The ride to the hospital took hours...

At least it felt like it did. 

Jim was unconscious the rest of the way. Needles were inserted, various fluids hooked up. Pam chose to look at the floor. She could never really do needles and wished they would just be there already. The hospital was only twenty minutes down the road, but she was pretty sure that they could’ve been there faster if she’d just driven Jim herself...pretty sure. 

When they finally arrived, Jim was transferred to a hospital bed and swept off for testing. Pam was taken to another room to fill out paperwork. Lovely...

She answered the basic questions. Name? Date of birth? Social security number? She filled out at least a dozen insurance papers and signed twice as many permission slips. Was this what it was like for Jim when they had the baby last month?

Pam had no idea how long she had been sitting at that desk when she heard it. A noise, like someone panicking, fighting, wound its way down the hall to her. It continued for several minutes. Silently, she begged it to stop.  She was distressed enough without having to listen to some guy, out of his mind, yelling at a nurse. She cringed. Those poor nurses. 

But eventually the voice started to become familiar. Not because she’d been listening to it for several minutes, but because she knew that voice. 

Comprehension dawned on her, and she stood abruptly, muttering a hasty, “I have to go,” to the receptionist. 

Pam half walked, half jogged down the corridors, following the sound of the voice, but she didn’t have to go very far. The door was already open. To her shock, she saw her husband, her gentle, kind, upset for days when he hit a dog husband, threatening to beat up two very tall, very strong looking male nurses. 

Jim’s faces was flushed and his eyes were wide and crazed. He pushed himself back against the corner of the wall while the nurses tried their best to talk sense into him. 

“What’s going on,” Pam asked from the doorway, apparently startling both nurses. 

“Are you his wife,” one of them asked. 

Pam nodded. She couldn’t take her eyes of Jim. 

“Don’t you worry. Your husband just woke up a little confused because of his fever. Happens all the time,” the nurse assured her. 

Pam was grateful that he was being so kind considering Jim was threatening to kick his ass. He reminded her of Darryl, and made a mental note to tell Darryl about him when she went back to work, which would be soon...right?

“As soon as we get him back in the bed, we can get that temperature down and he’ll be acting more like himself. I promise,” he continued. 

Jim was looking wildly around the room as if unaware that Pam was even there. 

“Mr. Halpert,” the other nurse called, “If you don’t lay back down, we’re gonna have to sedate you, and we don’t want to do that. Okay?”

“Don’t TOUCH ME,” Jim yelled, and then, “GET BACK,” looking more frantically around the room, as if he could see things that they could not. 

In his panic, Jim ripped out one of the IVs in his arm. Blood trickled down to his hand and, just for a second, Pam thought she saw her Jim, the one in his right mind, come back to the surface as he watched it drip. She knew she had to do something, and stepped forward to appeal to that Jim. 

Wrong move. 

It was all blurred after that. She had stepped around the nurses so that she was in front of Jim. “Jim, it’s me,” she’d said and she must’ve reached out towards him or something, but he was still hallucinating. He didn’t recognize her. This wasn’t her Jim. Panicked and confused, he’d pushed her forcefully back against the wall, and Pam cried out as her wrist twisted painfully in her attempt not to fall. 

She vaguely remembered one of the nurses yelling, “We need some help in here,” and a young, blonde nurse’s asistant pulling her out the door, shutting it behind them. As anxiety took over, the world around her seemed distant and echoey. Pam looked down at her wrist, which shook with pain as she cradled it with her other hand.

“Here sweetie,” the nurse that had pulled her out said, “Sit right here. I’ll go get you some ice.”

Pam could only nod. Her mind felt like mush. She could still hear the sounds of Jim fighting the nurses in his room, and her heart twinged. She felt, for the millionth time that day, that she would cry, but was too tired to care anymore. 

A million thoughts plagued her. She needed to call her mom. She’d been so busy that she’d forgotten to even tell her where she was. Had she left Cece enough milk? What if Jim was stuck like this forever? Why did her wrist sting so bad? She didn’t think Jim even had that in him. 

The nurse returned with and ice pack and a cup of water. 

“Just hold onto that for a while, and that swelling should come right down, okay,” she asked. 

