She woke slowly, her eyes bleary with sleep and her muscles still deliciously tired; she gently rolled onto her back and discovered that she was alone in bed. After a quick glance around their bedroom, she discovered the bathroom was empty and the pajamas he'd been wearing earlier that morning were no longer on the floor. She quickly guessed that he'd woken with Cece and allowed her to sleep in.
She climbed out of bed and carefully stretched her back before pulling on her nightshirt and helping herself to a clean pair of boxer shorts and a pair of socks. Since the first few times that they'd been intimate, she'd continuously helped herself to his clothing; he'd teased her about it at first...saying that as soon as she had stolen his heart, she'd been bound and determined to steal everything else of his...but she knew that secretly he loved the intimacy of seeing her wrapped in his clothes. Besides, his t-shirts were so much softer than hers and she'd always found fabric softener and the lingering scent of his cologne to be a deadly sexy combination. After quickly brushing her teeth and pulling her hair into a messy bun, she made her way downstairs in search of her little family.
She found them in the small dining nook having breakfast: Jim was reading the paper and drinking a cup of coffee while Cece bounced in her high chair, playing with...and occasionally munching on...a formidable pile of dry cheerios. Pam always worried that he gave her too much food but he argued that she took after her mother and could put away a disturbing amount every time she sat down to eat. And dammit if Cece didn't prove him right almost every single time. She'd been a Daddy's girl from day one and she showed no signs of changing her position on that.
Her socks made a soft, shuffling sound as she walked across the kitchen floor; his head turned in her direction but he kept his eyes on the paper.
"Morning, babe," he said.
She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed a wet kiss on his cheek, "Morning," she hummed.
"Sleep well?" he smirked.
"Mmm," she murmured, "I did. You?"
"Oh, very well," he teased. "It's amazing what a good night's sleep can do for you."
"And how about you, Sweet Pea?" she turned to her daughter, her voice instinctively rising. "How are you this morning?" Cece laughed and kicked her legs happily, enjoying the attention. "You did so well last night, baby girl," she praised. Cece's sleeping habits had greatly improved over the previous weeks but they were still spotty at best. Pam squeezed Cece's pajama covered foot in her hand as she struggled to shove an entire fist full of cheerios in her mouth. "Daddy and I are so proud of you! You've gotten so good at sleeping through the night."
"She must get that from you," he quipped.
"Oh, I'm sorry," she turned towards him, raising her eyebrow, "are you complaining that our daughter actually slept through the whole night?"
"No," he chuckled. "No, I'm really, really not. In fact," he looked towards her and his face softened, "If she got every single one of your traits, I'd be the happiest man in the world."
She drew a quick breath, momentarily startled by such a sweet remark. "Aww, babe...," she began.
"Expect maybe for your dance skills," he quickly amended, turning and refolding the page of his newspaper, "And your inability to drive in reserve. And your irrational fear of biscuit cans. But other than that...," he trailed off.
"Nice," she huffed, running her hand over Cece's head one last time, "Well, I'm just thankful she didn't get your nose."
"You and me both," he snorted.
She walked back into the kitchen and poured her own mug of coffee; while she contemplated the merits of toast versus cereal, she spotted the two certificates Jim had hastily left on the entrance way table.
"Did Michael say where this year's Dundies are being held?" she asked, as she poured a splash of creamer into her mug.
"Oh, I didn't ask," he answered quickly.
"Is it going to be black tie? He mentioned something the other day about it being formal." After a moment of silence, she glanced over to see a look of dismay on Jim's face.
"Umm...he didn't say," he stalled uncertainly.
"Did you ask?"
"If you'll remember, Pam, I was kind of in the middle of something when he and Deanglo dropped by this morning," he said pointedly. "Something pretty important. That I was very anxious to get back to. So, no...we didn't chat about the upcoming Dundies."
"Fine," she relented, "We have to go to mall this weekend anyway to get Cece an Easter outfit so I'll go ahead and look for a dress just in case."
"Sounds like a plan," he said, turning back to the article he'd been reading.
She took a seat across from him and cradled her coffee mug between her palms. "I wonder what award I'll get this year?" she mused.
"Fifty bucks says you get a Dundie for Office MILF," he deadpanned.
"Jim!" she cried. He glanced at her in alarm. "No dirty words in front of," she cocked her head to the side and nodded towards their daughter, "you-know-who."
"Pam," he said in a maddening deliberate tone, "'MILF' is not a dirty word. It's an acronym in which one of the initials represents a dirty word. The day Cece starts to break apart and analyze acronyms is the day I'll start to worry. Or be impressed. I haven't decided, yet."
