Two weeks ago, Pam came down with the common cold. No big deal. Just about everyone caught it at some point or another. It was just the right time of year.

By now, everyone had recovered. Except for Pam.

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The air conditioning is broken today, so the office feels more like a sauna than workspace. Everyone's sweating as if it were the middle of the summer.

Except for Pam.

Pam sits behind reception, bundled up in her white, puffy trenchcoat, dozing next to the keyboard.

Jim walks up to reception to see what's wrong with her. He knows she hasn't been feeling very well, but he simply couldn't understand her abnormal behavior.

She picks her head up at the sight of his shadow and sighs. "hey."

He's too concerned for small talk. "Pam, are you. . . are you feeling alright?"

Her green eyes seem to have lost thier brilliance next to those dark blue rings under the lids. "I'm fine."

"You're lying."

"I guess I just never really got over that cold."

"Well no offense, but you kind of seem worse than normal today. Have you taken anything?"

"Nothing works anymore."

"Well will you please do me a favor and at least take your temperature? You realize that you're freezing, and its like, 78 degrees in here, right? That's wrong."

She bobs her head, not just in agreement, but also from her simple inability to hold it upright. She finds her thermometer from her purse and puts it under her dry tongue.
She rests her head on her palm and shuts her eyes, squinting at first from the sharp burning.

Jim, too, falls into a trance. While hers is strictly from pain and fatigue, his is from utter admiration.
How could somebody so ill manage to look so beautiful?
He stands there, just staring, jealous.
Jealous of her trenchcoat; he wishes he could be the one to keep her warm.
He knows his thoughts are rediculously silly, but he's just so jealous of. .
. . .of the thermometer; able to read her body like a book. Tell her what's wrong and what's right. . .What to do next. . . More so, however, to able to touch her lips, to taste her beauty. . .

*beep*

They both jump out of their respective daydreams. Pam removes the thermometer and reads the results. The result frightens her, and she suddenly finds it hard to breath. Jim only realizes HOW terribly sick she is when her wheezing gives way to throbbing tears. "shit."

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Jim hurls around her desk to support her convulging body. He squats next to her chair and splays his arm around her shoulders. Her head falls loosely back onto his arm, and now she is struggling desperately to breathe. Jim lifts her up carefully so to not put her into shock, but fast enough to get the hell to his car before starting a larger commotion.

He rushes out of the office, holding her like a baby, wiping the painful, fiery tears off her delicate, pale cheeks.

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The car ride is brutal. She's heaving through her constricted breaths, squeezing his right hand with each wave of chest pain. She's too weak to cry now, as her lungs are laboring to thier maximum capacity just for air.

"What did the thermometer read?"

She closes her eyes and exhales sharply. "hundred four. . . point eight."

She wouldn't open them again for a while.

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When they finally arrive at the hospital, he jumps out of the car and through the glass doors, leaving his door open and the car in ignition.

Within minutes, paramedics are scooping her out of the passenger seat, laying her on a stretcher, and scurrying to connect her to multiple IVs. Before Jim even realizes it, she's being rolled through lengths of pasty-white hallways, ouf of sight. He is alone.

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Several hours later, he finds himself in a small, curtained cubicle. He holds her hand in his, shedding lonely tears with each passing second.

Although Pam's been asleep the entire time, she hasn't necessarily been breathing. Now, around midnight, she's still sleeping, but with the addition of sensor patches around her chest, IV bags dripping into her arms, and oxygen tubes filling her nostrils. Her dishevelled hair is frayed across the stacked pillows, framing her anemic, sallow face.

To the rest of the world, she looks like a sickly, debilitated mess. But not to Jim.

In his eyes, however, she is a delicate beauty.
He yearns to bundle up with her. To help control her breathing and heartrate by matching them up perfectly with his own. To tell her that everything will be alright, and mean it. To make her feel this hidden, abstract beauty that only he can sense. . .

And just as he begins to fall into a fresh fit of tears, he feels her squeeze his hand back.

"Jim."

The sound of her voice makes him sob all over again. He stands up for the first time in hours, hovering over her still body. He barely notices that his tears are raining all over her sheets.

Her eyes do not open, and her body doesn't move.
"Jim," she repeats.

He collects himself.
"Christ, Pam, You've had me scared as hell! I'm so--"

"Jim," she interrupts, still motionless. "What's going on?"

He sits back down, still holding her hand."D-do you remember anything?"

She sighed. "You told me the office was burning hot. I thought you were lying or something."

"You had a rediculously high fever."

"Yeah."

There is a long pause.
She sqeezes his hand to tell him she's still awake. At least for now.

Pam finally breaks the silence. "What time is it?"

"A little after midnight."

She thinks for a minute. "You really don't have to stay, Jim."

He returns the squeeze. "I know."

And with just those two words, she falls back asleep with a slight smile implanted on her face.

Jim considers it a get-well gift.

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They both sleep peacefully, hand in hand. However, at about 3:30 in the morning, Pam wakes up, hyperventilating.

She squeezes Jim's hand harder than ever. "Jim!" she yelps.

He jolts awake to see her wincing in pain, panting for a full breath.

