An almighty crash echoes from the break room.

It’s followed by a litany of curses spilling from Pam’s lips. 

That’s out of the ordinary. 

Dwight’s on the phone to a client which slows his usual reaction time sufficiently, it takes him a whole extra 4.3 seconds to coolly state - 

“I’ll call you back,” and snap his phone back into its cradle. 

In that time, Jim is already on his feet and into the break room. 

Pam is slumped over the kitchen sink, her shoulders heaving. Jim settles beside her, his hand rising unsteadily in the air above her back as if he means to soothe her. He sighs and his hand hangs in the air for a moment before retreating back into his pocket. 

Dwight takes a moment to assess the situation. The floor is a messy puddle of tea leaves and shards of teal china. Pam’s teapot he assumes. 

Pam loves that teapot. 

Jim murmurs something that Dwight can’t quite hear and Pam rounds on him with moist red rimmed eyes. 

Dwight’s no idiot. He knows the tension that exists between the pair since Jim’s return from Stamford. He’s been thinking it would do them well to be locked in a room together and sort things about once and for all. 

That’s what he does with the goats on his farm when they’re not getting along. It works a treat. 

He tells himself that’s why he turns to give them their privacy. He ignores the little niggle in his heart that if he were to name - which he isn’t - feels a lot like compassion for his friend, Pam. 

Not Jim, obviously. Jim’s the biggest idiot he’s ever known. 

But Pam is miserable, and if his calendar is anything to go by, it’s a lot more often than her cycles should indicate. 

He leaves them be. 

Jim doesn’t know what it is that drives him from his chair when he hears the teapot shatter. Instinct, maybe?

Then Pam swears and he moves faster than he thinks he ever has in the office. 

The screen behind his eyelids flashes with scenarios, each bloodier than the last. 

By the time he opens the break room door, he half expects to find Pam bleeding out on the floor with a hunk of jagged china stuck in a major artery. 

Instead he finds her bowed over the sink, sobs wracking her body. 

His already pummeled heart threatens to crack in two. 

He reaches out a hand to touch her and then thinks the better of it. It probably wouldn’t be welcome, and he doesn’t want to make her more upset. 

Pam feels him at her back, heavy in the air around her. She always knows where he is. She can feel it when he enters a room. This is what it is to have your heart existing outside of your body she supposes. 

That’s how she feels now, like Jim snatched her whole damn heart away and took it to Stamford with him. 

It was honestly easier when he was in Stamford because she didn’t have to watch him dragging her heart around like an anchor, kicking at it in frustration every so often. 

And now. Now she’s really done it. For some insurmountably stupid reason she grabbed her treasured teapot from the nozzle end, not the handle and it scalded her hand and slipped from her fingers. 

Now she doesn’t even have that. Her one very tangible reminder of better days. Her talisman of hope and happy memories. 

She’s destroyed it. It’s all over. 

And that’s what has her hunched over the sink, weeping. She’s grieving her loss and it hurts. 

It’s the final nail of confirmation that this thing with Jim is over. 

He’s moved on. She needs to move on. 

She thought she could wait him out, that this too would pass. This being Karen. 

God she loathes Karen, or at least the idea of Karen. She’s been trying so hard to not be a bitch to her. But, just, it’s too hard… She doesn’t want to. She wants to cry and move on. 

Why is Jim in here? He hasn’t shown any interest in speaking with her for weeks. Well, months really if you count the time in Stamford. 

She steels herself to round on him, but then his soft voice floats into her ears. 

“Are you okay, Pam?” 

And she turns on him with round, wet eyes. Her brows rise incredulously. 

“Do I seem okay? Really Jim?” 

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry about your teapot.” 

What little resolve she has cracks and the slender piece of steel straightening her spine crumples. Her knees buckle and the sobs wrack her tiny frame harder than ever. 

He’s done with not touching her. His arm shoots out to wrap around her waist and he’s settling her into a chair. They both ignore the way she cries harder at his touch. 

He grimaces at the sound a chunk of the porcelain makes as he pulls back a chair for himself too. It crunches underfoot and he catches the way she cringes as it rings in her ears. 

