The Ashes Left Behind

Yikes, was not expecting all the Joey hate on the last chapter. Hope this one clears things up a bit. Thanks, as always, to Jaycie Victory for her editing and support.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Pacey thought he couldn't possibly feel any worse. Then he came home, walked into the living room and saw his mother. Between school, sleep, their varying work schedules, and working on his boat, he'd successfully avoided her since his birthday. But there she was, sitting on the sofa, drinking coffee. No Doug, no Kerry, not even one of Kerry's little terrors to serve as a distraction.

"Hey, Ma," he said wearily, heading straight for the stairs. A shower and sleep, that was all he wanted.

"Where were you all night? Out with that Potter girl, I assume?"

"Don't even start that today. I'm not in the mood."

He managed two steps up the stairs before Ma's voice stopped him. "Pacey Witter, you don't tell your mother what to do. You've been raised better than that. Now, come sit down right here. We need to have a chat."

For a moment, Pacey considered ignoring her and going upstairs anyway. But she'd probably call Doug and have him handcuff Pacey to the couch until she'd had her say. "Yes, ma'am." He trudged to the couch on leaden legs. It didn't really matter what poison Ma spewed, after all. There was nothing left in him for her to hurt. He fell into Pop's recliner across from her, tipping his head back to rest on the top of it. "What now?"

"Mike Potter was trash. He was born trash, grew up trash, and died as trash."

"I'm aware of the general consensus." Pacey remembered telling Pop that Mike Potter was a better father than him. They were among the last words he ever spoke to the man. He wished he could have them unsaid, and not because of the black eye he'd sported for a week. After much reflection, he had decided John Witter and Mike Potter were equally, if differently, flawed.

"He's the reason your father died."

Pacey didn't say anything. Ma was more right than not, but, in spite of everything, he refused to join the ranks of the stone throwers.

"I was so angry about that—I'm still angry about that—but it wasn't right to take that anger out on Josie."

"Joey," Pacey corrected automatically. He opened his eyes and lowered his head, staring at his mother in amazement. Was she actually apologizing? Not to the right person, but still...

"Joey," she agreed, though her mouth pursed in distaste. "Her father was trash, but she's not. She couldn't be and love my boy so well."

"What!?"

"I tried everything I could to send that girl packing, and she just held on tighter."

Pacey's worldview tipped on its head. "So that comprehensive recital of my misdeeds the other night, you were trying to protect me?"

Ma nodded, as if that were obvious. "I showed her the very worst of you, and in return she gave me your very best." Her expression turned mildly admonitory. "How come I had never heard any of those stories, sweetie? You should have told us."

Pacey choked back a bitter laugh. He could have told his parents he'd rescued orphans and kittens from a sinking ship, and they'd have yelled at him for getting his clothes wet. But she was trying now. In her own, odd, ineffective way, she was trying. "I don't know. Guess it never came up."

"Well, I hope you'll let me in more in future. And you should bring your...Joey around more often. But we need to talk about these overnights of yours. I don't know how much your father talked to you about, about sex," she whispered the word. "But you're only seventeen years old. I won't have you getting some girl—any girl—pregnant, you hear me?"

At that, Pacey did laugh. Where had this concern been a year and a half ago when he'd been fucking his teacher? He wondered what Ma would do if he told her all he knew of sex, he'd learned from Miss Jacobs.

"Pacey Witter, this is no joke! Abstinence is best, but if you cannot control yourself, here." She pulled a box of Trojans out from under a throw pillow and flung them on the coffee table between them. "And Joanna should go on the pill."

He gritted his teeth against the humiliation of his mother giving him condoms. "I know about safe sex, Ma, and I can buy my own condoms." Pacey could maybe have bypassed this conversation by explaining the unlikelihood of his ever having sex with Joey, but that was a can of worms he had no intention of opening right now. Especially with his mother.

"Well, take them anyway." She made a shooing motion toward the box, as if it was offensive to her. "And put them somewhere Bobby and Steven won't find them."

