Beep. 

Beep. 

Click. Click. 

Pam could not sleep. 

Pam could never sleep. 

Beep. 

Exhaustion consumed her mentally, even emotionally, but never physically. That would be too kind. 

Beep. 

Jim was not awake. 

Jim was never awake. 

Click. Click. 

She was alone. 

XXX

“Can I help you,” the receptionist finally asked. 

“My husband,” she mumbled, “He was brought in on an ambulance a few...few minutes ago,” she stuttered as slippery thoughts slid through her grasp and out of her mouth.

“What’s his name,” the woman asked. 

“Um...Jim Halpert,” she panted, beginning to cry again as his name ripped her insides apart. 

She felt dizzy and lightheaded and sick, but she no longer cared, ignoring herself to turn back to her screaming baby. 

“I’m right here. I’m staying right here. Don’t cry,” she begged, slipping down into a seat to talk to her daughter. “I won’t leave you alone, ever. Just breathe,” she whispered. 

“Breathe,” she whispered again. 

“Breathe.”

XXX

Pam watched her husband’s chest rise and fall. The doctor had sworn to her that he was stable, but her anxiety knew that each breath was the last one she’d witness. 

Beep. 

She reached for his hand, only to let go again. His hands were cold. She hated it. But no amount of friction or squeezing or covering or...pleading... No amount of pleading reanimated them. 

Beep. 

She was the one who was always supposed to have cold hands. 

“How does it feel to be a frostbite survivor,” he asked her frequently. Or upon handing her a cup of warm coffee, “Oh it’s for me. I just wanted your hands to cool it down to a drinking temperature,” he’d say with his little smirk. “You didn’t think I was doing something romantic, did you, Beesly?”

She reached for him again, her desire to be near trumping her pains of nostalgia. She tried again to warm him. She plead again to warm him. 

Click. Click. 

Fear knocked at her heart. 

XXX

“Knock. Knock.”

Pam barely heard the voice through the thick wooden door. She turned quickly, expecting another doctor, relieved to see a friend. 

“Michael.”

She breathed the word like a question, but the corners of her mouth flickered into the smallest smile. 

“Hi,” he smiled. “I came as soon as I heard.”

Her brow furrowed. She’d only been in Jim’s room for an hour. She hadn’t even been able to reach her mother yet, to see if she could come get Cece. 

“What- how did you hear, exactly,” she asked. 

Michael shuffled in, a large balloon reading, “It’s a boy,” in tow. 

“Well I heard about your big sale of course. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” she whispered automatically. 

“But when you didn’t call the office in person I just knew...,” he sighed glancing to Jim, asleep on the bed. “That something else bad had happened....I called the hospital.”

“Oh, Michael,” she said through pursed lips. “I’m sorry. I meant to call so the sale could be put in the system.”

He waved her off. 

“Psh. Pam. Pam. Please.” He bent down to address Cece who was playing on a blanket with a set of keys. “Hello,” he cooed to her. “Can you say Michael? Michael?”

Pam watched as Cece stared blankly at him before offering up her toy. 

“No, you keep those. I drove myself,” he replied. 

He stood and moved past a silent Pam to look over the hospital bed. “How’s our boy,” he asked, taking a closer look at Jim. 

Pam stood from her chair and walked over to join Michael. Her arms were crossed and she stroked her own shoulders. 

“He hasn’t woken up yet,” she admitted softly. She made quick eye contact with her boss before looking away. “The doctor said he’s really weak so,” she swallowed. “They gave him something to knock him out...and something for the pain...and some fluids,” she nodded. “But he’s stable,” she said, her smile flickering again. 

Michael placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright,” he asked. 

She watched him closely, longing for comfort, but unable to bring herself to tell him anything. To tell him how the tumor in Jim’s stomach caused him vomit enough blood to lose consciousness. How the paramedics, catching her in the hallway, had told her that Jim was found still holding Cece’s little fingers in his. How the doctor’s were debating putting Jim through another round of chemo before an operation. How she’d have to tell him when he woke. How could she tell him? He couldn’t take anymore. Would he give up?

“Yes,” her smile lied. “Of course.”

XXX

Beep. 

She adjusted his blanket. 

Jim had a pet peeve that involved the bed sheet and the comforter being equal lengths on the bed. It was always ridiculous. 

She always humored him. 

Beep. 

Her hand, having traveled from his fingers to the blankets, felt it’s way to his pale cheek. It, too, felt cold. 

She supposed this was a good thing, considering the doctor was concerned about his temperature earlier that week. How did the good things still sound like bad things?

Click click. 

“Jim,” she sighed.

He stirred.

XXX

Pam heard the sheets stir before she heard the raspy voice. 

“Pam,” it whispered. 

It had been two days already. Other than Michael and her mother bringing by the baby, she had heard no other voices but those of the occasional doctor or nurse. 

She turned hesitantly, hardly daring to believe that she had not simply imagined the sound. 

“Hey,” he smiled, his eyes heavy lidded. 

She was so relieved that he was awake that a breathy laugh escaped her soul. She kissed his forehead, his eyes, his cheeks, his hair, his ears, his everything until she convinced herself that it was real. 

He let her. 

XXX

Beep. 

