Karen holds the ice pack to his lip and sighs softly as condensation runs down her hand. If she focuses, really, really focuses on holding this bag just right or brushing the hair out of his eyes maybe she can just forget about what just happened.

Truth is that she doubts she’ll ever forget the last hour of her life. She can’t remember a time when she had been more scared than when she had seen Roy’s enraged face rushing towards her and then the feeling of being flung out of the way and the sound of the sickening thud of Roy’s fist colliding with Jim’s face. It had all happened so quickly that before she knew it Roy was being restrained by Kevin, Creed and Dwight, Pam was rushing towards Jim and Jim was half lying, half leaning against his desk.

What Karen does remember as clear as day is the look Jim gives Pam as she comes towards him, it’s filled with sadness and hurt, longing and betrayal. And when he whispers a soft, “Don’t. Don’t touch me.” Pam looks as if she was the one punched in the face. And as the tears well up in Pam’s eyes Karen actually looks away because it’s almost too painful to look at someone whose world has just collapsed.

Now Karen is sitting with him in the break room. Jim hasn’t said a word, except briefly apologizing to her for dragging her into this mess to begin with. He just sits there staring at the fridge while Karen holds the bag to his lip.

She’s not sure whether she starts to speak because the silence is just too deafening or because she’s tired of all this bullshit. “We should get out of here,” she says to him softly.

He doesn’t even look up- she takes this as a cue to continue.

“I mean we should get out of this office, out of this town. It’s not healthy for you to sit here and obsess over your failed relationship with this unstable girl with the homicidal ex-fiance,” he winces ever so slightly at this and Karen knows she is dangerous waters so she starts to talk faster, hoping that maybe, just maybe she can reach him, “I know that you love me and I know that you want to make this work, but it won’t and it can’t while we’re here, stuck in this mess. We need to get out of here.”

He turns towards her slightly but his expression doesn’t change.

“Jan will transfer us to corporate, especially since you were assaulted on company property by another employee. This can be put behind us.” She knows she’s pushing it now but he has to hear it, he has to. “There’s nothing holding us here, nothing.”

His eyes flit towards the empty reception desk ever so briefly and Karen can feel her heart break a little more, he looks down at his hands and squeezes them tightly, and Karen almost cries with relief when he finally says, “Yeah. Maybe you are right.”

They hear a sniffle he suddenly knows that Pam is standing behind both of them, “I know that you don’t want to hear this from me, and I know now that anything you may have once for felt for me, even friendship, is pretty much gone. But I’m so sorry,” and when he hears her start to cry he has to close his eyes tightly to stop himself from turning towards her, “I would have done anything, anything to make sure that no one ever hurt you again. I didn’t think he would react that way. If I had known, I would never have told him. I just wanted…I just wanted to get over you like you had gotten over me, and I thought it would be easier if I was with someone else.”

Karen hands her some tissue and even though she feels like she is in the middle of the Twilight Zone she can’t help but say to Pam, “I think you should go, I don’t think this is the right time.”

This only makes Pam cry harder and as she rushes through the breakroom they both watch as she grabs her purse from behind reception, leaving her coat, and then almost sprints out of the building. Karen suppresses a sigh of relief; it would be ok if they could just get out of here, if they could just go somewhere and start over.

Jim puts his head in his hands and just when Karen thinks he’s going to cry, she hears him softly say, “Call Jan ask her to ask Wallace if there are any openings in corporate. If there aren’t I’ll check online to look for other jobs.”

The relief Karen feels at that moment is coupled with giddiness of knowing that he’s willing, he’s finally willing to give them a shot, that he wants to be with her somewhere else. That this hasn’t all been completely pointless.

“Ok,” she says as she kisses his tousled head, “Ok.”