and he did the same until their lips met. "Thank you so much," she whispered.

"What can I say, I'm a patron of the arts," Jim replied, smiling at Pam's laugh as they sat back down. "So, I can't help but notice a bag there," he said, his eyes falling on a paper bag next to Pam's purse.

"Oh, yeah." She reach over and set the bag on the table in front of him. "So, you have to open them in order."

Jim's brows met and he started pulling out small wrapped gifts one-by-one, each with a number on them.

"I was heavily inspired by your teapot gifts," Pam explained.

Jim smiled and sought out Gift #1, a small flat rectangle. He carefully unwrapped it to reveal a photobooth strip, little black and white photos of them at Michael's Mini-golf 'Singles Mixer'. Jim laughed, "Wow, look at these kids."

Pam pointed to the last photo, "I always thought maybe you were blushing in this one."

"Oh, I guarantee I was blushing, alone with you in the cramped quarters of that booth? That was pretty much the best moment of my life at that point."

Now Pam was the one blushing as she reached across the table to push Gift #2 towards him.

Jim opened a small box full of candies and children's Valentine's cards. "Oh man, Dwight was so mad about this."

"You did rather thoroughly replace all the contents of his desk," Pam recalled. "Twizzlers in the pencil cup, two candy bars taped together for a stapler..."

"And yet he still ate all those candies."

"I saw him use the Valentine's cards for notes, too."

Chuckling, Jim reached for Gift #3: the card Pam made for him with a caricature of Jim playing basketball. "A modern masterpiece obviously."

"Thank you, great arts patron," Pam teased. She then bit her lip as he opened Gift #4. She watched his eyes fall on a snapshot of the two of them, chatting and smiling at the bar at Phyllis' Wedding. "I know this was a weird time ... for us... but Phyllis shared an online photo album with me after her wedding and when I saw this one I - I thought it was nice and I saved it."

Jim studied the photo, his face rather solemn before giving a half smile. "You looked so pretty that day, I really wanted to tell you that. And I really wanted to ask you to dance."

Pam shook her head, "It would have been really awkward, I know why you didn't."

"I know why I didn't also . . . still wish I had," Jim said in a low tone.

Pam felt a small lump in her throat as he looked at her. His expression was all-too familiar: the small uneasy smile, the sadness in his eyes. She so often tried to ignore this expression before, tried to tell herself she wasn't the cause of it. "I'm sorry I put this in here, following my theme too closely," she said in a shaky voice, reaching for the photo.

He pulled the photo away from her grasp, "Don't be sorry. " He looked at it again and smiled, "It was a weird time, but I'm actually really grateful someone caught this moment."

Pam smiled, reaching for the next present. "Anyway, on a lighter note."

As Jim opened the oddly-shaped Gift #5, a small ball-shape came rolling out. "Oh no," he laughed, catching the marble-like object before it rolled off the table, then peeling off the rest of the wrapping paper. "This poor little guy," Jim said, holding the figurine they knocked off the vanity and broke last year.

"I was going to glue the head back on, but haven't gotten around to it," Pam replied.

"Poor Hansel probably saw too much last year, might be best to not reunited him with his body," Jim said. He reached for the final gift, opening up a hand-made laminated business card. "What's this? A 'GMTFOOH' card?"

"It's a 'Get Me The Eff Out Of Here' Card," Pam said, censoring herself for the family sitting nearby. "We both will have one and when we are in a hopelessly awkward situation, whoever is handed this card first has to get us out of there as quickly as possible."

Jim smirked, "I'm guessing our lunch with the Vances yesterday inspired this one."

"It did indeed, and Michael's dinner party and the Christmas-slash-intervention party, and about half-a-dozen times in the past year."

"This is going to see a lot of action then," Jim said, slipping the card into his wallet. He looked at the presents in front of him and knitted his brows, "Was that it?"

Pam nodded, "Yeah, that was the final one. Why?"

"Well, this is the seventh Valentine's Day we've known each other, I believe, however there are only six gifts," Jim said.

Pam watched him scanned the photos and knick-knacks; she should have known better than to think he was not going to notice a missing year. "Um, I guess, well, I didn't really have anything from three years ago."

"What was happening three Valentine's ago?" Jim said mostly to himself.

"Well, Roy had just set a date-"

Jim's mouth formed a small "Oh".

"Yeah..." Pam bit her lip and looked at the card of Jim playing basketball. "I actually . . . made you a card, I never worked up the nerve up to give it to you. It's probably still in my desk at the office."

He set his hand on hers again, and when she looked at him, he smiled and gave her fingers a small squeeze, "Either way, I love all my gifts."

He kept her hand in his for the rest of dinner, and in the car on the way home. All night she had been trying her best to focus on their date, but her thoughts kept returning to her parents separating, to her recent road trip with Michael and the painful familiarity of his relationship with Holly, of being in love with someone he couldn't be with. Jim asked her earlier if anything was bothering her and she said no, but he seemed to know she wasn't being forthcoming. Still, rather than push her, he just held her hand, which was really what she needed. To be reassured that he was there, that he loved her, that he couldn't wait to marry her. That he . . . was going straight at the stoplight where he should be turning.

