Author Notes: I hope this lives up to expectations. I wasn't really sure how this was going to turn out, as I am not sure if I have the talent necessary to pull this kind of thing off, especially in a fandom that doesn't do this sort of thing. Karen's not exactly sane (no one on the show is) but I really doubt she could be the type of person to fly into a homocidal rage. But I figured, this is America and somebody's gotta shoot something eventually.

Jim stared down his woman scorned, and boy was she full of fury. Her eyes were bloodshot and hooded and dead to the world, but her lips held a most severe scowl. She was pointing a handgun at him threateningly. Her voice was practically a hiss.

"You..."

"I know I acted badly, Karen," he said. It was really painful to bring this up again. Looking down the barrel of a gun though, it's not like he had much of a choice. "I should have been honest with you from the start. I wasn't, and I'm sorry. You deserve better."

Karen sneered at him. "Fancy words, Halpert. Maybe you should have thought of that before you ripped my heart out."

"Karen, I want to make it up to you. Tell me what I have to do to help you."

"Dammit, Jim!" On any other day he would have made a 'Bones' McCoy joke. Today, he didn't want to die. "I loved you," she yelled, voice cracking. "I moved across the country for you. Away from my family. My friends. My life. I wasn't helpless, Jim. I wasn't forced to come here because I had no other choice. I could have gone anywhere, done anything. But I chose to come here because I loved you and I thought you loved me too." Her gun hand quivered with every shout, every betrayal. She would be on the verge of tears except that she had cried herself out already. "God, I was so stupid. To think I relocated, tore up all my roots and just left for a man who didn't love me. Who never even had a chance of loving me. Ha! Now I'm stuck in this piss-ant town in a dead-end job that I hate and the only friend that I've made in this God-foresaken hellhole is running off with my boyfriend."

"I didn't want to hurt you, Karen," pleaded Pam. "You've never been anything but a great friend to me. I never wanted to come between you - it just sort of happened."

"Yeah right, Jezebel," she kept the gun pointed at Jim. "How blind was I that I couldn't see it? Or maybe I did see it and just wouldn't believe that you could be such a bastard." Karen drew in a long breath, trying to steel her dissolving resolve. "How long have you two been planning this? Months? Years? I've got the whole story now. Don't try telling me this just happened. Who am I to get in the way of this cosmic love story?" she mocked. "After all, I'm not good enough to commit to, just good enough to drag along across two states to give people the illusion that you've moved on. You never had any intention of staying with me, did you? Was that it? Was I just a game to you? Well you should know by now that I take games very seriously."

"Karen, I-" Jim began.

"Don't you dare say it, Halpert."

"I never-"

"SHUT UP!!!" She pulled the trigger.

Pam watched in shock as Jim clutched his hand to his chest. He reached out to her as he stumbled to his knees, the blood pouring from under his hand, mouth moving silently in a hopeless plea.

"Jim!" She clutched him with all her strength. "Stay with me!" As he collapsed before her, she watched her life effectively end.

Michael emerged from the lobby just in time to see Jim fall to the pavement. "Jimmy..."

"What have I done?" The gun fell from her limp fingers. Pam was huddled, crying over Jim's lifeless body. She whispered it again to herself, "What have I done..." And Karen, too, collapsed to her knees and sobbed.

"No! Jim!" she cried for what must have been the hundredth time this minute. She held his body in her arms, swaying slightly. His pulse was gone. He was dead. Jim had been torn away from her a second time. This time she had realized what he had meant to her. This time he wouldn't be coming back.

To lose him now after finally embracing him for the first time... "We never had any time... I wasted so much time..."

He stumbled toward the grisly scene, blankly moving forward. Jim's blood was sprayed all over Dwight's Trans Am. Michael would never be able to appreciate the irony.

Karen crawled over to Jim's body. She wanted to hold him too, but couldn't stand the thought of shoving Pam out of the way. She had no right. Instead, she consoled herself with just the slightest of touches. All hope that he was still alive was vanquished when she felt his arm. Damn me for being such a good shot, she thought. She wasn't lying about being 'KarentheJimSlayer'. She almost had to laugh.

The sound of sirens filled the air as squad cars zoomed down the street into the parking lot.

She'd done it. She'd killed him. Just pointed the gun at him in all her rage and squeezed. "What am I going to do?" Karen asked no one in particular. She already knew. With one last look at Jim's face, she crawled back to her fallen pistol, put the barrel into her mouth, and fired.