“Oh, shut up. You’re so beautiful.”

There wasn’t anything particularly special about this morning.

They’d only been dating for a little over a month now, and on the heels of his move back to Scranton, they had become masters of the weekend-long sleepover. Sunday morning found him freshly showered and reentering her bedroom whose bright light was courtesy of late summer sunshine and an eastern facing window.

And, if he was being honest, her golden aura helped a little bit, too.

He’d spent a fair amount of time in this room now. It was still vacant of some of her things, odds and ends that were still at Roy’s. She’d only just moved in to her new place, and with the way that she and Roy had left things, she was taking her time in getting the rest. For now, she had everything she needed. Volleyball trophies from high school and the porcelain birthday dolls her grandmother had given her growing up, she could live without. Fresh socks and underwear? She could not.

Jim had settled on boxer shorts and a clean white t-shirt, shaking out his damp hair as he crossed the hallway to join her. She was sitting cross-legged, buried to the waist in the blanket cocoon of her still unmade bed, wearing a plain t-shirt and shorts of her own. Her hair was sitting atop her head in a high messy bun, and she donned her glasses. It was still too early in the morning for contacts.

Her eyes knit in concentration as she focused on the Sunday morning crossword in her lap, a pencil wedged in the dip between her chin and bottom lip. It was these small moments that stole his breath, had his feet glued to the floor to solidify the little things, because in those moments when he needed to remind himself that this was real, that she was his, the little moments were what mattered the most.

“You gonna stand there and stare all day, or you gonna come help me out here, Halpert?”

She said it all without lifting her eyes from where they rested in her lap, without moving the pencil from her chin. The grin pulled his mouth wide open as he bounded to the bed, leaping to belly flop haphazardly across the bed. She barely let her lips pull up, keeping her concentration on the paper in her lap. He wrapped his arms tightly around her middle and leaned in for a kiss, only slightly off-put when she pulled away.

“Uh uh, you bolted into the bathroom before I got to brush my teeth. Wait until I’m finished with this puzzle.”

Exaggeratedly, he dropped his head, letting out a loud breath before tucking his chin around her elbow to watch her finish the last three words on her side of the puzzle.

“Alright, Beesly, let’s speed this process along. Seven down, four letter word for--”

“No, you have across. I’m already going down.”

She brushed his fingers away from where they were covering her remaining clues, but he latched on, scooting his body closer.

“Oh really?” Waggling his eyebrows, he slid his cheek up her arm until his head rested in the crook of her neck where his lips met soft skin and a surprised sigh wound its way past her lips.

No sooner was his tongue making its way up the column of her throat than soft fabric was knocking him square in the side of the head.

“Back off, you insatiable teenager.”

Glancing up, he saw her armed with a throw pillow and a grin that was equal parts playful and flushed.

“No kissing until I’ve brushed my teeth. I’m serious!” she chuckled, drawing her attention from his puppy dog pout back to the crossword. “We had garlic breadsticks at two o’clock this morning, I haven’t washed my hair in two days, and I--”

“Don’t care.”

It wasn’t that he was trying to undermine her, or that he was trying to live up to the horny teenager image that she’d so lovingly labeled him with.

It was because the words she said weren’t I can’t anymore. They were I want to be my best for you and We still have so much time, which was so far gone from I can’t that it made his head spin.

He swallowed her What? as the crossword smashed between them and his body toppled against hers, his lips smacking loudly against her own. After several moments of lingering against her lips, he propped himself up on his forearms and grinned hugely down at her, lips full and skin flushed pink. Before she was able to protest, he stole her words again.

“Oh, shut up. You’re so beautiful.” His thumbs curled inward to brush against cheeks whose pink tint was darkening ever so slightly.

Because he meant it. Truly and deeply, underneath her thick, high school glasses and messy bun and morning breath, she knew that he loved her, and would love her, through it all.

She let her hands twine around his head, through his still damp curls, to pull him back to her mouth, but he paused with his lips hovering just against hers.

“You totally still taste like garlic bread, though.”

“Jim!”

While he had pictured quite a few mornings with Pam Beesly in his time spent in waiting, none had included pillow fights on her bed like they were still little kids. But as they bounced around on their knees to dodge pillows, and his fingers eventually began to tickle her abdomen, and she was pinned underneath him now flushed with laughter, there was nowhere in the world he could picture himself but in this moment.

