AN: I've never written an Office fic before, so if it is terrible, don't hesitate to alert me. Ditto if it isn't terrible.
Five things Jim Kept from Pam Before they started dating… but she found out eventually anyway.
I. He actually hated ham and cheese sandwiches.
Well, hate might be too strong of a word. Dislike would be more accurate, really. The combination of the lunchmeat ham and the American cheese sort of made him a little nauseous every time he bit into the sandwich.
In grade school, whenever his mother would make him a ham and cheese sandwich, he would promptly trade it for something better or throw it in the trash and go hungry. He was more of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich man, really. With grape jelly, of course. He was very allergic to strawberries, swelling up with itchy hives and usually vomiting for hours afterwards.
So really, ham and cheese rated slightly above hives and vomiting. He usually avoided them like the plague.
But he kept eating them because, in his first week of work, he had forgotten his lunch and Pam had given him half of her ham and cheese sandwich. And even though it was his second to last favorite sandwich, he ate it anyway and had actually enjoyed it. Jim would even go as far to say that it was the best sandwich he had ever eaten.
This was, of course, because Pam had made it and shared it with him, creating a warm little blossom of hope and happiness. By this time he knew that she was engaged, but it didn't keep him from hoping that someday she would forget her lunch and ask him to share his ham and cheese sandwich with her. And then she'd know.
II. He never actually booked that ticket to Australia.
Even though he knew that it was cruel, Jim did it anyway. He had fully intended to book the ticket and be gone for her wedding, but when he started looking at the brochures and speaking to the travel agent, it just didn't feel right. Going to Pam's wedding didn't feel right either, of course, but for some reason, he wanted to still be on the same continent when he lost her. Then maybe it wouldn't seem like he was giving up.
Besides, why blow a bunch of money going somewhere when all he really wanted to be was right there? He wanted so desperately to be the one that got Pam to pledge herself to and the be the one who got to build a life outside of Dunder Mifflin with her. It just didn't make sense for him to spend his hard earned money and fly halfway across the world to get hopelessly drunk and depressed on June 10th when he could always do that in Scranton.
But he told her that he was missing her wedding anyway, feeling a stab of something against his ribs when her face fell. Maybe on some level, the something was pleasure in hurting her as much as she was hurting him by marrying someone else. But more realistically, the something was pain at causing her pain and making the smile fade from her eyes. Because Jim never wanted Pam to be anything other than happy.
III. In Stamford, when he was feeling drunk and lonely and, he would dial the Dunder Mifflin voicemail just to hear her voice.
It was pathetic and he knew it. But that didn't keep Jim from doing it.
Jim had been in Stamford for nearly a month when his utterly complete loneliness and desolation overtook him. He knew that drinking was not the answer to his problems but that didn't stop him from consuming a vast quantity of alcohol in a non-vast space of time. His vision was blurry and his thinking muddled, but that was alright, since there was ever only one thing on his mind. And she was hours away and even though she was single, she still didn't want Jim. Hell, she hadn't even told him that she wasn't getting married. He had to find out from Kevin, of all people.
He had tried so hard to forget her and during the day, he almost was able to convince himself that he had. He threw himself into his work, his sales numbers rising dramatically. Then he could almost pretend that is move wasn't about her and all about a better job opportunity. But then, at night, all pretenses would fall away and there Jim remained, still hopelessly in love with the woman who had broken his heart, listening to her canned voice, wishing he was back home.
IV. He almost wished that Dwight hadn't fought Roy off with the pepper spray, since then maybe he would stop feeling like a bastard for kissing his fiancée a month before their wedding.
Jim had a masochistic streak a mile long, he decided after the pepper spray had been rinsed from his eyes. After all, he had spent the better part of three years hopelessly longing for an engaged woman who only looked at him platonically, only confessing said love a month before the wedding. It was that same woman who haunted his dreams frequently and who he saw as he was making love to his girlfriend, biting his tongue to keep from whispering her name.
Jim had heard that people who cut themselves said that the physical pain took away their emotional pain. Maybe if Roy had beat Jim up, then he wouldn't feel such guilt and pain and longing for Pam anymore. The throbbing of a black eye or the fierce pain of a broken rib would be nothing in exchange for some peace of mind.
Of course, he could never admit this to anyone, or else they'd think he had lost his mind. But the sad truth was, Jim sort of thought that he might have.
V. Driving back from New York, after breaking up with Karen and withdrawing his name from consideration for the Corporate job, he almost chickened out five separate times and almost turned around the car to go back and tell them it was all a misunderstanding, that that was the life he wanted.
Jim hated confrontation and as a result, tried to avoid breaking up with girlfriends at all cost. The breakup with Katy was a bit of a fluke, really, inspired by a few beers and heartbreak. Thus, the breakup with Karen was not destined to go well. But he did it as painlessly as possible, telling her that he really cared about her, but this just wasn't right. That she deserved better than someone who's heart wasn't really there.
Tears flooded down Karen's cheeks as she screamed at him, insulting and cursing. But in the end, he told her he really was sorry, made sure she had a way to get back to Scranton, and left.
His heart was pumping so fast on the way home that he thought that he was having a premature heart attack. Even though his heart and his gut were telling him to drive on, faster and faster, his head wondered for a moment if this was really the smart choice. He stopped five times, thinking about all that he was losing, wondering if he could do this.
But then, as soon as he saw the smile beaming on Pam's face after he said "It's a date," he knew that maybe it wasn't the smart choice, but it was the right choice. That anything he was losing was nothing compared to what he was gaining and that there was no doubt in his mind that he could do this. That they could do this.
And for the first time in five years, Jim's heart began to mend.