A/N: Thanks for the reviews, everyone (especially to my faithful reviewers, Sam, Kelcb, Yelak, PhoenixFirefly--you guys are the best, and I really appreciate the feedback)!! Let me know what you think of this next chapter, and I'll update soon. =)
-----------------------------------------------------
No sooner had the door closed behind Pacey than the phone rang. Joey squinted at the receiver in the flickering light of the television and saw that it was Jack and Doug's number. Taking a deep breath, she answered.
"Jo, hi. I'm sorry to call so late; I hope I didn't wake you guys up. Have you heard from Amy tonight?"
"Jack. Yes, as a matter of fact, we have," Joey said hesitantly.
"And?" Jack prodded when Joey didn't volunteer anything more.
"And all I'm allowed to tell you is that she's all right, and Pacey is bringing her home."
Jack let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God. Her curfew is eleven; I've been worried sick. She wasn't answering her cell phone, either. So you can't give me details?"
"You'll find out soon enough, I'm afraid."
"No doubt. I can't wait for that," he said under his breath. "Anyway, thanks for being there for her, Jo. You and Pacey are great. I honestly don't know what we'd do without the backup."
Joey smiled. "Are you kidding, we love being someone's cool aunt and uncle. Listen, Jack, don't be too hard on her, okay? She's going through a rough time."
"Tell me about it. But I'm not making any promises. I'm telling you, this girl is going to be the death of us if things keep going the way they have been. Doug's talking about boot camp, and I'm not sure he's kidding." He laughed. "Wouldn't Jen love that? I'll talk to you tomorrow, Jo. Try to get back to sleep."
"Five more minutes of this movie should do the trick."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. When Amy gets home, just remember that we were stupid kids once too, Jack. 'Night."
Jack hung up, sank down onto a barstool at the kitchen counter, and put his face in his hands, groaning. Doug eyed him steadily. "Should I even ask?" he said dryly over the top of his coffee mug.
His voice muffled by his hands, Jack said, "The prodigal daughter is on her way home with your brother. I don't know anything more than that, but I can guess that it's not good if she called him to come get her instead of us. I'm so not in the mood for this. I'm sick of being Disciplinarian Jack. I hate that guy. He's a jerk."
Doug sighed heavily. "Then go to bed," he said. "Let me handle this one."
Jack looked up. "Are you kidding?"
"No. You're exhausted. And you know I don't mind being the bad guy when I have to, it's an occupational necessity." Doug drained the last of his coffee, put the cup in the sink, then came around the counter and began massaging Jack's shoulders. "Go on up to bed. I'll deal with the kid."
Jack squeezed his eyes shut tightly and rolled his head back, feeling the tension in his shoulders begin to loosen. "As tempting as that sounds, I don't think I could sleep now if my life depended on it. Curiosity has won me over. I want to know what it was Joey couldn't tell me on the phone."
"That does sound ominous. What could it be this time?"
"Maybe Amy killed someone." Jack started to laugh wearily, then stopped abruptly. "Wait. That's not funny."
-----------------------
Pacey ended up picking Ben up too, since his parents were out of town and the poor kid would have been stuck in lockup. His car, dented bumper and all, was staying put for the night, at least.
"Can you drop Ben off first, Pace?" Amy asked, the first words she had spoken since her uncle had appeared to free them. "I don't want them to see him."
Pacey glanced at Ben in the rearview mirror. He wasn't incredibly fond of his backseat passenger. He knew he was the one who had given Amy the drugs, and he had heard about a few other incidents that presented the kid in a less-than-favorable light, like the time he had allegedly shoved Amy down in a drunken argument. Not the best way to score points with the family. But regardless, Pacey himself had been on the wrong end of Dougie's wrath more than once in his day, and he didn't wish it on Ben after the rough night he'd had already.
"I don't blame you for being worried about that. But no dice. They're probably waiting up for you, Aim. You can stay in the car if you want, Chambers. In fact, I'd highly recommend it."
Amy sighed deeply and stared out the window into the darkness. She wondered if Andrew had gone home right away, if he was sitting awake in his bedroom right now entertaining his overactive imagination by pondering all kinds of far-fetched scenarios of her and Ben and what might have happened after he left the party. If she knew him (and she did), that was probably right on target. She felt a small stab of guilt at the way they had left things. Granted, he had some jealousy issues, and granted, they infuriated her, but wasn't she to blame for them? If the whole mess with Ben had never taken place, Andy would have no reason to be jealous. Then again, if Andy hadn't confessed his feelings for her in the first place, things might be just as they were back then, the three of them best friends and living their blessedly uncomplicated, angst-free lives.