He’s confused by this to be honest. Pam’s reaction to the teapot breaking is more, far more, than he would have ever anticipated. 

It had cost him a grand total of $14.99 (and a whole lot of Christmas spirit). It’s replaceable. Although, he supposes, it did cost more than an iPod to her - in the end. 

He had thought that it had meant something, at the time. Now, he’s not so sure. But, this reaction? The raw heartache in her eyes, the agony contorting her face. It’s a lot. He doesn’t understand. 

“We can buy another teapot, Pam. I’ll show you where it was from.” 

She gapes at him, tears running down her cheeks. 

“What?” she manages to choke out. “No,” her bottom lip wobbles. “No, it won’t be the teapot.” 

It means something to her? It hits him like a freight train. It feels like every bone in his body cracks and splinters under the significance of it all. 

A part of him suddenly wishes he’d let her keep the card. 

Her face changes. “You don’t understand?” she says like a question. “You don’t understand,” she repeats and this time it’s a statement, her tone resigned. 

He really isn’t the Jim that made declarations and whispered promises into her skin. He doesn’t get why this teapot is special to her? This teapot with its bonus gifts and shared smiles. 

It had been her favorite Christmas present last year. Her favorite Christmas present of any year of her adult life really. 

And she had turned it into the symbol of everything that they had had when he left. 

It was tangible proof of their friendship. It was more than that. It stood for everything he had said. Sure, he’d run away, but that was because he didn’t want to stick around and watch her marry Roy, not because he didn’t really mean what he had said.

The teapot reminded her of that. It was her evidence that Jim loved her, or at least had loved her. 

“How did you do it?” 

Jim looks at her with wide eyes full of confusion. 

“Buy the teapot?” he asks slowly. And she realizes just how far off the same page they are nowadays. He’s reading from a completely different book. 

She changes her tack, because maybe asking how he was able to fall out of love with her so she can apply the same steps herself is a little too revealing. 

She might be Fancy New Beesly, but she’s not quite ready for such a bold declaration of her feelings with this version of Jim that can’t see the significance of their teapot. 

She asks her other pressing question. “How did you do it? Watch me be with Roy?”

“What?” More confusion swims in his gaze. “I didn’t. I hated it, Pam. Hated him.” 

Her brow furrows. “Why do I feel like I’m not allowed to hate her?” 

His eyes bulge and his jaw drops open. 

Dwight keeps his post outside the break room door. Michael comes out from his office, glances into the break room and shoots him a thumbs up. 

Dwight nods sharply in response. 

The skinny brunette rolls back her chair and eyes the break room like she’s about to make trouble. 

Dwight holds out a hand in warning. 

“The break room is closed,” he tells her. “Let Jim clean up his mess.” 

He receives a glare in response, but he crosses his arms and dares her to try and get past him. 

She huffs a heavy breath, but remains in her chair. Dwight squares his shoulders and makes sure to keep an eye on her in case she gets any ideas. 

Somewhere deep inside Jim a whistle blows and his pulse sets to racing. Hate who? What? 

“What?” he manages to vocalize. 

“I get it. Lesson learned. It’s hell watching the person you lo-like be with someone else. But, how long are you going to keep using Karen against me?” 

The tears on Pam’s cheeks are starting to dry, there’s a boldness in her tone that he doesn’t know if he’s ever heard before. 

The person you like? She started to say love his mind screeches and his pulse rounds a corner and starts galloping down the straight at full speed. 

He tries to process what she’s saying. Tries to form a coherent response. He’s afraid when he opens his mouth that strange gurgling sounds will be the only thing to escape him. He starts with what he knows, what he can articulate. 

“Against you? Pam, she’s not a weapon — she’s a shield!” 

“Oh,” she wipes her wet cheeks on the sleeves of her cardigan. 

“I couldn’t come back and face you the same pining loser I’ve always been. I couldn’t bear it.” 

He watches her pause and consider her words and then she murmurs - 

“Maybe it’s time to lower your defenses…” 

Did she just? He feels like she just… asked him to break up with Karen? 

He clears his throat. “How do I know I won’t be leaving myself open to attack?” 

