Behold, the first inspiration I've had in over a year...there's nothing like a little anticipated JAM action to make you want to write again. Obviously, I own neither of these characters; I'm just playing with them until the season 4 premiere when I can find out what REALLY happened.
She walks out of the bathroom at the restaurant and he is still there at the table where she left him, staring at his hands and tapping his heel so hard against the floor that his knee nearly hits the underside of the table with every bounce, a rat-tat-tat like a slow drum roll.
Until now, he has not betrayed any nervousness; he was completely self-possessed when asking her out in front of the camera, the car ride to Dominic's Grill after work had been mostly silent, and since being seated at a small, quiet corner table they haven't really talked much. It's not like them.
But it's not an uncomfortable kind of not-talking, she assures herself. It's just that neither of them quite knows how to do this. They have the 'smiling at each other' part down, and the 'glancing when they think the other one's not looking'--hell, she's been an expert at that one for years now--and the 'cracking jokes that don't really do much but fill in the spaces,' but the talking part? The 'talking like you're a real couple, out on a real date,' part? Not so much. Not yet.
But there he is now, sitting across the room and staring down at his hands on the tablecloth and bouncing his knee like he's trying to shake something out of his pants leg (the thought makes her want to giggle hysterically, happily, not for the first time tonight, but she holds it in) and twiddling his thumbs now, actually twiddling his thumbs. She's not sure she's ever seen anyone do that before. She's not sure she's ever seen this expression on his face before, this reckless, go-for-broke, I-can't-believe-I'm-doing-this expression that's half mad and half crazy-happy.
Okay, maybe she's seen it once before. But that time, she didn't know what it meant.
This time she's prepared, more than prepared. She's been waiting for this for months, without realizing it. Only she's not wearing anything special, and she wishes she was wearing something swishy and flowy, some kind of long skirt that would sway with her as she walked, so he'd notice her as she walked across the room toward him. The way she was sure he'd watched her as she walked away, after she mumbled Um, I'll be right back, I've just gotta...and got up much too quickly, and felt his eyes on her all the way to the bathroom, where she stood for five minutes with her back pressed up against the stall door and her eyes closed and her breath coming in long, silent gasps.
She wishes she had known this was coming today, and had time to pick out something different to wear, and then hates herself for having such a mundane thought, but there it is.
Anyway, she's used to hating herself for things, where he's concerned.
She sits back down, across from him, and he looks up and his knee stops bouncing, and he smiles. And she smiles back because, really, what choice does she have? His thumbs stop twiddling and lock together. He looks at her like he's hungry and she's food.
She picks up her fork and starts twirling it between her fingers, just to have something to do and to look at, just to have something to concentrate on besides his face, for once.
"I have to say something," he tells her, and she glances up for one second. He still has that hungry look. The fork, concentrate on the fork. "I still love you."
She looks up again, looks him in the eyes for one second, two seconds. She can't look away and she can't believe what he's saying, even though, deep down, she's been waiting all these months for him to say it.
He's saying, "I do. I still love you, Pam," and he seems to be trying to convince her, as if she needed convincing. As if every drop of blood in her body wasn't tingling and boiling over.
"And I'm tired of pretending that I've moved on, because I haven't."
She can't look away; she is still twirling the fork in some distant part of the universe, where such things as forks still exist. Right now nothing exists except him, sitting across from her and saying these huge, monumental words, so calmly:
"And I'm tired of pretending I don't want to be with you, because I do. I really do."
She opens her mouth, which is suddenly, completely parched, dry enough to choke. "What about..." she croaks, then closes her mouth, wets her lips (his eyes are on her all the time), and starts again. "What about Karen?"
He looks back down at the table, and she expects his knee to start bouncing again, his thumbs to start twiddling. They don't. Neither does he offer any of the excuses or long-winded explanations she's half-dreading. It's an air of quiet defeat she senses. And relief.
"That's over," he says.
She blinks. The dry mouth is back, as is the boiling sensation. "Just like that?"
He nods; the relief is dripping off him. "Just like that." And just when she thinks he isn't going to say any more, that he's going to leave her here at this table trying to puzzle this out forever, he goes on. "It's been over for a while now. But neither of us really wanted to admit it."
Okay. So. She is aware of her heart thumping away, somewhere down there in the midst of all that boiling blood. She is aware of a strong urge to run at him, push the table over, kiss him madly, do something besides grip this poor fork hard enough to snap it in half.
Instead, a wait-person appears by the side of the table, at the worst possible moment, as wait-people do. "Can I take your order?" he or she says.
It's a few seconds before Jim seems able to respond, and he blinks up at the wait-person like he might be dreaming. "We're gonna need a few minutes here."
"O-kay," he or she replies, two carefully enunciated syllables which pointedly convey irritation while maintaining the veneer of politeness, again, as only wait-people can do.
She is trying to formulate a thought, a coherent sentence, a word, even. No luck. He seems content to gaze at her across the table, making up for all those months when he didn't seem to ever look at her, when all she got to see was the back of his head, when she burned for him and wouldn't admit it, even to herself.
