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Author's Chapter Notes:
I know, I know. I've been dropping the ball on this one. BUT! I knew that this would be a bit more difficult with the format of the story that I chose. The flashbacks all have to line up and make sense with the current time, and I was fighting for a while with this story to line things up. Hopefully it'll be a bit smoother going forward. Thank you to those of you who are sticking with me! Hopefully I don't disappoint :)

 

“What are you doing here?”


It was her arms wrapped around his neck, the way her knees were clutching against his hip bones to hold her up as his hands clenched underneath her butt to keep her there, the feeling of his breath against her lips, cutting through his wide, toothy grin, that told her this was real. The giggle in her voice, the way the sunlight made her smile golden as she sealed their embrace, that made his heart swell ten times in his chest. They didn’t care that they were in the middle of the Dunder Mifflin parking lot. To hell with the coworkers that were giving them sideways glances and eye rolls.


And Angela, who was most definitely clutching the cross pendant that hung around her neck as she shuddered into the building.


He was back.


The merger had tilted in their favor with impeccable timing, and his move to Scranton had been almost immediate.


She wasn’t sure which part she savored more: having him five feet from her desk again, or no longer having to make the trek east to Connecticut.


They’d only been doing it for a couple of weeks, but this whole long distance thing was something she’d never wanted to grow accustomed to anyway. Sure, the phone calls late into the weeknights were something that she rushed home gleefully for, and she could now make the drive into Stamford without needing help from MapQuest, but something about being in his arms without the fear of having to leave him again for five insufferable days was just heavenly.


And taking into account all that they’d endured, they’d already been apart for long enough.


Although there was a scheduled day later on in the week for the rest of the Stamford transfers to arrive, Jim had wanted to settle in early, making the transition a little bit smoother for the actual new people. So after Josh let shit hit the fan, he made a call to Michael, and woke up at the crack of dawn to coincide his arrival with hers, which wasn’t all that hard to do. They’d been phoning each other every morning on their respective drives in anyway. She’d be there at exactly 8:57. Not a minute earlier.


At 8:45, he was waiting in the parking lot, sitting on the trunk of his car with his feet dangling, kicking happily as he awaited the turn of the little blue Yaris into the lot. She had barely put it in park before she was propelling herself into his arms, nearly knocking him over in the process with her bear hug.


He returned her words of surprise with his lips on her lips, claiming the soft skin whose territory was now becoming his favorite to traverse. He moved against her, relishing the closeness of her body to his, the way that she pressed into him and urged him closer. This was so much different than all those months ago when he was desperate and she was hesitant. She wanted this, wanted him, and cameras be damned, he was going to enjoy his welcome home.


Of course, as they reluctantly parted, and he eased her gently to the pavement with a kiss on the forehead, and she was smiling up at him like he hung the stars in the sky, he knew that getting through a full work day was going to be the most pure and delicious form of torture he’d ever endured.


He could hardly call what he did that day work, despite the welcome back hugs (and tackles) and heckling he received, which mostly petered out by mid-morning. By his seventh trip to reception--before lunch, at that--he was heavily debating selling her paper just to say that he was being somewhat productive.

 

It was here, in this exact place that he'd fallen in love with her, and it was here that they would continue to grow. He was never going to let the space between them grow to more than five feet ever again

 

----

 

“What are you doing here?” The words this time were not so sweet, her smile not gleaming in the sunlight with her forehead matted against his. He actually cringed a little when he noticed the guardedness in her tone, the way her eyebrows scrunched together, questioning him as if he didn’t belong. But then, he didn't really.


It was only ten in the morning, but it was by far the longest amount of time he’d spent away from her bedside since she’d been admitted. Her words from that previous night, Are you gonna come back tomorrow? Like after work? and Check your shoes before you leave this time stung his ears as the nurse had kicked him out. He was candidly reminded that she had no recollection of who he was, but there was hope in those words, in the way she had looked at him as if the part of her that was still his Pam was fighting to say hello.


He obviously wasn’t about to go the Scranton Business Park from 9 to 5 and do anything remotely close to selling paper. But she was right. He did need to change his shoes.


And shower.


