She tries to move through the next few days with as much dignity as possible. It’s not easy, since it feels like she and Jim are actively avoiding each other. It was difficult enough before when he was gone, but having him back in an unfamiliar capacity, it turns out, is even worse.

She ignores him entirely the first day after their painful encounter in the parking lot. On the second day she’s busy doodling a sea serpent – an assignment from last night’s art class – and dares a glance up from her desk to look at him. She probably stares for too long because Karen looks up and notices. Pam looks back down at her drawing, and scribbles some dark hair and long lashes onto the serpent's face. It should be more exotic-looking.

On the third day she enters the office and finds Jim behind her desk at reception, standing at the fax machine. He never arrives before she does, so this is unusual.

“Hey,” she says casually. “What are you doing here so early?”

He looks up like he’s been caught red-handed. “I, uh…” he holds up a piece of paper. “I’ve been sending Dwight faxes from Stamford, and I just wanted to see if I could send them… from here. To here.”

She grins, which feels good. She won’t tell him so, but she’s actually been pretty involved with Jim’s Future Dwight pranks over the past several weeks. A few of them she’d handed to Dwight herself.

“You can, but there’s another fax machine in the annex,” she says. “Different number. If you want it to look more authentic.”

He nods, and gives her a grin. It’s not the same grin, not his usual grin, but it’s something.

“Thanks.”

She waits for “Beesly” to tumble off his tongue. It doesn’t.

He stands still, seemingly unsure of what to do next. This isn’t natural for them, this behavior. Not really knowing what’s permissible, or what’s appropriate. She can’t just goof around with her best friend anymore and it’s breaking her heart all over again. She wants to believe he can sense it too, but she has no idea where they actually stand. 

The last thing she wants is to manufacture another heated moment between them that will go nowhere, so she shimmies around him and starts pulling out her chair to sit down, trying to ignore that his clothes smell different than they used to. Maybe he changed fabric softener. This hurts her more than it probably should.

He maneuvers himself out of the tight space and starts to walk back towards the annex. She doesn’t catch his eye again but in her periphery she sees him briefly look back at her over his shoulder as he passes by her desk. 

She curses her own foolishness that only now does she find herself appreciating the magnetism that’s always existed between the two of them, how rare and special it was. How she hadn’t seized upon it before, when she had the opportunity.

This tiny interaction seems to have begun the repair work on the bridge between them, at least, and over the following days, she begins responding to him organically again. Eventually Prison Mike shows up, and since she no longer has to resort to engaging with a disinterested Ryan, she tosses Jim glances across the conference room the way she used to. And much to her relief and delight, he starts tossing them back. It’s ironic that after years of finding Michael’s antics irritating and bothersome, she’s now also infinitely grateful for them. 

When Jim sends the new guy Andy over to her armed with bad dating advice, it feels like a sort of peace offering. A sense of relief comes over her that something, anything, feels a little bit like it used to. She puts her coat on to leave early but can’t get out of the office before Andy intercepts her with his banjo serenade, but at least Jim has to sit through it as well, which evens the score a little bit. He deserves it, after all.

When Andy departs, she sees Jim shut down his computer for the day. Before she knows it she’s alone in the elevator with him. It’s quiet for a few seconds, but then she decides to go back to work on rebuilding that bridge.

“Thanks for the setup,” she teases. 

“You’re welcome,” Jim grins, laughing a little. “Any potential there?”

“We’re going out ‘frolfing’ Friday night. If I can keep my hands off him until then.”

His chuckle turns into an actual laugh, the first real one she’s heard from him since their phone call weeks ago. It feels like sustenance. 

“Joke’s on you, though,” she adds. “I guess one thing you didn’t know about me is how incredibly charming I find Kermit the Frog.”

“I knew that,” he says, a little softer. “I picked the song."

She smiles at him. It’s weird, how it suddenly feels like not a day has passed since they once stood side by side in the elevator just like this, her wondering what her life would be like if things were different. Only this time, he’s the unavailable one.

The elevator doors open and they step out, walking to their cars like they used to. Fifteen more steps and he’s gone for another fifteen hours. She wonders if he’s going to meet up with Karen. She wonders how serious they are. 

She wishes she could stop wondering.

“See you tomorrow,” she says, heading towards her car with a wave. He waves back, but doesn’t say anything else.