Sure, there was more kissing following the pillow fight, but it was the moments afterwards when he shaved while she brushed her teeth, and when they finished the crossword together before walking hand in hand to get coffee, that he savored the most.

----

It was several days later, but the fatigue was finally becoming less of a weight. She’d been moved from the ICU into a regular patient room, but she still felt like a toddler or a prisoner with absolutely no privacy. She still needed someone to help her wash her hair, though after the first round, she’d refused the sponge bath option, locking herself in the bathroom for a half hour before Penny finally kicked her into high gear.

Waking up this morning with a new sense of alertness, she tried to piece missed moments of the past week together. According to her patient board, it was Friday. She’d been dazed for almost a week. She recalled small details. Her parents coming in and out in shifts. Dad turning on the Phillies. Mom flipping a magazine by her bedside. Penny chattering on her cell. And Jim. Lots and lots of Jim.

He wasn’t just by her bedside. He was in her dreams, too. This man with whom she shared a place of employment, who’d claimed to be her best friend, was overtaking her senses. Snippets of one-sided conversations appeared.

Everyone’s been asking about you. The flowers are from Phyllis and Stanley. Kelly wanted me to tell you that she’s still emotional over Lance Bass being gay, and she’s sad that you’re not around to share in her pain.

I’m still only going in for half days. I don’t know. I could definitely go in all day but I think I’d go nuts, Pam. Not just with you not being there. I just...I don’t think I could leave you here alone. I know, I know, your family comes in to visit but I...it’s not the same.

There was a memorial for the Hurricane Katrina anniversary today. I was thinking about that food drive you put together last year. You were so mad that Roy wouldn’t let you take your vacation to go down there and help. Didn’t he want you guys to use it for some jet ski thing? You were so mad. You just wanted to help. So like you, Beesly. I would’ve taken you.

Michael wants to come and visit. I told him that you’re still recovering, which is obviously true, but also a blatant cover up for the fact that I’m not about to let him anywhere near a real life hospital with real sick people. He’d probably unplug someone’s life support on accident.

Phillies won again. Maybe they’ll actually make it to the end of this month over .500. I know you’ve never really been into sports, but I’ve had this picture in my head for the past month of you with a foam finger posed next to the Philly Phanatic, and I, like, need to make it happen. Maybe next year. Maybe, if you ever remember...

Vacant from her memories of the past few days was Roy. Her last recollection had been arguing with Penny as to whether or not he would show up for dinner. She was starting to think that he hadn’t.

It was a little after ten in the morning, and by all accounts, she was alone. No rounds, no doctors, no visitors. Pushing herself slowly up out of bed, she floated towards the bathroom, intending to brush her teeth and take inventory of herself for the day. It was at this point, two weeks after the accident, that she realized she would be lifting her eyes to a mirror for the first time. It wasn’t that she was afraid or didn’t want to see what was behind the pains and bandages that her doctors checked on every day. Surely, it was the lack of consciousness, the fact that whenever she’d had to pee, someone had to accompany her, that kept her from actually peering up at the reflective glass that was screwed above the sink.

But today, she was determined to face herself head on.

Small fists bunched around the thin material of the white cotton gown dotted with differing shades of blue polka dots. She dutifully counted each tile between her bed and the bathroom door, pausing when the flat, one-foot wide tiles became more raised, smaller, as rooms blended together roughly and abruptly. The light, too, starkly changed from blinding hospital white-wash to dark shadows. Her fingers hesitated above the light switch. Once she turned it on, there would be no going back.

Taking a breath, she allowed light to cascade precipitously into the room, shielding her eyes with her hand as if she were looking into the sun. She eyed the floor, taking pause to trace the white porcelain of the sink up to the knobs for hot and cold. She found her toothbrush that Penny had brought from home and the half-used tube of Crest (Crest? Didn’t Roy prefer that she buy Aquafresh? Something about it being cheaper…). For a moment, she tasted garlic on her tongue.

When her eyes hit the edge of the mirror, she pinched them shut for a moment.

This was it.

She took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and started from the bottom up.

Her arm was still heavy and casted, and the tiny cuts from glass shards she had already seen. Her torso looked so small in the hospital gown that had been her only cover, reminding her of the cartoon characters who never changed clothing. Finally, her eyes were at her neckline, where her hair was a drab shade of the honey she’d been so used to, devoid of its usual shine. She was expecting the limpness of her curls, what with the constant sleep and half-worked shampoos that she allowed every few days. Bad hair wasn’t the end of the world. It had taken her all of high school to come to terms with that.

