Pam shifted nervously in her chair. She felt like the time in elementary school when she was sent to the principle’s office and she was reprimanded for telling Joey Carson to shut up. “Ladies do not say such vulgarities Pamela.” Only Roy wasn’t staring her down like Mrs. Humphrey had. She didn’t know how to start. Should she tell him about last night? What could she actually tell Roy about last night? Most of it she didn’t remember. Was it worth getting him upset over something that might not have happened even if all the mounting evidence was proving otherwise? “Hey Roy,” she said in the cheeriest voice she could muster, hoping it didn’t sound too fake.
“Hey Babe,” he slid into the seat which Jim had just vacated. His smile faded as he studied the mug in front of her. “You don’t drink coffee. You drink tea, not coffee.”
“Sometimes I drink coffee.” It annoyed her that he didn’t know she drank coffee even rarely. Jim knew. Jim knew on those rare occasions how she drank it. But if Roy to chose to focus on her drink preference this morning, she would be okay with that.
He didn’t speak right away. He still seemed confused about the coffee. He seemed to shake it off and return to his pleasant demeanor. “How’d you get to work this morning?”
“Huh?” She didn’t leave work. Surely he realized she didn’t come home last night. He must have realized the empty spot next to him in bed all night. He did at least notice when she was there or not, didn’t he?
“You must have gotten home after I did and left before I woke up. I know Halpert dropped you off, but who picked you up that early?” He was sitting so calmly. It was just as if they were having a conversation about toast. He wasn’t showing any extreme emotion of any kind. He was all dimples and charm.
“Roy I didn’t come …” she was at the fork in the road. Should she tell the partially remembered truth or …? “I didn’t want to wake you,” she lied to him. She was ashamed how easy it was. “Angela picked me up.”
“I didn’t even hear you come in.”
Were they back to that? “I tried to be quiet,” she couldn’t stop lying. They just kept falling out of her mouth. Was she still drunk? Because that could be the only explanation to why she thought lying to the man she was going to marry was the way to go.
“And since I didn’t hear you leave, I am surprised I heard the alarm,” he was still so calm, so eerily devoid of negative emotion. It was starting to freak her out. “How was your night?”
“Nothing special. We just waited around for Packer,” while drinking ourselves into a stupor, followed by blacking out, and then waking up in each other’s arms. Yep, nothing special. Shit.
“What time did he finally show up?”
Oh hell. What time did Roy drag himself home last night? “What?” she tried to postpone giving an answer.
“What time did he get here, Pam?” Okay, so he wasn’t calm anymore. He was clearly becoming agitated.
“Oh I don’t remember,” this wasn’t a lie, she didn’t remember. She didn’t know if Packer had shown up at all to get those stupid tickets. Still, she couldn’t tell him the truth so she chose to say away from specifics. “Late. It was really late.”
“I got home after the bars closed and then watched TV before I went to bed. So it must have been really late. And you left so early. Why did you even bother coming home?” He had regained his composure; he back to his unruffled demeanor. The dimples that had disappeared for a moment were now back.
“I needed clean clothes … I needed to brush my teeth,” she responded unhappy with herself. She should be strong enough to tell him the truth. But she wasn’t, she was a coward.
“Yeah. I wouldn’t want people to think you did something slutty like spend the night with Halpert when we are engaged.”
Oh hell. Obviously he knew the entire time she hadn’t come home. She watched as his face fell into despair. She hadn’t come home last night and now she was lying about it. She didn’t give him any reason not to fear for the worst.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Jim had needed something to distract him after leaving Pam with Roy. Without an activity to keep him busy he would have stood in front of the window, watching their interaction unfold. It killed him not to know what was happening, what she was saying. He noticed Dwight carrying pieces of his desk back into the office as he returned to his own desk.
“I’ll help,” Jim offered.
“I shouldn’t be doing this at all,” Dwight huffed. “You and Pam should be returning my desk to its original resting place.”
“Pam’s a little busy right now. And I can’t do it alone. So I’ll help, take it or leave it,” he wasn’t trying to be snippy. He was actually trying to be nice and helpful but he realized that wasn’t how it was coming across.
“I have already informed Michael and Toby of your wrongdoings, so don’t expect this to erase your previous misconduct.”
“I wouldn’t dare to expect such a thing. Come on, I’ll show you how Pam and I maneuvered the desk around the corner on the stairs.”
Dwight followed Jim to the roof, but stopped abruptly before passing through the final door. “Are you going to lock me on the roof?”
“Um…no.” Maybe on a normal day he would give serious consideration to that suggestion, but not today. Today his major concern was Pam and his relationship with her. Pulling pranks on Dwight was not even on today’s radar.
“Are you going to trap me under my desk?”
“Again, no.” That suggestion was absurd. He never physically harmed Dwight nor did he never intend to. But he really couldn’t fault Dwight for being skeptical.
“Why then?” Dwight remained rooted to his position in front of the door.
“Why what?” Jim sighed.
“Why are you helping me? Never once have you offered to eat my calculator out of the Jell-O.”
“You eat your things out of the Jell-O?” That was just gross. Jim’s Jell-O molds had come out of a long trial an error process. In the end he found putting extra gelatin in the mixture gave the mold the sturdiness it needed to hold up the heavy objects placed inside. As a result, the Jell-O had a rubber texture, it wasn’t appetizing.
“There are starving children in Africa, Jim.” It looked as though Dwight just wanted to say Duh Jim, instead of explaining. “Now, before I step onto the roof with you, what are your motives in offering to assist me?”