"Home sweet home, kiddo. Want me to come in with you, or can you take it from here?" Pacey asked, putting the car in park and looking over at his niece. "If you need moral support, I don't mind. But I should warn you, I have a tendency to exacerbate already-volatile situations. It's really my downfall. In case you've ever wondered, that's why I let the little woman deal with the important stuff."
Amy forced a smile, knowing he was trying to make her feel better. "I'm sure Joey would love to hear you call her the little woman. Nice of you to offer, but I'll handle it," she said wearily. "I'm becoming a pro. But thanks for picking us up, Uncle Pacey. I'll bail you out next time you get arrested."
"Ah, although doomed to an unspeakable fate, she keeps her sense of humor. That's my girl, I like that."
Amy turned in her seat to look at Ben, who had been silent the whole time. "Call me tomorrow, okay?" she said. "Since most of tonight was my fault, I'm going to feel like a complete ass by morning, and I'll need some reassurance."
"Reassurance that you're a complete ass?" Ben smiled a little, and Amy returned it, a little more sincerely this time. Then she got out and started toward the front door. It opened as she was reaching for the knob, and Doug stood there in a T-shirt and shorts, his expression solid and stern and coplike.
"Hi Dougie," she said, deciding to start this out on a pleasant note. "I'm home."
He raised an eyebrow at her and motioned with a nod of his head for her to go into the kitchen. Jack was sitting on one of the barstools at the counter, drinking coffee.
"Well, I'm glad to see that you're in one piece," he said in a falsely casual tone.
She didn't know exactly how to respond to that, so she just stood there, waiting for him to continue.
"Are you really going to wait for us to ask you where you've been?"
"I wasn't going to volunteer the information, if that's what you mean." Amy's attempt at a joke fell flat as Jack held her gaze until she was forced to look away. "Anyway, I thought you might have heard already. Usually when I screw up, it's headline news in a matter of hours."
"Well, Andrew didn't know what happened to you after he left the party."
Amy's mouth fell open. "You didn't call him, did you?" she demanded. "Dad, please tell me you didn't call Andrew and ask him where I was!"
"Don't change the subject, Amy. I want the story, and I want it now."
"Was he upset? Did he sound angry? Or worried? What did he say to you?"
"Hey, I said we're not talking about that right now. You have five seconds to start telling us what happened tonight."
"Fine," Amy said, stung by the thought of Andy's reaction to hearing that she had missed her curfew, and his undoubted assumptions that she was with Ben. She opened her mouth and let the explanation spill out in a rush. "I left the party with Ben, and we went to the beach to talk because I was upset. We lost track of time, and he was rushing to get me home because it was already past curfew, and at a red light we rear-ended Deputy Johnson's car, and he took us to the station, and I knew you guys would be mad that I was with him in the first place, so I called Pacey to avoid a huge scene between you and Ben. And it's my fault we were running late anyway, so you shouldn't be mad at him for that part. That's it. No big deal."
There was a moment of silence. Then Doug stepped forward, towering over Amy, who, with an effort, held her ground, looking up at him calmly. "Wait a minute. Back up. You and Chambers rear-ended my deputy?"
"Yes."
"Was Chambers driving the car?"
"Yes."
"Was he drunk?"
"Not really."
"What the hell does that mean? Had he been drinking?"
"Yes, but not that much. He was fine to drive."
Jack and Doug stared at one another in disbelief, then looked back at her. "You got in the car with someone who had been drinking," Jack repeated under his breath, as if he were trying to make sense of what she had just said.
"I'm telling you, he was fine by the time we left the beach!"
"Oh, but he wasn't fine when you left the party?"
"No! I mean yes, he was." Amy took a deep breath, making an effort to lower her voice, which had been steadily rising. "I think you guys are overreacting. Can we discuss this like adults, please?"
Jack threw her a hard look, his eyes bright and his voice tense with barely contained anger. "You see, the problem with that is that you aren't an adult. I don't care how old you think you are, how old you look, how old it makes you feel when you pop pills and guzzle beer and go riding around with drunken lowlifes like your so-called friend Ben Chambers! The bottom line is that you are fifteen years old, Amy, and WE are the adults, not you. And you need to start respecting that fact, do you understand me?"
