FIC: Cracks in Our Foundation by Maidenjedi (Pam/Roy), PG-13
TITLE: Cracks in Our Foundation
AUTHOR: Maidenjedi
FANDOM: The Office
RATING: PG-13
CATEGORY: Pam/Roy
SPOILERS: Seasons 1-3
DISCLAIMER: Not my characters, my concept, or my show. Damn it.
SUMMARY: Four times they almost broke up, and one time they did.
Title from "Foundations" by Kate Nash, which I discovered thanks to dashakay. Safe to say the song pushed this fic, though it was already waiting to be written and this is not a song-fic.
They almost broke up the summer after high school.
Pam had applied at a small school in West Virginia, which wasn't very far away, but that she couldn't drive back and forth from every day. She hadn't told a soul, not even her mom.
When she got the acceptance letter, it was a surprise to everyone. Her mom had opened it and squealed the way only very proud moms ever do. And Roy, who was helping Pam change the oil in her car out in the garage, heard every word of the ensuing conversation.
"When did you apply?"
"Two months ago."
"Did you see this, they want to offer you a scholarship!"
"Yeah, I know, I thought I'd apply for aid at the same time..."
And so on. Roy got mad because he was left out, and then he got mad all over again when Pam told him she intended to take the scholarship and leave him.
Well, she hadn't put it that way, but that's what Roy heard, and the fight that followed was epic. For a whole week, they couldn't even go for a walk without screaming at each other. Pam hung up on him three times, and he didn't try calling her back.
When Saturday night rolled around, Roy showed up at five like always, for dinner with her parents and then to take Pam to a movie. But Pam wasn't home, she and her mom had gone shopping, and Pam's brother just sort of shrugged as he told Roy. His face seemed to say, dude, just let it go, she's already gone.
It was two weeks later when Pam called to tell Roy she hadn't taken the scholarship, that she was staying right there, and did he maybe want to get a cherry Coke and go to the lake.
He hemmed and hawed, thinking about how that cheerleader Stacy Brumley had cornered him once in the locker room and gave him a blow job, and how he had that chick's number and he didn't need Pam, plain Pam with her B-cup tits, who wouldn't go down unless he bought her flowers and combed his hair and came to dinner on Saturdays.
But if Pam was staying, if she wasn't going to college and away from everything (from him), then he wanted her. She knew things about him, how he liked to be touched and where, and she'd stayed with him through the knee injury and helped him through his therapy. She wouldn't ever cheat on him.
And her mom did make really awesome lasagna.
She never did tell him she stayed because the scholarship fell through, and she couldn't afford to go. She let him believe it was because of him that she stayed.
---
They were 20 and 21 years old, and Pam's birthday was just around the corner, and Roy made a big deal about planning to take her out. They'd go to Philly and spend the night, he'd get a room, they'd paint the town red, whatever Pammy wanted. He even called the hotel and then later, as a surprise, he called and made reservations at some fancy Italian place Pam was always saying she'd love to go to.
The day before they were supposed to go, Roy decided to go hang out with the guys from work. It was happening more and more now that he was 21 and everyone they knew was inviting him out for drinks. Pam couldn't get into more than half those places without a fake I.D. and she never would get one because she thought it was lame and, secretly, dangerous. So Roy didn't see how what happened was something she could blame him for.
Roy's buddy from the mechanic's shop made a declaration early in the evening that everyone was single tonight. He was bitter, his girl had just left him for some college preppy, and he wanted his buddies to wallow with him. Roy and the others saw no problem with this plan. Roy called Pam at work (she was doing reception for a photography place for the summer, taking a couple of community college classes at night) to let her know. She reminded him not to stay out too late since they were leaving early in the morning, he told her he loved her and that was that.
Pam's coworker Melinda wanted to treat Pam to dinner as an early birthday present. So they went out and of course they got dessert and gossiped and giggled till the place closed down. You don't need to drink to have that kind of fun.
And of course Pam saw Roy through the window at some bar, and there was a girl in his lap and he had his hand up her shirt.
She didn't say a word to Roy the next day. She glowered, and she pouted, she did the passive-aggressive girl thing where she was clearly mad at him and he had no idea why. They fought almost as soon as the door to the hotel room was closed, and they missed their reservation, and Pam did not get to buy her first legal drink on her 21st birthday.
They broke up and it lasted all of 48 hours before Roy came to her door, swearing off booze and girls and holding a dozen red roses (picked up at 7-11, but roses are roses). He had planned to propose to her in Philadelphia on her birthday, and instead he did it on her parents' doorstep in his oil-stained work clothes.
---
"I was thinking about late September, when the leaves are starting to change colors..."
Pam was telling Melinda all about her wedding plans.
