Jim can feel her eyes on him again, and he’s not a huge fan of cliché but it feels like they’re burning him. It feels like if he doesn’t turn around he’ll explode, but if he does he’ll die.

His love for her is fucking infuriating. He does not hate her, or he doesn’t think he does, but he acts like it so much now that maybe it’s becoming reality.

“Oh please God let it be reality.” If he repeats her flaws over and over again in his head then he can pretend, sometimes for hours at a time, that he hates her. But then he sees her and the hole just gets bigger. And he has no flair for the dramatic, but sometimes he just wants to go to sleep for a hundred years.

He cannot forgive her, and he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t have to, really, as it’s not his job to make her feel better about herself.

Thinking about her motivation for telling Roy is enough to get him reeling, enough to make him punch the wall in his shower the next morning so that his knuckles are bruised.
Enough so that he drives to work with some alt rock station turned up full blast just hitting the steering wheel over and over. Because there are only two reasons she would have done this: to make their relationship stronger, or to sabotage it. Both of these things make him furious, almost blind him.

And he doesn’t get angry, generally, so it’s a new sort of glow that starts in his chest and moves to his arms and consumes him until he almost can’t help it.

The New and Improved Jim Halpert does not make Pamela Beesly feel better about her stupid mistakes. The New and Improved Jim Halpert will move on with his life even when he sees her talking all low to Kelly and something in him still wants to know what the fuck she’s saying, and why the fuck she isn’t saying it to him.

“Come over tonight, we’ll do something fun.” Karen says, and Jim looks out of the corner of his eyes, but Pam doesn’t look up. So she’s trying too, and it makes his head hurt.

“I… I can’t tonight. I think I’m sick.” Karen frowns and touches his hair.

“The flu?” She asks knowingly, because they’d discussed the possibility earlier and this is the ease he’s always wanted. Right? And Pam looks up then, quickly, and the eye contact they make is so tortured he could vomit. This Cannot Happen Again.

“Yeah maybe. Actually, I think I’m gonna go now.” He has to get out of here before he loses it, before he yells at her like he’s always wanted. “I’ll call you later.” Karen nods and slides off his desk.

“Just go get some rest.” He grabs his stuff quickly, a queasy feeling of dread building in the pit of his stomach because he has to tell Her that he’s leaving.

“I’m sick. So… I’m going home.” He fiddles with the jelly-bean dispenser almost angrily, knocking a few out so they go skidding across the counter.

“Oh… Ok. Well.” She says softly, like the pain is all hers, and he slams his hand down on the counter so that she jumps.

“Sorry,” He says harshly, and he makes the mistake of looking and her eyes are big and almost scared and all of a sudden he just wants to cry. “I’m sorry.” He says, more softly this time, before turning and walking out.

He is going to get rid of it. He parks with purpose, walking quickly so it can begin, so he can finally start this process, or whatever it’s supposed to be.

He removes the shoebox from his closet guiltily, because it’s always been there but it’s been a long time since he’s looked. It’s almost full to bursting and he gets that stupid urge to cry again, when he sits on his bed and opens it and the first thing that falls out is a picture.

There aren’t very many pictures of them, and he’s kept each one, without fail.

She’s beautiful in this one, with snow in her hair, and his gloves on so that she looks like some sort of mutant.

She had forgotten her own soft, pink things, and they wouldn’t have done any good anyway, because it was freezing and dusky and dead winter.

“Put mine on.” He had ordered, shoving them on her hands before she could protest.

“But… But now I have Man Hands!” She had cried, coming at him, arms outstretched.

“Well that’s creepy.” He had backed away laughing.

“But my man hands love you, Jim Halpert! They Can’t… Not… Touch You!” And she had gripped his chest as best she could, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed, and the way she had looked up into his eyes that day had been just another spark on his fire of hope.
He just looks goofy and chagrined, because she had had her hands all over him until Michael shouted “Cheese! We need proof that I give you guys snow days!” and forced them to look at the camera. Of course, he had just kept looking at her.

