- Text Size +

The remainder of the day did not grow any easier for Pam. Indeed, it was a relief that Jim's time in the witness box was likely over – unless further questions of him were warranted. It wouldn't be beneath the slimy man defending Roy to drag it out endlessly. She knew that Roy himself was growing restive in the court room, and a restive Roy was a dangerous Roy. Undoubtedly the fact he had managed to remain reasonably calm throughout the proceedings so far would be hailed, in his own eyes, as nothing short of heroic. After all, as far as he was concerned he had done nothing wrong.

There had been the growls and grunts and snarlish whispers she was so familiar with at various points throughout Jim's testimony but the man had not risen. No. But now it was her turn and she knew, with that unshakable certainty burning in her gut that he was saving his rage for her.

As he always had, of course.

She was stroking her fingers despondently along the pebble colored workdesk, absently feeling the grooves of the wood when William walked in.

"Hi Pam." he said, with exaggerated cheerfulness. "I was out for a drive. Just thought I'd swing by and check up on you."

There was a long pause, as they stood looking at each other, while Pam considered the unexpected visitor nervously. He was still wearing the shirt and pants he had worn to court not three hours earlier, except he had loosened his collar. "Oh.. I'm fine, Dad." she finally replied.

"Big day tomorrow." His eyes shone with concern for his eldest daughter.

"Yeah." she said wearily. Her fathers shadow made a sad spectre against the white wall behind him, she could not take her eyes away from it.

"Jim told me you were out here." William looked curiously around the garage. "What are you doing?"

Pam let her hand drop to her side. "I'm just going through this stuff. Jim cleared out this space so I could paint out here."

"That was thoughtful." he said, moving slowly towards her.

"I'm not sure about what I'm going to work on." Pam turned her eyes back to the desk, looking for something – pencils, brushes – anything to busy her hands with, as if that small action would prove to her father she was in control of things.

"It would be good for you to start painting again." William said. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. His eyes, kind and soft bored into hers. "You've come such a long way."

She bit her lip. "Sometimes it feels like I haven't come very far."

"Sweetheart," he said. His voice sounded so genuinely sad it caused her to flinch. "You've been so brave. It will be over soon, just hang in there a little longer, okay?" He rubbed her shoulder affectionately. Pam squinted her eyes at the man, suddenly feeling like she did not recognize him. Grey, so much mottled grey had infiltrated his beard, framing his stricken face. Unfamiliar lines branching out from the corners of his eyes, a hollow to his cheeks that she was sure hadn't been there the year before. Her hand crept towards the desk again, tracing the edges with her fingertip.

"Why couldn't I see it?" his voice brought her back from her thoughts. "All this time, you were under my nose and I didn't see anything."

Pam fell awkwardly silent, mashing her lips together. When she spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper. "I hid it."

"You didn't want me to know?"

"No…" her voice trembled. "I didn't."

He didn't say anything. His expression sagged, his face ashen and his forehead wrinkled tragically. For many moments, neither uttered a word, they only stood avoiding each others eyes, waiting for an interruption of any kind.

"I remember my first day of school." she said unexpectedly. "You and mom took me. I didn't want to go."

A small smile softened his face. "You cried all the way there."

"So did Mom."

"She was convinced you were going to be chopped up in the school cafeteria and served for lunch in the teachers lounge."

Pam was thoughtful, her eyes shifting to the wall behind him. "Do you remember the picture I drew for you?"

"Superdad. I remember."

"That's how I saw you." she said. "Back then."

"Superman?"

"Superdad." she stressed."I drew that picture on the first day. You told me to be myself and the other kids would love me."

"I was right, too."

"You also told me if a boy asked me for my lunch to kick them in the balls."

"Well no one took your lunch did they?" he said, laughing. "Your mom was so mad at me for that. Said it would be all my fault if you were kicked out in the first week."

An automatic laugh slipped out of her; she found nothing funny in the memory at that moment but it was better than tears would have been. In that respect, Jim and her father were a lot alike – both men thrived on using humor at the most difficult of moments to lift her up when needed. It was their way of pumping air into her balloon, rising her above the darkness.

"I thought you had a special power, the power to fix anything." she said, her face reflective. There was a pause. Her voice was soft, fragile as if it would crack at any minute. "You kept us safe, you made us happy. You scared the scary things away and gave us the best you could."

Her father did not respond verbally, simply placing his hand over hers on the worktop, bringing to a stop the circles it had been following over the wood. His fingers closed around her smaller ones and he looked at her meaningfully.

"I didn't want you to know." Pam's eyes were still on the shadow behind him. "When I was a little girl you always made things better. Your hugs were like magic." She came to a stop, her breath catching in her throat. Finally, she looked up at him. His eyes were damp, kind and his face attentive. "I still wanted to be that little girl where all it took was a hug from her dad and everything was okay again. I didn't want that to change."

