FIC: Life under the Observer Effect 3/5 (Pam/Ryan, Jim/Pam)
Title: Life under the Observer Effect, Part 3 of 5
Fandom: The Office (US)
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Pam/Ryan, Jim/Pam
Length: 4000 words in this chapter (out of a total 18,500)
Summary: In science, the term "observer effect" refers to changes that the act of observing will make on the phenomenon being observed.
AN: I've been watching too many screwball comedies lately. Thanks to kyrafic and agate for betaing. For miss_bennie, my partner in Cary Grant, on her birthday. I'll be posting one chapter of this a day through this Friday. Previous parts: one, two. Or use the tag. And with this chapter, the twist kicks in and the screwball really starts.
**
Three years, six months, and sixteen days later...
The website is having some major problems, and Ryan's not happy with the new interface. What does he have to do to get something to go right around here? Ryan pushes the intercom button. "Hunter?" he says. "Get the webmaster on the phone - what's his name again?"
"Er, Stephanie?" Hunter says over the speaker. "But first - "
Ryan interrupts him. "Right, her name, whatever. And could you try calling the caterers again? I swear, if they mess up the lunches one more time - Harrison's vegetarian, we keep telling them, but - "
"Um, sure, but - " Hunter interrupts.
"I wasn't finished," Ryan says. "I - " Someone clears their throat from inside his office door and he looks up. It's Pam. Holy crap.
"Your ex-wife is here," Hunter finishes weakly, into the silence. Pam smiles tightly at Ryan. She looks good, even though she's wearing something sort of muted and pastel. He hasn't seen her since the divorce went through.
"Er, thanks," Ryan thinks he says vaguely, fumbling at the button to close the connection. "Hi, Pam," he says. His voice sounds a little strange. "You're back."
"I was kind of worried this would be awkward," Pam says, sitting down in one of the chairs across from his desk. "Really glad to see I was wrong about that."
"Don't sarcasm at me," Ryan says, immediately feeling more like himself. Apparently he just needed a bracing dose of good old fashioned hostility to perk him up. God, it's good to see her.
"Still tormenting Hunter, huh?" Pam says.
"Well, he asks for it," Ryan says. He's kidding. Mostly. "How was Scranton?" After the divorce was finalized, Pam took some time off to visit her family, telecommuting for a few months. Mostly her family was her parents, who had moved back to Scranton shortly after Pam and Ryan had gotten engaged. Ryan suspects Pam's jaunting off to telecommute was because she wanted some space from him. He suspects this mostly because she flat out told him so.
"It was fine," Pam says. "Listen, Ryan, I came here to tell you that... um, I'm tendering my resignation."
She can't be serious. That's not - where is she going to go? "What?" Ryan says. "You can't do that."
Pam raises her eyebrows. "Why not?"
Ryan flounders for a second, trying to think of a reason that's not that if she quits, he won't get to see her anymore. "I mean, what about Dunder Mifflin?"
Pam blinks twice, and looks faintly amused. "I'm sorry, are you trying to call upon my loyalty to Dunder Mifflin to keep me here?"
"Shut up," Ryan says. "What, did you get a better offer?"
"Uh, you could say that," Pam says. She gets up and wanders over to the bookshelf. The framed photo on the top shelf is their wedding picture, them under the arch in her parents' backyard, and she picks it up to look at it critically. "Nice hair," she says.
"You were the one who told me to get that haircut," Ryan says.
"I know," Pam says, and smiles. As she puts the picture back on the shelf, something on her left hand flashes.
Oh God. He might be sick. He puts a hand to his forehead and presses to try to keep back the headache he feels rushing on.
"What is that?" he chokes out.
Pam looks confused. He points at the ring on her fourth finger. It's small, but definitely, definitely there.
"Oh," she says. She at least has the grace to look a little chagrined. "Uh, that's the other thing I came here to tell you."
"You're engaged?" Ryan says. "We've only been divorced four months!"
"I know," Pam says. "I'm sorry."
"Oh my God," Ryan says, pressing harder on his forehead. "How on earth do you meet somebody, fall in love, and get engaged in four months?"
"Well, that's the third thing I came here to tell you," Pam says. Oh, God, a third thing. And she sounds tentative, kind of the way she used to talk when she was the receptionist at Dunder Mifflin Scranton, before they ever got together. "It's, um - well, I'm engaged to Jim Halpert, actually."
He really is going to throw up. He starts gesturing at her.
"What?" she says.
"Bring me the trashcan," Ryan gets out.
Pam looks alarmed and moves to pick it up. "Why?" she says.
"Because I'm going to puke," Ryan says.
Pam stops and lets out an annoyed sigh. "That's not funny."
"I'm serious," Ryan says. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe through his nose.
"You are not serious, and it's none of your business, anyway," Pam says. "I was just telling you to, I don't know, be nice."
"Nice?" Ryan says. "Jesus Christ. What would you have done if you were trying to be mean?"
"Well, I thought you should hear it from me before the wedding this weekend," Pam says.
"This weekend?!" Ryan says. What the fuck. What. The. Fuck.
"Yeah, sorry," Pam says. She half-opens the door to get to the water cooler outside his office, and brings him back a cup of water.
