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Story Notes:
this got into my head. it had to get out, I have work to do.
Author's Chapter Notes:

just a short little one shot

 

 

He came in wearing the shirt he had worn the day before and a little bit of her blood ran cold. He hadn’t spent the night at her place. He had claimed fatigue two nights before and she hadn’t wanted to be the type of girl who pushes herself on her new boyfriend. But now here he was wearing his clothes from yesterday, meaning that he hadn’t slept at home last night. She lifted her eyes to his and he had the good grace to look away guiltily. She knew that look. How many times had she seen him give it to Her. Now she looked at Her and she saw the same look of guilt that was on his face.

 

No.

 

This could not be happening.

 

Things had finally, finally come together for them. They were finally moving forward. He had told her he loved her. That all he wanted was her. And now this.

 

She practically leaps out of her chair- she would not lose control at her desk. Tears threaten to spill down her cheeks at any moment and her eyes burn in that uncomfortable way that signal that they are too full to handle even one more quirk of emotion.

 

She hears the door to the break room creak open and he is behind her, it hasn’t been that long that she had been training herself to becoming adept to his presence but she is now, she is. Not that it matters anymore.

 

“Hey?” he asks softly, “Can we talk?”

 

“Is there anything to talk about?” she asks harshly, “It seems that it wasn’t as over between the two of you as you said it was.”

 

“I guess you could it put it that way,” he says, his words stabbing her with their finality.

 

“So why did we do all this, the whole dramatic break up. Why have I been torturing myself for the past year? When you broke up my wedding was that just to see if you could?” she’s almost hysterical now and she hates herself, she hates him, she hates everything this moment is turning out to be.

 

“No,” he replies with more sadness than indignation, “I just…I just realized that I wasn’t as in love with you as I was in the idea of you.” He shakes his head, “I know that sounds harsh but somehow I managed to fall in love with Karen while fixating on you and then when we were finally together I just couldn’t stop thinking about her and I realized that it wasn’t fair…to either of you.”

 

“So all along, just the idea of me huh?” she asks with a sad smile.

 

“I dunno, I mean I love you I really do, and I really, really don’t want to think it was the whole chase of what I couldn’t have; but I don’t know Karen is just so much more in tune to who I am now.”

 

“She’s perfect, why wouldn’t she be,” her words are laced with bitterness and she tastes the bile at the back of her throat.

 

“She’s an amazing woman, but you’re great too,” he says in that conciliatory way that makes her feel like she was just awarded 10th runner up.

 

“Well I hope you’ll be happy,” she replies her voice breaking.

 

“I hope you will be too Pam,” he says as he squeezed her arm, then he’s gone and she’s shaking and crying so hard that….

  

….She even feels it when she wakes up. Somehow even though she knows it’s just a dream, even though she’s HAD this dream before doesn’t make the tears stop. She gets this particular nightmare every time she sees Karen at corporate functions. The party at the CFO’s house tonight had been filled with the two of them catching up on their lives, Pam showing Karen pictures of her and Jim’s little girl and Karen telling Pam about her recent engagement to a guy from the corporate office. Yet, all the while Pam can’t just seem to shake the feeling that she’s so incredibly lucky that he chose her when he could have had a woman like Karen.

 

He knows she feels this way when they see Karen so he always tries to make these interactions as brief and benign as possible. They’ve settled into that comfortable banality of married life that banishes memories of romantic struggles to some dark corner of their joint existence. From day to day he rarely thinks of how many bottles of beer he tried to drown his love for Pam in when she was engaged to another man. Now she rarely thinks of how difficult those post-merger months were for her as he slipped farther and farter away from her. Now it’s all about being comfortably in love, doting on their daughter, living their lives. When they make love it isn’t the anguished, frenzied coupling of when they first got together but the blissful, languid union of two people comfortably and confidently in love.

 

Except for nights like this.

 

When he wakes up to the sound of his beautiful wife sobbing next to him, he’s never been so happy to go back to grad school if only so that Pam will never have to see Karen again. He’s not entirely sure how he can reach that tiny last hold out of insecurity deep within his wife that manages to create these nightmares but he’s not going to stop trying until he does.

 

He gathers her up in his arms and she laughs at her own foolishness but he stops her lips with a kiss that makes her realize for the 431,924th time it’s her he wants, it’s her that aches for.

 

Still she can’t help but ask (as she always does after one of those awful dreams) whether he’s absolutely sure that he’s fine with his choices.

 

His answers are usually long winded as he describes every last detail about her that he loves and how much every cell in his body ached to be with her while he was with Karen.

 

Tonight he just growls into her ear, “Honestly, I was kind of happy to see Karen tonight one last time, because I know you’d need some reassurance tonight. And I know there is no way I can ever really tell you how much every last bit of me has loved, does love and will always love you so I’m just going to show you if that’s ok.” And when he slips beneath their warm down comforter and suddenly he’s There and she feels his mouth on her and all thoughts of any alternative universe where This wouldn’t be possible are driven from her mind and her last conscious thought is a strange gratitude for these awful dreams because they remind her to be thankful for what she almost didn’t have.

 

 

Chapter End Notes:
reviews if they aren't death threats are just the most marvelous things in the world


fasterthansnakes is the author of 17 other stories.
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