"She's eighteen weeks along." The doctor closed his flip chart and leaned back in his chair. "She's hasn't gained a sufficient amount of weight at this point to guarantee a safe birth. We're looking at premature labor and worse case scenario, still birth."

Pacey sat up in the chair and rested his elbows on his knees. "There's still a chance though, right?"

"There's always a chance, Mr. Witter. But with Ms. Potter's history with drugs and her own admission to starving herself when she first found out she was pregnant, it's a very, slim, almost minute chance."

"She starved herself?" Bessie whispered, reminding Pacey that she was in the room. She had been so quiet through the exam and then while the doctor had been going over the results that Pacey had forgotten she was there. "She didn't tell me."

The doctor nodded somberly. "She had a hard time saying it out loud to me. I can't imagine it would have been much easier to her sister. Ms. Potter, I am going to do everything medically possible to make sure that your sister delivers a healthy, happy baby. She's going to need the both of you during the next six four and a half months. You're going to have to make sure she eats, gets enough rest, and most of all stays healthy."

Pacey gripped Bessie's had and faced the doctor. "She's going to have this baby. She has to. Right now, it's the only thing keeping her alive."

"As a friend, Mr. Witter, I'd like to say that it would be wise for you to keep your objection in this case. I know you have history with Ms. Potter, but allowing your feelings to come between your job and her health aren't going to help her any."

Pacey dropped his head, fearful of the tears that had filled his eyes. "It was my feelings that started this whole thing in the first place."

"Thank you, Dr. Bowden. I appreciate you taking the time to meet with us." Bessie stood, urging Pacey to do the same. She knew what that admission had cost him, and she could almost feel the pain radiating off of him.

She waited until they were pulling out of the parking lot to speak again. "I hate seeing the both of you like this, Pacey."

He kept his eyes on the road, needing the focus, the mundane task to keep him sane. To keep him calm. "I know, Bess. There's just really nothing more we can do to make this happen sooner. The fact that Joey is still there, letting the doctors poke and prod at her for the next two days is miracle enough at this point. All we can do now is pray."

"Pacey, don't listen to what that doctor said. She needs you now more than ever."

"If I hadn't been such an ass to her our freshman year, she might not have ended up like this."

"That's awfully selfish of you, Witter," Bessie snapped. She turned in the seat to look at him, arrogance in her posture.

"Excuse me?" He glanced at her, and incredulous look on his face. "How is accepting my failure in this selfish?"

She shook her head, sadness clouding her eyes. "You're not accepting your failure. You're taking all of the blame. Sure, if you ask me, had you been a little more supportive during that year, things might not have gotten as bad. But they still wouldn't have been sunshine and rainbows, either. Joey has always been impressionable. She's always had that naive side, and she's always been a little more insecure than she needed to be. It really doesn't matter that you weren't there as much as you should have been. What matters is that Joey made her choice, and it led her here." She wiped at a tear that had escaped. "I don't know about you, but I'm glad that she is here, now, with us. She didn't have it easy before, the time that is waiting ahead for her isn't going to get any easier. If you want to help her, you have to stop blaming yourself and start loving her."

"Just tell me one thing. This advice that you're handing out. Is it one-sided?"

Bessie chuckled humorlessly. "I have to face myself everyday in the mirror, and fight against the disgust that I feel for my reflection. I let her down as much as you did, if not more. My biggest battle won't be finding a way to offer her support. It's going to be forgiving myself for letting her down."

He nodded, glancing quickly in the rearview mirror to before changing lanes. "We're only human, Bess. I'll tell you like I tell everyone that I've worked with, and will work with. We can only take it one day at a time."

Bessie laughed again, the sound genuine, and foreign to both their ears. "That's a bunch of bullshit."

Pacey smiled at her. "I'm a social worker. Not a philosopher."

----

"When am I getting released?" Joey swung her legs over the side of the hospital bed, anxious to get out. She hated hospitals. She hated police stations. She hated anyplace that was filled with people that tried to run your life for you. "I want out of here."

Pacey sat in the chair by the window flipping through a magazine, pretending to ignore her. She'd been asking to leave for the last three hours, and she'd only been there for five. Of course, he knew that a minute in a hospital was often too long, for just about anyone. "You're in til Thursday afternoon. There are some tests the doctor wants to run, and they can't be run unless you're under observation."

She snorted, disgust evident in the gesture. "I'm not going to go running off for a fix if that's what all of you are worried about. It's been a week now. The worst of it has passed and it's not so hard to get through a day without inhaling something."

"That's not what we're worried about, Jo." Pacey tossed the magazine back in it's rack and got up to sit next to her on the bed. "While they were running the first couple of tests, Bessie and I spoke to your doctor. Things aren't exactly idyllic for you, Joey. There are a lot of risks we're taking here."

"We're? Who's we, Pacey? The only one here risking anything is me. I know that I could die. I know that this baby could die. But I have to try." She got up to pace the room, her hospital issued slippers whispering across the tile floor. "I don't think you understand how important that is to me. Without this, there's no reason to try. No reason to get better."

"That's a lot of pressure for one little baby, Jo. That's a lot of pressure for you." He waited until she had stopped pacing and turned to look at him. "That's why the doctor insisted on all of these tests. He wants to help you as much as Bessie and I do. He wants to see this baby live. He wants to see you live."

Joey sat on the bed, placing her hand in his. "I know that I keep flip-flopping in regards to how I feel about you helping with this, but I need you to know that having you here does help. Not just because this is what you do for a living, but because you know me. Even after all those years of nothing between us, you still know me. The core of me, the things that can't, and won't ever change. You'll always be the person who knows me best, Pacey. No matter what I do to try to change me." She rested her head on his shoulder. "It's always been you."

----

Joey lay in the hospital bed, the only light in the room spilling from the bathroom. Her hand rested on the small bulge that was forming at her waistline, and her eyes stared out the window.

Things had changed for her. They had changed fast, and drastically.

And it was because of that that she was uncertain whether these new feelings she had were genuine.

Although, if she were to be truthful, she'd have to say that they were old feelings, sparked by the match that Pacey had lit beneath her.

Her world had always seemed bigger and brighter when he had been there, and now that he was here, she found herself hoping for things she had no business thinking about.

She had stopped dreaming about love and children and happiness a long time ago, and she didn't think it was fair for fate to throw those things back in her face.

The moment Pacey had kissed her; she had fallen face first in love with him. Everything twisted itself so that I was about him. She worked hard in school because she needed him to be proud of her. She experimented with makeup and clothes and started working out because she wanted him to want her.

But then she had found out about Courtney. Her world, already balance precariously on the edge, had tumbled and crashed.

There were still pieces of her missing. The small parts that meant so much...

So small that you didn't notice they were missing until they were shoved behind the couch with all the dust and the back of the remote control you lost months ago.

You keep reminding yourself to move the couch and clean behind it, but something else always becomes more important.

For her, those 'more important' things had become getting high and ditching class and fucking.

She finally just forgot to clean behind her figurative couch, and she had ended up here.

Pregnant, sick, and falling in love with the man she used to blame for everything.

A single, solitary tear burned a path down her cheek as she turned her head to concentrate on sleep.

"I can't love you, Pacey. I don't have enough for you and this baby."