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They moved into a tiny shoebox apartment on the Upper West Side. A tiny room was turned into an art studio. Jim found a job writing for a local paper, and they were happy.
Pam decided that she liked working with clay, liked molding things with her hands, and it turned out that she was good at it. She started making sculptures, and selling her pieces to galleries all over the city.
Jim still talked to Kevin sometimes, and he caught them up on Dunder-Mifflin gossip. They knew Ryan had been fired, and that Karen had gotten the job. Jim lived in constant fear of running into his ex, but Pam had laughingly reassured him that in a city full of millions of people the odds of running into Karen were slightly higher than the odds of him one day winning the Boston marathon.
"You've jinxed us," Jim told her shaking a finger in her direction. "We're going to see her now!" And they did spot her a few weeks later, standing in line at a grocery store. Jim had pulled Pam into the frozen foods section and though she snuck out of the store with him so that they wouldn't be seen, she couldn't help but laugh about it the whole way home.
"I guess you should start practicing for the Boston marathon," she had said.
"It's not funny, Beesly," he replied, but the grin on his face said otherwise.
It was after the miscarriage that they decided to move. It was after Pam woke up in the middle of the night with sharp pains. It was after she woke up to find herself and the bed covered in blood. It was after she shook Jim awake, and he sleepily opened on eye.
"What's the matter?" He slurred before he caught the sight of her pale face, until he noticed that her hands were covered with blood. He jumped from the bed, his mind racing with the possibilities. He frantically looked her up and down to figure out where she was bleeding from.
"Jim," Pam had sobbed. She kept wiping at her face, and the blood was getting everywhere.
"Are you hurt? Where are you bleeding from? Fuck. I'm calling an ambulance," Jim said. His hands shook as he dialed 911.
"Jim," Pam whispered, finally calming down. "I think I'm having a miscarriage." Jim's eyes widened, and he swallowed hard.
They hadn't even known she was pregnant.
The ambulance only took about ten minutes to get there, but to Jim it felt like a thousand years. When they got to the hospital, Jim held her hand and listened to the doctor confirm that it was a miscarriage, and sometimes these things just happened, and there should be no reason that she couldn't get pregnant again and have a perfectly healthy pregnancy. Pam wept softly into her hands, and after the doctors walked out, and she was settled into a room for the night, she turned to him, eyes rimmed red.
"It's ridiculous," she said. "I didn't even know I was pregnant. How can I miss something I didn't even know I had?" And he tried to say the right things, the reassuring things, but after she had fallen asleep, and he was sitting in the uncomfortable chair next to her bed, he let himself drop his head into his hands and cry.
After her art started to get more press, and started selling for outrageous sums of money, they upgraded to a bigger apartment, with a more complete studio and a home office for Jim.
Sometimes they would sit across from one another at dinner and marvel at how things had turned out. How far they had come from being a receptionist and salesman at a mid-size paper company in Pennsylvania. They would glance around at their beautiful apartment, filled with books and paintings and wonder how exactly they had gotten there. It was far from where Pam had expected her life to take her.
Sometimes they had friends over for dinner parties, and they would regale them with stories from the past. Their friends loved stories about Michael and Dwight, not believing that they could be real people until Pam dug out the tapes of the documentary and they all sat down one night and watched hours of their former life.
During the ones where Jim was dating Karen, Pam reached out her hand and slid it into her husband's, and he gave it a squeeze without removing his eyes from the screen.
Jim had called his mother from the hospital That Morning, as they both had referred to it from then on. He slid a hand through his hair as he stood at a payphone. When the ambulance had come, he had only thought to grab his coat; his head had been too scrambled, too panicked to think to grab anything else. He wasn't sure if he had even locked the door on his way out, and decided that he probably hadn't.
It was early still, only like six in the morning, but they had been there since about two, and Pam was still soundly sleeping back in her hospital bed. They were releasing her in the morning, they had said, but she was to take it easy for the next few days. Once Jim had gotten himself calmed down, he went to the phone to call his mother and the Beesly's.
