Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

She was undersized. There was no question about that. She stood just over 5'1" with her cleats on, and weighed less than 100 pounds. She was quick, yes, but not immensely so. But she was good. Damn good. She was a freshman playing on the varsity squad, because even at 14 years old, she possessed an instinct for the game that few could match. She could see... she could feel the game flowing around her. Her anticipation was flawless-- she always knew exactly where to be and where to run to. If there was a hole in the defense, she would find it, and set a teammate loose with a precisely delivered pass. Those watching the girl with the brown ponytail play likened her style to a surgeon: cold, efficient, methodical, precise. But she preferred to think of herself as a butcher. She hated losing, and she hated the girls who wad the nerve to wear a different colored uniform, to dare to try to subject her to the humiliation of losing. And she rarely lost... until the day she lost everything.

The game had started innocently enough. About 3 minutes in, Karen had the ball at her feet and was surveying the situation... The opposing defenders were all over her teammates, but were leaving her some room. They were no doubt trying to close her passing lanes and induce her into trying to force a bad pass through the defense. Their coach had done her homework. So that's how it's going to be. Karen held the ball... circled... waited... and then she saw it. The window was just big enough. She exploded out of her easy jog and made for the goal. The defense was caught flat-footed. She would take it in and do the job herself if they weren't going to mark her. In no time she was behind the startled defenders. Nobody could touch her now. Nobody did. It was a 100 percent self-induced injury. Her foot must have hit a bump or a dip in the grass. All Karen knew was that her right leg just stopped working. She hit the ground hard. The pain was excruciating. Her mind raced... Oh God please don't let it be...

But it was. A complete ACL tear. The medical precedence put the recovery time at 12-18 months after surgery, but every soccer player knows it's a career ender. If you do manage to come back from it, you're never the same. Over the next three days, Karen's mother spent hours leaned over her daughter's hospital bed so that Karen could sit forward, bury her face in her mother's shoulder, and cry. More than once, Mrs. Filippelli felt her daughter's tears soaking clear though her blouse and running messily down her armpit and side.

She had never touched a soccer ball again. To this day she rarely let herself, or anyone else for that matter, see her right knee. Just the sight of that orderly, thick, 3 inch scar could trigger painful memories. She didn't want to think about it, and she certainly didn't want to tell the story to a curious acquaintance or co-worker. They wouldn't understand the magnitude of her disappointment, because Karen did not have the words to accurately describe it. She slept in comfortable, ankle length pajama pants. The few times she did wear a knee-bearing dress, she always wore dark nylons to hide the scar. She rarely went swimming. She had told Jim she hurt her knee and quit soccer when she was young, but she had never filled him in on the gory details, and he had never asked. He had seen her naked often enough, but always in dim light, and, given that there were better things to look at, his eyes had apparently never made it that far down.

Karen snapped out of her little daydream. The years had softened her resentment. She was not a bitter person by any means. Lately she had even been quite happy. As she looked around, though, slowly surveying the office around her, she couldn't help but think there was a world out there where she didn't slog through each workday, where she didn't sell paper... where she wouldn't allow herself to love a man who didn't wholeheartedly welcome her affections. A world she had lost sight of over fifteen years ago, on a rectangular patch of grass in suburban Connecticut.

When he was only five years old, his dad had set up a backboard and hoop in their driveway. He had spent literally thousands of hours since then firing shot after shot, winning imaginary championships, silencing imaginary doubters. So it was only fair that, during his senior season, at the NE Pennsylvania District 2 title game, with his team trailing by a single point and time running out, he found himself with the ball in his hands and an open look at the rim. The point guard, the team's best player, had driven, drawn the defense in on himself, and kicked the ball out to the team's best shooter: Jim. Jim wasted no time, launching a gentle, arcing shot... for everything...

Clank. His heart sunk. The gym went quiet. The final buzzer sounded with its piercing, mechanical cruelty. It was over. Jim was shattered... for about 30 minutes. It was only a game, after all. Basketball was fun, but it wasn't his life. He rode home that night with his parents and Jamie, his beautiful high school sweetheart. That night they made love as quietly as they could on the living room sofa while his parents were sleeping. Two days later he received an acceptance letter from the University of Scranton, along with a partial scholarship.

College was everything he imagined it would be. He worked part time as a tutor so he could afford to move out of his parents house and get an apartment of his own. He loved teaching, and he was naturally gifted. He and Jamie had broken up... she was a year below him after all and still in high school, but there were other women. Not a whole lot, but certainly enough to keep things interesting. He planned to join Americorps or the Peace Corps after college for a couple of years and then get a job as a teacher. But not, of course, until he had milked four years worth of great life experiences from his college years. He was even learning French.

