5 Times Kelly Sang for Toby and the One Time She Didn't, (Toby/Kelly), PG
Title: 5 Times Kelly Sang for Toby and The One Time She Didn’t
author: “phil_urich”
fandom: The Office
pairing: Toby/Kelly
rating: PG
warnings: none
spoilers: none
author's note: thanks so much to “foodygoody“ for inspiring this story with her own writing and for being my proof reader as well.
disclaimer: not mine. If they had been I can promise you Toby wouldn’t have ended on that rather odd note the way he did in the 4th season.
1. Cancel the Doctor. We Need A Singer
He held the small glass vase of lilies lightly in his hand as walked through the long hospital hallways searching for room 308. Jim and Pam had visited her earlier, saying she seemed in pretty good spirits. Michael had suggested that Toby go see her too since they were practically roommates back in the annex. It was a thinly veiled suggestion to leave for the day and he could only imagine what might actually be taking place at the office right now, but…he was willing to take the bait, if only to get out of the office and surprise Sasha at school with a slice of pizza from Sbarro’s.
He found the room a few minutes later and sniffed the lilies one last time. Pam had told him that Kelly liked the color white and handed him a card she’d made for the occasion with almost everyone in the office’s signatures on it. He remembered last year he’d had to have his tonsils removed and nobody save Jim had shown up. He hadn’t even gotten a card. He really didn’t need to be thinking about that right now though.
He walked into the room thinking/hoping that Kelly would be half asleep, but found her sitting up with a bowl of melting chocolate ice cream at her bedside and what looked to be a soap opera playing on her television. He watched as her eyes slowly made their way through the television and rested their glassy gaze on him. A small smile crept on her face and she giggled just a little. “Toby,” she laughed.
“Hey Kelly,” he said, offering her a smile as he walked closer to the bed. “I brought you a card from the office and these flowers too.”
“Oh they’re soooo pretty,” she half squealed before closing her eyes and letting out a contented sigh.
He placed the vase on the small night table near her bed and then set the card upright against the vase, figuring she’d see it whenever she woke up.
“Hey Toby let’s sing a song. I’ll sing the first verse and then you sing the third, OK?”
“What if I don’t know the lyrics,?” Toby played along.
Kelly pouted for a second, but then smiled and opened her eyes again. “We’ll just sing the chorus then. Ready?”
“What song are we singing,?” he asked.
“I need you now, you know I really need you now,” Kelly belted out in her usual off-key fashion, as she suddenly sat up in her bed, her johnnie falling off her left shoulder just a little.
“That’s good Kelly, but you should really lie back d-”
“Your turn Toby,” Kelly interrupted as she lay back.
“Um, well I don’t really think…”
“Oh come on Toby, don’t be such a tease. You totally said you would.”
Toby glanced down at the floor and licked his suddenly dry lips, hoping that when he looked back at her she’d be fast asleep. He slowly looked back up and saw her expectant gaze still directed at him. It reminded him of the way Sasha looked whenever she was waiting for him to do something he’d promised her, no matter how ridiculous it might have been. “Alright, but don’t tell anyone, ok? Because my voice is kind of bad and I don’t want this getting back to the office.”
“Ahhh Toby! Stop stalling! I won’t tell anyone, ok? Promise.”
Toby nodded and sighed, wondering why he’d played along in the first place. “I need you now, you know I really need you now,” he sang in a low tone.
Kelly smiled. “That was so awesome, Toby.” She sighed and then frowned. “Ryan never sang for me. Darryl did once, but it wasn’t as good. You’re good though Toby. I’m going to sleep now, OK?”
“OK,” Toby said, unsure if now was really the time to leave.
“Goodnight,” she said as she turned onto her side facing the window in her hospital room.
“Goodnight,” Toby said as he stood up to leave.
“Hey Toby?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you pull the sheets up a little?”
“Yeah.”
