Prologue:

Jim hastily grabs his tie from Karen’s outstretched hand. He gives her a quick smile as she beams up at him, chiding him to hurry. She reminds him that keeping a minister waiting must be at least a minor sin. He chuckles as she laces her fingers through his, eagerly pulling him towards the door. Reverend James has graciously agreed to meet with them after work to accommodate their schedule and they are almost running late to meet him.

He stuffs his feet into his shoes as the phone began to ring. He leans over to grab it until he hears Karen growl, “Don’t you dare, let it go to the machine. We’re going to be late.”

He pulls back his hand sheepishly and they start out the door and he’s about to shut it when he hears Pam crying into the phone.

“Jim, oh dear God please be home,” she sobs into his machine. Jim would never be entirely sure where the moments between when he throws the door open and when he picks up the phone go. The receiver is pulled against his ear before he knows it and suddenly Pam’s cries are echoing in his ears.

“Pam, calm down.” His voice as he sooths her sound foreign to his own ears, certainly calmer than he feels. His heart races and he can feel the whooshing sound of blood pulsating through his ears. He adds a silent Jim, Calm the Fuck Down in a futile attempt to soothe himself.

“God, Jim. There’s been an…there was an accident and…Roy came back and he got upset and…God, he shot Della Jim, Roy shot her.” And suddenly Jim’s not even breathing. Pam’s sweet little girl with the auburn curls and luminous green eyes? The child he’s never let himself love too much because he knows he’ll never be more than a funny uncle who makes her paper boats and paperclip necklaces?

“Is she…” he can’t. He Can Not finish that sentence.

Suddenly Pam’s voice is stronger; it’s steadier and for some reason the steel in it gives him a vague sense of déjà vu. He remembers the day she told him she still loved him, the day he turned her down because he was ‘in too deep with Karen.’ Her voice had had the steel in it then and suddenly he knows she has something to tell him, she’s about to break news.

“She’s in critical condition at Scranton General.” She says, her voice still strong even though he hears the exhaustion in her every syllable.

The relief he feels suffuse through his body is nothing short of astounding. She’s alive. She’s still alive. She’ll get better, somehow he just knows that she will.

“How are you holding up?” he asks, “Did he? Did he hurt you?” he doesn’t want to know if the answer is yes. He can’t imagine what he would do if the answer is yes; the thought frightens him a little.

“She’s yours Jim.” Pam says succinctly; responding as if she had never even heard his previous question, a profound silence follows her words.

For a moment he’s unsure of what she means and when it dawns on him he still needs her to say it again. “What? I don’t understand…Pam what do you mean?”

“Adele. Jim, she’s your daughter.”

He knows she’s watching him.

Even though his eyes are shut and the phone is still clutched to his ear, he can feel her eyes boring into his back.

He has to say something, he really should tell her everything.

But where to begin? ‘So you know Pam from the office, well I was absolutely in love with her when I worked here…to make a long story short, her daughter Adele, she’s actually mine.’

But truthfully, at this moment he’s not even sure he cares if Karen freaks out. He has a daughter, a gorgeous little girl with her mother’s smile and his eyes. His eyes, Janine’s eyes.  God no wonder he had always had such a visceral surge of affection for Adele, she looked just like his sister Janine, before. Before.  And now his child is in the hospital, fighting for her life.

And he’s standing here like an idiot trying to somehow explain everything to the woman he’s a few months from marrying. Does it matter anymore? Does it matter at all?

“Jim?” she asks, “Is everything Ok” something inside of him bristles when he hears the accusation in her question. She’s been jealous of Pam since she heard the whispers in the office about his and Pam’s ‘lost love.’ But a princess cut solitaire and his stony face had been enough to ward off all her questions since they had moved back 10 months ago.  “Why was she calling you? Is everything Ok?” her voice isn’t filled with concern as much as it is curiosity and for some reason every syllable that falls from her mouth makes him more and more irrationally angry.

“No, no it’s not.” He covers his eyes with his hands, “Adele, Pam’s daughter, was shot by her ex-husband.”

“What?” Karen’s exclamation is genuine and the look of fear that crosses her face is very real. Jim isn’t particularly surprised, even Karen hasn’t been immune to Adele’s many charms. With her cherubic, rosy face and loving personality Adele had somehow managed to capture the attention and the hearts of all of Pam’s office mates. Jim’s pretty sure that 3 year old was even written into some of the office workers’ wills at this point. “Is she Ok? Jim, is she alright?” Karen asks with a real sense of urgency in her voice.

