Officer Barwick doesn’t get two words in.  She knows what he’s come to say, deep in her heart, and her tears are halfway to her chin when he’s through.  He tells her he’s sorry, but she knows it’s his job to say so.  She’s sorry, too, but it’s not as if it will change anything.

* * *

She’s never been religious and feels foolish when she has to keep looking for the words to the hymns.  She’s grateful that his mother took care of these arrangements because flowers and reception and guests are all she’s thought about for the past few months, now, and it all overwhelms her, makes her head hurt.

* * *

“I’m pregnant.”  She’s gotten good at stifling the urge to cry.

“Hey.  It’s okay.”

“It’s Roy’s.”

“It’s okay.  Are you okay?”

“His funeral was yesterday, Jim, and I’m pregnant with his child.”  She’s gotten good at stating the obvious, too.

His eyes are kind, affectionate.  “Tell me what to do, Pam.  I’m here to help.”

* * *

Mornings sick in the bathroom are decidedly not her favorite, but she reminds herself it’s just a sign of something far greater than she could ever imagine.  Jim has taken to sleeping on her couch should she need anything, and the mornings he wakes to her distress are some of the most bittersweet he’s experienced.

* * *

He makes sure she has everything she needs.  Extra pillows.  Chocolate syrup.  Fresh batteries in the television remote.  A shoulder to not-cry on.  She’s stronger than he’s ever imagined, her reserve to carry this child despite the physical and emotional ache it causes her unfaltering.  It’s not the first time he realizes he loves her.

* * *

When it becomes impossible to hide the bump of her belly, she finally allows herself to cry.

None of her clothes fit, and when she tells Jim she’ll just walk around naked if it’s all the same to him, the joke sounds so hollow that he finds it necessary to assure her that she’s beautiful.

* * *

“Pickles?”  He makes a face.  “Seriously?  I thought that was a myth.”

She shakes her head firmly, the dark circles under her eyes a sharp contrast to the tiny smile she wears.  “I want some.”

“It’s just not natural, Pam.”  He’s insistent, but so is she.  She has her pickles and she eats them, too.

* * *

The ache in her back is her constant companion, now, and there are days when she can’t move from bed at all.  Days like these Jim calls in to work and lies with her, using every joke he knows, trying to make her laugh, and when he’s successful he feels like he’s changed the world.

* * *

She wonders if her little boy will look more like herself or like Roy.  Will he have her curly hair, his dimples?  His blue eyes, his capable hands?  He won’t have long limbs or broad shoulders, she knows, nor will he have a head of messy, wavy brown hair that’s always getting in his eyes.

* * *

Michael asks Jim for updates, but he’s careful to keep his answers generic.  “She’s fine” is his most popular answer; he tells himself it’s for her sake, her privacy, but he knows that he’s just selfish when it comes to all of these intimate moments with Pam.  They’re the closest he’s ever felt to her.

* * *

It’s only been five months, but it feels like five years.

“I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

“I didn’t think you were a quitter, Beesly.”  He’s peeling an apple because today she doesn’t like the skin.

“Can’t you take something seriously just once?”

He pauses, looks at her.  “I am.”

* * *

It gets harder to make her smile as the days pass, so he starts keeping track.

Once when he tells her she should name him Jebediah.

Once when he goes with her to the doctor and is mistaken for the father.

Once when he feels the baby kick, every bit as fiery as his mother.

* * *

She wonders if all mothers-to-be always feel this feverish, agitated that she can find no comfort.  Jim’s pressed a cool washcloth to her forehead and gone in search of some obscure flavor of ice cream she hasn’t had since she was a little girl, and she’s pretty sure Roy would have never thought of looking.

* * *

Kelly asks Jim if Pam needs anything he can’t provide for her.  Met with a blank stare she continues, explaining that there might be girl stuff she doesn’t feel comfortable sharing with him, not to mention that she bought a cute maternity top for her while she was out last week.  “Okay,” he says, “great.”

* * *

She’s due mid-August, and as the temperature has steadily gone up she’s contemplated blowing her brains out to end the torment.  She shares this with Jim and he balks predictably, telling her it wasn’t funny the first time she said it and it’s hardly funny now.  She thinks he looks as tired as she feels.

* * *

Roy’s mother calls once a week to check on her and the baby, making sure she’s taking care of herself.  She’s uncomfortable with another man in the bed her son used to share with Pam, even if he’s only sleeping, and she feels led to remind Pam often that Jim is not the baby’s father.

* * *

Today it’s a pizza Lunchable.  Jim finds them positively revolting but Pam’s adamant, and when he presents one to her she proceeds to suck the pizza sauce from the packet and ignore the rest of the “meal” completely.

“Nasty,” he comments.  She sticks out her tongue.  She’s in better spirits today, and she likes it.

* * *

They’re both lying in bed not really talking until she speaks, her voice soft.

“Do you ever wonder…?”  She can’t decide how to finish so she doesn’t.  Her fingers are laced together over her belly, and every so often she can feel him stirring inside.

“All the time,” he answers, knowing exactly what she’s thinking.

* * *

Jim takes just as good care of Pam’s flowers and plants as he does her, especially the ones she can no longer reach without minor difficulty.  He knows admittedly little about gardening (and the last he checked his thumb was flesh-colored, not green), but under her watchful eye and specific instruction they continue to bloom.

* * *

At first she thinks she’s wet herself, but it doesn’t smell like urine.  She calls him at work, her voice awash with surprise, and he promises her he’ll be there in ten minutes.  Turning down Dwight’s insistent offer to help puts him there in fifteen, however, and she’s in full-blown panic mode. 

“In the car!”

* * *

He waits outside for her, not noticing how his hands are trembling.  Once again he’s mistaken for the father, and once again he has to begrudgingly inform them that he’s just a family friend.  She’s been in labor for seven hours with no end in sight, and he hasn’t been able to keep anything down.

* * *

It’s been thirteen hours, but she’s made it.  Dr. Rhea informs him that it’s a healthy baby boy weighing eight pounds and that, though tired, Miss Beesly is ready to see him if he’d like.  Her hair is matted with sweat but she looks peaceful, as if she’s just won some long-lasting battle.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

* * *

She names him Shane Anderson Beesly.

Jim is going to miss sleeping on Pam’s couch, but he doesn’t think she’ll need him anymore.  After all, Shane isn’t his son, even if the past nine months has felt as natural to him as anything he’s ever done.  He packs gradually, taking days.  She doesn’t mention it.

* * *

“Thank you.”

“For?”

“You know what for.”

He blushes lightly.  “It was nothing.”

“I mean it.  I couldn’t have done it without you.”  She kisses the corner of his mouth, and it’s not the first time he realizes he loves her.

She appoints him as the godfather, and under the circumstances he’s glad to accept.