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Story Notes:

I promise I'm still working on my post-A Benihana Christmas story. I'm halfway done with chapter four, and I know where it's going. This idea just popped into my head and wouldn't go away!

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Chapter Notes:

I had a ridiculously good time writing from Angela's POV.

Also, my beta uncgirl is amaaaaaaaazing.

Angela Martin was not amused.

 

The only part of the night for which she could be thankful was that the Party Planning Committee could take no credit for the Dundies. Michael insisted on organizing the event all by himself, which explained why it was such a horrendous failure.

 

Angela wasn’t sure what was worse: receiving that disgusting award, listening to Michael’s morally and ethically offensive standup routine, or watching Pam make an absolute fool of herself while simultaneously besmirching the sacred bonds of marriage… or at least engagement. And to do so by throwing herself at a mischief-making slacker in perpetual need of a haircut! Pathetic.

 

Angela began to pull her car around to the front of Chili’s to pick Pam up. Of course. Because she was always the designated driver, and inevitably her services would be required by one of her irresponsible coworkers. No doubt Pam would “forget” to give her gas money. True, Pam only lived ten minutes away, but there’s a little thing called gratitude.

 

As she rounded the corner, Angela couldn’t help the, “Oh dear lord” that escaped her lips in an irritated hiss. Pam was practically hanging off of Jim again. Disgusting.

 

Pursing her lips determinedly, Angela prepared to lean on her horn if need be in order to save Pam from losing her last shred of propriety. Luckily, some faint instinct of decency must have kicked in, because when the headlights found her, Pam had the good grace to look a little less whorish, and she hurried into the car.

 

Angela did not emit so much as a “Hello” as Pam slipped into the passenger seat and fastened her seatbelt with a distinct lack of coordination. She positively reeked of alcohol. Well, she wasn’t Meredith bad, but she was bad. Angela rolled her window down, throwing Pam an accusatory glance as she did so.

 

The first five minutes of the ride passed in silence, which was ideal for Angela. She wanted nothing more than to get Pam out of her car so that she was free to go home, draw herself a bath, and scrub away the remnants of yet another night of unashamed debauchery in the company of her boss and coworkers.

 

She should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

 

Pam leaned her head back on her headrest and focused on the ceiling of the car’s interior. She sighed and closed her eyes.

 

“I’m a chicken,” she said miserably.

 

Angela frowned. Well, she was already frowning, but her scowl deepened in both physical appearance and emotional intensity. She couldn’t understand what Pam was referring to.

 

“You were a lot of things tonight, Pam,” she replied stiffly. Slut, harlot, sloppy drunk, embarrassment to women everywhere, she listed mentally.

 

Pam seemed preoccupied with her own thoughts, however; thoughts which she was, unfortunately, continuing to vocalize with slightly slurred speech.

 

“I was going to ask Jim if I wasn’t with Roy if he’d…” she trailed off for a moment and frowned. “But I didn’t. I just said thanks. I’m such a chicken.”

 

Angela blinked very slowly and tried to keep herself from whipping around to pin Pam with a furious glower. She failed.

 

“Pam! You are engaged!” she hissed urgently, hoping to cut Pam off now before the conversation slipped any further into moral degeneracy.

 

Pam sighed deeply.

 

“I know,” she replied, but instead of sounding apologetic, she sounded… sad.

 

Angela had no way to respond. She was afraid that any reply could trigger a downward spiral ending with Pam renouncing her engagement altogether.

 

So she gripped the steering wheel tighter and hoped that Pam was drunk enough that she would just drift off to sleep for the rest of the ride to her house.

 

“He’s so great,” Pam said after a long pause.

 

Angela said a prayer of thanks.

 

“Yes,” she exclaimed. “He is. Thank goodness you’re finally remembering that you are an engaged woman!”

 

Pam tilted her head toward Angela.

 

“What?” she asked dumbly.

 

“Roy is a good, strong, faithful man,” Angela rushed to expound. “And his hair is a respectable length,” she added.

 

Pam frowned.

 

“No! Not Roy,” she said with a frustrated shake of her head.

