Twice In A Lifetime
Rain fell, splattering against the cement in a timeless rhythm, . The thick droplets splashed across her face, but she didn't care. Instead of ducking for cover, she let the summer storm soak into her clothing. She relished in the rain, letting it cleanse her soul.
And Joey Potter had a rather dirty soul.
The mistakes in her young life clung to her like dust. The tarnish of too much time away from home colored her thoughts. The grime of another country, another language, another culture, hid the person she used to be. But the rain washed all that away. The damp scent of summer pervaded her senses and brought to mind a montage of nineteen summers spent splashing in the creek, baseball games with the boy sand sweltering nights spent watching movies in the dark.
She was home now, and the entire flight long, she'd wondered if going home was the right thing to do...and now, with the taste of the rain on her lips, she knew it was. All her life she'd been running from Capeside, only to discover the thing she'd been running from all along was herself. Capeside had welcomed her with its familiar scents, a summer shower and memories at ever street corner. It was home like no other place on Earth ever could be.
Besides, they say home is wherever the heart is.
Through letters, she'd kept in touch with Bessie and Harley, the latter relished in her rise to stardom and it was driving her father insane. Which, of course, pleased Harley to no end. Bessie had kept her filled in on the goings on in Capeside. She'd been pleased to hear that Pacey and Dawson had mended their fences. And a little saddened that she hadn't been there to witness it.
She and Jen talked several times on the phone, especially when she was feeling especially home sick, and she'd occasionally chat with Jack and Grams. With the fallout of Pacey's investing fiasco, Jack had been forced to move back with Grams and Jen, which despite his protests, Jen assured her he really belonged there anyway. They were both happy. Jack single, Jen still heavily embroiled in her relationship with CJ. Grams had won her fight with cancer, and though her health never fully recovered she was more spirited than ever. The few conversations Joey had with her had been both reassuring and enlightening, Grams always seemed to know the prefect thing to say.
Spending a year in Paris had taught her everything about the French culture and nothing about herself. She'd thought that finally achieving her dream would change her, make everything that was wrong right again. It took coming home for that to happen. Even so, she wouldn't trade those eleven months for anything.
The one topic she and Jen hadn't discussed was Pacey. Joey'd been too scared to ask, and Jen wasn't going to bring him up otherwise. Bessie tactfully stopped mentioning him after the first letter. Other than several harsh reprimands from Harley for letting him go, it was like he'd been erased from her life.
All except for the fact she thought of him constantly.
Maybe that had been the real test. If after eleven months without sight, sound or word of him, she still couldn't stop thinking about him....she probably never would.
Only question now was whether or not he'd been able to forget about her. But that wouldn't stop her. She'd wasted too much time being afraid. Whatever happened...she'd face it. She'd get through it and persevere. That was how she was. That's the woman he'd been in love with and it was time he was reintroduced to her.
She'd only been home for a few hours. Bessie had drilled her for details about France from the moment she'd stepped in the door. It had been cute the first two hours, but as night began to fall she'd had her own questions to ask. Namely: Where's Pacey?
The answer had surprised her. According to Bessie, he was one of the chef's at Leery's Fresh Fish, with the mind to eventually buy the restaurant from Gale. He'd obviously learned the same lesson she had, that Capeside always had been and always would be home, only he hadn't had to leave the country to figure it out.
Coming to stand in front of Leery's Fresh Fish, she couldn't help but smile. It all looked exactly the same as the day it opened. And she didn't mind a bit.
Pushing open the doors, she inhaled the rich scent of vanilla, Gale's small homage to Mitch's memory. Stepping forward, she smiled at the hostess, a redhead who looked like she was still in high school. "Can I help you?" She seemed a little apprehensive, and Joey couldn't blame her. The typical clientele of Leery's didn't usually arrive soaking wet.
"I'd actually like to speak to one of your--"
"Joey?"
She turned and smiled brightly at her surrogate mother. Gale's face was a mixture of shock and happiness. "Yeah, it's me." Gale moved forward to hug her, and the brunette shook her head. "I wouldn't recommend that, if I were you. I walked here."
