Author's Chapter Notes:
disclaimer: all recognizable characters are copyright to their respective owners; the order of the words, and nothing more, is mine. This story is not authorized by or connected to copyright holders and has been written and posted as a profit-free fan venture.
The title has been borrowed from the Belle & Sebastian song of (obviously) the same name, though it bears only an oblique relation to the story beyond that. Also thanks to PuffingNoise for the beta; any remaining errors are mine.
"Now your A4 here -- perfect size for champion paper regatta boats.”
Pam laughs and pulls a sheet from the ream. “Is that so?”
“Indeed it is, though I’ve found it doesn’t make the best sales pitch with most purchasing managers. Humorless bunch, those guys.” He shakes his head dramatically and is rewarded with another giggle.
“Show me,” she says, and hands him the sheet.
He takes it and makes a show of creasing it just-so, a simple pattern of folds that yields a little triangular boat. He presents it to her and she plucks it from his fingers with a smile.
“We need another one.” She pulls another sheet and prompts him to fold it. “For the regatta.”
“I retired from paper boating after sweeping the annual Dunder-Mifflin Sales Department Regatta three years running, but for you...” He smiles and takes the sheet with a small flourish, beginning the measured sequence of folds. “Bet you never knew how much fun we’re having on the floor while you spend all day answering the phone,” he teases as he presses a crease with both his thumbs.
“I can see your desk from mine. You’re not having any fun I don’t know about,” she replies a little smugly, watching his fingers work over the paper.
He admits she’s right with a small shrug and a shy smile and moves to give her the second boat without bothering to amend that, more precisely, he never has any fun she's not involved in.
“No, that one’s yours,” she says, and leans over the counter to label hers. “There.” She holds it up, pleased with herself, and he reads ‘SS Jim Halpert’ out loud.
Jim takes her pen and labels his own the 'HMS Pam Beesley' in large block letters, spanning the length of the little boat, holding it up for her approval.
She smiles, then starts toward the back of the warehouse, motioning for him to follow. “Come on!” She says, in a voice he recognizes alternately as the harbinger of mischief and the cause of the uncomfortable flop his stomach does whenever he's pretending not to want anything more than that mischief from her.
The long workroom sink, relic of the last warehouse to occupy the space, is still functional and she improvises a plug with a wadded up piece of paper and fills it several inches deep. She takes his boat and hers and drops them gingerly on the surface, right against the edge of the sink.
“Ready?”
Jim’s brow furrows but he doesn’t have time to respond before Pam is bent halfway over the edge of the sink, coaxing the vessel with a furious force of breath, the effort in direct inverse proportion to the distance her boat actually travels. He scrambles to join her and his boat comes alongside hers. They glide along lazily, taking an ambling, indirect path across the short span of the sink.
With one last, wheezing puff, Jim’s boat touches the other end of the sink and he throws his hands in the air in triumph.
"Wait," he pants, "the HMS Beesley crossed the finish line first -- does that make me the winner or you?"
Pam gasps between faint laughter. "I don't know. But I've never seen you that red in the face." She feels more than a little dizzy and as she speaks her feet falter and she catches herself with one hand on his shoulder.
Somehow, he manages to steady her, and with one hand lowers her to the ground. "Maybe you'd better sit down," he says as he joins her, still short of breath and light headed.
"My feet are tingling," she says with some measure of bemused wonder.
"Well, every sport demands heavy sacrifices of its best athletes, Beesley." He sighs and leans against the sink, the pounding in his ears slowly subsiding as his heart stops sprinting.
Pam feels heavy sitting on the cold cement of the warehouse floor and so lets the weight of her body and the pull of his gravity tow her towards him and settles her head on his shoulder.
"How long do you think we can stay down here 'going over catalogue items'?"
"With Michael at lunch with Jan?" Jim pauses, as if calculating. "It would probably be well into tomorrow before he noticed we were gone."
"I hope they'd send out a search party before then. It's really cold down here." Pam shivers as if to emphasize the point and Jim draws an arm lightly around her shoulder but doesn't pull her closer.
