The warehouse is enormous and she is not and she feels like an imposter standing at the top of the stairs in her heels and pencil skirt. It is so cold in this cavernous space and she wonders if that is the fingers of winter she can feel creeping under the door or just the gaping hole where her heart used to be. She was so certain she was doing the right thing two minutes before, and now every part of her body is resisting her commands to move, to take her away from Jim and closer to Roy. Away from what is right and closer to what is easy.

He sees her, waves, beckons her down the stairs. She obeys and her legs are shaking. She wonders why it is so hard to be brave as she steps onto the warehouse floor. She wonders why it is so easy to give Roy a smile and a small wave of her own when all she really wants is in the office space above them.

“So, you saw my note?” He smiles, tugs her into a one-armed hug. She stiffens, tries not inhale him, so familiar and safe and a reminder of all the times she has ever felt worthless.

“It was hard to miss,” she replies, stepping away from him. She folds her arms across her chest, plasters a smile on her face. Tries to tell herself that she wants to be here, that this the choice she has made. And she is fine with her choices. “So, why am I down here in this freezing warehouse in the middle of winter?” She glances around, can’t find anything out of the ordinary to catch her eye. “Don’t tell me you just needed an extra set of muscles to lift some paper.”

“And where would I find those?” He looks around her, shielding his eyes with his hand to exaggerate the gesture. She rolls her eyes, feels her smile becoming more natural.

“I’ll have you know, Mr Warehouse Guy, that the new and improved Pam Beesly is ripped.” She pokes him in the chest, where she has touched him so many times before. She tries to remember the last time but she can’t.

“Oh, really?” He raises an eyebrow and openly appraises her. Undresses her in that way that she always hated. She crosses her arms across her chest again. “Pam, I think you’re lying to me.”

“Would I ever lie to you?” It is just a joke, just a simple retort to his own remarks, but it hangs in the air for a moment after it leaves her mouth. She tells herself that she is not the guilty party in the mess of their failed engagement, but even that tastes bitterly false. “I just meant--”

“Pam.” He talks over her, cuts her off. Waves a hand and looks at the floor. “It’s alright. That’s not what I asked you down here for anyway.”

She breathes, just a little. “And what did you ask me down here for?”

He hears the change in her tone and dares to meet her eyes, dares to smile. “Well, I did promise drinks, and I may have managed to whip together something edible, too...” He trails off. Holds out a hand. “C’mon, let me just show you.”

She knows she shouldn’t but she takes his hand and lets him lead her to Darryl’s empty office. Their hands don’t seem to fit together the way they used to. He is callused and rough and fully encases her fingers in his own, crowding her out so she can hardly find herself in the mess. She searches for that feeling in the base of her stomach that tells her she is happy, but it is gone. She can’t force it to reappear like she became so accustomed to doing. His fingers, his skin, his presence don't make her feel anything that she thinks she should. After fitting herself into his hand for a decade, she thinks there should be something bigger than nothing in the wake of her new independence. But she knows what happiness feels like, and Roy cannot give it to her.

Darryl’s office is small and cluttered, a mess of files and equipment and safety gear that bears the mark of a man clearly disinterested in his field of employment. But in the centre of the small space is a collapsible table and two chairs. And there is wine and glasses and what looks like an assortment of McDonald’s menu items arranged neatly on two paper plates. She stops in the doorway, watches him sit at the table. Her breath is lost as she realises this is the most effort he has put into a date in years. Her nose tingles and her vision blurs. She blinks and takes uncertain steps into the room, lowers herself onto the chair opposite him. Her fries are cold, and she smiles. There is the Roy she has grown used to.

“It’s not much, but it’s better than two-minute noodles alone in your apartment, right?” He is pouring a generous amount of wine in her glass. She doesn’t stop him, but she thinks that maybe alone in her apartment is where she should be instead of here eating McDonald’s with her ex-fiancée.

“At least I didn’t have to cook this myself.” It is a bad attempt at banter, but he doesn’t notice.

“Neither did I.” He winks at her, fills his own glass, places the bottle in the middle of the table. “I couldn’t remember what you liked, so I just got a bit of everything.”

She has never really liked McDonald’s, never really appreciated the way the food settles in her stomach in a lump. She has never developed a taste for plastic cheese or cold fries or mystery clumps of chicken deep-fried and served as nuggets. But she is so hungry and so cold and maybe if she starts putting things in her mouth she won’t have to talk anymore.