But then, there was the skin of her neck that her hair was scratching lightly against. It was no longer that peach shade with the golden tan that she usually had this late in the summer. It was green and yellow.

She choked a swallow down her throat and followed the oblong shape from the left side of her neck up behind her ear. Rather than focusing on the shock that this was her face, her skin, she let the colors draw her in.

I could use a pea green and a yellow green to make that.

This, she could do.

Colors she could do.

There was deep purple that blended roughly into midnight blue that cascaded from her left ear to the middle of her cheek, pausing where the crease of her eye began and ending with a slight swell at her jawline

Dark cherry, navy, with just a dot of black. Greys for the shadow would give it dimension.

The nick across her bottom lip on the right side pained her every time she tried to eat. The gash on her forehead was still covered with a bandage, but she was in this far. Peeling the edges of the large rectangle, she found the healing cut, a thinning line that stretched from above her eyebrow to the bridge of her nose.

Seaweed green, flax, deep crimson.

She’d been dreading this, meeting her own eyes, but the colors chased her there, her left eye still rimmed in shades of black and green.

Charcoal, juniper, and lime. Charcoal, juniper, and lime.

In the grand scheme of things, she was healing. Those greens and yellows were a good sign, and her cut hadn’t needed stitches. But all her eyes depicted were the colors that took all that was her, all that was Pam Beesly, and turned it into an amalgamation of terror. Now, she understood the looks that people gave her whenever they walked into the room.

Her tears were silent, angry.

She hadn’t asked for any of this.

She’d just been...driving?

The colors on her palate all contorted when her eyebrows bunched and her lips snarled, making the tears jump suddenly. Frustration boiled down her arms as fingers furled into fists, even more so when thick plaster and cotton prevented her right hand from doing so completely.

It wasn’t frustration anymore that her face had become the beginnings of a Bob Ross painting.

Now, it was the frustration that, while she had become a canvas, she had no recollection of how or why it happened.

And it was truly starting to wear away at the parts of her that remained, those parts that were still trying to fit August and accident and Dunder Mifflin with Penny and Roy and Jim.

The scowl on her face matched the raw feel of her skin, and she had a fleeting thought that This is me now. Raw Pam Beesly. Tough Pam Beesly. Rough Pam Beesly.

But the thought of little Pammy Beesly fighting in the streets did nothing but evoke an ironic chuckle from deep in her lungs, laughter that, once it started, couldn’t contain itself.

Her thought process wound itself to the horror movies that Roy forced her to watch. On more than one occasion, she had peeked through her fingers to see a cackling crazy person. Now, she was the cackling crazy person. But upon this realization, she let the sob she had choked down come back up.

She hadn’t truly cried yet.

She deserved a good cry.

And on the floor of her hospital bathroom, she let it all go.

It was refreshing, truly, to let her pent up emotions run free. When she realized that she was crying over something she couldn’t remember, she let herself cry harder. And when the day nurse, Julie, found her crumpled over on the dirty floor and helped her back into bed, she let her tears carry her to a dreamless rest.

It wasn’t long before an orderly was waking her for lunch and she was in a pool of her thoughts that led straight to Nurse Julie’s closing words.

“You should really talk to someone about all of this, sweetie. It isn’t good to keep it bottled up. I could call someone down, if you’d like?”

As she flipped through her options, she was beginning to think that the curt dismissal she'd offered the poor nurse was unwarranted.

Mom would no doubt break down into tears of her own.

Penny would tell her, in no uncertain terms, to stop being so dramatic.

And Roy?

There was a time when she thought that Roy’s words could do nothing but lift her higher. But lately, in this weird world of August’s and Dunder Mifflin’s and Jim’s, she was beginning to taste a sour on her lips that contrasted her want to see him.

The call to her room from mom saying she had last minute errands to run and that she’d be in sometime around dinner further twisted the top on her bottle.

“Hey, Beesly. Care for a little afternoon pick-me-up?”

His soft raps on the door stirred her from the funk that had long since blanketed the room. Though tears had long subsided, her lips were affixed in a pout while her fingers piqued the stiff blanket that covered her to the waist. Her eyebrows remained in their upward knot, though her eyes softened upon his tentative push through her door.

