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Come What May
by Kaytee
Disclaimer: Ain't mine.
But good job, hacks, for handing fic writers a golden opportunity to shine.
Author's Note: This
is a "missing scene" fic set during Separation Anxiety. So, um, spoilers
I guess. It's also told in the first person.
Thank you: To my beta
baby bijal. I would have given up a long time ago on fic writing
if not for you. And my ego. But mostly you.
Rating: P/Jo PG-13
Distribution: Ask me.
Feedback: Yes, please!
[email protected]
Part One
Joey
"Can I come and stay with
you tonight? We could just . . . sleep?"
I know before the words are
even out of my mouth that I don't mean what I'm saying. I don't want
to spend the night with him; I want to spend forever with him.
I don't want to sleep, because there's so much I want to say to him, so
much more that I want him to know.
I don't want to sleep.
The blue of his eyes darken
and I know. I can tell by the way he holds me, by the way he buries
his face in the crook of my neck and tugs on the ends of my hair.
He heard what I couldn't say.
"You should, uh . . . " he
begins, stepping back and clearing his throat. Holding my hands in
his, he continues. "You should probably pack a bag or something,
and, uh, tell Bessie where you're going."
"I'll only be a minute,"
I tell him, wishing my hands weren't sweating like they had the first time
he ever held them. I have no intention of letting Bessie know where
I'm going, because the last thing I need is a lecture and the very last
thing I want is sympathy. I'll leave that for tomorrow.
He presses a kiss to my forehead
and squeezes my hands before letting them go. "I'll be outside,"
he says. I watch him leave, shutting the door behind him gently,
and I wonder if I'm strong enough to make it through till morning.
I don't bother changing because
I don't want to waste time. Emptying my backpack onto my bed, it
doesn't take me long to gather what I need. A change of clothes,
a pair of socks, my sneakers. Toothbrush, hairbrush, purse. Standing
in the doorway and glancing around my bedroom, I don't find the one thing
I really need to take with me.
The courage to let him go.
As I listen to Bessie giving
Alexander a bath down the hall, I hastily scribble a note telling her that
I'll be back in the morning. I'm pinning it to the refrigerator using
a plastic alphabet magnet when Bodie opens the back door and seems just
as surprised to see me as I am to see him.
"Hey, Jo," he says after
a moment, shutting the door behind him. His eyes take in the clothes
visible through my overstuffed backpack, the note in my hand, and he mildly
asks, "Where are you off to?"
After my pregnancy scare,
Bessie sat down with me and made it clear that she didn't want me to spend
the night with Pacey any longer, that she couldn't condone it when she
has firsthand knowledge of the consquences. She made it known that
while I live in her house, that I will sleep in my own bed, alone.
She's going to get her wish, just not tonight.
"I'm going to Pacey's," I
tell him, looking him directly in the eyes. "I'm staying over."
He holds my gaze for a moment
and then nods, moving past me toward the sink. Turning on the faucet
and pouring soap into his hands, he looks out the window toward the creek
and says quietly, "I hope you and Jen have fun. You did say you'd
be at Jen's, right?"
I'd hug him but I don't want
to be here any longer. "Thank you," I say, but I don't think he heard
because I'm already halfway gone.
He's not on the porch when
I get outside, and for a moment I think he might have left. And then
I see him, down by the creek with his hands in his pockets and his legs
braced apart. As if he's preparing for whatever lies ahead, come
what may. His back is straight but his head is bowed and I wonder
if I'll aways be able to read him by the way he stands.
I pull my jacket tighter
around me as I walk toward him. He's talking to himself and he doesn't
hear me coming until I'm nearly there, turning long enough to see that
it's me. "Did you get everything?"
"Yeah, I'm ready," I say,
which isn't really all that truthful. I'll never be ready for this.
"Are you hungry? You
didn't eat much at the party. The food was kind of bad, anyway, so
I guess it's a, uh . . . I guess it's a good thing that you didn't," he
says, leaning down to pick up a small flat stone. He turns it over
and over in his hand as he continues to stammer. "We could pick up
a few burgers if you want, get a pizza or something at -"
He stops when I touch his
arm, and looks at me for the first time. His eyes are so confused,
so sad, and so beautiful that I can't stand to look any longer. How
did we get here, to this awful place where there are no right words and
there are no solutions?
"I'm not hungry," I tell
him, dropping my gaze along with my hand. "But thank you anyway."
We stand there for a few
more moments, the silence between us thickening by the moment. With
a flick of his wrist, the small stone goes skipping across the water before
finally sinking. The sight brings an unexpected smile to my face.
"Remember that day when I
made you teach me how to do that?" I ask him, and he's puzzled for a moment.
When he recalls the day I'm talking about, he smiles and for a moment,
the pain lessons at the sight. "I was nine, I think, and you were
ten. You didn't want to teach me."
"What would be the point,
I said," he nods as he remembers. "Everyone knows that girls can't
throw for crap."
"But you spent the entire
afternoon with me, anyway, showing me the best technique."
Leaning down, he picks up
another rock, handing it to me. "By the end of the day, you could
skip stones nearly as well as I could."
