Pam’s eyes snapped open, as they did every morning, five seconds before her alarm clock went off. Time to put the day before and the awful tingles running down her spine behind her—since as far as she could tell, they couldn’t have happened to anyone but her, and were now consigned to the dustbin of history—and figure out what she was going to do with today’s booze cruise. She sighed. The awful thing was that she didn’t want to do anything with today’s booze cruise. She didn’t want to do anything at all. It all felt so pointless. She was engaged to Roy, but she didn’t really want to be anymore, and she was going to have to deal with all of that on the cruise. The anticipation of what Michael’s “secret” camaraderie event might be would be energizing all of her coworkers, at least until noon or so, but it had no pull for her since nothing she did seemed to change it (which wasn’t a surprise, as even Michael had to have planned this before today). The prank on Dwight was a bright spot to look forward to, of course, but it was over so quickly and then she was staring at hours of vague to more-than-vague disquiet and discomfort.

She sat there staring at the ceiling as the alarm blared again and finally decided she might as well get up. She thought in the shower (cut short without washing her hair because she didn’t want to manage to miss the morning’s prank—and because the hair would be exactly the same “tomorrow” anyway) about how she might make today less pointless. How could it help her move towards a better life, or a better world, or whatever it was she needed to do to break this cycle of cycles?

She realized she didn’t know: but more than that, she realized why she didn’t know. She’d been too busy paying attention to her own emotions, especially that first time but just as much in the subsequent iterations of that night, to notice what was going on around her. Jim, apparently, was muttering to himself about saving her (whatever that meant: the boat wasn’t really going down, she knew. And hey, maybe he had another receptionist in mind, though she doubted it). Katy was longing to be engaged, whether to Jim or not she couldn’t entirely say, though it was probably to Jim. Who wouldn’t want to be engaged to Jim? He was funny, he was considerate, he was…anyway, he was Katie’s whatever-he-was, so of course she was probably thinking about being engaged to Jim. Maybe she could help with that? It didn’t exactly make her jump with joy to think about, but then again Bill Murray hadn’t really enjoyed catching that kid who fell out of a tree and never thanked him. And while she was doing that, maybe she could figure out who else had problems she could help solve. That was how Bill had fixed the cycling: not just figuring out his own romantic and emotional state (he’d keyed in on Rita pretty early, actually, though perhaps the rest of it was necessary to make him a person worthy of her) but fixing the world around him too. So she’d go through the cruise today like an anthropologist or a sociologist or something, observing those around her and seeing what she could help them fix. And maybe, if she felt like it, help Katy. Not that she deserved it.

OK, she probably did deserve it. Pam felt more than a little bad about how she felt about Katy, even though she couldn’t help it. It wasn’t actually Katy’s fault that Roy and Kevin and everyone had treated her like she was better than Pam just because she was hot. In fact, Pam’s brain but not her heart had to concede that it was probably just as annoying to Katy to have guys acting that way about her looks as it was to Pam, because it was 110% sexist and reduced her to nothing more than a pretty face. But Pam still couldn’t help but resent a little bit someone who had been a cheerleader, someone who her own fiancé leered at, someone who had pursued her own dreams (or at least so Pam assumed, because she didn’t know how you got into freelance purse-selling otherwise), someone with a sufficient sense of self that she could break out into a high-school cheer at a booth on a lake cruise without self-consciousness. Sure, that might indicate that Katy was just as mired in high school as Roy, but the rest of her life pointed in the other direction. She was dating Jim, for god’s sake, she obviously had her life in order. Which…well, if Pam had had hers in order, she wouldn’t have this endlessly repeating day to relive, would she? So she’d see if she could help Katy, even if it grated a bit to do so.

But right now she’d get in the truck and go to work, because she’d somehow managed to dress herself, make breakfast, and wait for Roy on autopilot while she debated what to do with the day. That wouldn’t do. She had to maintain her focus, or else she wouldn’t be able to help anyone because she’d be too wrapped up in her own head—again.