Concern painted his face as his long legs carried him in three quick strides to her bedside. His words, “Hey, is everything okay? Did something happen?” were soft in her ears, his fingers hesitant, she noticed, like they had stopped halfway to meet hers, stilling at the edge of the comforter.

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling, a huffy breath heaving past her lips, thinking absently that she was acting like a child.

The images of her own tattered and bruised face flashed behind her eyes. This healing process was equal parts mental as it was physical.

But right now, she didn’t want to bust open and be emotional and vulnerable. She wanted to find out what it was that he had clasped behind his back and lose herself in thoughtless laughter and the strange sensation that washed over her every time he entered her room that somehow Jim made things better. Putting on her best brave face, she stuffed it down.

“I’m fine,” she said unconvincingly with a shake of her head, as if that motion in itself would rid her body of the crawling negativity. “So, what did you bring me today?”

The grin he flashed stirred something in her belly that was equal parts new and thrilling, and old and reminiscent, but it was so quickly covered by what he’d been hiding behind his back that she didn’t have the time to reflect.

His round eyes peeked over the two large books, one branded with a sudoku label while the other was a telltale crossword book.

“I figured that, while you’re trapped in here, the least I can do is try to stop your brain from turning into mush.”

For a fleeting moment, having him turn her brain to mush didn’t sound like the worst idea in the world.

“How very thoughtful. Will you bring some multiplication flash cards tomorrow?”

“Absolutely, I will.”

His expression, his tone, his demeanor were all business, but behind those eyes, she could see the slightest hint of sarcasm brewing. When she poked her tongue between her teeth to giggle, he broke too, that lopsided smile curving up his cheek.

The chair next to her bed should’ve been glued to that position when it came to Jim. Penny’s chair was always scooted back just enough so that she could have her feet propped up on the end of the bed. Dad’s was always facing the television, slightly enough that she just noticed. Jim was always close, as close as could be, and facing her head on.

He pulled the chair swiftly into position, angled the tray table so that they could equally reach, and offered her a questioning glance with the choice of the two books, nodding affirmingly in this goofy way that made her laugh again as he laid the crossword puzzle book open in front of them.

As she was about to dive in, she noticed hesitance in the way the grip on his pencil tensed ever so slightly. She lifted her head, her eyes doing the questioning, and watched him take a small breath.

“So, usually, I take across and you take down. But, I mean, under the circumstances, we don’t have to do it that way. If you want, I can go down this time, and then you can go down next time?”

“That’s what she said.”

She wasn’t sure where the words came from, but as soon as they left her lips, she was red and her fingers were at her lips and her eyes were wide, and then she was giggling with absolutely no inhibitions, such opposition to the way she’d been feeling not minutes ago. It was an onslaught of emotions that peaked the beeping in her heart rate monitor and had Jim with a momentary look of panic before he joined her in laughter.

“Beesly! Oh my god! What kind of drugs do they have you on?”

It took a few minutes for her laughter to actually die down, but it was the most glorious few minutes he’d had in the past weeks.

“I have no idea where that came from,” she said with giggles still trailing her words and fingers still hovering above her lips as if trying to stop more illicit phrases from escaping.

“I might have an idea, actually.” Jim’s eyes focused on the floor at first, but the closed grin that press wide between his ears was unmistakable.

She was remembering.

She was remembering crude humor that was more than borderline workplace inappropriate, but she was remembering.

And he’d be damned if he didn’t help her along.

When his eyes found hers, they were hopeful and shining like the Pam he knew, the Pam he remembered. She was in there somewhere.

“Okay, so, tell me what you remember about Michael Scott.”

“Michael Scott like our boss Michael Scott?” she queried with pinched eyebrows, cocking her head to the side at the name she'd only heard on a few occasions.

“The very same.”

“Well, I only really remember my interview, but in the first five minutes of me being in his office, he asked me for relationship advice, almost lit his suit jacket on fire in an attempt to do a magic trick, and made three comments about my boobs.”

The smug smile he offered her said You’ve told me this before, and although she couldn’t recall their lunch at Cugino’s where he let her complain over breadsticks while simultaneously trying to reassure her that Michael Scott was indeed harmless, something about his demeanor comforted her.

“So, with that information, would you believe me if I said that he is where your obscene language came from?”

Her eyes said Continue, but the blush of his cheeks bought him some time.

“God, we’re jumping right into the heavy stuff today, huh? Uh, let me think...probably shouldn’t start with the time he made a wisecrack about your mom, should I?”

“He what?”

