Do Us Part

The whole thing was a fiasco. Ryan’s friend Craig was really handsome, and really, really vile. Even Kelly was appalled at the way the guy was staring down Pam’s dress, making lewd comments, and monopolizing the conversation with self-aggrandizing stories. It had started when he was leering at her leg in church during the ceremony and had gotten worse from there. I’m on a date with Todd Packer, Jr., Pam thought despairingly.

Fortunately, Craig had an appetite for food as well as for "the ladies"- he paid more attention to the hors d'oeuvres and the dinner buffet than to Pam for the first hour of the reception. She couldn’t help but notice that he was also partaking liberally from the open bar.

Pam also couldn’t help but notice Jim. She saw him in a suit almost every day, but there was something so attractive, so tall and upright and perfect, about the way he carried himself in the church. He’d smiled at her when she caught his eye, but his expression had gone carefully neutral when he noticed the strange (handsome, not visibly vile) man beside her. Pam supposed it was the same expression she, herself, had assumed when she had noticed Karen, exotically lovely in dark purple, clinging to Jim’s arm.

They were now sitting two tables over, sitting with Michael and Jan and a couple Pam didn’t recognize. Craig made an especially obnoxious remark about a young woman’s "hoots" just as Karen leaned over to caress Jim’s hair. When Craig got up to re-visit the bar, Pam asked him to bring her a drink, too. Something strong.

Craig returned, smiling greedily. He clearly thought his luck was changing as Pam thanked him and took a long sip of her drink (Jack Daniel’s and Coke). She drank it down as she watched the newly crowned Mrs. Vance Refrigeration and her groom dance their first dance as husband and wife. The song ended, and other couples joined them on the dance floor. Pam cringed against her empty glass as Karen led a slightly grimacing Jim out to dance. Noticing the cringe (surprisingly enough, as he had noticed nothing about her besides her shapely figure all evening), Craig fetched another drink.

By the time she drained her second glass, Pam—a lightweight when it came to alcohol—was ready to dance. She was not going to sit there and let him think…let her think…let anyone think…she’d show them that their good time wasn’t bothering her. She had a date. A handsome one, actually. She let Craig lead her onto the dance floor.

It was not a good idea. In her tipsy fury, Pam had forgotten that Craig was, in fact, vile. Craig’s idea of "dancing" was to press himself against her and bounce, while groping her with both hands. "Stop it," she hissed, but he didn’t hear or didn’t care. She tried to push gently but firmly to disentangle herself from his arms, but he seemed oblivious to her. At least, she thought so, until he whispered, lips actually brushing her ear, "You wanna go back to my place now, or should we keep dancing?"

Pam was tipsy, but not drunk. She did not want to cause a scene at Phyllis’ wedding. She also wasn’t so desperate to prove her happiness (to Jim or Karen or anyone) that she was willing to put up with this. She was starting to panic a bit, trying to strategize a way out of the situation, when help arrived.

"Can I cut in?" the familiar voice asked, calmly but with authority. Pam looked up gratefully into the eyes, the smile, the face she knew so well. Warmth and affection flooded her as she smiled up at her champion. Roy.

"Get bent, dude," Craig started, but Roy moved forward with menace. Pam thought Roy might hit her date, but her obvious distress had apparently inspired Roy to chivalry. His big hand pushed Craig away, and he gently took Pam’s arm.

"I think you should go sit down, dude," he said, and turned his back on Craig. Leading Pam to the other side of the dance area, he asked her softly, "Are you OK?"

She nodded. "Thank you," she answered quietly. Now that she was safe, she was horribly embarrassed. Roy didn’t seem to notice. He was staring at her with a mixture of intensity and shyness that she never remembered seeing before.

"Do you want to dance? I mean, we don’t have to…" he trailed off, breaking eye contact with her. Gratitude, pity, and an overwhelming need to feel valued washed over her, and she put her arms around his neck and began to sway.

Roy had lost weight since the last time she was in his arms. The difference helped her feel like she was doing something new, not backsliding, not regressing. The look in his eyes was different, too, but she didn’t entirely trust it. It was too hungry, and she rested her head on his chest so that she wouldn’t have to see it.

It was the wrong time to turn her head. In her line of sight, Craig sat chatting drunkenly to Ryan, who was ignoring him with the air of a man with much practice. Just beyond him, Jim and Karen were sitting at their table, heads tilted intimately toward each other in deep conversation.

Pam pulled her eyes away and lifted her face up toward Roy. Maybe things were different enough. "What is it, Pam?" he asked.

