Jim could not remember ever feeling so sick to his stomach at the thought of going into work. It wasn't like the case of nerves he had when he tried to start his life over in Stamford, or the anxiety of walking back through the doors of the Scranton branch months later. It wasn't even that dead feeling that enveloped him when Pam was on the path to marrying Roy and all he could do was sit and watch it play out. Not this was worse than all of those feelings put together. This was true and utter fear.

Fear that he'd misinterpreted what Pam had said last night (it had happened before), and fear he understood every word she said. He had gone straight home after her declaration, and avoided answering the phone the three or six times (he'd lost count) Karen had tried to call him last night. He purposely didn't answer his phone or his email that morning because he didn't want her to have a chance to ask him to drive her into work. He needed to be alone with his thoughts, even though they weren't his friends at the moment either.

He'd had a few beers after coming home from work – getting drunk seemed like the only way he might get his mind to slow down. But that didn't work. Instead it made him tired and feeling even more vulnerable. He was confused by what it all meant, and angry at Pam for being quiet all this time, even as part of him knew exactly why she had been. Hadn't he been guilty of the same thing? He was angry with himself for the way his hands had starting shaking at her confession. He'd held them forcefully down on the conference table so she couldn't see how much she'd affected him. It wasn't fair – all this time trying to live with his new choices and in less than five minutes she had him right back in the palm of her hand. Not as far as she knew at least, he comforted himself. He was at least proud of himself for keeping it together in front of her.

But now – well into his third beer – he was a complete and total mess. If she had walked through through the door at that moment he knew he'd have offered her everything and asked for her forgiveness. But she wasn't there, and soon Jim gave up his troubled thoughts for sleep.

But he found no peace there either. Sleep brought on the strangest of dreams. One right after another, all floating around the same topic: Pam. He was back in the conference room, her words as clear as they had been just hours ago. He wanted to tell her to stop talking. He wanted to kiss her. But just when he managed to get the words out, they were suddenly out in the parking lot and he was telling her he was in love with her, and she was saying she couldn't.

It was Pam was walking away this time, even as he shouted at her that she just told him she loved him, that she couldn't change her mind back now. But Pam kept fading into the background, and he could hear Karen's voice calling him instead. He turned to respond to Karen and was surprised to find a tall, serious-looking man standing behind him.

“You know if you screw things up this time, you've only yourself to blame,” the grey-haired man told him. Then the stranger turned and shuffled off into the darkness, the sound of his cane hitting the ground with each step.

Jim tried to follow in the direction Pam went, but kept finding himself trapped in crowds of people he didn't know. With the sound of Karen's voice still calling him, it felt like being trapped in a never ending maze. When he woke up, he breathing was quick and shallow and he was covered in a cold sweat. It didn't take a psychoanalyst to figure out what it all meant, but he wasn't sure if he had the strength to do anything about it anymore.

Such was his state of mind driving into work that Friday morning. He knew he couldn't just dismiss Pam's words - he wouldn't have been able to do that if he'd wanted to – but at the same time he couldn't let himself put much faith in them. After everything, he needed so much more than words before he risked tipping his life upside down one more time. But if she was being serious...

“Oh, she's entirely serious.”

A gravelly voice snapped Jim out of his reverie as he stood at the pump filling up his Saab. The gas station stop had been just another way to avoid going into work – he could barely fit ten dollars worth into the tank. Jim looked around to see where the voice was coming from. It was spooky that someone else's conversation should mimic his own thoughts. Then he saw who had spoken.

A tall, grey haired man was at the pump on the opposite side of the island putting high octane into his Honda Repsol motorcycle. Jim did a double take as he recognized him as the man from his dream.

“I mean, I suppose she could have handled it better,” the man continued. “But you're hardly one to talk.”

“I'm sorry?” Jim stumbled over the simple words, looking around momentarily. “Are you talking to me?”

The man's brow crinkled and Jim was sure he was being smirked at. “No, I'm talking to your car – turns out it has as shitty a love life as you do.”

Jim was dumbfounded. He considered the idea that someone was playing a trick on him and automatically glanced around for the cameras. There weren't any.

“Do I know you?”

“You would if you spent any time watching quality television, but that's neither here nor there. Let's just say I've been spending a lot of time lately with your girl.”

Jim frowned, further confused. “Karen?”

“Oh, hell no,” he scowled. “Not her. The other one. The one you really want.” He emphasized the next two words. “Your Girl?”

Jim watched as the guy took the nozzle from the gas tank of his motorcycle and hung it back up.

