Note: thanks for the nice feedback everyone, enjoy.

Note2: I realize Alexander is like 5 or something right now but I want him to interat with Maia later on and for that he needs to be at least 8 so I'm just saying he's 8 years old instead of just 5.

Superfan24 – to answer your question

Joel Gretsch plays Tom Baldwin,

Dylan Neal plays Douglas Witter.

Chapter 9 – School, an old boyfriend and a gunshot

"Joey, wake up sleepyhead, I don't want you to be late for school!" Bessie's voice yelled from by her door.

Joey hadn't slept well, missing the warmth and scent of a certain young man who was in the room next to hers. She even got out of her bed at one point frustrated and made her way out of her room. But when she reached the door to his she had frozen and stood there a while before going back to her own bed.

She groaned as she pulled her tired body off her mattress an set her feet to the ground. She really did not want to go to school, which was rare for her but who could blame her. She had been gone 3 years and now she had to go back to school to see everyone giving her weird looks and go to classes and try to act normal despite everything. No she was not looking forwards to it. Her mind wondered to Shawn and Maia, wondering how they were doing, she was lucky to have Jen and Pacey with her to deal with everything. But Shawn was the only 4400 at Seacrest Senior High School, and Maia, she was still in quarantine. That was no place for a little girl, ability to predict to future or not, she should be able to be a kid and have fun.

Pacey yawned as he sat at the breakfast table, he wasn't really away yet, despite the shower he took this morning. He'd been thinking about things most of the night, then finally fell into a restless sleep and sighted when he woke up, part of him had hoped that it all been a bad dream. That he was still in quarantine, no Dawson, no dysfunctional family, just being with Joey and his friends. He looked up as he saw her walk up to table, taking a seat next to him.

Bodie scooped some pancakes up on Joey's plate and looked at the two tired looking teenagers. "You know if I didn't know any better I'd say you two stayed up all night."

Pacey looked at him but before he could say anything Bessie said "well they have a lot to deal with. And I'm sure Joey and Pacey aren't looking forwards to another school day. I'm just glad they weren't up together in the same bed. Or else I would have been up all night."

"I'm sure I could have found something to get you back to sleep" Bodie replied and smiled at a very blushing Bessie.

"Please you two, Alexander is in the room." Joey told them as she glanced over as Alexander who was busy playing device that looked like a game boy color but was somehow different, he seemed to not notice anything as all as he was absorbed in the computer game. She realized technology had advanced as well in her time gone and this was a better version of the old game boy color.

"Well isn't it good for a child to know his parents have a healthy sex life." Pacey told her.

Joey turned her head to him, "not if you want to scar the poor child for life. What would happen if he walked in on them while their…you know…busy." A horrified look spread her features when she projected a mental image of it inside her mind. She hit Pacey's arm blaming him.

"Ow" Pacey said rubbing his arm as he looked at her, but he wasn't about to back down "well Alexander would learn a fine lesson to knock first before entering a room. And look at Dawson, he has walked in on his parents a lot of times and he's not scarred for life."

"No just delusion and enormously self-centered." Joey muttered.

Pacey raised an eyebrow "was that something negative about Dawson coming out of Miss Josephine Potter's mouth?" he asked.

"Bite me Pacey" she said annoyed with him.

"Just say when and where Potter" Pacey replied.

Bodie and Bessie just looked at each other as they watched the two teens slip into their usual banter which they both figured out as a kind of foreplay for them.

"In your dreams Pacey." Joey replied to him.

"I do a lot more to you in my dreams Potter" he replied winking suggest fully at her.

Joey rolled her eyes in frustration with him and herself for wanting to kiss him badly. "I don't even want to know what goes on in that sick little mind of yours." She replied.

"That hurts" Pacey replied in a fake hurtful tone.

"Truth always does." She replied smiling.

"If that's true then it must really hurt for you to admit you want to ravish this sexy body yourself huh?" Pacey asked her.

