- Text Size +
Author's Chapter Notes:
Jim in the morning.

After the movie she settled into the chair across from his bed and tried to get settled. She knew in her heart—and from the multiple reminders from the nursing staff as they came in to check on Jim—that he needed his sleep, even though she was allowed to be there. So she tried to nestle in (it was one of the times, she reflected, that being small was an advantage rather than a hindrance) and make the best of it.

 

 

Jim watched her struggle to get comfortable with weary but amused eyes. He couldn’t deny the truth of the nurses’ repeated admonitions that he should sleep. It was difficult to keep his eyes open now that he wasn’t presented every moment with renewed amazement that Pam was touching him. But he also didn’t want to fall asleep before her. Partly this was because he felt he had been asleep for too much of the time she was there already; partly it was because he was dying to find out what she looked like sleeping. In the end he never did find out—they nodded off at the same moment, as if by mutual consent, and did not awake enough to observe each other until the next morning.

 

With that morning came Larissa, and the doctors, and the general landscape and feel of a madhouse, so he didn’t really get to observe Pam at all. He was disappointed, to be sure, but felt convinced that at least sometime he would get to see it—get to see her drifting off at night with his arms around her (damn this hospital bed anyway, he thought grumpily) and get to wake her up with a kiss and a smile. For now he shot her glances whenever he could, much to the frustration of some of his doctors who wanted him to stick out his tongue, turn his head this way and that, and (more generally) keep his focus on them, thank you very much, because they were after all the ones who saved his life.

 

As soon as he thought that, though, he retracted it. They might have kept him from dying immediately, but it was Pam (and, he conceded, Larissa because she brought Pam) who saved his life. Who made it worthwhile to stay on this little rocky orb, living this little salesman life.

 

Oh shit.

 

Stamford.

 

What was he…what were they going to do about Stamford? He wasn’t due there for work until after his “Australia trip” (which he was clearly not going on) but he was due there after it. The question loomed large in his mind, and he debated asking Pam or Larissa to get Jan on the phone for him. But he had to admit he probably wasn’t in the best frame of mind to talk to her right that instant, and he couldn’t really be sure what he thought about it before he was certain what Pam thought about it, and he couldn’t tell that without actually talking to her. Which he couldn’t do with all these doctors in his face.

 

He tried to be patient as they poked and prodded, all the while rushing through options. She could move with him—only she had no job, and he was pretty sure she’d mentioned something about a “new apartment” which probably meant she had a lot of money tied up in a deposit and rent she was going to owe in Scranton. He could try to transfer back to Scranton…but the whole reason Jan had approved the accelerated request for the transfer was that Stamford needed an ARM badly, and Scranton didn’t actually have the contracts to justify his position right now. They could do long-distance. That might work. It was the least-worst option he could see right now. But he was not going to give up the chance to actually see Pam in the flesh during the week without a fight. He just didn’t know what fight it would be.

 

Apparently, the first set of doctors at least had decided he was sufficiently in shipshape that they could leave, which gave him a moment with his own thoughts while they conferred with Pam and Larissa about him (having already told him what they thought they needed to know). Maybe he could…no, he couldn’t reach that. Maybe…no, they hadn’t given him his phone back yet. Assuming it was even in one piece. He hadn’t found out which parts of his possessions had survived the crash, even those that had been on him at the time—he mentally bookmarked that as something to get on, how did they say here, stat—so a lot of options were curtailed. He resolved to ask Pam about their future the next time they were alone—well aware that this was a cop-out because he knew Larissa was there.

 

And then the nurse came back in with a smiling Larissa and Pam and gave him his first real good news of the day: “Jim, the doctors think a change of scenery would do you good. So we’re going to put you in a wheelchair and these nice ladies are going to take you to breakfast. Do I need to run over Dr. Pedersen’s instructions again for you? On absolutely no account are you to put any weight on that leg, or to stretch or strain your ribs. If you want something, ask. Someone will get it for you. You don’t stand up, you don’t lean out, you don’t put any more strain on your already broken bones than you have to, OK?”

 

He nodded OK. He got to get out of this room? He got to eat regular food? He’d stay strapped down like Hannibal Lecter if that was what they asked for.

 

“And Jim?” He looked up. “This is a test run for moving you out of the ICU. If this goes well, we’ll transfer you to a regular room by wheelchair.”

 

He cleared his throat. “And if it doesn’t go well?”

 

“We’ll just move you on the bed. But you seemed like the kind of guy who would prefer the chair.”

 

She wasn’t wrong.

Chapter End Notes:
Next stop: NOT Jim's room! Thank you to all my readers and reviewers. I appreciate you all.

You must login (register) to review or leave jellybeans