They're at lunch when it happens, grabbing a slice of pizza at Cugino's. Pam excuses herself to go to the restroom while he sits gamely at the table, drinking a coke and waiting patiently for her to return.

As she's washing her hands, she hears and feels an earth-shattering explosion. It cracks the tiles under her, knocking her off her feet. The overhead lights go dark, leaving the room blacker than midnight. Gasping, she finds her feet and runs to the door, tugging it open with wet hands to find the restaurant is in shambles. Parts of the ceiling are caved in, chunks of the walls have fallen down, some diners are bruised and bloody, others are dead. 

And she's screaming his name at the top of her lungs, feeling her sanity start to crack around the edges, because the booth where they'd been sitting is crushed beneath an enormous pile of crumbled brick that's almost as tall as she is.

She picks her way over, careful not to trip on the mounds of debris, pulling her phone out of her pocket and calling 911. Busy.

She calls her mom. No answer.

She calls her sister. It doesn't even ring this time.

She tries to dig the bricks away from the booth. She has to give up, exhausted and sick to the depths of her soul, after half an hour of making no progress. Her fingernails are broken, her fingertips are raw. Everyone else is too wrapped up in their own problems to help her, and he hasn't responded to any of her attempts to call his name. How could he be anything but dead?

She sobs and vomits. She's been hearing sirens in the distance continuously, but none near enough to help. She looks through a gaping hole in the wall and pays attention to what's happening outside for the first time. People are screaming and running. Buildings in every direction are demolished, or nearly so. She has no idea how the roof didn't collapse in the bathroom. The streets are jammed with cars, not moving at all. She puts her hand in her pocket and pulls out her keys. She looks back and forth between them, the traffic, and the pile of bricks crushing her fiance.

Ex-fiance now. She crumples to the ground as the thought pummels her relentlessly. He's dead. The love of my life is dead. Another thought occurs. I would be too, if I'd been sitting across from him. She feels a spasm in her throat and vomits again, or would. There's nothing left so she's just retching pointlessly, helplessly, painfully.

Eventually she regains a sliver of rationality. Swallowing hard, she buries her face in her hands, tries to ignore the screaming and death all around, and wonders what to do. Where to go. She tries to call a few more people. Isabella, her father, a few friends, the outside line at work. She finally has to give up. She figures the towers are out, because it's not ringing no matter who she calls.

She wants her mom, but her parents live in Carbondale. It's not far by car, about half an hour, but she has no idea how long it would take on foot. Hours, surely. And she has no idea how to get there without taking the highway. Seeing as how local traffic is this bad, she's sure the highways are literally impassable. She guesses she should go home, to see if she even has a home left to go to. She'll need to pass near the office along the way, though, so she decides to go there first. She's thinking she'd do just about anything to see a friendly face right now.

Seeing how little progress traffic is making, she decides to walk and gets her things. There's not much inside the vehicle, but she grabs a spare sweater and throws on her Keds, sniffling and crying the whole time, feeling more alone than she's ever been in her entire life.  

She begins the trip, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, trying to ignore the endless screaming. Once she gets out of earshot of one screaming person, there's another--or two or three--to replace them. 

A woman grabs her, begging for help. She takes one look at the collapsed building the woman says her baby is trapped in, then looks around at all the other collapsed buildings and crying people, and keeps walking, apologizing, sobbing, her heart breaking, but what can she do? She couldn't dig her own fiance out of a four foot tall pile of bricks, what use is she going to be against an entire building of rubble? 

She aims for back streets, trying to avoid the risk of that happening again. Then she sees a pack of teenage boys robbing an elderly woman in an alley. She feels her stomach drop and runs, veering sharply and quickly back to the main drag.

She's nearly there after about twenty minutes on foot and no further incidents. She rounds the final corner and, suddenly, she's shaking and sick to the depths of her soul. She used to have to look up at it. Now it's flattened, shorter than a single story. There isn't a sound coming from inside of it, no indication that there were any survivors. She's certain that anyone inside would never have had a chance.

The whole way over, she'd avoided thinking about the reason she was coming to the office first. Because, even though it wasn't strictly speaking out of her way, it would have been faster to go straight home. She'd avoided thinking about him, but she can't avoid thinking about him anymore. She bends over to vomit again, knowing there's nothing left. She's just dry heaving at this point. But although her stomach is in knots and her throat is raw, she can't stop because he's gone.

He's her best friend.

Was her best friend. Because now he's dead.

He was probably in the kitchen eating his ham and cheese sandwich.

He probably didn't feel a thing.

