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Story Notes:

At the start of this year, I had never watched the US version of The Office, and didn't know fanfic was even a thing. So I binge-watched, googled a bit of mumbled dialogue and found myself here. Since when much has been left undone while I've read my way through a decent proportion of the material on this site. I've had a great time, and been amazed by some of the stuff you've produced!

So I joined, in part, because it's high time I stopped lamenting the fact I couldn't leave jellybeans and actually did something about it, and also so I could have a go myself.

Thank you all so much for your contributions to this site, and thank you too for reading mine! (And whose family needs clean laundry anyway? It's over-rated. It's also your fault :o)   )

I hope I've got the categories right...I dithered. It's booze Cruise, but canon divergent. Apologies to Katy and Roy, to whom I've been mean.

Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing to do with these characters or The Office. It's all somebody else's. 

Author's Chapter Notes:

 

Chapter 1 

 

Wow. Hope you packed your mittens and your earmuffs, Pam. It’s gonna be cold out there.’ Jim lightly bumps her on the shoulder and whispers, ‘I knew there was a reason I shouldn’t have sent those chipmunk-themed winter accessories my grandma gave me to Goodwill. Full set, too, with furry claw slippers. My brother took a picture and made a poster for the front gate. For my ninth birthday party.’ 

Her head stays bowed and she keeps absently rubbing her thumbnail on some mark on her cuff that’s he’s fairly confident isn’t actually there. ‘Mm, she replies, without looking up. So, he’s scraping the barrel, but offering up his humiliation hasn’t earned him so much as a polite acknowledgement let alone a smirk.

He hasn’t been able to cheer her up or even get her attention since she got here this morning. She’s been quiet...distracted...off. It has to be Roy-related—it always is—but she’s avoiding him, which is absolutely not how this is meant to work at all.

Michael’s throwing up his hands in exasperation as his big announcement is met with rolled eyes, and he groans. ‘I think some gratitude is in order here, Mifflinites! Jan has...as you know...refused us the wherewithal for our annual team-building spectacular, but Michael Scott is all about solutions. The mercenaries at corporate might not value the Scranton family, but...’ There follows a tortured monologue about sacrifice and honour and friendship...and a complicated frozen lake metaphor.

And he zones out. This might be the wildest suggestion yet for a Scranton branch event, and they’ve done some crazy stuff.

Oscar crosses his arms and sits back. ‘So, Michael...you’ve hired us out as a rent-a-crowd for the wedding of two absolute strangers. On a stationary boat. In January. In an iced up lake in Pennsylvania.’ He lifts his eyebrows in query. ‘Have I got this right?’

‘In Ohio,’ Michael mumbles, then adds quickly, ‘It’s going to be great. And free! With unlimited free booze and food!’

The booze news falls on deaf ears as the Scranton family spring bolt upright in their seats. Everyone’s awake now.

‘Ohio? Seriously?’ Angela’s lips are pursed tight. This is pretty close to her maximum disapproval face; that one is reserved for sexual indiscretion and blasphemy.

‘I wouldn’t travel to Ohio for the wedding of two people I knew and cared for, Michael.’

‘Stanley.’ Michael looks at the ceiling and sighs. ‘You’re coming. Anyone who doesn’t is fired. They can leave now and take their negative, romance-hating vibe with them. The rest of us leave right after lunch.’

‘Michael, you can’t force...’

‘Except you, Toby. You’re not invited, because you will suck the life and the joy out of this beautiful occasion just like you do everything else.’

‘Michael, Bob Vance...’

‘Is invited, Phyllis.’ He claps his hands together briskly, mustering his troops. ‘Our hosts have generously provided transport and unlimited food and drink for as many romantic souls as we can gather.’

‘Ohio is a lo-o-o-ng way, Michael.’

‘So spray me with cooking fat and roll me in sprinkles...Jesus, Kevin. You try and do people a favour and suddenly you’re Ted Bundy dressed up like an ice-cream. Or an Italian pastry. Or...whatever...look...the further we travel, the greater our gift to Lynsey and Sam, and they are profoundly...or at least, sort of grateful. We are uniting two bodies in love, people.’

Kevin sniggers. 

Everyone else stares pointedly at Michael.

‘Michael...we don’t have clothes for a wedding? We were supposed to be going to Poor Richard’s! I have jeans and a top which is really cute and Rihanna has one just like it but...look at my nails! If I’m going to be sipping champagne on a cruise, my hands need to be beautiful.’

Michael gives an exasperated sigh.

‘And at the last minute, Kelly, your numero uno leapt in and saved you from Poor Richard’s! You don’t need fancy clothes. In fact, the groom specifically asked us to come non-fancy. He wants it to be low key, ordinary...honest, because their real real life is extremely fancy. He wanted something...ironic.’

