Disclaimer: I am in no way connected to Dawson's Creek and no copyright infringement isintended.

Notes: This is a D/J fic set after the final episode with the alternating POV's of Joey, Pacey, and Dawson

Rating: R for language and some sexual situations.

Body And Soul

Chapter Three

Joey

"What do you mean not until Tuesday!" Great. Just fucking great. I have no place to stay until Tuesday.

"Don't worry Ms. Potter. I just have to call around to a few more places and I'm sure that we'll be all set."

"WE wont be all set," I can't help but almost yell. "It's me that doesn't have a place to stay. You better be calling around. This is a major metropolis, you can't tell me that every hotel is booked from Thursday through Tuesday because it is simply not possible."

"Well," Bruce starts out tenitivly. "I guess there is some sort of trade summit thing going on there this weekend. A lot of stuff is booked but I'm sure I'll find something."

"You better find something. I'm on a layover at Dallas now and in twenty minutes I'm going to be on a plane to Los Angeles so I think a place to stay would be an imperative part of my trip." I rethink it. "You know what, don't bother. I'll just stay with friends until Tuesday. Don't call and change my reservations. I will be checking in to the hotel on Tuesday." I try to speak as slowly and clearly as I can. This guy could mess anything up. "Just don't do anything at all, alright."

I dig through my bag and find my cell phone at the bottom. I've only got about twenty minutes before I have to get on the plane and turn off my phone. I'd hate to fuck with the pilot's radar or whatever reason it is you can't use a cell phone on a plane unless the cabin door is open. Shit, busy. This isn't exactly the kind of bomb I want to drop in a voice mail. At least I've read everything that I have to for work. Canceling some of my stops allowed me to catch up. Before I try him again I should probably pick up something to read. Worse case scenario it will serve as a shield from whatever slimeball I end up sitting next to that not so graciously offers to make me a member of the mile high club. Of course I'm already a member but no need to tell him that. Hmmm I guess a People magazine and a Cosmo should help me through this.

Good. It looks like the seat next to me is going to be empty. I hate having someone next to me hogging the armrest and trying to strike up a conversation. I have to try Dawson one last time. I can't help but be a little nervous. I know that he was joking when he said he would change the sheets for me, but I'm his best friend I'm sure he won't mind if I crashed at his house for a few days. What if he has a woman staying there? Oh God. My stomach sinks a little at the thought of him and another womanhaving sex. I hate to think of him with other women. To this day it still drives me crazy with jealousy. Of course now I could never admit it so I usually tease him about it calling him a bass ass stud and man about town. About two years after we slept together and the pain became duller we started to tease each other about sex — with each other - with other people. I had jokingly told him part of the reason that we slept together was that I couldn't go to my grave without knowing what it was like to have a night of love with the Great Dawson Leery, that the curiosity would have been unbearable. I was partly telling the truth it was something that I had always wondered about. Actually I had wondered about it in great detail. I think they call that fantasizing but

"Dawson here." Well that brought me back to reality.

"Hey, it's me."

"Joey! Are you in already?"

"No, I'm in Dallas right now. I actually kind of have a favor to ask you." Why on earth am I so nervous? This is Dawson. I've known him forever. We've slept in the same bed for crying out loud, why am I having trouble asking for the guestroom?

"Did you change the sheets." I can't help but make it sound a little flirtatious. I love flirting with him. It's a harmless past time, really.

"Of course. The very prospect of a beautiful women cohabitating with me was more than enough prompting."

"Good cause I'll be cohabitating with you until Tuesday, if that's alright." I drop the flirting act. I can't keep it up with Dawson being so damn cute. I know him well enough to know that he is indeed being so damn cute, even over the phone with miles separating us.

"Of course, Jo." He drops the flirting thing too. "Anytime. Are you leaving on Tuesday?"

"No. Still going home with you." Thank God I'm going home with him. This will be hard, the first holiday with everyone together without Jen. "On Tuesday my hotel reservations kick in."

"What time are you going to be at the airport? I'll send a driver down."

"A driver?' I can't help but smile. "Sounds glamorous," I tease.

"Well Dawson Leery is nothing, if not glamorous." I can't help but laugh.

"I should be in at two, LA time. Thankfully my meeting isn't until tomorrow and I have my weekend clear as far as I know. It will almost be like a vacation.

