Well, that went better than expected.

When he’d slipped Kevin that $20 to play that song, he hadn’t really expected him to do it. Not that he didn’t think he deserved his money’s worth but rather that he hadn’t necessarily expected Scrantonicity to have Jewel in their repertoire. So he’d been very pleasantly surprised to hear the song come on.

It was the only thing he could think of to do to make up for it after he’d apparently forgotten that a lot of these things had been planned for their wedding. Forgotten? He’d never known. And yes, he knew Pam would probably say something like “you should have been more involved” (and yes, he’d tried to fend that off by admitting it immediately), but seriously? She hadn’t involved him. She’d done a lot of that planning upstairs, in the office, on her own time, without asking his input or his opinion or anything. So he didn’t know the color scheme, or whatever other little things Phyllis had apparently taken from Pam’s planning. Shouldn’t he get points for remembering their prom? For recalling the color of the damn roses he’d gotten her (and hell, for getting her roses that weren’t just plain jane red in the first place)?

Well, he couldn’t be too upset about that, because after all, things had definitely looked up after that. He hadn’t been sure what her reaction to hearing “their song” would be, but it definitely seemed like it made up for that little crack about being the one who “actually wanted to get married.”

Not that he was going to take that back, not in a million years. Because he was right. He was the one who, when the chips were down, actually wanted to go through with it. He wasn’t the one who showed up in the middle of the night, started packing, and told her they needed to talk. No, she’d done that to him. Remembering it almost made him angry, until he remembered the rest of the evening.

She’d come home.

Oh, sure, she’d made noises about how it wasn’t her home anymore, and commented on the changes he’d made (mostly, if he had to admit it, adding more surfaces on which to place beer cans and filling in some of the more obvious spots where something she’d taken had left a gap in between things he’d kept. But she’d made appreciative noises, and she’d kissed him, and she still tasted the same. And while she hadn’t actually slept with him, he was pretty sure from the way she said she’d see him tomorrow that they were back together. So it was coming. And eventually she’d come all the way around: realizing that she belonged with him back in that little house that they’d lived in for so long. Together.

And he’d keep on trying to be a good…well, boyfriend he guessed now. Not just a good potential boyfriend, a reminder of how they could be, but an actual boyfriend now. As long as she kept on being a good girlfriend, of course, like Pammy always was. He had missed his Pammy. It was good to have her back.

**

She hadn’t actually left with him, had she? He really didn’t want to believe it.

But there he’d been, slow-dancing with Karen, staring at Pam across the floor as she sat at their table, and he’d seen her get up, and then…and then he’d seen Roy come across to her, say something (what, his frantic brain wondered, had he managed to say to her to get her to go with him?) and extend a hand, and the two of them walk out together.

What the hell was that?

She was back with Roy fucking Anderson?

He wracked his brains for a reason, a cause, a trigger. He’d seen them dancing together earlier (and then quickly looked away, wishing her hadn’t). After he’d thought they were getting along, too. He’d…

Ah hell. He’d almost backslid. He’d been so close. But she looked so damn lovely in that dress, and her eyes, and her face…and just her very Pam-ness made her irresistible to him. He wasn’t unconscious of the fact that right now, as he thought about it, his actual girlfriend Karen was up there on the stage singing a song, and he really ought to be paying full attention to her so he could compliment her appropriately afterwards (she wasn’t actually singing it to him, though, because…well, “every little thing she does is magic” didn’t really describe him. It did describe Pam, but he was pretty sure Karen wasn’t singing to her either, and that if he dared to mention anything like that to her he’d be sleeping alone tonight). But the issue of Pam was paramount on his mind.

He knew she didn’t actually owe him anything, not after she’d made it so clear that she didn’t want him. Oh, he was still hurting, hurting bad, after Casino Night (and yes, it was most of year ago, but it seemed like yesterday, especially with gorgeous Pam in another stupid gorgeous dress). But he could see she’d been hurt too, and if she didn’t want him she didn’t want him. That was that, even if it still hurt. And she’d definitely grown in the last year. She was stronger, more herself somehow while staying the same Pam he…well, he’d definitely already admitted he loved. So she didn’t owe him anything, but the one thing he’d thought she was really over, the one point of growth he’d been really proud of her for, was that she hadn’t stayed with Roy. Hadn’t gone back to Roy. Had become her own thing, her own Pam without being part of Pam and Roy.

And now she was throwing that all away.

What the hell had that asshole said?

