Pam begins to get used to the fact that Jim needs her advice on things whenever he and Karen fight.

Well, maybe he doesn't need it. But he always seems to want it.

* * * *

Their second fight she finds him the same way she did the first time. He's sitting in the break room with a soda this time, and he looks up at her as she goes to refill her coffee (she drinks a lot more coffee than tea these days).

He smiles, but the bags under his eyes are a dead giveaway.

She has to force herself to say something, even though it pains her to see him like this. But she just doesn't want to get involved. Not again. Not ever.

So she pours her coffee, not looking at him. She takes her time stirring in milk and Splenda, standing with the spoon in her hand, staring into her mug until the steam begins to slowly disappear. She takes a sip, and prepares herself for a burn on the tongue that she never gets.

She looks over at him and he's twisting the tab of his soda can around and around, until finally, snap!

It's then that she realizes she can't just let it go.

She slides into a seat across from him, watching his face until he finally looks up.

"Hey," she says quietly.

"Hey."

She waits for it, giving him a chance to speak up. He doesn't. So she does.

"What's wrong?"

He blows air out between his lips, still playing with his empty soda can, bouncing it back and forth between his hands on the table top.

"It's okay if you don't want to tell me. I was just..."

"It's Karen," he says dolefully. "I don't know. She...she wants me to go with her to Connecticut this weekend to meet her parents, and I, um, I'm not really sure if I'm ready to do that." He gives that sort-of laugh that sounds more like he's got something caught in the back of his throat.

"Oh." She picks up the soda tab and slides it across the table with her finger. It almost ends up in Jim's lap and he slides it back to her.

"I mean, am I being stupid?" he asks, throwing his hands up. "Maybe I'm being stupid. I just think that two months of dating is kind of soon to be meeting the parents."

"Well," she says cautiously. "I know I didn't meet Roy's parents until, like, eight months after we started dating. But that was high school, so I guess the rules are kind of...different." She flicks the soda tab back towards him.

He looks up at her, his eyebrows knitted.

"But," she continues, "I guess it all depends."

"On?"

"On whether or not you're really, um, serious about things." She kind of whispers the last part because she knows she's no one to be giving him advice about this sort of thing. No one at all.

"Yeah," he sighs.

"I mean, I'll be totally honest with you, Jim."

When she says this, he looks up at her as if she's just told him she'd unlocked the mysteries of the universe, discovered time travel or something like that.

She takes a deep breath.

"I think two months is too soon." She looks down, and takes a sip of her (now cold) coffee.

She hadn't said it with bad intentions. Not at all. The last thing she wanted was for Jim to be unhappy. The last thing she wanted was for Karen to be upset. But if there's anything she did know, it's that you can't fake things like wanting to meet parents and you can't push yourself to be ready for something you're not. She knows this.

She peeks up at him from under her bangs. He half-smiles and the rest of what she says comes tumbling out before she can control it.

"But please don't just take my word for it. Go with what you really think. It seems like you're doubting it, and you don't want to go there and have to meet her family if your heart isn't actually in it. You know? What I'm saying is, don't do it just to make her happy. Because she'll know...that you're not."

"Yeah," he says slowly, nodding. "You're right about that."

"And Jim," she says quietly, "you didn't hear that from me."

When they leave the break room together, she watches him throw away his soda can.

She could swear she'd seen him slip the soda tab into his pocket.

The third time Jim and Karen fight, she's actually a witness to it. It's after the Valentine's Day party, and she stays behind to clean up. She's by herself in the conference room, wiping the table with a wet sponge, and she sees them. Jim's sitting at his desk, and Karen's standing next to him with her arms folded.

"I told you," she hears Karen say loudly. "You asked me what I wanted, and I told you. This is our first Valentine's Day, Jim."

"I know," she hears him say.

"Well, how hard is it to actually just go along with what I want for once?"

"For once? Karen-"

"Jim, I said it was okay, and that we didn't have to go out and do anything fancy. Which is why I offered to make dinner at my place. And now you're going to bail on me for that, too?"

"Karen, I'm not bailing-"

"You know what? I don't want to talk about it anymore. Call me if you decide that I'm important enough for you to hang out with."

Pam turns away as she sees Karen storm off with her coat on, a bouquet of pink roses under her arm that (apparently) Jim had gotten for her.

She quietly begins arranging the chairs around the conference table. Not getting involved, she thinks. Not doing it.

But when she turns around to put a chair on the other side of the table, Jim standing there, leaning against the door frame, hands in his pockets.

"So, I guess you probably heard that, huh." He smirks.

She doesn't answer at first because she can't decide whether to lie and say, heard what? Or be honest and say, yeah...sucks.