When she gets into her car she shuts the door, turning the key in the ignition, getting the defroster running and the heater going. She lets out a deep breath, closes her eyes, and waits for the car to warm up, tapping the heels of her gloved hands against the steering wheel as the frosty edges of the windshield start to melt and dissipate. 

It’s a new car, and it’s a slow process. One step at a time.

Today was a good day, she decides. Enduring Andy’s advances wasn’t ideal, but knowing Jim had put him up to it gives her a tiny spark of hope that whatever they have between them is still there. Although it might just be an ember, the fire isn’t gone completely. 

She doesn’t really understand much about this new Jim, but pranking is a language she does understand. It’s their language. It means comfort, familiarity. 

It means fun. And god, she’s missed fun.

***

She tries to find a foothold in this new chapter of her life, some semblance of normalcy.

After she calls off the wedding, there’s a peace that comes over her she hadn’t expected. It’s been awhile since she’s done this on her own. In fact, she’s realizing, she hasn’t really ever done anything on her own. 

She’s never had her own apartment. She’s never had her own car. She’s never had space to herself, and it’s strange to acknowledge that she’d never really desired it before. Her life had been so intertwined with Roy’s for so long she’d practically lost her own identity, and it’s only now, after extracting herself from the relationship, that she’s truly starting to find herself again. 

Her place is small: one bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen and a closet. It’s still pretty empty, too; the only major purchase she's made thus far is a vacuum cleaner which, sadly, is already broken. Most of the things she’d decorated her old place with are too bogged down with memories, and not always the good kind. She’d left them behind, determined to make a fresh start. 

The rooms feel slightly barren and devoid of personality at the moment, but at least they’re hers. When she gets home and locks the door behind her, she feels safe and protected, like it’s her sanctuary, her own private little cocoon. Appropriate, since she feels like she’s inside a chrysalis of her own making; everything is new and slightly terrifying, but she hopes in time she will emerge as something different. Someone different.

She misses Jim like crazy, but the freedom does feel good; to be single, and have no one to answer to but Pam. 

Her first real act of independence is to sign up for art classes at the local community college. She wants to remember what it felt like to do something she’s good at that she actually enjoys. 

She wishes Jim were around to tell him. He would be so excited for her. She wishes she’d appreciated his unwavering support of her chasing her dream when she’d had the chance.

She wishes it wasn’t too late to chase after him, too.

Every morning she sits at reception and stares at his old desk: the place where her world simultaneously began and ended. Ryan taps away at his keyboard, no idea he’s sitting in the very spot where Jim kissed her and, rather than admitting he’d finally done exactly what she’d secretly been hoping he would do for years, she let him slip through her fingers, quite literally. 

Every day for lunch she eats defrosted chicken and fish from the wedding that never happened, and each bite is a grainy, chalky reminder of what she’d given up Jim for: something cold and bland and perfunctory. 

She’s never felt such regret in her entire life.

She looks at the phone and wishes she had the courage to call him. She stares at it constantly and rehearses what she’d say over and over again. 

I made a mistake. I want to be with you.

Please come back.

A few times, she actually picks up the phone, but it never gets further than that. She doesn’t wonder why Jim never calls her, either. The ball would be in her court if she thought there was still a game in progress, but surely there isn’t. She’d broken his heart, twice. How could he possibly forgive her? How could they ever come back from this?

I’m in love with you. 

It wasn’t a crush, and despite what he’d told her weeks before, he hadn’t gotten over it. It was love. Years of moments now haunt her daily, the knowledge that every time he’d gotten up from his desk to chat with her, he’d been in love with her. When he’d elbowed Roy in the face during that basketball game, he’d been in love with her. When he’d convinced Michael not to embarrass her for the third year running at the Dundies, he’d been in love with her.

When he'd stood at the railing of that booze cruise ship gazing into her eyes as she waited for him to change her life, he’d been in love with her.

His declaration of love rolls around in her mind but now they’re no longer his words; they’re in her own voice, her own thoughts. The words she should have said back to him. 

I’m in love with you, too.

Why hadn’t she simply told him the truth?

It isn’t fair, she thinks. She hadn’t been free to love Jim the way she wanted to when he'd asked. Now she is, now she wants to tell him so, but he’s gone. Out of her life. She’d barely had a moment to think and he disappeared.

