He didn’t notice it the first two times he entered the kitchen, once to throw his lunch in the fridge and once to use the bathroom. It wasn’t until visit number three, lunchtime, that he saw it: the teapot he had given her a little over a year ago when things were so completely different but just as impossible.

He doesn’t like to remember what things were like a year ago, and he’s slightly annoyed that there is a reminder on the stove, staring him in the face. Remembering what things were like back then is like taking a mental step backward. He’s trying to stay in the present, and the present is Karen. He’s already slipped up once and it cost him five nights of sleep.

Sometimes late at night he turns on the TV and catches a rerun of Cheers and he can’t help but make sleepy comparisons to his life. On Cheers there were the Diane years and the Rebecca years. His admission to Karen after the cell phone prank was a dangerous backslide into the Pam years.

The Pam years are embarrassing. It hurts to think about them. They leave him with feelings of rejection and heartache and humiliation. They are full of schoolboy pining and quiet one-sided longings that ultimately turned out to be just that. Wasted time. Stupid misinterpretations.

He’s never been entirely convinced that he really misinterpreted things. She asked him out for coffee on his first day back. A little part of him had always held on to hope that if he ever came back, she would be ready. But he made sure to sabotage that by starting a new relationship. A buffer.

He couldn’t focus on the hypothetical, on baseless hopes. He had been living in the hypothetical for years and it got him nothing.

He tries to avoid backslides at all costs. This also means avoiding things that could trigger memories of the Pam years. Teapot shaped things, for example.

But there it is, sitting innocently on the stove like it was just a mundane ceramic object.

He knows better.

He is just sitting there, staring at the unassuming little teapot. His lunch remains untouched in front of him.

“Earth to Halpert.” Karen’s voice breaks him out of his trance. “What’s wrong?” She sits across from him holding up a forkful of leftover penne rigate from their dinner date last night.

He purses his lips and raises his eyebrows. “What? Nothing. I’m just a little tired still, I guess.”

Pam’s words from the day before seep into his brain before he can stop them. Gotta get your REM cycle, going with the whole… sleeping… better than not.

Karen interrupts his thoughts again. He’s thankful.

“You better be careful. Dwight told me yesterday that Velociraptors can sense drowsiness in their prey. You’re a sitting duck,” she says, trying to sound very serious.

“So I should be careful in case a Velociraptor pops by?” He’s smiling. He can’t help it.

She shrugs. “Well, I may have told Dwight that my brother works as a military scientist and he’s trying to develop a new biological weapon to use against the terrorists.”

He’s grinning now and barely holding back a big belly laugh, because sometimes she’s so funny that he wonders how the hell he got so lucky.

“And you told him that your brother was working on a race of government-cloned Velociraptors? Like out of Jurassic Park?” he asks.

“No, he guessed.” She’s just barely holding it together now. “On his first try.”

“Imagine that,” he says. He manages to keep a straight face for about a second before smiling again. “Seriously, you said, ‘my brother is working on a weapon to use against the terrorists’ and his first guess was ‘Velociraptors’?”

She loses it, cracking up. “Yup. Like he’d heard rumors about it before. I had to go with it. I never would have thought of anything better.”

“Yeah, sometimes Dwight gives you little presents like that,” Jim says. “There was this one time he asked me to be in an alliance with him. He ended up letting me tape him into a box in the warehouse.”

“NO!” she shouts. Her eyes are wide and she points another forkful of noodles at him. “I need details. Is there any chance of reassembling this alliance?”

“Um, no. It was…” Memories flood his mind before he can stop them.

His hand is resting on the back of her neck. He can feel her hair between his fingers and he squeezes her hand tighter. He can barely contain his excitement and he doesn’t know if he’s more likely to burst out laughing or squeal like a little girl. It’s just too good to be true.

And then it’s the opposite. He can’t figure out how things went so wrong so fast, but suddenly the man that he likes to pretend doesn’t exist most of the time is there. It’s hard to pretend that someone doesn’t exist when they’re shoving you into a wall.

“You know what? It actually isn’t a great story. You had to be there.” He smiles and hopes that she’ll accept this evasion without any suspicion.

He needs to change the subject. “So anyway… You know you have to come to work tomorrow with big fake claw marks on your arm, right?”

Her smile is so beautiful and he feels himself smile back (a real one this time). “Where can we get fake blood?”

“I’m sure Michael can point us to a suitable magic shop,” he assures her. He’s about to regale her with a story about Michael’s attempts at magic when the door to the break room swings open.

It’s her.

She smiles brightly and says hello. Then instead of retrieving her yogurt and retreating to her desk, as has been her routine for a while now, she goes straight for the stove. Jim tries to look away. He looks at Karen, but she is looking straight at Pam.

“Cute teapot,” she says conversationally.

Jim looks straight down at his Styrofoam container of leftover lasagna. Karen had made fun of him for ordering lasagna again. It was all he ordered when they went out for Italian.