So the New and Improved Jim Halpert tears it in half, and then tears it in half again. He doesn’t need her pretty, flushed face just sitting in his closet. This is the end.

He is methodical in his destruction. Each picture is torn neatly into tiny pieces and then placed back in the box. He cannot bring himself to simply throw the whole thing away, because maybe he wants to remember what he’s missing, one more time.

Certain things can’t be destroyed, like a long ago Valentine’s Day gift of a terrifying stuffed squirrel that had had them both laughing for days, and had spawned a creepy squirrel voice that he wouldn’t repeat for anyone but her. Or a mix CD that he doesn’t have the energy to crack.

He shoves it all back in the box and tosses it in a lazy arc so that it lands with a crash in his wastebasket.
And that’s it, save one thing that he grips tightly in his hands.

It’s a picture that he can’t bear himself to part with, and he feels his face get hot until tears finally start to drip down his face and he’s furious that he’s crying.

Because This Is All Bullshit, and he knows knows knows it.

But this one is like the first picture but flipped, and she still probably looks beautiful but you can’t even tell because all you can see is her hair.

It’s some stupid group photo, taken at the Ice Skating Rink during Michael’s Birthday/Kevin’s Skin Cancer Party, and everyone looks cold and irritated except for them.

If you look closely you can see their hands clasped tightly together, and Jim’s looking directly into the camera, a broad smile painted on his face like it’s been the best day of his life. But Pam’s looking up at him. And he knows for a fact he hadn’t been speaking, that he hadn’t said anything that would cause her to look for at least 3 minutes prior for fear that she would release his hand. So it’s some sort of fluke that she’s looking at him like she loves him, but he can’t let this one go, yet.

He wipes the tears away furiously and crumples the picture in his fist. Fuck her.

2. I Say Give Me Mine Back and Then Go There

Jim doesn’t feel refreshed when he awakens. Instead, he feels sick to his stomach and ruined, but he resists the urge to fix it. Instead, he takes the trash out before dressing, naked save for boxers and a cup of coffee and he would feel crazy but it’s probably not the worst of it.

His hand feels like it’s healing, and he listens to NPR on the way to work. His head is buzzing but at least it’s no longer externally manifested.

He cannot return her smile when he hangs up his coat, and he is able to successfully ignore the eyebrow that is raised in question. He’s doing splendidly really.

He kisses Karen in the break room like Fuck You, with her eyes on them standing at the refrigerator he manages a little tongue and Karen pulls back, surprised.

“Feeling frisky?” And this time Pam is the one to leave quickly.
But he doesn’t like it. It doesn’t feel good, it feels like hell.

At least she hadn’t tortured him on purpose.

Michael calls Karen into his office during lunch and she makes a face, but ducks out of the kitchen. Jim looks around absentmindedly until he realizes he’s looking for Pam, and that he doesn’t know what she does for lunch, anymore.

“Hey Phyllis, do you know where Pam is?”

“Oh… she doesn’t eat in here anymore.” Phyllis answers evasively, and he cocks an eyebrow.

“So uh, where does she eat?” Phyllis looks down at her sandwich.

“I don’t know, ask Kelly.” This is fucking weird.

“Kelly, where’s Pam?” Kelly looks up at him and he could swear she’s angry.

“Oh um, I don’t know Jim. Not here.” Jim snorts and walks away, not quite ready to give up. He walks up to her desk restlessly, looking behind it to see if maybe she’s hiding, or something.

“The receptionist eats in the stairwell.” Jim looks up from his search, startled.

“What?”

“The receptionist eats in the stairwell.” Creed repeats succinctly, tossing a crumpled paper bag into the garbage before turning and walking away.

He’s pretty sure that’s not true, but now he kind of needs to know where the hell she goes.
So he tries to nonchalantly glance around the office before lamely smacking himself in the head like he’s forgotten something.

