Ch 2: Going Back to the Start

The office was silent the 1st day she walked in. Pam Beesley was early, being nervous about her 1st day and all. She was afraid everyone would be tight-asses, but she assured her self she would be fine. At least if anything went wrong her boyfriend, Roy, had started in the warehouse that day, and she could always talk to him if things went wrong. She sat there alone in the office, shuffling papers and reapplying her lip-gloss, hoping that this job would be a good one. Pam settled into her desk, mixed-berry yogurt on her left side, and computer on her right. She was ready for whatever came her way, anything except the man who walked in the door.

Jim Halpert walked blindly through into the office, thinking this was just another day at work. He had forgotten, and frankly didn't care, that a new receptionist started to day. He didn't care, but if he known his life were about to change, maybe he would have paid more attention. She caught him by surprise. He looked at her and knew that she was going to be the one. He wasn't in love with her yet, but something about her told him she was going to be the one.

"Hey I'm Jim, Jim Halpert." She looked taken aback by his introduction, and for reasons he didn't know it made him blush.

"Hi, I'm Pam, Pam Beesley." He was cute and she liked his smile… Stop Pam! She thought to her self, you're in love with Roy remember?

"Well, I guess I should warn you, I mean tell you, everything you need to know about this Dunder-Mifflin family. So I'll just tell you, there's Michael, he's the boss, and pretty much a sad and pathetic mess. Also there's Dwight, he's pretty special… you know what, on second thought there isn't really a way to describe our office, so I'll just let you figure it out your self."

She giggled, she couldn't help herself, and he was funny. Then, who should kill the moment but Mr. Scott himself? Jim hurried to his desk, before Michael could make some stupid joke about the two of them, usually Michael tried to behave nicely around new people, but if Jim were involved there would be no mercy for the cute new receptionist.

Later in the day, he walked back to her, wanting to learn everything about her. Wanting to get to know her before any one else could scare her away from Dunder-Mifflin.

"So I see you're a yogurt kind of girl, what's your flavor?"

"Mixed-berry, its my favorite."

"Well then Miss Pam Beesley I don't know if we can be friends, I personally go for the original myself."

" It's only day one," she smiled, " You've got a long time to break me of my awful yogurt eating ways."

"Yes Pam, something tells me I will." He smiled at her, and at her alone, and she relished the attention. If only Roy would smile at her like that. Roy, she should probably get him out of the way, so that she could be just friends with Jim. Tell him before things went to far.

"So…" she heard Jim joke, as she pulled out of her train of thought. "This is a great day for Scranton Dunder-Mifflin, we have two new employees, you and that guy in the warehouse…"

"Roy, his names Roy." Suddenly she was defensive about him. She wanted him to have a good day, wanted him to be liked by every one, including Jim, Jim who would probably never meet him, suddenly she wanted him to be okay with her and Roy. It seemed absurd to her that she need a man she'd only known for a few hours to know about them.

"How do you know that?" He asked her, puzzled by her quick and almost hostile response. He thought he knew where this was going, and he didn't like it.

"Well he's my… boyfriend. I've been dating him since we where juniors in high school."

"Oh," he said, looking forlorn. He liked her, he might have even ended up loving her, and he was sad that it couldn't be that way. But he was just a boyfriend right? It's not like she was going to get married to him tomorrow or something, there was still a chance…

This is the part where Jim liked to stop the memory; he knew what happened from there. His love for here grew stronger while her friendship for him grew in the same way. He just had to mask how he really felt. But every time he looked at her he felt that flutter in his heart, wishing that it would go away, but really praying that it would stay.