“Thanks,” she says, now filling the teapot with a generous amount of tap water. Karen never uses tap water in her tea. Karen uses filtered water from the fridge.

“Where did you get it?” Karen asks.

Jim feels his stomach turn. He studies the curly edges of the lasagna noodles

“It was a gift, from Jim actually,” she says like she’s remembering a fun little factoid.

Jim wanted to bash his face into his leftover lasagna.

“Really?” Karen asks. She doesn’t really say it like a question though and she isn’t saying it to Pam. She’s looking at Jim, but Jim is still pretending that noodles are the most interesting thing in the world and Pam is answering regardless.

“Yeah, for Secret Santa last year.”

“Oh,” Karen says. She sounds slightly relieved.

“It was nothing,” Jim interjects, finally able to speak. “Just a Secret Santa thing.”

“Right,” Pam says. “It’s just a teapot.” She’s looking right into his eyes.

His mom used to call it a tempest in a teapot: making a huge uproar over some small, insignificant thing. It seemed especially applicable in this case. He knows that Karen will be talking to him tonight about that teapot. He can pretty much count on being exhausted tomorrow morning. Maybe he’s crazy. Maybe it really is just a ceramic pot that doesn’t mean anything. Maybe when he told Karen that tonight he could mean it.

But he knows that won’t happen. It isn’t just a teapot. She knows that. She traded a video iPod for that teapot. That teapot is important.

No one says anything for a while. There is an uncomfortable silence as Pam goes about making her tea. She hums. Hums. Like there’s nothing awkward at all about this. Like it really is just a teapot. Like it isn’t killing him to have it there in front of him. Like it means nothing to her.

Why did she bring it today? Why is she flaunting it so openly in front of him? In front of Karen. Is she making fun of him? He doesn’t think she would do that, but he’s so unsure now. He can’t read her like he used to.

Is she telling him that it doesn’t mean anything to her anymore? That she’s over… well, she was never under him. Technically. He hears Michael’s voice in his head.

That’s what she said.

Karen doesn’t finish her penne rigate. She tosses the Styrofoam container in the trash and walked briskly back to her desk, declaring that she promised a client she would call at half past twelve. Jim grunts noncommittally and stays put. Pam finishes steeping her tea and starts pressing the bag against the edge of her mug with a spoon, getting every last drop of flavor out of it. She pulls the damp bag out of the mug and throws it out. It lands on top of Karen’s leftovers.

It isn’t until she starts squirting a little honey into her mug, the kind in the teddy bear, that he finally speaks.

“Why did you bring that here?” He gestures at the teapot.

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t be able to bring my teapot to work?” She continues to fix her tea, adding a little milk to the mug. He grows frustrated. How can she act so calm?

“Come on, Pam,” he says. His voice is low and gravelly. His tone isn’t pleading, it is impatient.

“Come on Pam, what?” she asks in a teasing voice. Teasing? She’s smiling. This is not a joke. This isn’t something that they can laugh about like hiding Andy’s cell phone in the ceiling. Anger floods him and he feels himself go numb.

“Jimpot was lonely at home,” she says pleasantly. Jimpot?

“What?” he asks. He’s so confused. He can’t figure out why she’s so happy and what the heck a jimpot is.

“I named him,” she says proudly. It’s so cute the way she says it, but he doesn’t want to think about how adorable she is.

“You named your teapot?” he asks slowly.

“After you. It’s dorky, I know,” she’s smiling and looking sort of shy.

Last year he would have smiled and laughed with her about this. He might have teased her about it a little but he would have been secretly thrilled that she named her teapot after him.

But last year was part of the Pam years. He’s in the Karen years now.

She keeps trying to make him relapse into the Pam years. She’s wants to go back to the way things were. She told him they’d always be friends. Just friends. He can’t go back.

“What are you trying to do?” he asks abruptly. His mind is back at that night when she stopped him short with the same question. What are you doing?

“Jim. It’s a teapot. I’m trying to make tea.” She isn’t smiling anymore. She isn’t anything. She’s sealing up the milk and returning it to the fridge.

“Fine,” he says. He stands abruptly and tosses his lasagna into the trash. It covers her teabag. He doesn’t look at her as he makes for the door. He is almost there when she speaks again.

“What is wrong with you?” she asks. She finally sounds a little worked up. She finally sounds like he feels—impatient, angry, confused.

He debates telling her that nothing is wrong with him. That he has to get back to his desk. That it’s just a teapot and she can make Earl Gray to her heart’s content and he won’t give a damn. Instead he says,

“You know what that teapot means.”

She looks up at him and he sees that she has stopped pretending. She doesn’t look confused or cheerful or oblivious anymore. She looks serious and exposed.

“I like it,” she says simply.

He sighs.

Of course she would do this, brush this off like it was nothing. Well, fine. If that was how she wanted it he’d play along. He really needs to stop getting his hopes up. He is never happy with the outcome.