"So you'll be able to see the set today?" He sounds hopeful.

"Yeah, that would be great."

"Great Joey. I'll look forward to seeing you today."

"Me too. Se ya soon. I love you."

"I love you Joey. Bye."

I hang up and feel a lot more relaxed, almost giddy. Seven months ago we never would have said I love you during a simple phone conversation. As sad as it is it was Jen's death that allowed us to say it more often. With her passing came a more urgent need to affirm what we mean to each other. It started that day when we said what we have is beyond the realm of lovers, even best friends. After everything that has happened we just feel a lot more comfortable expressing the love that has always been there. Even in our darkest hours we have always loved each other. Love was never our problem. What was our problem? I can't help but lean back and sigh. The flight is going to take a while and I can't help go down the path of introspection and self-analysis, something I seem to be doing now more than ever before. The problem was me.

Dawson

"Is the editing for the alternate endings for next week's episode done already?"

"Sure is. We've just got keep everything secret and we'll be sound as a pound."

"Thanks Todd. I can't believe that this whole thing is causing such hysteria. I know it's sweeps but this is beyond anything I could imagine." Sometimes I actually have to pinch myself to believe that I'm here, in Hollywood, responsible for one of the hottest shows on the air.

"Well," Todd continues. "What did you expect when you create this teaser. Promising that one of the couples will have sex but setting it up so that it could be anyone. It's actually brilliant because if the couple is leaked you can just air one of the alternate endings and no one will be the wiser. And by not telling the actors what shot you're going to use they can't spill it either. And we filmed it every way possible."

"Great."

"But the network is questioning your choice of couple."

"When doesn't the network question my choices." If I had listened to the network my show would be a disaster. They wanted me to do a story where Sammy gets desperate and takes a job as a stripper (yes she is fifteen but whatever). And then of course Petey hires Colby a stripper for his birthday because he is still depressed about breaking up with Kim. Low and behold when Sammy shows up to give Colby a lap dance. It was the most contrived and idiotic thing I had ever heard of. Plus I felt like I could never do that to Joey. I had to laugh when I saw the same plot played out on the show that airs right after ours. At least I escaped it. "Just a moment Todd. I've got a call."

"Hey, it's me." Joey, I can't believe she's here already.

But she's not she's in Dallas. And she has a favor to ask me. I can't help but think of the many ways that I could help her out and she could help me out. No. I have to keep my mind on the platonic track even as she's asking me in this naughty-innocent voice if I changed the sheets in the guestroom.

"Of course," I answer trying to match her tone. I can't help but flirt back with her. It's a dangerous yet enjoyable past time. "The very prospect of a beautiful woman cohabitating with me was more than enough prompting." Pathetic, but the minute I was off of the phone with her last night I went home and changed the sheets and made sure there were clean towels in the guest bathroom. Then I actually tidied up the house. I have someone come in and clean every two weeks but I didn't want Joey to think that I lived in a state of shambles, even though I do indeed live in a state of shambles. This was all of course in the off chance that she would be staying with me. Then what would I do? Seduce her? No. Just show her a good time. I think that her and Pacey's relationship will self-destruct on its own, just like before. I don't have to do anything but be patient and be her friend.

And now she's telling me that she is going to stay with me until Tuesday. Including today and Tuesday that's six days! She actually wants to know if it's alright. Like I wouldn't welcome her into my house. I ask if she'll be leaving on Tuesday. I'm relieved that she will be flying back with me. We don't say it but it's there. This is the first holiday where everyone will be together without Jen.

Better than her coming home with me is the fact that she says she will come see the set. This is where all my hard work goes and I spend so much of my time, I just want her to see me in my element. I'm determined to show Joey a great time on this trip and as we continue to talk I can't help but daydream about the things we could do. Restaurants, parties, movies, plays, I just want to show my friend off. Before we hang up we say our I love you's. It's a new thing that we do since Jen has died. I don't think that either of us wants to waste a chance to say what we mean to each other. It is beyond lovers and best friends there are no words for it. I hope that I can portray on screen even one tenth of what she means to me.