"Yes, Ma." Pacey pocketed the condoms, mostly because it gave him an excuse to stand and cut this discussion short. "I'm gonna go shower, if that's okay."

She waved him off, no doubt as eager as he was to be done with this.

Pacey headed for the shower, thinking bemusedly of his mother's explanation for his birthday roast. But his smile slipped when he considered her conclusion from that event. That Joey Potter was in love with him. He replayed Joey's actions from that night as he stepped under the spray. How she'd clung to his hand, how she'd defended him at every turn, how she'd remembered details about his life even Pacey had forgotten. How she'd looked at him and how she'd kissed him. Even knowing his mother was dead wrong, he couldn't call her crazy for making the assumption.

Joey doesn't love me, he reminded himself viciously as he toweled off. Right now, he wasn't even sure she liked him all that much. She couldn't, or she wouldn't be out with that Bryan guy.

Pacey's first plan had been to fall into bed and seek oblivion in unconsciousness. But now his brain was working, contradictory thoughts warring as he tried to decipher the enigma which was Joey Potter. He wouldn't be able to sleep; he had to do something, anything. He grabbed old jeans and a ratty blue sweater. There was one place he could go where there was no end of somethings to do.

He tried not to think about her as he drove to the junkyard. But once he stood in front of his unnamed boat, it became impossible to keep her out. She bought him a boat, well, convinced other people to buy him a boat. She bought him a boat, and defended him to his family, and held him in her arms when he sobbed like a baby. The girl who'd done all that, the one who didn't want to move away and leave him, who painted him the raft, who had grieved and healed with him the last seven months, she cared.

Maybe she didn't, or couldn't, love him the way he wanted her to. But he couldn't convince himself Joey was an unfeeling monster trying to hurt him.

And Bryan? asked an insidious little voice.

Pacey frowned, as he grabbed some sandpaper and went to work. Maybe skating with Bryan was to Joey what working on the boat was to him, a distraction, a way to stay busy. Maybe she'd been so hurt by Pacey's drunken tirade at the party she'd agreed to spite him. Maybe it was something else entirely. But he couldn't know unless he asked her, and he hadn't. He had frozen her out and pretended it was something she'd done to him.

On the heels of one painful apology to Joey, Pacey was starting to think he owed her another.

But Joey's mixed signals didn't start with Bryan. She'd kissed him in that closet, kissed him like she never intended to stop. Twined herself about him as tightly as a second skin. Maybe some girls got so lost in the moment, in the game, they would be that eager with anyone. But not Joey. The way she'd said his name...she had known it was Pacey with her, and she'd wanted it to be him.

The proverbial cold bucket of water that was the door opening had led to Joey running. Joey always ran. When life got too difficult, when she was afraid of being wounded, Joey—by her own admission—ran. She'd even run from Dawson a time or three.

"Because of Dawson!" she'd hurled at him. Pacey thought he'd understood what she meant, but was he right? And even if he was, so what?

Joey didn't love him as much as she'd loved Dawson. But he'd never in his wildest dreams imagined she could. He'd played second best to Dawson in life; would it be so hard to do so now that Dawson was dead? Let Joey keep the Dawson shrine burning in her heart. Pacey wouldn't compete with his friend's ghost. He could be content with whatever love she had left to give.

He ignored the churning in his gut. It was indigestion, not jealousy.

Pacey pressed hard against the hull, taking satisfaction in each additional inch of flecked off paint. Maybe that was what Joey had meant. Maybe Joey, who doubted her worth to begin with, didn't think what remained of her heart would be enough for Pacey. He would convince her it was. If it wasn't too late. If he hadn't made too big a mess of things.

If he wasn't just constructing another dream castle of deluded hope and unfounded wishes...

The crunch of footsteps on gravel made him turn. As if summoned from his fantasies, there she stood. Protected from the cold by a thick black jacket and her red hat and scarf, Joey stopped walking once Pacey spotted her. Gloved hands wrapped defensively around her waist. "Hey," was all she said.