"Joey, sweetheart, you're soaked. Let's get you dry. Then we'll get a hug in." She took her hand and led her to the back. "When did you come home? Bodie didn't even say anything!"
"Well," she smiled, tucking her hair back, "That's because he didn't know. It was sort of a surprise."
"I'm certainly surprised." She squeezed her hand. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever come home."
"Well, I've still got another year at Worthington, but yeah. I'm home." It felt so good to say that.
"Well," Gale glanced back at her as she pushed through the doors to the kitchen. "Tell me everything. What was it like? Did you got to the Eiffel Tower? Do you have pictures? Oh, see the Mona Lisa? Did you go see..."
Gale's voice faded into the din of the kitchen; the people talking, food sizzling, pans clattering. Joey didn't hear any of it. Her eyes were riveted on the man standing at one of the stoves. If it were possible, he seemed taller, his white chef's coat accentuating the breadth of his shoulders. His hair was short, but still the perfect length to run her fingers through it. He reached above him and Joey followed his every movement as he reached for a spice, sprinkling it across the fish with finesse.
He looked good...so good. She drank in the sight of him through hungry eyes. She wanted tos top right there and devour him, or let him devour her. She couldn't decide which.
Whatever doubts she might still have had were eradicated just being in the same room with him. He glanced up from his work and looked towards her, Gale still pulling her despite her slow steps toward the break room. She saw the shock register first, and then confusion. Just before she disappeared through the door, she saw his oceanic blue eyes soften and a smile emerge on his face.
The door clicked closed behind them and Gale continued to ask questions, offering her a towel. Joey only half listened to her, nodding occasionally or shaking her head. The other woman finally fell silent, watching Joey as she dried her hair and tossed nervous looks towards the door. "He's doing okay without you."
Joey's eyes widened, "Pacey?"
"No, Dawson." She smiled faintly, "I think it surprised him that there really was life after Joey Potter."
She laughed uneasily, "I'm not exactly dead, here."
"I know, but you know how Dawson thinks. You leaving was supposed to be the end of the world, and it wasn't. He's done okay without you, better even."
She smiled genuinely, "I always knew he would. It was only a matter of convincing him of that."
"He does miss you though. You should give him a call. He'd love to hear about your world travels."
"I plan to. I've just had..." She glanced at the door again.
"More important things to tend to first?"
Joey tucked a damp strand of hair behind her ear, "Yeah. Kind of."
Gale met her eyes, "He's done okay without you too."
"Oh," she exhaled slowly.
"Pacey's always been like a second son to me, Joey. He had stuff to work through this last year. A lot of self-doubt."
Biting her lip, she looked down at her clenched hands, wishing she'd been there. Yet again she'd left him alone in his hour of need. Knowing that she'd been at the least partly responsible for his feelings, possibly much more than that.
"But, that's the thing about Pacey, Jo. He knows how to heal his heart once it's been broken. The only thing is, he's never really the same again. There are scars and cracks and little pieces chipped away that you can't ever recover again."
She frowned, "Isn't it the same with everybody?"
She shook her head, "No. People learn to protect themselves, not to make the same mistakes twice. Pacey doesn't. And every time his heart breaks, it hurts him even more."
Tears stung hotly in Joey's eyes, "Why are you telling me this?"
Gale smiled sadly, "Because I love you like a daughter, and I know that when he hurts, so do you."
She looked down, knowing Gale�s words weren�t meant to hurt her. Despite her warning, Joey wasn�t going to back down. Not this time. It was all or nothing for her now, and nothing just wasn�t an option anymore.
A knock sounded on the door, and both women turned their heads to see Pacey poke his head around the door, "Can I come in?"
Gale nodded, rising to her feet, "Yeah, why don�t you take your lunch break now, Pace."
"Sure thing, boss," he smiled warmly at her and stepped aside to let her pass. She closed the door behind her and Pacey braced himself to finally look at Joey. "Hey, Potter."
The sound of his voice coated her in a warmth of memories and she smiled back, "Hey, Pace."
He wiped his hands on the front of his apron uneasily, not sure how to act around her. The way they�d left things hadn�t been any clearer than they were eleven months later. "You-you look good, Jo. France agreed with you."