He softens at her look of concern. He shrugs his shoulders and his voice comes out almost as a sob as he stares at his hands, “I don’t know Karen, she’s in critical condition. I just have to…Oh God, I just have to get over there.”

Karen glances at him strangely at his sudden loss of control but she simply nods and begins to gather her things, “Let’s get going.” She says quietly and before he knows it they’re speeding towards the hospital and although Jim knows nothing will ever be the same he can’t think about anything but the little girl with Janine’s eyes fighting for her life.

He’s not sure what he expects to see when he encounters Pam and her mother in the surgery waiting room, anger, frustration, betrayal, love, sympathy? All those emotions and more rush at him like a tidal wave when he sees her tear stained face peek out from behind her ashen hands. He says her name like a prayer and suddenly she’s thrown herself in his arms and at this moment it isn’t about just them anymore. Because at this moment he’s the only person on earth who knows how she feels. His arms encircle her instinctively and he knows nothing has felt this right, even though everything is all wrong.

He manages to whisper in her ear, “Karen doesn’t know Ok?” she nods against his shirt and he can feel her tears soak into his skin. He tightens his hold on her and although there is so much he wants to ask, so much he needs to know there’s only one question on his mind right now, “How is she doing?”

Pam pulls back and for the first time he can see the bruise that’s formed on her face and the blood that stains her clothes, his daughter’s blood. Suddenly the room is too warm and he hears the blood pulsating through his ears once more. “She’s in surgery, Jim…ou…my baby is in surgery. They’re removing her spleen,” and although she’s trying desperately to finish her sentence before collapsing into tears once more, all she manages is a strangled, “She was in shock and they had to…they said that…” and although he needs to know the rest he lowers her back to her seat and lets her sob into his shoulder.

Pam’s mother reaches out and grasps his hand, he can tell that she’s already cried her fair share of tears and she suddenly looks so much older than when he last saw her. “She had gone into hypovolemic shock, she was internally hemorrhaging so they had to remove her spleen to stop the bleeding.”

His fists tighten involuntarily and suddenly he can’t breathe, he just needs to…he’s not sure how…there is so much and all he can gasp out is “How?”

Pam stiffens and manages to rise from his shoulder and shake her head ever so slightly, and suddenly he knows with a sickening sense of dread that all of this has to do with him.

“Roy?” he asks.

“He’s dead, at least I think he is,” Pam replies her tone flat, “It was a mistake when he shot her...When I tried to call the police afterwards he told me was sorry but that if I called them…he said he wasn’t going to jail and he said that if I called them that he would…I had to call she needed help....I called and he shot himself.”

“What?” his tone is harsher than he intends but this third revelation in the past few hours has proven to finally be too much.

She nods, her face still impassive, almost as if she is unwilling to deal with all of that now.

But he needs to know. He needs to know if he caused all of this, he needs to know why and how and when, he needs to know everything. Besides, they have a few hours to kill.

Pam looks behind him and then into his eyes as if asking him ‘Do you want to do this in front of Karen?’ He nods, tonight is not the time to spare feelings; that ship has sailed.

She breathes in deeply, almost as if gathering strength for the story she is about to tell, he tightens his hold on her hand, willing her to continue. “I hadn’t seen Roy in months, he comes by occasionally to see Adele and to try to work things out between us. Sometimes he’s drunk; sometimes he’s sober. When he comes over sober it’s actually fine between us, he recognizes that I can’t forgive him for walking out on me before Adele was born and he’s happy just to play with her and to reminisce. But when he’s drunk…” her hand goes instinctively to rub her forearm, probably in the memory of too many drunken grasps and pulls. “Tonight. Tonight he was as drunk as I’ve ever seen him. He came in and started making all these demands; he insisted that Adele and I come with him. That he was tired of all this bullshit. And, God I don’t know what got into me but I just…I just snapped and all of a sudden I heard myself telling him that he wasn’t Adele’s father.” She looks down at her hands as she hears Karen gasp softly behind them. He doesn’t dare look up at either of them for fear of what they will see in his eyes. “I thought that…I mean I hadn’t know for very long that he wasn’t Adele’s father, I had just found out a few months ago myself. I had been trying to find a way to break it to him and this was the absolute least kind way possible but I thought…” a chink appears in her impassive armor as a single tear slips down her cheek.  “I thought that I might just get him mad enough that he would leave and never come back. That this could finally be over. God, I’m such an idiot. He did get mad, but he demanded to know who the father was…and when…And when I told him he got so upset that he went to the hall closet and opened a box I didn’t even know was in there and…there was a gun. And I knew that he was going to do something stupid.”

