It’s another Friday night, and Poor Richard’s is just as crowded and loud as ever, noisy with classic rock-and-roll pouring from the jukebox and the constant, mindless chatter of patrons scattered all about the establishment. There's united people pocketed all over in every corner, and all are carrying conversations at varying decibels. The Dunder Mifflin entourage is packed tight into the corner nearest the pool tables, a cluster of warehouse guys loitering around a booth inhabited by the effervescent Kelly (who seems to be riding a margarita high), the more-than-inebriated Meredith, the stony-faced Oscar, and goofy-grinned Kevin, both of whom are clutching dark labeled brews.

"Now, are you actually lining up a shot or just stretching funny?" Kelly hollers between workers, making the red-headed woman shoot the customer service rep daggers out of the corner of her eye. Proudly, Kelly leans back in her booth, tipping her frozen rose-pink drink back down her mouth.

Pam sighs and re-angles herself (“Yeah, that’s what I thought…” Kelly calls just loud enough to make her squirm), her arms lifted and pointed out in the way two different boys have shown her in the past. She squints and glowers at the white cue ball, then peeks over it to the solid purple that is poised for the perfect shot in the farthest left corner pocket. She draws the stick back and shoots it forward sharply. It’s a bit too quick and hard (that is most certainly what she said), she observes with dismay, as the purple ball is sent careening just off-center from the pocket. As Kelly whoops riotously from the corner booth, Pam turns upon her with lifted eyebrows and she holds up the pool stick. "I’m sorry; did you want to have a turn?"

"Uh, you're playing my boyfriend, not me," Kelly spitefully replies. "But when your stick-figure excuse for boyfriend decides to wander in--"

"Oh, shut it," Pam rolls her eyes and turns back to the table before Kelly can finish, watching Darryl snicker heartily to himself as he lines up a new shot.

Meredith slurs over the dull roar, "Hey, uh ... where is that piece of hotness, anyway? You two didn't break up or anything, did ya’?" It could almost be considered a leer that the drunken woman presents Pam then, and it's all Pam can do not to get sick from the very notion that seems conjured within Meredith's mind.

She turns away with a headshake, looking visibly disgusted as she moans, "Meredith..." in some sort of sad reprimand. When Darryl sinks his shot, Pam flinches and sighs, bouncing the end of her stick against the tile floor in a mild show of frustration.

"Anyway, he's having a poker night," she provides after a moment to the group at her left, already knowing that they've probably tuned out or moved on to far more interesting topics. But Meredith's suggestion had hung in the air a little too long for Pam's liking, and it felt almost desperately important that she answer it. "Mark and he hadn't seen each other in a while, so I just...." Her voice fades out as she glances askance to find the majority of the group (as she had anticipated) either engrossed in other conversations or eyeballing Darryl as he lands another striped ball in the middle pocket on the right.

"I thought you said you were going to go easy on me," Pam bemoans his winning streak, hating the sight of her many solid colors versus his two remaining stripes that litter the table.

"I am," Darryl states smoothly and simply, and when his stick scratches against the cue ball, he flicks his eyes up pointedly to Pam. "Oops."

"Darryl!" Kelly squeals, distraught. "What the hell was that? Pam is supposed to suck -- not you!"

Pam grins brilliantly and rounds the table to collect her Corona by the neck of the bottle, a quick swig of the light golden beer taken. "Well-played," she commends his chivalry and tips the drink toward the warehouse foreman in a show of thanks. He responds with the merest of smiles, already backing away from the table for Pam to take her turn.

She ducks to form that rookie arrow with her limbs again, but Darryl's sudden boisterous greeting of someone and the gasps of a few of her colleagues startle her up from her shot. Immediately, she wishes she hadn't looked, as her stomach falls out somewhere around her toes. Caught up in a manly handshake-hug with Darryl is Roy, and the abrupt self-inflicted tension between those congregated is at once palpable. It's embarrassing how quickly his eyes land on her; Pam blushes at her state and the obvious attention of her riveted coworkers.

"I guess it's a good thing Gorgeous didn't come after all," Meredith burps as she scoots out of the booth at Kevin’s urging. The accountant’s massive body is not far behind her as he gapes open-mouthed in horror at the large blonde man across from him, and he urgently mumbles something as he all but shoves Meredith the rest of the way out.

