Joey's POV

I feel his arms around me, his body pressed against mine, his mouth searching for my neck. I want to get off the bed. I know this is wrong, it feels so wrong now…I turn around to face him, his morning smile, eyes still groggy. I smile as I try to kiss him back; his hands start to roam over my body. The alarm clock starts to scream and I mentally thank it.

The past three weeks have been like this. Carter tries to get close and I can't help but feel guilty. One kiss, not more than that to make me feel guilty. But when I close my eyes, my memory betrays me and I remember every second of it. How it was to taste Pacey's mouth again, his hands softly stroking my hair, how my blood started to run fast in my veins, his hard body against mine. A kiss that first had all the good intention to calm me down, but grew with a passion in few seconds, feeling that had been repressed for the past years returning all of a sudden.

The baby crying broke us apart. We stared at each other not knowing what to say, but our eyes saying more than any form of spoken words.

"I think it's better for me to go." His words barely above a whisper.

I nodded, I couldn't say anything. I watched him leaving me again, with his daughter in his arms. I closed my eyes, remembering every second of it. Like his taste wasn't already a part of my memory. A part well hidden in my heart. Then I started to feel guilty. He might have started the kiss, but I was the one who pulled him closer. I was the one to open my lips desperate to taste him after so long. What is he thinking about me now? That I'm some crazy woman that likes to have complicated a love life turning her friends into lovers. And I would have to agree. And Carter? What to do without hurting him? I know he suspects something happened, but he thinks it's about Chris' death. What can I tell him?

Of course, me being Joey Potter and Pacey being Pacey Witter, we haven't talked about it yet. Or should I say, we are avoiding it. We say hello, I ask him about Bella, we talk about amenities. We pretend it was nothing, it never happened. But we both know too damn well that a kiss between us never was and never will be nothing.
We get to the hospital, I'm still lost in thought. I go straight to the OR after kissing Carter and greeting Pacey with nothing more than a nod. He never greets me with his eyes anymore.

Pacey's POV

I watch her leaving the lounge; I can't bring myself to get closer to her anymore. Not when my feelings are all mixed up. So many thoughts, voices telling me so many different things. And one memory. That kiss.

My life could be defined by some moments. My first time with Tamara. The car crash where I first met Andie. The kiss on the side of the road. The night I made love to Joey in my boat. The day I met Maggie, drunk in a bar after Doug telling me Joey was getting married. The day Sam was born. The day I lost both of them and was left alone with a newborn baby. The day I kissed Joey again. The day I screwed up things again.

My intention had been just make her stop crying. I never could stand to a crying Joey Potter. But the moment my lips touched hers, something woke up inside me. Something that I firmly believed was well hidden inside of me. The need, the longing for kissing her. Like white noise, now I realize it has been always there. It was like drinking again after being on a desert. My hands had their own will as they made their way to her hair, so soft as I remembered. As I could ever forget. Her taste, salty due her tears, but still so unique, so Joey. Her soft sighs as the kiss grew in passion. Her lost stare when we broke the kiss. Something that was so impressed on my mind. Familiar.

I ran away form her apartment, locking myself with Bella. I couldn't sleep that night. I stayed up all night, Maggie's picture looking at me, making me feel guilty. Guilty for never opening my heart entirely to her. Guilty for thinking about Joey all these past years. Guilty for never being able to really move on. For never being the husband she wanted me to be. She needed me to be. Her blue eyes looking at me through the glass, sad eyes, eyes that loved me. And all I can do is feel sorry, for her, for myself.

After losing her and my beloved daughter, I ran away again. I had to create a new reality, like I did the day I left Joey behind. But fate had another plan. Maybe it was life's way to tell me that you can't really run away from your past. You just postpone things. And one of those postponed things happened. Joey happened again. And since the day I met her again, I'm wrecked.

Wrecked because all the past feelings for her came back with renewed force. I tried to deny it, tried to pretend that it was just me needing a friend in a hard moment in my life. And that was all se offered me. Friendship, pure and simple. No questions about the past, like she understood that she had her role at the developments of our past relationship. I tried to tell myself that she is just my friend, tried to ignore my heart beating faster when I see her with Bella, her smile while she plays with the baby. Or when she frowns, tired during her shift.

And I had to follow my impulse. A stupid one, might I add. Count on me about doing the same old mistakes when it comes to Joey Potter. After rebuilding my friendship with her, I had to screw up things again by kissing her. And how good it felt. And I'm not supposed to feel good. Not when my wife is laying on a cold grave in NY.

I have been avoiding Joey for the past three weeks, afraid of what the confrontation can bring. I know she hasn't told Carter yet, that she's avoiding the subject just like me and whenever the guy is nice to me I feel even guiltier.

The day goes though without much news. Patients come in, some we can help, others don't have such luck, and all I can think is my own personal drama. When my shift is over, I head towards my car, ready to hide again inside my place, but I hear a soft voice in the night calling me.

"Pacey, wait."

She runs after me, her brown eyes full of decision.

"We have to talk."