2. Toby as Designated Driver
Toby sighed as he rounded the neighborhood for the third time that night, trying his best not to take his steadily building headache out on Kelly. It hadn’t been her fault that he hadn’t paid any attention to where they were going when he first entered the neighborhood to drop off Kevin. Besides she was just a little tipsy, a fact that she didn’t really seem to mind sharing with every guy she’d met at Poor Richard’s that night, even him.
“Maybe it’s this way,” Kelly said as she pointed at a random street.
“You sure,?” he asked. They’d been driving around so long he was open to a change, any change, in direction.
“Mmm, yeah,” Kelly said as she laid her head back against the headrest. “Bleh, I totally feel like I’m going to throw up. I won’t do it in your car though Toby, so don’t sweat it.”
“Alright, but let me know before you do, ok? I’ll pull over,” he said as he turned down the barely lit street. As they rode down on it he started to see a few houses that looked familiar, but didn’t say anything until he finally saw the main road ahead. He‘d dropped Kelly off before so he knew where she lived. “You were right.”
“Hmm, yeah I’m pretty good at this. Like Ryan would always get lost after we went to parties and I’d always have to find our way out, so it’s like seventh sense to me. Hey could we listen to something else? I know it’s really rude to ask, but this song is really making me feel sick right now.”
The song in question was actually a news segment on NPR, but he turned it off anyway. As they drove down the main street he started to smile at the realization that he had two whole days free of Michael to look forward to and then he noticed her humming.
It was sort of nice in its own way, gentle and slow. He thought he might even recognize the tune if she would just hum the tune a little higher. Then she laughed at herself.
“I don’t even know the words to that song, but it’s so fun to hum, right? Like I remember in elementary school I would hum it every day before I went to school just so I’d get it stuck in my head. I don’t think I even know the name of it.”
Toby thought about the way the tune had sounded, but nothing came to mind. “Do you remember any of the lyrics?”
“Um something about…OK, promise not to laugh.”
“Sure.”
“Come on Eileen, don’t you know what I mean. At this moment you mean everything to me,” she sang, her voice still as off tune as it had been the first time.
“It’s ‘Come On Eileen’.”
“Yeah, that’s a line in the song.”
“Yeah, but it’s also the title of the song,” Toby said patiently as he turned into Kelly’s apartment complex.
“Whoa! Really? That’s so bizarre. Do other people name their songs after their lyrics? Oh wait, Britney Spears does. You know that song ‘One More Time’? She sings it like over and over again.”
Toby did in fact not know the song, but he nodded along with what she was saying as he pulled up in front of her apartment building.
“Thanks for the ride Toby,” Kelly said before kissing his cheek and getting out of the car. He watched as she unlocked her door and didn’t even bother to wipe off the lipstick on his cheek.
3. A Bad Day
He heard a sniffle. He looked up from the file he’d been working on, a complaint from Dwight about Jim having glued him to his own chair. The problem was neither Jim nor Pam had been in the office all week, so he really wasn’t sure what to do with it, other then keep it out of Michael’s hands. A song from a CD that Ryan had made for him when Ryan had still been a temp. Ryan had thought Toby could use some better taste in music and Toby hadn‘t been able to disagree at the time, so...
He was pretty sure the only reason Ryan had visited him was to get a glimpse of Kelly. He didn’t mind though, a few of the songs on the CD weren’t that bad actually. Besides it wasn’t as if he could blame Ryan. Kelly was an attractive woman, her need to talk and dress like a teenage girl notwithstanding, and could even be fun to talk to. Plus, she played a pretty mean game of Dunderball.
He heard a second sniffle and closed the file. He’d learned a few years ago that one sniffle was manageable, but a second sniffle usually meant that she needed someone to talk to. In the past he’d called Pam to the back to help out. ‘But she’s not here right now,’ he reminded himself as he pushed his chair around to her desk and for a moment he wondered if he was looking at the same person. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, her clothes were dully colored and she was wearing little to no make-up. He’d seen her like this one time before, the week her sister died.
“Um Kelly, do you want to talk?” He knew better than to ask a co-worker if they were OK. If they were OK why would they be talking to him?