"Kevin, don’t be ridiculous…" Oscar mutters, shame-faced by his associate’s sudden terror. He spares a quick glance up at Pam, a brow raised for her, and she doesn't miss it despite how readily she looks away from him. With a bow of his head, he finishes his drink and shuffles out of the booth like those before him.

As more of the top-floor associates disperse, leaving Pam and Kelly collected among the warehouse workers, Roy meanders a little closer to the table and flashes a swift grin up at Pam. She struggles to find something similar in her arsenal of half-hearted expressions. She is certain she comes up rather short. "Hey, Pam," he greets in low tones, glancing back with a nod as Darryl gestures that he and a clingy, excited Kelly are headed for the bar. His gaze rakes back over her, and she flushes harder, the cue stick clutched in her sweaty palm beginning to wobble. "Wow, you look... so different," he breath-laughs, somewhere between awe and embarrassment.

"Thanks," she takes the assumed compliment cautiously. "I guess. Uhm." As she falters and works to dig up any kind of starting point, Pam works silently to search out any familiar faces that she can. Alas, her hunt proves fruitless, and she settles her gaze back over her ex-fiancé. "So! What's, uhm-- How's it going?"

"Good," Roy offers a little too brightly, a little too chipper. It makes her wonder if everything’s really that good at all, or if he just feels as awkward as she does. She genuinely hopes it’s the latter. "Great, actually. I, uh, got a job working over at this auto parts place, and that’s, y’know…"

"Great," Pam encourages over him, knowing that her head is bobbing much too quickly. "That's just... really great! I'm really glad."

"Yeah, it's great," Roy clears his throat around the awkwardness that is undoubtedly lodged therein, another flicker of his smile granted up. "So, uh, what about you? Out with those guys, huh?" He seems to take a cursory look around the bar of his own, and something definitely appears to strike him as odd. If Pam still knows him as well as she thinks, Roy's got his mouth puckered in that way when he seems to find something out of place or not as he had anticipated. Like curiosity and confusion combined. Painfully, it reminds her of that first, fleeting moment she initially broke things off with him – when it hit his ears, but not his brain quite yet.

Pam nods on, ridding her head of silly things like former romances and unbearable angst from times past, thinking instead of the half-gone Corona just within her reach. She takes the bottle and raises it with an exaggerated arch of her eyebrows. "Guilty! I am actually associating outside of the workplace, if you believe it," she sighs heavily and follows it up with a good chug. The drink makes her insides clench and allows her a momentary lapse of comfort. "Oh, and! Playing pool," she gestures with the stick and toward the game she and Darryl have abandoned.

"That’s cool, that’s cool… So, uh," Roy stutters over himself, obviously hesitating and rethinking whatever he has on his brain. Finally, he queries as casually as his downcast eye line will allow, "No Halpert around, huh? Is he still with that, uh ... what was her name?" He glances up at Pam for reference, and she doesn't know how he misses her head-shake, the movement of her mouth to stop him. "That really hot Hispanic-looking chick? Carrie or whatever?"

His fishing for her name makes Pam's insides do a different kind of tensing and she moves to redeposit the cue stick in its proper slot. "Uhm, well, Jim is--" She senses movement, hears the scuffle of heavy boots to her left, and Pam looks up to find Roy to be scarce feet from her. It sort of knocks her into silence again, and this proximity makes her ears itch with simultaneous anxiety and embarrassment. She is struck with that feeling one gets when walking to the front of the classroom to give a speech or book report; like everyone's watching you and you're being graded very intently.