“I knew that I had to stop him, to stall him, because even though Roy told me that he had no intention of shooting him, Roy was too unpredictable drunk, so I stood in front of him and wouldn’t let him leave.”

“God Pam, why didn’t you just let him go?” Jim is surprised by how broken his voice sounds…Suddenly he knows. He knows that all of this…all of it is really his fault. He can feel Karen tense up to his right; he knows that she knows that something isn’t right.

“I couldn’t,” Pam finally looks up at him and he can see why in her eyes, the eyes that have tried to tell him a thousand times how she feels. “I couldn’t” she whispers again as if reassuring herself, “Then he started getting even madder thinking that I was defending him, and I guess…I don’t know why maybe Roy heard something but he started saying that maybe he was in the house…that maybe I was still seeing him. I tried to convince Roy that he wasn’t here but then…Oh God…”

They heard a crash and then a shot. Adele has somehow knocked over one of her toys in the hallway and Roy had fired blindly in the direction of the noise. In that moment not even a prayer crossed her mind as she ran into the darkness. She could here Roy behind her mumbling “Oh Christ, Oh dear God.” And she didn’t even need the light to see her daughter’s form lying on the ground, her tiny body struggling to breathe. She could hear her voice crying out frantically for Roy to call the police. And she could hear him say, “I can’t.”

“He had shot into the darkness and hit Adele. And she was bleeding and she couldn’t breathe. I screamed at him to call the police and he said that he couldn’t call them. He begged me to just wait a half an hour so that he could get a jump start, he said that he already had two strikes and this would be his third and that he couldn’t spend the rest of his life in jail.” She shakes her head at the memory, almost as if she is willing it out of her brain, “But I couldn’t…I just couldn’t wait to call the ambulance, she was bleeding so much…I had to, you have to understand that I had to.” Pam’s hands clench and unclench the seat nervously, “So I called and he was freaking out and then, Oh God… then we heard sirens and he started screaming, he said he told me not to call, he said that I made him do this…and then he put the gun to his head.” She finishes and tears keep running down her face like little rivers and as much as he wants to comfort her he knows that he doesn’t have the right anymore.

Her mother finally snakes her arm around Pam’s neck and pulls her towards her own shoulder and for a few moments the only sounds in the waiting room are that of Mrs. Beesly wiping a tissue against Pam’s face.

She’s curled up into a tiny ball, hands tucked beneath her head, dark hair splayed across her face. A wave of tenderness washes over him for the woman who is supposed to become his wife. She hasn’t asked yet what exactly they are doing here, and for that he is eternally grateful. He takes off his jacket and tucks it around her gently, he’s tempted to wake her up and send her home but it’s late and he’s afraid of her driving home sleepy and upset.

How did it all get so fucked up?

He hears a rustling from behind him and he knows that Pam has waken up too. Even know he still remembers all the sounds she makes, the little squeak when she wakes up, the sigh when she’s tired, the giggle of nervous surprise. He hears her whispering to her mother before he feels a hand on his shoulder, “Jim, I’m going to go to the chapel, would you like to go with me?”

He nods as he looks down at Karen, sleeping peacefully and he wonders if he’ll ever be able to do the same again.

The hospital is quiet at night, especially the pediatric floors, the normal hustle and bustle is replaced by an eerie calm. Their footsteps echo in the silence and he has an irrational desire to throw something, wake people up, make it all a little less ominous, less serious. For the daughter he’s never really known to wake up and call him Daddy, for him to be able to go back to yesterday and stop it all from happening.

He can’t look at Pam yet. There’s so much he feels for her and so much he’s still unsure of. The guilt is the thing he can stand the least, knowing how much his involvement has led them all to be here. So instead he focuses on the anger. How dare she keep him from his child? How dare she never let him know? But as soon as he looks at her, tenderness is all that fills his heart, from the tips of his toes, to his fingertips. Fingers that ache to pull her into an embrace and hold her. She’s the mother of his child, just as he always dreamt she would be.

