Disclaimer: DON'T OWN A THING. Enjoy the plot.

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Pam can barely breathe. It’s eight o’clock and she’s ashamed to say that she was here, unlocking the door, at six in the morning because she wanted to be there first. She didn’t want to miss anything. Everyone in the office knows why she’s there, even Michael. He sits at his desk and doesn’t say a word, clicks a few things on his computer and hasn’t laughed all morning. Dwight is silent, dutifully pushing orders through and Kevin’s snickers haven’t happened yet today. Even Kelly is quiet, and whenever the door opens, all eyes shift to the entrance and then to Pam. Nobody asks about Karen. Nobody dares.

Ten o’clock and he’s still not here, but when Stanley quietly goes up to Michael and asks, he says that Jim can take as he long as he wants today. Dwight raises no objections, just quietly places forms in the middle of Jim’s desk for when he comes back.

She’s not sure how everyone knows already, because news like Roy doesn’t travel that fast. She’s not sure of much, and every time she thinks about the door or the bar or even glances at Jim’s desk, she tenses up a little and bites her bottom lip a little. She can’t do anything, can barely breathe, can’t concentrate on Solitaire and even her voice shakes a little when she answers the phone. “D-Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.”

Noon, lunch break, and she stands up in her chair where she’s been rooted since she came in this morning. Walks to the break room and sits down with a paper bag, but she can’t force her shaking hands to uncurl from where they’re clenched around the paper and her fingers tighten, break moon-shaped slivers in the recycled material.

Gives up and throws the broken bag away, hears the metal spoon she stuck there rattle around in the trash can and thinks vaguely that she just threw away a spoon, but she’s moving out of the break room already and decides that she’s really not that hungry anyway. Sits back down and grows roots into her chair again, opens a pad of paper to draw something and calm her nerves but all her hand will do is shake, pencil an inch away from the smooth paper and she knows Angela’s watching.

“He’ll be here,” she says quietly, and Pam tries hard to avoid her eye because she does not want to look at her right now.

Two o’clock, everyone’s back, and the tension is even more painful and Pam definitely can’t breathe anymore. Starts chewing on her lip and realizes after twenty minutes that she’s chewed her lip red and raw and it looks like she’s got a layer of faded pink lip gloss on. Just sighs sadly when she realizes it’s the first time she’s chewed on her lip since high school.

Three o’clock, Toby and Stanley leave because their kids are involved in school plays. She waits for her tender bottom lip to heal, and bites her nails instead.

Four o’clock, Michael lets everybody go, but he stays and Dwight stays and Angela stays. And her. Chews on her lip again and sketches the edge of her keyboard.

Four thirty, she leaves, and she can feel Angela’s gaze on the back of her neck. Steps into the parking lot and fumbles with her keys, drops them under Michael’s car and reaches under to pick them up – and when she stands, he is there.

Her breath catches in her throat because he’s got a black eye and a split lip and is just standing there, in front of his car, briefcase in one hand and door handle in the other. The eye he can still see out of widens and then looks away, and he turns quickly to the left to show her the side of his face that’s not broken.

“Jim,” she says, and it sounds stronger in her throat than it does in her head.

“Hey Pam,” he says quietly, and she can barely breathe again. Chews almost brutally on her lip and realizes with a jolt that she’s so close to drawing blood.

Pam drops her keys and her purse and feels the right shoulder of her coat slipping off and she’s running toward him. Her white Keds splash lightly into an oil puddle and she feels the slickness on her soles with every step. He turns around again, surprised this time instead of saddened, and curls in on himself when she desperately wraps her arms around him. “Careful,” he mutters. “I got kicked a few times.”

“Why weren’t you here today?” She whispers into his chest. “Why didn’t you come in?”

He doesn’t say anything, just lets his briefcase drop and gingerly pats her. “Uh, Pam…” His voice is tight and tense and she realizes that she’s hurting him.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and tries to let go but only loosens her hold a little. “I’m sorry.”

They stay like that for a while, and he strokes her hair, and the cars on the road behind him pass by with gentle whooshing noises. Then he speaks: “Why’d you tell him, if it didn’t matter anyway?”

She looks up and swallows the jagged diamond feeling in her throat – “It did.”

His heartbeat hurries a little under her ear and his muscles tense up, and a word flies through her head tinged with the panic of someone who has been hurt so many times before – Unrequited. 

It's as if he can read her mind (he always has.) He leans down and kisses her, slides his lips across hers and grips her upper arms tight as a vise. Her lips are so tender that the feeling of his mouth is like fire spreading across, and she wonders briefly if it’s because of her abused lips or because it’s Jim. 

“Careful, it hurts,” he whispers into her mouth. She leans in and presses a little kiss to the split on his lip. His chuckle is low and sarcastic, comes from deep inside his chest and shoots down her spine, sending shivers through her. She twists her fists into his sweater and kisses him more, and the friction almost hurts on her raw lips but she refuses to care, because maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be, maybe things have to be raw and open and painful sometimes to finally be right.

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