"It really does" Joey said sarcastically, but once she said it she caught his eyes time seemed to stand still as they leaned towards each other.

"Aunt Joey, uncle Pacey. You're still here" Alexander said as he seemed to have put his game aside and smiled at them as he ran to the other side of the table hugging his aunt and Pacey.

Pacey smiled picking him up and setting Alexander on his lap, their kissing moment ruined he decided to hide how he felt about her and their…situation behind the 8yearold Alexander.

"Of course we are still here little guys. And you know what, your aunt Joey and I aren't going anywhere again." He said and smiled when he saw Alexander smile.

"He's right Alexander, we're not going anywhere." Joey said as she placed a hand on top of his head and looked at the little boy she felt like she saw just yesterday but it was clearly visible he was no longer a baby boy, he was 8 now, just like Maia was. She felt a pain in her heart as at the thought of what Maia's parents must have gone through. She loved little Alexander dearly, if he would have been ripped away from her, Bessie, Body and even Pacey whom hanged around here a lot the past year, not the past year 3 years ago, she reminded herself. 'Point was she knew Pacey had come to love Alexander a lot, he had been part of the family. Always helping out with the B & B, if she had known his grades suffered partly because of that she would have made him study sooner. But she knew that wasn't the real reason, just something he hid the real reason behind. Pacey wasn't motivated enough to study. This because he had first been motivated by Miss Jacobs, whom gave him sex for studying. Then there was Andy whom pushed him towards his potential but they had fallen in love and he studied for her love and also again sex. It was the situation at home. He could never please his family so he had given up trying and just didn't bother trying to do anything at school.' Joey thought to herself then looked at him, 'his stormy blue eyes giving only part of himself for someone who didn't know him well enough to see. But she could see past that now, the arrogant and playful mask was a cover up for a lot of pain. But if you could see past that you could see…his soul.' Joey realized ass she watched them.

"If you two are done staring at each other would you let my son go so I can drive him to school." Bessie told them.

Embarrassed Joey quickly took her hand back from Alexander's head and looked at the clock. "We better hurry too Pace. I don't want to be late, however horrifying this day is going to be." She told him.

"Oh, Jen called, she is picking you guys up for school." Bodie informed them.

"Well, however fun school is going to be at least all we're together. Shawn has to face this alone." Pacey said and took another bite from his almost cold pancake now.

Joey looked at him and nonverbal they noticed both of them were worried about that. "I was thinking of Maia too this morning." Joey admitted.

"I know…" Pacey said his face unreadable nut Joey could tell he was worried about her as well.

A car pulled up, "must be Jen" Pacey said standing up.

"I wonder if she talked to Shawn." Joey said standing up as well putting the last pieces of pancake in her mouth and swallowed them shortly after. She reached for her and Pacey's mug of coffee and walked over to the kitchen with them just as Jen came through the kitchen door.

"Morning Jen, coffee?" Joey asked her.

Jen nodded gratefully and Joey grabbed another mug and then the pot and poured their two mugs full. "Pacey?" she asked "yeah sure" he replied and she filled his as well.

As each had their own coffee mug in their hands and drinking a bit from it the looked at each other in silence.

"You heard from Shawn yet?" Joey asked her breaking the silence.

"I called him last night, he's pretty much like us, only feeling more alone because we're in Capeside and he in Seattle." Jen told them.

"We should visit him this weekend, remind him he's not alone in this." Joey suggested.

Jen smiled, "that's a good idea."

Silence again, "Oh Joey did you tell Pacey yet about what I can do?" Jen asked her and Joey shook her head in a 'no'.

"Do?" Pacey asked confused.

"I can project my thoughts in other people's heads" Jen said with her mind and saw Pacey frown slightly at the lack of movement with her lips when she said that. Then it hit him, she was using that on him now.

"Nice" Pacey said smirking "At least you get to scream loudly inside people's head when they're bothering you." Pacey said. "us" Jen corrected him.

