A/N: Hey, so this is the first time I've written the office so please forgive me if its crap. Its also the first time in a long time that I've written a m/f ship, normally I'm a f/f writer and shipper but no one in the office gives me lesbian vibes enough to ship and also jim and pam are cute af. So yeah, Jim may be a bit OOC (the more I have read this, the more I hate it and think everyone is OOC but if I don't post it I just wasted my whole day). This will probably only be a one shot – I do a terrible job at committing to multi chapters. Let me know what you think:)
The first time she noticed it she was in her studio. It was late, and she had been drawing for hours so she blamed exhaustion and forgot about it. She packed her art supplies away and went into the house. Jim was watching TV and she curled up on the couch next to him. He slung his arm around her and she sat peacefully until Jim awoke her and they went to bed.
The next day it was still there. She was sat at her desk attempting to make a sales call. She watched her fingers dialling the number and frowned as she struggled to still them. She put the phone down, shook her hand and tried again. But still it was there. She got up, her fists clenched and walked to the bathroom. She was still tired, she reasoned with herself, she had been up with Cece in the night so hadn't got a full nights rest. That was it, that was all this was.
The first time Jim noticed was one night at dinner a couple of weeks later. Pam had been fairly good at hiding it up until now. They were eating and talking about their day. Pam stopped talking and Jim looked up. She was holding her fork in a shaking hand, peas falling off the edge. She had tears in her eyes.
"Pam?" he questioned.
Pam looked up at him and offered a small smile. She didn't want to worry him. "I'm just tired," she offered.
He didn't believe her but watched as she carried on eating. He did the same and they finished their meal in silence.
It was a couple weeks before Jim bought it up again. They were in bed and had been for a while but he knew she was asleep yet. He thought back to their day at work; she had stumbled up the stairs in the morning and someone had commented on her writing. Some days she could get by fine, but for some reason today had been bad; she had been completing an order form, focusing on keeping the letters perfect so no one would notice, or at least so she could blame it being messy on the fact she was busy. But Erin had noticed when she had been given it to fax.
Erin hadn't said anything particularly horrible, but it had knocked Pam and for the rest of the day she had been quiet. Jim wanted to talk about it then but thought it best to wait until they got home.
He was lead behind her now, spooning her. He ran his fingers though her hair splayed on the pillow.
"Pam," he whispered.
He didn't get an answer, but he didn't expect one and so continued.
"I'm not sure what's going on but I think we should take you to a doctor. I know you don't want to, and I know we've avoided talking about it but somethings wrong and it's not just because you're tired. I'm scared and I know you are as well but I really think we need to do this."
He could feel Pam's body shake as she attempted to control tears. Of course she was scared; she had spent every day looking up her symptoms and the glaring diagnosis she had found was brain cancer.
She nodded and muttered an "okay" in response.
"I love you," Jim told her.
He kissed her cheek and held her closer. He didn't want to ever let her go, and they awoke in the morning in the same position.
The doctor's appointment had been pretty useless. All that had come from it was a scan that they had booked for a couple weeks' time. Apart from that he had just told them he couldn't give them an answer and there were multiple things that might be causing her tremor.
The drive home had been horrible. They had essentially been left with more questions than when they had gone in. And needing a scan of her brain terrified them both. Now this was something that was real, they couldn't just ignore it.
Jim didn't know what to say, so as he drove them home he placed his hand on her thigh.
The scan came up with nothing, which wasn't a total surprise as the doctor had told them that some of his suspicions wouldn't actually show up on a scan anyway. But still, she lay as still she could in a metal tube while someone took pictures of her brain. And she tried not to think about what this meant or what they might find.
The call from the doctor later that day telling them that they found nothing did little to ease their worries, however. They made an appointment to see a neurologist and waited another couple of weeks for potentially no answers.
Each time she went into her studio she tried, really tried but she couldn't get her hand to stop shaking enough to even be able to draw something simple. She would look at her old work, look at what she had been able to draw and just cry. Then she would go back into the house and pretend everything was fine.
That was until one night when Jim came into her studio. He stood in the doorway, watching her. He did this a lot, he loved seeing her be creative and it made him so happy to see the woman he loved doing something she really cared about. But this time it was different
It was like she was torturing herself. Forcing herself to draw and getting upset when she couldn't. She held the pencil and took a deep breathe before taking it to the page. She attempted a straight line, a measure she did each day now, but her shaking arm didn't let her. He watched as she broke down crying and walked up behind her. He wrapped his long arms around her hunched form. He kissed the back of her head and whispered soothing words that neither of them believed.
"It'll be okay," he muttered over and over again, for both Pam and himself.
