FIC: With A Calm Mind Ch. 1 [The Office; Jim/Pam]
Author’s Note: Each chapter is inspired by five prompts from my Jim/Pam claim at 50scenes on LiveJournal.
Takes place after the season five finale. I don’t own anything.
She fiddled with her hands as they drove off from the hospital, her ring cool against her heated skin. Somewhere next to her, in her clouded haze, Jim was talking about the excitement of the day, everything that had gone on. “Pam? Are you okay?” he asked, putting one hand over hers and giving her a little smile.
She nodded, nearly imperceptible at first, but growing in vigor. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied, looking up at him.
“We’re going to be parents, can you believe it?” His face lit up at the words.
No, no, she couldn’t. It didn’t seem real. But she didn’t need to say that.
“I can,” she said, mentally berating herself as soon as she said it. Lying to Jim wasn’t something she had ever intended to do. Things change, she supposed. Turning away from him, she pressed her nose to the window, and watched as the city streets passed by in a blur.
They pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store, needing a few things to prepare for dinner that evening. “Is there anything in particular you want?” Jim asked, as they pushed a cart through the aisles, picking out two cans of store-brand peas and putting them in the cart, nestled in next to a small bag of sugar. “I think we have enough pickles and ice cream to last us a while, in case you get a craving in the middle of the night.”
She rolled her eyes and groaned, swatting him lightly across the forearm. “No way. I’d never do that.”
“You say that now, Beesly, but if I come out of the bedroom at three in the morning and find you pigging out on a dill pickle and rocky road sundae, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I never said I wouldn’t get cravings. But that sundae sounds disgusting.”
“Just watch...just watch.”
As they pulled their cart up to the checkout, and Jim made small talk with the young, female cashier with the unusually spelled first name, Pam sunk back against the magazine rack, looking up into the blinding fluorescent lights. Next to her, a male Hollywood star smirked out from the cover of a teen magazine, his visage captured in print, to be papered on his adoring audience’s walls and kissed with varying shades of lipstick before their bedside lights were turned out for the night. She had once been that girl, many years before. Not anymore. Self-consciously, she rubbed her stomach. She knew she wasn’t showing yet, but she knew that, for the next few months, this would be her one link, her one connection to her unborn child. Their unborn child, she mentally corrected herself. Theirs.
After dinner that night, they lay on the couch, her head cradled against his chest, his hands running through her hair, enjoying a peaceful and mutually agreed-on silence. She stretched her arms above her head and smiled over at him.
“You think they know about it?” he asked, breaking the silence, looking over at her. “I mean, I did tell Dwight to send in the subs.”
She shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “Nah, probably not. They’ll probably think that something was very wrong, and pepper me with a million questions.”
“Should we invent some catastrophic medical ailment for you to prevent the interrogation?” he replied with a laugh.
“I went in for x-rays. They’re not going to think I contracted the pneumonic plague. Besides, you know as well as I do, Dwight would still constantly annoy me about it. Probably would wonder how I contracted it in the first place.”
Jim gave a grunt in agreement and they fell back into their silence; their slow, steady breathing being the only noise permeating the room.
Later that evening, as Jim lay in bed, his gentle snoring filtering out, Pam peered at herself in the bathroom mirror, dabbing absentmindedly with a washcloth. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a fortune from the last time they had gone out to House of China leaning against the mirror. She remembered how Jim had handed her both fortune cookies after their meal, and told her to pick one. The one Jim ended up with had been something about living in interesting times. Wasn’t every day at Dunder-Mifflin under the umbrella of “interesting times” though?
She stared at the little slip of paper, the tiny red words blurring together in her line of vision. She knew what she had to do. Funny how those little things could answer the questions that she didn’t know she was asking herself. She got up abruptly and walked back into the bedroom, single-mindedly focused on the task ahead. The sudden movement caused the fortune to fall off the edge of the bathroom counter and drift downward, falling onto the tile, fortune side up.
“Dedicate yourself with a calm mind to the task at hand.”
