While Pam sat stiff legged next to her attorney, her eyes widening at the unexpected change of events in front of her, Roy approached the witness box and went through the necessary protocols; that he was to tell the truth. The whole truth.

"Don't overthink it." Murphy had told her. "This isn't strictly uncommon. The defense isn't going to want the jury's last impression of Roy to be a poor one, if he were unable to control himself on the stand for example, so their strategy is to call him up now and try to repair the damage afterwards."

That was all well and good as she absorbed it, but now that Roy was up there in front of her – facing her, her blood had turned to ice. Murphy rose, patting her shoulder awkwardly as he buttoned up his jacket and approached Roy, a calm expression on his face.

She didn't hear the opening questions. Her brain, ears, chest were all on high alert, on standby waiting, listening only for the sounds of impending explosion. The simple act of Roy's presence, directly in front of her and she had immediately fallen back into her old behavior, her old safety practices, absorbing every facet of Roy's body language, his tone, scavenging for changes in his emotional weather.

The questions Murphy began to put to him were not what she expected. He seemed to be taking a different route to the sympathetic, kindly manner he had adopted when questioning her. Towards Roy he was unfailingly calm and polite, as he was typically, yet there was an exaggerated sort of reasonableness to the attorneys technique. His approach was careful, gentle – in plain contrast to Roy's own hot nature.

"How do you feel about the allegations against you, Mr Anderson?" he asked, raising his chin.

Roy looked at him reproachfully. "Would you be happy if you the woman you loved with all your heart and soul had turned on you like this and you ended up in the hotseat with your life on the line?"

"Please answer the question, Mr Anderson." Murphy said, not missing a beat. "Would you like me to repeat it?"

Roy huffed loudly. "First, I'm not my father so call me Roy. Second, I heard you fine the first time and I am very unhappy that Pam hates me enough to put me in jail."

"She has made very serious allegations against you. Do you understand that?"

"Yeah. She says I hit her." Roy's voice was sharp and defensive, in response to what he saw as a grievous injustice against himself.

Holding up his fingers, Murphy reeled off the charges. "Aggravated assault, strangulation, false imprisonment, stalking – these are the crimes you are charged with. Are you saying that Pam hasn't been truthful with the court?"

"Pam twists things." Roy shrugged. "Sure things weren't perfect, but that's Pam, turning things around."

For Pam, Roy's argument hit her with the force of a punch in the gut. Roy's anger, Roy's denials were expected. Somehow that paled in comparison to these remarks. Anger, yes, rage, definitely. But here he was trivializing everything he had done to her and doing it with that smug, offhand manner of his. That and the fact that he still wasn't giving an inch. She felt like screaming.

"You sound very angry with her." Murphy remarked. "Is that right?"

It was impossible for her to miss the subtle flash in her ex fiance's eyes – after all she had relied on these quiet indicators of his for years. She knew very well these signs were all a warning – as clear as the cocking of a gun.

"I've spent the best part of a year in jail with murderers and drug dealers and actual criminals, being dragged from one courtroom to the next. I've been branded a monster. Yeah, I'm pretty angry about that." He bit back tersely.

"How do you deal with anger?" the attorney tried and failed to sound sympathetic. "Let's say someone wrongs you, or does you injustice and you're angry. How do you deal with it?"

"I used to go play basketball or go to the gym, hang out with my brother, have a few beers. Work it all out, good clean workout. Now I don't know, I guess I turn it in on myself. There aren't a lot of options in prison."

Murphy nodded briskly. "Okay, you work it all out, you go out, you get distracted, you drink a little. Do you find that this works to calm your temper?"

"Yeah, definitely."

"Have you ever been in a fight on one of those excursions, to calm yourself – have you ever found yourself reacting violently towards someone while you were out cooling off?"

"No."

"Have you ever been in a bar fight, for example?"

Roy fidgeted uncomfortably. "Well…. Kenny and I might have.. after a few too many…. But it wasn't like anything serious."

