Chapter 7

It was Monday, and everyone that had been out of the office with the flu was now back (except for Roy), including the documentary crew. Naturally, they grabbed Jim for a talking head the moment he got there, and he sat in the conference room, mentally preparing to lie his ass off.

"So," began the producer off camera, "you ended up going with Pam for that training tour. How'd that go?"

Jim shrugged. "It went great. We hit all the branches on schedule, met some great people, got home Thursday night. Then, you probably heard about Roy's accident. That's why Pam isn't here today. She's at home taking care of him—but I guess she's where she needs to be, right?"

Jim thought back on Friday afternoon, when he'd taken Pam to the hospital where she was going to see Roy settled at home with his mom before ending it once and for all. But the moment they'd seen Roy, all sheepish smiles and joking about Pam helping him use the bathroom—his heart had sunk into his stomach because he knew what she would do with that. Sure enough, she'd believed Roy's memory loss, couldn't hit him with the truth, not when he was in such bad shape, not when he needed her.

And so she'd gone with Roy, his mother, and Kenny back to the apartment she'd shared with Roy for years. He'd watched them leave the hospital together, piling into Mrs. Anderson's old Cadillac, Pam waving to him despondently through the backseat window as he stood like a chump near the hospital exit.

He supposed he couldn't blame her, knowing what a good person Pam was. Even he had believed Roy, welcoming Jim like an old friend visiting him in the hospital. He certainly hadn't looked like a guy who'd suspected him of having an affair with his fiancé. He'd shaken Jim's hand laughingly and awkwardly with his left hand, thanked him for seeing Pam safely to the hospital. He'd given no clue that he'd even known Jim had been the one with his girl alone for three days, and not their boss. Jim didn't think Roy could have been that good of an actor. But then again, if he was acting, he was fighting to keep Pam, something Jim could understand, even though he'd never actually done it himself.

God.

"So," the producer was saying, "did anything exciting happen on the trip? Anything we missed out on?"

Jim knew what they were asking. They'd been there filming on the Booze Cruise, after all, had heard his confession to Michael on the cold upper deck of the boat that night. They wanted to know if he'd finally made a move on Pam.

"Not really," replied Jim. "Don't get me wrong—it was fun to get away for a few days. But no, you guys didn't miss anything."

They finished up with some small talk about the Great Flu Epidemic of Dunder Mifflin Scranton, and then they let him go. The moment he left the conference room, Michael beckoned him into his office. Jim sighed internally.

Out of the frying pan…

Jim exchanged eye rolls with Ryan, who was manning Reception in Pam's absence, and, after shutting Michael's door, he sat in the chair opposite Michael's desk. Normally, being summoned in to talk privately with his boss was an annoyance and a huge waste of time, but for once Jim found he didn't mind the distraction. He was going a little crazy, thinking of Pam helping Roy bathe, maybe sleeping with him in their old bed…

"Hey, after all the craziness last Friday, with Roy's accident and all, I didn't get a chance to talk to you about your trip. Everything go okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. The training seemed to be well received. I think all the salespeople looked like they'd at least try some of the methods, so you can report to David Wallace that the mission was pretty much accomplished."

Michael chuckled. "Selling to salesmen is like trying to sell snow to Eskimos," he said, somewhat politically incorrect.

Jim nodded, even flashed a brief grin. "Definitely. Glad you seem to have recovered from the flu," Jim offered politely.

"Yeah, man, that was not fun. Not fun at all. I can't believe the human nose can contain so much snot. I mean, where does it come from? You blow it out and it just keeps making more."

Jim blanched. "Well that's gross."

"Tell me about it. And speaking of not fun, I haven't heard from Pam today. Guess she's playing Florence Nightingale for her hubby-to-be. I hate to be the one to break it to Roy, but if he's convicted of this DUI, we're gonna have to let him go. Guess I'll get Toby to do that bit of dirty work—maybe he's good for something."

"You guys are firing Roy?"

"Yeah. He's one of our drivers. We can't have a driver on staff with a DUI conviction."

