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

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 Thirteen

Joey

As I walk through the night I adjust my overnight bag slung on my back and take a deep breath. Maybe it's the fact that I'm carrying a duffel bag, I don't know, but suddenly I'm reminded of the time that Dawson spilled an entire bottle of Gravity cologne in his duffel bag after gym class freshman year of high school. That smell permeated everything for at least a month. It was in all of Dawson's clothes, his hair, his locker, even his room was consumed by the scent. And I was too. Bessie could always tell when I had been at Dawson's, she said she could actually smell me coming through the door. That smell clung to me as well, all my clothes. I bitched about it, but secretly I loved it. It was almost as if he had branded me. Like I was almost Dawson's girl, or something. No matter where I was or where he was I could just inhale deeply and he was with me. The very notion of it is so beyond girly and perhaps was even bordering on pathetic. But that was how I felt at the time.

There's a feeling in the air that is in exact opposition to what just happened to me. The air is sweet and crisp. It feels like bonfires and apple cider and good friends and mind blowing conversations. It reminds me of that Thanksgiving so long ago my junior year of high school. Things weren't the way we wanted them to be, but we had our friends. The air held promise and possibilities drifted in the breeze. Maybe things aren't so different after all.

I've been up and down this town. There are more places to get lost in Capeside than most people think. Not that anyone is looking for me. And now I'm trying to decide if I'm going back to the B&B orsomewhere else. Who the hell am I kidding? I'm thinking of going to Dawson's. I want to go to him. But if I do go now everything will tumble out, not just what happened with Pacey but the feelings that I've held for him for so long. Feelings that I try to tuck away, that I attempt to dismiss as friendship or history will come tumbling out. I don't think that this is the right time for that. How selfish would I be if I came to him now, dumped all of my problems about Pacey on his lap, and then made some declaration of undying love.

What would he even do? Would he give me a small look of pity and then tell me that he's moved on? Would he say that I'm just upset about Pacey and he won't stand in as a Pacey replacement until we make up? Or would he say that he loves me too? How selfish would I be to come to him tonight, when all of us have come together for the first time since Jen died, and once again lay my life down at his feet and ask him to put the pieces back together. But it is thoughts of Jen that have spurred me on as I walk. And I am selfish; I'm already here.

Dawson

"Joey?" I say. I'm not sure why but I'm not exactly surprised to see her coming through my window. Somehow I expected it. I must have. Why else would I have left the window wide open in November? Maybe I just hoped for it.

"I didn't want to wake up your sister and your parents. Well your mom anduh, step-dad?"

"I just call him Harry. I just feel too old to have a step-dad." I think of Harry more as my mom's other half, a father figure for Lily. But I already have a father. Nothing against Harry, that's just how I feel. He's a good guy, though. I know that he loves my mom and Lily and would do anything for them and I respect that.

"FunnyI don't even really think of him as having a name. I just think of him as Gale's husband." I have to laugh when Joey says that. For a good deal of time I didn't think of him as having a name either. He was just my mom's friend and then my mom's boyfriend. But when they got engaged it all became more real and I slowly learned to think of him as Harry.

"What I um, well I mean that uh, it's just that" Joey stammers and it's so cute that I can't help but laugh even harder.

"No, Jo." I'm trying to control my laughter. "I totally understand what you are saying. I didn't even think of him as a person until they became engaged."

Now she comes and sits next to me on the bed. I catch a whiff of the fall air that still clings to her. It's nice like football games, apple cider, and bonfires. "It's just that in a lot of ways Mitch was more of a father to me than my own dad was. It's just a little weird to see someone else almost in his place. It's nice but weird."

"I understand," I say. And I do. It is weird to have someone else sleeping in the same bed with my mother, pulling quarters out of Lily's ear, and even mowing the lawn. But it's a good kind of weird. My mom and Lily deserve those things.

There is a moment of silence as Joey turns serious. There has to be a reason that Joey is here and not with Pacey. I know that I don't know the in and outs of their relationship but I can't imagine him being fine with Joey showing up here on the first chance they have had to be alone all week.

