Jim is standing in the detergent aisle and he has no idea what he’s doing here.

Pam and him had only two fights before; one involving brands of coffee and the other over whether a towel on the bathroom floor would still be considered clean. They had been stupid, meaningless, the type of fights that new couples have just because they can. They’d called a truce and both sets of their clothing had ended up pooled together by the bedroom door.

But this time was different. They didn’t spend the duration sitting opposite each other on the couch or washing dishes in the kitchen. They had been standing twenty feet apart in the living room, legs spaced in an offensive stance and Pam had spent the entire time, from the point where she raised her voice until the door slammed, pointing. Jim had been in enough relationships to know that if a girl starts pointing she means business.

Jim wasn’t even sure how it had started.

Okay so that wasn’t completely true; Pam had posted his resume on Monster.com, Google, craigslist, all the sites where they’d shopped Dwight around so many years ago. He’d been pissed that she’d gone behind his back, but it was more over-compensation for the fact that he was embarrassed. Did he really need his girlfriend to hold his hand like a little boy for him to step up and look for a better job?

“I’m sorry, Jim, I just thought that you could use a little nudge in the right direction.”

This was the point where he’d stood up, jerking away from her hands that had reached out to bring him back down.

“And what makes you so sure you know what’s the right direction for me?”

Pam had stood slowly as well, her leg unfurling steadily from under her and landing next to the coffee table like a horse stamping its feet in annoyance as she stepped back, away from his volume that he’s sure she could see coming.

“Well you weren’t making any forward motion of your own.”

“I remember a time, no so long ago when I was the one trying to get you to do something with your life.”

“I remember.” She’d said through gritted teeth. “And I thank you for it now. So I guess it’s your turn.”

“Well maybe I just don’t know what to do with my pom-poms since apparently I’m done being your personal cheerleader.”

Pam had reeled back as if she’d been slapped and from the dark shadow that had passed over her face he’d known he’d gone to far.

They’d traded cuts back and forth with their imaginary swords of regret and provocation for more than an hour, each word hitting progressively deeper until he just couldn’t take them being like that, spiteful and bitter, and he left.

Jim had come here on autopilot because he needed detergent and it seemed logical. Only now he feels like an idiot just standing here in a ratty old T-shirt with lumpy bags under his bloodshot eyes, trying to distinguish brands of laundry soap, all of which are too bright and cheery and so fucking loud. Jim shuffles his feet in place, attempting to decide between a neon green or cherry red induced headache when he looks down and realizes he’s wearing shoes from two completely separate pairs. Fantastic.

“Jim?”

Oh no, no, no.

“Jim is that you?”

Shit, shit, shit.

He turns around to see Karen clip-clopping toward him.

Fuuuuuuck.

“Hey Karen.”

He really should have cleared his throat before he spoke because his voice is ridiculously gravelly.

“Whatcha doin’ in Scranton?” He’s trying so desperately to sound casual that it’s coming out more Californian valley girl.

Karen’s eyes seem to skim over his haggard appearance for a moment before dragging back to his face and fixing an effortless nonchalant expression.

“I was supposed to be meeting with Michael about a shared client but, you know him, needs his hand held the whole way. He’s managed to postpone until Monday, so I guess it’s a good thing I already planned to stay in town over the weekend.”

Jim nods and even manages a friendly smirk that he hopes isn’t coming off mocking because he doesn’t really have full control over his facial muscles at the moment.

“Good thing.”

Karen looks like she’s about to offer an out, an excuse to leave, but he stops her.

“Look Karen, I just want to apologize-“

But she’s shaking her head before he has the chance to continue.

“That’s really not necessary…”

“No really. I was a really shitty boyfriend and by barging into your life again… with Michael and Dwight none the less… I guess I was a pretty shitty ex-boyfriend too. You deserved better.”

Karen doesn’t disagree. “I know. But I don’t need you to apologize. For everything you could say you’re sorry I’ve already forgiven you and the rest I’m never going to, so it’s really not an issue.”

Jim nods because she’s right. He thinks that for what he put her through she deserves to be right about everything for the rest of their lives as far as he’s concerned.

“Yeah, that’s totally fair. I just wanted you to know that we don’t have to hate each other, if that’s not what you want. Unless, you know, it is, which case that’s cool too. Not that I’m saying that I, umm…” he’s rambling now, he knows it, but Karen looks like she’s enjoying seeing him stumble over his words like a three year old over his untied shoe laces so he lets her have the satisfaction, “… hate you or anything. I’m… going to shut up now.”

