"Roy?"

"Where have you been?" he appeared from the kitchen, visibly fuming, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand.

"Out," she said mechanically.

"I came back at 6 and you were gone!"

"I stayed with friends." It made no sense to do into details and anger him any further. Not now, at least. And even though there were more important things to think about, she couldn't stop feeling indignant at the thought that he was allowed to come back in the morning while she wasn't.

"And couldn't you at least send me a message? Or reply to mine?" A confusing memory of a text she didn't open assaulted her, threatening to make her feel guilty, so she pushed that to the back of her head.

"Sorry, I wasn't feeling so well-"

"I shouldn't have let you go back in there last night," he grunted.

"Let me? Sorry but you don't get to "let me" do anything!"

"I do, if you're gonna disappear and not even leave a message."

Pam took a deep sigh and counted to ten inside her head. The conversation ahead of her would have been hard enough without him being angry at her to begin with.

"I don't wanna talk about last night," she said.

"Ok fiiine," he turned around, and she head his footsteps and then the creaking of the sofa.

She could leave it like this, of course. Like so many times before. And then go along with her life, back to work and to an old and safe routine. So easy, and, to her throbbing brain, such a nice perspective. To lie down for a couple of hours and then wake up to take out and to leaving it all behind.

But it was as if she had been woken up of what she thought it was a dream, only to find out it had been a nightmare all along.

"Wait, Roy," she managed after a couple of seconds.

"What," he called from the living room.

"We need to talk."

He was sitting, the sandwich now gone, drinking a beer and looking at the game on the TV. "What?"

"We need to talk," Pam repeated.

"Can't that wait, Pammy? To the end of the game?"

"No, it can't."

"I forgive you, ok? Now, could you-?"

Pam took two strides to grab the remote from the sofa's arm, and, after turning off the TV, she stood right in front of it. Maybe out of habit, this would make Roy pay more attention to what she had to say.

"What's the matter with you?"

She took a deep breath. This couldn't turn into a yelling match, because then Roy would yell louder and she would never be able to really tell him.

"Why do I always keep winning the "Longest Engagement" Dundie?" she asked quietly.

"Why- what?" He did not expect anything like this, at all, so much was clear from his slight frown and his open mouth.

"That prize, from the office. I always get "Longest Engagement".

"Well, Michael is an asshole, isn't he?"

"Not the point, Roy."

"Then, what is the point? Can you enlighten me over here?"

"Why aren't we married?"

For a moment he looked confused around. "Well, because. There is always something going on, or money issues, or… you know I want this to be perfect, babe, don't you?"

Right there and then, Pam decided she hated to be called "babe".

"Do you really want to marry me, Roy?"

"Would I've proposed if I didn't?" he snapped.

"That's not an answer. Do you want to be married to me?"

Roy sighed, and finally stood up and left the beer on the table. Pam wondered if she should feel intimidated by his height, or how she knew he was prone to lose his temper. Oddly enough, she didn't. She just wanted it all to be over.

"What's the matter with you? If that Dundie has upset you so much, you shouldn't have stayed last night to get it. I was right!"

She sighed. "It's not about the Dundie! It's about we never getting married."

"You wanna get married, then? Fine! Let's go. Let's get the paperwork out of the way and we can be married in two days."

"No, Roy, it's not about getting married anymore. It's about… it's about…" the words were there, clear as daylight, but it seemed so difficult to say them aloud, now that she was in front of him.

"It's about what, Pam?" His impatience finally did it. The way he was more worried about finishing the discussion so he could go back to his match, and not about her, or her feelings, or why was she suddenly speaking like that.

With Roy it had always been like that, since that very first date when he forgot her. He had always forgotten her, it's become a habit. And both were to blame for that habit, not just him.

"I don't want to marry you anymore, Roy."

"You… what? You just say you wanted to-"

"I don't think you ever wanted to marry me either. For you it was just what you needed to you, in order to keep me from thinking I was wasting my time. And, in the meantime, I was forgetting it's not just a thing you do to check it out of a list. I was forgetting myself."

"Pam, what are you saying?" for the first time, she had the impression he was really listening to her, and it felt so unfamiliar, it made her resolve even stronger. This was the right thing to do.

"It's not right for me to be with you, Roy. I'm sorry."

"What? You breaking up with me?"

"Yeah, I am," she said simply.

"Just because of the wedding thing?"

"Not the wedding thing. It just made me realize this," with her arm she gestured towards the living room, "you and me, that's not what I want."