What had he said that made her decide to dance not with him, but with Roy? To turn and leave with Roy, of all people?

What could he do now?

He could pay attention to his own damn girlfriend, that’s what, he thought as she stepped off the stage and he went to greet her, a smile pasted on his lips. And he could only continue to try to stop caring about what Pamela Beesly did. After all, any interest of hers in him was just a hypothetical. Karen was real. His heartbreak was real. And it was all he could do now to batten the hatches, keep his head down, and not give in to it.

Why did it have to be Roy?

He ran through his old calming routine: 1ci, this isn’t your job. 1aiii, she always gets closer to him when you notice these things. 2a, jealousy isn’t healthy.

It wasn’t really helping. Not because the old mantra was used up, or expired, but because it just reminded him of how long he’d been trying to work through these feelings. And how badly it had always gone.

**

She was probably going to regret tonight.

She already regretted a lot of it. She regretted coming, if it came down to that. It had hit her the moment she walked in: it wasn’t just the invitations, everything there was as close a facsimile as it could be to her own wedding. Apparently Jim’s redacted complaint about her planning had been truer than she’d thought: it was a bad idea to plan your wedding in full view of all your officemates. Not because it made anyone else uncomfortable, but because karma would come up and kick you in the ass by making you go to the very wedding you’d decided not to have.

Maybe that was what made her get up and dance with Roy even after he’d revealed his utter lack of awareness. He wanted some kind of credit for remembering that he’d given her these roses eight years ago, when he’d somehow entirely missed the fact that they’d had an entire house covered in these colors only a year ago. She’d left fabric for the wedding, invitations for the wedding, artificial flowers for the wedding (one of her bridesmaids was allergic) in the wedding colors around the house for months. She’d begged him to buy pocket squares for his groomsmen in the wedding colors. She’d had a series of mini-cakes baked in the wedding colors for them to sample (and heroically convinced the saleslady to let her take them home because God knew Roy wouldn’t actually be caught dead coming to the tasting). So yeah, excuse her if she expected him to remember the damn colors. Or anything else about the wedding they were supposed to mutually have, together, last June.

So why had she gone home with him tonight? Why had she decided to give in to whatever demon was whispering in her ear and get back together with Roy, let him kiss her, call her Pammy, call her his girlfriend (but not his fiancée, no, never his fiancée—and not now just because he couldn’t remember it, but because she wouldn’t let that happen again)? Was it really just the complete awkwardness of seeing the wedding she’d planned to have, the despair that had lanced through her at the realization that every single detail was just as she’d wanted it, the memory of what it had been like to be planning to marry Roy?

Of course not.

It had been watching Jim Halpert cradle that woman (who, when she wasn’t actually being held in Jim’s arms, or holding onto his sleeve, or glaring at Pam over her computer monitor because of him, was actually a quite pleasant, lovely woman named Karen Filippelli) on the dance floor, watching him chivalrously shepherd her around the dance floor with that look in his eyes that she always thought of as her look, that had set her over the edge. That had told her that there was no chance anymore, that whatever she did, whatever she hoped for, he wasn’t coming back to her. No amount of flirting (and no matter what, she would treasure that that definitely had been flirting at the bar) about her dance moves or “giving the people what they want” would overcome the reality that he was with Karen now and he was focused on her. If anything, the flirtation was just as sign that he was totally over her; that he could safely kid around again, because his heart was no longer in it. Whereas hers was so full of him that the very sight of him holding Karen could make her cry.

And that, in turn, had sent her right back to Roy.

She hadn’t planned it (though she wondered if he had, between that sweet surprise of remembering their song and the fortuitous timing of his invitation to “get out of here”). But if she couldn’t have Jim, she needed to have someone. She needed some kind of armor to get her through the day, some kind of balm to wash away the hurt of his disinterest. And Roy’s familiarity could do that for her. She didn’t want to marry him anymore; she didn’t love him like she had (though she would always love him in a way, like family you vaguely saw every once in a while at a reunion and were glad to hear were doing well whenever your parents updated you). But she could be with him. He was safe, in that way. He was familiar, he was trying so hard, and even if she knew they didn’t have a long-term future, they could have a decent present.

And maybe, just maybe, being with him would keep the demons away. The ones that said she’d lost her chance at happiness, she’d messed it all up, she’d failed. Because maybe she had. Maybe Jim Halpert was lost to her forever. But as long as she was with Roy, she could tell herself she was with the man she’d been meant to be with—and even as she knew it was a lie, the lie itself was comforting.