Maybe eat something more substantial than a cafeteria quality grilled cheese sandwich and tepid black coffee.


The rest of her family had gone home, and while he felt guilty leaving her there all alone, he trusted her dreams to keep her safe for now.


He had slopped shampoo through his hair and haphazardly scrubbed the suds down his body, his locks barely dried by the time he collapsed on a bed that hadn’t seen the light of day in over a week. Though he deliciously welcomed the few hours of sleep that his body claimed, he was still awake at six forty-five without the promise of more. It killed him to stall, to pace around his apartment waiting for a reasonable time to head back to the hospital that didn’t make him look desperate and clingy. He found clothes discarded in the hallway, several dishes with caked on food still piled in the sink, and made himself busy. By nine o’clock, his car trudged the fifteen minutes across town. His parking spot was still vacant.


With his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, he double checked his shoes once more before knocking quietly on her door. Her greeting truly pained him, reminding him tauntingly of that first day back in Scranton, of that afternoon and evening and the ones to follow, ones that were so different from where they were now. Those nights were full of promise and hope and starting over. But this, right now, was not the kind of starting over he’d prepared for.


Now, standing in front of her with his wide grin and sense of hope wiped cleanly off his face, he felt so awkwardly out of place. Suddenly, he had no idea what to do with his hands, or where his feet were supposed to go. It had been so much easier to be here when she was asleep, her dreams protecting him from the knowledge that her mind no longer belonged to his reality.


“Do you have the day off today or something?” She was genuinely questioning him, with no other basis to go on, but her words still stung.


Yes. Michael knows I’m not coming in until you’re safe and home again.


“I just assumed you had to work since Roy had to work. We all work at the same place, don’t we?”


He nodded, his thumb twiddling against the strap of his bag as he cleared his throat.


“I, uh...had a few errands to run this morning. I just thought I’d drop by, see if you had died of boredom yet.”


“Pretty close to it,” she replied, her eyes rolling with a slight curl of her lips. “But seriously, you didn’t have to stop by here so early. I figured you’d come by after you were off tonight. I’m sure you’re going to hear it from your--our boss--if you don’t get your butt to the office.”


Leave it to Michael Scott to break the tension.


He grinned, chuckling as he finally found his footing.


“Nah. Honestly, Pam? He’s probably too preoccupied with his lady troubles at the moment to notice that I’m not out there pounding the pavement to sell paper.”


“Lady troubles? That guy?” Her bemused chuckle gave him flashes of the girl he once knew, and for a moment, he was warm again.


“I know, kinda hard to believe, but let me tell you, Michael Scott’s dating life is a force to be reckoned with.”


Her eyes were softening, her expression no longer contorted so much, and when she nodded, he took a seat, finally relaxing when he was eye level with pools of green.


“Hey, what’s in the bag?" she asked, shifting her body as if to get a better angle.


“Oh, this?” he replied, holding up the blue canvas bag that not so long ago held a toothbrush and a change of clothes for when he’d spend the night at her place. “Nothing special. I just brought along a few surprises to save one Miss Beesly from going totally clinically insane in this joint.”


“Oooo, let me see!” Her eyes bugged out of her head, that childlike excitement bringing a glowing aura that he hadn’t seen in far too long. She reminded him of a kid on Christmas, waiting so patiently impatient to open up the first gifts.


“Hey now, we don’t want to spoil all of the fun at once, do we?”


“I guess not. Can I at least have a peek?”


He could never say no to those pleading eyes, and this case was no different.


He gingerly unzipped the bag, fingering the item he’d hunted down in the office before pulling it out of the bag.


“Jelly beans?” She eyed the plastic container, taking it from his offering hands reluctantly, turning it over in her own several times before lifting the lid.


“Absolutely.”


“And how, dare I ask, are these supposed to save me from boredom?”


“Oh, we’re going to test all of the flavors and rank them according to overall flavor and plausibility as a legitimate jelly bean flavor. Obviously.”


Her smile betrayed her quirked eyebrows, and she could only shake her head as her laughter brought life to the otherwise dull atmosphere. She moved the container safely to the tray table that was swung to the side of her bed, patting it twice as if to reassure its place in her room.