"What is it?' I finally ask.

"Pacey," she begins. And I'm not surprised.

"Did you two have a fight about today?"

"Not exactly," she answers and is silent again.

I'm just about to ask her exactly what happened. Whatever it was must have had quite the effect on her. She doesn't appear to be angry and she's not teary eyed, just sad. Engulfed in sadness. But she continues. "We didn't fight he sorta broke up with me. Well he did break up with me." Her shoulders slump a little when she says it and that one little gesture brings me more pain than I've had in a long time.

"I'm sorry Joey." I put my arm around her. Am I sorry? Isn't this what I have been waiting for? I am sorry because Joey is hurt. I don't want her to be sad, and she is. And I hope that Pacey didn't think Joey and I were having some sort of affair or something. I don't want to be the reason they break up.

"Me too," she says. "But it was so weird. I mean it was amicable. I cried, he cried. He said that he loves me but that it would just never work out. Not in the long run anyway." I want to say that I knew this all along, but I don't. "And he's right," Joey continues. "I think that deep down we both knew it but just didn't have the courage to say it out loud. So Pacey was the brave one. He ended it now while there was still something left to end."

"I know that you may not want to hear this right now, but that was probably the right thing to do," I say cautiously. I know it was the right thing but there is just so much history between us all. I feel I have to tread lightly in this area. But I'm glad that she came to me, that after everything I'm her friend. Sometimes I don't fully appreciate the fact that we are friends. It's amazing actually that we still have each other in this incredible way. It's nothing to dismiss. I'd rather have Joey as a friend than any other woman as my lover.

Joey

As Dawson tells me that Pacey probably did the right thing it takes me back to a different time where Pacey told me something like that. It was when I threw myself at Dawson the night of his party. Still my most embarrassing moment. But it also reminds me how much history is there between us. Between everyone, really. Funny, there was a time when Jen, Jack , and Andie were the new kids in town.

"It was the right thing," I admit. "I know it was right but it's still"

"Hard," Dawson inserts.

"Yeah, hard." I agree. "You don't stop loving them, you just,"

"Stop needing them like you used to," Dawson completes the sentence for me. Dawson knows, we've been through this before.

"Uh huh," I agree. "I think I messed everything up," I confess and hope that I don't start crying.

"Joey, if seeing a rumor in some magazine was enough catalyst for a break up then the relationship may not have had much staying power anyway." He says it gently and I know that he doesn't want to hurt me. But he doesn't understand what I'm trying to say.

"That's not what I meant," I say, choking back the tears. "I mean that I think I messed up when I got back together with Pacey to begin with." He's silent. I know that he doesn't know what to say. So I just continue before I lose my nerve. "Before Jen died she told me that she wanted me to settle this whole love triangle thing. Sort of like her dying wish or something." After talking with Jack today I know that Dawson knows this yet I feel like I have to start at the beginning. "She sort of wanted me to make a final choice or something like that. She knew I was still in love with an ex-boyfriend." I see Dawson close his eyes when I say this and that one small gesture hurts me more deeply than I ever thought was possible.

"I know," he finally says. "Jen talked to me too."

"Jack told me that today." I wonder if I should tell him the rest. But I don't want there to be any secrets between us, so I do. "I'm not sure how to say this, so I'm just going to say it." Now I've lost my nerve. I have to gather all the strength that I have and remember that Jen would want me to not leave anything unsaid between us. "Jen told me to chose the one that I still loved, Jen told you to always be open to the possibility of your soul mate returning, and she told Pacey to let me go and find happiness within himself."

I take a deep breath and look over at Dawson. There. I said it. His face is blank but is slowly changing.

"So Jen really thought" Dawson trails off.

"Yeah, Jen thought I would choose you." He doesn't look happy or at least relieved like I thought he would and I hope I haven't lost him forever.

"But she was wrong," Dawson says simply. His voice has no emotion. He is just stating a fact.

It's now or never. "She was wrong about who I chose, not who I loved. Who I love."

I can see the physical change in him. He sits up straight and his eyes betray the straight lines set in his face.

