Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


He doesn't know what he's doing.

In his head this never happens in a parking lot, when her fiancé has just driven away and he's just promised to keep an eye on her. He sometimes thinks it's supposed to happen in the break room, or when he's leaning on her desk like he always does. Sometimes he thinks it's not meant to happen at all.

The words have been there for years, formed and ready to go, dancing so close to his lips so many times. He's thought he came close to telling her before, he's even come to recognise the rush of fear, the sickening drop in his stomach, he's accepted the burning shame of cowardice that lasts for hours afterward.

Tonight is different.

Tonight it just hurts and he doesn't know if saying it will make him feel any better, but everything hurts and she's beautiful and they played poker and laughed and maybe, just maybe, the parking lot is exactly where it's supposed to happen.

"I'm in love with you." (Hello)

He doesn't know what's going to happen next. He's been waiting in the wings for years, his lines rehearsed a thousand times or more. She looks blindsided, like the spotlight's on her and she's gotten stage fright. He'd always thought he'd catalogued every expression possible. This isn't one he understands.

"I can't." (Goodbye)

She tries to say something nice about being friends and he has to beg her to stop. It's ironic really because he knows it would have been the highlight of his day if she'd only said it yesterday.

If he thought it hurt a moment ago, he doesn’t know what to call this feeling.

He walks without paying attention to where he's going. He doesn't know what he's doing. He doesn't know anything anymore.

~

His mind is racing, full of questions and thoughts and things he should have said. He feels strangely empty. The weight of truth was a suffocation he'd grown attached to and he’d always imagined he’d feel free afterwards. He feels alone.

Stamford is too far and not far enough.

There's no question that he's leaving now and he thinks he'll just sit at his desk for a moment. Maybe he'll just close his eyes and pretend it didn't happen. It'll be morning when he opens them and he'll be telepathically moving an umbrella stand while she winks at him. Everything will hurt like it used to, just a dead weight pressing on his chest. He won't feel like he's dying. He wonders when he became so melodramatic.

She's on the phone but he doesn't hear her words because she's leaning on his desk and something inside him breaks. He walks forward and something that feels a lot like courage is stirring in his chest.

He kisses her. (Hello).

In a split second everything stops and she's everywhere. Her hands are in his hair and she's kissing him back and maybe, just maybe it's going to be alright after all.

She puts her hands in his and it feels right. He sighs and decides to continue this honest streak he seems to have developed.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that."

She smiles. "Me too."

She's wanted to kiss him too. She's not drunk. Maybe she can.

For one glorious moment he sees the possibilities stretching in front of him. He sees it all, sees them living the life he's invented that they can have, holding hands and laughing every single day. He realises that's what he's fighting for, is what made him try again.

She says his name and he's never hated the sound more than he does in that moment. He blinks and now he can't see anything but that damn Sancronicity video and wedding dresses and the picture Jan showed him of Stamford.

"You're really going to marry him?"

"Yes." (Goodbye)

"Ok."

He thinks letting go of her hands might be the hardest thing he ever has to do.

He does it.

He's at home with no recollection of an elevator ride, or a car journey, nothing until he's locked the door to his bedroom. He thinks nothing, feels nothing. Changes, shuts off the light and climbs into bed.

Suddenly he's trembling and alone, crying silently because that life, that life with her, is all he's ever wanted.

He doesn't know who to be without her.

~

Thank you to everyone who read and to those who left reviews. Thank you for welcoming me into the fandom :)
This chapter was going to jump straight to the Merger but I couldn't resist exploring the phone call from The Initiation first.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter Two: The Initiation

~

Every time she notes down something Michael does, she looks up across the office and thinks about how funny this day could have been.

She's been trying to avoid looking at his old desk as much as possible. Sometimes when she keeps her head down long enough she starts to think that the vague person just out of her immediate eyeline could be him. She starts to think that she didn't really turn him down. She didn't really break his heart. Inevitably she has to look up eventually and when she sees dark hair she thinks that the suffocating feeling might be her own heart breaking. She hates that she can't fix this.

There's a post it note stuck to the underside of her desk. About once a week she plucks it off and stares at it. Sometimes she picks up her phone and starts to input the numbers. On a good day she gets all the way to the second to last digit. She never makes it all the way to Stamford. She's developed an unhealthy hatred for the number nine. It's easier than hating herself.

Her Michael-log complete, she faxes a copy to Jan and shuts her computer down. She doesn't know why she answers the phone. Habit, probably.

"Uh..hey."

"Oh my god."

She's never been more pleased to have answered the Dunder Mifflin Scranton telephone. She's never been more scared.

He's saying something about fantasy football and it's awkard and wierd but suddenly nothing in the world is more important than keeping him talking.

"Everything's pretty much the same here ... a little different." She lies.

Everything is different. She's got her own car, her own place and she's started working on having her own life. She misses him. Some days she hates him for running away. Some days she hates herself for letting him. She thinks about driving to Stamford a lot. She hates the number nine.

"What time is it there?"

"We're in the same time zone."

He sounds almost amused. She doesn't think it's funny. Not much is these days.

She's scared and and it's late and she tells herself that over the phone really isn't the best way to tell him that she wants him to come home.

She thinks if she can just tell him a tiny part of the truth it might be a start.

"It felt far."

It didn't feel like all that was separating them was the number nine and the memory of that terrible night. It felt like oceans and continents and various other insurmountable obstacles and she'd started to think she'd never speak to him again.

"Yeah."

It doesn't feel so far anymore. His voice is in her ear and somehow she's warm all over. She can almost see him at his desk, or leaning on hers.

He sounds just like she remembers he does at the end of the day, tired and gravelly. Lately she's been so afraid of forgetting him, so terrified that the Jim in her head and the Jim out there in the world without her might be getting further apart. The Jim she remembers is warm and funny and kind and everything she ever wanted. She's been telling herself it's an idealised memory, born out of the separation and the distance. She's been searching for a memory that might suggest he's not perfect for her. She hasn't found it yet.

The Jim on the phone is warm and funny and she knows, she just knows that she shouldn't have let him leave. The timing was off, the wedding was near and she couldn't have fallen into his arms like he wanted (she wanted). But she knows he shouldn't be talking to her from Stamford right now. She knows today should have been hilarious.

"How many words per minute does the average person type?"

Within a few minutes it's comfortable and familiar and for the first time in a long time she sits back in her chair at Reception and laughs. Really laughs.

She tells him all the things that she's kept stored away in a corner of her brain for him, just in case.

She has a suspicion he might be doing the same thing.

"So I'm watching the movie by myself."

She thinks of all the endings to that sentence. Because I left Roy. Because my best friend told me he loved me. Because I have my own apartment now and I'm trying to be my own person as well.

She sighs and thinks, just ask. Please ask. (Hello)

He doesn't. (Goodbye)

She knows it's up to her to say something. But right now, lounging back on her chair with his voice in her ear and his laughter tumbling down her phone line she just can't. She can't bring herself to do anything that might make this phone call end.

"Oh yeah my fancy new apartment. I have one bedroom, one bathroom and a closet."

"And how many kitchens?"

"I have one kitchen."

He makes her laugh about multiple kitchens and she's so grateful. Grateful because when she sits in her one kitchen tonight, she'll think of him. She won't think of when she tripped decorating, spilt paint all down herself and ended up sitting on the cold tile floor, crying because it could have been hilarious and it just wasn't.

Ryan and Dwight arrive.

Just as she's starting to think that this could go on all night, just as the idea is formulating to offer him her home phone number and tell him to call her later because they really need to continue this conversation, Dwight and Ryan arrive. Of course, she thinks bitterly, of course.

