The Office

Disclaimer: I do not own anything, and more depressing, is that I don't even have the calendar that has Jim, and my bff does. I am jealous

Rating: Teen

Summary: Days of the week, and how Pam tried to avoid telling Jim how she feels.

Dedication: To Ashley, who introduced and enabled me to be this obsessed.

Monday

Pam woke up with the Monday blues. She had watched Roy sleep and she found herself, almost depressed. He was everything she had wanted when they met, and she thought he still had all those qualities now, but now they all seemed to fade, just like her feelings for him.

When she was sixteen, and she had one of her last sleepovers with her best friend from high school, and they had made a list of what she had wanted in a boyfriend, in a partner and a husband. And when she started dating Roy, that best friend pointed out, that Roy fit the bill. He was cute, and thoughtful and made her knees go weak. He was everything she wanted at the time, but she was sixteen after all.

Abbey, that friend from all those years ago, had emailed her a new list. She had called Abbey late the other night, and confessed all to her. All about her and Jim, and their moments. Because that's what they had, moments. Just like that commercial, they had their happy moments, and their sad moments, moments of confusion and moments of friendship, and apparently, moments of love. Nobody informed her about them, but they were there.

At first she was angry that Abbey had done this. Encouraging this madness, she was almost married for god sake, but her fingers twitched and she opened the email. It was simple and to the point and it was everything she had ever wanted, but never said it out loud. She wanted a kind man, a funny man, a man with morals and values and a man who could understand her with one look. A man who was funny, and witty and could be the life of the party, but the wallflower at the same time. A man who would love her for her, who got her dreams, and didn't think they were a waste of time. As she was reading this list, Roy didn't fit any of the things that are important to her. Sure, Roy had made her knees weak at one time, but now, ten years later, that didn't really matter to her anymore.

She didn't know how Abbey had known, but she had described Jim Halpert perfectly. She had briefly told her about Jim, and she managed to clue in on things, that she hadn't.

The alarm started going off, and Roy got up and she just lay there with her eyes closed, trying to figure out what she was going to do. Sometime later, Roy leaned down and kissed her and she moved, so he kissed her check. She couldn't pretend to be asleep for much longer. She acted like nothing was wrong.

She walked into the office, and everything looked the same, smelt the same, and people were the same. The only thing that was different was that Jim wasn't there. She tried to act like it didn't bother her that he wasn't there yet, and she was late.

Jim came in not too long after her, and he didn't look at her, or talk to her and do that smile he only did for her. He didn't sneak a peek at her, that she acted like she didn't notice, but she did. She tried to pretend that she was super busy. That answering the phone and doing her normal stuff was just as important as anyone else's job. But it just wasn't.

She wanted to go over and pull Jim into the closet and make him understand. Fear was something that she had to deal with everyday. Not the horrible kind, the paranoid kind or the downright sad kind. Just normal, every day fear. Fear that she would fail, that she would never be and do what she wanted, and fear that if she left Roy, and chased after this thing that they had, and it didn't work out. Not only would she lose something she had been holding onto for ten years, she would lose her best friend. Because she knew that she and Jim couldn't be friends again, after they took that step.

At Lunch, Jim finally looked at her and he took out his sandwich. His normal ham and cheese was nowhere in sight. At seeing that, it felt like a mini betrayal. Like he was purposely striking out against her, and she slowly walked to the washroom and cried. She looked down at her small engagement ring, and it just twinkled back at her like it was mocking her.

She sometimes let herself dream of what her life would be like, if she was marrying Jim instead of Roy. She would probably doing that internship, she would be perusing her dreams. They would live in a small house and saving for that dream house. There would be a lot more laughter in her life than right now, and she knew there would be no way that she would be questioning her judgment if the ring on her finger was a symbol of her commitment to Jim.

She could see a wedding of her dreams instead of the hurried ceremony that her mother and her had managed to arrange. She would be happy, ecstatic instead of this feeling she can't describe. She can't blame it on Jim, because she has had it since Roy announced on the booze cruise, that he wanted to get married, and soon.

Roy wasn't meant to be with her forever, and she needed to accept that.

However…

Jim's feelings on Monday were different. He had been impatient to a new degree for Monday to come. He may dread work, and dealing with Dwight and Michael and the vary of characters that he worked with. He couldn't sleep, Sunday night, excited and anxious on what would happen. How would he feel, seeing Pam again, and knowing that she knew, and she didn't feel it back? He didn't feel how he thought he would.

He thought he would sick and heartbroken, but he wasn't. He had suspected that things wouldn't be that easy. In a perfect world, Pam would exclaim that she was madly in love with him two, and they would live happily ever after, but unfortunately, this was real life.

Pam looked shocked and scared after they kissed. She had backed up so much that she had almost tripped over the lamp that was on the other side of the room. She had placed her fingers on her lips, almost not sure if it happened. And then she had gone bright red. She said something that he wasn't sure exactly what she said, but she had run out of the room and building before he really knew what happened. The entire weekend had gone by too fast, and he had been anxious to get to the office. But when he walked out to the car, it finally hit him that she hadn't showed any hint that she felt the same way. He had kissed her, she had kissed him back yes, but that didn't mean anything. She probably knew that it was a mistake, but Pam was kind and generous and she probably was stunned.

Jim sat in his car, engine running and he kept on thinking of all the worst-case scenarios. Her laughing at him, Roy attacking him, or worse, Pam just gone, without a word.

He managed to drive to work without an incident, and he was late, and he was just waiting for someone to jump on him. Jim wasn't late, Jim was a good salesman, he may not always be as focused as Stanley, or take his job so seriously, like Dwight or Angela, but he was a good employee.

He avoided looking at Pam, even if he could feel her eyes staring at him. He couldn't look at her. He had a different choice of sandwich. Something Mark had made the night before, and he saw her looked shocked and a little angry at the sight of it.

A little while later, Pam walks calmly into the bathroom, but Jim knows where she is going and why. She didn't like to cry around people, and when she did, it was because she couldn't control it. She would cry in the washroom and when she came out, no one would be the wiser, no one other than Jim.

He wanted to go in there and tell her that it was all a joke. That nothing had to change, that it was all some cosmic mistake. But Jim felt better about things already. Yes he was miserable, and so was Pam. But wasn't every working person miserable on a Monday?

His phone rang, and he had back-to-back customer calls, and by the time he was free, Pam was gone for the day. He saw Roy come in, and look for Pam. Phyllis whispered something to him and he looked concerned. And for a second, he felt sorry for Roy. He had caused some turmoil in the guy's life, even if Pam didn't feel the same.

Jim went back home and he watched the game with Mark, and he pretended that everything was ok. Maybe Tuesday would be better?

TBC