"Hey," he returned and then, before his brain could catch up with his mouth, added, "Aren't you supposed to be skating right about now?" Idiot. Self-sabotaging idiot.

"Yeah. I got halfway there and told Bryan I'd remembered a prior commitment and had him drop me here instead."

"What if I hadn't been here?"

"Then I'd have had a long, cold walk home, and no one but myself to blame." She looked so contrite, so afraid of being rejected.

The last vestiges of Pacey's anger melted away. He held out a fresh piece of sandpaper. "As long as you're here, I might as well put you to work."

Joey breathed a sigh of relief, hands unwinding as she reached to accept it. "You'll find I'm a poor hand. Mutinous and prone to complaints."

"True, but the wages fall within my price range."

"I'm getting paid for this?"

"God, no. That's what I meant, Potter."


One step forward, two steps back. That was always the way with Joey.

After the disastrous party, they slipped back into their old routine. Pacey drove her to school; they did homework together. Weekend runs were replaced by work on the boat.

But he hadn't heard the last of Bryan. The persistent bastard managed to commandeer Joey's time every Saturday night thereafter.

Pacey didn't mean to let this détente drag on indefinitely. Every time he was away from her, he rehearsed speeches in his head. Wordy declarations of love. Subtle, prying questions about how she felt. Rash, all-or-nothing ultimatums. Every time he was near her, the words deserted him, as he was swallowed whole by the fear of losing her.

So Joey got what she'd asked for. If Pacey hadn't made any effort to forget what happened in that closet, his silence on the subject tacitly affirmed her prohibition. Making no attempt to repeat the incident allowed Joey to relax and trust herself with him again. But Pacey couldn't relax, didn't trust himself at all, knew it was a matter of time before he snapped.

Valentine's Day was made to test him. Stupid ass holiday invented by greeting card companies to link love and materialism. Yet he couldn't let it go by without doing anything for her. He got her a bouquet of pink roses, after the florist assured him they meant only friendship. But then he got scared Joey would feel singled out, so he bought pink roses for Jen and Andie, too. The girls were pleased with his offering when he handed them out before school that Friday morning. Pacey spent hours kicking himself for not adding a red rose or something else distinctive to Joey's.

Their friends were sickeningly excited about the holiday. Jen was going out with Eric, Jack with Ben, and Mark was traveling down to spend the weekend with Andie.

"I suppose you'll be keeping company with the future Fortune 500?" Pacey asked Joey at lunch. The question seemed safer surrounded by their friends, though he was not immune to the looks which passed among them.

"Actually, no," Joey said, not looking up from her lunch tray. "Bryan agreed months ago to chaperon his little sister's middle school dance, so we're going out tomorrow night instead."

"Probably for the best," Jack said. "Valentine's Day is a lot of pressure for a new relationship. You don't want to rush into anything."

Andie smiled at her brother. "Aww, look at you. Got your first boyfriend, and suddenly you're the love expert."

"Nah, I was quoting one of Jen's many conflicting arguments as she talks herself into and out of her date tonight."

Jen flipped the bird at Jack, before eyeing Joey speculatively. "So what are you doing tonight? Watching Alexander?"

"Nope. I offered, but Bodie has to work tonight, so he's taking Bessie out to lunch instead. But you are forbidden from using my dateless state as an excuse for bailing on Eric."

"Hadn't crossed my mind," Jen lied as her shoulders slumped.

"So just another Friday night?" Pacey asked, trying to sound casual, sure the whole senior class could hear the thudding of his heart.

"As the god of lonely souls intended." Joey glanced up at him, looking a little scared, a little curious. "Why? Did you have something in mind?"

"Well, I hear Matt Caufield is throwing a raging anti-Valentine's Day party. Or," he rushed on in the face of Joey's scowl, "since I don't work tonight, we could get a jump start on homework. Maybe some SAT prep if we're feeling crazy."

They had entered SAT season, and the pressure made PSATs a fond and distant memory. All of them, not just Joey and Andie, had motives to excel, including—much to his surprise—Pacey himself. It wasn't about proving himself to Andie or Joey this time, or even about proving his family wrong. He wanted to see, once and for all, if he was more than the idiot he'd spent most of his life believing he was.

