Jim opened his eyes at great cost. 

They felt so dry that he was pretty sure he could hear himself blinking. Everything else was dim and out of focus. The only thing he could really make out was a light somewhere in his peripheral vision. He tried turning his head, but snapped back quickly. Every single one of his muscles were stiff. Was he hit by a bus somewhere between surgery and his room? 

“Jim?”

The voice came from the direction of the light, but this time he knew better than to look. The voice could come to him. 

A blurry figure appeared above him and Jim tried again to clear his vision, but to no avail. 

“Try to lie still,” it urged. “I’m going to get a nurse.”

Jim did what the voice said, like he had a choice. Moments later he heard footsteps back in the room and two more blurs appeared above him. 

“Mr. Halpert, how we feeling today,” one of them asked. 

Jim shut his eyes tightly, opening them once more to finally clear vision. It was an older woman, one of the nurses that took him to surgery, that had asked him the question. The other voice, the one from the lamp, was...Phyllis? 

Jim mouthed some words, but no sound came out. His throat felt like sandpaper, like someone had taken a razor to his vocal cords. Still, he tried again. 

“What happened,” he choked out. “Where am I?”

The nurse was busying herself with screens and charts. 

“You in the ICU, baby, having some bad complications from your surgery,” she said almost too cheerfully, “But don’t you worry, the doctor will be in to see you when the sun comes up. He’ll explain everything in more detail. Okay?”

Jim swallowed hard, a difficult feat when your mouth has zero moisture. 

“My wife,” Jim asked imploringly of the nurse, then Phyllis. The room was swimming and he was beginning to feel very dizzy. Everything in him begged him to close his eyes, but he wouldn’t, not yet. “Where’s Pam?”

Phyllis opened her mouth, but the kind nurse cut her off. 

“She’s going to be so happy you’re awake, but first I need you to answer a couple questions for me real quick.”

She didn’t wait for Jim’s approval. 

“Do you know who you are,” she asked. 

“Jim Halpert,” he croaked. 

“And where do you live?”

“Scranton.”

“Good. Good,” she said. “Now on a scale of one to ten how’s the pain?”

Jim assessed himself before determining, “A four,” with a small shrug. 

“Alright, Jim,” she said happily. “Everything looks okay. Now you still have a little fever left, but that’s just because of your operation. Be gone by the end of the week.” She gathered her clipboard and headed towards the door. “Like I just said, the doctor will come talk to you in a few hours. It’s only four in the morning right now so, if you can, I’d try to get some rest. Any questions,” she asked. 

This was a lot of information for his wrung out mind to soak in at the moment. 

“Can I have some water,” Jim asked after a long moment of silence. 

“Of course,” she said, rummaging through one of the cabinets behind her. She pulled out a plastic blue cup, filled it with room temperature tap water, and set it on the table beside Jim’s bed. 

“Little sips, okay sweetheart,” she asked. “Let’s take it easy on that stomach right now.”

“Thank you,” Jim mouthed still soundlessly. 

He heard Phyllis repeat the same thing to the nurse before the door opened and shut with a, “I’ll be right down the hall of you need me!”

Jim was soon very aware of the awkward silence in the room. He reached for his water, but his hands felt too weak to lift it. Conscious of the fact that Phyllis was watching though, he desperately attempted to bring the cup to his lips, and shakily sloshed half of it down onto his chest. He swore under his breath, steadying the cup to try again, but this time Phyllis took it from him. 

“Can I help,” she asked. 

Jim stared at her blankly. 

“I always wanted to be a nurse growing up,” she added. Then, “But I guess paper salesman’s fine,” in an undertone. 

He knew that she was being kind, adding that last part so as to not obliterate his pride, but he felt humiliated all the same. She grimaced at him and held the cup out anyway. He paused just briefly. He was, after all, so, so thirsty. 