But he never had dreams like this.

“How long have you known?” and finally the question that has been hovering on his lips has been asked. She looks up at him- weary but determined. Tonight will be a night for answers, not evasion- something about that frightens him.

“8 months,” she whispers and he knows she’s lost her voice from all the tears she’s shed. He stops and pulls her into his arms, it’s easier if he doesn’t look at her when she says all this and they both need to be held.

“How?”

He feels her move against his chest and it’s everything and all too late. “I don’t know if you remember when Dell got appendicitis?”

He nods, it was over Christmas break and he had called everyday to make sure she was doing Okay.

“They asked me for her blood type and mine and Roy’s. And I told them mine and Adele’s and called Roy for his. As usual I couldn’t get a hold of him so I called his mother. And when she told me what it was, something about it, some ancient memory of high school biology made it seem…wrong, and that’s when I knew. When I told the resident what his mother had told me, she said either his mother was wrong or Roy wasn’t Adele’s biological father.”

“I’m an A positive,” he mumbles, almost to himself.

“So is Adele.”

Something about that, the physical tie that he has to his child, makes him sob and even though he isn’t ready to cry yet, even though it isn’t that part of the story, he can feel tears running down his face into Pam’s hair. “What if…what if I never…” he can’t complete the sentence and she can’t hear it said, so he stops.

“I never ever meant to keep this from you forever Jim, you have to know that, you have to believe me.” She pulls away from him so that she can look him in the eye and he does, he does believe her. “I…when you came back…you have to remember that you didn’t come back and that I didn’t hear from you for three years. That’s a long time. After we, that night…after we had sex and I told you that I was still going to marry Roy, I said that because I was scared, scared of all that change. And then you were gone, like that. Poof. And then when I was late, I thought, I was convinced that it was Roy’s because he and I didn’t use protection and you and I had, and it was just once. And God, because I had to believe that it was his- because otherwise you were in Connecticut and you hated me and it was two days before my wedding. I was going to call off the wedding you know? I knew he wasn’t right for me, I knew I loved you. But something about being late…it was all too much all at once, and once I had convinced myself it was Roy’s child I couldn’t do that to my baby. Little did I know that one way or another she was growing up without a Father.”

She pulls him down to sit on the bench next to the chapel, he keeps one arm around her loosely, almost to keep her there, to keep her talking. He wants to know all of it, every last detail.

“When you came back, Roy and I as you know were long over, and even though I knew you were engaged, all those feelings came rushing back. And I thought, I thought maybe this was my second chance. So I told you how I felt and you told me it was too late. And I was crushed,” she rushes ahead so that he won’t say anything, she doesn’t think she could stand an apology, “And then maybe two months later I found out that Adele was yours. And I knew, you being you, that you could do something drastic, something to jeopardize your relationship with Karen, who I now knew you were really in love with, if you knew Adele was your child. So I thought, I thought I would wait until after the wedding to tell you. That way you could still be with woman you loved, and be a part of your daughter’s life if you wanted to.”

When she finishes he’s not sure if he should laugh or cry, scream at her or thank her. So he chooses silence.

“I did it for you.” She whispers, “It was killing me to keep it from you…but you deserve to be happy, I need for you to be happy.” She says softly as she balls up the edge of her cardigan in her fingers.

“You didn’t know when you told me you were in love with me?” Somehow that’s important, somehow he needs to know she told him she loved him without an agenda. He needs to know this.

“Of course,” she says as she blinks away tears, “I have never, I would never use my daughter as bait.” Her voice wavers and he knows that if she was feeling a little stronger she would be offended. “I’m just so sorry that you had to find out like this, I understand you not wanting to tell Karen. Maybe you should go so that she won’t start to wonder what exactly the fuck is going on.”

He laughs a mirthless laugh, “If you were me, could you leave the child you never knew was yours here alone?”

She shakes her head, and he draws back his arm so that he can rest his head in his hands.

“I have something I’d like you watch,” she reaches into her purse and pulls out an iPod. “My brother made it for my sister who lives in Germany so that she keep up on Adele’s life.” She pulls up a video entitled the ‘The Wonder Years- Adele 0-1’ and it’s a compilation tape of different video snippets set to the Mika song ‘Grace Kelley’ and as the first upbeat bars of the song begin to play he can’t help but laugh as Adele making a funny face pops up on the screen, followed by a clip of her little face smeared with baby food, grinning. Pam pats him on the shoulder and says that she’s going to go in and pray for a bit.