His suggestion was met with groans from their assembled friends—Jack chucked a celery stick at him—but Joey nodded approval, her nervousness dissolving into a warm smile. "Sounds like a plan."

After lunch, they split off from the others and headed for chemistry. Joey made a deliberate effort to ignore the unprecedented amount of lip-lockage going on in the halls around them. Pacey fought down the urge to push Joey up against a locker and join the crowd. Class was interrupted by Barbara Johns receiving a delivery of four dozen red roses from her overcompensating boyfriend.

The thought continued to needle Pacey that he should have got Joey something better, something personal. They went their separate ways after chem class, Joey to AP English, Pacey usually to Spanish. Today, he skipped and headed downtown. He bypassed the florist and the candy store and targeted the row of seaside gift shops which did most of their business during the summer tourist season, supplemented by a flow of sheepish, red-faced men on days like today.

Joey didn't need a teddy bear, a seashell-shaped coaster set, or anything with Capeside, Mass. emblazoned on the front. She'd throw up on him if he bought her a pillow embroidered Live, Laugh, Love. Pacey couldn't afford diamonds, and they wouldn't suit Joey, anyway.

In the third store, on the verge of admitting defeat, Pacey spotted it. A black and silver beaded necklace, a close cousin to her mother's bracelet. Joey had found the bracelet when they cleaned out the attic and had worn it every day since. The saleslady gift-wrapped the necklace for him, a little frillier than he'd have liked, but what the hell? It was Valentine's Day.

Pacey made it back to school just in time for his last class. He slid into his seat in front of the computer between Jen and Andie.

"Where have you been?" Andie asked after Miss Boswell gave them their assignment and left them to it. "Jack said you weren't in Spanish."

"Uh, had an errand I had to run."

Jen snorted. "An errand that has you reeking of potpourri and with curled ribbon trailing out your pocket. Somebody's been shopping."

Pacey pushed the present deeper into his pocket. He tried to focus on the PowerPoint he was supposed to prepare.

"Leave him alone, Jen," Andie chided. "You promised your matchmaking days were behind you, remember?"

"What?" Jen said with an air of aggrieved innocence. "I merely pointed out our friend has been shopping. Perhaps that gift is for his mother. Or Doug. You're the one who's reading into things."

Andie giggled. "Last Valentine's Day, Pacey got me roses, chocolates, a giant card, hair clips, and a truly noxious perfume."

Pacey blushed at his own naive eagerness. "You said you liked it," he muttered.

"Of course I did," she soothed. "Just as I'm sure Joey will love whatever eleventh hour trinket you got her."

"Hey!"

"What? You're a pro at the grand gesture, Pacey, but not so big on the planning ahead."

"Speaking of planning," Jen threw in, "make sure you go prepared. No glove, no love."

They were both enjoying his misery far too much. Fuck Off he wrote for their benefit on his next slide.

Of course that happened to be when Miss Boswell walked by to check on his progress. She derailed Pacey's afternoon by sending him to detention. Andie gave Joey a ride to Mrs. Ryan's while Pacey caught up on his missed Spanish under the librarian's baleful eye.

It was after six when he was finally released, which meant Bessie was home and the Potters were sitting down to supper when he arrived. Bessie took his detention in stride but was appalled by their plans for the evening. "Go out. Be young. Homework will still be here tomorrow."

"Matt Caufield's?" Pacey suggested to Joey.

"I'd rather walk on a bed of rusty nails and then eat it. We could work on your boat. I've got something to give you, anyway."

Surprised, Pacey grinned. "Yeah? I've got something for you, too, Potter."

Joey flushed, biting her lip. "I meant for the boat. Not for the...day."

"I think you two should stop gabbing and get out of here," Bessie scolded.

Joey grabbed a long, thin package wrapped in brown paper from the foot of her easel. She and Pacey both bundled up warm to brave the winter night.

