Jim doesn't like to think about Roy.

Jim's least favorite subject is Roy, because he'd like very much to pretend that Roy does not exist, or that Roy is cheating on her and Pam will catch him tomorrow, or that Roy will be crushed by a truck, and Pam will cry on his shoulder and he can tell her that he can make sure all her wedding planning didn't go to waste, and she'd smile.

He's such an ass, because people tend to be in his situation a lot in movies and books and other such...mass media (jesus fuck, he's pathetic), and they all spout shit about "as long as she's happy."

No. He would let Roy die and cheat and leave and completely fuck Pam up just to get rid of him, because James Halpert is a selfish asshole. He doesn't care, he's lived with the knowledge long enough. She'll never know this anyway. Like everything else he thinks, she'll never know this because he can't lose her.

He can never lose her, because what would he do without her?

But yeah, he could completely handle her life being hell for a few hours, just so he would have one fucking chance to show her, just one chance that didn't have to be riddled with subtlety by default. Carefully plotted, he has to think five, ten, fifteen damn steps ahead of her every single time, because she might touch him, she might say something, she might just look at him like he's not the only one in this after all, and if he didn't prepare himself then it would all go to shit in half a second.

Because he's so scared that if she ever actually notices what he does, she'll realize how fucking pathetic his entire life is.

That's exactly it. He doesn't like to think about Roy, but he thinks about Roy more than he even thinks about Pam sometimes, because he has to be better than Roy. It's like a giant fucking game, and maybe he doesn't even really love her, maybe he just likes the chase and he wants to win.

But then she smiles, and he just thinks about how someday he'll just sack up enough to kiss her. And then it's sort of okay, because that's what matters.

He kisses her.

He tells her everything and she won't listen, she won't agree, and she has to agree, she has to know this and he can't put it into the words that will make her stay with him. So he kisses her, he has nothing to lose.

He loses.

For five seconds, he doesn't know that she's already gone. For five seconds he smiles, and she smiles, and she wanted this too, and now he can stay and she can stay and they don't ever have to leave this room if they don't want, if she doesn't want, whatever she wants. Whatever makes her happy.

And it's not him, obviously. Not him like this, at least. Him as a friend, but he can't play this game anymore, the scorecard in his head is so full of decimals and tiny fractions of statistics and it's too much. No one can be expected to live through all this.

He lost.

He left.

He won't watch her marry him. He won't watch that happen, and he doesn't know what he expected. Did he think she would marry him always, or did he think she would never marry him? He seems to have accepted both, which is just more evidence to the fact that he is clearly disturbed in a disturbing way.

But he won't stay here to watch her break away from him forever. He knows her, and he knows that this isn't right, and he can't even tell her it's not, because he just did, and she won't listen. She doesn't see what he's saying, or maybe she just...doesn't think it's worth bothering with, he doesn't know. He has no fucking idea what to make of her anymore, and he still just wants her, he just wants her, so obviously this has to be done.

So he left.

New job, new town, new place, new new new. None of this is Pammish. None at all, new chips in the vending machine, new layout of the office, the receptionist's desk isn't even visible to the office at all, it's in a seperate room.

Plus the receptionist is a high school boy, and he's not quite that insane yet.

Oh god, he hopes he's not as insane as he feels.

He can distract himself. He never really liked to go out all the time, but now he suddenly ends up in the city more weekends than not. He visits some old college friends, he goes to clubs and plays and movies. He can't even remember the night's TV lineup by the time he's been in Stamford for a month, which is...huge, for him.

He actually works now. He knows paper, fucking paper, useless fucking paper, he knows more about their stock now than even possibly Dwight. His life is at the same time a lot less pathetic and about thirty times more pathetic than it's ever been.

He goes out, he works, he does not call Pam, even when he's drunk and calls the office, he somehow gets Dwight's extension instead of the main desk, and the following Monday he recieves a very long pamphlet on alcohol abuse, narrated by a green panda.

Karen makes fun of him for keeping it.

Karen. Well, he isn't really sure what to make of her. In a way, it's sort of nice that she blatantly flirts with him, because the last thing he wants is a new best friend to fall for. He can handle getting a crush like a normal person for once in his life, even if it never really takes hold.

