"A person who pulls himself up from a low environment via the boot-strap route has two choices. Having risen above his environment, he can forget it; or, he can rise above it and never forget it and keep compassion and understanding in his heart for those he has left behind him in the cruel up climb." Betty Smith

A small yellow, green and orange hook rug covered the chipped vinyl floor. The kitchen walls were painted a deep, rich red and the rug decidedly didn't match. It also drew attention to the condition of the floor instead of it's intended purpose of masking it. Her mother had made that rug. The fabric had been stored in bags under the coffee table for years until Joey finally entered Kindergarten and her mother's rug making career began and ended with the slightly lopsided circular rug.

Joey offered her sister a slight smile as she squeezed by the table to grab a cup of coffee. Bessie gestured toward the pancakes on the stove and Joey took a few, warming them up in the microwave before joining her sister at the table. Bessie was sitting in Bodie's usual spot reading the paper, using a coffee mug that could easily be mistaken for a large soup bowl.

Bessie had showed incredible restraint waiting for her to share what had brought her back to Capeside. A weekend had turned into five days and she couldn't explain it now any better than she could when she had first come home.

"Bodie took Alexander to the market with early this morning."

Her nephew had recently turned eight and there was nothing left of the baby that she had left behind, a reminder that even if you are unaware of it, time marches on.

Turn on your heart light.

Let it shine wherever you go.

Let it make a happy glow

For the entire world to see.

Joey cringed burning her lip on her first sip of hot coffee as the cell phone ring startled her. She could feel Bessie's eyes on her. She remembered that Alexander had been playing with her phone last night. The game of snake seemed to fascinate him for hours on end and when the Icehouse was busy as it was last night, anything that keeps him quite is a good thing. She had turned the phone off last night and could only assume that Alexander had picked it up for another game this morning not aware that his aunt wanted to be unavailable.

She picked up the phone turning it off with her back to Bessie. "Hello, hello" she repeated feeling slightly silly. She remembered calling time and temperature and offering a trite apology pretending it was Dawson. The bad thing about being brought up by an older sister who had a slightly wild side is that you get away with nothing. Joey still remembered the humiliation of being driven to the Leery house to apologize in person.

The cell phone had been a gift from Dawson last Christmas. He had dropped hints for weeks, making Joey think that she was being given a different type of ring, one that symbolized the future. He had been so caught up in congratulating himself on how perfect the gift was that he didn't notice her stunned silence once she had opened the phone. She had tossed the phone aside thinking how clever he was to hide a ring in a cell phone box. She wondered what it said about a relationship to have a childhood song represent it, one that seemed more of a tribute to Stephen Spielberg and their past.

"You can't keep avoiding him, Jo." It was the first time that Bessie had broached the subject of Dawson and as much as she wanted to lash out she stopped herself because of the concern on her sister's face.

"You'll work it out, Jo." Bessie gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. You always do, ya know..."

Joey's fingers ran across the small round diamond on her right hand. She couldn't recall a time when her dreams didn't involve Dawson Leery. Her childhood has been intertwined with his. She honestly didn't know if she would have made it through without the Leery's, without Dawson.

"You know you can talk to me, Jo. Whatever it is."

"Yeah, I know." Joey sat down at the table, shoving the cell phone into her pocket.

"Today, Jo. Talk to him today."

"Yeah, okay." She didn't quite meet her sister's gaze.

"God damn it Pacey you cut this short."

His father's voice was loud and impatient. Pacey pulled up the board in question and switched it with the one slightly to his right. His dad had been griping all morning about why the hell anyone would do a stupid herringbone pattern when they could just do a plain old deck.

In a way he thought that his dad might be right and it wasn't often that he had thoughts like that but he had a nagging doubt about investing so much money in the deck. He thought that playing up this element would be what would sell the house for the price he wanted but maybe he was allowing personal taste to interfere with business sense. In the world of flipping, you had to keep it neutral.

Pacey and his father surveyed the deck from every angle before they began the task of screwing down the boards. The earlier work had been a challenge almost like a complex puzzle. They both worked in silence in a steady rhythm.

Several times over the past few days he had started to thank his father for coming to help him but then his dad would yell at him and the words were forever lost. Some things never changed.

"Sometimes I wonder why we ever left Capeside."