Ryan looks wierd and it's only polite to ask. Even though she hates him a little bit right now for interrupting. Hates him for gathering his stuff from Jim's desk (she thinks she'll always call it that) and shattering her little fantasy that the voice on the phone was just a few paces away from her, like he used to be. Like he should be.

"Ok, bye."

She says it quickly, glad Ryan doesn't seem to be hanging around.

"Oh yeah, I should ... I should probably ... I should probably go, too."

She internally hurls a few of the sort of curse words she's never used aloud.

She knows what he thinks 'Ok, bye' means. (Goodbye)

She knows what she's been trying to say. (Hello)

But now it's awkward again and everything ends all too quickly.

She thinks he sounds disappointed but she's too flustered and annoyed at herself to be sure. She starts to think maybe it's all just been wishful thinking.

"Bye Jim."

She prays that's not as final as it sounds.

At home, she searches through her one closet and finds something more comfortable to wear. She wishes she hadn't thrown that periwinkle dress away. It reminded her of everything that went wrong. But it smelled like him.

Ignoring the stab of loneliness, she hurries into her one kitchen and finds herself quietly laughing. He's still a hundred miles away but tonight his voice is reverberating around her head, making her laugh. Like always.

He feels a lot closer than before.

~

He's a coward and it's not the sudden move to Stamford that makes him think that. He's still telling himself that he was brave, that it was the right thing to do. It's the fact that he's been meaning to call Kevin all day. It's that it's way past five thirty when he finally decides it's safe to risk it.

"Dunder Mifflin."

"Uh..hey."

He's not sure whether resisting the urge to hang up is courage or weakness. He doesn't care.

She tells him about making some list of things Michael does and he smiles. He thinks they would have had fun with that. Before.

"Everything's the same here ... a little different."

He wants to ask if by a little different she means that she left her fiance of ten years and got her own apartment and didn't tell her ex best friend because he admitted to being in love with her and kissed her and ran away. He's too afraid.

"We're in the same time zone. How far away did you think we were?"

"I don't know. It felt far."

He doesn't know what to say. He wants to say that it's not that far. He wants to say that it's not that far but even if it was, if she would just ask him he'd come home to her. He wants to say that it's not that far but he knows exactly what she means. It feels far. He's been worried about the distance, about forgetting her. Sometimes it's his most fervent wish. Most of the time it's his worst nightmare.

He's hurting all over. He hates that she can still do this to him. He can't lie to her.

"Yeah."

He rubs his eyes and thinks about wrapping this conversation up. He thinks about staying.

She wins. She still wins. (She'll always win).

He thinks he'll give her a chance.

"How many words per minute does the average person type?"

He knows it should feel like a setback when he leans back and starts to make her laugh. It doesn't. For a few minutes (that turns into an hour) it feels good to put his feet up and be her Jim. Every day in Stamford feels like an effort. Talking to her hurts but making her laugh still feels like the easiest thing in the world.

She tells him some stories and he wonders if she's been saving them for him. He's been doing that. It made him feel pathetic and lonely but he couldn't break the habit. He's glad he didn't.

"So I'm watching the movie by myself."

He thinks about all the endings to that sentence. Because I left Roy. Because I want to be alone. Because you weren't there to watch it with me.

He sighs and thinks, tell me. Just tell me. (Hello)

She doesn't. (Goodbye)

But he's lonely and she's the one lengthening the call and he just can't kick that habit of hopefulness when it comes to her.

"Fancy New Beesly would make that up."

"You got totally taken for a ride Beesly."

He lets her name roll of his tongue. It's as easy as ever.

He wonders if she'll ever know why he started calling her that. That it was a tiny victory over Roy, a daily reminder that he still had a chance. While she was still Beesly, he was still Halpert.

Now he's trying to find out who he is without her. But she's still Beesly and he doesn't know what that means anymore.

"Ok, bye."

Suddenly it's awkward again and he realises too late that she was talking to someone else. She doesn't rush to explain. He lets her go. He's getting good at that.

He would have talked to her all night. He knows what that means. (Hello)

"Bye Jim." He thinks he knows what that means. (Goodbye)

He goes back to the apartment that doesn't feel like a home and tries not to think about how calling her Beesly still feels like a victory. Still feels like there's a chance.

Tomorrow he'll try harder. Tonight he'll let himself dream.

~

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

~

He's coming back.

She's known it for weeks now and it still doesn't seem real. It doesn't feel real that he left in the first place. Sometimes nothing since he told her he loves her seems real.

It still shocks her when she looks up from her desk and of course he's not there, he hasn't been there for months and it just can't be real.

Every day she sits in the break room and wonders whose life she's living because it can't be hers.

Every evening she gets into her own car, lets herself into her own apartment and lets herself feel proud. She tells herself that this life she's living is hers. It's art school and independence and exactly the life she's always been meant to live.

Every night she looks at the cold empty space beside her and lets herself feel like a coward. She knows it's not quite the right life yet.

This new life is new and scary and still feels like a dream. The phone call was real. It started out awkward and ended much the same but for the most part it was comforting and familiar and fun and real.

He's coming back and the right life feels closer than it has for a while.

She lays out a new sweater on her bed while she curls her hair. The sky is blue and the wind is rattling with the promise of winter against her windowframes. She wishes she was laying out that periwinkle dress. She wishes the sky was dark and the promise of summer was hanging heavy in the parking lot, wishes his words were still suspended in the warm air between them. She wishes a lot of things these days.

"Hi, I'm Jim. I'm new here."

She throws her arms around him because she can. Because it's him and he's here and she couldn't have stopped herself if she'd wanted to.

She thinks she feels his body relax for a moment, feels the sigh in his chest that he doesn't let escape his lips. For a glorious moment there's nothing in her world but him. Really him, not a voice on her phone, not the memory that's been haunting her for months. She breathes him in and she knows she'll be a little lightheaded when they part.

Too soon, it's awkward and she remembers that there's other people around. She lets go. Later she'll wonder if that's where it started to go wrong.

He doesn't get his old desk back. He doesn't roll his sleeves up while his computer boots up. He doesn't come to reception once.

He buys bottled water and she thinks it's unhealthy for that to bother her as much as it does.

He's not the man she remembers. He's not the man she got a glimpse of on the phone. She hopes that man is still in there somewhere.

She can't believe she did this to him. She can't believe she broke his heart.

He still smiles and makes his little faces to the camera. To everyone else, he's still Jim. She's always known him better than everyone else. She knows the truth. She sees it in the clear bottle of water, in buttoned up sleeves, in each of the jelly beans she topped up this morning, left in their box.

She knows it has to be her.

The break room feels like the wrong place to do this. She pauses. She thinks about the way they used to be and wonders if maybe it's the perfect place to do this.

"...you want to grab a coffee or something after work?" (Hello)

It's not exactly an outpouring of truth but it's something. Progress. Friendship. The potential for talking, for laughing like they did on the phone. A chance for the truth.

She hopes it's enough but she knows it won't be.

She's wearing a new sweater for him and she's curled her hair and she's trying. She's still learning to be this new person.

His sleeves are down, his desk has moved and she broke his heart. He's evolving and she's terrified of the new person he's becoming.

"...tonight actually no." (Goodbye)

He used up all his courage in May. She's going to learn just how much of it she's got.

~

He must be some sort of masochist. It's the only explanation for why he's getting out of his car and walking over to her. Or maybe it's not that. Maybe there's some courage left somewhere, revived by the sight of her, by the hug, the invitation to coffee.

They're small gestures but he lived off smaller things for years.

He's too hot with his shirt sleeves buttoned. He wants his old desk back. He's craving jelly beans. He's craving grape soda. He's craving her. He thinks, hopes, dreams, wishes.

