Sorry for the delay and for the shortness of this chapter, but I needed to get something written before I lost the heart of the story. I also couldn't stop wondering about this scene from Jim's perspective, so I indulged my own morbid curiosity. I hope you don't mind. The next chapter will move things along nicely, I promise. Pretty please, review?

Two weeks ago he'd agreed to this setup; Mark's girlfriend's friend Anna, just drinks, casual foursome on a weeknight after work. How could he have known the date would fall on what had proven to be one of the worst days of Jim's life in recent history?

The funny thing was, he was starting to feel a little better by the time they got to Poor Richard's. Anna was great; a pretty blonde with an easy smile and a sweet personality. In the beginning he felt kind of guilty, like he was stringing her along or something just by being nice—he wasn't in the market for anything more than a distraction this evening, and it seemed wrong to leave that unsaid. But how do you say something like that to a nice girl you just met? "I'm sorry if you're looking for a commitment beyond this beer. My heart has recently been masticated beyond repair by the woman I'm hopelessly in love with."

So he broke out the charm and soon allowed himself to loosen up just a little. He liked to make people laugh, and if that was selfish of him, if it made him a jerk for giving her false hope, then so be it. Why should he be a downer for everyone else at the table just because he was still aching all over? It was ok … and then it wasn't.

Because at that moment Pam walked past their booth and his eyes met hers for the briefest of moments and his words caught in his throat, the story dying on his lips. Her expression was what killed him; he had never seen her look so … lost. Had he done that? This hard stand he was taking with her; was there really a reason beyond sparing himself having to watch her and Roy build a life together? She wasn't going to leave Roy because Jim wanted her to, so maybe shutting her out was serving only to hurt them both. He could deal with his own pain, had been doing that since the day he realized he loved her. But seeing that pain reflected back at him from her eyes—no. No.

She didn't pause on her way up to the bar, and somehow Jim's story continued as if his mouth was on autopilot. He thought maybe Mark had noticed, but the girls didn't seem to, and that was fine.

He resisted the urge to look back over his shoulder toward the bar, and he was relieved when Mark and his girlfriend took possession of the conversational ball and allowed him a few moments to brood. Now he'd spotted Roy, his broad back turned their way as he and the warehouse guys laughed raucously.

The sound of glass shattering at his side made him jump, and he looked down to see a still-dribbling beer mug resting against his foot. She was down on her knees, picking up shards of glass with a desperate determination. His heart cramped up on him when he saw that she was crying. And before he knew he was going to move he was kneeling next to her, holding her wrists so she'd stop it with the glass, already.

"Hey. Hey, easy," he soothed softly. "Put it down; you're going to cut yourself." He noticed as the words left his mouth that she already had; the pad of her right thumb was marked with a thin strip of bright red. He gently relieved her of the shards she held in the flat of her shaking palm, and then took her elbow and stood up, drawing her with him, to call Mike the bartender's attention to the mess.

Then he looked back at her, at the tears streaking her cheeks and dripping off her chin, and his need to fix it was suddenly all-consuming. "What is it?" he asked. When she didn't respond, his tone turned harder, more commanding. "Talk to me, Pam," he said. "Are you ok?"

Roy's sudden appearance at her side was shocking, like being doused with cold water in the middle of the night. His hand clapped possessively on her back, and the stupid drunken grin on his face, were almost more than Jim could bear. "What the hell, Pammy?" Roy said, and all Jim could think was Look at her you stupid fuck. LOOK at her. But he didn't, and Roy's next words —

"Never send your bitch for the beer, right Halpert?"

—were all Jim could take. It could well be suicide, but fury had clouded out reason. His hand curled into a tight fist at his side and he actually stepped back for momentum.

Pam's panicked intercession froze him on the spot, and her voice—pleading, apologetic, desperate—quenched the fire that had exploded in his gut. He couldn't bring himself to look at her, couldn't see the expression that went along with that tone.

For just a moment he wished, more than anything, that he had it in him to hate her.

You angst haters are probably mad at me, but just stick with me and I'll dig us out.