Pam had enough. She was fine seeing Jim and Karen sitting next to each other at the church. She was ok with them eating together at her table at the reception. But she was pushed over the edge when Karen asked Jim -- in front of her! -- to dance. And frankly, it wasn't so much the question as it was the quick glance Karen gave Pam as they got up.

That was when Pam grabbed her purse and walked out the door. She stopped somewhere in the lobby to take a deep breath and calm herself down. This was Phyllis's wedding and she wanted to be there. It didn't matter who was in there or what they were doing. It wasn't about them. It wasn't about Jim or Karen or Roy. Tonight was supposed to be about Phyllis, she kept reminding herself.

Despite that, Pam wasn't totally ready to go back in there with Jim and Karen still together on the dance floor so instead she sat down on some stairs nearby to clear her head. She just needed to calm herself down, take a few deep breaths, try and suppress the choking feeling in her throat. She was not going to do this, at least not now and not here.

And just when she felt good enough to go back, she heard his voice. "Hey." She looked up to see Jim walking out the bathroom door towards her, a casual look on his face turning to concern as he got closer to her. "Pam, are you ok?"

"Yeah, fine...I'm fine," she stammered.

"Um...ok. You sure?"

That choking sensation in Pam's throat changed from one of sadness to one of her trying to swallow the anger bubbling up inside her. "Am I sure? Yeah, I'm sure, Jim."

Jim gave her a skeptical look. "Really? You just seem a little upset. What's going on?"

That was the last straw. Pam's strength to stay calm was gone. "What's going on? I don't know, Jim. Why don't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" Jim asked her quizzically.

"Why don't you start with what you told Karen. You know, all those late nights when you had to 'talk' to her."

"Well, I really don't think..."

Pam was on her feet now. "'You really don't think' what, Jim? That it's any of my business? Because it seems to me like you made it my business when you started telling her about us."

Pam could tell she hit a nerve with that one. "Us? Pam, there is no us."

"Well, that's just great," Pam said before walking briskly over to the coat check as she violently dug through her purse for her claim ticket.

She could hear Jim's dress shoes clinking behind her as he crossed the marble floor. "Pam, what is going on with you?"

She turned around, eyes ablaze. "Nothing, Jim," she said, shoving her arms in her coat sleeves. "Obviously, I have nothing going on. So I'm just going to go home and do nothing by myself."

She turned on her bright red three-inch heels she had worn that night, specifically thinking they could have had some magic in them -- just something to make Jim forget about Karen. She realized now that she was just kidding herself about the shoes among other things.

Pam made it as far as the first row of cars in the parking lot before she felt a firm hand on her arm. She whipped around to see who was holding her up and saw Jim staring back at her. "Pam, really, you need to tell me what I did to upset you."

"What you did? Well, for starters, you told Karen about our kiss. You know, the kiss you and I shared last year?" she added sarcastically.

"I remember the kiss, Pam," he answered a bit bitterly.

"That was our kiss. It had nothing to do with her!" she yelled back at him. She yanked her arm out of his hand and turned to keep walking to her car, but stopped again to face him. "And you know what's worse, Jim? You know what's worse about you telling her about that? You told her it was 'just a kiss.' Is that what you really thought that was?"

Jim's voice started to rise. "Well, I don't know, Pam. I kissed you and you said you were going to marry someone else."

"And I didn't!" Pam immediately spat back at him. "I didn't marry Roy because that wasn't just a kiss, Jim. It was so much more than that and you -- more than anyone else, Jim -- you should have understood that and not said anything to anyone about it." She could start to feel the sting of tears in her eyes, but she was doing everything to hold back and not let Jim see them. "I never told Roy about that, Jim. Never," she said, her voice darker and more bitter. "And you just throw that information around to some girl you've been dating for two months, acting like that night was no big deal. I think that's what hurts the most, Jim, because it was a big deal to me," she said, pointing hard at the part of her chest where it ached the most.

