Jim awoke at 3:30 to his phone making a strange chirping noise. He moved his hand blindly across the table by his bed, knocking down numerous items that didn’t register to him that early. He finally grabbed his phone, and when he flipped it open, the light emitting from the small screen burned his eyes. He was puzzled by the words new text message, and desperately tried to remember their meaning. He closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head and glanced once more at the phone, fully awake and able to understand that he needed to check his inbox.

He didn’t recognize the phone number, but he opened the message anyway, and despite being wide awake he had to read it three times through and even then he didn’t understand it.

Hey, don’t think this is weird or anything, but I was thinking about that time on the roof, and even though we’re not really friends anymore I’m really glad I have that memory. New cell phone number, feel free to call me if you need to get a hold of me. –Pam Beesly

Weird didn’t even begin to describe the sensation of getting a vague text message in the middle of the night from someone he had barely spoken to in three years. Bizarre, maybe, and bordering on ludicrous was more like it. What was her reasoning behind sending it? The first thought that jumped to his mind was that she was getting married and maybe that was her way of saying goodbye. He had seen movies where women did that: contacted their old flames weeks before their weddings to just completely put it behind them, leaving no room for the burning questions, the ones that kept them awake at all hours of the night. Every girl he had dated in the past five years had made him sit through The Notebook at least once, so he knew things like that.

But, he reminded himself, you were never really her flame. He felt a dull ache somewhere deep, deep inside of him—so deep that he almost didn’t recognize it.

But if she was cutting all ties, why that last, cryptic line? Feel free to call me if you need to get a hold of me. Did she really mean it or was she just trying to be polite? After all, they had always been about keeping up pretenses. Pretending that everything was fine between the two of them, when really it hadn’t been in years.

She couldn’t be getting married. Not this early, and especially not after what had happened last time. Besides she wasn’t completely heartless, was she? Wouldn’t she call him, if only to say, “I’m getting married and I thought you should know”?

He wanted to text her back immediately, without a care as to how desperate that was. He wanted to find out what the hell was going on, because people don’t just do things like send a text message in the middle of the night without there being some meaning behind it.

The more he thought about it, the more he convinced himself not to write her back. At least not right away. That would just add more awkwardness to the way things had been left between them. What was left between them was what he wanted to know. They hadn’t had a fight…just a falling out. And maybe that was even worse.

Because he had taken the job in Stamford after all. Not really by choice, though, it was just something that happened. The wedding had been called off, and he had gone to her and she had said, “I just need some time.” So he gave her time, months and months. He went to Australia and came back, and she still needed time. And after awhile he got restless so like the idiot he was, he requested the transfer to Stamford, hoping that she would call his bluff. But she didn’t, not when he went to look for an apartment, not when he packed up all his things, not at the good-bye party at work. Not even when he pulled out of his driveway and started on the long trip, all by himself. And he had started thinking that maybe she didn’t need time, maybe she just didn’t need him.

He felt that ache again, sharper than the last time.

When the documentary aired, he was glad to be out of Scranton. There was no way he would have been able to face anyone after that, because the crew had showed everything. Every moment between the two of them, every look, every touch. His confession that night, their kiss, all of it. And the humiliation was almost too much to bear, but being near her would have added to it tenfold. At least in Stamford he could hold his head high and tell his co-workers, “It just didn’t work out between us,” whenever they asked about Pam.

And people were disappointed with the outcome. That Jim and Pam hadn’t ended up together. Even his own mother had called to berate him, demanding to know why he wasn’t down in Scranton begging her to marry him (his father had grumbled about him “putting the moves” on a girl that was spoken for, what the hell was the matter with him? Had he not raised a gentleman?). Explaining to his parents why things had turned out the way they had was harder than telling anyone else. He could skirt around the word “coward” and “loser” with strangers, but his family saw right through him. His brother told him to quit moping, grow a pair and go get her back, and Jim could never find the words to explain that it just wasn’t that easy, for crying out loud.