He doesn't wait for her response, though. He slumps into a chair against the window of the conference room, swinging his knees together. "I don't know what to do," he says.

"Well, what happened?" She gives him her full attention and perches on the edge of the table, folding her arms over her stomach.

"We had it planned that I'd go over to her apartment tonight. Because it's Valentine's Day." He sounds angry and says "Valentine's Day" like the way people say fuck or shit.

"And?" She prompts.

He rubs his face with his hands. "And I told her I couldn't do it tonight. I told her my brother and his wife are in town, and that my mom's making dinner, and that she can come if she wants. You know I only get to see them once in a while."

She nods.

"So when I said that, she pretty much flew off the handle, as you may or may not have witnessed."

"I don't understand what the problem is. You said she could come."

"I know. But obviously, she wanted to spend tonight alone, with just us. And she just doesn't get it."

"Well, that's kind of unfair of her."

"Kind of?" He laughs. "I knew it. You're all the same. I'm done talking to you, Beesly." He pretends to get up.

Her heart warms at the sound of her last name.

"Hey!" She giggles, throwing a red, crumpled-up paper napkin at him. It bounces off of his chest.

"And now you're throwing garbage at me? That's it." He tosses it back at her and it hits her left shoulder.

"Okay, seriously. This is my advice," she says as she stops laughing.

"I'm listening."

"Call her right now. Tell her how important it is that you spend time with your family. Tell her that you want her to be there. Tell her anything, just don't let your girlfriend be mad at you on Valentine's Day. Trust me."

She watches his face fall, and immediately she wonders what it is that she's said that makes him do that.

"Yeah," he nods solemnly. "I guess."

They're silent for a moment.

"Oh, hey!" Pam says brightly. "I almost forgot. I have a present for you."

"Wow. First Christmas, now Valentine's Day?"

"Well, it's not much. Don't get your hopes up." She runs behind her desk and he follows her.

"This is for you." She hands him a tiny brown teddy bear holding a little bag of red jelly beans. "I know you like the red ones. Or, you did."

He smiles, the teddy bear looking really small in his big hands and she feels her face getting hot. "I mean, I was going to give it to one of the Vance Refrigeration guys, but I thought it would cheer you up."

"Um, thanks."

"Actually, I'll be totally honest with you. Phyllis gave it to me because I think she felt sorry for me."

"And now you're giving it to me because you feel sorry for me? So I've inherited your pity gift."

"Sort of."

They walk out separately and leave in separate cars, going separate destinations. But as she's driving home to her empty apartment, she feels like it's the most together they've been in a really long time.

The fourth fight ends up being their last.

It's right before Easter time and she knows it's bad when she sees Karen come out of the ladies' room and slide back into her desk with her eyes red and puffy. And she sees Jim come out of the kitchen and sit down at his desk with a look in his eyes that she's never seen before.

Karen gets up, storms over to Jim's desk, and slams a key on top of it.  It's so loud it makes Pam jump.

She watches Karen stare at Jim for a moment before walking back to her seat.

He gets up and heads for the side stairwell.

She stares at the silver key on top of his desk for about five minutes. She knows she can't get involved, can't say anything.

But it's Jim.

She puts the phones on automatic voicemail before quietly getting up and heading towards the door to the stairwell, hoping to God that no one notices.

She walks down the first flight, and he's sitting on the landing, his elbows on his knees.

"Jim," she says quietly, sitting down next to him.

"Pam, I can't. I'm sorry. I can't talk about it."

"Okay," she says softly. She wants so bad to touch him, to do something or say something that might bring the real Jim back. She starts to get up, but she feels his fingers brush her ankle. She sits back down.

"Stay here, okay?"

"Okay." So she sits, they sit, in complete silence for the longest time. She watches him, his eyes squeezed shut, the heel of his hand pressing into his forehead.

She takes her hand and tentatively places it between his shoulder blades. When he doesn't flinch or move, she begins to rub slowly.

"It's over, I guess," he says, his voice weak. He takes in a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Jim." And she is sorry.

"I don't know. It just...I wasn't enough, I guess. I couldn't give her what she wanted. It...I wasn't enough. You know?" He looks up at her, his eyes asking a million questions. He wipes a stray tear from his chin.

Pam feels her chin begin to quiver and she nods, pressing her mouth into a line. "I know."

"I guess it was all wrong. Wrong timing, wrong pretenses. Just...being in two different places, or something."

"Yeah."

He puts his hand over his mouth, squeezing his jaw. She continues to scratch his back lightly.

They sit like that for ten more minutes until he gets up, and she stands after he does. He grabs her hand for a second, her fingers wrapped in his. He catches her eyes with his, and his lips quirk into the faintest smile.

He doesn't have to say it, but she knows. She really, really knows.