DEEP THOUGHTS, SECOND CHANCE

This is a D/J scene that would take place if there were a season seven and long after Joey and Pacey break up in (virtual) season seven…like we know that they should!

This scene takes place after Dawson and Joey have spent time being friends again. They are lying on their backs his bed at his place, relaxed and talking…as usual…They find themselves talking about the past and trying to smooth things out between them. We join them in mid-conversation.

Dawson is speaking

"I'm sorry if you felt that I…that I didn't want you. I never meant for you to feel that way. I just wanted things to be…perfect." He sounds a little wistful and regretful, but only just a little. It was a long time ago and things had changed, for everybody, since then.

Joey is surprised. " I never felt that way. Never. Why would you think that?

"Well, Pac…" Dawson begins…

"Oh, Pacey…well that explains it". Joey's mouth twists a little with wry affection for their mutual friend.

"He used to call me a eunuch" ..Dawson explains, relaxed… " and tell me if I wanted you I should just throw you on the bed and be done with it."

"That sounds like him" Joey says, amused. Then her face gets serious. "But he didn't really mean it."

Dawson slants a look at her out of the corner of his eyes. "Sometimes I think he did" he tells her seriously.

Joey puts her hand on his arm. "He was just yanking your chain. You know he didn't really mean it" she soothes him.

Dawson smiles small.. "I guess not, but he could be pretty brutal sometimes" he says calmly..

Joey perks up. "He loved you like a brother Dawson" she states to him cheerfully.. "Sometimes brothers tease, and sometimes brothers fight" she chides him softly. A brief look of pain passes over Dawson's face, thinking of the rift they had in their friendship so many years ago, and what caused it, but Joey is here with him now and everything else is in the past.

Joey turns to him and catches his attention. She looks him seriously in the face. "He still thinks of you that way. A part of him still does. Like a brother. " she says to him very somberly.

"Yeah, I know" Dawson states matter of factly, and his face clears and the two smile a little at each other, knowing it is good to have friends even if they bug you sometimes or even if they steal your girlfriend from you when you are sixteen or even if they break your heart and leave you crying on a dock.

"Besides, Dawson… Pacey was mostly talk. When you come right down to it, he waited." she carefully says. She looks at him trying to gauge his expression. "Just like you would have" she adds softly, knowing that she is treading on a sensitive subject.

"Yeah, Pacey's alright" Dawson conceded with a smile, letting go of the niggling feelings of betrayal and anger that could still haunt him sometimes, and the petty jealousy that could ruin friendship. "After all, you did choose him" he continues lightly "twice, and I'd hate to think you had really bad taste in men" He slides his hand into hers and clasps it a little possessively. He smiles broadly at her, and she smiles back. She gets the little joke. [Dawson clearly is one of her "men" too.]

Dawson steals another glance at Joey and continues putting his thoughts into words.

"Pacey was all for action, but I wanted things to happen in their own time. [sighs]. I guess I am still that way sometimes …kind of taking my time." He glances at her. "Despite any evidence to the contrary." [pauses]. "It seemed like the right thing to do at the time…but …"

"But what?"

"But if it made me lose you, then I guess you could say I regret it. The last thing I wanted to do was to lose you."

"It wasn't that, Dawson. I was just…afraid. In my own way."

"Of me?"

"No, of what might happen."

"You mean sex?"

"No, Yes. Well, more than that."

Joey pauses thoughtfully and bites her lower lip a little, unsure of how to put into words what she wants to say.

"I was afraid that that would be it. That I would never kiss another boy, or fall in love again, or go to Paris by myself, or know what it was like to …tempt…a man who didn't already want me. I guess I wanted the chance to be a little bad and be different, and be on my own. Find my own way and experience my own life before…." She pauses, her sentence unfinished.. "If we had stayed together and slept together back then when we were so young, I just think we would have missed out on a lot, both of us."

Dawson looks uncertain, but eventually gives a soft sigh of resignation/capitulation. "I suppose you're right, but still…"

"I know, I know. It could have been great. 'scorching' I think you said." Joey says smiling, half serious, half joking.

Dawson pauses, thinking, a slight smile of remembrance on his face. Then he gets a wicked amused glint in his eye.

He turns his head to face her. They are face to face.

"And I was right, too" he muses softly with a warm look on his face. She doesn't catch his drift right away and looks at him a little confused. Then she realizes he is talking about the one night they did spend together, a night of surprising tenderness and breathtaking passion, and she flushes a little at the memory.

"Yah, well…" she casts around in her mind for some witty comeback or teasing remark to keep the moment light, but the memory is too strong in her mind to dismiss so lightly.

"I guess sometimes even you can be right sometimes" she says softly with mock insult, and reached her hand out to touch his face in a gentle caress, her palm against his cheek.

His eyes twinkle at her a moment in amusement, but her nearness and the touch of her hand upon his face makes the laughter slip from his face and eyes and they lay there quiet with her hand upon his cheek and the quiet sounds of their breathing and a million unspoken words in their gaze. Or maybe all those unspoken words only added up to a few. He felt it still. 'I love you' he wants to say, but the moment is too tenuous and their rekindled friendship still so new. He had made many mistakes in the past, and so had she. He lets the words remain unspoken but hoped his eyes would let her know what was in his heart.