"I wonder if I still can,"
I say, gripping the stone in my hand and bringing my wrist back to toss
it.
"I doubt it, with a grip
like that, Potter," he says. "Loosen up a little, don't hold on so
tightly."
"Like this?" I ask, trying
to mimic the shape of his hand.
He moves to stand behind
me, his fingers rearranging mine until my grip is deemed right. He's
so close I can feel his breath warm on my cheek, his voice soft yet deep
in my ear as he says, "Now, bring your wrist back like that . . . yeah.
Now just sort of flick your wrist."
He moves against me just
as I'm about to release the stone, his body flush against mine. I
miss him so much right then that the longing just crashes over me.
The stone falls into the water with a loud plopping sound and I move away
from him, unsure of my footing.
"Hard to believe how much
things have changed since then, huh?" he asks, the awkward moment passing.
I hold his gaze and I wonder
which "then" he's referring to. "I still throw like a girl, I guess."
"You never were quite the
tomboy you imagined yourself to be," he says lightly. Picking up
my backpack, he slips his arm around my shoulders as we head for his car.
He opens the door for me,
like he did earlier this evening, like he's done every time he's picked
me up to go anywhere. A gentleman to the end. He puts my bag
in the back seat and starts the engine, fiddling with the radio for a moment
until he finds a station playing music sung by people who've already gone
through puberty.
His hands are shaking.
He notices me notice the
trembling of his hands and he clears his throat self-consciously as he
puts the car in reverse.
It doesn't take us long to
get to his house. Eight minutes or so without traffic, like tonight.
When it's Capeside's equivalent of rush hour, it takes ten to twelve minutes,
tops. Two stops signs and one light, watch out for the tailgate-chasing
border collie on Maple.
"I never thought to ask if
Gretchen would be here," I comment as we pull into the driveway in front
of their beach house. "I don't see her car."
"She'll be gone all night,
partying with her friends" he says, unbuckling his seat belt and reaching
into the back seat for my bag. "She's leaving on a, uh, road trip
in the morning, and then she's taking some summer classes."
"I'll miss her," I tell him,
and I mean it. Whatever differences there've been between Gretchen
and I, she's the only Witter who's shown Pacey true familial love in an
otherwise crappy family. For that alone she deserves my respect.
"It's going to be pretty
lonely without having to deal with her bras hanging from the shower curtain
rod or listening to her weird music day in and day out. But yeah
. . . I'm going to miss her, too," he says as we make our way up the front
steps. He searches around in his pocket for his keys and unlocks
the sliding door.
He's itching to be free of
his fancy clothes, I know. I can tell by the way he unbuttons his
jacket before he even turns on the lamp. He's never been comfortable
in clothes worn soley to impress, which is why I'm not surprised when he
drops my bag over the back of the couch and says, "I'm, uh, I'm gonna go
change. I won't feel like me until I'm covered in camouflage."
The joke is weak and he knows
it, but I make the effort to smile anyway. He heads toward his newly
finished bedroom at the back of the house, which isn't much more than a
glorified utility closet without the utilities, and I take off my coat.
Gretchen's been busy, it
looks like. Her concert posters are gone from the walls and her cd
collection isn't spread hapharzardly across the coffee table. There's
an order to the familiar lazy chaos they usually live in, and it's disturbing.
It hardly resembles the house I've spend countless hours in.
Her things have been packed and there's the distinct scent of disinfectant
permeating the air.
Nothing remains the same,
I guess. Not even the comforting smell of his home.
There's an opened, half-empty
carton resting in the armchair and I'm about to move it to sit when something
inside the box catches my eye. Resting on top of a pile of clothes
is a small, framed photograph, the sight of which causes my heart to pound
painfully in my chest. It's a picture of us, of Pacey and I.
With trembling fingers, I reach in and bring it closer. I can't see
it very clearly, either because of the soft light cast by the lamp or the
tears blurring my vision, but I know the moment she captured.
She took this picture in
September, I think, to finish up a roll she was leaving to develop.
It was early evening and we'd been sitting out on the front steps, reading
a book. I wish I could remember which one, but we've read so many
together that I can't begin to think which novel I'm holding.
He'd been sitting on the top step and I was sitting between his legs, one
step lower and leaning back against him. In the picture, the book
is dangling unnoticed from my fingertips because he's about a breath away
from kissing me.
I didn't notice him approach,
so lost in the memory, but I know he's there. I can hear him breathe
as he looks over my shoulder to the photograph in my hands. I can
hear the hitch when he remembers, too.
His voice is soft, wistful
and pained when he finally says, "We were so happy, then."
"Yeah," I agree, nodding
as I carefully put the picture back where I found it. "We were."
An awkward silences falls
over us, just one more after weeks and weeks of them. Moments drag
by before I start to say, "Pacey, I'm so -"
"Jo -"
"Please just let me say this,"
I ask gently.
Taking his silence as acceptance,
I take a deep breath before turning to face him. He's changed into
an old pair of pajama botttoms and a wife beater, which doesn't do much
for my nerves. His eyes are guarded, as if he's waiting for me to
say something hurtful.