"I'm almost sixteen," Amy said into the silence that followed his outburst. "Before you know it I'll be eighteen and out of your hands. Do you really want to keep me so sheltered that I'll spin out of control when I finally get my freedom?"
"You keep going like this and you may not make it to eighteen," Doug chimed in. Then he looked at Jack. "Now maybe you'll back me up when I tell her she needs to stop hanging out with that little punk."
"You can't stop me from seeing my friends!" Amy said, forgetting to keep her voice down.
"Like hell we can't. You don't believe me, just let that kid show his face around here one more time," Doug said.
Jack rubbed his eyes wearily before speaking, his tone more controlled now. "Yes, Doug, I'll back you up," he said. "Amy, that kid has done nothing but cause trouble for you. You don't need a friend like that."
Amy gaped at them. "You have no right to tell me who my friends can be!" she said angrily. "And for your information, Ben is more than a friend! Much more. So everyone is just going to have to accept that, because, like it or not, it's my life." Tears surged into her eyes, and she turned and ran upstairs to her bedroom, slamming the door so hard that a framed photograph of her dad and mom and all their friends fell off the wall.
In the kitchen, Jack's face was in his hands again. "That was even more fun than I expected," he said sarcastically. "How does one go about retiring from fatherhood?"
Doug sank down next to Jack on another stool. "That girl knows how to push all our buttons. I think she enjoys it."
"Damned if she isn't just as pig-headed as you. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she's got your blood in her veins," Jack said, then looked sideways at Doug. "Is there anything you and Jen neglected to tell me?"
Doug rolled his eyes at him. "Are we going to have round two tonight, or start fresh in the morning?"
"I'm sure as hell not up for it tonight," Jack said firmly. "Let's go get some sleep."
Doug smiled weakly. "You want to go to sleep? Or just to bed?"
Jack gave him a raised-eyebrow look. "Oh, believe me, I mean sleep." He leaned over and kissed Doug on the lips, smirking. "You're beautiful, Dougie, but not THAT beautiful."
"That hurts, Jack. That really hurts."
-----------------------------------------------------
No sooner had the door closed behind Pacey than the phone rang. Joey squinted at the receiver in the flickering light of the television and saw that it was Jack and Doug's number. Taking a deep breath, she answered.
"Jo, hi. I'm sorry to call so late; I hope I didn't wake you guys up. Have you heard from Amy tonight?"
"Jack. Yes, as a matter of fact, we have," Joey said hesitantly.
"And?" Jack prodded when Joey didn't volunteer anything more.
"And all I'm allowed to tell you is that she's all right, and Pacey is bringing her home."
Jack let out a sigh of relief. "Thank God. Her curfew is eleven; I've been worried sick. She wasn't answering her cell phone, either. So you can't give me details?"
"You'll find out soon enough, I'm afraid."
"No doubt. I can't wait for that," he said under his breath. "Anyway, thanks for being there for her, Jo. You and Pacey are great. I honestly don't know what we'd do without the backup."
Joey smiled. "Are you kidding, we love being someone's cool aunt and uncle. Listen, Jack, don't be too hard on her, okay? She's going through a rough time."
"Tell me about it. But I'm not making any promises. I'm telling you, this girl is going to be the death of us if things keep going the way they have been. Doug's talking about boot camp, and I'm not sure he's kidding." He laughed. "Wouldn't Jen love that? I'll talk to you tomorrow, Jo. Try to get back to sleep."
"Five more minutes of this movie should do the trick."
"Huh?"
"Never mind. When Amy gets home, just remember that we were stupid kids once too, Jack. 'Night."
Jack hung up, sank down onto a barstool at the kitchen counter, and put his face in his hands, groaning. Doug eyed him steadily. "Should I even ask?" he said dryly over the top of his coffee mug.
His voice muffled by his hands, Jack said, "The prodigal daughter is on her way home with your brother. I don't know anything more than that, but I can guess that it's not good if she called him to come get her instead of us. I'm so not in the mood for this. I'm sick of being Disciplinarian Jack. I hate that guy. He's a jerk."
Doug sighed heavily. "Then go to bed," he said. "Let me handle this one."