Karen smiles this time, like she might not be imagining him stretched out on the rack with crows pecking out his eyes for the rest of eternity, so that’s an improvement.

“That’s probably for the best. Actually I’m…” she pulls her lips taught between her teeth, smiling over the rim of her incisors and hiding it unsuccessfully. “… I’m kind of seeing someone. Well not kind of. Am seeing someone.”

That ignites an explosive fire under his eyebrows as they sky-rocket to his hairline because he feels kind of stupid caught with an old lonely spinster image in his head when all the time she wasn’t that at all.

“Oh, that’s great!” His tone of voice is more excited that it probably should be, and higher pitched.

“I know it is.” But she doesn’t sound bitter or chiding so he relaxes his diagram a little and lets the tight smile on his face slack. But then she jerks her thumb in the direction of the toothpaste aisle and he suddenly doesn’t feel so unstressed. “Wanted to come with me to Scranton. You know, never been, wanted to see the sights.”

“Sights?” Jim feels safe enough to order a quizzical look on his face because Karen seems just as amused. “In Scranton?”

“I know, what sights, right? But she loves to travel, even if it’s to someplace boring.”

Wait, what?

No, he must have heard her wrong.

“I told her over and over, but she wouldn’t listen.”

Twice.

Jim doesn’t allow any emotional trace of shock to register on his face, even if his internal Richter scale is jiggling rapidly and making all sorts of crazy patterns. So the tiny pronoun that pops out of his mouth and into the air must have come from that portion of his brain that doesn’t listen when he orders it around and answers questions like “do you still have feelings for her?” with ridiculously stupid answers like “yes”.

“She?”

Either that, or he’s possessed.

But Karen’s got the coy smirk of a hunter or a fur trapper on her face, like she’d wanted him to ask all along but had to wait patiently in the bushes with camouflage paint on her face in order to get him there.

“Yeah, I’m kind of into girls now,” as if it’s a mundane detail like “I’ve started going to the gym” or “they just sent us this new temp.”

“Oh, wow, I, uh…” But he doesn’t have the time to show how wonderfully fine he is with this whole turn of events, because he catches movement out of the corner of his eye, just at the opening of the aisle.

Tall movement. Blonde movement. Sparkly lip gloss tinted red wearing shiny stiletto heels movement.

Walking towards them is a stacked bombshell that Jim couldn’t get up the nerve to ask out on one of his best nights, her bright eyes zeroing in on him like a cat in the dark.

Karen angles her body toward the woman as if she’s water rippling around a fish in the ocean, her body melding into her side in a clash of suit jacket and cleavage as she wraps a protective arm around Karen, her fingers finding Karen’s belt loops and tugging her closer.

“Jim, this is Diane.”

Diane nods her head toward him with the precision of a surgeon and from the stoic and possessive expression on her face he gets the impression Karen’s told her all about him.

And Jim has nothing to say. No witty comments, no snarky retort, no funny icebreakers that will make him feel any less uncomfortable. For the first time in his life, Jim has nothing to say. He’s sure that most men in his position would be turned on, the bolder ones even making a snappy-comment-shielding-an-invitation about a threesome. But he just feels like a college girl whose Barbra-listening, mesh shirt-wearing, who “always had the best taste in guys” for her friends’ blind dates boyfriend is miraculously out of the closet. He’d always thought that conversations in chick-flicks where that girl whines to her friends about worrying that she turned him gay was just ridiculous. Now he’s not so sure.

“I was just telling him how you’re a travel fanatic. Even if it’s to the fourth unspoken of corner of the world.”

But then Diane smiles, really smiles, one of those “I’m in love” smiles that anyone who’s worn one could recognize, and rolls her eyes. “And I bet you told him that there’s nothing to see here. But you’re both wrong.” She makes a point of sticking a mock accusing finger at them both. “It doesn’t matter if you’re vacationing in a freaking black hole, there’s always that Easter egg of remark-ability lurking somewhere. You just have to be willing to look.”

Karen smirks, that all-too familiar bright shiny smile on her face as well, and directs herself toward Jim.

“Diane’s a photographer, so she sees beauty everywhere. But she spends half her time trying to get me to see it too.” But by the joking tone in Karen’s voice and the patient eye roll spinning Diane’s face, Jim’s pretty sure there’s an inside joke hiding somewhere in the conversation. Karen leans forward conspiratorially. “I’m hopeless.”