"Have fun," Bessie called after them. Thinking better of it, she added, "Legal, age-appropriate fun."

"What was that last bit?" Pacey teased from the jeep. "Couldn't hear you." He drove away from Bessie's further admonitions.

"So what's my present?" he demanded as he drove across town to the marina junkyard.

Joey clicked her tongue. "You're still a five-year-old at heart, aren't you, Pace? Gimme, gimme. Whatever happened to the thrill of anticipation?"

"Overrated. Gimme. Please."

"Well, since you said please..." He heard the smile in her voice. "It occurred to me that she has gone too long without a name. Rather than continue to fight about it, I took the initiative and made a plaque." Joey tapped the parcel in her lap. The paper rustled.

"Oh God, Potter, it's a pun, isn't it?"

Joey giggled. "No puns, I promise. I'll show you when we get there."

With such incentive, it didn't take Pacey long to reach their destination. He had rigged up a generator and lights a few weeks ago, to allow him to work into the winter nights. He turned them on and helped Joey up into the boat. The presentation should happen there, though he found himself unaccountably nervous. What if he hated the name Joey picked?

A similar thought must have occurred to her. She bit her lip, fingering the parcel hesitantly. "If you don't like it, that's okay. It's your boat; you should name her."

"Quit stalling, Potter." He snatched the present from her hands. Turning his back on her attempts to reclaim it, Pacey tore off the paper. Against a dark purple, almost black background, Joey had painted Huckleberry Friend in white. In the bottom left-hand corner was a snoozing little boy, feet bare beneath too-short overalls, face shadowed by a wide-brimmed straw hat. In the upper right-hand corner gleamed a full, silvery moon.

"It's, uh, it's a double meaning. Or triple, I don't know. For our rafting joke, and for our friendship. It's also a song lyric."

Pacey could almost hear it, sung in a breathy, gentle voice. From some old movie, one of Doug's musicals, maybe? "What's the song?"

"'Moon River.'" When Pacey leered at her, Joey rushed on, "Don't even think about it. Mooning wasn't funny at thirteen, and the older you get, the more demented it seems."

"Okay," Pacey agreed, "though I maintain you never comprehended the beauty of a successful moon. Why the song?"

Joey pushed her hair behind her ears, eyes on the plaque she'd made. "It's about dreaming, about wanting what you know you can never have."

Pacey pulled freezing air between his teeth. He watched Joey Potter under the bare bulb light and the distant winter moon. "Well, that's certainly something I know a lot about."

"Me, too," Joey whispered.

He wished she'd look at him, confirm what he longed to believe—that she was talking about him. But that hope was ludicrous. He was hers for the taking and always had been. Joey meant Dawson and her mother and even getting out of this town, but not Pacey. Never Pacey.

"It's perfect, Jo," he said through a constricted throat. "Thank you. We should put it on her. I'll get the drill." He disembarked, cursing himself all the way to the shed for a fucking coward.

Joey helped him attach the plaque, and they both stood back to admire the Huckleberry Friend. A mountain of work awaited them, but she felt more complete, more real, with a name of her own.

"Just right," Joey said with satisfaction.

"Speaking of, I mean, it's not a 'speaking of,' well, we were speaking of it earlier, it's just...here." Pacey abandoned elusive speech to shove the tiny present in its gaudy red and white paper at Joey. "I didn't wrap it."

"That much is obvious." Joey's voice reflected her amusement. She unwrapped it slowly, peeling the tape instead of ripping the paper. When the necklace was at last revealed, the wrapping slipped from Joey's fingers onto the frozen ground. One hand fondled the bracelet around her wrist, reassuring Pacey he had been right about the match. Her fingers moved from the beads on her bracelet to those on the necklace, but she said not a word. In the uncertain light, her expression was indecipherable.

As the silence lengthened, Pacey shifted uncomfortably. "I, uh, thought it would go with...anyway, happy Valentine's Day, Potter."

He wished she would look at him. One look to tell him whether to throw himself at her feet or over a cliff.

