Saved
Chapter 1
Time Flies
by: Jade


Disclaimer: Dawson's Creek is not my property.

Author's Note: I know the work of a writer should, in itself, be pretty clear but I still thought it better to highlight the flashbacks in *bold* font (in favor of the usual italics) in case of possible confusion. So remember, with the constant shifting of time in this series, the present is in *normal* font and references to the past in *bold*.

Dedications: Rinny - can't say enough about your work and thank you for feeling the same about mine; Ale - you are a dear J; Laura, thank you for all those awards; Kilby, you rock!

"So," Michael Cole started to say, trying to get her attention diverted from his altered manuscript. "What are you doing this evening?"

She didn't respond. Without removing her elbow off the desk, the support of on which she had been resting the side of her head, or her eyes from her reading, she lifted her left hand in midair. The late afternoon sun from behind her caught on to her gesture and reflected a glitter from her ring finger that rendered him blind until she dropped her hand back down.

He cleared his throat loudly on purpose but her concentration didn't stray.

"Come on, it's just dinner. We'll keep it between us."

She looked up from her reading and pursed her lips as she removed the dark-colored frames off the bridge of her nose.

"Michael, you're a client, it's strictly business. I wouldn't date you even if I didn't have a man to go home to."

He shrugged. "Didn't think it would hurt to try again," he replied. "And again and again."

She conceded a slight smile. The intercom buzzed and she answered it.

"Yes?"

Carol's voice filled the room. "Your husband's on line two."

"Should I make myself scarce?" Cole asked in sarcasm but was duly ignored.

She picked up the phone and turned her chair slightly away. "Hey," she said.

"Hey." His tired tone brightened considerably in reflex as he heard her voice. "Are we still on for tonight?"

"I've had Carol make reservations for eight. Is that okay?"

"Perfect. You want me to pick you up?"

"Nah, it'll be easier if I just meet you there."

"I'll see you then."

"Bye."

"Bye."

She replaced the receiver quietly and glanced at her watch.

"What, no 'I love you's?" Cole remarked intrusively.

She simply raised an eyebrow and returned to her editing of his book.

She hurried over to their usual table, her day having gone on longer than she'd expected. "I am so sorry," she said, leaning over to give him a peck on the cheek before taking her seat. "It hasn't been an easy day."

He waved the waiter over. "Let me guess. Michael Cole." It was no secret to him that his wife's client constantly annoyed her by hitting on her. She told him everything that happened at work. In fact, he did the same.

"Who else?" She waited for him to give their drink orders and ask for the menus before continuing. "Talent aside, he's also a huge pain in the butt." She tilted her head. "Fortunately, Judy Daniels agreed to sign with us today."

"Congratulations!" he said, grinning.

She wrinkled her nose at him, delighted. Their waiter came back and she thanked him as he handed her a menu. "I'm starving. How was your day?"

"As usual."

"That bad, huh?" she said, the corner of her mouth tilted into a sympathetic half-smile.

He narrowed his eyes at someone behind her. "It's about to get worse."

She turned around and saw Gianluca Torre coming their way, his vivacious wife hanging on his arm.

She just had ample time to turn back and grimace before having to plaster a fake, wide smile across her face as her husband stood up to obligatorily greet him.

"Luca, you've met my wife, Joey."

"Oh yes, of course!" the man replied in his thick Italian accent. "Can I just say, Signora Witter-" He lifted her hand to his lips and planted a kiss there. "-you get more beautiful each time I see you."

She briefly smiled her thanks to his too often used compliment. "You're too kind, Signor Torre."

"Non, I only tell the truth. And call me Luca." The saucy redhead tugged at his arm impatiently and he reacted like he had forgotten his wife 20 years his junior had been standing right beside him.

"Pacey, Signora Witter. My wife, Francesca."

Pacey took the well-manicured hand that she offered and shook it lightly whilst Joey was given a look of disdain by the model.

Torre eventually gave in to his wife's less than subtle whims and they took their leave. "Wonderful job today, Pacey," he praised before walking away.

