She shouldn't be enjoying this as much as she is, especially now that the alcohol buzz (and its associated freedom from rational thought) have started to wear off. But nevertheless the contentment has saturated through her - despite the suffering of the past year, the frustration of the past couple of months, the anger of this morning, and the hangover of just this second. She feels the woman curled up in her arms, her heat and the softness of her, shift her weight slightly, almost impreceptibly, and she gives a soft sigh.

"Pam?" Karen whispers.

"Hmmmm?" she replies, not wanting to put too much effort into any action at the moment, but pleasantly anticipating Karen's words. She'd found herself really taking a liking to this woman she had once wanted to stab with a pen. She was smart and funny and easy to get along with, and if Karen wanted more, she would be happy to give it.

"Can you move a little? Your zipper is digging into my ass."

Okay... So not quite what Pam was expecting (or hoped - the devil on her shoulder made great pains to remind her) but she complied, wiggling her hips a bit away from (and against - oops!) the aforementioned ass, and felt the offending metal tab click down against the zipper teeth.

"Better?" she asked.

"Much," replied Karen, to which her devil (who in Pam's mind looked scarily like Dwight) snickered. Pam took the opportunity to snuggle Karen tighter beneath the covers, and Karen didn't complain. Somehow, after the alcohol induced indescrecions of the morning, they had found themselves spooning in Pam's bed, Pam cuddling Karen from behind. Pam's foggy brain recalled with some difficulty that they had decided on that arrangement due to two factors: 1) Karen needed to be held, and 2) if they spooned the other way, Karen would choke to death on Pam's hair. So this way was better for everyone. Why they were spooning in Pam's bed she didn't know. Neither did she know what, if anything, the kiss(es?) they had shared that morning had meant - and that really bothered her. She wanted it to mean something. She didn't know why she wanted this, and definitely didn't want to think about what that meant about her, or what Karen had been through, but she greedily wanted this to be more than just drunken kissing, comforting a hurt friend. Her devil was sitting with his little feet dangling over her bicep. Her poor little angel was smushed into the mattress below. We have a winner.

She wondered how much longer she would be able to just stay like this, wrapped up in a little cocoon of contentment. They had both dozed off sometime ago, there was work tomorrow, faces to be made presentable again, and who knows how much the alcohol had warped their sense of time? Not moving was nice, but the question would fester in her brain if she didn't know the answer. She grudgingly made her voice work again.

"What time is it?" she asked.

Karen grumbled something incoherent into the pillow.

"Hmmm?"

"I said 'look at the clock yourself, lazy ass'," Karen teased, grumpy but not really grumpy. "I drank more than you so I'm not gonna use my eyes again until tomorrow."

"But I can't see through your head. All you have to do is open your eyelids. I have to lift my neck all the way up so I can see around you. You wouldn't make me expend all that energy and risk inflicting severe neck trauma on myself, would you?"

"Yes."

"Please."

"No."

"Pretty please?"

"No."

"Pretty please with sugar on top?"

"4:30. PM."

"So what do we do now?"

Karen grumbled something mostly incoherent about sleeping off this hangover.

"That's a gimme," Pam said. The only thing that kept her from rolling her eyes was that they were closed. "I meant after that. And don't fake dozing off on me, because I know you're wide awake." She felt Karen giggle in her arms.

"We steal Michael's Sebring and hit the road as a pair of exotic jewel-thieves?1" suggested Karen, lighting up with excitement at the prospect. Such a joker.

"If we're stealing exotic jewels, what would we need with a crappy Sebring?"

"You're right," Karen concurred. "We should steal a fancy German car. No domestic P.O.S.es for us! Or we could just buy a Mercedes with all the money we make from selling the jewels."

"Maybe we're only stealing mundane jewels and we're the exotic ones."

"Stop messing around with my inflection."

"Besides, you're the only exotic one here. My father wasn't a G.I. like yours."

"That's it. You're going down, Beesly."

"That's what she said."

Pam never got an honest answer before they flitted off to sleep again.

***

When Pam awoke again it was dark, very late, or very early depending on how you looked at it. As much as it pained her to do so, she felt she had to wake Karen up. She just looked so peaceful and innocent in the pale moonlight, and Pam saw her face softened for what may very well have been the first time in months. She was glad to see Karen without the granite façade that she had built up around her during this time of adversity. Watching her come around at ease only to slip it back into place would be upsetting, to say the least. Still, she had to; Karen would definitely not want to have to show up to work in the morning wearing the same clothes as the previous day and reeking of booze or dressed up in Pam's clothes (that would be awkward, especially around Andy... or Michael... or Kevin... or Kelly... or Jim...).

"Hey," she whispered softly into Karen's ear as she gently shook her shoulder. "Wake up, sleepyhead."

"Just five more minutes, mom."

"Ha ha. But seriously, rise and shine, Karen."

Karen grumbled some more. She had the cutest little grumble, which was why Pam kept trying to ellicit that response from her. "It's still dark outside," she complained, able to tell even through her closed eyelids.

"I know. I just thought you'd like to go home and get cleaned up before we headed into work."

"We?"

"You don't have a car here, remember?2 How's that head of yours?"