She cleared her throat, probably the most unladylike thing he had ever heard from her. It was a harsh grunt and then she said, “My grandmother died,” in the same tone one might use when telling someone it’s cold outside.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She nodded her head and then turned to look at him. “I really wanted her to see my children. When I have some. If I have some. They are going to be sooo cute,” she says and she didn’t wail the way Meredith did when she was having a good cry. Kelly just put her face in her hands and her shoulders shuddered as he placed his arm around in an awkward hug and gave her a handkerchief with his free hand.
Her arms pulled him and his chair closer and he would have laughed at the squeak of his chair if Michael hadn’t chosen that same moment to come around the corner and ask him what he thought he was doing. Toby had no idea where it came from and at the moment he didn’t care, but whatever it was, it allowed him to tell Michael that he needed to go back to his office; that he had everything under control and it was none of his business. Michael, for once in his life, didn’t say a word. He just walked away.
“Is he gone,” Kelly asked, her voice muffled by her hands.
“Yeah,” Toby said quietly.
“I think I’m going to go home for the day,” Kelly told him as she lifted her head and wiped the last of the tears away from her eyes.
“OK,” Toby said , knowing she actually has quite a bit of vacation time to burn. He’d asked her why once and she said she needed it for the honeymoon.
“It’s totally not a good idea though. I’ll just eat ice cream and get fat and feel worse,” she sighed. “Can we just take a long lunch?”
“Yeah, let me just get my things and we’ll go.” The break room, he’d come to find was a horrible place for lunch time talks like these, so he usually just went wherever the other person wanted to go and charged it to the company credit card.
He drove the two of them to an Applebee’s, her choice, and asked their equivalent of a headwaiter for a private table. She told him a little about the funeral and a lot about her family. He didn’t really talk much, just asked a question every now and then to show her that he’s paying attention.
She started to ask him about his family, but he pushed the topic of conversation back her way because his dad was the last person he would really want to talk about. He never learned to talk around the man when this sort of topic came up anyway.
Their conversation ended as one between friends would, a quiet satisfaction in which no words were necessary. He paid the tab and they leave, driving the rest of the way in that same content satisfaction that they had felt at the restaurant. When they do arrive back to work, both are reluctant to leave their car for whatever might be awaiting them inside.
He knew Michael would still want to know where they went and there will probably be an insult or two thrown his way, but then again he was building quite the little case file against Dunder Mifflin should he ever want to take a vacation. If nothing else it’ll get Michael fired. The thought spurred him to make the first move, taking the keys out of the ignition and opening his door. She followed suit, but before they made it to the doors she turned around and hugged him.
He returned it, knowing that she just needed someone to hug. He was alright with being that person. He was her friend after all.
4. Things Change and Kelly Sings With Them
He opens his eyes and he honestly can’t believe what he sees before him. A chocolate cake with white frosting drizzling off the sides sitting in front of him and beside him are all of his co-workers. In the middle of it all is Kelly, who seems more overjoyed than he is.
“Alright guys, ready?” she asks, though both of them know that it doesn’t really matter. His co-workers sing Happy Birthday to him. Phyllis and Meredith look like they actually mean it. Stanley, Creed and Kevin are in it just for the cake. Angela and Dwight are nowhere to be found, but he doesn’t take it personally. They never come to anyone’s party (I don’t know about this. Just because of Angela being in charge of the Party Planning Committee. She seems to love her parties). He doesn’t like to think of what they’re doing while these parties are going on. Andy’s on the verge of serenading him and Jim and Pam…well they’re smiling and he’s happy to see that some of the tension among them has eased. The bottle of wine with a relationship form and a long apology note he’d sent a month ago had apparently done some good.
Then there was Kelly. She smiled as she sang and never once looked anywhere but him. When the song ended she cut his cake and made sure he got the biggest slice and it was really all too much for him. When he felt no one was looking he walked to the elevators and took it down to the lobby before walking outside. He looked up at (the) great blue expanse of sky and breathed in through his nose and out his mouth in a slow rhythm his psychiatrist had taught him.