He laid back down in his bed, trying to put all these thoughts out of his mind. But his eyes kept flying open, his fingers twitching for the phone to read her message just one more time.

He liked that memory too. He had thought that the roof would become “their place”, but that was just the romantic in him, desperately trying to keep alive something that was probably never even there to begin with. He had never even been back to the roof, not once, and there it was, that dull ache again.

He slept wretchedly the rest of the night, tossing and turning, and by the time he woke up in the morning he was determined to get rid of her once and for all.

Getting ready for work was a struggle, but as he walked out the door he pulled up her message, read through it one last time before hitting delete and erasing her forever.

--------

His first thought upon seeing the light flashing on his phone when he sat down at his desk was that maybe it was her. Maybe she wasn’t saying good-bye, maybe she was just trying to get a hold of him, trying to get him back. And he felt an all too familiar feeling swell up within him as he dialed his voicemail.

“Jim Halpert, this is Greg Phillips. I was just calling to inform you that the studio has given the go on a reunion special. Nothing major, just a follow-up to the show, tie up the loose ends and what not. We’re going to need you down at the Scranton office for about a week, so if you could give me a call back ASAP, that would be great.”

And suddenly, as the dull ache settled permanently in the pit of his stomach, Pam’s message was all too clear.


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The drive down had never seemed so short and he acknowledged that it was probably because he had been speeding the whole way, pushing eighty and daring a cop to pull him over. It was reckless of him, he knew that, and a normal person that was avoiding something probably would have drawn the trip out for as long as possible. But Jim had never really been one for normal and for some reason he just wanted to get there. That was the first step of his plan: Get to Scranton. Of course the plan ended right there, and as he stood just outside the office he was starting to wish that he had developed it a little more.

And it wasn’t just because of Pam being in there, just beyond the door. It was the whole aspect of returning to Scranton, returning to Dunder-Mifflin. That part of his life had been over for three years now, and he didn’t want to reopen a chapter that had already been closed. He’d have to see all his old coworkers, people that he had kind of liked at the time, and that was probably only because they all had the same thing in common. Now they were just strangers. Some people he had known for a few years, none of them special enough to keep in touch with after he was gone.

But maybe that wasn’t entirely true. Maybe there was one that was special enough, and even that hadn’t worked out how it was supposed to.

Pam. What would happen when he saw her? How much can three years change a person? He had a sudden image in his mind of waltzing through the door and pulling her towards him, grabbing her hand and never letting go. Ridiculous. He was so ridiculous. Things were different between them and for some reason he just couldn’t accept that. She obviously didn’t care for him, because how hard was it to send an e-mail every now and then? Things could have been different between them. But she didn’t want that. Obviously.

God, why was he having such a hard time walking through the stupid door? It would be embarrassing if someone were to come out and see him standing there, staring at it like an idiot. He took a deep breath and felt like hitting himself for being such a pansy.

“Jim,” a voice said behind him.

He turned around to see Ryan standing before him, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, and suddenly Jim felt overdressed in his suit and tie. Ryan looked the same, except maybe a little older, his face a little leaner.

They didn’t know each other well enough to hug, so Jim held out his hand and shook Ryan’s in greeting.

“How’s it going?” he asked, and Ryan raised his eyebrows and patted the back of his head absently.

“Okay. I just can’t believe I’m back here.”

“You and me both,” Jim said, sighing tiredly.

An awkward silence followed and Jim wondered why it always came to that with these people.

Ryan glanced tentatively at the door. “So…” he began slowly, “Are you going in?”

“Um, just trying to prepare myself.”

Ryan reached for the handle, “Yeah, I did that in the car. Well, I’ll see you in there, man.”

And the door slammed behind him, leaving Jim alone in the hallway once again. Maybe he could turn around and just drive back to Stamford. Call Greg Phillips and apologize and say he was just unable to get the time off from work.

But even as he thought about it he knew it would never work. Ryan had already seen him. He was probably in there right now telling everyone about Jim-the-coward, alone in the hall, too scared to even walk into the office.

