Finally getting around to posting this here (was on AO3)- enjoy!

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It starts like this: she’s holding a mixed berry yogurt in her hands, cool from the refrigerator, and as she’s tearing back the lid from her midmorning snack he stops her, explaining that he has no way of knowing this, but that her yogurt has expired.  She laughs, throws it away, and thinks maybe. Because he had been watching her. It’s a pleasant thought.

And then like this: he’s late to work one morning, and she finds herself glancing at his desk an unreasonable number of times. Willing him to be there, simultaneously worried for her friend and selfishly dreading a whole day at work without his presence. His laughs, jokes, lightheartedness. When he comes in his hair is even more disheveled than usual, he’s clearly overslept. The smile she gives him is too bright, but he smiles back just the same.

Like this: there’s a meeting (there’s always a meeting being called unexpectedly). The phone rings right as Michael calls them all into the conference room, and by the time she makes her way inside Kelly is already sitting next to him. And she’s unreasonably, but extraordinarily, peeved. Because she always sits next to him during meetings. And breaks. And lunch. It’s her place. Only, it’s not at all, not really.

It’s the way his eyes cloud over, just a little bit, when someone asks her about her wedding. And she just knows that he hates the topic. Her heart hurts, softly; she feels guilty and also inexplicably sad. So she starts avoiding the topic, as much as possible, around him. Neither of them ever brings it up.

There’s the dream she has of him, which makes her blush when she remembers it.

There’s the way his hands brush against hers sometimes, the most pleasant jolt.

There’s the Dundie awards, and she’s angry at Roy (she always seems to be angry at Roy these days). The anger makes her feel free to let whole guard down around him. The way she throws her arms around him, finally without restraint; it’s wrong, but oh so exhilarating. And she almost, almost asks him, the alcohol giving her an extra shot of courage, “Do you think we’d be together if I weren’t with Roy?” “Do you feel that way about me?” “Do you ever imagine it?”. But she doesn’t. The stakes are too high.

She wishes she could stop wearing her engagement ring. It’s a weird, heavy thought, but she hates putting it on each morning. She twists and plays with it out of nervous habit, and with each passing day wishes more and more that it just wasn’t there. Honestly, she’d never liked the style. Had even been a little hurt when Roy presented it to her, because she’d hoped he’d know her well enough to choose something she’d love, and hadn’t. Sometimes when she’s alone at home she’ll take it off and stare at her naked fingers, and it feels like possibility.

Jim is angry at her, when she tells him that she won’t, can’t peruse the art internship. There’s a tension between them that’s never been there before. Charged. And it breaks her heart, because Jim always understands. So she gets angry back. At him, but really at herself. She knows she wants more, so much more it’s breaking her. But how can she explain to him that he’s the only person whose ever made her feel like she could possibly have it?

This is the final breaking point: she gets home one Friday afternoon from work. Roy is already there; he gets off earlier than she does. He’s lounging on the couch, in boxers and a t-shirt. The dishes aren’t done. Dinner isn’t being cooked. He’s just existing, and expects her to go along with it. And it’s so clear before her, that this will be her whole life. Just this. Which leads to another, stronger revelation. The past few weeks (months, years) she’s been living two lives. The one at work, and the one here. And she’s just so much happier in that other life, the only she never talks about at home, with him. So much more authentically her. She’s starting to flourish there, but here it’s stale; she’s outgrown this. He hasn’t grown with her. And it isn’t that he’s a bad person, he just isn’t her person.

She knows she needs to just do it, then and there. This monumental thing, this undoing, that’s been on her mind for months. The words come out, finally, “Roy, I can’t marry you”. She surprises herself; her voice doesn’t shake. Then he actually surprises her by responding “I know”. Apparently, he’s felt her pulling away all this time, and just wasn’t not strong enough to let her go. Her heart breaks for him, for them, and then she’s crying and he holds her and promises that she’ll be ok. And in that moment, that last moment, she loves him. He’ll always be this person she shared so much of her life with. A bittersweet ending to a chapter that now has to be over, but which she knows she’ll never regret. Later, at her mother’s, she sleeps soundly for the first time in forever.

With the hardest part over, there comes the weird, awkward part. How to tell people? How to tell people at work? So, being Pam, she kind of just doesn’t. She goes into work that next week, sans engagement ring, and doesn’t say anything, acts normal. It’s Wednesday before it comes up. Of course, it’s Kelly that notices “Pam, oh my God, where’s your ring?”. She hates how soft her voice is as she explains that her and Roy broke up. But she can tell Jim heard by the way his whole body freezes, and how he refuses to make eye contact the rest of the day.