Joey

God, I've been mulling over my life now, miles above the earth for at least a half-hour. Of course in the true nature of myself I have resolved nothing. Joey Potter, terminally confused about what she wants. Those nagging questions are all still there. When Jen said that her dying wish was to have this whole love triangle thing resolved I really didn't believe that she would be wasting her dying wish on me. But she was. If I hadn't been forced into admitting that I still carried a torch for my high school boyfriend (or as Bessie more accurately put it boyfriends) I probably could have dragged this whole thing out another couple years. Subtly suggesting to each of them that there was still a reason to hope, to hang on to what we had. Subconsciously telling them not to develop any real or long lasting relationships because I was there and there was the chance that they could have me once again. The chance that they in the end could win. Of course both of them would have realized how fucked up and unfair I was being and would have found perfectly lovely women to marry who I of course would hate without a valid reason for doing so.

When we all were still in college, well at least college age, we all used to make up nicknames for the people we dated. CJ we would call Crisis Jones, Jack's muscle bound boyfriend we would call Dan the Man because he always seemed to be taking his shirt off. Audrey had a boyfriend, Richard, who the guys called Slippery Dick, even to his face. It wasn't because of some weird sexual thing. Once he did this awful Richard Nixon impersonation and with a name like Richard it just stuck. There were countless others, some I don't even remember. The absolute worst was Geezer, my perfectly nice (yes fifty-year-old) boyfriend. It was made worse by the fact that he had hurt his knee playing racquetball and had to use a cane the first time Jack and Jen met him. It didn't last long. I fit in fine in his world but he didn't fit at all in mine. The whole nickname thing lasted until about a year after we graduated from college, not so long ago really. That was how I knew our group wasn't quite the clique it used to be. We accepted the outsiders without much thought.

Thinking wasn't doing me much good. I need escapism. People Magazine, perfect. Casually I flip through, doing a double take at Josh Hartnet, still fine as ever. What the fuck. I pull the magazine close to my eyes and take off my reading glasses. It can't be. But it is. It's him. He has and interview in People. There's the picture of him in a director's chair. I have to put my glasses back on to read. The headline says Wonder Boy. I begin to read.

When I first came to meet director Dawson Leery on the set of his hit teen drama the The Creek I'm stuck not only by his handsome good looks but by his gentlemanly behavior as he offers me a seat in his directors chair. I can tell that he hasn't lost his small town charm.

PM: You have said before that The Creek is based on your real life experiences growing up in a small town on Cape Cod. How much of the show is fact and how much is fiction?

DL: You've done your research. I'd say about eighty five percent is fact and the rest is pure fiction. It's a show in the vane of my adolescent life. The characters and are based on my real people I knew, sometimes combinations of people I knew, different parts of myself.

PM: What about Sammy? Is she fact or fiction?

DL: Mostly fact and some fiction. The character is based on my best friend Joey Potter. We were fifteen she was my best friend, my girlfriend and I could see her coming to my house in her rowboat from my bedroom window. It was a magical sight to see. It made my adolescent heart do flip-flops.

PM: Was she the love of your life?

DL: Yes, but it's not a romantic love anymore. We're still best friends. Soul mates.

PM: You're still in touch?

DL: Yes. At least once a week after The Creek airs we talk on the phone.

PM: The show is a critical and commercial success, why do you think that is.

DL: It's about growing up. How high the highs are and how low the lows are. After you grow up you don't feel things to the extreme like that anymore. You don't let yourself feel things like that. Nothing turns out like exactly like you expect it to but when you look back that is precisely the way it should be. I just hope that the show reflects that growing up is about forming friendships. Some friendships change, some stay the same, some end, and others continue despite the people involved. That is if you're lucky. The show is successful because everyone can relate. The teenagers are living it and the adults can remember it.

PM: Can you at least give us a hint about who will hook up in the sweeps episode next week.

DL: I can tell you that it will be either Petey and Lexi, Kim and John, or Sammy and Colby.

PM: Well I had to try. What about in real life, is there a love interest?

DL: Work. That's my only love interest at the moment.

PM: Unfortunately I think our time is up. Well thank you so much for talking to us today.

DL: Thank You. I had a great time.

And that's it. It's not like I can't believe he's done an interview with a magazine. He's done interviews before. The thing is he's never mentioned me personally before, never said my name. But it's not like he said it's about her, Josephine Lillian Potter who lives in the village and works at Craig Publishing House. All he said was Joey Potter. So why do I feel butterflies in my stomach? Maybe it's the turbulence.