Jack looked up. "Are you kidding?"
"No. You're exhausted. And you know I don't mind being the bad guy when I have to, it's an occupational necessity." Doug drained the last of his coffee, put the cup in the sink, then came around the counter and began massaging Jack's shoulders. "Go on up to bed. I'll deal with the kid."
Jack squeezed his eyes shut tightly and rolled his head back, feeling the tension in his shoulders begin to loosen. "As tempting as that sounds, I don't think I could sleep now if my life depended on it. Curiosity has won me over. I want to know what it was Joey couldn't tell me on the phone."
"That does sound ominous. What could it be this time?"
"Maybe Amy killed someone." Jack started to laugh wearily, then stopped abruptly. "Wait. That's not funny."
-----------------------
Pacey ended up picking Ben up too, since his parents were out of town and the poor kid would have been stuck in lockup. His car, dented bumper and all, was staying put for the night, at least.
"Can you drop Ben off first, Pace?" Amy asked, the first words she had spoken since her uncle had appeared to free them. "I don't want them to see him."
Pacey glanced at Ben in the rearview mirror. He wasn't incredibly fond of his backseat passenger. He knew he was the one who had given Amy the drugs, and he had heard about a few other incidents that presented the kid in a less-than-favorable light, like the time he had allegedly shoved Amy down in a drunken argument. Not the best way to score points with the family. But regardless, Pacey himself had been on the wrong end of Dougie's wrath more than once in his day, and he didn't wish it on Ben after the rough night he'd had already.
"I don't blame you for being worried about that. But no dice. They're probably waiting up for you, Aim. You can stay in the car if you want, Chambers. In fact, I'd highly recommend it."
Amy sighed deeply and stared out the window into the darkness. She wondered if Andrew had gone home right away, if he was sitting awake in his bedroom right now entertaining his overactive imagination by pondering all kinds of far-fetched scenarios of her and Ben and what might have happened after he left the party. If she knew him (and she did), that was probably right on target. She felt a small stab of guilt at the way they had left things. Granted, he had some jealousy issues, and granted, they infuriated her, but wasn't she to blame for them? If the whole mess with Ben had never taken place, Andy would have no reason to be jealous. Then again, if Andy hadn't confessed his feelings for her in the first place, things might be just as they were back then, the three of them best friends and living their blessedly uncomplicated, angst-free lives.
"Home sweet home, kiddo. Want me to come in with you, or can you take it from here?" Pacey asked, putting the car in park and looking over at his niece. "If you need moral support, I don't mind. But I should warn you, I have a tendency to exacerbate already-volatile situations. It's really my downfall. In case you've ever wondered, that's why I let the little woman deal with the important stuff."
Amy forced a smile, knowing he was trying to make her feel better. "I'm sure Joey would love to hear you call her the little woman. Nice of you to offer, but I'll handle it," she said wearily. "I'm becoming a pro. But thanks for picking us up, Uncle Pacey. I'll bail you out next time you get arrested."
"Ah, although doomed to an unspeakable fate, she keeps her sense of humor. That's my girl, I like that."
Amy turned in her seat to look at Ben, who had been silent the whole time. "Call me tomorrow, okay?" she said. "Since most of tonight was my fault, I'm going to feel like a complete ass by morning, and I'll need some reassurance."
"Reassurance that you're a complete ass?" Ben smiled a little, and Amy returned it, a little more sincerely this time. Then she got out and started toward the front door. It opened as she was reaching for the knob, and Doug stood there in a T-shirt and shorts, his expression solid and stern and coplike.
"Hi Dougie," she said, deciding to start this out on a pleasant note. "I'm home."
He raised an eyebrow at her and motioned with a nod of his head for her to go into the kitchen. Jack was sitting on one of the barstools at the counter, drinking coffee.
"Well, I'm glad to see that you're in one piece," he said in a falsely casual tone.
She didn't know exactly how to respond to that, so she just stood there, waiting for him to continue.
"Are you really going to wait for us to ask you where you've been?"
"I wasn't going to volunteer the information, if that's what you mean." Amy's attempt at a joke fell flat as Jack held her gaze until she was forced to look away. "Anyway, I thought you might have heard already. Usually when I screw up, it's headline news in a matter of hours."
"Well, Andrew didn't know what happened to you after he left the party."
