![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Something Red
By:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Rating: G
Fandom: The Office (Pam/Jim - future!fic)
Words: 1,601
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no money!
Summary: In a small get-together where the new parents all met each other in a kind of community safety program, she’d kept hearing about the first grade teacher. Most of the single moms present were circling like carrion birds.
Pam turns and feels her heart almost stop.
“Jim?”
“How long have you been divorced hon?”
The woman in front of Pam has lipstick on her teeth and her hair has been bleached so often it looks brittle, but she’s being friendly and Pam doesn’t really know anyone yet so she smiles gamely and says, “Just separated at the moment, actually.”
“Oh, so there’s hope?” The woman is digging through her purse and when she comes up with a bent cigarette, she dives back in until she retrieves a plastic lighter.
Pam pauses for a beat. “No, no, there really isn’t,” she says because it’s true.
“Ooh, here comes Mr Yummy,” the woman coos and Pam fights the urge to roll her eyes. In a small get-together where the new parents all met each other in a kind of community safety program, she’d kept hearing about the first grade teacher. Most of the single moms present were circling like carrion birds.
Pam turns and feels her heart almost stop.
“Jim?”
~~~
They are sitting in a café a block down from the school and Molly has a hot chocolate in a mug the size of her head. Molly, her little girl, six going on thirty.
“So, this is different,” Pam comments, desperate to fill the silence.
Jim gives her that little half smile of his and says, “Yeah, that was kinda the point.”
“But you got that promotion in Stamford. I called when you were supposed to be back and you had quit.”
“I just got the strangest urge to do something,” Jim holds out his hands and then curls the fingers. “Genuine.”
“Mom, I can’t-“ Molly begins but Jim has already emptied his little espresso cup and wiped it out with his napkin. As they both watch, he reaches forward and tips a little of the hot chocolate into it and Mandy accepts it with a solemn blink. “Thankyou Mr Halpert.”
There are a few more moments of silence only broken by the tiny sounds of Molly sipping her hot chocolate very carefully and then they both try to talk at once.
“I’ve been meaning to-“
“I don’t know how many times I-“
They both laugh nervously as Molly pushes her little espresso cup into Jim’s hand, who dutifully gives her a refill and returns it.
“So, you kinda disappeared,” Pam begins again when it becomes obvious that the pause in conversation would stretch on forever if she didn’t take the initiative.
“I kept tabs,” Jim says cryptically and Pam blinks at him. “I talked to Ryan every now and again.”
“Ryan?” Pam says in disbelief. Of all the people in the office for Jim to keep in contact with, Ryan seems the least likely.
“Yeah well, he didn’t ask questions. He just… answered them,” Jim offers by way of explanation, a shrug in his voice. The half-smile is back but this time it’s sad. “He told me the wedding was nice.”
“It…was.” Pam can’t think of anything else to say about it and it was a good day. Unfortunately, it was one of only a few good days. “Jim, I-“ There are so many things that she wants to say, that everything kind of gets stuck and Pam is left looking at the wispy bits of Jim’s hair above his ears, his lips, the gentle curve of neck that flows into his collar. Pretty much anywhere so she doesn’t have to meet his eyes.
“No, it’s fine. There’s no… explanations needed. That night-“ Jim huffs a breath, toying with a napkin. “That was unfair. I was unfair. I shouldn’t have just-“
“No, don’t say that. It was good you did. You don’t understand. I-“
“You know, I thought I could do this but I really don’t want to have this conversation again. It was bad enough the first time.” Jim pushes back from the table with a scrape of chair and is reaching into his back pocket to pull free a few bills to toss onto the table.
Again, there are so many things that Pam wants to put voice to that she’s paralysed with them for the crucial few seconds it takes Jim to cross to the door and disappear out into the afternoon.
Molly reaches across and taps Pam’s hand. “I like Mr Halpert,” she says in her most matter-of-fact tone.
“Me too,” Pam agrees.
~~~
Sometimes, when she’s tired or not really paying attention, she still answers the phone saying, “Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.”
