Disclaimer: Don't own can't sue. Feedback: C'mon! You know you wanna send me something! [email protected]
Tempest - Chapter Four: Questions and Answers
(Continuing from the final scene of Chapter Three: Packing) At the same time, they both gasped - loudly. VERY, VERY LOUDLY. "HOLY SHIT!!!" "Oh my god," Pacey muttered. "Oh god," Joey also muttered, placing her hand on her forehead. "You--- You're that weirdo from the gas station!" "Weir--- Weirdo? Uh, excuse me, but I seem to recall YOU being the weird one!" Pacey retorted. Of course, this wasn't entirely true. He knew that he'd been acting pretty strangely too. "Me?" Joey asked, irritated. "I was---" Pacey cut her off by saying, "Uh... Natalie, I guess." She nodded. "Natalie. May I please ask you what the HELL was STUCK MILES UP YOUR ASS last week?" "Stuck up MY ass?!" She asked, moving out of the 'irritated' territory, and straight into PISSED OFF! "I don't recall being the one who was acting clueless, as if he'd just woken up from a fifty year long coma!" "Na... you were just the one who freaked out when I suggested that there was a possibility that maybe we knew each other!" Well... that wasn't entirely true either. He had freaked out as well... but she didn't know that. "You know what? maybe you should just leave," she said, gesturing towards the white door. "Excuse me?" Pacey asked, placing his hands on his hips. "You heard me. LEAVE!!!" Joey screamed. "NO!" Pacey yelled. "I paid for this, alright? And it wasn't that cheap... matter of fact, it was a rip off! But despite that, I PAID, therefore, I am getting an hours worth of therapy, understand? Good," he demanded, not giving her time to reply. Joey sighed, defeated. "Ok. Follow me," she muttered, leading him into her office and closing the door tightly behind her. This guy wasn't going to be 'just another client'. No. Not at all.
Jack sighed and looked up at the bright sign above his head. 'OBMUD BOOKS' it read. Determined to get some answers, he barged through the doors and made a bee-line for 'Sasha's' office. He stormed through the 'staff only' sign, ignoring the two shop assistants screaming at him to 'STOP!' and that he's 'NOT ALLOWED IN THERE!' Glancing once at the photo of Andie, he violently pushed open the door, letting it swing over and hit the wall loudly. Not looking away from her computer screen, Andie let out a frustrated sigh. "Julian, if this is about that DAMN shipment again, then I keep telling you---" Jack coughed loudly, startling Andie, and shutting her up at the same time. "That's not Julian," she muttered to herself. "Andie. I want some answers," Jack said firmly. She spun around, shocked. "That's DEFINITELY not Julian," she muttered.
"So... Evoleurt's not a very common name," Pacey commented as he sat on a large green couch in Joey's/'Natalie's' office. "True," she muttered awkwardly. "Where's it from?" he asked. "Uh..." Joey started. "You know what? I'm pretty sure you didn't come here to discuss my name, so..." "So...?" "So why are you here?" "You don't like to waste any time at all, do you?" Pacey muttered. "Well it's just that... you know... you're paying for this... and as you said, it's not cheap... so..." "Right. Right. I understand. It's just that it's... it's not easy. Discussing it. You know, with a total stranger," Pacey told her. "Tell me this," Joey said, sitting up straight. "Is it ever easy? Discussing it, I mean. In front of anyone?" "No," Pacey admitted softly. "That's why I came to you. But as it turns out, it's even harder to talk about it with you." Joey tapped her pencil. "Well... what could we do to make it easier?" Pacey shrugged. "I don't know." "Well what have you done in the past?" she asked. "When you've wanted to open up to people, that is." "I don't open up to people." Pacey told her firmly. "Oh," Joey said. "So you've never opened up to people, or something happened, and that stopped you from opening up to people?" "A little of both," Pacey replied, his voice returning to a much softer tone. "So what happened?" "Excuse me?" "Well... you said a little of both, so I that obviously means that something happened, so I was just wondering what that thing was." Pacey just sat there silently. "You... you don't have to answer me, it's just... it would help," she told him. "I... I know. But I'm not used to this, and I..." he trailed off, unsure of how to finish his sentence. Unsure of whether or not that sentence even had an ending. She leaned forward. "How many people have you ever truly opened up to?" Pacey closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. "One." "One?" "One."
