The knock came on a rainy Friday night.

Mark was out with his girlfriend all weekend and Jim had decided to celebrate his night alone by spending some quality time with Sportscenter and a beer.

With a sigh of irritation, he made his way to the door wondering if maybe Mark and Jillian had changed their plans because of the storm. The last thing he expected to find on the other side of his front door was a soaking wet Pam. She glanced up at him quickly and her blotchy red eyes made him freeze for a second.

"Can I come in?" she sniffed. Her voice jarred him out of his astonishment and into worry-mode.

"Oh! Yeah sorry come in, come in. Pam what's wrong? Are you okay? What happened?"

She didn't say anything for a second and he spent that time looking her over for bruises or other signs that she'd been hurt. Just the mere thought of Roy, or anyone, hurting her was already souring his mouth with the faint taste of bile.

"I...I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here. I don't know what I was thinking. I just really needed a friend." She sounded hesitant, and stepped back toward the now-closed front door.

"Pam, no, look at me. I am your friend." he insisted. "Tell me what's wrong. Let me help you. I promise we can fix it."

"No. No I can't. I can't fix this and I..." as her voice wavered the tears started to fall more quickly, mixing with the dripping of rain water off her crazy-curled hair. He didn't know what to do. Seeing her standing there just crying was killing him.

"Jim," she said, and leaned toward him with arms outstretched.

In an instant, he was there, wrapping his arms around her tightly. He had no idea what was wrong but his own eyes were tearing up a little at the sound of her sobs, and he wasn't about to let go of her until her tears were spent. In the background, the voices of the celebrity sports panel changed to the sleek sounds of a car commercial. Jim just stood there breathing in the scent of her shampoo and wondering how someone so wet and shivery could still feel so warm against his chest.

When she calmed down he shifted his arm a little to stroke her back a few times. At the same time he noticed that he was now nearly as wet as Pam, and that she was still shivering in her jeans and jacket.

She sniffed a few more times and then let go of him.

"Sorry. I'm a mess. Oh, and now you are too!" she said apologetically.

"Pam, please just tell me what's wrong." Not knowing was scaring him.

She took a deep breath to steady herself and then said the words quickly like she was trying not to think about what they meant.

"Roy broke up with me."

He didn't know what to say. Roy had broken up with her and she had run to him? He tried not to think about that as he cautiously ventured, "I'm so sorry Pam."

She was quiet too.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked after a minute.

She nodded slowly and then shivered again.

"Okay," he said, "but first let's get you out of those wet clothes. You're going to catch your death."

"Yes, Mom." she teased. And the small smile on her face gave him more hope than anything that she'd be okay. He smiled back, but he was still concerned.

"Just come with me."

-----

Her jeans were heavy and her toes squished in her shoes with each step she took, but she had made it here to his house, to him. She was safe again.

She climbed the stairs behind Jim marveling at how normal it felt to be in his house even though she'd never been here before. Her eyes were still burning but she felt like she had run out of tears, at least for now.

She had hoped it would be like this. Expected it, actually. Jim was her best friend in the office. He was always there for her when she was having a problem with Roy or with work or whatever. In fact, lately, Jim had become almost her only friend.

Roy never wanted to hear about what was going on with her sisters, or at work, or the show she had seen that made her laugh. But Jim did. He listened to her no matter how trivial the topic. Or how serious.

She had hoped that he would be there for her again now, expected it enough that she had run here in the rain.

-----

Jim led Pam up to his room where he found some old sweats for her to put on, and then he showed her the bathroom and told her maybe she should take a shower to warm-up first.

"Thanks, Jim. You really are a great friend."

She said the words quietly and then closed the bathroom door, but they hadn't been quiet enough to soothe the sting he felt as she called him just a friend. He knew he wanted to be more than a friend to her. He had wanted it ever since the first time they'd convinced Dwight that DNA testing proved the Schrutes were descended from a mix of Klingons and Vikings. And for a few wild minutes he had let himself wonder if her coming over here tonight was her way of saying that she wanted that too.

He still couldn't believe she was here. He sat down on his bed and listened to the shower run, trying as hard as he could not to picture Pam in his shower. But after just a few seconds he knew he'd have to keep himself distracted somehow.

-----

The water was warm and soothing. If she hadn't been so aware of the fact that she was at Jim's house, using Jim's soap, staring at the off-white tile in Jim's shower, she would have been humming along to the song that had been stuck in her head ever since she had left Roy at the restaurant.

She wondered if Roy was worried about her. Would he call her mom demanding that she tell him where she was? Or was he too drunk by now to even notice her absence?

She didn't really care one way or the other. Thinking about Roy only brought more tears. She tilted her face up to the water streaming down and held her breath as the wetness washed away the salty streaks that had run down her cheeks.

-----

Jim wandered into his kitchen wondering if he had anything he could offer Pam. Seeing nothing, he quickly decided to capitalize on this opportunity, and grabbed his keys.

By the time he made it back from the grocery store Pam was just coming down the stairs. He dropped his bags on the kitchen counter, then called for her to join him.

"Behold: everything you need to cure your breaking-up woes." He said with a dramatic sweep of his arms.

"Wow! This is perfect. You got everything! Ice cream, licorice, jelly bellys, junior mints, and... are those french onion?" she asked, her eyes lighting up as they settled on a big bag of Sun Chips.

"Yeah, you said those were your favorite, right?"

"Yeah, they are." She smiled. In the back of her mind the thought registered that Roy had never been able to remember stuff like that.