He was truly starting to hate this game of Interrupted by the Larisa. In all the time since he had moved out of his parent's house, she hadn't contacted nearly as often as she had in the past two weeks combined. He tried his damndest to avoid the shrill ringing of his cell phone that was somewhere under his haphazardly tossed pants on the floor. He tried pulling closer to her lips, tried distracting her with kisses and a sly hand tickling down her side and cupping gently around her ass. While she'd sighed against his lips and his touch initially, she stalled his fingers before they were able to scoop any further.

"Will you answer it already?" she giggled against his cheek, resting her hands on his bare chest in show that she was calling his bluff. He pouted, bumping his forehead against hers for a brief moment before rolling over the top of her to retrieve the offending item. Seeing his sister's name on the caller ID only furthered the roll of his eyes.

"You really do know how to ruin a moment, don't you?" he asked. He perched on the edge of the bed, pulling his boxers on with one had as his sister blathered on. Something about being pantless and half hard while on the phone with his sister just felt wrong.

"Hey, I'm just following orders," she returned. He could see picture her free hand up in mock protest.

"Mom?"

"The one and only."

"And you told her I was in town because….?"

"Oh, come on, Jimmy. It came up in conversation. She asked who I was burning the CD for and I just…."

Rather than responding, he dropped his head into his free hand and ran his fingers through his already tousled hair. He turned his head sideways over his shoulder and offered Pam a sheepish smile and a shrug. He was only a little disappointed to see that one of his t-shirts had found its way over her torso.

"Listen, it's only for a couple of hours. We're not going to interrogate her. We just want to see you! We never get to see you anymore."

"And Pam being there is-"

"Just an added bonus." She smiled smugly, knowing it would transfer through the phone lines. "So, are you coming or what?"

Turning to face the wide eyed, golden curled woman behind him, he realized that two women owned him.

"I'll see what I can do."

He pulled the phone away from his ear at the squeal that he saw coming from a mile away. When he clicked the phone shut, he fell back onto his pillow with a flop, his large hands slipping slowly down his face before he felt her chin propped on his chest.

"We really don't have to go if you don't want to," he mumbled through his hands. Opening his fingers, he peeked down, expecting to find her eyes wary and nervous, expecting that look he'd seen so many times before, right before she'd bolted out the door.

But instead, she was smiling this sweet smile, with her chin resting on his chest and her fingers drumming softly across his skin.

"No. I want to go. I want to meet your family."

Furrowed eyebrows expressed his doubt, and no sooner was he about to express it than her fingers were cupping his cheek and her smile was stretching wider.

"Don't do that. Don't go all dark Jim on me. I want this."

"You don't understand. My family is going to corner you. The women will sandwich you onto a couch, interrogate you, show you all of my embarrassing baby pictures-"

"Sold!"

Despite the circumstances, he would never get over having her cheek pressed to his bare chest while her giggles emanated from her lungs.

"Seriously, you sure you wanna do this? I mean, we've only been...doing whatever this is for, like, two weeks. I haven't even seen your cranky side yet, and you wanna meet my parents?"

"Well, for one, I'd like to think that you know me well enough to feed me chocolate and tuck me in when I'm cranky." She was relieved when he'd laughed, some of his tension beginning to settle. "And secondly, I'd like to think that whatever this is, isn't some sort of fluke." He adjusted his position, sensing the serious tone in her words. "I...I want to do this right, Jim. And besides, we're kind of starting in the middle, if you look at it the right way."

He pondered her claim, realizing that she wasn't wrong.

"So, we're doin' it?"

"Oh, Halpert, we're doin' it."

They were halfway to their destination before she realized that he'd said he loved her this morning, and she hadn't even said it back.


Standing on the front porch to the Halpert home, it was hard to tell who was feeling more nervous. Jim hadn't brought a girl home since freshman year of college, and not a month later, Lauren had cheated on him, making him swear off the family introduction until he was absolutely sure. On the other hand, Pam's mind was racing with their time spent apart. If Jim had talked to his mother half as much as she had poured her heart out to hers, Kathryn Halpert knew a whole lot more about Pam Beesly than the other way around.

She wiped her hands on her skirt and gulped while Jim combed his fingers through his hair. With his free hand, he found her clammy fingers dangling between them and gave her a squeeze before opening the door. We're in this together.

Before he could make it over the threshold of his childhood home, his legs were bound by two small bodies, "UNCA JIMMY!" resounding off the foyer ceiling.

"Woah, hey guys," he chuckled, ruffling the hair on the tops of the heads that clung to his knees. He trudged into the front hall with weights around his ankles, angling his head forward in a Follow me, the party awaits fashion.

One by one, he peeled his nephews from his legs and assumed a catcher's position to squat in front of them.