It took every ounce of strength he had, but he closed his eyes, made a determined face, and walked through the door.

Everything was the same. Of course everything was the same. He didn’t know why he had been expecting everything to be different. A part of him wanted things to be different, for the desks to be rearranged, the walls painted a different color, anything at all. And the only thing different was his old desk and the middle-aged man sitting there, squinting at something on the computer screen.

As the door swung shut behind him, everyone glanced up from where they stood fawning over Ryan. They moved towards him as he held up a hand awkwardly in greeting.

The next five minutes were a series of hugs and handshakes, a fake grin plastered to his face. And the whole time he couldn’t help glancing around, trying to spot Pam, but still dreading the moment that he would. But she wasn’t anywhere, and he was suddenly struck with the thought that maybe she didn’t work there anymore. Why hadn’t that crossed his mind earlier? Maybe she had moved on to bigger and better things, and all his anxiety about seeing her was for nothing. Of course, the camera crew had beckoned him and Ryan there, so wouldn’t they get her to come back as well? His mind was swimming in confusion, and that confusion heightened when he was suddenly hugged around the middle by a very pregnant Kelly.

“Oh my god, Jim! Look at you, what are they feeding you up there? You’re so thin, and me, I’m a cow for crying out loud!” She was smiling brightly at him, and he couldn’t help looking from her bulging belly to Ryan and back again. Surely he would have mentioned something…

“Look at you,” Jim said, his voice strained. “What’s this all about?”

“Oh, well, nothing really except I got married!” She held her hand out and he nodded politely at her large diamond ring. “And oh my god,” she continued, “You will never believe it, he’s a doctor! We’ve been married for a year now!” He tried not to wince. Surely her voice hadn’t been that shrill when he had been working there?

He looked at Ryan out of the corner of his eye and saw him eyeing Kelly, an unreadable expression on his face. Jim had just assumed…there was that romantic in him again, assuming that Ryan and Kelly had ended up together, but of course they hadn’t. They were so wrong for each other, he had been miserable when they were “together”. But as horrible as they were for each other, Jim had thought that underneath there had always been a mutual affection.

Obviously, that wasn’t the case, as Kelly stood before him going on about Lamaze classes and birthing methods and whether or not she would take the drugs.

And suddenly Kelly was pushed aside as Michael came lunging through the crowd, enveloping Jim in a bone crushing hug and shouting gleefully, “Jimmy!”

Jim’s body tightened and he awkwardly patted Michael on the back, looking over the man’s head and rolling his eyes at the crowd. Michael, of course, held on to him a few seconds longer than necessary (like the hug was at all necessary), before pulling away, his eyes glistening with tears. Tears? Seriously? Jim thought. He couldn’t help feeling a little bad for the guy.

“Well,” Michael said shakily, “What a day. Truly a best of sorts, our old friends reunited. I feel how Mike Brady must have felt during one of their many reunion shows.”

“Isn’t he gay?” Kevin asked, and Jim couldn’t help grinning.

“What?” Michael asked, a puzzled expression on his face. “No, I was just—”

Jim hid his smile and asked innocently, “So basically you’re saying you feel gay, Michael? Good for you, but I have to say, we always kind of had an inkling.”

“Listen, there’s only one gay person in here and I think we all know who it is,” Michael said angrily, and Jim widened his eyes in surprise.

“Uh, Michael is not gay,” Dwight interjected, stepping beside Michael, his hands on his hips. “Believe me, I would know.”

“That’s true,” Jim said in agreement.

Dwight turned to Michael then, and said in a loud whisper, “You aren’t, right, I mean, you’d tell me if you were?”

Michael glared at Dwight, crossed his arms and snapped, “Listen, I was just saying how great it is to have everyone back!”

“Well,” Jim began, “I for one am glad to be here, and I’m sure we’ll have a gay old time.”

The group snickered, and Michael’s frown deepened as he began to lecture on appropriate office behavior. Jim tuned him out when he said something about don’t ask don’t tell, and his eyes moved about the office once more, trying to find Pam.

