SUNRISE, Thrusday

Light poured into Joey's room throught the sheer curtains covering her window. She squinted at the bright invasion as her eye openned from a heavy alcohol induced sleep. She sighed remebering Jen's words from the night before: "Make a choice," Joey shrugged and wseriously considered throwing th blankets back over her head, but stopped as Alexander came running into her room. "Some guy's here to see you, Jo." Jo grimaced at the thought but throew her feet onto the floor and shoved up out of the bed.

"Who is it?" Alex Shrugged and walked out. Joey shrugged ans threw her robe on over the old fannel pants and cotton night shirt she'd slept in. She tossed her hair into a messy twist with a claw and brushed her teeth before going to find out who wanted to see her. She stepped through and closed the door behind her and heard the smile in his vocie before she saw it on his face. "I know those PJ's." He said sounding surprised and amused.

She looked down at the clouds and sheep dotting the light blue fannel pants and grinned. "Hey, Pace."

"I can't believe you still have those, Jo, you big sappy sentamentalist."

She shrugged and cocked her head to one side. "What're you doing here?"

"I was gonna see if you wanted to take a little drive with me, but clearly..." he trailed off looking at her current attire. "not."

"Where're we going?" She asked.

"To the farmer's market in Plymouth."

"Why?"

"Picking up the vegetables for the wedding...possibly the fish too, but I'm not sure about that yet."

"Give five minutes?"

Pacey shrugged a little shocked. "Take your time."

When joey came back in weaing her favorite pair of blasted jeans and a cap sleeved green top, Pacey was engaged in a game of Grand Theft Auto with Alexander. She rolled her eyes. "How bad is he kicking your butt?"

"It's not pretty." Pacey said lookingup with a grin. Once he'd gotten a good look at her, he'd had to look away a clear his throat in order to breath freely again. "Ready?" He asked already gettng up.

"Yeah. Thanks for entertaining him, Alex."

"Sure." The distracted voie answered without looking away from his video game.

Joey walked outside and shook her head at the slightly battered SUV in the driveway. "When did you get this?"

"I found it at this used car lot. It needed some work, but..." He trialed off with a shrug.

"And I'm the big sappy sentamentalist?" She raised brow at him as she climbed into the passenger side and buckeled her seat belt.

The pair were driving in campanionable silence toward the interestate when Joey looked over at him and sighed.

"What?" He asked.

"Nothing." She shook her hed and smiled sadly as they passed the sign stating Capeside 6 miles.



The day in Plymouth had started early, so when Pacey and Joey reached the Market it was swarmed with people buying, selling and some just wandered from booth to booth absorbing the atmosphere. Joey walked behind Pacey, her eyes going from one strange fruit or vegetable to another. She watched with interest as he thumped, poked, sniffed and rolled each item testing it's ripeness or quality. He was picky she smiled to herself. He had always been picky with food. He was less picky about money as his venture into the stock market had proven. She shook her head as he pulled wad of bills from his pocket to pay for one case of tiny corn and a case of what appeared to be cantaloupe. She wondered briefly if Jen was paying him or if this was his gift. Considering the amount she'd watched him pay for just two items on his massive list the meal would be an expensive gift. Over the next few hours she watched Pacey truly in his element, haggling over both price and quality of produce. She smiled at the little thing about him that had changed and the big things that hadn't changed. Clearly he'd honed his cooking abilities in his resturaunt. She wondered briefly where he'd come up with the money to start Witter's. The frown that crease her brow didn't escape Pacey's notice. He put down the tomatoes he was examining and raise an inquiring brow at her.

"Nothing. It's not my business." She shook her head at him.

"That's actually stopped you before?"

"No. I guess not. It's jut I haven't seen you in so long, Pace. I'm not quiet sure how far my boundaries go with you. You know I've never wanted to hurt you, Pace."

"I know that, Jo." He shrugged. 'It's probably why I've been able to forgive you."

"Forgive me?" She asked confused by the conversation's sudden turn.

"Eddie." he said with as little emotion as he could.

"Ah. Dawson too? What about Charlie?"

"No. You're not hearing me. I screwed things up for us in high school and I totally take the blame for it. College was..." He searched for a word. "Interesting for us both. You had the good professor, Charlie Todd—which I still don't understand—and Eddie." He sighed and looked back at the tomatoes. Picking severla boxes he waved the proprietor over and they discussed price for several minutes finally settling on a compromised cost.

"Pacey, the time we were together in college was so short. I thought we'd both agreed we were better off as friends. Eddie, he came back."

"Exactly, and you went back to him but he was already gone so I got to be your friend again."

"Pace."

"No. I don't want to do this. I just want to be your friend, and let you live your life." Mine be damned he thought remembering the way he'd seen her with Dawson. Jealousy is a dangerous thng that rears its head at the least convienient most unlikely of times.

"You know that I Eddie left me and I had decided to go to Paris."

"Old news, Potter." Pace said loading his crates of tomatoes onto his flat cart.

"What you don't know is that I went. I stood there at the base of the Eiffel Tower and said good-bye to the possibilities that life had offered. I got back to capeside three days later to find this amazing intership offer in my mail. I had no idea it was coming, Pace. I had no itention of leaving things unsettled between us. You and Dawson seemed to be getting along again, and as my presence has always cause a rift there I called you both and told you I was leaving." She sighed and looked at him. "Dawson, he chased me down at every oppurtunity. Made me feel totally guilty for seizing the oppurtunity. You, on the other hand never called, never wrote me back, never even tried to find me."

"There's no happy medium for us is there Jo?"

"Apparently not." She started to follow him when he stopped and whirled on her.

"Did you want me to,Jo?" She looked at him a confused line creasing her brow. "Did you want me to come after you? God knows I had to fight the urge not to, but I wasn't sure where we stood anymore."

Joey rolled her eyes and walked toward the next booth. "Pacey you really are and idiot sometimes."