"Yeah, right," said Jim, his mind racing. Roy, gone? He could hardly imagine what it would be like not to have to look over his shoulder when Roy was around, especially when Roy found out that Pam was his now. Or so Jim hoped. He'd gone three years knowing Pam belonged to someone else, lived with someone else, had sex with him. But now that he'd had her, this made it so much worse. Now that he knew how she tasted, the sounds she made in the midst of their passion—the torture of it was nearly unbearable.

A few more minutes of small talk and Michael's inherent silliness, and Jim was back at his desk, forcing himself to do something productive. He'd gotten a couple of texts from Pam, but just checking in, asking how his day was going, saying noncommittally that hers was fine, that Roy still needed a lot of help. Yeah, I bet, thought Jim uncharitably.

She gave him no real details, and he didn't ask, which Jim supposed was probably a good thing. His imagination was already productive enough without any actual details feeding into it.

By five, Jim was out the door, escaping the camera crew, who was breaking down their equipment. He was hoping that maybe Pam would find time to at least call him tonight, maybe give him an idea of how long she would need to martyr herself. And so it was with great surprise that he saw Pam in her little car, waiting in the spot next to his.

She rolled down her window and smiled.

"Hey. Get in."

He smiled back, so happy to see her. He got into the passenger side, laughing with her as he folded his long body inside of her economy car. Despite being in full view of anyone of the rest of the office staff, he couldn't resist: he leaned over to kiss her. Her hands moved to his cheeks, and she opened her mouth beneath his. He felt so relieved to have her in his arms again—that imagination of his had invented the worst case scenario: Pam had changed her mind and gone back to Roy. As his lips moved over hers, some of his doubts evaporated, and he allowed himself to enjoy just being close to her.

"Hi," he said softly, when they came up for air.

"Let's take a drive. I told Roy I was going out to pick up dinner, so I can't be too long."

He looked at her pointedly as she reached over to start the car. His hand covered hers on the ignition. "Why not?" he dared ask, heart pounding.

"I—" she swallowed, looking away guiltily. "He can't do much for himself right now. His mother went home, and he still hasn't gotten his memory back."

Jim lowered his hand. "Are you absolutely sure about that?"

She turned back to him, wide-eyed. "What do you mean?"

He'd been thinking about this during the long, lonely weekend. "It would be in his best interest to keep forgetting," he said. "Don't you think?"

She was quiet, which strangely emboldened him. "Given how he's treated you lately, I wouldn't put it past him."

"Maybe," she said hesitantly. "I don't know. He's been so…nice, though, this past weekend. Grateful for my help. I would feel like a real heel leaving him like this, kicking him while he's down."

"Exactly," said Jim. "You're a kind, responsible person, Pam. And Roy knows this."

All around them in the parking lot, the cars began to disappear as their coworkers left for the day. Some waved politely when they saw Pam, but most were so focused on getting out of there, they took little notice. Except of course, for Dwight, who took it as his personal responsibility to notice everything that happened on the Dunder Mifflin premises. They both jumped when he knocked loudly on Pam's window.

"Pamela," he said loudly through the glass. "You were not at work today."

Pam caught Jim's eye and they both gave shudders of extreme annoyance. She didn't bother rolling down the window.

"I was taking care of Roy."

"I'll be telling Michael you happen to show up conveniently after work. Apparently if you are here now, Roy doesn't need as much care as you say."

"Would you like to go help him use the bathroom, Dwight? You try doing that with only one hand."

Dwight frowned. "I always use one hand. I only have one—"

Jim reached over and honked the horn on the steering wheel, making Dwight jump back suddenly and swear.

"Good-bye, Dwight," Jim yelled. "This is none of your freakin' business."

"I'm gonna tell Michael. On both of you. This seems to me like a conspiracy to defraud the company."

"You do that, Dwight. And I'll file a counter complaint for harassment. We're off the clock. And this is in the parking lot, where you have no jurisdiction as hall monitor."