Pam nodded. She could feel her lip trembling as tears threatened to spill over again. 

“If you need anything at all just let me know, alright,” the nurse told her, gracefully ignoring Pam’s tears. “As soon as we can we’ll get you right back next to your husband.”

Pam smiled her thanks, and the nurse returned to her seat. She looked down at her wrist again. It was puffy and red. Jim will be mortified when he finds out. She sighed. Jim... 

“He’ll be okay,” she told herself. “He has to be...”

XXX

It was an hour before Pam could go back into the room with Jim, and another two hours before he even began to stir. It was already ten o’clock at night. Her mom had agreed to keep Cece. Now all that was left for Pam to do was wait. 

A doctor had spoken with her a half hour ago. Jim had a terrible case of appendicitis and they were going to eventually operate. But the doctor told her that since Jim’s blood pressure and temperature were both high and since he was so dehydrated by the time they could finally rejoin his IV to the correct tubes, that they preferred to wait until the morning to give him time to stabilize as much as possible. The doctor said that the scans looked pretty standard and that Jim should be able to rest until the morning with no further danger. 

It was a lot to take in. She was so so tired, but her thoughts spun around her mind like a tornado. Should she have done something different? Should she have taken Jim sooner? If she’d come to work that day, she would’ve known something was wrong. They could’ve avoided all of this. 

She was torn away from her anxieties by Jim who suddenly, as if startled from a dream, woke with a gasp. In an attempt to avoid a scene like earlier, Pam went quickly to his side from her spot on the hard hospital chair. 

“Hey. Hey, you’re okay,” she said soothingly. 

Jim looked around the room before finally noticing her. He stared into her eyes without speaking, and for a moment Pam was afraid that he still didn’t know her. 

“Pam,” he said, after several tense seconds, his voice sounding raspy and dry. 

“Thank God,” Pam sighed with relief. She smiled slightly. “Do you know where you’re at?”

Jim looked around again before grunting, “Hospital?”

He tried to sit up, but winced, grabbing his side tenderly, and thought better of it. 

“What happened,” he asked groggily. 

Pam explained to him everything that had happened since the ambulance and all that the doctor had told her. When she told him how crazed he had acted and that he had pushed her, he looked mortified as she knew he would. He reached for her wrist, which was still swollen and had the beginnings of a bruise. After inspecting it he laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes tightly. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. 

“Jim, your temperature was over 104. You weren’t you,” she assured him. “I know you’d never do this on purpose. 

He looked back at her hands which were shaking slightly. 

“Have you even eaten today,” he asked. “What about Cece? Is she okay? Does she have enough milk?”

“Hey,” she interrupted, squeezing his hand. “Everything’s fine. I promise. Just rest right now,” she soothed. 

It was just like her husband to be in the hospital, but be worried about if she had a granola bar today. 

Jim winced again, and Pam saw him gingerly hold his side once more. 

“Does it hurt really bad,” she asked with a grimace. 

He shrugged and gave her a tight lipped smile. 

So that was a yes. 

She laced their fingers together, and Jim lifted her hand, brushing his lips against the back of it. 

“I’m okay,” he whispered. 

Pam took it as a promise. 

XXX

“Pam...Pam...”

The voice came from her dream, calling her name through fitful sleep. 

“No,” she thought. “I’m so tired...not yet,” she mumbled. 

“Pam,” the voice called louder, and this time woke her. 

She looked around the dim room in a stupor, groggily searching for the voice, half trying to remember where she’d fallen asleep. The clock under the TV read 3am. She sat up in the plastic chair that she must’ve fallen asleep in and searched for the voice. 

“Pam,” she heard one more time. 

Her mind snapped back to reality. They were still in the hospital. Jim was still having surgery in the morning. It hadn’t been a terrible dream. 

“Jim,” she said quietly. 

She stood from her curled up position and hesitantly made her way towards his bed. Surely he’d called her name, but she didn’t want to risk waking him if she’d just been imagining. 

It was definitely him. 

He was trembling on the hospital bed, his skin the same color as the sheets. When she reached his bed, he didn’t look up at her and she felt her anxiety grow. 