-to be continued-
Prompts used in this chapter: Hands, sugar, smirk, silence, and fortune, in that order.
Takes place after the season five finale. I don’t own anything.
She fiddled with her hands as they drove off from the hospital, her ring cool against her heated skin. Somewhere next to her, in her clouded haze, Jim was talking about the excitement of the day, everything that had gone on. “Pam? Are you okay?” he asked, putting one hand over hers and giving her a little smile.
She nodded, nearly imperceptible at first, but growing in vigor. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied, looking up at him.
“We’re going to be parents, can you believe it?” His face lit up at the words.
No, no, she couldn’t. It didn’t seem real. But she didn’t need to say that.
“I can,” she said, mentally berating herself as soon as she said it. Lying to Jim wasn’t something she had ever intended to do. Things change, she supposed. Turning away from him, she pressed her nose to the window, and watched as the city streets passed by in a blur.
They pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store, needing a few things to prepare for dinner that evening. “Is there anything in particular you want?” Jim asked, as they pushed a cart through the aisles, picking out two cans of store-brand peas and putting them in the cart, nestled in next to a small bag of sugar. “I think we have enough pickles and ice cream to last us a while, in case you get a craving in the middle of the night.”
She rolled her eyes and groaned, swatting him lightly across the forearm. “No way. I’d never do that.”
“You say that now, Beesly, but if I come out of the bedroom at three in the morning and find you pigging out on a dill pickle and rocky road sundae, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I never said I wouldn’t get cravings. But that sundae sounds disgusting.”
“Just watch...just watch.”
As they pulled their cart up to the checkout, and Jim made small talk with the young, female cashier with the unusually spelled first name, Pam sunk back against the magazine rack, looking up into the blinding fluorescent lights. Next to her, a male Hollywood star smirked out from the cover of a teen magazine, his visage captured in print, to be papered on his adoring audience’s walls and kissed with varying shades of lipstick before their bedside lights were turned out for the night. She had once been that girl, many years before. Not anymore. Self-consciously, she rubbed her stomach. She knew she wasn’t showing yet, but she knew that, for the next few months, this would be her one link, her one connection to her unborn child. Their unborn child, she mentally corrected herself. Theirs.
After dinner that night, they lay on the couch, her head cradled against his chest, his hands running through her hair, enjoying a peaceful and mutually agreed-on silence. She stretched her arms above her head and smiled over at him.
“You think they know about it?” he asked, breaking the silence, looking over at her. “I mean, I did tell Dwight to send in the subs.”
She shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “Nah, probably not. They’ll probably think that something was very wrong, and pepper me with a million questions.”
“Should we invent some catastrophic medical ailment for you to prevent the interrogation?” he replied with a laugh.
“I went in for x-rays. They’re not going to think I contracted the pneumonic plague. Besides, you know as well as I do, Dwight would still constantly annoy me about it. Probably would wonder how I contracted it in the first place.”
Jim gave a grunt in agreement and they fell back into their silence; their slow, steady breathing being the only noise permeating the room.
Later that evening, as Jim lay in bed, his gentle snoring filtering out, Pam peered at herself in the bathroom mirror, dabbing absentmindedly with a washcloth. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a fortune from the last time they had gone out to House of China leaning against the mirror. She remembered how Jim had handed her both fortune cookies after their meal, and told her to pick one. The one Jim ended up with had been something about living in interesting times. Wasn’t every day at Dunder-Mifflin under the umbrella of “interesting times” though?
She stared at the little slip of paper, the tiny red words blurring together in her line of vision. She knew what she had to do. Funny how those little things could answer the questions that she didn’t know she was asking herself. She got up abruptly and walked back into the bedroom, single-mindedly focused on the task ahead. The sudden movement caused the fortune to fall off the edge of the bathroom counter and drift downward, falling onto the tile, fortune side up.
“Dedicate yourself with a calm mind to the task at hand.”
-to be continued-
Prompts used in this chapter: Hands, sugar, smirk, silence, and fortune, in that order.