Andy drove over to Erin's first thing in the morning. He wasn 't quite sure what to say, but he knew that she needed him more than ever. If anything, he could be sympathetic to her feelings about Kelly. He didn't really know Kelly that well, but he knew that Ryan was a douche bag, and for that he was angry. He wanted to do something, anything, that would help, and he decided that comforting Erin was the best thing he could do in that situation.

"Andy, what are you doing here?" Erin answered the door, still in her pajamas.

"I guess I just wanted to see how you were doing. I've been worried about you."

"No offense Andy but it's Kelly we should all be worried about."

"Can I come in? I brought us some cuppocino. I hope you like it."

She smiled weakly. "My house is a mess."

"I don't care about that. I care about you. I wanted to make sure you were all right. I know Kelly's your best friend and I hate knowing there's nothing I can do. Can I please come in, these cups are kind of burning my hands."

Reluctantly she opened the door. "Thanks. I don't mean to seem ungrateful. No one's ever bought me coffee before. Usually I'm the one getting the coffee. All in the day's work for a receptionist I suppose," she smiled.

"Is that all you see yourself? As a receptionst?"

"Well aren't I?"

Andy took a deep breath. "You're also the sweetest, kindest, most loving person I have ever known. I know I blew my chance with you but I just had to tell you- I've never gotten over you. Have you been crying?" He took around and looked at tissues thrown about the floor.

"I'm just waiting for visiting hours. Yes I guess I have been crying. All of this stuff with Kelly has made me do a lot of thinking."

"Have you been thinking about me? About us?"

"What do you want from me, Andy? Sometimes I swear you love me but you always pull back. Yes I know that I got mad about you not telling me about Angela. I'm not perfect. I'm a bit insecure, I don't always believe the best in people, but I believe in true love. That's why Kelly and I got along so well. I believe that if two people are meant to be together than nothing should hold them apart. They always find their way back to each other, even if there are obstacles in the way. It just seems if we would have found love with each other we would have done it by now. I'm tired, Andy. I'm tired of not being loved and not being wanted and by getting my heart broke every time I see you with another woman. I kind of guess I wished you wouldn't have given up on me, that you would have fought for me the way you did Angela.."

"Is there another man? I will challenge him to a duel for you, if that's what you want."

Frustrated, she began to tug at her hair and let out a scream, scaring Andy a bit in the process. "No I don't want a duel. I don't want you fighting about me. I want you fighting for me. There's a difference. I love you, Andy. I always have. I just didn't like being made a fool of in front of everyone."

"There's where we are alike. I'm not afraid to fight for the woman I love. It's just I tried it once with you and it didn't work. Remember the secretary's day I threw for you? That didn't turn out so well so I guess you stopped caring about me. I don't want to go where I'm not wanted."

"But haven't you seen that it's been you I want? I don't want any other man. I care about you, Andy. I love that you went to Cornell. I love that you were in Here Comes Treble. I love that you lose your temper sometimes, even if it's not about the right thing. When you defended Ryan, I didn't understand that because I want you to hate him the way I do. He's a meanie, a big jerk, and I don't care if I ever see him again. I wanted you to feel that way about him. When you defended him I guess I took it as a sign that we weren't meant to be."

Andy pulled Erin close to him. "I wasn't defending what he did. I called him a douche bag if you remember right."

"Oh so that's what d bag meant."

"Yes. Yes! I think what he did to Kelly is dispicable and I could never live with myself if I ever treated a girl so poorly."

"But don't you see," Erin, tears falling down her face, "That is what you have been doing to me. You don't want me but you don't want others to have me. I have a right to be happy...damn it!"

That shocked Andy, for he had never heard Erin cussed. It was wrong but it kind of turned him on.

"That's not true. I love you and I want you. It's always been you. I've never felt like this about anyone."

"Not even Angela?" Erin challenged.

"Not even Angela," Andy reassured her. "I was living a lie, chasing a dream, getting caught up in my own wants that I didn't bother to get to know her, to know if I really liked her. As it turned out, I hate her stinking guts. But with you, I've gotten to know you, I like what I see and I really want to get to know more about you. Where you come from. Who your favorite singers are. What your favorite colors are. What your favorite movies are. I want to know you, Erin, not just because I want something from you but I want you. I want you."

"You want to know more about me? My favorite movie is Annie. Not the remake, the Aileen Quinn version. I know every song to that movie by heart. It always gave me hope that someday I would be rescued, that someone would call me their baby."

"You'll always be my baby," Andy whispered as he kissed her forehead.

"You're just saying that because I told you to say it," Erin accused.

