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.
-----------------------
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.
-------------------------------------
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."
overreaction is the author of 1 other stories.
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