Disclaimer: I own nothing more than the computer I’ve typed this story on (and my parents paid for it, at that).
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.
Lookin’ for something I’ve never seen,
Alone and I’m in between
The place that I’m from, and the place that I’m in
A city I’ve never been...
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.
