He sings to her when she’s sick. Her current favorite "guilty pleasure" band is The Fray. Even though Jim can’t stand them, he still sings her current favorite song ("Trust Me") to her when she’s sick.

This time, it’s the flu.

"Our first Christmas together, and you’re sick! Party pooper," he’d accused. Pam had known he was joking, but it still led her to tears.

He stands in the door frame that leads from her kitchen into the hallway, and listens for a moment, trying to decide if she’s awake, and if she’d like the cup of peppermint tea he’s stirring for her. He smiles to himself, though he’s not sure why, when he hears her sob.

She’s sitting up in bed, a step up from last night when she was lying, draped across his chest. He had needed to use the restroom at about 2:30 in the morning, but she hadn’t slept in three nights and he couldn’t bring himself to move her. She’s clutching their comforter to her chest with one hand, and sneezing into a wad of tissues held in the other.

She smiles softly when she sees him enter. He hands her the hot cup, resting on a saucer. "Peppermint," he tells her, and kisses her forehead.

She begins to cry again. "You’re so good to me."

He laughs, pushes the stray hair away from her face, and tells her to stop crying.

He sits next to her and she cuddles into his side, her small body matches perfectly with his tall, lanky frame. It amazes her every time how perfectly they fit together. He doesn’t ever talk about it, but she’s sure he’s amused by it, too.

Every time she sniffles, he moves his hand from her shoulder to the top of her head, combing her unkempt hair with his fingers.

"You’re gonna get sick if you don’t leave me alone," she warns.

"Halperts don’t get sick."

They both think the same thing, but decide it’s best not to talk about that just yet. Instead, "You’re starting to sound like Dwight," to which he responds, "I bet some beet juice would chase that flu away." She scrunches her nose, and he presses a kiss on her forehead.

She finishes her tea in the ten minutes of silence that ensues. She thinks about being sick, being with Jim, being alone. He thinks about how miserable she must be, how beautiful she is, and how, if all goes as planned this Easter when they visit her parents, he he’ll prove to her that Halperts don’t, in fact, get sick.

She hands him her teacup, and without having to stretch away from her, he reaches over and places it on the night stand.

He sees her eyes close slowly, as though she were struggling to stay awake. He scoots around to find a comfortable position; it looks like he’ll be sleeping sitting up tonight. Good thing he spent all day in his pajamas.

She mumbles something, and he knows what she’s asking even though she was terribly unclear.

He kisses the top of her head as she lets out a sigh and her breathing evens. He knows that, once she’s half-asleep, he can hum the rest and stop embarrassing himself. He thinks she just likes to make him look silly, and once she’s half-aleep, the soft humming is enough of a comfort to finish the job.

He doesn’t mind. It’s his job. He sings to her when she’s sick.

It’s not often a night like this arises, but when it does, she takes care of him when he’s drunk.

He tries not to drink too much, and so does she. Truth be told, they both would rather be doing a million other things than drinking. On nights when they visit Mark, though, Jim tends to cut a little looser.

"Y-you," Horny!DrunkJim slurs, "Are the hottest chick in Scranton…No! The w[hic]-world!"

Tonight, he’s absolutely plastered. Normally, she stands around and talks with Mark’s girlfriend, watching the two of them get drunk and bother everyone else at the party. Tonight, Mark’s girlfriend and he ran off to the back bedroom, leaving DrunkJim to find his own entertainment.

He found it down Pam’s shirt. 

She makes sure he buckled in the middle seat in the back of his car so that he can lie down or throw up on the floorboard. That rarely happens, though, because she takes the back roads home. She can drive slower and take a little longer so he doesn’t get as dizzy. The problem with that, though, is that sometimes he’s asleep when they get home.