He did not stir twice. Part of her was content that after three months he was finally getting quality rest. The other part of her resisted the temptation to wake him, to talk to him. It didn’t have to be about cancer. It could be about a strange dream he had or what Cece had learned at Grandma’s yesterday. 

Beep. 

Cece...

He was missing the first year of her life. She was learning so fast, growing up so rapidly that it felt she was bigger every time Pam hugged her. Would he miss her first steps? Would he miss her first words? 

Gravity taunted her. 

Would he be alive for her first steps? Would he be alive for her first words?

Click. Click. 

XXX

He was asleep again when they came in. She sat beside him, placing a soft hand on his chest.  He blinked up at her as she placed something heavy down beside him. 

“Say, ‘Hey Daddy,’” she whispered. 

Jim’s eyes fluttered fully open and he smiled at his daughter. He pushed himself up to better see her. He hadn’t done that in a while. 

“Hi,” he smiled back at her. 

Cece grinned, reaching out to touch her father’s face. 

XXX

Beep. 

She was so cold. 

The hospital kept it freezing during the night...and during the day for that matter. She was already wearing both cardigans that her mom had packed for her when Pam refused to go home. She looked back to her husband. 

She was so cold. 

Beep. 

She quietly lifted up the blankets and slid in beside him. She waited only a moment to make sure she hadn’t woken him before laying her head on his shoulder. 

It was warm there. 

It was safe there. 

Click. Click. 

XXX

Jim’s head was resting against her shoulder and casually she ran her fingers through his matted hair. 

He breathed out a low hum, soft and smooth with eyes closed. 

“Don’t stop,” he whispered. 

How could she refuse that?

She continued to play with different dark strands, pushing them one way, then another. 

He dozed as she did. 

After several minutes she drifted off, too, her head falling on top of his. She only woke when Jim moved jerkily, readjusting his position on the bed. 

“Are you okay,” she asked. 

He nodded, staring dolefully at one of his IVs. She waited for more, but he said nothing else. She had told him this morning that the doctor was debating putting him through another round of chemo. He’d shrugged it off, squeezing her hand in a what can you do kind of way, but his eyes took the news much harder. 

“Do you want to eat something? They brought some soup earlier,” Pam offered. 

“I’m not hungry,” he said softly, still staring absently into space. 

She watched him. 

“You have to eat, Jim,” she coaxed again. 

He ignored her, laying his head back down on her shoulder. In a few moments, he slept again. 

XXX

Beep. 

Pam blinked and the room seemed much brighter. Had she fallen asleep? Or maybe time was taunting her, hurrying closer and closer as her dread of the morning grew. 

Beep. 

She could feel her breath race alongside her thoughts. He would be fine. He would be fine. He would be fine. 

She glanced towards the window again. What time was it? She couldn’t see the clock on Jim’s other side. Was a doctor about to walk through the doors and change their lives forever?

Click. Click. 

She wished time would slow down, just for a moment. 

XXX

Life moved slowly in the days preceding the impending news. It was day six, and that morning Jim had been taken downstairs for testing that would determine if surgery was still an option or if they would have to endure more treatment. 

The wait was torture. 

Now that Jim was on constant pain killers, he slept most of the day. Pam, trying desperately to take advantage of her first true peaceful moments since the baby was born, slept restlessly beside him. Questions plagued her mind. In the end, she was glad they were both snagging whatever rest they could in whatever shifts they could, but she lived for the moments that they were awake together, the moments they, together, could ignore their current situation. 

They watched a football game. They watched the food network. An episode here, a movie there, anything to distract them. Jim had a talent for correctly guessing the outcomes every single time, a trick he would perform until his eyes grew heavy and Pam would kiss his forehead with her blessing to fall back asleep. 

When he slept alone, she found herself sketching him to fill the emptiness. They weren’t technically complex pieces of art, but often simple sketches of whatever unflattering angle she could see in that moment, however they were him, and that was enough. 

He looked so tired. 

“Please don’t give up,” she would whisper both to Jim and to herself. “Please.”

XXX 

Beep. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Halpert?”

Pam must’ve fallen asleep again. She blinked stupidly, noticing that the lights were on in the room now. Jim’s arm was around her, his fingers absentmindedly twirling a piece of Pam’s hair. She squinted at him drowsily. He smiled and kissed the top of her forehead. 

Beep. 

“You were out for a while. Sleep good?”

Pam couldn’t get her thoughts to connect with her tongue. The nurse who had woken her was already checking monitors and adjusting tubes. 

“Are you nervous? I’m nervous,” Jim said, still twisting Pam’s hair. 

Pam’s mind was still foggy. How hard had she slept?

“Nervous,” she asked, furrowing her brow at him. 

“Yeah, I mean, this could all be over today. Right? We can finally go back to normal, Pam,” he breathed, a hopeful laugh whispering through his smile. 

Pam, at a loss, shook her head at him. 

“You were sleeping so hard when the doctor came in that I didn’t want to wake you up,” he admitted with a grin. 

Everything suddenly clicked in Pam’s mind. 

Click. Click. 

“They’ve decided to operate,” she asked, her eyes growing wider, her breath catching hopefully. 

He nodded. 

“Tonight.”