“Toby, what are you doing,?” Kelly asked in her typically excited fashion.
“I just needed to get a breath of fresh air. I didn’t take my medication to-” Had he just said what he thought he’d said? Oh dear God say it wasn’t so.
“Your medication? Like you have asthma or something?”
“Something,” he mutters to himself.
“Hold on a sec, I’ll be back,” she said with a flash of a smile. There’s a part of him that wants to run for his car and just drive home, but then there’s the other part that’s very interested in what might happen when she comes back. The latter part wins out and he sits down, still breathing slowly.
When she comes back she finds him with his jacket folded and laid beside him. He sees her holding two paper plates with cake on it. His says “Party” in bright red letters and he can’t help but find the irony just a little funny.
“So come on, take a bite,” Kelly insists as she practically feeds him his first bite. It’s
deliciously moist and darkly rich. The second bite is better than the first and he savors every second of it.
He notices Kelly’s still looking at him as if waiting for an answer. “This is really, really good cake. Where did you get it,” he asks.
“Uh, hello! I made it Toby,. Didn’t I tell you?”
He’s shocked into silence for just a moment. “Thank you. Y you shouldn’t have,” he says.
“It was no big deal. Besides you’re always helping us out,” Kelly says her eyes now staring at her feet.
"Do you want to go to dinner with me tomorrow night," he asks unexpectedly.
“Are you for real?,” Kelly asks. The question throws him off-balance, but her surprised smile gives him the confidence to carry on.
“Yeah.”
5. Bad Diary Days
Their house has been silent for months. It hadn’t always been that way. He sees it in the pictures they have in the small bookcase near their television stand. He sees a picture of them at Jim and Pam’s wedding, then one of the two of them in Hawaii trying their best to hula. He looked ridiculous in his t-shirt and khaki shorts, a grass skirt tied around his waist. Kelly looked wonderful though and for a moment he forgot the same woman was standing in their kitchen going through the motions of making their dinner while he sat and reminisced about happier times.
His eyes pass over all those other happier times, times in New York City, the annual softball game, Sasha’s most recent ballet recital and finally come to linger on an empty frame. They’d bought it specifically for the baby. He could see it now, Kelly holding a dark-skinned boy with her black hair and his gray eyes. She would have had the biggest smile in the world. There had been complications though.
Now there was only this gloom that seemed to hang over the two of them. There’s a part of him that knows she needs something from him, a word, an action to know that this is…well, not alright, but it happened and they can move on. He just doesn’t know if he has the strength for it.
This isn’t the first miscarriage he suffered through. He thinks of Sasha’s little brother and how her mother wouldn’t look him in the eye afterwards. Still doesn’t, if he really wants to think about it. Kelly’s looking at him now though, begging for some sign that this wasn’t her fault. He sighs just a little and swallows before standing up and making his way over to the couch.
She comes into the living room a few minutes later and sits down beside him and he lets her cry while he holds her. He says it’s not her fault and she holds him tighter telling him she was afraid that she’d lost him too. He kisses her forehead and rocks her slowly, telling her no all the while. They take apart the crib and paint over the walls that same night.
Its a few weeks later when he thinks he hears singing coming from the kitchen. It’s a low, sad sounding song, but he feels it’s a start.
6. Ladies and Gentlemen, We are Floating in Space
The crowd on the sidewalk divides as they come near with their rather wide stroller. A few older women pass by and ‘oooh’ and ‘ahh’ over their children. Sasha proudly announces that she’s their big sister and the women compliment her on having taken on such a task. Kelly giggles a little and kisses him on the cheek for no particular reason.
The five of them continue on and Kelly tells him that this is a true Bollywood moment and that there should be singing and dancing. She sings a bit of a song from one of the many Indian films her cousins had given them as wedding gifts. It’s one of the songs he likes too and though he doesn’t know the words he hums along while Sasha pulls her little brothers’ blankets up to their chin. ‘To keep them warm,’ she explains before talking about her latest trip to the ballet with her mom and Steve and how she wants to be a ballerina. He smiles as they walk along and continues to hum because at this moment in time he couldn’t possibly think of anything being more perfect than right now.
author: “phil_urich”
fandom: The Office
pairing: Toby/Kelly
rating: PG
warnings: none
spoilers: none
author's note: thanks so much to “foodygoody“ for inspiring this story with her own writing and for being my proof reader as well.
disclaimer: not mine. If they had been I can promise you Toby wouldn’t have ended on that rather odd note the way he did in the 4th season.
