DISCLAIMER: I don't own the rights to The Office or its characters.

"Karen... are you still there?"

She heard his voice fading as she lowered her phone from her ear and folded it shut.  She hit the power button and shut the phone off completely before allowing herself a few seconds to close her eyes and try to bite through her fillings.

You bastard, Jim.  You selfish bastard.  Rot in hell.

Having excused herself from her friends to take his call, Karen now felt painfully exposed on the busy sidewalk.  Embarrassed by the feeling of a single tear running down her cheek, she scampered a few paces into the nearest alleyway, before leaning up against the building and trying to collect her thoughts.  Her anger was genuine enough, but unable to completely blind her to those other awful feelings brewing in her stomach.  She needed the rage, because the crap she would have to sort through when the anger was gone... well that was going to really hurt.  Her love should have been a wonderful gift, and her reward for offering it up so freely was the heartbreak that now throbbed in her chest, giftwrapped in a healthy dose of utter humiliation.  And that dirty, used feeling... serious emotional crap indeed.

Be Strong.  Stay angry.  Deal with it later.  Just get yourself home.

Karen would have given just about anything to be able to teleport back to Scranton.  The city she loved now felt so mercilessly loud and intrusive.  She wanted her apartment, her own bed.  Somewhere safe to curl up and be alone.  She was the epitome of numb efficiency as she managed to bid her friends farewell without revealing any humiliating details.  She got herself to the train station and was doing fine until she purchased her ticket, when that simple act caused her to reflect on the reality of her situation.  She had arrived less than a day earlier, with hopes, dreams, and her boyfriend.  Now she was buying a single train ticket back, while he was probably excitedly racing back to Scranton and Pam and not giving a second thought to her.  She might have broken down if the anger hadn't returned just in time.


**************************

"It's a date."

Jim bounced back to his desk like a giddy child, happily oblivious to the numerous sets of eyes following him, tracking his every move.  Oblivious to the knowing smiles on the faces of his coworkers.  Oblivious, also, to the one face in the room that wasn't smiling at all.


**************************

The ride had been about what she expected.  She had tried to sleep but couldn't, so she spent two long, slow hours with her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep, trying unsuccessfully to think about nothing at all.  At long last the train approached Scranton and began to slow.

Almost there.  Just a little longer.

A hot shower.  A warm bed.  Anything for a little peace.  She decided that once she got home, she'd allow herself the rest of the weekend to be alone and indulge in self-pity, but that was it.  After that, it was back to business: the business of getting the hell out of this shit town and away from that selfish douchebag.  That was 48 hours more than he was worth, but it wasn't about him anymore, and for the next two days, if it made her feel better to curl up in bed with a tub of ice cream and soak her pillow with undeserved tears, then that's what she'd do.  Hopefully, with Michael out of the running and Jim apparently headed for a life in Scranton, she would get the job in New York and that would be the end of it.  But Karen had a pretty good sense for these things, and she wasn't optimistic.   Wallace had broken from professionalism and asked her about another candidate for the same job she was applying, and then pushed her when she had coughed up a generic non-answer.  Wallace was a pro, and if he was willing to cross that boundary with her to fish for more information on Michael, he probably wasn't seriously considering her.   She would have felt better if he had asked the same question to Jim, but her chance to compare notes with him had been interrupted by...

Fuck you, Jim.

***************************

Watching her endure for so long with an unappreciative oaf of a man had almost driven him to madness.  He had longed for her like life itself, while the other man plodded selfishly through his life oblivious to the beautiful, special woman who had undeservedly fallen into his lap.  Katy.  Stamford.  Karen.  Just tools a fool used to throw himself a giant pity party.  A selfish asshole, indeed.  Andy turned his attention away from the other end of the parking lot, where Jim was gallantly opening the passenger door on his Saab for Pam, and unlocked his SUV.  He didn't even know this Katy chick, although he'd heard tales of her hotness from Kev, Ryan, Michael, and Kev again.  He knew Karen, though, and knew her well.  Over the last five years, although she'd turned down his romantic overtures countless times, she always treated him with a genuine warmth that he truly appreciated.  She was, after all, the only one who had called to check on him while he toiled in anger management.  She'd grow tired of his antics sometimes, but unlike the others, she never snapped at him with genuine anger.  He'd seen her broken and shattered a few times, but she always recovered.  This time he was worried though.  He'd never seen her fall for a guy as hard as she had for Jim.  He followed the Saab with the happy couple out of the parking lot.

