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They stood at opposite sides of the office, glancing every so often in the other’s direction. Jim forced a tight smile at her, and she returned it. He was thankful for once that everyone in the office was slightly narcissistic and oblivious.
No one noticed that they hadn’t talked to one another all night. Or, for that matter, that they hadn’t been driving to work together for the past two weeks or so.
The ride over had been tense, her mouth set in an angry line, and his hands tight on the steering wheel. If he was being honest, the past few months had been tense.
She was supposed to be everything he had ever worked for, all that he had ever wanted. She was supposed to be it.
She left Roy for him. She left him a few weeks before their wedding. Jim had never quite been comfortable with the knowledge that she gave up more for him than he could ever give up for her.
When he told her that he loved her on Casino Night, he wasn’t sure what he expected to happen. But she kissed him up in the dark office, her mouth soft and warm on his, and when he asked her if she was still going to marry Roy, her voice had been small and unsure.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s complicated. It’s just all…it’s all so complicated. I have a lot to think about…I don’t…no,” she finally said. “No, I don’t think…how can I marry...I need time, Jim. I need…” And that had not been exactly what he wanted to hear, but it was enough for him, and he pressed a kiss to her forehead and promised her time. Reassured her that he wasn’t going anywhere. He called Jan once he was in his car and thanked her for the job opportunity in Stamford, but told her that he was going to stay in Scranton.
Pam showed up at his house a day later, a small bag in her hands and her ring finger bare.
“I broke up with Roy,” was all she said and Jim kissed her desperately. She settled into his house and his routine, and there she stayed.
They were engaged now, a new ring on her finger and a new wedding date looming. Jim spent the first few months of their courtship marveling that she had left Roy for him, and that she was his now, and that when she said “I love you” she meant him. He spent nights propped up on one elbow tracing the lines of her face and trying to imagine how he had gotten so ridiculously lucky.
He proposed after a few months, and she laughed against his mouth and against his cheek and his neck and into his sweater and said yes, yes, yes.
He wasn’t sure where it all began to unravel.
But they began fighting. About nothing and everything. They fought over her going back to school or him staying at Dunder Mifflin. They fought about groceries and weekend plans. They fought about the wedding, about flowers and readings and appetizers.
He wanted her to be happy, and it was becoming increasingly more obvious that as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t make her any happier than Roy could.
Pam poured herself a cup of punch and took a single sip of it and realized that someone had left Meredith alone near it.
Jim was talking to Toby in the corner, and she took a minute to watch him without him realizing that she was watching him.
She loved him. She really, truly did love him.
She wasn’t sure what was wrong with her. He loved her. He told her all the time. He told her how much he loved her and how wonderful and perfect and funny and smart she was.
And maybe that was the problem.
Every time that he told her how great and perfect she was, she cringed inside. For the first few months they were together she loved to hear how wonderful he thought she was.
But she wasn’t perfect, and every time she made the tiniest mistake she watched as his face fell and she fell a little further off this impossible pedestal.
She didn’t feel worthy of that kind of adoration. She didn’t think she was the kind of person who deserved or was even comfortable with that kind of worship.
Honestly, she didn’t know what kind of person she was at all.
Pam had been defined by who she was in relation to someone else. First she was Roy’s girlfriend and then Roy’s fiancé and then Jim’s girlfriend and now Jim’s fiancé. And then she would be Jim’s wife and maybe someone’s mother and she had never learned how to just be Pam.
She hated their fights. She hated that they hadn’t really said a single nice thing to one another in weeks.
They had never been very good at communication. Even after she showed up at his house when she left Roy, they hadn’t really talked about it. He never asked her what it was like to leave her fiancé a few weeks before the wedding, or even what her relationship with Roy had really been like.
Jim thought he knew everything about her, and she would never admit it, but she had the sinking feeling that as dysfunctional as her relationship with Roy had looked to other people at least they had been honest with one another. She and Jim tiptoed around each other sometimes, not wanting to rock the boat, not wanting the other to find out that they weren’t everything they had built each other up to be.
Sometimes she had to fight the urge to take the boat and shake it up and sink it and let them sink or swim.
At least that way she’d know she made the right choice.
“Are you going to talk to me any time tonight?” Jim asked. Pam hadn’t said a word since they had gotten in the car to drive home.
“I wasn’t not talking,” Pam said defensively. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and turned her head to face out the window. Jim didn’t say anything, and Pam let out a puff of air and then closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I just, God, I’m so tired of fighting Jim.”
“And what? You think I love it?”
“No,” Pam said. “I don’t…I don’t know.”
