Disclaimer: I do not own The Office. Really, that’s probably a good thing, because if I did if would probably turn into the “30 Minutes of Staring at John Krasinski Show” :O girlish sigh he’s so dreamy ;)!

Author’s Notes: Firstly, I know the idea has been done before, and I’m so sorry, because I was really trying to avoid writing with commonly used idea. In fact, right after the season finale, I started writing a fic about the thoughts of Jim and Pam during Casino Night, but by the time it neared completion, there were about 100 other fics doing the same thing. Then I started a fic taking place directly after Casino Night, but by the time I finished that, there were a 100 of those fics, so I decided to start this fic and sure enough, the “years later” theme has become pretty rampant at FFN, but I decided, forget it, I’m going to post this one and hope you can enjoy it anyway :) Also, you may notice I left what actually happened between Jim and Pam a little blurry. I did that purposely, because I wanted to make sure the story was concerned about the present more than anything else. I just hope it’s not confusing:(! Ok! Now onto the story! ;D

Blossom

Dedication: To every relationship that’s ever “spontaneously combusted” and every person that’s ever wished they could take it all back. Things seldom work out in real life, but then, that’s what fiction is for ;)

Honestly, she still thought about him.

Though, she would never admit it out loud and tried not even to admit it to herself. After all, it had been years now and she was sure he had moved on. She tried to convince herself she had too.

She didn’t want to be one of those people, the kind that lived in the past and wondered more about what could have been than what could be. She wanted to be the bold, exciting girl she promised herself she’d be the day she left Roy at the altar and got the hell out of Scranton.

Before Jim, it had never been in her nature to run. In fact, it had been in her nature to stand completely still. In earlier years, she told herself it was because she was solid and unbending. In truth, she was just too scared to move.

And that’ s why Jim had had to leave, because she refused to take a chance. He said he couldn’t sit there and continue hoping, if there was nothing to hope for.

She had been furious the first few months after he headed to Stamford. The night that he left, she had stood outside his door, screaming and crying that he was a liar and a coward. She was so lost as to what to do, so angry with herself and with the situation, she had flung her arms out to hit him, trying desperately to make him feel just a small portion of the pain she felt.

She would never forget how calm he’d stayed. It was infuriating to see his soft, understanding face when she was so confused, angry, and alive. She didn’t want to be the only one feeling all this; she didn’t want to be the only crazy one; she didn’t want to be the only one lost.

But he had been lost too, for a long time. He had been angry and confused and crying. Only a few months previous he had sat in his empty apartment and been furious with her and with Roy and with himself. In seconds, he tore up the Christmas letter he spent hours perfecting. He had yelled out of pure frustration; he had cursed, and he had thought he was the biggest, dumbest asshole in the world.

But, of course, she never saw that. All she saw was his calm, neutral face looking so unhappily towards her. She saw her own disappointment and embarrassment reflected in his blank stare. It wasn’t that he didn’t care; it was that it seemed hopeless now. He had done all he could, and now it was up to her. And as much as she screamed, cried, and accused, she never once said she’d leave Roy, never once admitted any kind of feelings for him. She never gave him any reason to stay.

Jim had quickly found that when you care so deeply about someone for such a long time, it becomes impossible to simply let them go. Pam had become an intricate part of his life before he even realized it. Pieces of her were twisted into all of his thoughts, hidden in such obscure places he didn’t even know to look. And after an end like that, where even friendship was obliterated, all he could possibly do to stop hurting was to hide from it, run from it, and never let it touch him.

So that’s what he did. The next morning he left for Stamford, leaving his desk drawer full of Olympic Yogurt lids, half-finished sketches, hot sauce packets, and other Pam memorabilia behind. He avoided ice-skating rinks and Chili’s at all costs and tried everything in his power not to think of her at all.

Pam found a different way to cope. It was a relaxed, unrealistic hoping that got her through the first few months. It was the constant, impractical belief that everything would work itself out in the end. Perhaps as far back as the day she had told a forlorn Jim about the engagement, Pam had harbored a tiny, subconscious hope that he would come rushing into the church to save her. But on the day of her wedding, she had stood at the front of that church till the very last minute, gazing down the aisle, until she realized she would just have to save herself.

That was the last real hoping she did. Heartbreak, she found, was a cycle in which love, hate, hope, and fear start off in clear stages but then melt into an unrecognizable blend of an emotion. It seemed to merge in time, too, as she went months without thinking of him at all, and then some days he was the only thing on her mind.

It was harder, she thought, when she was still in Scranton. She would look over to his empty desk and see him sitting there, look up from her papers and see him standing next to her. She would drift off into day dreams of their time together, watching the fuzzy memories in her head like old home movies, wishing she had paid closer attention then, so she could treasure each detail now.

On this particular day (or at least at this particular moment), she happily took refuge in the distraction of her painting. She sat with her paints scattered around, her knees tucked under her, and her hair in a lopsided bun. The mobs of tourists that constantly walked back and forth formed a sort of bubble around her as some paused behind her to look and others diverged in front of her to give her a clear view.

Jim was the one who first told her about the Cherry Blossom Festival in D.C. He had mentioned it in the most casual of conversations and when she said she’d never been, he naturally said one day, he would take her. Of course, those were just words; the expected kind of words that you spit out out of habits or manners, but that no one takes to have any real meaning.

And they didn’t have any meaning, at least, not until years after they were said. She went there the first year after she left Roy. She wasn’t sure of her reason, if she had expected to see him or having left Scranton, she just wanted to be somewhere that was somehow part of him again. It was, of course, tear jerking the first time. There were hundreds of couples scattered around the place and Pam was always almost certain Jim was among them, showing this beautiful spot to a girl that wasn’t her.