“Jim, what’s going on? Are you okay,” she asked, grabbing onto his wrist. 

He shook his head jerkily and swallowed hard. 

“S-Something’s wrong,” he stuttered. Something’s-.”

He clenched his jaw and shut his eyes tightly, groaning softly. Pam placed her hand gently on his forehead. His skin burned against hers. 

“Your fever’s back,” she whispered nervously. 

Jim was suddenly trying to sit up, desperately pushing himself up on shaking arms. 

“Jim,” Pam interjected, but Jim interrupted her. 

“M’gonna be sick,” he mumbled. 

Pam barely had enough time to step back before Jim was vomiting harshly over the railing of the bed. Pam’s heart clenched in her chest. In the dark it looked like...blood?

She was staring so transfixed at the floor that she didn’t notice Jim doubling over again until was it was too late. He was gagging, spilling his stomach onto the sheets. This time there was no questioning. It was blood...

Jim fell back against the pillows, clutching his stomach and groaning in pain. 

Pam finally found her voice. 

“I’m gonna go get someone,” she said quickly, and ran down the hall to the nurses station, leaving her husband behind in the room. 

Two nurses came back with her immediately, and soon she was again by Jim’s side, oblivious to the ladies working around them. 

He was writhing in the bed, obviously in great pain. Beads of sweat dripped down his forehead. He seemed to be threatening to float in and out of consciousness again, but every time she thought sleep would take him, he would wake abruptly, coming to only to vomit into a bucket provided by one of the nurses. His stomach was long since empty, but each dry heave was excruciating. 

“I’ve got you,” Pam whispered to her husband after a particularly painful spasm. 

“Am I dying,” Jim gasped between heaves, real fear dripping from his voice. 

Pam’s heart fell from her chest. She could feel her own breath escaping her. 

“Of course not,” she assured him. “You’re just very sick, Jim. They’ll have everything straightened out any minute now. I promise,” she said, voice wavering slightly. 

Pam looked to the nurses for confirmation, but found none. They were hooking up tubes and inserting new IVs as quickly as possible. 

Jim was now gasping every breath, but whether in pain or for air she did not know. Before she knew it though, a doctor was standing beside them. 

“I’m just going to press on your stomach, okay Mr. Halpert,” he asked. 

He had a kind smile and seemed to be in control of the situation. Pam felt comforted by his presence. 

He pressed firmly on Jim’s stomach and he cried out audibly in pain. Pam bit her lip, squeezing his hand comfortingly, but Jim pulled it away from her and wrapped it around his side. His knees were curled up into him and as he tossed about on his side, he pushed his face into the pillow as if trying to suffocate the pain out of himself. 

“Alright,” the doctor said matter of factly, “We need to move to the operating room. Right now.”

The doctor said more words after that, mostly instructions to the nurses, but Pam didn’t hear. Her brain echoed the words “operation” and “emergency” for several long seconds causing her heart to pound under stress. They were supposed to have until the morning. She didn’t want Jim to have to go like this. She wasn’t ready. 

She had barely had time to even think these thoughts before they were already moving him, pushing him through the darkness, the only raucous in a silent hallway. She walked beside them, being careful to stay out of the way of the nurses who were speaking urgently to each other. 

Eventually they came to the final door through which Pam could not follow. They stopped momentarily to allow Pam to say goodbye, but this time Jim grabbed her hand. 

“You know where everything important is at,” he questioned. 

Pam stared at him, debating whether he was just talking out of his head. 

“All the important papers,” Jim continued. “In case something happens.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Jim. Don’t say th-.”

“Look at me,” he interrupted, and Pam stared into his red eyes. He continued in a choked voice, “You will always be the greatest thing I’ve ever-,” but pain cut him off. He gripped the sheets on the bed, crying out again through gritted teeth. 

“Take him,” she told the nurses with tears streaming from her eyes. “Just take him.”

They pushed Jim through the double doors and Pam watched them roll him down the hallway through the crack as they closed. When they slammed shut she was alone. 

“I love you, too,” she whispered. 

But Jim couldn’t hear it, and she could only pray that he would soon be awake to hear it once more.