It was just plain fitting that the fire alarm had went off at 3 in the morning, on Pam Beesly's third ever day of college.

She had rushed out the door as soon as she'd recognised what it was, neglecting to even grab her glasses off the bedside table, grabbing the first item of clothing she could find that remotely resembled a jacket.

She guessed there was probably some sort of buddy system in place, and knew that it was pretty irresponsible for her to not be by her roommate's side, but Kelly had ran off as soon as her last class had ended, explaining quickly that she was "off to find out where that hot guy from business lives" and hadn't heard from her since then.

Everyone from her building was gathered just a little away from the dorms. Most people were fully dressed and chatting fervently as though they'd been up for hours (which might well have been a possibility; this was college after all) but Pam had ended up wandering back towards the building, hiding round the side so as not to be seen.

She wrapped the hoodie around herself tightly. Despite it being only September, it was practically freezing out. If she blew out hard enough, she could see her breath mist away.

It had to have been at least 10 minutes since the alarm went off, and there was no sign of any management going on at all. She couldn't even hear sirens from firemen; she wasn't totally certain that anyone had even called the fire department, anyway.

It was annoying having to stand there by herself. It was only her third day after all, and she had met a grand total of 5 people so far, only 2 of them professors. Kelly was supposed to be her roommate, but she spent most of her time "at classes", some of which didn't even exist (diet experimentation, seriously? Since when was that a real class, at any school?) or hanging around other buildings. Then there was Angela, a blonde, prim girl with unusually good posture who stayed in a room a bit down the hall. Pam had bumped into her when she was moving one of her last boxes into her room and sent her stuff flying, and Angela had protectively touched her hand to the crucifix necklace around her neck.

The only other person she knew was some guy called Toby, who seemed nice enough but was constantly trying to be helpful, and he was in the year above, anyway.

It was pitch black outside - seriously, when were the firemen coming? - so she jumped out of her skin when someone suddenly jogged up to her, muttering "shit, fuck" repeatedly under their breath.

Something touched her arm, and she jerked it away. In the poor light (and due to her forgetting her glasses, again) she could hardly see the person, but apparently he could see her perfectly well, because he hopped back awkwardly.

"Sorry," he sounded out of breath. "Didn't see you there."

He was standing about 2 feet away from her, and she could just make out his features. He was tall and had unruly dark hair (whether from sleep or not, she couldn't be sure) but the most prominent thing by far was the fact that she was at eye level with his bare chest.

"Are you-"

"Yep." He nodded several times, and Pam didn't know whether to laugh or not. "The alarm went off, and it woke me up…" He waved his hands about, explaining. "My roommate freaked out, said I didn't have time to grab anything, so here I am."

"Good to know I'm not the only one here whose roommate is insane." Pam consciously stared straight past him, but she tried to shoot him a grin. "I don't even know where mine's is. She disappeared a few hours ago, wanting to stalk some guy she met in a class."

"Seriously?" The boy laughed, running a hand through his hair. "Maybe it's our building. It's infested with crazy people."

"Curse of the Dunder-Mifflin block." Pam nodded seriously.

"How do I know you're not one of them?"

"I'm not the one standing outside at 3am in my underwear." She joked, wondering immediately after if she'd gone too far.

"Fair point." The boy stuck out his hand, shaking a little, probably because of the cold. "I'm Jim, by the way."

"Pam." She shook his hand, and she was right: it was frozen. "Are you okay? I mean, it's pretty cold out here-"

"I'm actually pretty warm. It's like a sauna; I might actually sleep out here tonight." He smiled wryly, but dropped the joking exterior after just a moment. "It's fucking freezing, honestly."

"Oh." She felt terrible joking around with this guy - Jim, wasn't it? - while he was standing in his underwear, at 3 am, freezing. She was also wearing long-sleeved pyjamas under her hoodie.

"Do you want to borrow this?" She started to unzip the hoodie before he even answered, and bundled it up a little before handing it to him. (Making sure, of course, not to stare.)

"Uh, thanks. I'm not really sure this'll fit, though."

"Yeah, it might be a little big." Pam quipped, but shook her head. "Seriously. It's freezing; you said so yourself."

Jim opened his mouth, seemingly to object, but then just took it, finally. Pam turned away when he put it on, wanting to give him at least a little privacy. (Although she personally thought that the boundaries involving his privacy had already been pushed pretty far due to this whole exchange.)