Her fathers eyes had misted over. He swallowed hard, looking at her with that same blend of adoration and apprehension that can only be achieved by a father with the cruel knowledge that happiness could be as fleeting as a flash of light. She remembered that expression well, gazing down upon her as she rubbed sleep out of her eyes with her little hands before he kissed her goodnight.

"Listen to me," William said, his other hand resting on her shoulder. He bent his head towards her. "You never stop being a dad, no matter how old your kids are. You and Penny, you are my girls and that's something you can't change."

Her body visibly slackened in front of him and her head dropped, her eyes flickering across the dusty concrete. She couldn't look at him, couldn't even raise her face to the shadow on the wall.

"I understand that you didn't want to tell us what was happening," he said, brushing a finger over her glistening cheeks. "And if you never want to talk about it to me, I will understand that too. But, if you ever feel ready, I will be there."

Wordlessly she nodded, her face wrinkling and her lips rolling together. Her inner eyebrows drew upwards as she fought to hold back the overwhelming surge of emotion swelling up inside her. She blinked harshly, her vision becoming blurry. William bent his head closer, speaking softly.

"When you go into court tomorrow, you do it with your head up. You get up and you tell the judge the truth about everything. I don't want you to worry about your mother and I being there to hear it, we are not important in this, you are. We will think no differently of you no matter what you say, we won't love you any less. When your mother cries; and she will, and when I get mad, which I will, it won't be because of you. It's because we love you. And we are so proud of you. You have come so far. When you are on the stand tomorrow, I want you to remember one thing," he said, pausing. Gently he prodded his finger underneath her chin, slippery with tears, and lifted her face up. Emotional green eyes met his apprehensively.

"That," he continued. "You have done absolutely nothing wrong. You have every right to want to see Roy punished for what he has done to you, and to make him hear every word you have to say. You stayed silent for so long, now he will have to hear you."

Tears pooled steadily in her eyes and coursed down her cheeks. "What if I can't?" she whispered. William frowned, stretching closer to hear her.

"But," he said. "What if you can, hmm?"

Pam had no answer for her father. Her shoulders continued to shake and she just stood weakly staring at the floor.

"Roy took something much more valuable from you than your lunch money. Now is your time to really kick him in the balls, like I taught you." he said, prodding her chin upwards once more. He grew contemplative and quiet, looking over her sadly.

"You're still my little girl," he said, and now his voice was low and gentle. "My little girl who was never afraid of ghosts or monsters or spiders, who's heart has always been bigger than she is. You're going to be just fine, I have no doubt about that."

With that, he let go of her chin and stepped back, opening his arms up. Pam contemplated a moment and then moved wearily into the hug, suddenly overcome with love for the man.

"I have a feeling things will come right for you." he said. "You'll see."

- TO -

Inside, Jim was lounging on the couch, talking amiably on his cell phone when Pam and her dad came in from the garage. William, not wanting to leave Helene alone for too long, made his exit quickly after almost suffocating his daughter in another hug. Pam suspected that she was not the only Beesly he had had to comfort that evening. The memory of her mother in the courtroom, pale of face, tears pooling in her eyes as she held a shaking tissue to her face was not something she was ever going to forget.

She waited until Jim was done with his phone call and then decided she was going upstairs for a bath and to get ready for bed. If he noticed the redness of her face or the puffy, swollen eyes he didn't comment on it. He simply yawned and stretched, intimating he'd follow her up shortly. She turned to leave the room, hesitating at the doorway.

"Thank you." she mumbled, turning back. "For.. uh… I know how much you hated that today but you were really, really great and I...um.."

"I know, Beesly." he said, lazily hauling himself to his feet and crossing the room to her. She nodded slowly. Then, leaning up on her toes, she quickly kissed his cheek before turning and leaving the room.

"See you later, Mrs. Schrute." he called up the stairs after her. Seconds later a muffled giggle echoed down the staircase.

"Later, jerk."

Jim smiled and shook his head fondly.

…...

Once she was upstairs she realized just how exhausted she was. She bathed and changed for bed, her tired hands refusing to cooperate with the undoing of buttons and manoeuvring of clothing around her body. Her eyes were heavy, her muscles limp and weak. She had thought that she would not be able to sleep that night, but already her eyelids were closing as she crawled under the covers. Tomorrow she would be on the stand, the most intimate and difficult parts of her life would be dissected into tiny pieces and examined and devoured by the attorneys and the people on the jury and her family, people she didn't even know. If the day she had just sat through was any forecast, she could expect that tomorrow would be excruciating. Roy's attorney was going to rip her apart. Despite everybody's attempts to buoy her about her day in court, her stomach tingled terribly. She felt like she had swallowed a cactus whole.

