Spoilers: You never know. That’s why you read.

Rating: If you’re over 18, stay, by all means. If you’re *under* 18, here’s the door. Now, you boys, loosen up your pants, and you girls can turn on the air conditioner and grab a glass of ice. It’s about time to make like a sauna and STEAM!!!!

FAR AND AWAY
Part 1
By Kit

"Pacey?" Andie looked up from her anatomy book. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor and studying frantically for a test the next day.

"Hmmm?" Pacey answered, preoccupied. he fast forwarded through the latest cut of Dawson’s second film.

“Who is Tammy?”

Pacey’s head shot up as he watched her pick up yet another scrap of paper from underneath his bed. His poems. The poems no one was supposed to know he wrote.

“This is your handwriting,” she looked up at him with wide, guileless eyes.

“Wow, Andie,” he said, snatching them from her hands.

“Pacey--it sounds like you really loved that girl. Who was she?”

“Just a girl,” he insisted.

“Why won’t you tell me?”

“She’s just a girl I knew, okay?!” Pacey said angrily.

“Oh,” she said, hurt, gathering up her things.

“Where are you going?” Pacey called out anxiously.

“ Just...just away. I have to go,” Andie bolted out the door.

“Andie, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” Pacey poked his head out the door as Andie disappeared down his hallway. Quickly, he followed her down the hall and out the door, barefoot down the hot concrete, until he caught up with her.

“Andie, Andie, Andie,” he caught her arm and stood in front of her so that she couldn’t move past.

“What!?” she asked, exasperated.

“Come back.”

“No,” she looked at him as if he were crazy.

“Please,” he pleaded.

“Why--so you can put me off? Lie to me?”

“No,” he promised.

“Then explain...”she offered.

“Tammy *was* an old girlfriend. Yes, I cared about her very much--and in some of my more inspired moments, I wrote some poetry to her.”

“Do you ever write any to me?” Andie smiled playfully.

Pacey blushed, “no.”

“Yes, you do,” Andie’s eyes widened in shock--but her face lit up when she saw through his lie, “read me some.”

“Will you come back in?” Pacey squinted in the sunlight.

“You know I will,” Andie agreed.

She sat anxiously as Pacey shuffled in a shoe box in the closet. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and she relaxed and began to stare off into space, waiting for him. *Him*--the thought made him feel good, made him feel wanted. She’d had such a hard, hard life. He’d discovered her over the past three months. It started the day she took the road trip with them to Maine...to the coast....

Prologue (part 1)

“Dawson--you’re going to forget something if you don’t go back and check. And I am going to laugh at you when you end up in Maine for four days without socks...or your camcorder...or,” Joey leaned in close to whisper the last item and Dawson pulled her close to nuzzle noses, and then abruptly took off for his house.

“What did you tell him?” Pacey asked, grinning.

“Oh, nothing,” Joey said coyly, smiling her own wicked little grin.

A car was honking from the street and he looked up to see a gray Saab fly pat him on the driveway. He grinned ruefully. The car slowed down and Andie attempted to park. When she accidentally hit the telephone pole backing up, Pacey used tree palm of his hand to slap his forehead and groaned.

“McPhee, you have *got* to learn how to drive,” Pacey walked to her and took her bags out of her hands.

“Okay--I’ve got everything, now,” Dawson came back and resumed twirling Joey around the driveway. They had made up over a month before, and, as far as Pacey could tell, they had been blissfully happy ever since. Pacey didn’t even want to think about why.

“You should hear what he calls your car when you’re not around,” Joey raised her eyebrows.

“What?” Dawson and Andie asked in unison.

“The DentMobile,” Joey grinned and Pacey chased after her.

Eventually he gave up and came back to resume loading the car. Gail Leery stepped out on her porch to watch her sixteen year old son. He looked so happy, there, with his friends. He was so unhappy with her. He looked over to the house and shot her a sympathetic look. He started to jog towards her.

“Mom--do you need me to stay? You know I will....”

“I know, honey, I know--but I want you to go and have fun. You never did get to go for Pacey’s birthday,” Gail wrapped her arms around herself. “Okay, then--we’re going to go. I will call you when I get to Andie’s aunt’s house,” Dawson promised.

“Great--call your father, too,” Gail reached out and rubbed Dawson’s arm.

“You call him,” Dawson jogged off before she could protest and waved coyly from the driveway. “Let’s go!”

“What did you tell her, Dawson?” Joey asked, getting into the Jeep.

“Just trying to play matchmaker,” Dawson sighed as he relaxed in the back seat.

Joey settled into his arms as Pacey started driving down the driveway. Andie fiddled with the radio. Joey gasped from the backseat. Pacey gave her a ‘look’ in the rearview mirror.

“Okay, okay--we’ll stop,” Dawson giggled. His hair was tousled, and his cheeks were already flushed. Joey couldn’t help but kiss him once. Pacey rolled his eyes and listened as Andie read a brochure that her aunt had sent about the area.

“It says here that the town is called Starboard, and my aunt’s house is in Machias Bay, where there is fishing and swimming, boating, and....”

“What is the nearest town?” Pacey took the map as he stopped at the stop light.

“Calais,” Andie retorted, grabbing the map back.

“Let’s hope there is not an emergency,” Joey pointed out... “I looked on the map before we left, and Calais is about an hour away.”

“Far from civilization,” Dawson did his best impression of a Star Trek character.

Andie giggled and continued to read.

“Starboard has some fine dining and dancing, which basically equates to the community store where you can order a hamburger--and the community center where they hold dances every Saturday night,” she folded up the brochure and sat back in her seat.

Pacey rolled his eyes playfully at her.

“Let’s play a game!”

It was Joey’s turn to roll her eyes at Andie.

“C’mon, now, Jo, it might be fun--we could play ‘Beep!’”

“Dawson, I hated “Beep!’--there was no point to it at all,” Joey grimaced.

“What’s ‘Beep!’?” Andie asked quizzically.

“Oh, this silly little game Dawson used to make me play every time we got in the car together when we were little. Every time you see a red car, you say ‘Beep!’ and you keep up with how many points you have--it’s stupid,” Joey explained.

“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of a card game or the Kevin Bacon game,” Andie clarified.

Dawson looked disappointed.

“We could play Kevin Bacon,” Joey agreed hesitantly.

“Okay, who’s first,” Andie rubbed her hands maniacally.

“Dawson can go first--he can beat anyone,” Joey rolled her eyes.

“Okay,” Andie said, thinking hard, “try, Lucille Ball to Kevin Bacon.”

“Owww,” Pacey cringed as they all tried to think of how to connect Lucille Ball to Kevin Bacon.

Finally, Joey had a moment of clarity: “Lucille Ball was in ‘Yours, Mine, and Ours’ with Henry Fonda; who was in ‘On Golden Pond’ with Katherine Hepburn, who was in ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?’ with Sidney Poitier; who was in ‘The Jackal’ with Richard Gere; who was in ‘Pretty Woman’ with Julia Roberts; who was in “Flatliners’ with Kevin Bacon.”

Dawson smiled and pulled Joey close. “Oh, you’re brilliant,” he cooed.

“Oh, you just don’t want to think about it anymore,” Joey grinned and kissed him back.

Pacey sighed in relief when the last of the three nodded off into a deep sleep.