It isn’t until they’re walking out of work together (as usual) that he brings it up. “How could you not tell me, I thought we were friends”. And then, after a heartbeat, “Are you ok?” She knows him so well, but this is the hardest he’s ever been to read. She decides on honesty, or at least some version of it “I didn’t know what to say” and “Yea, it was hard but it was the right decision” and, as an extra platitude “It’s for the best”. She can tell he feels uncomfortable in this conversation, as does she; three years of mostly avoiding the R word haven’t exactly prepared them for this. But he’s Jim, so he tells her “I’m here, Beesely, if you ever want to talk about it”. A small smile is her only response, but she’s unbelievably glad he knows.

Things move slowly from there, and it’s all almost same. They’re still best friends. They still play pranks on Dwight. They still eat lunch together every day. What’s different is that, for the first time, she really lets herself think about the possibility of them. She spends an inordinate amount of time at work daydreaming about what ifs. If possible, maybe he spends even more time at the reception desk. Maybe they brush up against each other a little more often. Maybe she blushes more frequently. It’s nothing drastic, but entirely hopeful.

For the first time, she texts him. She’d always felt like it was taboo before to talk to him outside of work. But she finds that she really likes it, this freedom to reach out to him whenever something happens that she thinks he’ll find funny, or when she’s bored, or when something good happens, like when she enrolls in community college art class at night. She even finds herself sending him pictures of her work, just a painting or sketch here or there, but he is always excited, awed, supportive, and treats her sharing these things with him like the privilege it is.

They even start to hang out, occasionally, outside of work. They’re not dates, but still it’s something that the two of them have never done before. One Friday she surprises herself by asking him if he wants to go thrift shopping with her for stuff for her new place. He looks taken aback, then gleeful, and tells her he can pick her up noon the next day. They have a ridiculously fun time. She even convinces him to buy an insanely cheap, hilariously ornate bread box ‘to keep bread for your ham and cheeses!’.  For her they find a perfectly normal living room lamp. For Dwight they get a cute little bear figurine; neither of them can explain why but they both decide that he absolutely needs to have it, leaving it on his desk Monday morning without explanation. A thank you for all the pranks they’ve bonded over.

After a few months, though, they seem to have reached some sort of limbo. They’re stuck in the place between friends and not quite more. And Pam starts to worry that she’s misread all the signals. Her friends stress to her that she’s finally single after so many years, and that this is her time to explore the field, to figure out what she wants. But she already knows what she wants and it’s him. The problem is that she’s getting increasingly worried that he doesn’t feel the same.

She lets herself be talked into a blind date. It’s her first date in forever and she’s nervous. Doesn’t know how to dress or act. And it’s fine, he’s fine, but it’s not for her. At the end of the night she doesn’t kiss him; she feels bad but knows that she’ll never talk to him again. She’s more resolved than ever; if it’s not Jim then it’s not Jim and she’ll have to be ok with that, but she refuses to settle for anyone that makes her feel less than he does. She doesn’t tell Jim about the date, though, somehow it just doesn’t feel right to.

She could make the first move, she guesses, but somehow that feels wrong too. She called off her wedding, flipped her whole life upside down. For her, yes, but also for him. If he wants her, she’s here. She’s ready. It feels like his move.

Finally, he makes it. One day when they’re walking out of work he asks if she wants to grab a drink, maybe some food. She’s nervous but also knows, somehow, that this is it. It’s pleasant, talking about work, their plans for the weekend, the usual topics. But she can tell that he’s trying extra hard to make her laugh. And later, after, when they’re walking back to their cars, she asks him “What now?” The look he gives her is smoldering. And finally he’s telling her “Just come here already” and leaning down to kiss her.

It turns out that he was waiting to ask her out (he’s good at waiting), didn’t want to rush her before she was ready, was scared to move too quickly when she was getting over a breakup. She also suspects that, after so long, he didn’t know how to stop waiting and finally start. Luckily, they quickly make up for lost time.

How they don’t both get fired the first couple of weeks she doesn’t know. They are constantly sneaking off to make out in the stairwell, in the parking lot. She quickly kisses him in the empty break room. He holds her hand in the elevator, and they have just enough time to break apart before the doors open onto the office. Honestly, she’s pretty sure the rest of their co-workers are just so happy for them, that they’re finally together, that they’re willing to turn a blind eye.

When she tells him she’s leaving for a three-month internship in New York he takes it in his Jim-like stride. While he assures her he’ll miss her he’s happy she’s finally going after what she wants. He tells her he believes in her. When she breaks the news that she’s not coming back to Dunder Mifflin after he takes that a little harder, but ultimately understands. She needs to find out what she’s capable of, which is surely more than being a receptionist. What she wants for herself she also wants for him; a future he’s actually excited about. She tells him this, and can see the wheels start turning in his head. Here, on the precipice of so much change, with his hand in hers, she’s the happiest she’s ever been.

Besides, she knows they can get through anything. Knows that their future isn’t in the walls of this tiny, beautiful office, but out in the world. That they can build any kind of future they want, together.

She loves him because he’s Jim, her Jim; he is home to her, and also her greatest adventure. And loving him is the greatest choice she’s ever made.