1. Cancel the Doctor. We Need A Singer
He held the small glass vase of lilies lightly in his hand as walked through the long hospital hallways searching for room 308. Jim and Pam had visited her earlier, saying she seemed in pretty good spirits. Michael had suggested that Toby go see her too since they were practically roommates back in the annex. It was a thinly veiled suggestion to leave for the day and he could only imagine what might actually be taking place at the office right now, but…he was willing to take the bait, if only to get out of the office and surprise Sasha at school with a slice of pizza from Sbarro’s.
He found the room a few minutes later and sniffed the lilies one last time. Pam had told him that Kelly liked the color white and handed him a card she’d made for the occasion with almost everyone in the office’s signatures on it. He remembered last year he’d had to have his tonsils removed and nobody save Jim had shown up. He hadn’t even gotten a card. He really didn’t need to be thinking about that right now though.
He walked into the room thinking/hoping that Kelly would be half asleep, but found her sitting up with a bowl of melting chocolate ice cream at her bedside and what looked to be a soap opera playing on her television. He watched as her eyes slowly made their way through the television and rested their glassy gaze on him. A small smile crept on her face and she giggled just a little. “Toby,” she laughed.
“Hey Kelly,” he said, offering her a smile as he walked closer to the bed. “I brought you a card from the office and these flowers too.”
“Oh they’re soooo pretty,” she half squealed before closing her eyes and letting out a contented sigh.
He placed the vase on the small night table near her bed and then set the card upright against the vase, figuring she’d see it whenever she woke up.
“Hey Toby let’s sing a song. I’ll sing the first verse and then you sing the third, OK?”
“What if I don’t know the lyrics,?” Toby played along.
Kelly pouted for a second, but then smiled and opened her eyes again. “We’ll just sing the chorus then. Ready?”
“What song are we singing,?” he asked.
“I need you now, you know I really need you now,” Kelly belted out in her usual off-key fashion, as she suddenly sat up in her bed, her johnnie falling off her left shoulder just a little.
“That’s good Kelly, but you should really lie back d-”
“Your turn Toby,” Kelly interrupted as she lay back.
“Um, well I don’t really think…”
“Oh come on Toby, don’t be such a tease. You totally said you would.”
Toby glanced down at the floor and licked his suddenly dry lips, hoping that when he looked back at her she’d be fast asleep. He slowly looked back up and saw her expectant gaze still directed at him. It reminded him of the way Sasha looked whenever she was waiting for him to do something he’d promised her, no matter how ridiculous it might have been. “Alright, but don’t tell anyone, ok? Because my voice is kind of bad and I don’t want this getting back to the office.”
“Ahhh Toby! Stop stalling! I won’t tell anyone, ok? Promise.”
Toby nodded and sighed, wondering why he’d played along in the first place. “I need you now, you know I really need you now,” he sang in a low tone.
Kelly smiled. “That was so awesome, Toby.” She sighed and then frowned. “Ryan never sang for me. Darryl did once, but it wasn’t as good. You’re good though Toby. I’m going to sleep now, OK?”
“OK,” Toby said, unsure if now was really the time to leave.
“Goodnight,” she said as she turned onto her side facing the window in her hospital room.
“Goodnight,” Toby said as he stood up to leave.
“Hey Toby?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you pull the sheets up a little?”
“Yeah.”
2. Toby as Designated Driver
Toby sighed as he rounded the neighborhood for the third time that night, trying his best not to take his steadily building headache out on Kelly. It hadn’t been her fault that he hadn’t paid any attention to where they were going when he first entered the neighborhood to drop off Kevin. Besides she was just a little tipsy, a fact that she didn’t really seem to mind sharing with every guy she’d met at Poor Richard’s that night, even him.