He remembers. May. Poker. Laughter. Hopes, dreams, wishes, bundled up and thrown out into the parking lot. He remembers the heartbreak.

He's determined not to be reckless again.

She has her own car and her own place now, her art classes and her independence. He thinks this new Pam might be able to say what she really means.

He gives her a chance.

"I just think I should tell you that I sort of started seeing someone." (Hello)

He gives her a chance to say she wishes he wasn't. He thinks he'll break things off with Karen when they haven't even started if she just looks upset for a second or two. He wishes he was stronger than that. He knows he's not.

She smiles in a confused sort of way and for a moment he forgets about the changes. For a moment he's staring back through time and she's the person she used to be again.

"You can do whatever you want." (Goodbye)

It's not what he was hoping for and he tells himself he's a fool. He's not supposed to be hoping anymore. It's a vice that almost destroyed him.

She's giving him permission to date someone else. She doesn't look upset. She says they'll always be friends. And all the pieces of himself that he thought he'd put back together are scattered across the parking lot. Again.

He walks away. It's easier than last time. He wonders when being this new person will get easier. He wonders if she's wondering the same thing.

Mostly he just wonders if he'll ever stop craving jelly beans.

~

She thinks her apartment will feel lonelier than ever tonight. She thinks she'll be haunted by the sight of Karen's hand on his back when she closes her eyes.

She thinks she'll paint the back of his neck. She thinks she'll paint a bottle of water, sitting alone atop a lunch table. She thinks she'll draw herself in the background, with two cans of soda and no-one to share with.

She thinks she'll paint a thousand dispensers of jellybeans overflowing from lack of interest

She sees him approach and she thinks maybe she won't have time for painting tonight.

"I just think I should tell you that I sort of started seeing someone."

She doesn't know what to say. He didn't used to have that effect. She thinks he's telling her to show her that she didn't break him quite as badly as it looked like she did. She forces out a smile and it physically hurts but she hears herself saying something stupid about how he can do whatever he wants.

She wants to say something funny and hear him laugh.

She wants to say she's sorry.

She wants to say she loves him and probably always has.

She can't.

The new person wearing the new sweater that might have had the courage to say any of it is huddling under her old coat, hiding in her old life. She's too cold to take her old coat off and show him the new person underneath. One more reason to wish it was May again.

She wants to pull out the ipod that she bought but can't really afford and play him a song that tells him everything.

She wants to grab his hand and say she never should have let go.

She can't.

She gives him a chance.

"We're friends. We'll always be friends." (Hello)

He might smile and agree. He might say that he wishes they were more than friends. He might kiss her. He might, but she knows he won't.

She broke his heart and she know that hints and coffee and friendship won't be enough.

"Right." (Goodbye)

She walks away. She wonders if it'll ever be easy to be the new person, to say the things she's thinking. She wonders if it's been easy for him to change.

She thinks she'll paint him the way he used to be: eyes ablaze with laughter and love, his mouth curling upwards into a smile, dangling his forearms over her desk. She thinks if she captures him on the page, even a vague resemblance to the brilliance he's lost, she might just find the courage tomorrow to tell him the truth and try to reignite the love that's died in his eyes.

She picks up her paints and creates a harmless, empty watercolor of flowers.

She's not as brave as he was that night. Yet.

~

I’m back from my mini hiatus, with my computer issues solved (via a new laptop) and I’m really hoping someone out there still wants to read this.
I was leaning towards ‘Phyllis’ Wedding’ for this chapter but I couldn’t resist a little look at ‘A Benihana Christmas’ first....

~

Christmas.

She sits at her desk and thinks of last year.

She tries to remember the various gifts she gave. She thinks how much shorter her list is this year. She hopes Roy remembers to buy his Mom something.

She tries to think of all the gifts she received. She skips over the memory of crying because she wasn’t even worth a real ipod to her fiancé. She thinks of a teapot that meant more than a real ipod ever could. She smiles. She sighs.

Her mind’s stuck on fast forward when she remembers him these days and she’s dwelling on Casino Night again in a heartbeat. She wonders how she got from teapots to heartbreak. She thinks about how he looked when she picked the ipod and thinks it’s not such a big leap really. Not for the first time, she thinks, she should have seen it coming.

She thinks of all the gifts she’s got stored away to give. Her favorite is sitting in the drawer to her left and she’s decided today is the day to give it to him. She’s decided that every day for the past week. She thinks gaining confidence will be her New Year’s resolution. She’s decided that every year for the past ten. She hates irony.

She calls him over and thinks about all the gifts she’ll receive this year. For the first time in a long time she asked for what she wants when her parents asked her. He approaches. She thinks about what she wants.

She wishes she knew how to ask for it.

She tries the only way she knows.

“For the past few months, I’ve been sending Dwight letters from the CIA.”

She hands over the red folder, barely keeping her hands steady. It’s pathetic and she knows it but this is the closest thing to physical contact they’ve had in weeks. She wonders if he’ll ever know that he makes her tremble.

He leans over her desk and smiles. She rethinks the more ambitious ideas of what she wants. She thinks it’d be better than the teapot if he’d just stand here and smile at her sometimes.

“So here’s the gift: you get to decide what his top secret mission is.” (Hello)

She waits. She’s holding out her teapot.

“You know what? Um... I really don’t think I should be doing this stuff anymore though.” (Goodbye)

He picks the ipod. She wonders if this is how he felt last year.

“No, just ‘cause of the promotion...”

He looks apologetic and she wonders if he really is. She wonders if he misses being the guy who didn’t care about his job any more than was absolutely necessary to not get fired. She wonders if he hates the man he was. She wonders if she made him hate the man he was. She likes to think the changes are about Karen, about him choosing this life because he really wants it. She can’t stand the thought that she made him hate the man he was, not when that’s the man she loves.

Once he’s gone from her desk she finds herself thinking of last Christmas again. She spends much of her time in her past these days, wondering if how she’s feeling is how he felt when she did this, or that. She thinks about the ipod and the teapot and how he must have loved her then. She thinks about how he still wished Roy a Merry Christmas when Roy was taking her home.

When Angela shoots down the Stamford Christmas ideas, she thinks about Jim and Roy and how it must have hurt him every day. She tries to think of all the times he showed it. She can’t. She feels guilty.

“I feel like I’ve been kind of cold to Karen and there’s no reason for it.”

It’s Christmas and Karen looks lonely. They plan their own party and she’s surprised to find Karen is perfectly nice. It certainly complicates things.

It’s a new sort of pain, smiling and laughing with Karen and knowing that the poor girl has no idea of the mess she’s walked into, has no idea of how the shy receptionist is pining after her boyfriend. The guilt makes her nicer, if that’s possible.

She wonders if this is how Jim used to feel. It’s odd that all these potential parallels make her feel closer to him, even as they’re drifting miles apart.

She watches them exchange Christmas gifts and thinks about her little red folder, discarded in a drawer of her desk. She wishes she could bring herself to hate Karen. She can’t. It’s the big difference she hits in all her parallels, and it’s just not fair. He probably knew a million reasons why Roy was wrong for her before she ever did. The only reason she can think of to suggest that Karen’s not perfect for him is that Karen isn’t her. Considering his recent behavior, she decides that’s not even a reason anymore.

She’s thinking about last year again when he stops at her desk on his way out.

“Oh, you know what? Sorry, I forgot to tell you. I intercepted a transmission earlier and its seems that the CIA is gonna need Dwight down at their headquarters at Langley for training and an ice cream social with the other agents.”

Out of nowhere, he picks the teapot.

They organize the prank and for the first time in a while she’s happy to stay in her present. Her mind doesn’t stray to the past when he’s conspiring with her like he used to. For just a moment he’s her Jim again.

