Spoilers: None
They sat in the car in the driveway in front of the house.
"Jen, talk her into coming back." Pacey turned off the ignition, and sat back in his seat. "Talk her into coming back to Capeside. She can be with you and Grams…people who actually care about her."
Jen smiled.
"She wouldn't…"
"Why not?"
"It's just not her."
"But if she did, she'd be happier. She'd be so much happier…and you'd be happier too. You'd finally have a mother again."
Jen felt a lump rise in her throat. She looked longingly out into space, wondering 'what if'…
"Pacey…I wish…"
"We miss you, Jen," Pacey said softly. "Everybody does." He swallowed hard, shaking his head. "It's not the same without you around… There's no one for Dawson to take advice from… There's no one to explain to Andie and Jo the powers of womanhood."
Jen laughed.
"And there's no one there for Jack…at all." His voice grew serious, and Jen found another lump rising in her throat. Pacey stared at her sadly. "Andie's there, of course…but as his sister, and I'm there to pal around on the weekends, but…there's no 'you'. You and Jack were…and I hate to use the dreaded "S" word, but you two were practically soul mates, and I can see it in his eyes, when something comes up, you're not there, and he's just so sad…"
Jen started to cry silently.
"I miss you, too," Pacey said, swallowing hard and staring at her with bright blue eyes. He reached down and squeezed her hand. "I just miss talking to you…seeing you…making casual sex pacts with you."
Jen looked at him and smiled. Pacey always had a way of making people laugh, even amidst the biggest of tragedies, he was always there…
Jen wiped the tears back from her cheeks and sighed.
"Come on, Jen. Come on. Come home, to Capeside."
Everything ever said by Pacey Witter sounded so easy and simple. When Pacey Witter spoke, there wasn't anything that couldn't be done.
"Get her to come back."
"I'll try."
"Promise?"
"I do. I'll try."
I want you to call me. For anything, you call me… I mean it."
"Thank you."
Jen stepped forward and hugged Pacey one last time before the weekend was over, before he and Jack returned back to Capeside, and before Jen was left alone again.
Pacey took a step back and stared at her on her porch. Jen kept smiling, even though her heart was breaking, knowing that he and Jack would be leaving without her, knowing that she wouldn't be going home.
"Tell Jack goodbye for me." She said.
"I will."
"Tell him I'm sorry for letting him get that messed up…I shouldn't have let him… I mean, he… He had no idea—"
"Jen," Pacey said, smiling slightly. "I don't think Jack blames you. And I don't think he regrets it all that much."
"You're right." Jen laughed. "Well… Just tell him I love him, and tell him to call me."
"I will."
"And Pacey…" She smiled. "You call me too."
"You can bet on it."
He didn't want to leave.
"Jen?"
"Yeah?"
"Can we come up next weekend?"
Jen's eyes brightened.
"You want to come up?"
"Yeah…if that's okay with you, I mean."
"Of course it's okay!" She gushed. "I'd love that."
"Okay," He said, beaming. "Jo is busy with the B&B, Dawson's working on some picture taking rant, and Andie's studying her ass off to get into Harvard… It might just be me and Jack."
"That would be perfect."
"K."
Pacey moved towards her again, and to her surprise, he leaned down and brushed his lips against her cheek.
"So, next week then."
"Give my love to everyone."
"I will."
Jen watched him bound down the steps and climb into Jack's car. Jen smiled after him from her porch and waived as he pulled away.
Jen watched him go, and stood there for a moment longer. It was getting late.
She turned towards the front door, and went inside.
"Mom? I'm home," She called out as she ascended the wide banister staircase.
The house was dark. No lights were on...just the last of the day's sunlight slipping through the windows.
"Mom?"
"Jen?"
"Yeah,"
"Come here."
Jen followed her mother's voice to her room.
A half hour later, Jen and her mother sat in their dining room at their long and ornate polished Mahogany table. The lights were still turned down and the room was silent except for the gentle scrape of silverware on the delicate porcelain of the expensive china's surface.
Jen's face was no longer red from a slap her mother had given her when she'd first gotten home late, and Jen wasn't really thinking about it anymore. She stared at her food, thinking about her friends…
"So, Jen…how was your date?"
"It wasn't a 'date'," Jen said in a low voice. "We're just friends."
"I remember John Witter…any outing with him was never just 'as friends'…"
Jen glared at her mother, then looked back to her food.
"Well, Pacey and I are just friends."
"Well, he's a charming young man…how did it go anyway?" Helen took a long sip of her wine.
"It was fun." Jen said simply, lifting her crystal glass to her lips to sip her mineral water. Perrier. She hated Perrier. She didn't know why her mother spent so much money on mineral water when you could buy drinking water by the gallon for ninety-nine cents…
"You looked like you had fun," Helen smiled. "I haven't seen you smile in weeks…"
Jen's face dropped as she thought to herself, 'That's because of you,'
"…and a young man appears at our door, taking you to lunch. I just can't help but sense romance in the air."
"We're just friends," Jen repeated.
"Close, I'd imagine…he makes you happy."
"Yes, we're close, and yes, he makes me happy."
"Then that's all that matters."
Helen took up her wine glass again, staring over it's rim at her daughter, but she didn't sip.
Jennifer was growing into such a beautiful woman…Helen hoped her daughter would make all the right choices in life. She didn't want her to end up as she had.
Three days had passed without incident, much to Jen's surprise. Her mother and she were getting along well, for their standards, and Jen started to let her guard down. On the fourth day, Jen woke up to her mother screaming at one of the housekeepers for breaking a vase. She knew in her heart that this would lead to some sort of displaced reprimand later, and she tried to ready herself for it.
Jen didn't even want to get out of bed that day. But she did.
And the reprimand came.
And later that night, after it was all over, Jen stood at the bathroom sink wiping the blood from her lip, and staring at herself in the mirror.
"You are so stupid," She said in a trembling whisper. She slapped the glass hard, but not hard enough to crack it. "YOU ARE SO STUPID!" She screamed. She dropped back, against the wall and slid to the floor, trembling violently, but not crying.
Jen knew she shouldn't have said anything when the first slap came. But she was angry, and it slipped out. It just infuriated her mother more. She wanted to hit back so badly. But she couldn't hit her mother…she could never hurt her mother that way.
Jen was angry with her father for hitting her mother. It was all his fault.
Jen wished that her mother had never married her father, even knowing that that would mean she would never have been born. She'd easily agree to cease to exist if that meant that her mother would have never had to experience this… 'No one should have to experience this', she thought, still thinking of her mother.
She finally rose and finished cleaning up, and after tucking her mother into bed, she decided she needed to hear a familiar voice.
"Pacey?"
"Hey, how ya doing?"
"Fine," her voice cracked.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," She said, blaming it on the reception in the phone line. "I just needed to hear your voice."
"Oh?"
"Yeah…" Jen thought quickly. "I'm feeling homesick again."
"That's because you need to come home," Pacey smiled.
Jen smiled too.
