Pam's phone starts ringing from somewhere deep inside her purse, and she has to hop off the stool in her mom's kitchen and rummage for three rings before she finds it. 'Jim' says the caller ID, and she doesn't have time to process that, because the call's about to go to voicemail.

"Hey!" she says kind of breathlessly.

"Uh... hey!" he says, and she feels herself blush. Stupid caller ID.

"What's up?" Pam says. Her mom is watching her and she gives her an apologetic smile and turns away.

"Not much," Jim says. "How's it going?"

"Not too shabby," she says, and then makes a face of herself. She wanders out of the kitchen as casually as she can. "How are you enjoying your life of leisure?"

"It's been, uh, very educational," he says. "For instance, did you know daytime tv is really, really terrible?"

Pam laughs, making her way toward the living room window.

"Oh, please," she says. "You know you love Oprah."

She can hear the smile in his voice.

"Yeah, you're onto me," he says. "She's just so inspirational."

Pam smiles and turns away from the window to plop into the ancient, ratty armchair her dad won't let her mom get rid of because it's so comfortable. This feels good, just them, talking. Her and Jim, just like always, no reason to freak out, right?

"So, uh," he says, and his voice sounds a little different. "I was thinking of heading out to Barnes and Noble tomorrow to get some non-Oprah reading material. If you wanted to come along."

"Oh!" she says.

"I mean, I hear they also sell chai lattes, if you're not into the whole 'being literate' thing." Pam laughs, shifting her grip on her phone.

"Shut up," she says. "I read books." She turns sideways in the chair, pulling her feet up. "Yeah, um, no, I'd love to, but I'm actually out of town right now."

"Oh!" Jim says.

"Yeah," says Pam. "Just, uh, at my mom's."

"Oh, wow," he says. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bug you."

"No, no," she says, "it's totally fine." She feels like maybe she should explain, but she can still see her mom out of the corner of her eye, puttering around the kitchen, and everything that's happened still feels way too raw to talk about.

If she tells Jim -- when she tells Jim -- she wants to be sure she's not going to cry again talking about it. She needs to be able to think without remembering the long night of fighting with Roy, how he'd cried, how he and Kenny looked at her when they'd come by to start moving his stuff out. The moment before all that when she'd been washing the dishes, thinking about who'd get the tv and she started crying because she suddenly realized she'd kind of already made a decision. How she thinks this is right but she needs to be able to figure out what it really means.

"Yikes," Jim says. "Okay, I guess I'm on my own."

"Sure you can manage it?" she says.

"Yeah," he says. "I'll do my best."

"Well, maybe, um, raincheck?" she says, and she can hear him smile again.

"Yeah, totally."

**

What's really weird is that occasionally Pam catches herself looking for the cameras. Really routine stuff she hadn't noticed she'd been doing at work, like sneaking a look around when she's about to eat something messy or looking up embarrassed when she's laughing to herself about something. It's strange not to see them out of the corner of her eye, strange not to have someone sit her down every day and ask her how she is, what's up with her life, what she thinks of whatever Michael did today, whether she wants kids, whether she knows if Jim wants kids--

Looking back, a lot of things are sort of starting to fall into place, in really obvious, embarrassing ways.

There's a message on Pam's voicemail when she gets out of the supermarket and its weird no-cellphone-reception zone. The documentary producers, hoping her last few weeks have been all right, asking her to come in and do one last follow-up interview next week, just a quick five or ten minutes. There's only one time-slot left when she calls back, so she shrugs and takes it.

**

Pam locks the car door and walks across the parking lot feeling weirdly nervous. At least she doesn't see Michael's car. Though actually she's already feeling kind of nostalgic for his monologues about its superior ability to stun and impress the residents of Scranton.

The production team has moved to a dingy office on the second floor of a strip mall, which is weird since she always kind of thought of them as exotic outside observers of their boring office world. Not co-inhabitants.

When she pushes in through the upstairs door, she sees Meredith in the far corner and the back of Kevin's head through an open door down the hall, facing a camera. Roy's in a chair against the wall to her right.

He looks up when she comes in and doesn't say anything. Just looks at her, with no expression at all, and Meredith is starting to look at them strangely, so Pam sits down beside him, before she can think about it.

"Hi," she says, and he blinks and looks away, over at Meredith, till she stops watching them.

"Hey," he says after a moment, without looking back at her.

Pam is rubbing the palms of her hands up and down on the knees of her jeans. This is so, so weird.

"How, um, how are you?" she says and he gives her a look, but then just exhales a little and shrugs.

"Okay," he says, and they sit listening to the ticking of the clock on the far wall.

"How are you?" he says after a minute and Pam almost jumps.

"Um, fine," she says, and he nods.

"How are--" she says just as he starts, "I was--" They stop and she laughs nervously.

"Sorry," she says. "Go ahead."

Roy's jaw is clenching and unclenching when she looks up at him, and she can feel the warmth of his body even though they're being very careful not to touch anywhere the two low chairs meet.

"I was going to say, um, remember to pay the water bill a few days early," he says. "They always try to jack us on late fees."

Pam looks back down at her hands.

"Right," she says. "Thanks."

A door shuts down the hall and they both look toward it in time to see Kevin coming out, along with one of the production assistants whose name Pam can't quite remember. Jess? How can she be forgetting already?

Possibly-Jess calls Meredith's name off a clipboard as Kevin comes over to them.

"Hey guys," he says. Roy just nods but Pam smiles up at him.

