Pacey left his math room, his hands buried deeply into his pockets. His mind was a whirlwind of thoughts as he wove his way through the milling students to his locker. He stared blankly at the passing faces, none really registering in his mind. Joey's face was the only one in his mind, the stricken look of embarrassment and raw emotion he had seen a few days before in English. He'd done his best to avoid looking at her, subjecting himself to her beauty and charisma. Life wasn't supposed to be this complicated. He'd resigned himself not to dwell on their past attraction. Not to think about her. Not to touch her. Not to love her.

What a load of bull. He was deeper in love with her now than ever. Before he had thought she'd turned him down flat, that he had no chance. And now... now things were different. Very different. She had Dawson and he had.... he had.... he had Andie. That's right. He had Andie.

Suddenly, as if the thought of her had made her magically appear, the perky blond was standing before him, looking signifigantly less perky than usual. Her meticulously kept blond hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, her eyes were dark, with faint bags under them. Before he could ask what was wrong she handed him a folded piece of paper and stood on her tippy-toes and deposited a kiss on his cheek. She squeezed his hand gently and looked at him, her eyes begging forgiveness before she turned on her heel and dissapeared into the thickening crowd.

He stared after her, then down at the piece of lined paper in his hand. The bell rang directly above his head. He looked menacingly at the circular red bell and tried to ignore the shrill ringing in his ears. He stuffed the note in his pocket and headed off for History. He'd read it later.

Pacey walked silently down the crowded hallway after English on his way to lunch with Joey. Just as they had done since the semester had started, with the exeption of last week. Out of lack of any other solution, they'd regressed back to their usual routine behavior. Walking to lunch together, joking around, biting banter... there was an underlying tension to it though. A tension that was hightened when they fell into awkward silences, like the one they were experiancing now.

Pacey stopped in the hallway and Joey continued on, he gave her a funny look, "Hey, Space Cadet." He called after her, putting a hand on her shoulder to stop her. She froze at the suprise contact, he immediatly withdrew his hand. "This is your locker." Her reminded her.

"Yeah, I know that." She smiled and backtracked a few steps to join him, where he was opening her lock. He finished turning the dial and popped the door open.

"How do you know my combination anyway?" She gave him a crooked smile and exchanged her books for her lunch.

He leaned back against the lockers next to hers, "I've been walking you to this locker for over a month. I just picked it up." He answered, watching the other students pass by.

"Remind me never to leave anything of value in there." She smirked.

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you haven't been memorzing my combo when I open my locker."

She closed her locker door with a slam, "Nope."

They continued down the now nearly empty hall to his locker. "Admit it, Potter, you've been oggling my lock."

"Me? Oggle? Never." She said with mock seriousness.

He chuckled and stopped before his locker. "Come on, Joey. Open my locker," he challenged with a smile.

"No, I already told you, I don't know it."

"Sure ya do. Don't think I haven't noticed you peeking over my shoulder for the last few weeks. You're no Nancy Drew."

"I'm not even going to ask why you've been reading Nancy Drew. But I don't know your combination, I don't even know Dawson's."

"We're not going until you open it, Potter," He said smuggly.

"Hey, who said I had to wait for you to get your lunch? I'm perfectly capable of walking to the cafeteria on my own." She turned to leave him there, but before she could, he deftly swiped her lunch bag from her hand.

"Not a whole lot of point in going to the lunchroom without a lunch, now is there?" He grinned mischiviously, holding the bag over his head, swinging it back and forth enticingly.

She growled low in the back of her throat. "You're impossible!" She made a jump for the bag, but he jerked it out of her reach before she could get close to it. "Pacey!"

"Not until you open it," He teased.

"Fine," she huffed. She violently worked the lock and opened it, "There, you happy? Can I have my lunch back now?"

"Very," he answered tossing the bag to her. "I knew you knew it." He smiled smuggly.

"Whatever, Pacey." She sighed in frustration, he could be so annoying sometimes, "I don't see what that proves anyway." She grumbled.

He paused while rumaging in his locker, he looked her in the eyes seriously. Immediatly Joey wished could take back the words. She knew what it proved, so did he. They knew more than they should about one another. She didn't even know her boyfriend's combo.

Pacey tore his eyes from hers and cleared his throat as he gripped his lunch, "It-it proves that you can't lie to me, Miss Josephine." Pacey answered, closing his locker. They began walking retracing their steps to the lunchroom.

"Ha!" She gave him her 'Are-you-serious?' look. "I can lie with the best of them."

"Not to me, you can't." He continued confidently.

"Are you kidding, Pacey?" She looked at him through the corner of her eye. She had been lying to him about her feelings for almost five months.

"Nope, your eyes always give you away."

"Says you." She pushed the door open and entered the crouded room. Instinctivly she honed in on their usual table and joined Jack, Jen, Henry, Andie and Dawson. She dropped a kiss on the latter's cheek. She looked back behind her for Pacey as she sat down at the end of the table.

He was chatting animatly with a friend, Joel. She turned back to her friends, greeting them. Jack waved his hand to her since his mouth was full and Jen smiled her hello. Dawson and Henry returned her greeting. Andie continued to stare over Joey's shoulder.

"Hey, Andie?" Joey pressed, waving a hand in front of her friend's face.

