FIC: Flickering on the Horizon, The Office, Pam/Roy
Title: Flickering on the Horizon
Pairing: Pam/Roy
Rating: PG
Note: Title is Aqualung's. This Office is NBC's. This was written for Festschrift. Set pre-series.
The day is over. Pam made it through. It’s done. She made it through and now it stops. It has to.
The day is over and there’s no reason for her to still be sitting on a closed toilet, staring at the back of the stall door. She made it through, she was fine, and now it’s time for her to leave. She has to go home.
Pam has never expected anything like this to happen to her. This isn’t what happens; this isn’t how it goes. This is not how her life goes. This is not happening.
“Pam?” Suzanne’s voice echoes around the bathroom. “We’re leaving for the bar now. Are you coming?”
“Sorry, Suze,” Pam says. “I’m not feeling very well. I called Roy to come pick me up, I’m just going to go home.”
Suzanne is silent for a minute. “Okay,” she says. “I hope you’re feeling better tomorrow. I’ll call you if you’re not in.”
“Thanks.”
Pam listens to the bathroom door swing shut behind Suzanne and the silence settle in. She doesn’t move for a long time. Eventually her brain kicks back in, wants to know what the hell she thinks she’s doing. She doesn’t have an answer and she’s frustrated enough to leave the toilet cubicle and glare at herself in the mirror.
“You are not stupid,” she informs herself. “You are not doing this. You are not ignoring this. You are--” Her voice cracks. She takes a breath. “You are not--” She has no idea.
*
When she gets home her mom’s waiting for her.
“Hey, sweetheart,” she says. There‘s meatloaf on the counter. “I wasn’t expecting you. I thought you were going out after work.”
Pam wants to be going out. She wants her mother’s meatloaf. “I wasn’t feeling well.”
Her mother clucks and comforts. The meatloaf is still warm. Roy doesn’t call.
When she’s in bed, later, she pulls out her phone and lets her fingers play over the numbers. She wants to talk to him. She has no idea what to say. This isn’t what she wants, she’s too young, she kind of likes her job, they’ve been engaged for too long.
She can’t-- Things were okay, she thinks. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know what this is.
She dials the number anyway. She doesn’t get Roy. Someone else answers, a slurred male voice with the raucous noise of a party in the background. She hangs up.
*
It takes her another five days to tell anyone. The looks she’s been getting from the other secretaries are getting harder to ignore, so she takes the plunge and tells her mother.
Her mother freaks.
Pam should have been expecting it, maybe, but she hadn’t been. She’d known it was a possibility, had considered it herself, but she hadn’t expected her mother to--
Her mother wants her to have an abortion.
These things don’t happen to Pam. This isn’t happening; it can’t be.
She sits quietly, listens while her mother says sensible things, offers Pam a strained smile and cares and worries.
But Pam isn’t too young, not really. She can do this--she might be able to do this. She might.
*
Two nights after that Roy picks her up from work and they head to a bar together. She’s never been here before and it’s not really her kind of place, but it’s Friday night and the place she usually goes will be full of the girls from work. She couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. She doesn’t suppose it really matters, but she can’t help looking at the dirty rugs, the chipped tables in the too-low light. She needs something to look at.
She can’t look at Roy. He’s annoyed with her. She’s been avoiding him all week, trying to make a decision, trying to think of something to say to him, some perfect phrasing that would make this all make sense.
She can’t look at him even as she tells him.
And then she has to, can’t look away, because he grabs her hands and squeezes so tightly it hurts and smiles so brightly she can’t believe it.
Her heart stops. She smiles back, hugs him back, and has no idea what any of it means.
*
They move in together the next week. Roy finds a place through one of the guys from his work. It’s nice enough. A little small maybe, but it’s their first apartment and it’s nothing to complain about.
They spend their first Saturday there repainting the bedroom. Pam chose the colours and she’s pleased with the result. It’s all in shades of yellow and she thinks it looks like the sun. Roy doesn’t really care, but he does it with her, gets more paint-splattered than she does.
After the paint’s dry, when they’re pulling the stained sheets off all their stuff Roy nudges her and tells her which corner of the room he’s picked out for the crib. Pam’s been trying not to think about things like that, but he’s so excited she can’t help grinning and she fully supports his selection of corner.
*
It doesn’t take Pam long to get tired of the commute to work. She hadn’t realised this place was so far away when they took it. It had seemed closer in Roy’s truck with its faster speed and someone to talk to.
Roy wants her to interview for a job at the place he works. Pam isn’t sure -- she’s just a secretary but her company is a good one, and she’s been thinking about asking her boss to look at some of her drawings. She doesn’t think she wants to leave.
It would be nice to work so near home, though. And with Roy, in case she needed him for anything. She’d save on gas. She’d sleep later in the morning. It wouldn’t be forever.
*
Her first day on the job she thinks she’s made the right decision. Her new boss is weird but kind of amusing, and she thinks he might be fun.
Plus this cool guy took her out to lunch to welcome her to the company and when they got back late Michael totally let them get away with it.