 

Angela’s eyes widened. She didn’t have to ask who Pam was referring to, but Pam supplied the answer anyway.

 

“Jim,” she said, sounding faraway, almost wistful. “He’s so great.”

 

Angela let out a horrified sigh, turning away in absolute repulsion.

 

“I will not have this conversation!” she whisper-yelled. “If you want to spew adulterous thoughts on your own time that’s your prerogative, but this is a sin free space!”

 

“He’s just so funny, you know?” Pam continued obliviously. Angela threw her head back in exasperation.

 

“And sweet,” Pam persisted. “Like, he would never have tried to get me to leave Chili’s. If I said I wanted to stay there all night he’d stay with me.”

 

The urge to pull the car over and push Pam out almost overcame Angela at that moment.

 

“Fantasizing about sleeping with Jim in a Chili’s is. Not. Appropriate!” she said sternly, keeping her eyes focused in the direction of Pam’s house, only a quarter mile down the road.

 

“No, not sleeping with him,” Pam said, shaking her head forcefully. “Just staying overnight at Chili’s. Hypothe…tetically. Wait… I think I said that word wrong.”

 

Angela pursed her lips and willed the driveway to move a bit closer.

 

“I hope for your sake that the alcohol has caused a momentary lapse in your moral fortitude and that you would never be thinking these things otherwise,” she said in a stiff monotone.

 

Something in Pam seemed to snap, because the next thing Angela knew, she was being almost shouted at.

 

“So Roy can just talk about how he wants to be with Katy the purse girl when I’m sitting right next to him, but I can’t say that Jim is a great guy?!” Pam cried.

 

Startled, Angela looked over to see Pam leaning forward in her seat, pinning Angela with furious eyes.

 

“What? What are you…” Angela trailed off, unsure of how to diffuse the situation.

 

Luckily, she didn’t have to say anything. A moment later Pam leaned back in her seat and Angela heard the same dreamy tone of voice.

 

“He’s so great,” she repeated, smiling.

 

“So is Roy,” Angela said quietly.

 

Pam made a skeptical grunting noise, which Angela chose to ignore. They were finally rounding the corner into Pam’s driveway.

 

She put the car in park and looked down at the wheel, eyebrows drawn tightly together. Hoping desperately that Pam would just see herself out, she waited. But Pam didn’t move from the passenger seat.

 

“We’re here,” Angela said unnecessarily. Another pause. “I’ll help you to your door.”

 

She unbuckled her seatbelt, but when she reached for the door, Pam’s voice stopped her.

 

“I don’t want to go,” she replied, sounding almost like a child.

 

Angela sighed and rolled her eyes.

 

“Pam, you cannot sleep in my car. Come on,” she said in annoyance.

 

“No,” Pam said stubbornly. “I’m mad at him. We’re fighting. He doesn’t ever listen to me, Angela!”

 

“I’m sure you two will work it out,” Angela replied impatiently.

 

Pam crossed her arms over her chest and stared straight ahead determinedly.

 

“I’m not going in there,” she said firmly.

 

Angela fought the urge to scream. What could she do? At only ninety pounds, it was doubtful that she could drag a struggling Pam out of her car. She could go inside and get Roy to help her, but she didn’t want to get caught in the middle of some sort of unseemly domestic dispute. Having to give a witness statement would completely ruin her night.

 

“You cannot come home with me,” Angela finally said, trying to keep her voice even. “My cats have conjunctivitis, and I only have one set of goggles.”

 

Pam frowned.

 

“You wear goggles in your house?”

 

“Well, I don’t want to get pink eye!” Angela said defensively. Did Pam expect her to just go wandering around the house with thirteen infected cats and hope that she didn’t catch such an extremely contagious virus?

 

“Besides, even if I did have goggles, I’m too busy taking care of them when I get home to tend to any guests. I have to use a cotton ball covered in a homemade saline solution on each of their eyes to help wash away the viral particles. And Sprinkles has developed Feline Idiopatic Cystitis so she pees everywhere and I have to spend a good hour disinfecting the house each evening.”

