For the first little while after Jim arrives in Stamford, he's able to pretend that Scranton was all a weird dream he'd been living for the past few years. He's far away from Pam and Dwight and Michael and Pam's wedding and Pam and….

He misses her. He doesn't fit in as well at Stamford - not that he fit in well at Scranton, but he had Pam. Even without the mixed up feelings and the twisted up mess it became, he had Pam. And here, he has no one.

Andy is always pointing out different women in the office, talking about how hot - or not hot - they are. He thinks about how Pam would immediately want to prank someone like Andy. He's nicer than Dwight, means well where Dwight was constantly trying to be better than everyone and was just generally kind of a jerk. But he's annoying like Dwight, and has the same lack of understanding of personal space.

When Michael calls from Scranton asking about Gaydar, Jim really wishes he could ask about Pam. He thinks better of it, instead just sending some weird contraption he puts together with fake labels. He thinks of the face Pam would make if she knew the whole story and he wishes so badly that he could call her and tell her what the plan was. He wants to make her a part of this dumb prank, but he can't.

So he tries to re-create old traditions. He puts Andy's calculator in Jell-O, but there's no hiccup-y laugh to tell him it's funny. There's no laugh at all. And then Andy gets...fairly aggressive and Jim decides to never prank him ever again.

He's trying to make Stamford his new Scranton, he realizes. And when Mr. Brown comes in, he looks at the empty seat next to him, and he can smell Pam's shampoo, feel the pressure of her head on his shoulder, see the imaginary life he created for them where he's carrying her upstairs.

But she's married now, to Roy. She's married and he's in Connecticut and he needs to just...move on.

Of course, that's easier said than done when he has to spend an entire weekend in Philadelphia. She's so close, he could rent a car, drive an hour, and see her. He brings the card, out of habit, just in case…

But he doesn't. Instead he befriends Michael Scott, of all people, because wow, Michael really thinks he asked for a transfer because of him. Jim knows Michael is self-centered, but that's just crazy.

He hears Michael say that Pam is going on a date and Jim is...shocked. So, Pam's not married. Pam's not with Roy. Huh.

Well, good. He's always said, if she's not with Jim himself, she at least shouldn't be with Roy. He hopes she finds the right person. He really does.

But dammit Dwight got a freakin' hooker and again, he wants to call her, wants to tell her everything that happens to him but he can't. Even with the new information that she's single and dating and doesn't have one ring, nevermind two rings, on her finger, he can't call her. He can't go back down that path.

He put it all on the line, and Roy or no Roy, she turned him down.

So he keeps it to himself, hoping he'll find someone he can tell all about Dwight and his hooker eventually, and he goes back to Stamford with Josh and he doesn't look back. Again.

He starts to notice Karen. Karen is cute, and smart and funny. And Karen is teasing him, he thinks. He's wary, because the last time he had a crush on a girl at work, she waited to tell him about her boyfriend until he'd already fallen for her. So, he's wary, but he's noticing her.

She is, in many ways, the opposite of Pam. She's in sales, not at reception, which comes with a whole different skillset. She's got a tougher skin than Pam, especially working under Josh, and with a guy like Andy. She probably wouldn't get a lot of the pranks he's pulled on Dwight, but she does have a great sense of humor. Just...different. She's just different.

When they go on a quest for Karen's chips, he is reminded of the shopping trip for Kevin. He is trying so hard not to think about Pam, and just enjoy this person who is here, in Stamford, with him. This person who was never engaged to a guy named Roy, who didn't turn him down twice-

Okay, see, now he's thinking about Pam again.

He finally finds the chips and leaves them on her desk, and try as he might, he can't help but think about the time he and Pam had a fight and he left the chips on her desk. He thinks about how her favorites were Sun Chips and Karen's are Herr's.

Every time he tries not to think about Pam, he does exactly that.

He and Karen fight over a chair, and now he knows they're flirting. He knows in the same way that he knows that he and Pam were flirting all those years. He knows that when Andy ends up with the chair, it's like a prank he played on Dwight when he moved his desk into the men's room.

He misses Pam. And he likes Karen just fine but then he hears Pam's voice when he calls the office after hours one night.

And now he misses her more than ever. And they talk and talk and the sun goes down. And it get late, and he can picture her face while she's talking. And he's back at that desk and she's at reception and they're on the phone while Dwight yells in the background, locked in the conference room. And dammit, he misses her.

And then something happens on her end, and he stumbles, and she mumbles, and they're gone.

And for the first time ever, he regrets leaving Scranton.

He doesn't remember much about the night he drinks with Andy and Karen. He remembers falling into the bushes and he remembers Karen driving him home. He remembers wondering if this is just about how drunk Pam was when she kissed him.