“I know you like it. That’s why I got it for you,” he says, turning to leave. He is stopped again by her voice.

“No, I mean… I don’t like it because it’s green or because it’s cute. I like it because of what it means.”

She looks at him with pleading eyes, but he can’t let himself believe that she’s saying what he thinks she’s saying. He can’t do that again. He can’t.

“I don’t think it means the same thing to you that it means to me,” he says quietly.

He stands there looking at her for almost half a minute and neither of them says a thing. They are always saying nothing. The one time he said something it blew up in his face.

Jim shakes his head and turns again, determined not to turn back again even if she started to speak. But then she says something that stops him in his tracks.

“I read the card.”

It’s like someone flipped a switch and stopped his heart. He can’t move. He can’t breathe. He doesn’t want to turn around, but his feet seem to be moving automatically.

“What?” It comes out with whatever breath is left in his lungs like an exhalation.

“The card that came with the teapot,” she clarifies. She doesn’t have to. He knows. But he still can’t believe it, can’t wrap his head around it.

“You…” He tries to repeat it back to her, but he can’t say it.

“I read it. Before you took it back,” she continues.

He feels like someone just popped his head off and kicked it down a hill. He’s dizzy and he can’t think and he can’t breathe.

“It’s polite to read the card first, but I didn’t notice it at first, when we were all in the circle.”

He wishes she’d stop talking because he hasn’t even processed the first thing she said yet.

“When I traded with Dwight I saw it. I was going to talk to you about it. After the party. When we could talk alone.” She’s speaking slowly and carefully now. She’s looking at him, but he’s looking at nothing. His eyes are unfocused like his thoughts.

“You read the card.”

He was finally able to say it. He congratulates him self for a second before he realizes exactly what this means.

“But then you took it back. I was confused. I didn’t know if you regretted it. If you didn’t really mean it.” She looks at him questioningly. Like she needs him to confirm for her that he really meant it.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

“You knew…”

“Jim?” She sounds anxious.

“You knew? You knew the whole time.” He finally looks at her, fully focusing on her. She’s twisting her hands and she her eyes are darting around the room looking at everything but him.

“Yes… But I wasn’t sure. You took it back,” she says softly.

“Just a few weeks later, when he re-proposed, because the first one didn’t count,” he says this bitterly. “You knew. And he set a date and you looked so happy and you knew.”

“You were with Katy then. And you took the card back. I wasn’t sure…” she trails off weakly. She can’t fix this.

“When I poured my heart out to you, when I made an idiot out of myself you knew.”

He hates that his voice sounds so raw. He hates that he was the first one to make reference to that night. He hates that she knew about the card. It makes that night just that much worse.

“Jim—” She starts to plead, but he cuts her off.

“You said I misinterpreted our friendship,” he says numbly.

“I know.” She’s looking at him again and she looks so sorry, but he can’t even process that right now because all he feels is hurt and stupid and all the bad feelings that the Pam years used to make him feel when he wasn’t unbelievably happy.

“You acted like you never had a clue.” He feels the blood rushing to his face and he feels himself getting angry.

“I know,” she says helplessly.

“You lied,” he almost laughs when he says this, because it’s just so bad.

“I lied about a lot of things that night,” she says.

What does that mean? Does it mean… No. He won’t do it again. He won’t hope again. It really hurts to hope.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” he asks quietly. He won’t look at her.

“Please don’t be mad. I’m trying to tell you—”

“What are you trying to say, Pam? By bringing this to work, what are you trying to tell me?” he raises his volume a little and meets her gaze.

She looks away from him for just a moment so that she can reach back to the counter and grasp the handle of the teapot. She holds it against her chest and looks back at him.

“I’m trying… I’m trying to tell you that I’m sorry,” she begins quietly. “That I’m sorry I lied and that I don’t want to lie anymore. And this teapot means to me exactly what it means to you.”

He doesn’t want to let himself believe what she just said because it will hurt too much if he’s wrong. He can’t allow himself to step backward. Not again.

There is a long pause. Pam's eyes are glassy and wide. Her breathing has become heavy and she has one hand around the teapot and she’s using the other one to toy with her necklace like she always does when she's nervous or uncomfortable. He hates that he knows that about her. He hates that she occupies so much space in his head. Every inch she takes up hurts him. It used to be a sweet torture, but now it’s only a persistent dull pain.

He needs to stop her. It’s just not fair that she can continue to have this affect on him even after that night. Especially now that he knows she knew. She knew months before he got the courage to tell her. And she didn’t do anything.

He opens his mouth and tries to stop her from hurting him again.

“Pam. It’s just a teapot.”

He turns and walks out and if she tries to stop him, he doesn't hear her. He walks back to his desk and leaves her standing there in the kitchen holding a small piece of ceramic pottery, wondering if all this time she was the one making a tempest in a teapot.