"But I don’t get it, Mom. I mean, how could you resist? He was so sad and sweet and adorable."

Pam smiled at her teenage daughter over the bowl of hard-boiled eggs she was peeling for her deviled eggs. It was downright…Freudian the way that Lucy had become smitten by her father’s younger self in the old DVDs. Lucy's favorite part, of course, was the episode in which her parents had finally come to an understanding and admitted that they were still, always, more than that.

Lately, however, she had become fixated on what happened during that long-ago Casino Night fundraiser. Like an obsessed fan, she paused, re-wound, examined, focused. She found hidden meaning in the words they’d spoken, the pauses, and the expressions on their faces. She watched to determine exactly when Jim had entered the office, listened to the sound of the fabric of Pam’s dress under Jim’s hands, and then cringed as Pam nodded that yes, she was marrying someone else. It made no sense to her- a fact that she repeated, over and over, to her mother.

"I mean, he was obviously the guy for you, but you let him go and you never even called him when the thing with what’s-his-name fell through." Lucy rarely said, "Roy" when discussing the footage. It was generally a dismissive "that other guy," or "what’s his face." She never, ever spoke the word "Karen". The dark-eyed beauty had become Lucy’s personal Voldemort, referred to as merely "she" or "her"- with the italics clearly pronounced. "I still don’t get it."

Pam sighed a tiny sigh. Lucy had inherited the best parts of her parents' personalities- she was bright, funny, likable, mischievous, and creative. Unlike either of her parents, she was also highly ambitious, tremendously motivated, and wholly self-confident. She had also, at the age of 16, never really been in love or had her heart broken. Explaining the complex feelings of a doubt- and denial-ridden adult to Lucy was like explaining sunburn to a fish. For the billionth time, Pam regretted ever letting her daughter see the documentary footage.

"Honey, it was more complicated than that. I had feelings for your Dad then but..." Pam grabbed an egg from the bowl. "OK, see this?" Lucy nodded, clearly bemused but accustomed to her mother's fanciful explanations. "Imagine that I was the egg. I mean, the part inside. Now, is an eggshell fragile or strong?"

"Fragile."

Pam bobbed her head a bit. "Well, now, that depends. Eggshells are really pretty strong under consistent pressure- after all, they're designed for a chicken to sit on them. So I'm the egg inside, and my relationship with Roy is the shell. It kept me safe, but it also kept me trapped- which was my own fault, sweetie. He is a really nice guy, honestly." Lucy had rolled her eyes just a bit.

"OK, so I'm the egg...guts, whatever, and my relationship with Roy is the shell. Being around your father put pressure on that relationship for a long time, but even though it was really fragile, it was also strong enough to resist that pressure because it was relatively gentle and it was just consistent. Are you following?"

"I think so. You're crazy, you know."

"Yes, thank you. It's always nice to feel appreciated. Anyway," Pam's voice dropped a little bit. It still made her emotional to talk about that first night when everything changed. "Anyway, the night Jim told me how he felt, after that casino thing, it was like..."

BAM! Pam smacked the countertop with the hard-boiled egg she'd been holding all this time, startling her daughter.

"Mom!"

"What? That's what it was like. Instead of gentle, constant pressure, it was blunt force. But look..." Pam held out the abused egg. The shell was riddled with cracks but remained, shape-wise anyway, intact. "Just because the shell is broken doesn't mean the egg inside can just pop right out. When you break it that way, you then have to peel all the little shards away, and the connecting tissuey stuff inside. What your dad said and did that night helped break the shell, but I still had to claw my way out- and by the time I did that, he was gone. And now I've really run this example into the ground, haven't I?"

Lucy looked at her mother with eyes so like Jim's it sometimes took Pam's breath away. "Maybe. But...why didn't you call him when you called the wedding off? He would have come running back!"

"You think so? Maybe. I didn't think so, though. I mean, he moved away. I thought he was too angry to ever want to be with me again, or too hurt. Seriously, Luce, to this day he says he's not sure what he would have done. Anyway, I was still not sure how I felt- I didn't trust myself not to just fall into another...um, shell. It wasn't until I saw him with Karen that I knew exactly what I wanted- and by then he was with her. At the time, that seemed to confirm my own worst fears- that he had moved on and forgotten me."

An expression of extreme distaste crossed the girl's face. "I wish you'd have said something when he got back. Then we could have been spared all the episodes with Dad dating her and...ugh."

"Excuse me, 'episodes'? Those 'episodes' were my life. I'm sorry the 'plot' wasn't exactly like you might have wanted, kiddo. I certainly wasn't making decisions based on what would make good television!" Pam wasn't mad, but definitely annoyed. Those days of watching Jim and Karen were years and years in the past now, but they had left a deep bruise on Pam, and one that she was keenly aware she had brought on herself by her poor choices and hesitation.

She saw the contrite look on Lucy's face and smiled reassuringly. "You're right, I should have said something. It just didn't seem like he wanted me anymore and I didn't know what to say to that."

"Not at first, anyway." Lucy giggled.

"Well, right." Pam's indulgent, maternal smile broadened into a rueful grin as she started mashing up the hardened egg yolks with mayo and mustard and cream cheese. It had been Larissa Halpert's recipe for devilled eggs and it was the only way Jim liked them, still.

Lucy was laughing harder now. "The look on his face when you said it..."

Pam was laughing, too, blushing slightly. "I didn't do it on purpose."

Lucy mimicked Pam perfectly, "'Good-night, Michael. Bye, Karen. See you tomorrow, Jim. I love you.' Seriously, Mom, that was awesome."

"I swear it just slipped out. Karen was standing right there. Honestly, I wanted to crawl under my desk."

A male voice chimed in. "I would have followed you under the desk, Beesly." Jim walked into the kitchen and kissed his wife lightly on the cheek. "Luce, were you watching the documentary again? Seriously, don't you have friends?"

"None as cute as you two. Mom was just explaining how she used to be like an egg."

"An egg?" Jim looked down at Pam quizzically. "Scrambled?"

"Deviled," Pam replied, grinning.

"Naturally. Well, you're definitely a good egg, Mrs. Halpert."

Lucy left the room when the kissing started. She liked it on television; live in the kitchen was a little much, even for her deeply invested 'shipper heart.