The neurologist was actually able to provide some answers in the form of a condition that both Pam and Jim had spent time googling separately. She had questioned Pam about her symptoms and had her walk around. Jim sat silently as he watched the women he loved be examined by this doctor; her trembling arms, her now slow walking pace and rigid facial features.
The past months things had noticeable changed; at least to him. People at work hadn't been picking up on things as much, normally because he covered for Pam or she called in sick. But he saw the changes, it was obvious to him. She was slower in raising her eyebrow at him when he was messing around with Cece and she was pretending to be annoyed, and her walking pace had slowed. Not dramatically, but the two had always been in sink, something that was strange given his long legs, but now she trailed a little behind him as her steps decreased in size.
The doctor took all this in, and diagnosed Pam with Parkinsons. Although in the earlier couple of stages, Pam and Jim had both stumbled across this and were aware of what it could cause in the later stages.
The medication the neurologist prescribed had been working okay, there had been some minimisation of Pam's symptoms but she was still aware of them. It took her longer to do things and she couldn't do them anywhere near the standard she used to before. Jim tried to help, but she wanted to keep doing things herself. Even though she got angry with herself when things went wrong. She had been making Cece's lunch for her to take to nursery the next morning and it had taken her such a long time to make a sandwich, and by the end of it, it was so embarrassingly bad that she threw it away.
Jim took over, after awkwardly watching her. When she had thrown it away, he came fully into the kitchen and started helping but she had left. She didn't want to watch him do something with ease that she now struggled with.
Jim had to work late – both his and Pam's work had declined recently and he was hoping to have a meeting with one of his clients to make up for him being away so much recently. This left Pam having to go and pick Cece up alone. Normally she would be fine doing this, but now she was terrified of being judged. She hadn't shared her concerns with Jim, but she was so scared that she could no longer be the mum that Cece deserved and she knew that things were only going to get worse.
She was running late and when she arrived most of the other children had been collected. She went in and smiled when she saw Cece sat reading a book with her teacher. Both Cece and her teacher looked up when the door opened and Cece grinned from ear to ear and ran up to her mum. Pam bent down and hugged her daughter close, being mindful of her balance.
Cece's teacher also came over and smiled, "Pam, it's been a long time, normally Jim does pick up."
Pam smiled back, "Jim is having to work late so I'm doing pick up tonight"
Pam willed her arms to stop trembling and when she saw Cece's teacher notice, she apologised and said she had to be somewhere so they could leave quickly.
The next morning when Jim dropped Cece off, her teacher called him into the office and told him she was concerned about Pam potentially have a drinking problem. The teacher explained the trembling and how she rushed out and how she just hadn't seemed herself compared to the last time they had spoken. That was the last day that Cece had attended that nursery and the last time Pam had done pick up.
"I am so scared that I'm not enough for him; I am not the person he fell in love with," Pam explained, her eyes welling up.
Her therapist, Dr Spencer, had been working with Pam to accept her diagnosis. Most of their sessions surrounded the fact that she felt like she was a bad mom, or wife, that she would be left alone as things only got worse.
Pam had cried and explained that this wasn't what marriage was supposed to be; at some point in the future Jim would have to look after her. She couldn't bring anything to the marriage anymore and he already did so much.
"If the roles were reversed how would you feel?" Dr Spencer.
Pam hated when she turned the situation around like this. Of course she would do anything for Jim. If he was the one who was ill she would never even dream of leaving. He was her life and her heart.
"Exactly the same as I did at the beginning."
"Maybe you should talk to him about this then?" Dr Spencer offered.
Pam had been thinking a lot about what her therapist had said. She hadn't raised any of her concerns with Jim, who wasn't even aware she was in therapy at the moment. She just hadn't wanted to worry him or drive him away.
That evening, after Cece was in bed Pam sat next to Jim on the sofa. He smiled and snaked his arm around her.
"Jim?" she said quietly.
"Mm?" he answered, engrossed in the TV show he was watching.
"Jim, I need to talk to you," she tried again.
This got his attention and he turned towards he, frowning slightly. He saw the serious look on her face and shut the TV off. She took a deep breath and began.
"My therapist thinks I should talk to you about this. And I sort of agree with her."
She tried to keep her eyes down, avoid looking at his facial expressions but out of the corner of her eye she saw him. He looked upset but quickly masked it with a neutral face.
"I've been working with her to come to terms with everything. A lot of things are changing and I don't know how I am going to deal with them. I am so scared. I am terrified I'm not going to be a good mum to Cece, I can't hold her or pick her up because I'm so worried I'll drop her. And I'm so, so scared that you will realise that I'm not the women you fell in love with. Things are going to get really hard, and I am going to get really ill and you shouldn't have to stay with me out of pity when I know there are so many women out there who you could be with."
