1.
Pam was frustrated. Jim could tell from sitting at his desk. She did this thing where she looked at the computer angrily and put one hand to her head like she could make it explode. He wanted to say something to her, something that’d take away her burdens and frustrations. But getting rid of a man, her fiancé to be exact, was something that was beyond him. He tried sitting there quietly but the words in his head, the ones he wanted to say, kept swishing in front of his eyes like a teleprompter. He wished the words could help him talk, to say the things he really meant. But life wasn’t like that and he knew his words would end up betraying him. Jim kept wondering why envy wanted him so, and how it held his heart so dearly in its hands. He figured it was just all planned. That fate damned him to fall in love with her the moment he saw her. So where did Roy fit into that?
He got up and headed to the break room and got a bag of chips from the vending machine. Jim shook his head. He couldn’t decipher whether he was angrier with himself or with Pam. This is the only thing he knew how to do right; make her feel better. It was funny how he ended up cleaning up another man’s mess. Maybe he was just over analyzing everything, he was sure that couldn’t be the only thing he was good for. It wasn’t so bad, making her feel better. It made him feel like he wasn’t breaking all the time. But sometimes he was pretty sure that he was about to just give up and surrender his pieces.
He walked up to her desk and leaned on the counter and flaunted the chips in front of her computer. She looked up and gave him a small smile.
“Sour cream and onion?” she asked.
“I heard ice cream is the thing that cures all problems. Unfortunately, since Dwight had that incident with the ice machine we can’t have any frozen deserts near the vicinity.”
She giggled and took the bag from him. Even though he was falling apart he felt better knowing he was picking up her pieces and placing her back together. “I’m sorry your day sucks.”
She opened the bag and handed him a few chips. “It’s not so bad anymore.”
Jim nodded. It would have to do for now.
2.
Bars were supposed to help weren’t they? Jim couldn’t remember the last time he actually went to a bar and wanted to be there. He remembered the Dundies and why he had enjoyed that. Pam had come back in from the parking lot, having had a fight with Roy and sat next to him. She downed about three or four drinks after that, claiming the ‘second drink’ was at the bottom of every glass. So by Pam standards she’d had like six. Pam spent too much of her life sitting down. At her desk, in her house, at a bar, next to Roy, in his truck, next to him…there was too much going on in her life that needed her to stand. But things like that challenged her. She was safe, sitting in her seat pretending things like her art and feelings never mattered. Jim would never tell her this, but he enjoyed her when she was drunk. He respected her more, which was an oxy moron within itself. But not for Pam. Not when her entire life was built around her legs not working. At least when she was drunk she stood up for things. Stood for her white sneaker awards, stood to hug him, damn she even stood to kiss him. Jim wondered if she even noticed she was losing the nerves in her legs. She sat there and watched Roy take over everything that seemed important to her. Didn’t she want more? Much more than that? He figured she did, because she was more than that. More than sitting at a bar complaining about how her art never got accepted into a gallery because Roy never dropped off her paintings. More than a lot of things in her life.
“You should have taken them yourself.” Jim said pushing Pam’s beer towards her. “Where’s Roy tonight?”
Pam shrugged taking a deep drink from the glass. “Football game…I think?”
Jim would have laughed if the situation called for it. She didn’t even know where he was and he could bet his life that she hadn’t told Roy she’d be here with him tonight. Jim bit his tongue and took another sip of his beer, hoping the liquid would burn away the words on the roof of his mouth.
He shook his head and thought of something else to say. “You have any more paintings?”
She nodded. “In my car. I can’t get them out tonight though because I have to pick up Roy.”
“Is tonight the very last time you can do it?” A very slight head nod. “I can take them. That gallery is on my way home.”
Pam looked at him and opened her mouth and closed it again before speaking. “You don’t have to. I don’t want to put you out of your way.”
She was so afraid to stand. He could understand why, she had tried so hard many other times and the slightest movements knocked her off balance.
“I’ll do it, don’t worry about it.” She nodded and smiled in thanks and Jim turned his head to look at the clock. It was getting late but to him, everything seemed too late. His elbow knocked into something as he turned himself back around and Pam’s half a cup of beer spilled towards her. She instinctively jerked up from the table to try and avoid the liquid. But it was too late; it was all over her shirt.
“I’m sorry.” Jim said and tried to quickly hand her napkins.
She smiled and shook her head taking them from him. She brushed off her blouse. “It’s okay. I was going to wash it tonight anyway.”
He shook his head. It was an accident he was sorry for but at least he got her to stand.
3.
Jim shook his head and looked at his computer. Swaying wasn’t dancing. He had a hard time believing that and no matter how hard he tired to concentrate on actual work he couldn’t let it go. All he could do was glance between his computer and an angry Pam at her desk. He felt like he accused something that could never be. Like saying a bat could some day have butterfly wings. Was that the analogy he was looking for? Is that what she saw and thought off when he’d related swaying to dancing? Things with completely different qualities that could never be related to each other? It was kind of like them wasn’t it…in some shape or form. He loaded a web page and clicked the keyboard to an online Dictionary. He’d realized since he’d started working here that over analyzing had become a bad habit, but habits were like that and he found it hard not to indulge in it.
Dancing: to move the feet and body rhythmically, usually to music.
There had been music. He could remember her liking it. He liked the way the wind was blowing and her hair was flowing around her face. And when he closed his eyes he could remember how close they were, because he could feel the ends of her curls tickling his cheeks.
Swaying: to move from side to side in a graceful way.
Moving rhythmically, from side to side, in a graceful way. It was kind of like dancing wasn’t it?