"Hey, Kevin," she says. "How are things?"

"Oh," says Kevin. "They're okay. I've had a lot of time to practice with my band." He smiles. "But then Stacy made me get a job at this accounting firm downtown." His smile fades and Pam presses her lips together.

"Well ... congratulations?" she says and he nods glumly before saying goodbye to them.

The waiting room is really quiet after that, in the supremely awkward way. When Pam looks down at where Roy's hands are splayed on his knees, it seems strange that there's no white patch of skin where a ring used to be, to match her own. ("Ten years?" her mother's friend Dotty had said when she was home. "Honey, that's not a breakup, that's a divorce.") She feels suddenly sad and desperate and terrified about what she's done. This thing she can't take back.

"How's Caitlin?" she asks, to distract herself, and he shrugs, a jerky motion. She can tell he's upset.

"Okay," he says. Pam nods and focuses on watching the second hand on the clock. Caitlin is starting kindergarten in the fall. Pam was going to give her her old Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox. Now she guesses she's not.

Someone's coming up the stairs and down the hall and she and Roy both watch the door open. It's Jim. His face shifts just a little when he sees them, but then it's gone like she imagined it.

"Hey!" he says, moving to sit across from them.

"Hey," says Pam. Roy nods.

"How's it going?" Jim says.

"All right," says Pam. It's weird to see him again, too -- he looks taller. He can't be taller.

"Man, it's early," says Jim and she nods. Roy isn't saying anything. Pam was wrong about before -- this is the most awkward moment of her life.

"This is taking forever," Roy finally mutters and launches himself out of his chair. He goes into the back of the office without knocking and when Pam looks over at Jim he's watching him go with eyebrows raised.

"Hey," she says, then realizes she's already said that. "I mean, um, what's up? What have you been doing?"

"Oh, you know," he says. "Saving babies from burning buildings. Turning time backwards. The usual."

She laughs.

"Yeah, that must keep you pretty busy."

"What about you?" he says. "How was your mom's?"

Pam looks down.

"Oh," she says. "Good."

There's a pause and when she looks up he's watching her. He glances away quickly, jiggling his knee, and suddenly all she can think about is that the last time they were alone, they--

Meredith comes out from the back shaking her head.

"Thank God that's over forever," she says, without pausing, then stops at the door. "What's the matter with him?" she says to Pam, jerking her head towards the back. Pam opens her mouth, but Meredith's out the door before she can say anything.

Jim looks at her questioningly, and Pam gives him a smile that feels fake.

"So, um, how's the job search going?" she asks, and he blinks and scratches at the back of his head. He's wearing jeans too, a t-shirt and sneakers, and it's so weird to see him in them instead of a tie, like he's practically a different person already.

"Okay," he says. "Uh, I had an interview yesterday."

"Oh, cool!" she says. "I think?"

He shrugs. "Yeah, I guess."

"Well, maybe--" she starts, but then the door opens again, and it's Dwight, who stops short when he sees them. Oh, yes. She glances back at Jim, and sees his eyes light up when he catches her look. Jim sits up just a little straighter.

"Hey, Dwight," he says, and Dwight frowns, but comes into the room.

"Jim," he says. "Pam." He sits down carefully three chairs down from Jim.

"Hi, Dwight," Pam says.

"I am actually really glad to see you, Dwight," Jim says, and Dwight gives him a suspicious look.

"You are? Why?"

"Well, uh, there's this guy who's moved into my neighborhood who's been acting kind of suspicious," Jim says, and Pam presses her lips together to keep a straight face. "He just wears kind of weird clothes, and there are always a ton of birds flying around his house. Man, I wish I could remember what kind."

"Owls," Pam says, making sure to look very serious. "I saw them too, the other day."

"Yes!" says Jim. "That's it, owls."

Dwight sits up straighter and half turns toward them in his chair.

"What?" he says. "Go on."

"Well, I don't know," Jim says, reluctantly. "Maybe it's nothing. I don't want to accuse people of anything."

"Jim, in this country, people are under suspicion until proven innocent," Dwight says. "I may need to report this to the sheriff's office."

"Okay, but, it's just that there was this really weird green light there the other night. And this loud noise that woke me up. I guess it could have been fireworks or something, but it just gave me this really funny feeling."

"Hold on," Dwight says, and pulls a steno pad and pen out of his back pocket. Jim gives Pam a look and Pam gives him one back and it's all she can do to keep from laughing.

By the time the PA comes out to get Pam for her interview, she's in the middle of telling Dwight about the weird thing she saw flying through the sky the other night that practically looked like a broomstick, but that's crazy, right? Jim throws her an amused look as she gets up to go, and picks up the thread, and it makes Pam's heart feel warm and right, listening to them go back and forth as she walks away.

Roy's coming down the hall toward her, and his face looks bleak, and the good feeling fades. Looking at him she feels a little like she might cry.

"Hey," she says, grabbing his hand. Ahead of her Jess stops and looks back at them, but Pam ignores it. Roy looks down at her hand and then back up at her.

"Pam--" he says warningly, and she shakes her head, trying to think of what to say that hasn't already been said.

"I'll see you around," she says, finally and his face softens a little.

"Yeah," he says. "Okay. Hey, um, good luck in there." He jerks his head back. "And with finding work and stuff."

"Yeah," she says. "You too." She means it and hopes it comes through.

She watches him walk away, his back, the way he shoves his hands in his pockets, everything about him so familiar, then turns back to Jess with a deep breath.

"Okay," she says. "I'm ready."