Chapter 2:

Jim came into the office a little earlier than he usually would on a Friday morning.  A lot earlier than he would have come in considering that he had been up most of the night waiting for Pam to call him back.  She never had.  It made his stomach twist in knots to think about what her silence could mean.  Maybe she’d only meant to tell him goodbye that night at the beach.  Maybe she had only meant she had missed her friend.  Maybe her phone wasn’t working or she might have been out of range or maybe her voicemail box had been full and she never got his message.  Jim sighed in frustration at the empty reception desk that greeted him.

            “Maybe I just need to calm down,” he mumbled to himself and passed a big hand over his face.  He wasn’t going to find anything out until Pam got in.  Dwight had said he thought Pam was going to go out with her friends, maybe she’d had a late night out and would be slower getting in this morning.  God knew she deserved to have fun with people other than the odd collection of Dunder Mifflin employees, but he really wished she had picked a different night to break out of her shell.  The suspense was killing him.

            As his co-workers began to drift in to start their day, Jim tried to think of how to talk to Pam about his message and whether or not she’d be willing to go out on a date that night.  He was momentarily distracted by Angela bickering with Kevin about his disgusting taste in doughnuts and the anti-Ryan tirade Kelly was unloading into Toby’s ear as they came thru the doors.  He check the clock.  9:30 and still no Pam.  Jim started to worry that his message might have prompted her to take a sick day to avoid him.  By 10:00, he was sure he’d freaked her out. 

By 10:30, Michael was sitting on Jim’s desk, bemoaning his bad luck at having a completely psycho live-in girlfriend.  Dwight was beginning to complain at Pam’s perceived unprofessional behavior.

“But Michael, as the first contact customers have with Dunder Mifflin, it is Pam’s duty to be here on time for work every day.  It is completely irresponsible for her to be so tardy and there must be consequences for her actions…”

He was cut off by the sound of the office doors opening,.Jim craned his neck around Michael to see if it was Pam, but to his dismay it was Karen instead. And she did. Not. Look. Happy.  With an angry frown she marched straight over to Jim, completely ignoring Michael, and demanded, “We need to talk, right now.”

Sighing, he pushed away from his desk, shooting Michael a look that clearly said Sorry, man and followed Karen back into the kitchen without argument. He just wanted to get this part over with.  As the door to the kitchen closed behind him he heard Dwight’s: “Question, may I launch an investigation into Pam’s tardiness?” and Michael’s frustrated assent. Silence followed as Karen simply stared at him with her dark eyes. For what felt like the thousandth time that morning Jim sighed.

“Look, Karen, I’m sorry for how I left things yesterday with you,” he began but she cut him off.

            “And just what would you be sorry for Jim?” She snapped. “The part where you left me in New York? The part where you let me believe that we were finally going to get out of this town together? Or could you possibly mean the fact that you let me spend the last six months believing that you were something more than a barely there slacker with absolutely no ambitions in his life or any type of career goals!”

            Jim clenched his teeth together so hard he was sure they were going to crack trying not to say something he would regret.  Karen deserved her pound of flesh after how he’d behaved. “I’m sorry that I can’t be the type of guy you need.”

            Karen frowned deeper. “I moved here from Connecticut, I changed my life to be with you and now because of some milk toast bitch with bad hair, you're just going to throw it all away!”

            “Would ou shut the hell up about Pam!” Jim had had enough, Karen could attack his integrity all she wanted. But he drew the line at letting her insult Pam. “Don’t you dare bring her into this, Karen.  Even if she wasn’t a factor, it still wouldn’t change who I am.”

“Did you fuck her?” She demanded suddenly and Jim was shocked at her totally out of character accusation.

            “W-what?” He stammered. “No, I did not have sex with her.  And even if I had, we broke up yesterday, remember?”

            “Well I just can’t see any other reason for you to just toss six months out the window on a whim after I moved here from…”

            Jim was quick to cut her off before she got on that track again. “Don’t you even try to blame me for your deciding to move to Scranton. I know I encouraged you, but where else were you going to go, Karen? Tell me that? There weren’t any jobs available at Corporate or Albany at the time, so the only choices you had were Scranton or Severance so don’t stand there and blame me for leading you on to get you to come here because we both know that a load of bullshit!”

            Jim’s chest heaved.  He didn’t think he’d yelled as much in the past decade as he had just done, but it felt good to get it off his chest so he kept going. “Nothing I do is good enough for you, you’re always bitching at me to change something; my cloths aren’t expensive enough, my taste in music is too weird, my hair makes me look homeless! Tell me, Karen, if we had such a great relationship, why did you want me to change so much just to stay in it?”

            Karen simply glared at him with tears locked behind her eyelids and Jim felt a little ashamed of his outburst. “I’m sorry, Karen,” he said gently with a tired shake of his head. “But, I just can’t do this any more. It isn’t fair for either of us.”