***

Jim stood amidst the laughing, cheering crowd, dazedly holding the lacy white and blue garter he’d caught solely by reflex. His eyes scanned the crowd while he flashed an insincere smile at the newlyweds. Karen beamed at him from the side of the room, pretending that they hadn’t been quietly sniping at each other all evening for being "distant" and "clingy," respectively. Ryan, Kelly, and Ryan’s friend were gathering their things to leave. Pam was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Roy.

Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with "The Office."

The morning after Phyllis' wedding, Pam woke up alone in her own bed. She loved her bed. She'd never told anyone how proud she was of it. She'd researched mattress types, compared prices, waited for sales, selected the colors she wanted for the comforter, and even haggled with the salesman all by herself. This bed was truly hers. It was hard to believe she hadn't slept in it for nearly nine months.

It had been too easy. Exhausted from dealing with Craig, battered from watching Jim and Karen, tipsier than she had realized, and flattered (she cringed at the realization) by Roy's attention, she'd given in with no resistance when he invited her "home." Being with him was comfortable- he knew what she liked, all the ways to touch her that she hadn't been touched since she had left him. She didn't let herself think about anything as she drifted off to sleep curled up beside him just as she had for so many years.

Pam wrapped the sheet around her and crept to the bathroom. The yellow handtowels she'd bought hung at limp angles, and she wondered fleetingly if he'd thought to wash them since she'd moved. It was very strange not to have a toothbrush in the holder, but she did find some of her own facial cleanser under the sink. She washed and dressed, preparing herself for what was next. When the fourth step down squeaked just as she knew it would, she almost cried.

"Hey. I didn't want to wake you. You looked comfortable- right at home." Roy was grinning at her winningly as she entered the kitchen, but his words clearly weren't spoken lightly, and Pam knew he was going to press his advantage. She didn't want to give him a chance.

"Yeah, I slept well. Listen, Roy, last night...it shouldn't have happened."

Roy nodded with a half-smile, as though this were exactly what he'd expected her to say. He pushed the newspaper aside and stood up, looking down into her eyes. "Why not? I still love you, Pam. It's not to late to start over. I want you back. I think last night proved we can still be good together."

Pam still loved Roy, too. The ache in her heart told her that she always would. However, she also knew that she didn't love him the way he wanted her to. She loved him with the sentimental, childish love of a schoolgirl, and with the fond devotion of..well, a sister (they had grown up together, in many ways). There was no passion, no maturity, no room for growth in their love. He wanted her to come back to him the way she had been, and she couldn't. She wasn't.

He was waiting for an answer. "Last night was great. That was never our problem." She was being truthful, for the most part. Their sex life had always been good, at least until she'd started envisioning other hands and other lips when they were together. Pam hoped Roy would never have to know about that.

"Oh. It was great, but it didn't mean anything." Roy's voice was flat, his eyes red. His face still had the same half-smile, deepening one dimple in a way that made Pam want to cling to him and weep.

"It did mean something...but it doesn't change anything. I'm so sorry. It was wrong of me to let you think...I'm sorry, Roy. I- I have to go."

"Why?"

"Because I don't live here anymore." Pam pressed her lips lightly to Roy's cheek. With a sad smile, she left without another word.

***

The morning after Phyllis' wedding, Jim woke up alone in his own bed. He'd told Karen he had a headache. It was a lie. It was the first real lie he'd told her. He'd evaded, exaggerated, made light of, omitted, and hedged, but he hadn't lied until now. He stared at the garter on the nightstand and wondered if Pam had really gone home with Roy. He wondered if the thought of them together would ever hurt even a little bit less.

Jim didn’t want to answer the phone when it rang. He knew it was Karen, checking on him after his "headache," and most likely wanting to talk about their spat at Phyllis’ wedding. Maybe she has laryngitis, he thought bitterly. Immediately contrite at the thought, he picked up the phone on the last ring before the answering machine picked up.

It was worse than he had thought. She was on her way over, having picked up some pizza and beer ("if your head can handle it, lightweight"). Jim liked Karen. He really liked her. She made him feel like a different person, somehow- someone smart and charming and ambitious. She talked to him as though she assumed he had plans and goals and an idea of where he wanted to be in ten years, even as she confessed that her own road was not entirely clear to her- after all, she’d never expected to be here, in Scranton. When Jim looked in Karen’s eyes, he saw that she pictured him in her future. He was tempted by the challenge that represented. If she didn’t always laugh at his jokes and sometimes seemed to wish he liked different movies, what did that matter? In the back of his mind, though, lurked the thought that maybe the guy she saw through those big dark eyes wasn’t really him.

Feeling like a different person could be exhausting (and was getting harder every workday). Jim leaned his head wearily against the front window, watching for Karen’s car to pull up in front of his apartment building. He would buzz her in. He would eat pizza and drink beer and, if she wanted, talk about their relationship some more. If she asked, he would tell her she had nothing to worry about, that he wasn’t interested in pursuing Pam. He would not, of course, tell her that this was because the thought of Pam in Roy’s arms had broken him to the point where he had no strength to pursue anything but the next breath. Again.