He hesitated. "Fine. But I expect you both to be at work as soon as possible, or there'll be hell to pay."

Jim honked again for good measure, taking sadistic pleasure in seeing Dwight jump again. When he protested, Jim honked over his yelling till he gave up and moved away.

"Asshole," he muttered under his breath. Pam grinned, and Jim happened to see that, once Dwight left, theirs would be the only two vehicles left in the lot, save for the doc crew van.

"Let's go," he said, with a sudden sense of urgency.

"Where?" she asked, starting the car.

"My place."

She nodded, and drove out onto the street, her mind still on the fact that Roy was home alone waiting for her to bring back dinner, but at the same time she was desperate to be with Jim, to try to explain why she was putting them all through this.

She remembered the way to his place without asking, though she'd only been there the one time for his barbecue a few months before. Okay, so she'd driven by a time or two since, but she'd been in the area (sorta) and she'd just been curious…At any rate, her heart was pounding in response to Jim's similar agitation. And he wasn't talking to her, which increased her own anxiety.

"You're angry with me," she ventured softly at a stoplight.

His face swiveled to hers. "No. No, of course not. Not at you. With the situation." He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm just frustrated. And frankly, scared to death."

"Why?"

But the light had turned green, and a honk from the car behind her drew her attention back to the road, and she accelerated jerkily, Jim's hand moving to the dash at the sudden jolt. She felt her face flush with embarrassment.

"Well, right now I'm scared shitless of your driving," he said, with a flash of his natural humor.

"Sorry," she said.

"You know, I got you home safely from a drive three days out of state, and you can't even get me home from the office."

"Shut up," she said, her heart expanding at his teasing. She was rewarded with one of his beautiful smiles, which, though fleeting, warmed her from the inside.

A few minutes later, and she was parking in the driveway of his split-level house.

"Mark's working late tonight," he said. "Come in for a minute, so we can talk."

"Okay," she said.

He let them inside with his key, and he had every intention of just talking, of expressing his unhappiness with everything, of putting words to his fears—but the moment his front door shut behind them, he gathered her into his arms and kissed her with all the pent up emotions of the last four days, namely, a desperate, overwhelming passion. Her arms snaked around him just as tightly as his, and she kissed him as if she hadn't seen him in years. Somehow, they stumbled up the stairs and down the hall to his bedroom, heedless now of any of her imagined obligations.

There were no preliminaries—he unzipped and pulled down her jeans and panties, while she did the same with his slacks and boxer briefs, and they fell unceremoniously onto the bed, toeing off their shoes at the same time. His lips still fused to hers, he slid into her body, already slick and ready. He gasped into her mouth and immediately began to move within her. It was frenzied and wild and incredibly sensual. Neither of them had ever felt such mindless need, and they were both surprised when it ended so quickly, each of them reaching their peaks in mere moments, their harsh cries of ecstasy filling Jim's dim bedroom.

Pulse deafening in his ears, he fell on top of her, his harsh breaths matching her own. He was still in his suitcoat, shirt and tie, she in her unzipped sweatshirt and tee. Her hands came up to weave into his messy hair, her knees bending, still cradling him inside of her.

Jim laughed in her ear in breathless wonder. "God, I missed you," he said.

She smiled, kissing the side of his head. "I couldn't tell."

Realizing suddenly how he must be crushing her, he rolled off her, laying on his back beside her in the middle of his full-size bed—seeming so much smaller than it had when he'd been on top of her, inside of her. He stared at the old popcorn ceiling, trying to calm down.

A dark thought returned, and he couldn't help the words that poured out of his mouth: "Have you been sleeping with him?"

"No," she said immediately. "I—I told him I didn't want to jostle his arm or head, so I've been sleeping on the couch."

He couldn't deny the immediate rush of relief he felt, but he was still fearful, and she was apparently still living the ruse, pretending like nothing had happened, that she hadn't thrown Roy's ring against the hotel wall and made love to another man.