When she comes back to her courage, she resumes her head-shaking and wills her shoulder to rise and fall in a shrug. She's not that Pam anymore. She's the new, “don’t-call-me-Pammy”, cool-as-a-cucumber, Jim's-girlfriend Pam, and she should take things in stride. Like meeting up with her ex-fiancé (who tried to punch her now-boyfriend in the face only a few months ago) in a crowded bar. "He's-- Jim’s actually out with some of his other friends tonight. And he's not--"

"Pam, hey," Roy peers down at her and his eyebrows narrow inward as he examines her. It's a foreign feeling to Pam; she doesn't recall many times where this man had ever tried to discern her. Yeah, there was that other guy who had often read into her every movement and could undoubtedly write an entire novel on all of her countless facial expressions, both minute and grandiose. However, in the years she had been with Roy, he rarely went to such lengths as to understand her through eyes alone. "Y’know, you don't have to be nervous," he mutters out, and she feels guilty by the way he looks back at Darryl, and then the exit. "I mean, I can go--"

"Oh, god, don't," Pam beseeches him and reaches to grab his arm, to stop him from moving away. "I'm sorry, Roy, it's just--"

But whatever it is 'just' remains to be seen. Outside their line of vision, a strangled yelp-slash-cry pierces through Guns 'N' Roses, and Pam suddenly has her hand snatched away from the crook of Roy’s elbow. She quickly withdraws her hand from Andy's grasp, shaking his invisible remnants off of herself with a terrible wrinkle to her nose. "What the hell, Andy?"

"I should wonder the very same, Pamela Beesly," Andy tells her on with a motherly fashion, a dirty, accusatory look spared that might actually make her question herself, if it wasn't so absurd. "What are you doing over here with this dude?"

"Excuse me? I don't have to--" Pam begins to protest, incensed.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who the hell is this?" Roy lifts his thumb to signal at Andy.

"I am her—her, uh, boyfriend, sir," Andy responds haltingly, his head whipping around to face Roy as he effectively and blatantly ignores Pam's exclamation of surprise. Despite the obvious height difference, he strives to make defiant eye contact with the larger man, torn between the necessity to appear unfazed and the natural urge to back away from someone shaped like Roy. "And who, might I ask, are you?"

Pam moves her mouth like a guppy out of water for a few unnerving minutes as Roy snorts only in what could be equated to amazement, looking sharply between the two off Andy’s introduction and subsequent query. "You're a joke, man," he scoffs and hitches an eyebrow at Pam. "Seriously? This guy? Halpert, I kind of get, but Pam, really--"

"N-No!" She stammers out and ducks out from underneath Andy's intrusive, pseudo-protective arm that falls across her shoulders. Stung back into action at once, she twirls on the preppily attired Cornell graduate, utter shock and revulsion well-embedded in her bright and red features. "You have never and would never even be in the running to be my boyfriend, EVER, so what do you even think--"

"I know what I'm doing, Pam," Andy cuts her off in a stage whisper out of the corner of his mouth, still refraining from paying her any kind of direct look, as he remains instead intent only on Roy. "So, is, uh, is this dude bothering you?"

"Andy..." Pam groans in exasperation and runs her hand over her forehead, kneading at a headache undoubtedly throbbing into life. She offers a pleading looking up at Roy -- who, most unfortunately, appears just as focused on Andy.

"Pam, you just say the word, and this guy is out on his ass," Roy does not bother to conceal the obvious contempt in the way he eyes Andy from head to foot, a sneer stretching over his face as he takes in the bright pink polo and dark sweater combo. It is quite clear that Andy is not in the sort of dress that he favors.

To his credit, as Roy begins to size him, Andy plays like the peacock he is dressed as and shuffles forward a single step. He hauls both eyebrows nearly to his hairline – a silent dare. Though, he deflates significantly as Roy calls his bluff and bows up, leans in toward him in retaliation, menacing in all the most masculine ways that becomes painfully apparent Andy is not.

"Oh, just knock it off," Pam chastises them both, grasping Andy by the forearm and yanking him back a few paces from Roy. He does not argue - smarter than she gave him credit for - but merely pouts. "Roy, this is Andy, who is not," she emphasizes plainly with another forceful, aggressive tug at Andy's arm, "my boyfriend." She glowers up at the brilliantly garbed salesman, her most withering look present. "Who is also not doing this right now."

"Pam, I'm just looking out for Tuna, 'kay? For the both of you," Andy blusters, both his palms held up in defense from Pam’s scolding. He casts a sidelong look at Roy, and he does not appreciate the other man’s evident amusement in the situation. "What?"