She shrugged a lithe shoulder, "I guess." A long pause ensued and she peered up at him, "You know how you dream about something for a long, long time? You wish and you plan and you fantasize and you hope?" He nodded, wondering where she was going with this. "It usually turns out to be a gigantic let down."
He arched an eyebrow, leaning up against the counter, "France was a let down?"
"Yeah," she ran a hand through her wet hair. "I always, I�ve spent my whole life trying to figure out who I am. What I want to do with myself. And I�ve always felt like I�m running from something. From Capeside, from the future, from the past, from my feelings..." She swallowed, "And I guess, over the years, I started to imagine that France was the answer. If I could someone manage to get there, everything would be clear. I�d have all the answers."
"And you only found more questions?" He guessed.
"Exactly." Smiling weakly, she rose from the chair. "Don�t get me wrong, I had f un doing all the tourist things, studying the culture, re-exploring my love of art. And I did learn that answer to one important thing....and that�s that there aren�t any answers. You don�t ever stop questioning. And who I am isn�t dependant on my physical location."
He smiled, proud of how she�d changed. "And yet, here you are, back in Capeside instead of the wonderful world of the francophone."
"This is home, Pace. I was always trying to get the hell out of here because I thought Capeside was who I am. And now...I know that it�s just home. And for now, at least, it�s where I belong."
"And why�s that?"
"You�re here."
His eyes widened at her words, and they stared at each other; Pacey not sure that he believed his ears, Joey praying that the surprise in his eyes wouldn�t lead to rejection.
"I, um, wow." He ran hand through his hair, looking uneasily around the room, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. "Um, you wanna get out of here?"
She nodded, "Sure."
He held open the door for her and he hung up his apron before stopping to talk to Gale for a moment. Joey watched from a distance as she smiled at Pacey, and nodded. He returned to her, "I have the rest of the day off."
"That was nice of her," she murmured, letting him lead her out the back.
"It was." He stopped in the doorway, "You feel like braving the rain again?"
"You feel like walking in the rain?" She asked.
He nodded, stepping out under the pouring rain, "It�s actually kind of soothing."
"That�s exactly what I was thinking on my way over here."
"And what else were you thinking?" He wondered, glancing over at her.
"A few hundred different things." She sighed, "I don�t know where to begin."
"Wherever you want."
She nodded, "Then...I was thinking how proud I was of you."
"Of me?" He chuckled, "God, why?"
"Bessie told me you were going to buy Leery�s."
He shrugged, "Eh, it�s a pipe dream. Do you even know how much it costs to buy a restaurant? Let alone run one?"
Joey shook her head, "I haven�t a clue. But, Pace, you�ve never failed at anything you do. And I have no doubts that you�ll buy that restaurant someday."
"So, you�re proud of me, huh? What about you? Are you proud of yourself?"
"Yes," she answered, surprising herself. "I am. I went to France, I followed a dream. And how many people-besides you-can say that?"
"Good, cause I�m proud of you too, Potter."
She smiled, "I�m sorry I never wrote. Or said goodbye."
He shrugged, "No big deal. I just considered it payback for when I disappeared after graduation."
"You weren�t gone for eleven months."
He smirked, "You�re right. So I owe you eight months of no contact what-so-ever. I�ll get right on that."
Catching his hand in hers, she stopped him, "Please don�t." He looked down at their joined hands and then up at her face. "Pace..." she pursed her lips, trying to find just the right words. "I�m glad I left because it made me face who I was and what I wanted. But I�m not glad that it took me away from you."
"Joey, we haven�t been together for years. Last year...it was just some fluke."
"No," she shook her head, feeling a lump grow in the back of her throat. "It wasn�t. It was real. And you can�t stand there and tell me that what we felt for each other ended in high school. We both know it�s not true. You broke up with me three years ago, but our relationship never ended."
"Sure as hell seemed like it," he drew his hand away from hers and started walking again.
She bit her lip and continued after him. There was only one way she would walk away right now, "Are you with someone?"
Pausing, he considered lying to her, intrinsically know that it�d be much easier if he did. "No."
