A/N: congrats, kids! You made it to six reviews, so as promised, here's the next secret:
"He's cute. You should date him."
It was an innocent enough comment. Karen didn't think anything of it when those words escaped her mouth. She was a problem-solver, and while the relationship status of her new friend wasn't exactly a problem, she wanted to see her happy. Since she started working here, she noticed that Pam was kind of cold, but she was sure glad that they had teamed up to put together a Christmas party, because it gave her another chance to get to know her new coworker a little bit better.
On a second assessment, Karen decided Pam was just introverted, not 'cold' as previously thought. But she knew shy girls were less likely to get dates, so she wanted to encourage her any way she could to get her out there. Roy seemed nice enough. He was shy, like her, and only seemed to say the bare minimum. He was helpful though, assisting them with setting up for their party. Karen even thought she saw him give Pam a lingering glance when he left the break room, which made her all the more eager to persuade her to go out with him.
Later though, she realized Roy didn't need anyone else's help in trying to get Pam to notice him. He had bought her a Christmas gift, and gave it to her during the party. Karen smiled at how sweet the gesture was; he must've had to do a lot of snooping to find out she was into art, and then he even wrapped it up nicely too.She glanced down at the DVD of Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason sitting on her desk and her smile grew wider. Maybe some day Pam could be as happy as she was.
Her and Pam's friendship only seemed to grow after Christmas. Pam not only was a good friend, but also was someone she felt she could turn to when she was having problems in her own relationship. Karen wasn't quite sure how Pam had done it, but she had convinced her silly boyfriend that the world wouldn't end if Karen moved into an apartment two blocks away from him. She definitely wanted to show her gratitude:
"I think I owe you one," Karen said knowingly as she walked up to her.
"Sorry?"
She continued, a sly smile on her lips, "For talking sense into Halpert. The Day's Inn room 228 was starting to get really depressing."
"Oh, yeah, no. Don't worry about it. I mean, he was being ridiculous," Pam nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, but... thanks. Seriously."
"Sure."
Karen wanted her to know that she appreciated having an ally when it came to things like this. She obviously wasn't getting anywhere trying to convince him, so it turned out that a third party was exactly what she needed. Shortly afterward, she saw Pam talking with Roy near the inflatable palm trees; Karen wondered if they had become friendlier with each other since Christmas.
She soon found out why Pam seemed to have so much persuasive power over her boyfriend though, and she wasn't exactly happy with the reason. He had feelings for her. Even now, with Karen sitting right there with him, she could see his mind wandering to thoughts of her. This was certainly dangerous territory, but she wasn't afraid. He had told her that Pam already rejected him, and so once again, Karen saw a problem that needed fixing. Here was this poor, wounded man who didn't know when to quit, and so she would take it upon herself to help him heal.
That meant trying to stifle all contact with the girl she now realized he openly flirted with. That in itself was a blow to her dignity, and it hurt ten times as worse to have her dignity be taken away from her at work. At work, she tried to present herself with an air of refinement and composure, but she could hardly stay calm and cool while trying to monitor her boyfriend's every move. She forged on though, and had also been talking with him every night, trying to force him to move on and forget that part of his life. It was proving very difficult to get him to open up, but at least now he was too tired at work to concentrate on much of anything, especially the woman he still pined for.
But Karen wasn't satisfied with just trying to make him forget his past. She couldn't leave any stone unturned, and so she had to make sure there was no chance of reciprocated feelings from Pam. After all, they had shared a kiss, which is enough to make any woman wonder what could be. Karen had to be delicate when approaching this matter, and she had to keep the conversation nonchalant. Luckily they were still being friendly with each other, which made an opening for this exchange easy to find:
"Hey um, I wanted to talk to you. I know this is weird or whatever, but Jim told me about you guys," Karen cringed at the awkwardness of the discussion she was starting into.
"What do you mean?"
"Well that you kissed. And we talked it through and it's totally fine, it's not a big deal. It's just a kiss." She watched Pam nod her head nervously for a moment and then had to ask, "Wait—you're not still interested in him?"
"Oh yeah."
Karen's eyes went wide, "Really?"
"Oh, no!" Pam shook her head, "I was confused by your phrasing. You should definitely go out with Jim—I mean, you're going out with Jim. I'm not going out with Jim. You're dating him, which is awesome, because you guys are great together."
"Okay."
"I'm not into Jim. Yeah…" she continued to protest, perhaps a little too much for Karen's liking.
"So um, well good."
"Yeah... Sorry."
"What are you sorry about?"
"Um… what?"
"What are you sorry about?" Karen asked again, wondering if she was sorry for confusing her or for possibly lying to her.