"Nothin', man, just … never mind," Roy waves a hand between Pam and Andy, then shakes his head and dissolves gradually into heavy chuckles. With his large forefinger, he wipes at a tear that leaks from humor, a boyish grin upturned on his mouth as he looks again to Pam. In that moment, she is as much a bundle of apology and pleading as she ever has been in his presence. It only serves to fuel his amusement. "Listen, I'm gonna go hang with Darryl," he announces to her, reaching to pat her shoulder (Andy begins to move his arm to swat at him, but Pam grabs his arm cruelly before he gets there) as he tips his head to the side. He takes a long look at her, and she can easily make out the nostalgia that oh-so-briefly mists across his eyes. Roy retrieves himself and rolls both shoulders. "It was, uh, good to see you again, Pammy."

The sincerity of his statement makes Pam's head incline, and she pushes up a similar departing smile. "You too, Roy. Take care?" She does mean it, and she tries to make sure he knows that.

And he does. He nods only once and withdraws his hand from his pocket for a farewell wave. There is a final, lingering once-over of Andy taken, before Roy pivots and begins for the bar, a bark of laughter sounding not long after he's turned.

As soon as he has left ear-shot, Pam pirouettes and shoves hard at Andy, who balks and staggers back a few steps. “Don’t you ever do that again,” she whispers, voice at a near-deadly pitch. “Do you know what he could’ve done to you, Andy?”

“Look, I was just making sure that you were okay,” Andy slowly and calmly assures Pam, though his almost condescending tone only serves to make her that much more furious. “And see, it worked out! I mean, that guy’s over there,” he leans toward where Roy departed then flourishes with his hands between he and Pam, “and we are over here! No fisticuffs necessary! Oh, hey!” Something catches his eye and Andy half-skips around Pam to collect two cue sticks, one brandished for her benefit. “We should totally play a round! What do you say, m’lady?” His penchant for accents, particularly this Cockney one he adopts toward the end of his sentence, does not appear to do him any favors when it comes to Pam.

However, his exuberance, which Pam can only imagine stems from either relief that he did not have to pursue any further actions against Roy or that he sincerely believes he helped her, makes her sigh wearily and reach for a stick, her shoulders sagging just a little bit more. “Yeah, sure,” she allows half-heartedly, very much feeling a new tiredness in her bones. She watches as Andy sets to clearing out the table and re-racking the balls, her Corona finished by the time he moves the triangle off the table.

She leans down and begins to line up her shot to break them up, and Pam hears him ask over the din of Joan Jett, “So, who was that dude, anyway?”

When Pam glances over, she sees him distractedly polishing at the tip of his stick with the blue chalk. Despite the dwindling kindle of her earlier fury, she can’t help but feel it wane when he looks back up at her with that goofy, full-toothed grin. Pam giggles to herself (it’s got to be the beer) and rears back for her strike, calling over the table, “That was my ex-fiancé. The one who used to work in the warehouse?”

Pam isn’t sure if it’s Joan Jett screeching violently for that fraction of a second, or if it’s Andy. Judging by the sheer terror written across his face, as he melodramatically turns his head in slow motion toward Roy’s direction, she’s going to go with the latter.

“Your shot, Andy,” she reminds him casually, willing her amusement to hide.

“You mean, that’s the, uhm, the one who … who tried to hit Tuna?”

“Yup! One in the same. But, oh, don’t worry,” he catches her eye when she assures him, and Pam can’t resist the idea of playing with him just a little bit. “He got banned from here earlier this year for kind of trashing the bar after he found out about me and Jim. So, I’m assuming he’s on some kind of probation.” Pam grins slowly at the way Andy’s arms tremor while he lines up his shot and – god, she really can’t help herself – she leans over to eye his angle speculatively. “I mean, if he really wants to start anything with you, he’ll probably just do it in the parking lot later.”

He audibly swallows, and Pam watches the cue strike a solid and before it hits the pocket, she indifferently queries, “You have insurance on your car, right? I mean, not for, like … accidents or anything, but if someone were to, uhm, key it or…” She avoids his strained gaze, thinking of Jim and wishing he were there to coach her as she coasts her eyes across the scattered colored orbs and calculates her possible moves. “…Say, take a baseball bat to it?”