Pam was known for being helpful. She dealt with others compassionately, sensitive almost to a fault. She could do no less with Jim. It hurt her to do so now, but she knew that she at least owed him THIS.

So when she had found him in the break room: head down, shoulders slumped, long limbs tucked under the table and folded around a nearly empty cup; her heart did what she now knew it always had. It went out to him.

And she gave him the only thing she knew she could. She gave him what she knew was in his best interest. He was moving on. He deserved to be happy with Karen, who obviously liked him so well, and wasn't afraid to show it. Who didn't hold anything back.

But deep down, though she knew it was unlikely, she held out hope that sitting down and talking with him would somehow crack the ice that had formed, almost tangibly, in the air between them. That he would hear her words in favor of him going easy on Karen, but read the subtext. He was always so good at the subtext; so was she.

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Until Karen approched her in the warehouse, she hadn't realized how tightly she held to that hope. Karen- lovely and sophisticated, smart and driven. Big smile, perfect features: "I think I owe you one".

Pam, again, felt her inadequacy in Karen's presence. She knew as well as felt that she did not hold a candle to her. Karen's exuberance wrapped her even more fully in a tight cocoon of awkwardness, of insecurity. What had she been thinking, blowing out her hair and wearing more lip gloss? What did it all matter, next to this?

And as Karen walked away, Pam knew that she had mere minutes. And not many of them, at that. She felt the painful lump swell, her eyes fill, the hurt impossibly pressing against her ribs until she thought it would visibly thrust it's way through her shirt and cardigan and straight out into the warehouse. She dropped her clipboard; she didn't care. She made her way more quickly than she thought possible over the distance of the floor, up the stairs, and through the doorway. But not another step. She collapsed on the bench by the door, letting the sobs escape into her hands.

She didn't know how long she sat there, alternating between painful, wracking sobs and quiet grief that poured it's way seemingly unstoppable out of her eyes and down her cheeks. She contemplated rising to get tissues from the office, but felt that to leave that bench would require a feat of physical strength she couldn't begin to muster. So she sat, unashamedly wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan, more aware with every passing moment that the door right next to her was bound to open sometime and she would be discovered. And much too devastated to care.

Eventually it did open. And of course, it was him.