" I never meant to hurt you that night. I swear to you, that Natasha was only a fling. How could being with her a week or month or even a temporary relationship compare with even one night with you? I just wanted you so badly I couldn't think straight. After all that time. I never thought that…that you'd think there was something more between Tash and myself. " Dawson talks softly but with an urgency, the words coming quickly from him as if what he wanted to say has been pent up in him for a long while.

He stops a moment and collects his thoughts. Joey listens quietly and intently.

"Jeez, she was an actress for God's sake" he continues forcefully. "Used to sleeping with directors to get parts." {He says this last part a tad bitterly, thinking how easily Natasha used and discarded him, even more easily than he used and discarded her. At least he had broken up with her to be with Joey, he thought. His lifelong friend and potential soul mate. That had to count for something}.

"I am sorry if I seemed…dishonorable" he apologizes quietly. Joey stirs beside him, and moves her arm, as if brushing his apology away.

"It wasn't you, Dawson. Not really. I've forgiven Pacey for a lost worse. It was mostly me overreacting. I should be apologizing to you." Dawson is surprised by her words but waits quietly for her to go on. After a moment of thought, she does. " It was just that back then I had this….this…

"Fear?"

"Yah, I guess you could say that."

"We were pretty scorching."

Joey breaks into a wide grin, pleased and amused "Yeah, that we were".

"Well, I guess I can forgive you for fleeing from the heat of our passion. I guess that could be kind of frightening...being how scorching and hot and passionate and all that it was.." he continues to tease her, happy and relieved that they could talk so easily and without bitterness about a painful incident in their past.

Dawson turns his face into the palm of her hand that still rests on his cheek, and kisses it. He sighs. "All I've ever wanted to do was to be with you" he says simply, and Joey feels a prick of tears in her eyes. "Even more than being a movie director?" she teases lightly, but her voice is a little husky with emotion at his words.. "Even more than writing? Even more than… Speilberg?" and she lowers her voice with drama on the last word as if it has all import and meaning in the universe.

Dawson chuckles. "Well, it's a hard decision, and kind of a toss-up, really" he teases "but yes, I'd still have to go with you". He gives her a warm smile and before you know it both their faces soften and it seems past the time for teasing. Their gazes lock and they both feel the power of this shared look. She searches his eyes a little, like she used to do in the old days, but just a little. Miss Josephine Potter has found most of what she has been looking for in her life, and she doesn't have to search far to find what she wants now.

"I love you" finally he says to her, softly, as if the words are so powerful that to speak them aloud could shake the foundations of the cozy room. "I love you too" she breaths her reply. They had always loved each other, even when at times they hadn't, but it was a word with many meanings.

It is so quiet in the room that you could here a pin drop, only the sound of their quickened breaths wooshing gently in the stillness. Dawson leans over, tentatively, unsure of what her response will be, and kisses her deliberately and softly, but with an underlying passion, so that she knows that he didn't mean 'I love you' in a platonic friendship sort of way, no matter how close a friends they are. He is ready for her to push him away or end the kiss, because he knows perhaps he has gone too far, but her looks at him seemed inviting and after all it was Joey and not some stranger off the street.

But she doesn't stop the kiss or pull back or make excuses or start a fight. She doesn't run. Instead, she puts her hand behind his neck and pulls him a little closer into the kiss, parting her lips just a little to his, inviting and warm and definitely wanting more.

Dawson feels his heart leap in his chest and the parts that let him indubitably know he is a man leap as well. He moves closer to Joey, along side her and then slightly over her as his hand finds its way under her top to rest on her stomach, and their kiss deepens. He pulls away just a moment to catch his breath and to look her deep in the eyes. She has so many times given him mixed messages and he does not want to go forward any longer if it is only to end with her pulling away or leaving upset or with some other unsuspected or unknown transgression on his part. He wants the truth and honesty and no games. Her face is soft and flushed and he can see too the gleam of desire in her eyes and feel the beginning of that special tension in her body that can only be released in passion fulfilled.

"Are you sure?" he asks her with a voice sweetly gruff, knowing somehow that this isn't just about a quick roll in the hay or a one-night stand, or a repeat performance to happen only once before they settle into friendship once again. A corny line pops into his head. His lips twist a little in ironic amusement, knowing that he will say the corny line and embarrass himself a little, the way he always has around her. He would never dare to be so cheesy with someone else. But he can't help himself.

"Sometimes the body makes a promise the heart has to keep…..or something like that.." he says with a little wry amusement, almost apologetically, with a quirk of a grin on his face.

"Or something like that…." Joey murmurs softly, a happy and contented look on her face. She runs her hands over his face and down his neck and chest as he leans over her.

"I'll take my chances" she states with a smile playing on her lips. "I promise" she whispers before she reaches up to him to bring his face down to hers and they melt into a deep and loving and forever-and-always kiss.

December, 2003

By Moonshadow