One. Two. Three. Four.

Four red jellybeans left in Pam's candy dish. The hours kept dragging on, and she watched the jellybeans sit. Continued to count them as if on the twenty-sixth count the number would somehow magically change, and it would be five red jellybeans, and that would change everything. One. Two. Three. Four. Still only four red jellybeans immeresed in a dish filled with other coloured candies. The same but different. Like her and Jim's relationship after that fateful kiss. She shook her head knowing that if she was finding hiding meaning in the communal candy dish that she wasn't working hard enough.

The phone rang jolting her out of her despairing trance. She decided to pick it up on the third ring. "Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam."

"Hi Pam. I'm glad I caught you. There's an urgent matter we need to discuss," said an all too familiar voice on the other line. Pam's breath caught as she was overwhelmed head to toe with Jim. His voice filtered through her sensitive ears making her shiver deliciously. He surrounded her and she was more than willing to drown in the teasing tone she hadn't heard in oh so long.

"And what would this concern?" She asked, idly wraping the phone's cord around her thin finger.

"I don't know if you're aware of this but Dwight just inadvertantly admitted he believed in ghosts and other paranormal activities," his voice shaped eerily close to Dwight's at the last two words, "and I was thinking that we need to sharpen our team skills. I mean, we need to provide a united front! Let's face it, Beesly. We've been slipping."

She smiled widely and saw his eyes quickly find hers and then discreetly look away. Part of her was glad that they were finally talking the way they used to, glad that things could go back to normal so fast for them. Another secret part of her that she would never reveal was disappointed. Disappointed that her decloration hadn't shifted his world, turned his life around, forced him to see her. If you can't have one, she told herself, cherish the other.

"I could bring in my old halloween welcome mat that makes ghost noises when you step on it," she found herself offering. Her voice sounded like her old voice, droll and self-depriciating.

"I don't know..."

"Consider it?"

She pressed the phone against her ear harder as if it were a seashell when she heard the echo of Jim's warm laughter.