So many of the events of that night would be forever etched to the wall of Pam's memory, as piercing and scarring as the shots she heard, the shots she saw fired.

She skidded against the pavement after Roy shoved her down, scraping her knees and elbows. She quickly, in a panic, whirled to face Roy again, unsure if he were about to turn on her again. She saw him pointing the gun away from her, heard him speaking, but what he was saying didn't register before she realized what was happening, a bullet fired before she had time to even scream. She saw Jim, looking as incredulous as she had just been, jerk back at his belly, his hands reflexively covering the spot where the bullet had hit. He looked back up just in time to see the smoke from the second shot and Pam saw him take a small step back he took when another spatter of blood appeared from the right side of his chest.

She didn't remember getting up, she didn't remember running to him; she only remembered the surprised look on his face when he looked down at his own bloodied hand, and how he slowly wobbled down to his knees, staring down still as he slowly seemed to grasp what had just occurred.

"Oh my god, oh my god…" she kept breathing over and over again when she arrived at Jim's side. She shook her open hands out around her head, not sure what to do as she surveyed the blood that was beginning to soak and drip down his shirt and onto the pavement. She turned abruptly, remembering that Roy was still somewhere behind her, and came to see that he had come closer to them, still brandishing the gun. She then did the only thing that came to mind, what she wished she could have done thirty seconds earlier: she threw her arms around Jim and shielded him with her body.

"You have to go through me if you want any more, Roy," she shouted out into the air, not looking back at Roy again, but burying her face into Jim's hair, her body trembling against his. She didn't see the expression on Roy's face suddenly change again, from a maddened anger into a horrified realization of what he had just done. She heard the gun drop to the ground with a metallic clatter.

"What… what have I done?" he asked himself softly, watching Pam's terrified form protecting the person she loved, to the point of putting her own small body in between him and an imminent death. "Pam… Oh god, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he babbled over and over again.

"Go away, just don't hurt him again… don't hurt Jim again," she cried; she just wanted the threat gone, she didn't care where he went, he just needed to leave them both alone.

Roy began to look around him, paranoid, fearful. He knew that he had wronged her so that there was no forgiveness, no coming back again. His only thought: run, run away, run so it won't be real anymore, run!

When Pam heard Roy's running pace grow more distant, she looked behind herself again to see that he was now in fact gone. She released her grip on Jim, and the momentary relief that she had felt knowing that they were no longer being threatened was replaced with the panic she felt when she looked at Jim again.

His face had already grown pale by a few shades, and the entire front of him was completely awash of blood now, yet he had managed to remain sitting with his legs folded under him, though he was visibly trembling from the beginnings of shock.

"That was really brave, Pam," he whispered to her, breathing heavily, trying to smile at her.

"Are you OK…? Oh my god, what happened? I heard shots…" a man ran up behind them from one of the nearby houses around the corner where Roy had come running from.

"Please call 911," Pam cried to the man, fumbling through her purse for her cell phone, which she found and practically threw at the man, "He's been shot… he needs help – soon!"

The stranger did as she asked her, in a bit of a panic himself, and paced away as he began speaking with the state police dispatch to get to emergency services.

"We're getting help, Jim, don't worry," she told him, cupping his face with her hand before she began to try and figure out if there was anything she could do herself before the paramedics arrived. She grabbed her sweater and thought that it may help to apply pressure to the wound on his abdomen, his own left hand already firmly covering the wound to the side of his chest. He winced at the touch. "Sorry… I just thought," she began when she thought she hurt him.

"No, no… it's ok… it's just starting to hurt now," he told her, trying to position himself into a more comfortable position, and not only found that there was no position that was comfortable at all, but that he was beginning to have trouble staying upright at all. "I think I should lie down," he told her.

"Here, put your head on my lap," she said, scooting herself behind him, then gently helped ease him down.

"You know… I thought that would have hurt a lot more than it did," he began, trying to help ease the obvious anxiety that Pam was feeling, though he wasn't able to get his voice to sound anything better than a strained whisper. "Just like getting punched really, really hard, no flying off my feet from the force of shot. I'm starting to think movies are full of crap on all of this gun stuff."

Pam gave a still concerned smile back, but was bolstered by Jim's attitude. She was trying her best to ignore the blood around her, as she had always been frightened by the sight of it, and also didn't want to think about how much blood he was losing while there wasn't anything she could do besides what she felt was the equivalent to slapping a band-aid over the wound.

"I'm glad he didn't hurt you, Pam," he said, grasping her hand that held down the now red-soaked sweater with his own already bloodied right hand. He looked up at her face, his eyes filled with earnest relief that she hadn't taken any shots from Roy, filled with the love that would have gladly taken those bullets for her ten times over if it meant keeping her safe. Pam tried to smile at him, it only served to weaken her bottom lip back into trembling and her eyes into tears. She touched his face again, and traced a fallen tear of Jim's face, which had trickled down to meet with one of his own.

