It's somewhere between Fields of Gold and a strangely out-of-place You Were Meant For Me (Jewel? How did that slip into Scrantonicity's repertoire?) when Jim spots Pam weaving her way out of the reception hall, jacket under her arm, head bowed, and a downcast look shadowing much of her earlier glow. Truthfully, he had seen evidence of her gradual deflation throughout the evening, if not most assuredly just moments prior. They did that eye-locking thing they sometimes do that, even now, after months (let's be serious: years) of inescapable grief and heartache and whole (half) hearted attempts to try "moving on", still makes his stomach flip-flop like he just went down a steep hill he didn't know was coming.

And he knew that hurt there in her face, that hurt hidden in hues of olive and hazel, as she saw him watching her while he danced with this other woman. But after years of convincing himself of the infinite positive, possible silent meanings found in any other variety of little looks and smiles, only to be told he'd simply "misinterpreted" …

Well, he'd long since given up on any "interpreting" endeavors.

Which totally explains why he's tracking her out to the terrace, as the entirely coincidental Every Breath You Take begins to accompany his careful footsteps. Of course.

But really, what was he supposed to do about it now, anyway, you know? Yeah, sure, there was that tug from his throat to his belly that pulled painfully any time Pam looked even the least bit defeated – old habits die hard, they say. And yeah, there was some guilt somewhere mixed in there. For her. For him. For Karen, as he slow danced her and tried not to let her catch his eyes darting up and back toward Pam as she made her exit.

He watches Pam tuck her hair behind her ear fitfully as her silhouette sways to the music inside. He knows that, up close, he could probably see her fingers shaking. He tries not to let the goosebumps start so early, but his body never listens.

It's all a ruse in his brain, he thinks. A cleverly constructed prank on himself that's been years in the making. He's so used to making things up for himself, anyway, to placate … whatever. Playing pretend to make himself feel better, when all it's doing now (and ever has done) is making him feel worse. But, y'know, if he really thought that Pam felt that way – if he really thought she might be interested—

Even thinking it, his mouth starts to stretch like a fish out of water. He simply can't breathe around the thought.

She doesn't seem to acknowledge him at first; maybe she doesn't know he's there. Pam's leant up against the railing now, bulky with her jacket on over a dress he knows fits her so much better, with her hair so pretty and smooth under nightfall. He's been dying to touch just this one curl all night when she gets close or if he thinks about it for too long. It's like that every time she barrel-curls her hair, it's so compelling because there's this daring little part of his mind that tip-toes along his memories of that horrible night with that dress, and her hair, when he touched it—

He swallows loudly enough and purposely scuffs his foot as he starts forward. Pam goes rigid and barely turns her head – Jim's sure she can see him in her peripheral.

"Hey," he offers, really disliking the roughness in his voice.

"Hey," she replies with a sobering softness.

God, he wishes he didn't know her. If he didn't, he wouldn't be able to categorize that as her 'Roy and I just…' voice. 'Cause that's what it is. He didn't even see them together, doesn't even know where Roy's at right now, but he just knows that's what that tone is. And now he's going to wonder about it and it's going to drive him crazy if he doesn't figure it out.

Fucking great, he thinks as he leans up beside her and ducks his head to survey the garden. He sees Michael jumping up to peek in the windows and it lifts his heart a little bit, just enough to crack a joke around the air.

"Scrantonicity rocking a little too hardcore for you in there?" Jim teases. He's rewarded by her appeasing half-smile, because Pam appreciates his indirectness. She always has.

"Uh, yeah," she rolls her eyes and presses her lips together. "I think I'm reaching my quota for badly covered Sting and the Police songs for the year, now. And, really, if I have to hear them play 'Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic', I just may blow my brains out."

Déjà vu. He grits his teeth under his forced grin. "Not a fan favorite?" She shakes her head and he shrugs a shoulder, folding himself closer to the railing, trying not to think about the sleeve of her coat near his arm. "Eh, well. If I'm not mistaken, they did mix it up a little with some Jewel, right? Maybe we can make requests, like—"

"Roy did that," Pam mumbles and clicks her nails together absently. His eyes fall to her fidgeting hands. "That was, like … 'our song' or whatever—I mean, he was trying to…" She trails off and he wonders where in the distance she is gazing now.

"Oh.." Jim feels at a loss, because he's not wholly sure how to interpret (there's that word again) just what she means. "Well, points for effort to him?" He suggests, trying to sound mock-helpful. Really, he hopes not. He shouldn't hope (what has hope ever done?) but he does anyway.

He's not sure if it's relief or something else that floods his system as she shakes her head and heaves her Roy Sigh. "No." She sounds firm and certain, but he sees her slump a little. "I mean, I don't know. I just wish he wouldn't, though."

Her thumb rubs absentmindedly under the knuckle of her ring finger on her left hand. He watches the anxious movement, recognizing that if there had been a ring there anymore, she'd be working it fiercely off her finger. His heart doubles up in his chest for just a moment.

