Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or The Office. No copyright infringement intended.

♥ 

There are some pains you inflict on others that can’t be excused by any kind of noble cause. You can try to justify it, but in the end it just comes down to looking out for yourself. Jim felt completely selfish acting the way he did, and there were too many times when he had considered giving up. As much as he was sure that Pam didn’t feel for him the same way he felt about her, he was sure that she wanted so much to be friends with him again. In the conference room, she would sometimes lean over a little, and whisper a joke to him. He wanted to laugh and volley back, but he saddled it into a bemused smile. He had to pretend that he was uninterested in their friendship. For all her attempts to get close to him, he spoiled them until they were futile. Jim hated himself for doing it, and he hated himself for being the cause of Pam’s disappointed eyes above her feigned smile that poorly hid her hurt.

She was too warm and sweet about it. He could tell that she never blamed him, and it sickened him to take advantage of her kindness. She forgave all the times that he ignored her, avoided her, and brushed her off. He almost wanted Pam to hold it against him because he knew that he at least deserved that much, but every time she only smiled at him understandingly despite the sorrow wound up in her irises. Had any other guy treated her like shit the way he was, he would’ve had the insatiable urge to attack the bastard.

And here he was. Jim was that guy now. Jim was taking Pam for granted. He refused to melt under the sound of her bright laughter the way he knew any sane man should.

It was an uphill battle to get over her. At night, he had to turn his thoughts away from Pam, and focus them in on Karen. But when she came to mind, he couldn’t help but feel something undefinable missing from her. Yes, she was beautiful, independent, and up-front. She enjoyed pranks as much as the next girl, and for most guys, she would be perfect. But... she didn’t giggle childishly and then get embarrassed over it. She followed him in his pranks; she didn’t help orchestrate them and add a new dimension to his schemes that he couldn’t have gotten on his own. Karen rolled her eyes with a halfhearted smile when they were at the supermarket and he dared her to make an announcement over the unguarded PA microphone. He couldn’t help but compare her to Pam because he couldn’t help but remember everything he was missing in not talking to her.

But what was he supposed to do? Since he had seen Pam and Roy laughing together at reception, he knew all too well that they would probably get back together. Pam was always like that: make a decision, be bold, get scared again, and redact the decision.

(like Casino Night)

No, he couldn’t allow himself to have feelings for her. For her to get back together with Roy while he still loved her would be too painful to endure again, too much like she was saying "I can’t" again.

♥

It had been a month since Pam saw Jim and Karen reunite and make happy love-eyes at each other in the kitchen. After that moment, their prank on Dwight was forgotten, Jim moved back to his desk that faced away from her, and they went back into their I’m-going-to-pretend-you-don’t-exist mode. Pam tried to talk to him, she honestly did, but he didn’t seem to want to talk to her. It wasn’t his fault, and she knew that. He had a girlfriend now and a promotion to think about. She understood that he didn’t have time to play petty jokes on people, no matter how much she wanted him too.

"Attention, everyone!" Michael announced to the office one morning in April. "Darryl from the warehouse wants us to attend their annual safety training seminar."

"Is this really necessary?" Stanley mumbled.

"Yes, Stanley, it is very necessary. He told me that some of you have been disrespecting the warehouse staff, and I think that we all have a thing or two to learn about how difficult their job is. In fact, I’m ashamed of all of you. Pam, for instance," Michael said as he turned and pointed at Pam. A look of confusion split across her face. "She disrespected the warehouse staff when she publically dumped Roy at a bar in front of everyone."

"I think the disrespect of the warehouse staff is referring to that time Darryl was on the ladder looking at the shelves, and you kicked it out from under him and asked him how he got so tall without a ladder," Jim interrupted, his arms folded over his chest and his feet thrown out lazily in front of him. Michael broke into a spasm of laughter, and Dwight followed, snorting obnoxiously.

"Well, Jim, that was a joke. And unlike you, many of us have a sense of humor," Michael said. Jim raised his eyebrows, and smiled sardonically. He glanced over at Pam, but she was caught off-guard and barely managed to smile back. Jim mentally kicked himself for not even consciously realizing that he was turning to Pam to confide in over Michael’s stupidity.

"Okay, so let’s head down into the warehouse!" Michael said. Everyone stood up, and began filing out of the room. Jim waited for Karen to catch up with him, and they walked together, Pam looking down at her fidgeting hands as they passed by her desk.

The office descended the concrete steps deep into the warehouse, and joined their staff sitting in chairs. A safety instructor had come in to instruct them on the proper use of the heavy machinery, what to do in case of an injury, how to administer first aid. It was dull as was to be expected, but Michael rolled around in his seat and moved restlessly like a hyper child in school. When the safety seminar finally ended, Michael jumped up in front of everyone, and stood next to the safety instructor.