“I’ll have to save these for later so we can split them after dinner. I’m sure Roy’s bringing me something that isn’t as rank as this hospital food.”


His eyes were suddenly downtrodden. Just like that, he’d gone from joking and bringing her candy to immensely somber. This Jim Halpert character was a tough cookie to crack.


He was avoiding her eyes now, staring at the floor, and that bothered her. His early morning presence was a surprise, but now that he was here, she itched to talk to him. For some odd reason, she had the urge to pass him a jelly bean.


“Hey, so tell me more about work. We must be pretty good friends, right?”


While his head still hung low, she saw his lips immediately curl up, new color in his cheeks.


“Yeah, Beesly, you’re kind of my best friend,” he chuckled warmly.


“Right, like best work friends,” she commented with several nods of understanding, studying the way his eyes twitched and his hands shook on his knees.


“Um, not really.” Twitching. Avoiding. “It’s...it’s more than that.”


She noticed the way that his voice cracked on those last three words, and all of a sudden she was reaching for the finger where her engagement ring once stood, an intense pain stretching her chest as heat pooled her entire body.


“Listen, I just remembered, I have a few more errands to run, so I’ll, uh...I’ll see you later, okay?”


He was up on his feet just as quickly as he’d been in the chair, his long legs striding towards the door while jittery hands grappled at the nylon gym bag. All at once, her heart was begging for more time, clinging to this man whom she couldn’t quite figure out. She wanted him to stay about as much as he seemed to want to leave.


“Hey Jim? You’re still coming by later, right? I mean, I still need to find out what’s in the rest of that bag.”


His smile was sad, as if on the verge of tears or pain or something. She was still trying to decide which would be the worst of those options.


“Yeah, if you want me to.”


“I do.”


“Okay then, Beesly. I’ll see you later.”


------


“What are you doing here?”


The last time Penny had heard those words in her sister’s voice, they had been through choked sobs, tissues surrounding her, the color on her face blotchy and red. She had ignored the mess in the middle of her sister’s childhood bed, plopped herself Indian style on the mattress, and wrapped her arms around her shoulders.


“He is such a piece of shit, Pammy. He doesn’t deserve you.”


She’d let her big sister cry on her shoulder that night, which was so backwards from the way it usually was. Penny was more ambitious, was the rule breaker, was always off getting into trouble and needing Pam’s clear thinking and reassurance. When Pam had phoned that night to break the news, she hadn’t even hesitated in making the journey from her busy life in New York back to Scranton, shoving past her parents to find her sister and immediately right the wrongs.


Pam had cried a long while, eventually petering into tearless hiccups and strangled, uneven breaths.


“He said he was sorry.” Pam’s voice was so tiny, she almost sounded scared.


“Oh, absolutely not, Pam.”


Penny was pushing herself away from her shell of a sister, sitting firmly and authoritatively on the edge of the bed with the ruffles that she’d always considered tacky.


“Penny….”


Her eyes and voice were equally pleading, her fingers toying with a soaked and tattered tissue.


“Pam. He cheated on you. I am not going to let you crawl your way back to him.”


She’d never really been too fond of Roy Anderson. Just when she had needed a big sister the most, he had torn Pam away from her, turned her into a completely different person, one who followed instead of led. And now this? This emotional manipulation? Penny wasn’t going to have any of it.


“What am I supposed to do? We’re engaged. He said it wouldn’t happen again.”


Penny’s ironic laughter sparked pain in Pam’s ears, but she didn’t care.


“Oh, come on, Pam. Do you really believe that? Do you?”


Pam was biting her lip now, new tears hot and fresh in her eyes. When there was no response, Penny continued on.


“How many times did it happen before now, Pam?”


She was hurting her sister intentionally, and she knew that, but she couldn’t let her be torn down by this man any longer. When Pam’s whispered words didn’t quite reach her ears, she asked, “What?” in a bitter tone.


“A lot, okay?! It was a lot, Penny! God, are you happy now?”


Her words spoke fury, her tears pain, her eyes a true sadness.


Good.


It was good for her to finally feel something.