Jim blows out slowly as he rubs the back of his neck. This sounds grim. ‘So, we’re a slumming it rent-a-crowd. Fabulous.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘Kevin’s right, Michael. Ohio’s a long way. Poor Richard’s wouldn’t be so bad, you know? We can still...bond.’ 

As he looks around, everyone in the room is sat back in their seats, arms folded and eyebrows raised, creating a kind of impregnable wall of disapproval. Excluding Dwight, who is furiously scribbling in his new notebook. 

And Pam, who is now picking at her nails. She still hasn’t looked up since the meeting began. 

It didn’t take him long after he arrived at Dunder Mifflin to figure out that Pam’s choice of clothing is colour-coded by mood. Mostly she wears pale pastel colours; light pink, lemon, soft blue are what she chooses when things are fair-to-middling. She has some bright, jewel coloured sweaters tucked away somewhere, and on the rare occasions she appears in these, he knows she’s in a good mood. More and more often, though, she is looking tired and wearing grey and brown. These are her low, had enough, probably had a row with Roy colours. 

Today she’s all in grey...and while he guesses it isn’t the effect she’s been looking for with the down-beat selection, it really suits her; the sweater’s a kind of pale, gentle grey—he doesn’t have a precise word for it—in really soft looking wool which brings out her own colouring and the auburn in her hair, and it...well, it’s kind of snug on her. Suffice to say it fits very nicely. As does the skirt, which sits just so on...And he needs to stop this.

 ‘Jimothy... Don’t you start. I should be able to rely on my best friend to support me in extending Scranton Branch love to Sam and Lynsey. Can you do that for me, Jim? Can you do that?’ 

So...the short version is something to do with Michael’s mom, and her needing a favour from a bridge club acquaintance, who has mega-wealthy son who suddenly needs guests for a wedding...because his also mega-wealthy fiancée has had some kind of religious experience or something, and has announced that she no longer approves of the expense of a society wedding or of the message that it gives out.

 She’s going to regret that, because her intended thinks a surprise wedding on a booze cruise in winter will be a quirky, ironic and honest alternative. However, he’s been smart enough to realise, just in the nick of time, that it’s a bit too honest for their fancy society friends, so they’re not invited. Which is where the Scranton branch’s Gritty Social Realism Reserve Troops come in, and how Michael’s mom gets the one additional vote she needs for bridge club president. 

Or something like that. He can’t concentrate for trying to figure out what’s up with Pam and why she isn’t talking to him, and wracking his brain for something he might have said to offend her. Normally he, and only he, can lift her out of a Roy-induced gloom. His grandma (the same one who bought him the chipmunk gear which his brothers still think is riotously funny) always swore that every human has a special gift, and this seems to be his. It’s a pretty decent one, because it offers him a win-win: win 1, Pam gets to feel better, and win 2, he gets to score a small victory in his one-sided battle against the absolute wrongness that is Roy Anderson. Today it looks like his gift has deserted him. And it’s eating away at him.

 ‘And why on God’s green earth are they doing this in Ohio? On a boat?’

‘Because it’s a surprise, Stanley, and you can get married same day you get the license in Ohio! So, say he marches her to Scranton town hall with all their friends and family in their finest, and they’ve already had to apply three days ago? Doesn’t that ruin the surprise? Yes, Stanley. It does. So he’s paid for officials, a judge and the Serendipity’s captain, who happens to be a minister of a made-up church no-one’s heard of, to marry them. It’s like a pop-up courtroom and church discount deal.’ 

Michael face splits in a wide grin. ‘Hey, even the food’s going to be ironic! So, forget the wedding if it’s bothering your cold, heartless souls. Have a fun night out, enjoy the free stuff and bond freely and amiably and amorously with your coworkers!’ He claps his hands again and stands up. On another day Jim would have a sneaking admiration for his optimism in the face of insurmountable odds.

 ‘Until our departure, I will be in my officium trying to remember why I do this.’ 

‘Michael...’

Yes, Dwight? This had better not be another bucket of ice on Sam and Lynsey’s dream wedding?’

‘Is ironic food, food that isn’t actually there or...’

‘It’s mac n cheese and apple pie, Dwight.’

Stanley rolls his eyes. ‘That’s not ironic. It’s cheap.’

Will you just...’ He shakes his head. ‘The Dunder Mifflin Love Bus leaves at 12.30. You have until then to assemble your own loved ones, and to locate your shrivelled hearts.’

Pam is back to playing with her cuff and he can see her biting her lip. She doesn’t stand up when everyone else does. 

She’s been crying, and she still won’t look at him. He’s worried now.

***

Pam and Roy are sitting right in front of him. Close enough for him to hear.

What he can hear confirms that Pam is not talking to Roy. What he can hear is nothing. Zero. 