"Have you helped him…undress, helped him in the bathroom…"

"Yes," she admitted. "But it's all felt very…clinical. Any attraction I ever had for him is gone, Jim, I promise you, especially after Nashua."

Jim swallowed, hating himself, but unable to stop with the questions. After so many years of imagining her with Roy, and even despite what they'd just done minutes before, he was still insecure, afraid that she would get back with Roy, that she had just had sex with him out of vengeance or desire, rather than love—which, by the way, she hadn't expressed in words yet.

"What are you going to do?" he asked. "I mean, how long is this gonna go on with him?"

He didn't like how whiny he sounded, how he was like "the other man," begging his girlfriend to leave her husband, secretly knowing it would never happen. He'd never wanted to be in this position—had actively avoided it these last three years.

She sat up, looked down at him where he still lay flat on the bed, brushed a fallen lock of her hair behind her ear. It was like déjà vu from that time on his hotel room bed, when she'd asked for more time after her broken engagement, but then had been carried away by his touch, by his kisses.

"I know I'm asking a lot of you," she said, "and I hate myself for lying to his family, and yeah, even to him. This—this just really sucks." And she was mad at herself all over again when she felt the tears filling her eyes; crying always made her feel so weak. She wiped angrily at her cheeks, but he was reaching for her again, pulling her down so he could kiss away her tears.

"Hey, I'm sorry for piling the pressure on you," he told her between kisses. "I want you—and I already told you I needed all of you for this to work, that I'm willing to wait, and I am. But now that we've been together, it just makes it ten times more difficult to imagine you there with him, in that place you shared, taking care of him like he's your husband. I'm not gonna lie; it's driving me insane."

She gave him a watery smile. "I know. I feel the same way. But somehow, despite all he's done, all his lies, I can't just erase ten years overnight. It's like I'm trying to quit smoking or drugs or something. I know it's bad for me, but I keep repeating the same habits. But his hearing is on Friday, and he's told me he's going to plead guilty, hoping the judge'll go easy on him. His lawyer is saying he'll get up to three months in jail, given the accident and the amount of alcohol in his system that night. After that, well…"

So, he thought, feeling the hurt in the pit of his stomach, instead of deciding for herself to leave him, she was letting the court decide for her. He sat up then, and she moved in surprise out of his way. He slipped off his suit coat, unbuttoned his top shirt button and tore off his tie in agitation. Then he reached around on the floor for his underwear. She watched his movements, hating that she'd spoiled things once again with her words, with her indecision.

"I should go," she said, but made no move to do so. She met his eyes, but he looked self-consciously away.

"You probably should," he said, hurting her on purpose with his coldness. He regretted it instantly, but she was already getting up and finding her own discarded clothes and shoes, putting them back on with shaky hands.

"Pam—"

"No, I get it. And you're right. I'm not really free, am I, despite apparently being unable to stay out of bed with you. I know what that makes me sound like."

"No, sweetheart-Pam, please, I didn't mean—"

She paused, forestalling his movements toward her with a raised hand. "This won't happen again until I've broken my addiction. I just hope you won't have given up on me by then."

He watched her go with a sinking heart, heard the door downstairs close with a quiet click. Swearing vulgarly, he threw himself back down on the bed, despising himself and Roy Anderson, in equal measures.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Pam drove to Roy's favorite burger place, willing herself to go numb, despite her stuttering heart and tear drenched face. She attempted to put out of her mind the frigid way Jim had spoken to her, had avoided her eyes, not blaming him a bit for his feelings. Hell, she was just as miserable as he was, and what was worse, she was doing it to both of them. She drove through and got their food, then hurried home.

Roy had been spending a lot of time sleeping because of the pain meds, claiming his arm hurt, so she was quiet when she unlocked the front door. She'd just stepped inside when she heard Kenny's loud voice coming clearly down the hall from Roy's bedroom. She supposed she'd been so upset, so concerned about getting back to Roy, that she hadn't noticed Kenny's pickup in the apartment complex lot. She was walking to the kitchen when she began paying attention to their conversation.