“You didn’t say a word to me the whole night,
Pam,” Jim accused. “I’m not sure what I did, but…”
“It’s not you!” Pam yelled. “It’s me! That’s just it, Jim! You didn’t do anything. It’s me, it’s always been me.” The air in the car was charged and Pam could feel it buzzing around her. Jim’s hands stayed on the wheel, his mouth firm and his eyes staring straight ahead.
“Why don’t you just say it?” He finally spoke up.
“Say what?”
“Say what you’ve always wanted to say, tell me that you left Roy for me and you’re unhappy and you would have been happier if I would have taken that fucking job in Stamford!”
“What job in Stamford?”
“Never mind,” he waved his hand.
“No! No! No never mind! What fucking job in Stamford?” Jim stole a glance over at her. Pam was breathing heavily, her hand gripping the car handle. Her hair was slipping out of its usual barrette and she had put on a festive red cardigan for the party.
She was beautiful. And she was slipping away.
After years of pining, after watching her waste her time with Roy, after wanting nothing but her, he was going to lose her.
“I can’t do this,” he said softly pulling the car over. He threw it in park and rested his head back against the seat.
“What job in Stamford Jim?”
“Jan offered me a promotion. I was supposed to let her know by the end of May.” Pam let out a bitter laugh.
“That’s why you told me you loved me. You had a deadline. I was supposed to say yes that night, or what? You were gone?”
“Of course I had a deadline, Pam. But it wasn’t that stupid job! You were going to marry him! I had to tell you before you married that idiot!”
“You’re an idiot,” she said climbing out of the car and slamming the door behind her. Jim dropped his head onto the steering wheel and counted to ten before following after her.
“Pam, please get back in the car. It’s freezing out here.”
“Do you know that I have been in a relationship since I was sixteen years old? That not a single day has gone by since I was sixteen that I haven’t been part of a couple?”
“Pam.” It’s soft, and pleading. She shook her head, and wrapped her arms around herself.
“I’m sorry I’m not everything you thought I would be.”
“You are,” he whispered.
“I’m not,” she replied. “You aren’t in love with me. You’re in love with someone that I’m not. You have no idea who I actually am.”
“I know you,” Jim insisted. “You’re Pamela Morgan Beesly. You’re allergic to shell fish and your favorite movie is Dazed and Confused. You love Death Cab for Cutie and you want to be an artist.”
“No,” her voice broke. “I’m Pam. I’m allergic to shell fish and my favorite movie is The Princess Bride. You love Death Cab for Cutie, and you want me to be an artist. I like art. I think I’m mediocre. I want to work somewhere other than Dunder Mifflin, and it would be great if it could be in art. You always said that Roy didn’t get me, that I changed for him, but Jim, I changed for you too.”
“Are you…what are you…” Jim couldn’t force the words out of his mouth. Couldn’t imagine that he wasn’t supposed to be with this woman forever. The words hung suspended for a moment above them. Pam didn’t answer, and Jim knew what it felt like to drown.
“I don’t know what I’m saying,” Pam whispered. “I don’t…know.” Jim filled his lungs, gasping at the surface, trying to stay above water.
“Pam, I love you,” Jim said softly. “I love…” And she reached for him suddenly and she buried her head in his winter coat, taking him in, breathing in his smell and gripping his coat in her gloved hands.
“I know,” she replied. “I think we should…I think that we should just…” She stepped back slightly, shoved her hands in her pockets and distanced herself again.
“There’s this school in New York. Pratt. It’s a really good school. A good design school, and I applied. I didn’t tell you, but I applied and I got in. I’d go down there, and take classes. I’d live down there.”
“How long is the program?” He asked.
“Three months,” she answered. “And then…”
“Then,” he buried his face in her hair. Then. It was scary and uncertain but Jim took it in his hands and held onto it. Then.
Pam turned towards the car and shrugged.
“Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about,” she said. “Maybe I’m…just…”
“You should go,” Jim interrupted. “You should go to New York. Be on your own for a little while. Just please…please, come back?”
“We should go home,” Pam finally said. “Let’s go home.”
Story Notes:
So this story came about because of several things. First, all these season 2 stories lately made my mind drift back to those angsty times. Second, I was rereading sillyrabbit519's fic "A Matter of Infinite Hope" and this idea that Pam could never live up to this fantasy Pam that Jim had stuck with me. Thirdly, I've always wanted to explore this another idea that's been tossed around about Jim and Pam not being ready to be together at the end of season two. That they had to suffer through that whole Stamford/Karen/Roy part II debacle in order to achieve the epic Pam/Jim-ness that we love.
So. Here is my attempt. It's a one-shot (probably). What if Jim and Pam had gotten together after Casino Night?
So. Here is my attempt. It's a one-shot (probably). What if Jim and Pam had gotten together after Casino Night?
Author's Chapter Notes:
The title is from the song by Jenny Lewis. So much love for Jenny Lewis.