"Huh? Oh, hey, Joey. Hi!" Andie said with faux perkiness. Her eyes drifted back over Joey's shoulder.

Joey followed her friend's gaze and then turned back to Andie, who's hands were rapidly shredding her napkin into miniscule pieces. Joey leaned into Dawson, "What's with her?" she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

Dawson directed his attention away from the conversation he was having with Jen, Jack and Henry. "Andie?" he whispered, "Nothing, that I can think of." Joey followed Andie's eyes as she watched Pacey high five his friend and approach their table. Andie looked surprised as he kissed her head before sinking into the seat next to her.

"Good afternoon all," he greeted the table.

Andie's eyes were wide in a deer caught in the headlights kind of way. Pacey put his arm around her and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Joey watched with veiled intrest as she chewed, she eyed her other friends to see if they were noticing any of this. They all seemed oblivious, caught up in their discussion about the latest movie they'd seen.

Andie squirmed in her seat, trying to nonchalently shrug his arm off her shoulder. Pacey finally tuned into her discomfort. "You okay, McPhee?" he asked, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

"Um... you didn't read the note?" she questioned, avoiding his eyes.

"Oh... no, I forgot about it." He leaned back in his seat to reach into his jeans to retrieve the folded piece of paper.

"No! Don't read it now." She hissed as he began to unfold it.

"Why not? No one's paying attention to us anyway." Joey did her best to appear engrossed in the discussion at the other end of the table. She nodded along to whatever Jen had just said.

She snuck a look back at Pacey and Andie out of the corner of her eye. Andie was nervously figiting with her hands as Pacey read. His face remained emotionless as his dark eyes scanned over the words. The sutble clenching of his jaw was the only thing that gave away what he feelings to Joey.

He pushed himself away from the teable, the chair's legs screeching against the linolium floor, drawing the attention of the rest of the table. They looked up surprised and instantly enthralled by the drama that was unfolding before them. "We need to talk, Andie."

"Not here, Pacey." She whispered.

"Fine, then outside." He threw the crumpled note to the table and led her across the cafeteria and out the side doors to the forum.

Through the windows Joey could see them talking, well, she could see Andie talking and the back of Pacey's head as he nodded.

"What was that about?" Jen asked.

"I donno," Dawson said. "Do you think she finally...?" he trailed off and grabbed tthe note from the middle of the table.

"Dawson, you can't read it." Joey protested, putting a hand on his arm to stop him.

"I don't think I have to read it to know what it says."

"Oh, really?" Joey gave him a sceptical look.

"Yeah," Jack agreed, "I think it's pretty obvious." Joey turned her gaze to her other friend.

"What?"

"Yeah," Jen agreed, looking out the window at them again. "I'm surprised they got this far."

"Huh?" Joey questioned, shifting her gaze to her other blond friend.

"Well, look at them, Joey." Dawson pointed out the windows where Andie was standing tearfully, listening to something Pacey was saying to her. "What do you think they're talking about?"

"Are you sure?" She asked, "I thought things between them were great."

Dawson, Jen and Jack exchanged dubious looks, "Are you kidding, Joey?" Dawson gave her a skeptical look. She shook her head.

"Jo, Pacey and Andie haven't been the same since they got back together." Jack told her.

"They've been especially tense these last few days." Jen added, "How could you not have noticed?"

"And you all knew this?" she questioned, looking around the table.

"Even I knew," Henry piped up, Jen gave him a warning look and he went back to his sandwich.

"How could I not have known?" She mumbled to herself as she watched Pacey and Andie hug through the window. Andie appeared to have calmed down considerably. They broke apart and Andie nodded somewhat sadly in response to something Pacey said. He leaned in, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. Joey mechanically sqelched the rush of jealously she felt at their contact. She was used to it by now, but this time it only added to her feelings of guilt for not knowing about the problems they were having. If she had been the kind of friend she had thought she was, she would have noticed their discord.

Pacey walked away, leaving Andie standing alone outside, to regain her composure, Joey guessed. After a few moments, she joined them.

"Are you okay?" Jen asked immediatly as Andie sat back down in her chair.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Nothing like breaking up with your signifigant other to jump start your lunch." She answered with faux perkiness.

"It was time, Andie." Dawson reassured.

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "You were both miserable. Why prolong it?"

Jen rubbed Andie's back comfortingly, "It was the right thing to do."

"She's right," Dawson broke in, "You can't stay in a relationship just because that's what's comfortable." Joey shot him a startled look. He didn't notice and Joey turned quickly back to her friend.

"I know," Andie wiped her hand across her face, swiping at imaginary tears. "Still, it's hard. We've been through so much together."

"And now it's time for you both to move on, try life on your own." Jack reassured. "You said so yourself."

"And I'm ready to do that." She replied, "I just didn't want to hurt him."

"Where is he?" Joey broke in, unable to wait for someone else to ask the question.

"He said he needed to think." Joey tuned out the rest of the conversation at that point.

Her foot tapped anxciously on the floor. Every few moments she'd shoot a glance out the window where she'd last seen him. She wanted to go after him, no on else seemed all that concerned for his whereabouts. By the time she decided to go after him and came up with a plausible excuse for leaving lunch early, the bell signaling the end of lunch sounded and it was too late.

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