She goes home and makes herself some tea. She thinks about how Roy never knew what she wanted for Christmas. She thinks about how Jim always did (still does). She thinks about all the heartbreak and the upheaval. She looks around her own home, lets her eyes linger on her artwork. She decides she’s in a better place this year than last.

And after all, he did pick the teapot.

~

Christmas.

He sits at his desk and tries not to think of last year.

Everything was different last year. He was a different man last year. He tries not to think of how much thought and effort he put into that teapot. He pulls open his top drawer, looks at the wrapped present for Karen and thinks about how quickly he picked it. He tells himself that means something good for him and Karen. He tells himself that effortless is a good thing.

Being himself used to be effortless. Wasting whole days with pranks on Dwight and not caring. Lunch break with her. Talking to her. Making her laugh. Loving her. He tells himself that effortless was a bad thing.

He ignores the voice telling him he can’t have it both ways.

She calls him over and it’s anything but effortless to stroll up to her desk like he used to.

“For the past few months, I’ve been sending Dwight letters from the CIA.”

He leans over as she shares her prank and it’s almost like it used to be. Effortless.

“So here’s the gift: you get to decide what his top secret mission is.” (Hello)

He pauses. It’s a new skill he’s practicing when it comes to her. He wants to laugh like he used to, grab the file and her hand and go drink soda while they plan their best scheme yet. She smiles up at him and he thinks about the ipod and the teapot and that her present, just like his, has taken time and thought. He thinks about what that could mean.

He takes a breath and pushes the thoughts away. Self preservation. It’s getting easier.

He forces his mind into fast forward, forces the memory of Casino Night to the forefront.

“You know what? Um... I really don’t think I should be doing this stuff anymore though.” (Goodbye)

He can’t go back to how it was then. Even a baby step backwards.

He’s a different man now. It’s not effortless but he’s beyond caring about that. The new him doesn’t laugh as hard, or as often. The new him doesn’t smile as much, or as wide. The new him is serious and in control and a lot of things the old him wouldn’t have approved of. He tells himself that the new him doesn’t hurt as much.

Sometimes he admits the truth to himself. It’s a half life he’s living and it can’t last.

He used to laugh and smile and joke with her.

These days he pauses until those sorts of feelings go away.

He used to love her.

These days he pauses until he can control those sorts of feelings. They don’t seem to be going away,

Karen is funny and beautiful and everything the new him needs or wants. He knows he should be falling in love with Karen. It’s his New Year’s Resolution to try to let himself.

He watches Pam and Karen and thinks about Roy. He watches them laugh and joke and thinks about how hard it was to try anything like that with Roy. He looks at how easy it is for her and thinks she wasn’t lying when she pushed him away in May. He stores the thought away, to pull up the next time she does something that makes him hope otherwise, something that makes him think, maybe.

Despite this, he knows it’s not for Karen’s sake that he approves the Committee to Plan Parties. Sometimes it’s just like it used to be. He thinks of all the reasons why she doesn’t love him and then she smiles and he doesn’t give a damn about any of them. Sometimes she smiles at him, or offers him a red folder, or a cup of coffee, or a paperclip and he thinks, maybe. In those moments he feels more alive than he has in months.

There’s a far few margaritas involved when he talks to Michael. It’s one of those rare moments when his boss’ unique level of crazy is toned down enough for an honest conversation. He comforts Michael about the waitress fiasco. He finds himself thinking about how these moments always end up about him and Pam in the end.

He tries to pause and filter his feelings.

It’s been a long day but that’s not why he’s exhausted. For once he can’t summon the effort to deny it.

“Which, don’t get me wrong, can be a really fun distraction, but, when it’s over, you’re left thinking about the girl you really like. The one that broke your heart.”

He vaguely wonders why it’s Michael who always seems to be the one to draw the truth out of him without even trying.

He watches from afar as Pam hugs Roy. It still hurts.

He thinks about the changes he’s made. He realizes he’s been kidding himself.

It’s a facade and it’s falling.

He thinks about less laughter, less smiles and not a drop of grape soda. He thinks about how none of that makes him stop loving her.

He thinks about the man he used to be. He’s been remembering the heartache and pain. He’s almost forgotten that there was laughter and smiling and her. He lets himself remember.

It’s late and it’s Christmas and he’s just too tired to pretend he doesn’t miss the way it used to be.

“Oh, you know what? Sorry, I forgot to tell you. I intercepted a transmission earlier and it seems that the CIA is gonna need Dwight down at their headquarters at Langley for training and an ice cream social with the other agents.”

He goes home and thinks about how, despite everything in between, he was happier this time last year than he is now. There was heartache and pain, but there was her.

And after all, she did pick his teapot.

~

Weddings are happy occasions.

This has been her mantra for years. It hasn’t changed.

She thinks about when she was engaged to Roy and her old High School friends passed from girlfriends to fiancés to wives in front of her eyes. She thinks about the times she sat beside Roy, the perpetual fiancé, repeating her mantra.

Wedding are happy occasions. Don’t cry.

She thinks about how the mantra never worked, about how she always ended up bitter and depressed and all sorts of emotions that shouldn’t be associated with weddings. She thinks about how she’d repeat the mantra and try to imagine her own wedding.

She thinks about how she went to so many weddings that she’d managed to map out every last detail of her own.

She remembers that she always thought of the wedding, never the marriage. She thinks that should have told her something.

She’s not a fiancé anymore and she thinks it probably sounds like a setback to those old school friends who’ve heard. She tries to remind herself that it’s progress. Lately it’s getting harder to remember why.

Weddings are happy occasions. Don’t cry.

The mantra still stands. ‘Don’t cry’ is becoming applicable on a daily basis.

She sits at Phyllis’ Wedding and tries not to think of her own. It’s hard when the whole thing is playing out in front of her. She thinks of Phyllis and Bob and her and Roy and how hers probably would have been an engagement long enough to make Roy look a little like Bob by the time they finally got down the aisle. She fights the sudden urge to laugh. It’s not really funny.

She didn’t want this wedding, she reminds herself. She was never meant to wear walk down this aisle, in that dress and meet Roy at the other end.

She used to watch the Grooms slip a ring onto their Bride’s finger and wonder if she’d get a Wedding Band before she wore out her Engagement ring. She used to think that she couldn’t feel any worse than she did standing beside Roy, watching all those other women getting their happy endings and worrying her engagement ring around her finger.

She was wrong. She watches Phyllis get the happy ending, in her dress, at her wedding. She didn’t want it. She can’t stop thinking about it now that it’s playing out in front of her.

She’s not beside Roy today but she knows he’s here. She wonders if he’s even noticed the similarities. She doubts it.

Jim is here, of course. She can’t look at him. It’s not that he’s with Karen. Not entirely, anyway. She can’t look at him. Every time she does, and it’s getting rarer, all she can think about is the mess she’s made and the things she can’t say and the way he looked when she broke his heart.

Before, when she looked at him, she liked herself. She saw herself as he wanted her to be, as everything she’d ever wanted to be. He doesn’t have that effect anymore. She can’t look at him because she thinks of May and everything in between. She can’t look at him because when she sees herself reflected back in his eyes, she sees a coward.

Weddings are happy occasions. Don’t cry.

She almost makes it through the ceremony, sticking to her mantra. She risks a sideways glance at Jim. Karen is holding his hand. As Phyllis and Bob walk down the aisle as man and wife, relatives smile approvingly at her tears. She lets them believe that she’s crying because that’s what women seem to do at weddings. She can’t make herself believe it.

She avoids him at the reception but he finds her at the bar.

“When are we going to see some of those famous Beesly dance moves?”

