i. Then
It is entirely Pam’s fault. She hadn’t been keeping track of her things, and in the rush of holiday madness she hadn’t had time to do anything more than gather up what she could find, throw it in the truck, and drag Roy out of his parents’ house. Even then, they barely manage to make it home by midnight and get enough sleep to be coherent at work the next day.
So it isn’t until the next morning, when she wakes up to a multicolored blur, that Pam realizes she’s left her contacts in their case at Roy’s parents’ house, three hours away.
Pam isn’t much of a morning person but she still wakes up before Roy, so she is waiting in the kitchen of their cramped apartment, ready to ambush him when he comes looking for his coffee.
“You want me to what?” he asks, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Pam, I can’t drive all the way back up there! You were the one who made a whole big deal about us getting to work on time this morning, remember? And now you want me to drop everything and miss a whole day?”
“I know,” Pam says earnestly, “I know, I’m sorry, but…” how can she put it into words? The nervousness, the nausea that rises in her throat at the thought of going into that office, having to face Michael, to face Jim… having to put up with those snickers and sneers all day? She grasps for a way to show him, to make him understand. “You know Michael,” she groans. “Imagine what he’ll say if I show up to work looking like this!”
She puts her glasses on, shoving them up the bridge of her nose to get the full effect – and sure enough, Roy’s lip wrinkles, his mouth turns down in an automatic flinch of disgust. “Ugh, I keep forgetting how ugly those things are,” he murmurs, then sighs as his shoulders slump in defeat. “You’re right, babe,” he concedes. “That would really suck…”
“So you’ll do it?” She can’t contain the wave of sheer relief that swamps her, so suddenly she almost gets dizzy. Thank God, now her co-workers won’t have any more reason to notice her than usual; she can escape the taunting eyes of Michael, Dwight, Angela, Jim --
“Yeah, I’ll do it,” Roy sighs. “Just – call in sick or something, and sit tight till I get back. Darryl owes me a favor anyway.” He leans in to kiss her on the cheek, awkwardly around the bulky frames, then grabs his coat and heads out the door.
“Love you!” Pam calls after him.
“Yeah, you better,” Roy grumbles, and then the door slams and the sounds of the truck revving up drift into the silence, and then he’s gone.
Pam pulls the hated glasses off and sinks onto the couch, offering up a silent prayer of thanks that, no matter how awful things are at work, at least Roy will always be there for her.
ii. Now
It’s entirely Jim’s fault, as Pam hasn’t stopped reminding him for almost an hour how. If he hadn’t been so charming and cute and romantic and done his whole ‘Oh, I’m Jim Halpert and you’re madly in love with me’ thing the night before, then she would have been able to keep her hands off him and this wouldn’t have happened, but Nooooo, he just has to have his hair all messed up in that sexy way that makes her want to run her hands through it, and he just has to have that dopey wide-eyed look on his face that makes her want to kiss him senseless, and – and – and he’s just so him, and she’s so mad at him for it that she can’t even find the words…
Only she does find the words, plenty of them, and she’s so busy working herself into a righteous anger that she doesn’t even notice how easily she navigates his unfamiliar apartment. But he notices – because when she turns around to berate him for tuning her out, she finds him staring at her in reverence and awe, just because she got down her own coffee mug without having to ask where they were.
She’s so busy being mad at him that she forgets about the glasses completely, and doesn’t remember until they slide down her nose when he pulls into their space (‘their’ space, not his) in the front of Scranton Business Park.
“Oh my God!” she yelps suddenly, and he looks over at her in alarm, afraid she’s hurt or something, only to find her clutching the frames of her glasses and white as a ghost. “Oh my God, Jim, you’ve got to help me. Please – call Michael now, tell him we’re stuck in traffic or something, anything, -- it’s not too late, we can still get out of here –”
“Okay, yelling at me was one thing, but now you are really starting to remind me of Kelly, and it’s freaking me out,” Jim says calmly, his smooth low voice cutting over her rising hysterics. “What is it with you today, Beesley? What are you babbling about?”
“Look at me, Jim,” she commands, and he obeys, killing the car engine and turning to look carefully into her eyes. Even though it’s Jim, who she trusts more than anyone and loves more than life, Pam almost flinches away from his gaze. She can’t help it – too many years of bullying and teasing, of awkwardness and loneliness and shame, too many adolescent tears are riding on the bulky frames now cutting into the bridge of her nose.
“Please, Jim,” she begs him. “Please, let’s just run back to my place and let me get my contacts – it’ll only take a few minutes. I just really don’t want to go through the whole day looking like this…”
The expression that crosses his face makes her trail off in confusion. Jim looks floored – looks bewildered and confused, like she’d just commented on the lovely green color of the sky, or told him that Dwight was her role model in life. “What are you talking about?” he asks, and if there is any hint of teasing or joking in his voice, Pam can’t hear it. She gives him a questioning look, and he clarifies, “Beesley, you’re beautiful.”
Oh. So that’s his game. Pam shakes her head and turns away, angry at him for teasing her like this. What does he think he’s doing? But then she feels his hand on her shoulder, warm and steady in a way that she can feel all the way down to her toes, and his other hand is on her arm and he turns her back to face him. His expression is every inch serious, not a prank in sight.
“Pam, I mean it,” he says earnestly. “I don’t know what your problem is today, but you really are beautiful.” He waits a moment, to make sure this sinks in, then plows ahead. “If you want to go back to your place, that’s fine,” he says quickly. “It’s not like we’d be missing anything important. But… I don’t think you need to.” He shrugs, then turns back to the steering wheel and lets his hand hover over the ignition, sending a clear signal; it’s her call.
It’s Jim’s fault, Pam thinks. It’s his fault she is forced to wear her glasses at all this morning, and it is definitely his fault that she gets out of the car, shoving the ugly things up higher on the bridge of her nose. It’s Jim’s fault that she doesn’t seem to mind them so much anymore, and it’s also Jim’s fault that she has to endure Michael’s stupidity and Kevin’s… Kevinness, and it’s Jim’s fault that she has to take the glasses off midmorning and go through the rest of the day blind as a concussed bat.
But for a brief few hours, she feels really good about her bulky old-lady glasses, and how she looks in them – and she remembers that she didn’t always feel this way, and she remembers not to take it for granted, this warm golden feeling of beauty that has nothing to do with how she looks and everything to do with how he looks at her.
And – thankfully -- that is Jim’s fault, too.
Story Notes:
This is going to be a series of little things that occured to me after DIS. I saw a lot of potential in Pam's glasses, more stuff that the writers could have gone into, which I will go into instead.
Author's Chapter Notes:
I can never resist showing how Jim is the anti-Roy, and the Pam's-glasses issue seemed like a perfect opportunity. All standard disclaimers apply: all characters, settings, and story elements are the property of their respective creators. I own nothing but a stale muffin and a lot of books.
Chapter End Notes:
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cloudyskies is the author of 2 other stories.
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