"Isn't it true that you were arrested for misdemeanor charges relating to damages totaling over six thousand to a bar in Boston three years ago, and again a year and a half ago for damages over eight hundred in Poor Richards; a bar you and Pam frequented often." Murphy asked, triggering Pam's memory of both incidents. She recalled receiving a very unnerving phone call from an inebriated Roy within the local Boston police station and an outright order to wire money over immediately. Of course, being phoned for help in the aftermath of the incident was a lot less frightening than being in the eye of one – which was how arrest number two had gone down.

"There were never any charges brought against me." Roy said stiffly.

Murphy smirked "That's right, you were able to settle the remunerations directly in each case, weren't you. How did you accomplish that?"

"We paid off the damages."

And they had. With a little help from Pam, of course. Not that she'd openly resented it at the time, she had just done what she was told. Whatever would keep the peace with the least amount of fuss. Even now, she couldn't bring herself to regret her obedience, not when she had the options laid out in front of her like bullets waiting to be loaded. After all, who knew better than her the repercussions of poking an already pissed off bear?

"And inside your relationship," Murphy continued. "When you and your fiancee fought. What would you do?"

Roy lifted his shoulder in a dismissive half shrug. "We had our problems. I admit it was hard at times."

"What was it that you found difficult?"

Silence followed the attorneys question. Roy pondered his response, an increasing frown wrinkling his forehead. Pam watched him nervously, he seemed to be working something out in his head. It was never a good sign when he went quiet like that.

Finally, he drew in a deep breath. "You know women, they like to cry. And some women know how to use that. That's how it was with Pam. I'd have to go out or away from her, let things cool off."

"Okay." Murphy looked skeptical. "Can you give an example of an argument where Pam ended up crying?"

"One?" Roy sounded disappointed. "I could give lots of examples. Like she always wanted her own way. She could be manipulative like that. Once we fought because she called me when I was at a game to ask when I would be home. She said I was mean to her on the phone. I'd told her not to call when I'm at a game, unless it's an emergency. She couldn't let it go when I got home and then she cried. She did it to cover herself and make me feel bad because she really called as she was paranoid and checking up on me at the game."

Another memory she hadn't forgotten. The first time that she had broken the no contact during the game rule, and Roy hadn't lied – she had ended up in tears by the end of the night. She had also ended up with a twisted arm that took several days to stop hurting.

"When you fought, which was often, and she cried, how would you react to her?"

Clearly the question had caught him off guard. "You mean like what did I do?"

"Yes. Did you try to comfort her, ignore her, leave her alone or otherwise?" Murphy prodded.

"Well.. uh," Roy fiddled with the button on his jacket. "It depends. She wouldn't always want me to comfort her, so sometimes I'd go away – just to give her space you know," he added quickly. "I'd end up bringing her flowers back though, no matter who was at fault."

"And the night that she left you," said Murphy. Pam saw Roy jerk subtly in his seat, before straightening up. "Could you describe exactly what happened in your own words please."

"Sure I can. I caught her and Halpert together earlier on in the day and-"

"-Excuse me, can we clarify what you mean by 'caught'?"

"In the house together."

"What were they doing?"

"Halpert was kneeling on the floor in front of her. Their faces were inches apart. What do you think they were doing?" Roy's hands tightened into fists as he spat the words through clenched teeth. "I called them on it, Halpert sucker punched me out and she walked out. When she came back later she packed her things."

"And then what happened?"

"I was angry – I can't say I wasn't. I wanted her to stay, to work it all out. But she was like a different person. We fought."

"Physically?"

Roy's face clouded with something that could resemble shame, but she wasn't sure from looking at him. "Yes. I admit I pushed her away from the door, pretty hard and slammed it shut." He looked up at the attorney with pitiful eyes. "I know it was wrong, to push her. I shouldn't have let her get to me – I should have just walked away. I swear I'm not a violent man and that in that one second I just lost it. She can be so frustrating, I didn't know what to do."

Pam choked down a scream of disbelief. Roy was an accomplished liar and manipulative with it but she had no idea he could sound so reasonable in his lies, so plausible. She could feel herself begin to tremble.

Murphy looked unamused. "After you pushed her away from the door what happened?" he said, his jaw twitching – belying his standard calm exterior.