"That may be true," she argued, "but I would still prefer it if our daughter didn't go around repeating that word."
"It's a losing battle," he stated, "with a mother as hot as you, she's bound to find out what that word means soon enough."
She shook her head softly and tried to conceal her smile. They sat together quietly as Jim read an article about finance reform and she sipped her coffee, occasionally shuffling through the discarded sections of the newspaper in a half-hearted attempted to locate the comics page.
"It'll be weird this year, won't it?" she asked softly.
"What will?" he asked.
"The Dundies."
"The Dundies are weird every year."
"Yeah, but I mean," she took a deep breath as a sudden wave of sadness hit her. "This will be the last Dundies ever. It's kind of sad."
"Well, we don't know that," he pointed out, "Michael's successor could decide to continue the tradition. Face it, Pam, we could be in for years...decades...worth of tasteless jokes, racial stereotyping and cheap appetizers."
"Even if the Dundies do go on, they won't be the Michael Scott Dundies," she argued sadly. She stared carefully at her coffee mug, "It'll never be the same again."
"Hey," he asked in a concerned voice, looking up from his paper. "You okay?"
She shrugged lightly. "I guess," she answered in a voice that was less than convincing, "It's just weird. Knowing that Michael's leaving in a few weeks. That he's going to be gone and he's not going to be our boss anymore. I've never thought about him notbeing there."
"Yeah," he agreed softly.
"Seriously...who would've thought that Michael Scott would leave Dunder Mifflin before we did?"
"You've got that right," he chuckled. "Personally, I always thought he'd be fired over some sort of harassment charge. Or from breaking the law. Or from never doing any work. Something along those lines," he shrugged.
"No, I'm serious," she said, her voice beginning to show frustration. "Michael has his moments but he's been a great friend to me."
"Hey, I'm just kidding, babe," he sat the newspaper on the table and leaned forward to touch her wrist. "I'm gonna miss him, too."
"You don't seem like it," she pouted.
"Come on, you know I am. Despite his intrusiveness, his incredibly lame sense of humor and his ridiculously bad timing," his voice softened, "Michael's a great guy. And everything he does, he does out of love. And I'm absolutely going to miss the hell out of him."
"I just keep thinking about this one day," she confessed quietly, "It was right after I called off my wedding and I was really sad...about a lot of things," her eyes dropped to the table momentarily, "and of course for the first few days Michael started every conversation with a runaway bride joke. But he brought in ice cream every single day for two weeks because he said ice cream was the best way to heal a broken heart."
"That sounds like Michael," he smiled fondly.
"But then one day," she whispered, her eyes on the table, "I was in the break room...the guy that stocks the vending machine had misplace one of the sodas and when I went to buy a coke, a grape soda came out instead." She grimaced at the memory, "And then I had this like...mini break down...and Michael happened to walk in at just that moment. I thought he was going to stage a big scene or make a joke about PMS but...he just put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'I know you miss him but I have a feeling it's not over for you two. True love always finds a way.' And I said, 'No, Michael. Roy and I won't be getting back together.' And he just smiled at me and said, 'I wasn't talking about Roy.' And then he walked out of the room." She took a deep breath, "I know it seems like such a small thing but it really meant something to me. That even though I'd been lying to myself for so long, there was someone else that just...got it. And he had faith in us. At a time when neither one of us did."
"I know what you mean," he said softly, "I've had moments like that, too."
"Yeah?"
He nodded his head slowly, his eyes clouded with memories, "Yeah, it was during this awful night when I thought I'd lost everything. And he told me it didn't matter. That I should never ever give up on what I wanted."
"And?" she asked quietly.
"And here I am," he smiled as he ran his thumb across her wedding band. "And I have everything I ever dreamed of."
"He's been a really good friend to us."
"He has," he agreed. "And it's going to hurt like hell to say goodbye to him and I'm going to miss him like crazy but...I just keep thinking about how happy he's going to be. He finally has Holly. The love of his life. The only woman in the world who is as much of a dork as he is. And when he moves to Colorado, he's going to have a family. A real family. Not one that leaves every day at 5:00pm and pretends not to be home on the weekends so they don't have to hang out with him."
She chuckled softly.
"Now it's Michael turn to have everything he's ever dreamed of," he said. "He's finally getting his own happy ending."
"Hah," she quipped. "That's what she said," she laughed softly, her voice shaky with unshed tears.
"There's my girl," he smiled. "Come here." He tugged her hand lightly as she stood and carefully made her way around the table. She settled onto his lap and rested her head against his shoulder as he lovingly wrapped his arms around her body. "I'm not sad for Michael," he finished softly, "because I know he's going to have what we have. And I couldn't wish anything better for him than that."