"But I really want the chance to explain myself. Then we can talk, alright?"

Dawson simply nods and I assume that it is fine for me to begin to explain, as best I can, how we ended up in this whole situation. How I put us in this situation. I'm not sure how far back I should go. I guess as far back as I need to.

"After we slept together," that's right, I'm going back about six years. "Do you remember when I admitted that I would rather have the fantasy?" He just nods his head yes once again.

I'm not really sure where to go from here, how to best explain what I'm trying to say. "Remember that book I was reading yesterday?"

"The French one?" he asks.

"A Sentimental Education, by Flaubert. The French one."

"It's the only book that makes life worth living!" Dawson pipes up. Now I'm surprised. Dawson has never been heavily into literature and I just can't imagine him settling down with a French novel written in the 1800's."

"You know it?"

"Not really," Dawson admits. "In Woody Allen's film, Manhattan, he says it's the only book in the world that makes life worth living. It's in a list of things like Marlon Brando, Swedish films, and W.C. Fields."

That's more like the Dawson I know. "I'm not so sure about that, but it's one of my favorites and I was reading it again yesterday"

"Yesterday seems like a million years ago." He's right, it does. In the course of one simple day everything has changed. Or maybe it has always been this way.

"Yes, yes it does. Anyway, I first read that book when I was a sophomore in college. Professor Wilder said it had the best ending in all of literature. It piqued my interest, so I read it. It turns out that it follows the life of a young man into middle age. He's a naïve romantic. Frederic, that's his name, sees a woman shortly upon his arrival to Paris. He becomes captivated by her but nothing ever comes of it after a series false starts and bad timing. He has this completely romantic vision of his own life and expects things to be a series of grand gestures and sweeping romantic love."

"Are you saying that I'm," Dawson begins but I have to say this before I lose my nerve so I interrupt him.

"I'm saying that I'm Frederic, not you, Dawson." Dawson looks at me curiously and I take the opportunity to continue.

"He has this romantic view of life and he would rather have the fantasy. At the same time that he is dreaming his dreams the city of Paris is in utter upheaval. He witnesses an uprising in Paris but he himself feels powerless to act. I won't get too bogged down in the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity that were floating around at the time. The important thing is the same failure to act carries on to his own life too.

Anyway as Frederic grows from youth to adulthood he drifts and none of his promise if fulfilled and his dreams are never realized. And it's his own indecisive nature that dooms him to a life of empty dreams.

When I first read Sentimental Education it gave me an uneasy feeling – but that is exactly what it is supposed to do. It was socowardly. But now it is one of my favorites and each passing time that I read it the comforting and bittersweet feeling that I'm left with only grows – and I don't like what that says about me. It says that I myself am becoming more ineffectual and weak. And I don't want to be that, Dawson. What is supposed to be one of the best literary endings of all time is simply two best friends talking about the best thing that never happened to them. I don't want that to be me. I don't want that to be us.

I'm saying that I love you and I have in some way since I was fifteen. But the love that I have for you now is different than the love that a fifteen year old girl has for a fifteen year old boy. It's real, true, and maybe not so innocent. But that is what has made it last all these years. As we have changed so has my love for you.

As much as I would like to simply profess my love to you tonight and have us fade to black, cue happy music, and call it a wrap – I can't. There are things with myself that I need to fix, things that I'm just starting to work on. Things from my childhood have carried into my adult life, as I'm sure you know. There is this theory in psychology that you either take on the same role as your mother or father in your future relationships. The problem right now is that we are both taking on the roles of our fathers. I guess that it is not really a problem for you. Mitch was great; you should be like him. But lets face it, my dad is kind of sucky in the relationship department. He takes a person's love and uses it against them, hurts them, is selfish. I don't think that he even means to do it most of the time. That is just the way he is. But I don't want that to be my way."

I take a moment to actually breathe. The words have been pouring from my lips faster than I could even form them into conscious thoughts. I just hope that Dawson understands, will wait.