"Are you pregnant or something?" Ryan asks, taking the paper cone out of Pam's hand.
"Ryan!" Pam says.
"What?" he says, taking a sip. "Sorry, did I impugn your honor as a lady?"
"God," Pam says. "No, I'm not pregnant."
Well, that's a relief, anyway. Ryan drinks his water and tries to calm down.
"I just, uh, ran into Jim while I was in Scranton," she says. "We reconnected."
Ryan finishes the last of the water. "That's such bullshit," he says. "How can you possibly marry Jim Halpert in 2011?"
Pam sits down on the arm of one of the chairs. "Well," she says. "I don't know. I think maybe I've always been in love with him."
Oh God. "You have not," Ryan says. "Knock it off."
"How would you know?" Pam says, getting sort of mad and downright again, losing the calm, tentative voice. Thank God. Now she at least sounds like herself.
"Well, first of all," Ryan says. "You were in love with me for five years, not dickwad Jim Halpert. And second of all, if you were always in love with him, how come you didn't call him after he said he was in love with you, before we ever hooked up?" Which, he might add, is a very good question.
Pam looks a little unsure. "Well, I was going to," she says. "But then you...."
"Seduced you with my irresistible charm?"
"Ha, ha," she says.
"That's right, I didn't," Ryan says. "You were the one who kissed me first, remember?"
"Oh please," Pam says. "You were asking for it."
They're talking like they're mad at each other, but when she says that - which is absolutely true - he laughs, and once he laughs, she smiles, and the whole thing is sort of friendly, the easy familiarity of bickering like this. Suddenly he's looking at her and remembering the first time they slept together, how fun it was, how much they'd laughed.
"Stop it," Pam says.
"What?" Ryan says.
"Looking at me like that, you manipulative dorkwad. You know what you're doing."
"I'm not doing anything," Ryan says.
Pam rolls her eyes.
"Don't marry Jim Halpert," Ryan says. "It's been like a million years. You don't even know him anymore."
Pam just looks at him like she feels sorry for him. Ugh, it's agonizing, that pitying look, and ridiculous, because he's dead-on right about Jim. A lot changes in five years - Pam, for instance. She's got a career and a spine, now, and how can Jim Halpert deal with that? He was a pussy to begin with, and Ryan imagines he has stayed a pussy, and Pam deserves better than that.
"Well," Pam says, standing up and looking at her watch. "I have to go. I just thought I should tell you."
He can't think of anything to say that'll keep her from leaving, so instead, after the door to his office closes behind her, he puts his head down on his desk and wonders what Hunter would do if he hyperventilated. Probably very calmly give him a brown paper bag, and then tell him his messages while he breathed into it. It's like someone's taken his worst nightmares and made them into reality, and he really hopes this doesn't mean there are also giant spiders crawling up the side of the building to his office window. Though at least the spiders would put him out of his misery and he wouldn't have to see his wife marry Jim fucking Halpert.
He always worried that Jim would be why he and Pam would break up. So it was almost a relief that it didn't seem to be the reason for the divorce... or he hadn't thought it was. But, well, now he doesn't know. Because here's the thing: the documentary had finished filming right after Ryan and Pam's wedding, and the episodes had started airing six months later. It was a long running documentary, airing for over a year, and when Pam and Ryan watched it together, they laughed about how much the documentary clearly wanted Jim and Pam to get together. There were, like, articles in TV Guide about how Ryan was the devil, stealing Pam away like that. He and Pam had clipped them out, even, made a little scrapbook about how much America hated their wedding. Ryan still had it somewhere.
So they laughed about it, but the thing was, it was all airing right about the time Dunder Mifflin was doing so badly they were looking at shutting another branch down, and Ryan was routinely working sixteen hour days, sometimes getting home after Pam had gone to bed and leaving before she got up. And he knew she hated it - they'd have huge fights about how she never saw him, and how even when she did see him, he was always on his blackberry - but work was really, really important. Or it seemed like it was at the time. So Pam was home by herself a lot, angry at the husband she didn't see, watching a show basically about how much Jim Halpert was in love with her.
No wonder he came home from work one day and she was gone. And the day after that, she was still gone, and the next day, and the next. He still hasn't gotten used to it, either, so the apartment still seems really dark and empty all the time. It means he works later than he needs to, or goes out and gets plastered, and it just - it sucks. The only way he's been surviving is his apparently retarded conviction that he and Pam would get back together. And now it's over, there's nothing he can do. God, it sucks, it sucks.
Ryan sits back up and tries to get hold of himself. Nothing he can do? What is he, Jim Halpert? There probably is nothing he can do, but he's at least got to try to get Pam back before she marries that loser and ruins her life. His life. Whichever. Both. He just needs a good excuse to go down and break up the wedding.
Thinking about the documentary and how it may have ruined his life leads to the germ of an idea. He pushes the intercom button again. "Hunter?" he says. "Get me the documentary producers on the phone. Greg, if you can."
"Why?" Hunter says.
"You'll see," Ryan says.
