Pam rolled Jim back to his unit, where the nurse took his vitals again. “Congratulations, Jim,” she said, in that slightly perky tone that nurses sometimes get when they have been on shift for a long time and are perhaps not feeling as well as they could themselves, but know they need to try for the patients’ sake, “these look fine, and you don’t seem to have disturbed your dressings too much. Looks like you’re A-OK for the wheelchair when we do that room transfer.”

“And when do you think that will go through,” asked Pam.

The nurse shrugged. “I mean, he’s ready now, but we need an order from the doctor to actually move him out of the ICU. It’s not quite a discharge order, because of course he’s not leaving the hospital yet, but it’s like one.” She shrugged again. “I’ve paged him for the order, but he hasn’t gotten around to it yet. He may want to do one more check himself, I can’t be sure.”

“Fair enough.” Jim was transferred, with help, from the chair to the bed, keeping his broken leg off the ground. The nurse continued. “There doesn’t seem to me much else for me to do here—either of you need anything? No? OK—so feel free to hit the button if something changes but otherwise I’ll keep you posted on that move order and you two should make yourselves comfortable.”

“Thanks.” Pam smiled at the nurse, then sat down next to Jim. “So, you ready to get out of here?”

“I don’t know.” He looked around the room. “You guys did this place up so nice, I’m not sure I want to leave. It feels like home, I guess.”

She beamed. “Well, Halpert, let me let you in on a little trick.” She pulled carefully at one of the Command strips on the wall. “This is removable. These little guys are going to move with you.” She grinned. “And isn’t it nice to know you aren’t qualified for ‘intensive care’ anymore?”

He looked up at her, an expression in his eyes she wasn’t entirely used to seeing—or rather, to acknowledging, because she realized with a start she’d definitely seen it at least twice before, on the Booze Cruise by the railing of the ship and in the office on Casino Night. “I don’t know, I think I could use some ‘intensive care’ right now.”

She slapped his arm lightly. “Not like that, dork.” She softened the rejection with a squeeze of his arm. “You have broken legs and a broken rib. There will be plenty of care, and very intensive too, once we get those set.” She winked, and she would have sworn he blushed at her tone. Score one for Beesly. “I promise.”

He nodded, sheepish and still blushing. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

Oh what a perfect setup, she thought. Do I go with the tried and true? Or a little more daring? Oh what the hell, daring it is. It’ll set him up anyway. “I’m certainly hoping you’ll hold me to something.”

He was as red as she felt, but he rallied quickly. “That’s what she said.”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

Fortunately for the temperature in the room, or at least Pam’s sense of it, the nurse chose that moment to knock and then stick her head back into the room. “Hey you two, Dr. Pedersen says he wants another look at Jim, so he’ll be up in about an hour.” Pam could have sworn she winked at her as she closed the door, but that had to be an optical illusion, right?

Jim coughed. “So, um…”

“Yeah…”

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Jim’s shoulders slumped. “This is going to suck.”

She didn’t pretend not to understand him, didn’t ask what was going to suck or act like he was talking about his physical recovery. “Yeah. Three hours is a lot.”

“Yeah. I…”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

She laughed, not particularly amusedly. “For what?”

“For running away.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. If I’d given you more time…”

She shook her head. “You’re forgiven. Look where it landed us.”

He literally looked around. “Pam, I’m not sure how to break it to you, but most people wouldn’t be too happy to ‘land’ in the ICU at Geisinger.”

“But we’re not most people, are we?”

“No, no we are not.” He smiled. “Thanks for forgiving me, but I’m sorry anyway. Doubly so because if I hadn’t transferred to Stamford because I’m a coward, we wouldn’t be three hours away from each other now. Well, not now,” he gestured between them, “but you know what I mean.”

“I do. But if you’re doubly sorry, I’m afraid I have to doubly forgive you.” He quirked an eyebrow. “Because you couldn’t have known this,” she also gestured between them, then took his hand in hers, “was going to happen. I didn’t let you know, didn’t let myself think about it, and for that I’m sorry.” He was shaking his head. “I mean, I’m not sorry I didn’t drop everything and jump into your arms and yell ‘Yes, Jim, take me away from all this!’ but I am sorry I lied to you about…about misinterpreting things.”

As soon as she started saying the word “misinterpreting,” he was already saying “I forgive you,” but she pushed through it. “I’m glad you forgive me, but this is important for me to say. I shouldn’t have said that, you weren’t misinterpreting anything, and if I’d just been honest enough to at least say I had to think, you might not have thought you needed to run away so fast.”

He nodded. “I might still have run away. I…I’ve come to realize I was a real coward about this whole thing. I let it simmer and simmer until it was ‘jump into my arms or lose me’—and I couldn’t even let you know that was the choice. I’m sorry I kept that from you, while I was claiming to be so honest.”

“That did hurt.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But hey, at least we’re here.” She put a finger across his lips. “Don’t say it.”

He smiled around her finger. “Wasn’t going to.”