"You look like hell. Are you sure you’re OK?" Karen stood in his doorway, her lovely features pulled into an expression of concern. She was wearing a red sweater and jeans, and her hair was twisted back in an endearingly whispy bun. In one hand she held a six-pack, and in the other she balanced a pizza box. She was beautiful. She was perfect, in fact, and Jim closed his eyes for a second to wonder why, in the name of all that was holy, he couldn’t just love her. "Jim, seriously, are you all right?"

He opened his eyes and nodded. He decided, for the thousandth time, to try to be whomever she wanted. Maybe the new guy would be able to love her the way the old Jim had loved Pam.

***

After Pam’s frustrated, self-loathing sobs had died away, the silence had filled her apartment entirely. She sat on the sofa and looked out her window for nearly an hour, wondering if the people in the cars zooming by had any idea where they were going.

Same disclaimer...

*** 

Half of the lights in the office were still dark when Pam arrived. She hadn't slept well; her new bed felt cold and empty after the night she'd spent with Roy. She'd decided to come on into work early and get some filing done before the phones started ringing. Since the two branches had merged, the phones were much busier and Pam found that she actually had to work for a much greater percentage of each day. 

The shadowy stillness didn't really help her, though. Much like her bedroom in the night, the quiet office gave her mind too much space to run. She thought about Roy, and Jim, and Karen. She thought about Craig and wondered if Roy and Jim were the only good guys out there. She'd ruined things with both of them. Pam filed invoices and thought about choices and didn't hear the elevator. 

"You're here early, Pam." Any other voice would have made her jump a foot, but not Jim's.

She turned to him and noticed that he looked like he'd slept as poorly as she had. "You, too."   

He nodded but didn't smile. He turned to put his things on his desk, but just as quickly turned back to face her. "Can I ask you something?" On her nod, he continued. "I heard- I mean. Are you back with Roy?" 

"No." Pam wasn't sure why he was asking, but something in Jim's tone made her pulse race. Her forehead contracted in confusion as a look of relief- sheer relief- passed over his features. 

Jim nodded. "Okay. It's none of my business, but I-" he trailed off. "Okay." He turned around and sat down at his desk.  

Pam watched the back of Jim's neck and wondered if anyone had ever looked so tired. Her blood pounded faintly in her temples and along her throat as she started to speak. "It was, um, Wednesday, about a week and a half after...after you left, one of Stanley's clients had sent a fruit basket as a thank-you gift. He didn't want it, so he left it here for everyone." Pam placed a hand up onto the counter, next to the candy dish.

"I was bored so I started to sketch it. I was sketching the orange and the apple first. Michael saw my sketch and immediately announced that I was drawing 'boobs'."

Pam's heart pounded even harder when Jim turned his head just a little bit. "All day, he kept it up. He just wouldn't give it up. He just went on and on, and Dwight encouraged him, and Angela was...it was a really bad day." Pam drew a deep breath. "When I got home, I tried to tell Roy about it. He didn't make a joke, he didn't sympathize. He just said, 'I guess that proves you're wasting your time on that art stuff if an apple and an orange looked like boobs.'“

Jim finally turned his head and looked at Pam. His features were perfectly still. She forced herself to look directly into his eyes as she finished. “I cried myself to sleep that night and in the morning I called off the wedding. It was such a stupid little thing, but it made me realize…anyway. I’m not back with Roy. Saturday night was a mistake- Roy’s not the one I’m in love with.” 

Jim just stared at her. With one slow nod, he turned back to his computer. Pam felt the tears surge to her eyes- not a word? He had nothing to say? 

And then, he did. 

He still sat with his back toward her as his voice cut quietly through the gloominess. “Whatever did or didn’t happen with us, Pam…I’m glad you didn’t marry him. He was never…never good enough for you.”   

**** 

The night before, Karen had felt better. She could sense that Jim was conflicted, but their long talk over pepperoni and cheese had convinced her that he was willing to try. This morning, though, from the moment she’d entered the office, she could sense something had shifted. He seemed so sad. Karen braced herself; she thought the sadness might be contagious.

I own nothing associated with the show, characters, or network. Too bad for me. 

***

Pam had never been this distracted at work. Two or three times during the day she realized that the phone was just ringing and ringing, but she hadn't noticed. She was staring at the way Jim's hair caressed his ears and the nape of his neck, and hearing his words over and over in her mind.

