A/N: Strong language ahead -- this is where my story will start to get it's M rating. Chapter title borrowed from Sufjan Stevens' song "The Man of Metropolis Steals our Hearts", from the album Come on Feel the Illinoise!

"God damnit!" Roy yelled suddenly, snapping Jim back to reality. "Pam has my cell phone!"

Jim didn't want to interfere, but he figured he should say something. "Uh, I think I heard her say that she forgot it on her desk."

"Are you fuckin' serious?" Roy clamped a hand down against his forehead, "Shit. I need my phone this weekend. Halpert, can you do me a solid?"

Do me a solid? Jim wondered to himself. What year is this, 1986?

"Depends."

"You've got a key to the office, right?"

Jim sighed reluctantly, knowing what was coming. He blinked slowly, regretting the words even as he said them, "Yeah, I have a key."

"Can you drive back with us and let me in to get it?"

He just wanted to go home and go to bed, and out of all the things he could do instead of that, driving with Roy to get his cell phone from Pam's desk was the very last thing on the list.

"Can't Michael take you?" Jim asked, "Or Dwight?"

Roy laughed, "Are you kidding?" He laughed again and then shook his head as he stepped closer to Jim, "Look, man, I'm serious, I need that phone. I don't want Pam to be the first one to read any text messages I might get over the weekend, if you catch my drift."

Jim felt his fist clench again as Roy implied his indiscretions. He silently wondered if Roy's cheating had been the reason for the nuptial postponement.

"Come on, Halpert. I'll owe you big time if you help me out just this once."

Jim wavered, and seeing no way out of the situation without offending the much bigger man in front of him, unenthusiastically nodded his assent and began to walk over to his car, leaving Michael and the cameras behind him in the dimly lit parking lot. He tried to think of ways to stall – forgetting his key? Flat tire? Previous commitment? – but none of it would work, and despite everything, he didn't want Pam to find the cell phone on her desk on Monday morning blinking with unread sexy messages from Roy's "other". Before he knew it he was pulling into the Dunder Mifflin parking lot, with Roy and Darryl pulling in behind him.

The cleaning crew was in, so when Jim opened the main door to the building, he loudly announced his presence and received a cordial greeting from the lady vacuuming the foyer in front of the elevators. Once upstairs, he unlocked the door to their office space and disarmed the security system.

"Where did she leave it?" Roy demanded.

Jim did not appreciate being ordered around, but even as the Assistant Regional Manager part of him bristled at the seeming insubordination of Roy's action, he reminded himself why he was there. "I don't know," he said, "she just said she forgot it."

Roy laughed, "You spend so much time up at reception with Pam I thought you'd have memorized the whole area by now."

Jim blushed and stepped aside, angry at his physical reaction to Roy's comment, and turned on the front area lights while Darryl and Roy stepped in and Roy began to rummage around Pam's desk. With nothing better to do, Jim went to help Roy look so they could leave.

In hindsight, Jim realized that he was infinitely glad he saw the papers first. No effort had been made to hide them or put them away safely, and though it was possible Roy would have passed right over it in his hasty disrespect for Pam's workspace, Jim didn't want to think about the consequences had Roy discovered them first. Still, as Jim came in around the side of the desk and took a closer look, saw what Pam had scrawled across the page, his stomach knotted. He wondered why – was it because of what was written, or was it because of who was standing two feet to his left? In between sketches of flowers and the hurried outline of a hand holding a pen – a hand Jim recognized as his own – Pam had doodled dozens of ways to write her married name. Some were in flowing handwriting, others were in bold block letters, but they all silently spoke Pam's dream of, one day, being Mrs. Jim Halpert.

Jim mentally photographed the page, smiling in spite of himself as he marvelled at the effortless way she seemed to connect her name to his over and over again. "Pam Halpert". "Pamela Halpert". "Pam and Jim". "Jim and Pam". "Pamela and James". "Mrs. Pamela Halpert". "Mr. and Mrs. Jim Halpert". Even "Mrs. Big Tuna", which she wrote once in comical bubble letters. Everywhere there was white space, Pam had found a way to write her name, and it left no room in Jim's mind for error. She wasn't imagining someone else's monogram. This was Pam's own girlish daydream, and it was about him.

"Whatcha got?" Roy asked, reaching for the paper.

Jim snatched it away, "Nothing, it's just… ."

