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*** Lovedrug has a new CD and it's very Jim/Pam appropriate, so forgive the overuse of them in the next few chapters.

Love is spiders on the edge,
and we're hanging by a thread,
connected to the other end of this
twisted frequency I've spun

Lovedrug, Spiders

She closes her eyes, wants, tries, can't forget the look on Jim's face.

Roy's voice.

The sideways glance that told her Jim knew... and he wanted to know why.

Then arms and blurs, a sharp scream - she thinks it must have been Kelly - and a body shoved her way...

If Dwight hadn't appeared and taken them out, three for the price of one, with his pepper spray, she might have stored away the look on Karen's face. Tortured herself with its meaning.

She figures it's better this way.

Thank God for Dwight and his psychotic Ninja fetish.

That night, after the police left and Roy was ushered away. After Jim slipped out when she wasn't looking; she'd gone home, opened a bottle of wine and let herself cry.

She'd caused a bar fight, an office attack and a job loss - all in the span of a two days.

"Honest Pam is really something," she imagined Jim saying. Smirking her way with pride in his eyes.

But that Jim no longer existed.

The realization had left her crumpled against the couch, head in her hands, a pizza box on the floor beside her.

She'd let the weekend pass this way.

You have two days to feel sorry for yourself.

Because Monday came, leaving her no choice but to stand inside her mess.

To clean up after herself.

But then he said things...

No, I mean, you guys seem to have a strong connection.

And...

"We'll see. I'm sure you guys'll find your way back to one another someday.

And as he blew off her apology, she tried not to break.

Because she knew, it finally made sense - she'd broken him. Twice. And a million times over.

Images... of fabric softener and ice rinks... doves and jinxes... cruise boat silences and grilled cheese... swaying and teapots...

Of a girl in a blue dress and a boy with a confession...

Of lips and I can't...

Of a friendship...

They all fell around her.

He was gone. No longer in her grasp. She'd felt him there, returning, a few weeks ago, before...

But now, if she'd actually lost him. Really, truly, actually lost him for real...

Well... she had nothing else to lose.

And to Honest Pam, it felt a little bit like freedom.