"I'm going to wear a big ballgown with lots of lace and have my hair up, of course, and I'll wear a veil, I have my mom's and it's in great shape, just needs a professional cleaning..."
Melinda was eating it up. She didn't much like Roy, but she liked Pam and she loved weddings.
"My something blue will be my garter and I'll have my grandmother's pearl necklace and earrings for my something old..."
Pam and Melinda spent their lunches like this, Melinda listening and Pam rattling off details about her wedding like it was actually planned and actually happening.
Well, it would be. Soon. Roy said they could set the date if he got the job at Dunder Mifflin. It was more pay than the mechanic's shop and if everyone was honest, Roy was a shitty mechanic anyway. Lifting boxes and hauling loads, now that was work he could do.
Pam was fine with this plan. They'd been engaged for nearly a year and everyone knew, but she was in no hurry since she wanted to take more classes at the community college. She was eight credits short of her associate's degree and she had saved up plenty of money for it. A few now, and a few more after they got married, and then she could look for better work and do something bigger, grander.
Roy didn't really get that, he thought she was happy being a receptionist at the photo place, but he was willing to indulge her if she paid for it.
But then Pam wrecked her car.
"It's going to cost me everything I have to fix it. Insurance won't cover it, they say since I rearended that guy it's my fault and I had liability only..."
This conversation was far different than the fantasy-wedding planning Pam had done with Melinda. And it didn't happen at work, because Pam broke her wrist in the accident and couldn't work for two weeks, and they had to replace her.
With Melinda.
They had lunch, Melinda's treat, and it was a "once more for old times' sake" kind of deal.
Everything was changing. Roy got the job at Dunder Mifflin and they had decided to move in together, since the wedding wouldn't be long in coming and all. Well, that was Pam's reasoning, anyway.
"And it's not like we haven't slept together, after all." She took a long sip of her frozen margarita and sighed a little as she reached for more chips and salsa. Chili's had great salsa.
They went apartment shopping in Scranton that weekend, and after the third one turned out to be just the right price, location, and size ("Baby Bear gets it right!" Pam's inner voice squeaked), they were on their way to sign a contract and put down the deposit. They could get the keys the next weekend and they celebrated by getting a motel room in Scranton even though it was only a half hour drive from her parents' place.
Of course, it was in the motel room that it happened. Pam wistfully said something about wanting to stay in a big, fancy hotel on their honeymoon.
"Not after that accident, Pam. We'll have to do something lower-key."
Her face fell. "Oh. Well. Maybe we could stay close and go to a bed and breakfast, then."
"Doubt it." He tried kissing her neck but she pushed him off.
"Are you just going to shoot down every idea I have, Roy?"
He rolled his eyes, pushed himself away from her and sighed, a resigned kind of noise that signalled to Pam she was pushing too hard.
She didn't care.
"Come to think of it, Roy, I think it's time we set a date."
"Not now, Pammy..."
"Don't call me Pammy!" She never snapped at him. Or, well, she rarely snapped at him. But never for that.
"You said we could after you got the job. And now we're moving here."
"We can't afford it, not with the apartment and having to pay for your car..."
"Oh, so it's my fault. You know, Roy, maybe we shouldn't bother getting married. Why don't I pawn this ring and pay off the car, and you can stay here in Scranton and I'll just...I'll just...."
"No!" He was panicking. She was serious. "Pam, we don't have the money to do what you want. I want to do what you want, I want it to be like you say it should be. But we can't afford it. I'd rather wait than do it on the cheap." He almost sounded sincere.
She almost believed him.
They were almost happy.
---
"Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam."
Day ten. Michael has stopped making "Pamela Anderson" jokes, for the time being, as he's too focused being pissed off at Toby for cancelling today's meeting on effective workplace dating. Apparently there'd never been a couple at the Scranton branch.
So said Jim, anyway.
"Hey, Beesly."
He was picking through the M&Ms she'd put on the counter. Leftovers from Halloween. She was still upset that living in an apartment meant fewer trick-or-treaters.
"Want to get lunch?" This was becoming a habit, apparently. If she said yes, it would be the fourth time since she started working here.
She transferred the extremely peeved-sounding woman on the line to Dwight and hung up the phone.
"Oh, so now you're paying attention to me." Jim smirked and his dimple showed. Pam pinched her thigh under the desk; she wasn't supposed to think things like that.
She was, after all, engaged.
"Well, Halpert, I'm very busy and important. You have to take a number."
"I see," he drawled. "Very busy with what?" He leaned over to take a peek at her computer screen, making her laugh and Angela shoot them a dirty look.
"Solitaire. Beesly, for shame. Didn't you know that the only approved time-waster in this establishment is Mindsweeper?"