Jim clicked out of the site and stood, placing his hands in his pockets. Maybe it hadn’t been dancing at all. Maybe the swaying was a figure in his over stimulated imagination. After all, a lot of thoughts about Pam were his imagination. He day dreamed about her plenty of times. Times she told him she’d had enough of Roy and that she was indeed in love with him. But he knew those weren’t real and he was having a hard time figuring out what was his thoughts and what were the actions.
He headed over to Pam’s desk and she got up and headed to the copier. He approached her with caution, thinking any sudden movements would make her run in the other direction.
“You were right. Swaying isn’t dancing.” It was what she wanted to hear wasn’t it? What was the truth and what were the silly words in his head. “Sorry.”
Pam nodded and gave him a small smile. “I’m sorry too.”
They were fixed again. He was glad it was so easy. All he had to do was give her a bag of chips or ignore some type of honesty in his head.
4.
Stamford hadn’t been a letdown like a lot of things. He met Karen and for that he was grateful for. She was pretty and funny and made the best pasta he’d ever tasted. She made him forget about a lot of things. How traffic bothered him on the way to work, how irritating Andy could get with his singing, about Scranton. She was good for that; there was a lot to forget about in Scranton. But for the life of him he could only remember one. One thing that stuck out in his head that he needed to forget. He needed to forget Pam to start living. She’d married someone, she’d forgotten all about him. Wasn’t it fair game that he should forget her too?
Jim glanced at the clock on his desk and shut down his computer. He kissed Karen on the cheek and told her he’d see her at home and nodded to Andy who was butchering another musical and headed out to the parking lot. The air was chilly and Jim tightened his sweater around himself. He made it to his car and stopped suddenly. There she was. The girl he tried so hard to forget but the one that never really left the back of his mind. She’d always be there no matter what he did and he couldn’t understand why he liked it that way.
“Pam.” Jim said softly. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not with him.” Pam said. She had more courage than he had left her with. “I left Roy; I wanted you to know that.”
“You came all the way down here to tell me that?” he asked. “You know there’s an invention called the telephone right?”
She didn’t laugh at his joke, which was good seeing how he wasn’t trying to be funny. He had been too close to forgetting and he knew now, as he watched her stand there, that he’d never completely let her go. She was part of him and she must have known it too. She shivered as the wind blew through the parking lot and he caught the movement, looking at her with concern.
“You’re cold.” He said gently.
“I’m fine.”
But he took his sweater off anyway and she tried not to watch how his shoulders shrugged underneath his thin white button down shirt. He handed it to her and she tried not to fall from weak knees when she was suddenly surrounded by his scent. The sleeves were too long and hung awkwardly from her hands but it helped and she was suddenly very warm. So warm that tears started coursing down her cheeks. He stepped foreword and he swore that God damned his actions but he placed a hand behind her head and brought her into his chest and hugged her tightly.
“I’m sorry.” He said tenderly.
And he was. They were both so sorry.
5.
Going back to Scranton had been a mistake. The memories were in everything he touched. The copier, the break room, his chair, his desk, his computer, the jelly beans…anything. He could name anything and it would have some memory waiting for him. It’d crash down on him when he least expected it and Jim found himself barely touching anything the first day he’d come back. He just sat at his desk as Michael pulled everyone into the conference room to welcome the new people from Stamford. He was about to head in but Pam stepped in front of him the last minute through the door and he bumped her awkwardly.
“Sorry.” He said quietly. But he wasn’t, first time in a long time that he wasn’t sorry and it had something to do with her. The memory he got from her was punishment enough.
“You two.” Michael said pointing at them. “Go get the food for the welcome party.”
“The meetings already begun Michael.” Pam said looking around the room.
He smiled. “Don’t you worry Pamela; there will be lots of activates to keep us busy until you get back.”
Pam nodded and headed out, not needing to be told twice. Jim looked to Karen and shrugged his shoulders and followed Pam out.
“Thank god,” Pam said slipping her coat on. “I think I heard nickname and most embarrassing moment starters.”
Jim smiled, slipping his own on. But he said nothing and followed her down to the parking lot.
“So partner in crime, want to spike the cake with barbeque sauce or something?”
Jim just looked at her. It was a simple question, one that he knew what to say to. For some reason all he could think of was Karen and how angry she must have been that he refused to stay for the meeting. How he chose, subconsciously or not, to go with Pam and pick up food. It was fate; he knew it had to be. Only fate could screw him up so much in such a small amount of time.
Pam smiled slightly, waving her hand in front of his face to try and get his attention. “Did I loose you in my advanced plan making?”
She’d lost him but it wasn’t because she was talking. It was because he was too busy looking into her eyes. Jim could tell sometimes how Pam was really feeling when he looked at her eyes when she was talking. Her eyes couldn’t lie to him. And there it was. She loved him or at least that’s what he thought he saw. He suddenly felt cold and numb at the same time and he wished he was blind.
He did something sudden then. He leaned in and kissed her deeply on the lips, making sure she didn’t need to look into his eyes to judge how he was feeling. It was funny how the kiss was felt with everything but his lips.
Jim pulled back and he could tell she was trying to say something but didn’t know what.
“I’m…sorry.” Jim said and got out from the car.
But as he walked back into Dunder Mifflin and headed into the elevator, he knew it’d be the only thing in his life that’d he’d never regret.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize.
:D i needed a break from my other fanfic, this popped into my head. reviews are welcome but this was just written for you guys :D hope you enjoy!
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:D i needed a break from my other fanfic, this popped into my head. reviews are welcome but this was just written for you guys :D hope you enjoy!
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