"Seriously, give it here."

Jim stepped back into the space between Pam's cubicle and the one next to it, "Roy, it's nothing."

But Roy reached out and grabbed it, crumpling it in his pudgy fist before flipping it over to read. And then his eyes were on Pam's words. As if the moment were frozen in time, Jim seemed able to think through all the feelings he had about that fact: Roy's eyes reading Pam's words. Roy's ungrateful, cheating, lying, undeserving eyes all over Pam's page, a seeming piece of Pam right there in the office. It felt like rape, like Roy was raping Pam, right there in front of him, and he couldn't tear his eyes away from the brutish warehouse worker and his dirty hands making unclean Pam's paper. Then he snapped back to reality, the reverie over, and stepped back as Roy began to comprehend what he was reading. Darryl, reading over Roy's shoulder, tried to take the paper away once he saw what had been written.

"Hey man, let's put it down," Darryl said.

Roy levelled his gaze at Jim, saying softly, slowly, "What the fuck, Jim."

It was the first time in a long time that Roy had used Jim's given name. It chilled him to the bone. "Honestly, Roy, I don't know what it is. I just found it. I swear."

"What the fuck?!" Roy repeated himself, crumpling up the paper and hurling it across the room, "What did you do, Halpert?!"

"Nothing, I swear."

But it wasn't good enough. Roy swung his fist; Jim started to duck out of the way but the blow still connected with his right cheek, sending him sideways into a potted plant. Darryl stepped in front of Roy and was holding him back as he fumed. Jim stood up to his full height and contemplated fighting back. Instead, he stood his ground and protested his innocence.

"I see the way you look at her! Don't try and hide this!"

"I swear to God, Roy. I have no idea where this came from." He felt blood on his cheek and the stinging pain of an open wound on his cheekbone. The pain made Jim's eyes begin to water. "I just found it before you saw it. I swear. I don't even like Pam." It was a downright lie and he was sure Roy knew it, but it was the first thing that came to mind and he honestly would have said anything to get Roy to calm down.

"If I find out that you laid a FINGER on her, Halpert, I swear to GOD, man…!" He fumed, then looked at Darryl, "I'm gonna kill her. The nerve to be writing some other guy's name while she's with ME!"

Darryl pulled his friend to the door, "Let's just get to Philly and cool down. Come on. You have your cell phone. Let's go."

Roy looked at Jim, "This ain't over. I don't care what you say. I don't care what Pam says. You're both two-timing losers. You can have her. You deserve each other."

Jim help up his hands, as if to say 'Leave me out of this'. Roy just shook his head and muttered to himself, then angrily turned around and stomped out of the office, kicking the couch by the door as he walked past it, with Darryl close behind.

For several seconds, Jim teetered on his feet. His hands shook, and he felt his knees beginning to give way. He finally had to sit down in Dwight's chair behind him while his adrenaline levels returned to normal. Moments later, he put his head in his hands while silent tears spilled from his eyes.

Then he picked up the desk phone and dialed Pam's number, a number he had memorized, could dial in his sleep if he had to. She picked up after three rings, out of breath and wheezing into the phone. Without a cordial greeting or even waiting for her to finish saying hello, Jim launched into his plea.

"Pam, it's me. You have to leave."

"What? Who is this? Jim?" she asked, "I just stepped in the door. Why would I leave again?"

Jim repeated himself, "You have to leave your house. Meet me at my apartment."

"Why?"

"Just trust me."

A long silence followed on the other end. Jim could hear her breathing and the distinctive sounds of the phone crackling while she twirled the phone cord around her finger – a nervous twitch of hers that was normally endearing but which right now was frustrating in its tedium and how much precious time it was eating up. Finally, she cleared her throat.

"Okay Jim. I'll meet you at your apartment."

"I'll be over as soon as I can."

He hung up without saying another word, then hurried over to the door. Then he stopped, turned back, picked up the crumpled sheet of paper. He uncrumpled it, flattened it against the desk, and then gingerly – so gingerly, in fact, that he surprised himself in his ability to handle something so lightly – he folded it up and put it in his breast pocket. Satisfied in its safety, he turned off the lights, locked the door behind him as he left the office, and hurried home.

A/N: Making sense? You like it so far? Please R/R -- tell me what you want!! :) Thanks! More to come soon!