They haven’t spoken in nearly six hours since just after Roy got on the bus, apparently oblivious to her state of mind. Or he probably wouldn’t have thought it was a good idea to remind her that the guys would need fed when they came round to watch the game tomorrow evening, or ask her not to make chilli for like the hundredth time, because it was kind of samey? Or maybe he just didn’t care. Whichever. She snapped back that she would feed them as usual, and she said nothing at all when he told her that it would probably be best if she went out with a friend to the cinema or something, because a couple of the guys liked to talk raunchy and tell dirty jokes, and it was always kind of uncomfortable when she was there. Even with the back of her seat between them, he can feel the resentment radiating out of her.

She’s miserable.

He’s helpless to do anything about it.

The worst thing, though? In spite of Roy being a disrespectful moron who she doesn’t even want to talk to, he still gets to be the guy sitting beside her. And marrying her at some constantly evolving point in the future. And probably making her miserable like this for the rest of her life.

And he is sitting beside Katy. To whom he hasn’t said much more for about the same amount of time. They’ve been taking turns at pretending to be asleep.

God knows what he was thinking when he asked her to come after not calling her for literally months. Or why she agreed to come, because he’s pretty sure she doesn’t find him any more interesting than he finds her. Though you wouldn’t believe it to watch her, because she giggles at everything he says. Absolutely everything. All the time. He started to notice this half-way through their first date, so he put it to the test:

‘I’m gonna stay in and paint my bathroom on Saturday.’ [Not true] Giggle.

‘I built a sunroom for the backyard entirely out of transparent Lego bricks.’ [He didn’t] Giggle. [Could work, though?]

‘My grandfather’s air-balloon fell out of the sky over the vent of a live volcano and he’s never been seen since.’ [This didn’t happen] Giggle.

But she was pretty, relentlessly cheerful and she was enthusiastic in bed—if kind of impersonal. Or wrongpersonal. She’d gasped Nathan... at him. Then Jordan!!! 

When she groaned Brian, he couldn’t find it within himself to care, but he was grateful for his insistence on condoms.

Actually, he knows exactly why he called her and he’s ashamed of himself.

Pam is, he suspects, kind of jealous of Katy and when she was brushing him off this morning he felt an incredibly childish urge to show her that he didn’t need her (...). Which is why he might have oversold the term ‘cruise’ and the free food and drink, and undersold (failed to mention) the fact that it was going to involve a near six hour drive each way. 

He also forgot to tell her—and he genuinely feels terrible about this—that they weren’t expected to dress for the occasion. When she turned up at the office at lunchtime in a red, skimpy cocktail dress and high heels he’d apologised profusely and offered to quickly run her home so she could change, but Katy had just giggled. The guys were all ogling her, and she seemed happy. If cold. He gave her his coat.

When the bus eventually parks at the dockside, he watches Roy stand up after Pam and put a big hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Pammy,’ he says. ‘For whatever’s bugging you.’ He can see the tension grip Pam’s body as she gives her fiancé a half-grimace. She shrugs and looks down at the floor.

When they’re all outside on the dock, he sees her say something before she abruptly turns and walks away; he can’t hear either of them because of the commotion—Michael’s trying to get everyone singing, ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ as they march up the gang-plank, and Dwight is complaining that it’s too slow to march to and they look like the zombie apocalypse, and Angela is saying that she will not be participating in any song made famous by a degenerate...and this is going to be hellish.

Roy looks pissed off about whatever Pam said to him.

Every cloud.

***

It’s her own fault, really.

She’s always wanted Roy for the wrong reasons. When she was in high school and the captain of the football team was interested in her, she was flattered beyond belief: Mr Popular wanted Ms Nerdy Goody Two Shoes? He chose her over a small army of mouthy girls with loud make-up and fuck-me-already up-thrust, turbo-padded boobs? She felt like a kind of 90s disco Cinderella. She didn’t mind being a bit of a bystander in the relationship; she was finding her way, and it suited her better like that anyway. 

When her parents moved out of town and she and Roy got their first apartment together—and then settled into middle-aged coupledom round about breakfast-time the day after, she kind of knew that she was settling. They both were. If they’d been truthful with each other, the best days of their relationship—and they really did have good days—had already past. 

Even then she could see that it was a bit lame...settling at the age of 21? But how many people—even just people she knew— spent their lives discontent because they were chasing some impossible dream? She’s kind of shy. Friendly, but not confident enough to be gregarious, so she isn’t the greatest at meeting people—what if she never gets together with her special person? The One? How many people do?

Since she was a little girl, she’s known she wants to settle down and have kids. When she imagines her future, she can even smell the bread baking while Roy cuts the grass and laughs as their three cute, curly-haired children chase each other and play on home-made tree-swings underneath an endless blue sky. Roy’s personality and behaviour are a bit of an obstacle to this fantasy, but she remakes him a bit, here and there, to make it work in her head. Because maybe they don’t set the heather on fire, but what they have has been good enough. It’s okay. Fine. Safe.

