“I have fallen in the forest. 

Did you hear me? In the loneliness?

Oh the loneliness, and the scream to prove to everyone

That I exist”

Against all the odds, considering the merger and the general state of the company, the Scranton branch has been making a solid profit. Michael has been invited to speak at a conference for the company. Pam suspects the odds are Dwight - who as well as being the very embodiment of all things odd, has stepped up his sales game in response to Jim returning as number two in the office. His sales figures now far outshine Jim’s, something that he is quick to mention at any opportunity. 

Michael is told he can bring a plus one which he interprets to mean a colleague. Dwight immediately volunteers and is shot down as Michael insists it has to be a “hot girl” and his gaze swings pointedly to Karen. Before the thinking part of Pam’s brain can kick in, she finds herself softly interjecting, “I’ll go, Michael.” 

“Perfecto-mundo,” he grins. “Easily top two,” follows and Pam swallows the heavy pang of regret that she’d acted far, far too quickly on impulse. 

The office is suffocating her at the moment. Each stilted interaction with Jim further constricting her airway. She had thought it had been bad before, but this, the sullen glares and steadfast ignoring? Her already paltry oxygen tank has had the line cut. Getting out of the office, even if it is just for a couple of days doesn’t feel like the worst idea in the world. Somehow the awkwardness of reigning Michael in in a broader setting seems less uncomfortable than sitting here choking down the last dregs of air. 

To make matters worse, on the morning they’re due to depart Michael phones in. “Pamela,” he whines and oh god no, it’s his injured voice. 

“Michael? Where are you?” She finally manages to sigh. “We have to leave in an hour.” 

“Take me to my office,” he demands. “Bring Jim,” he adds. Her heart thuds heavily in her stomach. Not Jim. Not this Jim. 

She transfers the line. Dwight is in Michael’s office cradling the phone under his chin before she even manages to step around her desk. 

“Jim,” Dwight bellows. Jim rolls back his chair with a heady puff of air and follows Pam into the office. Dwight steps around them to slam the door shut. He pushes the conference button and Michael’s voice fills the office. “I said Jimbo, not you Dwight,” he grumbles. 

“I’m here,” Jim mutters. “What’s up Michael?” 

Michael releases a steady sigh. “I’m injured...” He does not elaborate. 

“Did you grill your foot again?” Dwight demands. “Do you need me to come over? Michael?” 

“No, no, Dwight. Don’t be stupid. It’s nothing, I just can’t go to the conference.” 

“I’ll go,” Dwight declares, as Michael states - 

“I want Jim to go.” 

Pam’s heart stutters in her chest. No, no Michael. She’s mentally prepared herself for Michael. She doesn’t have it in her to handle anything more than that at the moment. Her first instinct is that she’d rather go with Dwight and that says everything about the current state of affairs. Especially with the way Jim has been, well ignoring her is the polite way to put it. Taking the last remnants of her bruised heart and pounding it to mush underfoot seems more accurate. She pictures one of those old school wine making contraptions and Jim barefoot, jumping up and down grinding her down to a liquidy pulp. It’s a little disgusting, but it’s exactly how it feels.

“Jim has inherited more of my natural charisma,” Michael insists. Pam’s not too sure of the science behind inheriting something from someone with whom you share no blood. 

Michael doesn’t ask her who she’d rather go with. It’s just decided. The worst of it is she thinks he actually knows - not the whole of it, but at least some. She sees the sympathetic looks and somehow knows they’re more about Jim and less about Roy. Michael knows and nothing unsettles her more. Despite this, it’s Jim he’s pushing into this trip. He must have noticed they’re not exactly talking right now. A thought strikes her, but she pushes it down. Is Michael faking an injury? 

She quickly convinces herself that’s not possible, there’s no way Michael would willingly pass up an opportunity to speak to a sizable audience. It’s Michael after all. 

“Jim’s going,” Michael declares with finality. 

Dwight huffs out a final frustrated puff and glares fiercely at Jim. “You’ll regret this when he messes it up.” 

Jim clears his throat, his eyes fixed pointedly on the phone speaker. She can see the furrow in his brow. She’s tempted to remind him that if he continues scowling and the wind changes his face will remain that way. 

“Can I, uh, take a different plus one?”

