They’re in bed alone one Friday night after a long day at work and even longer night at the bar. She’s quiet, for once, content and might possibly be sleeping. He doesn’t mind her lying there, silent, in the crook of his arm. His fingers even lazily travel up and down her bare, slick shoulders.

Thank god, peace, finally, he thinks to himself.

“Ryan?” she asks, breaking his thoughts.

“Yes.” It’s a constricted yes. He’s trying to think happy thoughts.

She doesn’t move. “Do you think that you’ll be able to sell more paper than Jim? Maybe then you could be the Northeastern region’s number two and make more money and it’ll be awesome, you know?” Her voice isn’t actually all high pitched for once and is kind of serious.

He pulls her tighter, and thinks. His answer lies somewhere between wanting to succeed and kick Jim’s ass back to Stamford and changing his name and moving far, far away from Dunder Mifflin. Possibly Europe.

He sighs, closing his eyes. “I don’t know Kelly. Let’s sleep.”

He’s sitting at his desk. Dwight is glaring at Andy as he leans over Angela’s shoulder. She’s showing him one of her cats on Webshots.

Ryan shakes his head, not even bothering to care. Or wonder.

He feels eyes towards him, from his left. Again. It’s not Michael for once, but Karen. He doesn’t really know her either. He hasn’t bothered to get to know any of the Stamford people. Karen actually seems like a normal human being, but he’s pretty sure that’ll change if she stays here any longer.

He feels Karen’s eyes towards him again. He cannot deal with another Kelly. Just, no.

He looks up and notices that her eyes aren’t on him. He takes the bait and follows them. They’re on Pam. Who is looking at the back of Jim’s head, almost longingly and expectantly. Jim is staring at his computer, looking at a blank IM screen. His finger taps against the side of the keyboard.

Ryan’s eyes glance back to Karen. She notices and quickly stares back into her screen.

This starts to happen a lot lately. It feels like his head is programmed to turn in a triangular direction. He’s pretty sure if he looks fast enough, it’ll spin in a circle. Kinda like the girl from the Exorcist.

He decides that he should have given Jim back his seat when he had the chance.

Kelly comes and sits down on his desk. She has a frame in her hand. The picture inside is of the two of them. He has no recollection of ever taking a picture with her.

“Look!” she says excitedly, as she places the picture down next to his monitor, “now you can look at us all day!”

The frame is hot pink.

He’s a little weirded out though, cause he’s smiling in the picture. A real smile.

He looks up at her, and manages to raise one side of his lips. She quickly kisses his cheek, bounces off the desk and runs to the back, giggling.

Karen, Jim and Pam all look at him, amused.

Fuck off, the three of you, he thinks. He looks back at his monitor.

Kelly’s at his desk again, leaning. He’s tuning her out and staring at her ass that’s right next to his keyboard. He thinks he hears something about wanting to go see Justin Timberlake in concert and something about K-Fed.

Then he hears silence.

“Who are you looking at?” Kelly stands, hand on hip, pissed off and looking at Karen.

“I um – I wasn’t looking at anyone.” Karen looks down at the spreadsheet in front of her, back to writing.

“No you were looking in this direction. At Ryan,” Kelly says again forcefully.

“I-uh,” Karen says. She almost looks like a deer caught in headlights. Almost.

Kelly turns her head to look at Ryan, Ryan looks back at her, then over to reception.

Jim is leaning over the counter, talking to Pam. Except they’ve stopped and are now looking at Ryan and Kelly, then at Karen.

“You better not go after Ryan too,” Kelly says, looking back at Karen, before grabbing his arm, “come on Ryan.” She drags him to the break room.

Jim taps Pam’s desk and sits down in his chair. Karen walks to the women’s bathroom.

She doesn’t come out for ten minutes.

Ryan kind of wishes Jim had stayed in Stamford.

Dwight has put in five requests to Toby for a partition between his desk and Jim’s. He says if Angela can have one between her and Kevin, he should especially be able to have one between him and Jim.

Ryan wishes he had one between them all.

Pam stops at Jim’s desk as Jim is telling Dwight that as Michael’s number 2 he has the right to veto his request. Pam reminds Dwight that this is true. They both laugh as Dwight gets angrier and angrier at the things they say.

Ryan watches the scene and rolls his eyes in his head.

He looks at his left and sees Karen looking on curiously. She glances at him. He gives her a look.

It’s the closest thing to a warning he can muster.

He’s in the break room with Kelly when Jim comes in.

“Ryan I have to get back to work, but don’t forget to buy the tickets for Justin today okay? If him and Britney get back together and she’s at the concert and I miss it I will just die!”

He sips his coffee and nods his head as she bounds out of the room.

“Hey man,” Jim says grabbing a cup.

“Hey,” he says, sipping. Jim is annoying him and he’s not sure why.

“So…that is really still going?” Jim laughs, leaning against the counter next to him.

Ryan swallows. “I could ask you the same thing.” He looks him directly in the eye before walking out of the room, door clattering shut behind him.

A couple of weeks later he comes in to find Karen’s desk empty.

He’s not sure where she went. He really doesn’t care. Surprisingly, there was no big party or announcement from Michael. Only a remark from Dwight saying that it’s like Lost when slowly but surely some of the others started to leave the show.

Ryan immediately asks Michael if he can take Karen’s desk. Michael, of course, says yes.

Jim takes his old desk back.

Ryan is thankful he’s finally out of that situation. Now, if only he could figure his way out of another. He’ll save that for another day…maybe.