A/N: Just got into this show, and I'm sticking with it because I ship Jim/Pam SO DARN HARD. I know they're endgame, but I'm enjoying the ride!

Two choices, after a sucker-punch—you can cave, crumble, whatever…or you can go ahead, throw caution to the winds and just, you know, stub the other guy's toe. Make him mad. Madder, so that he keeps punching you, before you've even got your wind back.

Hell of a choice. But Jim's never been good at the whatever side of things, so he keeps going. Aimlessly, stupidly, and man, he'll kick himself tomorrow for the crap he's pulled tonight.

Right now, there's no good in thinking on it. So he huffs in a breath of frigid January air—not exactly stale, but sort of…murky, thanks to the lake—and doesn't think about anything.

It lasts all of five seconds.

Thing is, he's had a lot of really bad ideas tonight that sort of turned into really bad actions. Breaking up with Katy—inevitable, maybe, but…shortsighted? Inconvenient? He passes his hand over his eyes, ashamed. The fact that those are the only adjectives that come readily to mind shows just how futile the whole thing with Katy—hot-girl-with-the-purses-Katy—was in the first place.

And now he's been a jerk to her in a way that she didn't deserve.

That was bad idea number one. But considering how this damn party cruise is stretching on interminably—the only leadership lessons being analogous to 'hey, who will follow me into Russia in winter' and such—he has plenty of time to check off the others.

Telling Michael. Wow. He'll probably just haul off and punch himself in the face about it tomorrow, because even now, a few minutes afterwards, his stomach feels like lead. Of all the people to tell. Except possibly Dwight, but—

Michael. Michael knows, and Michael will doubtless feast on this new comedic material for—well, forever.

Even if he wasn't such a jackass for a minute there.

Jim pulls his coat closer and chides himself again. Really cramming them in here, Halpert. Even the cameramen sense it; doubtless they're eating up the footage of the gloomy romantic in the night air.

But hey. This is his life. It sucks, and it's messy, and awkward, and this isn't the kind of things moms want their kids to grow to be. Salesman for a paper company. Office gossip and desk pranks. Petty, petty politics.

And Pam.

Pam is—was—will always be—the only bright spot in his world. Sure, he's got friends, and family, but Pam is—was—will never be—more. She's funny, smart, kind. Self-aware, in a way that the rest aren't. And just—cute and lovable and oh, God, he's really in love with her.

The air feels sharper, pricking his eyelids. Or maybe he's tearing up. Great for the camera.

Tonight just feels bad. It isn't the worst, and he knows that. The worst thing he's done is smiling and laughing and whispering with her, letting himself believe that it was going to come to something on its own.

Don't be so hard on yourself, he thinks caustically. It did come to something.

It came to an end.