Amy's mouth fell open. "You didn't call him, did you?" she demanded. "Dad, please tell me you didn't call Andrew and ask him where I was!"
"Don't change the subject, Amy. I want the story, and I want it now."
"Was he upset? Did he sound angry? Or worried? What did he say to you?"
"Hey, I said we're not talking about that right now. You have five seconds to start telling us what happened tonight."
"Fine," Amy said, stung by the thought of Andy's reaction to hearing that she had missed her curfew, and his undoubted assumptions that she was with Ben. She opened her mouth and let the explanation spill out in a rush. "I left the party with Ben, and we went to the beach to talk because I was upset. We lost track of time, and he was rushing to get me home because it was already past curfew, and at a red light we rear-ended Deputy Johnson's car, and he took us to the station, and I knew you guys would be mad that I was with him in the first place, so I called Pacey to avoid a huge scene between you and Ben. And it's my fault we were running late anyway, so you shouldn't be mad at him for that part. That's it. No big deal."
There was a moment of silence. Then Doug stepped forward, towering over Amy, who, with an effort, held her ground, looking up at him calmly. "Wait a minute. Back up. You and Chambers rear-ended my deputy?"
"Yes."
"Was Chambers driving the car?"
"Yes."
"Was he drunk?"
"Not really."
"What the hell does that mean? Had he been drinking?"
"Yes, but not that much. He was fine to drive."
Jack and Doug stared at one another in disbelief, then looked back at her. "You got in the car with someone who had been drinking," Jack repeated under his breath, as if he were trying to make sense of what she had just said.
"I'm telling you, he was fine by the time we left the beach!"
"Oh, but he wasn't fine when you left the party?"
"No! I mean yes, he was." Amy took a deep breath, making an effort to lower her voice, which had been steadily rising. "I think you guys are overreacting. Can we discuss this like adults, please?"
Jack threw her a hard look, his eyes bright and his voice tense with barely contained anger. "You see, the problem with that is that you aren't an adult. I don't care how old you think you are, how old you look, how old it makes you feel when you pop pills and guzzle beer and go riding around with drunken lowlifes like your so-called friend Ben Chambers! The bottom line is that you are fifteen years old, Amy, and WE are the adults, not you. And you need to start respecting that fact, do you understand me?"
"I'm almost sixteen," Amy said into the silence that followed his outburst. "Before you know it I'll be eighteen and out of your hands. Do you really want to keep me so sheltered that I'll spin out of control when I finally get my freedom?"
"You keep going like this and you may not make it to eighteen," Doug chimed in. Then he looked at Jack. "Now maybe you'll back me up when I tell her she needs to stop hanging out with that little punk."
"You can't stop me from seeing my friends!" Amy said, forgetting to keep her voice down.
"Like hell we can't. You don't believe me, just let that kid show his face around here one more time," Doug said.
Jack rubbed his eyes wearily before speaking, his tone more controlled now. "Yes, Doug, I'll back you up," he said. "Amy, that kid has done nothing but cause trouble for you. You don't need a friend like that."
Amy gaped at them. "You have no right to tell me who my friends can be!" she said angrily. "And for your information, Ben is more than a friend! Much more. So everyone is just going to have to accept that, because, like it or not, it's my life." Tears surged into her eyes, and she turned and ran upstairs to her bedroom, slamming the door so hard that a framed photograph of her dad and mom and all their friends fell off the wall.
In the kitchen, Jack's face was in his hands again. "That was even more fun than I expected," he said sarcastically. "How does one go about retiring from fatherhood?"
Doug sank down next to Jack on another stool. "That girl knows how to push all our buttons. I think she enjoys it."
"Damned if she isn't just as pig-headed as you. If I didn't know any better, I'd say she's got your blood in her veins," Jack said, then looked sideways at Doug. "Is there anything you and Jen neglected to tell me?"
Doug rolled his eyes at him. "Are we going to have round two tonight, or start fresh in the morning?"
"I'm sure as hell not up for it tonight," Jack said firmly. "Let's go get some sleep."
Doug smiled weakly. "You want to go to sleep? Or just to bed?"
Jack gave him a raised-eyebrow look. "Oh, believe me, I mean sleep." He leaned over and kissed Doug on the lips, smirking. "You're beautiful, Dougie, but not THAT beautiful."
"That hurts, Jack. That really hurts."