He barely nods in response as becomes engrossed in this funny little video of his daughter, his child. And suddenly she’s really real. He can see how much she resembles Janine and how much she resembles his mother and even how much she resembles him. The thought makes his throat catch.

Even though it’s the still of night, a few people, mostly Janitors and nurses, still walk the halls. Those who do pass by the chapel are struck by the image of the tired looking young man laughing through his tears as he watches a tiny black Ipod.  

“Jim?” Karen mumbles into his hair as he dozes on the tiny sofa in the waiting room, “Let’s go home Honey, you’re exhausted,” she says as she brushes a few strands of hair from his forehead.

“Mmmphhs,” he says as he gets up with a start, “Did the Doctor come?”

“No,” she whispers, Pam and Mrs. Beesly are resting in what appears to be an uneasy slumber in the armchairs next to them. “We’ll call them in a few hours to see what happened, besides I’m sure we’ve outstayed our welcome. This is a time for family, Pam’s dad should be here soon.”

As Jim slowly regained his bearings the words ‘a Time for family’ played on loop in his head. He had to tell her. It was as simple as that. He had to let her make her own choices.

“I have to talk to you,” he says quietly and the look on her face is fear, he knows that she knows something is amiss and when she stands she doesn’t offer him her hand.

They walk to the cafeteria in silence and it’s only after he’s bought them each a cup of coffee that he finally sighs. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

“Then just say it, that’s the easiest way,” her voice is barely a whisper and somehow that suits the barren room they are seated in.

“Adele is my daughter, I just found out tonight,” he doesn’t dare look up to gauge her reaction, he knows that if he doesn’t get through this now, he never will. “I told you that I used to have a thing for Pam, well the night I told her…about how I felt; we slept together. It was a one-time thing and I thought it didn’t mean anything to her so I left for Stamford the next day. I didn’t talk to her or see her again until we moved to Scranton. A few months after we moved back she found out that Adele is mine, not Roy’s.”  He finally looks up and isn’t surprised to see tears in her eyes.

“Why?” she shudders out a breath, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He stiffens a little, “I don’t know about every guy you’ve ever slept with.” He replies quietly even though he knows it’s the wrong answer.

“Well you don’t work in the same office everyday with any of them,” she retorts swiftly slamming down her coffee so a tiny bit sloshes down the sides, forming a ring around the cup on the linoleum table.

“I can’t really argue about this now, and I know that’s not fair to you. But, she’s my daughter Karen and I never knew her. I need to know that she’s okay before I can think about anything else right now, and I’m sorry for that. I truly am.”

Karen sighs deeply and covers his hand with her own, “I’m sorry too. For everything, for yelling at you when you’re going through all of this, for the fact that our lives are totally different now,” she blinks her eyes and matching tears roll down the sides of her face, “God why didn’t we pick Albany,” she says softly.

He laughs a little even though it’s hollow and he feels her squeeze her hand.

“I guess I could be a step-mother,” she says as she scrunches up her face, “I don’t think I’m particularly evil though.”

“I don’t think you’re evil at all,” he says with a nod of his head.

“I just need to think about all this Okay,” she says quietly, the smile not reaching her eyes. He nods as he moves to leave the booth; she follows a moment later.

“Mrs. Halpert?” Pam asks quietly of the older woman who looks a little lost in the lobby. Jim had asked her if he could call her. He knew that his mom deserved the chance to get to know her grandchild a little too and she had cried into the phone, both tears of joy and sorrow and had insisted on coming to the hospital. Larissa Halpert had promised him that she wouldn’t disturb anyone but she needed to be there when the Doctor came to tell them of Adele’s fate. When Pam had heard that she was waiting in the Lobby she had come down to get her personally, to let her know that she was family and more than welcome to wait with them. 

“Pamela,” she said with a smile so similar to Adele’s that tears sprung in Pam’s eyes.

“She looks just like you,” she replied softly. And with that she was enfolded in a motherly embrace and she could feel Jim’s mother’s tears on her shoulders.

Pam squeezed her before pulling back and taking her arm, “let’s go upstairs,”

Mrs. Halpert nodded, “Do you think, do you think you could tell me a little about what she’s like?”