She’s always tempted to just leave him there overnight, since it’s always a Friday evening and he doesn’t really have anything to do the next day. After a few minutes of arguing with herself, she decides she’d rather him be terribly uncomfortable on the couch, where at least she could slip a bucket next to him and he’d be in the air-conditioning. So she wakes him up, and after a few minutes of Sad!DrunkJim’s groveling, she’s able to coax him into the house and onto their couch.

He’s so incredibly drunk that he doesn’t know the difference between the couch and the love-seat. She lays him across the latter, and he mumbles something about needing bigger furniture. She laughs to herself as she walks back into the room with the green bucket. He’s lying there, his head twisted towards the floor. His arms are flung across his body like limp noodles, and his legs are bent over the end of the seat at the knees.

She laughs again, wishing she had a camera. He stirs from his drunken slumber every time she giggles, but never really wakes. She makes him a glass of Sprite. By the time she walks back into the living room, he’s moaning and clutching at his sides.

He thanks her for the drink, as best as NotReallyHungoverYet!DrunkJim can. She remembers that he hadn’t eaten since before he started drinking tonight, so she runs and grabs a sleeve of saltines. He promptly devours the crackers and asks for a refill of Sprite, but she pours only enough water for him to hear the soft sloshing from the kitchen, because she knows – and is right – that he’ll be asleep again by the time she gets back to where he is. He won’t ask about it in the morning, and he won’t wake up overnight. She drinks the bit of water, grimacing at the overall plain taste.

She brushes his hair back from his face and kisses his temple. She giggles to herself when she notices that his mouth is hanging open, and he’s out like a light. She hates this part, but they’re his favorite sneakers. She takes his shoes off and puts them in their closet. Grabbing his favorite gray pajama-sweats from the bottom dresser drawer (she loves to watch him have to bend over and dig for his "play-clothes," as she calls them), she glances at the picture taken the night he proposed.

She can still smell her mother’s famous "Easter Roast."

She puts the sweats on the coffee table, just in case he should wake up. She knows he won’t tonight, but he’ll smile at the gesture in the morning when he smells her attempting to make chocolate-chip muffins from a mix.

She’ll tell him, then, that his partying days are numbered. He won’t mind, though. She knows in her heart.

She lies out on the couch with her favorite blanket and a Su Doku book. The soft glow of a muted infomercial on television is just enough light to do a few puzzles until she’s able to fall asleep. With her back to the TV, she gets just enough light and is able to watch PassedOut!DrunkJim sleep.

He doesn’t get it at first. "We don’t mind you having a good time…" She starts.

His eyebrows raise, and he gives her a blank look. "We?"

"Your partying days are numbered for the next eighteen years, or so…" She smiles.

And for the next two months, a night like that only arises once. She doesn’t mind, for now, because yes; she takes care of him when he’s drunk, but he’s taking care of her when she’s anything else.

He has to remind himself that it's habit - she holds back when she's mad.

When she's really mad, like this, though...That's another story. She tells him exactly what he did and just what he can do with that information. Like his being drunk, nights like these don't happen all too often.

When they do, though, he's just got to smile.

He learned early on that getting angry in response only makes her madder.

She hadn't meant to, but maybe - he thinks now - he deserves the scar he got on his upper left arm (his comment "Well, maybe I should fucking go back to Stamford!" hadn't set well with Pam). She hasn't thrown anything else in his general direction since then, but that's certainly not to say she wouldn't.

Especially when she's this mad.

He knows not to laugh at her. Don't fucking laugh. It's never a laughing matter.

Just smile like an idiot, tell her you're sorry.

Even though she's not nearly big enough to do so, she stretches out and tries to keep the whole sofa for herself in the living room.

Tonight, he figures he'll try something new. Simply smiling at her for two and a half hours doesn't exactly scream "fun." He goes into the kitchen and grabs two beers, then into his bedroom to grab their pillows. On his way out, he considers locking the bedroom from the inside; that way, the only way in is to use the key that's resting on the door ledge only he can reach.

He decides against that when he remembers how it felt to sleep on the floor in the hallway.