"Hey Pammy." In walked Roy, cheeks ruddy from whatever work he'd been doing in the warehouse, and Jim backed away from the desk as though there had never been a conversation.
"Hi Roy." She was happy to see him. Sort of.
"Looks like I might be able to get out of here for lunch today. Wanna come? We can go to Poor Richard's and get wings. Game four is on, too, I want to see who's winning." The World Series had been an obsession of Roy's for years, but like with most sports other than college football, he didn't particularly care any time of year other than during the championships.
Pam, however, liked baseball only if the Phillies were playing and since they weren't, it didn't appeal to her at all.
Neither did wings and a lunchtime beer.
"Um, well, I'm kinda swamped. Lots going on today and I think Michael may need me to, um, do some shredding and sit in on a conference call." All true, really, except she did the shredding every day at 4 and the conference call was tomorrow.
Roy shrugged. "Okay, babe, your loss. Darryl will probably come with. You okay, you need cash or anything to get a snack?" He wasn't all bad, after all, she thought.
"Nah, I'm good." She pointed to her purse, where there was a PowerBar sticking out of the side pocket.
"'Kay. See ya later."
"Mmm-hmm."
He left, off to lunch, and Pam sighed. She didn't know why she declined, actually. It wasn't often that he wanted to go out with her these days, even just for a meal, even just to Poor Richard's. His brother Kenny had moved into their complex and he'd made friends with the guys downstairs. The old routine took hold and while she knew she could trust him not to try picking up chicks when he was drunk anymore (she knew that, she did), she also had no desire to join him. It was a two-way street really.
"Beesly?" Jim's voice. "You really going to eat just a PowerBar for lunch?" He was smiling down at her.
Just like that, she was starving and thoughts of Roy fled her mind. They went to Cugino's and it wasn't like a date at all, except that Jim paid and Pam blushed a lot.
Word around the office was that Jim had a thing for Pam. And it was a topic of discussion in the lunch room. No way, said Kevin, she doesn't even have good breasts. Of course he does, who wouldn't, said Oscar, uncomfortable, digging into his salad and hoping this conversation would die out. Angela stated loudly that it didn't matter, workplace romances were for sluts and deviants, and she scowled when Dwight said he had to agree, because she hated it when he agreed with her.
Kelly was saying her piece about it (about how cute they would be together and how she'd always known Jim would go for the shy quiet type and how Pam needed to wear brighter colors and do something with her hair or Jim would never notice her) when Michael walked in and asked why Pam wasn't at the front desk. Meredith chimed in that she and Jim had gone out to lunch and Michael said okay, but then his usual curiosity got the better of him.
"Is it a date?"
"Who cares?" Angela, practically growling her disapproval of this whole business.
"It might be." Phyllis, taking this position to annoy Angela.
"Guys, she's engaged." Toby, the note of despair hidden by how quiet he was when he said it.
"She's engaged?" This was Kevin. Slow on the uptake.
"Yeah, she is."
Roy.
Who had heard most of this when he came in and couldn't find Pam and had thought maybe she'd be in the lunchroom.
The rest of the day, everyone was quiet around the office. Jim and Pam came back within their alloted lunch break, so Dwight couldn't report them to Michael, and they were acting as if it had been, in fact, just a casual lunch between friends. Unless you looked closely and saw Jim's unending grin and Pam's occasional, unconscious blushes. But no one looked closely, and they all had to sit through Michael's workplace romance seminar anyway because Toby was completely ineffectual in stopping Michael Scott from doing what he wanted to do. Michael managed to embarrass himself and possibly Stanley with a few choice remarks, and he talked a lot about Pam and Roy and didn't once refer to the lunch between Jim and Pam.
Roy came to get Pam after work and he paid close attention to the way Pam waved a little at Jim, how he waved back, and how that good-for-nothing preppy Halpert had then blown a kiss at Pam's back, not realizing Roy saw or maybe not caring.
"Where's your ring?" Roy watched Pam point the vents toward herself, trying to soak up the scant heat.
"What? Oh," she looked at her hand, rubbing her finger. "I took it off to wash my hands earlier. It's in my pocket." She wriggled in the seat and managed to fish it out, and put it on. "See? Better?"
He didn't respond, and they drove home in silence. Roy got out first, slammed the door, walked up the two flights to their apartment. Pam sat in the car a moment longer, truly puzzled. What was with him?
Before she'd even taken off her jacket, he was yelling at her. About how she'd always tried to get away from him, how they were engaged damnit, how Halpert was good-for-nothing and couldn't Pammy see that all his type wanted was sex and Roy was giving her a home, and it started to sound a lot like Roy's father when he thought Roy's mom was cheating. Which she never was, but she was hot even at her age and everyone knew she could have what she wanted if she tried for it.