"I want to say I'm sorry,"
I say, holding up a hand to prevent the words of protest that his mouth
is already forming "Shhh. I have so many things to apologize
for, Pace."
It's hard to speak around
the lump rising in my throat, and I have to clear it several times before
continuing. "I'm sorry that I'm a lousy girlfriend. You deserve
better than the way I've treated you, from the very beginning.
I waffled when the choice should have been clear. I strung you along
for months. I made you doubt how much you mean to me, how irreplaceable
and important you are."
The words are sticking in
my throat and it hurts to get them out, but I have to make sure he knows.
Looking into his eyes, though, it's easier to continue because it's obvious
that he's been needing to hear it.
"I'm sorry for making you
wait so long for that night in the ski lodge," I say, tucking my hair behind
my ears and taking yet another deep breath. "Instead of telling you
my fears and letting you help me work through them, I teased you to the
point of frustration and then got angry when you wanted more. Anyone
else wouldn't have waited for me as long as you did. Anyone
else would have told me where I could go after a few months or so, but
not you."
I'm sorry for not realizing
how awful you've been feeling, how awful that I've made you feel," I continue.
I have to make myself calm down, because my words are tangling together
because I'm rushing to get them said. I want to look away, I want
to break his gaze and focus on anything else, because this is hard.
This is hard.
"Here I've been whining and
moping and obsessing about which Ivy-league school I'll be accepted to
while you've listened and supported me and more or less got me through
it single handedly. All while breaking your back doing schoolwork for two
grade levels in order to graduate by the skin of your teeth. I've
been so wrapped up in me and my own problems that I didn't see how lost
you've been. There are so many times I could have helped you work
out your feelings, could have made things better just by letting you get
them off your chest, and instead I chose to help you with your homework."
He's about to interrupt again,
probably to tell me that he wouldn't be doing as well as he has been without
my help. That's bullshit, and I want to make sure he knows that,
so again I hold up a hand to keep him from speaking. I can't lose
my train of thought and I can't be distracted from this. I'm about
to lose my courage, anyway.
"I'm sorry that I've made
such a big deal about your grades. I don't love you for your grades.
I don't think less of you for wanting to be just about anywhere but inside
a classroom. I got on your case about your schoolwork because
I knew you could do better, but I never stepped back and let you do it
on your own," I tell him, shaking my head. I have to take a moment
to sniffle back the tears before meeting his eyes again. "You have
no idea what you're capable of achieving, Pacey. I hope you find
out."
"I'm sorry for making it
seem like Capeside is a notch or two better than hell." I didn't
realize that I'd been doing that until this week, when I went over everything
I could possibly think of that might trigger what happened at Prom.
"You know as well as I do
that this town has what seems like more than its fair share of gossipmongers
and spiteful people just waiting for you to fail. But the thing is,
you get that wherever you go."
God knows I've met enough
of them through the course of scandal after family scandal. He's
been through a scandal or two of his own, so I don't have to drive home
the point.
"What Capeside does have
to offer, however, is family," I continue, rushing to explain what I mean
before he can interrupt with a disparaging comment about the people he
comes from. "I don't mean just your parents or your brothers and
sisters, because God knows they hardly know you, but I'm talking about
the community. There are people here who would do anything they could
to help you out, just because they know you. It's a good place to
live, and I'm not as eager to leave it as I've made out."
Which brings me to one of
my deepest regrets, and probably the hardest to explain to him or even
myself. I open my mouth to say it, but no sound comes out and I have
to drop his gaze. My hands are shaking so badly, so I keep them busy
by toying with the ring on my middle finger, the ring he gave me for Christmas.
I take a few steps away from him, to the window so that I can look out
and see the ocean. But the moon is overshadowed and I can't see through
the darkness, so I turn back toward him to continue.
I take yet another deep breath
before trying again, but I really don't think there's enough oxygen in
the room. My palms are sweating and I don't know if I can say what
I have to. If I don't say it now, though, I won't ever.
"I'm sorry that I lied to
Dawson," I blurt out in a rush that doesn't stop. "I'm sorry that
I chickened out and I'm even sorrier that you knew I would. I'm sorry
that it took me so long to come clean. And I'm sorry that I took
the money from him and I'm sorry that I didn't come to you and work out
a solution that didn't involve indebting myself to the one person who has
been a thorn in our relationship and I'm sorry that I turned up my nose
at the idea of student loans, and I wish to God that I had been strong
enough to swallow my pride and sign right up for them and I wish I could
go back and say no to him and mean it." I have to stop because the
tears are making me practically incoherent, and I have to get this out,
I have to let him know.
It's a struggle to get myself
under control, but I have to. This has to be said, and clearly, using
sentences and not paragraphs. "I should have listened to the voice inside
me saying that it's wrong to accept a gift of that magnitude from someone
who hasn't really accepted the choices I've made in my life. I should
have said no. And now I can't get myself out of it, because I've
already paid."
My heart pounds painfully
in my chest and I have to clear my throat again.
"More than anything, though,
Pacey . . . I'm sorry that I took your heart for granted," I whisper, staring
at my feet with eyes so blurred by scalding tears that I can barely see
past my hands.
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