"Nothing. I was just thinking of something else…"
It wasn't quite the dialogue she expected to have, but Karen was satisfied with it nonetheless. Pam did seem to have her pick of plenty of other men, including a Ben Franklin impersonator, so she didn't need to be chasing after any unavailable men. But Karen felt herself slowly being stretched thin from trying to influence Pam to go out with Roy, who she thought was perfect for her, as well as trying to convince her own boyfriend to give up on something he had his heart set on. It was tiring to keep tabs on all of them, but it all seemed to pay off at Phyllis' wedding.
She felt so safe in his arms, and she laid her head on his shoulder as they swayed to the music. She let herself close her eyes for just a moment to breathe in the scent of his musky tux that probably only saw the light of day for weddings and funerals. She was finally relaxed, and she smiled to herself as she thought of what she had seen not five minutes earlier: Pam and Roy had left together, hand in hand. Karen claimed herself victorious, and knew all the nonsense of the past few weeks were finally over. She was happy for Pam, and she was relieved everything had worked out in her favor. The song ended and her date excused himself to the bathroom, so she moseyed over to the bar where she found a tipsy Meredith and sweaty Kevin:
"Man, it is hot under those lights," Kevin commented to the two of them as Karen ordered herself a white wine.
"Did you see Pam and Roy leave together?" Meredith managed to hiccup, taking another swig of some kind of liquid concoction.
Karen beamed, "Oh yeah! They are so cute together, don't you think?"
"Karen, Pam and Roy used to be engaged," Kevin told her with a sweaty, yet serious expression on his face. "Pam called off the wedding three days before it was set to go down."
This made Karen choke on her wine. All this time she had thought she was pushing Pam onto a shy coworker, but he had turned out to be her ex-fiancée. A range of emotions started lurching through her body at this realization, but the one she felt most of all was betrayal. Through all her long talks into the wee hours of the morning with her boyfriend, he had not once mentioned the fact that Pam was at one time engaged. Engaged to another coworker for that matter. Not even Pam herself had managed to reveal this fact, which almost hurt as much as Jim not revealing it to her. But it seemed like things were going to work out regardless, and so Karen tried not to worry as the reception went on.
For a couple weeks after the wedding, things seemed to be going well. The truth—the whole truth—was out in the open, and in addition, Pam and Roy were together now. The thought now seemed a bit twisted to put them together, but Karen felt like it could work between them; there was familiarity there, and she didn't want to do anything to upset the delicate balance that had been reached.
And then Roy almost punched Jim in the nose. Karen was shocked by his actions, but at least she wasn't surprised as to why it had happened. She told the camera crew:
"When I heard Jim and Pam had kissed, my reaction was to have lots of long talks with Jim about our feelings. Roy just attacked him. I'm not sure which one Jim hated more."
She wasn't stupid. Karen knew he didn't like discussing and having his emotions forced out of him, which is why she let the matter drop after the incident. He definitely knew where she stood on the matter of this little love triangle she found herself in, and so if he cared at all, he would try to make her happy and distance himself from the other woman. She was at least glad he chose to come to her when something was bothering him, like all his failed attempts to pay Dwight back for his bravery. Karen saw it as a sign of moving on, and so for a few weeks, there was equilibrium. She even had started being cordial with Pam again; after all, it wasn't her fault Roy overreacted.
But at their trip to the beach, Karen heard these words come out of Pam's mouth:
"Jim, I called off my wedding because of you…"
There it was. The final piece to the puzzle of what had transpired that had made her boyfriend move to Stamford, that made him want to keep holding on to something she didn't even think was there, and that made Pam act obligingly friendly toward her. She again felt pangs of betrayal that no one had had the guts to come up and give her the full story on what she was getting herself into, and she especially felt betrayed by the girl she had planned Christmas parties and joked about Ben Franklin with. And later she confessed she wasn't even sorry for what she had said at the beach!
Luckily, both Karen and Jim had the chance at a promotion, which implied that both of them would move to New York, away from what was causing their relationship so much strain. Karen had a lot of confidence that one of them would get the job and they would be able to leave Scranton forever, and so she didn't feel any more need to be polite to Pam. The next time the cameras were in the office, Karen made sure to tell them exactly what she thought of her "friend's" underhandedness:
"Pam is... kind of a bitch."
This is the point where we'd like to shamelessly plug our individual stories. :-D MrsBigTuna has two new ones in the works: "The Trial", in which Michael gets called in for jury duty and the rest of the office has a trial of their own, and "Awkward Admiration", which is a poetic Pam/Toby fic… the title basically says it all.
ktface3 has gotten back to work on "Milestones" after a short hiatus, and is also experimenting with a new fic, "Michael Scott: The Man, The Mind, The Enigma", in which his infamous talking heads are explored in very short, episodic bursts. She has the first season up and ready for reading!
Our next secret is the not-so-obscure one, and it's a pretty big one at that. In fact, we would say it's one of the biggest on the show. What is it? You can guess, but you'll have to wait until we get a total of five reviews to find out for sure!! Don't let us down, people!!