That was all she could take of the conversation. She turned and ran to her car, each step burning the ball of her foot after four hours in those stupid shoes. She threw her purse in the passenger seat, slammed her door way too hard, and put the thing in reverse as fast as she could. Just before putting it in drive, she looked into her rear view mirror to see Jim standing where she had left him, his head down and his hands in his pockets. And when she got to the parking lot exit, she checked the mirror again. He hadn't moved.

She watched Jim walk in, hang up his coat, and sit down at his desk without even acknowledging her existence. Again.

It had been going on like this for almost three weeks now and Pam wasn't about to say anything to him. First, she readily admitted being stubborn, but she still felt that he needed to make the first move and apologize to her. Second, even if she was going to be the one to start talking to him again, she didn't know where to begin. What do you say after the whole yelling thing? "Hey, remember when I freaked out on you? Yeah, it was just because I love you. Well, not just because, kind of like it wasn't just a kiss, but you know what I mean."

And usually at that point, Pam remembered why she kept going in circles with all of this. It wasn't just a kiss and it wasn't just a little blow up. She deserved to be mad for this. After cancelling her wedding, after dressing up for someone else's night, after having to watch Karen and Jim dance, she deserved to be mad.

When her relationship with Jim changed so drastically three weeks ago, so did her drinking habits. At 9:30 every morning now, she got up from her desk with her mug, passed her now unused green teapot, and headed to the kitchen for a second cup of coffee.

She so needed that second cup, but this morning some damn idiot finished the pot and didn't make a new one. Pam rummaged around in the cupboards before realizing that the reason for the lack of caffeine in the coffee pot was a lack of coffee filters.

Walking back to her desk and cursing the bastard who couldn't buy new filters, Pam made a point to not look at Jim on the way. She dug into her purse for extra change and when she headed back out from her desk, she could see Jim's reflection in Michael's office windows. He was watching her.

Without the coffee, Pam decided to make do with a Coke that she wouldn't have to share with anyone. Besides, it's not like she could jinx someone that wasn't talking to her. When she walked in to the break room, Karen was sitting alone with a mug in her hands.

"Is that coffee?" Pam asked.

"No, tea. Someone used up the last of the filters."

"I noticed," Pam said, smiling a little, but getting no response from Karen. "Are you ok?"

"Um...yeah, I'm great. Why?"

"You seem quiet."

Karen looked down at her tea. "Corporate offered me a position in the New York office and I've decided to take it."

Pam tried to sound enthusiastic without letting it slip that she was happy Karen would be leaving. "Oh good."

"Yeah, I guess. It's just...Jim told me to take it, which is fine, but it felt like he wants to use it as his way out, you know?"

"Out of what?" Pam asked.

"Us, I guess. So...yeah. I just think it's time for me to move on."

"Oh," was all Pam could say. "Well, we'll miss you around here."

"Yeah."

Pam heard footsteps behind her and turned around to find Jim awkwardly standing there.

"Hi," he said sheepishly to them.

Pam didn't say a word to him and the chilly way Karen continued to stare at her tea made her realize Jim wasn't going to get much out of either of them. She started feeding quarters into the pop machine and heard Jim plunking his into the candy machine. "Someone used the last of the coffee filters so I'm having to hit the chocolate before lunch," he explained in a light-hearted way that came out totally strained.

Pam stared ahead at the "inks" on the "Cold Drinks" machine waiting for that clunk from her Coke can that finally showed up. Then the room was silent until she heard Jim's footsteps leading back to the office. She grabbed her Coke and took a slow sip.

"I'll see you later, Karen," she called over her shoulder.

"Yeah."

She always hated this time of year. It was bone-chilling cold, but there was no snow on the ground. At the very least, if it had to be five degrees above zero, a little snow would look pretty outside while she sat on her couch in the warmth.

When Jim left tonight, he smiled at her. Of course, he didn't say anthing, but it was to be assumed since she hadn't said anything to him in three weeks. Three whole weeks and the only words uttered by either of them were from Jim talking about coffee filters. Even the other day when Karen walked out the door with her box headed for New York, he sat there without making a peep to Pam.