And for the first time, Jim really smiles. Because he isn’t thinking about whether Karen is trying to trick him or if he should apologize some more or if he looks like a complete fool. He’s thinking about the girl at home with the curly hair and paint-splattered jeans that’s probably thinking he hates her right now, that he’s completely in love with, and he realizes he has to fix this. Like, now.

“It was wonderful to meet you, Diane, but I probably should be getting back home.”

Diane threads her fingers through Karen’s and Jim gets the distinct impression that she’s doing it partially just to see if she can make him squirm. “Are you sure you want to leave now? Because then it looks suspiciously like you’re uncomfortable.”

Jim lets himself blush because it’s not like he can doing anything about it and there’s something in her easy grin that makes him feel oddly at ease.

“Yeah, well, you might be right. But just a little.” He gestures the amount with the pinch of his fingers. “But I also have someone I have to get back to.”

Karen doesn’t exactly smile (he remembers the last time the topic of Pam had come up between them in conversation and he’d say it was equivalent to him walking face first into a plate-glass door) but she nods in understanding so he takes it as his cue to leave.

He turns, all of the detergent cartons still in place because that’s really not what he was here for to begin with.

It’s only when the cold plastic of the steering wheel closes under his hands that he starts to feel a little sick with the thought of maybe it’s too late. But he shakes it out of his head like a wet dog after a bath because they’ve been through too much for it to end like this and if Pam has any thoughts otherwise he’ll fight tooth and nail to change her mind.

He considers knocking as he nears her apartment door, laying one of his hands flat on the surface as if the splay of his fingers contacting the wood that neighbors the air that she’s breathing right now will bring her closer to him, let him see her face for one quiet moment of contemplation before he has to make everything right again.

One moment of before.

But that’s illogical and he has a key so Jim uses that instead, sliding the metal digit into the lock as softly as he can, hoping that he won’t wake her if she’s asleep. But he can see her profile on the couch, her fingers drawn up to her lips in that nail biting-lip pressing combo that only makes an appearance when she’s thinking or nervous. This time it’s probably both. Pam turns to him quickly and she smiles, like she’d been waiting for him, so he mirrors the relief and this is the moment he wanted, before they had to deal with I’m sorry’s and bandages and emotional PhDs. But then she conducts into place one of those hesitant frowns, like she doesn’t want to but she knows it’s necessary in this situation.

“How are you?” It’s the first thing that comes to mind because he knows she’s looking as battle-worn as he is and he can’t stand the idea that he’s hurt her. Again.

“Better.” Her eyes dart away but then rethink and find him again. “What about you?”

“Well…” And Jim’s really not sure how to answer that other than to say that he doesn’t know, about this or anything really, and… “Karen’s a lesbian. And I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have just left like that.”

Pam’s eyes pop, shrink, then soften, her legs un-pretzeling from under her and carrying her forward as if on their own accord. She folds her arms around him, her head nestling into his chest as her face briefly contorts in emotion before finally settling and closing her eyes.

“I didn’t mean to make you angry like that. I just wanted to help. But I know you don’t need me to carry you around. You can change on your own time. I just want you to be happy.”

“No, Pam…” Jim finds her shoulders and tilts her upwards so she can see his face, so she can know he really means it. “I’m glad that you sent my resume out. You’re right, I wasn’t doing anything about finding a new job. I was just…” he swallows a lump in his throat. “I was scared that by changing anything I would lose you. Because I can settle for all the rest of it if it means I still get to keep you.”

It’s true; every time he thinks about picking up and moving to a different part of the country or even looking for another job, he feels like he’s trying to pull the ace out of a house of cards and he’s had enough falling for a life time.

“I get that.” And it’s not what he’s expecting but it doesn’t surprise him. “But I’m not going anywhere. At least, not without you.”

He believes her because of the familiar brush of her eyelashes, the bow of her lips, the steady warm hum of her body against his, because he can feel her heartbeat in his bones and it’s thrumming true.  

“Would it seem opportunistic if I asked to see those resumes now?”

A half an hour later finds them at her tiny round dining room table, the printed sheets fanned out along with the application for two art schools fluffy like a snow drift in front of them.

“Let’s make a pact.” Pam says suddenly, lifting his eyes from the printout of a sales job in Boston. His smile is her cue to continue. “By next spring, both of us will be working for someplace other than Dunder-Mifflin.”