**
Ryan pitches it to Greg as a reunion special, and once Greg finds out that Jim and Pam are getting married, it sure doesn't take much convincing to get him on board. Ryan's only caveat is that Greg not tell Jim and Pam that it was Ryan's idea to start with, which Greg agrees to pretty fast. He'd probably rather have people think it was his idea anyway.
Greg calls back the next day to tell Ryan that the project is go, and he seems pretty excited. "Boy," Greg says. "A reunion special. Like an epilogue. Jim and Pam together, after all that."
God, everyone wants Jim and Pam together but him. Ryan pinches the bridge of his nose. "Right," he says. "Very exciting for you."
Ryan decides it'll be a good time to combine winning Pam back with his semi-annual visit to the Scranton branch, so he takes Hunter and drives down on the Thursday before the wedding. He figures he might need Hunter for wedding-breaking-up related errands. Or something. Anyway, what can it hurt?
After a headache-inducing meeting at Scranton, where Michael Scott has inexplicably hung on to his job as regional manager, Ryan and Hunter head over to Pam's parents' house. They park on the side of the road, since the Beesly driveway is full of cars, one of them Greg's, another a florist's truck. Pam and Jim are getting married in the backyard, just like Pam and Ryan did, which Ryan thinks is a lot like adding insult to injury.
"Come on," Ryan says to Hunter, as they get out of the car. "They're probably around the back." He puts on his most confident walk and a casual expression, bracing himself as he turns the corner to see the yard set up almost the exact same way as it was for his own wedding. Worst déjà vu ever. Pam and her mom are standing in the middle of the aisle, talking to someone he doesn't know and pointing at the arch. The florist, he assumes. They seem to just be finishing up - the florist makes some notes and then heads back towards the driveway. Randall's filming everything from across the yard.
As Ryan walks towards Pam and her mom, Pam glances in his direction, then does a double take. She sighs. "Hey there," Ryan calls, smiling in a friendly way. Pam's mother smiles back. Pam just looks mildly annoyed.
"What are you doing here?" Pam says.
"You didn't think I'd miss your wedding, did you?" Ryan says. He turns to Pam's mom and kisses her on the cheek. "Hi, Mom."
"Oh, hello, Ryan," Pam's mom says. She looks a little uncertain how to react, glancing back and forth between him and Pam.
"I did, actually," Pam says. Ryan puts his hands in his pockets and looks at her like he can't think why she would've thought so. "You aren't invited," she says.
"Come on, Pam," he says. "I'm here for the reunion special, give me a break. I even took time off work."
"Alert the media," Pam mutters. "Hell has frozen over." Then she looks pointedly at Hunter. "You took time off, but brought your assistant?"
Hunter lifts one hand in a little wave. "Hi, Pam," he says.
"Well, I didn't give him the day off," Ryan says. "Anyway, I went over to the Scranton branch this morning."
Pam nods. "Yeah, that sounds more like you."
Ryan gives her a sharp look, and has to force himself to relax and not take the bait. She's not wrong about him working too much, after all. Instead he looks around at the yard. "Nice arrangement you have here," he says. "It's so natural, almost like you've set it up this way before."
"Ryan Howard," Pam starts, and he can hear that she's about to build up a good head of steam when she sees something past his shoulder and stops, relaxing. Suddenly she looks kind of happy.
Ryan turns around and sees Jim Halpert walking towards him. Fuck. He takes a deep breath and puts on his friendliest client smile. "Hey, Jim," he says. It's not that good an effort - there's a reason he never made a sale, and he suspects the smile is part of that reason. He holds out his hand to shake.
Jim does not look pleased to see him, so at least the feeling's mutual. "Hey Ryan," he says. Then he turns to Pam and whispers, not nearly quietly enough, "What is Ryan doing here?"
Pam rolls her eyes. "Reunion special." She doesn't even bother to try to keep her voice down.
"Oh, right," Jim says. Ryan's still holding his hand out, and out of the corner of his eye he can see that Randall's filming them.
Jim notices too, and quickly moves to shake Ryan's hand.
"So I guess congratulations are in order," Ryan says. "After all these years, achieving your life's ambition like this."
"My what?" Jim says.
"Your life's ambition," Ryan says. "Pam. Nice work there."
Pam gives Ryan a give-me-a-break look. Ryan shrugs at her. Jim looks between the two of them like he doesn't much like them communicating wordlessly like that. Too bad, buddy.
"So Jim," Ryan says, turning back to him. "What are you doing these days?"
"Um," Jim says, reluctantly turning to Ryan. "I'm a steel salesman. At Steel Technologies."
"Oh," Ryan says, nodding and raising his eyebrows at Pam. "A steel salesman. That's... awesome."
Jim looks like he's not sure whether or not Ryan's making fun of him. Pam looks like she's sure, and isn't happy about it. "Um, thanks," Jim says.
"So, you guys are going to live... ?" Ryan says.
"Here in Scranton," Jim supplies.
"In Scranton," Ryan says, trying to sound impressed. "Oh, that'll be nice. It's a great town."
Pam steps on his foot, hard. He tries not to wince. Just then the florist comes up again. "Now, I have some other ideas for the arch," she says to Pam. Pam looks at Ryan.
"Please, go ahead," Ryan says, sitting down on one of the folding chairs. "Pretend I'm not here."