“Maybe it’s this way,” Kelly said as she pointed at a random street.
“You sure,?” he asked. They’d been driving around so long he was open to a change, any change, in direction.
“Mmm, yeah,” Kelly said as she laid her head back against the headrest. “Bleh, I totally feel like I’m going to throw up. I won’t do it in your car though Toby, so don’t sweat it.”
“Alright, but let me know before you do, ok? I’ll pull over,” he said as he turned down the barely lit street. As they rode down on it he started to see a few houses that looked familiar, but didn’t say anything until he finally saw the main road ahead. He‘d dropped Kelly off before so he knew where she lived. “You were right.”
“Hmm, yeah I’m pretty good at this. Like Ryan would always get lost after we went to parties and I’d always have to find our way out, so it’s like seventh sense to me. Hey could we listen to something else? I know it’s really rude to ask, but this song is really making me feel sick right now.”
The song in question was actually a news segment on NPR, but he turned it off anyway. As they drove down the main street he started to smile at the realization that he had two whole days free of Michael to look forward to and then he noticed her humming.
It was sort of nice in its own way, gentle and slow. He thought he might even recognize the tune if she would just hum the tune a little higher. Then she laughed at herself.
“I don’t even know the words to that song, but it’s so fun to hum, right? Like I remember in elementary school I would hum it every day before I went to school just so I’d get it stuck in my head. I don’t think I even know the name of it.”
Toby thought about the way the tune had sounded, but nothing came to mind. “Do you remember any of the lyrics?”
“Um something about…OK, promise not to laugh.”
“Sure.”
“Come on Eileen, don’t you know what I mean. At this moment you mean everything to me,” she sang, her voice still as off tune as it had been the first time.
“It’s ‘Come On Eileen’.”
“Yeah, that’s a line in the song.”
“Yeah, but it’s also the title of the song,” Toby said patiently as he turned into Kelly’s apartment complex.
“Whoa! Really? That’s so bizarre. Do other people name their songs after their lyrics? Oh wait, Britney Spears does. You know that song ‘One More Time’? She sings it like over and over again.”
Toby did in fact not know the song, but he nodded along with what she was saying as he pulled up in front of her apartment building.
“Thanks for the ride Toby,” Kelly said before kissing his cheek and getting out of the car. He watched as she unlocked her door and didn’t even bother to wipe off the lipstick on his cheek.
3. A Bad Day
He heard a sniffle. He looked up from the file he’d been working on, a complaint from Dwight about Jim having glued him to his own chair. The problem was neither Jim nor Pam had been in the office all week, so he really wasn’t sure what to do with it, other then keep it out of Michael’s hands. A song from a CD that Ryan had made for him when Ryan had still been a temp. Ryan had thought Toby could use some better taste in music and Toby hadn‘t been able to disagree at the time, so...
He was pretty sure the only reason Ryan had visited him was to get a glimpse of Kelly. He didn’t mind though, a few of the songs on the CD weren’t that bad actually. Besides it wasn’t as if he could blame Ryan. Kelly was an attractive woman, her need to talk and dress like a teenage girl notwithstanding, and could even be fun to talk to. Plus, she played a pretty mean game of Dunderball.
He heard a second sniffle and closed the file. He’d learned a few years ago that one sniffle was manageable, but a second sniffle usually meant that she needed someone to talk to. In the past he’d called Pam to the back to help out. ‘But she’s not here right now,’ he reminded himself as he pushed his chair around to her desk and for a moment he wondered if he was looking at the same person. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, her clothes were dully colored and she was wearing little to no make-up. He’d seen her like this one time before, the week her sister died.
“Um Kelly, do you want to talk?” He knew better than to ask a co-worker if they were OK. If they were OK why would they be talking to him?