She laughs, properly. The first time she has all day. She vaguely ponders that he’s always been the only one to truly make her laugh. He still is, but these days he’s also the only one that makes her cry.

She wants to tell him that he can see her moves when he asks her to dance.

She wants to tell him that she doesn’t feel like dancing much these days.

She wants to tell him everything.

She doesn’t. Of course.

“Oh, I’m pacing myself.”

She barely hears what he says next. She’s thinking about the double meaning she’s just thrown out. She’s been justifying her lack of honesty lately with the very same excuse. Art classes. Independence. Apartment. Car. Jim. She’s working up to the last one. She thinks it’s turning out to be a very slow pace.

“No, I’m such a dorky dancer.”

“I know! And it’s very cute.”

It’s innocent, probably, but it’s the best thing she’s heard all day. She stops thinking about pacing herself and thinks, really thinks, that maybe he hasn’t completely given up. She thinks about asking him to dance, or talk. She thinks about taking his hand and giving him her heart in the parking lot of this dance hall. She thinks about her pretty dress and how it’s brown, not blue, but how it would still slide perfectly under his hands.

He smiles.

She smiles. (Hello)

The bartender hands him two drinks. She remembers. Her smile drops. He takes Karen her drink. (Goodbye)

She watches him dance with Karen. It still hurts to look at him but she can’t tear her eyes away. She wonders if the pain is showing on her face. She doesn’t care anymore.

She watches him sway, and smile, and laugh with a woman who’s not her. She thinks about how she’d fit much better in his arms.

She wishes she could stop pacing herself, wishes she could take the handbrake off her heart and let the truth pour out.

She stares at him, silently, intently.

He sees her. For the first time in months, she thinks, he really sees her.

Her expression betrays her. Jealousy, loneliness, sadness. She stares at him, the pain magnified by the one hopeful emotion she can’t seem to resist. She thinks he should recognize the expression. He used to wear it every day.

She doesn’t look away. (Hello)

He does. (Goodbye)

Later, she finds herself in the arms of the man she always planned to dance with on this day.

He’s different. Humbled. Changed. He holds her carefully, as though she might break. She thinks she might. He has realized what today could have been. He’s got the band to play their song.

She thinks so much about the other heart she broke that she’s almost forgotten about Roy’s.

She’s tired and lonely.

She used to look at him and see herself the way she’d always been. Quiet, shy, dependable.

She looks at him and sees comfort and love and herself, strong, independent, changed.

He smiles.

She remembers a Rose-tinted version of the best bits of them.

His hand is warm and solid in her palm.

As he leads her to his truck, she’s still thinking about how nice the wedding she planned was. She’s not thinking about the marriage.

~

Weddings are happy occasions.

He’s been telling himself that for years. He thinks of all the High School friend’s weddings. The college friend’s weddings. He thinks about how he sat in the congregation of every one and stared at the bride. Tall, short, blonde, redhead, brunette. He thinks about how he watched them all morph into Pam, kissing Roy. Beautiful. Unattainable. Lost to him forever.

It’s not lost on him that Phyllis has ‘borrowed’ some elements of the Beesly-Anderson wedding. He tries not to hate her ceremony on principle.

Karen squeezes his hand. He squeezes back. He smiles down at her during the ceremony and sees the tiniest hint of tears shining in her eyes. He’s surprised. She doesn’t seem the type to cry at weddings. She surprises him quite a lot sometimes. He marks it down in his mind, under ‘facts to remember about Karen’. Cries at weddings. The little folder of memories is growing and he finds he quite likes it.

He tries to ignore the fact that there’s no corner of his brain for ‘facts to remember about Pam’. They’re everywhere, invading everything, even the simplest memory, to the point that he can’t think of anything without thinking about her.

He wants to look over at her. He resists. It’s getting harder. He misses her, misses her smile and her laugh and the way she always plays with her necklace. He misses who he used to be.

She won’t even look at him anymore. He doesn’t look over for fear he’ll see her like he saw all those Brides. Beautiful. Unattainable. Lost to him forever.

He chances a glance at the end of the ceremony, while Karen is discreetly wiping her eyes. Pam is crying and trying to smile at the same time. He knows, instinctively, that hers are not tears for the Bride.

He wonders if she regrets giving up this wedding for the life she’s chosen. He hopes not. He hopes, though he hates himself for hoping it, that her tears are from loneliness. He hopes she cries because she wishes she was standing beside him, holding his hand, crying wedding-appropriate tears.

He wonders when he became the sort of man that wishes the woman he loved (still loves) was crying over him.

He hates to see her cry, he always has, but these tears spark more than pain inside him. Hope blossoms out of nowhere. He can’t be bothered suppressing it today.

He chances a glance that becomes a lingering look, one second away from a stare (he categorized all the ways of looking at her years ago). He tries to see through to the truth sparkling in her tears. She wipes them away before he can decide if it’s joy, or regret, or loneliness.

He finds her at the Reception, still wondering.

“When are we going to see some of those famous Beesly dance moves?”

She laughs. He still can’t shake the little jolt of happiness that shocks him when he makes he face light up like this.

“Oh, I’m pacing myself,” she says, with a smile.

He wants to say she’s been pacing herself for years and it’s about time she stopped it.

He wants to offer her his hand and a dance and maybe, just maybe, his heart (again).

He wants to do something, anything, to give her a sign that he’s still here. Still Jim underneath the new suits and the new life and the lies he tells himself every morning.

He wants to give her a chance.

He ignores the voice that sounds a lot like Karen reminding him that he has a girlfriend and a new life and an almost, sort of, slightly, haphazardly, patched up broken heart that really shouldn’t be entering into any strenuous activity just yet.

“I’m such a dorky dancer.”

“I know! And it’s very cute.” (Hello)

It’s not much, admittedly. He’s not the risk taker he was anymore.

It’s something, a subtle hint, a nudge in his direction. Today he can’t shake the feeling that she wants to tell him something.

The bartender passes him two drinks. The spell is broken. Her smile falls. (Goodbye)

“Hypothetically, if I thought Pam was interested then ...”

He can’t stop himself. The new him is falling apart at the seams and he can’t bring himself to care.

He remembers who he’s talking to.

“...No it’s totally hypothetical.”

Karen loves weddings, she tells him after a few fancy cocktails he can barely pronounce. He thinks about telling her that he hates them but then he thinks about why that is. He asks her to dance instead.

They sway to the music and he’s almost content, almost happy to forget the ifs and maybes of his relationship with Pam for the certain, straightforward one with Karen.

He looks up and it all falls apart.

She’s staring at them. At him.

He can’t think about the sorrow, or the pain, or the loneliness in her face when there’s something that looks a lot like love in her eyes.

She holds his gaze and he thinks, maybe.

Karen says something pointless and the spell, again, as always, is broken.

He tears his eyes away but he knows his heart is still over there with the girl in the brown dress, with the sad eyes. He thinks it’s probably always been there.

The rest of the night passes in a sort of haze.

He talks and jokes and laughs with the guests.

He spends the whole night thinking, planning, hoping. Maybe.

He thinks about how Pam might never be the one to say something. He thinks about how she looked when he danced with Karen and thinks, maybe she doesn’t have to. He thinks wild thoughts about breaking up with Karen, about trying, against all his better judgement, to tell Pam that he still loves her.

He thinks, maybe. (Hello)

He sees her. With Roy. Holding his hand, heading to his truck. (Goodbye)

The last coherent thought he can manage is that it always seems to be in parking lots that his heart falls to pieces.

Later, he thinks about the ceremony, and the reception, and how this time he definitely misinterpreted things.

It wasn’t him, it never was.

She misses Roy.

She regrets calling off the wedding.

She doesn’t love him. She never has.