The way her eyes bugged said I wholeheartedly believe you but I also can’t believe he hasn’t been fired yet.

“Yeah. Absolutely going to skip that one. Uh…so we have a coworker named Angela. Do you remember her at all?”

She took a second to absorb the name, to take in his description of, “Short, blonde, super uptight?” and reach into the recesses of her memory bank. When she came up short with an apologetic shrug of the shoulders, he returned her grin and pressed on.

“So, Michael likes to plan these outrageous, I don’t know, ‘staff bonding’ experiences. Right after you started, we went to this mini-golf place that had an arcade and everything. Actually, it was a pretty fun day.”

He paused, then, and she could see that his mind was somewhere else for a moment.

“Anyway, so Angela refused to participate because she said we were ‘wasting company time’--I told you she was uptight, right? So she sat and watched the whole time, holding Michael’s tickets like she was the group mom. Michael wins this five-thousand ticket jackpot and brings the stack over to her, and starts yelling at him, like, ‘It’s too full, I don’t have enough room!’ and he goes--”

“That’s what she said.”

Their open-mouthed grins turned into matching laughter, and although he was giving her those memories back, the ones that ended with a bet, more sordid banter, and a golf pencil bounced off his nose, her smile was a great enough reward amidst their tragedy.

In contented quietude, they filled in the crossword, the hums of her machines, the buzz of the overhead lights, all secondary to the scratching of their pencils and the breathy little noises she would make upon filling in her blank boxes.

Being a little after lunchtime, his bag of snacks did not go untouched, and though she hesitated at first—since when was French Onion a flavor she liked? Roy really only ate barbecue, so that’s what she kept in the house—the flavor began to morph into so much more than salt and sour cream. With each bite, it was flashes of hands and nice teeth and put me down but also please don’t put me down. By the time the bag was empty, his side of the crossword was significantly more filled out than hers.

“You still hungry? I think I might have another bag around here somewhere.”

“No,” she mused, tapping the eraser of the pencil against the tray table. “I think my breath will start to get super rank if I eat any more.”

“Nonsense. Your dragon breath has never bothered me before.”

It rolled off his tongue so casually, his eyes never wavering from the paper as he filled in suitcase for 12 across: traveling piece of luggage.

“So, what did you do today? Any underground wheelchair racing leagues I should know about?”

“Oh, Madge on the fourth floor would know more about that than I do.” The words seemed to roll seamlessly off her tongue to join his charming banter, though her muddled brain was still hesitant and wary in the eyes of this comfortable stranger.

But it was in this strange bubble of comfort with Jim that her earlier worries began to mount. She couldn’t discuss these things with her mother or her sister or Roy, but suddenly, this Jim? He seemed to be the perfect person. The one who had strolled through her door and hit the pause button on her worries with a bag of chips and a few stories from her forgotten past. If anyone in this weird new world would listen to her frustrations with appropriate responses, it might just be him.

She dropped her gaze to her lap where her fingers began to pull at the loose threads of her cast.

“But aside from the narcotics Yankee Swap party that we had between rounds, I uh… I met the Bride of Frankenstein today.”

Immediately following a low chuckle, his brows mirrored hers in the way that they knit together in the middle, but his expression was more confusion than frustration. It took him a moment to realize that the jokes had ended, that she was talking about herself, evident in the way that her eyes went soft and blurry for just a split second, the way that she bit her lip, wincing when she remembered the thin gash there that was on the verge of healing, the way that she refused to meet his eyes.

His Hey, though still soft, had a reprimanding edge to it, and now his fingers, suddenly forgetting their earlier hesitancy, wrapped around her casted hand as insistently as his eyes were pleading with her Please don’t do this.

She cocked her head in a way that said This hurts so much and I don’t know how to make it stop.

But suddenly, he was the one who could make it stop.

“I’m serious, Jim.” Her words, so small, cut him to the core. “You can’t even tell that it’s...me under all of this.”

She motioned to the cuts and bruises, the bandage that was taped neatly to her forehead where a few hairs had been trapped. What happened next finally gave the monitors attached to her body a job.

“Of course it’s you, Pam. Who else could pull off this shade of purple?”

She’d never know it, but the slight laugh that bubbled from his throat was solely used to mask the sob he was trying to stifle.

His fingers, so long and yet dainty, ran featherlight across her face, tracing every last cut, bruise, nick, and otherwise imperfection that rendered her speechless not hours ago. When they met the cut on her lip, she was hot all over, the beeps of her heart rate monitor becoming more insistent.