"No I'm not! I care about you and I love you and I want to be with you. What more do you want from me?"

"Will you go with me to see Kelly?"

"Do you really think I'd let you go by yourself?"

Erin smiled. "Let me get dressed. Oh we should probably warm up those coffees. They are probably cold by now."

"No problem. I like cold coffee." He drank it down fast, making a face in the process. He made Erin laugh, just as he always had.

0000

When they got there they found they weren't the first ones there. Ryan was in there, sitting by her bedside, and Erin and Andy looked at each other.

"How is she?" Andy finally spoke up.

"No change. She could be like this for a while."

"I'm surprised you're here," Erin stated flatly.

"I know. Everyone is. Even the nurses. But I really want you to know that I never meant for this to happen."

"Then how could you let it happen? Everyone knew how crazy Kelly was about you. Apparantly you didn't get the memo," Andy said angrily. "You played her for the fool. Do you have any idea what that's like?"

He didn't, but he had a feeling he was going to find out.

"You feel like your whole world is crashing in. You wonder what your purpose is, other than to be someone's plaything. You hand someone your heart and they walk all over it and you begin to doubt yourself. You wonder what the point of life is if you can't have the one you love," Andy stared at Ryan. Erin took his hand.

"I never thought about it. I just thought we were having fun. I thought she knew that."

"Dude, how could you not know Kelly was all about you? I knew that and I don't even know her, except for what Erin tells me about her. I know she used to be happy and funny and a great person to be around. Somewhere around the way she lost herself-in you, and she changed. She became, well, Toby. Do you really want to date Toby?"

Ryan made a face. "I had no idea she felt that way about me. I mean I knew she loved me but why doesn't anyone listen to me? There were two of us in that relationship you know."

"That's funny," Erin spoke up, " because you acted like there was only one person, and you know who that person was. It was you." She looked at Andy. "I was talking about him."

"I know you were," Andy tugged on her hand. "She's right you know. I've learned from personal experience that you can't have just one person in a relationship. So maybe you got lucky. Maybe you caught a break. Maybe this is the time out you've been too afraid to ask for. So if I were you I'd get some help, talk to someone, do something, do anything than what you've been doing."

Ryan nodded. But what he didn't want to tell them that there was only one person who would understand him, and she wasn't exactly available to listen. More than anything he missed the times she would pry information from him, trying to figure him out. She was good at that, and she never made him feel bad about himself the way everyone else was. It was scary to think that he might never have that kind of relationship again.

"Ryan, are you paying attention? This was Kelly's cry for help! This was her way of saying she can't go on being played, being unloved. It's up to you what to do to help her," Andy declared.

Ryan protested. "I think you are all putting all your shit on me. I think you see in me what you don't want to see in yourselves. You Andy have been too scared to let Erin know how you feel about her, that's why you see that in me. Erin, you just want to be loved, but are too scared to know how to get it. Well maybe that's me, have you ever stopped and thought about that? Maybe I don't know how to be loved, so I can't show it. So maybe the three of us aren't as different as you'd all like to think."

Erin let go of Andy's hand and reached out for Ryan's. "Tell us. Tell us who you are. Maybe we do care and want to know who you are instead of the meanie who broke Kelly's heart. Help us understand you."

"You want to understand me? I'll tell you what. I've been a temp for years at a paper company. A paper company! I was once the youngest executive that Dunder Mifflin ever had but I screwed up. I screwed other women. Yet Kelly came to see me in prison. She was the only one in our company to do so. Did Michael come and see me, for all he talks about us being family? No. All I had was Kelly. My parents were so ashamed of me they wouldn't bail me out. So I spent months in prison, the only thing I had to look forward to was watching Kelly sasshay into the building looking like a million bucks, driving me crazy knowing I couldn't have her. I was all alone, and only Kelly cared. You all accuse me of being an asshole. I admit- I am an asshole. I wanted Kelly when there was something in it for me, but when she needed me, I was never there for her. Do you really think I'm so proud of myself at the moment?"

"Dude if you're looking for sympathy you're barking up the wrong tree. You've been given a million chances and you've blown them all. Now you've almost lost the best thing to happen to you. You know what..."

For a minute Ryan thought Andy was going to deck him.

"You know what Ryan? I must thank you. Because you've taught me to value what's important in life. I know I can be all about status and material things. But if that were Erin lying there, I'd trade everything just for a second chance to be with her. Erin means the world to me and there won't be another day that goes by that I won't show it to her."

He kissed her, while Ryan watched sadly. Everything everyone was saying to him was true. He didn't deserve Kelly, but she loved him, and for that he wondered why.