I'm sure you all realize I don't own Dawson's Creek or it's characters, so let's not bother with that. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reviewed...it meant a lot to me to get so many nice ones since this is my first DC fanfic :) Sorry for the long wait between updates, too. My computer crashed and it took a month to fix. Not only that, but I lost everything...all my documents being the worst loss of all. So now I'm trying to rework what I had of this story. All I can say is, bear with me, please! Hope you all enjoy this chapter :)

Gwen's Warning

"Oh my god! Joey…Dawson! You guys are so grown up!" Dawson's Aunt Gwen ran out to greet the teenagers in a whirlwind of raw energy as they stumbled out of the jeep . She hugged both Joey and Dawson, then turned around to look at the other three adolescents that were staring back at her.

"Hello," Will greeted. "I'm Will, and this is my girlfriend Andie. Thanks for allowing us to come with Dawson to visit you." He tried to shake her hand but Gwen shooed his hand away and pulled him into a hug. When she let him go she pulled Andie into a quick embrace.

"What polite friends you have, Dawson!" she exclaimed with a huge grin. "I remember when it was only you, Joey, and that little troublemaker Pacey…who isn't so little anymore, now that I look at him. Why are you standing back there? Come and give me a hug!"

Pacey, who by this point was extremely red in the face (much to the satisfaction of one Miss Josephine Potter), walked up slowly to Dawson's Aunt Gwen and gave her a hug. Normally Pacey wasn't one to be so subdued, and it didn't go unnoticed. He couldn't help feeling that he shouldn't be there hugging Dawson's aunt, who was obviously pleased to see him, when he was thinking the thoughts he was about his best friend's soulmate.

"Well, now that we're all acquainted, why don't I show you the sleeping arrangements?" Gwen suggested. Everyone nodded at her and grabbed their luggage to follow her through the house.

She pushed open the door to a large room with a fireplace and one bed. Joey felt a pang of guilt when she saw the unchanged room…it was where she and Dawson used to sleep when they went there as kids. Pacey was usually stuck sleeping on the couch in the living room, which he said suited him just fine; he'd rather sleep on a couch than listen to Joey snore, anyways (that comment earned him three hours worth of Joey chasing him until she finally caught him and gave him a black eye when they were just ten years old). Joey had a rueful half-smile on her face as she thought of that day, and blushed profusely when she saw Dawson looking at her pensively.

"Well, this is it!" Gwen said brightly.

While Andie and Will just looked around with confusion in their eyes, Dawson explained, "This is the only bedroom other than Aunt Gwen's. Am I to assume we're all sleeping in here?"

"Right you are, Dawson!" Gwen looked thrilled that her nephew had caught on as quickly as he had. "I didn't think it would be fair to assign the couch to someone, the bed to two others, and for the other two to have to sleep on the floor. This way, you guys can figure out what it is you want to do. Maybe you can switch off with the bed," she said with a wink to Andie and Will. "Anyways, I think Pacey can testify to how chilly the living room gets at night. I think you'll all want to stay pretty close to this fireplace. I have extra sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows in the closet in case you didn't bring any."

"Thank you, Aunt Gwen," Dawson said while giving her another hug.

"I'll let you guys get cleaned up and maybe rest a bit before dinner," Gwen tossed over her shoulder as she walked out. "It's Dawson and Joey's favorite…spaghetti!"

Once she had walked out of the room Andie exclaimed, "Dawson! Your aunt is awesome!"

"You're just saying that because she basically said we could be in that bed together and she wouldn't care," Will whispered in her ear. Andie immediately turned red in the face and swatted him away.

"…Right," Dawson said, a little uncomfortably. "I think I'm going to head to the bathroom and take a shower before dinner." He opened up his gym bag and grabbed a towel and change of clothes before heading towards the door.

"I'm going to stay right here with my beautiful girlfriend…that is, if she'll let me," Will announced to the room at large while giving Andie the look he knew she couldn't resist.

"I haven't been here in so long," Joey said thoughtfully, seemingly to no one in particular. "I think I'm going to go take a walk and have a look around."

"Mind if I join you, Potter?"

Joey looked up into the pair of deep blue eyes that were her undoing, momentarily surprised by hearing Pacey's voice. He had been so quiet since their arrival that she had almost forgotten he was there, which was highly unusual behavior for her sparring partner.

"It's not so much that I want your company," he explained, "it's just that I don't want to sit and watch my friend here making kissy faces at my ex-girlfriend. Not that it wasn't fun in the car, you guys, but a man can only take so much!"

"Hey!" Will exclaimed as he threw a pillow at Pacey from the bed he was sitting on with Andie. "You had your chance with this lovely lady…and if you want to leave us alone in the room, that's fine by us," he said with a devilish grin.

"God, Joey…Pace, please don't leave me in here with him alone," Andie joked with pleading eyes to them.

"Not good enough, McPhee. You never were able to hide your true feelings. Jo, what do you say we take that walk?"

Joey only nodded, waved to Will and Andie, then allowed Pacey to take her arm and guide her out of the house. It took until they were in the kitchen on their way out the door for it to register with Joey that Pacey had called her 'Jo' instead of 'Potter' and that could only mean trouble.

"Hey!" Joey jumped and jerked her arm away from Pacey's as she heard Gwen's voice coming from the direction of the stove. "Where are you guys off to?"

"W-w-walk," Joey stuttered, while looking down at a particularly interesting piece of broken tile on the kitchen floor - anything not to make eye contact with Gwen. She had always loved Dawson's Aunt Gwen, but there was one thing she couldn't stand about her. Gwen had this uncanny knack of knowing exactly what it was Joey was thinking, no matter how much she tried to hide it. At this moment, she wasn't really too keen on Dawson's beloved aunt finding out that she no longer had feelings for her favorite nephew, and in fact, wanted to move on to his best friend who was standing next to her.

"As Joey here so eloquently put it," Pacey elaborated, "we are, indeed, going for a pre-dinner walk. You can hardly blame us, Gwen…you live in a very beautiful area. You've been here forever…I can't believe you're giving this all up."

Gwen smiled at Pacey indulgently as she said, "Sometimes beauty and tradition aren't enough to make someone want to stick around, am I right Joey?"

Joey forgot her resolve and looked up at Gwen quickly, only to be met by a pair of sad blue eyes poring into her soul. Joey grimaced and looked back down at the tile.

"Well, alright you two, have fun on your walk. Dinner should be ready in forty-five minutes or so. Make it back on time or suffer the consequences."

Gwen had tried to make her last warning sound lighthearted, but from the look on Joey's face she knew it was taken very seriously. She turned back around to stir her sauce as Pacey led Joey out of the kitchen with a very stricken look on her face. All Joey could think was, she knows.