It’s probably her fault. Maybe it was precisely the “taking a moment to think” that had sent him running for the hills in the first place.

Sometimes the brain works faster than the heart, she tries to reason with herself. It’s the only way she can explain the way she’d reacted. 

It’s the only thing she can think of that isn’t simply that she’s a coward. 

***

He tries to imagine Stamford ever feeling like Scranton did. 

He knows it won’t. And it isn’t the unusually professional boss, the modern, sleek offices, or the unfamiliar sounds of efficiency and capability echoing around this bullpen. 

It’s the absence of her.

He tries to remind himself that maybe that’s a good thing. That’s the point of this, after all.

He barely talks to anyone at first, retreating behind the walls that sprung back up after he let go of her hands and walked away. His mother checks up on him every day, the only person to whom he’s confided the entire ordeal. 

“Everything is going to be okay,” she tells him at the end of every conversation. 

Okay.

This is what he’s striving for lately: okay. 

He wears a jacket to work every day now, and keeps his shirt sleeves rolled down. He tells himself it’s because of the promotion but mostly he likes the way it makes him feel: like a different person. A grownup. Someone who wouldn’t waste four years of his life on a girl he has no chance with. 

He makes it to lunch and congratulates himself on not breaking down at any point throughout the morning, especially after spotting the mug in the kitchen cabinet emblazoned with the quote “Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.” There was, unfortunately, no mug with helpful advice for the person who had lost both.

He hasn’t bothered to go to the grocery store since his move so he coughs up the six dollars for a ham and cheese sandwich at the food truck downstairs. 

“No, actually,” he stops the guy from writing that down. “Tuna, please.” 

It feels good to break an old habit. He wonders how many more he can break before the day is over.

He steps back and hovers near the truck window, silently willing his sandwich to materialize quickly so he can head back upstairs without having to talk to anybody. Alas, he isn’t successful in his endeavor.

“So, you came from Scranton?”

He turns around to find the source of the voice. It’s the young woman who sits at the desk behind him, the one with brown hair and a slightly surly demeanor. He isn’t quite sure what to make of her yet. 

She walks over to put her change in the tip jar that sits on the ledge of the truck window and takes down her salad. He doesn’t want to be rude, so he nods. 

“Yep.”

“Liking it so far?”

Pam isn’t here. He hates it.

“It’s fine,” he lies. “Doesn’t feel too different.”

“I have to ask,” she says, inching a bit closer and shifting her eyes surreptitiously over his shoulder. “What’s up with the cameras? Did you trade spouses or something? Audition tape for The Apprentice?”

He laughs, actually laughs, and is surprised he’s even capable of doing so. 

“Sadly, no,” he admits. “I wish it were for some exciting reason.” 

He twists to look back over his shoulder, but the cameras aren’t around at the moment. It doesn’t matter, really, because none of the cameramen or producers he knew in Scranton came to Stamford anyway. As if it’s not enough he’s lonelier than he’s ever been; apparently his shitty new existence only merits the second string.

“I’m actually not quite sure why they followed me here. You’ll have to ask them.”

“Your life must be incredibly interesting,” she says.

“Definitely not the case.” 

She smiles. She has a pretty smile. She’s attractive in an obvious way, and seems nice in a not-so-obvious way. Sort of the opposite of Pam. 

He’s annoyed that he’s instantly comparing her to Pam.

She continues looking at him somewhat expectantly, maybe waiting for him to introduce himself. He’s about to when the lunch truck guy leans out the window and yells “Order up! Tuna sandwich for Jim!” 

Grateful for the reprieve, Jim gives her a tight smile and a little nod, steps over to pick up his lunch, and walks directly back up to the office. He swears he can feel her eyes boring into his back as he does so.

He feels a little bad for avoiding her. She isn’t as intimidating as he’d previously thought, and it seems like she’s actually trying to be his friend. He wants to make friends, and he’s well aware he won’t if he’s quiet and withdrawn all the time, but today is about survival. 

He’ll try harder tomorrow.

He eats his sandwich alone at his desk, and while it doesn’t really have any flavor, nothing he’s eaten since he left Scranton really has. But he does like that it’s something different. 

The guy who sits in front of him, who’d been working pretty quietly all morning, finally turns around. 

“Andy Bernard,” he says, extending his hand. 