She got on the elevator a few minutes after he left and braced herself for the cold outside. Oh, warm coffee! She thought about stopping at that coffee shop on her way home and grabbing a mocha before getting back to lonely apartment again and crawling under her covers.

All those warm thoughts left her head as soon as she opened the door to the whipping wind. The whole "wind chill factor" was no joke. She started walking towards her car when she heard an engine in the parking lot turning over and over without starting. She turned to see Jim sitting in his car looking like an icicle, trying to get it going.

Dammit, she thought. She couldn't leave him there to freeze to death. As Pam walked over to his car, she couldn't decide what was making her colder -- the wind chill or the fact that she was going to have stop being so stubborn about this and suck it up.

She knocked on his window and saw him jump a bit at the sound. "You ok?" she yelled through the glass.

He opened the door. "No," he said. "I'm an idiot."

Pam could have told him that already, but it was nice to see he was acknowledging it.

"I turned the light on in my car this morning to find my iPod under the seat and I forgot to turn it off. Battery's dead."

Oh, he was an idiot about the car. Nevermind.

But she finally broke down enough to show some mercy on him. "C'mon. I'll give you a ride home."

"That's ok, I'll just call Triple A."

She sighed. "Jim, it's literally freezing out here and it'll take them ages to show up. Just get in the car."

"Thanks," he said, smiling sheepishly down at his feet before grabbing his bag and walking to her car.

The drive to his place was filled with a weird uncomfortable silence between the two of them. Pam had so much she wanted to let out and no idea where to start, especially considering Jim was sitting there without making a sound in the passenger seat next to her.

She finally made it to his apartment and pulled off on the side of the road to drop him off.

"Thanks again, Pam," he said, reaching for the door handle.

"No problem." She hoped her response didn't sound too icy.

He stopped himself before opening the door. She watched his hand slip from the handle into his lap, his head hanging low. She turned and stared at the little horn button on her steering wheel as the silence engulfed them again. Then he took a deep breath and finally said what she had been waiting to hear.

"It wasn't just a kiss."

"I know," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Jim nodded his head slightly. "Ok," he said before turning back to the door.

But she couldn't let him go though without saying what she needed to. "Jim."

He turned to look at her, his eyes catching the light from the street lamp outside.

"You didn't misinterpret anything."

"Yeah," he said, his voice low and sounding more like an affirmation than a question.

It wasn't a big declaration of love, but it was the only thing she could articulate after all the months of missing him in Stamford and all the months she missed him when he was back in Scranton.

Pam looked at him and quickly reached up, running her fingers along his jaw line. He leaned into her hand, the scruff from his cheek rubbing against her palm, before kissing it while bracing her wrist with his long fingers. His lips felt rough and chapped on her opened hand, but so warm against her cold skin.

He finally pulled away, his fingers sliding from her arm to her hand. But unlike the night he kissed her, she held on rather than letting go.

They gave each other nervous smiles and Pam looked down at their entwined fingers. The silence between them was much warmer than it had been earlier and the two of them sat there, Jim's thumb lightly brushing hers.

Pam's brain finally started working enough to remember how they ended up in her car together in the first place. "Um...do you need me to pick you up tomorrow morning?"

That's when she got the laugh out of Jim that she had missed so much. "Right, I'm an idiot. How's 7:30?"

"I'll be here with donuts and jumper cables."

Jim gave her a lop-sided smile. "Wow. Jumper cables? Fancy schmancy."

"They're not diamond-encrusted jumper cables, Jim. Just the regular kind."

He shook his head a bit. "You're never going to let me forget this, are you?"

"I'm never going to let you forget alot of things," she said, smiling back at him.

"I hope you don't," he said quietly with a warmth back in his voice that she hadn't heard for a long time.

He turned to get out of the car, his hand slipping slowly from hers.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she called to him as he climbed out of the car.

"Ok." He closed the door behind him and waved to her from the sidewalk. She watched him unlock the front door before finally driving away.

She couldn't be mad at him anymore.