"I'm getting cold," was all Joey said. She didn't look at him, but her voice trembled. "And it's pretty dark. Maybe you should take me home."

Pacey sagged in defeat. He kicked a clump of slushy snow at his feet. "Yeah, okay. Just let me shut everything down here."

Joey rushed to the Wagoneer while Pacey put away the drill and shut off the lights. Idiot. Moron. Why did he always have to push too far? He'd made her uncomfortable and scared her away, and he wasn't one iota closer to knowing how she felt about him.

Joey held her silence all the way to her house. For once, Pacey let her. He didn't know what to say. But before she exited the vehicle, she asked, "Want to come over and study tomorrow?"

"Can't. I've got work, and then you've got that date."

"Right. How about Sunday? We can't afford to fall behind at this point in the year," she added, as if she needed an excuse.

"Sunday's good."

"Great. Good. And...and thank you. For the necklace." Joey ran from the jeep without waiting for a reply.


Saturday was unbearable. Pacey spent it at work, ostensibly trying to study for his SATs, while really replaying everything he'd said and done the day before, wishing he could do it over and dreading Joey's upcoming date with Mr. Prep School. Unlike Carter and Blakenship, Bryan hadn't been cut loose after two dates or even three. Pacey found that worrisome.

Jen popped into Screen Play late in the afternoon.

Pacey forced a smile for her. "Hey, New York, how was the big night?"

"Considering I have nothing to compare it to, I think it went pretty well. No mind-altering substances were consumed, no declarations of undying love made, no bailing in the middle to spend the rest of the night with his other girlfriend. He didn't even stick me with the check." Jen's tone was as cynical as ever, but her glowing face revealed her happiness.

"Sounds like you caught a keeper for once, Lindley."

"Lucky for me Joey tossed him back, huh?" Jen's smile faded as she watched Pacey's reaction. "I'm guessing your night didn't proceed as well?"

Pacey shrugged. "Don't know what you mean. We were just hanging out. We named the boat."

"That's something." Jen Lindley was far too empathetic. The look on her face made him want to pour out all his troubles into her listening ears.

He resisted."So what can I help you with tonight?"

"Eric insists I have to see Point Break."

Pacey burst out laughing.

Jen rolled her eyes with an embarrassed shrug. "Yeah, I know. But what can I do? Have you seen the man smile?"

Pacey went in search of the Patrick Swayze flick about surfing bank robbers.

"Seriously, Pace," Jen said behind him, "inquiring minds want to know. When are you and Joey going to do something about all this sexual tension?"

He slammed the video on the counter between them. "The short answer to your question is never. The long answer is when only one person is feeling it, it's called pining, not tension."

Jen blinked up at him. "You can't seriously believe..." She sighed. "You do. Okay, I'm going to tell you something which skirts perilously close to a complete betrayal of the sisterhood, so if you pass it along, you are dead to me, got it?"

Bemused and intrigued, Pacey nodded. "Loud and clear."

"Joey's name wasn't in the bowl."

"What?"

"She never put her name in the bowl. I had to keep track of the names I substituted, so I could exchange them later. But I went through the whole bowl and never found Joey's."

Pacey shook his head to clear it of the ecstatic buzz which made it difficult to think. "That doesn't necessarily mean...maybe she didn't want to cause a scene or embarrass you."

Jen snorted. "This would be the same Joey Potter who assaulted a boy in the lunch line and publicly asked if I was a virgin within seventy-two hours of meeting me?"

Despite himself, Pacey grinned, both at the memories and at the mounting proof that Joey had stepped into that closet because she'd wanted to. His first instinct—to desert the store and not stop running until Joey was in his arms—was quashed by the remembrance that even now she was heading off on her date. And perhaps her willingness to step into the closet was less important than the words she'd spoken stepping out of it.

Reading Pacey's indecision on his face, Jen shook her head. "If that can't convince you to make a move, I give up."

As he rang up the movie for her, Pacey smiled. "You can give up if you want to, Lindley, but I'm not prepared to do that quite yet."