"What about all those years, Pam? What about all we've gone through together?"

"That's what makes it all more difficult, believe me. But if we keep on this, it'll be just me tolerating things I have just gotten used to, but that I don't really want."

"And what do you want?"

"I don't know yet," she said, fully aware that she was not being honest. There was at least one very precise answer to that question but she needed to put Jim out of his thoughts, away from this conversation. "I wanna do something different, find out what I want. Who I really am."

"And I can't be with you while you find out?" he sounded sad, and it broke Pam's heart the fact that he was not a bad person and she was hurting him for something he was not really guilty of.

"I don't think so."

He looked at her for a long moment, and she took in his childlike eyes, that shadow of a dimple which had been the first thing she had found attractive when she met him, those large hands she had held so many times.

"I should probably go," she finally said.

"Where?"

She shrugged but didn't answer. She noticed how he didn't offer to go and leave her the house. Maybe it was fair, maybe it was the way he really was. She did not care. She didn't want to stay anymore.

Slowly, she dug into her closet for a duffel bag and started putting things inside. Some work clothes, a couple of pictures… she was not leaving forever, that was obvious. She would have to find a place, and then come back to really move out her things. But now, she had no idea what to pack.

"Pam?"

He was standing in the doorway, his eyes were bloodshot.

"Yes?"

"Isn't there a… a chance… for you to reconsider?"

She just shook her head, feeling tears forming behind her eyes. She needed to go, before she would decide to take the easy familiar path once again. With quick movements, she took a handful of underwear to put it inside the bag, and then she closed it, with a decisive gesture.

"I'm really sorry," she said, he head low.

He moved to let her pass, without even trying to touch her. Without pausing, she grabbed her purse and the keys of her car.

The feeling of turning into the driveway was almost like the one of the night before, when she left the house. Clean air, space. Only, this time she had no idea what to do next. Her knees were trembling, her headache seemed to grow stronger, and something entirely different was starting to grow inside her. Fear.

As she drove aimlessly through Scranton, thoughts started to haunt her. It all sounded right in theory. Realizing she had been in an abusive relationship all along and finally gathering the courage to leave it, in order to finally be free and find herself. But in practice, now she was alone, with no place to go, and without the support of a long, solid relationship, albeit an unsatisfactory one. And all for what? For a stupid trophy and a drunken kiss?

The trophy. She looked around the car, even though she knew it wasn't there. With exasperation, she hit the wheel. At some point during the night she had lost it. It was meaningless, a stupid thing really, but it had meant so much at the time. It had caused so many things to happen. It had taken her to Jim.

And that was the one thought, the one plan she didn't want to acknowledge, because she didn't want to run into somebody else's arms, not right after finishing the one relationship in her life. It didn't feel right.

Finally she parked in front of a drugstore. At least she could get something to drink and something for her headache. As she was sipping a coke, she looked through the window to the big motel sign across the street for a long time, before realizing that it was a solution to, at least, one of her problems.

Signing in and getting into a sad, dark, room took her no time at all. She couldn't stay there for long, that was for sure, but at least for some days, until she could get herself an apartment.

For a moment, she considered calling her mom, or even her sister, but she ignored the thought. She didn't want to tell it all, to have to explain and to hear them feeling sorry for her. There would be a time for that, but this wasn't it.

And yet, what to do now? She was running out of excuses, out of things to do. She had to face that other thought.

Funny how easy it was for drunk Pam to call Jim in the middle of the night, and how hard it was now. As if she had done something unforgivable or utterly embarrassing, which in a way she had. But afterwards they had talked. He had said he wanted to kiss her, but not while she was drunk.

Well, she wasn't drunk now. And they needed to talk, to sort out some stuff.

Not allowing herself more time to think about it, she flipped her phone open. The battery was dead, she couldn't tell for how long. Still, this was something she needed to do, before losing the little courage she had left, so she took her keys and went to the car.

It was a miracle she remembered how to get to Jim's house, even though she had to circle the area a couple of times until she found his car, to find the exact house. Pam found herself wishing, for the second time in less than 24 hours, to have a drink. The first time she was looking for oblivion. Now, courage. With a deep sigh she parked and walked the short distance to his front door.

Still, she was there, and somehow she knew that she would be better inside. With him. So she rang.

Less than a minute later, he was opening the door. His smile was somewhere between happy and confused.

"Hi, Pam."