She cleared her throat, probably the most unladylike thing he had ever heard from her. It was a harsh grunt and then she said, “My grandmother died,” in the same tone one might use when telling someone it’s cold outside.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She nodded her head and then turned to look at him. “I really wanted her to see my children. When I have some. If I have some. They are going to be sooo cute,” she says and she didn’t wail the way Meredith did when she was having a good cry. Kelly just put her face in her hands and her shoulders shuddered as he placed his arm around in an awkward hug and gave her a handkerchief with his free hand.
Her arms pulled him and his chair closer and he would have laughed at the squeak of his chair if Michael hadn’t chosen that same moment to come around the corner and ask him what he thought he was doing. Toby had no idea where it came from and at the moment he didn’t care, but whatever it was, it allowed him to tell Michael that he needed to go back to his office; that he had everything under control and it was none of his business. Michael, for once in his life, didn’t say a word. He just walked away.
“Is he gone,” Kelly asked, her voice muffled by her hands.
“Yeah,” Toby said quietly.
“I think I’m going to go home for the day,” Kelly told him as she lifted her head and wiped the last of the tears away from her eyes.
“OK,” Toby said , knowing she actually has quite a bit of vacation time to burn. He’d asked her why once and she said she needed it for the honeymoon.
“It’s totally not a good idea though. I’ll just eat ice cream and get fat and feel worse,” she sighed. “Can we just take a long lunch?”
“Yeah, let me just get my things and we’ll go.” The break room, he’d come to find was a horrible place for lunch time talks like these, so he usually just went wherever the other person wanted to go and charged it to the company credit card.
He drove the two of them to an Applebee’s, her choice, and asked their equivalent of a headwaiter for a private table. She told him a little about the funeral and a lot about her family. He didn’t really talk much, just asked a question every now and then to show her that he’s paying attention.
She started to ask him about his family, but he pushed the topic of conversation back her way because his dad was the last person he would really want to talk about. He never learned to talk around the man when this sort of topic came up anyway.
Their conversation ended as one between friends would, a quiet satisfaction in which no words were necessary. He paid the tab and they leave, driving the rest of the way in that same content satisfaction that they had felt at the restaurant. When they do arrive back to work, both are reluctant to leave their car for whatever might be awaiting them inside.
He knew Michael would still want to know where they went and there will probably be an insult or two thrown his way, but then again he was building quite the little case file against Dunder Mifflin should he ever want to take a vacation. If nothing else it’ll get Michael fired. The thought spurred him to make the first move, taking the keys out of the ignition and opening his door. She followed suit, but before they made it to the doors she turned around and hugged him.
He returned it, knowing that she just needed someone to hug. He was alright with being that person. He was her friend after all.
4. Things Change and Kelly Sings With Them
He opens his eyes and he honestly can’t believe what he sees before him. A chocolate cake with white frosting drizzling off the sides sitting in front of him and beside him are all of his co-workers. In the middle of it all is Kelly, who seems more overjoyed than he is.
“Alright guys, ready?” she asks, though both of them know that it doesn’t really matter. His co-workers sing Happy Birthday to him. Phyllis and Meredith look like they actually mean it. Stanley, Creed and Kevin are in it just for the cake. Angela and Dwight are nowhere to be found, but he doesn’t take it personally. They never come to anyone’s party (I don’t know about this. Just because of Angela being in charge of the Party Planning Committee. She seems to love her parties). He doesn’t like to think of what they’re doing while these parties are going on. Andy’s on the verge of serenading him and Jim and Pam…well they’re smiling and he’s happy to see that some of the tension among them has eased. The bottle of wine with a relationship form and a long apology note he’d sent a month ago had apparently done some good.
Then there was Kelly. She smiled as she sang and never once looked anywhere but him. When the song ended she cut his cake and made sure he got the biggest slice and it was really all too much for him. When he felt no one was looking he walked to the elevators and took it down to the lobby before walking outside. He looked up at (the) great blue expanse of sky and breathed in through his nose and out his mouth in a slow rhythm his psychiatrist had taught him.
“Toby, what are you doing,?” Kelly asked in her typically excited fashion.
