Title: The Art of Possibility

Pairing: Joey and Pacey.

Summary: Set during Season 6 of Dawson's Creek during, 'All Good Things' and 'Must Come To An End'. This story is told from first person point of view through Joey's perspective.

Disclaimer: The characters, quotes or settings do not belong to me. I lay no claim to anything, I just like to shape them and play with them for my own personal enjoyment from time to time.

I look into his eyes and I see a small glimmer there, a reminder of the sparks that somehow arise whenever we're together. Maybe I see possibility, the endless stream of consciousness that is our 'unfinished wall'.

'It's unfinished like us.'

Those words used to haunt me so much that I ran from them at every available opportunity that I got. They were there when I left for Paris and then returned when I left for New York. They were even there the day I returned to Capeside.

I tried to disengage the fact that I had just ran from a possible relationship because Bessie got some sort of weird notion in her head the only reason I was avoiding was because I was still in love with my ex-boyfriend, boyfriends, plural. She was right.

I was.

I always hated it when she was right. But I was entirely too chicken to call him up and tell him that's the reason I ran, because well it was convenience listening to my head instead of my heart and frankly it was starting to get old.

It was starting to get really old.

And the more time I spent in Capeside trying to figure things out the more I realize that we might not have much more time. Because every time I see him, I get this funny little feeling inside that tells me just how homesick I've been for a long time. And I always hear this nagging little voice in the back of my head that just keeps saying.

'Stop running and just realize where your heart is. Have your forgotten already? Was it too soon?'

And the thought is there. He is there with his smile on his face and for a moment I can see True Love bobbing in the water and hear my own voice resounding once again in my ears. I could suddenly hear everything I told him that night and not just that, but I could feel it. And it made me feel alive…again.

'My heart? That's a fixed point. Three months riding the open waters couldn't shake it, I'll be damned if I let your insecurities shake it. My heart never left this boat. It's never left you.'

Jen fixed that for me. I don't have to run anymore, because she has made it her dying wish. She says something along the lines of.

'Maybe I can help. What if I demand that you make that decision? No more running. I'm going to make it my dying wish. My death will serve a greater purpose. It's your ultimate motivator.'

'Considering his was broken when he got there.'

She was right and so much braver than she would ever know. And as I'm about to confess to her who I've always known I'm supposed to be with, Dawson is there standing in the doorway. He says something about coming to kidnap her and asks if she's ready. The look that crawls across her face strikes me in such a way that it's almost impossible not to cry when I hear her speak the words.

'Ready and waiting. Get me out of this bed.'

'Jen,' I think and I just stand there fighting back tears with this grief stricken look painted on my face.

And it strikes me in that moment just how tired I am of the life and death of it all. This isn't the way that things are supposed to be happening, because we've all been through so much that none of us can ever say we've walked away unscathed by all of the angst guilt ridden doomed to success and even some failures and misfortunes we've experienced along the way.

When I look at him, when I raise my head up and let my eyes meet his I see my childhood inside them. Those eyes that have known me for so long, the same one's that knows there hasn't been one single significant event that I've experienced in my life that he hasn't experienced with me. I might have been the girl who lived up the creek but there was a time when I was rowing in the direction of his house that I haven't felt like I was home. For so long his home was my home too, he was my home and his family was my family. I can't remember ever feeling so safe, but sometimes safety is just danger out of place.

And now when I see him sitting there on that bench outside the hospital with his head in his hands, I can tell that he's tired and he's fighting with himself and his feelings. This is going to be one of those famous Dawson and Joey moments, but what I'm surprised to find out is that in this moment, listening to Dawson go on and on about how he feels like he's lost touch with everything, how he's somehow forgotten that Jen had a baby and how things have changed so much that nothing in his life makes any sense right now except the two of us. I realize that I don't care anymore.

I don't care because I'm no longer that fifteen-year-old girl anymore. It finally dawns on me that this wasn't my fight to fix. It never was. This little tug of war that Dawson created with Pacey over me, where the both of them fought for my love, this wasn't my fight to fix. And I remembered something I'd said to Dawson the night of the Anti-Prom and noticed just how real it all was to me.

'You're right. None of it's your fault. None of it's anybody's fault, its just happening. But who cares what it's doing to me.'

I know the minute he says, 'And we're not even together,' that there's a possibility he's going to delve back into our past and pull it to the surface again.