No one stopped to think they were together because she loved him.
All of this was running through Pam's head as she tried to decipher what had set him off.
But it was lunch, of course it was lunch, and he was hoarse now and Pam thought about Jim's dimple and how he'd let her eat the fries off his plate.
She said nothing and Roy grabbed his coat and keys again, and walked out the door.
Pam felt like he might never come back. She started to fantasize about it. She got on their computer and played around with a budget based on her salary. She flipped through the Scranton Community College brochure that had come in the mail, thinking about being six credits shy and having no money.
Her ring caught her eye then, and Roy did come back, smelling of whiskey, just before dawn.
She didn't have lunch with Jim again for six months, and then only if Oscar or Toby or Phyllis came, too.
---
"It's over."
The words echoed in their apartment. In the years they'd lived in it, they talked occasionally about buying better furniture or decorating a little, and there were corners that had been. Pam's doing, little paintings in cheap frames from Wal-Mart and curtains she'd made, collages of Christmas cards and a stand with a vase of silk flowers.
In the front closet, there was a stack of unopened wedding gifts. They now called from the other side of the door, screaming like trapped children in a basement. Pam wanted to put her hands over her ears.
Roy stood there in front of her, his jaw slack and his eyes staring, her statement not quite sinking in.
"Whaddya mean, Pammy?"
Her face colored and she clenched her fists. "It's over, Roy. I...I don't want to marry you." She said this in a rush, like she might lose her nerve, and then she winced, probably because she didn't like the way it sounded but also because a tiny part of her was afraid of his reaction.
Which was, contrary to popular expectation, very calm.
"Don't want to get married."
"No." She shook her head.
"Okay. Well. We don't have to. We can just live together." He nodded, now in denial or feigning it. "We can skip the frills and the expense and...."
"No, Roy. We're...no. I'm breaking up with you."
She didn't expect him to cry, and he didn't (not in front of her). She also expected that she would, and she didn't (not in front of him).
But she didn't expect a resigned, "okay, I saw this coming" sigh, either.
"Pam, are you sure? Your mom, my mom, they've been planning and there's just one week to go, we'd have to make all those calls..."
He was trying to manipulate her, but it was half-hearted and when he saw the look on her face, he sighed once more.
"Okay, Pam." He rubbed his face, sat on the couch, looked up at her. "What now?"
She told him she had an apartment, that she was moving out, and that she would make the calls. He accepted this. She left, he went out for a beer, and she was settling in to her first Friday night in her new place a few days later when the shit hit the fan.
He came to her apartment, drunk and banging on the door. It was a delayed reaction, but it was as violent as it was going to get (and Roy wasn't really a violent person - his size fooled a lot of people). She didn't let him in, and he yelled and fell backwards on his ass, and some college-aged chick in the parking lot saw him and laughed.
"Pammy, why?"
"Don't call me that, Roy."
"You used to like it."
"No, I didn't."
"You used to like me."
A pause. "I did. I do. But I don't love you."
"Why?" came his petulant reply.
"I haven't, Roy, not for a long time."
"Was it him?" He spat out the name. "Halpert?"
"What? No, no, Roy, it was us, it was always just about us." She would think about that answer later, when she realized Jim wasn't ever coming back, and she would regret it and want to call Roy and tell him yes, it was about Jim. A little bit.
But it was mostly about not having any ambition. How Roy had made her comfortable in forgetting about the things she wanted to do. It was about art school and it was about having a wedding two years ago when she still wanted it. It was about the drunken fights and Kenny always sleeping on their floor, it was about having more guys' nights than date nights, it was about catching him feeling up a strange girl the night before her 21st birthday.
It was about wanting to find out if she was missing anything, and it was about already being sure that she had.
She sat next to him, took his hand.
"Roy, it can't work. Not anymore. You're happy with things just as they are. I want different things, and I need to know, I need to find out who I am."
"I just wanted you, Pammy. That's all."
She couldn't be mad at him that time. She smiled wanly.
"You wanted me as I was when I was sixteen. You didn't want me as I am now."
And that was a bit of bullshit, because she knew that sixteen-year-old Pam had never really gotten older, had just stayed the same, and she wasn't yet sure if she could break it all to pieces and be a different Pam.
She wanted to try.
Roy nodded. "Yeah. Maybe. But Pam, I love you. Come back."
She stood up, offered him a hand for leverage, and they managed not to fall back down. Barely.
"No, Roy. Good night."
She went inside and closed the door.
Roy stood there for only a moment. His head and his ass hurt, and drunkenness was giving way to feeling kind of sick. He left, vowing on some level to win her back but resigning himself to losing her at the same time.