But Karen is so pretty and so nice and she's driving him home and making sure he's safe and Pam is all the way in Scranton and Karen is right here in front of him.

He wakes up to a text from Pam about Michael doing something embarrassing. He has too much of a headache to respond, so he doesn't.

Which is why it's really awkward that there is a fairly reasonable chance that he'll see her soon. He knows it's not likely that they'll ask a receptionist to stay on and make the move to Stamford, Connecticut, but it's not totally impossible. Pam is good at her job, she's loyal to the company, and she's been dealing with Michael Scott for this long. If she can hold up under that, she can hold up under anything.

When he's offered the job as Josh's number two, he doesn't even question it. He accepts the position with no hesitation. When the tables are flipped, however, and the job involves being Michael's number two, his answer changes. Not because of Michael. Michael is weird, and wacky, and pretty annoying sometimes, but he's a good boss.

He's not ready to face Pam. Not after everything. Not after her rejection, the weird phone call, all these months without contact.

In the end, it's because of Karen that he takes the job. He sees the look on her face when he tells her to go to New York, and he's reminded of the way he felt when Pam told him to go to Maryland. So he takes the job, tells her to do the same.

When they arrive in Scranton, it's separately. He doesn't want there to be a big fuss when he walks in, and walking in holding Karen's hand would definitely cause a fuss. He should expect the hug from Pam, but he doesn't expect the feelings that come with it. He likes Karen, quite a bit actually, so he pushes the feelings for Pam right back down into the bottom of his heart and the back of his mind where they belong.

All day, she tries to talk to him. All day, he avoids her. He's just started this thing with Karen, he can't possibly risk it already. Not for another rejection.

He finds it both discouraging and almost relieving that Ryan is in his seat now. His back is to Pam, so he can't see her, can't be distracted by her, drawn to her. Instead, he faces Karen, which is the way it should be, dammit. Karen is his sort-of girlfriend, so that's who he should be facing. So...thanks, Ryan.

Karen calls him as he's walking to his car and he's surprisingly happy to see her name pop up on his phone. It's been a weird day and he wants to talk to her about it, even though she was there. It's a nice feeling. And then he sees Pam and, damn, he should tell her, should talk to her, something.

"You can do whatever you want," she's saying when he tells her he's seeing someone. And there's that bit of jealousy again. And maybe he was hoping she would just say, "No, Jim, don't be seeing someone, I love you." But that isn't what happens. And there's that word "friends" again, just like when she said his friendship meant so much to her and she rejected him and he kissed her and she did it again.

Scranton is both the same and different. Jim feels both at home and alienated. So he hops in his car and he goes towards something he knows is safe: Karen.

He doesn't want to tell anyone at the office that he and Karen are dating. Even when he was telling Pam, he left it anonymous: seeing someone. He knows how the people here get, and it will definitely get awkward once they all find out.

At least that's what he tells himself.

He also doesn't want to include Karen when it comes to a prank on Pam. It feels wrong, on a few levels. It feels petty and mean, where the prank itself is meaningless and silly and harmless. Getting Karen to gang up on Pam changes the whole tone and he doesn't like it.

At least that's what he tells himself.

Jim really does like Karen. He's not just telling himself that. And the little nagging feeling that he still has feelings for Pam is just going to have to get shoved further and further back in his mind until he can't feel it anymore. Because Karen didn't reject him twice. Karen took a job in Scranton because he suggested it.

But Pam is smiling at him and he's trying so hard to ignore it.

So instead he lets Andy sing to her on the couch by her desk. And he doesn't look at her, he just imagines her face, because he knows damn well what face she makes after a good prank.

Pam presents him with this really great gift for Christmas. It doesn't top the teapot or the card - which, no, he is not carrying around, but is instead burning a hole in a shoebox in the top of his closet. But it's a great gift.

He turns down the prank. As much as he doesn't want to bring Karen in on pranks against Pam, he also doesn't want to work with Pam on pranks against anyone. He knows how he feels whenever they work together on this stuff, and he knows it's not fair to Karen for him to get close to Pam like that. So he turns it down. He notices that Pam herself is getting closer to Karen, and he hopes it doesn't backfire on him later. He worries because he obviously hasn't told Karen about his feelings for Pam, especially not now that they're all working in one place, in such close proximity. He tries not to worry.

With the help of the camera crew, he realizes later that he's being ridiculous about Pam's Christmas gift. He's still pranking Dwight anyway, so maybe just this once, he can prank him with Pam. For old time's sake or something. Totally harmless.

His gift to Karen is meaningless. It's a dumb movie they saw together once. He didn't even get anything for Pam - he couldn't possibly give her something meaningless, so he can't get her anything at all. But he and Karen gift each other the same thing. Wow.

