Author's Note: I've been wanting to post this for a few weeks (ever since I've written it) but I still had to figure some thing's out, read it and correct it. (Before I forget it, thanks to Dai for her beta-reading help and for coming up with the wonderful idea for the title of this story. Also, thanks for being such a supportive, understanding friend. Anyway, I don't want to start rambling, so I'll go straight to the point: I wanted to wirte about Pam's reaction to the events of 'Casino Night' (Season Two Finale.) This is totally fictional, but I thnik it's realistic since I tried to be accurate with the way Pam reacts to this kind of things. It's going to be a two-shot. Pam's POV all the time, even during the dream it's not exactly her the one that's talking. I hope you guys like it. Even if you don't, please leave a review. Crtitics are also appreciated.

Pam mentally thanked God that Roy had left for home earlier. Being forced to see him in that state would have been an invitation for disaster. She simply couldn't deal with him that night. She had had a lot of more important things to think about.

With a slightly shaking hand, she paid the cab driver and got out of the car. She made her way inside of the building as fast as possible, and decided to take the stairs because the elevator wouldn't come quick enough no matter how hard she pushed the button.

A little impatient tonight, Beesly. What's the hurry about?

Once she opened the door to her apartment she forced herself to calm down- by that time, Roy would probably be asleep and she didn't want to wake him up. Trying her best to get her breathing patterns to go back to normal, she tip-toed into the bedroom, picked a sleep shirt and a set of underwear from one of the closet's drawers and grabbed her snickers - at this point Roy slightly stirred in bed and snored a little more loudly, which made her blood freeze in her veins, but he quickly buried his head back into the pillows, and she interpreted it as a propitious sign to exit the room, after which she walked into the bathroom, and locked the door shut.

She carefully set the snickers and the clothes she had taken on top of the toilet.

Standing in front of the mirror, she quickly and efficiently wiped off the last traces of make up from her face. She removed her pearl earrings, the hair barrette (some of her curls, free of the imposed submission, fell freely around her face) and the silver bracelet and put them inside the bathroom cabinet, scolding herself for not leaving them in the bedroom before.

She kicked off her shoes and they landed in the opposite corner of the room. After that, she proceeded to take off her dress (she felt an unexplainable, irresistible urge of throwing it away from her, and so it ended up landing over all wrinkled on top of the shoes), her panties and ultimately her underwear.

Taking her eyes off the mirror, she got into the shower, drew the curtains and turned on the faucets. As the warm water fell down on her, she closed her eyes and let herself sink into the floor, where she sat, embracing her knees and leaning her head on the cold tiles, as the memories and feelings of that night came flooding back to her .

"Hey."

"Hey, how's it going?"

"Good, especially after I took all your money on Poker."

"Yeah. Hey, uh, can I talk to you about something?"

"About when you wanna give me more of your money? We can do that now. We can go inside. I'm feelin' kinda good tonight."

"I was just, um… "And before he knew what he was doing, the words came out of his mouth. "I'm in love with you."

Wait- what?

"What?"She couldn't think of anything else to say, so she looked at him in awe, hoping that he would say he was joking; waiting for a smile to crack up his face. But his expression was deadpanning serious.

Jim's in love with me.

"I'm really sorry if that's weird for you to hear, but I needed you to... hear it."He continued, looking at her as she stood silent. "Probably not good timing, I know that, I just..."

"What are you doing?"She looked at him demandingly, as tears formed in her eyes. "What do you expect me to say to that?"

"I just needed you to know... once."

"Well, I… um I can't."

"Yeah."He mumbled as he looked down at his feet and stepped back.

"You have no idea… "She started, but he cut her off.

"Don't do that."

"...what your friendship means to me."

"C'mon. I don't wanna do that. I want to be more than that."

"I can't." She paused, trying to make him understand that she had made a choice years before, a choice she had to stick to, although she felt like something inside of her was falling apart. Her legs were shaking slightly." I'm really sorry if you misinterpreted things."She said softly. "It's probably my fault."

"Not your fault."He shook his head as one single tear ran down his cheek. "I'm sorry I misinterpreted, uh, our friendship."He walked away, back to his car, leaving her standing there on her own.

She wondered how things had reached that point.

And how in Hell were they supposed to go on after that.

Silent tears started streaming down her face, and suddenly she couldn't stop. Forcing herself to regain composure, she stood up and methodically soaped herself, then furiously brushed her skin with a sponge until it reddened, before she let the water wash off the soap. After washing her hair, she turned off the faucets and got out of the shower, firmly wrapping a towel around her torso.

She wiped her mussed curls and got dressed quickly, glancing at the shimmering blue dress every once in a while, as if she was afraid it would disappear in front of her eyes before she had the chance to lay a hand on it.

Finally, she walked out of the bathroom, tip-toeing again, and hurried to put the worn clothes on the laundry basket, while putting the heels back into the closet.

And once she was done, she slowly sat on one of the kitchen chairs and sighed deeply. But that calm disappeared soon and she started drumming her fingers on the table surface, quietly enough to avoid being heard.

The clock stroke 12:43 AM.

Ring.

Please pick up. Please pick up.

Ring.

C'mon! I said I'd call you back. Pick up!

Ring.

"Hello…"

"Mom! It's me, Pam. I-"

"We're not at home right now... "

Crap.

"Please leave a message after the 'beep' and we'll call you back."

God, what do I say?

Beep.

"Uh… Hey mom. This is Pam… "

Like you don't know who I am. The only one who's pathetic enough to call you this time of the night instead of facing her problems like an adult.

"I- I just wanted to finish telling you about what we were talking earlier tonight… "

You missed the best part. You know what happened right after I hung up? He kissed me, mom. He kissed me and then he left because I told him I'd still marry Roy.

"… But, um, it's not a big deal, don't worry." Yeah, it's not like I'm having huge doubts about the wedding and feeling terribly guilty for saying no to Jim. "So I guess I'll call you back soon. I hope you and dad are doing fine… " Because if something else went wrong I simply couldn't take it. "Love you two. Bye-bye."

Pam's gaze drifted from her nails (which she'd spent the last minutes removing the nail polish from) to the laundry basket. The blue dress gleamed weakly as it reflected the light of the only lamp that was on, and it caught her eye like nothing else existed in that room apart from it and her.

That garment reminded her of everything that had happened that night. Everything that had happened in the last few months, even. All of her mistakes, all she had done wrong seemed to be exposed in front of her eyes, like a neon sign. She simply needed to take it away from her sight.

Acting impulsively and automatically, she took the dress, put it inside of a black plastic bag and closed it with a tape; after that, she entered her bedroom and shoved the package into the furthest corner of the closet's drawer, the one she almost never opened. That way, it would be a long time before she had to see the dress again. Probably even years.

When she was finished with that, she went back to the kitchen and sat back on the chair she'd been using. She wanted to cry (again), but she was afraid if she did, she would fall apart or lose her mind, and that wasn't something she couldn't afford to do.

So she remained silent, thinking and watching the clock needles move second by second. She thought about him. She thought about Roy. She thought about herself, the choices she had made and how blind she had been all that time. She tried to think of a way of fixing it all up without breaking anyone's heart, but she couldn't find any.

At a certain point, the clock's incessant tick-tock started to make her drowsy, so she leaned her head on her folded arms on the table and she closed her exhausted eyelids. Soon enough she fell into a state of deep sleep.

And the dream she had then was just the strangest thing ever.