The night was the hardest for Jim- sometime between the darkness of midnight and the haze of twilight. That stretch of night he was forced to relive the accident over and over again.
Sometimes he'll be asleep; and he'd have to watch the event play out like a horror movie. Sometimes he's in the car, sometimes outside- watching the two helpless people inside as they spin and toss around the interior of the car. But wherever he is in the dream, it always ends the same; Pam's cold lifeless face staring back at him.
And he always jerks himself awake at this point; sweat drenching his shirt as he quickly turns to make sure she was beside him, sleeping soundly.
Sometimes he'll be awake- daydreaming. Whenever he has an unoccupied moment his mind would drift- mostly to the little one that he help to create that suddenly gave his life meaning. It helped him pass the time, especially at work- when he'd glance at the empty reception desk and find it unoccupied and remember that Pam hadn't returned to work yet. Or when Dwight would oh so tactfully make him relive the trauma of the accident when he'd dissect the reasoning and lecture him on proper driving techniques.
"If you had invested in some decent snow chains, you wouldn't have slid on the road…" He began one day, pulling Jim's meandering mind from future baseball games or playing catch.
All Jim could do was respond with a noncommittal "mm hmm," before feeling his hands shake as Pam's face flashed in front of him. He tried to zone Dwight out, silently damning Michael to an eternity of baldness for letting the story leak to the office.
"And if you had better hand-eye coordination, you could have quickly righted your car before…" Jim couldn't listen anymore- his tongue moving faster than his brain.
"...And if you hadn't gone all Kavorkian on Angela's cat, she wouldn't be wearing someone else's ring." He murmured angrily, setting his eyes on Dwight's reddening figure. He watched as Dwight's gaze shifted toward accounting for a brief moment before settling back on his own computer screen.
That was the last time anyone mentioned the accident in front of Jim. Soon after his comment Jim had excused himself to the bathroom, locking himself in as he sat on the cool tile and buried his face in his trembling hands, willing himself to keep it together.
"This isn't about you anymore." He'd breath into his fingers. "Get a hold of yourself." He willed- knowing there was more than one person depending on him now.
He hadn't wanted it to be this hard, Pam was alive- she'd recovered, they were getting married, and in 7 months he'd be a father. He didn't understand why he was so terrified. It seemed like he had waited so long for this to happen and now that he was facing it he was scared shitless. He had almost killed Pam. Every time he thought of that his stomach would jump into his throat and he'd feel sick. He almost killed the woman he loved more than the world and with that, he almost killed the child he didn't even know he had.
Sometimes during a particulary rough sleepless night, (which he had many since the accident), he'd toil that idea over and over again in his head. Would he have ever known that she was pregnant if she had died? Would he be able to live with the fact if he had lost her and the only thing that would attach him to her forever? He couldn't bear to even imagine it.
But he would never ever tell Pam any of this; the feelings, the anxiety- non of it. He instead decided to be there for every step of her recovery, being the rock for her to lean on. It was a way for him to make things right, he thought.
So three times a week, he would pick Pam up in her little blue Yaris- driving her and their baby pea to her physical therapy, sitting through and watching her in case she slipped or stumbled- determined to make sure nothing would ever happen to her again. This was the only way he could make each day bearable until the dreams stopped and he could finally rest.