A/N: This came from my insomnia (which, by the way, is me being lazy and not coming up with a better title). I swear it's the only time when I'm productive. I even starting picking up graveyard shifts at work. It's just weird. I also listened to the whole A Hundred Million Suns album by Snow Patrol while I wrote this story.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I never do.
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The middle of the night had been a very specific time for Pam, all of her life. She remembered all kinds of things that seemed to happen when she was enveloped in the dark.
She was very young in her first memory of waking up and feeling soothed by nighttime. She had memories before then of being afraid, sleeping between her parents while they dozed with an arm around her. And in that time, she wore wide eyes and analyzed shadows. It was fear until her mother's soothing voice and warm hand on her back brought her to sleep, or her body was wrapped in exhaustion.
But, the times after those, she had awaken gently. There wasn't thunder and lightening, or a chill, or odd noises. It was the lashes on her eyes sweeping upward that simply brought her out of sleep, and she let her eyes fall on everything in the room. It was a sleepy state, and she doesn't remember much. Her body was angled in a way that she couldn't see the moon, but just the sliver of white light it gave to the room and everything it touched: her bookbag, the clothes her mother had put out the night before for the next day, old shoes, toys, her bare feet at the end of her bed.
In that moment and the ones that followed her throughout her young years, she fought to keep her eyes open. There was something enchanting about being alone in the dark. It was defiance, secretly up past her bedtime that was hours before. It was solitude, which she hadn't truly appreciated before, being so young.
She never knew what time it was, and her body was still, without any urge to creep downstairs to check the clock on the microwave. Instead, she would lie awake and dream with her eyes open. In the morning, as a child does, she didn't remember much of it. She would be a child again in the morning, laughing and playing and running through sunlight. But, there in the night, she thought about ideas her dreams brought up, or tried to decode simple things that came to her then.
As she got older, the sessions were less frequent. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror before school one morning, and realized it. She credited that to growing up, at the ripe age of thirteen that she was.
A few years later, the middle of the night was the time where the back door swung open and shut. She moved through it quietly, clutching her purse and jacket to her chest as he pulled her across the backyard. She was never caught. Her hair blew in the wind, and he said it was his favorite thing about her. She fell in love every time he kissed her under the moon, before she crept back upstairs and slipped in to her sheets.
Life changed, as it does when you're eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and so on. It was only exciting times at first, drinking with friends on a boat somewhere in the summer. Late nights with her girlfriends and horror movies. As time went on, it was her and Roy giggling and smiling wherever they were, until they were together in an apartment.
And she was happy, and soon the nights were quiet and simple again. She spent every one of them tucked into her sheets with his body somewhere near hers, the sound of his breathing the only thing she could hear. Now and then, she would be at the dining room table surrounded by books and paper and procrastination. But, mostly, it was just like she thought of simplicity: wrapped in his arms or nestled into the warmth of his back.
She remembered spending hours smiling at the little ring he'd presented to her one day. It had only been given to her hours before; in fact, every time she looked up at the clock she added that more time onto the count. Her smile was spread across her face and kept her awake, as she gazed at the ring like a crystal ball should be watched. He snored a little, and the sound made her smirk as she let their future play on the back of her eyelids. He moved to her in his sleep, she sighed wistfully and yielded to sleep.
There were so many more years then, because she was getting older. The nights were more or less the same, and she could count on one hand the times they'd been up fighting. Oddly enough, it was times like that when the moon should have cut across their faces like a blade. But, she remembered, in one moment when the shouting ceased, how she'd found her peace in the nighttime as a little girl years before.
She only gave in that time and let Roy win because this thought caught her by surprise. She suddenly anticipated him falling asleep quickly so she could be alone and lie on her side and just think. When she started to sneak out of the arguments, becoming passive and silent and shrugging just to be able to to think, she knew that it meant something. And it was something that she should have paid attention to, but instead she would lie awake and think about everything but that.