Perhaps more than anything, though, she’s made a promise and Pam Beesly is nothing if not loyal and reliable. Everyone says so. When she was young, people complimented her parents on what a nice, honest, hard-working and dependable girl they had. The unspoken comparison was with her sister who was born a difficult and rebellious firebrand. Penny’s matured since then and she’s fabulous and lovely and she loves her dearly, but she’s surely taken a decade off their parents’ lives. So...it’s been up to her to be the uncomplicated and steady daughter. To settle down. Not to add to the strain. Not to let them down.

God but she’s boring.

And...the upshot of all this people-pleasing and timid acceptance of her destiny? Well...it’s that she’s kind of overlooked Roy’s growing complacency: tomorrow’s anniversary dinner cancellation—which sparked last night’s massive fight—is only one of a whole pile of forgotten or ignored promises.

And there’s the disrespectful way he talks to her, and about her with other people...the way all of their choices have somehow become his choices? She’s also chosen to ignore the way he undermines her and makes her feel selfish and spoiled for wanting to improve herself or to spread her wings. Oh, and not to mention his complete lack of interest in planning their wedding, like it’s some kind of onerous favour he’s doing her...

Not that she never stands up to him! She does, and they’ve had plenty rows...but he has a quick temper, so she picks her battles. And even when she does, and thinks she’s won, nothing changes.

It’s not like she’s been sitting at home miserable and pining for lost chances, but sometimes life just gets the better of her or, like today, she has time to think and nothing to distract her, and the choices she’s made really get her down and big questions whirl around in her head. 

The thing is...it’s not that she was even looking forward to tomorrow’s ditched anniversary dinner. The screaming row she’d started was just a proxy for...everything else that he does or doesn’t do.

Actually, no. That’s not fair. What made her angry last night was her and what she does and doesn’t do...and who she’s become in this relationship and what she’s let him become. And she’s ashamed. Because Roy isn’t, at heart, a bad guy. She’s let him away with it—in the early days because she didn’t have the confidence or experience to know she shouldn’t, and now because it’s just not worth the hassle—so he keeps doing it, and she keeps putting up with it.

These are the roles they’ve created for each other and they’re set in stone now. Probably too difficult to change. Even if she cared enough to try.

Sometimes she looks at Roy’s mom, whose role in life seems to be ‘heart-weary and put-upon housekeeper with reluctant benefits’ to a domineering husband. And she can see herself, her own future stretching out into an infinity of soul-eating mediocrity. At best.

And more and more often she thinks about Jim. 

She’s been avoiding him all day. Because she’s exhausted and completely overwhelmed and if she starts to talk to him about this, she won’t be able to stop and she’ll definitely start crying again. He’s a great listener, and a great friend...he makes her feel like what she thinks matters. He gets her. He makes her laugh.

It makes being a receptionist at Dunder Mifflin Scranton actually okay, because she gets to spend her days with him. He’s her funny, kind, cool and pretty hot best friend. Are you allowed to think that way about your male best friend? When you're engaged to someone else?

Sometimes she wonders if he thinks about her the way she thinks about him: he does, she’s pretty sure? A little bit, anyway. Maybe.

Today, though, she’s just worn out with lack of sleep and anger and self-recrimination, and guilt about her disloyalty...and she doesn’t want Jim to know this Pam. If she starts pouring out all this ugliness she has inside, he might feel the same way about her as she does right now. 

Tomorrow she’ll be fine; it’s always better the next day. She’s not generally a miserable person and she’s not given to self-pity, so she fixes it. What she does with these scary moments of truth is this: she tells herself she is being silly and mean-spirited and disloyal and ungrateful. Then she goes to the supermarket and buys whatever Roy’s current favourite is for dinner to rid herself of the guilt, and then she showers him with attention and affection. She puts it behind her and soldiers on, and everything is...fine.

Not tonight.

Tonight she has just told Roy that she doesn’t think they should get married: she startled herself when she said it.

He was all angry and defensive, but when she asked him why he thought they should go ahead with this unicorn of a wedding plan, all he could offer was a limp shrug and, ‘Because we said we would.’ 

Bingo

Since she got out of bed this morning she’s been agonising over what their relationship is for...why they keep doing it. And without even trying, Roy has summed it up in five simple words. They do it because that’s what they agreed, at some arbitrary point in the distant past, to do. They do it because it’s what they do

It’s not enough for her, and it shouldn’t be for him either. This time when she fixes it, things are going to be different.

Chapter End Notes:

Thank you so much for reading! Chapter 2 will be along once I've double-checked it. There are 8 or 9 chapters, more or less written.

I'm desperately hoping that the techy stuff works - it took me almost as long to figure that out as it did to write the story... 


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