Karen groaned, finally sitting up. That wasn't so cute. Earsplitting would be more accurate. "It feels like I got hit by a bus. Everything hurts. My hair hurts. If I had a gun right now I'd shoot myself in the head."

"At least you haven't thrown up."

"Yet. I'm not usually a heavy drinker - haven't drank so much since my twenty-first birthday. Didn't make it to the bar that night either," Karen explained as the two of them stumbled their way to the kitchenette. "I try to avoid hard liquor. Usually with hard liquor and me, bad things happen."

"Oh," was all Pam could manage to say. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Did that mean Karen considered this a bad thing? Now that she was sober, was she regretting what they had done? Did she even remember?

"At least this time I had you taking care of me instead of my college buddies trying to roll me down a hill."3

Oooookaaayyyyy.... "I'm afraid to ask. So I won't. Coffee?"

"Yes, thank God," moaned Karen, in a way that probably hadn't been intended to cause that effect on Pam, but did so anyway.

"No, just me, but thanks for the compliment."

Pam swallowed her anxious heart and set her little-used coffeemaker to percolate.

"Do you want to know why I broke up with him?" Karen's question caught her a little off guard. She hadn't wanted them to talk about this right now, or any time soon... or ever. Including Jim always complicated things, and she wasn't sure she could take any more of that.

"Not really," Pam replied, with some trepidation. She fidgetted with her cup in an attempt to conceal her discomfort.

Not that Karen would let that stop her, of course. "I really think you need to hear this though. I don't want there to be some big future blow up if you find out some other way and I never told you."

"So what was it?" she asked nervously, thinking she already knew the answer (or at least the gist of it).

Karen gave her a sullen grin, and it wasn't the kind that made her heart go aflutter. "I wasn't exaggerating when I said that I had you to blame for this. He moaned your name while we were making love last ni - I guess two nights ago, now."

"Oh." The silence wasn't as uncomfortable as she thought it would be. It hadn't set her mind spinning like that first time. Her judgement hadn't become clouded and her emotions hadn't run rampant. There was only quiet, but Karen didn't let that last long.

"You should really go for him," she said, forlornly. "He loves you. He's obsessed about you. He's a great guy and I want you to have your chance with him."

"What if I don't want to?"

"You... don't?" said Karen, hesitantly. When Pam finally turned to face her, she could see the confusion and the disbelief in the other woman's eyes. Karen had expressive eyes, too.

"I don't."

"You're kidding, right? Serious?"

"Serious."

Karen stumbled to sit down on the couch, clearly shocked. "Huh..." Pam thought the stunned look on her was absolutely adorable. "Why don't you? You're crazy."

Pam sighed as she joined Karen on the couch. "Yeah, I'm beginning to think so too. If someone had given me the opportunity last summer, or last week, or even yesterday I would have. God, I would have in a heartbeat. He was indirectly responsible for my non-wedding, you know. As direct as he could be without being directly responsible. And since then I've been pining for him and chasing him. I know that he loves me, and I remember all the fun we had. I wanted that. I wanted it all."

"Doesn't sound like the words of someone who's not interested. What happened?"

"I realized what I was longing for was an ideal, an abstract Jim who didn't really exist. The truth is that he put me in an impossible situation. Then he gave up on me. He's been cold to me - when he ran away and more recently since he's been back. He hasn't been fair with me. He hasn't been fair with you. This morning, when I saw how badly he mistreated you, something just snapped. All of a sudden he's become more real to me, like he's in hard focus or HD or something and I can see all the imperfections. And for probably the first time I'm having misgivings - I mean serious doubts."

"Anxiety comes with the territory, Pam. Doesn't mean you shouldn't give him a chance."

"I know. But I've found something... someone else who I want to give a chance first."

Karen's eyes widened in shock. "You don't mean me, do you?!" But the grin that spread across her face betrayed her delight at the idea.

"Yeah, I mean you, silly!" she said as she wrapped her arms around Karen. "I know it'll be a little weird. It's not like I've ever, you know... felt like this with a..."

"Me neither... not really..."

"But we just connect so well with each other. I never thought I could meet someone who completes me like you do. It's like I was meant to know you. Even though we've barely spoken in the past month, it's like I've known you forever."

Suddenly Karen pulled away from her, and Pam found herself missing the feel of her body in her arms.

"Pam, I can't let you do this," said Karen - and Pam's heart broke a little.

"What? Why? Is it -"

"No, it's not that. Well, maybe a little, but not really. Pam, I have a confession to make." Karen took a deep breath to steel herself (Pam braced for the worst, not knowing what it could be). "I was jealous about what the two of you had. I'm not totally blind. As much as I tried to deny it, I always saw something there between you. When I learned that Jim had feelings for you... Pam, I've been trying to sabotage your friendship with Jim. Trying to turn him against you. For the past month. I'm sorry."

Pam's entire world came crashing down (of course, she was getting used to it by now). That admission was devastating. If she hadn't already been sitting down she would have fallen. As it was, she was at a loss for words.

Karen let a single tear fall as well. 'I don't deserve you,' Pam thought she heard Karen whisper. "I've got to go. Excuse me."

Pam heard the door click shut, but she wasn't really paying attention. She slumped against her couch, lost in turbulent thought...