It was a good lunch. It was a good day. Pam’s happy.
*
Roy wants to get married before the baby’s born.
He hasn’t told his parents Pam’s pregnant. She thinks he wants to get married before he tells them.
That suits Pam. She wants to get married before she starts showing too much. She thinks.
She loves Roy. She thinks it’s enough. She thinks she loves him enough.
It will have to be enough. That’s something she knows: she will have to make it be enough.
She thinks May is a good month for a wedding, but she’ll be four months gone by then and the bump might be too big. April might be better, but it‘s only a week away. She’ll ask her mother.
*
She doesn’t ask her mother. She doesn’t have time. It isn’t even April yet.
She wasn’t even doing anything -- none of the things they tell you not to do. She was just sitting on the sofa watching TV. She just started bleeding. She wasn’t doing anything.
Roy wasn’t home. She’d called her mother. She’d had to hang up to call Roy to take her to the hospital. She wishes she’d called him first.
Afterwards she doesn’t remember much, just pain and wanting to scream and people’s changing faces against the thick plaster of the walls and ceiling. She doesn’t want to think about it but she can’t stop.
She remembers Roy’s face. He cried, she thinks, but she doesn’t understand that. She doesn’t understand anything.
He takes her home. He puts her to bed in the room like the sun. She makes him turn out the light.
Later, when she pulls herself out of bed, he’s asleep. She goes into the living room. Roy’s turned the TV off. She can’t remember what she’d been watching. There’s a baby name book on the coffee table. That was stupid. It was too soon. Of course it was too soon, it was-- She shouldn’t have been reading the book.
She didn’t even want the baby, really. She thinks she’s upset. She thinks she’s relieved. She can’t stop crying.
*
Roy says it wasn’t her fault, but that’s one more thing Pam doesn’t know how she feels about.
She’s mostly glad nobody knew, so she doesn’t have to deal with all that. She tries not to think about it.
Her mother calls every day, but she doesn’t make her talk about it, just listens to whatever Pam wants to talk about. A lot of the time Pam just answers so her mother won’t worry, and she hangs up as soon as she can. She doesn’t want to talk about it.
Roy hasn’t said anything about getting married, and Pam can’t say anything. She thinks she wants to. She thinks about it. Just about getting married, not about anything else.
There’s no reason for them to get married now. There’s nothing making them. But Roy still plays with his engagement ring on her finger. It’s nice. It feels nice.
And there’s no reason now for them to get married, and after they’re married she’ll know what she wants. She’ll know it’s what she wants.
Pairing: Pam/Roy
Rating: PG
Note: Title is Aqualung's. This Office is NBC's. This was written for Festschrift. Set pre-series.
The day is over. Pam made it through. It’s done. She made it through and now it stops. It has to.
The day is over and there’s no reason for her to still be sitting on a closed toilet, staring at the back of the stall door. She made it through, she was fine, and now it’s time for her to leave. She has to go home.
Pam has never expected anything like this to happen to her. This isn’t what happens; this isn’t how it goes. This is not how her life goes. This is not happening.
“Pam?” Suzanne’s voice echoes around the bathroom. “We’re leaving for the bar now. Are you coming?”
“Sorry, Suze,” Pam says. “I’m not feeling very well. I called Roy to come pick me up, I’m just going to go home.”
Suzanne is silent for a minute. “Okay,” she says. “I hope you’re feeling better tomorrow. I’ll call you if you’re not in.”
“Thanks.”
Pam listens to the bathroom door swing shut behind Suzanne and the silence settle in. She doesn’t move for a long time. Eventually her brain kicks back in, wants to know what the hell she thinks she’s doing. She doesn’t have an answer and she’s frustrated enough to leave the toilet cubicle and glare at herself in the mirror.
“You are not stupid,” she informs herself. “You are not doing this. You are not ignoring this. You are--” Her voice cracks. She takes a breath. “You are not--” She has no idea.
*
When she gets home her mom’s waiting for her.
“Hey, sweetheart,” she says. There‘s meatloaf on the counter. “I wasn’t expecting you. I thought you were going out after work.”
Pam wants to be going out. She wants her mother’s meatloaf. “I wasn’t feeling well.”
Her mother clucks and comforts. The meatloaf is still warm. Roy doesn’t call.
When she’s in bed, later, she pulls out her phone and lets her fingers play over the numbers. She wants to talk to him. She has no idea what to say. This isn’t what she wants, she’s too young, she kind of likes her job, they’ve been engaged for too long.
She can’t-- Things were okay, she thinks. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know what this is.
She dials the number anyway. She doesn’t get Roy. Someone else answers, a slurred male voice with the raucous noise of a party in the background. She hangs up.
*
It takes her another five days to tell anyone. The looks she’s been getting from the other secretaries are getting harder to ignore, so she takes the plunge and tells her mother.
Her mother freaks.
Pam should have been expecting it, maybe, but she hadn’t been. She’d known it was a possibility, had considered it herself, but she hadn’t expected her mother to--
Her mother wants her to have an abortion.