Pam smiled and obliged her by telling her that Adele’s favorite color is purple and how she loves strawberry frosting but hates vanilla. Her favorite Disney character is Christopher Robbin although Ariel from the Little Mermaid is a close second. They’re up to her favorite books and her bathtime rituals by the time they reach the waiting area and Mrs. Halpert is surprised to realize that she’s laughed as many times as she has cried.

She moves to embrace her son and then Karen and she holds onto her for a moment longer than usual, Karen squeezes her eyes tightly in response and it means the world to her to have the support. When she gets to Pam’s mother the two share a look and move to a little couch in the corner of the room and speak quietly before embracing. After a short time Jim gives his mother the iPod and presses play, he watches her face as she watches the screen and is overwhelmed by the love he already sees in his mother’s eyes. She’s her first grandchild and she looks just like the daughter she lost so long ago.  She reaches blindly for Mrs. Beesly’s hand, her eyes never breaking contact with the screen and they sit like that for what seems like hours.

======================================================

It’s been 7 hours now, an hour more than they said it would originally take and Pam has started to pace. Mrs. Halpert volunteers herself and Karen to go get something to eat from the cafeteria and Karen can’t help but look up in surprise.

“I wanted to talk to you and see how you were taking all of this?” Mrs. Halpert responds to Karen’s unspoken question.

The simple squeeze of her shoulder is almost enough to make Karen break down, but she’s stronger than that, so she shrugs instead, “I don’t know. That’s the honest answer; I wish I could say I’m fine with it. But I’m not and I’m afraid that makes me a terrible person.” There are tears in her eyes and she looks more like a lost child than a 27-year-old woman.

“It doesn’t,” Mrs. Halpert says with the shake of her head, “It makes you Human.” They pick out some pastries and buy more coffee before taking a seat at one of the booths.

“I just, I know that he won’t want to ever leave this town now. He has too much tying him here, and this isn’t what I wanted out of my life, selling paper in Pennsylvania. I had dreams and I thought he could be a part of the life I always wanted, but I’m afraid I can’t be a part of the life he’s going to want to live.” Now that she’s come out and said it, it’s like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders and she exhales forcibly, her bangs flying from her face.

“Tonight isn’t the time to make any decisions, but you have a point. This isn’t the life you signed up for and no one is going to blame you for bowing out. But life is full of curve balls. You have to decide whether you love Jim enough to stick with him through every up and down, and if the answer is no then maybe this is a blessing in disguise for the two of you. Because trust me, although I pray to God nothing like this ever happens again, life is full of surprises.”

Karen nods slowly before taking another cautious sip, “I think I should go home to think I don’t think I belong here, at least not yet.” She says quietly.

Mrs. Halpert doesn’t respond, instead she just takes the younger woman in her arms and hugs her softly.

What seems like hours later but in actuality is only 45 minutes, one of the surgeons emerges and approaches Pam, “Ms. Beesly, we’d like to talk to you about Adele.”

What seems like hours later but in actuality is only 45 minutes, one of the surgeons emerges and approaches Pam, “Ms. Beesly, we’d like to talk to you about Adele.”

The resident she had spoken to earlier was smiling at her. That was a good sign. “The surgery went exceptionally well, we managed to stop all the internal bleeding. However, whenever you take out a spleen in such a young patient you run the risk of a lot of long-term complications with infections. My resident will explain those to you and what precautions you need to take in the coming days. But for now your daughter is doing just fine. She’s still heavily sedated because at her age we find that agitation becomes a real problem. However, one of you can go in and sit with her for a while in recovery.”

The room erupts in ‘Thank God’s and thankful sighs and even relieved laughter. Pam’s crying now herself, as if she’s been holding back for this moment to really let loose. Jim’s arm is around her and she’s sobbing happy tears into his chest. She clutches his tie; the one Karen had picked out for him this morning, (had it only been this morning?) and says between hiccups that he should go, he should be the one who gets to sit with her now.

He starts to disagree and starts to say that Pam’s her Mother and that she should be there with Adele when Pam’s fingers are on his lips, she looks at him and shakes her head, “It’s your turn, I want you to be able to spend a little time with her, I’ve had three years already,” and then her smile bursts through, “And I’ll have so many more. But right now she needs her Dad.”