"How do I look?" He asked, seriously.

When she turned around, she couldn't help but laugh. The hoodie reached down just past his navel, and the arms cut off just past his elbow. The pale pink colour didn't make it look any better, either.

"You somehow look worse now than you did before."

He laughed at her dumb joke, and Pam found herself laughing too. After a moment, Jim calmed down enough to tell her: "Really, though. Thank you. I feel warmer already."

"You're welcome." Pam found herself smiling at Jim, but caught herself and forced her eyes to the ground.

After a moment of awkward silence, Jim pressed on: "So, who's your crazy roommate?"

"My what?"

"You said you were glad you weren't the only one with a crazy roommate," Jim reminded her, "so, who is yours?"

"Oh! Uh, Kelly. Kelly Kapoor."

"What's so bad about her?"

"She's not bad, I'm sure she's really nice." Pam frowned, suddenly feeling awful. She barely knew Kelly, and now she was laughing about her antics behind her back with some guy she'd just met.

At Jim's raised eyebrows, she continued: "We've hardly spoken, that's all. She's not in the room much… I don't even think she's arranged any of her stuff yet; it's all still in boxes next to her closet."

Jim seemed really interested in the story. Pam had to remind herself that he was probably just interested in how strange Kelly was, and not what she actually had to say.

"That is definitely odd." Jim agreed, nodding his head. His hair swished up and down with the movement.

"And," Pam continued, fuelled by Jim's interest, "she seems to attend classes that don't even exist here. Earlier today she told me she was going to to an 8am "critical magasine analysis" class, and disappeared. She only came back to get her purse at lunchtime, and I haven't seen her since."

"Wow." Jim laughed, and his breath sent clouds of happiness into the air. "I think she's almost got my roommate beat."

"Only almost?"

Jim suddenly turned serious. "You've never had the pleasure of meeting Dwight Schrute. Trust me: he's worse."

"Go on."

"He refused to speak to me in English during the entirety of our first day. He demanded German. I can't even speak one word of German!"

"Oh my God," Pam covered her hand with her mouth, already starting to giggle.

"He wakes up at 6 am every day, and at first I though he might just have an 8 am class or something, y'know, because that's a normal reason for waking up at that time…"

"But…?" Pam prompted, eyebrows raised.

"Apparently he has to wake up at that time every day to help his cousin Mose "tend to the beets on the farm"."

(Jim seemed to be the type of person who spoke with their hands when they were enthusiastic about what they were saying, Pam couldn't help but notice.)

"That's insane." She was still laughing uncontrollably. "I concede. Your roommate's the worst."

"'Got that right."

"Hey, do you think you could-" Pam started, but was cut off by a loud shout.

"The fire was a hoax!" Some guy was screaming at the top of his lungs, standing, from where Pam could place the noise, at the entrance to the Dunder-Mifflin building. "Some idiot decided to have a midnight snack, and set off the fire alarm with the smoke from the toaster!"

"Oh God." Jim said, his voice barely above a shocked whisper.

"What?" Pam asked, hoping she didn't sound worried or over-invested or anything as weird as how she was feeling in the moment.

"That's him. That's my roommate."

"Dwight Schrute? Seriously?"

"Yep." Jim began walking round the side of the building, and poked his head round the corner of the wall to get a better look. "It's him, definitely. No one else here has the ability to look that ridiculous."

"Not even someone wearing their boxers at 3 am in the cold outside?" Pam teased, but followed him as he walked round the entrance.

"Ha." He replied sarcastically.

They reached the entrance doors, where everyone was trying to get through all at once. Dwight stood by the doors unhelpfully, shouting orders at people walking past. Pam didn't manage to get quite as good of a look of him as she'd have liked, but caught sight of huge 70s-barbecue-dad glasses and what appeared to be a nightcap.

She turned to where Jim had been behind her just moments ago to shoot him an amused look, but he wasn't there.

She craned her neck, trying not to look too obvious, but spotted him being dragged away by Dwight. He didn't turn to look back; just kept trying to yank his arm out of his roommate's grasp.

Pam felt as though a part of her had shrunk up a little, but continued up to her room.

It was only once she arrived there that she recognised that feeling as disappointment.