It was over.
------------
THE END
AUTHOR: Maidenjedi
FANDOM: The Office
RATING: PG-13
CATEGORY: Pam/Roy
SPOILERS: Seasons 1-3
DISCLAIMER: Not my characters, my concept, or my show. Damn it.
SUMMARY: Four times they almost broke up, and one time they did.
Title from "Foundations" by Kate Nash, which I discovered thanks to dashakay. Safe to say the song pushed this fic, though it was already waiting to be written and this is not a song-fic.
They almost broke up the summer after high school.
Pam had applied at a small school in West Virginia, which wasn't very far away, but that she couldn't drive back and forth from every day. She hadn't told a soul, not even her mom.
When she got the acceptance letter, it was a surprise to everyone. Her mom had opened it and squealed the way only very proud moms ever do. And Roy, who was helping Pam change the oil in her car out in the garage, heard every word of the ensuing conversation.
"When did you apply?"
"Two months ago."
"Did you see this, they want to offer you a scholarship!"
"Yeah, I know, I thought I'd apply for aid at the same time..."
And so on. Roy got mad because he was left out, and then he got mad all over again when Pam told him she intended to take the scholarship and leave him.
Well, she hadn't put it that way, but that's what Roy heard, and the fight that followed was epic. For a whole week, they couldn't even go for a walk without screaming at each other. Pam hung up on him three times, and he didn't try calling her back.
When Saturday night rolled around, Roy showed up at five like always, for dinner with her parents and then to take Pam to a movie. But Pam wasn't home, she and her mom had gone shopping, and Pam's brother just sort of shrugged as he told Roy. His face seemed to say, dude, just let it go, she's already gone.
It was two weeks later when Pam called to tell Roy she hadn't taken the scholarship, that she was staying right there, and did he maybe want to get a cherry Coke and go to the lake.
He hemmed and hawed, thinking about how that cheerleader Stacy Brumley had cornered him once in the locker room and gave him a blow job, and how he had that chick's number and he didn't need Pam, plain Pam with her B-cup tits, who wouldn't go down unless he bought her flowers and combed his hair and came to dinner on Saturdays.
But if Pam was staying, if she wasn't going to college and away from everything (from him), then he wanted her. She knew things about him, how he liked to be touched and where, and she'd stayed with him through the knee injury and helped him through his therapy. She wouldn't ever cheat on him.
And her mom did make really awesome lasagna.
She never did tell him she stayed because the scholarship fell through, and she couldn't afford to go. She let him believe it was because of him that she stayed.
---
They were 20 and 21 years old, and Pam's birthday was just around the corner, and Roy made a big deal about planning to take her out. They'd go to Philly and spend the night, he'd get a room, they'd paint the town red, whatever Pammy wanted. He even called the hotel and then later, as a surprise, he called and made reservations at some fancy Italian place Pam was always saying she'd love to go to.
The day before they were supposed to go, Roy decided to go hang out with the guys from work. It was happening more and more now that he was 21 and everyone they knew was inviting him out for drinks. Pam couldn't get into more than half those places without a fake I.D. and she never would get one because she thought it was lame and, secretly, dangerous. So Roy didn't see how what happened was something she could blame him for.
Roy's buddy from the mechanic's shop made a declaration early in the evening that everyone was single tonight. He was bitter, his girl had just left him for some college preppy, and he wanted his buddies to wallow with him. Roy and the others saw no problem with this plan. Roy called Pam at work (she was doing reception for a photography place for the summer, taking a couple of community college classes at night) to let her know. She reminded him not to stay out too late since they were leaving early in the morning, he told her he loved her and that was that.
Pam's coworker Melinda wanted to treat Pam to dinner as an early birthday present. So they went out and of course they got dessert and gossiped and giggled till the place closed down. You don't need to drink to have that kind of fun.
And of course Pam saw Roy through the window at some bar, and there was a girl in his lap and he had his hand up her shirt.
She didn't say a word to Roy the next day. She glowered, and she pouted, she did the passive-aggressive girl thing where she was clearly mad at him and he had no idea why. They fought almost as soon as the door to the hotel room was closed, and they missed their reservation, and Pam did not get to buy her first legal drink on her 21st birthday.
They broke up and it lasted all of 48 hours before Roy came to her door, swearing off booze and girls and holding a dozen red roses (picked up at 7-11, but roses are roses). He had planned to propose to her in Philadelphia on her birthday, and instead he did it on her parents' doorstep in his oil-stained work clothes.
---
"I was thinking about late September, when the leaves are starting to change colors..."
Pam was telling Melinda all about her wedding plans.