And the truth is I don't know if I can sit through that again, so I do the best thing that I know how to do, the only thing that seems to normally work with this whole Dawson and Joey dynamic that we've had going on since we were kids and I try to reason with him in my best Joey logic by pointing out a few things to him.

'Do you not watch the Creek? We're together every Wednesday at 8:00. Dawson, you wrote a show about us. Do you know how lucky you are? You're a writer. You get to live life twice. Who else can do that?'

Jack is in with her now while Pacey and I are sitting in the waiting room. It feels right my head resting on his shoulder, I reach over and slip my hand into his because I need the comfort and try to smile bravely as I feel his other hand gently caress my arm. And it occurs to me that tiny moments like these are us. It has never felt more right than it does now and I'm not laughing. I can't because this is too hard.

So I just sit and wait. Because that's all we can do, any of us. Just wait.

And I remember Jen.

'There's so much that I want to say that I'm sorry for this year, but there's no time, and I—'.

'Give me a hug.'

'Ok.'

'Have a great summer.'

'Thanks. You, too. I love you, Jo.'

'I love you, too.'

So I got bumped this time. I didn't mind so much, because when I looked into Dawson's face and saw the sadness there in his eyes, I knew he loved her. She was there through one of the most stressful years of his life, helped in ways that he wouldn't let me and I understood that. And I remember thanking for being there for him when I couldn't. The look that had crawled across her face had touched me, struck a nerve.

The bond between the two of us had somehow grown stronger over time and I started to view her as more than the girl who rocked the creek from the moment she stepped out of that yellow cab. She was no longer the 'instigator', but rather one of my best friends that I had come to love and value more than I realized.

And what makes it even more sadder is that it took the life and death of it all to make me realize just how much she had wormed her way into my heart. She was always trying from the very beginning to fit in, to find a place to belong. She wanted to be my friend, but because I was so hung up on Dawson and was so jealous of the attention he paid to her I turned real good at playing the bitch card every chance I got.

But eventually I stopped competing with her and trusted.

She was there through the whole Dawson and Pacey tug of war, when I needed someone to talk to. I remember telling her that I wished I could be more like her. Fearless. I admired the way that she saw things, felt them and acted on them. Pacey was the same way. But then she let me in on her big secret about the fearless. Time was different then. It seemed a million miles away as I stood in the kitchen of the restaurant that Pacey now owned. I was looking for serving spoons when he came in and one look at him told me that it was now or never.

This was the crucial moment when I had to stop running and make a decision. Besides I had a death wish that I had to honor. But I think it even went deeper than that, I think it was that I was homesick. Not so much homesick as in the way of Capeside, but homesick from the one place I knew I always belonged but kept running from.

Jen had asked me to stop and make that decision with myself. She was now forcing me to follow through with it. She was asking me to be fearless for once in my life. And the truth was I didn't know how to be fearless. I just wasn't built that way. I knew what I wanted, who I wanted and who I belonged with, but staying was another issue all together.

But as soon as I saw him, felt him near me. I knew the choice needed to be made.

Pacey was my home. He had been for a long time. And it was time to come back.

I will have to admit that his little 'you're off the hook' speech scared me a little bit, because quite frankly I the last thing I felt I needed, wanted or deserved was to be let off someone's hook. When actually I wanted to be on his hook—permanently.

So I drew in a deep breath and I honored Jen's dying wish.

I stopped running and I made my choice.

I've always known it would be Pacey.

I told him that I loved him, that it was very real. He knew that. I needed to explain that it was so real that it kept me moving, kept me running from it, mostly never ready for it. But that I also loved Dawson too. He was my soulmate. The one tied to my childhood and the love I felt for him was completely pure and eternally innocent.

I told him that I couldn't be let off the hook because I might just get the idea that it's okay to keep running. Then I watched his face how it changed, how his eyes said everything that he couldn't say right at that moment. The sparks were there. And I was ready to come home.

It started with the 'mural' and the art of…possibility.

And I smiled as I stood there for a moment, my eyes shining with unshed tears as Dawson's mom and my sister interrupted us. I knew what I was trying to say and Pacey was right. It was important. And all I could think of was a conversation that started it all.

'Be honest. The only reason you were hanging out with me is simply because Dawson told you to?'

'Yep, that's the only reason.'

'Hmm. You need to get a life.'

I gave him my best smile as my eyes twinkled.

'It's not unfinished now, Witter.'