“You killed it in there Halpert.” Karen praised from the passenger seat of Jim’s car. Her hand easily finding Jim’s right arm and giving it a squeeze in emphasis before resting back in her black satin covered lap. 

Jim couldn’t help but give Karen a grin. He had killed it at the cocktail party. For God’s sake he had played one on one with Dunder Mifflin’s CFO The CFO! Slacker Jim would have never imagined, let alone cared about such a feat but this new non-slacker, more driven Jim sure the heck did. 

Or at least that was what he told himself. 

It wasn’t until just recently, or more accurately after Pam and Roy started dating again, that he had truly started to embrace this more evolved version of himself. Jim 2.0. It was painful to have to toss away the old Jim so quickly, like slamming a finger in a door, or stubbing your toe. The initial pain, blinding and relentless, made him nauseous but slowly the pain was beginning to ebb; leaving this new man in its place. 

Jim had assumed his old self had been dead and gone, long before Roy and Pam’s rekindled relationship. Lost to ‘I can’t’ and maddening indecision but he had been wholly surprised to feel a rapid resurgence of his past bad habits the moment a petit pair of arms wrapped around his neck. While the owner gave him a wide grin and told him how happy she was to have him back. 
So Jim did what any man would when faced with falling back into a destructive pattern, he pulled out a shield and prayed it would save him. 

This one just happened to be human. A small headstrong Italian one to be precise.

Now, he liked Karen. He did. But in no universe would he have ever asked out a coworker (unless they were a curly haired receptionist) or ever dated anyone similar to Karen’s personality. Extremely competitive and headstrong did not mesh well with him on a relationship level. Maybe friends, but definitely not lovers. 

But Karen liked him. Openly and un-afraid. So he grabbed on with both hands and refused to let her go. No matter how wrong they were for each other or how much the whole situation made him feel like the biggest asshole in existence.

Their relationship had gone through many changes as his and Pam’s simultaneously degraded. From almost platonic to tumultuous to where they were at now, stable and kinda sorta getting serious. Of course, that was only because he was most definitely not the same man he had been for over a quarter century. Apparently, Jim 2.0 is much more compatible with Karen than he realized.

“I guess I kind of did, huh?” He replied bashfully, though he knew he really had. 

Karen gave him a playful hit to the same arm she had grabbed earlier but this time kept her hand there. “Kind of? Better watch out because if you keep this up Halpert you and I will be dinning on the finest New York cuisine every night after a hard days work at corporate.” She told him, her voice playful yet edging painfully on hopeful. 

Unfortunately for Karen, the thought of New York and working for corporate brought up anything but hopeful wishing in Jim. If anything it made his stomach sink straight down to his fancy dress shoes in panic. Not even new evolved Jim could spin her words into anything other than an anxiety riddled what if. 

Jim let out a cough and a lame chuckle, when he realized he still hadn’t said anything. Which he was sure Karen could see straight through as a stall for time while he tried to formulate some kind of retort to the fact that she was happily imagining them living together, in New York and working for corporate, only a few months into their relationship. 

But just as the silence between them began to creep to an awkward and uncomfortable level his cell phone let out a shrill ring. Breaking the growing tension in the car and temporarily saving Jim. 

Karen untangled her arm from his, unamused, as he shot her a ‘what are you gonna do’ look and dug out his phone from his pocket. Saying a silent ‘thank you’ to what ever holy being was responsible as he did. Without looking at the caller ID, since it was already risky enough talking on the phone while driving, Jim answered his phone with an overly enthusiastic hello.

“Hey Jim, it’s Toby.” 

Toby’s monotone drawl filled Jim’s ears and while he was blissfully happy to have Toby call at this particular moment he was quickly filled with confusion as to why Toby would be calling him. In all the years of working with the man Jim could only remember one instance when Toby had called him and that was when Jim had been babysitting his daughter Sasha. Toby had wanted to let Jim know there was an accident on the highway and that he would be home late from his date. That was it. Never any other phone interactions. Hell, they only ever even talked at work when it pertained to work. That singular babysitting job had been a spur of the moment request and Jim was sure the only reason Toby had asked him was because he was the first person he ran into after his normal babysitter had canceled. 

“Uh, hey Toby. What’s up man?” He replied casually. Making sure to use Toby’s name since he could practically feel Karen’s questioning eyes piercing him. 

“I’m sorry to have to call you, especially since you’re not in Scranton and you’re with Karen and–”

“It’s fine Toby, we’re actually only twenty minutes or so outside of Scranton. So what’s going on?” He asked again cutting off Toby’s rambling. While he was eternally grateful for the phone call, there was only so much monotone mumbling that he could take. 

“Well you know how most of the office went to Poor Richards after work?” Jim silently nodded, remembering feeling incredibly jealous of the rest of the office as he heard the plan for a causal drink after work. At the time he would have hands down rather been hanging at a bar with them, than going to a stuffy cocktail party any day. But after he overhead Roy agreeing to join them, he happily changed his tune and left for the cocktail party without a single glance back. 

Suddenly, Jim realized he was still nodding and quickly answered Toby. “Yeah, uh, I think I heard something about it. Why, did something happen?” 

Toby paused and cleared his throat at the question, the sound making Jim increasingly more anxious as to what Toby might be calling about. What could have possibly happened that Jim had to be informed? Michael wasn’t even there, so how bad could it have gone? 

“Um, so there was in incident…with Roy.” Jim gripped the phone tighter at the utterance of his name.  “He and his brother, Kenny, I think, destroyed the bar.”

What the Hell! 

Jim could barely contain the fury that began to curl up his core, his imagination running rampant with wild scenarios of the two brutish men destroying bar chairs and smashing glasses in a drunken rage. All of which he had never put past Roy but also never imagined actually happening. 

“That’s insane. Why would they–” Then, just as he began to ask the question a more pressing thought came to mind. “Wait, is everyone okay?” 

“That’s…that’s why I’m calling.” Suddenly, all that burning fury extinguished and creeping dread filled its place. “One of the chairs, broke after he threw it…it’s leg bounced off the floor, and-uh, it-uh…” Jim had, had about enough of Toby’s fumbling answer. Driven by the dread quickly taking him over and the still present glare boring into the side of his head, Jim yelled out a commanding ‘TOBY!’ into his phone stopping the man mid bumbling sentence.

“It hit Pam. Knocked her unconscious.” Toby told him with uncharacteristic decisiveness.

 “The ambulance she was in just left for the hospital and the rest of us are heading that way. And…and I thought you should know…” He trailed off in a more typical Toby fashion. But Jim couldn’t be bothered to care, as his whole body had gone numb at the mention of Pam’s name. So much so that he no longer felt the cell phone pressed tightly to his ear, or the steering wheel he was currently white knuckling, or even Karen’s hand that had returned to his arm. Putting reassuring but demanding pressure on the limb. 

A thousand questions assaulted Jim in his numb state. Rendering him not just physically useless but mentally worthless as well. Try as he might Jim was unable to formulate any sort of coherent sentence, and it was only when he realized Karen was basically shouting his name that a hint of his verbal skills kicked back in. 

And what came out surprised even him. 

“W-why did you call…me?” What the Hell, man! He internally screamed immediately but unfortunately the words were already out and there was no taking them back. 

Toby paused, “well…it’s-it’s Pam. And uh-um…well you’re…you’re her emergency contact, Jim.”