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.
Author’s Note: I’ve had a lack of motivation/inspiration lately, but I decided it was high time I added my First Date Fic to the many wonderful ones already out there.
This was inspired by the epic obstacles to my OTP for my main fandom (900 year old time-travelling alien + young British girl) which make me incredibly grateful for the relative ease of shipping Jim/Pam.
~
It’d be unbelievable, if it wasn’t so bizarrely, perfectly, typically them.
A simple memo and a keepsake from long ago has brought him here, tonight, to this table, at this restaurant, with this woman.
She fills him in on what he missed at work today and he only half hears her, because this is easy and comfortable and perfect and he can’t stop wishing they’d gotten here a little sooner. Some of his preoccupation must be showing on his face, because she winds up her story quickly and regards him with a quizzical frown.
“Am I boring you?” she asks, tongue poking slightly through her teeth to signify that it’s only a joke.
“Of course not,” he replies quickly, “I was just ... thinking.” He lets out a long breath, smiling across the table at her, a lazy, half-drunk smile that says he can’t believe this is real. “This is really nice.”
“Yes it is,” she agrees, smiling a little but fidgeting with her napkin in a way that tells him she’s nervous that he’s heading into serious conversation before the entrées even arrive. “I’ve always liked this place,” she says, with a wave of her hand towards their surroundings.
He doesn’t take her hint. “I don’t mean the restaurant Pam.”
“I know.” She lets the words out with a little sigh, resigned to the inevitability of this turn to seriousness.
He almost laughs because she’s the one who walked across hot coals and told him off for everything he’d done wrong and still believed enough to send that yogurt lid to New York, and now she’s terrified of anything beyond the lightest conversation. He doesn’t laugh, of course, he just loves her a little more and the strange aching regret that they could have had this earlier only deepens.
“I wish we’d gotten here sooner.”
Just like that, the atmosphere between them shifts and her smile falls so fast he doesn’t have a chance to catch it’s descent with one of his own. He didn’t mean it like that, like an accusation, but it’s too late now. With his words came every single hurtful thing they’ve ever said to each other, filling the air between them until the cosy table for two is suffocating.
He releases another button at the top of his shirt and she refuses to meet his eyes, looking down into her wine glass like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.
They stay silent while the waitress serves their meals. When she half-heartedly takes a stab at her pasta and he sees a splash of liquid on her cheek, he can’t take it anymore.
“I’m sorry,” he says quickly, throwing the words out into the charged air between them like they might make everything else go away. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” He turns his attention to his meal, forcing a mouthful of potato into his mouth to stop himself saying anything else that might make her cry. It’s too hot and he almost chokes on it and it’d be so funny if they weren’t having a serious, relationship-defining conversation right now.
When she finally looks up at him, he discovers that he guessed wrong, as is his problem when it comes to her lately, because she is not upset with him. Her eyes are glassy but her sigh mirrors his own, heavy with regret. “Don’t be sorry.” She gives him a crooked smile that’s more like a grimace. “I wish we’d gotten here sooner too. That’s my fault.”
“What?” He drops his second forkful of food, barely hearing the loud clatter it makes against his plate. He feels his face wrinkle in confusion but she doesn’t notice. She is looking beyond him, her eyes unfocused and sad, and he thinks she might be looking at their past.
“I should have called or I don’t know, e-mailed, faxed, anything! I should have done something, driven up to Stamford or ... just ... done something. I let you think it was nothing, that we were nothing but-”
She is crumbling in front of him, the strong woman she has become dissolving, the spark in her eyes extinguished. He is frozen for a long moment, shocked to find that she too feels it, the overwhelming regret, that physical ache, at all the time they’ve wasted.
When the shock subsides, suddenly it doesn’t seem to make sense. Here they are, finally together with no barriers between them, their long-awaited first date - and they are drowning in memories, in all the moments they could have had, instead of making something worth remembering. Something worth all the heartbreak.
He can think of nothing to say to snap her out of this so he reaches for her hand and pulls away the napkin that she is clutching, replacing it with his own hand. At the contact, she pulls her attention away from all their lost moments and her gaze settles back on his face, her eyes full of tears.
“I am so sorry,” she whispers, clutching at his hand like it’s all that’s keeping her here, in the present with him, instead of back in the memories of those days without him.
He shakes his head violently. “I did not mean ... I ... I wasn’t blaming you. At all. We’ve both made mistakes. God Pam, I’ve been sat here this whole time thinking how stupid I’ve been, how much time I lost.”
“What?” She looks as surprised by his words as he was by hers.
“Yeah.” He lets out a heavy sigh and runs his fingers over his new haircut, a reminder of the mistakes he was making. “I should never have been with Karen. I shouldn’t have done a lot of things that I did. And I should have done a lot of things that I didn’t do.” It sounds fairly cryptic but he’s sure she’ll understand and it’s too much to bear to name all the ways he’s hurt her lately.
She stares at him for a long moment like she can’t believe he’s real.
Then she laughs.
“Clearly we have some communication issues.”
It’s funny, not hilarious. But she’s laughing and it’s the most beautiful thing in the world, clear and bright and warm, so he joins in. They laugh together for a long moment and he’d thought that it was the coal walk that burnt this fire into her eyes but it was him, it was this.
She reaches her free hand to steady herself on his arm and knocks into her glass of wine, tipping it over onto the table cloth. Half the contents spill out, seeping out onto the white cloth.
“Crap!” she winces, picking up the large glass, which has miraculously retained half of it’s contents. She stares at the stain for a moment before dissolving back into laughter.
When they finally calm down, she is still smiling.
“No more regrets, okay? We’re here now, that’s what counts.” It’s not a request to let this all go, he knows that. It would be foolish to think their past could be swept aside, not when so much of it defines who they are. He wouldn’t want to forget before, because he loved her then, just as he does now.
She is offering exactly what they need - a truce, an understanding that they will not be defined by the missed opportunities, but by the forces that brought them together tonight. By that ridiculous yogurt lid.
He smiles back at her, nodding his agreement.
After all, the glass is still half full. The spill is inconsequential now.
“No more regrets.”
He reaches for the bottle and tops up her glass.
~
Chapter End Notes:
~
Comments are love :)
This is just a oneshot for now, but I’ve left it classified as unfinished because I might add to it if inspiration strikes with some other oneshots linked by moments when Pam spills something.
Comments are love :)
This is just a oneshot for now, but I’ve left it classified as unfinished because I might add to it if inspiration strikes with some other oneshots linked by moments when Pam spills something.
shootingstars is the author of 10 other stories.
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