Her laughter felt good. Pam rolled back in her chair, almost approaching tears as she shook with mirth. It was just so funny the complete and utter expression of bewilderment on Dwight's face as he stood looking down at the tiny blue and yellow plastic desk situated right on the very spot where his own workstation should be. And Jim! Jim had kept a poker face- he always did –as he sat at his own regular sized desk in front of the fisher price miniature, and for some reason she wasn't aware of, this made Pam laugh even harder. Not for the first time, she wondered in awe at the sheer effort Jim put into messing with Dwight. For a moment or two she remembered other things Jim had done over the years to everyone's amusement - except Dwight's – and seriously started to consider she might never stop laughing. Her laughter pealed out over the reception area infectiously. Phyllis was smirking on her left, as Dwight picked up the mini red telephone off of the little desk.

Just as her giggles were mercifully tapering off a little, Dwight gave a pompous turn on his heel and screeched for Michael, stomping off towards the office. Pam rocked back on her chair, tears now streaming down her face.

"Please, no more." She gasped between heaving giggles. Her abdomen was aching. It was obviously true, the old adage about laughing until your sides split. She pulled a tissue out of the box on her desk and attempted to compose herself, a task made all the more difficult while she was still in earshot of Dwight's indignant whining behind her in the office and Michael's half assed placating attempts at humoring the situation.

Wiping the tears from her cheeks and straightening up in her chair, she dropped her tissue into the bin below her desk. She threw Jim a quick smile of appreciation, hoping to convey her approval of this morning's entertainment, but something she saw on his face caused her to freeze briefly.

Jim was gazing at her in wonder, looking sightly bemused and at the same time, confusion set in his expression.

"It was just… really funny…." she said, a little embarrassed. Jim smiled warmly at her, leaning back nonchalantly in his chair, looking as innocent as only a young man sitting beside a thirty inch low plastic play desk could look.

"Wait until he finds out where the desk really is." he said mischievously, tipping his head to the window on the right. Pam's mouth flew open in silent glee, her eyebrows raised.

"Oh noooo!" She laughed out. Dwight would not like that at all. She smiled to herself. Laughter was good.

"Oh, no not Toby!" Michael groaned from inside his office.

-TO-

"Ro-oyyy!" Pam chuckled, flushing slightly. She lifted his hand up off her thigh gently and placed it on his own knee. She was embarrassed and more than a little wary that someone could well walk into the lunch area and see Roy with his hands flirtatiously under the table, groping his way up to third base.

"What? We're married."

Pam raised her eyebrows at him. He simply shrugged his shoulders at her and waved dismissively. "In their eyes, we are." he stated matter of factly, thumbing carelessly towards the office. Pam opened her mouth to tell him it wouldn't make a difference if they were married or not, they were still in public, in the office no less, but held her tongue as the door clunked open and Angela slid delicately into the kitchen behind them.

Pam looked up at the wall clock, averting her eyes from Roy. It always embarrassed her, the way Roy fooled around in public, especially in the office she worked in. He tended to get carried away and on several past occasions she had had to physically remove fingers from various less subtle parts of her body, uncomfortable with being pawed at in full view of strangers, or worse family and friends. It wasn't that she didn't feel good when Roy was openly showing he was still attracted to her, she did, and it felt special in a way she couldn't describe. But the other side of that was the unshakeable intuition that it was less and less about attraction for Roy and increasingly a territorial play. He liked people – men – to know she was his. She also was under no illusion that at some point in their future there would be yet another discussion about displays of affection between them.

Both Roy and Pam were startled out of their thoughts by the impatient thumps and metallic clinks of cup and cutlery hitting on the sideboard as Angela literally threw her lunch together. Pam and Roy looked at each other with near identical expressions of knowing between them.

"Hey, Angela?" Pam said carefully, watching the petite woman throw nuts into a bowl with surprising aggression. Angela turned around.

"I'm having family problems." she said with the air of someone who is carrying an enormous load. "I don't know what to do. Ember and Mr Ash had a fight, and now the others have taken sides against her. There's bad blood, jealousies, cliques. Ember can't even eat breakfast with us anymore, she has to eat alone in her bedroom."

"Your cats?"

"Yes, Roy, and I'm out of vacation days so I can't be there to break it up if they fight. Ember was so close to Mr Ash, and now," she said, with real hurt in quivering in her voice. "Now, she's being ostracized! Have any of your cats ever fallen out?"

"Oh.. um.. well I'm-"

"We don't like cats." Roy said, somewhat harshly. Angela stopped and stared at both of them, a burning condescension glowing fiercely in her eyes. She gathered up her lunch off of the sideboard and stalked out of the room without another word. Roy winced at Pam.

"Her cats are her kids, Roy." She said unconvincingly.

"Whatever." He was dismissive.

"I just think it means she really-"

"You don't need to worry about it, do you?" He said, suddenly reaching out and pinching the flesh on her hip hard between his fingers.

"Ow, Roy!" His fingers were sharp and bit painfully into the sensitive skin above her hip joint. She lifted her arm and used her wrist to push him away.

"You've got the post baby body already, what's the difference?" He said scathingly. "Too much baggage there already."

She stared at him with a hurt expression, her cheeks reddening. She slumped back into her chair, and looked away from him, feeling that she was drowning in a powerful wave of emotion.

-TO-

Jim was angry. Yes, angry, and he let the desk have it, tapping his fingers in frustration on the surface. But more than angry, he was worried.

Neither Pam nor Roy had seen him at the door. At first he saw them sitting together at the table, intimately close and the ever too familiar stab of hurt ran through his chest. The sight of them together sent him spinning in a new way that he did not expect. Realistically he wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to be in such close proximity with the future Mr and Mrs Anderson without screaming at them to stop flaunting their relationship, stop acting like his feelings didn't matter.

He knew he was being unreasonable. He wanted her to be happy, he really, really did. But he didn't want to hang around and witness it. He also wanted to make her happy. Was she really that oblivious to him, and how he felt? He certainly wasn't going to sit with them and play along. Lunch would wait.

But before he'd turned around, he'd seen it happen. He was trying to make sense of what he had seen. Pam and Roy had looked comfortable, normal, like they did every day. But something had happened then. He couldn't see Roy's face – not that Roy was the one he wanted to look at – but he saw Pam's face change from her normal calm, although lately she did look drawn, to what he would swear was an expression of pain. Her mouth stretched and she winced noticeably. He saw that.

He didn't know what happened. But he heard her, heard the pain in her voice as she cried out Roy's name. He'd come back to his desk feeling like a traitor. He was overwhelmed with feelings.

She wasn't back at her desk. He didn't think her break was over yet. Part of him had wanted to go back and barge in there and demand to know what was going on. Part of him – the more rational part – was thinking back over his own memories of Pam and the things she had said to him in the past, and her interactions with Roy.

Why hadn't he seen this before? He glanced at her empty desk again. He felt shaken, he felt like he couldn't believe it either. He couldn't understand how Roy – or anyone - could ever hurt such a sweet, beautiful person as Pam.

He couldn't let it go. He would find a way to check on her, talk to her. She didn't have to love him, he would still be there for her. He knew there was a likelihood he was wrong, but he didn't think so… it felt like something that had been gnawing at him was falling into place and he was just beginning to see the bigger picture.

And if he was right, and Roy was doing anything to hurt Pam, he knew he wouldn't be able to sit quietly by and watch it continue. No. Not the girl he loved.