"I'm going to wear a big ballgown with lots of lace and have my hair up, of course, and I'll wear a veil, I have my mom's and it's in great shape, just needs a professional cleaning..."
Melinda was eating it up. She didn't much like Roy, but she liked Pam and she loved weddings.
"My something blue will be my garter and I'll have my grandmother's pearl necklace and earrings for my something old..."
Pam and Melinda spent their lunches like this, Melinda listening and Pam rattling off details about her wedding like it was actually planned and actually happening.
Well, it would be. Soon. Roy said they could set the date if he got the job at Dunder Mifflin. It was more pay than the mechanic's shop and if everyone was honest, Roy was a shitty mechanic anyway. Lifting boxes and hauling loads, now that was work he could do.
Pam was fine with this plan. They'd been engaged for nearly a year and everyone knew, but she was in no hurry since she wanted to take more classes at the community college. She was eight credits short of her associate's degree and she had saved up plenty of money for it. A few now, and a few more after they got married, and then she could look for better work and do something bigger, grander.
Roy didn't really get that, he thought she was happy being a receptionist at the photo place, but he was willing to indulge her if she paid for it.
But then Pam wrecked her car.
"It's going to cost me everything I have to fix it. Insurance won't cover it, they say since I rearended that guy it's my fault and I had liability only..."
This conversation was far different than the fantasy-wedding planning Pam had done with Melinda. And it didn't happen at work, because Pam broke her wrist in the accident and couldn't work for two weeks, and they had to replace her.
With Melinda.
They had lunch, Melinda's treat, and it was a "once more for old times' sake" kind of deal.
Everything was changing. Roy got the job at Dunder Mifflin and they had decided to move in together, since the wedding wouldn't be long in coming and all. Well, that was Pam's reasoning, anyway.
"And it's not like we haven't slept together, after all." She took a long sip of her frozen margarita and sighed a little as she reached for more chips and salsa. Chili's had great salsa.
They went apartment shopping in Scranton that weekend, and after the third one turned out to be just the right price, location, and size ("Baby Bear gets it right!" Pam's inner voice squeaked), they were on their way to sign a contract and put down the deposit. They could get the keys the next weekend and they celebrated by getting a motel room in Scranton even though it was only a half hour drive from her parents' place.
Of course, it was in the motel room that it happened. Pam wistfully said something about wanting to stay in a big, fancy hotel on their honeymoon.
"Not after that accident, Pam. We'll have to do something lower-key."
Her face fell. "Oh. Well. Maybe we could stay close and go to a bed and breakfast, then."
"Doubt it." He tried kissing her neck but she pushed him off.
"Are you just going to shoot down every idea I have, Roy?"
He rolled his eyes, pushed himself away from her and sighed, a resigned kind of noise that signalled to Pam she was pushing too hard.
She didn't care.
"Come to think of it, Roy, I think it's time we set a date."
"Not now, Pammy..."
"Don't call me Pammy!" She never snapped at him. Or, well, she rarely snapped at him. But never for that.
"You said we could after you got the job. And now we're moving here."
"We can't afford it, not with the apartment and having to pay for your car..."
"Oh, so it's my fault. You know, Roy, maybe we shouldn't bother getting married. Why don't I pawn this ring and pay off the car, and you can stay here in Scranton and I'll just...I'll just...."
"No!" He was panicking. She was serious. "Pam, we don't have the money to do what you want. I want to do what you want, I want it to be like you say it should be. But we can't afford it. I'd rather wait than do it on the cheap." He almost sounded sincere.
She almost believed him.
They were almost happy.
---
"Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam."
Day ten. Michael has stopped making "Pamela Anderson" jokes, for the time being, as he's too focused being pissed off at Toby for cancelling today's meeting on effective workplace dating. Apparently there'd never been a couple at the Scranton branch.
So said Jim, anyway.
"Hey, Beesly."
He was picking through the M&Ms she'd put on the counter. Leftovers from Halloween. She was still upset that living in an apartment meant fewer trick-or-treaters.
"Want to get lunch?" This was becoming a habit, apparently. If she said yes, it would be the fourth time since she started working here.
She transferred the extremely peeved-sounding woman on the line to Dwight and hung up the phone.
"Oh, so now you're paying attention to me." Jim smirked and his dimple showed. Pam pinched her thigh under the desk; she wasn't supposed to think things like that.
She was, after all, engaged.
"Well, Halpert, I'm very busy and important. You have to take a number."
"I see," he drawled. "Very busy with what?" He leaned over to take a peek at her computer screen, making her laugh and Angela shoot them a dirty look.
"Solitaire. Beesly, for shame. Didn't you know that the only approved time-waster in this establishment is Mindsweeper?"