But as time went on, it stung less, and she was finally able to appreciate the beauty of it all. All the feelings tied to the spot, pain and happiness alike, only made it that much more special. She came every year not just to paint (the scenery was breathtaking) but to feel the range of emotions the place splashed on her, to be surrounded by feelings she let die anywhere else.

As the crowd began to move a bit more quickly, Pam’s bubble widened. Pam, of course, remained oblivious to it all, still fully emerged in her work. She bit her lip, using her smallest brush to delicately paint in the tiniest of white blossoms on a far off tree.

“Beautiful,” a somewhat stunned voice breathed behind her.

Pam was used to receiving compliments when she painted here. She didn’t consider it any sort of mark of her talent, really, just a result of the warm, friendly way this place made people feel. As she turned to say thank you, a small smile was already spreading across her face.

The smile dropped the instant she turned and a freezing, tingly feeling rushed through her veins.

“Jim?” she gulped, somehow her voice seemed to fluctuate through every pitch on the scale in that one word.

Jim suddenly felt the awkwardness of his height and the sting of every single blood cell in his body seemingly trying to escape from beneath his skin. He blushed and mumbled a low, “Pam.” Before he even knew what he was doing, he had leaned down and giving the strangest shoulder-hug he could manage.

Pam had no idea how to respond to her friend or to the sudden flood of feelings that had accompanied him. Her mind in disarray, she let her body decide what she would do next. And so in an instant, she was standing up and hugging a man she hadn’t seen in almost 4 years for all she was worth.

It took only a second for her to realize what she was doing, let go, and take two awkward steps back. They both blushed a dark red as Pam crossed her arms in front of her and Jim shoved his hands in his pockets.

“How have you been?” Jim breathed out, rocking slightly forward on his shoes. He was dying, adrenaline rushing to his head. Part of him was screaming that he should have never stopped when he saw her, part of him was screaming that he should have never let her go. Looking into her eyes for the first time in so long, the guilt he’d been suppressing began to rumble inside of him.

“Good,” she said, in a voice that sounded much less convincing than she intended. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been doing well, she had, but the anger she thought she had overcome was suddenly bustling to burst out. As she looked at him, everything, good and bad, started to rush within her. She begged herself not to cry, but she could feel the tears beginning to form.

They stood silently for a moment, both too overwhelmed to speak.

Jim, knowing he couldn’t allow himself to continue this conversation any further without at least attempting to apologize, put his hand out weakly, trying to express something he couldn’t really find the words for. “Pam, I…when I…”

She shook her head quickly, blushing harder than ever. “No, I know…I mean, me too…I just can’t…let’s not. Let’s just put it behind us.”

She wasn’t sure if that’s really what she wanted to do. A part of her still wanted to be angry. A part of her still wanted to pick apart everything that had happened and never let it go. But why do that? Why make herself cry again? Why pollute something so happy with something so very not?

With Pam’s confession, Jim looked directly into her eyes, but stayed still. He suddenly wondered why that wasn’t enough. Why, if they had forgiven (or at least forgotten) all of their past blunders, were they not currently in the midst of a loving embrace? There seemed to be some invisible force between them, making sure neither one took that obvious step.

With all the traveling he’d been doing lately, it was almost common occurrence that Jim met up with people from his past. From old acquaintances to estranged best friends, he had found the closer you were to a person in the past, the more difficult seeing them again was. It was a painful realization of the totality of change, a guilty realization of broken promises, and with Pam, a resurgence of feelings he had fought to put behind him.

The nervousness, he thought, was probably the worst part. To lose what he had always loved most about Pam, his ability to feel completely at home with her, was a blow he wasn’t sure he could handle. But Jim Halpert was a fighter; he refused to be taken down so easily. “Do you maybe want to grab a bite to eat or something?”

She smiled slightly; relieved the tension had been (momentarily) lifted. “That sounds great.”

Without another word, she had wiped her hands on her jeans and started packing up her supplies. Jim moved in to help, getting a closer look at her painting. “God,” he said with a somewhat regretful chuckle, “Even better than I remembered.”

Pam, currently bent over with her backside facing Jim, broke into a blush.

“I mean, your painting!” He winced, realizing his error. “Your ability…as a painter.”

She giggled in spite of herself, slinging her bag over her shoulder and carefully grasping the frame of the still wet canvas.

She followed him to a pizza shop while they went through the standard lines. When they stepped in, Jim requested a booth so Pam could sit her canvas there without damage. She smiled at his thoughtfulness.

“So,” he said, with a large exhale, as they sat.

Pam shook her head, laughing, “It never used to be this hard.” She picked her glass up with both hands (a habit that had always reminded him of how much like a little woodland creature she was) and took a big gulp. It was the first time he noticed how bare her hands were.

“Your ring?” he asked, too surprised to form an entire sentence.

She looked briefly at her hands, fairly sure she hadn’t worn a ring today.

“Oh,” she said, with sudden understanding. “That ring.” She laughed, “I haven’t worn that ring in four years.”

Jim was, needless to say, surprised. Lacking any sort of eloquence, he blurted out, “You finally dumped that jerk?”

For a brief second, Pam wasn’t sure how to react. No one had ever responded to her break up with Roy like that before. If it was anyone else, she may have reprimanded them or said something about Roy being a decent guy, but it was Jim, and all she could do was try and get out a small “Yeah” between giggles.

Jim nodded a thanks at the waitress as she placed their pizza down, but for some reason, was unable to wipe an immense grin from his face.

Thank you so much for reading! Please take the time to review; I really appreciate it :)! Part Two (two parts total) is all finished, just has to be edited and uploaded. It has a lot more action and a heck of a lot more dialogue ;)

Thanks!