It was probably over in a heartbeat.

The best friend she can admit now that she liked way more than an engaged person should ever like a friend of the opposite sex.

She curls up in a ball in the grass, as close to the building as she can get. Wave after wave of grief pummels her relentlessly. As lonely and upset as she'd felt at the realization Roy was dead, she's heartbroken now at the thought of going on without Jim in her life.

Her chest hurts.

She can't breathe.

She doesn't want to breathe.

The last thought she has before losing consciousness is how much she wishes she'd been inside, too.

She wakes up suddenly. She's not sure what woke her. The screaming and the sirens have become background noise, so it couldn't have been that. Then she notices an ant crawling on her hand and figures that's what did it. She watches its progress up her wrist with disinterest. Normally she'd flick it off and shudder, because normally she hates bugs. She doesn't feel much of anything at the moment, though. Maybe if she lays here long enough, the grass will grow over her and this can be her grave.

Then she hears her name. Her brow knits and she sits up in a hurry because she would have sworn that was-- "Jim?" She sees him and covers her mouth with her hands, thinking Oh my god as tears spring into her eyes.

"Oh my god," he cries, running toward her. She brushes the ant off her arm as she stands up and he drops the sleeping bag he's holding and shrugs off his backpack and they embrace tearfully.

"I thought you were dead," she sobs into his shoulder, clutching at him in disbelief.

"I thought you were dead," he weeps into her hair, wrapping his arms around her.

They stand there, holding each other, taking comfort in each other's arms, just breathing, unbelievably relieved, for a long stretch. Eventually she asks, "Where were you, when…"

"My parents' house. They're… dead," he admits, his voice cracking.

She squeezes him tight. "I'm so sorry," she says mournfully.

"Where were you?" he asks softly.

"In the bathroom at Cugino's. Roy was in a booth and, the wall…" She sniffles, unable to bring herself to say more.

He squeezes her reassuringly. "I'm so sorry."

"What do we do now?" she asks in a small voice.

He shrugs, shaking his head a little. "I have some water and a few camping things from my trunk, but I don't know what the hell to do. I almost got mugged by a group of kids on my way over here." He barks out a humorless laugh.

"I saw a group of teenagers robbing an old lady in an alley. I ran away before they saw me."

"Good." He strokes her back and she feels soothed. "Thirsty?" he's asking her now.

"Yeah," she admits. They break apart as he pulls out two bottles of water. He hands her one. "Thanks," she says gratefully, rinsing the rotten taste out of her mouth before drinking half the bottle in one fell swoop.

"Have you been to your apartment yet?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "You?"

He shakes his.

"Sounds like a place to start," she declares, tucking the bottle into her purse.

On the way to her apartment, they wonder together what the hell happened. Was it an earthquake? Was it a bomb? In Scranton? They talk about how Dwight would be a real sight for sore eyes right now. He'd probably be a pro at surviving in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. But that conversation trails off quickly as they realize he's probably dead, along with everyone else in the office.

Everyone but them.

She looks over at him and takes his hand in hers. She lifts it to her mouth and presses her lips to his knuckles, so grateful that they're in this together. There will always be a part of her that loves Roy, she'll always miss him, but she knows now that she can go on without him. She could never go on without Jim. And there's nobody else she'd want by her side in an apocalypse.

She wakes up suddenly, again. She sits up, incredibly disoriented. It's dark and she hears snoring from beside her.

She realizes in a flash that Roy is snoring, and Jim's in Stamford.

She stands and stumbles to the bathroom, turning the lights on full-blast. After her eyes adjust, she looks in the mirror. The light catches the stone in her engagement ring and she's looking down at it now, thinking hard. She slides it off slowly, her heart feeling lighter with every inch. She sets it down on the counter.

She goes to the living room and picks up her phone without thinking twice.

His bleary voice on the other end is music to her ears. "Pam? It's four in the morning. Why--"

"I'm in love with you too," she blurts out, tears spilling down her cheeks. She hears him gasp. "I'm not gonna marry him."

"Seriously?" He sounds flabbergasted.

"Am I too late? Please, Jim. Please tell me I'm not too late."

"You said… you said you can't, Pam. You said I misinterpreted." He sounds more heartbroken than flabbergasted now.

"I'm so sorry. I was an idiot. I can, Jim. I want to. What's your address? I'll come tell you myself. I'll bring breakfast." She lets out a sob. "Unless you don't… do you still love me?"

She can hear him sitting up in bed. He blows out a big, whooshing breath, his next words sounding like they're being wrenched from him. "You know I do."

