Work Text:
“Michael, you can’t just demand that everyone goes to the Poconos this weekend.” Toby is using what Pam likes to think is his reasonable voice. She imagines the same tone telling Sasha how sharing is important. “People need some sort of notice.”
She zones out after hearing Michael tell Toby it’s not like he would ever have any plans anyway.
It wasn’t directed at her, but it makes her realize that she was actually kind of excited to get away from Scranton for a few days and that she has absolutely no life outside of work now that her classes are on winter break.
It’s really too early for this kind of self-evaluation.
She can’t see Jim and Karen, because she strategically placed herself in the front row of the conference room, but she tunes back into the discussion just in time to catch Jim’s question. “Before I agree, may we pick our own roommate assignments and can they be co-ed?”
From the back of the room Kevin lets out a satisfied, “Nice” and Pam glances over to find herself mimicking Angela’s body language almost exactly.
A headache forms between her eyes and Pam remembers that she finished all the Tylenol in her desk yesterday when both Jim and Karen came in late for work.
With that knowledge the pain spreads further out to her temples and Pam sighs.
After the meeting there are nine new voicemails on her phone and two Midols with a note from Kelly on her desk. It says, “Looks like you need these today” with a frowny face. Pam doesn’t like that everyone in her office thinks she’s constantly on her period, but she sends Kelly an e-mail thanking her anyway.
Pam goes through her voicemail box while staring at the back of Jim’s head. At the end, she turns back towards the door and then listens to them a second time, so, she can actually understand what people are saying.
During one of the calls she finds her finger hovering over the number three, debating deleting one of Karen’s messages like this is 7th grade. She forces it instead to push nine to forward and vows to stop acting like Karen has ever done anything wrong.
Pam hates herself sometimes.
---
As part of one of the many breaks Pam takes for herself during the day to keep her sanity, she pulls up the website of the place Michael is taking them to. It actually looks really nice. Granted, it would be better in the summer when they could actually use the lake on site or the golf course, but apparently there are winter-y things to do like snow tubing and possibly ice skating if it’s been cold enough.
Although it wouldn’t be the worst thing if they couldn’t go ice skating.
Pam decides she’s going to check out the spa while she’s there, take a long soak in a hot tub and maybe buy her mom a quilt in the gift shop.
And because Michael gives her the job of assigning everyone to a room, she takes a single for herself and places Jim and Karen all the way on the other side of the hall. Looking down the list, she sees that Michael had taken the liberty of putting himself in a room with Ryan, and laughs.
She hears Jim’s chair squeak as he turns around to look at her, but she pretends to already be back to her task, trying to think of ways she can tell Michael he’s too important to have to share with anyone. Even if that person happens to be the hottest in the office.
---
Pam drives to Hawley with Phyllis and Bob Vance on Friday afternoon. Her and Phyllis sit in the back of the car and go through all the wedding stuff that Pam has been meaning to throw out. But, Phyllis seems to like looking through it all and compliments a lot of her choices.
In the end, Pam tells her to just keep everything. The swatches for bridesmaids’ dresses, and the business cards from all the local caterers and the years’ worth of things she ripped out of Modern Bride. Leaving that box in the trunk of Bob Vance’s car Pam feels a little bit lighter.
After they check in, Pam lies down on the bed in her room, still wearing her coat, and tries to contemplate new beginnings.
---
Unfortunately, she falls asleep and is one of the last people to come down to the dining room. Except that, Ryan and Kelly never show up at all.
They’re eating family style and Michael has placed himself at the head of the table. Dwight is to his right and Andy looks annoyed to have been reduced to Michael’s left hand. It makes her happy.
Pam ends up sitting between Toby and Stanley. When she goes to smooth out the back of her hair and wish she had taken the time to look in the mirror before running downstairs like a maniac, Toby tells her it’s not necessary. He gives her the grin he usually does, where he won’t completely meet her eyes.
Meredith encourages her to get a second glass of wine, and Pam’s happy she did when Creed starts eating with his hands like a feature on Animal Planet. Rolling his eyes in her direction, Oscar looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. She holds up her wineglass in a display of sophisticated solidarity and he smiles.
It’s kind of nice. In the way that anytime she doesn’t have to be entirely by herself is nice. Even if that’s because she’s with people from work. Pam wonders if that’s something that you might encounter on one of those depression checklists.
Dinner winds down with people slowly starting to peter out of the dining room. Pam times it on her watch and notices Dwight leaves exactly five minutes after Angela said that she was going to go to her room and read the Bible before bed.
Most people are heading over to the nightclub to hear the band that’s playing but Pam really wants to have an Irish coffee and a piece of the chocolate cheesecake she saw the woman at the next table with. It end up being her, Toby, Jim and Karen still seated.
It should feel weird, but Pam thinks the alcohol is helping with that. She reminds herself that she had fun with Karen planning the Christmas party. That if Jim wasn’t in the picture, she probably would have already invited Karen over to watch Project Runway or offered to help paint her apartment.