After only a moment he allowed her to help him drink, holding the cup to his lips and helping him raise his head. It hurt to swallow, both the water and his pride. An all new low for him, maybe, but it could’ve been worse. It could’ve been Dwight. Phyllis, he knew, would never tell a soul. 

After a few tentative sips and a mumbled but very grateful, “thank you,” Jim posed his next question. 

“Phyllis, no offense, but uh, why are you here,” he asked. “Not that I’m not super excited to see you but, where’s Pam?”

“Oh, well,” she said almost sympathetically. “The office has been taking it in shifts to sit with you so that Pam could have a break. She wasn’t doing very well,” she whispered. 

“Doing very well,” he echoed. “Is she alright?”

“Yes, she’s fine now,” Phyllis assured him. “She was just so upset when you came out of surgery with complications and then they couldn’t bring you out of the anesthesia.”

Jim furrowed his brow at her. “How long was I out,” he questioned. 

“Five days,” she answered. “But they said it could’ve been longer or shorter. They didn’t really know. Technically,” she added, “You were in a coma.”

Jim had so many questions, but couldn’t formulate a single one. 

“Well, where’s Pam now,” he asked with great concern. 

“Michael drove her to her mom’s two days ago. Actually it was a good thing we were there. She’d been with you for three days straight and hadn’t left your side,” she told him. “When we came to visit you, she had a terrible migraine, could barely move because of the light and all.”

Jim’s heart twinged at the thought of Pam having one of her terrible migraines and him not being there for her. She’d only had one other since they’d been together, and it was a terrible experience. 

“Dwight thinks it was from dehydration or forgetting to eat or something, but if you ask me she worried herself sick, about you,” she added. 

“But she’s at her mom’s now,” he asked. 

“Yes. We’ve been keeping her updated. I can call her now and tell her you’re awake if you’d like.”

Jim would very much like, but remembered how early it still was. 

“Maybe we should just let her sleep for a while. She can come later,” he said, feeling a stab of sacrificial pain. 

“Yeah you’re probably right,” she agreed. “You should try to get some sleep before she comes. Tomorrow will be busy.”

Jim nodded slowly, with eyelids growing heavier and heavier by the breath. He could tell that sleep was near, threatening to overwhelm him yet again. Before he drifted off though, he had one more question. 

“Hey Phyllis,” he called. “Catching her right before she resumed her seat across the room. 

“Yes?”

“What kind of complications did I have,” he asked. 

“Oh, I really don’t know. All we were told at the office is that you were in intensive care now, and that your surgery didn’t go as well as planned,” she responded. “Pam knows. I’m sure she’ll tell you in the morning.”

“Right,” he mumbled, and closed his eyes. 

Pam only had migraines when she was under too much stress. Was she just having trouble adapting to their newborn at home? Or maybe him being in the hospital or...both?

He’d ask her soon, but for right now sleep was finally overcoming him, and he slipped away into a feverish rest. 

XXX

It must have been hours later that Jim reopened his eyes. It wasn’t quite full morning, but from his bed he could see orange light peeking through the shaded windows. A faint snoring in the corner told him Phyllis was still in the room, but he was still too stiff to really notice or care for that matter. He closed his eyes again. He just needed to sleep it off, finally get some real rest. But his thoughts were soon interrupted by the sound of an opening door. 

Even with the dawn, it was still fairly dark in the room, which could account for why it took Jim so long to recognize her. Or maybe, it was because she didn’t look like herself, not really. 

Pam had tiptoed in wearing a cardigan, a fuzzy one, one he’d bought her for her last birthday. She wasn’t looking at him, obviously assuming him still asleep, and he saw finally what Phyllis had been talking about, the dark circles, the pale skin, and something else...sadness? No...anxiety? Maybe...

It unnerved him more than anything else he’d experienced that week. 

“Pam,” he whispered, and she almost jumped out of her sweater. 

“Jim,” she asked, then, without waiting for an answer, threw herself onto him, immediately crumbling into tears. “I thought you were going to die,” she sobbed into his chest. “I thought you were-. And I would never-. And I just can’t do this without you,” she choked out. “And Cece-.”