He thinks of Karen. He knows what it means when she smiles at him, when she kisses him. She smiles. He smiles back.

He stops telling himself, maybe.

He tells himself, enough. Enough now.

~

Rushed, for which I apologise, but I wanted to get this up before I fly home.

~

She’s trapped.

However she looks at it, there’s no way out.

She tried being his friend. She’s not sure how but she ended up making Karen’s life easier and making herself cry.

She tried Art School. She ended up hugging Michael. She ended up finding out her biggest problem from a stranger.

She tried to go back.

She tried to change the man she left behind. She ended up realizing he could never change enough for her. He could never be the man she wanted.

She tried telling herself that didn’t matter.

She tried honesty.

She ended up with a light beer, as ordered. She ended up humiliated in front of her colleagues, crying into her steering wheel and all the way home to her tiny apartment.

She’s back to square one. Worse than square one. If such a square as minus one existed, she thinks, she’d be right there.

Trapped.

She can’t decide what else to try when all she can think of is whether Roy’s going to come through the door today and do something stupid.

She tries to distract herself. She answers the phones. She takes the messages. She sends the faxes. She lives without thinking these days, habit and memory moving her limbs more than conscious thought. She ghosts through life, mindless task after mindless task, telling herself tomorrow will be different.

Tomorrow is never different.

She thought she knew the worst feeling in the world. She thought she felt it when he let go of her hands. She thought she felt it when he let go of their friendship for a new suit and a girl that knew what she wanted. She was wrong.

This is the worst feeling in the world.

She has no expectations. No hope. She realizes she has nothing to look forward to.

And worse, she knows she’s the one who can change it.

But she doesn’t know which way to go this time.

She’s trapped.

Roy comes in and she rethinks her definition of the worst feeling in the world.

It’s all a blur long before the pepper spray hits her eyes.

~

“Sorry I almost got you killed.”

It’s not what she wants to say. It never is when it comes to him.

She wants to say she’s sorry about a lot of things. She’s sorry she used the word misinterpret when really he’d fitted all the puzzle pieces together years before her. She’s sorry she said, ‘I can’t’ instead of, ‘Not yet’.

She’s sorry she can’t bring herself to like the way he is now as much as she loves the way he was.

She remembers how honesty ended with Roy.

She picks the safe option.

“He could have broken your nose or something.”

She chances a look at him. He looks different and it’s not the suit or the long sleeves or the bottle of water in his hand. She looks at him and a fraction of a second is all she needs to see the truth. He’s exhausted. He’s tired of pretending to be someone he’s not. He might just miss her, miss the old him, enough to give it all another try.

She thinks he might just be the direction she hasn’t really tried yet.

“It's just so stupid. I mean, getting back with Roy and everything. I mean, what was I thinking, right?”

She waits.

“No, I mean you guys seems to have a really strong connection.”

She sighs. She takes another look at him. She tries again.

“Not anymore. It’s ... it’s completely over now.” (Hello)

She thinks she knows which is the right way to go. She wishes he’d give her a little nudge in his direction. A little nudge, she thinks, is all it’d take.

“We’ll see. I’m sure you guys will find your way back to one another someday.” (Goodbye)

It’s not a nudge. It’s a shove.

It’s exactly what she needed.

She watches him walk away and wonders if he’ll ever be tired enough of being someone he’s not to risk being the someone he was again.

She thinks he might try if she told him to.

She knows her way now.

She might be trapped but he’s heading in entirely the wrong direction.

She needs to mix art school and independence and being his friend and real, hard, honest, truth.

There’s a lot she needs to say. There’s a lot he needs to hear.

She needs courage.

Until she finds it, she’s still trapped.

~


It’s almost effortless now, being with Karen.

It’s almost easy now, treating Pam like an acquaintance and nothing more.

It’s habit, at the very least, to walk by her desk and not stop to chat.

It’s less like a facade, being the new person he’s created.

It feels less like pretending when he tells himself he doesn’t need to tell her a story, or a joke, or go to her art show.

He almost recognizes his face in the mirror again. He wonders if he’s just gotten used to the difference.

If he can just ignore the second guessing, the stubborn voice in his head, it might yet feel real.

If he can just ignore the urge to say, just once in a while, what he’s really feeling, he might yet make this work.

If he can just bring himself to throw away the flyer about her art show and with it, his guilt, he might yet convince himself it’s not all a lie.

He wishes succeeding in his post-Stamford life didn’t mean losing so much. He'd like to play pranks and really enjoy them. He misses laughing like he used to, like a kid without a care in the world. He misses being silly and juvenile sometimes. He thinks about revealing to Karen just how little he cares about selling paper.

He wishes all those things weren’t so inexorably tied up with loving her so he could have held onto them.

Sometimes he wishes losing her hadn’t meant losing himself along the way.

When he thinks that, he thinks about her being friendly to Karen, or going home with Roy, or breaking his heart in a parking lot and it’s easy to be the new him all over again.

The new him doesn’t burn as bright as the old him. He tells himself that’s careful. The new him will last.

“Hey, Halpert!”

He pushes Karen aside, ready to take the punch. He doesn’t know how Roy knows, but he knows he deserves what's coming.

In the confusion of the aftermath, he ignores the knowledge that in that moment, facing Roy, braced for attack, he felt more alive than he has in months. For a second, life was a firecracker again, liable to shoot off in any direction.

He ignores the knowledge that any moment with Pam, even the bad ones, feels more real than a thousand moments with Karen.

He needs to ignore her, ignore all the signs he thinks she’s giving him. He can’t bear to misinterpret things again.

He focuses on something else, anything else. He finds the sudden need to find a way to thank Dwight for intervening.

“Sorry I almost got you killed.”

He knew he couldn’t avoid her forever. He thinks he’ll be alright. He hasn’t been thinking of all the things she might have told Roy and all the things it might mean. It’s really important that he thank Dwight.

“It's just so stupid. I mean, getting back with Roy and everything. I mean, what was I thinking, right?”

The honest answer dances on the tip of his tongue, as always. He pushes it away. Habit.

“No, I mean you guys seems to have a really strong connection.”

It stings more than the pepper spray to hear himself say it. He tells himself it’s better to feel the sting than to burnt out like he did last May.

“Not anymore. It’s ... it’s completely over now.” (Hello)

There’s a lot of things he likes about the new him. He’s earning more. He doesn’t feel like a failure, or at least, he feels like a different kind of failure. He’s trying to be more cultured. He's trying to try new things. Karen makes him laugh.

He just wishes the new him didn’t have to be such a terrible friend.

“We’ll see. I’m sure you guys will find your way back to one another someday.” (Goodbye)

He thinks of all the things he’s left behind. He wishes he hadn’t picked up a cruel streak along the way.

He just wishes the new him didn’t have to hurt her.

He watches her leave with Roy.

He ignores the fact that he’d rather be cruel and wrong and without her than be proved right and have to see her find her way back to a man she doesn’t belong with.

He’s got a lot to ignore these days.

He wonders if one day he’ll run out of distractions and let himself see what he thinks is in front of him.

He wonders if one day he won’t need a distraction.

Living is less like a facade, after all.

Yet it still doesn’t feel like living used to.

He has to ignore the lure of the fireworks. He tries to remember how his life blew up in his face back then but all he can think of is how bright it shone, if only for a moment.

He’s really got to find a way to thank Dwight.


~

Since Beach Games is really all about Fancy New Beesly, this chap is entirely in Pam's POV. Enjoy...

~

She doesn’t know what she’s doing.

She thinks she might be sulking. She’s actually upset to be left out of this stupid Survivor game. She was honestly looking forward to this trip. She can’t remember why. She thinks none of them deserve their thumbs up, or their gold stars or whatever points scheme Michael ends up using next. She’s definitely sulking. Beyond that she doesn’t know.