"If they figure out it is Jen doing this won't they try to get us expelled or something? You know how these small-minded parents are in this town. They got Principal Green fired for expelling a student that if the student had been black he would have been expelled and not even looked at by the other parents. But no because a black man expelled a white student the parents went crazy." Joey said angrily.

"But we're high school students Joey. Principal Green had a job there, we don't want to go to school but have to by law. They can't expel us for being different." Jen told her.

"Even if they do try Jen could always play the conscience or something like that from the person who does gets to decide that." Pacey said to them.

"And somehow change my voice when I'm doing that? I dunno if I can, I haven't tried it before." Jen said to them.

"Well you'll just have to practice using your gift so learn the extent of it." Pacey told her.

"Too bad our abilities haven't shown yet, we could do it all together." Joey said jokingly.

"Oh, I almost forgot, when I was talking to Shawn last night he mentioned holding a bird whose neck looked broken. Then it flew off, he told his uncle who saw it must have been dazed. But he thinks he might have somehow healed the bird." Jen told them.

"Shawn found his ability too, no way. Are you feeling as left behind as I do Jo?" Pacey asked her half joking half serious.

Joey thought for a moment then answered "I don't know, I mean it could be cool but it would make it so…real that we're different now. You know what I mean? I don't mean different bad Jen it's just…different. We already have to deal with so much by just coming back after 3 years. But now we have to deal with these abilities as well. It's just a lot to deal with. We would have to make sure we don't accidentally use them like Jen accidentally projecting her thoughts to someone if she's thinking about him, or Shawn being caught healing someone by just touching someone. It's like we'd have to be constantly aware of what we are doing now."

Jen was silent, she hadn't really given all of this much thought but hearing Joey she knew Joey was right, she would have to be aware of her thoughts making sure she wasn't accidentally projecting her thoughts to someone when she didn't want to.

Pacey was the first to reply "I know that it will take some work Jo, but even if we have to control ourselves around other we're still going to have each other where we don't have to be in control because we know about each others abilities."

Pacey's words seemed to calm the girls down a bit, knowing that despite what would happen they were at least going to be there for one and other. "We should get going or we're going to be late." Jen said.

"It's not like any college will care how well we're doing in school anymore." Joey replied as the walked out the kitchen door to Mrs. Ryan's car which Jen had borrowed.

"Maybe, but they're still giving out detention when people are late" Jen replied.

Pacey laughed "you know, technically we are 3 years late. Think how long detention is supposed to be for us." He got into the car.

Laughing Joey and Jen got into the car as well "They can hardly blame us for that." Joey said to them.

"You think they'd buy we were abducted by some sort of intelligence and brought back 3 years later by a ball of light with 4397 strangers?" Jen asked as she started the car and started to drive off.

----------

Surprisingly they were still on time as they arrived at school. Joey walked a bit nervous next to Pacey who together with Jen seemed to have slipped on their mask to hide their feelings at being back at high school. Although Joey knew it were masks it still pissed her off that they were able to seem so calm when she kept glancing around as if she was waiting for some sort of attack on them. But as they passed other students on their way to the administration for their schedules, students only seemed to look at the strangely and whisper to each other.

"So Joey, you still going to take all those honor classes?" Jen asked her.

Joey looked at her "What good will that do? It's not like I'm going to get accepted into a college with a gap of 3 years in my application. As soon as any college finds out I'm a 4400 it's going to be thanks but no freaks allowed."

Pacey was silent for a moment then said "well in that case why are we even going, let's just skip school and have some fun."

"Knowing you you'd probably drag me back to that boat of yours to work." Joey replied.

"I don't even know if it's still there." Pacey said thinking, "I wonder if maybe Dawson, Jack or even Buzz decided to finish it."

"Well there is one way to find out" Jen said all for skipping school.

