Author's note: my hope is that this feels extremely real. I don't want to say much more, because I want to leave it up to interpretation. Please review.


"What's wrong?" Even though he couldn't see tears on her face, he knew she had been crying. He clenched his fists, hating to see her in pain and wondering who had done this to her. He relaxed his frown, seeing that she had begun to tear up again; a single tear ran down her cheek.

"I just—" she began. She didn't want to get into this with him. Things had been so strange ever since he came back, and she didn't feel like letting him in. A year ago, she would've been falling into his arms and sobbing into his chest, but then again, a year ago she wouldn't have been crying.

"Please tell me," Jim pleaded, his eyes wide with concern. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened, I just—" Screw it, she said to herself. She was going to put her heart out there. "Jim, I feel so alone. I hate coming home to this apartment every night alone, I hate making dinner for myself and having no one to share it with, and I hate having to turn all the lights off… The dark is so isolating."

"Okay," he sighed. "Can I come in?"

Pam responded meekly, "Yes." She opened the door to her apartment wider and he stepped inside. On the coffee table, sat stacks of photo albums, and he guessed that they had made her start to think about how alone she thought she was. He also noticed a glass of wine on the table as well; that probably did not help, he thought to himself.

Pam sniffled as she tried to fight back tears. "Wanna sit down?" He took a seat on her couch, and she sat down beside him with a small gap in between them. She didn't know why she had called him; her mom would've been her first choice to call, but it was one in the morning and she was at least two hours away. What could her mom have done for her? No, she wanted someone there with her, and although they had been distant lately, she had guessed he would come as soon as he heard her crying.

"Jim? Can you come over? I really need someone right now.." She didn't have to say anymore than that, because as soon as he had heard those words, he had grabbed his car keys and driven straight over. There were no doubts in his mind of what he had to do, even though he may have had apprehension.

"Okay, do you want to talk about it?" he asked her, praying she would open up to him.

She then asked him a question that had caught him off-guard, "Do you ever think about your own death?"

"Um—"

"I do. I wonder who the hell is going to remember me when I'm gone. I wonder what happens after we die.. I wonder if we can really watch over people from heaven. And.. it just scares me. My own mortality scares me, because…"

Jim stared at her as she glanced down, trying to form the words to what she was thinking. He wanted to tell her that everyone questioned death at one time or another; he had first questioned it after a childhood friend of his, Jason, had died from leukemia, and he still got sharp pains in his stomach every time he thought about it. He wanted to tell her that people would of course remember her after she had died. She clouded his thoughts day and night, and there was no way he could not remember her beautiful smile, her laughter after they played pranks on Dwight, and the way she could always make people feel welcome.

She looked up and saw him gazing intently and continued, "Because I haven't done anything with my life. I'm a receptionist.. and I haven't traveled anywhere. And my art sucks, and.." She shut her eyes tight, trying to hold back the tears. They flowed from her cheeks anyway, "And I don't have any family. No husband, no kids… People need kids to remember them."

He shook his head and wiped a tear from her cheek, "You know that's not true. Pam. Pam—" He took her chin in his hand and made her look at him before he continued: "You will be remembered. Maybe not by the world, maybe not even by children, but.. I promise you, you have touched people's lives that you don't even realize you touched, and they will always remember you—"

She pushed his hands away from her as they tried to wipe away another tear. She was mad now: mad because he always knew what he should say to make her feel better, and she was sick of it. She wondered if he could ever bear his soul to her, or if he would always keep her at arm's length. How the hell had he come to terms with his own death? Did he even know he would die someday too? What made him okay with everything he was saying? She resented how he could be so calm, and she wanted answers.

"How do you know that!" she shouted, and he was startled by how she had raised her voice to him. "And how come you don't think about death? How can you be just, sitting there, telling me all of this when you don't even know for certain! What is going to happen to me after I die, Jim? Tell me!"

"I don't know!" he stood up and shouted back at her, angry that she had wanted him to come over only so she could pick him apart. "I don't—I don't know." He sighed, biting his lip from saying more to her. He thought about Jason again, and this time tears welled up in his eyes; he hadn't cried over him in years, but she had gotten him so worked up that he couldn't help himself.

"You don't think I don't get scared by death?" He sat back down and she glared at him intensely, "Pam, everyone is going to die—everyone. If nothing else, death is the only thing that bonds people together. In the end, we only have each other… to, help each other not be scared… and to remember each other when one of us dies."

She looked sheepishly at her carpeting. "I'm sorry," she whispered, and he shook his head at her, indicating that her apology wasn't necessary. She looked around, noticing that she was standing, and then sat down next to him and watched him wipe his tears on his sleeve.

He glanced up at her and saw that she had clung to his every word, and so he began to tell her: "I had a good friend in elementary school who died. His, name was Jason, and he was diagnosed with leukemia in fourth grade." Jim sniffled and wiped his eyes again, "I remember being really sad that he missed so much class, cause we did everything together.. Then, my mom thought it would be a good experience for me to visit him in the hospital…"

Pam listened empathically as he told her his tale, realizing that he knew what he was talking about because he had been through it. His childhood friend had died, and yet he still had vivid memories of him and talked about him with such emotion in his voice. She could tell he missed him, even after all these years.

"I always wonder what he would've been like if.. if he had had the chance to grow up," Jim looked at her, and saw that her expression matched his: they both looked guilty. "And.. I wonder what was it that chose him to die and not me? Fate?.. God? I mean, what made me so lucky to live?"

She looked down again, now sensing he needed comfort, "You know what's unfair?"

"..Besides what I just said?"

"Yeah… how can there be so much in the world to experience, and yet we could never experience it all?"

For the first time since she had called him crying, a soft smile crept upon his face. "That's not how I see it," he told her as she glanced up, surprised. "See, I like to think of everything as unlimited abundance.. We could never run out of books or movies or experiences, because there is so much out there."

Pam felt the lump in her throat disappear as she thought of this concept. How had she not figured that out, and how had he made it seem that simple? She laughed to herself as she thought about how, no matter what, he always was there to rescue her, even from her own self-destructive thoughts.

She smiled at him and said the only words she thought she could say, "We do have unlimited abundance.. of each other."


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