Finally she hits upon the right turn of phrase. She looks down to see that she is still gripping the fork, holding it like a weapon. "So I have a few questions."
"Shoot," he says, and he is grinning at her, the old friendly grin but with so much more to it now, so many more layers behind the curling mouth and the dark green eyes and the hair that she so wants to reach out and smooth, back across his forehead and behind his ears, over and over.
"How..." she manages. "When did this all..." She can't seem to get it out, and it doesn't help that he's watching her every move, watching her hungrily, burning himself into her with his eyes. "Why now?" she finally blurts.
His grin turns bashful, and he looks down again briefly, collecting his thoughts. "I was sitting in the interview today," he says, and his voice is calm and quiet, without the hard edge it's had to it these past months. "We were almost done and it was actually going really well. I could actually see myself working there, you know? I could see it all so clearly, what my future was going to be like. And then..." He shakes his head, still grinning. "Then, the guy asked me where I saw myself in five years, or ten years or something like that, I don't remember. And..." He meets her eyes. "All I could see was your face."
She drops the fork.
"Your face just popped into my head right then, and...I don't think it's left since. And so I...I told him I didn't want the job. And I drove back here. And almost got into, like, five accidents on the way. Because I just couldn't wait to get back here and see you." It's all coming out of him in a rush now; all he needed, she realizes, was for her to ask the right questions. "I couldn't wait to see you again."
She is numb. She is overjoyed. She is panicking. She can't seem to catch her breath. She can't seem to move.
"Look," he is saying, "I know, I understand if this is kind of sudden, if you need time or whatever to...work stuff out in your own life. I know that, and I respect it, and honestly, it's one of the things I love about you, that you're trying it on your own, and I'm so proud of you for that, you know? Because-"
"Jim."
"Yeah?"
"Stop. Just stop." It sounds breathless and impatient, but she doesn't care, because she is both.
"What?"
"Just stop. Stop talking. Stop it."
He frowns. "Why?"
"So I can do this." She is already rising from her chair. It is just like walking on the coals at the beach; if you think about it too much, you'll never do it, so she is not thinking. She is reaching across the table for him and gripping the front of his shirt and some of his tie, the clothes he wore when he went to the interview today, when she almost lost him for good. She's knocking over the unlit candle between them, and also her own glass of water. It's soaking the nice white tablecloth, and she doesn't care because she is kissing him.
Really kissing him, finally, like she's been dreaming of doing for months, like she should have done that night at the beach, would have done, if things had been different.
He seems surprised at first, but that wears off quickly.
She loses track of how long they have actually been leaning across the table kissing the life out of one another, but she has never been so grateful that Dominic's tables are so small.
There is a boiling, unsettled feeling welling up from the pit of her stomach. For a moment, as they finally break apart and she catches sight of his eyes-closed, exstatic face, she thinks she might be sick, and oh wouldn't that just be perfect. But no, thank whatever gods there are, that is not what her body wants to do at this moment.
They thump back into their chairs, Jim pressing his lips together as if he wants to keep that kiss for his own a while longer, and Pam recognizes the feeling in her stomach for what it is: joy. Overwhelming joy. It rushes up her spine and down through her fingertips and makes its way onto her face, which breaks out in a jaw-cracking smile.
"Wow," he says.
"I love you too, Jim."
He raises his eyebrows, and Pam thinks she would pay any amount of silver or gold to keep this new expression on his face forever: a joy that just has to mirror her own. She's never seen him look like that. "What?" he whispers.
She shrugs, helpless. "I love you. I've always loved you. Even when..." She pauses. Even when what? Even when nothing. "Always. It's always been you."
"Wow," he whispers.
"I was so stupid." She feels the tears coming now, can't stop them. "All that time..."
He's shaking his head. He reaches across the table, across the big wet patch between them. "No," he's saying. His palm is cupping her face. "You weren't ever stupid. Not ever. Okay?"
She nods and leans into his hand. Closes her eyes, opens them some time later to find him still grinning at her, like a kid at Christmas. He reaches over with his other hand, brushes away that lock of hair that's always falling in her face.
Again, she loses track of time. How long have they been sitting here looking at each other like they've just met, and like they've known each other since before they were born, with the overturned candle and the spilled water between them? And does it really matter?
Apparently, it matters to the wait-person. He or she appears next to the two of them again, but this time neither of them bother to look up.
"Are we ready to order?" The question is edged with not-so-subtle impatience.
"No," she says. Her voice is loud and clear, and she shakes her head slightly and holds his gaze across the table, burning herself into him this time.
"No, we're not," he agrees, never looking away from her.
They officially lose track of what the androgynous waiter is doing.
She catches her bottom lip between her teeth and feels the visceral joy work its way up through her again. It makes her want to dance, to kiss him again, to...
"Wanna get out of here?" he breathes, jerking his head in the direction of the door, the street, the car, and everything beyond.
She nods, staring deadpan at him. "Absolutely, I do."
FIN
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