1.

Jim Halpert learns, at a very young age, to associate being in love with agonizing pain.

His first ever visit to the hospital is for a broken toe. The doctor is a woman, probably the prettiest one he has seen up close in all of his thirteen years on the planet, making him glad that he'd gotten his injury playing soccer and not doing something sissy like dropping a frying pan on his foot. His brother had done that when he was ten and lost a toenail in his encounter with the cast-iron skillet. Gross, but awesome.

He watches, smitten, as the doctor (she says he can call her Olivia, if he wants) carefully manipulates his ankle. Her touch is gentler than his mom's and her shining hair smells like apples. It's totally worth the pain to be the recipient of her undivided attention.

What can he say? It's a pattern.

2.

Jim's cell phone rings in the middle of a Wednesday night and he's surprised to discover his brother's home number on the call display. Jonathan is supposed to be in Los Angeles for a business conference. He barely manages to croak out a groggy "hello" before his sister-in-law, Maria, is shouting in his ear. It takes him a few seconds to work out that she's having contractions three weeks early and Jonathan can't get home for another eight hours.

Jim runs three red lights on his way to pick her up. It's two am in Scranton; no one is looking. He drives more carefully once Maria is buckled into the passenger seat, glancing at her nervously every time she makes a noise, wondering if he'll have to deliver a baby in the backseat of his car. That only happens in the movies, right?

Maria begs him to come in with her, to hold her hand through the whole thing and he's happy to, if it'll do anything to take away the fear in her eyes. So he stays with her and gets his fingers squeezed until they're purple and tries to think of the right things to say to a woman who apparently wants to pull his arm off at the shoulder. Something tells him he won't be making it to work in the morning.

After the baby is cleaned up, the nurse mistakes him for the father and he gets to be the first to greet a brand new person with their name. The tiny girl wriggles in his arms and he decides right then that he wants to have one of his own someday. It's a done deal.

3.

Jim hauls Dwight's dead weight out of the back of the van while Michael looks on uselessly. Dwight leans into his side, drooling. "I love you, Jim."

"I know, buddy." He steers them towards the entrance of the hospital and sprays Dwight in the face again, just because. "I love you, too."

He's amazed to discover that he kind of means it.

4.

Jim sits in the chilly waiting room, waiting for word about his father. Cold air gusts across the tiles as people flow in and out of Emergency. Each time someone passes his little alcove, he looks up to see if it's anyone he knows. He told Karen she didn't have to go with him, thinking it was too much to ask of her, expecting her not to listen. He picks at the cracked vinyl upholstery of his chair, tugging at the white fluff inside, and chastises himself for being angry with her. She's not a mind reader. Only, she should know him better than that by now. Maybe it's his fault that she doesn't.

Fingers lightly touch his shoulder and he looks up, expecting his mother, but finding Pam instead. She takes the chair next to him, pressing a warm cup of coffee into his hand. "How is he?"

He stares at the steam rising from a hole in the lid of his drink. "They said it's a heart attack. My mom's in with him now. We don't know how serious it is."

"It'll be okay, Jim." Her voice is quiet, comforting.

He raises his head and offers her a weak smile, the best he can do for now. "Thank you for coming. You didn't have to."

"Yeah." She lowers her head and smoothes a wrinkle from her gray work skirt. "I did."

They sit in silence for a while, easy companions. He forgets for a few minutes that things between them are supposed to be awkward. It's nice, knowing that he can still count on her to be there, even when they've made such a mess of things. "It makes you think, doesn't it?"

"About what?" There's a note of hope in her voice. She can always tell what's on his mind, even though she pretends otherwise.

He sips his coffee and watches a gurney go by, too raw to look her in the eye. "Wasting time. What really matters." He glances down briefly at her hand, resting small and pale on the armrest, and then covers it with his own. "You know?"

Her hand twists so that their palms are touching and she weaves her fingers between his. "I know."

5.

The staircase of their new house is narrow, and they struggle for over half an hour trying to maneuver the box spring up to the second floor. Jim braces himself against the rail to catch his breath. "This is why people pay for movers, Pam."

"So they won't have to listen to their husband's whining?" She teases him from the landing, safely out of reach.

He wipes his forehead on the hem of his t-shirt with a corner of the mattress balanced on his knee, already resigned to a lifetime of mockery. It's why he married her. "Exactly. Ready for another try?"

"Okay. Maybe push a little more to the left."

He shoves with the last of his strength and the load suddenly gives. Pam disappears under its weight with a startled yelp. "Pam! Are you okay?" He hauls the box spring on its side and kneels next to her. "Are you hurt?"

Tears threaten at the corners of her eyes. "I think you broke me."

*

Despite his guilt over what turns out to be a fractured collarbone, it ends up being his favorite hospital visit yet, because during the patient history, when Pam is asked if there's any chance of pregnancy, she just ducks her head and smiles.