"Guys, as much as I hate to say this, we should wait till after school. If we disappear the school may call our guardians and you know it will freak them out if they learn we're gone again." Joey said to them.

They sighted knowing she was probably right. "let's just get our schedules then." Jen said slightly annoyed she was going to be stuck at school with all these teenagers staring at them the entire time.

"Jen? Is that you?" a voice asked causing the trio to look at where it came from.

"Henry?" Jen asked seeing a not so young Henry Parker standing there.

The senior smiled as he said "I see that ball of light you came in hasn't damaged your brains, you owe me 5 bucks Dave." He said to a tall dark guy next to him.

"I know something else that might be damaged real soon." Pacey said his eyes glaring at the now older young man.

"And what's that Witter?" Henry said daringly to him.

"Oh you're really close to finding out what." Pacey said stepping into his face.

"Pacey, just ignore him." Jen said to him as she took his arm and tried to drag him along with her away from Henry. "He's not worth it."

"Ah, that's sweet Jen. You found a new boy to screw around with. Guess you have a lot to catch up having disappeared for 3 ye-." Henry was stopped when he suddenly had to bend over grabbing his family jewels as he gasped for breath his face stuck in a pained expression.

Joey Potter smiled "Now be a good boy Henry or you'll get to deal with all three of us. And next time I will make sure you won't get to have children some day."

Pacey stood looking at Joey stunned, then an impressed smiled came over his face. "Potter, you can't believe how good it is to see you've found your spine again. I was worried Dawson had shattered it for good but the way you-" he stopped when Joey had rolled her eyes and together with Jen now dragged Pacey along with her to the administration office.

----------

Surprisingly the had most classes together, only a few classes they had separately. Today, Jen had one class alone in the afternoon, the rest they had together.

The morning went as well as expected for the trio, they were getting nasty looks from the other students, especially Joey since she was the one that had attacked Henry Parker with abnormal strength and speed, at least that was the rumor that went around school. But nobody approached them or said anything to them about it, afraid of what they might do to them. This was just fine with Joey, Jen and Pacey since they didn't really want to talk to anyone and answer annoying questions like: you sure you don't remember where you were? What's the last thing you remember?

"Have I thanked you yet for hitting that jackass?" Jen asked for the third time that day.

Joey smiled "yes, and you're welcome."

"Seeing you beat a guy up, although bad for my manly ego still has something very erotic to it." Pacey said to her giving her a suggestive wink.

"You know I could hit you at the same spot if you want to Pace?" Joey asked him. They still hadn't had time to have a "talk" about Dawson and where they were but they seemed to have fallen in a flirting banter with each other.

Pacey grinned "I had some other stuff in mind what you can do to me in that area."

"Oh you overcharged hormonal sexist pig." She said her face red at the thought of her doing things to him there she really didn't want to be thinking about here at school with him and Jen here.

"There is no need to be embarrassed about sex Jo." Pacey told her smirking.

"If you want to I could give you some pointers" Jen said smirking at Joey's glare.

Joey threw her hands in the air, "I give up, you two are both obsessed with sex. It must be all the experience both of you have had."

"Well sex is good Joey, but you don't have to worry, I'm sure Pacey will be gentle and sweet to you your first time." Jen said smirking at now Pacey's face which was turning red.

The bell rang saving Joey and Pacey from a reply. "You think you're saved by the bell just because I'll be in a different classroom doesn't mean I can't bother you two now." Jen projected her thoughts in both Joey's and Pacey's head.

"You both heard that? Cool! Catch up with you later." Jen said hurrying off to Math, while Joey and Pacey had AP Bio.

----------

It was the last call they had for that day and Jen spent most of it quietly taking notes and about a half an hour she couldn't stand it any more and was projecting thoughts into Joey and Pacey's head needing to talk to someone or she would be going crazy.

When class was over Jen left quickly as she wanted to get back to Joey and Pacey and disappear awhile, seeing how the True Love was seemed liked the right thing to forget about the weirdness of their lives.