"You think I don't love you anymore? That this makes me not love you. If anything I love you more. You tackle every hurdle that comes you way and I couldn't be more proud to be your husband. I have wanted to be with you since the day I first met you and nothing could change that. You are everything to me, I don't care what I have to do, as long as I am with you that's all that matters to me," Jim said.
Telling people at work was hard. For some reason, this was the hardest part so far for Pam. It signified that things were changing. Over the past weeks she hadn't been able to meet the demands at and she knew that sooner or later it was a very real possibility that she wouldn't be able to work at all. Her and Jim had a meeting with Holly, who they felt it best to tell first as the HR rep.
Holly was of course understanding, she didn't tell them that others had come to her with concerns and she was able to get in contact with occupational health who could recommend adjustments so that Pam was able to continue working. The only issues was that any adjustments that had to be paid for went through accounting, meaning that others were likely to find out.
It was a few weeks later that Pam heard rumours throughout the office that someone was ill. Whoever had dealt with her finances for the adjustments she had been given had spoken to others about it. Of course no-one knew it was her but it still made her skin crawl. After questioning a few people, she had worked out that it was Angela, who she cornered in the bathroom. She wasn't even sure what she was going to say, but she needed people to stop guessing and talking about people pretending to be ill to get free things.
"It's me, and I need you to tell people to stop talking out it," Pam blurted out. She hadn't wanted to come across as so needy, but she really just needed this to stop.
Angela of course knew what she was referring to, but didn't quite believe her. All Angela had to do was raise an eyebrow in question and Pam kept talking.
"I have Parkinson's, and I just need the equipment and support that was ordered to keep working, okay."
Pam pulled her hand out of her pocket as if to prove that something really was wrong and Angela watched her trembling body with slight pity. She said nothing, but nodded and left. Pam hoped that Angela would remember her staying silent about her and Dwight.
The next day she came into the office and no one was talking about it anymore; and no one looked at her with pity. She mouthed a thank you to Angela who simply walked past.
The trembling was bad, but the other symptoms that started developing were just as, if not more so. Maybe it was because she wasn't used to them, whereas the trembling had been something that had been going on for months. Her muscles were in constant pain and she struggled to walk properly now. She was seeing a physical therapist who had given her all these exercises which she was supposed to practice which she didn't.
That was something that came up in the sessions with her therapist as well.
"I just don't see the point when things are going to get worse. Why would I bother doing something that isn't going to provide any long term benefit. I can do those exercises, but it isn't going to stop things getting worse it will just prolong this stage."
"And prolonging this stage is a bad thing?"
Pam shrugged. It was necessarily that this stage was bad; the whole thing was. "It all sucks and the sooner we get to the end, the sooner all this is over right."
Dr Spencer frowned. This was the first time that Pam had ever mentioned the end. Although she wasn't overly positive about her prognosis, the two hadn't ever spoken about Pam wanting to die. Dr Spencer was aware that depression was very common in people with Parkinson's, not only due to the condition itself being hard to deal with, but because of the change in brain chemistry.
The session continued with Pam making similar comments about endings and giving up. She was defeated.
Jim had also noticed this change in Pam. She wasn't so direct with him as not to worry him but it was still there. It was hard sometimes to tell if she was upset or whether it was the Parkinson's affecting her facial expressions, but the lights in her eyes had gone.
He tried hard to motivate her, maybe more for himself than for her. He figured the more she did her exercises, the more time they would spend in this stage which was manageable. He dreaded things getting worse, seeing the woman he loved not being able to do anything she loved. So, the longer they were in this stage the better. He was probably being selfish, but so was she.
So he kept it up, asking her if she had done her exercises, making sure she went to all her appointments. Until one day Pam snapped. She couldn't deal with it anymore. She needed him to understand.
"I am not doing them Jim. I am done, there is no point. Things are just going to keep getting worse and I am wasting my time even trying," she said, her eyes on fire, staring right at him.
He had so many responses, about how selfish she was being and that she didn't care about he felt. But he knew he couldn't throw them at her. That wasn't fair. So he just stood there, looking at her face, her beautiful face that he loved, that he had spent hours looking at before she was his. And then he was crying.
Pam swallowed hard. She hadn't been expected that, part of her wanted a fight, and she hadn't seen Jim cry this whole time about what was going on or about how hard things would be. Maybe he did it in private, she mussed.
She watched as his body slumped and his head hung down.
"I don't know what I'll do without you," he muttered. "You keep talking about the end and things ending and it terrifies me. I can't live without you. And maybe I'm being selfish but I love you and I can't imagine a day of my life without you in it. I don't care that things will get worse, that I will have to look after you. None of that bothers me, but, god, thinking that I might never get to see your face again breaks my heart and if doing those exercises gives us more time together then I want you to do them," he spluttered out between sobs.
