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Author's Chapter Notes:

Jim gets drunk, Jim's phone rings and Jim talks to Pam...while Karen sits in the front seat.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and I didn't make them drink. NBC, have mercy.

He vaguely heard his name but it sounded far off. "Jim? Jim?" Yep, he was pretty sure that was his name. "Halpert!"

He snapped out of his dream state in the back of Karen's car long enough to realize where he was and who was talking to him. "I'm awake," he tried to say in a convincing tone.

Karen's voice came back to him from the front seat. "Good to know. You still doing ok?"

Oh, he was so not ok. The car was spinning. Karen's braking made his brain hurt when it hit the inside of his skull. At least, that's what he thought was going on in there. "Not to worry about me in the back seat. I'm fine."

He sat up and propped his head up against the window with his bag sitting in his lap. He started to feel an odd sensation near his crotch and a buzzing noise from his bag.

"My pants are vibrating!" he announced loud enough for everyone in the car to hear even though it was just Karen.

"Too much information, Halpert. I can't help you with that one."

"TMI!" he yelled back, his fists hitting the roof of the car in triumph. TMI! Man, Michael was so hilarious!

Jim's drunken mind was able to sober up enough to realize the vibrating was actually his phone in his bag. "Hello? This is Jim Halpert, how may I be of service to you this evening?"

"Um....Jim? Are you ok?"

He would recognize that voice no matter how drunk he was. "Pam! What's up? Hey Karen, it's Pam!"

Jim heard "Who's Pam?" from the front seat and "Who's Karen?" from his cell phone at the same time. Whoa. Too many voices. Too many thoughts.

"Umm...wait a minute." He took a breath trying to get this all clear in his brain. "Ok. Karen, Pam works in Scranton. Pam, Karen is my co-worker who sits behind me at work. I work with her." Wow, that's alot of "works," Jim thought. "Karen is also my caf...chaf...she's like those people that wear those hats and drive you home. I got drunk."

"Oh, did you guys have a happy hour at a bar there or something?"

"Nope, I got drunk at work," he admitted. Karen started giggling in the front seat.

"Wow. Dunder Mifflin is so proud," Pam replied with a chuckle. "Hey, did you get my text message?"

"You left me a text message? Um...I may have been passed out on my desk at the time." This sucks, Jim thought, rubbing his aching forehead. I don't want to have this conversation with Pam. I'm sounding like an idiot.

"Well, I'll give you more details when you're sober, Halpert, but let's just say Michael proposed to Carol tonight and she rejected him. In front of all of us."

"What? Karen, Michael proposed to Carol and she rejected him," Jim told her.

"I don't know Michael or Carol," Karen tried to explain.

Jim ignored this fact long enough to ask Pam if Michael was ok.

"Yea," Pam said, trying to suppress a giggle. "I just dropped him off at home so he's ok, but it was bad. I mean, he tried to kiss me."

"What did you say?" Jim asked in a concerned voice. He was feeling more sober all of a sudden.

"I just told me it wasn't going to happen. Probably crushed him but whatever," she said sarcastically.

"You seem to do that to alot of guys," Jim replied. Fuck! Why did you just say that, Halpert? Just shut up. Fuck! "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that," he tried to explain. He was feelingalot more sober right now.

Karen could see his face in her rear view mirror change from his drunken loopy smile to looking like someone just ripped his heart out of his chest. She couldn't see Pam on the other end of the phone, but Pam had the same expression.

"Um...yeah...." was all Pam could stammer out.

"Sorry," Jim said in an almost pleading voice. "I didn't mean that. I just..."

"No, no. It's ok. How about I just call you tomorrow and give you the details when you're sober?"

Jim was feeling like like a complete jerk and the idea that Pam would actually call him after that was almost unbelievable. "Yea. Sounds good."

"I'll talk to you then, Jim. Tell Karen to take care of you, ok?"

"I will."

He hung up without saying goodbye.

"Pam told me to tell you to take care of me." Jim was sounding defeated, so Karen only responded with a "No problem," from the front seat.

Jim let his head flop back on the seat's head rest. He couldn't tell if the spinning he felt was from the alcohol or talking to Pam or saying what he did to her. They both knew Pam broke his heart even if she had never admitted it to him. It just hurt to know he had said that to her in that tone under these circumstances. His lips started to tingle from the alcohol and thinking about that kiss.

Jim heard Karen clear her throat in the front seat. "So who's Pam again?"

He couldn't do it. He couldn't talk about Pam right now, he couldn't talk about Pam to Karen. He didn't know what was holding him back, but his head was becoming clear and he at least realized he needed to say as little as possible. "I don't want to talk about it," was all he said.

"So she broke your heart?"

Fuck! How did Karen do that? "I don't want to talk about it."

"Ok."

"You need to make a left on Bergen up here."

Jim played the conversation with Pam over and over again and watched the street lights go by over and over again. His eyes couldn't keep up with the light poles.

"Karen, how many shots did I drink tonight?"

Karen chuckled from the front seat. "I think five."

"Ohhhhhh dear God, why didn't you stop me?"

She laughed. "When you came in this morning on your bike with the sexy basket in front, I figured I'd let Andy get your drunk so I could take advantage of you later."

Jim laughed back. "You suck." He saw Karen's smile reflected in her rear view mirror. "And you didn't do a good job. I'm too drunk to do anything except pass out in your back seat."

"Just don't puke back there," Karen advised him as he laid back down.

The sad thing was Jim was glad he was too drunk to do anything with Karen in the back seat or anywhere else. All he could think about was calling Pam tomorrow to apologize.


sharky is the author of 26 other stories.
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