Never Good at Goodbye

by Fan of Mikey

They don't know that your one wish for all of them is to cling to one another.

Title: Never Good at Goodbye
Rating: pg13
Fandom: Dawson's Creek
Disclaimer: All characters, settings and recognizable themes belong to Kevin Williamson, the WB and others. I am in no way earning money or other profit from this fanfic.
Prompt: 100situations on livejournal(dot)com
Char/Pair: Jen Lindley, others in passing
Spoilers: For series finale
W/C: 583
Warnings: None
Summary: They don't know that your one wish for all of them is to cling to one another.

You never were good with goodbye. You never really had to say it before, right? Your grandfather slipped away before you had the chance to say a proper hello and Abby... well you were far too angry (drunk) to do much of anything when Abby died but scream obscenities into the creek that killed her. And now, you're the one everybody is fidgeting around, the one who isn't meeting their gaze when you look at them and you wish you could just get it out of the way already. Death is final but goodbye is forever.

You've been preparing for this moment nearly two years now. You've been living and dying for almost two years and you think maybe that should cause some kind of rip in the space-time continuum or create a paradox or something, because how can someone be both alive and dead at the same time without the universe getting fucked over by it? You don't know and you sure as Hell don't have the time to figure it out.

You watch your friends tap-dance around each other and mope like they're the ones with the heart that stopped working after twenty-five short years and if you could you'd get out of bed and kick all their asses into next Tuesday for it. Can't they see what they're losing by pretending everything's okay? You're screaming at them in your head to just wake the fuck up already before there's nothin' left but a bunch of stones all lined up like ducks in a row. You begin, you end, but what will your epitaph say? Here lies my soul mate, too bad I didn't get to tell them? Blah blah shut the fuck up about soul mates already blah. You don't say anything though, just manage a weak smile when they come in. But it's there in your eyes. Let her go, Choose, and Hold on as tight as you can.

They don't know that your one wish for all of them is to cling to one another. That as selfish and cruel as it sounds, you'd trade places with anyone o them because now? now you understand what it means to really live and all that ass-kicking and name taking you did when you were well? doesn't mean shit now. And you want them to know that as fiercely as you've ever wanted anything, but you have no way of making them understand because the words just won't come. You wish you had Dawson's vocabulary or Joey's ability to sting you with a gaze or Pacey's action. But you're just Jen, and you've never been good with goodbye.

Take care of Amy, you think, because she's just a baby who needs the momma she can't have. Take care of Grams, because she's going to need someone other than God to talk to. And take care of each other, because you're all you've ever had. More time, that's all you want, more time. And it isn't fair that you don't get it and is this punishment for all your sins? Probably, you think.

They don't know that your dying wish is for them to always be happy and smiling and loving. That even when you were an outsider and jealous you still loved them. They think they're the ones that are losing because you're dying, but they don't know. That it's you. That your heart may literally be broken, but it's the goodbye that's killing you.