Pam rolls her eyes at him, but starts talking to the florist about roses versus gardenias anyway.
"What do you think, Jim?" she says.
Jim shrugs. "I don't care. Whatever you want."
"Uh huh," Pam says, and Ryan sees a little flash of annoyance cross her face. Interesting. Jim puts his arm around her shoulders as she goes back to talking to the florist, rubbing his thumb against her bare arm, which Ryan knows must be annoying Pam. She always hated Ryan getting mushy when she was trying to concentrate on something else.
"Okay," Pam says, after she and the florist seem to finally have settled on roses. "So. Jim, you're picking up my grandma at the airport, right?"
"Right," Jim says.
"And Mom's talking to the caterer," Pam says. "And I need to go pick up my dress from the tailor."
Ryan wonders if she's gotten a car since she left New York.
"Oh, shoot," Jim says. "You don't have a car. Um. Maybe we could do it on the way to the airport?"
Pam looks at her watch. "We don't have time."
"Oh, I don't mind taking you," Ryan offers. "If you need transportation."
Pam looks at him. "Um," she says. "I don't know that that's a good idea."
Ryan shrugs, suit yourself.
Jim looks at his own watch. "Well," he says. "Your sister doesn't get into town until tonight, and your dad's busy, so I don't know how else you're going to get anywhere. Maybe going with Ryan would work."
Randall's filming the scene with great interest. Ryan looks at his fingernails, pretending he couldn't care less what she decides.
"Oh, don't put on that casual act," Pam says to him. "Fine, you can drive me."
Ryan smiles a little to himself. "You're welcome," he says.
"Yeah, sure, thanks a lot," Pam says. Somehow it doesn't sound that sincere.
Between Pam and Ryan in the front seats and Hunter and Randall in the back, it's a pretty full car. But even so, this is his chance to talk to her without Jim around, crowd or not, and he doesn't want to miss it.
"Look," he says, as he pulls away from the curb and heads towards Scranton proper. "I wanted to apologize, actually."
"Oh?" Pam says.
"Yeah," Ryan says. "I know I was a terrible husband, and I'm sorry about it." He stops at a stop sign for a beat, then turns left.
"Oh," Pam says.
In the backseat, Ryan can hear Hunter shifting uncomfortably. Well, too bad, he's had to hear a lot of uncomfortable things over the past four years, so he should be used to it by now.
"Well," Pam says. "Thanks, I guess."
"Yeah, I know, too little, too late," Ryan says. "Still." He merges onto I-80.
"You weren't that bad," Pam says. "Really."
Ryan glances over and smiles at her. "We had some good times."
"Yeah," Pam says. She looks thoughtful.
Ryan glances over his shoulder and changes lanes to pass a silver minivan that's going 55. "I worked too much, though," he says. "You were smart to get out of it."
Pam shifts in her seat, slouching a little bit more to get comfortable. "Mmm," she says.
Ryan can hear Hunter texting on his phone, the quick succession of quiet amelodic beeps. He's probably posting to his Twitter about what his annoying boss is making him do. Ryan tries to ignore it.
"So," Ryan says to Pam, after a few minutes. "How does the reality compare?"
"What reality?" Pam says.
"Jim," Ryan says. "How does the reality compare to the unreality?"
Pam's forehead is crinkled. "I'm not sure I follow you."
"Well," Ryan says. He's really aware of the camera on him. "I mean, you watched the whole documentary, and there was Jim, like, pining after you and being this hypothetical perfect boyfriend. And you were married to me and I was never home. And when I was home, sometimes I was cranky, and I probably didn't ever say the right things, and in comparison I... anyway. It doesn't matter. I was just wondering if the real Jim lives up to the Jim on the documentary."
"Oh," Pam says. She puts her feet up on the dashboard and starts to roll the window down. He knows it's to do that dorky thing she likes, pushing her hand through the air rushing by, moving it in dolphin patterns. It's very senior year of high school. "Well, nobody could live up to that," she says. "But Jim's pretty good. He really likes me."
An interesting answer, when you look at it. He's hoping the note of faint disappointment he hears isn't just his own wishful thinking.
"Well, there's a lot to like," Ryan says, raising his voice so she can hear him over the roaring air swooping by the window. He taps his thumbs against the steering wheel, and is conscious of Pam looking at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her knobby knees, sticking out from under the oranges and reds of her sundress. He glances over and smiles briefly.
Pam starts rolling the window back up, and when it finally closes the car seems really quiet all of a sudden, quiet like a blow, like his ears need to pop. "I wish you wouldn't do that," Pam says.
"What?" Ryan says.
"Be nice to me," Pam says. "It's unnerving."
Ryan shrugs. "Sorry," he says, and goes to turn the radio on. "What, are you not going to do the dolphin thing?"
Pam shrugs and tucks her hair behind her ears. "I'm a grown-up," she says. "I just forgot for a minute. I guess driving with you makes me feel more immature."
"Ha, ha," Ryan says. He flips stations until he finds one playing Nickelback, a song he knows she hates, and leaves it there. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her trying really hard not to react. She makes it through two full minutes before she cracks and changes the station.