"We yelled at each other and she just lunged at me. I was taken by surprise, and not wanting to hurt her by defending myself I ended up falling down. Then she slapped at me and scratched me and then ran out."

"What injuries did she have when she left?"

"I didn't see much to be honest. She looked okay. She was limping but that was where she'd walked around outside barefoot earlier."

"Hmmm." Murphy kept his expression rigid. He turned around and walked to retrieve a cream colored folder, bringing it back to the front of the room. He opened it, shuffling through briskly and slid out what looked like a full scale color picture.

She only had a glimpse of the photo as Murphy walked past – and a glimpse was all she needed. A cold fever swept over her. She felt the dizzying pangs of nausea spinning around her. Aside from Roy himself, those photos were one of the last things she ever wanted to see. Just the fact that they even existed stabbed at her like a sword –she wanted to be able to forget, she didn't want anyone else to see what Roy had done to her. Her bruises and burns and fractures and sprains and ribs and dozens of other injuries and ailments had faded and healed… but the evidence was still right there in those photos. She leaned forward, sliding her elbow on to the surface of the desk and propping her forehead up against the fingers of her right hand, breathing deeply, both to quell the nausea she felt and temper the panic trying to claw its way up from her stomach and into a scream in her throat.

"Can you tell us what this is a photo of?" Murphy held the photo up to Roy's eye level.

Roy shrugged, averting his attention to the bench.

"Could you tell the court what you see in this photo?" repeated Murphy.

Roy held his eyes to the photo for the briefest second. "Uh.. someone with bruises on their neck."

"Look closer, Mr Anderson. Do you recognize the person in the photo?"

Again Roy shrugged. "It's Pam." he said disinterestedly.

"That's right. This photo was taken the day after she left you. Do you know how she sustained the injury to her neck?"

"Rough sex with Halpert?" he snapped.

Murphy drew back at the sudden bitterness of his voice. Pam felt sorry for him. "Did you cause this injury to her neck?"

"I would never do that to Pam."

"What about these," Murphy said, fanning out a sheaf of pictures on the wooden beam in front of Roy. With a long index finger he tapped on the surface of one of them, before lifting it. "Here, this is a photo of bruising around her abdomen area. As you can see, it's very dark bruising– so dark it's almost black. It looks painful, wouldn't you agree?"

Poker faced, Roy shrugged once more.

Murphy lifted another photo. "This one – this is another photograph from the same examination. This is the upper back area. A nasty looking burn, stretching from upper to lower shoulder blade and extending through regions of the spine area in places." He stood pointedly resting his finger on the photo. Roy said nothing.

"Did you cause this injury?" the attorney asked.

"I don't know how she got that." Roy said belligerently, his face forming a hard, still mask with narrowed eyes.

"Did you cause this injury?"

"I said I don't know how she got it." Roy snapped.

Murphy shook his head. Pam was in awe of the mans patience. "This one – this was a head injury from a hospital examination the day before Pam left you. She stated that she suffered a concussion during an argument with you two days prior to attending hospital on that occasion. Is this correct?"

"She fell. I told you, she turns things around to how she wants to see them." Roy crossed his large arms and pushed back against the backrest.

"Her statement to the police was that you pushed her causing her head to hit a wall."

"She fell." Roy was immovable on this point.

Murphy looked at him coldly. "But the two of you were having an argument at the time?"

"Yes."

"Did you at any time strike her during this argument?"

"Look- she's saying I did but Pam likes to play the victim when we fight – it's just something I had to learn to accept."

Pam stared at her former fiance with anger, feeling almost utterly defeated. She would give up the whole case and everything if he would just admit it. Just say what he did. The man seemed to sense the fierce glare coming from her and turned to her.

Admit it, she pleaded silently with her eyes. His icy blue scowl tore into her, but she refused to let herself be overcome. She felt weak, faint – as though all her blood had run down and pooled in her stomach. Her mouth filled with a thick acidic bile that burned the back of her throat. Then unexpectedly she was somewhere else, somewhere cold and hard and the smell of sweetness assaulted her nose; coconut and vanilla and jojoba and a dozen other fruity scents – and the acrid, metallic smell of her own blood and vomit. A hand was pushing down on the side of her head, forcing her cheek flat into the frosty tiles of the floor.