And, it must work because she and Karen end up splitting the cheesecake and having a detailed discussion over whether Pretty Woman is a romantic movie or really just ridiculous. After Pam makes the point that no hooker would ever be as attractive as Julia Roberts, she looks to the guys for validation and realizes they aren’t even listening. Toby seems to be trying to talk with Jim about some basketball trade, but Jim is just kind of sitting there, his eyes glassy.
Pam has to ask, “Jim, are you alright?”
He nods, a little slowly like he’s just waking up. “Yeah, I’m tired. Long week.”
Even with her impromptu nap, Pam realizes that she’s kind of sleepy too. And that maybe she’s making things awkward for him; even if Karen doesn’t seem to mind. Plus, that attractiveness comment is the last real shred of evidence she has anyway. She licks her spoon and declares, “I’m going to bed.”
“Do you want someone to walk with you?” Toby asks, and she declines, even though it’s a sweet offer.
Up in her room, she puts on her pajamas and does some sketches to finish coming down. She looks at the drawings of trees with no leaves and a snowstorm over a highway and thinks they’re much nicer than the paintings they have hanging on the walls.
She’s never been a fan of hotel art.
---
The next morning, Pam skips breakfast and just buys a muffin from a little café they have set up by the front desk.
She takes a walk down by the water despite the fact that it’s freezing. Digging her hands further into her pockets, she inhales, trying to suck in all the calm.
Pam watches Andy running on the other side of the lake, his hat pulled down almost to his eyes. Even he seems like he might be quiet right now and Pam gives herself permission to turn her mind off.
She closes her eyes and takes the cold air into her lungs, over and over, and thinks of nothing.
---
Pam decides there’s no point in dragging her coat around all day on the way back up to the hotel. She can see Dwight leaving Angela’s room holding a toothbrush when she makes it to their floor. Turning to head down the hallway in the other direction, she has to wonder how no one else has figured out about those two.
In her effort to avoid any awkward Dwangela encounters, she hides out in the stairwell and misses the beginning of the presentation.
---
On her way down to dinner, Pam sees Karen sitting on one of the heavily overstuffed sofas in the lobby. She looks worn out and stressed, and Pam honestly feels bad about it. She doesn’t even have to make herself ask, “Hey, is everything ok?”
Karen sighs, and pushes her hair back in what Pam recognizes as some sad attempt to pull herself together. “Yeah, yeah. It’s just Jim’s sick and I have this huge sales call to go on Monday afternoon and there’s no way I can get plague and be able to do that.”
She thinks about Jim at dinner last night, and his behavior kind of starts to make a little more sense. “Will the hotel give you another room, or a cot, or something?”
“They say they’re totally booked up with the convention being here.”
Pam takes in the bags under Karen’s eyes and feels worse than she usually does when she looks at Karen. “Why don’t you take my room, you look like you need some sleep, and I’ll ask Angela to let me share with her.”
“Pam, seriously, no it’s fine. I would feel horrible if I kicked you out of your own room and then made you stay with Angela on top of it.”
“We shared a tent at Star Gazing to Help You Reach the Stars: The Michael Scott Way to Business Astrology 2004. It should be completely survivable. Plus, I snore.”
Karen gives her a smile. “Ok, thank you! I’m going to bring Jim some soup and get my stuff together but really, you’re a life saver. Thank you. Again. You’re too sweet.”
But, Pam doesn’t feel all that sweet.
She pretends to be on her cell phone while her coworkers filter through to the dining room, mouthing My mother, and shrugging her shoulders, until Angela gets off the elevator. Pam tries to smile, and put the thought out of her mind about what she’s going to set into motion with this exchange. “Angela, can I talk to you in the ladies room for a second?” The presence of cameras in her life has managed to get her paranoid about always being watched, even if the crew isn’t with her.
Angela rolls her eyes. “Pam, I don’t have any,” her voice drops to a whisper, “tampons.”
Pam tries to stay calm and remind herself that killing Angela would be something she’d go to jail for doing. “Please, just, could you come with me? It’s important.” Pam is almost ready to bring out the big guns, and say that Jesus would come to the bathroom if Pam asked him to, but Angela sighs loudly and then agrees before that becomes necessary.
Once they’re inside, Pam checks under the stalls to find them, thankfully, empty. She feels almost like she’s in middle school again, telling secrets in the girls’ room and acting like a complete idiot. “If anyone asks, can you just say that I spent the night in your room tonight?”
“Lying is a sin, Pam. And only sl-”
Pam won’t even let her finish the word. “Did I happen to see Dwight outside your room this morning?” Pam lets her eyebrows go up extremely high and watches Angela blush bright pink. “Please, Angela. I think you know what it’s like to not want everyone you work with to be in your personal life. Just do this for me.”
“Only if someone asks. And, I don’t want to hear what you’re doing.” Angela fixes her hair in the mirror, refusing to make eye contact with Pam.
“Thanks, Angela. Really.”
Angela opens the door and says to Pam, “Wait a minute or two before coming out” in a way she must have done at least a thousand times before.
