She watched them with barely-contained fury as they made their sickeningly sweet goodbye. Patience, Karen, she told herself, soon you won't have to worry about them ever again. The time of retribution was drawing near...
"Hurry home, Jim. I've got a special surprise waiting for you," said Pam, with just a hint of naughtiness in her usually quiet, innocent voice. Jim's eyes seemed to sparkle that extra little bit that she herself had never seen up close. Bastard.
The bastard was working late tonight - some sort of emergency kerfuffle that the management types had to sort out before they could go home. Probably Michael's fault, but she didn't care. She was biding her time, waiting, for all appearances the consciencious employee, her mind, in reality, elsewhere on other plans.
And fuming at Jim and Pam kissing right in front of her. How rude was that?
"I can't wait," contentedly murmered Jim, kissing Pam softly one more time. "This shouldn't take too long." Blech. They were like naive teenagers - it was an affront to nature. She snapped another pencil unconsciously in her hands (damn you too, Andy, for giving me this habit) and added it to the collection of broken stationary in her wastebasket. Just leave already, bitch. Mercifully, she did moments later, and Jim went back to Michael's office with Dwight.
Karen waited, killing time by watching Family Guy clips on YouTube. Poor Stewie's evil plans never worked out. It was 6:30 when she was startled out of her quiet giggling by the sound of the office door opening. She quickly closed the window and pretended to be productive, at least until Jim picked up with messenger bag and gathered his belongings to leave a few minutes after Michael and Dwight had left, bickering between themselves. She hurried to follow him into the elevator.
"Jim. Hey," she called out to him. He turned, startled and maybe a little uncomfortable. "I, um... have some of your things that you left in my apartment I thought I should return to you. They're in my car."
He brightened a bit. "Oh. Thanks, Karen. I'm sor-"
Karen rolled her eyes. "If you say you're sorry one more time I'm going to kick you in the junk."
"Good to know. I'll put on a jock strap the next time I apologize to you." She used to find his humor so endearing; now it was plain irritating, especially when she just wanted to hate him.
She led Jim to her car and opened the tailgate of the SUV. "Hey, my sports watch!" he exclaimed, picking up the Casio. "I've been looking for this." So preoccupied was he with the watch and the other contents of the box in her trunk, that he never noticed the isoflurane rag that Karen snuck to his face (it's amazing what you can get by fooling around with a doctor). Jim collapsed to the asphalt with a sickening thud. She looked around to make sure no one had seen that, glad for the sparse camera attendance over the summer months.
He'd let his hair get shaggy again, she realized as she scrutinized his limp form. It was like she'd had no lasting impression on him at all. Well, we'll soon see about that. She began the arduous task of lifting him into her car, not for the first time in her life grumbling about how heavy he was, at least in contrast to herself. Drunk, drugged, same diff, right?
After nearly throwing out her back in a fireman's carry, she succeeded in stuffing Jim into her SUV's trunk and shut the tailgate. At least it would be much easier dragging his sorry carcass out of the car in a few hours when she reached her destination. And then the real fun would begin.