Jim nods, his throat swelling up, he leans over and kisses Pam gently on the forehead before the resident leads him to the recovery area. Adele is the only person in her little room, and she’s so much tinier than he remembers. Adele looks more like a fragile doll, hooked up to all those tubes, than the vibrant little girl who he taught how to make paperclip chains or made macaroni and cheese for.

He sits gingerly in the chair next to her bed, and whispers softly, “Dell, it’s Jin. You’re Okay now,” she stirs but he knows that she’s still deep in slumber.

“Jin?” she says softly in a half whimper. He smiles a little as the tears start to flow. He kisses her perfect little hand over and over and tenderly brushes a few strands of her hair off of her forehead. This is his daughter. She’s his. And he loves her. It’s there without trying. It just is. He loves his her more than his own life. He’d die for her. Hell, he’d kill for her.

There it is. And it’s such a relief that he’s tempted to lay his head on her bed and sob, but he doesn’t. He just kisses her tiny hand again and watches his child sleep.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two Days Later… 

It’s harder living out of a 2 foot by 3 foot bathroom than it looks. He's amazingly scruffy and his stuff is piled carelessly into a corner of the room. Pam’s sleeping right now and so is Adele so he has the opportunity to just watch them both. It’s his favorite time of the day.

He’s interrupted in his reverie by a knock at the door so quiet that at first he isn’t sure he heard it all. The nurses and doctors only knock as they are already swinging the door open, a courtesy rather than a warning. His mother and Pam’s have long since stopped knocking as if seeing their grandchild is a right that trumps everyone else’s. Strangely, he wouldn’t have it any other way. So when he hears the soft second knock he’s more than a little confused by who it could be.

Karen’s on the other side of the door when he opens it, her hands are stuffed in her jeans and she’s wearing one of his old, old t-shirts that’s shrunk so many times it doesn’t fit him anymore. She opens her mouth to speak but he puts a lip to his finger and then folds his hand like a pillow and lays his head on it, the universal symbol of ‘sleeping,’ she nods and follows him into the room.

She smiles broadly when she sees Adele and places a gentle kiss on the little girl’s forehead before standing at the foot of her bead for a few moments. She jerks her head towards the hallway and he nods. Somehow they make it to the waiting area in silence and the words, ‘where have you been,’ don’t manage to explode from his mouth.

“I went home. To think,” She says, “And to cancel some of our wedding stuff.” It’s not the most flowery way to put it but it’s perfectly Karen and something about that makes him a little more heartbroken.

He reaches out a hand to her and she takes it, “I’m so sorry,” he mumbles.

“Don’t be…unless you were planning on breaking up with me and then you should.” She laughs a little but it’s hollow and he has to close his eyes to stop the tears that are building. They’ve been together almost 3 years now and it’s harder than he ever thought to do this.

“Is this it?” he asks, even though he knows the answer.

“Yes, no, I don’t know,” she says with a shrug. “I guess we just want different things, you want to be with your daughter,” and she holds out her hand to stop him from interrupting, “And I totally understand that I do…I just can’t see myself living in Scranton forever, that’s not what I want from my life and I can’t see myself pulling you away from your child, that’s not what I want either.” She hangs her head and now tears are falling from her eyes too, “I love you so much,” she says as she squeezes his hands.

“Just not enough,” he says. It’s not an accusation, just a statement.

“I guess just not enough,” she replies and she leans down to kiss his lips tenderly, and they both know its goodbye.

When he finally heads back to the room, Pam’s awake and she’s staring at their sleeping child with an expression full of love and wonder. She looks up at him and smiles and the pain in his heart is suddenly gone.

She pats the seat of the sofa next to him, and he settles in. She leans a head on his shoulder and together they watch their daughter sleep. Her hair tickles his nose, but she somehow still smells wonderful, even here. He drapes his arm around Pam and pulls her closer; she resists for a moment but finally relaxes into his embrace. She knows he needs this right now. But when his lips find hers, she pushes gently against his chest and shakes her head, she jerks her head towards the hallway and he follows her mutely.

“Please don’t,” she says hoarsely before the door is even closed.

“I just…I’ve been wanting to for so long,” he whispers.