The call came seven months into his junior year. His father had been diagnosed with colon cancer. Although Jim nearly collapsed when he heard the news, it turned out it wasn't too bad as far as cancer goes. His dad's doctor had caught it early, and it was very treatable... almost routine. But his father's insurance covered only a small portion of the significant costs of treatment. Worse yet, his dad had to miss a lot of work. His parents could no longer afford to help pay his tuition.

Rather than go heavily into debt, Jim decided he would take a leave of absence and support himself for a while, after promising himself he would come back and finish what he started. His friend, Jason Truck, set him up with an interview at his father's old company, Blunder Driftin or whatever it was called. He put on his suit, left his apartment, and met Michael Scott for the first time. That was over five years ago.

Another day over. He changed out of his suit, tossing it carelessly on his bed, and put on an old T-shirt and some sweatpants. He slogged over to the living room, switched on the Phillies game, and plopped down on the couch. A few minutes later Karen emerged from the bathroom. She had changed out of her work clothes, washed her face, and grabbed the nearest article of Jim's clothing to wear, as she had made a habit of doing lately. She smiled at him as she skipped over to the couch, wearing only her underwear and one of Jim's sweatshirts, which was giant on her. He looked up at her... his sweatshirt. University of Scranton. His heart filled with disappointment. She had no idea. He forced himself to smile back.

He looked like a true Eastern Pennsylvania man: tough, rugged, no bullshit. A member of what would turn out to be the last generation of American workers who could make a decent life for themselves and their families with honest, tough, blue-collar work. He woke up at 5AM every morning and set out for another long day of assembling and repairing heavy mining machinery. At around 5PM, he would open the front gate to his modest suburban home and his day would begin.

He rarely made the 10 paces from the gate to the door without getting attacked. She would hear him coming and make for the door, sprinting out and jumping into his waiting arms. "DADDY!" His middle child. She was such a sweet little thing, barely six years old. She seemed a little quiet, but mostly because unlike most six year olds, she never complained about anything. Little Pammy was always so content, so happy. She was just as happy walking with him to the hardware store on boring errands as she was when he took her to the zoo or to the movies or something fun. Unlike her sister, Michelle, who at five was a shrieky, high-maintenance terror. It was on one such errand, a trip to the pharmacy to pick up some prescription cold medicine for Pam's brother that she ran and picked a jumbo box of crayons off one of the shelves and held them up to her father.

"Daddy can I get this?" The girl never asked for anything, so he was happy she had spoken up. That night he laid a sheet of poster paper on their living room floor and they spent the evening drawing together. Pam would think up an animal and they would both draw it. The old man's hands weren't made for drawing, however... he knew it wasn't PC, but he kept thinking to himself that his animals all looked inbred and totally retarded. Pam's on the other hand were pretty good.

They were rudely interrupted when little Michelle jumped on Pam from behind and tried to wrestle the crayon away from her big sister.

"Shelly NO!" Pam recoiled. The old man separated his daughters and set his youngest a few feet away. He gave her a crayon so she could join in. She had never shown any interest in drawing. She only really wanted to steal the attention that her sister was getting. That's why the old man was so surprised when little Shelly began drawing perfect, life-like, beautiful animals next to Pam's pretty good ones and his little furry retards.

It would not be the last time she overshadowed her big sister. In fact, nothing made her happier than upstaging Pam. She was a better athlete, and when Pam quit playing sports at age nine is was largely because she hated being the older, slower, less skilled sister of little Michelle Beesly, crowd-favorite and superstar. She was also a better artist, a better musician, and best of all, she was prettier than Pam. As they reached high-school, Michelle's favorite activity became stealing away any boy who had the nerve to show interest in her big sister. She was the one, after all, with the straighter hair, the more toned figure, the more exotic looking face. She would use her arsenal of seduction to catch the eye of anyone who showed the slightest interest in Pam, only to discard them shortly afterwards and move onto the next candidate.

So it was only natural that when Pam finally caught the eye of a really popular boy, the too-cool-for-school football star with the easy smile, Michelle immediately set about stealing his affections. She caught him walking up their front drive one day, stopping by to invite Pam out of ice cream. From her bedroom window, Pam saw her approach him and nestle up to him seductively. By the time she ran downstairs in horror and burst out the door it was over. She heard his voice, almost a yell.

"Hell no. I'm here to see your sister. Don't ever do that again." An instant later she was nearly run over by her furiously pouting sister as she stomped back into the house and made for her room.

"Hey Pammy."

She batter her eyes at him and smiled a huge, toothy grin.

"Hi Roy."