“I think we should call off the wedding.”

The air hangs heavy between them.

Earlier the lights hanging over the horizon had sparkled like they were draped over a Christmas tree.

Jim’s face had glowed with the same anticipation.

Now, the shine is muted. The lights bounce over Roy’s frown and all she feels are the looming ominous shadows.

“Fine.”

The lights on the horizon blink and for a moment there is only darkness.

When the world spins back into focus, she watches as the ends of Roy’s lips twist upwards in the makings of a smile.

If she wasn’t frozen into place, the pain would have her doubling over.

Her vision swims. Her stomach twists.

She knew she wasn’t Roy’s priority. But this? His easy reaction? The grin?

She —

She never could have predicted this. Even in her darkest moments she never thought it had come to this… indifference.

It hurts. It hurts in a way she didn’t know it could.

Roy can cast her aside in a moment.

“What’s a wedding anyway? Just a waste of money. We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing, babe. It’s worked fine until now.”

His misunderstanding restarts her lungs.

The dark spots at the edges of her vision recede.

She has to do it again. The hardest eight words of her life and she has to repeat them.

There’s a thought… it’s fleeting. She could… not?

The ache of feeling like she doesn’t matter to him is so very raw. Any patron would send it back to the kitchen if it arrived on their plate.

They don’t understand each other. He misinterprets far too much of their relationship.

He doesn’t know her.

Jim’s right. He doesn’t love her.

In his mind, she’s perpetually sixteen. She can’t be sixteen forever.

“No. I… Break up. I want to break up.”

And there’s the Roy she knows and expects. A stick of dynamite with a fiery string.

The jovial grin slips and in its place is the boy who furiously keyed the car of West Scranton’s star quarterback after a humiliating defeat.

The same boy who her mother had pursed her lips at and murmured that boyfriend of yours has quite the temper, Pamela when he had thrown a punch at his brother at their joint graduation party.

“You fucking what?!”

His bellow is loud enough to wake the dead.

It strikes her that maybe she should have waited until they were off the boat with all their colleagues on to do this.

But, that’s nothing compared to the surge of relief. Somehow this - the expected - is better than the apathetic Roy of a moment ago.

Anger she can work with. Anger she understands. Anger means this whole decade of her life wasn’t for nothing.

“Fuck you! Have you been cheating on me?”

He lunges, hands roughly landing on her shoulders. He clutches her far too tightly.

She feels small compared to Roy and it’s always something she’s romanticized. Her hulking protector. Now she just feels vulnerable.

His beefy hands cover the entirety of her upper arms. His fingers press sharply into her skin.

She bruises easily. She’s marked for trouble here.

He shakes her roughly back and forth, like he expects the answers to explode from her if he can mix her up enough.

“No! Roy, of course not!”

He rattles the truth through her clenched teeth.

She wants to scream let me go but her instincts tell her that it will only cause him to dig his heels - and hands - in further.

And then there’s another voice speaking her mind.

“Let her go.”

Jim’s voice is low and even. She’s never heard him sound so serious. There’s a flicker of steel through his tone, a hint of venom that screams danger.

As they step closer, she realizes it isn’t just Jim. He’s flanked by Darryl and Captain Jack. Dwight and Michael linger in the wings, looking every bit as serious as Jim sounds.

Darryl’s hand settles on Roy’s shoulder - a suggestion. Roy drops his arms in a show of defeat.

His eyes still burn with open fire.

“To the brig.”

It’s not a suggestion. Captain Jack and Darryl tug him further into the darkness.

Pam sinks on shaking knees.

The deck beneath her legs is cool, she presses her hands to it and bows her head.

Voices buzz around her, Michael and Dwight hiss empty threats that Roy can’t possibly hear.

Her world centers on the rhythmic thudding of water against wood.

The waves continue lapping at the boat. Her life as she knows it is over. And yet the waves keep coming.

She concentrates all her energy on timing her breathing with the current.

This is her constant now. This is what she can count on.

And then a hand settles soothingly on her shoulder and maybe there are other things in her life she can still depend on.