"Thank you very much for the safety seminar. Now that we’ve all sat through that, why don’t you give us an office safety seminar upstairs?" Michael suggested.

"Uhh, well, that’s not really necessary. I have some pamphlets about safety in the workplace to distribute, but there’s not much else," the safety instructor explained. He passed out the pamphlets to everyone, but Michael was relentless.

"Are you suggesting that safety in the warehouse is more important than safety in the office? Because without the office, there would be no warehouse!"

"No, I’m not suggesting that. There’s just not very much to say about safety in the office."

"Well, you’re giving us these pamphlets, so there must be something."

"There’s nothing that isn’t already in the pamphlet."

"So come upstairs and read the pamphlet to us! Alright, c’mon everyone. We’re going upstairs for an office safety training session. C’mon!" Michael ushered them out of their seats, and led them back up to the office.

"Mike, do we have to attend? We have a lot of shipping to do," Darryl asked as they headed up the steps.

"And we had a lot of sales to do. Since we attended the warehouse safety training, you guys have to attend the office safety training." With the spring of those on death row, the warehouse staff and office workers filed back up the stairs into the office. The warehouse employees had no where to sit, and were forced to all fit themselves on the reception couch. Everyone else returned to their desks, while Michael stood beside the safety instructor, his hands on his hips, listening attentively.

♥

After ten minutes of the safety trainer just reading off what was in the pamphlet, everyone returned to their regular work, much to the dismay of Michael. Jim was in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee, when Roy walked into the room.

"Halpert! What’s up?" he greeted.

"Hey, Roy," Jim said, only glancing at him for a moment before staring into his cup of coffee. He couldn’t look at Roy in the eye. He was still bitter over how he could’ve taken a woman as unforgettable as Pam for granted, how he could’ve yelled at her in Poor Richard’s. Jim was sure that if Pam had ever given him so blessed an opportunity as to date him, he couldn’t find it feasible to treat her as horribly as Roy had.

"Coffee, eh? Pretty good idea. Need it to stay awake after that," Roy said, pointing over his shoulder at the safety training session.

"Hah. Yeah, I know."

"So... I guess you probably heard by now that Pam dumped me at Poor Richard’s."

"Uhh, yeah. Yeah, I heard that. Sorry, man." He wasn’t really sorry.

"Ehh, it’s okay. I’m just glad she’s not mad at me over everything. She refuses to give me another chance though," Roy said. Jim’s ears perked up, and he tried to restrain the arousal of his curiosity.

"Oh... So, you guys definitely aren’t getting back together?"

"No, I don’t think so." Jim immediately began reevaluating his strategies. If Roy and Pam definitely weren’t getting back together, what was the harm in talking to her a little? What was the harm in laughing at her jokes? There wasn’t any harm in it, and his head filled with all of the new opportunities he now had to create new inside jokes, new pranks, new memories with Pam. "But on the bright side," Roy began, "at least I know why she broke up with me this time." He hunched his shoulders as he laughed. "Back in May, she wouldn’t even give me a reason for calling off the wedding. All I could get out of her was, ‘I just have to get out of this relationship.’ Crazy, right?"

"Yeah, that’s totally Pam."

"Well, you guys were pretty close back then. She must’ve told you the real reason for calling off the wedding."

"Uhhh," Jim paused. He shifted slightly in discomfort, his back leaning against the counter. "I transferred to Stamford before she broke off the wedding, so she never really talked to me about it. Yeah, so I don’t know why she called it off." Jim had contemplated more times than he could count as to why Pam called off the wedding. Every time, he was led to the same conclusion: Casino Night. But Jim refused to face that possibility. That couldn’t be the reason. She didn’t care for him, and he knew that. Casino Night couldn’t be the reason.

"Ohh, right. You transferred like a month before the wedding. Yeah, I even remember the last time I saw you before you left. It was that... uhh... that Casino Night," Roy remembered. He had put an eerie emphasis on the words "Casino Night," but Jim blamed it on his overactive imagination.

"Casino Night? Oh, right! Yeah, that Casino Night. Now I remember." Jim was completely transparent, and he knew it. How could he pretend to forget that night?

"It’s funny because now that I think about it, after that night, she started acting really distant before she eventually broke up with me. Yeah, it was pretty much exactly after that Casino Night. Strange, huh?" Roy watched every movement Jim made. His lips were tight, he nodded his head mechanically, and he wouldn’t look at Roy in the eye for more than a second. Roy’s smile was searing with hatred.

"Well, I should get back to work. I’ll see ya... uhh later," Jim said, moving past Roy towards the door in an unusual rush.

"Okay! Take care, Halpert," Roy said, patting Jim on the back as he hurried past.