“Come on,” the man goaded Jim. “Are you really going to make me say her name like you have absolutely no idea who I could possibly be talking about?”

“I know who you mean,” Jim said slowly, looking around once more to see if people were watching them.

“Then you should know she meant every word she said yesterday. You, above all, should know what it cost her.”

Jim watched at the man clipped his cane to his bike, then fished out what looked to be a pack of mints from his pocket. As he opened the bottle Jim saw they were pills, not mints. The guy swallowed down a few and got on his bike.

“You're really going to have to work hard to screw this chance up,” he said loudly over his revving engine. Then he was gone.

Jim stood stock still, trying to make sense of what had just occurred, but he couldn't do it. He finished his fuel purchase and got back into his car. Who was that guy? How did he know Pam?

He felt a little agitated that Pam must have confided in this stranger. At the very least he knew he finally had something he could use to talk to her about. But as he pulled into the Dunder Mifflin lot the fear was back full force. He had no idea how he was going to manage to look at her and remain unfazed, much less talk to her.

He rehearsed his entrance over and over in his mind as the elevator took him to the second floor. He concentrated on deep breaths as he headed down the hallway, his heart beating double time to his footsteps. He would just walk in, he told himself. Walk in, hang up his coat, and say “Good morning, Pam,” before sitting down at his desk. He thought he should look at her as he said it, to get a feel for how she was going to act, but he doubted he'd have quite that much courage.

But for all his anxiety and planning, he opened the door to Dunder Mifflin and saw that the reception desk sat empty. The computer monitor was still off, and her puffy pink-cream coat didn't hang from the peg it usually occupied. Jim felt oddly disappointed. He glanced up at the clock, but he already knew it was well past her usual arrival time. As he slumped into his chair, he could barely believe what he knew must be true: she was missing because of him.

Because she couldn't bear to face him. He rubbed his chin ruefully. He knew exactly what she must be feeling, and in spite of his confusion his heart went out to her. He didn't expect her not to come in today; Pam was always there. How much must his behavior toward her have hurt for her not to even come into work. Jim felt guilty, even as he knew his reaction last night was the only one he could have given.

He didn't have to look far to find guilt assaulting him from another angle. Karen was already at her desk, but he knew she was watching him. Though he was just as estranged from Pam as he ever had been, he somehow felt like he had cheated on Karen. And deep down he knew why he felt that way. Deep down he knew where this was all leading, even if he couldn't admit it just yet.

An email announced its arrival, and for a moment he expected it to be from Pam. Some explanation, perhaps, of why she wasn't there. Of perhaps where he could find her.

It was, of course, a message from Karen. Meet me in the kitchen? He glanced over at her, and found her already looking to him for a reply. He nodded once. He couldn't ignore her forever. He was about to stand up when Dwight addressed him.

“Where's Pam?”

“How should I know?” Jim responded, a bit more defensively than he meant to. Of course Dwight immediately picked up on it.

“You look suspicious. What do you know?”

Jim sighed. “I honestly don't know where she is. Maybe she called Michael.”

“She left voice mails for both Michael and me,” Dwight informed him smugly. “She said she was sick.”

Jim slapped his hand on his desk. “There you have it then.” He was about to stand up when Dwight held up his hand to stop him.

“You don't expect me to believe she's really sick, do you?”

“Why shouldn't you?”

“Jim, do you know how many people call off on Fridays?”

Jim smiled, the first real smile of the morning. “Actually, Dwight, I do. An average of fourteen percent of the American work force calls off on any given Friday.”

Dwight's eyes narrowed. “Fourteen percent? Where do you get your facts?”

“As Assistant Regional Manager, it's my job to know these things,” Jim replied, finally standing up. “And if you bothered to look you'd already know that more people call off on Wednesdays than Fridays.” Jim walked toward the kitchen with the sound of Dwight furiously typing at his keyboard in the background.

Whatever Jim was expecting when he walked into the kitchen, it was certainly not a supportive girlfriend. He'd been avoiding her since yesterday afternoon, and he'd been expecting to have to explain his behavior. He seemed to have to do a lot of explaining around Karen lately. The problem was that he never knew what to tell her, and she never seemed satisfied with what he did say.

But today was different. Karen said nothing about the unreturned phone calls, no quizzing on how he'd spent his night. Instead she commented on how tired he looked, and she asked what she could do to make things a little easier for him. She offered to take him to lunch, and to make dinner at her place so they could both relax on a Friday night for a change. She was being so accommodating and unquestioningly supportive that it was easy to agree to it all.