She was about to leave school when she bumped into…"Henry" her voice sounding like ice as she said his name.

"Jennifer Lindley, what are you off to in such a hurry? Where is your boyfriend and your guard?" he asked.

"Ok, first of Pacey isn't my boyfriend he's Joey's secondly it's none of your business where I'm going seeing as you are no longer my boyfriend or friend." Jen said to him and attempted to walk past him.

Henry grabbed her arm. "Not so fast Lindley"

"Get your hands off me!" she ordered him fear pushed back and anger shooting out her eyes at his.

"Or what Jen? As you may have noticed, you're all alone out here. Your friends are-"

"Right here" Pacey finished and grabbed Henry's arm and twisted it forcing him to released Jen's arm. "Now what were you told about us?" he asked him and twisted his arms behind his back and shoved him hard against some lockers.

"Let him go you freak" a girl said holding a gun raised at him.

Pacey looked at her and glanced at Jen who nodded and projected a loud scream inside the girls head causing her to drop the gun and cover her ears attempting to shut the scream out.

The gun fell to the ground and Joey picked it up disgusted "Look, all of you, we don't want to hurt you but if you force us we will. We know how to defend ourselves." She gave the gun to a teacher that had come to check out the disturbance.

"Let's go" Jen said with her mind to Pacey and Joey, Pacey let go of Henry and glared at him but did as Jen said and the three of them left school.

"No you can't just let them go, those freaks have to pay for this" the girl screamed and grabbed the gun from the teacher and fired just as Pacey, Jen and Joey looked around.

Everything seemed to go into slow motion as the bullet came at them Pacey had stepped in front of the girls and held up his right hand by some sort of automatic reaction. A blue field erupted from his hand and spread out like a wall before him Jen and Joey. The bullet slowly hit the force field which bended a little to Joey since it was aimed at her then like rubber the bullet was forced back slowly and fell to the ground harmless. Before another shot could have been fired the teacher, who had recovered first had grabbed the gun away from the girl then started at the amazing blue glowing force field before them. Pacey, gazed at it then and Jen and Joey who were looking at him with surprise and a slight relief. He then closed his hand as he recalled the force field back within him and then the three of them hurried out of school before they could be stopped.

The teacher took a couple of steps forwards and picked up the bullet which had been fired from the gun in his hand. It was in perfect condition. "Amazing" he said softly as he started at where the three teenagers had been just before they hurried out of school.

The girls seemed to want to sneak off "Not so fast Miss Reed." The teachers voice stopped her.

"You saw it yourself, they're freaks!" Sheila Reed yelled.

"What I saw was self defense, what I saw was you shooting at another student. Do you have any idea how serious that it, you could be tried for attempt at murder." The teacher said to her.

"They're not human, they're freaks, they're not like us. We have to stop them now before they develop their weird powers and kill us all" she said to the group of students and teachers that had assembled by now.

"The government would not let them go if they were dangerous" another teacher said.

"It's not up to us to judge them, that's up to someone a whole lot wiser then you are." The first teacher said.

The girl looked around helplessly looking for support but nobody said anything in her defense, she let her head down and sighted in defeat. Knowing she lost this battle but not the war.

----------

The drive to where True Love was stored was quiet and when they were there they saw the boat looking just as it did three years ago.

Jen cell phone broke the silence that hang between them. "Hello?" she asked when she answered it.

"Shawn? You're here? In Capeside?" Jen asked as Joey and Pacey looked at her.

"We're at…" Jen started to give Shawn directions and then said goodbye, hanging up.

"Shawn is coming here I take it?" Pacey asked her.

"Yeah, his day must have been as…eventful as ours." Jen replied then after a pause of silence said "So, I think you have the coolest power so far, and not to mention the most useful one."

Pacey gave a small smile not really knowing how to feel about it. "It was weird, I didn't even know what I was doing until that…force field was up." He finally answered.