These things don’t happen to Pam. This isn’t happening; it can’t be.
She sits quietly, listens while her mother says sensible things, offers Pam a strained smile and cares and worries.
But Pam isn’t too young, not really. She can do this--she might be able to do this. She might.
*
Two nights after that Roy picks her up from work and they head to a bar together. She’s never been here before and it’s not really her kind of place, but it’s Friday night and the place she usually goes will be full of the girls from work. She couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. She doesn’t suppose it really matters, but she can’t help looking at the dirty rugs, the chipped tables in the too-low light. She needs something to look at.
She can’t look at Roy. He’s annoyed with her. She’s been avoiding him all week, trying to make a decision, trying to think of something to say to him, some perfect phrasing that would make this all make sense.
She can’t look at him even as she tells him.
And then she has to, can’t look away, because he grabs her hands and squeezes so tightly it hurts and smiles so brightly she can’t believe it.
Her heart stops. She smiles back, hugs him back, and has no idea what any of it means.
*
They move in together the next week. Roy finds a place through one of the guys from his work. It’s nice enough. A little small maybe, but it’s their first apartment and it’s nothing to complain about.
They spend their first Saturday there repainting the bedroom. Pam chose the colours and she’s pleased with the result. It’s all in shades of yellow and she thinks it looks like the sun. Roy doesn’t really care, but he does it with her, gets more paint-splattered than she does.
After the paint’s dry, when they’re pulling the stained sheets off all their stuff Roy nudges her and tells her which corner of the room he’s picked out for the crib. Pam’s been trying not to think about things like that, but he’s so excited she can’t help grinning and she fully supports his selection of corner.
*
It doesn’t take Pam long to get tired of the commute to work. She hadn’t realised this place was so far away when they took it. It had seemed closer in Roy’s truck with its faster speed and someone to talk to.
Roy wants her to interview for a job at the place he works. Pam isn’t sure -- she’s just a secretary but her company is a good one, and she’s been thinking about asking her boss to look at some of her drawings. She doesn’t think she wants to leave.
It would be nice to work so near home, though. And with Roy, in case she needed him for anything. She’d save on gas. She’d sleep later in the morning. It wouldn’t be forever.
*
Her first day on the job she thinks she’s made the right decision. Her new boss is weird but kind of amusing, and she thinks he might be fun.
Plus this cool guy took her out to lunch to welcome her to the company and when they got back late Michael totally let them get away with it.
It was a good lunch. It was a good day. Pam’s happy.
*
Roy wants to get married before the baby’s born.
He hasn’t told his parents Pam’s pregnant. She thinks he wants to get married before he tells them.
That suits Pam. She wants to get married before she starts showing too much. She thinks.
She loves Roy. She thinks it’s enough. She thinks she loves him enough.
It will have to be enough. That’s something she knows: she will have to make it be enough.
She thinks May is a good month for a wedding, but she’ll be four months gone by then and the bump might be too big. April might be better, but it‘s only a week away. She’ll ask her mother.
*
She doesn’t ask her mother. She doesn’t have time. It isn’t even April yet.
She wasn’t even doing anything -- none of the things they tell you not to do. She was just sitting on the sofa watching TV. She just started bleeding. She wasn’t doing anything.
Roy wasn’t home. She’d called her mother. She’d had to hang up to call Roy to take her to the hospital. She wishes she’d called him first.
Afterwards she doesn’t remember much, just pain and wanting to scream and people’s changing faces against the thick plaster of the walls and ceiling. She doesn’t want to think about it but she can’t stop.
She remembers Roy’s face. He cried, she thinks, but she doesn’t understand that. She doesn’t understand anything.
He takes her home. He puts her to bed in the room like the sun. She makes him turn out the light.
Later, when she pulls herself out of bed, he’s asleep. She goes into the living room. Roy’s turned the TV off. She can’t remember what she’d been watching. There’s a baby name book on the coffee table. That was stupid. It was too soon. Of course it was too soon, it was-- She shouldn’t have been reading the book.
She didn’t even want the baby, really. She thinks she’s upset. She thinks she’s relieved. She can’t stop crying.
*
Roy says it wasn’t her fault, but that’s one more thing Pam doesn’t know how she feels about.
She’s mostly glad nobody knew, so she doesn’t have to deal with all that. She tries not to think about it.
Her mother calls every day, but she doesn’t make her talk about it, just listens to whatever Pam wants to talk about. A lot of the time Pam just answers so her mother won’t worry, and she hangs up as soon as she can. She doesn’t want to talk about it.
Roy hasn’t said anything about getting married, and Pam can’t say anything. She thinks she wants to. She thinks about it. Just about getting married, not about anything else.
There’s no reason for them to get married now. There’s nothing making them. But Roy still plays with his engagement ring on her finger. It’s nice. It feels nice.
And there’s no reason now for them to get married, and after they’re married she’ll know what she wants. She’ll know it’s what she wants.