"This never happened." a ghost voice whispered in her ear. And somewhere in the distance a bell rang and the hand let go and the voice echoed away in a staccato of footsteps and her mothers voice floated up to her. Her head ached dreadfully and she heard the ghost voice telling her mothers voice that it was sure Pam didn't mean to forget that she was supposed to meet her mother for lunch, that she had been so excited about going to lunch with the girls from work it must have slipped her mind but the ghost voice reminded her mother that's how girls are when they get together and then her mothers voice slipped away.

"I'm sorry." she whispered, to the empty room. Then the ghost voice was back and this time the hands were gentler, softer and they were lifting her off the floor and steadying her and leading her out of the bathroom and laying her down on the bed. A cold wash cloth began to pat away at the blood under her nose – by hands that wanted to heal then, not hurt. The hurting had been done.

"I'm sorry." she whispered again.

"I forgive you." the ghost voice said.

-TO-

She slipped back into reality like a spirit – and Murphy still had the pictures laid out in front of Roy. She cautiously kept her eyes on the attorney – no longer on Roy. She thought she had no surprises left in her – but she was coming to experience that there were unpleasant memories she had blocked out which would come to the surface – and the thought terrified her.

"And this one – this again from the night she left you." Murphy was saying. "This is the right side of her head. Bruising tracing all the way down the side of her face to her neck. This swelling here; that's her ear. Did you cause these injuries?"

"She jumped me – she was mad. I'm the victim here – she was running off to another man!" Roy snarled.

Once again Murphy asked. "Did you cause these injuries to Pam?"

As soon as Murphy had spoken, an objection was lodged by the defense attorney. "Argumentative. Mr Anderson has been asked this question multiple times. Prosecution is leading him to the answer he wants to hear."

"Your honor, Mr Rieper, the question remains the same – but it is not related to the same evidence each time. The witness may refuse or avoid answering how Miss Beesly sustained injuries to her neck, as an example – that does not mean he should not be asked if he caused the other injuries in evidence." Murphy jerked his thumb towards the photos, still spread out in front of Roy. The judge agreed with Murphy.

Murphy repeated the question.

"What do you want from me, do you want me to lie?" Visibly angered, Roy uncrossed his arms and leaned forward, anger evident on his face.

"I'm not asking for you to lie, I'm asking for the truth. How did she sustain these injuries?" Murphy said, unfazed by Roy's attempt to appear intimidating.

"I already told you."

Murphy raised his hands resignedly and turned to the bench. "Your honor – the witness is non responsive."

Judge Summers looked sternly at Roy. "Mr Anderson, you are here today to answer the questions that are asked of you. Do not play these games." Her tone was clear and full of warning.

"Sorry, your honor." Roy said, not sounding a bit sorry.

"Thank you." Murphy said to the judge before returning his attention to Roy. "Once more, Roy, did you cause these injuries to Pam?"

Roy huffed, flinging his palms up in a defeated gesture. "I've already told you, she jumped me. Anything that happened to her was her own fault."

"Okay, let's say that night, she jumped you." Murphy moved on, apparently deciding Roy wasn't going to be shaken. "You're on the floor. Pam got you down on the floor in the hallway, is that what happened?"

"Yeah."

"How much do you weigh, Roy?"

Roy stared at the man as though he had lost his mind. "How much do I weigh?"

"Just on average, Roy. What do you generally weigh?"

"I usually check in around one ninety." Roy said with a proud smirk. "I did before I got stuck in prison anyway."

Murphy nodded. "One ninety pounds. You're what, six foot?"

"Six four." Roy corrected. He wore an expression of bewilderment that was almost comical, but Pam – she thought she knew what the attorney was getting at.

"Okay, six four. So we're back to that night. Pam, with her medically documented one hundred and ten pounds, jumped you, knocking you to the floor. She's a woman of incredible strength wouldn't you say, for someone only five foot five. And so she's got you down, what is she doing?"

"She was yelling and stuff and she was slapping and scratching at me." Roy said, finally breaking into fury., his jaw clenching and twisting angrily.