**
4. Doggone it, C. K. Dexter Haven. Either I'm gonna sock you or you're gonna sock me.
Fandom: The Office (US)
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: Pam/Ryan, Jim/Pam
Length: 4000 words in this chapter (out of a total 18,500)
Summary: In science, the term "observer effect" refers to changes that the act of observing will make on the phenomenon being observed.
AN: I've been watching too many screwball comedies lately. Thanks to kyrafic and agate for betaing. For miss_bennie, my partner in Cary Grant, on her birthday. I'll be posting one chapter of this a day through this Friday. Previous parts: one, two. Or use the tag. And with this chapter, the twist kicks in and the screwball really starts.
**
Three years, six months, and sixteen days later...
The website is having some major problems, and Ryan's not happy with the new interface. What does he have to do to get something to go right around here? Ryan pushes the intercom button. "Hunter?" he says. "Get the webmaster on the phone - what's his name again?"
"Er, Stephanie?" Hunter says over the speaker. "But first - "
Ryan interrupts him. "Right, her name, whatever. And could you try calling the caterers again? I swear, if they mess up the lunches one more time - Harrison's vegetarian, we keep telling them, but - "
"Um, sure, but - " Hunter interrupts.
"I wasn't finished," Ryan says. "I - " Someone clears their throat from inside his office door and he looks up. It's Pam. Holy crap.
"Your ex-wife is here," Hunter finishes weakly, into the silence. Pam smiles tightly at Ryan. She looks good, even though she's wearing something sort of muted and pastel. He hasn't seen her since the divorce went through.
"Er, thanks," Ryan thinks he says vaguely, fumbling at the button to close the connection. "Hi, Pam," he says. His voice sounds a little strange. "You're back."
"I was kind of worried this would be awkward," Pam says, sitting down in one of the chairs across from his desk. "Really glad to see I was wrong about that."
"Don't sarcasm at me," Ryan says, immediately feeling more like himself. Apparently he just needed a bracing dose of good old fashioned hostility to perk him up. God, it's good to see her.
"Still tormenting Hunter, huh?" Pam says.
"Well, he asks for it," Ryan says. He's kidding. Mostly. "How was Scranton?" After the divorce was finalized, Pam took some time off to visit her family, telecommuting for a few months. Mostly her family was her parents, who had moved back to Scranton shortly after Pam and Ryan had gotten engaged. Ryan suspects Pam's jaunting off to telecommute was because she wanted some space from him. He suspects this mostly because she flat out told him so.
"It was fine," Pam says. "Listen, Ryan, I came here to tell you that... um, I'm tendering my resignation."
She can't be serious. That's not - where is she going to go? "What?" Ryan says. "You can't do that."
Pam raises her eyebrows. "Why not?"
Ryan flounders for a second, trying to think of a reason that's not that if she quits, he won't get to see her anymore. "I mean, what about Dunder Mifflin?"
Pam blinks twice, and looks faintly amused. "I'm sorry, are you trying to call upon my loyalty to Dunder Mifflin to keep me here?"
"Shut up," Ryan says. "What, did you get a better offer?"
"Uh, you could say that," Pam says. She gets up and wanders over to the bookshelf. The framed photo on the top shelf is their wedding picture, them under the arch in her parents' backyard, and she picks it up to look at it critically. "Nice hair," she says.
"You were the one who told me to get that haircut," Ryan says.
"I know," Pam says, and smiles. As she puts the picture back on the shelf, something on her left hand flashes.
Oh God. He might be sick. He puts a hand to his forehead and presses to try to keep back the headache he feels rushing on.
"What is that?" he chokes out.
Pam looks confused. He points at the ring on her fourth finger. It's small, but definitely, definitely there.
"Oh," she says. She at least has the grace to look a little chagrined. "Uh, that's the other thing I came here to tell you."
"You're engaged?" Ryan says. "We've only been divorced four months!"
"I know," Pam says. "I'm sorry."
"Oh my God," Ryan says, pressing harder on his forehead. "How on earth do you meet somebody, fall in love, and get engaged in four months?"
"Well, that's the third thing I came here to tell you," Pam says. Oh, God, a third thing. And she sounds tentative, kind of the way she used to talk when she was the receptionist at Dunder Mifflin Scranton, before they ever got together. "It's, um - well, I'm engaged to Jim Halpert, actually."
He really is going to throw up. He starts gesturing at her.
"What?" she says.
"Bring me the trashcan," Ryan gets out.
Pam looks alarmed and moves to pick it up. "Why?" she says.
"Because I'm going to puke," Ryan says.
Pam stops and lets out an annoyed sigh. "That's not funny."
"I'm serious," Ryan says. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe through his nose.
"You are not serious, and it's none of your business, anyway," Pam says. "I was just telling you to, I don't know, be nice."
"Nice?" Ryan says. "Jesus Christ. What would you have done if you were trying to be mean?"
"Well, I thought you should hear it from me before the wedding this weekend," Pam says.
"This weekend?!" Ryan says. What the fuck. What. The. Fuck.
"Yeah, sorry," Pam says. She half-opens the door to get to the water cooler outside his office, and brings him back a cup of water.
"Are you pregnant or something?" Ryan asks, taking the paper cone out of Pam's hand.