Jim frowns briefly because he hates setting deadlines for himself (the one time he had in the past ended up with I love you and a kiss and I’m leaving all bunched up together within the span of an hour) but then he smirks and takes her hand.

“You mean we can’t be homeless for a few months?”

“No”, she smiles because she gets it; he won’t be able to get through this without humor. “Park benches hurt my back and I hate the smell of soup.”

“Okay, I can live with that.” The pleasant blush of a smile on his lips fades and suddenly he’s serious again. “But what if that new job is somewhere… else? Would you really be okay with picking up and starting all over again?”

Pam ponders it for a moment, wondering what her life will be like when the cracks in her apartment wall don’t form the same familiar pattern or she has to find the shortcuts to work all over again. But she’s turned her life upside down once before; she can do it again. “Yeah, I could. But I need you to promise me something first, before we worry about moving or new carry-out places and everything.”

“I’m an open wish list.”

Pam sighs once, almost inaudibly, but the rush of emotion into the air makes him ache like an altitude change. But she’s had this on her chest for awhile, ever since he’d left and come back different, yet back then she wasn’t really in the position to make demands so it remained stagnant. “Don’t ever leave like that again. You left once and we barely made it back to each other and I just need to know that you’re in this. That you won’t just disappear.”

Her eyes’ path crosses through him like a dagger through a heart and he can feel it as if it really was.

“I will never leave you again.” This isn’t the time to be unassertive or coy; he needs her to know it in the tone of his voice.

Pam jerks her head in a definite gesture, setting that aside for a time when she needs it, like putting away nuts for winter, and scoots her chair an inch from the table.

“So.”

“So?” Jim responds, shooting her a quizzical look even though he’s pretty sure what she’s about to start into. The heavy air dissipates and its only trace is the white of his knuckles as they unpeel from the table’s edge.

“Karen is…” She swings her hand in a circular movement, implying that she wants him to continue.

“In town on business. With her girlfriend.”

“You talked to her?” Pam doesn’t sound jealous exactly but a little more edgy than usual so Jim nods quickly.

“In the grocery store, I ran into her there.”

Pam nods. “How did she look? I see you still have a head and I’m assuming all your other parts are still intact.”

“She looked… happy.”

Pam smiles because despite all of the shit that went down between the three of them, she still liked Karen. It was inconvenient and messy and she’s pretty sure it made everything worse, but she’d still connected with her. There was a time when they were friends or could have been friends, or something, and she’s glad that she’s finally found that person who can give her what she wants.

“I know the feeling.”

“But you know what’s weird?” Pam hums a pitch of interest. “Her girlfriend kind of reminded me of… me. What do you think that means?”

“Maybe she’s the one who needed to find her own Jim. Only… actually female.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing, just something I said once to the camera crew.”

“You suggested to the crew that Karen should turn into a lesbian? Because that would have been kind of awkward.”

“No, Jim, I did not say in a nationally broadcasted television show that Karen should date other women.”

“Good. But you know…”

Pam conceals her smile with an annoyed line, already knowing that this can’t be going anywhere good. “What, Jim?”

“It’s just that… if you and me hadn’t worked out you and her could have…”

She tilts her head and glances up dreamily in faux contemplation. “That’s actually a good point. Maybe I should keep her number for a rainy day I case, you know, I accidentally kill you with a frying pan or something. Did it seem serious?”

“Wow. You really know how to hit a man right in the gut, Beesly.”

“I don’t use schoolyard excuses on a regular basis, but. You started it.”

“Just wait until I’m cold in the ground before you call her up for a rebound, okay? Besides, you might have some competition. Diane seemed pretty territorial.”

“Did she scare you? Is that the sense that I’m getting?”

“Maybe a little. I’m comfortable enough with my masculinity to admit that my ex-girlfriend’s girlfriend was intimidating.”

“Now I have to meet this woman. Was she pretty?”

“Very. But not as pretty as you.”

“Nice ass coverage, but I appreciate the effort.”

“Thank you. But you do know I’m serious right?”

“As a heart attack, yes.”

He strikes one of his signature looks, even though there aren’t any cameras around. It’s a habit he hasn’t managed to kick.

“Hm. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that simile.”

“Jim?”

“Yeah?”

Pam stands, walking into the middle of her living room in the familiar path to the bedroom door.

“Get the image of me and your ex-girlfriend out of your head and come to bed.”

He smirks. “Yes ma’am.”