While talking to Michael - why is it that Michael is able to bring these feelings out in him and make him realize things he's been denying to himself? - he realizes he can't push away these feelings for Pam. They're still at the forefront of his mind, and Karen is just a rebound.

"Which don't get me wrong, can be a really fun distraction, but when it's over you're left thinking about the girl you really like, the one that broke your heart," he's advising Michael and realizing what a phony he is. He knows Karen is exactly that: a rebound. And maybe if they'd stayed in Stamford, he and Karen could have had a real chance. But here, in Scranton, he's never going to stop loving Pam.

And then he sees Pam hugging Roy and he swears to God no time has passed at all since last Christmas with the iPod and the card and the Chili's kiss and the kiss on his desk and him confessing his feelings and her saying she's still going to marry him-

He won't break up with Karen. He likes Karen, a lot. So he won't break up with her just because of Pam. That would be crazy.

He does, however, take Pam up on her Christmas gift. It's the least he can do. And the hiccup-y laugh and the impressed face are just a damn good bonus.

He really doesn't want to fight with Karen after Christmas. It feels wrong, he still feels like he's in that good place and he doesn't want to fight but here they are. It's just a lot for him, her moving that close. They'd be neighbors, there'd be no reason for her to not come over whenever she wanted and-

Why doesn't he want that? He's not mad that Karen wants to move so close: he's mad that he doesn't want her to. Pam, of course, talks some sense into him. Because Pam is amazing. And she's right, and he knows it. He's known it from the beginning, that he was wrong in this fight, but he needed someone like Pam to make him admit it.

When they talk about Jan and Michael it feels, again, like he's living last year all over again, only this time...this time he has the office romance that he so desperately wanted last year. It's just not with the person he was hoping for.

Yikes, that's a terrible thought. But he can't stop himself from thinking it.

In the end, he gives the application for the apartment to Karen. She's happy, which makes him happy. Jim should be with Karen, and Pam should be with Roy, he guesses. He's seen Roy poking his head around, saw Roy and Pam hug at the Christmas party.

Everyone's just playing it safe, or something.

Pam is stupid. God, she is so stupid. She should never have been with Roy. But Roy is safe and she knows Roy. Roy is predictable and she wouldn't have to meet his parents and impress them, because she already has. He knows her mom's favorite flower and Pam knows Roy's brothers better than she knows half of her own family.

But that doesn't mean she should have been with him.

She knew she had feelings for Jim years ago. Long before Karen and long before Katie. Honestly, before Roy even put that engagement ring on Pam's finger, Pam is pretty sure she was in love with Jim Halpert. And she's sorry it took her so long to realize it.

She has an idea in her head of her perfect life, and the face of her husband was always blurry. Even after she and Roy got engaged, after they stayed engaged for 3 years and then finally set a date and started planning, that face was blurry.

The second Jim kissed her on his desk on Casino Night, the face was clear. She'd known she was in love with Jim for years, but she'd never admitted it, even to herself.

When he left for Stamford, she was broken. It came at the same time as her canceled wedding and she was alone for the first time ever. She wanted her best friend, wanted him to be there for her, but maybe she didn't deserve that. She'd strung him along, flirted back with him, gotten jealous when he'd dated other girls. She didn't deserve an amazing guy like Jim.

When he comes back to Scranton, she wants to tell him that she called off the wedding for him. But then that first day is so crazy, and he's weird, and then he's seeing Karen. He doesn't tell her that it's Karen, but she knows. She sees the looks, the small affectionate touches. Jim doesn't know that she knows it's Karen, but she does.

She doesn't mean to be distant towards Karen initially, so she tries to bond with her. But maybe going after Angela is a bit much. She feels awful in the end, because she knows Angela only has Dwight on her side, and they've just taken that away from her as well. So they disband their little committee, but it was kind of nice to get to know Karen a little bit.

She swears it's not just because Karen is dating Jim. Pam really does like her. Damn, she really doesn't want to, but she does. And that makes it so much harder. Because loving Jim while liking Karen is just a mess.

After she talks to Jim about how ridiculous he's being about the apartment, she feels a lot better. She's still there for him, her best friend. They can still be that. But then when Karen tells her that it worked, she breaks down.

Pam is so stupid. She should have been with Jim from the get-go. She shouldn't have been with Roy, he shouldn't be with Karen. They're just circling around each other and they're just never going to get it right and Pam is just going to be here, watching Jim be happy with Karen, while Pam is crying outside and Dwight of all people is comforting her.

This is her bed, she made it herself, and now she must lie in it. And be as miserable as she deserves to be.