She nibbles on a fry, follows it with a long sip of wine. It warms her as soon as it hits her stomach, filling her arms and legs with the heat only red wine can provide. She takes another sip, finishes her single fry. Thinks that maybe getting just a little bit drunk is the solution to all her problems. Knows that she is being stupid.

“I’m really glad you came down here tonight,” Roy says around a mouthful of his burger. He chews, swallows, holds her gaze. “I’ve missed you, Pam.”

She looks down at her cold fries and nuggets. Reaches for her glass, then thinks better of it. She hasn’t missed him, not even a little, and the longer she spends with him the more she remembers all of the reasons why she left him. Why she feels better sleeping alone and driving to work alone and doing things on the weekend that he would have never let her do. She knows what it is to be moulded to another person and she will never let that happen again. She takes another sip of wine.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think since we broke up.” He hurtles right through her silence, doesn’t seem to notice her at all. “I know I took you for granted when we were together, but Pam, I promise I’ll never do that again.” He is reaching across the table for her. She reaches for a nugget.

“I’m not here to get back together,” she says. She can feel the oil from the nugget soaking into her fingertips. “I broke up with you for a lot of reasons, and I don’t really want to revisit them right now.”

“Okay, then we’ll take it slow. Have lunch together sometimes, maybe see a movie on the weekend.” His hand is still resting on the table. She is still holding the chicken nugget.

“Roy, you’re not hearing me.” Her voice is too loud in this tiny room. The wine is flooding her face, making her cheeks hot. She is looking at her food but her words are strong. “I’m not here to get back together. I don’t want to do that again with you.”

“C’mon, Pammy. I think we both know that you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

He thinks that he knows her, thinks that he is right and that he knows her better than she knows herself. And maybe he does, because right now she cannot think of what possessed her to come down here in the first place. To drink wine and eat fast food with her ex-fiancée who she never thought she would sit across from at a table again. She wonders why she is sitting here when the only place she needs to be is five feet away from Jim’s desk.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” she announces. She stands, steps around her chair and tucks it neatly under the table. “But we are not inevitable, Roy. I’m not the same woman who wasted nine years of her life on you. I know what I want now. And I know that it isn’t you.”

He is stunned. For a moment, so is she. This is the first time she has said what she truly needed to say since she called off the wedding. She is suddenly afraid, fearful of a world in which she cannot take back her honesty. Fearful of what her honesty might do. But there is a stirring in her stomach that could just be the wine, and she thinks that it might be the stirrings of confidence.

“Why did I even bother, Pam?” Roy is standing too and his voice fills the room. “Why did I let you guilt me into changing for you? You led me on!”

Her honesty has backfired and now she is facing the consequences. Now she is facing a self-righteous Roy clenching his fists while his neck turns red.

“I’m sorry,” and she doesn’t know what she is apologising for, “but I just can’t do this with you.”

“With me? Who else is there, Pam, because no-else wants you!”

And she thinks for a moment that maybe that is true, that maybe the novelty of sleeping alone is going to wear off very soon and she will regret this moment as deeply as she regrets the last nine years. She wonders if she can do this, knowing that there is no-one else for her except the balding, angry and manipulative man standing in front of her. But she thinks that if that is still confidence she feels growing in her stomach, then there is one more thing she can do to find out.

She doesn’t say goodbye to Roy, doesn’t thank him for the cold McDonald’s or the cheap wine or the creaky folding chairs. She crosses her arms and skips up the stairs and when she reaches the elevator she can feel her heartbeat everywhere. And she presses the buttons and feels the floor move beneath her and wonders for a very brief moment if she has done the right thing. But then the doors are opening and the room behind the glass is dark and she pushes the door open and she is alone in the bullpen. Her hands are shaking and her confidence has vanished and she staggers to his desk. Considers moving his monitor so it faces reception, like it used to. Like it should. Considers calling him. Considers sitting in his chair for a moment to feel what is left of him on the fabric. But his desk is empty and he is gone and her confidence was wasted and she knows she will never get it back.