Carefully, she slid her hand under her pillow and took out the photo that Jim's mother had given her.

She was so touched that Betsy had chosen to give it to her. The prospect of seeing more childhood photos of Jim excited her. There was a strange sense of security in the pictures, a closeness to Jim and his family that she hadn't felt before. It was like the photo was really a special door that opened into a place where their pasts and their futures began to merge together. It was a nice, comforting feeling.

"That photo really makes you laugh, huh?" Jim appeared in the room, the bed dipping down beside her as he got in.

She sleepily opened her eyes. "You were so dorky… it's cute. You look so innocent. Uncorrupted."

"Unco-" he exhaled, shaking his head with a bemused smile. "You actually met Tom and Pete, right?"

"Yup. After meeting those two, I came to the conclusion that you might have been raised by jesters."

"Well now you know. I was born a baby, perfectly proportioned."

"Oh really?" she yawned. "You didn't spring fully grown from the head of Zeus?"

"Well… I don't really remember the trip down the birth canal, but my mom seems to think not. Pete, on the other hand, our dad swears he came from a jackal."

Pam let out a brittle, tired laugh. "Your dad has a great sense of humor." She said, closing her eyes and turning over, to face him.

"Sure does. Once, he pranked our Mom by…." he slowed to a stop. She was asleep, head nestling into his chest.

It was a deep into the dark of night before he fell asleep himself. It grew late and quiet around the two of them and they lay in a beam of moonlight, his arm curved protectively around the small woman.

He would never let on that his fears for tomorrow were greater than his anxiety about his own time under oath. How knew how afraid she was, the body quivering against him even as she slept was more than enough evidence as it was. Jim was scared for her, scared, nervous, vulnerable – her fears, her nerves had become also his. He wanted to keep her safe, safe from Roy and from the memories of Roy. Having her testify in front of the man who had abused her for so long made him uneasy. This was one thing he could not protect her from and that made him extremely uneasy. He wanted to be that man who wasn't Roy, wanted to be the man who could light an eternal flame at their door to keep the predators away. For her.

-TO -

She couldn't eat anything that morning. It was difficult enough for her to keep what was left in her body down – she wasn't going to add any more she could throw back up. She choked down a mug of unsweetened coffee while perched on the couch as the shower ran upstairs. The procession of events were blurry – shower, dress, coffee, car; she couldn't separate the tasks from one another.

Jim came downstairs looking as sick as she felt and she was hit with a world of guilt at the dark shadows around his eyes and the paleness of his skin. Her eyes shifted from him, settling on the front door. If only… she was fighting a wild urge to shake off the numbness and run for the door and just keep going until she was a million miles away from Roy and the courthouse and everyone around her.

Then, through the haze Jim was there, tugging gently at her sleeve, lifting her up, steering her towards the car. She could not run away. Robotically she climbed into the car at the door Jim held open for her.

The journey was slow and torturous. Jim's attempts at light conversation fell flat. He stayed quiet until they were near the destination.

"I hate that you're going through this," he said, breaking the silence between them. "But I know you got this."

She felt a grateful smile stretch across her face. "Thank you." she said sincerely, turning to him.

It was an unusually empty morning, the sky still and cold and grey, the lack of birds, lack of people unnerving. The air was stolid and thick around them when they stepped out of the car, as if the atmosphere was dried out and dead.

"Jim…. Can we go in at the other entrance… I don't think I can handle seeing anyone else. My mom will just make a fuss and get upset… can we just make this painless as possible?"

Jim nodded, understanding. "C'mon then." he replied, draping an arm around her shoulders.

Murphy was waiting for them inside the conference room. Pam stopped at the doorway, facing Jim hesitantly. Reaching out to him, he opened his arms to her in return and they folded into a tight hug together. Pam buried her head into his shoulder, not wanting him to leave. She inhaled him deeply, trying to soothe her fraying nerves. Murphy, who had been diplomatically standing to one to side and riffling through paperwork could wait no longer and finally beckoned her into the room apologetically. She looked back at Jim with sheer terror.

"Love you." she said somberly.

Jim grinned at her, a little flush creeping into his cheeks. "Say it again, Beesly."

Pam smiled back, her first genuine smile that morning. "I love you, Halpert."

Jim moved forward, brushing a warm kiss to her lips. "Love you more."

Then he was off, moving away down the corridor, away, away from her and she was alone in the bare little room without him.

"Let's get down to it, shall we? We're in session in fifteen minutes." Murphy said, all business. Pam nodded agreeably, feeling at that moment she could happily take on Roy, and Kenny too, and anyone else who stepped up to her.


You must login (register) to review or leave jellybeans