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: Inspired by the song ‘Off Broadway’ by Ryan Adams which also provides the lyrics in the summary and the title. Jim’s mindset during The Job before he goes back to Scranton has always sort of baffled me, yet here I am trying to tackle it. Honestly, I don’t love this but I hope some of you might. I’m getting excited about the return of TO and the imminent arrival of my S4 DVDs and I was just glad to get writing for my favourite pairing again. Unbetaed so apologies for any mistakes.
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They stroll along near the theaters, wasting time going everywhere and nowhere until Karen decides it’s close enough to intermission to head towards Spamalot. New York is loud and bright, Times Square a blur of screaming neon and camera flashbulbs and it’s more than a little overwhelming to think this strange place could be home soon.
Karen looks more beautiful than usual tonight with the lights of New York in her eyes, a thousand promises winking back at him as she gently pulls him along. His mind is full of tomorrow’s interview and the lights and the possibilities but there’s a tiny part left able to notice that she’s trying too hard tonight. She hasn’t given him a chance to get lost, to be a tourist; she’s taken him by the hand and shown him how to live here. With her. He can’t blame her, after all they’re considering a move up here - this city at this time, it’s what he wants. Isn’t it?
She slips through the crowds easily, like a local, seemingly intent on a destination even though he knows they’re heading nowhere in particular. He follows close beside her, trying to match her purposeful strides but there must be something in his eyes that betrays him because people don’t seem to avoid him like they do her and he almost runs into someone every few paces.
He’s grateful for her hand in his, keeping him beside her but it’s not lost on him that he couldn’t make it here tonight without her guiding him. He tries not to read anything into that, but it’s hard when he’s completely lost his sense of direction and she’s literally all that’s keeping him from getting carried away with the crowd.
It’s not that he’s not enjoying himself, it’s damn near impossible not to feel alive in this city and it’s a welcome jolt to his system after the way he’s been sleepwalking through life lately. Maybe a change of scenery is exactly what he needs but then again, he remembers, he’s thought that before and it didn’t exactly last. If he’s honest, which he rarely is these days, it didn’t even help much either.
Karen pulls him out of his thoughts before they go too far down that road. “We should probably head to the theater now,” she tells him, checking her wristwatch. “It’ll be intermission soon.”
She always does that, it’s almost like she has a sixth sense that tells her when he’s starting to dwell on the past. She pulls him into the present with a smile or a kiss or a joke and he feels guilty every time he lets her.
“Yeah sure,” he agrees, allowing her to turn them around and head back towards the theater.
He should be laughing like she is, anticipating their little scheme, but all he can think is how he never has much enthusiasm for pranks and jokes when she’s his partner in crime. He’s a different person these days, the sort of person who might move to New York and learn how to walk along the sidewalk like she does, the sort of person who knows where he’s going. Then again, he thinks, if he’s changed so much, why does he still need her to pull him into the present, if it’s where he wants to be?
It’s when he thinks this that he sees her. Pam. Jostled by a crowd of tourists and looking like he feels - lost. A second glance shows it’s not her, just a stranger with a familiar face. Wild thoughts of her following him to New York and kissing him in Times Square dissolve and he is left with reality, with the tangible feeling of Karen’s hand in his. He gives her hand a squeeze and tells himself it’s enough.
Still, he watches the woman that isn’t Pam until she disappears from sight, fighting a strangely powerful desire to follow her. When she’s gone, he is left with only a sudden strangely familiar ache and the memory that has danced on the edges of his mind for days - the real Pam, standing before him, all burnt feet and blunt truth and just absolutely beautiful.
His own words swim in his head. “Even though I came back, I feel like I’ve never really ... come back.”
He glances at Karen and all of New York sparkles in her eyes. For the tiniest moment, he lets himself remember that he saw more in Pam’s eyes on that dark beach than all that this City can ignite in Karen’s.
“Well I wish you would.”
It is Karen again who pulls him from his thoughts, pulling him this time not to the present, but to the future. He realises that while he’s been lost in thought, so has she and when she speaks he knows she’s been dwelling on the same memory he has.
“-would you move with me? I’m not stupid, I was at the beach. We don’t have a future in Scranton, there’s ... one too many people there.”
He makes a joke, anything to diffuse the tension and vaguely agrees.
Suddenly they are outside the theatre and his thoughts come to an abrupt but welcome halt. New York is a wonderful distraction, he can’t help but note, and a tiny voice in the back of his head says that’s all Karen is tonight as well. He shakes his head, physically jerking it to send these terrifying thoughts bouncing away. He gives Karen’s hand another squeeze and heads inside, intent on nothing but getting to their seats, his mind blissfully blank again.
It’s not until halfway through the interview the next day, with Pam’s memo clutched in his hand, that he thinks about last night again, about the stranger on the street and the woman whose hand he was holding.
He thinks about the beach and wonders if maybe he’s been looking at this wrong the whole time. She asked him to come back but somehow it’s not even an issue, because she’ll always be there, wherever he goes. Karen is right, there are too many people in Scranton and yet he realises, with a sudden clarity, that there will always be one too many people, no matter how far they run.
He’ll always see her face in the crowd because he’ll always be looking for it.
Her memo’s plea is pointless, because he knows now that he could never, ever forget her. But something about it’s very existence means absolutely everything. This, this tiny piece of paper with it’s quick message and it’s aged gold yoghurt lid probably took a second to prepare and yet in a way, it took a year, or maybe more. He remembers how he walked back into the office even when she broke his heart in the parking lot. This is her doing the same, her one last gasp of hope. He loves her for it.
In these precious few seconds he remembers a million things, things he’s been denying for too long. Every single reason why he loves her, why he always will, all of it flashes through his mind until it’s just a blur of her smile and her laughter and the tiny quirks he loves for the simple fact of their existence.
“Where do you see yourself in ten years?”
He doesn’t want to see her in a thousand strangers’ faces. He wants to see the real her, the one that laughs in his memories, the one that’s waiting patiently like he never could, at home in Scranton.
The only logical answer to the question is, “with her.”
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