mea culpa
title: mea culpa
pairing: jim, pam, jim/pam
rating: pg
summary: everything between them is marred by some kind of sadness now. post 3x18 cocktails.
notes: for
kasuchi, because we need 3x19 like, yesterday.
--
She can’t believe she told Roy.
It seems so stupid now, so reckless, and she’s starting to regret her new vow of honesty. There was a reason her past ways worked so well - not the least of which they preserved this secret she has, this secret she holds close to her heart. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe she’s tired of concealing her feelings, smothering herself with pain in an effort to spare everyone else.
The memory of Roy’s anger scares her though, and the thought that he had a right to know why she didn’t go through with their marriage does not lessen her guilt at all. She has no idea what he might do.
It was such a huge mistake.
She unbuttons her coat as she arrives at work that morning, and she sees Angela and Kelly give her furtive glances across the office. She looks away, busying her hands as she steps behind her desk, rearranging a few folders and stacking a few files, which were already arranged and stacked to begin with. She has to tell Jim. Every time she talks to him the pain in her stomach is new and fresh and unbearable all over again, and this will only intensify it a hundred times over, but she has to tell him. He’ll inevitably hear it from Kevin or Kelly or someone else if she doesn’t, and she thinks that might be even worse.
But when he walks in with his bag slung over his shoulder and his coat on one arm he’s with Karen, and she stays impossibly still in her chair. Her legs are frozen and her mouth is frozen and this isn’t the place to say anything. To make it worse, he offers her a smile as he hangs his things on the coat rack, and she smiles back, dimly. Everything between them is cautious and strained now. Everything is different, and she only has herself to blame.
She stays subdued, answering the phone with her usual, low ‘Dunder-Mifflin, this is Pam.’ She has considered putting a variation on it, but what would be the point? Deviating from routine never seems to help her anyway.
Her gaze slides over her computer every now and then, but Jim’s desk no longer faces her, so she can’t study him properly. Eventually she manages to get so caught up in the monotony of her day, she almost forgets the explosion that is coming. Almost.
She should tell him.
--
He thinks it’s probably his imagination, but Pam has been watching him strangely all day. And she’s not the only one. He considers asking someone, but he doesn’t really like drawing attention to whatever gossip is going on around him, so he ignores it. Michael is in rare, quiet form today, and everyone is taking advantage of it, getting their work done and keeping their heads down.
He finishes up his last sales call, and nods Karen ahead when she retrieves her things from her desk. For some reason, he’s happy to prolong his exit just a little bit longer. Stick around and do… nothing. Anything. Whatever. He taps his fingers vaguely on the keyboard, reluctantly shutting down his computer when the lights go off in the back.
Pam is still behind her desk, pulling on her bulky pink coat and winding her scarf around her neck. Her eyes slide up, feeling his stare, and he offers her a fleeting smile, pretending he isn’t unnerved by the expression on her face.
He steps over to retrieve his own coat, lifting a wry eyebrow. “So why is it that when Michael decides to be quiet for a change, the day goes on even longer than usual?”
Her mouth twitches as she circles the desk, pulling her hair out from under her scarf. “No entertainment?”
He snaps his fingers. “Right.”
He’s reminded of the days when waiting for them to walk out together was normal, and it makes him sad. Everything between them is marred by some kind of sadness now. Still, she falls into step beside him as they start for the elevator, and her shoulder bumps his, and he can almost pretend, for once, that everything is like it was.
The doors shudder closed in front of them, and he studies their distorted reflections as they start to go down. She glances briefly in his direction, wringing her hands around the strap of her bag.
“Hey, um, I have to tell you something.”
He looks at her, keeping his features carefully blank, because the tone of her voice is making him uneasy. “Okay.”
She frowns, looking down at her shoes. He wonders if she realises how much she changes when she’s with Roy, how far she retreats within herself. He wants to ask her why, but its none of his business, and even though the topic of dating and seeing people has become oddly frequent between the two of them lately, that one is still untouchable for him.
“I… uh… Okay.” She sighs. “You know how some of us went out for a drink at Poor Richards the other night?”
He nods slowly. “Yeah. Sure.”
The elevator opens again, admitting them to the bottom floor. They both climb out, and Pam pauses, waiting until they make it outside to speak. “I said something I probably… shouldn’t have.”
He frowns at her a little uncomprehendingly, mouth quirking vaguely. It’s a nervous habit he has, one he barely noticed until Karen pointed it out once. He has the uncomfortable feeling he isn’t going to like what he’s about to hear, but Pam looks both guilty and worried, so he prompts her forward. “What did you say?”
She opens her mouth, staring up at him earnestly. “I…”
“HALPERT!”
Jim jerks, surprised, when he hears Roy’s booming voice echo behind him. He turns around a second before Roy’s large, bulky hands twist in his shirt, and then slam him into the wall.
“Hey, whoa, calm down!”
He can freely admit that he has never wanted to get on Roy’s bad side. The guy is heavy set, definitely bigger than him, and working in the warehouse means he’s probably used to lifting things a lot heavier than him. Add in the beard and the red, angry face he has on right now, and he looks like a grizzly, ferocious heavy weight champ. One who could beat him to a pulp.
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down, you son-of-a-bitch. Not after what you did.”
“Roy!” Pam cries, eyes widening in horror. “Let go of him!”
Roy ignores her, glaring hatefully at Jim. “This is your fault. Everything. You’re a dead man, you hear me?”
Jim shifts awkwardly under his grasp, feeling his hot, angry breath strike his face. “I don’t know what you‘re talking about,” he says carefully, hating the way his voice rasps.