"Hey guys, can you do me a huge favor?" The wide eyes of the little boys hung on every low-toned word that passed his lips. "You see me friend Pam over there? She's kinda nervous because this is her first time at grandma and grandpa's house. Could you guys maybe be extra nice to her today? Maybe you could give her the tour?"

She couldn't hear what he was saying to the little guys who couldn't be more than four or five and who shared the same brown moppy hair and wide eyes, but his mannerisms were what warmed her in the chill of the late autumn afternoon, spreading through her like the blood that circulated throughout her system. Their little heads nodded simultaneously, and suddenly, all six eyes were on her, and two tiny hands were on either side of her body.

"Hi Pan, my name's Tyler."

"I'm Logan. Nice to meet you, Pan."

She brushed off the mispronunciation of her name, finding it as adorable as Logan's untied shoes and the chocolate milk mustache under Tyler's nose.

"Unca Jimmy said that we have a very 'portant job."

"Oh, is that so?" She scrunched her eyebrows together, eyeing the boys as seriously as she could.

"Yep. We're gonna show you all around gramma and grampa's house."

The little voices trailed off, but the tiny hands remained gripped on either side of her as she went from standing nervous on the front porch to literally whisking around Jim's childhood home in a matter of minutes. As stories of superheroes and kindergarten bullies flanked her, she took stock of how homey this place truly was. Aside from the creepy clown photo in the front hallway, there was something about this place that just clicked.

While the boys chattered on, she picked up odds and ends. There was a shrine to the four Halpert children everywhere you looked, and an even more impressive ode to the three grandchildren around every corner. Jim's room, she was told, had been turned into a guest bedroom.

"But he lef' all'a his toys for us to play with!" Logan had said, only releasing Pam's hand to pick up a Matchbox car that could only be from the nineteen eighties.

Even beneath the race car tracks, the matching Batman sleeping bags, and Lego's, Jim still peeked through. He was there in the worn basketball that sat in the corner, in the little league trophies and ribbons and medals that still adorned scattered shelves on the walls. She took the opportunity while the boys were momentarily distracted by a loopty-loop Hot Wheels track to pan over the pictures that were still sporadically scattered on his dust covered shelf.

Many, she noticed, featured his family. She knew he had two brothers and a sister, but she'd only seen glimpses of their faces in the frames on his desk, and that had been ages ago. Here, she saw them in stages, from young children to awkward adolescents. She caught her tongue between her teeth in silent laughter when her eyes lay upon a photo of a young Jim making almost the exact same face, but holding a newborn baby Larisa in his lap. He couldn't have been more than four years old, but he looked so, so excited to be a big brother. Before her thoughts were interrupted by tiny hands, she let them wander to years down the road and the grin he might have when that baby was his own.

Despite her preconceived notions that children hated her, these two boys took to her kindly, offering her a car to join their race, sharing laughs and reveling in the sound effects that she added to their game. They lingered only for a moment before the boys remembered their mission, and then it was all relaxed business.

As pudgy hands continued to lead her past doors and into rooms-"Except gramma and grandpa's room," Tyler had insisted, "We're not allowed in there"-her remaining senses were becoming acclimated to the sounds of male laughter and female chatter, the scents of fresh bread and homemade pasta sauce, the feel of pudgy hands squeezing her fingers as if their lives depended on it.

"Hey Pan?" Logan asked as the sounds of unfamiliar people became closer and her palms became increasingly wet once again.

"What's up, buddy?"

"Auntie Risa says you like my Unca Jim."

It wasn't a question, but she indulged the boy anyway, as he was suddenly stopping with his grip on her fingers remaining. Tyler had followed his cousin's lead, halting in his tracks. Sensing a more serious matter at hand, Pam mimicked Jim's earlier actions and squtted to eye level with the two boys.

"Well, she's right. I really do like your Uncle Jim. A whole lot. He's a pretty special guy. I think I might keep him around for awhile."

The boys nodded, offered her matching smiles, and then began to drag her into the kitchen.

"Gramma, grandpa!" Logan blurted, announcing their arrival. "This is Unca Jim's friend, Pan. She said she likes him a whole lot and that she wants to keep him."

Well.

Apparently ice breakers weren't going to be necessary.

The sight in the kitchen was quite the motley crue. Jim stood between one of his brothers and their father, beer paused at their lips upon the boys' intrusion. In the moment of awkward silence, while his mother turned from the large sauce pot on the stove and the eyes of the other women found her in the doorway, her hands were suddenly cold, and the boys darted to the comfort of more familiar adults, Tyler to his father, and Logan to Mrs. Halpert.

The older woman, whose entire body exuded Mom, ruffled the hair of the little boy as a smile crept across her face. Although it appeared that her words were directed towards the little boy who was clutching her apron, it was clear that the rest of the room was meant to hear them.

