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Tempest - Chapter Thirteen - No Reunions
"Andie! Oh my god. ANDIE!!!" Jack screamed desperately as he left the stylish restaurant. His eyes scanned the streets but he couldn't see her anywhere. "ANDIE!!!" he screamed again, ignoring the glares the pedestrians were giving him. She couldn't have gotten far. It had only been a few seconds. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a skinny blonde entering a narrow alley between a coffee shop and another coffee shop. Sprinting as fast as his legs would take him, he pushed past several angry pedestrians, darting between the traffic. "Somebody stop her!" he yelled to the onlookers, none of whom tried to help. They clearly didn't want to get involved. How were they to know he wasn't going to try and kill her? "ANDIE!" he screamed, running up the dark alley. "ANDIE!" he yelled, grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around. "JACK! GO AWAY!" "No! I'm not going to go away! I'm not going to leave!" "Jack! Leave me alone! I'm going insane again and you know it! YOU CAN'T HELP ME!" she screamed back at him. "Andie, I saw them too." "No no no no NO!" she muttered, shaking her head, pulling at her hair. "No no no what?" he asked. "You're not going insane. You don't have to pity me or pretend you believe me. I can't get help here so JUST LEAVE!" she yelled, pushing him away. "Andie, you don't need help. It's real. They're THERE!" "THEY DIED OVER FIVE YEARS AGO! THEY'RE NOT THERE!" "Andie, they are! I don't know how or why, but they're there!" "They're not THERE, Jack! They're DEAD!" "I thought so too. But for whatever reason, they're alive." "I - I - I gotta go, Jack. I've got to get out of here. I've got to leave," she said, giving Jack a hard shove to get him away. "Let go of me, Jack." He didn't. He held on tighter. "Let me go," she said firmly. "I'm asking you nicely, to let go of me before I scream bloody murder." He let go of her, unsure of what her next move would be. "Andie---" he started when he thought she was calming down. She hit him across the face with her bag and ran off. "YOU'LL HAVE TO FACE IT SOMEDAY, ANDIE! THEY'VE BEEN LIVING A LIE AND SO HAVE YOU! THEY'RE ALIVE! ANDIE! ANDIE!!!" he screamed, falling to his knees. "You're not insane," he sobbed almost inaudibly. "It's real, Andie. It's real." Dropping his head to the cold pavement he muttered, "They're here. They're really here."
"Jen, could you please suggest some places. REALLY beautiful places, which are free of people or anything man-made?" Dawson asked her via his mobile phone as a young waitress handed him a large cup of coffee. He mouthed 'merci' to her as he scrawled down some place names on his notepad. "Uh-huh, and how about some really busy places? You know, places where I can capture all that chick stuff like shopping." He wrote this down too as he took a long sip of his coffee. "That's great. Thanks Jen. I'll see you later. By---" "Wait, Dawson. Before you hang up, uh, has Melissa, uh... spoken to you yet?" "Spoken to me? About the name thing?" Jen bit her lip. She'd said too much already. "Yeah. She understood. I mean, she wished I'd told her earlier, but she seemed ok about it," Dawson continued. "Why do you ask?" "Uh, just wondering. Jean's here. You wanna say 'hi'?" "Uh, no. I think I'll be fine. Bye!" he said, quickly hanging up. "Bye," Jen muttered once she heard the tone. Why did Jean and Dawson seem to dislike each other so much? What was wrong? - Dawson smiled. He wanted to make the most of EVERY oppourtunity that came up - and this seemed like a pretty good oppourtunity. He pulled out his camera and zoomed in, focusing on the young child's delighted face as the same waitress who had served him gave the young boy special attention. She jumped when the flash went off. "MERDI!" she swore loudly, causing the boy's mother to nearly have a