It’s rare these days, but when you’d answered phones a particular way for two years, it became a habit that was hard to shake. When she does this today, distracted because she’s cutting a cardboard octopus out of a cereal packet with ridiculously blunt safety scissors, there is a gentle laugh on the other end that she recognises immediately.
“Geez, Beazley, blast from the past,” Jim chuckles, but then the sound disappears and he is clearing his throat nervously. “Oh, sorry, I guess it wouldn’t be Beazley-“
“No, it is,” Pam says and then sits through the silence this elicits, wrapping the phone cord around her index finger.
“Oh, you kept your name?”
“No, but we’re separated and I’m in the process of changing everything back,” she answers and there is more maddening silence.
“I’m sorry, Pam,” he says and the crazy thing is, she knows he means it completely. He wouldn’t be pleased about anything that would mar her happiness, even if it was separation from a man Jim never thought was good enough for her.
“It was a long time coming and it’s been… amicable. He’s… Roy is seeing someone.”
“He didn’t-“ There’s the faint tremblings of anger in Jim’s voice and Pam is quick to correct his assumption.
“No, nothing like that. We were over a while and he told me about it before he started seeing her.”
“Still, it’s pretty quick if you aren’t even divorced yet.”
Pam looks down at the silly purple octopus grinning up at her from the tabletop and has the strange urge to stab it right between the eyes with the safety scissors. What she wants to say is, “Roy wasn’t the one in love with someone else when we got married,” but actually says, “If it were up to Roy, we’d still be together even though it wasn’t right for either of us. He’s not the bad guy.”
“Look, I was just ringing to apologise about walking out the other day. It was really rude and you didn’t deserve it.”
“It’s okay, I understand,” Pam says, sliding the octopus aside, the cardboard creature given a temporary reprieve from execution as she starts cutting around a giraffe.
“Of course you do,” Jim huffs. “Anyway, I’m sorry. That’s all I wanted to say.”
“Would you like to come over for dinner one night this week?” Pam blurts, sensing that Jim was going to say goodbye and hang up and she might never get the nerve again. There’s a moment where she thinks he is going to politely decline but then there’s another nervous throat clear and he says instead, “Um, sure. When?”
“Uh,” Pam looks at the calendar tacked to her fridge, Molly’s handiwork so the days are a little hard to read. “Wednesday?” Pam proposes, which gives her two days to have a complete nervous breakdown and then get back to normal.
“Oh, um, no I can’t Wednesday,” he says and Pam’s stomach twists a little. He has a date or a standing engagement with a girlfriend, she just knows this. There are single moms lined up around the block and she thinks it was ludicrous to have assumed that he was free. She remembers the time he was telling her and Roy that his type was moms and she puts her hand over her mouth to stop the snort of laughter welling inside as she remembers Kevin saying, “Stay away from my mom,” and the response, “Too late Kev.”
“-day?” Pam realises that Jim has been talking and she totally missed it.
“Sorry?”
“Oh, I said I had a family thing because my brother’s in town so what about Thursday?”
“Sure. Great,” Pam agrees, mindful that she possibly sounds overeager or possibly even brittle.
“Well, cool, okay. What’s your address and what time?”
Pam tells him her address and to turn up about seven and then lowers the phone to the cradle, letting her head fall to her kitchen counter.
When she raises her head again, she sees she has accidentally snipped the giraffe’s head clean off and wonders if it’s an omen.
~~~
Jim rings the next day and by his tone, Pam knows he is planning to cancel. He will say how he is sorry but something has come up and could they raincheck. He would then politely never mention it again, even if they ran into each other and Pam wouldn’t either.
Pam is gripped with the urge to tell him everything.
She wants to explain how if she hadn’t found out she was pregnant two days after that kiss on Casino Night then she would have been able to tell him…
How she had regretted calling in sick the day he was leaving Scranton but she knew that if she tried to say goodbye, instead all she would manage would be staypleasegodstaydon’tleave.
How she’d missed him every single day and it never got easier.
However, after a little more small talk, Jim finally just asks, “What wine should I bring?”
Pam smiles, thanking whatever providence lends him the little bit of courage necessary to say yes to her after all this time.
“Something red,” she replies.