"Ryan!" Pam says.
"What?" he says, taking a sip. "Sorry, did I impugn your honor as a lady?"
"God," Pam says. "No, I'm not pregnant."
Well, that's a relief, anyway. Ryan drinks his water and tries to calm down.
"I just, uh, ran into Jim while I was in Scranton," she says. "We reconnected."
Ryan finishes the last of the water. "That's such bullshit," he says. "How can you possibly marry Jim Halpert in 2011?"
Pam sits down on the arm of one of the chairs. "Well," she says. "I don't know. I think maybe I've always been in love with him."
Oh God. "You have not," Ryan says. "Knock it off."
"How would you know?" Pam says, getting sort of mad and downright again, losing the calm, tentative voice. Thank God. Now she at least sounds like herself.
"Well, first of all," Ryan says. "You were in love with me for five years, not dickwad Jim Halpert. And second of all, if you were always in love with him, how come you didn't call him after he said he was in love with you, before we ever hooked up?" Which, he might add, is a very good question.
Pam looks a little unsure. "Well, I was going to," she says. "But then you...."
"Seduced you with my irresistible charm?"
"Ha, ha," she says.
"That's right, I didn't," Ryan says. "You were the one who kissed me first, remember?"
"Oh please," Pam says. "You were asking for it."
They're talking like they're mad at each other, but when she says that - which is absolutely true - he laughs, and once he laughs, she smiles, and the whole thing is sort of friendly, the easy familiarity of bickering like this. Suddenly he's looking at her and remembering the first time they slept together, how fun it was, how much they'd laughed.
"Stop it," Pam says.
"What?" Ryan says.
"Looking at me like that, you manipulative dorkwad. You know what you're doing."
"I'm not doing anything," Ryan says.
Pam rolls her eyes.
"Don't marry Jim Halpert," Ryan says. "It's been like a million years. You don't even know him anymore."
Pam just looks at him like she feels sorry for him. Ugh, it's agonizing, that pitying look, and ridiculous, because he's dead-on right about Jim. A lot changes in five years - Pam, for instance. She's got a career and a spine, now, and how can Jim Halpert deal with that? He was a pussy to begin with, and Ryan imagines he has stayed a pussy, and Pam deserves better than that.
"Well," Pam says, standing up and looking at her watch. "I have to go. I just thought I should tell you."
He can't think of anything to say that'll keep her from leaving, so instead, after the door to his office closes behind her, he puts his head down on his desk and wonders what Hunter would do if he hyperventilated. Probably very calmly give him a brown paper bag, and then tell him his messages while he breathed into it. It's like someone's taken his worst nightmares and made them into reality, and he really hopes this doesn't mean there are also giant spiders crawling up the side of the building to his office window. Though at least the spiders would put him out of his misery and he wouldn't have to see his wife marry Jim fucking Halpert.
He always worried that Jim would be why he and Pam would break up. So it was almost a relief that it didn't seem to be the reason for the divorce... or he hadn't thought it was. But, well, now he doesn't know. Because here's the thing: the documentary had finished filming right after Ryan and Pam's wedding, and the episodes had started airing six months later. It was a long running documentary, airing for over a year, and when Pam and Ryan watched it together, they laughed about how much the documentary clearly wanted Jim and Pam to get together. There were, like, articles in TV Guide about how Ryan was the devil, stealing Pam away like that. He and Pam had clipped them out, even, made a little scrapbook about how much America hated their wedding. Ryan still had it somewhere.
So they laughed about it, but the thing was, it was all airing right about the time Dunder Mifflin was doing so badly they were looking at shutting another branch down, and Ryan was routinely working sixteen hour days, sometimes getting home after Pam had gone to bed and leaving before she got up. And he knew she hated it - they'd have huge fights about how she never saw him, and how even when she did see him, he was always on his blackberry - but work was really, really important. Or it seemed like it was at the time. So Pam was home by herself a lot, angry at the husband she didn't see, watching a show basically about how much Jim Halpert was in love with her.
No wonder he came home from work one day and she was gone. And the day after that, she was still gone, and the next day, and the next. He still hasn't gotten used to it, either, so the apartment still seems really dark and empty all the time. It means he works later than he needs to, or goes out and gets plastered, and it just - it sucks. The only way he's been surviving is his apparently retarded conviction that he and Pam would get back together. And now it's over, there's nothing he can do. God, it sucks, it sucks.
Ryan sits back up and tries to get hold of himself. Nothing he can do? What is he, Jim Halpert? There probably is nothing he can do, but he's at least got to try to get Pam back before she marries that loser and ruins her life. His life. Whichever. Both. He just needs a good excuse to go down and break up the wedding.
Thinking about the documentary and how it may have ruined his life leads to the germ of an idea. He pushes the intercom button again. "Hunter?" he says. "Get me the documentary producers on the phone. Greg, if you can."
"Why?" Hunter says.
"You'll see," Ryan says.
**
Ryan pitches it to Greg as a reunion special, and once Greg finds out that Jim and Pam are getting married, it sure doesn't take much convincing to get him on board. Ryan's only caveat is that Greg not tell Jim and Pam that it was Ryan's idea to start with, which Greg agrees to pretty fast. He'd probably rather have people think it was his idea anyway.