heart-attack. "What are you DOING?!" she asked Dawson angrily. "Relax. I'm a professional photographer - not some psycho pervert," he handed her hiscard as proof. "YOU'RE Steve Torpet?!" she asked. "I've seen your work! It's AMAZING!" she shook his hand giddily. "Wow. It's great to get to meet you in person like this!" Dawson laughed. This young girl was clearly very taken by him. "I - I've always WANTED to be a photographer! Maybe you could teach me. Give me some tips. Something like that..." "I'm flattered, but... I don't know. I mean, I'm pretty busy." "I could help you with your work. I mean, I'd LOVE to help you!" Dawson paused for a moment before an idea hit him. "Tell you what - I'm gonna be in the city doing some shots tonight. You could come help me." The girl beamed as Dawson pulled an official looking form out of his bag and handed it to the excited red-head. "I'll need you to fill this out and get your parents to sign it for you. If it's ok with them, I'll meet you at six-thirty." He scrawled down where to meet him on the back of the card he had given her and then handed it back to her. "I'll be there," she nodded. "See you then, uh..." "Christabel." "See you then, Christabel." She started to walk away back he stopped her. "Oh, uh, Christabel!" "Yeah?" "Here's the payment for my coffee," he said, handing her the money. "Plus a little something for yourself." Her eyes nearly popped right out of her head as he gave her the equivelent to twenty dollars. "Thank you!" "Bye," he said as he left the restaurant. "Qui est-ce?" Christabel's friend asked as she walked up behind her. "C'est ma heros," she smiled back. - Meanwhile, Dawson had to ask himself... Did asking a strange young girl to do a photoshoot with him qualify as crazy, perverted-old-man creepy?
"Joey, calm down. Please," Pacey begged as he watched Joey pace up and down outside the toilets at the back of the restaurant. "I can't calm down until you tell me that I imagined that whole thing." "I can't tell you that you imagined it, but I can tell you something. That was... well... inevitable. It's a small world, Potter. And Boston... well, it's the obvious place for someone from Capeside to end up," Pacey sighed. "I wasn't ready to meet up with him anymore than you were, yet you seem to be taking it a lot worse than I am. Can I ask why?" "Because you're looking at it from your point of view only." "And yours, Jo. At least... I'm trying to. But I don't quite get it." "Put yourself in Andie's shoes for a while." "Andie? But wh---" "Ok," she sighed, leaning against the wall. "Andie McPhee has, quite literally, seen dead people. Abby, her brother---" "She saw us, didn't she?" Pacey muttered, leaning his forehead against the wall. "Yep. She did. Jack wasn't the only McPhee in the restaurant, Pace. It was both of them." "Holy sh*t," Pacey muttered to himself. "Now, she must think..." "...that it's happening again," she finished for him. "I've got to find her," Pacey said, standing up, finally knowing exactly what he had to do. "Do you really think that'll help? I doubt that she's really gonna want to talk to you after five years." "Just like you don't, huh Jo?" "What's THAT supposed to mean, Pacey?" He just looked down and sighed, shaking his head and muttering, "Sorry, I just... I feel so..." he was lost for words, instead expressing his emotions with his extreme hand actions and body language. "Go see her, Pace. But don't expect her to welcome you with open arms. Infact, you'll be lucky if---" "I've got to go, Joey. See you tonight," he said, rushing back through the restaurant. "'See you soon, Sweetie. Enjoy thr rest of your day while I go chase my ex-girlfriend who happens to think we're both DEAD!'" she mimicked sarcastically. "I could've had a normal life. No fake deaths, no worrying about running into old friends, none of this nonsense. Why did I give up that chance? Why was I so scared?
