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Story Notes:

Hello, I'm new to MTT but I have been lurking for a while!

I decided not to show up empty-handed, so please enjoy this little oneshot that came to mind on a quiet night when I was reflecting on everything that has ever happened to me. (I hate my brain.)

~ Saturn

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Sleeping alone wasn’t as awful as people liked to make out, Pam came to realise.

Yes, to begin with, the expanse of her empty bed came as a surprise. Several times in the days and weeks that followed the end of her engagement, Pam found herself rolling over, reaching for a man who was no longer there. She would shift in her sleep, trying to press herself into the ghost of a cuddle. The habit of keeping to her own side of the bed was a hard one to shake, and in the morning the sheets on the left side were often bunched up haphazardly while the right side looked as pristine as a hotel room’s.

But she got used to it. She coped.

She came to enjoy spreading out, starfishing diagonally across the bed at night because there was no one else to save room for. She embraced the freedom of her own sheets - of enveloping herself on cold nights without being called a ‘duvet hog’, of flinging them to the floor when it was stiflingly hot without being labelled ‘selfish’.

The clarity of sleeping alone was unexpected. In the silence, the solitude, Pam had all the time in the world to think. To reflect on the miriad of utterly terrible life choices that had led her to this point. Of course, that wasn’t entirely fair. Among all the moments that flooded her memories, many of them didn’t have her crying into her pillow, or grimacing outwardly in recurring humiliation. Some of them actually made her smile, or feel warm and tingly in the pit of her stomach.

She considered why she had stayed with Roy for as long as she had. If anyone asked, she would have told them it was complicated, but that was a lie. It was quite simple really: he was safe. They were highschool sweethearts - she knew everyhting there was to know about him. She knew what to expect with Roy. Sure, sometimes she would feel dismissed, insecure, misunderstood... But she would never feel surprised. Breaking off their engagement had been the hardest decision she ever had to make. Pam knew that as soon as she did it, she would be unmoored, cast adrift into an ocean of sad single women. She wouldn’t be able to predict anything anymore.

In the nights she spent alone, she realised she didn’t mind surprises as much as she thought. In fact, she quite enjoyed surprising people herself.

She wondered why she’d spent years content to sit in the wings, watching everyone else live their lives. Again, the answer was simple: it was safe. When you stick to the sidelines, no one notices when you trip up. When you don’t take risks, you don’t fall flat on your face. But when everyone in front of you is living their own lives full-throttle, you don’t realise just how much you’re missing out on of your own life. Hiding away and settling into a life that was ‘fine’ was never going to get her anywhere.

So she spent quiet nights working on herself. On considering her own future, on exploring her options, on boosting her self-image. And she found herself excited at the prospect of her own freedom.

Most of all, she considered her friendship with a certain salesman. Every inside joke, every friendly message, every innocent touch... they played on repeat in her head. She would lie awake, staring at her uneven ceiling, the words “I’m in love with you.” pounding against her skull. When she closed her eyes, the look on Jim’s face when he walked away was all she could see. Before that night, she’d never broken anyone’s heart. Now she’d broken two (three, if you count her own) in the span of a few months.

But over time, it started to sting a little bit less. Jim was seeing someone else now, and that was fine. She wanted him to be happy. And he wasn’t her best friend anymore, but they were still friendly. She still got to see him. And that was something.

Did her quiet, single nights often lead to her re-imagining the feeling of his lips on hers? Of his hair tangled in her fingers, of his hands gripping her hips, of the neediness and desperation in his touch? Did she picture what would have happened if she’d just said yes then and there - imagine their hypothetical future so hard that it ended up invading her dreams until she woke up with tears on the pillow as she realised it wasn’t real? Yeah, sometimes.

And sometimes she fell asleep to videos of dogs.

So yeah, sleeping alone wasn’t all that bad.

 

***

 

Pam is almost always the first to fall asleep. Jim never minds.

His grip around her tightens slightly, pulling her impossibly closer as she sleeps with her head on his chest, her palm pressed to his shoulder and her breath tickling his skin. Any minute now, and he know she’ll start drooling.

She twitches dramatically, and he smiles fondly in response. He carefully shifts the duvet to free her leg - she’s like a furnace when she sleeps, and he knows that she will appreciate the cool air eventually.

Softly, he presses a kiss to the top of her head. Then spends a few minutes trying in vain to get her hair out of his mouth while keeping his arms around her. He gives up eventually, resigns himself to his fate of being a man with his wife’s hair in his mouth for the rest of the night.

His wife.

He can’t suppress the grin that spreads across his face, even now. Pam is his wife. She is his, forever, and he is hers, eternally. And neither of them will ever have to sleep alone again.

She breaks the peace of his inner monologue with an unnecessarily loud snore. And Jim doesn’t mind.
Chapter End Notes:

I hope you enjoyed my first trip into writing Jam! I am just so soft for these two, so I'm delighted to have found this community

Thank you for reading as far as this! :)

~ Saturn



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