He knew that is didn't really work like that but that's the way he had been thinking about this. The further into this they progressed, the more likely Pam was to develop issues swallowing leading to her choking or getting pneumonia; both potentially fatal. That all he could think about. And everything he had said was right and it was how he felt and he had been holding off telling her for too long that now things had bubbled over and his body crumbled onto the floor as sobs left his body.
Since Jim telling Pam how he felt, things had changed. They were both trying for the other – Pam attempting the exercises and least and Jim avoiding pushing her when she didn't do them. They had both been thinking a lot about what he had said, and although hadn't spoken about it since, were aware that this was something that might really affect their relationship.
Jim had never considered any therapy before; he had never felt he needed it. But things had changed and he couldn't manage this alone. He was going to see Dr Spencer as well, but thought that odd so he found his own therapist after speaking to his family doctor. Initially Jim was reluctant to go, the recommended therapist specialised in grief and Jim wasn't grieving; his wife was still here. However, he decided to at least give it a try. Grief was something that they spoke about in their first session.
"It's okay to grieve Jim, that what these sessions will help with," Dr Right said.
Jim frowned at the women opposite. "My wife is still alive, I haven't lost anything to grieve," he explained.
"But you have lost the future, or at least what you imagined. Your wife's diagnosis has shattered what you thought might happen. Even if you had nothing concrete in place; you imagined what you would do when you daughter grew up, or when you retired, where you would go on holiday or where you would live. You imagined endless possibilities that now aren't possible. You are allowed to grieve that loss without feeling selfish."
"I still love Pam though, I don't want any of those things without her anyway."
"And grieving for them doesn't mean that you love Pam any less. You want to spend your life with her, but how that looks has dramatically changed and you can't be expected to accept it overnight. She isn't the only one going through this."
Jim nodded, understanding that he really hadn't acknowledged the change this would bring, and that maybe trying to get Pam to do those exercises that physio had suggested were his way of trying to control the future.
Jim's sessions continued as did Pam's. Jim grieved for a future he didn't even know he wanted, accepted that things would be different. Over the months he had spent in therapy, things had been getting progressively worse with Pam's condition. They both knew it would but that didn't make things easier. Pam had stopped working and he had made the decision that he would also take leave. He wasn't sure how long for, but he had come to the conclusion that the future he wanted could happen now. Michael had promised that he could get his job back whenever he wanted, and although Jim wasn't sure that was true, he appreciated it.
He wasn't sure of the future he wanted, but he knew that Pam had wanted to stick with her art. His wife loved art, it was her favourite thing in the world and he wanted to give it back to her in a way that meant she could keep doing it. Pam had pretty much packed away her studio when she had been diagnosed. There were a couple of pieces in there that she had done since then, but she had discarded them. She hadn't wanted any reminder of the things that had changed and that she could no longer do. He wanted to change that.
Whenever he thought of their future, it was the two of them messing around, spending as much time together as possible. He saw laughter and joy and happiness. They hadn't had that much of it recently and he knew he needed to change that. That was really the reason he took time off work; to spend time with the love of his life. The evening of his last day at work he came home and explained what he had done to Pam.
"Jim? That will mean we have no money coming in. Are you joking?"
He shook his head no. "I don't care. I want to spend every minute with you for the rest of our lives. I don't want to waste time at work with people who I don't even like that much. Not when the love of my life is here. We are going to make memories and do whatever we want and be happy. I don't care what we do, as long as we are happy and as long as we are together everything will be fine. And as for the money, Michael said he's going to organise a fund raiser for us. I have no idea what that entails but he had already started contacting my clients and asking for them to donate. Me and you and Cece are going to be fine."
Pam's eyes had welled up and she looked up at the man she loved. Her facial expression had been lost a while now but Jim could see the smile. And as she reached out her arms to hug him, he didn't notice the trembling.
They didn't have to wait for the future; for these are the good old days.
A/N: Now that's done, I should probably get back to doing my university essays. I know the layout for this was a little strange, I covered a lot in a very short space of time, but I felt it was good way instead of writing lots of chapters; I feel like I captured the important parts. Also a little disclaimer, I did some research into Parkinson's and watched a few videos about experiences but this may not be 100% accurate of course so sorry if there are any glaring mistakes. Also the ending is kinda meh, not sure how I feel about it but I just went where the story was taking me and this is where we ended up. Also please forgive any contingency errors around who is working there and Cece's age and such. I have asked a lot, so just one more small thing; please leave a review:)