 

Pam finally looked at Angela, and her expression was one of horror.

 

“I don’t want to go home with you,” she blurted.

 

“Well praise the lord,” Angela snarled. “Get out.”

 

“No,” Pam said immediately.

 

Angela considered calling on a certain volunteer sheriff from the office. He seemed like a sensible, helpful person. Surely he would know what to do in this sort of situation.

 

“I want to go to Jim’s,” Pam said, interrupting Angela’s thoughts.

 

Angela felt as though her head might pop off and land in one of her cup holders. Would the depravity of this night never end?

 

“No. Absolutely not. I will not facilitate adultery,” she proclaimed, completely scandalized.

 

Pam’s eyes seemed to expand in her head, as though she was shocked by Angela’s accusation.

 

“Not adultery! No, not…” Pam’s voice trailed off for a moment and she started to shake her head.

 

“Why do you want to go to Jim’s?” Angela demanded.

 

“Just to… to not be here. I can’t… Angela, Jim is my best friend. Nothing is going to happen,” Pam insisted.

 

“Just like how nothing happened tonight at Chili’s?” Angela challenged.

 

Pam paused with her mouth half open. Her eyes drifted down to the floor and her brows met in concentration. She really didn’t remember, Angela realized.

 

“What?” Pam finally asked.

 

Angela could not believe what she was seeing. Pam was so drunk tonight that she didn’t even remember cheating on her fiancé.

 

For a moment, Angela thought it might be best not to tell Pam at all. She could remain blissfully ignorant to her sin. In the end, however, she decided that Pam had to face her actions, especially since she seemed to think that spending the night with Jim wasn’t dangerous.

 

“You kissed him, Pam,” Angela said matter-of-factly. “In front of the whole office, you threw yourself at him and kissed him.”

 

Pam’s already half-open mouth fell completely open.

 

“I kissed him?” she gasped. And then Angela could tell that the memory was flooding back to her. She took a shaky breath, and when she spoke again, she sounded bewildered, but not at all upset.

 

“I kissed him,” she repeated.

 

“Go inside now. With your fiancé,” Angela urged sensibly.

 

Pam snapped out of whatever daze she was in and fixed Angela with the most sober look she’d managed all night.

 

“Please, Angela. I can’t deal with Roy tonight. I just want to be with my best friend,” she said simply.

 

Angela considered the request again. It would get Pam out of her hair for the night. However, it could also lead to a more serious transgression. Pam’s voice interrupted Angela’s inner debate.

 

“I am not leaving this car unless you take me to Jim’s,” she declared.

 

Oh to heck with it all, Angela thought, surprising herself with her own vulgar language. She was so sick of sitting in this driveway arguing with an unreasonable drunk.

 

“Fine,” she said testily. “But I am speaking to Jim before I leave you in his care.”

 

Pam eyed her warily before finally consenting.

 

“Fine,” she parroted.

 

Angela put her seatbelt back on and shifted the car into reverse. Before backing out of the driveway she looked again at Pam.

 

“Well?” she prompted.

 

“Well, what?” Pam asked.

 

Angela rolled her eyes for what must have been the hundredth time that night.

 

“I don’t know where he lives,” she snapped.

 

“Oh. Okay,” Pam said sheepishly.

 

The directions she gave were simple enough, and Angela was so furious that she refused to speak to Pam for the entire ride. It wasn’t until they were actually pulling into his driveway that something occurred to Angela.

 

“How did you know how to get to his house?” she asked, unable to keep the accusation out of her question.

 

“He left his iPod at work once and I brought it to him,” Pam supplied. “I’ve never been beyond the doorway,” she added defensively.

 

Not sure if she believed that statement, Angela nevertheless unbuckled her seatbelt and made her way toward the front door, not bothering to wait for Pam. She could stumble in the driveway for all Angela cared at this point.

 

It was not Jim who came when Angela rang the doorbell, but a shorter man with dark hair. If Pam was so drunk that she directed Angela to the wrong house, she was leaving Pam there, Jim or no Jim.

 

“Can I help you?” the man asked, peering over Angela’s shoulder, Angela assumed at Pam.