One prank later (back to the tried and true pencil cup, though this time she also noticed a bundle of pencils in one slot and shook things up by buying two items so she could fill the cup with Dwight’s stuff as well) she was making a spreadsheet on a piece of graph paper of who she could help and how. Unfortunately, it would be erased (or maybe retconned? She still wasn’t entirely sure on her terminology) when she rebooted tomorrow, but it helped her organize her thoughts.

Katy: wants to be engaged to Jim: ask hint to Jim? Answer her question about engagements?

Jim: unclear: ask don’t stare for 27 seconds pay attention to him

Kelly: wants Ryan: hint to Ryan? Get Jim to throw him at her?

Toby: needs happiness: ?????

Michael: wants to be the center of attention: keep him and Captain Jack apart?

She didn’t have anything for the rest of the office, but she was sure it would come to her. Maybe she could help Dwangela with their relationship somehow? But the fact that it was entirely undercover (or potentially entirely in her own brain, but she no longer believed that after the last few months) meant that might not be a good idea because it implied forcing them to acknowledge it.

Tentatively at the bottom she added the one thing she thought of:

Pam: doesn’t want to be with Roy:

Then there were footsteps in front of her and she crumpled the paper and shoved it forcibly into her purse.

“Whatchya got there, Beesly?” Jim was taking a jellybean and for some reason she couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Just…something I’m working on.”

“Well, I hope it wasn’t a sketch, because I think,” he leaned over and whispered and she found herself leaning closer to hear him “you might have ruined the paper.” He straightened up. “Just a guess, but I do know something about paper. I work for a paper company, you know.”

“You do?” She brought her hand to her mouth in mock-shock.

“Indeed. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, it’s kind of a big deal, called Dunder Mifflin?”

She looked up at him with wide eyes. “Wait, you do work?”

He shook his head. “Not if I can help it.” They smiled at each other. “Anyway, I came up to tell you I’m going to get Stanley to check out this camaraderie event.”

“Sounds good. When he tells you it’s a booze cruise, act surprised.”

“A booze cruise?”

“Mhm. On Lake Wallenpaupack.”

“In January?”

She shrugged. “Don’t believe me if you don’t want to.”

“You wound me, Beesly. Of course I trust you implicitly.” They exchanged another grin. “If this turns out to be right, though, I want you to promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“Only use your powers for good.”

“You got it, Halpert.” He grabbed another jellybean, tapped the top of her desk, and headed over towards Stanley. His words, however, remained with Pam.

“Only use your powers for good.”

Yes. That was what she was going to do. She needed to stop thinking about it as helping individual people and think about it more holistically: she was going to do good.

Seven hours later she was feeling like “doing good” was the last thing she wanted to do. She’d tried nudging Jim about Katy (“so, how’s that going?”) and received a noncommittal reply (“I guess you could say it’s going”) that had combined with her own mysterious reluctance to actually prod Jim in that direction to stymie any further conversation. After that failure she’d stopped trying to intervene tonight, remembering her earlier resolve to observe this time around and reload for more do-gooding in the future once she had all the information she could.

She was sitting back in the booth now noticing people around her. Kelly was edging closer to Ryan every few moments as if afraid he’d startle like a little bird. Dwight was outside “steering the ship” and…actually, she hadn’t seen Angela for a little while. There she was, just coming in, and boy did she look pissed. Maybe that was something to explore next time. Toby hadn’t actually made the boat: she’d seen him pulling up just as they cast off, and unsurprisingly Michael had refused to let them turn the boat around for him. Kevin was clearly having a grand old time, as were Darryl and the guys (and Katy) all doing snorkel shots. She slipped out to find Jim, and saw him standing by the rail staring out into space.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

She wasn’t going to ask about Katy. She wasn’t going to ask about Katy. She wasn’t going to ask about Katy.

“So, um…” Oh god neither of them had any idea what to talk about. What was wrong with them? They always had something to say to each other.

“It’s getting kind of rowdy in there.” It hadn’t really worked that first time, but it was better than nothing.