“Do you honestly think, that I would be Okay with you wanting me now, after you rejected me a few months ago,” her voice is still quiet, so monotone that it frightens him. “I told you I loved you and you said it was too late,” she looks up at him and he can see how full of tears her eyes are, as if one more would cause them to overflow, “I deserve to be loved for me, not because I’m the mother of your child and because you’re suddenly single,” she stops and grasps his hand in hers, “And I’m so sorry for that I am, I know you loved her and that all of this is probably why she left you.”

He nods but he doesn’t get a chance to speak because she isn’t through, “But I’ve spent too much time in a loveless relationship to ever agree to be second best again, and it wouldn’t be fair because I never stopped loving you,” she says, hurrying through before he can interrupt, “And I want you to be a part of Adele’s life, a big part. I’m going to want to move now…we can find something with three bedrooms and you can stay with us for as long as you want.”

>He finds that he’s shaking his head yes and he’s amazed that she’s able to find exactly the right words.

“It’s just been too much of a week for you to try to kiss me,” she says a smile finally gracing her lips, “You found out you had a daughter, Adele got shot, my ex-husband…,” she stops, she’s not ready to talk about that yet, “Your wedding got canceled and you broke up with your fiancé,” she smiles again, “Do I need to go on?” she asks. “I just think you’re not in the emotional to state to make any kind of decision.”

He nods again because she’s right and when she folds herself back into his embrace and squeezes he can’t help but squeeze back and bury his face in her hair. He takes in a deep breath and he knows that it’s all going to be Okay.

6 months later….

“I love you Daddy,” Jim Halpert is now thoroughly convinced that these are the most beautiful words in the English language. He knew absolutely that there was no sound as lovely as his daughter’s sigh right before she snuggled into bed and he tucked her in after her bedtime story. It had become a routine that was just between him and his daughter; after the hustle and bustle of dinner and clean-up and baths, Pam would call down from the second floor as he finished the dishes, “She’s waiting for the story.”  If a pan was taking particularly long to scrub, a few minute’s later he would hear his daughter call down (in a tone of calculated impatience that he knew Pam had taught her) “I’m waiting for my story.”

And he knew that in a few years that demanding tone wouldn’t be so funny but for now it cracked him up and he would usually race upstairs into her bedroom, tackling Adele and tucking her underneath his arm as she squealed before bouncing her on her tiny bed. He thinks that she should get tired of this night after night. Then he remembers that she is four.

Tonight she’s already asleep before the Prince kisses the Princess (apparently Sleeping Beauty is not sufficient as a movie after dinner but must be repeated as a bedtime story as well) and Jim carefully tiptoes out of her room after a little kiss on her forehead.

Pam is waiting for him tonight in the living room, a not unusual occurrence as they usually spend the rest of the evening together after putting Adele to bed. Today she has the, ‘we need to talk’ face on, he mentally steels himself for what may come.

He settles in a respectable distance away from her, he’s mastered the art over the past six months, far enough away that she doesn’t feel cramped, yet close enough so that she can fall asleep on his shoulder if she wants. Living with ‘his two girls’ as he refers to them in his head is a science Jim thinks he’s mastering.

“I’m going to go out on a date,” Pam says without making eye contact, without even moving.

Apparently he doesn’t have them figured out as well as he thought because he could never have anticipated this.

“With who?” and it comes out so harshly that she bristles.

“With Alex, he teaches one of the art classes at Scranton,” she’s looking at him now with the same look of defiance Adele gives her when they argue about pigtails or pony tails in the morning. If he weren’t so shocked he’d probably point this out. 

“Does he know about us?” he asks and he’s half afraid of what the answer might be. In his impatience he’s scooted closer to her and now he can see the quiver of her bottom lip and he knows this is hard for her, but she can’t just drop this bomb and expect him to…

“Yeah, I mean I told him that my best friend lives with me and that we have a daughter together,” the reminder that that is all they share makes him gasp a little but then he forces himself to remember her heartfelt confession of love. He knows she loves him. He does, doesn’t he?

“So what?” he steadies his tone to make it deliberately casual, “So we’re just going to date other people then? So you’ll be fine with me asking out that friend of Mark’s he’s been wanting to set me up with.”

He watches her struggle with the answer a little but somehow she manages a smile and a “That’s fine by me, just as long as you stay at her place when…” she isn’t able to finish that thought, “Because I don’t want us to confuse Adele anymore than she already is.”

“Ok,” he says nonchalantly, “I’m sure she would be fine with that.”

“Ok,” she replies her voice shaking.