Pacey arrived at the Potters' house early enough Sunday morning to join them in Bodie's full spread breakfast. Bessie, Bodie, and the baby headed off afterwards. They were going to Hartford to discuss wedding plans with Bodie's family. A whole day with Joey all to himself suited Pacey fine.

Joey went right from a clean-up spent chattering about Bessie's approaching nuptials—the wedding was scheduled for the last weekend in April—to spreading out books and papers for homework. Pacey had no chance to raise a topic of his own. He couldn't decide if that was intentional on her part.

Joey dove deep into their work, but Pacey found concentration more difficult than usual in her presence. Her loose dark hair kept slipping into her face; over and over, she shoved it absentmindedly behind her ears. A tiny ink spot from a pen she fiddled with decorated her right cheekbone. Her voluminous gray sweater hid her curves, swallowed her hands down to her painted pink fingernails. Matching pink toes taunted him where they peeked out from under her slender legs, folded neatly criss-cross on her chair.

"Pace? Pacey, were you even listening to me?"

"No," Pacey answered, unwisely but honestly.

Joey glared at him. "And why not?"

He pushed a tendril of her hair behind her left ear then let his hand slip down to cradle her jaw. "No idea."

Joey pulled away, her chair scraping across the floor as she jumped to her feet. "Must be time for a break. You hungry?" She rummaged noisily through the pantry, despite the fact that they'd feasted two hours before.

Pacey watched her nervous movements and tried a different track. "So how'd your date go?"

Joey froze for only a moment, before pulling down a packet of licorice. "Fine. I, uh, I needed to talk to you about that." Avoiding his eyes, she turned to a row of drawers beside the sink. She shoved clutter around the top drawer a minute longer before pulling out a pair of scissors and snipping open the licorice bag.

"I'm listening," Pacey prompted when she didn't say more.

Joey twirled the red candy straw through her fingers without taking a bite. "Bryan's cousin Shannon is visiting next weekend, and he was hoping I had a friend we could double with."

"What!?"

Joey's cheeks were almost as red as the candy in her hand. "She doesn't like his friends, I guess. Bryan says it's not her, his friends are assholes. She's a year older than us, but I know older women don't bother you, and my only other friend is Jack, which doesn't work for obvious reasons. Look, I know it's sort of a weird request, but you haven't been on a date since Andie, and I thought...I just thought I'd ask." Joey looked like a strange species of turtle, trying to hide in her gray wool shell.

Hurt and confusion swirled inside Pacey, but they were drowned by an overpowering wave of frustration. "You want me to go out with another girl, sit and smile and talk to her, and ignore you across the table with another guy's hands on you?"

"I...I—yes." Joey leaned back against the sink, head hanging down as if only now recognizing the foolishness of her suggestion.

"No," Pacey said, clear and cold, which brought her eyes up to his. "I've done everything I can for you, Potter. I've looked after you and held you, watched your nephew and shared your bed. I've forgotten things you told me to forget—or at least made it so you could." Joey squirmed uncomfortably but stayed trapped within his focused gaze. "I've dreamed with you, and of you, and for you, but you've finally found it."

"Found what?" she squeaked.

"My breaking point." Pacey walked to her, took her face in his hands and tilted it up toward his. He saw in her hooded eyes—half-terrified and half-willing—that she expected him to kiss her. But he didn't.

"I know you'll never love me the way you love Dawson." Joey jumped, eyes round as saucers. "But I think I could make you happy, happier than Bryan, anyway, or Blakenship, or some other jackass who doesn't even know you. If you'd just let me try." He let her head drop back down and brushed the lightest of kisses against her brow. "Please, Potter, let me try."

Joey's body trembled. But when Pacey put his arms around her, she shook her head and pushed him away. "You don't get it. You just don't get it."

"Then explain it to me," he pleaded.