Jean-Luc heard the shrill ring of his cellphone as he walked around a large furniture warehouse, eyeing several bright, colourful lamps for the baby's room. Pulling the phone out of his jacket pocket, he pressed a button then held it to his ear. "Bon soir," he said in a polite voice. "Hi Sweetie," Jen replied casually. "Oh hi! How's my favourite wife doing?" he asked teasingly, his tone much brighter than before. "I'd better be your only wife!" she replied, smiling to herself. "So how goes the search for baby stuff?" Jean-Luc sighed. "It's kinda tricky, you know. Buying stuff which is neutral enough for either a boy or a girl's room." "Hey! It was as much your decision to keep it a suprise as it was mine!" "I know, I know. It's just that it makes the planning a little bit harder. But don't worry, Honey. This is gonna go fine," he said soothingly as he ran his fingers down the armrest of an aqua-blue sofa. "You reckon we'll need a sofa in the baby's room?" he asked. "It'd be nice, but we're not millionares, in fact, we're not very well off at all, so it would have to be cheap. Probably a second hand one would be fine. Your cousin offered us her old purple one about a month ago. I wonder if that's still on offer?" Jean-Luc glanced over at the 'beds' department. "Probably. I might call her about that tomorrow." Flopping down onto an extremely large bed, he asked Jen, "Do you reckon we'll need a water bed too?" Jen glared at the phone. "Yeah. That's a great idea! Let's scar our kid for life, even before their first birthday!" she said sarcastically. "Hey, I never said that anything has to happen," he defended himself. Jen rolled her eyes, then whispered, "Yeah, but whether or not you'll admit it out loud; if we had a water bed, something would happen." After a short pause, Jean-Luc suddenly said, "Ok woman. You've got me! We'll get it!" Jen laughed, then sighed. "Look, I didn't exactly call to ask you about the furniture hunt," she admitted. "Oh," he sounded suprised. "I was just wondering..." "Yeah," he prompted her. "I forgot to pick up some receipts when I left the cafe earlier, so could you please pick them up on your way home? They're in a folder which I left by the---" "No," Jean-Luc replied firmly. "What? Why not?" Jen asked. "Because, Ashleigh, you're wearing yourself out. You should've stopped working months ago, yet you didn't. At this rate, you're gonna be serving a customer down at the cafe and you're water will break as you're taking the money from their hands, and then they'll ending up helping you give birth in the back room!" "Jean. I'll take time off whenever I need it. But I really want to get this finance stuff finished before I go to bed tonight. Ok?" "But you keep saying that, yet others things just keep coming up. I can look after the place for a couple of months. You know I can. You don't need to do this." "I do. It's my business too, Jean. I want to help." "Yes, but---" Jean-Luc sighed. There wasn't much point in arguing with her. She was strong, and she was determined to help. Hell, she could be on her deathbed, and she'd probably still have a calculator, a bunch of receipts, and several recipe books on her lap! "Ok. But from tomorrow on, NO MORE STRESS! Understand?" "I understand," she said, knowing the he was right, but still un-willing to give him full responsibility. He deserved a break too. "So will you still pick up the folder?" "Yeah. Sure thing, Sweetie. 'Night!" "Good night. Love ya." "Love you too," he said, blowing kisses into the phone. Once he'd hung up, he fell back into a brown bean-bag chair. "She doesn't need this," he muttered to himself. "If anyone causes her anymore stress before her birth, I swear to god I will seriously KILL them!"
After a moment of silence, Joey spoke up again. "So who was she?" "What makes you so sure it was a girl?" Pacey asked. Joey didn't reply. She simply looked at him knowingly. "Ok, ok. It was a girl." "Girl... friend?" "Yeah, well... kind of. You see, she was my friend. Sometimes. Other times she was my enemy. I loved her. She didn't love me back," he said, trying to leave out the details because of the pain they caused. "So what happened?" Joey asked, intrigued, almost as though this were some trashy romance novel, and Pacey was describing the whole story to her. "Well... there was someone else..." "Oh," Joey said, a touch of sympathy showing in her voice. "No, no. Not like that. She left him for me," Pacey said, still trying to detatch himself from what he was saying. "Ok, so... what's the problem?" Joey asked, confused. "She died," Pacey said matter-of-factly. Emotionless. "She--- oh," Joey said, finally understanding. "I'm sorry." "Na... don't be. I mean, it's been five years, so I should be over it. But I'm not. GOD! WHY CAN'T I GET OVER IT!?!?" Joey held up her hand to silence him. "Brett, there's not set amount of time that you're given to get over it. You may never get over it! You might be lying on your deathbed, surrounded by your beautiful wife, your five children and eight of your fifteen grand-children, yet your last word might still be her name! God, don't you understand, Brett? It's hard to deal with, but you have to! Just accept it! She's NOT coming back!" Joey's voice had risen to almost to a yell, leaving Pacey sitting there wondering what the hell that was all about. "I'm- I'm sorry," she muttered, embarressed at her little out-burst... if that was what you'd call it. Walking over to a small room off her office, she opened the door and switched on a kettle. "Coffee?"