---
Karen moves her stuff into Pam’s room, and then Pam finds herself talking to the concierge about how she left her key at the pool and when she went back it was gone. She gives her name, smooth and easy, Karen Filipelli, and the room number she had assigned to the two of them. And just like that, Pam has a key to Jim’s room.
Standing outside his door, holding her luggage, she wonders about what’s going to happen. How if this were a movie, this would be the start of an illicit affair. Whether just standing here is already the start of that, even in real life.
She inserts the plastic card into the door, despite her reservations, because she’s come this far already. When it opens, she announces, “It’s Pam,” which is stupid because he can obviously see that. Jim’s laid out on top of the comforter in a white t-shirt and his boxers, looking sweaty and miserable. Pam feels a little strange, knowing what his underwear looks like after all this time. “How are you feeling?”
“I think I’m dying.” His voice is gravely and he coughs a little as he sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
“I doubt that’s true.”
“Come feel my head and then tell me.” And Pam does. She closes the door behind her, and walks over, bending down and kissing his forehead before she can even think about what she’s doing. With her palms on his flushed cheeks, he groans, “God, your hands feel good” and the words hit right in her gut. She pulls back and he lets his head fall against her abdomen.
“You definitely have a fever.”
“I definitely have a fever,” in a voice that would be much more suited to an eight year old and he turns his head to cough.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.” Pam grabs her suitcase and pulls out a Ziploc bag filled with pharmaceuticals.
“Why do you have all that?”
“I got sick on my senior ski trip and I swore I never again would be without this stuff.” She hands him a container of Vicks Vapor Rub. “Put some of this on, and we’re going to go have a steam.”
“A steam?”
“It’ll make you feel better, come on.” She takes his hand and leads him into the bathroom. He puts the lid down on the toilet and sits. Pam watches him rub his chest under the t-shirt, and then she’s finding she’s having a little trouble breathing herself. She busies herself with the shower controls and tries to remember Karen’s face when they were in the lobby to stop her from being so reckless.
Before long, the room is humid and smells overwhelmingly of menthol. Jim keeps coughing, this wet sound from somewhere deep inside of him, and Pam sits on the floor and rubs his back. “I thought this was supposed to make me feel better.”
“It will.” She pulls her hair off the back of her neck. “And you can spit in the shower, I won’t be grossed out. I promise.”
Jim shakes his head, but after another bout of hacking, does, and looks horribly embarrassed.
“Please, I’ve seen way worse snot than that. Don’t think you’re special,” she says. But, watching him she can see that he’s not interested in being playful.
“Does Karen know that you’re here?” Jim gives her this look like he’s extremely serious. “With me?”
Pam shakes her head and doesn’t want to meet his gaze. “No.”
“Okay.” He rubs at his eyes. “Can we call it a day with the steam? Maybe let me have some real drugs?”
“Sure.”
He drags himself back to bed, and the game of Lingo on the television, contorting himself in the comforter and the sheets. She brings him Nyquil and a wet washcloth for his neck and guesses H-O-U-S-E correctly with only the H.
They go back and forth with responses, his head slipping closer and closer to drunkenly nuzzling her shoulder. Pam blames it on the narcotics and the fever, and doesn’t say anything besides five letter answer choices.
“Pam, you know that Take Your Daughter to Work Day, when you were worried about being a good mom?” She feels the words on her collarbone, his breath warm. Pam makes an affirmative sound, trying desperately to not pay attention and think of a word that starts with A and isn’t apple.
“You’re going to be a great mom. Really.”
She can feel something like sadness and gratitude and regret rush through her. Pam whispers, “I think someone is ready for bed,” because she knows saying anything else will make her want to cry or kiss him.
Jim slides his head off of her shoulder and settles into her lap, arms trying to snake around her thighs. She plays with his damp hair, listening to his guesses get further apart before stopping altogether, and loves him so unequivocally.
Pam lies down and curls into him: snoring and sweaty and sick, and still doesn’t think she ever really wants to leave.
---
It’s around 5:30 in the morning and she can’t sleep, thinking about Karen coming in to check on him, or someone noticing her leaving the next morning with her bags. Pam disentangles herself and strokes Jim’s flushed cheek. He stirs a little and it makes her hesitate.
In the lobby, the night guy is watching Futurama quietly at the desk, and the room is only lit by a few tiny table lamps. Pam sits on the same sofa Karen had chosen earlier, and zones out listening to Fry make a deal with the Robot Devil.
Angela wakes her later on with a gentle nudge, and doesn’t ask questions.
---
Pam blows off work on Monday, waking up with a headache and most likely whatever Jim had. She calls out, takes three Tylenols and goes back to bed.
There’s a voicemail on her cell when the room has finally stopped spinning a few hours later. It’s from Jim.
“I apparently have bronchitis, and I’m starting to suspect that either you do, or you were worried I’d be at work today and didn’t want to see me. Either way, have a steam, Beesly. It’ll make you feel better.
She saves the message even though she doesn’t think she wants to.