"Did you try to fight her off?" Murphy asked.

"She was wild – she wouldn't let up." Roy's voice began to rise dangerously. "She was on top of me. I was trying not to hurt her!"

"Right. She's on top of you. How did she get the injuries to her neck?"

"I don't know." he shrugged carelessly.

"Did you black out during the altercation?"

Roy looked at the man with sheer hatred. "I don't think so."

"Then how did she sustain these bruises to her neck – these marks that circle round from the front of her neck to the back. Here on the lower right side you can see the imprint of a thumb. And this here is a laceration from a fingernail. Did you cause these injuries?"

"How many times you gotta ask me that same question? I already told you. It must have happened after she left. I told you what happened between us." It was really unbelievable – when Roy stuck to his story, he was unbending. And Pam no longer thought that Roy was lying – she now realized that Roy actually believed what he was saying – believed his own lies about her.

"I'm asking for an answer to the question. – a yes or no will do nicely."

It was likely obvious to everyone in the room that afternoon that the defendant was now utterly furious and struggling hard to maintain the tentative grip on his self control.

"Have you told us the truth today Roy?" Murphy said, plucking the words out of Pam's own head.

"Of course I have!" Roy's voice rose just short of a roar, shattering the fragile wall Pam had built around herself. Her heart quickened almost painfully.

"Then how could she have sustained these very deliberate injuries if you 'weren't trying to hurt her'?" Murphy persisted.

"Look, don't push me into a corner." Roy's cheeks had turned to a dark, ruddy red, any moment he would begin to scream. Pam knew this – knew he was dangerously close to descending into Roy-levels of crazy.

"Could you answer the question please." repeated Murphy.

"You're trying to goad me. I'm not answering any more questions." Roy said sullenly.

The room was silent as the two men sparred on. Pam found a new level of healthy respect for the prosecutor – despite her mounting anxiety at the heightened emotions in the room – that the man was able to hide his own annoyance so well. He spoke calmly. "Mr Anderson may I remind you that you are under oath. Do you wish to be held under contempt as well?"

Roy pressed his lips together and leaned back in his seat, looking very much like he wanted nothing more than to take a swing at the attorney.

"Okay, let's move on." Murphy said, ignoring the enraged expression in front of him. "You're both on the ground, she's on top of you, 'yelling and stuff and slapping and scratching at you'. Then what happened?"

"What do you think happened?" Roy spat.

"Mr Anderson?"

"I told you, I'm not answering to you any more." he proclaimed, clamping his lips together, his eyebrows raising insolently.

"Yes, you will answer my questions, Mr Anderson because you are the witness and you are on the witness stand and you are under oath."

"No." Roy said.

Judge Summers stood up, drawing herself up to full height. "Mr Anderson. I'm instructing you to answer the question. If you do not answer you can be held in contempt and put in jail until you agree to cooperate. Are we clear?"

"You Honor," Rieper cleared his throat. "May I suggest the court to take a brief respite, in order to allow me to confer with my client?"

Pam froze to her seat as officers led Roy out of the room, followed by the defense attorney. She didn't know what to do. Her stomach flexed painfully, and she felt like the whole room was on fire. She retched, swallowing heavily.

A warm hand fell on her shoulder.

"Come on, sweetheart, let's go get some fresh air." William said, patting her gently.

"Kicked her around like a football– "

"But if she was cheating on him – "

"She looks well and healthy enough now."

The voices came from the back of the courtroom, as the members of the public filed out. Pam looked up at the concerned faces around her, feeling completely overwhelmed.

"Pam?" William said, patting again.

"Do you really believe nothing happened? They are together now."

The words slammed against her like bullets. Shoving her fathers consoling hand away, she hastily clamped her own hand over her mouth and jumped to her feet, fleeing out of the room and into the hall towards the bathroom. She only just made it, retching harshly as the bile rose and stung her tongue and throat once more.

Pam flew into a cubicle, emptying her stomach uncontrollably. Over and over she retched, until there was nothing left inside of her, and she was as empty as a ghost ship adrift in a stormy sea.