Maybe the wind has already changed. Maybe this is his face now, permanently etched in anger.

“No,” Michael scoffs. “It has to be Pam. It’s all organized already.”

Jim’s glare intensifies. A prickling warmth colors her face, she bites her lip to tamp down on the flood of hurt that courses through her. She’s glad that he never looks at her anymore and doesn’t see the moisture that pools in the corners of her eyes. He can’t bear to be alone with her. What have they become? 

Sometimes she feels as if she exists parallel to the rest of the world. It’s not a feeling of invisibility so much as just not mattering. She’s nobody’s person. She’s not the first person anyone calls when they have news. She’s perpetually picked last for the team. She doesn’t relate to cliches like ‘always the bridesmaid and never the bride’ because she doesn’t even rank as a bridesmaid. Friendships have never come easily. Well, there was one time... 

She was a person to someone once - their person. But now they - he - won’t even look her in the eye. And because she couldn’t have her first choice, her only choice really, she settled for familiar once again. She was so tired of feeling unimportant, that when Roy clumsily clasped her hand at a wedding reception she let him lead her away. She pretended for a moment that she had been seen. The truth sits heavy on her chest though, that Roy doesn’t really see her either. She’s his familiar choice too. He liked the person she moulded herself to be for him. Her edges have smoothed out and she can’t press herself back into that mould again. Still, she lets herself pretend, she knows it’s only momentary. She tells herself it will dull the ache - it doesn’t. 

Gone is the surface level friendliness with Jim too, in its place is open loathing. He hates her. He’s making no secret of it. 

Michael hangs up the phone with a final breezy, “have fun!” that cuts through the mood in the room about as effectively as a plastic knife through bone. It breaks on the first cut, just like her spirit. 

Jim keeps his head down and brushes past her. Anything to get out of the room. 

She takes a deep, steadying breath and finds it anything but. The walls have closed in further still, the fresh air draining even more quickly from the room. 

She pulls herself together enough to get back to her desk. She watches her feet as she walks, careful not to catch his stony face in her peripheral. 

A formal email arrives in her inbox. 

What time do we need to leave?

She attaches the itinerary and writes nothing in response.

He pushes back his chair after a few moments and roughly yanks his coat from the rack. Even the set of his shoulders scream frustration as she watches him disappear through the doorway. 

She assumes he’s going home to pack his overnight bag, but he doesn’t say and she doesn’t ask. 

They have to be ready to leave in an hour. 

She watches the clock countdown. With each minute that passes, her stomach twists into another knot. All she feels is dread. 

He returns forty-five minutes later and offers her a clipped, “meet you in the parking lot at 10.”

She tries to offer a nod in response, but his back is already turned. Her stomach threatens to earn a Girl Guides badge for knot tying. 

She sends one last email and sets the phone to voicemail. Kelly is supposed to come and sit out at her desk after lunch, but who knows if that will actually happen. 

Chances are she’ll float over to Ryan and spend the afternoon with the phone just out of reach. That’s what happened the last time. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is she somehow manages to survive the next forty-eight hours. 

She decides to drift towards the parking lot a few minutes early. She doesn’t want to watch Jim’s farewell scenes with his girlfriend play out. She doesn’t have the stomach for it. Not today. Not with how twisty and turned she already feels. 

“My car or yours?” he grunts as he approaches her warily from across the lot. God, she hates this parking lot sometimes. All their worst moments seem to play out here. 

His I’m seeing someone replays in her mind in the worst mash up of all time with her I can’t. 

Nothing good comes from this damn slab of asphalt. 

She scuffs her foot along the gravel and shrugs at him, not quite finding the confidence to meet his gaze. She’s sick of seeing how much he despises her. 

“We can take mine?” she offers softly. 

“Fine.” 

She’s glad she’s driving and has something to focus on. Her thoughts are already flying ahead of the car. She can’t even imagine the speed that they would be going at if she was giving them her full attention. 

Jim’s presence has always been warmth. Light. Joy. 

Of course, all that was before she was seated in the stony silence of this car. 

She’s never felt so overwhelmingly uncomfortable in all her life. This is on the same level as calling everyone she’s ever met to tell them her wedding was cancelled. 

She doesn’t feel like she matters now. She also feels a great deal more invisible than usual.