He likes to mess around with her, she's another item on his list of distractions. He likes her a lot, she's fun. He likes her. Even if he doesn't, he should, so he does, and it's as simple as that. Or it would be, if he wasn't so intensely nuerotic inside his own head. Seriously, this is just ridiculous, it's like he's living in a goddamn novel. He can't even...well, it's not like he lives and breathes Pam. It's just that he needs to get over her, like, right this second, and it would be really nice if it would just happen already.

It would be really nice if he didn't wake up feeling her body and her lips and her voice. Although, that in itself is pretty damn nice. But it kills him a little bit more everytime it happens, to the point where even Andy can tell on the days that it does. Andy sings in a horrific attempt to cheer him up, and it makes Karen go to Accounting and not come back for an hour, but he always stays.

It's so bad that it's hilarious and it's moments like this, not even when he's falling down drunk and slurring her name to his roommate from sophormore year, but moments here, when something awesome is happening, and he needs to tell her, this is when he misses her the most.

At some point, he forgot how to be by himself. He needs his buddy to tell shit to. Even if nothing else.

But when he thinks that, he remembers again how that was what he told himself for years: it's better like this than to risk everything. And it was hell, and he couldn't even take it. So that's a bust.

He really just thinks he can't win here.

He's sure of it when Pam is jumping into his arms and all he wants is to kiss her, and a second after that, all he wants is to run as far and as fast as he can, because he cannot have this happening again, he cannot lose everything. Again.

What the fuck is he supposed to do now?

A month after the merger, he realizes that he can't remember what it's like to not live a complete lie. No, no, really, Pam is my best friend! Karen is amazing! Pam and I are totally friends again!

Well, technically that's all true except for the last one. But he's so tired of technicalities. He's so tired of this, of his and Pam's apparant mutual agreement that nothing ever happened. He's so tired of trying to pretend everything that is so so so hard to pretend that he deals again by working. He deals with who he loves the most with what he hates the most. It's weird. Or maybe ironic.

He doesn't care.

There are times when he looks at Pam and Pam looks at him and he could just swear that she's going to just come up and kiss him. Once he even pulls his chair back, to give her some room, and opens his arms just enough to sweep her up and away and to him.

And he's not crazy. He's not, because Pam moves too, she's taken a step towards him and her hands are just about to reach when suddenly Michael is making a speech about some movie he saw last night and how it opened his eyes to injustice in the workplace towards Asians and it's just like he can't remember how to breathe right anymore.

Pam's face goes red as she escapes to the bathroom.

He's not crazy. It's not just him. He's just as sane as she is.

He didn't imagine that he kissed her. He didn't just wake up one day in Stamford and wander to the nearest Dunder Mifflin office. He didn't imagine any of it.

He just can't lose it. That's his only motivation for anything now. Don't let her leave again.

He supposes that the other side to that can be not to let her in again, because if she's in, she can be out, and that's what makes him so crazy in the first place.

Look at Michael. Michael won't forget, won't let anything go. Jim's worst nightmare is of being Michael, worse than being Dwight, worse than reliving Pam's hands sliding out of his for every second of every day. So he lets it all go as soon as it comes, maybe filing it away for the nights when he can't sleep and nothing's on and no one's around. It's self-preservation, is all. He has to stay away.

Pam is with Roy.

Holy fucking hell, Pam is with Roy. Jesus fucking shit, she just walked out with Roy. He just...holy fucking shit fuck, this was supposed to be over. That was supposed to be over forever, because she had finally realized what Jim had known pretty much since about twelve seconds after he fucking met Roy.

Jesus Christ, how can she fucking...he doesn't even know. He doesn't want to be posessive, but this is his brain, he's allowed to be posessive in his own damn brain. And in his brain, Pam runs all potential boyfriends through his intense screening process, during which he decapitates all of them. And then Pam goes to sleep and there are fifteen guard dogs and Dwight guarding her door. And he's finally thought of the perfect career for Dwight, so...bonus. In Jim's head, Pam is connected to him somehow, and it makes her stay...well, basically on his lap at all times. That would work out quite nicely.

And also Jim doesn't sell paper. He sells fireworks and candy and puppies.

Also he can beat up Roy, and does, daily.

Also Pam will marry him. And leave with him. And not Roy.

And that's how it would work inside Jim's head.