"Hey Pammy." In walked Roy, cheeks ruddy from whatever work he'd been doing in the warehouse, and Jim backed away from the desk as though there had never been a conversation.
"Hi Roy." She was happy to see him. Sort of.
"Looks like I might be able to get out of here for lunch today. Wanna come? We can go to Poor Richard's and get wings. Game four is on, too, I want to see who's winning." The World Series had been an obsession of Roy's for years, but like with most sports other than college football, he didn't particularly care any time of year other than during the championships.
Pam, however, liked baseball only if the Phillies were playing and since they weren't, it didn't appeal to her at all.
Neither did wings and a lunchtime beer.
"Um, well, I'm kinda swamped. Lots going on today and I think Michael may need me to, um, do some shredding and sit in on a conference call." All true, really, except she did the shredding every day at 4 and the conference call was tomorrow.
Roy shrugged. "Okay, babe, your loss. Darryl will probably come with. You okay, you need cash or anything to get a snack?" He wasn't all bad, after all, she thought.
"Nah, I'm good." She pointed to her purse, where there was a PowerBar sticking out of the side pocket.
"'Kay. See ya later."
"Mmm-hmm."
He left, off to lunch, and Pam sighed. She didn't know why she declined, actually. It wasn't often that he wanted to go out with her these days, even just for a meal, even just to Poor Richard's. His brother Kenny had moved into their complex and he'd made friends with the guys downstairs. The old routine took hold and while she knew she could trust him not to try picking up chicks when he was drunk anymore (she knew that, she did), she also had no desire to join him. It was a two-way street really.
"Beesly?" Jim's voice. "You really going to eat just a PowerBar for lunch?" He was smiling down at her.
Just like that, she was starving and thoughts of Roy fled her mind. They went to Cugino's and it wasn't like a date at all, except that Jim paid and Pam blushed a lot.
Word around the office was that Jim had a thing for Pam. And it was a topic of discussion in the lunch room. No way, said Kevin, she doesn't even have good breasts. Of course he does, who wouldn't, said Oscar, uncomfortable, digging into his salad and hoping this conversation would die out. Angela stated loudly that it didn't matter, workplace romances were for sluts and deviants, and she scowled when Dwight said he had to agree, because she hated it when he agreed with her.
Kelly was saying her piece about it (about how cute they would be together and how she'd always known Jim would go for the shy quiet type and how Pam needed to wear brighter colors and do something with her hair or Jim would never notice her) when Michael walked in and asked why Pam wasn't at the front desk. Meredith chimed in that she and Jim had gone out to lunch and Michael said okay, but then his usual curiosity got the better of him.
"Is it a date?"
"Who cares?" Angela, practically growling her disapproval of this whole business.
"It might be." Phyllis, taking this position to annoy Angela.
"Guys, she's engaged." Toby, the note of despair hidden by how quiet he was when he said it.
"She's engaged?" This was Kevin. Slow on the uptake.
"Yeah, she is."
Roy.
Who had heard most of this when he came in and couldn't find Pam and had thought maybe she'd be in the lunchroom.
The rest of the day, everyone was quiet around the office. Jim and Pam came back within their alloted lunch break, so Dwight couldn't report them to Michael, and they were acting as if it had been, in fact, just a casual lunch between friends. Unless you looked closely and saw Jim's unending grin and Pam's occasional, unconscious blushes. But no one looked closely, and they all had to sit through Michael's workplace romance seminar anyway because Toby was completely ineffectual in stopping Michael Scott from doing what he wanted to do. Michael managed to embarrass himself and possibly Stanley with a few choice remarks, and he talked a lot about Pam and Roy and didn't once refer to the lunch between Jim and Pam.
Roy came to get Pam after work and he paid close attention to the way Pam waved a little at Jim, how he waved back, and how that good-for-nothing preppy Halpert had then blown a kiss at Pam's back, not realizing Roy saw or maybe not caring.
"Where's your ring?" Roy watched Pam point the vents toward herself, trying to soak up the scant heat.
"What? Oh," she looked at her hand, rubbing her finger. "I took it off to wash my hands earlier. It's in my pocket." She wriggled in the seat and managed to fish it out, and put it on. "See? Better?"
He didn't respond, and they drove home in silence. Roy got out first, slammed the door, walked up the two flights to their apartment. Pam sat in the car a moment longer, truly puzzled. What was with him?
Before she'd even taken off her jacket, he was yelling at her. About how she'd always tried to get away from him, how they were engaged damnit, how Halpert was good-for-nothing and couldn't Pammy see that all his type wanted was sex and Roy was giving her a home, and it started to sound a lot like Roy's father when he thought Roy's mom was cheating. Which she never was, but she was hot even at her age and everyone knew she could have what she wanted if she tried for it.
