The ride back from work was deafeningly silent. Pam thought she could hear a slight buzzing but figured it was just the tension that had been building ever since Jim took the job in Philly. A charged current was running through their perfect marriage and she was afraid of touching it for fear of causing the wrong kind of spark. Not the kind of spark that resulted in teapots, bonfire confessions, gas station proposals, houses, waterfall weddings, or two amazing children. No, this is the kind of spark that resulted in explosions, fires, and power outages.
Initially, she had planned to bring up how upset she had been the night Jim snapped at her for not recording Cece’s recital. She had rehearsed this big Oscar-worthy speech about his absence and how she had been wronged, but then when he called to say goodnight to the kids she chickened out and instead spent a better part of an hour crying in the shower until the water ran cold.
The look on his face at lunch was tattooed on her frontal lobe. He was confused and hurt and maybe angry, and it all made her flush with embarrassment. She hadn’t expected it to come up, especially not from Brian. To Pam, it was just another thing to sweep under the rug in order to play the role of the supportive wife she knew Jim deserved. But now so much had been haphazardly shoved under there, that the rug was getting lumpy and difficult to walk across. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep it up.
So reluctantly, she asked him why he was mad, he gave her an answer that made her mad, and before she knew it, they had agreed to fight with each other on Valentine’s Day.
She glanced down at the framed sketch in her lap. Years ago, after she left Pratt, Jim discovered her sketchbook from New York. He had praised her endlessly, marveled at it, and then asked if he could keep it. That was four years and two kids ago. She had no idea he still had it. Honestly, it was what sparked her into asking him to stay and fight with her, even though she usually avoided conflict like it had talons and teeth. Even at their worst—and this sure as hell felt like their worst—she got reminders, like this sketch, that he was still that floppy-haired paper salesman who ate way too many jellybeans and knew her yogurt was expired before she did. Somehow they had drifted from that and she desperately wanted to find a way to correct course.
They pulled into their driveway and Jim’s hand stalled on the key in the ignition.
“Hey,” he breathed. She urged herself to meet his gaze. “I really hope we don’t end up saying things we don’t really mean tonight. But if we do—“ he swallowed hard. “You know I love you, right?”
Her lips lifted into a faint smile. “I know.”
She just hoped that was enough.
Inside, Pam changed into sweats and called her mom to check on the kids. Jim came out of the bedroom, slipping a t-shirt over his head as Pam held up her phone.
“My mom said the kids are doing great. They both fell asleep early, otherwise she would have put them on to say goodnight.”
Jim nodded in acknowledgment and sank down on the other side of the couch. Pam pulled her knees up to her chest, completely unsure how to start a planned fight. They needed to shake the rug out, this she knew, but Jim looked so tired and defeated and part of her just wanted to lean over, scratch his back—tell him it was fine, even if it wasn’t. She saw the strain that had set up camp under his eyes and she started to see that maybe things weren’t as simple for him as she had thought. Though he always talked about how stressed he was, she had never really stopped to consider how much it was affecting him. Jim’s voice cut the silence.
“Were you ever going to tell me about the night that got Brian fired?”
So that’s how you start a planned fight.
“I don’t know, Jim.”
“You don’t know?”
“I just...you had just lost Bridgeport Capital and I didn’t want to call you back up and say, ‘Oh, by the way, the things you said made me break down in front of the camera crew causing Brian to break protocol and get fired.’”
He huffed out a sigh and buried his face in his hands. His voice was soft and low. “But you understand why I had to stay in Philly that night, right?”
“I mean, yeah, I guess. But Cece didn’t.”
He flinched and a small fire lit within her, fueled by the instinctual maternal defense of her daughter.
“Jim, I’m the one that has to constantly explain your absence. I’m the one that deals with the meltdowns when I don’t do things ‘just like daddy’.” She squeezed her fists. “I’m trying so damn hard to keep it together for our kids, and to make their lives feel normal, and I’m stretched so thin. That night was rock freaking bottom for me and I couldn’t even call my best friend about it.”
Jim rubbed his palms together. She wondered if he had the same pit in her stomach that she did.
“I’m sorry I missed the recital and for what I said on the phone. It was a really bad night for me too.” Pam could sense there was more. “But…” and there it was, and louder. “But I’m trying too. You don’t think it killed me to have missed that recital? You don’t think I’d rather kiss them goodnight instead of saying goodnight over the phone three days a week? I’m working my ass off to make a better life for our family.”
She felt the sudden sting of tears. “I thought our life was already pretty good,” she whispered.