"I'm going to sublet my apartment in New York and stay with Bessie for a while." I continue talking as I attempt to read his face. For one of the only times in my life I have no idea what he is thinking. "I'm going to take your advice and really work on my novel, help Bessie out at the B&B, and just really take the time to fix some of the things inside me."

Now I wish that Dawson would say something, anything. Even if it were I don't love you like that' at least then I would know. He is just sitting on the edge of his bed, blank.

"I know that this sounds a lot like my trying to find myself' speech that I gave when I was fifteen. In a lot of ways it is. But now I have more insight into myself. I know that an identity isn't just something that you stumble upon in art class one day. It is something that changes and grows as people change and grow. It doesn't happen alone. If you do love me the same way that I love you I know that I have no right to ask for you to wait for me. It's a big risk and I know that anything can happen in the time that we are apart. With us something always happens, but it is a risk that I am willing to take. If we came together and I was as I am right now it wouldn't last. And if you do love me I want us to last."

And he still sits there. Blank. Why at the one time in my life that I want a dramatic reaction from him is he so stoic? I'm growing increasingly nervous. The longer he waits to speak, the more panicked I'm becoming. Maybe I shouldn't have done this. Maybe this was the wrong time. Maybe I fooled myself into thinking he could love me the same way that I love him.

"Say something, please." I urge.

Dawson

My mind is racing to process all of the information that has just been loaded into it. Never did I expect Joey to come here tonight, spewing analogies to French literature and making declarations of love.

First off she loves me. She loves me in a way that goes beyond the sweaty palms of high school. She loves me in the way that I love her. Yet she is asking me to wait. For how long? Indefinitely it seems. And part of me wants to wait forever for her. But the realist in me knows that might not work. Waiting is a dangerous game.

I know that she is nervous because I haven't said anything. Dawson Leery is not usually one to be struck speechless, but I am. I have to will myself to verbalize my thoughts.

"Joey," I begin, just to get my bearing. "I do love you." The look of sheer joy mixed with relief on her face almost makes the years of waiting worth it. All I want to do now is kiss her, make love to her. I want our bodies to heal each other. But I know that Joey has healing of her own to do. I'll help in any small way that I can; yet I know that my role in this must be minimal.

"And I know that there are things that you need to do on your own," I continue. "And I'll help you and support you in any way that you want me to. I'll be as involved or uninvolved as you need me to be." I can see her whole body relax and I don't want to say what I have to say next.

"But I can't promise you that I'll be exactly what you want me to be at the end of your journey. You will always have my unconditional friendship, you will always be my soul mate, but I just can't promise that after an undefined amount of time I will still be waiting in the wings the moment you say that you are ready. I'm sorry."

"Dawson," Joey says with composure that I admire. "I understand. This whole situation is more than a little fucked up and is mostly my doing." She pauses for a moment and then her hand finds mine. Just the feeling of our fingers intertwined is enough for me to want to tell her that I would wait forever for her, but I can't.

"Just know that I love you."

"I love you too, Jo. So much it hurts."

"Me too," she says and lets the tears fall silently. I pull her into my arms to let her cry and I find that I am crying with her. I'm crying because she consumes so much of my soul, I'm crying because I love her so much, and I'm crying because things can't be exactly as I want them to be at this moment.

We stay as we are long after the tears dry up and I never want to let her go. I just want to stay with her, in the bedroom of my childhood, with her in my arms. In a way this is her room as much as it is mine.

"I should go," Joey says reluctantly and breaks the spell of silence and memories.

I hug her once more just to feel her close to me. I would ask her to spend the night but somehow I realize that is not what she needs right now.

"I love you, Jo. Be careful, please."

"I will," she turns around from the window ledge. "And I love you too"

"Jo," I say as an afterthought when she is halfway out the window.

"Yeah?" she turns her head around.

"What was the thing?"

"What thing?"

"The best thing between two friends that never happened?"

Joey smiles. "Just some debacle at a brothel."

I can't help but laugh. The eloquent theory that Joey articulately used to describe our relationship was really based on a bad encounter at a whorehouse. Joey's laughing too and it's the last sound I hear before the footsteps fade away.

To Be Continued