Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or The Office. No copyright infringement intended.

♥ 

"Halpert!" Roy called out, stepping forward into the office and out of the doorway. Jim nearly jumped out of his skin, more out of surprise than fear. He spun around and flew out of his chair in an instance.

"Shit, you scared me," he breathed.

"Oh? C’mon, why would you be afraid of me?" Roy asked, coming forward with a forced smile on his face. Jim laughed nervously.

"Umm... It’s just that you surprised me is all," he said. Jim still stood by his desk, confused by the manic grin on Roy’s face. "So, what are you doing up here? You weren’t ... standing there long, were you?"

"I wanted to talk to you, and I saw you come up here," Roy explained, ignoring the second question. "Why don’t you sit down!" He gripped Jim’s shoulder, and pushed him forcibly down into the seat with a strength that came off as a little less than friendly. Jim rubbed the afflicted shoulder, and laughed again.

"Is everything alright?" he asked.

"Why wouldn’t it be?"

"You’re just acting kind of strange," Jim said. Roy ignored him once more, and dragged the chair over from Jim’s post-Stamford desk. He sat in it backwards, and he folded his arms in front of him, draping them over the back of the chair. He stared at Jim for a moment, piercing him with discomfort.

"I need to talk to you about Pam, actually." More piercing discomfort. "I mean, you are her closest friend, and I have to get a few things off my chest. That’s okay, isn’t it?"

"Yeah, sure." Jim nodded his head.

"Pam was a real cute one back in high school. She wasn’t the hottest chick, but she had a certain charm to her. The other guys on the team didn’t really get it, but I asked her out anyway. You should’ve seen the look on her face when I asked her. I mean, her eyes just lit up, and she had the biggest smile. You know what look I’m talking about?"

"Yeah, I do," Jim mumbled, ducking his head.

"We dated for a few months after that. One day, I uhh invited her over to my house when my parents were gone for the weekend. She was pretty nervous, and it was cute. She actually ended up crying, telling me that she was a virgin. But I convinced her, and we had sex on my bed. I told all the guys, naturally, and they cheered me on. It was great. I’m not making you uncomfortable, am I?" Roy suddenly asked. Jim wouldn’t look at him, absently shuffling his feet.

"Nope. Not at all," he lied.

"Anyway, I proposed to her around the same time that she started working here. It was her birthday, and it seemed like a pretty good gift idea to propose. So I did. I hadn’t seen her so happy since I first asked her out, but after a while, I took the engagement for granted. Even though I never seemed to be that into the wedding, no one knows how much I cared. The prospect of marrying Pam was just... amazing. But then she dumped me, and it sucks so much to be rejected by someone you love."

"Yeah," Jim slipped. Dammit. He hadn’t meant to say that. Maybe it was his imagination, but out of the corner of his eye, he thought Roy glared at him.

"So I need to ask you one more time. Because Pam has meant everything to me for the past ten years, do you have any idea why she broke up with me?" Roy fixed his gaze on Jim, and watched him squirm in that familiar way.

"I..." Jim began. He held his fist up to his mouth where the ghost of a kiss from long ago still lingered. "No, I don’t." Roy nodded his head, and unfolded his arms from around the back of the chair. It might’ve been the fact that the office was almost pitch black except for the glow of one or two computer monitors or the fact that it happened so quickly, but Jim hardly knew what hit him as Roy stood up in a flash, and shoved him out of the chair onto the floor. Jim jumped up, and backed away with his arms held out in front of him as Roy stalked forward.

"Woah, woah! What the hell–?" Jim spat out words, but the words came to an abrupt end when Roy smashed him across the jaw. He fell backwards, and landed in Karen’s chair.

"I know EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID!" Roy screamed, marching forward with terrifying momentum.

"Roy! What are you tal–"

"YOU CAME ONTO HER," Roy interrupted. He pointed a burly finger at him, and glared with the intensity of two tiny fires burning in his skull. "ON THAT CASINO NIGHT, YOU TOLD HER YOU LOVED HER, AND YOU KISSED HER. YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!" Roy grabbed Jim by the collar, and tossed him into the wall of the conference room. The world became sharp and pink as Jim got hit across the face again. The blow must’ve disoriented him because he didn’t feel himself falling to the ground. He fingered his upper lip, and found blood dripping from his nostrils.