"Whatever did or didn’t happen with us, Pam..." That's what he'd said. The past tense. He was glad she hadn't married Roy because he was her friend. Whatever was making him so sad and tired, whatever was going on between him and Karen, it had nothing to do with her. He'd really moved on.

"...did or didn't happen." He'd been brave and she hadn't been. That's all that had and hadn't happened between them. And now it was too late.

Pam knew she was staring at him, but couldn't stop herself. She knew she should try one last time, to actually make herself say the words, but she didn't know how. Karen was everything Pam wasn't- assertive, beautiful, confident- and she and Jim were great together. They were. Even though Pam had been engaged when Jim had told her how he felt ("I'm in love with you."), he at least had known that Roy was wrong for Pam. Karen wasn't wrong for Jim. Pam was no match for her.

Karen stood up from her desk at that moment, and Pam watched her move gracefully across the office. She stopped by Jim's desk, crouching by his chair so she could speak into his ear. Jim nodded and followed Karen into the conference room, where they shut the door behind them.

For the fourth time, Pam ignored the ringing phone. Her eyes never left the conference room door. Anxiety and anticipation jumped around in her stomach and along her arms, making her fingers shake slightly. A slighly hysterical giggle escaped her lips as she wondered if this was what criminals felt like while the jury deliberated. She didn't know if she was guilty or innocent.

The door opened. Karen emerged first. Her eye-makeup was slightly smudged, but her head was high and her expression was composed. With firm strides she entered Michael's office and closed the door. Pam held her breath and waited for Jim to come out.

Finally, she had to inhale. Still no Jim. Michael's door opened, and Karen and Michael silently headed across the office toward Toby's corner. Still no Jim.

Pam's heart was beating too hard for coherent thought as she stood up. Without thinking, she flipped the phones to voice mail as she rounded the corner of her tall desk (tall enough for him to lean on and for her to hide behind). She stood still for a moment. This could hurt. This could ruin their friendship forever. But then she thought about his exhausted, sorrowful expression, the weariness in his posture, the defiance in Karen's eyes as she'd left the room, and Pam knew that Jim needed her. She licked her lips nervously and stepped toward the future.

***

Jim sat in the conference room and forgave Pam for something he had held against her for nine long months. He now knew that sometimes it doesn't matter what you want- or even what you need. He now knew that sometimes the only truth is what he'd said to Karen (what Pam had said to him):

Don’t own nothing but my enduring optimism in these characters.

 ‘Til Death

The air in the conference room was warmer than the area by the door where Pam sat. It was the first thing she noticed as she walked into the room. The second, of course, was Jim, sitting at the conference room table, looking at her. He didn’t say a word, and for a terrifying moment she couldn’t read his expression. “Are you OK?” she finally managed to say.

Jim took a deep breath, exhaling with a whoosh between his lips. “Not really.”

Pam didn’t decide to move toward him, exactly- she just found herself sitting next to him. Side by side felt safer- close but without having to look into his eyes. “Is she- ?”

He nodded. “Leaving. Yeah.”

“Oh. I’m – I’m sorry.” It was true. Pam liked Karen. She liked her and she knew Jim liked her, and she felt guilty for wishing Karen would leave.

Jim continued to look straight ahead, but he nodded a bit. “She asked me to come with her. She has a job offer back in Connecticut and she thinks it would be a good opportunity for me, too. A real fresh start, on neutral territory.” He snorted a laugh. “That’s what she called it. ‘Neutral territory.’”

“Like in a war?”

“Yeah.” He sounded like he’d been through a battle- exhausted, injured, thirsty. Pam watched herself take his hand. It was warm and she thought her own hand looked tiny and delicate against it.

“Do you want to go with her? You need to be happy.” A part of her soul screamed in agony at the thought of him leaving again. However, Pam was well practiced at ignoring her deepest emotions, and she put that skill to use for his benefit for a change. She loved him too much to do otherwise.

Jim slowly raised his eyes from their clasped hands and looked at her. “Pam?” It was the last gasp of a dying man.

Pam saw the yearning in his eyes and her skin flushed all over. Whatever had been noble and self-sacrificing within her just a second before turned into desperation. “I don’t want you to go with her. It will…it will kill me to lose you again. I love you and I’m so sorry for how…how very screwed up this all is. I – I love you.”

Jim closed his eyes briefly and inhaled. He squeezed her hand, opened his eyes, and gave her a half-smile that promised healing and felt like home. “I already told her I couldn’t go.”

***** 

Jim sat in his parked car and took a deep breath. He had just gotten home from Karen’s apartment. He’d told her everything (finally), apologized as sincerely as he could, and had left when she asked him to go. He felt guilty, but not sorry. Sitting on his stoop, huddled up in her puffy coat, the woman he loved was waiting for him. He smiled and got out of the car.