"It was so beautiful" Joey spoke up for the first time "and it saved my life. You saved my life Pacey." She said looking at him and the two of them seemed to be lost in a moment until Joey said "it's the same color as your eyes."

She blushed slightly after she said that and Jen looked at Pacey's eyes and realized that if there weren't so clouded with worry, shock and a bit of fear, Joey would be right. They would be the same color. But what Jen couldn't and Joey could was see past the mask and those feelings to see the brightness that was there. "She's right" Jen voice broke Pacey and Joey from their thoughts.

"We're really becoming a weird bunch, Maia with her ability to see the future, Shawn has healing abilities, Jen with her mind projections, and me with force fields. Just what were whoever took us thinking? What's next? Joey being able to teleport from one spot to another, or move things with her mind?"

"Please, I'd rather not think about it." Joey told them.

Bus pulled up and stopped letting someone off, when it drove off again Shawn walked towards the small group.

"Shawn hey." Jen said giving him a hug.

"Hey Jen, Joey, Pacey" Shawn replied hugging her back then gave Joey a hug and Pacey a handshake.

"You guys look worse then I feel, what happened?" Shawn asked the three.

Surprisingly Joey was the one explaining their day to him, when she was done Shawn asked "You were shot at?" she nodded. "And Pacey put up a force field and stop a bullet. They nodded. "and then you bolted and decided to hide out here."

"Hey, we're not hiding out, just thinking and checking on my old girl" Pacey said indicating his boat True Love.

Shawn smiled knowing that was an excuse but he could hardly blame them, after all he was hiding out here from his brother and the students at his school. "I had a fight with some guy in school and when I touching him I was…somehow draining the life out of him." He said feeling this bit of information was nothing compared to being shot at and producing a force field.

"So you can heal things and drain things." Pacey said looking at him.

"I guess." Shawn answered.

"To manipulate life force like that…it's a real gift, you could help sick people while you could stop your enemies with a single touch." Joey said.

"Maybe you can help your cousin out of that coma now." Jen said to him.

"Maybe, I'm just…I don't know scared I guess. I don't know how to deal with this." Shawn replied.

"Yeah they really should make us a manual, or write a book "How to deal with the 4400 with in you". Come on Shawn, none of us know how to deal with this. That's why we have each other. To help each other deal." Pacey told him.

Shawn smiled "Maybe you're right."

"I know he is." Jen said to him, "Listen, I'm not used to depend on people just like Pacey, Joey and you aren't. But just like all of you know there isn't anyone else who understands what we're going though. Only we know what we're going through. And that's why we have to help each other as much as we can."

"I know, I think that is why I came here, I had to see you guys. To know I'm not alone in this." Shawn said to them.

"Well you can stay as long as you want, maybe you can transfer to Capeside High for a while, just until things settle down. I'm not sure it's safer to be around us since we already got shot at but at least we can look out for one and other." Jen suggested.

"I don't know, I mean I want to but I don't want to leave my mom and even my brother alone when I just got them back." Shawn said.

"You'd still get to see them in the weekends, we can all come and impose ourselves on your family" Pacey said grinning.

Shawn laughed at that "I'm sure my brother will love that, more 4400 to deal with."

"Hey, he'll just have to learn to deal, we're a team, the 4 of us. We're not going to let one teenager let us split us up." Jen said smiling.

Shawn smiled "I'll talk about it with my mom, ok?"

"We're going to hold you to that" Pacey said smiling.

"Speaking of which, how did it go with your mom Pace?" Jen decided to bring up carefully.

Joey looked at her alarmed and then at Pacey who had fallen silent. "We don't have to talk about this now if you don't want to" Joey said to him softly.

"No it's ok, if we're going to get closer I'm going to have to allow them to get closer." Pacey replied. Then took a breath and began to tell Jen and Shawn of his visit to his mother.

Note: the force field Pacey used is simulair to the one Max from Roswelluses. only blue, not green.

Review please.