“Oh, hey. Jim Halpert.” He shakes his hand half-heartedly.

“Tuna, huh?” Andy Bernard gestures down at his lunch. “Sweet.”

Jim doesn’t really know how to respond to this. It’s the strangest attempt at small talk he’s ever encountered, but the strangest part about it is how delighted Andy seems by his own comment. His smile would be infectious if Jim had any reason to smile.

“Yeah, it’s okay, I guess.”

Andy keeps chattering for a while, and Jim nods and tries to appear engaged in the one-sided conversation about his new desk mate’s college antics at Cornell. He doesn’t necessarily dislike him, but Jim instantly pegs Andy as a prime candidate for any future pranks he might summon up. If he can muster the energy.

He’s about to beg off to the restroom to get out of the conversation when Andy suddenly proves he’s far more perceptive than Jim thought him capable.

“You don’t smile much, do you, Tuna?”

Jim is slightly taken aback, by both the astute observation and his new nickname. 

“I don’t?”

“Let me guess. Left your heart back in Scranton?”

Jim freezes a bit, tightens his mouth. 

“Say no more, my friend. Been there,” Andy says. “Heartbreak city. I get it. No worries, I’ll make you a CD with some tunes to get you through it.”

“I’m good, thanks.” Jim’s eyes dart around the office, and luckily no one else is within earshot.

Andy shakes his head. “Nah, it’ll be good. Tunes for Tuna.” 

He spins back around to face his desk and scribbles something on a blue Post-It note. He then spins back around and sticks it to the corner of Jim’s monitor. It says, simply: “smile.”

“That’s advice straight from the Nard Dog, okay? Keep it there.”

Jim makes no move to touch the tiny blue note, which unhelpfully makes him think of Pam’s dress. He stares at Andy blankly. “Who is... the Nard Dog?”

Andy glares at him. “Just trust me, Tuna.”

Jim nods, and does what the note says. He smiles. 

“Thanks.” 

It’s probably good advice, but it’s tough to follow. Without his best friend around, it feels like he’s forgotten how.

***

It’s Christmas, the time of year to show people how you feel. Unfortunately, Jim doesn’t know how to feel. 

He hadn’t thought it possible to miss someone sitting five feet away, but the truth is he misses her more now than he did when he was in Stamford. At least when he was miles away, it was a bit easier not to think about their disconnect.

Just a bit.

The first couple of days are spent readjusting to the little things that are different: Oscar is gone, Dwight has a new enemy in Andy, Ryan’s doing his best to be a salesman. Lots of little changes, but one big thing, unfortunately, remains very much the same.

He tries to ignore it. He’d promised himself he would do everything in his power to avoid falling back into a situation where he’s vulnerable to yet another crushing heartbreak. But it’s the little things he’s tried to forget that are the hardest to ignore: the row of mixed berry yogurts in the fridge, the hint of her soap or lotion or whatever it is that wafts around him whenever she sets a fax confirmation on his desk. And the teapot he’d given her, which still sits at reception next to her computer. He can’t see it most of the time, but he can feel it just sitting there, two feet behind him. Knowing it’s there is excruciating. Is his yearbook picture still tucked inside, or does she actually use it to make tea? 

He wonders what would have happened if he’d given her the letter he’d meant to; that if he’d just gotten it over and done with, if she’d rejected him way back then, he’d surely be feeling better by now.

But maybe he wouldn’t. 

He kept the note for some reason, jammed way down with his tax documents. He wants to throw it away but he knows he never will. 

Perhaps most difficult to move past, though, are the pranks. He missed them in Stamford and he misses them even more now, and not because Dwight is any more irritating; it's because Pam’s laugh is infrequent lately. He never had to try very hard before to hear it, and now it’s like trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

But pranking would be a mistake. Of the myriad pitfalls that surround him daily, daring him to risk his heart all over again, it’s by far the most dangerous one. And if pranking with Pam is a trap he’s trying to avoid, the fake CIA documents from Dwight that she’s handing him as a Christmas gift is essentially quicksand.

Denying her (and himself) the opportunity to participate in an activity they’d always cherished feels wrong, and seeing her face fall makes him feel awful. But as he walks away from her he knows it’s the right thing to do. He can no longer cherish Pam, not the way he used to. 

It isn’t until later, when he sees her hugging her ex-fiancé, that every iota of his carefully cultivated willpower goes flying out the fixed office window. 