"Jim?" Pam said, puzzled.

"I thought we'd take a little detour," Jim replied. A couple turns later, she realized he was taking their route to work.

As he turned into the Scranton Office Park, Pam softly said his name again, this time with more worry.

"You have the key, right?"

"Yeah..." Michael forced Dwight to relinquished a copy of the building and office keys to her after last year's lock-out incident, which Dwight only agreed to as long as Pam promised to 'keep them on her person at all times'.

He parked near the double doors, "I just thought, in the spirit of rewriting history, we could find that card from three years ago."

She regretted even mentioning the card, and wanted to say no, but he was looking at her so earnestly she nodded. They walked upstairs and entered the dimly lit office.

Pam sat at her desk and opened a drawer, while Jim took his usual spot on the other side, leaning next to the jelly bean dispenser.

"Can - can I help you look?" He was fidgety, as if it was finally hitting him how awkward this all was.

Pam gave him a smile and shook her head, "I have a vague idea of where it might be." Not a minute later she retrieved a red envelope from the back of her bottom drawer, where she had collected various cards and papers over the years. She twirled it between her fingers as she stood and walked over to Jim, putting on the biggest smile she could when she handed it to him.

Jim gave her a grin but there was definitely a nervousness beneath it, and he tentatively opened the envelope and pulled out the card. He laughed at the cartoon on the front, "Oh man, Cupid Dwight!"

"One of your more terrifying creations, he haunted my dreams for months," Pam joked. Her smiled faded though when he put his thumb on the edge of the card, and she silently prayed that maybe the card had fused shut or the writing inside had miraculously disappear.

She watched his face as he opened the card and could tell the second he started reading her postscript. He was silent, his eyes going back and forth over the writing a few times.

"It's nothing, it was three years ago," she said, twisting her fingers together.

"Yeah, I know, I just... I still feel a little bad," His eyes darted to her and he gave an unsure smile, "I wasn't much of a friend to you for about a year and a half there."

"No, you weren't," Pam said, smirking. "But ... I kind of needed it, I think, to just be alone for a while. It sucked, but it definitely helped me see things more clearly."

Jim took another look at the card and closed it, smiling at the caricature of him and Dwight. He then turned on his heels and walked to his desk, turning on his computer. "Alright," he started, clicking the mouse, "to finished out this rewriting history thing." One more click and the tinny speakers of his computer started to play a familiar guitar rift. He reached his hand out towards her, "Would you like to dance?"

A breathy male voice began to sing and Pam smiled, realizing this was "Every Breath You Take" by the Police. She walked over to take Jim's outstretched hand and they began to sway slowly in front of his desk.

"I'm not sure why people think this song is romantic, it's actually kind of creepy," Pam said after a moment, listening to Sting describing all the situations in which he'll 'be watching you'.

"Yeah, stalk much?" Jim replied.

She rested her head on his shoulder. "Can we maybe . . . not play this at our wedding?"

"I think we should go a step further and ban all Police and Sting songs at our wedding," Jim countered. He looked down to her and she lifted her head. "All in favor?"

"Aye!" she replied.

"The 'ayes' having it then."

Pam giggled and rested her head back on Jim's shoulder. "This is where you first kissed me," she said quietly after a moment.

"It is." Jim replied, his voice quiet and husky. "It's where I fell in love with you."

Pam's cheeks started burning, "Me too."

"It's where I nearly proposed to you, well, downstairs at least."

Pam lifted her head, her brows knitted, "When?"

"Toby's Good-bye party," Jim said. Pam gave him her best 'I knew it' face. "Someone kinda beat me to the punch though."

"It's okay, the actual proposal was better." Pam lifted her shoulder in a half-shrug, "Maybe we should get married here."

Jim tilted his head, "It's probably way cheaper than any place we're looking at."

"And have our kids here?" Pam added, her lips curling.

"With our health plan, we probably have to have our kids here," Jim said in a faux-serious voice before smiling at Pam's laughter.

They swayed until the final note of the song faded out, and Pam looked up to Jim. "So, have we sufficiently rewritten history?"

"Yes, I think we're good," Jim replied. "Now, let's get the eff out of here."

Pam laughed and Jim let her go, turning to shut down his computer. She walked over to her desk where her purse was.

"I gotta jot something down real quick," Jim called over to her. She replied okay and walked to the front door to lock it. A moment later Jim came around the corner, taking her hand and walking to the elevators.

At the first stoplight, Jim reached to his back pocket and pulled out the red envelope. "So, weirdest thing, when I put the card back in here, I noticed another note."

Pam's brows met and she took the card, she certainly didn't remember putting anything else in the envelope, but she supposed it was possible. She pulled the card out and opened it, finding a yellow sticky note now on top of her hastily written postscript. She squinted to read the note in the distant lighting of a streetlamp, then looked up to Jim's smiling face. Her left hand once again found it's way into his hand, and her right hand reached up to wipe a tear off her smiling cheek.

"Dear Past Jim,

It's going to be a little difficult, but Cupid Dwight's aim will indeed be true,
and in three years you will hardly believe how happy you are.

Sincerely, Future Jim"