"Then I�m not walking away," she said emphatically, falling into step beside him. Inhaling a deep breath, she let the cool water slide down her face. "We screwed up, Pace. A lot. And just before I left, I thought we�d messed it up so much that there was no way to fix it."
"When you left, I thought the same thing."
"And I�m back now. And now...now I�m ready to try."
"Jo, there�s too much that�s screwed up. Too much that�s unfixable."
Determination fixed on her face, she folded her arms across her chest. "Name one."
"How about the fact you let me date your roommate for almost a year."
"I don�t care that you dated Audrey. Part of me wishes that it hadn�t happened, that I hadn�t pushed you together. Because, watching you with her...it hurt Pace. It hurt so much that she was making you happy when I had failed so miserably in high school. It hurt so much that I had to lock it away and I somehow convinced myself that it didn�t bother me. And it festered."
"Which is why we would never work."
"Au contraire," she smiled faintly, "I came to terms with it Pacey. You should never have dated my room mate. A Worthington girl who was �too good for you.� I mean, that was the reason you broke up with me, wasn�t it? We were on different paths and all that bull. But thing is, Pacey, you screwed up and dated her anyway. I screwed up and pushed you together and then pretended like it didn�t matter. We both screwed up, and I�m okay with that."
"You�re just...okay with it?" He repeated dubiously.
"Yes. Because we were young, and hurt and stupid and scared. I�m just not willing to let that come between us anymore."
"How about the fact you left me for Eddie?"
She winced, "That was my mistake. Completely and fully. And it was the worst mistake I�ve ever made, aside from sleeping with Dawson." Pacey chuckled at that and she smiled, "I could list all of my reasons, but they just don�t matter anymore. I broke up with you before we were even started because I was letting the past dictate how I felt. All those times I hurt you and you hurt me seemed to matter so much that I had to stop it."
"For the greater good," he replied. "You got out of a relationship that was doomed. Look what happened to my life right after that."
"Yeah," she nodded. "It was all pretty sucky, wasn�t it?"
"That�s an understatement."
"And look where you are now, Pace. You have a goal you�re working towards. You�ve put the past mistakes behind you."
"What makes you so sure I have?" He arched an eyebrow at her.
"Maybe you haven�t." She smiled, "But I�m not going to let you hold on to them anymore. I�m not going to let you beat yourself up over things that happened in the past. You�ve done it for as long as I�ve known you, Pace. And that�s why, you broke up with me at prom. You let all your insecurities fester and it blew up. I wasn�t enough to stop you from falling into a downward spiral. But I am now."
He smirked, "That would have been nice to hear eleven months ago, when I *was* in a downward spiral."
Sighing, she lowered her eyes to the cement. "I was still stupid then, Pace. I knew what you were going through, and at the time, I didn�t think I�d be of any help."
"Hey, I�m fine now. Don�t feel guilty."
"I know. And...I don�t feel guilty. At least not too much. I wish I�d been here, I wish I�d been capable of being what you needed. But I just wasn�t at the time."
"And now you are?" He asked dubiously.
"Yes. Because now, I know that what we have. The love we have supercedes all the mistakes and betrayals and lies. All that time, Pace, we wanted to be together, and we let the hurt keep us apart. So let me ask you this, Pace. Which is more powerful? Love or Pain?"
His brow furrowed, "What are you asking here, Jo?"
She stopped him, brushing her thumb over his cheek, "You�ve always had this amazing faith in me, Pacey. In our love, what we could be together. It�s taken me three years to finally feel that same faith." She stared into his stormy blue eyes, "I�m just asking you to feel it again."
"I don�t know if I can," he whispered.
"Try?" she pleaded, standing on her tiptoes, she leaned forward, pressing her lips to his.
She tasted of rain, and Joey, and love. Swallowing thickly, he parted his lips, kissing her back. Her arms wound around his neck, pulling him closer. Putting his arms around her, he pulled her flush against him, their wet clothes matting together as they kissed. Emotion poured forth, all the years of hurt, and anger, and betrayal was melted away the heat of their passion.
She pulled back breathlessly, giggling. "You still feel it."
"I�ll never stop," he replied gruffly, returning his mouth to hers.