“Pam, that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?!” She felt heat rise through her and she sat forward. “You keep talking about doing this for our family, but since when are decisions about our family one-sided? Since when did ‘what’s best for our family’ include me being a single parent for days at a time, and reassuring our daughter that you still love her, and running myself so far into the ground that I have absolutely zero time to do anything I want to do? I haven’t painted in months. This isn’t what I signed up for.”
“Pam, you know how grateful I am for what you do. And I would never ask you to do it if I didn’t think this had potential to be huge for all of us.”
“But Jim, you didn’t ask me. You assumed I would do it. You told me and then really gave me no choice but to go along with it. And how does it make me look if I tell you not to pursue your dreams, especially when you’ve already made the decision to pursue them? Hi, Rock. Meet Hard Place. I’m either the bitchy wife that holds you back or I suffer at home and I hate both of those options.”
Somehow airing her long-kept grievances felt equally as suffocating as it did freeing. These were doors they hadn’t ever had to open and she wasn’t sure where they led.
“Babe, if you just hold on a little longer…”
“How long, Jim? Really. Because you’ve never filled me in on the end game.”
“I don’t...that’s a hard question,” he shrugged. “It’s a lot of little factors that make up the bigger picture. But once we all move to Philly—“
Her head shot up so fast that she almost pulled a muscle.
“I’m sorry, what?! Philly? All of us?” She was white hot now, because of course he had made another decision without including her. “Jim, I don’t want to move to Philly! I love our life in Scranton.”
His brow furrowed. “I just assumed,” he muttered. “That Philly was the end game…”
She stood up.
“Listen to yourself, Jim. Stop assuming you know what I want, all the time!! Gah, it’s like being with—“ she froze, hoping she stopped in time, but judging by the pain glaring from Jim’s face, she had said too much and instantly regretted it.
“No,” Jim spat. “Go ahead. It’s like being with who, Pam?”
“Jim—“
“Like being with Roy? The man who basically strung you along and walked all over you for years? The one you complained to me about almost daily, the one who constantly belittled you, and threw things, and got fired for trying to beat the shit out of me at work? That Roy?”
She dropped her eyes to the ground.
“I didn’t mean it,” she muttered to the floor.
Jim stood and started pacing now. When he spoke, his voice was low and shaky. She glanced up at him and met his bloodshot eyes, glossy with emotion.
“Pam,” he spoke softly. “You are the literal driving force for every single decision I make. Since the day I met you. When I first started at Dunder Mifflin, I would choose my ties based on what I thought you would like. My lunch breaks revolved around yours. Then I left for Stamford because, yes, I was heartbroken. But before I worried about my own heartbreak, I worried about making your workdays uncomfortable and how being out of the picture was probably best for you too. Then there were obvious decisions like coming back from my interview in New York and supporting you going to Pratt. You are the first thought I have, every single day, with every single decision.”
The room was filled with silence, occasionally broken by the sniffling from both of them as they tried to tame their emotions. Pam’s stomach was knotted into a tight ball and she sat back down on the couch, staring at the grape-juice stained rug beneath her. She heard Jim’s faint footsteps and then the weight of his body lowering down next to her. She still felt mad, but she also felt guilt, and confusion, and pity, and possibly every other emotion on that spectrum. Slowly, almost instinctively, she lowered her head down onto his shoulder. It was the most physical contact they had had all week. She heard him release a shaky breath.
“So,” she murmured. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know, Pam. Every decision feels like the wrong one.”
“I know.”
She did know. She’d been wrestling with everything for a long time, ping-ponging from “grin-and-bear-it” to straight up giving him an ultimatum: her or the job. There was no clear winner in any scenario she dreamt up.
All she knew is that she wanted to go back to when their only problems were not being able to decide where to eat for dinner or what movie to watch. She wanted to go back to the summer they finally got the timing right and spent every waking (and sleeping) hour making up for all the time they wasted not being together.
Maybe they could be done fighting tonight.
“Hey,” she said against his shoulder. She would always associate the smell of Downy fabric softener with him, even if it was her who bought and used it now. “Do you remember a long time ago when Kevin almost had skin cancer on Michael’s birthday and Michael took us all ice skating?”
Jim let out a tiny chuckle. “And he had no idea that a negative test result was a good thing? Oh man. Young Jim would be appalled at me for saying this, but I really miss him.”
“Me too,” she hummed.
Jim put his hand on her knee. “Remember Ping?”
“We will not mention Ping in this house.”
He laughed. “Fair enough. Then, remember how Michael bought women’s clothing? For himself?”
“More than once?” She giggled.
“And let us never forget the grilled foot.”