All these years he had thought that she was here in Scranton, working reception like she always had. That thought had always brought comfort to him, that some things may have changed between them, but not every thing. If he knew that she was there, working reception, then it was so much easier to visualize himself there as well, joking and talking, tormenting Dwight. Part of him was saddened by the thought that they were both gone from the office.

But the other part of him, the larger part, was happy—so happy that she had gotten out.

Michael was beckoning them all into the conference room for an impromptu meeting about the “reunion special” with the camera crew. As Jim sat down in a chair, he felt someone slide into the seat next to him.

And an all too familiar voice asked, “So what’d I miss?”

He felt like he was in a haze as he turned and saw Pam sitting beside him, a grin on her face. He wanted to reach over and pull her into a bone-crushing hug, but it had been so long, so long, and he wasn’t really sure he had ever even hugged her before. How could that be? How could he have been in love with someone for so long, and never even have hugged her? It seemed so ridiculous, but it seemed even more ridiculous to hug her now, after years of not even speaking to each other

So he was glad that the chairs prevented him from doing so.

But…he needed to do something.

So he reached over and took her hand and squeezed it probably a little too hard.

Somehow, though, doing that was even worse. Because he could’ve sworn he saw something in her eyes for just a minute, something really…familiar. But he made the mistake of blinking and in the next second Michael spotted her and rushed to hug her, awkward chairs and all.

He watched her as she talked and smiled with everyone, and he couldn’t help but think how typical it was of her to stay the same. She looked exactly the same. She dressed exactly the same. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that either. It was somewhat comforting that she hadn’t changed, but at the same time it saddened him. He suddenly hoped that he at least seemed a little different to her.

More than anything he just wanted to catch-up with her and find out what she’d been doing these past three years. But Michael was making another mind-numbing speech, so instead he just sat there next to her in silence.

“And now, without further ado, I present Greg Phillips…uh, boss of the cameras.”

Greg stood up and furrowed his eyebrows at Michael’s introduction. The group clapped politely, and Jim joined in at the last second, so out of it that the applause didn’t even register to him.

“Right. Thanks, Michael. I’m going to keep this short. Basically this is just a follow-up to the short series that aired a little over two years ago. Kind of like a “Where Are They Now?” except not so glamorous. Kidding. Um, I’m hoping this won’t take more than a week…I hate to do this, but Herb, we’re going to have to stick you in the back with Kelly and Toby, and Jim will take your desk...”

Jim glanced at the man who had seen sitting at his old desk earlier. Herb look a little disgruntled at Greg’s announcement. Jim folded his arms across his chest and sunk a little lower in his chair. He hated confrontation of any kind.

“…Pam will be taking over reception once again, and Ryan…well, you can just do what you always did. Okay, let’s get started.”

They were dismissed and Jim stood and faced Pam and said the first word that he had spoken to her in three years.

“Hey.”

How incredibly original of him.

“Hey,” she replied.

Jim shifted uncomfortably. This was not how it was supposed to be. What was it that he wanted to talk to her about earlier? His mind was drawing a blank. Something about her…or maybe not? He began to panic as he stood there wordlessly.

Luckily she broke the silence, “So how have you been?”

Awful. He’d been awful. “Fine. And yourself?”

“Fine.”

Silence again.

“You look, um, different, you know?” she said with a smile. “Your hair is a little shorter.”

He grinned at her, “Yeah, I figured I should probably grow up and get a haircut since I’m about to hit thirty and all.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. Please.”

He made a face at her. “Oh come on, at least you’re younger than me.”

“That is true, old man,” she said with a laugh.

That laugh. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t heard it in so long. Standing with her in the conference room, it was almost like they had never even been apart. Like the whole thing had been a dream, and he had awoken to realize that things were exactly the same.

He felt a little giddy.

“Hey,” he began, “Do you want to—”

“Jim, can we see you for a moment?” Greg was sticking his head through the door, Dave, the camera guy standing patiently behind him.

“Uh, sure,” he answered, and he began to walk out of the room.