At one point, she'd slid the end table toward the living room window. It was three in the morning, and she wasn't exhausted but she was sleepy. It was perfect for what she could do with the paper and oil pastels she placed on the end table. The only light she had was the familiar glare of the moon. She wasn't sure at what point she'd fell back onto the couch. In the morning, it was a Saturday and her pastels had melted in the light from the window. Next to the mess, a blank sheet of the paper she'd set aside with Roy's scribbled handwriting in Indigo. I had to work, there was a shipment going out around one, but I'll be back by three or four. Love ya!
The only surviving pastel was buried in the couch cusions where her toes had been. Indigo. She threw them all away, and saved the paper that was still blank.
It wasn't long after that before she was lying awake and her thoughts paced through her mind. Roy had been upset about something their boss had done at work, and she had wanted to go out with coworkers, Roy had said no... But another thought, another person kept her up all night then. She was guilty at first, then she assured herself it was nothing, then she was comparing. His eyes to Roy's, his hair, his voice, the way he smiled, the way he smiled at her, the expressions he only showed her, the ones she only showed him.
It was ironic when there had been an anniversary dinner the night she caught herself looking at her ring again. Her eyes flicked downward for just a moment before realizing what was in her head. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, forcing sleep in a way she knew wouldn't work. It was always thoughts about Jim. She tried not to think about that, but it was hard to ignore when she saw him everyday, and then even when her eyes were closed at night.
It was something she only thought about at night, and lightly, until he kissed her. His lips were sincere and his hands were firm on her back, and she felt like she remembered parts of it from memories or dreams. Her conscience was smothered, and her guilt was too sleepy to be a part of her for only a second, and then she knew enough to tell him no, in some way. When she did, it was the last time she saw him.
Shortly after that, after a series of arguments, and more I can'ts, and apologies, she was alone again in the dark.
Though she'd fallen back into the pattern of a little girl's sleepless nights, the memory of them became even stronger then. She remembered solitude again as it truly was, because she'd never felt more alone than she was now. She was warm and alone in her bed, slightly asleep; it was the warmth that you feel when you wake up every morning because no matter how cold you were when you went to sleep, you're just right when you open your eyes. Her hair made her ear against the pillow itch, and as she moved to pull it away and tugged the covers to her chin, she thought about him over and over.
Roy eased his way out of her life as they talked less and less, and Jim was miles away in another state. She talked to her mom on the phone nightly, painted the walls of her apartment, signed up for art classes, bought new clothes, and experimented with her hair. She didn't feel like exactly the same person when she went to bed each night. Maybe just the old her with a few new parts. She'd put music on sometimes, so she could wake up to it in the middle of the night like she knew she would, but it wasn't right.
It was quiet and dark and familiar when she woke up then. Occasionally she would sit back into the recliner in the living room and sketch something distractedly, and she had hoped that the strange of the night would bring out the best of her, artistically. But it was just a small, cliched notion that didn't stand. She'd wanted her insomnia to draw the best pictures, but she usually let the paper and pencil fall to the floor, watching the moon glide across the sky.
She woke up to the whir of the space heater in the corner one night. Her eyes were quickly drifting back closed when she thought of what he might be like next to her in that bed. What his fingertips would feel like dragging across her skin, where he would kiss and touch her, what his face would look like with the moon across it. She wondered what he would say as they were falling asleep, if he'd say anything. If he was the type to hold her all night or press his back to hers like Roy would. She wondered if he would press a kiss into her shoulder, maybe fall asleep there; maybe she'd wake up with his lips still lingering there, and she could be so happy.
In that moment then, she felt completely unhappy and cried.
There were three more nights like that, and she finally unplugged the cell phone charger from its spot at the kitchen counter. Her phone rested on her nightstand and she watched every night until she summoned the courage to make a phone call. It was her sleepy state that dialed the number, then quickly snapped the phone shut when she saw what time it was. Not everyone in the world is up like you are, she thought. It was midnight, and five minutes later when he called back.
She only opened it because she was surprised. She touched it to her ear, and rolled back onto her pillow. It was the side of the bed where the light sat.
"Hello?" she whispered, as if not to wake him up.
"Hey," he said warily. "Did you just call me?"
"Yeah," she said in a second, a little breathless and scattered with exhaustion. She imagined what he looked like then, if his hair was sticking out in all directions, or clinging to one side of his face.