“May it rest in peace...or something.”
“Oh my gosh, remember when he made Oscar wear Angela’s baby poster?!”
“Oh yeah!” she gasped. “I almost forgot about that. Like it was the perfect compromise. The delusion that man was possesed was astonishing.”
“But we miss him.”
“We really do.”
Their shoulders shook with quiet laughter together as Jim turned and kissed Pam on top of her head. The familiar gesture felt renewing to her.
“Can we pause the whole fighting thing for a little bit?” Jim whispered against her hair. “I still don’t have any of the answers, but,” he gave her thigh a gentle squeeze. “I really miss you.”
She melted against him, not fully realizing how much she missed him too. She had been too busy resenting him and trying to stay afloat at home to lean into missing him. But tonight she realized he really was trying to do all of this for her. Just another grand Jim gesture, even if it was misguided.
“I don’t think you’re like Roy,” she frowned.
He drew circles on her knee with his forefinger. “I know,” he reassured her. “I have better hair.”
“This is true. Other than that, it’s like you’re the same guy, though.”
He laughed. “Basically. But the hair is why you love me.”
“It is your one redeeming quality.” She brought a hand to his cheek and lowered her voice to a more serious tone. “I’m really sorry.”
“Me too.” He shifted in his seat so his body was facing toward her. “Hey,” he said. “Remember our first date?”
“Jim, how many times do I have to tell you that swaying isn’t dancing?”
“Yup, that still hurts,” he faked a wince. “No, I mean our real first date. Namely,” he kissed her softly below her ear, “what happened after the date.”
Okay, yeah. She was definitely ready to put a hold on the fighting. The frustration began dripping away as he unlocked something deep inside her with his lips. She threw her legs over his lap.
“I seem to recall a little...somethin’-somethin’ happening that night...”
“A little somethin’ is right. You’re very skilled with that tongue of yours, Beesly,” he breathed across her collarbone.
Just like that, she was gone. He could move the whole family to a giant rat-infested hole in the ground for all she cared and she’d be the first to pack a bag. She realized she couldn’t remember the last time they had been intimate and she was now determined to change that.
“You’re not so bad yourself, Halpert.” She brought his head up to meet hers and grazed her lips across his jawline, sliding herself under him on the couch, marveling at the bulging muscles in his arms as he propped himself up on them, hovering over her. It looked like he’d been making good use of the on-site gym facilities in Philly and she was not complaining.
She stared into his eyes, finding the Jim that made grilled cheese sandwiches, and saved her sketches, and let Cece coat his face in make-up. Unable to contain herself much longer, she crashed her lips against his as if he was a well in a desert. Hands explored and remembered. Clothes met the floor. The movements and rhythms that were so familiar gained new life, and were met with moans, and heavy breathing, and words that would make even Todd Packer blush. Together they saw stars, their bodies euphorically in sync.
After they had come down from their shared high, Jim nestled himself next to her and pulled a blanket from the back of the couch over top of them and lovingly stroked her cheek with his thumb.
“I’m really sorry I made you cry.” The remorse on his pierced straight through her.
She played with the stray strands of hair that had fallen in his face. “I’m sorry I haven’t been honest about how I’m feeling.”
“I’m sorry for not really giving you the chance.”
She could hear the tremor in his voice and see the glistening in his eyes. Like him, she wasn’t sure what the answer was to all of this, but she was willing to try and figure it out because a life without him in it seemed impossible to live. He gave her a meager smile.
“We’ll figure it out somehow, Beesly.”
She buried her face in his chest and closed her eyes, lulled by the steady sound of his heartbeat and languid breaths. She knew they weren’t done fighting. There was still a likely bumpy road ahead of them, decisions to be made, hard conversations to be had. Those could wait. Because for the first time in months, she felt connected to him again and it was just the reminder she needed to stay and fight. For this, for them.
Eventually they made their way back to their room to clean up and get ready for bed. They conserved water by showering together (though the length of said shower negated any sort of conservation, if she was being honest). They brushed their teeth side-by-side, slipped into pajamas, and shimmied under the covers together. She scooted back into his arms, his face buried in her hair. He had to be in Philly early the next morning and she wanted to squeeze out every last ounce out of this night before they were hurled back into reality.
“I love you so much, Pam,” he said with a squeeze.
She turned to face him, searching his hazel eyes. “Show me.”
“Again?” In one fluid movement, he was on top of her. His lips brushed against her ear as he whispered. “As you wish.”