“Actually, in here is good. Pam, if you don’t mind waiting outside, we’ll get to you next.”

Pam raised her eyebrows and left the room a small half-smile playing on her lips.

Jim sat down in the chair that had been set-up for him, and was struck with that feeling of familiarity again. It really did seem like the past three years had been a dream, because here he was again in Scranton, in his suit and tie, waiting to be interviewed by the camera. What a nightmare.

But Pam had laughed and that made it immeasurably more bearable.

“How does it feel to be back?”

“Uh, kind of surreal. Didn’t really expect to come back here. Ever.”

“Is it good to see everyone again?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Did you especially miss anyone in particular?”

And it was back to that again. The camera guys always dropping hints about Pam, trying to get him to say anything about her. He had made the mistake last time of obliging them—in what he had thought was a subtle way. But they were sneaky, those camera guys. They had recorded everything, moments when he had thought they were alone, moments that had seemed so innocent to him, and they had edited them with dialogue that had made him seem like a desperate fool in love.

Which was the truth, but still…

Jim never made the same mistakes twice.

“No,” he lied, and Greg raised his eyebrows in surprise.

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Being back at his old desk was a strange sensation. It was so familiar, the shape and feel of it. But there were pictures of teenagers smiling up at him, a weird stuffed parrot, and what seemed like hundreds of sticks of gum. Definitely not his stuff. When he had been in Stamford, he had pictured his old desk being a shrine to him. Pictures of him, candles burning constantly, Dwight weeping with a handkerchief. Jim smirked, but then felt sad.

Things changed. Time moved on without him. He was just a memory to this place. Some young kid that had worked there, and not even for very long. He had thought that he mattered, that he made Dunder-Mifflin Scranton a better place.

Obviously not.

He was sitting in the break room with Kevin, eating a sandwich, when Pam walked in and sat down. Jim swallowed quickly, nearly choking on the ham and cheese, and greeted her with a smile. They chatted about silly things, like the documentary, and how it felt to be back, until Kevin left and Jim felt like he could ask her some more personal things.

“So where have you been? What have you been up to?”

“Oh well, you know. Same old same old. I’ve been living in Philadelphia and um, doing secretary work, actually…”

Jim raised his eyebrows in surprise and Pam concentrated hard on tearing the crust off her sandwich. He had just assumed that because she had left Dunder-Mifflin, she had left secretary work for good. He wasn’t sure why he was feeling a little disappointed.

“But,” she continued, “It’s only temporary. I just need to save up some money and then…”

She sounded like she wasn’t sure what would happen after the saving money part.

“Well, that’s…good.” Jim was a terrible liar.

She waved her hand idly and forced a smile. “But what about you? What have you been up to?”

“Literally the same old same old. I’m still working in Stamford, so…”

He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw her smile waver for a second.

“Well, that is…great.”

Her words sounded forced, just like he knew his had, and he suddenly realized something.

Maybe they were both just big disappointments to each other.

But he pushed that thought aside. Time for him to do some investigative work.

“Hey, so thanks for that message the other day.”

He saw a blush creep onto her face as she said, “Yeah, sorry about that. It was just—well, it was late and I was going through a box of stuff and I found the teapot you gave me for Christmas a few years back and well, I suddenly missed our friendship. Do you remember that teapot?”

Of course he did. But he wasn’t about to tell her he was crushed that she had been keeping it stored away in a box.

“Yeah,” he laughed, “Sorry I didn’t get you a real gift.”

“What? No, it was great,” she said, a huge smile on her face.

“Well, it’s no iPod.”

The smile left her face abruptly. She was silent for a moment, staring at him, before saying curtly, “I made my decision.”

They finished their meals in silence, and when Pam left the room, Jim felt like kicking himself. He had no reason for why he had said that, no valid reason, anyway. The only thing he could come up with as he left the break room was that she had wounded him first by saying she “found it in a box”. Even in his mind that sounded lame.

One thing was for sure though. As he headed to his desk he realized that time changes everything.