They settled back in their chairs, both letting out similar sighs of relief. Joey leaned forward and rested her hands under her chin. Mutely, she stared at him and he returned her unwavering gaze with steady eyes. Sometimes, they would be having a conversation about the business section of the newspaper over coffee or laying on the couch watching a movie and a sudden but comfortable silence would wash over them as they looked at each other. Friends and acquaintances that noticed these moments between them would wonder if they had had a falling-out but really, all they were doing was taking a little time out to revel in the pleasure they felt in each other's company.

The meaning of the gesture had always been pure and simple with no intentions of deciphering hidden thoughts. Besides they'd never kept anything important from each other, it would seem. But that night, Joey found her mind wandering and filled with questions.

He sensed the change in her mood. He couldn't tell her what was wrong; they'd made a deal three years ago. He reached halfway across the table with an outstretched palm and she willingly put her hand in his, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

Three years and eight months ago...


"You have nice hands," the woman remarked, turning them over and fondling them seductively.

Pacey scrunched up his face and withdrew his hands from her to continue dismantling his camera. "We're done, Mrs. Hackett."

She ignored his advice and continued to hover as he squatted to fold up his tripod.

"It's Susan. Don't make me sound so ancient."

"Hackett is your husband's name," he replied dryly.

"Well, it won't be for long."

Pacey shook his head slightly at how lightly Susan Hackett had shrugged off her ten-year marriage to the millionaire she'd met when she was twenty-five, the same man who'd made her the CEO of one of his many line of movie theater franchises. The same man who'd made her rich, successful and effluent.

"What?" she questioned, noting his reaction.

"Nothing."

"Oh come on, Pacey! You don't strike me as the type to hold back."

He got to his feet. "You've been married to the guy for ten years. Doesn't he deserve a little more dignity than being dumped like that?"

She scoffed. "We've met like, what, twice, three times before today? You think that just because you read the gossip columns, take a picture or two of me, you know how I've lived the last decade of my life?" Her voice had taken on an angry edge and she turned on her heels but changed her mind. "No wait, let me tell you something else," she added. "There's no black or white in a marriage. Someone loves too little, the other loves too much, that doesn't balance it out."

He said nothing still, but conceded a breath of air through his teeth.

Her anger diminished a little. "Hell, I still trust the sanctity of marriage but I'm not as certain about the reasons people allow themselves to believe getting into it. I should know, I made the mistake." This time, she did walk away.

"So," he stopped her. "Did you love too little?" He paused. "Or too much?"

She smiled softly. "Read my book, hon. I'll even autograph it."

*****

His face was buried in his hands when Jen Lindley arrived at the bar.

She put her arm around him and settled onto the stool beside his. "Gin and tonic," she told the bartender.

He uncovered his eyes as he moved his hands down his face. "I did something really stupid today."

"Pray tell."

"I made a presumption about an absolute stranger, a client no less."

"So you made a mistake." She rattled the ice in her glass and sipped the clear liquid. "Apologize."

"No," he shook his head. "This was different. This was not me."

She scratched above her brow. "No, you're right. Sounds like something Dawson would do, not you."

He snorted and laughed.

"I'm sorry," she continued to say. She allowed herself to smile but her eyes were sad. "I've been acting like a bitch the whole month."

"Jenny, my dear." It was his turn to wrap his arm around her and offer a shoulder to cry on.

She sniffled against his shirt. "Shit, I miss him and I hate feeling like this." She moved herself abruptly from his warmth and rubbed her eyes vigorously and took a mouthful of her drink.

"Ben doesn't know what he's missing," he tried consoling.

"Yes, he does," she replied knowingly. "Hit me again, Jeff." She caught sight of the look he shot her and she reassured him, "Don't worry, I don't intend to get drunk tonight."

Pacey had smelled on her breath that she had been drinking even before she'd turned up to meet him. He sighed and swung his stool around to watch the crowd on the dance floor. He took in the men and women who were eyeing their individual prey for the night and the desperation and sadness on their faces they were trying so hard to conceal.

"What the hell are we doing in a singles bar?"

Jen gave into a ladylike burp. "We started coming here even before it turned into one of those." Her tone was almost one of contemptuousness.

"I must be getting old," he mused.