But in the world, he just has the hardest sex he's ever had in his life that night, pushing until Karen asks him what the matter is, and all he can manage is a weak grunt of apology, rolling away and maybe one tear, maybe, but no one can ever call him on it because it's kind of sweaty and shit.

Jesus Christ, Pam is with Roy. Jesus.

Self-preservation is his entire world for the next week. All he does is resolutely not look at Pam or think about Pam or do anything that could possibly make him speak to Pam. He talks to Dwight about Lost. He visits Michael and volunteers to do random projects that get him the hell out of the office. He goes to Karen's every night, because his place still had the bed that Pam sat on.

That one time. Completely clothed.

Ugh.

Then Roy is like trying to kill him. Um. Okay. Dwight totally saves his life, but maybe a punch in the face would have been kind of nice. Just...he doesn't know, but masochism would probably be taking this too far.

Besides, they have a problem.

Everyone knows. Everyone knows Jim had a thing for Pam. Everyone knows something happened, and it seems like they are jumping to conclusions far beyond what actually went down. And some of their conclusions involve going down. In the breakroom, on Dwight's desk, on every desk in the office. At least, that's what Kelly seems to have gathered, and she questions him mercilessly when he tries to scarf down his lunch before Pam comes in, she's been staring at him all day, he can feel it on his neck.

Self-preservation. He blows her off. He just...he can't handle it. He proved that enough, that he can't handle it.

How they ended up lying next to each other on a bouncy castle, he has no clue. He had climbed in after everyone went upstairs, sort of wanting to bounce, but instead just laying back and staring at the sky. When she flomps next to him, he can't even summon the strength to roll away.

"You okay?" she asks, with real concern. He sucks.

"I'm good."

They lay there for ten minutes and nothing else happens except that the side she's next to grows increasingly warmer. And it's like it all just...zooms back in a second. He wants Pam. He wants Pam. All he's ever wanted is lying here next to him, and this is all that can ever make him happy.

Self-preservation, because she's the only thing that can make him completely unable to function.

And just when he's decided that, just when he thinks he can live with that, Pam is staring at him in the firelight and saying things he'd have killed to hear a year ago.

It's not long before it all comes together.

It all happens so fast and so perfectly that he doesn't even believe it's really happening.

When he finally has her, when she has him, when they have finished the prerequisite dinner, after Pam blinks three times and shakes her head ("This is stupid, come on," and oh, he does like this fancy new Beesly), and she's practically pulled him to his car, to his apartment, to his bed, pulled off his shirt and fiddled his pants enough so that he has to take the huge, blaring HINT (he protests weakly, all this time and he actually still asks her no less than five times "Are you sure, are you sure, Pam, we don't...we could just...are you sure, Pam?", but she is obviously quite sure as she nods with wide-open eyes and a smile wide enough to make him half as sure as she seems to be), he can't even relax enough to realize that this is what he's wanted for...for how long?

He can't even remember a time when he didn't love her, it's like she's been standing in the background for all his life just waiting for this to happen, but the point is that he can't even really, really enjoy it like he wants to enjoy it.

Pam giggles nervously, and that helps a little.

"Okay, so," he says, and then all he can do is stare at her. So she giggles again, and then she snorts and laughs too hard for him to keep himself from cracking up next to her.

It's five minutes before they catch their breath, and it's ten seconds of staring at each other, half-dressed and her face is pink and warm and her lips are wet and smooth and his lips are on her neck and it's smooth too and-

A second later she was practically climbing him. He stumbled and his back hit the wall, but that was all right because it only ached for a second, and then he could bend his legs, hook his hands under her knees and hoist her up.

After that, Jim's brain decided to go on vacation. He couldn't think. He was just a person-shaped bundle of blood and nerves that had fucking caught on fire.

And he belonged entirely to her as she twisted her fingers around a handful of his hair and jerked his boxers down with her other hand, not even a pretense of slowness.

There was so much time later for slow. They had all the time in the world.

This was needed urgently.

She wriggled against him, and his world almost exploded, but no, he did have some control after all, just enough to turn them so that her back was against the wall, and he could learn this scar, that freckle, hear the sounds she made.

She clung to him. If he had time for slowness, he would have gathered her against him and kissed the hell out of her, but he's too busy hoisting them both onto his bed, his stupid boy bed that he probably should have made this morning, but he didn't plan this at all, and so she hits some magazines, and he rolls on top of a tennis shoe, and the most amazing thing about that is that none of it even registers because this is all-encompassing.