Penny sighed, her victory small and short lived. She truly hated seeing her sister this way, but sometimes you needed to be shoved into the realm of the uncomfortable in order to truly see what was going on. This was Pam’s chance.


Penny's eyes softened as she lay a hand on Pam’s thigh, squeezing gently.


“I am really, really sorry that you’re going through this, Pammy,” she said, her tone more genuinely somber than hurtful now. “But I’m not sorry that your eyes have been opened. And for what it’s worth, I’ll do whatever I can to help. I’ll help return all the gifts, and I can call his side of the family, if you want--”


“What are you talking about?”


Hurt, petrified confusion knit at her sister’s brows as she pulled away from Penny’s touch.


“Cancelling the wedding,” she replied, a chuckle pulling in her throat. “I figured you really wouldn’t want to have to talk to the entire Anderson family after he just made you look like a fool--”


“I’m not calling off the wedding, Penny.”


Now it was Penny’s turn to aire on the side of hurt and confusion.


“What?”


They had reversed roles, Pam’s demeanor now masterly and self-assured, while Penny’s shoulders had hunched when her body had deflated, Pam’s words the prick in her balloon.


“I love him, Penny. You don’t cancel a wedding on one mistake--”


“It wasn’t just one mistake, Pam!”


She watched as her sister took a breath, stood curtly, and started towards the door.


“He said he was sorry. He said it was over. I’m not calling off my wedding," she replied, her tone decisive.


Penny’s words stopped Pam in her tracks as her hand reached the doorknob.


“Where are you going?”


“To see Roy, Penny. We just need to...talk about all of this.”


As her sister’s delicate fingers turned the knob, she blurted out words she wished she would have just swallow whole.


“You walked in on him fucking some other girl in your bed, Pam! Do you really have no self-respect?”


They were tears of anger this time, brimming hot against the forest green of her eyes.


The last words she’d said to her sister were Get out.


And now, as Penny sat in the waiting room of the hospital that made her skin crawl, she heard her sister utter those same words to a man who had brought the sun back into her life, had finally showed Pam the path that made her into he person she was meant to be.


She only caught bits and pieces of their conversation, cringing for the poor man whose pain was unbearable enough to land him in a matching bed with her sister. When a defeated looking Jim found her in the waiting room, Penny rose and determinedly crossed the way into her sister’s hospital room. She wasn’t about to lose her again. To hell with what the doctors had ordered.


“Hey!” Pam greeted her warmly, a new excitement in her voice that Penny had longed to hear since the rift had separated them all those years ago.


“How’s solitary confinement treating you?”


Pam groaned, flopping into the pillows at the headboard of the bed.


God, Pen, I am so bored.”


Penny giggled as she took a seat, sparing no time whatsoever before diving right in.


“Well, it seems like you just kicked out some prime company.”


She relaxed in the seat, much as she had the previous night, with her feet propped up on her sister’s bed, crossed at the ankles, settling her folded arms in as she prepared for battle. Her Pam was in there somewhere. She just had to find her.


“Who? Oh, Jim? Yeah, I guess…”


She watched her sister’s face stiffen, soften, contort, trying to rationalize.


There you go, big sis. Figure it out.


“Isn’t it...weird, Penny?”


“Isn’t what weird?”


Pam’s gaze found the ceiling, drifted along with her twiddling fingers.


“I don’t know, just...he’s always here. I mean, if we’re just, like, work friends, why is he always here?”


“He cares about you, Pammy. Simple as that.”


Pam took her time processing. Her sister had certainly developed into the stronger of the two when it came to being logical and level headed. It had always taken Pam time to sort things out, but Penny was always quick to figure, no matter how blunt her responses were.


“I mean, look around you. I don’t see Roy here.” She shrugged, offering Pam the chance for a rebuttal that Penny already had answers prepared for.


“He’s at work. Seriously, Penny? Are we really going to start this? I get that you don’t like Roy. Can we just leave it be for awhile?”


“I’m just sayin’, sis. You literally got blindsided into a coma and you just woke up yesterday. You’d think that he’d at least take the day off from, what, loading trucks full of paper, to be with you?”


She could see her sister’s mouth furling in anger, her eyebrows coming together, and she pressed on, relishing the thought.