She bites her lip with a grin. "You like pancakes?"

"You know I do," he repeats, and she can hear a hint of a teasing lilt in it this time.

And now she's laughing and crying. "Where do you live?"

He tells her and she writes it down, saying she'll be there as soon as she can and asking what his favorite kind of pancakes are, and is there an IHOP in Stamford?

"There is. I like chocolate chip. Pam… what changed your mind?" he wants to know, and he's back to flabbergasted.

She giggles. "I'll tell you when I get there."

Jim sighs as he hangs up and goes to shower, hoping he doesn't wake up to find this was all just a dream.

Jim is outside when it happens. He's heading up the sidewalk to have lunch at his parents' house when he hears and feels an earth-shattering explosion. He staggers and nearly falls, seeing his childhood home crumble to the ground before his eyes. "Oh my god," he mutters, running up and shoving his hands in his hair. After a shocked minute, he pulls the phone out of his pocket and calls 911.

Busy.

He calls his parents' house phone. He doesn't hear it ringing, although it would be no more than twenty feet away from him. That is, if the house were still standing.

He calls Pam. It doesn't even ring this time. He tries again, five or six times. He finally has to give up. He figures the towers are out.

He yells for his parents and gets no response. He tears up, because he knows there's no way they could possibly have survived that. The house doesn't have a basement and the entire structure has caved in to the point where it's shorter than he is. And he doesn't have a backhoe or any way to get through.

He sees a few cars going by, speeding like bats out of hell, and thinks they have the right idea. He has to get to the office, he has to get to Pam. He has to make sure she's okay. He has to see how widespread this is. He hears sirens in the distance and tries to call 911 again. It still doesn't ring, so he's certain the towers are out.

He drives as far as he can until traffic jams up. It's a fucking nightmare. People are screaming and running. Buildings in every direction are rubble, or nearly so. He's been sitting still for five minutes and he thinks walking would be faster. He's still not very close, but he pulls off the road and parks at Walmart because he's got to get to Pam.

He looks at Walmart in awe for a moment, because it, like pretty much every other building, is practically demolished. He goes through his trunk and tries to take anything remotely useful, because he's not sure if or when he'll be back here again. He's got a bad feeling his car will be looted and stripped by the time he gets back to it, because he's already seen a couple people getting mugged along the side of the road.

He stuffs a few bungee cords and a tarp into his backpack, a camping knife, a camping lighter, a map, and fills the rest with as many bottles of water as he can fit. He opens one and forces himself to chug it, the water nauseatingly warm from sitting in the car all day, but he knows he'll regret it more if he doesn't. He changes into his sneakers, slings the backpack over his shoulders, picks up his sleeping bag, and sets off.

Because he's got to get to Pam.

She has to be okay.

He swallows hard as he begins the walk, trying his best to ignore the screaming and death surrounding him. He tries not to make eye contact with anyone. A young girl grabs his leg, begging for help. He takes one look at the collapsed building she says her mother is in, then looks around at all the other collapsed buildings and crying people. He bends down on his knee and says he's sorry, he can't stop right now, but she can come with him if she likes. She screams and runs back to the building, refusing to go. So he keeps walking, his mouth twitching down into a frown, his heart breaking, but what can he do?  

He aims for back streets, trying to avoid the risk of that happening again. Then he sees a group of boys kicking someone on the ground in an alley. They spot him and run in his direction. He feels his stomach drop as he veers sharply and runs quickly back to the main drag. He can run faster than they can, so they don't follow for long.

After about twenty minutes on foot, he arrives at the office without any further incident. He's shaking and sick to the depths of his soul as he comes around the corner. He used to have to look up at it. Now it's flattened, shorter than a single story. There isn't a sound coming from inside of it, no indication that there were any survivors. He's certain that anyone inside would never have had a chance.

The whole way over, he'd avoided thinking about the possibility that she didn't make it. She couldn't not make it.  

She's the love of his life.

Was the love of his life. Because now she's dead.

She was probably in the kitchen eating her mixed berry yogurt.

She probably didn't feel a thing.

It was probably over in a heartbeat.

He bends over and vomits.

He walks up to the building, as close as he can get. Wave after wave of grief pummels him relentlessly. Tears are streaming down his cheeks and he's sobbing her name, over and over again. He can't stop thinking about how much he wishes he'd been inside, too. He can't stop thinking about how much he wishes the knife in his backpack was a gun.

He knows it's ridiculous, he knows there's no way she survived, but he can't stop himself from circling the building and looking for her anyway.