Chapter Three: Rewind.

Enough. He had had enough. He couldn't sit there and just make idle chat and pretend that everything was back to normal. And what kind of conversation could they have anyway with the cameras everywhere?

Never had he gone from extreme emotions than he did the previous night. He replayed the kiss in his mind throughout his whole restless sleep. He kept hitting the rewind button and then pausing the scene right before the words "mistake," "sorry," and "wrong" dropped from Pam's lips.

He couldn't stay at the office. He couldn't play the game anymore. He wanted to get up and shake her and say "it wasn't a damn mistake, you're just so scared of your own shadow." Was "take a chance" even in the woman's vocabulary?

Where did this leave him? Them? Was there even a "them"?

When he was dressing to leave that morning, a tiny part of him imagined that Pam would walk in the office, come to him, and say she had left Roy last night. He fast-forwarded in his mind to leaving the office together that night. Would she have kicked Roy out or would she need a place to sleep? Would they go out to dinner and talk for hours into the morning and both call off sick, setting off a flurry of rumors in the office? Would they kiss again? Would he hold her until they both fell off to sleep? What did she like for breakfast?

But that didn't happen. And it didn't matter what she liked for breakfast. She just wanted to make sure the cameras didn't catch anything, lest her future husband Roy see it in some future airing of this documentary.

(How long was this documentary going to be, anyway, he though to himself. Right now, it seemed like it was going to take longer than Ken Burns's seemingly interminable Civil War documentary.)

Part of him wishes one of the cameramen had been hunched in the break room after hours, unseen, recording the kiss. Then Pam would be forced to deal with it. She'd have to confront Roy. She'd have to make a choice. Everyone would know.

But he banished these thoughts. Those thoughts were cruel. And no matter how angry or disappointed or hurt he felt now, he knew that he didn't wish that kind of humiliation on Pam.

Soon it would morning again. Soon he'd have to return to Dunder-Mifflin. Soon he'd have to look at her again, talk to her, make peace with her—and with her decision.

So James Halpert, class of 1997, varsity basketball player, college drop-out, went online and downloaded an application to Penn State University. She wouldn't change her mind. So, he decided he had to change his life.

At the same time Jim Halpert sat at his computer typing in his social security number and detailing why he left college the first time after only two years, despite respectable grades . . . and at the same time Pam Beesley sat in front of her television with her fiancé Roy, watching the same stupid video of the same stupid movie she had never liked to begin with . . .

Two young men sit in a darkened film editing studio, surrounding by three or four cameras, mounds of tapes, and video editing monitors. On the central monitor, the video is freeze-framed on a picture of Jim and Pam kissing from the night before. The two men, shrouded in shadow, rewind the video to the moment Pam walks back into the office and grabs Jim's face.

Documentarian #1: What the Hell are we going to do with this?

Documentarian #2: Damned if I know. I mean, this is pretty sensitive stuff. How did you get this, anyway?

Documentarian #1: I stayed late to get some B roll of the empty office at night. I crouched in the break room when I saw them start to talk.

Documentarian #2: Looks like you win the bet. I had'em down for four months. I can't believe it took them this long.

Documentarian #1: I know—this "will they, won't they" crap was driving me crazy. (after a a couple of seconds) So, you want to watch it again?

Documentarian #2: Oh, definitely. (beat) Pretty f-ing hot kiss, eh?

Documentarian #1: Definitely hot.

Final thoughts from Funky Ceili: don't really know where to go from here. I've never done fanfic before but I thought it might be a way for me to get out of my writer's block.