“I look like someone who...I don’t know…”

“Was in a serious car accident? You know, you’re not wrong, there.”

His smile wasn’t making her feel much better, but the way his hand was still lingering on a cheek that was in its final stages of swelling told her otherwise.

“Pam, you get to be upset about all of this, okay? It’s...it’s a lot to process. Of course you look a little different, but it's...all of these? They tell the story of how you fought back, how you're fighting back. You beat this. It’s okay to be angry and sad and pissed off? But please, please don’t sit here and be sad about a few bruises on your face. It’s going to crush me if that’s the way you feel.”

“Come on. Just tell me it’s terrible already. I look like Chucky or something. Get it over with.”

“Oh, shut up,” he chuckled, his fingers lightly brushing the fallen curls behind her ears. “You’re beautiful.”

Those damn flashes were coming back, but this time it was crossword puzzles and throw pillows and Shut up, you’re beautiful all over again. The speeding blips of the heart rate monitor were fear and apprehension this time, as her body tensed under his hand. His muttered sorry was almost sad as his fingers reluctantly trickled away. It seemed as if he was trying to hold on, and the part of her that had called him safe earlier was screaming for him to not let go.

Though his touch wavered, there was something intense behind the forest in his eyes that latched on, the very same tunnel vision from her first night of consciousness that locked her in. It was uncomfortable and comfortable all the same. She wanted to run out the door and have his hands back on her face all at the same time. She truly didn’t know what to do. And it was in that moment that busting up whatever had suddenly flooded the room seemed like the best option.

“God, I wonder what Roy thinks about all this. He hasn't really said much, you know?”

Her laughter was a buffer for the nerves that were suddenly overcoming all of her frustrations. Something inside her screamed that bringing Roy up was a horrible, terrible, idea, but at the same time, he was pulling away, if ever so slightly, and her heartbeat was beginning to regulate.

Then, she noticed, his eyes were preoccupied with the floor again, and she was suddenly craving to see his eyes, his face, something other than the top of his head. Her wish was granted, however indirectly, when his hand ran through his hair.

“Yeah, I mean, he loves you, so…”

The awkward silence was broken by an orderly with a wheelchair, another CAT scan, Penny taking Jim’s spot for the rest of the afternoon.

Then there was Roy, who gave her the answer she’d been seeking earlier when he said, “You’ll heal soon, Pammy. I’m sure you’ll look like your old self in no time.”

It was nothing compared to Who else could pull off this shade of purple?

He stayed for fifteen minutes and darted out, without much more than a Goodnight, Pammy and a a stiff kiss on the forehead.

All the while, between medicine doses and bland hospital food and mom and dad, she saw Jim’s shoes through the door to the waiting room. He’d chosen a chair that was just outside of her line of sight, but those shoes, now a matching pair, kept drawing her gaze. Those same tattered Nike’s that had no partner not days before.

Those same Nike’s that she saw in her nap dreams.

“I’ll bet you a bag of chips that I can beat you, Beesly."

“Not a chance. I’m well trained in mini-golf.”

“You’re on.”

Those shoes, following her along the bricked edges that outlined the mini-golf course, his arms outstretched “for balance,” but making his lanky body look comedically awkward and gangly and goofy as he tiptoed along the balance beam.

“Hole in one!”

“That does not count!”

“Oh, it so counts, Beesly!”

“You kicked it in with your foot!”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not. You’ve said it before, I have big clumsy feet. Nothing I could do about that. Genetics and all. Thanks for playing. And remember, Pam: I like Doritos.”

He’d bent down to pick up the golf pencil that she threw at him, the one that had bounced off his nose, landing between those shoes. She’d been laughing still when he stood upright again. She didn’t want to say anything at the time, but she was pretty sure she’d seen him discreetly pocket the pencil.

When she awoke from that dream, it was a hazy waking, one that would bring her right back to sleep in only moments. But those shoes, still stuck to the hallway floor, called out to her. Fighting the lead in her limbs, she sat up, peeked out the door, and let his name, Hey, Halpert? break the weighted silence on the recovery floor.

His nose appeared first, followed by the rest of his long body when he stood and peeked around the doorframe.

“Yeah?”

By the way his hair was matted to one side and the way his eyes were still glassy, she realized that she’d pulled him from a nap.

“You totally kicked it in with your foot.”