“I think it’s time to declare a truce, don’t you?” 

He looks at her, really looks at her, and underneath the hurt there’s something that looks a little like hope gleaming in her eyes. 

“We’ve hurt each other enough already. I think we should stop doing that,” she clarifies. 

She wants him to break up Karen because it’s hurting her? It’s hurting her because she likes him? 

He needs a second to reset his brain. 

“I’m not completely sure what you’re saying, Pam. I mean, I think I get it, but…” he trails off expectantly. He doesn’t want to misinterpret.

“Jim, I called off my wedding because of you.” 

She leans forward and presses her lips gently to his and he loses his goddamn mind. His hands come from nowhere and twine in her hair, tugging her closer to him. He opens his lips immediately and pushes his tongue into the seam of hers. She opens up to him and he’s a lost man in the desert stumbling upon water for the first time in days. He drinks her in. 

Her hands curl against his chest. His heart beats erratically under her palms. She lets him kiss her hungrily, responding just as eagerly under his touch. 

She’s missed this. Missed him. She had thought her memories of their last kiss had been doing him justice, but they feel like grainy black and white in comparison to the technicolor of this moment. 

The murmur of voices behind the break room door subside. Dwight waits a few beats before turning his head ever so slightly to assess the situation. 

Oh. Well, that makes it difficult to talk. Jim and Pam are inspecting each other’s tonsils. 

Good for Pam, but not so sanitary over the surface he eats his lunch. 

Then again, he’s not one to judge. There are certain things that he has done with his… person that may or may not have occurred in the workplace - after hours of course. 

That said, they better sanitise that table before they even think of leaving the break room. 

Michael chooses that moment to come and check in on what’s going down. Jim and Pam are two of his dearest friends after all. Plus, he’s Jim’s closest confidant for basically everything. 

He gasps gleefully and exclaims. “Oh my god. It’s happening!” 

He then presses his face against the glass. 

Once again, it’s up to Dwight to keep things under control, because of course Michael’s enthusiasm gets Karen’s attention. 

She starts to spin her chair around, so Dwight takes evasive action. For Pam’s sake. Jim deserves what’s coming for him. 

He knocks on the door, loudly. “Hey, this isn’t your break time,” he scoffs. 

They spring apart. Mission accomplished. 

She doesn’t want the kiss to end. Doesn’t want to return to reality after this interlude into everything she wants. She’s not sure what happens next. 

The thumping on the door is enough of a reminder that they maybe have more of an audience than they’d like. 

She separates quickly, but oh so reluctantly from Jim and - 

“God!” 

Michael’s face is pressed into the window, a wide grin stretching across his face. She shudders. 

Jim follows the line of her sight. “Ughhh,” he groans. “What the hell Michael,” he grounds out. 

Pam paints on her sternest expression and waves Michael away. 

He gives them his biggest, most enthusiastic thumbs up and steps back. 

“We should,” she gestures to their desks. 

“Yeah…” he agrees, but makes no move to leave. 

She crouches to the floor and starts to pick up the bigger pieces of porcelain. 

He joins her.

“I hate that my teapot’s broken,” she sighs. 

“Me too,” he stills her hand with his. “That was one hell of a last bonus gift.” 

“Jim?” 

He hears everything she’s asking without saying more. 

“It’s you, Pam. It’s always been you.” 

She smiles, really smiles. He’s missed this. 

“It’s going to suck,” and they both know he’s talking about breaking up with Karen. 

“It will,” she agrees. “On the bright side, it’s not like you’re calling off an engagement or a ten year relationship,” she deadpans.

He groans and it’s somehow laced with empathy which is a difficult thing for a groan to accomplish, but he pulls it off. The grin he follows it with sparkles with humor. 

It’s like a switch has been flicked and they’re them again. Her broken teapot has glued the jagged pieces of their relationship back together. 

“It’s okay,” and her tone is teasing. He looks at her and takes her in. With her delightfully flushed cheeks and bright eyes he thinks she might just be right about that. 

They’re going to be okay. There’s nothing that’s beyond repair here. Despite being shattered, all their broken pieces still fit.