By:
kellifer_ficRating: G
Fandom: The Office (Pam/Jim - future!fic)
Words: 1,601
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no money!
Summary: In a small get-together where the new parents all met each other in a kind of community safety program, she’d kept hearing about the first grade teacher. Most of the single moms present were circling like carrion birds.
Pam turns and feels her heart almost stop.
“Jim?”
“How long have you been divorced hon?”
The woman in front of Pam has lipstick on her teeth and her hair has been bleached so often it looks brittle, but she’s being friendly and Pam doesn’t really know anyone yet so she smiles gamely and says, “Just separated at the moment, actually.”
“Oh, so there’s hope?” The woman is digging through her purse and when she comes up with a bent cigarette, she dives back in until she retrieves a plastic lighter.
Pam pauses for a beat. “No, no, there really isn’t,” she says because it’s true.
“Ooh, here comes Mr Yummy,” the woman coos and Pam fights the urge to roll her eyes. In a small get-together where the new parents all met each other in a kind of community safety program, she’d kept hearing about the first grade teacher. Most of the single moms present were circling like carrion birds.
Pam turns and feels her heart almost stop.
“Jim?”
~~~
They are sitting in a café a block down from the school and Molly has a hot chocolate in a mug the size of her head. Molly, her little girl, six going on thirty.
“So, this is different,” Pam comments, desperate to fill the silence.
Jim gives her that little half smile of his and says, “Yeah, that was kinda the point.”
“But you got that promotion in Stamford. I called when you were supposed to be back and you had quit.”
“I just got the strangest urge to do something,” Jim holds out his hands and then curls the fingers. “Genuine.”
“Mom, I can’t-“ Molly begins but Jim has already emptied his little espresso cup and wiped it out with his napkin. As they both watch, he reaches forward and tips a little of the hot chocolate into it and Mandy accepts it with a solemn blink. “Thankyou Mr Halpert.”
There are a few more moments of silence only broken by the tiny sounds of Molly sipping her hot chocolate very carefully and then they both try to talk at once.
“I’ve been meaning to-“
“I don’t know how many times I-“
They both laugh nervously as Molly pushes her little espresso cup into Jim’s hand, who dutifully gives her a refill and returns it.
“So, you kinda disappeared,” Pam begins again when it becomes obvious that the pause in conversation would stretch on forever if she didn’t take the initiative.
“I kept tabs,” Jim says cryptically and Pam blinks at him. “I talked to Ryan every now and again.”
“Ryan?” Pam says in disbelief. Of all the people in the office for Jim to keep in contact with, Ryan seems the least likely.
“Yeah well, he didn’t ask questions. He just… answered them,” Jim offers by way of explanation, a shrug in his voice. The half-smile is back but this time it’s sad. “He told me the wedding was nice.”
“It…was.” Pam can’t think of anything else to say about it and it was a good day. Unfortunately, it was one of only a few good days. “Jim, I-“ There are so many things that she wants to say, that everything kind of gets stuck and Pam is left looking at the wispy bits of Jim’s hair above his ears, his lips, the gentle curve of neck that flows into his collar. Pretty much anywhere so she doesn’t have to meet his eyes.
“No, it’s fine. There’s no… explanations needed. That night-“ Jim huffs a breath, toying with a napkin. “That was unfair. I was unfair. I shouldn’t have just-“
“No, don’t say that. It was good you did. You don’t understand. I-“
“You know, I thought I could do this but I really don’t want to have this conversation again. It was bad enough the first time.” Jim pushes back from the table with a scrape of chair and is reaching into his back pocket to pull free a few bills to toss onto the table.
Again, there are so many things that Pam wants to put voice to that she’s paralysed with them for the crucial few seconds it takes Jim to cross to the door and disappear out into the afternoon.
Molly reaches across and taps Pam’s hand. “I like Mr Halpert,” she says in her most matter-of-fact tone.
“Me too,” Pam agrees.
~~~
Sometimes, when she’s tired or not really paying attention, she still answers the phone saying, “Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.”