            Jim stood silently as Karen turned on her heels and slammed out of the kitchen.  From his vantage point, he could see that Pam’s desk was still empty. With a frown, he dropped his large frame into one of the plastic chairs, pulling out his cell phone to try her number again.  This time, her voicemail wouldn’t even pick up.  Great, he thought. Just great. He sat dejectedly with his head in his hands for a few moments, collecting his thoughts, before trudging back to his desk.

            He was confused by the strange tableaux he found when he re-entered the main office.  Michael, Dwight, and Toby where grouped around the door to Michael’s office, all looking very serious.  But, what was truly bizarre was that for once Michael’s face was totally devoid of his customary loathing for all things Toby.  As if on cue, all three men looked in his direction as he sat down in front of his computer screen, each looking at him as though he were a bomb about to go off.  Shit, I must have been yelling louder than I thought, he groused to himself. He was dismayed to feel the telltale warmth spread across the back of his neck and up his cheeks. Dwight was the first to break eye contact, nervously scanning his eyes over the floor, the other desks, the wall, looking anywhere but at Jim. Jim was shocked. What the Hell, he thought.  The blatantly passive behavior was totally out of character for Dwight, who wouldn’t even smile for his I.D. badge photo because “showing one’s teeth is a submission sign in primates”. He noticed the cautious look that passed between Michael and Toby before the mild-mannered HR rep uncomfortably cleared his throat.

            “Hey, Jim,” he began.  “Michael and I need to talk to you. Can you come on into the conference room?”

            As if this day could get any better! Jim grimaced as he lifted his tired body up out of his desk chair and followed his boss and HR rep into the other room.  Clearly, Karen just couldn’t keep this between them and had made a complaint to Toby.  He supposed he at least deserved what ever formal reprimand he had coming considering his recent episode in the kitchen. But, if Karen had so much as hinted that Pam was to blame as well…well, he didn’t know what he’d do.  He glared at Karen as he entered the conference room, but her expression only registered honest confusion.

“Hey, Jimbo, why don’t you just…um…sit down here.” Michael fumbled uncomfortably. From tell telling lack of any attempet at humor, Jim instantly realized the seriousness of what was about to take place. He figured he might as well get right down to it.

"Look, I don't know what Karen might have said to you or how much you heard from the kitchen, but I was going to go to Toby later today and file the termination of a relationship papers if..." Jim’s rambling explanation trailed off when Michael vigorously shook his head then looked helplessly over to Toby who, if possible, looked ever sadder than ever.

 "Jim,” he said quietly. “This isn't about you and Karen." 

Jim was confused.  "What?" He looked back and forth between the two men standing in front of him.  He noticed how they flanked him on either side, each in line with one of his shoulders.  This was weird. Toby took a deep breath and Michael made a little noise in the back of his throat and looked down at the floor.

 "Dwight just called Pam’s apartment and...” Jim interrupted him with a breathy laugh. So that’s what this was about, Dwight must have really pissed Pam off if they were coming to him to smooth things over.

“Great,” he laughed. “What did Detective Schrute do now? Tell her that her “women’s problems” are a good enough reason to take a sick day?” 

Toby shook his head sadly, which made Jim start to feel uneasy.  What really made the fear coil in his gut though, was that Michael completely let the reference to Pam’s reproductive cycle pass by him without comment. Jim sat up a little straighter.

“What, did she quit or something?” Oh God, don’t let her have quit. That would mean that I totally blew it if she felt she had to quit to stay away from me.

“No, she didn’t quit,” Toby continued in the same soft voice as before.  “Dwight spoke with Pam’s father.  Apparently, Pam went out last night with a few of her friends from art school."  Jim noticed Michael had silently started to cry at that point.  An oddly cold sense of dread began to claw its way up from his gut to his chest when he looked out through the blinds at the still empty reception desk.  Toby continued speaking.  "She was driving home with another student, when her car was broadsided by a drunk driver."

Jim shot up out of his seat, but instantly was restrained by the two other men.

"Oh my God...is she ok? How badly was she hurt? Which hospital did they take her to?"

Michael’s weak whimper drew his attention. "Jim..." But, he seemed to be unable to say much else and looked away to the wall. His evasion had Jim’s nervousness mounting rapidly into full blown hysteria.

"Seriously guys,  where is she?” He looked to both of them, though neither would quite meet his eye. “Where is she, Michael? Toby?”  Silence. “I have to go see her, I can't leave her to deal with that alone." 

 His voice died off when Toby finally looked him dead in the eye. "The EMT's did everything they could Jim, but..."

“Just what the hell is that supposed to mean Toby?” Jim bellowed, loud enough he was sure the people at Vance Refrigeration could hear him.

“Pam never...Pam didn't make it to the hospital"

"What the hell do you mean she didn't MAKE it to the hospital! Where the hell is she?" Jim stubbornly shook his head, refusing to hear what they were telling him. No, that’s not right, his mind raced. Pam’s as stubborn as a mule and she hates hospitals, she probably refused to let the ambulance guy take her anywhere.

"Jim, Pam passed away. She's gone"