"What do you mean, we have to watch it. Don't you already pretty much know what happens?"
Joey looked up, glaring at her boyfriend.
"I mean we have to watch it! We don't necessarily know what happens."
Pacey sighed and looked at the now blank television screen. For the first time in a year, the latest episode of the Creek conflicted with the football game, and he had no intention of missing it.
"Jo, it's the second finale. That's what, the end of sophomore year? Sammy breaks up with Petey for the second time because he sold out her father, and Colby is all bummed out because his girlfriend's gone for the summer. I could probably recite it for you if you wanted."
"She breaks up with Colby. Dawson's Colby, you're Petey."
Pacey held up his hands in mock defense.
"Look, I'm proud of the guy. He's finally making his life work out. That's great, but I'm sure he won't mind if we miss this one."
Joey continued to glare at him.
"She's not dating Petey. Don't you watch it?" she asked, storming off into their bedroom. Pacey sighed, watching her go.
"Yeah, I know. And I'm sure Sammy never will be," he said, turning off the television as the theme music played and Dawson's name appeared on screen.
Joey sighed as her on screen portrayer, Sammy, ran down a dock and toward a blonde figure rigging up a sailboat. She turned her eyes away as Sammy declared her love to Colby once more.
She was beginning to see Pacey's point. What had started out as cute and quite possibly therapeutic was not becoming somewhat obsessive for Dawson.
Cringing, she turned off the television as Sammy and Colby kissed aboard the sailboat and sailed away into the sunset.
As if Dawson could ever spend a month on a sailboat.
A moment later, her husband of only six months walked into the room. She suspected that he'd planned his outing around the finale of the Creek, but she hadn't asked.
After leaning down to gently kiss her lips, he glanced at the blank screen.
"So. What's the verdict? Did Sammy stay behind with her new fling Petey, or leave with her true love?" he asked sarcastically.
Pacey, without every saying it out loud, had obviously lost his taste for the show during the past year, when his character had lusted after the on screen Joey, only to have his heart broken by her.
Pacey respected that Dawson had had his heart broken, but also thought it was about time he got over it.
Sitting down next to Joey, he slung an arm around her shoulders and smiled sympathetically to her.
"Maybe he figures it makes a better story," she said hopefully. He kissed her hair comfortingly.
"Maybe he does," agreed Pacey.
"Maybe I shouldn't watch anymore," said Joey. Pacey nodded.
"Maybe you shouldn't."
And she didn't mean to, really she didn't.
But she eventually finds that it is not one of those shows she can just flip past.
It is the holiday season of the following year. Pacey was working late at the restaurant, and happened to be doing so on the night of the episode that she'd always subconsciously thought of as the one she'd been looking forward to the least.
She watched in fascination as her character and Dawson's kissed passionately and moved toward a nearby bed and fell onto it, snow falling outside.
Watching this made it obvious to her how very much Dawson thought about it all. He hadn't been there for all the scenes he inserted himself in to, but now she felt eerily as thought he may as well have been.
She watched until it faded to black.
She'd finally seen an ending, but she hadn't fully enjoyed an episode since the end of the first season, when her and Dawson had parted and it had all seemed so innocent.
"What are you watching?"
The next time it was three years later, and it was not her who was caught.
Pacey shrugged.
"It's the finale. Haven't you seen those commercials?"
Joey awkwardly shifted the child in her arms and went to sit beside her husband.
"Is Jen in it?" she asked awkwardly. The death of their friend had never ceased to be careful. In particular when Jack and Dougie visited with Amy, who looked more like her mother every day, and was more full of questions about her every day.
Pacey shook his head.
"No. I think it was too painful."
Passing their first child to him, Joey stared incredulously at the screen while Colby and Sammie exchanged vows and kissed in front of an assembled crowd.
"Apparently that's not the only thing that's too painful."
Glancing at the telephone with a half shaped desire to use it, Joey wondered if Dawson even cared that she was watching, that it would be so obvious to her what was going on in his head. Still, after all this time.
Though they'd all parted amicably, though Dawson at the time had claimed to fully support and understand her relationship with Pacey, they'd barely kept in touch at all. He was part of their old life, and was apparently stubbornly remaining there.
"It's not your fault," said Pacey consolingly. She nodded.
"Maybe this will be good for him. Maybe he can finally let it out," said Joey finally. Pacey nodded hesitantly.
"Don't let it get to you," he said.
She watched, smiling, as he picked up their baby and walked with her toward her room, speaking softly to her as he went.
She was absolutely certain she'd made the right choice. She'd been absolutely certain ever since she'd made the choice, even before then.
Following her husband into the nursery, she couldn't help but wish that Dawson could realize it, as well.