“I … Pam and I … well we spent the night in the office.” Did he really just tell Dwight he and Pam spent the night together? How was that a good idea? It was quite possibly because he needed to tell someone about it and Dwight just happened to be there. Hopefully he wouldn’t regret his decision later.
“Are you telling me you made it to the Pam Pong finals?” Dwight was giddy with excitement. He couldn’t wait to tell Angela; she might even show some flicker of emotion.
“What? No, I am telling you I need a distraction while she talks to Roy.”
“I find that reason satisfactory. Let’s proceed.”
Jim was thankful Dwight didn’t push the issue any further, even though by the looks he was receiving he could tell Dwight wouldn’t mind hearing more. Mercifully, though, they worked in silence. Drawer by drawer, bobble head by bobble head, Dwight and Jim managed to lug everything back into place. They had one, maybe two, trips left when Jim learned being distracted was no longer a possibility. Jim heard a loud boom come from the direction of the break room. It was so loud the entire office heard.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Pam hung her head in defeat. It had been really stupid of her to lie, especially since she didn’t know if she had actually done anything wrong. It seemed he had been in her life for ever and she didn’t want to hurt him. “Roy?” she needed him to say something, anything. She needed him to yell at her, to fight with her.
“You didn’t come home last night,” Roy wouldn’t look at her. She could tell he was trying to keep his anger in check.
“No,” she replied sadly.
“You lied,” he still wasn’t looking at her. His vision was cast outside the break room, watching the office buzz in normalcy.
“Yes,” one word answers were all she could handle, she was about to cry. She didn’t want to cry because she knew it wouldn’t be fair to Roy. He’d be weakened by her tears and offer forgiveness. She didn’t deserve his forgiveness.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Roy couldn’t avoid looking at her anymore. “Did something happen?” If she wasn’t going to verbally supply the answers he was going to have to get them from her body language.
Wasn’t that the million dollar question? Did something happen? “I don’t know,” God, she wished she knew.
“You don’t know!?” he didn’t believe her. She knew he didn’t believe her. And really what reason did he have to believe anything she was saying was the truth?
“We were drunk,” and flirty, and happy. She should feel guilty about last night, but really the guilt she was harboring was for hurting him in general and lying this morning.
“Drunk?!” He lost the control he had been clinging too. He slammed his fists into the table causing Pam to flinch. “You went out with him? Like a date?”
“No!! We raided Meredith’s stash. We were here all night,” she quickly reassured him. She didn’t need for him to run into the office and strangle Jim.
“All night with Halpert,” his anger quickly turned to sadness as he began to think he lost her. He felt a little bit schizophrenic as his emotions vacillated between anger and sadness.
“Yes,” she had spent all night with Jim. And even as she sat there with Roy what she wished for most was to remember every detail of her night with Jim.
Roy gave up. He wasn’t getting any answers, or at least any of the answers he wanted. He rose from his chair and silently moved to leave. He turned to her before he left, “Pam?”
“Yeah?” she swiveled in her chair so she could look him in the eye. She was scared when she did because the anger was back in full force.
“If I see you with Halpert today, I’ll kill him,” and with that he flung open the door and stormed from the room.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Every head in the room was currently fixed on the break room; every mind was wondering what was going on.
“Someone should go in there and check on Pam,” Phyllis suggested. She was staring directly at Jim, she said someone but everyone knew she meant him.
Jim quickly shook his head, “I can’t.”
“I’ll do it,” Dwight suggested. Jim nodded in agreement. The two had entered into some sort of silent bond on the roof, and as odd as it sounded Jim trusted Dwight not to make the situation worse. However, Michael tripped Dwight with his crutch as he tried to make his way to the break room. Angela swooped in and rushed Dwight into the conference room, mumbling something about first aid and yesterday’s concussion.
“No way! Why have the assistant do what the boss can do better? I’ll go,” Michael offered but the resounding “NO!” from everyone in the room stopped him in his tracks. “Okay, I get it you guys don’t think a cripple can handle such an emotional situation.”
“You cooked your foot, Michael. You didn’t permanently cripple yourself,” Stanley explained pointedly. “But no we don’t think you can handle such an emotion situation.”
“I’ll go, cause I totally deal with emotional situations all the time,” Kelly rambled. “Ryan breaks up with me after every time we have sex. And then the next time he finds me in his apartment naked he loves me again. Right Ryan?”
Ryan looked horrified, refusing to say anything.
“Would someone please just go …” Jim didn’t get a chance to finish his request. At that moment Roy hurled open the door and marched past them all. No one even pretended to work; they all just watched him as he hurried from the office. Their heads snapped back into the direction of the break room when Roy disappeared.
Pam emerged from the break room seconds later. She knew they had all been watching. She knew they all had questions, comments, and concerns they were dying to express. She chose to ignore them, all of them. For self preservation she chose to return to her desk and business as usual, “Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
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.
Thanks to Pamalama for her comments on this chapter. She really made me think about why I made the choices I did.
Thanks to Pamalama for her comments on this chapter. She really made me think about why I made the choices I did.
Chapter End Notes:
So I would really like to hear your thoughts on Roy. I wrote this chapter on two assumptions 1) Roy may not be the most intelligent person, but he is not stupid. And 2) Roy has control over the Roy/Pam relationship, however weak their relationship may be.
Oh, and I promise the missing underwear are found in the next chapter.
Oh, and I promise the missing underwear are found in the next chapter.
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