Jim clears his throat again and tilts his head one way to study her under the strand of lights hanging above them. She glances back, expression mute, before she tips a smile up at him. He returns it just as his heart cinches for her. "He says he's trying," she begins again, her head just barely shaking. "But… he just shouldn't. That's not—" Another low breath, as Pam's fingers clench and unclench around the railing and her eyes fervently seek something out on the lawn across from them. "It's just not what I want."

"What do you want?"

He hates himself and all his daring. The question is out of his mouth before he's got time to think about it properly and remind himself that that's not an appropriate thing to inquire to the girl who broke your heart. Especially not when she's got her doe-eyes fastened on you and there's this imperceptible glaze slipping over her vision.

Pam must see him startle, because she glances away and simultaneously he feels the loss and the liberation from her hold. He's played this same scene a hundred and one times before, and he's not sure he's gonna hold out for much longer.

Jim lets his hand fall from the railing as he steps away, and she moves again to face him – quicker this time, with a tiny furrow of her brow. He's not sure what he expected, but when she inhales and holds it, Jim can only be perplexed.

Then he hears the first round of the chorus from inside and, slowly, he smirks.

"I … hate this song," she puffs out the breath, a laugh on her words, and Jim follows suit, his middle already aching from the quake of it – and something more. With a determined bow of her head, Pam requests of him gravely, "Alright, you know what to do. Just make it quick."

Without missing a beat, he directs his middle and index fingers toward her in the reference of a gun, his thumb drawn back. "Any last words, Beesly?"

Her eyes open after a pause, and he's shocked by the green of them. His hand-gun falters in the air, and he drops it abruptly as the weight of this sudden tension begins to crescendo overhead.

Fuck me.

He remembers this moment. His ribs crack underneath him and all he can make out in this tunnel vision is her glassy eyes reflecting dull orange-yellow dangling above them and his half-horrified face. It's like a wave before it breaks, the way she sharply inhales a breath and curves a lopsided, dewy smile at him. Her lashes flutter prettily in an effort to ward off tiny droplets.

"A few, actually," Pam quiets – but it's not really quiet at all, to him, it feels like his eardrums are gonna burst. Her eyes fall somewhere at his collar. He swallows thickly, he watches her watch his throat bob with the effort. When her gaze travels back up and meets his again, Jim thinks of his first speech class in college, and of that night he tries to never, ever consider … but always happens to anyway. He notices, just before she speaks, that she isn't all that nervous, and for the life of him, he can't imagine why not.

She sucks up all the air outside and around them, he sees her chest heave. "Mostly that I'm …I'm sorry." The apology trembles a little in the middle, but her gaze is unwavering. "I just wanted—"

"God, don't," he interrupts, pleading on an exhale, his head turning briefly away from her. He can sense her dismay at his reaction, feels her curling back from him. "It's not—you really don't have to, Pam--"

"I do," she tells him with a firmness he's not sure he recognizes. Jim looks back up and sees her resolute frown, the wetness weighing at the bottom of her eyes. "I mean, I don't expect—" She stops, looks away, starts again. "I just … I want things between us to be okay again," Pam continues and raises her eyes once more. It hits him like a roundhouse, how open she looks. "And it sucks so much not being able to talk to you, or have fun with you, like we used to, y'know?"

He folds his lips and just watches her unfold; he's disbelieving, guarded, unsure, and-

"It's awful, the way it is now," she goes on with a sharp jerk of her head in his direction, her arms coming around to cross against her chest. "I was so excited when I heard you were coming back from Stamford. You really couldn't know, but I was." He doesn't know if he nods, but she continues nevertheless, and he thinks himself stranded on an island somewhere in the Pacific as she blusters on around him, about him.

"But then you—it was different. And, like, I get it. I do. People … people change, and they meet … other people," he sees her gaze flicker in the direction of the doors they're just outside of, and his heart hammers a little harder. "And that's fine, it's fine, but I at least thought we'd be able to fit right back together somehow, y'know? And you weren't gone that long and, yeah, I know what I did to you was just … terrible," her voice begins to wobble, and Jim's got two notions: to comfort her and to draw away with fury at her ridiculous understatement. "I mean, I'd hate me, too. I do. And I hate what happened between us."

"But the truth is, Jim," the way she says his name has every hair on his arms and the back of his neck standing on end. His body is at total attention to her proximity and of her ebb and flow. As her mind begins to slow down, he keenly watches her falter, but the moment she looks back up at him, he is suddenly struck by how intently and completely he feels her and knows her – of that, there is no misinterpretation. "I really miss you. And I'm just sorry for everything that I did, and said, or … whatever. I just," she bites the corner of her lip so hard, he sees it redden under the pressure, finds in his peripheral that her hands are beginning to wring together at her hip. "…I just needed to say that to you."

She releases and seems to settle, her lip let go and a pent up breath expelled with the finality of her words. The quiet is deafening in his ears, left with just a ringing and the echo of her bluntness, of her honesty, and of a million different thoughts that whirl up at once in his brain. He studies her, looking so small under the dim lighting and in front of him, and he can't remember anything seeming so fragile like this moment.