Chapter Text
It’s the quiet lull before the after-work crowd slinks into The Outpost when the phone rings. Pam picks it up instead of ignoring it like she normally would during the evening rush.
“This is The Outpost, Pam speaking,” she drawls into the receiver.
“Oh thank goodness you’re working,” the voice on the other end rushes out. “I didn’t know your home number and I couldn’t find my phone book - I can come by in ten minutes to pick you up and take you -”
“Karen,” Pam interrupts. “What the hell are you talking about?”
There’s a moment of silence that stretches on too long for Pam’s liking. This call suddenly reminds her of another one she received only a few months ago, standing here in the very same spot at the bar, glued to the television anxiously waiting for news.
“It’s Ellen,” Karen says, and Pam’s heart drops like a rock. “There’s been a training accident.”
Pam’s brain goes to static and her body feels numb. Bad news phone calls are supposed to come in the middle of the night, not at two-thirty in the afternoon on a regular Tuesday. She’s not even sure why she’s getting this one. She and Ellen aren’t - they don’t - Larry is her - what if she’s -
“Pam?” Karen’s kind but insistent voice breaks through the chaos in her head. “I’m going to hang up now and drive over, okay?”
She nods slowly even though Karen can’t see her.
“Pam? Are you still there?”
“Yeah.” Her palms are sweaty as she grips the phone like a lifeline.
"Why don't you wait for me outside?" Karen gently suggests.
"Okay," she responds back robotically. She's here but not, present but not processing her surroundings.
"I'll be right there," Karen promises and hangs up. Pam stands there for almost a minute, phone still in her hands. She stares down at it, rage building in her chest among the fear and a million other things. She hangs it up aggressively, grabs her jacket and walks out the door, not caring about the two people she's left to fend for themselves at a table in the back.
She paces along the pavement until Karen pulls up. The car barely comes to a stop before she flings the passenger side door open with shaking hands and slides in.
The drive to the hospital is silent. Pam’s hands are clenched into tight fists while she stares straight ahead out the windshield. She doesn’t feel like she’s really there, in the car. Everything feels fast and slow and too quiet and too loud all at the same time.
Next to her Karen drives, determined, steady, like she’s done this before. She has, Pam knows, more than once. She isn’t sure why she’s doing it now, for Pam.
“Molly called,” Karen eventually says. “From the hospital before I got a hold of you. Said they were taking her into surgery.”
Pam’s not sure if she should feel good or bad about that piece of information. She’s not sure what to feel at all right now.
“How -” she starts to say, mouth dry. She swallows down the lump building in her throat. “How bad is it?” she whispers and looks over to Karen.
They’re stopped at a red light so Karen turns and meets her eyes.
“I don’t know,” Karen says with open honesty. “Molly didn’t give much detail on the phone. But we’ll find out when we get there and we’ll handle it, okay?”
The light turns green but Karen doesn’t drive, she waits for Pam’s acknowledgement.
"Okay," she whispers back. Karen reaches across the seat and grips her hand. Pam accepts it and Karen drives onward toward whatever awaits them at the hospital.
A few moments later Karen raises her own question, one that Pam has been waiting for her to ask for a while now. They've become friends, she thinks. Karen stops by The Outpost at least once a week now and seems to generally like Pam. It's only natural, she supposes, that Karen would wonder, and apparently she did a shit job of hiding it.
“Are you and her…together?”
How to answer that.
“No,” Pam decides to reply, her jaw tight.
“But you were?”
“For a little while.”
Two years, three months, one week and five days to be precise. No one ever needs to know she counted.
Karen’s brow furrows like she’s trying to make sense of something.
“She married Larry,” Karen states; it comes out half like a question.
“Yeah,” Pam sighs. “She did.”
Karen doesn't ask anything else, just squeezes Pam's hand and keeps driving.