No one stopped to think they were together because she loved him.
All of this was running through Pam's head as she tried to decipher what had set him off.
But it was lunch, of course it was lunch, and he was hoarse now and Pam thought about Jim's dimple and how he'd let her eat the fries off his plate.
She said nothing and Roy grabbed his coat and keys again, and walked out the door.
Pam felt like he might never come back. She started to fantasize about it. She got on their computer and played around with a budget based on her salary. She flipped through the Scranton Community College brochure that had come in the mail, thinking about being six credits shy and having no money.
Her ring caught her eye then, and Roy did come back, smelling of whiskey, just before dawn.
She didn't have lunch with Jim again for six months, and then only if Oscar or Toby or Phyllis came, too.
---
"It's over."
The words echoed in their apartment. In the years they'd lived in it, they talked occasionally about buying better furniture or decorating a little, and there were corners that had been. Pam's doing, little paintings in cheap frames from Wal-Mart and curtains she'd made, collages of Christmas cards and a stand with a vase of silk flowers.
In the front closet, there was a stack of unopened wedding gifts. They now called from the other side of the door, screaming like trapped children in a basement. Pam wanted to put her hands over her ears.
Roy stood there in front of her, his jaw slack and his eyes staring, her statement not quite sinking in.
"Whaddya mean, Pammy?"
Her face colored and she clenched her fists. "It's over, Roy. I...I don't want to marry you." She said this in a rush, like she might lose her nerve, and then she winced, probably because she didn't like the way it sounded but also because a tiny part of her was afraid of his reaction.
Which was, contrary to popular expectation, very calm.
"Don't want to get married."
"No." She shook her head.
"Okay. Well. We don't have to. We can just live together." He nodded, now in denial or feigning it. "We can skip the frills and the expense and...."
"No, Roy. We're...no. I'm breaking up with you."
She didn't expect him to cry, and he didn't (not in front of her). She also expected that she would, and she didn't (not in front of him).
But she didn't expect a resigned, "okay, I saw this coming" sigh, either.
"Pam, are you sure? Your mom, my mom, they've been planning and there's just one week to go, we'd have to make all those calls..."
He was trying to manipulate her, but it was half-hearted and when he saw the look on her face, he sighed once more.
"Okay, Pam." He rubbed his face, sat on the couch, looked up at her. "What now?"
She told him she had an apartment, that she was moving out, and that she would make the calls. He accepted this. She left, he went out for a beer, and she was settling in to her first Friday night in her new place a few days later when the shit hit the fan.
He came to her apartment, drunk and banging on the door. It was a delayed reaction, but it was as violent as it was going to get (and Roy wasn't really a violent person - his size fooled a lot of people). She didn't let him in, and he yelled and fell backwards on his ass, and some college-aged chick in the parking lot saw him and laughed.
"Pammy, why?"
"Don't call me that, Roy."
"You used to like it."
"No, I didn't."
"You used to like me."
A pause. "I did. I do. But I don't love you."
"Why?" came his petulant reply.
"I haven't, Roy, not for a long time."
"Was it him?" He spat out the name. "Halpert?"
"What? No, no, Roy, it was us, it was always just about us." She would think about that answer later, when she realized Jim wasn't ever coming back, and she would regret it and want to call Roy and tell him yes, it was about Jim. A little bit.
But it was mostly about not having any ambition. How Roy had made her comfortable in forgetting about the things she wanted to do. It was about art school and it was about having a wedding two years ago when she still wanted it. It was about the drunken fights and Kenny always sleeping on their floor, it was about having more guys' nights than date nights, it was about catching him feeling up a strange girl the night before her 21st birthday.
It was about wanting to find out if she was missing anything, and it was about already being sure that she had.
She sat next to him, took his hand.
"Roy, it can't work. Not anymore. You're happy with things just as they are. I want different things, and I need to know, I need to find out who I am."
"I just wanted you, Pammy. That's all."
She couldn't be mad at him that time. She smiled wanly.
"You wanted me as I was when I was sixteen. You didn't want me as I am now."
And that was a bit of bullshit, because she knew that sixteen-year-old Pam had never really gotten older, had just stayed the same, and she wasn't yet sure if she could break it all to pieces and be a different Pam.
She wanted to try.
Roy nodded. "Yeah. Maybe. But Pam, I love you. Come back."
She stood up, offered him a hand for leverage, and they managed not to fall back down. Barely.
"No, Roy. Good night."
She went inside and closed the door.
Roy stood there for only a moment. His head and his ass hurt, and drunkenness was giving way to feeling kind of sick. He left, vowing on some level to win her back but resigning himself to losing her at the same time.
It was over.
------------
THE END