"Oh."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to, I didn't realize what time it was," she stammered, shrugging against the mattress. A curl of wind brushed across the window outside. "Sorry to wake you up."
"No, no, you didn't," he corrected her, somewhat enthusiastically. "I'm kind of an insomniac lately."
"Oh," she breathed, and the slightest of smiles overcame her. A warmth spread across her cheeks, and through her body, and she let it take her completely. His voice was closer to her than it had ever been, pushed into her ear; it was lower, extracted from sleep. He mumbled into his phone about his day, about Stamford, about his car. Everything until she was grinning ear to ear and missing parts of the sentences he spoke.
He made a joke about something they shared when he'd been in Scranton, and as she laughed, she choked on the words: "God, I've missed you."
A beat and then, "Yeah," he said, with a sigh, "I've missed you, too, actually."
When they had talked for almost two hours, she told him she had to sleep, and he agreed. Even from miles away, it took him some time to say goodbye to her over the phone that night, and it pained her to repeat it.
She thought about the phone call for a week before she heard of him again. She played parts of it out in her mind, coming out of a dream of him when her phone rang. It was him, and she smiled, and caught herself focusing before she could answer.
It was a few weeks later, many midnight calls later, when she finally felt the words she'd thought of since the Monday after he kissed her. In the beginning, her lips were tied into an ecstatic grin, the words sitting behind her teeth. She couldn't move enough to say any words at first, just excitement and relief to hear him talking to her again. When the weeks went on, she remembered him all over again, getting to know him again, reaffirming every brief thought and notion she'd had of him since he'd left.
When his voice was so close to her, she closed her eyes and imagined him next to her, with his lips pressed to where the phone was set. She wondered if he'd do the same when she talked, or when they were just breathing, like they sometimes did. Or if the breathing soothed him, too, like it did her.
"Do you ever go see the ocean?"
"Nah," he said, one night when they talking. "I don't really need to. I can see it right outside my window everyday. I just look to the left, there it is."
"Really?" All she ever did anymore, when talking to him like this on the phone, was smile lazily and draw circles on the sheets with her fingers. "Is it pretty?"
"Yeah," he said, and she could hear his slight nod. "Nothing like my old view, though."
She laughed, "What -- Dwight?" She giggled again before she realized he was talking about her. Their silence sat heavy, tangled in telephone wires, before he spoke again.
A sigh first, then, "Yeah," with a brief laugh. "No, it totally beats that view."
She didn't know whether or not she should, but she smiled anyway. Maybe she'd just stumbled upon something, but she couldn't be sure, and she was so tired and happy to hear his voice. So she sighed with the weight of exhaustion again, and exhaled her words. "Yeah."
Then the words were there again, the Monday words she held back, and they came past her lips like water through a dam.
"Come back, Jim." It came off her lips like the plea it was, and her eyes shut when she braced herself. It was 3:03, and it rained like it does in the spring, with the shadows of running raindrops on the walls of her room.
For a long time, he said nothing. Maybe if it was earlier in the day, a normal time, she'd be frozen and she'd interrupt the silence with something close to a lie. A backup, like, "The office is terrible without you." But in her state, wrapped in her sheets that she wished he would share, she let the quiet hang between them. She waited for anything aside from the sound of his quiet inhale and exhale, her eyes heavy.
Her lips were pursed, as she tried to press all the other words she wanted to say to him somehow. The words that she wouldn't say until she could see his face again, words that phone lines couldn't deliver the way she wanted to.
When the first feeling of worry crawled up into her throat, he chased it away with the crack in his low voice. No matter what the words he said, even if he said them everyday, she felt like they were only for her. That maybe he saved the tone of his voice, the way his mouth made certain words, just for her, just for their phone calls in sheets and under the moon, here in the middle of the night.
"The branch is closing," he said with exasperation.
Her eyes had fluttered open at that, silently alert. She pushed herself up with her feet and rested her back against the headboard. She heard him shift on the other side.
"Stamford?"
"Yeah," he said, his voice low and coarse. "I was offered a position in Albany, and, of course... Scranton."