"Jim!" she repeats desperately. She digs her nails into his palm.

They separate hands for the first time in nearly twelve hours as he jumps out of his chair to press the nurse-call button.
"Hang in there, Beasly. I promise I'll be right ba--"

Her eyes are finally open, fierce, glazed with fear. "Jim no! Don't leave me! Pl-please stay! I need you--"
her words are consumed by throbbing tears. She flails her arms in the air, making begging motions him to come back to her side. She nearly snaps one of her IV chords in desperation.

"I promise, Pam, I'll be right back! Just hang in there while I find help!"
He dashes through the curtains to find the first hospital staff in sight. However, before he knows it, he's completely lost in an impossible maze of dreary, white hallways.

Jim finally finds a free nurse. She leads the way back to Pam's cubicle, but when they arrive, her bed is gone.

Jim's face turns red and his eyes watery.

"I'm so sorry we couldn't make it sooner, sir."

He doesn't turn his head, just stares at the blank monitors. "Yeah."

She walks away. And for the second time, Jim finds himself alone and crying.

He plops himself down on his chair and crys himself to sleep.

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He wakes up when Pam's bed gets rolled into the room again.

Her eyes are wide open, shiny with tears. "Jim."

He bursts out of his chair and grabs her hand. "Pam!"

She whispers, shaking. "Where did you go?"

He's too excited to listen. "You had me scared out of my--"

She shakes her head. "Why did you leave me?"

He stops. "Wha--I never left."

"But when I couldn't breathe?"

"Ah, no, no, no. Pam, I went find help. I just couldn't watch you like that. I couldn't wait. I wanted to get you help that very second. I never left, though."

They both fall silent and just stare, wondering what to say next.

She lifts her head up and breathes in deep. "What's wrong with me?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Like, have the doctors said anything?"

"Not yet."

Silence ensues again. At least until Pam turns her head to face him.

She smiles lightly. "You look almost as bad as me."

He chuckles. "Why, thank you!"

She shakes her head and looks back down. She sqeezes his hand and starts crying again.

"No. Thank you. Just--for--um, everything."

"It's no problem, Beasly. Anytime."

"No, seriously. Nobody's ever cared about me like this before.

"Caring is what I do best."

She smiles again blushes. "Yeah."

It's the first time she's shown color in her skin since about two weeks ago.

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She falls back asleep. Jim just sits there, musing at her tender, tempting beauty. He only looks away when Pam's doctor, Dr. Thomas, enters.

"Good evening, Sir. My name's Dr. Thomas--I don't believe we've met."

"Jim Halpert. I'm a. . .friend."

"Ah, well it's awefully nice of you to accompany her, son. So tell me, how has Ms. Beasly been since the procedure?"

"Pretty tired. Is she okay?"

Dr. Thomas takes out a pen and clipboard. "She'll be just fine. Now tell me, Mr. Halpert, how did this all start? We've been so rushed to help her that we haven't gotten a chance to sit down and 'chat.'"

"She told me she had a cold or something. She'd had it for about week or so, but it never really got over it. And now she's here."

"Well, son, it turns out that it wasn't the cold. She had an advanced form of the influenza virus, which wore her lungs down to the point where they couldn't protect themselves against other bacteria or viruses. So when she got exposed to pneumonia, she couldn't fight it off. She she was fighting a three front war."

Jim widens his eyes in shock. "Pneumonia?!"

Dr. Thomas corrects him. "--and the flu."

Jim runs his fingers through his hair, unable to swallow the facts. "Good God. . ."

"She's okay now, son. No worries."

Jim can't stop there. "But the attacks! Why did she suddenly start convulg--"

"Allergic reaction. We put her on a cephalosporin called ceftriaxone and a penicillin called amoxicillin. But we had no records telling us that she was allergic to penicillins. So we went right ahead and gave it to her. Her body obviously responded negatively to it, so we needed to flush it from her bloodstream immediately. The procedure she recently went though was a blood transfusion. She's lucky, because since she has type AB blood, we didn't have to wait for anything. Her bloodstream is now free of penicillin. We replaced amoxicillin with azithromycin, a different type of antibiotic. She's fine now, son. She's in good hands."

Jim can barely process this information. He doesn't understand half the words Dr. Thomas says. He can't believe that Pam could have died without him.

"B-but the first attack! Before we were at the hospital!"

"Well what happened?"

"She took her temperature. . . I guess it was just when she found out she had nearly a 105 fever. . ."

"Sure. She was in shock. It's completely acceptable."

"So. . . She's okay now?"

Dr. Thomas chuckles. "Son, I promise she's okay. You're worrying too much."

Jim sighs. He knows he's too worried. But how can he not be?

Dr. Thomas gets up to check Pam's blood pressure and temperature.

Jim gets up too, and walks up to Pam's bedside. He leans in close, gently grazing the back of his hand on her cheek. He wells up just looking at her, peacefully at rest.

"I love you so, so much," he whispers under his breath.

She smiles in her sleep, thinking it's part of her dream.

But when she finally wakes up to see Jim above her, she can hardly believe her eyes. His voice wasn't part of her dream..

She can't hold back now.

"I love you too."