"Hello?" His mother had answered the phone slightly groggy, and Jim knew that he had woken her up.
"Mom?"
"Jim? It's early, what's going on?" Jim couldn't say anything, the words got caught in his throat.. "Jim? What's wrong? You're scaring me." He could picture his mother sitting straight up in bed, and if he closed his eyes he was sure he could imagine her face, the way her eyebrows would slope together when she was thinking.
"It's Pam," he managed to squeak out.
"Pam? What's wrong with Pam? Where are you?" He could hear his mother rustling around and his father asking what was wrong.
"We're at the hospital," he said, and his mother gasped.
"Are you all right? Is Pam all right?"
"She had a miscarriage," Jim whispered, and his mother was quiet for a minute.
"She was pregnant?"
"We didn't know," he replied, and again his mother was quiet.
"Are you okay?" She asked softly.
"No," he answered, and tightened his grip on the phone and began to cry again.
Every Saturday morning they went out for bagels and coffee. Saturdays, they had decided, they were forbidden to do any sort of work. Jim was not allowed to write, and Pam was not allowed to work on her pieces. Saturdays were supposed to be their day.
Some Saturdays they got up early and drove down to visit one set of parents or the other. Usually they were talked into staying until Sunday, at the least, and so they had learned to always pack an overnight bag to throw in the car with them.
Neither set of parents badgered either of them about grandchildren. That Morning was still too raw, too recent in their minds to ever consider bugging them about when they were going to have kids. It had been two years, but sometimes when Jim closed his eyes all he could see was Pam and all that blood. So much fucking blood. He could see the blood on her cheek from where she had wiped at her tears, and he could see the heartbroken look on her face when she realized what was going on.
Sometimes, still, he would wake up in the middle of the night just to make sure that she was okay, that there was no blood. And only when he had made sure of it, made sure that it was just her, clean and peaceful, did he close his eyes and fall back asleep.
He was sitting with a sleeping Pam, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to find his mother there.
"I came as fast as I could," she said, and he nodded and stood up and wrapped his arms around her. They went into the hall so that they didn't wake up Pam, and his mother asked him to tell her what had happened.
"It happened while she was sleeping," he said. "We didn't...we hadn't known...and then she woke up, I guess, and she saw the blood and she woke me up, and there was all this blood. Just everywhere. Just..." He shook his head. "All this blood." He let out a shuddering breath, and his mother's arms were around him instantly.
"Oh honey, oh poor Pam, oh honey," she murmured running her hands through his hair. "Did you call her parents?" Jim nodded, remembering how that conversation had gone. Mrs. Beesly had started crying the minute the words, Pam, miscarriage, hospital, had left his mouth, and Mr. Beesly had gotten on the phone to tell him that they were leaving immediately and should be there in a couple of hours.
"Jim?" A sleepy voice called from the room , and Jim hurried back to Pam's side.
"Hey," he said softly, running a hand through her hair. "My mom's here, and your parents are on their way." Pam nodded. "How are you feeling?"
Pam shrugged, and looked away for a minute.
"Empty," she finally said.
They don't really talk about having kids. They weren't trying, but she wasn't on birth control either. Neither can really admit that they are scared to start actually trying, to have it happen again. Jim knows that he can't take another morning like that.
Plus, their life was not kid-friendly. Pam had her art supplies scattered around their apartment, and Jim holed himself up his office for hours at a time, only emerging for food, the bathroom, or to watch his wife as she worked. He loved watching Pam as she worked, her hair pulled back into a messy bun, an old shirt of his on, sometimes only an old shirt of his on, pieces of clay stuck to her clothes and in her hair and all over her hands. Sometimes Jim could stand and watch her for close to a half hour before she realized that someone was behind her. She was wrapped up in her art, and she wonders from time to time if she could love a baby as much as she loves working on her pieces, loves Jim, loves her life.