It’s a quiet moment, in between note taking sessions, with her hand throbbing, when she realizes she knows perfectly well what she’s doing.

She’s doing exactly the sort of things she’s been doing for months: she’s ignoring the dull ache that seems to tighten around her heart whenever Jim does for Karen the sort of thing he used to do for her.

She’s doing exactly the sort of thing she’s been doing for years: she’s indulging another ridiculous scheme of Michael’s. She’s waiting in the wings for someone in the office to remember she exists.

She heats up eight hundred hotdogs and hears Michael lie to her colleagues about them, in front of her face.

The teams pass by her during one of the pointless challenges. No-one meets her eye. No-one smiles.

She thinks about how she never used to care that no-one really knew her, because Jim knew her enough for all of them. If things were different, she lets herself imagine, he wouldn’t have left her on the sidelines. She would have been on his team. Vice-captain probably, or some complicated title they’d invented to annoy Dwight. They would have come in last in every game, too concerned with having fun to care about winning anything. He would have liked that, before.

She stands on the fringe, wondering if she’ll always be taking notes, watching other people live.

She knows exactly what she’s been doing. She just can’t remember why anymore.

The excuses she’s invented for them aren’t good enough. It’s not alright that they missed her art show.

She left her fiancé of ten years for her best friend and he deserves to know it.

She misses the man he was more than anything and that man’s not going to come back to her if she’s sitting off to the side, taking notes.

She is in love with a man she can’t even look in the eye anymore and it’s not alright.

She can’t understand how she ever let herself think it was.

It feels as though she’s just stood back to admire the finished puzzle of her life and found some of the pieces in the wrong places. She wants to rip it apart, keeping the parts she’s finally gotten in order, and try again with the rest.

Michael brushes her attempt at the coal walk aside and something snaps.

It feels sudden, as though the clarity out of the confusion came from nowhere.

She discards her note pad in the sand and heads for the coal walk.

She decides it’s been coming on a while, that it’s a process that began when she handed back a tiny, old engagement ring and a house key. It’s been building for months, nurtured by new experiences: by art classes and signing her lease, by changing her first light bulb and her first tire.

She thinks she’ll make it across the coal walk. She’s been standing on her own two feet long enough to earn the scar tissue.

It burns, of course it burns, but she makes it. It burns enough to remind her she’s alive.

She runs to them, to him, fearless for the first time in her life.

“I did the coal walk.”

There’s an edge of hysteria to her voice and she finds she quite likes it.

“Why didn’t any of you come to my art show? I invited all of you. That really sucked. It’s like sometimes some of you act like I don’t even exist.”

She can’t imagine why she ever thought the truth could be worse than the lies she’s been telling herself.

She sounds crazy, and her feet hurt more with every passing second, but she can look him in the eye now.

She thinks about last May and how it was terrible timing, and inconvenient and unfair and a parking lot.

And for the first time, she realizes why.

It wasn’t about bravery, or hope, or selfishness, or any of the things she’s let herself think it was.

It was desperation.

It was the point when it had to go one way or the other because nothing could be more agony than watching her with another, knowing he’d kept the truth to himself.

It was his last roll of the dice, no expectations, no hope, just the desire to be honest, to be free, at last.

She understands, finally.

She faces him, finally.

“Jim, I called off my wedding because of you. And now we're not even friends. And things are just, like, weird between us..and that sucks. And I miss you. You were my best friend before you went to Stamford and I really miss you.”

She hopes her meaning is clear. It’s dark but she thinks she sees a flicker of guilt, a blush of shame creeping onto his cheeks. She holds his gaze and wills him to hear her.

He’s changed and it’s not for the better. She misses him. The way he used to be. The way he’s meant to be.

“I shouldn't have been with Roy. And there were a lot of reasons to call off my wedding, but the truth is I didn’t care about any of those reasons until I met you.” (Hello)

It’s easy. She’s surprised.

She’s not exactly where he was. It killed him to tell her the truth, she remembers. No matter how much she was hurting him, he still had something to lose. He still had friendship and trips to her desk and lunch times. He sacrificed it all, shattered the status quo, lost her, if nothing else, to stop her making a terrible mistake.

She’s already lost him. Nothing can be worse than that.

“And now you’re with someone else and that’s fine ...it’s whatever that’s not what I’m, I’m not ... Ok my feet really hurt. The thing that I’m just trying to say to you, Jim, and to everyone else in the circle I guess, is that I miss having fun with you. Just you, not everyone in the circle.”

She doesn’t mean to upset Karen, it’s never been her intent. She wonders if he understands. Karen isn’t the issue here.

The new version of him is with Karen. That doesn’t matter. She doesn’t love the new him.

She’s asking him to be the way he used to be. If he does that, Karen won’t matter. The old him is hers, always has been.

“I’m going to go walk in the water now.”

She waits.

He approaches.

It’s more liberating than the coal walk to face him, unashamed, unafraid.

“The real reason that I went to Stamford was because I wanted to be ... not here.”

She nods. She holds her breath. She prays he understood.

“And even though I came back, I just feel like I’ve never really come back.”

She almost smiles because he knows. He heard every word she said. He read every line of subtext that none of their audience could have seen. He understands. She knows he’s living a lie. She doesn’t want to be friends with the man he is now. She wants the man he was. The man that’s hers, always has been. The man who laughs and jokes and eats jellybeans all through the workday. The man that makes her want to be better than she is. The man that would have insisted she was on his team to join in every last ‘funtivity’ of Beach Day.

She wants the man that ran away to Stamford and never really came back. The man she loves.

“Well I wish you would.” (Hello)

~

~

Karen keeps asking him how he’s feeling.

He really wishes, not for the first time, that she wouldn’t do that.

He shrugs and lies. He tells her he feels fine. He smiles, the sort of half smile she fell for, the one that’s not even real. And she believes him. It’s easy.

Hers is a pointless question.

He feels nothing.

He is going through the motions, living his life on autopilot.

Sometimes he feels a flicker of something like life in his heart. He can’t seem to ignite much else.

He tries to think about the beach. About the coal walk and about how the firelight sparkled in her eyes when she spoke to him. About how he ignored her all day and then couldn’t take his eyes off her.

He tries to remember the feeling: the rush of warmth and pride, but weak, strangled by guilt and regret.

He tries to remember what she said.

He can’t.

It’s a numbness he used to long for.

He hates it.

At odd moments, he remembers. When she tells him his hair looks good, he thinks she said she called off the wedding because of him. When she laughs with him about Jan’s ‘improvements’, he thinks she told him to come back. He thinks she showed him just how much she understood about the move and the return and the parts of him he left behind in the parking lot last year.

At times like these he thinks he ought to respond in some way.

At times like these, the job in New York seems more like settling than progress.

Then Karen says something, or smiles, or laughs from three desks away and he loses his hold on the frayed thread of thoughts.

He wonders when Dwight’s ridiculous fantasies became such a good metaphor for his life. Welcome to Hotel Hell indeed.

He leaves for New York with a backwards glance and a fleeting smile.

She’s sitting in her usual spot behind the desk, the place he thinks she’ll always be when he remembers her.

She wishes them both luck with a weak shadow of a smile. He remembers how she said she missed him, and having fun with him.

He remembers how she asked him to come back.

It’s only in the car that he realizes he might have just left for good.

As they leave the parking lot, he thinks about last year and tries to remember how wrong it all went. For the tiniest second, he lets himself think that really that was the last time everything was right.

He looks back at the office and thinks this final exit, if that’s really what it is, should have been grander, more memorable. He sighs. He adds another point to his list of regrets.