“I just needed to get a breath of fresh air. I didn’t take my medication to-” Had he just said what he thought he’d said? Oh dear God say it wasn’t so.
“Your medication? Like you have asthma or something?”
“Something,” he mutters to himself.
“Hold on a sec, I’ll be back,” she said with a flash of a smile. There’s a part of him that wants to run for his car and just drive home, but then there’s the other part that’s very interested in what might happen when she comes back. The latter part wins out and he sits down, still breathing slowly.
When she comes back she finds him with his jacket folded and laid beside him. He sees her holding two paper plates with cake on it. His says “Party” in bright red letters and he can’t help but find the irony just a little funny.
“So come on, take a bite,” Kelly insists as she practically feeds him his first bite. It’s
deliciously moist and darkly rich. The second bite is better than the first and he savors every second of it.
He notices Kelly’s still looking at him as if waiting for an answer. “This is really, really good cake. Where did you get it,” he asks.
“Uh, hello! I made it Toby,. Didn’t I tell you?”
He’s shocked into silence for just a moment. “Thank you. Y you shouldn’t have,” he says.
“It was no big deal. Besides you’re always helping us out,” Kelly says her eyes now staring at her feet.
"Do you want to go to dinner with me tomorrow night," he asks unexpectedly.
“Are you for real?,” Kelly asks. The question throws him off-balance, but her surprised smile gives him the confidence to carry on.
“Yeah.”
5. Bad Diary Days
Their house has been silent for months. It hadn’t always been that way. He sees it in the pictures they have in the small bookcase near their television stand. He sees a picture of them at Jim and Pam’s wedding, then one of the two of them in Hawaii trying their best to hula. He looked ridiculous in his t-shirt and khaki shorts, a grass skirt tied around his waist. Kelly looked wonderful though and for a moment he forgot the same woman was standing in their kitchen going through the motions of making their dinner while he sat and reminisced about happier times.
His eyes pass over all those other happier times, times in New York City, the annual softball game, Sasha’s most recent ballet recital and finally come to linger on an empty frame. They’d bought it specifically for the baby. He could see it now, Kelly holding a dark-skinned boy with her black hair and his gray eyes. She would have had the biggest smile in the world. There had been complications though.
Now there was only this gloom that seemed to hang over the two of them. There’s a part of him that knows she needs something from him, a word, an action to know that this is…well, not alright, but it happened and they can move on. He just doesn’t know if he has the strength for it.
This isn’t the first miscarriage he suffered through. He thinks of Sasha’s little brother and how her mother wouldn’t look him in the eye afterwards. Still doesn’t, if he really wants to think about it. Kelly’s looking at him now though, begging for some sign that this wasn’t her fault. He sighs just a little and swallows before standing up and making his way over to the couch.
She comes into the living room a few minutes later and sits down beside him and he lets her cry while he holds her. He says it’s not her fault and she holds him tighter telling him she was afraid that she’d lost him too. He kisses her forehead and rocks her slowly, telling her no all the while. They take apart the crib and paint over the walls that same night.
Its a few weeks later when he thinks he hears singing coming from the kitchen. It’s a low, sad sounding song, but he feels it’s a start.
6. Ladies and Gentlemen, We are Floating in Space
The crowd on the sidewalk divides as they come near with their rather wide stroller. A few older women pass by and ‘oooh’ and ‘ahh’ over their children. Sasha proudly announces that she’s their big sister and the women compliment her on having taken on such a task. Kelly giggles a little and kisses him on the cheek for no particular reason.
The five of them continue on and Kelly tells him that this is a true Bollywood moment and that there should be singing and dancing. She sings a bit of a song from one of the many Indian films her cousins had given them as wedding gifts. It’s one of the songs he likes too and though he doesn’t know the words he hums along while Sasha pulls her little brothers’ blankets up to their chin. ‘To keep them warm,’ she explains before talking about her latest trip to the ballet with her mom and Steve and how she wants to be a ballerina. He smiles as they walk along and continues to hum because at this moment in time he couldn’t possibly think of anything being more perfect than right now.