"Yeah, well she's probably with Halpert right now, fucking his brains out," Roy was saying. Pam stilled, but her heart picked up speed.

"Then why the hell are you still with her, man? You told me at the bar the other night before you totaled your truck that you'd dumped her. I don't get why you're having second thoughts if the bitch is whoring around on you. I kept my mouth shut in the hospital, thinking you might have changed your mind and wanted her back, but I can't keep lying if she's cheating on you, Roy."

Pam gasped. He remembered the night of the accident. As did Kenny, the bastard, so they'd both lied about Roy's memory loss in the hospital, had let her believe he'd forgotten about their fight on the phone, their breakup. Naturally, Roy had lied to Kenny as well, conveniently omitting the part where she had broken up with him, where he'd accused her of cheating when he was the one who'd done it months before.

"Well, she's a prettier nurse than Mom is," Roy said, and they both laughed.

Anger roiled within her, accompanied by an eerie, outward calm. She sat down at the table and methodically unwrapped and took a big bite of her burger, realizing as she chewed that she was starving, her appetite back for the first time in days. In that moment, that burger was the best thing she'd ever tasted, because it tasted a whole hell of a lot like freedom. She would finish her dinner, go to her room, and pack up her stuff. She would go back to Jim's if he would have her, to Isabel's if he wouldn't, then figure out how to get Jim to give her another chance.

The brothers continued to talk in boisterous tones about other things, especially when Roy turned up the basketball game on the bedroom TV. Finished with her own meal, Pam went to the cupboard, took down a plate, and loaded it with Roy's burger, dumped out his order of fries around it, liberally pouring the ketchup over them, just like he liked it. With a deep breath, she carried the plate down the hall and into his room.

"There you are," said Roy. "What happened, honey, did you get lost?"

"Yep, I've been totally lost for the last ten years."

And with that, she dumped his plate in his lap. He jumped up, cussing and yelling at her for being a klutz, ketchup staining his blanket, fries scattering everywhere. She wished she had the time to sketch the scene as a still life.

"Enjoy your dinner, you lying asshole," she said calmly. "And yes, Jim was totally fucking my brains out, and it was the best sex I've ever had. But I wasn't cheating, I'm sure you remember, because I'd already broken up with you last week, you bastard. Kenny, I hope you don't mind pulling down your brother's pants so he can pee, because I'm officially resigning from that rewarding job."

"Pam, what the hell?" Roy said, seeing his worst nightmare coming true. "You can't just leave me like this!"

He was trying awkwardly to get out of bed, throwing off the ruined food in his lap with his one good hand. Kenny jumped back from the bed, fearing the staining power of the errant ketchup; for once, shocked into silence.

Pam had pulled her suitcase from the closet, busying herself filling it with clothes and shoes for work before grabbing a few toiletries from the master bathroom.

"You can always call your mommy," said Pam conversationally. "I'll come back for the rest of my things later, when you're safely in jail. Till then, don't call me, don't text me, don't try to see me, because I never want to see you again."

Roy was angry now. "When I get my arm back, your lover boy Halpert's a dead man."

Pam stopped on her way out of the doorway of the bedroom they'd shared the past three years, ever since they'd gotten engaged. She turned back to her ex-fiancé, blood red fury in her eyes. Then, from the deepest part of her, where she'd buried the years of covering for him, of looking the other way, of withstanding every slight and betrayal, something finally broke free, giving her a courage she'd never known she had.

"You touch one hair on Jim's head and I'll ruin you, do you hear me? I have enough shit on you that when I start talking, no one will ever hire you, no one will want to be your friend. I'll see to it that even Kenny here hates you, given the stuff you've lied to him about. And I'd really hate to disillusion your sweet mother that her baby boy isn't the angel she always thought you were. Think really hard about what you do next, Roy, because you know I can back up everything I say right now."

She didn't stick around for his rejoinder, but, grabbing her purse and coat, she pulled her suitcase out of the apartment and out of her old life.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you think.