Greg calls back the next day to tell Ryan that the project is go, and he seems pretty excited. "Boy," Greg says. "A reunion special. Like an epilogue. Jim and Pam together, after all that."
God, everyone wants Jim and Pam together but him. Ryan pinches the bridge of his nose. "Right," he says. "Very exciting for you."
Ryan decides it'll be a good time to combine winning Pam back with his semi-annual visit to the Scranton branch, so he takes Hunter and drives down on the Thursday before the wedding. He figures he might need Hunter for wedding-breaking-up related errands. Or something. Anyway, what can it hurt?
After a headache-inducing meeting at Scranton, where Michael Scott has inexplicably hung on to his job as regional manager, Ryan and Hunter head over to Pam's parents' house. They park on the side of the road, since the Beesly driveway is full of cars, one of them Greg's, another a florist's truck. Pam and Jim are getting married in the backyard, just like Pam and Ryan did, which Ryan thinks is a lot like adding insult to injury.
"Come on," Ryan says to Hunter, as they get out of the car. "They're probably around the back." He puts on his most confident walk and a casual expression, bracing himself as he turns the corner to see the yard set up almost the exact same way as it was for his own wedding. Worst déjà vu ever. Pam and her mom are standing in the middle of the aisle, talking to someone he doesn't know and pointing at the arch. The florist, he assumes. They seem to just be finishing up - the florist makes some notes and then heads back towards the driveway. Randall's filming everything from across the yard.
As Ryan walks towards Pam and her mom, Pam glances in his direction, then does a double take. She sighs. "Hey there," Ryan calls, smiling in a friendly way. Pam's mother smiles back. Pam just looks mildly annoyed.
"What are you doing here?" Pam says.
"You didn't think I'd miss your wedding, did you?" Ryan says. He turns to Pam's mom and kisses her on the cheek. "Hi, Mom."
"Oh, hello, Ryan," Pam's mom says. She looks a little uncertain how to react, glancing back and forth between him and Pam.
"I did, actually," Pam says. Ryan puts his hands in his pockets and looks at her like he can't think why she would've thought so. "You aren't invited," she says.
"Come on, Pam," he says. "I'm here for the reunion special, give me a break. I even took time off work."
"Alert the media," Pam mutters. "Hell has frozen over." Then she looks pointedly at Hunter. "You took time off, but brought your assistant?"
Hunter lifts one hand in a little wave. "Hi, Pam," he says.
"Well, I didn't give him the day off," Ryan says. "Anyway, I went over to the Scranton branch this morning."
Pam nods. "Yeah, that sounds more like you."
Ryan gives her a sharp look, and has to force himself to relax and not take the bait. She's not wrong about him working too much, after all. Instead he looks around at the yard. "Nice arrangement you have here," he says. "It's so natural, almost like you've set it up this way before."
"Ryan Howard," Pam starts, and he can hear that she's about to build up a good head of steam when she sees something past his shoulder and stops, relaxing. Suddenly she looks kind of happy.
Ryan turns around and sees Jim Halpert walking towards him. Fuck. He takes a deep breath and puts on his friendliest client smile. "Hey, Jim," he says. It's not that good an effort - there's a reason he never made a sale, and he suspects the smile is part of that reason. He holds out his hand to shake.
Jim does not look pleased to see him, so at least the feeling's mutual. "Hey Ryan," he says. Then he turns to Pam and whispers, not nearly quietly enough, "What is Ryan doing here?"
Pam rolls her eyes. "Reunion special." She doesn't even bother to try to keep her voice down.
"Oh, right," Jim says. Ryan's still holding his hand out, and out of the corner of his eye he can see that Randall's filming them.
Jim notices too, and quickly moves to shake Ryan's hand.
"So I guess congratulations are in order," Ryan says. "After all these years, achieving your life's ambition like this."
"My what?" Jim says.
"Your life's ambition," Ryan says. "Pam. Nice work there."
Pam gives Ryan a give-me-a-break look. Ryan shrugs at her. Jim looks between the two of them like he doesn't much like them communicating wordlessly like that. Too bad, buddy.
"So Jim," Ryan says, turning back to him. "What are you doing these days?"
"Um," Jim says, reluctantly turning to Ryan. "I'm a steel salesman. At Steel Technologies."
"Oh," Ryan says, nodding and raising his eyebrows at Pam. "A steel salesman. That's... awesome."
Jim looks like he's not sure whether or not Ryan's making fun of him. Pam looks like she's sure, and isn't happy about it. "Um, thanks," Jim says.
"So, you guys are going to live... ?" Ryan says.
"Here in Scranton," Jim supplies.
"In Scranton," Ryan says, trying to sound impressed. "Oh, that'll be nice. It's a great town."
Pam steps on his foot, hard. He tries not to wince. Just then the florist comes up again. "Now, I have some other ideas for the arch," she says to Pam. Pam looks at Ryan.
"Please, go ahead," Ryan says, sitting down on one of the folding chairs. "Pretend I'm not here."
Pam rolls her eyes at him, but starts talking to the florist about roses versus gardenias anyway.