"Hey. Sorry I didn't call… phone died."

"Oh. That explains it," he said, letting her in and beaconing her towards the living room. That same living room she had spent the night in.

"What?"

"I just sent you a couple of messages," he messed with his hair in a gesture Pam recognised as being nervous. "I wanted to make sure you were ok."

"Thanks… I am."

He took a sit and she mirrored him, remembering those were the exact places they took the night before.

"And you forgot your Dundie," he pointed to the coffee table and there it lay, next to the sport magazines.

"There it is! I was wondering where I could have left it." She took it, surprised at her own happiness of having it back.

He grinned at her. "I'll just have to remember to tell Michael how important these awards are."

"No thanks. I am sure this was a one-time thing."

For a moment they stayed silent. Now that she was there, she had no idea what to say or how.

"Do you want something to drink? Or eat?" He finally spoke, and mentally she thanked him for that.

"Didn't you offered me a grilled cheese earlier?"

"That I did." He said, standing up and walking to the kitchen. "And I have to say, mine is the best you're going to eat," he said over the partition.

"I'm so hungry I don't think it would matter."

"You offend me, and my grilled cheese. What kind of guest are you, Beesly?"

She chuckled. "The worst kind, apparently. I kind of invited myself to a sleepover last night."

"Oh yeah, that." From where she was, she could only see his back, but she could have sworn he had gone a little rigid. "And now you're inviting yourself to breakfast."

"Well, you did offer."

"Guilty as charged."

"Thanks, by the way," she said, "… for rescuing me."

"Not a problem."

They fell silent again, as he finished the sandwiches and put them on plates.

"Do you want to eat outside?" he pointed at the small yard at the back. Pam followed him, and they took two chairs, facing the sun.

"So..." Jim finally said. "Everything all right, then?"

Pam sighed. "Well… it depends on the way you look at it. I just… I just left everything I know behind. Roy and I are no longer together, and I'm currently staying at a motel."

"What? Didn't he leave?"

"Well, I was the one who finished it." She felt the reproach in his voice. Even at this last time, it was clear that Jim thought Roy could've done it better.

"Gee Pam. I… I don't know what to say."

"I told you, yesterday. It's been over for a while. Only, I was too much of a chicken to say it aloud."

"I'm glad you did, though. It must have been difficult, but it will get better."

"I hope you're right." Pam sighed. Again, she could leave things the way they were. Thank Jim for the sandwich and, maybe, ask him to borrow his computer so she can look for a place. Or maybe she could look for some courage and say it all, the way she tried to, mere hours ago. He had rejected her the night before, only, it hadn't been a rejection, really. How worse could things get? "I hope you're right because all of this is your fault."

"My… what?" he actually chuckled at this, and she moved her chair a little to better face him.

"Yup. I'm blaming you."

"How?"

"You made me realize how wrong being with Roy was. Not because you said anything, but just… you know, just being you. You are… I don't know. The opposite of him. And you make things feel better. Right."

"Glad to be of service," even though his tone was light, and that made her chuckle, his eyes were fixed on her, deep and solemn.

"Seriously, though," he added. "I'm proud of you."

"It feels right. Only, now I have to make my whole life again. From nothing."

"Not nothing," Jim protested. "You know you can count on me. You know, for heavy lifting and that sort of thing."

She smiled. "I was kinda hoping on that. Cause… right now, you're the only thing that's real in my life. You and the Dundie." At this both laughed. How easy it was for them to hide their own feelings in banter and easy jokes.

"I don't just mean heavy lifting," she added.

"Me neither," he said, his voice hoarse. Slowly, he took her hand on his and now she was glad there was no alcohol on her veins preventing her from feeling and remembering how strong his fingers felt around hers, and how nice it was to feel his thumb tracing circles on her skin. "But I don't want to rush you into doing something you might regret later."

"I don't think I'm gonna regret anything," she said, and for a second time, she leaned forward.

Only this time, he met her halfway. Slowly, cautiously, his lips pressed against her, with such care she felt her knees tremble. His hand cupped her cheek, as he had done the night before, but instead of keeping her away, he draw her closer.

It might have lasted a lifetime, but for Pam it was too soon when Jim pulled away enough for their lips to part, but still resting his forehead on hers.

"Does this make me your rebound?" he asked.

She chuckled. "Definitely."

AN: Thank you all for reading and reviewing. I've borrowed the "first date" scene from lalter in season 2 :)

Happy new year 2019!