Jack starred as Andie sat there, perched on the egde of her grey swivel chair, her mouth hanging open, and her expression revealing pure horror. "Well?" he asked. "You gonna say something? Do you have an explanation? 'Cos I gotta tell you - everyone who has ever lived in Capeside deserves an explanation!" No reply. Nothing. Jack started pacing. "Ten months. Ten months and then you just vanished. Poof! You were gone. You didn't tell anyone where you were going. Hell, you didn't even tell anyone that you were going anywhere! You didn't tell anyone when you'd be back. If you'd be back! Why? Why Andie? You could've called. You could've written. There were so many things you could've done! I was so worried about you! We all were!" He stopped pacing and looked at her. His eyes no longer showed the fierce anger which they did just moments ago. Now they were soft, but they also revealed hurt and pain. "Just tell me why you did it. Please?" he pleaded. Andie sighed, then spoke for the first time since he'd entered her office. Since he'd re-entered her life. "It was very complicated. It still is. Believe me when I say that I never meant to hurt you. But I couldn't go back. I still can't. So please, don't ask me to. My life now is so much better than the life Andie McPhee would have ended up with." "But you ARE Andie McPhee!" Jack argued. "Not anymore. And I won't be her again. She was stuffed up. She had problems. She---" "She's YOU!" Jack yelled. "Don't you get it Andie?! You can run all you like, but you can't escape the past. It'll keep catching up with you." "Yeah - in the form of YOU!" Andie yelled, pointing her index finger at him. "Can't you understand, Jack? I have no intentions of going for a stroll down memory lane. Not now. Not ever." "Yes, I can understand that, Andie. I'm not asking you to go back to Capeside or change your name back or whatever. I just wan tto know why you did it." Andie sighed, then pointed to a seat similar to the one which she was perched on. "Sit down." Jack pulled the chair closer to her and sat down. "So are you gonna tell me exactly what happened, and why you did it?" he asked. "Ok," Andie sighed. "Here goes..."
Pacey kicked the door of his lame excuse for a car, cursing himself for bringing the damn thing so far away from his place as he climbed into it to shelter himself from the rain. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white, listening to the rain pour down onto the rusty iron roof above his head. "Just my luck," he muttered to himself as he hit his head against the steering wheel. "Of all the possible times this STUPID car could break down, it HAD to happen tonight!" He continued cursing the crappy old bomb while he let his head rest on the steering wheel...
"Need any help there?" Joey asked, interrupting him from her thoughts as she tapped on the window. Her clothes and hair were drenched and her mascara was running down her cheeks. It didn't seem to bother her. Pacey rolled down his window and scoffed. "Uh, I'm the mechanic here. If I can't make this car run, then I sincerely doubt that you can," he said, then smiled warmly to show her that he didn't mean to be rude. She smiled back, then waved her keys around. "Want a lift?" she offered. "Uh... I'm not from 'round here," he said, shaking his head. "How far away do you live?" she asked him. Pacey shook his head some more and he chuckled. "About one-hundred and fifty miles." "One-hundred and---" Joey started to repeat him then stopped abruptly. "You drove one-hundred and fifty miles to get here? Why?" "To see you." Joey smiled, then her expression became more questioning. "Why would you do that?" "One of my friends could tell that... that I was holding something back. So she recommended you, and I thought, you know, why not?" Joey smiled again, still standing out in the pouring rain. "So, thanks for the offer, but it's kinda impossible. I'll get this baby workin' again tomorrow," Pacey said, patting the dashboard. "Come with me," Joey said. "Excuse me?" Pacey asked, confused about the meaning of her sentence. "Stay with me tonight," she said. "I can't imagine that this car would make a very comfy bed." Pacey chuckled. "I've slept in more uncomfortable places than this," he said. "I'm sure you have," she replied with a smirk. "So... you coming?" she asked, waving around the keys in front of his face. "Last chance!" "Sure. I've always wanted to ride in a ferrari," he replied, earning a laugh out of her as he clambered out of his car and into the pouring rain. "Ready?" she asked. "RUN!!!" he yelled as they dashed around the corner and into the shiny new car, laughing and smiling at each other all the way.
[email protected] I've loved ALL the feedback I've gotten so far. Please don't stop sending it!