——————
The sun peeked through the blinds in their bedroom the next morning. Jim’s side of the bed was empty and she traced it over dreamily with her fingers, recalling the night previous. She was grateful to feel the soft burning for him in her chest like she used to feel, instead of the lead ball that had resided there the last few months on mornings he left for Philly. She resolved to somehow keep it burning while also advocating for what she needed in their marriage.
Her mom had offered to keep the kids until lunch, so Pam lazily began her morning. She shuffled to the bathroom and turned on the shower faucet, smiling as she remembered last night. After her shower, she wrapped herself in her robe and went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Upon entering the kitchen, she froze. On the kitchen counter was her teapot, a piece of paper, and a few yellow dandelions. A smile spread on her face as she walked over to read the note Jim had written.
Beesly,
I couldn’t sleep at all last night. All I could do was stare at your beautiful sleeping face and evaluate what I am doing and what I really want.
Athlead has been great and I often can’t believe I’m able to be a part of it. I told you I don’t have the answers and I spent all night trying to come up with one. But then I realized the answer was glaringly obvious.
Reminiscing about Michael last night made me remember something he said to me once. It was on that stupid booze cruise he made us go on in the middle of winter. Roy had just set a date for your wedding and I had chickened out of telling you what I really wanted to say. I was feeling all kinds of defeated and in a moment of weakness I confided in him (rookie mistake). I told him how I felt about you and he told me to “Never, ever, ever give up.”
So here I am, not giving up. Right now I’m heading to Philly to talk to the guys and figure out a way for me to take a break for a while, because absolutely none of it is worth it if I lose you in the process. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize what all of this was doing to us, to you. But I can’t be the guy that makes his wife cry. Especially when his wife is literally the most amazing person on this earth. You deserve better than what I’ve been giving you.
So I’ll be back tonight. I’ll take as much time off as we need and then we can make a plan to move forward, together. When we are BOTH ready.
This teapot I gave you all those years ago is a reminder to me of how lucky I am to have you. I gave it to you at a time where I was positive I would never be more than your best friend and I filled it with all these little things that were a part of our relationship.
Look at us now, Beesly. There’s no teapot in the world big enough to cram our life into. (Phillip doesn’t fit, I tried.) I still have to pinch myself sometimes because it doesn’t seem real that I got the girl of my dreams and she gave me the entire world in return. YOU are my dream, not Athlead. And I’m never going to give you up. Never going to let you down. Never going to run around and desert you.
Sorry.
Anyway, life without you is like Dwight without beets or mustard colored shirts. Just doesn’t make any sense.
I love you so much.
Jim
P.S. I didn’t have time to get real flowers so I picked some dandelions. You’re welcome.
Pam wiped the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her robe. She startled at the sound of the front door opening. Poking her head out of the kitchen, she grinned.
“I thought you’re supposed to be in Philly.”
He dropped his bag on the floor and swept her up in a hug. “Turns out they have phones in Philly! Who knew.” He looked at her. “I drove to the bus station and decided I would just call them from there to negotiate so I could be home sooner.”
“Jim, you don’t have to—“
“I do. I want to, Pam. The guys were cool. They’re a little bummed, but I think they get it. I’ll still be a part of things, just a much smaller part.”
She was having a hard time finding the words. “You did that for...for me? For us?”
He put his forehead against hers. “It’s always for you. Nothing else matters.”
She pressed her lips firmly against his, tears running down her cheeks. She pulled away and glanced at the clock on the microwave. “We have three hours before I have to get the kids. You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Second date reenactment?”
She untied the belt of her robe and it dropped to the floor. He stood frozen in awe as she spun on her heels and walked toward the bedroom. “You coming Halpert?”
As if he were on fire, his shoes flew off, his tie loosened, and he started on the buttons of his shirt as he chased her into the bedroom.
She’d have to remember to thank Michael later.
Story Notes:
I’ve been waiting for a new idea to come to me for a longer story, but it’s not happening. So in the meantime I’ve been writing some one-shots and this is one of them.
The title for the story is the name of a John Mayer song that I love a whole lot and fits this story pretty well. You should give it a listen. :)
The title for the story is the name of a John Mayer song that I love a whole lot and fits this story pretty well. You should give it a listen. :)
Author's Chapter Notes:
Quick reminder that I own nothing. Nothing at all.
Chapter End Notes:
So, I know this wasn’t TOO canon-divergent. I just got them from point A to point B a little faster and avoided a little angst on my way.
I’m also sorry I Rick-rolled you. Please consider reviewing anyway. ;)
I’m also sorry I Rick-rolled you. Please consider reviewing anyway. ;)
WanderingWatchtower is the author of 23 other stories.
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