The morning went by in a blur for Jim as he focused his energies on anything that would put Pam out of his mind. In the three hours between arriving and going to lunch he sold as much paper as the old Jim Halpert would have sold in a week. He didn't dwell on the complete lack of satisfaction he felt in accomplishing so much. It was just a way to pass the time.

At lunch, Karen let him choose the place, and seemed intent on making him smile. With the tension absent that had been between them at times since relocation to Scranton, Jim was reminded why he'd felt attracted to her in the first place. When she reached for his hand as they walked back into the Dunder Mifflin building, he thought that maybe it would just be easier to forget yesterday ever happened. Karen wasn't complicated to him. He knew exactly what was expected from him to keep her happy. And that had to be worth something, right?

For the rest of the afternoon Jim kept coming back to that thought. How much easier it would be to just keep on his current path. And his concern for Pam's absence twisted into a belief that maybe she didn't want to face him because she knew she made a mistake. Maybe if he'd opened himself up to her she'd already be backpedaling. When had Pam ever really followed through with anything? By the time he was leaving for the day, he had succeeded in building back up his wall of defense against one Pamela Beesly.

A last minute customer call caused Jim to be last person left in the office. Even Karen had left, sticking a Post-It note on his desk as she walked out, letting him know what time to come over.

He stuck her note in his pocket, grabbed his coat and messenger bag, and headed out toward the elevator. He was lost in thought as to what to bring to dinner when he stepped into the car, and didn't even notice he was no longer alone.

“You, Jim Halpert, are quite a piece of work.”

Jim jumped in surprise, finally noticing that the mysterious stranger was back.

“And I thought Beesly was a challenge,” he continued.

“What do you want from me?” Jim was more annoyed than frightened by the man's reappearance.

“The more important question is 'What Do You Want?'”

“I want to be left alone,” Jim muttered. He wondered why the elevator hadn't started moving yet. He pressed the ground floor button twice.

“You're doing an outstanding job of it if that's true.”

Jim shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the closed doors in front of him. He gave no response.

The man was not so easily deterred. “So just how long do you think this little charade of yours can last?”

Jim ignored him.

“A few more months? A year? Or maybe you're so accomplished at deluding yourself that you'll wind up married to the wrong woman and spend the rest of your life blaming Pam.”

Jim spun around angrily. “Who are you? And what does any of this have to do with you?”

“Ah, so I've finally hit a nerve.”

“I'm going to call the police and report you for harassment,” Jim replied, once again hitting the ground floor button. “And why isn't this elevator moving?”

“Kinda like your life, isn't it?” The man took a step towards Jim, leaning in front of him and pressing the tip of his cane against the elevator button. This time there was an audible whine and a slight bump, both a clear indication that the elevator had begun to descend.

Jim leaned against the wall, but didn't look at the man. “What does that even mean?”

“Say there's this guy,” the stranger said, ignoring Jim's question. “Say there's this guy, and he got everything he's ever wanted, but just doesn't see it.”

Jim frowned.

“All he sees is all the things that have gone wrong in his life, and how people he counted on have hurt and abused him, and he decides the best thing he could do is to walk away from it all. To erase it from his mind and start fresh. A complete brain wipe – as if none of it ever existed.”

Jim thought this was without a doubt the slowest elevator ride ever.

“But what if it didn't quite take? What if despite his new life, he felt incomplete. He knew he was missing a part of himself, but he couldn't quite figure out what that part was. What would he do then?”

The doors finally opened, much to Jim's relief. Hitching the strap of his bag higher on his shoulder, he shot a glance back at the man before walking out. “I think you've been watching too many Jim Carey movies,” Jim said.

Jim pushed through the glass lobby doors as hard as he could. He couldn't get away from the stranger fast enough in his opinion. But clearly the stranger wasn't done with him as was already leaning against Jim's silver car as Jim walked over. Now Jim really was starting to get spooked.

Jim looked back at the lobby doors and then at the man. “How did you....?”

“If you were supposed to get over her, don't you think you'd have done it by now?”

Jim unlocked his car, opened the driver's door and threw his bag onto the front passenger seat. “I am over her. In case you didn't notice.”

“Oh, right,” the man stood straight up, lightly striking his cane against the side of Jim's car. “That's why you're dreaming about her. That's why you don't stop thinking about her. Those are some wicked clear signs of being over her.”

Jim slid into his car and attempted to shut the door, but the man's cane stopped it from completely closing.

“You can't run forever,” the man said as he finally stepped back from the car.

Jim slammed the door shut and put it into drive so fast the transmission complained nosily. “Yeah, just watch me,” he mumbled as he pulled away.