He suddenly was racked with a series of coughs, which sent him writhing in pain that lasted far longer than the coughs had. He grasped her hand so tightly now that it nearly hurt her too. Pam leaned over him, whispering, "It's ok.. it's ok – it' will stop, I'm sorry it hurts.." hugging his head with her free arm until his pain subsided back into a tolerable range.

"Wow, that really hurt," he moaned, panting and wide-eyed. Pam noticed a trickle of frank blood that had formed a small black-red trail off the corner of his mouth, which she wiped away quickly with the corner of her skirt. "Really can't breathe too well on that side now…" he mentioned, more to himself than to Pam, "good thing I've got two lungs, eh?" he tried to smile at her to calm her again, but it wasn't working well anymore: her face still kept the look of heart-wrenching fear as she looked down at him.
"I must look pretty bad," he asked her gently, to which she nodded, then stroked his cheek again. His skin felt cold and damp.

"They should be here any minute," the man with her phone called over to them from the sidewalk where he had been pacing back and forth while he stayed on the line with the emergency dispatcher.

"Thank god," Pam murmured, and leaned over to kiss Jim on the forehead. Every minute that passed before he had medical attention, she thought to herself, may have been just as well for him as another bullet wound.
"I'm sorry this happened, Jim, I'm so sorry," she finally whispered to him, the thought having been on her mind since Roy had run away, "I shouldn't have ever talked to Roy again… God, I'm so sorry Jim…"

"Shh… Pam, don't blame yourself for this," he said, trying not to stammer between the breaths that were getting quicker, harder, and more desperate feeling the longer he lay there. "You were just trying to be a friend … you're not responsible for his actions. I will never blame you for this, don't ever let yourself think otherwise."

"But.."

"No, no more of it," he said, almost stern. She nodded her head at him, and he made his best effort to get his normal, wry, disarming smile out for her, and stroked her hand that he still held onto with his fingertips.

A couple more minutes passed by in impatient silence, each one feeling like an hour filled with hopeful and terrified thoughts and pain. Jim felt himself growing weaker and tired, his breaths came faster and shallower, and a feeling of drowsiness began to come over him, like a white cloud of cool mist making everything surrounding him out of focus and dream-like.

"I think I'm going to close my eyes for a bit," he said sleepily to Pam, his eyelids fluttering over his now sunken eyes.

"No, don't do that, Jim," she told him firmly, "I need you to stay awake with me. No sleeping yet."

"Ok…" he drawled out quietly. He was suddenly aware of how unreal everything around him was feeling, how Pam's face was taking on an ethereal glow in the light of the moon and streetlamps, suddenly aware that he was drifting away faster than he could control down this stream towards unconsciousness.

"Pam… I need to tell you something. Maybe this is silly," he said, his voice only but a whisper and his words began to slur together, "we'll probably be laughing about this tomorrow… but.. Pam, if I don't make it through this…"

"No, Jim, don't talk, you'll strain yourself," Pam interrupted him purposely trying to dodge the subject he brought up. He forced himself to look up meaningfully into her eyes, and grasped her hand again as tightly as his weakened body could manage.

"Pam, you need to hear this… If I'm not there for you, please… please keep going. Don't let anything stop you, Pam. Even if I'm not there by your side, I want you to always live for your dreams."

"But you are my dreams, Jim, don't say things like that," she said, broken, between tears. She stroked his hair, stroked his face, "I don't know if I could live without you."

"Pam… you're more than just the girl who loves me… you've discovered so much of yourself…" he said, getting quieter. "Pam, promise me,"

"No, no…" she moaned, wincing back tears.

"Please, promise me that if I die tonight you won't let yourself go with me. Promise me you'll keep going. Please."

She sobbed, then nodded, "Yes, Jim, I promise. But only because you want me to."

"Thank you…" he trailed off, closing his eyes that he simply couldn't keep open anymore. "Tell me," he asked her, his voice quiet and dreamy, "Tell me what we did tonight… where were we? I can't remember it that well now…"

"We went out to dinner," Pam whispered to him, "You asked me to marry you."

"Oh yeah…" he replied, and after a minute gave a small gasp and opened his eyes as if he were startled. "Pam, you still here?"

"Yes, I haven't left," she told him, looking down at him, seeing his eyes stare about as if he couldn't see her before he closed them again, relaxing again at hearing her voice. She lifted her head, hearing sirens off down the street.

"Good… I love you, Pam."

"I love you too, Jim."