"Well, I think I'd be a-okay if she did. Just as long as she brings him back here every once in a while."

She felt like she was back in high school, coming into freshman algebra five minutes late because she'd gone to the wrong classroom. All eyes were on her as she stood in the doorway. But now, it wasn't Johnny Pesky giving her the stink eye, or Stacey O'Donoghue chomping her gum and twirling her hair in disgust. No. The eyes on her were warm and inviting. She sought Jim's, his slow nod and smile making her lips creep up the sides of her face as she brought her fingers into the air to wiggle back and forth.

"Hi, everyone."

Lunch was, in a strange sense, normal.

Between the chatter of two little boys under five and the bickering of brothers across the table, Pam found herself surrounded by family and love. She even jumped in when the conversation wound its way to teasing Jim, earning her a wink from Mr. Halpert.

After volunteering to help with the dishes, she'd been the product of Jim's earlier predictions: sandwiched between his mother and sister on the couch while the "men" of the house wrestled with Tyler and Logan, their mothers looking on and rolling their eyes. It was nice, nursing a glass of wine with Jim's mom while he let his nephews tackle him to the ground. As she smiled widely at the gangly man rolling around on the ground, Kathryn Halpert's sugary voice tickled her ears.

"I can see it in your eyes, you know."

She was startled for a moment, the words whisper soft and almost unheard in the absolute rukus that was wrestling and yelling and laughter mixed with a football game on in the background. But once the words had settled in her brain, she turned slowly toward the woman who wore that same lopsided grin that she had come to treasure.

"Sorry?" was all she could say in response. Living in this moment, she just wanted to be sure that it was real.

"It's all in your eyes, dear. He told me a long time ago, even when you were still engaged to that Roy fella, that your eyes told a different story. He was right. It's all there. I see the same in him, about you."

Well now, her eyes were just full of liquid.

For several reasons, at that. It was all flooding back. Her time with Roy. Time wasted, when she could have been with Jim. Time that he'd spent talking to his mother about her, about her eyes, about how he just couldn't be wrong about her.

But then, it was all of those things that had piled up, that this woman had watched bury and destroy her son, and yet the look in her eyes was still so welcoming and comforting, and her eyes were as full of love as the man currently serving as a jungle gym.

She giggled.

A jungle Jim.

"I...I'm so sorry."

Her words held so many apologies. For hurting this woman's son. For rejection and denial, for lies and misguidance, for stubbornness and passivity. But most of all, for making Kathryn's son believe that she didn't love him.

Much like Kathryn's previous words, Pam's had gone unnoticed to all but the woman with whom she was having a secret conversation. Before the sentence had even punctuated, Kathryn's hand was clenched softly over Pam's.

"Oh, sweetheart. You have to stop being so down on yourself. You both walked the paths you did for a reason. And they got you here. I don't know about you, but I very much like that right now, you're here."

And that was truly it for her.

In the middle of the chatter and commotion, she knelt down on the floor next to a now stationary Jim and lay her head atop his shoulder. Without pause, he wound his arm around her waist and peeked down to meet her eyes, smiling that warm, crooked smile that she'd been surrounded by all afternoon. He snuck a kiss to the top of her head before the boys realized that they now had company, and "Pan" became the victim of tickle fighting until go-fish and mid-afternoon story time took precedence.

With a boy balanced on each of Pam's criss-crossed thighs while she read to them from a book that Logan had pulled from his backpack, Jim found himself looking on while he lingered at the side of his dad's armchair, sipping lightly at his beer.

"I like her," Dave Halpert said matter-of-factly. That's how Pop had always been. Short, sweet, and to the point. When Lauren had come home with him for Thanksgiving in college, he'd said, "Something's off about that girl," and Lauren had used that as a fueled excuse for her cheating. Jim thought that this was about as much of a stamp of approval as he was going to get, until, "I like her a lot, Jimmy. She seems right for you," swept into his ears.

His father stood, clapped a hand on his shoulder, and disappeared into the kitchn somewhere.

He had only intended that they stay for lunch, but as the afternoon sun was setting through the living room windows, and a distinctive lull settled over his family, Jim sighed as he let on that he had a long trip back to Stamford. He protested with his parents, who insisted that he stay the night, and the entire Halpert clan gathered by the front door for a ten minute long goodbye.

"Thank you, for everything," Pam whispered into Larisa's ear as the two women embraced (because apparently, in the Halpert household, you hugged, but Pam didn't mind).

"For what?" she smiled. "This was all you two."

Pam shook her head and knelt to tie her shoes. As she was about to right herself, she found herself being tackled by two tiny humans.

"Pan, are you gonna come play with us again?" Logan asked as he forced her into a sitting position, stroking her hair like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to be doing.

"Only if you'll let me," she smiled back.