A short laugh emitted from her. "Oh yeah, twenty-six's a winner." She giggled some more and dropped her forehead to the table.

"You don't have to be old to feel old."

"You don't have to tell me that," she mumbled.

"I see all this people come in here every day, with only one hope that they won't leave alone. And I'm sitting here, wishing the same thing for them." He threw up his arms in amazement. "I must be going crazy if I care."

"And stupid," she quipped.

"And why is that?"

"Because," she raised her face, supporting the side of her head with a lazy elbow. "There's nothing lonelier than being with the wrong person."

He considered that for a moment. "That, coming from a woman who's drinking herself silly over a guy who obviously doesn't deserve her."

"Give me a break. I've wasted an entire year on a man whom I thought was the right one. It feels like I've just been slapped in the face."

*****

"Oooohkay," he coaxed as he held her hair back while she retched into the toilet once again. "Easy now," he said, rubbing her back in an up and downward motion.

She lifted her head out of the toilet and took the squares of toilet paper that he offered. She carelessly wiped her mouth and then the tears started to flow.

"That bastard!" she shouted and cried at the same time. She reached up and tugged on more toilet paper, spilling it to the floor.

"Come on," he said softly, lifting her up from under her arms and flushing the toilet before helping her into her bedroom.

All the photo frames that used to be on the mantle and by the bed were now devoid of photographs that now lay scattered on the floor as torn pieces with only Jen's face still intact.

He managed to get her changed into pajamas and tucked under the sheets.

"I'll stay tonight, okay," he told her, sitting by her.

She nodded, her crying subsiding. She held on to his hand. "I forgot to tell you something in the middle of all that drama."

"What is it?"

"Joey's accepted a position in New York. She'll start work in a week."

"She phoned you?"

"She needed a recommendation for a good estate agent. She tried to call you too but they told her you were away at a shoot and your cellular was turned off."

"Why the sudden change?"

"Haven't you heard?" Jen droned on sleepily. "She and Dawson broke up again."

*****

He was staring at the ceiling in the darkness. The moving shadows and the silence, occasionally pierced by a police siren or the meow of a cat, which accompanied each nightfall, were beginning to become his closest friends, next to the person who already was sleeping off her drunken stupor in her bed.

He and Jen had left for NYU together, both disillusioned. Both cynical. High school was where you spent either the best times of your life or the worst. It hadn't been good to him. He simply had his heart broken one too many times.

So Jen and him had wild times in college. They worked hard, played hard. Went out on dates, got laid. Ben was Jen's first serious relationship since having left Capeside. The last one he had was better left forgotten.

The clock ticked on. He nearly fell off the couch, grappling with his coat for his cellular phone. Squinting to see in what little light there was from the outside, he sped-dialed long distance.

She picked up on the fifth ring. "Hello." She sounded hoarse. He imagined her eyes red and swollen.

"I just heard."

She started sniffling and then she sobbed. "We're such fools, aren't we?"

"Potter, a fool isn't what I'd call you."

"I don't know what possessed Dawson and I to try to make it work for the sixtieth time."

"What happened?"

"Nothing. He's leaving for England in two days."

"England?"

"Got offered the chance to direct a new local drama series."

"And that's nothing?"

"Exactly that. He got the call, told me about it and we both decided on the spot that he should go. There wasn't even talk of what was going to happen to us."

She had stopped crying and sounded a lot calmer.

"Are you keeping silent," she finally asked, "because you're lamenting on how silly I sound?"

"Joey, you know me better than that."

"Is it going to be a problem, my being in New York?"

"No," he answered honestly, "it's not."

And he settled back onto the couch, voice hushed and comforting as he kept the person on the line, hoping it would help her sleep if he listened.

In the still of the night, Jen restlessly turned on her side. She could hear him vaguely on the phone and didn't need a second guess as to whom he was talking. She'd tried telling him over and over again but his resolve would always weaken.

"Jen, I've been trying my damnest to stay away since high school and it feels like every moment of that time I spent doing that, I'm thinking of her." He slumped lower into the same couch he now was on. "It hasn't worked," he reasoned solemnly each time.

Sighing, she could only hope he wouldn't get his fragile heart broken ...again.

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