Roy scoffs, nodding his head at Pam. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
It clicks in his head, what Pam has been trying to tell him. He glances at her over Roy’s heaving shoulder, overcome by an exhaustion he hasn’t felt in a while. “You told him.”
Pam swallows, staring back at him fearfully.
“You’re damn right she told me!” Roy snaps. “All this time I was thinking there was something wrong with me, and it was you.”
“Roy!” Pam shouts, sounding entirely unlike herself, stepping up closer. “It wasn’t his fault. Let go of him!”
He can’t say he’s ever seen her like this. So angry and frustrated and tired. Her uncharacteristic outburst must have done something, because Roy releases him, letting him fall back unceremoniously into the wall. “What the hell does that mean?” he asks lowly.
Pam is silent, staring at him half-fearfully, half-defiantly, and Karen chooses that moment to run over. “What is going on?” she demands hotly. “I can hear you yelling all the way across the parking lot.”
Roy snorts, stepping back, staring at Jim with undisguised contempt. The rage seems to have drained out of him, leaving nothing but a quiet, tense kind of disgust in its wake. “Nothing,” he spits, shaking his head. “Your boy here just ruined my life.”
He gives her a look, backing towards the warehouse. “You should get out while you can.”
He turns, and his shadow is slowly swallowed up in the dim lights of the building.
Karen is silent, staring at the two of them like she’s slowly piecing together what just happened; he with his rumpled shirt, Pam with her carefully averted eyes. This has been bubbling under the surface for weeks now. They all know it, even if none of them are willing to talk about it.
“Is he right?” she says, after a moment, surprising him by staring at him point-blank. “Should I?”
Jim draws in a deep breath, allowing his gaze to briefly flicker over hers, before wavering over Pam. He feels such a heady combination of things right now, not the least of which is guilt. He hears the unsaid implication in her tone, and can’t deny it. Can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.
Karen purses her lips, nodding slowly. She turns, heels crunching in the gravel as she walks away, and he can tell she’s putting up a brave front. It’s the first time she’s really acknowledged the issue between them, the real issue, the one thing holding him back.
And it’s the one thing that stops him from calling her back now.
He swallows, glancing at Pam when he hears Karen’s car start up and her headlights illuminate the building. She closes her eyes, turning away slowly. “I think I should go,” she murmurs, striding past him.
He stands still, staring after both of them.
He should feel angry right now, or betrayed, but he doesn’t. It’s difficult to feel anything like that towards Pam, when she stares back at him with such a familiar level of pain reflected in her eyes.
As much as he tries to run away from this, it’s always there. He doesn’t want this choice to be thrust into his hands again, but it seems it is. And the problem is he knows what he wants, but that didn’t work out so great for him last time.
He wipes his hands vaguely on his slacks, turns, and makes a decision. He only hopes this time it’s the right one.
--
Her fingers tremble briefly as she slides her key into the lock, and she blames it on the cold, ready to climb in her car and retreat to her one-bedroom, one-kitchen, pseudo-sanctuary of an apartment.
“Pam.”
She glances up, slightly surprised to see that Jim has followed her. And that he’s staring at her with those soft, broken eyes of his, the ones that always make her want to turn back time. At least once, they had their friendship. That old, easy friendship, the one they could hide behind.
She’s tired. “Jim…”
He frowns slightly, eyes skittering down over the pavement. “Why did you decide to tell him now?”
She doesn’t want him to blame her. If he wants to go after Karen, he still can. “I… I don’t know. I guess I thought things could be different between us this time.” She shrugs self-deprecatingly. “I can’t believe I thought that.”
He’s still staring at her. “You don’t need him. You’ve never needed him, don’t you get that, Pam?”
She frowns, ignoring the level of intensity behind his words. He’s the kind of boy she would have liked to know in high school. The jokester, the quiet loud one, the one everyone liked. She blended into the walls, blurred behind Roy, and he would have brought her out. Lately she misses that. Misses his attention and encouragement. She doesn’t need his validation, but it’s a comfort. It makes her feel interesting. It makes her feel more.
She doesn’t want to feel that now.
“I don’t need you to tell me what I need,” she says quietly, lifting her chin. “You should go after Karen before it’s too late.”
He reaches forward, shutting her car door and standing carefully in front of it. “I don’t want to go after Karen.”
She stares up at him, saying nothing. In some ways, she has let herself suffer like this because she knows this is exactly how he felt, when she was with Roy. It seems like a worthy kind of penance, after the pain she must have caused him. But the pain is so raw and lonely sometimes it almost kills her. And she has tried and tried to revive at least a fraction of the happiness she had before everything changed between them, but nothing does it. Nothing.
“You don’t mean that.”
He sighs, reaching forward, dancing his fingers slowly along her jaw line. “Pam…“ He shakes his head, like he can’t help it, like it just is.
“It’s always been you, Beesley.”
She swallows, closing her eyes. In a way his voice is sad, tinged with a kind of regret she knows wouldn’t have been there if she had just said yes the first time. She feels his warm, soft breath caress her face a moment before his lips skim over hers. Softly and smoothly, just like she remembers. She lets her hands trail slowly over his shoulders, curling into his jacket, returning the kiss with a fervour she wouldn’t allow herself before. She needs him to feel it. Needs him to know how badly she’s missed him, how badly she wants him, how much she regrets what the last few months have been like.
He seems to get it, because he holds her more tightly, fingers sliding through her hair, and it’s so easy to forget Roy and Karen and the tension this will cause in the morning, because she finally has him.
When they break apart, she rests her chin on his shoulder, nestled firmly against him, and he keeps his arms closely around her. He touches her with such a gentle reverence she has to close her eyes. She has never felt so warm.
This is a change she can handle. This is good.
--