“Probably left it… In my car…” he murmurs, before turning and walking out the door.

“Good one, that’ll fool ‘em.” He mumbles as he heads toward the stairwell. It’s unlikely that he’s driven her to this, he thinks, or hopes.

But he hears a noise and he knows what it is, and he almost runs away. Because she’s crying in the stairwell for God’s sake, and unless someone’s dead it’s probably his fault.

And he almost doesn’t deal with it. The New and Improved Jim Halpert almost turns around and walks back to the office.

But he accepts that leaving the girl crying probably isn’t so improved after all.

He opens the door as quietly as he can, trying to gauge whether she’s up or down. She’s down, and she’s got her back to him, and she’s definitely crying. He let’s the door shut behind him before proceeding to the top step.

“Hey, Pam.” He says quietly, and she jumps before quickly wiping her eyes and turning around.

“Yeah. Yeah? Did something happen?” She doesn’t look at him, and he can hear the cough in the back of her throat and he almost bolts.

“No. No, I just…” She won’t look at him, so he takes a step closer, one step down.

“I just learned something new about you today.” She’s quickly cleaning up the garbage from her lunch, stuffing it back into the bag like she’s in a huge hurry.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” She says, distracted, wiping tears from her face and trying to hide her eyes behind her bangs.

“That you eat in the stairwell.” He answer softly, and she barks out a laugh.

“Oh yeah?” She stands up, smoothing down her skirt and studiously not looking at him.

“Yeah.” It’s all he can think to say.

“Well, you learn something new every day.” And there she is, so close to him and trying to get by.

“I need to get past you.” She says, looking somewhere over his shoulder.

“Yeah.” He says, but he can’t move.

“Please, you need to move.” She says, and he can hear the catch in her throat and she quickly turns her head away.

“Are you crying?” He whispers, and she doesn’t respond, just drops the bag and puts her head in her hands.

“Can you please leave?” She says, though the sound is muffled and wet.

“I…”

“Please Jim,” She turns around so that he cannot see her and wipes her face. “Just go away.” He fidgets nervously, stroking his tie.

“But I don’t want you… To be crying.” He answers lamely, and she’s really crying now. He can see it in the way her shoulders are heaving, hear it in the way she can’t not sniffle.

The New and Improved Jim Halpert decides, then and there, that this cannot be it. That he cannot leave her sobbing in the stairwell even though he wants to. Even though every brain cell is screaming at him to get the fuck out of there, he can’t just leave.

So he puts his hands on her shoulders and she starts, freezing.

“Please stop crying.” He sounds like he’s begging, and she shakes her head but doesn’t move. He grips her shoulders and turns her around, and she stumbles on the tiny step.

“Look at me.” He commands, but she doesn’t listen. “Look at me, Pam.” So she moves shaky hands away from her face, but refuses eye contact.

“I’m sorry.” She whispers, staring at his feet.

“I know.” He answers, because he’s not ready to say it himself.

“Can you let me go now?” There are still tears streaming down her face, and he plucks nervously at her cardigan, letting his fingers trail down her arms. She freezes again, clenching and unclenching her hands, which he grabs and pulls so she’s up on the landing with him, so close it hurts.

His stomach is going crazy, fluttering with nerves and the smell of her. He puts her hands on his chest and she shuts her eyes.

The only thing he can think to do is wipe away her tears, and it feels tender but she laughs harshly, and he only feels a moment of soft, wet skin before she pushes his hands away.

“You can’t hate me and then touch me.” And then she’s using her shoulder to push past him, and he lets his body relax when he hears the door slam shut.

He remembers then, that she’s the one who won’t let him love her. So he simply sits, because he can’t imagine going back in there, can’t imagine avoiding her swollen, red gaze until it’s like that’s his only job.

He reaches a hand into his pocket and pulls out the crumpled picture, the one that he will never let go of, and holds it fisted in his hands. One quick moment and it will be ruined forever, no more evidence of them will exist, anywhere.