Come September
Part 4
Karen H.

DAWSON VOICE OVER: “I wonder how she is. I hope she’s coping with everything. I wonder if she even knows that I’m gone. If Pacey has told anyone why I had to go, not that it will take a rocket scientist to figure it out. I still don’t get why I’m here of all places. Tucked away in the isolation of my parents cabin in Maine. This is where a huge portion of our current relationship started. We where pretty sure that this was where our baby was conceived. This was where I had asked her to marry me. All of which should be happening about now. No one even knows where I am.”

FLASHBACK - TEN DAYS AGO

Scene: - Pacey’s apartment. Dawson is there talking to him.

DAWSON: “I came here to ask you a favor!”

PACEY: “What is it?”

DAWSON: “I need you to look after something for me.”

PACEY: “No way. We’re not going there again!”

DAWSON: “That’s not what I want you to look after.”

PACEY: “It’s not?? Then what is it??”

DAWSON (hands Pacey the ring box) : “This. I don’t want to leave it at home. Just in case Joey somehow comes across it, although I don’t know how because she hasn’t been in my room since before the accident. I also came to tell you that I’m going away for a little while.”

PACEY: “Where? Why?”

DAWSON: “I’m not telling where I’m going. And because I really can’t handle being here just now. Especially with what should have been happening on Sunday.”

PACEY: “That’s the reason that you should be here. You should be here with your friends and family.”

DAWSON: “You of all people should have some idea as to why I’m going away. I can’t be here just now. Not when we should have been having the baby. I can’t.”

PACEY: “Are you coming back?”

DAWSON: “Yes.”

PACEY: “When?”

DAWSON: “I don’t know.”

DAWSON VOICE OVER: “This is where all the important things happened. We came here for the first two and a half weeks in December. That was nine months ago. And our baby should have been born this coming Sunday. The twelfth.

And we had come back here mid-February for a long weekend. That’s when my life really changed, that’s when I felt as though my life really started. We arrived on the Thursday, the eleventh. And she sat me down on the Friday for a chat, although we always talked but she said that it was a serious chat.”

FLASHBACK: FRIDAY 12th February.

DAWSON: “So what do you want to do now that the washing up is done?”

JOEY: “I think that we should have a chat.”

DAWSON: “We always do that.”

JOEY: “No I mean a serious chat!”

DAWSON: “Okay . . . and what do you want the serious chat to be about?”

JOEY: “Us.”

DAWSON: “Well there’s a surprise.”

JOEY: “Dawson . . . I’m being serious.”

DAWSON: “So am I?”

JOEY: “Dawson!”

DAWSON: “Okay, I’ll stop. So what’s wrong?”

JOEY: “Nothing . . . absolutely nothing. I just wanted to ask you how you’d feel about things changing?”

DAWSON: “What things?”

JOEY: “Us.”

DAWSON: “When would we be changing?”

JOEY: “In exactly seven months.”

DAWSON: “And why would that be?”

JOEY: “Because of something we did exactly two months ago on that bed there.”

DAWSON: “Huh . . .” He starts to grin. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

JOEY: “That depends on whether you think I’m saying that we’re pregnant, which I am.”

He leans forward and gives her a quick kiss and then hugs her.

DAWSON : “We’re having a baby! We’re having a baby! Oh my God, Joey. You said exactly seven months?”

JOEY: “Yes I did.”

DAWSON: “So that’s why you planned on coming here? So you could tell me?”

JOEY: “Yes.”

DAWSON: “When did you find out?”

JOEY: “Monday.”

DAWSON: “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

JOEY: “Because I wanted to tell you here, where it all started.”

DAWSON: “So that would make us two months gone?”

JOEY: “Yes and ‘us’?”

DAWSON: “Hey it’s my baby too!”

JOEY: “Okay you have a point.”

Then she leans in and gives him a soft lingering kiss.

DAWSON: “So does anyone else know that we’ll be having a baby on the 12th of September?”

JOEY: “No. Just us.”

FLASHBACK - TWO DAYS LATER - SUNDAY THE 14TH FEBRUARY.

They are still at the cabin, in Dawson’s room. Joey is sitting on a chair reading a book and Dawson has just entered the room.

DAWSON: “Hey what you reading?”

JOEY: “Patricia Cornwell’s new book.”

DAWSON: “Is it any good?”

JOEY: “It’s okay, but that’s probably because I’ve only read ten pages. So did you enjoy your walk?”

DAWSON: “Yes, it gave me time to think.”

JOEY: “About what?”

DAWSON: “Us. You know that I love you, don’t you?”

JOEY: “Not really.”

DAWSON: “Joey I’m being serious here.”

JOEY: “Oh so you’re allowed to joke when I want to be serious but I’m not?”

DAWSON: “Okay point taken. But can we be serious for a moment?”

JOEY: “Okay. And yes I know that you love me.”

DAWSON: “Well when I was on my walk I was thinking about you. And about how much I love you and I came to the conclusion that there wasn’t one word or way to define why I loved you. It’s like I just know that I do and that by loving you and by having you love me, I feel so many things.”

JOEY: “What things?”

DAWSON: “Well being with you makes me feel happy and excited, well for obvious reasons. Sometimes it makes me feel scared, sometimes lost. Because I can just get lost in who you are and how happy you make me feel, yet at the same time I feel found. I feel found because I have what I need more than anything else in the world, the only person that could ever complete me.” At this point Joey has started to cry. “Loving you makes me feel safe. I never knew how safe I could feel from loving someone in every way possible. Knowing at the same time that you love me. And being with you makes me feel stronger than having to face everything alone.”

JOEY: “I love you too.”

DAWSON: “Jo I’m not done yet.”

JOEY: “Sorry.”

DAWSON: “I’m not just saying this because we’re having a baby, I’m saying all of this because it’s how I feel. If I can’t share with you how I feel, then what’s the point? We’ve already shared so much together. I want to share the rest of my life with you. I want to share everything with you. Joey Potter I want to marry. The question is will you marry me?”

JOEY: “Yes. Yes I’ll marry you.”

She then throws her arms around him and they kiss.