Joey stepped away from him, put the table between them. She looked down at the licorice in her hands and set it on the table, wiping empty, nervous fingers against her black leggings. "My whole life, I was so sure—everyone was so sure—I knew who I was supposed to be with. That last year, people kept throwing around the word soulmate, and I didn't even know what it meant, except that Dawson and I were bound to be in love forever." She frowned, twisting and untwisting the hem of her over-sized sweater. "After...when he was gone...it was one of the few thoughts which comforted me. However much he'd missed in life, however badly I'd screwed up, at least Dawson knew love before he died. Bessie, Jen, Jack, even Mitch, all told me the same thing—Dawson found love, found his soulmate. As if that was some accomplishment to hold against the movies he didn't make, the children he didn't have, the life he didn't live." Tears rolled unchecked down Joey's cheeks. She looked at Pacey as if he had the answer to a question she had not asked. "I can't take that away from him, Pacey. I can't."

"I'm not asking you to. I told you, Jo, I'm okay with being the runner-up. Given my life, second best is almost as good as a win." He smiled, trying to coax one from her.

Instead, she released a choked sob, shaking her head violently. "You still don't..." Joey took a deep, unsteady breath, scrubbed her face, and went on with more control. "The way I feel when you touch me, like my whole body is a live wire, Dawson never made me feel like that. When you kiss me and I never want you to stop, Dawson never made me feel like that. When I'm in your arms and it's never close enough, Dawson didn't make me feel like that, either. And I tell myself and tell myself that it's a physical response, that it's not surprising, given your," Joey flushed to the roots of her hair, "experience, while Dawson and I were total innocents."

Pacey tried to focus, to follow her point—which seemed to involve betrayal and pain—but it was difficult while hearing from her own lips that she wanted him like that. "So we have chemistry. It's not the end of the world." He took a step toward her. She stepped away, grabbing on to one of the kitchen chairs like a shield. Pacey stopped and added softly, "It doesn't mean you didn't love him."

Joey flinched. "The hormonal excuse is a good one. It works for me a lot of the time. Except when you're reading me a book, or playing with Alexander, or, or giving me a train ticket, or a dozen other times in any given day when I'm struck again by the incontrovertible idea that you're the best person I've ever known."

Pacey felt a clamp tighten around his chest cavity cutting off oxygen, pincers at his heart needling him to believe the impossible. "So...what are you saying here, Jo?"

"I'm saying I can't, Pacey. However I, however I feel for you," her voice broke on those words, and Pacey knew—he knew—how she felt, "it doesn't matter. It can't matter. It's all I can give him now."

Pacey finally understood the emotions which made Joey pull him close and the twisted reasoning which made her push him away. To Joey, to love someone more than she loved Dawson—Christ, she loved him—was a betrayal as immense as if she'd never loved him at all. He wanted to pull her close, kiss her deep, bask in that love. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled, until her deluded ideas about love fell right out of that brilliant brain of hers. And, just to confuse matters further, he wanted to go with her to Dawson's grave, confess their sin, and beg for punishment.

Instead, he stood very still and asked clarification on one final, nagging point. "And Bryan?"

Joey shrugged deeper into her giant shirt. "He doesn't make me feel anything, so he can't harm Dawson. And he keeps—well, he was supposed to keep—you at a distance."

"And that's where you want me? At a distance?"

"It's not what I want. None of it is what I want. But it's what's right. Can't you see that?"

"I can, yeah. I can see a lot of other things, too, including the flaw in your logic."

Joey frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You say you can't be with me because you love me more than Dawson, and you can't betray him like that. Ipso facto, you're prioritizing your love for Dawson over your love for me, and, thus, you love him more."

"That...that makes sense." Joey seemed pleased by Pacey's words, pleased in a way which annoyed him, as if he'd confirmed she was doing the right thing.

"But all of that is predicated on the insane notion that love is a matter of more or less, and not something you can feel for more than one person, which is bullshit."

Joey's expression turned mulish, but Pacey went on without letting her object. "And one more reality you should factor into your calculations," Pacey said, leaning over the table into her space. "I'm in love with you, Potter, and, best friend or not, I have no intention of giving you up to a ghost."

Joey's breath hitched.