It’s rare these days, but when you’d answered phones a particular way for two years, it became a habit that was hard to shake. When she does this today, distracted because she’s cutting a cardboard octopus out of a cereal packet with ridiculously blunt safety scissors, there is a gentle laugh on the other end that she recognises immediately.
“Geez, Beazley, blast from the past,” Jim chuckles, but then the sound disappears and he is clearing his throat nervously. “Oh, sorry, I guess it wouldn’t be Beazley-“
“No, it is,” Pam says and then sits through the silence this elicits, wrapping the phone cord around her index finger.
“Oh, you kept your name?”
“No, but we’re separated and I’m in the process of changing everything back,” she answers and there is more maddening silence.
“I’m sorry, Pam,” he says and the crazy thing is, she knows he means it completely. He wouldn’t be pleased about anything that would mar her happiness, even if it was separation from a man Jim never thought was good enough for her.
“It was a long time coming and it’s been… amicable. He’s… Roy is seeing someone.”
“He didn’t-“ There’s the faint tremblings of anger in Jim’s voice and Pam is quick to correct his assumption.
“No, nothing like that. We were over a while and he told me about it before he started seeing her.”
“Still, it’s pretty quick if you aren’t even divorced yet.”
Pam looks down at the silly purple octopus grinning up at her from the tabletop and has the strange urge to stab it right between the eyes with the safety scissors. What she wants to say is, “Roy wasn’t the one in love with someone else when we got married,” but actually says, “If it were up to Roy, we’d still be together even though it wasn’t right for either of us. He’s not the bad guy.”
“Look, I was just ringing to apologise about walking out the other day. It was really rude and you didn’t deserve it.”
“It’s okay, I understand,” Pam says, sliding the octopus aside, the cardboard creature given a temporary reprieve from execution as she starts cutting around a giraffe.
“Of course you do,” Jim huffs. “Anyway, I’m sorry. That’s all I wanted to say.”
“Would you like to come over for dinner one night this week?” Pam blurts, sensing that Jim was going to say goodbye and hang up and she might never get the nerve again. There’s a moment where she thinks he is going to politely decline but then there’s another nervous throat clear and he says instead, “Um, sure. When?”
“Uh,” Pam looks at the calendar tacked to her fridge, Molly’s handiwork so the days are a little hard to read. “Wednesday?” Pam proposes, which gives her two days to have a complete nervous breakdown and then get back to normal.
“Oh, um, no I can’t Wednesday,” he says and Pam’s stomach twists a little. He has a date or a standing engagement with a girlfriend, she just knows this. There are single moms lined up around the block and she thinks it was ludicrous to have assumed that he was free. She remembers the time he was telling her and Roy that his type was moms and she puts her hand over her mouth to stop the snort of laughter welling inside as she remembers Kevin saying, “Stay away from my mom,” and the response, “Too late Kev.”
“-day?” Pam realises that Jim has been talking and she totally missed it.
“Sorry?”
“Oh, I said I had a family thing because my brother’s in town so what about Thursday?”
“Sure. Great,” Pam agrees, mindful that she possibly sounds overeager or possibly even brittle.
“Well, cool, okay. What’s your address and what time?”
Pam tells him her address and to turn up about seven and then lowers the phone to the cradle, letting her head fall to her kitchen counter.
When she raises her head again, she sees she has accidentally snipped the giraffe’s head clean off and wonders if it’s an omen.
~~~
Jim rings the next day and by his tone, Pam knows he is planning to cancel. He will say how he is sorry but something has come up and could they raincheck. He would then politely never mention it again, even if they ran into each other and Pam wouldn’t either.
Pam is gripped with the urge to tell him everything.
She wants to explain how if she hadn’t found out she was pregnant two days after that kiss on Casino Night then she would have been able to tell him…
How she had regretted calling in sick the day he was leaving Scranton but she knew that if she tried to say goodbye, instead all she would manage would be staypleasegodstaydon’tleave.
How she’d missed him every single day and it never got easier.
However, after a little more small talk, Jim finally just asks, “What wine should I bring?”
Pam smiles, thanking whatever providence lends him the little bit of courage necessary to say yes to her after all this time.
“Something red,” she replies.
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