“Meanwhile, that Halpert guy? He’s sitting out in the waiting room. You kicked him out, and he’s still here. What does that tell you, Pammy?”

 


With eyes and fists clenched alike, she exploded with anger. “I don’t know, okay! And don’t call me Pammy!”


As soon as the words had escaped her, Penny saw her sister’s mouth form a small “o,” her eyes shocked, as if taken aback by her own words.


“I didn’t kick him out. He just...he left, on his own.”


Pam’s eyes had found her hands again, tugging at a loose thread on her cast. Her voice was smaller, as if her own realizations frightened her.


“Oh?” was all Penny uttered, giving her sister time to think.


“Yeah...he, um...he looked kind of...I don’t know, sad? Or uncomfortable or something. So he left. I mean, why even come here if you’re going to be uncomfortable, ya know?”


“And why was he so uncomfortable?”


“I don’t know. We were just talking about work, about dinner. I told him Roy was going to come after his shift was over.”


“Oh, he is? Did Roy tell you that?”


“Where else would be be, Pen?”


“You’re avoiding my question.”


And she was.


Because Roy hadn’t said he was coming back for dinner. She’d kissed him goodbye, or tried at least, and that was the last she’d seen of him. He’d be back, right? There was no reason for him not to.


“What do you want from me, Penny?” She rolled her head back in defeat, closing her eyes as her head hit the pillow, hands surrendered limply to the sky.


“Listen, I’m going to make a coffee run. Think what you want to, Pam. But just remember who’s sitting outside your door and who has yet to say good morning.”


She was at least partially satisfied, but as she left the room and drank in the sight Jim, poor defeated Jim, the frustration bubbled inside her all over again.


“God, I am so over all of this bullshit.”


Penny certainly made her presence and opinions known; he heard the door to Pam’s room swing open before her words, so vile, stung the stagnant air. Her body dropped hard into the chair next to him, the lines rigid against the stiff wood and padding.


“You’ve gotta be killing yourself over here, Jim.”


He remained silent, facing forward like Penny did.


“Because if you aren’t, then I’m definitely taking the brunt of it. I mean, I know she has a traumatic brain injury, but I just thought we were over all of this Roy shit, ya know?”


His chuckle was dark as he hung his head, clasped hands falling between his knees.


“Trust me, Penny. I did, too. Maybe the universe is just testing me, seeing how long it takes before I break in half.”


He lifted his chin towards the sky, pleading with the universe he was presently questioning, pleading for the last ounces of strength to not be squeezed from him before he cracked.


“Don’t break, Jim. For the love of god, don’t give up on her. I know the girl who loves you is in there somewhere. She didn’t spend weeks crying in her old bedroom over you to have it all end like this.”


Turning his head to the side, his lips strained to smile against the tugging in his chest.


“I’d never dream of giving up on her. She’s my everything, Penny. I just wish she could remember that.”


---


She’d truly only gotten up to go to the bathroom, not to peek into the hallway to see if he was still there, to see if what Penny had said was right, that he had left her room but was still on guard in the hallway as her silent protector. Not to check to see if he'd matched his shoes this morning before he left. Not to see him sitting there, talking with her sister like old friends. She’d never once seen Penny sit with Roy like this.


Really, she just needed to pee. She wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, to stand close enough to the door to hear their hushed tones rather than just trying to read the emotions that were ever changing in their twisted expressions.


But it was those words, those stupid, silly words, the only ones she’d actually caught of the entire conversation.


She’s my everything, Penny. I just wish she could remember that.


On weak knees, she’d forgotten why she was even out of bed in the first place.

 

Chapter End Notes:
For those of you who are sitting there going, "Oh no! Pam would NEVER get back with Roy if he cheated on her!" I would've liked to think that, too. But, as you'll see in the timeline of this AU, most of that stuff is pre-Jim, and as a literary student at heart, I have to imagine that if Jim would've never entered her life, Pam would've been in this rut of being controlled by Roy forever. Jim allowed her to blossom into her own person while Roy held her back. Also, this Pam and Roy are a bit different, so bear with me. She left him eventually, didn't she? ;)

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