***************************

Karen had just made it off the platform to the taxi line when the attack came.  The arms clutched her ribcage from behind and lifted her off her feet.  Her limbs began flailing wildly and her purse dropped to the ground.  She was about to scream when she heard that familiar voice.

"Bear Hug!"

"Jesus, Andy.  Put me down!"  She was a little aggravated, but mostly just relieved that she wasn't getting mugged.   She grabbed at his forearm as he slowly leaned forward until her kicking feet finally felt the ground.  She instinctively spun and tried to back away, but Andy instead tightened his grip once she was facing him, slamming her into his chest as she reflexively coiled her arms and fists between them.

An old friend.  He rarely touched her, certainly never like this.  And he couldn't have known she was coming in on the train.  Nobody could have.  He must have come and waited on the off chance that she'd be there.  Karen slowly moved her arms away and let Andy draw her closer, gently grabbing his shoulders and leaning her still heavily made up face into his shoulder.

After a few long seconds of taking in the unexpected warmth of Andy's hug, Karen's thoughts returned to practical matters.

"Andy, how'd you know?"

"You don't want to know how I know.  Let's go."

"Where are we going..?"


******************************
Karen had never scared easily.  Even as a little girl, she had insisted that her mother unplug her night light because she slept better when it was pitch black.  Perhaps her safe suburban upbringing and loving family had given her a natural sense of security.  Perhaps she was just naturally brave.  Darkness, needles, heights, spiders... Nothing ever fazed her.  Until that autumn evening in 2003 in Stamford.  She had been out late with friends, and as she made her way from the parking lot to her apartment, she passed a large, unassuming looking man in a hooded sweatshirt and gave a polite nod that he did not return.  It wasn't until the next morning when she saw the forensics units and was interviewed by a detective that she found out a rape had been committed in her complex, and she had unknowingly passed not 12 inches from the primary suspect.  A short, light woman, Karen was used to looking up at people, and her confidence easily offset any perception of timidity that her height might have implied.  But confidence was irrelevant in a pure physical mismatch, and her unexpected brush with evil had made her give thought to the now frighteningly real prospect of being overpowered, pinned down and violated by a strange man.  And for the first time in her life, Karen was terrified.

That night she had tried to settle in.  She knew she was safe.  The police were patrolling her complex.  But she couldn't shake that awful fear.   She had seen him.  He had seen her.  And he was still out there somewhere.  Her hands shook.

Andy answered the door wearing nothing but a pair of florescent green boxer shorts with a giant cow across the crotch.  Earlier that year he had finally stopped asking her out after Karen rejected him time after time.  After that, they had settled into a casual friendship, although Karen, warm and accepting of him as a friend, had always kept him at arms length to keep him from misinterpreting things.  Karen remembered this moment well... watching Andy's initial happiness to see her turn to concern.  She hadn't looked right: shivering gently and holding her pillow against her chest with both arms.

"Karen.   What are... come in..."

He had offered her the bed, but she insisted he keep it, and settled instead on a sleeping bag on his bedroom floor.  The couch wasn't enough.  She needed someone she trusted to be in the same room.  She expected that to be enough, but it wasn't.  What she hadn't expected, though, was Andy to sit on the floor by her sleeping bag for over an hour, re-assuring, listening, softly rubbing her back while she shivered, wiping the small tears she tried hard not to shed.  She didn't remember falling asleep.  Andy had woken her excitedly the next morning to tell her they had caught the guy.

And even years later, nobody at work seemed to understand why the snarky, assertive chick seemed to have such a huge tolerance for that guy.  And it wasn't their business either.


**************************

Andy thumped his chest proudly.

"Don't worry... The Treble Man's got a little rehab planned for you.  Just get in... And trust me."

Karen looked across the hood at Andy before sliding into his passenger seat.  A smile.  Small, but real. Her voice was almost a whisper.

"I do."