This little oneshot evolved as an expansion on a line from my first fic here, concerning why Jim calls Pam by her surname so often. It can be read alone, or seen as a companion piece to 'Hello, Goodbye'. A little odd, but I kind of like it. Enjoy...
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.
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He was new and nervous, his long limbs feeling unusually awkward, like his tall frame had outgrown an office like this one. It was far too easy to leap to the idea that maybe he didn’t fit in this job either.
Then she smiled at him for no reason and he thought maybe it was because he was new and nervous and she could tell. He’d later find out this was only partly the case. One day, many years later, she’d tell him quite frankly that it was mostly pity, because -
“Enjoy this moment because you’re never going to go back to this time before you met your desk-mate Dwight.”
She pointed out his desk and laughed to herself, eyes sparkling with some private joke he didn’t understand yet.
He found himself thinking he wouldn’t mind sharing a joke with her.
“Jim Halpert, by the way,” he told her, dawdling at her desk for a moment.
“I know. Pam Beesly.”
“Nice to meet you, Pam Beesly.”
“Nice to meet you, Jim Halpert.”
“And this Dwight guy...?”
She gave a burst of laughter before calming herself, clamping her lips shut with some effort.
“Oh you’ll see,” she told him, smiling with her tongue between her teeth.
He soon found that his long legs seemed to fit perfectly behind the desk he could see her from.
They went out to lunch that first day, Jim Halpert and Pam Beesly.
They shared stories at a tiny table, over fast food and soda from cheap plastic cups. They talked like best friends catching up after years of absence: rapid-fire, constantly interrupting each other, creating sentences senseless to anyone but them.
They came back from lunch that first day, Jim and Pam.
She’d called him Jim and then called some other guy her fiancé and what he’d been calling a lunch date had become just lunch. But then they’d become Jim and Pam and that was more than enough.
He began to dislike the name Roy.
A few weeks later he understood Dwight and Oscar and Angela and Michael, as well as he ever would, but he still couldn’t understand why she was with that guy from the warehouse.
He began to realize that he probably never would. He wondered if even she did.
He was falling still, grasping blindly for a handhold because he wasn't supposed to be falling at all.
He hated the name Roy.
He started calling her Beesly almost by accident, found it slipping out when he was teasing her, or pranking Dwight, or doing anything he could think of just to see her smile again before five o'clock. She called him Halpert, just following his lead.
Jim. Pam.
Halpert. Beesly.
He liked to pretend that he could stop falling, in those early days. Weeks and months passed when he told himself that it was nothing, a simple crush, a passing infatuation, inconvenient but short-term. He was such a fool, in those early days.
He gave in eventually, let himself realize that he wasn’t falling anymore. He’d fallen, hard.
That’s when calling her Beesly changed; when it became a victory and a warning. While she was still Beesly, there was still a chance. He could still be her best friend, her confidante. He could still be funny and charming and desperately, painfully hopeful. While she was still Beesly, he could still be himself.
He didn't want to know what he would be if she became Anderson.
Michael called it a Booze Cruise. Years later, Jim would call it the longest thirty seconds of his life.
“Sometimes I just don’t get Roy,” she told him suddenly. He filled in the unspoken end of that sentence. “Not like I get you anyway.” He wondered if he was putting subtext where there was none, hearing nothing but an echo of his own heart’s wishes.
He watched her in silence for what felt like forever. Less than a minute in which all the things he wanted to call her fought to get out.
He said nothing.
Roy said something.
She was still Pam, still Beesly but not. There was an expiration date on his heart now, like one of her yoghurt lids. She was a Bride now. A wife soon. An Anderson forever.
He didn't think he could be Halpert if she couldn't be Beesly.
So he told her. It was brave and reckless and it went spectacularly wrong.
“You’re really going to marry him?” It was the very question he’d wanted to ask her the moment he met Roy, so many years ago.
“Yes.” She answered, but she did not release his hands until he pulled them away.
Of all the things that hurt him that night, this was the worst: how she had made him be the one to let go.
In the end he couldn't call her any of the things he wanted to. He didn't think he could even call her his friend anymore.
He ran.
“Jim Halpert.”
“Karen Filipelli.”
“Nice to meet you, Karen Filipelli.”
“Is it? That’s nice.”
She was different, cold and distant and wary. She was a challenge and a distraction and he soon found himself thinking that he’d like to share that bag of chips he found for her.
He lied to himself. He called Pam a mistake, unimportant, nothing, nothing, nothing at all to him. He regretted it immediately, called her his best friend and wished he could just call her on the damn phone and ask where it all went wrong and why she held his hands so tight while she broke his heart.
One day he called and she answered.
“Yes, Fancy New Beesly would make that up.”
He didn’t even try to ignore the thrill it gave him to be able to say it.
“You got totally taken for a ride Beesly.”
As much as he liked the Fancy and the New he was too glad it all ended in Beesly to think of much else.
He came back and he called Karen his girlfriend.
They talked over intimate candlelit tables and expensive wine in oversized glasses. They took turns talking, politely, quietly, hiding more than they shared.
He talked to Pam in clipped sentences, in short responses and occasionally, accidentally or half on purpose, just like he used to: like her best friend, with laughter and and honesty and a smile.
She left the wedding with Roy and all the things he’d dreaded calling her came rushing back. Anderson. Bride. Wife.
He didn’t talk to her at all after that. He hurt her then, just to see if he could, just to see if it made him hurt less.
On a windy beach, when she couldn’t see his eyes, she told him the truth.
“I called of my wedding because of you.”
She called him her best friend.
She called of her wedding because of him.
And there was nothing left to do but-
“Are you free for dinner tonight?”
He called it a date.
Jim. Pam.
Beesly. Halpert.
Now he calls her all the things he used to and more.
It's Summer and Michael’s calling him Jimmy. He doesn't care because she's calling him hers now.
He’s starting to feel like he doesn’t fit in this office again. It’s okay, because he fits perfectly beside her.
Chapter End Notes:
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