"Hey, wait! If you're Pan, like Peter Pan, that means you never have to grow up! You could stay here forever."

She glanced up at the people surrounding her, at the genuine love surrounding her in this home and in this moment. Grasping the boy by the shoulders, she smiled widely.

"I would want nothing more."

It was only a twelve minute drive across Scranton to get back to her apartment, but so much was washing over that it was almost overwhelming. His family had been so inviting, and she had fit right in from the start. Those tears of regret, of actually seeing what she'd been missing all this time, crept across her, but not for long. Because he could read her well enough to know that, even with her eyes looking out the window, she needed his hand in her hand.

It was one of the many things that she loved about him.

And then it hit her.

That morning, laying in bed with this wonderful man, she had heard the words I'm in love with you.

Those words had been so different this time, yet still the same.

He wasn't desperate or reaching or clinging to a last shred of hope. But the passion, the meaning, the feeling were all the same.

And she hadn't said it back.

But sitting in that car, reminiscing over their perfect afternoon, she knew that it was true.

It was the way she'd watched him interacting with his family, but also the way that she fit in so seamlessly with their tight knit crew. There was a warmth that seemed to start in her heart and carry throughout her veins, giving her a pulsing life that had been dormant for so long.

The way his mother had embraced her and reassured her when she was sure that the woman held her in contempt.

The ease at which his nephews had taken to her, even though she'd sworn she wasn't so great with kids.

It was all bubbling out and over.

"I love you."

It wasn't at all how she'd imagined telling him.

It was blurted, each of the words running into one another like a morphed, mangled version of the phrase, while she'd pictured them running off her tongue as smoothly as the butter he'd put on her toast this morning.

She'd wanted to tell him in a moment of intimacy. Maybe over a candlelit dinner, or a walk in the park with the sun setting overhead. He'd already stolen in the fresh morning light from her list, but it certainly wasn't out of the running. Instead, they were stopped at a red light on the way back from his parent's house, with a Rite-Aid and a homeless beggar out the passenger side window. And she was lucky they'd been stopped, because his foot had immediately jerked on the brake, sending them both taught against their seatbelts.

His eyes, wide as the bright red light, seared into her brain, almost begging her to repeat her bumbled admission, his stifled Huh? almost as pitiful as the way she'd let the words tumble and tangle just moments before on the corner of Washington Ave.

Instead of using words, she cradled his cheek, grinning so widely that her face began to throb.

"I love you, Jim Halpert."

The air surrounding him would've carried him into the clouds if it weren't for the roof of his car. Lacking embarrassment for the way his eyes were instantly glassed, he covered her hand with his own and kissed her with as much fury and fervor and lovethat he had in the marrow of his bones. If it weren't for the impatient car behind him honking its horn at the change from red to green, he never would have let go.

They continued in silence, but not truly. The love that saturated the car was overbearing, but he was stuffed in a way that made him feel more alive than he'd ever been.

He'd barely put the car in park before he was lifting her off her toes, his lips simply assaulting her as she clung to his neck for dear life. He put her down only long enough to unlock the door, and even then, they'd only made it to the couch.

He hovered above her on his forearms, her fingers clinging to the collar of his shirt, lifting his head from her lips long enough to whisper, "Say it again," against her matching smile.

"I love you, Jim Halpert."

From there, it was giggles and sighs and laughter and I love you's before words became unnecessary.

Reluctance pulled at his feet while the rest of his naked body remained rooted to the couch with Pam sprawled and wound around him. His fingers combed through her curls as she kissed his bare chest intermittently.

"I feel kind of cheated," he muttered to the top of her head. At her response of furrowed eyebrows, he continued, "I mean, not that I don't love my family, but I feel like I just got you and I already have to give you back again."

She nodded against his chest, pulling him tighter.

"It's almost like we reach these big milestones just to go back to being apart. I kind of hate it."

"I kind of hate it, too."

The silence blanket them for several passing moments before she came back through.

"At least we'll get to 'see' each other this week," she offered.

"I know," he sighed, trying his best to acknowledge her optimism. "That'll help."

"And I'll come see you on Friday?"

"You know I'd never turn down that offer."

It was kisses to stand up, kisses on every button as they helped each other dress, and kisses up against the door before she walked him outside.

But then, she realized, this goodbye was going to end with an I love you. And suddenly, saying goodbye wasn't the worst thing in the world.

Because when he said I love you, his whole face lit up, and even though the setting sun had the sky growing dark, it didn't matter.

Because when she said I love you, too and threw her arms around his neck, he suddenly felt like he could climb mountains.

And even though it was nearing on midnight by the time he had gotten home, and twenty minutes still while they figured out this whole webcam deal, it was all worth it to see I love you tattooed on lips as they both drifted off to sleep.