title taken from: "Honeybee" by Steam Powered Giraffe
;)
By the time he made it back to his dorm room, Jim was in a complete daze. His head was spinning, his mind swimming, and all he could do was think.
Serious consideration was not his strong point. Truthfully, he tended to just go with the flow, take the easiest or most convenient path, and worry about potential consequences later. It wasn't that he was lazy, necessarily, just that he preferred making less effort.
But now Pam seemed to be trying to tell him something, to hint at something, and Karen wanted him to meet her parents, and everything was just - moving - too - fast.
He sat down.
Looking for anything at all to clear his mind a little, he reached for the nearest object in his vicinity. Grabbing blindly at his desk, he found a worn corner, smoothed a crumple with his finger, and half-pulled, half-lifted the book to his lap. Of course it was that book… Her name, printed in wobbly block letters, glared up at him, but he flipped back the cover anyway.
The first page was benign notes, taken - going by the date - on the first or perhaps second day of classes. They evidently were written for a class she soon dropped - Statistics, from the look of it. His eyes glazed over the text without really reading it. Instead, he studied the loops and curves of her handwriting, the parts where the words were huddled close together due to the speed of her hand, the margins where she doodled little crowds of stars.
By page 4 he was getting more into it. At this point, it seemed, she was losing some of her previous reservations. The notes became more shorthand, more abbreviated, more humorous. More her. The drawings in the margins spread out and took up more space, soon becoming so elaborate that they would, at times, take up entire pages.
Then he reached History, and his attention shifted. The only words on the first pages had been recorded sparingly, across several classes. It was hard to believe it had been nearly 6 months since then.
His eyes drifted down to the bottom of the page as if compelled by magnets, and there it was. The answer to everything. Lightly, he traced the outline. The curve of its back, the stub of its tail. Somehow it was easier to scrutinise in close detail than actually see it how it really was. "What do you mean you don't mistake me for being a student? I look exactly like you all!" It certainly wasn't the best joke he had ever made, and truthfully, it was kind of dumb, but she had laughed at it anyway, she laughed at him anyway. She had smiled and teased and giggled and he loved that.
He used to love that.
Maybe he still did.
Hm…
For the first time since opening up to the page, Jim allowed himself to really see the drawing as it was. As a whole. He stared for a moment, zoned out, lost in the memories of the start of the year. What had went wrong? It couldn't just have been the rejection, as he once had assumed. It was clear now: he was just as at fault.
Suddenly it all seemed so simple.
Huffing out a laugh, he pushed off the bed, leapt to his feet. Ran a hand through his hair and just felt, for the first time in a while, felt a weight being lifted from his shoulders.
It was Pam. It was always Pam.
Now all he had to do was tell her.
There was no time to react when Jim Halpert burst through her door at 11 o'clock at night.
The sudden spurt of light in her previously dark room was a shock to her eyes, so she blinked a couple times, trying to get used to the sight. Jim was panting slightly, as though he'd been running, and presently wore an anxious, tense-looking expression on his face.
When Pam came to, however, he schooled his expression into something more casual, apparently hyperaware of the fact that he had looked uncool for a single moment.
"What's-" She started, but was interrupted.
"Are you free for lunch tomorrow?"
"I…" Huh? What was going - Wait.
Wait.
Was he…?
No.
But…?
"Um. S-sure, yeah. But what, what for?"
"Oh." He looked confused for all of two seconds before realising her predicament. "Oh! Sorry. Yeah. A date."
A.
Date.
A d-a-t-e.
With Jim.
!
…Who currently was waiting for her answer. Damnit.
"Yes." Pam found herself nodding in sharp, jerky movements, her eyes welling inexplicably with tears. "I. Yes. Yep."
Jim's grin got even wider, somehow, and he ran a hand through his hair. "Great. That's… Yeah. Nice. Um." Awkwardly and seemingly in an act of faux courage, he used his non-preoccupied hand to shoot finger guns at her. "It's a date, then."
She merely nodded once more, unable to form coherent sentences.
He responded to her nod with one of his one, and turned on his heels to leave the room. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then, at lunch."
"Wait." Pam lunged forward, propelling herself off her desk chair. She crossed the small room in a matter of milliseconds and hesitated only briefly before throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face against his chest and breathing, breathing, breathing, for maybe the first time in months.
He returned the hug in kind, huffing out a little, almost disbelieving, laugh.
In the end, neither of them knew exactly how long they had stood there.
In the end, they supposed it didn't really matter.
"Pam, why did I just see Jim freaking Halpert leaving our room?"
"Um."
"Pam! Oh, my God!"
not the end. not yet! I'm thinking a couple more chapters, plus maybe an epilogue. anyways... what do you guys think? anticlimactic? too dramatic? not dramatic enough? whatever