Title: Distance.
Continuity: 'Initiation'. (Season Three's 5th episode.)
Song: -.
Feedback: Of course, reviews are great.
Warning/Comments: Slightly A/U. Jim's POV. The dialogues are the original ones from the scene. I love the way that Jim and Pam's bond remains intact no matter what, and I think that's one of the reasons why their love story is so lovely; because they're friends first, and they will always be. This is one of my favorite moments of that love story, and here's my take on the way Jim handles the situation.
Human race always has always needed to delimitate its life, to name, to account and to define things. In a certain moment of their evolution, humans started measuring space dimensions as well as time's. That way, the concept of distance was created. Distance was defined as the space or the interval between two things or events. Either it was used in the context of Geometry or in any other science; the concept of distance was always based in a separation.
There's point 'A' and there's point 'B', and distance is what's called what's between them. And it's well-known that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The problem is that us humans have lots of trouble making that line straight. That's how, without noticing, we start going off course and the distance becomes larger, step by step.
"What time is it there?" Her question caught me totally off guard. Was she kidding me?
"What time is it here?"I repeated, furrowing my brow. "Uh… We're in the same time zone."I explained, as I didn't hear her answering. I couldn't help by chuckling, somehow nervously.
"Oh, yeah, right." She answered, mirroring my reaction and chuckling as well.
"How far away did you think we were?"I asked, surprised. Why would she ask something like that?
"I don't know."Her answer came in a low, quiet, serious voice."It felt far."I couldn't help but picturing her shyly looking down in embarrassment, a typical gesture of hers every time she felt ashamed or apologized to someone.
Feeling that her statement said a lot more than it seemed and not wanting to find out, I changed the subject, trying to lighten up the moods and redirect the conversation to a more comfortable territory for both of us. Yet her words were fire burned to my mind so enduringly, that even after I hang up I was still thinking about them.
I don't know. It felt far.
It was a vague, childish, even fussy answer, totally uncharacteristic of someone like her. At first glance, it didn't seem to say anything more than the obvious. But I knew Pam Beesly very well. I knew how hard it was for her to speak from her heart and say what was on her mind due to her shyness. And I figured the heartfelt message underneath the (apparently) vague, childish, fussy words.
She misses me, I suddenly realized. Shocked, I rubbed my temples and covered my face with my hands for a moment.
She misses me. It was amazing and totally unexpected, but it seemed the only possible explanation to what had just happened.
And I miss her too. The truth emerged like a submarine surfacing from the depth of the ocean. I missed her more than I had ever missed anyone. How could I be mad at her when my heart ached with every second I spent away from her? How could I forget her when she was all I could think about? How could I pretend to be okay when I couldn't have the one thing I wanted?
This was what I wanted. This was what I needed. I would have loved that conversation to last forever, so I could remain lost in the sound of her laughter, smiling involuntarily as I heard her voice. Unfortunately, I heard her saying goodbye to someone and the rational part of me quickly decided to use the opportunity to finish the conversation, since otherwise I would spend the whole night talking to a woman I was supposed to have forgotten. Before I knew what I was doing, we both had hung up.
For a moment I was completely puzzled. What did I just do?
My mind quickly provided me with an answer. Easy. You shouldn't talk to her. You have to get over her. You hang up. Simple logic.
I sighed tiredly as I got up from my chair, took my coat and slowly made my way towards the exit of the office. Well thanks a lot, I thought sarcastically. The only good thing that has happened to me in months and you blow it.
Hey, don't blame me. You shouldn't have made that call in the first place. The rational part of my mind answered.
I shook my head in an attempt to brush those thoughts out of my head. As I got into my car and started it, Pam's words replayed again in my memory. I don't know. It felt far.
She is so right, I decided. It was true. As long as she and I were apart, the distance between us seemed infinite, endless, as if we were in the opposite corners of the Universe. If we were apart, even by the tiniest distance, we felt far away from each other. And that hurt.
I never knew distance could make someone's life so hard.