This is it. This is everything.

"We can't just...we can't just tell them, can we?" Pam asks him, he doesn't really hear her, he's pretty focused on how her hair is going to make him sneeze. He'd always imagined that it would make him sneeze, and now it's going to, and he's sort of excited, and wow. He has just slid headfirst back to pathetic.

Well, Pam is like naked and on him, so that should at least count as ten points or so for him.

"Hmm?" he whispers, he is sort of afraid to like...shock her into realizing what's just happened here. That would not work well for him.

"Don't take this the wrong way," she says, with a little laugh and then he does sneeze, right against her head.

To her credit, she doesn't even flinch.

"Bless you. Now, don't take this the wrong way, but are we going to like...well, disclose this to HR?" she asks, giving him her best Dwight impression. It's not great, but she's never been good at those, so he laughs anyway. He can tell who her bad impressions are supposed to be of.

"No. No way," he says immediately. No one can know, they have to be like seriously fucking slow with this. It can't just...fall apart in a week. Shit, he also can't just overanalyze this right into the ground either.

This could be difficult.

"Obviously," she said back, and they could probably be more witty, but it's kind of been about two hours of many important things going on, and he's about to just use her...just completely frizzed-out hair as a pillow. Seriously, it's about six inches up in the air.

Pam has other ideas though, as she rolls around on top of him until she's completely comfortable, and he's basically her memory-foam mattress. Which he is perfectly fine with, just so long as it's her, because that's just...it's just been in his mind for way too long now. He just wants to stay like this, and not have anyone know except them.

But then at the same time, he sort of wants to go somewhere with the entire population of the world, and he can just sling his arm around Pam. Because he can do that whenever he wants.

And no one else can. Ever.

The next day, she leans her head on his shoulder as they drive to work. He kisses her every single time they hit a stoplight.

The only reminder of how they used to be is when Pam hisses at him to check for Karen when they pull in, she doesn't want to make her feel bad, doesn't want to seem like she's gloating. She even actually slides down in the front seat until Jim assures her that the coast is clear.

Jim can't even focus as Karen bitches him out. And half the office is staring at him, and half at Pam, and he realizes that he is the world's shittiest subtle observer.

The fun part about that is that now he will get to attempt to be subtle when all he wants to do is throw her down on his desk, Dwight's desk, anyone's desk, and just ravage the hell out of her.

Make her make that face she makes when he touches her in the perfect way. Listen to her breathing against his neck, listen to her breathing get deeper and throatier until finally she's bucking against him, moaning his name, and she does it now, he could make her do it now, he knows exactly how it happens now, and-

And it's really fucking hard to pay attention to anything else. Basically.

Every single time he looks at her, he wants to kiss her. It's ten times worse now than it ever was before, and before there were times when he didn't think he could last another second without just grabbing her and pulling her onto his lap and just...just kissing her like he always wants to, every second of the day when he knows he can't.

The good part about this new arrangment is that Pam seems to have the same problem. So he has been dragged into the stairwell by his tie on more than one occaision, because sometimes Pam likes to take charge, and she is pretty damn good at it.

He thinks they're doing pretty well at being subtle though. Seriously, he'd never realized how much they seemed like they were dating before, because they could pretty much do everything they used to, and no one even looked at them funny.

The fucking cameras, though. In the summer they had off, Jim had almost forgotten how much the cameras loved to stalk them. During the year he'd almost gotten used to them enough to ignore them, ignore the sudden rustle everytime he spun in his chair to see if Pam was smiling, he missed when she would smile. The part that took skill was to do all this without alarming her, because she got this awful, fake smile when she looked at him.

But that was all before, and he didn't have to deal with that anymore. Now Pam was happy, and he made her happy.

And they didn't even make it a day with the cameras.

"One day. Man, Halpert," Pam said in the car that afternoon, "you are just the worst at this."

"Hey, you're the one who led them to the bat cave, man. Don't blame this on me."

She laughs, and teases him for using yet another Batman reference, and he just thinks he could die right now with no regrets.

Soon enough, everyone knows.

And soon enough, he is kissing her whenever he wants.

(So long as they hide from Toby).