“Hey. Hey,” he soothed, because she had sunk down off his chest onto her knees, her face buried in her hands against the sheets. He tried to push himself up a bit in the bed, and inwardly cursed how woozy he still felt. “Pam, look at me. Babe, everything’s fine. Okay? I know these last few days must’ve been hell for you, but look, I’m here now, and I won’t let that happen again.”

Pam’s whole body convulsed with sobs. He’d never seen her this upset ever, not even when her parents divorced. 

“I’m gonna be fi-.”

“They found cancer,” she whimpered, finally lifting her eyes to his. 

Jim closed his mouth and let the news sink in, staring without blinking back into her eyes. He opened his mouth to speak again, but again no words came. It finally dawned in him what he had seen on his wife all along. Not sadness, not pain, not exhaustion or anxiety. Heaviness...a collection of those emotions wrapped in a casing of despair. As he watched the tears stream from her eyes, he felt it too, the realization she must’ve stumbled upon over the days he’d been asleep... She would soon have to support the weight of their new family alone. 

Racing thoughts all came at once, so quickly that he couldn’t decide what needed to be asked now and what could wait. 

“Say something,” she begged. 

How long had they been sitting in silence?

Jim stared at her still, at a loss for words.  “Where,” he finally whispered. 

While she took a moment to compose herself, Jim studied her. She reminded him of the Pam he met years ago, scared of life, unsure of where to go, a receptionist delivering a message. 

That wasn’t his wife. 

“Stomach,” she gulped. “Stage two. They want to do chemo to shrink the tumor and then op- operate to remove it.”

Jim still sat silent in the darkness so she continued, whether to discuss or just to fill the emptiness, he did not know. 

“They found it when they did the MRI on your appendix after surgery,” she continued with a sniff. “I haven’t told anyone, though. Just been saying there were complications.”

Jim nodded, brow furrowed, mind sluggish, like an inchworm, constantly playing catch-up. Pam was shaking her head incessantly. 

“I can’t do it. I can’t,” she said, beginning to cry again. “I can’t do it without you. I can’t be a good mom. I can’t be a good human if part of me is missing, Jim.”

He silently reached over to hold her hand. 

“With the chemo and the surgery you still have a 70 percent chance,” she sniffed. “But all week,” she gasped, “All I could think about was the 30 percent chance...that I don’t grow old with you,” she squeaked. 

Jim lifted her hand and kissed her fingers, again silently. 

“I fell apart,” she choked, as if admitting a sin to him. “I wasn’t there for our daughter. I didn’t call my mother. Michael had to drive me home from the hospital. I failed, Jim,” she admitted through red, bleary eyes. 

Jim’s heart broke to watch her suffering like this, but he still kept silent. One thing he’d learned in their short time married was that sometimes even when it’s about you, it’s not about you. 

After several more long moments in which Pam sobbed into her hands, no longer able to meet his gaze, Jim summoned his strength. He moved, just barely, to the side of his bed, and reached out for her arm, to pull her in beside him. Still crying, she climbed over next to him, and he allowed her to weep, head on his chest, for as long as it took. 

When she finally stilled, her chest no longer heaving with gasps and sobs, he reached up to stroke her hair, eventually moving it out of her eyes. He could feel his shirt clinging to him, whether from fever or Pam’s tears he did not know. In the silence, in the dark, in the fear, he finally spoke. 

“For better or worse...I still want you,” he whispered, and kissed the top of her head. 

Instantly, if only slightly, the shadow of her tensed frame had relaxed. Maybe she’d fallen into much deserved sleep, or maybe she’d taken refuge in his words. Either way, he said no more. Later on she would surely have to carry heavier things, but for now he could still happily bear their burden. 

They continued in silence until their hearts fell in rhythm, and Jim drifted back to sleep to the lullaby of a heart monitor.