"Woah, hold on! That was like a year ago!" Jim tried to explain.

"And if it weren’t for you, I’d be coming up on my first anniversary right about now, wouldn’t I?"

"Listen! I’ve hardly even talked to Pam since then; she rejected me."

"And yet you’re still chasing after her, my girl! I heard you just now, how fucking dumb do you think I am? DID YOU THINK I’D NEVER FIND OUT?" Roy pulled his foot back, and was ready to kick him in the gut. Jim jumped up, and hurled himself forward. He managed to land one hit to Roy’s left eye (or was it his temple?), but he was too light compared to him and he lost the ability to breathe when he was jabbed hard in his side.

Roy had Jim pinned against the wall, forcing him to stand by the grip on his collar, and punched him in the gut until Jim was sure that he was vomiting air. Somewhere in the distance, beyond the fluids in his ears, blocking the conduction of sound waves, Jim heard a shriek. More screaming. Shouts. He fell to his knees, and grabbed hold of his head to steady himself.

The lights flickered on, and the blinding pain felt like someone dragged a knife through Jim’s corpus callosum. His vision focused, and people were pouring into the office. Some of the warehouse guys tackled Roy, immobilizing him with their combined weight. Most of the others stood gaping by the doorway, blocking the artery of passage as Kevin tried to push through to see what had happened. When he realized someone’s arm was wrapped around him, Jim looked up. Pam was kneeling next to him, so much terror and shock in her eyes, holding him, and wiping the blood from his nose with her trembling hands.

"Jim! Oh my God, oh my God..." she shouted in hysteria. "Can you hear me? Are you okay? Jesus!"

"My face kinda hurts," he groaned. Pam laughed, and hugged him in relief. He breathed in the scent of her hair, and rubbed his hands up and down her back.

"Get your fucking hands off her!" Roy yelled in the background. Darryl forced him into a chair, and attempted to calm him to little avail. "And you, Pam... You goddamn whore! Was it just a kiss? Did you fuck him too?!" This time, Pam had to restrain Jim as he tried to jump up and attack Roy.

"Please, Jim, don’t," she whispered in his ear. The feeling of her hot breath grazing his cheek and ear calmed him down, and she helped him stand up.

"Roy! Roy, what the hell’s the matter with you?" Lonny said, keeping Roy down in his seat. He was panting, his eyebrows angled into the bridge of his nose, and all he could do was point at Jim in attempts to accuse him. Pam held the side of Jim’s jaw, examining the bruises, and more blood dripped from his nose.

"God, let me get you some ice or something," she said.

"Halpert, I trusted you! You conniving jerkoff!" Roy shouted in the background.

"On second thought, let’s get out of here," Pam added, glaring at her ex from over her shoulder. Jim nodded his head, and they left the office behind, Roy still shouting curses at them in the distance.

Rushing down into the parking lot, Pam led Jim to her car, and unlocked the doors from the keys on a ring dangling from her pointer finger. They got in, and she handed him some tissues for his nose that were in the glove compartment.

"Thanks," he said, his voice nasally from being clogged with bright blood and white tissue. She smiled, and they drove off. Streaks of cream-colored light swept across the windows of the car as they went past streetlights, and the vibrating hum of the tires along the asphalt lulled Jim into a state of peace. The neurotransmitters in his brain must’ve stunted the pain for now because he hardly noticed it. His nose stopped bleeding, and he looked about the car at all of Pam’s little touches: there was an art portfolio sliding across the backseat, a tiny stuffed duck dangled it’s chain around the rearview mirror, and the CD in the stereo was playing "Across the Universe." Every so often, she would clarify the direction to Jim’s house, and they soon arrived.

Jim unlocked the front door, and pushed it open. Pam shut it behind them as they climbed inside, and helped him to the kitchen. He sat on the tile floor, leaning his back against the counter, as Pam rummaged through the freezer.

