A/N: So this just popped into my head the other day when I was reading "it would be better if we could all go peacefully" by Semby. It started off as just "The Claire Danes One" and evolved from there. What if people were actually taken at their words? So here you go. Let me know what you think.
Disclaimer: Obviously not mine.
Self-fulfilling Prophesies
by Angel Monroe
Kelly: If I get to stay and Ryan is laid off, I will kill myself. Like Romeo and Juliet, the Claire Danes one. (Branch Closing)
In the end, Ryan was asked to transfer and Kelly was offered a generous severance package. She cried all that last day, sporadically jumping on Ryan and begging him to come with her. Several scenarios were offered in which they would run away together to some exotic land where they would live out the rest of their lives drinking daiquiris and ravishing each other on the beach. All of these scenarios were offered half-hysterically, often in the middle of the office while everyone else pretended to be deaf and truly wished they were.
When he calmly replied that it was better this way, she stormed out of the office in a melodramatic flurry of suicidal promises.
Pam picked up the phone twenty-three minutes later and, after a moment, dropped it in shock. No one noticed until she stood and announced with shaky voice that Kelly's car had gone off a bridge and was currently being towed out of the lake. From the skid marks it was assumed an accident, but everyone in the office was thinking the same thing.
No one said a word, but they all looked at Ryan either in pity or censure. He seemed more shell-shocked than anything.
A few minutes later when he was alone with the cameramen, his eyes were still round and wide as he looked into the camera. "I can't believe she actually did it. I mean, I didn't think she was serious. Did you think she was serious?" His eyes grew impossibly wider. "I can't believe I killed my girlfriend."
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Pam: Oh, hey, Jim. Wait, stop. Um, I'm sorry... for pushing you towards Cumberland. Seriously, if you left here, I would blow my brains out. (Halloween)
Jim was unpacking his last box of dishes when his cell phone vibrated on the counter. The sound always surprised him when it did that, but it was even more of a jolt now as the buzz echoed abrasively through the wide-open stillness of the empty apartment. It took him a second to put set down the plates in his hands, and then he sighed when he saw Michael's name on his caller id.
He was halfway through a tired excuse when he realized that Michael hadn't spoken. It wasn't at all like him, and Jim trailed off until he could hear the other man's heavy breathing.
"What's wrong?" he asked, and then when Michael simply sighed and sniffled, he started to panic. "Michael, what happened?"
It was a wrong-place-wrong-time thing. She'd just stopped by the liquor store for a bottle of wine and a 12-pack for Roy. Apparently she hadn't been paying attention when she walked in because she hadn't noticed the gun pointed at the clerk. And then at her. Witnesses said she hadn't seen it coming at all. That gave Jim some small nugget of comfort when he thought about it later.
But that first night was spent on the linoleum kitchen floor in a brand new apartment he no longer needed in order to keep away from her.
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Roy: I'm gonna kill Jim Halpert (Cocktails)
It really was an accident; everyone could attest to that. Roy had just meant to get one or two good punches in, get some retribution for the wedding that hadn't happened and the woman he'd never wake up to again. It was just dumb luck that Jim had fallen back at that exact angle and hit his head on the desk in such a way. Everyone blamed Roy, of course, but they all understood he hadn't meant it.
Karen had been the closest, stepping between the two men when Jim went down. Dwight was there in a moment with a can of pepper spray, and the cloud of it hit everyone in close range. They didn't noticed until their eyes stopped watering that Jim hadn't gotten up. Then it was Pam who cried the loudest.
There were police and ambulances and such confusing chaos that the police collected three very different witness statements before they gave up and asked the two women and Dwight to come to the station for theirs. Everyone else took the rest of the day off.
The next day when they came back to work, everyone gave their eulogies to the cameras in the form of talking heads. It wasn't a planned thing, but it seemed to be on everyone's mind.
"If I had only had my throwing stars, this never would have happened."
"I don't really know what to say. I mean, we'd been dating for about five months now, and…he was such a great guy. We were in love, and I think we had something special."
"Jim is…was…Jim was my best friend. There was just something about him that could light up my whole day, you know? He could just make a face and everything seemed so much better. But that's…that was the way Jim was. He was my best friend…and I don't think I ever told him that. I definitely didn't tell him I…" soft sob "…I'm sorry, could you excuse me?"