She only has to think about That Morning, and how empty she felt, and she knows, knows, she would love a baby that much, and a thousand times more.
She wants a baby, but she doesn't tell Jim that. It's not as if she' s not happy, because she is, but Jim would make such a fantastic father, and sometimes she thinks she'd even make a half-way decent mother, and it's not fair, it's not fair, that it was taken from them before they even knew it they had it.
"Oh," Jim said, as he and his mother sat outside of Pam's room. Her parents were in there with her, and he had stepped out to give them some space. "The sheets...the bed, it's still...covered in blood." Pam's blood. He shuddered.
"I'll go clean up," his mother reassured him. "Pam doesn't need to come home to that. You don't need to come home to that." And he was grateful, and tired, and about a thousand other things that were brimming right under the surface, and it was all he could do to nod. His mother kissed his cheek and hurried back to his and Pam's apartment to strip the bed and clean up the mess.
He sat outside her room while her parents were in there, and finally Mr. Beesly came out into the hallway and gave a snort when he saw Jim slumped against the wall next to the door.
"Why don't you come back in?" He suggested. "She's asking for you." Jim stood up and walked back into the hospital room, and he thought about how he wanted to never be back here, like this.
Mrs. Beesly was sitting by the bed, a forced smile on her face as she ran her hand through Pam's unruly hair.
"So I was thinking that I would go back to your place and make some chicken soup, you'd like that, wouldn't you sweetie?" Pam didn't say anything, she just nodded, and Mrs. Beesly kissed her on the forehead, and told her that they would be waiting back at Pam and Jim's. She squeezed Jim's hand as she passed, and he took her place next to Pam.
"We get to go home soon," he said, and he pretended that he didn't see the shadow that passed over Pam's face.
"Great," she said unconvincingly.
"My mom went to clean up a bit," Jim said, and this time Pam nodded, relief clearly etched in her features. They were quiet for a moment, and then Pam reached out and grabbed his hand.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"For what?"
"For all of this, for...I don't know, for losing the baby," she replied.
"Beesly, oh God, don't...you have nothing to apologize for, it wasn't your fault," he leaned forward and placed small kisses all over her face. "It's not your fault. It wasn't your fault." And suddenly she was crying again, and he wished that he was anywhere, they were anywhere, that wasn't that hospital, on that morning.
It took Pam a few days to figure out what was going on. She was working in her studio when Jim came into the room to remind her that they were supposed to drive down to Scranton to have dinner with some of their old co-workers that weekend.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "That's the weekend of the fourteenth."
"It is the fourteenth," Jim said. And Pam began to count in her head, and she gasped and ran from the room leaving Jim looking confused.
"What's the matter?" He asked.
"Do you know where a calendar is?" She called out, and he could hear her rummaging through drawers.
"Uh, on my desk," he called back. She raced past him when he stepped into the hallway. "What's going on?"
"I just...oh my God," she breathed.
"What?" He came into his office, and Pam turned to him with a grin on her face.
"I think I'm pregnant," she whispered.
That Morning was a Tuesday morning, and Jim had to call and explain why they weren't there. He wanted to leave out most details, but Dwight was badgering him so much, asking to produce doctor's notes for both he and Pam, calling him a liar when he said that they would need to be out for a few days, because there was no way he was leaving her side, that finally he snapped.
"She had a miscarriage, Dwight!" He yelled into the phone. "So we're going to need a few days off, okay?" And Dwight was uncharacteristically quiet, and somehow that was worse, and finally he said in a small voice,
"Okay, Jim, and I'm very sorry for your loss," and he hung up the phone, and Jim knew it was mere seconds before everyone in the office knew.
And their phone rang so much in those first few hours that Jim unplugged it. Pam mostly slept in their bed, with the new sheets his mother had gotten, and Jim sat with his mother and the Beesly's, and they made small talk and watched BBC America, and mostly did anything but talk about what had happened.