He remembers vividly how it felt to watch them together in the Before Times, when he hadn’t yet told her how he felt about her. When she could still claim ignorance. There were moments he’d shake his head, upset and completely baffled as to why Pam would think her relationship with Roy made sense, why she’d settle for a person who treated her so poorly. But then there were moments when she seemed genuinely happy with Roy. He knew that there was something genuine between them he always wanted to pretend didn’t exist. Maybe that was the real reason watching them had been so painful.

It isn’t about Roy, he tries to convince himself as he watches them now, that same pain from before resurfacing. This isn’t some macho pride thing. And it isn’t the persistent protective urge he’s always felt when he sees them together, to drag Pam away from a relationship in which she isn’t respected. It isn’t either of those things and he knows it. It’s because, quite simply, he understands more than anyone that long-lasting feelings don’t just disappear, regardless of how misplaced they are. And seeing the two of them reconnect, he’s terrified that Pam’s haven’t disappeared either. 

Watching her choose Roy the first time was painful enough. He couldn’t bear to let it happen all over again. 

He goes to get his coat next to reception and he doesn’t even realize he’s saying anything before the words are out of his mouth. Intercepted a transmission. Ice cream social. He’s rallying with Pam again and he didn’t even realize they were on the court.

They walk out of the office together for the second time since he’s been back. It’s probably only because Karen isn’t here; she left work early to pack for her trip back home to Connecticut for the holidays. It feels wrong being alone with Pam and it shouldn’t, because he isn’t doing anything wrong. 

Except feeling all kinds of things he shouldn’t be feeling.

“Are you... sticking around for the holidays?” Pam asks hesitantly.

“Yeah, I’m going to my parents’ house. Karen’s flying back home to be with her family.”

“Ah,” she says, but doesn’t press any further. It’s not as if she didn’t know who he was dating, but it’s his first verbal confirmation. They push open the double doors and a blast of chilled air hits them both.

“How long do you think he’ll wait up there?” Pam asks as they walk towards the edge of the parking lot, looking up at the roof at Dwight.

“For a helicopter? I think he’ll wait all night if he has to.”

“It’s really cold,” she then says. “I don’t want him to freeze to death.”

He thinks for a minute. She’s right. Pranking with Pam again is one thing, being responsible for Dwight’s potential frostbite is quite another. 

“Does he have your cell phone number?” he asks her, and she shakes her head. “He has mine, unfortunately. Send him a text. You know, from the CIA.”

She beams at him, and he knows he doesn’t have to come up with something for her. She’s perfectly capable. She sends a text and after a few seconds, they see Dwight toss his phone over the edge of the building, which makes Pam laugh. 

Her laugh finds its way back into his heart and soul just as immediately as it always had. God, he’s missed her laugh. It’s like a shot of whiskey: warm all the way down. 

She clamps a gloved hand over her mouth, but Dwight is none the wiser as he disappears down the fire escape. Jim knows they only have a minute or so before they’re caught, and she looks at him, apparently realizing this at the same time. Her hair looks soft and shiny and her eyes are sparkling and not for the first time since his return he thinks if she’d just say something, if she’d just give him the slightest indication she’s interested, he’d give up absolutely everything to be with her.

But she doesn’t. She smiles, and it’s at this moment he remembers the last time they stood right here his entire world was crumbling around him. The chill in the air is no longer because of the weather. 

He can’t keep doing this to himself, he can’t.

“I’d better go,” he says. 

She looks taken aback by the abrupt dismissal, and he hopes it’s because she doesn’t want to part ways just yet. Then he inwardly berates himself for wanting such a thing. 

“Yeah, I should too,” she says.

“And thanks, you know. For the present.”

“You’re welcome,” she smiles. “I mean, it couldn’t top yours from last year, but I tried.”

He feels butterflies at her mention of the teapot, and can feel the quicksand creeping up his legs.

“Merry Christmas, Beesly,” he says. He’s been trying not to call her that, but like it did during their phone call back in the fall, it slips out.

For whatever it’s worth, she appears affected by this. She looks at him for a moment, then takes a step back, giving him a little wave.

“Merry Christmas, Jim.”

Pam gets into her car and leaves, and he stands in the parking lot for a minute, watching her go. Then he pulls out his phone to call his girlfriend.