“Pam, are you okay?”

He tries to keep the terrified edge from creeping into his tone which leaves him sounding clipped and a little more brusque than he’d like.

Is stupidity asking questions you don’t want to know the answer to? Or maybe it’s asking questions you already know the answer to.

Either way, Jim is screwed.

He’s never seen Pam like this. The way she crumpled to the floor, like Roy’s hands had been holding her to the surface of the earth.

She looks defeated.

He hates that he’s played a part in making her look this way. He hates that he’s to blame.

If he had just kept his stupid mouth shut.

If he had just left things the way they had always been.

If he hadn’t rocked the damn boat.

“No… But, I will be.”

It seems almost like she’s telling herself and not so much answering him.

Her head rises from staring brokenly at the wooden deck beneath her hands as she speaks, her chin jutting out in stubborn determination.

She starts to push herself back up, almost losing her balance as the next wave hits.

He doesn’t think. His hand rises without his conscious permission and settles under her elbow, holding her steady.

He tries to tell himself he’s just being a good friend, but his frantic pulse at being so close to her betrays him.

“Thanks Jim.”

She turns to face him, his hand dropping limply back to his side.

The sincerity ringing through her words has him thinking that maybe she means for more than just steadying her.

Surely she wouldn’t be thanking him for causing trouble in her relationship.

Accusing her of cheating? Roy is scum. Worthless scum. He doesn’t know her at all.

Jim knows her. She would never. Her loyalty, her consistency, they’re the very traits that make Pam, Pam.

He didn’t hear the whole conversation, just that when Roy started hollering and cursing, respecting their privacy seemed less important than it had seconds earlier.

Darryl shooting nervous glances at the door had only solidified that he needed to check that Pam was okay.

“Jim?”

He furrows his brow in confusion at Pam for a moment because her lips haven’t opened and it’s not her voice.

It takes him far longer than it should to process the familiar voice. Katy. Right.

His date. Girlfriend seems too strong a term. He can’t bring himself to think it.

Pam frowns. Deeply.

It’s an answer to a question he hasn’t had the courage to ask.

“I should get back inside.”

Oh. Don’t go he wants to say, but Katy has settled at his side. She’s beaming brightly and has somehow missed everything that has recently transpired.

She can’t see how tightly Jim is bound to the woman stepping around them with downcast eyes.

Pam disappears back into the cabin along with Jim’s patience.

Katy clutches at his arm and he rounds on her without preamble.

“I think we should break up.”

Her wide eyes flicker from shock before settling on anger.

He knows he’s not being the best version of himself. He knows that he will become the villain she tipsily bemoans about with her girlfriends.

He knows that he’s not much better than the man he so despises in this moment.

He knows, but it’s not enough to have him reconsidering.

He needs this to be over.

It’s not fair to anyone.

He can’t date when his heart belongs to someone else.

“Whoa. What?”

It takes her one glance at his stony expression to know he’s serious.

She glares at him and storms over to the other side of the deck, arms folded tightly over her chest as she settles against the railing.

He rubs his hand roughly over the nape of his neck with a breathy sigh.

He’s an ass. There’s no sugar coating it.

There’s also nothing else to be gained by staying on this deck. It seems everything starts and ends in this spot tonight.

There’s some sort of magnetic pull buried deep in the soles of his feet that tugs him back towards Pam’s orbit.

He makes his inevitable way back towards her.

“Okay folks. Last call for drinks. We will be returning to dock shortly.”

The grainy speaker booms to life as he settles back at their table.

Pam offers him a tentative smile before shifting her gaze to her hands.

“I kind of forgot about Katy.”

Her gentle admission as she chews nervously on her bottom lip sends small sparks of hope careening through his bloodstream.

He clears his throat.

“I kind of did too. I, umm, broke up with her.”

His words are punctuated with the woman in question returning to the cabin.

She offers him another fierce glare before settling at the bar, her back to them.

He feels his lips twist into an awkward grimace.