She leans against the desk, looks down like she has done so many times before, remembers the way his eyes used to wash over her and hold her there and see right through to those things she never said to anyone. And she thinks she is delirious but a small blue light is flashing in the darkness and she turns and sees his mobile abandoned on the desk and she grabs it without thinking and pushes herself onto her feet and then he is standing in front of her and she forgets how to breathe.

He looks at her, sees the phone clutched in her fingers, sees her standing at his desk. “I forgot my phone.” His voice is so quiet. He is so far away.

“I was just... I was going to take it back for you.” And maybe that’s exactly what she would have done if he hadn’t appeared and set her heart racing so fast she is having difficulty standing. She steps toward him, holds out the phone. He takes it, buries it in his pocket.

“Thanks.” He is turning away from her now, ready to leave her in the darkness and go back to his someone. To Karen. And she knows that if she says nothing now, she will say nothing for the rest of her life. And she doesn’t want to live with that regret.

“Jim, wait.”

He stops, turns. Under the thrum of her pulse she can hear the hum of the air conditioner. And she thinks that she owes it to him to be brave, just once, here in this dimly lit office space that reminds her of satin and vodka and silence. Of her hands on his chest, his skin on her skin. The space between them smaller than it had ever been before. He is on the other side of the room now, but in the dark he looks the same as he did that night. She wonders if he is thinking of it, too.

“I just... I have something to say to you, and if I don’t say it now I never will, and you deserve to hear it.”

He doesn’t respond. His hands are in his pockets and she can see him standing in the snow in the parking lot telling her about Karen. She can hear herself say they will always be friends. She knows what she is about to say will render that a lie.

“I just had McDonald’s and wine with Roy. It was horrible. It took me so long to realise, but now I can see how selfish and blind and lazy he is, and it hurts me to think that I spent so many years being less happy than I could have been because I thought I deserved it.” She looks at her hands. She is babbling. “I should never have been with him, but I didn’t know how to leave him because I didn’t think I deserved any better. I thought that he was my life and I would just have to fit into it somehow.”

“Why are you telling me this, Pam?” He sounds so tired. She wonders if she has lost him.

“Because I’m in love with you.” She tastes the words in her mouth and they feel light and right and true. “You, who have always listened to me, seen me, cared about me, understood me. You, who have sat five feet from my desk for four years and have supported my dreams and waited while I figured out that I was settling with Roy when I could do so much better.” Her hands are shaking and her voice is shaking and she thinks she might cry. “And now I’m too late, because you have a someone and I took too long and I was too afraid. But I just needed you to know. So I didn’t waste my confidence.” And she thinks she is finished but then the words are in her mouth and in the air before she can stop them. “I’m just in love with you, Jim.”

The air conditioner is the only sound and she wonders why he hasn’t said anything. Wonders if she really is too late, if her chance is gone and he is not in love with her anymore. Wonders if he will ever be able to look at her again.

He moves towards her, and his hands are still in his pockets but he is determined and strong and doesn’t stop until he is so close all she can see are his eyes. The eyes that are holding her gaze and holding her heart and bathing her in a warmth she has only ever felt from him.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes.” Her heart answers for her, or maybe it is the wine, or maybe it is the fact that he is standing so close and she is drowning in him.

He wraps an arm around her waist and her skin ignites under his touch. Her hand is on his chest and his hand is in her hair and he is so warm and so close and his lips are on hers and he is pulling her against him. She slings her arm around his neck but he is not close enough. Both of his arms are around her waist and she feels so small, enveloped in his scent and his arms and his warmth. He pulls away from her mouth, leans against her forehead, keeps his arms at her waist. She closes her eyes, focuses on every place where he is touching her, analyses the feeling of his hair under her fingers, inhales the scent that is winter and the office and Jim.

“I’m in love with you,” he says, and it fills her with something she doesn’t know what to name. “Are you sure you’re not drunk? You taste like wine.” He is joking but she cannot bear the thought of him operating under the assumption that she is not under the influence of her own independence.

“I promise, I’m not drunk.” She smiles. Opens her eyes. “I’m just in love with you.”

He kisses her again and she thinks that she has never been this happy or this safe or this valuable. His fingers are on her spine and in her hair and on her arms. He is taking all the liberties he has waited four years for, and she loves the way her skin comes alive for him.

When they break apart she cannot breathe. “I don’t think I ever want you to let go.”

He smiles, laughs, kisses her forehead. “Beesly, I’ve waited four years for you to say that.”