One afternoon his sophomore year in college he had Googled his father during a particularly boring English literature lecture. He knew that their departure from Capeside was not as simple as a career opportunity in the city. Things in his family never were.

"Your brother is going to take the Captain exam next go round."

"Following in the old Witter footsteps, eh, dad." Pacey had long since given up the animosity he used to feel toward his older brother. He supposed that in every family there was a certain amount of sibling rivalry but in his it had been nourished by the fact that Doug was pretty much perfect and he held the title of family screw up.

"Yep, guess so." His father stood reaching for another bag of screws before settling back into his previous position. "Both my boys going into law, makes an old man proud."

"Tell Doug, I said, good luck." Law school seemed inexplicably linked with Andie. They had made so many plans and sometimes Pacey wondered if law school was his idea at all. He had been a slacker of sorts when Andie had come onto the scene his sophomore year in high school. Without her help he would surely never have been accepted into college at all. Some of her ambition had rubbed off and while he didn't get into Harvard, he had followed her going to Cambridge College.

"You can tell him yourself. He plans to take his vacation to come down and help you with this house and by the looks of things; you can use all the help you can get.

And just like that it was back to the regularly scheduled program.

The walk through town was like some kind of memory lane. There were the swings where she and Dawson had shared their second kiss and many childhood memories. She could almost picture her younger self and all the hope that she had felt.

Screen Play video was now a small sandwich shop. Vaguely she remembered Dawson telling her with an outraged voice that HIS video store was being replaced with a blockbuster. Personally Joey liked the anonymous feel of the blockbuster in the new strip mall at the edge of town, next to Bath and Body Works. Who knew that a town like Capeside could support a Bath and Body Works?

The whole town was like some kind of time warp. Grover Grocery stood on the corner as it had as long as she could remember. A giant ice cream cone whirled above the sign even though the old ice cream counter had been replaced with an expanded beauty section when Joey had been in high school. Now the only ice cream sold was in the frozen isle but in typical Capeside fashion even when things changed, they remained the same.

In some way's she still felt like that "poor Potter girl, too tall girl, from the wrong side of the creek." She had a degree from Worthington in art history and she had believed that and marrying Dawson Leery would somehow transform her. Except that other than the fact that she now had a degree which didn't lead to many job prospects, she felt like the same girl.

And that was when she saw him, right by the peppers that Bodie wanted for his parmesan tilapia that he planned to cook tomorrow. He was wearing a pair of olive cargo shorts with a green Hawaiian shirt that in no way matched his shorts. His brown hair was overdue for a trim and brushed the collar of his shirt. She took a deep breath and tried to remain calm. She had known that she would run into him at some point. After all what did you expect in a town the size of Capeside.

He raised his eyebrows slightly giving her a cocky smile.

She scowled at him. His eyes met hers and she felt a little jolt. She turned away quickly clipping a display of vanilla wafers that had been placed beside the bananas. The tower of yellow boxes fell blocking her path.

"You didn't have to go so far to get my attention." He let out a low laugh, raising his eyebrows twice in a way that she was sure he thought was charming.

She felt heat rising to her face as several shoppers stopped to stare.

"I certainly wasn't trying to get your attention. I was getting peppers and" She brushed a few strands of hair behind her ears trying to regain her composure.

"Your Joey, right?" Bessie had shown him her engagement announcement when it ran in the local paper." Without the Icehouse, I would have starved by now." He shoved the hand into his pocket wondering exactly what he had done to receive a look like that.

"I'm Pacey Witter."

"I know who you are." He heard the contempt in her voice and it wasn't like he hadn't been shot down before. He knew how to take no for an answer or when someone wasn't interested but for a second there he thought he saw interest in her eyes.

"See you around, Potter." He lifted his hand before he turned away.

And he was gone, but her anger remained as she finished her shopping. She concocted a story to tell Dawson about the pompous ass that was entertaining although slightly exaggerated. Then it hit her again that she couldn't simply call up Dawson to have a good laugh.

They had things to discuss that had nothing to do with the guy with poor fashion sense that had outbid her on her Dawson on her old house.

He shrugged his shoulders as he placed his items on the automated strip. It wasn't like he was looking for any complications right now. He only had two months to finish the house before he sold it and left for BUSL. Now wasn't the time to think about a certain brunette with a chip on her shoulder and rock on her finger.