"Don’t you have an ice pack or something?" she asked. She grabbed a dish towel next to the stove, and filled it with ice cubes. Pam knelt down next to Jim, and held the homemade ice pack up to his swollen jaw, a pallette of deep yellows and purples as it bruised. "Wow, it’s getting pretty bad." He reached up, and held her hand with the ice pack. She froze under his touch, and he lowered the hand to her side.

"You don’t have to do all this," he said with such sultry softness in his voice that Pam’s heart fluttered, and he looked up into her eyes. Pam stared back, and the familiar fear of unspoken words flared up. She looked away, and sat down next to him on the floor, her long legs folded under her.

"It’s my fault," she said.

"No, it’s not," he argued, shaking his head. "I was the one who–"

"No, but it is." Pam swiped a loose lock of hair away from her face, and knotted her fingers in nervousness. Courage and honesty. "I told Roy about Casino Night when we were at Poor Richard’s. That’s why he flipped out." She shot out a breath, and her shoulders heaved. "I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he would react that way. I was just trying to start over, and I didn’t think there could be any secrets between us if we were going to make it." She searched Jim’s face for a response, but he lowered his chin, and looked into his lap. Finally, he spoke, but he didn’t say what she had expected him to.

"Why did you go back to him?" Jim whispered. The pain returned, but it wasn’t the ache in his gut or the swelling of his face. It was a secret pain suffered for years that he made every attempt not to vocalize. It was watching Pam and Roy make up at his desk, seeing them kiss and knowing that they’re still there even if he looked away, Roy finally setting a date, walking away that night because she was really going to marry him, and watching them leave Phyllis’ wedding, hand in hand. Feeling his heart be crushed into a pile of dust when she took him back. "God, no, don’t answer that. I don’t want to hear about how much you love him." Jim laughed with disdain (at himself?). He stood up, and tossed the towel with ice into the sink. Pam jumped to her feet.

"Wait, let me try to explain," she said, raising her voice to get his attention.

"No, please, don’t!" he said, even louder, but not with the animosity of a shout. "Really, Pam. I get it."

"It’s not what you think–"

"For four years, I had to watch you love someone else. What’s left to explain? Don’t make me endure more by explaining why you have feelings for him."

"You really don’t understand!"

"Of course I don’t! How can I possibly understand why you went back to someone who never appreciated you the way I did? All I know is that I don’t want to hear–"

Silence. The remaining words were smothered into silence as Jim caught Pam’s weight against him, and her sudden kiss made him forget that there was ever such a thing as the past. She held his face in her hands, and slowly, she felt his arms wrap around her back. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that. Their hearts raced in a simultaneous rhythm, and they couldn’t breathe lest the moment should shatter in its perfect delicacy. Why had they ever let anything come between them? Pam released the kiss, pulling back for a moment, and Jim finally saw the sorrow in her eyes.

"I went back to him because of you," she answered in the pause. "I canceled the wedding for you, but then when you came back to Scranton with Karen, I thought there was no chance and I should move on. I went back to Roy because it hurt too much to see you with her... Oh my God, Karen!" Pam jumped out of Jim’s embrace in horror, and held her hands over her mouth to stifle the gasp. "I’m so sorry!" she yelled, fumbling for her purse on the floor. "I... I forgot you were dating her!" Pam started for the door, but he caught her arm.

"Pam! Please don’t go," he pleaded. He pulled her into him, stifling her struggle with his embrace and the look in his eyes. He rested his forehead against her’s, and he couldn’t help but notice how right it felt to have her against him, this close to him. She subdued in his arms, and blinked back tears.

"But... Karen..."

"You’re here now... and I’m in love with you," he breathed. Pam smiled, and one sweet tear rolled down the curve of her cheek.

"I love you too."

She said it, finally. And they weren’t afraid anymore. They kissed, desperate to make up for all of the time they had wasted over the years. And he lifted her off the ground in his arms. He brought her, carried her like a bride, to his bedroom, and they fell backwards onto the mattress. Pam tugged at the knot of his tie as he unbuttoned her blouse. This was the ending they never had to that Casino Night, the ending the should’ve had.

(and they made love, and every breath was perfect. and he loved it when she tangled her fingers in her hair as she let go. and he collapsed into her. and her skin was soft, and his touch was gentle. and she loved him and he loved her. and they made love and it was perfect.)

♥

Still one chapter left!