Pam glanced at her phone. She was trying to concentrate on the movie she had started with her sister Penny but her mind was elsewhere. It had been exactly 2 hours and 17 minutes since she sent a text to Jim.
You ready to enter back into the world of Michael Gary Scott again tomorrow?
They didn’t text that often, but when they did, she had started to feel a semblance of how things used to be between them and it gave her heart a glimmer of hope. They (of course) talked about Dwight. They talked about Pam’s crazy neighbor that reminded her of Creed. They talked about his newfound obsession with American Idol, something she had to pry out of him after he made a reference to it. They had also had one phone conversation when Jim called the office looking for Kevin but caught Pam instead. On nights she couldn’t sleep, she replayed that phone call over and over in her head, savoring the memory of his laugh that she missed so much.
She had finally admitted to herself that she had some kind of feelings for him, and probably always had. But she also fully understood the dents and bruises she put on their relationship five months ago. She was unsure of how he really felt now. She just knew that he wasn’t ignoring her (except tonight, apparently) and that was enough to keep her going.
“He’s probably busy packing,” Penny said.
“Huh?” Pam hadn’t realized she mindlessly checked her phone yet again.
“C’mon, Pam. I know you’re waiting for a text from him,” she said with a coy smile.
“I’m just...nervous. It’s been a while.”
Penny nudged her with her shoulder. “It will be great.”
----------
The pens on the reception desk trembled slightly as Pam’s legs furiously bounced underneath her desk. The door opened and before she saw him, she heard his unmistakable deep voice. When she was finally able to make eye contact with him, she couldn’t help but get up and hurl herself around his neck. Damn, his smell was intoxicating. Nothing strong or really even that noticeable, but it was Jim and it made her head spin.
“It’s really good to see you.”
Understatement of the year. She couldn’t seem to erase the grin that was plastered on her face. She felt a small surge of calm mixed in among the nerves and excitement fluttering around in her body. Maybe, just maybe, things could go back to how they were.
-------
Jim stood up and headed to the breakroom. Same time as he always used to. Jim Halpert was nothing if not a creature of habit. Since Pam had pretty much seen nothing but the back of his head since 10:30 that morning, she decided to follow him. After some banter that felt a little more forced than she was used to, she took a tiny leap.
“So when do I get to hear everything? Are you still getting unpacked, or...you wanna grab a coffee or something after work?”
“Oh, um...tonight? Actually no. I’m still just getting settled.”
Pam felt her shoulders hunch and began retreating into her shell.
“Oh, yeah, no...just whenever.”
The door opened and along with it came the impeccable timing of Michael Scott. After an awkward exchange (which was par for the course today, Pam thought), Jim left the breakroom and Pam was left feeling just a little more hollow and slowly the hole had begun to fill with doubt.
-------
From there, the rest of the day continued to make her slowly shrink into the sweater her mom had made her. But nothing made her feel smaller than seeing Jim’s face as Karen brought her hand to his back in the parking lot. Suddenly it all started to make sense as to why the light that was sparked by his embrace this morning felt like it was slowly dimming.
Later, as her coworkers began trickling out of the office, she occupied herself until they had all gone. Originally she had planned to walk out with Jim and maybe arrange another time for them to catch up, but after seeing him with Karen she decided a night in by herself was probably more suitable. She walked into the parking lot and heard a car door open and Jim came up to her.
“Hey! I thought you had already left.”
“Uh, no...I just had some other stuff I had to do. What’s up?’
“Oh nothin’, I just feel bad. I feel like things were a little weird today or something.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just think I should tell you that I sort of started seeing someone...and uh--”
There it is.
“Oh, no, that’s totally cool. You can...do whatever you want.”
“Oh, okay...uh, good.”
If there’s something Pamela Beesly knew how to do, it was build up walls and ignore how she was really feeling.
“We’re friends. We’ll always be friends.”
She was getting really tired of this damn parking lot.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Wow, this one struggled to get on the page. It’s easier for me to write things that would have happened off camera than working around story and dialogue we already know. But I felt like The Merger is such a huge part of their season 3 story that I had to include it and I would rather do write it as it unfolds for Pam rather than her recounting the day after the fact. Not sure I’ll ever be 100% happy with it, but here it is anyway.