His mother decided that she was going to go back home, and kissed Mrs. Beesly's cheek on her way out and gave Mr. Beesly a hug, and ran her hand down Jim's cheek.
"It's going to be okay, sweetheart," she whispered.
"I don't..." Jim shoved his hands into his pockets, and his mother grabbed his hand.
"It's going to be okay, Pam's strong, and you're strong, and it's terrible, I know, but you'll get through it. It's okay to cry and to be sad, but know that it will be okay." And she gave him a fierce hug before reminding him that she would be by the next day, and as the door closed behind her, he allowed himself to cry a little bit before heading back into the living room with Pam's parents.
They had gotten married a few months before the move to New York. They were engaged when That Morning happened, and Pam hadn't felt like dealing with the move and a large wedding, after That Morning Pam didn't really feel like dealing with very much at all, so in the end they had a beautiful, small ceremony. Jim lost his breath when Pam appeared on her father's arm and she beamed at him as she made her way down the aisle. They invited most of their co-workers, and although Michael threatened to boycott the wedding because they were leaving, he ended up sitting a few rows behind Jim's parents, weeping into a tissue and whispering loudly to Jan that it could be them next.
They moved to New York a few weeks after they were married.
It had been Jim's idea to leave, Pam's idea to move to New York. They needed a change, they needed something different, they needed to not be in Scranton anymore, and finally Jim came home one day and told Pam to pick somewhere, anywhere, and they would go.
"Go? Like on a vacation?"
"Like for good," he replied. "Let's just move. Let's stop saying that one day we'll quit Dunder Mifflin and do something we love, and actually quit Dunder Mifflin and do something we love."
She picked New York City, and at first Jim found just a temp job which would help them pay the bills, and then finally, terrified that he would become Ryan and that his temp job would become far more permanent, he quit that job too and started writing for a paper full time.
It was a second hospital visit, another morning when he sat next to a sleeping Pam, but this hospital was in New York, and though Pam's cheeks were still stained with tears, next to her was a bassinet holding a tiny, pink baby.
Her name was Tessa Elizabeth Halpert, and she was beautiful.
She was born on a Tuesday.
Jim didn't think he could love anyone as much as he loved Pam, but one look at Tessa and his heart was so full that he thought it might burst.
Pam stirred next to him.
"Hey," he said softly.
"Hey," she smiled.
"I called your parents, they're on their way, and my parents should be here soon," he said.
"Okay," she replied. "Hey, you know we're going to have to babyproof the apartment. We didn't get a chance to do that yet. And we're going to have to find a good babysitter for when I have gallery openings, and if you wanted to work on that book we're going to have to work out a system..."
"Pam," Jim laughed. "She's only a few hours old. We've got some time, I think." He leaned and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
"She's perfect," Pam sighed.
"Yeah," Jim agreed. "She is."
"I was thinking," Pam said softly. "I was thinking about what would have happened if That Morning wouldn't have happened. And I don't think...I mean...I think about where we are now, and I think about where we were then, and now we have so much more to offer Tessa than we could have offered before, you know?" Jim nodded. "So maybe, I mean, maybe things happen for a reason? I don't know, I was just...I've been thinking about that morning a lot lately."
They could be in Scranton, still working at Dunder Mifflin, and instead they were here, doing all the things they had always wanted to do. Maybe they wouldn't have Tessa, maybe they would have been happy, but maybe they wouldn't have. All Jim knew was that he was happy, insanely so, on this morning, in this hospital room, and he would want to be no where else.
Jim didn't say anything, he just stood and picked up Tessa and sat down on Pam's bed.
"I love you," he said, and Pam nodded and fingered the edge of Tessa's blanket. "And her, God, do I love her."
"She was worth the wait, wasn't she?" Pam replied fondly.
"How do you feel?" Jim asked. This time, Pam didn't turn away, instead she glanced down at their daughter and then up at Jim.
"Happy," she replied. "Amazing. Full."