"Kind of nice down here, though," she continues idly, as if suddenly needing to fill the silence. "Just us..."
"And the paper."
"Still probably the best 'date' I've been on in months," Pam adds a little humorlessly and immediately regrets it.
From where she sits she can't see his face, but she hears him chuff out a breath and feels his chest shift under her. A moment later, before she can apologize or make light of it -- she couldn't decide quickly enough which would be appropriate -- he squeezes her shoulder and turns to look at her.
"Caught your breath?" He asks.
"I think so."
He helps her to her feet and she wobbles a little, still light headed, and leans against him.
"Jim?"
He makes a faint humming noise; it's easier than finding words when she has her body pressed lightly against his chest, and it's all that he can do to resist threading his fingers through her hair and leaning just enough to kiss her.
"I'm sorry," she sighs.
He wants to ask for what? but doesn't want to hear the answer. He's heard it enough lying awake at night, trapped in endless repetition of the last time he laid himself bare. She knows what he's thinking, though, and winces realizing just how often he's thought about it, how salient a memory it is and how it will always perch alongside every happy memory she's ever made with him, like a specter, until she manages to change things. She wants to tell him this is what she's sorry for -- not for the choice she made in trying so hard to be loyal to a promise long since regretted, but for what it did to him when he asked her to break it.
He had no right -- no right at all to ask that of her. Pam was a nice girl, raised right, believing it always to be better to take on hurt than cause suffering. And that's what she did every time Jim leaned over to whisper something conspiratorial -- she took on a little bit more hurt, just one small nick in her heart because it's always a tradeoff. The hurt needles at her, but telling Roy the truth would break him.
She wants him to understand this, that it's not his fault but that it is. And that it's Roy's, too. And hers. Or that it's nobody's -- just a string of fate that knotted itself together until, finally, no one was able to pull their thread free without getting hurt. But she's still knotted with him, despite the pain, and needs him to know this more than anything else.
So Pam sucks in a deep breath before leveraging herself on his shoulders, standing on toes, tall enough now to look him in the eye. But she can't, so she lets her eyelids flutter shut and kisses him blindly, just enough to make her dizzy again.
And he kisses her back because he can't help himself, or because he's still in love with her as much as ever -- more than he ever wants to let on but too much to keep it from leaking into the way his lips move over hers.
Pam breaks the kiss first, hesitant to pull away enough to end it. She breathes against his cheek and waits for him to end it decisively because she doesn't have enough hope left to think he'll kiss her again.
Jim leans back, drops the hand that couldn't resist petting her curls, looks back at her.
"I can't."
"Why?" She asks without meaning to.
"Your timing could have been better."
"You told me you loved me months before my wedding," she says a little too earnestly, knowing she sounds argumentative and wishing she didn't.
Jim smiles darkly. "There's never a good time to tell somebody you love them when they don't want to hear it."
"Still, you could've told me before we paid the caterers." Pam bites her lip, knowing it's not funny.
When she starts to blink back tears, though, he folds her back in his arms again, tucking her head in the crook between his shoulder and his chin. She fits perfectly there against him as he always knew she would, and he sighs as he slips his arm around her waist lets himself quietly indulge in the mild scent of her hair, fresh and vaguely floral.
"I can't yet. Just... give me a little time." He feels her nod against his shoulder and knows she's crying from the slight shudder of her back under his fingers.
He lets her cling to him for long moments in silence, selfishly fulfilling a long harbored desire to simply hold her. He wanted her happy when it finally happened but compromises on the terms, willing to take the opportunity offered.
Pam releases a shaky breath and steps back, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. She can't meet his gaze, though, and leans against the sink to collect herself.
"Oh, Jim," she says as she reaches into the basin. "Your boat sunk." The water-logged vessel droops in her fingers and drips onto the floor.
Jim frowns theatrically, thankful for any distraction, and follows her line of sight into the sink. "But look -- you're still afloat."
Pam smiles slightly but with determination. "Guess so," she says, stopping only a moment to watch the little boat drift slowly across the surface before slipping her hand in his and leading him back upstairs.
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