“I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t sound sorry. Her eyes are brighter than they were a moment before.

Her tone is placation mixed with pure pleasure.

It makes him bold. It makes him honest.

“I’m not.”

A smile hints at the edges of her lips.

He feels himself mirroring her.

He’s available. She’s available. Or at the very least he thinks she might be. She’s more available than she’s ever been.

There might just be a chance.

It feels more tangible than it’s ever felt before.

“Me too.”

His chest expands with possibility. It stretches with such speed he’s terrified for a moment that it may just explode.

Instead, it bends and twists and somehow the capacity is greater than it ever has been before.

He stretches an unsteady hand across the table towards her.

She lets his fingers brush over the back of her hand for a moment before she pulls them gently back to her lap.

An apologetic smile graces her lips.

“I need some time.”

It’s enough. For now. His fingertips still burn with the heat from her hand. He feels the warmth settle deep in his chest, a purring cat on a slow Sunday morning.

If there’s one thing Jim has perfected in his years at Dunder Mifflin, it’s patience.

He can wait. He can out wait a statue.

He can transform himself into one of those giant mechanical men if he has to.

The boat docks.

A day passes, and then a week, and then a month.

He remains the same.

Pam changes. She murmurs excitedly about her new apartment and her art classes at the community center.

He had thought his heart had already stretched to capacity, but with each new accomplishment, the pride coursing through him expands it further still.

He remains friend Jim, but friend Jim starts to exist outside of the office.

He’s the one helping her shuffle her new - well, new to her, slightly preloved - sofa through her front door on a Saturday afternoon.

He’s who she calls when a light flickers on on the dash of her new car.

He shows up.

He may not be an expert at relationships, or love, but he always shows up.

“You said you didn’t know what it was…”

Her mouth is open, the words spilling out before she really thinks them through.

It’s a nondescript Tuesday and she just knows.

It hits her like a bow of a boat breaking through the waves, constant and sure.

They’re in the break room.

She’s eating a bag of French Onion SunChips that had not so mysteriously appeared on her desk a few moments earlier.

She’s sipping from a mug of grape soda, the other half still swishing in the can clasped in Jim’s hand.

“It?”

He doesn’t sense the shift, doesn’t feel the current pulling her under and redirecting the course of her life.

He grins as he speaks, stretching his fingers forward to nab a chip from her bag.

It’s a game they play all the more often these days. Usually she offers a weak glare and threatens to bat his hand away.

Today, she ignores it and tastes the way the word feels rolling from her lips.

“Love.”

He gasps sharply and shards of chip dust vacuum into his lungs, leaving him coughing and choking.

She gives him a moment to compose himself.

He’s all frantic wide eyes and heaving breaths.

She shuffles her chair closer to him and rubs a hand over his back, smoothing the last of the crumbs from his airway.

He nods his thanks.

His breathing evens out and she figures it’s safe to continue.

“I think maybe I do.”

She’s nervous. She knows exactly how this ends and yet she’s still shaking.

She twines her fingers together and tries to channel her twitchy energy into courage.

Jim’s eyes are on her, there’s an intensity there that hasn’t quite returned since she glimpsed it the night of the booze cruise.

He’s been patient. And careful. So careful.

Only taking what she’s been offering and not pushing for more.

She wants more.

“I would save the paper salesman.”

She watches awareness and understanding build in his gaze.

They haven’t talked about that night.

The recognition flares. His words return to him.

Roy had said enough, but she in her own roundabout way had coaxed Dwight to recount the entire conversation gathered around snorkel shots over by the bar to her.

Jim had said he would save the receptionist.

She knows without a shadow of a doubt who she would save.

It’s him. Only him.

She wants him to know.

She wants him to know how she feels.

It makes her braver still.

She slides her hand under the table and finds his. She slips her hand into his and tangles their fingers together.

He beams widely at her and says the very last thing she expects.

“Dwight?”

She’s laughing as he covers her lips with his own. All it takes is joy, Jim and grape soda kisses that fizz and tingle through every inch of her body for her to know exactly what love is.