All the way to New York the image of her hangs behind his eyes, haunting him with every blink. He decides maybe the exit was memorable enough after all.

New York is loud and busy and Karen is more alive on its streets than she ever was in Scranton. She takes his hand and tries, a little too hard, to show him the life in New York he could lead. She won’t let him be just a tourist.

He thinks he might have liked to be just a tourist.

“You get it right? There’s one too many people in Scranton.”

He agrees.

He doesn’t tell her that there are moments when he thinks that one person too many might be her.

Karen thinks he’s nervous on the morning of the interview. He’s not. He knows David Wallace has taken a liking to him. He knows he can get this job. He just can’t decide if he really wants it anymore.

He sits in the stylish offices of Dunder Mifflin Headquarters and doesn’t like it.

He thinks the sofa in Scranton is more comfortable than this stiff leather couch that probably cost more than his last car.

The artwork around the building is all bright colors and abstract shapes. He can’t stop comparing their cold, sharp lines with the image of a soft watercolor that he’s been pretending not to notice for weeks.

Jan might be out of control but he can’t laugh at the way they treat her. He turns his eyes away from her humiliation.

His head should be full of figures and statistics and impressive questions to ask. It’s empty, save for the echo of his own words from months ago.

“Say what you will about Michael Scott, but he would never do that.”

He realizes he’s been underestimating this. He thought everything would be the same and only a little bit different. Everything is different and he starts to think that he’s not different enough. The few similarities only make him uneasy, only remind him of the way things used to be, the way things should be. The way things still could be.

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Grace.”

He thinks it might be the person behind the Reception Desk that’s bothering him the most.

The interview begins well. The part of him that’s still got a hold on the new Jim knows he’s practically being handed the job. The majority of him is wondering if Jan is alright.

Pam’s note slips out as he hands David his statistics. The gold yoghurt lid winks at him as the sunlight hits it.

It’s nothing really.

It’s everything really.

“So, long haul. Where do you see yourself in ten years?”

He glances at the note and remembers. He remembers everything. He remembers the Office Olympics, the medals and the paper decorations, the closing ceremony and how she had smiled at him; the Health Care questionnaire and her invented diseases, Dwight’s annoyance and his own delight; the cell phone in the ceiling and the funny hats, the first real laugh in months; the CIA mission and the teapot that was better than an ipod; the coat stand and the umbrella; the sudden silence after he told her he loved her, the pain of putting one foot in front of the other and leaving her and the best parts of himself, behind.

He remembers the Beach. He can see her clearly now, no effort required to force the memory. She’s all he can see now. She is beautiful and desperately sad, she is brave and fearless and angry and still, completely, undeniably, Pam.

She is everything.

It might be the note, or the yoghurt lid, or the artwork, or the sofa, or the way they treated Jan, or just the question. It might be her words, her bravery, finally breaking through to him. It might be the memories.

It’s probably all of it, when he answers, “Not here.”

Another sort of autopilot takes over now. He’s out of the office before he realizes it. He’s breaking up with Karen when all she asked was how the interview went. He should feel guilt, and he knows guilt will come, but right now he can’t muster much. She might understand eventually. She was never with him, not the real him. She wouldn’t even have liked the real him. He was an invention, the man she fell for and it’s hard to feel guilty when he feels like someone else entirely, barely recognizable as the man she followed to Pennsylvania. It’s hard to feel guilty about who he was when he’s too caught up in who he’s just become.

A part of him wants to break the speed limit and the sound barrier to get back to Scranton.

He knows he doesn’t need to.

She’s waiting for him.

She’s better than him, he realizes.

She’s waiting for him like he couldn’t wait for her.

She’s had her Casino Night, her moment of desperate truth, and she’s still sitting behind the same old desk, waiting to see if he wants to approach.

When it was his time, he hadn’t give her a moment to think, too wrapped up in his own pain to think of hers.

He ran away when she hurt him.

She’s waiting.

She’s braver than he is.

Her desk is abandoned when he returns. In the time it’s taken him to get back from New York he’s imagined a thousand scenarios for his arrival and within five seconds they are all wrong in a detail he couldn’t have foreseen. He laughs. He likes the unpredictability of this. It reminds him that it’s real.

For the first time in a long time, he doesn’t think over his actions. He doesn’t wonder whether the new him, or the old him, would do this, he doesn’t wonder if it’s foolish or reckless or brave or honest.

He just opens the door.

~

She’s exhausted when they call her in to do one more interview before the end of the day.

She’s been laughing off her colleagues’ lighthearted attitudes to the most serious thing she’s ever said. She’s lied to the camera, but not to herself, about how the silence from him feels.

She’s exhausted because she thought she was done pretending after the beach.

She marvels at how easy it is to love someone and to hate them a little bit too.

She wishes he was here so she could tell him about Dwight’s crazy plans. She wishes he has here so she could slap him, hard.

She never hated Roy. At times he infuriated her, upset her, demeaned her, but she never hated him for it.

Right now, she loves Jim.

Right now, she hates him a little bit too.

She can’t understand why he seemed to hear what she said on the beach and yet has barely acknowledged her since.

She thought they finally saw each other, without the smokescreen of regret and pain, for the first time in months.

She remembers how his cap left his eyes in shadow.

She wonders if she saw what she wanted to see.

She expected a response and she’s frightened that he’s becoming the coward just as she finds her courage at last.

The memory of last year, when roles were reversed, is all that keeps her quiet. She remembers, more than anything now, the agony of that moment of indecision, as he demanded an answer of her.

She gives him the time that he couldn’t bear to give her.

Even so, she hates him for taking it.

The aftermath of the truth is nothing like she imagined it would be.

There is relief, as she had expected. There is embarrassment, though she tries to hide it. There was hope, but it is stifled more with every passing moment.

And yet, for better or worse, she thought he’d at least say something.

Of all the things, she didn’t expect silence.

She doesn’t much like the unpredictability of it.

Then again, she tells herself, the unpredictability of it all means it’s real.

She really did say all the things she’s been thinking for years and that is enough to sustain her for now.

“If he never comes back again, that’s okay.”

She lies.

If he never comes back, if this is really it, if the moment he left yesterday turns out to be the moment he left, it is anything but okay.

They were never supposed to end like this, with a whimper.

When she told him everything, he was supposed to say something.

Her words were supposed to be a catalyst, supposed to ignite something, anything, between them.

“But you know what? It’s okay. I’m totally fine. Everything is going to be totally...”

The door opens and she falters because he is standing there and she can’t end the sentence when she doesn’t know what everything is going to be anymore.

She thinks the spark she wished for just ignited, finally.

~

“Pam.”

She looks so shocked, so pained, so desperately, desperately hopeful, that he knows one of the first things he’ll do if she says yes is apologize for making her wait to hear this. He remembers how she told him to come back and he knows she’ll understand. He loves her for it.

He looks so different, so alive, so desperately, desperately hopeful, that she knows he’s going to want to hear about her apartment and her art classes and her day long tenure as secret assistant to the regional manager. She remembers how she told him to come back. He’s back. She loves him for it.

“Are you free for dinner tonight?” (Hello)

“Yes.” (Hello)

He thinks, finally.

“Alright, then it’s a date.”

She thinks, finally.

He leaves the room and sits down at his old desk. He loosens his tie, rolls up his sleeves and tilts his chair back. He smiles.

They’re not exactly as they were.

They’re more than that.

She faces the camera and tries to end her sentence. She smiles.

“I’m sorry what was the question?”

All she can remember is the question he just asked.

All he can remember is the answer she just gave.

Finally, the timing is perfect, the future is unpredictable and wonderful and completely theirs and, from a wall apart, they smile. Together.