“Yeah.” Jim cocked his head to listen. “Darryl! Darryl! Darryl!” he mimicked.

She was not going to let this turn into that awkward conversation from the first time around. “At least his name’s easy to chant. Can you imagine if he was like…Aloysius? Or Obadiah?”

“Nehemiah.”

“Erasmus.”

“Hezekiah.”

“You’re just going through the Bible.”

“No, I’m listing Dwight’s cousins.”

She laughed. “Yeah. Mose! Mose! Mose!”

He pushed off the rail. “It’s getting kind of cold out here. You want to go in?”

“Sure.” He opened the door for her and they slipped into the cabin, only to be greeted by Michael with a frantic look on his face.

“Thank God you’re here, Jim, Captain Jack’s gone mad with power!”

Jim rolled his eyes at Pam. “Did he tell you you can’t capsize the ship as a training exercise?”

“That’s…that’s exactly what he did. Jim, you have to help me get through to him! It’s a Business Emergency!” Pam could hear the capital letters, and exchanged another eye roll with Jim as he was led away.

She found herself once again at a booth with Katy, and apparently the topic of engagements was an inevitable one. This time she let herself probe a bit.

“You and Jim, huh?”

“Well…” Katy blushed. “I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but…”

Pam did not want to hear the end of that sentence, so it came as a relief when someone tapped the microphone and interrupted Katy—but only for a millisecond, because she realized with a heavy heart that it was Roy. Of course. She hadn’t interfered with his plans tonight, or with Captain Jack’s stupid stories, so naturally here he was about to set a date.

She didn’t have the energy right now, not with Katy’s evident enthusiasm for an engagement with Jim, not with all the plans for helping everyone else pulsing through her brain, not with the swaying of the boat and the beer in her hand. She just went with what Roy said, what Roy asked, and wasn’t that always the way it was? Her going along with Roy? But at least this time she knew that it wasn’t permanent, that she could still come back and redo this moment and end up not engaged. Well, not with a June 10 date. No, not engaged at all, dammit. If she didn’t want to get married to Roy on June 10, and he didn’t want the same, they shouldn’t get married at all. Not this cycle—not any cycle.

And then Jim gave his painfully heartfelt toast, and Dwight interrupted him, and she noticed Jim slipping out of the doors with Katy.

Oh god, he was going to propose to her. It was suddenly clear to her in a flash. That was why Jim had been so awkward about his relationship with Katy. He was going to propose, and he didn’t know how to tell her that he was proposing to Katy, and so he’d dodged her questions about her being a cheerleader and about how their relationship was going. And now Roy had stolen his thunder, which was what made the toast feel awkward, and he was sneaking out on deck to do it while the feeling of romance was fresh.

She ignored the gaping holes in this theory, as well as the assumptions she was already making (why, for instance, would Jim find it so hard to tell her that he was marrying Katy?) and slid away from Roy’s side. She’d let them have their moment, of course, but she wanted to be there for him like he’d been there for her with the toast and everything. She snuck out a side door to the cabin and came up quietly behind Jim and Katy, trying not to look like she was eavesdropping while being very sure to do so as efficiently as she could. She wondered if he’d get down on one knee, or if he had a ring already. But no, they were standing side by side: if he was going to do anything, he must have done it already. Or maybe she was too early? She snuck closer and clung to the life rafts to stay out of sight.

“Roy looks so happy.” Katy gushed.

“Yeah.” Jim almost grunted the word.

“Do you think that will ever be us?” She was smiling up at Jim. Pam felt sick to her stomach. This was the moment.

“No.” Pam stifled a gasp, which was muffled by the sound of Katy turning on the squeaky deck.

“What is wrong with you? Why did you even bring me here tonight?”

“I don’t know. Let’s break up.”

“Whoa. What?” Jim turned away from Katy as she exploded in shock and Pam, feeling his gaze glance over her hiding space and pass onto the lake, took that moment to scuttle away.

What the hell was going on with Jim?