4 – Pam goes to the convention
He's too excited to realize what he's doing. He's still far too giddy from finding a hooker in Dwight's room to even think about what he's doing. She's the first person he sees as he walks down the hall, his hand covering his mouth.
The only thing he notices is that she's there, walking down the hallway with a can of soda and a bag of chips in her hand, wearing mismatched pajamas, her hair pulled into a pony tail and her glasses resting on the bridge of her nose.
"Oh my god," he lets out as he approaches her, trying to keep his voice in a whisper.
"What?" her face brightens instantly.
"There's a hooker in Dwight's room."
"No," her eyes widen. "That can't be right."
"It is. I have his room key," he holds up the plastic card.
"Obviously," she laughs.
"I open the door and that was definitely a woman's voice saying 'Dee.'"
She shakes her head and her eyes sparkle and he forgets that he hasn't spoken to her in months and there are still parts of him scattered, broken.
"Dwight wouldn't do that to Angela," she whispers.
"Nah… that's… Angela?"
"Yep. It has to be."
He quirks his mouth and shrugs, letting out a defeated sigh. "Oh well. So, I guess your theory was right after all?"
"Yep," she nods.
"And you didn't tell me?" he laughs as he speaks.
"I was saving it for a special occasion," she grins.
He stands there, watching her smile and he remembers the cruise, the denial, the admittance, the rejection, all in a wave that hits him and breaks him again, the pieces he'd been able to gather in Stamford falling away again.
"Sorry," he clears his throat. "I'll let you get back to your snack."
She points to the hotel room door. "Wanna come in? I mean… if … if you're not busy."
"No… I um, have a few things I need to do."
"Right, yeah. Sorry. Big promotion probably comes with a ton of things to do," she smiles weakly, turns around to the door and pushes the key card into the slot, her head bowed down and walks into the room. "It was great seeing you, though. Have a good night. Good luck with everything."
His instinct tells him to change his mind, to knock on her door and accept her invitation. He stops his clenched fist from making the connection with the white metal and walks towards his room. He spends ten minutes convincing himself that he made the right decision and another ten minutes trying to find something on television to drown out the voices in his head.
Closing his eyes doesn't help - all he sees is her face. Raising the volume on the television is pointless - he can only hear her laugh. Recalling rejection somehow doesn't validate anything for him - it would have if she hadn't asked him to come into her room.
Overly preoccupied with his thoughts, his head resting against the wooden headboard, he misses the sound of knocking at his door until it becomes repeated thuds.
He opens the door to find her standing there, looking smaller than she had moments before when they were in the hallway.
"How did you know which room I was in?"
"The front desk. I said I was part of the Dunder Mifflin group and they gave it to me. I mean, it's not a lie; I'm technically part of the group. Michael sort of forced me into it," she rambles. "I mean, he really just asked once, and I said yes, but… you know. Um. I just…"
"Are you okay?"
She shakes her head. "No."
"Do you wanna sit down?" he points behind him toward the desk chair.
"No… it's… it's okay. I just wanted to say goodbye."
"You're leaving? It's late, though. You shouldn't travel by yourself this late at night."
"I'll take a car service to the train. Michael made this huge sale with and he said tomorrow I was off duty. So I mean, it's silly for me to stay here."
"Okay, but I don't like the idea of you traveling around at this hour. At least wait until morning."
"Maybe, we'll see," she shakes her head and fidgets on her bare feet. "I just wanted to tell you that…"
"What?"
"I'm really gonna miss you. More than I already do now," she swipes a tear away with her finger, startling him as she hugs him.
He pulled her closer, letting the door close as he moved her inside. The sound of the door clicking shut made her jolt back and step out of their embrace. Her eyes washed over him, from head to toe, as if she were drawing him into her memory for safe keeping.
"I'll never forget you, Jim. You meant so much to me, even if you don't realize it. You're the reason I'm single now, and I know I should've called you … or maybe not. I don't know. What would I have said? And I mean, you've moved on. I just wanted to say goodbye the right way, so I can move on too."
"No," he demands.
He thinks to tell her that he doesn't want her to move on, that he hasn't moved on, that he misses her every minute of every single day. That they made too many mistakes and he's tired of walking around avoiding talking about their real feelings. That he wanted to marry her from the day he met her, and he still feels no differently.
Instead, his hands find her cheeks and his lips find hers and her key card falls to the floor as her hands creep up his back and the material of his shirt gets caught up in her fists.
He takes the following day off, telling his boss that he has a bad case of food poisoning. He tries not to laugh as she tickles her fingers over his bare chest as he leaves the voicemail.
Before they could figure out how a long distance relationship could work, the Stamford branch merged with the Scranton branch.
Two years later, they welcomed their daughter, Cecelia Marie Halpert, into the world.
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