"Christabel! You made it!" Dawson exclaimed as he stood up from his seat outside yet another shop which seemed to specialize in perfume. "Hi. Dawson, these are my parents," she said, referring to the classy, beautiful woman standing beside a grumpy, overweight man beside her. Turning to her parents, she said, "Maman, papa, je te presente Dawson Leery." Dawson shook hands with her mother and then her father. Her father didn't exactly looked very pleased. Christabel's father said something which Dawson didn't understand in an arrogant voice. She argued back, also in French. Her parents clearly didn't know a word of English. "My dad just has a few concerns," she explains. The old man grumbled something, then Christabel turned to Dawson and said, "Don't mind him. He's just paranoid that you're going to rape me or make me pose nude or something." "Tell your father that these shots are for a tourist company. A very well known and respected one. Their only purpose is to encourage people to visit France. No smut. No porn. Nothing like that. You get the final say in which photos get published and which ones gets burnt, and your father is welcome to hang around while we do this." She translated it for her father who, after much nagging from both Christabel and her mother, reluctantly agreed.
"How did you find me?" Andie asked when she felt a hand on her shoulder." "Well, you know. You told me that Tim took you here when you were having a bad day. You were seven years old and you were in Boston for the Christmas holidays." "You still remember?" "How could I forget? You told me about it several times." She looked out across the park from where she hid under the tall tree. He sat down beside her and put his arm around his shoulder, pulling her to him. "Have you seen Tim lately?" she asked, still looking directly ahead. "How's he doing up there?" "Andie, I haven't seen Tim because... I'm real. Reach out and touch me. I'm really here, Andie." "Are you?" she asked, finally turning to face him. "Because I want to believe that you're here. I want to believe it so badly, Pacey. But... you died. You've been dead for more than five years." "No one found my body. I was a mystery... an unsolved case that everyone just gave up on. There was no proof... you all just assumed that I was dead." "And Joey?" "And Joey... I don't know. We still haven't talked about it." "Five years later and you still haven't talked about it?" she half-laughed, half-cried - disbelieving. "We onyl just met up about a month ago," he sighed. "I still don't know what's going on with us. That woman's even more complicated than she used to be." She looked away, deep in thought. She didn't have anything to say about that. Weird. "Maybe I should just go," he sighed. "I'll see you 'round... I guess." "I hope so, McPhee." He squeezed her hand. He let go of it to walk away but he stopped himself and turned back around. "Tell Jack... Tell Jack I'm sorry." "I will," she smiled as he kissed her forehead. He turned and began walking away, shoulders slumped, hands in pockets. "I will see you again, won't I?" she called out. "McPhee, good things come in threes. If my memory serves me right, we're only up to number two. There'll be a third time. I promise." As she watched him walk away she muttered, "I don't know whether or not you were really there, and quite frankly, I don't care. I'm glad we caught up. Keep that promise."
"Should I start planning the reunion now or did Miss McPhee beat me to it?" "There's not gonna be a reunion, Natalie," he sighed sadly as he sat down beside her on the bed. She shot him a weird look and started to say something, but he beat her to it. "We're not going to spill our secret. We quit being Pacey and Joey a long time ago. We knew what the consequences would be, but we still went through with it. One of the consequences was that we'd never get to see our friends again. So if I'm paying for my decision now, then fine. I'll bend over and take my punishment, because I chose the coward's way out, and I still stick by what I did. No reunion. No Pacey. No Joey. No happy ending." "Why not?" "Because I don't believe that every story has a built in happy ending. This is one of the stories that doesn't. We COULD have had one, but what's the point? Happy ending for us would be lying in a hammock in True Love, holding each other and dying like the old couple in Titanic. We didn't do that. We fought. For each other. For life." "But after all that, we threw it away, Pacey." "I'm not Pacey anymore. I'm Brett. And you're Natalie." "So I can't call you Pacey anymore? That's not fair! I'll call you whatever I want to call you!" He turned and looked out the window. "Pacey? Pacey?" She wiped away a couple of tears and took a deep breath. She'd have to get used to saying this. "Brett?" "Yes Natalie?" "You're right. I knew there'd be sacrifices when I marched in there and told them to change my name to Natalie. So, uh... could you possibly tell me why we don't get a happy ending?" "Because there's no ending, Nat." She smiled widely, fighting back tears. "I love you." "I love you too, Brett."
That wasn't the actual ending... but there's not much more to go. C'mon... give me some more feedback before time runs out! [email protected]