"Pillow, beer?" He offers, smiling. She snatches the two from his hands, only to hand the pillow back once realizing she's grabbed his - not her feathery one she's had forever.

She mumbles something, he thinks maybe 'thank you,' but because she does so while sipping her beer, he can't be sure. He eyes the lovely new recliner they just purchased, but he knows she loves to see him struggle with the love sofa, so he settles in there.

She grunts in frustration as she constantly changes the channels. There are a hundred things on Jim would watch if he had the remote, but she's in control (and as long as she's taking her anger out on the remote instead of the dishes or himself, he's happy). He doesn't mind, because he's not watching the television anyway. He's smiling at her.

He smiles at her when she's mad.

(They're both smiling in a couple of hours, anyway, but that's another story.)

She's only seen him cry once, and she didn't know how to handle it. She's replayed that single tear falling over and over in her mind, constantly asking herself where she'd be if she'd done things differently.

That single tear, she's decided, she can handle. She can handle it because she caused it.

These tears that are flowing almost nonstop? She can't really handle them at all.

She wonders how to tell him. She's six months along, now, and it's getting harder and harder to do everything for herself. This couldn't have happened at a worse time. Yes, it could've. Could be three months from now. It happens, she reminds herself. Death is part of life.

"Dunder-Mifflin; this is Pam," she answers.

Jim looks up every time she answers the phone, just to hear her voice. He doesn't care for what she has to say next, though.

"Oh...Larissa...No, no...Yeah, oh my gosh...I'm so sorry...Yeah, I'll tell him. Um...Yeah, I mean no, we're off every weekend...Yeah, we'll be there tomorrow. Okay....Yes...We love you, too...Bye."

He gives her a questioning look, and she hits a button on her phone and motions towards the kitchen. He follows quietly, knowing what's coming.

Why? Why now? This should be the happiest time of his life. He's having a kid. He's married to his dream girl.

His father's passed away.

He doesn't cry at work. He doesn't help her pack. He just sits out back in his folding chair, staring down a full beer bottle and watching the sun set.

She packs for a week. She calls Jan ("No, I don't know when he'll be back...Yeah. Um. We'll be back as soon as we can, I guess."). She's ready. She thinks so, anyway.

Sometimes, iced tea just doesn't cut it. She sits on the little brick 'fence' that boxes off the patio in the back yard, leaning forward and watching him.

"Sixty-two." Jim mutters. He cries silently. "Too damn young."

"I'm sorry," she whispers, her eyes search his face. He suddenly looks much older, much more distant. It's selfish, but she touches her stomach. She can't do this alone.

"Let's go," he whispers.

"Tonight? In the Corolla?"

"We'll rent something bigger. C'mon." He stands up. "I need to be there. It's only an hour away."

They ride in silence. The Corolla's not her idea of comfort, but he'd do the same for her.

She unpacks in silence (God bless Larissa for giving them the downstairs guest room). He sits with his mother in tears.

They make preprations, she and Larissa. Jim and his brother sit around and talk.

Jim cries at night. He won't hold her, it hurts to look at her. He wishes it didn't, but he knows why.

The kid'll look like him. He looks like his father.

She can't do this alone.

Who knew funerals were so boring? He can't concentrate. He can't look at Pam. He can't look at his family. He won't shake hands. He just cries. He stares at the floor, watching his tears puddle at his feet.

What good is carpet if liquid puddles up, anyway?

They stay a few more days. He can't handle Michael. He really can't handle Michael.

It's been a week. She starts to wonder. He sees her distance herself, now, the way he's been doing for seven days. That night, he sits up in bed, holding her. He cries, and she holds his hand. He tells her stories, he tells her lies and love and why it hurts so badly to know this kid's a boy.

She can't do this alone.

She won't have to, he assures her. He promises. She won't have to do anything alone.

And she believes him, because he's never been more honest than when he's crying.

She believes him when he cries.