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Author's Chapter Notes:

I own nothing. 

Ani helps Jim understand.

 

I am not a pretty girl. that is not what I do

At the first line he wanted to scream at the purely incorrect assumptions. He knew that these songs were a reflection of how she was feeling at different phases of what he could only describe as growth. To him she was more than pretty. She was exquisite. She was perfect. She was everything that he could ever want. But he knew enough to stay silent until she broke the hope filled silence between them.

I ain't no damsel in distress and I don't need to be rescued. So put me down punk, maybe you'd prefer a maiden fair. Isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere?

She saw it in his face every time Roy was unkind or unthinking. It was written all over him. The slight furrow of his brow. The down turn of his usually smiling lips. The pity in his eyes. The pleading she always found in him. His shoulders hunched and stiff at the same time. He thought she hadn’t know. What he seemed to forget was the way the smallest nuance of him was well documented in her mind. When you love someone you notice those things. She saw every one of his falling faces, all of his heartbreaking stares, all of those things he so valiantly tried to hide. She was fairly certain he loved her, really truly loved her. But there was a part of her that couldn’t help but worry that love was mixed ever so slightly with a misplaced hero complex. She didn’t need to be saved. She just needed to be loved. She hoped that was something he was capable of.

I am not an angry girl but it seems like I've got everyone fooled. Every time I say something they find hard to hear they chalk it up to my anger and never to their own fear.

Pammy was someone who never really existed. Like the clay she was finally experimenting with she had been molded. She was made to fit. But every once in a while she would show Roy how badly the little vase he had made her into was breaking. Every time she raised her voice she was getting her period. Every time she disagreed she was confused. Every time she spoke her mind she was ignored. Without Roy there to keep up the repairs she had managed to break herself down and start again. Built herself from scratch. Leaving the cracks slightly visible. After all she wasn’t nearly done yet. Jim hadn’t seen this side of her. The side that would stand in her small apartment screaming at the top of her lungs in frustration. The side that she allowed no one to see. The side she was most honest in. Pammy was long dead and she will not be missed.

And imagine you're a girl just trying to finally come clean, knowing full well they'd prefer you were dirty and smiling.

Jim could see the change in her. She was strong and open. She was proud and resilient. He’d seen all these things in glimmers before. Now they were what made her so great. Made him love her even more. He couldn’t imagine what she had gone through to get there. How many people she had to defy. How many people she had to disappoint. Breaking free of what they all wanted for her. In this moment, listen to this gravelly voice of strength, he understood. No matter how hard Stamford had been. No matter how hurt and frightened he was. What she went through was worse. He understood the heavy bags under her eyes for the first few weeks of him being back. He understood the fingernails bitten to the quick. He understood the barely stiffed yawns. She was suffering and she was rebuilding. He saw in that instant that she had endured more ugliness than he ever had. He pictured the raising of Roy’s voice when she told him it was over. The flinch as it reached unexpected volumes and increasingly vile insults. He saw the phone calls to three hundred of her nearest and dearest. He saw the one she couldn’t make. He saw. He understood. He forgave.

I have earned my disillusionment. I have been working all of my life and I am a patriot. I have been fighting the good fight .

She had been mad for longer than she could count. She’d been lonely for longer. She realized that every once in a while it was okay for her to feel that way. It was okay for her to feel indignant. She could rage against her under-appreciation. She could refuse the giving of herself. She could demand something in return. She had spent a life cleaning up after people. Cooking dinners of food she hated. Choking back the leftovers to save money. She was tired and lonely. She was in love with a man that meant a life of joy. Maybe he could take care of her in a way no one else had tried. Maybe he could run her a bath sometimes. Maybe he could be happy watching Legally Blonde to cheer her up. Maybe he was the one. Maybe she could quit fighting for every moment of happiness. Maybe she could finally rest.

 

And what if there are no damsels in distress what if I knew that and I called your bluff? Don't you think every kitten figures out how to get down whether or not you ever show up?

A part of him always wanted to be her savior. He wanted to be the one that liberated her from a life of scraping by. The knight in shining armor he never got to be. She saved herself. She had taken a leap. Knowing there was no net to catch her. A small part of him was grateful that he wasn’t around to see her fall. He would have swooped in and saved her. Protected her from them. Turning himself into what he never wanted to be. Becoming another man she felt beholden to. He could live with himself if he’d allowed that to happen. Now she was ready. His sweet, strong, wonderful Pam was ready. She was whole now.

I am not a pretty girl. I don't want to be a pretty girl. No I want to be more than a pretty girl.

She loved him more than she thought she could. At every corner she was held back. Terrified that they would enter this as less than equals. She needed him to understand that if they went into this it could only be with nothing standing in the way. No significant other. No lies. No misconstrued feelings. They had to be equals. Or they couldn’t be anything at all.

~~~~

Silence filled the air again. He could hear her breathing.

"Pam?"

"Yeah, Jim."

" You’re not pretty."

She gasped into the phone and smiled. He understood. Of course he did. He was Jim.

The silence was broken. Track two filled the room.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter End Notes:

The song belongs to the beautiful Ani Difranco. I love every single one of you for reviewing. Please feel free to tell me I suck and I'll leave you all alone.


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