Pam knew it was a bad sign when she was more disappointed to see Jim Halpert at the bar than her own fiancé. But who was she kidding? It was always Roy. Darryl too, but somehow picking up Darryl at Poor Richard’s (after they had, once again, not invited her, but she was beginning to wonder whether she really wanted to be invited anyway) wasn’t that bad. Darryl was a funny drunk, and anyway, once she dropped him off at his bachelor pad apartment and made sure he got in the front door, he wasn’t her problem anymore. Roy didn’t stop being her problem just because she got home, if anything he became more her problem once they were, and he definitely was not a funny drunk. Oh, he thought he was, but he wasn’t, unless there was secret humor hiding in telling her exactly which waitress was hotter than her and why. Also, of course, Darryl at least bothered to call and ask (not that she was going to say no). Roy just seemed to assume she’d show up at some point, as if pulling him out of the gutter was her job. Which, to some degree, she supposed it was.

But Jim? She’d expected better from Jim. She wasn’t sure why—she’d already seen him at one Poor Richard’s outing, after all—but she had. She’d expected something more than “let’s pop a few beers, it’s the weekend” or “let’s do shots—you gotta do something to deal with another day at Dumbder Mifflin” or “just a few drinks, to be social.” She’d expected the intelligent, funny man she spent all day around to be better than that, more than that, and it was unutterably disappointing to walk into Poor Richard’s, do her normal orientation towards Darryl and Roy, and see him sitting there, beer in hand.

“Beesly!” He looked as surprised as she was disappointed. “I suppose you’re here for Exhibit A.” He stuck a thumb towards Roy and slung an arm around Darryl. She felt her heart sink. She hadn’t realized until that moment how much she’d built Jim Halpert up in her mind, even as she was trying to avoid getting to into him at work—maybe because she was getting too much into him at work. She’d started to think he was a good guy, a sober guy, and now she was disappointed when she’d tried so hard not to be. Not to idealize him. Not to think about…anything more than just that he was a coworker. And yet…

But Jim wasn’t done talking. “…which leaves me with Exhibit B.” He gave Darryl a friendly shake, and she realized with a start that he wasn’t drunk. He was telling her he could drive Darryl home. She took in the scene a little further and realized that while there were four beers in front of Darryl and an assortment across the table where she assumed Roy and Lonny had been sitting (fortunately Lonny lived walking distance from the bar; unfortunately his efficiency apartment barely had space for his own massive bulk, let alone such fantasies as having his friends crash with him). But there were no beers in from of Jim, just the one in his hand.

“You OK with that, Big D?”

Darryl grinned. “I dunno, Jim, Pam might miss my stories from the back seat too much.”

“Stories from the backseat? I gotta hear these. Sorry, Beesly.” Jim gave her a sheepish shrug and then a smirk that told her he knew exactly how little she wanted to be anyone’s DD this evening. He gave Darryl another shake. “If I’d known there were stories, I wouldn’t have let you call anyone for a ride for anyone.” He stopped, as if struck by a thought. “Although I will admit my old Corolla may not have enough space for more than one.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Is this some obscure two-seater Corolla model I haven’t heard of before?”

He raised both hands in mock surrender. “No, no, I just…didn’t exactly clear out the backseat.”

“Since when?”

“Since…ever?” He looked so sheepish she burst out laughing, which brought Roy and Lonny lumbering over from the darts.

“PAMMY!” Roy slapped an arm around her side and pulled her in close. He smelled like what she imagined it might smell like if yeast grew a stomach and mouth so it could vomit. “Wait ‘til you hear how I beat Lonny at darts!”

“One time!” This from Lonny.

“I still beat you.”

“Once.”

“Still.”

With a pair of manly shrugs, this apparently decided the point. “Darryl, you ready to go?” Roy asked over her head.

“Nah, man, Halpert’s got me.” Darryl waved him off, which had the apparent effect of reminding Roy that Jim was there as well.

“Halpert! You ain’t been drinking?” He reached out and punched Jim in the arm. “You gotta man up next time.”

“I dunno, Roy, at least Halpert doesn’t have to have his lady come out and drink his…drive his drunk ass home.” Darryl was drunker than she’d first thought, but the response drew oohs from Lonny and the couple of lushes at the bar whom Pam could now tell were listening in on their conversation. She wanted to sink into the floor, and found herself meeting Jim’s eyes—and finding a sympathetic expression there that somehow helped make the embarrassment of being talked about as if she weren’t standing right there better.

“Whatever.” Roy clearly didn’t feel up to parrying Darryl’s verbal sparring, however inelegant it might be. “Pammy, lezgo.” He started to walk towards the door, forgetting he had his arm around her and causing them both to trip and fall. “Now what’d you do that for?”

“Roy…” she stopped herself short. Arguing wouldn’t do anyone any good.

“My fault, I’m afraid.” Jim was somehow standing over them both, one hand out to each. “I had my legs out.” She knew she hadn’t tripped over his legs. A glance at his face showed that he knew it too. But Roy was grabbing Jim’s hand—how did he not even move when pulling both her and Roy up?—and saying something offhand and rough but not too patronizing, and they were up. She felt the urge to hold onto Jim’s hand and that alone was enough to make her drop it, perhaps a little too fast. Her heart was beating hard and she missed a little bit of the conversation, but suddenly she and Roy were walking out with Jim and Darryl while Lonny trailed behind saying their goodbyes.

She had, apparently, parked right next to Jim without realizing it, as he swung open the door for Darryl as the same time she half-pushed Roy into the passenger’s seat. As she strapped him in and evaded his hands, she noticed Jim folding his long legs into the near side of the Corolla and waiting courteously for her to finish, and then to back out first. As she drove home and the motion of the car lulled Roy to sleep, she reflected that perhaps she hadn’t been mistaken in Jim Halpert at all: perhaps he really was the intelligent, humorous gentleman he appeared from the first.

This realization was not a particularly pleasant one, juxtaposed as it was with the argument that she and Roy got into as soon as she had to wake him up to get out of the car. It seemed beyond beyond to her that Roy would ask her why she was talking to Halpert outside the office when he was the one who was out drinking with the man. She’d only talked to him because she’d had to pick Roy up drunk! He’d spent hours in the same bar with him, but apparently it was the two sentences she’d exchanged that were the focus of their conversation, if you could call it that.

She just wanted to go to bed.

But, she realized, not with Roy. Oh, she didn’t want to cheat on Roy. She wasn’t that kind of person. But tonight she just didn’t want to sleep in the same bed as someone who, no matter how drunk he was, had apparently decided that she couldn’t be trusted. If Roy wanted to be jealous, that was one thing. She’d done her level best over the last few weeks to make sure he had nothing to be jealous of—though that itself might potentially indicate that he did, she knew—and if that wasn’t enough to make him at least wait until he was sober (whenever that might be) to yell at her, she didn’t need to take it. She was aware of a minor flaw or two in the specifics of that argument (drunk men didn’t think that logically) but the foundation was sound. Once she’d decanted Roy into bed and endured until his yelling fuzzed into snores, she quietly packed a bag. It was time for a sleepover at Penny’s—even if Penny didn’t realize it.