Her fuel light blinks condescendingly. She’s low on gas, the parallel with her own emotional energy doesn’t go unnoticed. 

She finds herself wishing it was as easy to top herself up as it is the tank. 

She doesn’t know how to make things right. She doesn’t know if she even should. Maybe it’s Jim’s turn. Maybe he needs to be the one to fix things. Maybe she’s mad at him too. 

A gas station looms ahead and she flicks her blinker on, pulling off of the highway. 

Jim remains, sullen and silent, his long legs crowding her tiny car and she fills the gas. 

Away from the shared intensity of the cabin, her flimsy hold on her emotions begins to splinter around the edges. 

She finds the restroom and sinks to the seat with shaking knees. 

There’s a bus station across the road. 

This is too hard. 

It hurts too much. 

For a moment she considers what it would cost her to cross the road and get on the next bus to anywhere but here. 

She could start fresh. A new life. She could cut all the ties binding her to Scranton, Dunder Mifflin… Jim. 

She’s just another number in the crowd, after all. She’s no one to anyone. 

She takes a shuddering breath. She counts the tiles covering the floor beneath her feet. 

She can’t. 

She always can’t. 

She may be nothing to anyone, but the people in her life mean something to her. She tries not to think about him. She thinks about not being close enough to her sister to see her whenever she wants. She thinks about how Michael might crumble without her. 

Enough. It’s enough. She’s done with feeling sorry for herself. She’s done with being invisible. 

She hates the idea that someone out there hates her. Even if that someone is Jim and his girlfriend. 

It’s time to turn this whole mess around. 

She’s miserable. Jim’s miserable. 

She pulls herself together and with one last steadying breath she strides out of the restroom and into the gas station. She doesn’t have much of a plan, but she does have this, a gesture. 

She buys a pile of snacks and a couple of bottles of water (she considers the grape soda, but that feels too bold, too suggestive). 

She plants herself back in the car and offers Jim a water. 

He frowns ever so slightly at her, but accepts it nonetheless. She opens a chocolate bar, before depositing the rest of her haul into his lap. 

“I got snacks,” her smile is weak, but genuine. “Help yourself.” 

He stares at her a little blankly. She decides the furrow in his brow is slightly less pronounced and it’s good enough for now. 

She keeps driving. The silence still lingers. She nibbles at the candy clasped in her hand. 

It takes a few minutes, but she watches his gaze drop from pointedly out the window to his lap. 

Another moment passes. 

Maybe it’s just his appetite that gets the better of him. It’s not a victory, not really, but when he reaches down and tears open a packet of chips she chalks it up as a win. 

The sound of his crunching and the crinkling packet as his fingers dip into it somehow lightens the oppressive atmosphere of hopelessness filling the cabin. 

There’s the tiniest glimmer of what used to be. It’s familiar. 

“Thanks,” he murmurs. He doesn’t look at her and it’s so soft for a moment she wonders if she imagined it. 

“You’re welcome.” 

From his lips to hers. A back and forth. It’s almost a conversation. Maybe, just maybe she can turn this around after all. 

She’s doesn’t push it. She takes the little moment what it is, the babiest of baby steps. 

And yet the smallest shift in tone feels monumental in itself. 

She keeps her foot tucked neatly to the accelerator and watches the outskirts of the city start to build around them. 

They get even closer to the city and she frowns. She doesn’t know this area all that well. She always forgets which exit is best to get downtown. 

Usually she has her map spread out on the passenger seat, or if she has someone with her she gets them to play navigator. 

She’ll just have to take a chance. She’s pretty sure she can remember the exit. Hopefully. 

It seems too much to ask. 

She just… Her frown deepens. Her knuckles whiten as she clutches the steering wheel a little too tightly under her building anxiety. 

“You want to take the next exit, over there,” Jim points. His tone is gruff, the product of saying relatively nothing for hours. 

“Oh thank god,” she breathes before she really thinks about it. She loosens her grip and watches her hands pinken as blood returns to her veins. 

In spite of himself, the very corner of his lips twist up. “You always get lost in the city,” he teases, slipping back into the Jim she used to know. 

“You know me too well,” she groans and accidentally douses the newly lightened mood. 