"What do you think, Jim?" she says.
Jim shrugs. "I don't care. Whatever you want."
"Uh huh," Pam says, and Ryan sees a little flash of annoyance cross her face. Interesting. Jim puts his arm around her shoulders as she goes back to talking to the florist, rubbing his thumb against her bare arm, which Ryan knows must be annoying Pam. She always hated Ryan getting mushy when she was trying to concentrate on something else.
"Okay," Pam says, after she and the florist seem to finally have settled on roses. "So. Jim, you're picking up my grandma at the airport, right?"
"Right," Jim says.
"And Mom's talking to the caterer," Pam says. "And I need to go pick up my dress from the tailor."
Ryan wonders if she's gotten a car since she left New York.
"Oh, shoot," Jim says. "You don't have a car. Um. Maybe we could do it on the way to the airport?"
Pam looks at her watch. "We don't have time."
"Oh, I don't mind taking you," Ryan offers. "If you need transportation."
Pam looks at him. "Um," she says. "I don't know that that's a good idea."
Ryan shrugs, suit yourself.
Jim looks at his own watch. "Well," he says. "Your sister doesn't get into town until tonight, and your dad's busy, so I don't know how else you're going to get anywhere. Maybe going with Ryan would work."
Randall's filming the scene with great interest. Ryan looks at his fingernails, pretending he couldn't care less what she decides.
"Oh, don't put on that casual act," Pam says to him. "Fine, you can drive me."
Ryan smiles a little to himself. "You're welcome," he says.
"Yeah, sure, thanks a lot," Pam says. Somehow it doesn't sound that sincere.
Between Pam and Ryan in the front seats and Hunter and Randall in the back, it's a pretty full car. But even so, this is his chance to talk to her without Jim around, crowd or not, and he doesn't want to miss it.
"Look," he says, as he pulls away from the curb and heads towards Scranton proper. "I wanted to apologize, actually."
"Oh?" Pam says.
"Yeah," Ryan says. "I know I was a terrible husband, and I'm sorry about it." He stops at a stop sign for a beat, then turns left.
"Oh," Pam says.
In the backseat, Ryan can hear Hunter shifting uncomfortably. Well, too bad, he's had to hear a lot of uncomfortable things over the past four years, so he should be used to it by now.
"Well," Pam says. "Thanks, I guess."
"Yeah, I know, too little, too late," Ryan says. "Still." He merges onto I-80.
"You weren't that bad," Pam says. "Really."
Ryan glances over and smiles at her. "We had some good times."
"Yeah," Pam says. She looks thoughtful.
Ryan glances over his shoulder and changes lanes to pass a silver minivan that's going 55. "I worked too much, though," he says. "You were smart to get out of it."
Pam shifts in her seat, slouching a little bit more to get comfortable. "Mmm," she says.
Ryan can hear Hunter texting on his phone, the quick succession of quiet amelodic beeps. He's probably posting to his Twitter about what his annoying boss is making him do. Ryan tries to ignore it.
"So," Ryan says to Pam, after a few minutes. "How does the reality compare?"
"What reality?" Pam says.
"Jim," Ryan says. "How does the reality compare to the unreality?"
Pam's forehead is crinkled. "I'm not sure I follow you."
"Well," Ryan says. He's really aware of the camera on him. "I mean, you watched the whole documentary, and there was Jim, like, pining after you and being this hypothetical perfect boyfriend. And you were married to me and I was never home. And when I was home, sometimes I was cranky, and I probably didn't ever say the right things, and in comparison I... anyway. It doesn't matter. I was just wondering if the real Jim lives up to the Jim on the documentary."
"Oh," Pam says. She puts her feet up on the dashboard and starts to roll the window down. He knows it's to do that dorky thing she likes, pushing her hand through the air rushing by, moving it in dolphin patterns. It's very senior year of high school. "Well, nobody could live up to that," she says. "But Jim's pretty good. He really likes me."
An interesting answer, when you look at it. He's hoping the note of faint disappointment he hears isn't just his own wishful thinking.
"Well, there's a lot to like," Ryan says, raising his voice so she can hear him over the roaring air swooping by the window. He taps his thumbs against the steering wheel, and is conscious of Pam looking at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her knobby knees, sticking out from under the oranges and reds of her sundress. He glances over and smiles briefly.
Pam starts rolling the window back up, and when it finally closes the car seems really quiet all of a sudden, quiet like a blow, like his ears need to pop. "I wish you wouldn't do that," Pam says.
"What?" Ryan says.
"Be nice to me," Pam says. "It's unnerving."
Ryan shrugs. "Sorry," he says, and goes to turn the radio on. "What, are you not going to do the dolphin thing?"
Pam shrugs and tucks her hair behind her ears. "I'm a grown-up," she says. "I just forgot for a minute. I guess driving with you makes me feel more immature."
"Ha, ha," Ryan says. He flips stations until he finds one playing Nickelback, a song he knows she hates, and leaves it there. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her trying really hard not to react. She makes it through two full minutes before she cracks and changes the station.
**
4. Doggone it, C. K. Dexter Haven. Either I'm gonna sock you or you're gonna sock me.