She blinked and glanced at the clock. 3:06. What?
"There's going to be a lot of people coming over, actually. Some of them are going to Scranton, some are getting laid off, me and another guy were offered positions in Albany, so..."
She felt her body get tense with something she couldn't figure out.
"Pam, you know why I left, I know you do. And I can't come back if--"
"I know." She nodded fiercely, her free hand gripping the sheet gathered on top of her knees, close to her chest.
There was a brief quiet again before his voice came back, and it was deeper now, and the sincerity broke something inside of her. "I don't think you--" He stopped, made a noise like a sigh and a groan, and she could picture him. Rubbing his eyes, his face, his hair and staring off dejectedly. "What I told you? I still... Wow, god... I still am."
She swallowed and her hand relaxed, releasing the wrinkled fabric and letting it fall over her knees again. It was all silence, and she picked up a few words that she wanted to say, but she'd save those. She wanted to see his face when she said them, and she wanted to hold him, and... "Come back, Jim."
When her eyes opened, she was facing the foot of the bed. The light cut across the room in one white beam, spilling onto the tips of her toes as they poked out from under the sheets. She stretched her arms downward, against her side and sucked in a breath. She would've slipped back into sleep, maybe, but she felt him nudge her between the shoulder blades.
"Are you awake?" he asked, his breath against her back as he spoke.
A tiny smile tugged at her. "No."
She twisted slowly in his arms until she faced him, and he brought her closer to him, his fingers moving across her back until it tickled and they both laughed in whispers. She pressed her face into his neck and he rubbed her back through the t-shirt she wore.
"How long have you been up?" she asked against his skin.
"I don't know, fifteen minutes, maybe."
"Hmm."
She brought her arms up, resting one around his torso, and the other bent between their bodies, her hand lying delicately on his chest. She stroked the skin there lightly, and he sighed a little bit, which made her smile.
He pressed a kiss to her shoulder and led more up her neck to behind her ear, then stopped and rested his head there. Her hand came up his back and neck and into his hair, playing with the ends.
"You're so affectionate in the middle of the night," she said with a small giggle.
"I'm always affectionate," he mumbled against her neck, his hands running along the hem of her t-shirt. "I can never help myself."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, and you know it," he said, his hands traveling further down and caressing her thighs. "You know it, so you jump into bed, wearing just a t-shirt. Don't play coy, you're not fooling anyone."
She surpressed a giggle and started to back away teasingly before he drew her to him with a strong grip. She struggled a little, as if she'd try and go anywhere but there, and eventually relaxed in his hold and kissed him.
And if they weren't like that, he usually found her bent over the desk in the living room, concentrating on the lines she made across the blank paper. She knew he sometimes watched her before he said anything, the way her hand would move across the page like it wasn't holding a pencil. She made small movements before the tip touched, and then there were lines and lines, then a picture: scenes outside the window under the moon, various objects around the room, but mostly him.
"Hey," he whispered one night, in his t-shirt and flannel pants against the doorway. "It's four."
She looked up at him with heavy eyelids and rolled her eyes. "I know, I'm almost done."
He came to her side as she finished the shading around his eyes, and he scratched her back tenderly. "Me again? I must really inspire you, huh?" He chuckled and nudged her shoulder.
She laughed, without taking her eyes off the picture. "You wish. I think it's the insomnia."
"Nah," he said slowly. "It's all me."
She glanced up and flashed a smile at him before she hung her head over the picture again.
"Come get some sleep when you're done, 'kay?" he said, shuffling back to the bedroom.
"I will," she called quietly. Her hands stilled and she closed her eyes in a moment of sheer emotions before she started again. She recited little tips in her head about portrait drawings from a class until she decided her exhaustion was only going to ruin what could be a good picture. She tucked all the supplies into a drawer and the paper into a folder, and slid out of the chair.
She immediately climbed back into bed when she reached the bedroom and turned onto her side. Jim wrapped his arms around her from behind and she sighed into sleep. He put a kiss into her hair somewhere, and soon he was asleep there. Her eyes roamed around the room, the walls boasting sketches that were all products of late nights, all illuminated by the same cut of white light.
It was all him.
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