He sours instantly, apparently remembering that he’s mad and he hates her all over again. 

One step forwards, two steps back. 

She finds their hotel and checks them in, only to discover that Michael has called in the time since she made the booking to request adjoining rooms. Delightful. How very Michael of him. 

She imagines how she would have reacted to that particular piece of information had Michael been at her side at the check in counter. Probably with less reservations than she feels now with surly Jim lingering in the furthest corner of the foyer. 

She offers him his keycard with the suggestion of a smile. He doesn’t return it. 

He presses himself against the back wall of the elevator, eyes locked on the flashing numbers. 

She stares resolutely at her hands. Not that she ever had much of a tan to begin with, but the faint line that remained when she offered her ring back to Roy has faded considerably. She almost feels like her own person again. 

“See you later,” she attempts as they reach their respective doors. He grunts a little in response and then slips into his room. 

The door closes behind her with a hefty thud. Ugh. She tries to focus on the tiny bright spots in their day. She can’t let the darkness overwhelm her once again. 

She’s had her breakdown for the day. All that’s left is resolve. 

She decides a shower will help to wash away some of her lingering doubt and insecurity over feeling so damn inconsequential. 

The steam helps to loosen the last of her doubts. A few tears slip out, but it’s hard to distinguish them from the water cascading down her face so it’s easier to pretend she’s fine. It’s all fine. 

She repeats her new mantra about being the bigger person and finding moments for kindness. And not throwing her life away completely and starting over somewhere new. 

It’s not the most concise mantra, but hey, it’s something. 

She realizes Jim probably doesn’t have the best idea of what he’s supposed to be presenting in, she glances at her watch, less than an hour. 

She digs through her bag and finds both her spare copy of Michael’s notes and the overview from Jan as to what she actually wanted Michael to speak about. The two documents don’t exactly align… 

She’s doing lots of deep, diaphragm driven breathing today. It takes a few frantic gulping breaths before she works up the courage to knock on the door separating her room from Jim’s. She has to summon her last reserves of strength to keep going toe to toe with this complete downer version of Jim. 

If she’s being completely honest with herself, she doesn’t like him very much like this. 

Her hand manages to form an approximation of a first and her knuckles rap halfheartedly on the door. 

“Jim,” she calls. 

For a long moment there’s no response. Her hand drops futilely to her side and she steps back. 

“What?” 

He doesn’t open the door, just throws a curt reply in her general direction. Is this really what they’ve become? He can’t even bear to be in the same room as her? 

“I have the notes from Jan. And, a draft of Michael’s speech.” 

He doesn’t answer, but the door creaks and then cracks open. 

She extends the folder towards him. “Do you want some help? I can transcribe if you want to rehearse what you want to say?” 

He blinks, slowly and almost incredulously at her, like he can’t quite understand why she would want to help him. 

“Oh. Umm.” Is all he says, but then he’s opening the door the slightest bit wider and stepping back without really taking the folder which she takes as an invitation. 

She settles at the desk in his room and hands him Jan’s instructions first. 

His eyes dart across the page and he frowns. “This isn’t what Michael…” he sighs and trails off, seeming to remember that he isn’t really talking to her. 

She stretches Michael’s speech towards him and he groans as he takes it in. “Was Jan really going to let him say this?” 

“Here’s the thing,” and despite all the odds, there’s a little humor coloring her tone. “Michael wrote a decoy speech that actually meets Jan’s specifications, and,” she adds with a touch of flourish. “I have a copy of it.” She presents Jim with a final piece of paper. 

“Oh,” he finally murmurs, after glancing it over. “This is actually reasonable.” 

“Right? Without the chainsaw references it’s sort of coherent.” 

“Yeah,” and for the first time today he almost sounds like himself. She’s contemplating whether she can get away with actually looking him in the eye when her cell rings and the mood darkens once again. 

“I better take this,” she mouths and ducks back to her room. 

He latches the door behind her, effectively severing their fleeting moment of connection. 

This day is really the day that just keeps on giving. And by giving she means piling the pain on and on and on. Anytime she feels like she’s getting closer to finding the real Jim in the shell that remains, he reminds her of just how much they’ve lost. 

The loneliness and isolation she’s worked so hard to push down grab her by the ankles and threaten to pull her back under.