 

“Does Jim Halpert live here?” Angela demanded.

 

The man frowned.

 

“Yeah. Hold on.” The door closed halfway, and the man shouted inside, “Jim! There are two girls here for you!”

 

Angela was gravely offended.

 

“We are not girls. We are ladies,” she sniped. “Well, one of us is.”

 

In less than thirty seconds, Jim appeared in the doorway. His eyes locked on Angela first, then on Pam behind her.

 

“Angela? Pam?” he said, clearly confused. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

 

Pam was about to reply, when Angela cut her off.

 

“Pam, please go inside and sit down. I am going to speak with Jim,” she ordered, pointing to the door.

 

Pam looked at Jim, then back to Angela, and then back to Jim again. Whatever she was going to say died on her lips, and she dutifully slipped through the door, Jim stepping aside to let her pass.

 

“Angela, what is going on?” Jim asked again, looking more confused than ever.

 

“Pam asked—forced me to take her here,” Angela said crossly. “She and Roy are apparently fighting and she wouldn’t go home.”

 

“Oh. I didn’t know they were fighting,” Jim, glancing back to where Pam must have been sitting in his house.

 

“Yes, well… She wanted to stay somewhere else for the night and she would only give me your house as an option,” Angela continued hurriedly.

 

Jim’s eyebrows met his hairline, but he quickly recovered.

 

“That’s… no, it’s totally cool. She can stay here,” he replied evenly.

 

Okay. It was time to set the ground rules.

 

“Jim,” Angela said sharply. She waited for Jim to focus on her completely. “Pam is engaged,” she said slowly.

 

One corner of Jim’s mouth curled up in the beginnings of a smirk.

 

“I know that, Angela,” he said indulgently, nodding slowly.

 

“No matter what she says, you should remember that,” Angela continued.

 

“Ooookay,” he replied. He was looking at her as if she was crazy for telling him any of this.

 

“It’s extremely inappropriate for an engaged woman to spend the night in another man’s house,” Angela insisted.

 

“Angela—” Jim began, but Angela cut him off. Now was not the time for him to feign ignorance. They both knew the danger here.

 

“She’s still drunk. She’s not thinking clearly. Anything you do with her in this condition would be considered taking advantage of her in any court of law,” Angela cautioned, making the threat clear.

 

Jim’s posture changed completely. His smirking visage transformed into a frown that communicated great insult.

 

“Angela, I’m not going to ‘take advantage’ of Pam. We’re friends!” he exclaimed.

 

Angela pursed her lips, unmoved by his defense.

 

“Certain occurrences from earlier this evening would suggest otherwise,” she alluded.

 

Jim sputtered for a moment, unable to come up with a response. It appeared that he was completely surprised that Angela would bring up the kiss.

 

She kissed me,” he finally managed to spit out. “And she was drunk, like you said. It didn’t mean anything. If Kevin was the one standing there, she would have kissed him.”

 

Neither of them was convinced by this explanation. Angela knew it and so did Jim. Rather than dignify his excuse with a response, she said what she knew she had to.

 

“It is against my better judgment that I am leaving her here. Do not make me regret this.”

 

Jim met her eyes and Angela could tell he was taking her seriously.

 

“I won’t,” he answered softly.

 

Nodding curtly, Angela decided that she had done all that she could.

 

“I have to go disinfect my cats’ eyes and remove the urine stains from my carpet,” she said by way of goodbye.

 

She spun on her heel and strode back to her car. She heard Jim call out, “Sounds like you have a busy night planned,” but she did not turn back around.

 

As she turned the key in the ignition, she knew that she might have just made a terrible mistake. She could only hope that either Jim was enough of a gentleman to keep his word, or, more likely, that Pam would pass out before any further sins were committed.

 

God help them all.

Chapter End Notes:

Working on chapter 2 of this and chapter 4 of "Can't Go Back" simultaneously. I keep getting confused...

Anyway, reviews cause happy woodland creatures to gather around and sing sweetly whilst the sun smiles down on them. You wouldn't want to deprive the woodland creatures their happy time, would you? :)


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